Miscellaneous Books, 
 
 Government Publications, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 <F? 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE WILMER COLLECTION 
 
 OF CIVIL WAR NOVELS 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 RICHARD H. WILMER, JR. 
 
WILMER COLLECTIOI 
 
'y^H2^c/ ^yU/iftfrrk 
 
 T.B.Peterson & Bros. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 NOVEL 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK AND THE ARMY, 
 
 18 6 2 
 
 By HENRY MORFORD. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, 
 306 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Several months have necessarily elapsed since the 
 V, commencement of this narration. Within that time 
 many and rapid changes have occurred, both in national 
 situation and in private character. As a consequence, 
 there may be several words, in earlier portions of the 
 story, that would not have been written a few months 
 later. The writer has preferred not to make any changes 
 in original expression, but to set down, instead, in refer- 
 ences, the dates at which certain portions of the work were 
 written. In one instance important assistance has been 
 derived from a writer of ability and much military ex- 
 perience; and that assistance is thankfully acknowledged 
 in a foot-note to one of the appropriate chapters. Some 
 readers may be disappointed not to find a work more ex- 
 tensively military, under such a title and at this time ; 
 but the aim of the writer, while giving glances at one 
 or two of our most important battles, has been chiefly to 
 present a faithful picture of certain relations in life and 
 society which have grown out, as side-issues, from the 
 great struggle. At another time and under different cir- 
 cumstances, the writer might feel disposed to apologize 
 
 15 
 
16 PREFACE. 
 
 for the great liberty of episode and digression, taken 
 with the story; but in the days of Victor Hugo and 
 Charles Beade, and at a time when the text of the 
 preacher in his pulpit, and the title of a bill in a legisla- 
 tive body, are alike made the threads upon which to 
 string the whole knowledge of the speaker upon every 
 subject, — such an apology can scarcely be necessary. It 
 should be said, in deference to a few retentive memories, 
 that two chapters of this story, now embraced in the 
 body of the work, were originally written for and pub- 
 lished in the- Continental Monthly, last fall, the publication 
 of the whole work through that medium, at first designed, 
 being prevented by a change of management and a con- 
 tract mutually broken. 
 
 New York Citt, July, 1863. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Two Friends — Walter Lane Harding and Tom Leslie — Merchant and 
 Journalist — A Torn Dress and a Stalwart Champion — Tom Leslie's 
 Story of Dexter Ralston' — Three Moetings — An Incident on the 
 Potomac — The Inauguration of Lincoln — A Warning of the Vir- 
 ginia Secession — Governmental Blindness — Friend or Foe to the 
 Union? 23 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 Richard Crawford and Josephine Harris — The Invalid and the Wild 
 Madonna — An Odd Female Character and a Temptation — Dis- 
 couragement and Consolation — Miss Joe Harris on the Character 
 of Colonel Egbert Crawford — A Suggestion of Hatred and Murder 
 — A New Agony for the Invalid — A Lady with an Attachment to 
 Cerise Ribbon 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 A Scene at Judge Owen's — Mother and Daughter — Pretty Emily with 
 One Lover Too Many — Emily's Determination, and Judge Owen's 
 Ultimatum — A Pompous Judge playing Grand Signeur in his own 
 Family — Aunt Martha to the Rescue — Her Story of Marriage 
 without Love, Wedded Misery and Outrage — How Old is Colonel 
 John Boadley Bancker, and what is the Character of Frank 
 Wallace? CO 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Harding and Leslie make Discoveries on Prince Street — Seccsh Flags and 
 Emblems of the Golden Circle — What do they mean? — Tom Leslie 
 takes a Climb and a Tumble — The Red Woman — A Carriage Chase 
 Up-town — A Mysterious House — Amateur Detectives under a 
 Door-step, and what they saw and heard C3 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Who was the Red Woman ? — Tom Leslie's Strange Story of Parisian Life 
 and Fortune-tolling— The 20th of December, 1860— An Hour in the 
 Rue la Reynio Ogniard— The Vision of the White Mist— The Se- 
 
 17 
 
18 CO XT I NTS. 
 
 FAOE 
 
 e o a ri oB of South Carolina seen across the Atlantic — Wa? the 
 Sorceress in America? 73 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford and Miss Bell Crawford — Miss Harris entering 
 upon the Spy-System — Some Dissertations thereon, as practised 
 in the Army and Elsewhere — What McDowell knew before Bull 
 Run — Colonel Crawford's Affectionate Care of his Sick Cousin — 
 Josephine Harris behind a Glass Door — What she overheard about 
 Cousin Mary and the Rich Uncle at "West Falls — Colonel Crawford 
 trying his Hand at Doctoring — A Suspicious Bandage, and what 
 the Watcher thought of it 83 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Introduction of the Contraband— What Ho Was and What He Is— Three 
 Months Earlier— Colonel Egbert Crawford in Thomas Street — 
 Aunt Synchy, the Obi Woman — How a Man who is only half evil 
 can be tempted to murder — The Black Paste of the Obi Poison 99 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Colonel John Boadley Bancker and Frank Wallace at Judge Owen's — A 
 Pouting Lover and a Satisfied Rival — The Philosophy of Male and 
 Female Jealousy — Frank Wallace doing tho Insulting — A Bit of 
 a Row — A Smash-up in the Streets, and a True Test of Relative 
 Courage 115 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The First Week of July — News of the Reverses before Richmond — 
 Painful Feeling of the Whole Country — How a Nation weeps 
 Tears of Blood— The Estimation of McClellan— The Curse of Ab- 
 senteeism — Public Abhorrence of the Shoulder-strapped Heroes on 
 Broadway — A Scene at the World Corner, and a Hero in Dis- 
 guise 
 
 129 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Leslie and Harding following up the Prince-Street Mystery — A Call npon 
 Superintendent Kennedy — How Tom Leslie wished to play Detec- 
 tive — A Bit of a Rebuff — A Massachusetts Regiment going to tho 
 War — Miss Joe Harris and Bell Crawford in a Street Difficulty — A 
 Rescue and a Recognition — A Trip into Taylor's Saloon 1-J2 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 The True Characters of Men and of Houses — Fifth Avenue and the 
 Swamp — Gilded Vice, and Vice without Ornament — The Progress 
 of Temptation — The Legends of the Lurline and the Frozen Hand 
 — Dangers of Fashionable Restaurants — Scenes at Taylor's Saloon 
 
CONTENTS. 19 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Tom Leslie, Joo Harris and Bell Crawford at Lunch — Tho 
 Fortune-teller selected by Miss Harris for a Visit — Wanted, a 
 Knight for Two Distressed Damsels — Tom Leslie enlists, and goes 
 after his Armor 160 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A Glance at Fortune-telling and other Delusions — Our Domestic and 
 Personal Superstitions — Omens and thbir Origin — The "Witch .of 
 Endor, Hamlet and Macbeth — One Strange Illustration of Prophecy 
 in Dreams — The Fortune-tellers of New York, Boston and "Wash- 
 ington 172 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Ten Minutes at a Costumer's — Among the Robes of Queens and the Rags 
 of Beggars — How Tom Leslie suddenly grew to Sixty, and 
 changed Clothes accordingly — Josephine Harris and Bell Craw- 
 ford still at Lunch, with a Dissertation upon One Pair of Eyes — 
 An Unwarrantable Intrusion, and a Decided Sensation at Taylor's 187 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Necromancy in a Thunder-storm — How Tom Leslie and his Female 
 Companions called upon Madame Elise Boutell, from Paris, in 
 Prince Street — A New "Way of Gambling for Precedence — Bell 
 Crawford takes her Turn — A very improper Joining of Hands in 
 the Outer Apartment — About Chances, Accidents and Little Things 
 — The Change in Bell Crawford's Eyes — Eyes that have looked 
 within — Two Pictures in the Old Dusseldorf Gallery — Joe Harris 
 Undergoing the Ordeal — A Thunder-clap and a Shriek of Terror — 
 "What Tom Leslie saw in the Apartment of the Red Woman — A 
 Mask removed, and one more Temptation 198 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Camp Lyon, and Colonel Egbert Crawford's Two Hundredth Regiment 
 — Recruiting Discipline in the Summer of 18G2 — What Smith and 
 Brown saw — Lager-beer, Cards and the Dice-box — An Adjutant 
 who obeys Orders — A Dress Parade a la mode — How Seven Hun- 
 dred Men may be squeezed into Three 218 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A Few Words on the Two Modern Modes of writing Romances — How to 
 tell what is not known and can never bo known — The Bound of 
 a Loyal Pen — More of the Up-town Mystery — How the Reliable 
 Detectives posted a Watch, and how they kept it — Cold Water 
 dampening Enthusiasm — An Escape, and the Post mortem held on 
 a Vacant House— Trails left by the Secession Serpent 232 
 
20 CONTEXTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Pictures at the Seat of War — Looking for John Crawford the Zouave — 
 Hopeful and Discouraged Letters Home — Events which h:id pre- 
 ceded Malvern Hill — An Army winning Victories in Retreat — 
 The Morning after White-Oak Swamp — How the Sun shines on 
 Fields of Carnage — Appearance of the Retreating Army — The 
 Camp of Fitz-Jobn Porter's Division — The Soldiers of Home, and 
 the Soldiers of the Field— The First Rebel Attack at the Crom 
 Roads — Why the Potomac Army was not demoralized — The Re- 
 pulse, and the Pause before the Heavier Storm 239 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 More of the First Battle of Malvern — A Word about Skulkers — An 
 Attempt to flank the Union Forces — A Storm of Lead and Iron 
 rivalling the War of the Elements — The Rebels Repulsed — The 
 Attack on the Main Position, and the Second Battle of Malvern — 
 The most Terrible Artillery Duel of the Century — Patriotism 
 against G-unpowdered Whiskey — Shells from the Gun-boats, and 
 their Effect— The Dead upon Carter's Field— The Last Repulse of 
 the Rebels, and the General Advance of the Union Forces — Strange 
 Incidents of the Close of the Battle — Odd Bravery in Meagher's 
 Brigade — The Apparition in White, and its Effect — Close of the 
 Great Battle 256 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 John Crawford the Zouave, and Bob Webster — Incidents of the Charge 
 of Duryea's Zouaves — Bush-fighting and its Result- — A Wound not 
 bargained for — The Burning House and its Two Watchers — A 
 Strange Death-scene — Marion Hobart and her Dying Grandfather 
 — Death under the Old Flag — An Oath of Protection — A Furlough 
 — John Crawford brings his Xewly-acquired Family to Xew York 277 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Judge Owen's Condemnation of the Rioters at his House — How Frank 
 Wallace was exiled, and what came of it — The Burly Judge mak- 
 ing a Household Arrest at Wallack's — Emily Owen and Joe Harris 
 — A Recognition which may cause Further Trouble 297 
 
 , CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Another Scene at Richard Crawford's — Josephine Harris playing the 
 Detective, with Musical Accompaniments — A Sudden Demand for 
 Dark Paste, with Difficulty in supplying it — A Young Girl who 
 wished to be believed a Coward — Ever of Thee, with some Feel- 
 ings thereunto attached — Josephine Harris pays a Visit to Doctor 
 la Turque— Her Discoveries with reference to the Obi Poison 312 
 
CONTEXTS. 21 
 
 PAGB 
 
 CHArTER xxn. 
 A Little Arrangement between Tom Leslie and Joe Harris— Going to 
 West Falls and Niagara— A Detention and a Night Scene on the 
 Hudson-Kiver Road— Why Joe Harris hid her Saucy Face— Oneida 
 Scenery— Aunt Betsey, Little Susy, and a Peep at the Halstead 
 Homestead, with Pigs, Chickens and Cherries 332 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 Josephine Harris in quest of Information— The Big House on the Hill — 
 Extracting the Secrets of the Crawford Family— How a Big Fib 
 may sometimes be told for a Good Purpose— Aunt Betsey made an 
 Accomplice— Mary Crawford, the Country Girl, and a Terrible 
 Revelation— A Bold Letter to a Bold Man 350 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 The Piazza of the Big House on the Hill— John Crawford the Human 
 Wreck, and Egbert Crawford on the Eve of Marriage— Chanticleer 
 on the Garden Fence, with Remembrances of Peter and Judas 
 Iscariot— John Crawford instructs his Expectant Son-in-law— Ar- 
 rival of the. Domestic Post, with a Letter of Import— A Hit or a 
 Miss? — Strida la Vampa , 372 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 Affairs in the Crawford Family in New York— The Two Brothers together 
 —Marion Hobart the Enigma— How Richard Crawford thought 
 that he was not able to ride to the Central Park, and found that 
 he could ride to Niagara t> 391 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 Tom Leslie at Niagara— A Dash at Scenery there— What he saw with his 
 Natural Eyes, and what with his Inner Consciousness— The Wreck 
 and the Rainbow— Another Rencontre with Dexter Ralston— The 
 Eclipse on the Falls— Leslie under the impression that he can be 
 discounted, and that he knows little or nothing on any subject 404 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 Society and Shoulder-Straps at the Falls— The Delights and Duties of a 
 Journalist— Leslie and Harding Exploring Canada— How one Fine 
 Morning War was declarod between England and the United 
 States, and Canada annexed to New York— A Meeting at the Cata- 
 ract—Another Rencontre with the Strange Virginian— An Abduc- 
 tion and a Pursuit ^ 420 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 The Sequel at West Falls— How Colonel Egbert Crawford was supposed 
 to have been telegraphed for from Albany— Mary Crawford once 
 
22 CONTEXTS. 
 
 TAGE 
 
 more at the Halstead'a — The Final Instruction? nn<l Promises of 
 the Chief Conspirator— Joe Harris returns to the Croat City, and 
 her Disappointment therein — Another Conspiracy hatched, threat- 
 ening to blow Judge Owen's Domestic Tranquillity to Atoms -133 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 Some Speculations on Moonlight and Insanity — Captain Robert Slivers, 
 of the Sickles Brigade, makes his Appearance at Judge Owen's — 
 He draws Graphic Pictures of the War, for the Edification of 
 Colonel Bancker — A Controversy, with further inquiries as to the 
 Age of the Colonel — The Market brisk for Hirsute Excrcscene 
 the Cranium, and no Supply — Judge Owen laughs ponderously 446 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 Gathering the Ravelled Threads of a Long Story— What befel Several 
 Persons heretofore named — Marriages in Demand, and only a few 
 furnished— A Raid into Canada— What befell Colonel Egbert 
 Crawford and the Two Hundredth Regiment — A Cavalry Charge 
 at Antietam, and a Farewell 400 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Two Friends — A Rencontre before Niblo's — Three Meet- 
 ings with a Man op Mark — Mount Vernon and the 
 Inauguration — Friend or Foe to the Union ? 
 
 Just before the close of the performances at Niblo's Garden, 
 where the Jarrett combination was then playing, one evening 
 in the latter part of June, 1862, two young men came out 
 from the doorway of the theatre and took their course up 
 Broadway toward the Houston Street corner. Any observer 
 who might have caught a clear view of the faces of the two as 
 they passed under one of the large lamps at the door, would 
 have noted each as being worth a second glance, but would at 
 the same time have observed that two persons more dissimilar 
 in appearance and in indication of character, could scarcely 
 have been selected out of all the varied thousands resident in 
 the great city. 
 
 The one walking on the inside as they passed on, with the 
 right hand of his companion laid on his left arm in that confi- 
 dential manner so common with intimate friends who wish to 
 walk together in the evening without being jostled apart by 
 hurried chance passengers, was somewhat tall in figure, dark- 
 haired, dark side-whiskered, and sober-faced, though decidedly 
 iine-looking ; and in spite of the heat of the weather he pre- 
 served the appearance of winter dress clothing by a full suit 
 of dark gray summer stuff that might well have been mistaken 
 for broadcloth. Not even in hat or boots did he make any 
 
 (23) 
 
24 S II O U L D E K - S T R A P S . * 
 
 apparent concession to the season, for his glossy round hat- 
 would have been quite as much in place in January as in June, 
 and his well-fitting and glossy patent-leather boots would 
 have been thought oppressively warm by a hotter-blooded and 
 more plethoric man. Those who should have seen the bap- 
 tismal register recording his birth some five-and-thirty years 
 before, would have known his name to be Walter Lane Hard- 
 ing ; and those who met him in business or society would have 
 become quite as well aware that he was a prosperous merchant, 
 doing business in one of the leading mercantile streets running 
 out of Broadway, not far from the City Hospital. So far as 
 the somewhat precise mercantile appearance of Harding was 
 concerned, a true disciple of Lavatcr would have judged 
 correctly of him, for there were few men in the city "of New 
 York who displayed more steadiness, or greater money-making 
 capacity in all the details of business ; and yet even the close 
 observer would have been likely to derive a false impression 
 from this very preciseness, as to the social qualities of the 
 man. There were quite as few better or heartier laughers 
 than Harding, when duly aroused to mirth ; and those persons 
 were very rare, making the characters of mankind their pro- 
 fessional study, who saw slight indications of disposition more 
 quickly, or better enjoyed whatever gave food for quiet merri- 
 ment. Once away from his counting-house, too, Walter 
 Harding seemed to assume a second of his two natures that 
 had before been lying dormant, and to enter into the per- 
 mitted gaieties of city life with a zest that many a professed 
 good fellow might have envied. He visited the theatre, as we 
 have seen ; went to the opera when it pleased him, not for 
 fashion's sake, but because he liked music and was a counois- 
 seur of singing and acting ; liked a stroll in the streets with a 
 congenial companion (male or female) ; could smoke a good 
 cigar with evident enjoyment ; and sometimes, though rarely, 
 sipped a glass of fine old wine, and indulged .in the freer 
 pleasures of the table ; though he was scrupulously careful 
 of his company, and no man had ever seen his foot cross the 
 threshold of a house of improper character. It is sufficient, p~. 
 in addition, at the present moment, to say that he was still a *■* 
 bachelor, occupying rooms in an up-tovvn street, and enjoying NCfc 
 
SHOULDE R STRAP S. 25 
 
 life in that pleasant and rational mode which seemed to pro- 
 mise long' continuance. 
 
 Harding's companion, who has already been indicated as 
 his opposite, was markedly so in personal appearance, at least. 
 He was two or three inches shorter than Harding, and much 
 stouter, displaying a well-rounded leg through the folds of his 
 loose pants of light-gray Melton cloth, and being quite well 
 aware of that advantage of person. He had a smoothly rounded 
 face, with a complexion that had been fair until hard work, 
 late hours, and some exposure to the elements, had browned 
 and roughened it ; brown hair, with an evident tendency to 
 curl, if he had not worn it so short on account of the heat of 
 the season, that a curl was rendered impossible ; a heavy 
 dark brown moustache, worn without other beard ; a sunny hazel 
 eye that seemed made for laughter, and a full, red, voluptuous 
 lip that might have belonged to a sensualist ; while the eye could 
 really do other things than laughing, and the lip was quite as 
 often compressed or curled in the bitterness of disdain or the 
 earnestness of close thought, as employed to express any 
 warmer or more sympathetic feeling. 
 
 Tom Leslie, who might have been called by the more 
 respectful and dignified name of " Thomas," but that no 
 one had ever expended the additional amount of breath ne- 
 cessary to extend the name into two syllables, was a cadet of 
 a leading family in a neighboring state, who at home had 
 been reckoned the black sheep of the flock, because he would 
 not settle quietly down like the rest to money-getting and 
 the enjoyment of legislative offices ; a man who at thirty had 
 passed thTough much experience, seen a little dissipation, 
 traveled over most States of the Union in the search for new 
 scenery, or the fulfilment of his avocation as a newspaper cor- 
 respondent and man of letters ; been twice in Europe, alter- 
 nately flying about like a madman, and sitting down to study 
 life and manners in Paris, Vienna, and Rome, and gathering 
 up all kinds of useful and useless information ; taken a short 
 turn at war in the Crimea, in 1853, as a private in the ranks 
 of the French army; seen service for a few months in the 
 Brazilian navy, from which he had brought a severe wound as 
 a flattering testimonial, lie was at that time located in New 
 
26 SHOULDERS T K A P S. 
 
 York us an editorial contributor and occasional "special cor- 
 respondent" of a leading newspaper. He had seen much of 
 
 life — tasted much of its pains and pleasures — perhaps thought 
 more than either ; and though with a little too much of a 
 propensity for late hours and those long stories which would 
 grow out of current events seen in the light of past expe- 
 rience, he was held to be a very pleasant companion by other 
 men than Walter Harding. 
 
 Perhaps even the long stories were more a misfortune than 
 a fault. The Ancient Mariner found it one of the saddest 
 penalties of his crime, that he was obliged to button-hole all 
 his friends and be written down an incorrigible bore ; and who 
 doubts that the Wandering Jew, with the weight of twenty 
 centuries of experience and observation upon his head, finds 
 a deeper pang than the tropic heat or the Arctic snow could 
 give, in the want of an occasional quiet and patient listener 
 to the story of his wanderings ? 
 
 On the present occasion it may be noted, at once to com- 
 plete the picture and give additional insight of a character 
 which did very independent and outre things, that Tom Leslie 
 had gone to Niblo's with his carefully-dressed and precise 
 friend Harding, and sat conspicuously in an orchestra chair, 
 in a gray business sack, no vest and no pretence at a collar. 
 In other men, Harding would have noticed the dress with 
 disapprobation : in Leslie it seemed to be legitimately a part 
 of the man to dress as he liked ; and neither Harding, or any 
 one else w T ho knew him, paid any more attention to his out- 
 ward appearance than they would have bestowed upon a 
 harmless lunatic under the same circumstances. Wherever 
 Leslie boarded, (and his places of boarding were very nume- 
 rous, taking the whole year together,) it was always noted 
 that he filled up the hat-rack with a collection of hats of all 
 odd and rapid styles, with a few of the more sedate and 
 respectable ; and on this evening's visit to Niblo's, when 
 there was not a shadow of occasion for a hat with any brim, 
 whatever, he had completed his personal appearance by a fine 
 gray beaver California soft hat, of not less than eighteen or 
 twenty inches in the whole circumference, which gave him 
 somewhat the appearance of being under a collapsed um- 
 
SUOULDEli-iiTRAPS. 27 
 
 brulla, and yet became him as well as any thing else could have 
 done, and left him unmistakably a handsome fellow. 
 
 An oddly mixed compound, certainly — even odder than 
 Harding ; and yet what a dull, dead world this would prove 
 to be, if there were no odd and outre characters to startle the 
 grave people from their propriety, and throw an occasional 
 pebble splashing into the pool of quiet and irreproachable 
 mediocrity 1 
 
 The two companions, whose description has occupied a 
 much longer time than it needed to walk from the door of 
 Niblo's to the Houston Street corner, were just passing the 
 corner of that street on their way up to Bleecker, when they 
 were momentarily stopped by a very ordinary incident. A 
 girl, evidently of the demi-monde from her bold eyes, lavish 
 display of charms and general demeanor, was turning the 
 corner from Broadway into Houston Street immediately in 
 front of Harding and Leslie; and as she swept around, her 
 long dress trailing on the pavement, a careless fellow, loung- 
 ing along, cigar in mouth, and eyes everywhere else than at 
 his feet, stepped full upon her skirt, and before she could 
 check the impetus of her sudden turn, literally tore the gar- 
 ment from her, the dark folds of the dress falling on the pave- 
 ment and leaving the under-clothing painfully exposed. The 
 girl turned suddenly, one of those harsh oaths upon her lips 
 which even more than any action betray the fallen woman, 
 and hissed out a malediction on his brutal carelessness. The 
 man, probably one who literally knew no better, instead of 
 remembering the provocation, apologizing for the injury he 
 nad done and offering to make any reparation in his power, 
 replied by an oath still more shocking than that of the lost 
 girl, hurled at her the most opprobrious epithet which man 
 bestows upon woman in the English language, and one by far 
 too obscene to be repeated in these pages, — and was passing 
 on, leaving the poor girl to gather her torn drapery as she 
 best could, when his course was suddenly arrested. 
 
 A tall figure had come up from below during the alterca- 
 tion, unnoticed by either ; and the instant after the man had 
 disgraced his humanity by that abuse of a fallen woman, he 
 found himself seized by the collar with a hand that managed 
 2 
 
28 SHUULDER-STKAPS. 
 
 him as if he had been a child, and himself full off the side-walk 
 -into the street, and among the wheels of the passing omni- 
 buses, with the quick sharp words. ringing in his ear : 
 
 11 The devil take you ! If you can't learn to walk along 
 the pavement without tearing off women's dresses and after- 
 wards abusing them, go out into the street with the brutes, 
 where you belong !"' 
 
 The two friends noticed, casually, that a policeman stood 
 on the upper corner, and at this act of violence on the part 
 of the new-comer, they naturally expected to see him interfere 
 to preserve the peace, if not make an arrest ; but he was 
 either too lazy to cross the street, (such things have been,) or 
 too well satisfied that the coarse ruffian had met the treat- 
 ment he deserved, to make any step forward. The fellow, 
 thus suddenly sent to the company of worn-out omnibus- 
 horses and swearing stage-drivers on a slippery pavement, 
 turned with an oath, when he recovered himself, made a 
 movement as if to return to the sidewalk and seek satisfac- 
 tion for the violence, but evidently did not like the looks of 
 his antagonist, when he caught a fair glance of his propor- 
 tions, and solaced himself with a few more muttered oaths as 
 he dodged across to the other side of Broadway and disap- 
 peared in the crowd. 
 
 The second and prudential resolve of this person seemed 
 fully justified by even a hasty survey of his assailant, who 
 happened to be thrown under the light of the lamp at the 
 corner, and in full view of our companions. He was perhaps 
 six feet and an inch in height, cast in a most powerful model, 
 and evidently possessing herculean strength — with a dark 
 complexion, high cheek bones, showing almost as if he had a 
 cross of the old Indian blood in his descent, fiery dark eyes 
 set under brows of the pent-house or Webster mould, heavy 
 massed black curly hair worn a little long, and a very heavy 
 black moustache entirely concealing the mouth, while the 
 beard shorn away from the lower portions of the face left the 
 square, strong chin in full prominence. He was dressed in 
 dark frock coat with white vest and pants, and wore a dark 
 wide-brimmed slouched hat almost the counterpart of Leslie's, 
 except in color, which harmonized well with his personal 
 
SHOULDER -STRAPS. 29 
 
 appearance in other regards, and while it left him looking 
 the gentleman, made him the gentleman of some other loca- 
 lity than the city of New York. 
 
 The new-comer, the moment he had sent the other whirl- 
 ing into the street, approached the girl, who still remained 
 standing on the corner, her ungathered dress sweeping the 
 pavement, and said : 
 
 " Madame, your dress is badly torn. Allow me to offer 
 you a few pins." He drew a large pin-cushion from his large 
 vest pocket, (everything seemed to be of a large pattern about 
 this man,) and was handing it to the girl, who stretched out 
 her left hand to receive it, when he suddenly seemed to 
 recognize her. 
 
 " Why, Kate !" He spoke in tones of the most unfeigned 
 surprise — "Kate, what the deuce ! I thought you were in — n 
 
 11 Yes, Deck 1" answered the girl, with a coarse familiarity, 
 " but you see I am here ! And you ? I thought you were 
 in—" f 
 
 "Hush-h-h !" said the man, in a quick, sharp, decided tone, 
 prolonged almost to be a hiss. " That will do ! Now use 
 some of these pins — quick, fasten up your skirt, and then go 
 with me /" 
 
 He spoke as if he was in the habit of being obeyed, or as 
 if he had some peculiar claim that he should be obeyed in 
 this instance. And the girl seemed fully to understand him, 
 for only a moment served to supply so many pins to the torn 
 gathers of the dress as enabled her to walk and hid her ex- 
 posed under-clothing ; and the instant that object was accom- 
 plished she thrust her arm into his, he making no attempt to 
 repel the familiarity, but walking with hasty strides and 
 almost dragging her after him, down into the partial gloom 
 of Houston Street. 
 
 When they had disappeared, and not till then, the two 
 friends removed from the spot where they had been standing 
 entirely silent, and passed on up Broadway. 
 
 "A strange person — a very strange person, that!" said 
 Harding, the moment after, to Leslie, who appeared to be 
 thinking intently, and who had not littered a word since the 
 affair commenced. 
 
30 SHOULDER-STKAPS. 
 
 Y — a — es I" said Leslie, in that slow, abstracted tone 
 
 which indicates that the man who uses it is doing so mecha- 
 nically and without knowing what he says. 
 
 "Poor devil! how the new man whirled him out into the 
 street !'' Harding went on, his attention on the incident, as 
 Leslie's apparently was not. "Just the treatment he 
 deserved for being brutal to a woman, no matter how lost <>r 
 degraded she may be ! Tearing off her dress was all right 
 enough, however, for all the woman deserve nothing better 
 than to have their dresses torn into ribbons for thrusting 
 them under our feet and sweeping the streets with them, as 
 they do !" 
 
 Harding was thinking, at the moment, of a little adven- 
 ture of his own a few weeks before, in which, hurrying along 
 to an appointment, early in the evening, not far from the 
 St. Nicholas, he had come up with a party of theatre-goers, 
 trodden upon the dress of one of the ladies in attempting to 
 pass — in extricating himself from that awkwardness, trodden 
 upon the dresses of two more — and left the whole three nearly 
 naked in the street ; while three female voices were scream- 
 ing in shame and mortification, and three male voices send- 
 ing words after him the very reverse of complimentary. 
 
 " You think that a singular person ?" at length said Leslie, 
 as if waking from a reverie, but proving at the same time that 
 he had heard the words of his friend. " You are right, he 
 is so !" 
 
 " What ! do you know him V asked Harding, surprised. 
 
 " I do, indeed," was the reply of Leslie ; " but I should as 
 soon have thought of meeting Schamyl or Garibaldi in the 
 streets of New York, at this moment, as the man we have 
 just encountered. Fortunately, he did not recognize me — 
 perhaps, thanks to this hat — (it is an immense hat, isn't it, 
 Harding ?) What can be his position, and what is his busi- 
 ness here at the present moment, I wonder ?" he went on, 
 speaking more to himself than to his companion, as the} r 
 turned down Blcecker from Broadway towards Leslie : s lodg- 
 ings, on Bleecker near Elm. 
 
 " Well, but you have not }-et told me his name, or any thing 
 about him, while you go on tantalizing me with speculations 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 31 
 
 as to how he came to be here, and what he is doing !" said 
 Harding. 
 
 " True enough," answered Leslie. " Well, he is not the 
 sort of man to talk about loosely in the streets ; so wait a 
 moment, until I use my night-key and we get up into my 
 room. There we can smoke a cigar, and I will tell you all I 
 know of him, which is just enough to excite my wonder to a 
 much greater height than your own." 
 
 Less than five minutes sufficed to fulfil the conditions pre- 
 scribed ; and in Leslie's little room, himself occupying the 
 three chairs it contained, by sitting in one, and stretching out 
 his two legs on the others, while Harding threw off his coat 
 and lounged on the bed, Leslie poured out his story, and the 
 smoke from his cigar, with about equal rapidity. 
 
 "The name of that singular man," he said, "is Dexter 
 Ralston, and he is by birth a Virginian. You heard the girl 
 call him * Deck,' which you no doubt took to be l Dick,' but 
 which she really meant as a familiar abbreviation of his name. 
 It is a little singular that I should have met him first at a 
 theatre, and not far from the one at which we just now en- 
 countered him. It was in the fall of 185T, I think, going in 
 with a party of friends, one night, to Laura Keene's, that one 
 of the ladies of the party was rudely jostled by a large man, 
 who caught his foot in the matting of the vestibule and fell 
 against her with such violence as nearly to throw her to the 
 floor. He turned and apologized at once, and with so much 
 high-toned and gentlemanly dignity, that all the party felt 
 almost glad that the little accident had occurred. This made 
 the first step of an acquaintance between him and myself; 
 and when, in the intermission the same evening, I met him 
 for a few moments in a saloon near the theatre, we drank to 
 gether, held some slight conversation, exchanged cards, and 
 each invited the other to call at his lodgings. His card lies 
 somewhere in the bureau there at this moment, and it read, 
 I remember, ' Dexter P^alston, Charles City, Virginia,' with 
 'St. Nicholas* written in pencil in the corner. He was a 
 wealthy planter, living near Charles City, as I afterwards 
 gathered from conversation with him, and had an interest in 
 
32 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 tobacco transactions at the North which kept him a large 
 proportion of his time in this city. 
 
 "Of his own choice Ralston attended the theatres very 
 frequently, as I did from professional duty ; and the conse- 
 quence was that we met often, and sometimes supped to- 
 gether. I liked him, and he seemed to be pleased with me, 
 though I should be perverting the truth to say that 1 ever 
 became very cordial or intimate with him. There was some- 
 thing about the man which forbade familiarity ; though I re- 
 member thinking, several times, that if one only could pene- 
 trate beneath the crust made by that evident pride and 
 haughty reserve, he was a man to be liked to the death by a 
 man, and loved by a woman with eternal devotion. After a 
 time, and without my receiving any ' P. P. C to say that he 
 w T as going to leave the city, he disappeared, and I saw him 
 no more in the street or at any of his favorite places of 
 amusement. 
 
 " Well, I went down to Mount Ternon with a party of 
 friends from Washington, on board the steamboat George 
 Page. Did you ever know Page himself, the fat old Wash- 
 ingtonian who invented something about the circular-saw, 
 and has some kind of a patent-right on all that are made 
 above a certain number of inches in diameter ? Xo ? Well, 
 he is an odd genius, and I will some day tell you something 
 about him. But I was just now speaking of the steamboat 
 named after him. The Rebels had her last year, you remem- 
 ber, using her as a gunboat somewhere up Aquia Creek, 
 until they got scared and burned her one night, — though she 
 was about as fit for that purpose as an Indian bark-canoe. 
 The Page w^as running as an excursion boat to Mount Yernon, 
 and sometimes going down to Aquia Creek in connection 
 with the railroad, in the winter and spring of 1858-9. I was 
 doing some reporting, and a little lobbying, in the Senate, at 
 the beginning of March, and, as I have said, ran down with 
 a party of friends to see the Tomb of Washington, curse the 
 neglect that hung over it like a nightmare, and execrate the 
 meanness w^hich sold off bouquets from the garden, and canes 
 from the woods, at a quarter each, by the hands of a pack of 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 33 
 
 dirty slaves, to the hands of a pack of dirtier curiosity- 
 hunters. 
 
 " Going down the river I found no accpiaintances on board, 
 outside of niy own party ; but when we had made the due 
 inspection, and were returning in the afternoon, just when we 
 were off Fort Washington, an acquaintance belonging to the 
 capital came up, in conversation with a thin, scrawny, hard- 
 featured man, dressed in black, and looking like a cross be- 
 tween a decayed Yankee schoolmaster and a foreign Count 
 gone into the hand-organ business. As we exchanged salu- 
 tations he stopped, made a step backward, and astounded me 
 by this introduction : 
 
 " ' Col. Washington, my friend, Mr. Leslie — Mr. Leslie, 
 Col. John A. Washington, proprietor of Mount Yernon. , 
 
 " I do not suppose that there was any merit in it, any more 
 than there would have been in refusing to drink a nauseous 
 dose ; but, really, I felt that I was fulfilling a stern duty (no 
 pun intended) in turning my back short upon the Colonel, 
 and saying : 
 
 " ' Much obliged to you, Mr. , but I have no desire 
 
 whatever to know Col. John A. Washington !' 
 
 " I will do the Colonel (though he did afterwards die a rebel 
 as he deserved) the justice to say that I do not think he cared 
 much for the cut. I noticed that his sallow face looked a 
 shade nearer to green than before, but he merely drew him- 
 self up and took no other notice of my decidedly cavalier 
 conduct. Not so, however, with some of the passengers, 
 who had been near enough to hear the words, and who 
 seemed to think that the memory of the great dead was in- 
 sulted, instead of honored, by this rebuff to the miserable 
 offshoot who kept Mount Yernon as a cross between a pig- 
 stye and a Jew old-clo' shop. Some of them, I suppose, 
 were Yirginians, and neighbors of 'the Colonel.' At all 
 events, I heard mutterings, and the ladies in my company 
 (they were all ladies) looked a little alarmed. 
 
 " Directly one of the F. F. Y.'s, as I suppose them to have 
 been, stepped forward immediately in front of me, and said : 
 
 "'D — n it, sir, the man who insults a Washington must 
 answer to me P 
 
84 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 " ' Must he V I said, not much scared, I think, but a little 
 flustered, and quite undecided whether to get into a row on 
 the spot by striking the last man. 
 
 "'He must!' replied the F. F. V., with another curse or 
 two thrown in by way of emphasis. ' You may be some 
 cursed Yankee, peddling buttons, and afraid to fight ; but if 
 
 not— 1 
 
 " ' lie will have no occasion to fight,' said a voice coming 
 through the crowd from the side of the vessel. ' I will take 
 that little job off his hands. Eh, Leslie, is that you ? They 
 tell me you have been giving the cut-direct to that mean 
 humbug who calls himself John A. Washington. Give me 
 your hand, old boy ; you have done nothing more than your 
 duty. I am a Virginian, and no d — d Yankee — does any- 
 body want to fight me ?' 
 
 "It was Dexter Ralston. How many of the people on 
 board knew him I have no idea, or what they knew of him. 
 He seemed to exercise some strange influence, however, for 
 Col. Washington turned away, with the friend who had 
 offered to introduce him ; and the man who had offered to 
 fight me also disappeared. The crowd at that spot on the 
 deck seemed to be gone in a moment. Ralston and myself 
 exchanged a few words. I thanked him for having extri- 
 cated me from a possible scrape, as well as for his good 
 opinion of my conduct, all which he waived with a 'pshaw !' 
 He received an introduction to the ladies with all due cour- 
 tesy, chatted with them a few moments, and then strolled off, 
 smoking a cigar. I was engaged with my party for the re- 
 mainder of the trip, and did not see him again until we had 
 reached Washington and the passengers dispersed from the 
 steamboat, when of course I lost him, without any inquiry 
 being made as to his address or present residence. I went 
 to Europe, the last time, as you know, the summer following, 
 and so perhaps lost him more effectually. Tired ?" 
 
 The latter word was especially addressed to Harding, who 
 gave symptoms of going to sleep. Refreshed, however, by 
 a cigar which Leslie thrust between his lips and insisted upon 
 his smoking, Harding managed, even in his recumbent po- 
 sition, to keep awake for what followed. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 35 
 
 " Confound you I" said Leslie, "you might manage to get 
 along without yawning at my story, when you asked me to 
 tell it ! However, who cares ! You are not the only man 
 who does not know a good thing when he sees or hears it ! 
 Some of my best things in print have probably been received 
 in like manner, by people just as stupid I" 
 
 11 Very likely," said Harding, drily ; and Leslie continued. 
 
 "I came home from Europe in the winter of 18G0-61, as 
 you may likewise remember if you are not too sleepy ; and I 
 was one of the ten thousand who went down from this city 
 to Washington, to attend the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln. 
 Nine thousand nine hundred and ninety odd went armed to 
 the teeth, carrying each from one revolver to three, and a few 
 bowie-knives, in anticipation of there being a general row on 
 inauguration morning, if not an open attempt to assassinate 
 the President. One man whom I could name actually 
 carried four revolvers and a dirk, without knowing any more 
 about the use of either than a child of ten years might have 
 done. There ivas danger of a collision, of course, growing 
 out of the very fact that everybody went down armed. I 
 was one of the very few who could not borrow a revolver or 
 did not want one — no matter which. 
 
 " Suffice it to say that I reached Washington on Sunday 
 morning — the day previous to the inauguration — found the 
 hotels full and took lodgings at a private house a few hun- 
 dred yards from the Capitol, and spent the early part of the 
 day in inspecting the preparations made for the holiday show, 
 in and about the Capitol building. The courtesy of Colonel 
 Forney, then Clerk of the House, arranged for my admission 
 to the building during the ceremonies of the next day ; 
 and that of Douglas Wallach, of the Star, furnished me a 
 seat in the reporters' gallery of the Senate for that evening 
 when the last session of the expiring Congress was to be 
 held and a last effort made for putting through those ' com- 
 promise resolutions' which it was then believed might 'save 
 the Union,' but which we now know to have been as useless, 
 even if they could have been passed, as so much whistling 
 against, the wind. 
 
 " Although it was Sunday, time was pressing, and the fate 
 
36 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 of the nation seemed to be hanging upon a breath; so the 
 Senate had arranged a session for live o'clock, which seemed 
 very likely to last well into the night, and was almost certain 
 to be crowded to suffocation. As you will remember, it did 
 last until seven the next morning — after daylight, and wit- 
 nessed one of the most exciting debates in the history of that 
 body, — in which Baker of Oregon flashed out even more than 
 usual of his patriotic eloquence ; and white-haired, sad old 
 Crittenden of Kentucky moaned out words of fear for the 
 nation, that have since been but too truly realized ; and Mason 
 of Virginia showed more boldly than ever the cloven foot of 
 the traitor who would not have reconciliation at any price ; 
 and Douglas rose above his short stature in alternately lash- 
 ing one and the other of those whom he believed to be 
 equally enemies to his type of conservatism. No one who 
 sat out that session will ever forget it — but enough of this, 
 which should be written and not spoken. 
 
 " Of course after dinner that day I went down to the 
 Hotels on the Avenue, to take a peep at the political baro- 
 meter and see what was the prospect for violence on the 
 morrow. It was a dark and stormy one. Most of the 
 avowedly Southern element had disappeared from the street, 
 and there were not many of the secession cockades to be met ; 
 but a few were flaunted by beardless young men who should 
 that day have been arrested and thrown into the Old Capitol; 
 and every foot of space in Willard's and the other leading 
 houses was full all day long of a moving, surging, anxious 
 and excited crowd, all talking, nobody listening, everybody 
 inquiring, many significant hints, a few threats, an occasional 
 quarrel and the interference of the police, but not much vio- 
 lence and no bloodshed. The evening shut down stormy, as 
 to the national atmosphere, and I went home to supper im- 
 pressed with the belief that the morrow could not pass oif 
 quietly — a belief strengthened by the fears of Scott, which 
 were shown in the calling out of the volunteer militia in 
 large force, — by the tap of the drum and the challenge of the 
 sentry, which could be heard all around Capitol Hill, — 
 and by the knowledge that files of regulars were barracked 
 at different places on the Hill, ready for service in the morn- 
 
• SHOULDER-STRAPS. 37 
 
 ing and so posted as to command every avenue of ingress to 
 tin- inauguration. 
 
 "One of the high winds which belong to the normal condi- 
 tion of Washington began blowing at dark, and it increased 
 to a gale during the evening, rattling shutters, creaking signs 
 and tilling the air with clouds of blinding dust which went 
 whirling around the Capitol as if they would bury it. This 
 added materially to the appearance and feeling of desolation, 
 especially when the white stone being worked for the Exten- 
 sion would gleam and disappear through the cloud, and 
 suggest graveyards and monuments for the national greatness 
 that seemed to be falling. Then at dusk we had the report that 
 several hundreds of armed horsemen had been discovered by 
 one of Scott's scouts, lying in wait over Anacosti, and ready 
 to make a descent upon the doomed city the moment that it 
 should be buried in slumber. Many doubted this report, but 
 some believed it ; and I have an impression that hundreds 
 went to bed in Washington that night with a lingering doubt 
 whether they would not be involved, before morning, or at 
 all events before the noon of the next day, in such scenes of 
 violence and bloodshed as the continent had never yet wit- 
 nessed. 
 
 " I went over to the Capitol after tea, and took the place 
 that had been kindly kept for me in the reporters' gallery of 
 the Senate. No matter what occurred there — history has 
 made it a part of our painful record, and that is quite 
 sufficient. It was between one and two o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, Crittenden had just concluded his heart-breaking appeal 
 to the North to be generous and not let the Union go by 
 default, and Baker had just closed his noble appeal to the 
 new dominant party (of which he was one) not to peril a nation 
 by the adoption of the old Roman cry of ' Vae Victvi,'' — when I 
 left the Senate gallery for an hour, intending to return when 
 I had breathed for awhile outside of that suffocating atmos- 
 phere. I passed to the front through the entrance under the 
 collonade, and was just about to step out into the open air, 
 when a voice arrested me. Surely I had heard it before. 
 
 "'Straws against a whirlwind!' I heard it say. 'The 
 work is already done, and no human power can undo it !' 
 
JO SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 • ' I yet believe that the Union can be saved by the adop- 
 tion of the plan proposed by Crittenden V said the other 
 voice. 'Mason is right when he says that Virginia will join 
 the seceding States if no concession is made ; but — ' 
 
 "A laugh, deep, sonorous, and yet hollow and mocking, 
 broke out from the lips of the tirst speaker, and rung through 
 the arches — such a laugh as we may suppose to have rung 
 from the bearded lips of the Norse Jarl when the poor Viking 
 asked his daughter's hand and the father intended to stun if 
 not to kill him with the bitter scoff. I had heard that laugh 
 before, more moderately given, and minus the accompaniment 
 of the rushing wind without and the ringing of the hollow 
 arches within. It was that of Dexter Ralston, and I now 
 detected that he and his companion were standing just within 
 one of the embrasures, so as to be partially sheltered from 
 the wind, and I could trace their outlines. Ralston was en- 
 veloped in a large cloak, and wearing his inevitable broad 
 hat ; and his companion seemed much smaller, dressed in 
 dark clothes, and wearing the usual 'stovepipe. 1 I had no 
 intention to play listener, but there really did not seem to be 
 any wish for privacy on the part of the man who could laugh 
 in that manner ; and, at all events, I stood still in the door- 
 way and listened to the discussion of that topic, as I might 
 not have done to another. 
 
 " ' Well, what does the laugh mean V asked the other, in a 
 tone that did not indicate remarkable good humor, when the 
 sound had ceased. 
 
 " 'Excuse me, I was not laughing at youP said Ralston, 
 1 but at the blind, besotted fools who believe that they hold in 
 their hands the destinies of this Republic, and who really 
 have no more power over them than so many children play- 
 ing at marbles ! Hear Crittenden and Baker begging and 
 pleading within there, to save what is lost ; and Mason, the 
 sly old fox, threatening them with what is already done !' 
 
 u ' What do you mean ?' asked the other ? ' Virginia — " 
 
 "'Virginia has seceded!' spoke Ralston, with an accent 
 that sounded like a hiss. I do not to this moment know 
 whether it expressed triumph or anger. 
 
 " ' Seceded !' spoke the other, startled, as was evident from 
 
S 11 V u 1> D B R -STRAPS. 39 
 
 his voice. As far myself, I was trembling like a leaf, for I 
 felt that the words were true, that the treason was already 
 unfathomable, and that the Capitol was tumbling down about 
 my ears long before it was finished. 
 
 u ? Seceded ? Yes, I spoke the word I' said Ralston, 'and 
 you are not very likely to believe that I am mistaken,' 
 
 u ' Xo, no, certainly not I' replied the other, in a tone of 
 energetic disclaimer which showed that he knew why Ralston 
 was not deceived. ' But then, if this is so, why does Mason 
 remain, and why is the fact kept in the dark V 
 
 11 'To gain time/ 1 answered Ralston, ' and to procure more 
 arms. Virginia is a ' loyal State,' and arms may be shipped 
 to her, w T hile they cannot to the States that are known to 
 have seceded. You can guess that the arms go further south 
 almost as fast as they reach Richmond, and that Colt's pistols, 
 especially, will pretty soon be beyond the reach of many men 
 who live north of Mason and Dixon's line. Do you under- 
 stand now V he concluded. 
 
 " ' Humph ! Yes, I begin to know something more than I 
 did a while ago !' answered the other. ' Then, as you say, 
 all that is going on in yonder is a farce, and — ' 
 
 " ' And to-morrow's proceedings will be a more notable 
 one !' Ralston broke in. ' Some of them, I believe, have 
 been afraid of violence to-morrow. No fear of that — the 
 game is to be played differently, and it is not yet ripe for 
 blood. Well, I have had enough of it. Good-night 1' 
 
 "At the word Ralston stepped out from the arch, and his 
 companion followed him. By the lamp-light in front I caught 
 a view of the face as the former went out, and saw that I had 
 not been mistaken as to the voice. I had intended, when I 
 first knew it was Ralston; to accost him before he left, but I 
 had now lost the desire, while my head was in that whirl and 
 his own position seemed to be so ambiguous. lie stepped 
 toward the gateway, and, I believe, entered a carriage and 
 drove off. The other, whose face I recognized by the lamp- 
 light to be that of a certain New York Congressman of more 
 than doubtful antecedents, went back again the moment after, 
 and I suppose returned to the Senate Chamber. 
 
 " As for myself, I may say that within half an hour after, 
 
40 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 late as it was, I had placed myself in communication with a 
 leading member of the new party in power, with whom I 
 happened to be well acquainted and who was well known to 
 have the ear of the new President, even if he did not receive, 
 within the next week, the portfolio of a Cabinet officer. I 
 need not say, at. present, whether he received the Cabinet 
 appointment or not, as it is a matter of no consequence to my 
 story. Without mentioning any names, I told him what had 
 fallen under my notice, and gave him my opinion that Gov- 
 ernment ought to act as if Virginia had already seceded. He 
 thanked me for the trouble I had taken, and for my earnest- 
 ness ; said that if the assertion was true, it would be highly 
 important, as guiding the immediate policy of the adminis- 
 tration ; but, pshaw ! — and the whole story is that he did not 
 believe it. Of course the new administration did not act as 
 if Virginia had seceded ; the Rebels were allowed to gather 
 arms at will and at leisure, Fortress Monroe came very near 
 to falling into their hands, and Xorfolk Navy Yard did so, 
 with the destruction of half our best vessels, and ten millions 
 of dollars worth of Government property — all which might 
 have been avoided if they had taken a hint from a fool. 
 Everybody understands now,* that Virginia had formally 
 seceded before the inauguration, and that she played loyal 
 for the very purposes indicated by Ralston. 
 
 "Now," Leslie concluded, "you know as much of Dexter 
 Kalston as I do. And I think } r ou will quite agree with me 
 that he is one of the last men I could have expected to meet 
 in the streets of New York at the present moment, when 
 'martial law is so prevalent and Fort Lafayette so con- 
 venient." 
 
 " Humph !" said Harding, getting up from the bed where 
 he had lounged so long, examining his watch to see that it 
 was nearly midnight, and lighting a fresh cigar to go home. 
 " Humph ! well, what do you make of him ? A leading 
 traitor, deep in the counsels of Jeff. Davis, Yancey and Com- 
 pany ?"' 
 
 " Humph ! ; said Leslie in return, " what else can he be ?" 
 
 * September, 1S62. 
 
SHOULDER- ST It ATS. 41 
 
 "Or a Virginia Unionist, faithful among the faithless, and 
 too brave to be afraid anywhere ?" suggested Harding. 
 
 "Ah !" answered Leslie, in that tone which suggests a new 
 idea, or the corroboration of an old one. 
 
 " Or a trusted agent of the Federal Government, giving 
 up old prejudices for the sake of patriotism, and better ac- 
 quainted with Seward than Slidell — eh V 
 
 "By George!" exclaimed Leslie, "there is something in 
 that idea ! He must be one of the three — but which V 
 
 " That we may know better one of these days," said Hard- 
 ing, as Leslie accompanied him out to the street. " Mean- 
 while he is certainly a most singular person, and I shall not 
 be sorry to know more of him, whether as friend or foe to 
 the nation !" 
 
 How soon and how remarkably his wish was fulfilled, to 
 some extent, we shall see hereafter. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Invalid and the Wild Madonna — A Brave Heart 
 Beating the Bars of its Prison — Odd Comfort and 
 Doubtful Consolation — The Dawn of a Terrible Sus- 
 picion. 
 
 In the neat and tastefully-furnished back parlor of a house 
 on West 3 — th Street, one afternoon, at very nearly the same 
 period mentioned in a previous chapter — the latter part of 
 June, 1862 — lay on the sofa a young man, of perhaps twenty- 
 five, with a countenance that would have been strikingly 
 handsome if it had not been drawn and attenuated by suffer- 
 ing. He had a well-chiselled face, clear blue eyes, and light- 
 brown, curling hair, closely shaven of beard or moustache ; 
 still showing, spite of sickness, the manly nature that lay 
 within, and which always makes, when it radiates outward, 
 a pleasanter picture for the eye of a true woman than can be 
 
42 S U O U L D E R - S T R A P S. 
 
 supplied by even high health and the most perfect physical 
 beauty without it. The limbs, extended upon the sola as he 
 lay, though a little attenuated like the faee, showed that they 
 were well-formed and athletic. And the hand, drooping ovef 
 the side of the couch, though too thinly white to suggest a 
 love-pressure, indicated, in the taper of the fingers, and the 
 fine round of the back, without any coarse protruding 
 knuckles, what a handsome little Napoleonic hand it must 
 have been when the owner was in full health and the life- 
 blood coursing freely through his veins. 
 
 By the appearance of the little back parlor, it seemed to 
 be half sick-room and half study, for, in addition to the sofa 
 and an easy-chair, there was a well-filled book-case, in wal- 
 nut, and a writing-desk open on a small table, with blank 
 paper, some manuscripts, pens, ink, and a book or two lying 
 open, as if the occupant had been writing not long before, 
 and lain down from pain and weariness, without waiting to 
 replace his writing materials in their proper position. 
 Through the open door of a small room adjoining, some 
 pieces of bed-room furniture could be seen, showing that 
 when the invalid wished to find more complete repose, he 
 could do so without painful removal to any distance. Close 
 by his side lay a daily newspaper fallen upon the floor, with 
 the sensation-headings of war-time displayed at the top of 
 one of the columns ; and in his hand he held a palm-leaf fan, 
 with which he had apparently been trying to wave off some 
 portion of the sultry heat of the afternoon. At length the 
 fan grew still, the weak hand fell down on his breast, and he 
 seemed to be dropping away into quiet slumber. 
 
 Suddenly a strain of martial music floated through the open 
 windows — at first low T and gentle, then bursting loud and 
 clear, with the rattle of drums, the screaming of reeds and 
 the clash of cymbals, as a band came nearer along the 
 avenue and approached the corner of the street. The inva- 
 lid's face lit up — he made a motion to rise hastily from the 
 sofa — a sudden spasm of pain crossed his countenance, and 
 he fell back exhausted, with a slight cry which instantly 
 brought the sound of sliding doors between the little back 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 43 
 
 parlor and the largo room that adjoined it in front, and sent 
 a pair of light feet flying into the room. 
 
 "Trying to get up again, eh, old fellow? I know you! 
 Couldn't lie still when that music was going by ! Now you 
 great big boy, you ought to know better !" Such were tho 
 words with which the young girl greeted the sufferer, as she 
 dropped down on her knees by the side of the sofa and took 
 ono of his hands in both hers. 
 
 "Yes, Joe, I was trying to get up and listen to the music," 
 was the reply. " You know how I have always loved the brass 
 band, and how it seems to rack my frame even worse than 
 disease, just now ! See what a wreck I am, when I cannot 
 even attempt to rise from the sofa without screaming in that 
 manner and alarming the house !" 
 
 " Oh, never mind alarming the house !" replied the girl, 
 whom he had called " Joe," the very convenient and popular 
 abbreviation of the Christian name of Miss Josephine Harris. 
 She was, it may be said here, an almost every-day visitor 
 from the house of her widowed mother, a lady in very com- 
 fortable circumstances, living not many blocks away up-town 
 from the residence of the Crawfords. In ordinary seasons 
 Joe and her mother (the young lady is made to precede the 
 other, advisedly) — had a habit of getting away from the city, 
 early in the season, to one of the watering-places or some 
 cool retreat in the country ; but this year perhaps the illness 
 of Richard Crawford had something to do with retaining at 
 least the daughter late in town. " The house can get along 
 well enough — it is you that is to be taken care of, and I should 
 like to know, Dick Crawford, how any body is going to do it 
 if you do not manage to moderate your transports and lie 
 still when you have not strength to do any thing else !" 
 
 How her tongue ran on, and what a tongue she had ! Not 
 a bit of sting in it, except when she was fully aroused to 
 anger, and then it would suddenly develope the faculty of 
 morally flaying her victim alive, with words of indignation 
 that tumbled over each other without calculation or order, in 
 the effort to escape the tears of vexation that were sure to 
 follow close behind. At such moments Joe's tongue was 
 actually cruel, though without premeditation; at other times 
 3 
 
44 SHOULDEK-STRAPS. 
 
 it was simply a very rapid and noisy tongue, that spoke very 
 sweet words most of the time and exercised an influence all 
 around it that no one could attempt to describe. But per- 
 haps the tongue was not alone concerned in the matter. 
 There may have been something in the rather tall and lithe 
 form — the brown cheek with a dash of color shining through 
 it the moment she was in the least degree warmed or excited 
 
 the eyes dark but sunny, wavering between hazel brown 
 
 and Irish gray, and the most difficult eyes in the world to look 
 into and yet keep your head — the profile uneven and partially 
 spoiled by the nose being decidedly port, retrousse and too 
 small for the other features — the pouting red lips that never 
 seemed to fade and grow pale as the lips of so many American 
 women do before one half their sweetness has been extracted 
 by the human bee — the wealth of glossy black hair, coming 
 down on the low forehead and plainly swept back in the 
 Madonna fashion over a face that otherwise had the purity 
 and goodness of the Madonna in it, but very little of her de- 
 votion, — perhaps there was something in all this, besides the 
 influence of her flood-tide of language, to make Josephine 
 Harris the delight, the botheration and the absolute tyrant 
 of more than half the persons with whom .-he was thrown in 
 contact. Perhaps there was even more than all, to those 
 with whom she came into closer intercourse, in the breath 
 that alwavs seemed as if it came over a bank of over-ripe 
 strawberries dying in the sun, late in summer — and that 
 intoxicated with its aroma as rare old wine does with its flavor. 
 It is not difficult to believe (par parenthese) that the 
 pearls and diamonds that dropped from the mouth of the 
 good little princess in the old fairy story, every time she 
 opened the ruby portals of her lips, dissolved themselves into 
 air and came out in breath suggestive of spice-fields and 
 orange-groves, and that the toads and scorpions falling from 
 the mouth of her wicked sister manifested themselves in a 
 corresponding rank and fetid odor. So bear with us, lady 
 of the fevered breath, if we take the privilege of age and long 
 sight to drink in your flood of pleasant wisdom from a dis- 
 tance; and think not your lover overbold, Edie of the Red 
 
SIIOULDER -STRAPS. 45 
 
 Lips, if he bends so near you when you speak, that the waves 
 of brown and the curls of black even nestle together ! 
 
 "Another sermon, eh, Joseph'/" said the invalid, trying to 
 smile and apparently soothed away from his pain by the 
 very presence of the young girl. "Another sermon just be- 
 cause I cannot always remember that I am a poor miserable 
 wreck !" 
 
 "Miserable fiddlestick!" said Joe, smoothing down his 
 hair with both hands and accidentally stooping down so low 
 that her lips came near enough to his forehead to breathe on 
 it and send a pleasant creeping chill to the very tips of his 
 toes. " I read you sermons, as you call them, because you 
 are very impatient and very imprudent, and because I really 
 have no one but yourself who is tied down so as not to ho 
 able to run away when I begin preaching. Don't you see 
 that?" 
 
 "Yes, I do !" said the invalid, whom she had unconsciously 
 introduced to us in calling him Dick Crawford — "I see I" and 
 his face grew into a transient smile in spite of himself. "But 
 where is my sister, and what was the music ?" 
 
 " Two questions at once, like all the men !" the saucy girl 
 answered. " But go ahead, for asking questions won't hurt 
 your rheumatism. Bell has gone out shopping, I believe. 
 She discovered an hour ago that there was a shade of cerise 
 ribbon somewhere or other that she had not managed to get 
 hold of, and of course she ordered the carriage at once and 
 posted after it. As for the music — oh, the music was a brass 
 band accompanying the One Hundred and Ninetieth Regi- 
 ment. They are going to leave to-morrow, and they came 
 up the avenue to receive a set of colors from Mrs. Pearl 
 Dowlas, the ugly old woman with all that brown-stone in- 
 cumbrance and three flags in the windows, round tho 
 corner. " 
 
 " Going to-morrow I" said the invalid, and the old pained 
 expression came back to his face. " Going to-morrow !— > 
 everybody is going ! — and I lie here like a crushed worm, 
 unable to move from my couch, useless to myself or to any 
 one else, when the country is calling upon all her children to 
 
46 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 aid her ! Pest on it ! I would trade life, hope?, brains if I 
 have any, every thing, for a sound body to-day !" 
 
 "And make a great fool of yourself in doing so !" was the 
 flattering response of Josephine. "Now I suppose that 
 music and my gabble have started the mill, and we shall have 
 nothing else during the rest of the day than the same old 
 weepings and wailings and gnashings of teeth. Just as if, 
 because a war exists, there was nothing else in the world to 
 do but to go to the war ! Just as if we did not require some 
 attention paid to the needs of the country at home, as well 
 as on the battle-field ! Just as if we did not need that the 
 trade, and the literature — yes, the literature of the country — 
 should be sustained." 
 
 "Pshaw!" said Crawford, impatiently, and making an 
 effort to turn over, with his face to the wall. 
 
 "No you don't, old fellow!" cried the young girl, exer- 
 cising the little restraint that was necessary. " You don't 
 get away from me in that manner. I will stop your grum- 
 bling before I have done with you, by a remedy a little worse 
 than the disease — plenty of my own gabble ! I said litera- 
 ture — do you see that desk littered with papers, you ungrate- 
 ful wretch ?" (It will be seen that Josephine Harris had a 
 habit of using strong Saxon words, as well as some that were 
 " fast," not to say bordering upon popular slang ; and the 
 reader may as well be horrified with her, and get over it, first 
 as last.) " You have sent out from that desk words that have 
 done more good to the patriotic cause than the raising of ten 
 regiments, and yet you have not the grace to thank God for 
 giving you the strength to do that I You dare to lie there 
 and call yourself useless ! Out upon you — I am ashamed of 
 you !" 
 
 " Words are not deeds !" said the young man, again moving 
 uneasily. 
 
 " Words, when they come from the furnace of a true heart, 
 shape themselves into deeds in others," was the reply. 
 
 " In the days of the Revolution, my ancestors did their 
 deeds, instead of shaping them," said the invalid. " Two of 
 them dead in the Old Sugar House and the prison ships at 
 the Wallabout, and another crippled for life at Saratoga, bore 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 47 
 
 witness that patriotism with them was no hollow pretence. 
 And look at the present. My brother John going through 
 battle after battle with Puryea's Zouaves, in Virginia, like 
 a brave man and a soidier ; and I lying helpless here, whiJe 
 my cousin Egbert has his regiment almost raised." 
 
 " Almost," said the young girl, in a tone which showed that 
 she did not think he had quite accomplished that laudable 
 endeavor. 
 
 "And will be going down directly," Crawford continued. 
 
 "Yes, going down, clear down, that is if he ever starts !" 
 commented saucy Josephine. 
 
 " Yes, I remember, you do not like my cousin Egbert," 
 said the invalid. 
 
 "I do not like humbugs anywhere!" sharply said the 
 young girl. " Why don't you call him ' Eg.,' as you do some- 
 times ? Then I should be tempted to make a few bad puns, 
 and to say that in my opinion he is not a ' good egg^ but a 
 1 hard egg^ if not a ' bad egg, 7 and that I hope if he ever gets 
 among the Virginia sands he will come out a ' roast egg ' or 
 a 'cracked ' one !" 
 
 " Shame, Joe, what do you mean !" said the invalid, really 
 pained by her flippancy. 
 
 " Mean ? why, mean what I say !" was the answer, " and 
 that is a good deal more than most of the people do now-a- 
 days. Your cousin Egbert is a big humbug ! I never see 
 him strutting about, with his shoulder-straps and his red 
 sword-belts, but I have a mind to take the first off his shoul- 
 ders, with claws like a cat, and use the second to strap him 
 with, like a truant schoolboy !" 
 
 "Why, Josephine, Josephine !" cried the invalid, still 
 more surprised. 
 
 " Don't stop me !" said the wild girl. "I have intended 
 for some time to say this to you, but you have been very 
 sick, and somehow I could not begin the conversation. Now 
 that it is begun, I am going to out with it, if it costs a lawsuit. 
 I do not like that man, nor would you if you could know him 
 half as well as I do. In the first place, I believe he is a 
 coward, and worth no more to the cause than just what his 
 gimcracks would sell for." 
 
48 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 " Shame !" again said the invalid. "Josephine, you arc 
 really going too far. If he was a coward, why would he 
 hare placed himself in a position which must by-and-by be 
 one of dancer ?" 
 
 "Bah!" said the young girl, "I do not see that he has 
 done any thing of the kind. Officers have the right of 
 resigning, and some of them have the habit of skulking, I 
 have heard. I will bet my best bonnet against your old 
 worn-out slippers there, that if ever brought to the test your 
 shoulder-strapped cousin would do one or the other ! Be- 
 sides — " and here she paused. 
 
 "Well, what is the 'besides'?" asked the young man, a 
 little impatiently. 
 
 "Besides, he hates you like a rattlesnake, and would do 
 any thing in his power to get you out of his way," the young 
 girl said, giving out the words as if she was performing a 
 painful operation and only doing it under a strong Bern 
 duty. " Tell me : is there any point in which your into 
 would run counter to each other ? I have seen daggers and 
 poison in that man's eyes when looking at you, and when yuu 
 have not observed him !" 
 
 "Interests? — in conflict? Good heavens, what are you 
 saying, Josephine ? Hate me — he ?" and a terrible shadow 
 passed over the face of the invalid. A moment before he had 
 been unable to raise himself from the sofa, or bear the least 
 motion, without agony. Now, in the excitement produced 
 by her words and by some horrible doubt which they seemed 
 to have awakened, he forgot the pain, or did not heed it, and 
 struggled up to a sitting posture, his hands to his head and 
 the whole expression of his face changed to one of intense 
 mental suffering. 
 
 " Mr. Crawford — Dick !" the young girl cried in alarm ; 
 "what has happened — what have I said ? — tell me : are you 
 in sudden pain ?■' and she threw her arm around him to 
 sustain him in his sitting position. 
 
 " Do not ask me !" he said, hoarsely. " I cannot speak 
 just now, but you have agitated me very much. My cousin 
 — in his way — heavens !" 
 
 At this moment, and when the young girl, frightened at 
 
B II O U h D E H -STRAP S. 49 
 
 what she had done, scarcely dared to speak another word, 
 and was altogether at a loss what to do, there was a rattle 
 of carriage wheels at the door, the sound of a latch-key- 
 applied to the lock, then steps and voices in the hall. 
 
 " Talk of the Prince of Darkness, and he is not very far 
 from your elbow I" said Josephine, whose ears were sharper 
 than those of the invalid. " I hear Bell's voice and that of 
 the puissant and patriotic Colonel Egbert Crawford, who has 
 evidently come home with her." 
 
 "His voice with hers, after what you have said!" the 
 invalid gasped. " Lay me down quick, and hurt mo as little 
 as possible. I have not strength to sit up, and this pain — 
 this pain — it drives me to distraction !" One hand was still 
 at his head, and the other had fallen, whether accidentally or 
 otherwise, over his heart. Whether the one hand or the 
 other covered the pain of which he had that moment spoken, 
 was difficult to tell. One thing was certain — that something 
 in the last few moments had broken him down in health and 
 spirits, even more than his long previous sickness. What 
 was it ? 
 
 Josephine, ever an excellent nurse in sickness (spite of her 
 rapid tongue), and the one of all a crowd who was certain to 
 have the head of the fainted woman on her breast, and her 
 hands chafing the pallid temples, — assisted the invalid back 
 to his recumbent position as quickly and as easily as possible ; 
 and at the moment when she had once more arranged the 
 pillow under his head on the sofa, the glass doors between the 
 front and back parlors slid gently apart, and Isabel Crawford 
 and her cousin the Colonel, who had lately been the subject 
 of so much speculation and agitation, approached the sofa of 
 the rheumatic. His eyes were closed, and Josephine was 
 standing at the open window with its closed blinds. Still 
 she saw what the new-comers did not — a quick, convulsive 
 shudder pass over the recumbent form, and the hand that lay 
 on his heart close with a nervous spasm, as if it was crushing 
 something hateful and dangerous that lay within it. 
 
 But the personal appearance of the two who had just 
 entered, and the after events of that interview, must be 
 recorded in a subsequent chapter. 
 
50 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Mother and Daughter — Love, Hate, and Disobedience — 
 Judge Owen in a Storm — Aunt Martha and Her Record 
 of Unloving Marriage and Wedded Outrage. 
 
 It was a very pleasant picture upon which Mrs. Maria 
 
 Owen, wife of Judge Owen of the th District Court, 
 
 was looking just at twilight of a June evening ; but some- 
 thing in that picture, or its surroundings, did not seem to 
 please her ; for her comely though matronly face was drawn 
 into an expression of displeasure, and the little mice about 
 the wainscot, if any there were, might occasionally have 
 heard her foot patting the floor with impatience and vexation. 
 
 The time has been already indicated. The place was the 
 back parlor of Judge Owen's house, on a street not far from 
 the Harlem River — the window open and the parlor opening 
 into a neat little yard, half garden and half conservatory, 
 with glimpses over the unoccupied lots beyond, of the junc- 
 tion of Harlem River with the Sound, up which the Boston 
 boats had only a little while before disappeared on their way 
 eastward, and where a few white sails of trading-schooners 
 and pleasure-boats could yet be seen through the gathering 
 twilight. 
 
 But this did not comprise all the picture upon which 
 Mrs. Maria Owen looked ; for in the window, with the last 
 rays of the dying daylight falling upon face and figure, sat 
 her daughter Emily, listlessly toying with the leaves of a 
 book that she had been reading until the light grew too 
 indistinct, and with a slight pout on her lip and an expression 
 of dissatisfaction generally distributed over her pretty face, 
 which showed that her own vexation and that of her mother 
 had some kind of connection more or less mysterious. The 
 face was not only pretty, as every one could see, — but softly 
 rounded, womanly and most loveable while yet girlish, as 
 only those could fully realize who had known something of 
 the comparative characters of women. The eyes (in a better 
 light) were hazel, with a depth and transparency which made 
 
3 H O U L D E R-S TR A P 3. 51 
 
 the very thought of a mean action in her presence apparently- 
 impossible ; the cheek that showed against the fading light 
 had been rounded to perfection in the soft atmosphere floating 
 about eighteen, as a poach is rounded and colored by the 
 genial air and sunshine of late summer ■ the heavy masses 
 of hair that had partially fallen out of their confinement and 
 swept down to her shoulders, were scarcely darker than nut- 
 brown ; and the hand toying with the book would have 
 shown, even without a better glimpse of the half recumbent 
 figure, that that figure was of medium height, fully rounded 
 and delicately voluptuous. It is not to be supposed that 
 Emily Owen knew quite all this of herself. Some others 
 realized all her perfections, however, as will more fully and 
 at large appear (to use the conve}- ancers' phraseology) ; 
 and for the purposes of this narrative it is necessary to have 
 the lady distinctly before us. 
 
 And now what had caused the shadow on the matronly 
 face of Mrs. Owen, and the pout on the red lip of Emily ? 
 The old — old story: told over at some period or other in 
 almost every household on earth. Old eyes and young eyes, 
 seeing very differently; old hearts and young hearts, beating 
 to very different tunes, and informing the whole being with 
 very different aspirations. There was a love — there was a 
 dislike — and there was a certain amount of parental soli- 
 citude and determination — excellent materials from which to 
 construct a serious disagreement and an eventual family row. 
 Not Hecate, when she threw " eye of newt and tail of frog" 
 into the infernal brew on the blasted heath, could have been 
 more certain of the final nature of her compound, than may 
 the presiding genius of any " well regulated family" be of 
 the eventual result when the two acids of love and hate are 
 brought chemically together in the heart of budding woman- 
 hood. 
 
 There was a certain John Boadlcy Bancker, a man of a 
 family exceedingly respectable, though decayed, who had 
 himself been a speculator in lands and stocks and amassed 
 more or less money, and who was popularly understood to 
 have been intrusted by Major General Governor Morgan 
 with the authority of Colonel and the permission to raise a 
 
52 S II O U L D E II - S T B A P S. 
 
 regiment for the war. There was a certain Frank Wallace, 
 a young man of no particular family that any one had 
 heard mentioned, a fellow of infinite jest and agreeabL 
 hut very little money and no commission at all except to 
 make lore when necessary and extract as much comfort as 
 possible from the passing hour, — who carried on a small 
 printing business which just made him a comfortable live- 
 lihood, in a narrow street within a stone's throw of the 
 Museum. It was the bounden duty of Miss Emily Owen, 
 seeing that the portly Judge, her father, and the pleasant 
 matron, her mother, had formed the very highest opinion of 
 one of these gentlemen, to fall in love with him as quickly as 
 possible. Of course she had contracted for him a mosUuru-on- 
 querable aversion ! It was her bounden duty to ignore the 
 other, even if she did not hate and despise him — seeing that 
 he found no other friend in her family : could there have 
 been a stronger guaranty for her going madly in love with 
 the scapegrace ? 
 
 A moment after the period when we saw them sitting in 
 silence and mutual discomfort, mother and daughter resumed 
 the conversation which had brought about that state of 
 feeling. 
 
 " You will be sorry for what you have said, Emily !" 
 said the mother. 
 
 " So will you, for what you have said !" was the reply of 
 the daughter, with that species of iteration which displays 
 no wit but a great deal of aarnestm .-- 
 
 " You know, as well as I do, that your father has set his 
 heart upon this match," continued the mother, " and you 
 know how much he is in the habit of allowing others to 
 oppose him." 
 
 " Yes, I know," replied the young girl, " and I know one 
 thing more." 
 
 " Indeed ! and what is that ?" asked the mother, with the 
 slightest perceptible shade of a sneer in her voice. 
 
 " — That both you and my father made a serious blunder 
 in bringing me into the world, if you meant to get along 
 entirely without opposition !" 
 
 " Hoity toity !" exclaimed the mother, quite as much sur- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 53 
 
 prised as nettled at this original an<l forcible way of stating 
 a domestic fact. " What has become of your modesty ? Do 
 you mean to insult both your lather and myself?" 
 
 " No 1" said the young girl, in a sharper tone and with 
 her words cut off much shorter and more decidedly than was 
 her habit. While those plump little white lingers had been 
 toying with the leaves of the book, sitting there in the 
 twilight, heart and hand had evidently both been busy, and 
 they had produced any other effect rather than making their 
 owner more tractable. " No ! mother, no ! But I tell you, 
 once for all, that the match you are talking of is hateful ! 
 I have tried to keep still while the affair seemed at some 
 distance, but now that you bring it closer it fills my whole 
 being with disgust I Do drop it if you do not wish to drive 
 me mad or make me disobedient. Oh, mother !" and the 
 whole manner of the young girl seemed to change and melt 
 in a moment, as she rose hastily from her chair, ran to that 
 on which her mother was seated, threw herself on her knees 
 with her arms around her parent, and buried her face in the 
 sheltering lap, — " oh mother ! do be my friend instead of 
 my enemy, in this ! I cannot — indeed I cannot marry that 
 man !" 
 
 There are a good many things they think they cannot do — 
 these young girls — and they never know themselves until 
 they are tried. Perhaps it may not always be well to try 
 them to their full capacity, however ! 
 
 What Mrs. Maria Owen imgl^ have answered to this 
 appeal, under other circumstances, is uncertain. She was, 
 or intended to be, a good and tender mother, and would have 
 cut off her right hand rather than do any thing which could 
 make against the ultimate happiness of her daughter ; and 
 she really, at that moment, must have caught a glimpse of 
 the fact that the heart of the young girl was very much 
 interested in her refusal. But if there was any sentiment 
 which the worthy woman entertained more deeply than 
 another, it was the belief that Judge Owen, her husband, 
 was the most wonderful man in the world. She thought of 
 him with pride when his portly figure disappeared down the 
 Steps of a morning, when he was starting to go to " Court." 
 
5-i SHOULDEli-bTRAPS. 
 
 She thought of him with a respect amounting to reverence 
 when she contemplated him sitting 
 
 "At once mild and severe, 
 On his seat of dooming," 
 
 (to quote good old Esaias Tegner) a local Ehadamanthus 
 from whose judgment there could not be any possible appeal 
 (although, sooth to say, there were a good many appeals, and 
 quite effectual ones, from the very unimportant decisions to 
 which only his authority extended). And when he came 
 home at night, after dispensing justice for the whole day 
 (to wit — three hours on the average) she looked with almost 
 holy reverence on his broad brow, under which there must 
 lie such a store of legal knowledge, and thought what a 
 blessed and honored woman she was to have been allowed 
 to mate with so much wisdom and so much dignity. 
 
 Does this sound like sneering at the wife's pride and de- 
 votion ? If so, let there be a word to qualify it. God knows 
 that there are not too many women who respect and look up 
 to their husbands, and that the sanctity and the happiness of 
 the domestic circle would be much seldomer invaded if there 
 was more of this feeling. Only those poor women, on an 
 average, make such terrible mistakes as to the instances that 
 should demand or allow the full indulgence of this pride; and 
 miserable humbugs are looked up to and worshipped so 
 much of the time, while tfcose who could deserve and should 
 command that feeling are treated with indifference or even 
 despised by inferior minds to which they have been mated ! 
 They do not " manage these things" any " better in France," 
 probably ; but they manage them ill enough in republican 
 America at about this period, and the result is not a pleasant 
 or even a moral one ! 
 
 The check to any possible motherly concession to the 
 weakness of Emily, which Mrs. Owen experienced on this 
 occasion, arose from the coming of the ponderous man of law, 
 whose heavy footstep and loud cough were at that moment 
 heard in the hall. Had the daughter been less absorbed 
 than she was in her own feelings, she too might have heard 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 55 
 
 those tokens of the Judge's presence ; and had she been as 
 wise as her mother, any further discussion of the sub- 
 ject would have been stopped and the coming catastrophe 
 averted. 
 
 Either she did not observe or she was too much absorbed 
 to heed who heard her, for at the very moment when Judge 
 Owen, a large-framed, portly, broad-browed, iron-gray man of 
 fifty, entered the back parlor and stood full in the presence of 
 his wife and daughter, the latter was looking up to her mother 
 frith clasped hands and half sobbing out a repetition of her 
 former declaration: "I cannot — indeed I cannot marry that 
 man!" 
 
 "Hush ! Emily, hush ! — no more of this !" said the mother, 
 half in hope that her husband might not have caught the 
 words ; but she was widely mistaken. The ears so much in 
 the habit of listening to the least quaver in the tone of a wit- 
 ness's voice, were not to be trifled with in the present instance. 
 
 " Hey ? What is this V asked the Judge, in a tone that 
 admitted of no trifling in the answer. 
 
 "Nothing — that is — Emily was talking of — " began the 
 abashed wife, with a stammer. 
 
 "Of— I know," said the father, who had heard quite 
 enough of his daughter's words to know without asking, and 
 who was more behind the curtain than his wife, in some 
 other respects. "I heard what this school-girl muttered. 
 She cannot marry the man whom I intend she shall marry, 
 and she has taken this opportunity, when she supposed I 
 was absent, to acquaint you with her determination." 
 
 "Not determination," said the mother, willing to smooth 
 affairs as much as possible — "say wish.'' 
 
 " No, mother, determination !" said the young girl, spring- 
 ing to her feet with an energy which was really not an ordi- 
 nary part of her nature, — under the impression that now, if 
 ever, was the time to give utterance to her true sentiments. 
 " Father used the right word — determination ! I cannot 
 marry Boad Bancker, and I won't ! There you have it 1" 
 
 There was nothing classic or even romantic in the young 
 lady's mode of expression, or the nickname which she be- 
 stowed upon her would-be lover; but they were at least 
 
56 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 natural, which is something gained in this world of pre- 
 tences and deceptions. 
 
 "You won't? and why, I should like to know?*' broke in 
 the Judge, for the moment surprised out of the violence that 
 might have resulted, by the very audacity of the declaration. 
 
 11 Because he is hateful, and ugly, and I do not like him, 
 and — " answered Miss Emily, with a charming return to the 
 system of the school-girl which she had just been called by 
 her father. 
 
 " Silence \ n thundered Judge Owen, who had recovered 
 from the blow and thought that he had a refractory juryman 
 or an insolent attorney to put down. "SilencC ! I have had 
 enough of this. John Boadley Bancker is the man I have 
 selected for your husband. He belongs to an excellent 
 family, has wealth enough to keep a wife in comfort and 
 even luxury, and has lately proved himself a true patriot by 
 springing up at the call of the President — " (Judge Owen 
 had by this time forgotten his indignation, and fancied himself 
 for the moment addressing an immense assemblage at Union 
 Square or in the Park) — "by springing up at the call of the 
 President, girding on his — " 
 
 « — Shoulder-straps!" put in Mis3 Emily, who had re- 
 covered from her agitation and began to be mischievous the 
 moment her father began to be didactic and ponderous. 
 Whether he heard the interpolation or not, is somewhat 
 doubtful. 
 
 " — Girding on his sword," the Judge went on, "and 
 marching — " 
 
 " — Up and down Broadway!" put in the young girl, in a 
 second parenthesis, not more audible than the other. 
 
 "That is, he has not marched, but is going to march to the 
 seat of war, to fight for — " 
 
 " — The niggers!" again and finally interpolated the in- 
 corrigible, who had somehow managed to get a peep behind 
 the curtain of national affairs and to see towards what the 
 great struggle seemed tending. 
 
 " — For the defence of the country," the Judge concluded 
 his peroration. Then he went on with the pith of his remark, 
 T,o the effect that the girl who could be mad enough and dis- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 57 
 
 obedient enough to refuse the band of such a man as that, 
 might go to — mumble — mumble — mumble — for she could 
 never more be daughter of his ! 
 
 By this time Emily had recovered her equanimity, and 
 almost her spirits, and her mother shared in the feeling of 
 relief, for the explosion had not been half so violent as ex- 
 pected. But there are pauses in storms, the moment before 
 liic coming of the most destructive blasts of all, and the tem- 
 per of Judge Owen was gusty. Miss Emily fancied that the 
 whole ought to be said while the subject was under discus- 
 sion, and, to use a vulgarism, she "put her foot in it." 
 
 "Boad Banqker," she said (she had the common weakness 
 of supposing that the use of a nick-name belittled the person 
 spoken of) — " Boad Bancker may be a soldier, but nobody 
 knows it. I know he is a fool ; and he is a miserable hum- 
 bug, pretending to be a young man, when he is as old as 
 you, Pa !" 
 
 If Judge Owen had a weakness unworthy one of the 
 shining lights of the bench, it lay in thinking that his fifty 
 years were only thirty, and that he was yet a young man. 
 Other men than the Judge have labored under the same 
 delusion, and found sick rooms and decrepitude necessary to 
 disabuse them. Probably nothing in his daughter's power 
 to utter would have made him so angry. He had only mut- 
 tered before — this time he thundered. 
 
 " Old ! You are talking about age, arc you, you shameless, 
 impertinent hussy — insulting me as well as my friends, are 
 you 1 I know you, and by G — " (he was a dignitary of the 
 legal profession, and he was speaking in the presence of his 
 wife and daughter ; but the truth must be recorded) — " I 
 know what you are driving at, and I'll break you of your 
 fancy or I'll break your stubborn neck ! You don't like 
 Bancker, the husband I pick out for you, because he is not 
 a beardless boy, and you choose to consider him old. And 
 you think I will permit you to encourage that miserable 
 beggar, Frank Wallace, because he is young! Let me see 
 one more sign of familiarity between him and yourself, and I 
 will kick him out of the house, as I would a dog — and you 
 may go after him ! Do you hear me ? Xow look out I" And 
 
58 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the Judge rang the bell for the servant, scolded her for not 
 lighting the gas that no one had before wished lighted, and 
 stormed out of the room, leaving his wife to follow him, and 
 his daughter to drop again into her chair and muse over the 
 pleasant prospect for after-life lying so broadly before her. 
 
 But if the young girl had passed through an agitating and 
 unpleasant scene, and if the prospects for her future life had 
 been sensibly narrowed within the preceding half hour, the 
 depths of her being had not been stirred as they were to be 
 before she slept Perhaps she had occupied the position of 
 depression iuto which she had fallen, in the chair by the 
 window, with her head upon her hand, for five minutes — a 
 bitter sea of thought surging through her mind, and her flash 
 of resolution so giving way before her father's terrible anger, 
 that she felt almost ready to sacrifice her happiness, life, 
 everything, to obey him and secure peace — when a hand was 
 laid gently upon her shoulder, and the quiet face of Aunt 
 Martha, framed in its widow's cap, peered into her own. 
 
 " Oh, Aunt, I am so glad you have come down ! I was so 
 lonely and so wretched !" broke out Emily, the moment she 
 felt the touch and saw the face. 
 
 "I have been down some time, sitting in the front parlor 
 by the window, and trying to make music out of that verv- 
 badly-cracked hand-organ that was playing on the other side 
 of the way," said the widow, taking her seat by the young 
 girl's side. Perhaps five-and-forty years had passed over the 
 widowed younger sister of Judge Owen, who made her home 
 in a quiet upper chamber of his house. But they had not 
 much thinned her tall and magnificent form, or entirely de- 
 stroyed, though they had completely subdued, the quiet 
 beauty of her face, which must once have been strikingly 
 like that of her niece. She had been in youth the underling 
 of her family, as her elder brother had been the tyrant ; and 
 it was perhaps a fitting sequel, that at this period of her life 
 she should have become, to some small extent, a pensioner 
 on his bounty, as well as a peace-maker in his household. 
 
 "You have been in the front parlor some time ?" echoed 
 her niece, surprised. " Then you must have heard — " 
 
 "I heard quite enough," was the answer, as Aunt Martha 
 
SIIOULDKK-STKAPS. 59 
 
 possessed herself of both the young girl's hands, and finally 
 drew down the nut-brown head so that it rested upon her 
 bosom. " I heard a few of your words— enough to tell me 
 what are your feelings toward the man whom they wish to 
 make your husband. I heard your father's fierce resolution, 
 and I made my own." 
 
 " And what was that?" asked the young girl, rising from 
 her recumbent position, and showing something of the sur- 
 prise she felt at hearing her gentle and pliant aunt speak of 
 forming resolutions. She had cause to be more surprised in 
 a moment. 
 
 " What was my resolution ?" echoed Aunt Martha, " A 
 strange one, perhaps, but one quite as immovable as my big 
 brother's !" 
 
 " yes, yes— tell me, Aunt, dear Aunt !" pleaded Emily, feel- 
 ing that there was some shadow of hope in such words from 
 such a source. 
 
 " My resolution ?" said the placid woman, placid now no 
 longer, but starting to her feet, speaking with rapid energy, 
 and seeming, for the moment, half a foot taller than usual — 
 " My resolution is that you shall never marry the man whom 
 I have heard you say that you loathe and detest — not if 
 sacrificing myself can save you — not if I can prevent the 
 wrong, by even taking his life !" 
 
 " Aunt ! Aunt ! what are you saying !" broke out the young 
 girl, surprised, and even horrified. "Do not say so, Aunt, 
 for heaven's sake ! I do dislike Col. Bancker ; I cannot 
 marry him without misery ; but his life ! You do not know 
 what words you use." 
 
 "Do I not?" said the aunt, and there was a bitterness in 
 her tone which her niece had never before heard there, and 
 which perhaps no one else had heard there for many a long 
 year. " Do I not ? His life — pshaw ! what is his life, or the 
 life of any man, compared to some other lives that are sac- 
 rificed without punishment or even the knowledge of any 
 crime being committed !" 
 
 "Aunt, dear Aunt, it is for me that you are saying this, 
 and you know that I thank yon ; but you are excited, you 
 are not yourself — " 
 4 
 
60 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 "I am myself — perhaps for the first time in years !" said 
 the widow, the tones of her voice still betraying the same 
 bitterness. " In the last half hour I have lived over again 
 half a life-time of misery. Close that door !" And she 
 pointed to the door leading into the front parlor, with a ges- 
 ture of command that shamed her brother's most forcible 
 attempt at dignity. Her niece closed the door, and stepped 
 back to her chair. The aunt retained her standing position, 
 and a part of the time walked the floor of the little back 
 parlor with strides that the shorter limbs of Emily could not 
 have compassed, as she went on : 
 
 11 1 had you close that door because I did not wish to speak 
 to the whole house : though the whole house might hear me 
 without disadvantage to themselves. You do not know why 
 I am so much excited : I will tell you. That man — your 
 father and my brother — did an unwise thing in recalling the 
 past by that brutal speech and that rough oath ; but he did 
 recall it, and he must take the consequences. I have said 
 that you should not marry that man whom you detest, and 
 you shall not — no matter how I prevent it ! But do not 
 mistake me, Emily ! I am not arranging that you shall 
 marry another man, and one whom your parents dislike. 
 That is your business, not mine." 
 
 " I will not marry against my parents' will or against 
 yours," said Emily, as her aunt paused for a moment — " only 
 prevent my marrying this man whom I dislike, without doing 
 any crime 1" 
 
 " Hush, and listen to me /" said the aunt, almost sternly. 
 " Do you think that it is of yourself alone that I am speaking ? 
 No — I am thinking and speaking more of myself than of you. 
 Do you guess the riddle ? No, you cannot. Emily, 7 have 
 myself once married a man ichom I loathed, and I know 
 what it means!" 
 
 " You, Aunt ? good heavens !" was the pitying reply of 
 the young girl, while the usually placid widow, occasionally 
 with both hands to her head as if in severe suffering, still 
 walked the room as she spoke. 
 
 " You begin to understand me, and you begin to perceive 
 how that man threatening to marry you to a man you hate, 
 
S II U L DER-STli APS. Gl 
 
 has opened again the wounds of my own sacrifice — a sacrifice 
 he made nearly twenty years ago — heaven forgive him ! 
 Richard West was a gambler and a libertine. There was an 
 indefinable something- which told me as much, very soon after 
 I met him. He was tall and fine-looking, and he had political 
 influence. My brother had a motive for courting him. He 
 carried out that object by introducing him to me. I can 
 scarcely say that I loved elsewhere, though I certainly had a 
 preference. From the first I had a dislike to West, which 
 soon grew into absolute aversion. Meanwhile I was allowing 
 myself to be more and more in his company, and my whole 
 family, with my big brother at their head, were importuning 
 me to marry him. I was a little reckless and did not know 
 myself; and I think it was more to get clear of his importu- 
 nities and theirs, than for any other purpose, that I at last 
 permitted myself to be engaged to him. I hated to be teased 
 — I had no other settled hope in the world — and so I prom- 
 ised to marry a man whom I despised. Are you listening ?' J 
 
 " Yes, dear Aunt, listening with my whole heart as well as 
 my ears !" said the young girl, creeping up to her as she made 
 a momentary pause, and taking one of her aunt's hands in 
 both of her own. Strange to say, the aunt did not permit 
 her hand to be retained. She drew it away as if for the 
 moment she had no care for human sympathy, — and went oil 
 with her agitated walk and her narration. 
 
 " I had a shuddering horror of the marriage, very soon 
 after my engagement was formed, though I knew nothing, 
 except from my own perception, against the character of 
 West. That feeling grew as the marriage day approached, 
 and I found that instead of schooling myself to meet with 
 calmness what was now inevitable, every day increased an 
 aversion which was both mental and physical. I commenced 
 to make my wedding clothes. I began to think that I would 
 rather be making my shroud. And yet I worked on, stolidly, 
 and bore the caresses of the man who was so soon to be my 
 husband. He grew warmer and warmer in his manifestations 
 as the marriage day approached. I suppose he thought he 
 was flattering and pleasing me ! God help him, if he did ! 
 1 was handsome, I know it — and the sensualist began to 
 
62 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 gloat over the charms he would so soon have in possession. 
 I began to think how soon the slimy worms would crawl over 
 me! At length all this culminated. West was fool enough 
 to take me one night to the Old Park Theatre, where Ellen 
 Tree was then playing. She played Julia, in "The Hunch- 
 back," and I heard her make that agonized appeal to Master 
 Walleye and allude to the expected horrors of an unloving 
 marriage-bed. My (-yes were opened. I saw it all. now, as 
 I had never done before. It was not alone my existence and 
 my mentality that I must sacrifice, but my body. That too 
 was to be given up ! To what horrible profanation and 
 outrage was I to be subjected ! My head grew dizzy and my 
 eyes blind. I shared in the torments of Julia — I was Julia 
 herself. I was on the brink of a precipice, with hell beneath 
 me and devils goading me on to the leap. I went home 
 stunned and half crazed. West spoke to me, but I believe 
 that I never answered him a word. If I could have killed 
 him suddenly and without reflection, I should have done it. 
 
 " The next day I implored my brother to assist me in 
 breaking the hateful engagement. He refused, insultingly, 
 and threatened me with a ruined reputation and the scorn of 
 every one who knew me, if, after being so notoriously en ■_ 
 to West, and in his private society so much, the marriage should 
 now be broken off. I had no one else to whom to appeal, 
 and appeal to my bridegroom would have been worse than 
 useless. I could not combat every thing and everybody. 
 My God ! my God ! — that I should have given up ! — but I 
 did. I went on finishing my wedding-clothes, with only a 
 week between me and their use. Oh how I shuddered as my 
 needle ran over the soft white laces and ruffles ! They were 
 to deck my dainty limbs for outrage — such outrage as I did 
 not then know — and such as you can only dream. I only 
 saw before me a vague horror, but that horror was enough to 
 set me on the dizzy verge of madness, of suicide or of murder. 
 
 "A week went by, and in the presence of a minister of 
 God I swore to a lie. Richard West swore to another, for 
 he was no more capable of love than of honor. Then 
 followed what, woman though you already are, I cannot tell 
 you of — prostitution, outrage, that left me a poor dishonored 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 63 
 
 thing — my womanhood a curse, and the creeping horror of 
 physical repugnance to a loathsome touch my bridal portion ! 
 Gtod forgive those who forced me to this ! God forgive them! 
 
 I do not know that I ever can ! Ton years afterwards I 
 
 saw one happy day — the first since my engagement. It was 
 when Richard West was shot down in a gambling-house by 
 one of his victims, and brought home dead ! 
 
 •• Now, Emily, you know, better than any other living, the 
 heart of the woman who is supposed to be so calm and 
 placid ! Now you can have some idea what I have suffered 
 to-night, when I saw the same pit opening for you? Do you 
 understand me ? Have I said enough ?" 
 
 " Enough, dear, dear Aunt, but not one word too much ! 
 I understand you, I know you, now ! Oh, save me, save me 
 at any sacrifice from this marriage !» And the young girl 
 was sobbing in the arms of Aunt Martha, who now that her 
 story was told grew her gentle self again, and smoothed 
 down the brown hair with a promise of aid and sympathy 
 which was not likely to be forfeited 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 Another adventure of the Two Friends — The Light in 
 the Window — A singular Spot on the Wall — A Climb, 
 a Tumble and a Pursuit — How it all Ended for the 
 Time. 
 
 We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie, at the conclu- 
 sion of a former chapter, coming out from the lodgings of the 
 latter, on Bleecker Street near Elm, Leslie accompanying 
 Harding out to a car on the Bowery before betaking himself 
 to bed. " Man proposes but God disposes," says the French 
 proverb: There is "a divinity that shapes our ends," even in 
 the matters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars. 
 
64 SHOULDER-STRAl'S. 
 
 It was somewhat longer than either had expected, before he 
 reached the "desired haven" of home and a bed-chamber. 
 It was past midnight when the two friends reached the 
 
 Bowery, and the Third Avenue ears, on one of which Harding 
 was going up, were running less frequently than early in the 
 evening. There was not one of the green lights in Mght 
 down the Bowery from the corner of Bleecker Street, and 
 the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to make 
 its appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as peo- 
 ple very soon do who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea- 
 kettles, or marriage-days, or any thing of that kind) ; and 
 they walked down to the corner of Prince to meet the 
 tardy conveyance. There was a green light coining up, 
 some blocks down the Bowery, but it seemed to the two 
 sleepy fellows as if it would never reach the corner. They 
 walked listlessly a block or two down Prince Street toward 
 Broadway, still arm in arm as they had left the house on 
 Bleecker. They wheeled to walk back. Suddenly the eyes of 
 Harding were attracted by the very bright light in one of the 
 upper windows of an old brick house on Prince Street, large 
 and stately and giving evidence of having once been the resi- 
 dence of some person of fortune, though now a little dilapi- 
 dated. 
 
 "People in that house must have an interest in one of the 
 Gas Companies," said Harding, "by the quantity of light they 
 show at this time of night ! Why, the window is all ablaze !" 
 
 Tom Leslie looked up, as his friend spoke. They were on 
 the opposite side of the street from the house in question, and 
 consequently had a fair view of the lighted window. It u-as 
 very light indeed, a perfect flood of gaslight pouring on a 
 white curtain that partially covered the whole sash. Par- 
 tially, not altogether. Whether accidentally or by intention, 
 it was swept away at the lower right-hand corner, leaving a 
 little of the top of the white wail of the room visible, with 
 the edge of the ceiling. Was there ever a man (or woman) 
 who did not look in through a half-closed curtain, precisely 
 because there is no propriety whatever in doing so ? Willis 
 has made some of his most taking verbal photographs, dur- 
 ing his "lookings on at the war'' at Washington, from the 
 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 65 
 
 glimpses caught of the lower half lengths of notables, more 
 or less undressed, through windows supposed to be closed 
 against outside observation. 
 
 Both Walter Harding and Tom Leslie took an eager look 
 up at the white wall and the edge of the ceiling, in the upper 
 chamber of the house on Prince Street. Harding either had 
 sharper eyes than Leslie, or stood in a more favorable posi- 
 tion, for he saw what Leslie did not, and his discovery was 
 communicated in the brief exclamation : 
 
 "By Jupiter!" 
 
 "What?" asked Leslie. 
 
 "Look!" said Harding, drawing his friend's head into 
 position for a better view. "If that is not a secesh flag 
 draped up near the ceiling, may I never brag of my eye- 
 sight again !" 
 
 Tom Leslie took a nearer look. "If it is not a secesh 
 flag," he said, " draped over some kind of a gilded ornament 
 like a star, may I never find another opportunity to look at a 
 pretty girl through this double-barrelled telescope." 
 
 And with the word he had whipped out an opera- glass 
 from his procket, large enough to have been formed out of 
 two moderate-sized specimens of the optical instrument he 
 had named, and levelled it at the object on the wall. His 
 observations and those of Harding through the same power- 
 ful instrument resulted in the same conclusion. The two 
 red bars and one white one of the Confederate flag, with the 
 blue field in the corner and meagre number of stars, were all 
 plainly visible, and beneath the flag was a gilded circle, some 
 four or five inches in diameter, with a radiating centre. 
 
 "A nice house that, I don't think !" was Tom Leslie's not 
 very classical comment, as he took the double-barrelled tele- 
 scope finally down from his eye, after a second inspection. 
 (It may be mentioned, in a parenthesis, that the Third 
 Avenue car had some time since rumbled by, and that the 
 very existence of that entire line of communication had been 
 forgotten by the two friends.) "Where is Provost Marshal 
 Kennedy, I wonder?" 
 
 " Oh, it may not be quite so bad as you think," said 
 Harding, reading the whole of his friend's thought. "Who 
 
66 SHOULDER-STRAP?. 
 
 knows ? — that Becesh flag may bo a trophy won by one of 
 our soldiers, and brought or sent home." 
 
 "Humph!" said Tom, significantly. "That won't do, 
 Harding ! If the flag was a trophy, and in the house of a loyal 
 man, it would not be quite so neatly draped on the wall, 
 with the lodge emblem of the Knights of the Golden Circle 
 under it I" 
 
 "Phew!" said Harding, "is that really the emblem?" 
 
 " The emblem, and nothing else," answered Leslie. " These 
 is mischief in that house, and the nest must be looked after." 
 
 Suddenly, and while the two friends yet looked, there were 
 dark shadows flung on the white curtain, as if of moving figures, 
 and then one shadow, as if of a human arm, began to move 
 up and down on the curtain and kept moving steadily. 
 Directly there was one quick sharp scream, followed by no 
 other sound, though both listened intently. Then a figure 
 came to the window, and apparently looked out, disappearing 
 again in a moment and leaving every thing as before. 
 
 "By George, I cannot stand this !" said Leslie. 
 
 " Xor I," said Harding, moved by quite a different feeling. 
 " I am getting sleepy and must go home." 
 
 "Must you?" said Tom Leslie. "Well, you are not going 
 a step. You cannot be spared just yet. Do you see that 
 tree ?" 
 
 Harding had seen the tree for some minutes — a tall one 
 with wide branches, standing a little to the left of the window. 
 But he did not see anything special in the tree, while Leslie 
 did, and that made the great difference. 
 
 " I am going on a perilous expedition," continued Leslie, 
 in a bantering tone, but his voice sinking lower, almost with- 
 out his being aware of the fact, and jerking off his boots 
 meanwhile on the sidewalk. " If I never come back, com- 
 fort my bereaved wife and children. If I break my neck, 
 see me comfortably buried, without a coroner's inquest if 
 possible." 
 
 "What are you going to do ?" asked Harding, with a faint 
 premonition, however, of his intention. 
 
 "I am going to get a peep in at that window," was the 
 reply, " or I am going to break the most precious neck in 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 67 
 
 America in making the attempt I used to be able to climb, 
 though some years ago. Keep still, here goes I" 
 
 There seemed to be al the moment no passers in the street, 
 
 and Harding's anxious gaze around showed no policeman in 
 the vicinity. By the time he had fairly spoken the last words, 
 Leslie had thrown off his broad hat, crossed the street, and 
 commenced climbing the tree. Harding followed and stood 
 under the tree, as if Leslie was going to throw down apples 
 and ho must catch them. Leslie was a little awkward, but 
 hugged the hark handsomely, and was soon on a level with 
 the window. Harding saw him distinctly, by the reflected 
 light from the window, clutch his arm around one of the 
 main limbs, and throw his head and body forward so that 
 his face was not more than a foot from the window. He had 
 not looked in more than a moment, when Harding heard him 
 utter a quick, short cry, and the next instant he seemed to be 
 trying to regain his hold of the tree. Then there was a rush, 
 a tumble, and he seemed to be falling. Harding threw him- 
 self beneath him, and Leslie half slid and half fell to the 
 pavement, with such violence as to send both sprawling into 
 the middle of the street. Harding was not much hurt ; Les- 
 lie seemed to be injured, and limped a little as he sprang up. 
 
 " Are you hurt, Tom ? What made you fall ?" was the 
 double question that Harding attempted to ask. 
 
 " My God ! can that be possible ?" was the inconsequent 
 answer, and his hand went up to his head as if the organs of 
 thought were for the moment disordered. 
 
 " What do you mean ? What did you see, Tom ?" was 
 Harding's next double question. Leslie was pulling on his 
 boots. 
 
 " See ? Nothing — every thing ! I will tell you all about it 
 when my brains get settled !" was the reply. " I have simply 
 been frightened out of my boots — no, I left my boots down 
 here. But I was frightened out of the tree, and came devil- 
 ish near to killing myself and you. Eh, didn't I ?" 
 
 " Xever mind about that ! Tell us what you saw ?" said 
 Harding, whose bump of curiosity now began to be seriously 
 agitated. 
 
 "The red woman! witch! devil! What does it all 
 
68 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 mean f n was the torrent of incoherence which next burst 
 from Leslie, not affording Harding a very close solution of 
 the mystery, but promising at Least something. 
 
 "Well V said the latter, expecting more They had again 
 crossed the street, and stood opposite the house of mystery, 
 Leslie was endeavoring to brush his soiled clothes with that 
 most difficult of all brushes, the hand. Harding was looking 
 full at the window, and waiting for the further explanation. 
 Suddenly, a carriage whirled through Prince from the direc- 
 tion of Broadway, and pulled up immediately before the 
 house. Leslie stopped brushing his clothes. At the same 
 moment, a head was again thrust against the window, and 
 immediately withdrawn. Then the light against the curtain 
 dimmed suddenly. Leslie "put that and that together" with 
 the celerity of a lawyer and the confidence of a man of the 
 world. The people in that house were going away. Where ? 
 That was something to be looked into. 
 
 " You know where the livery stable round the corner is, on 
 Houston ?» he asked hurriedly of Harding. 
 
 " Yes,-' was the reply. 
 
 "I am too lame to run fast," said Leslie, speaking very 
 rapidly. "We must follow those people, if they go to perdition, 
 Go to the stable, quick — do. There is always at least one 
 carriage standing ready, and have it here as soon as money 
 can bring it. I will watch meanwhile. Hurry ! hurry !" 
 
 Probably Harding, who was rather precise in his ordinary 
 movements, had not gone so fast in ten years. He was 
 around the corner before the last words had fairly left Les- 
 lie's mouth — going as if an enraged woman and three lively 
 policemen had been close after him. Leslie stepped across 
 the street again, took a glance at the number on the lamps of 
 the hack as he passed, and then ensconced himself in a de- 
 serted doorway very near, to watch what followed. Every 
 moment that Harding was gone seemed an hour. Would 
 they come out and get away, after all, before the coming of 
 the other vehicle ? What kept him so long ? (He had been 
 gone about half a minute !) Had there been, for once, no 
 carriage in waiting at the livery ? or had Harding concluded 
 to go to sleep on the road ? And what the deuce did it all 
 
S II O IT L D E R - S T R A P S. 
 
 69 
 
 moan— the fcalf-dozen persons, and one a woman almost com- 
 pletely stripped, whom he had Been in that moment's glance 
 into that upper chamber? And the red woman 1— aye, tha 
 red woman .'—that bothered Tom Leslie the worst, and as he 
 had himself confessed, frightened him. 
 
 It this juncture the door of the house opened, and a man 
 and two women dame out. The man, from his stature and 
 general appearance, and especially from his hat, struck Tom 
 as strangely like the tall Virginian whom they had seen 
 two hours before on Broadway. One of the women might 
 be the girl, Kate; and the third— Leslie indulged in an- 
 other bit of a shudder as he thought that possibly the 
 third might be the red woman. They were all muffled 
 up", however, and Leslie dared not quit his shelter to observe 
 them more nearly. The driver kept his seat on the box. 
 The man opened the door of the carriage, all stepped in, and 
 the carriage -whirled away out into the Bowery and up town. 
 There they were, going, gone, and Harding not yet returned 
 with the means of pursuit ! Confusion, vexation and every 
 cross-grained word in the language ! So thought Leslie, as 
 he dodged out to the Bowery and watched the disappearing 
 carriage. It had not turned off into any one of the cross- 
 streets, and seemed making for one or the other of the forks 
 of the avenues at the Cooper Institute. Half a minute more, 
 however, and it might as well be the proverbial " needle in 
 the hay-stack" for any chance they would have of finding it 
 
 again. 
 
 Hark ! yes, there came tearing hoofs round into I nnce 
 Street from Crosby, and the lamps of a carriage shivered with 
 the speed at which they were going. The horses were on 
 the run. It was their carriage after all, for nobody else could 
 be in such a hurry. Twenty seconds brought the flying car- 
 riage to the comer— a second's pause— a hail from each of 
 tho° friends— and Leslie was inside with Harding, and the 
 carriage was dashing up the Bowery about as fast as two 
 good horses could run, with Leslie and Harding each peering 
 out of the opened windows at the side, to see if they could 
 catch any glimpse of a carriage ahead. 
 
 There is no doubt that the horses attached to the hinder 
 
70 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 carriage, whatever may bare beeD the opinions of those 
 attached to the one before, — thought that the rate of speed 
 was a little rapid for a hot midnight in June ; and certainly 
 
 one or two pedestrians who came near being- run over at the 
 crossings just below the Cooper Institute, had an impr< 
 that some rebel prisoner must be running away from Fort 
 Lafayette or some government official trying to stop one. 
 As Harding and Leslie neared that highly respectable but 
 very ugly monument to the profits of iron and glue and the 
 public pride of Mr. Peter Cooper, — of course there ai 
 question, the carriage being out of sight, which of the two 
 branches it had taken. The Third Avenue being the plainer 
 road, Leslie decided for the Fourth, and with a shout to the 
 driver just before they readied Tompkins Market, the horses' 
 heads were turned in that direction, and away they went up 
 the comparatively quiet avenue. 
 
 At the rate they were going they soon overtook a carriage, 
 as they would have overtaken any thing less rapid than a 
 locomotive or a whirlwind. It was lucky that Leslie had 
 taken the precaution to note the number on the hack, as 
 otherwise they would have been at fault after all. As they 
 dashed by the carriage, which was going at good speed, that 
 cosmopolitan saw that the number on the lamps was a wrong 
 one ; and so they kept on. Another carriage was passed at 
 the same speed, their horses by this time dripping as if they 
 had been plunged into the river, but the driver of hack 
 No. 2980 going ahead under the influence of a private five 
 dollars and the promise of an extraordinary glass of brandy. 
 At Twenty-eighth Street they jerked the check-string and 
 the driver pulled up. There was nothing in sight, short of 
 the railroad tunnel. 
 
 "We have lost them!" said Harding, whose organ of 
 hopefulness was not so large as that of his friend. 
 
 " Humph ! maybe so I" was Leslie's reply, his eyes peer- 
 ing out of the windows on all sides, meanwhile. " One thing 
 is certain, that I am not going to bed until I find that hack 
 and know where it has been to-night !" 
 
 At that momeat, with better fortune than two such wild- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAP S. 71 
 
 goose chasers deserved, they saw the lamps of a carriage flash 
 across Twenty-eighth Street, going np Lexington Avenue. 
 
 " By George ! there they are !» said the sanguine Leslie. 
 
 " Maybe so!"' was the reply of Harding, echoing the 
 words his friend had used the moment before. 
 
 A word from Leslie to the driver, and away went the 
 carriage down Twenty-eighth Street toward Lexington 
 Avenue. On the avenue there was a carriage ahead, driving 
 at good speed but not at such a headlong rate as their own 
 had been pursuing. Leslie pulled the check-string. " Pass 
 that carriage !" he said to the driver, and the horses sprung 
 out at full speed again. The speed of the carriage ahead 
 did not increase : whoever occupied it probably had no idea 
 of being pursued. Before it had gone two blocks further the 
 pursuers had passed it, and Tom Leslie brought his hand 
 down upon Harding's leg with a force that made him wince, 
 as he saw the number on the near lamp. 
 
 " Got them, by the tail of the holy camel !» 
 
 It was indeed the same carriage that had left Prince Street 
 less than a quarter of an hour before. They were now ahead 
 of it, and it would not answer either to slacken speed so per- 
 ceptibly as to let itj->ass, or to turn back to meet it. Either 
 course might excite apprehension, if there was really any- 
 thing worth watching in the adventure. A word more to 
 the driver arranged all. They wheeled down Thirty-fourth 
 Street to Third Avenue, drove rapidly around the two blocks 
 to Thirty-sixth, and came out again on Lexington, with the 
 carriage just ahead of them and a fine opportunity to dog it 
 at leisure. 
 
 Two or three minutes afterwards the leading carriage 
 wheeled out of Lexington Avenue into East 5 — Street, 
 not very far from the Eastern Dispensary, which lias lately 
 so well supplied the place of a soldiers' hospital. It was 
 driving slowly, now, and unless some peculiar dodge was 
 intended, Leslie knew that the occupants must be near their 
 destination. To follow them further with the carriage would 
 be both useless and dangerous. Stopping the carriage and 
 telling the driver to wait for them In the avenue half a dozen 
 blocks above, the two friends alighted and followed their quarry 
 
72 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 on foot. They were close behind the carriage, now, but keep- 
 ing the sidewalk, and even if observed they might hare been 
 supposed to be a couple of late wayfarers plodding home, 
 and not spies as they at that moment felt themselves to be, 
 in however meritorious a cause ! About half way between 
 Fourth Avenue and Madison, the carriage stopped before a 
 handsome brown-stone house. " Nothing venture nothing 
 have !" is an old motto that never wears out. Before the rum- 
 ble of the carriage had fairly stopped or the driver could have 
 had time to turn around, the two friends were over the area 
 railings and under the steps. Not a dignified position, per- 
 haps, nor a pleasant one in which to be caught in the event 
 of a sudden opening of the area door ; but other men have 
 risked as much for a much idler curiosity ! 
 
 Perfect silence under the steps, except two loudly-beating 
 hearts and a little quick breathing. Leslie ventured a look 
 around the corner of the stoop — saw the driver get down 
 and open the door, and the one man and two women alight 
 and go up the steps. For the rest, they were obliged to de- 
 pend upon the ears. One of the women spoke : 
 
 " It will come to-morrow at midnight V 
 
 Harding could feel that Leslie shuddered, and could dis- 
 tinguish his sharp whisper to himself: 
 
 " The red woman's voice ! I knew I could not be mis- 
 taken !" 
 
 Then the voice of the man said : " "Wait a moment !" and 
 Lesric fancied that he recognized that voice quite as well as 
 the other. Then there was a quick pull of the bell, the 
 sound tinkling far back in the still house. Then came two 
 sharp pulls after the pause of a moment, and then a fourth 
 after another pause. Not until the fourth tinkle had been 
 heard was there any other sound within the house. Then a 
 door was heard to open and shut, and feet were heard in the 
 hall. The man's voice said " All right !" and the carriage 
 drove away. An inner door opened, but the outer one (as 
 the friends could easily distinguish by the sound of the 
 voices) remained closed until some one within asked : 
 
 " How many ?" 
 
 " Seven !" answered the man's voice. Then the outer 
 
SH0ULDER-STRA1' S. 73 
 
 door opened, all went in, the doors closed and were locked, 
 the footsteps in the hall died away, and the friends heard 
 no more. 
 
 Very gingerly, as if some depredation on personal pro- 
 perty had lately been committed, the two volunteer mid- 
 night guardians of the public weal climbed again over the 
 area railings, after all had been still for a moment. Not a 
 word passed between them. Harding stepped softly up the 
 stone steps to the door and noted the number on it, then 
 down again, as if he was treading on eggs. Leslie counted the 
 number of houses from the corner, with steps not more 
 sonorous, and looked around to see whether they could pos- 
 sibly not have been watched by a policeman, when getting 
 into and out of the area, because they did not intend to steal. 
 All these things accomplished, and apparently nothing more 
 to be done, they went quietly down 5 — Street to Lexing- 
 ton Avenue and sought their carriage. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Mystery of the Red Woman — Another of Tom 
 Leslie's long; Stories — An Incident of Paris in 1800 
 
 The Vision of the White Mist — Two Men "with 
 
 one Wonder and one Purpose. 
 
 "And who was the red woman ?" 
 
 It has been indicated in a former chapter that both Tom 
 Leslie and Walter Lane Harding intended, at one period of 
 the night, to go to bed as soon as possible. The event was 
 that neither found that luxury until the milkman was bawl- 
 big under the windows. Harding had contrived to raise a 
 large amount of curiosity, especially about the "red woman" 
 and her possible connection with the events of the evening, 
 and Leslie tired and satisfied him, collectively and at inter- 
 vals, with another long story before they separated. Only 
 
71 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 in his own words can that story be so conveyed as to be in- 
 telligible. 
 
 "I had returned from Vienna to Paris," he said, "late in 
 1860. No matter what I was doing in Paris ■ and a> we 
 are upon a serious subject, don't let me hear a word about 
 'grisettes' or the 'back room of a baker's shop.' 1 lodged in 
 the little Rue Marie Stuart, not far from the line Montor- 
 geuil, and only two or three minutes' walk from the Louvre, 
 for the long picture galleries of which I had an unfortunate 
 weakness. I had a tradesman with a pretty wife for my 
 landlord, and a cozy little room in which three persons could 
 sit down comfortably, for my domicil. As I did not often 
 have more than two visitors, my room was quite sufficient ; 
 and as I spent a large proportion of my evenings at other 
 places than my lodgings, the space was three quarters of the 
 time more than I needed. 
 
 "One of my intimates, a young Prussian by the name of 
 Adolph Yon Berg, had a habit of visiting mediums, clair- 
 voyants, and, not to put too fine a point upon it, fortune- 
 tellers. Though I had been in company with clairvoyants in 
 many instances, I had never, before my return to Paris in 
 the late summer of 1860, entered any one of those places in 
 which professional fortune-tellers carried on their business. 
 It was early in September, I think, that at the earnest solici- 
 tation of Yon Berg, who had been reading and smoking with 
 me at my lodgings, I went with him, late in the evening, to 
 a small two-story house in the Rue La Reynie Ogniard, a 
 little street down the Rue Saint Denis toward the quays of 
 the Seine, and running from Saint Denis across to the Rue 
 Saint Martin. The house seemed to me to be one of the 
 oldest in Paris, although built of wood ; and the wrinkled 
 and crazy appearance of the front was eminently Buggestive of 
 the face of an old woman on which time had long been plowing 
 furrows to plant disease. The interior of the house, when we 
 entered it by the dingy and narrow hall-way, that night, well 
 corresponded with the exterior. A tallow candle in a tin 
 sconce was burning on the wall, half hiding and half reveal- 
 ing the grime on the plastering, the cobwebs in the corners, 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 75 
 
 and the rickety stairs by which it might be supposed that 
 the occupants ascended to the second story. 
 
