■*** *• 1861 - 1883 •-^** 
 
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THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE WILMER COLLECTION 
 
 OF CIVIL WAR NOVELS 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 RICHARD H. WILMER, JR. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/mysticromancesofOObran 
 
MYSTIC ROMANCES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 BLUE AND THE GKEY 
 
 Masks of War, Commerce and Society. 
 
 PICTURES OF EEAL LIFE SCENES ENACTED IN THIS AGE, RARELY 
 
 SURPASSED IN THE WILDEST DREAMS OF FICTITIOUS 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 By ALEXANDER C. BRANSCOM, 
 
 Author of ''An Improved System of Self-teachimj the English Language,'''' etc., etc. 
 
 Try not the pass," the old man said; 
 'Dark lowers the tempest overhead; 
 The roaring torrent is deep and wide; 
 
 Beware the pine tree's withered branch; 
 Beware the awful avalanche." 
 
 — LONGFELLOV/. 
 
 MUTUAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 45, 47, 49 & 51 Rose Street, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
COPYEIGHTED DECEMBER, 1883, BY DAVID H. GILDEKSLEEVE. 
 
 Press of David H. Gildersleeve, 45-51 Rose St., N. Y. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 " What are the worst of woes that wait on age? 
 What stamps the wrinkle deepest on the brow? 
 To see each loved one blotted from life's page, 
 Cr be alone on earth as I am now?" 
 
 — Bybon. 
 
 The writer has known nearly every vicissitude in the scale of fortune, through a long career, 
 in peculiar relations with the characters, or their intimate friends, portrayed in this volume. Thus, 
 through nearly a quarter of a century of active and thrilling experience in daily life has the foun- 
 dation for every chapter been obtained. The mystic influence which the actions of characters 
 exercise on one another are masterful and incomprehensible lessons of life worthy the attention of 
 mankind. AUTHOR. 
 
 December, 1883. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter I. — Introductory ^ 
 
 Chapter II.— Garland Cloud H 
 
 Chapter III— Adieu to Home 13 
 
 Chapter IV.— Blackburn's Ford l"* 
 
 Chapter V.— The Plains of Manassas 17 
 
 Chapter VI. — Lawrence Pleasington 20 
 
 Chapter VII.— The Contraband Letters 24 
 
 Chapter VIII. — Beyond the Outposts 27 
 
 Chapter IX. — The Picket Bivouac 37 
 
 Chapter X. —Silas Worthington 39 
 
 Chapter XL— Why they did not Fight 41 
 
 Chapter XII. — Co.smopolitan Aristocracy 45 
 
 Chapter XIII. — The Mountjoys 48 
 
 Chapter XIV.— Effie Edelstein ' 49 
 
 Chapter XV. — Maud Pleasington •' • • • 50 
 
 Chapter XVL— Arnold Noel 50 
 
 Chapter XVII. — Some Frequenters of Mountjoy House 51 
 
 Chapter XVHI. — The Sensation at Mountjoy Hduse 52 
 
 Chapter XIX.— The Mountain Cabin 60 
 
 Chapter XX. —Uncle Jake and the Fairies 71 
 
 Chapter XXL— The Masquerade Ball and Sequence 78 
 
 Chapter XXH. — The Plains of Manassas again 81 
 
 Chapter XXIH. — The Angel of Consolation 88 
 
 Chapter XXIV.— The Field of Gettysburg 90 
 
 Chapter XXV.— Gen. W. E. J 102 
 
 Chapter XXVL— The Transfer and Part of its Sequel 106 
 
 Chapter XXVII. —The Midnight Meeting 116 
 
 Chapter XX^TIL- The Three Victims of Ketaliation , 120 
 
 Chapter XXIX.— The Last Scene of the Tented Field 123 
 
 Chapter XXX.— Mountjoy House in the Storm Cloud 126 
 
 Chapter XXXI.— The Spirits of Defiance and Menace 135 
 
 Chapter XXXIL— From the Shores of the Dark Kiver 136 
 
 Chapter XXXHI.— The Quadruple Hymeneal Consummation 137 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter XXXIV.— The Dark Conspiracy 139 
 
 Chaptek XXXV.— The Blighting Wave of Nameless Woe 141 
 
 Chapter XXXVI.— The Seriously Mistaken Identity l-i6 
 
 Chapter XXXVII.— The Baneful Supernatural and its Antidote 148 
 
 Chapter XXXVIII.— The Changing Wind and Tide 151 
 
 Chapter XXXIX. —The Chamber of Death 156 
 
 Chapter XL. — The Angels of the Mountain ISii 
 
 Chapter XLL— The Angel and the Fiend— Wrestle with the Grim Messenger 161 
 
 Chapter XLII.— Confiding the Dark Secret 162 
 
 Chapter XLIII. — The Intrigue 165 
 
 Chapter XLIV.— The Day Dream of a Gloomy Life 168 
 
 Chapter XLV.— The Long Cherished Eevenge 172 
 
 Chapter XLVI. — Work-a-day Sketches of Business Life 173 
 
 Chapter XL VII.— The Bitter Fruit of Retribution 175 
 
 Chapter XL VIII.— Some Other Heart Aches 179 
 
 Chapter XLVIX.— The Woes of the Forsaken Husbands 182 
 
 Chapter L. — Josepha Del Campano 184 
 
 Chapter LI.— Three in Lieu of Four 185 
 
 Chapter LH. — The Wounded and Forlorn Dove 186 
 
 Chapter LIIL— Business and Social Flashes 187 
 
 Chapter LIV.— The Lonely Mysterious Traveler 189 
 
 Chapter LV.— Unfolding the Mystery 192 
 
 Chapter LVl.— The Imprudent Wooing 197 
 
 Chapter LVH.— The Wanderer's Prize in the Lottery of Life 202 
 
 Chapter LVIII. — A Railway Incident 207 
 
 Chapter LVIX— The Courtesan's Revenge 208 
 
 Chapter LX— In the Future City 210 
 
 Chapter LXL— The Mutual Secret Inquisitorial League .' 215 
 
 Chapter LXQ.— The Wildly Fluctuating Vicissitudes 219 
 
 Chapter LXIII— Wrecked on the Strand of Time 229 
 
 Chapter LXIV.— More Evil Fruit and its Consequences 236 
 
 Chapter LXV.— The Wanderer's Return 238 
 
 Chapter LXVL— Where the Palmetto Buds and the Magnolia Blooms 241 
 
 Chapter LXVIL— Sunshine and Shadows 244 
 
 Chapter LXVIIL— The Meeting of the Blue and the Grey under a Cloud 250 
 
 Chapter LXIX— Unmasked 265 
 
 Chapter LXX. -The Noble Philanthropist 269 
 
 Chapter LXXI.— Letters of Comfort and Warning 274 
 
 Chapter LXXII.— The Farewell • 280 
 
 Chapter LXXIII. —Faithful Hearts that not Forsake 281 
 
 Chapter LXXI v.— The Atonement Offering 292 
 
 Chapter LXXV.— The Dawn from a Long and Gloomy Night 301 
 
 Chapter LXXVI.— Eighteen Years After 303 
 
MYSTIC ROMANCES 
 
 BLUE AND THE GEET 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 " Down came the storm, and smote amain 
 That vessel In her strength. 
 She shudder'd and paused, like a frighten'd steed : 
 Then leaped her cable's length.. 
 
 Through the midnight dark and drear; 
 
 Through the whistling leet and snow. 
 Like a shrouded ghost that vessel swept 
 
 Towards the reef of Norman's woe. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 She struck where the white and fleecy waves 
 
 Looked soft as carded wool ; 
 But the cruel rocks, they gored her sides, 
 
 Like the horns of an angry bull." 
 
 —LONGFELLOW. 
 
 Mystery veils many details of our gigantic civil 
 ■war, the greatest conflict, when the issues at 
 stake are contemplated, that has ever convulsed 
 a nation. Strangely interesting vicissitudes 
 have grown out of the obscure circumstances of 
 individual contact, among antagonists who met 
 on the outposts or beyond ; on the field of battle, 
 in the hospital — minutiae too insignificant for the 
 perceptions of the historian — concealed, as they 
 were and are, in the shadows of great events. 
 
 Writers of romance ransack the legendary lore 
 of the Old World, and dive into the musty halls of 
 palaces, or the beaten tracks of court routine, 
 amid the regal shades of despotism, to locate their 
 plots and to arouse their characters oftener from 
 the sleep of many centuries than to portray them 
 from animate life ; forgetting that the most inten- 
 sified romances of earth are to be found in real 
 life in this fast age and country. The war of the 
 American rebeUion, and the years following in its 
 
 wake, created and have developed many genuine 
 heroes and heroines who have lived and moved 
 in the mystic spell of fairy romance, the centres 
 of magnetic attractions swaying and influencing 
 numbers of other characters and lives in masterful 
 degree, yet all unknoAvn to the great and heed- 
 less world, because echpsed by the effulgent 
 radiance of the leaders of legions, and corps, and 
 armies, and the sheen of beauty in the briUiant 
 circles that throng the gilded saloons of aristo- 
 cratic mansions. With these the historian has 
 acquainted the world ; and the exploits of some of 
 them are too romantic for the grave professor of 
 history to credit with confiding alacrity. But 
 what made them ideal heroes ? Was it alone all 
 but matchless talent and transcendent genius? 
 Did these clothe Lee and Jackson with the insig- 
 nia bearing the imprint of heroism and immortal 
 renown ? No ; they were essential elements ; but 
 without the unyielding chivalry and indomitable, 
 self-sacrificing devotion of the Southern masses, 
 their bright names would not shine in their tower- 
 ing niches in the temple of Fame. 
 
 To Grant and Sherman the same truth applies. 
 What laid the foundation of their successful tri- 
 umphs in the South-west, and brought them from 
 obscurity to stand forth the pillars of hope to 
 support a tottering and despairing empire ? The 
 sturdy pioneers of the West, with their unerring 
 rifles and indefatigable zeal. These developed 
 commanders who inspired national confidence 
 that rallied to their support the waning wealth 
 of the North and the East. Had their early cam- 
 paigns been prosecuted with less efficient troops, 
 
10 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 thej^ would not now be the adored of the nation, 
 as the commanders who saved the Union. 
 
 Amid the rank and file must the makers of 
 commanding and historical heroes be sought — 
 amid the rank and file must the typical heroes of 
 life be sought. Here have we looked for and 
 found characters with strange features of interest 
 clustering about them, to rival the war scenes of 
 the Arabian Nights; the loves of Petrarch and 
 Laura, in the famous romance located in the fabled 
 vale of Vaucluse; the story of Enoch Arden's 
 long absence and mj^sterious return ; the woes of 
 the unfortunate merchant of Venice, had they re- 
 mained unabated; the tragedy of Romeo and 
 Juliet ; the sleep of Rip Tan Winkle ; the ghosts 
 of Banquo and Hamlet; the Pandemonium of 
 Milton and the Inferno of Dante. 
 
 Although not portrayed with the pleasing col- 
 ors of an Addison, the unique genius of a Scott, 
 nor yet with the matchless grace of an Irving, 
 our Ufe sketches, if not well, shall be truly de- 
 lineated. These shall embrace every phase of 
 its shady and bright side that pervades the middle 
 and upper ranks of American society. We have 
 learned this through peculiar relations main- 
 tained with the characters themselves, under sin- 
 gular circumstances arising from conditions in 
 Avhich we have been placed with them, and which 
 we never could have known by other means. All 
 of our leading characters, together with their 
 parts, even to details, have been and are inti- 
 mately known to us, while the parts of other 
 characters have been supjilied by the parties 
 themselves, or by those who were well acquainted 
 with the facts. 
 
 We find in them many startling surprises and 
 thrilling developments in the highest ranks of 
 both cosmopolitan and rural aristocracy, as well 
 as from the middle marches of life ; in the mount- 
 ain cabin and the metropolitan palace ; the fierce 
 and fickle love of the Northern Lily, and the 
 wild and passionate devotion of the Southern 
 Rose. How each in turn was swayed by war's 
 tempest, and tried in the ordeal of that social 
 pestilence which followed in the wake of blood)'- 
 strife, together with soldiers of fortune and busi- 
 ness men as portrayed in wonderful careers. We 
 shall present a number of characters just embark- 
 
 ing, and continue to exhibit them as they pro- 
 gress, either cautiously or recklessly, on the 
 voyage of life, buffeted by the boisterous, incon- 
 stant waves, as they are thus impelled toward 
 the breakers, in the dangerous surf, fringing the 
 margins of that dreary, desolate strand of the 
 rushing, seething, destroying sea of Time, strewn 
 far and wide with numberless wrecks of hope. 
 
 Deign to accompany us to the great theatre 
 where may be witnessed some almost unique 
 acts in the drama of life — that prolific and inex- 
 haustible play where develops all that amuses, 
 shocks and instructs the mind of mankind. There 
 we shall unfold to your view some mystic and 
 some shady realities that are untold — swiftly 
 shifting and wildly varying scenes. You will see 
 actors and actresses without one moment to re- 
 hearse their parts, rushed as though it were by 
 mysterious and supernatural managers upon the 
 stage, and bid to play. We shall show you acting 
 required of them, so fierce and so precipitate, as 
 the great curtain rolls up, disclosing their destined 
 parts so rapidly that they appear to be too much 
 occupied to reflect, or too indifferent to care, what 
 new wonder next awaits them. 
 
 Among our characters there are some mask- 
 wearers whose complications present interesting 
 and instructive features, which clearly demon- 
 strate that the course of life pursued by these 
 indiscreet ones has cost and is ever costing con- 
 fiding, imprudent, deluded, unfortunate, despairing 
 men and women, and those who are near and 
 dear to them, unnumbered cruel and undying 
 heart aches. The sequel will show, hoAvever, 
 that most of those who assume the mask in the 
 commercial or in the social world, do so at first, 
 actuated by no unworthy motive, but by Avhat they 
 at that time regard as a laudable desire to pro- 
 tect an interest or a reputation from some appre- 
 hended danger. But thus seeds of infection are 
 planted in a fertile soil and matured by a conge- 
 nial clime, where they germinate, rapidly attain 
 dark luxuriance, and soon mature their bitter 
 fruits. 
 
 Few, very few, are securely exempt from lie- 
 coming exposed, at some period of hfe, to the 
 baneful allurements of the beguiling mask ; for 
 strange circumstances, peculiar associations, mys- 
 
 m 
 
 Nrti 
 
GARLAND CLOUD. 
 
 11 
 
 terious influences, terrible misfortunes, in a word, 
 any precipitate revolution in the affairs and re- 
 lations of life, in the social compacts of earth, 
 may bring any one face to face with this diabol- 
 ical generator of ruin and woe. By the fickle 
 capriciousness of fortune, either gradually, by 
 slow decay, or with the precipitation of "a 
 giant poAvder explosion," jiossessions slip or are 
 wrenched away from the Avealthy and from the 
 independent; and unnatural calamities, unfore- 
 seen and unavoidable disasters overtake and 
 crush the prosperous Avith a pitiless, unsparing 
 hand. 
 
 In and throughout these thrilling acts, the true, 
 the pure and the good will intermingle or be in- 
 extricably blended with the false, the treacherous 
 and the evil, as though by some envious, even 
 malicious, hand of destiny ; and these conflicting 
 influences will continually struggle, each seeking 
 for the mastery. 
 
 Out of consideration for the relatives and the 
 friends of the wayward and those of the good 
 with whom the wayward were associated, we 
 shall disguise the true names of characters and 
 the location of two or three scenes; but with 
 these exceptions we shall reproduce realistic 
 vicissitudes through which actual flesh and blood 
 characters have passed. We shall not draw on 
 the imagination except in a few instances, when 
 we may presume to bring the supernatural to 
 the surface, merely for the reason that the pre- 
 dominating force of such controlling influence 
 and presence is so unmistakably perceptible as 
 clearly to demonstrate that chance never pro- 
 duced many things which will be portrayed; that 
 like the ghost at the banquet, the shadowy 
 phantom "will not down;" hence this be- 
 comes a mysterious personality we cannot utterly 
 ignore. 
 
 We promise to offer nothing unworthy to 
 enter the purest and the most sanctified pre- 
 cincts of the home circle or the church, as moral 
 lessons commendable as models to be followed 
 by struggling and friendless youth in the lone 
 cheerless battle of life, or as warnings against 
 the dangers and snares ever lurking or concealed 
 about ihe pathway of the heedless, prepared for 
 their destruction ; to present the sentimental and 
 
 the sensational only where they belong to and 
 _ are inseparable from true life-pictures. 
 
 Our early scene will be located under the dark 
 shadow of the rising cloud, in the gathering tem- 
 pest of war, and amid the shocks and the tumult 
 and the carnage of contending hosts on the blood 
 crimsoned and ever memorable fields of Virginia. 
 
 From the war scenes we shall follow in the 
 commercial wake of subsequent years, often wan- 
 dering amid the bubbles of the social cauldron. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GARLAND CLOUD. 
 
 " Alas ! our yoiing affections run to waste, 
 
 Or water but the desert ; whence arise 
 But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste; 
 
 Rank at the core, though tempting to the eye. 
 
 Flowers whose wild odors breathe but agonies; 
 And trees whose gums are poison ; such the plants. 
 
 Which spring beneath her steps, as Passion flies 
 O'er the world's wilderness, and vainly pants 
 For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants." 
 
 —Byron. 
 
 What starthng memories run back to cluster 
 about the May-day of 1861. Prattling children 
 of that historical time have its memor}^ seared into 
 the tablets of their hearts. May-Queens who 
 were not crowned recall that cruel day of dis- 
 appointment with rankling bitterness ; and it is 
 associated with shadows of sadness that older 
 people do not forget. 
 
 Admirers of Nature in perfect loveliness may 
 find their imaged beauty enshrined in a thousand 
 spots — as fairy enchantresses — in the blue-grass 
 region of South-western Virginia, so calmly se- 
 rene as to impress one with the idea that agita- 
 tion, tumult, passion and sorrow never invade 
 these sequestered haunts of tranquil blissfulness. 
 Amid the blue hills, the rippling rills, and the 
 crystal streams of this picturesque country, and 
 high up among surrounding mountain-peaks to 
 the East and West — to the North the lovely blue- 
 grass country rolling away in undulating waves 
 far beyond the vision of the eye, and South the 
 pine forests, the fields and the villages of North 
 Carolina spreading out before the wondering gaze 
 until the horizon veils the vieV — lays a broad, 
 level tract of glade land known for many miles 
 
12 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 rfround as " the mountain meadows," one of its 
 margins resting on the very summit of the ab- 
 ruptly precipitous steeps of the Blue-Ridge 
 Mountain. On this vast tract stands a desolate 
 homestead, the reputed scene of a horrible trag- 
 edy, where it was believed the owner murdered a 
 traveler for his money : hence the house was said 
 to be haunted. Many people in the neighbor- 
 liood gave it a wide berth in daylight, and few of 
 the most daring hunters would have visited it at 
 night; no one could be induced to live in the 
 "haunted house." Thus it was in May, 1861; it 
 is much the same in May, 1883. 
 
 It is a May-day scene in 1861 which we are to 
 present on this stage — a scene not much out of 
 harmony with the ghostly legends of the spot; 
 a scene such as never had been witnessed before 
 in this peaceful region, and such as the advancing 
 centuries may not unfold again. 
 
 Usually, the traveler journeying along the 
 highway that lies in a lane through this tract, 
 would not see a human being anywhere within 
 the bounds of the vast meadows. But how 
 changed was the aspect of the spot on that brjjjht 
 May morning, when charming Nature smiled on 
 those desolate fields! Could some one of the 
 numerous octogenarians of that vitahzing clime 
 and neighborhood, utterly ignorant of the mad- 
 dening agitations of the day, have looked upon 
 the meadows in the yet early morning of 
 that day, he would have been struck dumb Avith 
 amazement. 
 
 The sun rose bright and gloriously ; not a cloud 
 spot or mist of haze obscured the cerulean dome 
 of the smiHng horizon. Young Nature, but lately 
 freed from the icy chains of winter, bounded 
 with exuberant gratitude, and danced in raptur- 
 ous ecstasy before the King of Day on his Orien- 
 tal throne of transcendent brilliancy and match- 
 less splendor. Sun-rise, on a morning such as we 
 have just described, in those vast mountain soli- 
 tudes, impresses the stranger who first beholds 
 it Avith a thrill of emotion, and awakens in his 
 being a sense of reverential admiration ever to be 
 remembered. Already flowers were blushing in 
 the dells and on the hill-sides, and exhaling their 
 sweet perfumes. Budding Nature beamed on 
 every twig. The gentle zephyrs were redolent 
 
 with her fragrance, and replete with the dul- 
 cet notes of the warbling songsters of the for- 
 est. What a fearful contrast of sombre gloom 
 was shed upon this peaceful scene from that dark 
 political cloud looming up the northern sky; 
 smoke from the wasting fires kindling by wicked 
 jnan. 
 
 The dew was not yet dry on the tender grass 
 and young leaves, when scores of people were on 
 the meadows, and every road or pathway, for 
 miles and miles in all directions, was thronged 
 with men, women and children, all eagerly has- 
 tening toward the meadows, clearly indicating 
 that intense excitement was raging at fever heat 
 among the children of the mountain. Before ten 
 o'clock thousands of people were on the ground, 
 and yet they came. Never before, not within 
 twenty-five miles of this spot, had there been 
 one-fourth as many people collected together. 
 But noAV, something extraordinary was on hand. 
 
 It was expected that at this place and on this 
 day, the second company of volunteers called for 
 in the county would be enlisted and organized. 
 Speeches were made, urging all who wished to 
 share in the honors and the glories of the war to 
 embrace this, the last opportunity, as peace Avould 
 be made before another company would be or- 
 ganized in the county. Old men — veterans of the 
 Avar of 1812-14 — hung their heads and assumed 
 an air of gravity , Avomen Avept. 
 
 Just as the music Avas ready to start as the 
 signal for A^olunteers to fall in line, all eyes were 
 turned in the direction of a solitary traveler, com- 
 ing from the north, on the Court-house road. He 
 Avas young, tall, rather prepossessing, and clad 
 in the uniform of a volunteer, the only one Avho 
 Avould be there, the first upon whom the eyes of 
 nine-tenths of that assembly had ever rested. 
 
 Farmer Moore was the only man on the speak- 
 er's stand able to recognize the young man. 
 
 " There is coming yonder," said he, " young 
 Cloud, one of the Guards. We shall noAv get the 
 news from H ." 
 
 " Let us have the music delayed until we learn 
 Avhat news he brings, and, in the meantime, tell 
 us Avho this young man is, friend Moore," Avas the 
 rejoinder of Judge Carter. 
 
 " He is " said Mr. Moore, " a son of the mount- 
 
ADIEU TO HOME. 
 
 13 
 
 ain. Yonder stand his grand-parents, parents, 
 sisters and other relatives, under the cedar-tree, ad- 
 miring him ; and well they may admire him, for 
 he is a young man of whom any family might 
 justly be proud. The family belongs to the mid- 
 dle class, and has since Yorktown was first col- 
 onized; they are all respectable, sober and honest 
 people, with no stain on the family name. Four 
 years since, when the lad was only thirteen years 
 old, he had committed to memory all the meagre 
 studies taught in our schools. Because no others 
 are introduced, he never goes to school, and his 
 father would not send him to a higher school. He 
 is rather awkward, taciturn, and extremely back- 
 ward and bashful in the company of ladies. He 
 is the best shot with a rifle in the county, and 
 nothing excites him. He was the first volunteer 
 in the county. But he will pass us. I must hail 
 him. Say, Cloud, what is the news ? " 
 
 Cloud: "Not a word, Mr. Moore, except that 
 the G-uards have received marching orders, and 
 
 will leave H to-morrow morning at ten o'clock 
 
 for the tented field." 
 
 Then this object that attracted so many admir- 
 ing eyes, hastened to join his family group, where 
 he was quickly surrounded by friends and stran- 
 gers. Old and young ladies of the first families 
 in the land, regardless of etiquette or ceremony, 
 eagerly vied with one another to grasp his hand 
 and bid him God's blessing. But his own family 
 — mother and sisters — greeted him with quivering 
 lips and moistening eyes. 
 
 The musicians also came up and stood by 
 young Cloud. But soon they received the signal 
 from the speaker's stand to proceed. At once 
 the shrill, stirring notes of the fife, and the tu- 
 multuous roll of the drum, were echoing and 
 reverberating from the craggy mountain-spurs, 
 down among deep and cavernous ravines, and 
 floating away on the mild and balmy breeze, 
 laden with odoriferous perfu^me from the dog- 
 wood, the laurel and the honeysuckle. 
 
 The father of young Cloud and his mother's 
 brother were the first men in line behind the 
 music. In five minutes double the number wanted 
 were in line ; and they had to be rejected by lot. 
 
 The uncle was elected captain, the father first- 
 lieutenant by acclamation; then young Cloud's 
 
 name was mentioned in connection with the next 
 nomination. 
 
 Promptly this young man, manifesting pain- 
 ful embarrassment, stepped in front of the line 
 and said : 
 
 " Schoolmates, companions, neighbors and 
 friends, I entreat you not to nominate me for any 
 office. I could not accept, because I do not merit 
 such a gift. I thank you, my friends, those of you 
 who called my name ; but think no more about it. 
 My position has been chosen. -I shall die in the 
 ranks, or rise from them, should I ever rise, on the 
 scale of merit. To-morrow I depart for the front. 
 To-morrow morning there will be more than one 
 hundred sad families in this county. Ten days 
 hence the number will double; there will be 
 I vacant places at the table; empty chairs in the 
 home circle; some of them — G-od only knows 
 how many — forever. Do not grieve that lot has 
 rejected many of you. It is but for a few days. 
 Many may get an opportunity to hear their 
 names called from the muster-roll who are not 
 anxious to have that distmction before the end 
 comes. Our enemies have the flag and the con- 
 stitution of our forefathers. Would to G-od that 
 we had them. There is a magic in their name 
 that will be a greater power against us than half 
 the legions of the North. You have a hundred 
 M^orthier than I from whom to select. Please 
 jDroceed with your organization." 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ADIECr TO HOME. 
 "Perchance my dog will whine in vain, 
 'Till fed by stranger hands; 
 But, long ere I come back again, 
 He'd tear me where he stands." 
 
 — Byrcn. 
 
 Thousands remember to this day, in mournful 
 despair, the agonizing anguish of those sad days of 
 farewells, when fair cheeks were wet with tears ; 
 rosy lips kissed for the last time ; receding forms 
 watched by eyes — tear-dimmed eyes — gazing 
 with longing fondness after loved ones until 
 these disappeared round the street corners, the 
 turn of the road, or over the brow of a hill, to re- 
 turn — nevermore. Oh, alas ! for the broken hearts 
 these partings have since wrung. 
 
14 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Seated in the home-circle with the family, the 
 grandfather and some other friends, on the same 
 evening after the Mountain Meadow scene, the 
 grandfather was the first to address young Cloud 
 with reference to the momentous questions of the 
 day. 
 
 " Garland," he said thoughtfully, and with mani- 
 fest reluctance, " you do not know how it pained 
 me to see you so abrupt with those gentlemen as 
 we were leaving the Meadows this evening." 
 
 " I could not help it, grandfather. I hate them 
 with all the intensity of my passionate young 
 nature, and I could not dissemble." 
 
 " Why, Garland Cloud ! you amaze me, boy ; but 
 for the uniform you wear, I could scarcely refrain 
 from striking you. Foolish boy ! They have been 
 Assemblymen, Congressmen, Senators, and are 
 likely to be generals ; probably over you ; they 
 might then remember this occurrence." 
 
 " Hum ! Those politicians ? You are as likely 
 to wake a young man to-morrow morning, my 
 grandfather, aa you are ever to see one of those 
 oily-tongued public distracters in a soldier's uni- 
 form. They have made the war, and are little, if 
 any, better than John Brown was. Was the same 
 fate meted out to some thousands of them, both 
 North and South, to-morrow, that would put an 
 end to all thia disturbance for the next hundred 
 years, and save the country ten times as many and 
 by far more valuable lives, besides all the other 
 undreamed-of desolation and miseries which war 
 must bring. Why don't they prove their profes- 
 sions? Why have they not stepped first, some- 
 where, to the notes of the music, as they saw my 
 father and uncle, their dupes, step to-day ? Where 
 does the country need them ? Is it to go from 
 place to place exclaiming — ' Go on, boys ; we will 
 meet you there,' when ere many days or weeks 
 the thunder o£ cannon and the smoke of burning 
 homesteads, aa it ascends heavenward, will make 
 this appeal more eloquently and more forcibly 
 than any words these demagogues can utter, as 
 those tocsins and emblems of danger and desola- 
 tion are wafted Southward from the banks of the 
 Potomac ? Let them do their duty, grandfather, 
 and I will respect and honor them ; but until then 
 I cannot." 
 
 The grandfather sat mutely gazing at the rosy 
 
 face of this youth, now in an unusual glow from 
 the ardor of his earnest zeal in the subject upon 
 which he had been speaking. 
 
 The early breakfast was eaten amid the silence 
 that pervades the mourning group pending the 
 solemn services of a funeral— Jiearts were full to 
 overflowing. 
 
 The farewells were the silent pressure of hands, 
 the mute sealing and severing of lips. Thus quit- 
 ting the threshold of his mountain home, young 
 Cloud was met by his two little hounds, the com- 
 panions of his youthful sports. In a choking 
 voice he said, " Stay here, my good boys." The 
 Httle brutes, seated on the ground, looking wist^ 
 fully through the yet grey twilight after his re- 
 ceding form, raised a mournful howl — something 
 they had never done before — which was regarded 
 as ominous of evil to come. Garland Cloud was 
 gone on his tidal wave of time, out into the 
 tumult, the storms and the darkness of the mad 
 and thundering sea of life, and into the valley and 
 shadows of death. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Blackburn's ford. 
 
 ' • But hark ! that deep sound breaks in once more— 
 To arms ! to arms ! it is,it is the cannon's opening roar." 
 
 — Bykon. 
 In Prince William County, Virginia, there is, 
 and was at the time of which we write, a railway 
 junction on the Orange and Alexandria E. R. 
 known on the maps as Manassas Junction. This 
 now is known in history as a tragic stage, atniU- 
 tary depot, a strategic point, associated with the 
 manoeuvring of grand armies and sanguinary bat- 
 tle-fields. Here the Confederate forces selected 
 their early rendezvous from which to watch and 
 guard the approaches leading to Washington, 
 where it was known the Government of the Union 
 was collecting an army to invade Virginia. Be- 
 tween this spot and Washington a narrow,-slug- 
 gish, but crooked and deep stream slowly mean- 
 ders along the base o£ steep and almost perpen- 
 dicular hill-sides and precipices, and through 
 swamps covered with dense forests, with only 
 occasional places that are f ordable ; and few ap- 
 proaches available lor armies to move to other 
 
BLACKBUEN'S FORD. 
 
 15 
 
 points where bridges might be thrown across ; or, 
 such is true of the topography of the stream and 
 its banlcs from Stone Bridge on down toward the 
 Potomac below, where it would be desirable for 
 an army to cross in an advance on Manassas 
 Junction. Above ^tone Bridge a skillful general 
 would not attempt to make the detour necessary 
 to reach the crossings and return to the objective 
 point, as such a move would expose his column to 
 direct attacks, on the march, and his baggage and 
 communication to seizure by the enemy in the 
 vicinity of Centreville, near which point the Con- 
 federates were posted, guarding the fords of this 
 stream, known as Bull Run. The most critical 
 points were from four to eight miles from the 
 junction. One of these heads this chapter — 
 Blackburn's Ford. 
 
 The night of the 16th and the morning of the 
 17th of July, 1861, contained moments of intense 
 excitement for the Confederate army of, observa- 
 tion, then for the first time drawn up in line of 
 battle, face to face with the grim reahties of war 
 — the marshaled hosts of the enemy ; the antag- 
 onists were hovering near the margins of Bull Run, 
 which flowed between them. The few fords and 
 the railroad bridge were alertly guarded by the 
 Confederates, some bodies of whom were in mo- 
 tion so constantly as to catch not even broken 
 moments of sleep on the night of the 16th. , 
 
 Col. E 's brigade of Virginians, one such a 
 
 body of vigilant troops, was constantly in motion 
 or underarms until nine o'clock a. m. on the 17th, 
 when arms were stacked in the piney slirubs with 
 a corn-field in front, about five hundred yards 
 in rear of Blackburn's Ford, then held by Gen. 
 Longstreet. 
 
 But a few moments elapsed before the men 
 were generally asleep. One private sat bolt 
 upright with no symptoms of sleep in his restless 
 blue eyes. This individual was watching clouds of 
 dust rising up on a high plateau across the corn- 
 field, and about one mile distant. He did not 
 know how far it was to Bull Run, and was unable 
 to tell whether friends or foes were raising the 
 dust; yet, at all events, natural instinct enabled 
 his untutored mind to determine that it was no 
 small scouting party, be it which side it might ; 
 and he watched it with deep interest. 
 
 This unsophisticated person was Garland Cloud 
 — the child and boy-soldier of the mountain, 
 wrenched away from his home of purity and the 
 innocent joys of his tender years, objects and 
 scenes he loved so well, and launched out on that 
 rising sea of fire and blood to be all but a lone 
 and friendless wanderer. 
 
 The family of every other member of his 
 company was regarded as being above his in the 
 social scale. Because of this he had often felt 
 that he was slighted. Some of the ranker mem- 
 bers of the blue-blooded aristocracy had attempted 
 to make him the drudge of the company, while 
 others had tried to humiliate him by offering to 
 hire him to do little acts of menial service, all of 
 which he treated with dignified and becoming 
 contempt. For these reasons between him and 
 his comrades there was Uttle sympathy and no in- 
 timate companionship. Off duty he was rather 
 morose and retiring. 
 
 Seated as we have described him, his thoughts 
 were rambling ; they wandered back home ; then 
 back into history, — to the bridge of Lodi ; to Aus- 
 terlitz ; to Waterloo ; across to the rising clouds of 
 dust ; then to his sleeping companions. He con- 
 cluded that their advantages of birth and social 
 position would avail them nothing in the great 
 lottery of life and death in which they were about 
 to be played ; that they could not endure hard- 
 ships and exposure with him ; that many of them 
 had already been in trouble for infraction of disci- 
 pline ; and that upon the whole they were more 
 truly objects of pity than himself. 
 
 Suddenly amid the clouds of dust his eye caught 
 a whiff of smoke ; in an instant a bomb-shell came 
 crashing into the corn-field ; in less than another 
 minute one came tearing through the pine saplings. 
 The first one had startled several sleepers ; the last 
 
 one aroused Col. E and the entire brigade to 
 
 a man. 
 
 Col. E was a veteran of the Mexican and 
 
 Indian wars, and as profane as his Satanic maj- 
 esty could wish. 
 
 He was a member of the Virginia Convention, 
 where his extraordinary powers of forensic elo- 
 quence were employed in opposition to secession, 
 in course of which he demonstrated, in terms 
 that could not be gainsaid, and were virtually 
 
16 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 unanswerable, liow futile were the hopes that 
 there were any chances for the Southern Confed- 
 eration to succeed ; and portrayed the picture of 
 devastation and ruin whicli would inevitably en- 
 tail on the Old Dominion, his beloved and native 
 land, in colors of fire, blood, desolation, poverty 
 and mourning, which made the fiery blood of 
 those intoxicating times run cold and curdling in 
 its feverish veins. To the last and final ballot he 
 A'oted against the act of secession, asserting that 
 the blood and tears of his country should not be 
 on his head. The act of secession having sealed 
 his prophetic doom of Virginia, as one of her true, 
 chivalrous, obedient sons, he meekly bowed his 
 head to the decree which he had in vain so val- 
 iantly battled to defeat ; and without a moment 
 of hesitation or delay, buckled on his sword with 
 a soldier's experienced hand, and hastened to 
 where the infernal machines of war would first 
 hurl and explode their missiles of death. 
 
 The curtain had been rolled up while he slept; 
 he awoke to find the bloody scene before his open 
 eyes, merging forth upon the stage. 
 
 On lying down to sleep he had unbuckled 
 his sword and jDlaced it by his side, where the 
 pine leaves covered it up. Garland Cloud was 
 not ten feet from his veteran commander, who 
 was both his colonel and brigade commander 
 pro tern. The young tyro at this moment was 
 intently watching and noting the coolness and 
 apparent unconcern of the old soldier while 
 searching for his blade, but was much shocked 
 when the old officer turned to his adjutant and 
 said : 
 
 " Capt. Gr , where in h — is my sword? " 
 
 Very soon the four regiments were under arms. 
 Col. E in front of the centre, gave the com- 
 mand : " Load at will, load ! " Instantaneously the 
 commanders of regiments repeated this order, and 
 it was in turn as quickly reiterated by the com- 
 manders of forty companies. 
 
 Capt, H was a West-Pointer of high hon- 
 ors, but was, for the first time, under fire. He 
 
 was Col. E 's townsman, and belonged to his 
 
 regiment. Facing his company with a graceful 
 precision that no one but a trained soldier could 
 imitate, yet so far influenced by the prevalent ex- 
 citement as to forget the order he had just re- 
 
 ceived, in a clear, stentorian voice, he gave the 
 command : 
 
 " Company , load in nine times, loadl" 
 
 Col. E was a considerable distance from 
 
 this officer, but his experienced ear caught this 
 bungling blunder from amoj.ig the forty voices 
 with which it mingled, and standing straight in 
 his stirrups, he exclaimed at the top of his voice : 
 
 "Capt. H , load in h — fire andd — nation; 
 
 load as quick as you can, and shoot the same 
 way." 
 
 By this time the clear, sharp report of now 
 and then an out-post rifle was heard. This grad- 
 ually increased to the desultory rattle of the 
 skirmish lines. A temporary, but to those whom 
 experience had taught its import, ominous Bilence 
 followed ; Longstreet's skirmishers had retired to 
 their i-egiments. This suspense was soon broken 
 by a volley of musketry, followed in rapid suc- 
 cession by another and another, until, in a few 
 moments, the firing deepened into one steady 
 continuous roll. 
 
 The peculiar sensations which thrill the being, 
 and the unique impression made upon the 
 mind of the uninitiated, the first time one 
 hears the incessant, unbroken roll of musketry, 
 in actual, hostile combat, has never yet been 
 described by words. No language in this -world, 
 no combination of words ever constructed bj' 
 man, has in any degree, even approximately ap- 
 proached towards doing the subject justice. To 
 be understood fully, and to be appreciated duly, 
 these emotions and impressions must be exj^e- 
 rienced ; and those only who have thus learned 
 them can imagine what they are like, because 
 there is nothing to present es a parallel illustra- 
 tion with which the reality might Ije contrasted. 
 Hence it is needless to attempt e, description, for 
 no matter howsoever earnestly and intelligently 
 the effort might be made, the result Avould inevi- 
 tably be a miserable failure. 
 
 Quickly Col. E 's command crossed the 
 
 corn-field. In a narrow skirt of pines beyond, 
 it began to meet Longstreet's wounded; some 
 were walking, some were borne on fitters, while 
 others were in ambulances. There was both the 
 dripping and streaming life-blood of mortal man 
 visibly and unquestionably ebbing out. 
 
THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS. 
 
 17 
 
 Emerging from the pines, the advancing col- 
 umn came into an open field extending, with con- 
 siderable down grade, to the banks of Bull Run. 
 in full view of the Federal batteries posted on the 
 opposite heights, and exposed to their fire. 
 
 A double-quick-sf ep movement promptly placed 
 
 Col. E 's column in position on the left of 
 
 Longstreet's hotly engaged line, just as the Fed- 
 eral infantry was finally repulsed. 
 
 For some hours, a spirited artillery duel was 
 maintained, but the sun went down on a scene of 
 apparently perfect tranquillity. Col. E 's com- 
 mand remained in line of battle on the bank of 
 the stream. 
 
 When it was quite dark, the immediate com- 
 rades of G-arland Cloud observed him Avith his 
 bayonet in hand, actively gouging into the ground. 
 
 " What are you doing, Cloud?" came from sev- 
 eral mouths. 
 
 " Preparing to build breastworks. We have 
 no picks nor spades, yet we can, however, loosen 
 earth with the bayonet and throw it up with the 
 hands, so as to make some protection long before 
 day, which we are likely to need to-morrow," 
 was the reply. 
 
 In less than twenty minutes every man in the 
 brigade was at work like a beaver. Before mid- 
 night a line of earth had thus risen to defy mus- 
 ket-balls or grape-shot. Behind this improvised 
 protection the brigade remained exposed to the 
 liurning sun of July by day, and the chilling dews 
 of this flat and boggy locality by night, until the 
 afternoon of the 20th of July, as quietly as if 
 participating in some solemn or sacred ceremony ; 
 then it Avas relieved, and retired to the rear for a 
 night of much-needed repose. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS. 
 
 " Cannon to right of them ; 
 
 - Cannon to left of them ; 
 Cannon in front of them. 
 Volleyed and thundered." 
 
 — Tknnyson. 
 
 Pure, consecrated and holy day, ordained for 
 piety and devotion ; as bright, as lovely, and as 
 glorious in its transcendent brilliancy and per- 
 fect endoAvments of Nature, as any that ever 
 2 
 
 burst forth from the Oriental realms of morning 
 upon a strife-rent and sin-stricken Avorld, since 
 the first dawned in its rare and radiant beauty 
 upon innocent, semi-Heavenly Paradise! Such 
 was that Sabbath morning of July 21st, 1861, as 
 it broke upon sweet, serenely sleeping creation, in 
 the beautiful and yet tranquil i)lains of Manassas. 
 
 All Nature Avas perfect in her appointments ; 
 the trees and the fields were adorned Avith the 
 most gorgeous apparel fi-om the brightest textures 
 of summer splendor. The canopy of Heaven Avas 
 clear, without a cloud or haze spot anyAvhere 
 visible. Not a breath of air stirred the most del- 
 icate leaf. Scattered far and wide, Avas to be 
 seen here and there the smoke from homesteads 
 of the early-rising tillers of the soil, or those 
 AA'hom the stirring events, — anticipated in their 
 midst, but yet held in appalling suspense — had 
 caused to o^uit restless beds earher than their 
 Avonted Sabbath morning hours. In tAvo paiticu- 
 lar localities, smoke rose high up as from tAvo huge 
 cities; spread out and hung like a pall suspended 
 in the elements, as sloAvly gathering, sluggishly 
 moving, yet blackly portentous clouds — threat- 
 ening harbingers of a coming storm. 
 
 Far away in the back-ground, rose up in bold 
 relief, the huge, dimly-defined outlines of the 
 Alleghany Mountains, yet partially obscured by 
 streaks of grey tAvilight. Back in the rear the 
 shrill scream of the locomotives occasionally rang 
 through the still dcAvy air. Besides this, " the 
 cock's shrill clarion " Avas the only sound to be 
 heard. 
 
 The sun rose bright and gloAving, his first rays 
 transforming the myriad dew-drops to silver and 
 pearl ; for all things Avere 
 
 " Dewy Avith Nature's tear-drops, 
 Weeping, if aught inanimate ever weeps, 
 For the unreturning brave." 
 
 The Confederate camps were quiet. The early 
 repast was over. Conversation, whenever any 
 occurred, was carried on in subdued tones. Oc- 
 casionally a man could be seen with the head 
 boAved in mute but meditative prayer ; another 
 reading the Bible. But the heart — ah, Avhere Avas 
 the heart ? Far aAvay on the Sabbath of other 
 days, amid'scenes the moistening eye of the pen- 
 sive one, yet kept bright by the labored pulsa- 
 
18 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 tions of that wildly throbbing heart, might be- 
 hold never more. 
 
 And those away there, among those distant 
 scenes of yore, what of them ? From Plymouth 
 Rock to the Gulf of Mexico; from the base of 
 the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic, oh merci- 
 ful God ! what a day of agonizing suspense and 
 bitter anguish of mind and or soul this was des- 
 tined to be for thousands and thousands of fam- 
 ilies all over this broad and distracted land ! 
 
 Such was the situation, and such was the scen- 
 ery which surrounded and decorated the stage 
 of this Sabbath day's theatre, when Nature's grand 
 curtain rolled up and disclosed the same in the 
 early morning, before the mad actors appeared 
 to trample it under foot, begrime it with smoke, 
 scorch it with fire, and deluge it with blood. 
 
 The sun was scarcely up before the boom of 
 cannon on the turnpike leading from Stone 
 Bridge to Centrevihe, announced that the antici- 
 pated event, — the struggle which for three days 
 had been suspended in abeyance, the day of de- 
 struction and carnage, — ^liad come. 
 
 At an early hour, it was evident to those miles 
 away, at Blackburn's Ford and the railroad 
 bridge, along the Confederate centre and right, 
 that their companions in the vicinity of Stone 
 Bridge, on the left, were being steadily beaten 
 back, and that there would be the scene of the 
 terrible conflict. On the centre and right, col- 
 umn after column was put in motion, and made 
 forced marches for the field of battle. 
 
 Col. E arrived on the field at a critical 
 
 moment. Just before his command took a posi- 
 tion, preparatory for the reception of the now 
 triumphing, exultant onslaught of the enemy 
 the announcement was made to each regi- 
 ment that one man from each company was 
 demanded for detached duty, to be furnished vol- 
 untarily, oi- by special detail, should no one in 
 any company feel disposed to volunteer. 
 
 Instantly the tall form of Garland Cloud 
 stepped forward and stood a few paces in front of 
 his company, a shade paler than usual, yet mani- 
 festing that determination which meets death un- 
 moved. Thirty-nine other men stood on the 
 same line with him, each a solitary figure, alone 
 in front of his own ccfmpany. Quickly they 
 
 closed together, and under charge of special 
 officers, moved rapidly away into the smoking, 
 flaming jaws of death. At this moment there 
 were more admiring eyes following and more 
 kindly feeling cherished in his company for poor 
 lowly born Cloud than his aristocratic comrades 
 had ever before deigned to bestow upon this boy 
 of the mountain. Secretly, each one felt that 
 this child of humble parentage had voluntarily 
 put his body in the place in this over-hazardous 
 duty, which the impartial casting of lots might 
 have fixed on an aristocrat, perhaps himself. Gen. 
 
 Beauregard strictly enjoined Col. E not to 
 
 fire on some South Carolina troops in his front 
 as they were retiring on his position. This or- 
 der was duly communicated to commanders of 
 regiments. 
 
 Now Col. E 's long and final opposition to 
 
 secession caused him to be regarded rather in the 
 guise of a traitor than that of a Southern patriot, 
 
 by a large element in the army. Col. K , also 
 
 a member of the convention, and a zealous and un- 
 compromising advocate of secession, and com- 
 manding one of the regiments in Col. E 's 
 
 brigade, mistrusted his loyalty. Through tiie 
 smoke a dense body of troops could be discerned 
 cautiously advancing. Both ofiicers and men were 
 
 restless. Col. E rode back and forth along 
 
 the line, entreating his men not to fire, as those 
 men were retiring friends. 
 
 Col. K 's eye in the meantime had detected 
 
 the regulation blue and the stars and stripes, and 
 
 he shouted: "Col. E , they may be your 
 
 friends, but I will be d d if they are mine. 
 
 Fire on them, my men ! " The fire was answered 
 by a withering volley ; the South Carolinians had 
 fallen back on some other point. 
 
 The day soon grew desperate for the Southern 
 arms. Bee, Bartow, and many other gallant offi- 
 cers and brave men were dead on the field. The 
 Confederates were defeated and forced back at all 
 points. According to all laws of war, they were, 
 in the middle of the afternoon, hopelessly beaten. 
 Some bodies of troops rallied and faced the enemy ; 
 but the general tendency was toward a retrograde 
 movement in bad order. Some troops from one 
 of the cotton States Avere thus moving past 
 another body in good order and facing the enemy. 
 
THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS. 
 
 19 
 
 when tlie commaiuler of the former suddenly ex- 
 claiined: 
 
 "For shame men, rally! Just look there at 
 Jackson's men standing like a "Stone Wall!" 
 
 About this time a body of troops were discov- 
 ered debouching from a dense wood on the Con- 
 federate left rear, and bearing directly down upon 
 it; The stoutest heart quailed. There could be 
 but one conviction : the Federal commander had 
 detached a heavy column, which, by a detour 
 under cover of this wood, had gained the Confed- 
 erate rear, and was moving down to complete the 
 annihilation of the discomfited and disheartened 
 Southerners. Gen. Beauregard's dark, swarthy 
 featm-es paled. It was a moment) of intense and 
 painful suspense bordering on desperation. But 
 suddenly as a flash of lightning Beauregard's 
 countenance fired up as he shouted: "It is E. 
 Kerby Smith! The day is ours! Forward!" 
 The efiect was magical and instantaneous. 
 
 An Alabama regiment wavered as its colors 
 went down again and again. Beauregard urged 
 his horse forward, seized the flag, whose folds 
 partly enveloped his^body, while the clarion notes 
 of his voice were heard above the surrounding 
 tumult : 
 
 " Follow your general ! Victory is ours ! " 
 And an irresistible wave rolled forward that, 
 had they not been thereby surprised, would have 
 overwhelmed the Union troops. They have been 
 unjustly censured for flying so ignobly from a but 
 late victorious field. Had they been exjiecting 
 this assault, and fully prepared to meet it the re- 
 sult would have been the same. Nc troops could 
 have withstood that mad torrent in the open field. 
 It was the result of a sudden reaction, an out- 
 burst of enthusiasm that sprung wildly and spon- 
 taneously from stifled despair, such as transforms 
 mankind to superhuman beings. This was an 
 avalanche that swept all before it. 
 
 The plateau of the renowned Henry house was 
 cleared. The result of the day was no longer 
 doubtful. A page of history was written in let- 
 ters of mingled tears and blood. 
 " The thunder clouds close oyer It, which, when rent, 
 The earth was covered thick with other clay. 
 Which its own clay shall cover, heap'd and pent. 
 Rider, horse,— friend,— foe in one red burial blent." 
 
 After the terrible conflict had spent its fury and 
 
 ceased to rage. Garland Cloud and one companiori 
 of the day were still together without an officer, 
 amid the pitiful, heart-rending scenes of that 
 ghastly field, rendering such assistance to their 
 suffering and dying friends as their untutored 
 mountain hands were able to perform; and at 
 every step, on every hand, they met sights to 
 wring their yet pure and tender hearts. 
 
 They halted at one spot where the ground was 
 literally covered with the slain who fell in the 
 last stubborn and desperately contested struggle. 
 Some lay with their hands folded across their 
 breasts and a sweet smile on their lips. The first 
 impression on a person ignorant of the situation 
 would have been that these, forms were a large 
 number of men in peaceful and healthy slumber, as 
 
 " He who hath bent him o'er the dead, 
 Ere the first day of death is fled. 
 And marked the mild, augelic air, 
 The rapture of repose that's there. 
 And, but for that ead, shrouded eye, 
 That fires not, wins not, weejjs not now. 
 So fair, so calm, so softly sealed. 
 The first, last looks by death revealed ! 
 So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, 
 We start, for soul is wanting there." 
 
