The Iron Game Part 17

"A very proper sentiment, young men. We want you to be very merry, for you must remember the time comes when we can't be anything but sad--when you are away and the night of doubt settles upon our weak women's hearts." It was Mrs. Atterbury who spoke, and the sentence seemed to bring silence upon the group.

Meanwhile, all the inquiries set on foot through the agency of the Atterburys failed to bring any tidings of Barney Moore. It suddenly occurred to Jack that the poor fellow was masquerading as a rebel in the bosom of some eager patriot like Mrs. Raines and he reluctantly consented to let d.i.c.k go to Richmond to investigate. Perhaps Mrs. Raines might know where the wounded men were taken that had come with him. Some of the stragglers could at least be found. The advertis.e.m.e.nt asking information concerning a wounded man arriving in Richmond with himself was kept in all the journals. But Merry wouldn't consent to let d.i.c.k go on the dangerous quest without her. She would never dare face her sisters if any mishap came to the lad, and though Vincent put him under the care of an experienced overseer, and ordered the town-house to be opened for his entertainment, the timorous aunt was immovable.

"You must go and call on the President, Miss Merry. He receives Thursdays at the State House. Then you'll see a really great man in authority, not the backwoods clowns that have brought this country into ridicule--such a man as Virginia used to give the people for President,"

Rosa said in the tone a lady of Louis XVIII's court might have used to an adherent of the Bonapartes.

"Ah, Rosa, we saw a gentle, tender-hearted man in Washington--the very ideal of a people's father. No one else can ever be President to me while he lives," Olympia said, seriously.

"Lincoln?" Rosa asked, a little disdainfully.

"Yes, Abraham Lincoln. We have all misunderstood him. Oh if you could have seen him as I saw him--so patient, so considerate: the sorrows of the nation in his heart and its burdens on his shoulders; but confident, calm, serene, with the benignant humility of a man sent by G.o.d," Olympia added almost reverently. "It was he who came to our aid and ordered the rules to be broken that our mother might seek Jack."

Rosa was about to retort, but a warning glance from Vincent checked her, and she said nothing.

"I say, d.i.c.k, don't try to capture Jeff Davis or blow up the Confederate Congress, or any other of the casual master strokes that may enter your wild head. Remember that we have given double hostages to the enemy. We have accepted their hospitality, and we have made ourselves their guests," Jack said, half seriously, as the young Hotspur wrung his hand in a tearful embrace.

"Above all, remember, Mr. Yankee, that you are in a certain sense a civilian now; you must not compromise us by free speech in Richmond,"

Rosa added.

"Ah, I know very well there's none of that in the South: you folks object to free speech; they killed poor old Brown for it; that's what you made war for, to silence free speech," d.i.c.k cried hotly, while Merry pinched his arm in terror.

d.i.c.k began his campaign in the morning with longheaded address. He visited the prison under ample powers from General Lee--procured though Vincent's mediation. There were a score of the Caribees in Castle Winder, and to these the boy came as a good fairy in the tale. For he distributed money, tobacco, and other things, which enabled the unfortunates to beguile the tedious hours of confinement. The prisoners were crowded like cattle in the immense warehouse in squads of a hundred or more. They had blankets to stretch on the floor for beds, a general basin to wash in, and for some time amused themselves watching through the barred windows the crowds outside that flocked to the place to see the Yankees, and, when not checked by the guards, to revile and taunt them.

d.i.c.k was enraged to see how contentedly the men bore the irksome confinement, the meager food, and harsh peremptoriness of the beardless boys set over them as guards. Most of the prisoners pa.s.sed the time in cards, playing for b.u.t.tons, trinkets, or what not that formed their scanty possessions. d.i.c.k learned that all the commissioned officers of the company with Wesley Boone had been wounded or killed in the charge near the stone bridge. Wesley had been with the prisoners at first. He had been struck on the head, and was in a raging fever when his father and sister came to the prison to take him away. No one could tell where he was now, but d.i.c.k knew that he must be in the city, since there were no exchanges, the Confederates allowing no one to leave the lines except women with the dead, or those who came from the North on special permits.

