Before the Dawn Part 35

"Can the Colonel see me?" he asked.

"He will see any one if we let him," she replied.

"Then I am just 'any one'!"

"I did not say that," she replied with a smile.

She stood aside and Prescott entered the room, a bare place, the rude log walls covered with neither lath nor plaster, yet not wholly lacking in proof that woman was present. The scanty articles of furniture were arranged with taste, and against the walls were tacked a few sheets from last year's New York and London ill.u.s.trated weeklies. Vincent Harley lay on a pallet of blankets in the corner, a petulant look on his face.

"I'm glad to see you, Prescott," he said, "and then I'm not, because you fill my soul with envy. Here I am, tied to these blankets, while you can walk about and breathe G.o.d's air as you will. I wouldn't mind it so much if I had got that bullet in a big battle, say like Gettysburg, but to be knocked off one's horse as nice as you please in a beggarly little skirmish. It's too much, I say."

"You ought to be thankful that the bullet, instead of putting you on the ground, didn't put you under it," replied Prescott.

"Now, don't you try the pious and thankful dodge on me!" cried Harley.

"Helen does it now and then, but I stop her, even if I have to be impolite to a lady. I wouldn't mind _your_ feelings at all."

His sister sat down on a camp stool. It was easy to see that she understood her brother's temper and knew how to receive his outbursts.

"There you are again, Helen," he cried, seeing her look. "A smile like that indicates a belief in your own superiority. I wish you wouldn't do it. You hurt my vanity, and you are too good a sister for that."

Prescott laughed.

"I think you are getting well fast, Harley," he said. "You show too much energy for an invalid."

"I wish the surgeon thought the same," replied Harley, "but that doctor is feeble-minded; I know he is! Isn't he, Helen?"

"Perhaps he's keeping you here because he doesn't want us to beat the Yankees too soon," she replied.

"Isn't it true, Prescott, that a man is always appreciated least by his own family?" he asked.

He spoke as if in jest, but there was a trace of vanity, and Prescott hesitated for a reply, not wishing to appear in a false light to either brother or sister.

"Slow praise is worth the most," he replied ambiguously. Harley showed disappointment. He craved a compliment and he expected it.

While they talked Prescott was watching Helen Harley out of the corner of his eye. Outside were the wild soldiers and war; here, between these narrow log walls, he beheld woman and peace. He was seized with a sudden sick distaste of the war, its endless battles, its terrible slaughter, and the doubt of what was to come after.

Harley claimed his attention, for he could not bear to be ignored.

Moreover, he was wounded, and with all due deference to his sister, the visit was to him.

"Does either army mean to move?" he asked.

"I think so; I came to tell you about it," replied Prescott.

Harley at once was full of eagerness. This touched him on his strongest side. He was a warrior by instinct, and his interest in the affairs of the army could never be languid.

"Why, what news have you?" he asked quickly.

"Grant has come!"

He uttered an exclamation, but for a little while made no further comment. Like all the others, he seemed to accept the arrival of the new Northern leader as the signal for immediate action, and he wished to think over it.

"Grant," he said presently, "will attack us, and you don't know what it costs me to be lying here. I must be up and I will. Don't you see what is coming? Don't you see it, I say?"

"What is it that you see?" asked Prescott.

"Why, General Lee is going to win the greatest victory of the age. He will beat their biggest army, led by their best General. Why, I see it now! It will be the tactics of Chancellorsville over again. What a pity Jackson is gone! But there's Wood. He'll make a circuit with ten thousand men and hit 'em on the right flank, and at the same time I'll go around with my cavalry and dig into 'em on the left. The Yankees won't be dreaming of it, for Bobby Lee will be pounding 'em in front and they'll have eyes only for him. Won't it be grand, magnificent!"

There was a flash in his eye now and he was no longer irritable or impatient.

"Isn't war a glorious game?" he said. "Of course it is best not to have war, but if we must have it, it draws out of a man the best that is in him, if he's any good at all."

There was a light knock at the door, and Prescott, who was contrasting brother and sister, noticed their countenances change oddly and in a manner as different as their characters. Evidently they knew the knock.

She closed her lips tightly and a faint pink tint in her cheeks deepened. He looked up quickly and the light in his eyes spoke welcome.

"Come in!" he called in a loud voice, but his sister said nothing.

The lady who entered was Mrs. Markham, as crisp as the breath of the morning. Her dress was fresh and bright in colour, a brilliant note in a somber camp.

"Oh, Colonel!" she cried, going forward and taking both of Harley's hands in the warmth of her welcome. "I have been so anxious to see you again, and I am glad to know that you are getting well."

A pleased smile came over Harley's face and remained there. Here was one, and above all a woman, who could appreciate him at his true value, and whom no small drop of jealousy or envy kept from saying so.

"You give me too much credit, Mrs. Markham," he said.

"Not at all, my dear Colonel," she replied vivaciously. "It is not enough. One who wins laurels on such a terrible field as war has a right to wear them. Do not all of us remember that great charge of yours just at the critical moment, and the splendid way in which you covered the retreat from Gettysburg. You always do your duty, Colonel."

"My brother is not the only man in the army who does his duty," said Miss Harley, "and there are so many who are always true that he does not like to be singled out for special praise."

Colonel Harley frowned and Mrs. Markham shot a warning side glance at Miss Harley. Prescott, keenly watching them both, saw a flash as of perfect understanding and defiance pa.s.s between two pairs of eyes and then he saw nothing more. Miss Harley was intent upon her work, and Mrs.

Markham, blonde, smiling and innocent, was talking to the Colonel, saying to him the words that he liked to hear and soothing his wounded spirit.

Mrs. Markham had just come from Richmond to visit the General, and she told gaily of events in the Southern capital.

"We are cheerful there, Colonel," she said, "confident that such men as you will win for us yet. Oh, we hear what is going on. They print news on wall-paper, but we get it somehow. We have our diversions, too. It takes a thousand dollars, Confederate money, to buy a decent calico dress, but sometimes we have the thousand dollars. Besides, we have taken out all the old spinning-wheels and looms and we've begun to make our own cloth. We don't think it best that the women should spend all their time mourning while the men are at the front fighting so bravely."

Mrs. Markham chattered on; whatever might be the misfortunes of the Confederacy they did not seem to impress her. She was so lively and cheerful, and so deftly mingled compliments with her gaiety, that Prescott did not wonder at Harley's obvious attraction, but he was not sorry to see the frown deepen on the face of the Colonel's sister. The sound of some soldiers singing a gay chorus reached their ears and he asked Helen if she would come to the door of the house and see them. She looked once doubtfully at the other woman, but rose and went with him, the two who were left behind making no attempt to detain her.

"Too much watching is not good, Helen," said Prescott, reproachfully.

"You are looking quite pale. See how cheerful the camp is! Did you ever before hear of such soldiers?"

She looked over the tattered army as far as she could see and her eyes grew wet.

"War is a terrible thing," she replied, "and I think that no cause is wholly right; but truly it makes one's heart tighten to see such devotion by ragged and half-starved soldiers, hardly a man of whom is free from wound or scar of one."

The rolling thunder of a cannon shot came from a point far to the left.

"What is that?" she asked.

"It means probably that the tacit truce is broken, but it is likely that it is more in the nature of a range-finding shot than anything else. We are strongly intrenched, and as wise a man as Grant will try to flank us out of here, before making a general attack. I am sure there will be no great battle for at least a week."