The Broken Sword Part 33

"I was a lieutenant in the twenty-sixth Pennsylvania cavalry," he continued, "and at the head of a squadron rode a das.h.i.+ng young Confederate officer who, at the time I saw him, was in the act of cleaving the head of one of our captains with his sabre, when a shot from one of our men arrested the sabre in mid air, and he fell mortally wounded from the saddle. I instantly dismounted and raised the young officer in my arms who could only say, "Take the ring on my finger to my darling Al----" and died. I have worn the ring ever since, vainly prosecuting the search for the true claimant. I presume that the owner will never be found. You will observe from its facets and artistic workmans.h.i.+p that the diamond must be very costly; and if you will take it into your hand you will read within the circlet your name and mine, "Alice to Arthur"." The girl taking the ring into her hands uttered a scream that pierced the judge's soul, and she fell heavily upon the floor in a swoon.

"Merciful Father in Heaven," exclaimed the affrighted man in a paroxysm of agony. "What have I done! what have I done!" Clasping the unconscious girl to his bosom, he cried loudly for help, and Clarissa ran in great agitation into the room shrieking out in a delirium of fear.

"Mars jedge has yu dun und sa.s.sinated my yung missis in cold blood in dis heer great house? If yu has yu'l s...o...b.. swung on de gallus. Oh my lands sakes alive! Jerrusulum my king!" and the old negro ran frantically about the parlor, hither and thither, over turning tables and chairs and throwing info the face of her young mistress great cl.u.s.ters of flowers and water and rugs which had the happy effect of resuscitating the poor girl; and on regaining her senses she looked dazedly up and saw Clarissa coming with a teapot of boiling water, with which the old negro in her transport was about to parboil her young mistress. She motioned Clarissa away, and as soon as she could control her voice she said to the judge;

"Oh, how I must have alarmed you sir!"

"Ugh! My King!" interrupted Clarissa in her grave earnestness "Yu knows yu skeert us jamby to def; yu fokses aint fittin to stay in dis heer parlor by yoselves, ef dem is de s.h.i.+nes yu is agwine to cut up; a little mo und yu mout been dead as a mackrel und den dat dar jedge mout be hung on de gallus;" and with this unparliamentary speech the old negro, decidedly out of temper with the situation of persons and things, strode out of the room muttering to herself as she closed the door, "I aint satisfied in my mind pine plank whedder Miss Alice had a sho nuff fit, or whedder she drapped down dat dar way jest to be kotched up by the jedge fo she hit de flo. Dese heer white gals is monstrous sateful dat day is."

"You don't understand our maid," Alice observed to her guest apologetically as Clarissa walked out of the room. "We have to make allowances for her." The judge could not speak for a while, for Clarissa's oddities had thrown him into a fit of laughter. After recovering himself he said argumentatively. "I think I can see that the civilization of the South will have lost much of its fragrance when the old negroes are dead. The history of your country has been refreshed by the charm they have brought to it; and I doubt not that despite their strong individuality, their crudities, they will be sadly missed one of these days."

"Now that I have survived those ridiculous sensations that quite overpowered me," Alice blus.h.i.+ngly remarked "will you accompany me for a moment?" And the judge quietly a.s.senting gave Alice his arm not knowing whither she was leading him. She paused before an exquisite painting partially veiled by drapery, and bade him look upon it. The judge obeying her command, saw upon the wall the faithful portraiture of the handsome young officer who was slain under his own eye at Mana.s.sas; and from whose hand he had taken the ring that had thrown Alice into the swoon.

"Ah!" he exclaimed emotionally "It is he, it is he, your lover, Alice, your brave soldier boy who died for his darling, ever so far away."

"You will pardon my tears will you not?" she asked entreatingly, "if I tell you that he was so true, so good, so brave, that I loved him so dearly?"

"Yes, I can freely pardon, since you confide your grief, your love to me. Take the ring Alice," he pleaded so eloquently, "Take it from Arthur Livingstone, who loves you with his whole heart; who has come to Ingleside, to your own sweet bower, to your own dear self, to proffer his life, his honor; to relight the candle upon the same altar, upon which your brave soldier boy first lighted it, when he proffered to you his life, his homage, his all. He who returns the ring to you that you gave Arthur Macrae, would take his place in your heart and guard its portal with his life, until the very stars shall pale their fires in the heavens above. G.o.d in Heaven will ratify the compact, and 'neither powers, nor princ.i.p.alities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor life, nor death shall separate us from one another.'"