Then he visited the provost headquarters, and was shown the complete list of names recorded in the books there; but Barney's was not among them. At the Spottswood Hotel, the day after his coming, he met Elisha Boone, haggard, depressed, almost despairing. d.i.c.k had no love for the hard-headed plutocrat, but he couldn't resist making himself known.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Boone? I hope Wesley is coming on well, sir."

Boone brought his wandering eyes down to the stripling in dull amazement.

"Why, where on earth do you come from? How is it you are free and allowed in the streets?"

"Oh, I am a privileged person, sir. I am looking up Company K. You haven't heard anything of young Moore, Barney, who lives on the Callao road south of Acredale?"

"No, my mind has been taken up with my son"; his voice grew softer. "He is in a very bad way, and the worst is there is no decent doctor to be got here for love or money; all the capable ones are in the army, and those that are here refuse to take any interest in a Yankee."

The father's grief and the unhappy situation of his whilom enemy touched the lad; forgetting Jack's and Vincent's warning, d.i.c.k said, impulsively:

"Oh, I can get him a good doctor. We have friends here." He knew, the moment he had spoken the words, that he had been imprudent--how imprudent the sudden, suspicious gleam in Boone's eye at once admonished him.

"Friends here? Union men have no friends here. There are men here with, whom I have done business for years, men that owe prosperity to me, but when I called on them they almost insulted me. If you have friends, you must have sympathies that they appreciate."

d.i.c.k knew what this meant. To be a Democrat had been, in Acredale, to be charged with secret leanings to rebellion. He restrained his wrath manfully, and said, simply:

"An old college friend of Jack's has been very kind to us."

"Us? I take it you mean the Spragues. They are stopping with Jeff Davis, I suppose? It's the least he could do for allies so steadfast."

"You shouldn't talk that way, sir. Every man in the Caribees, except old Oswald's gang, is a Democrat, but they are for the country before party."

"Yes, yes, it may be so--but, the North don't think that way. Well, I'm going to Washington to see if I can't get my boy out of this infernal place, where a man can't even get shaved decently."

"And Miss Kate, Mr. Boone, where is she?"

"She is nursing Wesley, poor girl. She is having a harder trial than any of us; for these devilish women fairly push into the sick-room to abuse the North and berate the soldiers that fought at Mana.s.sas."

"I should like to call on Wesley--if you don't mind," d.i.c.k said, hesitatingly.

"I shall be only too glad; and I'll tell you what it is, Richard, if you'll make use of your friends here, to get Kate and Wesley some comforts, some consideration, I'll make it worth your while. I'll see that you do not have to wait long for a commission, and I'll pay you any reasonable sum so soon as you get back North."

d.i.c.k restrained his anger under this insulting blow, perceiving, even in the hotness of his wrath, that the other was unconscious of the double ignominy implied in dealing with soldiers' rewards as personal bribes, and proffering money for common brotherly offices. It was only when Jack commended his astuteness, afterward, that d.i.c.k realized the adroitness of his own diplomacy.

"Thank you, Mr. Boone. I shouldn't care for promotion that I didn't win in war; and, as for money, I shall have enough when I need it. But any man in the Caribees shall have my help. Under the flag every man is a friend."

"True. Yes; you are quite right. Kate will be very glad to see you."

They walked along, neither disposed to talk after this narrow shave from a quarrel. Boone led the way to the northern outskirts of the city, until they reached a dull-brown frame building, back some distance from the street. A colored woman, with a flaming turban on her head, opened the door as she saw them coming up the trim walk lined with sh.e.l.ls and gay with poppies, bergamot, asters, and heliotrope.

"This woman is a slave. She belongs to the proprietor of the hotel who refused to receive Wesley. It was a great concession to let him come here, they told me. But the poor boy might as well be in a Michigan logging camp, for all the care he can get. But I'm mighty glad I met you. I know you can help Kate while I am gone. I hated to leave her, but I can do nothing here, and unless Wesley is removed he will never leave this cussed town alive. I sha'n't be gone more than ten days."

Kate had been called by the turbaned mistress, and came into the room with a little shriek of pleasure.

"O, Richard, what a delightful surprise! Have you seen your aunt? Ah! I am so glad; she must be so relieved! And Mr. Sprague--have they found him?"

d.i.c.k retailed as much of the story as he thought safe, but he had to say that the Spragues were all with the Atterburys in the country.