 " My companion tinkled a small bell that lay upon a little 
 uncovered table in the hall (the outer door having been en- 
 tirely unfastened, to all appearance), and a slattern girl came 
 out from an inner room. On recognizing my companion, 
 who had visited the house before, she led the way, without a 
 word, to the same room she had herself just quitted. There 
 was nothing remarkable in this. A shabby table, and two or 
 three still more shabby chairs, occupied the room, and a dark 
 wax-taper stood on the table, while at the side opposite the 
 single window a curtain of some dark stuff shut in almost- 
 one entire side of the apartment. We took seats on the 
 rickety chairs, and waited in silence, Adolph informing me 
 that the etiquette (strange name for such a place) of the 
 house did "not allow of conversation, not with the proprie- 
 tors, carried on in that apartment sacred to the divine mys- 
 teries. 
 
 "Perhaps fifteen minutes had elapsed, and I had grown 
 fearfully tired of waiting, when the corner of the curtain was 
 suddenly thrown back, and the figure of a woman stood in 
 the space thus created. Every thing behind her seemed to 
 be in darkness ; but some description of bright light, which 
 did not show through the curtain at all, and which seemed 
 almost dazzling enough to be Calcium or Drummond, shed 
 its rays directly upon her side-face, throwing every feature, 
 from brow to chin, into bold relief, and making every fold of 
 her dark dress visible. But I scarcely saw the dress, the 
 face being so remarkable beyond any thing I had ever wit- 
 nessed. I had looked to see an old, wrinkled hag — it being 
 the general understanding that all witches and fortune- 
 tellers must be long past the noon of life ; but instead, I saw 
 a woman who could not have been over thirty-five or forty, 
 with a figure of regal magnificence, and a face that would 
 have been, but for one circumstance, beautiful beyond de- 
 scription. Apelles never drew and Phidias never chiselled 
 nose or brow of more classic perfection, and I have never 
 seen the bow of Cupid in the mouth of any woman more 
 
76 SHOULDER-STKAI'S. 
 
 jravishingly shown than in that feature of the countenance of 
 the sorceress. 
 
 " I said that but for one circumstance that face would have 
 been beautiful beyond description. And vet no human eye 
 ever looked upon a face more hideously fearful than it was in 
 reality. Even a momentary glance could not be cast upon it 
 without a shudder, and a longer gaze involved a species of 
 horrible fascination which affected one like a night-mare. 
 You do not understand yet what was this remarkable and 
 most hideous feature. I can scarcely find words to describe 
 it to you so that you can catch the full force of the idea — I 
 must try, however. You have often seen Mephi,stophelcs in 
 his flame-colored dress, and caught some kind of impression 
 that the face was of the same hue, though the fact was that 
 it was of the natural color and only affected by the lurid 
 character ©f the dress and by the Satanic pencilling of the 
 eyebrows ! "Well, this face was really what that seemed for 
 the moment to be. It was redder than blood — red as fire, 
 and yet so strangely did the flame-color play through it that 
 you knew no paint laid upon the skin could have produced 
 the effect. It almost seemed that the skin and the whole 
 mass of flesh were transparent, and that the red color came 
 from some kind of fire or light within, as the red bottle in a 
 druggist's window might glow when you were standing full 
 in front of it and the gas was turned on to full height behind. 
 Every feature — brow, nose, lips, chin, even the eyes them- 
 selves, and their very pupils, seemed to be pervaded and per- 
 meated by this lurid flame ; and it was impossible for the 
 beholder to avoid asking himself whether there were indeed 
 spirits of flame — salamandrines — who sometimes existed out 
 of their own element and lived and moved as mortals. 
 
 " Have I given you a strange and fearful picture ? Be 
 sure that I have not conveyed to you one thousandth part of 
 the impression made upon myself, and that until the day I 
 die that strange apparition will remain stamped upon the 
 tablets of my mind. Diabolical beauty ! infernal ugliness ! 
 — I would give half my life, be it longer or shorter, to be able 
 to explain whence such things can come, to confound and 
 stupefy all human calculation ! 
 
S II (J L" L 1) B ft-S T B A I'S. 77 
 
 « Well, as I was Baying, there stood my horribly beautiful 
 fiend, and there I Bat spell-bound before her. As for Adolph, 
 though he had told me nothing in advance of the peculiarities 
 of her appearance, he had been fully aware of them, of course, 
 and I had the horrible surpriso all to myself. I think the 
 sorceress saw the mingled feeling in my face, and that a 
 smile blended of pride and contempt contorted the proud 
 features and made the ghastly face yet more ghastly for one 
 moment, If so, the expression soon passed away, and she 
 stood, as before, the incarnation of all that was terrible and 
 mysterious. At length, still retaining her place and fixing 
 her eves upon Von Berg, she spoke, sharply, brusquely, and 
 decided ly : 
 
 " 'You are here again ! what do you want V 
 
 " ' I come to introduce my friend, the Baron Charles 
 Denmore, of England,' answered Von Berg, 'who wishes — ' 
 
 "'Nothing!' said the sorceress, the word coming from her 
 lips with an unmistakably hissing sound. ' He wants nothing, 
 and he is not the Baron Charles Denmore ! He comes from 
 far away, across the sea, and he would not have come here 
 to-night but that you insisted upon it 1 Take him away — go 
 away yourself — and never let me see you again unless you 
 hare something to ask or you wish me to do you an injury P 
 
 " 'But — ' began Von Berg. 
 
 " ' Not another word !' said the sorceress, ' I have said. 
 (i'>, before you repent having come at all !' 
 
 "'.Madame,' I began to say, awed out of the feeling at 
 least of equality which I should have felt to be proper under 
 such circumstances, and only aware that Adolph, and possi- 
 bly myself, had incurred the enmity of a being so near to the 
 supernatural as to be at least dangerous — ' Madame, I hope 
 that you will not think — ' 
 
 11 But here she cut me short, as she had done Von Berg 
 the instant before. 
 
 '"Hope nothing, young man!' she said, her voice per- 
 ceptibly less harsh and brusque than it had been when 
 speaking to my companion. 'J lope nothing and ask nothing 
 until you may have occasion; then come to me.' 
 
 "'And then?' 
 
78 SHO l' LDEK-STR APS. 
 
 " 'Then I will answer every question you may think proper 
 to put to me. Stay ! you may have occasion to visit me 
 sooner than you suppose, or I may have oeeasion to force 
 knowledge upon you that you will not have the boldn< 
 seek. If so, I shall send for you. Now go, both of you !' 
 
 " The dark curtain suddenly fell, and the singular vision 
 faded with the reflected light which had filled the room. 
 The moment after, I heard the shuffling feet of the slattern 
 girl coining to show us out of the room, but, singularly 
 enough, as you will think, not out of the house! Without a 
 word we followed her — Adolph, who knew the customs of 
 the place, merely slipping a twenty-franc piece into her hand ; 
 and in a moment more we were out in the street and walk- 
 ing up the Rue Saint Denis. It is not worth while to detail 
 the conversation which followed between us as we passed up 
 to the Rue Marie Stuart, I to my lodgings and Adolph to 
 his own, further on, close to the Rue Yivienne and not far 
 from the Boulevard Montmartre. Of course I asked him 
 fifty questions, the replies to which left me quite as much in 
 the dark as before. He knew, he said, and hundreds of 
 other persons in Paris knew, the singularity of the personal 
 appearance of the sorceress, and her apparent power of divi- 
 nation, but neither he nor they had any knowledge of her 
 origin. He had been introduced at her house several months 
 before, and had asked questions affecting his family in Prus>ia 
 and the chances of descent of certain property, the replies to 
 which had astounded him. He had heard of her using marvel- 
 lous and fearful incantations, but had never himself win, 
 any thing of them. In two or three instances, before the pre- 
 sent, he had taken friends to the house and introduced them 
 under any name which he chose to apply to them for the 
 time, and the sorceress had never before chosen to call him 
 to account for the deception, though, according to the assur- 
 ances of his friends after leaving the house, she had never 
 failed to arrive at the truth of their nationalities and posi- 
 tions in life. There must have been something in myself or 
 my circumstances, he averred, which had produced so singular 
 an effect upon the witch, (as he evidently believed her to be, ) 
 and he had the impression that at no distant day I should 
 
SHOULDER-S T B A P S. 79 
 
 again hear from her. That was all, and so wo parted, I ill 
 any other condition of mind than that promising sleep, and 
 
 really without closing my eyes, except for a moment or two 
 at a time, during the night which followed. AYhen I did 
 attempt to force myself into slumber, a red spectre stood 
 continually before me, an unearthly light seemed to sear my 
 covered eyeballs, and I awoke with a start. Days passed 
 before I sufficiently wore away the impression to be comfort- 
 able, and at least two or three weeks before my rest became 
 again entirely unbroken. 
 
 "You must be partially aware with what anxiety we 
 Americans temporarily sojourning on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, who loved the country we had left behind on this, 
 watched the succession of events which preceded and accom- 
 panied the Presidential election of that year. Some suppose 
 that a man loses his love for his native land, or finds it com- 
 paratively chilled within his bosom, after long residence 
 abroad. The very opposite is the case, I think ! I never 
 knew what the old flag was, until I saw it waving from the 
 top of an American consulate abroad, or floating from the 
 gaff of one of our war-vessels, when I came down the moun- 
 tains to some port on the Mediterranean. It had been 
 merely red, white and blue bunting, at home, where the 
 symbols of our national greatness were to be seen on every 
 hand : it was the only symbol of our national greatness when 
 we were looking at it from beyond the sea ; and the man 
 whose eyes will not fill with tears and whose throat will not 
 choke a little with overpowering feeling, when catching 
 sight of the Stars and Stripes where they only can be seen 
 to remind him of the glory of the country of which he is a 
 part, is unworthy the name of patriot or of man ! 
 
 "But to return : Where was I ? Oh 1 I was remarking with 
 what interest we on the other side of the water watched the 
 course of affairs at home, during that year when the rumble 
 of distant thunder was just heralding the storm. You are 
 well aware that without extensive and long-continued con- 
 nivance on the part of sympathizers among the leading peo- 
 ple of Europe — England and France especially — secession 
 could never have been accomplished so far as it has been ; 
 
80 S II l" L I) E R - S T R A P s. 
 
 and there never could have been any hope of \\> eventual 
 success if there had been no hope of one or both these two 
 
 countries bearing it up on their strong and unscrupulous 
 arms. The leaven of foreign aid to rebellion was working 
 even then, both in London and Paris; and perhaps we* 
 had opportunities over the water for a nearer guess at the 
 peril of the nation, than you could have had in the midst of 
 your party-political squabbles at home. 
 
 "During the months of September and October, when 
 your Wide-Awakes on the one hand, and your conservative 
 Democracy on the otl^er, were parading the streets with 
 banners and music, as they or their predecessors had done in 
 so many previous contests, and believing that nothing worse 
 could be involved than a possible party defeat and some bad 
 feelings, we, who lived where revolutions were common, 
 thought that we discovered the smouldering spark which 
 would be blown to revolution here. The disruption of the 
 Charleston Convention and through it of the Democracy; the 
 bold language and firm attitude of the Republicans ; the 
 well-understood energy of the uncompromising Abolitionists, 
 and the less defined but rabid energy of the Southern fire- 
 eaters : all these were known abroad and watched With 
 gathering apprehension. American newspapers, and the 
 extracts made from them by the leading journals of France 
 and England, commanded more attention among the Americo- 
 French and English than all other excitements of the time 
 put together. 
 
 " Then followed what you all know — the election, with its 
 radical result and the threats which immediately succeeded, 
 that ' Old Abe Lincoln' should never live to be inaugurated ! 
 'He shall not!' cried the South. 'He shall!' replied the 
 Korth. To us who knew something of the Spanish knife 
 and the Italian stiletto, the probabilities seemed to be that 
 he would never live to reach Washington. Then the mutter- 
 ings of the thunder grew deeper and deeper, and some dis- 
 ruption seemed inevitable, evident to us far away, while you 
 at home, it seemed, were eating and drinking, marrying and 
 giving in marriage, holding gala-days and enjoying your- 
 selves generally, on the brink of an arousing volcano from 
 
sn U L I) E R-S TRAPS. 81 
 
 which the sulphurous smoke already began to ascend to the 
 heavens ! So time passed on ; autumn became winter, and 
 December was rolling away. 
 
 " I was sitting with half-a-dozon friends in the chess-room 
 at Aery's, about eleven o'clock on the night of the twentieth 
 of December, talking over some of the marvellous successes 
 which had been won by Paul Morphy when in Paris, and 
 the unenviable position in which Howard Staunton had placed 
 himself by keeping out of the lists through evident fear of 
 the New-Orleanian, when Adolph Yon Berg came behind 
 me and laid his hand on my shoulder. 
 
 " 'Come with me a moment,' he said, 'you are w r anted!' 
 
 " 'Where?' I asked, getting up from my seat and following 
 him to the door, before which stood a light coupe, with its 
 red lights flashing, the horse smoking, and tho driver in his 
 seat. 
 
 " 'I have been to-night to the Rue la Reynie Ogniard !' he 
 answered. 
 
 "'And are you going there again?' I asked, my blood chill- 
 ing a little with an indefinable sensation of terror, but a sense 
 of satisfaction predominating at the opportunity of seeing 
 something more of the mysterious woman. 
 
 " 'I am !' he answered, 'and so are you! She has sent for 
 you! Come!' 
 
 " Without another word I stepped into the coupe*, and we 
 were rapidly whirled away. I asked Adolph how and why 
 I had been summoned ; but he knew nothing more than my- 
 self, except that he had visited the sorceress at between nine 
 and ten that evening, that she had only spoken to him for an 
 instant, but ordered him to go at once and find his friend, the 
 American, whom he had falsely introduced some months be- 
 fore as the English baron. He had been irresistibly im- 
 pressed with the necessity of obedience, though it would 
 break in upon his own arrangements for the later evening, 
 (which included an hour at the Chateau Rouge ;) had picked 
 up a coupe, looked in for me at two or three places where he 
 thought me most likely to be at that hour -in the evening, and 
 had found me at Very's, as related. What the sorceress 
 could possibly want of me, he had no more idea than myself j 
 
82 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 but he reminded me that she had hinted at the possible neces- 
 sity of sending for me at no distant period, and I remem- 
 bered the fact too well to need the reminder. 
 
 "It was nearly midnight when we drove down the Rue St. 
 Denis, turned into La Reynie Ogniard, and drew up at the 
 antiquated door I had once entered nearly three months earlier, 
 We entered as before, rang the bell as before, and were ad- 
 mitted into the inner room by the same slattern girl. I re- 
 member at this moment one impression which this person 
 made upon me — that she did not wash so often as four times 
 a year, and that the same old dirt was npon her face that had 
 been crusted there at the time of my previous visit. There 
 seemed no change in the room, except that two tapers, and each 
 larger than the one I had previously seen, were burning upon 
 the table. The curtain was down as before, and when it sud- 
 denly rose, after a few minutes spent in waiting, and the blood- 
 red woman stood in the vacant space, all seemed so exactly as it 
 had done on the previous visit, that it would have been no 
 difficult matter to believe the past three months a mere im- 
 agination, and this the same first visit renewed. 
 
 " The illusion, sueh as it was, did not last long, however, 
 The sorceress fixed her eyes full upon me, with the red flame 
 seeming to play through the eyeballs as it had before done 
 through her cheeks, and said, in a voice lower, more sad and 
 broken, than it had been when addressing me on the previous 
 occasion : 
 
 " ' Young American, I have sent for you, and you have 
 done well to come. Do not fear — » 
 
 "'I do not fear — you, or any one!' I answered, a little 
 piqued that she should have drawn any such impression from 
 my appearance. I may have been uttering a fib of magnifi- 
 cent proportions at the moment, but one has a right to deny 
 cowardice to the last gasp, whatever else he must admit. 
 
 "'You do not? It is well, then !' she said in reply, and 
 in the same low, sad voice. ' You will have courage, then, 
 perhaps, to see what I will show you from the land of 
 shadows.' 
 
 " ' Whom does it concern ?' I asked. ' Myself or some 
 other V 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 83 
 
 "'Yourself, ami many others— all the world !' uttered the 
 lips of (lame. ' ' 11 is of your country that I would show you.' 
 ' •• • My country '.' God of heaven ! what has happened to 
 my country ?' broke from my lips almost before I knew what 
 1 was uttering. I suppose the words came almost like a 
 groan, for I had been deeply anxious over the state of affairs 
 known to exist at home, and perhaps I can be nearer to a 
 \reeping child when I think of any ill to my own beloved 
 land, than I could be for any other evil threatened in the 
 
 world. 
 
 '"But a moment more, and you shall see !> said the sor- 
 ceress. Then she added: 'You have a friend here present. 
 Shall he too look on what I have to reveal, or will you be- 
 hold it alone V 
 
 " ' Let him see !» I answered. ' My native land may fall 
 into ruin, but she can never be ashamed !' 
 
 '"So let it be, then !' said the sorceress, solemnly.^ 'Be 
 silent, look, and learn what is at this moment transpiring in 
 your own land !' 
 
 " Beneath that adjuration I was silent, and the same dread 
 stillness fell upon my companion. Suddenly the sorceress, 
 still standing in the same place, waved her right hand in the 
 air, and a strain of low, sad music, such as the harps of an- 
 gete may be continually making over the descent of lost 
 Spirits to the pit of suffering, broke upon my ears. Yon 
 Berg too heard it, I know, for I saw him look up in surprise, 
 then apply his fingers to his ears and test whether his sense 
 of hearing had suddenly become defective. Whence that 
 strain of music could have sprung I did not know, nor do I 
 know any better at this moment. I only know that, to my 
 senses and those of my companion, it was definite as if the 
 thunders of the sky had been ringing. 
 
 " Then came another change, quite as startling as the mu- 
 sic and even more difficult to explain. The room began to 
 till with a whitish mist, transparent in its obscurity, that 
 wrapped the form of the sybil and finally enveloped her until 
 she appeared to be but a shade. Anon, another and larger 
 room seemed to grow in the midst, with columned galleries 
 and a rostrum, and hundreds of forms in wild commotion, 
 
84 SHOl'LTiE B - B T K A P S. 
 
 moving to and fro, thougb uttering no Bound. At one mo- 
 
 niriit, it Beemed that 1 could look through one of the win- 
 dows of the phantom building, and I saw the branches of a 
 palmetto tree waving in the winter wind. Then amidst and 
 apparently at the head of all, a white-haired man stood upon 
 the rostrum, and as he turned down a long scroll from which 
 lie seemed to be reading to the assemblage, I read the words 
 that appeared on the top of the scroll : ' An ordinance to dis- 
 solve the union heretofore existing between the State of 
 South Carolina and the several States of the Federal Union, 
 under the name of the United States of America,' My 
 breath came thick, my eyes filled with tears of wonder and 
 dismay, and I could see no more. 
 
 " ' Horror !' I cried. ' Roll away the vision, for it is false ! 
 It cannot be that the man lives who could draw an ordinance 
 to dissolve the Union of the United States of America!' 
 
 "'It is so! That has this day been done!' spoke the 
 voice of the sorceress from within the cloud of white mist. 
 
 " ' If this is indeed true,' I said, ' show me what is the re- 
 sult, for the heavens must bow if this work of ruin is accom- 
 plished !' 
 
 '"Look again, then !' said the voice. The strain of mu- 
 sic, which had partially ceased for a moment, grew louder 
 and sadder again, and I saw the white mist rolling and 
 changing, as if a wind were stirring it. Gradually again it 
 assumed shape and form ; and in the moonlight, before the 
 Capitol of the nation, its white proportions gleaming in the 
 wintry ray, the form of Washington stood, the hands clasped, 
 the head bare, and the eyes cast upward in the mute agony 
 of supplication. 
 
 "'All is not lost!' I shouted more / than spoke, 'for the 
 Father of his Country still watches his children, and while 
 he lives in the heavens and prays for the erring and wander- 
 ing, the nation may yet be reclaimed.' 
 
 '"It may be so,' said the voice through the mist, 'for 
 look !' 
 
 " Again the strain of music sounded, but now louder and 
 clearer, and without the tone of hopeless sadness. Again 
 the white mists rolled by in changing forms, and when once 
 
S H O IT L D E R - S T R A P S. 
 
 85 
 
 more they assumed shape and consistency, I saw great masses 
 of men, apparently in the streets of a large city, throwing out 
 the old Sag from roof and steeplo, lifting it to heaven in atti- 
 tudes of devotion, and pressing it to their lips with those wild 
 kisses whieh a mother gives to her darling child when it has 
 been just rescued from a deadly peril. 
 
 " ' The nation lives !' I shouted. ■ The old flag is not de- 
 serted and the patriotic heart yet beats in American bosoms I 
 Show mo yet more, for the next must be triumph !' 
 
 " ' Triumph indeed !' said the voice. ' Behold it, and re- 
 joice at it while there is time !' I shuddered at the closing 
 words, but another change in the strain of music, roused. me. 
 It was not sadness now, nor yet the rising voice of hope, for 
 martial music rung loudly and clearly, and through it I heard 
 the roar of cannon and the cries of combatants in battle. As 
 the vision cleared, I saw the armies of the Union in fight 
 with a host almost as numerous as themselves, but savage, 
 ragged and tumultuous, and bearing a mongrel flag that I 
 had never seen before — one that seemed robbed from the 
 banner of the nation's glory. For a moment the battle wa- 
 vered and the forces of the Union seemed driven backward ; 
 then they rallied with a shout, and the flag of stars and 
 stripes was rebaptized in glory. They pressed the traitors 
 backward at every turn— they trod rebellion under their 
 heels — they were everywhere, and everywhere triumphant. 
 
 "'Three cheers for the Star-Spangled Banner!' I cried, 
 forgetting place and time in the excitement of the scene. 
 ' Let the world look on and wonder and admire 1 I knew 
 the land that the Fathers founded and Washington guarded 
 could not die! Three cheers — yes, nine — for the Star- 
 Spangled Banner and the bravo old land over which it 
 floats !' 
 
 " 'Pause !' said the voice, coming out once more from the 
 cloud of white mist, and chilling my very marrow with the 
 sad solemnity of its tone. 'Look once again!' I looked, 
 and the mists went rolling by as before, while the music 
 changed to wild discord • and when the sight became clear 
 again, I saw the men of the nation struggling over bags of 
 gold and quarrelling for a black shadow that flitted about in 
 
86 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 their midst, while criea of want and wails of despair went up 
 and sickened the heavens ! I closed my eyes and tried to 
 
 close my ears, hut I could not shut out the voice of the sor- 
 ceress, saying once more from her shroud of white mist : 
 
 " ' Look yet again, and fur the last time ! Behold the 
 worm that gnaws away the bravery of a nation and makes 
 it a prey for the spoiler! 1 Heart-brokenly sad was the music 
 now. as the vision changed once more, and I saw T a great 
 crowd of men, each in the uniform of an officer of the United 
 States army, clustered around one who seemed to be their 
 chief. But while I looked, I saw one by one totter and fall, 
 and directly # I perceived that the epaulette or shoulder-strap 
 on the shoulder of each was a great hideous yellow v:orm, 
 that gnawed away the shoulder and jwlsied the arm and ate 
 into the vitals. Every second, one fell and died, making fran- 
 tic efforts to tear away the reptile from its grasp, but in vain. 
 Then the white mists rolled away, and I saw the strange 
 woman standing where she had been when the first vision began. 
 She was silent, the music was hushed, Adolph Yon Berg had 
 fallen back asleep in his chair, and drawing out my watch. I 
 discovered that only ten minutes had elapsed since the sor- 
 ceress spoke her first word. 
 
 "'You have seen all — go! 1 was her first and last inter- 
 ruption to the silence. The instant after, the curtain fell. I 
 kicked Yon Berg to awake him, and we left the house. The 
 coupe was waiting in the street and set me down at my 
 lodgings, after which it conveyed my companion to his. 
 Adolph did not seem to have a very clear idea of what had 
 occurred, and my impression is that he went to sleep the 
 moment the first strain of music commenced. 
 
 "As for myself, I am not much clearer than Adolph as to 
 how and why I saw and heard what I know that I did see 
 and hear. I can only say that on that night of the twentieth 
 of December, I860, the same on which, as it afterward ap- 
 peared, the ordinance of secession was adopted at Charles- 
 ton, I, in the little old two-story house in the Rue la Reynie 
 Ogniard, witnessed what I have related. 
 
 " I left Havre in the old Arago only a fortnight afterwards. 
 Perhaps the incident helped to drive me home. At all events 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 87 
 
 1 was ashamed to remain abroad when the country was in 
 danger. Now you know quite as ninch of the affair as my- 
 self — which is not Baying much I" 
 
 "Ugh !" said Harding, drawing an evident sigh of relief 
 at the conclusion of so long a story, which had yet been so 
 absorbingly interesting to him, under the circumstances, that 
 he could not go to sleep in the midst of it — " Ugh ! your 
 idea— I beg your pardon I— your relation of the great yellow 
 worms and their affinity to shoulder-straps, is almost enough 
 to make a man, however patriotic, shudder at the thought of 
 assuming such a decoration." 
 
 "I believe you, my boy I" said Leslie, quoting an expres- 
 sive vulgarism which Orpheus C. Kerr had just been making 
 so extensively popular. 
 
 "And that female combination of ghastly red and magical 
 knowledge — " 
 
 " That remarkable combination," said Leslie, anticipating 
 and interrupting the half-sneer that was coming — " is the red 
 woman whom I saw to-night in the house on Prince Street, 
 just before I fell out of the tree ; and it was her voice that 
 I heard on the piazza yonder just before the door opened. 
 What do you think of it ?" 
 
 " Think ?" said Harding, earnestly this time. " I am alto- 
 gether too much wrapped in that remarkable white mist that 
 you have been shaking round me, to think ! Then the events 
 of to-night— so much crowded in a little space, and that 
 woman coming into the midst of it all ! My life has been a 
 rather plain one, so far, and I have had to do with very few 
 mysteries ; but here I am tumbling into the midst of one 
 thicker than the fog on the East River in a February thaw !" 
 " And yet the mystery of the two houses, and of the red 
 woman so far as possible, I am going to go through like the 
 proverbial streak of lightning through a gooseberry-bush, 
 before I have done with it!" said Leslie, his habitual good 
 opinion of his own powers coming once more into play. 
 " You arc ready to go with me ?" 
 
 "All the way!" said Barding, graphically; and it was 
 then that after a few words of arrangement the two friends 
 parted, to catch what might still remain of uneasy morning 
 
88 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 slumber, in which red women, flying carriage-lamps and re- 
 spectable young men skulking in doorways and areas, were 
 very likely to be prominent. 
 
 CHArTER VI. 
 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford and Bell Crawford — Some 
 Speculations on tite Spy System — Josephine Harris on 
 a Reconnoissance, and what she saw and heard. 
 
 At any other time than the present, before proceeding with 
 the relation of the events that transpired in the honse on 
 West 3 — Street after the arrival of Colonel Egbert Crawford 
 and Miss Bell Crawford, — it might be both proper and politic 
 to indulge in a disquisition on the meanness of peeping and 
 the general iniquity of the spy system. At any other time — 
 not now, when the country is deep in the horrors of a war 
 that principally seems to have been a failure on our side be- 
 cause we have not "peeped" and "spied" enough.* The 
 rebels have had the advantage of us from the beginning, — ■ 
 not only because they were fighting comparatively on their 
 own ground and among a friendly population, but because 
 they at once applied the spy system when they began, and 
 nosed out all our secrets of army and cabinet, while we 
 have neglected spying and scouting, and made every im- 
 portant military movement a plunge in the dark. 
 
 Every military commander has blamed every other mili- 
 tary commander for inefficiency in this respect, and when 
 brought to the test he has showed that he himself had a terrk 
 incognita to go over in making his first advance. Quite a 
 number of well-known people who were present may remem- 
 ber a few words of conversation which took place on the 
 Union Course at one of the contests there between Princess 
 
 * December 15th, 1 ~ 
 
SIIOULDE R-STK ATS. 89 
 
 and Flora Temple (was it not ?) in Jnne, 1801. Schenck had 
 just plunged a few regiments, huddled up in railroad cars, 
 into the mouths of the rebel batteries at Vienna, as if he had 
 been taking a contract to feed some great military monster 
 with victims as quickly and in as compact a form as possible. 
 The country was horrified over the slaughter, Ball's Bluff and 
 Fredericksburgh not having yet offered up their holocausts to 
 dwarf it by comparison. An officer of prominence under 
 McDowell, then in command of the Potomac Army under 
 Scott, had come home on a furlough and was present. Many 
 inquiries were made of him by acquaintances, as to the pro- 
 gress and prospects of the war. Among other things, the 
 Vienna blunder was called to his attention. 
 
 " Oh," said the officer — " that was one of the most stupid 
 of blunders — all owing to the fact that the ground had not 
 been properly reconnoitered beforehand 1 They seem to have 
 had neither scouts nor spies, and what else than failure could 
 be the result ?" 
 
 " True," said one of the by-standers. "And the Potomac 
 army — that is going to advance pretty soon, as I hear — is 
 that all right in the respect you have named ?" 
 
 "What? McDowell's army?" said the officer, contemptu- 
 ously. " When you catch Irwin McDowell not knowing 
 exactly what is ahead of him and around him, you will catch 
 a weasel asleep !" 
 
 So all the by-standers believed, and were confident ac- 
 cordingly. Four weeks afterwards Irwin McDowell fought 
 the battle of Manassas, the result of which showed the most, 
 utter ignorance of the opposing fortifications and forces in 
 front, that had ever been recorded in any history I* 
 
 So much for the confidence that one entertains, of being- 
 able to avoid the blunders of the other ! Not one of the 
 predecessors of Scherazaide, it is probable, went to the mar- 
 riage bed of the Sultan without believing that she could fix 
 the wavering love of the tyrant and avoid the fate threat- 
 ened for the morrow ! And yet some hundreds of fair white 
 bosoms furnished a morning banquet to the fishes, before 
 
 * December, 1S62. 
 
90 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Scherazaidc the Wise succeeded in entangling the Sultan in 
 the meshes of her golden speech ! 
 
 It may be a little difficult to guess what this has to do with 
 the narration. Simply this — that one of the most amiable 
 and fascinating of women played what might have bee* 
 called "a mean trick" on the occasion, and there ha- Beemed 
 to exist some occasion for making her excuse before relating 
 the iniquity. Having settled that during the War for the 
 Union there has not been half enough of "spying," on the 
 side of right, — and having before us not only the examples 
 of John Champe and Nathan Hale, beloved of Washington, 
 but of the two estimable young men not long emerged from 
 under the area steps in 5— Street, let us dismiss the con- 
 tempt with which we have been wont to regard Paul Pry and 
 Betty the housemaid, listening at key-holes, in our favorite 
 dramas, and look mercifully upon the peccadilloes of Miss 
 Josephine Harris. 
 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford, who entered the room of the in- 
 valid on that occasion, was a tall and rather fine-looking man, 
 with the least dash of iron-gray in his hair and a decidedly 
 soldierly bearing. He had dark eyes, a little too small and 
 not always direct in their glance, but only close observers 
 would have been able to make the latter discovery. Had he 
 been wise, he would have worn something more than the full 
 moustache and military side-whiskers, for the under lip and 
 chin being close shaven the play of the muscles of the lip, 
 and its shape, were visible. The lip was heavy and sullen, if 
 not cruel ; and any one who watched him closely enough 
 (close as Josephine Harris had sometimes been watching him, 
 say !) could see that the under lip had an almost constant 
 twitching motion, and that the hands, when unoccupied, 
 were always opening and shutting themselves much too often 
 for a mind at ease. He was dressed in the full regulation 
 blue uniform, with fatigue-cap, in spite of the heat of the 
 weather, and with the eagle on shoulder and the red belts 
 and gilt hook at waist suggesting the sword that was to come 
 some time or other. 
 
 Miss Bell or Isabella Crawford, sister of Richard, who 
 made her appearance with the Colonel after her more or less 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 91 
 
 successful search for the peculiar shade of cerise ribbon, — 
 demands a word of description, and only a word. She was of 
 medium height, well formed and rather plump, with a plea- 
 santly-moulded face and dark hair and eyes, undeniably hand- 
 some and ladylike, but with something weak and languid 
 about the mouth, and indefinably creating the impression of 
 a woman incapable of being quite content with affairs as they 
 came, unless they came very pleasantly and fashionably, or 
 of making any well-directed effort to improve them. She 
 was faultlessly dressed and irreproachably gloved, and a close 
 observer would have judged, after a minute inspection, that 
 she would be better at home in the pleasant idleness of a ball 
 or an opera-matinee than where she might be required either 
 to do or to bear. 
 
 " A nice couple and belong together ! Neither one of them 
 good for anything 1" had more than once been Joe Harris' 
 irreverent comment, when looking at them as they entered 
 or left carriage or ball room, a little earlier in her acquaint- 
 ance and when she had not yet enjoyed so many opportuni- 
 ties for studying the peculiar character of Col. Egbert 
 Crawford. Just now she would have had her doubts about 
 sacrificing even the useless Bell to a man whom she her.self 
 began to dislike so much. 
 
 " How do you feel, brother ?" asked the sister as she came 
 in, — evidently more as a matter of duty than because she felt 
 any peculiar interest in the answer. 
 
 u You look pale — your face is drawn — you seem to be in 
 pain !" was the observation of the Colonel, before the invalid 
 could answer, and taking the hand of the latter without seem- 
 ing to notice the shudder with which his touch was met. 
 
 " Perhaps so — cousin — Egbert — yes — I do not feel quite so 
 well as I have done," muttered the invalid, who seemed all 
 the while to be making a violent effort to command face and 
 fueling. " There was music in the street, you know — I heard 
 it and I suppose that it agitated me." 
 
 " Sorry ! tut ! tut 1 tut 1 You ought to be getting better 
 
 by this time, I should think 1" said the Colonel, laying his 
 
 finger on the pulse of Richard and looking up at vacancy as 
 
 a Doctor has the habit of doing when he performs that very 
 
 6 
 
92 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 imposing (imposing upon whom f) operation. What was 
 there in his glance, that met the eye of Joe Harris, as he did 
 bo— and gave her so plain a continuation of her worst sus- 
 picions ? What power is it that lets in the daylight on our 
 darkest wishes and worst motives, just at the moment when 
 we natter ourselves that we have them more carefully hidden 
 away in darkness than ever before? Joe was still at t lie 
 window, where she had been joined by Bell, the latter already 
 half-forgetful of her sick brother and eager to show some 
 astounding purchase she had just made at one of the dry- 
 goods palaces. 
 
 " There — go away, girls ; you bother poor Richard with 
 your chatter | M said Colonel Egbert, affecting great cordiality 
 and a little familiarity. (The fact was, as may have been 
 noticed, that Bell had spoken only five words aloud and Joe 
 not a word, since the two had entered.) " Richard is not so 
 well, I am afraid. I will sit by him awhile and you may go 
 away and gabble to your heart's content." 
 
 "Just as you like," answered Isabella, doubling up a half- 
 unrolled little package and preparing to go. " I have some 
 little things to look after up-stairs. Will you go with me, 
 Joe ? Of course you are not going away until after dinner l '. :) 
 
 " Humph ! I do not know that I am going away at all !" 
 said the wild girl, her words very different from her thought 
 at the moment. " You are such nice people, and Dick is 
 such an interesting invalid, and who knows — well, I will not 
 speculate any more about that, in public, just yet ! Yes, 
 Bell, go up-stairs and attend to your finery ; I am going 
 down into the basement to ask Xorah for two slices of bread- 
 and-butter and the wing of a cold chicken !" 
 
 And away through the noiseless glass door buzzed Jose- 
 phine, on her way to the basement, followed by Isabella on 
 her way to the inner penetralia of the second floor ; while 
 Col. Egbert Crawford shied his fatigue-cap at the desk and 
 drew up his chair to the side of the sofa occupied by the 
 invalid. Isabella really went up-stairs, and for the purpose 
 designated. Shame for Joe Harris, it must be said that 
 while she really descended to the basement aid made an 
 inroad on Norah's larder to the extent of the wing of cold 
 
S1I0ULDEK-STRAPS. 93 
 
 chicken and one slice of bread-and-butter, vet she thrust both 
 the edibles into a piece of paper and into her pocket, at the 
 imminent risk of greasing the latter convenient receptacle, 
 and was back again on the parlor floor within the space of 
 one and a half minutes by the little Geneva watch which she 
 carried so bewitehingly at her belt. If mischief and sad 
 earnest can both be blended in the expression of one face 
 at one and the same time, they were so blended in hers at 
 that moment. What was in the wind and who was to 
 suiter ? — for suffer somebody always did when Josey fairly 
 started out on a campaign ! 
 
 From the door leading to the basement, to that opening 
 into the parlor from the Jiall, she probably stepped lighter 
 than she had ever before done since playing blind-man's buff 
 in early girlhood ; and it is doubtful whether that parlor door 
 had ever before opened and shut with so little noise, since 
 the skilful hanger first oiled the plated hinges. From the 
 door to the back part of the room she went on tip-toe — the 
 fact cannot be denied, — little noise as her light shoes would 
 have made on the heavy velvet. We all have something of 
 the cat about us — man and the other animals ; though the 
 quality developes itself under different circumstances. Pussy 
 treads even softer than usual, when after the coveted cream ; 
 that larger pussy, the tiger, steals lightly towards the am- 
 bashed hunter who is to furnish him the next delicious meal; 
 and " Tarquin's ravishing strides" are undoubtedly a mis- 
 nomer, for the Roman must have been something more or 
 less than man if he did not tip-toe his sandals or cast them 
 off altogether, when he stole towards the midnight bed of 
 Lucrece. 
 
 The cream for which Pussy Harris — shame upon her for 
 that same ! — was just then making an adventurous foray, — 
 was a hearing of the conversation ivhich might take place 
 between Richard Crawford and his cousin! That conversa- 
 tion she had determined to hear, at all hazards ; for what, 
 she scarcely knew herself, but with an undefinable impression 
 that she must hear it — that (Jesuitieally, and of course most 
 horrible doctrine !) the end might justify the otherwise inde- 
 fensible means — and that — that — in short, that she was going 
 
94 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 to do it, and this settled the matter as well as finished up the 
 reason I 
 
 The piano stood on the left, passing down from the parlor 
 door towards the rear of the room, and behind it was a small 
 inlaid table covered with books, and a large easy ehair 
 designed for lazy reading. Any person in the ehair would 
 be within twelve inches of the glass doors and not over ten 
 feet from the two men at the sofa, in the little back room. 
 Josephine distinctly heard, through the thin glass, the hum 
 of their voices as she approached the table, but not many of 
 the words were audible. Confound it ! — she thought — her 
 plan of sitting in the chair, pretending to read as a safeguard 
 against possible detection, and overhearing by laying her 
 head back against the door — this would never do. Time 
 was pressing — finesse must give way to boldness; and in 
 tho sixteenth of a minute thereafter the sliding doors were 
 softly parted by less than half an inch of space — too little to 
 be readily noticed from the back room, which was the lighter 
 of the two, and yet enough to see through if necessary, (but 
 she did not intend to look,) and to hear through, which was 
 the matter of first consequence. And there she stood — an 
 eaves-dropper of the first order — a flush of shame and of 
 half-conscious guilt on cheek and brow, and a wild, startled 
 look in her eyes, such as a hare might show when listening 
 for the second bay of the hound — liable to be caught by 6ome 
 one entering the parlor from the hall, or by the Colonel 
 taking a fancy to enter the room for any purpose — and yet 
 chained there, with her ear within an inch of the opening, as 
 if present happiness and eternal salvation had both depended 
 upon her keeping that position ! 
 
 Could anything be more shameful ?— anything more 
 despicable? Was ever a heroine so placed, even by English 
 romancers or French dramatists ? And was not the long 
 dissertation at the beginning of this chapter, to prove the 
 applicability of the spy system to war time, an absolute 
 necessity ? 
 
 What might have passed precedently, while she was look- 
 ing after the chicken and the bread-and-butter, Josephine 
 had no means of divining. At the time of her assuming her 
 
SUOULDEK STRAPS. 95 
 
 post of observation, Richard Crawford was still lying back 
 upon the sofa, niul looking up, as ho had been half an hour 
 before when she was herself conversing with him. If the 
 spasms had not ceased altogether, they were at least con- 
 curred by the will and concealed from the eyes of the Colo- 
 nel, as they had not been from hers. The young girl thought 
 she could detect, too, upon the face of the invalid, a less 
 hopeless look, and some evidence of more determined insight 
 in the glance, than she had marked for a considerable periud. 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford was sitting with his chair drawn 
 up reasonably close in front of his cousin, and conversing 
 eagerly with him, yet with his face partially turned away most 
 of the time, and not meeting his gaze directly as most honest 
 and earnest men do the observation of those with whom they 
 converse on important subjects. Perhaps that disposition 
 of the Colonel's face gave both his seen and his unseen 
 listeners better opportunities for close study of his expression 
 than they might otherwise have enjoyed. 
 
 " I am sorry to say that things are not as we both wish 
 them to be, at West Falls," the young girl heard the Colonel 
 say. " Of course I am not less anxious than yourself to have 
 everything arranged and the property — " \ 
 
 " Ah, thero is some property involved, then ! and at West 
 Falls, of all the places in the world !» commented the unin- 
 vited listener, speaking to herself, and with her words very 
 carefully kept between her teeth, as was becoming under 
 such circumstances — always provided there could be any- 
 thing " becoming" about the affair. 
 
 " Uncle John," the Colonel went on to say, " seems to 
 have imbibed some kind of singular prejudice against your 
 mode of life in the city, if not against you, and Mary — " 
 
 " Humph 1 there is a ' Mary' — a woman in the case, as 
 well as the property," commented the listener. " Little 
 while as I have been here, the thing already begins to grow 
 interesting !" 
 
 ° Well, Mary ? what of her? Why does she answer my 
 letters no more ?" asked the invalid, calming his voice by an 
 evidently strong effort and speaking as the Colonel paused 
 
96 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 for an instant. " Does she too begin to share so bitterly in 
 the — in the — " 
 
 " In the prejudice ? I am sorry to say — yes,*' the Colonel 
 went on, " though I do not think that either of them could 
 give a reason. I tried to probe the matter a little when 
 there, but the old gentleman answered me so shortly that I 
 had no excuse to go on ; and Mary — " 
 
 "You did not say anything to her?" broke in the invalid, 
 with the same evident suppression in his voice. 
 
 " Of course not !" was the answer. " You know me, 
 Richard, I hope, and know that I would not have lost a 
 chance of saying anything in your favor — " 
 
 "Trust you for that! 11 was the mental comment of the 
 listener. " Wouldn't you glorify him ! Wouldn't you make 
 him blue and gold, with gilt edges ! I see you doing it !" 
 
 " — If I had any opportunity," concluded the Colonel. 
 
 " I should think not," said the invalid, his words so forced 
 from between his teeth that his interlocutor, had he been 
 less absorbed in his own calculations, must have noticed the 
 difference from his usual manner. 
 
 " Richard Crawford, you are beginning to wake, for you 
 know that man is lying — I see it by your eyes !" was the 
 comment of the young girl, this time. 
 
 " I am going to West Falls again in a few days — that is, 
 if we do not get orders for Washington," continued the Colo- 
 nel ; " and if I have your permission — as you are not likely 
 to be well enough to go out even by that time — I shall speak 
 to both on the subject, as it would be the world's pity if you 
 should be thrown out of so fine a property and the possession 
 of a girl who I believe once loved you, by false reports, or — " 
 
 " False reports ? eh ? who should have circulated false 
 reports?" asked the invalid, his face firing for a moment and 
 his voice temporarily under less command. But the mo- 
 mentary flush passed away, and it was only with the queru- 
 lous voice and petulant manner of sickness that he con- 
 cluded : "Eh, well, no matter; we will see about all that 
 by-and-by, when I get well." 
 
 " That is right — I am glad to hear you speak so hopefully," 
 said the Colonel. "All will be right, no doubt, when you 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 97 
 
 get well." Did he or did he not lay a peculiar stress on 
 Ike two words, as the old jokers used to do on a few others 
 when they informed the boya that the statue of St. Paul, in 
 the niche in the front of St. Paul's church, always came 
 down and took a drink of water from the nearest pump, when 
 it heard (he clock strike twelve ? If there was such an em- 
 phasis, did Richard Crawford hear and recognize it ? That 
 some one else in tho immediate vicinity did, and duly com- 
 mented upon it, is beyond a question. 
 
 " You must modulate your voice better than that, Colonel 
 Egbert Crawford, before you go on the stage 1" said the wild 
 girl. " You think he is dying — you mean he shall die — I 
 have an impression that I did not come here for nothing, 
 alter all !" 
 
 " And now," said the Colonel, rising, and taking out his 
 watch, " I must leave you. We have a recruiting meeting 
 
 at Hall at six, and I must be there without fail. Oh," 
 
 as if suddenly recollecting something comparatively unim- 
 portant, that had been overlooked in the pressure of more in- 
 teresting matter — " I had nearly forgotten. Your bandage — 
 is it all right ? I hope the Doctor and Bell have not found 
 out the secret, so as to laugh at what they would call our 
 superstition. Shall I renew it ? I believe I have some of 
 the preparation in one or another of my pockets," feeling in 
 one and then another, as if doubtful. " Ah, here it is," and 
 he took out from one of his pockets which he had hurriedly 
 gone over with his hands at least half a dozen of times, a 
 small blaGk box, four or five inches in length and perhaps two 
 in width by an inch deep. 
 
 Were Josephine Harris' eyes playing fantastic tricks with 
 her on that occasion ; or 'did she see, as that little black box 
 met the view, a momentary repetition of the suffering spasm 
 which had crossed the face of Richard Crawford half an hour 
 before, when she first suggested a conflict of interests between 
 them ? At all events the spasm, if such it was, passed away, 
 and he merely answered, languidly : 
 
 "Yes, thank you, Egbert — yes, if you please." 
 
 At this stage of the proceedings, had Josephine Harris 
 been a "real lady," or had she possessed any well-defined 
 
98 S H O U L D E B - B T K A P S. 
 
 sense of " propriety," she would have left her post of ob- 
 servation on the instant. For though the Colonel was par- 
 tially between her and the patient, she 6aw him open tho 
 little black box, take out a broad knife from his vest pocket, 
 and then proceed to other operations very improper for a 
 young lady to witness. She saw Richard Crawford unbutton 
 his vest, a little assisted by the Colonel. What followed sho 
 could not see, very fortunately. All that she could make out, 
 was that some sort of narrow white bandage seemed to have 
 been removed from the breast or stomach of the invalid — that 
 the Colonel took out a dark paste from the box with his knife, 
 spread a portion of it on the opened bandage, then re-folded 
 it and assisted in replacing it on the breast or stomach and 
 re-arranging the disordered clothing. This done, and the 
 box put back into his pocket, he took his cap and stooped 
 down to shake hands with Richard ; whereupon Josephine, 
 knowing that his way out would be through the parlor, 
 shoved the two doors together by a silent but very nervous 
 movement, and managed to escape from the room as silently, 
 before the Colonel's hand had yet been laid upon the glass 
 door to open it. 
 
 There were half a dozen unoccupied rooms on the next 
 floor, as she well knew, and up the stairs and into one of 
 these she bounded, her cheeks still more aglow than they had 
 been when she set out on her "reconnoissance," and her eyes 
 still more wild and startled, while a strange tremor creeping 
 at her heart told her that she had been witness to much more 
 than could yet be shaped into words or embodied even in 
 thought ! Poor girl ! — how her brain throbbed and how her 
 heart beat like ten thousand little trip-hammers 1 — the usual 
 and very proper penalty which we pay for an indiscretion ! 
 
SHOULDEK-bTKAPS. 99 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Introduction of tiie Contraband, with some Reflections 
 thereon — Three Months Before — Aunt Synchy and tub 
 Obi poisoning — A nice little Arrangement of Egbert 
 Crawford's. 
 
 Here it becomes necessary to pause and introduce a new 
 and altogether indispensable character. Not new to tho 
 world — sorrow for the world that it is not ! Not new to tho 
 country — wo to the country that it has filled so large a place 
 in its history J But something new in this veracious narra- 
 tion — the contraband. The negro must come in, by all means 
 and at all hazards. Time was when romances and even his- 
 tories could be written without such an introduction ; but 
 that time is past and perhaps past forever. " I and Napo- 
 leon," said the courier of Arves, relating some incident in 
 which he had temporarily become associated with the for- 
 tunes of the Great Captain ; and " I and the white man " may 
 Sambo say at no distant day, without presumption and with- 
 out outraging the dignity of position. It was a very harm- 
 less monster that Frankenstein constructed, apparently ; but 
 it grew to be a very fearful and tyrannical monster before he 
 w:is quite done with it. No doubt the first black face that 
 grinned on the Virginian shoro, a couple of centuries ago, 
 seemed more an object of mirth than of terror — and it certainly 
 gave promise of profit. But he is a man of mirthful disposition 
 who sees anything to laugh at in tho same black face, grown 
 older and broader and much less comical, on the shore of tho 
 same Virginia to-day. The white race and the black — the 
 sharp profile and the broad lip — the springing instep and the 
 protuberant heel — have been having a long tussle, with the 
 probabilities for a while all on the side of the white : to-day 
 the struggle is doubtful if not decided in favor of the black. 
 " Here we go, up — up — uppy ! Here we go, down — down 
 — downy l» the children used to sing when playing see-saw 
 with a broad plank on the fence ; and they understood, what 
 their elders sometimes forget — that the rebound of extreme 
 
100 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 height is descent. One more illustration, before this train of 
 thought necessarily ecu 
 
 Is it not recorded in all the books of relative history, that 
 the Normans, under William the Conqueror, invaded and 
 subjugated Saxon England and made virtual slaves of the 
 unfortunate countrymen of Harold ? Yet who were the con- 
 quered eventually ? England was Saxon within fifty years 
 of Hastings : England is Saxon to-day. The broad bosom 
 of the Saxon mother, even when the sire of her child WIS I 
 ravisher, gave out drops of strength that moulded it in spite 
 of him, to be at last her avenger and his master ! The Saxon 
 pirate still sweeps the seas in his descendants : the Norman 
 robber is only heard of at long intervals when he meets his 
 opportunity at a Balaklava. The revenges of history are 
 fearful; and if the end of human experience is not reached 
 in our downfall, other races will be careful never to rivet a 
 chain of caste or color, or so to rivet it that no meddling 
 fingers of fanaticism can ever unloose the shackle ! 
 
 Perhaps it is proper as well as inevitable that the negro 
 should have changed his place and mounted astride of the 
 national neck instead of being trodden under the national 
 foot. Everything else in our surroundings has changed — 
 why not he ? We do not yet quite understand the fact — it 
 may be ; but the foundations of the old in society have been 
 broken up as effectually, within the past two years, as were 
 those of the great deep at the time of Noah's flood. The old 
 deities of fashion have been swept away in the flood of revo- 
 lution. The millionaire of two years ago, intent at that time 
 on the means by which the revenues from his brown-stone 
 houses and pet railroad stocks could be spent to the most 
 showy advantage, has become the struggling man of to-day, 
 intent upon keeping up appearances, and happy if diminished 
 and doubtful rents can even be made to meet increasing taxes. 
 The struggling man of that time has meanwhile sprung into 
 fortune and position, through lucky adventures in govern- 
 ment transportations or army-contracts ; and the jewelers of 
 Broadway and Chestnut Street are busy resetting the dia- 
 monds of decayed families, to sparkle on brows and bosoms 
 that only a little while ago beat with pride at an added weight 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 101 
 
 of California paste or Kentucky rock-crystal. The most 
 showy equipages that (lashed last summer at Newport and 
 Saratoga, were never seen between the bathing-beach and 
 
 F.»rt Adams, or between Congress Spring and the Lake, in 
 the old days; and on the " Dinorah" nights at the Academy* 
 there have been new faces in the most prominent boxes, 
 almost as outre and unaccustomed in their appearance as 
 was that of the hard -featured Western President, framed in 
 a shock head and a turn-down collar, meeting the gaze of 
 astonished Murray Hill, when he passed an hour there on 
 his way to the inauguration. 
 
 Quite as notable a change has taken place in personal 
 reputation. Many of the men on whom the country depended 
 as most likely to prove able defenders in the day of need, 
 have not only discovered to the world their worthlessness, 
 but filled up the fable of the man who leaned upon a reed, 
 by fatally piercing those whom they had betrayed to their 
 fall. Bubble-characters have burst, and high-sounding phrases 
 have been exploded. Men whose education and antecedents 
 should have made them brave and true, have shown them- 
 selves false and cowardly — impotent for good, and active only 
 for evil. Unconsidered nobodies have meanwhile sprung 
 forth from the mass of the people, and equally astonished 
 themselves and others by the power, wisdom and courage 
 they have displayed. In cabinet and camp, in army and 
 navy, in the editorial chair and in the halls of eloquence, the 
 men from whom least was expected have done most, and 
 those upon whom the greatest expectations had been founded 
 have only given another proof of the fallacy of all human cal- 
 culations. All has been change, all has been transition, in 
 the estimation men have held of themselves and the light in 
 which they presented themselves to each other. 
 
 Opinions of duties and recognitions of necessities have 
 known a change not less remarkable. What yesterday we 
 believed to be fallacy, to-day we know to be the truth. 
 What seemed the fixed and immutable purpose of God only 
 a few short months ago, we have already discovered to have 
 
 * December 1802. 
 
102 SHOULDEK-STKAPS. 
 
 been founded only in human passion or ambition. What 
 seemed eternal has passed awny, and what appeared to 
 be evanescent has assumed stability. The storm has been 
 racing around us, and doing its work not the less destruc- 
 tively because we failed to perceive that we were passing 
 through anything more threatening than a summer shower. 
 While we have stood upon the bank of the swelling river, 
 and pointed to some structure of old rising on the bank, 
 declaring that not a stone could be moved until the very 
 heavens should fall, little by little the foundations have been 
 undermined, and the full crash of its falling has first awoke 
 us from our security. That without which we said that the 
 nation could not live, has fallen and been destroyed ; and 
 yet we know not whether the nation dies, or grows to abet- 
 ter and more enduring life. What we cherished we have 
 lost ; what we did not ask or expect has come to us ; the 
 effete but reliable old is passing away, and out of the ashes 
 of its decay is springing forth a new so unexpected and so 
 little prepared for that it may be salvation or destruction as 
 the hand of God shall rule. The past of the nation lies with 
 the sunken Cumberland in the waters of Hampton Roads ; 
 its future floats about in a new-fangled Monitor, that may 
 combat and defeat the navies of the world or go to the bottom 
 with one inglorious plunge.* And this general transition 
 brings us back to the negro, whose apotheosis is after all 
 only a part of the inevitable, and may be only the flash before 
 his final and welcome disappearance. 
 
 Our contraband is a woman, and she comes upon the 
 scene of action in this wise, retrospectively. 
 
 Some three months before the events recorded in the pre- 
 ceding chapters, to wit about the middle of March, Egbert 
 Crawford, Tombs lawyer, doing a thriving business in the 
 line especially affected by such gentry, and not yet elevated 
 to a Colonel's commission in the volunteer army by the 
 parental forethought of Governor Edwin D. Morgan, — had 
 occasion to visit that portion of Thomas Street lying between 
 West Broadway and Hudson. The locality is not by any 
 
 * Written three days before the foundering of the Monitor off 
 Hatteras, Dec. 31st 1862. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 103 
 
 means a pleasant one, either for the eyo or the other senses, 
 and the character of the street is not materially improved by 
 the recollection of the Ellen Jewett murder, which occurred 
 on the south side, within a few doors of Hudson. Garbage 
 left Unremoved by Hackley festers alike on pavement, side- 
 walk and gutter ; and a mass of black and white humanity 
 (the former predominating) left unremoved by the civilization 
 of New York in the last half of the nineteenth century, 
 festers within the crazy and tumble-down tenements. Colored 
 cotton handkerchiefs wrapping woolly heads, and shoes 
 slouched at the heel furnishing doubtful covering to feet 
 redolent of filth and crippled by disease — alternate with the 
 scanty habiliments of black and white children, brought up 
 in the kennel and reduced by blows, mud and exposure to a 
 woful similarity of hue. The whiskey bottle generally ac- 
 companies the basket with a quart of decayed potatoes, from 
 the grocery at the corner ; and even the begged calf 's-liver 
 or the stolen beef-bone comes home accompanied by a flavor 
 of bad gin. It is no wonder that the few shutters hang by 
 the eye-lids, and that even the wagon-boys who vend ante- 
 diluvian vegetables from castaway wagons drawn by twenty- 
 shilling horse-frames, hurry through without any hope in the 
 yells intended to attract custom. 
 
 Any observer who should have seen the neatly-dressed 
 lawyer peering into the broken doors and up the black stair- 
 cases of Thomas Street, would naturally have supposed his 
 visit connected with some revelation of crime, and that he 
 was either looking up a witness whose testimony might be 
 necessary to save a perilled burglar from Sing Sing, or taking 
 measures to keep one hidden who might have told too much 
 if brought upon the witness-stand. And yet Egbert Craw- 
 ford was really visiting that den of black squalor with a very 
 different object — to find an old darkey woman who was re- 
 ported as living in that street, and in his capacity as one of 
 the eleven hundred and fifty Commissioners of Deeds of the 
 City and County of New York, to procure her " V A mark " 
 and take her acknowledgment in the little matter of a quit- 
 claim deed. A very harmless purpose, in itself, certainly ; 
 and yet the observer might have been nearer right in his 
 
10-i SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 suspicion than even the lawyer himself believed, when the 
 whole result of the visit was taken into account. 
 
 One of the ricketty houses on the south side of the street, 
 nut far from the Ellen Jewett house, and not much further 
 from the equally celebrated panel-house which furnished the 
 weekly papers with illustrations of that peculiar speci 
 man-trap a few years ago — seemed to the seeker to hear out 
 the description that had been given him. The door was wide 
 open, and all within appeared to be a sort of dark cabin out 
 of which issued occasional sounds of quarrelling- voices and 
 continual pull's of fetid air foul enough to sicken the strongest 
 stomach. He went in. as one of the lost might go into 
 Pandemonium, impelled by an imperious necessity. He 
 mounted the ricketty and creaking stair, with the bannister 
 half gone and the steps groaning beneath his tread as if they 
 contained the spirits of the dead respectability that had left 
 them half a century before. He had been told that the old 
 woman lived on the third floor, and though he met no one he 
 concluded to dare the perils of a second ascent, in spite of 
 the landing place being in almost pitchy darkness. Rushing 
 along with a hasty step that even the gloom could not make 
 a slower one, he felt something bump against his knees and 
 the lower part of his body, and then something human fell to 
 the floor with a crash that had the jingling of broken crockery 
 blended with it. 
 
 "Boo ! hoo ! hoo ! e-e-e-gh ! Mammy ! Mammy!" yelled a 
 voice. "Boo! hoo ! hoo! e-e-e-gh ! Mammy! Mammy!" and 
 Crawford could just discern that he had run over and par- 
 tially demolished a little negro boy carrying a pitcher, the 
 pitcher and the boy seeming to have suffered about equally. 
 Neither of them had any nose left, to speak of; and the little 
 imp did not make any effort to rise from the floor, but lay 
 there and yelled merrily. The victor in the collision did not 
 have much time for inspection, for the moment after a door at 
 the back end of the passage opened hurriedly, and a hideous 
 old negro woman came rushing out, with a sputtering frag- 
 ment of lighted tallow-candle in her hand, and exclaiming : 
 
 " What's de matter, Jeffy ? Here am Mamma I" 
 
 " Big man run'd ober me 1 broke de pitcher ! Boo ! hoo 1 
 
SIIOULDEK-STRAPS. 105 
 
 hoo !" yelled the black atom in reply, without any additional 
 effort at getting- up. 
 
 " Get out ob dar ! d — n you, I run'd ober you, mind dat I" 
 screeched out the old woman, catching sight of the dark 
 form of Crawford. " llurtin' leetle boys! — I pay you for it, 
 honey !" 
 
 " I hit him accidentally," said the lawyer, who had no in- 
 tention of getting into a row in that "negro quarter." "It 
 was dark, and I did not see him. I'll pay for the pitcher." 
 
 " Will you, honey ?" said the old woman, mollifying in- 
 stantly. " Well den, 'spose you couldn't help it. Get up, 
 Jelly." 
 
 " Can you tell me whether Mrs. lives on any of the 
 
 floors of this house ?" asked Crawford. 
 
 11 Nebber mind dat, till you gib me de money !" answered 
 the old woman, not to be diverted by any side-issues. " Dat 
 are pitcher cost a quarter, honey !" 
 
 Crawford was feeling in his pocket for one of the quaiters 
 that yet remained in that receptacle, preparatory to going 
 out of circulation altogether,— when the old crone, eager for 
 the money, stuck her candle somewhat nearer his face than it 
 had before been held. Instantly her withered face assumed 
 a new expression of intelligence, and her hand shook so that 
 she almost dropped the candle, as she cried : 
 
 11 Merciful Lord and Marser ! If dat are ain't young Eg- 
 bert Crawford !" 
 
 " My name is certainly Egbert Crawford !" said that indi- 
 vidual, very much surprised in his turn. " But who are you 
 that know me V\ 
 
 " Don't know his ole Aunt Synchy 1" exclaimed the old 
 woman. 
 
 11 Aunt Synchy ! Aunt Synchy !" said the lawyer, trying 
 to recollect the past very rapidly, and catching some glim- 
 mers. " What ? Aunt Synchy that used to live at — " 
 
 " Used to live at old Tom Crawford's. Lor bress you, yes ! 
 Why come in, honey !" and before the lawyer could answer 
 further, he was literally dragged through the dingy door by 
 the still vigorous old woman, and found himself inside her 
 
106 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 apartment, Master Jeffy and his pitcher being left neglected 
 on the entry floor. 
 
 Once within the door, and in the better light afforded even 
 by the dingy windows, Crawford had a better opportunity to 
 observe the old woman, and he now found no difficulty in 
 recalling something more than the name. She might have 
 been sixty-five or seventy )-ears of age, to judge by the 
 wrinkles on her face and the white of her eyebrows, though 
 her hair was hidden under a gaudy and dirty cotton plaid 
 handkerchief and her tall form seemed little bowed by age. 
 Two coal-black eyes, showing no diminution of their natural 
 fire, gleamed from under those white eyebrows ; and on the 
 portions of the cheeks yet left smooth enough to show the 
 texture of the skin, there were deep gashes that had once 
 been the tattooing of her barbarian youth and beauty. Her 
 hands were withered, much more than her face, and seemed 
 skinny and claw-like. Her dress, which had once been plaid 
 cotton gingham, was fearfully dirty and unskilfully patched 
 with other material ; and the frayed silk shawl thrown around 
 her old shoulders might have been rescued from a rag-heap 
 in the streets to serve that turn. 
 
 The room, as Crawford readily noticed, was almost as re- 
 markable in appearance as the old woman herself. There 
 was nothing singular in the bare floor, the pine table and two 
 or three broken chairs ; for something very like them, or 
 worse, can be found in almost every miserable tenement where 
 virtue struggles or vice swelters, in the slums of the great 
 city. Neither was there anything notable in the smoke- 
 greased walls and ceiling, the miserable fireplace with one 
 cracked kettle and a red earthen bowl, and the wretched bed 
 of rags stuck away in one of the corners, on which evidently 
 both the old crone and Master Jeffy made their sad pretence 
 at sleep. 
 
 But what really was singular in the appearance of the 
 apartment, and what Crawford noted at once, although he 
 did not allude to it until afterwards, was — first, a ghastly 
 attempt at painting, hanging behind the chimney, represent- 
 ing a death's-head and cross-bones, which might have been 
 executed by an artist in whitewash, on a ground of black 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 107 
 
 muslin. Second, a hanging shelf in one corner, with a dozen 
 or two of dingy small bottles and vials, and a rod lying 
 across it, apparently made from a black birchen switch, 
 peeled in sections. Third, and most important of all, a 
 string of twine suspended from one side of the room to the 
 other, in front of the fire-place and near the ceiling, and hung 
 with objects that required a moment to recognize. Among 
 them, when closely examined, could be found two or three 
 bats, dried ; a string of snake's eggs, blackened by being 
 smoked ; a tail and two legs of a black cat ; a bunch of the dried 
 leaves of the black hellebore ; a snake's skin — not the " shed- 
 der" or superficial skin, but the cuticle itself, peeled from the 
 writhing reptile ; two objects that might have been spotted 
 toads, run over by wagons until thoroughly flattened — then 
 dried ; and one object which could not well be anything 
 more or less than the hand of a child a few weeks old, cut 
 off just above the wrist and subjected to some kind of em- 
 balming or drying process. 
 
 The purposes of this narrative do not require the recording 
 of all the conversation which took place between the Tombs 
 lawyer and Aunt Synchy, when the latter had dusted off one 
 of the miserable chairs and forced the former down into it, 
 taking another herself, sitting square in front of him, and 
 thrusting her face so close into his that the withered features 
 seemed almost plastered against his own. It is enough to 
 say that that conversation corroborated the suspicion which 
 the first words of the crone would have engendered — that 
 Aunt Synchy, in her younger days, had been a slave in the 
 Crawford family, in a neighboring State where the institution 
 had not yet been entirely abolished — and that, at last manu- 
 mitted by a mistaken kindness, she had finally wandered 
 away to the crime and misery of negro life in the great city. 
 She retained, as people of that feudal class always do, a vivid 
 recollection of her early life and of all the residents of the 
 section where she had lived ; and Egbert Crawford, who was 
 in the habit of putting many questions to others, was not in 
 the habit of answering quite so many as the old woman put 
 to him concerning the intermediate histories of the families 
 7 
 
108 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 of which she had now lost sight for more than a quarter of a 
 century. 
 
 In this conversation it became apparent, too, that Thomas 
 Crawford, the father of Egbert, had been the quasi owner of 
 Synchy, and that she retained for the son something of that 
 singular attachment which appears to be inseparable from any 
 description of feudality. Thomas Crawford, it would appear; 
 had had two brothers, Richard, tbe father of the present 
 Richard Crawford and of John, the soldier, both Thomas and 
 Richard being then dead and their families in the country 
 broken up. Another brother, John, had become very 
 wealthy, and appeared to be living, with Mary, an only 
 daughter, at West Falls, in the Oneida Valley. Finally, it 
 became quite apparent that the old crone, whatever her 
 attachment to the family of Thomas Crawford, did not hold 
 the same feudal regard for some of the other members of the 
 family — in short, that she had retained the memory of certain 
 supposed early slights and injuries, quite as closely as she 
 had done the softer and more grateful sentiments towards 
 others. 
 
 " So Dick am rich, am he, honey ? an you am poor ? Tut ! 
 tut ! dat is too bad for de son of ole Marser Tom !" said the 
 old crone, after the lapse of half an hour in which both 
 tongues had been running pretty rapidly. 
 
 "He is," said Crawford, his face expressing no strong 
 sense of satisfaction at the recollection. "He bought 
 property in the new parts of the city, twelve or fifteen years 
 ago, and the rise has been so great that it has made him rich. 
 He is now living on Murray Hill, in style, though, d — n 
 him I" and the face now was very sinister indeed, " he has 
 been attacked with inflammatory rheumatism and confined 
 for some weeks to his house, so that I don't think he enjoys 
 it all very much." 
 
 " An Uncle John's big property," the old woman went on — 
 " Dick is to have all dat, too, you tink ?" 
 
 " Yes, and Mary," answered Crawford. " Mary is a pretty 
 little girl, and worth as much as all the property. Dick has 
 managed to get around the old man, somehow, and if I can't 
 stop it — " 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 109 
 
 "Eh, yes, if you can't stop 'urn !" said the old crone, rub- 
 bing her skinny hands together as if this, at least, pleased her. 
 u lias you tried, honey ?" 
 
 Egbert Crawford, Tombs lawyer, as has before been said, 
 was much more in the habit of putting others under close 
 cross-examination, than allowing himself to be subjected to 
 the same sifting process. But whether he had his own 
 motives for telling the old woman the truth, or whether he 
 saw that those coal black old eyes were looking through him 
 and divining all that he wished or intended — he certainly 
 submitted to the question and told the truth, in the present 
 instance : 
 
 " Yes, d — n him once more !" 
 
 " You want Mary and de property bofe ?" asked the old 
 woman again. 
 
 "Both !" answered the lawyer, after one more instant of 
 hesitation and one more glance into the coal black eyes. " I 
 don't care if you know all about rU— you daren't betray me, 
 for your life I" 
 
 " Don't want to, honey !" was all the old woman's reply; 
 and the lawyer went on : 
 
 " I have been twice up at West Falls since Dick was taken 
 ill, and I think I^have set some reports in circulation there, 
 that may make Miss Mary hesitate, if they do not change the 
 old man's will. How will that do, Aunt Synchy — you old 
 black anatomy ? Eh ?" 
 
 " Spose I am an 'atomy," said the old woman, apparently 
 rather pleased with the epithet than otherwise. " But Lor' 
 bread you, chile, dat won't do at all I You ain't ole enough 
 yet !" and there was an unmistakable sneer on the withered 
 black face, to think that any body could be so verdant. 
 
 " Ah !" said Egbert Crawford, who neither liked the sneer 
 nor the intimation. " What more could I do, I should like 
 to know?" 
 
 What was it that Jeremy Taylor said — that old silver- 
 tongued Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore, in Ireland ? 
 — " Xo disease cometh so much with our breath, drinking 
 from the infected' lips of others, as with the vessels of our 
 
110 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 own bodies that are ready to receive it." Shakspeare saya 
 the same thing of mirth, when he records that 
 
 *' A jest's prosperity lies in the ear 
 Of him that hears it, never in the tongue 
 Of him that makes it." 
 
 Artemus Ward, when he sets whole audiences into broad 
 roars of laughter over his odd conceits of " carrying pepper- 
 mint to General Price" or " going to be measured for an 
 umbrella," may doubt the truth of this assertion ; and Lester 
 Wallaek or Xed Sothern, when inspiring chuckles that almost 
 threaten the life, may share in the infidelity : but let all these 
 remember that their audiences come to be amused, and that 
 their best drolleries might fall very flat indeed at a Quaker 
 meeting or in a hospital devoted to men with the jumping 
 tooth-ache ! The conditions of Crime are like those of 
 Disease and Mirth — the patient must be ready before the 
 inoculation can take place. Eve was unquestionably wishing 
 for a break in the already dull routine of her life in Eden, 
 before the Serpent dared to make his appearance ; and 
 Arnold had some treason crudely floating through his mind, 
 even if not that particular treason, before the overtures of 
 the British commander led him to the attempted betrayal of 
 the Key" of the Highlands. Egbert Crawford, Tombs lawyer, 
 when he said to Aunt Synchy, " What more could I do, I 
 should like to know ?" meant to be understood as asserting 
 that nothing more was in his power ; but there was really in 
 his heart the wish for aid in some higher crime to effect his 
 purposes ; and the tempter came ! 
 
 " All dat goin' away from you, and nobody in de way but 
 dat miserable chile !" was the only comment of the old wo- 
 man on Crawford's last question. 
 
 " So I suppose," was the puzzled answer. 
 
 "Why don't you have a good doctor for him, honey!" 
 asked the old woman, next. 
 
 "A good doctor?" queried Crawford, still more puzzled. 
 " Why curse it, woman, what are you talking about? Won't 
 he get well too soon, now, and perhaps be up at West 
 Falls before I am more than half ready for him ?" 
 
SHOULDER -STRAP 3. Ill 
 
 " Oh, you poor chile— you don't half understan' dis ole 
 woman I" chuckled the crone, delighted to find that she had 
 puzzled the lawyer. " Spose de good doctor so good that he 
 nebber get well ? Eh, honey ?" 
 
 " What ? poison F" broke out the lawyer, catching at the 
 old woman's meaning so suddenly that he could not quite 
 control his voice. 
 
 " Hush-h-h ! you fool !" hissed the old woman, rising at 
 once, hobbling to the door and opening it suddenly — then 
 closing it and returning to her chair. " You call yourself a 
 lawyer, honey, and do such things as dat 'are ? Done you 
 know dem policers are sneakin' aroun' ebbery where, up de 
 si airways as well as ebbery where else ? An if one of dem 
 happened to hear you speak such w*ords, dis ole woman take 
 a ride up to de Islan' in de Black Maria, and you go to de 
 debbil, sure ! Know all about 'em, honey — been dare afore !" 
 
 " Humph !" said the lawyer, nevertheless using lower voice 
 even for the disclaimer. " jSo danger, Aunty, I guess ! 
 There are no policemen now-a-days — only Provost-Marshal 
 Kennedy's spies, looking for traitors. But what do you 
 mean ? — that I should get a doctor to — to — put him out of 
 the way ?" 
 
 ° Pats jes it, honey !" said the old woman, again rubbing 
 her hands. " He is in de way — put him out and have de ole 
 man's money." 
 
 " Impossible !" spoke Egbert Crawford, in a tone which 
 would have told a close observer — and probably told the old 
 woman— that he only meant : " I do not see how to do it." 
 
 " Give urn somefin," graphically said the crone. 
 
 u What !" spoke the lawyer, almost in as loud a tone as he 
 had before used, and rising from his chair in apparent indig- 
 nation. 
 
 " Sit down, honey," said the old woman, with the same 
 sneer in her voice that had before been apparent. " Oh, I 
 know you is a good man and wouldn't do nuffin to hurt 
 Cousin Dickey. Didn't kill his dog, nor nuffin, did you, 
 honey, a good wile ago, jes because you didn't like him. 
 Don't do nuffin now, if you don't want to ! Let him have 
 de girl, an de ole man's money, an — " 
 
112 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 "Woman!" said Egbert Crawford, rising altogether this 
 time, and pacing the floor like a man a good deal unquieted. 
 u I hate Dick Crawford, and you know it. I want Uncle 
 John's money and I want Mary, and he is in my way in both 
 cases. You may as well know the whole truth — I hate him 
 enough to 'put him out of the way,' as we Lave both called 
 it, but the thing is impossible. Any doctor to whom I should 
 speak would have me arrested at once, for though they poison 
 they do not wish to be suspected of such operations ; and 
 there is no other way. He will get well and go up to West 
 Falls, and then all is over !" and the lawyer sunk his head 
 on his breast as if lie had been the most ill-used of indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 "Not while your ole Aunty libs, Mareer Egbert, if you dar 
 do what she tells you !" 
 
 The words struck some chord previously active in the 
 brain of Crawford. He glanced up at the string of articles 
 on the line of twine, then stopped short in his walk, before 
 the old woman. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Oh, you see dem tings, and you is coming to it, is you, 
 honey !" chuckled the crone. " You 'member what Aunt 
 Synchy is, now ?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember," said Crawford, "though 1 forget the 
 name. You are an — Ogee — Odee — no, — " 
 
 "An Obi woman!" said the crone, rising and stretching 
 herself to her full height, with a look that was commanding 
 in spite of her squalor. "You 'member somefin, but not 
 much. We be great people in Jamaica. Up in de hills 
 'bove Spanish Town, we are de kings and de queens. De 
 great Obi spirit come down to us, when de moon am at its 
 last quarter, an he tell us how to cure and how to kill. We 
 mix de charm at midnight, wid de great Obi 'pearin' to us 
 all de time in de smoke dat rises from de kettle, an de secert 
 words all de time a mutterin' ; and de charm works, an kills 
 or cures 'way off hunerds of miles, 'cordin' as we want urn 
 fortour friens or our enemies. Does you hear, honey ?" 
 
 " I hear !" said Egbert Crawford, for the moment absorbed 
 if not fascinated by the developments of this real or affected 
 
S II O U h D B It - 8 T U A P S. 113 
 
 superstition ; but not carried away, it may be believed, from 
 the influence which this hideous old woman might be able to 
 exert on his own fortunes. 
 
 " Mammy — you don't 'member ole Mammy ?" — the old 
 woman went on. " Captain Lewis brought Mammy an me 
 from Jamaica more'n fifty years ago. She mus' have died 
 when you was a little picanninny. She was de great Obi 
 woman, de queen of dem all ; and sho tole me afore she died, 
 so's 1 could do mos'as much. Many's de lub potion Mammy 
 an me has mixed up, dat has made some ob de wite bosoms 
 fuller afore dey was done w r orkin ; and many's de charm — " 
 
 "Poh! nonsense! don't say 'charm'; call it 'dose' !" broke 
 in the lawyer, at last impatient. " I believe you can kill, 
 whether you can cure or not, Aunt Synchy ; but I am a man, 
 with some experience in the world, and I don't believe in 
 your Obi. All your dead cats and babies' hands and snakes 
 yonder, are just so many tricks to influence the superstitious. 
 / know better, and they don't influence me /" 
 
 " Oh, dey doesn't, eh, honey ? You is too smart an don't 
 believe in de Obi ?" For the moment her face was lowering 
 and threatening — then it changed again to the same wrinkled 
 Sphynx as before. " Nebber mind — you is my boy, an I lubs 
 you, an so you 'suit de ole woman widout de Obi payin' you 
 for it! Call it ' dose,' then, honey — many's de dose dat dese 
 hana have mixed, dat has made de coffin-maker hab some fin 
 to do and sent de property where it belonged." 
 
 u I believe you !" was the laconic comment of Egbert 
 Crawford, when the crone, spite of his interruptions, had 
 finished her long rigmarole. What followed may quite as 
 Well be imagined as described. Richard Crawford was 
 doomed to be operated upon by one of those insidious and 
 deadly vegetable poisons, outwardly applied, in which none 
 have such horrible skill as the crones of the African race who 
 hare derived their knowledge from the "West India Islands. 
 Whether it should be brought near the head by concealment 
 in a pillow, or near the more vital portions of the body itself 
 through use of a bandage worn near the skin, — the effect 
 would be the same — insensible debilitation, decline, death ! 
 But the latter plan would be much the more rapid ; and in 
 
114 S II O U L D E 11 - S T K A P S. 
 
 neither event, when the deed wu done, would there be one 
 mark, perceptible even to the dissecting surgeon, telling that 
 other than natural decay had brought about dissolution. 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards, Aunt Synchy was busy compound- 
 ing a black jiasle, from various preparation.- which she found 
 among the vials on the shelf and under one corner of the 
 heap of rags which she called her bed — crooning all the 
 while a dismal attempt at a tune which made even the not- 
 over-sensitive lawyer shudder, and putting the mixture at 
 last into his hands with a " Lor' bress you, honey !" which 
 might have made any one shudder if he had understood the 
 connection. Fifteen minutes later, the Tombs lawyer left 
 Thomas Street, without the information of which he had 
 originally come in search, but his mind now full of other 
 things, and bearing in his mind the mental label of the pre- 
 scription : " to be used as directed." 
 
 So vice buds into crime whenever opportunity offers, and 
 the Hazaels of the world, who have believed that they never 
 could be brought to " do this thing," pursue it with an energy 
 and determination shaming the efforts of older offenders. 
 Yesterday only an illicit lover : to-day the destroyer of chil- 
 dren unborn 1 Yesterday only an ordinary scoundrel : to- 
 day the worst and most deadly of all murderers — the poi- 
 soner ! 
 
 Three months later — to wit, toward the close of June — 
 that state of affairs was existing at the house of Richard 
 Crawford, which has before been indicated. What was it, 
 indeed, that Josephine Harris had dimly discovered ? 
 
S HO U LDER-STil A I' S. 115 
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 Tin: Two Rivals at Judge Owen's — A Combat a la 
 outrange between the bancker and the wallace — 
 Almost a Challenge, and a Trial of Every-day 
 Courage. 
 
 Return we now to the somewhat too-long neglected Miss 
 Emily Owen and the other inmates and intimates of Judge 
 Owen's pleasant house near the Harlem River. 
 
 Some days had elapsed after the conversation between 
 Emily and Aunt Martha, bringing the time to the first of 
 J ul v and the commencement of that fire-cracker abomination 
 that was to culminate on the Fourth in a general distraction. 
 Some days had elapsed — as has already been noted ; and 
 judging by the person who sat nearest to Miss Emily Owen 
 in the faintly-lighted parlor, at about half past eight in the 
 evening, the Judge's praises of Col. Bancker and animad- 
 versions of Frank Wallace had not been without their effect 
 on the young girl. Both the rival suitors w r ere present, and 
 so was Aunt Martha ; but Frank Wallace made a some- 
 what dim and undefined picture as he sat near one of the 
 front windows, apparently observing the boys deep in the 
 mysteries of fire-crackers and torpedoes ; while the Colonel 
 was in altogether a better light as he sat near Emily and 
 nearly under the half-lighted chandelier. Emily w T as in- 
 dulging in the peculiarly American vice of rolling backward 
 and forward in a rocking-chair ; the Colonel had one leg over 
 the other and was drumming with the opened blade of his 
 penknife on the cover of the book he held in his hand ; and 
 Aunt Martha was ruining what eyes she had left, by some 
 kind of crochet-work in cotton that may possibly have been 
 a "tidy." 
 
 Frank and the Colonel had come in very nearly together, 
 yet not together, about half an hour before. Some little 
 conversation had ensued, but very little, for the rivals in- 
 stinctively hated each other, and Wallace could not manage 
 to string ten words in his rival's presence without throwing 
 
116 S II O U L D E B - S T B A P S. 
 
 hits at him in a manner decidedly improper. Perhaps Emily 
 had taken the Colonel's part a little, spite of her aversion to 
 him ; and the result was that Master Frank had fallen par- 
 tially into the sulks and gone off to the end of the room — 
 quite as for as he intended to go at that juncture, however. 
 
 The young man might be pardoned if he felt for the mo- 
 ment a little vexed. Though not forbidden the house of 
 Judge Owen, and treated with cold politeness when he en- 
 tered it (of course with one exception) — he knew very well 
 that he was an object of dislike to the portly Judge, and he 
 always endeavored so to time his visits that he might avoid 
 that parental potentate. That afternoon he had accidentally 
 seen the Judge (who had anticipated his summer vacation) 
 step on board the Hudson River cars, with Mrs. Owen, for a 
 day or two somewhere up the Hudson ; and he had very 
 naturally made his calculations upon a quiet evening with 
 Emily. And now to find the Colonel dividing the opportu- 
 nity with him — nay more, to find Emily even siding a little 
 with the valorous Colonel ! — it was too bad, was it not ? 
 
 Perhaps the young lover would not have fallen into his 
 partial sulks quite so easily, had he been aware that Col. 
 Bancker had announced his intention of being at the house 
 in the evening (as he had not), and that Emily had begged 
 her aunt to come down from her room and sit with her in 
 the parlor, on purpose to prevent the expected Colonel hav- 
 ing an opportunity for one word with her in private. But 
 these men are so unreasonable as well as so blind ! There is 
 no satisfying them, especially with the amount of attention 
 shown them by a woman whom they happen to fancv that 
 they love. Perhaps men do not grow actually jealous any more 
 easily than women, but they grow "miffed" and "hurt" a thou- 
 sand times easier — let the fact be recorded. There is one in- 
 stance on legendary record, of a woman who divided her hus- 
 band with another, at the time of the chivalrous adventures of 
 the Crusaders ; but the instance has not yet come to light of 
 the man who so divided his icife. Mormonism at the present 
 day shows the pitch even of fanatical tolerance to which the 
 female mind can be wrought in this direction ; while we have 
 yet to look for the corresponding instance on the other side, 
 
SIIOUL DE 11 -ST R A PS. 117 
 
 in whieh the women of a community appropriate to theni- 
 selves half a dozen or fifty husbands each, and the men con- 
 sent to the division. 
 
 This difference goes much farther even than the regulation 
 (can such a thing be regulated ?) of jealousy. Where no 
 jealousy exists, exclusiveness and the sense of propriety 
 comes into the account — again on the male side of the cal- 
 culation. Jones and his wife being both wall-flowers at any 
 evening party, Mrs. Jones did not feel aggrieved, but rather 
 proud, at Mrs. Thompson's reunion, that Jones went off for 
 an hour to pay the usual flirting attention to the wives of 
 half a dozen of his acquaintances ; while Jones colored 
 to the eyes and could scarcely be restrained from making a 
 fool of himself, because Robinson sat down in the vacant 
 chair beside his wife, and tried to be agreeable. And when 
 the Emperor and Lady Flora were at Niagara last summer, 
 it is not upon record that the lady made any objection to the 
 gentleman lingering an hour too late upon Goat Island with 
 that blonde-haired English girl who was such an unmistake- 
 able flirt, — while the gentleman went on like a madman on 
 the balcony of the Cataract, because Lady Flora ran away 
 for half an hour in broad daylight, to Prospect Point, with 
 an old friend of her father's, cefat fifty and incurably an in- 
 valid. Ah, well — so it has been from the days of the first 
 flirtation (always except that of Adam and Eve, when there 
 was neither male nor female rival in the neighborhood), and 
 so it will be to the last — with those arrogant, unreasonable, 
 unsatisfied ''lords of the creation." 
 
 A word of description of the two rivals, as yet unintro- 
 duced, who on that occasion sunned themselves in the eyes 
 of Emily Owen, though at such different distances from the 
 luminary. 
 
 Lt. Colonel John Boadley Bancker (let him have his full 
 name once more, for the honor of the service — be the same 
 more or less !) was a rather tall and slight man, gentlemanly 
 in appearance and action, but with an occasional dash of 
 swagger that somehow did not indicate courage, and the 
 undefinable impression of the "old beau." His face was 
 well-formed, except that the nose was too large and too 
 
118 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 prominently aquiline. He had faultlessly black side-whiskers 
 and hair correspondingly black — too black, Frank Wallace 
 said — not to have been "doctored" by Batchelor or Crist a- 
 doro, at least. The dark eyes were a little faded, and there 
 were crows-feet at the corners of the same eyes, for age has 
 its own way of telling its story, and not all of us who wish 
 to be young can alter the record in the old family Bible. In 
 dress Colonel Bancker presented no variation from the other 
 colonels of the volunteer service — wearing the full blue uni- 
 form, shoulder-straps and belts, with the number of his regiment 
 wrought in gold on the front of a broad brimmed hat lying 
 on a book-table near him. Xot an ill-looking man by any 
 manner of means, in spite of the violent antipathy for him 
 which Miss Emily had managed to transmute out of her 
 regard for Wallace. 
 
 "Age before beauty!" is a motto somewhat popular, so 
 the Colonel has had the preference. Frank Wallace, pro- 
 prietor of a small but thriving job-printing establishment 
 before spoken of, and would-be proprietor of the heart and 
 hand of Miss Emily Owen — was altogether a different style 
 of man from the puissant Colonel. As he lounged at the 
 window in his suit of loose-fitting gray Melton, he looked 
 very young indeed and created rather the impression of a 
 "little fellow." He probably fell at least three or four inches 
 short of the romantic six feet, in reality ; but was the owner 
 of a fine erect and well-rounded gymnastic form, not a little 
 improved by frequent visits to the Seventh Regiment 
 Gymnasium. A jolly round face with very fair complexion, 
 a merry blue eye, short, curly brown hair and a full moustache 
 somewhat darker, — made up the ensemble of the particular 
 person destined to be the torment of Judge Owen — and of 
 others. For Frank Wallace, be it understood, had other 
 penchants besides his attachment to pretty Emily — fun 
 being the other and leading propensity. He was a capital 
 mimic, an incorrigible banterer, and in any other company 
 than that of the woman he loved, and her family, the merriest 
 and most jocular soul alive. Sometimes when alone with 
 her, and with the "spooniness" which will attach to male 
 courtship before twenty-five, fairly shaken off, he could be a 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 119 
 
 gav, dashing and even a presuming lover. Just now he was 
 unamiable — not to say wicked, and ready for any use of his 
 glib tongue which could send the blue coat out of the house 
 at "double-quick." 
 
 It could not have been malice — it certainly must have been 
 want of thought — that induced Aunt Martha to break the 
 temporary silence with the remark, addressed to the Colonel : 
 
 " It is a funny question I am going to ask, I know, Colonel, 
 but I suppose I have an old woman's privilage. Mrs. Owen 
 and myself were talking about ages a day or two ago, and she 
 thought you were more than thirty-five. How old are you ?" 
 
 If half a paper of pins, with all the points upward, had 
 suddenly made their appearance in the bottom of the 
 Colonel's chair, he probably could not have been more dis- 
 comfited. What reason he had to be unquiet, will be more 
 apparent at a later period. He fidgetted a little and hemmed 
 more than once, before he replied : 
 
 " Humph ! hum ! Well, Madame, to tell you the truth, I 
 am a little on the shady side of extreme youth — old enough 
 to be through with my juvenile indiscretions — ha ! ha !" (The 
 laugh decidedly forced and feeble). "I am a little over 
 thirty-two — was thirty-two in March last." 
 
 " I thought so ! I was sure you could not be older than 
 that !" said Aunt Martha, in the most natural way in the 
 world, while Emily took a quick look round at the Colonel, 
 which said, much plainer than words : " Oh, what a bouncer !" 
 
 " No, Madame," added the Colonel, perhaps aware that fibs 
 require to be told over at least twice before they acquire the 
 weight of truths told once. " No, Madame, a fraction over 
 thirty-two, as I said." 
 
 At that moment the invisible influences, if they have good 
 cars, may have heard Frank Wallace getting up from his 
 chair, and muttering between his teeth something very like : 
 
 " Humph ! well, I cannot stand this any longer ! If I do 
 not succeed in making the house too warm to hold that re- 
 spectable individual, within ten minutes, I shall certainly 
 leave it myself!" Just then the words " thirty-two," from 
 the Colonel's lips, met his ear, and though he did not catch 
 the context, so as to know what it was all about, the spirit 
 
120 S II O U L D E II - S T R A P S. 
 
 of malicious (and it must be said, reckless) mischief, prompted 
 him to lounge leisurely forward and take a share in the con- 
 versation, although uninvited. 
 
 "Ah, Colonel, did I understand you to say thirty-two ?" 
 
 "Yes, I said thirty-two!" said the personage addressed, 
 with a stiffness contrasting very forcibly with the suavity of 
 his speech to Aunt Martha. Emily, who, as may be sup- 
 posed, knew Frank Wallace better than any other person in 
 the house, at that moment caught a glimpse of his face under 
 the chandelier, and saw that trouble was brewing. The sulk 
 had gone, and the badge?*, a much more dangerous devil in 
 society, had taken its place. Two antagonistic acids were 
 certainly coming together, and an explosion was very likely 
 to be the result. Yet what could the poor girl do, except to 
 wait the crash and be ready to act as peacemaker when the 
 worst came to the worst ? The one thing she would have 
 liked to do, was precisely the thing she dared not do for her 
 life — that was, to spring up, catch her young lover by the 
 arm, drag him out into the garden, pet him a good deal and 
 kiss him a very little, and send him home doubtful whether 
 lie was walking on his head or his heels — while her old beau 
 might spend the whole evening, if he liked, with Aunt 
 Martha. Millie would give her bright eyes to be able to do 
 the same thing with Tom, stately Madame mere, when all 
 she dares do in your presence is to sit still, answer in mono- 
 syllables, steal sly glances when you are not looking, and be 
 generally dull and stupid. "Would it not be well to let them 
 out occasionally, Madame mere, for half an hour's play, with 
 full consent and confidence, as they let out the colts in the 
 country ? Who knows but they might behave the better for 
 it, when out of your sight altogether ? Think of it, Madame 
 mere, and make public the result of your experiment ! But 
 all this is grossly irrelevant, and springs out of the fact that 
 Emily, who wished to drag Frank Wallace out of the danger 
 of an approaching melee, had not the power to do so. 
 
 "Indeed I always thought there were thirty-mwe /" said 
 the young scamp, in the most natural tone of surprise imagi- 
 nable, and in response to the Colonel's last "thirty-two." 
 
 " Thirty-nine ivhat, sir ?" asked the Colonel, with the same 
 
BEOULDSR-STBAFS. 121 
 
 sign of intense disgust upon his face that we have sometimes 
 seen on Harry Plaeide's, when playing Sir Hareourt Court- 
 Icy and uttering the words: "Good gracious! who was 
 addressing you f n 
 
 "Oh, I really beg pardon," replied the young man, in a 
 tone which meant that he did nothing of the kind. " I thought 
 1 heard Mrs. West and yourself speaking of the religious 
 aspects of the country, and that you were enumerating the 
 articles of faith." 
 
 '• Oh no, you were quite mistaken, Mr. -Wallace I" said 
 Aunt Martha, very calmly, while Emily directed an appealing 
 look at the scapegrace, which might as well have been a 
 putty pellet fired at the brown-stone Washington in the 
 Park, for any effect it produced. 
 
 " No sir, we were talking of nothing of the kind !" said the 
 Colonel, with that kind of severe dignity intended to convey : 
 "Thjs closes the conversation." 
 
 " Then of course it is my duty to beg pardon once more," 
 said the incorrigible. " But you might have been talking on 
 that subject, you know, without any impropriety. The reli- 
 gious aspects of the country are deplorable 1" throwing up 
 his hands and eyes in no bad imitation of Aminadab Sleek. 
 " Do you not think so, Colonel F" 
 
 "Sir!" said the Colonel, still more severely, "I had not 
 been thinking of the subject at all !" 
 
 "Oh yes," the scapegrace went on — "deplorable! War 
 desolating the country — all the restraints of society removed 
 or weakened — no Sabbath at all — gambling and libertinism 
 in the army and infidelity among the officers — Colonel, I 
 really hope you will excuse me ! of course I do not mean to 
 make any allusion to the present company — but I repeat that 
 the present religious aspects of the country are deplorable." 
 
 " And / repeat, sir," spoke the Colonel, with even more 
 severity than before, while Aunt Martha's face began to 
 assume an expression that might easily have deepened into a 
 smile, and Emily had serious trouble to keep from a broad 
 grin — "/repeat, sir, that we were not speaking of the reli- 
 gious aspects of the country at all !" 
 
 " Pshaw! of course not! How stupid I am!" said the 
 
122 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 tormentor, who had by this time dropped into a chair a little 
 behind the Colonel's left shoulder, where he could literally 
 talk into his ear. ** It was the number that deceived me, as 
 I heard it from the window. I should have known what 
 you were saying, at once. You are right in the remark that 
 had we had only thirty-two States instead of thirty-four, this 
 rebellion might never have occurred. Had South Carolina, 
 w r ith its rampant Calhounism, and Massachusetts with its 
 anti-slavery fanaticism, both been left out of the compact — " 
 
 "/must beg -pardon, now, for interrupting you, Mr. Wal- 
 lace," said Aunt Martha, with the calmest of voices and the 
 smile all smoothed away from her face. " You are mistaken 
 again. We were neither discussing religious nor national 
 affairs, when you were so kind as to come down and join 
 us." (Emphasis on the word " kind," which made the young 
 man wince a little and for the moment predisposed the Col- 
 onel to a chuckle.) " Colonel Baneker was saying — " 
 
 "Really, my dear Madame," put in the Colonel, "it is 
 scarcely necessary to repeat — " 
 
 " Oh, we have had quite enough of misconceptions," said 
 that estimable lady, with what appeared to be another shot 
 at Wallace. " Let us have the truth at last. I had the 
 impoliteness to ask Colonel Baneker his age, and he had the 
 courtesy to say that he was just turned of thirty-two." 
 
 " Pb-ph-ph-ph-ew !" came in a long whistle from the lips 
 of the tormentor. The Colonel sprung to his feet in an 
 instant, and looked angrily around. Frank Wallace was 
 quite on the other side of the room, examining a pastel over 
 the mantel, and wiiistling very slightly, but he was certainly 
 whistling the serenade from "Pasquali." 
 
 " Sir 1" said the Colonel, rage in the word. 
 
 " Meaning me V asked Wallace, turning around. 
 
 "Was that whistle intended for me, sir V demanded the 
 Colonel, tragically. 
 
 " Certainly not," answered Wallace. " I was directing my 
 whistle, which is not a good one, and certainly impolite in 
 company — at the cornice. The cornice is a handsome one, 
 you will notice, Colonel, and I think by Garvey. Those 
 festoons of roses — " 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 123 
 
 " Mr. Wallace, you shall answer to me for this !" broke out 
 tin- Colonel, now no longer master of himself. 
 
 " Gentlemen ! gentlemen I" said Aunt Martha, rising. 
 "Don't, Frank! for heaven's sake don't torment him any 
 more I" plead Emily, passing rapidly before her lover and 
 Bpetfkmg in a low tone. Whether he understood her is a 
 question to be settled between them at some future time. 
 " Don't !" is a very easy thing to say, when Niagara is pour- 
 ing or a herd of wild buffaloes sweeping down ; but if the 
 imploration is addressed to either of the moving bodies, it 
 may not win quick obedience. As the human temper is a 
 combination of the torrent, the herd, and all the other un- 
 manageable things in nature and beyond, "Don't!" even 
 from a voice that we love, with right and reason behind it, is 
 sometimes painfully powerless. There is no intention, on 
 the part of the narrator, of defending the previous or subse- 
 quent action of Mr. Frank Wallace on this occasion ; but 
 actual events must be recorded. 
 
 "Well sir, and what am I to answer ?" asked the young 
 man, without a quiver in his voice, but with much more 
 earnest in it than it had before manifested. 
 
 "You made an offensive comment on my veracity, by 
 whistling, a moment ago." 
 11 And what then, sir ?" 
 
 " That offensive comment shows that you doubt my vera- 
 city !" 
 
 " Gentlemen ! gentlemen !" again spoke Aunt Martha; and 
 poor Emily, now half frightened out of her wits, made one 
 more attempt at imploring her lover to be quiet. This done, 
 and both now aware that the tide, on one side at least, had 
 overflowed the bounds of all prudence, they desisted, stepped 
 back from between the rivals, and allowed the quarrel to 
 take its own course. 
 
 " And suppose I do doubt your veracity !" answered Wal- 
 lace to the last remark of the Colonel. "You call yourself 
 thirty-two ! Bah ! you are fifty, if you are ten !" The ob- 
 vious rage on the countenance of the Colonel did not stop the 
 torrent, now, nor even check it ! " Such fine crows'-feet under 
 the eyes, as those of yours, never come much before fifty, 
 
124: SHOULDER-STKAPS. 
 
 except in case of a nice round of brandy-smashes, late hours 
 and general dissipation, or — " 
 
 ''Well, sir, what is the orV broke out the Colonel, still 
 more furious. 
 
 "A severe course of early piety !" concluded the young 
 man, throwing a terrible sting into the tail of his sentence, not 
 less by the manner than the voice. 
 
 " You should answer for this, Mr. Wallace, as you call 
 yourself," foamed the Colonel — " but — " 
 
 "But ivhat, Lieut. Colonel Bancker — as you try to call 
 yourself?" thundered the young man, in reply. 
 
 " Oh, gentlemen ! gentlemen ! do stop, for the sake of the 
 house!" imploringly put in Aunt Martha at this period; 
 while Emily, seriously frightened, indulged in a few tears that 
 were no doubt set down to the account of her brute of a 
 lover, by the over-watching intelligences. But the quarrel 
 ceased not, even yet, at the bidding of either; and, marvel- 
 lous to relate, though the front windows were open and they 
 were speaking in a tone altogether too loud for the amenities 
 of society, a crowd had not gathered around the area railing 
 in front. 
 
 " But what V demanded the younger combatant. 
 
 "But that my sword, sir — " began the elder. 
 
 11 Oh, you have a sword, then !" sneered Wallace. u I 
 thought it was all belts /" 
 
 " I would chastise you for this, sir, severely," said the 
 officer, "but that my sword is sacred to the cause of tho 
 Union. When with my regiment, sir — " 
 
 "Yes, I know," again interrupted Wallace, who had his 
 own reasons for believing that the Colonel's regiment was 
 altogether a myth, as so many others have been — " Yes, I 
 know — the Eleven hundred and fifty-fifth Coney Island Thim- 
 ble-rig Zouaves !" 
 
 Human patience could stand this no longer. With one dash 
 for his hat and a surly " Good night, ladies !" coupled with 
 an intimation to Wallace : "You shall hear from me, sir !" 
 Lt. Colonel John Boadley Bancker (let him once more have 
 the full benefit of the name !) stiDde out of the parlor into the 
 hall, and was about to» vanish from the field. But as he 
 
.s II O U L D £ B-S T R A P S. 125 
 
 passed into the hull the hand of Aunt Martha was laid upon 
 his arm, and her voice — so much plcasanter than that of the 
 tormentor — sounded in his ear. The good aunt, whatever 
 might have been her wish to rid her niece of a match so re- 
 pugnant, certainly did not wish to produce the riddance in 
 this manner and to send the Colonel out of the house under 
 a sensation of outrage which could not fail to come to the 
 ears of her " big brother." So she passed into the hall with 
 the Colonel, leaving the young people behind her, — and 
 managed to detain the enraged man in the hall and on the 
 piazza for several minutes. It was not the first time, beyond 
 doubt, that she had made peace for others, however she might 
 have martyred her own. 
 
 " Oh, Frank ! what have you done I" exclaimed the young 
 girl, the moment they had passed out into the hall, her eyes 
 yet dim with the tears of anxiety she had been shedding ; but 
 in spite of her fear and even her mortification, laying her hand 
 in that of the reckless young scapegrace whom she truly 
 loved. " Father will hear of this — we shall be separated 
 altogether !" And again she repeated the expostulation of 
 all dairy-maids to all cats or children that have upset pans 
 of milk — " What have you done !" 
 
 ° What have I done 1" echoed the culprit, "Why merely 
 roasted a cowardly humbug who deserves nothing better, and 
 who has not spunk enough to resent it — that is all !" 
 
 M But besides my father's anger — I am afraid he may, 
 Frank," said the young girl, looking into her lover's face with 
 real anxiety. 
 
 " I only wish he would !" was the reply. 
 
 " Why, you do not mean to say that you would fight him T H 
 
 "With the sword, if he has one — no!" he said. "Not 
 with anything more dangerous than a piece of rattan. I 
 would not mind polishing off his dainty hide with that! Be- 
 sides, if I quarrelled with him, who made me? You 1 lie 
 sat too near you, and you not only talked with him but looked 
 at him. What business had you to look at him ? Eh ?" 
 
 " Oh, you cruel fellow !" said the young girl, not disposed 
 to Bcold more sharply, even at folly, when it had such a sedi- 
 ment of true love lying beneath the froth. 
 
126 S II OULDEK-S TRAPS 
 
 " Oh, you handsome torment !" was the reply of the lover, 
 as he took that one auspicious moment to enfold the young 
 girl in his arms and give her half a dozen warm, close, vo- 
 luptuous kisses full on the lips — such kisses as people should 
 never indulge in who do not know exactly the haven toward 
 which they are sailing. 
 
 " What are you doing now, impudence !" uttered the 
 thoroughly-kissed girl, making just so much resistance as 
 seemed becoming, and yet meeting her lover nearly enough 
 half-way to make the exercise rather exhilarating. 
 
 " What am I doing ? ' Locking up' a 'form' — you know I 
 am a printer !" said the young man, taking yet another 
 " proof" of affection. But here the alarmed reader will be 
 spared the succession of bad puns, peculiar to the printing- 
 office, with which this specimen was followed, and which has 
 probably been to some extent indulged in by every disciple 
 of Faust more or less in love, since Adam worked oil' the 
 first proof of his breakfast bill-of-fare, on the original hand- 
 press, in one corner of the Garden of Eden. 
 
 The young man was yet standing with his arm around the 
 waist of Emily, just within the door leading from the parlor 
 into the hall, and yet other farewell kisses and reproaches 
 might have been on the possible programme, — when both 
 were startled by a sharp scream from Aunt Martha, who was 
 yet standing on the piazza with the Colonel near her. 
 
 " Ough-ough-oh !" » 
 
 Wallace and Emily at once rushed to the front door, under 
 the belief that some sudden accident had befallen the lady ; 
 but at that moment there was a loud crash, followed by other 
 voices screaming ; and in the street, almost in front of the 
 door, a painful and threatening spectacle presented itself. 
 
 As afterwards appeared, when the various parties became 
 sufficiently collected to ascertain what had really happened — 
 a carriage had been coming along the street from the left, 
 driven rapidly, but with the pair of fine horses under good 
 command. Just before it reached the house of Judge Owen, 
 one of those troublesome boys who ought all to be sent to 
 Blackweirs Island from the twenty-fifth of June until the 
 tenth of July, had thrown a lighted "snake," or "chaser," 
 
SnOULDER-S TRAPS. 12* 
 
 under the belly of the near horse as he passed. The animals 
 had already become sufficiently frightened by the fire-crackers 
 thrown under them and the pistols exploding at their ears ; 
 and at this crowning atrocity they became altogether un- 
 manageable. Spite of the exertions of the practised driver, 
 they shied violently to the left, breaking into a run at the 
 same moment, and the next instant one side of the carriage 
 was whirled upon the curb, so that the hind axle and wheel 
 caught in the lamp-post, happily not tearing apart or over- 
 turning the vehicle, but bringing-up with such a shock that 
 the driver was hurled from his seat and thrown to the pave- 
 ment between the maddened horses. 
 
 This state of affairs had drawn the scream from Aunt 
 Martha, and at the instant when Wallace reached the door 
 the people in the carriage were screaming but incapable of 
 getting out, the horses were plunging to such a degree that 
 they must have broken loose in a moment, after making a 
 wreck of the carriage and trampling to death the poor fellow 
 who lay senseless under their feet. At the same time it 
 seemed worth a dozen lives to plunge into that storm of 
 lashing hoofs and do anything to rescue driver and riders 
 from their peril. 
 
 " Help ! help ! oh, save them ! — save the poor man — some- 
 body P* cried both the women on the piazza, at a breath ; and 
 " Help ! help !" rung in a woman's voice from the inside of 
 the carriage. Fifteen or twenty persons had already rushed 
 up, but no one seemed disposed to risk his. own life to save 
 others. The Colonel yet stood on one of the steps of the 
 piazza, apparently spell-bound. 
 
 " Colonel Bancker, you wanted to try courage with me a 
 little while ago : take hold of those horses, if you dare /" cried 
 Frank Wallace, rushing to the edge of the stoop. The 
 Colonel neither spoke nor stirred. " Coward !" they heard 
 the young man cry, and the next instant — how, none of them 
 knew — he had rushed in upon the horses' heads, spite of 
 their lashing hoofs, had one or both by the bridles, and in 
 an instant more both horses were flung prostrate and help- 
 less. The imminent danger over, some of the bystanders 
 rushed in to assist, the horses were more firmly secured, and 
 
128 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the poor driver was dragged out, bloody and half insensible, 
 but not seriously injured. One ready and daring hand had 
 .prevented the certain loss of one life, and the probable loss 
 of more. Fire-crackers, pistols and other abominations had 
 vanished from the street as if by magic ; the noise over, the 
 horses came again under command ; they were raised, and 
 horses, harness and carriage all found comparatively unin- 
 jured ; the disabled driver was taken to a neighboring drug- 
 store; one of the b}'standers volunteered to drive the carriage 
 to its destination, and took his seat on the box ; the owner 
 droned out his thanks from the inside of the carriage, in a 
 fat, wheezy voice, mingled with the sobs of a woman in 
 partial hysterics ; and the equipage rolled away almost as 
 suddenly as it had come — perhaps not five minutes having 
 been consumed in the whole affair. 
 
 Short as was the time occupied, the Colonel had disap- 
 peared. When the trouble was over he was no longer stand- 
 ing on the piazza. Frank Wallace had apparently been once 
 beaten down, and had some soiled spots on his Melton, and 
 a few bruises, but he had received no injury of any conse- 
 quence. For what violent and even dangerous exertion he 
 had undergone, he was unquestionably more than repaid 
 when Aunt Martha caught him by one hand and said 
 fervently, " God bless you !" and when Emily Owen took the 
 other hand with a warmer and fonder pressure than she had 
 ever given it before, and said — so low that probably not even 
 Aunt Martha heard her : " Good — brave — generous Frank ! — 
 I won't scold you again in a twelvemonth !" 
 
 All that Frank Wallace replied to both these generous 
 outbursts, was comprised in a snap of his fingers in the 
 direction supposed to have been taken by the Colonel, and 
 the words : 
 
 " Bah ! I told you that man was a coward and wouldn't 
 fight ! If he had not pluck enough to risk the feet of those 
 two horses, what would he do in the face of a charge of rebel 
 cavalry !" 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 129 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The First Week of July — A Chapter that should only* 
 
 BE READ BY THOSE WHO TlIINK THE DESPAIR OF THE SEVEN 
 
 D ays Battles — Shoulder-straps and Stay-at-Home Sol- 
 diers — An Incident of the Second. 
 
 The first week of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-two. 
 What a time it was ! — and who that took part in it, in any 
 portion of the loyal States to which the telegraph and the 
 newspaper had reached, can ever forget it ? Everything was 
 hopeless, blank despair — dull, dead desolation. Not even 
 the fatal Monday following the defeat of Bull Bun, when we 
 believed that all our New York troops had been cut to pieces 
 or fled ingloriously, produced the same total discouragement 
 in the great city. Bull Run was our first signal reverse — 
 the first blow from the rod of national chastisement, that was 
 afterwards to cut so deeply. Though that stroke pained, it 
 also fired ahd awakened ; and repeated blows had not yet 
 produced that weakness aud exhaustion so difficult to arouse 
 to any further effort. And we had not, at the same time, 
 passed through the repeated disasters of the few months 
 following, which stunned and hardened while they pained. 
 We were quite unprepared for the disaster, coming as it did 
 after several months of continued comparative victory (the 
 Austerlitz, Jena and Friedland period of the Lincoln Empire, 
 if it has had one) ; and the country felt it most keenly. 
 
 The heart of the nation had been bound up in McClellan. 
 The confidence and love reposed in him may have been man- 
 worship, without ground or reason, but it was no less real and 
 positive. While in the Command-in Chief, everything had gone 
 well, and the Butler and Burnside expeditions, the two great 
 successes of the war, had been planned %nd executed. On 
 the Army of the Potomac the people had looked as the 
 bulwark of the country — the central force that should in g'ood 
 time take Richmond and give the last blow to the rebellion. 
 The miserable bickering and paltry fears which had detached 
 McDowell's division from the grand army, to defend Wash- 
 
VoO SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 ington when never threatened, had been comparatively un- 
 known or little understood. Many and disastrous months 
 were yet to elapse, before the letters of the Orleans Princc3 
 could tear away the curtain of mystery and show the official 
 action in its naked deformity of malice and misjudgment 
 McClellan had left Manassas with a gallant army of immense 
 force, whose numbers had no doubt been all the while esafp 
 gerated to the popular ear. They had proved themselves 
 soldiers and heroes, and had won whenever and wherever 
 brought to the test. The young commander had had the 
 Command-in-Chief taken from him, at the moment when he 
 first moved forward ; but it was believed that the change had 
 been made with his consent if not at his own request, so that 
 he might be the more unhampered in the field. We did not 
 know the chain which had been cruelly locked around his 
 strong limbs, and which he had been dragging through every 
 mile of that long march. He had complained, it is true, from 
 Williamsburgh, of the insufficiency of his force for the great 
 end in view ; but he was known to be a cautious man, and 
 when he had won Williamsburgh, forced the evacuation of 
 Yorktown and afterwards won Fair Oaks, all fears for him 
 and for the army had been gradually dismissed. 
 
 He had been set down to win — to take Richmond : that 
 had formed the great culmination of the programme — the 
 red fire and flourish of trumpets on which the curtain of the 
 rebellion was to go down. If any one had spoken dis- 
 approvingly or doubtfully of his long delay in the swamps 
 of the Chickahominy, the reply had been : " Wait patiently 1 
 McClellan is slow, but sure. He will take Richmond before 
 he ends the campaign, and that is enough !" Such had been 
 public confidence — the confidence of a public who perhaps 
 did not know the General, but who certainly did not know 
 the government directing and overruling his every action. 
 At last even the tnne of the great capture had been fixed. 
 Officers leaving on short furlough had been admonished to 
 return quickly, " if they expected to take part in the capture 
 of Richmond." What else could this mean, than confidence 
 on the part of the commanding general, that the approaches 
 to the rebel capital had been made sufficiently close to ensure 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 131 
 
 its capture, and that the prize was at length in his grasp ? 
 Then the Fourth of July had been seized upon as the aus- 
 picious period, and the whole country had grown ready to 
 celebrate the National Anniversary in the loyal cities, simul- 
 taneously with the shouts and bonfires of the Union Army 
 that should then be treading the streets of the conquered 
 capital and opening the prison-doors of the loyal men who 
 had been suffering and starving in the tobacco-warehouses. 
 
 Such had been the supposed aspect of affairs in the field, 
 up to the last week of June, and young orators preparing 
 their Fourth of July orations had introduced rounded periods 
 referring to the added glory of the day and the new laurels 
 wreathing the brows of the Union commanders. Those who 
 contemplated speaking on the great day, and had not made 
 any allusion to the fall of Richmond in their prepared ora- 
 tions, had already seen cause to repent the omission. One, 
 who had incautiously mentioned in a city passenger-car that 
 " he hoped Richmond would not be taken until after the 
 Fourth," and who had lacked time to give as a reason that 
 11 if it should be taken before, he would be obliged to write 
 his oration all over again" — had been assaulted for the offen- 
 sive expression, and only escaped after a hard fight, with 
 a black eye and a sense of damaged personal dignity. It had 
 been settled that Richmond was to be in possession of the 
 Union troops on the Fourth — wo to him who doubted it ! 
 
 Hark ! was there muttering thunder in the heavens ? — 
 thunder from a sky hitherto all bright blue ? Business men, 
 going down town on the morning of the twenty-eighth of 
 June, found that " fighting had commenced before Richmond," 
 and that " McClellan was changing his front." That " change 
 of front" looked ominous. A few read the secret at once — 
 that heavy reinforcements had come into Richmond from the 
 half-disbanded rebel army Hallcck had checked but not 
 defeated at Corinth; a^id coupled with strange rumors of 
 this came hints about " Stonewall Jackson," which indicated 
 to the same persons that that rebel officer had advanced from 
 the North-west and made an attempt to take McClellan's 
 right wing in flank, necessitating a retrograde movement of 
 iliat wing to bring him in front. Still, confidence was not 
 
132 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 lost, in McClellan or in the army. While his right wing fell 
 back before an attack in force, his left might swing in towards 
 Richmond and even take the city — who could say ? 
 
 Then the telegraph closed down, and the morning papers 
 contained "no later intelligence" from the field before Rich- 
 mond. This was " the feather that broke the camel's back" 
 of the national spirit. The government had no confidence in 
 the people — it dared not trust them with the truth — it dared 
 conceal ! Our army was being cut to pieces, and we were 
 permitted to know nothing of the calamity except the dread- 
 ful fact No development could have been so injurious as 
 this concealment — no stroke at the national confidence so 
 deadly as the want of reliance shown by the government 
 censors. The nation's heart went down beneath the blow: 
 to this day* it has never risen to the same proud and cou- 
 rageous determination shown through all previous disasters. 
 
 It is said to be a terrible spectacle when a strong man 
 weeps — a thousand times more terrible than the grief of the 
 softer sex and the gentler nature, because it is evident what 
 must have been the blow inflicted and what the struggle 
 before the pent waters burst forth. But even the strong 
 man's grief is tame compared to the spectacle of the grief of 
 a nation — that aggregation of strong men and of vital inter- 
 ests. When the very sky seems dimmed and the bright sun- 
 shine a mockery. When the foot falls without energy and 
 the voice breaks forth without emphasis. When men, who 
 meet on the corners of streets, clasp hands in silence or only 
 speak in low and broken words. When the silver moonlight 
 seems to be shining upon nothing else than new-made graves. 
 When the sound of revelry from ball-rooms jars upon the 
 heart until it creates deadly sickness ; and the glare of lights 
 from places of public amusement seems to be an indecorum 
 like a waltz at a funeral. When a uniform in the street is a 
 reproach and a horror ; and the music of the band to which 
 soldiers tramp, sounds like nothing but the " Dead March in 
 Saul." When business is impossible, and idleness an agony. 
 When the old flag is looked up to without pride, and the 
 
 * January, 1SG3. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 133 
 
 very pulses of patriotism seem dead because they have no 
 hope to keep them in motion. When all is darkness — all 
 discouragement — all shame — all despair. These are the tears 
 of a broad land — this is the spectacle we witness when a 
 nation weeps. The loyal men of this generation have wept 
 more bitterly and sorely, within the past two years, than 
 those wept who saw the armies of the Revolution starved 
 and outnumbered — who pined in the Prison-Ships and 
 trucked the bloody snow at V alley Forge. God forgive 
 those who have wrung these tears — whatever the ultraism 
 they may represent ! The people they have outraged will 
 not forgive until a terrible vengeance is taken. 
 