A smile of unutterable joy was the only answer she gave him.

"Now my darling," the judge pleaded pa.s.sionately, "in the presence of the angels and of your own Arthur, let us plight our holy troth to one another."

The girl sweetly looking into the radiant face lovingly answered, "And Arthur has promised to give me away at the altar, and to put the ring that I gave him with my love; this ring upon my finger."

"Thank G.o.d," he exclaimed, in an ecstacy of feeling, "the cup of my joy overflows," and pressing her soft hand to his lips he kissed it over and over again, and looking only as a lover can look into her upturned face, beaming with happiness, he said, "After all to what can I compare the love of a true, beautiful woman?"

"May I guess?" she asked still laughing.

"Yes, oh yes," he rejoined.

"To the love of a true, manly man."

The scattered sun rays were coalescing and forming a nimbus of beauty around every facade and chamber, except one in Ingleside. Upon this threshold, shadows were by turns advancing and receding. The undiplomatic amba.s.sador with his commission of power to slay, without being outlawed by any judicial tribunal, was inditing his judgment. It ran in the name of Commonwealths and States Universal. This Plenipotentiary had been into this mansion before, but he came without terrors, without equipages, without liveried slaves. He came softly and sweetly. There were no harsh commands that he uttered, no rattling of wheels over cobble stones, no exhibition of a despotic will.

"My daughter," he whispered "you are wearied, come with me I will give you rest." Will he come with this fascination again?

Here lies an old man broken like a wheel by the force of cataracts and torrents, that have been increasing their momentum for all these years, as they have heaved and billowed over his poor soul.

Pending the treaty of love in the parlor, old Ned and Clarissa were holding a whispered conversation in the kitchen.

"Ned," Clarissa asked in alarm, "did dat dar jedge ax yu ary question about Miss Alice when he c.u.m in de do?"

"No, not pintedly," Ned answered.

Clarissa hung her head for a moment, and with her old checked ap.r.o.n to her liquid eyes, she continued sobbingly, "Dar is gwine to c.u.m a breaking up in dis heer fambly Ned, sho as yu born. I seed it de fust time dat furrinner sot his foot in dis heer grate house. Miss Alice aint neber had her hart toched befo, but when he c.u.m, her eyes looked bright lak de stars, und a smile smole all over her beautiful face, und she has been singing love himes ever since, and dat dar jedge when he gets whay Miss Alice is, is jes as happy as a mole in a tater hill."

It was Ned's turn now to dash away a tear from his leaky eyes, and with arms bent over his bowed bosom, and with drooping head and a seesaw motion he said, "Clarsy, I been a studdin erbout dis heer situashun, und ef dat dar furriner tices yung missis from dis heer plantashun, in de name ob Gord what is agwine to come ob ole ma.r.s.er?"

"Yu better ax wot is agwine ter c.u.m ob me und yu. Ole ma.r.s.er is agwine away fust, yu heer my racket. I dun heerd deth er calling him. Ole ma.r.s.er walks rite cranked-sided now, wid dat wheezin in his chiss, und twixt dese franksized n.i.g.g.e.rs, und dis outlandish konstrucshun, und ole missis dun und gon, ole ma.r.s.er is er pinin lak a dedded gum in de low ground."

"Eggzackly so, eggzackly so," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ned, "Wot is agwine ter c.u.m of me und yu."

"Dares where yu interests me Ned; what is agwine ter c.u.m of me und yu sho nuff? Deres ole Joshaway nigh erbout one hundred years ole, ded und gon now, jes lived on de rode trapezing baccards und furrards to de ole kommissary, wid his happysack und jimmyjon as emty as my tub dere wid nary botom, twell ole mars fotched him back home; und pend pon it, Ned, ef Miss Alice don't make some perwishun fur me und yu, we's agwine to suck sorrow as sho as yer born."

"Dat's de gospil troof," replied Ned.

"Uncle Ned," came the voice of Alice from the parlor, "Will you please bring Judge Livingstone's hat to him?"

"Sartainly, yung missis," quickly the negro replied, and he ran as fast as his stiff joints would permit, and bowing very humbly, placed the hat in the judge's hand.

"And will you not give me a kiss now in the presence of your old servant?" asked the judge. And the beautiful girl, half yielding, allowed her lover to print one or more upon her rosy lips.

"Adieu my love, until I come again in October to claim my own."

