She did not answer, but as he put his pad of blanks into her outstretched hand she drew it back and wrote, in a slow and absent manner, a message in these words:
"To CAPTAIN OSCAR AINSLIE, Boyleston, Va.
"Coming.
"MOLLIE."
"Collect?" asked the boy.
"No!"
She inquired, and paid the charges in the same unheeding way. The messenger departed with a wistful glance at the dry, pained eyes which heeded him not. With a look of dumb entreaty at the overhanging mountain and misty, Indian summer sky, and a half perceptible shiver of dread, Mollie Ainslie turned and entered again the school-room.
CHAPTER XVII.
GOOD-MORROW AND FAREWELL.
A week afterward, Mollie Ainslie stood beside the bed of her only brother and watched the sharp, short struggle which he made with their hereditary enemy, consumption. Weakened by wounds and exposure, he was but ill-prepared to resist the advances of the insidious foe, and when she reached his side she saw that the hope, even of delay, was gone. So she took her place, and with ready hand, brave heart, and steady purpose, brightened his pathway to the tomb.
Oscar and Mollie Ainslie were the oniy children of a New England clergyman whose life had lasted long enough, and whose means had been sufficient, with the closest economy, to educate them both according to the rigorous standards of the region in which they were born. Until the son entered college they had studied together, and the sister was almost as well prepared for the university course as the brother when they were separated. Then she stepped out of the race, and determined, though scarcely more than a child, to become herself a bread-winner, in order that her father"s meager salary might be able to meet the drain of her brother"s college expenses. She did this not only without murmuring, but with actual pleasure. Her ambition, which was boundless, centered upon her brother. She identified herself with him, and cheerfully gave up every advantage, in order that his opportunities might be more complete. To Oscar these sacrifices on his sister"s part were very galling. He felt the wisdom of the course pursued toward him by his family, and was compelled to accede in silence to prevent the disappointment which his refusal would bring. Yet it was the keenest trial for him to think of accepting his sister"s earnings, and only the conviction that to do so was the quickest and surest way to relieve her of the burden of self-support, induced him to submit to such an arrangement.
Hardly had he entered upon his college course when the war of Rebellion came on, and Oscar Ainslie saw in the patriotic excitement and the promise of stirring events a way out of a situation whose fetters were too heavy for him to bear by reason of their very tenderness. He was among the first, therefore, to enlist, happy thereby to forestall his sister"s determination to engage in teaching, for his sake. His father was grieved at the son"s abandonment of his projected career, but his heart was too patriotic to object.
So he gave the bright-eyed young soldier his blessing as he bade him good-by, standing there before him, strong and trim, in his close-fitting cavalry uniform. He knew that Oscar"s heart beat high with hope, and he would not check it, though he felt sure that they looked into each other"s eyes for the last time. When his own were glazing over with the ghastly grave-light, more than two years afterward, they were gladdened by the announcement which came throbbing along the wires and made bright the whole printed page from which he read: "Private Oscar Ainslie, promoted to a Captaincy for gallant conduct on the field of Gettysburg." Upon this he rallied his fading energies, and waited for a week upon the very brink of the chill river, that he might hear, before he crossed over, from the young soldier himself, how this honor was won. When he had learned this he fell asleep, and not long after, the faithful wife who had shared his toils and sacrifices heard the ceaseless cry of his lonely spirit, and was gathered again to his arms upon the sh.o.r.e where beauty fadeth not forever.
The little homestead upon the rocky hillside overlooking the village was all that was left to the brother and sister; but it was more than the latter could enjoy alone, so she fled away and entered upon the vocation in which we found her engaged. Meantime her brother had risen in. rank, and at the close of the war had been transferred to the regular army as a reward of distinguished merit.
Then his hereditary foe had laid siege to his weakened frame, and a brother officer had telegraphed to the sister in the Bankshire hills the first warning of the coming end.
It was a month after her arrival at Boyleston, when her brother, overcoming the infatuation which usually attends that disease, saw that the end was near and made provision respecting it.
"Sis," he said, calling her by the pet name of their childhood, "what day of the month is it?"
"The thirteenth, Oscar--your birthday," she replied briskly. "Don"t you see that I have been out and gathered leaves and flowers to decorate your room, in honor of the event?"
Her lap was full of autumn leaves-maple and gum, flaming and variegated, brown oak of various shapes and shades, golden hickory, the open burrs of the chintuapin, pine cones, and the dun scraggly b.a.l.l.s of the black-gum, some glowing bunches of the flame-bush, with their wealth of bursting red beries, and a full-laden branch of the black-haw.
The bright October sun shone through the open window upon her as she arranged them with deft fingers, contrasting the various hues with loving skill, and weaving ornaments for different points in the bare room of the little country hotel where her brother lay.
He watched her awhile in silence, and then said sadly,
"Yes, my last birthday."
Her lips trembled, and her head drooped lower over her lap, but she would not let him see her agitation. So she simply said,
"Do not say that, Oscar."
"No," he replied, "I ought not to say so. I should have said, my last earthly birthday. Sit closer, Sis, where I can see you better.
