“Will there be a battle here?”
“No — I don’t know — I have no reason to suppose so,” he said with conscientious precision. “If by any possible chance the rebel cavalry should ride around our army we might be visited here, but,” he added, “the contingency is too remote for speculation.”
“Too remote for speculation?” repeated Mrs. Ashley under her breath.
Smith looked up at her — he had been watching a file of ants bearing off minute crumbs from the biscuit he was nibbling. Smith’s shoulder-straps were too recent to admit of trifling, and he had an instinct that Mrs. Ashley considered him young.
“Too remote for speculation,” he repeated, and touched the down on his upper lip with decision. The faintest flicker of amusement stirred Mrs. Ashley’s blue eyes.
They spoke of the war, of battles on land and sea, of sieges and blockades, of prisons and of death. Listening to her passionless voice he forgot his shoulder-straps for a while. She noticed it. She spoke now as a very young hostess to a distinguished guest, and he appreciated it. Little by little they dropped into the half frank, half guarded repertoire peculiar to conventional civilisation; he recognised her beauty; she conceded his gallantry; the bees buzzed among the magnolias; the warm breeze stirred the flag.
Sitting there with white fingers interlaced, and blue eyes demurely fixed on his, she wondered at the pains she took to wind him around the least of those white fingers of hers. Yet there was reason enough for her; her reason, in concrete form, skulked up-stairs under a mound of bedclothes, — a sallow faced, furtive young man, reported killed at Bull Run, — a deserter from the Union army, a Rebel at heart, too cowardly to back his convictions, — the blight and sorrow and curse of her young life — her husband.
From the day of their marriage, she had found him out and loathed him, yet, when he marched with a loyal regiment, she had bade him God-speed.
When the news came from Bull Run she had wept and forgiven him the past, because he had been good to her in death, — he had left her the widow of a Union soldier. His apparition in Slow River almost killed her. The Reverend Laomi Smull sarcastically bade her rejoice and put off her widow’s weeds. She did neither.
Suddenly Wilson’s advance was signalled from the hills beyond the river; the population of Slow River fled Dixie-ward, — all except young Ashley, who lay sleeping off a debauch in his own gutter. The Reverend Laomi preferred to remain for several reasons. Hours after the Union cavalry dashed into the village, Ashley awoke to consciousness. When he comprehended what had happened he crawled into bed and cursed his wife and his luck and the Union Army impartially.
With what loathing did she aid in concealing him! With what desperation did she evade questions and intrusive patrols and the quiet questions of officers, courteous young fellows in blue, who accepted her word of honour with a bow and went away, deceived by a loyal woman — the wife of a coward and traitor — for that traitor’s sake.
But she must play the frightful comedy to the end; she was doing it now, smiling back at Smith with eyes that caressed; with death in her heart.
When he rose to go she dropped him the quaintest and stateliest courtesy that can be dropped by a girl of twenty. His cap swept the tall grass-blades; Southern chivalry is infectious. So he passed on his way to the river.
Five minutes later the Reverend Laomi Smull appeared at the gate, smirked at the young wife, entered the cottage, and ascended the stairs with a parodoxical nimbleness that displayed two white cotton socks and inadequate attention to personal ensemble.
Smith pursued his way to the river through a weed-tangled path choked with rank marshy stalks, mint, elder, and wild lady-slipper. The little brown honey-bees hummed from bud to bud; dragon-flies, balanced in mid-air on quivering wings, selected plump mosquitoes from the cloud that wavered above Smith’s head, and darted so close to his ears that he dodged like a new recruit at a bullet. When he came to the narrow sluggish river, where a footbridge swayed in the amber eddies, he took his cigar from his mouth and his Bible from his pocket.
A dilapidated individual of African descent, legs dangling over the water, fishpole clasped in both black fists, glanced up at the young officer and said: “Mohnin’ suh!” Smith nodded, looked hard at the darkey, shrugged his shoulders, and restored the cigar to his lips and the Bible to his pocket.
“What are you fishing for, Uncle?” he asked.
“Fishin’ foh bass, suh,” replied the dilapidated one.
“Catch any?”
“I done cotch free bass an’ a tarrypin turkle, suh.”
“Want to sell them?”
