Blair spoke with despair.
"This is your final decision?"
"Final."
The messenger slipped close to Lee and spoke hurriedly.
"I came by special train, sir--an engine and coach. They wait you on a siding just outside of town. We"re afraid the line may be cut. The Northern troops are bivouacing on the Capitol hill. They may stop us.
We"ve no time to lose. I hope you can come at once."
The messenger walked quickly through the door and seized his horse"s reins.
Lee turned to Blair.
"Troops are on the Capitol Hill?"
"A regiment of Pennsylvanians has just arrived, I believe."
Sam had edged through the door and stood smiling at his old master. The Colonel had not seen him to this moment.
"You here, Sam?" he said with feeling.
"Ya.s.sah. I come home ter stan" by you, Ma.r.s.e Robert."
"Saddle my horse, you can go with me!"
"Ya.s.sah. Thankee, sah!"
"Bring Sid to fetch our horses back from the train."
"Ya.s.sah, glory hallelujah!" Sam shouted as he darted for the stable.
The anxious mother, praying in her room upstairs, heard Sam"s shout and hurried down with Mary. The other children happily were on the Pamunkey at the home of Custis.
The mother"s heart was pounding. There was war in Sam"s shout. She felt its savage thrill. She gripped herself for the ordeal. There should be no vain regrets, no foolish words. Her soul rose in the glory of sacrificial love.
"What is it, my dear?" she asked softly.
"I go to Richmond immediately. Northern troops are pouring into Washington. Send my things to me if you can."
His eyes wandered about the room he loved. He would never see it again.
He felt this in his inmost soul. It would be but the work of an hour for the troops to sweep across the bridge, sack its rooms and leave its beautiful lawn a sodden waste.
The wife saw the anguish in his gaze and her words rang with exaltation.
"Then it is G.o.d"s will. And I shall try to smile. You have reached this decision in deepest thought and prayer. And I know that you are right!"
Lee took her in his arms and held her in silence. Those who saw, wept.
At last he kissed her tenderly and turned to the others.
His sister walked blindly toward him.
"Oh, Robert, you have broken my heart--"
"I know, Annie, that you"ll blame me," he answered, gently.
She slipped her arms about his neck.
"No, I shall not blame you. I understand now. I only grieve--"
Her voice broke. She struggled to control herself.
"How handsome you are in this solemn hour, my glorious, soldier-brother--" Again her voice failed.
"The pity and horror of it all! My husband and my son will fight you--and--I--shall--pray--for--their--success--oh--how can G.o.d permit it!--Goodbye, Robert!"
Her arms tightened and his responded. His hand touched her hair and he said slowly:
"If dark hours come to us, my sister, we are children again roaming the fields hand in hand. We"ll just remember that."
She kissed him tenderly.
"And success or failure, dear Annie," he continued, "shall be in G.o.d"s hands--not ours. I go to lead a forlorn hope perhaps. But I must share the miseries of my people."
He slipped from her arms and silently embraced his daughter, and again her mother.
"Say goodbye to the other children for me when you see them, dear."
Blair took his extended hand.
"I know what you feel, Colonel Lee," he said solemnly. "I"m only sorry I could not hold you."
"Thank you, my friend. My people believe, and I believe that we have rights to defend. And we must do our best--even if we perish."
He strode quickly to the door, and paused. A sudden pain caught his heart as he crossed its threshold for the last time. He looked back, lifted his head as in prayer and pa.s.sed out.
He mounted his horse and rode swiftly through the beautiful spring morning toward Richmond--and Immortality. The women stood weeping. The President"s messenger watched in sorrow.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
When John Brown cunningly surveyed the lines around those houses in Kansas, observed the fastenings of their doors, marked the strength of the shutters, learned the names of their dogs, crept under the cover of darkness on his prey as a wild beast creeps through the jungle and hacked his innocent victims to pieces, we know that he was a criminal paranoiac pursuing a fixed idea under the delusion that G.o.d had sent him.
Yet on the eighteenth of July, 1861, Colonel Fletcher Webster"s regiment, the Twelfth Ma.s.sachusetts, marched through the streets of Boston singing a song of glory to John Brown which one of its members composed. They were also marching Southward to kill. The only difference was they had a Commission.
War had been declared.