The Long Roll. Mary Johnston

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СКАЧАТЬ stop like a musket-shot! 'You are always wrong. Go to your seat, sir.' Well, old Wilson went, of course, and sat there so angry he was shivering. You see he was right, and he knew it. Well, the day went on about as usual. It set in to snow, and by night there was what a western man we've got calls a 'blizzard.' Barracks like an ice house, and snowing so you couldn't see across the Campus! 'T was so deadly cold and the lights so dismal that we rather looked forward to taps. Up comes an orderly. 'Mr. Wilson to the Commandant's office!'—Well, old Wilson looked startled, for he hadn't done anything; but off he marches, the rest of us predicting hanging. Well, whom d' ye reckon he found in the Commandant's office?"

      "Old Jack?"

      "Good marksmanship! It was Old Jack—snow all over, snow on his coat, on his big boots, on his beard, on his cap. He lives most a mile from the Institute, and the weather was bad, sure enough! Well, old Wilson didn't know what to expect—most likely hot shot, grape and canister with musketry fire thrown in—but he saluted and stood fast. 'Mr. Wilson,' says Old Jack, 'upon returning home and going over with closed eyes after supper as is my custom the day's work, I discovered that you were right this morning and I was wrong. Your solution was correct. I felt it to be your due that I should tell you of my mistake as soon as I discovered it. I apologise for the statement that you were always wrong. You may go, sir.' Well, old Wilson never could tell what he said, but anyhow he accepted the apology, and saluted, and got out of the room somehow and back to barracks, and we breathed on the window and made a place through which we watched Old Jack over the Campus, ploughing back to Mrs. Jack through the blizzard! So you see, ma'am, things like that make us lenient to Old Jack sometimes—though he is awfully dull and has very peculiar notions."

      Margaret Cleave sat up. "Is that you, Richard?" Miriam put down Tabitha and rose to her knees. "Did you see Cousin Judith? Is she as beautiful as ever?" Will hospitably gave up the big chair. "You must have galloped Dundee both ways! Did you ask about the shotgun?"

      Cleave took his seat at the foot of his mother's couch. "Yes, Will, you may have it.—Fauquier sent his love to you, Mother, and to Miriam. They leave for Greenwood to-morrow."

      "And Cousin Judith," persisted Miriam. "What did she have on? Did she sing to you?"

      Cleave picked up her fallen book and smoothed the leaves. "She was not there. The Silver Hill people had taken her for the night. I passed them on the road. … There'll be thick ice, Will, if this weather lasts."

      Later, when good-night had been said and he was alone in his bare, high-ceiled room, he looked, not at his law books nor at the poet's words, left lying on the table, but he drew a chair before the fireplace, and from its depths he raised his eyes to his grandfather's sword slung above the mantel-shelf. He sat there, long, with the sword before him; then he rose, took a book from the case, trimmed the candles, and for an hour read of the campaigns of Fabius and Hannibal.

CHAPTER IV

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GREENWOOD

       Table of Contents

      The April sunshine, streaming in at the long windows, filled the Greenwood drawing-room with dreamy gold. It lit the ancient wall-paper where the shepherds and shepherdesses wooed between garlands of roses, and it aided the tone of time among the portraits. The boughs of peach and cherry blossoms in the old potpourri jars made it welcome, and the dark, waxed floor let it lie in faded pools. Miss Lucy Cary was glad to see it as she sat by the fire knitting fine white wool into a sacque for a baby. There was a fire of hickory, but it burned low, as though it knew the winter was over. The knitter's needles glinted in the sunshine. She was forty-eight and unmarried, and it was her delight to make beautiful, soft little sacques and shoes and coverlets for every actual or prospective baby in all the wide circle of her kindred and friends.

      A tap at the door, and the old Greenwood butler entered with the mail-bag. Miss Lucy, laying down her knitting, took it from him with eager fingers. Place à la poste—in eighteen hundred and sixty-one! She untied the string, emptied letters and papers upon the table beside her, and began to sort them. Julius, a spare and venerable piece of grey-headed ebony, an autocrat of exquisite manners and great family pride, stood back a little and waited for directions.

      Miss Lucy, taking up one after another the contents of the bag, made her comments half aloud. "Newspapers, newspapers! Nothing but the twelfth and Fort Sumter! The Whig.—'South Carolina is too hot-headed!—but when all's said, the North remains the aggressor.' The Examiner.—'Seward's promises are not worth the paper they are written upon.' 'Faith as to Sumter fully kept—wait and see.' That which was seen was a fleet of eleven vessels, with two hundred and eighty-five guns and twenty-four hundred men—'carrying provisions to a starving garrison!' Have done with cant, and welcome open war! The Enquirer.—'Virginia will still succeed in mediating. Virginia from her curule chair, tranquil and fast in the Union, will persuade, will reconcile these differences!' Amen to that!" said Miss Lucy, and took up another bundle. "The Staunton Gazette—The Farmer's Magazine—The Literary Messenger—My Blackwood—Julius!"

      "Yaas, Miss Lucy."

      "Julius, the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood will be here for supper and to spend the night. Let Car'line know."

      "Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab obsarved to me dat Marse Edward am conducin' home a gent'man from Kentucky."

      "Very well," said Miss Lucy, still sorting. "The Winchester Times—The Baltimore Sun.—The mint's best, Julius, in the lower bed. I walked by there this morning.—Letters for my brother! I'll readdress these, and Easter's Jim must take them to town in time for the Richmond train."

      "Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab imported dat Marse Berkeley Cyarter done recompense him on de road dis mahnin' ter know when Marster's comin' home."

      "Just as soon," said Miss Lucy, "as the Convention brings everybody to their senses.—Three letters for Edward—one in young Beaufort Porcher's writing. Now we'll hear the Charleston version—probably he fired the first shot!—A note for me.—Julius, the Palo Alto ladies will stop by for dinner to-morrow. Tell Car'line."

      "Yaas, Miss Lucy."

      Miss Lucy took up a thick, bluish envelope. "From Fauquier at last—from the Red River." She opened the letter, ran rapidly over the half-dozen sheets, then laid them aside for a more leisurely perusal. "It's one of his swift, light, amusing letters! He hasn't heard about Sumter.—There'll be a message for you, Julius. There always is."

      Julius's smile was as bland as sunshine. "Yaas, Miss Lucy. I 'spects dar'll be some excommunication fer me. Marse Fauquier sho' do favour Old Marster in dat.—He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better come home—all dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid gunpowder over de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk git reckless!"

      Miss Lucy sighed. "It will that, Julius—it's burning now. Edward from Sally Hampton. More Charleston news!—One for Molly, three for Unity, five for Judith—"

      "Miss Judith jes' sont er 'lumination by one of de chillern at de gate. She an' Marse Maury Stafford'll be back by five. Dey ain' gwine ride furder'n Monticello."

      "Very well. Mr. Stafford will be here to supper, then. Hairston Breckinridge, too, I imagine. Tell Car'line."

      Miss СКАЧАТЬ