Donald McElroy, Scotch Irishman Part 26

"And no parole asked? The terms granted you were less generous."

"Buford did not make the terms; but if he had, I should still wish to surpa.s.s my enemies in generosity, as well as in bravery."

"Then you will decline Greene's offer of a place on his staff? I asked it for you, thinking this excursion to Virginia in charge of prisoners less to your liking."

"It was most kind of you, General, but for this find of Buford it would have been my choice--could the place be held for me?"

"It can be, doubtless, especially if you can bring back some recruits.

Greene will need reinforcements, and must look to Virginia for them. But for these swollen and painful limbs of mine,"--with a grimace toward those much swathed members--"I should be the last to desert him. It's a bitter pill, lad, to be obliged to go home--to be chained by disease to my chair, like a galley slave to his bench, when my spirit is with the front ranks, against our country's enemies."

"It is a sore grief to me, also, General, and particularly that your malady should attack you now, when your newest laurels are still green, and there are more awaiting you. Your retirement takes half the heart out of me for the service, as it does for every rifleman in the regiment."

"That spirit must not be encouraged, lad. As much as it pleases me to be regretted by my gallant boys, it would sincerely grieve me were my going to affect in any way their zeal or bravery. I shall expect them to do no less than they have always done, indeed they must fight the more determinedly because their commander has gone stiff and lame and must be content to stand like a used up horse in the stall, munching memories for diversion."

"You'll get better after a rest, General, and be at it again before the war's over. Not even disease can conquer your spirit."

"Right, lad! If the war lasts long enough for my good Abigail to tea and poultice the swelling from my joints, I'll be at 'em again."

That evening I had Buford removed to my tent, where, presently, I visited him.

"I am sorry for the occasion, Captain Buford," I said, extending my hand to him, "but since it was written that this misfortune of war should befall you, I am grateful that the opportunity has come to me to repay in some degree the courtesy and kindness I received at your hands, when my situation was similar to your present one."

"It is indeed Donald McElroy!" Buford exclaimed, in pleased tones. "I am lucky in spite of this painful accompaniment to my good fortune,"

pointing to his bandaged thigh.

"You are now my prisoner," I said, "and your wound shall have the best attention possible."

"You are then in command of the militia which is to convey us to Virginia? Is it proper to tell me our final destination?"

"Yours, with your consent, Captain Buford, is my own home. My mother is the best of nurses. I promise you comfort and kind care, at any rate, if you will agree to the arrangements just made between Colonel Morgan and me."

"One would think me an urged guest, rather than a poor sick prisoner,"

answered Buford, a smile upon his face. He was much like Nelly, though his was strictly a masculine, as hers was purely a feminine, type of comeliness. "There is small likelihood that I shall decline so generous an offer--a comfortable home and woman's nursing are all too tempting for my present weakness."

"As was your offer to me in Philadelphia. It is seldom, I imagine, that a man is granted so high a boon as the opportunity to evince in fitting deeds his grat.i.tude. Your mother and sister are well, I hope, and in safety?"

"My mother is dead, Captain McElroy, and I fear her constant anxiety for me hastened her end. Nelly, poor girl, is left lonely and desolate. She has taken refuge for the present with Quaker friends near the city."

I expressed my regret and sympathy, and left him to make arrangements for the march next day. His news oppressed my spirit more than one would have supposed; it was hard to think of light-hearted Nelly as a sad refugee. Oh, this weary, cruel war! When would it end?

CHAPTER XXVI

Buford's strength had been so burnt out with fever, and so wasted from the suppuration of his wound, that he was but the pale, limp outline of a man when I laid him gently on one of my mother's snowy beds. Had he been more than Tory, more than British officer, my dear mother would have received him kindly in his present state, and laid aside all other duties to care for him. It was good to see her hovering over him with gentle touch and to hear her say: "They were good to you, son, when you were in like condition. I am proud you brought him to me; he shall have every care, every comfort."

"Oh, brother, were you as ill as this, when he took you from the Philadelphia prison?" said Jean, tender commiseration on her face.

