Ailsa Paige Part 76

Engineers blocked their progress farther on, then Wisconsin infantry, young giants in blue, swinging forward in their long loose-limbered stride; then an interminable column of artillery, jolting slowly along, the grimy gunners swaying drowsily on their seats, officers nodding half asleep in their saddles.

"Philip," she ventured timidly.

"Yes."

"Is there-anything-you wish to tell me? Anything that I-perhaps-have a faint shadow of a right to know?"

For a long time they rode in silence, her question unanswered. A narrow cart road-less of a road than a lane-led east. He turned his horse into it.

For a moment no sound broke the silence save the monotonous clank of his sabre and the creak of girth and saddle.

"Ailsa!"

"Yes, Phil."

"Move closer; hold very tight to me; clasp both arms around my neck... . Are you seated firmly?"

"Yes, Phil."

He encircled her slender body with his right arm and, shaking out the bridle, launched his horse at a gallop down the sandy lane. Her breath and his mingled as they sped forward; the wind rushed by, waving the foliage on either hand; a steady storm of sand and gravel rained rattling through the bushes as the spurred horse bounded forward, breaking into a grander stride, thundering on through the gathering dusk.

Swaying, cradled in his embrace, her lips murmured his name, or, parted breathless, touched his, as the exquisitely confused sense of headlong speed dimmed her senses to a happy madness.

Trees, bushes, fences flew past and fled away behind in the dusk. It seemed to her as though she was being tossed through s.p.a.ce locked in his arms; infinite depths of shadow whirled and eddied around her; limitless reaches, vistas unfathomable stretched toward outer chaos into which they were hurled, unseeing, her arms around his neck, her soft face on his breast.

Then a lantern flashed; voices sounded in far-off confusion; more lanterns twinkled and glimmered; more voices broke in on their heavenly isolation.

Was the divine flight ended?

Somebody said: "Colonel Arran is here, and is still alive, but his mind is clouding. He says he is waiting for his son to come."

Dizzy, burning hot, half blinded, she felt herself swung out of s.p.a.ce onto the earth again, through a glare of brightness in which Celia's face seemed to be framed, edged with infernal light... . And another face, Camilla's, was there in the confusing brilliancy; and she reeled a little, embraced, held hot and close; and in her dulled ears drummed Celia's voice, murmuring, pitying, complaining, adoring:

"Honey-bell-Oh, my little Honey-bud! I have you back in my a'ms, and I have my boy, and I'm ve'y thankful to my Heavenly Master-I certainly am, Honey-bee!-fo' His goodness and His mercy which He is showing eve'y day to me and mine."

And Camilla's pale face was pressed against her hot cheeks and the girl's black sleeve of c.r.a.pe encircled her neck.

She whispered: "I-I try to think it reconciles me to losing Jimmy.

... War gave me Stephen... . Yet-oh, I cannot understand why G.o.d's way must sometimes be the way of battle!"

Ailsa saw and heard and understood, yet, all around her fell an unreal light-a terrible fiery radiance, making voices the voices, of phantoms, forms the outlines of ghosts.

Through an open door she saw a lamp-lit room where her lover knelt beside a bed-saw a man's arm reach feebly toward him-and saw no more. Everything wavered and dazzled and brightened into rainbow tints around her, then to scarlet; then velvety darkness sprang up, through which she fell into swift unconsciousness.

One of the doctors, looking at her as she lay on the hospital cot, dropped his hand gravely on her thin wrist.

"You cannot tell me anything that I don't know about Mrs. Paige," he said wearily. "This is a complete breakdown. It's come just in time, too, that girl has been trying to kill herself. I understand that her furlough has arrived. You'd better get her North on the next transport. I guess that our angels are more popular in our hospitals just now than they would be tuning little gilt harps aloft. We can't spare 'em, Mrs. Craig, and I guess the Most High can wait a little longer."

Doctor, ward-master, apothecary, and nurses stood looking down at the slim, fever-flushed shape moving restlessly on the cot-babbling soft inconsequences, staring out of brilliant eyes at nothing.

The doctor whispered to the apothecary, and his gesture dismissed those who stood around her waiting in silence.

CHAPTER XXI

Early in October the Union Cavalry began their favourite pastime of "chasing" Stuart. General Pleasanton with a small force and a horse battery began it, marching seventy-eight miles in twenty-four hours; but Stuart marched ninety in the same time. He had to.