 Passing on, they soon reached a point where 
 none of the badly wounded had been removed; 
 and the groans and shrieks were heart-rending. 
 
 Cloud and his boy companion, rude and un- 
 skilled ministers of mercy, bandaged wounds 
 with handkerchiefs and any other material to be 
 had; gave a sip of water, and helped men to 
 points where ambulances could reach them. 
 
 "When they could do no more good at this 
 point, and were moving away, they came upon a 
 silent, fair-haired, smooth-faced, rosy-cheeked. 
 Union lieutenant. A handsome boy, beautiful 
 as a lovely girl in her teens, bleeding to death 
 from a wound in the leg. 
 
 Hearing the sound of footsteps and voices, his 
 face brightened for a moment, until his eye caught 
 the grey uniform advancing toward him, when a 
 dark scowl passed over his lovely features as he 
 turned his head away with an air of despair. Gar- 
 land Cloud's heart was touched to the core. " Can 
 we do something for you, poor boy," he said in 
 kind and sympathetic, almost sobbing tones. 
 
 At the sound of this expression the poor sufferer 
 turned his large, dreamy, deep-blue eyes up to 
 
20 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 the speaker's powder-begrimed face bending anx- 
 iously over him, and gazed at him, then at his boy 
 companion, for a moment in mingled doubt and 
 astonishment; then said slowly and hesitatingly : 
 "You are enemies and offer me kindness; or 
 do I dream ?" 
 
 "This morning we were enemies; this evening 
 the cause of humanity makes us friends. Fear 
 us not. Tell us what we can do for you, and we 
 will help you as brothers," Cloud answered. 
 
 " Oh, may heaven bless you I I need a kindly 
 voice and a friendly hand now. I am bleeding 
 to death from a wound in the thigh. My hours 
 aro numbered and few. If not too much to ask, 
 and possible, I beg that one of you may stay by 
 me until I am gone, close my eyes, wrap me in 
 my blanket, put me in the ground deep enough so 
 the rain won't uncover me, and write to mother." 
 
 The poor boy paused, choking with sobs. ]5y 
 this time Cloud was ripping the pant-leg, and in- 
 stantly had the wound naked. Then jerking the 
 suspenders and shirt from a dead man, these Avcre 
 quickly slitted and ripjwd into bandages and 
 cords ; a silk handkerchief torn up, the leg corded, 
 the wound plugged and bandaged before another 
 word was uttered. Tiien Cloud said : 
 
 " We must save your life, Lieutenant. After 
 this fails it will be time to attend to your request. 
 Take courage. Now we must carry you in a 
 blanket to a surgeon." 
 
 "Oh! forgive me for coming to fight you. You 
 are too kind to me;" and he wept like a child. 
 
 It was not long before a kind-hearted old sur- 
 geon was bending over the wound. Soon the 
 artery was taken up and tied, the wound dressed, 
 and the young soldier pronounced cut of imme- 
 diate danger. Then he slept for an hour. Cloud 
 watched beside him while his companion slept, 
 for it was raining, and too dark for the two boys 
 to seek their regiments until morning. 
 
 The wounded boy awoke, drank some water, 
 expressed a few words in acknowledgment of 
 nis gratitude; then for a few moments his lips 
 moved as though in silent prayer, until finally he 
 murmured aloud: 
 
 "Mother, poor mother; it will kill her." 
 
 Then he fell into a deep and prolonged sleep. 
 When he awoke again day was breaking, and 
 
 Cloud and his compamon standing by the lowly 
 cot to bid him farewell. . 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 .AWRENCE PLEASINGTON. 
 
 " Wounded and sorrowful, far from my homo, 
 Kick among strangers, uncared for, unknown." 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington was the name of the 
 wounded captive beside whose feveri.sh form Gar- 
 land Cloud and companion stood, in the dim grey 
 twilight on the gloomy morning after the stormy 
 July Sabbath recorded in the last chapter, to say 
 farewell. The sun was mantled with a thick black 
 veil, refusing to look upon the ghastly and 
 sickening scenes still scattered all over tliat en- 
 sanguined field. All Nature seemed to be in sym- 
 pathy with the mourning throughout the land so 
 wid(!-spread as to merit the appellation of "a na- 
 tion's looe.'" The dark clouds and big rain-drops 
 harmonized with the gloomy distress and tears of 
 despair which on this morning wrung and con- 
 vulsed so many human hearts. Among, and one 
 of those sad and disappointed spirits was that of 
 young Pleasington, the poor wounded captive. The 
 thought of the cruel anguish and hopeless despair 
 which his poor mother would suffer was more to 
 his sad soul than anything that could be in store 
 for himself. It was of her, and not of self, that 
 lie lljon-ht. 
 
 Just now, too, the two rude, uncouth mount- 
 aineers, whom a few hours before he had hated 
 so cordially, were about to leave him. They had 
 been kind, humane and sympathetic; for these 
 I'oasons, in the absence of anything more cheei- 
 ful, it was a comfort to the poor sufferer to look 
 into their frank and generous faces; and what 
 assurance had he that he would fall into .sjniilar 
 hands after they were gone? Certainly there 
 could be no eye to watch over him; no hand to 
 minister unto him, to soothe his aching lirow or 
 smooth the rude, hard pillow ; no voice to greet 
 his ear: none of these foi' him but such asene- 
 niies might bestow. To him, everything, from all 
 other sources, "wasbaned and barred, forbidden 
 fare;" and this might be bestowed harshly and 
 unkindly and cruelly. 
 
 With two great pearly tear-drops starting 
 
LAWRENCE PLEASINGTON. 
 
 21 
 
 from tke grand and winning eyes, and a quiver 
 on his lip, he ching to Cloud's hand as^ he falter- 
 ingly said : 
 
 "Mr. Cloud, AvcAvere arrayed as enemies; from 
 you I hoped for the harshest civilized treatment ; 
 this was all. But you have treated me as a com- 
 rade, a brother. I want your full name, regi- 
 ment, company, and your home post-office. I 
 Avant to write to mother and Effie, so they may 
 know what you have done for me, should I not 
 live to see them again. Effie is the young lady 
 most dear to my heart. To-day, oh cruel fate ! 
 they will mourn me dead ; and there is no means 
 by which I can let them know that I yet cling to 
 life by a feeble, uncertain thread. I want to 
 write to you from the hospital and the prison if 
 the authorities and you Avill permit me ; and if 
 you are in reach and can find me, please come 
 and see me some time this week, if possible. And 
 I want the address of your young friend." 
 
 " Lieutenant, every thing in my power I will 
 do for you. Give me your poor mother's ad- 
 dress. Probably I can get word sent to her. 
 There must be some flags of truce passing soon. 
 I will see what can be done. Some time, to- 
 morrow, perhaps, I may be in the same fix," was 
 Cloud's reply. 
 
 " May heaven bless and shield you from harm," 
 was the wounded soldier's sobbing response. 
 
 At this moment the surgeon came along look- 
 ing at the condition of the numerous sufferers 
 under his care. Cloud addressed him : 
 
 " Dr. Chamberlain, this is the young prisoner 
 we brought you last night in such a critical con- 
 dition. Please care for him, in the name of hu- 
 manity, for his mother and his Effie, to, the very 
 1 lest of your ability ; and please let me know 
 where you place him, until he is able to be trans- 
 ferred to the interior." 
 
 " Garland," replied the doctor, " be assured 
 this shall be my special care. I am proud to see 
 such fine and commendable manifestations of 
 magnanimity and humanity among our young 
 men." 
 
 " Farewell, Lieutenant; you are in good hands. 
 We must hasten away," was Cloud's parting sal- 
 utation. His young comrade was met the first 
 time on the battle-field, but was a mountaineer 
 
 from his neighboring or adjoining county ; a 
 member of another regiment in the same brigade, 
 and a volunteer in the detached service with 
 Cloud. But he will appear again, and be more 
 closely defined. 
 
 Cloud found his regiment just moving, to go to 
 outpost duty, well down toward Alexandria. 
 
 From the outpost he went away to a home- 
 stead near by, ostensibly to get some canteens 
 of water for the company, but in reality to see 
 an old colored man with whom he was already on 
 intimate but somewhat mysterious terms, known 
 as Uncle Jake. 
 
 Uncle Jake: "Well, for shure, young massa 
 Cloud, you not killed, bress the Lawrd for dat." 
 
 Cloud : " No, uncle Jake, they missed me this 
 time. But I am delighted to find that you did 
 Hot run off with the Yanks." 
 
 Uncle Jake : " What for I run away ? Old 
 Jake not gwine to turn fool dis late in life, when 
 he is freer dan de white folks." 
 
 Cloud : " Well, that is all right, Jake. But I 
 want a little job put right through. Here is a 
 despatch to be at the office in Alexandria to- 
 night, to which an answer will be received by the 
 operator, by mail, day after to-morrow morning. 
 That answer must be here and in my hands the 
 same evening before our relief comes. No mis- 
 takes for money, now mind you. I want to let a 
 wounded Yankee's mother know he is not dead." 
 
 Jake : " Dat's shure, ceptin' Jake and de oder 
 mail-carrier dies." 
 
 Cloud drew his memorandum book and wrote : 
 
 "Maud Pleasington, R . 
 
 "Am wounded and prisoner; well treated. 
 Wound not fatal. Tell Effie. Don't Avorry. Write 
 to-night, sure, care operator, Alexandria. 
 
 " Lawrence.'" 
 " Operator : 
 
 " Please send immediately and arrange 
 with bearer about mail ansAver, Avhen you receive 
 it, so as to forAvard Avithout delay. 
 
 " Lawrence Pleasington. 
 
 Cloud : " Now, uncle, here it is. You under- 
 stand that this is more sacred than regular busi- 
 ness, and not to be breathed to our safest 
 friends." 
 
22 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Jake: " Bress your soul, honey, dis old nig- 
 ger's head not white for nuften ; dis spatch gwine 
 shure, and nobody but Jake de wiser." 
 
 The two strange characters parted. Cloud was 
 as confident the dispatch would go and the an- 
 swer come as though he was relying on the 
 United States mail, in time of peace. 
 
 Not one event of interest transpired at the 
 outpost. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the appointed day, 
 Cloud was at the well. Jake came out of his 
 cabin grinning with the expected letter in hand, 
 for which he received some silver pieces. 
 
 Cloud : " This has been admirably done, uncle, 
 and may not be the last service of the same 
 nature. I expect soon to see you again." 
 
 Jake : " All right, young massa ; ole Jake pow- 
 erful glad to see you any time. Ize gwine to de 
 Junction for young missus to-morrow." 
 
 Cloud : " All right. I may see you there." 
 
 Garland Cloud cordially grasped the hand of 
 .the old man, and then left him bowing and court- 
 esying as few but the genuine, olden-time, Vir- 
 ginia darkey could thus manifest the supreme 
 superiority of nature's politeness. 
 
 In this old man, — as his wonderful fertility of 
 resources, and tact of manipulating them with his 
 own race and the white people (both of whom 
 esteemed him without measure, and many idol- 
 ized), enabled him to wield a pecuHar force of 
 influence that rendered him something approach- 
 ing a type of indefinable genius, — the people 
 of his immediate section of country and the 
 Confederate army had an invaluable factor, a 
 strangely mystic agent — an element of action 
 that enchants the superstitious mind of the 
 colored race everywhere. To deal out the enig- 
 matical, and surround himself and his actions with 
 an air of profound and incomprehensible mystery, 
 at once became the ruling passion of the old 
 darkey's life, the centre-head and main-spring of 
 his joy and pride. Nature had Avonderfully fitted 
 him with the requisite endowments for playing this 
 role. The intoxicating excitement of the stirring 
 scenes, in the midst of which he lived and moved, 
 operated to develop these latent powers, and 
 afforded masterful opportunities for their employ- 
 ment. And people were not slow in perceiving 
 
 their value, nor dilatory about putting them into 
 requisition* Hence, within a short time after 
 the Federal outposts were advanced any distance 
 from the suburbs of Alexandria, Uncle Jake was 
 a general agent for the underground mail and 
 secret-service bureau of the border ; and he had 
 his net-work of connections extended in all di- 
 rections for many miles around, through the 
 colored race, with whom he was a famous char- 
 acter many years before the Avar. 
 
 His half a century of virtual emancipation f i-om 
 the oppressive feature of human bondage — that 
 broken yoke of his slavery which he no longer 
 wore — his many accomplishments and the lati- 
 tude his immunity from restraint allowed him to 
 parade before admiring multitudes, together with 
 his snowy locks and beard — were Avell calculated to 
 inspire veneration, and transformed the otherwise 
 common-place old darkey into an objectof bound- 
 less popularity with all classes of people ; but with 
 his own race shed about him a halo of magic 
 mystery, and clothed his name with an awe-in- 
 spiring grandeur. — For Jake to be a traitor to the 
 cause of the South was not within the harmony 
 of things — the strongest ties which bound him to 
 the earth. With his own idolizing race the ques- 
 tion of his loyalty entered not into the scale of 
 estimation. He loved his own people Avith the 
 deep devotion of a true child of Nature ; they 
 adored him. That he Avas a traitor to them, he 
 never dreamed. 
 
 There was not the slightest difficulty about the 
 old man's ability to abuse the credulity of the 
 Federal troops, — an art in the practice of Avhich 
 he Avas a consummate adept. As to the part 
 Jake's assistants took in the enterprise of 
 which he was the moving spirit, they Avere 
 as true as Jake himself; but actuated by no 
 principles of fidelity to any interest involved, save 
 alone to that indefinable one concealed in the old 
 man's personality, and the instinctive fascination 
 for the proud distinction of being the faithful bearer 
 of any communication. This is an incomprehensi- 
 ble characteristic of the colored race, that excites 
 a spirit of zeal and enthusiasm in an undertaking 
 of this nature, sufficient to induce a colored per- 
 son of either sex to endure cold, hunger and 
 fatigue, and to brave dangers — often Avalking many 
 
LAWEENCE PLEASINGTON. 
 
 23 
 
 miles through the worst weather of winter and 
 crossing swollen streams at the peril of life — a 
 greater peril than the bearer of the National mails 
 is required to hazard — and without the least defi- 
 nite assurance of reward — in order to forward a 
 non-important letter to its destination. We may 
 venture the assertion, with confidence, that a. 
 price-list on a postal-card Avill travel to its desti- 
 nation one hundred miles, anywhere in the South- 
 ern States, if its transmission be but intrusted to 
 the care of the colored race, and that scarcely one 
 in a thousand would miscarry. 
 
 In addition to this actuating incentive, ample by 
 itself to prompt the colored people to carry letters, 
 regardless of their character, anywhere through or 
 within the Federal lines, it was an easy matter for 
 Jake to infuse into the beings of his simple- 
 minded race a love for the air of mystery within 
 which his own existence was so amazingly 
 shrouded, and to induce them to adopt most skill- 
 ful methods to conceal letters while in transit, and 
 to frame the most plausible pretexts to pass the 
 lines. Very small children were sometimes sent 
 on ostensibly different pretenses — the most natural 
 neighborly errands. 
 
 But all these things were wonderfully facili- 
 tated by the unbounded confidence reposed by the 
 Union troops in the unswerving fidelity of the 
 colored race, — an element prized ' for its intrinsic 
 value, without estimating the detriment of its 
 probable dangers ; an oversight originating on the 
 part of the Northern people in their ignorance of 
 the true character and swaying impulses of the 
 colored people — lesson§ that the lapse of twenty 
 years has not sufficed to inculcate. 
 
 But not so with the people of the South, with 
 whom the advantage was thus poised. They 
 knew alike the valuable and the dangerous 
 element of the colored population to their cause 
 — used the one and guarded against the other. 
 Time has not changed the situation very materi- 
 ally, when the relations of the colored race to 
 pohtics are viewed from the same standpoint of 
 Southern interest. The Southern people still un- 
 derstand the freedman, because they knew his 
 predominating characteristics as a slave — and 
 these neither the boundless privileges of freedom 
 nor the elevating influences of education possess 
 
 any power to change. The Northern people un- 
 derstood not these in the slave character ; no bet- 
 ter do they understand the same elements of the 
 freedman's composition. The interests of the 
 freedman are inextricably blended with the inter- 
 ests of the white people of the South; and the 
 more enlightened the former becomes, the more 
 firmly are his relations cemented to the common 
 weal of his own fair, sunny land. 
 
 Garland Cloud understood Uncle Jake, and 
 properly appreciated his peculiar merits. 
 
 The love of adventure acquired in early life by 
 the hardy mountaineer or the venturesomp fron- 
 tiersman, tempts him to pass the neutral ground 
 of war's critical domain, and to tempt fate beyond 
 the limits of the dead-line; and to this rule 
 young Cloud was no exception. Beyond the 
 picket-post there was a luring fascination for 
 him. The stealthy creeping of the still hunter 
 enabled him to evade the lax vigilance of the in- 
 experienced volunteer vedette or picket-sentry 
 almost with impunity, and often in broad 
 daylight. 
 
 The charming courtesy and Avitching flattery 
 lavished upon one who thus presumed to defy 
 danger and cross the lines of the enemy, by 
 the fair daughters of Dixie, constituted, it must 
 be granted, a strong temptation to pass the 
 confines of mortal danger, in order to enjoy the 
 raptures of the clandestine ovations and deUcate 
 luncheons from the mystic treasures of the 
 Virginia mansion, that nothing -but consuming 
 flames seemed able entirely to deplete. Such 
 ever awaited any one who took the chances to call 
 where the grey uniform of the Confederacy was 
 rarely seen, and had much to do with Cloud's early 
 ventures. These he made without the permission, 
 or the knowledge even, of his commanders or 
 comrades. Being a good soldier he had no diffi- 
 culty to procure a pass to be absent from roll-call 
 for twenty-four hours any day when he was not 
 on duty. This he invariably used to make ex- 
 cursions beyond the limits of the territory 
 scoured by the foraging individuals and parties of 
 his friends, where smiling hospitality, dispensed by 
 the charms of beauty's sheen, lent to danger a 
 fascinating enchantment. Thus encouraged, he 
 yearned to link duty with pleasure, which would 
 
24 
 
 MYSTIC EOMAXCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 become trebly enhanced, and blossom with new 
 delights, as they grew to be promoting factors 
 auxiliary to the public service. 
 
 In these early rambles Cloud made the acquaint- 
 ance of Uncle Jake; always met him after the 
 first contact — sometimes by special appointment, 
 and learned from his young mistress, and other 
 people in the community, the character and the 
 capabilities of the old darkey. 
 
 Already mutual confidence and reciprocal bonds 
 of interest had been established and sealed be- 
 tween the young mountaineer and the old darkey 
 of the aristocratic mansion. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE CONTRABAND LETTERS. 
 
 " The violet still grows in the depth of the valleys. 
 
 Though withered, thy tear will unfold it again." 
 
 — Bykon. 
 
 Lieutenant Pleasington lay rather restless 
 and impatient, with his face to the wall, on a rude 
 but clean cot, in a hospital ward at Manassas, on 
 an oppressively hot July afternoon, the fourth 
 day after he Avas Avounded — his fourth day of 
 suftering and captivity. 
 
 Hearing a cautious footstep approaching, he 
 turned his head. Garland Cloud stood beside his 
 cot. 
 
 Cloud: "Lieutenant, before asking hoAV you 
 are, I will give you a soothing opiate." 
 
 He handed the wounded boy a letter. When 
 tlie poor sufferer's eye caught the post-mark, to- 
 gether with the well-known characters of the 
 address, his astonishment and joy were bound- 
 less. Nothing, but for his mother to have been 
 bending over him, would have more surprised 
 him. Eagerly he broke the seal, and found under 
 it tAvo iuclosures. One Avas: 
 
 "My Poor, Dear Boy: 
 
 " Your shocking telegram relieved our 
 cruel suspense ; and humbly do I thank God that 
 it is no Avorse. I shall most earnestly pray 
 for your recovery and safe return home. This 
 Avas our first tidings of you. Everything here is 
 mingled confusion, suspense, distress and mourn- 
 ing. Nothing definite has been heard concern- 
 ing our boys, except some Avho Avere killed or 
 
 Avounded early in the day— Sunday. We hope 
 soon to receive a letter from you, telling us more 
 fully your condition. Every one thinks it so 
 strange that Ave should have heard from you so 
 promptly, and you Avounded and a prisoner. Per- 
 haps your letter, when it comes, Avill explain this 
 mystery. Please try to write soon. Be patient, 
 and trust the good Lord. We shall hope for the 
 best. Muck love from your loving mother. 
 
 "M. P." 
 
 The other letter was yet more eagerly read, 
 Avithout remembering even the presence of the 
 bearer ; it Avas : 
 
 "My Esteemed Friend: 
 
 " I write in haste to assure you of 
 my deep sympathy for you in your terrible mis- 
 fortune. How kind to remember me in your 
 short dispatch to your mother. I appre- 
 ciate those two words, under the painful and 
 trying circumstances in which you Avrote them, 
 more than a long letter when you are well and 
 free. If you can, write a line to your little 
 friend " "Effie.'' 
 
 Lieut. Pleasington turned his welling eyes up 
 to Cloud's face interrogatively ; for the moment 
 his heart was too full to speak. 
 
 Cloud : " Don't ask me hoAv it is. Lieuten- 
 ant. You have the result of your commission ; 
 that is the extent of your interest in the matter; 
 the means is my affair." 
 
 Pleasington : " My gratitude to you no Avords 
 can express; and nothing in the bounds of human 
 ^ssibility can ever pay you my debt." 
 
 Cloud: "Your extreme youth and lonely, 
 friendless situation on the bank of the dark river, 
 in the midst of the shadoAvs of death, aroused my 
 pity and created uncontrollable sympathy for 
 you ; and your maternal devotion stirred the soul 
 Avithin me. Thus was I impulsively prompted to 
 do the trifling favors Avhich seem to have so 
 overAvhelmed you with gratitude. Well, and 
 Avith your armor buckled on, no man under our 
 colors would fight you Avith more desperate de- 
 termination. Disarmed, Avounded and helpless, 
 Ave have very fcAV men Avho Avould not treat you 
 
THE contraba:nd letters. 
 
 25 
 
 as I have treated you, under similar circumstances 
 and with the same opportunity. The only debt 
 you owe me is to treat the poorest soldier lad in 
 our ranks the same as I have treated you, so far 
 as you are able, whenever a wounded one falls 
 into your hands. The doctor tells me you are 
 safe to get well. He will now find you much 
 lietter. To-morrow my command moves far over 
 near the Potomac. I shall see you no more 
 until we meet on the battle-field. I have some 
 little matters to look after for an hour. During 
 this time prepare ansAvers to your letters, and 
 they will reach your mother and Effie. After 
 this you may not find it so easy and quick to com- 
 municate with home. Mention no names in con- 
 nection with the transmission of letters. As to 
 the liattle-field and hospital, I do not care what you 
 Avrite; but this letter business might compromise 
 me unpleasantly. Here are all the materials for 
 writing." 
 
 Without waiting for a reply. Cloud walked 
 rapidly out of the building, leaving the wounded 
 officer to write his letters to mother and Effie. 
 Cloud returned just as the envelope covering the 
 letters was addressed, which had been left un- 
 sealed for him to read the contents. 
 
 Cloud : " Seal it up securely. Lieutenant; I have 
 no desire to read it. Your family and private 
 matters are sacred. It is not in your power to 
 write a word detrimental to our public interest." 
 
 Pleasington: "It repents me that I have 
 fought your people. I shall not again enter the 
 service." 
 
 Cloud : " Yes, you will. National pride and 
 popular pressure will speedily cure this weak- 
 ness, ^^oung men in your section will have no 
 option, any more than those with us will have. 
 Going into the army will be a necessity, no mat- 
 ter how much inclination rebels against it. You 
 must be either against, or for us. There is no 
 neutral ground for you. Rather than array your- 
 self against your own section and people, you 
 Avill go Avith them ; and this means against us to 
 the bitter end." 
 
 Pleasington: "Perhaps you may be correct. 
 If you are, I much regret it. I am a poor boy, 
 the son of an humble mother, who has been a 
 poor, lone Avidow ever since I was one year old. 
 
 Really, I do not know for what I am fighting. I 
 have nearly lost my life, and noAv owe it to the 
 very people Avhom I raised my hand to smite, on 
 their own soil, as its invader. God knoAvs that 
 if there is any honorable Avay out, I shall leave 
 this service^ which must be loathsome to me, 
 since I know the people whom I am to fight." 
 
 Cloud: "Ah, Lieutenant! if the people of the 
 two sections only kncAV one another better, our 
 troubles would quickly terminate ; but alas ! they 
 neither know nor understand one another ; so 
 there are many dark and trying days to come. 
 If there Avas no other cause nor influence to 
 force you back to your colors, your lady love 
 Avould soon prompt you to return. Ladies ad- 
 mire brave men. You could not bear to hear 
 the praises of others on every tongue, and still 
 remain at home regarded as a shirk from duty 
 and danger. The silent reproach from your Effie's 
 eyes Avould be an order youAvould not attempt to 
 disobey. Young men in the South Avho lag at 
 home are ostracized by young ladies as vaga- 
 bonds. It Avill come to this Avith you." 
 
 Pleasington : " You are right. Effie is a proud, 
 high-spirited girl, far above my plane of life in 
 the social world, and is heart and soul Avith the 
 Government in favor of the war to preserve the 
 Union." 
 
 Cloud: "My time Avith you. Lieutenant, is 
 ended. Farewell." 
 
 Pleasington: " FareAvell, Mr. Cloud, and may 
 health and safety attend you." 
 
 Thus parted these youthful Avarriors, but chil- 
 dren of nature and the souls of sincerity. The 
 highest standard of honor, and the most laudable 
 nobihty of purpose, pervaded and controlled their 
 minds and their hearts. Of such material are the 
 finest models of heroes molded. Little did these 
 guileless sons of obscurity dream of the wild and 
 trying scenes through which they were destined 
 to pass, in their alloted parts in the wild drama 
 of life. 
 
 About their meeting and its sequence thus 
 far there is nothing particularly extraordinary. 
 Thousands of cases might be reported that Avould 
 not materially difi'er from this one in some feat- 
 ures. The incidents on the battle-field and at 
 the hospital that night and the next morning, 
 
26 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 were similar to ten thousand ; and had that com- 
 l^leted the history, the record would have no 
 place in these pages. Smuggling letters for 
 prisoners, and delivering them from the hand of 
 one picket to that of his foeman in person, was 
 not an unfrequent occurrence. Hence4;he sending 
 and receiving of letters as detailed, was not a 
 very remarkable circumstance : isolated, it would 
 deserve no attention. But the winding vicissi- 
 tudes, in their tortuous progression from cause 
 to effect, invest these otherwise untenable posi- 
 tions with ramparts of importance that stand 
 forth bristling in defiant impregnability. To in- 
 dicate these features, would be to anticipate the 
 startling surprises which they hold in reserve. 
 They will, in due time, develop and demon- 
 strate some masterful mysteries of Destiny in 
 the affairs of mortal life on earth. And the 
 meeting of these boy-foes had various ends to 
 subserve. 
 
 Cloud had not been five minutes out of the 
 presence of the wounded captain, when his letter 
 passed into the hands of Uncle Jake. 
 
 Colored people were used in secret service, in 
 the interest of the Federal army, to very great 
 advantage; but, as a rule, when manipulated by 
 Southern Unionists. The Union element that 
 existed in some of the Southern States was often 
 a powerful auxiliary to Federal commanders, and 
 furnished them with most valuable information. 
 Many Union men were in the employ and ser- 
 vice of the Confederate Government; and in the 
 chief departments at Richmond were some of 
 them to be found. 
 
 Miss Van Lew, of Richmond, a character that 
 does not properly belong in our plot — one, how- 
 ever, well known in National circles, by her real 
 name, which therefore we do not disguise, and 
 which we use merely to strengthen a position 
 already assumed relative to secret-service mys- 
 teries — was a power worth more to the Union 
 cause than some major-generals who graced, and 
 probably sometimes disgraced, the rolls of the 
 United States army during the war. 
 
 She was a lady of some considerable means. 
 As she was a Southern lady, we cannot admire 
 her as an ideal heroine — arrayed, as she was, 
 against the people of her native land — as we 
 
 would be forced to admire her had she been a 
 citizen of a Northern State. But, however, with 
 her it was a case of freedom of conscience, that 
 required nerve and indomitable will to support 
 her in the perilous part she assumed in the 
 BLOODY DRAMA, SO truly grand and heroic as to 
 outrival any other individual instance of femi- 
 nine devotion to the cause of the Union to be 
 anywhere found on record, because the hazard 
 with which she was all the time imperiled was 
 appalling. This at once placed the wondrous 
 grandeur of her devotion beyond comparison 
 with that of ladies in the Northern States. 
 
 Miss Van Lew had a residence in Richmond, a 
 farm in the country below that city, and owned 
 and employed slaves. 
 
 As a matter of course, she knew the L'nion 
 men of Richmond, including those employed by, 
 and in the service of, the Confederate Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 She had influence brought to bear to secure 
 the appointment of young Ross, a nephew of 
 Frank Stearns, a rich Unionist of Richmond, to 
 the position of an office in Libby Prison. 
 
 Young Ross was, ostensibly, a terror to Union 
 prisoners, and cordially detested by them, while 
 he was constantly and systematically permitting 
 and aiding them to escape — a fact never known 
 to those who had not escaped, many of whom 
 sought him, to take his life when the end did 
 come, and they were liberated. 
 
 Miss Van Lew, in the meantime, concealed 
 and sent the escaped prisoners out of the Con- 
 federate lines. Besides her own home, she main- 
 tained at her own expense several other houses in 
 Richmond at which escaped prisoners were con- 
 cealed. In order to secure the safe conduction 
 of such prisoners to these places of rendezvous, 
 she constantly kept several bright negro men 
 on duty in the vicinity of Libby to Avatch for 
 escaped prisoners. 
 
 She had friends and accomplices in the Adju- 
 tant-General's and Engineers' Departments at 
 Richmond, who furnished her with correct sta- 
 tistics of the army and plans of the defenses of 
 Richmond, which she transmitted regularly to 
 the Federal commander. This was safely accom- 
 plished by the assistance of a shoemaker, Avho 
 
BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 27 
 
 inclosed the documents in the hollow soles of bro- 
 gan shoes, invented for that purpose, and worn 
 by negroes who came regularly from Miss Van 
 Lew's farm to market in Richmond — two pair of 
 shoes being provided for each individual ; but he 
 never wore the same pair back to the farm which 
 he wore to the city. The shoes were exchanged 
 — the ones worn back to the farm contained con- 
 traband information ; the others were left behind 
 to be thus prepared for the next trip. 
 
 These are facts that may be substantiated by 
 the best authority in the nation, yet are no more 
 real than others which we shall present, with the 
 true names of characters disguised. 
 
 To Miss Van Lew, we think the National 
 G-overnment has manifested monstrous ingrati- 
 tude in not rewarding her self-sacrificing devotion 
 with the full restoration of her fortune, con- 
 tributed to the cause of the Union, and in not 
 granting her a life pension, instead of compelling 
 her to continue laboring for the Government in 
 order to earn a subsistence, abundantly due, with- 
 out additional services. 
 
 Ross has been dead some time, and Miss Van 
 Lew is publicly known in her true character, or 
 we should not now name them. Their accomplices 
 will not mention 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 " We Wither from our youth, we gasp away — 
 
 Sick — sick ; unfound the boon, unslaked the thirst — 
 Through to the last, inverge of our decay, 
 
 Some phantom lures, such as we sought at first — 
 But all too late — so are we doubly cursed. 
 
 Love, fame, ambition, avarice — 'tis the same — 
 Each idle, all ill, and none the worst— 
 
 For all are meteors with a different name, 
 And Death the sable smoke where vanishes the flame. ' ' 
 
 — Bykon. 
 
 The immediate comrades of G-arland Cloud 
 were much surprised when an order was pro- 
 mulgated detaching him from his company for 
 special but unindicated duty. 
 
 But Cloud knew well enough its nature, and 
 the efforts he had quietly made to secure it. 
 It was scouting beyond the Confederate out- 
 posts, around the pickets and into the lines of 
 the enemy ; any points that it might be prac- 
 
 ticable to reach wherever information could be 
 obtained. 
 
 For many days at a time he was absent, and 
 his company would not hear from him. AVlien 
 he did sometimes visit hia comrades, they could 
 gain from him no information relative to the 
 scope of his duties, nor the adventures neces- 
 sarily inseparable therefrom. Malignant fever 
 decimated the ranks of his regiment until there 
 absolutely were no really well men for guard 
 duty. Then he visited his company often, al- 
 ways bringing the sick some delicacies, and usually 
 on a captured horse. Sometimes, but rarely, he 
 had a prisoner. 
 
 He came in one evening, late in October. 
 The night was chilly and damp. Edgar Harman, 
 one of the most haughty aristocrats in the com- 
 pany, and one who had been most notably un- 
 kind to Cloud, was detailed for guard duty. 
 The man was actually too ill to do any dut)'-, 
 but there was no one in the company in better 
 health to take his place among those subject to 
 detail on that day. He staggered as he walked. 
 Cloud watched him take his post, and walk the 
 beat three or four times; he could bear it no 
 longer, and he went over to the sick man. 
 
 Cloud: "Harman, you are too sick for this 
 duty ; this night's service will kill you. I have 
 been watching you, and thinking of the agony 
 the sight I beheld would cause your father and 
 sister, could they see you now. It really seemed 
 to me that I could hear them entreating me to 
 save you; and I must do it." 
 
 Harman : " Oh Cloud ! you could certainly 
 think of doing nothing for me, was this pos- 
 sible. I have treated you so shamefully in the 
 past. There is no way by which yo^^i could 
 save me. I am conscious that this night will 
 kill me." 
 
 Cloud: "I shall take jom place. Call the 
 officer of the guard, please. 1 am not consider- 
 ing the past. I am thinking of saving the life 
 of a comrade." 
 
 Harman: "Generous fellow! now do you 
 heap coals of fire on my head. I am unworthy 
 to receive your kindness. Forgive me. Cloud, 
 and to the end of life I shall be your true and 
 devoted friend. It pains me to see you take my 
 
28 
 
 aiYSTIC ROIklANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 place. You appear to be worn out. But to re- 
 ject your offer would be madness, little short of 
 .suicide." 
 
 The next day Edgar Harnian was delirious. 
 Cloud obtained permission, and remained with 
 him forty-eight hours, until the fever was 
 broken. After this he came in every other day 
 Avith some refreshments for his sick comrade, until 
 he was sufficiently convalesced to be sent home. 
 
 Some weeks later the beautiful and accom- 
 pli.«hed sister of Harman, the belle of her com- 
 munity and of the renowned school where she 
 had recently graduated, wrote a letter to Gar- 
 land Cloud, breathing in every line the finest 
 sentiments of deep and unfeigned gratitude; 
 as she and her family recognized themselves 
 to be indebted to him for his kind and mag- 
 nanimous treatment of her sick brother. She 
 concluded by assuring him that, henceforth, be- 
 tween his family and hers there was no longer 
 a social barrier. This letter awaited him at head- 
 quarters on his return from a ten days' expe- 
 dition. This embarrassed and troubled him; yet 
 he answered it with polite and guarded brevity, 
 delicately assuring the young lady that all he did 
 for her brother was simply done in obedience to 
 the bidding of duty, due at all times to a com- 
 rade, and in acquiescence to the obvious de- 
 mands of humanity. Other letters followed. 
 
 This aristocratic young lady wrote to the plebian 
 soldier-boy, entreating him to regard the mem- 
 bers of her family as friends who acknowledged 
 his natural nobility of character, and admired 
 his chivalrous bearing as a soldier, — qualities 
 which they esteemed second to those of no one 
 embraced in their own select social circle. With 
 witching and irresistible suavity of style, and 
 the most delicate modesty of diction, she con- 
 jured him to write to the family sometimes, and 
 give a few sketches of the wild and perilous 
 border-life he was leading, Avhich she believed 
 to bo full of the most intensely thrilling romance. 
 
 For a long time he replied indifferently and 
 briefly, excusing himself on the ground that he 
 wanted the accomplishments of finished educa- 
 tion necessary to enable him to write so as to 
 entertain people of refinement. But this defense 
 availed him nothinir. 
 
 Few men, and more especially young soldiers 
 whose vanity has been a little flattered, can be 
 so niggardly and ungallant as bluntly and per- 
 sistently to refuse a reasonable, or even an unrea- 
 sonable, request to one among the most elevated 
 and beautiful of women. This was precisely the 
 predicament of young Cloud. Sometimes he 
 Avould remember with bitterness the social line 
 of the olden time ; his own still lowly station 
 in life; would reflect upon the uncharitable 
 comments and heartless criticisms a long letter 
 from him would provoke in that brilliant circle 
 to which he was solicited to expose himself on 
 paper ; how he had obstinately refused his com- 
 rades and every one else the vaguest account of 
 his service, or even trivial incidents connected 
 with it ; how unkindly many of his comrades 
 felt, and how jealous they were on account of 
 that service ; and how it would expose him to 
 ridicule and jeers and .slurs as soon as . others 
 learned that he had recounted his adventures to a 
 young lady of rank with whom it was well 
 known that he was personally unacquainted ; then 
 he would resolve persistently to excuse himself 
 until the subject should be abandoned by the 
 witching enchantress. 
 
 When a young lady who is accustomed to re- 
 ceive homage from everybody, everywhere, un- 
 der all circumstances, sets her heart on some 
 special conquest and is, for the first time, in her 
 triumphant reign, crossed in her purpose, she 
 does not abandon it with alacrity, but becomes 
 more intensely engrossed with its prosecution, 
 provided this be to bring the rebellious heart of a 
 man to the recognition of his allegiance to the 
 sway of the imperial princess. 
 
 To Miss Harman, Cloud's perversity seemed 
 wonderful. His humble station in life and the 
 moderate nature of her request augmented the 
 aggravation of his unreasonable conduct. Thus she 
 viewed it, and this provoked her to redouble her 
 efforts to bear off the palm of victory. She could 
 rely on the chiA^alry of Virginia to meet her 
 strategy with difiident courtesy, for a son of the 
 Old Dominion — whether of the mountain or the 
 vale — ever treats a lady with admirable gallantry. 
 Upon this a lady may presume, although she be 
 pressing the most unreasonable demands. 
 
BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 29 
 
 Had Cloud never yieldeil, the thread of his 
 startling story might never have traced its 
 meandering course over the eaith. 
 
 After the lapse of nearlj-^ twenty-two years 
 we have succeeded in procuring copies of a few 
 of the more prominent letters of that corre- 
 spondence of the dark and bloody days of wast- 
 ing war. How we obtained these will be demon- 
 strated in tlie due course of developments. But 
 here is the place for the letters to appear. At 
 last he thus Avrote this eartlily angel: 
 
 " Army of Northern Va., December, 1861. 
 "Miss Carpie V. Harman. 
 
 '■'■ EstimaUe Lady : 
 
 "In reply to your interesting letter, I beg to 
 assure you that it would aflbrd me real pleasure 
 to comply with your request, but for obstacles 
 referred to in my last note, which still appear to 
 me insurmountable. I know my course must ap- 
 pear rude. This T regret, but see no feasible way 
 to remedy it. For reasons too tedious to detail, I 
 could, under no considerations, think of comply- 
 ing with your request, except on condition that 
 ifly communication should in no wise become 
 public while I Hve, and the war continues. This, 
 as a matter of course, would rob my narrative of 
 its imaginary charms of anticipated fascination 
 for you. For your family, means for the public. 
 For either you or your family the only interest an 
 account of my little servicescould have would be in 
 their public discussion and criticism among your 
 friends; and you may rest assured that in this you 
 would be sadly disappointed. 
 
 " If it would be a source of pleasure to you and 
 your friends, I should be under the stern necessity 
 of not thus contributing to innocent diversion. 
 
 "Craving your pardon for my tardy response, 
 and for my apparently obstinate and ungallant con- 
 duct in this connection, 
 
 "I am, very respectfully, 
 
 "Garland Cloud." 
 
 Cloud deemed this the end of the discussion ; 
 yet the following reply was promptly received: 
 
 "Glendale, Va., December, 1861. 
 "Mr. Garland Cloud . 
 
 " Aly Esteemed Friend: 
 "Your much appreciated letter has been read 
 with deep interest. In reply, I beg to say tHat if 
 
 your objections rested on a substantial foundation, 
 they would be unanswerable; but 1 assure you 
 that in the main they are utterly imaginary and 
 groundless. 
 
 "No one in this community dreams that I have 
 written to or received a line from yoii — not even 
 father or Edgar. This remains my secret. Now 
 Avhat of your fears that your denied communica- 
 tion would be paraded before the public ? I am 
 too selfish for that, should your generosity prompt 
 you to confide the coveted boon to my care. 
 
 " I wrote in the name of the family, on the score 
 of gratitude, because I reflected the famil}^ senti- 
 ment. I made my oft-repeated request in the 
 family name because I deemed that would have 
 more weight; and you have as repeatedly de- 
 clined to entertain that strong petition. I dared 
 not make the request in my own name alone, be- 
 cause I feared you would not Avaste the time and 
 take the trouble merely to interest one little girl. 
 I am, however, driven to the extremity of chang- 
 ing my tactics. I now make the request anew 
 for myself alone, and make it to the gallantr}- of a 
 soldier and the chivalrj^ of a Virginian. 
 
 " Can these refuse to gratify the simple whim of 
 a simpler girl? I have set my heart on obtaining 
 this romance of the Border, and if you could 
 realize how acutely continued disappointment 
 pains me, you would not withhold the hoped-for 
 narration. 
 
 "I noAv rest my petition before the highest 
 tribunal to which I can carry it, and I entreat you 
 to grant it, and pledge my earnest assurance that 
 no eye but mine shall read one word, and that not 
 one syllable of its contents shall escape the lips 
 of your expectant friend "Carrie." 
 
 This letter was overwhelming. Cloud was 
 driven from his position of defense, and surren- 
 dered as follows : 
 
 "Army OF Northern Va., Christmas Day, 1801. 
 "Miss Carrie V. Harman. 
 
 ^'■Esteemed Friend : 
 
 " Your late letter was I'ead with care and 
 appreciation. Since you so much desire a com- 
 munication relative to our well-controverted 
 subject, which it appears you have won — 
 
30 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 whether fairly or not, and which I have de- 
 cided to attempt, with the comphments of the 
 season. 
 
 " There is nothing strange nor mysterious about 
 my assignment to the duties which I have par- 
 tially fulfilled for the past few months, unless it 
 be the silence I have strictly maintained up to 
 this moment with every one except the officers 
 to whom it was my duty to report, and the con- 
 trolling hand of Destiny. This service was but 
 a part of my allotted role ; hence, naturally, I 
 applied for, and was, therefore, as a matter of 
 course, to it assigned. 
 
 "The prevalent notions that this service between 
 the lines of the two armies, and often inside 
 those of the enemy, is peculiarly dangerous and 
 wonderfully exciting, is altogether erroneous. 
 There are few posts of duty Avhere the soldier 
 should, under all circumstances, so rigidly shun 
 the companionship of excitement, and there is 
 no other post so securely exempt from danger as 
 this in which I serve. Cool, cautious and pru- 
 dent at all times, one may be comparatively safe 
 from harm, except on some extraordinary occa- 
 sions. Excited, reckless and rash, his liberty or 
 his life is hourly in jeopardy. In five months 
 I have not fired a shot nor had one fired at me, 
 the popular stories that I have killed a number 
 of men, whose horses and arms I have brought 
 in, to the contrary, notwithstanding. To ac- 
 count for this is easy. I dare not shoot unless un- 
 expectedly attacked, and forced to defend myself 
 as a last desperate resort, because this would 
 attract attention and draw around me additional 
 dangers. I am always on the alert. The enemy 
 is rarely ever looking for me where I might be 
 found. When I challenge one to surrender, I am 
 quite sure he is not near friends. He is off his 
 guard, and certain to surrender before he re- 
 covers from his surprise. Nine times out of ten, 
 perhaps, the man would not surrender, if he was 
 expecting, or even in a locality where he was 
 likely to meet, an enemy. In addition to other 
 considerations I should regard it cold-blooded 
 murder to waylay and shoot a straggling soldier 
 not on duty, inside of his own lines, unprepared 
 to meet an unexpected danger. 
 
 "The service in which I am engaged is thor- 
 
 oughly organized, and performed almost entirely 
 by civilians, chiefly ladies and colored people 
 inside of the enemy's lines. I am a very insig- 
 nificant factor, expected to render the more 
 dangerous duties that connect this important 
 bureau with the regular service of the army ; and 
 I am by no means the only nor the most im- 
 portant soldier thus employed. There are scores 
 of them along the front. 
 
 " There are regularly established and well de- 
 fined signals employed both day and night, but 
 understood by none not members of the secret- 
 service society; and there are channels for trans- 
 mitting information from point to point, so skill- 
 fully planned as to defy detection, but never so 
 as to arouse suspicion. 
 
 "Some of these signals and methods of com- 
 munication are very common-place, simple and 
 meaningless to persons ignorant of their purport, 
 and unacquainted with the arrangement with 
 which they are connected. 
 
 " One blind of a certain window open ; both 
 open; both closed; the end of a red curtain 
 hanging out of the window ; the end of a blue 
 curtain ; the end of a yellow curtain, or the end 
 of a white curtain — each has its special meaning, 
 and tells as much miles away as a page of note- 
 paper would contain. Two, three, or more of 
 these tell a separate and different story, accord- 
 ing to their arrangement. These are day-signals. 
 Night-signals are various arrangements of lights 
 burning in windows with both curtains up ; both 
 curtains down ; one curtain down^each tells its 
 simple or compound story. About forty differ- 
 ent ways to conceal letters passing from house to 
 house or between neighborhoods, so that the 
 carriers do not know that they are bearers of 
 communications, have been invented. The bear- 
 ers are mostly little darkeys sent on some other 
 trivial errand of a very different nature. 
 
 "I cannot define all these things, because obli- 
 gations to duty will not permit. 
 
 " An ancient colored man is one of the most im- 
 portant personages connected with this service, 
 and is, in some relation, an almost indispensable 
 assistant in everything attempted of any special 
 importance. Some of the most zealous and active 
 members and agents of this organization are the 
 
BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 31 
 
 fairest and the most accomplished ladies in the 
 land. To them is due much credit, which circum- 
 stances, and the delicate and peculiar situation 
 which they occupy, preclude them from enjoying ; 
 because was their position known, many would 
 very quickly be in Northern prisons. 
 
 " But for this, some of them would not hesitate 
 to use the revolver or the carbine. Each lady 
 connected with this secret border-service is 
 worth more to the army than ten soldiers in the 
 held. These fair ladies are cool, shrewd, and 
 heart and soul devoted to the cause. There is no 
 hardship too great for them to endure without 
 a murmur ; and some have already made great 
 sacrifices. 
 
 " Thousands and thousands of others all over 
 the land, would do the same if they had the op- 
 portunity. God spare them such opportunities 
 where the pall of destruction and death hovers 
 and grows daily thicker and blacker. These 
 ladies have fathers, husbands, brothers and sweet- 
 hearts in the Confederate army or in Confederate 
 graves ; some of them wear the deep, sable em- 
 blems of mourning. 
 
 " Often I carry letters back and forth through 
 the lines. From this fact, you may imagine that 
 I am popular with the soldiers and their lady- 
 loves. Expectation is on tip-toe, anxiously await- 
 ing my return as the time approaches, has ar- 
 rived, or is past, when what they jestingly term 
 the underground mail is due from the army. 
 
 "Such are about the arrangement, the nature 
 and the relation of parties to one another in this 
 service. 
 
 "The first adventure in my experience worth 
 relating was Avith a young captain of Federal 
 cavalry. This young gallant persistently and 
 assiduously endeavored to pay special attention 
 to a young lady member of the secret-service 
 league,— an organization not designed to provide 
 pleasing pastime for gentlemen of his class. 
 Naturall)^, therefore, it was not in the harmony 
 of things for her to league with him. Indeed, this 
 rather prepossessing, extra-stylish individual was 
 actually obnoxious to the fair object of his 
 whimsical adoration. While he was innocently 
 indulging in dreams of Elysian rapture, and con- 
 templating the blissful ecstasies of love, the un- 
 
 reciprocating, unappreciative little rebel lady was 
 actually plotting his discomfiture and undoing : 
 designing to rid herself at one fell and cruel 
 stroke, eftectually and permanently of his society. 
 Perhaps too, she desired to test the efficient util- 
 ity of her league in cases of emergency. In her 
 opinion, so far as she was personally concerned 
 in the person of the ill-starred captain, the emer- 
 gency had arrived. She knew what evenings to 
 expect him. 
 
 "I was duly posted and advised of the part she 
 expected me to play. As soon as it was dark, 
 on the appointed evening, I observed that none 
 but safety signal-lights were burning. 
 
 "The parlor designed for the comic scene was 
 brilliantly illuminated. The young lady was 
 seated at the piano, playing with harmonious 
 cadence the stirring notes, and singing with spell- 
 binding melody — ' Dixie.' 
 
 " The captain stood by her, turning the music, his 
 countenance beaming with admiration and his 
 heart blazing with enthusiastic delight too fierce 
 to last. The scene was one well calculated to 
 enthuse a classic painter with an ardent desire 
 to catch the outlines, in order to reproduce the 
 picture with some semblance of creation ap- 
 proaching the impressive reality. 
 
 "As stated, the young man in appearance was 
 a fair Adonis. But at the present moment the 
 tints gf nature were heightened to the last gleam 
 of perfection to which the fullness of earthly 
 enjoyment could fire them. To his eye and en- 
 chanted mind, the young lady was an unrivaled, 
 an unapproachable, Venus. Dressed in bright and 
 most fascinating summer style, her long, wavy, 
 black hair, wreathed with flowers, flowed over 
 her shoulders in gentle undulations, as it was 
 fanned by fragrant zephyrs laden with perfume — 
 odors sipped from the balmy nectar of a soft 
 summer evening; a large bunch of variegated 
 rose-buds was pinned to her heaving bosom, 
 almost directly over the strongly palpitating 
 heart; her eyes flashed and sparkled with burn- 
 ing witchery. Never before had the captain 
 found her so courteously civil, so studiously po- 
 lite, so graciously kind and pleasingly conde- 
 scending to him. Evidently the crisis was past, 
 the prejudice was vanishing, and the prize was 
 
32 
 
 MYSTIC ROMA^'CES OF THE BLUE AKD THE GREY. 
 
 about to be won at last. Before him were all 
 the silent yet eloquent and unmistakable tokens 
 the blindly infatuated lover could wish — the 
 heaving bosom, the tell-tale language of the 
 love-lit eye. 
 
