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                         TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS.

                                  BY
                           FRED. W. LORING.

             AUTHOR OF THE “BOSTON DIP AND OTHER VERSES.”


                            [Illustration]


                          LORING, Publisher,
                  Cor. Bromfield and Washington Sts.,
                                BOSTON.




        Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871,
                           BY A. K. LORING,
      In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.


       Stereotyped and Printed by Rockwell & Churchill, Boston.




PREFACE AND DEDICATION.

[Illustration]


MY DEAR FRIEND,――

Indignation at my dedicating this book to you will be useless, since I
am at present three thousand miles out of your reach. Moreover, this
dedication is not intended as a public monument to our friendship;――I
know too much for that. If that were the case, we should manage to
quarrel even at this distance, I am quite confident, before the
proof-sheets had left the press. But I can dedicate it to you alone of
all my college friends, because you and I were brought so especially
into the atmosphere of the man who inspired me to undertake it,――the
man to whom, under God, I shall owe most of what grace and culture
I may ever acquire. You and I know his wonderful unselfishness, his
tender sympathy, his exquisite delicacy of thought and life, as well as
others know his wit and his scholarship. It was while I was writing the
opening pages of this story that the news of his death came. It was
while my work was but half finished, that I was called away to the most
remote and wildest portions of this great country of ours, and thus has
my story become a sketch,――a bare outline of what I intended.

But, such as it is, you and a few others will know what I mean by it;
and that point gained, the rest matters little. If by it one single
heart is made to throb, even for an instant, with love of this country,
of which we can never be too mindful nor too proud, my object will be
gained. And now I commend to you this book.

                           Ever your friend,

                                                       FRED. W. LORING.

  TO MR. WM. W. CHAMBERLIN.




    _“At dawn,” he said, “I bid them all farewell,
      To go where bugles blow and rifles gleam.”
    And with the waking thought asleep he fell,
      And wandered into dream._

    _A great hot plain from lake to ocean spread,
      Through it a level river slowly drawn:
    He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
      Streamed banners like the dawn._

    _Then came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
      And dissonant cries of terror and dismay;
    Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore,
      And with the dead he lay._

    _The morn broke in upon his solemn dream,
      And still with steady pulse and deepening eye,
    “Where bugles call,” he said, “and rifles gleam,
      I follow, though I die.”_




TWO COLLEGE FRIENDS.

[Illustration]

    “‘At dawn,’ he said, ‘I bid them all farewell,
       To go where bugles blow and rifles gleam;’
     And with the waking thought asleep he fell,
       And wandered into dream.”




I.

THE LECTURE ON DOMESTIC ARTS.


It was quarter after two in the afternoon, and the Professor was
sitting at his desk, engaged in arranging the notes of his lecture,
when there came a knock on the door.

“Come in,” said the Professor. “Ah, Ned! is it you?” This to a
graceful boy of twenty, who entered the room.

“Yes, it is Ned,” said the boy; “and he particularly wishes to see you
for a few minutes.”

“Every moment is precious,” said the Professor, “until my lecture is in
order. What is the matter? Are you in trouble?”

“Yes,” said Ned, “I am in trouble.”

“Then let me read to you,” said the Professor, “the concluding
paragraph of my lecture on Domestic Arts.”

“Oh, don’t!” said Ned; “I really am in trouble.”

“Are you the insulter or the insulted, this time?” asked the Professor.

“Neither,” said Ned, shortly; “and I’m not in trouble on my own
account.”

“Ah!” said the Professor; “then you have got into some difficulty in
your explorations in low life; or you have spent more than your income;
or it’s the perpetual Tom.”

“It’s the perpetual Tom,” said Ned.

“I supposed so,” observed the Professor. “What has that youth
been doing now? Drinking, swearing, gambling, bad company, theft,
murder?――out with it! I am prepared for anything, from the expression
of your face; for anything, that is to say, except my lecture on
Domestic Arts, which comes at three.”

“Well, if you choose to make fun of me,” said Ned, “I can go; but I
thought you would advise me.”

“And so I will, you ridiculous creature, when you need it,” said the
Professor; “only at such times you generally act for yourself. But,
come; my advice and sympathy are yours; so what has Tom done?”

“He has fallen in love,” said Ned.

“Oh, no!” said the Professor.

“Yes, sir,” repeated Ned, more firmly, “he has fallen in love.”

“’Tis the way of all flesh,” said the Professor; “but I don’t think Tom
can fall in love. He never even dislikes any one without a cause.”

“That’s all very well, sir,” said Ned; “but when a fellow has a girl’s
picture, and looks at it when he thinks he isn’t watched; and when he
receives notes, and keeps them, instead of throwing them around, as
usual; and when he takes to being blue,――what do you say?”

“Please state your propositions separately,” said the Professor,
“and I will endeavor to form an opinion. When a fellow has a girl’s
picture,――what was the rest?”

“I wish you wouldn’t make fun of me,” said Ned.

“Well, in Heaven’s name, what is there to trouble you, if Tom is in
love?” asked the Professor.

“Because he hasn’t told me,” said Ned.

“Oh! you are jealous then,” rejoined the Professor. “You are the most
selfish person, for one who is so generous, that I have ever seen. You
are morbid upon the subject of Tom, I believe.”

“Well, look here,” said Ned; “I have neither father nor mother; I have
no one except Tom. I care more for him than for any one else in the
world, as you know; but you never will know how much I care for him;
and it does seem hard that he should shut me out of his confidence when
I have done nothing to forfeit it. There’s some girl at the bottom of
all this. He and that big Western friend of his, the Blush Rose, whom I
never liked, have been off together two or three times; and, as I say,
Tom has got this picture; and the Blush Rose knows it, and knows who
she is. I’ve seen them looking at it, and admiring it. I’m afraid, from
Tom’s not telling me about it, that he’s doing something out of the
way.”

“In that case,” said the Professor, “you had better let me read you the
closing paragraph of my lecture on Domestic Arts.”

“No, I thank you,” said Ned; “I shall have to hear it, any way, this
afternoon.”

“So you will,” said the Professor; “and, by the way, I shall give you a
private if you behave to-day as you did in my last lecture. I have told
your class-tutor to warn you.”

“Well, that is pleasant,” said Ned.

“I meant it to be,” replied the Professor. “Good-by. I may call at
your room to-night,――to see Tom.”

And, as Ned was heard going down the stairs, the Professor, seeing
that he had still twenty-five minutes to spare, took his lecture, and
sat down before the fire, which flickered slightly, and just served to
destroy the dampness of that April day.




II.

THE PICTURE OVER THE FIREPLACE.


Whether the Professor would have made any alterations or amendments
in his lecture, it is difficult to say; that he did not is due to the
fact that his eye fell upon a little photograph, which hung over his
fireplace. As he sits there, thinking over what Ned has told him, and
laughing at the idea of Tom’s being really in love, he gazes on this
little photograph, and smiles. The Professor has one or two real art
treasures, but nothing that he values quite as much as this fading
picture. This is the only copy in existence; and this hangs there,
and will hang there until the Professor dies. How well he remembers
the morning when the two boys, whom he loves so well, rushed into his
room, and left it there! As he looks at it now, there is an expression
of tenderness on his plain but strongly cut features that would greatly
astonish those of his pupils who only know him as a crusty instructor.

The Professor is somewhat crusty, it must be owned. It is, however,
an acquired and not a natural crustiness. Cause, the fact that at
thirty years of age he discovered that he cared more for a certain Miss
Spencer than for all the world beside. On intimating this fact to her,
she told him that she should always value his friendship; and that she
hoped soon to introduce to him her cousin Hugh, “who is,” she added
quietly, “to become my husband.” After this the Professor withdrew
almost entirely from society, and plunged deeper and deeper into study.
Before many years his reputation was cosmopolitan, his head bald, and
his life a matter of routine. Boys came and went; and at intervals he
repeated before them much of what he knew. It is to these two boys, of
whom he thinks now, as he gazes on the picture over the mantel, that he
owes his rescue from this lethargic life.

What does he see in the picture? He sees behind a chair, in which a
boy is sitting, another boy with soft, curling brown hair, deep blue
eyes, and dazzling complexion. His features are delicately cut; but the
especial beauty of his face is the brilliancy of color in his hair,
eyes, and complexion. There is the freshness of youth on his features;
and his whole attitude, as he leans over his companion, is full of that
quaint grace of boyish tenderness so indefinable and so transitory.
The boy in the chair has a face full of strength and weakness. The
photograph makes him appear the more striking of the two, though the
less handsome. The sunny sweetness of the first face, though it never
alters, never becomes wearisome; but the second face is now all love,
now disfigured by scorn and hatred, now full of intellect, and glowing
with animation, now sullen and morose. The complexion is olive, the
eyes brown, the lips strongly cut, yet so mobile as to be capable of
every variety of earnest and sneering expression. The face is always,
in all its varying phases, the face of one who is not dissatisfied but
unsatisfied. This is what the Professor sees, as the firelight throws
its glimmer over the room, making grotesque shadows waver fitfully on
the pictures and books around him, as well as on the heavy curtains
that hide the rays of afternoon light which struggle through the leafy
boughs of the old elms in the yard without.

As the Professor sits there thinking, he seems to recall again the
first visit of Tom and Ned to his room. Tom is a lovely boy,――the
original of the standing figure in the photograph; and the Professor
had been attracted by his face once or twice when he had met him in the
yard, soon after his entrance into college. Still he is surprised, one
evening, when he hears a knock at his door, and this Freshman enters
half shyly. The Professor asks him to be seated, and then looks at him
inquiringly.

“I was awfully homesick,” says Tom, with perfect trustfulness; “and
mother told me that you were once a very dear friend of hers; so I
thought I would come up and see you.” The Professor is bewildered.
Still he is a gentleman; so he smiles, and says to Tom:――

“Pray be seated. Your mother is well, I trust.”

“Oh, yes!” says Tom. “Perhaps, as she hasn’t seen you since before I
was born, I ought to have said who she was. Her name was Spencer.”

The Professor turns quickly. Tom proceeds with entire unconsciousness:――

“She often speaks of you, sir, and always in a way that has made me
want to know you.”

“I am very glad, Tom,” said the Professor. “You must excuse my calling
you by your first name; but then you are the son of――your mother.”

Any one but Tom, who never noticed anything, would have seen here that
the Professor’s manner was peculiar. But Tom is always so brightly
ignorant of what is before his eyes, that the Professor recovers his
self-possession, and says calmly:――

“And your mother is well, I hope?”

