Miss Ravenel's conversion from secession to loyalty Part 53

"Shocking! But this is doing you harm. You don't need talk--you need sleep. I have brought you a dose to make you hold your tongue till to-morrow morning."

"Oh, opium. I have been living on it for the last forty-eight hours--the last week."

"Twelve more hours won't hurt you. You must stop thinking and feeling. I tell you honestly that I never saw you in such a feverish state of excitation when you were wounded. You talk in a manner quite unlike yourself."

"Very well," said Colburne with a long-drawn sigh, as if resigning himself by an effort to the repugnant idea of repose.

Here we may as well turn off Lieutenant-Colonel Gazaway, since he will not be executed by any act of civil or military justice. Removed at last from the conscript camp, and ordered to the front, he at once sent in his resignation, backed up by a surgeon's certificate of physical disability, retired from the service with a capital of ten or fifteen thousand dollars, removed to New York, set up a first-cla.s.s billiard-saloon, turned democrat once more, obtained a couple of city offices, and now has an income of seven or eight thousand a-year, a circle of admiring henchmen, and a reputation for ability in business and politics. When he speaks in a ward meeting or in a squad of speculators on 'Change, his words have ten times the influence that would be accorded in the same places to the utterances of Colburne or Ravenel. I, however, prefer to write the history of these two gentlemen, who appear so unsuccessful when seen from a worldly point of view.

Fearing to disturb Colburne's slumbers, Ravenel did not visit him again until nine o'clock on the following morning. He found him dressed, and looking over a ma.s.s of company records, preparatory to commencing his muster-out roll.

"You ought not to do that," said the Doctor. "You are very feverish and weak. All the strength you have is from opiates, and you tax your brain fearfully by driving it on such fuel."

"But it must be done, Doctor," he said with a scowl, as if trying to see clearly through clouds of fever and morphine. "It is an awful job,"

he added with a sigh. "Just see what it is. I must have the name of every officer and man that ever belonged to the company--where, when, and by whom enlisted--where, when, and by whom mustered in--when and by whom last paid--what bounty paid and what bounty due--balance of clothing account--stoppages of all sorts--facts and dates of every promotion and reduction, discharge, death and desertion--number and date of every important order. Five copies! Why don't they demand five hundred? Upon my soul, it doesn't seem as if I could do it."

"Why not make some of your men do it?"

"I have none here. I am the only man who will go out on this paper.

There is not a man of my original company who has not either re-enlisted as a veteran, or deserted, or died, or been killed, or been discharged because of wounds, or breaking down under hardships."

"Astonishing!"

"Very curious. That Shenandoah campaign cut up our regiment wonderfully.

We went there with four hundred men, and we had less than one hundred and fifty when I left."

The civilian stared at the coolness of the soldier, which seemed to him much like hard-heartedness. The latter rubbed his forehead and eyes, not affected by these tremendous recollections, but simply seeking to gain clearness of brain enough to commence his talk.

"You must not work to-day," said the Doctor.

"I have only three days for the job, and I _must_ work to-day."

"Well--go on then. Make your original, which is, I suppose, the great difficulty; and my daughter and I will make the four others."

"Will you? How kind you are!"

At nine o'clock of the following morning Colburne delivered to Ravenel the original muster-out roll. During that day and the next the father and daughter finished the four copies, while Colburne lay in bed, too sick and dizzy to raise his head. On the fourth day he went by railroad to the city of ----, the primary rendezvous of the regiment, and was duly mustered out of existence as an officer of the United States army.

Returning to New Boston that evening, he fainted at the door of the hotel, was carried to his room by the porters, and did not leave his bed for forty-eight hours. At the end of that time he dressed himself in his citizen's suit, and called on Mrs. Carter. She was astonished and frightened to see him, for he was alarmingly thin and ghastly.

Nevertheless, after the first startled exclamation of "Captain Colburne!" she added with a benevolent hypocrisy, "How much better you look than I thought to see you!"

He held both her hands for a moment, gazing into her eyes with a profound gratification at their sympathy, and then said, as he seated himself, "Thank you for your anxiety. I am going to get well now. I am going to give myself three months of pure, perfect rest."

The wearied man p.r.o.nounced the word _rest_ with a touching intonation of pleasure.