 "Ah! could he but have divined the secret 
 depths of these charm-beguiling, so highly-prized 
 tokens, his Cupid-seething blood would have 
 been instantaneously transformed to ice, and 
 ceased to flow in its wonted currents through his 
 veins. 
 
 "The bland and winning smiles were the fair 
 petals of the delicate rose conceahng a treacher- 
 ous bunch of sharp and cruel thorns; the heaving 
 bosom was the suppressed respiration of the fierce 
 and crouching lioness about to launch upon her 
 prey. The bright and sparkling eye was but the 
 subtle and deadly gleam of the gazing viper, 
 ready to thrust the venomous fangs into an 
 unsuspecting victim. But for these facts, and 
 these alone, it would have been gross sacrilege to 
 break in upon this lovely scene, and awaken this 
 dreamer from his love-lulled reverie. 
 
 "I stood in the open door an instant — perhaps 
 two. Then in a clear, sharp voice I demanded 
 the Captain's surrender to the Confederate Gov- 
 ernment. To this he offered no objection. He 
 Avas not armed. One little instant had blighted all 
 the brihiant glow of his cheek; an ashy hue now 
 covered his features; he was the picture of de- 
 spair. The lady uttered a subdued scream, then 
 hurled at me a few well-feigned reproaches. Two 
 hours later the Captain was turned over to old 
 
 Col. J of, G — S — , much crest-fallen and 
 
 dispirited. I told Col. J , in the Captain's 
 
 presence, that it was only after a desperate strug- 
 gle that I made him yield, and to treat him as a 
 gallant man. I made a mental reservation as to 
 the true character of the struggle. The Captain 
 used this clue to cover his shame, and created the 
 impression that he fought desperately ; broke his 
 sword; emptied his pistols and threw them at my 
 head before he surrendered. This story rapidly 
 spread and grew as it went. It was to the inter- 
 est of the young lady that it should remain un- 
 contradicted, and the capture of her hapless tor- 
 mentor be disconnected Avith her name and home. 
 
 " The next little affair included five officers who 
 
 were disagreeably attentive to as many J'oung 
 ladies, members of the secret organization, or to 
 their intimate friends. 
 
 "A special evening party was arranged for the 
 benefit of these officers, to come off at the home 
 of one of the young ladies, to be strictly private 
 and entirely unknown to friends of the officers. 
 At this the officers were elated, and zealously 
 treasured the secret of their anticipated enjoy- 
 ment until they met at the appointed time and 
 place, to find all the young ladies assembled in 
 the parlor, ready to extend a cordial greeting and 
 an assuring welcome to their guests. They were 
 entertained in an exceedingly agreeable manner 
 with songs, music, games, conversation; in a word, 
 by all the diverting and interesting means which 
 the minds of the young ladies, so fertile in re- 
 sources and imagination, could invent to make 
 the hours glide softlv, pleasingly, fascinatingly 
 away. 
 
 "Midnight sounded from the old, deep-toned 
 eight-day clock in the library. 
 
 "One minute later eleven of us, apparently un- 
 bidden guests, uncivillj', unceremoniously entered 
 the parlor, without saluting even the ladies, and 
 rudely introduced ourselves to their admirers, 
 who Avere instantly marched rapidly aAvay as 
 prisoners, Avithout time for complimentary adieus. 
 Long before daylight they wei-e turned over to 
 
 Col. J . Tavo other officers fared the same 
 
 Avay afterward under similar circumstances. 
 
 " What stupid presumption in these people, who 
 come Avith a sword in one hand and a torch in the 
 other to slay and to burn, to imagine that their 
 society could be agreeable to Southern ladies ! 
 
 " Some persons are so uncharitable as to impute 
 to this class of Federal officers insincere and dis- 
 honorable motives. I do not believe this, nor do 
 many of the young ladies aa^io are annoyed by 
 such suitors believe it, AYhy not? Because many 
 such volunteer officers are mere adventurers, 
 without property, social standing or even envia- 
 ble reputations at home, and certainly they Avould 
 marry the beauty, wealth, and social station they 
 could not gain Avhere known. This Aveakness is 
 confined almost exclusively to the volunteer ser- 
 vice, and will cost many their liberty, some their 
 lives. 
 
BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 33 
 
 " West Point officers, if not born gentlemen, are 
 educated soldiers; and the first and most essen- 
 tial requisite of a soldier is, that he shall be a 
 gentleman. Besides being contrary to the car- 
 dinal jirinciples of etiquette, as recognized by gen- 
 tlemen all over the world, to intrude upon the 
 society of a lady, under any circumstances, with- 
 out an introduction secured with the lady's con- 
 sent — and then not without her permission, nor 
 even with this if reluctantly accorded, or if the 
 society is manifestly unwelcome or disagreeable 
 to the lady — it is a breach of discipline sufficient 
 to disgrace an officer, for him to straggle away 
 from his command on such errands, and almost 
 in the very presence of the enemy. For these 
 reasons, regular officers will rarely expose them- 
 selves to such disastrous dangers. 
 
 "In September there were some odd little in- 
 cidents down in front of Arlington Heights. 
 
 Colonels E and J were both there — two 
 
 kindred spirits, very like in appearance, dress, 
 speech, even to the peculiar nasal twang and 
 rather whining voice and profanity. I was out 
 Avith them, part of their staffs and an escort, on 
 an expedition of reconnoissance well up to the 
 front. 
 
 " Suddenly our party was unpleasantly exposed 
 to the fire of a number of sharp-shooters. As the 
 peculiarly singing balls passed, humming their 
 spiteful mjisic round our ears, the spectacle our 
 troop presented was grotesque and ridiculous, 
 produced by the way each one manifested the 
 effect the disagreeable position had on his ner- 
 vous system. Some dismounted on the off sides 
 of their steeds ; some lay flat on the pommels of 
 their saddles; some dodged their heads back- 
 wards; some to the right and others to the left; 
 some turned deathly pale and trembled violently; 
 and the faces of some others glowed with an 
 unearthly radiance. 
 
 " My solemn vow made to my native and Ise- 
 loved hills, as I beheld them the last moment in the 
 grey twilight of that memorable morning which 
 you have not forgotten, when the emotion of a 
 sister's love thrilled your soul, and the torrents 
 from the fathomless wells of a sister's heart 
 blinded your eyes and scalded your cheeks, was 
 never to dodge, flinch or manifest one emotion 
 
 of fear ; — this I have studied and practiced until 
 it has apparently become a second nature. I am 
 much supported by the abiding faith that if I am 
 not destined to perish in this war, no deadly aim 
 can lay me low, and that if dfestined to perish, 
 no precaution can save me from the fatal mis- 
 sile directed by the finger of the Destroying 
 Angel; for on the fields of strife and carnage, as 
 well as everywhere else in the world, both the 
 destroying and the guardian angels are present. 
 For this reason, which is unknown to every one 
 on earth, I am regarded as a brave, intrepid lad, 
 who tosses in the game of life and death with 
 contemptuous indifference. This is erroneous, 
 because my natural instinct is as strong as that 
 of my most timid comrade, as I stand on its mar- 
 gin, to shiver at the prospect of a plunge into the 
 waters of the dark river. 
 
 "I watched my companions — either one of whom 
 would have gone as far into the jaws of death 
 and remained as long as I— a few moments, with a 
 half unconscious smile on my lips, then slyly 
 turned my eye on the two old veterans who were 
 a few paces from the other members of their 
 party, appearing, talking and swearing the same 
 as before they left camp, paying far less atten- 
 tion to the flying bullets than they would have 
 done to the same number of mad hornets. 
 
 "I heard my name mentioned. Col. E said: 
 
 "'Oh! he got tempered in the sharp-shoot's 
 work up around the old Henry house on the 21st 
 of July.' 
 
 '"Yes, and case-hardened outside of the lines 
 
 since,' was Col. J 's reply. 
 
 "Col. E then turned abruptly toward me, 
 
 and said : 
 
 "'Cloud, why in the don't you dodge? 
 
 You are just as 'fraid of these singers as I am, 
 and they would hurt you worse than me, because 
 you are tenderer.' 
 
 " 'I want to dodge very bad. Colonel, but am 
 afraid,' I answered. 
 
 " 'That is a of an idea. Explain yourself, 
 
 young man,' he said. 
 
 " 'I am afraid that I might dodge in the way, 
 and also that those fellows would see me, know 
 they are striking close, and improve their aim,' 
 I replied. 
 
34 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY. 
 
 '"That will do, Cloud. Next witness come 
 forward,' was his ejaculation. 
 
 " While writing of Col. E , I must tell you 
 
 about an incident that occurred between him and 
 
 our Corporal E , whom you know very well, 
 
 the night I relieved your brother from guard duty. 
 
 "My post was next to the Colonel's quarters. 
 
 Charles J was in front of them. Col. E 
 
 had been away, and returned during the mid- 
 night watch. There was some hitch in the coun- 
 tersign ; he could not pass the guard, and ordered 
 the corporal called. 
 
 "Corporal E appeared, but the matter was 
 
 not mended. 
 
 " 'To what company do you belong, corporal?' 
 the Colonel inquired. 
 
 " 'Captain J -'s,' was the reply. 
 
 " ' Corporal,' hissed the Colonel, with merciless 
 
 sarcasm, ' go and tell Captain J to send me a 
 
 corporal who has got some sense ;' and the old 
 man waited until all was right. 
 
 " Then we rode on, and soon passed behind a 
 skirt of timber to a high point in the road, where 
 there was a carriage-house in the centre of a 
 wagon-yard. From this point we could see a 
 body of cavalry coming from the direction of 
 Georgetown, evidently bent on our capture. 
 
 " In about a minute Col. E had two pieces 
 
 of old stove pipe mounted on and lashed to the 
 axles of two carts, and these rapidly rushed to 
 the middle of the road; the whole party at the 
 same time raised a vociferous cheer. 
 
 '' The troopers hearing this, and seeing wheels 
 with their dark and threatening-mouthed bur- 
 dens pointing down the road, and men standing 
 in position, as if waiting for the command to fire, 
 turned and fled percipitately. 
 
 " Pretty soon a balloon cautiously rose above 
 the tree-tops at no great distance from us, paused 
 an instant, and then went suddenly down. 
 
 " We did not have business to detain us in that 
 vicinity very much longer, and soon hastened 
 back to the main body of our command. 
 
 "The night following these incidents, several 
 regiments of as fine infantry as any in the army, 
 were badly stampeded by a sudden alarm, which 
 awoke the men, under the conviction that a 
 division of Federal cavalry was in their midst. 
 
 "All this disturbance was caused by about 
 twenty horses that had been tied to one side of 
 the fence which surrounded a neighboi-ing man- 
 sion, breaking the plank fence down, and rftnning 
 with it dragging after them into the grove where 
 the infantry was sleeping. For a few- moments 
 the noise was terrific. Just then one hundred 
 good troopers could have completely annihilated 
 this fine brigade. In ten minutes, however, all 
 was quiet again ; and the men lay down to sleep 
 with as little concern as though they had just 
 been to roll-call. 
 
 " I have captured several couriers, officers and 
 stragglers, in out-of-the-way places, usually where 
 duty did not require their presence. Not one of 
 them attempted to resist. Two or three times I 
 have challenged a plucky chap, who turned his 
 superb steed, and fled in admirable style; from 
 this I fancy I have learned a valuable lesson — 
 one that may sometime be of inestimable service 
 to me. I have been in some pretty close places, 
 by this cool fellow returni-ng with a squad of 
 troopers to hunt me. But my old colored friend 
 is usuaLy near, and sends them off on a wild- 
 goose chase, that enables me to get to a place of 
 safety. 
 
 "I have sleeping- and hiding-places, that would 
 be as hard to find as the most cunning fox's den. 
 The timbered districts, deep ravines, and long 
 lines of fences, make it both easy to hide and com- 
 paratively safe to travel long distances, even in 
 day-light, inside of the enemy's picket lines. 
 
 "Now you have this marvelous and romantic 
 story, and feel di"sappointed. It is very much 
 like anything else in this world, when we exchange 
 the imaginary shadow for the reality : wonderful 
 as obscure mysteries: contemptible nothings as 
 familiar acquaintances. 
 
 "But permit me to call your attention to some- 
 thing more serious and unromantically real. 
 
 "In the early spring-time, before 'the purple 
 lilacs blossom,' this service and these scenes will 
 be no more. Do you want to know why ? Yes. 
 The North is collecting and training a powerful 
 army. Often I am able to see vast legions of 
 them drilling, and to hear the swelling strains 
 of their music away m localities which the eye 
 cannot survey. 
 
BEYOND THE OUTPOSTS. 
 
 35 
 
 "Ere long I must take my place in the ranks, 
 juid live or cease to live in the iron and leaden 
 hurricane, rushing on to the cannon's blazing, bel- 
 lowing, deadly mouth. 
 
 " In fancy I see, or seem to see, you shudder as 
 you think of your only brother. It is well. The 
 (lark storm will burst in all its fury around his 
 head amid shadows of the Death Angel's wing. 
 Pray for him. Virginia, our mother, says, 'My 
 sons, I demand this;' and we must obey. 
 
 "Should you by mischance hear that I had been 
 permitted to render any service, such as erroneous 
 judgment sometimes terms conspicuous, pray at- 
 tribute it to its proper source. To Garland Cloud ? 
 No, indeed ! but to the spirit inhabiting that poor 
 tenement of mountain clay. It is the spirit's 
 fire aroused that blazes and leaves on mankind 
 the i-mprint of heroism and immortal renovi^n. 
 As the cold and inanimate locomotive is warmed 
 to throbbing pulsation by its life-breathing steam, 
 so the body of man becomes electrified by the 
 spirit's subtle current, and under the spell of that 
 potent influence performs prodigies of heroic valor 
 Avhich flesh and blood are as incapable of accom- 
 plishing as the engine would be of fulfilling its 
 gigantic task without steam. It is this defiant 
 spirit that fears no death, and renders the body 
 insensible to pain until after reaction causes the 
 spirit to subside back to the normal condition of 
 nature, that makes heroes. 
 
 " I saw Beauregard and Jackson near Stone 
 Bridge, on that July Sabbath, when their natural 
 faculties were as dead as those ot poor Bee and 
 Bartow, while their spirits wielded the sway in 
 triumphant grandeur. There was the grand in 
 soul displayed in matchless majesty. 
 
 "But of all the towering monuments of living 
 heroism and unpretentious, unselfish devotion that 
 I have yet seen or ever expect to see, was the one 
 by my side on sharp-shooting duty, through the 
 long and trying hours of that fearful Sabbath. 
 Tl-iis was a delicate, pale-faced, frail little boy, 
 apparently vv''ithout strength sufficient to hold up 
 a rifle at a steady aim, a member of another 
 regiment, but thrown by my side in closing up 
 after crossing some broken ground. 
 
 " His pale face glowed, from the instant he deliv- 
 ered his first round up to the moment when his 
 
 last one was fired, as the crimson cheeks of a 
 blushing girl. He loaded and fired with a rapid- 
 ity and deliberation that was astonishing. Once 
 his gun-barrel became so hot he could not handle 
 it. He threw it down, walked ten paces, and 
 picked up another from the side of a dead com- 
 rade. Twice his ammunition was gone ; as often 
 he supplied it from the boxes of dead men. At 
 one time, when actually mixed up with the enemy, 
 defending a battery, and they recoiled a Uttle, he 
 snatched two loaded navy pistols from the belt 
 of a dead trooper; threw his gun-strap over his 
 own Tiead ; stuck one pistol under his cartridge- 
 box belt; took the other in his left hand; with his 
 right hand drew the same dead trooper's sabre 
 from its scabbard ; discharged the pistol rapidly ; 
 threw it down ; discharged the other; cast it aside; 
 made some incredible strokes with the sabre that 
 brought blood, and when tlie enemy were out 
 of reach threw down his sabre and resumed his 
 rifle. 
 
 "After this there Vv'as a momentary lull. I said 
 to him, 'My brave friend, you expose yourself 
 too much; they will kill you.' 'I am not afraid; 
 God will take care of me,' was the modest and 
 blushing reply. 
 
 "You want to know this lad? A son of some old 
 and chivalric family of the highest order of aris- 
 tocracy, you are fancying. You are mistaken as 
 to the present. Of his ancestors I have learned 
 nothing. He is a simple child of nature — of the 
 mountains. His name is Jesse Flowers. His 
 widowed mother and little sister live alone, per- 
 haps almost friendless, in a little cabin on the 
 southern steeps of Beaver Mountain, within one 
 dozen miles of your father's mansion. Such is 
 the partial pedigree of a living young hero, to 
 equal anything you can find painted on canvas 
 or the ' pictured page ' of fairy tale — this mas- 
 terful sublimity of spiritual heroism. Of such 
 material are the great martial heroes made. 
 
 " With no officer near to encourage and inspire 
 him ; no eye gazing on in admiration for, him to 
 seek to please; no approving voice to stimulate 
 him to superhuman exertions ten times greater 
 than his natural force could endure, the grand 
 spirit of simple, fearless duty rose in this child of 
 the mountain forest, and transformed him into a 
 
3G 
 
 I\IYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 young giant, raging and reveling in the destroy- 
 ing tempest of battle, almost rivaling the imaged 
 Hector of fabled Tro3^ The magic of his exam- 
 ple led me on, or held me spell-bound throughout 
 the wildest scenes of that bloody drama. 
 
 "You may sigh because you cannot emulate 
 my fair companions in the secret service of the 
 border in direct aid to our beautiful, our beloved, 
 your own Virginia. 
 
 " But, my friend, you may rival — yes, far out- 
 strip them. How ? By organizing a little society of 
 your own to provide for the destitute families of 
 our mountain soldiers in their cheerless, desolate, 
 want-threatened homes, which are scattered all 
 around your beautiful valley. Levy contributions 
 on our ^stay-at-home gentry' without mercy. 
 
 "By doing this you will inspire hundreds of sol- 
 diers with redoubled courage and determination. 
 They Avould then rush onto the thundering bat- 
 tery with the consoling thought in their minds 
 and the inaudible words on their lips : 
 
 '"If I fall, Carrie Harman, the angel of conso- 
 lation will not allow my wife and babes to suf- 
 fer.' Then the devoted breasts would be bared to 
 the storm of death with cheerful, unmurmuring 
 resignation. 
 
 "Yet, on the other hand, when the gloomy ti- 
 dings come that the loved ones at home are suffer- 
 ing, these hardy mountaineers will say: 'We 
 have nothing more to fight for : the rich are let- 
 ting our babes starve ; we will go and care for 
 them or die in the attempt.' 
 
 " What a frightful demoralization this would 
 soon create ! By preventing in your section what 
 must cause it, you will render finer and more mer- 
 itorious service to the countrj than it is possible 
 for two of our best companies to perform in the 
 field. I know these poor men of -the mountain, 
 and tell you what would happen. 
 
 " You have earnestly protested that you desire 
 an opportunity substantially to manifest the grati- 
 tude you claim to owe me. 
 
 "I entreat you, then, the first thing you do, to 
 see that the mother and little sister of Jesse 
 Flowers are not suffering. There is nothing else 
 in your power to do that I would appreciate so 
 much. The poor boy has such simple, implicit 
 faith that God will not let his mother and ' sissie ' 
 
 suffer, that I do hope he may not be disappointed. 
 My friends on the border have sent him little 
 presents. He believes God told them about him. 
 I wish you could see him then. What sublime 
 manifestations of gratitude ! 
 
 " I tell you about this boy because I alone am 
 his witness. At one time he had nine witnesses 
 who were cheered on for an hour — some of them 
 more — and encouraged by his cool intrepidity. 
 You are wondering why I am his only witness 
 now. Eight of the nine are dead. When the 
 firing ceased and the smoke cleared away, we 
 found them all, their fair young faces cold and 
 rigid, resting on the bloody ground around the 
 spot where that desperate hand-to-hand struggle 
 had swayed back and forth so long over that 
 fiercely contested battery. 
 
 "I want you to tell his old mother and little 
 sister about him, in that graphic, impressive lan- 
 guage that is so natural to you. They will be 
 proud of him. Ah ! yes ; and a queen might well 
 be proud of him. And some morning, when a 
 dark shadow crosses that humble threshold, and 
 in pitiless accents tells the poor widowed mother 
 and the little orphan sister that little Jesse Flow- 
 ers, the son and the brother, their hope and their 
 all, has died nobly, right up at the cannon's 
 mouth, it will then, after their wail of despair has 
 subsided, and the settled melancholy of a hope- 
 less resignation has imprinted its cruel seal upon 
 their features, be a comfort to them to recall that 
 ' the aristocratic but real lady, who was not a 
 bit scornful, but was so kind, so gentle, so good, 
 had praised him.' 
 
 "I must draw this letter, that has rambled so 
 much, to a close. 
 
 " I have not sought to amuse, but to interest you. 
 Yes, to interest you in the cause of our common 
 country and of humanity; not only to interest, 
 but also to enlist, your heart and your soul in 
 these potent causes which at this time are one 
 and inseparable. I have been bold and fearless in 
 my appeals. But my religion now is* to serve my 
 country. I do not hesitate nor stand on cere- 
 monies when I see an opportunity, no matter in 
 what direction it may lead, to service. 
 
 "If worthy of your attention, I shalll^e much 
 pleased at any time to hear from you, and to learn 
 
THE PICKET BIVOUAC. 
 
 37 
 
 how far, if at all, I have succeeded in enlisting 
 your sympathies and interest in the direction 
 indicated. ^ 
 
 "Your encomiums have encouraged me and 
 caused me to resolve to strive harder, to render 
 some service in the future more vv^orthy the kind 
 approbation of my friends and of my country. 
 But, alas ! my extreme youth and my obscurity 
 are obstacles in my way, that appear insurmount- 
 able, and render the prospect of success desper- 
 ately discouraging. 
 
 "Your humble friend, 
 
 "Garland Cloud." 
 
 Such was the letter of the scout, the obscure 
 mountain-boy, to the aristocratic belle. No 
 dreams of love vexed that youthful mind. It 
 is transcribed verbatim from a copy furnished 
 by the lady herself, in her own hand, and 
 copied from the original, which is in her pos- 
 session. How much she has modified the phrase- 
 ology Ave have no means of knowing. We have 
 her assurance that the copy is a faithful one. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PICKET BIVOUAC. 
 
 " The Are smoldered low and dim, 
 The wind hlew bleak and chill." 
 
 This is a subject of interest to troops m the 
 field. 
 
 Upon the lonely sentinel, who is posted from 
 the picket bivouac, often depends the safety of 
 not only his immediate companions of the re- 
 serve, but of the whole army. His duties 
 are stupendous, and his powers so despotic that 
 his commanding general dare not trench upon 
 them without conforming with prescribed rules. 
 Such commander, although he may be intimately 
 known to the sentry, dare not attempt to cross the 
 picket-post without the countersign. Should 
 he presume thus to attempt to pass the lines, 
 it would be at the peril of his life. Military law 
 confers upon the picket the absolute power to 
 arrest and detain his commander, under such 
 circumstances, or even to shoot him, should he 
 disregard the sentry's authority and attempt to 
 escape. Hence tiie importance of the duties of 
 
 the picket are rarely properly estimated and duly 
 appreciated by people outside of the circle of 
 educated or experienced military men. 
 
 The soldier on picket duty stands on the altar 
 of his country, whose fires incessantly burn, a 
 sacrifice ready to be offered up at any moment. 
 He must ignore self — remember duty. Personal 
 danger and self-preservation must not be an in- 
 fluence to actuate him to abandon his post, or 
 seek to save his life at the peril of his trust. 
 Although he be surrounded by menacing'foemen, 
 with leveled muskets, drawn pistols, and flashing 
 sabres, the picket-sentry must discharge his gun 
 — sound the tocsin of alarm, to warn his com- 
 rades of approaching danger — in the very face of 
 instantaneous death. 
 
 This is his duty. Of him no less is expected. 
 Upon his faithful discharge of this obligation 
 the army implicitly relies. Thus assured that 
 they are safely protected against the dangers of 
 a surprise, the commanders and soldiers sleep in 
 confiding security. * 
 
 Into the soldier's being is this wondrous duty, 
 with the dependencies it shields, energetically 
 inculcated from his first day of service, and con- 
 stantly continued until he is graduated in the 
 important routines of a private warrior. 
 
 Upon his superior authority as a picket-sentry, 
 the young soldier early learns to pride himself. 
 Of his supreme prerogative he becomes intensely 
 jealous. 
 
 From the earliest historical, and even legend- 
 ary ages, we have the grand pictures of individ- 
 ual heroism — standing out in bold and unri- 
 valed relief — drawn from the sentry on duty, 
 standing and perishing, without flinching or re- 
 coiling, at his post. Some few of their names 
 have been immortalized in song and in portraits 
 on History's "pictured page." 
 
 Of many others equally grand the world has 
 never heard — not even their companions of the 
 day knew more of their story than that they sent 
 the sharp notes of warning back to the reserves 
 to prepare for danger, and then died. Their 
 names went on the fists of "missing" or "killed," 
 on the muster-rolls, and thus passed away. 
 
 In our Civil War, many cases of grand individ- 
 ual heroism, on both sides, might have been re- 
 
38 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 corded, portrayed and sung; yet few have been 
 given to the world. 
 
 The most pathetic picture of this theme now 
 extant, so far as we know, is to be found in the 
 poem, written by a Confederate trooper, "All 
 quiet along the Potomac to-night ; " but no 
 names are mentioned. 
 
 There has been a case recorded in the columns 
 of the Detroit Free Press, over the no7n de j^lume 
 of M. Quad, of a Federal sergeant of the guard, 
 in a fort in front of Petersburg, surprised and 
 entered by the Confederates, before daylight, in 
 the early months of 1865. 
 
 This soldier continued to fire after he had been 
 repeatedly wounded ; and to his coolness, intre- 
 pidity and courage, was the failure of the Con- 
 federates largely due. 
 
 No one of our characters, unfortunately, ever 
 seized the crown of this matchless heroism in the 
 destroying prosecution of war. 
 
 The armies of Northern Virginia and the Po- 
 tomac* picketed by brigades during the winter of 
 1861-2. From the brigade, detachments from 
 each regiment were sent out a little distance from 
 the bivouac of the brigade : the main body of the 
 reserve picket. These detachments were estab- 
 lished on roads and other approaches by which it 
 would be practicable for the enemy to advance. 
 Prom these detachments, companies were sent 
 farther to the front; from these, small detach- 
 ments were sent still farther to the front ; and, 
 from each of these, went out the individual 
 sentries who were so stationed as to guard the 
 front intrusted to the care of the brigade, Avith 
 one unbroken chain of pickets. 
 
 The company detachments were the reserves 
 of the individuals, upon which these were to 
 fall back in case of emergency, or from which 
 they were supported if this course was practi- 
 cable. The company detachments fell back on, 
 or were supported by their companies : these 
 were the detachment reserves. The companies 
 fell back on, or were supported by the regimental 
 detachments. These were the reserves of the 
 companies and were supported by, or fell back on 
 the brigade. This, when all the detachments had 
 rejoined it, was able to deliver battle on a scale 
 sufficiently formidable to retard the advance of a 
 p<iwerful army for houi-s at a time. 
 
 But all, in a great measure, as Avas often de- 
 monstrated, largely depended on the vigilance 
 and invincible courage of the injjividual picket. 
 
 If he Avas not on the alert, the enemy might 
 quietly pass his post, capture or pass one after 
 another of the reserves, penetrate, surprise and 
 rout the main body of the army. Such Avas the 
 fate of some large bodies of troops, several times 
 during the war of the rebellion. 
 
 It was midnight in the early days of 18G2. 
 Garland Cloud lay by the smoldering fire of the 
 reserve out-post, where his OAvn company Avas 
 on duty. He was reading. Every one else Avas 
 
 asleep. Capt. J" , of his company, was making 
 
 the rounds of the posts, but returned about this 
 hour. 
 
 Capt. J : " What are you reading, Cloud, so 
 
 earnestly this bitter night by that handful of 
 coals?" 
 
 Cloud: " The Cavalry Manual, sir. I need it 
 sometimes. I often meet a fancy Yankee chap 
 beloAv Annendale, who makes his handsome bay 
 turn on the hind feet in the tAvinkle of an eye, 
 falls over to the off side, and flies away from there. 
 I want to learn his tricks, and to catch him, too. I 
 am going through the lines in a few minutes. I 
 could not sleep, was lonesome, and had nothing 
 else to read." 
 
 Capt. J : "You are a very foolish boy 
 
 to expose yourself so much. You get no credit 
 for it." 
 
 Cloud: "I am not seeking credit. I am doing 
 dut}^ I enlisted to destroy the enemy. Every 
 man or horse the enemy loses tells. Our brigade 
 has lost more men from fever since the 21st of 
 July than it Avould have lost in the same time 
 Avith every man actively exposed all the Avhile as 
 I have been. Just look at my ruddy health. I 
 can kill any tAvo of you at hardships." 
 
 Capt. J : "You may be right, but you are 
 
 lucky. I hear horrible stories about your reckless- 
 ness on the 21st of July, and doAvn at the front 
 since." 
 
 Cloud: "T never have exposed, never shall 
 expose, myself more than the demands of duty 
 require. It Avould be suicide." 
 
 Capt. ,J : " You may, at all events, got more 
 
 glovA' than all of us. If you Avcre a little older, 
 
THE PICKET BIYOUAC. 
 
 39 
 
 you would soon have a Itetter commission than I 
 have. For this you are working so hard; this 
 accoijnts for your studying tactics by a dim fire on 
 a bitter winter night; you intend to get promoted 
 from the ranks." 
 
 Cloud: "I am trying only to do my duty. I 
 am obscure, and without influence, experience 
 or capacity. Any service, then, that I may be 
 assigned to must be on the score of merit, and 
 not of friendship." 
 
 Capt. J : "You have the most powerful 
 
 friends and the strongest influence in the army — 
 are personahy acquainted with generals, while the 
 rest of us are ahnost afraid to approach our 
 Colonel. I feel sometimes that it is a judgment 
 sent on us for thinking ourselves a little better 
 than you Avhen we left home. I have long been 
 ashamed of this, and wanted to beg your pardon." 
 
 Cloud: "All these things of the past were the 
 outcome of class education and social usage, and 
 hence were but natural with you. I tried to 
 treat their indication with indifference. "War, as 
 you all have found, is a great leveler, Avith no 
 respect for social conditions nor previous rank, 
 but rather rewards men according to their ac- 
 tions, their merit, and their virtue. I have long 
 since proved to you all, that I cherish no animosit}'- 
 in memory of the past. I have nothing against 
 any of you. Captain, to forgive, and trust that I 
 have no reason to seek pardon for anything from 
 you or from any of the boys." 
 
 Capt. J : " Tou are^a generous boy,Cloud." 
 
 The Captain then grasped Cloud's hand, and 
 pressed it violentlj^ 
 
 For a moment the two proud and haughty boys 
 stood speechless, their grand blue eyes filling with 
 tears which the fierce wintry blast, beating chill- 
 ingly on their cheeks, was ready to congeal should 
 they flow. Tliey heeded not the pinching, sting- 
 ing cold. Their bodies were warmed by the fiery 
 glow of souls replete with the thrihing emotions 
 of a grand and courageous devotion to the cause 
 and the land they loved so well. 
 
 At length Cloud broke the silence : "Oh, Cap- 
 tain; this is a priceless assurance to me !" 
 
 Capt. J : "From the bottom of my heart 
 
 I thank you. Cloud. I have long desired this in- 
 terview, but my heart failed me. I feared you 
 
 felt a rankling bitterness in your heart for me be- 
 cause of some hasty words at some time spoken 
 before I knew you. Some strange presentiment 
 often tells me that some day the sun will go 
 down shrouded in the smoke of battle, amid 
 which one of us is weltering in blood, cold and 
 dead. I cannot bear to think of going with your 
 ill-will unabated, for I shall be the stricken one : 
 you are a child of destiny." 
 
 Cloud : " Nonsense. You have the blues. Cap- 
 tain. I must leave you. Good-night." 
 
 Capt. J : "Good-night. Be cautious." 
 
 F^e minutes later Garland Cloud had disap- 
 peared in the darkness, and was traversing a dense 
 woodland wilderness. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SILAS WORTHINGTON. 
 
 " Koll on, vain days ! full reckless may ye flow. 
 Since timehatli reft me of all mysoul enjoyed." 
 * — Byeon. 
 
 "Halt! hold up your hands ; dismount; surren- 
 der, or you are a dead man in an instant." 
 
 This was the startling, cheerless salutation 
 which pierced the still and frosty air in the grey 
 twilight of the January morning after the night 
 referred to in the preceding chapter, addressed to 
 Col. Silas Worthington, Quarter-master United 
 States Army, and fell with quite an unwelcome ca- 
 dence on the old gentleman's ear. There was at 
 the moment, as the situation then appeared to him, 
 no other alternative but to acquiesce, and submit 
 to the pressure of circumstances, which he did, and 
 surrendered, though reluctantly, yet with an air 
 of cheerfulness worthy of admiration. 
 
 Col. Worthington was a wealthy New-Yorker, 
 though a native Virginian and Southern sympa- 
 thizer. He was a bachelor merchant. His prop- 
 erty and business were so situated and conditioned 
 that the war caught him with his interests all 
 hopelessly tied up in New York City. His strong 
 and well-known Southern sympathies rendered 
 his affairs desperate, subjected him to danger of 
 military imprisonment, and jeopardized his prop- 
 erty to the liability of confiscation ; and, in order 
 to avert these menacing dangers, it was impera- 
 tively necessary that he should do something to 
 
40 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 appease the wrath before its concentrated fury- 
 should explode on his head — something counter- 
 acting; that he should act, and act vigorously and 
 immediately. 
 
 However, under the peculiar circumstances 
 which enthralled him, there was but one action 
 that could avail him : this was to enter the army; 
 therefore he tendered his services in the capacity 
 of quarter-master. 
 
 His extraordinary business capacity, consummate 
 commercial experience, powerful financial influ- 
 ence, and, above all, his great wealth, admirably 
 qualified him for that department — made him 
 a thoroughly desirable man; and his services were 
 without hesitation accepted. 
 
 He was on duty with the Army of the Poto- 
 mac. On the morning in question he received an 
 order at his quarters on Arlington Heights, about 
 two o'clock, to report immediately to some general 
 up at the advance infantry post, then some dis- 
 tance to the front. 
 
 In the darkness, among the numerous military 
 roads, — all of which constant and extensive use 
 had formed into much the same state of appear- 
 ance when viewed even in daylight, — he missed his 
 way, and rode a number of miles in a direction 
 that was every moment widening the distance 
 between himself and his objective point. Having 
 discovered this and obtained proper directions, 
 he was hastening over a cross-country by-road 
 to gain his destination, when he was so suddenly 
 and rudely halted and made prisoner. 
 
 His pistol, the only weapon which he carried, 
 was unbuckled from his waist; the belt rebuckled 
 and hung over the horn of his saddle, in obedience 
 to the order of his ruthless captor ; then, in com- 
 pliance with a request made by the same uncouth 
 individual, he led his superb black horse forward. 
 
 "Your rank and command?" was the next de- 
 mand made by his captor. 
 
 This information given, the prisoner desired to 
 know to whom he had surrendered. 
 
 "You have surrendered," was the reply, "to 
 G-arland Cloud, of the Confederate scouts, sir. I 
 regret to be under the painful necessity of discom- 
 moding you ; but there are many unpleasant ex- 
 periences connected with war, and unfortunately 
 for you this morning, you have met with one of 
 
 them. You appear to be cold. Take to that 
 path, and walk as rapidly as you please until you 
 get warm. I will take charge of the horse." 
 
 Instantly Cloud was in the' saddle witli the 
 agility of a trained trooper, and the poor, digni- 
 fied old Colonel was going along the blind path- 
 way ahead of him at a rather unmilitary double- 
 quick. For some time they thus hastened on, 
 not a word being uttered. At length the pathway 
 was no longer visible; they were in a dense thicket, 
 where it would have been impossible to see a man 
 at any great distance — not ten paces at many 
 points. Cloud then informed his prisoner that he 
 could halt. Bitter cold as was the morning, which 
 had covered Cloud's slight moustache with' icicles 
 that completely hid his mouth, the Colonel was 
 perspiring profusely. 
 
 Cloud : " Now, Colonel Worthington, I will tell 
 you something of the situation, and what I am 
 going to do. "We must remain here probably all 
 day. Moving, we are liable to be fired at by the 
 guns of either army. You might, in that event, get 
 hurt, — what I want to avoid while you are in my 
 care. You may Hght a small fire if you wish, 
 there in the hollow of the rock-cliif, as you will 
 get cold after awhile. It is necessary, for the 
 reasons stated, that I shall leave you alone much 
 of the time, although I shall hardly be out of 
 sight of you more than two or three minutes at 
 any one time ; then other eyes will be upon you. 
 I must watch some manoeuvres from the brow of 
 this hill. I will caution you against the mad 
 peril of an attempt to e'scape. If you move tea 
 paces from that rock, you will be shot without 
 being halted. Our scouts are all around you. I 
 will have word passed that in case you do not 
 move you are not to be molested." 
 
 Col. W : "You need have no apprehen- 
 sions. I am not disposed to take any of the 
 chances named, although I should almost as soon 
 be killed as remain a prisoner. My loyalty is 
 mistrusted. Now the authorities will claim that 
 I have deserted to the enemy. They will want 
 n'o better pretext to confiscate my property and 
 to court-martial me whenever I am exchanged." 
 
 The old man actually sobbed, while his cheeks 
 were copiously sufiEused with tears. 
 
 Cloud : " Were you not a citizen of New York ?" 
 
SILAS WORTHINGTON. 
 
 41 
 
 Col. W : "Yes; but I am a native.of Vir- 
 ginia,- and believe the South is in the right. I 
 have two brothers in your army. I am regarded 
 as a traitor, although I have not claimed citizen- 
 ship nor held pecuniary interests in Virginia 
 since 1835. T am in the United States service, 
 r had two alternatives : this or a casemate cell in 
 a fort to choose between, and I have taken this, 
 which I regarded as a semi-civil service, in which 
 1 could feel that I was a non-combatant." 
 
 Cloud : " As a citizen of New York, you owed 
 her allegiance as clearly as I owed mine to Vir- 
 ginia." 
 
 CoL. W : "So I have tried to persuade 
 
 myself. Yet I am sure we are wrong in many 
 respects. I know you well, now, Garland Cloud."' 
 
 Cloud: "I guess you are mistaken." 
 
 CoL. W : "I refer to your kindness to 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington." 
 
 Cloud : " How do you know anything about 
 me in that relation ? Who is Pleasington ? Where 
 is he now?" 
 
 Col. W — — : "I know these facts fully from 
 him. He is one of the finest young men in the 
 army, a graduate of West Point, and the best 
 horseman in our service. T know him in the best 
 society in New York, where I have often met 
 him, and where I heard all about your kindness 
 to him, in ten days after he was wounded. He 
 has been back on duty since some time in Novem- 
 ber. He is scouting almost constantly up around 
 and in front of our outposts, somewhere near 
 here. He picks up a good many of your boys, 
 and gets into some tight places himself by riding 
 into ambuscades: but so far, his self-possession 
 and skillful horsemanship have enabled him to 
 escape." 
 
 Cloud: ''How about his Effie love, Colonel?" 
 
 CoL.W : "An heiress to immense wealth, 
 
 and justly termed the belle, if not the queen of 
 the belles; certainly one among the rarest of them 
 in the circles in Avhich she moves; and she is as 
 modest and good as she is rich and beautiful. 
 She favored Pleasington on account of his 
 handsome figure, his intelhgence, and above all, 
 his purity of character and Hfe. He is poor. For 
 this reason, her relatives bitterly oppose him; but 
 she does not care for their objections. He has 
 
 been promoted since he returned to the army, and 
 is a general favorite. He has assured me that he 
 would not raise his hand against you after he 
 had recognized you, such is the magnitude of his 
 appreciation of his debt of gratitude." 
 
 Cloud: "I trust we may never meet in mortal 
 combat. How about the horse. Colonel ? Is he 
 fast? How would he stand fire? And the 
 pistol; is it loaded and reliable ? " 
 
 Col. W : "There are no faster horses in 
 
 the army, and an old cavalryman has thoroughly 
 trained him to stand artillery fire and all other 
 frightful sounds; the pistol is one of the finest 
 and best made, and contains fresh loads." 
 
 Cloud: "Well, Colonel, I will relieve you of 
 the care of these articles. You will have enough 
 to do to keep from freezing. Make yourself as 
 comfortable as you can under the circumstances. 
 Just as soon as there is no danger of getting you 
 mixed up in a skirmish we will move out from 
 here." 
 
 Without waiting for a reply, he rode away, 
 leaving his hopeless prisoner alone, with as much 
 reliance that he would not attempt to escape as 
 though he was guarded by two sentinels. 
 
 Cloud's motive at this time was safety for 
 himself ; to reconnoiter ; to seek a way out for 
 prisoner and horse if possible, but more especially 
 to avoid personal capture. His prisoner was an 
 unexpected contingency, and cause for solicitous 
 embarrassment at this hour and in this particular 
 locality. When capturing him he over-estimated 
 the military rank of his victim, or the latter 
 might have been permitted to pass unmolested. 
 But after leaving the prisoner in custody of the 
 rocks and the forest-trees, an enexpected circum- 
 stance suddenly frustrated all his calculations and 
 changed the features of affairs. 
 
 CHAPTER XT. 
 
 WHY THEY DID NOT FIGHT. 
 
 " We have met and we have parted, 
 And we may never meet again." 
 
 Cloud rode to the brow of the liill, whence the 
 surrounding country Avas visible miles away. 
 South two hundred yards distant, and in plain 
 view, there was a cavalryman on vedette duty; 
 
42 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 two hundred yards beyond him there was a squad- 
 ron — the reserve vedettes. 
 
 Upon finding the enemy in force thus uncom- 
 fortably near, Cloud turned and rode slowly north, 
 keepmg well in the edge of the thicket in a nar- 
 row cattle trail. 
 
 The cold seemed more intensified as dark and 
 threatening clouds closed over the horizon, and 
 Imng low, like a suspended pall, and the bleak 
 north-east wind increased in velocity from a stiff, 
 whistling and disagreeable blast to the whooping 
 current of a sweeping gale. 
 
 Cloud had rode barely two hundred yards when 
 an abrupt turn in the pathway opening disclosed 
 a magnificent horse less than ten paces in front, 
 and his rider, who had dismounted to pass a tall 
 fence obstructing his passage south, was cautious- 
 ly fining up the gap which he had made and 
 passed. When Cloud discovered him, he was 
 stooping to raise the last rail. A crisis was at 
 hand. Nothing could prevent it. Leveling his 
 carbine, Cloud quietly and mildly said : 
 
 "Surrender instantly. Make one aggressive 
 move, and you are a dead man." 
 
 "What Avas his amazement to see the rail, 
 which the trooper in the meantime had raised 
 straight up, laid quietly in its place instead of be- 
 ing dropped in panicky confusion; instead of 
 turning deadly pale and trembling like an aspen- 
 leaf in the wind, the deep crimson of defiance 
 mounted to his foeman's cheek, and the force of 
 spiritual heroism pervaded his frame with a 
 strength, a presence of mind, and a Avill truly 
 superhuman. Cloud recognized at a glance the 
 agile horseman whose feats he had witnessed 
 when leaving a demand to surrender unsatisfied 
 on other occasions. But now flight was impossi- 
 ble, resistance out of the question. Cloud M-as 
 half disposed to conclude that the man was deaf, 
 and had failed to observe his imminent peril. 
 Yet this hallucination was quickly dispelled. 
 Cloud was amazed at the coolness thus far dis- 
 played; but he was paralyzed when he saw his 
 adversary, at one wild bound, spring into the sad- 
 dle, and his long sabre, with a dazzling gleam, flash 
 from its sheath. 
 
 After months of daring, always presuming on 
 the panic created by surprise at the critical 
 
 moment as a sure preventive for the necessity 
 of fighting. Cloud had at last met his man; he 
 must now surrender, die, or in one instant send 
 a fatal bullet into his foe. He realized the great 
 impropriety and danger of firing a shot. But 
 what was to be done? He had no sabre. In 
 one instant the naked blade which gleamed before 
 his eyes would cleave him from the saddle. 
 Already the able and daring trooper was gather- 
 ing the reins, bending forward and poising him- 
 self to send the spurs into the fiery charger. 
 There was not half the danger in a whole squad- 
 ron which Cloud's fire might attract, compared to 
 that Avhich he now faced. His resolution was 
 quickly taken, and the carbine ranged for the 
 mortal aim with a coolness and determination 
 equal to the bearing manifested bv his antagonist. 
 Now for the first time the trooper's eye was 
 fixed in one instantaneous gaze on the face 
 of the scout. He turned pale as a ghost. His 
 sabre was lowered; his hold on the reins slack- 
 ened ; the spurs did not pierce the sensitive flanks 
 of the noble steed to goad him on to the fear- 
 less, maddening plunge ; and the trooper hoarsely 
 stammered : 
 
 "Hold, Cloud, hold! Don't fire! In heaven's 
 name, hold! " 
 
 What could have so suddenly changed the rash 
 determination of a f oeman so cool and so intrepid ? 
 Was it terror at the prospect of certain and in- 
 stantaneous death — with which the slight advan- 
 tage at that moment in his opponent's favor ap- 
 peared to threaten him — that had caused the color 
 to fade from his courageous cheek ? No, indeed ; 
 fear was in no wise an agent that had any part in 
 exercising the influence by which he was actu- 
 ated at this supreme moment. What then was 
 it? It was that rare and radiant gem now and 
 then found in the combination of human nature 
 — Gratitude. 
 
 " Yery well, then, surrender," was Cloud's cold 
 retort. 
 
 " No, Mr. Cloud," was the reply, " I will 
 neither surrender nor fight yon. Shoot me you 
 can. But you are too brave, too noble to do that, 
 I do not fear it. I will make a truce with you 
 for a few moments, and then pass in peace. You 
 do not seem to recognize me. I am Pleasington, 
 whose life you saved at Manassas. 
 
WHY THEY DID NOT FIGHT. 
 
 43 
 
 Cloud : " But this, Major Pleasington, this is a 
 different affair. You are not in the same condi- 
 tion you were then. My position is a serious 
 one. It is my duty to capture or kill you. You 
 are an open enemy on my native soil. Were we 
 on yours I might deem it reasonable to pass 
 you." 
 
 The Major appeared to be greatly distressed ; 
 almost desperate. 
 
 Maj. P : "But your magnanimity will not 
 
 allow you to refuse me a truce that is honorable 
 to you." 
 
 Cloud : " The only honorable truce I can make 
 with you Avould be in regard to your surrender." 
 
 Maj. p. : "Then let us make one to con- 
 sider the terms; if we cannot agree, we can part 
 in peace." 
 
 Cloud: "But we can discuss this without a 
 truce; I have not needed and do not need one. 
 I do not propose to stand here parleying until 
 som'e of your forces come up, nor am I so simple 
 as to permit you to ride down "yonder and ' turn 
 that squadron out aftep me. That is a ruse of 
 strategy, Major — avery^fine one — but I cannot 
 allow it. I entertain more personal kindness for 
 you than for all the other men under your flag- 
 combined ; but were you my brother I should be 
 obliged to do my duty, however painful it might 
 be to me." 
 
 The Major bit his lip with feelings of mingled 
 rage and despair;, then said slowly and with 
 emphasis : 
 
 " Mr. Cloud, on the honor of an officer and a 
 gentleman, none of our forces will pass this path. 
 I am supreme commander, for this day, of the 
 posts of nearly one mile of front here. No troops 
 under my orders shall molest you unless you first 
 openly attack them. 
 
 "I have repeatedly vowed to my intimate 
 friends that you might cut me to mince-meat and 
 I would not raise my hand to harm you ; and they 
 commended my sentiments of gratitude to a gen- 
 erous enemy. Now, do you believe me capable 
 of resorting to a base and cowardly trick to get 
 you into my power? No sir; that is beneath 
 me. Had any other man in the world except 
 little Flowers — God bless him — been in your 
 place, one or l>oth of us would now be dead or 
 
 desperately wounded. I want to talk quietly and 
 civilly with you for a short time." 
 
 Cloud: "All right, then* I accord your wish. 
 Our mutual parole of honor is the basis. We will 
 dismount and lead to the east, a hundred yards or 
 so into this wilderness, where scouting parties 
 will not disturb us." 
 
 Cloud lowered his gun, and, suiting his 
 action to his words, he dismounted and led the 
 way. 
 
 Arrived at a point of perfect seclusion, he 
 stopped; set his gun down; tied the horse; un- 
 strapped the blanket from behind the saddle, and 
 spread it on the ground. The Major then went 
 through the same motions, which, when completed, 
 opened the way to mock formalities. Cloud ad- 
 vanced two paces to meet him — hand extended, 
 as he said : 
 
 "Maj. Lawrence Pleasington, as a soldier of 
 the State of Virginia and of the Confederate 
 States, I meet you amicably under an informal 
 truce, and hope you are well." 
 
 Maj. p. : " Mr. Cloud, as a soldier of the United 
 States army I meet you on the same basis, and 
 cordially return your greeting'and salutations." 
 
 In another minute they were seated on the 
 same blanket, talking with the easy informality 
 of two comrades. Of the two, the Major dis- 
 played the most unreserved freedom. 
 
 Maj. p. : " Well, friend Cloud — for friend true 
 and tried you have proved to me — through your 
 kindness and the doctor's good and careful at- 
 tention, I was soon out of danger and sent on 
 to prison, and thence, before long, home. I was 
 better treated throughout than most of our people, 
 and all owing to the recommendation of the 
 doctor — 3^our good friend sent with me. Please 
 thank him for me. 
 
 " I found mother and Effie in ecstasies to see 
 me back ahve and well. Your name is often 
 praised by them. Sliould ill-fortune ever make 
 it your lot to be a prisoner of war in the Northern 
 States, write to mother, and you will want for 
 nothing that money can supply. Mother and 
 Effie will provide for you." 
 
 Cloud : " I Avill do what you request when I 
 can. I am grateful for su?h kind sentiments from 
 3^our good friends. I trust neither of us may 
 
44 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 need friendship as a jsrisoner; yet there is no 
 teUing what a day may bring forth in these 
 regions." 
 
 Ma.;, p.: "That is very true. — As I hve, you 
 have got jioor Col. Worthington's horse and 
 equipments. Where in the world did you 
 secure them?" 
 
 Cloud : " From a no less important personage 
 than the gallant Colonel himself, astride of his 
 charger." 
 
 Maj. p.: " Oh, please do not make sport of 
 him ! The old man would not hurt a flea. Where 
 is he ? I sent a courier to him last night with an 
 order from Gen. R , of some importance." 
 