“Oh, yes!” said Tom; “very well, but a little sad at my leaving home.
She is very fond of me, sir.”

“Strange fact!” said the Professor, dryly. “And I see that you are
equally fond of her. I am not given to moralizing; but I think that
college life will not decay you, if you don’t forget how much you are
to your mother,――how unhappy you can make her.”

“Forget her?” said Tom; “not I! When I am at home, I make love to her
all the time.”

“Then,” said the Professor, “it is well that you have left home; for it
will soon be time for you to make love to some one else.”

As the Professor makes this observation, there is another knock at the
door, and Ned enters. Who is Ned? Ned is the original of the sitting
figure in the little picture over the fireplace. He is despotic in
character, and has therefore many sincere friends and enemies. He is
fearless when indignant, and is indignant easily. He is not handsome
as Tom is,――for Tom’s beauty charms you immediately, and the charm is
never broken; but he has a curious grace and fascination of manner when
he is not perverse; but then, he often is perverse.

The Professor cannot tell whether he likes Ned, or not. He has been
giving Ned private tuition, to fit him for college, for nearly a year.
All their acquaintance hitherto has been one of business, all their
conversation confined to an occasional dry remark on either side. Now,
when their contract is fulfilled, the Professor cannot imagine why Ned
should take advantage of his general invitation, and visit him. Still
he asks Ned to be seated, and then enters into conversation with him.

Ned talks. His keen eye has noted everything ludicrous and everything
interesting among his instructors, among his classmates, among all the
persons and things with which college life has brought him in contact.
He is full of animation; he tells stories, all of which have a point;
he sparkles with wit, which is none the less brilliant for having a
certain boyish freshness about it. All this is a new revelation to
the Professor. He laughs, and in his turn becomes entertaining; and,
finally, going to his sideboard, produces three quaint glasses, which
he fills with some of that rare and wonderful old Madeira, which many
of his acquaintances have heard of, but which few have ever seen.

Tom, in the mean time, sits listening, radiant with enjoyment, with the
firelight tinting his lovely face. “Such a jolly old fellow as this
Professor is!” he says to himself; “and such a being as Ned!” He is
happier than he has been since he left home; and he wishes his mother
could look in upon them now; and he drains his glass to her health. He
is puzzled because Ned will address his remarks only to the Professor,
and seems shy whenever he speaks. Finally, conscious that it is growing
late, he bids the Professor farewell, and Ned rises to accompany him.
The Professor says then, with a courteous and quiet dignity:――

“Tom, you must give my regards to your mother, when you write. Tell her
that her boy will be always an object of especial interest to her old
friend.” Then, turning to Ned, the Professor adds, as Tom disappears in
the entry:――

“I have to thank you for a very pleasant evening. You will come again,
my boy, will you not? Why have you never before shown me what you
really are?”

“It wasn’t for you, sir,” said Ned, with a certain frankness that was
not discourteous. “It was for Tom, sir; though I like you, and hope we
shall be friends. But the moment I saw Tom, I felt drawn towards him;
and, as I saw him come up here, I felt that here was a chance to get
acquainted with him. Good-night, sir.”

And Ned joined Tom at the foot of the stairs, leaving the Professor
in a state of complete bewilderment. The Professor laughs now, as he
recalls that evening, and looks again at the picture over the fireplace.

“They are an interesting pair,――a sunbeam and a volcano,” he says; and,
throwing on his cloak, just as the bell begins to ring, he starts for
his lecture-room.




III.

HE MOVED WITH A VAST CROWD.


It was just after supper; and the Professor, with his thoughts still
occupied by Tom and Ned, walked slowly toward his room through the
dimly-lighted yard, where the twilight was half dispelled by the gleams
of gas-light that stole from the windows around. He sauntered along,
enjoying the sweet spring air of the evening, and touching his hat to
one boy after another until he came by Ned’s entry, when he turned, and
took his way to the room of his boys. He had stopped, as he passed
through the square, for his paper, and had noticed that a crowd seemed
to be eagerly and excitedly discussing the news of the evening around
the post-office. Pausing an instant in the entry to look at his paper,
before ascending the stairs, his eye fell on an announcement which
caused him to utter an exclamation of surprise; and he rushed eagerly
into the room, with the words:――

“Boys, have you heard the news?”

Ned turned from the glass, where he was tying his cravat, and Tom
raised himself from his lounge; but before either of them had an
opportunity to answer, the Professor said:――

“There has been a quarrel here. Now, boys, I must know all about it.
See, I’m going to spring the lock, and have you clear your minds at
once.”

“There’s nothing to clear,” said Tom.

“Speak for yourself, if you please,” said the Professor. “You may not
have a mind at all; but I know that Ned has, to a limited extent.
Doubtless you are both wrong; so let me see which will be gentleman
enough to apologize first. Come, boys, this matter must be set right.
‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath’ is one of the best pieces of
advice ever given.”

“It is after sunset now,” said Ned; “and we are not both wrong. I am
right.”

“Cheerful self-confidence,” said the Professor. “Please let me
understand the cause of wrath.”

“Simply because I object to the Blush Rose,” said Ned. “I say that he
has come between us.”

“And I say”――broke in Tom.

“Hush, Tom!” said the Professor, “until Ned has finished.”

“I have nothing more to say,” said Ned, “except that Tom must, once for
all, choose between us.”

“Very well,” said Tom; “as you please; only, while I don’t care for any
fellow as I do for you, I’m not going to submit to dictation.”

“You’re entangled with some woman, through Blodgett,” said Ned. “He’s a
nice associate for a gentleman, he is.”

“I entangled with a woman!” repeated Tom. “Why, Ned! you’re crazy.”

“Whose picture is it that you are carrying?” asked Ned.

“Oh, thunder!” said Tom; “is that what all this row is about?”

“I suppose you’ve fallen in love, and in Junior year too!” continued
Ned, wrathfully and contemptuously.

“Juniors have done such things before,” observed the Professor.

“Fallen in love!” said Tom; “as if I’d do that! Look here, old fellow,
if you knew about that picture, you’d ask my pardon.”

“Well, as I don’t, I shan’t,” said Ned.

“Come, boys,” said the Professor, “this ridiculous quarrel, worthy only
of a couple of little children, has gone quite far enough. Ned, I think
you are petulant and absurd; but if you will go out for a few minutes,
and take a short walk, Tom will unbosom himself to me, I am sure.”

“Well, I call that cheek, to turn a man out of his own room,” said Ned.

“Correct that sentence, please, Ned,” said the Professor. “You would
call it cheek if it were not done by a member of the Faculty. There,
be off with you. And now, Tom, tell your story.”

“I haven’t any,” said Tom; “only Ned is in one of his moods.”

“Then you are not in love,” said the Professor.

“Why, no!” said Tom, “how could I be?”

“I don’t know,” replied the Professor; “but people are sometimes. And
have you a secret connected with that fat, red-faced brute, Blodgett,
whom you call the Blush Rose?”

“Well, yes,” said Tom: “it’s about a photograph.”

“Let us see this photograph,” said the Professor. “Explain!”

“Why, it’s a surprise for Ned, don’t you see?” said Tom. “It’s the
proof picture of me in the last theatricals. See, there I am as Marton,
the Pride of the Market.”

“What a mistake nature made about your sex, Tom!” said the Professor.
“You dear little peasant girl, put yourself away directly; and now
take my advice: show it to Ned; it will make him ashamed of his folly,
and will prevent any further angry words between you. It is hard to
quarrel, and so you will think some day, though now you find it so
easy. There, put it away; for I hear Ned’s footsteps on the stairs!
Come in, Ned! Why! what has happened?”

For Ned, standing in the open door-way, his perverse moodiness all
gone, wore an expression the Professor had never seen before.

“Happened!” said Ned. “Something to live for, something to die for. We
know now that we have a country. Haven’t you heard the news?”

“Dear me!” said the Professor, “that’s what I came to tell you; but
your quarrel drove it out of my head.”

“How could anything else come into your head?” said Ned.

“Tell me what it is,” asked Tom, impatiently.

“The President has called the people to arms, to aid him in saving the
country,” said Ned, fairly glowing as he spoke.

“Yes,” said the Professor, “is it not grand to think that we are
aroused at last?”

“Well,” said Ned, “I have still more to tell you. I have enlisted.”

There was a pause of a few moments; then the Professor grasped Ned’s
hand, and said simply:――

“My noble boy!”

“What do you say, Tom?” asked Ned.

“I’m going with you, old fellow,” said Tom; and he threw his arm over
Ned’s shoulder, and smiled at the Professor.




IV.

NED’S NOTE-BOOK.


It is well that I formed the habit of keeping a note-book some time
ago. How interesting what I am now writing will be to my wife and
children in years to come, when I sit before my own fire, in my own
house! The college chronicle of funny adventures and curious stories
that my note-book has previously contained is suspended for a time; and
I am thinking of matters of life and death now. Well, it is splendid
to have a life to lose; and the thought of death, in this cause, has
a grand, awful thrill in it, that drives away all the former terror
death has possessed for me. These remarks are intended as an opening
of my war note-book. Here am I, just twenty-one, and a captain,――a
whole captain. It is absurd; no, it isn’t. Col. Burke is raising a
regiment. He has as much superfluity about him as an iron nail has, and
no more. He was introduced to me about a week ago, and was told about
my visits to the people around Crescent Court. People will make me out
a philanthropist, which I am not; for I despise most people I know,
though the lower classes are quite interesting, but dirty. I never
talked religion to any of those creatures in my life. I have given
them very little in charity; but I have listened to what they say as I
would to my own classmates; and, having talked with them at the North
End, I have bowed to them at the West End. In a word, I have carried
_les convenances_ into Richmond Street, and have not electioneered.
Result, I have some influence, which is useless, except in keeping me
clear of pickpockets. So the colonel would have me raise a company.
I laughed at the idea, but consented to try; and here are over fifty
recruits already. I told them that I had about as much to learn as
any of them, and agreed to have the captain elected by vote, myself
becoming a private. I should have been very much disgusted if they
had taken me at my word; but they didn’t. So I am a captain; but my
lieutenants are still to be found.

       *       *       *       *       *

Tom is full of patriotism. I never can tell how deeply a sentiment
enters his mind; but he is fretting terribly about going with me. How
I wish he could! but his father very sensibly advises him to wait a
year longer, till he is through at Harvard; and his mother is in great
distress at the idea of his leaving her. The Professor is non-committal
on the subject.