"Weaker, I think, only I had pa.s.sed the stage of delirium into which he slipped only a few days ago. But look at me now! See how robust I am!"

and I lifted her by the elbows to the level of my face, kissed her and set her upon her feet again, adding: "Buford will soon be as sound, with yours and mother's nursing."

"His mother and sister nursed you?"

"They had me well-cared for. I was over the worst when they found me."

"We'll nurse him carefully, dear Donald, you may be satisfied of that.

Is he, though, really a Tory? He looks like a gentleman," glancing toward him as she spoke, as if she half suspected Buford of possessing hidden tusks and horns like some fabled monster.

"And gentleman he is, only his opinions do not agree with ours"; whereupon I laughed so merrily at Jean's shocked face that mother signed to us to leave the room, lest we disturb her patient. "Aye, little sister," I continued, "prejudice is a most strange thing! 'Tis like a pestilence in the air, poisoning even the most innocent and pure-hearted. Heaven, Jean, I doubt not, is a place where thought is as free as G.o.d's smile, and conviction untrammeled, save by love and knowledge of truth. Such state would almost be heaven, methinks, without other concomitants."

Jean, though the sweetest of little women, and well endowed with common sense, and all needful womanly reason, cared not, like Ellen, to follow the twistings and wanderings of thought, so she took me straight back to our subject.

"And if Captain Buford gets well, Donald, will they hang him because he is a Tory?"

"Do you suppose, innocent one, that we but fatten him for the halter?

Either he'll be exchanged, paroled, or discharged."

"Then he'll go back to fight more against us? Oh! Donald, I'm afraid I shall hate the poor man when he begins to get stronger, though he looks now so pitiable."

"It would be very hard to hate Buford, Jean. You'll forget he's in a sense our enemy. But, don't bother your little head about all this yet; perhaps Generals Greene and Was.h.i.+ngton may make peace with the British by the time Buford is strong enough to shoulder arms again. A few more victories like King's Mountain and Cowpens and it's done."

"What would then become of Captain Buford?" persisted Jean.

"He would be released, and could go back to Philadelphia, or to England, as he pleased. Perhaps his estate would be confiscated, and he might suffer other persecutions. There is much bitterness everywhere against the Tories," I responded.

"Poor gentleman!" she sighed; "perhaps we ought not to want him to get well."

"Nonsense, little Jean! Of course we want him to get well, and if he could be consulted he himself would choose to get well, you may be sure.

A man worth the name wants to see the end of the play--to finish the game--to keep up life's battle while muscle and wind are left him to fight with. Do all you can to cure him, Jean, and leave his future in his own hands."

"And G.o.d's," she added reverently.

All this conversation I repeated to Ellen, during the few brief hours I had to spend with her. Then we went back to the subject of prejudice, and I talked out the convictions which Jean had not encouraged me to express. Ellen was broad-minded, open-souled--one of G.o.d's chosen transmitters from generation to generation of ever-widening truth. This talk between us upon the subject of prejudice, as to which we were already agreed, led on to a less general discussion, and gave me opportunity to drive, I hoped, another wedge between superst.i.tion and consecration. Presently I made the enquiry I almost dreaded to have her answer:

"Tell me of your daily life with Aunt Martha, Ellen; is each day still a trial to you, exercising all your fort.i.tude and patience?" Her answer gave me my first heart's ease for weeks.

"No, Donald, I wonder, indeed, if it was ever so bad as I thought, or if my stubborn will and set defiance magnified the hards.h.i.+ps I underwent, as a child, under Aunt Martha's discipline. However that may have been, I find her, now, disposed to give me full liberty, and to exact few duties. Indeed, it is of my own will that I relieve her of such duties as she will trust me to perform; and since her health fails more and more, she is obliged to let others do many things she once took upon herself."

"And she never asks you to go to church?"

"No, but twice I have offered to go. Father Gibault granted me absolution beforehand--as Elisha did Naaman--should I think it best to attend the Protestant meetings which my relatives frequented. And I have found the quiet church a better place to repeat my litany and aves than even my own room; the preacher's voice I can imagine to be the priest's intoning, and if I shut my eyes, I can see the candles, and smell the incense."

I smiled at this nave confession. "But you make no signs, I hope," I said in pretended seriousness, which for a moment deceived her.