The Battle Ground Part 52

Then they lay down, the yellow dog beside them, and gradually the silence of the night closed in.

After midnight, Dan, who had dozed in his chair from weariness, was awakened by the excited tones of the Governor's voice. The desire was vanquished at last and the dying man had gone back in delirium to the battle he had fought beyond the river. On the hearth the resinous pine still blazed and from somewhere among the stones came the short chirp of a cricket.

"Oh, it's nothing--a mere scratch. Lay me beneath that tree, and tell Barnes to support D. H. Hill at the sunken road. Richardson is charging us across the ploughed ground and we are fighting from behind the stacked fence rails. Ah, they advance well, those Federals--not a man out of line, and their fire has cut the corn down as with a sickle. If Richardson keeps this up, he will sweep us from the wood and beyond the slope. No, don't take me to the hospital. Please G.o.d, I'll die upon the field and hear the cannon at the end. Look! they are charging again, but we still hold our ground. What, Longstreet giving way? They are forcing him from the ridge--the enemy hold it now! Ah, well, there is A. P. Hill to give the counter stroke. If he falls upon their flank, the day is--"

His voice ceased, and Dan, crossing the room, gave him brandy from the gla.s.s upon the chair. The silence had grown suddenly oppressive, and as the young man went back to his seat, he saw a little mouse gliding like a shadow across the floor. Startled by his footsteps, it hesitated an instant in the centre of the room, and then darted along the wall and disappeared between the loose logs in the corner. Often during the night it crept out from its hiding place, and at last Dan grew to look for it with a certain wistful comfort in its shy companionship.

Gradually the stars went out above the dim woods, and the dawn whitened along the eastern sky. With the first light Dan went to the open door and drew a deep breath of the refreshing air. A new day was coming, but he met it with dulled eyes and a crippled will. The tragedy of life seemed to overhang the pleasant prospect upon which he looked, and, as he stood there, he saw in his vision of the future only an endless warfare and a wasted land. With a start he turned, for the Governor was speaking in a voice that filled the cabin and rang out into the woods.

"Skirmishers, forward! Second the battalion of direction! Battalions, forward!"

He had risen upon his pallet and was pointing straight at the open door, but when, with a single stride, Dan reached him, he was already dead.

IV

IN THE SILENCE OF THE GUNS

At noon the next day, Dan, sitting beside the fireless hearth, with his head resting on his clasped hands, saw a shadow fall suddenly upon the floor, and, looking up, found Mrs. Ambler standing in the doorway.

"I am too late?" she said quietly, and he bowed his head and motioned to the pallet in the corner.

Without seeing the arm he put out, she crossed the room like one bewildered by a sudden blow, and went to where the Governor was lying beneath the patchwork quilt. No sound came to her lips; she only stretched out her hand with a protecting gesture and drew the dead man to her arms. Then it was that Dan, turning to leave her alone with her grief, saw that Betty had followed her mother and was coming toward him from the doorway. For an instant their eyes met; then the girl went to her dead, and Dan pa.s.sed out into the sunlight with a new bitterness at his heart.

A dozen yards from the cabin there was a golden beech spreading in wide branches against the sky, and seating himself on a fallen log beneath it, he looked over the soft hills that rose round and deep-bosomed from the dim blue valley. He was still there an hour later when, hearing a rustle in the gra.s.s, he turned and saw Betty coming to him over the yellowed leaves. His first glance showed him that she had grown older and very pale; his second that her kind brown eyes were full of tears.

"Betty, is it this way?" he asked, and opened his arms.

With a cry that was half a sob she ran toward him, her black skirt sweeping the leaves about her feet. Then, as she reached him, she swayed forward as if a strong wind blew over her, and as he caught her from the ground, he kissed her lips. Her tears broke out afresh, but as they stood there in each other's arms, neither found words to speak nor voice to utter them.

The silence between them had gone deeper than speech, for it had in it all the dumb longing of the last two years--the unshaken trust, the bitterness of the long separation, the griefs that had come to them apart, and the sorrow that had brought them at last together. He held her so closely that he felt the flutter of her breast with each rising sob, and an anguish that was but a vibration from her own swept over him like a wave from head to foot. Since he had put her from him on that last night at Cheric.o.ke their pa.s.sion had deepened by each throb of pain and broadened by each step that had led them closer to the common world. Not one generous thought, not one temptation overcome but had gone to the making of their love to-day--for what united them now was not the mere prompting of young impulse, but the strength out of many struggles and the fulness out of experiences that had ripened the heart of each.