“No, suh,”
“Going to eat them all yourself, Uncle?”
“I’s gotter right ter,” said the angler combatively.
Smith glanced down on the river sand where, anchored to a string, three plump bass floated out in the current.
“Are you going to eat the terrapin, too, Uncle?”
“Co’s I is,” sniffed the darkey; “I’s gotter right ter.”
“Let’ssee it,” said Smith.
The angler climbed down to the strip of sand, picked up the terrapin, and held it out to Smith.
“How much?” asked Smith.
“Two dollahs, suh.”
Smith paid the money grimly, picked up the terrapin, and stood a moment watching the darkey climb back to his perch on the footbridge.
“You’ll leave your footprints on the sand of time,” said Smith; “you’ll be in Wall Street in a month — or in Sing-Sing.”
“Wha’s dat yoh’s a-sayin”bout leabin’ shoe-prints on de san’s ob time, suh?” asked the sable one, much interested.
“Nothing. If you get any more terrapin, bring them to the artillery camp. What’s your name, Uncle?”
“Nuffin’, suh?”
“No name?”
“No suh, jess ‘Biah, suh.”
“Oh — Alcibiades? No? Then Abiatha?”
“Yaas, suh.”
“Whose darkey are you?”
“Mis’ Ashley’s niggah, suh.”
“Oh! And the fish are for Mrs. Ashley?”
“Yaas, suh. Gwineter tote ’em back foh dinner, suh.”
“Then,” said Smith, “take back your terrapin too, you rascal! How dare you sell your mistress’s property!”
‘Biah watched the terrapin fall on the sands again, then he ruefully fished out the two dollars from some rent in his ragged coat. For a moment he struggled to tell the truth, — that Mrs. Ashley, in the present state of her finances, would rather have twenty-five cents than a dozen terrapins. Perhaps he feared Mrs. Ashley’s wrath, perhaps a spark of Mrs. Ashley’s pride had lodged beneath his own shirtless bosom. He said nothing, but rose, holding his fishpole in one hand, and sidled along the footbridge toward Smith, money clutched in one outstretched fist.
Smith glanced at the four silver half-dollars.
“Keep them and buy a coat, ‘Biah,” he said, relighting his cigar. At the same instant a big bass seized ‘Biah’s hook and made off with it, and ‘Biah, losing his balance, dropped the silver coins into the river. Then the tattered African lost his head, too; for a minute, bass, darkey, pole, and line became a blurr on the bridge, on the sands below, and finally in the water.
When ‘Biah emerged, he had the bass by the gills; later he fished out pole and line, while Smith, wading through the shallows in his cavalry-boots, poked about for the lost coins with the butt of his sabre-scabbard.
Ten minutes later ‘Biah had recovered three of the half dollars. Smith had found something else, — a bundle of soaked clothes bearing United States army buttons and a second lieutenant’s shoulder straps.
Instinctively he tossed the soaked packet into the alders and walked carelessly back to the footbridge where ‘Biah, absorbed in disentangling his tackle, breathed hard and deep and muttered maledictions on “dat ole bull-bass what fink he know a heap moh’n ole ‘Biah.”
“Done drap mah hook in de hole,” he puffed; “gwine ter gitter
hook an’ tote mah fish, suh. Mohnin’, suh, mohnin’,”; and ‘Biah scrambled to his feet and shuffled back along the weed-grown footpath that led to Mrs. Ashley’s cottage.
When the negro had disappeared, Smith leaped lightly to the sand below, parted the alders, found the bundle of clothes, and cut the cord with his sabre.
“New clothes,” he muttered: “not a patch, not a rag — hello — what’s this?”
He drew a soaked bit of paper from the breastpocket of the jacket, and, standing in the alders, read the pencilled memorandum.
It was a receipt signed by the Reverend Laomi Smull for pew-rent received from Anderson Ashley. But what troubled Smith was the date, for, if Mrs. Ashley’s husband had been killed at Bull Run, how could he be renting pews from the Reverend Laomi in Slow-River? Smith examined the paper closely; it read:
“Received from Anderson Ashley, Esquire, $3.75, pew-rent for Mr. and Mrs. Anderson Ashley.”