 Cloud: "He got lost in trying to obey that 
 order, and fell into bad hands. He is now in a 
 place of safety." 
 
 Maj. p. : " If not hopelessly beyond your con- 
 trol, let me take his place as a prisoner, and 
 release him. He will never harm you. It will 
 ruin him, and probably blast all my hoj^es in life, 
 if he goes to a Southern prison." 
 
 Cloud : " It is not in my power to grant your 
 wish. Is it possible that you would go to 
 prison instead of a man at heart a traitor to your 
 cause? He is a commissioned officer in your 
 army. I ■ am unable to understand how his 
 property could be confiscated, unless he is first 
 convicted of treason. If being captured away 
 from their posts constitutes treason, a good many 
 of your officers are traitors. But this is none of 
 my business. The Colonel told me some such 
 story about his danger." 
 
 Maj. p. : " Yes, I will go to prison for him. 
 He has been my best friend in this world. I 
 owe him everything; even my appointment to 
 West Point was obtained through his influence. 
 I owe him directly my other features of educa- 
 tion ; my social position — even my acquaintance 
 with Effie." 
 
 " Effie's aunt by marriage has been striving for 
 years to make a match between one of her daugh- 
 ters and the Colonel's gold. But for this fact, I 
 am sure that her family would long since have 
 broken the friendship between Effie and I, which 
 they bitterly oppose. 
 
 " This lady also wants Effie's gold married to a 
 dissipated nephew of hers. Before the com- 
 
 mencement of the war, and after the Colonel gave 
 up his mercantile pursuits, they had made no prog- 
 ress in the direction of entangling him in Cupid's 
 snares; but now, when he visits NeAv York, he 
 is idle, and feels blue. 
 
 " They make it exceedingly pleasant for him at 
 the home of the 3'oung lady, and consequently 
 he spends many hours there, and has grown much 
 fonder of her society than he was in former years. 
 In the army he has much time dragging on his 
 hands. Hence he cheerfully maintains quite a 
 voluminous correspondence with the young lady; 
 and I think, unless this calamity with which he 
 is now threatened spoils it ah, she will secure 
 him. 
 
 " Now, you may appreciate how very impor- 
 tant to me it might be hereafter if I can save 
 him." 
 
 Cloud: "My sympathies. Major, are certainly 
 with you. Should I be able to have the Colonel 
 liberated, you may have the credit that he was 
 released on your account." 
 
 Maj. p. : " Oh, a thousand thanks ! May I 
 hope?" 
 
 Cloud: "I can promise you nothing. Every- 
 thing depends on circumstances ; and what their 
 nature may be I dare not attempt to conjecture." 
 
 Maj. p. : "I feel assured that if you can, you 
 will help me; so I will not press the question." 
 
 Cloud : " It would be unnecessary. If I am 
 able to release the Colonel and take you in his 
 stead, at day-break to-morrow, I will find a way 
 to advise you in time. It seems like a poor trade 
 to give a colonel for a major even ; but I suppose 
 the difference in the mischievous propensities is 
 enough in the Colonel's favor to make up for 
 your lack in rank. We will know by to-morrow 
 what happens." 
 
 Maj. p. : "I do hope it may work all right." 
 
 Cloud: "I want to warn you of something. 
 Major. There have been a good many houses 
 wantonly burned, and other outrages committed 
 by your people, lately, in this vicinity. The aven- 
 gers are abroad. You are ab6ut alone a good 
 deal. If you cross their path, they will feel sure 
 you are a prowler, and may shoot you without 
 warning." 
 
 Maj. ?. : " These tilings are a disgrace to our 
 
COSMOPOLITAN ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 45 
 
 uniform. General McClellan deprecates and does 
 all he can to suppress them. 
 
 " I can now understand why my letters went. 
 I can also see how and why so many of our strag- 
 gling, pleasure-seeking, bandbox-drawing-room 
 volunteer officers are missing so frequently. 
 These things are no longer mysterious wonders, 
 with you and your comrades in our lines, with 
 greater freedom than our own men, without a 
 pass, could possibly enjoy." 
 
 Cloud: "Oh! we know the country. We 
 have no regular time to come nor certain route to 
 travel ; we turn up when least expected, and 
 almost always surprise somebody. You are never 
 safe without a strong escort, after you get from 
 under the protecting shelter of the guns of 
 Arlington Heights." 
 
 Maj. p. : "I shall never doubt this, after the 
 evidence of its truth which I have this day wit- 
 nessed." 
 
 Cloud: "Now, Major, my engagements are of 
 a nature so pressing, that I am under the neces- 
 sity of terminating this interview. I trust 
 you will, so far as you can, protect the 
 defenceless and the helpless from insult and 
 injury; and, in the meantime, I shall bear in 
 mind the fact that you are Col. Worthington's 
 friend. 
 
 Maj. p.: " I am sorry you are going so soon. 
 Rest assured, I shall do everything in my 
 power to suppress lawless, uncivilized warfare 
 against women and children. 
 
 " Without either a tacit or an implied assurance 
 from you, I shall hope, just a little, for my friend 
 Col. Worthington." 
 
 Cloud: "You return. Major, the way we 
 came. I part with you here. Remember the 
 parole for the day. Farewell." 
 
 Maj. p.: "The parole is as sacred as my life. 
 Rely upon it. 
 
 " I trust soon to owe you another debt, on the 
 score of my friend Col. Worthington. Fare- 
 well." 
 
 Thus met, and thus parted, on this bitter 
 winter morning, two brave, tender and sympa- 
 thetic hearts, that would never quail before a 
 mortal dancer. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 cosmopolitan aristocracy. 
 
 " Of its own beauty is the mind diseased; 
 And fevers unto false creation. Where, 
 Where are the forms the sculptor's soul hath i 
 In him alone. Can nature show so fair? Where, 
 Are the charms and virtues which we dare. 
 Conceive in boyhood, and pursue as men ! 
 The unreached Paradise of our despair. 
 Which o'er informs the pencil and the pen, 
 And o'er powers the page, where they would bloom 
 again?" — Byeon. 
 
 Reader, if you have grown tired, hungry and 
 coJd on the battle-field and among the outposts 
 of the great armies, let us leave them in the 
 chilling, pelting storms of rigorous mid-winter, 
 and pass to the gay and charming circles which 
 throng the brilliant saloons at this season, in the 
 superb realms of aristocratic New York. 
 
 Aristocratic New York of 1861 must not be 
 confounded with aristocratic New York of 1883. 
 The gigantic strides of nearly one-quarter of 
 this progressive nineteenth cftitury, have told 
 on the then comparatively circumscribed, yet 
 rarely select, domain of the olden time — have ac- 
 tually annihilated it. The places where it then 
 flourished in its enviable, unapproachable pride 
 and grandeur are illuminated with- the Avitchery 
 of its splendors no more. The sweUing notes of 
 joyous mirth with which its then resplendent 
 halls resounded are silent and still. As to these 
 once charming circles, oblivion has spread her 
 sable mantle over the mansions, the streets, and 
 the avenues, once so bright and sjilendid^ 
 Scenes of loveliness gone with, and like the days 
 that are dead — to return nevermore! 
 
 To-day, squalid wretchedness prowls, or vice 
 and shame carouse in their midnight revelries, 
 where twenty-two years ago the belles smiled, 
 and the high-life queens of beauty held their 
 sway. 
 
 A wave of time has swept over the little king- 
 doms which were then subject to the swaying 
 sceptres wielded by those fair and haughty hands; 
 submerging some deep down, deep beneath its 
 ruins and its wrecks ; bearing others out to where 
 their individuality and the dominating superior- 
 ity of their sterling characteristics and unsullied 
 virtues have become blended with, and hopelessly 
 
46 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 lost in, the chaotic confusion i^roduced by the 
 new order of things, in broader and more ex-, 
 tended realms. 
 
 In plain English, this class in 1861 was arislo- 
 cratic. Of the validity of its claim to this title, 
 none even dared presume to question, but at 
 once conceded that it was genuine. It was 
 acknowledged at that day, and still reverentially 
 esteemed as authentic testimony of tradition. 
 This was the aristocracy of the good old days of 
 ante-helium times — the pure, deep, clear, blue- 
 blooded article, which had been handed down 
 from generation to generation as a legacy from 
 the " centuries gone, and slumbering with the 
 dead ages of the past; or had been acquired 
 by years of long and patient toil. 
 
 There was nothing spurious about this ideal 
 aristocracy. No members of this chivalric 
 patrician community had sprung up by the 
 aid of the low-pressure force of army contracts, 
 or by the sudden appreciation of an inflated 
 currency, or from questionable speculation. The 
 days of colossal hot-bed fortunes had not then 
 appeared. Aristocracy, minus every essential 
 requisite save money, was as yet unknown. 
 At that time, fortunes had not been coined as 
 if by a stroke- of the Enchanter's wand. 
 
 At that now ancient period, aristocratic Ncav 
 York was not pressing up near 100th street. 
 All that section where now stand princely man- 
 sions, were desolate, woe-begone-appearing old 
 fields, far out in the country. Central Park, — that 
 most charming oasis of to-day, — was then a rude, 
 unsightly, uninviting rural landscape, covered, to 
 a large extent, by squatters and their browsing 
 goats.. It was a park ; but its present grandeur 
 was then not even a theme for the indulgence of 
 the wildest and the most extravagant dreams. 
 
 Grand Central Depot, the Elevated Railways, 
 the Brooklyn Bridge, and the Hudson River 
 Tunnel, — realities now, — would then have been 
 subjects so apparently impossible, as to render 
 their consideration preposterous. 
 
 But, however, while the progressive men of 
 to-day pause for a moment, in their hurried 
 journey of hfe, to bestow a passing thought 
 upon* the men of twenty-five years ago, 
 and to smile at their simplicity, let them not 
 
 forget to contemplate the wonders which await 
 the men of twenty-five years hence. Then all 
 present barriers to wider spreading wil! have 
 been outstripped and overcome. New York 
 will still be looming up and moving onward — 
 the world's wonder — a modern Babylon. 
 
 However, we are on our way, and about to 
 enter aristocratic New York of twenty-two 
 years ago. The dazzling scenes of to-day are 
 still behind the mystic curtain. 
 
 The little domain we are rapidly approaching 
 is bounded by no long catalogue of streets, and 
 contains but a few blocks of mansions. 
 
 Modern belle of society, queen of beauty, 
 pray stifle that glow of contempt mounting to 
 your beautiful cheek; do not permit that dis- 
 dainful smile to wreathe your pretty lips at 
 the association of that unpretentious region 
 with the name of aristocracy; because within 
 its now unhallowed precincts were you born^ 
 and there you passed your tender years. 
 Deign to bestow upon the blighting stains which 
 have marred its once bright and untarnished 
 escutcheons, one sigh of regret ; and for the sake 
 of some of its beautiful queens, who as martyrs, 
 were sacrificed on the ruthless altars of a degen- 
 erate age, bequeath one tear of commiseration. 
 
 The social circles which we are about to enter 
 are composed of elements as gay, as brilliant, as 
 pure, and as good as any in the same walks of 
 life to be found anywhere in this world. The 
 mask, with the bitter remorses which it obscures, 
 yet cannot all conceal, is rarely worn. 
 
 Still, however, the good people in this model 
 state of amiable harmony and exemplary friend- 
 ship, have their petty jealousies to cherish, their 
 little piques and spites to avenge, and their ambi- 
 tions to gratify. 
 
 The match-scheming mammas, looking out for 
 gold to which to wed their daughters — yes, alas ! 
 they are there. Then the character of those 
 whom they plot to entrap has to be irreproach- 
 able : this and ample gold constitute the acme of 
 eligibility. It is unnecessary that they should be 
 young, or handsome, or lovable, or the objects of 
 their dear daughters' choice — those conventional 
 husbands — and usually the fair victims submit 
 meekly to their fate. 
 
COSMOPOLITAN ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 47 
 
 At the period when we are about to look in 
 upon the gay scenes being enacted on this ex- 
 clusively select stage, the faintest breezes of 
 that air, laden with the bhghting contagion of 
 social pestilence, are just beginning to pervade 
 the blissful structure, and stealthily to fan the 
 cheek enshrined by beauty's sheen. As yet its 
 dangerous presence is unrecognized. So like 
 exhalations from the purest nectarine, are the 
 odors of its agony poisonous perfumes, that 
 unsuspecting innocence recoils not from the 
 soothing subtlity of its opiatic influence. Thus, 
 little by little, its mahgnant seeds seciuely ger- 
 minate in pure and guileless hearts. These 
 ultimately awake from the allurements of 
 this fatal fascination to a sad consciousness that 
 they are hopelessly enthralled in the direful 
 meshes of immedicable destruction. Now, with- 
 out the semblance of disguise, the treacherous 
 tempest bursts with savage, cruel fury upon the 
 defenseless heads of its victims. Those baneful 
 seeds, from which spring the wild, deleterious, 
 all-blasting social Upas, are to be nurtured into 
 dark luxuriance by copious fertilizing with deep 
 mulches of confusion, peculation, and demoraliza- 
 tion, deluged with rivers of blood. 
 
 Such is the unblemished purity and spotless 
 repute, and such the threatening epidemic which 
 menaces that social sphere of wondrous perfec- 
 tion, challenging the admiration of all times and 
 countries. Here are the yet sparkling, untar- 
 nished gems of virtue, directly bequeathed as a 
 heritage to this generation by the illustrious 
 planters of Liberty's Tree. 
 
 Here, now and then, are yet to be seen, a few 
 noble, living relics, that have come down from 
 those glorious, transplendent days of the by- 
 gone time, tottering, vanishing mementoes of the 
 Eevolution. 
 
 Now they behold the dark days of civil strife 
 rending the fraternal bonds of that country which 
 they have loved so well, — the pride and glory of 
 their youth, the consolation of their declining 
 years, — and see, with their age-dimmed eyes, 
 seeds of corruption taking root in that so- 
 ciety for which they have labored so many 
 years Mnth precept and by example, that it might 
 retain its time-honored standing of exaltation, 
 
 on the waning verge of decay, as they, ripe with 
 fullness of years, and loaded with the honors of a 
 well-spent life, with sorrow-broken hearts sink 
 into the tomb. 
 
 We go back to them, to that haven where the 
 noble ships in which they made their voyage of 
 life proudly and triumphantly, rode the rough and 
 tumultuous waves of Time, to seek an anchorage 
 for the tempest-tossed, helpless crafts of another 
 age. 
 
 We have promised a picture of human nature, 
 drawn from all colors, shades, and phases of 
 actual, real life of the present time. We find 
 that the base, the great sub-strata — from which 
 nearly all the most striking characters of human 
 nature at the present day have sprung, and upon 
 which they now rest, — is but treacherous quick- 
 sand, the seething dregs of crur Civil War — a sad 
 and lamentable heritage. 
 
 This being unquestionably true we are, per 
 force, under the inevitable necessity of taking its 
 glaring, deep-crimson colorsof commingling fire and 
 blood for a back-ground. But we desire slightly 
 to modify it, if possible, by throwing upon it a 
 shade of contrasting reflection from the brightly 
 shining radiance of the pure, the beautiful and 
 the good. Then, when all the little, almost inno- 
 cent, social shps, and the great crimes, in all their 
 multifarious forms, that shame and degrade the 
 human race of our own time, ai-e spread upon it, 
 httle, if anything more, will be required to render 
 this picture consummately thrilling. 
 
 The few who yet with trials and dangers to the 
 last weather, the gale or float on the dehris of their 
 wrecks to a safe and friendly shore, will merit 
 earnest applause and rich rewards. Some, who 
 go down with the seething torrents may be 
 objects for a passing sigh of pity. 
 
 We pause and hesitate to enter that brilliant 
 realm where beauty and purity reign, because it 
 is a Paradise like that of old to our ancient 
 parents, which we, too, are doomed to leave ! 
 
 But, however, it is worth the trouble; let us 
 see it. There we shall meet our Major Pleas- 
 ington's own Effie, and Colonel Worthington's 
 friends, in their own princely homes. Yes ; and, 
 besides these, we shall become acquainted with 
 other actors, who will, at times, cush upon the 
 
48 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 stage, and act their parts — some Avildly and fiercely 
 ■ — in our drama. 
 
 It is a painful task — a duty, which makes the 
 heart sick and the mind sad to present some of 
 these actors, in the whirling, giddy tranforma- 
 tion scenes through which they must be hurled. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE MOUNTJOYS. 
 
 " They were meek and they were modest, 
 They were handsome and they were tall. 
 Their hair was black, and they wore It curly. 
 And oh ! their sweet blue eyes withal." 
 
 —Sentimental Song. 
 
 The above lines describe the four Misses 
 Mountjoy with due, impartial appropriateness. 
 
 The Mountjoy mansion, situated in the centre of 
 the little domain styled in the preceding chap- 
 ter as " Aristocratic New York of 1861," was 
 famous in its day. 
 
 Norman Mountjoy was a Avealthy, an enter 
 prising, and a prosperous wholesale merchant, 
 the head of an old house. His father and grand- 
 father before him had been merchants. The 
 business had grown up to be something of stu- 
 pendous magnitude, upon a foundation more than 
 a century old. 
 
 Early in life Mr. Mountjoy married Helen 
 Noel, — a majestic young queen of beauty, — from a 
 proud and imperious old family. She was a bright 
 social ornament, and- while profusely liberal in 
 the appointment of her household, she could not, 
 in her earlier matrimonial years, be deemed ex- 
 travagant beyond what her husband's means and 
 their social position Avarranted — nay, almost de- 
 manded. He idolized his lovely young wife. 
 Even her most trivial whims and foibles were 
 gratified with spontaneous alacrity. Whatever 
 Helen Avanted Avas her devoted husband's 
 greatest pleasure to grant. He often said: "If it 
 affords Mrs. Mountjoy as much pleasure to spend 
 money as it affords me to make it, we are a con- 
 summately happy couple." 
 
 In every relation of life, social and commercial, 
 Norman Mountjoy Avas the quintescence, the 
 very soul, of honor. It was a common watch- 
 word in his business sphere concerning any com- 
 
 mercial transaction: "If Mr. Mountjoy says so, 
 it is all right: his opinion is as good as law." 
 
 Mountjoy House had been a grand old surbur- 
 ban mansion of the olden time. It stood in the 
 centre of a broad tract of ground, artistically laid 
 out into most beautiful floAver-plats and shrubbeiy 
 arcades, intersected ever and anon by handsome 
 gravel walks, fringed Avith evergreen, trimmed 
 and arranged Avith the most scrupulously deli- 
 cate taste. Around and above all loomed up 
 and spread out their paternal, protecting arms, 
 the grand old shade-trees, some of them senti- 
 nels of departed centuries, monumental children 
 of a virgin forest. 
 
 The house itself Avas large and roomy, Avith 
 grand old porticoes resting on hugh pillars; 
 broad, high hall, parlors, draAving-rooms, library, 
 dining-hall, and chambers of dimensions to rival 
 those of baronial palaces of the dead, the legen- 
 dary, and the historical ages. This princely old 
 mansion Avas furnished in most exquisite style, 
 well becoming the state of a merchant prince, and 
 in harmonious accord with the tastes and the 
 Avishes of his refined and adorable Avife. 
 
 Aristocratic New York, as we noAv behold it, 
 in, as it were, a dream or vision, had steadily en- 
 croached upon and sprung up around Mountjoy 
 House, depriA'ing it of its rustic environments, 
 without, however, robbing it of its OAvn peculiar 
 rural distinctiveness and traditional exclusiveness 
 — privileges that its modern neighbors could not 
 enjoy — enviable luxuries, denied to metropolitan 
 denizens, save the rarely exceptionable foAV. 
 
 Such were the parents, such tlie home, and 
 such the surroundings in which, under the foster- 
 ing shelter and benign influence of its guardinn 
 walls, had sprung up, budded and bloomed into 
 sweet and perfect womanhood, like incarnation 
 nymphs created by the old Romancers in their 
 scenes where appear the fairy enchantresses, four 
 matchless young ladies, to rival any who ever 
 graced the gilded saloons, amid the splendors of 
 Oriental palaces. They Avere tall, stately, and 
 dignified; and in every delineation their robust 
 model figures presented to the admiring 
 eye the most pleasing proportions and 
 symmetrical harmony of form that the most 
 infatuated di'eamer of beauty could picture; in 
 
THE MOUNTJOYS. 
 
 49 
 
 every lineament of their charming features was 
 clearly and unmistakably discernible the imprint 
 of all the graces combined; and in their large, 
 dreamy, deep blue eyes, which seemed always 
 speaking in a silent yet pathetic language, 
 sparkled that brilliant gem of a rare and radiant 
 virtue. To these wondrous and divine charms of 
 nature were added all that refined art and cult- 
 ured associations could bestow, to render these 
 young queens of fashion and of beauty deli- 
 cately polite, meekly graceful, gently dignified 
 and modestly adorable. 
 
 Many good, old-fashioned, unassuming old 
 people, often said of the four sisters : " Why, 
 they are just as near alike as four black-eyed 
 peas." 
 
 However, Avhile in appearance and conversa- 
 tion the resemblance was so striking that a per- 
 son not well acquainted with them, was liable to 
 mistake any one of them, for some other of 
 the four, yet still, in some characteristics, they 
 were not, by a wide difference, as closely alike one 
 other as the peas. 
 
 Cassandra, the oldest, was a trifle the most 
 haughty and impatient. Beatrice, the next in 
 years, was Hke her sister, in a milder degree, 
 with the slightest tendency in some matters to 
 be fickle. Rosalind, the third sister, was predis- 
 posed to be intensely romantic. Evahna, the 
 youngest, was patience and resignation personi- 
 fied. These were the four fair daughters of 
 fortune. They never imagined a want that was 
 not gratified, if not even anticipated; and they 
 had never known a sorrov/. Could their voy- 
 age on through life ever glide with the same 
 unruffled serenity, they would fulfill the highest 
 earthly destiny to which it is possible for human 
 beings to attain, crowned with consummate 
 honors. But should the wild tempests of dis- 
 aster hurl their light craft swiftly and furi- 
 ously upon the cruel breakers, and leave it 
 there stranded, a hopeless wreck, how would 
 these frail and delicately tender green-house 
 flowers brook the merciless storms that would 
 beat with relentless violence on their defenceless 
 heads. These cliildren of fortune had never 
 dreamed of misfortune ; they scarcely knew the 
 true definition of the term, and were certainly 
 
 not nurtured to bear its stings with unmurmur- 
 ing fortitude ; to indomitable self-reliance, such as 
 the stern exigencies of some terrible, soul-testing 
 calamity demand, they were utter strangers. 
 To contemplate the pitiless grasp of misfortune 
 seizing the self-willed and self-reliant, is terrible; 
 but when the helpless children of fortune are the 
 hapless victims, it is appalling. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV, 
 
 EFFIE EDELSTEIN. 
 
 " Bluo were her eyes as the fairy flax,— 
 Her cheeks, like the dawn of day, 
 And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds, 
 That ope in the month of May." 
 
 —Longfellow. 
 
 This, friends, is Lawrence Pleasington's Etfie 
 love. Do you, in the secret recesses of your 
 hearts, blame him for idolizing, even worshiping, 
 this little earthly angel ? If you do, we do not. 
 Every one who knew her loved her. With her, 
 wherever she went, there went a halo of sun- 
 shine in her smile, an echo of love in the ca- 
 dence of her voice. In her were combined all 
 the charms, all the graces, and all the virtues 
 of her fair cousins introduced in the preceding 
 chapter, Avithout one of the slight imperfections, 
 that it was mildly hinted that the three eldest 
 possessed. In addition to all this, she was mis- 
 tress of all the self-reliance and courage necessary 
 to sustain her in any possible emergency. 
 
 Is this concise description satisfactory ? If it 
 is not, there is no language in this world to do 
 the subject justice. 
 
 Her father was a descendant in direct line 
 from a noble German family, — his immediate 
 ancestors having come down through the rude, 
 pioneer experiences of the old Dutch colony from 
 its earliest days. Her mother was Norman 
 Mountjoy's only sister, who died when Elfie was 
 a little child. 
 
 Her father was a prosperous merchant, and the 
 intimate friend of Silas Worthington. He, too, 
 died after a protracted and lingering illness, when 
 Effie was ten years old, leaving her, his only 
 child, an immense fortune for that age of the 
 world. 
 
50 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Silas Worthington Avas appointed administrator, 
 and little Effie was left to the care of Mrs. Kate 
 Eber, her father's sister, between whom and 
 Lawrence Pleasington's mother there had been a 
 life-long and intimate friendship. 
 
 The Avill, under the sagacious supervision of 
 Mr. Worthington, was drawn up by one of the 
 ablest and most .skillful lawyers, with admirable 
 tact and wonderful ingenuity, so that it was 
 impossible for any portion of her fortune to be 
 touched, except a moderate annual stipend set 
 apart for her support and education, until she was 
 twenty-one years of age, 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington was the protege of Mr. 
 Worthington. This fact, connected with his re- 
 lation to Effie, and the friendship existing between 
 her aunt and his mother will account for the 
 intimate, perchance more tender and endearing, 
 ties between these two young persons. 
 
 Eifie loved her cousins, and spent much time 
 with them. Between her and Evalina, there 
 was an extraordinary affinity, devoted attach- 
 ment. Of the same age, Avith the same tastes, 
 and the same opinions in all things, on all sub- 
 jects — even to Effie's strong preferences for 
 Lawrence Pleasington's society and friendship — 
 there is no rule by which the depth of love, 
 springing from their pure and innocent hearts, 
 can be measured. Nothing could ever shake the 
 foundation of its steadfast affection — a consecrated 
 shrine, where the incense of love ever glows, 
 forever rekindled by the sparks of a sublime 
 friendship, an endless and an eternal devotion. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 MAUD P L K A S I N G T O N . 
 
 " The sorrows that bow down my head 
 Are silent as the midnight gloom." 
 
 —From KiTTiE Wells. 
 
 This is Lawrence Pleasington's widowed 
 mother. She is from a good old family — but 
 now, the last of her race. 
 
 Her husband, a self-made man, from Virginia, 
 married her when they were both young. 
 He prospered as a merchant, and became the 
 bosom friend of Silas Worthington. 
 
 Around the j'oung coujile si)rang lip, in the 
 course of fifteen years of prosperous and happy 
 matrimonial life, a family of seven children- 
 Lawrence, the baby. 
 
 Then came dark days of reverse, trial, and 
 death. The mercantile interest was consumed 
 by fire the same night after the insurance had 
 collapsed at noon. Through an oversight, caused 
 by illness in his family, which had for several 
 days kept him absent from his office, the policy 
 had not been renewed. 
 
 In the brief space of ten days, the malignant 
 fever laid six of his children beneath the sod ; 
 and on the fourteenth day the broken-hearted 
 father followed his little children across the dark 
 river; and left behind — oh, cruel fate ! — his pov- 
 erty-stricken, grief-smitten widow and orphan 
 babe on this desolate, friendless shore. 
 
 Oh, God ! what would have become of them, 
 in their dismal, hopeless despair, but for one noble 
 heart, one true friend, Silas Worthington, consti- 
 tuted by Heaven their guardian ? 
 
 Assisted and encouraged by their foster pro- 
 tector, they lived ; and Time, the great healer of 
 the broken, bleeding heart, and the love of her 
 sweet little bright-eyed boy, soothed the widow's 
 woes. She saw her son, a handsome young 
 officer — her pride. 
 
 CHAPTER XVT. 
 
 ARNOLD NOEL. 
 
 In virtue's ways he never took delight ; 
 But he loved wine and carnal company. 
 
 This is the young scapegrace, dissipated 
 nephew of Mrs. Helen Mountjoy, whom that 
 lady is resolved shall possess that rare and price- 
 less jewel, Effie Edelstein, and her wealth. 
 
 His father is a prominent merchant, in a neigh- 
 boring city ; and his family, which is large, ranks 
 first-class. One brother, although a very young 
 man, is already an officer in the United States 
 navy ; and one sister is married to a first-class 
 New York merchant. 
 
 Young Arnold, from a small boy, has been the 
 black-sheep of the flock; yet, notwithstanding 
 this fact, he is his father's favorite child. The 
 
SOME FREQUENTERS OF MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 51 
 
 old man, however, often tells him, with tears in 
 his eyes, that he will come to some bad end, and 
 bring him in sorrow to the grave, in his last 
 declining age. But, to the youngster, these are 
 idle, meaningless words, and are unheeded. 
 
 At the period of life Avhere we now find him, 
 aged fifteen years, he is in New York, at school, 
 under the care of his aunt and sister ; never 
 knows his lessons, and is always in scrapes, both 
 in and out of school. Sometimes, indeed, it is 
 only on account of his well-known family that 
 the police do not take charge of him. For less 
 cause, many poor lads are every day arrested. 
 
 On one point he appears sane; that is, getting 
 possession of the Edelstein fortune. The money 
 to gratify his vicious appetites and indulge his 
 indolent propensities, is the dream of his life. He 
 has been educated to regard it his prize. For this 
 reason, he practices an artfully studied decorum 
 Avhenever he is in Miss Effie's presence; and 
 tries to please her. She, on her part, is too re- 
 fined, and too good and tender-hearted, willfully 
 to wound any one's feelings. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SOME FREQUENTERS OF MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 " Thine eyes, like the stars that are gleaming. 
 Have entered the depths of my soul ; 
 And my heart has grown wild with its dreaming, 
 And with feelings I cannot control." 
 
 —Sentimental Song. 
 
 Lieut. Oklando Ogletheop. 
 
 This was a class-mate and is the bosom-friend 
 of Lawrence Pleasington. He was an obscure, 
 New York mountain-boy, who found his way to 
 West Point through the influence of a member of 
 Congress from his district, who met the lad dur- 
 ing the canvass, and took a fancy to him. 
 
 He spent some weeks in New York with Law- 
 rence. Met Mr. Worthington, who became his 
 warm and admiring friend ; and through him the 
 young man was introduced to the Mountjoys. 
 
 Despite the fact of his plebian origin, Miss 
 Evalina likes him. He worships her, but has the 
 good sense and prudence not to let the fact be 
 known. He is always welcomed at Mountjoy | 
 
 House, and always calls whenever he visits the 
 city. 
 
 Samuel Van Allen 
 is a wealthy, prominent married New York 
 gentleman. He is a friend and favorite of Mr. 
 Mountjoy. He stands well as a business man, 
 and is a prominent pillar of one of the lead- 
 ing churches. This gentleman is extremely fond 
 of the society of ladies. 
 
 Felix Mortimer 
 is another city gentleman, wealthy, influential 
 and married. He is also a special friend of Mr. 
 Mountjoy, and much esteemed at his house. 
 He is the business partner of Mr. Van Allen, and 
 the President of a prominent bank. 
 
 Ira Atkinson 
 is a wealthy bachelor, and a great favorite. He 
 is a merchant, a member of the first house in its 
 line in the city. Although old enough to be her 
 father, he is designed by Mrs. Mountjoy to be the 
 husband of one of her fair young daughters. 
 
 Adam Stringfellow 
 is also a bachelor, with an ample hoard of gold. 
 He is the business partner of Mr. Atkinson ; and 
 Mrs. Mountjoy desires that he shall be united in 
 matrimony with another one of her daughters. 
 While this man and his partner are thus prized 
 by Mrs. Mountjoy, her husband, for purely com- 
 mercial considerations, hghtly esteems them. 
 
 Christopher Singleton 
 is a young gentleman, possessed of more hand- 
 some features and fascinating manners than 
 money. He has a fancy for Cassandra the de- 
 signed fiancee of Colonel Worthington ; but the 
 Colonel's wealth and the mother's influence are 
 against him. These are the most brilliant fights 
 that often grace the grand old parlors. Besides 
 these there are many others of prominence, but 
 not as actors in this drama. 
 
 We do not deem it important to define our 
 characters more elaborately in this connection, as 
 their predominating propensities will be fully 
 demonstrated as their parts develop. The careers 
 of some of these characters, just introduced, 
 would be ample foundations for complete and in- 
 dependent stories ; while their parts in this book 
 are comparatively limited. 
 
52 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE SENSATION AT MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 "On with the dance,—" 
 No sleep till morn, when youth and beauty meet, 
 To chase the glowing hours, with flying feet." 
 
 —Byron. 
 
 At last we are in the fairy dream-land of gay 
 and festive New York, and on our way to the 
 Mountjoy sensation of the season. 
 
 As our friends are there presented to us, we 
 ■•hall not be under the necessity of speaking- 
 aside in an embarrassing undertone, to explain 
 just who each particular one is, as this duty has 
 been, already, fully performed on the journey 
 from the front from beyond Arlington Heights. 
 
 ^lercy! Just look! What transparent bril- 
 liancy ! See how the grand old mansion is il- 
 luminated! What wonderful taste has been 
 displayed in arranging the lights! How indescrib- 
 ably tempered is the mellowness of their en- 
 chanting shades! How captivatingly ravishing 
 to the eye the charm of their fascinating reflec- 
 tions in tints of orange and of gold! Behold the 
 witching groups upon which they shine! — fair 
 -women, noble and brave men — ass imbled chivahy 
 and beauty — all upon which the eye delights to 
 feast. How elegantly, how superbly, they are 
 dressed! Everything perfect decorum, in har- 
 monious accord with the latest and most ap- 
 proved st3dea and fashions of the day. Nothing, 
 not the smallest possible item, in any respect, 
 whether with reference to the appointments of 
 the magnificent saloons, or the personal decora- 
 tions and appearance of the polished and selectly 
 chosen guests, has been omitted that could by 
 any sort of peradventure tend to render the 
 event, if not matchless, certainly unsurpassable. 
 
 Let us plunge into the crowd, and mingle with 
 the festive and the gay, and see and hear what 
 we may. 
 
 Can it be possible that the widely contrasting 
 scene, amid canvas and smoke, which we left last 
 evening, is in the same country, composed of 
 the same people, even the very same families, 
 as this which is now before us, under the be- 
 wildered gaze of our open eyes? Surely not; 
 yet it must be. 
 
 Just think of it! — those menacing armies face 
 to face; the infernal machines of war, being 
 every hour, day and night rushed forward to 
 perfection — the agents of death merely slumber- 
 ing, — waiting for the igniting spark to arouse 
 them from their lethargic inertness to throbbing 
 pulsations of vigorous life. Then Avill they madly 
 bound in their wild and pitiless career of de- 
 structive carnage, turning in one hour all these 
 festive wreaths which we now behold in won- 
 dering admiration to sable badges of saddest 
 mourning; those fair and radiant cheeks all aglow 
 at hearing the praises of their own loveliness to 
 the pallor of death, — and these rose-tinted 
 lips to the whiteness of despair; the same as was 
 witnessed in Belgium's proud capitol, one festive 
 night forty odd years ago. 
 
 Our thoughts instinctively turn from these 
 bright and blissful scenes to those dark and mel- 
 ancholy ones, with emotions of horror ; and the 
 contemplation of the painful and sad transition, 
 conjures up a thrill of inexpressible sadness. 
 
 Well, our object, however, in visiting the grand 
 fete to-night, is to meet those actors who have 
 assumed the responsibility of filHng roles, per- 
 forming each a part in this drama of life; and here 
 to learn, as far as we can, how they are map- 
 ping out their parts, and what relation, if any, 
 tliese parts are going to bear to one another ; 
 and to detect, if we can, what influence they are 
 likely to exercise on the actors themselves, and 
 in what manner that influence will afiect them. 
 With other parties, and other themes, at the fes- 
 tival, we have no business ; and we must refrain 
 from meddling with them. 
 
 We must remember, also, that we are merely 
 tolerated spectators, and not privileged partei- 
 pants ; therefore, let us take a commanding seat in 
 a central position, and observe the gay and festive 
 scenes as they are enacted around us. 
 
 Ah! this will do — magnificent! What ex- 
 quisite music! Splendid! There is Lady Mount- 
 joy and Mr. Mortimer taking that seat near us. 
 Look ! listen ! they are in animated couA-ersation. 
 
 Mortimer : " How charming Effie is in that 
 waltz! Look at Arnold — but is he not in his 
 glory? How graceful he is! ' 
 
 Lady M : "Yes; Effie is rarely so radiant 
 
THE SENSATION AT MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 53 
 
 as she is to-night. She makes Arnold dignified. 
 For several days before he is to meet her, he is a 
 different boy. If he could only see more of her, 
 her influence would soon cure all his wild, boyish 
 impulses. I regret that they are so young." 
 
 AIouti.mkr: '-Ah, my dear lady, you are right 
 about that. Many things of which we do not 
 now dream are likely to happen, to thwart your 
 plans relative to this young couple before they 
 arrive at an age for your wishes to be rewarded 
 by a realization of their consummation. Frankly, 
 Madam, the young man's wild freaks are among 
 the most dangerous. It will be impossible to pre- 
 vent the knowledge of his conduct from reach- 
 ing Miss Edelstein's ears; it is familiar in all 
 business circles where his name is known. 
 Pardon my plain language. You desired to con- 
 sult with me on this subject. I must, therefore, 
 state rude, unvarnished facts, that you may see 
 clearly with what you have to cope. 
 
 " And then next, and but slightly less in im- 
 portance, comes Lawrence Pleasington, who is 
 almost daily performing some feat of daring that 
 forces all to sound his praises, and predict that 
 he will win immortal laurels. This, with his un- 
 questionably handsome face, his unimpeachable, 
 virtuous, and temperate life, together with the 
 potent friendship of Col. Worthington, are ob- 
 stacles sufficient to defy the combined counter- 
 acting influences of this city, brought' to bear 
 upon any young lady favorably impressed by 
 this young officer. How, then, with Effie Edel- 
 stein, who was thus impressed before he went 
 forward to mingle with danger and death?" 
 
 Lady M : " This is provokingly true. Do 
 
 you know that the most embarrassing feature of 
 the combined difficulties with me is Col. Worth- 
 ington's strangely mysterious fancy and friend- 
 ship for that young man ? You are aware of 
 our relations with the Colonel, and his sensi- 
 tive, impulsive nature. A slight toward young 
 Pleasington would be a personal insult to Silas 
 Worthington. 
 
 " I dare not assume the risk of incurring his 
 displeasure : hence I am forced in this respect to 
 act a part, continually, that I detest — that of dis- 
 sembling; but unless I wear a mask, I must fail, 
 and I to fail am resolved — never — no. sir — never! 
 
 "Xo matter what it costs me, Effie Edelstein 
 shall be Arnold Noel's bride. As to young 
 Pleasington, the fickle decrees of Fate will yet 
 doom him a sacrifice on his country's altar — a 
 sad but glorious lot." 
 
 Mortimer : " I admire your courage. It is 
 idle to have an object in life unless we follow it 
 to success. However, under all the circumstan- 
 ces, there seems to me but little more to do ex- 
 cept Avatch and wait for Time to render whatever 
 assistance she is pleased to. bestow. 
 
 '■' Pleasington now is fortune's favorite. Some- 
 times she smiles long upon a man, preserving 
 him through all perils ; then suddenly forsakes 
 him." 
 
 Lady M : "Yes; and she wiU forsake him 
 
 in the end, because his blind infatuations will 
 lead him to tempt her too far. He seeks, ever 
 seeks, to soar far beyond his natural sphere. 
 His aspiration in the direction of winning Effie 
 is a presumptuous effort to ascend from the earth 
 to the stars. This will eventually prove his 
 bane. It is this that tempts him on to those 
 desperate feats of daring that are making him 
 famous, and that may yet wreathe his brow with 
 immortal laurels, should his star not set forever, 
 in the smoke and din and thunder of battle. 
 This is the fate I predict will be his. 
 
 " I cannot say I wish him harm. I only de- 
 sire him to remain in his own proper latitude, 
 and not interfere with my plans. Then I could 
 applaud his heroically acquired honors with as 
 much genuine and enthusiastic zeal as any one in 
 the land. But to think of him circumventing the 
 long-cherished and dearest anticipations of my 
 heart — this is what makes me *furious — trans- 
 forms me from his friend, yes, even patroness, if 
 nece'ssary, to the most bitter, vindictive, relent- 
 less mortal enemy. 
 
 " Why is it that those obscure vagrant lads that 
 some misguided impulse causes men to pick up 
 as they would genuine ash-kittens, and send them 
 to West Point, outstrip all our well-bred lads in 
 every respect — have better morals, are hand- 
 somer, and meet with greater favor and admira- 
 tion in society ? Then how provoking to think 
 that because they are graduate officers in the 
 United States army, a false etiquette compels 
 
54 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 the best society to open its doors unto them. 
 There are seven of them on the floor now, that, 
 but for this fact, could not put one foot inside of 
 my yard. One thing redeems their obnoxiousness 
 to some extent — they are pohshed and gentle- 
 manly in their manners and deportment. 
 
 " Young Oglethrop, a regular mountain igno- 
 ramus by birth and breeding, who occasionally 
 calls here, is a shining ornament in any society, 
 and liked by everybody; and, by the Avay, I 
 understand he is eqiyiUy as daring and venture- 
 some as young Pleasington. It makes me wild 
 to reflect upon these facts. I am unable to com- 
 prehend them." 
 
 Mortimer : " Tliose lads are genuine children 
 of Nature. They are robust, well developed,, and 
 strangers to the degenerate traits of our city boys. 
 These simple aids — indomitable force of virtue and 
 self-reliant will — have produced the greatest men 
 in every sphere of life, in all countries and ages 
 of the world, sprung from the most obscure and 
 humble ranks. 
 
 " Our wealthy city children, both boys and girls, 
 lack this force. They are never educated to rely 
 upon themselves. And those who from time to 
 time are deprived of their supporting force, and 
 compelled to fall back on themselves, — a shadow 
 catches them, — find their hopes are placed on 
 broken reeds. 
 
 " They are utterly unqualified and unable to help 
 themselves; and they soon sink into oblivion, 
 where they are quickly forgotten ; — as their wealth 
 and social position, so pass away their names 
 from the remembrance of their former friends." 
 
 Lady M : " Do you knoAV that I am so horribly 
 
 oppressed with the bare thought of what these 
 terrible times may bring to any of us, that I dare 
 not think? I am forced— driven to seek excitement. 
 I often shudder at my extravagances. We have 
 an abundance, and a present income to warrant a 
 large expenditure ; but it appears to me necessary 
 constantly to increase it. I cannot curtail, nor 
 can I be content to remain stationary; so I shut 
 my eyes as a rule, and try not to see the ajiproach 
 of cloud or storm, and to anticipate only con- 
 tinued prosperity and sunshine throughout my 
 voyage of life. 
 
 "Oh! but for these match-making vexations 
 
 and disappointments, I should have always 
 remained in tranquil serenity and blissful happi- 
 ness ! But they have become the passionate, all 
 controlling objects of my life: such they will 
 remain." 
 
 Mortimer: "My dear Madam, you have the 
 'blues,' the worst case I have ever witnessed. 
 Come, let us join in the dance, and tiiink on 
 more cheerful prospects." 
 
 Lady M : " Thank you. How glad I am to 
 
 mingle in that intoxicating whirl, and drown all 
 thoughts of the subjects, ujjon which we have 
 been dwelling." 
 
 Now, what think you? Has she not shown 
 at least the main bent of her purpose, and that 
 she is in course of preparation to prove equal to 
 any emergency, and not to scruple about the 
 nature of the intrigue, so that it facilitates the 
 progress toward the end which she seeks to attain ? 
 
 But now enters Mountjoy and Van Allen com- 
 ing to the same seat. 
 
 Mountjoy: "I tell you. Van, the times are 
 terrible. Such festivities as these, considering the 
 state of public affairs, are too gay and discordant ; 
 but ladies are ladies, you know, and want 
 everything cheerful and bright around them; 
 and perhaps it may be as well in the end." 
 
 Van a : "Yes, Norman, I fear black days 
 
 are coming? The horizon of the future is overcast 
 with a portentous gloom threatening dreadful 
 storms. I tremble at the coming fate awaiting 
 many of our staunchest mercantile barks." 
 
 Mountjoy: "I am unable to prevent the same 
 horrible dread from entering my niiud ; constantly 
 it haunts me. 
 
 " We lost large sums in the South. True, we 
 have made most of it up ; but the value of money 
 is depreciating — expenses are on the increase. 
 
 " The Southern people will have privateers 
 slaughtering our helpless merchantmen on the 
 seas. Should they strike for several times 
 vessels bearing large invoices to the same 
 house, at its own risk, this would soon stagger 
 the best of us. 
 
 " I want to haul in sail. It is absolutely the 
 duty of us all to curtail and prepare for the worst ; 
 but I cannot do this without mortifying my 
 family. They do not know of my forebodings 
 
THE SENSATION AT MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 55 
 
 which by the merest chance may not be well 
 founded. I conclude, therefore, in consideration 
 of this hope, clutching as it were at the drifting 
 straw, to take the chances of their being caught 
 in the worst fury of the storm, and subjected to 
 the sudden shock which would engulf them with 
 the crashing Avreck, rather than torture them for 
 months, perhaps years, with anticipated ruin." 
 
 Van a : "Ah, Norman! that is a great 
 
 trial — I think, however, your course is the wisest 
 you could have taken. 
 
 " Your family forces have their social battles 
 to fight, and cannot afford to wait until the 
 country has finished hers ; so I think it proper 
 for you to furnish all the means they require. 
 After victory crowns their efforts, then you will 
 have peace and tranquillity — a priceless boon." 
 
 "Mountjoy: "Would to God that boon was 
 mine now. 
 
 " I detest this social match-making, although it 
 is the legacy of ages in our family — inculcated 
 into our minds almost as a religious ritual of our 
 education. For this reason, I do not meddle 
 with it. 
 
 •' These girls of ours are not proper mates for 
 old men. And young Noel, would he not be a 
 companion for Effie ? You know he is unworthy 
 to be her footman ; but he is Helen's idoL She 
 is blind, and cannot see his faults. 
 
 "I would not give the little fingers of such 
 j^oung men as Pleasington and Oglethrop for a 
 Avhole troop hke Arnold ; yet they are obnoxious 
 to Helen. I let her have her way in these mat- 
 ters, and never cross her." 
 
 Van a : " Effie will never be Arnold's 
 
 victim. She is too smart, and too much influ- 
 enced by Col. Worthington." 
 
 Mountjoy: "I try to hope she will not, and 
 could perfectly rely upon this presumption tiut 
 for Helen's indomitable persistence." 
 
 Van a : " There comes Oglethrop, just 
 
 from the front. He is coming right here. Look ! 
 They have all spied him, and are coming forward 
 to meet him." 
 
 Mountjoy: "You are right; that is him. 
 Look what a noble brow and majestic mien — a 
 soldier of fortune." 
 
 CnoRUS OF Voices: "How do you do — how 
 
 are you, Lieut. Oglethrop? Do sit down and 
 tell us about the army and our friends?" 
 
 Lieut : "The army is snowed in, and 
 
 very quiet now. When I left the front, last 
 evening, your friends were well, and commis- 
 sioned me to present their compliments and 
 kindest remembrances to all." 
 
 Lady Mountjoy: " Did you see Col. Worth- 
 ington ?" 
 
 Lieut. : "Yes, madam, and a pitiful 
 
 phght he was in, too; his one-thousand dollar 
 horse and fine pistol gone, and he himself half 
 frozen from lying out all night in the wilderness, 
 in that terrible snow-storm. I do not think he 
 will soon smile again. They treat him shamefully 
 at head-quarters; call him Falstaff, and insist 
 that he should have brought off the horse." 
 
 All: "Oh, shocking! What in the world. 
 Do tell us?" 
 
 Lieut. Oglethrop here details the mishap and 
 capture of Col. Worthington as the same hwe 
 already been detailed in a previous chapter. 
 
 He also describes the meeting of Cloud and 
 Pleasington after the former left Col. Worthing- 
 ton alone in the wilderness, so far as the latter 
 has divulged the particulars of that affair to his 
 friends. 
 
 The Lieutenant entertains decided opinions as 
 to the mental reservations of his young friend 
 and brother officer, and strongly intimates that a 
 mystery thus remains unsolved. 
 
 He then continues: 
 
 " Three from my squadron came upon Cloud in 
 a position where flight was impossible. They 
 were sure of his capture. He rushed upon them 
 like a demented fury. This must have paralyzed 
 them with surprise for an instant; yet they 
 emptied their carbines and revolvers at him. 
 How many shots he fired they are unable to tell. 
 The affair did not last one minute ; yet it was 
 long enough for two of them to be shot out of 
 their saddles, seriously wounded, and the other 
 knocked or dragged out before he had time to 
 -draw his sabre after discharging his fire-arrris. 
 
 *' In the shortest possible time, this poor fel- 
 low, half senseless, yielded nis arms •, then under 
 the influence of liis own sabre, drawn in one 
 hand, and a iiresented revolver in the other, he 
 
56 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 unbuckled the arms from his wounded comrades, 
 and hung them on poor Col. Worthington's sad- 
 dle ; tied the three horses in a string, bridles and 
 tails together, and mounted the first. 
 
 " Up to this time Cloud had appeared a raging 
 demon; now in the mildest, most sympathetic 
 voice, he exi)ressed his regret that he was un- 
 able to extend to them the offices of humanity 
 which their hapless condition demanded; in- 
 formed them that the one able to walk could find 
 assistance just over the hill, at Maj. Pleasington's 
 bivouac; asked them to tell the Major they had 
 attacked him, and to send a Avhite flag after the 
 wounded man, and in the twinkhng of an eye 
 disappeared with his prisoner and booty ; this is 
 the last reliable information about him. 
 
 " The bullets fired by our boys rattled all 
 round the Colonel 
 
 " This so unstrung him that he dared not move 
 all day. His fire Avent out. He feared to re- 
 kindle it. With the darkness it commenced 
 snowing, and then he could not re-light it. For- 
 tunately he was protected from the wind and 
 sheltered from the snow by an overhanging rocky 
 cliff. He kept from freezing by standing up and 
 stamping all night. 
 
 " At daybreak he moved out, and soon fell in 
 with a party of our cavalry. He was returned to 
 his quarters very much crest-fallen and dejected. 
 
 " I think our boys attacking Cloud saved the 
 Colonel from imprisonment. Pleasington says 
 he would have been released. But I dispute it, 
 on the ground that Cloud and party are not in 
 the hal)it of releasing prisoners who are not 
 wounded ; and this assertion is verified by the 
 action he took with regard to our unwounded 
 boy." 
 
 Lady :M- 
 
 ' Oh, that is shockin<. 
 
 W 
 
 don't some of you put that desperado Cloud out 
 of the way ?" 
 
