The Crisis Part 55

In the city, shutters were going up on the stores. The streets were filled with, restless citizens seeking news, and drays were halted here and there on the corners, the white eyes and frenzied calls of the negro drivers betraying their excitement. While Stephen related to his mother the events of the morning, Hester burned the dinner. It lay; still untouched, on the table when the throbbing of drums sent them to the front steps. Sigel's regiment had swung into the street, drawing in its wake a seething crowd.

Three persons came out of the big house next door. One was Anna Brinsmade; and there was her father, his white hairs uncovered. The third was Jack. His sister was cringing to him appealingly, and he struggling in her grasp. Out of his coat pocket hung the curved b.u.t.t of a pepperbox revolver.

"Let me go, Anne!" he cried. "Do you think I can stay here while my people are shot down by a lot of d.a.m.ned Dutchman?"

"John," said Mr. Brinsmade, sternly, "I cannot let you join a mob. I cannot let you shoot at men who carry the Union flag."

"You cannot prevent me, sir," shouted the young man, in a frenzy. "When foreigners take our flag for them own, it is time for us to shoot them down."

Wrenching himself free, he ran down the steps and up the street ahead of the regiment. Then the soldiers and the noisy crowd were upon them and while these were pa.s.sing the two stood there as in a dream. After that silence fell upon the street, and Mr. Brinsmade turned and went back into the house, his head bowed as in prayer. Stephen and his mother drew back, but Anne saw them.

"He is a rebel," she faltered. "It will break my father's heart."

She looked at Stephen appealingly, unashamed of the tears in her eyes.

Then she, too went in.

"I cannot stay here mother," he said.

As he slammed the gate, Anne ran down the steps calling his name. He paused, and she caught his sleeve.

"I knew you would go," she said, "I knew you would go. Oh, Stephen, you have a cool head. Try to keep Jack--out of mischief."

He left her standing on the pavement. But when he reached the corner and looked back he saw that she had gone in at his own little gate to meet his mother. Then he walked rapidly westward. Now and again he was stopped by feverish questions, but at length he reached the top of the second ridge from the river, along which crowded Eighteenth Street now runs. There stood the new double mansion Mr. Spencer Catherwood had built two years before on the outskirts of the town, with the wall at the side, and the brick stable and stable yard. As Stephen approached it, the thought came to him how little this world's goods avail in times of trouble. One of the big Catherwood boys was in the blue marching regiment that day, and had been told by his father never again to darken his doors. Another was in Clarence Colfax's company of dragoons, and still another had fled southward the night after Sumter.

Stephen stopped at the crest of the hill, in the white dust of the new-turned street, to gaze westward. Clouds were gathering in the sky, but the sun still shone brightly, Half way up the rise two blue lines had crawled, followed by black splotches, and at the southwest was the glint of the sun on rifle barrels. Directed by a genius in the art of war, the regiments were closing about Camp Jackson.

As he stood there meditating and paying no attention to those who hurried past, a few familiar notes were struck on a piano. They came through the wide-shuttered window above his head. Then a girl's voice rose above the notes, in tones that were exultant:--

"Away down South in de fields of cotton, Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom, Look away, look away, Look away, look away.

Den I wish I was in Dixie's Land, Oh, oh! oh, oh!

In Dixie's Land I'll take my stand, And live and die in Dixie's Land.

Away, away, away.

Away down South in Dixie."

The song ceased amid peals of girlish laughter. Stephen was rooted to the spot.

"Jinny! Jinny Carvel, how dare you!" came through the shutters. "We shall have a whole regiment of Hessians in here."

Old Uncle Ben, the Catherwoods' coachman, came out of the stable yard.

The whites of his eyes were rolling, half in amus.e.m.e.nt, half in terror.

Seeing Stephen standing there, he exclaimed:

"Mistah Brice, if de Dutch take Camp Jackson, is we n.i.g.g.e.rs gwinter be free?"

Stephen did not answer, for the piano had started again,

"If ever I consent to be married, And who could refuse a good mate?

The man whom I give my hand to, Must believe in the Rights of the State."