       *       *       *       *       *

This morning entered Jane Ellen Bingley to the recruiting office,
where I was receiving enlistments. Jane Ellen is limp in appearance,
but energetic in character. Her bonnet was wine- velvet; her
shawl draggled green, with a habit of falling off her shoulders as she
talked; and her gown was calico. By the bonnet I recognized her. She
is the chief attraction at one of the North Street dance-houses, and
entertains an admiration for me of which I am utterly undeserving. I
have so often declined in forcible language to dance with her, that
I did not suppose she could feel pleasantly toward me; but she came
forward and said:――

“Here’s my man!”

Her man was a stout fellow, rather stupid-looking, with a dyed
mustache. Jane Ellen herself is really very pretty, and might possibly
reform, if she was sent away from here. Reformation, when possible, is
only possible through removal. So Jane Ellen having presented her man,
I said briefly:――

“What of it?”

Thereupon Jane Ellen explained that her man wished to enlist, and that
she wished him to come under me, as she knew I’d be a good captain to
the poor boy. Sensible of the compliment, I suggested to Jane Ellen
the propriety of marrying him first. In that way I explained to her he
would send her his salary (I could not say wages, Jane Ellen being
American); he would have some object for working his way up from the
ranks; and he would have a home to think of, when away, wounded, sick,
or expecting to die. All these things would benefit him greatly. I
regret to say that Michael appeared more affected than Jane Ellen
at the pictures I drew. Jane Ellen’s answer, which only came after
considerable reflection, was, to say the least, peculiar.

“I never expected to live to be a married woman,” she remarked; “and
it’s a queer home I’d be able to make for anybody. However, it may
do Mike good; so I’ll do it. So, Mike, I’ll marry you right off, and
endeavor to be a decent woman,――until you come back from the war
again;” which last clause was prudently added.

       *       *       *       *       *

Another quarrel with Tom; and this time the Professor admits that I
am right. Tom begs me to write, and solicit his parents’ consent; and
I won’t do it; so Tom sulks,――that is the only word,――and will not be
appeased.

He even declares that I wish to get rid of him, when it will almost
break my heart to go without him. If that boy only knew what he was
to me, who am without father, mother, or family of my own, and with
almost no friends, except the Professor! However, for the same reason
that I have never yet visited him at his house, because I did not wish
to have our attachment or my character analyzed or criticised by his
parents, I will not say a word now. I believe it will do him good to
go; for I know the thought of going has done me good.

The Professor has a plan, he says, and wishes me to be at home
to-night, so that he can tell it to me.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Professor has told me a great deal more than he has actually said.
I know now why he cares so much for Tom; and I should like to see Tom’s
mother. I wonder if a woman will ever change my life; and I wonder if I
shall ever care for any woman as much as I do for Tom. The Professor
says that Tom must go; that he is fretting himself sick now, and that
it will develop his manliness of character. He thinks I am right in not
interfering, however, and says that he is going to try what he can do.
Dear old fellow! His face flushed, and he gave a curious sort of gulp,
as he said:――

“She always respected me; and I think she would let Tom go, if I
advised her to do so.”

“Then shall you write to her?” I asked.

“No, Ned,” he said; “I shall go and visit her, and start to-morrow. The
first time in twenty years,――dear me, the first time in twenty years!
How old I am getting to be!”

I knew what he meant; and I honored his pluck. I should sort of like to
be in love myself; but I am half afraid to think about it. Oh, well!
there will be plenty of time when the war is over. The Professor is to
start to-morrow; and Tom is not to know about it.

       *       *       *       *       *

My first lieutenant is a treasure. His name is Murphy; and he is a
retired rough, by profession, but he has splendid stuff in him. Our
acquaintance had a peculiar beginning. I was drilling a squad of men,
and not succeeding very well in what I was about, when this giant
loafed in, and began to make a disturbance. I looked at him, and saw
that remonstrance would be in vain; so I knocked him down, seeing my
opportunity to do so effectively. My men laughed. The giant raised
himself in astonishment.

“You can’t do that again,” said he. Another laugh from the chorus.

“I know it,” said I. Still another laugh.

“I could just walk through you in two minutes,” he growled, with an
oath.

“I believe you,” said I; “and I shall give you a chance to, if you
don’t keep quiet.”

He kept quiet for a time. Then, while I was trying some manœuvre, he
came up and said, quite politely:――

“Perhaps I can help you.”

“Thanks,” said I; “do you know anything about it?” Then Murphy informed
me that he had been in several places where there had been fighting;
and I saw he was far my superior in many respects. So, when I got
him to enlist, and found that he was thoroughly interested, and that
the men liked him with a feeling of fellowship that they will never
have for me, I hope, I talked with the colonel about making him my
first lieutenant; and it is now a _fait accompli_. Murphy’s delight
and gratitude at receiving his commission knew no bounds; and several
of his cousins enlisted immediately. He has now a sense of personal
devotion to me that will help me greatly. Dear me, how old and mature
and self-reliant I am growing! and, three weeks ago, I was such a baby!
Murphy is the second largest and second strongest man of us all. The
largest is a large-eyed, half-crazy clairvoyant, gentle as a dove,
and strong as an ox. I found him weeping the other day; and, somewhat
disgusted, as well as astonished, asked the cause. Result was, that he
said he wept about me. I was not to die in battle, nor in sickness,
but was to meet with a dishonorable death for a dishonorable action.
Tom and Murphy were furious; but I couldn’t be before the two or three
men who heard it; so I treated the affair as a good joke. The boys
call this fellow Mooney; which name is appropriate certainly. Tom has
been in two or three times to drill. He studies Hardee incessantly;
practises by himself all that he can, and would form himself into a
whole squad, and drill himself, if it were possible. He is even getting
into the way of planning battles and movements, and is perfectly wild
at each report in the newspapers. I never saw him in such a state
before, over anything. His lessons must be suffering in consequence;
and I don’t dare to think of the number of times he has cut prayers.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hurrah! I wish pencil and paper could yell with joy; and then a
fearful noise would issue from this note-book!

The Professor has sent me by telegraph the announcement that Tom is
to go with me. It is brief; but I have read it with delight a dozen
times:――

    “ALL RIGHT! PLEASE SEND HIM HOME IMMEDIATELY!”

       *       *       *       *       *

I know of nothing which has ever given me more pleasure than those
seven words. Tom has gone off in the most remarkably vague state of
mind; and I am going to see my colonel this evening, to find out
whether his youth (though, as he is not quite two years younger than
myself, perhaps I should say our youth) will unfit him for the
position of second lieutenant. Any way, he’s going; and that’s enough
to make me happy for the rest of the war. The only thing that troubles
me is Mooney’s prediction, which keeps ringing in my ears. I am not to
die in battle, nor by sickness, but to receive a dishonorable death for
a dishonorable action. I don’t care for the death so much; but I do
pray to God, that, while I am in my country’s holy service at least, I
may not soil my soul. What a sentence! Well, I’m safe in knowing that
no one but myself will ever see this note-book.




V.

CORRESPONDENCE.


1.

    MY DEAR TOM:――This letter will reach you after you have been
    at home a day; and you must leave home as soon as you receive
    it, to join my company. Our colonel is splendid,――grim and
    grizzled, and the nerve of a steam-engine. I told him about
    you, and said I wanted you as second lieutenant. He asked how
    much you knew; and I said, “Little enough, but more than any
    other of my vagabonds,――God bless them!” Then I told him about
    your study of Hardee; and he laughed, but asked me anxiously
    what you thought of Hardee. I forget what I said; but I know
    your opinion satisfied him perfectly; for he said that your
    youth was your greatest disqualification. Then I said that the
    rough set of my company needed the influence of an acknowledged
    gentleman, as well as the fellow-feeling and sympathy which
    that rough Murphy gives them. He agreed to that. Then he
    spoke of the value, in any rank of life, of a university
    education;――he hasn’t been through Harvard, you see;――and I
    agree with him. Then, when he heard who was your father, and
    who was your mother, he smiled, and said he believed in blood.
    I agreed again with him, and expressed the opinion that no one
    could get along very well without it. Moreover, I said, that,
    if you did not come as an officer, the whole company would
    become insubordinate; for you always had your own way with me;
    and it would not do for a private to control his captain. He
    laughed; but you are sure of your position, if you come on at
    once. We are not a swell regiment, Tom; but my sword-belt and
    sash are stunning, for all that. You must begin work at once.
    And, Tom, you must feel an interest in Murphy. It will do him
    good; and, through him, the men. He dined with me to-day, and
    made an attempt to eat with his fork instead of his knife,
    which was tolerably successful. He is a little uneasy about
    meeting you, being sensible of a certain lack of polish in
    his manner; but with you as the positive pole, and I as the
    negative, we shall have him duly magnetized in time.

    I have been out to Cambridge, to see about destroying our old
    room; but I could not do it. I sat down and cried like a towel,
    or a sponge; I couldn’t help it. The goody had profited by your
    absence to leave everything out of order; for which I thanked
    her in my soul. The pictures that I hated, and the pictures
    that you didn’t like, hung on the walls; your dressing-gown
    was in your chair; the globe in which our departed goldfish
    once resided was still swinging at the window; and everything
    seemed like a dream of the past to me. Well, I should have been
    a brute if I hadn’t felt a little touched.

    O Tom! you’ve forgotten to return “Roderick Random” to the
    library; and Sibley will come down on you for a nice lot of
    fines, see if he don’t.

    But I was going to tell you about our room. Bob Lennox, who is
    rooming outside, you know, wants to come in as tenant during
    our absence, so that we can have everything just as it always
    has been, when we come back by next class-day; by which time,
    I am quite sure, the war will be ended; so I agreed to his
    proposition, subject to your objection, of course.

    I thought, since your educational advantages impressed the
    colonel, that a copy of the last rank-list might work in your
    favor; but I decided, finally, that it would require too much
    explanation. In the same way I was thinking of getting you a
    certificate of moral character from Dr. Peabody, but was not
    sure that he had forgotten you sufficiently.

    If you wish to secure your position, you must be here by Friday
    night. My love to the Professor, and sincere regards to your
    father and mother.

    In haste, but, as ever, your friend,

                                                             NED.


2.