I want to talk to you."
"Do you know," he continued, as she came and sat upon his bedside, spreading her many-hued treasures over the white coverlet, "that I meant to have been at home to-day?"
"And are you not?" she asked cheerfully. "Am I not with you?"
"True, Sis, and you are my home now; but, after all, I did want to see the old New England hills once more. One yearns for familiar scenes after years of war. I meant to have gone back and brought you here, away from the cold winters that sting, and bite, and kill. I hoped that, after rest, I might recover strength, and that you might, here escape the shadow which has fastened upon me."
"Have you seen my horse, Midnight?" he asked, after a fit of coughing, followed by a dreamy silence.
"Yes."
"How do you like him?"
"He is a magnificent creature."
"Would he let you approach him?"
"I had no trouble in doing so."
None?" He"s very vicious, too. Everybody has had trouble with him.
Do you think you could ride him?"
"I have ridden him every day for two weeks."
"Ah! that is how you have kept so fresh." Then, after a pause, "Do you know how I got him?"
"I heard that he was captured."
"Yes, in the very last fight before the surrender at Appomattox.
I was with Sheridan, you know. We were pursuing the retreating columns--had been pressing them hotly ever since the break at Petersburg--on the rear and on both flanks, fighting, worrying, and watching all the time. On the last day, when the retreat had become a rout, as it seemed, a stand was made by a body of cavalry just on the crest of a smoothly-sloping hill. Not antic.i.p.ating serious resistance, we did not wait for the artillery to come up and dislodge them, but deploying a brigade we rode on, jesting and gay, expecting to see them disperse when we came within range and join the rabble beyond. We were mistaken. Just when we got within easy charging distance, down they came, pell-mell, as dashing a body of dirty veterans as I ever saw. The attack was so unexpected that for a time we were swept off our feet and fairly carried backward with surprise. Then we rallied, and there was a sharp, short struggle. The enemy retreated, and we pressed after them. The man that rode this horse seemed to have selected me as his mark.
He rode straight at me from the first. He was a fine, manly-looking fellow, and our swords were about the last that were crossed in the struggle. We had a sharp tussle for a while. I think he must have been struck by a chance shot. At least he was unseated just about the time my own horse was shot under me. Looking around amid the confusion I saw this horse without a rider. I was in mortal terror of being trampled by the shifting squadrons and did not delay, but sprang into the saddle and gave him the spur. When the Confederate bugles sounded the retreat I had a terrible struggle to keep him from obeying orders and carrying me away into their lines. After that, however, I had no trouble with him. But he is not kind to strangers, as a rule. I meant to have taken him home to you," he added, sadly. "You will have him now, and will prize him for my sake, will you not, Sis?"
"You know, Oscar, that everything you have ever loved or used will be held sacred," she answered tearfully.
"Yes, I know," he rejoined. "Sis, I wish you would make me a promise."
"You know I will."
"Well, then, do not go back to our old home this winter, nor the next, nor--but I will not impose terms upon you. Stay as long as you can content yourself in this region. I am afraid for you. I know you are stronger and have less of the consumptive taint about you than I, but I am afraid. You would have worked for me when I was in college, and I have worked only for you, since that time.
All that I have saved--and I have saved all I could, for I knew that my time was not long--is yours. I have some money on deposit, some bonds, and a few articles of personal property--among the latter, Midnight. All these are yours. It will leave you comfortable for a time at least. Now, dear, promise that I shall be buried and remain in the cemetery the Government is making for the soldiers who fell in those last battles. Somehow, I think it will keep you here, in order that you may be near me, and save you from the disease which is devouring my life."
A week afterward his companions followed, with rever ed arms, the funereally-caparisoned Midnight to the grounds of the National Cemetery, and fired a salute over a new-made grave.
Nimbus, taking with him his helpless friend, had appealed, soon after his purchase, to the officer of the Bureau for aid in erecting a school-house at Red Wing. By him he had been referred to one of those charitable a.s.sociations, through whose benign agency the great-hearted North poured its free bounty into the South immediately upon the cessation of strife.
Perhaps there has been no grander thing in our history than the eager generosity with which the Christian men and women of the North gave and wrought, to bring the boon of knowledge to the recently-enslaved.
As the North gave, willingly and freely, men and millions to save the nation from disruption, so, when peace came, it gave other brave men and braver women, and other unstinted millions to strengthen the hands which generations of slavery had left feeble and inept.
Not only the colored, but the white also, were the recipients of this bounty. The Queen City of the Confederacy, the proud capital of the commonwealth of Virginia, saw the strange spectacle of her own white children gathered, for the first time, into free public schools which were supported by Northern charity, and taught by n.o.ble women with whom her high-bred Christian dames and dainty maidens would not deign to a.s.sociate. The civilization of the North in the very hour of victory threw aside the cartridge-box, and appealed at once to the contribution-box to heal the ravages of war. At the door of every church throughout the North, the appeal was posted for aid to open the eyes of the blind whose limbs had just been unshackled; and the worshipper, as he gave thanks for his rescued land, brought also an offering to aid in curing the ignorance which slavery had produced.