The Iron Game - Henry Francis Keenan
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Dick restrained his anger under this insulting blow, perceiving, even in
the hotness of his wrath, that the other was unconscious of the double
ignominy implied in dealing with soldiers' rewards as personal bribes,
and proffering money for common brotherly offices. It was only when Jack
commended his astuteness, afterward, that Dick realized the adroitness
of his own diplomacy.
"Thank you, Mr. Boone. I shouldn't care for promotion that I didn't win
in war; and, as for money, I shall have enough when I need it. But any
man in the Caribees shall have my help. Under the flag every man is
a friend."
"True. Yes; you are quite right. Kate will be very glad to see you."
They walked along, neither disposed to talk after this narrow shave from
a quarrel. Boone led the way to the northern outskirts of the city,
until they reached a dull-brown frame building, back some distance from
the street. A colored woman, with a flaming turban on her head, opened
the door as she saw them coming up the trim walk lined with shells and
gay with poppies, bergamot, asters, and heliotrope.
"This woman is a slave. She belongs to the proprietor of the hotel who
refused to receive Wesley. It was a great concession to let him come
here, they told me. But the poor boy might as well be in a Michigan
logging camp, for all the care he can get. But I'm mighty glad I met
you. I know you can help Kate while I am gone. I hated to leave her, but
I can do nothing here, and unless Wesley is removed he will never leave
this cussed town alive. I sha'n't be gone more than ten days."
Kate had been called by the turbaned mistress, and came into the room
with a little shriek of pleasure.
"O, Richard, what a delightful surprise! Have you seen your aunt? Ah! I
am so glad; she must be so relieved! And Mr. Sprague--have they
found him?"
Dick retailed as much of the story as he thought safe, but he had to say
that the Spragues were all with the Atterburys in the country.
"How providential! Ah, if our poor Wesley could find some such friends!
He is very low. He recognizes no one. Unless papa can get leave to take
him North--I am afraid of the worst. Indeed, I doubt whether he could
stand so long a journey. You must stay the day with us. I am so lonely,
and I dread being more lonely still when papa leaves this evening."
Dick remained until late in the afternoon, sending word to Merry, who
came promptly to the aid of the afflicted. The next day Dick left his
aunt at the cottage with Kate, and warning them that he should be gone
all day, and perhaps not see them until the next morning, he set off for
Rosedale, where he told Jack Kate's plight. Vincent heard the story,
too, and when it was ended he said, decisively:
"Jack, we must send for them. It would never do to have the story told
in Acredale that you had found friends in the South--because you are a
Democrat, and Boone was thrust into negro quarters because he is an
abolitionist."
It was the very thought on Jack's mind, and straightway the carriage was
made ready, with ample pillows and what not. Dick set out in great
state, filled with the importance of his mission and the glory of Jack's
cordial praises. He was to stop on the way through town and carry the
Atterbury's family physician to direct the removal. When he appeared
before Kate, with Mrs. Atterbury's commands that she and her brother
should make Rosedale their home until the invalid could be removed
North, the poor girl broke down in the sudden sense of relief--the
certainty of salvation to the slowly dying brother. The physician spent
many hours redressing the wounds. Gangrene had begun to eat away the
flesh of the head above the temple, and poor Wesley was unrecognizable.
He was quite unconscious of the burning bromine and the clipping of
flesh that the skillful hand of the practitioner carried on. When the
little group started on the long journey, the invalid looked more like
himself than he had since Kate found him. The drive lasted many hours.
Wesley was stretched in an ambulance, Kate sitting on the seat with the
driver, the physician and Dick following in the carriage. Merry went
back to the city house, where her nephew was to return as soon as Wesley
had been delivered at Rosedale. Her charge placed in the hands of the
kind hostess, Mrs. Atterbury, Kate broke down. She had borne up while
her head and heart alone stood between her brother and death; but now,
relieved of the strain, she fell into an alarming fever. A Williamsburg
veteran, who had practiced in that ancient college town, since the early
days of the century, took the Richmond surgeon's place, and the gay
summer house became, for the time, a hospital.
Meanwhile the rebel provost-marshal had simplified Dick's task a good
deal. An order was issued that all houses where wounded or ailing men
were lying should signalize the fact by a yellow flag or ribbon,
attached to the front in a conspicuous place. Thus directed, Dick walked
street after street, asking to see the wounded; and the fourth day,
coming to a residence, rather handsomer than the others on the street,
not two blocks from Mrs. Raines, Jack's Samaritan, he found a wasted
figure, with bandaged head and unmeaning eyes, that he recognized
as Barney.