    MY DEAR OLD NED:――Your letter was just like you, cross old
    devil that you are! I’m coming, old horse; so write my name
    down on your parchment immediately. The Professor starts this
    noon, and says he will wait over a train for me in Endeston,
    where he wants to make a visit this afternoon; so that I shall
    start to-morrow morning, and meet him there. Mother says it’s
    because he has so much delicacy of feeling that he doesn’t want
    to see our parting; and, by Jove! Ned, it’s going to be hard.
    She doesn’t say much; but I know how she suffers; and it makes
    me almost feel as though I was wrong to go. I’ll bet I’ll have
    a handsomer sash than you will, after all. Mother wants me to
    give you the enclosed letter, which seems mysterious to me;
    still I obey. I am in a great hurry, so can’t write any more,
    but shall be with you on Friday.

                                Yours,

                                                             TOM.


3.

    MY DEAR NED,――For though I have never yet had the pleasure of
    seeing you at our house, I still feel as though I knew you,
    Tom has said so much to me of you, and has shown so much more
    than he has said. I have felt very thankful that you were his
    friend; and now that this terrible and dreadful parting is to
    separate me from my only child, I am glad that you are to be
    with him. I know the cause that calls him, and I feel that it
    is better for him to go than to stay; but, though I say yes,
    I say it with an agony beyond your comprehension. I want your
    promise that you will not leave Tom during the time that your
    country may need you; that you will suffer nothing but death
    to separate you; that you will refuse promotion and honor, if
    it is to part you from him; that you will stay by his side in
    the progress of the battles that may come. It is through your
    influence that he goes; I must look to you for his safety. So
    make me this promise; and, in return, what can I give? what
    can I say? This only: that my house shall be your home; and
    that I shall feel as if I had two sons instead of one.




VI.

ONE YEAR AFTER.

    “A great hot plain from sea to mountain spread;
       Through it a level river slowly drawn:
     He moved with a vast crowd, and at its head
       Streamed banners like the dawn.”


A bare room, the dead whiteness of whose plastered wall is only
relieved by a coarsely  print of the Virgin Mary in blue and
scarlet, which hangs in a dingy gilt frame on the wall at the head of
the bed. A crack in the glass has relieved the features of the Virgin
of their ordinary expression of insipidity, but has substituted
therefor a look of malevolence quite unpleasant to see. Fortunately
for the man who lies, heavily sleeping, upon the pallet bed, this
picture is not where his eyes can rest upon it. Beside the bed are two
little stools, which constitute all the furniture of the room, and,
indeed, all that it is well capable of containing; for so cramped and
narrow are its dimensions, that it seems to be scarcely more than a
closet with a window in it. Through the half-open door-way, however,
can be seen long lines of beds, with the quiet figures of nurses and
physicians passing back and forth through the ward.

Two people entered carefully and noiselessly through the open
door-way,――one evidently an army physician; the other, in a captain’s
uniform now, was Tom, bronzed and sunburnt, but the same careless,
light-hearted boy as when he left Cambridge one year before. There
was a look of anxiety on his face now, however, as he bent over the
sleeping figure and asked:――

“How is he to-day, doctor?”

“Improving fast, captain,” was the reply. “His sleep is splendid,――just
what I’ve been hoping for. If he wakes peacefully, and is conscious, he
is likely to be all right again before long; and I shouldn’t wonder if
he could rejoin his regiment in a week or ten days.”

“Thank Heaven!” said Tom.

“And his physique,” said the doctor. “This colonel of yours is a tough
fellow, and a brave man; yet, if he should die to-morrow, I should
simply put down his name, and never think of him again. My note-book is
full of dead men’s names,――just a mention and nothing more. Oh! by the
way, a gentleman called here for you yesterday afternoon, and said he
would come again this morning. Here is his card.”

“Why,” cried Tom, “it is the Professor. See that he is shown up to me
when he comes, won’t you?”

“Oh, certainly! I’ll attend to that,” said the doctor, and he rushed
softly away.

Tom sat down by the side of the bed, and looked at his friend’s face.
It had changed greatly, much more than his, since they left Cambridge.
The forehead was marked now with heavy lines, and the full beard made
it seem like the countenance of a man of forty. So old can even a
boy grow in a year. Ned had trained himself, with great effort, to
unquestioning obedience. His criticism had been only upon those to whom
he gave his orders, and he had struggled not to form an opinion on
those to whom his obedience was due; thus he had become an admirable
officer. Tom sat there looking at Ned, and thinking, thinking, he
could scarcely tell of what, until he felt a hand touch his shoulder.
He turned and saw the Professor, and fairly hugged him in his delight.

“So I have found you at last, Tom,” said the Professor.

“Just think, sir,” said Tom; “it is a year now since I have seen you.”

“And the end seems as far off as ever,” said the Professor.

“Don’t say that,” said Tom, “because sometimes, you know, I have to try
very hard not to think so myself.”

“Ah!” said the Professor, “you are still the same, I see, and I am the
same; and Ned,――is this Ned?”

“Yes, poor fellow,” said Tom; “he has been sick for nearly ten days.”

“But how came you to be with him?” asked the Professor. “Why are you
not with your regiment?”

“Sit down,” said Tom, “and I’ll tell you; but don’t speak too loud, on
his account, you know!”

“Among the wonderful effects of the war,” said the Professor, in a
didactic manner, “may be mentioned the fact that it has made Tom
thoughtful and considerate. Well, go on!”

“That sounds just like you,” said Tom. “Well, the explanation is simply
this: that I had a leave of absence for a fortnight given me, and just
at its beginning Ned was taken sick.”

“So you remained here with him, and didn’t go home?” asked the
Professor.

“Of course,” said Tom, simply. “I couldn’t leave him after all we had
been through together.”

“What did your mother say?” asked the Professor. “Wasn’t she
disappointed?”

“Yes, she was disappointed,” said Tom; “but she wrote and said that
I was right. It was hard on Ned, and hard on me, and hard on her,
especially as I haven’t been home for a year. You see, in my last leave
of absence, there was some of the worst fighting that we have been in,
and it would have seemed cowardly if I had gone then.”

“It is hard, Tom,” said the Professor; “but you have done nobly. But if
I stay here with Ned now, can’t you run up North?”

“No,” said Tom; “it’s impossible. My leave of absence, you see,
expires in two days, so that I shall have to give up going home at
all for the present. I’m afraid now that Ned won’t be well enough to
satisfy me when I start for the front. He’s been perfectly delirious,
and yesterday the doctor said was the turning-point. If he only is
conscious when he wakes from this sleep! Do you think he has changed?”

“Changed!” said the Professor; “he’s not the same boy,――he’s not a boy
at all. What a developing agent this terrible war is!”

“And now you must tell me about Harvard,” said Tom.

“Wait a minute,” said the Professor. “I have one or two questions to
ask you first. I want to hear about this new rebel general who is
making such havoc with us.”

“Stonewall Jackson, you mean,” said Tom. “No one knows much about him;
but Ned declares that he is, thus far, the most striking figure of the
rebellion. Maliff, who says he knew him when he was in command at Fort
Hamilton, before the war, showed us a picture of him, in which he
looked simply prim and neat. The war has probably changed all that. I
think we are all a little afraid of him, and hope to meet him in battle
soon. Some of the men think he is a supernatural being.”

“The Hibernian element, I suppose,” said the Professor.

“Exactly,” said Tom.

“And now tell me some more about yourselves,” continued the Professor.

“Well, about ourselves,” said Tom, “there is little to say. I am a
captain, as you see; and Ned is a lieutenant-colonel, and commands our
regiment,――or what there is left of it now. We might both have been
promoted before this; but we were bound to stick together, and so we
have, in all sorts of places too.”

“I have heard,” said the Professor, “how you have saved Ned’s life.”

“Nonsense!” said Tom. “He has done just as much for me. We are
together, and we fight and quarrel, just as we did at Harvard; and,
when the war is over, Ned insists that we are to go back to Cambridge
for a year longer, so as to get our degrees; a plan which I don’t
altogether fancy.”

“I do,” said the Professor; “it will be delightful to me to have the
opportunity of marking the misdemeanors of a colonel, and perhaps of
even suspending a captain.”

“That sounds just like you, and like old times,” said Tom; “and now do
please tell me all about Harvard.”

“Yes,” said Ned’s voice feebly, from the bed, “please let us hear the
Harvard news.” And so the Professor began.




VII.

NED’S NOTE-BOOK.


Tom has gone, but the Professor is here still. I do not mean to stay
long,――I shall rejoin my regiment in a day or two. In the mean time,
I amuse myself, when the Professor is not here, by scribbling in
my note-book and reading it over. Such a book as it is now! My own
thoughts begin it; then, as we reach the battle-fields, I have not time
to think, much less to put my thoughts in writing; then comes a record
of deaths,――poor fellows, who wanted me to write to their homes. How
curious that record is! Men whom I didn’t care for grew heroic to me
in those first days,――when death was a novelty,――and I am minute in
my descriptions of them. Then, as the deaths become more and more
frequent, my descriptions grow shorter, and I give a line only, even
to those whom I really loved. It is strange reading, this note-book of
mine!

Here is an item which I find in my note-book: “Quarrelled with Tom!”
How we have fought, to be sure! I don’t know what this quarrel was
about, but I know how it ended. We didn’t speak for two days, and then
came another attack from that restless creature, Stonewall Jackson.
It was such a lovely day,――fresh and spring-like, but it soon grew hot
and dusty. Every once in a while a bullet would whiz past; I could hear
the rumble of the artillery, and I was terribly thirsty. I didn’t see
Tom, but I knew he was near,――we always kept close together at such
times;――still, if I had seen him, I wouldn’t have spoken to him. My
horse had been shot from under me, and I had cut open the head of the
man who did it; it seems strange, now that it is all over, that I could
do such a thing. Suddenly I saw the barrel of a rifle pointed at me.
The face of the man who was pointing it peered from behind a tree with
a malicious grin. I felt that death was near, and the feeling was not
pleasant. However, the situation had an element of absurdity in it, and
that made me laugh a little. The man who was going to kill me laughed
too. I heard a little click, a report, and his gun went up, and he went
down. Tom had shot him.

“Tom,” said I, with some feeling, “you have saved my life.”

“There!” said he, triumphantly, “you spoke first.”

