Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Out on the road by Benson’s Hill, the cavalry were still passing, the little flags sped along, rising and falling with the column, and the short clear note of a trumpet echoed the robin’s call.

  But around the house the last of the troops had passed; she could see them, not yet far away, moving up among the fields toward the ridges where the sun burned on the bronzing scrub-oak thickets. The officers, too, were leaving the orchard, spurring on, singly or in groups, after the disappearing columns. From the main road came a loud thudding and pounding and clanking; a battery of artillery, the long guns slanted, the drivers swinging their thongs — passed at a trot. After it rode soldiers in blue and yellow, then waggons passed, ponderous grey wains covered with canvas, and on either side clattered more mounted troopers, their drawn sabres glittering through the heated haze.

  She stood a moment, holding the apple bough, watching the yellow dust hanging motionless in the rear of the disappearing column. When the last wain had creaked out of sight and the last trooper had loped after it, she turned and looked at the silent garden, trodden, withered, desolate. She drew a long breath, the apple bough flew back, the little green apples dancing. A bee buzzed over a trampled geranium, a robin ran through the longer grass and stopped short, head raised. Beyond Benson’s Hill a bugle blew faintly; distant rifle shots sounded along the ridge; then silence crept through the sunlit meadows, across the levelled corn, across dead stalks and stems, a silence that spread like a shadow, nearer, nearer, over the lawn, through the orchard to the house, and then from corner to corner, dulling the ticking of the clock, stifling the wasp on the window, driving her before it from room to room.

  On the musty hair-cloth sofa in the parlour she lay, flung face down, hands pressed to her ears. But silence entered with her, stifling the sob in her throat.

  When she raised her head it was dusk. She heard the murmur of wind in the trees and the chirr of crickets from the fields. She sat up, peering fearfully into the darkness, and she heard the clock ticking in the kitchen and rustle of vines on the porch. After a moment she rose, treading softly, and felt along the wall until her hands rested on her mother’s picture. Then, no longer afraid, she slipped silently across the room, and through the hallway to the pantry.

  It was nearly moonrise before she had cooked supper; when she sat down alone at the long table, the moon, yellow, enormous, stared at her through the window.

  She sipped her tea, turned the lamp-wick a trifle lower, and ate slowly. The little grey dusk moths came humming in the open window and circled around her. The porch dripped with dew; there was a scent of night in the air.

  When she had sat silent a little while dreaming over the sins of a blameless life, there came to her, peace, so sudden so perfect, that she could not understand. How should she know peace? What thought of the past might bring comfort? She could just remember her mother, — that was all. She loved her picture in the parlour. As for her father, he had died as he had lived, a snarling drunkard. And her brother? A lank, blue-eyed boy, dissipated, unwholesome, already cursed with his father’s sin — what comfort could he be to her? He had gone away to enlist; he was drunk when he did it.

  She thought of all these things, her finger tips resting on the edge of the table. She thought too — of the soldiers passing, of the rippling crash of rifles, the drums, the cheering, the sunlight flecking the backs of the horses in the orchard.

  There was a creak at the gate, a click of a latch, and the fall of a foot on the moonlit porch. She half rose; she was not frightened. How she knew who it was, God alone knows, but she looked up, timidly, understanding who was coming, knowing who would knock, who would enter, who would speak. And yet she had never seen him but once in her life.

  All this she knew, — this child made wise in the space of time marked by the tick of the kitchen clock; but she did not know that the memory of his smile had given her the peace she could not understand, she did not know this until he entered, dusty, slim, sunburnt, his yellow gauntlets folded in his belt, his cap and sabre in his hand. Then she knew it. When she understood this she stood up, pale, uncertain. He bowed silently and stepped forward, fumbling with his sabre hilt. She motioned toward a chair.

  He said he had a message for the master of the house, and glanced about vaguely, noting the single place at table and the single plate. She said he might give the message to her.

  “It is only that — if I do not inconvenience you too much—” he smiled faintly,—” if you would allow me, — well, the truth is I am billeted here for the night.”

  She did not know what that meant and he explained.