 The first days of July, when fell the President's fifth pro- 
 clamation, calling for "three hundred thousand more." If 
 ever a cry of despair burst out from an overcharged heart, it 
 went up to heaven from the whole land at that moment. 
 " Have I yet more to give ?" cried the depopulated city and 
 the desolated village. " Have I yet more to give ?" cried 
 the father with one son remaiuing of his six brave boys ; 
 " Have I yet more to give V echoed the widow whose last 
 stay was to be taken from her; and "Have I yet more to 
 give ?" re-echoed the wife as she buckled the sword or the 
 bayonet-sheath on the side of her husband and sent him forth 
 as one more sacrifice to the insatiate demons of Ambition and 
 Mismanagement, Have not the days following Manassas, 
 and the Seven Days before Richmond, and Fredericksburgh, 
 been hours in a national Gethsemane ? And has not the 
 liana been almost excusable, lifted in the prayer : " Father 
 of Nations ! — if it be possible let this cup pass from us 1" 
 And yet the cup has not passed — we have been draining it 
 to the very dregs ! 
 
 The introduction of this chapter, which does not in the 
 least advance the action of the story, would be altogether 
 inexcusable, did not every artist have a habit of painting a 
 background for his historical composition, instead of throwing 
 the figures on the naked canvas and thereby losing half his 
 little chance of illusion. The characters here introduced may 
 live and move, but relieved against what ? The background 
 of current events, certainly — without a knowledge of which 
 
13-i SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 their actions might be altogether unaccountable. And gen- 
 eral as may be a feeling to-day, it must be caught and put 
 upon record to-morrow, or the very persons who held it most 
 deeply will forget it by the third day. Ten years hence — 
 perhaps a year hence — the bitter humiliation through which 
 the country has been passing between the opening of 1861 
 and the opening of 1863, will be almost entirely forgotten in 
 after glory or after shame. A few will remember, but faintly 
 and dimly, as the old veterans of the Revolution remembered 
 in their tottering a£e the conflicts through which they had 
 passed in youth, beside Washington or with Mad Anthony. 
 A few will remember something of the truth, but only as 
 veteran play-goers remember a performance at the Old Park 
 in its palmy days — a Cooper or a Power prominent, but all 
 the other actors lost in the mists of time. 
 
 When Thomas Wilson left the field of Brandywine, after 
 that disastrous defeat, and with a bullet-hole through his 
 neck, narrowly missing the jugular, which had been received 
 in aiding to rescue and bear off the wounded Lafayette, — 
 that battle-scene was so imprinted on his mind that he be- 
 lieved he could ever afterwards, to his dying day, recall the 
 position of every squadron, and even the place of every rock 
 and tree beside which he had fought ; and yet when he saw 
 him, more than half a century afterwards, hobbling along on 
 his stout hickory cane to the place where he was to draw 
 the scant pittance afforded him by a nation grudging in its 
 gratitude — he remembered Lafayette and that he was wounded 
 in helping to bear him off — nothing more. Xo doubt John 
 Wilson, grandson of the old man, wounded in the assault at 
 Fredericksburgh, came away from that murderous field with 
 the same impression of the eternity of his own memory ; but 
 he will forget all except the very event of the action, like his 
 grandsire. And yesterday evening, coming out from among 
 the plaudits of the crowd that had been paying honor to 
 the wonderful renderings of Couldock and Davidge in the 
 " Chimney-Corner," Wetmore, the critic and habitue, did not 
 even bring away a play-bill. That little domestic scene was 
 so daguerreotyped upon his memory that he should never 
 forget one detail of cast or incident — never ! And yet five 
 
SHOU LDE R-STKAP S. 135 
 
 years hence, Wetmore will turn to some companion of the 
 present and say: "Ah, confound it — I cannot remember! 
 "Who was it that played with Couldock at the Winter Garden, 
 in the — the — there, hang me if I have not even forgotten the 
 name of the piece ! — that capital little llobson domestic 
 drama — the — the — the ' Chimney Corner' ? " 
 
 So much by way of explanation, if not of apology, for 
 patching the colors of the background of general feeling at 
 Uie particular period of this story, before they have time to 
 fade. And yet a few more words with reference to that gene- 
 ral feeling, as it took particular directions. 
 
 " Vox populi, vox Dei " is a motto so often falsified, at least 
 in appearance, that the world has come to place but little re- 
 liance upon it ; and yet it is as true to-day as when the old 
 Latin maximist first penned it, with the plurality of the gods 
 of his dependence fully manifest in the original " Dii " or 
 "Deis." The people do not often err materially or long. 
 They may throne a wooden god or a baboon for a short mo- 
 ment, but that moment soon passes. As a political body no 
 demagogue with words supplying the place of brains, can 
 long override them ; and as an arrny they never make a fa- 
 vorite of a fool or a coward. The American people did not 
 err for a moment as to where the responsibility of the sad 
 check to the army of the Potomac did not belong ; and they 
 erred but little in their calculation of where it did. The 
 army was brave — its leader was both careful and capable — 
 the very man for the place : that they knew intuitively. They 
 doubted the existence of brains at Washington, and of loyaltv 
 in many of those who had been urging "forward movements" 
 without sufficient force or proper preparation ; and they have 
 already been fully justified in the doubt. 
 
 But the people saw something more — execrated it, howled 
 against it, spat upon it; and after the Seven Days before 
 Richmond, their abhorrence culminated. That terrible some- 
 thing was absenteeism. Thousands and tens of thousands 
 who should have been in their places in the army, were 
 shamelessly absent when their brothers-in-arms were being 
 sacrificed from their very want of numbers. Wounded sol- 
 diers who had come home on furlough, and afterwards re- 
 
136 SHOULDER-STRAPS 
 
 covered, had never rejoined their commands; and in spite of 
 the calls of McClellan no steps had boon taken to force them 
 back into the ranks. The Provost Marshals were too busy 
 looking for summer-boarders at Fort Lafayette and Fort War- 
 ren, to think of their obvious duty of protecting the armies 
 of the Union against indolence and desertion ! A still more 
 serious defection existed among the officers — those who 
 had been awhile in the service, and those who had merely 
 entered it in pretence. Half the New York regiments, 
 especially, had originally been officered by men who had no 
 intention of lighting, and who merely took commissions and 
 spent a few weeks in camp or in the field of inactive opera- 
 tions, in order that they might have "Colonel," "Major," or 
 
 Captain" attached to their names, and be ready to make 
 more successful plunges into the flesh-pots of well-paid offices, 
 on the plea that they had been "patriots" and "served the 
 country " in its need. Hundreds had come home, leaving 
 their commands half-officered, on one pretext or another, and 
 their leaves-of-absence obtained by more or less of political 
 influence or favoritism. They never intended to go back ; for 
 were not the elections coming within a few months ? and was 
 it not necessary to plough the political field with those very 
 harmless swords in order to raise a fall crop of offices ? 
 
 Then the other class — those who had never intended to go 
 at all — those who had no heart in the cause, from the first, 
 and who had merely assumed the regulation uniform to feed 
 vanity or the pocket. The former, to strut Broadway in un- 
 impeachable blue-and-gold, be called by military titles, lounge 
 at the theatres or create sensations at the watering-places, 
 confident of being able to escape, on some pretext, before their 
 commands (if they had any) should leave for the seat of war. 
 The latter, to find profitable employment in raising companies, 
 regiments or brigades, for Staten Island, East Xew York or 
 the Red House, drawing pay and subsistence for twice or 
 three times the number ever in camp, and coolly pocketing 
 the difference ! It is idle to talk, as exaggerating sensation- 
 paragraphists sometimes do, of stealing the pennies off the 
 eyes of a dead grandmother to play at pitch-and-toss, or 
 forging the name of a buried father to a note and then allow- 
 
SH0ULD£K-S3T JiAPS. 137 
 
 ing it to go to protest, — it is idle to talk of these as the ex- 
 treme of criminal heartlessness : the men who eould thus 
 trade — the men who have thus traded, during the whole war 
 — on the public patriotism and the public necessity, would 
 deserve the lowest deep in the pit of perdition, following upon 
 leprosy in life and deaths on dunghills — if there was not a still 
 deeper guilt on the souls of those who first plunged the coun- 
 try into war and then murdered it by treason or inefficiency. * 
 
 The public disgust at these " shoulder-straps" of both classes 
 culminated during the first week of July. It might be unpatri- 
 otic and even cowardly to make no movement towards joining 
 the Army of the Union : it was base and utterly contemptible 
 to make such a movement merely as an injurious sham. So 
 thought the people — seeing in this desire of military regula- 
 tion and profit without service or sacrifice, the worm gnawing 
 at the very heart of the republic. " If they are not soldiers, 
 why do they wear these trappings of the battle-field V asked 
 the public. " If they are soldiers, why are they loitering here 
 when their comrades are being overpowered and slaugh- 
 tered V Alas ! the question has been continually asked and 
 never answered. " Leipsic was lost, and I not there I" cried 
 the soldier of the old French Eleventh, bursting into tears. 
 But: "All the great battles of this war have been fought, 
 and I have managed to keep out of them I" might the shoulder- 
 strapped, belted, fatigue-capped, strutting mock-soldier of our 
 own time say with a corresponding chuckle. God help us ! — 
 Rome had but one Nero fiddling when it burned, if history 
 tells us true : we have had ten thousand military fiddlers 
 playing away to admiring audiences during our conflagration ! 
 
 Is this to be a wholesale attack, then, on our national 
 courage ? Had we no brave men, then, that only these apolo- 
 gies for men are exhibited ? Yes ! — thousand upon thousand 
 of brave men, and hundred upon hundred of brave officers — 
 the world over no better or truer ! But they were, as they 
 are, the men of action, not of show, or at least not of show 
 alone. 
 
 One incident of the morning of the Second of July, when 
 
 * January 17th, 1S63. 
 
138 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the Seven Days Battles were yet in progress before Richmond, 
 will at once supply a few figures for this background, and an 
 illustration of the public feeling for the soldiers of the little 
 army of action and the great army of sham ! 
 
 A few words had been permitted by the telegraph-censors 
 to come through, and they had arrived too late for the morn- 
 ing papers. They were consequently bulletined. They gave 
 borne hint of the abandonment of the White House and the 
 revere fighting which followed that movement, on Saturday 
 and Sunday. They were not hopeful — they were discouraging 
 ■ — much worse, as it afterwards appeared, than the truth de- 
 manded ; and the knit brows and set teet of the readers did 
 not show any symptoms of improvement under the new reve- 
 lation. 
 
 A considerable group of men were standing about the 
 " World" bulletin, stopping, reading and passing on — all the 
 more slowly because the shade of the high building was re- 
 freshing in that hot, blinding, cloudless July morning sun. 
 A group of politicians who had read the bulletins and taken 
 their second breakfast at Crook and Duff's, were digesting the 
 one and picking their teeth from the fragments of the other, 
 before the door of that unaccountably-popular establishment, 
 on the block above. Over the street from the "World" corner, 
 at the Park fence, a dozen or two of invalid soldiers, with 
 jaundiced faces and shabby uniforms, who had arrived by 
 steamer from the South the day before and taken up their 
 temporary abode in the dirty Barracks, — were standing loung- 
 ing and listening to what was read from the bulletin ; while 
 a sentinel paraded up and down the walk, outside, to pre- 
 vent escapes that did not seem over-probable. Voices were 
 a little high, though not in disagreement, among the group at 
 the corner — for they were discussing the very subject noted — 
 that of absenteeism and military sham. 
 
 At that moment a good-looking young officer in spotless 
 full uniform, with his cap so natty that the rain could never 
 have been allowed to fall upon it, with his hair curled and his 
 moustache trim as if he had been intended for any other 
 description of "ball" than one met on the field of battle, and 
 with a Captain's double-bars on his shoulder, — came across 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 139 
 
 the Park from the direction of Broadway, over to the Beek- 
 maii Street corner, as if to pass down that street. Some of 
 the talkers noticed him, and connected him and his class a 
 little injuriously with the events of the day. Just as he passed 
 the corner, brushing very near some of the talkers and casting 
 a hurried glance at the bulletin-board — one of the crowd, a 
 rough fellow who might have belonged to the set who growled 
 and hooted Coriolanus out of Rome, — broke out with : — 
 
 " There goes one of them, now !" 
 
 " Yes, muttered another, almost in front of the officer. 
 " D — n 'em all ! Much good those shiny uniforms are doing 
 the country I" 
 
 The officer, who must have heard the words and known 
 that they were intended for his ears, paid no attention and 
 was passing on — the part of prudence and propriety, beyond 
 a doubt. But one of the crowd was not satisfied. He must 
 make wrong of the right (a thing very common in all causes) 
 and the insult a personal one. 
 
 " See here !" and he laid his hand on the officer's arm, 
 detaining him, but not roughly. " Do you see what there is 
 on that bulletin ?" 
 
 " I see 1" said the Captain. 
 
 u Yes, they are cutting our boys all to pieces down there !" 
 went on the aggrieved citizen. 
 
 u Well ?" again said the officer, apparently neither angry 
 nor frightened. 
 
 " Well !" spoke the other, repeating his word, but a little 
 abashed by the calmness of the officer, whose arm he had let 
 go the moment he turned to speak to him. " Well ! — per- 
 haps it is none of my business, you know — but why the 
 d — 1 don't you fellows who have such handsome uniforms, 
 and commissions, and all that sort of thing, go down and 
 help ?" 
 
 "Humph!" said the Captain, still with no symptom of 
 being abashed or angry. Perhaps it would be as well, for 
 all of us who could." 
 
 "Oh, you can't go, eh?" said another member of the 
 assemblage, in a sneering tone. 
 
 " Xot yet!" was the reply of the officer 
 9 
 
140 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 " I thought not I" said the man who had first addressed 
 him. 
 
 " See here, boys !" said the Captain, haven't you made a 
 mistake in your man ? I hate a stay-at-home soldier, quite 
 as much as you." 
 
 11 Why don't you go, then ?" one of the others again inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 " I have been, and I am going again /" said the Captain, 
 emphatically. " I see what is the matter. I have just put 
 on a new uniform, and you think that looks suspicious. So 
 It docs, I suppose ; but my old one has been through six 
 pitched battles and looks rough enough to suit you." 
 . " The d — 1 it has !" said the man who had addressed him. 
 " Really, Captain, I beg your pardon !" 
 
 11 Never mind that !" said the Captain. " You will probably 
 hit the right man next time, and the quicker you shame the 
 make-believes into doing something or pulling off their uni- 
 forms, the better. McClellan wants us all — " 
 
 " McClellan's the boy !" broke out a voice. 
 
 " You are right — ' Little Mac's' the boy !" said the Cap- 
 tain. " He wants us all. The doctor told me this morning 
 that I might go back, and I am going to-morrow." 
 
 " The doctor ? — then you have been sick or wounded ! 
 What a fool I have been making of ni} T self !" said the first 
 speaker, generous as rough. 
 
 "A little!" answered the Captain, and by a dexterous 
 movement he flung back his coat, threw open his collar and 
 bared his neck almost to the shoulder. The whole top of the 
 shoulder seemed to have been shot away, and the blade 
 broken, by a ball that had struck him there and ploughed 
 through into the neck ; and the yet imperfectly healed flesh 
 lay in torn ridges of ghastly disfigurement. Thousands of 
 men have died from wounds of not half the apparent conse- 
 quence ; and yet the wearer of this was the smiling and 
 even-tempered man of the new uniform — going back to- 
 morrow ! The world has not lost all its heroes yet ; and 
 some of them have the same fancy for a clean shirt and spot- 
 less broadcloth, when attainable, as Murat displayed for a 
 velvet cloak, or white plume and plenty of gold embroidery 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 141 
 
 on his trousers, when making the most reckless of charges at 
 the head of the most dashing cavalry in the world. "That," 
 said the Captain, closing up the won ml as rapidly as he had 
 opened it, but not before a general shudder had run through 
 the crowd at its ghastly character — " that I got at Fair Oaks, 
 three weeks ago last Sunday. IIow do you like it ? Am I 
 going back soon enough ? Good morning, boys !" 
 
 " And your name ?" asked the man who had stopped him, 
 as he attempted to pass on. " Who are you ? — Do tell us." 
 
 " Nobody that you would know," said the Captain. " My 
 name is D , and I belong to the Sickles Brigads." 
 
 He passed on, hurriedly, down Beekman Street, as if 
 " Little Mac" had sent for him and he had been wasting time 
 in going ; but the cheer that went after him was joined in by 
 the invalids at the Park fence, who had caught a part of the 
 dialogue; and the people in the "World" office looked up 
 from their account books, wondering w r hat w T as the matter in 
 the street; while the politicians in front of Crook and Duff's, 
 among whom were some of the City Fathers and their 
 backers and bottle-holders, losing the other part of the affair 
 and only hearing the shouts, wondered whether some new 
 notability had not just arrived at the Astor House, who could 
 be turned to profitable use in the way of a reception in the 
 Governor's Room, a few " Committees," gloves, carriages 
 from Van Ranst and a dinner or two all around — of course 
 at the expense of the economically-managed city treasury. 
 
 And this closes a chapter which has made no direct pro- 
 gress whatever in following the leading characters of this 
 story, who must now be again taken up in their order. 
 
142 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Following up the Prince Street Mystery — Tom Leslie's 
 Peculiar Ideas — A Call upon Superintendent Kennedy 
 — The Departure of a Regiment — Josey Harris in a 
 Street-Squall — A Rencontre. 
 
 It was not to be supposed that Tom Leslie and Walter 
 Lane Harding, after the expenditure of ten dollars, a whole 
 night's rest and a considerable amount of bodily energy, in 
 the investigation of what they called the ' Prince Street 
 mystery,' would permit it to remain uninvestigated after- 
 wards, so far as a little more money and a good deal more of 
 inquisitiveness could go in unravelling it. Even before they 
 parted, late on the night of the adventure, they had discussed 
 half a dozen plans for gaining admission to the house on 
 Prince Street or that on East 5 — th, by fair means or foul. 
 Harding, who was something of a stickler for propriety in 
 ordinary cases, in spite of the fact that he had on that one 
 occasion been inveigled into following a carriage and playing 
 spy under a front stoop — Harding expressed himself satisfied 
 that there being now in their minds a sufficient certainty of 
 the existence of a disloyal organization in the city to make 
 affidavits to that effect a duty — the proper course would be to 
 lay the matter at once before the Superintendent of Police 
 and request that a watch might be set upon the houses or 
 some proceedings taken to " work up " the case for after pro- 
 ceedings. The young merchant no doubt had more confidence 
 in this plan than he might otherwise have done, from the fact 
 that a few months previous a robbery had been committed at 
 his place of business, and that upon his laying the matter at 
 once before the police authorities, such steps had been taken 
 as within two weeks secured the detection of the leading cul- 
 prit and the recovery of most of the missing property. Here 
 was a detective "bridge" that had once "carried him safe 
 over " in a commercial point of view : why would not the 
 same bridge offer both of them a safe footing when attempt- 
 ing to unravel a mystery of disloyalty ? 
 
SHOL'LDEK-STKAPS. 143 
 
 Tom Leslie, as was natural to one of his temperament, took 
 a different view of the whole matter. Mysteries "bothered" 
 the straight-forward Harding; but to Tom they formed one 
 of the necessities of existence — a little less indispensable than 
 his breakfast, but much more important than his cigar. Had 
 he been precisely the sort of man for employing police agency 
 where personal investigation was possible, he would never 
 hove climbed the tree in Prince Street or dragged Harding 
 under the stoop of the brown-stone house. He suggested that 
 Harding would not have much difficulty in making himself 
 up for a postman, and getting inside the up-town house in 
 that capacity, trusting to his own skill to remain within until 
 he had made the necessary investigations ; while as for him- 
 self — well, he had no particular objections to entering tempo- 
 rarily upon the occupation of a tinker or a gatherer of old 
 rags and bottles, with a disguise from his friend Williams, the 
 costumer, and working the basement of the house on Prince 
 Street, and the domestics therein employed, in one of those 
 capacities. He had no doubt whatever that if he could only 
 succeed in concealing himself in the sub-cellar or the coal- 
 vault, until the house should be closed for the night, he could 
 then, with the aid of a few matches and a pair of list slippers 
 carried in the pocket, make a "rummage" of the premises 
 which must prove eminently satisfactory. He did not seem 
 to labor under any fear that the little accident of being dis- 
 covered while lying perdu or while making his explorations, 
 and arrested and sent to Blackwell's Island as an ordinary 
 sneak-thief, might possibly stand in the way. In fact, if all 
 stories of his earlier life were to be credited, he had taken 
 some pains, in more than one instance, to be arrested by the 
 Police under what appeared to be suspicious circumstances, 
 spend a night in the station-house, and astound the Police 
 Justices, who personally knew him somewhat too well for 
 their comfort, by his appearance as a very woe-begone culprit 
 in the morning. " I)e gustibus non est," etc. — there is really 
 no disputing about tastes, since St. Simeon Stylites roosted 
 upon the top of a very inconvenient pillar, and the first ostrich 
 inaugurated the dietary proclivities of the race by gobbling 
 down a small cart-load of cord-wood with a garnish of a peck 
 
144 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 of paving-stones ! A night in a station -house may not be so 
 very unpleasant a thing, when taken from choice and with a 
 certainty of the door being laughingly opened in the morn- 
 ing : Whiskey Tom or Scratching Sail, who visit the institu- 
 tion perforce, for small burglaries or big vagrancies, with a 
 prospect of "six months" or "two years" at the end, may 
 form a very different opinion of it ! 
 
 Tom Leslie, as has been remarked, did not seem to have 
 any fears of such a result as an arrest, to his proposed spy- 
 movements; but it cannot be concealed that for a moment 
 Walter Harding, who had before thought that he knew him 
 well, looked at him out of the corners of his eyes, with some 
 impression that he must unwittingly have been keeping 
 company with a genteel house-breaker. At all events, 
 Harding did not fall in with the spy-proposition, so far as his 
 own action was concerned, alleging that there might be such 
 a thing as a business man having other occupations than 
 traversing the city in disguise as a volunteer detective ; and 
 so that project, if any there had really been in the mind of 
 Leslie, was abandoned. 
 
 A resort to the police remained ; for neither of the friends, 
 after what they had seen and heard, could think of the whole 
 affair being allowed to go by default. Superintendent 
 Kennedy must be visited, after all ; and though Harding's 
 business for the next day would interfere, it was more than 
 half agreed upon before they separated, that they would call 
 together upon that official on the next day but one and lay 
 the whole matter before him. 
 
 The agreement, though only half made, was better kept 
 than many that are made more conclusively ; for at eleven 
 o'clock on the day named Leslie made his appearance at the 
 place of business of Harding, and dragged him away from a 
 series of mercantile calculations over the desk, in which he 
 had more than half forgotten the existence of his friend as 
 well as the whole adventure of the chase and the mystery. 
 He came up to the work pretty readily, however— t lie 
 presence of the rattling, go-ahead Leslie always having the 
 effect of carrying him a little off his feet ; and half an hour 
 afterwards the two friends had entered that melancholy- 
 
SnOULDER-STR APS. 145 
 
 looking five-story brick building on the corner of Broome 
 ami Kim, then and till lately known as the headquarters of 
 the Metropolitan Police, — and were being shown by a police- 
 man in attendance, with the bine of his suit undimmed by 
 exposuro to the weather and the brass of his buttons radiantly 
 untarnished, into the presence of John A. Kennedy, Superin- 
 tendent of the Metropolitan Police District and for the time 
 Provost Marshal of the City of New York. They entered 
 from the hall of the building by a side door to the left, in the 
 rear of what had been the centre of the house when occupied 
 as a private residence before New York moved up " above 
 Bleecker," — and advancing towards the front under the 
 guidance of the respectful official, p'assed the table at which 
 sat the half-bald, stern-faced, and iron-gray Deputy Superin- 
 tendent Carpenter, through the door that had once separated 
 the two parlors, and stood in the presence of another iron- 
 gray man, seated writing at a table covered with books and 
 papers, his back to the front of the building, and the smooth- 
 shaven and round-faced Inspector Leonard busily examining 
 a roll of papers behind him in the corner. 
 
 Few men in this whole country have occupied a more 
 marked position in the public mind, during all this struggle, 
 than Superintendent Kennedy, in his legitimate position at 
 the head of the Police and in what we must believe to have 
 been his il-legitimate one as Provost Marshal. He made 
 himself peculiarly conspicuous, and won the enmity of all the 
 secession wing of the Northern democracy, by stopping the 
 shipment of arms to the rebellious States, and blocking the 
 apparent game of Mayor Wood and his aiders and abettors 
 to curry favor with the extreme South by truckling to every 
 one of its arrogant dictations. The enmity then created has- 
 never died, and can never die until those who hold it happen 
 to die themselves: At the same time, those who were and 
 are unconditionally loyal to the Union, have never judged 
 the action of Superintendent Kennedy very harshly — aware 
 that something needed to }><> done to prevent the existing 
 evil, and that only a man of his indomitable "pluck" could 
 be found to apply the remedy at such a period. 
 
 A somewhat broader and more general charge has since 
 
146 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 been preferred against him — that in the exercise of the duties 
 of Provost Marshal, which he assumed without propriety, he 
 showed himself a willing tool of governmental despotism and 
 displayed indefensible harshness and arrogance. There is 
 something of truth in this charge, beyond a question, — as 
 the impossibility of " touching pitch" without being " denied," 
 applies to intercourse with wrong-doers high in power as 
 well as to those in lower station. The station-houses of the 
 Xew York police were certainly made receptacles for accused 
 parties whose crimes were very different from those contem- 
 plated in their erection, — -just as the forts in the harbors of 
 Xew York and Boston have been made " Bastilles" for state- 
 prisoners whose arrests were signally reckless and improper. 
 Many of the prisoners, in both cases, have deserved more 
 than all the punishment received ; but the blind uncertainty 
 as to their guilt, and the impossibility of discovering even the 
 nature of the charges against them, have made those im- 
 prisonments equally indefensible and dangerous, and brought 
 them at last to their end. 
 
 There is a woman at the bottom of almost every revolution 
 — political as well as social. Tradition tells us, though history 
 is silent on the subject, that the sad fate of the daughter of a 
 French citizen, flung into the Bastille for alleged complicity 
 in a conspiracy during the early days of Louis XVI., and 
 dying there — rankled in the minds of the Parisians much more 
 than the wrongs done to thousands of brave and noble men 
 during the centuries previous, and furnished the burden of the 
 terrible cry with which the men of 1789 thundered at the 
 walls of that old fortress of feudal oppression, and with which 
 they butchered not only De Launay, the Governor of the 
 Bastille, but Flesselles, the Provost Marshal. The case of a 
 woman — Mrs. Brinsmaid — was the last drop in the cup of en- 
 durance, here, and the event which we believe was finally and 
 forever to close the melancholy doors of Lafayette and Warren, 
 against arrest without charge and imprisonment without trial 
 ■ — spite of indemnity bills passed and unlimited powers con- 
 ferred upon the President by a mad Congress. 
 
 Through all this, meanwhile, John A. Kennedy was unques- 
 tionably more sinned against than sinning — made the tool of 
 
SH O U L D E R* S T R A P S. 147 
 
 worse and more unscrupulous men, who used his hard con- 
 scientiousness and his narrow bigotry of mind, fostered by too 
 long and too close connection with the lodges of secret socie- 
 ties — to carry out their own designs of despotism, without the 
 nobility to stand between him and his possible sacrifice for 
 obeying the very orders they had given. He is not the first 
 man who has been misused and placed in a false position, nor 
 the last, as a later victim of blind confidence and obedience, 
 ]> urn side,* is very likely to bear sad witness. 
 
 But all this while, for the purposes of this narrative, Tom 
 Leslie and his friend Harding have been standing unnoticed 
 in the presence of the Superintendent. Not very long in 
 reality — scarcely longer than enabled them to note the hair and 
 elosely-cut full beard of iron gray, the keen but troubled eyes, 
 that had scarcely yet ceased to moisten at the memory of the 
 loss of a dearly loved brother, f the face care-worn and anxious, 
 and the shoulders bent over a little as he sat, — scarcely longer 
 time than this was given them, when the Superintendent laid 
 down his pen and said, sharply and decisively : 
 
 " Well, gentlemen V 
 
 There was nothing very cordial in the tone, and no indica- 
 tion that the Superintendent considered it peculiarly his place 
 to listen to all the persons who came to him upon business ; 
 but perhaps this comparative brmquerie is necessary, in the 
 carrying on of any important department, to discourage bores 
 and send idle people the sooner about their business. It does 
 not add to popularity, however, and may add materially to the 
 opposite. 
 
 Under such circumstances, it did not need a very long period 
 of time for Tom Leslie, with the occasional assistance of 
 Harding, whose memory was much more accurate if not more 
 retentive — to convey to the Superintendent the main facts of 
 their midnight adventure, with the impression that adventure 
 had made, of some disloyal movements going on in the City, 
 and probably with extended ramifications elsewhere. Except 
 to say that one of the women seen on that evening had before 
 
 * January 25th, 1863. 
 
 t Col. William D. Kennedy, of the Tammany Regiment. 
 
14:8 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 fallen under his notice in Europe, Leslie did not allude to the 
 episode of the "red woman,'' nor did he enter into the par- 
 ticulars of his previous meetings with Dexter Ralston, though 
 he asserted his knowledge of him as a Virginian of peculiar 
 influence and a very ambiguous position. The Superintendent 
 showed few signs of interest in the narration, though his sharp 
 eve occasionally glanced at the face of the principal narrator, 
 and though he two or three times made motions with the penci 1 
 lying before him, which might have been merely listless occu- 
 pation of his fingers and might have been .something very 
 different, 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said the Superintendent, when they 
 had concluded. "It is certainly a Btrange story you have 
 been telling, and of course I do not question the entire vera- 
 city of your narration of what you saw or thought you saw. 
 But there is nothing proved, so far, that could justify any 
 arrest, even if we could find the persons to arrest. I do not 
 see that there is anything /could do in the matter." 
 
 " I told you so 1" said Leslie in a low voice to his friend. 
 He had opposed coming to the Superintendent at all, be it re- 
 membered. 
 
 " Nothing ? — not even to set a watch upon the two houses 
 we have named ?" asked Harding, a good deal surprised and 
 not a little out of temper. 
 
 " Humph !" answered the Superintendent, " This is not 
 France under the Empire, and I am not Fouche." 
 
 " The latter part of that sentence may probably be true : I 
 have ray doubts about the other '."thought Tom Leslie, though 
 he waited a more prudent occasion for communicating the 
 thought to Harding. 
 
 " And so, Mr. Superintendent, you consider all this of no 
 consequence ?" said Harding, going back to first principles, 
 and not by any meaus improving in the matter of temper. 
 
 " I did not say anything of the kind !" answered the Super- 
 intendent, his face sterner but his voice even as before. " I 
 said there was nothing upon which I could act, and the police 
 force of the district is scarcely sufficient to set a watch around 
 all the houses that may happen to have traitors in them. I 
 would advise you to say nothing of this affair to any other 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 149 
 
 persons, if you have not yet done so ; and if you see or hear 
 of anything more that will seem to justify an arrest, commu- 
 nicate with this office again.* 
 
 He did not say " good morning !" as a sign of dismissal, 
 but his maimer indicated as much, and the two friends left 
 him with merely an additional nod. Harding was in decided 
 dudgeon as the policeman of the bright blue cloth and the 
 Unimpeachable buttons accompanied them to the door, and 
 muttered something very like " I'm d— d if I do communicate 
 with that office again, in a hurry !" Leslie, who had seen 
 more of police operations, both abroad and at home, than his 
 friend, and who had expected little or nothing else from the 
 first, —kept his good humor admirably ; and he bored Harding, 
 before they had walked from the office to Broadway, with the 
 information that that was about all the thanks any man ever 
 received for attempting to do a service to government or indi- 
 viduals, and a relation of how at Naples a couple of years 
 before, he had attempted to save the life of an Englishman 
 threatened with assassination, and been arrested and very 
 nearly imprisoned for an attempt to stab the man himself, 
 with his pen-knife or tooth-pick— he never knew precisely 
 which 1 
 
 The two friends were scarcely in the street, when the 
 Superintendent called sharply : 
 
 " Mr. Carpenter !" 
 
 The Deputy was in the room in a moment. The Superin- 
 tendent was writing a few words on a piece of paper. 
 
 " You heard the story those men were telling ?" 
 
 " A part of it — perhaps all," answered the Deputy. 
 
 "There may be something in it — I think there is," con- 
 tinued the Superintendent. " At all events, put those two 
 houses" — handing him the slip of paper — "under close watch, 
 and discover who enters and who leaves them, and at what 
 
 hours. Put B and another good man in charge of the 
 
 Prince Street house, and L and another good man at the 
 
 due in East 5 — Street. That is all." 
 
 The Deputy merely 1><>w<m1 and returned to his own table, 
 beckoning to one of the policemen near the door and giving 
 the necessary orders to cany out the directions of his superior. 
 
150 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 So that almost by the time the two friends reached Broadway, 
 and certainly some time before Leslie concluded his illustra- 
 tive narration of police management in Naples, the arrange- 
 ment for which they had especially come, and which had been 
 apparently denied, was already in active operation. The 
 reasons which had induced the Superintendent to underrate 
 to Harding and Leslie the importance of the intelligence he 
 had just received, or which had led to so sudden a change of 
 mind, will probably remain a mystery even after the pro- 
 founder mysteries of governmental management during the 
 war are brought into broad daylight. There is no Sphynx 
 like your "man in authority," whether his reasons for silence 
 be that he does not wish others to know his intentions, or that 
 he does not know them himself . 
 
 It was perhaps one o'clock when the two friends reached 
 Broadway and turned downward to return to their different 
 places of business — Harding of course to his store near the 
 Hospital, and Leslie to his little desk in the office of the 
 Daily Thundergust, or anywhere else in the more frequented 
 parts of the town, where he might chance to pick up material 
 for an item or an article. Broadway at that point and at that 
 moment presented an appearance that used to be extraordi- 
 nary, but that of late months has been almost as common as 
 its ordinary crowded condition. One of the Eastern regi- 
 ments, that had just landed at the Xew Haven Bailroad De- 
 pot, was on its way down to the Park Barracks, and the 
 police had been clearing the street of omnibuses and carriages 
 to make room for them. The sidewalks on both sides were 
 pretty well filled with spectators — idlers who never find any- 
 thing better to do than gazing at street spectacles, and peo- 
 ple of both sexes, with more or less of business on hand, who 
 cannot avoid pausing for a moment when the police sweep 
 by to clear the street and the tap of the bass-drum is heard, — 
 just to see what the excitement is all about. In this instance 
 a file of policemen extending almost from curb to curb were 
 marching abreast to keep the way clear in front of the regi- 
 ment ; close behind them sounded the crashing of brass, the 
 screaming of elarionet T reeds and the tap of drums ; and a 
 little farther behind, over the heads of the advancing column, a 
 
s II L D E 11- ST ft A i> >. 151 
 
 couple of flair* caught the sun and waved softly in the light 
 summer air — one the glorious old banner, with its three colors 
 that blend truth, purity and devotion till death, — and the 
 other a fringed and tasselled embroidery of dark blue silk, 
 bearing the peculiar arms of the one State that was sending 
 forth more of its bravest sons to do battle for all. 
 
 " A Massachusetts regiment," said Harding. " One was to 
 come down by the New Haven Road, this morning." 
 
 "Yes," said Leslie. "You can afford half an hour more, 
 while I can afford all day if I wish. Let us wait until the 
 show passes." They paused accordingly and took shelter be- 
 side a lamp-post agaiust the downward pressure of the side- 
 walk crowd that was coming. 
 
 Nearer came the soldiers, their long line of sloped bayonets 
 glancing off the sunbeams with a peculiarly threatening as- 
 pect, and their equipments showing the perfection which has 
 been accorded by the Old Bay State to all her troops, in con- 
 tradistinction to the men of some of the other States, that 
 have been allowed to go down to the conflict looking more 
 like a mob of scarecrows than a body of trained soldiers. 
 The Colonel, who rode first, lolled easily on his saddle, like 
 one who had not, mounted a horse for the first time when he 
 first put on his sword-belts ; the Captains of the various com- 
 panies stepped out boldly and clearly in front of their men, 
 turning occasionally to see that the line was properly kept ; 
 and the rank and file tramped on, their step almost steady 
 enough for the march of veteran troops, and the dull thunder 
 of the fall of each thousand of feet on the solid pavement, 
 making the most impressive sound in the world except that 
 supplied by the multitudinous clink of the iron hoofs of a 
 cavalry squadron passing over the same stony road. 
 
 It was an impressive spectacle, like all of the same kind 
 that have preceded and followed it — a glorious spectacle, 
 when the faces of most of the men were observed, and nothing 
 of the despairing dullness of the conscript's eye seen there, 
 but the vigorous pride and determination of men who were 
 going forth at the call of their country to battle for that 
 country to the death. And yet a sad spectacle, as all the 
 others have been, when waste of life and mismanngement of 
 
152 R H U L V K R - S T R A P S. 
 
 power were taken into the account, and when the thinned 
 ranks that should return, of the full ranks that went so 
 proudly away, came to be remembered. Something of this 
 latter fooling', and the peculiarities of the time, made the 
 waving of handkerchiefs and the clapping of hands less fn- 
 quent and cordial than the fine-looking fellows and their ex- 
 cellent appointments really deserved. 
 
 "The d — 1 take the politics and policy of Massachusetts !'' 
 broke out Tom Leslie, when the array had half passed. " I 
 do not like her, and never did. But she does send out troops 
 as the old Trojan horse poured out heroes ; she does know how 
 to equip and take care of them, as we do not ; and they fight 
 — eh, Harding-, don't they ?" 
 
 " Not any better than most of our New York troops, I 
 fancy !" replied Harding, an incarnate New Yorker, to the 
 last observation. 
 
 " Not better, perhaps, but more steadily — not so dashingly, 
 but more inevitably," said Leslie, going into one of his fits of 
 abstract philosophy, where he must perforce be followed, like 
 a manioc by his keeper. " Our New York boys go into the 
 fight more as a spree — the Xew Englanders more as a duty. 
 Our boys enjoy it — they endure it ; and some one else than 
 myself must decide which is the higher order of courage. 
 Almost all the Xew Englanders are comparatively fanatics, 
 while we have very few indeed, unless it maybe fanaticism to 
 worship the old flag — God bless it ! If it could have been 
 possible for England to be plunged into a general war w-ith 
 some other country, immediately after the Restoration, some- 
 thing like this same distinction would have been seen. Sir 
 Gervase Langford would have charged upon the foe, his 
 feathers flying and his lady's colors woven into a love-knot 
 above his cuirass, singing a roundelay of decidedly loose ten- 
 dencies, precisely as he had once charged beside Prince 
 Rupert on the bloody day of Long Marston ; and Master 
 John Grimston would have snuffled a psalm through his aom 
 and made a thanksgiving prayer over a cut throat, swinging 
 his long two-handed sword meanwhile, as he had done when 
 mowing down the ' nialignants ' at Xaseby, under the very 
 eye of Oliver. himself. That would have been an odd mixture 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 153 
 
 fur the same army; bul we have an odder, when the neat- 
 vrhiskered clerk from behind the dry-goods counter in this 
 city — the rough fisherman from Cape Cud — the lumberman 
 from the forests of Maine— and the Long, gangling squirrel- 
 hunters from the wilds of Wisconsin, — all meet together to 
 fight for the same cause." 
 
 " True," said Harding — "true. And I suppose that fanati- 
 cism does fight well. It has no fear of death, and very little 
 of consequences. How much difference was there, I wonder, 
 between Ali at the head of his Moslem horde, fresh from the 
 teachings of Mohammed himself, and fully impressed with the 
 belief that if he died he should go at once to the company of 
 the Houris in Paradise, — and Cromwell — or Old John Brown 
 — in a corresponding madness of supposed Christianity ? Not 
 much, eh ?" 
 
 ** Not much — none at all I" replied Leslie. "But see how 
 long this one regiment has been in filing past. Only one regi- 
 ment — not much more than a thousand men, and yet the street 
 seems full of the glisten of their bayonets for half-a-mile. We 
 have grown used to handling the phrases 'thirty thousand, 1 
 ' fifty thousand,' ' one hundred thousand,' or even ' a quarter of 
 a million' of men, just as glibly as we speak of one, two or 
 ten millions of money ; and yet we realize very little of the 
 force of those numbers. Fifty thousand men are considered 
 to be no army — nothing more than a skirmishing party, now- 
 adays ; and yet to form it, forty or fifty such bodies of men 
 as that which has just passed us must be included. Is it 
 any wonder — after studying a thousand men in this manner 
 — that while we have many generals capable of managing 
 five or ten thousand, very few can command fifty thousand 
 without making a mess of it, and a hundred thousand suc- 
 ceeds in crazing almost every one of our commanders V 
 
 '■ Wonder \ No, I should think not," said Harding, laugh- 
 ing. "I have puzzle enough, sometimes, with even that 
 number of figures, and I should make a bad muddle of 
 handling that quantity of men. But, by the way, did you 
 ever read that singular novel, 'Border War,' by a South- 
 w. -stern writer, Jones, published several years ago?" 
 
 " I have skimmed it — never read it," said Leslie. " Remark- 
 
154 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 able book, I should say, to be read over now-a-days, when 
 the event then handled as romance has become reality !*' 
 
 " The numbers of his opposing forces, as compared with 
 the actual armies of the present day, are the great point of 
 Interest," said Harding. "He makes terrible blunders in 
 guessing at the great battle-ground of the war, as he lays the 
 principal battles in Upper Maryland, Pennsylvania and New 
 Jersey, and does not seem to contemplate the possibility of 
 there being any fighting on Southern soil. But his numbers — 
 I think he made each of the opposing forces number some one 
 hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand men ; and a sharp 
 reviewer broke out into a loud guffaw over the impossibility 
 that any such number of men could ever be arrayed against 
 each other, on the soil of the United States, by any possible 
 convulsion. Only a few years have passed, and we have three 
 or four times his numbers in the tight on either side, with 
 half a million more men to be called for." 
 
 "We are travelling fast — that is all," replied Leslie. 
 
 " You couldn't exactly inform me where, could you ?" 
 asked Harding. "But, — phew! — w! — w !"' looking at his 
 watch, " the soldiers are gone and time is up ; I must look 
 after my deposits before three." 
 
 "And what are we to do about our mystery?" asked Les- 
 lie, as the other was about to leave him. " Give that up al- 
 together ? — or will you agree to take a hand in at personal 
 investigation ?" 
 
 ?' Yes — no — I really do not know what to say, Tom !" was 
 the reply of Harding. "At all events, I have spent all the 
 time I can spare to-day, looking after that and the soldiers. 
 'Business first and pleasure afterwards,' you know." 
 
 " Yes," said Leslie, " as the excellent Duke of Gloster re- 
 marked, when he first killed the old King and then murdered 
 the young Princes." 
 
 "Pshaw!" replied Harding, "I think I may have heard 
 that before." 
 
 " Yery possibly," said Leslie, too much used to slight re- 
 buffs to pay them any great attention. 
 
 " Well, I shall walk down faster than you — bye-bye, old 
 fellow. Look in at my place to-morrow and let us see 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 165 
 
 whether we can arrange to do anything more in opposition to 
 His Sigh Mightiness Superintendent and Provost Marshal 
 Kennedy," said Harding, moving away. 
 
 " Look ! look ! over there !" said Leslie, just as his friend 
 wan leaving him. " There is a piece of infernal impudence !" 
 
 The two friends were yet on the East side of Broadway, as 
 they had come out from Broome Street. The procession had 
 passed from the street, and the crowd on the side-walks had 
 materially cleared away. Leslie had been looking across at 
 the passengers on the "shilling side." Two ladies, neatly 
 dressed in street costume, and wearing light gypsies, were 
 walking together, downward. Behind them, and so close 
 that he nearly trod upon their dresses, a tall man was walk- 
 ing apparently upon tiptoe and leaning over so that his head 
 was almost between theirs. He was evidently not of their 
 party — was apparently listening to their conversation and 
 scanning the necks and busts before him somewhat too 
 closely ; they all the while unconscious what a miserable 
 libel on humanity was dogging them. Ho looked foreign — 
 perhaps French, especially in the extraordinary curve and 
 bell of his black round hat, — was well-dressed, and seemed to 
 1h- gray-haired enough to know better. 
 
 " Impudence ? I should think so," replied Harding, as he 
 paught sight of the two girls and their unobserved follower. 
 " That dirty hound would rob a church ! Oh, if I could only 
 see that taller one turn around, now, and fetch him such a 
 slap in the face that it would ring for a twelvemonth ! Why, 
 by Beavens, Leslie 1" he said, looking closer. "I ought to 
 know thai figure, and I do. Come over, and let us see the 
 end of this." 
 
 And your bank account ?" asked Leslie. 
 
 " Oh, never mind that — come along I" and in half a minute 
 they were across tin- Btreet and close behind the ladies and 
 their persecutor. The latter kepi his place, dodging his head 
 around :ir every opportunity as if to get a sight of the faee 
 of the taller girl, and both apparently yet unconscious of his 
 presence. 
 
 " Do you see a policeman ?" asked Harding-, in a low voice. 
 "I will have that fellow taken up." 
 10 
 
156 SHOU LDEK-STRAPS. 
 
 u Xot a policeman \ n answered Leslie. u If you know either 
 of the ladies, take the scoundrel by the collar, or let me." 
 
 "I do know the taller girl," said Harding, "and — n 
 
 Suddenly he was interrupted. The taller lady on the out- 
 side wheeled around so suddenly as almost to throw the tip- 
 toe follower off his feet, confronted him boldly, flung up the 
 short light veil that depended from her gypsy and partially 
 hid her features, ineffable scorn and delicious impudence danc- 
 ing at the same moment out of her dark eyes and flushed 
 cheeks, — and burst out with : 
 
 " You have followed me long enough. Perhaps you want 
 a better look ? Here it is ! How do you like me ?" 
 
 " Oh, Joe I" said the other lady, almost sinking with fright. 
 
 "Upon my honor, miss — ladies — it was all a mistake — I 
 was not following you — that is — I thought — " 
 
 "You are lying, sir, and you know it !" spoke the strange 
 girl, the words fairly hissing from her red lips and the coming 
 tears already combating with anger in her voice. "You have 
 followed us for more than a block, leaning over our very 
 shoulders, and if I was only a man I would flog you within 
 an inch of your life 1" Here pride and shame overcame anger, 
 and the tears buret out in spite of her ; so that by the time 
 she had concluded she was nearly as weak and helpless as her 
 frightened companion. 
 
 The sneaking scoundrel attempted to get away, not less 
 from the anger of the outraged girl than from the passers-by, 
 a dozen or two of whom had already collected ; but before he 
 could make any movement in that direction, a hand — that of 
 Walter Harding, was laid on his collar, swinging him vio- 
 lently around ; and a small Malacca cane — that of Tom Leslie, 
 was laid about his shoulders and back with such good will 
 that the human hound literally yelled with pain. " Serve 
 him right !" " Give it to him !" and other exclamations of the 
 same character, broke from those who had heard the girl's 
 words and who saw the punishment ; and in thirty seconds he 
 was perhaps as thoroughly-flogged a man as Broadway ever 
 saw. Then Harding released him with a kick, and he made 
 three howling leaps to an omnibus passing up. and disap- 
 peared inside. The impression on the minds of the specta- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 157 
 
 tors was that he would not much enjoy his ride ; and they no 
 doubt had another impression in which we may fully share, 
 that though vulgarism is "bred in the bone and will come out 
 in the flesh," yet the flogged man would be very careful of the 
 locality in which he again indulged in the same atrocious habit. 
 
 All this time the taller girl, though endeavoring to control 
 her emotion, was literally sobbing with shame and anger, while 
 yet half-laughing at the sudden punishment of her persecutor. 
 The other lady had been too much frightened to utter a second 
 exclamation, and neither had paid any attention to the per- 
 sonality of their defenders. 
 
 But at this stage of the proceedings, Walter Harding lifted 
 his hat (his hands having been too busy before) and approached 
 the taller lady. 
 
 " Miss Harris, if I am not mistaken." 
 
 "Harris — that is my name, certainly," said the lady, "and 
 you do not know how much we thank you for your kindness, 
 but—" 
 
 "But you don't remember me, eh ?" This was said with a 
 smile that brought some new expression to his face, and the 
 wild girl instantly cried: 
 
 " Yes, I do remember you — you are — you are — " but she 
 had not yet recovered the name from the mists of forgetfulness, 
 if she remembered the face. 
 
 "Walter Harding, merchant, of this city, Miss Josephine, 
 and very glad to meet you again, even under such circum- 
 stances." 
 
 "Mr. Harding — oh yes, what a crazy head I have !" said 
 the lady, smiles now altogether taking the place of the strug- 
 gling tears, and giving him both her hands with the freedom 
 of a school-girl — either in acknowledgment of his late service 
 or as an apology fur her momentary forgetfulness. " Mr. 
 Harding, of course ! Newport — Purgatory — Dumpling Rocks 
 — everywhere — what fish we caught and what a jolly month 
 we had — didn't we ? And then to think that I should have 
 forgotten you, even for a moment !" 
 
 The explanation of which is, that Walter Lane Harding 
 had met Miss Josephine Harris at Newport, in the summer 
 of 1860, and that they had been much pleased with the 
 
158 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 society of each other and companions in many a stroll and 
 fishing-excursion. Probably neither believed, when they 
 parted, thai two years would elapse without another meeting; 
 but in the great Babel of city life it is only occasionally that 
 we can manage to make ourselves heard by each other, above 
 the clattering of the hammers and the confusion of tongue-. 
 Had they been lovers, they would have found each other 
 before, no matter what stood in the way; but friendships, 
 even the warmest, have little of the fierce energy of love, and 
 a very cobweb mesh of circumstances or business <ugage- 
 ments can bind the sentiment, while there is no cord spun in 
 the long rope-walk of life, strong enough to fetter the free 
 limbs of the passion. That Walter Harding and Josephine 
 Harris had only met by accident after two years, and \\-t 
 both living in the same city and moving in the same walk of 
 society — proved that they might have liked but had never 
 lo ved. 
 
 The few passers-by who had collected around the ladies at 
 the time of the insult, had separated when they proved to be 
 in the company of male acquaintances; and in a moment 
 after the recognition between Harding and Joe Harris, the 
 latter had introduced Miss Bell Crawford, the heroine of the 
 cerise ribbon, to both the gentlemen ; and she had received 
 an introduction which caused her to start and color singularly 
 the moment their eyes met — to Mr. Tom Leslie, traveler, 
 newspaper-correspondent, Jack-at-all-trades and general good 
 fellow. Was that interested and conscious look repaid by 
 another on the part of Tom Leslie, or had he had sufficient 
 time after seeing the young girl and before speaking to her, 
 to recover from any agitation, pleasurable or the contrary, 
 incident to the meeting ? Did they know each other or only 
 something 0/ each other? Had they met before, and if so, 
 when and where ? Perhaps some light may be thrown on 
 all these questions, a little later in the progress of this story. 
 
 At the present juncture two of the parties were hungry; 
 the third what is called " peckish," which means a little 
 hungry and quite capable of bolting a sandwich or the wing 
 of a cold turkey ; and the fourth very much in a hurry and 
 anxious to get away to his business. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 159 
 
 " We sent our carriage home, knowing that we cuuld not 
 get through Broadway while the troops were passing," said 
 Bell Crawford, "with orders to have it call for us late in the 
 afternoon, at a friend's house near Union Square. We were 
 just going down to Taylor's for a little lunch, when this 
 awkward affair occurred : may we ask you to join us, gentle- 
 men ?" 
 
 "Oh yes," said Josephine Harris, with her school-girl 
 pleasure at the proposition ill-concealed. "That will be — 
 ms, well, I may as well say out what I think — that will be 
 jolly." 
 
 " As for my friend Leslie here," said Harding, " he has 
 nothing to do, and can certainly ask no greater pleasure than 
 to join you. We were just about separating when we saw 
 you. For myself, I must forego the pleasure, for I have the 
 misfortune to be a busy man, and I must really wish you a 
 hurried good-morning, leaving you in my friend's care." 
 
 With a promise to call upon the ladies at his earliest con- 
 venience, the young merchant hurried away, with every 
 evidence that his thoughts were intent upon the balance at 
 his banker's and the question whether certain regular 
 customers who were to have called during the morning had 
 been duly impressed by his clerks with the merits of certain 
 choice styles of goods, rapidly on the rise, that he would 
 himself have commended to their particular attention. And 
 yet there are odd mixtures, sometimes, even in the minds of 
 merchants — mixtures in which customers become blended 
 with curls and profits with profiles ; for Walter Lane Harding, 
 as he wasted yet one more moment to step into Gilsey's and 
 light a choice Havana, indulged in a train of thought which 
 might have been shaped into words something in the manner 
 following : 
 
 " A pretty woman — that Miss Crawford, decidedly lady- 
 like — which the other is not, however pleasant a companion. 
 I should as soon think of falling in love with a handsome 
 bombshell, as with her. Xo knowing when she might 
 explode. Now if I had met Miss Crawford at Newport two 
 years ago, who knows but affairs might have been different ? 
 Heigho 1" And so Walter Harding went on to his business; 
 
160 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 while Torn Leslie, the member of the party who was 
 "peckish," accompanied the two girls, who were decidedly 
 hungry, to that over-gilt and tawdry caricature upon some 
 of the palace-halls of the Old World, known as " Taylor's 
 Saloon." 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Some Reflections on Comparative Character — Of 
 Houses as Well as Men — Temptation, and the Le- 
 gends OF THE " LURLEY" AND THE " FROZEN HAND" 
 
 A Lunch at Taylor's, and an Arrangement. 
 
 In the " great day of final assize," when beneath the one 
 unerring Eve and Hand all the drosses of life and circum- 
 stance shall be melted away and all the films and disfigure- 
 ments removed from action and intention, — there will be 
 many things, we have reason to believe, shown in a widely 
 different light from that in which human eyes have looked 
 upon them. Human character will surprise the beholders, 
 if it does not produce the same effect even upon the subject 
 under examination. Many a poor wretch who has been 
 stumbling along through life, unfortunate and apparently 
 guilty, of no seeming use either to himself or the world, will 
 be found to have filled a place of necessity not suspected — to 
 have done much good and very little harm — and to have 
 been acting from motives quite as pure as those that in other 
 hearts have produced such different effects. Many a " good" 
 man will be stripped so bare of the garments woven around 
 him by circumstances or his own self-righteousness, and so 
 many of his best deeds will be proved to have proceeded from 
 selfish, interested and unholy motives, that every success and 
 every word of past approbation will be a reproach, and his 
 naked soul will stand shivering in the chilling breath of God's 
 displeasure. 
 
SHOULDER STRAPS. 161 
 
 It is not exactly certain that houses will come to judgment ; 
 but if they do, there will be the same marked difference in the 
 estimation in which many of them have been held by the 
 community surrounding them, and the truth of their influence 
 shown in the " sunlight of the eternal morning." Some mis- 
 erable tenant-house in Bermondscy or the Swamp, over- 
 crowded with human" rats, its atmosphere so noisome that 
 fever floated on every breath and the passer-by from Belgra- 
 via or Murray Hill put his perfumed handkerchief to his nos- 
 trils to escape the deadly infection, — may be found to have 
 been far less injurious to the neighborhood than the corner- 
 house on Park Lane or the double-front of brown stone 
 within the shadow of Dr. Spring's church on Fifth Avenue. 
 Within the one the miserable occupants may have festered in 
 body and rotted in soul — harming only themselves and the 
 physical atmosphere meanwhile, and victims of the horrible 
 aggregation of poverty in great cities ; while within the other 
 a maelstrom of pleasant dissipation has been whirling, to 
 which the victims came in their own carriages with full liver- 
 ies, the waves as they circled sending up jets of cooling spray 
 and redolent of perfumes from the flowers of sunny lands — 
 but continually widening its circle of evil attraction and draw- 
 ing in those who thenceforth had no power of resistance 
 against the banded demons of wine, of play and of lascivious 
 enjoyment, who lurked beneath the waters, eager for their 
 prey. 
 
 The fable of the " Lurline" is the story of human life and 
 temptation ; and yet few of the thousands who have read it 
 in the old German legend of the " Lurleiberg" or the charm- 
 ing " Bridal of Belmont" of the author of " Lillian," or who 
 have gazed at it for hours when presented upon the stage in 
 the shape of " Ondine" or the " Xaiad Queen," — have fully 
 realized its significance. To most it has been merely a pretty 
 conceit or an effective spectacle ; to the close student it is an 
 absorbing picture of the enthralment of human energies. Sir 
 Huldebrand of Kingstettin is a true as well as a valiant 
 knight, and he has a golden-haired and white-handed ladie- 
 love in the neighboring castle of the Baron of Steinbrunnen. 
 He has a hope, a love, a faith, a duty ; and on the day when 
 
182 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 he fares forth from Kingstettin and takes his way to the river 
 bank, he has mirth as well as all these, for Karl, his merry 
 servant, is beside him. But the day is hot and sultry, and he 
 dismounts from his horse and lies down to deep beside the 
 Lurleiberg. He has granted himself rest and indulgence. 
 Half in his sleep and half in his waking thought he see.- the 
 stream rippling below the banks and" circling in pleasant 
 eddies by rock and mossy edge, while the water-lilies nestle 
 down their soft cheeks to the lapping water in the sheltered 
 nooks, and the willows bend down and kiss the stream with 
 the swaying tips of their hundred fingers, and little gleams 
 of golden sunshine steal through the branches and touch the 
 soft ripples here and there with such tints of transparent 
 light as the pencil of painter never mastered. Oh, how deli- 
 ciously sweet and dreamy is that half wakeful feeling of 
 repose and indulgence! And then the music rises — gentle 
 and almost undistinguishable at first from the singing ripple 
 of the water — then clearer and more distinct, but with still a 
 tinkling ripple in every cadence, and the name of the listener 
 insensibly blended. Flattery has come with indulgence, and 
 the subtle wine of its intoxication is mounting to his brain. 
 Then he turns dreamily on his couch of moss, and looks over 
 the bank into the river. Above the water white hands are 
 circling and snowy bosoms are gleaming, and in the midst is 
 one form of matchless rounded beauty, with a face of angelic 
 splendor, her eye-lids gemmed with the tear-drops of an 
 awakened affection, and her waved brown hair caressed by 
 the tide as it sweeps backward. All the white hands are 
 beckoning to him, and all the coral lips are uttering those 
 low musical w T ords in which his name is blended. The brain 
 of the knight grows dizzy — chains of which he only feels a 
 pleasure in the slight pressure, twine around his limbs. Vo- 
 luptuous enjoyment takes the place of energy — he is himself 
 no longer. He cannot even laugh — he can only sigh — Karl 
 has gone chasing some Lurline of his own, far down the 
 meadow. Ermengarde, who has been for hours leaning out 
 of the high window at Steinbrunnen, and looking anxiously 
 for her expected lover — is nothing to him now. His promised 
 aid to Sir Rudolph to-morrow, with helm on brow and 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 163 
 
 lance in rest, against the invader who threatens the lands 
 of both with ravage, is nothing to him now. Love and 
 duty are alike forgotten. The temptation has done its full 
 work through indolence and indulgence, and the knight is 
 lcfct The brown-haired Lurlinc is worth all earth and heaven. 
 Let all the rest go, without a sigh or a regret — be his the mur- 
 mur of the river, the delicious music embodying his name, 
 and the beckoning of the white hands towards him ! He 
 does not leap into the water, as some have held : he merely 
 bends nearer to the verge, then slips down with eager eyes 
 and outstretched hands; the white arms twine around him; 
 the music sounds for one moment more sweetly but more 
 sadly than ever, as the waves close above the pair so unholily 
 wedded ; then the ripples sing on and all is quiet beauty as 
 before — calm and quiet beauty, as if no tomb had closed above 
 the energies of a human soul. 
 
 Sir Huldebrand may come back again, after a time, as the 
 legend is fond of making him do. He may even marry the 
 golden-haired Ermengarde and sire children to heir his lands 
 and perpetuate his name. But the knight is himself a wreck, 
 with all his best energies burnt out in those wierd orgies be- 
 neath the water ; and his bridal vow is a hollow one, for 
 when he utters it he hears the shriek of the Lurline blending 
 with the wedding music, and his nightly couch is to be hence- 
 forth a torture of unrest — his ride by day a mere hopeless 
 fleeing from the ghosts of dead pleasures. 
 
 Something of the same character is that other wild legend 
 which has grown into song and drama — sprung from the 
 Norse branch of the great German mind, — that of the " Ice 
 Witch" or the " Frozen Hand." Here the Yiking Harold is 
 less wrecked by temptation than by circumstance ; but the 
 result of the enthralment is the same. The ice of the Pole 
 closes around him with the same fatality as the waters of the 
 Rhine around his brother and prototype. Surrounded by 
 the white arms of Hecla in her palace of ice, he ceases to 
 lament the bride who is awaiting him in the far South ; and 
 he has not even a thought of regret to cast towards his 
 perished companions and the stout ship that once bore him 
 so proudly, her brown ribs now bleaching whitely on the 
 
164 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Arctic shore. He too returns, after a long period, but he 
 brings with him the fatal gift of his Northern bride — a hand 
 of ice. He may be strong and brave still, as he was when 
 he went away ; but he is no longer the peerless and envied 
 warrior. Men look upon him with a ghostly shudder, and 
 women shrink back from his chilling presence. Not even 
 Freja can thaw away all the ice that has gathered in his 
 veins. He may chastise the robber Kuric from the hills, and 
 sleep once more in the warm embrace of Isoldane ; but who 
 knows that at some midnight hour the old curse may not 
 return upon him and the hand he stretches in love and fond- 
 ness strike death to the hearts that are dearest ? Not the 
 same — changed, changed — as is every man who has once 
 yielded to the great temptation of his existence. 
 
 All this, which may be purely irrelevant matter, has grown 
 out of a visit paid by some of the characters in this narration, 
 to a fashionable restaurant and saloon on Broadway, and the 
 belief that in some of those houses temptation is lurking in 
 so insidious and deadly a form that they are doing a thousand 
 times the injury inflicted by the acknowledged haunts of vice. 
 Special allusion may or may not be made to the gorgeous 
 but tawdry room in which the three sat down to discuss their 
 a la mode beef, coffee and biscuits. Any one of the fashionable 
 houses to which ladies habitually resort without male pro- 
 tection,. for a noonday lunch when shopping, — may serve as 
 a type of all the rest; and not one* of them but may be 
 passed with a shudder, by husbands who wish their wives to 
 remain like Cesar's, not only chaste but above suspicion, — 
 and by fathers who do not desire the peach-bloom tt>o early 
 rubbed off from the innocence of their fair daughters. 
 
 At this marble table, where the cloth is being so carefully 
 spread by the white-napkined waiter who has a steaming 
 cluster of dishes on a salver on the table opposite, — there 
 may be a little party, like that of our three friends, dropped 
 in on the most proper of errands — that of merely procuring a 
 bit of lunch in the midst of a day of business, without going 
 home for it or visiting the table d'hote at a hotel ; but at the 
 next table and the next there is something different. Here 
 sit a party of three giddy girls, without male protection, 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 165 
 
 innocent enough in their lives and intentions, but boldly 
 exposing their faces to the rude gaze of any of the libertine 
 diners-out who may happen to be at the tables opposite, and 
 returning that gaze, when met, with a smile and a simper 
 that merely means scorn and self-confidence but may be easily 
 construed into a less creditable expression. And at this 
 table, only two removed, discussing a pate de foix gras which 
 may or may not have come from Strasburg of the Big Goose 
 Livers, and washing down his edibles with a glass of liqueur 
 that fires the blood like so much molten lava, — sits a bold- 
 faced man, fashionable in dress and perfumed in hair and 
 whiskers, whose gaze is that of the evil eye upon the reputa- 
 tion of any woman, and who has no better occupation than 
 lounging in any place of public resort, to spy out the beauties 
 of female face and figure and the weaknesses in the fortifica- 
 tions that surround female virtue. And here— at one of the 
 opposite row of tables, her cup of coffee and plate of French 
 trifles in pasty just being set down before her— here is a sad- 
 der spectacle than either. The wife of a wealthy merchant, 
 yet young, beautiful and attractive, but with a frightened look 
 in her dark eye and a nervous glancing round at the door 
 every time it opens, which too well reveals her story to the 
 close observer. She is waiting for her lover— harsh word in 
 that connection, but the true and only one ; her lover, whose 
 acquaintance she may have made through unforbidden glances 
 in this very room, ancl whom she has permitted to approach 
 her, slowly but surely, as the serpent stole upon Eve in Eden, 
 until she has fallen completely into his power, losing honor, 
 self-respect, everything that a true wife most values, and pro- 
 bably supporting the wretch in a course of gambling and dis- 
 sipation, with money wrung on one pitiable pretext or other 
 from the grudging hand of her betrayed husband. 
 
 It is enough ! — let the curtain fall. But oh, heart of man, 
 put up the prayer that other and holier lips once uttered : 
 "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil !" Ancl 
 may not the houses indeed come into judgment ? 
 
 We have no concern whatever with the pleasant small-talk 
 which floated over the little table at Taylor's, from the lips of 
 Tom Leslie and his two female companions ; nor is there any 
 
166 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 need to pause at this juncture and remark whether the strange 
 glance of Josephine Harris on being introduced to the young 
 man on the street, was repeated or returned. The trio seemed 
 to be a very happy one, Miss Bell Crawford a little starched 
 at first towards a man who had been flung into her way so 
 ambiguously, but rattle-pated Joe firing off occasional 
 fusillades of odd sayings, and Tom, the prince of preux 
 ehevaliers, falling into the position of an old acquaintance 
 with marvellous rapidity. Their lunch was nearly over, 
 when the mischievous face of Joe, who had been making 
 running comments upon some of the people on the other side 
 of the room, good-naturedly wicked if not complimentary — 
 lit up with a conceit which set her hazel-gray eyes laughing 
 away down to the depths of her brain. At the same moment 
 the quick eyes of Bell Crawford saw that the hand of .the 
 merry girl was rummaging in her pocket, and her face became 
 anxious. Before the latter could speak, however, the hand 
 of Joe came out with the treasure she had been seeking — a 
 torn half column, or less, of the Herald. The moment Miss 
 Crawford saw the slip, her anxiety seemed to be redoubled, 
 and she reached over to Joe, as if to take the paper, with 
 the words, half-pleading, half-pettish : 
 
 "Don't, Joe — pray don't !" 
 
 " Oh, but I must !" said the mischievous girl, taking care 
 that her companion should not reach the slip. " I cannot 
 think of throwing away such an excellent opportunity. I 
 say, Mr. Leslie, you are not an unscrupulous destroyer of 
 female innocence — one of those dreadful fellows we read 
 about in the books, are you ?" 
 
 " Oh, Joe, I am ashamed of you !" said Bell Crawford, and 
 she lay back in her chair, very near to a fit of the sulks. 
 
 "Really," said-' Tom Leslie, blushing a little in spite of 
 himself, though without knowing precisely why — " really, 
 Miss Harris, I am afraid I am not the best of men, but I hope 
 I do not deserve any such terrible appellation." 
 
 " There, I told you so, Bell, I knew he wasn't !" went on 
 the wild girl, as if she had been asking a solemn question and 
 receiving a conclusive answer. "We can trust him — he says 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 167 
 
 we can, and I am going- to put him to the test at once. Sup- 
 pose, Mr. Leslie, that a couple of distressed damsels — " 
 
 "What a ninny you are making of yourself!" put in Miss 
 Crawford, in a tone not very far from earnest. 
 
 " Suppose that a couple of distressed damsels," Josephine 
 Harris went on, without heeding her in the least, " about to 
 pass through a gloomy and desolate wood, on the way to an 
 enchanted castle, should appeal to you to accompany them 
 and give them the benefit of your courage and your — yes, 
 your respectability, in the adventure ; would you go with 
 them, even if you were obliged to abandon a game of billiards 
 and forfeit the smoking of two cigars for that purpose ?" and 
 she threw herself back in her chair, screwed her face into the 
 expression supposed to belong to a grand inquisitor, and 
 waited for a reply. 
 
 " I would do my devoir like a true knight," said Leslie, 
 making a mock bow over the table, with his hand on his 
 heart, "even if I forfeited thereby not only two cigars but 
 four and the playing of two whole games of billiards." 
 
 "Generous knight!" said Joe, still preserving her melo- 
 dramatic tone, "we trust you — we enlist you into our ser- 
 vice, 'for three years or during the war!' Read!" and she 
 solemnly handed over the slip of paper, on which Leslie per- 
 ceived the following advertisement, marked around with 
 black crayon, and under the general head of "Astrology": — 
 
 " rpHE STARS HAVE SAID IT! MADAME ELISE BOUTELL, 
 J. from Paris, whom the stars favor and to whom the secrets 
 of the unknown world are revealed, may be consulted on any of 
 the great events of life, at No. — Prince Street, near the Bowery, 
 every day, between 10 A.M. and 0" P.M. Let ignorance be ban- 
 ished, and let the light of the world unknown dawn on the dark- 
 ened minds. Persona who attempt deception in visiting Madame 
 Boutell, will find all disguise unavailing; but all confidences are 
 safe, as strict secrecy is observed." 
 
 "Well?" added Leslie, looking up inquiringly, after read- 
 ing the mysterious announcement. 
 
 " Well ?" said the mad girl, mimicking him. "Is that all 
 the effect it produces upon you ? Do your knees not shake 
 and does not your hair start up on end when you think of it, 
 so that your hat — if your hat was not unfortunately hung 
 
168 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 upon the hook yonder, would require to be held on by main 
 force ?" 
 
 "How can you be so absurd ?" suggested Bell, who really 
 feared that the pronounced behaviour of her friend might 
 draw too much attention to their table, as there was indeed 
 some danger of its doing. 
 
 "Bah!" said Joe, "I couldn't be absurd! I was 'never 
 absurd in my life,' as Sir Hartcourt Courtley says. But Mr. 
 Leslie ! — what have I said ? You look pale — ill !" and the 
 face of the young girl tamed instantly to an expression of 
 genuine alarm, not at all unwarranted by the circumstances. 
 The face of Tom Leslie had indeed undergone a sudden 
 change. His usual ruddy cheek seemed ghastly white, his 
 eyes stared glassily, and there was a quick convulsive shiver 
 running over his frame which did not escape the notice of either 
 of his two companions. The kind heart of Josephine Harris 
 at once hit upon a solution for the otherwise strange specta- 
 cle. She had said some awkward word — touched some hid- 
 den and painful chord connected with past suffering or expe- 
 rience ; and she felt like having her tongue extracted at the 
 root for the commission of such a blunder. 
 
 What was the cause of this sudden emotion ? The expla- 
 nation may not be so difficult to any thoughtful reader of this 
 story as it was to the two young girls who sought it. Tom 
 Leslie had merely read over the mendacious advertisement, 
 at first, with the same indifference given to thousands of cor- 
 responding humbugs ; and at the first reading he had not noticed 
 the place at all. At the second reading, his mind took in the 
 direction: " No. — Prince Street, near Bowery," and at the 
 same moment he comprehended the words, " Madame Elise 
 Boutell, from Pa?*is." Tom Leslie was every thing else than 
 a coward ; and yet he had shuddered before at the sight and 
 the memory of the "red woman:" 1 he whitened and shud- 
 dered now. What if another meeting with that mysterious 
 woman was at hand ? — if the scenes of the Rue la Reynie 
 Ogniard were about to be re-enacted ? The French name 
 and the words "from Paris," the place, which seemed to him 
 undoubtedly the same of his adventure with Harding — all 
 
SHOULDEK-STKATS. 169 
 
 made up a presumption of identity that was for the moment 
 overwhelming. 
 
 But those who show surprise or emotion quickest are not 
 slowest to recover from its effects. Whatever he felt, nothing 
 more was to be shown the two ladies. Reaching for a glass 
 of ice-water standing upon the table, Leslie drank the whole 
 of it off at a draught, and the electric shock at once restored 
 the tone to his system and brought back the red blood to his 
 face. With a laugh he said : 
 
 " I really beg ten thousand pardons for alarming you, but 
 these slight attacks are constitutional, and they need not cause 
 the least fear. That is over, and I am as well as ever. What 
 was it you were saying, Miss Harris ?" 
 
 11 Thank heaven that you are better !"said the kind-hearted 
 girl. "I was really for the instant apprehensive that some- 
 thing I had said might have awakened some painful recollec- 
 tion. I was trying to get you, at that moment, to under- 
 stand the terrible significance of this advertisement." 
 
 "Well," said Leslie, laughing, "what am I to understand ? 
 That you have been testing the skill of this seeress, or that 
 you are about to do so ?" 
 
 11 There you go I" said Joe Harris. " Now you are on the 
 other side of the fence ! Excuse my similes, but I have not 
 always been cooped up in this humdrum city — I occasionally 
 pay visits to the country. A moment ago you grew pale at 
 the name of the mighty Madame Boutell, whose cognomen 
 sounds a good deal like the Yankee ' doo tell !' I admit ; and 
 now you are laughing at her!" The young girl had by this 
 time recovered from her good-natured anxiety and regained 
 her habitual vivacity, and she rattled on to the great edifica- 
 tion of her auditors, and happily without attracting any ad- 
 ditional notice from the people at the other tables. "Yes, 
 sir, Miss Crawford and myself are about to consult this modest 
 exponent of the mysteries of the stars, though about what 
 we have not the least idea, /have not, at least; have you, 
 Bell r 
 
 " Not the ghost of an idea," was the answer of Miss Craw- 
 ford. 
 
 "Ghost is good, in that connection," rattled on the y>y 
 
170 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 girl. " You see I have never yet consulted a fortune-teller, 
 and I am afraid I shall soon be too old to do it to advan- 
 tage. I lost my faith in Santa Claus, a good many years 
 ago, and long before my stocking was too big to hang up ; 
 and I cried over the discovery for a fortnight Suppose I 
 should lose my faith in fortune-telling before I ever had any 
 experience in that direction — wouldn't it be dreadful ?" 
 
 " But why this lady in particular V* asked Leslie, who was 
 at the moment studying- a theme which no man knows more 
 about to-day than was known in the days of Aristotle — 
 that of chances and coincidences. 
 
 " Oh," said Joe, fumbling in her pocket for other slips, and 
 drawing them out and exhibiting them with great gravity, to 
 the infinite amusement at least of Leslie. " Oh, 1 have been 
 preparing myself, and found the best. Here- is a 'Madame 
 R., ? who has 'just arrived in the city and taken a room ac 
 No. 7 Pickle Place.' That would never do, you see. 'Taken 
 a room' is too suggestive of limited accommodations and no 
 carpet on a very dirty stair. Then here is another, in whicn 
 1 Madame Francena Guessberg' promises to ' give information 
 about absent friends' and to ' show the faces of future hus- 
 bands.' Most of my friends who are absent I never wish to 
 hear of again ; and as to the husbands, I shall see them all 
 soon enough, if not too soon." 
 
 " Hem !" said Leslie, though scarcely knowing why he 
 made that comment. 
 
 " That is all," continued the wild girl. " All the rest arc 
 insignificant or impossible, except — no, here is one who 
 promises to 'call names.' Now if there is any thing in the 
 world that I don't like except when I do it myself, it is ' call- 
 ing names.' And now see Madame Boutell. There is noth- 
 ing of the petty or the insignificant about her. She has the 
 'stars' at command, and is about to open the ' unknown wond.' 
 She is the woman, of course ! Knows all about the 'gieat 
 events' of life. Can't be humbugged, and keeps a secret *s a 
 steel-trap holds a rat. And now. will you go with us, and 
 protect us, and — Mr. Harding said you were a newspaper 
 man, — will you take down a full, true and circumstahtial 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 171 
 
 account of all that occurs ? That is what I have been trying 
 to get at for this quarter of an hour. Will you go with us ?" 
 
 "You are going to-day, then ?" asked Leslie. 
 
 " Miss Harris insisted upon my accompanying her, and I 
 half consented to do so," said Miss Bell Crawford, apologeti- 
 cally. 
 
 "Fiddlestick !" said the merry riddle. " Don't try to beg 
 out of it, Miss Bell ! She sent her carriage home, Mr. Leslie, 
 so that we need not be seen going there with it ; and there 
 we were going, two lovely and unprotected females, when 
 providence raised up a champion in the person of our new 
 friend. " 
 
 " Who hopes yet to be an old friend, and who will go with 
 you, with the greatest pleasure," said Leslie. " At the same 
 time" — reflecting a moment — " at the same time I must be 
 as prudent about myself, for certain reasons, which I will 
 explain some day if you wish it — as Miss Crawford has been 
 about her carriage. Oblige me by remaining at the table here 
 and trifling with some creams, chocolate and a few bon-bons, 
 while I leave you for a few minutes — not more than fifteen or 
 twenty. At the end of that time I shall be ready to accom- 
 pany you." 
 
 Giving the necessary orders and throwing a bill to the 
 waiter, Tom Leslie passed rapidly out into the street and 
 walked quite as rapidly up Broadway, until he turned again 
 down Broome Street, which he had quitted with Harding 
 but a little while before. Had he more to do with the Police ? 
 
 11 
 
172 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Fortune-telling and other Superstitions — The every- 
 day Omens that we half believe — Origins of this 
 Weakness — Fortune-tellers of New York, Boston 
 and Washington. 
 
 While Tom Leslie has gone around to Broome Street on 
 his undeclared errand, and while the ladies are making an 
 excuse to while away the time until his return, in the dis- 
 cussion of the after-dinner provocatives to indigestion recom- 
 mended, let us enter a little more closely upon a subject 
 merely indicated in the foregoing chapter, and then sneered 
 at by at least one of the conversationists — that of the for- 
 tune-telling imposition which so largely prevails, especially 
 in the great cities, and the general course of human supersti- 
 tion in connection with it. 
 
 It may be set down, as a general principle, that every man 
 is more or less superstitious — that is, impressed with idea- and 
 omjens which go beyond the material world and bid utter de- 
 fiance to reason. Every woman is certainly so. It is not 
 less undeniable, meanwhile, that nearly every man and wo- 
 man denies this fact of their natures and considers the mere 
 allegation to be an insult. Oftenest from the fear of ridicule, 
 but sometimes, no doubt, because any discussion of the matter 
 is deemed improper, — few acknowledge this peculiarity of na- 
 ture, even to their most intimate friends : some, who must be 
 aware that they possess it, deny it even to themselves. The 
 subject is set down as contraband, universally, unless when the 
 weakness of a third party is to be ridiculed, or a personal free- 
 dom from the superstition asserted ; and yet this very silence 
 and the boasting are both suspicious. Xo man boasts so much 
 over his own wealth as he who has little or none ; and no man 
 is so silent, except under the. influence of great excitement, as 
 he who has a great thought oppressing him or a great fear con- 
 tinually tugging at his heart-strings. The most hopeless dis- 
 believers in the Divine Being, that can possibly be met, are 
 those who seldom or never enter into a eontroversy on the 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 173 
 
 subject ; and the least assured is he who oftenest enters into 
 controversy, perhaps for the purpose of strengthening his own 
 belief. There are Captain Barecolts, of course, who go bravely 
 into battle after venting boasts that seem to stamp them as 
 arrant cowards, and who come out pf the conflict with stories 
 staggering all human comprehension ; but these cases are rare, 
 and they do not go beyond the recmisite number of exceptions 
 to justify the rule. 
 
 Perhaps the most general of the ordinary superstitions of 
 the country is the indefinable impression that the catching a 
 first sight of the new moon over the right shoulder ensures 
 good fortune in the ensuing month, while a first glance of it 
 over the left is correspondingly unlucky. (It may be said, in 
 a parenthesis, that the fast phrase, " over the left," so preva- 
 lent during the past few years, to indicate the reverse of what 
 has just been spoken, has its derivation from the impression 
 that such an untoward sinister glance may neutralize all 
 effort and bring notable misfortune.) Of a hundred men in- 
 terrogated on this point, ninety-five will assert that they hold 
 no such superstition, and that they have never even thought 
 of the direction in which they first saw the new moon of 
 any particular month. And yet of that ninety-five, the 
 chances are that ninety are in the habit of taking precautions 
 to meet the young crescent in the proper or lucky manner, or 
 of indulging in a slight shudder or feeling of unpleasantness 
 when they realize that they have accidentally blundered into 
 the opposite. 
 
 Next in prevalence to this, may be cited the superstition 
 that any pointed article, as a knife, a pin, or a pair of scis- 
 sors, falling accidentally from the hand and sticking direct in 
 the floor or the carpet, indicates the coming of visitors during 
 the same day, to the house in which the omen occurred. 
 Hundreds and even thousands of housewives, not only the 
 ignorant but the more intelligent, immediately upon witness- 
 ing or being informed of such an important event, make pre- 
 paration, on the part of themselves and their households, if 
 any are felt to be necessary, for the reception of the visitors 
 who are sure to arrive within the time indicated by the omen. 
 Some, but not so ninny, add to this the superstition that the 
 
174 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 involuntary twitching of the eye-lid or itching of the eye- 
 brow indicates the coming of visitors in the same manner ; 
 and many a projected absence from the house is deferred by 
 our good ladies, from one or another of these omens and the 
 impression that by absence at that particular time they ma- 
 lose the opportunity of seeing valued friends. 
 
 Next in generality, if not even entitled to precedence of the 
 last, is the superstition that the gift of a knife or any sharp 
 article of cutlery, is almost certain to produce estrangement 
 between the giver and the receiver — in other words, to " cut 
 friendship." Ridiculous as the superstition may appear, there 
 is scarcely one of either sex who does not pay some respect 
 to it ; and of one thousand knives that may happen to be 
 transferred between intimate friends (and lovers) it is safe to 
 say that not less than nine hundred and ninety have the omen 
 guarded against by a half playful demand and acceptance of 
 some small coin in return, giving the transfer some slight 
 fiction of being a mercantile transaction. The statistics of 
 how many loves or friendships have really been severed by 
 non-attention to this important precaution, might be some- 
 what difficult to compile, and the attempt need not be made 
 in this connection. 
 
 Thousands of musically inclined young ladies have serious 
 objections to singing before breakfast, quoting, not altogether 
 jocularly, the proverb that " one who sings before breakfast 
 will cry [weep] before night," which no doubt had its origin 
 in a proverb derived from the Orientals, that 
 
 " The bird which singeth in the early morn, 
 Ere night by cruel talons ■will he torn." 
 
 Not less unaccountable, and yet impressive, are some of 
 the superstitions connected with marriage, death, and the de- 
 parture of friends. A belief very generally prevails that 
 when a couple enter a church to be married, if the bride steps 
 at all in advance of the bridegroom, he will be found an un- 
 willing and unfaithful husband ; while if the opposite should 
 happen to be the order of precedence, even by a few inches, 
 the marriage tie will prove a happy and long-enduring one. 
 The belief that the bridal hour should occur during clear 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 175 
 
 weather, is perhaps a natural one, and derived from well- 
 understood natural laws affecting the physical systems of 
 those entering' into such intimate relations ; but the super- 
 stition goes further and considers sunshine on the bridal day 
 a specific against all the possible ills of matrimonial life. 
 This feeling supplies half of a doggrel couplet which came 
 to us from the Saxons, and which blends marriage and burial 
 somewhat singularly : — 
 
 " Happy is the bride that the sun shines on ; 
 And blessed is the corpse that the rain rains on." 
 
 There are thousands of persons who have objections to 
 counting the number of carriages at a funeral, from the super- 
 stition that the one who does so will very soon be called to 
 attend a funeral at home ; and the same objection exists to put- 
 ting on, even for a moment, any portion of a mourning garb 
 worn by another, under the impression that the temporary 
 wearer will in some way be influenced to wear mourning very 
 soon for some lost relative. No doubt fifty other and similar su- 
 perstitions connected with death and burial might be adduced, 
 even without alluding to those of more frightful import and 
 now very little regarded, which belong more peculiarly to 
 the Eastern world, and which inculcate the leaving open of a 
 window at the moment of death, to allow the unrestrained 
 flight of the passing soul, and reprobate the leaving of any 
 open vessel of water in the vicinity of the death-chamber, in 
 the fear that the disembodied spirit, yet weak and untried of 
 wing, may fall therein and perish ! 
 
 One more superstition, connected with the departure of 
 friends, must be noted — the more peculiarly as there is a sad 
 beauty in the thought. Very many nervous and excitable 
 people fear to look after those who are going away on long 
 journeys or dangerous enterprises, under the fear that such 
 a look after them may prevent their return. One peculiar 
 instance of the indulgence of this superstition, and its appa- 
 rent fulfilment, happens to have fallen under notice, during 
 the present struggle. When the President's first call for 
 volunteers was made, among those who responded was one 
 young lad of eighteen, a mere handsome boy in appearance 
 and altogether delicate in constitution, who left a comfortable 
 
176 S1I OU LDER-STKAI'S. 
 
 position to fulfil what he believed to be a stem duty. He had 
 
 two female cousins, of nearly his own age, and with whom 
 he had been in close intimacy. Going- away hurriedly, with 
 little time to bestow on farewells, he called to bid them good- 
 bye one dark and threatening night. Some tears of emotion 
 were shed, and the sad farewell was spoken. When In- 
 passed down the walk, both the cousins stood without the 
 door and watched his figure as it grew dimmer and disap- 
 peared in the dusk of the distant street. When they returned 
 to the cheerfulness of the lighted room, the younger burst 
 into tears. 
 
 " "We have doomed him," she said. " We watched him 
 when he went away, and looked after him as long as he 
 could be seen. He will never come back. His young life 
 will fade out and disappear, just as we saw him fading away 
 in the darkness. " 
 
 A month later the young soldier was dead ; and something 
 more than ordinary reasoning will be necessary to persuade 
 the two cousins — the younger and more impressive, espe- 
 cially — that their gazing after him did not cast an evil omen on 
 his fate and a blight upon his life. Another near relative 
 has since gone away on the same patriotic errand ; but when 
 the farewells were spoken in the lighted room, the two girls 
 escaped at once and hid themselves in another apartment, so 
 that they should not even see him disappear through the 
 door. When last heard from,* fever and bullet had yet 
 spared him ; and what more is needed to make the two 
 young girls hopelessly superstitious for life, at least in this 
 one regard ? They are not the only persons who have seen 
 and felt that fading out in the darkness as an omen ; for the 
 same observer who once stood on the bluff at Long Branch, 
 as a heavy night of storm was closing, and saw the " Star of 
 the West" gradually fade away and disappear into that 
 threatening storm and darkness — unconscious that she was 
 to emerge again to play so important a part in the drama of 
 the nation's degradation, — the same observer saw the same 
 omen at Xiblo's not long ago, when the poor Jewess of Miss 
 
 * February 1st, 1863. 
 
S If O U i 1) E li - S*T B A F s. 177 
 
 Bateman's wonderful " Leah" fell back step by step into the 
 crowd, as the curtain was dropping, her last hope withered 
 and her last duty done, and nothing remaining but to " fol- 
 low on with my people." 
 
 And at all such times Proserpine comes back, as she may 
 have cast wistful glances towards the vanishing home of her 
 childhood, when the rude hands of the ravishers were bear- 
 ing her away from the spot where she was gathering flowers 
 in the vale of Enna ; and we think of Orpheus taking that 
 fatal, wistful last look back at Eurydice, with the thought in 
 his eyes that could not give her up even for a moment, when 
 emerging to the outer air from the flames and smoke of Tar- 
 tarus. Wistful glances back at all we have lost are embo- 
 died ; and all these long, agonizing appeals of the eye against 
 that fate of separation which cannot be longer combated with 
 tongue or hand, are made over again for our torture. 
 
 It has been said that some persons endeavor to deceive 
 themselves with reference to their holding any belief in 
 omens and auguries. And some of those who by position 
 and education should be lifted above gross errors, are quite 
 as liable as others to this self-deception. Quite a large circle 
 of prominent persons may remember an instance in which a 
 leading Doctor of Divinity, renowned for his strong common- 
 sense as well as beloved for his goodness, was joining in a 
 genera] conversation on human traits and oddities, when one 
 of the company alluded to popular superstitions and acknow- 
 ledged that he had one, though only one — that of the " moon 
 over the shoulder." Another confessed to another, and still 
 another to another, while the Doctor " pished" and "pshawed" 
 at each until he made him heartily ashamed of his confession. 
 The man of the lunar tendencies, however, had a habit of 
 bearding lions, clerical as well as other, and he at last turned 
 on the Doctor. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you have no superstitions what- 
 ever, Doctor?" he asked. 
 
 " Xone whatever," said the Doctor, confidently. 
 
 "You have no confidence in supernatural revelations in 
 any relation of life ?" pursued the questioner. 
 
 " Xone whatever/' repeated the Doctor. 
 
178 SHO I'LDER-STKA I\S. 
 
 "And )'ou never act — try, now, if you please, to remember — 
 you never act under impression from any omen that does not 
 appeal to reason, or are made more or less comfortable by 
 the existence of one ? In other words, is there no occurrence 
 that ever induces you to alter your course of action, when 
 that occurrence has nothing' whatever to do with the object 
 in view, and when you can give no such explanation to your- 
 self as you would like to give to the outside world, for the 
 feeling or the change ?"' 
 
 " There is nothing of the kind," replied the Doctor to this 
 long question. Then he suddenly seemed to remember — 
 paused, and colored a little as he went on. " I acknowledge 
 my error, gentlemen," he said. "I have a, superstition, though 
 I never before thought of it in the light of one. I am ren- 
 dered exceedingly uncomfortable, and almost ready to turn 
 back, if a cat, dog or other animal chances to run across the 
 way before me, at the moment when I am starting upon any 
 journey." 
 
 The laugh which began to run round the company was po- 
 litely smothered in compliment to the good Doctor's candor ; 
 but the fact of a universal superstition of some description or 
 other was considered to be very prettily established. 
 
 But the conversation did not end here ; and one who had 
 before borne little part in it — a man of some distinction in 
 literary as well as political life, — was drawn out by what had 
 occurred, to make a statement with reference to himself which 
 exhibited another phenomenon in supernaturalist belief — a 
 man who not only had a superstition and acknowledged it, 
 but could give a reason for holding it. 
 
 "Humph !" he said, "some of you have superstitions and 
 acknowledge them without showing that you have any 
 grounds for your belief; and the Doctor, who has also a 
 superstition, does not seem to have been aware of it before. 
 Now J am a believer in the supernatural, and I have had 
 cause to be so." 
 
 " Indeed ! and how ?" asked some member of the com- 
 pany. 
 
 " As thus," answered the believer. " And I will tell you 
 the story as briefly as I can and still make it intelligible, — 
 
SllOL'LDEU-STRArS. 179 
 
 from the fact that a severe head-ache is the inevitable penalty 
 of telling; it at all. I resided in a country section of a neigh- 
 boring State, some twenty years ago ; and about three miles 
 distant, in another little hamlet of a dozen or two houses, 
 lived the young lady to whom I was engaged to be married. 
 My Sundays were idle ones, and as I was busy most of the 
 week, I generally spent the afternoon of each Sunday, and 
 sometimes the whole of the day, at the house of my expectant 
 bride, whom I will call Gertrude for the occasion. I kept no 
 horse, and habitually walked over to the village. I had never 
 ridden over, let it be borne in mind, as that is a point of in- 
 terest. I very seldom rode anywhere, and Gertrude had 
 never seen me on horseback. 
 
 " It happened, as I came out from my place of boarding, 
 one fine Sunday afternoon in mid-winter, that one of the 
 neighbors, who kept a number of fine horses, was bringing a 
 couple of them out for exercise. They were very restive, 
 and he complained that they stood still too much and needed 
 to have the spirit taken out of them a little. I laughingly 
 replied that if he would saddle one, I would do him that 
 favor ; and he threw the saddle on a very fast running-mare, 
 and mounted me. Accordingly, and of course from what ap- 
 peared a mere accident, I rode over to the place of my des- 
 tination. 
 
 " There was a small stable behind the house occupied by the 
 family of my betrothed, across a little garden-lot, and I rode 
 round the house without dismounting, to care for my horse. 
 As I passed the house, I saw Gertrude standing at the door, 
 and looking frightfully ill and pale. I hurried to the stables, 
 threw the saddle from my horse, and returned instantly to the 
 house. Gertrude met me at the door, threw herself into my 
 arms (a demonstration not habitual) and sobbed herself al- 
 most into hysterics and insensibility. I succeeded in calming 
 her a little, and she then informed me of the cause of her be- 
 havior. She was frightened to death at seeing me come on 
 horseback ; and the reason she gave for this was that the 
 night before she had dreamed that I came on horseback — 
 that her brother, a young man in mercantile business a few 
 miles away, also came on horseback (his usual habit) — and 
 
1 80 SHOULDEU-STUAl' B. 
 
 that while her brother and myself were riding rapidly to- 
 gether, I was thrown and his horse dashed out my brains 
 with his hoof- ! 
 
 " Here was a pleasant omen, or would have been to a be- 
 liever in the supernatural ; but I belonged to the opposite 
 extreme. I laughed at Gertrude's fears, and finally succeeded 
 in driving them away, though with great difficulty, by the in- 
 formation that her brother had gone W.est the day before and 
 could not possibly be riding around in this seetion, seeking 
 my life with a horse-shoe. She was staggered but not satis- 
 fied — I could see that fact in her eye. Still she shook off the 
 apparent feeling, and we joined the family. Half an hour 
 after, her brother rode up and stabled his horse — he having 
 been accidentally prevented leaving for the West as arranged. 
 At this new confirmation of her fears, very flattering to me 
 but very inconvenient, Gertrude fell into another fit of fright- 
 ened hysterics ; nothing being said to any of the members 
 of the family, however. I succeeded in chasing away this 
 second attack, with a few more kisses and a little less scolding 
 than before. With the lady again apparently pacified, we 
 rejoined the company, and the evening passed in music and 
 conversation. The shadow did not entirely leave the face of 
 Gertrude, and she watched me continually. For myself, I 
 had no thought whatever on the subject, except sorrow for 
 her painful hallucination. 
 
 " At about ten o'clock, the brother rose to go for his horse, 
 and I accompanied him to look after mine but not to go home, 
 for the " courting" hours — the dearest of all — were yet to 
 come. At the stable, as he was mounting, we talked of the 
 speed of his horse and of the one I rode ; and he bantered 
 me to mount and ride with him a mile. There was a splendid 
 stretch of smooth road for a couple of miles on his way, and 
 without a moment's thought of Gertrude I threw the saddle 
 on my horse and rode away with him, the people at the house 
 being altogether unaware that I had gone farther than to the 
 stables. 
 
 " I have no idea what set us to horse-racing on that Sunday 
 night ; but race we did. Both horses had good foot and the 
 road was excellent, though the night was dusky. Before we 
 
S1I0 U L DEll-STKAPS. lbl 
 
 had gone half a mile we were going at top speed. When we 
 reached the end of the hard road he was a little ahead, and I 
 banteringly called to him to 'repeat.' He wheeled at once, 
 and away we went like the wind. From turning behind, T 
 had a little the start, and kept it. Perhaps we were fifty 
 yards from the house, when my mare stepped on a stone, as 
 I suppose, and went down, throwing me clear of the stirrups, 
 up in the air like a rocket, and down on my head like a spile- 
 driver. I of course lay insensible with a crushed skull ; and 
 the brother was so near behind and going at such speed that 
 he could not have stopped, even if he had known what was 
 the matter. 
 
 " Noise — lights — confusion. Gertrude bending over me in 
 hysteric screams— so they told me afterwards. Part of. the 
 hair was gone from one side of my head, dashed off by the 
 foot of the brother's horse, that had just thus narrowly missed 
 dashing out my few brains. That is all, gentlemen. The 
 dream-prophecy was fulfilled within that hair's-breadth 
 (excuse the bad pun), by a succession of circumstances that 
 were not arranged by human motion and could not have 
 been expected from anything in the past ; and until some 
 .one can explain or reason away the coincidence, I shall not 
 give up my belief that dreams are sometimes revelations." 
 
 Perhaps it is idle to enter upon any speculations as to the 
 origin of these superstitions in the human mind; as they 
 may almost be held to be a part of nature, having a corre- 
 sponding development in all countries and all ages. Some 
 of the worst and most injurious of superstitions — those which 
 involve the supposed presence of the dead, of haunting spec- 
 tres and evil spirits, destroying the nerves and paralyzing 
 the whole system — unquestionably hare much of their origin 
 in the " bug-a-boo" falsehoods told to children by foolish 
 mothers and careless nurses, to frighten them into " being 
 good." Thousands of men as well as women never recover 
 from the effects of these crimes against the credulous faith 
 of childhood — for they are no less. Then there are particular 
 passages in our literature, sacred and profane, which do 
 their share at upholding the belief in the supernatural, espe- 
 cially as connected with the uninspired foretelling of future 
 
182 SllUULDEK-STKAFS. 
 
 events — "fortune-telling." The case of the Witch of Endor 
 and her invocation of the spirit of Samuel, which is given in 
 Holy Writ as an actual occurrence and no fable, of courtofe 
 takes precedence of all others in influence; and the super- 
 stitious man who is also a religionist, always has the one un- 
 answerable reply ready for any one who attempts to n 
 away the idea of occult knowledge : "Ah, but the Witch of 
 Endor : what will you do with her ? If the Bible is true — 
 and you would not like to doubt that — she was a wicked 
 woman, not susceptible to prophetic influences, and yet she 
 did foretell the future and bring up the spirits of the dead. 
 If this was possible then, why not now ?" 
 
 From the church we pass to the theatre, and from the 
 Book of all Books to that which nearest follows it in the sub- 
 limity of its wisdom — Shakspeare. No one doubts " Hamlet" 
 much more than the First Book of Samuel, and yet the play 
 is altogether a falsehood if there is no revelation made to the 
 Prince of the guilt of his Uncle ; and the spiritual character 
 of the revelation is not at all affected by the question whether 
 Hamlet saw or thought he saw the ghost of his murdered 
 father. Again comes " Macbeth,'' and though we may allow 
 Banquo's ghost to be altogether a diseased fancy of the. 
 guilty man's brain, yet the whole story of the temptation 
 is destroyed unless the witches on the blasted heath really 
 make him true prophecies for false purposes. These sub- 
 lime fancies appeal to our eyes, and through the eyes to our 
 beliefs, night after night and year after year; and if they 
 do not create a superstition in any mind previously clear of 
 the influence, they at least prevent the disabuse of many a 
 mind and preserve from ridicule what would else be con- 
 temptible. 
 
 It was with reference to fortune-telling especially that this 
 discussion of our predominant superstitions commenced ; 
 and this indefensibly episodical chapter must close with a 
 mere suggestion as to the extent to which that imposition is 
 practised in our leading cities. Very few, ^t may be sus- 
 pected, know how prevalent is this superstition among us — • 
 quite equivalent to the gipsy palmistry of the European 
 countries. Of very late years it has principally become 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 183 
 
 " spiritualism' 1 and the fortune-tellers are oftener known as 
 " mediums" than by the older appellation; and scarcely one 
 of the impostors but pretends to physic the body as well as 
 cure the soul ; but the old leaven runs through all, and all 
 classes have some share in the speculation. Sooty negresses, 
 up dingy stairs, are consulted by ragged specimens of their 
 own color, as to the truth of the allegation that too much 
 familiarity has been exercised by an unauthorized " culled 
 pusson" towards a certain wife or husband, — or as to the 
 availability of a certain combination of numbers in a fifty 
 cent investment at that exciting game known as " policies" 
 or " 4-11-44," ere while the peculiar province of that Honor- 
 able gentleman who (more or less) wrote " Fort Lafayette." 
 And, per contra, more pretentious witches (the women have 
 monopolized the trade almost altogether, of late years) are 
 consulted by fair girls who come in their own carriages, as 
 to the truth or availability of a lover or the possibility of 
 recovering lost affections or stolen property. How many of 
 those seeresses are " mediums" for the worst of communi- 
 cations, or how many per centum of the habitues of such 
 places go to eventual ruin, it is not the purpose of this chap- 
 ter to inquire. 
 
 There are three recognized " centres" in the loyal States- 
 each a city, and supposed to be an enlightened one. Xew 
 York, the commercial, monetary and even military centre ; 
 Boston, the literary and intellectual ; and Washington, the 
 governmental and diplomatic. Taking up at random the 
 first three dailies of a certain date, at hand — one from each 
 of the three cities — the following regular advertisers are 
 shown, quoting from each of the three " astrology" columns 
 and omitting the directions. 
 
 Xew York : eleven. No. 1.—" Madame Wilson, a bona- 
 fide astrologist, that every one can depend on. Tells the 
 object of your visit as soon as you enter ; tells of the past, 
 present and future of your life, warns you of danger, and 
 brings success out of the most perilous undertakings. N. B. 
 —Celebrated magic charms." No. 2.— " Madame° Morrow, 
 seventh daughter, has foresight to tell how soon and how often 
 you marry, and all you wish to know, even your thoughts, or 
 
184 s ii o r L i) e R - a T R a p s. 
 
 no pay. Lucky charms free. Her magic image is now in 
 full operation." Xo. 3. — "The Gipsey Woman has just ar- 
 rived. If you wish to know all the secrete of your past and 
 future life, the knowledge of which will save you years of 
 sorrow and care, don't fail to consult the palmist." Xo. 4. — 
 " Cora A. Seaman, independent clairvoyant, consults on all 
 subjects, both medical and business; detects diseases of all 
 kinds and prescribes remedies : gives invaluable advice on all 
 matters of life." Xo. 5. — "Madame Ray is the best clair- 
 voyant add astrologist inthecity. She tellsyour very thoughts, 
 gives lucky numbers, and causes speedy marriages." Xo. G. — 
 " Madame Clifford, the greatest living American clairvoyant. 
 Detects disease.-, pn scribes remedies, finds absent friends, 
 and communes clairvoyantly with persons in the army." 
 Xo. T. — " Madame Estelle, seventh daughter, can be con- 
 sulted on love, marriage, sickness, losses, business, lucky 
 numbers and charms. Satisfaction guaranteed." Xo. 8. — 
 " Mrs. Addie Banker, medical and business clairvoyant, suc- 
 cessfully treats all diseases, consults on business, and gives 
 invaluable advice on all matters of life." Xo. 9. — "Who has 
 not heard of the celebrated Madame Prewster, who can be 
 consulted with entire satisfaction ? She has no equal. She 
 tells the name of future wife or husband — also that of her 
 visitor." Xo. 10. — "The greatest wonder in the world is the 
 accomplished Madame Byron, from Paris, who can be con- 
 sulted with the strictest confidence on all affairs of life. Re- 
 stores drunken and unfaithful husbands ; has a secret to make 
 you beloved by your heart's idol; and brings together those 
 long separated." Xo. 11. — " Madame YTidger, clairvoyant and 
 gifted Spanish lady ; unveils the mysteries of futurity, love, 
 marriage, absent friends, sickness ; prescribes medicines For 
 all diseases ; tells lucky numbers, property lust or stolen, &c." 
 Boston : thirteen. Xo. 1. — u The great astrologer. 
 
 " Tlie road to wedlock would you know, 
 Delay not, but to Baron go. 
 A happy marriage, man or maid, 
 May be secured by Baron's aid. 
 
 u He will reveal secrets no living mortal ever knew. Xo charge 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 185 
 
 for causing speedy marriages and showing likenesses of Mends." 
 No. 2. — "Astonishing to all ! Madame Wright, the celebrated 
 astrologist, burn with a natural gift to tell all the events of 
 your life, even your very thoughts and whether you are 
 married or single; how many times you will marry; will 
 show the likeness of your present and future husband and 
 absent friends; will cause speedy marriages ; tells the object 
 of your visit. Her equal is not to be found — has astonished 
 t housands by her magic power." No. 3. — " Madame F. Gretz- 
 buxg will ensure to whoever addresses her, giving the year of 
 their birth and their complexion, a correct written delineation 
 of their character, and a statement of their past, present and 
 future lives. All questions regarding love, marriage, absent 
 friends, business, or any subject within the scope of her clear, 
 discerning spiritual vision, will be promptly and definitely 
 answered * * so far as she with her great and wonderful 
 prophetic and perceptive powers, can see them." No. 4. — 
 " Prof. A. F. Huse, seer and magnetic physician. The Pro- 
 fessor's great power of retrovision, his spontaneous and lucid 
 knowledge of one's present life and affairs, and his keen fore- 
 casting of one's future career," etc. No. 5. — " Mrs. King will 
 reveal the mysteries of the past, present and future, and de- 
 scribe absent friends, and is very successful in business mat- 
 ters. Also has an article that causes you good luck in any 
 undertaking, whether business or love, and can be sent by 
 mail to any address." No. C>. — "Mrs. Frances, clairvoyant, 
 describes past, present and forthcoming events, and all kinds 
 of business and diseases. Has medicines," etc. No. 7. — 
 "Prof. Lyster, astrologer and botanic physician." No. 8. — 
 " Madame Wilder, the world-renowned fortune-teller and in- 
 dependent clairvoyant * * * is prepared to reveal the 
 mysteries of the past, present and future." No. 9. — " Madame 
 Iloussell, independent clairvoyant, is prepared to reveal the 
 mysteries of the pa c t, present and future." No. 10. — " Madame 
 Jerome Nurtnay, the celebrated Canadian seeress and natural 
 clairvoyant, * * will reveal the present and future." (This 
 one clairvoyant, it will be observed, has no past.) No. 11. — 
 " Mrs. Yah, clairvoyant and healing medium * * will ex- 
 amine and heal the sick, and also reveal business affairs, 
 
186 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 describe absent friends, and call names. Has been very suc- 
 cessful in recovering stolen property.'' No. 12. — "Madame 
 Cousin Cannon, the only world-renowned fortune-teller and 
 independent clairvoyant," etc. No. 13. — "Madame Mont 
 * * would like to be patronized by her friends and the 
 public, on the past, present and future events." 
 
 Washington: nine. Xo. 1. — " Madame Ross, doctress and 
 astrologist. Was born with a natural gift — was never known 
 to fail. She can tell your very thoughts, cause speedy mar- 
 riages, and bring together those long separated." Xo. 2. — 
 " Mrs. L. Smith, a most excellent test and healing medium * * 
 sees your living as well as deceased friends, gets names, reads 
 the future." Xo. 3. — (Here we have the first male name, as 
 well as apparently the most dangerously powerful of all). 
 " Mons. Herbonne, from Paris. Clairvoyant, seer and for- 
 tune-teller. Reads the future as well as the past, and has 
 infallible charms. Can cast the horoscope of any soldier 
 about going into battle, and foretell his fate to a certainty." 
 Xo. 4. — " Madame Bushe, powerful clairvoyant and innu 
 encing medium. Has secrets for the obtaining of places de- 
 sired under government, and love-philters for those who have 
 been unfortunate in their attachments." Xos. 5, 6, 7, 8 and 
 9 differing not materially from those before cited as able to 
 read the past, present and future, re-join the parted and in- 
 fluence the' whole future life. 
 
 And here, as by this time Tom Leslie must certainly have 
 accomplished his business in Broome Street, and Joe Harris 
 and Bell Crawford sipped and eaten themselves into an in- 
 digestion at Taylor's — this examination of a subject little 
 understood must cease, to allow the three to carry out their 
 projected folly. But really how much have superior educa- 
 tion and increasing intelligence done to clear away the grossest 
 of impositions and to discourage the most audacious experi- 
 ments upon public patience ? And yet — what shall be said 
 of the facts — uncolored and undeniable facts— narrated in a 
 subsequent chapter ? 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 187 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Ten Minutes at a Costumer's — How Tom Leslie grew sud- 
 denly Old — Joe Harris' speculation on " Those Eyes " 
 — Another Surprise, and what followed. 
 
 Mr. Tom Leslie's visit was not to the Police headquarters 
 in Broome Street, albeit he turned down that street from 
 Broadway when he reached it after leaving the two ladies at 
 Taylor's. He took the other or upper side of the street, and 
 stopped immediately opposite the Police building, at a 
 fafro-story brick house whereon appeared the name of "R. 
 "Williams" in gilt letters, and a little lower, "Ball Costumer," 
 and in the two first floor windows of which, over a basement 
 set apart for the use of persons in need of bad servants and 
 servants in search of worse places — appeared such a col- 
 lection of distorted human faces that a general execution by 
 the guillotine seemed to have been going on, with all the 
 heads hung up against the glass to dry. The ghastly faces 
 were, in fact, those of papier-mache masks, waiting for cus- 
 tomers desirous of a certain amount of personal disfigure- 
 ment, whether on the stage or in the masked ball ; and be- 
 hind one row of them could be seen the glitter of an imita- 
 tion coat of mail which looked very much like the real article 
 at a distance, but would have been of about as much use to 
 keep out sword-point or lance-head in the tourneys of the 
 olden time, as so much cobweb or blotting paper. 
 
 Within the inner door of the costumer's, which Leslie en- 
 tered hurriedly, might have been gathered the spoils of all 
 ages and all kingdoms, taking tinsel for gold and stuff for 
 brocade. The robes and mantles of queens hung suspended 
 from the walls, blended here and there with suits of beaded 
 and fringed Indian leather, odd coats and trousers for ex- 
 aggerated Jonathans, and diamonded garments of motley for 
 clowns. Around on the floor, on two sides of the apartment, 
 lay heaps of garments of all incongruous descriptions, from 
 the court dress of King Charles' time to the tow and home- 
 spun of the Southern darkey, as if just tumbled over for 
 12 
 
188 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 examination. A few stage swords and spears and two or 
 three suits of armor of suspicious likeness to block-tin, oc- 
 cupied one of the back corners ; while suspended from pegs 
 and arranged upon shelves were false beards, wigs and ey#- 
 brows, preposterous noses, Indian head-dresses of feathers, 
 hats of Italian bandits wreathed with greasy ribbons, and 
 crowns and coronets of all apparent values, from that flashing 
 with light which Isabella might have worn when all the gold 
 and gems of Columbus' new world lay at her disposed, to the 
 thin band of gold with one gem in the centre of the front, 
 which some virgin princess might modestly have blushed 
 under on her wedding day. Through the half-open door 
 leading to the adjoining apartment in the rear, still other 
 treasures of costume run mad were discoverable ; until the 
 thought was likely to strike the observer that " R. "Williams, 
 Costumer," had been the happy recipient of all the cast-off 
 clothes, hirsute as well as sartorial, dropped by half a dozen 
 generations ranging from king to clod-hopper. 
 
 A short, dark-whiskered, sallow man came forward as 
 Leslie entered, addressing him by name, with an inquiry 
 after his wishes. 
 
 " I want a disguise," said Leslie — " particularly a disguise 
 of the face, and one that can deceive the sharpest of eyes." 
 
 The costumer looked at his face for a moment. " I can 
 make you up," he said, " so that your best friend — or what 
 is of more difficulty, the woman who loved you best or hated 
 you worst — wouldn't know you." 
 
 " That is it," said Leslie. " Xow be quick, like a good 
 fellow, for I have only live minutes." 
 
 "You will not need to change your pants, I think," said 
 the costumer. " Throw off your coat — here is one that will 
 button close and hide your vest, and I think you will find it 
 about your size. Yours is a gray — this is a dark brown and 
 rather a genteel garment, and will suit the gray pants." 
 
 Leslie threw off his coat and put on the brown substitute, 
 which fitted him very respectably. 
 
 " That is enough in the way of clothes, I should think," 
 remarked the costumer, unless you should be dodging a very 
 sharp woman, or one of Kennedy's men." 
 
BHO ULDEK-b TRAPS. 189 
 
 "It is a sharp woman I am trying to dodge," said Leslie, 
 with a laugh, " but I think she will know very little about 
 my clothes. The face — the face is the thing ! Make me op 
 so that you don't know me — so that I won't know myself — 
 so that my wife, if I had one, would scream for a policeman 
 if I attempted to kiss her." 
 
 " Yes, the face — that is what we are coming to," replied 
 the costumer. " You have a moustache already. That we 
 cannot very well cut off, I suppose." 
 
 " Not if I know it !" graphically but somewhat inelegantly 
 said Tom, who had one of his many prides hidden away some- 
 where in the flowing sweep of that ornament to the upper 
 
 up. 
 
 " Then we must gray it !" said the costumer. " No ob- 
 jection to looking a little older ?" 
 
 u Make me as old as Dr. Parr or old Galen's head, if you 
 like," was the answer. " Only be quick, for the sauciest and 
 best-looking girl in New York is waiting for me." 
 
 " To run away and be married ? eh ?" asked the costumer, 
 as he went to a shelf and took down a cup of some prepara- 
 tion very like paint, and with it a brush. "None of my 
 business, though ! Hold still, and never mind the smell. 
 It will be dry in two minutes, and water will not touch it, 
 but you can clean it out at once with turpentine." He ap- 
 plied the mixture to Leslie's moustache, the member over it 
 being drawn up considerably at times as if the bouquet of one 
 of Hackley's summer gutters was rising ; but in less than 
 two minutes, as the costumer had said, the smell ceased, the 
 mixture was dry, and Tom Leslie had a moustache grayish- 
 white enough to have belonged to Sulpizio. 
 
 "Beautiful!" said the costumer, handing the subject a 
 small mirror from the wall. " The hair and beard directly. 
 Now for a complexion old enough to suit such a facial orna- 
 ment." In a moment, he had a small cup of brown paint, 
 with a camel's-hair brush, and was operating on Leslie's 
 forehead and cheeks, artistically throwing in a few wrinkles 
 on the former and neatly executed crows-feet under the eyes, 
 in water-colors that dried a^ soon as applied. Leslie, by the 
 aid of a glass, saw himself getting old, a little more plainly 
 
190 SHO LDER-STR APS. 
 
 than most of us recognize the ravages made on our faces by- 
 time. 
 
 "By George !" he said. " Stop ! — hold on ! — don't make 
 those crows-feet any plainer, or I shall begin to get weak in 
 the back and shaky in the knees, and you will need to sup- 
 ply me with a cane." 
 
 " They will come off easier than the next ones painted 
 there, probably!" commented the philosophical costumer, us 
 he finished painting up his human sign. "And now for the 
 finishing stroke !" He stepped to a drawer, took out a gray 
 full-bottom beard, fitted it neatly to the chin, clasped the 
 springs back of the ears, added to it a gray wig, made easy* 
 fitting by the short hair on the head, and once more handed 
 Leslie the glass. 
 
 The young man looked. The last vestige of youth had de- 
 parted, and he appeared as he might have expected to do 
 thirty years later when he had touched sixty and gone on 
 downward. 
 
 "Capital!" he said — "capital! If any man, or woman, 
 knows me behind this disguise, there is some reason beyond 
 nature for their doing so. There — throw me a hat — any- 
 thing unlike my own — for I have already remained too long 1 . 
 I will see you again some time this evening." Handing the 
 costumer a bill, with the air of one who had taken such ac- 
 commodations before and knew what they cost, Leslie put 
 on a respectable looking speckled Leghorn hat brought from 
 the back room, took one more glance at his metamorphosis in 
 the glass, and passed hurriedly out into the street and down 
 Broadway towards Taylor's. 
 
 To return to that place for a few moments, after Tom Les- 
 lie had left it and before he was again heard from. 
 
 Josephine Harris sat for perhaps five minutes after the 
 chocolate was brought, toying with the spoon and the cup, a 
 little consciously red in face, and saying never a word — an 
 amount of reticence quite as unusual for her, as ice in sum- 
 mer. Bell Crawford made two or three remarks, and she 
 answered them with " Ah !" and " Humph !" till the other 
 pouted a little sullenly and said no more. 
 
 At length the wayward girl shoved aside her cup, stopped 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 191 
 
 nibbling a bon-bon, planted one elbow on the table, leaned 
 her chin on her hand, and looked her companion full in the 
 face with a comic earnestness that was very laughable. 
 
 " Bell," she said, " I am gone !" 
 