I saw that I had, and I was dreadfully provoked. However, he admitted
that he was wrong; and so, under the circumstances, I decided that a
reconciliation was advisable.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Professor has been here to-day. He is the most delightful companion
I know; and, what is his special charm, he really believes that he is
hard and cynical, the tender-hearted old baby! I know that he fancies
himself a second Diogenes. His liking for us boys is very queer to me.
Tom is his pet, but he prefers to talk to me. He discusses Tom with me,
and then he discusses me, just as if I were a third person. To-day he
told me I was a mass of selfish pettinesses. I don’t think that was his
word, but that was what he meant; “and yet,” said he, “you are capable
of heroic generosity.” I always know that part of what the Professor
says is said in earnest; but I am never quite sure what part it is.
He doesn’t fatigue me, and doesn’t excite me, and it is well for me
that he is here; still, I am impatient to get back again. He has told
me about Tom’s staying with me, instead of going home. I don’t know
what to say about it; I don’t know what to think. It makes me want to
die for him; nothing else that I can do seems sufficient. When this
war is over, I suppose Tom will marry and forget me. I never will go
near his wife――I shall hate her. Now, that is a very silly thing for a
lieutenant-colonel to write. I don’t care, it is true.

       *       *       *       *       *

I wonder if I am so very selfish, after all. I like refinement and
elegance, and I hate dirt; and I do like to have people care for me
and do things to oblige me. But my first thought is not always of
myself; and I don’t think I am unjust to others, because of myself.
And, if I desire the sympathy and appreciation of others, I am sure it
is not wrong.

“_C’est qu’un cœur bien atteint veut qu’on soit tout à lui._”

I can’t remember, though, just now, a single unselfish thing that I
have ever done, unless it was giving some of the fruit and jelly that
the Professor brought me yesterday to a poor fellow with hungry eyes,
whom I saw glaring at them through the door. That wouldn’t have been
generous, either, if he hadn’t been a rebel. Giving aid and comfort
to the enemy is the only generous action that I can discover of mine,
after all my self-analysis. Confound self-analysis, any way! It is only
another form of selfishness, mingled with morbid conceit. If I did what
I ought to do, without thinking about myself at all, it would be better
for me; but I haven’t anything to do just now, except scribble away
here, and it is dreadfully stupid.

How talking with the Professor has set me to thinking of Harvard again!
Now that the lights are glimmering at intervals through the ward, I
can see the yard, with Holworthy and Stoughton and Hollis beaming away
from their windows at each other, and Massachusetts standing a little
apart, as becomes its greater age, but benignant in its seclusion. I
hear the voices of singing in the yard, on the steps, and under the
trees; I can see fellows sitting round the tables in their rooms,
studying and not studying; I can hear recitations made to the different
professors and tutors; and just as the bell for morning prayers, which
I still hate, begins to clang upon my memory, I remember that I am here
in a hospital, while we are still fighting and killing each other for
the sake of the country that has given us all we enjoy. I shall be out
soon, I know. There is always good prospect of a battle when I feel
this way; and yet I do horribly loathe the tint of blood which has
seemed to rest on everything I have seen or dreamed of for a year past.
How I hate war, and yet how wholly I am absorbed in it! I am getting
feverish; I shall write no more to-day.

       *       *       *       *       *

In looking over my note-book, I find something which, luckily for
me, I had almost forgotten; and that is, the prediction of my friend
Mooney. Poor idiot! he was shot the first time that we were under fire.
How pleasant it would have been for me in all the work I have been
through, if I had remembered that prophecy! How it would have aided my
recovery in my sickness, if I had been haunted by those words! I am
to meet a dishonorable death for a dishonorable action, am I? The only
dishonorable action I can commit is to go over to Stonewall Jackson,
and learn how to fight. By Jove! I do admire that man. He is what too
few officers on either the Union or the Rebel sides are, unselfish and
in earnest. But I don’t think that I shall join him, for all that; and,
if I did, I should not be likely to meet with death,――his luck and his
pluck would take me through.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Professor has confided to me a plan of his, which delights me. He
says that he will go North, and bring Tom’s mother on to Washington,
if her health permits. As Tom’s father is in Europe at present, and
as it would be highly unpleasant, to use the mildest term, for a lady
to travel alone to Washington, knowing nothing of the place and its
peculiarities, it is very thoughtful and very kind, and something more,
in the Professor to do this. Then Tom can run up to Washington for a
day or two to see her, poor fellow! and all, or rather part, of his
great generosity will be rewarded. The Professor is a brick to think of
it; and I have made him promise to start to-morrow. And when he goes, I
shall go too, only in the other direction. How happy this will make Tom!

       *       *       *       *       *

I don’t know what makes me think of our class-day now, but I do wonder
who had the rooms which Tom and I engaged for our spread. Perhaps
it’s the contrast between salad and strawberries, and hardtack and
corned-beef; though now everything seems to me to be saturated with
gruel. I wonder if Tiny Snow was at class-day this year! She was an
object of awe to me in Freshman year; then I despised the sex when I
was a Sophomore; and then in Junior year I saw a good deal of her. She
had a way of drooping her head a little; and then, with a sort of shy
little gulp, raising it, and making her eyes childlike and plaintive.
It was quite pleasant, even after familiarity with it had destroyed
its novelty. I wrote some verses to her once, and sent them to “The
Harvard Magazine;” but they came into the hands of an editor who was
gone on her himself, and he very properly rejected them. Once I showed
Tiny, quite by accident, the Etruscan locket which I got abroad, and
which Tom admired so much that I had his initials cut on it to give to
him.

“Oh, how lovely!” said Tiny. “Who is it for?”

“Don’t you see the initials?” said I.

“T. S.,” said she, innocently; “who can it be?”

I thought there seemed something like a blush upon her cheek as she
spoke; but I told her that T. S. was some one I cared a great deal
about.

“Is she pretty?” asked Tiny.

“She!” I answered; “it isn’t any girl; it’s my chum, Tom, you know.”

Then she really ; and a little while afterward I remembered that
those were her initials. How she must have hated me,――perhaps!

       *       *       *       *       *

I have eaten a real breakfast at last, and am upon my feet again. The
Professor has gone, and I am going at once. How curious it will be to
come out of this dream, and go back again to work! The doctor begs me
not to get excited, and yet tells me that in three days I shall be as
well as ever. I have been excited for a year now, and I go to the front
this very afternoon. I am rather thin, and my shirt feels something
like an air-box; but I shall get over all that soon. We are to make an
attack before long, I understand.

       *       *       *       *       *

I am back in camp. This is the last entry that I shall make in this
note-book for some time to come. I am alarmed a little about Tom. I
think he is going to be sick; he seems excited and feverish, and yet
dull. However, he has brightened up wonderfully since I told him about
the Professor’s intention; and I am not sure but that it was a dreadful
homesickness that oppressed him when I first met him. He won’t see
a doctor; he laughs the idea to scorn, and says he is only tired and
overworked, and that, if I can manage to secure him a little rest, he
will soon be all right. But he is dying to see his mother, he confesses
to me, and I am not surprised to hear it.

I said that this is the last entry I shall make here. I am not sure
now but that these are the last words which I shall ever write. I take
charge of a small expedition to-night, with men whom I have personally
selected for the purpose; and we are to destroy the bridge above here.
It must be done at once. Jackson is near there, and we expect and fear
an attack from him. The work is delicate rather than difficult; but
it is sufficiently dangerous for me to commend my soul to God before I
start upon it. Good-by, little note-book, perhaps forever. If Tom and
I return safe,――and Tom will, I am sure,――why, then, perhaps, I may
tell you all about this coming night’s work; but, if not, you will be
destroyed, unread; and so farewell.




VIII.

MIDNIGHT.

    “Then came a blinding flash, a deafening roar,
       And dissonant cries of terror and dismay;
     Blood trickled down the river’s reedy shore,
       And with the dead he lay.”


A starlit sky, dead silence all around, only the river’s murmur
breaking it. The moonbeams shining on the forest-path mark all the
shadows with a dazzling light, bringing weird and fantastic outlines
forth, where brush and hedges line the dusty road, and making the
parched fields, almost destitute of vegetation, shine like burnished
sheets of dead white light. And along this road came slowly, with
muffled tramp, a little body of men, their dark figures darker by
contrast with the gleaming barrels of their rifles, which the moonlight
seemed to tinge with silvery fire. They came along so quietly, so
noiselessly, now hidden from view in a curve of the road, and now
appearing again. And still all was quiet.

And then a little tongue of flame ran quickly and noiselessly up into
the black darkness; and in a moment more all was blaze and smoke. The
work was done,――the bridge was destroyed.

Down in the road around the bridge the men were grouped,――the fire
giving them a ruddy coloring,――a tint of blood. Two figures were
especially prominent, and seemed to be directing their movements.

“Well, Tom,” said Ned, “does this remind you of bonfires in the yard at
Cambridge?”

“Not much,” said Tom, dispiritedly.

“Why, Tom, what is the matter with you?” asked Ned, anxiously.

“I don’t know,” said Tom. “I feel nervous and apprehensive.”

“I ought not to have let you come with me,” said Ned. “It was weak and
selfish in me to consent. You are feverish and excited, Tom; and you
ought to have rested.”

“Just as if I was going to let you go off into danger without me!” said
Tom.

“I am much obliged to you for the care you take of me,” said Ned;
“but you see the work has been done without any trouble. The rebs are
two miles away; and this will prevent them from making a detour, and
getting in our rear if we advance.”

“Ned,” said Tom, “do you think that the Professor will bring my mother
on to Washington with him?”

“Think!” said Ned. “I am sure he will, and that, when we return to
camp, we shall find a message from her to you. Perhaps he’ll charter a
train, and bring on a host of your female admirers, victorious masher
of female hearts!”

“Don’t rough me, Ned,” said Tom.

“Well, now I know that you are going to be sick, Tom,” said Ned, “when
you take that piteous tone, instead of answering me back. By Jove,
there goes a beam, crash; and look, the fire has entirely died out of
the other. We can’t leave the work half done in this way, we must hurry
and finish it. The rebel pickets are probably back in camp by this
time. Tom, order four men, and row that boat over to the other side for
me.”

“Why, Ned!” asked Tom, “what are you going to do?”

“The fire has died out over there,” said Ned, “and the other beam is
left. Here, O’Brien, I want that axe. I am going to cross on it, and
cut it off where it is charred. Get the boat ready at once, captain.”

“But, Ned, that is very dangerous,” interposed Tom.

“Obey orders!” said Ned, impatiently and angrily; and Tom, with a
reproachful glance, left him at once.