The date, two months back, startled him. As he stood, holding the paper, staring vacantly at the motionless leaves on the alders, far away he heard the noon call from the artillery bugles, taken up by the cavalry trumpets at the water-tank, and passed on to the infantry around the race-track. He shoved the wet clothes under a fallen log, opened the Bible in his pocket, placed the folded receipt between the leaves, and, carrying the Bible in one hand, sword in the other, went back along the tangled footpath toward Mrs. Ashley’s cottage.
III.
When the Reverend Laomi Smull displayed unexpected agility on Mrs. Ashley’s staircase, Ashley himself, hearing the ascending footsteps, cowered under the bed quilts and turned cold to the marrow of every bone.
“It’s me,” said the reverend gentleman, entering the bed-room and waving his fat hands at the pile of quilts under which Ashley squirmed in fear: “it’s me, Ashley,” he repeated, disregarding the finer points of grammatical construction: “Moseby’s men is in the hills and I don’t know what to do.”
Ashley’s dissipated face emerged from the bedcovers. Fear stamped every feature with a grimace that amused Smull.
“What did you say about Moseby’s men?” stammered Ashley.
“They’re in the hills across the river,” repeated Smull: “I seen smoke on Painted Rock.”
“It’s a blockade still,” suggested Ashley.
“No it ain’t,” retorted Smull; “it’s green wood burnin’ — don’t I know a still, hey? It’s Confederate cavalry, an’ they’ve ridden around the Yankee army, that’s what they’ve done.”
Ashley protruded his long pallid neck, looked around like an alarmed turkey, in a weed patch, and finally stared at Smull.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
The fat cunning on Smull’s face was indescribable.
“Do?” repeated Smull.
“Yes, do! Didn’t Moseby tell you to ring the church bell on Sunday as many times as there was Yankee companies in Slow-River? Didn’t he tell you to hang out your washing according to code, — a shirt, ‘come,’ two shirts ‘run,’ a red undershirt, ‘run like the devil’ — say, didn’t he and you fix up the code?”
Smull’s small eyes rested on the door, then on Ashley.
“The Yankee Battery Captain came to look at the bell. I threw the clapper out into the bushes,” he said.
After a moment he added: “He came near falling through the plank floor. Frightened me to death — most.”
Ashley’s eyes met his; Smull raised a fat white hand to conceal the expression of his mouth.
“That’s all very well,” said Ashley petulantly, “but I reckon you’d better go. If I’m caught I’m toted out to a shootin’ match — and I’ll be the target too.”
This observation appeared to start a new train of thought in Smull’s mind. And, as he cogitated, his expression changed from sly malice to complacence, and then to that sanctimonious smirk with which, in the garden below, he had greeted Mrs. Ashley.
“Ashley,” he said gravely, “I can’t give no signals to Moseby, nohow. I regret,” he continued piously, “I regret and see the error that the South has made in this here unchristian war.”
Ashley started and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Smull, who immediately raised his own to the ceiling and addressed it unctuously: “This here unchristian war to disrupt the sacred union of the States is a offence against God and man, my young friend, and I now am brought to see, by God’s grace, the sin of secession an’ slavery, an’ Jefferson Davis an’ his wicked ways. Surely the wicked shall perish and be cut down like the grass; in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up, in the evenin’ it is cut down an’ withereth, my young fren’.”
Ashley had grown paler and paler; his fingers clutched at the bedclothes, and he watched Smull’s increasing exaltation with a horror that pinched every feature in his face.
“No!” bawled Smull: “no! no! I have took the oath of allegiance to these here United States! Blessed is the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!”
“Shut up!” gasped Ashley, “do you want to have the Yankee provost here?”
Smull raised his hands and wept on; “Behold I am utterly enlightened! Blessed are the meek for they” —
“Stop!” shrieked Ashley, starting up in bed.
Smull glanced sharply at him, then sat down with a sigh.
“Are you going to give me up to the provost-marshal because you took the oath?” quavered Ashley, beside himself with fright and fury.
“No,” said Smull wagging his double chin and ‘meeting Ashley’s glance squarely; “no, I will not bring the centurions for fear they utterly destroy thee with the sword.”
