The Long Roll
Barracks like an ice house, and snowing so you couldn't see across the
Campus! 'T was so deadly cold and the lights so dismal that we rather
looked forward to taps. Up comes an orderly. 'Mr. Wilson to the
Commandant's office!'--Well, old Wilson looked startled, for he hadn't
done anything; but off he marches, the rest of us predicting hanging.
Well, whom d' ye reckon he found in the Commandant's office?"
"Old Jack?"
"Good marksmanship! It was Old Jack--snow all over, snow on his coat, on
his big boots, on his beard, on his cap. He lives most a mile from the
Institute, and the weather was bad, sure enough! Well, old Wilson didn't
know what to expect--most likely hot shot, grape and canister with
musketry fire thrown in--but he saluted and stood fast. 'Mr. Wilson,'
says Old Jack, 'upon returning home and going over with closed eyes
after supper as is my custom the day's work, I discovered that you were
right this morning and I was wrong. Your solution was correct. I felt it
to be your due that I should tell you of my mistake as soon as I
discovered it. I apologise for the statement that you were always wrong.
You may go, sir.' Well, old Wilson never could tell what he said, but
anyhow he accepted the apology, and saluted, and got out of the room
somehow and back to barracks, and we breathed on the window and made a
place through which we watched Old Jack over the Campus, ploughing back
to Mrs. Jack through the blizzard! So you see, ma'am, things like that
make us lenient to Old Jack sometimes--though he is awfully dull and has
very peculiar notions."
Margaret Cleave sat up. "Is that you, Richard?" Miriam put down Tabitha
and rose to her knees. "Did you see Cousin Judith? Is she as beautiful
as ever?" Will hospitably gave up the big chair. "You must have galloped
Dundee both ways! Did you ask about the shotgun?"
Cleave took his seat at the foot of his mother's couch. "Yes, Will, you
may have it.--Fauquier sent his love to you, Mother, and to Miriam. They
leave for Greenwood to-morrow."
"And Cousin Judith," persisted Miriam. "What did she have on? Did she
sing to you?"
Cleave picked up her fallen book and smoothed the leaves. "She was not
there. The Silver Hill people had taken her for the night. I passed them
on the road.... There'll be thick ice, Will, if this weather lasts."
Later, when good-night had been said and he was alone in his bare,
high-ceiled room, he looked, not at his law books nor at the poet's
words, left lying on the table, but he drew a chair before the
fireplace, and from its depths he raised his eyes to his grandfather's
sword slung above the mantel-shelf. He sat there, long, with the sword
before him; then he rose, took a book from the case, trimmed the
candles, and for an hour read of the campaigns of Fabius and Hannibal.
CHAPTER IV
GREENWOOD
The April sunshine, streaming in at the long windows, filled the
Greenwood drawing-room with dreamy gold. It lit the ancient wall-paper
where the shepherds and shepherdesses wooed between garlands of roses,
and it aided the tone of time among the portraits. The boughs of peach
and cherry blossoms in the old potpourri jars made it welcome, and the
dark, waxed floor let it lie in faded pools. Miss Lucy Cary was glad to
see it as she sat by the fire knitting fine white wool into a sacque for
a baby. There was a fire of hickory, but it burned low, as though it
knew the winter was over. The knitter's needles glinted in the sunshine.
She was forty-eight and unmarried, and it was her delight to make
beautiful, soft little sacques and shoes and coverlets for every actual
or prospective baby in all the wide circle of her kindred and friends.
A tap at the door, and the old Greenwood butler entered with the
mail-bag. Miss Lucy, laying down her knitting, took it from him with
eager fingers. _Place a la poste_--in eighteen hundred and sixty-one!
She untied the string, emptied letters and papers upon the table beside
her, and began to sort them. Julius, a spare and venerable piece of
grey-headed ebony, an autocrat of exquisite manners and great family
pride, stood back a little and waited for directions.
Miss Lucy, taking up one after another the contents of the bag, made her
comments half aloud. "Newspapers, newspapers! Nothing but the twelfth
and Fort Sumter! _The Whig._--'South Carolina is too hot-headed!--but
when all's said, the North remains the aggressor.' _The
Examiner._--'Seward's promises are not worth the paper they are written
upon.' '_Faith as to Sumter fully kept--wait and see._' That which was
seen was a fleet of eleven vessels, with two hundred and eighty-five
guns and twenty-four hundred men--'_carrying provisions to a starving
garrison!_' Have done with cant, and welcome open war! _The
Enquirer._--'Virginia will still succeed in mediating. Virginia from her
curule chair, tranquil and fast in the Union, will persuade, will
reconcile these differences!' Amen to that!" said Miss Lucy, and took up
another bundle. "_The Staunton Gazette_--_The Farmer's Magazine_--_The
Literary Messenger_--My _Blackwood_--Julius!"
"Yaas, Miss Lucy."
"Julius, the Reverend Mr. Corbin Wood will be here for supper and to
spend the night. Let Car'line know."
"Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab obsarved to me dat Marse Edward am
conducin' home a gent'man from Kentucky."
"Very well," said Miss Lucy, still sorting. "_The Winchester
Times_--_The Baltimore Sun._--The mint's best, Julius, in the lower
bed. I walked by there this morning.--Letters for my brother! I'll
readdress these, and Easter's Jim must take them to town in time for the
Richmond train."
"Yaas, Miss Lucy. Easter's Jim hab imported dat Marse Berkeley Cyarter
done recompense him on de road dis mahnin' ter know when Marster's
comin' home."