Alice returned to the parlor and threw her soul into the old, old song, the judge's favorite, "Then you'll remember me."

Ned shuffled back to Clarissa with his old bandana to his eyes with the observation "Taint wuff while to pester yosef er sobbing und er sighing no mo Clarsy, I dun und seed de margige sealed und livered. I heerd the nupshall wows sploding same as er pa.s.sel of poppercrackers."

"Oh my heavens," screamed Clarissa, as she jerked her old ap.r.o.n to her eyes.

The three blood red stars were now blotted out of the reconstruction calendar; like the painted dolphins in the circus at Antioch, they had been taken down one by one. The old Colonel had been running flank and flank with the athletes of reconstruction, but within the last stadium he had lost, and the old man, like the fire scathed oak, was yielding his life after all; dying like a gladiator with his wounds upon his breast; dying, yet holding fast to the traditions of his fathers, with no blemish upon their name or his; with no bar sinister upon the family s.h.i.+eld; with no stain upon his sword. Dying a Seymour, a soldier, a southron of the bluest blood; dying with the prophecy upon his lips, "The old South, by the help of G.o.d, shall be crowned with all the blessings of civilization, with the last and highest attainments in the manhood and womanhood of her people," Dying with another prophecy upon his lips, scarcely audible, "My daughter, you will live to see the old South, now reeling and tottering like a bewildered traveller, come to her own again; like a magnanimous queen, reigning in love and tranquility; her soil yielding its harvest in bounty, and her people blessed in basket and store."

CHAPTER XXV.

THE PARTING OF THE WAYS.

Afflictive dispensations had so often heaped up against the horizon of Alice's affections, frowning, angry clouds; the memory of bier and pall had so cruelly overlaid her young life with its gloom that but for the solace of religion, there would be no refuge from the bitterness of her grief; from the shadows of the grave. But in her mother's chamber, with her mother's precious Bible in her hands, she felt that there was a fountain opened up before her, yes in the very house of David. "Blessed Book! What is life without thee?" she exclaimed. "Is it not a faithful transcript of the last will of our Redeemer? Is it not the key that unlocks the door of Heaven? Yea the guide that elaborates its beauties?

'Eye hath not seen; ear hath not heard; neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive of those things which He hath prepared for them that love Him.'" She felt that in the world's tragedy of sin it was indeed a savor of life unto life; that it erects in the human soul, where there is sin, sorrow and despair, a sanitarium; rendering good for evil, giving back pardon for injury; preferring pity to vengeance; kneeling always upon the heights of virtue to uplift the broken-hearted.

Whether its blessed truths be spoken in prophecy or narrative; whether whispered from the sepulchre or the crypt; whether thundered from Sinai or Mars Hill; they tenderly lead poor, fallen human nature into the portals of immortality, into the very gate of Heaven. "Has not religion," she asked, "given to humanity an uplifted brow? Has it not admonished man to put away from him every mercenary calculation and to realize that the scourges of sin are rotting whip cords? Ah yes, wherever there is a tear, there is love, wherever anguish there is consolation, whenever the night is dark and starless and there are deep shadows, an angel stands with bowed head and welcoming arms. What a balm for the scarified, bleeding heart! A precious pearl of great price in a casket of exceeding beauty; a sword of ethereal temper that divides unto the sundering of bone and marrow; but there are diamonds upon the hilt and golden tracery upon the scabbard. Ah, the resurrection, who gives this promise, this faith, this hope? In all the dead aeons of dead centuries, science, nature, man, have asked in vain 'If a man die shall he live again?'--But just as in scaling a beautiful mountain, it needs no chemistry to a.n.a.lyze the air, to tell us that it is free from miasma, as every breath which paints a ruddier glow upon the cheek and sends a tonic tide through the body, will tell of its invigorating touch; so it needs no a.n.a.lysis, no reasoning, to persuade a spiritual mind that the air of Heaven, the breath of G.o.d is in this book; and just as on Tabor's brow, when from Christ His own glory pierced its callous, unfeeling sides, it needed no refracting prism to tell us that it was the sunburst of more than earthly radiance the pilgrims were gazing upon. So when a Bible chapter is transfigured, when the Holy Spirit trans.m.u.tes into it his grace and glory, it will require neither a Paley or Shenstone to prove that the power and wisdom of G.o.d are there; but radiant with emitted splendor, in G.o.d's own light we will see it to be G.o.d's own Book, and know it to be His blessed revelation. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth and that in my flesh I shall see G.o.d.' The light of faith in the afflicted man of G.o.d was burning feebly, but he begins to feel now the strength, the virtue, which lies in innocency, as if G.o.d were beginning to reveal Himself within him. He heeds no longer the hyper-Calvinist when he tells him, 'Thou has taken a pledge from thy brother for naught, and stripped the naked of their clothing; thou has not given water to the weary, and thou hast withholden bread from the hungry.' He raises his finger as if he would command attention and exclaims, not in irony, but in tranquil self-possession, 'G.o.d forbid that I should justify you; till I die, I will not remove my integrity from me. My righteousness I will not let go. My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.'