 " Gone ?" asked the other. " What do you mean ?" 
 
 11 Sent for — done up — wilted — caved in — and any other de- 
 scriptive words that may happen to be in the language !" was 
 tin 1 reply. 
 
 " What ails you ? Are you crazy ?" was the not unnatural 
 inquiry of Bell. 
 
 " Crazy ? No I" answered the wild girl. " I wonder if I 
 ever shall be !" and for the instant her eyes were very sad, as 
 if some painful thought had been touched. But the instant 
 after sunshine broke into them again, as she said, making a 
 motion of her hand towards the door : — 
 
 "That's he/" 
 
 Bell Crawford looked, but did not see any one, and the 
 fact rather added to her impression that Miss Josey had sud- 
 denly taken leave of her senses. " Who's he? I don't see 
 him !" she replied. 
 
 " Pshaw ! how stupid you are !" said Josey, pettishly. 
 " See here. Let me tell you something. Do you remember 
 one day, five or six weeks ago, when I came into your house 
 a little in a hurry, with a bunch of violets for Dick ?" 
 
 (' Yes," said Bell, " I remember it, by the fact that you 
 nearly pulled off the bell-handle because the door was not 
 opened quick enough." 
 
 " Right," said Joe, as if she had been complimented by the 
 observation. " That's me. If Betty doesn't answer the bell 
 a little quicker, some of these times, you will find that piece 
 of silver-plating at a junk-shop, sold for old iron. Well, do 
 you happen to remember what I told you and Dick on that 
 occasion ?" 
 
 " Oh, good gracious, no !" exclaimed Bell provokingly. 
 7 Surely you can't expect me to keep any account of what 
 you say in the course of a month. Stop, though — I do re- 
 member something. Yon. said, I believe, that coming up Madi- 
 son Avenue you found the bunch of violets carrying a small 
 
192 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 boy — or the other way ; and that at the same time you found 
 a hat — wasn't it a hat ?" 
 
 " Bah I" said Joe. " You have kept hold of the wrong end 
 of the story, of course. I said that just as I met the small 
 boy with the violets and their perfume began to set me crazy 
 and make me think of being out in the country among the 
 laughing brooks and the singing birds and the — yes, the cows 
 and the chickens — that just then some one else met the small 
 boy and the violets. That was the proprietor of the • 
 and if it had not been for that outrageous hat I should have 
 had a full view of them. As it was. they nearly spoiled my 
 peace of mind altogether, and I have been sighing ever since 
 — Heigho ! — haven't you heard me sighing all around in odd 
 corners ?" 
 
 14 What a goose !" was the complimentary reply of Bell. 
 "If you have sighed, the sound was very much like that of 
 loud talking and laughter. But what has all that -to do with 
 to-day, and why were you pointing towards the door?" 
 
 " Why, you ninny, " cried Joe, in response to the " goose" 
 compliment just passed — " that man who has just left us — 
 that man who is coming back in a moment — is the owner of 
 the eyes ; and those eyes are my destiny !" 
 
 " Pshaw !" said Bell, " I did not see anything remarkable 
 about the eyes, or the man." 
 
 " Didn't you, now £" said Josephine, with the least bit in 
 the world of pique in her voice. " Well, that is the fault of 
 you?' eyes, and not of his. I tell you those eyes are my 
 destiny — I feel it and know it. I have not seen a pair before 
 in a long while, that looked as if they could laugh and make 
 love at the same time, and still have a little lightning in 
 reserve for somebody they hated. Mr. Tom Leslie — well, it 
 is a rather pretty name, and I think I must take him." 
 
 " For shame, Joe !" said Miss Bell, her propriety really 
 shocked at the idea of a young girl declaring herself, even in 
 jest, in love with a man who had said nothing to justify the 
 preference. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it is all wrong !" said Joe, between a 
 sigh and a laugh. "You know I have heen doing wrong 
 things all my life, and anything else would not be natural. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 193 
 
 Do you remember, Bell," and her dark eyes had an expression 
 of demure fan in them that was irresistibly droll — " do you 
 remember how I left all my trunks unlocked and my room 
 door open, at the Philadelphia hotel when we were stopping 
 there one winter on our way from Washington, — and how I 
 left my purse on the bureau in my room and grabbed a 
 gentleman by the arm in the street, accusing him of picking 
 my pocket V 
 
 " I do remember," said Bell, a little with the air of a very 
 proper Mentor who was not in the habit of making corre- 
 sponding blunders. " And I should think, Joe, that now that 
 you are a little older you w^ould be a little more careful I" 
 
 " Yes, I daresay you do," answered Miss Josey, " but you 
 know that I am myself and nobody else. I should stagnate 
 and die in a week, if I was either one of those ' wealthy 
 curled darlings' kept in exact position by the possession of 
 too many thousands, or so hemmed by more confined worldly 
 circumstances that I dared not take one step without stop- 
 ping to consider the consequences. Hang propriety ! — I hate 
 propriety ! Now you have it, and you may eat it with that 
 last wafer !" 
 
 " How you do run on !" merely remarked Bell, who pro- 
 bably enjoyed the wild girl's conversation quite as much as 
 she was capable of enjoying anything. 
 
 "Yes," said Joe, " and I should like to know any reason 
 for stopping, at least before our impressed beau comes back. 
 Has he gone off to make arrangements with the fortune- 
 teller, I wonder, so as to play a trick upon us when we get 
 there ?" 
 
 " Eh," said Bell, a little startled, " could such a trick be 
 possible 1" 
 
 " Yery possible, my dear !" said Joe. " I'll warrant such 
 things have been done, and my gentleman looks just mis- 
 chievous enough. But no — he would not dare do such a 
 thing, for he could see with half an eye that if he did I should 
 one day pay him for it !" 
 
 " If you ever had a chance !" remarked Bell with some 
 approach to a sneer. 
 
 " Oh," said Joe. " Trust me for that 1 Didn't I just tell 
 
194 SHOULDER-STRAP?. 
 
 you that I had half made up my mind to take him ? and if I 
 should, you know, I should have plenty of time to bring him 
 into the proper subjection." 
 
 " How do you know but he may be married ?" asked Bell, 
 who had a little more forethought than Miss Joe in certain 
 directions. 
 
 " Humph !" said Joe, " that would be awkward, especially 
 as I am not quite ready, yet, for an elopement and the sub- 
 sequent nattering paragraphs in the papers, about ' the beau- 
 tiful and accomplished Miss J. H.' having left for Europe on 
 the last steamer from Boston, in company with ' the popular 
 journalist but sad Lothario, Mr. T. L., who has left an 
 interesting wife and two children to deplore the departure 
 of the husband and father from the paths of rectitude.' " 
 
 u Well, you are incorrigible I" laughed Miss Crawford, 
 fairly carried away by the irresistible current of the wild 
 girl's humor. " How can you talk so flippantly of things so 
 deplorable ?" 
 
 " I scarcely know, myself !" was the answer. " But there 
 is really a dash of romance about such things, which almost 
 makes them endurable. Poor Mrs. Brannan made a mess 
 of it, to be sure, coming out at last with a ruined character 
 and the widow of a man several ranks lower in the army 
 than the husband from whom she had run away ; but was 
 there not something chivalrous in TYvman coming back at 
 once at the breaking out of the war, and sending an offer to 
 the man he had injured, to afford him any satisfaction he 
 might think proper to demand ?" 
 
 " And was there not something sublimely cutting," asked 
 Bell, " in the reply of General Brannan that he demanded no 
 satisfaction whatever, as Colonel Wyman had only relieved 
 him of a woman unworthy of his love or confidence ?" 
 
 " Yes, that was a little lowering to the dignity of the wo- 
 man, if she had any left," said Joe. " But the Kearney elope- 
 ment — was not that romantic without any drawback ? There 
 was something of the wicked old Paladin, that rattle-heads 
 like myself cannot help admiring, in the one-armed man 
 whose other limb slept in an honored grave in Mexico, 
 invading the charmed circle of Xew York moneyed-respecta- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 195 
 
 bility, carrying off the daughter of one of its first lawyers and 
 an ex-Collector — then submitting to a divorce, marrying the 
 woman who had trusted all to his honor, and plunging into 
 the fights of Magenta and Solferino with the same spirit 
 which had led him into the thick of the conflicts at Chapul- 
 tepec and the Garita de Belen. Poor Wyman has already 
 expiated his errors with his life, but I do hope that Kearney 
 may carry his remaining arm through this miserable war and 
 live to be so honored that even his one great fault may be 
 forgotten I" 
 
 The young girl's eyes flashed, her cheeks were flushed, 
 and any one who looked upon her at that moment would have 
 believed her almost brave enough for an Amazon and more 
 than a little warped in her perceptions of what constituted 
 the right and the wrong of domestic relations. How little, 
 meanwhile, they would have known her! Ninety-nine out 
 of one hundred of the women unwilling to confess that they 
 had ever read a page of the Wyman or the Kearney scan- 
 dal, and saying "hush I" and "tut ! tut !" to any one who 
 pretended to make the least defence of either — would have 
 been found infinitely more approachable for any purpose of 
 actual wrong or vice, than rattling, out-spoken and irrepressi- 
 ble Joe Harris ! 
 
 Wyman was dead, as she had said — having expiated, with 
 his life, so much as could be expiated of all past wrong, and 
 having partially hidden the memory of his crime by his brave 
 offer of satisfaction to the wronged husband and his unflinch- 
 ing conduct before the enemies of his country in battle. But 
 how little she thought, at the moment of speaking, that the 
 bullet was already billeted for the breast of Kearney, and that 
 he was to fall, but a few weeks after, a sacrifice to his own rash- 
 ness and the incapacity of others ! Does war indeed have a 
 mission beyond the national good or evil for which it is in- 
 stituted ? And are its missiles of death and the diseases to 
 which its exposures give rise, especially commissioned to re- 
 pay past crimes and by-gone errors ? Not so, inevitably ! — 
 or many a worthless incapable and many a dishonest trader 
 in his country's blood and treasure would before this have 
 bitten the dust, — and Baker, Lyon, Lander, Winthrop and 
 
196 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 fifty other prominent martyrs to the cause of the Union 
 would yet have been alive and battling for the right ! 
 
 Suddenly, the conversation between Josephine Harris and' 
 Bell Crawford came to a conclusion, and the former sprung 
 to her feet with a frightened and angry " ough I" while the 
 latter leaned back in her chair in a state of stupefied vexation 
 not easy to describe. The cause of this excitement may be 
 briefly given. Both at the same instant discovered a face 
 thrust down to the level of their own and immediately be- 
 tween them, with a familiarity most inexcusable in a stranger. 
 Yet the face was certainly that of an entire stranger — a re- 
 spectably dressed elderly man, with full gray hair and beard, 
 and holding a speckled Leghorn hat in his hand. 
 
 " Ough ! get out ! who are you and what do you want 
 here ?" broke out the excited girl, with a propensity, mean- 
 while, to repay this second impudence of the day by such a 
 sound boxing of the ears as would make the event one to be 
 remembered ; while Miss Crawford took a rather more prac- 
 tical view of the matter, with the single word "Imperti- 
 nence V 1 and a supplementary call of " Waiter !" 
 
 " Ladies ! ladies ! what is the matter ?" asked the elderly 
 intruder, as he saw the movements of the two girls, and the 
 waiter hurrying up with his towel over his arm, in obedi- 
 ence to the call. 
 
 "Anything wanted. Miss ?" asked the waiter. 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Bell Crawford. "Take that man away 
 from this table. He must be either a wretch or a madman, 
 to intrude in this way where he is not known or wanted." 
 
 "Yes," echoed Joe, remembering the scene in the street, 
 only an hour or two before — " take him away, and if you can 
 find any one to do it, have him caned soundly." 
 
 " Come, sir, you must go to another table — these ladies are 
 strangers and complain of you," said the waiter, taking the 
 strange man by the arm. and disposed to relieve two ladies 
 from impertinence, though not, as suggested, to lose a cus- 
 tomer for the house. 
 
 "Why, ladies, this treatment is really very strange !" said 
 the man complained of, all gravity and surprise. "Just as 
 if I was really a stranger — just as if—" 
 
S IT O V L P E R - S T R A P S. 197 
 
 But hero ho was broken in upon by Joe Harris absolutely 
 screaming with laughter and dropping into her chair as ab- 
 ruptly as she had quitted it the moment before. 
 
 " Well ?" queried Bell ; and " Well f* though he did not 
 give the query words, looked the puzzled waiter. 
 
 " Oh ! oh I oh ! that is too good !" broke out the laughing 
 girl. " Oh ! oh ! oh ! why don't you recognize him, Bell ? 
 That is Mr. Leslie !" 
 
 Whether Miss Joe had recognized him by the voice, the 
 second time he spoke, or whether something in the undis- 
 guiseable eyes (were her own the keen eyes of love, already 
 awakened, that saw more clearly than others could do ?) had 
 betrayed him — certain it was that the masquerade was over, 
 so far as she was concerned, and our friend Tom Leslie stood 
 fullv discovered. The waiter saw that his interference was 
 no longer needed, and moved away at once ; and Bell Craw- 
 ford, at length fully aware of the trick, joined less noisily in 
 the laugh which convulsed her friend. 
 
 " And what does the masquerade mean ?" finally asked 
 the soberer of the two girls, as they were leaving the saloon, 
 — while the other, who wished to know much worse, was con- 
 siderably more ashamed to ask. 
 
 " Humph !" answered Tom Leslie. " You have a right to 
 ask, ladies, but if you will excuse me I should prefer not to 
 answer until the visit is paid. You will remember that I told 
 you I had a reason something like your own for leaving the 
 carriage j and if for the present you will accept the explana- 
 tion that I wish to test the accuracy of the fortune-teller 
 without her being at all indebted to any observation of my 
 face or any possible previous recollection of me, I shall be 
 your debtor to the extent of a full explanation afterwards, 
 should you think proper to demand it," 
 
 It is not impossible that Joe Harris, who had just been 
 congratulating herself upon a promenade with a man not only 
 good-looking but comparatively young, may have had her 
 personal objections to the even temporary substitution of 
 sixtv-five or seventy; but if so, her red lip only pouted a 
 little, and she said nothing more on the subject as the three 
 
198 SHOULPKR-STR APS. 
 
 took their way up Broadway and down Prinze Street to the 
 place where all the secrets of the past, present and future 
 were to be revealed. 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 Necromancy in a Thunder- Storm — A very Improper 
 "Joining of Hands" — Bell Crawford's Eyes, and other 
 Eyes — Two Pictures in the Dusseldorf — A Thunder- 
 Clap and a Shriek — The Red Woman without a Mask. 
 
 It was perhaps four o'clock in the afternoon when the trio 
 of fortune-seekers reached the door that had been designated 
 by the advertisement as No. — Prince Street; and the fiery 
 heat that had been pouring down during all the earlier part 
 of the day was somewhat moderated by heavy clouds rising 
 in the West and skimming half the upper sky, indicating a 
 thunder-storm rapidly approaching. Perhaps Tom Leslie 
 thought;, as he approached the door sacred to the sublime 
 mysteries of humbug, of the appropriateness of thunder in 
 the heavens and lightning playing down on the beaten earth 
 — provided he should find the mysterious woman of the Rue 
 la Reynie Ogniard, who had succeeded in giving to his frank 
 and bold spirit the only shock it had ever received from the 
 powers of the supernatural world. Perhaps he felt that for 
 whatever was to come — melancholy jest or terrible earnest — 
 the bursting roar of the warring elements would be a fitting 
 accompaniment, to lend it a little dignity in the one event and 
 to distract the overstrained attention in the other. 
 
 Perhaps he was even a little theatrical in his fancies, and 
 remembered the crashes of sheet-iron thunder and the blind- 
 ing blaze of the gunpowder lightning, that always accom- 
 panied the shot-cylinder rain when Macbeth was seeking the 
 weird sisters for the second time — when the fearful incanta- 
 tions of "Der Freischutz" were about to be commenced — or 
 
SHOULDEK-STKAPS. 199 
 
 when the ever-ready demon was invoked by Faust, the first 
 printer-devil. If he had any of these fancies he was in a fair 
 way of being accommodated ; for casting a glance up at the 
 heavens as they approached the house, he saw that the ob- 
 scurity was becoming still denser ; and more than once, above 
 the rumble of the carts and omnibuses that made Broadway 
 one wide earthquake of subterranean noises, he caught a far- 
 off booming that he knew to be the thunder of the advancing 
 etorm, already playing its fearful overture among the moun- 
 tains of Pennsylvania. 
 
 His companions were too much absorbed by the novelty 
 of their errand, and a little expressed apprehension on the 
 part of Bell that if the rain came on and the carriage should 
 not be ready at the exact moment when it was wanted, her 
 costly summer drapery might run a chance of being wetted 
 and disordered,— -to make any close examination of the outside 
 of the building at the door of which Leslie rang; and indeed 
 they had not the same reason for remarking any peculiarities. 
 Leslie saw that it was certainly the same at which Harding 
 and himself had stood two nights before — that the tree (his 
 tree, for had he not "hugged" it ?— and who shall dare, in 
 this proper age, to "hug" what is not his own ?)— that the 
 tree stood in the relation he remembered, to the window— and 
 that at that window the same white curtain was visible, 
 though not swept back, and now covering all the sash com- 
 pletely. He almost thought that he could distinguish the flag 
 in the pavement on which he must have struck the hardest 
 when tumbling down from the tree, and his vivid imagination 
 would not have been much surprised to see a slight dint there, 
 such as may be made on a tin pot or a stove-pipe by the 
 iconoclastic hammer in the hand of an exuberant four-year- 
 old. 
 
 On one of the lintels of the door, as he had not noticed on 
 the previous visit, was a narrow strip of black japanned tin, 
 with '-Madame Elise Boutell" in small bronze letters, of 
 that back-slope writing only made by French painters, and 
 which can only be met with, ordinarily, in the French cities 
 or those of the adjacent German provinces. It seems un- 
 likely that any particular attention should have been paid to 
 
200 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the latter unimportant detail at that moment ; but the detail 
 was really not an unimportant one. Annum- the half-working 
 amusements of his idle hours in youth, Leslie had indulged 
 in a little amateur sign-painting, and he boasted that he 
 eould distinguish one of the cities of the Union from any 
 other, by the styles of the signs alone, if he should be set 
 down blindfold in the commercial centre, and then allowed 
 the use of his eyes. In the present instance, by the use of 
 his quick faculty of observation, he saw that the lettering of 
 the sign was no American imitation, but really French. The 
 deductions were that it had been done in Paris — that it had 
 been used there — that " Madame Elise Boutell" had used it 
 for the same purpose there. Was not here a corroboration 
 of the theory of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard ? 
 
 All these observations, of course, had been made very 
 briefly — in the little time necessary for Bell Crawford finally 
 to congratulate herself that the ribbons of her hat would at 
 least be sheltered by the house for a time, and for Joe Harris 
 to remark what a dirty and tumble-down precinct Prince 
 Street seemed to be, altogether. By this time, the ring was 
 answered and the door opened by a neatly dressed negro 
 girl, who seemed to have none of the peculiarities of the 
 race except its color, and of whom Leslie asked : 
 
 " Madame Boutell ? Can we see her ?" 
 
 " If Monsieur and Mesdames will have the goodness to 
 step into this room," was the reply of the servant, opening 
 the door of the parlor, " Madame Boutell will have the 
 honor of receiving them in a few moments." 
 
 li Aha !" said Leslie to himself, as they entered the room, 
 the door closed and the negro-girl disappeared. " Aha ! 
 1 Monsieur' and ' Mesdames.' besides being marvellously cor- 
 rect in her speech and polite enough for a French dancing 
 master! All this looks more and more suspicious." 
 
 " Nothing so very terrible here," remarked Josephine Har- 
 ris, at once addressing her attention to some excellent prints, 
 commonly framed, hanging on the wall. " Some of these 
 pictures are very nice, and as I could throw away the frames, 
 I should not much mind hooking them if I had a good oppor- 
 tunitv. " 
 
SIIO UL DE R-STR APS. 201 
 
 " But the piano is shockingly out of tune," remarked Bell, 
 who had immediately commenced a listless kind of assault on 
 that ill-used indispensable of all rooms in which people are 
 expected to wait. 
 
 " Bell, for conscience sake leave that piano alone ! You 
 have nearly murdered the one at home, and I do not see why 
 you should be the enemy of the whole race !" was the com- 
 plimentary reply of Josephine, which caused Bell, with a 
 little pout on her lip, to leave the piano and commence tap- 
 ping the cheap bronzes on the mantel with the end of her 
 parasol, by way of discovering whether they were metal or 
 plaster. 
 
 Just then there were steps in the hall, the outer door 
 opened, and Joe, running suddenly to the window, was ena- 
 bled to catch a glimpse through the blinds, of a gentleman 
 and a lady passing down the steps from the door and walking 
 hurriedly towards Broadway. The next moment the door 
 from the hall opened, and the negro girl, stepping within, 
 said : 
 
 M Madame Boutell will have the honor to receive Monsieur 
 and Mesdames, if they will be so good as to ascend the stairs." 
 
 " Now for it," said Joe, touching Leslie's arm with a little 
 bit of shudder, real or affected, and speaking in a tone so low 
 that it seemed designed only for his car and flattered that 
 male person's vanity amazingly. "Now for it! — I have 
 never been anywhere near the infernal regions before, to my 
 knowledge, and you must take care of us !" 
 
 "I will try — Miss Harris — may I not say Josephine ?" was 
 the reply of Leslie, who, though he had said very little in 
 that direction, kept his eyes pretty closely on the wild female 
 counterpart of himself, and was really getting on somewhat 
 rapidly towards an entanglement. 
 
 The Apartment into which the seekers after information (or 
 no information) were ushered, was reached by ascending an 
 old-fashioned stair, through a hall not very well lighted, even 
 in a summer afternoon ; and when they entered it they found 
 it to be one of two, divided by a red curtain which dropped 
 to the floor and supplied the place of a door. No necroman- 
 tic appliances were visible in the room ; and with the excep- 
 
202 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 tion of a table, three or four chairs and a carpet more or less 
 worn, it was without articles of use or ornament. Motioning 
 the party to chairs, which only Bell accepted, the negro 
 attendant said : 
 
 "Will Monsieur and the' ladies enter Madame's private 
 room together, or singly ? Madame does not often receive 
 more than one at once, but will do so for this distinguished 
 company, if they wish ? M 
 
 "Ahem!" said Leslie, involuntarily pulling up his collar 
 at the words u distinguished company," while " Good gra- 
 cious ! — how did they know that ice were coming ?" was the 
 exclamation of Joe, to Bell, sotto voce. 
 
 M Oh, let us all go in together," said Bell, who probably 
 had less suspicion of a secret that could possibly be awk- 
 ward of disclosure, in her own breast, than either of her com- 
 panions. 
 
 " No, I think not," said Joe. "You may have nothing to 
 conceal, Bell, but I have — lots of things ; and though I may 
 be willing to have the French woman drain me dry, like a 
 pump, I do not know that I shall offer you the same privi- 
 lege." 
 
 "No, on the whole, decidedly not," said Leslie. ''Of 
 course, ladies, there is really nothing for the most timid to 
 fear ; and even if there were, the two others will be in the 
 room immediately adjoining. Decidedly, if you are both 
 willing, each had better tempt fate alone." 
 
 " And who will go in first, then ?" asked Bell. 
 
 "Humph !" said Joe, "there is a grave question. The de- 
 crees of fate must not be tampered with, and the wrong one 
 going in first might send those ' stars' on which the witch 
 depends, into most alarming collision." 
 
 "Easily arranged," said Leslie, drawing a handful of coin 
 from his pocket, handing one of the pieces to eacn of the 
 girls, and retaining one himself. " As fate is the deity to be 
 consulted, let fate take care of her own. The one who hap- 
 pens to hold the piece of oldest date shall take the first chance, 
 and the others will follow according to the same rule. I have 
 settled more than one important question of my life in this 
 manner, and I have an idea that they have been settled quite 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 203 
 
 as .satisfactorily as they could have been by any exercise of 
 judgment" 
 
 "Eighteen hundred and fifty-two," said Bell, looking at the 
 date on her coin. "Eighteen hundred and fifty-seven," said 
 Joe, paying the same attention to the one she held. And 
 " Eighteen hundred and sixty-one — only last year !" said 
 Leslie, jingling the coins in his hand and then dropping them 
 back into his pocket, — from which (par parenthese) they 
 were so soon and so effectually to disappear, with all others 
 of their kind, in the turning of exchanges against us and the 
 general derangement of the currency of the country. 
 
 " You are first, Bell, you see !" said Joe, " and I hope you 
 will be able to take the fiery edge off the teeth of the dragon 
 before I get in to him." 
 
 "And i" am the last, you perceive !" said Leslie. "The 
 last, as I always have been where women were concerned — 
 too late, and of course unsuccessful." 
 
 There may have been no positive reason for the slight flush 
 which crossed the face of Josephine Harris at that moment, 
 or for the conscious look of pleasure that danced for an 
 instant in her eyes ; and yet there may have been a thought 
 of true happiness at the assurance which the last words of 
 Leslie conveyed, that he was an unmarried man and had 
 been, so far, near enough heart-whole for all practical pur- 
 poses. If the latter should even have been true, she need 
 not have flushed a second time at recognizing the feeling in 
 herself; for most certainly those apparently light words of 
 Tom Leslie had been, so to speak, shot at her, with a de- 
 termined intention of feeling ground to be afterwards trodden. 
 
 " Madame is waiting your pleasure," said the negro girl, 
 who had remained standing near the curtain all this while, 
 but too far distant to catch many of the words passing 
 between the three visitors, which had all been uttered in a 
 low tone. 
 
 "Ah, yes, we have kept her waiting too long, perhaps," 
 said Leslie, " and who knows but the fates may be the more 
 unkind to us for the neglect of their priestess." He was 
 really not very well at his ease, but somewhat anxious to 
 appear so, as all very bashful people can fully understand, 
 13 
 
204 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 when they remember the efforts they have sometimes made 
 to appear the most impudent men in creation. Tom Leslie 
 was not in the slightest degree bashful, and so the comparison 
 fails in that regard ; but he was more than a little nervous at 
 the certainty which he felt of once more meeting the 'Ted 
 woman," and for that reason he wished to seem the man with 
 no nerves whatever. 
 
 "It is my turn — I will go in," said Bell Crawford, rising 
 from her chair and following the negro attendant within the 
 curtain, which only parted a little to admit her and then swept 
 down again to the floor, giving no glimpse to the two out- 
 siders of what might be within. 
 
 The sky had now grown perceptibly darker, though it was 
 still some hours to night ; and at the moment when Bell 
 Crawford entered the inner room of the sorceress the gather- 
 ing thunder-storm burst in fury. The thunder was not as 
 yet peculiarly heavy, and the flashes of lightning had often 
 been surpassed in vividness ; but the rain poured down in 
 torrents and the gust of wind, which swept through the streets 
 set windows rattling and doors and shutters banging at a rate 
 which promised work for the carpenters. The two windows 
 of the room looked out upon the street, though through closed 
 blinds ; and whether intentionally or inadvertently, the two 
 in waiting drew two chairs to one of the windows, very near 
 together, and sat there, watching the dashing rain and listen- 
 ing to the storm. Had there been any possibility of hearing 
 the words spoken in the adjoining room, that possibility would 
 now have been entirely destroyed by the noise of the storm ; 
 and whatever of curiosity either may have felt for the result 
 of Bell's adventure, was rendered inefficient for the time. 
 Meanwhile, something else was working of quite as much 
 consequence. 
 
 Chances and accidents are very curious things ; and those 
 who have no belief in a Supreme Being who brings about 
 great results by apparently insignificant agencies, must have 
 a very difficult time of it, in reconciling the incongruous and 
 the inadequate. Holmes, the merriest and wisest of social 
 philosophers (when he does not run mad on the human-snake 
 theory, as he has done in u Elsie Vernier") very prettily illus- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 206 
 
 trates the opposite, as to how the agency which moves the 
 great may also perform the little, in 
 
 " The force that wheels the planets round delights in spinning tops, 
 And that young earthquake t'other day was great on shaking 
 props ;" 
 
 bat the opposite may be illustrated more easily, and is cer- 
 tainly illustrated much oftener. Not only may 
 
 " A broken girth decide a nation's fate," 
 
 in battle ; but a gnawing insignificant rat may sink a ship, 
 and one contemptible traitor be able to disseminate poison 
 enough to destroy a republic ; while the question of whether 
 Bobby does or does not take his top with him to school to- 
 day, may decide whether he does or does not wander off to 
 the neighboring pond to be drowned; and Smith's being seen 
 to step into a billiard-room may decide 1^e question of credit 
 against him in the Bank discount-committee, and send him to 
 the commercial wall, a bankrupt. That glance of unnecessary 
 and unladylike scorn which Lady Flora yesterday cast upon 
 a beggar-woman who accidently brushed against her costly 
 robes on Broadway, may have lost her a rich husband, who 
 would otherwise have been deceived until after marriage, as 
 to. her real character; and the involuntary act of courtesy of 
 John Hawkins, stooping down to pick up the dropped um- 
 brella of a common woman with a baby and two bundles, in 
 a passenger-car, may make him a friend for life, worth more 
 than all he has won by twenty-five years of hard-working 
 industry and honesty. 
 
 In this point of view there are no "little things;" and 
 probably he is best prepared for' all the exigencies of coming 
 life, who is ready to be the least surprised at finding a 
 dwarfed shrub growing up from an acorn, and a mighty tree 
 springing from the proverbial "grain of mustard seed." 
 
 Not to be prolix on this subject — let us remember one 
 capital illustration — that of the clown and his two pieces of 
 fireworks. No matter in what pantomime the scene occurs, 
 us it may do for any. The clown approaches the door of a 
 
206 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 dealer in fireworks, finds DO one on duty in the shop, enters, and 
 oomes out laden with pyrotechnic spoils. He takes a small 
 rocket, fires it, and is knocked down, frightened and stunned 
 by the unexpectedly-heavy explosion. But he recover- di- 
 rectly, and determines to try the experiment over again. 
 There is one immense rocket among the collection he has 
 brought out — one almost as long as himself and apparently 
 capable of holding half a barrel of explosive material. He 
 shakes his head knowingly to the audience, indicative of the 
 fact that this is something immense and that he is going to 
 be very careful about it. He sticks it up in the very middle 
 of the stage, secures a light at the end of a long pole, and 
 touches it off with great fear and trembling. The explosion 
 which follows is exactly that of one Chinese fire-cracker; 
 and the comically disappointed face which the clown turns to 
 the audience is precisely the same that each individual of that 
 audience is continually turning to another audience surround- 
 ing hion, when the great and small rockets of his daily life go 
 off with such disproportionate effect. 
 
 Perhaps it was chance that not only produced the previous 
 circumstances of that day, but so ordered that Bell Crawford 
 should be the first to vacate the outer room, leaving that ex- 
 traordinary couple alone together. Perhaps it was chance 
 that led them to take seats beside each other at the window, 
 when they might so easily have found room to sit with some 
 distance between them. Perhaps it was chance that made 
 the lightning flash in long lines of blinding light across the 
 sky, and sent the thunder booming and crashing above the 
 roofs of the houses, producing that indefinable feeling that 
 needed companionship — that " huddling together" which even 
 the terrible beasts of the East Indian jungles show in the 
 midst of the fearful tornadoes of that region. Perhaps it was 
 chance that, after a moment or two of silence, induced Tom 
 Leslie, without well knowing why he did it, to lay his open 
 palm on his knee, and to look for a moment with a glance of 
 inquiry, full in the eyes of the young girl who sat at his 
 rfght, as if to say : " There is my open hand — we have known 
 each other but a little while — dare you lay your hand in it IP 
 Perhaps it was chance that made the young girl return the 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 207 
 
 steady glance — then drop her eyes with so sad a look that 
 tears might easily have been trembling under the long lashes, 
 — color a little on cheek and brow, as if some tint of the sun- 
 rise flush had for a moment rested upon her face — then slowly 
 reach over her right hand and let it drop and nestle into the 
 one ready to receive it. Perhaps all these things were chance : 
 well, let them be so set down — such " chances" are worth 
 something in life, to those who know how to embrace them ! 
 
 What have we here ? Two persons who had spoken to 
 each other for the first time, only a few hours before, and who 
 had since held marvellously little conversation, now sitting 
 hand in hand, their soft palms pressed close together, and 
 every pulse of the mental and physical natures of both thrill- 
 ing at the touch ! Exceedingly improper ! — exceedingly hur- 
 ried ! — exceedingly indelicate ! Modesty, where were you 
 about this time ? If we have gone so fast already, how fast 
 may we go by-and-bye ? Alas, they are living people whom 
 we have before us — not cherubim and seraphim ; and they do 
 as they please, and act very humanly, in spite of every care 
 we can take of their morals. They have not said one word 
 of love to each other, it is true ; but the mischief seems to 
 have been done. Xothing may have been said, in the way 
 of a promise of marriage, capable of being taken hold of by 
 the keenest lawyer who pleads in the Brown- Stone building ; 
 but we are not sure that ever tongue spoke to ear, or ever 
 lip kissed back to lip, so true and enduring a betrothal as has 
 sometimes been signed in the meeting of two palms, when 
 not a word had been spoken and when neither of the pair 
 had one rational thought of the future. 
 
 Suddenly and without warning the curtain between the two 
 rooms moved. How quickly those two hands drew apart from 
 each other, as if some act of guilt had been doing ! If any 
 additional proof was wanting, of something clandestine (and 
 of course improper !) between the parties, here it was cer- 
 tainly supplied. People never attempt to deceive, who have 
 not been playing tricks. Well-regulated and candid people, 
 who do everything by rule, never start and blush at any awk- 
 ward contretemps, never have any concealments, but tell 
 everything to the outer world. Privacy is a crime — all sly 
 
208 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 people are reprobates. Wicked Tom and erring- Joe ! — what 
 a gulf of perdition they were sinking into without know- 
 ing it ! 
 
 The curtain not only moved but was drawn aside, and out 
 of it stepped Bell Crawford. She walked slowly and de- 
 liberately, like one in deep thought, and without a word 
 crossed the room towards the point where her two friends 
 were sitting. Something in her face brought them both to 
 their feet. What was that something ? She had been absent 
 from them for perhaps ten minutes — certainly not more than 
 a quarter of an hour; and yet change enough had p 
 over her, to have marked the passage of ten twelve-months. 
 The face looked older, perhaps sadder, more like that of her 
 brother, and yet less querulous,/ more womanly, better and 
 more loveable. Something seemed to have stirred the depths 
 of her nature, of which only the surface had been before ex- 
 posed to view. The revelation was better than the index. 
 She was capable of generous things at that moment, of which 
 she had been utterh^ incapable the hour before. It was proba- 
 ble that she could never again dash all over town in the search 
 for a yard of ribbon of a particular color : her next search 
 was likely to be a much more serious one. 
 
 The first glance at her face, and the marvellous change there 
 exhibited, wrought in so short a time, not only puzzled but 
 alarmed Josephine Harris. She could not see where and in 
 what feature lay the change, any more than she could realize 
 what could have been powerful enough to produce it. Tom 
 Leslie may have been quite as much alarmed ; but his older 
 years and wider experience, conjoined with the feelings with 
 which he had come to that house, made it impossible that he 
 should be so much puzzled. He saw at once that the marked 
 change was in the eyes. In their depths (he had before re- 
 marked them, that day, as indicating a nature a little weak, 
 purposeless and not prone to self-examination) — in their 
 depths, clear enough now, there lay a dark, sombre, but not 
 unpleasing shadow, such as only shows itself in eyes that 
 have been turned inward. We usually say of a man whose 
 eyes show the same expression : " That man has studied 
 much," or, u he has suffered much," or, "he is a spiritualist." 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 209 
 
 By the latter expression, we mean that he looks more or less 
 beneath the surface of events that meet him in the world — 
 that he is more or less a student of the spiritual in mentality, 
 and of the supernatural in cause and effect. Such eyes do not 
 stare, they merely gaze. When they look at you, they look 
 at something else through you and behind you, of which you 
 may or may not be a part. 
 
 Let it be said here, the occasion being a most inviting one 
 for this species of digression, — that the painter who can suc- 
 ceed in transferring to canvas that expression of seeing more 
 than is presented to the physical eye, has achieved a triumph 
 over great difficulties. Frequent visitors to the old Dussel- 
 dorf Gallery, now so sadly disrupted and its treasures scat- 
 tered through twenty private galleries where they can only 
 be visible to the eyes of a favored few, — will remember two 
 instances, perhaps by the same painter, of the eye being thus 
 made to reveal the inner thought and a life beyond that pass- 
 ing at the moment. The first and most notable is in the 
 "Charles the Second fleeing from the Battle of Worcester." 
 The king and two nobles are in the immediate foreground, in 
 flight, while far away the sun is going down in a red glare 
 behind the smoke of battle, the lurid flames of the burning 
 town, and the royal standard just fluttering down from the 
 battlements of a castle lost by the royal arms at the very 
 close of Cromwell's " crowning mercy." Through the smoke 
 of the middle distance can be dimly seen dusky forms in 
 flight, or in the last hopeless conflict. Each of the nobles at 
 the side of the fugitive king is heavily armed, with sword in 
 hand, mounted on heavy, galloping horses, going at high 
 speed ; and each is looking out anxiously, with head turned 
 aside as he flies, for any danger which may menace — not 
 himself, but the sovereign. Charles Stuart, riding between 
 them, is mounted upon a dark, high-stepping, pure-blooded 
 English horse. He wears the peaked hat of the time, and 
 his long hair — that which afterward became so notorious in 
 the masks and orgies of Whitehall, and in the prosecution of 
 his amours in the purlieus of the capital — floats out in wild 
 dishevelment from his shoulders. He is dressed in the dark 
 velvet short cloak, and broad, pointed collar peculiar to pic- 
 
210 SH O D L DBB-8TB A f 3. 
 
 tures of himself and his unfortunate father ; he shows no 
 weapon, and is leaning ungracefully forward, as if outstrip- 
 ping the hard-trotting speed of his horse. But the true in- 
 terest of this figure, and of the whole picture, is concen- 
 trated in the eyes. Those sad. dark eyes, steady and im- 
 movable in their fixed gaze, reveal whole pages of history 
 and whole years of suffering. The fugitive king is not think- 
 ing of his flight, of any dangers that may beset him. of the 
 companions at his side, or even of where he shall lay his 
 perilled head in the night that is coming. Those eyes have 
 shut away the physical and the real, and through the mists of 
 the future they are trying to read the great question of fate! 
 Worcester is lost, and with it a kingdom : is he to be hence- 
 forth a erownless king and a hunted fugitive, or has the fu- 
 ture its compensations ? This is what the fixed and glassy 
 eyes are saying to every beholder, and there is not one who 
 does not answer the question with a mental response forced 
 by that mute appeal of suffering thought : " The king shall 
 have his own again !' r 
 
 The second picture lately in the same collection, is much 
 smaller, and commands less attention ; but it tells another 
 story of the same great struggle between King and Parlia 
 ment, through the agency of the same feature. A wounded 
 cavalier, accompanied by one of his retainers, also wounded, 
 is being forced along on foot, evidently to imprisonment, by 
 one of Cromwell's Ironsides and a long-faced, high-hatted 
 Puritan cavalry -man, both on horseback, and a third on foot, 
 with musquetoon on shoulder. The cavalier's garments are 
 red and blood-stained, and there is a bloody handkerchief 
 binding his brow, and telling how, when his house was sur- 
 prised and his dependants slaughtered, he himself fought till 
 he was struck down, bound and overpowered, still hurling 
 defiance at his enemies and their cause, until his anger and 
 disdain grew to the terrible height of silence and he said no 
 more. He strides sullenly along, looking neither to the right 
 nor the left ; and the triumphant captors behind him know 
 nothing of the story that is told in his face. The eyes fixed 
 and steady in the shadow of the bloody bandage, tell nothing 
 of the pain of his wound or the tension of the cords which 
 
SHO U LDEK-STK APS. 211 
 
 are binding his crossed wrists. In their intense depth, which 
 really seems to convey the impression of looking through 
 forty feet of the still but dangerous waters of Lake George 
 and seeing the glimmering of the golden sand beneath,— we 
 read of a burned house and an outraged family, and we see a 
 prophecy written there, that if his mounted guards could 
 read, they would set spurs and flee away like the wind— a 
 calm, silent, but irrevocable prophecy : " I can bear all this, 
 for my time is coming 1 Not a man of all these will live, not 
 a roof-tree that shelters them but will be in ashes, when I 
 take my revenge !" Not a gazer but knows, through those 
 marvellous eyes alone, that the day is coming when he will 
 have his revenge, and that the subject of pity is the victori- 
 ous Roundhead instead of the wounded and captive cava- 
 lier ! 
 
 Not all this, of course, was expressed in the eyes of Bell 
 Crawford as she stood before her two companions under the 
 circumstances just detailed ; but it scarcely needed a second 
 glance to tell the keen man of the world that the eyes and 
 the brain beneath them had both been taught something before 
 unknown. He thought what might possibly have been the 
 expression of his own eyes, on a night so many times before 
 alluded to, could he but have seen them as did others ; and 
 if he had before held one lingering doubt of the personality 
 of the woman whose presence she had just quitted, that 
 doubt would have remained no longer. It was the " red 
 woman," beyond a question. For just one moment another 
 thought crossed his mind, founded upon that "union of 
 hands" so lately consummated. Should he permit her to be 
 subjected to the same influences ? And yet, why not ? The 
 good within her could not be injured, either by sorcery or 
 super-knowledge — either by the assumption or the possession 
 on the part of the seeress, of information beyond that of 
 ordinary mortality and altogether out of its pale. He would 
 permit her to undergo the same influences, even as in a few 
 moments he would submit to them himself. 
 
 Josephine Harris, in the time consumed by all these re- 
 flections running through the mind of Leslie, had not yet 
 recovered f rom her surprise at the altered expression on the 
 
212 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 face of her friend — an expression, oddly enough, that pleased 
 her better than any she had ever before observed there, and 
 yet frightened her correspondingly. 
 
 "Dear Bell," she said, anxiously, and using a word of en- 
 dearment that had been very rare between them, spite of 
 their extreme intimacy. — " What has happened ? AYhat have 
 you seen ? Are you sick ? Your eyes frighten me — they 
 seem so sad and earnest !" 
 
 " Do they ?" said Bell, forcing a smile that was really sad 
 enough, but better became her face than many expre 
 that had before passed over it. " Well, Josey, to tell you the 
 truth, I have seen some strange things, of which I will tell 
 you at another time ; and I have been thinking very deeply. 
 Nothing more." 
 
 " You have seen nothing frightful — dreadful — terrible ?" 
 the voung girl asked, with an unmistakable expression of 
 anxiety upon her face. 
 
 "Nothing terrible, though something very strange," was 
 the reply of Bell. " Nothing that you need fear." 
 
 " Oh, I am not afraid !" answered Joe. with an assumption 
 of bravery that she probably felt to be a sham all the while. 
 "I believe it is my turn now. Dear me, how heavy that 
 thunder is ! Try and amuse yourselves, good people, while I 
 'follow in the footsteps of my illustrious predecessor' !" and 
 with an affectation of gaiety that was a little transparent, she 
 obeyed the summons of the black girl who at that moment 
 made her appearance again outside the curtain, and followed 
 her within. 
 
 Bell Crawford dropped into one of the chairs that stood by 
 the window, and leaned her head upon her hand, in an atti- 
 tude of deep thought. Leslie did not attempt to speak to 
 her at that moment, either aware that such a course could 
 only be painful to her, or too much absorbed in the remem- 
 brance of the other who had just passed within the curtain, to 
 wish to do so. He walked the floor, from one side to the 
 other of the room, the sound of his heel falling somewhat 
 heavily even on the carpeted floor, and his head thrown for- 
 ward in such a position that when he threw his glance on a 
 level with his line of vision it came out from under his bent 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 213 
 
 brows. The rain seemed to beat heavier and heavier out- 
 side, and dashed against the windows with such force as to 
 threaten to beat them in ; and successive discharges of thun- 
 der, accompanied with constant flashes of fierce lightning, 
 crashed and rumbled among the house-tops and seemed to be 
 at times actually booming through the room, immediately 
 over their heads. 
 
 In this way some fifteen minutes passed, seeming almost 
 so many hours to the young man, whatever they may have 
 appeared to the young girl who sat by the window, so ab- 
 sorbed by her own thoughts that she scarcely heard the mut- 
 tering thunder or saw the blinding flashes of the lightning. 
 
 Suddenly there was a louder and fiercer crash of thunder 
 than any that had preceded it — a crash of that peculiar sharp- 
 ness indicating that it must have struck the very house in 
 which they heard it ; and this accompanied by one of those 
 terribly intense flashes of lightning which seemed to sear the 
 eyeballs and play in blue flame through the air of the room, 
 — then followed by a heavy dull rumbling shock and boom 
 like that of a thousand pieces of artillery fired at once, rock- 
 ing the building to its foundation and threatening to send it 
 tumbling in ruins on their heads. Tom Leslie involuntarily 
 put his hands to his eyes, to shut out the flash, and Bell 
 Crawford, at last startled, sprung from her chair ; but both 
 were worse startled, the very second after, by a long, loud, 
 piercing shriek, in the voice of Josephine Harris, that burst 
 from the inner room and seemed like some cry extorted by 
 mortal pain or unendurable terror. 
 
 Both rushed towards the curtain, at once, but Leslie in ad- 
 vance — both with the impression that some dreadful catas- 
 trophe connected with the lightning must have occurred. 
 But just as Leslie laid his hand upon the curtain to draw it 
 aside, it was dashed open from within, and Josephine Harris 
 literally flung herself through it, still shrieking and in that 
 deadly mortal terror which threatens the reason. She seemed 
 about to fall, and Tom Leslie stretched out his arms to receive 
 her. She half fell into them, then rolled, nearer than described 
 any other motion, into those of Bell Crawford ; and almost 
 before Leslie could quite realize what had occurred, she lay 
 
214 3HOULDIR-8TRAP3. 
 
 with her head in Bell's lap, the extremity of her terror over, 
 uttering no word, but sobbing- and moaning like a little child 
 that had been too severely dealt with and broken down under 
 the blow. 
 
 Tom Leslie's hand, it has been said, was on the curtain, to 
 remove it. He released it for the instant, to look after the 
 welfare of the frightened girl ; but when he saw her lying in 
 Bell's lap another feeling became paramount even to his 
 anxiety for her safety, and he grasped the curtain again and 
 dashed through into the inner room. 
 
 As he had expected, the red woman of the Rue la Reynie 
 Ogniard stood before him, presenting the same magnificent 
 outline of face and the same ghastly redness of complexion 
 that she had shown at such a distance of time and place. In 
 her hand was a white wand, glittering like silver, with some 
 bright and flashing colorless stone at the end. Her dress, as 
 he then remembered, had been red when he saw her in Paris, 
 and no relief to her ghastly color had been shown, except in 
 the mass of dark hair sweeping down her shoulders. Xow 
 her tall and stately form was wrapped in black, against which 
 her cloud of dark hair was unnoticed. Leslie had not 
 observed, at any time during the absence of either of the two 
 girls, any odor of smoke or any appearance of it creeping 
 out from the curtain into the room ; but now, as he looked, he 
 saw white wreaths of vapor circling near the ceiling and 
 fading away there ; and he realized at once, with the memory 
 of the past in mind, what had been the form in which the 
 images were presented, producing so startling an effect on 
 both. 
 
 At the moment when he entered, the black girl was just 
 disappearing through what appeared to be a small door open- 
 ing out of the room upon the landing of the stairs, and ordi- 
 narily concealed by the sweeping drapery of dark cloth that 
 was looped around the entire apartment. TThether the at- 
 tendant was carrying away any of the properties that might 
 have been used in the late jugglery, he had, of course, no 
 means of judging. The sorceress herself, at the moment 
 when he broke in upon her, was apparently advancing from 
 the little table at which she had been standing, partially 
 
• SHOULDER-STRAPS. 215 
 
 within the sweep of the hangings, towards the dividing cur- 
 tain. At sight of the intruder she stopped suddenly and 
 drew her tall form to its full height, while such a flash of 
 anger appeared to dart from her keen eyes as would have 
 produced a sensible effect on any man less used to varying 
 sensations than the cosmopolitan journalist. 
 
 "What do you want?" she asked, and the words came 
 from her lips with the same short hissing tone that he so well 
 remembered, creating the impression that there must be a 
 serpent hidden somewhere in the throat and hissing through 
 what would otherwise be the voice. 
 
 " What sorcery have you practised upon that poor girl, to 
 drive her into this state of distraction, red fiend ?" was the 
 answering question, bold enough in seeming, though Tom 
 Leslie, asked in regard to the matter to-day, would undoubt- 
 edly acknowledge that he had felt far less tremor when under 
 the heaviest play of the Russian cannon at Inkermann, than 
 when throwing this sharp taunt into the teeth of the sorceress. 
 
 " Nothing but what you have seen and endured !" w T as the 
 reply, made in the same tone as before. " I have shown 
 them the truth, and the truth is terrible. It is murder and 
 ruin in their own households — it is battle and death around 
 those they love — it is desolation and destruction to the land ! 
 Go ! — those who cannot witness my power without blenching, 
 should never seek me ; and you blench like those sick girls — 
 I have seen you blench before ?" 
 
 " Seen me V echoed Leslie. 
 
 " Seen youV was the fierce reply of the sorceress. " Fool ! 
 do you think I cannot penerate that thin disguise — that old 
 man's hair and those false wrinkles ? You were younger- 
 looking, eighteen months since, in another land where the 
 eagle screams less but tears its enemies more deeply w r ith its 
 talons !" 
 
 " I v:as," answered Leslie, carried beyond himself. " I re- 
 member the Rue la Reynie Ogniard, and I acknowledge your 
 fearful power, though I know not if it comes from heaven or 
 hell ! But tell me — who are you, so magnificently beautiful, 
 and yet so — so — " and here (a rare thing for him,) the voice 
 of Tom Leslie faltered. 
 
216 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 11 So horribly hideous, you would say," broke iu the sor- 
 ceress. " Stay ! you have said one word that touches the 
 woman within me. You have recognized my beauty as well 
 as my terror. Look for one instant at what no mortal eye 
 has Been for years or may ever see again ! Look !*' 
 
 Tom Leslie started, nay, staggered — for no other word can 
 express the motion — back towards the door, infinitely more 
 surprised than he had been on the night of his first adven- 
 ture with the sorceress. She held something in her hand, 
 but that could only be seen afterwards : for the moment his 
 eyes could only behold that marvellous face. If the Sons of 
 God when they intermarried with the beautiful daughters of 
 clay, left any descendants behind them, certainly that face 
 must have belonged to one of the number. Xo longer 
 ghastly red, but almost marble white, with the hue of health 
 yet mantling beneath the wondrous transparent skin, and every 
 line and curve of beauty such as would make the sculptor drop 
 his chisel in despair — with a lip that might have belonged to 
 Juno and a brow that should have been set beneath the hel- 
 met of Athena — with the glorious dark eye fringed with long 
 sweeping lashes and the wealth of the dark brown hair 
 swept back in masses of rippled and tangled shadow that 
 caught and lost the eye continually, — what a perfect vision 
 of high-born beauty was that face, the patent of nobility 
 coming direct from heaven ! 
 
 And what was that which she held in her hand, and the re- 
 moval of which had produced so wonderful a transformation ? 
 One of those masks of dark red golden wire, so fine as to be 
 almost impalpable, and wrought by fingers of such cunning 
 skill that while it concealed the natural skin of the face, every 
 lineament and even every sweep and dimple was copied, as 
 if the monlder had been working in wax — the eye looking 
 through as naturally as in the ordinary face, and even the 
 very play of the lips permitted. That strange red light 
 which had seemed to permeate the whole face and affect even 
 the eyes, had merely been the red metallic glitter of the gold, 
 leaving little work for the imagination to complete a picture 
 fascinating as unnatural. 
 
 " Great God ! — can such beautv be real V' broke out Les- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 217 
 
 lie, when be had gazed for one instant on the splendid vision 
 before him. "Matchless, peerless, glorious woman! Let 
 me come nearer ! Let me look longer on God's master- 
 work, if I even die at the sight 1" 
 
 Here was the faithful lover of Josephine Harris half an 
 hour before, — and in what a situation ! Oh man, mao, what 
 an eye for miscellaneous beauty is that with which your sex 
 is gifted ! All Mormons at heart, it is to be feared, however 
 a more self-denying canon may be observed perforce ! It is 
 not certain that Tom Leslie would have run away with his 
 new divinity, had the chance been offered at that moment; 
 and it is not certain that he would not have done so. Very 
 fortunately, the opportunity was wanting. Very fortunately, 
 too, the storm had not yet ceased altogether, and the two 
 ladies in the other room were likely to be too busy in restor- 
 ing and being restored, to hear very clearly what was going 
 on within. 
 
 "Back !" said the sharp voice of the sorceress, at the im- 
 passioned tone of the last words and that clasping of the 
 hands which told that the subject might be kneeling the next 
 moment. " Back ! No nearer, on your life ! I have not 
 the power of life and death, but I may have the power of 
 happiness and misery. , Go ! — or wish that you had done so, 
 till the very day you die !" 
 
 Her arm was stretched out with a queenly gesture, at once 
 of warning and command. Tom Leslie obeyed, with such an 
 effort as one sometimes makes in a forced arousing from sleep. 
 He took one more glance at the motionless face and form, then 
 dashed through the curtain and let it fall behind him. Joe 
 Harris had partially recovered from her excitement, and sat 
 beside Bell, with her face on the latter's shoulder. She roused 
 herself and even attempted a laugh with some success, when 
 the voice of Leslie was heard ; and if for one instant the alle- 
 giance of the young man had wavered in the presence of the 
 unnatural and the overwhelming, there was something in that 
 bright, clear, good face, only temporarily shadowed by her 
 late excitement, calculated to restore him at once to thought 
 and to truth. 
 
 Vrith the heavy crash of thunder which had accompanied 
 
216 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 if it Lad not caused the fright of the young girl, the storm 
 Beemed to have culminated and spent itself; and by this time 
 the rain had nearly ceased. Not a word passed between the 
 three as to what had occurred to either — any conversation on 
 that subject was naturally reserved for another place and a 
 later hour. The black girl came out again from behind the 
 curtain and received with a "Thank yon, Monsieur !" and a 
 curtsey the half eagle which dropped into her hand. Leslie 
 left the ladies alone for a moment, ran down to the door and 
 found a carriage : and in a few moments, without further 
 adventure, the three were on their way up-town, the journalist 
 to return again to his evening avocations, after accompanying 
 the two, whose disordered nerves he scarcely yet dared trust 
 alone, to their place of destination. 
 
 If during that ride the hand of Josephine Harris, a little 
 hot and feverish from late excitement, accidentally fell again 
 into his own and rested there as if it rather liked the position 
 — whose business was it, except their own ? 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A Peep at Camp Lyon and the Two Hundredth Regi- 
 ment — Discipline and the Dice-Box — How Seven Hun- 
 dred Men Can Be Squeezed into Three. 
 
 " I am going to West Falls again in a few days — that is, if 
 we do not get orders for Washington," Colonel Egbert Craw- 
 ford said, speaking to his cousin, a few chapters back, as may 
 be remembered. By which he meant, of course, if he meant 
 anything, that the Two Hundredth Regiment, with the rais- 
 ing of which he had been charged by Major- General Governor 
 Morgan, was in a high state of discipline as well as fully up 
 to the maximum in numbers, and burning to go down to the 
 field of carnage and revenge the deaths of those foully slaugh- 
 tered bv rebel hands. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 219 
 
 It may be interesting to know exactly what was the con- 
 dition of the Two Hundredth Regiment, at that exact time — 
 how many it numbered — what was its proficiency in drill — 
 what was the appearance of the camp at which it was quar- 
 tered — and how laboriously Colonel Crawford was engaged 
 in bringing it up to the highest standard of perfection for 
 citizen soldiery. For this purpose, it will be well to look in 
 at the encampment, with the eyes of some persons from the 
 city who visited it on Sunday the 29th of June — the very day 
 on which McClellan, from sheer lack of troops, abandoned 
 the White House, necessarily destroying so -much valuable 
 property, losing for the time the last hope of the capture of 
 Richmond, and falling back on the line of the James River. 
 
 The Two Hundredth Regiment lay at " Camp Lyon," (as 
 it may be designated for the purposes of this chronicle) — a 
 locality on Long Island, a few miles eastward from the City 
 Hall of Brooklyn, and easily accessible by one of the lines of 
 horse-cars running from Fulton Ferry. It had been some two 
 months established ; recruiting for the regiment was said to 
 be going on very rapidly ; "only a few more men wanted" was 
 the burden of the song sung in the advertising columns of the 
 morning papers ; rations for some seven hundred men were 
 continually furnished for it, by the Quartermaster's Depart- 
 ment ; the Colonel made flattering reports of it every day or 
 two, to the higher military authorities in the city, and at least 
 once a week to the still higher authorities at Albany ; and a 
 political Brigadier-General was reported to have gone down 
 and reviewed it, once or twice, coming back eminently satisfied 
 with its numbers, discipline and performances. 
 
 The visitors from the city, who, having no other connection 
 whatever with the progress of this story, may be fobbed off 
 with the very ordinary names of Smith and Brown, — reached 
 the camp at about four o'clock on that Sunday afternoon, 
 having waited until that late hour in the day for the purpose 
 of avoiding the noon-tide heat, and being anxious to be pres- 
 ent at the evening drill, which was supposed to take place 
 in the neighborhood of six o'clock. An acquaintance of 
 theirs, an officer in the Two Hundredth, one Lieutenant 
 Woodruff, had several times invited them to "rundown to 
 li 
 
220 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 camp and see him before he went away/' promising to do the 
 honors of the encampment in the best manner compatible 
 with the duties of a "fellow busy all the time, you know."' 
 
 Alighting from the vehicle, Smith and Brown found the 
 camp Btretwhmg before them, scarcely so picturesque as they 
 had anticipated, but with enough of the military air about 
 its green sod and conical tents, to make it rather varied and 
 pleasing to a couple of "cits" who had not looked upon the 
 extended army pageant around Washington, or seen any- 
 thing, more of war than could be observed in a turn-out of 
 the First Division on the Fourth of July. On a broad level, 
 stretching back for a quarter of a mile from the railroad - 
 track, and terminating in a strip of noble oak woods, the 
 tents of the encampment were pitched, forty or fifty in num- 
 ber, not too white and cleanly-looking, even at a distance, 
 and decidedly dingy and yellow when brought to a nearer 
 view. Some attempt had been made at forming them into 
 lines, with regular alleys between ; the hospital-tent at some 
 distance in the rear, distinguished by a yellow flag hanging 
 listlessly from a pole in front ; and the Colonel's large round 
 tent or marquee prominent in the centre, a small American 
 flag before it. doing its best to wave in the slight sea air that 
 came in over the Long Island hills. Groups of soldiers, 
 variously disposed, dotted the space between the tents or sat 
 at the doors, chatting with male or female civilians, or their 
 own wives and daughters, who had run down to see them as 
 an amusement for Sunday afternoon ; while sentinels paced 
 backward and forward along certain lines and offered an un- 
 certain amount of inconvenience to those who wished to 
 traverse the camp-grounds in one direction or another. 
 
 Smith and Brown, looking for Woodruff and finding it a 
 matter of some difficulty to discover him, paced up and down 
 among the tents, wherever the sentinels permitted, looking in 
 at the doors of those canvas cottages and observing the humors 
 which denoted that the occupants had been the possessors 
 of plenty of time for other purposes than drill, however pro- 
 ficient they might have become in that military necessity. 
 Scarcely one of the alleys between the rows of tents but had 
 its street-name, stuck up on a piece of chalked or charcoaled 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 221 
 
 board at the entrance — from the ambitious "Broadway" to 
 the aristocratic "Fifth Avenue" and the doubtful "Mercer 
 Street." Many of the tents bore equally significant inscrip- 
 tion, from the "City Hall" (where some scion of an alderman 
 probably made his warlike abode), to the " Astor House" and 
 " St. Nicholas" (where perhaps some depreciated son of 
 snobbery was known to have his quarters), and the "Hotel 
 de Coffee and Cakes," suggestive of inmates from the less 
 pretentious precincts of the city. AVithin the tents, as Smith 
 and Brown took the liberty of looking in, a variety of spec- 
 tacles were discovered. Straw seemed to be an almost uni- 
 versal commodity — quite as indispensable there as in pig- 
 pens or railroad-cars ; and next to straw, perhaps battered 
 trunks and very cheap pine tables predominated. Greasy 
 kettles and dishes could be discovered just under the flap of 
 the tent, in many instances ; and here and there a tent would 
 be passed, emitting odors of rancid grease, stale tobacco and 
 personal foulness, not at all appetizing to visitors unfamiliar 
 with the gutters of Mackerelville or the hold of a ship in the 
 horse-latitudes. 
 
 In some of the tents the men were asleep on the tables, in 
 others on the trunks, in still others on the straw. In a few 
 Smith and Brown saw soldiers drinking ; in others, in posi- 
 tions suggestive of being very drunk, had they found them 
 elsewhere than in a well-regulated camp ; in still others 
 playing cards for pennies, furtively behind the flaps of the 
 tent or openly in the vicinity of the door. They caught 
 fragments of broad oaths from a few, aad snatches of obscene 
 stories from a few others ; and taken altogether, the im- 
 pression of the Two Hundredth being in a high state of 
 discipline or a very excellent sanitary condition, was not 
 strongly forced upon their minds. This impression was not 
 strengthened, when, being directed by one of the sentries to 
 the hospital-tent as a place where they might be likely at that 
 moment to find Lieutenant Woodruff, — they failed to discover 
 him there, but did not fail to discover one corporal keeping 
 guard in that sanitary clomicil, so drunk that he was asleep 
 and so drunkenly abusive when they woke him that they 
 
222 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 were glad to permit him to fall back again into his beastly 
 slumber. 
 
 At length they found Lieutenant Woodruff, who had just 
 returned from escorting another party of friends to the cars, 
 on their way back to town. He seemed glad to see them, 
 though not enthusiastic in his demonstrations — invited them 
 to the tent in which he messed with some brother officers — 
 and they took that direction for a rest after their hot prome- 
 nade. 
 
 Somewhat to the apparent mortification of Woodruff, when 
 they reached the tent none of the brother officers to whom he 
 had promised to introduce his friends, were to be found ; but 
 they had left their traces behind them. Two or three empty 
 bottles and as many uncleaned glasses lay about the table, 
 and the remains of spilt liquor wetted and stained the boards 
 of the seats, while a very dirty pack of cards, half on the 
 table and the remainder on the ground, showed that the 
 officers were not only a little unscrupulous as to the character 
 of their Sunday amusements, but equally indifferent as to the 
 cleanliness of the tools with which they performed the ardu- 
 ous labors of old-sledge, euchre and division-loo. Woodruff 
 cleared away the debris from the table, and flung it into one 
 corner with some petulance which did not escape the notice 
 of his visitors. Finally part of a box of bad cigars was in- 
 troduced, and among the fumes engendered by those indis- 
 pensable " weeds," a little conversation followed. 
 
 " Well, when do you get off?" asked Smith, who had beerr 
 very anxious to come on that Sunday, instead of waiting for 
 the next, under the impression that the regiment might move 
 at any time and thus deprive them of the visit. He had been 
 led to suppose so, partially from conversations with Woodruff 
 in the city, and partially by the statements in the newspapers, 
 before alluded to, made with reference to this and other 
 "favorite regiments." 
 
 " Get off !" answered Woodruff, with no concealment of 
 the vexation in his tone. "Humph ! well, I think we shall 
 need to get on a little faster, before we get off at all !" 
 
 n Not full yet, eh ?" asked Brown. 
 
 " Not exactly," was the answer of the Lieutenant, with a 
 
SHOULDEK-STKAPS. 223 
 
 satirical emphasis on the second word which indicated that 
 some other would have been quite as well in place. 
 
 " Why, I thought you were !" said Smith. " The papers 
 had you up to seven hundred some time ago, and with all 
 your big posters and advertisements and the large bounties 
 offered, you ought to be bringing them in very rapidly." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so !" answered Woodruff. " We ought to 
 do a good many things in this world, that we do not find it 
 convenient to do. We ought to have been full, and off to 
 Washington, a month ago, and would have been, if there had 
 been any management." 
 
 " Why you speak as if you were discouraged and dissat- 
 isfied," said Brown, " and not at all as you talked to us when 
 in the city a few days ago." 
 
 "No, probably not," answered the Lieutenant. "Well, the 
 fact is, boys, that I have been lying to you like — (and here 
 he used a very hard word not necessary to be recorded.) We 
 have all been lying ; but to you, at least, I mean to make a 
 clean breast of it. I did not suppose you would come down, 
 and while you kept at a distance I thought we might as well 
 keep up a good reputation. Xow that you are here, you have 
 not half an eye if you do not know that ' Camp Lyon ' is a 
 humbug, and that there is no discipline or anything else in it 
 that should be here. I am going to get out of it, if I can 
 with any honor." 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Smith, very much disap- 
 pointed, and very much discouraged at the key which the 
 situation of Camp Lyon seemed to offer to the corresponding 
 situation of many others of the crack recruiting stations de- 
 pended upon for filling up the reduced ranks of the army. 
 
 " What is the matter ? Everything !" said Woodruff, fairly 
 launched out in an exposure of the abuses of the recruiting 
 service, for which he had not before had a fair and safe op- 
 portunity. " Half the men are good for nothing, and almost 
 all the officers worse. We could get along with worthless 
 men, and perhaps make soldiers of them, if we only had 
 officers worth their salt. Field or line, there is not one in 
 three that knows when a ' shoulder-arms ' is correctly made ; 
 and there is no more attempt at either study or practice than 
 
224 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 there would be if we were a hunting party encamped in the 
 Northern woods. Commissions have been issued to anybody 
 supposed to possess some political influence ; and subordinate 
 commissions have been promised by the higher officer.- to 
 any one who offered to bring in a certain number of rap- 
 scallions or pay down a certain sum of money. Those who 
 are not drunken, are lazy ; and the men know about as much 
 of wholesome discipline as a hog knows of holy-water. I 
 have tried to do a little better with some of the squads of my 
 own company ; but I think that complaints have been made 
 that I ' overworked ' the men, and I have fallen into decidedly 
 bad odor with the good people up at the big house yonder." 
 
 "And who are theyV- asked Brown, wofully ignorant of 
 the details of recruiting in 1802. " And what are they doing 
 up at the ' big house,' as you call it *?" 
 
 " Eh '? you haven't been in there, have you ?" said Wood- 
 ruff. " Come along then, and see. Of course you know that 
 I must refer to our gallant Colonel and the other leading 
 officers at the head of the regiment ; and of course you are 
 not so green as not to know that the big house beyond the 
 railroad track, there, is a tavern. Come along and let us see 
 what Colonel Crawford and the rest of them happen to be 
 doing ; and by the time that is over we shall have our 
 'evening parade,' which you must certainly see before you go 
 home." 
 
 Escorted by the Lieutenant, the two citizens took their 
 way to the " big house" — a hotel standing on the north side 
 of the railroad track and very near it — a wooden building of 
 two stories, with a piazza in front and at the east end, and 
 flanked by a row of horse-sheds indicating that there was 
 some dependence made upon the patronage of fast drivers 
 stopping there on race days or when trotting was peculiarly 
 good on the pike or the plank. Before the house paced two 
 sentries, with muskets at the shoulder, though what they were 
 guarding was not so clear, as every one passed who wished 
 to do so, whether in uniform or citizen's dress. Behind the 
 corner of the piazza, eastward, an officer was leaning back in 
 his chair against the clap-boards, with his hat over his eyes 
 and apparently asleep ; and a few feet from him a sergeant, 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 225 
 
 distinguishable by three dingy stripes on his arm that should 
 have been laid upon his back, was toying, not too decently, 
 with a woman whose looks and manners both proclaimed 
 her one of the " necessary evils" of a modern community. 
 
 " Do they allow such actions as that — right here in public, 
 and in the very presence of the officers ?" asked Smith, 
 whose education had possibly been a little neglected in some 
 other particulars, as Brown's had been in the details of the 
 military profession. 
 
 " Guess so 1" was the significant reply of Woodruff. " Come 
 up stairs !" and the party passed on. As they did so, they 
 looked through a door to the left, and saw a bar of unplaned 
 boards extending the whole length of a spacious room, with 
 half a dozen attendants behind it and as many beer kegs and 
 whiskey decanters pouring out their contents. Mingled with 
 here and there a civilian, the whole front of the bar was full 
 of soldiers, all apparently drinking, and drinking again, and 
 drinking yet again, nibbling cheese, crackers and smoked- 
 beef meanwhile, apparently to keep up the necessary thirst. 
 " Fire and fall back !" seemed to be a military axiom not 
 always observed by the rank and file of the Two Hundredth, 
 as many of them kept their places and went on with their 
 guzzling, with a determination worthy of a much better 
 cause. But it was occasionally observed, after all, for there 
 were a few who had been overcome by the heat of the bibu- 
 latory conflict, and who had relapsed into partial helpless- 
 ness in chairs around the walls ; and there were others who 
 began to stagger and talk thickly at the counter, growing 
 obscure and maudlin in their oaths, and shaking hands alto- 
 gether too often, indicating the sleepy stage as very soon to 
 follow. 
 
 As the two friends and their conductor passed up-stairs, 
 they noticed two officers in somewhat loud conversation, not 
 far from the landing and near the door of a side-room, on the 
 handle of the door of which one of them held his hand a por- 
 tion of the time. Without any effort, some of the words of 
 their conversation could easily be heard ; and Smith and 
 Brown, who had no more than the avera<ffe of that creditable 
 delicacy which hears nothing intended only for other ears, 
 
226 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 caught some words which will bear setting down here as 
 affording an additional clue to the state of discipline. 
 
 " That," said Woodruff, giving Smith a nudge as they 
 came to the head of the stairs, speaking in a low tone, and 
 pointing to the taller of the two men, who stood with his 
 side-face presented at the moment, — " that is Colonel Craw- 
 ford ; and the other, the shorter man, is Captain Lowndes, 
 who has been recruiting for the regiment at the Park. If I 
 was in better odor with the Colonel, I would introduce you ; 
 but come on." 
 
 Smith and Jones did not " come on" at the instant, and 
 what they caught from the two officers was the following : 
 
 " Xot one in a week ?" asked the Colonel, in a tone min- 
 gling surprise and anger. " Not one ?" D — n it !" 
 
 " I am sorry to say, not one," was the reply of Captain 
 Lowndes. " They nearly all sing the same tune, however." 
 
 "Well, it won't do for vs, you know!" said the Colonel. 
 " Another review, and by some officer who was not a d — d 
 lawyer blockhead, might be awkward !" Colonel Crawford 
 either forgot, at that moment, that he had any connection 
 with the legal profession, or he chose to ignore the fact ; and 
 it is not to be supposed that his subordinate reminded him 
 
 of it. " We must have a paragraph in the to-morrow 
 
 morning," he went on, naming an influential daily, " giving 
 the regiment another 'blow.' If it does not get us any 
 recruits, it will at least make the thing look better at Albany. 
 Hum — where's Dalton ?" 
 
 " The Adjutant went to Boston yesterday," was the re- 
 sponse of Lowndes. " Said he had business, though as he 
 had a girl with him when he stepped on board the boat, I 
 suspect his business was rather personal." 
 
 " D — n him !" muttered the Colonel, between his teeth. 
 Then louder, to Lowndes : " I thought I told you to request 
 him, if you saw him, not to leave the city again without per- 
 mission from me ! It seems you have seen him ; and why 
 were my orders not obeyed ?" The Colonel spoke now with 
 great dignity, and drew himself up so that the eagles on his 
 shoulder-straps were at least half an inch higher than when 
 he was squatted down into easy position 
 
SHOULDER- STRAPS. 227 
 
 " Your orders were obeyed," answered the Captain. " I did 
 tell him " 
 
 " And what did he say ?" asked the Colonel, lifting his 
 eyebrows with some appearance of interest. 
 
 " lie said," replied the Captain, enunciating his words very 
 clearly, as if he had no objection to their producing their full 
 weight on his superior — " That Colonel Egbert Crawford 
 might go to h — 11, and he would go to Boston." 
 
 "Did he? — d — n him!" said the Colonel, who seemed to 
 have a small bottle of profanity lately uncorked, or one that 
 he certainly was not in the habit of uncorking in the presence 
 of those on whom he wished to produce a different impression. 
 
 " Yes he did," answered the Captain. " He said a little. 
 more. Perhaps you would like to have that, while I am at it ?" 
 
 " That ? — yes, out with the whole of it !" spoke the Colonel, 
 with another oath which need not be recorded here as any 
 additional seasoning. 
 
 " He took occasion to remark, where the lady who was with 
 him could hear it," Lowndes went on — "that he didn't care 
 a d — n for you, and that you dare not make a complaint against 
 him at Albany, a bit more than you dare jump into a place 
 that is even hotter than the weather is here to-day." 
 
 " Did he — the infernal hound !" broke out the Colonel, his 
 dark brows literally corrugated with rage. " I'll teach him 
 whether I dare or not, before I am forty-eight hours older !" 
 But either there was something behind the curtain, or Colonel 
 Egbert Crawford was a man of most angelic temper, for the 
 moment after he broke out into a laugh that was not of the 
 most musical order, and said : " Oh, well — Dalton is a pretty 
 good fellow, after all, and perhaps the next Adjutant would 
 be a worse one for the regiment." 
 
 With these words Colonel Egbert Crawford passed into the 
 side room by the door of which he had been standing, while 
 Captain Lowndes touched his hat to him very slightly and 
 went on to the larger room towards which the others were 
 proceeding. As the Colonel swung back the door, Smith 
 caught a very quick glance within, and saw a table, with bot- 
 tles, a pack of cards, a couple of dice-boxes, and four or five 
 persons seated, lounging and smoking. The party appeared 
 
223 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 to him as if they might have been interrupted in a little harm- 
 less Sunday afternoon amusement, and as if they were only 
 waiting for the return of the Colonel to the room, to renew 
 that amusement in a very pleasant and effective manner. That 
 impression was not removed by his hearing, after he had passed 
 through the open door into the other room, a suspicious sound 
 like the rattling of dice and another sound very like the cl 
 ing of coin, proceeding from the smaller apartment. 
 
 Smith and Brown found very little in the officers' room, 
 dignified by the name of " regimental head-quarters," demand- 
 ing particular record. There were two red pine tables set to- 
 gether and forming a counter, behind which the regimental 
 officers were supposed to be located ; and on the end of the 
 tables nearest the front of the house was a small desk, with 
 pigeon-holes, at which, by the same fiction, the Adjutant was 
 supposed to be always sitting, performing the arduous duties 
 of his office. Supported by nails in the ceiling were two flag- 
 staffs, their butts shaped to fit the muzzles of short rifles, and 
 from the upper end of each depending one of the "guidons" 
 of the regiment, gorgeously blue in color and lettered in shaded 
 gol'l — understood to be the gift of certain ladies who properly 
 appreciated the talents and devotion of the officers and the 
 hopeful prospects of the regiment under formation. Behind 
 the tables was a mantel ; and on it stood two decanters 
 partially filled with liquor, a plate of crackers and another of 
 cheese. A Lieutenant was seated at the Adjutant's desk, en- 
 gaged in filling up blank leaves-of-absence for each in turn, of 
 a disorderly crowd of twenty or thirty soldiers who pressed 
 forward from the door to receive them. Two or three of this 
 crowd presented former leaves, to have them extended. One 
 of these was refused, the Lieutenant laboring under some sort 
 of impression that a private who had been three weeks under 
 enlistment, and absent all that time on leave, would not 
 become very proficient in drill unless he spent at least one 
 week at the encampment before marching. The wronged 
 man did not appear to take the refusal very much to heart, 
 however : he merely remarked to one of the others, loud enough 
 for the Lieutenant to have beard if he had been very observant, 
 that "he didn't care two cusses for the leave : he would go off 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 229 
 
 when he liked and stay as long as he liked, and he should like 
 to see anybody smart enough to stop him." 
 
 At the mantel, taking a quiet drink with half a dozen 
 civilian friends who had been admitted behind the tables, 
 stood a tall, soldierly-looking man, pointed out by Woodruff 
 as Lieut. Colonel Burns. Unaccountably, he wore no straps 
 on the shoulder, his blue blouse looking as if it was thrown 
 on for use instead of show, and his whole demeanor that of a 
 man who, if opportunity should only be given him, would be 
 a soldier. He had his sword-belts at the waist, however, and 
 also wore his sword, as if he had some indefinite idea that 
 something would thereby be gained in an appearance of effi- 
 ciency for the regiment. 
 
 " Have you seen almost enough ?" asked Lieutenant Wood- 
 ruff, of the two citizens. 
 
 "Quite enough 1" said both in a breath 
 
 "Well, time is just up," said the Lieutenant. "And in 
 good time comes the drum-beat for evening parade. Come 
 along, and see what it is like. I must leave you, but you can 
 see the display without me." 
 
 A couple of snare-drums were rattling somewhere among 
 the tents, and the shrill notes of a light infantry bugle sounded. 
 Lieut. Colonel Burns buckled his sword belts a little tighter 
 and straightened himself to a soldierly bearing, as he left the 
 room with his friends. A sergeant took down the guidons, 
 and all, except the one Lieutenant at the desk and two or 
 three soldiers who did not consider the call as of sufficient 
 consequence, followed them down to the parade-ground in 
 front of the camp. Col. Egbert Crawford seemed to be like 
 the two or three soldiers named, and not to consider the call 
 of consequence enough to demand any attention on his part ; 
 for he did not, at least during the stay of Smith and Brown, 
 emerge from the privacy of the inner room or make any 
 movement to superintend the "dress parade." 
 
 That "dress parade" completed the experience of Smith 
 and Brown ; and it completed, at the same time, their knowl- 
 edge of the numbers and efficiency of the Two Hundredth 
 Regiment that was "almost ready to march." In squads of 
 from ten to twenty-five, the soldiers gathered from their 
 
230 SHOULDEli-STKAPS. 
 
 slovenly tents, until the observers eould count something 
 more than two hundred. Then by squads and afterwards in 
 what was intended as a "regimental formation," they went 
 through a series of marchings, countermarchings and facings, 
 with about the proficiency which would be shown by the 
 same number of entirely raw recruits, and with the same 
 proportion of the most obvious blunderings that used to be 
 exhibited by the "slab-conipanies" at the "general trainings" 
 or "general musters" in the country sections, when a lamenta- 
 ble caricature upon military spirit was kept up, in the years 
 following the War of 1812. 
 
 Not a musket was to be seen in the hands of one of these 
 men, except the few sentries. They "had not been fur- 
 nished," as the explanation was sure to be given afterwards 
 when the regiment was discovered to be an undisciplined 
 mob ! They would probably not be "furnished'' until just at 
 the moment when the regiment should be forced to move, and 
 then they would be put into hands liable to be called on to 
 use them in battle within a week — those hands knowing no 
 more of the management of the deadly instrument of modern 
 warfare, than so many Sioux or South Sea Islanders might 
 have known of watch-making or extracting the cube-root. 
 
 And yet with these men, and in this manner, the armies of 
 the republic were being recruited ; and on the deeds in arms 
 wrought by these men, possibly in the very first conflict into 
 which they were rushed like huddled sheep, the eyes of the 
 military nations of Europe were to be turned with anxious 
 interest. They were to fight, too, against a race of men to 
 whom deadly weapons had been familiar from childhood, and 
 who would consequently make soldiers, to the full extent of 
 their capability, with one-half the training which was to 
 these Northern men an absolute necessity ! Is it any wonder 
 that we have occasionally met with a Bull Run or a Second 
 Field of Manassas, with this shameful waste of our opportu- 
 nities and our war-material ? 
 
 Smith and Brown left " Camp Lyon," before the comple- 
 tion of the "dress parade," with a dim consciousness of being 
 painfully disenchanted in a very important particular. 
 
 " Do you know, Smith," said Brown, as they were roiling 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 231 
 
 along in the car, homeward— "that I doubt whether there 
 arc three hundred men in that regiment, absentees and all — 
 instead of seven hundred as the papers report ?" 
 
 "Humph," said Smith, "it seems to be all a humbug 
 together ! But I wonder what becomes of the extra pay issued 
 to seven hundred men, when there are only three hundred 
 entitled to receive it ? And I wonder what becomes of all 
 the extra rations that are drawn for them every day ? Some- 
 body must be making something out of it — eh ? I wonder 
 if there are any more regiments in the same condition ?" 
 
 " Probably !" said Brown. Whereupon the two citizens 
 fell into a very deep and silent train of thought, leaving us 
 no additional speech to record. 
 
 Other people than Smith, at about that time, felt like pro- 
 pounding the same queries as to the disposition of extra pay 
 and rations. Some of those queries, which have been pro- 
 pounded, have not yet been answered. When they are, if 
 that happy period ever arrives, we may know something 
 more of the channels and sluices through which the wealth 
 of the richest nation on the globe has ebbed away, leaving 
 such inconsiderable results to show for the expenditure. 
 
 Andy yet Colonel Egbert Crawford, visiting the city two 
 hours afterwards, and dropping in at two or three favorite 
 resorts of men who talked horse, war and politics, on his way 
 to the house of his cousin, — bore himself bravely under his 
 weight of uniform, and more than once threw in a pardonable 
 boast over the services he was rendering the country, the 
 sacrifices he was making, and the rapid growth and efficiency 
 of the Two Hundredth Regiment. 
 
 "All brass is not fashioned and moulded in foundries, 
 where men do swelter like to those standing in the flames of 
 the fiery furnace," says an old writer, Arnold of Thorndean, 
 11 but much of it doth become shaped in the human counte- 
 nance." 
 
232 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CHAPTER XYI. 
 
 Two Modes of Writing Romances — More of the Up-town 
 Mystery — A Watch, an Escape, and a Police Post- 
 mortem on a Vacant House. 
 
 The question may have been asked, before this point in 
 narration, by some of those who have been induced to follow 
 the progress of this story — What has become of some of the 
 prominent characters first introduced, Dexter Ralston, the 
 stalwart Virginian, and the girl Kate, who seemed at that 
 time to be so closely identified with the movements of the 
 "red woman." The curiosity is a natural one, whether 
 there really was such a secret of disloyalty, hidden away 
 either in the house on Prince Street or that on East 5 — , as 
 justified Tom Leslie and Walter Harding in their long ride 
 at midnight and their subsequent interview with Police- 
 Superintendent Kennedy. To some extent this question can 
 be answered, at this point ; but there will still remain some 
 mysteries unexplainable until the end of this narration, and 
 even some impossible to elucidate until the close of the war 
 and the re-union of Northern and Southern society on the 
 old basis, makes it possible to reveal all that may have 
 occurred during the conflict. 
 
 There are two modes in which romances can be written. 
 The first, and perhaps the more popular, is that in which no 
 bound whatever is set by either probability or conscience — in 
 which the narrator assumes to know what never could be 
 known except to an omniscient being, and to describe such 
 circumstances as never could have occurred in any world 
 under the same general regulations as our own. To this 
 writer, no doors are barred, and from him the secret of no 
 heart can be hidden. He has no difficulty whatever in re- 
 tracing the path of history, back to the days of Michael Paleo- 
 logus or Timour the Tartar, and describing the viands set 
 upon their tables and the thoughts that may have entered 
 their brains ; while in events of the present day he finds no 
 more trouble in describing circumstantially the last moments 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 233 
 
 of a traveller dying alone at the North Pole or in the midst 
 of the most trackless waste of Sahara. The manner in which 
 he became possessed of the facts narrated, is held to be a 
 matter of very little consequence; and if he lacks the op- 
 portunity of calling other witnesses or surrounding circum- 
 stances to corroborate him, he at least is removed from the 
 fear of any authoritative contradiction. The reader, of 
 course, would sometimes be grateful for a little insight into 
 what is so impenetrably hidden ; and if the links binding the 
 narrator to his subject were made a little plainer to the 
 naked eye, perhaps more general satisfaction might be given. 
 When, for instance, in the ''Legend of the Terrible Tower," 
 Sir Bronzeface the Implacable is shown as threatening the 
 Lady Charmengarde with the most cruel tortures his slighted 
 love and growing hate can devise — when the very words of 
 that atrocious monster are set down as carefully as if they had 
 been taken from his lips by the rapid pencil of the stenog- 
 rapher — and when in the context we learn that in the midst 
 of his threaten in gs, the thousand barrels of gunpowder se- 
 cretly stored in another part of the castle for the purpose of 
 arming a million of retainers to make a deadly onslaught on 
 the stronghold of his hated rival the Lord of Hardcheek, 
 suddenly takes fire, and the castle, with both the interlocutors 
 and all others who could possibly be present, is seen hurled 
 into infinitesimal fragments, — there is some unavoidable cu- 
 riosity in the mind of the reader, at this juncture, to know 
 precisely how these very words and actions became known to 
 the narrator, as well as how the gunpowder was manufac- 
 tured in the year of grace nine hundred and eighty-four. 
 
 For corresponding knowledge of events in the actual pres- 
 ent, the believers in clairvoyance may be able to offer some 
 explanation ; but, unfortunately or the reverse, the believers 
 in effective clairvoyance are in a very meagre minority ; and 
 the world will cling a little tenaciously to the belief that what 
 cannot be seen, heard, or otherwise realized by the recognized 
 natural senses, cannot be definitely ascertained. Let it not 
 be for one moment supposed, meanwhile, that romances con- 
 structed on such bases will be less popular than those which 
 have more reason and probability at the bottom ; for the ma- 
 
234 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 jority of novel-readers desire to be frightened, mystified or 
 
 idly amused ; and perhaps that writer who makes thought a 
 condition of reading and understanding what he writes, com- 
 mits the most silly of crimes against his own pocket and 
 reputation. 
 
 The other mode in which romances can be written, is that 
 in which the writer only details that which he has enjoyed an 
 opportunity to know, embodying with them such speculations 
 and reflections as seem legitimately to grow out of the sub- 
 ject. This mode is unquestionably an unprofitable one to 
 employ ; but unfortunately this narration can be conducted 
 on no other. Actual events and conversations only are 
 given, and no speculations as to what might have been can be 
 indulged. It might have been very easy to depict a disloyal 
 or " secesh " household in this city, and a club of fashionable 
 people with pro-slavery sympathies, meeting periodically, with 
 grips, signs and passwords, and exercising an injurious influ- 
 ence on the National cause by holding clandestine corres- 
 pondence with rebels in the revolted States. That such house- 
 holds have existed in this city during the entire struggle, and 
 that such combinations of disloyal men have been doing their 
 worst to cripple the government and distract the nation, no 
 rational man doubts for a moment. But no loyal citizen has 
 been admitted behind the curtain, in either of the supposable 
 instances. No one could have been, and still remained loyal, 
 without making such public revelations in the interest of 
 patriotism, that any pretended private revelation must neces- 
 sarily have become a farce. No one, especially, would have 
 held any such secret for months, and then divulged it in the 
 ambiguous mode of a romance, while arbitrary arrests and 
 unexplained imprisonments were making the once free States 
 of the Old Union a* second Venice. Suspicious circumstances 
 have been observed, and suspicious persons put under watch ; 
 but if anything more than mere suspicion has been reached, 
 the disloyal persons themselves, and the government, are the 
 only parties who possess the information. 
 
 All this, to say that the materials for this narration have 
 not been gathered from disloyal sources or found in disloyal 
 company, and that, as a consequence, it does not enter within 
 
S1I0U L DEK- STRAPS. 235 
 
 doors closed to true men, by any magic key of the mind or 
 the imagination. And if any mystery suggested, from that 
 cause remains even partially unsolved, truth and loyalty, and 
 not a desire for mystification, must supply the explanation. 
 
 And now to detail, very briefly, what is further known of 
 the house on East 5 — Street, and its occupation 
 
 It has already been related that Superintendent Kennedy, 
 in spite of his slighting replies to the two young men, did not 
 really undervalue their information, and that two vigilant 
 detectives, with assistants, were entrusted with the duty of 
 
 watching the two houses. * L and another good man" 
 
 had been ordered to take charge of the house on East 5 — 
 Street, and they entered upon their duties at once. Not as 
 ordinary policemen, of course, for such a plan would neces- 
 sarily have defeated any chance of successful observation. 
 It was as a very modest private gentleman, elderly, with a 
 
 cane and a slight limp, that L managed to lounge by the 
 
 house repeatedly within the space of an hour ; while his 
 assistant, dressed in the clothes of a glass-mender, and with 
 a box of the proper cut strapped on his back, haunted that 
 street and invited business with a cry which the boys irrev- 
 erently designated " glass pudding!" During the two hours 
 thus spent, no person entered or left the house, nor was there 
 a sign of life at any of the windows, — though what eyes may 
 really have been watching from those closed blinds, it is quite 
 impossible to say. Enough that they kept their watch closely 
 until the coming on of the same heavy thunder-storm which 
 burst upon the visitors to the sorceress in Prince Street; 
 and that when the first drops of that shower were falling, 
 conceiving themselves very unlikely to be repaid for a thor- 
 ough wetting, they temporarily withdrew to the Station- 
 house, or, as the act would now be expressed, " raised the 
 blockade" for a very limited period. 
 
 Within five minutes after their departure, and when the 
 wind and the rain had fairly begun to play together at rough 
 gymnastics in the street, there was evidence that eyes prob- 
 ably had been observing the elderly gentleman with the 
 limp, walking past the house a little too frequently. At all 
 events, a man of tall figure, wrapped in an oil-skin coat, and 
 15 
 
236 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 with a round black hat and umbrella, emerged from the front 
 door and dashed rapidly up the street. He was gone but a 
 few minutes, and returned in the very height of the storm, in 
 a carriage which drew up at the door. Perhaps ten minutes 
 more, and some of the neighbors, who had been observing 
 these singular movements, saw the same tall man, with an 
 elderly lady and two younger ones, come out and enter the 
 carriage, which, after taking on two large trunks, drove away 
 at ordinary speed. The conclusion to which these good 
 people came, was that the party were obliged to go out in 
 the storm for the purpose of catching one of the late evening 
 trains out of the city ; and they may have been very nearly 
 correct in the conjecture. 
 
 The storm passed over, and the summer evening came on. 
 The two detectives came back to their places, varying their 
 disguises for the evening. The house seemed all quiet, as 
 
 before, and L came to the conclusion that there was either 
 
 no one within or that the inmates were disposed to lie very 
 close, as they did not even open the front windows to admit 
 the clear evening air, cooled by the shower, or to look at the 
 splendid sunset sky. So time passed on until nine o'clock, 
 when the two detectives agreed to adopt the " ride-and-tie" 
 principle — one keeping strict watch until midnight and the 
 other until morning. This arrangement was duly carried out ; 
 and L , who had taken the turn till midnight, again re- 
 sumed his place at six o'clock. All was quiet — no one had 
 entered or left the house, and L became thoroughly satis- 
 fied that it must be unoccupied. He might have haunted the 
 house in one disguise or another, retaining the same correct 
 opinion, until doomsday, had not one of the neighboring 
 houses contained one of those inquisitive gentlemen (some- 
 times depreciatingly called ''meddlers") who can never be 
 content without knowing the business of all others, better than 
 their own. 
 
 This person, partially an invalid, and much confined to the 
 house and to very short walks in the neighborhood, — had ob- 
 served the surveillance of the day before, still continued that 
 morning ; and he had also observed the episode of the carriage 
 in the midst of the thunder-storm, of which the officer was a? 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 237 
 
 yet happily oblivious. Putting all the appearances together, 
 he concluded that there had been some accusation, a watch 
 and an escape ; and about nine o'clock that morning he strolled 
 out to the sidewalk ; accosted the detective ; informed him, 
 with a knowing wink of the eye, that he understood the whole 
 matter; and finished by advising him that "the birds had 
 flown," and of the particular time when they took wing. As 
 appendiarv matter, he also informed the detective that the 
 house was a furnished one belonging to a wealthy grocer who 
 had just gone to Europe with his family — that it had been 
 rented for a few weeks past to some very odd people — and 
 that he had wondered at their being no attention paid to it 
 before, as he was satisfied it was a receptacle for stolen goods. 
 
 To say that L was surprised at the first part of this in- 
 telligence, would be to say nothing ; to say that he was mor- 
 tified and enraged at being obliged to make such a report to 
 the Superintendent, would be to put the case very mildly ; 
 and to say that he felt like amputating the head of a large- 
 sized nail with his teeth, would only being doing justice to 
 his feelings at this juncture. 
 
 The communicative neighbor finally informed him that he 
 doubted whether the house was fastened, from the suddenness 
 of the departure the day before ; and on the hint the detective 
 acted. The front door was found to be secured, but only by 
 the latch-key bolt ; and the area door was entirely unfastened. 
 They entered and explored the house. It was a neatly furnished 
 modern building, with everything in its place and nothing to 
 mark any hasty departure of occupants, except a dinner-table 
 left setting in the dining-room, with food on the plates and 
 evidence that the meal had been left unfinished. 
 
 Xo clothing or other articles that could have belonged to 
 the late inmates had been left behind, except half a dozen 
 books, one of which was Simms' " History of South Carolina," 
 another a copy of that odd jumble of short sketches published 
 three or four years ago by Miss Martha Haines Butt, and a 
 third one of Marion Harland's novels — "The Hidden Path." 
 Part of a letter was found, the signature gone and all one 
 side burned off, as if it had been used in lighting a cigar or a 
 gas-burner, but still showing the date; "Richmond, Ya., 
 
238 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 0. S. A., May 28th, lSf^," and apparently written by a young 
 officer in the Confederate army to his sister in this city. >»o 
 other traces were found, though these were quite enough to 
 increase the chagrin of the detectives, in the knowledge that 
 they had allowed persons to escape who certainly mast have 
 been in correspondence with the rebel capital ; and with this 
 
 the crest-fallen L and his subordinate prepared to make 
 
 their report to a superior not much in the habit of excusing 
 failure or making allowance for extenuating circumstances. 
 
 It is to l>e believed that the inquisitive and eommunieative 
 neighbor enjoyed the best night's rest he had known for a 
 twelvemonth, on the night following, after this conference 
 with a couple of detectives and this peep into a house that 
 had really excited his curiosity. It is doubtful, meanwhile, 
 whether the grocer landlord, informed by his agent, by the 
 next mail, of the exodus of his tenants without liquidation, 
 saw the matter in so enjoyable a light. 
 
 Of course, with the fugitives given some fifteen hours start 
 and the use of modern railroad facilities, any thought of pur- 
 suit would have been folly, even had there been any conclu- 
 sive data upon which to found proceedings for their appre- 
 hension. And with such meagre and unsatisfactory results 
 closed that portion of the supposed secession mystery — at 
 least for the time. After events showed that the " red 
 woman"' disappeared from Prince Street on the same night, 
 whether in company with her former acquaintances or alone. 
 What after-glimpses were caught of any of the other persona 
 concerned, will be shown at a later period of this narration. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 239 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Looking for John Crawford, of Duryea's Zouaves — The 
 Morning of the First of July — McClellan and his 
 Generals — The First Battle of Malvern — Victory 
 in Retreat. 
 
 It will be remembered that Richard Crawford, lying help- 
 lessly on his sofa and murmuring over the bodily disability 
 which at once entailed idleness and suffering, made it one of 
 the grounds of comparisons injurious to himself, that his 
 brother John was on service in Virginia with the Advance 
 Guard — better known, perhaps, as " Duryea's Zouaves" — 
 that gallant corps designated by the rebels as the " red-legged 
 devils," and spoken of by every European officer who has 
 seen their action in battle, as the equals of any body of regu- 
 lars of any service in the world. The claims of business 
 alone had prevented his being in the ranks of that regiment, 
 if in no higher position, when they marched down Broadway 
 on their departure in the summer of 1861, receiving the 
 merited compliment of being the finest-looking body of men, 
 as to physique and probable endurance, that had ever passed 
 over that procession-trodden pavement, and headed by a gal- 
 lant officer (Colonel, now General, Abram Duryea) who had 
 been so largely instrumental in making the Seventh Regiment 
 famous for drill, discipline and readiness for any service. 
 
 John Crawford, a younger brother of Richard (his only 
 brother, in fact — the whole living family being comprised in 
 Richard, Isabella and John) had left his lucrative employ- 
 ment as a confidential dry-goods clerk, in one of the largest 
 down-town establishments, and joined the Advance Guard. 
 lie had participated in nearly or quite all the battles shared 
 in by that lucky corps, from Big Bethel, where they performed 
 the wonderful feat of re-forming under fire in the space of 
 four minutes, after having been thrown into complete disorder 
 by the discharge from an ambuscade of artillery, — to the 
 severe conflicts of the Peninsula, in McClellan's advance upon 
 Richmond ; and only once had he been wounded, even slightly. 
 
240 SHOULI'ER-STRAPS. 
 
 He seemed to bear a charmed life; and there was something 
 in the rollick and dash of his letters home, always full charged 
 with the very sense of bravery and physical enjoyment, w«dl 
 calculated to arouse the feeling, if not the envy, of a brother 
 quite as patriotic and probably quite as brave as himself) but 
 kept back by circumstances and afterwards by ill-health from 
 participating in the same glorious conflicts. No matter 
 whether he described the carnage of the turning point in a 
 day of battle; an hour beside a wounded soldier in the 
 hospital, talking of home and friends ; or one of the chickens- 
 and-pig-foragiug expeditions for which the Zouaves have been 
 almost as famous as for their fighting, — through all these shone 
 the spirit of the gay, rattling, contented soldier, who might 
 have sat for a portrait, any day, of Paddy Murphy, in the 
 "Happy Man," making his baggage-wagon, commissariat and 
 camp-chest of a one-headed drum, ready to fall in love with 
 the first neat pair of ankles that peeped from beneath a well- 
 kept petticoat, a little regardless of any proprietorship in the 
 same ankles, other than that vested in the actual owner, and 
 splendidly indifferent as to either the time or the mode of his 
 death, whenever that death should become a matter of neces- 
 sity. 
 
 The letters of such soldiers as these are the best recruit- 
 ing-sergeants that can be sent abroad among any people ; 
 just as the letters of whining, lugubrious or dissatisfied men, 
 who have gone into war without expecting any of its dangers 
 or discomforts — who are satisfied with no fare less luxurious 
 than that served up at DelmonicoV or the Maison Doree, 
 and who protest against any sleeping which is not done upon 
 spring-mattresses strown with rose-leaves, — cannot do other- 
 wise than discourage and unnerve the whole immediate com- 
 munity in which they fall. Whether the growlers through 
 the press and in general society, have done most to discour- 
 age and demoralize the army, or whether the grumblers in 
 the army have wrought more effectually in discouraging en- 
 listments and weakening the national cause, certain it is that 
 the two evil influences have worked together, and that those 
 who have displayed the contrary spirit are entitled to full 
 redit from the whole loyal community. 
 
SHO (J L UEK-STRAPS. 241 
 
 John Crawford, the Zouave* has not yet made his appear 
 ance upon the scene ; but it will now become necessary to 
 turn attention to events and incidents in which he was en- 
 gaged, and to discover what influence his action may have 
 produced on the after events of this story. In this change 
 of scene, too, we pass away for the time from the outside ac- 
 tions and influences of the war — the examination of recruiting 
 officers, their camps and their Broadway parades, with the 
 domestic and social entanglements in which they were in- 
 volved by the struggle, — to the theatre of the war itself 
 and the sights and sounds involved in one of the deadliest 
 conflicts that ever shook the earth with the thunder created 
 by the blood-shedding descendants of Cain. 
 
 It is with the battle of Malvern Hill that we have to do — 
 a battle as yet misunderstood and underrated by many who 
 think themselves thoroughly conversant with the events of the 
 war — one of those marvellous victories in retreat which often 
 more fully than successes in advance illustrate the genius of 
 those who achieve them. When the history of the War for the 
 Union comes to be written at a later day, and when the petty 
 jealousies and misunderstandings are discarded which now 
 embarrass all contemporary records, — it is scarcely to be 
 doubted that the battle of Malvern Hill will be set down as 
 the most terrible conflict ever known on this continent ; the 
 most splendid artillery duel of any country or any age ; a 
 crowning test of indomitable bravery on the part of both 
 loyalists and rebels ; and a brilliant victory for the Union 
 cause, which saved an army, crowned the reputation of its 
 young General, and averted a series of evils which could not 
 have failed to culminate in the fall of Washington and the 
 virtual destruction of the last hope of the republic. 
 
 The events which had immediately preceded Malvern Hill 
 are too fresh in the minds of the people to need any extended 
 recapitulation. McClellan, deprived of his last hope for the 
 immediate capture of Richmond, by the unexpected strength 
 shown by the Confederates in front and the withdrawal of 
 McDowell under the orders of the government, when within 
 ten miles of effecting a junction with him ; — McClellan, his 
 forces sadly thinned by the labors and the diseases incident to 
 
242 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the long delay amid the swamps of the Chickahominy ; Mc- 
 Clellan, driven at last from the possibility of even holding his 
 
 position, by the arrival at Richmond of a large proportion of 
 the rebel army driven from Corinth by Halleck, and by the 
 movement of Jackson with a body of forty thousand men to 
 take his right wing in flank ; — McClellan had abandoned the 
 White House on the Pamunkey River, on Sunday the twenty-! 
 ninth of June, after the terrific conflict of the Friday previous, 
 burning the White House itself and immense quantities of 
 stores and supplies that could not be transported, and was now 
 falling back on the line of the James River, where he could 
 meet the protection of the Union gunboats and safely await 
 the slow coming of those reinforcements with the aid of which 
 he yet made no doubt of being able to take the rebel capital. 
 To McClellan"? army this movement, accompanied with so 
 much haste and such extensive destruction of valuables, neces- 
 sarily looked more like a disastrous retreat after defeat than 
 it was in reality ; and the consequence was such a depression 
 of spirits in many of the corps, as could only have been pre- 
 vented growing into demoralization by the confidence that 
 every officer and every soldier yet felt in the young com- 
 mander. To the rebels, knowing the country better than the 
 loyal troops, the movement appeared nearer what it really 
 was, a successful escape from overwhelming difficulties, to a 
 better and more secure position, from which an offensive move- 
 ment might again be made at an early day, threatening their 
 capital beyond a hope of defence. To them, a prize long 
 watched and supposed to be securely entrapped, was after all 
 escaping to a place of safety ; and eveiy Confederate officer 
 and soldier seemed to feel that the Union army must not be 
 allowed to gain the line of the James as an army, if an}' series 
 of desperate and continued attacks could suffice to destroy it. 
 Never, perhaps, was greater bravery or more indefatigable 
 energy shown in pursuing a beaten but dangerous foe, than 
 was shown on this occasion by Hill, Longstreet and Jackson : 
 and never, certainly, was the doggedly dangerous defence of 
 the tiger slowly retreating to his jungle, more splendidly 
 shown than by McClellan, Hooker, Sumner, Keyes, Heintzel- 
 man and the other Union commanders. The conflict of Mon- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 243 
 
 day the thirtieth June, at White Oak Swamp, had brought no 
 substantial benefit to the Confederate arms, nor had it in any 
 considerable degree weakened the Union forces ; and on the 
 ttteht of that day it became evident to the commanders of 
 both armies that if Tuesday the first of July should pass with- 
 out a substantial victory gained by the Confederates, the Union 
 troops would gain the shelter of the James and the gunboats, 
 •Mid the rebel advance be checked effectually. 
 
 It was upon the two armies in this position that the night 
 of Monday closed down ; and it was upon the two armies 
 with their positions very little changed, that the morning 
 broke on Tuesday, giving light for the double battle, of a 
 whole day's duration, hereafter to be known as that of Mal- 
 vern Hill.* 
 
 Nature has no sympathy with bloodshed and but little with 
 suffering ; and it is only when a God puts off mortal ex 
 istence that the earth is racked with the thunders and the 
 earthquakes of Calvary. The birds sing as sweetly and the 
 sun shines as brightly as usual, on the day when we lay in 
 the earth all that was mortal of one dearer to us than sun- 
 shine or bird-music ; and the moon does not turn red or veil 
 her light, even in the presence of midnight murder. If the 
 skies weep rain upon Waterloo, it does not fall because the 
 powers in heaven are making lamentation over the slaughter 
 so soon to be accomplished, but because the crops of the 
 Flemish farmers have called up to the skies for moisture. 
 
 The sun peeps lovingly down even on many a battle-field, 
 and it kisses the tips of ba} r onets soon to be wet with the 
 blood of brothers and the blades of swords that are to be 
 hacked and hammered in deadly conflict, just as it might 
 glint upon the polished barrel of the sportsman or flash from 
 
 * For the close and accurate description of this battle, the cor- 
 rectness of the technical terms employed, the ground occupied, and 
 some of the very langaage used, — the writer in this place begs to 
 make his acknowledgments to Mr William II. White, soldier and 
 scholar, a Lieutenant in the Ninth Infantry in the campaign against 
 the city of Mexico, and author of the popular " Sketches of the 
 Mexican War" which have supplied our literature with some of 
 the finest battle-pieces in the language. 
 
244 SII OULLEK- STRAP i. 
 
 the diamond aigrette of the lady riding forth on her white 
 palfrey to catch the breath of early morning'. And how man, 
 with the capacity of thought, shrinks and shrivels within 
 himself when he marks the eternity of the course of nature 
 and the very silent scorn bestowed upon him when he is com- 
 mitting crimes or displaying heroisms that make aH his little 
 world one overwhelming convulsion ! It was the reply of 
 an officer of undaunted bravery, when asked what was the 
 predominant feeling in his mind when he headed the for- 
 lorn-hope in one of the desperate assaults that preceded the 
 taking of the City of Mexico : " I think I heard the singing 
 of the birds in the trees, more distinctly than anything else, 
 and I felt a little vexed that they seemed to care nothing 
 about the terrible scrape we were pitching into." And some- 
 thing of the same dissatisfaction, though more tinged with 
 melancholy, has been felt by many who stood beside the clos- 
 ing grave and heard the same bird-music making harsh dis- 
 cord with the rumbling of the clods falling on the lid of the 
 coffin, and who saw the plaasant sunshine tinging the very 
 sods that were in a few moments to form an impassable bar- 
 rier between the beloved dead and the miserable living. 
 
 Xature smiled upon the field of Malvern, on the morning 
 of the First of July, however the powers that wheel the 
 courses of the sun may have frowned behind their battle- 
 ments at the sacrifice of life then beginning and the fearful 
 passions then being called into more active exertion. A 
 slight mist lay over wood and river, in the very early morn- 
 ing, but the first beams of the sun dispelled it, and the pic- 
 turesque Virginia landscape was exposed to full view, with its 
 long stretches of hill and plain, its river glimmering in the 
 distance, its patches of corn and tobacco, its scattered and 
 unthrifty farm-houses flanked with their negro quarters, and 
 its long lines of white and sun-baked roads. 
 
 At that point on the direct road from Charles City to 
 Richmond, and about four miles from Malvern Hill in a 
 North-west direction, such a scene was presented, half an 
 hour after sunrise, as has seldom been looked upon by mortal 
 eye. The increasing light brought more and more plainly to 
 view the retreating march of the Union forces — unmistakably 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 245 
 
 a retreat and yet quite as unmistakably no panic. Intermin- 
 able lines of wagons, whose length and number no one can 
 estimate who has not seen a formidable army on the march, 
 rolled on slowly over the white roads, raising clouds of im- 
 palpable dust that rose no higher than the wheels and then 
 settled again without obscuring the view. Battery after bat- 
 tery of rifled Parrots, smooth-bores, howitzers and monster 
 siege-guns, rumbled leisurely along the uneven way. Long 
 lines of jaded cavalry tramped wearily and stiffly, the horses 
 with drooping heads and the riders with listless attitudes 
 and loose seats in their saddles which denoted the very ex- 
 tremity of fatigue and exhaustion. Streams of limping, foot- 
 sore stragglers and slightly-wounded soldiers flanked the 
 roads on either side, trudging along beside the ambulances in 
 which their worse-wounded companions were being carried 
 forward. Mixed in with these were unshorn Confederate 
 prisoners ; teamsters whose mules and wagons lay at various 
 points between the Chickahominy and Turkey Bend ; and 
 ruined sutlers whose precious captured stores were now giv- 
 ing aid and comfort to the appreciative stomachs of the hun- 
 gry rebels. The Provost-Marshal's Guard and fatigue-party 
 of Colonel Porter brought up the rear — picking up strag- 
 glers ; blowing up ammunition that had been left by the 
 way ; burning feed and forage ; smashing barrels of liquids, 
 of which the apparent wanton waste on the ground would 
 at any other time have almost produced a revolt in the 
 ranks ; bending the barrels and throwing into the swamp, of 
 muskets dropped by dead and exhausted soldiers ; breaking 
 up and burning abandoned wagons, and destroying knap- 
 sacks, blankets, and all such other articles that could be of 
 any possible use to an enemy, as had been left behind by the 
 regiments that had passed on to the James River. 
 
 The position at which our point of view is taken, and 
 through which these streams of wagons, guns, horses and 
 men were passing with the appearance of a retreat and yet 
 with the steady regularity of an ordinary march, formed the 
 camping-ground of Genl. Fitz- John Porter's command, lately 
 the right wing but now the rear of the army of the Potomac. 
 The shattered remnants of the corps of that indomitable Gene- 
 
246 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 nil, who after services of the first bravery and importance, 
 was so soon afterwards to be placed in an ambiguous position 
 before the country and dismissed from a service which he had 
 
 illustrated rather than disgraced, — together with portions of 
 those of Sumner, Heintzelinan and Keyes, made up his present 
 command and the rear-guard of the army, holding this point 
 on the Richmond and Charles City road. And whatever may 
 have been the merits of other commands embraced in thi 
 vast army, in that of General Porter was certainly included 
 some of the best regulars yet spared to the service, and some 
 of the bravest and most efficient volunteer regiments that were 
 ever suddenly formed from the ranks of civil life, to defend the 
 honor of any country. To them the often-misapplied phrase, 
 M war-worn veterans," could now be applied without mockery, 
 for the men and their encampment furniture looked alike worn 
 and jaded, and it was only by their regularity and evident dis- 
 cipline that they could be recognized for what they really were 
 . — the most reliable soldiers in the army, and men well worthy 
 of the trust confided to them, of defending the threatened rear 
 and breaking any sudden assault of a foe flushed with success. 
 Those men who stood upon guard at various points of the 
 hasty encampment, may have been faded and ragged in uni- 
 form, the arms they bore may have shown hard usage, and 
 their discolored tents showed little of the "pomp and circum- 
 stance of glorious war;'' but they had full warrant for all this 
 in past services, for not a storm in all the long campaign that 
 they had not breasted, and not a battle of all the long line on 
 the Peninsula in which they had not sown the soil of freedom 
 with sacred seed from their thinned ranks. 
 
 A bloodless military pageant may be a splendid spectacle, 
 and hearts may beat high and eyes grow bright when the 
 steady footfall of our "household troops'' is heard on Broad- 
 way, and they file by with rich music, flashing banners and 
 the proud consciousness of a strength that would be terrible 
 if asserted; but what are such feelings to those with which 
 the truly patriotic look upon those who have lost all their glow 
 and gilding in the "baptism of fire," and acquired that sacred 
 squalor springing from active and dangerous service ? The 
 faded coat and cap and the dingy accoutrements are badges 
 
S H L* L D KR-S T R A P S. 24:7 
 
 of honor, worth a thousand of those new, bright, untried, 
 and incapable of telling or suggesting any heroic story. And 
 if the ranks of a regiment of such men are thin, there is a 
 glorious shadow standing in every vacant place once filled by 
 a gallant soldier; and a voice rings out which gives the same 
 reply to the inquiry after the absent ones, that was so long 
 given in the armies of Napoleon's time to the roll-call which 
 pronounced the name of La Tour d'Auvcrgne, the "First 
 Soldier of France" — ''dead on the field of honor!" Think 
 of it, lady of the agricultural and ornithological bonnet and 
 the irreproachable silks, when the next time in a city railroad 
 car two " soldiers" sit down beside you, and one is a spruce, 
 natty-whiskered, good-looking member of a pet regiment of 
 the N. Gr. S. N. Y. or the N. Y. S. M., going down to an evening 
 drill and a supper of oysters after it, and the other a hard- 
 featured and weather-beaten discharged soldier from our 
 Southern battle-fields, lame or otherwise, in faded uniform and 
 a shirt not too suggestive of plentiful washerwomen, — think 
 of this, and if you smile bewitchingly upon the one, as is your 
 nature, when he apologizes for accidentally creasing your 
 dress, — do not gather up your robes with too much contempt, 
 from contact with the stained garments of the other, who has 
 outraged your amor propre by taking a place beside you ; for 
 though you may be merely shunning contact with a vulgar 
 ruffian or a coward who has deserted his colors in the hour of 
 need — you may be insulting a hero. 
 
 Outlying pickets had of course been thrown out from 
 General Porter's force, now posted to keep the advancing 
 rebels at bay until the still immense trains of stores and am- 
 munition could be conveyed to Harrison's Landing, and the 
 siege-guns and field-batteries placed in position at Malvern 
 Hill and other points guarding the new base. McClellan had 
 evidently calculated upon making t!u' last and effectual stand 
 at Malvern Hill, and the rebels had quite as evidently calcu- 
 lated upon his doing so if allowed to reach it; and on the 
 issue of the struggle in that neighborhood was to depend the 
 question whether the Union forces were to be driven pell-mell 
 into the James River, surrender or hold their own and repulse 
 their assailants. Sudden attacks and attempts at surprise 
 
248 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 were naturalW expected by the rear-guard at any moment ; 
 and against these usual and unusual precautions had been 
 
 taken, which would have satisfied old Frederick himself — that 
 hard-headed old soldier who dreaded nothing in war but an 
 attack by surprise. 
 
 The nature of the country in the neighborhood as well as 
 indeed along the whole line from the I'hiekahominy to the 
 James, abounding as it did in woods and swamps, made it 
 impossible to form extended lines of battle even at the spot 
 where successful defence and the holding of a certain position 
 appeared to be the most necessary. Many regiments had not 
 even room to deploy more than half the length of their proper 
 fronts ; and the full strength of the command could not pos- 
 sibly be brought to bear against an attacking foe, distributed 
 as it was in knots for miles across the country. 
 
 These natural obstacles, meanwhile, were not disadvan- 
 tageous to the rebels. Their superior knowledge of the sec- 
 tion, with its numerous minor swamp-roads, forest-paths and 
 approaches necessarily unknown to the Union forces, gave 
 them immense advantages, such as they had not been slow to 
 improve, in corresponding circumstances, during the whole 
 of the preceding campaign. Aware of these facts, a night 
 attack on Monday might have been expected by the Federal 
 officers, and the men had slept on their arms in anticipation 
 of it. But White Oak Swamp had been too severe a trial of 
 courage and energy; they were not disposed to attack again 
 before receiving more of the reinforcements steadily pouring 
 onward from Richmond ; and as a consequence the wearied 
 troops had been allowed to pass the night without disturb- 
 ance, and they had even overhauled the remains of rations 
 remaining in their haversacks and made their scanty and un- 
 savory breakfasts, long before the expected hostile cloud burst 
 upon them. 
 
 It was nearly nine o'clock in the morning when some of the 
 scouts of Smith's brigade came in and announced the enemy 
 advancing in force. In a moment after, the rattling rolls of 
 drums and the brazen notes of bugles resounded among the 
 bivouacs ; and with the regimental and national colors planted 
 at prominent points before arranged, the regiments formed 
 
S H O L' L D E R - S T K A F S. 249 
 
 upon them and took up the positions assigned. Some of the 
 brigades were hidden in the cornfields adjoining the encamp- 
 ment ; some were drawn up along the lines of fences, afford- 
 ing little protection, but obscuring knowledge of the field by 
 an enemy attempting to reconnoitre from a distance ; several 
 regiments were thrown into the woods right and left; and a 
 considerable portion of the command awaited the attack on 
 (.pen ground, without other protection than God, the justice 
 of their cause, and their own valor. Kern's Pennsylvania 
 Battery. Martin's Massachusetts, and Carlisle's and Tidball's 
 Regular Batteries, were on the ground. They moved up 
 nearer the front than they had before been lying, the Regular 
 Butteries in the main road and upon an eminence to the right. 
 Kern took position near the edge of the swamp on the left ; 
 and Martin found post in a wheat-field to the right. Sev- 
 eral brigades of infantry were also thrown well in advance, 
 though not in range of the artillery ; and so prepared, the 
 Union troops awaited what they felt was to be a decisive 
 conflict. 
 
