Crittenden Part 9

Next morning rumours were flying. In a week, at least, they would sail.

And still regiments rolled in, and that afternoon Crittenden saw the regiment come in for which Grafton had been waiting--a picturesque body of fighting men and, perhaps, the most typical American regiment formed since Jackson fought at New Orleans. At the head of it rode two men--one with a quiet mesmeric power that bred perfect trust at sight, the other with a kindling power of enthusiasm, and a pa.s.sionate energy, mental, physical, emotional, that was tireless; each a man among men, and both together an ideal leader for the thousand Americans at their heels.

Behind them rode the Rough Riders--dusty, travel-stained troopers, gathered from every State, every walk of labour and leisure, every social grade in the Union--day labourer and millionaire, clerk and clubman, college boys and athletes, Southern revenue officers and Northern policemen; but most of them Westerners--Texan rangers, sheriffs, and desperadoes--the men-hunters and the men-hunted; Indians; followers of all political faiths, all creeds--Catholics, Protestants, Jews; but cowboys for the most part; dare-devils, to be sure, but good-natured, good-hearted, picturesque, fearless. And Americans--all!

As the last troopers filed past, Crittenden followed them with his eyes, and he saw a little way off Blackford standing with folded arms on the edge of a cloud of dust and looking after them too, with his face set as though he were buried deep in a thousand memories. He started when Crittenden spoke to him, and the dark fire of his eyes flashed.

"That's where I belong," he said, with a wave of his hand after the retreating column. "I don't know one of them, and I know them all. I've gone to college with some; I've hunted, fished, camped, drank, and gambled with the others. I belong with them; and I'm going with them if I can; I'm trying to get an exchange now."

"Well, luck to you, and good-by," said Crittenden, holding out his hand.

"I'm going home to-night."

"But you're coming back?"

"Yes."

Blackford hesitated.

"Are you going to join this outfit?"--meaning his own regiment.

"I don't know; this or the Rough Riders."

"Well," Blackford seemed embarra.s.sed, and his manner was almost respectful, "if we go together, what do you say to our going as 'bunkies'?"

"Sure!"

"Thank you."

The two men grasped hands.

"I hope you will come back."

"I'm sure to come back. Good-by."

"Good-by, sir."

The unconscious "sir" startled Crittenden. It was merely habit, of course, and the fact that Crittenden was not yet enlisted, but there was an unintended significance in the soldier's tone that made him wince.

Blackford turned sharply away, flushing.

VIII

Back in the Bluegra.s.s, the earth was flashing with dew, and the air was brilliant with a steady light that on its way from the sun was broken by hardly a cloud. The woodland was alive with bird-wing and bird-song and, under them, with the flash of metal and the joy of breaking camp. The town was a mighty pedestal for flag-staffs. Everywhere flags were shaken out. Main Street, at a distance, looked like a long lane of flowers in a great garden--all blowing in a wind. Under them, crowds were gathered--country people, negroes, and townfolk--while the town band stood waiting at the gate of the park. The Legion was making ready to leave for Chickamauga, and the town had made ready to speed its going.

Out of the shady woodland, and into the bright sunlight, the young soldiers came--to the music of stirring horn and drum--legs swinging rhythmically, chins well set in, eyes to the front--wheeling into the main street in perfect form--their guns a moving forest of glinting steel--colonel and staff superbly mounted--every heart beating proudly against every blue blouse, and sworn to give up its blood for the flag waving over them--the flag the fathers of many had so bitterly fought five and thirty years before. Down the street went the flash and glitter and steady tramp of the solid columns, through waving flags and handkerchiefs and mad cheers--cheers that arose before them, swelled away on either side and sank out of hearing behind them as they marched--through faces bravely smiling, when the eyes were full of tears; faces tense with love, anxiety, fear; faces sad with bitter memories of the old war. On the end of the first rank was the boy Basil, file-leader of his squad, swinging proudly, his handsome face serious and fixed, his eyes turning to right nor left--seeing not his mother, proud, white, tearless; nor Crittenden, with a lump of love in his throat; nor even little Phyllis--her pride in her boy-soldier swept suddenly out of her aching heart, her eyes br.i.m.m.i.n.g, and her handkerchief at her mouth to keep bravely back the sob that surged at her lips. The station at last, and then cheers and kisses and sobs, and tears and cheers again, and a waving of hands and flags and handkerchiefs--a column of smoke puffing on and on toward the horizon--the vanishing perspective of a rear platform filled with jolly, reckless, waving, yelling soldiers, and the tragedy of the parting was over.

How every detail of earth and sky was seared deep into the memory of the women left behind that afternoon--as each drove slowly homeward: for G.o.d help the women in days of war! The very peace of heaven lay upon the earth. It sank from the low, moveless clouds in the windless sky to the sunlit trees in the windless woods, as still as the long shadows under them. It lay over the still seas of bluegra.s.s--dappled in woodland, sunlit in open pasture--resting on low hills like a soft cloud of bluish-gray, clinging closely to every line of every peaceful slope.

