His Sombre Rivals Part 16

"You had better let us carry you," Grace heard one of the men say in gruff kindness.

"Nonsense!" was the hearty reply. "I have not retreated thus far so masterfully only to give my aunt the hysterics at last."

"Alford," said his aunt, sternly, "if it's wise for you to be carried, be carried. Any man here is as liable to hysterics as I am."

"Graham, what does this mean?" cried his friend, in deep excitement.

"You look as if half cut to pieces."

"It's chiefly my clothes; I am a fitter subject for a tailor than for a surgeon. Come, good people, there is no occasion for melodrama. With aunty's care I shall soon be as sound as ever. Very well, carry me, then. Perhaps I ought not to use my arm yet;" for Hilland, taking in his friend's disabled condition more fully, was about to lift him in his arms without permission or apology. It ended in his making what is termed a "chair" with one of the men, and Graham was borne speedily up the path.

Grace stood at the intersection with hands clasped in the deepest anxiety; but Graham smiled rea.s.suringly, as he said, "Isn't this an heroic style of returning from the wars? Not quite like Walter Scott's knights; but we've fallen on prosaic times. Don't look so worried. I a.s.sure you I'm not seriously hurt."

"Mrs. Mayburn," said Hilland, excitedly, "let us take him to our cottage. We can all take better care of him there."

"Oh, do! please do!" echoed Grace. "You are alone; and Warren and I could do so much--"

"No," said the old lady quietly and decisively; for the moment the proposition was broached Graham's eyes had sought hers in imperative warning. "You both can help me as far as it is needful."

Grace detected the glance and noted the result, but Hilland began impetuously: "Oh, come, dear Mrs. Mayburn, I insist upon it. Graham is making light of it; but I'm sure he'll need more care than you realize--"

"Hilland, I know the friendship that prompts your wish," interrupted Graham, "but my aunt is right. I shall do better in my own room. I need rest more than anything else. You and your wife can do all you wish for me. Indeed, I shall visit you to-morrow and fight the battle over again with the major. Please take me to my room at once," he added in a low tone. "I'm awfully tired."

"Come, Mr. Hilland," said Mrs. Mayburn, in a tone almost authoritative; and she led the way decisively.

Hilland yielded, and in a few moments Graham was in his own room, and after taking a little stimulant, explained.

"My horse was shot and fell on me. I am more bruised, scratched and used up, than hurt;" and so it proved, though his escape had evidently been almost miraculous. One leg and foot had been badly crushed. There were two flesh wounds in his arm; and several bullets had cut his clothing, in some places drawing blood. All over his clothes, from head to foot, were traces of Virginia soil; and he had the general appearance of a man who had pa.s.sed through a desperate melee.

"I tried to repair damages in Washington," he said, "but the confusion was so dire I had to choose between a hospital and home; and as I had some symptoms of fever last night, I determined to push on till under the wing of my good old aunty and your fraternal care. Indeed, I think I was half delirious when I took the train last evening; but it was only from fatigue, lack of sleep, and perhaps loss of blood. Now, please leave me to aunty's care to-night, and I will tell you all about it to-morrow."

Hilland was accordingly constrained to yield to his friend's wishes. He brought the best surgeon in town, however, and gave directions that, after he had dressed Graham's wounds, he should spend the night in Mrs.

Mayburn's parlor, and report to him if there was any change for the worse. Fortunately, there was no occasion for his solicitude. Graham slept with scarcely a break till late the next morning; and his pulse became so quiet that when he waked with a good appet.i.te the physician p.r.o.nounced all danger pa.s.sed.

In the evening he was bent on visiting the major. He knew they were all eager for his story, and, calculating upon the veteran's influence in restraining Hilland from hasty action, he resolved that his old and invalid friend should hear it with the first. From the character of Hilland he knew the danger to be apprehended was that he would throw himself into the struggle in some way that would paralyze, or at the least curtail, his efficiency. Both his aunt and the physician, who underrated the recuperative power of Graham's fine physical condition, urged quiet until the following day; but he a.s.sured them he would suffer more from restlessness than from a moderate degree of effort. He also explained to his aunt that he wished to talk with Hilland, and, if possible, in the presence of his wife and the major.

"Then they must come here," said the old lady, resolutely.

With this compromise he had to be content; and Hilland, who had been coming and going, readily agreed to fetch the major.

CHAPTER XX

TWO BATTLES

In less than an hour Graham was in the parlor, looking, it is true, somewhat battered, but cheerful and resolute. His friends found him installed in a great armchair, with his bruised foot on a cushion, his arm in a sling, and a few pieces of court-plaster distributed rather promiscuously over his face and head. He greeted Hilland and his wife so heartily, and a.s.sured the major so genially that he should now divide with him his honors as a veteran, that they were rea.s.sured, and the rather tragic mood in which they had started on the visit was dispelled.