 LiKUT. : " Simph^j madam, because it is 
 
 catching before hanging. He lives inside of our 
 lines more than half the time ; is constantly cap- 
 turing our stragglers, many of whom are volun- 
 teer officers, absent from their posts, seeking to 
 make love to rebel ladies. The instance just re- 
 lated is the only time any of our forces have 
 been able to lay eyes on him, except as prisoners ; 
 
 and this also is the first occasion on which he 
 has fired a shot at any of our troops ; he never 
 bushwhaclcs, and even as an enemy he is bravej 
 kind-hearted, and magnanimous." 
 
 Lady M : '' I do not consider his treatment 
 
 of Col. Worthington magnanimous; it would 
 shame brigands and ravages." 
 
 Lieut. : " The Colonel merely met an ill- 
 starred chance of war, and is exceedingly fortu- 
 nate that he is not now in prison." 
 
 LadyM : "How is it that Maj. Pleasington's 
 
 horse and arms were not taken from him, the 
 same as were the Colonel's?" 
 
 Lieut. : " That is a hard question. Pleasing- 
 ton is as game and daring as Cloud. My theory 
 is that he was surprised at great disadvantage, 
 but would not yield; and that, as it was to 
 Cloud's interest and. safety to avoid creating the 
 alarm which firing would cause, they agreed to a 
 mutual truce. Certain it is that the advantage, £ 
 there was anything of the kind, was not with 
 Pleasington. In the Colonel's case he surren- 
 dered at discretion. 
 
 " This is all the news I have. Please let the 
 festivities proceed." 
 
 Ah ! how gracefully that new comer dances ! 
 Well ! we will look on, until that seat is retaken. 
 Here come Mr. Singleton and Miss Cassandra 
 to appropriate it now. 
 
 Singleton: "Miss Cassa, are a^ou determined 
 always to remain indifferent to me, and receive 
 my jirotestations with coldness ? When will you 
 deign to consider my miserable lot, and bestow 
 on your devoted adorer one word, one look, even 
 one thought, as an emblematic token of distant 
 hoj)e?" 
 
 Miss C : "I have consid(»red kindh' and 
 
 earnestly all you have ever said to me on this 
 serious subject, and decided with dispassionate 
 unselfishness. What my sentiments and feelings 
 have been, or might have been, are of no conse- 
 quence noAV. Circumstances over which I exer- 
 cise no degree of control, render it utterly impos- 
 sible for any relations ever to exist betAveen us, 
 more tender and sacred than those of simple 
 friendship. I have been, and am still, willing to 
 continue your friend. More than this I can 
 never be. If you desire to retain my friendship. 
 
THE SENSATION AT MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 57 
 
 if It is worth retaining, you will henceforth 
 rcfnxna from remotely broaching this subject 
 which to me is one fraught with inexpressible 
 I)ain. They are waiting for us." 
 
 This young gentleman can detect no consoling 
 ambiguity ni that answer, upon which he may 
 found a forlorn hope. But here comes Mr. 
 Atkmson and Miss Beatrice to the favorite 
 seat. 
 
 Mr. a : " Have you. Miss Beatrice, recon- 
 sidered the question relative to fixing the date 
 f(jr our nuptials? Can you name no more deli- 
 nite period than 'after the war,' as you 
 j)roinised to. do at our last interview?" 
 
 MiSS B — — : " Oh, yes; hut I have not changed 
 my resolution, Mr.Atkinson. These are not proper 
 times to think of marriages. If the war is long, 
 it IS better we remain single; if short, why then, 
 the time will the sooner become definite." 
 
 Mr. a : " I acquiesce in your decision the 
 
 more readily because I at first agreed to that 
 arrangement, and hence could not consistently 
 insist that it be changed unless entirely agreeable 
 to you. Now we will discuss it no more; and I 
 will anxiously watch the signs of the times, and 
 wait." 
 
 Miss B : "Matrimony is a lady's day of 
 
 slavery : the longer she defers assuming the 
 responsibility of this solemn obhgation the 
 longer she is free. But here comes Mr. String- 
 fellow and Rosalind for this seat; it is our turn 
 to dance, and they are waiting for us." 
 
 Stringfellow. : " Well, Miss Rosa, wliat has 
 been the final decision relative to the happy 
 event of celebrating the double ceremony in 
 which it is our blissful anticipation to partici- 
 pate ? " 
 
 Miss R. : "After the close of the war, Mr. 
 Striugfellow, just as soon as peace is fully 
 assured. Don't you think that is rushing things 
 with a yeugeanca? I contended for a grace of 
 one season, so we could enjoy, untrammeled, 
 the gay and festive celebrations of peace; 
 but Beatrice would not hear to it; and 
 mother supported her — which decided the 
 matter." 
 
 "Stringfellow: "I was selfish enough to 
 hope the time would have been more definitely 
 
 fixed, and not, at what now appears in all prolj- 
 ability, so distant a period." 
 
 Miss R : "And you then wished to hasten 
 
 matters more ? Why, Mr. Stringfellow, I am 
 amazed at the idea! It is too bad that I did 
 not know this sooner. But the information now 
 comes too late. The decree is recorded and 
 stands irrevocable. But they are waiting for 
 us ; and here comes Evalina with her gallant 
 cavalier for this seat." 
 
 Lieut. Oglethrop: "Miss Eva, everything 
 here to-night is bewitching and fascinating. It 
 is like a transformation scene of the Celestials 
 suddenly emei-ging from the wide waste of grim 
 terrors, compared with the scenes in iny daily 
 life and experience, sometimes in the tented, but 
 oftener in the untented, field. Thus not unfre- 
 cpiently alone at night, riding along from one 
 picket to another in impenetrable darkness, 
 through a dreary wilderness, with no sound 
 disturbing the awful silence, save the doleful, 
 lugubrious notes of the owl, — that solitary, dis- 
 cordant, desolate, echo-conjurmg bird of dismal 
 gloom." 
 
 Miss M : " It must be terrible. I sympathize 
 
 with you, and often think about the dreadful 
 dangers you face. I hear sometimes, through 
 Effie, Col. Worthington, or the newspapers, how 
 you and Maj. Pleasington court appahing dan- 
 gers and tempt fate. I fear some heart-rending 
 news will come some day to your friends, — reflec- 
 tions which make me shudder." 
 
 Lieut. : "Thanks, Miss Eva, for the 
 
 compliment conferred, by bestowing so much as 
 a passing thought on a poor soldier-boy doomed 
 to rely upon his sword as his only sure and con- 
 stant friend. It is, therefore, the more comfort- 
 ing and priceless consolation to know from your 
 own lips, — which I am sure the voice of flattery 
 never tarnishes, — that, even in your walks of life, 
 my poor services to my distracted country are 
 appreciated, and that my safety sometimes 
 engrosses the mind of one so fair and socially 
 elevated as yourself." 
 
 Miss E : " You are mistaken in supposing 
 
 that your sword is your only constant friend. 
 You have many true friends here this evening, 
 who regard you as the equal of any one in the 
 
58 
 
 IVIYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 land ; and who possess the good sense to know 
 that a few dollars do not measure the merit,value 
 and social position of men in these dark and 
 trying times." 
 
 Lieut. O : "Oh Miss Eva, you overwhelm 
 
 me with compliments that I am unable to ac- 
 knowledge appropriately. If it would at all inter- 
 est you, I will send you once or twice a month 
 a journal embodying an account of the most 
 striking occurrences that come under my obser- 
 vation. I oflfer this in recognition of my deep 
 and unutterable appreciation of your kind expres- 
 sions, but for which I should not think of daring 
 so much presumption. As a matter of course, I 
 should not expect you to acknowledge their 
 receipt." 
 
 Miss E : "Oh, Lieutenant, a thousand 
 
 thanks for this flattering consideration, which I 
 eagerly accept! I shall look forward to the com- 
 ing letters with anticipations of real pleasure, 
 knowing they will prove genuine treasures replete 
 Avith rare and thrilling interest. Please inclose, 
 and direct them to Effie. I will promptly return 
 my acknowledgment of the receipt of each 
 highly-prized compliment." 
 
 Lieut. : "I trust their nature, when you 
 
 receive them, may not prove a sad disappoint- 
 ment. By the way, Mr. Noel appears to be pro- 
 gressing in favor with Miss Eflie." 
 
 Miss E : " Seems to be is all. Everybody, 
 
 except poor wild Arnold and mother, knows that, 
 heart and soul, Effie is devoted to Lawrence 
 Pleasington. But here comes the truant and 
 Effie to change places with us ; our set is waiting 
 for us now." 
 
 Arnold: "Miss Effie, are we not going to be 
 better friends now, and see each other oftener 
 than formerly ? " 
 
 Effie: "Arnold Noel, I think from your con- 
 duct, without further reference or one particular 
 as to detail, which is fully known to me, that 
 you are determined we shall be much worse 
 friends, and that very soon." 
 
 Arnold: "But I am reforming, Miss Effie. I 
 see the errors of my wild ways — mere bovish 
 folly, you know — a weakness to which most boys 
 are subject." 
 
 Effie: " Since when has this freak of reforma- 
 
 tion influenced you ? Since you began to prepare 
 for this occasion, as you have before prepared for 
 others. You are a disgrace to your family, and 
 to every one who stoops to recognize you. But 
 for the veneration v^-hich I have for your aunt, I 
 would not speak to you. I am glad you have 
 given me this opportunity. I pity you, and 
 would do anything in my power to save 5^ou, if 
 I could, by reasonable sacrifices, exercise some 
 degree of influence over you. I do not Avish to 
 incur your aunt's displeasure, nor do I desire to 
 wound her feelings; but seriously, regardless of 
 consequences, unless 5^ou continue in an uninter- 
 rupted course of reformation, I shall never again 
 address you. Prove the sincerity of your profes- 
 sions of reformation, and then talk to me of 
 friendship." 
 
 Arnold : " Oh, Miss Effie, I Avill enlist in the 
 navy to-morrow morning, and be on the sea to- 
 morrow night, in order to get away from my evil 
 associations, and to blot out the stain Avith Avhich 
 they have blighted my name. After that Avould 
 you again be my friend? " 
 
 Effie : " I will be j'our friend Avhenever you 
 have proved yourself worth}^ of my friendship, 
 no matter hoAv or where you reform ; and my 
 daily prayers shall accompany you Avherever you 
 go. Until then farcAvell. The comjiany is pre- 
 paring to break up, so our intervicAA' must end." 
 
 NoAv, indulgent readers, you have seen some 
 of the actors Avho are to perform complex parts 
 in this drama. They are noAV leaving the stage- 
 the curtain is sloAvly descending to obscure the 
 beautiful scenery among which they have moved 
 — perfect in its loveliness as the fairy-tales the 
 poets tell, of mythical lands beyond unknoAvn 
 seas. 
 
 But after many days they will reappear. The 
 curtain — enveloper of the mystic and the mys- 
 terious, — again rising, will reveal upon the stage 
 these same interesting characters, av1i« must 
 further disclose additional lines in Nature's Avon- 
 drous book. Each is the architect, the author, 
 the embellisher of his or her OAvn peculiar page. 
 As he or she makes it, so Avill Ave faithfully 
 render it. 
 
 If we find that the pure and exquisitely per- 
 fect colors thev first used are becomino: soiled 
 
THE SENSATION AT MOUNTJOY HOUSE. 
 
 59 
 
 and dim, and that the magnificent back-ground 
 that promised so much for the future tracings of 
 the beautiful and the good, has become soiled and 
 polluted, we shall try to remember the primeval 
 splendors and unmeasured bliss enjoyed by the 
 fallen angels, and the once unapproachable 
 earthly happiness of the heaven-favored inherit- 
 ors of that blessed Paradise which they forfeited 
 and lost. 
 
 But these are forfeitures — the doom of the 
 Eternal, beyond the everlasting pale of redemp- 
 tion. So are the destinies of our beautiful and 
 pure, after they have once descended from their 
 Paradise — illuminated by the undimmed brilliancy 
 of radiant virtue and suffered that matchless 
 earthly crown — glittering with priceless gems of 
 honor, which decked their brows — a wreath of 
 hallowed glory, a legacy from the immortelles — to 
 be rudely torn from its wonted resting-place. 
 Then, after the despoiler places in its stead his 
 own ignoble brand, there is no hope for perfect 
 restoration to that lofty eminence from Avhich 
 they have fallen. But consumed continually by 
 devouring flames of despair; lacerated con- 
 stantly by the scourge of remorse ; and, forever 
 groaning under the stings inflicted by an all-sub- 
 duing but unavailing regret, in sorrow and in 
 shame, all the days of their lives must they un- 
 ceasingly eat from that evil tree which they 
 themselves planted, the fruit of bitterness and 
 ashes. 
 
 However, there is still safety and hope for 
 thousands and thousands who have not so far 
 forfeited their priceless heritage. To these can 
 the lessons which one by one our tale unfolds, be- 
 come subject matter for consideration of grave 
 and serious impoi't. 
 
 We are slowly, but steadily and surely, unroll- 
 ing a chart of the voyage of life: striving to 
 leave no dangerous reefs nor treacherous points 
 unindicated by clear and securely anchored buoj^s 
 or head-land beacon-lights, as signals to warn 
 tlie mariner of his danger. 
 
 A close observer will quickly divine, as we 
 progress, where and how the bark of any one of 
 our voyagers, either unwarily or willfully, first 
 touches the treacherous reefs or the dangerous 
 rocks, and how it is still further drawn on and 
 
 away from the course of duty, to which it may 
 return no more. 
 
 Be jiatient: the voyage is long; its vicissitudes 
 and dangers are multitudinous. 
 
 Do not look with contempt upon the bright 
 features of our characters while they are, meas- 
 urably all, yet beautiful and good, because you 
 are satisfied that some of them are destined for 
 shipwreck. While they are pure and honorable, 
 they are admirable and worthy. Were none of 
 them fated to perish, or rather too weak to resist 
 the toils of the destroyer ; and were there no 
 others in the world liable to become victims to a 
 like dreadful doom, the necessity for lessons of 
 warning against such impending and menacing 
 dangers, which boldly, almost defiantly, threaten 
 on all sides, would not exist. 
 
 To cause the thoughtless traveler to pause and 
 consider these dangers, as he gazes on the wrecks 
 that strew the way on every hand, in time to es- 
 cape a similar fate, is the object of these labors — 
 to incite in the good and the pure a purpose and 
 a resolve to retain their jewels — to show them 
 how priceless are those little gems Avhich so 
 many lightly value and trifle with while they 
 have them, and of which they so bitterly bewail 
 the loss when they are theirs no more. 
 
 Take one last lingering look at this scene of 
 beauty and purity blended in such lovely har- 
 mony, to retain an impression of its exquisite 
 splendors, in order to contrast them properly 
 with those that are to follow as its successors. 
 If they are less bright, less pleasing to the eye, 
 and less appealing to the heart, we can do no 
 more than lament the shadoAVS and the gloom 
 that have surrounded them, where we should pre- 
 fer the sunlight of beauty and purity to shine 
 forevermore. 
 
 Those of our characters who may, perchance, 
 long weather the gale and breast the billoAvs to a 
 haven of safety — nay, should but one arrive, par- 
 don us if we laud that glorious achievement — will 
 Avell deserve a wreath of laurel and immortelles. 
 Those who may go down beneath the waves in 
 the fathomless depths of the sea, for them per- 
 mit us to weep, shed tears of contrition all we 
 can bestow; for we know, oh, how truly, the 
 nameless woes theirbitter cups will have contained! 
 
60 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 We deal with the problem in its carnal bear- 
 ings : the thralldom of spiritual penalties is the 
 minister's theme. Our mission henceforth is to 
 contrast the fruits of good and evil in this life. 
 We design this as a solitary, grim, and ghostly 
 sentinel, to warn mariners of their dangers on 
 the sea of sin ; to denounce the wiles of the de- 
 stroyer and the wages of his victims, as practiced 
 and realized in this world. We make this sentinel 
 cry aloud, as it were, until hoarse from excessive 
 shouting, in a voice of thunder tones, to resound 
 above the wild roar of the surrounding tem- 
 pest, echo and re-echo, and go on reverberating 
 and moaning "Danger! danger! Ruin! ruin! 
 ruin ! " down through the centuries. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE MOUNTAIN CA: 
 
 :n. 
 
 "Can tyrants but by tyrants conquered be, 
 
 And freedom find no champion and no ctiild : 
 Such as Columbia saw arise when she 
 
 Sprung fortli a Pallas armed and undefiled? 
 Or must such minds tse nourished in the wild. 
 
 Deep in unpruned forests, 'mid the roar 
 Of cataracts, where nursing nature smiled 
 
 On infant Washington." — Byeon. 
 
 " Full many a gem of brightest ray serene, 
 The dark unfathomed caves of Ocean bear; 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. 
 And waste its fragrance on the desert air." 
 
 — Thos. Gkay. 
 
 The true romance, or drama of life, is life itself; 
 in which mingle alike the prince on his throne, 
 and the outcast beggar-lad crouching hungry and 
 cold on an unfriendly stoop, with no other place 
 to lay his little head. Both are sometimes 
 necessary characters to present a real life-scene. 
 There are, indeed, few lives either so humble or 
 so obscure that cannot at some period furnish 
 one little chapter of thrilling romance, making 
 an intensely interesting character in one act of a 
 drama, if the episode could only be reproduced 
 exactly as it occurred at the time. 
 
 Romance is by no means always fiction. Its 
 highest types that have ever been produced in 
 the world, had for their foundation stern, stub- 
 born realities, true as the pure gospel. "Often 
 there is the glowing light of genius, the bound- 
 less treasures of feeling and the most sublime 
 
 lessoits of morality in the obscure walks and 
 lowly lives of the humblest peasant, the soUtary 
 wagoner, or the lonely shepherd." 
 
 For these simple, yet powerful and irrefutable 
 reasons, the stern and sometimes pitiless lessons 
 of this drama will often be found with the most 
 intensified and thrilling romance entwined about 
 them. 
 
 It is often simply incredible how the lives of 
 different persons, apparently without either com- 
 mon bond or mutual sympathy between them, 
 are influenced and controlled by one another; 
 — how an idle word, spoken without the slightest 
 motive at the moment it was uttered ; how the 
 most trivial act, performed under the influence of 
 spontaneous impulse ; and how a casual, purely 
 accidental meeting with a stranger, changes the 
 whole bent and current of lives. How myste- 
 riously strange and incomprehensibly true are 
 the means by which actors who have never 
 known, or even heard of, one another, are drawn 
 together; andwithout any mutual compact or con- 
 cert of purpose, prosecute in perfect harmony 
 each a requisite part tending to produce one final 
 and accordant result, which they did not design 
 nor desire. Are not many such incidents often 
 romantic ? 
 
 Now we are away in the wild, bleak, desolate 
 mountains — a gap in a branch of the Blue Ridge 
 chain, which we gazed upon at a distance of thirty 
 miles, one bright May morning, from the point 
 where the actors in our first scene Avere gathering. 
 
 The forests are nude and dreary. "There is 
 not a flower on all the hills," and the earth is 
 draped in a deep mantle of driven snow. The 
 Uttle brooklets, which ripjjled so transparently 
 and murmured so sweetly then, are solidly bound 
 in the icy embrace of winter's fettering chain. 
 
 Never at any time is this rude, Avild region — 
 always replete with rugged Nature's fantastic 
 and weird scenes — so inhospitably uninviting as 
 on a day like this. Blinding clouds of fine snow 
 are driven before the sweeping blasts of the 
 howling Avind. Not a track of the proAvling 
 beasts of prey which inhabit these neighboring 
 mountain fastnesses, is anywhere to be seen : they 
 do not venture out from their lairs. 
 
 The primogenitive peasants stay closely beside 
 
THE MOUNTAIN CABIN. 
 
 61 
 
 the broad log-fire in their one-story, one-roomed 
 primitive, half-camp, half-cabin huts. From time 
 immemorial have their ancestors thus lived — it 
 would be sacrilege to depart from the custom. 
 
 In every respect their lives are blameless. 
 They are temperate in all things; believe the 
 Bible, and fear God. Their churches are the 
 same as were God's first temples — situated, even 
 until this present day, in a dense grove of stately 
 oaks, maples and hickories, buried deep in an 
 untamed virgin forest, often more than a mile 
 from any human habitation. Under the 
 friendl}^ branches of those grand old trees the 
 rude benches — made from saplings of chestnut — 
 wood split open, and the sphnters smoothed off 
 by a hand-ax — are arranged. Their earthly wants 
 are few. In their frugal dwelling-places luxuries 
 are unknoAvn ; yet incredible degrees of comfort 
 are there found. 
 
 Any one who has passed through these wild 
 regions, and called for a bite to eat at one of 
 these humble abodes, expecting a rough crust 
 of corn-bread, will readily recall the sensation 
 of agreeable surprise experienced at finding a 
 really excellent, palatable and varied meal. 
 
 These sirnpie cnildren of the mountain forest 
 are healthy as their herds of swine which roam 
 the wilds, and almost as hardy. They are robust, 
 weH-developed and athletic. The girls have cheeks 
 decked with the hues of the full-blown rose, and 
 are extremely modest and bashful. 
 
 These people reap the promised reward of 
 pure, temperate, virtuous, well-spent lives with 
 large interest. As a rule, they live to ages rang- 
 ing from eighty to ninety years; and many of 
 them see the frosts and hear the wailing winds 
 of a hundred wmters, before they go to their 
 long and peaceful slumbers, Avith their consciences 
 clear and the implicit, confiding faith of a little 
 child, to sleep the sleep of the innocent in their 
 narrow cells on the cloud-capped summit of their 
 native mountain. 
 
 Before the shrill, harsh notes of the trumpet of 
 war disturbed the even tenor of their humble 
 and peaceful lives, pure, devoted emotional love, 
 and true genuine happiness, such as may rarely 
 be found in mansions of wealth, reigned supreme 
 in the home-circles of these obscure and simple 
 mountaineers. 
 
 But with the war, wails of distress were heard 
 from out these mountain coves, where formerly 
 only songs of gladness had resounded. 
 
 Decendants from Revolutionary veterans, 
 adorers of Virginia, their mother — these zealous 
 sons of Liberty, as soon as the foot of a foeman 
 was heard tramping on their native soil, rushed 
 to the front, old and young, almost to a man, leav- 
 ing their section depopulated of able-bodied male 
 inhabitants. So universally was this true that many 
 families were left without a male member ; and 
 scarcely any had one between the ages of six- 
 teen and fifty years. 
 
 It is easier to imagine than to describe the pri- 
 vations and sufferings to which many such families 
 are exposed in this cold and cruel weather. 
 
 We are at a cabin — or rather climbing over snow- 
 drifts, and emerging from a deep and rugged rav- 
 ine, toward it — to secure shelter until the weather 
 becomes more favorable. The cabin outside has 
 much the same appearance as those of the better- 
 to-do classes all through this section. There is 
 a chicken-coop ; a little out-building called a 
 " smoke-house;" because in this the meat used by 
 the family is kept, and smoked to bacon ; a corn- 
 crib ; a milk-house, just below the bold mountain- 
 spring; a pig-pen and a stable; a pony and a 
 cow in the stable ; and a feAV cattle and sheep on 
 the lee-side, seeking some shelter from the cold 
 and pitiless wind. There is a fine orchard of vari- 
 ous fruit-trees, and a handsome little vineyard 
 clustering round the cabin. 
 
 While we are yet quite a distance away, we 
 see a sleigh drive rapidly up to the gate, a young 
 girl descend from it, and go lightly tripping into 
 the cabin, Avhile. the sleigh turns and dashes 
 rapidly back in the direction from whence it 
 came. 
 
 We soon tap at the door, which is opened by a 
 meek, sweet-faced lady not past the middle- 
 age, and strangely beautiful, despite the clearly 
 defined traces of care which are deeply imprinted 
 on her features. With an air of refinement and 
 a dignity of manner which unmistakably indicate 
 a degree of high-breeding that causes us a thrill 
 of astonishment, she welcomes and presents us a 
 seat in front of a cozy fire of hickor3^ She seats 
 herself at one corner-place of the hearth. The 
 
02 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 young girl ju8t mentioned is warming her pretty 
 little self at the other corner. 
 
 There is no other human being visible about 
 the tidy little premises, which present a comfort- 
 able, home-like appearance, and are scrupulously 
 clean, neat, and tastefully arranged. The occu- 
 pants are mother and daughter. 
 
 Mother : " Eosalia, why, in mercy's name, did 
 you come home on a day like this? I was not 
 expecting you." 
 
 Rosalia: "Mother, I could not think of ^^r-j- 
 ing away from you another hour, and the weather 
 growing w^orse; on your account they were anx- 
 ious to send me before the roads and country are 
 entirely impassable." 
 
 Mother : " You are a good dear child, Rosalia, 
 to brave such a snow-storm to come home to 
 mother. True, darling, the roads may all be 
 blocked and impassable by to-morrow." 
 
 Rosalia: "Oh, mother! I must tell you about 
 3'esterday. We went away up nearl3r to the 
 
 Mountain Meadows, to Captain K 's funeral. 
 
 He was killed last week in a skirmish somewhere 
 out West, and they sent him home to his poor 
 wife and children, to be buried. He was cousin 
 to the Clouds. How my heart bled for his wife 
 and children ! Their grief was wild and pitiful. 
 
 " The church was crowded until there was no 
 standing-room, and people built fires outside. 
 
 " Col. Cloud, G-arland's father, was there with 
 his arm in a sling, from the wound which we heard 
 he received. His daughters, Virgie and Hattie, 
 were there. They never saw me before; but, 
 broken-hearted as they were from grief for their 
 dead cousin, they came straight to me, kissed me, 
 and said they were going away to Beaver Mount- 
 ain to see us just as soon as the weather would 
 permit. The old Colonel came up to me, and 
 held my hand long and firmly pressed in his, 
 while two great tear-drops stood in his large 
 hazel eyes, as he gazed on me in silence, as 
 though he was reading every line in my features, 
 and some stifled emotion struggled in his breast, 
 until at last he said: 'Little girl, you are a 
 stranger to me, but your brother's name I know 
 as that of the bravest lad in the army of Northern 
 Virginia. I am glad to meet the sister of such a 
 noble soldier-boy, and I want to know his 
 
 mother. I intend to call and see you and her as 
 I return to the army, which will be in a very fcAv 
 days.' " 
 
 Just at this point in Rosalia's narration, there 
 is a gentle tap on the little cabin door. The 
 mother hastens to re.spond. On opening the 
 door, there stands the beautiful figure of a ma- 
 jestic young lady, enveloped in rich furs. Her 
 cheeks glow, her sparkling eyes flash with the 
 fire of resolution. She is a fairy-dream image of 
 beauty. On beholding her, the mother and 
 daughter utter each a sharp little scream. 
 
 We are stupified with amazement, and begin 
 to wonder if we are mingling in or beholding a 
 scene where the angels congregate. We have 
 been in sight and inside of the cabin only a very 
 few moments. Even now we begin to feel that 
 it is not impossible to meet any other new won- 
 der, and that such awaiting to burst in upon us, 
 here in this magical domain of the unknown, 
 should not be regarded as at all strange. 
 
 Instantly the two fair hostesses recover from 
 their momentary surprise, and, trembling appar- 
 ently with the secret dread that this strange visit 
 forbodes something terrible to themselves — is 
 an angehc comfortress come with the evil tidings 
 which might be brought, — and with white lips 
 they both simultaneously but whisperingly ex- 
 claim : 
 
 "Oh, Miss Harman! what terrible occurrence 
 has brought or caught you in these wild regions, 
 safar from your valley home in a storm like 
 this? Do come quickly to the fire. You must 
 be nearly frozen." 
 
 Miss Harman: "I crave your pardon for hav- 
 ing frightened you, ladies. Calm your fears. 
 Duty brings me here. I bring no evil tidings. 
 I am seeking Mrs. Flowers and her daughter, 
 Rosalia. Are you not these ladies? You seem 
 to know me, though I do not know you." 
 
 Mrs. Flowers : " Oh, yes, Miss Harman, we 
 know you, and are the ladies you seek . But 
 what, permit me to wonder, can bring you 
 here, twelve miles through such terrible weather 
 to seek us?" 
 
 Miss H : " The terrible weather, madam, 
 
 and the knowledge that you were two lone, 
 feeble women, away in this desolate mountain, 
 
TKE MOUNTAIN CABIN. 
 
 perhaps sick, helpless, and destitute, while your 
 brave little son is exposing his health and life, 
 away yonder, near the banks of the Potomac, 
 in this weather, defending old Virginia and 
 rae. 
 
 "I have received a mandate that I cannot, 
 dare not disobey, to look after his mother and 
 sister, and see that they do not suffer while he 
 is away. I could not rest nor sleep peacefully 
 until I performed the duty of seeing you, so that 
 you could write him the comforting words of 
 assurance to cheer his brave heart, that mother 
 and little sister had friends sent to them by that 
 God whom he believes so confidingly will pro- 
 vide for them. 
 
 " I am organizing A Soldiers' Family Relief 
 Society, having for its object the care of soldiers' 
 families in all the mountain districts surrounding 
 our valley, and expect to have the cooperation 
 of every lady in my section. Thus can we idle, 
 worthless girls find employment and serve our 
 country. The same voice that sent me to you 
 commanded me to perform the other duty of 
 organizing the society named. In this service 
 nothing but sickness excuses from duty. In- 
 clemency of the weather and lighter matters we 
 must not pause to consider. 
 
 " But, separate and independent of the Society 
 and its labors, I have taken it upon myself as a 
 pleasing individual duty to call on you and see 
 to your comfort and welfare. For this purpose, 
 in the name of Jesse Flowers, the bravest of the 
 brave soldier-boys am I here to day ; and proud 
 am I to have this honor, and to know his 
 mother and sister, with whom I hope to become 
 intimately acquainted, and that we may be the 
 best of friends." 
 
 Mrs. F : "Oh, Miss Harman! your kind- 
 ness dumbfounds me. I cannot understand how 
 you know so much about, and why you take so 
 great an interest in, Jesse, and praise his bravery. 
 We are hearing much about him, but it all comes 
 from strangers, and not from himself or his com- 
 rades. He wrote that he fought very hard, and 
 a great many were killed near him at Manassas ; 
 and that was all. Now the country is begin- 
 ning to sound his praises. There must be some 
 mistake about it." 
 
 Miss H : "Not the slightest, madam. I 
 
 assure you it is true." 
 
 Mrs. F : " So far as I know, the boy has 
 
 Ijut one true, devoted friend in the whole army, 
 outside of his simple, kind-hearted, neighbor 
 boys. Garland Cloud is that friend; and we 
 hear he is the boldest boy from these mountains. 
 Are you acquainted with the Clouds?" 
 
 Mtss H : " No, madam ; I have never met 
 
 one of them. Col. Cloud has already distin- 
 guished himself, and been promoted three times 
 for gallant and meritorious services. The mount- 
 ain people are winning many laurels." 
 
 Mrs. F : "With reference to your kind 
 
 Christian mission here to us. Miss Harman, by 
 the goodness of God, we are in a condition to need 
 no assistance for a long time. Our little crop 
 was excellent. We have received considerable 
 money from Jesse — all his wages, and some 
 assistance from unknown sources, that we are 
 unable to understand, about which you shall 
 know." 
 
 "But your driver will soon freeze. I will show 
 him where he can put your horses under a shel- 
 ter; and tell the poor fellow to come in to the fire, 
 as I must detain you some little time before you 
 set out to return." 
 
 Miss H : " Thank you, madam. You are 
 
 very kind. I am disposed to remain an hour or 
 two, as there are many things about which I de- 
 sire to talk with you." 
 
 [Mrs. Flowers pas.ses out of the room.] 
 
 Rosalia.: "Excuse me. Miss Carrie, but 
 mother did not tell you how we knew you so 
 quickly. We have seen you often at camp-meet- 
 ings, and also where they were organizing 
 companies to go to the war." . 
 
 Miss H : "Yes, Rosa, I remember you and 
 
 your mother now, but never knew who you were, 
 nor where you lived." 
 
 Rosalia ; " Miss Carrie, here is a little old wine, 
 made from our grapes. It will do you good after 
 your long ride in the storm." 
 
 Miss H : "Ah, Rosa, this is equal to the 
 
 finest champagne. Did you and your mother 
 make it?" 
 
 Rosalia. : " Yes, Miss Carrie, we made it. We 
 prepare a great many things from our grapes and 
 
04 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 fruit, that euablu us to subsist; and we like 
 them." 
 
 Miss II : '"You have not always lived hero, 
 
 or at least you have been away at school, have 
 you not ? " 
 
 PiOSALi.v: "^^'e have lived in this cabin since 
 before I was a child less than a year old. Jesse 
 and I have been to no school never a single day 
 in ovir lives. Mother taught us all Ave know. 
 She graduated when she was a girl; has been a 
 lady in her day, Avith all the wealth that heart 
 could wiah. 
 
 " She saved a great many valuable books, which 
 have been her only companions in many a sad 
 and lonely hour while Jesse and I were growing 
 up, and since, when we are sometimes away 
 from her. Slie has taught us, from the time Ave 
 first began to speak, French, German, Italian and 
 Spanish, until now each language is as familiar to 
 us as the English. She also taught us to trust in 
 God, and to believe that in His own good time 
 He Avould remove the shadows and clouds from 
 our patliAvay; and that someday, in. the far fu- 
 ture, Ave Avould walk in the bright sunshine of 
 life, and fdl useful positions in the Avorld. Thus 
 have we groAvn up and lived to what you see and 
 knoAV of us now. HoAvever, Ave have been quite 
 as happy and comfortable as the majority of our 
 poor neighbors. These people are very good and 
 kind to us. 
 
 " Mother has taught their children,and crocheted 
 fancy work for the girls. They have paid her in 
 work, honey, flour and many other things that 
 helped her along. The old hunters frequently 
 send us some choice pieces of the game they kill. 
 Mother noAv has a piece of bear baking and some 
 venison cooking. 
 
 " Those kind-hearted old men often come to hear 
 Jesse's letters and the paper read, and take a 
 meal with us. Mother occasionally writes some- 
 thing for a Richmond paper, and they have sent 
 her a daily ever since the commencement of the 
 Avar." 
 
 Miss H : " Rosalia, have I been dreaming, 
 
 or listening to a veritable romance of mountain 
 life ? To think of the hidden treasures, pictures 
 of real, pure, natural life buried here in the re- 
 mote recesses of these grand old mountains — 
 
 things for AA'hieli Ave poor, school-crushed girls 
 of the valley pine and ransack the libraries to 
 find in vain — being, all these years unknown to 
 us, Avithin two hours' ride of our doors ! 
 
 "But concerning your mother before she came 
 here — how Avas her life then, Rosa? I am all 
 impatience to hear that part of the story. What 
 brought your mother from the midst of fa.=;hion 
 and Avealth, to these wild and dreary shadoAved 
 mountains? " 
 
 Rosalia: "Here comes mother, Miss Carrie. 
 She AAnll tell you." 
 
 ]\fiss H : "Mrs. Flowers, Rosa has been re- 
 lating to me something of your experience in the 
 mountains, and that you came here from the 
 world of fashion and affluence. If agreeable, 
 hoAv delighted I should be to hear something 
 about that romantic transition!" 
 
 Mrs. F : " Not a word of that until dinner 
 
 is over; then I will recount it to you, although it 
 carries me back to memories fraught Avith inex- 
 pressible pain. 
 
 "Uncle Jack, take this seat, and Avarm — j^oor 
 felloAV, I knoAV your hands and feet are nearly 
 frozen. 
 
 "Now, Miss Harman, I am going to give 
 you a regular rough-and-ready mountain dinner, 
 including some spoils from the chase, just to 
 show you that we are in no immediate danger of 
 suffering for the necessaries of fife. And Avhile 
 I am preparing the rude repast, I wish to com- 
 plete my statement, explaining why we do not 
 noAv require assistance, in order that you may 
 understand fully that we are not actuated by a 
 false pride when telling you that Ave need no 
 aid, because I realize that the day may come 
 Avhen we Avill sadly require it." 
 
 Miss H : " I am proud to have the honor, 
 
 Mrs. Flowers, of dining Avith a realistic living 
 heroine ; for this, I am sure you are, — that ideal 
 type of the heroine which I was persuaded had 
 never existed in the world, was a mere mythi- 
 cal creation coined in the fertile brain of vision- 
 ary authors. And I am inexpressibly pleased 
 to find you in a condition to need no help 
 now ; and hope and trust you may so remain. I 
 shall listen Avith deep interest to what you say 
 in explanation r-elative to this cheerful feature 
 
THE MOUNTAIN CABIN. 
 
 65 
 
 of your present condition, from now until dinner 
 is over ; and will not disturb you until your narra- 
 tive is completed." 
 
 Mrs. F : " Well, in the first place. Miss Har- 
 
 nian, Jesse has been supplied with an overcoat, 
 blanket, boots, underclothing — in fact, everything 
 he needed, through the instrumentality of Gar- 
 land Cloud. This enables Jesse to send us all 
 his pay. Then again we have received several 
 small anonymous sums — nearly two hundred 
 dollars in all, — within the last four months, which 
 fact has caused me no httle anxiety, as I was 
 entirely unable to conjecture the source whence 
 it came, or for what reason it was sent." 
 
 " Moreover, to cap the climax of my bewilder- 
 ing astonishment, last week these two letters and 
 the articles referred to in them reached us. 
 Eead them, please, and see if you can advance a 
 theory that will solve this strange mysterj^, 
 which to me is so truly incomprehensible. Read 
 them aloud, please, that I may hear them one 
 time in a new voice." 
 
 '"New York, Dec. 25, 1861. 
 " ' Mrs. Gertrude Flowers, 
 
 " ' Beaver Mountain, Va. 
 '" Jiac?aTO.• 
 " ' As a token of my gratitude and appreciation 
 for the kindness of your son Jesse in aiding to 
 save the life of a wounded United States officer 5t 
 the battle of Manassas, — a very near and very dear 
 friend of mine, — I beg that you will deign to ac- 
 cept from an unknown Northern girl, the articles 
 inclosed in the package to be found in the ac- 
 companying box, marked with your name — they 
 are for you. The one with Rosalia's name is for 
 your daughter. 
 
 " ' I trust the articles may reach you in safety, 
 and be serviceable to you in these deplorable 
 times ; and that your good son may be spared to 
 you. I am, madam, with sincere, heart-felt grat- 
 itude, " ' Very respectfully, 
 
 '"Effie Edelstein.'" 
 
 " 'Washington, D. C, Dec. 25, 1861. 
 '"Mrs. Gertrude Flowers. 
 
 " ^ Madam: 
 " ' Inclosed are five hundred dollars in sterling 
 bills, for yourself and daughter, sent in acknowl- 
 
 edgment of my gratitude for the kindness of 
 your son, in aiding to save my dearest friend's 
 life at the battle of Manassas, 
 
 " ' Respectfully, 
 
 '"Silas Worthington.'" 
 
 Miss H : " What has Jesse written you in 
 
 relation to this matter ? " 
 
 Mrs. F : "Never a word. We have writ- 
 ten to him abouf it since these letters were 
 received. He answered that he aided in caring 
 for the wounded nearly all night after the battle 
 at Stone Bridge." 
 
 Miss H : " Did he mention any other per- 
 sons by whom he was assisted in that work ? " 
 
 Mhs. F : "Oh, yes!— Garland Cloud." 
 
 Miss H : " Then I can probably solve this 
 
 mystery. Doctor Chamberlain, when he was at 
 home, told us about a Lieut. Pleasington, of the 
 Northern army, who was brought off the field to 
 him in a very critical condition by young Cloud 
 and a companion ; and that he had never before 
 witnessed such intense gratitude as this young 
 officer had manifested to those young men while 
 they were with him, and in relation to them after 
 they were gone. The doctor took a great fancy 
 to this young foeman, and interested himself in 
 having him paroled and sent home. The parties 
 sending you these tokens of gratitude are, un- 
 doubtedly friends of that young man ; perhaps 
 the young lady is more than a friend. However, 
 be this as it may, here is unmistakable evidence 
 of a gratitude far beyond anything I have ever 
 heard or read." 
 
 Mrs. F -: "That is, in iJl probabihty, the 
 
 true explanation, and all that I shall doubtless ever 
 obtain. Jesse has thought this incident too un- 
 important even to mention it. But look what 
 wonderful results that little seed of kindness, cast 
 out by hazard upon the wild waste of human 
 appreciation — from which so little gratitude ever 
 springs — by striking a moist, rich spot in the arid 
 sterile desert, has produced for his lonely, hum- 
 ble little home. Such results the poor, poor boy 
 could not have attained by the sweat of his brow 
 and the labor of his hands in two long and 
 tedious years." 
 
 Miss H : " Now, Mrs. Flowers, please do 
 
GG 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 for favor to tell me how you luive become pro- 
 ficient in the making of these nice butters, jellies, 
 preserves, wines and other things. We are igno- 
 rant of the secrets of this fine art, much as we 
 have studied and practiced it." 
 
 Mrs. F ■: "I learned it from my husband, 
 
 my father, and from original formulas in old 
 French books which I have. Mr. or Gen. Flow- 
 ers, my father-in-law, was a great utilizer of 
 fruits and grapes, and was a perfect master of 
 the art. 
 
 " He sprung from a noble French family, served 
 under La Fayette in the Revolutionary War, and 
 was a general in the war of 1812-14. After we 
 were married, his son and I, we spent consider- 
 able time with the old gentleman. • Although he 
 was very old and feeble, he prided himself upon 
 personally superintending the productions of his 
 orchards and vineyards; and took special pains 
 to initiate me in the secrets of the art, which he 
 said might some day be serviceable to me, should 
 the dark wing of misfortune spread its unfriendly 
 shadow over my head. He spoke thus in a seri- 
 ous tone, and always with visible emotion. 
 Prophetic words ! But dear, devoted old man, 
 he had passed serenely over the deep waters of 
 the dark river — he did not stay to endure the 
 torture of seeing them fulfilled. Miss Harman, 
 you will excuse my weakness — the tears will 
 come." 
 
 Miss H : " Weep, my poor sister, weep ! 
 
 Those are sacred drops — the tears of gratitude 
 and devotion. Better, far better, for other un- 
 feeling, unthinking hearts, were their eyes of tener 
 dimmed by the same moisture. My unworthy 
 heart bleeds for you. It seems that I have gained 
 the experience and knowledge of an age in the 
 one little hour that it has been my good fortune 
 to be under your roof. 
 
 " I fear the task will be too great, the sacrifice 
 more than you ought to make, to complete your 
 narrative, which I perceive is bitterly painful." 
 
 Mrs. F : " No, Miss Harman I will com- 
 plete it. It may contain a lesson worth even your 
 consideration. I am stronger now. I will not 
 break down. Dinner is over, and if you are 
 ready to listen, I will proceed." 
 
 Miss H : " I am very, very anxious to hear 
 
 it. I shall listen with deep interest and sym- 
 pathy." 
 
 AIrs. F : "I liave already sufficiently de- 
 tailed the history of my father-in-law. I will but 
 add that he had accumulated quite a fortune ; that 
 he had an only son, and no other blood kins- 
 man in America. This son, Jesse, was a graduate 
 of West Point, and also has been trained by a 
 large old New York firm for a merchant. 
 
 "On the breaking out of the Mexican War he 
 joined the army, and filled an important office 
 with bravery and distinction throughout the 
 entire conflict. 
 
 " I was left an orphan when two years old; 
 the yellow fever carried away my parents in one 
 day. I was their only child, and an heiress to 
 an immense estate in Louisiana. I was raised 
 and educated with great care by my grandfather, 
 who died when I was still young. He left me 
 another fortune. 
 
 " After this I went to New Orleans to live with 
 the family o'f a dear friend of grandfather's. I 
 met Col. Flowers there, on his Avay home from 
 Mexico. It was a case of mutual love at first 
 sight, resulting, young as I was, in a speedy 
 marriage. 
 
 " For tAvo years we divided our time about 
 eciually between my Southern estates, where we 
 spent the winter, and his father's Northern home», 
 where we passed the summer. At the end of this 
 time the old gentleman died. 
 
 " Then we sold both estates, and made our home 
 in New York, where he entered the wholesale 
 trade with two old merchants, or rather men who 
 had spent their days in that business, although 
 they were not then very old. Their names were 
 Ira Atkinson, and Adam Stringfellow, and that 
 of the firm, Atkinson, Flowers & Co. With the 
 trade and experience these two men already pos- 
 sessed, added to the large amount of money which 
 Col. Flowers carried into the firm, the business 
 soon grew to prodigious proportions, unsurpassed 
 by any other house in the same line. 
 
 " The second year we were in New York my 
 health failed, and we decided that it was best I 
 should go to the Sulphur Springs, just beyond Elk 
 Mountain. 
 
 " On our journey by rail, I became greatly 
 
THE MOUNTAIN CABIN. 
 
 67 
 
 exhausted ; but we proceeded at once in a car- 
 riage. When we arrived at this very cabin, I 
 could go no farther. Col. Flowers called at the 
 cabin. I was taken in without one moment's 
 hesitation — in fact the place was virtually aban- 
 doned to us; although the good man. ^filton Land, 
 and Emma, his wife^ remamed to wait on us. She 
 cared for little Jesse, and nursed me like a mother. 
 I never can forget that angelic face bending over 
 me, nor her ten:ider, sympathetic voice, which 
 then sounded sweeter and more melodious to my 
 ear than the most rapturous music I had ever 
 heard. 
 
 " The tenth morning I was much better. I 
 thought then the water from that grand old 
 spring surpassed the most delicate nectars in 
 the world ; and that tho soft, ripe peaches and 
 cream brought forth from out that stone spring 
 house, excelled all the dainties I had ever tasted. 
 
 " That evening I was able to continue the 
 journey. 
 
 *' Those people would neither accept one cent 
 of compensation nor receive any sort of present 
 from our hands; and they actually manifested 
 strong indignation when we endeavored to insist. 
 The Colonel took their address; and we parted 
 with the young couple, who were then only a short 
 time married. 
 
 " In about four months my health was perfectly 
 restored, and we were back at home in New 
 York. I then sent Mr. and Mrs. Land some pres- 
 ents, and wrote them such a letter that they could 
 not refuse to accept them. From that time 
 I wrote to the good little woman every month. I 
 called her the Angel of thermountain and she was 
 worthy of the name. 
 
 ''Col. Flowers was happy, and so was I; 
 more on his account, however, than from any 
 special fondness I cherished for the grand and 
 brilhant life which I was leading in the city; 
 because there was in it and its intoxicating 
 whirls, for me at least, not one scintilla of true 
 enjoyment, except that found in the quietude of 
 my own home. 
 
 "I can never forget one queen of fashion, 
 Mrs. Mountjoy, who called on me at times, and 
 appeared very fond of me. Her beauty was 
 wonderful, and her pride and her ambition 
 
 knew no bounds. In society her will was laAV, 
 her rule despotic. 
 
 "One fine morning in July, Saturday, Col. 
 Flowers and I went to the Sea Beach. His 
 spirits were buoyant. He was happiness and 
 contentment personified. He loved the sea — 
 and from a child had sported at Avill on its 
 billows. This morning there was a fine breeze, 
 and his heart was set on having a sail. As the 
 sea had always made me sick in very calm 
 weather, whenever I had been on it, even my 
 going with him was not mentioned. 
 
 " When he was ready, there chanced to be no 
 acquaintance near by for him to invite as a com- 
 panion, and he set out alone, gay and joyous as 
 ever the impulsive Frenchman enters . upon any 
 amusement or pleasure which he intensely 
 relishes. 
 
 ""I watched him from my window at the hotel, 
 and we exchanged signals by waving our white 
 handkerchiefs as the little boat sped, on its Avay 
 before the fair and stiffening breeze, until it 
 appeared a mere solitary speck on the wide 
 waste of waters with which it was surrounded. 
 
 " My babe, little Rose, attracted my attention 
 for a moment. Quickly my longing eyes turned 
 back to rest again upon their fond object, but in 
 vain : it was nowhere to be seen. Like a pall 
 of despair, the mist of spray had woven a thick 
 and purple curtain, that fell across the surface of 
 the deep, between me and the solitary figure 
 upon that grand yet cruel ocean, which I 
 eagerly strained my eyes to see once more. 
 
 " It was as though I was lost in darkness, gazing 
 on and on into the shadows^ striving to catch one 
 guiding star of light — a light that will bless my 
 pathway, leading me to safety — a light that I see 
 not, that will not break across my dreary way. 
 And like a child, I cry out, frightened, and know- 
 ing not what I fear. 
 
 "The little phosphorescent waves glowed 
 against that dark, hazy back-ground of spray 
 with a brilliancy, lovelier than any jewel that 
 ever gleamed on a monarch's brow. 
 
 "Never can I forget the sensation of loneli- 
 ness which in that moment crept over, and 
 oppressed me. Great drops of cold perspiration 
 stood upon my broAv. My blood seemed to be 
 
MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 curdling in its veins. But once since have I 
 experienced an ordeal like this : that was the 
 morning when Jesse disappeared round the curve 
 of the road up yonder, on his way to the army ; 
 then I felt the same sensation of hopeless 
 lonehness. 
 
 " For hours I gazed out on that watery solitude. 
 Oh, those terrible hours ! In them I lived ages 
 of mortal, agonizing anguish. 
 
 " Gradually the sky away out at sea became 
 overcast and lowering. Within twenty minutes 
 after I first noticed this, a white squall was 
 sweeping oA^er the face of the placid deep, and 
 lashing its tranquil waters into wild and boister- 
 ous waves. These came with deafening roars, 
 l)reaking upon the beach; each cruel sound strik- 
 ing my wretched heart as the pitiless vibrations 
 of the death bell, tolling out the sad dirges of 
 some departed spirit. 
 
 " When the storm had spent its fury, and the 
 sun appeared again on high, bright and joyous as 
 if there were no woes in the world, and no 
 hearts to break, the boat was found on the 
 beach, not more than tAvo hundred yards from 
 the point from which it had sailed in the morn- 
 ing. And one hour later — oh, cruel fate ! pitiless 
 destiny ! — the body of my poor husband was 
 found a mile away, white and cold, in the icy 
 embrace of death. 
 
 " I was a lonely widow, without, as far as I 
 knew, one near relative of either my husband's 
 or my own in the world. 
 
 " I was delirious with grief. I cannot lecall 
 anything distinctly, until the next day I awoke 
 to consciousness, in bed, in my own room. Mrs. 
 Mountjoy was by my side nearly all the time 
 until a late hour that night; and came home with 
 me from the funeral the next day, remaining 
 then also until late. 
 
 "On Tuesday, the day after the funeral, I 
 received numerous calls and tokens of condo- 
 lence. On Wednesday morning it was formally 
 announced that Atkinson, Flowers & Co. had 
 suspended ; that the late Mr. Flowers, as it had 
 transpired, had been engaged in extensive specu- 
 lations without the knowledge of the other 
 members of his firm, which was found to be 
 hopelessly involved. And with this announce- 
 
 ment was coupled insinuations too contemptil)le 
 to utter. 
 