 Gradually the " crack ! crack ! crack !" of a scattering fire 
 of small-arms, which had been heard for a quarter of an hour 
 to the westward, came nearer and nearer, as the pickets were 
 driven in, contesting their ground stubbornly as they fell 
 back. On came the Confederates, slowly at first and after- 
 wards with more rapidity, throwing out clouds of skirmishers, 
 in the rear of which the main body marched in such forma- 
 tions as the nature of the ground permitted. Whenever they 
 deployed in line of battle, instead of the customary arrange- 
 ment of a single line of two ranks, they formed in three lines 
 " closed en mas$e, v thus making their front six ranks deep. 
 Tli is disposition of course was calculated to give increased 
 weight in a bayonet charge, and indeed to make it well nigh 
 irresistible ; but besides the fact that the solid formation 
 would render the execution of artillery among them much 
 more destructive, in the event of a repulse it would be almost 
 impossible to rally them, as the different regiments would 
 Barily lack space in which to manoeuvre, the lines inevi- 
 tably mix up in an inextricable mass, and the whole body 
 become a disorganized mob. Some of the rebel divisions 
 
250 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 were formed in column, either of division or company, all 
 closed up at half distance. 
 
 It was a matter of remark to the Union officers who saw 
 the advance of the Confederate forces on that day — the most 
 formidable advance, perhaps, that they have made during any 
 battle of the war, — that there were no flashing and showy 
 uniforms, and that but few flags were seen. The same 
 remark had before been made during other conflicts of the 
 Peninsular campaign, and the contrast thus presented to the 
 gaudy and careless dressing of many of the Union troops, 
 seemed one to reflect credit on the Confederate prudence at 
 the expense of that quality on which they had so prided 
 themselves — their chivalry. Except as the sun shone on the 
 sloping musket-barrels and bristling bayonets, there were 
 few brilliant objects in all that formidable array, on which 
 the sharp-shooters of the Federal army could readily fix as 
 targets. Few bright buttons flashed on uniforms, even of 
 officers, and shoulder-straps were so uncommon as to make it 
 difficult to distinguish an officer (even a field or staff officer, 
 if not on horseback) from a private. Our own forces, through- 
 out the war, have probably been needlessly reckless in this 
 regard ; and there is no doubt that the brilliant uniforms, 
 particularly of the various Zouave corps, have often made 
 them more easily distinguishable and added to their losses 
 when fighting at long range. But the truly brave man is not 
 apt to consider the consequences to his own safety, of wear- 
 ing a dress or carrying an insignia which he would otherwise 
 bear with propriety and with pride. It was an inviting 
 mark which Henri of Navarre offered to the foe at Ivry, in 
 the white plume with which he led on his followers ; and 
 Murat, when he made those desperate charges to which 
 reference has before been made during the progress of this 
 narration, must have known that his flashing silks, his 
 feathers and embroidery, put his life much more in danger 
 than that of an officer less conspicuously clad ; but neither 
 the foe of the League nor the brother-in-law of Napoleon 
 remembered the danger when the glory was to be won and 
 the great object of the soldier accomplished. Perhaps that 
 duellist may be pardoned by those who look on, when he 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 251 
 
 care fully removes from his person every mark that could fur- 
 nish a target to his enemy, but he is no more than pardoned; 
 and if there is one redeeming - trait in the detestable character 
 of the duellist, it is to be found in that ready exposure of his 
 life to the chances of fate and skill, which does not stop to 
 calculate a button or measure the narrowest line of aim 
 which can be presented to an adversary. Straitened circum- 
 stances and the want of many of the appliances of luxury, 
 may have had something to do with the lack of personal dis- 
 play on the part of the Confederates, more especially the 
 officers, throughout the struggle ; but a long time will elapse 
 before the. non-chivalrous " Yankees" whom they have 
 despised, will cease to believe that commendable anxiety for 
 personal safety has lain at the bottom of the self-denial. 
 
 The fire of the rebel skirmishers, in this advance, was met 
 promptly by those of the Union army, and so sharply that the 
 former were soon driven back pell-mell on the main body. 
 The Federal sharpshooters, taking advantage of every tree, 
 rock or knoll, frequently overlapping their flanks, kept up a 
 continual and most destructive fire on the steadily advancing 
 lines and columns. The Confederates came on in excellent 
 order, their dingy lines sometimes bulging to the front, then 
 occasionally bending rearwards, — now the left wing curving 
 forward, and then the right swaying in an opposite direction. 
 But these trifling deviations from mathematical lines were 
 always quickly corrected, and the "dress" of their long fronts 
 was really so good as to give evidence of continued and care- 
 ful drill on the part of the men and much ability on that of 
 the officers. 
 
 A heavy gray-clad body of rebels advanced in soldierly 
 style until they came, within two hundred yards of the po- 
 sition occupied by Couch's division, which was lying down in 
 the weeds and partially screened by them. A blast of bugles 
 — a roll of drums — a few sharp words of command ; and up 
 rose the before-dormant mass to their feet. A scorching, 
 withering lire of small-arms, delivered by companies from left 
 to right, and with the greatest deliberation, was sent directly 
 into the faces of the advancing rebels — such a close and 
 deadly fire as seems almost as impossible to advance against 
 16 
 
252 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 as against the lightnings of heaven. They halted, wavered, 
 and gave signs of confusion ; but they were soon restored to 
 order and again came on. Again one of those close and ter- 
 rible volleys was poured into them, thinning the ranks and 
 encumbering every step with dead ; and again they halted 
 and wavered. This time they deployed in line of battle and 
 commenced a fierce fire on the opposing divisions; accom- 
 panied by yells peculiar to themselves — such as no other 
 civilized troops in the world have ever uttered — not a hurrah, 
 a cheer, or even a roar, but a shriek as dissonant as the 
 Indian war-whoop, and more terrible. 
 
 On the right and on the left the enemy came hurrying up, 
 their columns at a double quick. But they were met and 
 brought to a stand at every point. Their artillery, ordered to 
 the front, dashed up by batteries, took positions, unlimbered 
 and opened savagely. The Union batteries, already posted, 
 commenced their splendid practice. Sheet after sheet of 
 deadly flame burst from one side and the other of the com- 
 batants ; the rattling crack of the volleys of firearms became 
 blended with the heavy metallic ring and sullen boom of the 
 artillery ; and the first battle of Malvern Hill — that which was 
 to decide the approach to the main position — was now fairly 
 begun. 
 
 From various and hitherto unknown paths through the 
 woods and marshes, the gray-clads came on in swarms, every 
 moment adding to the formidable character of the attack, the 
 evident numbers of the assailants, and the certainty that the 
 struggle was to be a close and terrible one. But the gather- 
 ing thousands were fiercely met by the blue-clad veterans of 
 the Union, and repeatedly driven back in confusion. Let this 
 be recorded, from the personal knowledge of sharers in that 
 combat — whatever after-history may choose to consider au- 
 thority on the subject,— that the Federal troops never 'per- 
 manently yielded one foot of ground during the fight, how- 
 ever worn-out with fatigue, embarrassed by a cramped po- 
 sition, outnumbered and at one time half-surrounded. 
 
 It has before been said that the Battle of Malvern Hill was 
 one of the most magnificent artillery duels known to the 
 history of war ; and though the most splendid effects of that 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 253 
 
 terrible arm were shown at a later period, when the whole 
 rfcnge of McClellan's heavy pieces came into play, yet even 
 now the effects were such as to have satisfied the very Mo- 
 loch of destructive war. The play of the Union regular 
 batteries was beautiful, (if such a term can be applied to that 
 which defaces the beauty of God's handiwork, in however 
 holy a cause.) Every shot could be seen to tear open the 
 dense masses of the enemy in wide spaces, through which the 
 white background could be distinctly seen until they were 
 closed again by almost superhuman efforts. The volunteer 
 batteries seemed little behind in their practice — their solid 
 shot and bursting shell falling in a perpetual shower and 
 making fearful havoc alternately in the solid masses of the 
 rebels and among the gunners of their artillery. 
 
 When the Confederates opened with their batteries, General 
 Porter, accompanied by a part of his staff, w r as occupying the 
 upper slope of an eminence to the right, from which a tole- 
 rably good view of the battle-ground could be obtained. It 
 was not one of those points "from which all the details of 
 the fight could be taken in at a glance," according to the 
 phraseology of many of the graphic describers of modern 
 battles ; for no such spot has ever been known, in the neigh- 
 borhood of any extensive conflict, since the use of artillery 
 covered every field with smoke and destroyed the romantic 
 opportunities for observation which existed in the days of 
 the lance and the cross-bow. But it was the very best po- 
 sition for a general oversight of the field, attainable under 
 the circumstances ; and that it was within easy range of the 
 enemy's missiles was demonstrated by one of the very first 
 shot, which struck a tree immediately behind the General, 
 shattering it to pieces and severely wounding one of the aid- 
 de-camps with the flying splinters. 
 
 It is impossible to describe, in such form that it can be re- 
 alized by the reader, this fiercest of battle-fields for the two 
 hours which followed the first attack. Many men felt it, and 
 of those who live to tell the tale, all will remember it ; but it 
 may be said that no man saw it. The canvas best depicting 
 it would be deprived of all the essentials of a picture, and merely 
 made a chaos of destruction, with here the glint of a gun and 
 
254 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 there the flash of a sabre ; here a momentary view of a black 
 piece of heavy artillery, and there a head, an arm and a leg 
 of one of the combatants ; here a puff of smoke, and there a 
 volley of belching flame — but all indistinct, terrible and in- 
 describable. Solid shot, conical shell and spherical case went 
 humming, hurtling and howling through the air, blotting out 
 rebels and slaying loyalists. The leaden messengers of the 
 sharp-shooters went shrieking to their living targets, killing, 
 crippling and intimidating ; buck, ball and Minie bullets n 
 and made their marks ; and the rattling volleys of companies 
 and platoons became at length blended in one general and 
 irregular burst of all destructive sounds known to modern 
 warfare. 
 
 The Union ranks were of course sadly thinned by the mur- 
 derous discharges from those of the rebels, even if their own 
 lire was so effective. The odds in point of numbers and weight 
 of fire was heavily against them, and they knew it. The pres- 
 tige of success was not theirs, for though the enemy had been 
 beaten in almost every trial of arms since the first landing on 
 the Peninsula, yet the irresistible force of circumstances (and 
 what the world will always believe blunders) had prevented 
 their reaping the fruits of those repeated victories, and the 
 great object of the expedition — Richmond — had been daily 
 receding and was now apparently out of reach. The brilliant 
 flank movement which McClellan was executing, seemed to 
 them to be a simple retreat which was to take the remains of 
 the Army of the Potomac to the James River for the purpose 
 of an immediate embarkation and abandonment of the cam- 
 paign. Men less heroic would have grown disheartened 
 and struck feebly in the midst of so many causes of discour- 
 agement ; and the able review of the Campaign on the Penin- 
 sula, by a true man and a soldier, the Prince de Joinville, 
 shows that even with his past knowledge of their bravery and 
 endurance he would not have been surprised to see the spirit 
 of the whole army sinking under sufferings, wrongs and dis- 
 asters. Perhaps such would have been the case, had they 
 had less confidence in their leaders ; but while that existed 
 there could be nothing like demoralization ; and if there has 
 ever been a day since that time, when the same noble body 
 
SHOULDER-STRAP S. 255 
 
 of men and the others who have, been joined with or replaced 
 them, have displayed that hopeless deterioration of efficiency 
 as an army, the fault has lain in their being led by men. in 
 whom they lacked confidence and men who lacked confidence 
 in themselves ! [Jp to this time no such misfortune had fallen 
 upon them, They had learned to suffer and endure, but they 
 had not yet learned to be permanently defeated. Sumner, 
 Franklin, Kearney, Jleintzelman, Keyes and Fitz-John Porter] 
 but above all McClellan, possessed their undivided confidence; 
 and whenever, at any point of the retreat towards the James', 
 either of those great chiefs had appeared in their midst or 
 ridden along their battle-thinned ranks— renewed hope and en- 
 ergy had been always evinced by the heartiest acclamations. 
 Particularly, it has been said, was this the case with McClel- 
 lan. Ifis extraordinary popularity has been more than once 
 incidentally adverted to, in the course of this narration ; and 
 if it has been so, the cause is not to be found in either partisan 
 spirit or man-worship on the part of the writer, but in the 
 unavoidable necessity of echoing what "everybody says." 
 "Little Mac" was then, he is to-day,* the most'popular 
 soldier of the age, whether the country has or has not any- 
 thing to show for the confidence long reposed in him by the 
 government and the immense bodies of troops at one time 
 placed at his disposal. No general since Napoleon has ever 
 so gained the love of his soldiers or so inspired them with 
 confidence in his will and ability to take care of them and to 
 accomplish what he was set to do, if not interfered with. 
 Their favorite reply to any suspicion of danger to any corps 
 was : "Little Mac will take care of us !" and to any doubt of 
 the success of the campaign: "Little Mac knows what he is 
 about l» Blind confidence, perhaps !— but such confidence, or 
 something approaching it, must be commanded by personal 
 qualities, or great operations in war can never be accomplished. 
 A1 no time during the Peninsular campaign has the com- 
 manding General so fully commanded the confidence of the 
 Soldiers, as during all those severe battles afterwards to be 
 known as the Seven Days. His calm and collected action 
 
 * February lGth, 1863. 
 
25t> SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 bad been of the very character to inspire that confidence, and 
 could not have wrought more effectually to that end had it 
 had no other purpose. Some men, jubilant and light-hearted 
 when all their plans arc progressing favorably, permit their 
 words to become few and their manner sombre and abstracted 
 when difficulties thicken, creating fear and distrust in the 
 minds of those around them, even when they themselves have 
 not lost confidence and are only absorbed in thought. M.cCh-1- 
 lan, always a silent man, displayed the very opposite. One 
 of his staff officers said of him on that terrible Friday after- 
 noon of the first conflict, when the result certainly seemed a 
 most threatening one for the Union arms : "Little Mac seems 
 to have woke up ! I have not seen him look so happy before, 
 since he received the news of McDowell's falling back on 
 "Washington." And there had not been wanting those to cir- 
 culate throughout the army his confident and self-poss< 
 action on the morning before — that of White Oak Swam]), 
 when he sat on horseback at the cross-roads, with aid-de- 
 camps dashing up with unfavorable reports, and heads of 
 divisions a little embarrassed if not dispirited around him. 
 "Gentlemen, take it easy ! Only obey me, and I will bring 
 you out of all this without the loss of a man or a gun, God 
 willing !" 
 
 Such words had been like the pause of the Bruce to cut his 
 armor-strap when flying before the English enemy — they had 
 inspirited the whole command. He had remained, too, the 
 whole of Monday, in the neighborhood of the White Oak 
 Swamp, personally superintending everything and hastening 
 the passage of the immense trains onward towards the James. 
 Nothing had seemed to discourage him, and no exposure in 
 the terrible heat had seemed to fatigue him beyond endurance. 
 All these facts had crept out to every division of the army, 
 as they will do through the subtle and unaccountable tele- 
 graphism of comrade-ry ; and when regiment after regiment- 
 heard of the incident since made memorable by De Joinville, 
 of his rising from his momentary rest on the piazza of a house 
 near White Oak and going out with a smile to prevent his 
 soldiers picking and eating the cherries belonging to his pretty 
 hostess, they had burst out into laughs and cheers more com- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 257 
 
 plimentary to the young General's pluck than his devotion to 
 Nelly Marcy, and fancied that he might have been engaged 
 in picking other cherries for himself, that grew on red lips 
 instead of on the tree ! 
 
 Such were the influences which eombatted those otherwise 
 so unfavorable, kept up their spirits even when they could 
 see nothing but defeat and discouragement in every move- 
 ment, and made every blow they struck at the advancing 
 enemy more deadly than the last. Such were the influences 
 peculiarly active on this day when they were so much needed, 
 and which inspired the army-corps of Fitz-John Porter for 
 the memorable blow struck in the first battle of Malvern. 
 The rebel South will long, mourn for its lost children, per- 
 ished in that sanguinary conflict and in the wider and more 
 destructive but not fiercer one which was so soon to follow at 
 Malvern Hill itself. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 More of the First Battle of Malvern — A Pause — 
 The Attacks on the Main Position — Repulse after 
 Repulse — Victory — Strange Incidents of the Last 
 Hour of the Battle. 
 
 Sttll the battle went on — that ferocious attack which 
 Beemed to have the desperation of defence, and that steady 
 defence which appeared to have the assured confidence of an 
 attack. The smoke gathered rapidly, rolled away at times, 
 then settled in dense masses, shutting out portions of the 
 battle-field and whole divisions of either army from view, 
 and concealing the movements of either belligerent from the 
 o+hcr until lifted in the occasional lulls of the fiery storm or 
 wafted away by the lazy breeze which came sluggishly over 
 from the James River marshes. Men fell thickly, crushed, man- 
 gled and dead, or so terribly wounded by shot or shell that 
 
258 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 life could be henceforth nothing more than one long, helpless 
 agony. Slightly wounded soldiers went limping to the rear, 
 seeking surgical aid ; while badly wounded men were eagerly 
 caught up and borne off the field by their "comrades in bat- 
 tle" or by white-livered recreants, anxious to desert their 
 braver companions and place themselves in Bafety. A <<i- 
 tain percentage of such craven-hearted libels on humanity — 
 let it be said here — are always to be found in every army and 
 on every battle-field, dusky backgrounds against which brave 
 men show the brighter, and ever ready to take advantage of 
 any circumstance that will help them to the rear. In the 
 armies of the older and more warlike nations of Europe, 
 where the reins of discipline are much more tightly drawn 
 than in our own, such skulking is prevented by regularly- 
 organized ambulance-parties and by the prompt shooting 
 down of any officer or soldier, not wounded, who dares to 
 leave the ranks without orders. Even in our own service, a 
 Taylor is occasionally found, fighting such a desperate battle 
 as that of the Bad Axe against the Indians, and posting a 
 line of his most reliable troops in the rear, with ord< 
 make short work of the skulkers. Such" discipline as this — 
 an enemy in front and an equally dangerous body of friends 
 behind, is generally found efficacious even for the weakest 
 knees; and but few hours of such experience are necessary 
 to produce a marked change in the steadiness of any corps 
 under fire. 
 
 Xoon now approached, and the battle had raged for more 
 than two hours, without any intermission except the occa- 
 sional lulls when batteries were limbered up and dragged off 
 at a gallop to new positions, and when regiments deployed in 
 line or closed in column, making evolutions to the flanks or 
 movements to the front. Attacks had been fiercely made on 
 every portion of the Union lines by the maddened rebels — 
 maddened, as was afterwards discovered, by the gunpow- 
 dered whiskey in their canteens ; and they had been quite as 
 fiercely repulsed by the loyal troops, who neither needed nor 
 received any such stimulus. This defence had been mate- 
 rially assisted, and the Federal troops enabled to gain ground 
 at every repulse of the rebels, by the arrival of several regi- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 259 
 
 merits of infantry and two of his best batteries, sent in haste 
 by McClellan from hismain position at MalvernHill, so soon 
 as the roar of artillery announced that the fight had fairly 
 began with the rear-guard. 
 
 A little before meridian, the musket fire of the enemy 
 slackened perceptibly, while their artillery, operating against 
 the Onion left, seemed to redouble its fury. This change 
 was at once made known to Porter, who as quickly divined 
 the intention of Longstreet. This was to engage all atten- 
 tion with the Federal left, while several of his divisions, 
 passing rapidly through roadways and obscure paths in the 
 woods known only to the native Virginians, were to take the 
 right wing in flank. Porter immediately directed counter 
 movements to meet them — movements admirably calculated 
 and as admirably executed. Burns, with his own and tw T o 
 other brigades, moved rapidly to the right and deployed in 
 line opposite the edge of the white oaks from which the 
 rebels must emerge to make their attack. Four batteries 
 went up at a trot and took position where they were masked 
 by a fringe of bushes and some patches of tall corn. From 
 this point the artillery could concentrate a terrible fire of 
 grape, canister and short-fuse shell upon any part of the op- 
 posite woods from which the enemy might make their appear- 
 ance. The infantry were ordered to lie down, and were con- 
 coaled from view by clumps of trees, corn and underbrush. 
 This repelling force was not kept long in suspense, and it was 
 evident that the movement had not been made a moment too 
 soon for safety. Suddenly from the shadow of the white-oaks, 
 out came the Confederates by regiments, without tap of drum 
 or bugle-call, pouring from the various openings in double- 
 quick time, and by the right and left flanks. They filed rap- 
 idly right and left until the woods were cleared ; then by a 
 halt and face-to-the-front they were brought quickly into line 
 of battle. A halt of very brief space to align and close up 
 ranks, and they were ordered forward to the attack. On 
 thoy came, in close order and with long swaying lines, exult- 
 ing in the prospect of a successful issue to their bold move- 
 ment, and so confident that the} r would take the Federal flank 
 and rear by complete surprise, that silence was no longer 
 
206 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 felt to be necessary and yells and shouts of triumph w <■)•.• 
 beginning to burst from one portion and another of thtfir 
 line. Still on they came, and not a shot had been fired on 
 either side since they emerged from the woods. Their left 
 was thrown forward in advance of the centre and right, 
 seeking to surround the positions supposed to be held by the 
 Federal troops. They were even allowed to advance within 
 pistol-shot of some portions of the ambuscade, before the 
 trap laid for them was sprung. 
 
 Then what a change ! — like that when the thunder-storm, 
 long gathering but still silent, breaks at once into desolating 
 fury. It seemed as if at one and the same instant the four Union 
 Latteries opened, and a terrible concentrating storm of flame 
 and projectiles leaped from the muzzles of twenty-four pieces 
 of artillery and burst upon their centre with devastating effect. 
 In an instant after, the infantry sprung to their feet, and a 
 sheet of fire burst from right to left, one deadly and irresist- 
 ible shower of lead sweeping through the rebel ranks that 
 had so little expected such a reception. They hesitated — 
 halted — recoiled. Before they could recover from the awful 
 shock, volley after volley was poured into their wavering lines, 
 and they could not again be brought forward. On the instant 
 when their discomfiture was clearly perceived, a charge was 
 ordered against them. The Union men dashed forward, glad 
 to have that order at last, and breaking into ringing cheers — 
 the first in which they had indulged that day. The rebels 
 could not stand a moment before that impetuous onset, but 
 broke and ran for the cover of the white-oaks, leaving the 
 ground of the conflict almost impassable with the terrible piles 
 of their dead and wounded. 
 
 A general advance of our lines was now ordered, and the 
 command was obeyed with alacrity. The rebel front, weak- 
 ened by the withdrawal of so many troops for the grand flank- 
 ing movement, gave way before they could be reached with 
 the steel ; and their three-deep lines became mixed up in the 
 most hopeless disorder. Kearney's division made a gallant 
 charge, in this movement, Sickles' Excelsior Brigade once 
 more evidencing that splendid steadiness with the bayonet 
 which had been so conspicuous at Williamsburgh and Fair 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 261 
 
 Oaks. General Heintzelman joined in this brilliant advance, 
 his tall form and blue blouse conspicuous as he rode rapidly 
 along the lines, speaking words of cheer and steadying the 
 men who did not need urging forward. 
 
 The Union batteries had meanwhile kept up their terrible 
 fire, while those of the enemy were silenced one after another 
 and drawn off with the recoiling troops, with the exception 
 of one battery, which maintained its fire with invincible ob- 
 stinacy. It was felt that this battery must be taken or silenced. 
 A stream of men in dingy French blue were seen to leap for- 
 ward, and it was known that the Excelsior boys were making 
 a dash at the battery. The gunners saw the movement, began 
 to limber up their pieces and succeeded in galloping away with 
 four of them. But the two remaining guns could not be 
 handled quickly enough, and the«Excelsiors took them with a 
 rush and a cheer, and in such excellent spirits that one of 
 them was the moment after sitting astride of each gun and 
 waving his cap in token of victory. The battle-flag of one 
 of the Georgia regiments, and three hundred prisoners, were 
 also captured in this gallant dash, which effectually showed 
 how little the spirits of the Army of the Potomac had been 
 damped by recent misfortunes. General Heintzelman lost his 
 horse by the last fire of one of the captured pieces, and at the 
 same time received a wound in the arm — fortunately not 
 serious. The repulse of the rebels was now complete. Long- 
 street was compelled to " retire" and not by any means in 
 " good order," leaving the field with its dead and wounded, 
 and many arms and other trophies, in the possession of the 
 Federal forces. 
 
 Of course this success could not be followed up, the object 
 of the battle having been to secure an uninterrupted line of 
 march to the James River. And of course the Union generals 
 were well aware that while the rebels possessed any remain- 
 ing strength, they would not give up their cherished object 
 of crippling or destroying the main body before it could reach 
 the shelter of the river and the gun-boats. Fresh troops 
 would be brought up ; and but little time would be allowed 
 the Federal troops to recover from the fatigue and excitement 
 of that arduous morning. The rebel plan evidently was to 
 
262 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 give the Federal forces do rest — to precipitate fresh masses of 
 their own troops continually upon them, when weary mid 
 exhausted with previous fighting; and when they were at 
 last fairly worn out and incapable of further exertion, to 
 ■• gobble them up'' (to use an expressive, though not el< 
 phrase) or destroy them in detail and at leisure. The theory 
 ; dmirable, and both brain and heart were necessary 10 
 prevent its being carried out in successful practice. 
 
 The Federal dead were buried on the field where they had 
 so bravely fallen ; the wounded were sent on to Harrison's 
 Landing ; the slaughtered rebels were left to the tender care 
 of their approaching comrades ; the prisoners were gathered 
 together and put properly under guard ; and then the army- 
 corps of General Fitz-John Porter fell back under previous 
 orders to the strong position of Malvern Hill proper, where 
 McClellan was certain he would at once be attacked by the 
 rebels in force, its possession being the most important point 
 in their plan of action, and its triumphant retention one of the 
 most important in his own. 
 
 The first battle of Malvern was ended; but the curtain was 
 soon to rise on a still more fearful scene of slaughter and one 
 yet more uneven in its character as regarded the losses of 
 the Union army and the rebels. 
 
 The main position occupied by McClellan was a splendid 
 one for defence ; and, thanks to what De Joinville calls the 
 " happy foresight of the General, who, notwithstanding all 
 the hindrances presented by the nature of the soil to his 
 numerous artillery, had spared no pains to bring it with 
 him" — the preparations for holding that position were mag- 
 nificently adequate. The extreme right flank was compara- 
 tively narrow, and as it was a point liable to a determined 
 attack, strong earth-works had been hastily thrown up en- 
 tirely across it, and it had been further protected by a thick, 
 impenetrable mass of abattis, the materials for which were so 
 plentifully furnished by the Virginia woods and in the con- 
 struction of which the quasi-mechanical army was rapidly 
 efficient. The left was protected by the James Kiver and 
 the terror-inspiring gun-boats. In front the hill sloped 
 gently down to the Charles City and Richmond road, and 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 263 
 
 other points by Which the enemy must debouch to begin the 
 attack. On this natural plateau not less than three hundred 
 pieces of artillery — a number fabulous in any preceding strug- 
 gle in the history of the world — were placed in battery ; so 
 arranged that they would not interfere with the fire of the 
 infantry along the natural glacis up which the assailants 
 Would be obliged to advance unsheltered. In the skirts of 
 the woods lying beyond the foot of the hills, long lines of 
 ri tic- pits had been dug — these, and the woods beyond, occu- 
 pied by a brigade of Maine and Wisconsin infantry and a por- 
 tion of Berdan's celebrated regiment, to act as sharp-shooters. 
 
 The sun was sinking rapidly westward in the direction of 
 llichmond — that coveted capital of Secessia, for the pos- 
 session of which so much blood and treasure had been 
 unavailingly expended ; the trees, which for so many hours 
 had a Horded no shelter from the blinding blaze, except imme- 
 diately beneath their spreading branches and dust-dimmed 
 leaves, began to cast long shadows eastward ; and the fervent 
 heat began to be more sensibly tempered by the breeze creep- 
 ing in from the placid James. Still the Union troops were 
 resting on their arms, weary but undaunted, awaiting the 
 approach of the Confederates, then (at five o'clock) reported 
 as advancing to the attack. The line was formed as /olio ws : 
 the remnants of Porter's and Sumner's corps on the right ; 
 Franklin and Heintzelman in the centre ; and Couch 's divi- 
 sion of Keyes' corps on the left. In position, on the left, 
 were two New York batteries, Robertson's United Slates 
 battery of six pieces, Allen's Massachusetts and Kern's Penn- 
 sylvania batteries. Griffin's United States battery, Wceden's 
 Rhode Island, and three from New York, held positions in 
 the centre. On the right were Tidball's, Weed's and Car- 
 lisle's regular batteries, a German battery of twenty-four 
 pounders, a battery belonging to the Pennsylvania reserve, 
 and one New York battery — in all about eighty pieces. 
 
 Within a few minutes of five the signal officers at the 
 various stations waved their telegraphic bunting, announcing 
 the approach of the rebels under Magrudcr, and immediately 
 afterwards they appeared in sight, in large dense mass* j 
 reaching apparently quite across the country to the West, 
 
264: S II O U L D E R - S T B A P S. 
 
 North-west and West-south-west, — with cavalry on either 
 flank and artillery thickly scattered at various points, ail 
 along their line. Stretching away from the foot of Malvern 
 Hill, in the hostile direction, lay a large open space known 
 as Carter's Field — a field destined that day to be more thickly 
 sown with dead than almost any historic spot on the globe 
 except some portions of the field of Waterloo or that of 
 Grokow. It was a mile long by three quarters of a mile in 
 breadth, enclosed by thick woods on the three distant sides, 
 while that towards the Hill was open. On the two sides 
 flanking the enemy's approach our sharp-shooters were prin- 
 cipally concealed. Entirely across Carter's Field stretched 
 the rebel line, while in depth their columns extended so far 
 back that the eye of the signal officer lost them in a wavering 
 line far away in the thick woods extending beyond the scene 
 of the morning's battle. 
 
 The Union forces rose up wearily but steadily, and awaited 
 the approach of the Confederate host, known to be at least 
 twice or thrice their own number, and led on by that sangui- 
 nary commander otherwise described by a writer who accom- 
 panied him through all his battles in the United States service 
 and thoroughly knows his habits of speech and action,* — as 
 " the flowery and ever-thirsty John Bankhead Magruder — 
 the pet of Newport and the petter of old wine." The rebels 
 moved forward in good order ; slowly at first, and then, as if 
 spurred on irresistibly from behind in all parts of the field, 
 the whole dingy-gray mass broke from the " common time'' 
 step into that " dog-trot" known in the tactics of the present 
 day as the " double-quick.'' At the same moment they broke 
 into those shrieks of horrible dissonance, remarked in the 
 fight of the morning, rising even above the din of the opening 
 artillery, and more resembling the whoops of the copper- 
 skinned warriors of the renegade Albert Pike, than soldiers 
 of what is called a Christian nation, led on by a commander 
 believing himself the very " pink of chivalry." 
 
 Gallantly, it must be owned by all who saw the movement, 
 did the gray-clads spring forward to the encounter, rushing 
 
 * White — " Mexican War Sketches." 
 
3 H U LDKR-S T BAPS, 21 15 
 
 over the field at an accelerating speed which soon increased 
 to a full run. Then and not till then again burst the deadly 
 storm of defence. From the Federal lines across the hill 
 there belched murderous blasts of grape and canister into 
 their front, and from the rifle-pits and woods went shriek- 
 ing showers of rifle shots and Minie balls into their flanks, 
 the two terrible influences almost sweeping them away 
 like leaves caught by the gale. They fell by hundreds at a 
 (discharge, encumbering the ground and leaving wide gaps in 
 their ranks; yet still their dense columns closed again and 
 dashed resolutely up, until more than two-thirds the distance 
 across Carter's Field was accomplished. Here the carnage, 
 from the combined effects of artillery and small-arms at short 
 range, became absolutely terrible among the rebels — such a 
 spectacle as even loyal soldiers, gazing at it, could not but 
 feel to be a species of wholesale murder for which the cause 
 could no more than give excuse. The bones in the rebel 
 regiments seemed to be crushed like window-glass in a hail- 
 storm; masses of gory pulp that had but a few moments 
 before been men, began to form an absolute coating for the 
 ground ; and the fierce yells of attack had become awfully 
 commingled with the shrieks of those mangled beyond en- 
 durance and dying in agony. It was too much for human 
 bravery to withstand — probably no troops in the world 
 would have stood longer under that withering fire, than the 
 brave but misguided tools of the secession heresy. Their 
 lines began to waver with a rickettv. swaying motion, to and 
 fro, as if the whole body was one man and he was exhausted 
 and tottering; then there was a movement to the "right 
 about," and the whole head of the column sought hasty shel- 
 ter under the friendly woods in the rear, from which they 
 had so lately debouched. 
 
 A terrific artillery-duel proper was now commenced, and 
 kept up for more than an hour, the Confederates showing no 
 disposition to renew the attack, and .the Federal forces con- 
 tented to hold them at bay under circumstances in which 
 the balance of damage by artillery must be so largely in their 
 own favor. Then came a sudden lull in the storm, during 
 which the Confederates made preparations to capture the 
 
21)6 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 flanking rifle-pits of the Federals, which had annoyed them 
 so severely in the charge. Several desperate attempts won- 
 made upon them in quick succession, and they were taken and 
 retaken repeatedly. In the end, however, they were perma- 
 nently held by the defenders, whose stubborn pluck, aided by 
 the enfilading fire of the advanced batteries, proved mote than 
 a match for the determined bravery of the attacking forces. 
 
 On the summit of Malvern Hill, and nearly in the middle 
 of the plateau formed by the whole eminence, stands a red 
 brick mansion-house, quaintly built, antique and sombre. 
 The house is of two stories, long and low. Solemn shade- 
 trees surround it ; and corn and wheat fields stretch away 
 from the Virginia fences of its spacious yard, down the -lope 
 of the hill and across the lowland to the margin of the James. 
 In time of peace, this old house boasted a most charming 
 situation, and the view from the verandah was one of the very 
 finest in the country, taking in at a glance the long line of 
 the winding river for many miles in either direction, and 
 looking up the river, the high range of bluffs on the other 
 side on which has been erected that serious obstacle t<> an 
 advance on Richmond by water — Fort Darling. At the 
 eastern end of the mansion stand the inevitable "negro- 
 quarters,'' now empty and deserted, and with nothing about 
 them to remind one of their former dusky denizens, except 
 that unmistakable odor which supplies an obvious parody on 
 Moore's aroma of the roses in the broken vase. Opposite the 
 west end of the house is a deep, roof-covered well ; and 
 around this crowds of the wounded and thirsty Union soldiers 
 were continually gathered during the fight, drinking in, as fa^t 
 as permitted, that sweetest as well as freest of Xature's bless- 
 ings — water. 
 
 On the west gable of this mansion, on the afternoon of the 
 battle, a signal-officer was stationed, with his ten-foot staff 
 and odd-shaped parti-colored yard of muslin, and his field- 
 glass. His view extended far in the direction of Richmond, 
 taking in the various camps of Wise's Legion, Jackson's and 
 Huger's divisions, and others of the rebel forces ; while river- 
 wards his eye could easily reach, with the aid of the glass and 
 when the smoke of the field did not arise too thickly, the famed 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 267 
 
 Prury's Bluff and the redoubtable Fort Darling itself, still 
 frowning defiance at the threatening little Monitor. 
 
 The failure to take the rifle-pits had been followed by a 
 second lull, betokening, to the experienced soldier, fresh rebel 
 preparations for an attack in another quarter. Suddenly, when 
 i be sun was just sending the last of its rays through the murky 
 clouds of the battle-field, as if in indication that the eye of 
 
 heaven had not wholly deserted the brotherhood of Cain, the 
 
 federal signal- officers in the distance waved their flags, and 
 other signal-officers in the vicinity repeated their motions. 
 These pantomimic exhibitions, mysterious to the unpractised 
 eye, told to the officers in command, that the Confederates, 
 Strongly reinforced by the fresh troops of Jackson and Huger' 
 :nid their troops inspired by fresh draughts of the maddening 
 gunpowdered whiskey, were being marshalled for another and 
 final attack upon the Federal position. 
 
 But a few moments elapsed before the roar of the Confeder- 
 ate batteries gave proof that this warning had not been in 
 vain. Every piece they could bring to bear sent its missiles 
 of death hurtling into the Union lines, the next charge to be 
 made under cover of that cannonade. But probably even they 
 had not calculated upon such a reply as was given by the 
 artillery of McClellan. Never before, since war became a 
 science of butchery, did so many pieces thunder at once upon 
 the devoted ranks of any attacking force. Never before were 
 the very peals of the artillery of heaven so terribly rivalled. 
 Only a portion of the Union guns had before been brought 
 into play : now nearly the whole three hundred belched forth 
 their deadly defiance in crashing and booming repetitions. 
 Those who heard the sound will never forget it ; nor will 
 many of them live to hear that sound repeated. Far away 
 among the mountains, a hundred and fifty miles distant, the 
 boom of that terrible cannonade was heard, announcing the 
 conflict to loyalist and rebel who had no other means of know- 
 in:-'- that it was in progress. At times the firm earth shook 
 with the continued reverberations, as if an earthquake was 
 passing; and combatants even stood still in the very face of 
 the deadliest danger, under a momentary impression that some 
 fearful convulsion of nature must be in progress and that the 
 j i 
 
268 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 sinking sun must be going down on the last clay of a crum- 
 bling earth. 
 
 The rebel artillery was skilfully managed, and their range 
 proved to be excellent ; while the management and effect of 
 the Union guns can only be described by one word — magnifi- 
 cent. The superior weight and management of the Federal 
 metal was manifest from one fact if no other — the continual 
 limbering up and changing positions of the rebel piec 
 escape the deadly aim of artillerymen who have probably 
 never been excelled in any service. The only historian who 
 has as yet dealt with the events of that great day,* says that 
 it was " madness for the Confederates to rush against such 
 obstacles, "and that during the entire day, owing to the weight 
 and superior management of the Federal artillery, they fought 
 "without for a single moment having a chance of success."' 
 And yet this was the artillery of an army, and this was the 
 army itself, spoken of by detractors as "defeated" and "de- 
 moralized," and utterly incapable of further offensive move 
 ments against Richmond, however rested and reinforced ! 
 
 Under cover of the smoke of this fire, the mighty hosts of 
 Huger, Jackson and Magruder advanced to the second gene- 
 ral assault. Onward they rushed, and, emerging from the 
 sulphurous clouds, rolled forward in heavy columns. They 
 presented a still more imposing front than at the first attack, 
 stretching more than half a mile across the fatal Carter's 
 Field, with scarce a break or an interval in its entire length. 
 On they pressed — steadily, resolutely, desperately — pausing an 
 instant to pour in their fire, and then forward again at quick 
 step. The advance was met with belching volumes from rifles, 
 muskets and batteries, sending such storms of "leaden rain 
 and iron hail" as no body of men on earth could hope to 
 withstand, and joining with the shrieks and shouts of the 
 combatants and the dying, to create such a din as might well 
 have given the impression that the chains of Pandemonium 
 were unloosed and all the lost replying to the thunders of 
 heaven with screams of blasphemy and desperation. 
 
 At this moment, too, a new element of terror and de- 
 
 * De Joinville. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 269 
 
 struction broke suddenly into the conflict. As if the powers 
 of the air had indeed begun to take part in the struggle, 
 fiery meteors fell out of the air, from a direction not com- 
 manded by the Federal batteries — fiery meteors before which 
 whole ranks of men seemed like stubble before the scythe. 
 One of them would fall hissing through the air, burst with a 
 horrible explosion, and the moment after nothing would re- 
 main of the ranks of rebels within thirty or forty feet of it, 
 but a mass of shattered and mangled fragments, limbs torn 
 from limbs and heads from bodies. At first the rebels could 
 not understand the meaning of this new and awful visita- 
 tion, and even the Union troops were not for the time aware 
 what new power had come to their aid, destroying more of 
 the enemy at a blow than their heaviest and best-served bat- 
 teries. But the signal officer on the gable of the old man- 
 sion on Malvern Hill saw, and soon communicated the fact 
 to the officers in command — that the gun-boats Galena and 
 Aroostook (not the Monitor, as has been sometimes reported), 
 had steamed up from their anchorage at Curl's Neck, two 
 miles below, and opened furious broadsides of shell from their 
 heavy rifled guns. These shells were the terrible missiles 
 working that untold destruction in the rebel ranks ; and the 
 horrors and dangers of the fight to them must have been in- 
 tensely aggravated by these fiery monsters that came tearing 
 and shrieking through the forest and exploded with concus- 
 sions that shook the earth like discharges from whole bat- 
 teries. Only after the battle was over could the ravages 
 made by this agency be fully appreciated, from the effects 
 produced on natural objects lying in the line of their course. 
 In many places, avenues rods long and many feet in width, 
 were cut through the tree-tops and branches; and in not a 
 few instances, great trees, three and four feet in diameter, 
 fcrere burst open from branch to root, split to shreds and scat- 
 tered in splinters in all directions. 
 
 Panting, swearing, whooping and bleeding, the Confederate 
 lines had been pushed on, until they had reached a point 
 nearly as far in advance as in the former attack. But here, 
 beneath the storm of canister, case-shot and grape-shot, 
 solid-shot, shell and musketry, human endurance failed and 
 
270 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 even the madness of intoxication grow useless. The hurri- 
 cane of metal was too deadly for mortal man to withstand. 
 No efforts could urge them further forward ; and finding it 
 impossible to run to the end that gauntlet of iron and lead, 
 they once more wavered and broke, faced about and sought 
 the shelter of the woods, leaving Carter's Field burdened with 
 its second terrible harvest of death for that day — the dead in 
 actual heaps and winrows, and the wounded one mere strug- 
 gling, writhing and groaning mass. 
 
 But why repeat the story that has no variety except in 
 horror ? Again and again, with fresh troops flung every 
 time to the front, that mad attempt to carry Malvern Hill 
 was repeated and repulsed. An attack — a repulse ; and 
 each time with added but never-varied slaughter. The con- 
 sumption of raw spirits among the rebel ranks must have 
 been enormous during the day ; for every rebel canteen found 
 on the field had been filled with that maddening compound, 
 with or without the fiendish addition of the sulphur and ni- 
 tre of gunpowder. Their attacks were like the rolling of 
 billows toward a beach : their waves of battle swept up with 
 raging fierceness, but broke and receded at every dash ; and, 
 like the waves when the tide is fast ebbing, the surging lines 
 broke farther off at each advance. The attack on Malvern 
 Hill had failed — at what a fearful expenditure of valor and 
 courage on the part of the Union troops, only those who 
 participated can ever know ; — and at what a cost of life to 
 the rebels, only that Eye which looked down from a greater 
 height than that of the signal-officer on the gable of the old 
 mansion, could have power to measure ! 
 
 During the last of these rebel attacks, the gun-boats were 
 signalled to cease firing, lest their shells might prove equally 
 fatal to friends and foes; and the Union forces were ordered 
 to prepare for an advance, as Porter had determined to act, 
 temporarily at least, on the offensive, and thus crown the 
 events of a day which had been virtually one of splendid vic- 
 tory for the Union arms. Just when the rebels were halting 
 and wavering under the effects of the renewed artillery fire 
 poured out to meet them, Burns', Meagher's, Dana's and 
 French's brigades, of the right, were ordered to charge. The 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 271 
 
 order did not come too soon for the brave fellows who had 
 been chafing like caged lions at the necessity of fighting all 
 day on the defensive. Right gallantly and with ringing cheers 
 did they spring forward, until within a hundred yards of the 
 enemy, when they halted and sent a scorching fire of mus- 
 ketry directly into their faces. Couch's division on the left 
 had been thrown forward almost at the same moment, and 
 the order was obeyed with equal alacrity and effect. Then 
 the whole line was ordered to advance, and away they went 
 with ringing shouts, like so many confined school-boys sud- 
 denly let out for an hour's play, but going, alas 1 — to a game 
 of " ball" that entailed death on many of the players. 
 
 The brave Irishmen of Meagher were already in the ad- 
 vance, blazing and chopping away with that indomitable good 
 humor which seems to be the* normal condition of the Hi- 
 bernian when fairly launched into his darling fight. In this 
 general advance Duryea's bl&e, red and baggy Zouaves led 
 the way, as they had done in many a fight before, and always 
 with success, — dashing savagely on the foe with ear-splitting 
 shouts peculiar to themselves, and borrowed from the well- 
 known war-cry of the corresponding regiments in the French 
 service. The long Federal line of bristling steel pushed on 
 at double-quick with irresistible force ; and it was only for an 
 instant that any portion of the Confederate line stood to meet 
 it. At last discouraged and appalled — perhaps as much by 
 the appearance and the war-cry of the never-defeated Zouaves 
 as by any other agency that could have been brought to bear 
 upon them, — they first wavered in front, then grew unsteady in 
 the main body, and at last broke and fled in confusion and in- 
 decent haste, seeking once more the shelter of the woods from 
 which they were no more to emerge as an attacking party. 
 
 The Federal troops were not allowed to follow them to the 
 woods, night falling and the commander being indisposed to 
 allow his exhausted troops any further exertion. The rebels 
 left, in this last attack, several dismounted pieces of artillery, 
 many blown-up caissons, and thousands of small arms, besides 
 a thousand unhurt prisoners and a field literally covered with 
 dead and wounded. The battle of Malvern Hill was over, 
 though the rebel artillery continued to belch at intervals until 
 
272 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 after ton o'clock at night, the Federal advanced batteries re- 
 plying to every fire. At length, and when the still summer 
 night had thus far fallen on the late scene of conflict, the last 
 r<hrl ,<hot was sullenly fired, the last response was mad*' by 
 the Federal gunners, and the long conflict ceased. The baffled 
 and beaten rebels, who had certainly fought with bravery and 
 determination worthy of a better cause, fell back behind the 
 sheltering woods and commenced their final retreat towards 
 Richmond, having received at last a satisfactory taste of the 
 quality yet remaining in the outnumbered, harrassed, btrt 
 never-discouraged and ever-dangerous Army of the Potomac. 
 
 Owing to the fact that this battle was so largely an artillery- 
 duel, as has before been remarked, the opportunities for the 
 display or observation of personal bravery were compara- 
 tively limited, and mostly confined to a short period towards 
 the close of the battle. That the Union troops would have 
 shown the same personal dash and daring throughout, had 
 the plan of the General in command made hand-to-hand fight- 
 ing advisable — was fully proved by the short conflict which 
 closed the day. In that short period occupied by the ad- 
 vance of the two wings and afterwards of the main body, 
 two or three incidents occurred, which some of the combat- 
 ants will yet remember when their attention is thus called to 
 them, and without which this battle-picture, necessarily very 
 defective, and aiming much more at truth than sensation, 
 would be found almost destitute of details. 
 
 In the first advance, no less than three color-bearers, carry- 
 ing the same flag of one of the regiments of Meagher's Irish 
 brigade, were shot down within less than five minutes. When 
 the third fell, a Lieutenant in the color-company of the same 
 regiment, who had not many months before deserted the mock 
 combats of the stage for the sanguinary fights of actual war- 
 fare, concluded to try his success at carrying the dangerous 
 bunting. He seized the staff and held it, himself untouched, 
 for several minutes, while bullets were actually riddling the 
 flag. At the end of that time a stalwart Irishman, finding his 
 rifle-barrel heated and the ramrod jammed in attempting to 
 load, made two or three ineffectual jerks at the rod, found 
 that it was impossible to remove it ; then grasped the weapon 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 273 
 
 by the muzzle, whirled it half a dozen times around his head, 
 bringing the butt down in each instance with crushing force, 
 on the head of a foe ; and finally, giving it another and longer 
 whirl, with a wild " Whooruh !" that might have originated 
 among the bogs of Connaught, sent it whirling among the 
 enemy with such force that it literally plowed its way through 
 them and left a perceptible track of fallen foemcn. " Be the 
 Hill of Howth !" roared Paddy, when he had completed this 
 exploit. " It's meself hasn't the bit of a muskit left to fight 
 wid at all at all ! Here, Captain !" to the Lieutenant holding 
 the flag, " it's meself should be houldin' that, and not you !" 
 and at the word he grasped the staff out of the officer's hands 
 and plunged still farther forward among the enemy with it, 
 than it had before been carried by either of the bearers, com- 
 ing out of the fight at last without a scratch. 
 
 At very nearly the same time, and at the point in the rebel 
 front assailed by Meagher's brigade, another scene was pre- 
 sented, perhaps unexampled in the history of war. A Georgia 
 regiment (Georgia has sent out some of the very best and most 
 determined fighters of the whole rebel army) was in the front 
 and immediately opposed to the jolly New York Irishmen. 
 The evening being a hot one, most of the Irish boys had pre- 
 pared themselves for the charge by throwing off knapsacks, 
 coats, and even hats, so as to "fight asier." Their habit of 
 doing this, by the way, in hot weather. and in the excitement 
 of battle, has not only cost the government a round sum for 
 new clothing and equipments, but given many opportunities 
 to the Confederates for boasting of a victory when they had 
 won nothing of the kind. They have regarded the thrown- 
 away coats and knapsacks as evidence of a panic and a rout, 
 when the fact is that they have only evidenced Paddy's desire, 
 quoted above, to "fight asy." 
 
 In the present instance, Capt. S , a young Irishman, 
 
 of Meagher's Brigade, a fire-boy and a gymnast, was sur- 
 rounded by a knot of his fellows, and they were making good 
 progress in driving back the Georgia regiment, when the Cap- 
 tain encountered the Major of the Georgians. Whether 
 something in the eye of each defied the other, will perhaps 
 never be known ; but certain it is that Captain S sprung 
 
274 a no ULDEii-sTJ: ats 
 
 for a single combat with the Major, and that the Major, quite 
 as willing, sprung forward with a corresponding intention. A 
 few passes were made with the sword by each, and then both 
 seemed to forget the use of the weapon. In half a minute 
 swords were dropped, and the two combatants were clenched, 
 pounding away with their fists! Something after the manner 
 of the armies of old time when two great warriors met single- 
 handed, the combatants on both sides seemed to stand still for 
 the moment and look on at this singular struggle — this novelty 
 
 in deadly war. Captain S was the heavier man, but the 
 
 Georgia Major the nimbler, and they seemed very well matched 
 The Confederates were giving way on either side, and the 
 Georgia regiment must necessarily retreat decidedly in a mo- 
 ment. The effort of Captain S accordingly seemed to be 
 
 directed to first "knocking" the Major "out of time/' and 
 then making a captive of him ; while probably the Major had 
 no fancy for that termination of the affair. At length the 
 rush came from behind and on either side, and the whole 
 group were irresistibly borne backward. Some of the Ci • 
 soldiers grasped the Major from behind, and attempted to 
 drag him off. Some of the Irishmen rushed forward to assist 
 in holding him. In a minute more, not two men. but dozens, 
 were engaged in a fist-fight, not a weapon being used. Di- 
 rectly Captain S managed to get in a blow under the 
 
 chin of the Major, and in the neighborhood of the gullet, which 
 sent him backwards nearly insensible. As he fell he kicked 
 with mechanical force, and the kick striking the Captain in the 
 lower abdomen, " doubled him up " effectually. The Geor- 
 gians were still laboring to save their commander from cap- 
 ture, and Captain S and his. men to take him, or as much 
 
 as they could of him. The finale was that the Georgia Major 
 was lugged off and rescued by his men, and that Captain 
 
 S , clinging to him with the proverbial Kilkenny tenacity, 
 
 succeeded in dragging off him his coat, sword and belts, and 
 revolver, — leaving the foe very much in the condition of his 
 own men — that of shirt and trowsers. 
 
 It is a somewhat pitiful conclusion to this little reminiscence 
 
 of S 's odd adventure, that the next morning, in his tent, 
 
 showing the captured weapons to one of his comrades, the 
 
SHU U L DEK-ST It APS. 275 
 
 revolver went off accidentally and blew the Captain's left arm 
 to fragments ! Such are the chances of war — a soldier 
 escaping unhurt amid a very rain of destroying missiles, and 
 meeting wounds and disablement from a trilling accident in a 
 moment of fancied security ! 
 
 The third incident of that clay, and still more notable than 
 either of the others, occurred on the left while the incidents 
 previously recorded were taking place on the right and in the-, 
 centre. When Couch's division were just advancing to the 
 attack and at the very moment when the conflict began to grow 
 cli isi> and deadly, some of the men in the front, and the rebels 
 as well, witnessed a spectacle equally startling and unexplain- 
 able. A figure in white burst suddenly through from the Union 
 rear to the front, prostrating a dozen men with the irresistible 
 rapidity of the movement ; and then it sprung into the very thick 
 of the rebels and commenced its most singular and primitive war- 
 fare. Of the hundreds who unavoidably saw the apparition (for 
 apparition it certainly seemed) not one will ever forget it or 
 remember it without a shudder. The figure was that of a very 
 tall man, evidently of immense natural strength, with a face 
 shrunk to skeleton thinness and terrible staring eyes rendered 
 more fearful by the heavy red beard and long matted hair. It 
 was dressed in what appeared to be white trousers, but bare- 
 foot ; and its upper clothing seemed to be a shirt beneath and 
 a loose flowing white robe hanging from the shoulders. In its 
 hand this terrible figure carried a club of green sapling oak, 
 heavily knotted at the end, about five feet in length, two inches 
 in diameter at the butt and tapering to where it was grasped 
 at the lower end. A more effective weapon in close combat 
 could not be devised ; and with this weapon, and with fierce 
 yells that seemed like those emanating from the throat of an 
 infuriate madman, this strange combatant began laying about 
 him in the rebel ranks, crushing heads, breaking arms, and 
 killing and disabling scores of armed men. JSo sword could 
 reach him, and no bullet appeared to strike him, though dozens 
 of the rebels discharged muskets and even revolvers at him, 
 at close range, when it began to be apparent on which side he 
 was fighting. Up went that mighty flail, and down it came 
 again on the heads of the human tares of rebeldom who so 
 
276 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 needed threshing out in the very garner of wrath. More than 
 one of the Union men in the vicinity of the strange spectacle, 
 who happened to have been classic readers in other days, 
 gazing at the white figure and its terrible prowess, thought 
 of Castor and Pollux and the apparitions in white which de- 
 cided the battle on the shore of Lake Kegillus, when the 
 Thirtv Cities warred against Kome. But there was nothing 
 of the supernatural in this figure ; for after a few momenta 
 of wonderful immunity in the midst of that plunging fire, and 
 after a destruction of life which seemed really wonderful to be 
 accomplished by one single man, — fate withdrew the shield 
 which had been interposed before him. The great club was 
 full uplifted in the air, when the combatants saw him suddenly 
 waver and stagger, then saw the deadly weapon drop, a stream 
 of spouting blood from the wounded breast gush over tin- 
 white garment, and that tall figure and ghastly faco sink 
 downward to the earth, one last long yell, wilder and more 
 fearful than any that had preceded it, sounding the signal of 
 his death, and the battle again going on over the trampled 
 body. 
 
 It was not until hours after that the mystery of the white 
 figure was fully explained. The poor fellow had been a sol- 
 dier of one of the Western regiments, ill with fever, and sent on 
 to Harrison's Landing with the first of the troops who reached 
 the James. In his delirium he had no doubt heard the boom- 
 ing of the cannon in the morning attack, and gathered the im- 
 pression that a battle must be going on and that he should 
 not be absent. He had managed, by some means, to elude the 
 guards and the few hospital nurses yet spared to the army ; 
 had escaped from the temporary hospital, barefoot and clothed 
 only in his white drawers, shirt, and a sheet thrown around 
 his shoulders ; had made his way, unseen, through the woods 
 and over the marshes lying between Harrison's Landing and 
 Malvern; had provided himself probably by means of his still 
 remaining jack-knife, with that singular but fatal weapon of 
 offence ; and then, nerved with fictitious strength by his fever 
 and the sights and sounds of battle raging before him, he had 
 rushed into the conflict as before described, dying a death more 
 noble than the lingering decay of fever, after working such de- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 277 
 
 struction among the rebel ranks as he might never have been 
 able to do in the pride of his health and manhood. 
 
 And here this extended picture of one of the most im- 
 portant battles ever yet fought on this continent, must close, 
 except so far as in side-issues connected with it may happen 
 to be involved some of the persons more intimately concerned 
 in the progress of this relation. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 John Crawford the Zouave, and Bob Webster, ditto — 
 Bush-fighting, with various Results — The Burning 
 iiouse and a strange death-scene — john crawford 
 becomes a Man of Family. 
 
 It has not yet been our fortune to happen upon John 
 Crawford the Zouave, in the search for whom we have stum- 
 bled upon Malvern Hill and its fearful panorama of blood- 
 shed. As a member of the Advance Guard, he was not 
 likely to be absent from the fierce charge made by his corps 
 at the close of that day ; and he was not. It is at the very 
 moment of the conclusion of that charge, that the quest be- 
 comes successful. 
 
 John Crawford participated in that general advance, in the 
 front rank of the Zouaves, in high health and spirits, and 
 yelling quite as loudly and discordantly as any of his com- 
 panions. This was not his first adventure with the bayonet, 
 for he had gone unwounded through the determined charges 
 of his corps, with the same deadly weapon, at Williamsburgh 
 and Fair Oaks ; and he had grown to have confidence in 
 himself and in any body of men that used the modern foot- 
 man's lance with the due ferocity. Though five years younger 
 than his brother Richard, John Crawford looked older than 
 he did even in his sickness ; for the exposures of a year had 
 browned his round and ruddy face, if it had not dimmed the 
 
278 BHO U LD* B-STB A P 8. 
 
 brightness of his blue eye ; and the heavy waved brown 
 hair and moustache in which he retained so prominent a 
 characteristic of his Gaelic ancestry of a hundred years be- 
 fore, added materially to the appearance of manly maturity. 
 Were it a preux chevalier sitting under this verbal lens for 
 his photograph, there might be difficulty in proceeding far- 
 ther in this description ; for though your knight of old seems 
 to have been splendidly oblivious as to the needs of clean linen, 
 and able to wear one surcoat and one suit of armor for any 
 length of time without becoming repugnant to the nose of 
 his lady when brought into the opportunity for an embrace, 
 — yet the heroes of this day have sore need of occasional aid 
 from the washerwoman, and even the tailor becomes neces- 
 sary for the replenishing of worn-out and faded garments. 
 John Crawford the Zouave — the truth must be told — though 
 he showed very little shirt, showed that little in an unclean 
 condition ; and the baggy red of his trousers and the hang- 
 ing blue of his jacket, both looked shabby and discolored. 
 Kot much more could be said in favor of the white ami yellow- 
 turban with the dirty white tassel hanging behind, ostensibly 
 worn on his head but really drooping on the back part of it, 
 quite as much as were the ladies' bonnets two or three years 
 ago when the suggestion was made that they "should be 
 carried behind them in a spoon." And yet this soiled and 
 uncombed man was a soldier — every inch a soldier — and had 
 in him all the materials for the making of a hero. 
 
 We have said that John Crawford was in good health and 
 spirits, after sharing with the army in all its battles, fatigues 
 and privations. He was so, not alone because the corps was 
 somewhat better managed and cared for than many of the 
 others, but because he was a sober man and one physically 
 well-educated. He did not heat his blood for fever, and de- 
 bilitate his system for exposure, by the use of liquor when- 
 ever he could reach it ; and having been a member of the 
 Seventh before he joined the Zouaves, and a habitue of the 
 Gymnasium so much affected by the members of that regi- 
 ment, he had acquired some capacity of bearing fatigue before 
 entering upon that soldier-life which of all demands the most 
 unrelaxing endurance. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 279 
 
 A picture very little different from that just presented, 
 though taller and lanker in figure, was to be found in Bob 
 Webster, John Crawford's comrade and file-closer, who went 
 into the charge that evening at his side. A little less hardy, 
 more of a giant in strength, and with a ruddy tinge on the 
 end of his long nose, that had been acquired by more years 
 and more whiskey than confessed to by Crawford — such was 
 the only difference observable in the two men of the dirty 
 white turbans and the discolored uniforms, who went into 
 battle together. 
 
 The point of the enemy's front at which the Zouaves struck 
 in the charge, was considerably to the right of the Union 
 Centre (the enemy's left) and very near to the edge of the 
 wood bounding Carter's Field on the North. The company 
 to which the two comrades belonged had the extreme right, 
 (the post of honor), and they were consequently, when the 
 charge had penetrated so far that the rebels began to give 
 way, almost in the edge of the woods. Some of the men in 
 a South Carolina regiment, the enemy's extreme left, seemed 
 to fight like fiends, supported by a battery of the same State 
 that it became necessary to capture. This was finally swept, 
 and the South Carolinians at last gave way, falling back into 
 the woods, now beginning to grow dark, but firing from 
 behind trees as they retired. Too much excited to heed the 
 recall just then sounded, a dozen or two of the Zouaves, 
 remembering their unexpended ammunition, tried their hand 
 for the time at bush-fighting, with more or less success. 
 Some of them were shot down, but others succeeded in kill- 
 ing or capturing the peculiar fugitives of whom they started 
 in chase. Crawford and Webster had so far succeeded in 
 keeping together, and neither had received even a scratch. 
 
 One of the rebels, conspicuous by the fact that he had lost 
 or thrown off his coat and was consequently in " Irish uni- 
 form/' had been especially followed by half a dozen of the 
 Zouaves, as he fell back farther and farther into the woods, 
 dodging and firing from behind trees, and proving that he 
 must have come from one of the hill regions of the Palmetto 
 State, where the hunting of wild beasts yet keeps the wood- 
 man in train for a soldier. Not less than three of tho 
 
280 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Zouaves had paid for their tenacity with their lives, by shots 
 sent from that single long-rifle. Crawford and Webster, 
 fancying that they bore charmed lives, still kept on the chase, 
 catching glimpses through the dusk, of the rebel's shirt, as it 
 dodged in and out behind the trees. In this manner they 
 had penetrated perhaps a quarter of a mile into the woods, 
 the sounds of the battle growing more and more indistinct 
 behind them, when a broad light burst up through the trees 
 to the North, shining redly through boles and branches and 
 indicating a fire in the immediate neighborhood. 
 
 "What is that?" said Webster, his attention momentarily 
 distracted from the rebel whom he had seen dodging behind 
 a tree but a moment before. 
 
 "A fire of some kind," said Crawford, looking in the same 
 direction " From its size, it may be a burning house." 
 
 "Humph! though it is hot enough without, I shouldn't 
 mind being at one more fire !" said Webster, who, like most 
 New Yorkers of a certain age, had once in his time " run 
 wid der masheen." 
 
 "But where is that gentleman from the South?" asked 
 Crawford. " He may give us a pop directly — look out !*' 
 
 " The no-coated devil !" said Webster. " He was dodging 
 behind that big oak a moment ago. I think I see the edge 
 of his shirt — yes !" 
 
 He did see the tip of the Southerner's shirt, and some one 
 else felt him ; for at that instant " crack !" went the long 
 rifle, and John Crawford gave vent to an "Ough !" that par- 
 took of the mingled characters of an oath and a yell, staggering 
 up against the nearest tree at the same moment, with a rifle- 
 bullet through his left fore-arm, and feeling that sentiment of 
 disgust at the stomach which is inseparable from the forcible 
 entrance of any substance into the human body, in the shape 
 of a wound. 
 
 " Hallo, Jack ! Eh, you did it, did you ?— d— n you !" 
 sputtered Webster, as he heard the report and saw the effect. 
 Of course the first part of his remark was addressed to his 
 comrade, and the last to the rebel, who had made such a capi- 
 tal shot that he allowed too much of his figure to be exposed 
 while making his survey. In an instant, Webster's piece 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 281 
 
 was drawn up, and a second " crack!" rang out through the 
 trees. 
 
 " Ten to one I hit him !" cried Webster. " For the first 
 time I got a fair view of one side of his dirty white shirt. 
 But how badly are you hurt, Jack ? Where are % you hit V 
 
 " Hurt a good deal, but not seriously, I think," answered 
 Crawford, a little faintly. " He hit me here in the left arm, 
 below the elbow. I think the bullet went through, and may- 
 be the bone is broken." 
 
 " Too bad ! tut ! tut !" said his brother Zouave. " Never 
 mind — I will bind it up in a moment. Do you think you can 
 lean against that tree and keep from fainting until I run and 
 see whether my little joker went in the right direction ?" 
 
 " Nary faint !" said Crawford, making a strong effort to 
 overcome the pain he was suffering. " Go ahead, Bob, and 
 hurry !" 
 
 Webster did hurry, and Crawford had scarcely more than 
 time to enjoy half-a-dozen exquisite throbs of agony and ob- 
 serve that the light through the trees, Northward, was grow- 
 ing brighter and brighter, when he came running back, very 
 jubilant. 
 
 " Dead as the deadest kind of a herring !" he said. " Didn't 
 hit him where I meant to, but it answered. Bored him right 
 through the skull, and he lies there, hugging the root of the 
 tree he was so fond of." 
 
 " Well, I am glad of that, at all events !" answered Craw- 
 ford. Men, even of the best hearts and warmest natures, 
 change terribly in times of war and among the influences of 
 the camp and the battle-field. The man who by nature could 
 only have said "Thank God!" at some benefit rendered to 
 his kind or some dispensation of Providence by which the 
 lives of his perilled fellow-men have been preserved — easily 
 learns to be thankful for the explosion of a magazine or the 
 sinking of a ship by which hundreds of men have been sent 
 suddenly into eternity, those men being his enemies. 
 
 " But come — let us see what kind of a nick you have got !" 
 said Webster, examining the arm with some skill once ac- 
 quired in a doctor's shop to which run-over and fainted peo- 
 ple were sometimes brought for sudden assistance. " Nq, 
 
282 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the bones are not broken — all right ! Here, let me bind it 
 up with my handkerchief and put my scarf-belt around your 
 neck for a sling." He proceeded to mak*- these dispositions, 
 with speed and dexterity, and in a moment after Crawford 
 felt the sickening pain subsiding and the slight faintness 
 leaving him. 
 
 " Humph ! that is better — it scarcely hurts at all now/' 
 he said. " Thank you, Bob — or Doctor Bob, I ought to call 
 you." 
 
 " Well, call me anything you like, except a coward or a 
 humbug !" answered Webster. "And now, old fellow, think 
 \<>u are strong enough to get back to the Hill ?" 
 
 " Yes, but I am not going there !" said John Crawford. 
 11 Don't you see how bright that fire through the trees is 
 getting ? In this hot weather nobody builds a camp-fire of 
 that size, and I think there must be a house burning. If you 
 say so, we will take a tour in that direction.'' 
 
 " Anywhere with you" said Webster. "But," he added, 
 careful for his wounded companion though not for himself, 
 " suppose it should be a burning house, with rebels around, 
 and you with your lame arm." 
 
 " Oh, Bob, we'll take the chances," said the wounded 
 Zouave. " My impression is that they have had enough of 
 Little Mac for one day, and got out of this, and that you 
 killed about the last one of them. At all events, we'll take 
 the chances — come on !" 
 
 Bob Webster had been in the habit of following his file- 
 leader, and he did so in this instance. The two struck across 
 the woods in the direction of the fire, their path through the 
 trees and under-growth being made an easy one by the light 
 it cast. A few hundred yards brought them to the edge of 
 the wood, at a narrow place where a spur of the Malvern 
 Hill made a sudden curve Southward and broke into the tim- 
 ber. As they approached the edge of the clear space, they 
 yaw that a house was indeed ou fire, the flames now licking 
 through the roof and enveloping the chimneys, while all the 
 lower portion seemed burned to a- shell. The house, which 
 stood at the foot of the hill, appeared to have been of fair 
 size, and surrounded on three sides with carefullv cultivated 
 
SHOU L D E R -ST R A P S. 283 
 
 grounds, now marred and desolated alike by the foot of the 
 invader and the defender. 
 
 Climbing a broken fence that lay between the wood and the 
 cultivated ground, the two soldiers drew nearer to the burning 
 house, which strangely enough showed no person moving 
 around the flames, and no indication that it was not burning 
 in utter loneliness. Such things as traps and decoys had 
 been heard of by the comrades, however, as they had been 
 heard of by every soldier subjected to the tricks of the Con- 
 federates ; and they were not too certain that enemies might 
 n ut lie concealed in the neighborhood, waiting to pick off any 
 Union soldier discerned in the light of the fire. On this ac- 
 count, Webster, who had re-loaded his rifle, carried it ready 
 for instant use, while Crawford carried his in the unwounded 
 hand, at half-cock, and ready to make some kind of an attempt, 
 in the event of danger, to use it as a pistol. These precau- 
 tions seemed to be all superfluous, for as they came still 
 nearer to the burning house, now almost ready to fall into a 
 heap of blazing and smouldering ruins, no voice was heard 
 and no sign of life was visible. 
 
 " Nobody there," said Webster. 
 
 " Nobody living, at least, in or about that shanty !" was 
 the reply of Crawford. " The people are either burned, saved, 
 or there have been none there." 
 
 " One of the three— yes— I should say so !" replied Webster 
 to this self-evident proposition. 
 
 "And as there seems nothing to be done, in the way of 
 putting out the fire, saving anybody or killing anybody, sup- 
 pose we go back to the Hill ?" said Crawford. 
 
 "Xot yet," answered Webster. "We have not yet been 
 on the other side of the house. Perhaps there may be out- 
 buildings on that side, that have not yet taken fire ; and it 
 there is no one living in the house, there may be cattle or hogs 
 roasting in the enclosures." 
 
 " Very well said, Bob," said Crawford. "Let us see the 
 other side of the house." And the two soldiers advanced as 
 near as was comfortable to the blazing building, for that pur- 
 pose. It had not yet fallen, though every board had dropped 
 away, and everv timber was a thin line of fire, fast charring 
 18 
 
281 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 to coals. The house had evidently been that of a person of 
 some condition, though of perhaps no remarkable wealth. It 
 had been of two stories, with a piazza in front and a neat lit- 
 tle yard showing a few flower-shrubs, a bordering of fruit- 
 trees at the sides of the enclosure, and two medium-sized 
 Lombardy poplar trees at the gate. No negro-quarter was 
 visible, or any evidence that the "peculiar institution " had 
 formed any part of the domestic policy of the occupants. 
 
 Just as the companions approached the gate and stood ob- 
 serving these particulars, the demon of fire obtained his last 
 triumph over the material of the building. The snapping 
 and crackling of the flames increased for a moment, and the 
 forked tongues seemed licking closer and closer around the 
 (loomed pile ; then there was a sudden change — the arched 
 rafters sunk away — the slight shock disturbed what had yet 
 remained of the frame-work — and the instant after, with a 
 loud rumbling crash, the whole building went down into a 
 heap of ruins, one high burst of flame shooting up skyward as 
 a signal that the destruction had been accomplished, and 
 showers of sparks following it, like a burst of fire-works at 
 some grand celebration. With the fall, the broad light of the 
 fire over the surrounding fields and on the neighboring woods 
 died away, and there only remained a great heap of burning 
 timbers, smouldering coals and embers, giving scarcely more 
 light than an ordinary watch-fire. 
 
 But the peculiar interest of that scene did not die out with 
 the fall of the building : on the contrary, it was at that mo- 
 ment that it began to assume proportions more easily recog- 
 nized. For mingled with the crash of the fall there seemed 
 to be the sharp, shrill, terrible scream of a human voice in 
 agony ; and the very instant after that scream was repeated, 
 so distinctly that it drove the blood from the cheeks of both 
 the soldiers at the gate. 
 
 " My God ! did you hear that ?" said Crawford. 
 
 " Didn't I !" answered Webster. " I wish I hadn't ! Jack, 
 do you know, there must have been somebody in the house 
 after all, burning to death ; and that scream, when the build- 
 ing fell, was the wind-up of a life !" 
 
 11 It must have been so, and we have been standing here, 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 285 
 
 doing nothing, when aid might have been given !" said Craw- 
 ford, in self-reproach, and forgetting how little a man with 
 one arm can do in the way of carrying out people from a 
 burning building. " Yet no — stop ! No, Bob, that scream 
 was not the last of the person's life, for didn't you notice, we 
 heard it twice, and the last time after the house had fallen in ? 
 AfteT that house fell, no one inside of it ever screamed, and 
 so—" 
 
 " And so," said Webster, interrupting, " there is somebody, 
 not in the house, who screamed ? That is what you mean, 
 and by Jupiter, Jack, you are right !" 
 
 "Now we must look the other side of the house," said 
 Crawford. " Some poor creature, badly burned, may have 
 crawled out from the flames and be lying there in agony." 
 
 So there might have been, truly I And what a strange 
 riddle is human nature, even on that other side — mercy ! We 
 but a little while ago considered the ease with which a man 
 born with the warmest aspirations for human good, might be- 
 come eager for the destruction of life, when that life belonged 
 to a foeman : let the opposite spectacle be considered, of a 
 man who had just been plunging into the thick of a hand-to- 
 hand fight, estimating human heads as of no more value than 
 cocoa-nuts, and human lives as something to be taken without 
 a shudder or a pang of compunction, — a few minutes after- 
 wards speaking of a " poor creature " whose life might be 
 threatened by fire, and speaking of that " poor creature " with 
 all the tenderness of a mother or a lover ! And is this in- 
 consistent? No — it is consistent to the last degree. The 
 brave man is the pitiful man ; and while he may consider a 
 hecatomb necessary for a cause, he regards one life sacrificed 
 unnecessarily, as murder. " Who needlessly sets foot upon a 
 worm, is all unfit to live !" says one of the old poet-philoso- 
 phers. And are worms therefore never to be trodden upon ? 
 Not so, by any means 1 The adverbial adjective "needlessly" 
 explains the broad distinction. Not one worm, even the 
 creeping, crawling and disgusting caterpillar, for cruelty or 
 even for neglect : millions of worms, whether caterpillar or 
 human worm of the dust, for a sacred cause and a great 
 duty I 
 
286 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 "Yes, come on around the house. The heat is not so great 
 now, and we mtist see if there is anything living here," was 
 the rep]}' of Webster to the last suggestion of Crawford ; and 
 they at once followed the yard as closely round as the burn- 
 ing ruins would permit. They heard no repetition of the 
 sound ; nor could they see any sign of human life. Behind 
 the house, hillward, stood a small barn and stables, while a 
 wood-shed and some other small outbuildings stood on the 
 eastern side of the enclosure. These had been nearly con- 
 nected with the house by board fences, and in two places 
 those fences had taken fire and threatened to carry the flames 
 to the other buildings. But the evening had been calm, and 
 the fire had not run many yards along the fences before it 
 became extinguished for want of compelling wind and quick 
 fuel. 
 
 A proposition from Webster that they should search the 
 outbuildings for the source of the cry, was negatived by 
 Crawford, who thought it very likely, after all his previous 
 confidence, that some of the Confederate troops, who had 
 certainly held the woods at one time during the day, might 
 be located in the barn — not dangerous, perhaps, if undis- 
 turbed, but very likely to be troublesome if two soldiers, one 
 with one arm and both on a very blind errand, should go 
 stumbling about in the dark too miscellaneously. 
 
 "Well/' said Webster, "no doubt you are right, Jack, as 
 you almost always are. In that case we have nothing to do 
 but to get back to camp and look a little more closely after 
 that shivered arm of yours, for there is certainly no one near 
 the edge of the fire." 
 
 "Hark!" said Crawford, as they started to retrace their 
 steps around the house, and move away. They were within 
 a few steps of what appeared to be a wood-shed, standing on 
 the east side of the enclosure, and some forty or fifty feet from 
 the house. " Hark !" 
 
 " Well, what is it ? I heard nothing !" said Webster, who 
 had been listening exclusively for another shriek. 
 
 '• "Well, / heard something, and it was a groan !" said Craw- 
 ford. 
 
 " Oh Lord !" exclaimed the not-verv-rcverent Webster. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 287 
 
 M What next, I wonder ? Awhile ago we had shrieks : now 
 we have groans ! I wonder if this place is haunted — just a 
 little ?" 
 
 "Hark I there it was again!" said Crawford. " It was a 
 groan, and not very far from us, either !" 
 
 " In that case," said Webster, " as it is incumbent upon two 
 members of the Advance Guard not to come all this distance 
 for nothing, we shall be under the necessity of hunting out the 
 groan. Ah!" and the speaker paused a moment. "By Ju- 
 piter it is a groan. I heard it myself that time. It is here, 
 under this shed !" 
 
 The long legs of Webster at once made a movement in that 
 direction, followed by the shorter and more symmetrical ones 
 of Crawford. They reached the door of the wood-house, open- 
 ing towards the burned mansion. The door was unclosed, and 
 they could look within. Just as they reached the door both 
 heard another groan — quite sufficient to satisfy them that they 
 were not in error as to the place from which the sound had 
 proceeded. A faint red light from the fallen embers of the 
 burning house shone within the rough shed from the narrow 
 door — scarce enough, at first, to make objects distinctly visible ; 
 but as the}' gazed the eyes grew accustomed to the dim light 
 and they could distinctly trace what the building contained. 
 They stepped slowly within, no motion from the occupants 
 giving indication that their presence was known ; and this is 
 what they saw — dimly, but clearly enough for the purposes 
 of recognition. 
 
 On a straw pallet lay an old man, thin-faced and hollow- 
 eyed, his scanty white hair streaming backward on the end 
 of the pallet, which had been turned up to form a pillow. 
 Over him and reaching from his feet to his breast, was drawn 
 a sheet, and on that sheet lay one of his thin, wrinkled and 
 nerveless hands. His eyes were shut, and he might have 
 appeared to be asleep, but that ever and anon there broke 
 from him one of those low but distinct groans indicative of 
 severe inward pain, which had startled the two Zouaves. 
 But the old man was not the most singular or the most pain- 
 ful feature of this spectacle. Beside him on the ground, 
 kneeling, and rocking backward and forward with that pecu- 
 
288 SHOU L EER- STRAPS. 
 
 culiar motion so indicative of intense and hopeless grief when 
 used by some of the European peasantry, was a young girl — 
 apparently very young, very small and very girlish, though 
 there was something about her which even in that dim light 
 gave the impression that she was not a little girl, but a 
 woman. 
 
 So much the two soldiers saw, while neither of the occupants 
 of the shed seemed to be aware of their presence ; but Web- 
 ster, an intensely practical man and more fertile in resources 
 than overflowing with delicacy, was not quite satisfied with 
 the view obtained, and instantly determined to improve it. 
 
 "Wait here — I am going for a light." he .said, and stepping 
 hastily from the door he ran to the burning embers of the 
 house, caught the end of a piece of pine scantling of which 
 the other was in full blaze, and in a moment more entered the 
 door of the shed, his novel torch throwing an odd, ghastly 
 light upon all the objects within the little building. Then 
 and not till then did the intruders become aware that they 
 stood face to face with one who was dying, in the old man 
 on the pallet, — and with a woman of a rare and almost 
 startling order of beauty, in the young girl who knelt be- 
 side him. Her form, as they could see, even in her kneel- 
 ing position, was almost childish in the shortness of its 
 stature and the petite mould of her limbs; and yet there 
 was nothing thin _qr attenuated about her, and the epi- 
 thet "fragile" could not have been applied to her with 
 half the justice of that very opposite word, " willowy." Her 
 face was infantile in the smallness of the features, in their 
 perfect round, and in the expression of helpless placidity 
 which seemed to lie upon it. But those features were yet 
 classical in outline, and the mouth, especially, was very sweet 
 and budding. The open eyes were blue as heaven ; and the 
 hair, of which there was a great wealth, loosed from all re- 
 straint and sweeping back on her shoulders, was of that deli- 
 cate and almost impalpable blonde so seldom met (even among 
 the English, who arrogate to themselves the purest blonde hair 
 in the world) and so universally admired — nay, almost wor- 
 shipped. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that so long a time was necessary 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 289 
 
 for the two Zouaves to catch the particulars here set down, as 
 would be indicated by the length of the description itself; and 
 certainly no such length of time was allowed them without in- 
 terruption. It was now evident that neither the dying man 
 nor the young girl had before been aware of the entrance of 
 the strangers ; but as Webster entered with his torch of pine, 
 the sudden light startled both. The old man's eyes did not 
 unclose, but the young girl's looked around with a startled 
 glance ; she rose to her feet, clasped her hands imploringly, 
 while so sad and beseeching an expression rested upon her 
 face, that she might have been the discarded Peri pleading for 
 her lost place in heaven, — and said : 
 
 " Go away, please ! Grandfather is dying. Don't disturb 
 him — please don't !" 
 
 " My poor girl, we do not mean to disturb him, or you," 
 said Crawford, advancing a little way towards the side of the 
 pallet, and throwing into his voice all its native sympathy and 
 kindness. "We are friends." 
 
 " Marion, who is that ?" asked the old man, feebly. He 
 had before shown that his eyes were affected by the light, and 
 made a motion to rise, which brought the young girl at once 
 to her knees again beside him, with her hand and arm affec- 
 tionately round his head. 
 
 "I do not know, grandpa ! They are soldiers — two sol- 
 diers." 
 
 " Tell them to go away — ask them to go away, and let me 
 die in peace !" said the old man, his voice still feeble, and his 
 utterance difficult as before. 
 
 " I have asked them, grandpa, and they will not go," said 
 the young girl, her tones, strangely enough, even in character- 
 izing what she must have felt to be an outrage, expressing no 
 feeling of anger, but soft and low as flute notes of the lower 
 register. 
 
 " We do not wish to intrude. We will go away," said 
 Crawford. 
 
 "Ah !" said the old man, a perceptible shadow passing over 
 his face, "that was the voice of a gentleman/ Ask him who 
 he is, Marion. But he must be a rebel," and the old man 
 went on, his voice falling still lower as if he was speaking to 
 
290 SHOUL DER-STKAPS. 
 
 himself. " He must be a rebel, for McClellan has been beaten 
 and driven back. They have been fighting all day, and I 
 know the end — I know the end." 
 
 " "We are not rebels," said Crawford, who had caught the 
 last words, whether intended or not even for the grand- 
 daughter's ear. " I hope you will not fear u.<. I am John 
 Crawford, private in Duryea's Zouaves, of McClellan's army ; 
 and this is Robert Webster, private in the same regiment," 
 
 "Union men? Men faithful to the country and the old 
 flag ?" asked the old man, a gleam of delight passing over his 
 wasted features. " Here, quick, quick, Marion, raise me up." 
 
 The young girl tried to obey, but her scant strength was 
 insufficient even to raise the thin form of the old man. Robert 
 Webster stepped forward to assist her, and as the old man 
 was raised knelt down behind and supported the head and 
 upper body in a half-sitting position. Though the eyes had 
 remained closed before, they opened now, to confront Craw- 
 ford — poor old, dim, lack-lustre eves, that yet seemed to have 
 one burning spark in the centre. 
 
 " You say that you are a Union soldier. Will you swear 
 it ?" he asked, in the same low, solemn tones. 
 
 "I do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God," 
 said John Crawford, lifting his hand to heaven, remembering 
 some portions of the oath so commonly administered in our 
 courts of justice, and adding on some words not commonly 
 used in the same connection, " that I am a true and loyal sol- 
 dier in the service of the United States, and the enemy of 
 all rebels and traitors ! Amen !" 
 
 " Thank God !" said the old man, solemnly. " If I cannot 
 die with the old flag over me, I can at least have the company 
 of those who uphold it ! Give me your hand. What ! ,? as 
 the young soldier came closer. " You are wounded. You 
 have been in the battle to-day. You are defeated and a fugi- 
 tive ?" 
 
 "No 1" said the Zouave, with a world of triumph in his 
 tone, and giving his uninjured hand at the same time. " I am 
 wounded, but McClellan and Fitz-John Porter have to-day 
 flogged the rebels out of their boots at Malvern Hill, and the 
 Union armv is safe !' 
 
SHOULDER -STRAPS. 291 
 
 " Thank God ! oh, thank God 1" said the old man, reverently. 
 "Marion, lay me back, I am faint." Tie did not seem to be 
 aware that Webster was assisting to hold him up, or that any 
 one was in the place except Crawford and his grand-daughter. 
 His request was obeyed, and he was laid down again on the 
 pallet ; but the excitement of the last few minutes had per- 
 ceptibly weakened him, and he was evidently failing fast. 
 " Marion, it hurts me to talk — a little. Tell the gentleman, 
 for he is a gentleman, I know — who we are and how we came 
 to be here." 
 
 " This is my grandfather," the young girl said, still on her 
 knees by the pallet, and evidencing in her calm and childlike 
 tone no surprise at the request, and no agitation in relating 
 what must have pained her so terribly under the circum- 
 stances. "His name is Chester Hobart. We belong to a 
 good family, and they say that we are related to the English 
 Earls of Buckinghamshire. My father was Charles Hampden 
 Hobart. He was an officer in the navy, and was drowned 
 when I was quite a little girl." Crawford did not notice, then, 
 but remembered afterwards, that in this strange relation she 
 said nothing of another parent who seemed likewise to be 
 dead — her mother. " My grandfather and myself lived in the 
 house, here. We had black servants, but they have all gone 
 away. We did not have any negro quarter — the servants lived 
 in one part of the house. My grandfather has been very ill 
 — so ill that I thought he would die. He is very fond of the 
 Union — I do not know anything about politics. He was better 
 a little ; but the house took fire awhile ago, and I could 
 scarcely help him out. I got out the straw mattress and a 
 sheet, and I could get out nothing more. I am afraid my 
 poor grandfather is very ill, now ; perhaps ho is dying. T 
 thought he was dying a little while ago, and I screamed — I 
 could not help it, That is all, grandfather, is it not ? oh, 
 grandfather! grandfather!" and the poor girl, for the first 
 time broken down, fell forward on the straw pallet, buried 
 her face near the old man's head, and sobbed like an over- 
 tasked child. 
 
 "Poor girl !" said John Crawford. He did not mean to 
 fpeak aloud, but he did so, and the dying man heard him. 
 
292 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 "Young man," he said, "you took an oath just now. Will 
 you take another, to make an old man die happier ?" 
 
 " I will!" answered the young man. bending close to him. 
 He was too much exhausted, now, to raise his head any more. 
 
 "You say that the Union troops have won the fight to- 
 day?'' 
 
 "I do say so. We have repulsed the rebel attacks every 
 time ; and the last repulse was a rout. They are defeated." 
 
 " You believe that you can reach the Union camp in safety ?" 
 
 " I have no doubt of it," answered the Zouave. 
 
 " Then swear to me, with the same uplifted hand you used 
 awhile ago, that you will remove my grand-daughter, Marion 
 Hobart, to the Xorth — out of this den of secession. She has 
 money in a Bank in New York, enough to make her com- 
 fortable — I put it there three years ago, thinking such a time 
 as this might come. Swear to me that you will find her a 
 home with some honest family, and that you will neither do 
 harm to her yourself nor permit it to approach her if you can 
 shelter her from it. Swear it by the Ever-Living God." 
 
 "I swear !" said the young soldier, lifting his hand sol- 
 emnly. 
 
 The old man lay still on his pillow, a strange and awful 
 shadow stealing over his face. His grand-daughter had 
 raised her head, and she saw it, though the torch had burned 
 low and there was little but the red light of the fire glimmer- 
 ing into the building. She buried her face once more in 
 the pallet, threw her arms around the old man's form, and 
 sobbed, 
 
 " Grandfather ! oh, grandfather !" 
 
 " Hark ! did I not hear cannon again ? Are you sure the 
 Union troops have won the victory?" came from the closing 
 lips. " Y^ou are a soldier and a gentleman. You said your 
 name was Craw — Crawford. A good old name. Nevermind 
 me — take care of Marion. Marion — Ma — ." He was silent, 
 and silent forever, except as the dumb lips may be hereafter 
 opened ! 
 
 Marion Hobart saw the lower jaw fall and the open eyes 
 put on that ghastly appearance which is the seal of the tri- 
 umph of death : and she knew, without a word from either 
 
SHOULDER-STKAPS. 293 
 
 of her companions, that he was dead. The soldiers saw that 
 she comprehended all that had occurred, and expected that 
 she would shriek again and throw herself wildly on the body. 
 She did not — she merely clasped her hands and looked on the 
 body with such a pitiful gaze of fixed sorrow that Crawford 
 could not bear it and turned away his eyes, while Webster 
 found sudden and unexplained necessity for blowing his long 
 nose. 
 
 Suddenly, and before a word had been spoken by either of 
 the soldiers, a new thought came to the young girl and a ter- 
 rible look of fear and sorrow swept over her face. 
 
 " It is night and we cannot bury him I" she said, her voice 
 broken and agonized. "How can I leave him unburied? 
 Gentlemen — gentlemen — how can I leave my poor grand- 
 father unburied ?" 
 
 "He shall not remain unburied !" said Crawford, instantly 
 and earnestly. 
 
 " He should not, Miss, if I had to make a ground-hog of 
 myself and dig his grave with my own hands !" put in Web- 
 ster, who had scarcely spoken before during all the sad scene. 
 
 "Oh thank you ! — thank you both I" she began — then sud- 
 denly pausing, she said : "But how — I do not understand — 
 it is night, and we have nothing — " 
 
 " In half an hour we will be at camp, God willing," 
 answered Crawford, " and Colonel Warren will send a guard 
 of soldiers to watch the body until morning and then to bury 
 it with all honor. Do you understand, Miss Ilobart ?" 
 
 " I do," answered the young girl, her sad calmness return- 
 ing at once. "You are both very good and kind, and may 
 God bless you. You want to go ? We must go, I suppose ; 
 and we can do poor grandfather no good now by staying. 
 Good-bye, grandfather — poor grandfather ! I shall never see 
 you again, and you do not see me, even now ! Good-bye ! 
 oh, grandfather, grandfather ! I am so lonesome ! so lone- 
 some I" 
 
 For one moment she threw herself forward on the pallet 
 and embraced the body of the old man, in uncontrollable sor- 
 row, while both the two Zouaves found themselves shedding 
 tears very inappropriate for the evening of a day of battle. 
 
294 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Then she rose to her feet, put her fingers to her eyes as if 
 pressing out the moisture that had gathered unbidden under 
 the lids, and said : 
 
 " Shall we go ? I am ready." 
 
 Reverently, Crawford drew the sheet over the face of the 
 corpse, hiding it forever from the eyes of the bereaved grand- 
 daughter as it was so soon to be hidden from the eyes of all the 
 living; and then the doubly-orphaned girl and her new-found 
 friends took their way from the scene of death. She was dn 
 only in light delaine and had neither shawl nor bonnet ; but 
 the night air was not too cool, and Webster wrapped his 
 Zouave jacket around the slight form, while Crawford sup- 
 plied her with his handkerchief as a covering for her head 
 They took their way at once from the house, now little more 
 than a heap of darkening coals, — and struck south-eastward 
 over the spur of the hill and through that portion of the 
 woods least likely to retain any ambushed rebels, towards the 
 quarters on Malvern. The sounds of battle had almost en- 
 tirely ceased, it being now some ten o'clock in the evening; 
 and only occasionally the boom of a cannon half a mile away 
 to the south'-westward showed that the opposing forces yet 
 remained near each other. The thick smoke which had 
 shrouded all the country during the day, had almost all rolled 
 away, the young moon had disappeared in the west, and the 
 stars looked down as clearly and beautifully as if no such 
 things as war and death could exist in a world gazed upon 
 by such pure eyes. 
 
 Scarcely a word was spoken by either, during the short 
 walk to the top of Malvern Hill. The young girl leaned 
 upon the uninjured arm of John Crawford, with a touching 
 confidence and trust, an occasional convulsion of grief shak- 
 ing her frame and an occasional sob breaking from her ; while 
 Bob Webster acted as scout and guide, carrying both rifles, 
 and perhaps not the more on that account prepared to repel 
 any sudden danger. But no such danger came. The rebels 
 had indeed retired, and the various corps of the Union army 
 had been gathered in to their respective quarters, preparatory 
 to the march to Harrison's Landing, which was to be pur- 
 sued at daylight. Not all of them, however. It was well 
 
SHOULDEK-STRAPS. 295 
 
 that the course of Crawford and his companions did not lie 
 across Carter's Field ; for if it had done so, they must have 
 seen hundreds of lanterns moving- about, and hundreds of 
 dark figures moving and toiling — the fatigue-parties burying 
 the Union dead and planting the soil of the Old Dominion 
 with more of that martyr seed which may yet spring up to 
 the redemption of the land and the glory of the nation. This 
 would have been a sad and harrowing sight for the young 
 girl, after so lately leaving her last relative to be made a prey 
 for worms ; and fortunately she was spared it. 
 
 Perhaps half an hour after leaving the burned house, the 
 Zouaves and their charge reached the bivouac of the Ad- 
 vance Guard, half way down the slope towards Carter's 
 Field. The loss of the corps had been but trifling, in spite 
 of their furious charge ; and though tired and hungry, those 
 who had not dropped down in their places to sleep, were 
 merry and jubilant. The Union forces had won one last 
 great victory in defeat, and they knew it and knew that the 
 army was safe. Crawford had ever been a favorite with his 
 corps, respected by the men and even petted by the officers ; 
 and he was recognized w^ith shouts of welcome by many, as 
 he made his way, with his charge on his arm, towards the 
 Colonel's tent. 
 
 " Hallo, old fellow ! Safe eh, after all !" cried one who 
 recognized him; while another said: "Thought you had 
 gone to Richmond, without waiting for the rest of us !" and 
 another, but in a lower tone that perhaps Marion Hobart did 
 not hear : " I say, Jack, where the deuce did you pick up a 
 petticoat, and a white one at that ?" 
 
 Colonel Warren received the young Zouave, and heard his 
 story, paying .all respect to the young girl under his pro- 
 tection. He at once promised, at Crawford's request, that a 
 file of soldiers should go down to the burned house and per- 
 form the rites of burial before the corps left the hill ; where- 
 upon the face of the young girl more fully repaid him by its 
 expression of true gratitude, than did even her words of 
 sad thankfulness. There are men who have called Colonel 
 Warren not only a martinet but a man devoid of feeling : let 
 
296 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 his action on this occasion prove how little those know him 
 who speak of him thus coldly. 
 
 " Some of the wagons are leaving for the Landing just 
 now," he said to Crawford, after the latter had explained the 
 nature of his wound and briefly told the story of the pro- 
 tection he had promised the young girl, which he would have 
 no difficulty in finding for her in the company of his brother 
 and sister. " Some of the wagons are going down now. 
 You are of no use here, and you had as well take the lady 
 down at once. Make her as comfortable as you can in one 
 of the wagons. The ride is only a short one ; and perhaps 
 you may be able to find a berth for her on board one of the 
 boats at the Landing. Stay, Crawford, a despatch-boat will 
 be going down to Monroe in the morning. You are a faith- 
 ful fellow and a good soldier. I will see to it, in the morn- 
 ing, that you have a furlough for a month. I think we shall 
 do nothing more for a month, and you may need that time to 
 get a new arm. Take Miss Hobart at once to New York, 
 and place her with your sister. That is all — now look for a 
 place in one of the wagons. Good night — I will see about 
 the rest before the boat leaves." 
 
 Crawford's warm "God bless you, Colonel!" was more 
 softly, but not less earnestly echoed by the "I thank you, sir, 
 very much. You are very good and kind !" of the young 
 girl ; and the two left the tent to follow out the directions of 
 the officer. Bob Webster, unwounded, was already with his 
 companions, picking up what he could find left in the way of 
 rations, and telling over, for the sixth time already, the ad- 
 ventures of the night. 
 
 Not to linger upon what no longer needs particular descrip- 
 tion, let it be said in a word that Crawford succeeded in se- 
 curing transportation for the young girl and himself to Har- 
 rison's Landing ; that they reached that return terminus ot 
 the campaign against Richmond, a little after midnight ; that 
 a place was found on board one of the boats at the Landing, 
 for Miss Hobart, under the kind care of the colored chamber- 
 maid ; that Colonel Warren kept his promise and procured the 
 wounded Zouave, (whose arm had been examined by one of 
 the surgeons, and found to be badly torn and lacerated, though 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 297 
 
 none of the bones were broken), his furlough for a month " or 
 until recovered;" that they went down the next day on the 
 despatch boat to Fortress Monroe, whence General Wool at 
 once sent them onto Washington; and that on the evening 
 of the Fourth of July they reached the city of New York and 
 John Crawford had the pleasure of placing his sacred charge 
 under the protection of his brother, whom he found yet so 
 sadly an invalid,— and of his sister, who received her with a 
 warmer and more considerate kindness than he had ever be- 
 fore known her to exhibit towards any living object. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Judge Owen and his Domestic Discipline— Two Criminals 
 at the Bar, with a Special Edict following— A Row at 
 Wallack's, and one more Recognition. 
 
 It has again been unavoidable, in following the fortunes of 
 other characters connected with this narration, to lose sio-ht of 
 those who have prominently figured in the mansion of Jndse 
 Owen-the Judge himself, his wife, his daughter Emily, Aunt 
 Martha, and the two lovers who fought over that very pretty 
 little bone as if they had been dogs and she a tit-bit of very 
 different description. But it is one of the first principles of 
 conduc ting the successful march of an army, that no stragglers 
 should be allowed to lag too far behind, lest a sudden onslaught 
 upon them might cause a panic extending to all the other por- 
 tions of the force. Let the Judge and his family, then be 
 kept up as nearly as possible to the march of the main body 
 and especially let not pretty Emily Owen and her mischievous 
 K-mer-lover be lost from the ranks by any contingency. ' 
 Aunt Martha saw farther into futurity than her niece, when 
 sh decided that the row between Frank Wallace and Colon,! 
 John Boadley Bancker, if it came to the Judge* ears, would 
 ¥ likely to make afiairs much worse instead of better; and 
 
298 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Emily and she had some serious conversation over the pros- 
 pect, that night of the street accident, after botb the rivals had 
 
 gone, — which did not tend to make the young girl go to her 
 white pillow with the most blissful of anticipations. The 
 younger lady thought it doubtful whether the matter need 
 come to the knowledge of her father at all, as she did not be- 
 lieve that the Colonel would so far bemean himself as to make 
 a complaint to the father of the young girl he was pursuing, of 
 the advantages which another suitor might possess over him in 
 the mind of the girl herself. Aunt Martha, who had seen some- 
 what more than her niece of the world and its meanness, did 
 not consider the Colonel too proud to take such a course, if 
 he, believed himself likely to gain by it; and besides — she re- 
 membered, what her niece did not, that they wen.' by no means 
 alone in the house when the little a Hair occurred. Servants 
 — those important personages, who in modern days keep the 
 houses and permit their masters and mistresses, on the pay- 
 ment of a round sum per week, to live in the house with them 
 ■ — those ubiquitous personages, who seem to have the faculty 
 of being precisely where they are not wanted, when any fa- 
 mily trouble is to be ventilated, — servants were in the house 
 at the time, and there was no guaranty whatever that they 
 had not been sufficiently near to hear every awkward word 
 that had been spoken. 
 
 The good Aunt felt that she had the more cause to be 
 apprehensive in the latter direction, from some observations 
 that she had accidentally made a few weeks before. Xot 
 long after the coming into the house of Miss Hetty, cook 
 and kitchen girl, (she is certainly entitled to the prefix of 
 " Miss," at least once, from the fact of her holding her head 
 a little higher than any member of the family) a little after 
 her advent, we say, Aunt Martha happened one evening to 
 pass through the lower hall, in list slippers, and accidentally 
 became aware that two persons were talking in a very low 
 tone, just within the door of the dining-room. Perhaps it 
 may have been accidentally, but possibly on purpose, that 
 she took one glance through the crack of the door, her- 
 self unobserved, and noticed that the talkers were Judge 
 Owen and Hettv. The tone was certainlv confidential, and 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 299 
 
 the two stood very near together. Had Mrs. Martha West 
 not been aware of certain points in her brother's character 
 which would make a criminal flirtation with a servant-girl in 
 his own house impossible, she might have drawn the con- 
 clusion that some impropriety of that kind was on foot. As 
 it was, she became satisfied that some of her previous sus- 
 picions were correct, and that Judge Owen, who habitually 
 went to the intelligence-offices and selected the servants when 
 any change became necessary, was capable of the ineffable 
 meanness of bribing his domestics to play the spy on his own 
 household and detail all the occurrences to him ! Where the 
 estimable man had picked up that particular meanness, she 
 had no idea, nor is this a place in which to hazard a sug- 
 gestion. If it was so, it might be suggested that the practice 
 of hearing and allowing weight to spy testimony, caught 
 through key-holes and the cracks of doors, or picked up by 
 lounging at people's elbows on sidewalks and in bar-rooms, 
 had possibly some connection with the application of the 
 same system to his own household. 
 
 Perhaps there may be persons upright and straight-forward 
 enough themselves, and unsuspicious enough of the vices and 
 meannesses of others, to doubt whether such things as those 
 just hinted at, exist in the great city. To such it might not 
 be amiss to say, that there are operations of this character, 
 in what is called " respectable society," so much worse than 
 the. mere procured espionage of servants, that they make that 
 atrocity almost endurable. Fancy the husband of a second 
 wife keeping his eldest daughter by a former marriage, her- 
 self a married woman, in the same house with his wife, with 
 orders to keep that wife constantly in view, to watch her 
 when she receives company, dog her when she goes out, and 
 dole out to her the necessaries for the family from closets, 
 chests and cupboards of which she [the daughter] keeps the 
 keys ! Fancy these things, and the wife submitting to them, 
 perforce ! And then understand, what is the humiliating 
 truth, that the lady subjected to these practices is a most 
 beautiful and accomplished favorite, delighting thousands by 
 her public appearances, envied by all, and supposed to be 
 rolling in wealth and revelling in comfort ! 
 10 
 
300 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Not long ago there was a ston- going the rounds of the 
 press, of some spicy sporting operations in England, in which 
 one trainer and jockey threw one of his creatures, in the dis- 
 guise of a stable-boy, into the stables of another, to watch the 
 appearance and action of his horses, to overhear what he 
 could of the conversation of the trainer, to discover for what 
 cups and matches they were abojut to be entered, and to make 
 weekly reports to him, through letters pretendedly add; 
 to the boy's "mother," so that he could take advantage of 
 the knowledge so unfairly attained, in making up his betting- 
 book. By a mere accident the trainer discovered what kind 
 of an emissary of the enemy was quartered in his stables, 
 and instead of kicking him out he merely gave him plenty to 
 report. He managed to have the boy overhear all sorts of 
 manufactured conversations, rode his horses unfairly on the 
 training-course, stuffed him with false reports of the matches 
 for which they were entered, and, in short, gave him such 
 budgets to send home to his master, that the latter grew 
 completely mystified, bet on the losing chances instead of the 
 winning ones, and lost about twenty thousand pounds, which 
 went into the pocket of the intended victim. The story is a 
 good one, and for the honor of humanity ought to be true. 
 
 Not many years ago a jealous old husband in this city, who 
 had fallen into the misfortune of a young and handsome wife, 
 grew jealous of her without the least cause, and descended 
 to the execrable meanness of putting one of the chamber-maids 
 under pay to play the detective and report to him what let- 
 ters her mistress received and all the "goings on" in the 
 house. Biddy was not quite keen enough for her new po- 
 sition, and the bright eyes of the young wife were not long in 
 discovering that she was watched and dogged ! AVhat did 
 the outraged wife ? Send the vixen packing, bag and bag- 
 gage, with a boxed ear for a parting present, as she might 
 have done with all propriety ? Not at all — she retained her 
 and kept her own discovery a secret, merely adopting the 
 same plan as our friend the trainer, and giving her something 
 to tell. The wife fortunately had half a dozen male cousins, 
 living at a distance, and as many female friends, living near. 
 Between these two corps of assistants she managed to receive 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 301 
 
 such letters, accidentally dropped for the- servant-girl to finger, 
 and received such clandestine visits when her husband was 
 absent and at suspicious hours, as left no doubt whatever in 
 the mind of a reasonable man like the husband, that she must 
 be terribly false to her marital vows. The catastrophe of all 
 this need not be given : it was final enough, in all conscience, 
 and sent the husband down town one day with a dim con- 
 sciousness that he had made himself the greatest fool since 
 Adam, and that an early burial would not be so great a ca- 
 lamity after all ! 
 
 Unfortunately Judge Owen, of this writing, had no such 
 sharp-witted and reckless opponent, and his meanness was 
 left to work itself out in a natural manner. Aunt Martha's 
 apprehensions were not idle, as was proved very soon after. 
 The Judge and his wife returned from their little trip up the 
 Hudson, on the second day after their departure ; and within 
 three hours after their arrival, before the Judge had been ab- 
 sent from the house a moment and before Colonel Boadley 
 Bancker could by any means have managed to see him, the 
 storm of paternal wrath and indignation burst on the devoted 
 heads for which it was intended. 
 
 The gas had just been lighted on the floor below, and Aunt 
 Martha and Emily were seated enjoying the summer twilight 
 in the front-room of the latter, up-stairs, when the stentorian 
 voice of the Judge was heard bawling from the hall : 
 
 " Martha — Emily — come down here a moment !" 
 
 11 There it is ! there is trouble ahead ! I knew it !" said 
 Aunt Martha. 
 
 " He cannot have heard anything about it, yet," said the 
 niece. 
 
 "He has, I am sure of it!" answered the Aunt. "We 
 may as well go down and take the thunder-storm, at once, as 
 have it hanging over us for a month." 
 
 " Oh, Aunt, I cannot endure to have Papa scold, when he is 
 in one of his terrible humors," said the frightened girl. " I 
 have done nothing, that I know of; but you don't know what 
 rough words he says to me sometimes, and I have been almost 
 afraid that he would strike me with that heavy hand ! I be- 
 lieve I should die if he did." 
 
302 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 " Xo, child, you would not die, I think," said the more 
 practical Aunt, "but something might occur for which your 
 father would one day be quite as sorry — your last particle of 
 love and respect for him might die, and that would be sadder 
 than the death of many bodies. But come, Emily ; we shall 
 be called again in a moment." 
 
 Aunt and niece descended the stairs to the parlor, the latter 
 trembling like a leaf in the wind and the former in a strange 
 flutter that was part trepidation and part indignation. They 
 found affairs in the parlor in a very promising condition, as 
 the aunt had suspected. Judge Owen was too angry to sit 
 in his large chair, as he would have liked to do, and receive 
 the culprits with judicial dignity. He was walking the floor, 
 with his hands behind his back and every indication of very 
 stormy weather on his countenance. He looked bigger and 
 more burly than ever, and less than ever like what the brother 
 and father should have been, to the two who entered. Mrs. 
 Owen sat in a rocking-chair, swaying backward and forward, 
 with her hand to her eyes and very much the appearance of a 
 whipped child who had been set down in that chair with orders 
 to be " good." It was not supposable that the Judge had been 
 whipping her, physically ; but he had unquestionably been 
 " getting his hand in" for the exercise that was to come, by 
 reading her a severe lecture upon everything that she had 
 done and everything she had not done, since the day they 
 were married. 
 
 " So then !" he broke out, the moment the culprits appeared 
 in view. " This is the kind of order you keep in my house — 
 my house !" and he emphasized the possessive pronoun so se- 
 verely that the poor little word must have had a hard time of 
 it among his strong front teeth. 
 
 Emily, as yet, replied nothing. But Aunt Martha said : 
 
 " Well really, brother, I do not see that the house is in very 
 bad order ! Perhaps that rocker is a little out of place, and 
 the etagere — " 
 
 "D — n it, woman, I am not talking of the furniture, and 
 you know it !" thundered the Judge. 
 
 " William Owen !" said Aunt Martha, who had not gone 
 through fifty or a hundred such conflicts without deriving 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 803 
 
 6ome controversial profit from them — " I do not choose to be 
 sworn at, in your house or the house of any other man. If 
 you were a gentleman, you would not be guilty of the out- 
 rage." 
 
 Emily trembled. Here was Jupiter plucked by the beard, 
 and called hard names to his face, by one of the mere under- 
 lings of his dominions ! William Owen not a gentleman ! 
 Judge Owen not a gentleman ! Could human presumption 
 go farther ? What would be the end of this ? 
 
 " I will swear as I like, and when I like !" said the Judge, 
 after a pause of an instant. But he did not swear again im- 
 mediately , and not at all again at his sister, during the whole 
 interview, it was noticeable. Brutality is not best met by 
 brutality ; but it is a mistake to suppose that it is best met 
 by abject submission. What it needs, as its master and cor- 
 rective, is dignified firmness. 
 
 " So this is the way, is it," the Judge went on. " The moment 
 my back is turned, my house is full of low characters, and 
 quarrelling and fighting become the order of the day." 
 
 " When did all this occur ?" asked Aunt Martha, innocently. 
 
 " The very evening I left !" thundered the Judge. 
 
 " And how have you found it all out, so soon ?" queried his 
 sister, looking him very calmly in the eyes. 
 
 It may be a libel, for which an action would lie, to say that 
 Judge Owen blushed at this home-thrust. He certainly red- 
 dened, but that may have been with anger — not shame. 
 
 " How do I know it ? What business is that of yours, 
 woman ? It is enough to say that I do know it, and that I 
 will break all that sort of thing up, or I will break half a 
 dozen heads !" This was a favorite simile of the Judge's, 
 because it brought in the word " break" twice, in such an 
 effective manner. " Well, Miss Emily Owen, what have you 
 to say to all this ?" It may be libel, again, to say that the 
 Judge was sheering off his vessel from a battery that worried 
 him, to engage one that seemed comparatively helpless ; but 
 really the whole thing bore that appearance. 
 
 " I, father ? I have nothing to say," returned the daughter, 
 " and for that reason I have not said anything. " 
 
 "You do not deny, then," thundered the Judge, his voice 
 
304 SHOULDER-STRAPS 
 
 rising higher because he had a younger, lower-voiced and less 
 formidable antagonist, " that on the very night I went away 
 there was low company in this house, and that — " 
 
 Perhaps Emily Owen had never presumed to interrupt her 
 father half a dozen times during her life, but we have before 
 seen that she could do so, even wickedly, when fully aroused, 
 and the temptation to do so in the present instance was over- 
 powering. Besides, she had just caught a lesson from her 
 aunt, in the " womanly art of self-defence," the muscular de- 
 velopment for which lies in the tongue. 
 
 " Do you call Colonel J3anekcr low company, father?" 
 
 " Colonel Baucker ? No, girl ! Colonel Bancker is a gen- 
 tleman and a soldier," replied the Judge. "I am speaking of 
 that low, contemptible scoundrel, Wallace." 
 
 "And he has been in the habit of coming here with your 
 consent, papa," answered the daughter, "and so I do not 
 know how we were to blame for receiving the visits of people 
 when you were gone, whom you were in the habit of receiving 
 when you were at home." 
 
 "Hush, child! Hush, Emily!" Mrs. Owen felt it neces- 
 sary to say at this moment. She had not before spoken a 
 word, but she may have felt that that incarnation of reason 
 and dignity, her husband, was "taking damage " at the hands 
 of very ordinary mortals. " Hush, child — do not bandy words 
 with your father." 
 
 " No, miss, do not bandy words with me/" roared the Judge, 
 put exactly upon the right track, from which he had before 
 strayed a little, by the words of his wife. " / am .master in 
 this house, as I mean to let you know !" Humble Judge ! — 
 he had let them know it, long before, quite as much as lay in 
 his power. " I will not allow myself to be run over in this 
 manner, any longer !" Ponderous and self-sacrificing Judge ! 
 — apart from the fact that no one in that house had ever tried 
 the experiment, what a vehicle it would have been that could 
 "run over" that man without danger from the encounter! 
 And now gathering strength and force as well as anger, as he 
 rolled down the mountain of denunciation, he went on: "I 
 have called you down, both of you, and you especially, Emily, 
 to make a final settlement with you ! I have told you before 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 305 
 
 that you should marry Colonel John Boadley Bancker, and T 
 need not tell you again, for by G — you shall! And now I 
 tell you something more. If you ever permit that d — d low- 
 lived, miserable, contemptible puppy, whom you call Frank 
 Wallace, to cross the door-step of this house again, I will 
 break every bone in his infernal carcase ; and when he goes 
 into the street, you go with him ! Do you hear ?" 
 
 " Yes, father, I hear," said his daughter. 
 
 H Yes, we both hear, as I suppose you intended it for both 
 of us," said his sister. 
 
 "I intended it for everybody /" roared the Judge. " Xow 
 let us see whether you obey or not i Come, Mrs. Owen, is 
 supper ready ?" 
 
 Probably the Judge supposed that he had supplied both 
 the others with quite as much supper as they needed, as he did 
 not extend the invitation to either. He certainly had done 
 so : they were both " full," in one sense of the word if not in 
 the other. His daughter was " full " of trouble and anxiety ; 
 and Aunt Martha was "full" of a more dangerous feeling — 
 outraged pride and indignation. 
 
 "Poor Frank! — he cannot come to the house any more !" 
 said the young girl, when they had left the parlor. " What 
 shall I do ? Aunt — Aunt — don't scold me, but I love him. 
 That is the truth ; and don't you scold me, but help me if you 
 can." 
 
 ," Until this hour, Emily," said the aunt, gravely, and taking 
 the hand of her niece kindly in her own, " I had simply been 
 determined that you should not be forced into a marriage with 
 Colonel Bancker, if I could prevent it. Within this half hour 
 I have made up my mind to go farther. I know that you 
 love Frank Wallace ; I believe him to be a good man, and I 
 know him to be a brave one ; and now } r ou shall marry him, 
 if any aid / can offer will help you to that end !" 
 
 " Aunt ! Aunt ! dear, good, kind Aunt !" cried the young 
 girl, throwing herself into the widow's arms and giving her 
 such a hug and such a storm of kisses as would have made 
 Frank Wallace whistle " Hail Columbia " and " Abraham's 
 Daughter " for forty-eight hours in succession. 
 
 Such was the radical effect, towards carrying out his de- 
 
606 S H O U L DE K - S T K A P S. 
 
 termination in regard to each of the two rivals, produced by 
 Judge Owen's ultimatum. He was not the first man, and he 
 probably will not be the last, to pour the drop too much into 
 the bucket of endurance and add that last feather to the load 
 which weighs down the camel of patience. Something more 
 of the "effect" will be seen in this immediate connection. 
 
 Judge Owen had occasion to attend a political caucus, at 
 one of the down-town hotels, early in the evening of the 
 second day from that on which the collision with his sister 
 and daughter had occurred ; and he consequently did not go 
 home to dinner when his court adjourned. He dined at the 
 hotel where the caucus took place, and afterwards strolled up 
 Broadway, airing his portly figure, and intending to take the 
 Third-Avenue cars at Astor Place or Fourteenth Street. 
 When he came opposite "Wallaek's Theatre, at about nine 
 o'clock, the lights shone brightly before the door, the placards 
 announcing the "Returned Volunteer " and " Mischievous 
 Annie" looked tempting, and as Judge Owen had an eye for 
 the drama and was officially marked " D. H." on the book at 
 the gate, he concluded to see the balance of the performance. 
 
 He passed in. Florence was just indulging in that terrible 
 war-dance of jealousy which follows the supposed discovery 
 of the fact that the wife of Bill Williams has taken up with 
 a Picaninny, and the laughter and applause were uproarious. 
 The Judge found some acquaintances in the lobby, and chat- 
 ted with them while he watched the piece and while waiting 
 for the next. 
 
 Finally another friend, a family acquaintance, came up the 
 aisle, from the orchestra-seats, probably on his way to those 
 pleasant lower regions in which refreshment to the inner man 
 is dispensed. As he shook hands with the Judge, he said : 
 
 " Ah, Judge, I did not know that you were here. I saw 
 your daughter, just now, clown in the orchestra, but I am 
 sure she did not come in with you." 
 
 11 My daughter !" said the Judge, surprised, " I think you 
 must be mistaken. " Mrs. Owen did not speak of coming to 
 the theatre this evening." 
 
 " Oh," said the acquaintance, " Mrs. Owen is not here. I 
 should have seen her if she had been. Your daughter came 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 307 
 
 in with a young man, and they are sitting together down 
 there in the second row frqm the front," 
 
 " You do not know the young man ?" asked the Judge, on 
 whom the compound noun for some cause produced an un- 
 pleasant effect. 
 
 " Xo," answered the acquaintance, " I do not know him. 
 He is a rather good-looking young fellow, short, with brown 
 curly hair, and a moustache, and dressed in light-gray. No 
 doubt you know him by the description." 
 
 Judge Owen did know him by the description, but too 
 well ! That short good-looking young man with the curly 
 hair, the moustache and the light-gray clothes, was as cer- 
 tainly the man he had forbidden his house and the company 
 of his daughter, as his own name was Owen and his dignity 
 a judicial one ! 
 