"We haven't been able to get any clew as to his name or regiment. The
guards at the station said he belonged to the Twelfth Virginia, but none
of the members of that body in the city recognize him. You know him?"
"Yes. He is of my regiment," Dick said, neglecting to mention the
regiment. "I will send word to his friends at once and have
him removed."
"Oh, we are proud and happy to have him here. Our only anxiety was lest
he should die and his family remain in ignorance. But, now that you
identify him, we hope that we may be permitted to keep him until his
recovery."
It was a stately matron who spoke with such a manner, as Dick thought,
must be the mark of nobility in other lands. He learned, with surprise,
that the Atterbury physician was ministering to Barney, though there was
nothing strange in that, since the doctor was the favorite practitioner
of the well-to-do in the city. That night he wrote to Jack, asking
instructions, and the next day received a note, written by Olympia,
advising that Barney be left with his present hosts until he recovered
consciousness; that by that time Vincent would be able to come up to
town and explain matters to the deluded family. The better to carry out
this plan, Dick was bidden to return to Rosedale, and thus, six weeks
after the battle and dispersion, all our Acredale personages, by the
strange chances of war, were assembled within sight of the rebel
capital, and, though in the hands of friends, as absolutely cut off from
their home and duties as if they had been captured in a combat with
the Indians.
CHAPTER XVI.
A MASQUE IN ARCADY.
In the latter days of September, the life at Rosedale was but a faint
reminder of the hospital it had seemed in August. The young men were
able to take part in all the simple gayeties devised by Rosa to make the
time pass agreeably. Wesley was still subject to dizziness if exposed to
the sun, but Jack and Vincent were robust as lumbermen. Mrs. Sprague and
Merry sighed wearily in the seclusion of their chambers for the Northern
homeside, but they banished all signs of discontent before their
warm-hearted hosts. There was as yet no exchange arranged between the
hostile Cabinets of Richmond and Washington. Even Boone's potent
influence among the magnates of his party had not served him to effect
Wesley's release nor enabled him to return to watch over the boy's
fortunes. There was no one at Rosedale sorry for the latter calamity
outside of Wesley and Kate. I believe even she was secretly not
heart-broken, for she knew that her father would be antipathetic to the
outspoken ladies of Rosedale.
There had been an almost total suspension of military movements East and
West. Both sides were straining every resource to bring drilled armies
into the field, when the decisive blow fell. In his drives and walks
about the James and Williamsburg, Jack saw that the country was stripped
of the white male population. The negroes carried on all the domestic
concerns of the land. In these excursions, too, he marked, with a keen
military instinct, the points of defense General Magruder, who commanded
the department, had left untouched. He wondered if the Union arms would
ever get as far down as this. If they did, and he were of the force, he
would like to have a cavalry regiment to lead! Vincent was to rejoin his
command at Manassas in October. Jack looked forward to the event with
the most dismal discontent. To be tied up here, far from his companions;
to seem to enjoy ease, when his regiment was indurating itself by
drills, marches, and the rough life of the soldier for the great work it
was to do, maddened him.
"I give you fair warning, Vint, if an exchange isn't arranged before you
leave here, I shall cut stick: the best way I can."
"Good! How will you manage? It's a long pull between here and our front
at Manassas. How will you work it? Just as soon as you quit the shelter
of Rosedale, you are a suspect. Even the negroes will halt you. If you
should make for Fortress Monroe, you have all of Magruder's army to get
through. You would surely be caught in the act, and then I could do
nothing for you. You would be sent to Castle Winder, and that isn't a
very comfortable billet."
Some hint of Jack's discontent, or rather of his vague dream of flight,
came into Dick's busy head, and when one day they were tramping down by
the James together, he said, owlishly:
"I say, Jack, when Vincent goes, let us clear out!"
"I say yes, with all my heart, but how can it be done? We are more than
forty miles from the nearest Union lines. Whole armies are between us.
Any white man found on the highway is questioned, and if he can't give a
clear account of himself is sent to the provost prison. You remember the
other day, when we left the rest to go through the swamp road near
Williamsburg, we were hailed by a patrol, and if Vincent hadn't been
within reach we would have been sent to the provost prison. Even the
negroes act as guards."
