The Broken Sword Part 32

"Very good, very good sir," the juror excitedly repeated, "trustworthy and truthful under all circ.u.mstances sir."

After a moment's reflection the judge said to the old negro, "Stand up old man." The negro reeling from weakness raised his bowed, palsied frame, and repeated after the judge the formula used in recognizances as follows substantially.

"I duz hereby nowledg dat I is debted to de State of Norf Caliny in de sum ob ten millun dollars to be leveled pun my goods und cattle, lans turnements und harry dettyments to be woid on kondishun dat I maks my pussonel pearance fo de jedge of dis kote next Christmas und bide by de jedgement of dis kote."

"Now old negro," said the judge sympathetically, "You can go home."

"Tank yer mars jedge," he exclaimed as he advanced to grasp the judge's hand.

"May the good Lord in heaben allus be rite by your side when yu gibs jedgement." Taking up his old hat he bowed to the gentlemen of the jury with the observation,

"May nun of you white gemman ever git kotched in such a sc.r.a.pe as dis, epseps yu has dis heer jedge to stand twixt yu und de gallus." He turned again to the judge with a smile that played like sheet lightning over his haggard face and inquired humbly.

"Mars Jedge, duz yu specks me to pay dat pa.s.sel of munny to de state nex Krismas too?"

At the conclusion of this narrative our mutual friend Judge Bonham arose to take his leave, remarking as he did so "that his visit should be long remembered, that his distinguished friends were so agreeable;" and grasping the hand of the judge he congratulated him and the country that "a Daniel had come to judgment." When the absent-minded gentleman arrived home, his servant Lije discovered that the judge's head down to his ears was immersed in a light derby hat, and he ventured to ask,

"Mars Jedge, what you agwine to do wid dat dar hat? To be sho you didn't swop your brand new slick beaver off for dat dar camp kittle?"

The judge in his chagrin saw that he had carried away Judge Livingstone's derby hat and had left his beaver in its place. And he said sharply to Lije,

"Go through all of my pockets and see if I have stolen any of the property of Colonel Seymour. I dare not trust myself to visit a neighbor that I am not liable to be sent to the penitentiary." The negro Lije exploiting all suspected places exhibited to the judge a table ring and napkin, that by some inexplicable means had been transferred to his pocket.

"Gracious heavens!" the humiliated man exclaimed, "Larceny both grand and pet.i.t by the eternal! Felony without benefit of clergy! Return those stolen articles at once, you black scamp, where they belong, and present my compliments to Colonel Seymour, and tell him they got into the possession of Judge Bonham without his knowledge and against his consent and bring back my beaver and cane. Stop! stop!" he exclaimed excitedly, "What is this?" drawing from his vest pocket a small miniature of Alice that he had seen upon the parlor mantel. "Great Jerusalem!" he fairly shrieked, "condemned beyond the hope of pardon."

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE DIPPING OF THE RED STARS.

"Will you oblige me at the piano, Miss Seymour?" Judge Livingstone asked, as they were seated in the parlor at Ingleside after the retirement of Judge Bonham.

With a show of embarra.s.sment Alice consented as the judge escorted her to the instrument.

"Shall I play your favorite?" she asked a little coquettishly.

"Ah no; not mine, but yours, I beg, and please accompany the chords with your own sweet voice, will you not?"

Alice, thrumming the piano in a perfunctory way, lifted her eyes to her guest as she replied smilingly,

"I have no favorite, sir, indeed I have not. Shall I play yours?"

"Well, yes; you may if you will not laugh at my old-fas.h.i.+oned fancy. I do not mind telling you that one of my favorites is, 'Then You'll Remember Me.' I suspect that there are selections from Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin that are inexpressibly grand, but for soulful melody there is nothing like the sweet, dear old song."

Alice threw her spirit into the old song, and with eyes glistening through her tears, remarked sadly, "This old melody is very dear to me, very, very dear."

"I should imagine so," replied the judge, "and I know if it could syllable its love it would tell you of its pa.s.sion for you. I think it has taken possession of your whole heart, Miss Seymour," continued the high official with animation.

To this tentative kind of inquiry Alice did not reply, but looked blus.h.i.+ngly into the judge's earnest face and sweetly laughed, like the artless girl she was.

The golden hours were fast slipping away, and the little goldsmith was hammering, too, at the tiny arrows.

"I fear I have afflicted you very cruelly, my sweet friend," the judge observed after a pause, as he noted that the hour hand of the ivory time piece upon the mantel had run its circuit eight times in succession. "I doubt not that I have wearied you by the unreasonable length of my visit; but like a bound captive, I have been held in thrall with silken chains for forty-eight hours."

"And have you really enjoyed the time?" she asked, quite artlessly.

"Why, my dear Alice," he now ventured to address her, "I am in love--enmeshed in the delightful toils of the most beautiful woman in the wide, wide world. Will you permit me to declare my pa.s.sion--my love--for my queen, my beauty? To tell you that I have been captivated by the only girl that can under all circ.u.mstances make me happy? And can you, my sweet Alice, reciprocate the feeling?"

There was no response from the girl, but her soul was thrilled by an experience new and exciting, and she buried her face in her hands for the moment.

Perhaps there is very little to interest a third party in the initial chapters of a love story; there are to be sure the old fancies that are animated, then its incidents become melodramatic, and then we laugh, and then possibly forget. As Alice raised her eyes to the portrait just above the piano, her face radiant as it were with an indescribable beauty, the enamored judge looked into the l.u.s.trous blue eyes and felt that he read within their azure depths, the pa.s.sion of a beautiful woman's love; and with much confusion he observed,

"Perhaps Alice, I have originated a surprise for you; please do not be alarmed if my feelings have overmastered my discretion."