  “The master of the house is absent,” she said, thinking of her brother.

  “Will he return to-night?” he asked.

  She shook her head; she was thinking that she did not want him to go away. Suddenly the thought of being alone laid hold of her with fresh horror.

  “You may stay,” she said faintly. He bowed again. She asked him if he cared for supper, with a gesture toward the table, and when he thanked her she took courage and told him where to hang his cap and sabre.

  There was a small room between the parlour and the dining-room. She offered it to him, and he accepted gratefully. While she was in the kitchen, toasting more bread, she heard him go to the front door and call. There came a clatter of hoofs, a quick word or two, and, as she re-entered the dining-room, he met her. “My orderly,” he explained,—” he may sleep in the stable, may he not?”

  “My own bed-room is all I have here,” she said.

  “Not — not the one you gave me!” he asked.

  She nodded. “You may have it, — I often sleep in the parlour, — I did when my brother was home.”

  “If I had had any idea—” he burst out. She stopped him with a gesture; but he insisted and at last he had his own way. “If I may sleep in the parlour, I will stay,” he said, and she nodded and seated herself at the table.

  He ate a great deal; she wondered a little, but nodded again at his excuses, and insisted that he must have more tea. She watched him; the lamplight fell softly on his boyish head, on his faint moustache, and bronzed hands. He ate much bread and butter and many eggs; he spoke about his orderly and the horses, and presently asked for a lantern. She brought him one; he lighted it.

  When he had gone away with his lantern, she rested her white face in her hands and looked at his empty chair. She thought of her brother, she thought of the village people who leered askance when she was obliged to go to the store at Willow Corners. The mention of her father’s name, of her brother’s name in the village aroused sneers or laughter. As long as she could remember the one great longing of her life had been to be respected. She had seen her father fall at night in the village street, drunk as a hog; she had seen her brother reel across the fields at noonday. She knew that all the world knew — her world — that she was merely one of a drunkard’s family. She never spoke to a neighbour, nor did she answer when spoken to. She carried her curse, — and her longing, — supposing that she was a thing apart. In the orchard at midday a man, a young boy, a soldier, had spoken to her and looked at her in a way she had never known. All at once she realised, dreaming there in the lamplight, that she was a woman to him, like other women; a woman to be spoken to with deference, a woman to be approached with courtesy. She had read it in his eyes, she had heard it in his voice. It was this that brought to her a peace as gracious, as sweet, as the eyes that had met her own in the orchard.

  He was coming back from the stable now, — she heard his spurs click across the grass by the orchard. And now he had entered, now he was there, sitting opposite, smiling vaguely across the table. A rush of tears blinded her and she looked out into the night where the yellow moon stared and stared.

  She found herself in the parlour after a while, silent, listening to his voice; and all about her was peace, born of the peace within her breast.

  He told her of the war. She had never before cared, but now she cared. He spoke of long marches
, of hunger and of thirst, with a boyish laugh, and she laughed too, not knowing how else to show her pity. He spoke of the Land, and now, for the first time, she loved it; she knew it was also her Land. He spoke of the flag and what it meant. In her home she had no symbol of her country, and she told him so. He drew a penknife from his pocket, cut a button from his collar, and handed it to her. On the button was an eagle and stars, and she pinned it over her heart, looking at him with innocent eyes.

  She told him of her mother, — she could not tell much but she told him all she remembered. Then, involuntarily, she told him more, — about her life, her hopes long dead, her brother bearing his father’s name and curse. She had not meant to do this at first; but as she spoke she had a dim idea that he ought to know who it was that he treated with gentleness and deference. She knew it would not change anything in him, that he would be the same. Perhaps it was a vague hope that he might advise her, — perhaps be sorry, she could not analyse it, but she felt the necessity of speaking.

  There is a time for all things except confession. But, to the lonely soul, long stifled, time is chosen for confession when God sends the opportunity.

  She spoke of honour as she understood it; she spoke of dishonour as she had known it.

