"Mr. Scofield, am I not very heavy?" she asked softly.
"Not as heavy as my heart, and you know it."
"I"m sure I--"
"No, you are not to blame. Moths have scorched their wings before now, and will always continue to do so."
Her head rested slightly against his shoulder; her breath fanned his cheek; her eyes, soft and l.u.s.trous, sought his. But he looked away gloomy and defiant, and she felt his grasp tighten vise-like around her. "I shall not affect any concealment of the feelings which she has recognized so often, nor shall I ask any favors," he thought. "There,"
he said, as he placed her in his boat, "you are safe enough now. Now go aft while I push off."
When she was seated he exerted himself almost as greatly as before, and the boat gradually slid into the water. He sprang in and took the oars.
"Aren"t you going to put on your shoes and stockings?"
"Certainly, when I put you ash.o.r.e."
"Won"t that be a pretty certain way of revealing the plight in which you found me?"
"Pardon my stupidity; I was preoccupied with the thought of relieving you from the society which you have hitherto avoided so successfully;"
and bending over his shoes he tied them almost savagely.
There was a wonderful degree of mirth and tenderness in her eyes as she watched him. They had floated by a little point; and as he raised his head he saw a form which he recognized as Mr. Merriweather rowing toward them. "There comes one of your shadows," he said mockingly. "Be careful how you exchange boats when he comes along-side. I will give you no help in such a case."
She looked hastily over her shoulder at the approaching oarsman. "I think it will be safer to remain in your boat," she said.
"Oh, it will be entirely safe," he replied bitterly.
"Mr. Merriweather must have seen you carrying me."
"That"s another thing which I can"t help."
"Mr. Scofield," she began softly.
He arrested his oars, and turned wondering eyes to hers. They were sparkling with mirth as she continued, "Are you satisfied that a certain young woman whom you once watched very narrowly is entirely to your mind?"
He caught her mirthful glance and misunderstood her. With dignity he answered, "I"m not the first man who blundered to his cost, though probably it would have made no difference. You must do me the justice, however, to admit that I did not maintain the role of observer very long--that I wooed you so openly that every one was aware of my suit.
Is it not a trifle cruel to taunt me after I had made such ample amends?"
"I was thinking of Mr. Merriweather--"
"Undoubtedly"
"Since he has seen me with my arm around your neck--you know I couldn"t help it--perhaps he might row the other way if--if--well, if he saw you--what shall I say--sitting over here--by me--or--Somehow I don"t feel very hungry, and I wouldn"t mind spending another hour--"
Scofield nearly upset the boat in his precipitous effort to gain a seat beside her--and Mr. Merriweather did row another way.
CHRISTMAS EVE IN WAR TIMES
It was the beginning of a battle. The skirmish line of the Union advance was sweeping rapidly over a rough mountainous region in the South, and in his place on the extreme left of this line was Private Anson Marlow. Tall trees rising from underbrush, rocks, bowlders, gulches worn by spring torrents, were the characteristics of the field, which was in wild contrast with the parade-grounds on which the combatants had first learned the tactics of war. The majority, however, of those now in the ranks had since been drilled too often under like circ.u.mstances, and with lead and iron shotted guns, not to know their duty, and the lines of battle were as regular as the broken country allowed. So far as many obstacles permitted, Marlow kept his proper distance from the others on the line and fired coolly when he caught glimpses of the retreating Confederate skirmishers. They were retiring with ominous readiness toward a wooded height which the enemy occupied with a force of unknown strength. That strength was soon manifested in temporary disaster to the Union forces, which were driven back with heavy loss.
Neither the battle nor its fortunes are the objects of our present concern, but rather the fate of Private Marlow. The tide of battle drifted away and left the soldier desperately wounded in a narrow ravine, through which babbled a small stream. Excepting the voices of his wife and children no music had ever sounded so sweetly in his ears.
With great difficulty he crawled to a little bubbling pool formed by a tiny cascade and encircling stones, and partially slaked his intolerable thirst.
He believed he was dying--bleeding to death. The very thought blunted his faculties for a time; and he was conscious of little beyond a dull wonder. Could it be possible that the tragedy of his death was enacting in that peaceful, secluded nook? Could Nature be so indifferent or so unconscious if it were true that he was soon to lie there DEAD? He saw the speckled trout lying motionless at the bottom of the pool, the gray squirrels sporting in the boughs over his head. The sunlight shimmered and glinted through the leaves, flecking with light his prostrate form.
He dipped his hand in the blood that had welled from his side, and it fell in rubies from his fingers. Could that be his blood--his life-blood; and would it soon all ooze away? Could it be that death was coming through all the brightness of that summer afternoon?
From a shadowed tree further up the glen, a wood-thrush suddenly began its almost unrivalled song. The familiar melody, heard so often from his cottage-porch in the June twilight, awoke him to the bitter truth.