"Let me look at you," said Betty, lifting her wet face. "It has been so long, and I have wanted you so much--I have hungered sleeping and waking."

"Don't look at me, Betty, I am a skeleton--a crippled skeleton, and I will not be looked at by my love."

"Your love can see you with shut eyes. Oh, my best and dearest, do you think you could keep me from seeing you however hard you tried? Why, there's a lamp in my heart that lets me look at you even in the night."

"Your lamp flatters, I am afraid to face it. Has it shown you this?"

He drew back and held up his maimed hand, his eyes fastened upon her face, where the old fervour had returned.

With a sob that thrilled through him, she caught his hand to her lips and then held it to her bosom, crooning over it little broken sounds of love and pity. Through the spreading beech above a clear gold light filtered down upon her, and a single yellow leaf was caught in her loosened hair. He saw her face, impa.s.sioned, glorified, amid a flood of sunshine.

"And I did not know," she said breathlessly. "You were wounded and there was no one to tell me. Whenever there has been a battle I have sat very still and shut my eyes, and tried to make myself go straight to you. I have seen the smoke and heard the shots, and yet when it came I did not know it.

I may even have laughed and talked and eaten a stupid dinner while you were suffering. Now I shall never smile again until I have you safe."

"But if I were dying I should want to see you smiling. n.o.body ever smiled before you, Betty."

"If you are wounded, you will send for me. Promise me; I beg you on my knees. You will send for me; say it or I shall be always wretched. Do you want to kill me, Dan? Promise."

"I shall send for you. There, will that do? It would be almost worth dying to have you come to me. Would you kiss me then, I wonder?"

"Then and now," she answered pa.s.sionately. "Oh, I sometimes think that wars are fought to torture women! Hold me in your arms again or my heart will break. I have missed Virginia so--never a day pa.s.ses that I do not see her coming through the rooms and hear her laugh--such a baby laugh, do you remember it?"

"I remember everything that was near to you, beloved."

"If you could have seen her on her wedding day, when she came down in her pink crepe shawl and white bonnet that I had trimmed, and looked back, smiling at us for the last time. I have almost died with wanting her again--and now papa--papa! They loved life so, and yet both are dead, and life goes on without them."

"My poor love, poor Betty."

"But not so poor as if I had lost you, too," she answered; "and if you are wounded even a little remember that you have promised, and I shall come to you. Prince Rupert and I will pa.s.s the lines together. Do you know that I have Prince Rupert, Dan?"

"Keep him, dear, don't let him get into the army."

"He lives in the woods night and day, and when he comes to pasture I go after him while Uncle Shadrach watches the turnpike. When the soldiers come by, blue or gray, we hide him behind the willows in the brook. They may take the chickens--and they do--but I should kill the man who touched Prince Rupert's bridle."

"You should have been a soldier, Betty."

She shook her head. "Oh, I couldn't shoot any one in cold blood--as you do--that's different. I'd have to hate him as much--as much as I love you."

"How much is that?"

"A whole world full and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over; is that enough?"

"Only a little world?" he answered. "Is that all?"

"If I told you truly, you would not believe me," she said earnestly. "You would shake your head and say: 'Poor silly Betty, has she gone moon mad?'"

Catching her in his arms again, he kissed her hair and mouth and hands and the ruffle at her throat. "Poor silly Betty," he repeated, "where is your wisdom now?"

"You have turned it into folly, sad little wisdom that it was."

"Well, I prefer your folly," he said gravely. "It was folly that made you love me at the first; it was pure folly that brought you out to me that night at Cheric.o.ke--but the greatest folly of all is just this, my dear."

"But it will keep you safe."

"Who knows? I may get shot to-morrow. There, there, I only said it to feel your arms about me."

Her hands clung to him and the tears, rising to her lashes, fell fast upon his coat.

"Oh, don't let me lose you," she begged. "I have lost so much--don't let me lose you, too."

"Living or dead, I am yours, that I swear."

"But I don't want you dead. I want the feel of you. I want your hands, your face. I want _you_."