"Don't be too sure of that. I've been talking to some of them. They are
'fraid as sin of the overseers, but you notice they shut up all the
negroes in their own quarters at night, don't you? If they were all
right, why should they do that?"
"Good heavens! you haven't been trying to make an uprising among the
Rosedale servants, Dick? Don't you know that no end of ours could
justify that? These people have been like brothers--like our own family
to us. It would be infamous--infamous without power in the language for
comparison--if we should requite their humanity by stirring up servile
strife. I should be the first to take arms against the slaves in such
revolt, and give my life rather than be instrumental in bringing misery
upon the Atterburys."
"Oh, keep your powder dry, Jack! I never dreamed of stirring 'em up.
What I mean is, that they are all restless and uneasy. They have an idea
that 'Massa Linculm' is coming down with a big army to set them free.
Many of them want to fly to meet this army. Many, too, would almost
rather die than leave their mistress. None of them--but the very bad
ones--could be induced under any circumstances to lift their hands
against the family or its property."
"I should hope not--at least through our instrumentality. The time must
come when they will leave the family, for the one call only and in one
way; that is, by cutting out slavery root and branch. However, that's
for the politicians to manage; all we have to do is to stand by the
colors and fight."
"I don't see much chance of standing by the colors here," Dick retorted,
wrathfully. "If you'll give me the word, I'll arrange a plan, and, as
soon as Vincent goes--we'll be off."
"I'm not your master, you young hornet; I can't see what you're doing
all the time. All I can do is to approve or reject such doings of yours
as you bring me to decide on."
Dick's eyes sparkled. "All right, I'll keep you posted, never fear."
They were a very jovial group that prattled about the long Rosedale
dining-table daily now, since every one was able to come down. The house
was furnished in the easy unpretentiousness that prevailed in the South
in other days. Cool matting covered all the floors, the hallways, and
bedchambers. The dining-room opened into a drawing-room, where Kate and
Olympia took turns at the big piano. The day was divided, English
fashion, into breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper, the latter as
late as nine o'clock in the night. Jack being unprovided with
regimentals, Vincent wore civilian garb, to spare the "prisoner" (as
Jack jocosely called himself) mortification. Gray was the "only wear"
obtainable in Richmond, Mrs. Atterbury enjoying with gentle malice the
rueful perplexities of her prisoner guests, Jack, Wesley, and Richard,
as they surrounded the board in this rebel attire.
"I shall feel as uncertain of myself when I get back to blue, as I do in
chess, after I have played a long while with the black, changing to
white. I manoeuvre for some time for the discarded color," Jack said,
one evening.
"Oh, you'll hardly forget in this case," Rosa said, saucily; "it is for
the blacks you are manoeuvring constantly."
Jack looked up, startled, and glanced swiftly at Dick. Had that
headstrong young marplot been detected in treason with the colored
people? No. Dick met his glance clear-eyed, unconstrained. The shot must
have been a random one.
"I think you do us injustice, Miss Rosa," Wesley said. "I, for one, am
not interested in the blacks. All I want is the Union; after that I
don't care a rush!"
"I protest against politics," Mrs. Atterbury intervened, gently. "When I
was a girl the young people found much more interesting subjects than
politics."
Rosa: "Crops, mamma?"
Vincent: "A mistress's eyebrow?"
Dick: "Some other fellow's sister?"
Olympia: "Some other girl's brother?"
Mrs. Sprague: "Giddy girls?"
Merry: "Bad boys?"
"Well, something about all of these," Mrs. Atterbury resumed, laughing.
"I don't think young people in these times are as attached to each other
as we used to be in our day--do you, Mrs. Sprague?"
"I don't know how it is with you in the South; but we no longer have
young people in the North. Our children bring us up now--we do not
bring them up."
"That accounts for the higher average of intelligence among parents
noted in the last census," Olympia interrupts her mother to say.
"There, do you see?" Mrs. Sprague continues, with a smile, and in a tone
that has none of the asperity the words might imply. "No reverence, no
waiting for the elders, as we were taught."
"It depends a good deal, does it not, whether the elders are lovers?"
Vincent asked, innocently.
"Oh, don't look at me, Mrs. Sprague, for support or sympathy. Vincent is
your handiwork; he was formed in the North. He is one of your new school
of youth; he is Southern only in loyalty to his State. For a time I had
painful apprehensions that that, too, had been educated away."
"It was his reason that kept him faithful there," Rosa ventured, and
catches Vincent dropping his eyes in confusion from the demure glances
of Olympia.
