IN WHICH A LONG JUMP IS TAKEN

It is not proposed to attempt any relation of that part of the lives of the people in this record which was covered by the four years of war. That period was too tremendous to be made a mere fragment of any history. “After that the deluge.”

What pen could properly tell the story of those four years; what fittingly record the glory of that struggle, hopeless from the beginning, yet ever appearing to pluck success from the very abyss of impossibility, and by the sheer power of unconquerable valor to reverse the laws of nature and create the consummation it desired, in the face of insuperable force?

It was a great formative force in every life that participated in it. It stamped itself on every face. The whole country emptied itself into it. They went into it boys, and came out of it men—striplings, and came out of it heroes. But the eye once fastened on that flaming fire would be blinded for any lesser light.

It is what took place after the war rather than what occurred during the struggle that this chronicle is concerned with.

If the part that the men played in the war must be passed over in silence as too large for this history, how much more impossible would it be to describe fitly the part that the women performed. It was a harder part to fill, yet they filled it to the brim, good measure, overflowing. It is no disparagement to the men to say that whatever courage they displayed, it was less than that which the women showed. Wherever a Southern woman stood during those four years, there in her small person was a garrison of the South, impregnable.

Year after year the mills of war ground steadily array after array, and crushed province after province, and still the ranks filled and poured with intrepid daring into the abyss of destruction, to be ground like their predecessors to dust; until at the end there was nothing left to grind. Some day the historian, annalist or novelist, may arise to tell the mighty story, but meantime this pen must pass it by as too great a theme, and deal with the times that come after.

One or two incidents, however, must be mentioned to fill the break and explain what came afterward.

Colonel Gray, who had been early promoted, fell at the head of his regiment on one of those great days which are the milestones of history.

His body was brought home and buried in the old grave-yard at Red Rock among generations of Grays, of whom, as old Mr. Langstaff, who had been bodily haled back to his parish by his congregation, said to the neighbors and servants about the grave, not one was a better or a braver man, or a truer gentleman. Colonel Gray’s burial marked one of the steps of the war in that retired neighborhood.

When it was all over, and the neighbors had gone home, and the servants had retired to their quarters, hushed to that vague quietude that follows the last putting away in the earth of those who have been near to us, Jacquelin came out of the office where he had held that last interview with his father, and walked into his mother’s room. His shoulders were square and his figure erect. Mrs. Gray rose from her knees as he entered, and stood before him in her black dress, her face deadly white; her eyes, full of fear, fastened on his face.

“Mamma—.” He stopped as if that were all he had to say, and, perhaps, it was; for Mrs. Gray seated herself calmly.

“Yes, my son.” The fine, sad eyes grew wistful. How like he was to his father!

—“Because, you know, there ought to be one of us in the old company, mamma,” he said, quite as though he had spoken the other sentence.

“Yes, my son, I know.” And the mother sighed, her heart breaking in spite of her resolve to be brave.

“—And I am the only man of the name now—and I am fifteen and a whole head taller than Andy Stamper.”

“Yes, I know, my son.” She had noticed it that day, and had known this would come.

“And he is one of the best soldiers in the army—He said so. And if—if anything happens, you have Rupert.” He went on arguing, as though his mother had not agreed with him.

“Yes, my son, I know.” And Mrs. Gray rose suddenly and flung herself into his arms and hugged him and clung to him, and wept on his shoulder, as though he were his father.

So the change comes: the boy in little trousers suddenly stands before the mother a man; the little girl who was in her pinafores yesterday, to-day has stepped into full-blown womanhood; and the children have gone; the old has passed; and the new is here.

General Legaie offered to make a place on his staff for Jacquelin; but Jacquelin declined it. He wished to go into the Red Rock troop, of which Steve Allen was now Captain.

“Because, mamma, all the men are in it, and Steve has refused a majority to stay with them, and there must be one of the Grays in the old company,” he said with a rise of his head.

Doan, of course, expected to go with his master; but Mrs. Gray vetoed this; she was afraid Doan might be killed: young men were so rash. She remembered that Doan was his mother’s only son. So, by a compromise, Old Waverley was sent. He had so much judgment, she said.

The year after Jacquelin went away to the army the tide of war rolled nearer to the old county, and the next year, that which had been deemed impossible befell: it swept over it.

When the invading army had passed, the county was scarcely recognizable.

Jacquelin’s career in the army was only that of many others—indeed, of many thousands of others: he went in a boy, but a boy who could ride any horse, and all day and all night; sleep on stones or in mud; and if told to go anywhere, would go as firmly and as surely among bayonets or belching guns as if it were in a garden of roses.

Being the youngest man in his company, he might naturally have been a favorite in any case; but when he was always ready to stand an extra tour of guard-duty, or to do anything else for a comrade, it placed his popularity beyond question. They used to call him “The baby;” but after a sharp cavalry fight on a hill-top one afternoon they stopped this. Legaie’s brigade charged, and finding infantry entrenched, were retiring amid smoke and dust and bullets, when Jacquelin, missing Morris Cary, who had been near him but a moment before, suddenly turned and galloped back through the smoke. Two or three men shouted and stopped, and Steve suddenly dashed back after the boy, followed by Andy Stamper and the whole company. There was a rally with the whole Red Rock troop in the lead, Steve Allen, with little Andy Stamper close behind, shouting and sabering like mad, which changed the fortune of the day.