 Here was an outrage ! — witness it ye fathers whose daugh- 
 ters do not always obey your high behests. Here was a call 
 for the exercise of the highest qualities of authority ! — bear 
 witness to that, all you good people who have at one time or 
 another dragged your wives out of churches because you did 
 not like the ritual, or who have dragged them into churches 
 because suitors armed with money-bags or aristocratic names 
 or political influence, stood within and beckoned ! Here was 
 a necessity for proving what Judge Owen had only a day or 
 two before so loudly asserted — his ascendency in his own 
 household. Here was an opportunity to show to the public 
 that Judge Owen, arbiter of the legal destinies of his fellow- 
 men when they did not range beyond a certain insignificant 
 number of dollars, was at once a Solon and a Draco in his 
 own domestic relations. Great men will develope them- 
 selves at some period or other in their lives, however they 
 may previously have been kept back by adverse circum- 
 stances ; and Judge Owen had never yet enjoyed the op- 
 portunity of showing half his mighty energies. Armed with 
 the double power of a parent and the law, he felt that he 
 could combat anything — even a young and delicate woman : 
 gifted with a rigid sense of right which rose above all per- 
 sonal considerations, he felt that to that right he could sacri- 
 
308 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 fice anything — even the privacy and sanctity of his domestie 
 relations. 
 
 The great men of old had done something in that way : 
 Brutus had laid his son, without a tear or a groan, on the 
 altar of his country; Yirginius had slain his daughter when 
 her perilled honor demanded that violent deed ; and only 
 half a century before his own time, Xapoleon had given up a 
 beloved Empress and married a royal nobody, for the sake of 
 preserving the dynasty that his people so demanded. It only 
 remained for William Owen, Judge, to emulate those great 
 examples and drag his daughter out of the theatre ! 
 
 It may have been that Judge Owen did not think of quite 
 all those great examples, as he walked broadly and pompously 
 down the aisle, disturbing the audience just when the curtain 
 was rising on the second piece ; but he certainly bore himsell 
 as if he remembered all of them and a few hundreds more. 
 Anxious spectators looked at him as he came down, specu- 
 lating painfully whether he was likely to take his seat in front 
 of them, and calculating what would be their chances of see- 
 ing in that event. But the Judge was not going to sit down 
 — no ! At the gate he encountered a momentary obstruction, 
 in the shape of the usher who booked after the orchestra 
 tickets ; but he swept him away as a spring freshet might 
 carry away a bundle of obstructing sedge, by a majestic wave 
 of the hand and the information that he was merely going 
 down there for a moment on business. 
 
 Then he strode on down the aisle, unobserved as yet by 
 the lovers, who sat in the seat next the front and within three 
 or four places of the end of the row, enjoying the dramatic 
 entertainment and each others' company about equally. Per- 
 haps they sat a very little closer together than they might 
 have done had there been no parental objection in the way ; 
 and under the folds of Emily's dark mantilla, which lay upon 
 her lap, there may have been two hands clasped together. 
 Let the young and the loving, whose province it is to make 
 such follies half the material of their lives, decide whether 
 affairs were likely to be exactly in the shape suggested, — as 
 also, whether at any time during the evening, when it had 
 become necessarv for Frank Wallace to make a remark to 
 
HOULDKR-STRAPS. 309 
 
 his companion, he had or had not leaned down his lips so 
 close to her ear as almost to kiss its pink pendant. 
 
 The first intimation had by the absorbed lovers that the 
 paternal bomb was bursting in the neighborhood, was con- 
 veyed by the Judge halting at the end of their row, leaning 
 over the two or three people between, without any apology, 
 stretching out his arm, and saying in his loud, coarse voice : 
 
 " Miss Emily Owen, you are wanted at home." 
 
 The blood flew to the face of the young girl in an instant, 
 though it was the blood of anxiety and not of shame, and 
 she asked : 
 
 " Is any one ill — hurt ? — My mother — " 
 
 "Your mother is well, and there is no one sick at home," 
 said the Judge, determined that his lesson to his daughter 
 should not be balked by any one of the audience thinking 
 him less a brute than he was. "But I find you here in im- 
 proper company and against my orders ; and I command you 
 to leave that man and come home with me instantly." 
 
 Decided sensation in the orchestra-seats, and even on the 
 stage, where Mrs. Florence paused in the middle of one of 
 her most effective Yankeeisms, to know what caused the in- 
 terruption. Sensation in a good many fingers, that they 
 would like to be applied violently to the ears of the man 
 who could speak in that manner to so sweet-looking a girl, 
 no matter under what provocation. A few hisses and cries 
 of " Hush-h-h !" " Hush-h-h !" Poor Emily had sunk back in 
 her chair, the moment her anxioty was relieved by mortifica- 
 tion, merely saying in a pleading voice, as if to disarm her 
 tyrant : 
 
 " Oh, father !" 
 
 Frank Wallace, meanwhile, had sprung to his feet, the mo- 
 ment the opprobrious epithet was applied to him; and though 
 he distinctly saw that the intruder was the puissant Judge 
 Owen, Emily's father, and large enough, physically, to eat 
 him for lunch — he was on the point of springing across the 
 intervening space and giving him a taste of his gymnastic 
 quality. This would have been terribly improper, no doubt, 
 towards a man much older than himself, and the father of the 
 girl he yet hoped one day to make his wife ; but the specta- 
 
310 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 tors, had he done so, and could they have known all the facts 
 of the case, would have been much more likely to forgive him 
 than the miserable hound (now a miserable secessionist — thank 
 Heaven for his choice !) who bore a military title to his name, 
 a few years ago, and sat still in one of the theatres of this city, 
 without daring to lift a hand in opposition, while the just- 
 married wife by his side was brutally caned by her millionaire 
 father for daring to marry him! High temper may be dan- 
 gerous, and the rough hand something to be avoided and re- 
 probated ; but there is something worse in the extreme oppo- 
 site, and humanity worse sickens at the sight of an abject 
 poltroon, than at any other worthless fungus that springs as 
 an excrescence from God's footstool. 
 
 All the saints be praised for these little women ! They 
 are, after all, the balance-wheels of life, and the whole ma- 
 chinery would run riot and go to destruction without them. 
 They bring us to ourselves, often, and so save us from our- 
 selves. When they advise peace and patience, they are gen- 
 erally right, for at such times violence is seldom politic. 
 Frank "Wallace would probably have carried out his violent 
 first intention, but for the hand of Emily which dropped upon 
 his arm almost before he had risen, and the soft voice which 
 spoke in his ear, very hurriedly : 
 
 " Don't, Frank, for my sake ! Let me go, and sit still. 
 You shall see me again in a day or two. Til pay Pa for this !" 
 
 Very much consoled by these words, and especially by the 
 last clause, Frank Wallace resumed his seat, merely indulging 
 in a remark which was heard by many around him, and which 
 may or may not have been heard by the person at whom it 
 was aimed: 
 
 11 Bah ! you big brute !" 
 
 A little suppressed clapping of hands in the neighborhood, 
 which the actors probably thought intended for themselves, 
 but which certainly was not. Meanwhile Emily Owen, drop- 
 ping her hand by some kind of unexplainable intuition to the 
 very spot where Frank's was lying, gave it a quick squeeze, 
 then stumbled gracefully over the legs of the persons sitting 
 between her and the aisle, and followed her father. As she 
 passed two or three steps uo the aisle, the Judge leading 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 311 
 
 pompously, and the gate-keeper calculating the chances of 
 being able to crush him by accidentally letting the iron gate 
 slam to against his legs, — she encountered a recognition that 
 was almost an adventure. A young girl who sat in the next 
 to the end seat of the back-row of the orchestra, leaned over 
 the gentleman outside and caught her hand, saying : 
 
 " Emily Owen — I know it is ! Do you not remember me ?" 
 
 " Josephine Harris ! How glad I am to see you !" was the 
 reply of Emily, the moment her eyes fairly took in the face 
 and figure before her. 
 
 " I could not see your face before, and did not know that 
 you were here. How long it is since I saw you ! — ever since 
 I left Rutgers, and you were still hammering away there !" said 
 Josephine Harris, who was indeed the other, having come 
 down to Wallack's with a party of friends, for the evening, 
 and who had not before had a chance to recognize her old 
 friend and school-fellow at the Rutgers Institute. 
 
 " Come and see me. Papa is in a hurry, and I cannot 
 wait," said Emily, doubtful whether her friend had or had not 
 observed the preceding movements. " I have not time for a 
 card — look in the Directory and send me yours. Good 
 night I" and in a moment she was gone, following the Judge 
 to that mental slaughter involved in riding home with him in 
 his present mood, and leaving the performance to pass on 
 again as if no interruption had occurred. 
 
 As may be supposed, Frank Wallace was something of an 
 "object of interest" for the small remainder of the evening; 
 but he had no acquaintances in the neighborhood, and not 
 much remark was ventured. One man behind him, indeed, 
 leaned over and said : " Lost your girl, eh ?" but Frank's 
 " Ya-a-s !" was so broad and discouraging for any further 
 questions, that the inquiry was not pursued. Most men, un- 
 der similar circumstances, would have left the theatre at 
 once, to avoid observation and to hide annoyance : he did 
 not, and he may have acted wisely or unwisely in that course 
 of conduct. 
 
 Josephine Harris had observed the preceding movements 
 on the part of Judge Owen, and it was through recognition 
 of his figure that she looked after and recognized Emily. 
 
312 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Had the latter been left quietly sitting beside her lover, her 
 schoolmate would probably not have seen her face, they 
 would have left the theatre without recognition of each other, 
 and Judge Owen's house might have escaped a very early 
 visit destined to work important changes in the relations of 
 residents and visitors. The puissant and pompous Judge 
 had effected two coups d'etat within as many days. The one 
 had driven Aunt Martha fairly over into the ranks of the 
 enemy : had the second introduced Joe Harris, an electric 
 wire full charged with destruction, into the immediate vi- 
 cinity of his domestic magazine ? 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Another Scene at the Crawforps' — Joe Harris play- 
 ing the Detective, with Musical Accompaniments — 
 A Strange Conversation, and a Strange Visit to a 
 Strange Doctor. 
 
 Some chapters back in this narration, we saw Colonel Eg- 
 bert Crawford playing volunteer physician to his invalid 
 cousin Richard, and applying a certain bandage more or less 
 suspicious in its character, while Josephine Harris held a 
 very ambiguous position behind the parlor-door and drew 
 certain deductions not complimentary to the character or in- 
 tentions of the gallant Colonel. To take up the dropped 
 thread of relation at that point — the Colonel left in a few 
 moments afterwards, and Joe, from her position in the room 
 up-stairs, watched his departure. By that time, the fearful 
 agitation which had at first oppressed her, had somewhat 
 moderated, and she was much more capable than before of 
 thinking with clearness and acting with decision. " A perfect 
 little fool" in many of her first confidences (as some of her 
 friends paid her the doubtful compliment of calling her), Jo- 
 sephine Harris had vet a vein of distrust in her character, 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 313 
 
 not difficult to touch ; and when that vein was touched there 
 was not "poppy or mandragora" enough in the world to 
 lull to sleep be* suspicions, until they were either proved 
 true or fairly exploded. 
 
 Frank and generous natures will sometimes discern more 
 clearly than subtle and designing ones, just as the naked eye 
 will sometimes take in particulars in any scene more readily 
 than when assisted by the glass. The power of discernment 
 may be aided, in some degree, by the fact that they are not 
 guarded against as some are because they bear the look or 
 reputation of being dangerous. Many a man has taken off 
 the outer garb of his soul and gone in his mental shirt- 
 sleeves (so to speak) from the impression on his mind that he 
 was in the company of the confiding and the unobservant ; 
 and many a bad man has found detection and ruin in the 
 experiment. 
 
 Josephine Harris had seen something in the eyes of Colonel 
 Egbert Crawford, when directed towards his invalid cousin, 
 which said : " I hate you, and I would put you out of the 
 way if I could !" She had remarked the terrible agitation 
 of Richard Crawford when she made her random observation 
 to that effect. Now she had overheard enough to put her in 
 possession of the conflict of interests ; and she had at the 
 same time witnessed the application to the body of the in- 
 valid, of a preparation that was expressly ordered to be kept 
 from the knowledge of the physician. Taking all these 
 things together, and jumping at a conclusion with a rash 
 haste which such people will sometimes exhibit — away down 
 in the depths of her mind she whispered the word "poison/" 
 She might never have thought of the existence of an out- 
 ward poison dangerous to human life, but she had read Mrs. 
 Ann S. Stephens' touching story of "The Pillow of Roses," 
 and remembered how the life of the first lover of Mary Stuart 
 had been sacrificed by the introduction of a deadly bane into 
 the silken pillow — the very gift of love on which he so confid- 
 ingly laid his head. Might not this be something of the same 
 kind — a murderous practice unknown to the great body of peo- 
 ple, and yet in the knowledge of some peculiarly instructed ? 
 What more likely than that a lawyer whose line of business 
 
314 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 led him into the company of criminals and made him ac- 
 quainted with their secret confessions, should have arrived at 
 a knowledge so dangerous and resolved to apply it for his 
 own benefit and the removal of a rival ? 
 
 Such were the reflections of Josephine Harris, when her 
 blood had a little cooled down from the terrible fever of fright 
 and anxiety into which she "had been thrown at the first dis- 
 covery ; and how nearly right she was in the most important 
 particular — the fact of an attempted poisoning by outward 
 application — all will recognize who remember the interview 
 between the lawyer and the Obi woman of Thomas Street, 
 with the dark paste which he brought away with him as the 
 result of that visit. 
 
 At all events, the young girl felt that she had seen enough 
 to remove any doubt of the propriety of making farther re- 
 searches, and to do away with any shame that she had origi- 
 nally felt in playing the part of a spy and listener. Ardent 
 natures like hers may possibly be blamed for adopting so 
 readily the maxim that "the end justifies the means," and for 
 plunging so determinedly into what cannot be considered their 
 own business ; but let those blame them who will, the good 
 they accomplish may well be made a set-off for any evil they 
 unwittingly cause ; and the parable of the man who " fell among 
 thieves," and the heartless wretches who "passed by on the 
 other side," should make us a little slow in blaming the " good 
 Samaritans " who work so enthusiastically even if uninvited 
 and unskilfully. 
 
 The plain English of all which is, that Josephine Harris 
 had determined to fathom the whole of the mystery lying be- 
 tween Richard Crawford and his cousin, no matter what de- 
 ceptions she might be called upon to pursue in carrying out 
 her plan, or what amount of time and trouble might be neces- 
 sary for that purpose. She might have applied the rules of 
 Egbert Crawford's own profession to him, in expressing this 
 determination, and said that enough had been proved against 
 the suspected person, to put him on his trial before a fair and 
 impartial jury — that jury being herself in the first instance. 
 Herself and herself only. For once Joe Harris determined to 
 suppress her propensity for talking everywhere and to every- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 315 
 
 body, and to admit no confidant whatever into a knowledge 
 of her suspicions. What else she intended to do, will in due 
 time develop itself in action. 
 
 As a first step, she smoothed down her face with her hands, 
 under some kind of impression that she could in that way re- 
 move the redness from her cheeks and the startled look from 
 her eyes. Then she ran into Bell's chamber, assuming all the 
 nonchalance she could pick up on the way, to ascertain whether 
 that young lady was likely to remain away from the parlor 
 for a brief period longer. She found her very busy among 
 a miscellaneous heap of dresses and millinery (this was before 
 the visit to the sorceress, which gave her something else to 
 think about — let it be remembered,) and in that occupation 
 she was safe to remain for an indefinite period. No visitors 
 coming in, then, she was likely to have the field below-stairs 
 to herself for a short time at least, and that time must be used 
 vigorously. 
 
 She ran lightly down -stairs and into the empty parlor. 
 There was no sound whatever coming out of the little room 
 of the invalid — he was no doubt still alone. With the same 
 care which she had before taken, she stepped to the glass 
 doors, slid them apart as before, and looked through. Richard 
 Crawford was yet lying on the sofa, and he was buttoning up 
 his vest. A very simple and natural movement, and one not 
 at all noticeable under ordinary circumstances ; but to Jo- 
 sephine Harris, at that moment, it seemed very significant. 
 There wan poison ; that poison lay in the bandage ; he had 
 suspected his cousin, allowed him to change and replace that 
 bandage, and the moment he believed himself alone and un- 
 observed, had taken it off! To say that Joe Harris's eyes 
 sparkled at this proof of her suspicions, would be quite 
 insufficient — they flashed, danced and radiated with delight, 
 in such a manner as made it ven" fortunate for the peace 
 of mind of the whole male sex that she happened to be 
 alone. 
 
 Kiehard Crawford had taken off that bandage, and that 
 
 bandage must come into her possession at once, while the 
 
 preparation was fresh. lint how was it to be obtained ? 
 
 "Where had he put it ? From the fact that he had been 
 
 20 
 
316 SHOl'LDEK-STKAPS. 
 
 re-arranging his clothes while yet in a recumbent position, 
 
 the chances seemed to be that he had taken off the bandage, 
 if at all, without getting up, and that he then had it some- 
 where about him, intending to lock it up or put it away 
 when he rose to go to the bed-room. lie was wry neat in 
 his personal habits, as well as somewhat nervous in disposi- 
 tion ; and on the score of cleanliness he was not likely to 
 have put it into one of his pockets, while if he indeed felt it 
 to be poison he would have been quite as unlikely to retain it 
 so near his person. Joe felt that if removed, that bandage 
 must be somewhere about the sofa. How to get it, even 
 then ? He would not be at all likely to go to bed, leaving it 
 there ; besides, she wanted it at once ! He must be got sud- 
 denly out of the room, and he was too weak and suffering to 
 remove often or on small provocation. The piano ! — ah, yes, 
 she would try the piano ! 
 
 Joe's musical performances were always pyrotechnic ; ex- 
 cept on particular occasions when the sad soul that underlay 
 the merriment came uppermost, and then they were mournful 
 enough to tempt suicide. To say that she knew nothing 
 about music, would be untrue of any one taught at the same 
 trouble and expense ; but to say that she understood it, taking 
 the knowledge of other people as a standard, would be equally 
 incorrect. When studying music under an excellent teacher, 
 it had been found impossible to confine her to any set rules, 
 and quite as impossible to make her execute her lessons prop- 
 erly. When she should have been performing that routine 
 duty, her eolian piano at home was half the time turned into 
 a banjo or a harp, tinkling a serenade, or into an organ, play- 
 ing some ponderous old anthem or sobbing out some dirge 
 of a broken heart. These were all well enough, in their way, 
 but they were not studying the piano. As a result, she 
 could produce all those effects upon the instrument, that no 
 one else would ever have thought of attempting ; the only 
 penalty being, that what any one else could have done, she 
 could not do at all. This did not suit some people, but it 
 suited Miss Joe, exactly ; and as she w T as pleased, perhaps 
 no one else had a right to complain. If any one did com- 
 plain he or she was likely to be at once treated to one of 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. ol7 
 
 the lugubrious compositions before mentioned, producing the 
 " dumps'' for a month after. 
 
 On this occasion Joe throw open the lid of the piano with 
 such dexterity as to tangle the cover inextricably with the lid, 
 set up the stool with a whirl, and dashed into the midst of a 
 composition that might have been conceived by a mad mu- 
 sician and wailed out on an instrument possessed, like Paga- 
 nini's fiddle, one night when the demons of the storm were 
 playing at hide-and-seek among the Ilartz Mountains of 
 Germany. It went from the top to the bottom of the scale, 
 in such moanings, and wailings, and sobbings, intermingled 
 with such fiendish dashes of exultation and laughter, that the 
 nerves of a strong man might have been thrown into perma- 
 nent disorder by it, while those of a sick one could not do 
 otherwise than suffer the most exquisite torture. 
 
 " I think that will do I" said Miss Joe to herself, pausing 
 for an instant and then going on again. She was right, for 
 at the next partial pause she heard the voice of Dick Craw- 
 ford, from the back-room, yelling out with more energy than 
 the man himself had before thought that he possessed : 
 
 V Sto-o-o-op !" 
 
 She did stop — ran to the sliding-doors and opened them at 
 onte, to find Crawford sitting upon the sofa, with his hands 
 to both ears. 
 
 "Eh? what's the matter, Dick ? Does the music disturb 
 you ?" she asked, as naturally as if she had not before been 
 aware of the fad. 
 
 " Disturb me ? It murders me — you know it does, you 
 torment !" was the reply of Crawford. 
 
 "I am so sorry," said Joe, with the least perceptible pout 
 on her lip. " I suppose that I must go home, then, and play." 
 
 " No," said Crawford, who had no idea of being guilty of 
 the ungallantry of driving a lady out of his house, especially 
 dear, delicious, tormenting Joe. " No, don't go home. But 
 if you must play, why not play something Christian and re- 
 spectable — something that a man can listen to without grit- 
 ting liis teeth and Btopping his ears more than half the time ?" 
 
 ''Well, that is complimentary!" sighed Josey. "Just 
 when I was doing the very best that I could ! Besides. I 
 
318 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 wasn't playing for you. You were not in tlio room, but stuck 
 away off there in a corner. I'll tell you what I will do, Mr. 
 Dick Crawford. Let me help you out here to a sofa in this 
 room — the air will not hurt you, but do you good, — and I 
 promise to play for you the very tunes you wish. If not — " 
 
 "Oh, you need not mention the alternative," said Craw- 
 ford, remembering the preceding performance and afraid of a 
 repetition. " Come here, give me your arm, and I will come 
 out for a few minutes." 
 
 "Bravo !" thought wild Joe, but she did not say it. Very 
 gently and tenderly she assisted the invalid from his sofa and 
 to a standing position, and then quite as tenderly through the 
 door and to the sofa that stood nearly opposite the piano. 
 Then she ran back and closed thediding-doors again, for fear, 
 as she said, that there might be too much draught of air on 
 the invalid. So far, so good ! Richard Crawford had been 
 coaxed out of his room and into the parlor that he scarcely 
 entered once a month. What next ? 
 
 "Play me a wreath of Scottish melodies," said Crawford, 
 with the feeling of the old blood coming up within him. 
 "And be sure that you throw in ' Roy's "Wife ' and 'Annie 
 Laurie.' Will you ? — That's a good girl ?" Dick spoke more 
 cheerfully than had been his late habit, and settled himself 
 to an easy position on the sofa with more the air of a man 
 ready to enjoy, than he had for some time manifested. 
 
 "Has there been an incubus suddenly lifted from his 
 breast ?" Joe Harris asked herself, noticing the change. 
 
 If there was anything that she really could play on the 
 piano, her forte lay in those very Scottish airs, which she 
 certainly rendered with exquisite feeling and with skill enough 
 for the moderate demands of that class of music. And on 
 this occasion she felt bound to exert herself, to repay the ob- 
 ligation of Crawford's coming out to hear her, though her 
 brain was all in a whirl for fear something might occur to 
 drive the patient back into his room, and her fingers, as they 
 touched the white keys, itched to be busying themselves about 
 the cushions of the invalid's sof'sr For a few moments, while 
 "Within a Mile of Edinboro' Town," "Roy's Wife," "Charlie 
 is My Darling," " Bonnie Doon" and half a dozen others of 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS 319 
 
 the Scottish wreath were dripping from her fingers, and 
 while Richard Crawford was enjoying his favorite music bet- 
 ter than he had before enjoyed anything for many a week, — 
 for this few moments Joe Harris was nonplussed. How should 
 she get out of the room ? Oh ! Suddenly she remembered 
 that there was some music on one of the tables up-stairs, and 
 she aeted upon that excuse for absence. 
 
 " Oh, Dick, please lie still a moment. There is a piece up- 
 stairs that I must bring down and play for you. I know you 
 will like it. One of Gottschalk's — ' Las Ojos Criollos.' " She 
 had caught sight of that composition lying at the top of the 
 heap of music near her, and without being observed by Craw- 
 ford she caught the sheet, rolled it up in her hand, and was 
 out of the room in a moment. 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! what a pity that that girl never can be still a 
 moment and do exactly what any one asks her to do !" was 
 the mental comment of that gentleman as her flying skirts 
 disappeared through the door. 
 
 Of course Josephine Harris did not go up stairs. She had 
 no real errand whatever in that direction. There was a door 
 opening from Richard's little bed-room, adjoining his study, 
 into the hall ; and her hope was to find that door unlocked. 
 If not, some other excuse must be made to get into his room, 
 to invent which she must play a few more tunes, and run a 
 little more risk of being interrupted. She stepped very lightly 
 to the door, with a repetition, of that cat-step which seemed 
 that day suddenly to have come to her. She turned the knob 
 — it teas unlocked — it opened. One dart through the other 
 door and to the sofa. The- cushion was a moveable one, as 
 she knew, and very likely to be made a temporary hiding-place 
 for any small article, by one lying upon it. She lifted the 
 edge of the cushion, her heart beating at trip-hammers again, 
 and her whole being almost as much excited as it had been 
 half an hour before. Human life is full of blunders, but hap- 
 piiy there are some movements that are not blunders; and this 
 was one of them. A small, round roll of linen, three or four 
 inches wide, was stuck a little distance under the edge. She 
 it out, hastily unrolled it until she saw that a dark 
 plaster lay in the middle, then, with a "Whew!" of triumph, 
 
320 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 quite as hastily rolled it up again and thrust it into her pocket. 
 Half a minute more, and she had softly ascended a dozen 
 steps of the stairs, and descended again with plenty of noise, 
 springing down with a decided bump on the landing. Then 
 she burst into the parlor with her piece of music, and sat down 
 once more to the piano. 
 
 "Excuse my running away, Dick. Haven't been long — 
 have I :-- 
 
 11 No, not very long," answered Crawford, whose impres- 
 sions of Joe's steadiness were not enthusiastic. "You know 
 I should not have been surprised if you had not come back 
 in a week." 
 
 " Fie ! fie ! Dick Crawford ! I have half a mind not to play 
 for you at all, after that insult." But she did attempt to play, 
 and to play "Las Ojos Criollos." If she ever could have 
 played that most brilliant and difficult of all Gottschalk's 
 pieces, which was very doubtful, she certainly was not capa- 
 ble of doing it when her fingers were in such a tremor, and 
 with the mysterious package in her pocket ; and though it may 
 be an un gallant and improper thing to say of a lady's perform- 
 ance, she "made a mess of it." 
 
 " Pshaw !" she said, as naturally as if really vexed. " That 
 piece is very difficult. I thought that I had mastered it, a 
 dozen times, yet here it is bothering me again. Never mind ! 
 — I know what I can play — something that you like, or if you 
 do not, you should !" And very much to Crawford's delight, 
 for she did not often sing, though she frequently hummed, — 
 she broke out with voice and instrument into that finest, though 
 worst-hackneyed, of modern lovexballads — "Ever of Thee." 
 There are unaccountable fancies, in music as well as in per- 
 sonal regard, and one piece will sometimes make itself the 
 very key-note of a human heart, without being in itself so 
 pre-eminently beautiful as to command that distinction. 
 Crawford had before many times heard Josephine Harris 
 humming that air, or touching it lightly on the keys of the 
 piano, but he had never before heard her sing it. Before half 
 of the first stanza was finished, he knew that it supplied to 
 her a need in music that all the compositions of all the great 
 masters would fail to fill ; and before she had finished the last> 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 321 
 
 he believed that some painful secret of her young life must be 
 bound up in it. He was the more painfully confirmed in that 
 belief, when he saw her rise from the piano the moment after 
 she had concluded the song, and dash her hand to her eyes 
 with the unmistakeable gesture of wiping away a tear. 
 
 11 Joe — dear Joe," he said, " come here a moment." 
 
 She crossed the room at once and stood beside him. He 
 held out his hand to her, and she took it as a sister might 
 have taken that of a dearly beloved brother. There was 
 nothing of heat or tremor in the touch, though there was 
 everything of kindness. Absorbed in something else, both 
 had for the moment forgotten the feeling before predomi- 
 nant — Crawford his sickness and crippled condition, and Joe 
 Harris her anxieties and her plans with reference to him. 
 
 " Josephine Harris," he said, very kindly, almost tenderly, 
 "■ answer me one question, as candidly as it is asked. Will 
 you ?" 
 
 "You could not ask me an improper question," she replied, 
 " and so I could have no reason for refusing to answer you. 
 I will." 
 
 " You have been singing ' Ever of Thee,' " he went on. 
 "■ Your whole heart was in it when you sung, and when you 
 stopped your voice was broken and your eyes were full of 
 tears. Tell me — is there a sad secret of your life connected 
 with that song ? Consider me your brother, and do not be 
 afraid or ashamed to answer me." 
 
 " Richard Crawford, I do consider you as a brother," the 
 young girl replied— " a dear brother, in whom I would con- 
 fide as in one of my own blood. I mean to prove to you, 
 some day, what a true sister I am. I am neither afraid or 
 ashamed to answer your question. I have no grief or sad 
 memory connected with ' Ever of Thee,' any more than with 
 any other sadly beautiful piece of music with words of the 
 same character." 
 
 " Indeed !— I thought otherwise !" said Crawford, with 
 something of disappointment in his tone. " And yet it moves 
 your light heart very strangely." 
 
 " It does," said Josephine Harris. " I never sing it or hear 
 
322 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 it sung without the tears gathering in my eyes, even if they 
 do not fall." 
 
 "And you can give no reason for this peculiar feeling V\ 
 " Oh yes," answered the young girl, " though no doubt you 
 will laugh at my reason when you hear it." 
 " I think not," said Crawford. " Tell me." 
 " Yoi think me very gay and merry," said Josephine. 
 " So I a'u, but I suppose that I have something deeper in 
 my nature, that ' crops out' occasionally, as the geologists 
 say. I suppose that I am a visionary in some respects 
 and among my visions is a love worthily fixed and fully 
 returned. So few seem to find this, that I fear I shall miss 
 it — either miss it altogether or find it too late. The thought 
 is a sad one, and that song seems insensibly to blend with it. 
 When I am singing ' Ever of Thee,' I am singing to my ideal 
 love that may be escaping beyond the reach of my fingers 
 forever." 
 
 True woman of the golden heart ! — God in heaven grant 
 that to you and such as you this vision may be no dim un- 
 reality ! God grant you true hearts against which your own 
 may beat, and faithful arms upon which you may lean when 
 the day of your probation is accomplished ! And failing this 
 fruition, the same God of love and peace grant you a truer 
 and more enduring union with hearts that pulsate truly to 
 your own, in that land where the sad wail of " Too Late !" 
 is never heard and where no binding link fetters the limbs or 
 galls the spirit ! 
 
 " I understand you now," said Richard Crawford. " And 
 yet yours is a strange fancy and would be a dangerous one 
 in many minds. But you are a brave girl, I believe, and 
 that makes all the difference. Besides, you have health and 
 strength, and most of the time high spirits. An invalid — a 
 miserable cripple like myself, housed and shut away, can 
 scarcely hope to understand or appreciate anything that 
 comes freshly in out of God's sunshine !" The old sad and 
 repining spirit had once more come over Richard Crawford, 
 perhaps invoked by something in the young girl's words ; 
 and she saw the shadow almost as soon as he felt it. From 
 that moment she was the rattle-pate again, and he caught no 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 323 
 
 more glimpses into the sanctuary of her inner heart. He 
 was to catch no more, forever ; for the next time they spoke 
 together in private was after certain events already related 
 had occurred — after her hand had lain in another, in so signifi- 
 cant a pressure that no time or change could ever take away 
 the tingle of the blood which it communicated — after her eyes 
 began to open on a new phase of destiny — and after " Ever 
 of Thee" ceased to be a sad abstraction. 
 
 Just now she rattled on, as she assisted the invalid back to 
 his room, endeavoring to rouse his once-more sinking spirits, 
 with all her old gayety and abandon. 
 
 " You call me brave, do you ?" she said. " Dick Craw- 
 ford, if I was not a little ashamed of you for allowing your- 
 self to have these fits of low spirits, I would tell you some- 
 thing to prove how 'brave' I am! Well, I will tell you, 
 because I know that it is exceedingly improper and T ought 
 not to do so. Two or three weeks ago, spending an evening 
 
 at Mrs. R 's, her daughters showed me a suit of clothes 
 
 belonging to a stripling brother, just gone away to the war. 
 One of them bantered me to put on the suit and go down- 
 stairs among the gentlemen. I thought it would be a good 
 joke, and I tried it. The girls said that I made a very hand- 
 some boy — hem ! and I suppose that I did. At all events, I 
 went down-stairs and opened the parlor-door, bold as a 
 sheep, when — what do you think happened ? Why, I 
 thought, all at once, that all the clothes were sticking tight 
 to my limbs ; and when one of the gentlemen came towards 
 me, I grabbed the cloth from the centre-table for a cloak, and 
 played hob with some Bohemian glassware and a few Parian 
 ornaments, finishing by skedaddling up-stairs a good deal 
 more rapidly than I came down. Was not there ' courage' 
 for you ?" 
 
 " Xo want of it, certainly," said Crawford, who had been 
 laughing a little, spite of his low spirits, at the naivete of 
 the relation. " It was modesty and not want of personal 
 courage that drove you out of that very funny position." 
 
 " Think so ?" said the wild girl. " Then as I am a coward 
 and mean to be known for what I am, I must tell you an- 
 other story. A few weeks ago I went into a menagerie, and 
 
324 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 one of the lions made a rush at the bar? of his cage — proba- 
 bly because he saw me. There was about as much danger 
 of his getting out, I suppose, as there would have been of 
 my doing so in the same circumstances ; but of course I made 
 a fool of myself, got frightened, yelled, and had all the visitors 
 in the menagerie looking at me. How was that? No want 
 of courage ? Eh ?" 
 
 " That," said Kichard Crawford, sententiously, " that was 
 the teaman." 
 
 " Humph !" said Joe, as she once more assisted the invalid 
 to dispose himself comfortably on his usual couch. " Xow 
 you will not agree to my estimate of myself, perhaps you will 
 think better of my estimate of you.'''' 
 
 " Perhaps so," said Crawford. " Try me." 
 
 ''Well, then, I have been watching: you half the afternoon, 
 and I have made up my mind about you more nearly than 
 ever before." 
 
 " And what am I ?" asked Crawford, with just a dash of 
 impatience in his tone. 
 
 "A hypochondriac !" said Joe. "You are a little sick, 
 and you think yourself much worse. You look better and 
 feel better within the last hour — " 
 
 "Eh, what ?" said the invalid, startled apparently by some 
 sudden thought connected with the words. 
 
 " I sav that you look better and feel better, within the last 
 hour, than you have done for weeks. You are getting better, 
 and you have neither the honesty to acknowledge it or the 
 grace to thank God for it ! Dick Crawford, if you ever die 
 — and I suppose you will, some time — you will commit sui- 
 cide by taking an over-dose of low spirits !" 
 
 How flippantly the wild girl spoke ! — and yet she was 
 right, and Dick Crawford felt that she was right. The sup- 
 plying cause of his malady removed, such a lecture, from 
 such ready lips, was precisely the thing that he needed, to 
 break up the habit of despondency — the habit of enjoying and 
 nursing suffering (that phrase may express the fact as well 
 as another) which settles so often like a murky cloud upon 
 the minds of those who have been kept for weeks or months 
 as confirmed invalids, after lives of previous activity. She 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 325 
 
 was right, too, as to the suicide of low spirits. The red 
 devils of Pandemonium may be terrible, fresh from the flames 
 of the pit ; but they are nothing to their brothers in blue, 
 who people the air, overcloud the eyes and set up torture- 
 chambers in the brain. Bunyan, in that ever-living ''Pilgrim's 
 Progress," paints no tyrant so terrible as "Giant Despair, " 
 and no obstruction to the whs so fatally impassable as the 
 " Slough of Despond." And we have never read over the 
 sorrowful conclusion of the "Bride of Lammermoor" with- 
 out believing that the young master of Kavenswood, on that 
 sombre November morning, sunk the sooner and the more 
 fatally in the quicksands of the Kelpie's Flow, from the 
 weight of the leaden heart he carried in his bosom. 
 
 Suddenly, and before Richard Crawford had quite decided 
 how to answer her last remark, Josephine Harris said, as if 
 the thought had only that instant come to her : 
 
 " Oh, Dick, I am going to ask a favor, in return for my 
 good opinion. The carriage is in, I believe. May I ring for 
 it, for an hour ?" 
 
 " Certainly," said Crawford. Josephine rung the bell, and 
 the order was given. 
 
 " It is dusk, you see," said the 3 r oung girl, apologetically, 
 11 and I must go down the Avenue before I go home. Many 
 thanks. Be a good boy and take care of yourself, till I see 
 you again. John will set me down at home when my little 
 errand is over. Good night !" and her kiss fell warm and soft 
 upon his forehead — a sister's kiss, pure and unimpassioned, 
 even if there was no tie of blood between them. 
 
 Bell Crawford came down stairs and sat by her brother's 
 side when she heard the carriage roll away with her friend. 
 And whither did that carriage roll ? Richard Crawford had 
 no idea that Joe's " little errand" could possibly have any con- 
 nection with himself; and yet it had — a most intimate and 
 important connection, as will be perceived. 
 
 The coachman, at her request, drove out to Fifth Avenue, 
 then down that avenue to Tenth Street, where he opened the 
 door and set her down, receiving orders to wait there for her 
 return. The young girl tripped up from the corner, a few 
 doors on the left hand side, past a church, and entered the 
 
326 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 front-yard railing of one of two or three unpretending three- 
 story brick-houses standing together. It was now past dusk 
 and the street-lamps were lighted; and looking in at the 
 basement windows of this house, Joe saw that no curtains 
 were drawn, that the gas was burning within, over a table 
 and under a shade ; and that at the table sat a man with head 
 bent down and fingers busy at some kind of mechanical con- 
 trivance. 
 
 " That will do," she muttered to herself. " The Doctor is 
 in, as I believed he might be at this hour, and I shall have no 
 occasion to disturb the people up-stairs." 
 
 Passing under the steps she reached the closed door, and 
 instead of ringing, banged half a dozen times against the 
 panels with her hand, very slowly and tragically, as the 
 ghost in " Don Giovanni 1 ' might ask to be admitted, provided 
 it had any occasion for using the door. Immediately there 
 was a shuffle inside, and directly the door opened and a tall 
 figure stood in the doorway. There was enough light from 
 the street-lamp to make the young girl's face and figure pretty 
 plainly visible, and the moment he saw her the occupant said : 
 
 " I thought so — mischief! I thought I knew that knock ! 
 No one else ever takes such liberties with my office-door. 
 What do you want now ? But come in, before you forget 
 it I" and seizing both her hands with a playful gesture, he 
 dragged her within the door, closed it, pulled her through 
 the side-door into the front basement which formed the office, 
 drew up a clumsy cushioned operating-chair near the table, 
 sat her down in it, then cast himself into a chair immediately 
 in front of her, threw one leg over the other and his hands 
 behind his head, and said : 
 
 " Xow I am resigned and prepared. Out with it I" 
 
 Had Josephine Harris not been familiar with the place and 
 its occupant, as it was quite evident that she was, she would 
 have looked twice at the one and several times at the other. 
 That little basement-room was not only the office in which 
 Doctor LaTurque received professional calls, but it was also 
 the sanctum in which were prepared most of the oddly- 
 trenchant articles in the Scimetar, a quarterly medical and 
 critical publication with a habit cutting as its name and a 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 327 
 
 reputation dangerous enough to suit the most sensational 
 fancy. Few persons connected with the practice of medicine 
 in or about the great city, who had not first or last suffered 
 some incision from the trenchant blade of the Scimetar, 
 welded by the w,ry arm of the Doctor; and few humbugs 
 M he hau pricked and exposed, by the same means or in 
 personal conversation, while he was himself the neatest 
 humbug of all. Others habitually humbugged others- he 
 humbugged lumsclf, or tried to do so, insisting to himself thai 
 
 evervH tw nmn ' ° n ir ° n man ' a brute > a ske P«e, ami 
 even thmg that was ugly and detestable ; while in fact he had 
 the warm heart of an unspoiled child, and a faith in everv- 
 thing good, that was really part of his being-all combined 
 with the vigor of the experienced surgeon an! the cCst ! 
 of the untiring student. He used hard worde-rough ones 
 somefmes and tried to make himself believe that they Veo 
 
 wordT, T ° f ? tard dis P° si «»; while every 'rough 
 word was really made, under protest from his nature/and few 
 men on he whole earth were more ready to do an act of 
 
 STLS^T ? " " 0t f01 ' " S t0 Sa ^ hat *™ w. no 
 iXne ? 7 a ? 6Ctati0n ° f sin ^'™ty underlying his 
 manner ; for he evidently loved notice if not notoriety • and 
 
 the TrT^pT th ? Vhite C ° at a,Kl ^arranged trowlers o 
 
 «?ssr h " have sometimes be - -*- * - 
 
 Certainly Dr. LaTurque was not remarkably choice in the 
 style of ma "den," if he had handsomely furnished apa 
 ments in he house above, and if his windows «tf ,oo l t 
 
 the M\ ' Th6 CdIingS W ° re l0w > th « "& Plain, 
 
 the furniture was very common, and yet a little odd as be 
 
 came he place The floor was oil-clothed : a table overed 
 Mb dark cloth stood in the middle of the room; an old 
 fashioned secretary, with books piled on either end stood 
 agains the wall on the right as ti,e visitor entered w ha 
 globe hall hidden behind it; on the wall opposite W he 
 Prmt of a muscular Apollo (muscular, beca . e i w r , 
 anatomically with no flesh coring the interments , 
 e. her end of the mantel stood a snfall statue f£X LZ 
 v>as an impudent placard of bronze on jap nned in an 
 
323 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 nouncing that no complimentary visits could possibly be re- 
 ceived in that room, while the occupant, if there, was ready 
 to falsify the announcement at any moment ; on a small table 
 between the windows, under a glass globe, lay the cast in 
 plaster of a marvellously handsome male Italian face ; two or 
 three small pictures, commonly framed, hung over secretary 
 and mantel; in the corner between the mantel and the win- 
 dow stood a stuffed eagle on a low table covered with the 
 suggestive appliances of a fractured leg ; and just behind it, 
 on a bit of rug, nestled a disabled pigeon from his pet flock 
 on the roof, that had come down, with excellent judgment, to 
 be nursed and tended by the surgeon. 
 
 In the midst of this odd assemblage Dr. LaTurque was him- 
 self not by any means the least remarkable object. He was ion 
 tainly a singular-looking man, and had a fancy (or pretended 
 to have a fancy) that he was a very homely one. He was not 
 so, however, to any eye of taste — only striking. In figure 
 he was tall and rather thin, but the same epithet we have 
 applied to his arm may be used for the whole man — iciry. 
 He seemed capable of strong nervous effort and of great en- 
 durance ; and one could see that something more than fifty 
 years had not diminished the locomotive will or power. In 
 the too large and too aquiline nose (literally a beak) — in the 
 iron-gray moustache, imperial, and heavy brown hair — in the 
 thin cheeks and keen gray eye, — there was a marvellous re- 
 minder of the portraits of Louis Napoleon, and at the same 
 time another and a stronger suggestion. There is no close 
 observer of physiognomy but has remarked bird, beast and 
 even reptile reproduced in the faces of different men — one 
 being a human lion, another a human bear, a third a human 
 hyena, and still a fourth a human serpent. It scarcely seemed 
 that it could have been by chance that the gray eagle stood 
 stuffed in the corner ; for the observer just as naturally de- 
 tected the eagle in that human face, as he could ever have 
 detected either of the others named, in different physiog- 
 nomies, and the dead bird seemed the totem of the living 
 man. 
 
 " Well, battle and murder and sudden death !" said the med- 
 ical Laurence Boythorn, when he had forced the young girl 
 
SHO U LDEK- STRAPS. S2 ( J 
 
 down into a seat. " What is it you want ? Who is married 
 or dead, or whom do you intend to kill, or what is it ?" 
 
 "Are you sober V asked the young girl, looking into his 
 eyes very gravely. 
 
 " Why, you impudent demon in petticoats !" said the 
 Doctor, with a great appearance of indignation. "What 
 do you mean ? You know that I am never otherwise than 
 sober." 
 
 " From the effects of liquor, of course not," was the reply. 
 " But your hot head, like mine, has the capacity of becoming 
 intoxicated sometimes without any thanks to liquor ; and I 
 want to know whether you are cool and clear, or whether you 
 have been puzzling over some bad case, or talking with some 
 man with a stupid skull, until your head is all muddled ?" 
 
 " Clear as one of the mountain springs that you are some 
 day going with me to see," said the Doctor. " Now out with 
 it." 
 
 "Well," said Joe, "I know that you hate chemistry, but 
 in spite of that you must give me a little chemical judgment. 
 I want you to tell me," and she took out the surreptitiously- 
 obtained roll of linen, unrolled it and laid it upon the table, 
 under the full light of the burner — " I want you to tell me 
 what is that dark substance which looks like black paste, whe- 
 ther it is animal, vegetable, or mineral, and what you think its 
 properties." 
 
 "And after I do tell you, if I can," said the Doctor, eyeing 
 the suspicious-looking mass, " I suppose that I am to be told 
 why you wish to know ?" 
 
 " Not one word," said Joe. "At least, not at present. All 
 your reward is to be the honor of conversing with me on the 
 subject." 
 
 "Bravo, Empress ; I rather like that!" said the Doctor, who 
 did like it, nevertheless, to judge by the jolly expression of 
 his face. "You are a refreshing young woman, and some 
 day I expect to see you stretch out your arm with imperial 
 dignity and clear off all the pigmies from the face of the earth 
 with a ' Go away, small people ! I have had enough of you ! 
 You may leave !' " 
 
 "Very likely," said Joe. "But meanwhile I have not 
 
330 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 quite done with you. Please examine that stuff, for I am in 
 a hurry." 
 
 "As usual !'' commented the Doctor, going on to smell, in- 
 spect, and even taste the dark compound on the cloth. 
 
 "Take care!'' cried the young girl, in alarm, when she saw 
 him apply his tongue to the substance. 
 
 " Pshaw !" said the Doctor. " Don't be alarmed. I am so 
 full of dangerous ingredients myself, that the most virulent of 
 poisons could not produce any effect on me." 
 
 " I should not like to see you trust it too far — that is, not 
 if I cared for you !" said the lady, as if she had been the che- 
 mist and he the neophyte. 
 
 "Well," said the Doctor, after a moment's pause and a still 
 closer inspection, "you will give me no particulars, and so I 
 shall give you none. I suppose the main fact is what you 
 want to know. The substance is a little dried, and conse- 
 quently it has lost some of its aroma. But my impression is 
 that it is a very powerful vegetable poison, compounded from 
 certain simples that grow along running streams in the 
 tropics, and especially in some of the West Indies." 
 
 "I thought so !" said Joe, almost involuntarily, and an un- 
 mistakeable gleam of pleasure lighting up her face. " But 
 would that poison produce any effect if applied outwardly l'' 1 
 
 " I should think so," replied the Doctor, "though, as you say, 
 I hate chemistry. I should think that substance, applied to 
 any vital part of the body, and kept there continuously, would 
 produce racking pains and weakness, and be very likely to 
 result in a disease resembling inflammatory rheumatism, or 
 possibly paralysis, and death." 
 
 " Thank you — thank you a dozen times," said Joe, spring- 
 ing up and grasping the Doctor very warmly by the hand. 
 "You do not know how much good you maybe doing by 
 this examination ; but you shall know, sometime — I will tell 
 you all about it. And now good-night !" rolling up the pack- 
 age and putting it back into her pocket. " My time is up, 
 Mother will be worried about me, and I have a borrowed car- 
 riage waiting at the corner." 
 
 "Allow me to see you to it," said the Doctor, rising with 
 quick courtesy. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 331 
 
 " No farther than the gate, for the world," said the young 
 girl. " For certain reasons, which you shall know some time, 
 I must not be seen in your company to-night, even by the 
 coachman." 
 
 She tripped away instantly, the Doctor accompanying her 
 to the gate, — and rolled away homeward at once. What a 
 day that had been to her! And in what a whirl was her 
 brain when she reflected on all she had discovered and tried 
 to arrange in her own mind the details of what she yet felt it 
 necessary to do ! It was within forty-eight hours after, and 
 when her mind had not become at all calmed from the thoughts 
 of the crime surrounding her and those she loved, that the 
 visit to the sorceress was made, as before recorded. How 
 much of additional information she may really have expected 
 to gain from the sorceress, it is impossible to say, — or whether 
 this matter of the attempted poisoning was really the matter 
 which sent her to that questionable fountain of intelligence ; 
 but it is not at all strange that she should have blended the 
 terrors of the real and the imaginary together, and been 
 powerfully impressed by the events of that day which marked 
 so important an era in her existence. 
 
 It may be said here, that two days after the events just 
 narrated, when Bell accompanied her to the sorceress, she did 
 not see Richard Crawford. Thereafter, for many days, she 
 did not visit the house at all, for reasons that will soon make 
 themselves manifest ; and consequently the awkwardness of 
 any meeting with the invalid, which might have involved 
 questions she did not care to answer at that moment, was 
 avoided. Joe Harris felt that for once in her life she had a 
 "mission." — something to do, and to do in her own way; and 
 until that work was done, or she had utterly failed in the 
 attempt, she did not mean to let that chattering tongue of 
 hers say one word that could give a clue to her thoughts or 
 intentions. "VVe shall see, presently, how nearly and in what 
 manner her plans were carried out. 
 
 21 
 
dS2 SHO UL DER-STK A PS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A Little Arrangement between Tom Leslie and Jes 
 Harris — Up the Hudson-River Road — A Detention 
 
 and a Recognition — Going to West Falls, and a Peep 
 at the halstead homestead. 
 
 There are some things too sacred to be pryed into, and 
 there are some things too difficult to make any progress in 
 that attempt, even when the effort is made with the most de- 
 termined will. Both these conditions will to some extent 
 apply to the intimacy between Tom Leslie and Josephine 
 Harris, which commenced on a day we well remember, and 
 which may not close until their joint destiny is accomplished. 
 The very next day after that adventure, he called at the house 
 of Mrs. Harris, was introduced to her with great empresse- 
 ment by her daughter, and received by her with great cor- 
 diality. The good lady, whom we have no intention what- 
 ever of describing, was a splendid specimen of the widowed 
 matron in comfortable circumstances, with just enough threads 
 of silver shining amid her dark hair, to make her matron- 
 hood sacred and all the more loveable. That she, who was 
 not always pleased with a new-comer, chanced to like him 
 from the first, completed the vanquishment of the journalist, 
 if that object had not before been entirely accomplished ; and 
 within an hour after setting foot within that comfortable little 
 home the young man felt that it had become dearer to him 
 than any other building of bricks and mortar into which he 
 had ever entered. 
 
 So of the confidence which at once began to exist between 
 the two lovers. Yes — let the word be set down — lovers. 
 When Josephine Harris accompanied Tom Leslie to the door, 
 on the night of his first visit to her at home, he held out his 
 arms to her, without a word, and she nestled into them in the 
 same silence, and returned the first kiss he pressed upon her 
 lips. Thenceforth their lips, we may believe, belonged exclu- 
 sively to neither, but had a divided interest What matter, 
 
SIIO U LDEK-STEAPS. 333 
 
 thereafter, how many times they were pressed together, or 
 how long that pressure lingered ? What matter how many 
 words they spoke, or what formed the burden of those words ? 
 They had accidentally touched, when drifting clown the stream 
 of life, and who should thenceforth have power to separate 
 them ? A month before, Tom Leslie, who had had fifty flirta- 
 tions or less, would have laughed at the idea of being " in 
 love," with what seemed like a life-passion ; and even three 
 days before Josephine Harris would have considered such an 
 event, on her part, not undesirable, but simply impossible. 
 So much for what we know, to-day, of that which is to exist 
 to-morrow, even in the "best-regulated families I" 
 
 It was on the third visit paid to the house by Leslie, that 
 Josephine communicated to him her intention to be absent 
 from the city for a week or ten days, visiting some friends in 
 one of the country sections reached by the New York Cen- 
 tral Railroad ; after which she was again to return to the 
 city and accompany her mother, late in July, on her annual 
 pilgrimage to the Ocean House at Newport. She would 
 leave for the north on one of the first days of July — perhaps 
 the Third or the Fourth. Strangely enough, Leslie had ar- 
 ranged to go to Niagara for a few days, at about the same 
 time, and he suddenly found it a matter of no consequence 
 that he should go by the Erie Road, as he had at first in- 
 tended. Subsequent inquiries proved that the young girl 
 would go unattended, and leave the railroad at Utica, taking 
 stage for the short remainder of her journey. Leslie felt it 
 almost a matter of inexcusable impudence, after so short an 
 acquaintance, to ask the favor of timing his journey by hers 
 and being her escort so far as Utica ; but he dared the risk, 
 as he had dared many a risk before, from things quite as 
 deadly as woman's eyes ; and he did not meet even one ob- 
 jection or expression of embarrassment. Josephine Harris 
 accepted his escort as freely as offered, and seemed rather 
 pleased than otherwise ! How absurd, and in fact how im- 
 proper ! She should have blushed, simpered, and hinted 
 that she would be very much pleased with his escort — but — 
 so short an acquaintance — all her friends would know it — 
 what would people say ? — etc., etc. Joe Harris did not un« 
 
834 SHOULDER-STRAPS 
 
 derstand all these things, exactly ; but the next woman would 
 have acted out that role to perfection. 
 
 Not to linger over these details, Mamma Harris not object- 
 ing, they left the city of Xew York by the five o'clock train 
 on the Hudson River Railroad, on the evening of the Fourth 
 of July, just when the city was sweltering in its most deadly 
 heat and all ablaze with patriotic fireworks. Leslie had cer- 
 tain patrio-political engagements which occupied him until 
 after noon on that day, rendering it impossible to leave by 
 the morning train. Leaving by that at five o'clock, they 
 would connect with the train on the Xew York Central leav- 
 ing Albany at midnight, and reach Utica very early in the 
 morning. There Josephine would be set down, while Les- 
 lie, after seeing to her stage accommodation, would whirl on- 
 ward with the train, for Niagara. 
 
 The connection between love and railroad-riding may not 
 be obvious to all ; and there are some, no doubt, who think 
 the flying speed of the modern conveyance terribly unro- 
 mantic. But there are others who know of nothing more 
 thoroughly pleasant than lounging back easily in the cushioned 
 seat of a railway-carriage, with the one close beside, with 
 one hand in reach at any moment, the one face ready to reply 
 in smiles to the look of pleasure given, and the one head 
 ready to repose upon the shoulder when night comes on or 
 the continued motion of the train brings on drowsiness. Of 
 the latter class were both Tom Leslie and Joe Harris, both 
 of whom had travelled much, though very differently, and 
 neither of whom had ever before experienced the luxury of 
 the one peculiar companionship. They may ride far and see 
 X attire in her most wonderful phases, in other days ; but it 
 is doubtful whether either will ever experience a greater 
 pleasure than that of sitting by the side of the other, on that 
 July afternoon, conscious that they were together, and of 
 very little else, but dimly aware, too, that they were sweep- 
 ing away from the hot and dusty city, with its thousands of 
 sweltering inhabitants, and flying through green woods, 
 among towering hills and beside flashing waters. 
 
 It is not more true that " man proposes but God disposes," 
 of any other series of events in life than railroad connections. 
 
SKOU L I) E H-STRA P S. 335 
 
 That Albany express-train on tne Hudson-River Road, dashed 
 merrily on for the Highlands, meeting excursion-trains pass- 
 ing backwards and forwards between the various towns on 
 the line, all decked with flags and evergreens, and the pas- 
 sengers in all waving flags and shouting out their patriotic 
 merriment. Already the Highlands of the Hudson were 
 rising close before them, with the westering sun sinking low 
 and casting broad shadows from their tops over the quiet 
 river,_when suddenly, a little below Peekskill, the train 
 came to a halt, without any station appearing in view. 
 
 " What is the matter V> asked some of the passengers, after 
 the halt had been prolonged a few minutes. " Have we met 
 with any accident ?" asked others when that halt was longer 
 protracted ; and "Are we ?iever going to get on ?» asked & all 
 parties together, when the delay lengthened to more than 
 half an hour and there appeared to be no signs of starting. 
 
 Finally, when more than the half hour had elapsed, a brake- 
 man satisfied the eager inquiries of the passengers by the in- 
 formation that a coal-schooner had attempted to pass through 
 the draw-bridge half a mile above Peekskill, when the tide 
 was too far spent— that she had managed to get aground in 
 the draw-bridge, immediately across the track— and that, 
 consequently, no train could possibly pass until the tide rose 
 again and released the unfortunate boat, well along towards 
 midnight ! Here was a pleasant predicament, especially for 
 those who, like our travellers, had connections to make at 
 Albany for the North and West ; and yet, to their credit be 
 it said, that particular couple bore the delay with wonderful 
 equanimity ! It is just possible that both remembered that 
 they would be together a few hours longer on account of the 
 accident, and that they were prepared to endure even a longer 
 forced companionship ! 
 
 At last the train moved on, but slowly, through the village 
 of Peekskill, and reached the little creek, under the very edge 
 of the Highlands, where the accident had occurred. The 
 scene was certainly a picturesque one, with the grounded 
 boat, the swung draw-bridge, the men laboring to lighter-off 
 the vessel by unloading the coal, the passengers crowding and 
 swarming from the cars, the setting sun over the noble head- 
 
33G SIIOULT. Eli-STRATS. 
 
 lands to the West, and the placid river coming out from the 
 dark shadow of the Highlands and sweeping grandly down to 
 HaverStraw Bay. 
 
 It had been arranged that all the passengers by the np- 
 train should disembark and cross the long- bridge over the 
 estuary, on the narrow strips of plank temporarily laid down 
 for that purpose, so as to be ready to take the next down- 
 train from Albany, the moment it arrived, and go back with 
 it ; — while the passengers by the down-train would cross in 
 the same manner and run back with the up-train towards 
 New York ; — thus saving what would otherwise be hours of 
 additional detention. Then streamed across those planks a 
 most picturesque line of pedestrians, sturdy men and timid 
 women, each a little afraid of so narrow a footing over the 
 water, some of the women nervous and screaming a little, 
 and some of the men quite as cowardly but much more; 
 ashamed to acknowledge the feeling. The novelty of the 
 picture was materially added to, meanwhile, by the fact that 
 nearly every male passenger was loaded like a pack-horse 
 with baggage, and the ladies with shawls, parasols and bun- 
 dles, — and that all, when they reached the neck of land at 
 the end of the bridge, squatted down miscellaneously on the 
 dry grass and among the wood and timber, like so many 
 Arabs making a noon encampment. 
 
 " Oh, isn't this jolly I" exclaimed Joe Harris, as Tom Lesn'e 
 was leading her over the line of plank, when they were about 
 half way across, and when, from the instability of a part of 
 the structure, there seemed a fair prospect of taking a duck 
 in the river. * 
 
 " Bravo, little girl !" said Tom Leslie, in reply. " That is 
 the way to take detention and disappointment in travelling ; 
 and after that expression I would bet on you for ascending 
 Mont Blanc or living on a raft." Such little events, to close 
 observers, sometimes furnish keys to the capabilities of 
 whole characters. 
 
 "You compliment me," said the young girl, "but there is 
 really nothing to compliment me about. I am not enduring, 
 but enjoying. Look out ! — there I go ! Xo I don't !" as she 
 partially lost her balance and then recovered it. "Why we 
 
S H U L 1) E Ii - S T R A P S. 337 
 
 should have lost all this, but for the accident ; and probably 
 nothing in our whole ride could have compensated it." 
 
 "It is indeed a striking scene," said Leslie, his quick ap- 
 preciation of the beautiful actively brought into play, as they 
 landed safely on the sward at the end of the bridge. " See 
 the dusky shadows creeping over the Ilighlands, yonder, and 
 their still duskier shadows in the still water. See the orange 
 and pink of the sunset sky, reaching half way to the zenith, 
 and that quarter moon dividing the sunset colors from the 
 dark blue beyond, like a sentinel. Then see that steamboat 
 creeping close in under the shadow of the land, as if she was 
 trying to steal by unobserved. And then yonder, that smelt- 
 ing furnace perched on one of the hills, throwing out its 
 gleams of molten metal, with their glowing reflection in the 
 little creek. And last, not least, Peekskill lying across tho 
 cove yonder, with its Independence flags still flying, those un- 
 timely rockets going up, boats with singing parties putting off 
 from the shore, and the music of the band coming over the 
 water just softly enough to make an undertone for the feeling 
 of the place and the hour." 
 
 " It is indeed a picture worth remembering," said Jo- 
 sephine, " and the more so after you have so graphically de- 
 scribed it." But suddenly, and without any perceptible 
 reason, at that moment the } r oung girl pulled away from his 
 arm, on which she had been leaning, flung down the light 
 veil of her bonnet, stepped away a few paces, and turned her 
 face towards the river. Leslie looked around to see what 
 could have caused the movement, but saw nothing except a 
 few of the last passengers leaving the planks, and among 
 them a military officer in full colonel's uniform, whose face 
 he did not recognize. He saw that the officer passed on, 
 farther up the railroad-track; and the moment after, slightly 
 turning her head, but very warily, the young girl appeared to 
 be beckoning to him. He stepped towards her at once, and 
 turning her head once more towards the river and the west- 
 ern skies, she said : 
 
 "Excuse my strange behaviour; I know that you will do 
 so when you understand my reasons — no, you cannot un- 
 derstand them all, at least just now — but part of them. I 
 
338 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 dare not turn around my head, for fear of being recognized. 
 You saw an officer coming off the bridge just now. Did you 
 know him ?" 
 
 " Xo, I did not," answered Leslie, and it must be confessed 
 that he wished to add, though he did not do so, "But what 
 the deuce is the mystery in your young life, that you are 
 obliged to shun recognition in this manner ?" 
 
 Josephine Harris, from the position in which she stood, 
 could not clearly see his face, and she was consequently spared 
 his look of surprise, almost of pain, which was momentary. 
 The instant after, she asked : 
 
 "Is he here still ? Is he close by us ?" 
 
 "Xo," said Leslie, looking around, "he has passed up the 
 track some distance. But tell me — what can be the matter ?" 
 
 " I know you. must think it odd," said the young girl, turn- 
 ing her face around towards Leslie, now that she knew the 
 officer was not near thein. " Xot only odd, but a little sus- 
 picious. But a few words will explain all that it is either ne- 
 cessary or proper for me to say in this place. Keep an eye 
 on that man, please, and if you see him coming this way again, 
 let me know. That officer is Colonel Egbert Crawford, of 
 whom you may have heard. " 
 
 "I think I have heard the name, through the newspapers. 
 Getting up a bogus regiment, or something of that kind, isn't 
 he ?" asked Leslie. "Any relation to Miss Bell, who accom- 
 panied us the other day on that — that expedition ?" 
 
 "Which you regard as among the most foolish things of 
 your life ? Eh, Mr. Leslie ?" asked Joe, with a little mischief 
 in her tone. 
 
 "Which I regard as one of the most fortunate events in my 
 whole existence," said the young journalist, managing to touch 
 her hand at the same time. She appeared to understand the 
 words and the gesture, and went on with the explanation that 
 had been interrupted. 
 
 " lie is a cousin of Miss Bell Crawford, and very intimate 
 in the family. I have met him very often, and he would re- 
 cognize me in a moment if he should see my face. If he 
 should do so, probably the great object of my visit tc the 
 Xorth would be prevented." 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 339 
 
 "And that is — " began Leslie. 
 
 " Precisely what 1 cannot tell you, until I know more of 
 the matter myself, because I have no right to take liberties 
 with the characters of others. Would you have thought me 
 so prudent ?" concluded the young girl. 
 
 " 1 do not now need to learn for the first time," answered 
 Leslie, "that those whom the world calls ' rattle-brains ' — and 
 I am sure they call you one, — have sometimes plenty of fore- 
 thought and a good deal of prudence." 
 
 "Thank you," said Josephine, and no doubt she did thank 
 him, from her soul. For the rarest flattery is of course the 
 sweetest, and poor wild Joe was in the habit of being oftener 
 complimented for any thing else rather than that terrible qual- 
 ity "forethought." 
 
 " But I may tell you," the young girl resumed, " that I have 
 very grave suspicions of that man's honesty, in some of his 
 dealings with the Crawfords, who are my very dear friends ; 
 and I am going to unsex myself, I suppose, in your mind, by 
 acknowledging that I am playing the part of a detective, en 
 amateur, for a few days." 
 
 "Xot a particle unsexed," said Leslie, rubbing a match on 
 his boot-sole and preparing to desecrate the sweet air of eve- 
 ning with cigar-smoke. "Go on, please." 
 
 " Well," said Joe, " if I do not mistake, Col. Egbert Craw- 
 ford and myself are going to the very same place — at least to 
 houses not a quarter of a mile apart ; and if he should know 
 of my presence in the neighborhood all my researches might 
 be blocked. Do you see ?" 
 
 " I see," said Leslie, though how he could see through that 
 cloud of cigar-smoke, was a little unaccountable. 
 
 "That is why I turned away and dropped my veil," the 
 young girl went on. "And now I am under the necessity of 
 troubling you a little more than I intended. You must look 
 out, for me, that we do not get into the same car, and after- 
 wards you may have a good deal more of trouble to keep us 
 apart. May I tax you so far ?" 
 
 " I think so," answered Leslie. "Hark!" 
 
 Through the hills above them there swept down a rum- 
 ble, a roar, and a rattle, growing deeper every moment. 
 
 \ 
 
340 3 II ULDBB-ST R A P S. 
 
 "Clear the track, there," cried Leslie, loud enough to be 
 beard by all the hundreds of passengers. "The down-train is 
 coming \ n 
 
 In an instant the train from Albany broke into sight from 
 the woods above, and came thundering down, barely giving 
 the passengers who had been lounging on the track, time to 
 drag themselves and their baggage out of the way. It was 
 now growing dusk, but the train stopped upon the bridge 
 without accident ; and in a few moments the down pi 
 gers were unloaded and transferred, those going up were on 
 board, and the long line moved back again, the locomotive in 
 the rear and pushing all the cars backwards like a gigantic 
 wheelbarrow. 
 
 Leslie had taken Miss Harris' hint at once, and kept his 
 eye on the Colonel when the embarkation was being made. 
 He saw him step on board one of the rear cars, and himself 
 and his companion took places farther forward, so that any 
 danger of recognition was past for the time. 
 
 There was nothing of incident in the night-ride which fol- 
 lowed, demanding description in these pages, except that 
 Leslie found a pleasure he had not anticipated, in Miss Josey's 
 growing drowsy and making a pillow of him eventually. 
 There have been heavier burdens than that he bore ; and 
 what with the soft breath playing so near his cheek in the 
 innocence of slumber — the light form around which he was 
 obliged to clasp his arm (as a matter of duty — to keep her 
 from slipping from the seat, of course !) — the dashes through 
 dusky woods and the glimpses of the moonlit river, — what 
 with all these and the pleasant company of a heart that had 
 never yet known what it was to be desponding, Tom Leslie 
 managed to enjoy the latter portion of the ride to Albany, 
 amazingly. At one o'clock he woke up the pleasant burden 
 on his arm, and half an hour after, Josephine Harris was 
 cradled in soft slumbers at the Delavan, in Albany, while Tom 
 Leslie, a very human description of guardian angel, was 
 watching over her slumbers from his sleepless pillow in an- 
 other wing of the building. 
 
 Corresponding precautions to those of the evening were 
 taken in the morning, when the travellers took the cars of the 
 
S II O U L 1) E R-9 T R A P S. 341 
 
 Central Road, for Utica and their separation ; but in that in- 
 stance they seemed to be superfluous. Whether Colonel 
 Egbert Crawford disdained to pursue his route at that early 
 hour in the morning, or whether he had one more favorable 
 report to make at the Adjutant-General's office, of the con- 
 dition of the Two Hundredth Regiment, detaining him in Al- 
 bany for another train, — certain it is that he did not make his 
 appearance, and that the "amateur detective" and her com- 
 panion were free to choose any of the cars of the train. A 
 rapid ride through the Mohawk Valley, with the quiet river 
 of the same name ever at their side, and the Erie Canal continu- 
 ally in view, with its pleasant reminder of the extent and the 
 wealth of the Empire State, — and before their morning's con- 
 versation was half finished (for what check or bound is there 
 to the invaluable nothings of two lovers who have not yet 
 recovered from the novelty of their first impressions ?) they 
 dashed up to the station at Utica and alighted for dinner at 
 the American. 
 
 It is no matter, here, what arrangements had been made 
 between the two for their subsequent meeting and corre- 
 spondence ; it is enough to know that no fetter has yet been 
 forged by any Tubal Cain of them all, strong enough to hold 
 apart those who choose to single out each other from the 
 world. Tom Leslie and Josephine Harris were to meet 
 again, and at an early day ; and with that understanding 
 both were reasonably well content — the male member of tho 
 combination because he had no option, and the female mem- 
 ber because she really had such a multitude of benevolent 
 plans in her busy brain that she had no time to be otherwise. 
 
 Before Josephine Harris had finished her capital dinner at 
 the American, and ceased trifling with those magnificent straw- 
 berries, the finest of any season within memory, (that young 
 person was favored with a most unromantic appetite, and 
 often managed to astonish those who had the pleasure of 
 paying her bills at a restaurant dinner or supper) — before all 
 this was accomplished, and before the bell had rung, calling 
 the passengers for the Northward to resume their seats on 
 the train, Leslie had succeeded in discovering the where- 
 abouts of the proper stage for the remainder of Miss Josey's 
 
342 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 journey, and making tbo necessary arrangements for ber 
 baggage and her personal accommodation. This done, and 
 
 his mind at rest on that particular point, the beU rang, the 
 two made a hurried farewell, in which a warm pressure of 
 the hand served (for propriety's sake) in the place of a part- 
 ing- kiss understood ; and Leslie sprung into his ear and was 
 whirled away Northward towards the Mecca of American 
 summer-tourists ; while the young girl went up to " do" 
 Utica in a bird's-eye view from the window of her room, 
 and to await the four o'clock that was to bear her away in 
 the lumbering stage to West Falls. Perhaps Tom Leslie 
 felt at that moment that he would have been glad of any 
 excuse or any shadow of invitation to accompany her to that 
 rustic paradise, instead of going away alone to any paradise 
 named in Bible or Koran ; and perhaps Joe Harris had the 
 faintest suspicion of a heavy and lonely feeling at her heart, 
 at parting with the " eyes" and the merry brain that lay be- 
 hind them, so suddenly flung as an element into her own 
 existence. 
 
 Henceforward, for the present, the business of this narra- 
 tion only requires that the course of Miss Josephine Harris 
 shall be traced, leaving the " other half" of her incomplete 
 " pair of scissors" to be picked up hereafter. 
 
 No one who has ever travelled among the mountains or 
 through any of the Northern hill-sections, needs any descrip- 
 tion of the heavy lumbering " Concord coach" in which the 
 young girl and her stage-companions were slowly dragged up 
 Genesee Street, Utica, by four horses of lymphatic tempera- 
 ment, on that sultry Jury afternoon with occasional sprinkles 
 of shower thrown in to make it endurable. They are all 
 alike — those heavy coaches — except as to paint and uphol- 
 stery, wherever we meet them, — whether they drag us up 
 the Cattskills, bear us over from Moreau to Lake George, 
 dash down with us through the gorges of the "White Moun- 
 tains, or jog us heavily along the rough roads that thread the 
 Alleghanies. The same half cord of wood in each of the 
 curved bodies — the same complication of sole-leather in the 
 swinging jacks which serve in the place of springs — the same 
 cumbrous weight of wheel, suggesting that a mill may have 
 
S II O U L I) EK-S T B A P S. 3-i3 
 
 gone out on its; trawls, locomoted on its running-gear And 
 yet there is no conveyance bo safe or so easy for the moun- 
 tain ; and some of us have enjoyed pleasant hours lounging 
 back upon those polished leather cushions within, or shouting* 
 out enthusiastic admiration of scenery from the pokerish 
 scats on the top. 
 
 It is a pleasant ride, at any season of the year — that from 
 Utica over the range of hills which lies westward, to the 
 Oneida Valley which nestles down a few miles beyond. 
 And it was especially pleasant and enjoyable, that afternoon, 
 with the cloud-shadows playing over the yet uncut wheat- 
 fields, and the glints of sunlight falling on the roofs and gables 
 of cozy-looking farmsteads bordering the road on either hand 
 or peeping out from behind clumps of woods in the distance. 
 The opened back-curtains of the coach gave a delicious view, 
 when they had surmounted the height, of Utica lying on the 
 slope below, stretching downwards towards the Mohawk and 
 the Canal, with its clustering domes and spires and the 
 melancholy Lunatic As}dum overlooking all from the North- 
 west. And a view not less pleasant opened before, of the 
 long stretch of valley lying in the distance, bounded on either 
 side by a continuous range of hills rising up with an almost 
 even slope, crowned with woods and diversified with the 
 divisions of cultivated fields, and here and there a glint of 
 water, showing where the silver Sauquoit, most laboriously 
 taxed of all minor streams except those of the Naugatuck 
 and Housatonic Valleys, wound its busy way down to the 
 Mohawk. 
 
 And when the eye tired of resting upon these, it could 
 find variety in studying the Welsh contour and primitive as- 
 pect of many of the Oneida countrymen passing upon the 
 road — the clumsy contrivances of a hundred years ago, on 
 which the gathered loads of hay were going homeward from 
 some of the out-lands — and the long, low wagons on which 
 great pyramids of boxes of cheese, the staple of the section, 
 were being slowly dragged towards Utica and a market. 
 
 But fair Oneida showed that war was in the land, removed 
 though it might be from the great centres of recruiting opera- 
 tions. Joe Harris had noticed that a recruiting tent for 
 
3-i-i SHOULD Ell STRAPS. 
 
 McQuade's gallant Fourteenth stood in the middle of Genesee 
 Street, only a little way above the hotels, with drums boat- 
 ing and flags and placards exhibited ; and even in the fields 
 she saw traces of the effort to answer the President's last 
 demand for troops. Where on the visits of previous ; 
 she had seen only men toiling in the sunshine, many women 
 were laboring now, and the change was significant. The 
 homes of Oneida had already given of their best and bravest 
 to the cause of the nation, and still the Moloch of war de- 
 manded more ! — more, ever and continually more ! 
 
 There was a reminder of the war, too, within the coach, 
 and a reminder of the mode in which the recruiting service 
 Mas being conducted. On one of the front seats sat a line- 
 looking young man, bright-eyed and keen-faced, in the 
 shoddy uniform of a private. His conversation was a* 
 that of a patriot and a gentleman ; and it did not require 
 many moments of unavoidable listening for the young girl to 
 discover that he was well educated. Further conversation 
 between himself and other passengers who seemed to know 
 and respect him, showed that he had abandoned his studies 
 in a leading institution, to answer the call of the country — 
 that mathematics and military science had formed a consider- 
 able part of his studies — that he had had some hopes, when ho 
 enlisted,, of obtaining the grade of a subaltern officer, when 
 he should succeed in procuring sufficient enlistments — that 
 by his personal efforts and fervid eloquence he had already 
 succeeded in enlisting more than fifty men for the regiment 
 with which he was connected, and was then on his way to 
 another section of the county to make further efforts in the 
 same direction — and that he was still a "full private/' with 
 a certainty of rising no higher, because he had neither money 
 nor political influence to put him forward. So that this 
 young patriot and soldier, who showed the power and energy 
 of his nature in every glance of his eye and every word he 
 spoke, was to be kept in the lowest position known to the 
 service, and commanded by men who had never heard of 
 a book on military science or tactics, a week before, but v. ho 
 could buy commissions or command a certain number of votes 
 at a town-meeting ! Josephine Harris had studied the cur- 
 
S II D I, DE R-ST HA PS. 8^5 
 
 rent history of the time, enough to know and recognize the 
 picture set before her, and to say, silently and between her 
 set teeth : 
 
 " Oh, I wish I was only a man, to start out with a horse- 
 whip and lash these incapables until they howled !» 
 
 Six o'clock, and the stage went rumbling and swaying into 
 the little village of West Falls, which it is hoped that no mat- 
 ter-of-fact reader will attempt to find on the map of Oneida, 
 albeit it has a veritable existence there under another name. 
 It was a cozy little spot, nestled down into the valley of 
 a small stream, half creek and half river, that formed a cata- 
 ract in the neighborhood and gave it the name. Factories 
 clustered along the stream, making the idle water labor for 
 the benefit of man, and within them whirred the spindle of the 
 cotton or wool spinner and clanked the hammer of the worker 
 in iron and steel. The village itself lay partly in the valley, 
 along the east margin of the stream, and partly climbing the 
 slight range of hills that bounded it still farther eastward. 
 A wilderness of shade-trees bordered the main street and 
 seemed to cluster around every house on the narrow lanes 
 that branched from it, presenting a cool and refreshing pic- 
 ture in the hot summer afternoon, and suggesting rosy- 
 cheeked lasses, breezy halls and bed-rooms, real milk instead 
 of the manufactured article, and all the other pleasant things 
 traditionally supposed to belong to summer in the country. 
 
 Up the long shady street, then down a wide bye-street that 
 branched to the left under the very edge of the hills, and the 
 accommodating stage set the city girl down at the gate of a 
 neat-looking story-and-a-half house, buried in trees and bow- 
 ered in summer flowers, unvisited by her for the previous 
 three years, but before that time the scene of many an hour 
 of quiet rustic enjoyment. For reasons best known to her- 
 self, Josephine Harris had chosen not to advise her hostess 
 of her intended visit, but she had no fears that it could pos- 
 sibly find her "not at home," and indeed before the clanking 
 steps of the coach were well let down, the new-comer had 
 been recognized from the house, and a young girl came flying 
 down the pathway to the gate. This, was Susan Halstead, 
 her cousin, three years younger than herself, petite in figure, 
 
346 S H O U L DE li - S T R A P S. 
 
 brown-haired and round-faced, with the curls flying loose 
 over her shoulders and her childish mouth all puckered with 
 pleasure at once more seeing and embracing " Cousin Joe. n 
 
 The stage rolled away, the luggage found its way inside 
 the white gate, and Josephine was soon in the arms of her 
 matronly-looking Aunt Betsey, her mother's sister and the 
 country type of the family as Mrs. Harris herself supplied 
 that representing the city. Much taller in figure than her 
 daughter, a little deaf and with many threads of silver shining 
 in her dark hair, but with the kindest face and the merriest 
 laugh in the world, Mrs. Betsey Halstead furnished a pleasant 
 specimen of those moderately-circumstanced Lady Bountiful* 
 of the country and the country village, who always have a. 
 spare bed for the wayfarer, always a cup of milk and a slice 
 oi' fresh 1 tread for the weak and the needy, and always an 
 unalloyed enjoyment in the coming of "company," i.e. t visitors. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that the coming of merry Joe 
 was a pleasure as well as a surprise, that she was over- 
 whelmed with welcomes as well as questions, that aunt and 
 cousin and the tidy " help" all vied in the effort to " put away 
 her things," and that in five minutes the city girl was more 
 pleasantly flustered than she would have been on entering a 
 fashionable ball at Irving Hall or attending the first hop of 
 the season at Newport. Pleasantly flustered — that is, she did 
 not quite know whether her head was on or off her shoulders, 
 and yet she knew that she was for the time in a quiet little 
 haven of country rest from the noise and whirl of the great 
 city, very pleasant to contemplate. 
 
 " And }'ou did not write us a word about your coming ?" 
 said Aunt Betsey, interrogatively, when the bonnet had been 
 laid oft", the dust brushed away, and the second kiss of meet- 
 ing exchanged. 
 
 "Not a word, Aunt," was the young giiTs reply. "You 
 know that I never do things like other people. I knew that 
 you would be at home — knew that you would be glad to see 
 me — did not know that I was coming, myself, until a day or 
 two ago — and do not think that I should have written, if I 
 had, when it was so much easier to bring the information 
 myself." 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 347 
 
 " Still the same rattle-brain !" said Aunt Betsey, shaking 
 her head with that peculiar gesture which really implies ad- 
 miration of a prodigy. " So mother is still in the city, is she ? 
 Why did not she come along ?" 
 
 "Yes?" echoed Susan. ''Why didn't she come along? 
 Did you come all the way alone ?" 
 i "No," answered Joscy, with the least little bit of hesita- 
 tion in her answer, and the tiniest flush creeping up on her 
 face, that neither of the others had the tact to see. " There 
 were some friends of mine going on to Niagara, and so I had 
 company all the way to Utica, and they set me down there." 
 Sly Joe I— why did she use the plural number,—' 'friends," 
 and " they" ? Why will people, even those belonging to the 
 most irreproachable classes of society, indulge in these little 
 fibs upon occasion ? 
 
 ^ " Oh, Cousin Joe," said Susy, " you do not know what a 
 nice little room we have for you, up-stairs. The vines have 
 climbed up and half covered the window, and a robin has 
 built its nest in one of the branches of the big apple-tree, 
 that hangs so close to it. Little robie will wake you early in 
 the morning, I'll be bound— none of the late lying in bed that 
 they say you all practice in the great city !" 
 
 " No, you rose-bud !" exclaimed Joe." "I will get up as 
 early as any of you, especially as I have not come out here 
 to be idle, but to work. But where is Uncle ?— I have not 
 seen him yet?" 
 
 " Your Uncle Halstead," said Aunt Betsey, with a shade of 
 sorrow momentarily crossing her kindly face. " Oh, I sup- ' 
 pose you did not know it 1 Your Uncle has gone to the war, 
 with the rest of them. There have a great many gone from 
 Oneida— scarcely a family that does not miss one member at 
 least. Some of them will not come back, I suppose ; and 
 some may. God shelter and keep your Uncle ! It was a 
 little hard to part with him, after being together nearly all 
 the time for so many years ; but he felt that he must go, and 
 he knew his duty best," 
 
 " And you so cheerful about it that I did not even know 
 till now that he was gone !" said Joe, with surprise. 
 
 " Why yes," said her Aunt, » If they have a dutv to fight 
 
348 SHOULDER STRAPS. 
 
 for the country, toe have a duty to be patient while they arj 
 gone and do the best we can with what they leave behind 
 them !" 
 
 Bravely and truly said, wife of the Oneida soldier ! If the 
 battles of the Union are lost, half the fault will lie with the 
 women who have preferred their own ease and the content- 
 ment of their own affections, to the peril of their native land ; 
 and if those battles are won, no small share of the credit will 
 be due to those true-hearted descendants of Molly Starke, 
 who have emulated the self-sacrificing spirit of the women of 
 old Rome and sent off the husbands they loved and the sons 
 upon whom they leaned, to win their love and confidence over 
 again on the battle-field, or to die for the worshipped flag and 
 the perilled nation ! 
 
 " God shelter and keep him, indeed !" responded the young 
 girl. " And he will, without a doubt." No one could exactly 
 understand why it should be so,, in conjunction with the dash 
 and freedom of her character ; but hidden away somewhere 
 among the dark glossy hair was a bump of Veneration that 
 recognized the Supreme Being with the most filial love and 
 trust, and in the heart there was a corresponding throb of 
 gratitude, confidence and childlike dependence. 
 
 " But what have you got, out-of-doors ?" she asked, changing 
 her manner again to that of one who had no thought beyond 
 the present. " I have not quite forgotten how the old yard 
 looks, with the smoke-house close to the back door, and the 
 barn at the other end. Got any pigs and chickens ? And 
 how's your cat ?" 
 
 "The cat is well,'- said Susan, gravely — "that is, as well 
 as could be expected. She has quite a family. We have lots 
 of chickens — you must have seen some of them in the front 
 yard as you came in. And pigs — a pen full of them, but a 
 little too big to suit you. They are too heavy and dirty to 
 take in your arms, and all the curl is gone out of their tails." 
 
 "So sorry!" said Miss Josey, with the most melancholy 
 of pouts on her lip, and with a funny reminder of Laura 
 Keene when she uses the same expression to the discarded 
 Pomander in " Peg Woffington." 
 
 "But we have something else that you will like," Susy 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 349 
 
 continued, determined to alone for any disappointment in the 
 pigs and their terminations. M We have got a calf — a nice 
 red-and-white spotted calf, only about a week old." 
 
 " Oh, that is the thing I" cried the merry girl. " We will 
 go at once and have a look at the calf. Does it hook ?" 
 
 " Hook ? — you stupid thing \ n laughed Susy. "Why it is 
 only a week old, I tell you ; and of course it hasn't any horns. 
 But come along I" and down from a convenient peg she pulled 
 a couple of sun-bonnets, her mother's and her own, sticking 
 one on the gypsy head of Josey and the other on her own 
 refractory curls. "But stop — we have something else that 
 you have not thought of "—and she pulled down the head of 
 her cousin and whispered in her ear. 
 
 " Cherries ! oh good gracious !" absolutely yelled the young 
 lady. " Quick — get me some boy's-trousers and a step-ladder ! 
 No, you needn't mind the trousers, as long as it is only you, 
 Susy, who is going to help me pick ; but the step-ladder — 
 don't forget the step-ladder !" and away she went, flying out 
 of the house, her hand in that of Susan, and the whole move- 
 ment more suggestive than anything else, of two young colts 
 turned out in a clover-field for a summer-day frolic. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards, a subterranean observer, could 
 such a person have been possible, would have seen Miss Josey 
 most unromantically astride of a limb, half way up the big 
 Tartarean cherry tree overhanging the smoke-house, appro- 
 priating those pulpy little purple globes at a most luxurious 
 rate, and staining her cherry lips and her white fingers very 
 nearly of the same color. Susy stood below, laughing and 
 clapping her hands at mad Joseph's position, and eating, by 
 way of sympathy, the few clusters thrown down to her by 
 the busy lingers. 
 
 But we cannot linger upon this picture, pleasant as it is — 
 nor yet upon the adventures of Josey among the pigs, chickens, 
 cats, with the calf (which managed to " butt" her over, even 
 if it could not " hook"), and among all and singular the be- 
 longings and appliances connected with that cozy little retreat 
 in the country village. Then what a supper followed, with 
 the flaky white tea-biscuit made by Aunt Betsey's own hands, 
 with the fresh cream equally divided between the cherries and 
 
350 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 the strawberries, and the scent of the roses stolen by the 
 Blight evening breeze and thrown in at the windows.- Then 
 an hour of moonlight, but only an hour, for the young girl 
 was wearied out by the changes of scene that had kept her 
 excited during the day, and the broken rest of the night be- 
 fore. Long hours earlier than Tom Leslie heard the whistle 
 of his train, braking-up at Suspension Bridge, Josephine 
 was nestling among the white sheets and cool pillows of her 
 pleasant chamber, nodded at by the vines at the window 
 and just lovingly kissed by one glint of the moon that stole 
 in upon her privacy — sleeping such a sleep as wealth and 
 power turn wearily upon their pillows and pray for without 
 hope. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 Josephine Harris in Search of Information — A Big Fib 
 for a Good End — Mary Crawford with Her Eyes SnuT, 
 and with the same eyes opened — a bomb-shell for 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford. 
 
 Pleasant though those hours in the little homestead at 
 West Falls may have been, they must be passed rapidly over, 
 except as each bore some event connected with the progress 
 of this story. 
 
 When Josephine Harris woke next morning with the birds 
 singing Sunday matins under her window, all the fogs and 
 mists of merriment and country enjoyment seemed for the 
 time to have rolled away from her brain, and the prime object 
 of her visit to West Falls came prominently into her mind. 
 In order to effect it, it was necessary that her aunt and cousin 
 should both be taken somewhat into her confidence ; and she 
 had no fear of any evil result from this, as their location at a 
 distance from the city would prevent any ill effects even from 
 an unguarded word. Whatever these confidences were to be, 
 however, there was no occasion to make them with any great 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 351 
 
 suddenness ; and in her character of an "amateur detective" 
 she naturally preferred to make what discoveries might be 
 possible, before explaining her motives for making the in- 
 quiries. 
 
 Accordingly, when breakfast and the Sunday "mornin«- 
 work" had been dispatched, she pulled little Susy away from 
 the house, under the pretence of taking a "swino-" in the 
 popular abomination of that name, suspended between two of 
 the trees in the back-yard. Seated side by side on the board 
 seat between the ropes, and with their arms clasping each 
 . others waists, the two girls fell into a conversation which 
 was very soon led by Josephine into the direction she wished 
 J\ ot, however, until she had propitiated the demon of mischief 
 within her by making an onslaught upon a daguerreotype 
 which she had found in one of the drawers of the bureau in 
 her room during an imprudent "rummage " before breakfast, 
 A tew sly hits at the appearance of the face there depicted 
 brought a sudden flush to the face of little Susy; and not 
 long elapsed before they elicited the information, given through 
 deeper and warmer blushes, that she was under an engage- 
 ment of marriage to the young man whose portrait was thus 
 made a hidden treasure-that he was an engineer on a distant 
 railroad who could only make his visits to West Falls at in- 
 tervals of a month or two-and that they were to be married 
 sometime during the ensuing year, if life and health would 
 permit Simple Susy !_what a pity that she could not have 
 been informed of some of the events in the life of her cousin 
 which had occurred during the previous few days-especially 
 of the "friends" who had accompanied her to TJtica » In 
 that case it is just possible that the blushes might have been 
 duplicated, though no corresponding confidence could have 
 been elicited, for the best of all reasons. As it was, Susan 
 had nothing to do but to pour out the one life-secret of her 
 innocent heart, receiving nothing in return but a peal ortwo 
 ot merry laughter and a final assurance that " ho would do " 
 anoMhat "ho was not so very homely and awkward, after 
 
 When she had reduced her cousin to that state of defence- 
 Icssncss and subserviency, I 'ussy Harris (as we have before 
 
352 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 had occasion to call her) suspended amusement, went into 
 business, and commenced her round of enquiries. 
 
 A quarter of a mile away, in full sight of the grounds In 
 the neighborhood of the barn, from its elevated position near 
 the top of a gently-swelling knoll, a little separated from the 
 main chain of hills that stretched away eastward — stood a large 
 two-story farm-house, a little old and Dutch in its appearance, 
 but thrifty-looking and suggesting that the man who made 
 it a residence was the owner of many broad acres. This 
 appearance was very much added to by the size and extent 
 of the barns and out-houses ; and the impression of age and 
 stability was enhanced by the fine old trees which surrounded 
 the yards and added so much to the pleasantness of the situa- 
 tion. Erom her old memory of the place, and of conversa- 
 tions during previous visits when she had no interest what- 
 ever in the inmates, Josephine Harris had an impression that 
 this house was the abode of the Crawfords ; and it was upon 
 that supposition that she began her enquiries. 
 
 11 Let me see — I almost forget," she said, pausing in their 
 swing, and with the air of one trying very hard to remember — 
 " Who was it that used to live in the big house yonder on the 
 hill ? Thompson ? Johnson ? What was the name ?" 
 
 " The big house ? oh, Crawford — the Crawfords live there," 
 answered Susan, very innocently. 
 
 " Oh, yes, the name was Crawford," said Joe. " Let me 
 see — there was an old man — " 
 
 "Yes, old John Crawford," so Susan supplied the missing 
 name. 
 
 " And he had one daughter — only one daughter, and only 
 one child, I think," said Josephine, working her features into 
 a terrible semblance of trying to recollect something in the 
 past, that had almost escaped her. 
 
 " Why yes, he had only one child, Mary," said Susan, 
 evincing a little surprise. " But I did not know that you 
 ever met her, so as to take any interest in her." 
 
 " Humph 1 well, I never did meet her, except at church," 
 said the city girl, evasively. " But you were pretty yonng, 
 then, and you would scarcely have remembered it if I had. 
 I remember thinking that the old house must be a nice place 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 353 
 
 for living in the country, and I thought of it again this morn- 
 ing. Is the old man living still V 
 
 Less unsophisticated persons than little Susan Halstead 
 might have been led into pursuing a subject of village gossip, 
 by so specious a trap as that set by Josephine ; and it is not 
 strange that she fell at once into the line of conversation that 
 the other desired. 
 
 " Yes, old Mr. Crawford is still living," said Susy, " and 
 that is about all that can be said. He is old and very feeble, 
 and they have been expecting him to die any day for the past 
 three or four months. And that is not all — as you seem to 
 have known something about Mary, I do not care if I tell you. 
 There is serious trouble in that house, Cousin Josey !" 
 
 " Trouble ?" echoed the young girl. " Indeed ! why what 
 is the matter ?" 
 
 "It is a long story," said Susan, "but perhaps I can tell 
 it without using many words. You know that the Crawfords 
 are richer than most of us here — they say that the old man is 
 very rich — and so they belong to the aristocracy and do not 
 associate with everybody. Mary is older than myself, a year 
 or two, but we were at school together. We have not had 
 much intimacy since, but a little, in spite of the difference 
 in our circumstances. Mary is a dear, good soul, and not a 
 bit proud, though the family are proud as Lucifer. Well, 
 she used to come here once in awhile, and she made me come 
 over there, though I always felt out of place in the big house. 
 She was as gay and merry, then, as could be, and seemed 
 always happy and light-hearted. She used to think a great 
 deal of Mother, apparently ; and once, two years ago, when 
 Mother was very sick, she came down two or three times a day 
 and brought her everything nice that she could think of. 
 Lately she has noi come here at all, and as she is richer than I, 
 I am too proud to put myself in her way." 
 
 " Did nothing occur between you, to make any change in 
 her behavior towards you ?" asked the female lawyer. 
 
 " Nothing at all," answered little Susy. "I suppose that 
 some of her fine acquaintances told her that she must not 
 visit people poorer than herself, and that may have made the 
 difference." 
 
354 S II O U L 1) E K - S T B A P 8. 
 
 "But this is not the 'trouble' you spoke of, is it ? ,J asked 
 the young girl, who did not by any means intend to allow the 
 cross-examination to fall through at this point. 
 
 "Oh, not at all," said the unsuspicious Susan. "I was 
 coming to that directly. There was a cousin of Mary's, 
 Richard, from New York, who used to come up here very 
 often. I sometimes saw them together, and then it was that 
 she looked so gay and happy. I am sure that they loved 
 each other, and every one thought that some day they would 
 be married. Of course I have never heard any of these 
 things from her, and perhaps I ought not to talk about them ; 
 but you know such things will creep out. Well, Richard 
 Crawford does not come up here any more. They say that 
 he has been leading a dreadful life, drinking and going into 
 bad places, until he is all broken down and a miserable crip- 
 ple. There is another cousin, a Colonel, who comes up here 
 now, and he and Mary go out together sometimes. The 
 Crawfords are notorious for trying to keep all their property 
 in the family ; and so, as the other has proved so bad, probably 
 this cousin and Mary may be married. But she looks like a 
 ghost when I meet her, at church or when she is riding out ; 
 and I know that she is unhappy. Perhaps she loves the 
 poor young man still, bad as he is. Don't you think that is 
 possible, cousin Joe ? And may that not be what ails her ?" 
 
 " Why yes, you dear little soul, I should think very likely !" 
 said the city girl, leaning down her head on her hand and 
 trying to still the throbbing of her temples. What a revela- 
 tion was here, from lips so innocent and evidently so truthful ! 
 And how the whole story tallied with what she had heard in 
 her ambush and conjectured from other circumstances ! She 
 was on the right scent, beyond a question — but here came her 
 difficulty, — how to cut this knot of villainy, even now that it 
 lay plainly before her 1 This was the question that labored 
 through the young girl's brain and bent down her head on 
 her hand. And yet it must be done, whatever the diffi- 
 culty. Courage, Joseph Harris ! — there never was a difficult 
 thing, either in wickedness or benevolence, that a woman 
 could not master when she once fairly set about it ! 
 
 11 It is indeed a sad story that you have been telling," she 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 355 
 
 said, "ami it interests me more and more in the family and 
 Weekly in Mary. I wish I could see her and talk to her 
 
 he h a"" 10m -; t f' 10 had gathCTed aUtheinformation t! a 
 ■she had any right to expect, and now came the necessarv 
 confidence. "What wonld you say now, Susy, if I con d n 
 hack some of the light into Miss Mary Crawford's eyes?"" 
 
 iou f and the country girl looked at her as if a pair of 
 horns had suddenly sprouted from under the dark hair 
 les, //» echoed the "amateur detective " 
 I don't see how you can do it, especially tts you do not 
 
 SuTn "P W^r anythlng mU * ab0Ut ^-" -S 
 Susan. "But indeed I should he very much pleased if von 
 
 sometti V S f tt T Phme ' " SUpP ° Se tllen thatl had known 
 sometln.g about these people for a long time, and that I had 
 
 o°usin u Ltc :: tF t not on,y to see m ^ iear «- -2 
 
 abou^-wo,, M ^ em 1U a Wa> ' that the y knew «*"»« 
 
 about-wonld you and your mother keep the secret and help 
 
 The wondering eyes looked at her more wonderingly still 
 
 som oTt> eemed t0 S6e t,mt the S » eaker ™ ^t jesS, »S 
 some of those country people have a faith in the abilities of 
 people from the " big city," not always justified. 
 
 Certamly I wonld," said Susy, "and I am snre that 
 
 Xcirrr nythiDg to -™ ***■ B * «* ** 
 
 paZnt^dV T Jn8t g0 T ing t0 tcl1 ^ orat ,eas * » 
 
 about RL?/? h r " In ° ne Word ' aI1 these "torieg 
 about Richard Crawford are lies. He is a good, true-hearted 
 young man as can be found in the world. I know him verv 
 
 tup ;T ri him and % sister ™v * « <----- 
 
 times when I am very idle, every day. I love him as T 
 would my own brother, if I had one " 
 
 "Not better than a brother, eh, cousin Joscy ?» asked the 
 country girl, with a funny glance out of the corneTof he 
 
 or iiuM !! " akl . J °S Ia " Jrhinff - " lXot Aeto than a «m*M 
 
 him :l::; *£££& r e ' akc mattcrs right tet ™ 
 
356 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 "No, I suppose you would not — I didn't think of that," 
 said Susy. "And so you know them, and you know him, 
 and he is a good man, is he ? Why, cousin Josey, where did 
 all these stories come from, then ?" 
 
 "Humph!" said the city girl, "we may find all that out 
 hy-and-bye. It is enough to say that they are n<»t true, and 
 that I know them not to be true. If I find that I am right 
 in my suspicions of their origin, I will tell you : if not, you 
 will be the better for not knowing." 
 
 "And what are you going to do ?" asked the proprietor of 
 the unmanageable curls and the wondering eyes. 
 
 "I scarcely know yet, myself," said the schemer. "It 
 seems certain that no time is to be lost. You say that old 
 Mr. Crawford may die any day. Now, Susy, it is my belief 
 that if he should die to-day, as matters are arranged Mary 
 and all the property would go — well, I cannot tell you where, 
 but where you would not like to see them." 
 
 " Indeed you frighten me, cousin !" said Susy. 
 
 "I suppose so, answered Josephine. "But now — see 
 here ! I think I ought to see Mary Crawford this very day, 
 and without any one at the big house knowing that I am 
 at West Falls or that she has any communication with this 
 house. How can that be managed ?" 
 
 " Indeed I do not see how it can be managed at all !" said 
 the country girl, with a very hopeless look at her pleasant 
 face. 
 
 " Indeed it must /" said Miss Josey, who was only confirmed 
 in the determination by the supposed difficulty. 
 
 " I do not see how it can," repeated Susy. " You cannot go 
 there, of course, without being seen, and I do not know of any 
 way to get her here.' 1 '' 
 
 " But that is the thing," persisted Josephine. " She must 
 be got here, in some way or another. Pshaw ! I don't see 
 how it is to be done, but it must be done. We might set fire 
 to the house, and that would probably bring her over, but then 
 it would bring all the other people from the house, and then 
 your mother might have some objections." 
 
 " I should think very likely she would!" said Susy, with 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 357 
 
 another wondering look around at the female torpedo who 
 was thus exploding in West Palls. 
 
 " Stop ! I have it !" cried the wild girl, a flash of triumph 
 passing over her face. "Run into the house, Susy, and ask 
 your mother to come out here. Your 'help' must not hear 
 what is said." 
 
 Susy ran into the house on her errand, stopping once, as 
 she turned the corner, to look around and satisfy herself 
 whether Cousin Joe had not escaped from some lunatic asy- 
 lum. While she was gone, Joe sat in the swing alone and 
 did some energetic thinking ; but twice, before the old lady 
 came, she endorsed her plan with : "Yes, that will do. That 
 must do !" 
 
 Directly Aunt Betsey came out to the swing, her arms 
 floured to the elbows, having been interrupted in the midst of 
 the divine mysteries of moulding cherry-dumplings, for the 
 Sunday dinner. But she did not look the less amiable and 
 good-natured for the interruption, as many good housewives 
 might have done. 
 
 "Aunt," said Josephine, grasping her by the hand, in spite 
 of the flour. "Aunt, I want you to do a good and benevolent 
 action, at once." 
 
 " Well, I will try, my child !" said the good woman. 
 "That is, if it is a good action that you want me to do. 
 But you know, Josey, that you are a bit of a rattle-brain." 
 
 "Yes, well, I think that I may have heard that observation 
 before," said Miss Josey. "However, I can live through it. 
 Aunt, I will tell you why, by-and-bye when there is more time, 
 — but I have a reason, that may be one of life and death, for 
 what I ask. I want you to believe in the weight of my rea- 
 sons at once, and to help me get Mary Crawford from the big 
 house yonder, over 'here, immediately." 
 
 "Why, she does not come here now-a-days; and what can 
 you want of her.?" asked Aunt Betsey. 
 
 "There you go, Aunt !" said Joe. "You are not doing 
 what I asked you to do. I tell you there are reasons why I 
 must see Mary Crawford to-day, and with no one, outside of 
 tin's house, knowing thai i do so." 
 
 "She is right, Mother," said Susan. "She has told me 
 
358^ SHOULDER-STRAP S. 
 
 what she moans, and she ought to sec her at once. Do help 
 her — pray do I" These dear little innocent people who are 
 happy in their own love-affairs, have a marvellous faculty of 
 falling into the needs of others, and God bless them for it ! 
 
 "But how?" asked Aunt Betsey. 
 
 "Oh, / don't know," said Susan. " Cousin Josey knows." 
 
 "I only know one plan to get her here without suspicion," 
 said Josephine. " To do that we must tell a falsehood, but 
 only for an hour." 
 
 "Oh, I cannot tell a falsehood," said the conscientious 
 matron. 
 
 " Yes you can, or you can let us tell it," said the incorrigi- 
 ble. " Susy tells me that when you were sick, two years 
 ago, Mary Crawford came to see you very often." 
 
 "She did, and she was a very kind nurse — Heaven bless 
 her, even if she does not come to see us any more !" said the 
 old lady. 
 
 "If she thought you sick, she would come again, I think," 
 said Josephine. " Once here, my word for it that she would 
 not be angry, but thank you, when she heard all that I have 
 to tell her " 
 
 " I do not like it, my child !" said the straightforward wo- 
 man. 
 
 But what can a kind-hearted old lady do, with two 
 young ones and one a model of her sex, tugging at her apron- 
 strings ? In five minutes more, without at all understanding 
 what was to be done or why it should be done, Aunt Betsey 
 had given her consent to take part in what was probably one 
 of the first falsehoods of her life. In ten minutes more, one 
 of the boys who had already dressed himself for church, was 
 on his way to the Crawford mansion, with a sealed note in 
 the school-girl hand-writing of Susan, written under the 
 dictation of Josephine, and reading as follows : 
 
 Sukday, July 6th, (morning). 
 Dear Jlliss Craicford: — 
 
 Please pardon the liberty I take. Mother is very ill, and we 
 should be very grateful if you would say nothing to any one else 
 about this note and come over to the house immediately. 
 
 Very respectfully your friend, 
 
 Sdsah IIalstead. 
 
s n O U L D E R - S T II A P s 359 
 
 No call is so irresistible as that which appeals to the sym- 
 pathy of a true woman ; and no crime is so unpardonable as 
 that which trifles with such sympathy. Less than half an 
 hour had elapsed, and Aunt Betsey, a little ashamed and a 
 pood deal frightened at what had been done, had gone up- 
 stairs to escape the possibility of first meeting the young girl 
 if she should come, — when Josephine, looking impatiently 
 out of the window at the road leading down from the hill 
 towards the centre of the village, saw a young lady coming 
 down the path at the side of the road and approaching the 
 gate. The figure was short and rather slight, dressed in 
 some light summer-material, wearing one of the light jockey 
 hats of the time, and sheltered from the hot morning sun by a 
 parasol of dimensions too large to be fashionable. There was 
 no reason why some other young lady should not be walking 
 the foot-path at that time, especially as church-hour was ap- 
 proaching ; but Josephine Harris had an indefinite impression 
 that it was Mary Crawford, and that a trial was approaching, 
 more severe than any to which she had ever before subjected 
 herself. Susy was close at her side, and as the figure ap- 
 proached, Josephine called her attention to it. 
 
 "Yes," said Susy, looking out of the window for only one 
 instant, "that is Mary Crawford, and she is coming here." 
 
 To say that Josephine Harris's heart was beating quickly, 
 and that there was such a confused rumbling in her head as 
 that which forms part of the stage-fright to an actress or the 
 first embarrassment to a public speaker before a large audi- 
 ence — would only be stating the simple truth. She had cer- 
 tainly been doing a bold act — even a rash one, — meddling in 
 the business of another, with the best intentions, it was true, 
 but under circumstances very liable to be misunderstood. If 
 things should not be as she had understood them to be, at 
 the Crawford mansion, or if she should fail in convincing 
 Miss Crawford of the truth of the statements she was ready 
 to make, nothing could be more painful than the position in 
 which she would herself remain, and nothing more injurious 
 than the predicament in which she would have placed her 
 aunt and cousin. All this she realized, and for one moment 
 she felt like running op-stairs with her aunt, and hiding her- 
 
8G0 S II O U LT> Ell -STRAPS. 
 
 self between two of the thickest feather-beds, in Bpite of the 
 heat of the season. But, courage once more, Joe Harris ! 
 The playing of detective en amateur is not always a sinecure 
 or a pleasant labor ; but if it succeeds — aye, if it succeeds 
 . — why then ! 
 
 By the time these reflections had fairly passed through her 
 mind, the figure of Miss Crawford had entered the gate and 
 was coming up to the porch. 
 
 " Go into the back room, Susan," said the city girl. " You 
 will not know how to receive her. I must do it." 
 
 Instantly Susan glided through the back door, and shut it, 
 and Josephine Harris was alone in her singular position. 
 At the same moment Miss Crawford tapped at the closed 
 front door, and Josephine at once opened it to admit her. 
 
 Mary Crawford had been a charmingly-pretty country- 
 girl — that Joe Harris saw at a glance, the moment her eye 
 took in the whole contour ; and she did not for a moment 
 wonder that Richard should have been fond of her or that 
 his cousin should have used all honorable means to supplant 
 him. More of what she had been than what she was, the 
 observer saw. Iso change, except age, could take away the 
 charm from the rich chestnut auburn (is there not such a 
 color ?) of her hair; and her face could never be other than a 
 pleasant and a good one. But the hazel eyes looked as if 
 they had been more accustomed to filling with tears than any 
 one knew besides the owner; the handsomely rounded cheeks 
 looked almost as sallow as they might have done from long 
 sickness ; the full, girlish mouth had a pinched and pained 
 expression ; and though she was dressed richly and with 
 excellent taste, for a mere call in the country, there was 
 something about her small figure which showed that it had 
 once been fuller and rounder, and that she had fallen into 
 lassitude and comparative lifelessness. 
 
 "I had a note from Miss Halstead. saying that her mother 
 was ill," said Miss Crawford, recognizing a stranger's face as 
 the door was opened. 
 
 " Yes," said Josephine. " Miss Mary Crawford, I pre- 
 sume ? Pray come in." 
 
 11 Where is Mrs. Halstead ?" asked the visitor, perhaps a 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 361 
 
 //////' surprised that she should not at least have been received 
 \>y one of the family. 
 
 " Pray walk into this room a moment and lay off your bon- 
 net," said Josephine, opening the door into the cool, shaded 
 parlor which adjoined the sitting-room, drawing her in and 
 shutting the door. Perhaps Miss Crawford saw something 
 strange, too, in this or in the young girl's manner, for her 
 eyes ranged around the room and then alighted upon her 
 companion, with a little wonder expressed in them. Joseph- 
 ine Harris saw and marked the expression ; and she was too 
 much excited, herself, not to satisfy that wonder very quickly. 
 
 " Tray sit down, Miss Crawford," she said, drawing a large 
 cushioned rocker near one of the windows. 
 
 " But Mrs. Halstead ?" again asked the other. " Is she 
 not very sick ?" 
 
 " I have never had the pleasure of seeing you before this 
 moment, Miss Crawford," said Josephine, her voice much 
 thicker and huskier than she had ever before known it to 
 be — " but I am going to ask you to do me a very great 
 favor ?" 
 
 " I do not understand you, Miss ," said the visitor. 
 
 " Of course not," said the temporary hostess. " I am such 
 an odd jumble that nobody understands me, at first. But let 
 me hope that I may make myself fully understood directly." 
 
 " May I ask your name, Miss ?" again said the young 
 
 girl, inquiringly. 
 
 " Certainly, you have a perfect right to my name," said 
 Josephine. " I am called Josephine Harris, and I am a niece 
 of Mrs. Halstead." 
 
 " Oh," said Mary Crawford ; but whether she uttered the 
 word in recognition or in depreciation, the other had no 
 means of guessing. 
 
 "I said that I was going to ask a great favor of you," said 
 the city girl, going on. " It is that you will remain in this 
 room while I say some very strange things to you, and that you 
 will try not to be hurt or angry with me until I have done." 
 
 " This is certainly very strange," said Mary Crawford. 
 " "What can I think ?» 
 
 "Think that you are in the house of true friends, who 
 
362 SHOULDBB-8 T B A P S. 
 
 would neither see you harmed nor insulted," .-aid Jo- 
 sephine. 
 
 M Oh, I am sure of that," answered her companion. 
 
 "Then listen to me," said Josephine,, "and whatever pur- 
 prise you may feel, pray do not say it until you have beard 
 all. Mrs. Halstead is not sick, and the note sent to ymi was 
 written at my request, as the only means within my knowledge 
 of inducing }*ou to visit this house immediately." 
 
 " Mrs. Halstead not sick ? a falsehood — a cruel falsehood !" 
 said the young girl, with some indignation, and rising from 
 her chair as if to leave the room. 
 
 " Miss Mary Crawford, I implore you to resume your seat," 
 said Josephine, her voice now broken and husky with her 
 great agitation. " For the sake of your own happiness and 
 the happiness of those dearer to you than your own life, I 
 implore you to hear me out." 
 
 " This is all so strange ! — what can you mean ?" she ut- 
 tered, but she sunk back, nevertheless, into the chair again. 
 
 " It is strange — it is all strange — it is of crime and suffer- 
 ing that I am about to tell you," answered Josephine. " To 
 tell you for your own sake and no interest of my own." 
 
 " For my sake ?" asked Mary Crawford, now visibly trem- 
 bling, and with a look of startled wonder upon her face that 
 was really pitiable to behold. "What can you know of me, 
 and what interest can you take in me ?" 
 
 " I know nearly everything of you, and I take the same 
 interest in you that I would do in a dear sister," replied the 
 city girl, striving to use the words that would most reassure 
 and invite confidence. " Will you understand me when I say 
 that two of the dearest friends I have in the world are your 
 cousins Isabel and Richard Crawford?" 
 
 She purposely laid a peculiar stress on the latter name, and 
 fixed her eyes keenly on the other as she did so. Shi 
 the young girl flush to the very temples, then pale as sud- 
 denly, make another movement to rise from her chair, then 
 sink back again as if from sheer exhaustion. Oh, it was not 
 difficult to see how nearly that word touched with agony the 
 very fountains of her life ! She seemed trying to speak, but 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 363 
 
 the words, if any were intended, died upon her lips, and her 
 helpless agitation was really fearful to witness. Josephine 
 Harris retained sufficient coolness to mark every indication, 
 and though her young heart bled for the misery before her, 
 after a moment's silence she repeated the names : 
 
 " Did yon hear me, Miss Mary ? I said that two of my 
 ilcarest friends were Isabel and Richard Crawford." 
 
 This time the young girl did manage to stagger to her feet, 
 By a mighty effort, her face white and her expression piteous. 
 Her voice had broken almost to hoarse sobs, as she said, lean- 
 ing one hand on the arm of the chair : 
 
 "I do not know why you have sent for me, or why you 
 should torture me so cruelly ! If you know anything of me 
 and of the man you have named, you know that every word 
 yon spoak is an unkindness, and that he is the last man in 
 the world whose name should sound in my ears !" 
 
 " He is the first man in the world whose name should pass 
 your lips, with a prayer for forgiveness of your own cruelty 
 joined with it !" said his advocate, all her ardent spirit now 
 thrown into her words. 
 
 " My cruelty ? His forgiveness ?" echoed Mary Crawford, 
 as if really stunned. 
 
 " I said those words," repeated Josephine. " One of the 
 best and noblest men that God ever made is lying on his sick- 
 bed, nearly dying. He loved you — he loves you still. You 
 pretended to love him; and now you have allowed the words 
 of falsehood to estrange your heart, if you have one ! It is 
 to save you from doing what you will repent to your dying 
 day, that I have meddled in your affairs and placed myself 
 in this false position." 
 
 " The words of falsehood ?" again echoed the young girl. 
 If she had heard the other words of the sentence, these were 
 the ones which seemed to have fixed themselves most deeply 
 on her attention. She had not again resumed her place in 
 the chair, but stood with her hand on its arm, in the same 
 attitude of trouble and indecision. 
 
 "Falsehood — the worst and blackest!" said Josephine 
 Harris. " Come here a moment, will you ?" She took the 
 hand of the young girl in hers, and led her close to the win- 
 23 
 
J4 SHOULD EB-H T B A P 6. 
 
 dow, where the warm light of the summer day streamed in 
 more brightly and countenances could be better discerned. 
 " Look in my face. "What do you see there ? — tell me frankly 
 — truth or deception V 
 
 It is doubtful whether Mary Crawford had yet closely 
 scanned the face before her. Now the troubled eyes looked 
 closely into those that were sometimes so radiant with mis- 
 chief, but now so solemnly earnest. The look was very long 
 and silent — an evident acceptance of the strange invitation 
 given. Before it was ended, that subtle magnetism which 
 truth and goodness radiate to the true, had done its work. 
 She cast down her eyes. 
 
 " I believe you to be true and good P she said. 
 
 "Thank heaven that you do !" spoke Josephine. "Now 
 sit down in that chair once more, and do not rise again until 
 
 1 have spoken what I must speak and you must hear. Do 
 not shrink, faint or shudder, though I may say a few terrible 
 words !" She led the young girl back to her chair, pressed 
 her down into it, and drew her own still closer. She did not 
 release her hand when she had placed her in that position, and 
 she fixed her eyes full upon those of the other, which made an 
 effort to escape, and then surrendered to the influence. 
 
 " Let me show you that I know all,- 1 she said. " Yet stop 
 — let me first assure you that neither Richard Crawford nor 
 his sister knows of my presence in this place — that neither of 
 them has the least suspicion that I know one word of your 
 family relations." 
 
 Mary Crawford's eyes looked into hers with one instant of 
 close question ; then accain they surrendered, and were gently 
 reliant though still full of trouble. 
 
 "I said that I would prove to you that I knew a//," Jo- 
 sephine went on. " I will do so. You loved Richard Craw- 
 ford, I think, and he loved you with his whole heart. Y"ou 
 were to be married, and the large property of your father 
 would thus be kept in the family. A few months ago he 
 ceased coming here any more, and you heard of him as plunged 
 into riot and dissipation. Then you heard of him as sick, and 
 that his sickness was the result of the foulest excesses, that 
 had broken down his constitution and made him unfit for the 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 365 
 
 society of any true woman. You began to answer hi§ letters 
 briefly and coldly, and then you ceased answering them at all. 
 You heard those reports — you scarcely knew yourself how 
 you heard them, but I do, — through another cousin, Egbert 
 Crawford, wiio has taken the place of Richard." 
 
 The young girl's eyes stared, now, and she moved as if to 
 rise, but the hand of Josephine on her arm held her gently 
 down, and her words went on, that steady gaze still fixed upon 
 her as before : 
 
 " Every one of those words was a lie, and Egbert Crawford 
 was trying to break your heart and the heart of the man who 
 truly loved you, that he might win you and your wealth !" 
 