Only a slender beam now hung over the flood. On this Ned started to
cross, balancing himself with the axe, the group of men watching him
eagerly. An inch to the right or to the left, and all was lost. The
flames were decreasing now, yet still the beam stood. Then the boat
started out slowly across the river. The attention of all was turned
towards it for an instant; and, in the mean time, Ned had almost gained
the other side. One, two, three blows on the charred part of the beam,
and it wavered and fell with a crash as Ned leaped lightly upon the
bank. He waved his hand triumphantly, and ran down to meet the boat,
which, more than half way across, was now struggling with the powerful
current, and yet was visibly nearing the shore. He waved his cap, and
started down the river-bank into the copse to meet it. Only two steps,
two little steps down the bank, and from the tangled foliage a powerful
hand grasped his throat, the cold barrel of a pistol was pressed to
his cheek, and a voice fairly hissed the whisper into his ears:――

“Silence! or you are a dead man!”

And for reply, with one mighty effort, he threw off the hand; and, as
the pistol-shot resounded through the air, his voice rang out, clear
and strong on the still night:――

“BACK TO THE CAMP, FOR YOUR LIVES! THE ENEMY IS UPON US!”

In an instant more he was seized; and one of the men who had crept upon
him said:――

“Damn you, you hound! you have spoiled all our plans.”

Then Ned smiled serenely, and looked calmly at the man.

“But we shall bag four or five of them, any way, lieutenant,” said one
of the men,――“those in the boat down there.”

And then Ned started and turned pale; but it was too late. Tom and two
others had already landed, and were in the hands of two or three of the
rebel pickets.

“O Tom, Tom!” cried Ned, “why did you not turn back?”

But Tom did not answer, and only stared vacantly and stupidly at Ned.

“The captain’s sick, sir,” said one of the men who had been captured.

“Drunk, more likely,” said the rebel lieutenant, with an oath.

“He was taken in the boat,” continued the man.

“It is as I feared,” said Ned; “he is in a high fever, as I was.” At
this the rebel lieutenant drew back. “Oh! it is not contagious,” said
Ned, with a world of scorn in his voice; and the rebel lieutenant
resumed his former position.

“Tom, don’t you know me?” asked Ned. “Oh, what will be the end of this,
I wonder!”

“Libby Prison,” sneered the lieutenant.

“Tell my mother to come and see me at Libby,” said Tom, half stupidly.
Upon this the chorus naturally raised an insulting shout, and one
poor brute indulged in some ribald remark. In an instant, Tom had
struck him across the face; in another instant, Tom himself lay on
the ground senseless and stunned by a blow from the butt of one of
the rebel rifles. It was at this instant, while Ned in anguish and
desperation was struggling with his captors, that the sound of horses’
hoofs was heard coming nearer and nearer, and three or four officers
rode quickly up. The central figure of the group was a compact, sinewy
man, of medium height, with a full, untrimmed beard, and a face, as Ned
could see by the dim light of the fire which some of the men were now
lighting a little distance off, furrowed with the lines of thought, of
care, and anxiety. The eyes were large and expressive, the features
clearly cut, and the mouth, even though partially hidden by a thin
mustache, showed indomitable firmness. A grand head in many respects,
and one which made it evident to Ned that he was in the presence of the
dreaded Stonewall Jackson.

“What is the matter here?” he asked briefly.

“They have destroyed the bridge, general,” was the reply.

Stonewall Jackson turned, and whispered to one of his companions who
rode away. Then he continued:――

“Are these prisoners?”

“Yes, general,” said the lieutenant,――“these four.”

“A lieutenant-colonel, I see?” said Stonewall Jackson.

Ned simply bowed in reply. Then Stonewall Jackson looked at Tom, and
said:――

“And who is this here?”

At this, Tom half raised himself, and then fell back again.

“May I tell you?” asked Ned.

“Certainly,” said Jackson; “what is it?”

“He is in a high fever, which has been coming on for some time,” said
Ned; “and one of these men struck him with the butt of his rifle.”

“After he had surrendered?” asked Jackson.

“After he was taken prisoner,” said Ned.

“He shall be taken to camp and attended to,” said Stonewall Jackson.
But, when they touched Tom, he uttered a sharp cry of pain; and the men
drew back.

“We will let him remain here, then,” said Jackson, after a word or two
more with his companions. “Lieutenant, you will keep watch here, and
down the river’s bank, until daybreak, and then report at head-quarters
to me with the prisoners. As for you, sir,” he continued, addressing
Ned, “you can remain here through the night with your friend,――under
parole, of course, not to break your bonds. Do you accept?”

“Most thankfully,” said Ned, with a gratitude in his voice and accent
far beyond what his words expressed.

“He is a handsome boy,” said Jackson, looking again at the still
unconscious Tom. “Keep the other prisoners under strict guard,
lieutenant; but treat this gentleman who is under parole with all
possible respect. Hark! what is that? Midnight!”

And, as he paused to listen, the distant sound of bells rang faintly
out upon the air. Midnight; and for an instant utter stillness upon air
and earth and water. And then Tom groaned painfully; and, as Ned bent
anxiously over him, Stonewall Jackson said:――

“I shall see you in the morning, Colonel.” And Ned thanked him once
again; and the noise of the horses’ hoofs came more and more faintly,
and at last died away entirely.

Then Ned knelt down beside Tom, and looked steadily at him. Tom half
opened his eyes, and then closed them again with a weary moan that went
to Ned’s very heart. “Don’t you know me, Tom?” he said.

“I shall see my mother to-morrow,” said Tom, “after waiting two years.
I couldn’t go before,――I couldn’t leave Ned when he was sick.”

Ned hid his face in his hands, and groaned. Tom closed his eyes again,
and seemed to pass into a fitful slumber. The men had built a great
fire a little way apart; and its gleams fell upon Tom’s face, just as
the firelight had done in the Professor’s room, five years before,
when Ned first met him. How well he remembered that night! He laid his
hand on Tom’s hot brow, and smoothed back his tangled hair. How lovely
his face was in this fitful, ruddy glow! How much he had sacrificed
for Ned, and now Ned had ruined him! It was dreadful to Ned. He threw
himself on the grass beside Tom, and put his face on Tom’s shoulder.

“I am going to cut recitation to-day,” muttered Tom. “Hang that old
Ned! He is always vexed about something or other. I’m going to enlist,
mother; I must, you see,――oh, I must, I must, I must! Good-by!”

“Oh, don’t, Tom!” groaned Ned.

And then Tom sat up, and gazed wildly and vacantly at Ned, without a
trace of recognition in his face.

“Why, Professor,” said he. “I couldn’t leave Ned possibly! We’ve been
through everything together; and he might not be cared for properly, if
I were to leave him sick and alone. Mother says that I am right; and I
shall see her to-morrow,――I shall see her to-morrow.”

“It is as I feared,” said Ned, half to himself; “he is in a high
fever. If I can only get him down to the river-bank there, where I can
bathe his head.”

And, putting Tom’s limp arm around his own neck, Ned managed with some
difficulty to carry him a few steps to the river’s brink.

“There, Tom,” he said, “I’ll bathe your head for you, poor fellow!”

“Here is the river,” said Tom; “and we are going to see mother in a
boat. It’s a dangerous thing, Ned, to cross on that beam. OBEY ORDERS!
And now it is too late, too late! God only knows whether I shall ever
see my mother again.” And now, as Tom became quiet once more, Ned sat
there, and bathed his head; and the river continued the noise of its
rushing waters, and the wavelets splashed gently upon the shore, and
against the wooden sides of the boat,――the boat! And now for the first
time Ned saw the means of deliverance within his power. The idea fairly
swept over his mind. To put Tom into the boat, and gain the other side,
would be the work of a few moments only: and it could be done; for the
rebel squad was dispersed along the shore, and the one man who sat by
the fire a few yards off seemed fast asleep. But then, even as the
thought of a possibility of freedom for Tom made him exultant, there
came the recollection of his parole. He still sat by Tom’s side, and
mechanically now smoothed back the hair from his forehead, and as
mechanically repeated to himself, “word of honor, word of honor, word
of honor,” until the very leaves upon the trees seemed to rustle in
rhythm with the cadence; and then, with this dull, heavy oppression on
his mind, the words seemed to turn into French and Latin and Greek, and
to make new and fantastic combinations in his brain. “God help me!” he
groaned. “I am going mad.” And then he knelt and prayed; and still the
river rushed along, and still that one black figure sat there by the
fire, as if half asleep. Then Ned saw him move slowly, and heard him
whisper hoarsely, “Colonel! Colonel!”

“Do you mean me?” asked Ned.

“Yes. Speak softer, and come up here.”

Wondering and confused, Ned obeyed. The man turned a rough, unshaven
face to him, and said:――

“You don’t know me, I see?”

“No,” said Ned.

“I know you, though. Mighty peart you be now; but you wasn’t so three
weeks ago. You was took pretty sick then, and lying in a hospittle.”

“Well, what of it?” said Ned.

“Well, you’re a stoutish kind of man now, ain’t you? But, Lord!” and
the fellow laughed to himself, “I could just chaw you up in no time. I
should kinder like to have a gouge at you, anyway.”

“Thank you,” said Ned; “but if that is all you have to say, I shall
have to leave you, and attend to my friend.”

“You’re a real perlite man,” said the man, in a wondering sort of way;
“and yet you’re a Yank. You must attend to your friend. That’s fair;
and why? Because when you was sick, he took care of you. I see it; I
was in the hospittle likewise at the time. I had just got up as you was
took down. Don’t yer remember me?”

“No,” said Ned, impatiently.

“Well, you give me some fruit and jelly that was sent me one day. I
never had such a good time in my life as eating them things. The
nurse, she says, ‘Don’t waste ’em on him; he’s a rebel,’ she says; and
what did you say? You says, ‘Don’t let’s think nothing about Rebs and
Feds here,’ says you, ‘but let’s forget all about it; and then I liked
you. I like you now.”

“I am glad to hear it,” said Ned; “but I must see to my friend.”

“You care for him about as you would for a gal, don’t you?” said this
Virginia barbarian then. “Well, he’s pootier than any gal I ever see
anywhar. Look here, this is jest what I want to say to you. Ef you
should put him and you in that thar boat, and float down the river,
you’d come to your own lines. Ef I should see you do it, I’d stop you;
but I’m going to take a snooze by the fire here, for I’m powerful
tired. Ef I should wake up, I should fire on you, ef I saw you; and so
would others. But I can’t allus aim straight in the dark; and, whar one
aims, others is likely to. Now I have done you a good turn for what
you’ve did to me; and ef ever we meet again, by God, I’ll kill you.”

“But I can’t in honor escape,” said Ned.

“Of course you can’t,” said the man; “and, if you could, of course you
wouldn’t tell me. There, I don’t want no more to say to you. Just git,
that’s all you’ve got to do.”