"Don't call me Captain," he resumed. "The very word tires me, and I want repose. Besides, I am a citizen, and have a right to the Mister."

"He is mortified because he was not promoted," thought Lillie, and called him by the threadbare t.i.tle no more.

"It always seems to be our business to take care of you when you are sick," she said. "We nursed you at Taylorsville--that is, till we wanted some fighting done."

"That seems a great while ago," replied Colburne meditatively. "How many things have happened since then!" he was about to say, but checked the utterance for fear of giving her pain.

"Yes, it seems a long time ago," she repeated soberly, for she too thought how many things had happened since then, and thought it with more emotion than he could give to the idea. He continued to gaze at her earnestly and with profound pity in his heart, while his memory flashed over the two great incidents of maternity and widowhood. "She has fought harder battles than I have," he said to himself, wondering meanwhile to find her so little changed, and deciding that what change there was only made her more charming. He longed to say some word of consolation for the loss of her husband, but he would not speak of the subject until she introduced it. Lillie's mind also wondered shudderingly around that bereavement, and then dashed desperately away from it, without uttering a plaint.

"Can I see the baby?" he asked, after these few moments of silence.

She colored deeply, not so much with pleasure and pride, as with a return of the old virginity of soul. He understood it, for he remembered that she had blushed in the same manner when she met him for the first time after her marriage. It was the modesty of her womanhood, confessing, "I am not what I was when you saw me last."

"He is not a baby," she laughed. "He is a great boy, more than a year old. Come and look at him."

She led the way into her room. It was the first time that he had ever been in her room, and the place filled him with delicious awe, as if he were in the presence of some sweet sanct.i.ty. Irish Rosann, sitting by the bedside, and reading her prayer-book, raised her old head and took a keen survey of the stranger through her silver-rimmed spectacles. On the bed lay a chubby urchin, well grown for a yearling, his fair face red with health, sunburn, and sleep, arms spread wide apart, and one dimpled leg and foot outside of the coverlet.

"There is the Little Doctor," she said, bending down and kissing a dimple.

It was a long time since she had called him "Little General," or, "Little Brigadier." From the worship of the husband she had gone back in a great measure, perhaps altogether, to the earlier and happier worship of the parent.

"Does he look like his grandfather?" asked Colburne.

"Why! Can't you see it? He is wonderfully like him. He has blue eyes, too. Don't you see the resemblance?"

"I think he has more chins than your father. He has double chins all the way down to his toes," said Colburne, pointing to the collops on the little leg.

"You mustn't laugh at him," she answered. "I suppose you have seen him enough. Men seldom take a longer look than that at a baby."

"Yes. I don't want to wake him up. I don't want the responsibility of it. I wouldn't a.s.sume the responsibilities of an ant. I haven't the energy for it."

They returned to the little parlor. The Doctor came in, and immediately forced the invalid to lie on a sofa, propping him up with pillows and proposing to cover him with an Affghan.

"No," said Colburne. "I beg pardon for my obstinacy, but I suffer with heat all the time."

"It is the fever," said the Doctor. "Remittent malarious fever. It is no joke when it dates from Brashear City."

"It is not being used to a house," answered Colburne, stubborn in faith in his own health. "It is wearing a vest and a broadcloth coat. I really am not strong enough to bear the hardships of civilization."

"We shall see," said the Doctor gravely. "The Indians die of civilization. So does many a returned soldier. You will have to be careful of yourself for a long time to come."

"I am," said Colburne. "I sleep with windows open."

"Why didn't you write to us that you were sick?" asked Lillie.

"I didn't wish to worry you. I knew you were kind enough to be worried.

What was the use?"

She thought that it was n.o.ble, and just like him, but she said nothing.

She could not help admiring him, as he lay there, for looking so sick and weak, and yet so cheerful and courageous, so absolutely indifferent to his state of bodily depression. There was not in his face or manner a single shadow of expression which seemed like an appeal for pity or sympathy. He had the air of one who had become so accustomed to suffering as to consider it a common-place matter, not worthy of a moment's despondency, or even consideration. His look was noticeably resolute, and energetic, yet patient.

"You are the most resigned sick man that I ever saw," she said. "You make as good an invalid as a woman."