 " The next condolence I received was a visit 
 from an officer, accompanied by Mr. Stringfellow, 
 to seize the house and property. 
 
 "I was coldly informed by Mr. Stringfellow 
 that I would be a beggar in the streets, and that 
 I must vacate the premises within the space of 
 thirty days. A man was left in charge of the 
 property. They then deprived me of man}^ rights, 
 and a legal allowance that I did not know I was 
 entitled to receive; but I was too wretched and 
 helpless to seek counsel. 
 
 "At once my former flattering friends aban- 
 doned me; not one of them came to my aid: 
 did not even deign to recognize me on the street 
 when I went out a few days after; the servants 
 were insolent; and some poor persons to whom I 
 had been kind and lilDeral, treated me with marked 
 disrespect. 
 
 " One day Mrs. Mountjoy's carriage passed me 
 on the street. Messrs. Atkinson and String-fel- 
 low occupied seats with her in it, and were as 
 jovial, and apparently as happy, as possible. — They 
 compromised at twenty-five cents on the dollar. 
 
 "My greatest terror was where to go and 
 what to do, and about my sweet, innocent little 
 babes, all unconscious of that hopeless despair 
 and grief Avrenching the heart-strings of their 
 poor, heilpless, friendless mother. My tender da-z-- 
 lings ! what would become of them ? These were 
 the questions always and ever ringing in my 
 ears, and driving me mad, because they were 
 truly unanswerable. 
 
 "I realized that I must descend to a low 
 and humble sphere of life. But how? What 
 could I do ? I was as helpless as a little child, 
 and more ignorant of the world below the high 
 sphere where I had always breathed the air of 
 boundless independence. 
 
 " I went out into the quarters of the citv occu- 
 pied by the middle classes, but gained little infor- 
 mation and met no encouragement. 
 
 " The next day I wont into the laboring-man's 
 and the tenement quarters. Oh, God ! what sick- 
 ening, soul-moving scene^s there met my eyes — 
 what sounds grated with harsh and discordant 
 cries upon my ears I Before I would have gone 
 
THE MOUNTAIN CABIN. 
 
 69 
 
 into that region of misery, my babes might have 
 famished with hunger on. my breast; and then 
 I should have waited with unmoved composure 
 for the summons of the grim messenger. 
 
 "As I was hastening to leave this domain of 
 wretchedness, disgusted, faint and despairing, I 
 came suddenly to a neat dress-making establish- 
 ment on the ground-floor. Impulsively I rushed 
 in and asked for the lady in charge. A kind, polite, 
 pale and delicate woman stepped forward, and 
 greeted me. I drew her aside, and told her briefly 
 my situation, and implored her to grant me some 
 advice. She informed me that her duties were 
 such that it would be impossible for her to do so 
 then, but that she would take my address, and 
 call on me with pleasure that evening. 
 
 " As I went slowly and sadly back to what had 
 only a few days before been my peaceful and 
 happy home, I would have rejoiced to know that 
 my babes were dead. But when I returned to 
 them, their rosy cheeks, their bright eyes, and 
 their innocent childish laugh fanned to a glowing 
 flame a mother's love. I then and there vowed, 
 with one hand on the head of each little inno- 
 cent, that night, in concert with the woman who 
 had promised to aid me, to devise some plan to 
 save them, and follow it through weal -or woe, 
 or until it had left me in the grave. 
 
 " The little woman was prompt. She said in 
 substance : 
 
 "'City life and intrigues are virtually unknown 
 to you. You have learned more from the bitter- 
 ness of one Httle week than in all the years of 
 your life. May Grod spare you from knowing 
 more from anything nearer the actual experi- 
 ence, than what I shall relate to you to-night. 
 
 " 'In poverty, abject dependence on your own 
 exertions, your beauty wiU put every hour of 
 your weary, anxious young life into an unmiti- 
 gated torment, from which there is neither es- 
 cape nor redemption. 
 
 " ' I was left a widow when about your age, 
 and suddenly reduced from comfort and plenty 
 to poverty and want. I was what the Avorld 
 terms passably fair, but did not approach within 
 many degrees of your beauty. 
 
 " ' I sought employment of prominent firms who 
 employed lady help. In three instances in one 
 
 day I was shown into the private office, and 
 informed that I could have work, but times were 
 dull and wages low ; and then in each case, those 
 dignified gentlemen (?) told me that if I chose 
 to do so, I could have plenty of money and the 
 luxuries of a lady's home. Two or three others 
 were too busy ; but if I would call that night at 
 their residences they had no doubt but that satis- 
 factory terms could be arranged. 
 
 " ' I had a terrible experience, and have gone to 
 bed many a time hungry and cold. Thank God 
 I had no children, or I do not know what would 
 have become of me: there is nothing in this 
 world so strong as a mother's love. I preserved 
 my soul, and, by constant hard work, am now able 
 to keep comfortable. 
 
 " 'The stories of some of those poor women in 
 my shop, the continual ordeals through which 
 they are now passing, would make your heart 
 ache. 
 
 "Beauty is the greatest misfortune a poor 
 womiin, forced into the midst of the city's tur- 
 moil, can inherit. 
 
 "'Now for my advice. Fly, by all means fly, 
 from this modern Babylon. Do not stop to look 
 back. The farther into the country, and the 
 deeper and more remote the seclusion, the better 
 for you. Sell whatever yota cannot conveniently 
 carry. Act, act. Do not waste one needless 
 day. If you know any one in such a locality as 
 I have mentioned, so much the better. But if 
 you would save yourself and babes, fly from the 
 impending doom of inevitable destruction.' 
 
 "Fly! fly! was ringing in my ears all through 
 that night. Before the dawn of day I had com- 
 pleted a letter to 'The Angel of the Mountain.' 
 
 "Eight days — eight ages of suspense — would 
 elapse before I could hope to see an answer. But 
 there was much to be done. It was a terrible 
 experience, selling my little surplus trinkets at 
 one-tenth their value. 
 
 "I had some diamonds and pearls that had been 
 my mother's. These I prized more than all my 
 former wealth. I thought I could not part with 
 them. But I found it impossible to reahze suffi- 
 cient money to satisfy half the probable demand 
 and keep them. I gazed first at them, then at 
 my little babes. To my eyes, they were jewels 
 
70 
 
 IMYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 far brighter and more precious than all the soulless 
 gems in the world. I turned from them again to 
 those dear mementoes of my angelic mother, and 
 bathed them in tears of an affectionate but 
 eternal farewell. 
 
 " Fifteen days after the date of my letter, I was 
 installed in this cabin, as you now see me ; and 
 Milton Land was on his way to Illinois with 
 ' The Angel of the Mountain.' 
 
 " Ever since then I have maintained an irregular 
 correspondence with her. Up to the commence- 
 ment of the war they were prospering. The last 
 letter she wrote informed me that Milton had 
 joined the Northern army. 
 
 " Since my arrival here, you know the story. 
 
 " All the years which I have passed here, full 
 of trials, privations and hardships as most of 
 them have been, have not seemed longer, nor one 
 thousandth part as terrible, as the same number 
 of trying, woeful days which I spent in New 
 York, writhing in the living death-throes of cruel 
 wretchedness. 
 
 " Here I have found friends, true, devoted, un- 
 selfish friends, with rough exteriors and unpol- 
 ished speech, but oh ! what hearts — so noble, so 
 tender, so pure!" 
 
 Miss H : "Oh, Mrs. Flowers! my unfortu- 
 nate sister, thrice tried in the ordeal of the fiery 
 crucible and come forth the emblem of truth and 
 purity, permit me, my poor friend, in the name 
 of all that is pure and womanly, to embrace you; 
 and to baptize you Avith my tears, which sym- 
 pathy with your pathetic sorrows cannot but 
 bring to my eyes ; and to christen you, henceforth, 
 ' The Angel of the Mountain ! ' 
 
 "And you, too, little Rosa, precious flower of 
 your mountain-dale, pure as yonder drifted snow 
 so deeply bleached in the northern wind. Dear 
 little girl, let me press you to my heart and call 
 you my own, my little sister. From this day I 
 am your sister and your mother's sister-friend, 
 and as such shall you find my devotion and my 
 love ; and you Avill be often, often my compan- 
 ions in my own circle and I in yours. 
 
 " ;My dear niother has been long sleeping in 
 the silent church-yard ; a sister's love and a sis- 
 ter's kiss I have never known. 
 
 " I have looked forward to the conclusion of 
 
 my years at college with longing fondness, as a 
 happy period of re-union with my only l^rother, 
 to whom I was almost a stranger. 
 
 "Just as this dream was about to be finally 
 i-ealized, this cruel war severed us more widelj^ 
 and hopelessly than before, as it parted you and 
 your heroic little Jesse, and so many other loving 
 hearts all over this unhappy land. 
 
 "But for the unselfish devotion of a noble 
 child of the mountains, I would have no brother 
 to-day. And quite a just resentment of his un- 
 thoughtful, haughty unkindness shown to this 
 mountain-boy, on various occasions, would have 
 caused almost every one to remain aloof. But 
 not so with this noble comrade. When my poor 
 brother had been abandoned by his own class, 
 intimate associates, to his fate, this man, from 
 whom he could hope for nothing, came forward 
 Avith the tenderness of a brother, to his rescue. 
 That act leveled for ever all barriers between our 
 family and the mountain people. Since its 
 knowledge reached me, I have longed to knoAv 
 more of them, and to manifest in some substantial 
 manner my gratitude. The Avork in Avhich I am 
 engaged afforded the opportunity I so much de- 
 sired. Eagerly I embraced it. Already, even 
 before the harvest, I am reaping a rich rcAvard ; 
 the blessings of the dying defenders, Avhose days 
 of battle are over, and the prayers of the loved 
 ones they leave mourning, yet not bereft of hu- 
 man consolation, folloAv me, and aid me in my 
 mission. Now, in this moment of halloAved as- 
 sociations and sacred remembrances, I solemnly 
 voAv to devote my life, be its years many or fcAv, 
 be its days passed in the sunshine of peace or in 
 the shadoAvs of sorroAV, to those noble hearts Avho 
 have giA-en their all for the sake of the cause I 
 honor and the land I love." 
 
 Again must the curtain go doAvn to obscure 
 this scene of devotion, faith, purity and love. 
 After the clash of arms has ceased to echo, and 
 the smoke of battle has been dispelled, and the 
 Avithered violet once more opens its blue eyes to 
 tlie spring-time sun, we -will see again " The 
 Angel of the Mountain." 
 
UNCLE JAKE AND THE FAIRIES. 
 
 71 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 UNCLE JAKE AND THE FA 
 
 ES. 
 
 '" For I am getting old and feeble, I'll never work no 
 no re — 
 I'll ne'er hoe the corn fields o'er again ; 
 Yet bright angels they'll watch o'er me as I lay me 
 down to sleep. 
 In my little old log-cabin, in the lane." 
 
 —LOG CABIN. 
 
 Uncle Jake, whose ebon face we have met 
 before, was a veritable old Virginia log-cabin 
 darkey. He had been a character in his little 
 day. He could draw more and better music out 
 of his old banjo than any other person on the 
 Virginia banks of the Potomac. And sing — 
 " Land alive," as the old colored aunties used to 
 say, the most stoical went into raptures if they 
 once heard Uncle Jake's sonorous voice when it 
 was just a trifle oiled with old peach-and-honey, 
 and he had fully unbent himself and come down 
 to his work ; his instrument vibrating with one 
 incessant roll of varied, gently rolling and burst- 
 ing swells of harmonious melody, with his vo- 
 cal accompaniments flowing in stirring strains, a 
 deep, fuh current of his most wondrous incan- 
 tations. 
 
 "The Little Old Log-Cabin" was his special 
 favorite ; and he was at the acme of his glory 
 v/hen he held an admiring crowd applauding with 
 zeal, or spell-bound with his magical rendering 
 of this most pathetic song of the olden time. 
 
 With the young lady members of the secret 
 information society and underground communi- 
 cation service, described in the chajjter "Bej^ond 
 the Outposts," Uncle Jake, besides being an 
 unrivaled favorite in consequence of the musical 
 treats which he had always furnished them 
 since their earliest remembrance, and of his many 
 other mirth-provoking accomplishments was, 
 because of his unswerving fidelity to the friends 
 of his tender years, his mature manhood, and his 
 declining age, in their dark hour of trial and of 
 danger, in very many other respects utterly 
 indispensable. 
 
 On account of the many strange and mysterious 
 signals adopted between neighboring houses — 
 often extending in one unljroken circle to several 
 
 settlements or neighborhoods and on up into 
 even Alexandria itself ; because of the mystic signs 
 among themselves when they were assembled; 
 and furthermore, in consequence of the peculiar 
 masquerade balls given as a concession, to all 
 ostensible appearance, to some Federal officers 
 who were invited, and always attended, — Uncle 
 Jake styled these young ladies "the Fairies." 
 
 These balls, in reality, were simply ruses skill- 
 fully planned by the young ladies to hold all im- 
 portant business meetings, and see some of 
 their relatives and friends from the Confederate 
 army. These appeared at the balls in ladies cos- 
 tumes, without arousing the suspicions of the 
 Northern troops in the vicinity. 
 
 To similar organizations in some form, per- 
 haps differing very widely from this particular 
 one, yet objectively the same, in every part of 
 the border districts of the Southern States, may 
 justly be attributed the reasons why it was so 
 nearly impossible for the National troops to 
 attempt any move without their opponents being 
 immediately apprised of the fact and of its 
 nature. On the other hand, it clearly explains 
 the reason why the Confederate commanders 
 could keep their movements concealed from 
 their opponents behind a cloud of impenetrable 
 mystery. 
 
 "Whenever there was a programme for a ball 
 arranged on the afternoon preceding the desig- 
 nated -evening, hours before the time ap- 
 pointed for the Federal officers to appear the 
 young ladies, accompanied by "any contraband 
 male friends who were to participate in the 
 festivities, decked in their strange feminine dis- 
 guises, and heavily veiled, assembled with Uncle 
 Jake at the designated place of rendezvous. 
 
 The only Federal officers invited on these 
 occasions Avere West-Pointers of undoubted 
 repute as gentlemanly disciplinarians and war- 
 riors, prosecuting their inhuman profession on 
 strictly civilized principles. They were in no 
 danger whatever of becoming victims to snares 
 similar to those in which we have already seen 
 some of their volunteer brother officers en- 
 trapped. So delicately deferential were these 
 officers toward the peculiar and sensitive posi- 
 tion of those with whom they were to enjoy the 
 
72 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 diverting pleasures of an evening, that, rather than 
 take the chances of their obnoxious uniforms 
 marring in any degree the pleasures of the 
 hour, they alvs^ays apj^eared in full evening cos- 
 tumes. They were, therefore, when masked, 
 difficult to distinguish from the non-combatants 
 of the community, a few of whom were some- 
 times present, acting an indifferent part in the 
 festival phase of the performance. 
 
 Owing to a large poi-tion of their duties being 
 the patrolling of the country, and the capturing of 
 all prowlers or imjiroper absentees from their com- 
 mand, whether they were officers or enlisted men 
 of the Northern army, two of our friends had 
 become quite extensive favorites, as enemies, 
 among the citizens. Those officers did their 
 work so vigorously and effectively that the 
 citizens were relieved from innumerable annoy- 
 ances and losses. To stragglers, they soon be- 
 came a greater terror than the rebel scouts, be- 
 cause even the shelter of the guns on Arlington 
 Heights was not a protection to which they 
 could fly with defiant impunity from pressing 
 danger of cajoture, and find secure immunity 
 from arrest, as they often could easily do if men- 
 aced by hostile pursuers. Those indefatigable 
 officers and their followers did not fear the frown- 
 ing battlements of Arlington. They were no 
 less famihar personages than Maj. Lawrence 
 Pleasington, and Lieut. Orlando Oglethrop. 
 They were, as a matter of course, always invited, 
 and, unless their duties rendered it absolutely 
 impossible, were present as- participants in these 
 unique and mystical festivities. 
 
 At this time, about a fortnight since, we saw 
 Maj. Pleasington and his antagonist. Cloud, 
 meet and part, and heard Oglethrop, amid the 
 enchantments of Mountjoy House, depicting the 
 Avoes of poor Col. Worthington in the wintry 
 midnight and the snow of the wilderness-soli- 
 tude, there is a masquerade-ball on the eve of 
 transpiring at an old Virginia mansion, not more 
 than a dozen rods from where Pleasington and 
 Cloud last parted. It is the same mansion Avhere 
 Cloud captured the madly-infatuated officer who 
 was so blindly in love with the young lady of the 
 house. 
 
 This young lady was betrothed to the young 
 
 master of Uncle Jake's home : hence the old man 
 regarded her with an affection approaching his 
 reverence for her affianced husband, a dashing, 
 daring cavalry officer in the Confederate service, 
 who had had several severe encounters with 
 Pleasington and Oglethrop and their men, on dis- 
 puted belts of ground up at the dead-Hne points, 
 between the two extreme out-posts; in these 
 several men had gone down on both sides. 
 
 After the 3"0ung ladies, their companions, and 
 Uncle Jake had assembled, the masks, together 
 with all resti-aints, were thrown off. They uni- 
 ted usually in the dining-hall, or some other 
 private room. Whatever business they had to 
 transact was quickly dispatched. Then the inter- 
 vening hours before the masqueraders were 
 expected to appear, Avere passed in pleasures of 
 their own devising. 
 
 Uncle Jake, with his banjo, was called into re- 
 quisition. First he played and sang some wild 
 and uproarious plantation songs. These were fol- 
 lowed by strains more plaintive and wild; this 
 again Avith music of melting pathos and sorrowful 
 melancholy. His acting was simply grand ; un- 
 surpassed not even by Booth's Richelieu nor 
 Jefferson's Rip Van Winkle. From uncontrol- 
 lable, hysterical laughter he transformed his audi- 
 ence to tears of tenderest compassion. Then he 
 seemed happy; and would regale them with 
 stories and mimic representations, sometimes of 
 imaginary, but oftener of real, scenes which he 
 had witnessed. The more he was phed with 
 interrogatives, and the more they savored of sar- 
 casm and skepticism, the better Avas the old man 
 pleased. 
 
 On this particular evening and at this specified 
 place, where we Avill doubtless be spectators for 
 a time, there are present two Confederate officers, 
 and but eight of the ten ladies, listed in the pro- 
 gramme, the missing ones having resigned their 
 places in favor of the two officers to Avhom Ave 
 have just referred. Uncle Jake has just closed 
 his musical and vocal prelude, set his banjo doAvn, 
 and heaved a deep-draAvn sigh, his large Avhite 
 eyes rolling in their sockets from the features of 
 one to another of his patrons, with profound and 
 searching scrutiny. 
 
 Evidently, the result is satisfactory in the high- 
 
UNCLE JAKE AND THE FAIRIES. 
 
 73 
 
 est degree. Complacently the old man folds his 
 arms and awaits an indication as to what scene 
 he is desired next to present. For a few mo- 
 ments the silence of the tomb pervades the apart- 
 ment. The last song rendered was a memorial 
 ballad to'Napoleon Bonaparte, a few closing lines 
 of which ran thus : 
 
 " No more she'll behold him, at Cloud In great splen- 
 dor; 
 
 No more he'll appear, like the noble Alexander. 
 
 Louisa may mourn for her husband departed, 
 
 Likei dove that'sforlorn, or one that's broken-hearted. 
 
 She may sit down and think of the battles he has been 
 In, 
 
 As she sighs for his bones on the rock of Saint Helen." 
 
 The mournful air and sadly tremulous cadences 
 of Uncle Jake's voice, together with the affecting 
 tenderness and touching sentiments breathed 
 throughout this lengthy ballad, have made a 
 general and deep impression. 
 
 But the silence is, however, at length broken. 
 
 First Officer: "Well, Jake, old imp of dark- 
 ness, what is the news down here in this mystic 
 region, where Cupid, the Yank patrols, and the 
 rebel scouts hold alternately such high carnivals, 
 and get mingled together sometimes in such un- 
 pleasant and heterogeneous confusion ? Now, 
 out with the truth, old mto. We can learn noth- 
 ing up in the command. The scouts, when we 
 get to see one, once in a httle age, are mum as 
 the Egyptian mummies. And these pretty little 
 coquettes, the sweet innocents, they are as igno- 
 rant as Comanche papooses on the plains. 
 Come, now, you know all about it." 
 
 Uncle Jake : " Fore de Lawd, mas' Clem,dis chile 
 bin done brok he nee purty ni 'bout forty leb- 
 bun times trian to cotch dat crittur, de nuse ; but 
 golly, he de wilest colt ebber I tri to get de bridel 
 on too, cepten my name done an eny mo Ante 
 Jake. Bress ore sole hunny dis ole niggur mo in 
 de dark dan all ob ye togedur. Ders mo tawken 
 on de fingurs and wid hankchurs an all sots fol 
 da rol da, an no body nebber seed an he all Chuc- 
 tow to ole Jake shure as de Lawd libs." 
 
 Second Officer : " How about those two Yanks, 
 Pleasington and Oglethrop, who patrol around 
 here, and that scout Cloud? Do you know 
 them, Jake?" 
 
 Uncle Jake. : " Lausy mussy ; dat I do. Dey 
 
 iz de two bess Yanks 'roun' dese diggins. Dey 
 keeps de thebbun tras' clend outin and iz peerlite 
 to ebbery body, an doan kuni cortin de gals 
 whoze sheetharts deyz trian ter kill. An uze 
 axin me bout dat ung Cloud. Heze zactly like de 
 lershmun's fle. When uze doan got yor fingur 
 onto he, den he been skip outin dat, kerflumix." 
 
 First Officer. : " But Cloud is doing nothing 
 but flirt with the girls, Jake, is he? He has quit 
 catching Yankees lately." 
 
 Uncle Jake : Darze whar uze fuled. He neb- 
 bur gwine inside a house ceptin to cotch a Yank. 
 Heze too sharp for dal^ — too frade gotten traped. 
 An las nite he cotch a ofFacur dats bin boddurin 
 ung missus dis long time. Peers dat chap allurs 
 nowed when de patrols gwine sum udder way, 
 kase dey nebbur cotch him. Now las nite he war 
 dar. Missus, plain de plana. Ant Hana war roun 
 ' bout de parlur. Jake war in de kichun, an dis 
 ni jiste what she cum back dar tellin me, an de ole 
 gal war puty ni whit as a shete. ' Jake' she sed, 
 'all at onct Missus, stop plain an say Hist — dereb- 
 buls — hide 'hind de plana, Majur. Den bout a 
 minit mo ung Cloud war in de parlur, tawken 
 crose to missus; kusin her harbburin Yanks, an 
 she nien it jist like a little lade, when Cloud finde 
 de Majur, an order him out, an tell Missus he gwine 
 to member dat and settle wid her anudder time, 
 an porh Missus 'gun crian, an Cloud he hurry off 
 wid de Majur, an I jist lafe at Hana." 
 
 Second Officer: "The Yanks want to catch 
 Cloud. Some fine day he will find that you have 
 sold him. He is a big fool to trust you as he 
 does. I would not." 
 
 Uncle Jake: "Heze bettur juge humon natur 
 dan u, dat aur de splanin queshum ob all dis." 
 
 Miss Cornelia : [Coming excitedly to the door] 
 "Hist! Pleasington and Oglethrop are in the front 
 parlor and their patrols out in the lane. Be cfuiet. 
 There is no danger. They are here to meet Cloud 
 under a truce, and expect him directly." 
 
 First Officer: "Ah! Jim, let us eavesdrop 
 them from the back parlor. Now learn Ave can 
 some of these mysteries^" 
 
 Cloud: [Entering front parlor] " Maj. Pleas- 
 ington, I am here in response to your note re- 
 questing an interview." 
 
 Maj. P : " Yes, Mr. Cloud. But first allow 
 
74 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 me to introduce Lieut. Ogletlirop, Avlio -n-as 
 anxious to see you." 
 
 Cloud: " Ah Lieutenant, I have heard of j^ou. 
 The chances are rather more than even that 
 we may meet a Httle more unpleasantly one of 
 these days. I suppose you want to be able to 
 recognize me, in that event — is it not so ? " 
 
 LiKUT. : "If you are going to handle me 
 
 proportionately as roughly as you handled my three 
 men that da}', I would like to shun rather than 
 meet you." 
 
 Cloud: "Well Major, your business?" 
 
 Maj. p. : " Maj. Eugene Lovelace, a staff offi- 
 cer, started from Alexandria, late last evening, for 
 a ride in the direction of Annendale, as he fre- 
 quently starts, and failed to return. Somehow a 
 report has reached head-quarters to-day that he 
 was shot, or rather that one of your scouts told 
 some colored people that he had shot an officer 
 about dusk last night on that road, and that his 
 horse ran away into the woods with him. G-en. 
 
 M has requested me to try and discover the 
 
 particulars, and also learn, as near as possible, 
 the locality." 
 
 Cloud : " Present my compliments to G-en. M — ;— , 
 with the information that Maj. Lovelace is now 
 on his way to Richmond, and was sound and well 
 this morning; and that he was captured miles 
 from the road which you have just named." 
 
 Maj. P : " Did you capture him, Mr. Cloud, 
 
 and if so, the particulars if you please, that I may 
 render them in my report?" 
 
 Cloud: "These are delicate points Major, 
 which generosity to the unfortunate captive force 
 me to decline to furnish. For particulars, you 
 will certainly be under the necessity of waiting 
 until the Major has an opportunity of supplying 
 them himself. I have not reported the circum- 
 stances to my own commanders; decidedly, then, 
 I cannot entertain the idea of furnishing them 
 to you." 
 
 Maj. P : " I see my mistake and withdraw 
 
 the question. Now tell me about little Flowers. 
 How is he ? " 
 
 Cloud: "Well, and in high spirits. He has 
 just heard from home. His famil}' has lately 
 received a handsome sum of money from a 
 friend of yours, whom I will not name. Also 
 
 his mother and sister and mine have received 
 magnificent presents of cloaks, dress-goods, etc., 
 with the sweetest little letters, full of gratitude 
 to the sons and brothers who saved the life of 
 the writer's nearest and dearest friend, at the bat- 
 tle of Stone Bridge. This friend, very delicately, 
 mark you. Major, is not named. But we boys 
 happen to know that it is to Maj. Law- 
 rence Pleasington, and to no other person, that 
 reference is made. And to those letters was the 
 superscription of the sweetest little name — the 
 most precious little name. Effie Edelstein — that 
 Edehtein, Major, don't it translate jjrecjo its stone or 
 jewel? 
 
 " There, now, Major, don't blush so. I told you 
 this merely to dispel any shades of doubt which' 
 might creep or be forced into your mind about 
 her fidelity and devotion. Better tell her. Major, 
 that this proof is overwhelming; and that if she 
 undertakes to reward all the Confederates who 
 may, or would save your life under similar cir- 
 cumstances, she is likely to be very poor at the 
 close of the war. That is all." 
 
 Lieut. O : " There, now,Pleasington, is proof 
 
 that all the social strategy of New York can never 
 prevail on that girl to discard you in favor of any 
 man living, while you are above the sod. 
 
 "Mr. Cloud, that is worth a small mint to him. 
 He has the blues fearfully, sometimes, because of 
 the powerful influence working against him while 
 he is down here in the cold winter, near at anj' 
 time to the valley and shadow of death. But I 
 heard Uncle Jake's banjo and voice as we come 
 up the lane. Would you not like to her him, Mr. 
 Could?" 
 
 Cloud: " Yes, one song. I have not time for 
 any more." 
 
 Lieut. : " I will go to the door, ring the 
 
 bell, and send for him." 
 
 He suits the action to the words, and Miss 
 Earl responds. 
 
 Miss Cornelia : " AYhat do you wish, Lieuten- 
 ant? " 
 
 Lieut. : " Uncle Jake, with his banjo, Miss 
 
 Earl, if you please." 
 
 She hastens away and Jake enters the parlor. 
 
 Uncle Jake : " Ebnin to uze, gentilmans. Ize 
 kum ter see wut uze want wid dis ole niggur." 
 
UNCLE JAKE AND THE FAIEIES. 
 
 75 
 
 Pleasington and OoLETHROP : "A song: 'Log- 
 Cabin,' Jake." 
 
 Cloud: "And this, then, is the old reprobate 
 who is all the time giving you people information 
 to get us scouts captured. It is a good thing I 
 am under a truce, and Jake under the protection 
 of his friends, or he would very soon be on his 
 way to Richmond." 
 
 Maj. P — '—: " Oh, ouv people have great confi- 
 dence in Jake, and trust him any where he chooses 
 to go ; but as to his information, I am beginning to 
 set but httle value upon it, as we have never yet 
 captured a man on it. I think you can deceive 
 Jake easier than our troops." 
 
 Cloud: "His wiU is better than his informa- 
 tion. You don't want to get out of hailing dis- 
 tance of your friends here, old man. Do you 
 understand? But the song — ' Log Cabin.' " 
 
 Uncle Jake : " Yes, massa. Ize berry furd." 
 
 Jake immeditately launches forth in his song ; 
 and the first verse is rendered Avith thrilling im- 
 pressiveness until he strikes the lines : 
 "But now ebbery ding iz changed, de darkies am all 
 
 gone— 
 He nebbur h'aredem hoin in the fields again— 
 An Ibe nufQnleft me now but dat little dog ob mine. 
 In my little ole log cabin in de lane. 
 Not many months ago aroun' my cabin door, 
 De darkies were happe den I no, 
 Dey sang an dance all nite as I play my ole banjo, 
 But, alas ! dey kan nebber do so any mo— 
 Oh! my chimne's tumbling down, de stars am peepin 
 
 al' roun'. 
 An de time's soon comiu' when I must go, 
 But brite angels dey will lede me to dat far-off happe 
 
 Ian', 
 Whar Ize to mete old Massa an' Missus once mo'." 
 
 Then the old man rose to subUme and match- 
 less grandeur. His frame swayed and heaved 
 with powerful emotion ; his eyes rolled; turned 
 heavenward; then closed, while the twitching 
 pupils were steadily raised by the great sluices of 
 big tear-drops which poured from them in tor- 
 rents. His voice rose and fell in tremulous 
 waves, from the wildest notes of woeful distress, 
 in the first dread moments of its birth down to 
 the low. faint, pitiful moans of despair after the 
 last flickering-ray of hope has vanished. And his 
 instrumental performance — it mocks the jDower of 
 words ; a description of it is impossible. In every 
 respect and particular, it harmonized in strict ac- 
 
 cordance with the gestures, the emotions, and the 
 tones of the voice, of its skillfully artistic master. 
 He would disengage one hand; point away in 
 the direction of the fields ; his cabin ; the grave- 
 yard, or heaven. While in this position, the in- 
 strument would turn bottom upwards, as if by 
 some magical influence which it was beyond the 
 cunning of spectators ever to detect. Thus it 
 would remain for a moment, and then turn back 
 in the same mysterious way, while the unbroken 
 current of the music continued to flow in the same 
 rapturous strains, without missing the proper 
 measure of time by so much as the thousandth 
 part of a second, or faiUng in even one note to 
 breathe in pure, articulate perfection. 
 
 The three auditors had risen, and were 
 standing with folded arms and pale faces, the hot 
 tears streaming down their cheeks, when the echoes 
 died away in the grand old mansion, where, in 
 daj's that are dead, often, often had resounded 
 the voice of Washington. Here were three 
 soldiers weeping over a negro song, rendered by 
 a simple old darkey of the by-gone time ; men 
 whose eyes would flash defiant fire in the face of 
 mortal danger. 
 
 You might smile with disdainful incredulitj^, 
 until you had once heard the performance as we 
 have ; then you, too, with hearts thrilled by the 
 mournful melody, would find your lips quivering 
 
 ] and your eyes dim. 
 
 ' A silent pressure of the hands among the 
 soldiers, and Uncle Jake said the farewells; the 
 
 : former left the house, mounted their horses, sepa- 
 ratee], and rode rapidly away without uttering a 
 word. 
 
 Some Avell-known historical illustrations, more 
 romantic -still than the scenes portrayed of the 
 regular characters in this plot, might frequently 
 be advanced, with the real names of the parties, 
 without the least disrespect to propriety. One 
 case in point is too prominent and too good to 
 be ignored. It constitutes such overwhelming 
 testimony in support of features of this work 
 which might be viewed with skepticism that we 
 cannot resist the temptation to produce it 
 undisguised. 
 
 Oakland, Maryland, 2,800 feet above the sea- 
 
76 
 
 IklYSTIC. EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 level, is on the Baltimore and Oliio Railroad. 
 Uefore" this railroad was built, that sequestered 
 spot was buried deep in a primeval forest which 
 stretched its prodigious length far along the 
 border line between Marjdand and Virginia. 
 This spot, Oakland, was a famous and charming 
 mountain resort before the war. It then consisted 
 of the few cabins, cottages, a church and an 
 express office about a well-ordered house, cahed 
 the Glades Hotel. 
 
 A Virginia family by the name of Dailey came 
 to Oakland the year before the war, to spend the 
 summer. The head of the family was a genuine 
 specimen of the rural Virginia gentleman of that 
 by-gone time — courteous, jovial, hospitable to a 
 fault; the mother, a queenly lady and amiable 
 housewife, devoted to her son and two daugh- 
 ters, was envied by many tourists. 
 
 The day came that made a sensation for the 
 mountain-crowning Oakland: the hotel was to 
 change hands; there was to be a sale by auction. 
 At the appointed hour Mr. Dailey sauntered in 
 merely to gratify curiosity. Wheri he was 
 seated with his family at the dinner-table, he 
 gave his wife a graat shock by saying, "Ma, 
 I've bought the hotel over yonder!" The diffi- 
 culty of "keeping a hotel" was probably not as 
 profoundly impressed on the understanding of 
 Mr. Dailey at that time as it is now generally 
 appreciated. However, he bravely undertook 
 the task, and succeeded admirably in giving satis- 
 faction to all whom he entertained. 
 
 His family negroes were brought to supply 
 the hotel with its requisite corps of servants. 
 In almost all bodies of plantation or family 
 slaves in the South, and more especially in 
 Virginia, there was one noted character. This 
 was Uncle Jake, at the Fairchild homestead. 
 In Mr. Dailey's numerous family of colored 
 people this important personage was Aunt 
 Cynthy, a tall jellow woman. She had been 
 the foster nurse of Mars Jim, a young man then 
 in his teens. 
 
 Naturally, therefore. Aunt Cynthy was in- 
 stalled as the presiding genius of the kitchen — 
 the queen of the culinary department of the 
 hotel ; and she ruled with a despotism that often 
 caused the troop of colored waiters to rush 
 
 with suspicious precipitation fi-om her domain 
 back into the dining-room when any of them 
 had delivered her an unwelcome order. But 
 this was on her bad days only, some two or 
 three of which occasionally came together. 
 Then the mistress deemed it most wise to absent 
 herself from the kitchen, when she confessed 
 herself in mortal terror of her own indulged 
 slave. At these times it was recognized that no 
 one but Mars Jim, her idol, could do anytlnng 
 with Aunt Cynthj'. This old woman would 
 make a strong character in a story of real life, 
 with its plot located chiefly at Oakland. 
 
 But the central figure of this family picture, 
 and the admirable heroine of romantic vicissi- 
 tudes, was the oldest daughter. Miss Mary 
 Dailey, To a lithe, elastic, beautifully symmetrical 
 figure, slightly under the medium size, a bright 
 face full of animation, deep blue eyes, and light 
 brown locks, slightly curling, she added a bril- 
 liant charm of ready wit. She was always 
 good-natured, and manifested a generous impulse 
 of heart that made her an unrivaled favorite at 
 Oakland. 
 
 When the war came, with its scenes of horror 
 and tales of woe, it was by the aid of these 
 exceptional qualities that she was enabled to 
 play well a very difficult role in those times of 
 trouble, danger and distress. Her family and 
 herself were ardently heart and soul, in all their 
 sympathies and affiliations with the South, 
 while the location of Mr. Dailey's property and 
 its surroundings constantly exposed it and his 
 near and dear ones to the " two unequal fires " 
 of the blue boys and the grey. There is little 
 room to doubt but that, b}^ her tact and personal 
 popularity Mary Dailey, young as she was, did 
 much to save her family and neighbors from 
 the loss and suffering which would have become 
 their lot as the inevitable consequences of their 
 well-known, notorious and undissembled Southern 
 proclivities. 
 
 We have before us now a clipping from an 
 ancient newspaper, published before the war, 
 aptly illustrating the ready-wit of this fairy 
 enchantress. This article went the rounds of the 
 press at that time. Miss Dailey was then in her 
 teens, and a school-girl. President Buchanan 
 
UNCLE JAKE AND THE FAIRIES. 
 
 77 
 
 was on liis way to Wheeling, and stopped for 
 some usual delay at Oakland Station, where many 
 jjersons were presented to him, each of whom he 
 asked from what State he or she hailed. At last 
 the turn of little Mary Dailey came to be pre- 
 sented to the Chief Magistrate of the first Eepub- 
 lic in the world. Then he said to her, " And wliat 
 State are you from, Miss?" " From the same 
 State as your Excellency, — the state of single bles- 
 sedness," she quickly replied. Thus early were 
 visible indications of a boundless fertility of the 
 sentimental demonstrated. 
 
 Much the same state of affairs prevailed in the 
 circle of which Mary Dailey was the leading- 
 spirit, as that at which we have glanced, where 
 Uncle Jake was the sublime genius. The object 
 of each compact was identically the same — that 
 of serving the South ; and they were both in- 
 directly and, in some respects, directly connected 
 — Miss Dailey's league, and that with Avhich Jake 
 labored. In the former, Cynthy, in many re- 
 spects, performed much the same functions as 
 Jake in the latter. With Miss Dailey were asso- 
 ciated other ladies, under much the same condi- 
 tions as those which governed the '' Fairies " of 
 Uncle Jake. Her rendezvous was a great central 
 point with which many other secret-service 
 leagues of the Virginia border maintained regular 
 and systematic communication. The location 
 was admirably suited for this purpose, owing to 
 its secure approaches, utterly unknown to stran- 
 gers, and which, therefore, could not be guarded to 
 prevent contraband communications from passing. 
 
 The strategy practiced by Miss Dailey was 
 almost too grand to be creditable. She made 
 personal sacrifices which are admirable as any- 
 thing to be found on the pages of fairy tale. 
 We much regret that consistency denies her a 
 number of chapters in this book and a prominent 
 place in its plot. Her strongest point was gained 
 by winning the admiration of her foemen — an art 
 in which she was a most skillful adept. This she 
 accomplished in many ways and by divers means. 
 One of these, an early, simple but potent experi- 
 ment, has been since related by the lady herself. 
 
 " The new wing of the hotel, before its com- 
 pletion, was taken by the Union forces, in pos- 
 session of the road and encamped at this point 
 
 for temporary barracks and a hospital. Some 
 sick and wounded Union soldiers were brought 
 in one day. I looked across from my window 
 into the opposite rooms, where the poor felloAvs 
 had been laid on blankets — a few on mattresses. 
 My heart melted at the sight of the suffering 
 enemy. I braved even the terrible Cynthy, — who 
 was none too favorably inclined toward the 
 Tanks, — so great was my compassion, and insisted 
 upon making a large caldron of chicken-broth for 
 them. When this was done I carried a smoking 
 bowlful in each hand to the window. One young 
 fellow, pale and famished, took the savory mess, 
 and put it eagerly to his lips. ' Hold on Bob ! 
 maybe that stuff's poisoned!' sang out a com- 
 rade on the floor beside him. The sick man 
 hesitated for one moment, as he gazed eagerly at 
 me, while my blue eyes, frank as day, on this 
 occasion at least, doubtless flashed their indignant 
 protest; he said: 'Oh, for shame! I'll trust 
 that girl's face for my life. Here's thank'ee to 
 3-0U, miss! ' and down went the soup." 
 
 In the fiercely varying vicissitudes of the war 
 on this often-disputed borderland — the railroad 
 to-day in possession of the Government, to-night 
 torn up thirty or forty miles by Stonewall Jack- 
 son's brigade, the personnel of the social circle 
 not unfrequently became strangely mixed, some- 
 times distressingly embarrassing at the hotel. 
 Both the secret and the suspected sympathizers 
 Avith and aiders and abettors of the rebels dined 
 side by side with the Union officers in command 
 of the post and district. They even smoked 
 pipes of seeming peace together on the veranda 
 of the hotel, and sang sentimental ballads to the 
 witching accompaniment of Miss Mary on the 
 parlor piano. Strange companionship! 
 
 Gen. Kelley was in command most of the 
 time. While his head-quarters were at the Glades 
 Hotel, young James Dailey and a boon compan- 
 ion of his conceived the bold and daring project 
 of crossing the lines to join the Confederate 
 army. Both familiar with the all but impene- 
 trable trails in the woods of the border they 
 accordingly laid their plans. A few trusty friends 
 were in the plot. This proved successful, although 
 Gen. Kelley personally headed a pursuing party, 
 after the alarm was given the next day. 
 
78 
 
 ^lYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEET. 
 
 Sometime later, General Crook Avas associated 
 ■with Gen. Kelley in the command of forces as • 
 signed to the protection of the Baltimore and 
 Ohio road. To this circumstance he owed his 
 acquaintance Avith and subsequent relations to 
 the Dailey family at Oakland. But at the time 
 the incident which Ave are about to relate oc- 
 curred, the official head-quarters, howeA^er, Avere 
 located at a hotel in Cumberland, Marjdand, a 
 most charming and beautifully picturesque town 
 on the road, half AA'ay betAveen Piedmont and 
 Oakland. 
 
 One night in this loA'ely city, nestling so ad- 
 mirably in its oA^al-shaped valley among innu- 
 merable hills, a party of cavahy w"earing the 
 blue uniform of the United States, entered the 
 city. From all appearances, they were troopers 
 returning from a scouting expedition Avith im- 
 portant dispatches. After having taken the 
 strange precaution to capture their OAvn pickets, 
 they galloped straight to the General's head-quar- 
 ters. Such was the urgent nature of their impor- 
 tant business that they pressed without ceremony 
 to the bedrooms of Gens. Crook and Kelley, 
 where these toil-Avorn warriors slept the sleep 
 of the innocent in fancied security. The leader 
 of this audacious party was a man of not many 
 AA^ords. " Get up and put on your clothes," Avas 
 his rude greeting to each of* the generals in turn, 
 who were dazed by being startled out of a pro- 
 found slumber by this ruthless summons. 
 
 The party Avas a band of Confederates in dis- 
 guise, among Avhom were Jim Dailey and his com- 
 panion. They had come to turn the joke of 
 pursuing them on Gen. Kelley, to the reality of 
 accompanying them on a reckless ride for the 
 dead time. In ten minutes, at the muzzles of 
 revoWers, the two generals made their toilets, 
 and Avere mounted at the door of their hotel. 
 Thus surrounded by their A'olunteer body-guard, 
 they were led out of the dark, silent and slum- 
 bering city, and hurried off to Richmond. 
 
 But the magnanimity of these Federal gen- 
 erals to those unhappy Southerners, whose lives 
 and property lay at the mercy of both friend 
 and foe, on this critical line of sectional demarca- 
 tion, secured the intercession of the most poAver- 
 fnl influence at the Confederate Capitol to clamor 
 
 for their release. This was early brought about, 
 and they Avere soon reinstated to their former 
 command. 
 
 This Avas not, however, the last time that Gen. 
 Crook Avas destined to be captured hj a mem- 
 ber of the Dailey family, nor the one of the most 
 serious importance to himself. 
 
 Sometime later he was Avounded, and borne to 
 the Mountain Hotel. Mary Dailey, the little 
 rebel maiden, became his volunteer nunse. No 
 sentiment pervaded or swayed the courageous 
 soul of this sweet child of "Nature and of 
 Dixie " but the impulse of charitable pity for her 
 suffering foeman, and a zealous desire to over- 
 whelm him with a debt of deep gratitude that 
 Avould incline him to deal yet more leniently Avith 
 her suffering people. Thus, Avith a singleness of 
 unselfish purposes, she labored, all unconscious 
 that her eyes Avere steadily and surely entering 
 the depths of his soul, and the gentle touch of 
 her delicate hand causing him to tremble, as she 
 daily ministered beside his couch of pain. Little 
 did she dream that she was vanquishing the 
 great and gallant soldier ; he Avas captured by the 
 sister as well as by the brother. 
 
 It is an old story, and soon told. He then 
 planned to capture her for aye. The sequence 
 of these conditions follows in due progression: 
 an altar, a ring, a little wife — Miss Mary Dailey, 
 the Confederate heroine of border Avarf are, is the 
 bride of General Crook, the Union cavalier: ante- 
 thetically mixed — conquered conquerer Avas he ! 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE M.\SQUERADING SEQUENCE. 
 
 " Sleep, soldier, sleep, tliough many regret thee. 
 Who stand round thy cold bier to-day; 
 Soon, soon shall the fondest forget thee. 
 
 And thy name Avill from earth pass away. 
 But there is one that shall still pay thee duty. 
 
 Of tears for the true and the brave. 
 As when first In the bloom of her beauty, 
 She wept o'er the soldier's grave." 
 
 —Selections of War Songs. 
 
 When the tAvo Federal officers and the rebel 
 scout had disappeared, the young people Avith 
 Uncle Jake, reassembled in the same room, where 
 the appearance of those untimely visitors had 
 temporarily disturbed them in their diversions. 
 
THE MASQUERADING SEQUENCE. 
 
 79 
 
 When order was again restored, they spent much 
 of the remaining time in animated discussion oi; 
 the strange developments which they had wit- 
 nessed between the two Federals, the Confeder- 
 ate and Uncle Jake. The two Confederate officers 
 of the party were open in their denunciations of 
 Uncle Jake as a spy and informer against the in- 
 terest of the Confederate people ; the remarks of 
 the Federal officers were conclusive on this point. 
 There could be, according to the opinion of the 
 former, no doubt as to Cloud's mistrust in the old 
 darkey, or that he deceived and misled the old 
 man, in order to escape the snares which he was 
 satisfied Jake aided constantly in laying for 
 him. 
 
 To the young ladies, who fully understood 
 Jake's relations with themselves and Cloud, and 
 thoroughly comprehended the part which these 
 individuals played before the Federal officers, this 
 obstinate conclusion of their army companions 
 is extremely amusing. They know that to the 
 Northern army. Uncle Jake's mask is impene- 
 trable, because there is not a shade of suspicion 
 concerning his loyalty to the cause of the Stars 
 and Stripes. With Uncle Jake, this suspicion is 
 a grave and serious rnatter ; and more especially is 
 this true, owing to the fact that one of these offi- 
 cers is his young master. 
 
 As to Cloud, he has advanced greatly in the 
 estimation of his two comrades, while they re- 
 gard the two Federal officers in an exceedingly 
 favorable light. 
 
 The masqueraders arrive promptl}^, and appear to 
 be highly satisfied and delighted with the entertain- 
 ment, which glides smoothly through the hours, 
 until the time arrives for the interesting festivi- 
 ties to close. 
 
 The gay participants have departed, and once 
 more the old mansion assumes its quiet tranquillitj^^ 
 and appears as though deserted. Of all the as- 
 sembled guests of the early evening, but one 
 lingers on the threshold, taking a more special 
 interest and solicitude in the ceremonies of bid- 
 ding Miss Corneha good-night than had any 
 other one of her friends — one who has been a 
 very particular favorite partner among the Fed- 
 eral officers, who have been each other's rivals all 
 the evening as to which could first secure this 
 
 admirable — to them — young lady for the next set. 
 This individual was Jake's young master. 
 
 Miss Cornelia: "Oh, Clem, this is terrible thus 
 to rfleet and part with you in my own home. 
 How cruel is this war to true and loving hearts!" 
 
 Clem: "Yes, darhng, it is indeed bitter be- 
 yond anything I have ever before experienced ; 
 and my nature revolts against it. But like every- 
 thing else in this troublesome world, it must end." 
 
 Miss C : " End — yes, Clem, that is the 
 
 word. But for us, what may not this end 
 mean? This is a question which I struggle 
 against, that many of its answers may find no 
 lodgment in my mind, yet how vain the eflbrt! 
 How many, many chances there are against us ! 
 Think of the numberless unknown dangers 
 through which you must pass almost daily. I 
 wish you would not take such fearful risks as this 
 to see me. Even j'oung Cloud, although he is 
 almost entirely in the lines of the enemy, could 
 not be induced to take a risk like yours." 
 
 Clem : " I suppose he is right. He is a cool- 
 headed boy. But, darling, I must leave you. 
 After I reach home and change this dress, I shall 
 have no time to waste if I would pass through 
 the enemy's lines before .day-light. So I must 
 bid3'ou good-night." 
 
 Miss C : " Good-night, Clem. I wonder 
 
 when I shall see you again. Take care of your- 
 self, for my sake." 
 
 Clem: " One last kiss, darling. There now; I 
 am gone." 
 
 Miss C : [Solus.] "I Avill look through the 
 
 gloom at the white figure receding, and hearken 
 to the sound of his horse's hoofs, as they grow 
 fainter on the frozen ground. From my chamber 
 window will I watch and listen, until I hear him 
 leave home in his true garb of grey, and with 
 his armor on. How weird and ghost-like he 
 appears I Oh that I could shake off these mis- 
 givings, and experience another moment of 
 strength-assuring confidence. 
 
 There, now, I see a light in his room. How 
 quickly he has completed the transformation. 
 Out goes the light. In a moment, now, I will 
 again hear the clatter of his horse's feet, as he 
 rides across the field for the wood which is such 
 a friendly cover. There! I hear his foot-steps as 
 
80 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY, 
 
 he goes down into the stable-yard. Mercy ! how 
 the least noise is wafted to-night on the still and 
 icy air! The cold is intense. He will surely 
 almost freeze to death riding for two hours 
 through it, so soon after leaving the warm hall 
 below, heated from the excitements of the l:iall- 
 room. Oh, Heaven shield him ! 
 
 " There are three instantaneous shots at the 
 gate! Here comes his horse, like a flash of 
 lightning. Oh, my God ! the saddle is empty — 
 he is shot! he is shot! There goes a light to 
 the gate. It is Uncle Jake and Hannah. Oh, 
 pitiless fate! It is he! It is he! He is dead! 
 dead ! 
 