Ned went back full of this new temptation. The other pickets were
dispersed, the river rolled on invitingly, and Tom seemed to be
sleeping more quietly than before.

“Perhaps I can get him exchanged in the morning,” said Ned, “since he’s
so ill. I am glad that he is sleeping.”

Just at this moment, Tom awoke hurriedly, and looked about him wildly
and vacantly, then fell back again.

“Oh, if Ned were only here!” he groaned,――“if Ned were only here!”

“Ned is here, Tom, close beside you, as always,” said Ned, softly.

“If Ned were here,” muttered Tom, “he would help me. O Ned, Ned! do
come, do please come and help me to see my mother!”

“I will,” whispered Ned, solemnly. Not an instant was to be lost.
Without daring to think, without daring to look around him, then he
lifted Tom and laid him in the boat. The keel grated on the pebbly
shore. He started nervously and turned; but the faithless picket was
laboriously sleeping. In an instant more he had thrown off his outer
garments; and, with the rope of the boat tied around his neck, he half
swam, half drifted, with the strong current down the stream. Weak from
his late sickness, and the excitement and efforts of the night, his
swimming soon exhausted him; and he clung to the side of the boat,
and drifted with it. The sky now was marked with black cloud-rifts,
that made strange and fantastic outlines on its luminous background;
and the white light of the moon was growing gray. On each side of him
he saw the black trees standing in groups, now dense, now scattered,
along the shores; while ever in his ears was the strange murmur of the
torrent, broken only by Tom’s incoherent muttering as he lay in the
boat. Then suddenly came the sharp report of a rifle; and he knew that
his escape was discovered at last. He heard the bullets whistle by him,
then one grazed the side of the boat, but luckily did not come near
Tom. At last the firing ceased; but the boat seemed to be drifting into
a little cove. He made one desperate effort to push her more into the
main current, but in vain; for his strength was now entirely gone.
Then he gave one cry, as he saw the first faint gleam of dawn in the
east, and the boat struck him, bruised and fainting, against the shore.
He crawled feebly upon the bank, the rope still around his neck; and
then, stunned and bruised, all consciousness forsook him. The last
thing which he knew was, that the birds were just beginning to twitter
in the trees.

       *       *       *       *       *

When he awoke it was later in the day; and the warm light and air of
the forenoon was streaming into his tent. An orderly was standing by
the entrance.

“Where is Tom?” he asked hoarsely.

“The captain is there;” and the orderly pointed to the other side of
the tent, where Ned saw a figure lying muffled in coats and blankets.
He hardly dared to ask what he dreaded to learn, his voice seemed
clogged and heavy in his throat; and finally, when he did speak, it was
in a hoarse and tremulous whisper:――

“Is he dead?”

“Dead?” said the orderly, surprised; “why, no, colonel! But he is
dreadfully sick; and they are going to take him to the hospital, after
you have seen him and spoken with him.”

“Go outside,” said Ned, briefly, “and let no one enter under any
pretext whatever.” And, as the orderly obeyed, he threw himself down
beside Tom, who was sleeping restlessly under the influence apparently
of some opiate.

He looked at him, laid his hand upon his forehead, and then bent over
and kissed his hot face.

“Tom,” he said. But there was no answer, no movement. “I have come to
bid you good-by, Tom,” he said; “I am going back to deliver myself up.”
But still Tom slept, and groaned.

“Not one word of good-by, Tom,” said poor Ned. “And yet this is the
last time――the very last time――God help me!――that we shall see each
other, that I shall see you. O my darling, my darling, my darling!
please hear me. The only one I have ever loved at all, the only one
who has ever loved me. The last words that you heard from me were those
of anger and impatience, and now, poor fellow! you cannot speak even
to say good-by. Hear me say it. When you get well again, have some
memory of my bending over you and saying it, and telling you that I was
saying good-by, good-by, good-by! O Tom, my darling! don’t forget it.
If you knew how I love you, how I have loved you in all my jealous,
morbid moods, in all my exacting selfishness,――O Tom! my darling, my
darling! can’t you say one word, one little word before we part,――just
one little word, if it were only my name? Oh, please, please speak to
me! Don’t you remember when we were examined for college together? You
sat across the hall. I saw you there; and I wanted to go over and help
you. And your picture, Tom, that we quarrelled about,――I have it now,
Tom; it will be with me when they bury me. Tom, don’t you remember that
picture? It was the night when I determined to go to war that you gave
me that picture; it was just before we enlisted. O Tom! why did I let
you come at all? You will see your mother, Tom; and you will go home
now, and marry, and be happy, and forget me. Oh, no, no, no, Tom! you
won’t do that; you can’t do that. You won’t forget Ned, darling; he
was something to you; and you were all the world to him. O Tom! Tom!
please say one word to him.” He stopped and was silent. Tom only moaned
restlessly in his sleep; and there seemed to be a painful death-like
silence inside the tent, while outside was the bright life of the
morning and the busy murmur of the camp.

“Ah, well!” he said, “it is better so. He would not let me go if he
were conscious; he would say that I must stay with him; and that cannot
be. He need not know that I am dead, as I shall be, until he himself is
well once again. Good-by, Tom! good-by! and God bless you forever, my
darling!”

And calmly, yet with a dreadful pang at his heart, he stooped, and
once more kissed the flushed face of his friend; then quickly, as if
impelled by some force not his own, without daring to look backward, he
rushed from the tent.




IX.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

    “The morn broke in upon his solemn dream;
       And still with steady pulse and deepening eye,
     ‘Where bugles call,’ he said, ‘and rifles gleam,
       I follow though I die.’”


Stonewall Jackson sat in his tent, writing rapidly on a rough pine
table. There was in the man, in spite of his old coat stained here
and there with mud, and his awkwardness of position and figure, an
appearance of power,――power conscious and self-sustaining. At a first
glance he seemed an old Virginia farmer; but an instant’s careful
scrutiny showed, beneath his awkward simplicity, the grace of a true
soldier, while the slow, hesitating speech had in it an undertone which
made it evident that at times each word might be charged with fire and
eloquence and life. As he moved one hand to brush back the thinned hair
on his temples, this hot afternoon, a staff-officer entered the tent.

“I have some curious news, General,” he said.

“What is it?” asked Jackson, briefly; for a word was a power with this
man, and he never wasted power.

“The prisoner who broke his parole this morning has returned here,”
said the officer.

“What!” exclaimed Jackson, “has he given himself up?”

“Yes, General; they have him in confinement, and he has asked to see
you.”

“To see me, lieutenant!” said Stonewall Jackson. “That will make no
difference. He is to be shot at sunrise.”

“Very well, General;” and the lieutenant turned to depart.

“Stop a moment, though,” said Jackson. “I should like to know what
defence, what excuse he has to offer. Have him brought here.”

“Very well, General. But he is to be shot?”

“Certainly, sir!”

Jackson laid down his pen, and folded his arms before him on the rough
board which served him as a writing-table. He had not long to wait.
In less than five minutes, Ned appeared, guarded by two soldiers, his
face pale but determined. He met Stonewall Jackson’s scrutinizing look
clearly and fearlessly, yet respectfully. “You may withdraw,” said
Jackson to the men. “Now, sir, you wish to see me. What have you to
say?”

“I broke my parole this morning,” said Ned.

“I know it, sir,” said Jackson; “and, having some compunction for your
violation of honor, you have tried as a manœuvre giving yourself up
again. You have made a mistake, sir.”

“It is just because I knew you would misconstrue my motive and my
action thus that I asked to see you,” said Ned. “I wish to explain.”

“No explanation is possible, sir,” cried Stonewall Jackson; “and this
will avail you nothing.”

“Oh! wait a moment,” cried Ned, impetuously. “Don’t deceive yourself.
I know what I am doing; I knew a few hours ago, when I left the Union
lines, what I was doing. I came here to die,――to be shot! Do you
hear,――to be shot! I broke my parole; I expected no mercy from you,――I
ask for none, I would take none. I claim only my right, and my right
is death.”

“Then why did you give yourself up, if you knew death must be your
fate?” asked Jackson.

“Death has not frightened me very much,” said Ned, contemptuously.

“There is something about you,” said Stonewall Jackson, “which makes me
wish to respect you. I see you are not a coward.”

“And I wish you to see that I am not a liar,” answered Ned. “I gave
myself up to death; and I wish you to bear witness, that, having
sinned, I accepted the penalty.”

“But why sin?” said Stonewall Jackson.

“I will tell you why,” said Ned. “I have only one person in the world
to care for: I have no family, no relatives, only this one friend. He
was all the world to me, and I was something to him. When the war broke
out, I enlisted, and he went with me. We have been side by side through
everything. He saved my life in battle at the risk of his own; and a
few weeks ago, when I was taken sick by fever, and he had a leave of
absence, he gave up his home, he sacrificed everything, to watch by me.
Last night he was taken sick while with the party at the bridge, when
in another day he would have been with his mother at Washington. You
paroled me. I was left there with him, and he raved and groaned until
I could bear it no longer. Every word he said seemed to stab me to the
heart. Then I saw the river and the boat; the men were scattered, and
the means of escape were at hand. I hesitated. I thought of my parole;
and then I thought of him a prisoner, an invalid, a corpse perhaps,
if he waited here, while back of us his mother was hastening to meet
her only son. He had given up so much for me, and what had I done for
him? It seemed as if I must get him away; and then he cried out again,
‘Ned, Ned, won’t you help me?’ And I said, ‘Yes!’ And I knew that
_yes_ was death to me. Oh! you see I am prepared. I have not tried
to arouse your sympathy or your compassion, I have only told you the
bare facts. Do you think, if I hoped for life, if I cared for pardon
from you, that I could not say more, that I could not pour out words
of fire and blood to show you what our friendship is, and what last
night’s temptation was? I ask no mercy; and you could give me none if
you wished it: my act must bring its consequences. Only I wished you to
see that I was neither liar nor coward; that, having forfeited my life,
I did not evade the payment of my debt; in a word, that I was enough
of a gentleman to be worthy of the great privilege of serving in my
country’s cause.”

“Sir,” said Jackson, “you are not only a gentleman, but a soldier. I
love war for itself, I glory in it; but it saddens me when it brings
with it the useless sacrifice of such a life as yours.”

“I am not a soldier,” said Ned, quietly. “I hate war; I hate to have
to long for the death of such a man as you are. But I am ready for all
that, when there is a cause at stake.”

“A cause at stake!” said Stonewall Jackson. “Well, God be with the
right!”

“God is with the right,” said Ned; “and time will show us which is the
right. Ah! if I could live to see that time!”

