Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession Part 24

CHAPTER XXIX.

With the earliest opportunity, Harold proceeded to Washington, and sought an interview with the President, in relation to Arthur's case.

Mr. Lincoln received him kindly, but could give no information respecting the arrest or alleged criminality of his friend. "There were so many and pressing affairs of state that he could find no room for individual cases in his memory." However, he referred him to the Secretary of War, with a request that the latter would look into the matter. By dint of persistent inquiries at various sources, Harold finally ascertained that the prisoner had a few days previously been released, upon the a.s.surance of the surgeon at the fort, that his failing health required his immediate removal. Inquiry had been made into the circ.u.mstances leading to his arrest; made too late, however, to benefit the victim of a State mistake, whose delicate health had already been too severely tried by the discomforts attendant upon his situation. However, enough had been ascertained to leave but little doubt as to his innocence; and Arthur, with the ghastly signs of a rapid consumption upon his wan cheek, was dismissed from the portals of a prison, which had already prepared him for the tomb.

Harold hastened to Vermont, whither he knew the invalid had been conveyed. It was toward the close of the first autumn day that he entered the little village, upon whose outskirts was situated the farm of his dying friend. The air was mild and balmy, but the voices of nature seemed to him more hushed than usual, as if in mournful unison with his own sad reveries. He had pa.s.sed on foot from the village to the farm-house, and when he opened the little white wicket, and walked along the gravelled avenue that led to the flower-clad porch, the willows on either side seemed to droop lower than willows are used to droop, and the soft September air sighed through the swinging boughs, like the prelude of a dirge.

Arthur was reclining upon an easy-chair upon the little porch, and beside him sat a venerable lady, reading from the worn silver-clasped Bible, which rested on her lap. The lady rose when he approached; and Arthur, whose gaze had been wandering among the autumn clouds, that wreathed the points of the far-off mountains, turned his head languidly, when the footsteps broke his dream.

He did not rise. Alas! he was too weak to do so without the support of his aged mother's arm, which had so often cradled him in infancy and had now become the staff of his broken manhood. But a beautiful and happy smile illumined his pale lips, and spread all over the thin and wasted features, like sunlight gleaming on the grey surface of a church-yard stone. He lifted his attenuated hand, and when Harold clasped it, the fingers were so cold and deathlike that their pressure seemed to close about his heart, compressing it, and chilling the life current in his veins.

"I knew that you would come, Harold. Although I read that you were missing at the close of that dreadful battle, something told me that we should meet again. Whether it was a sick man's fancy, or the foresight of a parting soul, it is realized, for you are here. And you come not too soon, Harold," he added, with a pressure of the feeble hand, "for I am going fast--fast from the discords of earth--fast to the calm and harmony beyond."

"Oh, Arthur, how changed you are!" said Harold, who could not keep from fastening his gaze on the white, sunken cheek and hollow eyes of his dying comrade. "But you will get better now, will you not--now that you are home again, and we can nurse you?"

Arthur shook his head with a mournful smile, and the fit of painful coughing which overtook him answered his friend's vain hope.

"No, Harold, no. All of earth is past to me, even hope. And I am ready, cheerful even, to go, except for the sake of some loved ones that will sorrow for me."

He took his mother's hand as he spoke, and looked at her with touching tenderness, while the poor dame brushed away her tears.

"I have but a brief while to stay behind," she said, "and my sorrow will be less, to know that you have ever been a good son to me. Oh, Mr. Hare, he might have lived to comfort me, and close my old eyes in death, if they had not been so cruel with him, and locked him within prison walls. He, who never dreamed of wrong, and never injured willingly a worm in his path."