"Just as soon," said Miss Lucy, "as the Convention brings everybody to
their senses.--Three letters for Edward--one in young Beaufort Porcher's
writing. Now we'll hear the Charleston version--probably he fired the
first shot!--A note for me.--Julius, the Palo Alto ladies will stop by
for dinner to-morrow. Tell Car'line."
"Yaas, Miss Lucy."
Miss Lucy took up a thick, bluish envelope. "From Fauquier at last--from
the Red River." She opened the letter, ran rapidly over the half-dozen
sheets, then laid them aside for a more leisurely perusal. "It's one of
his swift, light, amusing letters! He hasn't heard about
Sumter.--There'll be a message for you, Julius. There always is."
Julius's smile was as bland as sunshine. "Yaas, Miss Lucy. I 'spects
dar'll be some excommunication fer me. Marse Fauquier sho' do favour Old
Marster in dat.--He don' never forgit! 'Pears ter me he'd better come
home--all dis heah congratulatin' backwards an' forwards wid gunpowder
over de kintry! Gunpowder gwine burn ef folk git reckless!"
Miss Lucy sighed. "It will that, Julius,--it's burning now. Edward from
Sally Hampton. More Charleston news!--One for Molly, three for Unity,
five for Judith--"
"Miss Judith jes' sont er 'lumination by one of de chillern at de gate.
She an' Marse Maury Stafford'll be back by five. Dey ain' gwine ride
furder'n Monticello."
"Very well. Mr. Stafford will be here to supper, then. Hairston
Breckinridge, too, I imagine. Tell Car'line."
Miss Lucy readdressed the letters for her brother, a year older than
herself, and the master of Greenwood, a strong Whig influence in his
section of the State, and now in Richmond, in the Convention there,
speaking earnestly for amity, a better understanding between Sovereign
States, and a happily restored Union. His wife, upon whom he had
lavished an intense and chivalric devotion, was long dead, and for years
his sister had taken the head of his table and cared like a mother for
his children.
She sat now, at work, beneath the portrait of her own mother. As good as
gold, as true as steel, warm-hearted and large-natured, active, capable,
and of a sunny humour, she kept her place in the hearts of all who knew
her. Not a great beauty as had been her mother, she was yet a handsome
woman, clear brunette with bright, dark eyes and a most likable mouth.
Miss Lucy never undertook to explain why she had not married, but her
brothers thought they knew. She finished the letters and gave them to
Julius. "Let Easter's Jim take them right away, in time for the evening
train.--Have you seen Miss Unity?"
"Yaas, ma'am. Miss Unity am in de flower gyarden wid Marse Hairston
Breckinridge. Dey're training roses."
"Where is Miss Molly?"
"Miss Molly am in er reverence over er big book in de library."
The youngest Miss Cary's voice floated in from the hall. "No, I'm not,
Uncle Julius. Open the door wider, please!" Julius obeyed, and she
entered the drawing-room with a great atlas outspread upon her arms.
"Aunt Lucy, where _are_ all these places? I can't find them. The Island
and Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, and the rest of
them! I wish when bombardments and surrenders and exciting things happen
they'd happen nearer home!"
"Child, child!" cried Miss Lucy, "don't you ever say such a thing as
that again! The way you young people talk is enough to bring down a
judgment upon us! It's like Sir Walter crying 'Bonny bonny!' to the
jagged lightnings. You are eighty years away from a great war, and you
don't know what you are talking about, and may you never be any
nearer!--Yes, Julius, that's all. Tell Easter's Jim to go right
away.--Now, Molly, this is the island, and here is Fort Moultrie and
here Fort Sumter. I used to know Charleston, when I was a girl. I can
see now the Battery, and the blue sky, and the roses,--and the roses."
She took up her knitting and made a few stitches mechanically, then laid
it down and applied herself to Fauquier Cary's letter. Molly, ensconced
in a window, was already busy with her own. Presently she spoke. "Miriam
Cleave says that Will passed his examination higher than any one."
"That is good!" said Miss Lucy. "They all have fine minds--the Cleaves.
What else does she say?"
"She says that Richard has given her a silk dress for her birthday, and
she's going to have it made with angel sleeves, and wear a hoop with it.
She's sixteen--just like me."
"Richard's a good brother."
"She says that Richard has gone to Richmond--something about arms for
his Company of Volunteers. Aunt Lucy--"
"Yes, dear."
"I think that Richard loves Judith."
"Molly, Molly, stop romancing!"
"I am not romancing. I don't believe in it. That week last summer he
used to watch her and Mr. Stafford--and there was a look in his eyes
like the knight's in the 'Arcadia'--"
"Molly! Molly!"
"And everybody knew that Mr. Stafford was a suitor. _I_ knew it--Easter
told me. And everybody thought that Judith was going to make him happy,
only she doesn't seem to have done so--at least, not yet. And there was
the big tournament, and Richard and Dundee took all the rings, though I
know that Mr. Stafford had expected to, and Judith let Richard crown her
queen, but she looked just as pale and still! and Richard had a line
between his brows, and I think he thought she would rather have had the
Maid of Honour's crown that Mr. Stafford won and gave to just a little
girl--"
"Molly, I am going to lock up every poetry book in the house--"
"And that was one day, and the next morning Richard looked stern and
fine, and rode away. He isn't really handsome--not like Edward, that
is--only he has a way of looking so. And Judith--"
"Molly, you're uncanny--"
"I'm not uncanny. I can't help seeing. And the night after the
tournament I slept in Judith's room, and I woke up three times, and each
time there was Judith still sitting in the window, in the moonlight, and
the roses Richard had crowned her with beside her in grandmother's