 " How do you know this ? — woman, how do you know 
 this V broke out the poor girl, her agony of doubt and suffer- 
 ing terrible to behold. 
 
 " I know it as if God had revealed it to me from heaven !" 
 said Josephine Harris, casting up her eyes and lifting her 
 hand momentarily, as if invoking that heaven for the truth 
 she was uttering. " Not one word of these stories of Richard 
 Crawford was true. He was pure and good. He is so, in 
 spite of wrong and neglect. He loves you still, though he is 
 almost broken-hearted." 
 
 u Oh, you cannot prove these things to me !" again spoke 
 Mary Crawford, the trouble in her eyes still deeper than be- 
 fore, and still that trouble now strangely compounded of joy 
 and fear. 
 
 11 1 can and I will !" said the strange mentor. "Your own 
 heart is proving them to you at this moment. You see how 
 blind you have been, but you do not yet know all." 
 
 "All? what more can there be, whether I am to believe 
 you or not ?" asked the young girl. 
 
 " More — much more !" said Josephine Harris, speaking now 
 almost in a whisper. " Do not shriek or run away from me ; 
 but 1 tell you, before God, Mary Crawford, that for weeks 
 past — perhaps for months, Egbert Crawford has been at- 
 tempting to murder the relative he wished to rival, by 
 poison." 
 
 " Poison ? oh no, oh my God !" cried the young girl, now 
 no longer to be restrained, and starting from lrer chair in un- 
 
366 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 controllable agitation. "You are mad — mad — and you are 
 trying to make me so !" 
 
 "I have seen him apply the poison," said the strange com- 
 pound of womanly weakness and more than manly strength 
 — "seen him apply it, under the pretence of healing. I have 
 seen the racking pains those fiendish practices have pro- 
 duced, and that no doctor's skill could combat. I have - 
 him — yes, I believe that I have saved him ! You do not yet 
 quite believe all the wickedness of this man ! I see by your 
 eyes that you do not ! Bat you shall ! See here I" and 
 with the word she drew from the pocket of her dress the 
 very bandage which she had exhibited in the office of Doctor 
 La Turque, and unrolled its dark loathsomeness — " here is 
 th.e very poison that I saw him apply to Richard Crawford's 
 heart, warning him not to let the doctors suspect it, because 
 they would laugh at him for superstition. I have stolen 
 this — yes, stolen it, from the spot where Richard Crawford 
 had hidden it when he first began to be aware of the terrible 
 truth ; I have tested the powers of the unseen world to bear 
 witness to his guilt ; I have had this bandage examined by 
 one of the ablest physicians in America, and it is poison — in- 
 sidious, deadly poison. Egbert Crawford is not only a liar, 
 but a murderer /" 
 
 " Help^me ! help me ! oh, my God, what shall I do ?" cried 
 the poor girl, staggering as if about to fall, and only pre- 
 vented by the quick arm of Josephine. " Do you know what 
 you have been saying to me ? My father is sinking fast — his 
 will is made — Egbert Crawford, whom you call a murderer, 
 is at this moment at my home — I am to marry him this 
 very day !" 
 
 "You are to marry him, after this warning?" said Jo- 
 sephine Harris, looking at her with surprise not unmingled 
 with horror. "Then you do not believe me, or you would 
 marry a villain ! You are not glad to know that the man you 
 once loved, and who yet loves you so dearly, is true and loyal ? 
 I have indeed meddled where I was not wanted, and Richard 
 Crawford — indeed — indeed she was not worthy of you f" 
 
 " Oh no, no ! do not say so !" cried the young girl, chang- 
 ing so suddenly from the icy misery in which she had before 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 867 
 
 stood, that Josephine Harris was literally bewildered "I 
 do love Richard Crawford. I have never known one happy 
 day since I believed him unworthy to be my husband. I do 
 believe you, dear, good girl, and I do thank you from my soul 
 for all you have done to serve me ! But oh, I am so miser- 
 able and so helpless ! What shall I do ? what shall I do ?» 
 Before she had ceased speaking, she had literally flung her- 
 self on her knees, embracing the bottom of Josephine's gar- 
 ment, clinging to her as if there was no dependence in*the 
 world beyond, and sobbing as if her heart would break. 
 
 Josephine Harris was melted in a moment, and nearly 
 heart-broken herself, at the sight of the young girl's misery ; 
 but oh, what a gleam of joy underlay the sorrow ! She was 
 not misunderstood !— she had not been laboring in vain ! 
 Happy Joe— even in the midst of her pain and anxiety ! 
 
 She raised the poor alarmed and sorrowing girl from her 
 position of pleading and humiliation, took the chair that had 
 just been vacated, and drew her clown upon her own lap as 
 if she had been a mother or an elder sister. 
 
 ", What shall I do ?" still repeated the troubled lips, through 
 choking sobs. " 1 cannot escape now. It is too late. Poor 
 Richard !— poor wronged Richard ! I have deserved my 
 fate, for being so untrue to him. What shall I do ? What 
 shall I do ?" 
 
 " Do ?" said Josephine Harris, smoothing down her hair and 
 striving to comfort her at the same time that she braced up 
 her nerves for what must follow. " Do ? Why send Colonel 
 Egbert Crawford packing—that is the first step." 
 
 " Oh, I cannot !" moaned the young girl. " It would kill 
 my poor old father, to have any trouble in the house, rfow • 
 and I must marry that man, though I have never loved Mm— 
 and he, oh heavens ! — a murderer 1" 
 
 " Well, if you do marry him," said Joe, with something of 
 her old manner, justifying the resumption of her pet name, 
 "all that I can say, is, that I hope you will have a happy 
 time of it !" 
 
 " Why do you speak so ?" asked the poor girl. " Why do 
 you speak so lightly when I am so'wretched ?" 
 
 "Because I do not mean that you shall remain wretched," 
 
368 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 was the answer. " Hold up your Load, now, Mary — may 1 
 not call you Mary, dear Mary ! Hold up your head, like a 
 brave girl, and listen to me." 
 
 Her frightened companion made an effort to do so, and 
 she went on : 
 
 " You believe that I have been right in what I have said, 
 do you not ? And that I am a true friend ?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed I do I" 
 
 "Then obey me now!" she continued, rapidly shaping 
 into words the thoughts that had been for a few moments 
 assuming consistency in her brain. "Do precisely as I tell 
 you, nothing less and nothing more, and this marriage" will 
 break itself, without one word from you." 
 
 " Oh, how can that be possible V asked the trembler. 
 
 " Sit down in that chair for a few minutes, and don't mind 
 me!" and in a moment she had transferred her burden to the 
 chair. In another she had flung open one of the end shutters 
 of the room, drawn a small table towards the window, opened 
 upon it her portable writing-desk (an article of use without 
 which she never travelled), and was hastily scribbling, though 
 with a hand that shook a little at its own boldness — the fol- 
 lowing note : — 
 
 West Falls, Sunday, July 6th (no<fn). 
 
 Col. Egbert Crawford: — 
 
 You will probably recognize the name at the bottom of this, as 
 that of one you bave often seen, but of whom you know very little. 
 No one but myself knows anything of the contents. You are dis- 
 covered — detected. I have watched you and overheard your con- 
 versation, for days past, at the house of Richard Crawford. What is 
 more, I have the poisoned bandage in my pocket, after having had it 
 analyzed by a chemist. If you leave at once, without attempting 
 to consummate any more of your designs, you are safe from any 
 exposure — I promise you so much, on the honor of a true woman. 
 If you are not gone before to-morrow morning, without any further 
 attempt at entangling Mary Crawford, I promise you. in the name 
 of God who sees us both at this moment, that I will not only expose 
 you before John Crawford and his family, but that I will do what 
 I can to bring you to justice. Mary Crawford knows all your false- 
 hood and crime, but she, like myself, will keep silence when you 
 
 are gone. , TT 
 
 Josephine Harris. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 369 
 
 Mary Crawford had been Bitting still in her chair, leaning 
 her head upon her hand and not even looking up, while Jo- 
 sephine's pen was rapidly running over the paper. (The phrase 
 is a proper one — Joseph's pen ran, always, when she attempted 
 to write, and as a consequence her chirography was not the 
 easiest in the world to be deciphered. No fear, however, but 
 that what she wrote in this instance could be read !) When 
 she had concluded and was rising from the desk, Mary first 
 looked up, and there was such an expression of abject and 
 almost hopeless helplessness upon her face, that had Josephine 
 not pitied her before, she must now have done so. That look 
 said so plainly : " Can you indeed help me ? Is it possible 
 that I can ever be lifted out of this pit of despair ?" — that the 
 city girl accepted it instead of words, and answered it. 
 
 *! Yes, you need not look so doleful, my dear girl ! I think 
 you will find that this little epistle will do more than an or- 
 dinary volume could do. See — I have sealed it, as is best. I 
 have said, within, that you knew nothing whatever of the con- 
 tents, and at the same time I have said that you knew all his 
 baseness and treachery." 
 
 " Oh, have you ?" said the suffering girl. " How can I 
 ever meet him, after that — when he knows that I have heard 
 him spoken of in so terrible a manner ?" 
 
 " You can even do that, a little better than you could lay 
 your hand in his and promise to be his wife, I should think !" 
 said the other, and there was even some sternness in her tone. 
 
 " Oh yes, yes, anything rather than become his beyond 
 hope !" cried Mary, and there was such a shudder running 
 over her frame for the instant, that her guide and mentor 
 fully understood what must be the depth of the fear with 
 which she had become inspired. " You have been so good 
 to me — so kind and generous, that I can never thank you for 
 what you have done. Command me, now — tell me what I 
 must do, and I will obey you like a child — a poor, weak 
 child as I am." 
 
 " I do believe that you thank and trust me," said Jose- 
 phine, all her tender self again instantly, and grasping her 
 warmly by the hand. " Many people think me a rattle-brain, 
 I suppose, and my advice may sometimes seem very odd and 
 
370 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 rash ; but I am sure that heaven has intended me for the in- 
 strument of foiling that man who would be your destroyer, 
 and I know that I shall not fail. Please do precisely as I 
 ask — give Egbert Crawford that letter without a word, and 
 see if it does not produce the effect I have intended." 
 
 " I will do so, and trust that Heaven upon which you call, 
 to save me from wrong and bring about the right I'- answered 
 Mary Crawford. 
 
 " The omens are all good," said Josephine, who really had 
 in her nature a shade of impressibility, if not of superstition. 
 " This is Sunday — a day for good deeds and not for evil ones. 
 This night you were to have been married : I arrived just in 
 time to put you on your guard. All will go well, and I shall 
 see you free from a fetter so hateful and the wife of an honor- 
 able man whom I love as if he were my own brother." 
 
 " God bless you for all !" said Mary. " Kiss me before I 
 go — my more than sister." 
 
 " Just what I was going to ask of you, 11 said Joe Harris, 
 who had great faith, and was not ashamed to own the fact, 
 in the magnetism of the lips. The kiss was exchanged, with 
 a warm embrace as an accompaniment, and then Mary Craw- 
 ford said : 
 
 " I must go at once, before I am missed and too much won- 
 der excited. I will try to obey all your directions. I shall 
 see you again ? — you will not leave West Falls until — until — " 
 
 " Until you are safe ? No ! Xot if I stay a month !" 
 was the reply. "If that letter fails, something else shall 
 not! Good-b}*e, and let me hear from you to-morrow, or 
 even to-day if anything occurs. But remember, no marriage 
 to-night, if you have to run away here to escape it !" 
 
 "Oh, no ! no ! no ! Good-bye !" and the young girl had 
 passed out of the door and into the street, bearing the second 
 letter which had that day left the little house for the great 
 one on the hill, and bearing — oh, what a terrible change in 
 knowledge and feeling since she had entered the door less 
 than an hour before ! Her brain throbbed almost to burst- 
 ing, and every nerve in her body seemed to be strung to an 
 unendurable tension, as she left the little gate and took her 
 way homeward. She was wretched, in the knowledge of 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 371 
 
 guilt and wrong which had been imparted to her, and in the 
 fear of the future, which she could not shake away ; but she 
 confided, spite of herself, in the counsel which had been given 
 her, and there was a happiness out-weighing all the misery, 
 in the knowledge that the idol of her young heart was not a 
 base and miserable counterfeit. The gulf between Richard 
 Crawford and herself might have grown too wide to be over- 
 leaped — she might have become, to him, only a name to be 
 regretted and yet despised — but it was still something in life 
 to know that he was true and worthy, even if he was to be 
 nothing more to her ; and the foot of the young girl trod 
 more firmly upon the green sward of the pathway than it 
 had done for many a long month, and half the languor was 
 gone from eye and nerve, as she walked slowly home ward 
 through the summer noon, to try that strange experiment 
 upon which she felt that the happiness or misery of her 
 whole future life might depend. 
 
 As for Josephine Harris, those who know the depressions 
 which sometimes fall upon high nervous organizations after 
 severe and continued effort, scarcely need be told that she was 
 almost prostrated the moment she felt that her work was for 
 the time concluded. She had been suffering with throbbing 
 temples and a too-rapid motion about the heart, during a 
 large part of her conversation with Mary Crawford ; and when 
 Aunt Betsey, seeing from the window the departure of Mary, 
 and little Susan, recalled by the voice of her cousin, re-entered 
 the sitting-room, they found Joe shedding tears like a great 
 baby and sobbing a little, with a fair prospect of an afternoon 
 and night in the company of that most unromantic of com- 
 panions — sick-headache. 
 
 It is a matter of no consequence how much of the conver- 
 sation which had just passed, Josephine narrated to her aunt 
 and cousin. Enough to satisfy their proper curiosity and give 
 them assurance that she had succeeded in her attempt at first 
 alarming and then winning the confidence of the young girl, 
 and nothing more. Neither asked more, for both felt, beyond 
 a doubt, that there might have been confidences in that conver- 
 sation, too sacred to be revealed to other ears. 
 
 The sick-headache did come, as it had promised ; and Joe 
 
372 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Harris, ber temples bathed with cologne by the willing hands 
 of little Susy, wenfc up to an enforced siesta in her little bed- 
 room. But she had the satisfaction, as the drowsy hum of 
 the summer afternoon gradually lulled her into slumber, of 
 saying to herself — the best of all auditors for those who have 
 sound hearts and clear consciences : 
 
 " I thought I would do it — I meant to do it — and may I 
 never play detective again if I don't believe I that I have done 
 it l» 
 
 CHAPTER XXIY. 
 
 John Crawford and His Xephew — The Wreck of a Work- 
 ing Man — The Episode of the Cock — TnE Effect of 
 Josephine Harris's Letter, and an Exodus. 
 
 In order to demonstrate more clearly the state of affairs be- 
 fore existing at the house of John Crawford, and the effect 
 really produced by the missive (it might almost as well have 
 been called a missile) ot Josephine Harris, — it will be neces- 
 sary to change the point of view to the big house on the hill, 
 at a little before noon on that pleasant Sunday of summer. 
 
 The back piazza of the house looked north and eastward 
 over a slight depression which might almost be called a valley, 
 and then at the range of hills rising behind and stretching 
 downward on the other side almost to the Mohawk. Nearer, 
 it looked out upon an extensive garden, carefully laid out and 
 thriftily in growth with all the ground-fruits and vegetables 
 natural to the climate, at that time in full luxuriance. Around 
 the high board fences of the garden stood an almost endless 
 variety of fruit-trees, the cherry-trees at that moment literally 
 red, or black, or amber, as the case might be, with those delicious 
 little globules of pulpy fruit-flesh which seem like drops of 
 fragrant sweetness squeezed from the very heart of Xature. 
 Among them stood apple and pear-trees, each loaded with 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 373 
 
 the growing fruit of that wonderful fruit-season, in which the 
 smile of God seemed resting broadly on the whole American 
 con, front in the wealth and variety of its productions, however 
 his hand may have been smiting it with the desolations of 
 personal strife and bloodshed. 
 
 Digressions have become so common during the course of 
 this narration, that if the later ones are not excusable on the 
 score of propriety, they at leaat have that excuse which is held 
 to be so important by the lawyers and the statesmen— prece- 
 I dent. And having already sinned in that regard, beyond any 
 hope of forgiveness and almost beyond any feeling of account- 
 ability for the erratieism of the pen—let us pause here, under 
 the reminder of those hanging fruits in John Crawford's garden, 
 to say that while perhaps no nation has ever before been so 
 cursed with an extended civil war as this once free and happy 
 republic during the past two years— yet no nation, plunged 
 into any description of conflict, has ever been so favored of 
 Heaven with the means for carrying it on and so delivered of 
 Heaven from the dangers of famine and pestilence which so 
 often accompany the other affliction. 
 
 At no period in the history of any nation in the world, 
 could the statistics of that country exhibit the same amount 
 of material wealth and power of production as those shown 
 by the loyal States of the American Union at the moment of 
 the breaking out of the Rebellion— the capabilities of the se- 
 ceding States being left entirely out of the question. Private 
 coffers and the vaults of our banks were alike full of gold, 
 which had been for years flowing in and amassing from the 
 mines of California and the favorable course of foreign ex- 
 changes. AVe had been feeding the world, and at the same 
 time supplying ourselves and the world with more than half 
 the precious metals yearly contributed to the hoards of the 
 nations ; and that the country should literally have become 
 " full of money," was inevitable. But more especially did we 
 hold power over the wiiole world in our capacities for fruit- 
 growing and in our stores of bread-stuffs already amassed. 
 With proper management of our resources, the latter fact 
 alone might have made the whole world tributary to us, and 
 we could have dictated terms in war as well as in peace! 
 
374: SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 When a certain young Lieutenant in the British naval ser- 
 vice, from the China fleet, crossed from Hong Kong to San 
 Francisco on his way home on leave, in 1861, and then came 
 by the overland route from San Francisco to Xew York, he 
 fell into conversation in this city with a friend whom he had 
 known in England ; and as there were then rumors of trouble 
 with Great Britain growing out of her expected help to the 
 rebels, that conversation very naturally turned towards the 
 relative wealth and power of the two countries. 
 
 '•Well, I do hope," said the young English officer, "that 
 there will not be any trouble between the two countries, be- 
 cause we don't want to fight you, you know !" 
 
 u And so do I," said his friend. " The people of America 
 do not bear any ill will to the people or the government of 
 England." 
 
 "But we should beat you if we did fight, you know," pur- 
 sued the Englishman, with John Bull's tenacity of national 
 pride. 
 
 '* Think so ?" asked the other, with the slightest suspicion 
 of a sneer upon his lip. 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't think anything about it — I know it," said 
 the Englishman. u Why, you haven't got any navy." 
 
 " The deuce we haven't !" observed the other. " I guess 
 you have not seen our navy !" 
 
 " Xo ! — nor has any one else seen an armament worthy of 
 the name," said the Englishman, of course supposing that he 
 referred to the dozen of old and worm-eaten wooden ships 
 that then made up our whole preparation for contesting the 
 empire of the seas. " Why any one of bur half dozen fleets 
 would eat up your whole navy in half an hour. If you had 
 seen our Baltic fleet reviewed at Spithead, as I did just at 
 the close of the Crimean war, you would know something of 
 what the word ' navy ' meant, and you would also have some 
 idea, you know, of what a chance you would have at fighting 
 England !" 
 
 " Humph ! well, yes, you havie a pretty long string of 
 vessels, such as they are," said his American friend. " But 
 I told you that you did not know anything about our navy, 
 and you do not. You speak of the 'Baltic fleet.' Xow what 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 37-3 
 
 will you say when I tell you that at one point on the Missis- 
 sippi we have a line of gun-boats that would knock not only 
 your Baltic fleet but all the rest of your fleets into smithe- 
 reens, without even firing a gun ?" 
 
 'I Why I should only say that you were crazy, as I think 
 you are!" said the Englishman, really expecting that his 
 friend would by-and-bye attempt to demonstrate that tho 
 easiest way of travelling was by walking on the head instead 
 of .the feet, 
 
 " Yes, I dare-say you do," said the American. " And yet 
 I am not crazy. The only thing is that you do not yet un- 
 derstand me. The line of gun-boats of which I speak, is a 
 line of warehouses at Chicago, containing at this moment 
 from six to ten millions of bushels of grain, constantly empty- 
 ing and constantly being replenished. That is the line of 
 gun-boats to fight the world, and we can conquer the world 
 if we only use them correctly. We can live within ourselves, 
 without buying one dollar's- worth of anything from any 
 nation abroad, except possibly tea (for we can make our own 
 coffee while we can grow peas and beans); and there is not 
 another nation on the globe that can do the same. !\ r ot a 
 nation of you all but must have our breadstuffs or go hungry; 
 and the sailors of your ' Baltic fleet' would not fight well, 
 I fancy, on empty stomachs." 
 
 " Humph !" said the Englishman. " That is an odd view 
 to take of war." But he said no more, and was evidently 
 thinking. He had grounds for thought, and so had the 
 whole world. We had the element of success in our own 
 hands, in the capacity of living within ourselves. Had our 
 resources been properly managed, the importation of all 
 foreign goods prohibited during the period of the war, and 
 the exportation of gold and breadstuffs forbidden and guarded 
 against by the closest watch and the most stringent penalties, 
 with our people practicing the self-denial and economy of the 
 men and women of the Revolution, setting their spinning- 
 wheels and looms once more in motion and wearing home- 
 spuns instead of imported broadcloths and satins, had these 
 
 steps been taken, as they should have been taken, starvation 
 would have fallen upon half Europe, and the rebellion would 
 
376 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 long before this time* have perished from its own weakness? 
 or been crushed out, from sheer necessity, by the European 
 powers whose very existence its continuance was perilling. 
 
 The smile of God has not been withdrawn from our fields 
 and orchards; we have been continued in national health 
 and still supplied with all the luxuries of production and 
 abundance; and yet what is the use which we have made of 
 these immense advantages, and what thanks have we ren- 
 dered to the Supreme Being in those two most acceptable of 
 worships, labor and success, for the health and wealth thus 
 given and continued ? 
 
 But these reflections over, which have sprung from the 
 fruit glistening on the trees in John Crawford's garden, the 
 course of this narration reverts to two who occupied the back 
 piazza of the mansion at that hour of Sunday noon. The 
 piazza was a broad one, old-fashioned like the house, with 
 pillars of locust, planed and cornered instead of being turned 
 or fluted in the more modern fashion. Both the ends and 
 the side for a considerable distance towards the centre, were 
 enclosed by a low railing in pale ; and the western end had 
 lattice-work extending to the tops of the pillars, with the 
 leaves and tendrils of a large grape-vine that had been planted 
 many years before at the corner, running over, twisting and 
 interlacing in the lattice, and making a pleasant flickering 
 shade of the summer sunshine on the floor of the piazza. 
 A few birds, not yet thoroughly exhausted by the noon-day 
 heat, were chirping in the thick branches of the fruit-trees 
 near, and the drowsy hum and chirp of insect life made such 
 a sleepy undertone as could not fail to bring rest and quiet to 
 any mind not preternaturally active. A more charming place 
 could not have been devised, for a half-dreamy and lazy 
 student of either sex to sit down in an easy chair with a 
 pleasant book, read and muse until the flickering of the sun- 
 shine and the shadows on the floor began to be blended with 
 the type of the page, and then fall away to the lightest and 
 happiest of slumbers. 
 
 There were two figures on the western end of the piazza, 
 
 * March 7th, 1S63. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 377 
 
 under the shade of the grape-vine. The first was that of an 
 old man, sitting in a high-backed easy-chair, his feet upon a 
 carpet-covered ottoman, leaning back, and if not in physical 
 slumber, at least in that inertia of the mind which denotes 
 Jailing physical faculties and marks a slumber more complete 
 than that of shut eyes and stertorous breathing. Apparently 
 be was very old, for his hair was thin and nearly white, as it 
 showed from beneath the colored silk handkerchief thrown 
 loosely over the back of his head ; his skin had that shrivelled 
 and wrinkled appearance, denoting that the life-fluids had 
 been exhausted beneath it ; his eyes, when opened, had that 
 white opacity more melancholy than apparent blindness, be- 
 cause it shows a sight which after all takes in and recognizes 
 nothing; and his thin lips had that constant tremulous mo- 
 tion which indicates a continual desire to speak, with scarcely 
 the power of doing so and with little more than the remnants 
 of a mind left to dictate what shall be uttered. John Craw- 
 ford was, in short, a miserable human wreck, all its pride, 
 beauty and power shorn and swept away, and drifting help- 
 lessly on to that lee-shore which is called death. 
 
 There was one peculiar feature of his situation which has 
 not yet been named, and yet it was the most noticeable of all 
 connected with him. From head to foot, sleeping or waking, 
 at all times and under all circumstances, his nervous system 
 was shaking and shivering, keeping the head in that contin- 
 ual quiver which is so melancholy to behold because it sug- 
 gests involuntary labor that must exhaust and wear out the 
 system, and making the weak hand so ungovernable that even 
 the cup of tea put to his mouth required to be held and guided 
 by others to prevent the contents being spilled and the vessel 
 falling to the floor. Nothing could be more pitiable, when 
 watched for a considerable time and when the impression 
 forced itself upon the observer that at no single moment would 
 that tremor ever grow still until the spoiler had completed 
 his work, and the limbs should stiffen and straighten in the 
 last chill of mortality. 
 
 And yet John Crawford was really by no means the very 
 old man indicated by his white hairs, his dimmed eyes and 
 his palsied shiverings. He was very little past sixty, and at 
 
g78 SHOULDER-STRAPS 
 
 an age when under ordinary circumstances several years of 
 pleasant life might have been calculated upon. Nor was he 
 the victim of constitutional disease, which had been fought and 
 combatted until it had at last triumphed and brought down 
 the torn banner of manhood trailing in the dust. And still 
 less had a life of early indulgence and evil courses laid the 
 mine for this after-destruction. He was not old to senility ; 
 he belonged to a family that had been noted for their long life, 
 continued vigor and freedom from hereditary di and he 
 
 had carefully avoided those errors in drink, food and personal 
 indulgence which open the doors of -life's citadel to the invader 
 from beyond the dark valley. What, then, was the fatal se- 
 cret ? John Crawford was a suicide, and he had chosen a 
 peculiarly American mode of self-immolation. Or perhaps 
 it may with more propriety be said that he was a Fau.^t in 
 ordinary life, and that he had called upon a national demon 
 to be his aid and his foe. He had worked himself to death — 
 a phrase by many supposed to be hollow and unmeaning, but 
 one too sadly illustrated every day in our modern life. 
 
 Born wealthy, he seemed to have imbibed with his earliest 
 breath the impression that he was comparatively poor, and 
 that only the most laborious drudgery of mind and body, to 
 which the toil of the slave in the cotton-field is little more than 
 play, could keep him from becoming still poorer. He had 
 been a miser at once of his pennies and his hours, when a 
 boy ; and as he had grown older he had become a still worse 
 miser in every opportunity for gain, and a reckless spend- 
 thrift of his own comfort and energy. No laborer on his farm 
 had worked so many hours or so laboriously, the impn 
 having seemed all the while to abide with him that if he did 
 not labor he would have only eye-service, and nothing would 
 be left him. "When others had slept, and he had been de- 
 barred from laboring with his hands, he had still toiled with 
 his brain, turning restlessly on his bed when he should have 
 slept, and planning to make his fertile acres still more pro- 
 ductive or to add to them others that lay in tempting prox- 
 imity. When hours of relaxation had been demanded by the 
 calls of friendship, and even by the inexorable demands 
 own system, he had shut his ears and refused, as if puttin; 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 879 
 
 behind his back some tempter of the soul. Friends had said 
 to him : "John, you are killing yourself!" or "John, you are 
 working too hard and too steadily ! Some day you will pay 
 for all this." And one day a blunt-spoken rustic neighbor, 
 observing him at his toil early and late, had said : " John 
 Crawford, you are a fool ! You do too much work ! You have 
 a fine constitution, and think that you can take liberties with 
 it; but some day it will pay you, mark my words ! You will 
 find yourself, one fine morning, doubled up like an old horse 
 that has been over-driven ; and that will be the end of you ! 
 But go on, if you like it"!" 
 
 John Crawford had " gone on." He had married very late 
 in life, principally on account of his belief that no man should 
 marry until he had done his life-work and placed himself be- 
 yond anxiety on the score of property. When the day of 
 his marriage came, after an engagement of nearly ten years, 
 people had long been saying that the woman of his choice, 
 his " Mary," had already worried away the best part of her 
 life in anxiety for him and in fears for the final prevention of 
 their union. Then, when the marriage was finally consum- 
 mated and those who loved him best hoped that he would 
 relax in his life- wearing toil, he had merely commenced to 
 work the harder, because a married man needed to be better 
 circumstanced than a single one ! And when, five or six 
 years after his marriage, and after giving birth to his one 
 daughter and only child, Mary, his wife died, he had gone to 
 work still harder, it seemed, as the only means of forgetting 
 his bereavement ! Rain or shine — early and late — year after 
 year, he had labored on, enriching his lands and increasing 
 his out-buildings, adding new acres and putting a few more 
 thousands to those already out at interest on good bond-and 
 mortgage. 
 
 One day — some two years before the date of this story — 
 the crash had come. The "old horse" had "doubled up." 
 John Crawford had not come down to breakfast at his usual 
 time, and those who went up to look after him had first dis- 
 covered what ruin could do in a single night. The hale man 
 of the night before had become a partial paralytic, helpless 
 from that day forward — never again to lift hand in any em- 
 24 
 
380 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 ployment, and scarcely permitted brain enough to realize all 
 that he had won and all that he had lost. Gradually, afterwards, 
 his mind had cleared and his speech returned, though feebly ; 
 but during all the two years his nervous prostration had been 
 increasing and his bodily strength declining, until for weeks 
 before that Sunday of July the physicians had pronounced 
 him gradually dying and expected him to drop away at any 
 moment. 
 
 Such was half the picture presented at the end of tho 
 piazza, the other half being made up of Colonel Egbert Craw- 
 ford, his military coat changed to a blouse of brown linen and 
 his boots replaced by a pair of embroidered slippers, but in 
 all other regards quite as we have before seen him, and alto- 
 gether the legitimate commander of the Two Hundredth 
 Volunteers. During all his late visits to the farm, and espe- 
 cially since the defection and ostracism of Richard, he had 
 made his "strong point" in paying great attention to the 
 infirm old gentleman ; and as personal attention is always 
 pleasant and nattering, and more particularly so to the old, 
 crippled, tedious and tiresome, he had succeeded in winning 
 a place in the old man's regard, by this course, which he 
 might have failed to secure by any other means. 
 
 On this particular morning he was rather well pleased than 
 otherwise to see Mary throw on her flat and run out to make 
 a call on some one of the neighbors, as this gave him an op- 
 portunity, on this his last day of probation, of making him- 
 self very devoted to his prospective father-in-law, without any 
 serious drain upon his own personal comfort and energy. To 
 wait upon the old man, after he had been got up and dressed 
 for the morning and assisted out to the cool piazza, as in this 
 instance — consisted of very little more than answering the 
 few words which the invalid might happen to address him 
 (and they were likely to be very few), — brushing away a 
 troublesome fly when the old man sunk into a doze and the 
 pest came too near his nose, — moving him a little if the sun 
 happened to become troublesome through the vines, — or pick- 
 ing up and restoring a dropped handkerchief. The Colonel 
 was rather well pleased to have something to employ him in 
 this manner on this particular morning, especially when he 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 381 
 
 could combine the employment with a book and a lounge with 
 his feet upon the piaz.* -railing ; for the house was a little 
 ticklish for indiscriminate roaming about, owing to the ar- 
 rangements which he knew to be in progress. The dare- 
 devil Major Lally, of the French revolutionary time, is said 
 to have laid his head upon the block. with many doubts as to 
 the grace of his position, and with an apology to the execu- 
 tioner if he should have happened to transgress any of the 
 rules of mortuary good-breeding, — on the ground that " he 
 never had had his head cut off before;" and Colonel Egbert 
 Crawford, never having been married before, may be excused 
 if he had some sort of indefinite impression that all the rooms 
 in the house were full of awful preparations, liable to be run 
 against at any moment, and altogether fatal to matrimonial 
 prospects if accidentally disturbed. So the piazza and the 
 old man furnished him with a means of killing time that was 
 " devilish dull," and at the same time with a certainty of being 
 kept in a place where he could not possibly " run foul of any- 
 thing" or do any harm. 
 
 The old man had scarcely spoken for half an hour. lie 
 had been lulled by the drowsy sounds of the summer noon, 
 and by the growing listlessness of his own nature, into a few 
 moments of doze, in which the Colonel, closing his eyes to 
 the pages of his book, seemed on the point of joining him. 
 Suddenly a rooster, that had strolled around from the barn- 
 yard and flown up to a cool location on the top of the garden 
 fence, and under the shade of one of the cherry-trees (at 
 which elevation no doubt his numerous harem in the yard 
 regarded him with the same reverent respect paid to the 
 Prophet Brigham, when at a distance, by his fifty-six wives 
 and a fraction) — suddenly this rooster, forgetting the proprie- 
 ties of the place and the hour, lazily flapped his big wings and 
 emitted a crow of such magnificent dimensions as might have 
 startled the whole neighborhood. Colonel Egbert Crawford 
 started and opened his eyes : the old man straightened up 
 his shaking head and did likewise. The sound was like an 
 icy sword-blade thrust into a slumbering and tepid fountain — 
 startling all the water spirits from repose and propriety, — or 
 like Christmas suddenly obtruded, keen and pure, into the 
 
882 SHOULLER-STRAPS. 
 
 sluggish rest of midsummer. Of what the old man mused 
 as his waking thoughts recognized the sound, can never be 
 known — possibly of the wealth which he had garnered and 
 of the broad lands over which that sound went ringing — all 
 his own, but his own in what miserable mockery ! Of what 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford thought when the sound smote his 
 ears, is much more certain. The cock-crow and betrayal ! 
 He had been brought up in the country, and many a time, in 
 his younger and better days, when intercourse with the world 
 had not yet developed the evil germ in his character, he had 
 read and pondered over the mysterious connection between 
 the cock, Shakspeare's "bird of dawning," and the scenes 
 which preceded the Crucifixion. Remembering that the cock 
 had seemed to appear and speak as the accuser of Peter, he 
 had insensibly come to connect those events with the blacker 
 guilt of Iscariot, and to look upon the bird as the watcher 
 and detecter. In olden days this had not troubled him : 
 perhaps it would not have done so, only four or five months 
 before, when his hands were so much nearer stainless than 
 they could be called at that hour. Xow, on the verge of his 
 marriage, and when the double tree of murder that he had 
 planted (murder of character and murder of person !) was 
 about bearing welcome and triumphant fruit, the rooster's cry, 
 so sharp, sudden and unexpected, came to him like the voice 
 of an accusing spirit. It may be taken as a proof of his 
 cowardice when we say that momentarily his cheek whitened 
 and his limbs trembled ; and perhaps every criminal if a 
 coward, because he dares, not do right and trust the event 
 with the overruling providences. But Egbert Crawford was 
 no physical coward, as we may have occasion to know before 
 we have closed this relation. Yet he did whiten, and he did 
 tremble. Was there something ominous in this sudden dis- 
 turbance of the Sabbath quiet ? Did it foreshadow another 
 and a more startling disturbance, through which the dark, 
 silent current of the river of guilt would be splashed into by 
 the falling stones of the temple of error overhanging it ? 
 Was there in it an omen of the sudden flash of a bright and 
 unendurable light through those black caverns, hitherto sup- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 383 
 
 posed to be impenetrable, where crawl the loathsome and 
 slimy reptiles of deceit and treachery? 
 
 Pshaw! why should there be anything of this involved? 
 Cocks had crowed before, even at noon-tide in summer, and 
 the world had outlived the omen ! Nevertheless the sound, 
 especially so loud and grating a one, in which the bray of 
 the donkey was so evenly mixed with the hideous scream of 
 the peacock before rain, was an inopportune and impudent 
 one ; and the Colonel would have been very likely to wring 
 chanticleer's neck if it had happened to come within the 
 clutch of his fingers. As it was, he determined to cause an 
 immediate abandonment of that stronghold, and sprung up to 
 look for a club or a stone with which the enemy could be dis- 
 lodged ; when the rooster espying danger afar off, evacuated 
 his Manassas before the enemy could reach him, and went 
 back to his cackling harem. To them he no doubt related, in 
 the appropriate language of the bipeds with feathers, what a 
 couple of sleepy-heads he had seen upon the piazza, and how 
 he had startled them both with a voluntary upon his private 
 organ. Meanwhile the Colonel had dropped back into his 
 seat. 
 
 But old John Crawford, fully awakened by the sound, did 
 not seem likely to fall away into slumber again. As Egbert 
 resumed his place in the chair, the old man said, feebly : 
 
 " Egbert." 
 
 Instantly the Colonel, never forgetting his cue of attention 
 to the invalid, drew closer to his side. 
 
 " Yes, Uncle, what can I do for cyou ?" 
 
 " Where is Mary ?" asked the old man, who had probably 
 before asked the question half a dozen times since she had left 
 the house. 
 
 " Gone out for a walk, Uncle," said the expectant son-in- 
 law " I suppose she is calling upon some of the neighbors. 
 It is her last day, you know, Uncle." 
 
 11 Her last day ? — yes, you are going to be married to-night. 
 I know," whispered the old man, with the air of a child to 
 whom the intelligence has been communicated as a great 
 secret — not that of a father who had thus willed for the hap- 
 piness of a dear child 
 
384 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 "Dornine Rodgers is to come at six," said the Colonel. 
 "And then I hope I shall have the pleasure of calling you by 
 a dearer name than that of Uncle." 
 
 " Yes, yes — Mary is a good girl," said the old man. " Take 
 good care of her, Egbert. I am afraid I shan't live long, my- 
 self — not man}- years — (Poor old man ! — no efforts had been 
 sufficient to awake him to the fact that his remaining time on 
 the earth was probably to be measured by days or hours in- 
 stead of years !) " T am going to have my will made, Egbert, 
 the moment you are married, and I am going to leave all my 
 property to her — her — her and you. You will have it all. 
 Don't waste it, and don't let it go out of the family — not out 
 of the family, Egbert ! You are a Crawford, and I want to 
 keep the property in the family. Eh, Egbert ?" 
 
 "I will try to do everything that you wish, Uncle I" said 
 the Colonel; and no doubt that he really meant to obey that 
 portion of his Uncle's injunctions — to keep the property in 
 the family. 
 
 "And look here, Egbert," said the old man. who seemed to 
 speak with less difficulty than was usual to him. though there 
 were hindrances in his delivery very painful to the hearer and 
 which we cannot caricature age and decrepitude by attempt- 
 ing to convey. "Look here — there is one thing more. Xot 
 a dollar to that scoundrel, Richard ! — not a dollar, if he 
 starves !" 
 
 " Xot a dollar, Uncle ; I promise you this, solemnly." And 
 this promise, too, he meant to keep, beyond a question. 
 
 "And, Egbert, keep Mary away from him. Don't let him 
 even see her if you can avoid it. They used to be together a 
 great deal, and I don't know — I don't know !*' What the old 
 man did not know, must remain among the other mysteries 
 not yet to be revealed. "Keep her away from him — don't 
 let her go near him." 
 
 Though there were words in this last sentence of his Uncle's 
 which did not entirely please the Colonel, yet there were others 
 which did please him thoroughly. He made the third promise 
 with the same alacrity. How easy the old man was making 
 his path ! To keep the property in the family (that meant, 
 to keep it himself !) to give Richard no part of it under any 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 385 
 
 circumstances (a thing* not very likely) — and to keep his 
 young wife from the presence of a man from whom he had 
 only won her by the basest falsehood (a thing he was certain 
 to do at all events) — these were the three injunctions : how 
 easy to fulfil ! The cup of the young man's content was at 
 that moment brimming over, and the impudent chanticleer 
 who only five minutes before had tortured him from the gar- 
 den palings, was quite forgotten. 
 
 Just then there was a light foot-fall on the piazza behind 
 the two speakers. The dulled senses of John Crawford 
 were too dim to recognize it, but the keener faculties of the 
 Colonel heard the beat of the little foot at once and knew it 
 to be Mary's. He was just opening his mouth to say to his 
 uncle, " Here is Mary, now !" when he caught a glimpse of 
 her face ; and then he remained gazing and said nothing. 
 Mary had returned from her walk, had thrown off her bon- 
 net, and stepped out to the piazza to look after the comfort 
 of her father, and perhaps for some other purpose. She was 
 at that moment just outside the door, and from the position 
 of the Colonel, framed between the pillars at the other end 
 of the piazza and against the dark green foliage of an arbor- 
 vita} standing beyond. What was it that the quick eye of 
 the Colonel saw, as he turned, that stopped the words upon 
 his lips and made him look in silence on the young girl's face 
 and figure ? She had been absent from the house less than 
 an hour — what could have occurred to her, within that space 
 of time, to change their relative positions ? And yet their 
 relative positions were changed — he felt the truth in an in- 
 stant. He had parted with her less than two hours before — 
 he the successful deceiver and she the blind victim. They 
 met again, and she had gone beyond his power and his knowl- 
 edge. We have often before had occasion, in the course of 
 this narration, to speak of sudden changes in the human face 
 and demeanor, so marked as to be absolutely startling. None 
 of those changes could have been more marked than that 
 shown by the face and figure of this young girl, as glanced at 
 by the practiced eye of this man of the world. She looked 
 taller, straighter in form, and no longer drooping and in- 
 elastic. Her glorious auburn hair was partially shaken loose 
 
386 SHOULDKK-STKAPS. 
 
 from its confinement, as it had become during the exciting 
 interview with Josephine Harris ; and while the negligence 
 added to the charm of her appearance, the very fact that she 
 had not displayed a woman's coquetry in smoothing it rap- 
 idly into order before the glass when she threw off her bon- 
 net, betrayed that she was much more awake and excited than 
 usual. Was this on account of the near approach of the hour 
 of her marriage ? Egbert Crawford scarcely thought so, for 
 the e}~e was not that of an expectant bride. That soft, sweet 
 hazel eye still looked sad and troubled, but there seemed to 
 be a spark of something fiercer and sharper than love, amid 
 the trouble. Once more, what was it ? Never before had 
 she seemed so handsome, but never so unapproachable ; and 
 if the unscrupulous man had really held a true sentiment of 
 love for her, at the bottom of all his selfish and evil designs 
 (and who shall say that he had not?) there came the sharpest 
 and deepest pang of his life in the first awakening of the 
 thought that she was dipping away from him even at the 
 moment when he had apparently clutched her. 
 
 The Colonel, thoroughly mystified and a little alarmed, 
 rose from his seat and was advancing towards the young 
 girl, when she moved a pace towards him, her eyes first 
 downcast and then even sternly raised to his face. She did 
 not call him by name, nor wait until he had so addressed her, 
 but held close to him, as if to avoid any possible observation, 
 a small sealed note — and said, her voice trembling and husky : 
 " A private note for you. Please read it at once." 
 Passing by him without another word and without waiting 
 for any reply, she advanced towards the end of the piazza 
 where her father was sitting, a-nd knelt down beside him. 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford noted every feature of the move- 
 ment, and saw that his fancy of the change in her appear- 
 ance was not fancy alone. There was something threatening. 
 Mechanically he had taken the note as she had handed it to 
 him and passed by. He glanced at the superscription, and 
 though his wonder was increased, his fears of a rupture with 
 Mary were partially dissipated, for the hand was totally un- 
 known to him. Ha ! he had it ! The hand-writing on the 
 note was that of a woman — the note had come to the house 
 
SHUULDER-S T K A P S. 387 
 
 for him — she had seen it and conceived a sudden spasm of 
 jealousy on account of it ! How easily he could dissipate 
 that idea by showing her the note, which he was certain 
 could not be from any illicit female correspondent who had 
 brought him within her power. The note was almost cer- 
 tain to be from some lady on professional business, or from 
 the wife, sister or mother of some recruit who had enlisted 
 in the famous Two Hundredth, asking for his influence to- 
 wards a discharge or a furlough. lie would show her the 
 note at once, after he had read it, and with some kind of 
 laughing excuse for showing it which would not betray the fact 
 that he knew of her having any interest in it; and then this 
 sudden but not dangerous hurricane would be over. 
 
 He glanced round at the pair on the end of the piazza, a 
 smile of triumph on his face, as he came to this conclusion. 
 Mary was kneeling beside her father, her back towards him- 
 self, fondling the old man's poor withered face, and paying 
 so little attention to the man so soon to be her husband, that 
 the jealousy hypothesis might have seemed well supported. 
 What was it that the little girl had said to Josephine Harris, 
 not half an hour before ?— that " she could never meet Eg- 
 bert Crawford after such a revelation V Something of the 
 kind, certainly. And she had met him, and unconsciously 
 and without calculation gone through the very brief inter- 
 view in a manner worthy of the most finished actress — say 
 of La Heron, La Hoey or La Bateman, to name three of 
 the most dissimilar but ablest representatives of dramatic 
 character on the American stage. Oh, these little women, 
 who make a boast of their weakness — there is very little that 
 they cannot do when brought to the test ! 
 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford tore open the note, walking to- 
 wards the upper or eastern end of the piazza as he did so. 
 His back was towards the two on the other end, and perhaps 
 it was well that he should have been so positioned at that 
 moment. Naturally, he glanced first at the bottom, and saw 
 a name which he immediately recognized as that of one who 
 had been in the way sometimes at the Crawfords. He had 
 never liked her, or held any more intercourse with her than 
 was unavoidable with a very frequent guest at the same 
 
383 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 house with himself. He had considered her a little loud in 
 voice, rather rapid, and a fool. He had been satisfied that 
 she told all that she knew, and he would not have been sur- 
 prised to find that sometimes she told considerably more. 
 He had considered her utterly incapable of keen research, 
 and the very last person in the world to keep a secret, sup- 
 posing that such a (dung could come into her J 
 What did he find here, and from her I 
 
 He read that note three times over, standing on the ex- 
 treme east end of the piazza, leaning against the corner- 
 board of the house, and with his face so averted from those 
 at the other end that even if Mary Crawford once or twice 
 threw a quick glance around, she could see nothing. Then 
 he turned, shoving the letter into his vest-pocket as he did 
 so, and walked slowly down the piazza to the hall-door, his 
 face calm, to all distant appearance, and whistling " Strida 
 la Yampa." 
 
 If Mary Crawford had not before been able to see his 
 movements, she arose from her knees as he came down the 
 piazza, and saw him then. She saw him as he passed in at 
 the hall-door, heard him whistle without an apparent tremor 
 in a note, and heard his slippered steps as he slowly lounged 
 up the stair towards the room on the second floor which had 
 been for some months kept as his. The young girl was dis- 
 appointed — astonished — astounded ! She had seen no agita- 
 tion — had heard and seen the indications of the opposite ! 
 The blow had not been effectual — it had either been feebly 
 struck or delivered from a false aim ! He was not guilty, or 
 he was beyond fear and knew himself to be beyond the reach 
 of public exposure ! She had hoped too soon — the bond she 
 dreaded was not broken or even deferred ; and God help her, 
 after all ! 
 
 Such were the impressions of the young girl, as the man 
 within a few hours to be her husband disappeared into the 
 hall. "Were they well founded ? Ah, young eyes ! — you 
 may be schooled to do your part, very early, but you cannot 
 at once be schooled to read the eyes of others aright. Per- 
 haps you never learn to read aright, until you lose the 
 brightness of your own truth and beauty. Seventeen cannot 
 
SHOULDER- STRAPS. 389 
 
 well realize, to-night at Mrs. Pearl Dowlas's hop, when Mr. 
 Pearl Dowlas, the eminent merchant, supposed to be worth a 
 million, caresses his handsome side-whiskers with his faultless 
 hand and interchanges pleasant nothings with the fashionable 
 women who all admire him and all hate his wife, — that Mr. 
 Pearl Dowlas is suffering, all the while, the intense agonies 
 of ruin, and that he has the revolver already loaded and 
 capped with which he intends to blow out his brains after 
 the last carriage has rolled away. And Seventeen will be 
 quite as slow to discover, unless Seventeen has lived too 
 fast for her own self-respect and eventual happiness, that 
 Lady Flora, patting her white-gloved hands to-night at the 
 Opera, with the blonde Emperor by her side, apparently the 
 happiest and the most truly envied woman in all that bril- 
 liant house, has such pangs of rage and jealousy tugging at 
 her heart-strings, when she looks over at a much plainer wo- 
 man in the opposite row of boxes, that could the terror of 
 the law be removed, she would sacrifice self-respect, dignity, 
 hope, everything, and bury a knife in the heart of that plainer 
 woman as they brush by each other in the lobby. Seventeen 
 will be slow to discover these things. Twenty-five may 
 have a nearer appreciation of them, though yet dim as com- 
 pared with the reality : alas ! — it needs Forty-five or Fifty, 
 or a younger age made so old by sad experience — Forty-five 
 or Fifty, with the bloom gone, the gray hair here and the wrin- 
 kles coining, to look beneath the surface and see the agony 
 writhing at the bottom. Thank God that some agonies never 
 can be discovered at all, until they break forth in uncontrol- 
 lable madness : the world might be sadder if we could look 
 in through transparent flesh into our neighbors' hearts, as we 
 do through glass windows into their houses ! 
 
 " Strida la Vampa" had been bravely whistled. Not braver 
 the conduct of the poor cartman at the hospital a few months 
 ago, when he looked calmly on without a groan or a wince, 
 while the surgeon sawed off the ends of the bone of his frac- 
 tured arm, drilled holes through them and screwed them to- 
 gether with a fastening of gold wire ! That was physical 
 bravery, or perhaps stolid exemption from pain : this was 
 that moral bravery, in a bad cause, but none the less real, 
 
390 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 which could see wholesale and undeniable ruin fall without 
 betraying one sign of agony to the observer most interested. 
 Though he had read that letter three times to fix the words in 
 his mind, he had understood it at the first reading. It told 
 him all that needed to be known. Mary's changed look and her 
 averted face were now accounted for — accounted for at once 
 and forever. Xo word of explanation was necessary and none 
 would be given or demanded. Some men might have hesi- 
 tated, and questioned whether the blow could not be softened 
 or averted. This was not Egbert Crawford. He had played, 
 boldly, wickedly and recklessly, though apparently with all 
 care. At the very moment when he seemed to have won all, 
 he had lost all. At the bar he had always been known as 
 contesting a case unscrupulously and to the bitter end, but as 
 giving up gracefully and bearing a defeat without complaint, 
 when defeated. A suspicion once aroused, and backed as was 
 this suspicion, the wearer of the eyes he had just seen could 
 never again be deceived. Had he been less of a resolute man 
 he might have dared the other threats of the young girl, per- 
 haps impotent. But the one great stake lost, in the hand and 
 fortune of Mary Crawford, there was nothing left to play for, 
 worth even hazarding exposure. 
 
 We will not say that in his own chamber, and while chang- 
 ing his slippers for boots and his linen-wrapper to a coat more 
 fit for the street, he did not more than once gnash his teeth, 
 utter an oath below his breath, and curse the whole race of 
 meddling women. But if he did so, he said nothing aloud; 
 and if his dark brows were darker than usual, no human eye 
 saw them. He had writing materials upon the table in that 
 room — that room, the best in the house, and into which, on 
 the night to follow, he had expected to be accompanied by 
 his bride. He sat down at the table but a moment, but in 
 that moment he dashed off, with a hand wonderfully steady 
 under the circumstances, the following note : 
 
 Sc.vday, 1 P.M. 
 
 Miss Harris: — 
 
 You have meddled successfully, and whether you are right or 
 wrong in what you allege, I shall not be here to contest the ques- 
 tion. If your husband, if you ever get one, keeps half as close a 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 391 
 
 watch over you, he will probably see quite enough to satisfy him. 
 Perhaps you will be kind enough to communicate this to Miss Mary 
 Crawford, and thus finish the obligations under which I rest. 
 
 Yours, humbly, 
 
 Egbert Crawford. 
 
 In a moment more this note was sealed and directed to 
 " Miss Josephine Harris — Care of Miss Crawford" and left 
 lying on the table, with the superscription upward. Then 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford put on his hat, walked deliberately 
 down-stairs and out at the front of the house. No one seemed 
 to observe him — not even a domestic, and probably nothing 
 could have pleased him better at that moment. Walking 
 town the lane to the road, he turned up the road to the left, 
 went up to a little country tavern where he had sometimes 
 hired a riding-horse on previous visits, and hired a horse and 
 buggy, with a driver, to go at once to Utica, Ten minutes 
 completed the negotiation, and ten more harnessed up the 
 horse to the vehicle ; so that before the call to dinner was 
 made at the Crawford mansion, before old John Crawford was 
 assisted in from the portico, or Mary thought ^f the arbiter 
 of her destiny as elsewhere than in his own room, — he was 
 bowling down the dusty road towards Utica. When the 
 down-train from Suspension Bridge left Utica for Albany that 
 afternoon, the detected and beaten gambler in reputations, 
 lives and matrimonial ventures, was a passenger. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Affairs in the CrawforiT Family in New York — The 
 Two Brothers — Marion Hobart the Enigma — Niagara 
 
 BY WAY OF THE CENTRAL PaRIy. 
 
 It has been already said that John Crawford, wounded, 
 and with the poor little Virginian orphan-girl in his company, 
 reached New York on the evening of the Fourth of Julv — 
 
392 SHOULDE R-ST R APS. 
 
 the same evening, it will be remembered, on which Tom 
 Leslie and Josephine Harris left the city, the one for Niagara 
 and the other for her matrimonial operations at West Falls. 
 ft is just possible that their not arriving earlier was a lucky 
 event, as Joe Harris, had she once set eyes on the deli- 
 cate and singular-looking Virginian girl, would have been 
 almost certainly attracted towards her, and in that event her 
 pet hobby for the time might have been neglected — her 
 departure for the Xorth might have been delayed for a day 
 or two — and Mary Crawford might have been left to meet 
 her fate in helplessness and ignorance. 
 
 And yet all this is an array of " mights" that have no real 
 propriety, for events occur but once in the world, and they 
 only occur in one mode. Human will is free, and human 
 responsibility is never to be ignored ; and still no human 
 hand changes in any degree the inevitable. " Oh, if I had !" 
 and " Oh, if I had not I" are very common exclamations, and 
 those who have committed terrible errors or met with severe 
 misfortunes will continue to make them until the whole 
 course of human existence is run; and vet they are none the 
 less follies. The events of yesterday were part of that general 
 plan on which the world was first formed and on which it 
 ma} r have been conducted through all the hundreds of centu- 
 ries which puzzle Agassiz and frighten the theologists. The 
 downfall of an empire and the picking up of a basket of chips 
 by a ragged child in a ship-yard, may each have equally 
 formed part of it, and each been equally impossible to avert. 
 Human will seemed to move each event, and human respon- 
 sibility certainly attached to each ; but the event itself, un- 
 known until accomplished, moved in its appointed course and 
 could no more be jarred from it than one of the planets from 
 its orbit. 
 
 But all this by the way. Joe Harris had her own odd 
 work to do, hundreds of miles away, and there was no hin- 
 drance in the way of her accomplishing it, from any new ties 
 suddenly added to bind her to the city. 
 
 Of course that strange and unexpected arrival from the 
 seat of war (for John Crawford had not even taken the pre- 
 caution to telegraph from Fortress Monroe or Washington) 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 393 
 
 created a sensation in the Crawford household. A mixed 
 sensation — for while both the brothers were heartily glad to 
 meet, each had a cause for sorrow on meeting the other. 
 Richard was naturally sorry to see John, who had passed 
 through so many fights without harm, wounded at last and 
 disabled for an indefinite period ; and John was correspond- 
 ingly sorry to Bee Kicliard, whom he had left in such high 
 health and spirits, a broken-down and house-ridden invalid. 
 Not long before he had another cause for anxiety ; for in the 
 first half hour of private conference which ensued, on the very 
 evening of their arrival, in response to a question from John, 
 as to the health of the family at West Falls and the progress 
 of his expected marriage with Mary, Richard revealed the 
 unaccountable state of coldness which had sprung up, Mary's 
 neglect to answer his late letters, and the fact that Egbert 
 remained all the visiting-link between the city and country 
 branches of the family. 
 
 " Egbert, eh ?" asked John, whose service at looking out 
 for skulking enemies when on picket-duty, might have made 
 him more watchful and suspicious than he would have been 
 under other circumstances. M Egbert, eh ? Well, all I can 
 say is that I don't like the link !" 
 
 Richard Crawford started, as he lay reclining upon the 
 sofa. He was decidedly better than he had been a week be- 
 fore, and kept his little room less closely, though he was 
 fearfully weak and the racking pain had not entirely left his 
 system. " You never liked Egbert," he said. 
 
 " No, w said John, " I never liked him, a bit more than 
 Dean Swift liked Doctor Fell, though perhaps I could not 
 tell why, any better than the Dean." 
 
 u Xo, I suppose not," said Richard, musingly. And here 
 the conversation dropped, on that point. Whatever may have 
 been Richard Crawford's suspicions of his cousin, forced on 
 him by circumstances and by the young girl who had so 
 strangely volunteered to disenchant him — he had no ifetention 
 of communicating them even to his brother. 
 
 If there was a mixed feeling in the meeting of the brothers, 
 there was one quite as complicated in that of Isabel Craw- 
 ford and Marion Hobart — two total strangers so unexpectedly 
 
394 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 flung together. Bell Crawford was better fitted to receive 
 and care for the orphan girl, than she would have been a 
 month before, when the mysterious turning-point of her ex- 
 istence had not been reached ;• and there had been no time 
 since she had become the mistress of her brother's mansion, 
 when she would not have used every exertion to make one 
 comfortable and happy who had been so strangely recom- 
 mended to her sympathy. What she would before have 
 lacked, was discipline and thoughtfulness. These she had 
 attained to some degree, in a manner which she could not 
 much more comprehend than those who surrounded her. But 
 it was impossible that she could be able at once to supply the 
 double want of sister and mother to one who had been so 
 differently nurtured and educated as Marion Hobart ; and the 
 very desire to be even kinder than she would have cared to 
 be to one who had more claims upon her, necessarily placed 
 her in embarrassment which was very likely to produce the 
 opposite effect. The young Virginian girl could not do other- 
 wise than receive those attentions with gratitude, and yet her 
 very desire not to be obtrusive and not to seem to demand 
 more attention than was necessary, placed her in an equally 
 anomalous position. The two girls consequently became 
 much less intimately acquainted within the first few days, than 
 they might have done if thrown together under different 
 auspices. 
 
 Marion Hobart was, as her conversation and conduct on 
 the night of her grandfather's death so plainly indicated, a 
 most singular person, and one who might have been studied 
 for years without being fully understood. She talked but 
 little, and yet her silence seemed to be more the result of 
 having nothing to say and no sympathy with the ordinary 
 topics of conversation, than from dislike or inability to con- 
 verse. When she did speak, the same childlike curtness and 
 immobility were observable, that had been shown by the 
 couch W* her dying relative. She seemed to be repeating set 
 words, that did not affect her heart or make any change in 
 the expression of her face ; even though she may have been 
 deeply moved in reality. She received kindnesses with thank- 
 fulness, and vet that thankfulness was ffenerallv too set and 
 
 n 
 
SHOULDER-ST R A P S. 395 
 
 formal in its phrase to ere** the impression of gushing warm 
 from the heart, and to give that exquisite pleasure that a 
 simple "Thank you I" will often convey when it seems to 
 leap out unbidden. 
 
 Of course in the double disaster of the fire and the death 
 the poor girl found herself almost entirely unprovided with 
 clothes. Isabel, with thoughtful care, the next day after her 
 arrival spoke of making arrangements for procuring the ser- 
 vices of a dressmaker at once. 
 
 " Yes thank you, I have no clothes. I shall want some » 
 answered the young girl. 
 
 "Kxcuse my touching upon your grief," said Bell, " but I 
 suppose that you will wish black ? You will wear mourn- 
 ing r" 
 
 "No, if you please," was tbe reply. "My family never 
 wear mourning. My grandmother never did. I have been 
 told so 1 do not remember my grandmother. I do not 
 know why we never wear mourning. But if you please I 
 wish to do as grandmother did." 
 
 Here was the same peculiarity again, that had been shown 
 at he bedside of the dying grandfather_the grandmother 
 spoken of but no mention of a mother. Bell Crawford no- 
 ticed the fact, as her brother had not done ; but she could no 
 more have asked that strange girl for an explanation, and 
 risked the possible opening of some family wound, than she 
 could have gone to the stake. 
 
 Nothing more was said upon the subject of the mourning j 
 and Bel Crawford made the necessary arrangements for pro- 
 ivci'nflis "'^ SUggC ' Stcd uo remembrance of her 
 
 John Crawford had not forgotten the words of the old man 
 as to money in his granddaughter's name, lying in one of 
 he en y banks. He suggested the matter to her? aware that 
 she would be anxious to rid herself from anyfcoling of ab- 
 solute dependence,_and she answered him at on<£ She 
 knew the name of the bank, and near.y the amount that 
 should b c standing to her credit, which was, as her grand- 
 father had said, quite enough to make her comfortable' for an 
 ordinary life, ranging closely upon fifty thousand dollars II, 
 
396 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 procured her some checks, and she filled up one in a hand of 
 crow-quill lightness, which looked indescribably like herself, 
 but with a readiness which showed that she must have been 
 before familiar with banking business. He presented the 
 
 check, and it was honored without enquiry, this fact proving 
 that her signature was known ; and thus all anxiety on the 
 pecuniary question was set at rest. 
 
 The young girl had said, in that dreadful hour by the death- 
 couch, when speaking of her grandfather's fervent Union 
 sentiments, "I do not know anything about politics, myself!" 
 The truth that she had no knowledge or no feeling on the 
 subject of the struggle between the two sections, was made 
 manifest before she had been twenty-four hours an inmate of 
 Richard Crawford's house. John continued to fight, mentally, 
 though wounded and absent from the army. Richard was 
 an ardent loyalist, as we have seen. The brothers naturally 
 ran into warm denunciations of rebellion, and confident pro- 
 phecies of the success of the Union cause, in spite of all 
 past disasters. Bell and Marion were both present when they 
 launched into the first of these ; but before the conversation 
 had lasted many minutes, the young Yirginian girl rose and 
 left the room with a word of apology. Both the brothers 
 noticed the act and her manner. It did not indicate anger 
 or dissatisfaction — simply a total want of interest. 
 
 The next morning something still more conclusive on this 
 subject occurred. Richard Crawford had been much in the 
 habit, during his illness, of being read to by his sister, Joe 
 Harris, or any other friend who would take the trouble to 
 amuse him in that manner. As he began to recover, he did 
 not lose the relish for that description of lazy luxury. On the 
 morning in question, John had gone out, Bell was busy, and 
 Marion and her host happened to be alone in the room, when 
 the morning papers were brought in. 
 
 "Miss Hobart, will you be so kind as to read the news to 
 me ?" suggested the invalid. 
 
 " If you wish, Mr. Crawford," she said at once. " I do not 
 read very well aloud. But I will do my best." She picked 
 up one of the papers and commenced reading. European 
 news — news from Central and South America — railroad ac- 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 397 
 
 cidenta — dramatic notices — everything except the news from 
 Washington and the war, which happened to be all that he 
 cared to hear at all ! He looked at her in some surprise, but 
 watched her closely and saw thai she did not do this by chance, 
 but that she carefully avoided the columns containing the 
 news from the army. Directly Bell entered the room, and 
 she began, at his request, to read the war news. Then Marion 
 left the room, with an apology, as she had done the day 
 before. 
 
 When John returned, his brother related the incident to 
 hiiu. In return John informed him of her words on the first 
 night of their meeting, and the two agreed that she had an 
 Unaccountable antipathy to everything connected with the 
 war, and that nothing more should be said to her on the 
 subject. 
 
 "What if she should be a little secesh?" asked Richard, 
 very much at random. 
 
 " She V said John. " The granddaughter of that man ? 
 Not a bit of it ! She is a little of an oddity, and a very pretty 
 little oddity — don't you think so, Richard ?" and so the con- 
 versation dropped. 
 
 The young girl had evidently had a fine musical education. 
 She played very sweetly, though only upon request. Once she 
 sang an English ballad, upon still more urgent request, but 
 she seemed to do so with such unwillingness that she was not 
 d again. Her voice, as shown on that occasion, was 
 mournfully sweet and pure, and highly cultivated. She spoke 
 French with singular facility and unusual correctness for an 
 American. Bell and the brothers hoped that when the nov- 
 elty of her position had worn away, she would more fully 
 enter into their tastes and habits, and become less impracti- 
 cable, if not happier. 
 
 A very neat little chamber on the second floor, which ad- 
 joined Bell's and had been standing empty except when 
 occupied by chance visitors, was arranged for the young girl 
 as soon as she entered the household, and she took possession 
 of it with apparent satisfaction. And what a little "box" 
 she made of it at once. The very next day she went into the 
 street, without any consultation with Bell, and made purchases 
 
39S SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 of not less than a hundred dollars worth of pictures and 
 articles of vertv, to ornament it. It was not difficult to 
 at once, that though she might be indolently content without 
 the surroundings of luxury, yet it was only with them, and 
 with them in somewhat aristocratic profusion, that she could 
 he spiritedly happy. When she had added her purchases li- 
 the comforts and even luxuries already in her chamber, she 
 ran into BelPs room with something approaching to excite- 
 ment upon her face, and called her in to see the arrangement. 
 Bell literally clapped her hands in delight, the young Vir- 
 ginian girl had shown such exquisite taste and made the 
 little room look so much like a cross between the sleeping 
 chamber of a very young princess, a museum, and an art 
 gallery. She had imagination enough to fancy how the scene 
 would appear, with the room so ornamented, the light turned 
 low and filtering through the white porcelain shade of the 
 burner, and that singularly beautiful little head lying in sleep 
 on the white pillow, the calm, childlike features in repose, and 
 the blonde hair a little dishevelled and insensibly fading away 
 into the white upon which it rested. 
 
 There were some articles of vertu, a very small statue of 
 Washington among them, lying on the bureau and not yet 
 arranged. Bell Crawford went up to the bureau and examined 
 them, while Marion was arranging a different loop to the cur- 
 tains of her bed, which would enable her to look out, before 
 she rose, on a handsome little steel engraving of the white- 
 plumed Henry the Fourth at the battle of Ivry, which she 
 had just placed in position on the wall. Among the articles 
 on the bureau lay a locket, in gold with a band of blue enamel 
 crossing it diagonally. It was unclasped, and almost without 
 a thought whether she was doing right or wrong, Bell (as 
 woman, and even man, will often do in such cases) took it 
 up in her hand, threw open the case and looked at the face 
 of the miniature within. This was simply the head from an 
 admirable carte de visite, artistic enough to have been made 
 by Gurney or Fredericks, and showing that it must have been 
 taken within a very few months, — cut out in a circle and 
 placed within the glass. The face was that of a man who 
 might have been thirty years of age, dark complexioned but 
 
SHOULDER-STltAJ'S. 399 
 
 strongly handsome, indicating size and sinew in figure, with 
 the cheek-hones a little high, fiery dark eyes under heavy 
 brows; heavy black Lair worn long and curling, and a very 
 heavy and yet graceful dark moustache. In the picture he had 
 a broad white collar turned down under the velvet of his dark 
 coat, giving him a peculiar look which may have been Southern 
 or South-western and was certainly not of the North and the 
 " great citie." Bell Crawford had only a moment to notice 
 the picture, and though she supposed it to be the portrait of 
 some near relative of the young girl, she could not help think- 
 ing how completely and exactly her opposite it was in every 
 particular— -black hair for blonde, strength for fragility, and 
 the fire of those dark eyes for the calm, childlike innocence 
 of Marion Hobart's. 
 
 Only a moment sufficed to make these observations : the 
 next instant the young girl saw the picture in her hand and 
 sprung down from the chair upon which she had been standing, 
 with an agitation entirely different from any thing which she had 
 before exhibited. Her pale face was for the instant deeply 
 flushed — Bell Crawford was sure of it — and there was some- 
 thing more passionate than usual in the sad eyes. Her lips 
 trembled, and her hostess grew both pained and alarmed in 
 the belief that she was about to utter harsh and angry words. 
 But if the eyes of Bell had not been mistaken, and there had 
 really been such an agitation raging in the breast of the young 
 girl, certainly a most remarkable change had come over her 
 before she had taken the two or three steps forward and 
 reached the bureau where Miss Crawford was standing. She 
 was herself again, completely; and her words, when they 
 came, were such as might have been expected of her from 
 pivvious observation. 
 
 "Please do not look at that !" she said, reaching out her 
 hand to take it. Then she instantly added : "But you have 
 seen it, It was my own fault. I should not have left it 
 lying open in that manner. I did not wish you to see it, or 
 any one." 
 
 11 1 am really sorry," said Bell. " I took it up without 
 i hinking, and I hope that you will not think that I wished to 
 pry into any secret of yours." She was a little ashamed at 
 
400 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 her Blight breach of etiquette, and a good deal pained ; and 
 her strange guest seemed to be at once aware of both feel- 
 ings. Before Bell knew what she was about to do, Marion 
 had thrust the locket into her bosom, then laid (not throw?}) 
 her arms around her neck, and kissed her on the cheek. 
 
 "Please do not be hurt or angry with me," she said, her 
 voice very low and her whole manner childlike. " It was 
 not wrong for you to look at the picture. It was wrong in 
 me to pain you. It is the picture of a very dear friend — of 
 my family." There was the least instant of hesitation before 
 adding the last three words. "If you do not wish v<rv 
 much, I will not tell you his name, for — for reasons that you 
 would not understand." Another slight instant of hesitation 
 in the middle of the sentence. 
 
 " Oh, by no means — do not tell me the name. You would 
 pain me if you did so," answered Bell. " Xow let us forget 
 all about it, and only think of the wilderness of pretty things 
 that you have been buying, to make this room the very neat- 
 est in the house." 
 
 " Do you think so ?" said Marion. " I am very glad if 
 you like them. I am very glad when I please any one, and 
 very unhappy when I do not, I do not quite know how to 
 arrange them all. Will you help me ?" and in a moment 
 more the episode of the picture seemed to be quite forgotten 
 in the bestowal of the remainder of Marion's " art-treasures." 
 
 Saturday afternoon saw a marked event in the history of 
 the Crawford family, in the crossing by Richard of the 
 threshold of the outer door, for the first time in so many 
 weeks. He was weak, faint and feeble, but the racking pains 
 of his disease seemed hourly to leave him more completely. 
 He had no more thought of leaving the house, however, than 
 of flying, until the tempter appeared in the shape of his 
 brother. John had been reading over the morning paper, a 
 little late ; and after the news had been thoroughly exhausted, 
 he had happened upon the programme of the music at the 
 Central Park, 
 
 " Hallo !" he said. " Here, Dick ! Dodworth's Band at 
 the Central Park this afternoon. I have heard plenty of 
 what they called music, all the while that I have been gone ; 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 401 
 
 but not Dodworth. Let's go up and hoar it! Besides, I 
 want to see how much more thoy have wasted on the Park." 
 
 "I!'' answered Richard Crawford, astounded. "You arc 
 not very kind, brother John, to speak of my going out, when 
 you know that I have not left the house for months." 
 
 "No," said John, "indeed I did not think of that! But 
 now that I do think of it, all the more reason why you should 
 go." 
 
 " Why, I could not sit up to ride a block !" said Richard. 
 
 " Don't believe a word of it !" said John, gayly. " You 
 never know what you can do, until you try. You are better 
 — you say that you are better — and the more you stay within 
 the house, the more you may. In my opinion, to get well 
 rapidly, you should be out of the house more than half the 
 time, regaining the strength you have lost." 
 
 Just then there was a ring at the bell, and Dr. Thompson, 
 the old family physician who had attended both the brothers 
 since boyhood, came in to look at Richard and after the 
 dressing of John's wounded arm. John had made a per- 
 sonal call upon him that morning, and the genial, gray-haired, 
 but young-hearted old doctor had been very glad to see him 
 returned, with no worse wound than that in his arm. 
 
 " See here, Doctor," said John, the moment he entered, 
 " I have been giving Richard good advice, and I wish you to 
 bear me out in it." 
 
 " Advising me to kill myself, he means !" said Richard. 
 
 " Humph ! let's hear what it is all about, and see how 
 much you are both wrong !" answered the doctor, who hact 
 made that advance in philosophy which recognizes that neither 
 side in an argument is at all likely to represent the whole 
 truth. 
 
 " I have been telling him that he should go out, and ban- 
 tering him to ride with me to the Central Park," said John. 
 
 "And I have been telling him that I had not strength 
 enough to ride a single block, much less to the Central Park," 
 said Richard. 
 
 "Let me see," said the doctor, taking the invalid's hand 
 in his, examining his pulse, and subjecting him to a general 
 scrutiny. " The proposal is a bold one, but I fancy that it is 
 
402 SHOULDER-8TRAF B. 
 
 sensible, after all Yes, when von can go out, you ean go 
 out to advantage, and I believe that time ha? come. You 
 had probably better accept your brother's proposal 7 ' 
 
 The result of all which was, that the carriage was ordered 
 between three and four o'clock, and that in spite of the 
 insufferable heat of the day the two invalids (so very differ- 
 ently disabled) were driven to the Central Park, were driven 
 around it, heard Dodworth's Band perform half a done* 
 operatic selections as only that cornet-band can perforrii 
 them, saw the loungers on the grass, the promenaders on the 
 walks, the boats on the pond which is called a lake, and all 
 the picturesque features of that Saturday-afternoon gathering 
 which within the past two years has become a pleasant 
 feature of summer in the metropolis. 
 
 Richard Crawford did not experience the fatigue he had 
 expected. On the contrary he felt new life and vigor flowing 
 in with every breath of the yet early summer ; and when 
 they drove back to the house an hour before sunset, he had 
 the sensations of a school-boy whose play-hour is over and 
 who is just going back to school and his books. He was not 
 only better, but he was nearly well. He felt and realized the 
 fact for the first time. The wide, glorious, open world, with 
 its flowers, its waters, its sunshine, and its smiling human 
 faces worth them all, had once more called the man who had 
 so lately believed himself shut away from life and enjoyment 
 forever ; and he was answering the call. 
 
 Xot that Richard Crawford was happy, even while the 
 •music was sounding over the lake and nature was wooing 
 him with her midsummer smile. He had loved — he yet 
 loved — truly and devotedly ; and without his realizing what 
 evil influence could have fallen like a blight upon all his 
 hopes, those hopes were destroyed. He was not broken- 
 hearted, as he had believed himself to be while laboring under 
 more serious bodily illness : he was only sad; but that sad- 
 ness, he believed, would remain during life. Ah, well ! — if 
 life and health were still to be his, he must nerve himself to 
 meet whatever of sorrow or disappointment might come, 
 and bear what he could not conquer. So thought he as they 
 rode homeward, when John for a time ceased that constant 
 
S H O U L D E It - S T K A P S. 403 
 
 stream of chat for which a wounded arm did not in the least 
 disable him. He little knew how a lumbering stage was at 
 the same hour setting down a dusty little woman in a gray 
 travelling-dress, at a country village hundreds of miles away, 
 whose acts and words were to produce so marked an effect 
 on his own destiny. 
 
 These details of very ordinary events in the Crawford 
 family, which followed the re-union of the two brothers, may 
 seem very uninteresting and common-place; and yet they 
 are necessary for the possible understanding of what so soon 
 followed. For the letting in of sunshine on a dark place may 
 not only warm and illumine that place for a time but make 
 the continuance of sunshine a necessity. And going out into 
 the sunshine may have the same effect. The school-boy, 
 once let out for his " play-spell," may have great objection to 
 spending so many hours, thereafter, over his books in the 
 dusky school-room ; and Xature, after a time, may develope 
 the fact that he needed the reviving and strengthening edu- 
 cation of the outer world, much more imperatively than the 
 additional education of the brain which he would have ac- 
 quired within the sound of the teacher's voice. Nature's 
 hygiene is very little understood, but it is at the same time 
 very simple and very powerful. The sun contains the great 
 mystery of health and hardihood, and the man who carefully 
 shuts himself away from its rays is arranging for the same 
 kind of existence which the -unfortunate plant is forced to 
 experience, growing under the shelter of a rotten log, succu- 
 lent, tender and perishable. The fire-worship of the Ghebers. 
 was founded upon common-sense ; and no doubt the first 
 kneeling adoration of the sun-worshippers both of Persia and 
 Peru, was paid by some poor fellow who had been sick, 
 attenuated and miserable, who had finally crawled out into the 
 sunshine after long confinement, and who believed that there 
 must be some supernatural influence in the life radiating 
 from the great orb and bounding through every half'-chil led 
 vein. The inventor of parasols and sun-shades should have 
 bnii executed immediately on the announcement of his in- 
 vention, for In' has been the means of shutting away the Fa 
 of more than half the world, and especially the fairer portion, 
 
40± SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 from their best inanimate friend, the BOB, of making sallow 
 complexions and lack-lustre eyes, and of causing a demand for 
 cosmetics that would never have been known had the sun-god 
 
 been allowed to steal kisses from the cheek of beauty and 
 leave there the ruddy glow of health as a compensation for 
 the privilege. 
 
 To induce a belief on the part of Richard Crawford that 
 he was well enough and strong enough to leave the house to 
 which he had been so long confined, had been found a little 
 difficult. The ice once broken, the next adventure into the 
 summer sunshine would need far less inducement So it 
 proved. And so it happened that within four days from the 
 time when he believed that he was committing suicide by 
 adventuring to the Central Park, he permitted himself to be 
 persuaded, under the sanction of the doctor, into taking a 
 step which was certain to test his powers of enduranee pretty 
 thoroughly — nothing less than going to Niagara Falls. 
 
 Of course this movement originated with John Crawford 
 the Zouave, whose original restlessness had not been a whit 
 quieted by the ever-moving adventure of a year in the army. 
 The city was growing unendurably hut, he said, so that he 
 every day expected to find the paving-stones splitting to 
 pieces with the heat, and the fish boiling in the X orth River. 
 It was ten degrees worse, he averred, than he had experienced 
 in Virginia either season ; and such a thing as a hot day had 
 never been known at Niagara,. even by the oldest inhabitant. 
 (Perhaps the young man altered his opinion on that point, 
 visiting it especially during the early days of July, 1862 !) 
 Dick would grow worse again — he knew he would — and lose 
 the little strength he had gained, sweltering in such an un- 
 ventilated pig-stye as the city. Come ! — there were to be no 
 more words about it ! — they should all go to Niagara ! 
 
 Puchard Crawford was at first alarmed — then puzzled — ■ 
 then a little delighted. Bell, who did not often fall into the 
 peculiarly girlish weakness of clapping her hands, did so on 
 this occasion. She had missed Niagara for the previous two 
 years ; and this season, owing to the serious illness of her 
 brother, she had expeeted to be debarred the privilege of ex- 
 hibiting her unimpeachable summer wardrobe (which she had 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 405 
 
 not quite forgotten) at any of the watering-places. Richard's 
 
 rapid improvement and this restless suggestion of John, 
 seemed like a god-send. She voted for Niagara, if Richard 
 felt that he could endure the fatigue of the journey. His 
 citadel surrounded on two sides in that manner, and the genial 
 old doctor faithless, there was little else left than a surrender, 
 and Richard Crawford surrendered. 
 
 Stop ! — there was something of which neither had thought 
 for a moment ! They had a guest, whose wishes should be 
 consulted the more religiously because she would make no 
 parade of them. Would Marion Hobart, who mourned in 
 heart if not in the sombre hue of her garments, for her last 
 relative so lately dead — would she be pleased to go into the 
 gay world of a fashionable watering-place ? Not content, 
 but jileased? If she would not, the project must be aban- 
 doned, whatever the temptations to go forward. Bell, who 
 had the moment before been about commencing her action as 
 a committee of one to overhaul Richard's laid- away warbrobe 
 and discover what additions would be necessary, had the 
 sphere of her operations suddenly changed by being sent up- 
 stairs to sound the inclinations of the young Virginian girl 
 on the subject. 
 
 She found Marion Hobart half en deshabille, lying upon 
 the bed in her own little chamber, busily reading and comparing 
 the letter-press with the coats-of-arms, in a copy of the Eng- 
 lish Peerage which she had found in Dick's little library, and 
 to which she had exhibited a scandalously aristocratic taste 
 by paying more attention than to all the other books in the 
 house. 
 
 u Have you ever been at Niagara, Marion ?" asked Bell 
 Crawford, leaning over her with a sisterly caress 
 
 " No," answered the young girl, looking away from her 
 book, but without any indication of rising or any sign of that 
 anxious agitation which inevitably brightens the faces of most 
 American girls who have not seen the world's-wonder, when 
 that magic word is uttered in their presence. "Father and 
 some friends wen; at Saratoga once, when 1 was a very lit lie 
 girl. But father was drowned at sea. Grandfather never 
 came North.' 
 
406 SHOULUER-STUArS. 
 
 " Would you like to see Niagara ?" was Bell's second ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "I do not know,* answered the young Virginian girl, with 
 strange coolness and candor. " I think I should like to see 
 it as well as anything else. I have not seen many waterfalls. 
 I once saw the Falls of the Black Fork of Cheat ; and I saw 
 the Natural Bridge They are both in Virginia I do not 
 know wnether I should like Niagara or not." 
 
 " Would you like to go there. Suppose brother and myself 
 were going to Niagara and should ask you to go with us — • 
 would you be pleased to go 1" 
 
 "I would as lief go as stay here or go anywhere else," said 
 the singular girl. 
 
 " I thought you might possibly have objections to going, 
 because there is so much company at Niagara, and because 
 you have so lately lost your grandfather — that is why I asked," 
 explained Bell. 
 
 " I do not mind the company. They are nothing to me. I 
 do not niourn for my poor grandfather aloud. But you are 
 very kind to think of me," answered the little enigma. And 
 with that very unenthusiastic endorsement of the Niagara 
 project, Bell Crawford was compelled to descend the stairs 
 and make report of the event of her embassy. But the result 
 was held to be rather satisfactory than otherwise, and the 
 hastily-devised arrangements for Niagara went forward. 
 
 To pass rapidly over that movement, the manner of which 
 does not in any degree affect the progress of this narration, 
 let it be said that on Wednesday, the 9th of July, the two 
 brothers, the sister and their guest, with the proper array of 
 the " great North River travelling-trunks " and other baggage, 
 took the steamer Daniel Drew for a sail by daylight up the 
 Hudson, as the mode of making half the journey least fatiguing 
 to the recovering invalid. That the three New Yorkers, to 
 whom the scenery of that noble river was thoroughly familiar, 
 clapped hands and shouted their joy once more, nearly all 
 day, at the flashing blue of the river, the rafts of steamboats, 
 sloops and tows that continually came sweeping down it, the 
 rugged frowning of the Palisades, the narrow-passes and rug- 
 ged peaks of the Highlands, and the long, blue, uneven line 
 
S H 9 U L D K R - S T R A I' S. 407 
 
 of the Cattskills, with the white glimmering of the Mountain 
 House,— while the young Virginian girl, introduced to that 
 scenery for the first time in her life, seemed to maintain her 
 calmness and comparative insensibility. That they rested 
 for the night at Albany, out of respect to the comfort of the 
 invalid— John Crawford submitting under protest, and de- 
 claring Albany, after Washington, the most unendurable " one- 
 horse town » in the universe. That they took the cars of the 
 Central Road in the morning, Richard being so pillowed 
 among cloaks and blankets and shawls, that he had quite the 
 comfort of lying in an ordinary bed; and that on Thursday 
 night, the Tenth of Jul}', when the full moon had risen so high 
 in heaven as to make the coming midnight a very mockery of 
 day, they rolled into the village of Niagara Falls, and found 
 a resting-place at the still wide-awake and ever-lively Cata- 
 ract. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 Tom Leslie at Niagara — A Dash at Scenery There— 
 
 A Rencontre— Dexter Ralston Once More Union 
 
 Man or Rebel ? — Tom Leslie Discounted. 
 
 * 
 It will be remembered that Tom Leslie, leaving Josephine 
 Harris with a sigh of regret at Utica (those jolly fellows do 
 Sigh sometimes, after all !) went onto Niagara on the afternoon 
 of the Fifth of July. Walter Lane Harding had promised to 
 join him at the Cataract, early in the following week, if he 
 could so arrange his business as to leave the city on Sunday 
 or Monday; but jtlst now Leslie was alone — worse alone 
 than he ever remembered to have been at any former period 
 of his life. Lost one night in a pass of the Apennines, with 
 some doubts whether he should ever be able to find his way 
 to supper and civilization, he had been lonely enough for 
 comfort; and pacing his solitary night round as a sentinel 
 
403 B HO % DE R-S T B A P S. 
 
 under the frowning guns of Sebastopol, he had felt that an- 
 other friendly human face would be pleasant to see and a 
 friendly human voice something not be despised ; but neither 
 
 of those .situations could for a moment compare with the lone- 
 liness of that summer afternoon and evening, while he was 
 bowling along through the Genesee Valley. 
 
 The absence of the whole world is a grief, when we do not 
 wish to be alone, but that is a grief in the general. The 
 coming of any one person will break the spell and fill the 
 void. But the absence of the one, immediately after earth 
 and air have seemed to be full of the sacred presence, is grief 
 in the particular. Only one can fill that void, and the coming 
 of that one is for the time impossible. The company of 
 thousands of others is then an aggravation and an insult, 
 making the loneliness worse by contrast with the apparent 
 companionship of all others. 
 
 Tom Leslie (this fact may have been sufficiently indicated 
 before) — Tom Leslie was deeply, irrevocably, hopeles.-ly in love, 
 and he had not even taken the ordinary pains to deceive him- 
 self on the subject. He t had found his destiny and submitted 
 to it, after a long period of immunity. He had every reason 
 to know that his regard was returned ; and he had no reason 
 to doubt, though not an explicit word had been spoken to 
 warrant the belief — that when he asked the corresponding 
 question of Josephine Harris, as he certainly meant to do at 
 a very early day, her answer would be a frank and satisfactory 
 — yes ! So much for content and the future. But Tom, like 
 many another child, had no propensity for waiting, and liked 
 his sugar-plums note as well as to-morrow. He would have 
 liked to give up business, ignore propriety, and have the com- 
 pany of the odd combination of female graces and weak: 
 who had won him, all the while for the present, and after- 
 wards by way of variety. So he felt at that moment, at 
 least; and it was with more than one, *or two, or a dozen 
 yawns and " Heighos !" and several short naps that happened 
 along on his travel like cities of refuge, that he managed to 
 wear through the last hours of his journey. 
 
 But Tom Leslie, the cosmopolitan and journalist, would 
 have been unworthy the experience through which he had 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 409 
 
 passed, bad he lacked the power to erdure what he disliked. 
 He could never have digested horse-beef among the Kalmucks, 
 
 or stomached the rancid sour-krout of Old Haarlem, without 
 this indispensable qualification. So, though on the night of 
 his arrival at the Cataract he allowed the thunder of thefall 
 to call him in vain to a view by the broken moonlight, and 
 though he tumbled into bed within ten minutes after~his late 
 and light supper and went sullenly to sleep as if there had 
 not been a woman in the world worth thinking of,— yet he 
 was in quite another mood the next morning. 
 
 Niagara was unusually full for so early a period in the 
 season, the leading houses being already crowded, though 
 principally by transient visitors. The Fourth of July, then 
 just passed, had been kept with unusual vigor and display, in 
 the way of powder, fireworks and general patriotism at the 
 International, the Cataract and all the other more popular 
 houses— partially, no doubt, because the evil eyes from across 
 the river began to be noticeable, and because the red-cross 
 flag had been more conspicuously displayed at the Clifton 
 House and on the flag-staff at the Museum at Table Rock, 
 than in ordinary seasons. 
 
 But whatever changes might have occurred in personal 
 and national feeling, Tom Leslie felt, as he strolled across the 
 bridge and over Goat Island, on the morning after his arrival, 
 that there had been no change which the human eye could 
 perceive, in the great cataract or its surroundings, since he 
 had looked upon it for the last time before his departure for 
 Europe, when that narrow river supplied the northern boun- 
 dary of what seemed to be a united and happy nation. Hu- 
 manity is changing, inconsistent and unreliable : Nature is 
 calm, grand, and verges on the eternal. He saw that the 
 great American Rapid still came thundering down, "like a 
 herd of white buffaloes with wild eves and sea-green manes," 
 ns a graphic writer has described it ; that the grand old trees 
 with their gloomy immensity of shade and the thousands of 
 unknown and long-forgotten names carved upon their bark, 
 still stood as sentinels along the beaten pathways over the 
 l-lni). 1 ; that the thunder of the Fall still kept the whole solid 
 mass of the Island in one creeping and trembling shudder, as 
 
410 S II o L* L DE R - ST B A P S. 
 
 if a Blight earthquake was just passing, with a dull, heavy 
 boom like that of a continuous distant cannonade, coming up 
 in the pauses of tlie wind. 
 
 He saw, too, as he paid his inevitable quarter at the 
 toll-house on the causeway, that the course of "honest in- 
 dustry" (i. e., that blatant humbug which eternally taxes the 
 pockets for superfluities) had not been checked ; for the usual 
 amount of birchen-canoes, bead-caps and feather-fans with 
 sprawled birds in the centre, were on sale under peculiarly 
 aboriginal auspices. And that the whole race of Jehus had 
 not relieved society by going to 'be killed-off in the war, he 
 became painfully aware by the number of villainous-looking 
 wretches armed with dilapidated whips, who beset him on 
 the bridge and offered to convey him anywhere for something 
 less than the mere pleasure of his company. Tom Leslie had 
 been somewhat too familiar in other lands as well as his own, 
 with such human vermin as those with the whips, and such 
 fungi temptations to extravagance as those that hung from 
 the tawmy hands and beckoned from shelves and glass cas< 3, — 
 to pay them much attention or receive much annoyance from 
 them ; and so he passed on across the Island, to look once 
 more upon the great English Fall and the Canada shore 
 beyond. 
 
 Emerging from the woods upon the high bank overlooking 
 the English rapids, the whole unequalled scene burst once 
 more on his view T , as he had patriotically tried to remember it 
 when looking at Terni and Schaffhausen. He had carried 
 the sight and almost the roar with him, in memory, ready to 
 dwarf with them all that the European world could presenJ; ; 
 and so sacred seemed the thought of that wonder of nature 
 which could form such a talisman, that the broad hat was in- 
 sensibly lifted from his brow as he caught the first new 
 glimpse, and he stood before the Fall fairly uncovered as he 
 might have done on the crest of the Judean hills, overlooking 
 the first-seen Jerusalem. 
 
 The dark and rugged Canadian shore was full in view on 
 the other side of the river, with the Clifton House and the 
 Museum glimmering brightly in the morning sunlight, and 
 the red-cross flag waving sluggishly from both as if in defi- 
 
SHOULDER-STKAPS. 411 
 
 once of the great nation that lay So near and jet could not 
 38 the little patch of land over which it floated. The 
 Boree-Shoe Tower stood as of old, still unconquercd by the 
 fierce rapids striving to undermine it; and around base and 
 balcony swarmed visitors who seemed like pigmies not so 
 much on account of the distance as because they were dwarfed 
 and belittled in the presence of the immense and the im- 
 measurable. All these things lay broadly in sight of the 
 journalist on that glorious Sunday morning, and perhaps at 
 another time he might have seen and attempted to describe 
 them ; but not then. He for the moment failed to see what 
 was before him, and he saw something else not revealed to 
 every eye. 
 
 Tom Leslie was either the master or the slave of a power- 
 ful imagination. Some who knew him said the one, and some 
 the other. But all agreed as to the possession of the faculty ; 
 and it was not always that his soberest and most conscien- 
 tious relations (in type) were received without a shade of 
 suspicion on that account. It may have been that the lone- 
 liness of the night before had not quite worn away, and that 
 it left him sadder and more impressible than usual ; and it may 
 have been that the one element before wanting in his nature, 
 that of earnest and undivided human love, had changed him 
 when it was supplied. At all events, there was a something 
 in that wondrous scene, that came to him that morning as he 
 had never before known it — something that came to him from 
 dream-land, and made the sight of his eyes only the exercise 
 of a secondary faculty. He saw, with this peculiar sight, all 
 the features of the scene that we have noted, and another and 
 one strikingly unusual, in a shipwreck in the rapids. 
 
 Two days before, on the Fourth, and in honor of the day, a 
 knot of gay fellows had procured an old schooner, hoisted 
 white streamers at the tops of her stripped masts, and sent 
 her down the river into the rapids from Chippewa Creek, ex- 
 pecting to enjoy the rare pleasure of seeing her leap over the 
 Falls and emerge in little fragments and splinters of timber in 
 the river below. Thousands had gathered on the Canadian 
 shore, and on Goat Island, to witness a prank never matched 
 in audacity since the British " guerrillas " from the other side, 
 26 
 
•±12 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 in the time of the Canadian rebellion, seized the steamer 
 "Caroline" at Schlosser, set her on fire, and sent her down 
 the Falls — an act which almost lit the torch of war bo effectu- 
 ally between the two countries, that all the waters which i 
 whelmed the " Caroline " would not have been enough to 
 quench it. 
 
 But with reference to the old schooner, sent down from 
 Chippewa Creek on the Fourth of July. She had only shown 
 that human calculations are not infallible, even when they 
 presage disaster. The thousands assembled to witness the 
 destruction, had been doomed to disappointment. The current 
 had swept the boat well over on the Canadian side, and there* 
 some unknown edd}' had seized and driven her between two 
 sunken rocks, where she lay as safe from any danger of the 
 Falls as if she had been ten miles below them, instead of half 
 a mile above. She lay, bow up the river, inclined lengthwise, 
 as if she had been caught when shooting down the Lactone 
 Eapids, and the white streamers on her bare masts fluttering 
 out to the winds as signals of distress that would have been — 
 ah ! so hopeless and useless with human life on board and in 
 peril. 
 
 At the first moment of beholding the old wreck, Tom Leslie 
 found her a prominent feature in the spectacle, and his reflec- 
 tions took a shape which may have been taken by those of 
 many sojourners at the Falls, who saw her during the season : 
 
 " There she lies to-day, and there she may lie for many a 
 long month, gradually weakening and breaking apart from the 
 action of the rapids surging around her, until some night when 
 the wind comes fiercely down the river, and heavy storms 
 have increased the volume of water as well as loosened the 
 last bolt that yet holds her securely together, — then, when 
 there is none to witness the death-throe of wood and iron, 
 she will heave and labor and at last break apart. The two 
 fragments will go sweeping down, whirled over like play- 
 things — touching the points of the rocks and giving out groans 
 and shrieks like those which precede dissolution ; then for 
 one moment there will be a dark mass poised on the edge of 
 the Fall, and the next there will be one more deafening crash 
 added even to the thunder of the water.-. A few broken 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 4 lo 
 
 splinters will go swooping away down the dark river, and all 
 will be over." 
 
 ISut what was it that Tom Leslie saw, more than is revealed 
 to the natural eyes, looking on that scene when he had con- 
 templated it for a few moments ? This and only this — but 
 quite enough to make the memory of that moment immortal. 
 He saw it applied to the human heart and human life. The 
 water pouring over the Horse-shoe Fall ceased for the mo- 
 ment to be the falling water of this real world, and became 
 some weird stream falling thunderously and in white glory 
 through the land of dreams. The dark misty gulf into which 
 it [toured below was not the physical abyss over which the 
 natural man must stand with a shudder, but the unfathomed 
 pit of woe and sorrow into which, in nightmare dreams, man 
 has been ever falling yet never destroyed, since the first vi- 
 sions of early childhood. The tower ceased to be a palpable 
 mass of wood and stone, and became human hope and energy, 
 with the clear blue sky of God's providence above, beaten by 
 storms and undermined by fierce currents every moment 
 threatening it with destruction, but standing yet through all. 
 And the old wrecked schooner above had ceased to be a mere 
 material wreck of plank and timber and iron — it was one of 
 those unreal but sadder wrecks of a human life and a human 
 soul, stranded for the moment on the rock of some great ca- 
 lamity, and eventually to be swept away and engulphed by 
 the inevitable. 
 
 There had been a slight veil of haze shrouding the sun 
 for the previous half hour; but as Tom Leslie partially 
 awakened from his dream and listlessly descended the stairs 
 cut in the bank, towards the bridge leading to the Tower, 
 the mist rolled away, the sun broke forth in the glory of 
 high-noon, and out of the darkness below sprang an arch of 
 light that almost made the journalist, who was too old and 
 too world-hardened for such exhibitions, clap his hands and 
 cry : " The rainbow ! the rainbow !" Of old he had seen the 
 rainbow spanning the eastern heaven when looking out at 
 early evening from the home of his childhood, and when the 
 thunder-storms of summer were dying away over the Atlan- 
 tic ; but here it was, a thing of arms' reach, and at his feet ! 
 
41-4 SHOULDER-STRATS. 
 
 At one moment it merely glimmered up through the mist 
 
 from the bed of the river, a little broken space of the arch, 
 and the colors dim and indistinct ; anon the sky grew brighter 
 and the column of mist rose higher ; and now it formed more 
 than the half circle, the top a little above the level of the 
 Fall, — and the blue, and gold, and green, and orange, and 
 purple, painted so brightly on the retina of the eye that they 
 seemed to be a part of the very air the observer was inhaling. 
 How near he stood, impressible Tom, at that moment, to the 
 eternal mystery ! — how near to the workshop in which seem 
 to be flashed out from eternal forges the beauties of the sun- 
 shine and the storm ! Climbing down from the bridge to » 
 the end of the rock, leaning tremblingly over and looking 
 down into the misty gulf below with that Jacob's Ladder of 
 faith set therein — it is not strange that the journalist for one 
 moment wished for a line and plummet to drop into that 
 reservoir of golden glory and bring up some memento of 
 what seemed so near to the celestial ; — just as one wishes, 
 sometimes when the midnight heaven is darkest and the stars 
 are burning most purely there, to be able to stretch forth a 
 hand among the stellar lights and bring it back bathed with 
 that radiance which is so fearfully beautiful. 
 
 Leslie had no intention of ascending the tower that day — . 
 other days would be his at Niagara, and something must be 
 saved for each. Besides, he had breakfasted lightly and an 
 unromantic call for lunch was being made on faculties quite 
 as delicate as his mental perceptions. He had accordingly 
 just turned again and ascended the stairs to the bank in front 
 of the Pavilion, when the fates (ever kind to him in this re- 
 gard, as to every other true lover of nature) vouchsafed him 
 one moment's glimpse of a spectacle often wished for and 
 seen but seldom. Turning for one last glimpse as he walked 
 away, at that instant his eye was resting on the sharpest 
 point of the curve of the Horse-shoe Fall, where the volume 
 of water is evidently deepest, and where from that depth it 
 makes one broad unbroken sweep of amber green as it plunges 
 over, without one fleck of foam to mar it. He was just scan- 
 ning for an instant that calm depth, and sa}ing that there 
 was after all the majesty of Niagara — there, where the great 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 415 
 
 green flood approaches the awful precipice, impelled by a re- 
 sistless force from above, but unruffled and untroubled by the 
 approaching f:d< i — bends gracefully and proudly at the verge, 
 
 as sonic dusky Antoinette might do her proud neck when 
 He axe of the executioner was impending — then, still with- 
 out a ripple or a tremor takes the last long plunge as Curtius 
 may have done when the gulf was open in the Forum and he 
 rode down the Aventine and spurred out into thin air to 
 fulfil the omens of the augurs and save the perilled life of 
 Rome, — he was just feeling and saying this, when a dark 
 speck appeared at the very edge of the green. It was a log, 
 perhaps fifteen or twenty feet in length, over the Fall ! — a 
 mere log, nothing in another place, but everything in the place 
 it for that moment occupied. For one instant he saw 7 it hang 
 trembling on the verge, then for another its dark outlines 
 were thrown into clear relief against the bright green water 
 with the sunshine glimmering through ; and then down, down 
 it was hurled, rushing like an arrow's flight into the feathery 
 foam of the broken water below, and at last (so far as 
 human eye could ever know) into the blinding mist at the 
 bottom of the cataract. What a reed upon the brook had 
 been that log, that might have required the strength of a 
 dozen men to lift it from the ground ! — what is the might 
 with which the elements make playthings of what seem to 
 mortal strength dense and immoveable — even as the great 
 Pow r er that is equally above nature and above man, " holdeth 
 the mountains in the hollow of his hand, and taketh up the 
 isles as a very little thing !" 
 
 " By George !" said Leslie. " What a lucky dog I am ! 
 I have known a thousand people who wished for just such a 
 view, and I have had it all alone, after all !" lie was not in 
 the habit of holding conversations aloud with himself; but 
 he had been so impressed as to speak aloud involuntarily, in 
 this instance. 
 
 " Xo, not quite alone, if you please, Mr. Leslie !" said a 
 dec]) voice behind him, and at the same instant a hand was 
 laid upon his shoulder. He turned, and met the powerful 
 form and singular face of Dexter Ralston, the Virginian. 
 
 It was not unnatural that Leslie should be surprised ; and 
 
416 S H O r L 1 » E R - S T R A T S. 
 
 it would be idle to say that he was no1 even Btartled at this 
 most unexpected meeting, remembering what la 1 did of the 
 
 last three occasions on which lie had met this man — in each 
 instance, as be had reason t<> suppose, his observation being 
 unknown to the other. He might have been pardoned if he 
 
 even shuddered, remembering- the connection which he be- 
 lieved Ralston to bear towards the " red woman" ; and he was 
 too ardent a Union man, as we have seen, not instantly to 
 remember the ambiguous circumstances under which he had 
 twice seen him, and the chase after him and his companions 
 which had cost him so long a ride only a few days before. It 
 may be said, in this place, that he had heard nothing from 
 Superintendent Kennedy, before leaving the city, of the watch 
 placed upon the house and its result, — and that after the 
 second adventure of the house on Prince Street, and the 
 opening of the new channel into which his thoughts and 
 feelings had been led by the meeting with Joe Harris, he had 
 not thought proper to follow up the mystery, and consequently 
 had no knowledge that any of the parties had left Xew York. 
 
 All those thoughts, and the counter one that the man before 
 him had really done him no harm but had once rendered him 
 an important service — passed through the mind of Leslie ho 
 quickly that the other must have been a close observer to 
 know that they were passing at all. As a result, by the time 
 that they became fairly confronted and Dexter Ralston held 
 out his hand, that of Tom Leslie met him with all apparent 
 frankness. 
 
 "Mr. Ralston," he said, owning a part of the truth, "really 
 you surprised me." 
 
 "So I suppose," said the other; "and yet I have been 
 standing here, leaning against one of the posts of the Pavil- 
 ion, for several minutes ; and I am certainly not so small of 
 stature as to be easily overlooked." 
 
 " No," laughed Leslie. And then he'added. " But yonder 
 is something larger. The Falls dwarf everything, and I 
 suppose hide everything." 
 
 ' ; Very probably," said Ralston. " "Were you walking back 
 towards the bridge ? Shall I walk with you ? That is — I 
 moan to ask — are }~ou alone ?" 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 417 
 
 " Oh yes, all alone !" said Leslie. "I am at the Cataract. 
 And you — arc you staying here ?" 
 
 " I have been staying at the Clifton," answered the other, 
 as they strolled back across the Island. " But just now I am 
 at the Monteagle. It is long since we met," he added. " You 
 have been in Europe, have you not ? I think you told me 
 you were going, when I saw you last." 
 
 "Yes," said Leslie, "I have been in Europe again, and 
 only came back last spring." But he added a mental enquiry 
 that was by no means shaped into words: "Did I say to 
 him that I was going to Europe ? or does he keep watch of 
 me and know my every movment, through the mysterious 
 agency of the woman of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard ?" 
 
 " You are a newspaper man still ?" asked Ralston, after a 
 momentary silence, as they walked on. 
 
 " Yes," said Leslie, "I am still at that drudgery, in my 
 own way, and shall probably never be freed from it. But 
 you see that I do not stick so closely to the desk as to injure 
 my health very much ! And you— excuse my asking the 
 question," and he tried, walking at his side though he was, to 
 mark closely whether the question produced any effect on the 
 face of the other—" but the truth is, Ralston, that I scarcely 
 expected to meet you in the North at the present moment. I 
 thought you so incarnate a Southerner, as well as a slave- 
 holder, that you would have been likely to join in the rebel- 
 lion !" 
 
 " Xo, did you ?" asked Ralston ; and if his face changed, 
 certainly Leslie, close observer as he thought himself, could 
 not detect the difference. " Well, I must say that you put 
 the matter plainly. You should have thought better of an 
 eld friend, and remembered that if I was a Virginian I was 
 also and still more an American." 
 
 How openly and with what apparent honesty the man 
 spoke ! And how impossible it seemed that he could be 
 uttering other words than those of entire truth ? But Tom 
 Leslie remembered the night under the arches of the Capitol, 
 the stars-and-bars and the mystic circlet of the house on 
 Prince Street, and the mysterious words that procured ad- 
 mission to the house up-town \ and he had seen and heard 
 
413 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 enough of double faces not to be too sure of his ground ok 
 
 any man's word. 
 
 " Well, I am glad to know it," he said, in reply to Ralston's 
 disclaimer. "We have not too many true Union men, who 
 have forgotten the particular part of the Union in which they 
 icere born, for the sake of the country and the whole country. 
 I am glad to know that you are one of them. He laid 
 peculiar stress on the more important words of the last sen- 
 tence, and bent his eyes still more searchingly on the counte- 
 nance of the singular man before him. 
 
 " How long do you remain ?" asked Ralston, as they neared 
 the end of the bridge. 
 
 "A few days only," answered Leslie — "perhaps a week or 
 two. I came up to catch the moon on the Falls. 
 
 " You should have come in time, then, and seen the eclipse," 
 said the Virginian. 
 
 " Aha !" said Tom Leslie to himself. " One point of in- 
 formation gained, if no more ! He is a little in the habit of 
 being at Niagara, for he was here at the full moon in June 
 and he has since been absent ! One touch inside your armor, 
 old fellow, if no more ! You were here to see the eclipse] 
 then ?" he asked aloud of Ralston. " I tried to come myself, 
 but could not manage it. What was it like, if you saw it over 
 the Falls ?" 
 
 " I was staying at the Clifton House, then," said Ralston, 
 " and I came down to Table Rock, alorte, just after midnight, 
 and sat there from the beginning to the end of the obscura- 
 tion. You should have seen " — and here his undenialile 
 though repressed poetical temperament began to show itself 
 in his cheek and eye — " you should have seen the dull, dis- 
 mal shadow gradually creeping over the rapids as the disk 
 grew smaller, every flashing wave seeming to be touched with 
 a ghastly reflection that said : ' Daylight and moonlight are 
 both gone forever — the last darkness is creeping on — the end 
 of all things is at hand.' The spray below the cataract seemed 
 dun and lead-colored, as if it might have been the sulphurous 
 smoke rolling up from a battle-field. All was splendidly dis- 
 mal, let me tell you ! — such a spectacle as few men see and 
 no man who sees ever forgets !" 
 
SnO U LDER-STR APS. 419 
 
 "And what was the appearance of the moon when fully ob- 
 Bcured P 1 asked Leslie, almost breathless with interest at the 
 strangely graphic words of the Virginian, and no longer won- 
 dering, after those words, that there should have been a con- 
 nection between the mysterious "red woman" and one who 
 s Mined so nearly of her mental kin. 
 
 u It was no moon," answered Ralston, and his dark eyes 
 seemed to lose all their fierceness and grow inexpressibly sad 
 and solemn as he spoke. " It was no moon ! It was a mere 
 unreal shadow and mockery — the dead ghost of a moon that 
 had been, perished long ago, and embodying all the griefs and 
 all the sorrows that had weighed down the heart of man since 
 the Creation. The waters of Niagara lay beneath it, as if 
 under a pall that had settled over a dead world !" 
 
 " I should have liked to see it — I would have travelled a 
 thousand miles to see it, had I thought so far !" said Leslie, 
 with the earnestness of a lover of Nature under all her aspects. 
 
 " Would you ?" said Ralston. " Well, it was something to 
 see once : I should scarcely like to trust the brain of the man 
 who saw it much oftener. I must leave you, but I hope I 
 shall meet you again. Here boy!" beckoning to one of 
 the lounging hack-drivers at the hotel-end of the bridge, 
 " Drive me to the Monteagle. Good-bye !" and away he 
 whirled, leaving Leslie to look after him until out of sight, 
 and to say to himself as he walked up the esplanade over the 
 rapids : 
 
 "I thought that / was an oddity and a contradiction, but 
 that fellow can discount me ! I don't know half as much 
 about him now, as I did the first moment I saw him !" 
 
420 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CIIAPTER XXVII. 
 
 Si. IKTY AND SH0TJIJ)ER-StRAPS AT THE PALLS — TOM LESLIE 
 
 Annexing Canada — Meeting of the New Yorkers — 
 Another Rencontre, a Mysterious Disappearance and 
 a General Wonder. 
 
 Tom Leslie was not left to loneliness and his own resources 
 very long at the Cataract, for Walter Lane Harding reached 
 Niagara at noon on Monday, having left New York on Sim- 
 day (.'veiling. Though even had Leslie been left to hie " own 
 resources, "these resources were somewhat more numerous than 
 usual, and he was never much in the habit of being so bmvd 
 by Time as to be obliged to lay plots against its life. In the 
 first place — no, that should be the second place — he had his 
 duties as a newspaper-correspondent at a leading and fashion- 
 able resort, which entailed a letter every day, but which did 
 not entail, let us say, the chronicling of the details of hops 
 and evening assemblies, after a manner somewhat scandalously 
 prevalent, with descriptions of the " charming dress worn by 
 
 Miss A ," the "elegance and grace of the accomplished 
 
 Miss B ," and all the other disgusting and indecent Jenk- 
 
 insism of the initials, together with fulsome laudations of the 
 table and even the laundry of the hotel, leading to the impres- 
 sion that the correspondent is upon free board and even free 
 washing! Our cosmopolitan had outlived that phase of cal- 
 low journalism, long before ; and the managing-editor would 
 have been a bold one who should now have proposed to him 
 to re-enter that most contemptible of all literary harness. 
 What he was to write and what he did write, catching up the 
 prevailing topics of conversation and tones of feeling, with 
 sensational descriptions of scenery and incident interspersed 
 like under-tones to joyous music, — men who have hearts, 
 brains and breeding will at once recognize, and others will 
 never know under any detail of information. 
 
 What Tom Leslie found it necessary to do in the first place, 
 was to write a letter per day, and occasionally two, to a cer- 
 tain lady temporarily located at West Falls, Oneida County, 
 
S IT O U L D E M - S T 11 A P S. 421 
 
 that lady having very kindly given him her address with per- 
 mission to use it, and having promised to answer these epis- 
 tles with brief and maidenly little notes of her own. When 
 it is said that as early as Monday he received one of those 
 notes, and that for an hour thereafter he had very indefinite 
 ideas as to which end of the human figure was intended for 
 the purposes of locomotion, it will be understood that both 
 parties to the compact were carrying out their agreement 
 with praiseworthy faithfulness. 
 
 But even without the duties devolved upon him by love or 
 newspapers, Tom Leslie, a trained observer of society around 
 him, would have found plenty of occupation on the favorite 
 promenades and in the parlors and halls of the International 
 and Cataract. Such a complete and total revolution in so- 
 ciety was beginning to show itself, in the gradual dropping 
 away of the old " good families " who years before had made 
 Niagara, Saratoga and Newport their Meccas at midsummer; 
 such bloated pretenders, with unlicked cubs of families, the 
 " shoddy aristocracy " who had first aided to make the war, 
 and then make dishonest fortunes from it, had come up to 
 take their places, with everything about them, sire and son, 
 mother and daughter, new, arrogant and unpleasant'; and 
 there was such a marked absence of that Southern element 
 which in other days had supplied money to obsequious waiters 
 and green girls to needy fortune-hunters, — that there seemed 
 to have been a complete turn of the kaleidoscope, and it almost 
 puzzled an old habitue to know whether he had not exchanged 
 lands as well as years. 
 
 And something else, of no secondary importance, presented 
 its claims to notice. This was the " blue and buttons " — the 
 11 absenteeism " to which notice has been before so often called 
 during the progress of this narration. The result of the 
 Seven Days' Battles was just coming to the sojourners at Ni- 
 agara, through the Buffalo and New York papers ; and while 
 the Fourth of July address of McClellan to his soldiers, which 
 came among the other items of news from the army, and which 
 was then and there being read and commented upon, showed 
 that the last chance of victory was not yet lost, it showed at the 
 same time how fearfully the ranks of our armies had been 
 
422 SHOULDER-STRATS. 
 
 thinned and what a necessity there was thai every man who 
 
 had pretended to be a soldier, and who had from any cause 
 been so far absent from the held, should return at once and 
 aid to sustain the perilled cause. And yet through every 
 corridor of the leading houses at Niagara, in every parlor, on 
 every walk and on every piazza, sat, stood, walked) read, 
 smoked or flirted, the blue-clothed, buttoned, shoulder-strap- 
 ped, jaunty-capped, natty-whiskered and killingly-moustached 
 officers of the Union army, who had sworn to serve the coun- 
 try and aid to defend the republic, — but who paid no more 
 attention to the pleading call of the generals in the field or 
 the authoritative voice of the President, than they would have 
 done to a blind piper playing in the street ! It was easier to 
 dawdle than to light or even do duty in camp : it was more 
 pleasant to bask in the admiring smiles of silly girls who 
 should have turned their eyes into basilisks to blast the indo- 
 lent and miserable cowards — than to dare the July sun on the 
 banks of the James, or run the risk of a flash from the enemy's 
 cannon. Men who had the welfare of the republic at heart, 
 turned sick when they looked at these hale, hearty and on* 
 wounded absentees from an honorable service, every man of 
 them daily breaking his oath to his country and his obliga- 
 tions to his own conscience. This was one more of the phases 
 of society at Niagara, which Tom Leslie was called upon to 
 note down and study during those opening days of July, and 
 one of the evils which — shame to the nation that it should be 
 so ! — is only now * beginning to find a partial remedy. 
 
 But it has been said that Walter Harding reached Xiagara 
 at noon on Monday, and thenceforth Leslie had a companion 
 in most of his strolls and observations. Harding's calm face 
 looked a little jaded with close attention to business in hot 
 weather and a time of financial trouble; he had not bee* 
 quite so frequent a rambler at the Falls as Leslie, and had 
 some points of interest yet to visit in the neighborhood, espe- 
 cially on the Canada side ; he was fonder of the road and 
 less fond of observations among the crowd of sight-seers and 
 summer-loungers, than his friend ; and as a consequence, after 
 
 March 14th, 1S63. 
 
SHOULD B R - S T S A P S. 423 
 
 his coming, riding took the place of lounging to a great de- 
 gree. Nothing with reference to these rides, most of which 
 took place along the green lanes and among the fertile fields of 
 Brantford County, deserves notice ill this place, except one 
 phase of the peculiar character of Leslie, half-earnest pa- 
 triotism and half-tormenting mischief. He found plenty of 
 ill-feeling towards the United States, among the Canadians, 
 and as much effort as possible to depreciate the Federal cur- 
 rency. Thenceforth his special anxiety was to vex and annoy 
 as many of the Canadians and native English as possible, 
 and verbally, at least, to annex the two Canadas to the Union. 
 
 Going up to the top of the Observatory at Lundy's Lane, 
 on their Tuesday-morning ride, among the other visitors who 
 Were listening to the ten-thousandth repetition of the story 
 of the battle of Niagara (varied to suit customers), told by 
 the old soldier who either w r as or was not a participant in 
 the battle, they found one true John Bull from the mother 
 country, — a stout, thick-set, florid-faced man of middle-age, uot 
 over-intelligent but very earnest and enthusiastic. Leslie 
 marked him as a victim and began at him at once. 
 
 " I suppose you have not heard the telegraphic reports from 
 ^Washington, this morning ?" he said to the Englishman, after 
 some conversation with reference to the battle had brought 
 them to terms of speaking acquaintance. 
 
 " Xo," answered the Englishman. " Anything of conse- 
 quence V 9 
 
 "I should think so!" said Leslie, very gravely. "Wtt 
 between the United States and England, beyond a doubt," 
 
 " God bless my soul !" said John Bull. " No ?» 
 