About ten o'clock in the morning of October tenth, General Buford, chief of cavalry, set the 6th Pennsylvania Lancers galloping after Stuart. Part of the 1st Maine Cavalry joined the chase; but Stuart flourished his heels and cantered gaily into Pennsylvania to the amazement and horror of that great State, and to the unbounded mortification of the Union army. He had with him the 1st, 3d, 4th, 5th and 9th Virginia Cavalry; the 7th and 9th North Carolina, and two Legions; and after him went pelting the handful that McClellan could mount. A few tired troopers galloped up to Whitens Ford just as Stuart crossed in safety; and the gain of "chasing" Stuart was over. Never had the efficiency of the Union Cavalry been at such a low ebb; but it was low-water mark, indeed, and matters were destined to mend after a history of nearly two years of neglect, disorganisation, and misuse.

Bayard took over the cavalry south of Washington; Pleasanton collected the 6th Regulars, the 3d Indiana, the 8th New York, the 8th Pennsylvania, and the 8th Illinois, and started in to do mischief with brigade head-quarters in the saddle.

The 8th New York went with him, but the 8th New York Lancers, reorganising at Orange Hill, were ordered to recruit the depleted regiment to twelve companies.

In August, Berkley's ragged blue and yellow jacket had been gaily embellished with brand-new sergeant's chevrons; at the Stone Bridge where the infantry recoiled his troop pa.s.sed over at a gallop.

The War Department, much edified, looked at the cavalry and began to like it. And it was ordered that every cavalry regiment be increased by two troops, L and M. Which liberality, in combination with Colonel Arran's early reports concerning Berkley's conduct, enabled the company tailor to sew a pair of lieutenant's shoulder-straps on Berkley's soiled jacket.

But there was more than that in store for him; it was all very well to authorise two new troops to a regiment, but another matter to recruit them.

Colonel Arran, from his convalescent couch in the North, wrote to Governor Morgan; and Berkley got his troop, and his orders to go to New York and recruit it. And by the same mail came the first letter Ailsa had been well enough to write him since her transfer North on the transport Long Branch.

He read it a great many times; it was his only diversion while awaiting transportation at the old Hygeia Hotel, where, in company with hundreds of furloughed officers, he slept on the floors in his blanket; he read it on deck, as the paddle-wheeled transport weighed anchor, swung churning under the guns of the great Fortress-so close that the artillerymen on the water-battery could have tossed a biscuit aboard-and, heading north-east, pa.s.sed out between the capes, where, seaward, the towering black sides of a sloop of war rose, bright work aglitter, smoke blowing fitfully from her single funnel.

At Alexandria he telegraphed her: "Your letter received, I am on my way North," and signed it with a thrill of boyish pride: "Philip O. Berkley-Arran, Capt. Cavalry, U. S. V."

To his father he sent a similar telegram from the Willard in Washington; wasted two days at the State, War, and Navy for an audience with Mr. Stanton, and finally found himself, valise in hand, waiting among throngs of officers of all grades, all arms of the service, for a chance to board his train.

And, as he stood there, he felt cotton-gloved fingers fumbling for the handle of his valise, and wheeled sharply, and began to laugh.

"Where the devil did you come from, Burgess? Did they give you a furlough?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Well, you got more than I. What's the matter; do you want to carry my bag?"

"Yes, sir."

"You don't have to."

"No, Captain... . If you don't object, sir, I'll carry it."

They found seats together; Philip, amused, tried to extract from Burgess something besides the trite and obvious servant's patter-something that might signify some possibility of a latent independence-the germ of aspiration. And extracted nothing. Burgess had not changed, had not developed. His ways were Philip's ways; his loftier flights mounted no higher toward infinity than the fashions prevailing in the year 1862, and their suitability to his master's ultimate requirements.

For his regiment, for its welfare, its hopes, its glory, he apparently cared nothing; nor did he appear to consider the part he had borne in its fluctuating fortunes anything to be proud of.

Penned with the others in the brush field, he had done stolidly what his superiors demanded of him; and it presently came out that the only anxiety that a.s.sailed him was when, in the smoke of the tangled thickets, he missed his late master.

"Well, what do you propose to do after the regiment is mustered out?" inquired Philip curiously.

"Wait on you, sir."