  When she was silent, he began to speak, and she listened breathlessly. Ah, but she was right! The God of Battles had sent to her a messenger of peace. Out of the smoke and flame he had come to find her and pity her. Through him she knew she was worthy of respect, through him she learned her womanhood, from his lips she heard the truths of youth, which are truer than the truths of age.

  He sat there in the lamplight, his gilt straps gleaming, his glittering spurs ringing true with every movement, his bronzed young face bent to hers. She knew he knew everything that man could know; she drank in what he said, humbly. When he ceased speaking, she still looked into his eyes. Their brilliancy dazzled her; the lamp spun a halo behind his head. Wondering at his knowledge, she wondered what those things might be that he knew and had not told. He was smiling now. She felt the power and mystery of his eyes.

  It is true that he had not told her all he knew, — although what a boy of eighteen knows is soon told. He had not told her that her brother lay buried in a trench in the beech-grove on the ridge, shot by court-martial for desertion in the face of the enemy. Yet that was the very thing he had come to tell her.

  About midnight, when they had been whispering long together, he told her that her brother was dead. He told her that death with honour wiped out every stain, and she cried a little and blessed God, — the God of Battles, who had purified her brother in the flames of war.

  And that night, when he lay asleep on the musty hair-cloth sofa, she crept in, white, silent, and kissed his hair.

  He never knew it. In the morning he rode away.

  PICKETS.

  “Hi, Yank!”

  “Shut up!” replied Alden, wriggling to the edge of the rifle-pit. Connor also crawled a little higher and squinted through the chinks of the pine logs.

  “Hey, Johnny!” he called across the river, “are you that clay-eatin’ Cracker with green lamps on your pilot?”

  “Oh, Yank! Are yew the U. S. mewl with a C. S. A. brand on yewr head-stall?”

  “Go to hell!” replied Connor sullenly.

  A jeering laugh answered him from across the river.

  “He had you there, Connor,” observed Alden with faint interest.

  Connor took off his blue cap and examined the bullet hole in the crown.

  “C. S. A. brand on my head-stall, eh!” he repeated savagely, twirling the cap between his dirty fingers.

  “You called him a clay-eating Cracker,” observed Alden; “and you referred to his spectacles as green lanterns on his pilot.”

  “I’ll show him whose head-stall is branded,” muttered Connor, shoving his smoky rifle through the log crack.

  Alden slid down to the bottom of the shallow pit and watched him apathetically.

  The silence was intense; the muddy river, smooth as oil, swirled noiselessly between its fringe of sycamores; not a breath of air stirred the leaves around them. From the sun-baked bottom of the rifle-pit came the stale smell of charred logs and smoke-soaked clothing. There was a stench of sweat in the air and the heavy odour of balsam and pine seemed to intensify it. Alden gasped once or twice, threw open his jacket at the throat, and stuffed a filthy handkerchief into the crown of his cap, arranging the ends as a shelter for his neck.

  Connor lay silent, his right eye fastened upon the rifle-sight, his dusty army shoes crossed behind him. One yellow sock had slipped down over the worn shoe heel and laid bare a dust-begrimed ankle.

  In the heated stillness Alden heard the boring of weevils in the logs overhead. A tiny twig snapped somewhere in the forest; a fly buzzed about his knees. Suddenly Connor’s rifle cracked; the echoes rattled and clattered away through the woods; a thin cloud of pungent vapour slowly drifted straight upward, shredding into filmy streamers among the tangled branches overhead.

  “Get him?” asked Alden, after a silence.

  “Nope,” replied Connor. Then he addressed himself to his late target across the river:

  “Hello, Johnny!”

  “Hi, Yank!”

  “How close?”

  “Hey?”

  “How close?”

  “What, sonny?”

  “My shot, you fool!”

  “Why, sonny!” called back the Confederate in affected surprise, “was yew a shootin’ at me?” Bang! went Connor’s rifle again. A derisive catcall answered him, and he turned furiously to Alden.

  “Oh, let up,” said the young fellow; “it’s too hot for that.”

  Connor was speechless with rage, and he hastily jammed another cartridge into his long, hot rifle, while Alden roused himself, brushed away a persistent fly, and crept up to the edge of the pit again.