 " Sure as you live !" said Leslie, while Harding shook his 
 head and knitted his brows at him as a hint to be careful how 
 far he went with his mischief— a signal which was misinter- 
 d by some of the bystanders to mean that he should not 
 have betrayed the intelligence. " Lord Lyons made a demand 
 on Secretary Seward, yesterday morning, to open the ports 
 of Charleston and Savannah within twenty-four hours, for 
 the free exportation of cotton. Secretary Seward at once re- 
 fused to open them at all before the conclusion of the war or 
 the First of January 1000; and Lord Lyons immediately ex- 
 
42-i SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 hibited his instruction? to come homo by tlio first steamer if 
 the demand was not acceded to. He left Washington last 
 evening, and will sail for England by the steamer of to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Some of the auditors — intelligent visitors from the hotels, 
 and other well-informed people, saw the joke and humored it. 
 Others, prepared for almost any item of startling news, and 
 not too well up in national affairs, took it all for sober earm 
 John Bull was completely mystified. 
 
 "Good heavens !" he said. " Can this be possible?" 
 
 "I must hurry back !" said Leslie, warming into broader 
 mischief, and pulling out his watch. *' Non-intercourse be- 
 tween the two countries may be proclaimed at any moment, 
 and in that case I should be a prisoner !" 
 
 " God bless me " said the Englishman. " In that case I had 
 better get over to the International and look after getting part 
 of my baggage that is there, over on this side of the river !" 
 
 "I should advise you to do so at once," answered Leslie, 
 quite as gravely as before. " I winder whether we shall be 
 stopped on our way back, or not ? However, it is a matter of 
 not much consequence. If any of us should be taken prison- 
 ers and kept over here, it would not be for long. Our peoplo 
 will of course overrun Canada within a week, and annex it to 
 the Northern States." 
 
 " Oh, they couldn't do that, you know !" said John Bull, 
 who might believe anything else, but who could not possibly 
 be brought to believe anything against the power of the 
 British Government or its colonies, when in arms. 
 
 " I believe that you are an Englishman by birth ? Am I 
 mistaken ?" asked Leslie, in a tone of ministerial gravity and 
 dignity. 
 
 " Xot at all mistaken, sir," said the Englishman, proudly. 
 "John Hazelton Butts, Leakington, Monmouthshire." 
 
 "John Thompson, Jr., late Secretary of Legation to the 
 Duchy of Parma," said Leslie, picking up the first names that 
 happened to come into mind, and bowing in return. " You 
 seem, Mr. Butts, to be a highly intelligent gentleman — " 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Secretary," said the Englishman, who 
 had at least caught the fictitious title. 
 
S II U U L D E K - S T B A P B. 425 
 
 " But, sir," Leslie went on, " it is impossible that any 
 foreign resident should know, concerning affairs on this con- 
 tinent, what necessarily conies under our knowledge. Per- 
 haps you will be a little surprised when I tell you that there 
 is a secret order existing all along the borders of the States 
 adjoining these provinces, numbering more than three hun- 
 dred thousand men, all drilled weekly, and all sworn, in the 
 event of any opportunity occurring, to seize upon the Canadas 
 and Xew Brunswick at once ?" 
 
 " Indeed I am surprised," said the Englishman. " This is 
 really the case ?" 
 
 " Really and incontestably, sir," answered Leslie. "You 
 will see at once, sir, what chance there could be of defending 
 these provinces against such an inroad. But come, Smith 1" 
 addressing Harding, "we must really hurry back before the 
 bridge cleses. Good morning, Mr. Butts ! — good morning, 
 gentlemen !" and Leslie hurried down from the observatory 
 and away, accompanied by Harding. Whether the English- 
 man at once went over after his baggage, or not, is uncertain. 
 
 " What is the use of all that, Tom ?" asked Harding, when 
 they were once more in the carriage and rolling along the 
 privet-hedged lanes. 
 
 " Use ? oh, plenty of use I— fun I I have been as grave 
 as a judge for nearly a week ; and besides, every Englishman 
 whom I succeed in making thoroughly uncomfortable, is 
 one scion of the stock of perftde Albion paid off for all old 
 scores !" 
 
 11 Humph !" said Harding. " You are incorrigible, and that 
 is all that can be said about it." 
 
 Close to the edge of one of the fields along which they 
 were driving, some laborers were at work, hoeing potatoes. 
 There were some splendid grain-fields adjoining, and at a little 
 distance stood a handsome farm-house with thrifty-looking 
 out-buildings. Leslie's spirit of mischief was now up, and 
 nothing but exercise could calm it. 
 
 " Hallo, there !" he called to the laborers, stopping the 
 carriage at the same time. One of the working-men stopped 
 his work and came up to the fence 
 
 "Whose farm is this r 
 
426 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 " Mr. Bardeleau's, sir." 
 
 " Oh, Bardeleau ! I know him. Crops look finely. 1 ' 
 
 " Yes, very finely, sir," answered the workman. 
 
 " Going to the house soon ?" 
 
 "Yes. sir, going in to dinner before long," answered the man. 
 
 u Well, my good man," said Leslie, "be good enough to 
 give Mr. Bardeleau the regards of Mr. Thompson, Inter- 
 national Hotel, an old friend of his, and to tell him that war 
 has just broken out between England and the United States, 
 and that the President has this morning issued a proclama- 
 tion annexing Canada to the State of New York. Good 
 morning." 
 
 Mischief # of this character varied and enlivened the per- 
 formances of that day and the next, Harding alternately en- 
 joying and protesting against it. But on the third day there 
 was a decided change in the programme. Running over the 
 register at the desk, before breakfast on Friday morning, 
 Leslie found the following four names, arrivals of the night 
 before : " Richard Crawford — John Crawford — Miss Isabel 
 Crawford — Miss Marion Hobart — New York City." 
 
 " Why, here are acquaintances — or at least one of them !" 
 he called to Harding, who was at a little distance. He might 
 have said more than one acquaintance, with propriety, for 
 though he had met none of the Crawfords except Bell, he 
 knew so much of them from Josephine Harris that he seemed 
 to have known them for a twelvemonth. 
 
 " Who are they ?" asked Harding, busy with a carriage- 
 order. 
 
 " The Crawfords — and somebody else with them," an- 
 swered Leslie. " You remember the young ladies on Broad- 
 way, the impudent scoundrel and the caning, a few days 
 ago — one of them a Miss Crawford" — 
 
 "Yes, I remember," said Harding, with a little flush rising 
 suddenly to his face. He also remembered, beyond a doubt, 
 that he had been very much impressed by that young lady, 
 and that had he dared, he would have called at her house 
 before leaving the city. Here she was, brought accidentally 
 into the same hotel with himself, and — . What else he 
 thought may be left to the imagination. " Yes, I remember," 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 427 
 
 he said. " And the other lady — Miss Harris, is she in the 
 company?" 
 
 " No," said Leslie, " she does not appear to be." (" Appear 
 to be !" — just as if that scamp did not know where she was, 
 and as if he had not a letter in his pocket from her !) " No, 
 see — Miss Crawford and her two brothers, with another lady 
 whose name I have never heard before." 
 
 The result of this discovery was that the parties met at 
 breakfast, a slight flush (corresponding to that of Harding a 
 little while before) mounting to the face of Bell Crawford as 
 she introduced the two friends to her brothers and Miss 
 Hobart. Very naturally, thereafter, though there was an 
 overplus of males and a deficiency of females to make the 
 association perfect, the two parties blended, and in the future 
 plans for sight-seeing and amusement each made arrange- 
 ments for and calculated upon the other. 
 
 They were just passing from the breakfast-room — that cool 
 breakfast and dining-room of the Cataract, overlooking the 
 lower rapids with the clumped little islands near the bridge, — 
 when Leslie caught sight of a figure crossing the hall. 
 
 " Look — quick !" he said, touching the arm of Harding. 
 " Look down the hall There he is, now ! Do you not 
 recognize him ?" 
 
 Harding, to whom Leslie had of course told the story of 
 his late rencontre, looked in the direction indicated. Just for 
 one instant the face of the person alluded to was turned 
 towards them, and Harding plainly distinguished that it was 
 that of the Virginian whom they had seen at the corner of 
 Houston Street on the night of the opening of this story. 
 He had but a moment to observe, for the tall man was almost 
 at the office-door, and in an instant he had disappeared 
 through it. At the same instant Marion Hobart uttered a 
 quick, sharp cry, and staggered against John Crawford, as if 
 about to fall. All the party gathered around her instantly, 
 two or three of the waiters came up, and for the moment 
 attention was distracted from everything beside. 
 
 " I had a sudden pain here. I do not feel very well. If 
 you please I will go up to my room and lie down a little 
 while. But I shall soon be better," said the young Virginian 
 91 
 
428 SHOULDKR-STRAPS. 
 
 girl, in response to the anxious inquiries of her friends as to 
 the cause of the sudden cry and the evident paleness of her 
 face. 
 
 In compliance with her wish Bell Crawford accompanied 
 her up-stairs ; and the moment after, Tom Leslie stepped 
 into the office-door through which he had seen Dexter Ralston 
 disappear. He was not there. h\ reply to an inquiry, the 
 clerk said that a tall man, whom he had seen several times 
 before, had come into the room and stepped to the counter a 
 moment, perhaps to examine the register, but that he had 
 almost instantly gone out again. Leslie looked through the 
 halls and upon the piazza, a little perplexed by the sudden 
 appearances and disappearances of this man ; but he was not 
 in sight anywhere — he had evidently left the house. 
 
 Before quitting the breakfast-table, it had been arranged 
 that the whole reinforced party should use the fine morning 
 for a ride over the bridge into Canada, a three-seated car- 
 riage being called into requisition. But after the gentlemen 
 had waited a few moments for tidings from the sudden in- 
 valid, Bell Crawford came down-stairs again and announced 
 that they would be obliged to take the ride without female 
 company, as Miss Hobart felt too much indisposed to ride 
 and would remain in her room, and she could not think of 
 leaving her entirely alone in a strange house on the first day 
 of their arrival. Marion, she said, had proclaimed her willing- 
 ness to remain alone, and had even urged her to go, but she 
 had refused and would remain. 
 
 This arrangement did not precisely please any of the gen- 
 tlemen, and least of all it pleased Walter Lane Harding, who 
 had lately ridden over all that ground quite often enough 
 unless he was to go over it this time in peculiarly pleasant 
 company. He had an insane belief, by this time, that Miss 
 Bell Crawford was " very pleasant company." But there was 
 little else to do, than to obey the decrees of fate ; one of the 
 ladies was temporarily an invalid, and the other, for hu- 
 manity's sake, must play nurse ; the gentlemen could have 
 little of their society, at least for the morning ; and so half 
 an hour afterwards, while Bell Crawford returned up-stairs, 
 fortified with a novel and two Buffalo papers, to perform her 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 429 
 
 self-denying office of Good Samaritan, the four gentlemen 
 took an open landau and were whirled down to the Suspen- 
 sion Bridge and over to the Canada side. 
 
 Their drive had lasted perhaps three hours and covered 
 nearly twenty miles, when, hastening back to dinner, they 
 drove in at the gate-house on the Canada side of the Sus- 
 pension Bridge. A close-carriage was just leaving the bridge 
 at the same moment. Between this and the carriage in 
 which the four friends were seated, a clumsy furniture- wagon 
 attempted to pass at the moment when they stopped to show 
 tickets, and in doing so the driver locked his wheel with that 
 of the close-carriage coming over. The friends noticed that 
 there w^ere trunks on the rack of this carriage, and that 
 though the day was so hot and sultry, the windows were 
 closed. As the wheels locked, one of the windows was 
 dashed down with some petulance, and a head appeared 
 through it, while a sharp, strong voice cried: 
 
 " Why the d — 1 don't you drive on ?" 
 
 Both Tom Leslie and Walter Harding recognized the face 
 and voice of Dexter Ralston. The latter, glancing at the 
 figures in the landau, observed Leslie, and made a sign of 
 recognition. By this time the wheel was cleared, Ralston 
 again shut the window sharply, and the carriage dashed away 
 at full speed towards the custom-house on which " V.R." 
 is displayed for the benefit of those who never tread upon 
 British soil to see it more liberally distributed. 
 
 " There he is again !" said Leslie to Harding. 
 
 " And apparently going away, by the trunks on the rack,' 7 
 replied Harding. 
 
 " Who is it ?" asked John Crawford. 
 
 " An odd character, about whom we will tell you by-and- 
 bye," said Tom Leslie. " He is a Southerner, but he must, 
 have been born in a very hr/t climate, to need the windows 
 closed on such a day as this." 
 
 "And he must be in a hurry," said Harding, "by his im- 
 patience and the speed at which the carriage drove away." 
 
 They drove slowly over the bridge and then hurried back 
 towards the Cataract. It was nearly two o'clock when they 
 rear-hud the house, and the riders and strollers had come back 
 
430 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 from their various wanderings and filled the halls and parlors, 
 chatting, looking at the stereoscopic views arranged for the 
 destruction of eyes, and waiting for dinner. As the four 
 friends entered the hall after dismissing the carriage, they 
 were met by Bell Crawford, who seemed to have been looking 
 out for them from the head of the stairs — her face pale, her 
 voice thick and troubled, and her general appearance fright- 
 ened and "flustered." 
 
 "What is the matter ?" asked Richard Crawford, who had, 
 even in that short space of exposure to the outer air, so much 
 improved that fatigue rather made him fresher than otherwise, 
 and who might even then have been called " almost a well 
 man." 
 
 " She is gone !" cried Bell, drawing John and Richard, and 
 the others insensibly following, into an unoccupied corner of 
 the parlor, which was, however, vacated the moment after, in 
 answer to the dinner-call. 
 
 " Who is gone ?" asked John Crawford, alarmed. 
 
 " Marion Hobart — gone — gone away. Oh, what can it all 
 mean ?" said poor Bell, almost distracted with trouble and 
 wonder. 
 
 "Marion Hobart gone? gone where — gone how?" asked 
 John, grasping Bell by the arm with his one unwounded 
 hand. 
 
 " I do not know — oh, I am half crazy !" said the poor girl. 
 " All that I know is, that she has left this house in such a 
 manner that she evidently never means to return to it." 
 
 " My God !" said John. " My oath ! — I swore to take care 
 of her! Tell me, quick, what is it that has happened ?" 
 
 "I will tell you all that I know," said poor Bell, " only give 
 me time and do not frighten me any worse if you can help it. 
 You know Marion was unwell, and that she went up-stairs 
 and lay down on her bed. Her room is up yonder on the 
 next floor, number Fifteen, very near the head of the stairs. 
 Mine is number Sixteen, adjoining. She lay on the bed, and 
 I sat beside her, chatting with her, though she seemed to 
 speak wildly and as if frightened. After a while she seemed 
 drowsy and appeared to wish to go to sleep. I thought I 
 would leave her alone, then, for a little while, to sleep ; and 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 431 
 
 I took my book and went out on the little balcony at the end 
 of that corridor. I waS reading ' John Brent,' and I suppose 
 I got crazy over the galloping horses going down to Luggernel 
 Alley, for I read for perhaps an hour without hearing or 
 seeing anything else than the things in my book. Then I 
 went back to Marion's room — it was not an hour ago — and 
 she was gone !" 
 
 ''But she may have gone down on the Island — she is a 
 strange little mortal — she maybe out on the balcony over the 
 rapids. What makes you think that she is gone, as you call 
 it ?" asked John, terribly excited, while all the others listened 
 with strange interest. 
 
 " Oh," said Bell, " I know that she is gone for good" 
 [Americanice, " finally"] " and I knew it the moment I en- 
 tered her room. Her large trunk was gone — the one you 
 bought her the other day, John ; her clothing was gone — 
 everything." 
 
 ''Astonishing !" said Richard Crawford. 
 
 " This beats romance !" said Tom Leslie. 
 
 " It just beats the d — I /" said John Crawford, who must 
 be excused for using such words in the presence of a lady, — - 
 because he was only a rough soldier. " And that is all you 
 know, is it, sister ?" 
 
 "No," answered Bell Crawford. "I know a good deal 
 more, and it is all worse and worse. I got the chambermaid 
 to enquire, and she found that a tall man came with a close 
 carriage — " 
 
 " A tall man ? a close carriage ?" almost gasped Tom Leslie, 
 though he only spoke to Walter Harding. "Do you hear 
 what she says ? This was a Virginian girl — he is a Virginian 
 — his being here this morning — over the Suspension Bridge — 
 those trunks on the rack — by George, Harding — don't you 
 see ?" 
 
 " But what could he have been to her?" asked Harding, 
 who did not yet see it in the same clear light. 
 
 Bell Crawford had meanwhile gone on with her story. — 
 " That the tall man went up-stairs, asking one of the waiters 
 for number Fifteen, and that five minutes afterwards he came 
 down with a very small lady, dressed for travelling, ordered 
 
432 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 down the baggage from that room, put her into the carriage 
 and got in himself after throwing a dollar to the waiter who 
 brought down the trunks ; and that then the carriage drove 
 rapidly away towards the Bridge." 
 
 "By George, I knew it !" said Tom Leslie, this time so 
 loudly that all could hear him. All turned to him in surprise. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" asked Richard Crawford. 
 
 " That I believe I know the man who has taken away this 
 girl !" answered Tom Leslie. 
 
 "And I believe that I do, now, 1 '' said Walter Harding, at last 
 fairly convinced. 
 
 "Stop," said Bell. "There was one thing I forgot to tell 
 you. She had evidently left in great haste, and two or three 
 little things were left scattered around the room. Here are 
 two of them, that I picked up and put in my pocket — one of 
 her tiny little shoes, and this locket. The locket I have be- 
 fore seen in her possession. She seemed to be sorry that I 
 had seen it, as I accidentally did, and said that it was the por- 
 trait of a dear friend of her family." She took out a little 
 slipper, scarcely too large for an ordinary child of ten years, 
 yet retaining the mould of the graceful atom of foot that had 
 rested warm within it ; and with it she took out the enamelled 
 locket we have before seen, and handed it to the gentlemen. 
 Tom Leslie grasped it with an almost frantic haste and threw 
 it open. 
 
 " Dexter Ralston !" he cried. " Look, Harding ! It is all 
 explained ! I know, now, why he haunted this house, and 
 what the sharp cry meant when he crossed the hall this 
 morning ! Don't you see !" 
 
 They did see, as little by little, while the dinner-dishes were 
 rattling in the dining-room adjoining, Tom Leslie explained 
 to his wondering auditors (Harding only excepted — who 
 yawned and was hungry) so much of the antecedents and 
 character of the strange Virginian as could bear any relation 
 to the abduction — though abduction it could not be properly 
 called. That that singular and commanding man and that 
 equally singular mere child had been friends, perhaps lovers, 
 was evident ; that they had fled away, with the girl's consent, 
 beyond the hope of successful pursuit, was equally evident : 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 433 
 
 and here the mystery for the time shut completely down, and 
 they knew no more. 
 
 But what was it that Mazeppa said, through the lips of his 
 self-appointed spokesman, Byron, of the impossibility of 
 escaping the patient search and long vigil of the man seeking 
 revenge for wrong ? He might have cited another motive, 
 less fierce but quite as powerful — curiosity! Job Thornberry 
 may give up his search for the name of the destroyer of his 
 daughter, and allow her to break her heart in quiet ; but not 
 so Paul Pry, who needs a full explanation of the scandal for 
 retail purposes. John Crawford, in spite of the oath which 
 he could now no longer keep, might possibly have allowed 
 the mystery to rest here, had not Tom Leslie, who had sworn 
 no oath whatever, been in his way. Balked in New York 
 and mystified everywhere, the latter gentleman determined to 
 know more — or less ! John Crawford only needed this com- 
 panionship ; and an hour after the discovery of the abduction, 
 the two once more whirled over into Canada, possibly on a 
 longer ride than the one they had just concluded. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 The Sequel at West Falls — Colonel Crawford's Flight, 
 
 and how it was accounted for josephine harris's 
 
 Return to New York, and Her Disappointment — An- 
 other Conspiracy. 
 
 The length to which this narration, involving the fortunes 
 of so many different persons, has already extended, renders it 
 necessary that some of the succeeding incidents should be 
 passed over with great rapidity and in some instances even 
 grouped together without order or arrangement. 
 
 Were the opportunity otherwise, a forcible picture might 
 be drawn of the events at West Fulls, following the departure 
 tr Colonel Egbert Crawford and the discovery of his flight 
 
4cJi SHOULLEH-S T li A P S. 
 
 through the means of one of the farm-hands who had seen 
 him driving rapidly away towards Uticft. Nearly an hour 
 after his departure had elapsed, before Mary Crawford was 
 aware of it ; and naturally her first step, on being informed 
 that he had left the village, was to run up to his chamber. 
 She knocked at the half-open door, her heart beating with as 
 much anxiety for fear the knock should be answered, as many 
 another heart has beaten in fear that such a signal would not 
 meet a response. But there was no reply. She flung the 
 door timidly open, and went in. Everything in the apartment 
 remained as she had arranged it in the morning for (as she 
 supposed) her own bridal chamber. The Colonel's valise and 
 some portions of his clothing, had not been removed, and this 
 seemed to render impossible the supposition that lie had really 
 left the village. But his sudden absence at all, after what had 
 occurred, gave ground to believe that some extraordinary 
 movement had really been made ; and on the little table, 
 after a moment, the young girl discovered the note to Jo- 
 sephine Harris, directed under her own care. It was sealed, 
 and even had it not been, propriety would have prevented her 
 ascertaining the contents ; but the very fact of there being 
 such a reply left, for her to deliver, told that the shot must 
 have sped home, and that the expected bridegroom had indeed 
 fled from his bridal. 
 
 How the young girl managed to walk to her own room 
 and once more array herself for the street, with that dizzy 
 sensation in her head, half of joy, half of fright — how she 
 silently and swiftly quitted the house again, and made her 
 way through the blazing afternoon sunshine, once more to the 
 little house of Mrs. Halstead, — she will probably never know. 
 People have walked in dreams, and others have done acts 
 while under the influence of waking sleep, for which they 
 were scarcely responsible. It is enough to say that at three 
 o'clock that afternoon Josephine Harris was aroused from the 
 sound slumber by which her sick-headache was being rapidly 
 cured — once more to receive the young girl, whom she had 
 little expected to see so soon. 
 
 When she descended the stairs, she found Mary Crawford 
 standing alone within the door of the sitting-room, Susan, 
 
SHOULDER-S TRAPS. 435 
 
 who had admitted her, having shown the innate delicacy of 
 the good by retiring with only a kind word and a sisterly kiss. 
 The moment Josephine entered the room and saw Mary 
 Standing there, her eyes full of unnatural brightness, her 
 cheeks all aglow with excitement like that of fever, and her 
 glorious auburn hair ruddy dishevelled under her gipsy hat, — 
 she knew that her own effort had not failed — that surprise, 
 and not disappointment, was the feeling written upon that 
 speaking face. 
 
 Without a word Mary Crawford threw herself into Joe 
 Harris's arms, then slid slowly to her knees, holding her arms 
 still around the stranger of only a few hours before, now 
 dearer and more precious to her than any sister could ever 
 have been. At length she recovered herself sufficiently to 
 thrust one hand into the bosom of her dress, take out the 
 note, and hold it out to Joe, with the pleading words :' 
 
 " Read ! read ! do read and tell me what he has done !" 
 
 "Why, you dear girl, how agitated you are!" said Jo- 
 sephine, stooping down and kissing her on the forehead. 
 "This letter for me, and from him? Stop — answer me one 
 question — has he gone ?" 
 
 " He has gone !" spoke the young girl, almost with, a gasp. 
 
 A veritable cry of joy escaped Joe Harris. Often de- 
 feated and not seldom misunderstood, she knew then that she 
 had succeeded in the boldest and most erratic act of her life ; 
 and that moment of triumph was worth years of ordinary 
 existence. 
 
 " He has gone ! you are saved ! Don't cry or tremble, pet, 
 for it is all right — I know it ! See here*!" and she tore open 
 the note with such an expression of gladness as some heroine 
 of old may have vented when she rushed in with her father's 
 or her husband's pardon, at the very moment when the axe 
 was depending above his head. 
 
 Josephine Harris's eyes had run rapidly over the brief note. 
 She extended it to Mary : 
 
 11 See ! it is as I told you !" 
 
 Mary Crawford clutched the note in her hand, staggered to 
 her feet, and attempted to read. But she only saw a few 
 words — heart and brain had been overtasked — and with 
 
436 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 a low moaning cry she sunk fainting into the arms of Jo 
 sephine. 
 
 The hurrying feet of little Susy responsive to Joe's sudden 
 call — the glass of cool water from the well that in a moment 
 touched Mary Crawford's lips and sparkled on her forehead — 
 these were the things of a moment. That which had a 
 memory in it, worthy to endure for all time, was the return 
 of recollection to the young girl, and the fervency with which 
 vhe threw herself again into Josephine's arms, embracing her 
 almost painfully, and saying, over and over again : 
 
 " Oh, you dear good friend ! God bless you ! God bless 
 you !" 
 
 Mary Crawford was back at home again within the hour, 
 happier than she had been for many a long day, and after a 
 few moments more of earnest conversation with Josephine, 
 too sacred for revelation. It maybe believed that she who 
 had gone so far for the young girl's happiness and that of 
 her " brother " Richard, would not falter now in finishing her 
 task ; and the truth is that had she had no benevolence ex- 
 tending further, she had the fox-hunter's anxiety to be "in at 
 the death," and the feminine fancy for her own peculiar 
 "reward," which could only be obtained at the end of the 
 course. 
 
 Instructed by the diplomatic Joe on one particular point, 
 the moment she reached her own house again Mary Crawford 
 despatched a messenger to inform Domine Rodgers that his 
 services would not be needed that evening for the marriage, 
 as Colonel Crawford had been called to Albany by telegraph, 
 at a moment's notice, on government business. It seemed 
 idle to attempt, in her father's senile and helpless condition, 
 to make him acquainted with the real circumstances of the 
 case ; and so Joe's suggestion was carried much further than 
 she had intended, and the old man and all the household were 
 led to the same understanding, with the additional belief that 
 the Colonel had left so suddenly as only to make Mary his 
 confidant, after the arrival of a special (imaginary) messenger 
 from the telegraph-office at Utica. 
 
 Old John Crawford seemed a little disappointed, and weary 
 of waiting for the final arrangement of his family affairs ; 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 437 
 
 but he had not life enough left in him to make his disappoint- 
 ment very painful, and Mary, inspired with a new hope which 
 pave her energy to brave almost anything, trusted to something 
 in a coming day which might enable her to remove that dis- 
 appointment entirely. So that somewhat eventful day closet I 
 upon the Crawford mansion and upon the humbler one near 
 it which had that day exercised so powerful an influence on 
 the fortunes of its inmates. 
 
 Here again it is necessary to pass on with unamiable if not 
 inexcusable rapidity, omitting any details of the time remain- 
 ing of Josephine Harris's visit at West Falls. When the 
 city girl went up to that place, she had considered her stay 
 there likely to extend to at least a week and possibly to twice 
 that period. But her errand had been done so much sooner 
 than she could have expected, and she was so unwilling to 
 communicate with Kichard in any other way than personally, 
 with reference to affairs at West Falls and her own action in 
 the matter, — that within an hour after Mary Crawford had 
 left the house the second time, her visit was really over. 
 That is, the heart in her visit was gone. The shade and the 
 quiet might be very pretty and pleasant, and precisely what 
 she could have enjoyed for a month under other circumstances ; 
 but her restless brain was too busy to make rest possible 
 until all was done. Aunt Betsey's cares and little Susan's 
 attentions, joined with the society of the calf, the pigs and the 
 chickens (with occasional excursions into the cherry trees) 
 enabled her to wear through Monday. But every glance that 
 she caught of the big house on the hill, reminded her that 
 Richard Crawford was lying (as she supposed) a discouraged 
 invalid, while she had a draught of hope at her command 
 that might be put to his pale lips and furnish him with new 
 life. 
 
 With the daybreak of Tuesday the robins woke her, and she 
 slept no more. Anxiety and restlessness had conquered, and 
 not even the expectation of receiving a letter from Tom Leslie 
 that day (how enraged that gentleman might have been, had 
 he only known it !) could detain her longer. Aunt Betsey 
 plead and Susan pouted and scolded ; but the laws of the 
 Medes and Persians were not more irrevocable than some of 
 
4o5 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 Miss Josey's notions ; and promising to come again if pos- 
 sible before the summer was over, and exacting a promise 
 from Susy to forward to her address in New York any letters 
 that might come for her from her cousin at Niagara (sly- 
 boots !) — she flitted away. The morning stage from West 
 Falls took her down to Utica; and the train at the Thirty- 
 second Street Station at New York, that evening, landed her 
 at home again, dustier even than when she went North, and 
 this time alone, except as pleasant thoughts may have been 
 her companions. Long before midnight she burst in upon 
 good Mrs. Harris, with a fearful jangling of carriage-steps 
 and ringing of door-bells, leading that lady to believe, at first, 
 that she had been brought home in a sick or dying condition. 
 But the maternal embrace was warm, those red lips had never 
 forgotten the kiss of dear love and confidence upon those that 
 had first caressed her when she came into the world ; and odd, 
 wild, erratic Joe had a habit which many people with more 
 opportunities have managed to escape — that of being always 
 welcome. 
 
 It was of course too late, that night, for any conference 
 with Richard Crawford. But the next morning, before nine 
 o'clock, his house was treated to a repetition of the same 
 ringing of bells that had sounded in her own the night before, 
 and Joe, all breathless eagerness (another one of the bad 
 habits of her childhood, that she had never been able to over- 
 come) stood talking in the hall with the domestic who had 
 admitted her. Much good her hurry had done ! Much good 
 was it for her to fly hither and yon, transacting business for 
 invalids! Some persons run away from happiness — do they 
 not ? — as others try to escape from known misery ! Richard 
 Crawford and his companions were then two hours up the 
 Hudson, on their way to Niagara ! Crawford was going 
 to pass West Falls, within a few hours, so near it and yet 
 ignorant of all that had occurred ! 
 
 To say that Joe Harris raved at this announcement, might 
 be too strong a word. But it is not too much to say that her 
 springy foot (Joe had not the proverbially " little" one of the 
 novelists, but a very well-shaped pedal of the Arab pattern, 
 under the sole of which water could have run with as much 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 439 
 
 freedom as under the Starucca Viaduct or the High Bridge), 
 patted the hall floor with vexation, impatience and "bothera- 
 tion." There was not much use in blurting out her vexation 
 before a servant, but she did say : 
 
 " Confound jour picture, Pick Crawford I Why did you 
 not let me know that you were going away V "Which was 
 not very elegant or very reasonable, especially as wild Josey 
 had for certain well-known reasons studiously kept away from 
 the house for some days before leaving for the North, and still 
 more especially because she had so concealed the direction of 
 her own journey that Dick Crawford could not have commu- 
 nicated with her if he had tried never so earnestly. 
 
 Then and thereupon Joe Harris turned about indignantly 
 and went to the door. Then she changed her mind, went into 
 the deserted parlor, opened the piano and banged away upon 
 it for a few minutes as if she was taking the physical revenge 
 of a drubbing, on the whole Crawford family. If Dick Craw- 
 ford could have heard that performance, he would have gone 
 mad to a certainty ! Then she flung to the piano with a slam 
 (forgive her, Steinway ! — it was not your piano that she was 
 abusing, but an imaginary owner) and flung herself out of the 
 house so precipitately that Bridget only heard the violent shut- 
 ting of two doors and knew nothing more. 
 
 By the time she had reached her own house again, the young 
 girl was somewhat calmer and a great deal more reasonable. 
 The fault was not that of Richard Crawford, after all ; and 
 God bless him ! — she was heartily glad that he had recovered 
 sufficiently to be able to leave the house for a ride of four 
 or five hundred miles. So she summoned back all the patient 
 and benevolent elements of her own nature (she had plenty 
 of them, but they were sometimes like badly-trained troops, 
 and needed a recall), — sat down and wrote a letter to Richard, 
 giving him a brief account of what had occurred, abusing him 
 playfully for going off without informing her of his intention, 
 and ordering him to West Falls immediately, in such terms 
 as a commander-in-chief might have employed towards a re- 
 cruiting sergeant. That done, and the letter despatched, slie 
 felt partially relieved. 
 
 But what a fool she had made of herself — she thought — by 
 
440 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 leaving West Falls so soon ! Neither her mother nor herself 
 was yet ready to leave for Newport (she much less than her 
 mother, until certain half-linished arrangements, in which Mr 
 Tom Leslie bore a part, were more satisfactorily settled) ; the 
 city was growing dull as well as hot, and most of the "people 
 one cares for," flitting to one or another of the sea-shore or 
 mountain resorts ; and there were the pigs and chickens at 
 Aunt Betsey's all lying neglected. Joe Harris was nearer 
 to being ennuyee — absolutely bored, for the next hour, than 
 .she had before been for a twelvemonth 
 
 There is an old adage that some of us may have read in the 
 primer (or was it the hymn-book ?) that " Satan finds some 
 mischief still for idle hands to do." Josephine's late life had 
 been sufficiently exciting to make her undeniably restless ; and 
 it was while ruminating upon the misery of being too quietly 
 happy, that she remembered her rencontre with Emily Owen, 
 at Wallack's, the magnificently bearish manner in which Judge 
 Owen had lugged his daughter out from the theatre, and the 
 promise she had made the mortified and abashed girl that she 
 would run up and call upon her some day. Why not now ? 
 Xot much sooner thought of than done ; and in less than an 
 hour thereafter she was ringing at the door of Judge Owen's 
 house near the Harlem River, having endured the smashing of 
 toes and disorder of dresses incident to a ride by car on a hot 
 afternoon when half the city was rushing to the Central Park 
 and the cool places over in Westchester. 
 
 She had better fortune, here, than she had experienced at 
 the Crawfords'. Emily was at home, sewing by the open 
 window in her little chamber, while by the other window of 
 the same room showed the tall figure and placid face of 
 Aunt Martha. The meeting between the two school-mates 
 was very warm and cordial, and accompanied by those em- 
 braces which, when they occur between two young girls and 
 an unfortunate masculine friend happens to be an observer, 
 are so likely to destroy his equanimity for a long period. 
 Emily's cheek reddened a little, to be sure, with shame at re- 
 membering where she had last met her visitor; but perhaps 
 this evidence of sensibility broke down all barriers between 
 the two, much easier than they could have been removed 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 441 
 
 under other circumstances. Josephine Harris had accident- 
 ally become aware of the one secret of Emily's life, and so 
 long as warm friendship existed this fact could not be other- 
 wise than a tie, just as it could not fail to be a cause for 
 avoidance if the two hearts once became separated. Aunt 
 Martha, something of an oddity among women, and Joe 
 Harris, an oddity without any qualification, were pleased 
 with each other at once ; and a pleasant chat sprung up in 
 the little room, which lasted until Aunt Martha thought it 
 proper to make an excuse for absence and leave the young 
 girls alone together. 
 
 It would have been something more or less than natural, if 
 within a minute afterwards the conversation of the two had 
 not been running upon the topic of which both had been think- 
 ing, but of which neither would speak before the third person. 
 Josephine broke into the theme at once: 
 
 ''Who was he?" 
 
 "Who was whoV 1 and the face of pretty Emily Owen was 
 red enough in a moment to show that she knew who was in- 
 tended. 
 
 "Oh, you know that I saw part of it," said Joe. " I want 
 to know the rest. Who was the young man from whom your 
 father took you away ? A lover, of course, or he would not 
 have taken the trouble." 
 
 "It was— it was— Frank— Mr. Frank Wallace," said the 
 young girl, the color on her face by no means diminishing. 
 
 "Oh, don't blush so," said Josey. "We all get into some 
 such scrape, at one time or another — that is, so many of us 
 as can find any one to form the other half of the pair of scis- 
 sors. He was your lover, of course ?" 
 
 " You are a strange girl, and you ask such odd questions !" 
 said Emily. Then, looking into the face of Josephine, and 
 seeing how true and earnest, in spite of their mischief, were 
 the eyes bent upon her, she added : " But I do remember how 
 good and kind you were to me at school, and I will tell you 
 all about it!" 
 
 "That's a dear !" said diplomatic Josey, and only casting 
 down her eyes a little and blushing occasionally, Emily Owen 
 told the story of her love and her persecutions of her 
 
44:2 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 father's pride and prejudice — of Aunt Martha's sympathy — of 
 the relations borne towards the family by the young printer 
 and Col. Bancker — and of the unpleasant affairs which had 
 already occurred, culminating in that outrage at the theatre, 
 since which time (not many days, however,) the lovers had 
 had no meeting. 
 
 "Why, it is as good as a play !" said Joe, when her friend 
 had finished her relation, and thinking, at the same time, how 
 there was an unaccountable something in her own fortune or 
 character, which drew her into acquaintance with so much 
 that was dramatic in the lives of others. 
 
 " I am afraid you think me very weak and silly," said 
 Emily. " You must do so, unless — unless — " 
 
 " Oh, I understand you !" said Joe. "You mean that I 
 must think your love silly, unless I happen to be in love 
 myself ?" 
 
 "Yes, that was what I meant to say," answered the young 
 girl. 
 
 " Oh, make yourself easy on that point !" said the incar- 
 nate mischief. " It has not been very long under way, but 
 I have picked up & fellow." 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad ! Then I know that you will under- 
 stand me !" answered Emily. 
 
 " I understand you, and I do not think you silly at all," 
 said her mentor. " I saw the young man's face that evening, 
 and I fancy that he is decidedly good-looking That is some- 
 thing. You say that he is honest, industrious and brave: 
 that is a good deal more. Then you love him, and that is of 
 much more consequence still. Xever marry a man whom 
 vou cannot love, my dear, if you remain an old maid so 
 long that they date from your birth instead of the Christian 
 era." 
 
 Emily Owen looked up for an instant, to see how old this 
 mentor could be, who talked with the confidence of expe- 
 rience and the gravity of fifty (so much like Aunt Martha) ; 
 but she met a face very little older than her own, and she 
 merely said : 
 
 " I am so glad you think that I am right !" 
 
 "You say that you have not seen him since that evening 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 443 
 
 at Wallark's," said Josephine. " Have you not heard from 
 him since ?" 
 
 " Yes," said Emily, "we—" 
 " Write ?" 
 
 "Yes," again said the young girl. "I hope you do not 
 think that is wrong. Frank does not wish to come here, and 
 I do not wish him to come here, possibly to be abused by my 
 father ; and so — " 
 
 " I wish I knew him," said Josephine, who by this time 
 had some odd idea running through her head. " What is he 
 like ? No, I do not mean how he looks, for you know that 
 I saw him for a moment; but what is his disposition? 
 Grave or gay ?" 
 
 " Gay— very gay, I should think," replied Emily. 
 "You go to theatres: is he fond of theatrical perform- 
 ances ?" 
 
 " Very," answered the young girl. 
 
 " So far, so good," said Josephine, in whose mind the 
 thought, whatever it was, seemed to be shaping itself with 
 great rapidity. " Now, is he a mimic ? Could he play a 
 part if he should attempt it ?" 
 
 " I should think so," answered Emily. " He is very droll 
 and a great mimic— too much so, I sometimes think. But 
 What do you mean ?" 
 
 "Why this," said Joe, whose plan had now grown to its 
 full proportions— as odd and reckless a plan as the most outre 
 could have wished, but quite consistent with her own sense 
 of benevolent mischief. She had not quite recovered from 
 the influence of her "amateur detective" exploit for the 
 benefit of Richard Crawford, and masquerades seemed to 
 her, for the time, the only realities. Conjoined with the 
 memory of her late exploits as a volunteer detective, was a 
 thought of the very effectual manner in which she had seen 
 Tom Leslie disguise himself on the day of the visit to the 
 fortune-teller; and she had hit upon a plan—nothing more 
 nor leas— to introduce the young girl's lover into that house, 
 under her own protection, and in such a disguise that not 
 even the suspicious eyes of Judge Owen could know that 
 they had ever looked at him before ! As for any ultimate good 
 28 
 
444 SHOULD ERST B A P 8. 
 
 to flow from the frolic — it must be confessed that she scarcely 
 thought of it. She did think of throwing the two lovers 
 together, for once or twice, at least, and of playing a prank 
 which he well deserved, upon the imperious and not-over- 
 reasonable Judge — that was all. She did not foresee the 
 real results which were to follow the operation: as which of 
 us ever did, when we began a frolic, imagine what earnest 
 that frolic might become before it was concluded ? 
 
 "Why, this is what I mean — a plan that will at least give 
 you an occasional sight of your ' Frank,' that no doubt you 
 think more of than a Congressman of his, and wouldn't lend 
 it to anybody. Scribble him a little note at once, tell him 
 who I am and what I am going to do. Put in this card of 
 mine, so that he can know where to find me. Then tell him 
 to get a soldier's uniform — (say a Captain's) a crutch, a cane, 
 and a green patch for one eye, and come to my house to- 
 morrow afternoon. No — if he only gets the crutch and the 
 cane, I will make the patch for his eye, to-night. You are 
 not going out anywhere to-morrow evening ?" 
 
 " Xo,*' answered the young girl, a little bewildered by such 
 an arrangement. 
 
 " Then I will bring him up to-morrow evening, equipped 
 in that manner, and introduce him as my cousin, Captain — 
 Captain — Captain — what shall I call him ? — Captain Robert 
 Slivers — that will be a good name enough — of the Sickles 
 Brigade, wounded in one of the late battles and home on fur- 
 lough. Don't you think that will do, dear ?" 
 
 " I should like it, of all things in the world," said Emily 
 Owen, " if I was only sure that they would not know him. 
 But no — to-morrow evening will not do ! I remember hear- 
 ing that hateful Colonel Bancker tell Pa that he was coming 
 again to-morrow evening." 
 
 " Well, all that is none the worse," said the schemer. " If 
 the gallant Colonel is as old as you think, his eyes cannot be 
 any sharper than other people's ; and if your Frank Wallace 
 is half smart enough to deserve such a pretty girl as you, he 
 can manufacture some war stories that will do the Colonel 
 good." 
 
 u But I am afraid — " again began Emily. 
 
S II O U L D E R - S T R A P S. 445 
 
 "Afraid of your shadow !" said the plotter. "There, run 
 away and do as 1 tell you, and mind that your note goes this 
 afternoon and that you do not forget to put in my card. 
 Stop ! you are not afraid to trust me with him, are you ?" 
 
 M Oh, Josephine, you ought to be ashamed to ask such a 
 question !" replied Emily ; and having given that assurance, 
 and being really carried off her feet by the plausible mischief 
 of her friend, she set about performing her part of the arrange- 
 ment, though not without some question how it would all end, 
 and whether the frolic might not eventually give excuse for 
 additional severity on the part of Judge Owen. 
 
 It was agreed between the young girls, before they parted, 
 that the arrival should not take place until evening, when 
 there would be the advantage of gas-light in concealing the 
 personality of the masquerader, — and that Aunt Martha, who 
 had already proved herself too firm and consistent a friend to 
 her niece, to be played falsely with in the matter, should be 
 made acquainted with the whole arrangement, even at the 
 risk of the disapprobation that she was almost certain to 
 express against a proceeding that would certainly be better 
 suited to the stage than the drawing-room. 
 
 Having set this mischief on foot and shaken off the ennui 
 which had oppressed her in the morning, Josephine Harris 
 left the house where she had paid so remarkable a first visit, 
 and returned to her own, to astonish her mother with the 
 knowledge of an intended prank somewhat more reckless and 
 outrageous than any upon which she had before ventured. 
 
446 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Five Minutes with the Moonlight — TnE Last Scene at 
 Judge Owen's — Capt. Slivers, of the Sickles Brigade — 
 Two Rivals Disguised, and the Result of their Ren- 
 contre. 
 
 There was no terrible portent in the air, hanging over the 
 city of New York on that Thursday evening the Tenth of July, 
 to which allusion has before been made as the same on which 
 Richard Crawford and his companions reached Niagara, On 
 the contrary, as some of the summer tourists may remember, 
 that evening was remarkably and even wondrously beautiful. 
 Not a clearer full moon ever rose than that which beamed 
 over nearly the whole of the Northern States that night ; 
 and those, especially, who had the privilege of seeing that 
 moon rise over the brow of Eagle Cliff at the Franconia 
 Notch of the White Mountains, standing on the plateau in 
 front of the Profile House and seeing the disk of glittering 
 silver heaving slowly up beyond the crest, with the great 
 trees on the summits defined against it so sharply, with the 
 dark mountain brows frowning and the upturned human faces 
 radiant in the silver light, and with every aspect and influence 
 of the scene something wildly and weirdly beautiful — those 
 who enjoyed that privilege will not be likely soon to lose the 
 memory of one of the loveliest nights that ever dropped 
 down out of heaven. How many souls, in one place and 
 another, and under influences akin to those we have named, 
 may have bowed down that night in worship before denied 
 to the Almighty Hand that, not content with making a world 
 instinct with life and usefulness, endowed it with such mar- 
 vellous beauty ! And how many young hearts, before that 
 hour partial strangers to each other or divided by pru- 
 dence or by ignorance, standing under that silver sheen may 
 have acknowledged the influence of the time, melted into 
 tenderness, and flowed together to be no more separated for- 
 ever ! 
 
 Moonlight is an enchanter as well as a beautifier, and the 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS, 447 
 
 old fancy of partial madness when the moon was at the full 
 (from which the word ''lunacy") was not altogether unwar- 
 ranted by reality. At sea, in the tropics, a night on deck 
 under the broad full moon stiffens and entirely maddens, if it 
 does not kill ; here the madness is only partial and it has a 
 general reference to mischief and the opposite sex; but the 
 influence is the same, under different degrees of development. 
 On how many lands and waters is such a broad full moon 
 shining, and what varied scenes it throws into nickering light 
 and shadow — the very thought being a part of the permitted 
 madness of the time ! Think of that strange variety for a 
 moment. Far out on the ocean tired sailors throw themselves 
 under the lee of the bulwarks and gaze up into its face, while 
 the light plays fantastic tricks among the masts and cordage. 
 Out of pleasant groves in the country light-robed figures are 
 flitting, and under that marvellous sheen words are spoken 
 that would long have been frightened back in the brighter 
 glare of day — words that may make the happiness or misery 
 of a lifetime. Ringing laughter breaks from merry groups 
 that glance in and out under the shade-trees and the vine- 
 arbors that surround stately old mansions in the valleys of 
 wheat and corn. Rough shouts and loud peals of laughter 
 break from the rough throats of the raccoon and opossum 
 hunters in the wild back-woods. A broken-hearted woman 
 sits at her chamber-window and gazes out into the weird 
 atmosphere, thinking of falsehood and sorrow and the incon- 
 stancy of one year. Half in the sheen and half in the shadow 
 lies a little grave, its light and shade fit type of the love and 
 grief of two who sit on a vine-covered porch and think of the 
 day when they buried the dear little sleeper. In the dark 
 passes of the Apennines lurks a bandit, poniard in hand, 
 ready to spring on the unwary traveller as he emerges from 
 the shadow. On the gardens and jalousies of fair Granada 
 falls the silver beam, and guitars tinkle and white arms wave 
 in recognition. Under the gloom of the palazzo of St. Mark, 
 at Venice, a gondola is shooting, while the boatman hums a 
 drowsy air and the lover anxiously watches for the waving 
 of the white scarf of his mistress. Cascades leap down the 
 mountain gorges, unheard of mortal ear and unseen by mortal 
 
448 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 eye. but scattering their diamond drops in air as a full libation 
 to the glory of night. Far away at sea, on a drifting raft, a 
 sailor eats his last biscuit and smiles sorrowfully back to the 
 placid face that will look down next night upon his corpse ! 
 
 All which may have very little, to do with this story, and 
 yet it may be fully warranted by the occasion. And at least 
 it is justifiable to say that the full of the moon may have made 
 Joe Harris madder than usual and readier than ever to in- 
 dulge in frolics of the most reprehensible character. What 
 we began to indicate, especially, was that no portent loomed 
 in the heavens above the doomed city or even above the 
 house of Judge Owen, and that still an earthquake was mut- 
 tering and rumbling under it, destined to tumble it into the 
 most latal confusion. 
 
 At about half-past eight that evening, a ring at the door 
 announced visitors. Judge Owen had not yet returned, but 
 all the other members of the family, and one who expected to 
 become a member of the family — of course, Colonel John 
 Boadley Bancker, — were sitting at that moment in the front 
 parlor. For some reason or other, not necessary to be here 
 explained, Emily went herself to the door and admitted the 
 visitors. They proved to be Miss Josephine Harris, who had 
 just alighted from a carriage at the door, and a male com- 
 panion in uniform. Some time elapsed before the military 
 gentleman, who was introduced to the young host* 
 " Captain Robert Slivers," managed to get over the door-ste£j 
 so very lame was he. But he managed to spare a hand for 
 one moment from one of his crutches, the instant after; for 
 Emily, who was half frightened out of her wits and half in- 
 clined to burst into uncontrollable laughter, felt a "pinch" on 
 her arm which nearly made her scream aloud. 
 
 The military gentleman bobbed along into the room after 
 them, and was introduced to the others there assembled. 
 One of the burners of the chandelier only had been lit, but it 
 quite sufficed to reveal an extraordinary figure. Captain 
 Robert Slivers seemed to be about fifty to fifty-five, to judge 
 by his gray hair and moustache ; but any idea of the precise 
 looks of his face was rendered impossible, by an immense 
 green patch which concealed not only the right eye, but all 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 449 
 
 that side of the nose and the temple, while the string running 
 around his forehead took away any expression from that im- 
 portant part of the human countenance, and an oblong strip 
 of black court-plaster extended diagonally from the left eye 
 nearly to the corner of the mouth, creating an impression of 
 very severe tattooing. A pair of green spectacles were 
 mounted on the bridge of the nose, and the left glass did duty 
 over the corresponding eye, while the other was unseen as 
 relieved against the shade. So much for the facial appear- 
 ance and adornments of this hero, and his other claims to 
 notice were not less extraordinary. Sartorially, he wore an 
 undress military cap, with the "TJ. S." on the front, and a 
 dingy blue uniform with the shoulder-straps of a Captain of 
 infantry. Physically he seemed nearly as much out of order 
 as facially. He carried a heavy cane in his right hand, and 
 the right foot was enclosed in a sort of moccasin or spatterdash 
 which might have belonged to one of the conductors on an 
 avenue railroad, for use in very severe weather. In shoe- 
 makers' measurement this foot-gear would probably have been 
 rated about number sixteen. Under the left arm, which was 
 swathed below the elbow, he carried a crutch, and though the 
 foot on that side seemed to be uninjured, the leg had not 
 escaped so fortunately. It was stiffened and drawn up so 
 that the toe merely touched the ground and the principal de- 
 pendence was made upon the crutch. According to this ar- 
 rangement, the left leg limped and the right foot shuffled, and 
 the style of locomotion may be imagined. 
 
 But for the " pinch," which was a little characteristic, Emily 
 Owen might have had grave doubts, even after the warning of 
 the day before, whether this could be the sprightly young 
 man whom she had known so well; and the very mother 
 who bore him, if she could have seen him in that situation, would 
 have been almost as excusable for not recognizing her off- 
 spring, as that traditional matron who defeated all the theo- 
 ries about "intuition" by not recognizing her son when 
 "done up with pepper and onions, in a stew." 1 
 
 This interesting person was finally ushered into the parlor 
 and introduced to the trio sitting there, as well as manoeuvered 
 into a chair. Aunt Martha, behind the curiam, was not pre- 
 
450 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 vented by her fright at the possible consequences, from nearly 
 smothering with concealed laughter at the wonderful meta- 
 morphosis which had been accomplished. Mrs. Owen, a weak 
 woman with a soft heart, was dreadfully affected by the 
 "reality of war" thus brought home to her, and uttered 
 many ejaculations of pity, carefully under her breath for fear 
 the " poor fellow n should hear her and be paiued. 
 
 Colonel Bancker — there is no use disguising the fact — 
 was literally horrified at the spectacle. A miserable old beau, 
 with unlimited vanity and a desire to appear everything that 
 other people admired, but without any other positive personal 
 vices — he was, as Frank Wallace had always believed, an in- 
 carnate, unmitigated poltroon — a coward of the first water. 
 He never had fought for anything, with hand or weapon — he 
 never intended to fight for anything — he never could fight for 
 anything. He could not bear to think of being hurt himself, 
 and he was pained beyond measure at the thought of seeing 
 any one else injured or in suffering. One hour of the battle- 
 field, with its sights and sounds of horror, would have killed 
 him without any aid from sword or bullet. He could have 
 been robbed in a dark street by a boy of ten years, who pre- 
 sented a knife or a pistol ; and in any time of danger to him- 
 self or others (as may have been indicated by the adventure 
 of the carriage before recorded) he could be of no more use 
 than a baby in arms. Such men are not very common, but 
 they do exist ; and under any ordinary circumstances, as they 
 cannot help the infirmities with which they are born, they 
 should be pitied and not ridiculed. It is only when they at- 
 tempt to disguise themselves in the characters of bolder and 
 better men, that they deserve lashing without mercy. 
 
 Colonel Bancker had never had the least intention of going 
 to the war, nor had he ever connected himself, except in the 
 most vague description of talk, with any organization. He 
 had never come nearer to a commission than to think about 
 one — that is, think that he did not want one. He saw hun- 
 dreds of others wearing uniforms and the insignia of rank 
 without any intention of fighting, and thought that he could 
 do as they did, sport borrowed plumes without too much en- 
 quiry being made into the source whence they were derived, 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 451 
 
 and throw them off when he pleased, under any excuse which 
 he might choose to invent — sickness, business engagements, 
 or dissatisfaction with the mode in which the war was being 
 conducted. 
 
 With the before-named dislike to being pained, Colonel 
 Baneker had so far avoided all the painful sights of the war. 
 Tie had not visited the wounded at the Park Barracks or in 
 any of the hospitals— he had managed to see none of the 
 maimed living and none of the glorious dead— he had even 
 escaped the hungry wives of the soldiers, clamoring for their 
 husbands' pay and the means to buy bread, along the cross- 
 walks of the Park and at the entrances of the City Hall. So 
 far he had escaped easily from what he most dreaded. 
 
 But within the last day or two a terrible disquiet had sprung 
 up. The army was to be reinforced and a stringent conscrip- 
 tion was talked of. Among the unpleasant rumors in circu- 
 lation, was one that the Provost-Marshals were to be directed 
 to arrest every man in officer's uniform found in the streets, 
 and if he could exhibit no commission, force him to imme- 
 diate service in the ranks ! Here was a dilemma— a dilemma 
 none the less for having two well-defined horns. His uniform 
 was becoming dangerous, but how give it up ? He was de- 
 termined to win Emily Owen, and he had discovered that 
 one of his strongest claims to the favor of her pig-headed 
 father lay in the wearing of that very uniform ami pretending 
 to be a soldier. To give it up was to acknowledge that he 
 had no intention of joining the army, and perhaps to lose all. 
 Xo— he must stick to those dangerous insignia of war, at 
 
 least until he had accomplished his grand purpose, and then . 
 
 But they made him uncomfortable — very uncomfortable. 
 
 It was under such circumstances that Captain Robert 
 Slivers, of the Sickles Brigade, came under his notice that 
 evening, and he was horrified to see what wrecks war really 
 made of men. One eye gone— a face cut to pieces— crippled 
 in one leg, one arm and one foot— good heavens ! For the 
 moment the fright of such a spectacle almost overcame every 
 «»i her consideration, and Emily Owen and all her material 
 charms became secondary to the thought of being placed be- 
 yond the danger of becoming a thing like that! 
 
io'2 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 To add to the Colonel's horror, Captain Slivers seemed to 
 take a decided fancy to him, and edged along his chair, the 
 best he could do in his crippled condition, until he had brought 
 it into very close juxtaposition to that of the Colonel ; while 
 the four ladies, conversing together, formed a circle of their 
 own a little in the background. It may be said, here, that 
 Frank "Wallace, even through his one green spectaele-gh 
 had seen and recognized the disgust and terror on the face 
 of the Colonel, and that he had determined to dose him 
 thoroughly with such flippant horrors as his fertile imagina- 
 tion could readily manufacture for the occasion, but such as 
 no battle-field on earth Las ever had much chance of wit- 
 nessing. 
 
 Near as they had been brought together, and inviting as 
 was the chance for conversation between two members of 
 the same profession, the gallant Colonel did not seem disposed 
 to enter upon it with so fearful an object as the Captain. The 
 latter was obliged to commence the attack, after all. 
 
 '• Very glad to meet a brother in arms.'' said the pseudo- 
 Captain, in an assumed bass, taking up his cane and giving a 
 slight punch to the Colonel, who seemed pre-occupied. 
 
 " Oh ! ah ! yes, very glad, to be sure," answered the Colonel, 
 who scarcely knew whether he was talking English or Choc- 
 taw at that moment. Then partially recovering himself and 
 remembering that something in the shape of conversation must 
 be carried on, he said : "Very pretty girl that — cousin of yours, 
 didn't they say, Captain ? What is her name ?" 
 
 "Eh?"' said the Captain. "Oh, my cousin yonder? yes, 
 Miss Harris, Miss Joe Harris — daughter of Mrs. Harris." It 
 is supposed that in the latter name he alluded to a somewhat 
 doubtful character of Charles Dickens. "Devil of a girl, 
 Colonel, I tell you!" 
 
 "Ah, what do you mean ?" asked the Colonel. 
 
 " Mean ? why I mean that when I came home two or three 
 davs ago, she seemed rather glad than otherwise to sec that 
 I had been cut up. Stuck her finger in my eye, or rather in 
 the place where my eye had been, to see whether they had 
 made a clean operation of it, and nearly broke that bone of 
 mv left arm again, trying to discover whether they had set it 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 453 
 
 entirely straight. Said I must have been a splendid subject 
 in the hospital. Devil of a girl — going into one of the hos- 
 pital- to nurse, directly. Says that she is sever happy except 
 she has a few broken limbs, and smashed heads, and gunshot 
 wounds through the body, and holes made by Minie bullets, 
 under her especial care." 
 
 "Horrible!" gasped the Colonel, who could no longer sit 
 silent under such a revelation of female character 
 
 " Yes, it is a little horrible, but a fact, though 1" said the 
 Captain. "Devil of a girl, I tell you! I believe that she 
 would just as lieve see my head amputated as not, provided 
 she could stand by and witness a 'beautiful operation.'" 
 
 " I say this is dreadful !" said the Colonel. 
 
 "Dreadful, of course," said the Captain. "Still, nothing 
 when you once get used to it. Plenty of women just like her 
 — all female devils, though they manage to conceal the fact, 
 sometimes, until they get a man under their thumbs, espe- 
 cially for the purpose of practising on him. But we want 
 women who have some nerve, for these bloody times. Don't 
 you think so, Colonel ?" 
 
 "Yes — I can't say — that is, really I don't know !" answered 
 the Colonel, who did not at that particular moment, know 
 much else than that he was a little sick at the stomach and 
 that the whole world seemed to be a kind of hideous mockery. 
 
 " Oh yes, fact !" continued the Captain, who saw the white 
 face and did not intend that it should regain any fresher color, 
 in a hurry. "Bloody times, I tell you, Colonel ! Make me 
 think, sometimes, when the dead are lying in heaps around 
 me and the blood running like small brooks, of that time pro- 
 phesied for the Valley of Armageddon, when the blood is to 
 run deep enough to reach to the horse-bridles." 
 
 "Captain," said the Colonel, "really I would rather — " 
 
 "Rather that I should talk about the present war, than any- 
 thing in Scripture? of course — very natural and quite correct. 
 Let me see — you were not at Fair Oaks, were you ?" 
 
 "2so," said the Colonel, emphatically. 
 
 " Xo, I suppose not," continued the pseudo-Captain. "Well, 
 you ought to have been there — that is all ! Highest old 
 light that any man ever heard of. When we went into battle 
 
45± SHOT L PER- STRAPS. 
 
 we had not had a wink of sleep for ten nights, but I tell yon 
 that it kept us wide awake while it lasted ! In the middle of 
 the day the air was so thick with bullets and shells that it 
 seemed to be as dark as twilight, and the blood at one time 
 made such a river down one of the gulleys that dozens of men 
 and horses were drowned in it I" 
 
 " Oh, this is too much I" gasped the Colonel, who thought 
 of getting up and running away, anywhere beyond the sound 
 of the voice of this sanguinary madman. 
 
 " Too much ? of course it was too much !" echoed the ve- 
 racious narrator. " But who could help it ? Couldn't have so 
 many dead men, you know, without plenty of blood ! At one 
 time there were so many of our fellows lying in a long win- 
 row near the top of the hill, that when the rebels made an 
 advance we punched holes through the wall of corpses and 
 used them for breast-works." 
 
 The Colonel made an effort to stagger to his feet, but his 
 nerves were too terribly unstrung to allow him that escape. 
 He sunk back upon his chair in a state of partial syncope, 
 aware that the terrible fellow was talking, and that he must 
 be lying, but that there might be truth enough at the base of 
 his stories to make them a fearful warning to all who had 
 ever thought of tempting the field. 
 
 " Talk about the chances of war !" the incorrigible romancer 
 went on — " there was no chance about it, in such a fight as 
 that at Fair Oaks or at Gaines' Mills ! We went into Fair 
 Oaks nine hundred and eighty-four strong, and came out four 
 — three men and one officer ! i" was the officer. I only had 
 one Minie bullet through the left breast, too high to do much 
 harm, two bullets in the left leg and right foot, my left arm 
 broken by a fragment of shell and my right eye punched out 
 by another. That was all that ailed me /" 
 
 "Heavens! heavens !" was all that the stupified Colonel 
 could articulate. 
 
 "Yes," continued the Captain, '-'think of being obliged to 
 fight like that on two meals a week, the meals consisting of 
 boiled horse and mouldy crackers, drinking the same swam]) 
 water you have been standing in all day ! And I suppose 
 you think that our regiment lost heavily, Colonel ? Eh ? 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 455 
 
 Well, you are mistaken ! We had the crack regiment and 
 Scarcely suffered at all, in comparison with some of the 
 others. They took a tally the day before I left, and found 
 eight sound eyes, twelve legs that were good for anything, 
 and six usable arms, in the whole division." 
 
 " Oh good Lord ! he will kill me !" cried the Colonel, start- 
 ing at last to his feet and utterly unable to endure such 
 torture one moment longer. 
 
 By this time Frank Wallace, carried away by the excite- 
 ment of the lies he had already vented, and observing how 
 horrified he had succeeded in making his auditor, began to get 
 a little reckless, and concluded that it was time to play the 
 indignant. The ladies had been in conversation on the op- 
 posite side of the room, the elder members delighted with 
 the new acquaintance to whom Emily had introduced them in 
 Josephine ; and though it may be supposed that at least two 
 of them kept their regards pretty closely directed to the 
 " military" corner of the room, much of the past conversation 
 had been carried on in so subdued a tone as to be drowned by 
 their own. What followed, however, they could not very well 
 avoid hearing. 
 
 As the Colonel staggered to his feet and attempted to get 
 away, the pseudo-Captain managed to crutch-and-cane him- 
 self to a standing position and confronted his superior. 
 
 " That last remark was offensive !" he said, speaking so that 
 all in the room could hear him. 
 
 " What is offensive ? What do you mean, sir ?" asked the 
 poor Colonel, now having thorough surprise added to his 
 other emotions. 
 
 11 Why this, sir ?" cried the Captain, letting his big cane 
 come down on the floor with such a thump as he had observed 
 at the hands of enraged East Indian uncles and heavy fathers. 
 in old comedies. "You said in bo many words, sir, that I 
 was a bore and a humbug, and I do not take that from any 
 man, sir I" 
 
 " I said nothing of the kind !" disclaimed the Colonel, who 
 certainly had not used any such expression. 
 
 " What did you mean, then, sir, by the offensive expression : 
 * Good Lord ! he will kill me !' I have not fought for nothing, 
 
456 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 sir ! 1 know what such words mean, and I would fight any 
 man who used them, if I had only one arm and no leg to 
 stand on!" 
 
 " Captain Slivers," said the Colonel, " you are unreason- 
 able !" 
 
 " There he goes ! another insult !" cried the disabled sol- 
 dier, partially appealing to the ladies. Under any other cir- 
 cumstances than those just then existing, either or all the 
 four would have made some attempt to prevent what they 
 believed would eventuate in an outright quarrel ; but Mrs. 
 Owen, as the hostess, did not like to interfere with the right 
 of a guest to quarrel or even to fight, if he thought proper to 
 do so, and neither of the others dared say a word for fear of 
 forcing a betrayal of the disguise. 
 
 " Well, then," said the Colonel, who had spirit enough, 
 sometimes, as we have before seen, to grow angry and be even 
 threatening when he saw no personal clanger before him. "If 
 you do not like that, I will say something more. You are 
 either crazy or drunk, Captain Slivers, and I do not know or 
 care which !" 
 
 " I will fight you to-morrow, cripple as I am!" cried the 
 Captain, while the ladies had now all risen to their feet in 
 real alarm. Then, as if suddenly recollecting : " Stop ! no, 1 
 will punish you in another way. You wear a ColonePs uni- 
 form — where is your regiment, sir ? I will make you join it 
 to-morrow and march within the week. Every regiment in 
 the city is to be ordered off at once. See if I have not in- 
 fluence enough with my uncle, the Governor, to send you 
 packing !" 
 
 "Find my regiment first — find it, sir!" said the Colonel, 
 now fairly (and reasonably) exasperated beyond any recol- 
 lection of what he was saying. 
 
 " Ah ! — h ! — h !" cried the Captain with one of those tones 
 of stage exultation which he had so often heard proclaiming 
 the final triumph of the villain or the discovery of that lost 
 will which was to restore the flagging fortunes of persecuted 
 virtue. "Ah! — h! — h! now I have got you! You have 
 no commission, you do not belong to any regiment, and you 
 are subject to the draft that is already ordered ! Do you hear 
 
SHOULDER-STRAP S. 457 
 
 me ? — the draft ! the draft!' 1 and he howled it out towards 
 the Colonel as if he suspected him of a rery material failure 
 in his sense of hearing. 
 
 Achilles had his vulnerable heel, and there are times in the 
 lives of each of us when the arrow of accident, harmless at 
 all other periods, can enter and ruin. Colonel Bancker had 
 kept his secret, or believed that he had kept it, inviolate ; but 
 his fatal moment had come. Whether really frightened out 
 of all recollection at the thought of that, terrible "draft" 
 which has already twice re-peopled Canada* at the expense 
 of the population of the United States, or whether exultant 
 beyond bounds at the knowledge that he could escape it, by 
 his age, in spite of them all, — he uttered the fatal word, ob- 
 livious that Judge Owen stood angry and astonished at the 
 parlor door, and that others to whom he had so roundly sworn 
 that he was only thirty-two, were within hearing : 
 
 "You meddling fool ! — what can that draft do to me f I 
 am exempt by age 1" 
 
 " It is false ! it is false !" cried the pseudo-Captain, driving 
 the victim to the wall more closely than even he knew. " You 
 are not an exempt, and the Governor shall take care of yoa." 
 
 44 It is a lie I" yelled the Colonel, now incensed beyond all 
 recollection of time, place or auditors. " I am fifty-four !" 
 
 " Fifty-four !" There seemed to be a chorus of that com- 
 pound word coming from the group of ladies ; and even 
 Judge Owen, who had been so solemnly assured that his in- 
 tended son-in-law was more than twenty years younger, could 
 not avoid joining in the astonished exclamation : " Fifty- 
 four !» 
 
 But the climax had not yet been reached. There had long 
 been a suspicion which almost amounted to a certainty, in 
 the mind of Frank Wallace, with reference to one point of 
 the gallant Colonel's personal adornment ; and he was now 
 quite enough carried away by the reckless mischief of his 
 nature, to determine that that suspicion should be verified or 
 disproved. 
 
 44 Fifty-four V echoed the scapegrace. " Impossible ! No 
 
 * March 20th, 1SG3. 
 
45S SUOULDER-STRAPS 
 
 Commissioner will believe any such story ! Look at your 
 hair — not a thread of gray in it ! Bah [" and before the Colonel 
 could make any effectual attempt to prevent the movement, 
 the Captain had allowed his cane to fall to the floor and made 
 a sudden and determined grab at the head-covering of the 
 man of exempt years. Any effectual attempt to prevent the 
 movement, it has been said : he did make an attempt to pre- 
 vent it, however, as with a newly-awakened consciousness of 
 danger. The only result of this sudden throwing out of his 
 bands and scrambling with them, was that they came in sud- 
 den and violent contact with the head-covering and facial 
 adornments of the pseudo- Captain, and that before any one 
 else in the room could become fully aware of what had hap- 
 pened, the green patch, the green spectacles and gray wig 
 which had metamorphosed the young man were all cleared 
 away, and the curly head and bright face of Frank Wallace, 
 printer and mischief-maker, stood fully revealed. 
 
 But it must be recorded that at that moment no one saw 
 him. All eyes were turned in another direction, and yet one 
 not very far removed. The sudden and vigorous jerk of the 
 young man, which had been so determinedly guarded against, 
 had yet produced its effect. In his hand he held a dark ma>s 
 of hair, at the moment that his own pushed-off incumbrances 
 tumbled to the floor ; and a state of affairs was revealed on 
 the cranium of the Colonel, for which not more than one of 
 the company, or possibly two, could have been in the least 
 degree prepared. What Virginia would have been, if cleared 
 of all its woods and swamps and made into fair fighting-ground, 
 and what Virginia is, with all its woods and swamps, while 
 the Union soldiers fight over it at so terrible a disadvantage 
 — may fitly present the contrast between Colonel John Boad- 
 ley Banckers head as it was and as it had been sup] 
 Not a spear of hair on it, from forehead to spine, so far as the 
 eye could see by gas-light ; and the head one of those fearful 
 botches of nature when not over-well instructed in her work, 
 — with the forehead retreating like the roof of a house, and 
 the skull coming to a dull point at the top, like the end of a 
 gigantic cucumber, and glossy and yellow like that cucumber 
 ripening for seed ! The total baldness of the head was bad 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 459 
 
 enough, under the circumstances (especially for thirty-two 1) 
 but the shape of that head ! — oh father of that man, what right 
 had you to visit your own sins upon a succeeding generation 
 in such a manner ? 
 
 Tho reception of this revelation was as varied, at first, as 
 the characters of those who received it. Frank Wallace was 
 so astounded at the extraordinary success of his manoeuvre, 
 and at the same time at his own detection, that he dropped 
 crutch and cane, allowed his sham wounded leg to straighten, 
 and stood holding the wig in his hand as if he had no power 
 to lay it down. Mrs. Owen screamed, that seeming to be the 
 duly of hospitality when such a breach of good manners had 
 been committed in her parlor. Josephine Harris paled, flushed, 
 and finally fell back into a chair in such convulsions of laugh- 
 ter that she cried like a child. Emily Owen tried to look 
 grave, but looked at Joe and soon followed her lead. Aunt 
 Martha happened to have her handkerchief in her hand, and 
 stuffed it into her mouth so tightly that she came near suffo- 
 cating. Judge Owen still stood in the door-way, his face ju- 
 dicially severe and portentous, as if he felt that some awful 
 desecration had been committed, for which the full severity of 
 the criminal law could scarcely be an adequate punishment. 
 
 Not an instant, however, before the two young girls found 
 recruits for their " forward movement." Aim £ Martha's hand- 
 kerchief flew from her mouth, and she laughed from cap to 
 slipper. Mrs. Owen, thus deserted by her reserve, caught the 
 infection and laughed still louder than Aunt Martha. Frank 
 Wallace directly came in with a baritone which chimed well 
 with the soprano of the young girls and the contralto of the 
 middle-aged ladies. And Judge Owen, at last, having satis- 
 fied his judicial dignity by keeping his gravity longer than 
 any one else, rung in with a gruff heavy bass that might have 
 been contracted for in the damp vault of his own court-room. 
 
 There are said to be some occasions in which the highest 
 order of eloquence is shown in total silence, and others in 
 which the most indomitable bravery is shown by immediately 
 running away. Certainly this was an Opportunity for the 
 display of the latter quality. Just when the laugh had 
 fairly burst, Colonel John Boadlcy Bancker clapped his hand 
 29 
 
460 SHOULDfiR-STRAPS. 
 
 to his head, satisfied himself that the catastrophe had really 
 occurred, then made a grab at the wig and caught it out of 
 the hands of his tormentor, took three steps out of the room 
 to the hat-rack in the hall, and a few more out into the bright 
 moonlight. Napoleon had left Waterloo 1 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 The Last Tit-bits of the Banquet — Subsequent Events 
 in the Histories of Different Characters — A Ca- 
 valry Charge at Antietam — And the End. 
 
 When the banquet is over, whether the guests have been 
 fully satisfied or the opposite, there may still remain a few 
 trifles which must be discussed, if the proper respect is to be 
 shown to each other and the entertainer. When a story is 
 almost ended, there may still remain a fragmentary portion, 
 perhaps not altogether worthy of attention from those who 
 have so far followed the fortunes of the different personages 
 involved, and yet impossible to ignore without manifesting a 
 disregard of the whole entertainment. To that stage this 
 narrative has reached, and all that remains is a hasty group- 
 ing together of those closing events for which all that have 
 preceded them would seem to have been intended by the 
 fates that overruled them. 
 
 It will be rememoered that Josephine Harris, when first 
 recovered from the disappointment of Richard Crawford's 
 absence from the city, penned a letter and mailed it to 
 Niagara, giving him a rapid detail of all that she had been 
 doing in his behalf — of events at West Falls — and of the 
 absolute necessity that he should at once apply some of his 
 marvellously recovered strength to the purposes of a journey 
 thither. That letter, which should have reached Niagara as 
 
fc> 11 O (J L D K R - S T R A I> S. 461 
 
 soon as the travellers themselves, suffered the fate of many 
 letters that are sent upon matters of life and death with the 
 magic word " haste" in the lower left-hand corner ; and was 
 not delivered at the Cataract House until Saturday morning. 
 Perhaps it was quite as well that the detention had occurred 
 on the road, for by that means the partially-recovered inva- 
 lid was spared two excitements in one day, which might 
 have seriously prostrated him. 
 
 Even as it was, the shock was a sudden and hazardous 
 one, to a system no more thoroughly restored than Richard 
 Crawford's. He received that letter on Saturday morning, 
 with several others from the city, and went up to. his own 
 room to read them. From prudential reasons, Bell, on the 
 disappearance of Marion Hobart, had taken the vacated 
 room, adjoining that of her brother ; and when he had been 
 for a few moments alone after his return from the hotel 
 " post-office," she was startled by what seemed to be a groan 
 issuing from his room. Instantly running to the door and 
 tapping, when she entered she found him sitting on the side 
 of the bed, white as the counterpane that covered it, and 
 breathing heavily. She flew at once to his side, applied the 
 restoratives at hand, and had the joy of seeing him almost 
 instantly recover breath and voice. Then it was that she 
 observed that he held a letter in his hand, and that letter he 
 tendered her. She read, and her own excitement was 
 scarcely less than that of her brother. Now for the first 
 time she understood the strange words with reference to the 
 destinies of her family, which had been uttered by the sybil, 
 and which had done so much to change the very nature of 
 her womanhood. And what a revelation was here to her, of 
 the mental torture which Richard must have experienced 
 through all his long hopeless illness — of the uncomplaining 
 patience with which he had borne what must have seemed to 
 him the crushing out of all the best hopes of his life — of the 
 murderous depravity which could exist in the heart of one 
 connected with her by the dear ties of blood, and daily taken 
 by the hand and trusted— and of the singular character of 
 that' young girl whom she had observed so much and known 
 so little, and to whose efforts seemed to be awing all this 
 
462 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 happiness budding and blossoming out of the ashes of past 
 misery. 
 
 An hour restored the equanimity of Richard Crawford, 
 though several would be needed before he could recover all 
 the strength of which he had been temporarily deprived by 
 the shock. But joy does not kill, like grief ; nor does it even 
 enervate for any long period. Only a little time elapsed be- 
 fore the steadfast lover, to whom the promise of joy was again 
 open after so long an obscuration, decided that he must and 
 would be strong enough to ride to Utica that night and to 
 West Falls on Sunday morning. He could not be allowed 
 to go alone, and of course Bell, who would not dissuade him, 
 had no alternative but to accompany him . "With a few words 
 of apology to Walter Harding, for thus making a last break 
 into what would otherwise have been a pleasant sojourn of 
 some days at the Falls, and leaving him entirely alone, — 
 but with the explanation that family affairs of the gravest im- 
 portance demanded their presence in the neighborhood of 
 Utica, — they left Niagara on Saturday afternoon, slept a por- 
 tion of the night at Utica, and reached West Falls on Sunday 
 morning, the Twelfth — a week from that eventful Sunday on 
 which the destinies of the whole Crawford family seemed to 
 have been played for, lost and won, in the little parlor of Aunt 
 Betsey Halstead. 
 
 It is an old story which can never be told over half so well 
 as it can be acted — that of the meeting of lovers who have 
 been once estranged by wrong or misunderstanding. It 
 was a trying moment when Mary Crawford, altogether igno- 
 rant of the time of his coming, even if he would ever again 
 come at all, — was called to meet the man whom she had so 
 wronged and misunderstood. But how to perform the rites 
 of reconciliation, is one of the sublime mysteries which Nature 
 teaches when she gives us the other holy lessons of love ; and 
 who doubts that the cousin-lovers clasped each other more 
 fondly, and with a better knowledge of what each was worth 
 to the other, in the meeting embrace of that Sunday morning, 
 than they might ever have done during their whole lives if the 
 tongue of slander and the hand of injustice had not come'tem- 
 porarily between them ? 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 463 
 
 Their connection with this narration closes here. Poor old 
 John Crawtord is yet living, though dying daily with weak- 
 ness and the gradual wearing away of the very power of life. 
 Mary Crawford is a wife, and has been since Wednesday, tho 
 twenty-sixth of November, 1862, on which day— the day pre- 
 ceding the annual Thanksgiving — Richard Crawford re- 
 ligiously believes that he repaid himself for all by-gone wrongs 
 and misunderstandings. For some causo, with which his 
 past sufferings and his changed domestic relations may have 
 had more or less to do, he has never yet joined the army of 
 which he has always been thinking with a longing desire. 
 His pen has not been idle, even in his happiness — may not 
 that have done Ms appointed work ? It need scarcely be said 
 that the friendship between the people of the big house on the 
 hill, and those of the little Halstead house in the village, 
 though for a time interrupted by pride and neglect, has since 
 been more warmly cemented than ever before, — and that 
 when little Susy marries the engineer, as she will probably 
 do before the summer closes, there will be no warmer prayers 
 put up for their happiness, than those uttered by two who 
 have trodden the same path but a little while before them. 
 
 We have not chosen to depict the storm which followed 
 the sudden departure of Colonel John Boadley Bancker from 
 the house of Judge Owen, near the Harlem River. That there 
 was a storm, is undeniable — such a storm as the burly Judge 
 had (and still retains) the faculty of getting up at the shortest 
 notice. One of those blind, indiscriminate storms, which 
 having no justice have no direction, and which consequently 
 hurt no one, though they offend all. Frank Wallace, for 
 daring to play such a masquerade in his houso and offend a 
 guest — Josephine Harris, for being an accessory before or 
 after the fact, to the plot (the pompous man never knew 
 which) — Emily for having been always a disobedient daughter 
 and a disgrace to the family, this event being another of the 
 abundant proofs thereof — Mrs. Owen and Aunt Martha for 
 daring to live in the same house where such things were about 
 
464 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 to occur, without preventing them, whether they knew of the 
 arrangement or not, — all received their share in this blast of 
 denunciation ; and yet, strangely enough, all survived it, and 
 not one even quitted the house in disgust. 
 
 Colonel John Boadley Bancker has never since entered the 
 house or held any intercourse with its inmates. He would 
 quite as soon, we suspect, change places with Driesbach and 
 tame a few tigers and hyenas for exhibition, as trust himself 
 once more to the tender mercies of people who detected and 
 laughed at him. If he prays (which is doubtful) he prays 
 first to be delivered from the wiles and machinations of a de- 
 mon in petticoats named Joe Harris. He does not wear 
 shoulder-straps or a blue uniform. He has not been drafted, 
 and probably will not be, even in the new eight-hundred-thou- 
 sand levy. He is said to be still speculating, and making 
 money ; and there have been rumors that he is looking for a 
 "job" in the operations of the Harbor-Defence Commissioners 
 of the City of Xew York.* But as those Commissioners are 
 well known to be beyond the reach of those evil influences 
 which have made other operations of the war a little costly 
 beyond their return, — he cannot do otherwise than fail in this 
 instance. 
 
 Frank Wallace has not been banished the house of Judge 
 Owen, since that memorable night of July. He visits it, even 
 takes Emily to the theatres, and is neither insulted nor inter- 
 rupted. It is supposed that the Judge did not rule him out 
 of the house, because he believed it to be of no use, holding 
 that a man who had begun to come in disguise might continue 
 the game if not allowed to come openly, and that to keep him 
 out he would be obliged to remain at home all the time him- 
 self, and keep a sharp eye on the supposed milkman, the 
 baker, the butcher, and even the man who carried in the coal. 
 
 It may be that after this lapse of time, the Judge even 
 tolerates the scapegrace. Emily does, it is very evident, and 
 as she has never since swerved in her warm friendship with the 
 wild girl who arranged the masquerade, she is not at all likely 
 to recede from her old position or to marry otherwise than as 
 she pleases. The Judge had better reconsider his old deci- 
 * March 21, 1863. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAP 3. 465 
 
 sion, gracefully, for ho is certainly overruled by that " full 
 bench" consisting of Emily herself (Mrs. Owen reserving her 
 opinion), Josephine Harris and Aunt Martha; and Frank 
 Wallace will "take judgment" some day before he is aware 
 of it, in the shape of pretty Emily Owen ! 
 
 This is not a clergyman's or a county clerk's record of 
 marriages, and it is a matter of regret that we cannot carry out 
 the system inaugurated by Southworth and followed by Wood, 
 of marrying off all the couples at the close of the relation, even 
 down to the footman and the kitchen-girl. If we put them 
 en train for that pleasant consummation, shall it not be held 
 sufficient ? 
 
 It would have been one of the pleasantest tasks of this nar- 
 ration to marrv Walter Lane Harding, merchant and good 
 fellow, to Bell ^Crawford, much more worthy to be his wife 
 than when she was leaving the couch of her sick brother, with 
 the gallant Colonel of the Two Hundredth as her attendant, 
 in search of a peculiar shade of red ribbon. But Harding is 
 a man of mercantile regularity of idea, and not even a nov- 
 elist can move him more rapidly than he chooses. He left 
 Niagara on the Monday following the departure of Bell Craw- 
 ford and her brother on Saturday, but business may have had 
 more to do with his return to this city than any outsider can 
 know He has since been very much in her society, and 
 friends believe that they arc sincerely attached to each other. 
 It is highly probable that they will be at Kittatinny or the 
 White Mountains together, during the summer ; and a mar- 
 riage between them, which is one of the eventual certainties, 
 may take place at a moment when it is least expected by 
 others, but when they (the parties most deeply interested, 
 after all) happen to fancy that the time has come for such a 
 culmination of the pleasant acquaintance. Walter Harding, 
 meanwhile, has forsaken none of his old ways, and finds the 
 «ame pleasure as of old, in the street, in the country or at 
 places of intellectual amusement, in the company (when he 
 c&D manage to light upon that ever-nusY oerson) of his friend 
 and companion Tom Leslie. 
 
466 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 It has already been said, in a previous chapter, that Tom 
 Leslie and John Crawford left the Cataract House within an 
 hour after the discovery of the abduction of Marion Hobart, 
 taking carriage into Canada. Perhaps neither of the two 
 knew precisely what was his motive in the pursuit, except the 
 one before named — curiosity. If Crawford felt that he had 
 a duty to the young Virginian girl, and some claim upon her, 
 under the bequest of her dying grandfather, he was yet fully 
 satisfied that she had left with her own consent, and that she 
 was now where he could take no legal steps to reclaim her 
 from any false position in which she might have placed her- 
 self. Leslie had, and knew that he had, no right whatever 
 to meddle with the movements of the suspicious parties, ex- 
 cept that he might have obtained some description of Colum- 
 bus' right by discovery. However, the reasons being what 
 they might, the fact was patent — they were now in full chase 
 of a will-of-the-wisp of most magnificent dimensions. 
 
 There was not much difficulty, on enquiry, to find that tho 
 carriage they were following (Leslie remembered that this was 
 the second carriage he had followed, in that connection) had 
 taken the road to St. Catharine's ; and thither the pursuers 
 posted. Parties who bore the description of those they 
 named — one large, dark man and one very small lady — had 
 taken refreshments at the principal hotel there, two hours 
 before ; and then they had apparently gone on to Toronto. 
 They followed to Toronto. Some hours were spent at To- 
 ronto, in discovering that they had taken the rail to Montreal. 
 The pursuers followed to Montreal, and late at night, on the 
 day following the departure from Xiagara, were at Donne- 
 gana's Hotel. Xo concealment had here been considered 
 necessary by the fugitives, whatever they might have prac- 
 tised before ; and on the register of Donnegana's, Leslie found 
 an entry of the names of "Dexter Ralston and wife! 11 
 
 " Phew !" he said, calling the attention of Crawford to the 
 book, "they have been rapid. All -my suspicious were cor- 
 rect, as usual. There never was such a match ; but they 
 have now acquired a legal right to remain together, even if 
 there was power to separate them otherwise.' They are 
 married !" 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 407 
 
 « The d — 1 they are !" said John Crawford, leaning over 
 to examine the register. " True enough ! Then my guardian- 
 ship is ended, with a witness. But is she his wife ? Is it 
 Marion Hobart, or may he not have been married before ?" 
 
 " No, said Leslie," remembering the picture, " she and no 
 other." 
 
 They had not been aware that they were speaking loudly 
 enough to be easily overheard ; but as the last words were 
 spoken a well-known voice sounded behind them, and Tom 
 Leslie, as he turned, saw Dexter Ralston, cigar in mouth, 
 coming up from the door. 
 
 " You were speaking of my wife, gentlemen," he said, as 
 he bowed to Leslie. " Well, what of her ?" 
 
 " If your wife is Marion Hobart," said John Crawford, 
 turning, "we were speaking of my ward, entrusted to my 
 guardianship by her grandfather, her last surviving relative, 
 on his death-bed, and stolen away by you from the Cataract 
 House yesterday." 
 
 The words of Crawford were somewhat loud, and the face 
 of the Virginian flushed, though the office of the hotel was 
 almost deserted and probably no one but themselves under- 
 stood what was being uttered. " Stolen is a hard word," he 
 said, after a moment, " but if ygu are John Crawford, who 
 brought Marion Hobart safely away from Glendale, in Yir 
 ginia, you are licensed to say almost anything." 
 
 Tom Leslie spoke. 
 
 " Where shall I meet you next, Ralston ?" 
 
 " That depends upon where you follow me," said the Vir- 
 ginian, in a tone of dignified pleasantry which came near 
 bringing the blood to Leslie's cheek as it had lately been 
 brought to that of the Virginian. The journalist shook off 
 the feeling, however, and laughed. 
 
 " Well, we have followed you, of course," he said — " per- 
 haps played spy upon you. But if I am not mistaken, I saw 
 you playing very nearly the same game on Goat Island and 
 at the Cataract." 
 
 The Virginian echoed the laugh. 
 
 " Fairly hit back," he said. " I have played the spy, more 
 than once. Who has not, I wonder ?" 
 
468 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 " What are you to-night ?" asked Leslie, with a marked 
 banter in his tone. " It is none of my business, of course, 
 here on Canadian ground, but the other day, on Goat Island, 
 you were — " 
 
 "A loyal American," answered Ralston, interrupting him. 
 " To-night, and on Canadian ground, I am a loyal Virginian, 
 true to my own State, first, last and forever." 
 
 "By George! I thought so all the while!" said Leslie, 
 though there was certainly no anger in his tone. (It is a 
 matter of doubt whether within the preceding few days that 
 young man had not found himself so pleasantly situated in 
 some regards, as to be incapable of becoming very easily 
 vexed, even for the sake of patriotism. 
 
 " We differ on the national question, and I suppose con- 
 scientiously," said Ralston. " I hold the extreme doctrine of 
 State Rights, and you that of centralization. I am a rebel — i 
 you are a loyalist. All right — don't let us quarrel, especially 
 as we have been friends and as you are certainly a jolly good 
 fellow and I ought to be." 
 
 " I ought to hate you and wish for your extermination," 
 said Leslie, in the same frank tone ; " and if I heard you 
 professing the same sentiments at the St. Nicholas I should 
 certainly help send you to Fgrt Lafayette. And yet I rather 
 like you, in spite of the fact that I believe you have been 
 concerned in some of the nests of secession in New York, 
 through which the enemy — that's your friends ! — obtained 
 knowledge af all that was going on at the North." 
 
 "Never nearer right in your life!" said the Yirginian. 
 11 In fact you are more nearly correct than even you imagine. 
 One of the reasons why the Union cause can never succeed, 
 is that the 'rebellion,' as you call it, has emissaries among 
 you in every class of society, from the club-house to the 
 brothel. You will scarcely believe, even with your expe- 
 rience, how society is getting mixed up ! I found Kate 
 
 F , the daughter of one of my rich old neighbors, seduced 
 
 and lured away from home, the inmate of one of those houses 
 I have just named ; and as I could do nothing better to relieve 
 her just then, I employed her for the cause. To-night she is 
 asleep in this house, my wife's servant. You wouldn't trust 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 469 
 
 her, would you ? — I would. But you need not suppose that 
 the machinery is all worked among the lower classes. Don't 
 trust the brown-stone houses too far ! We had a brown- 
 stone house up-town, until not many days ago — " 
 
 "Yes," on East 5 — Street, not far from the Eastern Dis- 
 pensary," said Leslie, breaking in upon the Virginian in 
 turn ; " and another on Prince Street, and — •" 
 
 " Oh, you eeem to know a good deal about it," said Ralston, 
 trying to keep up his tone of banter, but his voice showing 
 that he was really a little surprised. " And yet I do not think 
 that you can be altogether behind the curtain after all. The 
 worst foes of what you call the ' Union cause' have not been 
 those who declared themselves secessionists. Some of your 
 leading officials, it may be pleasant to you to know, are as 
 arrant ' rebels' as even Virginia can furnish ; and with them 
 and the correspondence carried on through their offices, we 
 have worked more effectively than in almost any other way." 
 
 " Yes," said Leslie, looking steadily at Ralston, and with a 
 wicked smile peeping out from under his moustache. " Yes 
 — not only local officials, but Congressmen, judging by the 
 
 conversation that you held with the Honorable , 
 
 under the arches of the Capitol, the night before Lincoln's 
 inauguration." 
 
 " What !" cried the Virginian, for once surprised out of his 
 equanimity. " The d — 1 ! You know that ?" Then he 
 laughed and grew placid again. The instant after he held 
 out his hand to Leslie. "Leslie, you are keener than I 
 thought, and perhaps it is just as well that we are not to play 
 against each other any more. I am going to Europe by the 
 next steamer from Quebec. It is late — I must go to bed. 
 Let me say good-bye." 
 
 " To Europe ?" asked Leslie. " Eh ? oh I more ships, cotton 
 and tobacco loans, I suppose." 
 
 " No 1" said Ralston, and his voice sunk into a low tone of 
 concentrated bitterness, very different from the manner he had 
 recently displayed. " No 1 I am going to Europe to reside. 
 I am done with the Confederate cause, though I hate the 
 Federal as much as ever. It was Virginia I was striving 
 for, not to change the despotism of Lincoln to another and 
 
470 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 a worse under Jeff Davis. That is enough — once more good 
 night and good-bye !" 
 
 " Stop !" said John Crawford, who had stood very near 
 during all this conversation, but taken no part in it. " You 
 have yet a word or two to answer to me. I charged you, a 
 few moments ago, with the abduction of a lady left to my 
 care and under my solemn oath to protect her, by her last 
 living relative. I know there is no law here in my behalf; 
 but as a man answering to a man, what have you to say to 
 this ?" 
 
 " Her last living relative ?" said the Yirginian/as if he had 
 heard nothing else of the words addressed to him. " Humph I 
 as I said before, if you are John Crawford, my wife and my- 
 self both owe you much, and perhaps you are entitled to be 
 satisfied before you go. Come up-stairs with me a moment, 
 and you shall see what foundation there is for your words." 
 
 He led the way from the office of the hotel, through the 
 hall and up a broad flight of steps to the next floor, the two 
 friends following. Turning to the left he tapped with his 
 knuckles on the door of one of the private parlors. There 
 was no answer from within. He tapped again, and still there 
 was no answer. He turned the knob of the door and peeped 
 within, then opened the door a little wider and beckoned to 
 Leslie and Crawford. 
 
 M Look 1" 
 
 The two companions looked within. Two of the burners 
 of the chandelier dependent from the ceiling were lit, and a 
 flood of softened light from the ground-shades filled the 
 apartment. On a sofa at the left sat the red woman of the 
 Rue la Reynie Ogniard, red no longer now, but with the 
 matchless beauty of her face displayed as it had been for a 
 moment when Tom Leslie saw her unmasked at the house 
 on Prince Street. But her dark hair lay all dishevelled ; 
 and in the eyes, that seemed to be looking down with a fixed 
 and almost hungry expression of love that could never gaze 
 enough, there were traces of late weeping. At her feet, on 
 a low ottoman, half sat and half knelt Marion Hobart — or 
 she who had so lately borne that name — her blonde hair 
 thrown back from her brow, and her eyes looking up with 
 
S110 U LDER-STKAPS. 471 
 
 an answering expression of yearning affection that would 
 need years to satisfy. She was in white, and around her 
 waist were thrown the arms of the other, holding her in a 
 clasp of agonized force and intensity. Neither seemed to be 
 aware that others were near — apparently neither had heard 
 the knock or the opening of the door — for the time they 
 seemed to be alone upon earth. A moment Leslie and Craw- 
 ford gazed upon this picture : then Ralston closed the door 
 again. 
 
 Leslie, who had for an instant started and trembled when 
 the picture met his view, as he had never failed to do in the 
 presence of that marvellous woman, uttered no word as the 
 door closed. 
 
 " Well ?" asked John Crawford, to whom nothing had as 
 yet been revealed. 
 
 "You do not understand," said the Virginian. "I think 
 that your friend sees farther. I married Marion Hobart 
 yesterday, at Toronto. You said that you held a right over 
 her by the bequest of her last living relative — her grand- 
 father : I tell you that I have to-night restored her to a 
 dearer relative, in whose arms she lies " 
 
 " Her mother," said Leslie, the two words breaking from 
 his lips as if involuntarily. 
 
 " Her mother ? Oh Lord !" broke out John Crawford, 
 surprise completely overmastering him. 
 
 " Her mother — a French lady by birth, and something of 
 whose character you know, Leslie. Her mother, the re- 
 pudiated wife of Charles Hampden Hobart, from whom 
 Marion has been separated since childhood, and to whom 
 you unwittingly, and I of my own will, have just given her 
 back. Have I a right to her, now ? Are you satisfied ?" 
 
 " Yes," said John Crawford. " My duty is done, though 
 I should rather have seen it end differently. Good-night !" 
 
 " Good-night and good-bye !" said Tom Leslie, holding 
 out his hand. Dexter Ralston shook it, bowed to Crawford, 
 and entered the parlor, closing the door behind him, The 
 two companions descended the stairs; and so closed Tom 
 Leslie's long adventure, which it must be confessed that he 
 had not brought to quite so practical an end as that reached 
 
472 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 by his female counterpart in another direction. But then 
 who ever heard of a man managing a mystery or an intrigue 
 with the same effective dexterity as a woman, or making as 
 much good or evil out of it in the end ? 
 
 Tom Leslie left Montreal almost as suddenly as he had 
 arrived there, in company with John Crawford. He reached 
 New York still in company with the Zouave. His re-union 
 with Joe Harris took place at that auspicious time when the 
 comedy at Judge Owen's had just come to a conclusion ; and 
 one can very well imagine what a clatter of tongues and a 
 ringing of merry laughter there must have been in the parlor 
 of Mrs. Harris's cozy little house, as the two compared notes 
 since their separation at Utiea, and as each revealed what 
 had yet been necessarily kept hidden from the other. Mrs. 
 Harris, good soul, listened to the two rattle-pates on that first 
 evening, and laughed as merrily as either ; but after a time 
 the good lady stole away, perhaps to her early bed ; and 
 then, strangely enough, tue merriment soon ceased, and tiny 
 were silent. Were their voices only for others, and did eye 
 speak to eye, lip to lip, and heart to heart, when they were 
 alone together ? One who knew both passed them closely 
 by without being observed, and arrived at that impression, 
 when they had stolen away from Mrs. Harris and the Ocean 
 House at Newport, a month later, on the night of the full 
 moon of August, and were sitting silent together, on the 
 almost deserted piazza of the Stone Bridge House, at the 
 extreme north end of Rhode Island, and under the shadow 
 of Mount Hope, looking at the moon shining in placid beauty 
 on the still waters of the East River, and thinking of Indian 
 canoes and the romance of old history, as the little boats of 
 the pleasure-seekers glided in and out among the wooded 
 islands, and the shouts of merriment rung out ever and anon 
 on the night air from lips that were bubbling over with 
 enjoyment. 
 
 And this brings us to a matter of no slight embarrassment. 
 If this narration has a heroine (which may be held as a 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 473 
 
 matter of doubt) that heroine is Josephine Harris, the wild, 
 impulsive, loving girl, ever ready for help or mischief, whose 
 madcap pranks have played so important a part in the for- 
 tunes of all. And if we have not been all the while entirely 
 without a hero, Tom Leslie, the journalist, cosmopolitan, 
 lover of nature, and strange mixture of boyish gayety and 
 manly experience, must supply that important place. * The 
 meeting of these two oddities has been narrated, and their 
 lives have seemed to blend together from that moment; and 
 yet the strange spectacle has been presented, of two who are 
 talking always and on all subjects, saying no word of love to 
 each other that reaches the pen of the narrator. There is 
 one long pressure of the hand on the first day of their meet- 
 ing—one long, confiding pressure, in which the two palms 
 might almost grow together ; and that is all. Thenceforth 
 they belong to each other, and yet without a s.ingle question 
 openly asked or answered. If the narrator should be asked, 
 "Why this reticence ? — he might not be able to explain the 
 restraint which holds his hand. They love each other dearly 
 — so dearly that the blotting out of one from existence would 
 be leaving that existence a blank to the other, for so many 
 weary months and years that the very heart would grow sick 
 at contemplating the long expanse of bereavement yet to be 
 travelled over. 
 
 But they are not married ? No, Months have passed 
 over them, since each knew each so thoroughly that often the 
 one speaks the unbreathed thought of the other; and yet 
 they are not married. When will that marriage vow be 
 spoken? To-morrow? Next year ? Never? Who knows, 
 except God in heaven ? Perhaps there is something in this 
 strange, wild, wayward love, between two who may not 
 dream of any reward beyond its existence, too sacred even 
 for its words to be recorded if they should fall upon the ear 
 or enter the mind of the romancer. Neither of them, perhaps, 
 could attract a love beside : neither of them might value an- 
 other love, if it should come at any call. Both of them will 
 be Pariahs from the caste of hard propriety, while the world 
 lives or they exist. Both will chatter, laugh, weep at times, 
 fill unacknowledged places in the world, and weave unreal ro- 
 
474 SHOULDER-STRAPS 
 
 mances of loving mischief in real life. And yet, married or 
 unmarried, they rest in each other — rest, in the truest and 
 holiest sense of that sacred word which almost encompasses 
 heaven. Absent, they will wish for each other: together, 
 they will sometimes forget the blessing that has been confer- 
 red, to remember it again some time through sobs and kisses. 
 And here let the record close. 
 
 No — let the record bear one more important suggestion. 
 If they do marry, for the protection of society let conspicuous 
 labels be pinned on the backs of their children : " Don't let 
 these little people get into any chance for mischief." 
 
 John Crawford, the Zouave, returned to New York within 
 the succeeding three days. Among the first of his researches 
 in the city, was one as to the state of the bank-account of 
 Marion Hobart, The account was closed — every dollar had 
 been drawn, by check under her own hand, and the fact gave 
 only another proof that her abduction had been accomplished 
 without much violence, if not indeed with her own connivance. 
 
 John Crawford rejoined the Advance Guard in October, 
 and has since shared in all the perils and glories of that gal- 
 lant corps. He is still a private — it may be because no com- 
 mission has offered on such terms as a true man could accept; 
 and it maybe because he believes the true romance and glory 
 of war to lie with the soldier, and not the officer — the danger 
 of the lonely picket-guard and the song and story of camp and 
 bivouac, supplying a fresh and glorious excitement to which 
 the superior must always remain a stranger. 
 
 From the moment when Colonel Egbert Crawford left West 
 Palls so suddenly, and took his way Southward by the cars of 
 the New York Central road on that Sunday evening of July, 
 he seems to have passed away entirely from the course of this 
 narration. Let it not be supposed that he has passed away 
 from memory or that these closing words can be complete with- 
 out a knowledge of his subsequent movements. 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 475 
 
 It has been seen how calmly, to all outward appearance 
 the baffled and detected man bore the knowledge of his ruin.' 
 Ruin, because nothing less was involved in the failure of his 
 plans. He had long been embarrassed in money affairs, and 
 for months before his business as a Tombs lawyer had been 
 falling away under that worst of all cankers— neglect. Tho 
 hand of Mary Crawford would have satisfied his heart 
 and her fortune would have repaired the weakness of his 
 own. Failing both, he was hopelessly bankrupt. The Two 
 Hundredth Regiment was a failure, and he had known tho 
 fact for weeks. Perhaps he had never believed that it would 
 be otherwise. At all events, as may have been suspected 
 from his forced submission to tho unpardonable insolence of 
 the Adjutant, he had been deceiving the authorities as to the 
 number and condition of the regiment, and applying to his own 
 use sums that might need to be some day strictly accounted for. 
 The previous word will bear repetition— this event in his life 
 was absolute ruin. 
 
 Some men commit suicide under such circumstances. 
 Others make one more and a still greater departure from tho 
 path of honesty, and victimizing all whom they can influence 
 by the holiest of pleas and the most sacred claims of friendship, 
 flee away to bury their shame among strangers. A few find 
 such positions the turning-points in their lives, and thence- 
 forward develope some startling virtues which almost redeem 
 the lamentable past. 
 
 Egbert Crawford had proved himself a villain, even as the 
 world goes. He had trampled upon the dearest ties of blood, 
 and been a constructive murderer, only withheld from the ac- 
 tual crime by circumstances over which ho had no control. 
 He had murdered character, and would have murdered the 
 happiness of a poor, weak, unoffending woman, who had the 
 double claim of youth and of kindred blood, demanding con- 
 sideration at his hands. He had trifled with the publfc ser- 
 vice and defrauded the government, as too many others were 
 and have since been doing on every hand— draining his 
 Mother Country of her life-blood in her very hour of need, 
 and so aiding to eonnnit that most deadly and horrible of 
 
476 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 crimes — matricide. Could this man still have one virtue re- 
 maining ? Let this be seen. 
 
 He reached New York on Monday night, after a stay of a 
 few hours at Albany. What he did at the latter place has 
 never been known and perhaps will never be. On Tuesday, 
 fur an hour, he was at Camp Lyon, and some of the other 
 officers saw him walking backward and forward, on the piazza 
 of the hotel, in conversation with the Adjutant. Once or 
 twice their voices were heard to rise louder than good-feeling 
 would have allowed, though the words they uttered were not 
 caught by any listener. Were they haggling, as robbers have 
 been known to do after successful operations in plundering, 
 over the division of the spoils ? At nightfall the Colonel re- 
 turned to the city, and Camp Lyon and the Two Hundredth 
 Regiment saw him no more. 
 
 The morning papers of a day or two after announced that 
 the Two Hundredth Regiment, which seemed to have been 
 lagging in the way of recruits, for a few days before, had 
 been abandoned as a separate organization and would be con- 
 solidated with the One Hundred and Ninety-ninth, then in 
 the course of successful formation at a camp within half a 
 mile of its disbanded rival. With this addition, the One 
 Hundred and Ninety-ninth would be full and able to leave 
 within a week. The Colonel of the Two Hundredth, it was 
 added, had accepted a commission on staff-service, and had 
 already left for the scat of war. 
 
 All this Was true, except so much of it as was mere specu- 
 lation for the future. "Whether the One Hundred and Ninety- 
 ninth did profit by the consolidation and move within the 
 week — whether any money, and if so how much, was received 
 by those who "sold out" 'the Two Hundredth — and whether 
 the One Hundred and Ninety-ninth (not including Lieut. 
 Woodruff, who threw up his commission in disgust) entered 
 and honored the service, or was yet frittered away by the 
 gross mismanagement of those in' command, — all these are 
 matters that have no connection whatever with the present 
 relation. The gist of the newspaper paragraph was true — • 
 tke consolidation of the two regiments had been effected, and 
 
SHO U LDEli-STRAl'S. 477 
 
 Colonel Egbert Crawford had loft New York for Washington, 
 on staff-service. 
 
 AYhen he left his legal office on the day of his departure for 
 Washington, he carried with him a package the shape of 
 which none could mistake. It contained a sword. So much 
 any eye could see. But no eye could see what lay beneath.. 
 It has been more than once indicated that so far as an evil 
 man could love purely, Egbert Crawford really loved 1 In- 
 little cousin for whom he was playing so unfairly. Sword- 
 factories had sprung up, since the breaking out of the war. 
 along the little streams which emptied into the Mohawk, 
 through the Oneida Valley; and some of them kept up the 
 clink of the trip-hammers and the whirr of the emory-wheels 
 that shaped and polished sword-blades, not far from Wesi 
 Falls. One day, in June, while his star seemed to be so cer- 
 tainly in the ascendant in the family of John Crawford, Mary 
 and himself had visited one of those factories. Impressed by 
 the intelligence of his remarks on the manufacture, and per- 
 haps willing to curry favor with the commander of a regi- 
 ment just going into the field, the superintendent of the 
 sword-factory had presented the officer with a splendid plain 
 light-cavalry sabre with its brazen hilt and heavy steel scab- 
 bard — a most deadly and effective weapon, upon which one 
 could depend in battle almost as well as upon the best blade 
 forged in Damascus. That sword Mary had carried home in 
 her own hands, presenting it to him afterwards, in a moment 
 of good feeling, with a playful word of confidence in his valor, 
 which he had never forgotten. That blade, hallowed by tin; 
 little hand of Mary Crawford which had once pressed its hilt, 
 was the one which he carried with him that day as he left his 
 office for no imaginary " field,?' but one of bloody reality. 
 
 Would he have been superstitious enough to connect the 
 fact with his own past or future fate, had ho known that 
 Aunt Synchy, the old Obi woman of Thomas Street, was 
 that very day lying dead on the floor of her miserable room, 
 having had a dose of one of her own insidious poisons admin- 
 istered in her tea by Master Jelly, who had become almost 
 too much of an expert in the art,— because she would not 
 allow him the extravagance of a whole penny to buy a top? 
 
478 SHOULDEK-S T U A 1» S. 
 
 Josephine Harris, painfully correct in her general esti- 
 mation of the character of Egbert Crawford, had pronounced 
 him, in addition to his other vices, " a coward," and " amount- 
 ing to nothing, as a soldier, except his shoulder-straps and 
 sword-belts." She "did not believe that he would ever go 
 to the war." How very easily, seeing one half the truth, we 
 can overleap too much intervening space and falsify the 
 remaining half! Egbert Crawford did u go to the war," and 
 under such circumstances that his " shoulder-straps" and 
 " sword-belts" counted for very little in comparison with 
 himself. Three days after he left New York, he joined the 
 army at Harrison's Landing, as a volunteer aid-de-camp to 
 any officer who needed rough-riding and sharp fighting. Ho 
 was a dashing rider — thanks to the education received many 
 years before in the country, and the steadiness with which ho 
 had since kept up the habit of riding, at an expenditure of 
 time and money which he could ill afford. He bore excellent 
 endorsements from Albany and New York, and he had lately 
 held a commission as Colonel. Besides these advantages, 
 Hooker saw something in the dark face of the lawyer — some- 
 thing in the set lips and clouded brow, which while it might 
 not have commanded confidence in the selection of an agent 
 to be specially trusted in matters of delicate issue, told that 
 there was desperation and fight. He joined the staff of that 
 General, with the honorary rank of Captain. 
 
 Then followed that terrible blunder which removed the 
 Army of the Potomac from the James River, unloosed the 
 grasp of the Federals from the very throat of the rebel power, 
 and re-opened the Pandora's Box of incursion which had been 
 almost closed by the investiture of Richmond. Then fol- 
 lowed the still more terrible blunder of the appointment of 
 Pope to the leading command, and the commencement of that 
 chain of disasters which culminated in the disgraceful retreat 
 of the Union forces towards Washington, after the second 
 battle of Bull Run, on the twenty-ninth of August — a retreat 
 which was only checked by the momentary return of the 
 " young Napoleon" from his temporary Elba, and a demorali- 
 zation which was only forgotten when the Potomac army, 
 once more re-organized under the old commander, moved up 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 47 ( J 
 
 into Maryland to break the threatened invasion of the Middle 
 States. 
 
 The young aid-de-camp proved himself a man and a soldier, 
 how ever raw and unaccustomed, in the removal from Har- 
 rison's Landing and the disastrous fights of Pope's campaign ; 
 but there was little opportunity, indeed, for dash amid de- 
 moralization. And so matters passed rapidly on until the 
 morning of Antietam. One of the captains of General 
 Pleasanton's cavalry fell at Sharpsburg, leaving a vacancy 
 which that gallant officer filled, by General Hooker's consent, 
 with his volunteer aid-de-camp. Mary Crawford's cavalry 
 sabre had at last found its true field, though he had worn it 
 through all, instead of the more showy regulation blade, when 
 on staff duty. 
 
 Antietam had begun to thunder, though the height of that 
 terrible battle, which up to this time* divides with Malvern 
 Hill and Shiloh the fearful honor of being the most destruc- 
 tive of any fought on the American continent, had not yet 
 been reached. One hundred and twenty thousand of the 
 Union troops held the eastern bank of Antietam Creek, ready 
 to cross and complete the expulsion of the rebels from Mary- 
 land, while it was believed that not less than two hundred 
 thousand of the rebels held the high lands opposite. The 
 slaughter of the day was fairly commencing. Pleasanton 
 held the upper of the three bridges over the Creek, that at 
 the Hagerstown road, over which Hooker was sweeping for- 
 ward to make his crossing. He had been ordered by Hooker 
 to hold his position without fail and at all hazards. The 
 rebels seemed to be in heavy force on the heights behind and 
 farther up the creek, and evidently they were prepared t^ 
 make a desperate resistance to the crossing of Hooker. The 
 position of the cavalry was a painful one. Hooker seemed 
 slow in coming, and shot and shell kept continually dropping 
 among them, knocking from their saddles one and another of 
 the brave fellows who were so chafing with impatience and 
 inaction. At length, and just at the moment when the head of 
 Hooker's column appeared from behind the woods on the other 
 side, a squadron of rebel horse, two or three hundred strong, 
 arch 22d, 1863. 
 
480 SHOULDEK-STIi A P Si 
 
 came into view, down the creek and a little behind, on a low- 
 plateau which stretched from it towards the hills. Tho ad- 
 vance guard came pricking in at the same moment. Pleasan- 
 ton, who had been anxiously observing the advance of 
 Hooker, caught a word behind him and turned. As he did 
 so, and saw the rebel cavalry, he caught the word repeated. 
 
 "Damnation 1" 
 
 " Who spoke ?" asked the General. 
 
 " I !" answered Captain Crawford, commanding the right 
 company, and consequently very near the commander. 
 
 "And what did you mean ?" asked Tleasanton. 
 
 " My word was not for your ear, General, of course," said 
 the young officer. " What I meant was that it was a shame 
 that Hooker was coming just at this moment, and that we 
 could not have a brush with those rebels on horseback, 
 yonder." 
 
 " Eh ?" said the General. " What consequence ?" 
 
 "This," answered Crawford. "They brag of the rebel 
 cavalry — they say that we have none. I should like to try 
 them, if not more than two to one." 
 
 " Good !" said Pleasanton. " The right feeling, though a 
 little imprudent. You are a young officer, Captain Crawford, 
 but they tell me you have dash, and that sounds like it. Dash 
 is what we want, if we can only have steadiness with it. 
 Your eyes are younger than mine — how many of those rebels 
 are there ?" 
 
 The rebel cavalry were now within four hundred yards, 
 and still advancing, though at moderate speed. Crawford 
 looked at them closely a moment. 
 
 " From two to three hundred, I should think," was the 
 answer. 
 
 "By the Lord you shall have a chance !" said the veteran. 
 " You think you can scatter them with less than two hundred. 
 Try it, steel against steel. Take two squadrons, and away 
 with you !" 
 
 " Squadrons on the right — attention !" rung out the sharp 
 voice of the Captain, no despondency or vexation in it now ! 
 " Draw sabres ! Squadrons forward ! Column to the left — 
 march !" and rapidly as the words were uttered the movement 
 
SHOULDER-STRAPS. 481 
 
 • 
 was executed. Other words of command followed and wcro 
 executed with equal rapidity, as the squadrons moved down 
 to the left, then formed on the right into line facing the foe ; 
 and it seemed but an instant after, when the concluding- 
 words rung out: " Squadrons forward ! trot — march ! Gallop 
 — march ! Charge !" and the two squadrons of the light 
 dragoons, headed by the new Captain, were sweeping across 
 the plateau to meet the advancing rebels. Their long line of 
 white steel glittered ominously, and the solid earth of the 
 plateau shook under the hoofs of their galloping horses, few 
 in number as they were. As they swept on, coming nearer 
 they discovered that their scant one hundred and fifty were 
 even more fearfully outnumbered than they had at first be- 
 lieved; but no man drew rein and everyone grasped the 
 hilt of his blade with a fiercer determination, as he drove 
 the cruel spurs still deeper into the flanks of his flying 
 horse — lacerating the animal in haste perhaps to impale 
 himself ! 
 
 In the more important details of the main battle of Antie- 
 tam, this cavalry charge has been almost overlooked by the 
 newspaper chroniclers ; and yet it is doubtful whether even 
 the Galloping Second when they dashed into Fairfax Court- 
 House, or Zagonyi's "Body-Guard" and Frank White's "Prai- 
 rie Scouts," at Springfield, displayed more of the true dash of 
 this undervalued arm of the American service, than those two 
 squadrons of Pleasanton on the little plateau over Antietam 
 Creek. The rebels met them with fierce determination and 
 the inspiring consciousness of superior numbers, but nothing 
 could break that headlong charge. Scarcely a pistol-shot was 
 fired, until the rebel ranks were completely broken. Like 
 tongues of white flame those fierce blades rose and fell, 
 lopping arms, crashing through brains and emptying saddles ; 
 and scarce once that theyroso without some new stain caught 
 from the reeking life-blood. Poor little Mary Crawford's 
 sword, before so bright and spotless, caught terrible flames 
 of red in its course, as the Captain sped onward at the head 
 of his destroying angels; and it was only when the rebels 
 were completely broken and in full flight, and the Union 
 cavalry wheeling to rejoin the main body with their Badly 
 
432 SHOULDER-STRAPS. 
 
 diminished number, that the blade so bloodily baptized grew 
 still. 
 
 Crawford, at the very head of the charge, had passed be- 
 yond many of the rebel horsemen, now flying fugitives ; and 
 as he turned to ride back, drawing a long breath of exhaustion 
 and relief, two or three of the escaping rebels dashed towards 
 him. He raised his sword and spurred forward, for the 
 moment unconscious of personal danger at the moment of 
 victory. But at that instant the hand of one of the rebel 
 horsemen dropped to his holster — before the Union officer 
 could meet the motion there was a quick flash, a report, and 
 the bullet struck him full in the throat, One gasp, one con- 
 vulsive spouting of blood from the great arteries, in which 
 the whole flood of life seemed to be discharging itself— and 
 he reeled in his saddle and fell headlong from the stirrup, his 
 eyes already glazing in death, and the stained sword of the 
 Oneida Valley falling useless from his stiffening right hand. 
 
 Let the Koran be true, for him at least. Let the death of 
 a patriot soldier on the battle-field, when striking for the 
 perilled land at its sorest need, be held to atone for much of 
 wrong and error, and even something of crime, in the past. 
 And let us say of him, as the master-dramatist says of the 
 perished Cawdor, and as some tired reader may be disposed 
 to say of this long and desultory narration — that " nothing in 
 his life became him like the leaving it." 
 
 The End. 
 
RARE BOOK 
 COLLECTION 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 AT 
 
 CHAPEL HILL 
 
 Wilrrifr 
 
 808