The Iron Game Part 55

Boone's eyes rested a moment on the paragraphs pointed out. Then, throwing the paper aside, he asked, coldly:

"Why should you ask me what it means? If you are interested in the affair, you might find out by writing to the court."

At this, Jones, looking around the room, marked the two doors, one leading to the hall, the other to the drawing-room. He deliberately went to each, and, locking it, slipped the key in his pocket. He glanced rea.s.suringly at Kate, as she sat dumfounded waiting the issue of this singular scene. He confronted Boone, leaning against the mantel.

"It's just as well that we have a witness to this final settlement, Elisha Boone.--Twenty years ago, Miss Boone, I was a citizen of this town. I was the owner of these acres. I am Richard Perley. In those days I was a wild fellow--I thought then, a wicked one; but I have learned since that I was not, for folly is not crime. In those days--I was barely twenty-five--your father had a hard ground to till in his way of life. I became his patron, and from that I became his slave. I never exactly knew how it came about, but within a few years most of my property was mortgaged to Elisha Boone. I won't accuse him, as the world does, of inciting me to drink and gambling. G.o.d knows he has enough to answer for without that! In the end I was driven to a deed that imperiled my liberty, and Elisha Boone put the temptation and the means to do it within my reach. Detection followed, and the detection came about through Elisha Boone. All my property in his hands, my name a scorn, and my person subject to the law, Elisha Boone had no further fear of me, and thenceforth doled me out an income sufficient to supply my modest wants. I strove to turn the new leaf that recommends itself to men who have exhausted the so-called pleasures of life. I was living in honesty and seclusion in Richmond, when Boone, who had never lost sight of me, came with a mission for me to perform. I was engaged as an agent of the detective force of the United States, with the special duty of rescuing Wesley Boone from captivity.

"I was further commissioned to get evidence against John Sprague, fixing upon him the crime of betraying his colors and aiding the Confederacy.

In the attempt to rescue Captain Boone at Bosedale circ.u.mstances pointed to the guilt of young Sprague, but that was all dissipated a few weeks after, when, at the peril of his own life, not once, but a score of times, he rashly liberated a score or two of prisoners, and personally led them through an entire rebel army to the Union lines. I, who would have been abandoned by a less n.o.ble nature, for I was weakened by captivity and bad fare, broke down, but Sprague and--and--young d.i.c.k--my son, clung to me with such devotion as few sons would exhibit under such trials, and brought me safe to the outposts. Here, by some mysterious means, we were all dispersed. When I found my senses I was under Elisha Boone's Samaritan care in the house where you saw me at first. The two boys, Sprague and Perley, spirited away from the hospital at Hampton, where they had been entered under a.s.sumed names, Jacques and Paling, were by some curious instrumentality hidden in the small-pox ward of the rebel prison at Point Lookout. While they lay there, and while some one in Was.h.i.+ngton knew that they were there, a court martial in that city hurriedly convened, found John Sprague guilty of murder, desertion, and treason, and the evening dispatches from Was.h.i.+ngton state that John Sprague is to be shot a week from Friday in a hollow square, in which a company of the Caribees is to do the shooting.

"Miss Boone, you worked faithfully to rescue the life of this young man, but your father has brought that work to ruin. Worse, the death you dreaded when you gave heart and soul to the rescue of the lost was a mercy compared to that in store for him. He is to be shot by a file of his own company, seated upon a rough board coffin, ready to receive his mangled remains. You will--"

But Kate, at this hideous detail, fell with a low, wailing cry to the floor, happily dead to the woful consciousness of the scene and its meaning. Jones ran to the door, and, unlocking it, shouted for the servants. When they came, she was carried to her room and the physician summoned. Almost at the same time Olympia, in her traveling-dress, drove up. She was informed by the servants of Kate's state, and, without stopping to ask permission, ran up to the sick-room. Kate was now conscious, but at sight of Olympia she covered her face, shuddering.

"Ah, Kate! Kate! what is it? Have you learned the dreadful news? I am going to take the train back this evening."

"I, too, will go with you. Stay with me; don't leave me!"