"How providential! Ah, if our poor Wesley could find some such friends!

He is very low. He recognizes no one. Unless papa can get leave to take him North--I am afraid of the worst. Indeed, I doubt whether he could stand so long a journey. You must stay the day with us. I am so lonely, and I dread being more lonely still when papa leaves this evening."

d.i.c.k remained until late in the afternoon, sending word to Merry, who came promptly to the aid of the afflicted. The next day d.i.c.k left his aunt at the cottage with Kate, and warning them that he should be gone all day, and perhaps not see them until the next morning, he set off for Rosedale, where he told Jack Kate's plight. Vincent heard the story, too, and when it was ended he said, decisively:

"Jack, we must send for them. It would never do to have the story told in Acredale that you had found friends in the South--because you are a Democrat, and Boone was thrust into negro quarters because he is an abolitionist."

It was the very thought on Jack's mind, and straightway the carriage was made ready, with ample pillows and what not. d.i.c.k set out in great state, filled with the importance of his mission and the glory of Jack's cordial praises. He was to stop on the way through town and carry the Atterbury's family physician to direct the removal. When he appeared before Kate, with Mrs. Atterbury's commands that she and her brother should make Rosedale their home until the invalid could be removed North, the poor girl broke down in the sudden sense of relief--the certainty of salvation to the slowly dying brother. The physician spent many hours redressing the wounds. Gangrene had begun to eat away the flesh of the head above the temple, and poor Wesley was unrecognizable.

He was quite unconscious of the burning bromine and the clipping of flesh that the skillful hand of the pract.i.tioner carried on. When the little group started on the long journey, the invalid looked more like himself than he had since Kate found him. The drive lasted many hours.

Wesley was stretched in an ambulance, Kate sitting on the seat with the driver, the physician and d.i.c.k following in the carriage. Merry went back to the city house, where her nephew was to return as soon as Wesley had been delivered at Rosedale. Her charge placed in the hands of the kind hostess, Mrs. Atterbury, Kate broke down. She had borne up while her head and heart alone stood between her brother and death; but now, relieved of the strain, she fell into an alarming fever. A Williamsburg veteran, who had practiced in that ancient college town, since the early days of the century, took the Richmond surgeon's place, and the gay summer house became, for the time, a hospital.

Meanwhile the rebel provost-marshal had simplified d.i.c.k's task a good deal. An order was issued that all houses where wounded or ailing men were lying should signalize the fact by a yellow flag or ribbon, attached to the front in a conspicuous place. Thus directed, d.i.c.k walked street after street, asking to see the wounded; and the fourth day, coming to a residence, rather handsomer than the others on the street, not two blocks from Mrs. Raines, Jack's Samaritan, he found a wasted figure, with bandaged head and unmeaning eyes, that he recognized as Barney.

"We haven't been able to get any clew as to his name or regiment. The guards at the station said he belonged to the Twelfth Virginia, but none of the members of that body in the city recognize him. You know him?"

"Yes. He is of my regiment," d.i.c.k said, neglecting to mention the regiment. "I will send word to his friends at once and have him removed."

"Oh, we are proud and happy to have him here. Our only anxiety was lest he should die and his family remain in ignorance. But, now that you identify him, we hope that we may be permitted to keep him until his recovery."

It was a stately matron who spoke with such a manner, as d.i.c.k thought, must be the mark of n.o.bility in other lands. He learned, with surprise, that the Atterbury physician was ministering to Barney, though there was nothing strange in that, since the doctor was the favorite pract.i.tioner of the well-to-do in the city. That night he wrote to Jack, asking instructions, and the next day received a note, written by Olympia, advising that Barney be left with his present hosts until he recovered consciousness; that by that time Vincent would be able to come up to town and explain matters to the deluded family. The better to carry out this plan, d.i.c.k was bidden to return to Rosedale, and thus, six weeks after the battle and dispersion, all our Acredale personages, by the strange chances of war, were a.s.sembled within sight of the rebel capital, and, though in the hands of friends, as absolutely cut off from their home and duties as if they had been captured in a combat with the Indians.