“Be thankful rather,” said Jackson, “that you are going to die before
you find you are in the wrong. I wish you had been with me in this
campaign.”

“If it had been possible,” said Ned, and then he stopped.

“I should like,” said Stonewall Jackson, slowly, “though doubtless you
consider me a rebel and a traitor, to have you shake hands with me.”

“Not with a rebel or a traitor,” said Ned, “but with a sincere and
honest man whom I respect and honor;” and with this grasp of hands,
these two great souls gazed in each other’s eyes.

“And now you know what I must say,” said Stonewall Jackson.

“I know it,” Ned replied.

“Do not think me cruel, do not think me lacking in human feeling,”
Stonewall Jackson continued; “but war has its duties as well as peace.
God help those who must execute these duties!”

“There is but one thing you can do,” said Ned, tranquilly.

“There is but one thing I can do,” repeated Jackson. “You will be shot
at sunrise.” He called the men outside. “Give this gentleman,” he said,
“as good accommodations as the camp affords. See that he is left by
himself, and is undisturbed to-night.――All letters, all directions,
which you may wish to give, shall be forwarded to the North,” he
continued, addressing Ned; “and if you wish anything to be done about
burial”――

“I shall wish nothing,” said Ned.

“In that case,” said Jackson, with princely courtesy, “I have only to
say farewell.” He rose again, and took Ned’s hand; then the soldiers
marched away, and he was left in his tent alone.




X.

THE LAST LETTER HOME.


    DEAR PROFESSOR,――I am writing to you the last words I shall
    ever say, the last thoughts I shall ever think, the last
    farewell to all I have ever known and loved. To-morrow, at
    daybreak, I am to be shot. There is nothing that can possibly
    prevent it,――this is my last night on earth. Am I resigned to
    my lot? am I willing to lose my life? I cannot tell, it seems
    so like a dream. It is terrible to me to think that this is
    the end of all my youth and hope; and you will understand me
    when I say that I do dread and fear death. Yet I am calm and
    self-possessed. I am half dead already, indeed, for my end
    seems inevitable; and I do not suffer so much as I wonder. I
    seem to have lost all volition, and, as it were, to have gone
    out of myself. A little while ago I wound up my watch; and then
    the uselessness of that performance struck me, and I said,
    half aloud, “Poor Ned!” and then laughed at myself for doing
    it. As my laugh died away, there was a cold silence around
    which chilled me through and through. Yes, I must be half dead
    already. It is only when I think of Tom that the life seems to
    rush back again; and as I believe this sort of torpor is well
    for me, I dare not trust to myself write to him. Besides, he
    must get well; and so you must try and keep my death hidden
    from him for a time. You can tell him, better than I could,
    that my last thought will be of him, and that I cannot trust
    myself to say farewell to him. Even now, I have this cruel
    uncertainty about his health, and I do not know but what you
    may lose us both.

    Stonewall Jackson is a hero. I never thought that I could say
    that of any rebel, but I am glad that I have known him. He will
    work us more terrible injury, I fear; but I am sure that he
    will not live long. The excitement of this war is killing him;
    and here, when I so thoroughly admire him, I have to rejoice
    that he is doomed. How strange war is,――stranger and stranger
    now than ever! Oh! if I could only see the end,――if I could
    only know whether we shall gain our country by all this blood,
    and if Tom will live, I could die perfectly contented. There is
    Tom again, you see. I have to think of him in spite of myself.
    When you tell him my story, you can give him this letter, if he
    wants it, as perhaps he will.

    And now good-by for yourself. It is not well for me to
    write,――it brings me back to life too much; but I cannot die
    without telling you something of my feeling for you. Do you
    think that I have not fully appreciated all your sympathy, all
    your kindness, all the wealth of intellect and culture which
    you have laid before me? I always have had a sort of hope, that
    some time, when I should win some great honor, and the world
    should applaud, I could say, “Look here; here is the man to
    whom I owe all this; here is the man who advised me, who guided
    me; the man with the strong soul and the woman’s tenderness,
    who loved youth and beauty, and sympathized with sorrow. You
    take off your hats to me; but I kneel before him.” But all that
    is over now, and you have only a numb good-by from a man who is
    to be shot in a few hours.

    My body will not be sent North. When I am dead, I am dead; and
    here or there, it matters not where it is buried, to me nor
    to any one else. But if you ever want to think of me, and to
    feel that I am near, walk through the yard at Harvard, over by
    Holworthy, in the lovely evenings of the spring weather. It was
    at such a season, and at such a time, that I last saw the dear
    old place; and, if I ever can be anywhere on earth again, it
    is there that I should choose to be. Ah, if I could only see
    Harvard once again! God bless it forever and forever! I wonder
    how many visions of its elm-trees have swept before dying eyes
    here in Virginia battle-fields!

    Ah, well! there is only good-by to say once more. When he
    asks for me, tell him that I constantly think of him, that I
    am well and happy. Don’t let him know the truth until he is
    clearly out of danger, and then tell him all. It is not so very
    hard to bear; and I am sure now that I shall never be forgotten
    by him, and that nothing can ever come between us now. Tell him
    the only thing, after God, worth living for and worth dying
    for, is our country,――our noble country. Oh! she must be strong
    and glorious and united, at any cost. I feel it and I know it.
    And now good-by, once more and forever.

He sealed and directed the letter; then, throwing himself on the
blanket in the corner of the tent, fell into a deep, refreshing
slumber. He woke to feel the grasp of a hand upon his shoulder, to see
a file of men beside him. Without a word he rose and went with them.
They led him out a little from the camp, where it seemed quiet. He saw
them stand before him; he heard one preliminary order given, and caught
the flash of rifle-barrels in the early morning sunlight. Then there
was a noise and disturbance in the camp beyond, and a voice cried out:――

“It’s an attack by the Federals!”

Ned turned involuntarily. And with these words, in one great sweeping
flood, his life came back. No more numbness, no more indifference; but,
in that one instant, every drop of blood in his veins seemed charged
with electric power, and the morning air was like nectar. He stood
there, strong, like a man; and then there was one report, and he fell
dead,――dead in the dust of the Virginia soil.




XI.

AFTERWARDS.


This is the one picture that has been ever before my eyes, even in the
wild regions of Nevada and the undulating lawns and woody <DW72>s of
California. In the snow-clad forests of the Sierra Nevada, and even in
the tropical glory of sky and air in Arizona, amid the noise and bustle
of the camp, with heavenly peace and loveliness above, and murderous
savages, thirsting for our blood lying in deadly ambush all around, I
still have seen this picture. A dead man lying with his face to the
earth; while close by his side one little spot of dust seems blackened
and congealed by blood.

And afterwards? The sunshine steals softly and furtively through the
darkened windows of a happy Northern home. It is June, and the perfume
of the roses is on the air. In an easy-chair half sits, half reclines,
a pale girl, with a happy face, looking down with a perfect smile at
Tom, who sits at her feet. And near by stands a nurse, holding in her
arms a baby,――a baby whose two gelatinous arms beat the air wildly,
while his voice is raised in a shrill note, which may be triumph or
which may be agony.

“By Jove!” Tom says admiringly, “his high notes are stunning; ar’n’t
they, Nettie?”

“Tom,” replies Nettie, threateningly, “dare to make fun of your
offspring again, and we will leave you, and start for Indiana. Won’t
we, Baby?”

To this question, reply is given by an absurd inclination of the head
on one side and another wheezy shriek.

“I am not laughing, I am not laughing,” Tom hastens to remark, lest the
threat of Indiana should be repeated; “so don’t get angry, Baby. I say,
Nettie, we must have a name for him. We can’t call him Baby all the
time, you know.”

“He was named long ago, Tom,” said Nettie, “though of course I had to
wait. We must call him ‘Ned;’ we couldn’t call him by any other name.”

“Thank you, darling,” said Tom, gravely; “that is the way you make me
love you more and more every day.” And he kisses his wife, and, rising,
takes the baby and looks on its face, while his eyes are filled with
tears.

       *       *       *       *       *

And afterwards? The Professor’s room at Harvard is still as it was
when we first knew it, with the photograph still hanging over the
mantel-piece. And the Professor sits there gazing at it more lonely now
than ever before. He is growing quite old; he is very sarcastic and
astonishing; and dreadful stories are current among the students in
regard to his severity against culprits in the meetings of the Faculty.
There are two or three who know him, and to whom he is very kind. They
heard him tell the story of his boys, and they heard poor Ned’s last
letter. But the Professor declared then that he should never speak of
the subject again; and the few who heard him saw that the rest of his
life must be sad. And now, as he takes up the notes and emendations of
his old lecture on “Domestic Arts,” whose turn has come again, his eye
falls on the picture. Again it is the spring weather, again the fresh
breeze enters his room. He rises and walks to the window.

“I wonder if he is near,” he says, half aloud. “‘It was in such a
season and at such a time, that I last saw the dear old place; and, if
ever I can be on earth again, it is there that I should wish to be.’
Poor Ned! Poor Ned!”

And, as he sits in his chair again, the picture fades from my view, and
I see only the moonlight on our mountain camp, and hear the wailing of
the western wind.

And afterwards? Once more the country is intact, freed from the deadly
perils which assailed her. We know now what the words “our country”
mean,――rocks which the Atlantic lashes with its spray; broad uplands
and vast prairies where almost spontaneously fruit and grain seem to
spring forth from the rich soil; and barren hills as well, with only
the sage-brush for vegetation, within whose secret treasure-houses lie
great masses of gold and silver ore. From the summits of the Sierra
Nevada you can stand at midsummer in a forest where wreaths of snow lie
on the trees, and can gaze far down into valleys, thousands of feet
beneath, where there are rippling streamlets, and masses of flowers of
the most brilliant and the most delicate hues. This wonderful country,
that is still in its infancy, that is nursing men of every nation to
form a new nation; this country, that, with all its imperfections,
stands now on the grand basis of universal freedom,――justifies not
merely enthusiasm, but any loss of human life which may aid in its
preservation. These friends, these brothers, knew what was the true
meaning of life, and with that knowledge, gained by zeal and study,
offered their lives as a sacrifice. Woe to our country should the great
debt owed to these heroes be ever forgotten!

         “May God forbid that yet,
    Or in all time to come, we should their names forget!
          May every spring-time’s hours
          See their graves strewn with flowers,
    To show that still remembered is our debt!”


       *       *       *       *       *


 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.

 ――Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Two College Friends, by Fred. W. Loring

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