Ashley, sweating with terror, looked at the reverend gentleman and wondered whether he could kill him without undue disturbance. That fat neck could not be strangled with Ashley’s slender fingers; the revolver under the pillow was surer — and surer still to bring the Yankee soldiers pell-mell into the house. He had been jealous of Smull when that gentleman made his weekly call on Mrs. Ashley. He, besotted as he was, noticed the expression of Smull’s small eyes when Mrs. Ashley entered the room, her innocent heart filled with plans for charities suggested by the minister. Would the Reverend Laomi like to see Mrs. Ashley a real widow? Would he even aid fate toward the accomplishment of her widowhood?
“What the hell made you holler like that!” stammered Ashley fiercely. “Damn you,” he added, “if the Yankees had come into this room, you would have left it feet first an’ fit for a hole in the ground?”
The Reverend Laomi Smull looked sadly at the young man. There were tears on his fat cheeks.
“Yes, I tote a gun,” sneered Ashley, tapping the pillow under his head. “Don’t be a fool. Hang out your shirt and let Moseby come and clean out these Yankees, for God’s sake, before they shoot me and hang you on my evidence.”
“Moseby’s men can’t face cannon,” observed Smull with sudden alacrity.
“Then lock the cannoniers in the church when Moseby signals. You can do ‘it; you’ve got the keys, haven’t you?”
Smull nodded.
“They’ll come at night, of course; you can go and whine hymns in the church by special permit, and lock the door when the first carbine goes off.”
“And the bell on Sunday?” inquired Smull: “the clapper’s gone, the rope’s are cut, and the Yankee Battery Captain wouldn’t let me ring it nohow.” —
“Never mind the bell. If Moseby sees the shirt he’ll attack by night, unless he’s in force. If the whole Confederate cavalry has ridden around Wilson, then he’ll come by day and send the Yankees packing, battery or no battery. All you’ve got to do is to hang out that shirt. Now go away, d’you hear?”
Smull rose and walked softly to the door.
“And,” added Ashley, “if you play tricks on me you’ll hang on my evidence.”
Smull opened the door.
“And you’ll not get my wife anyway, damn you!” finished Ashley triumphantly from the bed.
Smull turned and looked at him, then went o
ut, quietly closing the door behind him.
At the foot of the stairs he met Mrs. Ashley, and he smirked and opened his thick moist lips to speak, but the young wife’s face startled him and he closed his mouth with a snap of surprise.
“You intend to betray my husband,” she said breathlessly.
“You have been listening at your husband’s door,” he retorted savagely.
She clenched her small hands: “What of it! With cowards and traitors and hypocrites as guests, honest people need be forewarned! Shame on you! Shame on your cloth! Shame on your oath of allegiance! You’ll sell my husband to steal his wife! You’ll break your oath to bring the rebel cavalry down on us!”
She brushed the tears from her eyes with both trembling hands.
“God knows,” she said, “I thought I was right to hide my husband, and I think so now. Yet, if he or you betray these soldiers I shall denounce you both to the first picket!”
“Madame,” began Smull in thick persuasive tones, “you wrong me—”
“Leave this house!” she said, trembling.
The Reverend Laomi bowed low, raised his eyes to the sky, sighed, and stepped out into the garden. There, before he could rearrange his expressive features, Smith met him face to face and returned the clergyman’s disconcerted salute gravely.
“One moment, my dear young friend,” stammered Smull.
Smith wheeled squarely in his tracks and stood rigid. Smull hesitated, passed a fat tongue over his lips, and weighed the chances. The next moment he made up his mind, glanced at the door, saw Mrs. Ashley entering the house, then leaned swiftly toward Smith and whispered.
Smith drew himself up sharply; the Reverend Laomi Smull turned and left the garden, head bowed on his breast as though in anguish of spirit. A few minutes later he brought a wash basket out of his house and pinned a single shirt to the line with a wooden clothespin. Then he ran to the woods, as fast as he could, and squatted under a rock where a tangle of brambles fell like a curtain to screen him from the eyes of the impious, indiscreet, and importunate.
IV.
Smith, holding his sabre very stiffly, raised the bronze knocker on Mrs. Ashley’s door and rapped three times. Then he loosened the chin-strap of his forage-cap; drew off both gauntlets, folded them, and placed them in his belt.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1101