She stopped, put out her hand, as if to make sure of Olympia, then broke into low but convulsive sobs. Her father, with the doctor, entered the room; but at the sight Kate turned her head to the wall, crying, piteously:

"No, no--not here, not here! I can't see him now! Oh, spare me! I--I--"

"Do your duty, doctor," Boone said, in a quick, gasping tone, and with an uncertain step quit the chamber. Olympia explained to the physician that Kate had heard painful news from an unexpected quarter, and that her illness was more nervous than physical.

"I don't know about that," the doctor said, decisively. He felt her pulse, then with a quick start of surprise raised her head and examined the tongue and lining of the palate. A still graver look settled on his face as he tested the breath and action of the heart. When he had apparently satisfied himself he turned to Olympia with a perturbed air, and, beckoning her into the dressing-room, said:

"Miss Sprague, this is no place for you. Miss Boone has every symptom of typhoid fever. She has evidently been exposed to a malarial air. Her complaint may be even worse than typhoid--I can't quite make out certain whitish blotches on her skin. I should suspect small-pox or varioloid, but that there has not been a case reported here for years. Where has she been of late?"

Olympia turned ghastly white with horror.

"O doctor, she has been nursing Jack, who was for weeks in the small-pox ward at Point Lookout!"

"Good G.o.d! Fly, fly the house at once! I wondered if I could be deceived in the symptoms. I must insist on your leaving at once."

"But the poor girl must have some one of her own s.e.x with her. Whom can she get if not a friend?"

"She can get a professional nurse, and that is worth a dozen friends.

Indeed, friends will be only a drawback for the next ten days."

He took her gently by the shoulders and pushed her out of the room. He was an old friend of the family, and she was accustomed to his tyrannical ways. He held her sternly under way until the front door closed and shut her out. Then, turning into the library, he saw that the host was alone. Closing the door, he said:

"Mr. Boone, your daughter has been exposed to a great danger. We may be able to save her, but it will require great patience."

"Danger, doctor! What do you mean?"

"Your daughter has caught the most hideous of all diseases--small-pox!"

Elisha Boone started to his feet. "Great G.o.d! where could she catch small-pox?"

"She caught it nursing young Sprague. I thought you knew of that;" and the doctor regarded the incredulous, terror-stricken face of the father with bewildered fixity. Well he might. The first rod of the moral law had just struck him. The vengeance he had so subtly planned had turned into retributive justice. He had refused Kate's prayer; he had driven her to this mad search and the contagion now periling her life, or, if it were spared, leaving her a hideous specter of herself. This pa.s.sed through his shattered mind as the doctor stood regarding him.

"What do you propose doing?" he finally asked, to get his thoughts from the torturing grip of conscience.

"I propose to install two trained nurses in the house. You are not to let a soul know what your daughter is suffering from. I hope to be able to check the evil in the blood, but I must be secure against any form of meddling. You must avoid your daughter's chamber--indeed, it would be better if you could quit Acredale for a few days. You would be less embarra.s.sed by intrusive neighbors and keep your conscience clear of evasions."

So it was settled that Boone should take up his quarters in Warchester, coming out late every night for news.

Meanwhile, Acredale had read with amazement, first, of the finding of Jack Sprague among the rebels at Point Lookout, then, the extraordinary story of the court-martial and death-sentence. Every one called at the Sprague mansion, but it was in the hands of the servants, Olympia and her guest having returned to Was.h.i.+ngton so soon as the story of her brother's peril reached her. d.i.c.k, too, had flown to his adored Jack, and Acredale, confounded by the swift alternations in the young soldier's fortunes, settled down to wait the outcome with a tender sorrow for the bright young life eclipsed in disgrace so awful, death so ignominious.

We have looked on while most of the people in this history worked through night to light in the moral perplexities besetting them. We have seen warriors in love and danger gallantly extricating themselves and plucking the bloom of safety from the dragon path of danger. We have seen a moral combat in the minds of most of the people who have had to do with our luckless Jack. But all herein set down has been the merest November melancholy compared to the charnel-house of dead hopes and baffled purposes that tortured Elisha Boone. Unlovely as Boone has seemed to us, he had one of the prime conditions of human goodness--he loved. He had loved very fondly his son Wesley. He loved very tenderly his daughter Kate.

