The Battle Ground Part 53

"Betty, Betty," he said softly. "Listen, for there is no word in the world that means so much as just your name."

"Except yours."

"No interruptions, this is martial law. Dear, dearest, darling, are all empty sounds; but when I say 'Betty,' it is full of life."

"Say it again, then."

"Betty, do you love me?"

"Ask: 'Betty, is the sun s.h.i.+ning?'"

"It always s.h.i.+nes about you."

"Because my hair is red?"

"Red? It is pure gold. Do you remember when I found that out on the hearth in free Levi's cabin? The colour went to my head, but when I put out my hand to touch a curl, you drew away and fastened them up again. Now I have pulled them all down and you dare not move."

"Shall I tell you why I drew away?"

The tears were still on her lashes, but in the exaltation of a great pa.s.sion, life, death, the grave, and things beyond had dwindled like stars before the rising sun.

"You told me then--because I was 'a pampered poodle dog.' Well, I've outgrown that objection certainly. Let us hope you have a fancy for lean hounds."

She put up her hands in protest.

"I drew away partly because I knew you did not love me," she said, meeting his eyes with her clear and ardent gaze, "but more because--I knew that I loved you."

"You loved me then? Oh, Betty, if I had only known!"

"If you had known!" She covered her face. "Oh, it was terrible enough as it was. I wanted to beat myself for shame."

"Shame? In loving me, my darling?"

"In loving you like that."

"Nonsense. If you had only said to me: 'My good sir, I love you a little bit,' I should have come to my senses on the spot. Even pampered poodle dogs are not all fat, Betty, and, as it was, I did come to the years of discretion that very night. I didn't sleep a wink."

"Nor I."

"I walked the floor till daybreak."

"And I sat by the window."

"I hurled every hard name at myself that I could think of. 'Dolt and idiot'

seemed to stick. By George, I can't get over it. To think that I might have galloped down that turnpike and swept you off your feet. You wouldn't have withstood me, Betty, you couldn't."

"Yet I did," she said, smiling sadly.

"Oh, I didn't have a fair chance, you see."

"Perhaps not," she answered, "though sometimes I was afraid you would hear my heart beating and know it all. Do you remember that morning in the garden with the roses?--I wouldn't kiss you good-by, but if you had done it against my will I'd have broken down. After you had gone I kissed the gra.s.s where you had stood."

"My G.o.d! I can't leave you, Betty."

She met his pa.s.sionate gaze with steady eyes.

"If you were not to go I should never have told you," she answered; "but if you die in battle you must remember it at the last."

"It seems an awful waste of opportunities," he said, "but I'll make it up on the day that I come back a Major-general. Then I shall say 'forward, madam,' and you'll marry me on the spot."

"Don't be too sure. I may grow coy again when the war is over."

"When you do I'll find the remedy--for I'll be a Major-general, then, and you a private. This war must make me, dear. I shan't stay in the ranks much longer."

"I like you there--it is so brave," she said.

"But you'll like me anywhere, and I prefer the top--the very top. Oh, my love, we'll wring our happiness from the world before we die!"

With a s.h.i.+ver she came back to the earth.

"I had almost forgotten him," she said in keen self-reproach, and went quickly over the rustling leaves to the cabin door. As Dan followed her the day seemed to grow suddenly darker to his eyes.

On the threshold he met Mrs. Ambler, composed and tearless, wearing her grief as a veil that hid her from the outside world. Before her calm gray eyes he fell back with an emotion not unmixed with awe.

"I did the best I could," he said bluntly, "but it was nothing."

She thanked him quietly, asking a few questions in her grave and gentle voice. Was he conscious to the end? Did he talk of home? Had he expressed any wishes of which she was not aware?

"They are bringing him to the wagon now," she finished steadily. "No, do not go in--you are very weak and your strength must be saved to hold your musket. Shadrach and Big Abel will carry him, I prefer it to be so. We left the wagon at the end of the path; it is a long ride home, but we have arranged to change horses, and we shall reach Uplands, I hope, by sunrise."

"I wish to G.o.d I could go with you!" he exclaimed.

"Your place is with the army," she answered. "I have no son to send, so you must go in his stead. He would have it this way if he could choose."

For a moment she was silent, and he looked at her placid face and the smooth folds of her black silk with a wonder that checked his words.

"Some one said of him once," she added presently, "that he was a man who always took his duty as if it were a pleasure; and it was true--so true. I alone saw how hard this was for him, for he hated war as heartily as he dreaded death. Yet when both came he met them squarely and without looking back."

"He died as he had lived, the truest gentleman I have ever known," he said.

A pleased smile hovered for an instant on her lips.

"He fought hard against secession until it came," she pursued quietly, "for he loved the Union, and he had given it the best years of his life--his strong years, he used to say. I think if he ever felt any bitterness toward any one, it was for the man or men who brought us into this; and at last he used to leave the room because he could not speak of them without anger. He threw all his strength against the tide, yet, when it rushed on in spite of him, he knew where his duty guided him, and he followed it, as always, like a pleasure. You thought him sanguine, I suppose, but he never was so--in his heart, though the rest of us think differently, he always felt that he was fighting for a hopeless cause, and he loved it the more for very pity of its weakness. 'It is the spirit and not the bayonet that makes history,'

he used to say."

Heavy steps crossed the cabin floor, and Uncle Shadrach and Big Abel came out bringing the dead man between them. With her hand on the gray coat, Mrs. Ambler walked steadily as she leaned on Betty's shoulder. Once or twice she noticed rocks in the way, and cautioned the negroes to go carefully down the descending grade. The bright leaves drifted upon them, and through the thin woods, along the falling path, over the lacework of lights and shadows, they went slowly out into the road where Hosea was waiting with the open wagon.

The Governor was laid upon the straw that filled the bottom, Mrs. Ambler sat down beside him, and as Betty followed, Uncle Shadrach climbed upon the seat above the wheel.