  “Hello, Johnny!” he shouted.

  “That you, sonny?” replied the Confederate.

  “Yes. Say, Johnny, shall we call it square until four o’clock?”

  “What time is it?” replied the cautious Confederate; “all our expensive gold watches is bein’ repaired at Chickamauga.”

  At this taunt, Connor showed his teeth, but Alden laid one hand on his arm and sang out: “It’s two o’clock, Richmond time; Sherman has just telegraphed us from your State-house.”

  “Wa-al, in that case this crool war is over,” replied the Confederate sharpshooter; “we’ll be easy on old Sherman.”

  “See here!” cried Alden; “is it a truce until four o’clock?”

  “All right! Your word, Yank!”

  “You have it!”

  “Done!” said the Confederate, coolly rising to his feet and strolling down to the river bank, both hands in his pockets.

  Alden and Connor crawled out of their ill-smelling dust wallow, leaving their rifles behind them.

  “Whew! It’s hot, Johnny,” said Alden pleasantly. He pulled out a stained pipe, blew into the stem, polished the bowl with his sleeve, and sucked wistfully at the end. Then he went and sat down beside Connor who had improvised a fishing pole from his ramrod, a bit of string, and a rusty hook.

  The Confederate rifleman also sat down on his side of the stream, puffing luxuriously on a fragrant corn-cob pipe.

  Presently the Confederate soldier raised his head and looked across at Alden.

  “What’s yewr name, sonny?” he asked. “Alden,” replied the young fellow briefly.

  “Mine’s Craig,” observed the Confederate; “what’s yewr regiment?”

  “Two hundred sixtieth New York; what’s yours, Mr. Craig?”

  “Ninety-third Maryland, Mister Alden.”

  “Quit that throwin’ sticks in the water! “ growled Connor; “how do you s’pose I’m goin’ to catch anythin’?”

  Alden tossed his stick back Into the brush-heap and laughed.

  “How’s your tobacco, Craig?” he called out.

  “Bully! How’s yewr cof
fee ‘n ‘tack, Alden?”

  “First-rate!” replied the youth.

  After a silence he said: “Is it a go?”

  “You bet,” said Craig, fumbling in his pockets. He produced a heavy twist of Virginia tobacco, laid it on a log, hacked off about three inches with his sheath knife, and folded it up in a big green sycamore leaf. This again he rolled into a corn-husk, weighted with a pebble, then stepping back, he hurled it into the air, saying: “Deal squar, Yank!”

  The tobacco fell at Alden’s feet. He picked it up, measured it carefully with his clasp-knife, and called out: “Three and three-quarters, Craig. What do you want, hard-tack or coffee?”

  “‘Tack,” replied Craig: “don’t stint!”

  Alden laid out two biscuits. As he was about to hack a quarter from the third he happened to glance over the creek at his enemy. There was no mistaking the expression in his face. Starvation was stamped on every feature.

  When Craig caught Alden’s eye, he spat with elaborate care, whistled a bar of the “Bonny Blue Flag,” and pretended to yawn.

  Alden hesitated, glanced at Connor, then placed three whole biscuits in the corn husk, added a pinch of coffee, and tossed the parcel over to Craig.

  That Craig longed to fling himself upon the food and devour it was plain to Alden, who was watching his face. But he didn’t; he strolled leisurely down the bank, picked up the parcel, weighed it critically before opening it, and finally sat down to examine the contents. When he saw that the third cracker was whole, and that a pinch of coffee had been added, he paused in his examination and remained motionless on the bank, head bent. Presently he looked up and asked Alden if he had made a mistake. The young fellow shook his head and drew a long puff of smoke from his pipe, watching it curl out of his nose with interest.

  “Then I’m obliged to yew, Alden,” said Craig; “‘low, I’ll eat a snack to see it ain’t pizened.”

  He filled his lean jaws with the dry biscuit, then scooped up a tin-cup full of water from the muddy river and set the rest of the cracker to soak.

  “Good?” queried Alden.