"Oh, no; pride. A Virginian is like a Roman, he is prouder to be a
citizen in the Dominion than a king in another country," Mrs. Atterbury
says, with stately decision. "No matter where his heart may be," and she
glanced casually at Olympia, "his duty is to his State."
"Politics, mamma, politics; remember your young days. Talk of kings,
courts, romance, madrigals--but leave out politics," Rosa cried,
remonstratingly.
"Let's turn to political economy. How do you propose disposing of your
tobacco and cotton this year?" Jack asked, gravely.
"We are under contract to deliver ten thousand bales at Wilmington to
our agent," Vincent replied. "As for tobacco, we expect to sell all we
can raise to the Yankee generals. We have already begun negotiations
with some of your commanders who are too good Yankees to miss the
main chance."
"You're not in earnest?" Jack cried, aghast.
"As earnest as a maid with her first love."
"But who--who--is the miscreant that degrades his cause by such
traffic?"
"Oh, if you wait until you learn from me, you'll never be a dangerous
accuser. I learn in letters from friends in the West that all the cotton
crop has been contracted for by men either in the Northern army or high
in the confidence of the Administration. You see, Jack, we are not the
Arcadian simpletons you think us. This war is to be paid for out of
Northern pockets, any way you look at it. We've got cotton and tobacco,
you must have both; you've got money, we must have that. What we don't
sell to you we'll send to England."
All at the table had listened absorbedly to this strange revelation, and
Jack rose from the table shocked and discouraged.
Olympia seated herself at the piano, and, slipping out, as he supposed,
unseen, Jack strolled off into the fragrant alleys of oleander and
laurel. Dick, however, was at his heels. The two continued on in
silence, Dick trolling along, switching the bugs from the pink blossoms
that filled the air with an enervating odor.
"I say. Jack, I've found out something."
"What have you found out, you young conspirator?"
"Wesley Boone's trying to get the negroes to help him off."
"The devil he is!"
"Yes. Last night I was down in the rose-fields. Young Clem, Aunt
Penelope's boy, was sitting under a bush talking with a crony. I heard
him say, 'De cap'n'll take you, too, ef you doan say noffin'. He guv
Pompey ten gold dollars.'
"'De Lor'! Will he take ev'ybody 'long, too, Clem?'
"'Good Lor', no! He's goin' to get his army, and den he'll come an'
fetch all de niggahs.'
"'De Lor'!'
"Trying to get closer, I made a rustling of the bushes, and the young
imps shot through them like weasles before I could lay hands on them.
Now, what do you think of that?"
"If it is only to escape, all right; but if it is an attempt to stir up
insurrection, I will stop Wesley myself, rather than let him carry
it out!"
"Wouldn't it be the best thing to warn Vincent? It would be a dreadful
thing to let him go and leave his poor mother and sister here
unprotected."
"Let me think it over. I will hit on some plan to keep Wesley from
making an ingrate of himself without bringing danger on our
benefactors."
Kate was dawdling on the lawn as the two returned to the house. Jack
challenged her to a jaunt.
"Where shall it be?" she asked, readily, moving toward him. "The garden
of the gods?"
"The garden of the goddesses, you mean, if it is the rose-field."
"That's true; a god's garden would be filled with thorns and warlike
blossoms."
"I don't know; a rose-garden grew the wars of the houses of York and
Lancaster."
"Do you remember the scene in Shakespeare where Bolingbroke and Gaunt
pluck the roses?"
"Quite well. There is always something pathetic to me in the fables
historians invent to excuse or palliate, or, perhaps it would be juster
to say, make tolerable, the stained pages of the past. It is brought
doubly nearer and distinct by this miserable war, and the strange fate
that has fallen upon us--to be the guests of a family whose hopes are
fixed upon what would make us miserable if it ever happened."
"It never will. That's the reason I listen with pity to the childish
vauntings of these kind people. They have, you see, no conception of the
Northern people--no idea of the deep-seated purpose that moves the
States as one man to stifle this monstrous attempt."
They walked on in silence a few paces, and Kate continued: "I don't know
how you feel, Mr. Sprague, but I am wretched here. I feel like a
traitor, receiving such kindness, treated with such guileless
confidence, and yet my heart is filled with everything they abhor. It is
not so hard for you, because you and Vincent have been close friends. He
has made your house his home, but I certainly feel that Wesley and I
should go elsewhere, now that he is able to be about."
"Does Wesley feel this--this embarrassment?"