Poor Morris was found under his horse, past help; but they brought his body out of the fray, and Jacquelin sent him home, with a letter which was harder to write than any charge he had ever made or was to make—harder even than to tell Dr. Cary, who was at the field hospital and who received the announcement with only a sudden tightening of the mouth and whitening of the face. After that, Andy Stamper “allowed that Jacquelin’s cradle was big enough for him” (Andy), which it certainly was, by linear measurement, at least.

Blair’s letter to Jacquelin in reply was more to him than General Legaie’s mention of his name in his report.

Blair was growing up to be almost a woman now. Women, as well as men, age rapidly amid battles, and nearly every letter Jacquelin received from home contained something about her. “What a pretty girl Blair has grown to be. You have no idea how we all lean on her,” his mother wrote. Or Miss Thomasia would say: “I wish you could have heard Blair sing in church last Sunday. Her voice has developed unspeakable sweetness. It reminded me of her grandmother, when I can first remember her.”

It was not a great while after this that Jacquelin himself went down one day, and had to be fought over, and though he fared better than poor Morris Cary, in that the bullet which brought him down only smashed his leg instead of finding his heart, it resulted in Steve getting both himself and his horse shot, and Jacquelin being left in the enemy’s hands, along with Andy Stamper, who had fought over him, like the game little bantam that he was, until a big Irish Sergeant knocked him in the head with a carbine-barrel and came near ending the line of the Stampers then and there. Happily, Andy came to after a while, and was taken along with Jacquelin and sent to Point Lookout.

Jacquelin and Andy stayed in prison a long time; Andy because he was a hardy and untamed little warrior, of the kind which was drawn last for exchange; and Jacquelin partly because he was unable to travel on account of his wound and partly because he would not accept an exchange to leave Andy.

One day, however, Andy got a letter which seriously affected him. It told him that Delia Dove was said to be going to marry Mr. Still. Within a week little Andy, whose constitution had hitherto appeared of iron, was in the hospital. The doctor told Jacquelin that he thought he was seriously ill, and might die.

That night Jacquelin scribbled a line to Andy and persuaded a nurse, Miss Bush, a small woman with thin hair, a sharp nose and a complaining voice, but gentle eyes and a kind heart, to get it to him. It ran: “Hold on for Delia’s sake. We’ll get exchanged before long.”

“Who is Delia?” asked the nurse, looking at the paper doubtfully. It was against orders to carry notes.

“His sweetheart.”

The nurse took the note.

In a week Andy was ready to be out of the hospital.

The next morning Jacquelin and the doctor had a long talk, and later on, Jacquelin and the nurse; and when the next draft for exchange came, the name of Jacquelin Gray was on it. But Andy Stamper’s was not. So the nurse told Jacquelin. Another note was written and conveyed by Miss Bush, and that evening, when the line of prisoners for exchange marched out of the prison yard, Andy Stamper, with his old blanket pulled up around his face and a crutch under his arm, was in it. Jacquelin was watching from a corner of the hospital window while the line was inspected. Andy answered the questions all right—Private in Company A, —th Cavalry; captured at ——; wounded in leg; and just left hospital. As the last guard filed out behind the ragged line and the big gate swung to, Jacquelin hobbled back to his cot and lay with his face to the wall. The nurse came by presently and stopping, looked down at him.

“Now you’ve gone and ruined your chance for ever,” she said in the querulous tone habitual with her.

Jacquelin shut his eyes tightly, then opened them and without a word gazed straight at the wall not a foot before him. Suddenly the woman bent close down over him and kissed him.

“You are a dear boy.” The next instant she went back to her duty.

An effort was made to get an exchange for Jacquelin, the principal agents being a nurse in the prison-hospital and a philanthropical friend of hers, a Mrs. Welch, through whom the nurse had secured her position; but the answer was conclusive:

“Jacquelin Gray has already been exchanged.”

As for Andy, when he reached home he found the report about Miss Delia Dove to be at least premature. It was not only Mr. Washington Still, but Hiram as well, who was unpleasantly attentive to her, and Miss Delia, after the first burst of genuine delight at Andy’s unexpected appearance, proceeded to use the prerogative of her sex and wring her lover’s heart by pretending to be pleased by his new rival’s attentions. Andy, accordingly, did not stay long at home, but accepting the renewed proffer of a loan from Hiram Still to buy a horse, was soon back with the old company, sadly wasted by this time and only kept up by the new recruits, on whom Andy looked with disdain.

When Wash Still was drafted from the dispensary department of the hospital service it was some consolation that he was at least banished from dangerous proximity to Miss Delia, but it was hard to have to accept him as a comrade, and Andy’s sunburned nose was always turned up when Wash was around.

“Washy Still in place of Jacquelin Gray,” he sniffed; “a dinged little ’pothecary-shop sweeper for a boy as didn’t mind bullets no mo’ than flies. I bet he’s got pills in that pistol now! And he to be a-settin’ up to Delia Dove!”

However, a few months later Andy had his reward.

So it happened, that when the end came, Andy was back with the old company, and Jacquelin was still in prison.