"Pictorial scriptures, truly, comprehending all manners, all conditions, all countries. Egypt with the Nile and the Pyramids, the nomad Arabs, the bewildered caravans, the heat of the tropics, the ice of the north, are there; all save the frozen heart of Jewish traditions and ceremonials. How divinely transfigured every page of the precious Book, wherein is life eternal!"

In the great voiceless halls and chambers there was no sound but her poor, tumultuous heart beating wildly against a bosom sore with weeping.

Alas, for ties that are so fragile, for pleasures that are so transitory! Old Clarissa would steal tip-toe to her chamber, but she dared not enter, and would return as softly to the kitchen.

"Po Miss Alice, she do suffer mazin. Pears lak ebery now und den when her eyes gits bright und her face is sunny und sweet, und her lafter is lak de ripplin ob de little brook in de medder, dat de good Lord draps anudder drug in de cup und maks her drink ebery drap. Dere aint a gwine to be no mo sorrer for Miss Alice now; yung Mars Harry is gon, und missis is gon, und ole ma.r.s.er is gon, und bimeby her eyes is agwine to git bright agin, und her purty solemcholly face is er gwine to be full of smiles, und de little birds is ergwine to hang dere heads und drap to sleep when she sings dem lubly ole fas.h.i.+ned himes agin."

The poor girl finally fell asleep. It was the only anodyne that nature had in her laboratory for a broken heart; and she slept as tranquilly as a little child. She awoke refreshed by dreams, peopled by friends of her early childhood, many of whom were living and happy. She went into the kitchen, to give directions to Clarissa, whom she found at her accustomed labor. Crushed and spiritless as she was, there was comfort for her in the broken, incoherent utterances of the old negro.

"Don't cry no mo," said Clarissa quite sympathetically. "I used to heer ole missis say when she was ailin monstrous bad, dat ebery cloud had a silver linin, und I beliebs it pine plank. I beliebs dat when de good Lord sends trouble on dis here lan He's ergwine ter sen grace too. Dat's my belief, yung misses, und I'm ergwine to lib by it und I'm ergwine to die by it. When I looked down into ole ma.r.s.er's grave and seed all dem lilies ob de walley kivered up in de dirt, I node de good Lord was not ergwine to mommuck up ole ma.r.s.er's soul fur nuthin. I node dere wuz ergwine to be a transplantin in His hebenly garden of all de beautifullest flowers dat withers and parishes here in dese low grouns oh sorror, und I sez to mysef, dat I specks ole missis is er runnin ter meet ole ma.r.s.er dis bery minit, wid boff hans chock full ob white roses und jonquils und lilies ob de walley. Duz yer kno what I beliebs, Miss Alice?" she continued, as she wiped her eyes in her old checked ap.r.o.n.

"When I sees a little white flower er droopin und er dying in ole missis' garden, I nose dat she hez c.u.m down fru de purly gates to pull it und tak it back in her busum to yung Mars Harry; und when I sees a little teensy baby a droopin und er dyin jest lak dat little flower, I nose de good Lawd is er takin it home in His busum too. Wun ob dese days yu und me is agwine ter see fur oursefs. Bress de Lawd!"

The days were pa.s.sing now so languidly, and wretchedness was still brooding in the heart of Alice. To one event, however, she looked forward with intense yearnings. There was somewhere in the wide, wide world a great sympathetic heart perpetually telegraphing its love, and she was feeling the electric current in its pulsations every moment in the day. He had promised to come again in the mellow, fragrant month of October, before the flowers fade and die; when the artist of nature is painting the foliage upon the trees green, purple and golden, and with a richer iris the twilight sky, and dappling the fleecy clouds. Yes, he is coming, not as the judge of the a.s.sizes, but as a prisoner of hope. Her affections. .h.i.therto were divided--now he yearns for the whole heart.