The embarra.s.sed girl essayed quite tactfully to withdraw the attention of her suitor from the subject he was nervously pressing, and pointing to the portrait of a gentleman wearing the stars of a colonel in the Confederate army, she asked him if he recognized her father in the painting.

"Do you know," she remarked without awaiting an answer "that I feel inexpressibly sad when I think of our poor boys who wore the gray in the b.l.o.o.d.y battles of the South?" and a tiny tear quivered in her soft eye.

"I doubt not," replied the judge in sympathy with her feelings, that the retrospection is extremely painful. "I am sure that I have reason to deplore a catastrophe, that over laid our beloved country as with a shroud."

"You were not a soldier in the Union army?" she suggested interrogatively.

"And could you respect me if I were?" he asked.

"Oh yes," Alice replied without hesitation, "you have been so true to the South in the character of judge I can and do honor you, and I am quite sure if you were a Yankee soldier you believed you were performing your duty."

"My sweet Alice," he exclaimed. "Don't let us have Yankee soldiers in this beautiful Southern home; you don't know how opprobriously the term Yankee sounds to me. I was a Union soldier and fought under the Stars and Stripes, through the b.l.o.o.d.y battle of Mana.s.sas, and can my rebel sweetheart forgive me?" he asked, as he timidly took her soft hand in his own.

"a.s.suredly sir," she replied "if you will give me your word upon honor, that you never shot our poor boys in the battle; now did you?" she feelingly asked as she looked into his face, aglow with the holy pa.s.sion of love.

"No," he replied emphatically, "but if I had carried a musket instead of a sword I would have done my duty."

"Do you know sweet Alice that whilst there were frowning clouds upon the horizon, there were rainbows with bright hues that bridged them over; that whilst there were incidents excitingly tragical, there were experiences that provoked laughter in camps and prisons? Let me give you a single ill.u.s.tration that occurs to me just this moment, if you will pardon me, and let me say that I am convinced that it was patriotism that kept the Confederate soldiers in the army, where they preferred the thick of the battle, and sought death itself as the highest reward of the brave. It would ill.u.s.trate our pride as a nation to put the gallant soldiers of the South in an att.i.tude of glory equal to our own.

"I was a.s.sistant provost marshal at the military prison at Point Lookout in the years 1863 and 1864, and I recall an amusing character who was brought into the prison with a large number of other prisoners who had been captured at Chancellorsville. I think his name was Patrick Sullivan, a red-haired freckled faced Irishman, clad in b.u.t.ternut homespun; and every available square inch of coat, vest, pants and hat was decorated by military b.u.t.tons of all kinds and sizes. I asked the prisoner why this superfluity of decorations? and he answered with a drawl as he squinted his left eye;

"Wall mister, I reckin ye haint hearn tell how thrivin the cussed Yankees used to be down South twell we un's got to thinnin em out sorter; they come down thar pine blank in gangs, like skeeters in the Savanny mashes, twell weun's run afoul of em like a pa.s.sel of turkeys chasing hopper gra.s.ses in the clover patches; and bless your soul honey the captain lowed that every dead Yankee would fetch a gold dollar at pay day, arter we had licked old Linc.u.m; and I've got just nineteen hundred and seventy-six ginerals and kurnels and captains and privates in the rear rank to my credic at settlin day. That thar b.u.t.ton up thar in the tip end of my hat was a Major, that was skeddadlin to the rare arter weun's was plumb licked at Bull Run; and that thar b.u.t.ton on the tother end of the hat was the fust giniral I kilt at Seben Pines; and bless your soul honey, killing ginerals and majors after that won't no more than shooting bull-bats down in Georgy; and as to captains and leftenants, I just flung them in with the foot cavalry sorter pomiscuous."

"Sad to say," the judge continued, "the poor fellow died in prison. We buried him with all his generals and foot cavalry where the Potomac sings its threnody by night and by day."

The narrative with the amusing grimaces of the judge interested Alice, and she laughed until tears came into her eyes. She became serious again however, and asked her guest if he really partic.i.p.ated in the battle of Mana.s.sas.

"Yes indeed," he rejoined, "and my experience in that battle was inexpressibly sad. I cannot think of Mana.s.sas," he resumed, "that I do not recall an incident full of pathos and glory. Without the mechanism of a regular army; with a currency as erratic as the proclamation money of the colonists, without experience or discipline, they had the courage of Spartans; and the proud eminence they a.s.sumed in every engagement made them heroes in the forlorn struggle. There is not a single instance upon record where the swords or guns of the Southern armies were tarnished by ign.o.ble flight or inglorious surrender; and whenever their flag was struck, it was because the elements of resistance were exhausted. Sad indeed that the drama should have begun and closed with such heart-rending tragedies. Could I so order and direct the policy of the government, I would make the glory of our American arms as imperishable as the Republicanism of our government. I would make Gettysburg and Chancellorsville to gleam through the haze of centuries like Marathon and Plataea and upon each return of the glorious anniversaries, I would find a Pericles to proclaim from our American Acropolis the fadeless glory of the men who wore the gray as well as the men who wore the blue."

The impa.s.sioned eloquence of the distinguished guest enthused Alice with a strange experience, and in her discriminating judgment she discovered a lover whose exalted spirit of patriotism, whose fervid oratory, challenged her admiration. She could only bow her thanks to her honored friend whose role upon the tragic stage must have been highly dramatic.