His wife had then sat beside him, while his little ones played here and there among the trees and shrubbery. They would hear the same song to-day; he would never hear it again. That counted for little; but the thought of their sitting behind the vines and listening to their favorite bird, spring after spring and summer after summer, and he ever absent, overwhelmed him.
"Oh, Gertrude, my wife, my wife! Oh, my children!" he groaned.
His breast heaved with a great sigh; the blood welled afresh from his wound; what seemed a mortal weakness crept over him; and he thought he died.
"Say, Eb, is he done gone?"
""Clar to grashus if I know. "Pears mighty like it." These words were spoken by two stout negroes, who had stolen to the battlefield as the sounds of conflict died away.
"I"m doggoned if I tink dat he"s dead. He"s only swoonded," a.s.serted the man addressed as Eb. ""Twon"t do to lebe "im here to die, Zack."
"Sartin not; we"d hab bad luck all our days."
"I reckon ole man Pearson will keep him; and his wife"s a po"ful nuss."
"Pearson orter; he"s a Unioner."
"S"pose we try him; "tain"t so bery fur off."
On the morning of the 24th of December, Mrs. Anson Marlow sat in the living-room of her cottage, that stood well out in the suburbs of a Northern town. Her eyes were hollow and full of trouble that seemed almost beyond tears, and the bare room, that had been stripped of nearly every appliance and suggestion of comfort, but too plainly indicated one of the causes. Want was stamped on her thin face, that once had been so full and pretty; poverty in its bitter extremity was unmistakably shown by the uncarpeted floor, the meagre fire, and scanty furniture. It was a period of depression; work had been scarce, and much of the time she had been too ill and feeble to do more than care for her children. Away back in August her resources had been running low; but she had daily expected the long arrears of pay which her husband would receive as soon as the exigencies of the campaign permitted. Instead of these funds, so greatly needed, came the tidings of a Union defeat, with her husband"s name down among the missing.
Beyond that brief mention, so horrible in its vagueness, she had never heard a word from the one who not only sustained her home, but also her heart. Was he languishing in a Southern prison, or, mortally wounded, had he lingered out some terrible hours on that wild battlefield, a brief description of which had been so dwelt upon by her morbid fancy that it had become like one of the scenes in Dante"s "Inferno"? For a long time she could not and would not believe that such an overwhelming disaster had befallen her and her children, although she knew that similar losses had come to thousands of others. Events that the world regards as not only possible but probable are often so terrible in their personal consequences that we shrink from even the bare thought of their occurrence.
If Mrs. Marlow had been told from the first that her husband was dead, the shock resulting would not have been so injurious as the suspense that robbed her of rest for days, weeks, and months. She haunted the post-office, and if a stranger was seen coming up the street toward her cottage she watched feverishly for his turning in at her gate with the tidings of her husband"s safety. Night after night she Jay awake, hoping, praying that she might hear his step returning on a furlough to which wounds or sickness had ent.i.tled him. The natural and inevitable result was illness and nervous prostration.
Practical neighbors had told her that her course was all wrong; that she should be resigned and even cheerful for her children"s sake; that she needed to sleep well and live well, in order that she might have strength to provide for them. She would make pathetic attempts to follow this sound and thrifty advice, but suddenly when at her work or in her troubled sleep, that awful word "missing" would pierce her heart like an arrow, and she would moan, and at times in the depths of her anguish cry out, "Oh, where is he? Shall I ever see him again?"
But the unrelenting demands of life are made as surely upon the breaking as upon the happy heart. She and her children must have food, clothing, and shelter. Her illness and feebleness at last taught her that she must not yield to her grief, except so far as she was unable to suppress it; that for the sake of those now seemingly dependent upon her, she must rally every shattered nerve and every relaxed muscle.
With a heroism far beyond that of her husband and his comrades in the field, she sought to fight the wolf from the door, or at least to keep him at bay. Although the struggle seemed a hopeless one, she patiently did her best from day to day, eking out her scanty earnings by the sale or p.a.w.ning of such of her household goods as she could best spare. She felt that she would do anything rather than reveal her poverty or accept charity. Some help was more or less kindly offered, but beyond such aid as one neighbor may receive of another, she had said gently but firmly, "Not yet."
The Marlows were comparative strangers in the city where they had resided. Her husband had been a teacher in one of its public schools, and his salary small. Patriotism had been his motive for entering the army, and while it had cost him a mighty struggle to leave his family, he felt that he had no more reason to hold back than thousands of others. He believed that he could still provide for those dependent upon him, and if he fell, those for whom he died would not permit his widow and children to suffer. But the first popular enthusiasm for the war had largely died out; the city was full of widows and orphans; there was depression of spirit, stagnation in business, and a very general disposition on the part of those who had means, to take care of themselves, and provide for darker days that might be in the immediate future. Sensitive, retiring Mrs. Marlow was not the one to push her claims or reveal her need. Moreover, she could never give up the hope that tidings from her husband might at any time bring relief and safety.