 "What pitiful and heart-rending screams poor 
 Jake and Hannah are uttering! His poor sister! 
 poor Leonora! poor Leonora! — there she goes. 
 Oh, God! she falls beside his prostrate form. 
 Listen to her agonizing cries. What is she say- 
 ing ? — 'My brother ! oh, my brother ! look at me ! 
 speak to me! It is 3^our sister— your sister 
 Leonora! Oh, Jake, he is dead!' She is swoon- 
 ing, ^ly poor heart is breaking.; but I must 
 alarm the house and run to him. Poor Clem, 
 your breath is scarcely cold on my cheek, and 
 are you dead! Oh cruelest of all fates !*" 
 
 Leonora: " Oh, Cornelia! Corneha! they have 
 killed, murdered my poor brother! They never 
 halted him, nor demanded him to surrender." 
 They were concealed behind the open gate. 
 The blaze of the guns has scorched his coat. 
 Poor Clem ! Look at him ! Oh, Cornelia ! I have no 
 brother now! Clem and Tim both killed so 
 soon in this war. What shall I do ? " 
 
 Cornelia: "Oh, Leonora; and he but a few 
 moments ago lightly bade me good-night! I 
 was watching restlessly out from my Avindow,. 
 oppressed with some secret dread, saw the 
 murderous blaze, and tlien the riderless horse 
 come dashing up the lane ! Oh, poor Clem, how 
 little you then dreamed that we were parting 
 forever; and that I, broken-hearted, should so 
 soon be weeping over your dear form all 
 inanimate and cold!" 
 
 The next evening, there is an open, new-made 
 grave in the little old church-yard on the hill- 
 side. Down at the mansion a plain black 
 coffin is being borne from the parlor to the | 
 
 hearse. In the lane, in front, a long funeral 
 procession has formed. Behind the hearse fol- 
 lows the family carriage, in which Cornelia 
 Earl, as one of the principal mourners, has a 
 seat. Next in order is Uncle Jake and Aunt 
 Hannah, with bowed and uncovered heads, on 
 foot. Then there are a few neighboring car- 
 riages, such as the position of the two armies 
 would permit to a>ttend. After these follow 
 Maj. Pleasington and Lieut. Oglethrop, at the 
 head of a squadron of dragoons, on foot, with 
 heads uncovered and drawn and inverted sabres. 
 Behind these the troopers follow,' in regularly 
 formed fours, their horses, one man leading 
 eight. 
 
 At the grave the hymn "Nearer, my God, to 
 Thee," is sung impressively, chiefly by the sol- 
 diers. Then the beautiful and solemn burial- 
 service of the Episcopal Church is read ; and 
 the mortal remains of Capt. Clem Fairchild are 
 lowered to their last long resting-place. As 
 the frozen earth begins to rattle with horrible, 
 hollow sound upon the planks, the wild and 
 pitiful bursts of grief and cries of lamentation 
 from Leonora, Cornelia, Uncle Jake, and Aunt 
 Hannah rend the bitter frosty air. Fainting, 
 the three women are soon borne away from the 
 grave; and, alone. Uncle Jake's mournful wails 
 continue. 
 
 The grave is filled, and the native mourners 
 depart. Then just as the last red glow of the 
 setting sun is fading on the distant mountain- 
 tops, the squadron is foi-med, in obedience to 
 the clear, ringing voice of Maj. Pleasington, which 
 causes some of the retiring citizens, to whom the 
 meaning of this manoeuvre is unknown, to pause, 
 and look back in amazement. Directly, the same 
 sharp, musical voice floats out on the wintr}^ 
 air, "Eeady! Aim! Fire!" There is a bright, 
 blazing flash; a volley rolls over the grave; its 
 echoes go reverberating back against the hills 
 and re-echoing across the neighboring plains. 
 It is the burial salute — the last and the highest 
 token of honor that the soldier in the field can 
 bestow on his dead comrade — thrice precious 
 when bestowed by a brave and generous 
 enemy. 
 
 So ended the masquerade-balls among the 
 
THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS AGAIN. 
 
 81 
 
 out-posts. So for a time we leave Uncle Jake 
 and his Fairies in sadness and despair. May He 
 who is the consoler of the broken hearted — "the 
 rock and sure foundation" in the hours • of 
 need, watch over them now — watch over all to 
 whom shall come, with the smoke of battle and 
 the cannon's thunder, a crown that is worn only 
 beyond the stars — a glory that is found in the 
 Shadow of Death. 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS AGAIN. 
 
 " Flows there a tear of pity for the dead, 
 Wide scattered o'er the ensanguined plain? 
 Come here ! bathe thousands who are lowly laid." 
 
 —MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 The great change of base has been made. The 
 Confederate winter-quarters at Centreville and 
 Union Mills have been broken up, and present 
 the appearance of deserted and ruined cities. No 
 more the roll of the drum, sounding the tat-too 
 and the revehe, is heard. The slow and meas- 
 ured tread of the sentinel is silent and still. The 
 bray of the mule and the neigh of the war-steed 
 no longer disturb the solitude of the ghostly 
 night. Desolation wields her sway indisputed 
 and supreme. 
 
 Even the owl — the lugubrious chanter of the 
 dreary forest and dismal night — has taken wing 
 and flown away from this woe-begone, famine- 
 haunted region. 
 
 Our early friends of the out-post scenes are 
 scattered ; their old haunts know them no more. 
 
 Arlington Heights and the vicinity of Alex- 
 andria no longer resound with the clamorous 
 commotion of the " Grand Army of the Potomac." 
 Long since it has disembarked on the historical 
 shore of Virginia, at Yorktown. 
 
 Garland Cloud is once more in the ranks of his 
 company. He has broiled oysters, and slept in 
 the trenches at Yorktown many a rainy night. 
 He has charged up to the very trench, filled with 
 water, that surrounded a fort, at the battle of 
 Williamsburg, on the retreat from Yorktown, 
 where his comrades in the brigade fell like autumn 
 leaves. 
 
 Then his Captain, J , whom we met in 
 
 company with Cloud, one stormy winter night, 
 at the " Picket Bivouac," was killed. 
 
 His former Colonel — now Brig.-Gen. E , 
 
 was terribly wounded. 
 
 He has passed through the firey ordeal of 
 Seven Pines, that scourged his command so ter- 
 ribly. He has rode on the tempest of battle 
 through Cold Harbor, White Oak Swamp, and 
 Malvern Hill unharmed. 
 
 Little Mac, as Gen. McClellan — a master mili- 
 tary genius and strategist — was facetiously called 
 by the "Boys in Blue," has lost his head beneath 
 the relentless stroke of the political guillotine. 
 
 We challenge the world to produce a more 
 masterful military achievement than McClellan's 
 retreat from before Richmond, through the 
 Chickahominy swamp — regarded by Confederate 
 engineers as being impossible at that time — with 
 a defeated and dispirited armj^, almost surrounded 
 by a victorious and an exultant enemy. 
 
 Pleasington and Oglethrop have met the shocks 
 of the impetuous, indomitable Ashby, and heard 
 the thunder of Jackson's cannon again and again 
 in the valley of Virginia. 
 
 " The Army of the Potomac " has once more 
 changed its position, and returned to its former 
 encampment. 
 
 " The famous warrior on horseback " has been 
 assigned to its command, and passed in triumph 
 over and by the camps and the ruins of the once 
 bristling parapets and frowning battlements that 
 shed a halo of terror about, and clothed in mystic 
 grandeur the name of Manassas. 
 
 Gen. Lee has broken up his camp in front of 
 Richmond, and advanced with two invincible 
 legions beyond the Rapidan, to meet his new an- 
 tagonist in the open field. 
 
 His strong right arm — the immortal Jackson — 
 has swept the enemy from the path at Cedar 
 Mountain, where Pleasington and Oglethrop were 
 blended in the perplexing scene, and forced him 
 to take shelter beyond the Rappahannock. 
 
 The houses at Culpepper Court House have 
 trembled to their foundations from the shocks of 
 the terrible artillery duel across the Rappahan- 
 nock. 
 
 This was opened by Gen. Lee as a stroke of 
 grand and subtle strategy — a ruse that served his 
 
82 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 turn admirably, and deceived the enemy beyond 
 the expectations of the most sanguine officers. 
 
 Just as the shadows of even'mg veil the antag- 
 onists from each other's view, the "Boys in 
 Grey " observe batteries quietly moving into po- 
 sition all along the line occupied by the advance 
 troops of Gen. Lee, whose main body rests be- 
 tween the Court House and the railroad bridge, 
 across the track and below for some distance, 
 and above to a little county bridge, called Water- 
 loo, where Jackson is posted. 
 
 Pope's army lines the opposite hills, facing 
 Lee and Jackson, in formidable array, and in easy 
 range of light field-batteries. 
 
 Before day-light the next morning Lee's ad- 
 vance troops eat their frugal meal, — for breakfast 
 it could not be termed, — and are in line of battle 
 in the bottom down near the river. 
 
 Jackson is no longer at Waterloo Bridge ; but 
 other troops are in the positions held by him the 
 evenirrg before. 
 
 Just as the first grey light streaks the eastern 
 horizon, a cannon fires on Gen. Lee's left, and 
 sends a shell screaming down toward Pope's 
 left; this is answered by a cannon on Lee's right, 
 which sends a shell hissing up in the direction of 
 Pope's right. 
 
 Instantaneously one blinding sheet of flame 
 bursts from Lee's entire front; the ground trem- 
 bles from the concussion of batteries as if con- 
 vulsed by an earthquake ; the thick curtains of 
 fog which Hne the hills and hang low down the 
 banks of the river like a funeral pall, are suddenly 
 transformed from veils of sable mourning to 
 transparent hues of the rainbow, o outrival the 
 gayest scenery that ever graced a mortal stage, to 
 hold in rapturous admiration, spell-bound and 
 applauding multitudes. 
 
 Quickly the opposite hills are wrapped in rival- 
 ing flames of awful grandeur; and now high 
 above the flashes from exploding shells, knd new 
 terror, if not fearful beauty, to the brilliant scene. 
 
 Gen. E-^ has crossed the river above. Heavy 
 
 rains cause its waters suddenly to rise; and it 
 goes sweeping between the two armies like a mad 
 and an irresistible mountain torrent. 
 
 Gen. E is cut off and menaced with de- 
 struction. He is ordered to hold his position, and 
 
 at the same time asked if he could hold it, and how 
 long. His answer is characteristic of the man. 
 
 "Tell Gen. J ," he says, with grim and 
 
 sarcastic asperity, " that I cannot hold my position 
 
 at all ; but that by 1 can stand here, be cut 
 
 to pieces, and die." But he almost miraculously 
 extricates his command from a position of won- 
 drous peril. 
 
 The fact that he is already across the river, 
 that there are momentary indications that a column 
 is about to attempt a passage at Waterloo 
 Bridge, and that Lee is in line of battle all along 
 the bank of the river, makes it clear to the mind 
 of the Federal commander that the frightful 
 artillery fire has been opened and is maintained 
 with such fury, in order to prepare the wg,y for 
 and cover an anticipated crossing of Lee's army. 
 Such is true. 
 
 As a matter of course. Pope taxes his skill to 
 its utmost capacity, and devotes all his energy in 
 making preparations to defeat this audacious 
 presumption. How insane he must imagine Lee 
 to suppose him capable of such rash madness ! 
 
 Betweeij the two embattled hosts the dreadful 
 artillery duel is maintained until late in the day. 
 
 How different is Lee's plan to cross the river, 
 from the ostensible one demonstrated to the per- 
 ception of Cren. Pope. 
 
 While the artillery duel is progressing. Gen. 
 Jackson debouches to the left, under cover of a 
 dense forest, and marches up the river above its 
 fork, where either branch is fordable. 
 
 In the meantime, the restless, dashing Stewart 
 crosses the river, rides with audacity into the 
 camp of Gen. Pope, and plunders his head- 
 quarters. 
 
 Dailey, Pleasington and Oglethrop are forced to 
 meet the shocks, and strive to sustain themselves 
 against the furious onslaughts of this redoubtable 
 warrior, " The gay cavalier of Dixie." 
 
 While these side-scenes are progressing, Jack- 
 son is making his famous flank movement, having 
 for its objective point Manassas Junction, far in 
 the rear of the Federal army, which he speedily 
 reaches and captures without meeting serious 
 opposition. 
 
 When these tidings reach Pope, chagrin and 
 consternation are no adequate terms to express 
 
THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS AGAIN. 
 
 83 
 
 his emotions. Thu lady of the house where he 
 liad his head-quarters told the story thus : 
 
 " Gen. Pope and his stafFofficers had just seated 
 themselves at the dinner-table when the dispatch 
 was handed the G-eneral. Pie read it, struck the 
 table violently with his fist, and exclaimed, 
 
 ' By , I am whipped again !' They left their 
 
 dinner untouched, mounted their horses, rode 
 away, and I saw them no more." 
 
 The other corps of Lee's army follow in Jack- 
 son's foot-steps by rapid forced marches. 
 
 Jackson is in critical peril. Nothing but hia 
 wonderful genius and the blunders of his adver- 
 sary save him from utter destruction. 
 
 He is menaced on all sides, while the great 
 mountains separate him from his friends and from 
 Thoroughfare Gap — the only available passage 
 subject to seizure by the enemy. 
 
 This may be held by ten thousand troops 
 against Lee's combined legions, until Jackson's 
 annihilation is complete. But Jackson fights 
 and manoeuvres as few others could fight 
 and mauoeuvre in cases of desperate emergency. 
 All day long, on August 29th, 1862, as the 
 corps of Longstreet approach Thoroughfare Gap, 
 the men can hear the ceaseless roar of Jackson's 
 cannon rolling up in battle thunder far away 
 beyond the blue smoke-capped mountains. 
 
 Longstreet finds Thoroughfare Gap in jDosses- 
 sion of the Federal ai-my, and is thus forced to 
 halt late in the afternoon and all night in inactive 
 suspense. He makes feints, and does whatever 
 else seems possible during the night; but the 
 situation appears desperate — almost hopeless. 
 
 However, to the inexpressible amazement of 
 every one in Longstreet's command, daybreak 
 reveals the astonishing fact that the road is open; 
 that the Federal troops have abandoned that im- 
 pregnable stronghold during the night, and thus 
 lost an opportunity to strike Lee a mortal blow. 
 
 Early in the morning of August 30th, there- 
 fore, Longstreet is able to reach the field of con- 
 flict, and take up positions to support and re- 
 lieve his sorely-pressed countrymen of Jackson's 
 corps. 
 
 Now we are once more on the ensanguined 
 plains — the bloody stage of that July Sabbath. 
 The ground is the same; but the antagonists have 
 
 changed positions, and their forces are more for- 
 midable. Instead of raw troops, their ranks on 
 either side are filled with trained, disciplined, 
 war-inured veterans. 
 
 This day throughout there is much desperate 
 and bloody, but rather desultory, fighting at vari- 
 ous points along the fine. There are only partial, 
 indecisive engagements; but the suspense of 
 anxious expectation and foreboding uncertainty 
 is something fearful to the contemplation of every 
 thoughtful mind. 
 
 With darkness, however, the firing ceases and 
 the silence of night falls over the field. The sky 
 is overcast, and the weather is oppressively hot. 
 
 The Confederates sleep on their arms in battle 
 array. A large portion of the Federals pass the 
 night on their feet, changing and marching into 
 positions. 
 
 The last day of August dawns with the ele- 
 ments still overspread with gloom. The sun re- 
 fuses to shine. The atmosphere is close and 
 stifling, and fuH of dust, drifting like lazily-creep- 
 ing masses of thick fog. 
 
 Not a breeze of air ruffles the delicate texture 
 of the aspen-leaf. Strong men gasp for breath in 
 the eady morning while passively inactive. A 
 breathless suspense pervades the Confederate lines. 
 The humblest mountaineer feels that this is a day 
 destined to be recorded, and to pass down through 
 the ages as historical; and all are haunted by the 
 dark shadow of the Death Angel's wing as it 
 hovers silently over the heated and breathless 
 plains. 
 
 The early hours of the day pass over a stillness 
 not unlike the solemnity of an audience at a 
 funeral; not even a picket shot is heard. But, at 
 length, however, dense clouds of dust begin to 
 rise in front of the Confederate positions. This 
 is ominous. The storm is about to burst forth in 
 appalling fury. The Federal army is advancing 
 — moments are ages — eternity! 
 
 Jackson is along the railroad, behind the em- 
 bankments and in the cuts, and will receive the 
 shock of the blue waves. Longstreet is on Jack- 
 son's right in the open field, and will assume the 
 offensive. 
 
 Now a cannon fires ! In another moment the 
 air is black with the smoke from exploding shells ! 
 
84 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 The bloody drama is opened, and unfolding on the 
 stage! What an evening to this last "waning 
 summer-day ! 
 
 The blue waves break against Jackson's thun- 
 dering breakers Math terrific violence, only to be 
 hurled back shivered and broken. Groaded to 
 desperation, again and again they rush madly 
 upon the murderous embattlements, but to meet 
 the same disastrous reception. 
 
 Under cover of the fearful hurricane of iron 
 hail, the serried columns of Longstreet roll for- 
 ward. Pickett's division — the Old Gruard of the 
 army of Northern Virginia — moves in columns 
 down a slightly inclining plane to a ravine on the 
 edge of a corn-field, which gently inclines up- 
 ward. Here the knapsacks and blankets are de- 
 posited, and a line of battle is formed. Pickett 
 is well to the left of Longstreet's corps, the main 
 body of which has almost level, and but slightly 
 timbered ground to traverse. 
 
 Pickett moves by quick-step through the corn- 
 field. Shell, scrapnel, grape-shot shriek, scream, 
 whistle, tear indiscriminately through the deep 
 green corn and the surging mass of humanity. 
 
 At tiie upper edge of the corn-field there is a 
 beautiful grove of timber. Through this Pickett 
 moves at the same steady step. 
 
 Emerging from the cover of. the trees, what a 
 spectacle greets the eye ! One vast sea of blue 
 spreads across the plains — line behind Hne! 
 Bright armor and uniforms reflect a dazzUng 
 sheen, and brighter guns of polished brass gleam 
 amid the bristling lines of bayonets. Lazily the 
 Star Spangled Banner droops from hundreds of 
 color-staifs, unruffled by so much as a gentle 
 breeze, until it appears as though the vast plains 
 are decked in the gay and splendid regaUa appro- 
 priate only for the celebration of Independence 
 Day. 
 
 The front Hne of the Federal army stand's in 
 stoic immobility, as if prepared to pass review. 
 
 Over to the right of Pickett, in the open plains, 
 other divisions of Longstreet's corps are rolling 
 forward toward the blue sea in admirable order, 
 in the face of an iron and leaden tempest of 
 menacing death. 
 
 Pickett debouches from the woods into the 
 open plain to great disadvantage, with his posi- 
 
 tion so much ol)liqued as to render it imperatively 
 necessary to change front in short musket-range 
 of the enemy's hne of battle. 
 
 As he comes into the open ground the enemy's 
 infantry sends withering volleys to greet the Con- 
 federate onslaught; and, while changing front, 
 every known missile of death employed on the 
 battle-field is crashing or tearing through his 
 ranks. 
 
 In his front are a large house and yard, sur- 
 rounded by. a picket-fence, which his line of battle 
 strikes in making the swing to face the enemj'. 
 This breaks his line, and throws a number of 
 companies into disorder. But they pass to the 
 right and left, and when beyond the yard-fence 
 they close up the breach in the line, which is 
 now squarely in front of the FederaLposition. 
 
 All this time he moves with shouldered arms 
 at quick-step, firing not a shot. 
 
 Thus he continues to advance on a compact 
 line of battle, in the perfect order of a dress 
 parade ; for such is the appearance each regiment 
 in the Federal front presents. 
 
 In Pickett's advance a gentle declivity slopes 
 down from the Federal position. Between the 
 serried sections of infantry lines, at regular inter- 
 vals, are brass cannon. Thus a twenty-eight-gun 
 battery is posted in front of Pickett ; and he de- 
 signs to capture these thundering scourges. 
 
 This battery is manned by United States regu- 
 lars. Their guns were presented to them by the 
 ladies of some Eastern towns, cities, and perhaps 
 States. The recipients and custodians of these 
 beautiful gifts had sworn to die by, but to yield 
 them never. 
 
 Onward Pickett still moves in the face of flam- 
 ing death, while the wild huzzas of Longstreet's 
 a.ssaulting legions — now coming into close quar- 
 ters — rise above the deafening roar of cannon, 
 and the unbroken and appalling roll of musketry. 
 And yet on Pickett's left, all along Jackson's 
 lines, there are tumult and carnage raging madly 
 over which demons might gloat to surfeited satiety^ 
 
 Now Pickett is within one hundred paces of 
 the Hne which yet presents au unbroken front of 
 seeming invincibiHty. Canister, grape — double 
 charges, and rifle-baUs decimate his ranks. Be- 
 hind him the ground is thickly strewn with grey 
 
THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS AGAIN. 
 
 85 
 
 uniforms, bleeding, helpless, lifeless! Officers 
 and privates go down by hundreds! Men drop 
 forward on their faces so fast that their com- 
 manders conclude they are falling to escape the 
 murderous storm of iron and lead, before which 
 it appears impossible for anything mortal to live 
 one moment; and they actually take a number 
 by the collar to force them to their feet, only to 
 find that they will rise never more. 
 
 Onward the survivors move, closing up the 
 frightful gaps which at every step rend their 
 ranks. 
 
 Longstreet, — the Ney of the Southern army — a 
 regular "bull-dog of war," — dashes back the blue 
 waves before the impetuosity of his sweeping 
 surge. 
 
 Jackson comes out from his cover and precipi- 
 tates his legions violently upon the shattered 
 ranks of his discomfited assailants ; and as if by 
 magic at this moment the guns of Pickett leave the 
 position of shoulder-arms. They blaze, crackle, 
 echo and reverberate, mingling their deathly, 
 discordant notes with the uproarious tumult of 
 battle. 
 
 There is no halting. Forward the melting ranks 
 move with unchanged steps, loading and firing 
 with a rapidity and deadly aim that quickly mows 
 frightful swaths through the late beautiful line 
 that stood arrayed against them in such imposing 
 martial grandeur. 
 
 Now they are right among the battery's thun- 
 dering gims. The flames must singe their very 
 hair. 
 
 The supporting line sinks to the earth, or the 
 men are swept away, — metaphorically lifted from 
 their feet and hurled back- upon their reserves. 
 Flesh and blood are unequal to the overwhelming 
 shock. 
 
 The guns are passed. Some gunners, in order 
 to escape being bayoneted, fall down under the 
 carriages, as if dead ; but not one abandons his 
 post. 
 
 There is a wild yell. A reserve colunni is rush- 
 ing forward to re-take the battery. Pickett re- 
 ceives the shock, and checks the assault, while his 
 support hastens at double-quick OA'er the blood- 
 slippery ground. 
 
 The gunners rise up from under the carriages. 
 
 and give the grey line a reception of grape. In a 
 moment they are either killed, wounded, or again 
 fall down under the carriages; but they keep, 
 their oath ; not one abandons his post nor sur- 
 renders to the enemy until too badly disabled to 
 perform further duty ; and their beautiful brass 
 guns are dearly bought trophies to the enemy. 
 
 The Washington Artillery, of New Orleans, 
 comes up at a sweeping gallop, and forms between 
 the captured guns, even turning a number of them 
 on their late friends and protectors. 
 
 Speedily, now, the Federal positions are all 
 carried, and their lines hopelessly broken. 
 
 To complete the horrors of their trying distress, 
 the relentless squadrons of Stewart charge with 
 pitiless fury upon the rear of the broken and 
 flying infautr3^ 
 
 The benignity of the Creator, however, had 
 prepared for the discomfited Federals almost as 
 miraculous protection and deliverance as were 
 vouchsafed the flying Israelites to shield them 
 from the menacing dangers impending at the 
 hands of the pursuing Egyptians ; at all events, 
 they served the Union hosts the same purpose, 
 and perhaps saved them from annihilationr 
 
 Bull Run, swollen by recent rains, interposes 
 as a barrier to prevent a general and overwhelm- 
 ing onslaught all along the Confederate line. 
 Darkness in mercy spread her sable mantle 
 over the harrowing scene, soon after the general 
 repulse of the Federal army, to render effective 
 pursuit impossible. 
 
 Thus the Union army is spared additional 
 horror of confusion and dismay, inseparable from 
 a vigorous and continued pursuit. 
 
 The carnage was frightful. The wounded can 
 be estimated only, in comparison as to numbers, 
 with army corps. 
 
 The sun goes down on a scene horrible and 
 pitiful beyond description. 
 
 Under two broken gun-carriages, in the battery 
 above referred to, about ten feet apart, are Gar- 
 land Cloud and Edgar Harman. Cloud under 
 one, with a bullet hole through the body ; Har- 
 man under the other, with a broken ankle. 
 
 Harman: "Who was that called my name?" 
 
 Cloud: "It is I, Garland. Are you much hurt, 
 Lieutenant?" 
 
86 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Lieut. H : "My ankle is broken. What 
 
 has happened to you, Garland?" 
 
 Cloud: "I have a hole through my body. 
 Can't tell any more. That is what they call 
 serious. A bad night before us! It is getting 
 dark fast, and may soon rain. But there are 
 thousands suffering around us, many doubtless 
 far worse than we." 
 
 Lieut. H : "Yes, Garland, and many must 
 
 die for Avant of attention. It is terrible. I 
 think half our boys fell in taking this battery ; 
 and God only knows how many of them since. 
 I shudder at the thought of it." 
 
 Cloud: "It will be a woeful day in your 
 valley and its neighboring mountains when the 
 news of this day's work reaches there, as well as 
 in every section of every State, North and 
 South. But yonder are two figures some dis- 
 tance apart, peering into the faces of the dead, 
 assisting the wounded, and giving them water. 
 They are moving this way right over the ground 
 where we charged. There ! The nearer one is 
 Maj. Flowers. Ho, there, Maj. Flowers! Come 
 here, please." 
 
 },/[xj_ F : "Why, Garland, I was hunting 
 
 you. I saw your captain, after we made the last 
 charge, and he told me you had fallen. I would 
 have been here much sooner, but as I came 
 along over there in the edge of that skirt of 
 timber, where Jackson's right charged, I found 
 Maj. Pleasington and his friend Lieut. Oglethrop 
 both badly wounded. I stopped to care for 
 them, enemies that they are. They were both 
 visibly affected when I told them you had fallen, 
 and that I was on my way to seek you. Pleas- 
 ington said he had been remarking to his com- 
 panion that he wondered if you would find 
 them. I have promised to return that way and let 
 them know your condition. Are you badly hurt?" 
 Cloud: "An ugly shot hole through the body 
 — one of those wounds whose severity time alone 
 can determine. I tore up a silk handkerchief, 
 which I pulled from the pocket of this poor 
 artillery officer here by my side, anu plugged up 
 the holes soon after I was hit, so that I have not 
 bled much; and I am now suffering but little 
 pain. You are very kind to come to my relief 
 so promptly, Major." 
 
 Maj. F : "Oh, Garland, my fi-iend! I 
 
 wish you would call me Jesse, as you did in the 
 olden time. Don't talk to me about kindness, 
 when directly or indirectly 1 owe you near every 
 thing I hold. Don't let a petty rank come be- 
 tween us." 
 
 Cloud: "I love you none the less, but esteem 
 you all the more. But who was that just behind 
 you. Major?" 
 
 Maj. F : "I could not recognize him; he 
 
 was behind me, intently seeking some one." 
 
 Cloud: "It is — it is, father. Listen how 
 pitifully he is calling Garland. He seeks me, 
 poor old man. Major, please tell him — call out 
 here is Garland." 
 
 Maj. F : "Here is Garland Cloud, if j'ou 
 
 are seeking him." 
 
 Col. Cloud: "Oh, Garland, my boy, how 
 thankful I am to find you able to speak to me ! 
 I was about to despair and to begin to mourn 
 you for dead. Your comrades lie thick as the 
 autumn leaves between here andthe woods; nearly 
 all are dead. I saw your captain, but he could 
 tell me nothing more than that he thought you 
 fell between the woods and battery. You are 
 shot through the body. Bear it like a soldier — 
 and a Cloud. While there is life, there is hope. 
 I Avill soon have you away from here. This is 
 a sad meeting for the first time since you left 
 home. 
 
 " I was disappointed in not being able to see you 
 during nor just after the seven days' battle at 
 Eichmond. Early in the morning of the day on 
 which I was gonig over to visit you. Gen. Jack- 
 son started on this campaign. I have com- 
 manded a brigade since the battle of Port Re- 
 public, which has kept me busy. But who is 
 this, Garland, standing here by you ?" 
 
 Cloud: "Maj. Jesse Flowers, father; a true 
 friend of mine." 
 
 Col. Cloud: "Maj. Flowers, I am proud to 
 meet the bravest lad in Gen. Lee's army. I con- 
 gratulate you on your rapid and well-merited 
 promotion." 
 
 Maj. F : " I am equally delighted to meet 
 
 j'ou, Col. Cloud. My promotion has been a sad 
 affair — over the graves of my dear and superior 
 officers. How thankful I am to you for calling 
 
THE PLAINS OF MANASSAS AGAIN. 
 
 87 
 
 to see mother and sissie, and for the kind visit of 
 your daughters to them. It was a kindness they 
 highly prized." 
 
 Col. Cloud ; " Yes, I was determined to see 
 them. I shall ever remember them with kindest 
 feelings of friendship. From your home I went 
 directly to visit ' The Angel of Consolation,' — Miss 
 Carrie Harman — and spent the night at her father's 
 house. In her I saw devotion and self-denial for 
 the cause of humanity and the suffering poor 
 that have never been surpassed in this world. 
 Many a poor fellow have I seen die since with 
 her name on his lips. ' I die, but Miss Harman, 
 the Angel of Consolation, will care for my little 
 children.' I would rather be that girl than the 
 Queen of England." 
 
 Cloud : " Father, there is Miss Cari'ie's brother, 
 with a broken ankle, by that next carriage. Both 
 of you go speak to him ; he is my friend." 
 
 Col. Cloud: "Lieut. Harman, I am happy to 
 know the brother of such a sister, and I retract 
 nothing that I have said. I regret to meet you 
 in this plight; but I will soon have you cared 
 for." 
 
 Maj. F : " I am pleased to know you, 
 
 Lieut. Harman, and can assure you that I heartily 
 join Col. Cloud in his sentiments of regret, and 
 sincerely trust that you may save your foot." 
 
 Lieut. H : " Col. Cloud and Maj. Flowers, 
 
 I am truly thankful to have the honor of your 
 acquaintance, and am most grateful for the senti- 
 ments of kindness and sympathy you express for 
 my misfortune." 
 
 CoL. Cloud : " Now, boys, I will go and ob- 
 tain means to have you removed. Be patient. 
 I will be as quick as the darkness and circum- 
 stances will permit." 
 
 Cloud : " One moment, father. There are two 
 Federal of3S.cers with whom I am well acquainted, 
 lying badly wounded up yonder to the left, in the 
 woods. If it should be a last favor which I am 
 about to ask, please obtain their parole, and have 
 them, sent into their own lines. Maj. Flowers 
 will explain everything to your satisfaction as 
 you go along." 
 
 CoL. Cloud: "All right, my boy; I am proud 
 to find in you a spirit of such commendable 
 charity." And he then departed, and sought the 
 
 two Federal officers, Pleasington and Oglethrop. 
 
 Col. Cloud : " Well, boys, you are in a pretty 
 rough fix, here in the hands of enemies too poor 
 to take proper care of their own unfortunates." 
 
 Lieut. Oglethrop [Startled from a doze] : " Oh, 
 Pleasington, is that the long, grey-whiskered 
 Colonel or his ghost, on the same black horse, 
 peering at us there through the gloom, and speak- 
 ing to us in a tender and kind voice?" 
 
 Col. Cloudj " It is not his ghost. Don't be 
 alarmed boys ; I am come to you on a mission of 
 mercy and kindness." 
 
 Maj. Pleasington : Do I dream, or do I hear 
 of mercy and kindness from a Southern voice, 
 not that of Garland Cloud nor Jesse Flowers?" 
 
 CoL. Cloud : " You do not dream. I am Gar- 
 land Cloud's father. You are indebted to him 
 for this visit. He lies wounded over yonder, 
 near that white house, and asked me to look after 
 j^ou. Maj. Flowers had told him you w^ere 
 wounded." 
 
 Pleasington : " Merciful Heavens ! You Gar- 
 land Cloud's father ; and we have been trying so 
 hard all last spring and this summer to capture 
 or kill you ; and now you are come to offer us 
 kindness." 
 
 Col. Cloud: "You are powerless and harmless 
 now — proper objects to receive the kindest offices 
 of humanity. I hear of you as gentlemen and 
 soldiers waging civilized warfare. As such I re- 
 spect you. It is those cowardly people who burn 
 and pillage, and wantonly make war on the help- 
 less, defenceless non-combatants, that arouse my 
 an^er." 
 
 Lieut. Oglethrop : " How magnanimous in 
 you not to kill me, when you had disarmed me 
 at Port Republic. I did not expect to find an 
 infantry officer so expert with the sword, and 
 such a good horseman." 
 
 Col. Cloud: "My father was in the dragoons, 
 in the war of 1812. From a boy he trained me 
 to ride, and use the sword. I carry the same one 
 that went with him through that war. Your 
 escape, after I had captured you, was sufficiently 
 daring to atone for the mortification of being 
 disarmed." 
 
 Maj. Pleasington : "I paid dearly for my au- 
 dacity in charging you at Cedar Mountain, and 
 
88 
 
 MYSTIC EOMAl^CES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 again to-daj^, when I thought your men were in 
 hopeless disorder." 
 
 Col. Cloud: "Boys, time presses. I have come 
 to say to you that you will be paroled early in 
 the morning, and sent into your own lines, so 
 that you may go where Effie and Evalina can 
 nurse you, which will be more agreeable to you 
 than the care you would receive at the hands of 
 our rude, uncouth nurses. I have no time to stay 
 and hear your thanks. Duty tears me away from 
 the couch of my perhaps mortally wounded son. 
 I cannot tarry longer with you. Farewell." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIIT. 
 
 THE ANGEL OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 " Be kind to thy sister— not many may know 
 Tlie depths of pure sisterly love— 
 The wealth of the ocean lies fathoms below 
 The surface that sparkles above. ' ' 
 
 —From Be Kind To Loved Ones. 
 
 By some means Col. Cloud sent a dispatch to 
 Carrie Harman, giving a Hst of the killed and 
 wounded in the Mountain companies of his bri- 
 gade, who Avere from the vicinity of her home. 
 This reached her two days in advance of the 
 Richmond papers, containing an account of the 
 battle of August 31st, 1862, on the "Plains of 
 Manassas." As the company to which her brother 
 and Garland Cloud belonged, was not in his bri- 
 gade, no reference was made to it or them. The 
 list of killed among the sturdy mountaineers was 
 frightful. 
 
 At once she entered upon the sad and trying 
 task of breaking the news to bereaved families, 
 and of offering them such sympathy as it was 
 within the province of human power to bestow. 
 But these were cases for which consolation was 
 no soothing balm: it was an antidote too mild to 
 meet the requirements of the deep and desperate 
 malady to which it must in vain be apphed. 
 
 These mountaineers love with the wild, fierce 
 devotion of Nature, in all the grandeur and po- 
 tency of its unsullied purity; and their grief is 
 equally unmeasurable, whenever terrilile aifliction 
 suddenly overtakes them. 
 
 Miss Harman, mounted on a spirited, fleet- 
 footed horse, her long black hair flowing over 
 
 her shoulders, and a broad-brimmed, home-mffde 
 straw hat on her head, hastened from cabin to 
 cabin, with the reckless impetuosity of a trooper 
 riding for life. Faster and faster, all that day she 
 urged the noble animal onward through the yet 
 burning heat of a September sun, until her sad and 
 pathetic mission was fulfilled. 
 
 On the night preceding the fourth day — the 
 day on which she would finish this trying labor — 
 as she approaches the old homestead, which is 
 wrapped in the golden hues of the radiant setting 
 sun, and stands out in bold relief on thte rising 
 ground in the centre of a mountain-encompassed 
 valley — one of those rarely-beautiful spots of 
 earth that admits of no comparison, because there 
 is nothing in this Avorld with which to compare 
 it, save alone another valley, which lies some- 
 where, like itself, nestling within the encircling 
 bases of the Eternal Mountains — she gazes on the 
 grand old semi-baronial mansion, and contrasts 
 it with the rude huts within whose walls her 
 heart, so tender and sympathetic, has been so 
 rAany times Wrung by the sorrow and despair of 
 the inmates at the tidings her lips have brought. 
 She wonders why there is such disproportionate 
 inequality in the conditions of the human family, 
 and why mCn war against one another with such 
 savage inhumanity, creating such pangs of bitter 
 sorrow in a world filled with so much natural 
 beauty, that it should hold nothing but happiness 
 and peace; and she shudders with an indefinable 
 dread of reaching the house. 
 
 It is time that news should have arrived from 
 her brother's company. Has it come? What 
 will it be ? Will a silent, unsympathetic mail- 
 messenger coldly bring to her the same sad story 
 which she has been imparting to other anxious 
 and loving hearts ? Thus musing, she mounts 
 the steps where her father is seated. 
 
 Carrie : " Oh, father ! Is there any news from 
 Edgar?" 
 
 H : '•'iSro, darling, not one word. His 
 
 division is terribly cut up ; but no names are 
 given." 
 
 Carrie : " This suspense is agonizing. Why 
 cannot we know the worst, like these poor people 
 in the mountain ? There is no reason why Col. 
 Cloud, who many of our foppish officers sneer- 
 
THE ANGEL OF CONSOLATION. 
 
 cSL) 
 
 ingly term a hoosier ignoramus, should have a 
 long report of the casualties in his command 
 here three days in advance of our own class of 
 officers." 
 
 H : "That is true, Carrie. But Col. Cloud 
 
 is an extraordinary man, and a worker of almost 
 inexhaustible energy." 
 
 Carrie : " What made him extraordinary ? 
 Not education and numberless advantages en- 
 joyed by men in om- sphere." 
 
 H : "Nature, Carrie. The natural always 
 
 excels the artificial; Nature's handiwork is per- 
 fect. Cloud is a model of her workmanship, and 
 merits a rank socially equal with any class in our 
 country." 
 
 Carrie: " We are agreed on that point. I am 
 weary. Good-night, father." 
 
 H : "Good-night, Carrie; I hope you may 
 
 sleep well." 
 
 She retires to her chamber, and there her pent- 
 up thoughts find utterance. 
 
 Carrie: [Solus.] "Merciful Heaven! If father 
 only knew the tempest of conflicting emotions 
 that sweep through my breast and rack my brain, 
 he would not imagine that balmy slumbers and 
 tranquil repose Avill be my comfflrting companions 
 to-night. Nothing but broken, unref reshing sleep 
 and hideous dreams, with their spectral, ghost- 
 like shadows, will haunt and startle me this night 
 through. 
 
 " Those poor women wringing their hands in 
 despair; their Httle children clinging in terror 
 around them; their mingled shrieks, wails,moans, 
 and sobs, are pictures that will be flitting be- 
 fore my vision, and sounds of frightful discord 
 that will be distracting my ear whenever weary 
 Nature asserts her sway, and lulls me into the 
 shadowy realms of dream-land. 
 
 " My poor, dear, only brother, Avhere are you 
 to-night? Is your spirit hovering near me, to 
 witness my restless anxiety and grief when the 
 dread news — war's accursing legacy — comes? 
 Heaven shield and preserve him, I pray. And 
 Jesse 'Flowers, — the boy hero, the little major, — 
 where is he? Oh, my God! spare me the ordeal 
 of bearing to the ' Angels of the Mountain' a 
 bitter, cruel cup of woe. And Garland Cloud, — 
 the mountain scout and tempter of fate — I 
 
 Avonder if his faith in the protecting arm of the 
 guardian angel that shall ward off danger until 
 the destined dark hour comes, is well founded, 
 and has still preserved him. Surely some super- 
 human power shields his gallant, noble father. 
 
 "How strange that the magical influence of 
 that recently obscure and unknown boy should 
 control me, and stimulate me to such wonderful 
 degrees of exertion, and nerve me to endure such 
 incredible fatigue ! Why do I crave his praise 
 and esteem? It is because he saved my brother, 
 and is brave and chivalrous. But he seems never 
 to appreciate my labors but for their own sake and 
 that of the cause in which they are rendered. 
 Yet why should he ? Are not all his heart, soul, 
 and life devoted to that cause ? Apart from it 
 and its relations his thoughts never stray." 
 
 The next autumn eve Miss Harman dismounts 
 in front of her home, much wondering why the 
 grand old portico is deserted, and her father 
 nowhere to be seen. 
 
 Her labors, in their present sorrowful form, are 
 finished; the last scene of mourning in her juris- 
 diction, so far as she knows, has been visited. 
 
 She walks wearily up the gravel path and the 
 broad stone steps, and enters the spacious hall. 
 There she utters a little scream, and exclaims : 
 "Oh, Edgar! Edgar! my dear brother, is it you, 
 and wounded?" 
 
 Edgar: "Yes, sissie, it is I. But don't be 
 alarmed. It is only in my ankle. I have come 
 home, my sister, to be comforted by ' The Angel 
 of Consolation.' " 
 
 Carrie : " Oh, Edgar ! thank God that it is 
 no worse. But pray do not begin making light 
 of your poor sister so soon. Where did you get 
 that sacrilegious appellation?" 
 
 Edgar: "Pardon; but not so hastily, my little 
 sister. God forbid that I should make light of 
 you. There is no one else in this world that I 
 am prouder of than you, and the noble mission of 
 mercy in which you are engaged. 
 
 "And in relation to that blessed name which I 
 have just called you, if you had heard it fall from 
 the same hps, under the same circumstances as it 
 did when it first greeted my ears, you would not 
 style it sacrilegious. 
 
 "Lying on the field of battle, perfectly help- 
 
90 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 less, in the deep gloom of the last fading rays of 
 twihght, surrounded by the shrieks of the 
 Avounded and the groans of the dying, Col. Cloud 
 and Maj. Flowers, Avho were seeking and helping 
 the wounded, met for the first time in their hves, 
 not ten paces from me. Col. Cloud had not uttered 
 a dozen sentences, including the remarks of intro- 
 ductory formality, before I was startled to hear 
 the markedly emphatic words : ' Carrie Harman, 
 the Angel of Consolation. Many a poor fellow 
 have I seen die, Avith her name on his lips, 
 consoled by the thought that she will not let 
 the Httle children suffer. I would rather be that 
 girl than the Queen of England.' In a few 
 moments I was, although a stranger to both 
 made known to them. The Colonel affirmed 
 that he would not retract a word, and that the 
 brother of such a girl should be cared for. Long 
 before day my wound was properly dressed, and 
 I was in an ambulance, in a special train, on my 
 way home. But for [that man, I would not be 
 here to-night, nor for many a day to come." 
 
 Carrie: "Thank God, I begin to reap my re- 
 wards. The secret prophecy that first induced 
 me to engage in this cause, is being fulfilled; and 
 here is my dear bi other, one of its first fruits, 
 saved once more. What a debt of gratitude the 
 Clouds are heaping up against our family!" 
 
 Mr. H : "Yes, my children, greater than 
 
 we can ever cancel, even were Garland and Edgar 
 to exchange sisters." 
 
 Edgar : " Poor Garland, the Confederacy is his 
 bride ; and I fear that, as far as he is concerned, 
 she wiU soon be, if she is not now, a widow. 
 The poor boy is desperately, if not mortally 
 wounded. He was within ten feet of me. I 
 heard the surgeon tell his father that he would 
 have to be moved on a litter; and then they 
 conversed in a low tone for a few moments. 
 The Colonel came, and took leave of me, and re- 
 turned to Garland. I could not hear what they 
 said until as the Colonel was turning away to 
 mount his horse, to rejoin his command, I heard 
 Garland say, ' May God bless and preserve your 
 father ! ' 
 
 " As the brave old man rode past me he wns, 
 sobbing audibly, as if his poor heart would break. 
 What a trial for a father thus to leave a son, and 
 
 resume the stern, rough duties of an active com- 
 mander ! 
 
 "As the ambulance rolled away. Garland sang 
 out, 'A race now. Lieutenant, who will be the 
 first back to duty.' 
 
 " Oh, my God! how my heart bled thus to leave 
 the poor boy !" 
 
 Carrie : " What do you think became of him 
 after you left ? " 
 
 Edgar : " His father had made provision for 
 his care ; but I am not able to say what they were. 
 Circumstances were not favorable for making any 
 desirable arrangements. But what is the matter 
 with you, sissie ? You are as pale as a ghost." 
 
 Carrie: "I was thinking of that poor fathers 
 struggle, and thtf bitter pangs it must ha*'e cost 
 him to leave his son ; and that but for that same 
 father's kindness, you would have been left in the 
 same condition ; and I blush with shame to say 
 it, but I was thinking of your aristocratic unkind- 
 ness to that poor boy in the early montlis of the 
 war." 
 
 Edgar: "Yes; and I thank God that it is 
 unknown to his father. Poor Garland will carry 
 the secret pangs which those cruel, private 
 Avrongs caused him to suffer, concealed from the 
 world in his generous heart, to the grave. I am 
 cured of my aristocratic follies. But my being 
 at home now, you can attribute to Col. Cloud's 
 esteem for ' The Angel of Consolation.' " 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 " But soft ! our step's o'er a brave young nation's tomb : 
 An Empire's dust lies supulcbred liere : 
 Oh, come, do not molest this defenceless urn : — 
 •Tis Dixie's grave — far more than Waterloo." 
 
 Various. 
 
 Summer, 18G3 — that interesting season when 
 "May showers "bequeath "June flowers," — 
 comes to witness gigantic developments on tlie 
 American continent. 
 
 "The Armies of the Potomac" and "Northern 
 Virginia" occupy much the same positions as- 
 sumed directly after the battle of Chancellorsville ; 
 Hooker and Lee in command. 
 
 Hooker failed at Chancellorsville to demon- 
 
THE FIELD OF GETTYSBUEG. 
 
 91 
 
 strate a prowess of strategic skill and military 
 genius requisite to enable him successfully to cope 
 with Lee in playing desperate games on the 
 great chess-board of life and death. At Chancel- 
 lorsville he was most sadly checkmated. 
 
 Since Chancellorsville, Lee has been intensely 
 studying their chess-board, watching his antago- 
 nist, and planning for him a surprising game. 
 
 However, Hooker is no contemptible rival: 
 thus Gen. Lee esteems him. 
 
 To say that G-en. Joseph Hooker was not a 
 match for Gen. Eobert E. Lee, is no disparage- 
 ment to the former. 
 
 Early in June, Lee decides to move. It is a 
 grand conceptiSn. Few great captains whose 
 illustrious names grace the 2">ages of history, 
 save perhaps alone Napoleon I., Avould hazard 
 its possible consequences. 
 
 But with Lee, continued inactivity might 
 prove a greater disaster than even the failure of 
 the move itself was likely to entail. 
 
 It requires an iron will thus to decide to make, 
 and an indomitable courage to attempt, this move ; 
 yet Lee seems not to hesitate. 
 
 Numerous feints, cavalry expeditions and 
 other exciting ruses are employed to divert the 
 attention of the enemy from the real move 
 contemplated. 
 
 JSTumerically, Lee's army is much inferior to 
 that of Hooker's. It is the only barrier between 
 Hooker's army and Richmond. 
 
 According to military tactics and established 
 precedents in the scientific schools where arts of 
 war are taught, for Lee to oblique either to the 
 .right or to the left, is to expose not only his flank 
 to disastrous attacks, but his line of communica- 
 tion — the road to the Confederate Capitol — to 
 seizure by the enemy. 
 
 That he would dare this perilous venture, must 
 appear to the mind of Gen. Hooker too absurd 
 for serious attention, if not, indeed, for any con- 
 sideration whatever. 
 
 But be this as it may, history tells the story. 
 Lee makes the move under cover of clouds of 
 cavalry. When Hooker awakens to a realization 
 of the situation, Lee is no longer in his camp : 
 the road to Richmond is open; but Washington 
 is menaced. 
 
 Lee has suddenly broken up his camp, boldly 
 passed from the front of his adversary, turned 
 his right flank — thus securing advantage of posi- 
 tion baflling Hooker's powers of remedy, and 
 forcing him to hasten to the defense of Washing- 
 ton. This he accomplishes with admirable 
 success. 
 
 He is checkmated beyond the bounds of con- 
 sistency or reason, yet he does all there is for 
 him to do in the direction of counteracting the 
 impending consequences of having allowed him- 
 self to be out-generaled. From this point to 
 Gettysburg Lee moves triumphantly. 
 
 On the inhabitants of Gettysburg the bright 
 sunshine of the morning of July 1st, 1863, casts 
 but a gleam of ominous and portentous gloom. 
 They know legions of foemen are at their 
 doors. This is a beautiful place and a sublime 
 locality. 
 
 The region about Gettysburg is composed of 
 picturesque hill, wavy green forest, undulating 
 plain, and craggy, precipitous ravine, interspersed 
 ever and anon with bright, clear, silvery brook- 
 lets and rifls, chiming their rippling murmurs 
 of melody, as they glide along, gladdening their 
 grass- and flower-bordered margins, grouped in 
 such proportions as to make a picture of match- 
 less loveliness. Set in a frame circlet of great 
 blue mountains, it is colored in all the varied 
 hues which conspicuous thrift and intelhgent 
 husbandry can bestow. 
 
 All Nature is startled by the wild shouts of 
 foemen, the terrific roll of musketry, and the 
 reverberating peals of thundering cannon. 
 
 To the good, quiet, peaceable citizens of this 
 hapless region, who have only read of those 
 Avarlike machines, the tragic drama, — which has 
 selected for its stage their orchards bending under 
 burdens of fruit, their gardens decked with 
 delicious viands and rare flowers, and their 
 fields crowned with golden harvests of ripening 
 grain,— is not utterly divested of all the terrors 
 associated in the minds of the human family 
 Avith the dread annihilation of the Day of 
 Judgment. 
 
 Early in the day the gaUant Gen. Reynolds, of 
 the Federal army, falls. Nearly all day long 
 there is obstinate and steady fighting. 
 
92 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 The First and the Eleventh Corps of the Fed- 
 eral army sustain the brunt of the shocks of 
 this day. The van of Lee's army, led by Gen, 
 Heth, of Hill's corps, is first and early on the 
 field; 
 
 Providentially, as it seems, G-en. Wadsworth, 
 of the Federal army, marching from the village 
 of Emmitsburg, hears the familiar sound of 
 battle thunder, hastens at double-quick through 
 Gettysburg, and strikes the advancing Con- 
 federate column barely in time to seize and 
 occupy a range of hills that overlooks the place 
 from the north-west, in the direction of Cham- 
 bersburg. 
 
 Just about this time the brave Reynolds is 
 killed while making a personal reconnoissance. 
 Here, prostrated on his face, with a ball through 
 his neck, he baptizes the soil which gave him 
 birth, with his life-blood. 
 
 Gen. Doubleday assumes command; but is 
 forced by the sheer pressure of numbers to fall 
 back precipitately to Seminary Hill, a little 
 west of the village. 
 
