Before the Dawn: A Story of the Fall of Richmond. Altsheler Joseph Alexander

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СКАЧАТЬ a contest between them, heightened, so it seemed to Prescott, by the fact that Colonel Harley was always by the side of Mrs. Markham, and apparently made no effort to hide his admiration, while his sister was seeking without avail to draw him away. Prescott stood aside for a few moments to watch and then Raymond put his hand on his shoulder.

      "You see in Mrs. Markham a very remarkable woman—the married belle," said the editor. "The married belle, I understand, is an established feature of life abroad, but she is as yet comparatively unknown in the South. Here we put a woman on the shelf at twenty—or at eighteen if she marries then, as she often does."

      Coffee and waffles were served at ten o'clock. Two coloured women brought in the coffee and the cups on a tray, but the ladies themselves served it.

      "I apologize for the coffee," said Mrs. Markham. "I have a suspicion that it is more or less bean, but the Yankee blockading fleet is very active and I dare any of you to complain."

      "Served by your hand, the common or field bean becomes the finest mocha," said Mr. Pegram, with the ornate courtesy of the old South.

      "And if any one dare to intimate that it is not mocha I shall challenge him immediately," said Winthrop.

      "You will have to use a worse threat than that," said Mrs. Markham. "I understand that at your last duel you hit a negro plowing in a cornfield fifty yards from your antagonist."

      "And scared the negro's mule half to death," added Raymond.

      "But in your cause, Mrs. Markham, I couldn't miss," replied the gallant Winthrop, not at all daunted.

      The waffles were brought in hot from the kitchen and eaten with the coffee. After the refreshments the company began to play "forfeit essay." Two hats were handed around, all drawing a question from one hat and a word from the other. It became the duty of every one to connect question and word by a poem, essay, song or tale in time to be recited at the next meeting. Then they heard the results of the last meeting.

      "That's Innes Randolph standing up there in the corner and getting ready to recite," said Talbot to Prescott. "He's one of the cleverest men in the South and we ought to have something good. He's just drawn from one hat the words 'Daddy Longlegs' and from the other 'What sort of shoe was made on the last of the Mohicans?' He says he doesn't ask to wait until the next meeting, but he'll connect them extempore. Now we'll see what he has made out of them."

      Randolph bowed to the company with mock humility, folded his hands across his breast and recited:

      "Old Daddy Longlegs was a sinner hoary,

      And punished for his wickedness according to the story;

      Between him and the Indian shoes the likeness doth come in,

      One made a mock o' virtue and one a moccasin."

      He was interrupted by the entrance of a quiet little man, modestly clad in a civilian's suit of dark cloth.

      "Mr. Sefton," said some one, and immediately there was a halt in the talk, followed by a hush of expectation. Prescott noticed with interest that the company looked uncomfortable. The effect that Mr. Sefton produced upon all was precisely the same as that which he had experienced when with the Secretary.

      Mr. Sefton was not abashed. He hurried up to the hostess and said:

      "I hope I am not intrusive, Mrs. Markham, but I owed you a call, and I did not know that your little club was in session. I shall go in a few minutes."

      Mrs. Markham pressed him to stay and become one of them for the evening, and her manner had every appearance of warmth.

      "She believes he came to spy upon us," said Raymond, "and I am not sure myself that he didn't. He knew well enough the club was meeting here to-night."

      But the Secretary quickly lulled the feelings of doubt that existed in the minds of the members of the Mosaic Club. He yielded readily to the invitation of Mrs. Markham and then exerted himself to please, showing a facile grace in manner and speech that soon made him a welcome guest. He quickly drifted to the side of Miss Harley, and talked so well from the rich store of his experience and knowledge that her ear was more for him than for any other.

      "Is Mr. Sefton a bachelor?" asked Prescott of Winthrop.

      Winthrop looked at the young Captain and laughed.

      "Are you, too, hit?" Winthrop asked. "You need not flush, man; I have proposed to her myself three times and I've been rejected as often. I expect to repeat the unhappy experience, as I am growing somewhat used to it now and can stand it."

      "But you have not answered my question: is the Secretary married?"

      "Unfortunately, he is not."

      There was an adjoining room to which the men were permitted to retire for a smoke if the spirit moved them, and when Prescott entered it for the first time he found it already filled, General Markham himself presiding. The General was a middle-aged man, heavy and slow of speech, who usually found the talk of the Mosaic Club too nimble for his wits and began his devotions to tobacco at an early hour.

      "Have a cigar, Prescott," he said, holding up a box.

      "That looks like a Havana label on the box," replied Prescott. "Are they genuine?"

      "They ought to be genuine Havanas," replied the General. "They cost me five dollars apiece."

      "Confederate money," added a colonel, Stormont; "and you'll be lucky if you get 'em next year for ten dollars apiece."

      Colonel Stormont's eyes followed Prescott's round the room and he laughed.

      "Yes, Captain Prescott," he said, "we are a somewhat peculiar company. There are now fourteen men in this room, but we can muster among us only twenty-one arms and twenty-four legs. It's a sort of general assembly, and I suppose we ought to send out a sergeant-at-arms for the missing members."

      The Colonel touched his own empty left sleeve and added: "But, thank God, I've got my right arm yet, and it's still at the service of the Confederacy."

      The Member of Congress, Redfield, came into the room at this moment and lighted a pipe, remarking:

      "There will be no Confederacy, Colonel, unless Lee moves out and attacks the enemy."

      He said this in a belligerent manner, his eyes half closed and his chin thrust forward as he puffed at his pipe.

      An indignant flush swept over the veteran's face.

      "Is this just a case of thumbs up and thumbs down?" he asked. "Is the Government to have a victory whenever it asks for it, merely because it does ask for it?"

      Redfield still puffed slowly and deliberately at his pipe, and did not lower his chin a fraction from its aggravating height.

      "General Lee overestimates the enemy," he said, "and has communicated the same tendency to all his men. It's a fatal mistake in war; it's a fatal mistake, I tell you, sir. The Yankees fight poorly."

      The flush on the face of the Confederate colonel deepened. He tapped his empty sleeve and looked around at what he called the "missing members."

      "You are in Congress, Mr. Redfield," he said, "and you have not seen the Yankees in battle. Only those who have not met them on the field say they cannot fight."

      "I warn you that I am going to speak in Congress on the inaction of Lee and the general СКАЧАТЬ