"Nay, mother, they were not unkind to me in the fort, and did what they could to make me comfortable. But, Harold, it is wrong. I have thought of it in the long, weary nights in prison, and I have thought of it when I knew that death was beckoning me to come and rest from the thoughts of earth. It is wrong to tamper with the sacred law that shields the citizen. I believe that many a man within those fortress walls is as innocent in the eyes of G.o.d as those who sent him there. Yet I accuse none of willful wrong, but only of unconscious error. If the sacrifice of my poor life could shed one ray upon the darkness, I would rejoice to be the victim that I am, of a violated right. But all, statesmen, and chieftains, and humble citizens, are being swept along upon the whirlwinds of pa.s.sion; all hearts are ablaze with the fiery magnificence of war, and none will take warning till the land shall be desolate, and thousands, stricken in their prime, shall be sleeping--where I shall soon be--beneath the cold sod. I am weary, mother, and chill. Let us go in."

They bore him in and helped him to his bed, where he lay pale and silent, seeming much worse from the fatigue of conversation and the excitement of his meeting with his old college friend. Mrs. Wayne left him in charge of Harold, while she went below to prepare what little nourishment he could take, and to provide refreshment for her guest.

Arthur lay, for a s.p.a.ce, with his eyes closed, and apparently in sleep.

But he looked up, at last, and stretched out his hand to Harold, who pressed the thin fingers, whiter than the coverlet on which they rested.

"Is mother there?"

"No, Arthur," replied Harold. "Shall I call her?"

"No. I thought to have spoken to you, to-morrow, of something that has been often my theme of thought; but I know not what strange feeling has crept upon me; and perhaps, Harold--for we know not what the morrow may bring--perhaps I had better speak now."

"It hurts you, Arthur; you are too weak. Indeed, you must sleep now, and to-morrow we shall talk."

"No; now, Harold. It will not hurt me, or if it does, it matters little now. Harold, I would fain that no shadow of unkindness should linger between us twain when I am gone."

"Why should there, Arthur? You have been my true friend always, and as such shall I remember you."

"Yet have I wronged you; yet have I caused you much grief and bitterness, and only your own generous nature preserved us from estrangement. Harold, have you heard from _her_?"

"I have seen her, Arthur. During my captivity, she was my jailer; in my sickness, for I was slightly wounded, she was my nurse. I will tell you all about it to-morrow."

"Yes, to-morrow," replied Arthur, breathing heavily. "To-morrow! the word sounds meaningless to me, like something whose significance has left me. Is she well, Harold?"

"Yes."

"And happy?"

"I think so, Arthur. As happy as any of us can be, amid severed ties and dread uncertainties."

"I am glad that she is well. Harold, you will tell her, for I am sure you will meet again, you will tell her it was my dying wish that you two should be united. Will you promise, Harold?"

"I will tell her all that you wish, Arthur."

"I seem to feel that I shall be happy in my grave, to know that, she will be your wife; to know that my guilty love--for I loved her, Harold, and it _was_ guilt to love--to know that it left no poison behind, that its shadow has pa.s.sed away from the path that you must tread."

"Speak not of guilt, my friend. There could live no crime between two such n.o.ble hearts. And had I thought you would have accepted the sacrifice, I could almost have been happy to have given her to you, so much was her happiness the aim of my own love."

"Yes, for you have a glorious heart, Harold; and I thank Heaven that she cannot fail to love you. And you do not think, do you, Harold, that it would be wrong for you two to speak of me when I am gone? I cannot bear to think that you should deem it necessary to drive me from your memories, as one who had stepped in between your hearts. I am sure she will love you none the less for her remembrance of me, and therefore sometimes you will talk together of me, will you not?"

"Yes, we will often talk of you, for what dearer theme to both could we choose; what purer recollections could our memories cherish than of the friend we both loved so much, and who so well deserved our love?"

"And I am forgiven, Harold?"

"Were there aught to be forgiven, I would forgive; but I have never harbored in my most secret heart one trace of anger or resentment toward you. Do not talk more, dear Arthur. To-morrow, perhaps, you will be stronger, and then we will speak again. Here comes your mother, and she will scold me for letting you fatigue yourself so much."

"Raise me a little on the pillow, please. I seem to breathe more heavily to-night. Thank you, I will sleep now. Good night, mother; I will eat the gruel when I wake. I had rather sleep now. Good night, Harold!"