More laughter. Then the blinds were flung aside, and a young lady in a dress of white trimmed with crimson stood in the window, smiling.

Suddenly she perceived Stephen in the road. Her smile faded. For an instant she stared at him, and then turned to the girls crowding behind her. What she said, he did not wait to hear. He was striding down the hill.

CHAPTER XIX. THE TENTH OF MAY

Would the sons of the first families surrender, "Never!" cried a young lady who sat behind the blinds in Mrs. Catherwood's parlor. It seemed to her when she stopped to listen for the first guns of the coming battle that the tumult in her heart would drown their roar.

"But, Jinny," ventured that Miss Puss Russell who never feared to speak her mind, "it would be folly for them to fight. The Dutch and Yankees outnumber them ten to one, and they haven't any powder and bullets."

"And Camp Jackson is down in a hollow," said Maude Catherwood, dejectedly. And yet hopefully, too, for at the thought of bloodshed she was near to fainting.

"Oh," exclaimed Virginia, pa.s.sionately, "I believe you want them to surrender. I should rather see Clarence dead than giving his sword to a Yankee."

At that the other two were silent again, and sat on through an endless afternoon of uncertainty and hope and dread in the darkened room. Now and anon Mr. Catherwood's heavy step was heard as he paced the hall.

From time to time they glanced at Virginia, as if to fathom her thought. She and Puss Russell had come that day to dine with Maude. Mr.

Catherwood's Ben, reeking of the stable, had brought the rumor of the marching on the camp into the dining-room, and close upon the heels of this the rumble of the drums and the pa.s.sing of Sigel's regiment. It was Virginia who had the presence of mind to slam the blinds in the faces of the troops, and the crowd had cheered her. It was Virginia who flew to the piano to play Dixie ere they could get by, to the awe and admiration of the girls and the delight of Mr. Catherwood who applauded her spirit despite the trouble which weighed upon him. Once more the crowd had cheered,--and hesitated. But the Dutch regiment slouched on, impa.s.sive, and the people followed.

Virginia remained at the piano, her mood exalted patriotism, uplifted in spirit by that grand song. At first she had played it with all her might. Then she sang it. She laughed in very scorn of the b.o.o.by soldiers she had seen. A million of these, with all the firearms in the world, could not prevail against the flower of the South. Then she had begun whimsically to sing a verse of a song she had heard the week before, and suddenly her exaltation was fled, and her fingers left the keys. Gaining the window, trembling, half-expectant, she flung open a blind.

The troops, the people, were gone, and there alone in the road stood--Stephen Brice. The others close behind her saw him, too, and Puss cried out in her surprise. The impression, when the room was dark once more, was of sternness and sadness,--and of strength. Effaced was the picture of the plodding recruits with their coa.r.s.e and ill-fitting uniforms of blue.

Virginia shut the blinds. Not a word escaped her, nor could they tell why--they did not dare to question her then. An hour pa.s.sed, perhaps two, before the shrill voice of a boy was heard in the street below.

"Camp Jackson has surrendered!"

They heard the patter of his bare feet on the pavement, and the cry repeated.

"Camp Jackson has surrendered!"

And so the war began for Virginia. Bitter before, now was she on fire.

Close her lips as tightly as she might, the tears forced themselves to her eyes. The ignominy of it!

How hard it is for us of this age to understand that feeling.

"I do not believe it!" she cried. "I cannot believe it!"

The girls gathered around her, pale and frightened and anxious. Suddenly courage returned to her, the courage which made Spartans of Southern women. She ran to the front door. Mr. Catherwood was on the sidewalk, talking to a breathless man. That man was Mr. Barbo, Colonel Carvel's book-keeper.

"Yes," he was saying, "they--they surrendered. There was nothing else for them to do. They were surrounded and overpowered."

Mr. Catherwood uttered an oath. But it did not shock Virginia.

"And not a shot fired?" he said.

"And not a shot fired?" Virginia repeated, mechanically. Both men turned. Mr. Barbo took off his hat.

"No, ma'am."