With this love came the sanctification that must abide where love is. I don't think he had much of what may be called the second condition of human goodness--reverence. If he had, we should never have seen him push revenge to the verge of crime. Richard Perley, it is true, accuses him of a turpitude that makes a man shudder and abhor; but allowances must be made for the exaggeration of a careless spendthrift--a "good fellow,"

than whom I can conceive of nothing so useless and mischievous in the human economy. For my part, I think I could endure the frank heartlessness of a man like Boone more philosophically than the false good-nature of the creature men call a good fellow.

Obviously, Boone did not take d.i.c.k Perley's estimate of him very seriously. He, too, could have told a tale not without its strong features of a s.h.i.+ftless set, constantly borrowing, constantly squandering, constantly provoking the thrifty to acc.u.mulate unguarded properties. All this, however, had faded from the old man's mind now. He had avenged himself upon the life-long scorners of his name and fame; but the blow that shattered their pride had sent a dart to his own heart. His beautiful Kate, his big-hearted, high-spirited, man-witted girl!--she would bear a leper-taint for life, and his hand had put the virus on her perfect fles.h.!.+

In a few days the black in his hair withered to an ashen white. His flesh fell away. He could neither eat nor sleep. He shambled through the obscure streets of Warchester, or lingered wistfully in the beech woods behind his own palatial home in Acredale, staring at the window of his daughter's chamber. The week pa.s.sed in such mental torture as tries the strong when confronted by the major force of conscience. Then the doctor told him that he had balked the plague; that Kate was recovering from varioloid; that beyond a transparency of skin, which would add to her beauty rather than impair it, there would be no sign of the attack.

Elisha Boone slept in his own home that night, and, for the first time in forty years, he fell upon his knees--upon his knees! Indeed, the doctor found him so at midnight, when he came with a request from his daughter to come to her room. The doctor, with a word of warning against agitating the sufferer, wisely retired from the solemn reconciliation which, without knowing the circ.u.mstances, he knew was to take place between father and child. She was propped up upon pillows whose texture her flesh rivaled in whiteness. She opened her arms as the specter of what had been her father flew to her with a stifled cry.

"O father, we have both been wicked! we have both been punished! Help me to do my part; help me to bear my burden."

It was hope, mercy, and peace the meeting brought. The next day Elisha Boone bade Kate a tender farewell. She did not ask him where he was going. She knew, and the light in her eye shone brighter as he rode in the darkness over the bare fields and through the sleeping towns to the capital, where Jack's fate was hanging in the balance. With Boone's influence to aid them, Jack's friends found a surprising change in the demeanor of the officials, hitherto captious and indifferent. Boone himself laid the case before the President, omitting certain details not essential to the showing of the monstrous injustice done a brave soldier. The President listened attentively, and with the expression, half sad and half droll, with which he softened the asperities of official life, said, humorously:

"I wish by such simple means as courts-martial we could find out more such soldiers as this; we need all of that sort we can get." He touched a bell, and, when a clerk appeared in response, he said, "Ask General McClellan to come in for a moment before he leaves."

What need to go into the details? The court reconvened, and traversed the charges, which were disproved or withdrawn. John Sprague was p.r.o.nounced guiltless on every specification, and, on General McClellan's recommendation, was promoted to a captaincy and a.s.signed to the headquarters staff. I might go on and tell of Jack's daring on the Peninsula and his immeasurable usefulness to McClellan in the Williamsburg contest and the final wondrous change of base from the Chickahominy to the James; how his services were recognized by promotion to a colonelcy on the battle-field of Malvern; and how, when McClellan was wronged by Stanton, and removed from the army, Jack broke his sword and swore that he would never serve again. But, thinking better of it, he applied for a place in Hanc.o.c.k's corps, and was by his side from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg. You have seen from the very first what was going to happen. The marriages all took place, just as you have guessed from the beginning. Young d.i.c.k was too impatient and too skeptical to wait until the end of the war, and, to the amazement of his aunts and the amus.e.m.e.nt of Acredale, he carried Rosa off, one day, and was secretly married in the rector's study at Warchester, so that his first son was born under the Stars and Bars in Richmond, while d.i.c.k was beleaguering the walls at Fort Walthall, four miles away. The other young people waited rationally until a month or two after the peace, and while they were still ent.i.tled to wear the blue, and then they were wedded. It was said that Kate made the most beautiful bride ever seen in Warchester, for it was there they were married.

THE END.