He fell into a slumber almost immediately, and they would not disturb him, although his mother had prepared the food he had been used to take.

"I think he is better to-night. He seems to sleep more tranquilly," said Mrs. Wayne. "If you will step below, I have got a dish of tea for you, and some little supper."

Harold went down and refreshed himself at the widow's neat and hospitable board, and then walked out into the evening, to dissipate, if possible, the cloud that was lowering about his heart. He paced up and down the avenue of willows, and though the fresh night air soothed the fever of his brain, he could not chase away the gloom that weighed upon his spirit. His mind wandered among mournful memories--the field of battle, strewn with the dying and the dead; the hospital where brave suffering men were groaning under the surgeon's knife; the sick chamber, where his friend was dying.

"And I, too," he thought, "have become the craftsman of Death, training my arm and intellect to be cunning in the butchery of my fellows!

Wearing the instrument of torture at my side, and using the faculties G.o.d gave me to mutilate His image. Yet, from the pulpit and the statesman's chair, and far back through ages from the pages of history, precept and example have sought to record its justification, under the giant plea of necessity. But is it justified? Has man, in his enlightenment, sufficiently studied to throw aside the hereditary errors that come from the past, clothed in barbarous splendors to mislead thought and dazzle conscience? Oh, for one glimpse of the Eternal Truth!

to teach us how far is delegated to mortal man the right to take away the life he cannot give. When shall the sword be held accursed? When shall man cease to meddle with the most awful prerogative of his G.o.d?

When shall our right hands be cleansed forever from the stain of blood, and homicide be no longer a purpose and a glory upon earth? I shudder when I look up at the beautiful serenity of this autumn sky, and remember that my deed has loosened an immortal soul from its clay, and hurled it, unprepared, into its Maker's presence. My conscience would rebuke my hand, should it willfully shatter the sculptor's marble wrought into human shape, or deface the artist's ideal pictured upon canvas, or destroy aught that is beautiful and costly of man's ingenuity and labor. And yet these I might replace with emptying a purse into the craftsman's hand. But will my gold recall the vital spark into those cold forms that, stricken by my steel or bullet, are rotting in their graves? The masterpiece of G.o.d I have destroyed. His image have I defaced; the wonderful mechanism that He alone can mold, and molded for His own holy purpose, have I shattered and dismembered; the soul, an essence of His own eternity, have I chased from its alotted earthly home, and I rely for my justification upon--what?--the fact that my victim differed from me in political belief. Must the hand of man be raised against the workmanship of G.o.d because an earthly bond has been sundered? Our statesmen teach us so, the ministers of our faith p.r.o.nounce it just; but, oh G.o.d! should it be wrong! When the blood is hot, when the heart throbs with exaltation, when martial music swells, and the war-steed prances, and the bayonets gleam in the bright sunlight--then I think not of the doubt, nor of the long train of horrors, the tears, the bereavements, the agonies, of which this martial magnificence is but the vanguard. But now, in the still calmness of the night, when all around me and above me breathes of the loveliness and holiness of peace, I fear. I question nature, hushed as she is and smiling in repose, and her calm beauty tells me that Peace is sacred; that her Master sanctions no discords among His children. I question my own conscience, and it tells me that the sword wins not the everlasting triumph--that the voice of war finds no echo within the gates of heaven."

Ill-comforted by his reflections, he returned to the quiet dwelling, and entered the chamber of his friend.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

The sufferer was still sleeping, and Mrs. Wayne was watching by the bedside. Harold seated himself beside her, and gazed mournfully upon the pale, still features that already, but for the expression of pain that lingered there, seemed to have pa.s.sed from the quiet of sleep to the deeper calm of death.

"Each moment that I look," said Mrs. Wayne, wiping her tears away, "I seem to see the grey shadows of the grave stealing over his brow. The doctor was here a few moments before you came. The minister, too, sat with him all the morning. I know from their kind warning that I shall soon be childless. He has but a few hours to be with me. Oh, my son! my son!"