Stillness everywhere. Still cattle browsing in the distance; sheep asleep in the far shade of a cliff, shadowing the still stream; even the song of birds distant, faint, restful. Peace everywhere, but little peace in the heart of the mother to whose lips was raised once more the self-same cup that she had drained so long ago. Peace everywhere but for Phyllis climbing the stairs to her own room and flinging herself upon her bed in a racking pa.s.sion of tears. G.o.d help the women in the days of war! Peace from the dome of heaven to the heart of the earth, but a gnawing unrest for Judith, who walked very slowly down the gravelled walk and to the stiles, and sat looking over the quiet fields. Only in her eyes was the light not wholly of sadness, but a proud light of sacrifice and high resolve. Crittenden was coming that night. He was going for good now; he was coming to tell her good-by; and he must not go--to his death, maybe--without knowing what she had to tell him. It was not much--it was very little, in return for his life-long devotion--that she should at least tell him how she had wholly outgrown her girlish infatuation--she knew now that it was nothing else--for the one man who had stood in her life before him, and that now there was no other--lover or friend--for whom she had the genuine affection that she would always have for him. She would tell him frankly--she was a grown woman now--because she thought she owed that much to him--because, under the circ.u.mstances, she thought it was her duty; and he would not misunderstand her, even if he really did not have quite the old feeling for her. Then, recalling what he had said on the drive, she laughed softly. It was preposterous. She understood all that. He had acted that little part so many times in by-gone years! And she had always pretended to take him seriously, for she would have given him mortal offence had she not; and she was pretending to take him seriously now. And, anyhow, what could he misunderstand? There was nothing to misunderstand.

And so, during her drive home, she had thought all the way of him and of herself since both were children--of his love and his long faithfulness, and of her--her--what? Yes--she had been something of a coquette--she had--she _had_; but men had bothered and worried her, and, usually, she couldn't help acting as she had. She was so sorry for them all that she had really tried to like them all. She had succeeded but once--and even that was a mistake. But she remembered one thing: through it all--far back as it all was--she had never trifled with Crittenden.

Before him she had dropped foil and mask and stood frankly face to face always. There was something in him that had always forced that. And he had loved her through it all, and he had suffered--how much, it had really never occurred to her until she thought of a sudden that he must have been hurt as had she--hurt more; for what had been only infatuation with her had been genuine pa.s.sion in him; and the months of her unhappiness scarcely matched the years of his. There was none other in her life now but him, and, somehow, she was beginning to feel there never would be. If there were only any way that she could make amends.

Never had she thought with such tenderness of him. How strong and brave he was; how high-minded and faithful. And he was good, in spite of all that foolish talk about himself. And all her life he had loved her, and he had suffered. She could see that he was still unhappy. If, then, there was no other, and was to be no other, and if, when he came back from the war--why not?

Why not?

She felt a sudden warmth in her cheeks, her lips parted, and as she turned from the sunset her eyes had all its deep tender light.

Dusk was falling, and already Raincrow and Crittenden were jogging along toward her at that hour--the last trip for either for many a day--the last for either in life, maybe--for Raincrow, too, like his master, was going to war--while Bob, at home, forbidden by his young captain to follow him to Chickamauga, trailed after Crittenden about the place with the appealing look of a dog--enraged now and then by the taunts of the sharp-tongued Molly, who had the little confidence in the courage of her fellows that marks her race.

Judith was waiting for him on the porch, and Crittenden saw her from afar.

She was dressed for the evening in pure white--delicate, filmy--showing her round white throat and round white wrists. Her eyes were soft and welcoming and full of light; her manner was playful to the point of coquetry; and in sharp contrast, now and then, her face was intense with thought. A faint, pink light was still diffused from the afterglow, and she took him down into her mother's garden, which was old-fashioned and had gra.s.s-walks running down through it--bordered with pink beds and hedges of rose-bushes. And they pa.s.sed under a shadowed grape-arbour and past a dead locust-tree, which a vine had made into a green tower of waving tendrils, and from which came the fragrant breath of wild grape, and back again to the gate, where Judith reached down for an old-fashioned pink and pinned it in his b.u.t.ton-hole, talking with low, friendly affection meanwhile, and turning backward the leaves of the past rapidly.

Did he remember this--and that--and that? Memories--memories--memories.

Was there anything she had let go unforgotten? And then, as they approached the porch in answer to a summons to supper, brought out by a little negro girl, she said:

"You haven't told me what regiment you are going with."

"I don't know."

Judith's eyes brightened. "I'm so glad you have a commission."

"I have no commission."

Judith looked puzzled. "Why, your mother----"

"Yes, but I gave it to Basil." And he explained in detail. He had asked General Carter to give the commission to Basil, and the General had said he would gladly. And that morning the Colonel of the Legion had promised to recommend Basil for the exchange. This was one reason why he had come back to the Bluegra.s.s. Judith's face was growing more thoughtful while he spoke, and a proud light was rising in her eyes.

"And you are going as----"

"As a private."

"With the Rough Riders?"

"As a regular--a plain, common soldier, with plain, common soldiers. I am trying to be an American now--not a Southerner. I've been drilling at Tampa and Chickamauga with the regulars."

"You are much interested?"

"More than in anything for years."

She had seen this, and she resented it, foolishly, she knew, and without reason--but, still, she resented it.

"Think of it," Crittenden went on. "It is the first time in my life, almost, I have known what it was to wish to do something--to have a purpose--that was not inspired by you." It was an unconscious and rather ungracious declaration of independence--it was unnecessary--and Judith was surprised, chilled--hurt.

"When do you go?"