"I must admit, though," he added to his old friend, who was also made comfortable in his chair, which Hilland had brought over, "that in my fall on the field of glory I made a sorry figure. I was held down by my horse and trampled on as if I had been a part of the 'sacred soil.'"

"'Field of glory,' indeed!" exclaimed Hilland, contemptuously.

"I did not know that you had become a soldier," said Grace, with surprise.

"I was about as much of a soldier as the majority, from the generals down," was the laughing reply.

"I don't see how you could have been a worse one, if you had tried,"

was his friend's rejoinder. "I may do no better; but I should be less than a man if I did not make an effort to wipe out the disgrace as soon as possible. No reflection on you, Graham. Your wounds exonerate you; and I know you did not get them in running away."

"Yes, I did--two of them, at least--these in my arm. As to 'wiping out this disgrace as soon as possible,' I think that is a very secondary matter."

"Well! I don't understand it at all," was Hilland's almost savage answer. "But I can tell you from the start you need not enter on your old prudent counsels that I should serve the government as a stay-at-home quartermaster and general supply agent. In my opinion, what the government needs is men--men who at least won't run away. I now have Grace's permission to go--dear, brave girl!--and go I shall.

To stay at home because I am rich seems to me the very sn.o.bbishness of wealth; and the kind of work I have been doing graybeards can do just as well, and better."

Graham turned a grave look of inquiry upon the wife. She answered it by saying with a pallid face: "I had better perish a thousand times than destroy Warren's self-respect."

"What right have you to preach caution," continued Hilland, "when you went far enough to be struck by half a dozen bullets?"

"The right of a retreat which scarcely slackened until I was under my aunt's roof."

"Come, Graham, you are tantalizing us," said Hilland, impatiently.

"There, forgive me, old fellow. I fear you are still a little out of your head," he added, with a slight return of his old good-humor. "Do give us, then, if you can, some account of your impetuous advance on Washington, instead of Richmond."

"Yes, Mr. Graham," added the major, "if you are able to give me some reason for not blushing that I am a Northern man, I shall be glad to hear it."

"Mrs. Hilland," said Graham, with a smiling glance at the young wife's troubled face, "you have the advantage of us all. You can proudly say, 'I'm a Southerner.' Hilland and I are nothing but 'low-down Yankees.'

Come, good friends, I have seen enough tragedy of late; and if, I have to describe a little to-night, let us look at matters philosophically.

If I received some hard knocks from your kin, Mrs. Hilland--"

"Don't say 'Mrs. Hilland,'" interrupted his friend. "As I've told you before, my wife is 'Grace' to you."

"So be it then. The hard knocks from your kin have materially added to my small stock of sense; and I think the entire North will be wiser as well as sadder before many days pa.s.s. We have been taught that taking Richmond and marching through the South will be no holiday picnic.

Major St. John has been right from the start. We must encounter brave, determined men; and, whatever may be true of the leaders, the people are as sincere in their patriotism as we are. They don't even dream that they are fighting in a bad cause. The majority will stand up for it as stoutly and conscientiously as your husband for ours. Have I not done justice to your kin, Grace?"

"Yes," she replied, with a faint smile.

"Then forgive me if I say that until four o'clock last Sunday afternoon, and in a fair, stand-up fight between a Northern mob and a Southern mob, we whipped them."

"But I thought the men of the North prided themselves on their 'staying power.'"

"They had no 'staying power' when they found fresh regiments and batteries pouring in on their flank and rear. I believe that retreat was then the proper thing. The wild panic that ensued resulted naturally from the condition of the men and officers, and especially from the presence of a lot of nondescript people that came to see the thing as a spectacle, a sort of gladiatorial combat, upon which they could look at a safe distance. Two most excellent results have been attained: I don't believe we shall ever send out another mob of soldiers; and I am sure that a mob of men and women from Washington will never follow it to see the fun."

"I wish Beauregard had corralled them all--the mob of sight-seers, I mean," growled the major. "I must say, Mr. Graham, that the hard knocks you and others have received may result in infinite good. I think I take your meaning, and that we shall agree very nearly before you are through. You know that I was ever bitterly opposed to the mad 'On to Richmond' cry; and now the cursed insanity of the thing is clearly proved."

"I agree with you that it was all wrong--that it involved risks that never should have been taken at this stage of the war; and I am told that General Scott and other veteran officers disapproved of the measure. Nevertheless, it came wonderfully near being successful. We should have gained the battle if the attack had been made earlier, or if that old m.u.f.f, Patterson, had done his duty."

"If you are not too tired, give us the whole movement, just as you saw it," said Hilland, his eyes glowing with excitement.

"Oh, I feel well enough for another retreat tonight. My trouble was chiefly fatigue and lack of sleep."