"Passionately. He said, last night, he felt like a sneak. He would fly
in an instant, if he could see any possible way to our lines."
"Pray, Miss Boone, tell him to be very circumspect. I know the Southern
nature. When they give you their heart they give entirely. But the least
sign of--of--distrust will turn them into something worse than
indifference. We may see our way out soon. Caution Wesley against any
act--any act"--he emphasized the words--"that may lead these kind people
to think that he doesn't trust them, or that he would take advantage of
servile insurrection to gain his liberty. Of course, they know that we
are all restive here; that we shall be even more impatient when Vincent
goes--but they could not understand any surreptitious movement on our
part, to enable us to get away."
He hoped that, if she were in Wesley's confidence, she would understand
his meaning. But she gave no sign. She assented with an affirmative
movement of the head, and they walked through the fragrant paths,
plucking a rose now and then that seemed more tempting than its fellows.
At the end of the field of roses a Cherokee hedge grew so thick and high
that it formed a screen and rampart between the house land and a dense
grove of pines which was itself bordered by a stream that here and there
spread out into tiny lakelets. On the larger of these there were rude
"dug-outs," made by the darkies to cut off the long walk from their
quarters to the tobacco and corn fields.
"Was there ever an Eden more perfect than this delicious place?" Kate
cried, as the flaming sun sent banners of gold, mingled in a rainbow
baldric with the blooming parterres of roses.
"I don't know much about Eden, and the little I do know doesn't give me
a sympathetic reminiscence of the place; but I agree with you that
Rosedale is about as near a paradise as one can come to on this earth,"
Jack qualifiedly replied.
"And yet we want to fly from it?"
"Ah, yes; because the tree of our life, the volume of our knowledge, or,
in plain prose, our hearts, are not here, and scenic beauty is a poor
substitute for that. Duty, I am convinced, is the key of the best life.
There are hearts here, noble ones--duties here, inspiring ones. But they
do not satisfy us: they are become a torment to me. I feel like a
soldier brought from duty; a priest fallen into the ways of the flesh."
"Your rhapsodies are like most fine-sounding things, more to the hope
than the heart," Kate murmured, gazing dreamily into the purple mass of
color hovering changefully over the opaque water at their feet. "You
mean they do not reach your heart; that your soul is far away as to what
is here. I think Vincent and Rosa would not agree that life has any more
or narrower limitations here than we recognize at Acredale."
"Let us go on the water." He pulled the rude shallop to her feet and
they got in and went on, Jack not heeding her gibe. "These brackish,
threatening deeps remind me of all sorts of weird and uncanny things;
Stygian pools--Lethe--what not mystic and terrifying. See, the tiny
waves that curl before our boat are like thin ink; a thousand roots and
herbs and who knows what mysterious vegetable mixture colors these dark
deeps? I could fancy myself on an uncanny pilgrimage, seeking some
demon delight."
There was but one oar in the boat, which the negroes used as a scull.
Jack made a poor fist with this, but there was no need of rowing. Kate,
catching a projecting limb from the thick bushes on the margin, sent the
little, wabbling craft onward in noisless, spasmodic plunges. Deep
fringes of wild columbine fell in fluffy sprays from the higher banks as
the boat drifted along the other side. The thickets were musical with
the chattering cat-birds and whip-poor-wills, mingled with a score of
woodland melodists that Jack's limited woodcraft did not enable him to
recognize.
"Who would think that we are within a half-mile of a completely
appointed country house? We are as isolated here from all vestiges of
civilization as we should be in a Florida everglade," Kate said, as the
little craft swam along in an eddy.
"It seems to me typical of the people--this curiously wild transition
from blooming, well-kept gardens, to such still and solemn nature. The
place might be called primeval: look at those gnarled roots, like
prodigious serpents; see the shining bark of the larch--I think it is
larch--I should call it 'slippery' elm if it were at Acredale; but see
the fantastic effects of the little lances of sunlight breaking through!
Isn't it the realization of all you ever read in 'Uncle Tom' or 'Dred'?"
Kate glanced into the weird deeps of foliage, where a bird, fluttering
on the wing, aroused strange echoes. "Ugh!" she said, in a half-whisper,
"I can imagine it the meeting-place of 'Tam o' Shanter's' eldritches
seeing this--but, all the same, do you know it is fascinating beyond
words to me? Should you mind going in a little farther--I should like
the sensation of awe the place suggests, since there can be no
danger--while you are here?"