 The Eleventh Corps arrives, and Gen. Howard 
 assumes command. Thus encouraged by reen- 
 forcements, the Federal troops arrest the tide of 
 disaster about to overwhelmn them. But about 
 one o'clock, p. m. they are furiously assailed by 
 Ewell's corps, directed to the field, while march- 
 ing from York, by hearing the thunder of 
 battle. 
 
 Thus outflanked and outnumbered, utterly dis- 
 heartened, the Eleventh Corps wavers, breaks, 
 and flees in helpless rout. The First Corps is 
 forced to follow or be annihilated. The Federal 
 hospitals and wounded are thus left in the pos- 
 session of the Confederates. Nearly half the 
 Federal troops engaged are dead, Avounded or 
 prisoners. 
 
 The situation appears desperate, hopeless, amaz- 
 ing and incomprehensible! The Confederates 
 merely occupy the grand amphitheatre of hills 
 north and west : they do not advance. 
 
 Is it Fate that stays their forward movement — 
 the mysterious, mighty, invisible hand — the hand 
 of Him who presides " over the destinies of na- 
 tions !" Thus it seems : there is no opposition to 
 prevent their advance. 
 
 The broken lines of the Federals take posses- 
 sion of Cemetery and Culp's Hills, both of which 
 might be occupied by the Confederates; but 
 they seem content with the results of the day. 
 Round Top, another formidable eminence, re- 
 mains in possession of the Federal army. 
 
 The shadows close over the defenders of their 
 soil and their fire-sides, discomfited and dispirited, 
 as the light of day fades, and darkness, in benig- 
 nant mercy, spreads her thick mantle over the 
 earth, suspending for a time the savage strife 
 and fiendish carnage on this ensanguined field. 
 
 The Union army passes the night in bringing 
 up and posting reenforcements, collecting strag- 
 glers from the rout, and strengthening its posi- 
 tions, while the Confederates rest in apathetical 
 inactivity. 
 
 The Federals have positions to strengthen, 
 already rendered formidal^le by Nature. They 
 hold the keys of Gettysburg, considered as a 
 battle-ground. 
 
 Cemetery Hill, south of the town, is a com- 
 manding position; Culp's Hill almost as im- 
 portant; while Round Top is invaluable. All 
 of these are not in the hands of the Confederates, 
 because the " God of battles " Avilled that they 
 should halt, and not occupy these points whence 
 would issue the turning tide of battle and the 
 palm of victory. 
 
 In the meantime, Gen. Hancock comes upon 
 the field. With the experienced eye of a trained 
 soldier and skillful commander, he recognizes and 
 approves the great advantages of position in 
 favor of the Federal army. Gen. Mead, who has 
 succeeded Gen. Hooker as Commander-in-Chief 
 of the Army of the Potomac, selects Gen. Han- 
 cock for this momentous duty. Undoubtedly he 
 knows and properly appreciates his man : cer- 
 tainly he does not mistake his abilities. 
 
 Proof of this obtains in the fact that Mead de- 
 fers to Hancock's judgment as to the most prom- 
 ising battle-ground, and abandons that selected 
 by himself in person in favor of the one recom- 
 mended by his abler lieutenant. 
 
 With favorable opportunities, Hancock would 
 have been the peer of Lee as a commander. 
 
 As a gentleman and true soldier, he is the equal 
 of any man of any age or country. 
 
THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 93 
 
 During the night, the main body of the Federal 
 army arrives in the vicinity of Gettysburg, and 
 G-en. Mead comes to the front. 
 
 Such is the situation upon •which dawns the 
 second day of July. It passes in comparative 
 quiet, with only an occasional picket shot, until 
 about the middle of the afternoon. 
 
 At this hour Longstreet hurls his legions 
 with the impetuosity of an avalanche, and with 
 all its destructive force, upon Sickles ; and makes 
 the memorable charge through the peach-orchard, 
 near the little brick house. Sickles is beaten back 
 in great confusion, and sustains frightful loss, a 
 part of which is his own leg. 
 
 In this struggle the Confederates make a des- 
 perate effort to reach and possess Round Top, 
 which Gen. Sykes barely prevents them from 
 accomplishing. This failure is a terrible disaster 
 to the Confederates. Before they can withdraAv 
 across the plain, they are furiously assailed by 
 Gen. Hancock with a large force. Their loss is 
 fearful. Longstreet encounters his match in 
 "bull-dog" tenacity in the open field. 
 
 Near the foot of Round Top, Kilpatrick, wnth 
 his cavalry, charges Hood, to prevent the cap- 
 ture of the Federal ammunition train which 
 lies back in the direction of Chambersburg. 
 Ewell carries some strong positions and portions 
 of the Federal works well up Culp's Hill. 
 
 While these scenes are developing, Stewart 
 and the Federal cavalry, twelve miles away, at 
 Hanover, measure the prowess of their arms in 
 wielding flashing blades of polished steel. Thus 
 Stewart is held engaged, and prevented from ob- 
 taining the information that the Army of the 
 Potomac is arriving on "The Field of Gettys- 
 burg," — information that would be of inestimable 
 value to Gen. Lee. 
 
 The second day ends in a deeper gloom for 
 the Federal army than the first, and the third 
 and last day dawns. 
 
 Indescribable is the suspense of the hour. 
 Deep anxiety, but fixed and immovable resolu- 
 tion, are clearly and unmistakably depicted on 
 every feature alike of the raw reserves and the 
 war-worn, grim-visaged veterans. 
 
 The world looks on in wonder, and shudders 
 at the thought of the appalling spectacle that 
 
 the sun of this day is destined to go down upon. 
 Everywhere it seems to be realized that this 
 day is to decide all. 
 
 The preparations on both sides are prodigious. 
 From the commanders-in-chief down to the 
 humblest private in the ranks, all appear to under- 
 stand and appreciate the stupendous magnitude 
 of the stakes for which they are about to play 
 in this desperate game. 
 
 The Northern troops are marshalled in the 
 cause of preserving the Union. But at the pres- 
 ent moment they are stimulated by that same 
 formidable incentive which has before- actuated 
 the Confederates, and most powerfully aided 
 them to their success, — that of repelling the all- 
 devastating demon of war from ravaging and 
 laying waste their own beautiful land. This now 
 is in their favor, and weighs against their in- 
 vaders. And, moreover, the supernatural genius 
 and legionary name of "Stonewall" Jackson is 
 no longer against them. 
 
 The daring Sonthmen have their very existence, 
 as they now believe, at stake. They rebelled 
 against the asserted authority of the National 
 Government. In this they assumed desperate 
 chances : the alternative of becoming abject pro- 
 vincial slaves, with all the possible and attendant 
 penalties of treason. 
 
 This morning their bright little Star of Empire 
 shines brilliantly in the zenith of its glory. Thus 
 l^oised, it trembles and flickers amid the contend- 
 ing tempests of battle which hurl their- fury 
 against it with desperate resolution, to precipitate 
 it from its enviable pinnacle down into the abyss 
 of everlasting darkness and oblivion, there to re- 
 main eternally extinct. 
 
 On this fated field they are entangled in the 
 toils of a mortal mistake : that of neglecting to 
 seize the vital positions the first day; worse yet 
 is to be their error: that of assaulting these all 
 but imjiregnable ramparts, now strengthened by 
 thirty-six hours of labor, the work of an army 
 inspired by desperation and the startling prompt- 
 ings that instinctively admonish its performers of 
 the dreadful necessity of self-preservation. 
 
 Moreover, Gen. Lee's lieutenants hesitate; do 
 not promptly obey his orders, or suggest a differ- 
 ent plan of battle at one point, at least, on the 
 
94 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 line where the action should be progressing in 
 compliance with the original plan and orders. 
 
 Accustomed to rely on Jackson to act up to 
 the requirements of emergencies developed by 
 sudden and unpropitious circumstances, he seems 
 to have overlooked this important feature when 
 issuing the orders of this his first great battle 
 since the one in which his able associate fell. 
 However, had his commands been proui])tly 
 obeyed, and had all his subordinates fulfilled the 
 expectations of their chief, this would not excuse 
 the croAA^ning mistake of Gen. Robert E. Lee's 
 brilliant military career — that of assaulting the 
 craggy steeps on the field of Gettysburg. 
 
 It is presumable, hoAvever, that he was igno- 
 rant of the fact that " The Army of the Potomac " 
 was on the field^ and that he relied upon the 
 irresistible momentum of his hitherto invincible 
 legions to overAvlielm the weaker and dispirited 
 troops in his front ; then to beat the others, com- 
 ing to their relief in detail. But this Avas not 
 Gen. Lee in his true character. Perchance the 
 finger of Destiny, hitherto propitious, Avas guid- 
 ing him in jjaths of destruction. 
 
 The se/^uel of " The Field of Gettysburg " is 
 indicated by the Avords, fraught Avith melancholy, 
 Hancock! Pickett! Cemetery Hill ! — or thus it 
 proves to the Confederacy. 
 
 With other features of this scene we shall, 
 therefore, refrain to deal. 
 
 Now the earth trembles from the incessant 
 shocks of hundreds of cannon. From one end 
 to the other of the far extended lines an un- 
 broken sheet of flame blazes Avith the continuous 
 uniformity of evenly regulated blast-furnaces; 
 and the roll of musketry • is as steady and un- 
 fluctuating as the beat of angry waves on a rock- 
 bound coast; intermingling with these are the 
 maddening shouts of charging hosts ; and the air 
 is filled with the shadoAvs of the departing spirits 
 of the dying. 
 
 Cemetery Hill thunders defiance. There the 
 soldierly bearing, the intrepid spirit, the indomit- 
 able will, and the heroic courage of Hancock are 
 unmistakably perceptible. 
 
 These restore order ; these inspire confidence. 
 His genius is everywhere conspicuous. Li the 
 outUnes and construction of his defenses : in the 
 
 disposition of his batteries and troops its indi- 
 cations stand out in terribly teUing grandeur. 
 
 Cemetery Hill is a f roAvning battlement, a seeth- 
 ing, fiery A'olcano, belching forth its hissing 
 lava in volumes and torrents of deathly destruc- 
 tion. It is the awful prize Avhich the Confederates 
 purpose to seize. Thus they hope to overAvhelm 
 the Federal army, and in this they reckon not 
 without foundation, provided, hoAvever, that they 
 can storm and hold the dreadful Hill. When an 
 easy prey they would not, attempted not, to grasp 
 it. NoAV, when a forlorn impracticability, upon 
 which depends the fate of a nation — the grandest 
 stake ever ventured on one single issue of rash- 
 ness — they are ready to rush up its appalling 
 
 Look yonder noAv ! There is the " Old Guard " 
 in battle array ! Pickett looks across the plain 
 and up the hill to the summit. What madness ! 
 What a journey to contemplate ! But such is his 
 lot. 
 
 The end is near. This is the supreme throAV 
 for the grand prize in this desperate game. 
 
 There they go — the legions of Pickett ! Hoav 
 grandly they move ! What splendid order in the 
 face of that tornado of canister and grape ! Hoav 
 steadily their grey Avaves roll across that plain of 
 death ! They step quickly at shouldered arms ! 
 
 The regiments are Avell filled. See how far the 
 colors are apart ! Look Avhat long lines the di- 
 vision makes ! An army in itself — ten, twelve 
 thousand muskets — there must be more. They 
 are about to charge Cemetery Hill; they* are 
 about to try and break the enemy's line. DeA'oted 
 Virginians ! What a noble sacrifice ! Up the Hill 
 they go ! Look how rapidly the regimental colors 
 are drawing nearer one another 1 
 
 Now they are concealed in the blaze and smoke. 
 There bursts the men's wild huzza. They are 
 storming the heights ; the guns are silenced. 
 The Virginians are on the Hill. Is there any 
 force left to hold it? 
 
 They are attacked by the reserves. It is lost. 
 The wild vociferous cheers of the triumphing 
 Federals are heard above the roar of the battle's 
 storm ; they are rolling on down the slope. 
 
 Pickett's division is annihilated. " The Field of 
 Gettysburg" is lost. The Confederacy has re- 
 
THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 95 
 
 ceived lier death blow. Her star has set in the 
 darkness of eternal night. 
 
 This tells the story. Pickett's failure on 
 Cemetery Hill decides the battle of G-ettysburg, 
 and seals the doom of the Confederacy. 
 
 The history of this field is indelibly written in 
 letters of tears and of blood. The mournful 
 wails of a nation will rise above it, and ascend 
 to Heaven, crying pitifully against the bhghting 
 curse of civil war — the blood of brothers by 
 brothers shed — ten thousand times that of Abel 
 again and again multiplied. 
 
 Every house, the friendly shade of every tree, 
 grove, orchard, is an improvised hospital. For 
 miles around, the country is transformed into one 
 vast appalling, ghastly burying-ground. 
 
 Pickett's cUvision melted away in the white 
 heat of the battle flame, and perished on the 
 field. 
 
 The great Confederate waves which were 
 hurled with such terrific impetuosity upon the 
 opposing breakers, at other points along the line, 
 were shattered, broken and rolled sullenly back 
 as the baffled billows of the angry deep recede 
 from the headland boulder upon which their 
 fury has been spent in vain. 
 
 The Confederates were foiled, and forced to 
 retire, leaving the flower of their army on the 
 field ; but they were not routed. 
 
 Their adversaries received serious mementoes 
 of the shock — so great that had the results ex- 
 tended no farther than the. mere abstract issues 
 of the conflict, the advantages gained could not 
 be termed a decisive triumph. 
 
 Yet, nevertheless, the palm of victory wa:^ 
 theirs; the ultimate fruits of the day were con- 
 clusive, and probably saved the Union. 
 
 The shattered fragments of Lee's army fall 
 back ; re-form ; face the enemy, and prepare to 
 receive the onslaught of their vanquishers with 
 cool desperation, such as sectional pride and 
 individual heroism alone can inspire. 
 
 Thousands of Southerners from the advanced 
 lines, that made the desperate charges, are cut 
 off from the main body of their comrades and 
 captured when the swiftly turning tide breaks 
 against them. Let us look for a moment at a 
 group of these discouraged warriors under guard 
 
 in an open field, and hear what two of them 
 have to say. 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "Why, Garland boy, how do 
 you happen to be here? When I last parted 
 with you on the field of Manassas I never ex* 
 pected to see you again. The doctor said you 
 could not live twenty-four hours. This is a 
 fatal field to us — a sad day for the South and 
 poor, dear, old Virginia. Half my command 
 remains on the field. I feel as though I will 
 never be able to smile again." 
 
 Cloud : " A spent ball knocked me senseless, 
 on top of that fatal Cemetery Hill yonder, just 
 as we took it, and when consciousness returned 
 I was a prisoner. Oh, father, the ' Old Guard 
 of the Army of Northern Virginia' has made its 
 last charge, captured its last battery; you will 
 never more behold Pickett's division, unless you 
 could be permitted to go over on that infernal 
 hill and see it buried. I do not beUeve that a 
 thousand men returned ; and they are nearly all 
 dead, those who were left behind. But how were 
 you captured ? " 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "When they were beating us 
 back, in the last final struggle, my horse was 
 killed under me. My right foot hung in the 
 stirrup. The poor nigger, my constant com- 
 panion on every field from Romney to this, fell 
 on my leg ; and before I Avas able to extricate 
 myself I was a prisoner." 
 
 Cloud: "Since you are a prisoner, father, I 
 am exceedingly thankful that we are together. 
 Amid all our misfortunes, do you not regard this 
 circumstance as being fortunate ?" 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Only for this night. They 
 will separate us." 
 
 Cloud : " I am aware that tlaey ivould separate 
 us. It is for this one night, and this only, that I 
 am thankful on the- score of our being together. 
 I fully understand that this is the last night we 
 are to pass together before the war closes. It 
 may be the last one on this side of eternity. 
 But is it not enough to be thankful for, that we 
 are permitted to pass one night together in this 
 long, dark, cruel, trying-war, and that the first 
 one of our captivity? Often in this cheerless 
 world, the highest ecstasies of a life-time have 
 been crowded into the brief space of one night." 
 
96 
 
 IklYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY. 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "Yes, Garland, but nothing 
 ecstatic can live one moment amid scenes like 
 these, unless it be the departing spirits of the 
 poor fellows now dying around us, if their dim 
 •eyes, as they emerge from their suffering tene- 
 ments, can behold the open gates of Heaven. 
 You are too young, my boy — your mind and 
 spirit too elastic and bouyant, properly to esti- 
 mate and duly appreciate the gravity of the 
 situation at this bitter moment, either of our- 
 selves personally, or of the South." 
 
 Cloud: "Pardon me father; but you are 
 laboring under an erroneous impression. I see 
 utter ruin and hopeless slavery, as conquered 
 subjects, for the South and her poor people, who 
 have loved her, if not wisely, oh how truly well ! 
 For ourselves, I see ahead of us months — 
 dreary, tedious months, in the gloom of a 
 Northern prison, and perhaps a miserable death 
 as traitors. But yonder comes Maj. Pleasington 
 straight to us. We will resume our conversa- 
 tion after he leaves us." 
 
 Maj. Pleasington : " How are you. General 
 and Garland ? I have been riding .among your 
 wounded. I hoped not to find you there. I 
 Avas riding by up the road, and recognized the 
 General. Regret to find you prisoners, but 
 since I do find you captives, I am glad you are 
 in no worse phght. You will not long remain 
 in custody. The little Colonel, Jesse Flowers, 
 where is he ? Is he safe ?" 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " We are both reasonably well, 
 save some bruises. Accept our thanks, Major 
 for this visit, and your kind expressions. Col. 
 Flowers was unhurt a few moments before my 
 horse fell. He has been in my brigade since the 
 battle of South Mountain. He has not been 
 absent from duty since he entered the army, 
 and has never received a scratch. I beheve he 
 is safe." 
 
 Cloud: "How about Oglethrop, Major?" 
 
 Maj. P : Oh ! the poor lad was wounded 
 
 in Kilpatrick's charge on Hood — an ugly flesh 
 wound in the arm. I guess he is at home before 
 this time. How did you come out with your 
 Avound, Garland, received at Manassas ?" 
 
 Cloud : "I was a long time at death's door, 
 concealed in an upper room of a house about 
 
 six miles from the battle-field, near the Sudley 
 Ford road. In about two months I was re- 
 moved to a remote point in the mountain, where 
 I remained until January, when I was able to 
 set out to seek my command, which I found in 
 North Carolina. This is my first important 
 battle since. How did you and Oglethrop 
 fare ?" 
 
 Maj. P : " We both reached our homes 
 
 very soon. We were well nursed, and recovered 
 by Christmas. 
 
 " Oglethrop came down to the city for the holi- 
 daj^s before rejoining his regiment. We rejoined 
 our command about the middle of January. 
 Oglethrop was very happy. He was engaged to 
 Evalina, with the consent of her parents. Mr. 
 Mountjoy was prepossessed with the matrimonial 
 candidate; and the most favorable yet purely 
 fortuitous circumstance that could possibly occur, 
 transpired to aid him in overcoming the opposi- 
 tion of the mother. 
 
 " Col. Worthington returned home in season 
 for Christmas festivities, and consummated an en- 
 gagement with Miss Cassandra. This circum- 
 stance and Col. Worthington's interest in the 
 cause of Oglethrop, overcame Mrs. Mountjoy"s 
 opposition, and she consented to give him her 
 youngest daughter for a wife. 
 
 "Immediately after the permanent establish- 
 ment of peace, if all the i")arties are then living, 
 there will be a grand quadruple wedding at the 
 Mountjoy mansion. » 
 
 "Mrs. Mountjoy is, however, still uncomiiromis- 
 ing in her opposition to a match between Eflfie 
 and I, and unshaken in her determination that 
 Arnold Noel shall win Effie. He is in the navy, 
 and out at sea. Garland, do you ever hear anj-- 
 thing about Uncle Jake and his young mistress, 
 and his dead young master's sweetheart ? " 
 
 Cloud : " I went down there before setting 
 out for my command. Both mansions and Uncle 
 Jake's cabin are in ashes. Leonora Fairchild, 
 Cornelia Earl, and Uncle Jake are in Richmond, 
 where they have devoted their lives to nursing 
 their sick and wounded countrymen." 
 
 Maj. P : "Well, gentlemen, I will hasten 
 
 to arrange for your parole. Expect me early to- 
 morrow. Good-night." 
 
THE FIELD OF GETTYSBUKG. 
 
 97 
 
 Maj. Pleasington rides away. 
 
 GrEN. Cloud : "Garland, that is one grateful, 
 magnanimous, noble young man. Do you believe 
 he can get us paroled?" 
 
 Cloud : " Certainly I do. There is no doubt 
 about it." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Well, then we are very fortu- 
 nate indeed." 
 
 Cloud : "But let us consider the subject in the 
 light that we would have considered it had he 
 not found us. Let us see what we can obtain 
 from this little night, either pleasant or useful, 
 while we are together. It is ours now. Let us 
 profit by the privileges of these hours, and. em- 
 ploy them in arranging plans connected with our 
 dark future. 
 
 "As soldiers, we have done our duty. Should 
 Ave live to see the gloomy end, that now appears 
 inevitable, our, poor, desolate, mourning country 
 will demand much of us, in aiding to bind up and 
 soothe the desperate wounds which we have 
 helped to inflict upon her. For my part, I do 
 not intend to hesitate about entering upon those 
 duties nor flinch from their performance, no mat- 
 ter what personal unpleasantness they require me 
 to endure. The opportunities of this night we 
 shall never see again." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Your sentiments and force of 
 reasoning amaze me. I have unjustly estimated 
 your first remarks. But in what way would you 
 employ the night ? " 
 
 Cloud : " You would trust me either with your 
 hberty or your life, would you not, father?" 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Unhesitatingly ; but what a 
 question!" 
 
 Cloud . " You do not wish to go to prison, nor 
 do you want to remain inactive, tramelled by the 
 sacred obligations of a parole, while the remnant 
 of your comrades continue the hopeless struggle 
 to obtain better terms when the end does come. 
 Rather than accept either alternative, you would 
 not hesitate to lead the charge over again, in a 
 forlorn attempt to take and hold that cruel hill of 
 death." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Certainly I would not. But 
 what can you mean ? " 
 
 Cloud: "Lay your head nearer to mine; I 
 must tell you softly and cautiously." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Now, my boy, I am ready to 
 listen to you." 
 
 Cloud : " Father, I mean to eat my breakfast, 
 if they have any to give me, and if they have not, 
 to fast with the Confederates to-morrow morning 
 in their lines. Are you with me ? " 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " What reckless madness. Gar- 
 land. It is simply an impossibility. We are 
 closely guarded in the very centre-rear of the 
 Federal army. We cannot pass the guards, who 
 immediately surround us. Even were we beyond 
 these, there are numerous others to stop us be- 
 fore we could reach the out-posts; and there 
 we would find a compact skirmish-line almost as 
 solid as a line of battle, probably withm less than 
 two hundred paces of a similar body of our troops. 
 I have heard many wild stories about your dare- 
 devil recklessness beyond the advance-lines and 
 on the battle-field which I did not believe; but 
 now I have overwhelming testimony of their 
 truthfulness. I have often wondered why you 
 were not promoted. It is now clearly explained. 
 The authorities dare not trust your rashness. 
 You would not hesitate, I plainly perceive, to 
 attack a division with a single company, if you 
 had the command of so many men. I am pained 
 to find this true." 
 
 Cloud : " Well, father, I much regret to leave 
 you here. This day I charged that fiery hill. 
 It was in obedience to orders from my com- 
 manding officer. Worse than ever before my 
 poor country now demands and requires my ser- 
 vices. In attempting to place myself in a posi- 
 tion to render them, I am not less performing a 
 duty than when I responded to that fatal order, 
 and moved into the flaming mouth of that life- 
 destroying volcano, belching forth in torrents its 
 showering missiles of murder. I go, father, and 
 without an order, save the promptings of my 
 conscience, which are now with me more potent 
 than my dear father's rebuke. 
 
 " In all that I have done, for which I am 
 termed rashly wild, it has been of my country, 
 and not of myself, that I thought. For my 
 country's sake I have been cautious and prudent. 
 Never once have I been more rash and i-eckless 
 than circumstances justified, as the results have 
 always proved. 
 
^rySTIC EOIMANCES OF THE BLUE A^'D THE GKEY. 
 
 " Father, you have been a steadily rising officer, 
 from a Heutenant to a brigadier-general. You 
 have been constantly occupied with important 
 duties which daily devolved upon you, in con- 
 nection with your command. With sword in 
 hand, you have led your men again and again into 
 the jaws of death, and cheered and encouraged 
 them to stand before the storming avalanche of 
 overwhelming numbers at Antietam and Freder- 
 icksburg. But of the minutije, the smaller details, 
 on the out-posts, you are profoundly ignorant, save 
 in theory. I know all your theoretical problems : 
 they are on the end of my tongue every word of 
 them at will." 
 
 "By a flickering camp-fire, often in the deep 
 solitude of a wilderness, all alone in the wintry- 
 midnight, I studied infantry and cavalry tactics 
 and army regulations until I committed every 
 word to memory. In camp, on the march, and 
 on the battle-field have I witnessed their prac- 
 tical utility. But to the solitary scout and the 
 lonely picket, beyond the lines, and on the far- 
 thest outpost, they are utterly worthless in cases of 
 extreme emergency. There the man soon learns 
 that he must rely on himself, and be governed 
 bjr circumstances. It is there that • the close, 
 industrious observer learns the moral of human 
 nature, under the pressure of exhausting labor, 
 and exposure to sudden, unexpected starthng 
 dangers. 
 
 The Federal troops are exhausted from fatigue. 
 They know that our army is beaten, and that 
 they are in no danger of being surprised by a 
 night attack. They will sleep; the night will 
 be dark. Many a time have I placed myself in 
 greater peril and more treacherous pitfalls than 
 this, when they were on the alert far more than 
 they will be to night ; and I am going to escape 
 from here." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "I will accompany you, if my 
 leg will permit." 
 
 Cloud: "Oh, I do not propose to walk. I 
 have quite often mounted myself where the 
 horses were scarcer and far harder to obtain than 
 they will be to-night." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "Well, Garland, you are more 
 and more a mystery to me. What time do you 
 propose starting?" 
 
 Cloud: " Some time about one o'clock. Xow. 
 father, you are going with me. You are in mr 
 sphere of service. You must trust me implicitly. 
 We will take no chances of being fired on, at \enst 
 not until the last moment, at the extreme danger 
 line. If we are captured before reaching that 
 point, why, we can be no w.orse off than we are 
 now. So let us drop this subject. 
 
 "I know you are weary and want to sleep, 
 and that my boyish nonsense will not interest 
 you ; but at all events, my father, I want to talk 
 to you all this night, every minute that circum- 
 stances will admit." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "Let us talk my boy; I am 
 more than willing. You more than interest, 
 you astonish, me. I begin to hope that I have 
 unjustly estimated you." 
 
 Cloud: "That is mainly the tenor of my 
 subject. 
 
 " By apparently providential circumstances, 
 the road to render my country valuable services 
 around and beyond our pickets, was laid open 
 before me. I presented the question to the 
 proper officer, who regarded it as sufficiently 
 feasible to assign me to duty on that line. 
 
 "The circumstances just referred to transpired 
 partially as a direct result of my befriending 
 young Pleasington when he lay wounded at 
 Manassas. Out of that simple act, many other 
 circumstances beneficial both to the service and to 
 individuals, have sprung — things already familiar 
 to you. 
 
 "One night I took upon myself Edgar Har- 
 man's guard duty, when I believe his death 
 would have resulted from his performing it. 
 Personal gratitude to that young patrician did 
 not prompt me. Between us there was no 
 individual love. But he was my brother soldier. 
 Duty to my country and to the cause of humanity 
 prompted me to relieve him. Out of this little 
 act directly, and befriending Pleasington in- 
 directly, have sprung 'The Soldiers' Family 
 Relief Society' and ' The Angel of Consolation.' " 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "Why, Garland, are you con- 
 nected with that puzzling mystery ? Do tell me 
 all you know about it." 
 
 Cloud : "On conditions that you never divulge 
 your knowledge until the war is ended." 
 
THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 99 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "Certainly, boy; I will hold it 
 sacred." 
 
 Cloud: "The Harmans were grateful for my 
 act. Miss Carrie overstepped the boundary line 
 of class formality, and wrote me a letter, breath- 
 ing beautiful sentiments of gratitude and pledges 
 of the undying friendship of her family to our 
 family. Courtesy compelled me to reply, which 
 1 did briefly and indifferently. 
 
 "About this time the wildest stories relative 
 to my services as a scout were circulated. 
 Miss Harman wrote to me most entreating 
 letters, urging me to send an account sometimes, 
 giving her family the true particulars of my 
 most thrilling adventures. I most obstinately 
 set my face against this; and I fear my blunt 
 replies were almost uncivil ; but she persisted. 
 
 " I read a good many distressing letters from 
 the poor families of mountain soldiers. One 
 cold, sleety night in December, lying in a bed 
 of leaves, under a rock-cliff down beyond our 
 out-post, I could not sleep. I had no fire. So I 
 was forced to think. Under such circumstances 
 a man thinks of a great many very absurd things, 
 some of which are often unreasonable because 
 they are never attempted. This night I con- 
 ceived the bold and grand idea of enlisting 
 Carrie Harman in the cause of the suffering 
 families of our mountain comrades. The next 
 day I wrote to her that in reply to her late letter 
 I regretted I could not comply with her request, 
 unless upon her solemn promise not to divulge 
 the contents of my narratives while I lived and 
 the war continued ; and that, as matter of course, 
 under such restrictions, she would not wish 
 my interdicted statements. 
 
 " To my astonishment, she quickly rephed that 
 she was too selfish to have shared them with the 
 public; and hence my "conditions harmonized 
 with her inclinations. 
 
 "I immediately wrote her about thirty pages 
 of cap, detailing particulars of the out-post ser- 
 vice that I have never unfolded to any other 
 person ; and in this same letter was the plan for 
 organizing ' The ReUef Society,' which I fear- 
 lessly asserted would be to me substantial mani- 
 festation of her gratitude for my kindness to her 
 brother, and the only proof of it I would ever 
 
 expect, or even accept. With the results you 
 are sufhciently familiar. 
 
 " Regularly she sends me detailed reports of her 
 good labors ; and I send her accounts of my evil 
 work. I wanted to tell you, father, while I 
 could, because no one in this world dreams that 
 a single line has ever passed between Miss Har- 
 man and I. 
 
 "This original proposition of mine to her, you 
 would have branded as unpardonable and pre- 
 sumptuous folly. Like it, father, has been all 
 my dare-devil, reckless rashness — with an object 
 in each separate^ act, directly to benefit our 
 cause. 
 
 " So of this to-night, and of all I accomplish 
 until the Confederacy is dead. 
 
 " Then I shall mourn over her grave, as I have 
 mourned, do and shall mourn every day of her ex- 
 istence, over the cause that created her, and go 
 on laboring to assist in benefiting and in pro- 
 moting the interests of the tillers of the soil — the 
 poor of my native and dearly beloved but fated 
 Sunny South. To her I have devoted, I do de- 
 vote, I will ever devote — my life." 
 
 GrEN. Cloud : " Grod bless you, my boy You 
 are a herd. Now I understand Miss Harman's 
 scarlet face whenever your name was mentioned ; 
 this secret explains it. 
 
 " But beware of falling in love with her. Re- 
 member the traditional curse that for over five 
 hundred years has rested upon all the male mem- 
 bers of our family who have become involved in 
 love affairs with ladies in high hfe or of noble 
 birth. One of our ancestors pronounced that 
 curse in a dungeon, where for over forty years 
 he had been confined because he loved a noble 
 lady who also loved him. It is said that no less 
 than ten of our race have since, for the same 
 cause, suffered either imprisonment or assassina- 
 tion; and that in every instance their affections 
 were reciprocated by the ladies ; and within my 
 father's memory, his uncle proved his love for a 
 beautiful and aristocratic lady with his life. 
 
 "Miss Harman is an earthly angel. Unques- 
 tionably, either on account of gratitude or es- 
 teem, or both, you exercise a wonderful influence 
 over her. But remember that aU in her sphere 
 are not like her — angels." 
 
100 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 ■ CLorD : "I have for Miss Harman a divine ad- 
 oration, similar to that I cherish for the sister of 
 charity who nursed me so devotedly -when I was 
 wounded, back fi-om the margin of the grave ; 
 but nothing more. 
 
 " Father, I must tell you that I am continually 
 haunted by something hke a presentiment that I 
 am doomed to a long hfe, with all its days full of 
 the most cruel wretchedness and the most bitter 
 sorrow. Since the very first hour when I 
 learned that war was mevitable, has this convic- 
 tion oppressed me with its ever darkening 
 shadow. It was in the howl of my dogs when I 
 left home. It seemed to me that the little brutes 
 felt it and pitied me. I hear it murmured in the 
 sighing voice of the pine-tree, and in the notes 
 of the Uttle brooklets as they go singing along on 
 their way to the sea. "When I was convalescing 
 in my sohtar\' rambles in the grand old woods, I 
 could hear it in the lugubrious reverberations of 
 the mountain's echo. Thus all Nature speaks to 
 me in the same cheerless, prophetic strain. Con- 
 cerning my getting killed or dying from wounds, 
 I never give myself the least concern, so thor- 
 oughly am I persuaded that I will be reserved 
 for some other and perhaps sadder fate. 
 
 " But here are present things demanding our 
 immediate attention — reahties, not visionary 
 shadows. Our hour has come. How dark it has 
 grown, and how still ! See down there against 
 the horizon the dark figures of our two nearest 
 guards asleep on post. Poor wretches ! Human 
 nature, with them, has been taxed beyond its 
 capacities of endurance. Quickly now — not a 
 word, father, but follow me, and do everywhere 
 just Avhat I tell you. There, now, we are nicely 
 outside of our guard line. Here is a musket; I 
 will take it. Lie down in that tail grass in the 
 fence corner, while I stand guard here, and take 
 some observations." 
 
 Suiting the action to the word, he soon meets 
 his desired opportunity. 
 
 " Halt ! Who comes there ?" 
 
 A horseman approaches his post. 
 
 Horseman: " Friend, with the countersign." 
 
 Cloud: "Dismount, advance and give the 
 countersign." .... 
 
 " All right. Gro ahead." 
 
 The horseman rides away, and Cloud says : 
 
 " Now, father, we will go along this road for 
 the present." 
 
 Gex. Cloud : " Where m the world did you 
 get the countersign, Garland ?"' 
 
 Cloud: '"Why, from that courier. Where 
 else do you suppose I could get it ? That is why 
 I played sentinel." 
 
 G-EN. Cloud: "Well, that rivals all the auda- 
 cious coolness I have ever before witnessed." 
 
 Cloud: "That is the way I have captured 
 many an unsuspecting fellow. Under more fa- 
 vorable circumstances this one would have shared 
 the same fate. 
 
 "But soft! There is a house all aglow with 
 light, and full of busthng life; and here, just 
 ahead, are several horses at the fence, more than 
 fifty yards from the house. Look! There are 
 officers supping at the table. These are their 
 horses fully caparisoned, with even their over- 
 coats and arms on the saddles. How fortunate ! 
 Not a living soul nearer than the house, and no 
 sentinel visible there. What superb animals and 
 equipments — cavalry officers, colonels and above. 
 Choose quickly and mount. Ah ! you take the 
 jet black. I wiU take this one ; it appears a dark 
 bay. How strongly the fights reflect out here. 
 It is grey twifight here ; but they can't see, look- 
 ing in this direction. 
 
 " Button up the blue over the grey carefully. 
 Now a ride for hberty. Slowly until we are out 
 of hearing of that house. Now, faster and faster 
 like the wild horse of Tartary. ^Yhy, they do not 
 appear to have any camp guards out. I want 
 to bear for our extreme left. I think tliis is 
 about the direction. We seem to be leaving the 
 camps behind. Slack up. I hear a horseman 
 coming toward us. 
 
 " Can you tell us how far it is to the out-post, 
 and what command holds it up this road ? " 
 
 Horseman : " About two hundred yards. The 
 Pennsylvania reserves hold it." 
 
 Cloud : " We are right after all. Thank you. 
 G-ood night." 
 
 " Now, father, the crisis is at hand. We must be 
 cool, and ride slowly. If the sentinel wishes to 
 detain us until the officer of the guard comes, 
 mount quick as a flash of lightning, lean for- 
 
THE FIELD OF GETTYSBURG. 
 
 101 
 
 ward and to the side from the guard, and make 
 the horse fly past him. Here is the main body- 
 sleeping on their arras, on both sides of the road. 
 Yonder is a sentinel, walking a beat in the 
 road. 
 
 Sentinel: "Halt! Who comes there ? " 
 
 Cloud : " Friends, with the countersign." 
 
 Sentinel : " Dismount one, advance, and give 
 the countersign." 
 
 "All right. Come ahead." 
 
 Cloud: " Is there a sentinel beyond you ? " 
 
 Sentinel : "If there is, he is a rebel one. They 
 had a vedette up on the hill about two hundred 
 yards fi'om here at dark. There is no infantry 
 in front of us." 
 
 Cloud: " Well, we are glad to find you on the 
 alert. We are making a tour of inspection of 
 our posts, and at the same time reconnoitering to 
 ascertain whether or not the enemy is falling 
 back. We will go up the road until we find the 
 vedette, and you must not shoot us as we 
 return." 
 
 Sentinel : " It is nearly time for my rehef, but 
 I will post him." 
 
 Cloud : " Come General, let us surprise a rebel 
 vedette. 
 
 " Now, father, if we can reach our lines thus 
 easily, we are fortunate. My greatest apprehension 
 is that our vedettes have orders to fire without 
 halting; but perhaps not on only one or two. I 
 think we have rode nearly a mile since leaving 
 the Federal posts." 
 
 GrEN. Cloud: " It is some distance. I believe 
 our troops are retreating under cover of the 
 darkness. Well, my boy, there seems to be method 
 in your recklessness, if you conduct all your 
 operations as systematically as you have con- 
 ducted this one, and far less danger than I im- 
 agined. Ignorance is not a word su^ciently 
 strong to express my lack of knowledge in the 
 roles that you play." 
 
 Cloud: "I am thankful that you are un- 
 deceived, father. It causes me a thrill of gratifi- 
 cation to hear you speak some words of appro- 
 bation. But yonder is the solitary horseman. 
 The end is near now- " 
 
 Vedette: "Halt! Who comes there?*' 
 
 Cloud : Two Confederates, who have escaped 
 from the enemy, without the countersign." 
 
 Vedette: "Dismount, and advance — one." 
 
 Cloud : " How fortunate father. I will ad- 
 vance. To Avhose command, vedette, do you 
 belong ? " 
 
 Vedette: " Gen. J 's Virginia brigade. To 
 
 what command do you belong?" 
 
 Cloud : " Gen. J knows us well. Send us 
 
 to him at once. I am Cloud, the scout of 1861-2, 
 and that is Gen. Cloud, of Jackson's old corps." 
 
 Vedette : " Advance, General. Yes, that is 
 Gen. Cloud. I recognize you in the dark, Gene- 
 ral. I remember you since Antietam and South 
 Mountain, where I saw you so often in such 
 wondrous peril. The officer of the post is com- 
 ing. Ah ! here he is now. Lieutenant, here are 
 Gen. Cloud and his son, who have just escaped 
 from the enemy and wish to be conducted to 
 Gen. J ." 
 
 Lieutenant: "All right, gentlemen: follow 
 me." 
 
 Cloud : " Now, my General, I am ready to 
 recognize your rank and respect your authority; 
 we are in your sphere." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " I thank God for it. I breathe 
 easier again. What Avill your friend Pleasington 
 think of this ? " 
 
 Cloud : " Oh ! Pleasington will not be in the 
 least surprised. He has known of me being in 
 other tight places and then very soon out of 
 them. He will be glad of it, more than sorry; 
 only he will feel disappointed that he failed to 
 reahze the pleasure of extending to us the kind- 
 ness which he anticipated, and which I am cer- 
 tainly well assured he so much desired to bestow. 
 But I see the long, grizzly beard of the old, un- 
 couth General, who is writing by a wax taper, 
 out yonder in the gloom. How weird and un- 
 earthly is his appearance! Let us enter, and 
 present ourselves; all is over and we are safe." 
 
102 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 GENERAL W. E. J . 
 
 " The brightest flower of her own Southland's bloom, 
 Her shroud the sea-foam, woven without a stain. 
 The coral ocean depths her silent tomb. 
 And his own lieart's grave, for he never smiled 
 again." 
 
 — M. A. Billings. 
 
 Gen. J , who was referred to as Col. J , 
 
 in the chapter "Beyond the Out-posts," and 
 whom we beheld writing by a dim waxen taper, 
 in the sombre foliage of a Pennsjdvania forest, in 
 the immediate vicinity of the fatal " Field of 
 Gettysburg," the same night of its most mourn- 
 ful, soul-stirring scene, was a native Virginian — a 
 true son of the South-western blue-grass yeo- 
 manry. 
 
 In his tender years he was elected to a cadet- 
 ship at West Point, where- he graduated with 
 high honors. 
 
 From the military school he passed to the 
 United States army with a clear record, blem- 
 ished by no dishonorable mark. He wa'fe amiable, 
 witty, fascinating: hence a general favorite am'ong 
 his comrades and in society, wherever duty led 
 him. 
 
 In the Mexican War he rendered meritorious 
 service, and displayed conspicuous gallantry on 
 the field of bfittle^ and also rendered valuable aid 
 in many Indian campaigns on the Plains and in 
 Texas. 
 
 But back amid the enchanting dells of his na- 
 tive blue hills there was a luring charm to draw 
 his thoughts and soul from the stern duties of a 
 soldier ; an object capable of awakening emo- 
 tions the most elevating and ennobling that ever 
 wield the sway over the heart and control the 
 life of man — a pure woman ! true love ! 
 
 Miss D was the fair object of his gallant 
 
 adoration. She was of the fair flowers of that 
 far-famed beauty-producing, blue-grass region, 
 one of the very fairest. 
 
 To this lovable young lady Captain J 
 
 offered a soldier's worthy hand, and sued in re- 
 turn for hers of spotless beauty. He loved her ; 
 she loved him — a beautiful mutuality. With 
 them the course of true love ever ran smoothly. 
 
 She accepted his offer of marriage, and yielded to 
 him her heart, and plighted vows. 
 
 Capt. J-: then returned to his post of duty 
 
 in Texas, where he was stationed some years 
 after the Mexican War, with a joyous heart and 
 a hopeful future. 
 
 Time rolled by some seasons. Capt. J 
 
 returned again to claim his long-time affianced 
 bride. 
 
 After the nuptial ceremonies were consummated, 
 the ovations from friends had subsided, and his 
 
 furlough was almost spent, Capt. J set out 
 
 with his beautiful wife for his distant post, with 
 dream-land, day-dreamland anticipations. 
 
 His journey was by way of the Crescent City, 
 the beautiful metropolis of the South, which he 
 reached in safety. Between him and his desti- 
 nation rolled the blue, the sweeping, the 
 treacherous surge of the Gulf of Mexico, above 
 its hidden treasures and its buried hopes. 
 
 But what were these to Capt. J and his 
 
 bride ? Little recked these young and confiding 
 hearts of the terrors of the deep or its wide waste 
 of waters. The ecstacies of love stifled the rising 
 thought of storm perils and dangers on the sea. 
 They had, this happy couple, just embarked 
 on the voyage of lifa What was a little span of 
 water in their path ? What had it been to him ? 
 No barrier to stay his eager journeys to the land 
 of his birtli,~ the home of his love. To them it 
 would be but a pleasing sail, a delightful voyage. 
 
 Thus, little fearing, they embarked on a Gulf 
 Outside-line steamer, passed the mouth of the 
 noble " Father of Waters," crossed the bar, and 
 sped onward to break "the blue crystal of the 
 seas." 
 
 When the voj^age was nearl}^ half accom- 
 plished a white squalteuddenly struck the staunch 
 ship. A white squall on the Gulf of Mexico is 
 the mariner's terror. It is something terrible to 
 contemplate, appalling to experience. 
 
 It comes suddenly, without a moment's warn- 
 ing; and did it give warning, the situation would 
 not thereby be rendered less fearful. It is the 
 raging tempest's breath doubled, twisted and 
 concentrated. 
 
 The pent-up force of the tempest and the 
 hurricane bursts into a devastating' whirlwind 
 
GENERAL W. E. J. 
 
 103 
 
 that twists vast craters down deep into the 
 bosom of the sea. When this strikes a vessel, 
 she is doomed. 
 
 Thus was the ship which carried Capt. J 
 
 and his bride, with their hopes suddenly found- 
 ered, and forced to be abandoned Avith demor- 
 alizing precipitation. 
 
 All the lady passengers were placed in the 
 lai'gestand the staunchestboat; and among these, 
 was Capt. J 's bride. 
 
 This boat capsized, and every soul on board sank 
 to rise no more. 
 
 The men were saved in the other boats. 
 
 What a lamentable voyage, and Avhat a bridal 
 
 tour for Capt. J ! What a sorrow had replaced 
 
 the joyous hope in his heart, to be borne in sad- 
 ness, back to his cheerless duties ! 
 
 From that day Capt. J was a sadly changed 
 
 man. His life became soured and embittered; 
 he was ever after morose and taciturn, caring 
 neither for himself nor for the world. 
 
 In course of time he abandoned the armj^ and 
 returned to his agricultural estate, where he 
 lived in quiet seclusion, a silent mourner. 
 
 Thus he remained with his sleepless sorrow 
 and his broken heart hid away from the eyes 
 of the heedless, unsympathetic world, until the 
 tumult and the commotion of the gathering civil 
 storm of 1861 aroused him from his lethargic 
 slumbers. 
 
 His first love, the lifeless and voiceless idol of 
 his young life, once the inspiration of his 
 soul, carried his vitalizing characteristics down 
 with her into the bosom of the deep; and left 
 his nature inert, indifferent, cold and inanimate, 
 with seemingly nothing on earth able to revivify 
 him into activity. 
 
 But he had another cherished idol, a natal 
 love, a love that he had never been called upon 
 while in the peaceful remoteness of civil life, to 
 be jealous of its sanctity; something none had 
 attempted to violate. This was Old Virginia. 
 
 Her call reanimated him once more. He 
 quickly responded, and espoused her cause ; took 
 to himself another bride. 
 
 He hastened to the field of strife with a com- 
 pany of cavalry, the first from his section of the 
 State. 
 
 In the old army, Capt. J outranked J. E. B. 
 
 Stewart. For some personal reasons of a strictly 
 private nature, the most vindictive animosity 
 existed between these men, dating back to the 
 days of their associated service in the old army. 
 This hostility time did not abite. 
 
 With this hatred still rankling in their hearts. 
 Fate decreed that they should be associated 
 directly together in the service of the ill-starred 
 cause of the Confederacy. Stewart started as a 
 
 Colonel ; J , as captain under him and in the 
 
 same regiment. Throughout their careers their 
 grades of rank remained in about the same 
 proportion as they ascended in the scale of 
 promotions. 
 
 To-night we find this veritable night-hawk, 
 
 G-en. J , with his brigade in position, to hover 
 
 as a protecting cloud on the rear flank of his 
 crippled and dispirited countrymen, as their 
 vanquished hosts sullenly and slowly drag 
 their shattered columns on their long, painful, 
 sad retreat through a hostile land, in the face of 
 the victorious legions of the enemy, who were 
 expected to be relentless pursuers. 
 
 Note his greeting to the unexpected arrival of 
 his friends. 
 
 Gen. J : "Well! Are there not enough 
 
 dead men in this ghastly region to satiate the 
 Infernal, without sending out ghosts into the 
 dread shades of this doomsday night, to frighten 
 to death those who escaped the thrusts of 
 the pale horseman's blade ? Why, Gen. Cloud, 
 I heard to-night that you were killed, and I 
 thought Garland's bones were purifying for the 
 resurrection morn on the plains of Manassas." 
 
 - G-EN. Cloud : "It was only my horse that was 
 killed. He fell on my leg, and I was captured 
 before I could extricate myself. I siij^pose my 
 comrades think that I was killed. Garland was 
 knocked senseless on Cemetery Hill, and cap- 
 tured. When I was turned into the herd of 
 prisoners, he was almost the first man I met. 
 This work is all his. I was, I am now truly 
 ashamed_^to admit, opposed to it, until I found 
 my suasive powers and rebukes were alike 
 unavailing. 
 
 Gen. J : ''Had I known you was a prisoner 
 
 General, and Garland with you, I would have 
 
104 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 bet my horse that you -were both in our hnes 
 before daybreak in the morning. It is charging 
 those infernal, fiery mouthed batteries that beats 
 the boy, where he cannot employ his light- 
 fingered strategy and startling little ruses. I 
 am glad you are both safe and with me for 
 to-morrow, when I expect to see some tight 
 work. General, you can do the praying, I can 
 do the swearing, and Garland the scouting for 
 the brigade to-morrow. May be we can get 
 through." 
 
 Cloud: "It is a pity you swear so, General. 
 But for that, you and father would make the 
 best match harness-team in our army." 
 
 Gen. J : "Yes, Garl; and by if the old 
 
 General had his old brigade here with me, like it 
 was at South Mountain and Antietam, we would 
 
 make a team the Tanks would get sick of 
 
 driving before to-morrow night." 
 
 "Those maiden battles of ours, as brigade 
 commanders. General, were the ones where we 
 rendered our most brilliant services." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Ah ! But then our star shone 
 brighter than noAV." 
 
 Gen. J : " Than now ? I am unable to 
 
 find it anywhere in the canopy of cerulean blue 
 to-night. It went out, my dear friend, to-dary, 
 when Pickett's division failed on that now blood- 
 christened Hill, and left us and our cause in the 
 midnight darkness of despair." 
 
 "From this day forward I shall shut my eyes to 
 the consequences that are surely coming on, and 
 fight everywhere and under all circumstances 
 with the reckless indifference as to myself that 
 a pirate under the black flag displays when he 
 finds himself at last face to face with the inev- 
 itable, and stands at bay, selling his life at a 
 price worthy a far better cause. ' 
 
 " Early in life the cruel waves of an angry 
 sea robbed me of happiness and hope forever. 
 In ray declining years, so long embittered with 
 a cureless sorrow, I espoused this young but, as 
 I find too late, fickle creature, ' The Southern 
 Confederacy,' which I have this day beheld 
 liopelessly engulfed in the blood of her truest 
 and bravest defenders. Oh, my friends, I feel to- 
 night some acute pangs of that relentless anguish 
 of ' the long ago!' But let us try to sleep a little." 
 
 Cloud : " Yes, General ; for to-morrow I start 
 on a career, be it long or short, with the one ever 
 changeless watch-word, 'Remember Gettysburg.' " 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "That is a memento that will 
 haunt us all to the grave." 
 
 Gen. J : " Now Lieutenant, watch them 
 
 closely, observe your instructions to the letter, 
 and post me promptly whenever there is occa- 
 sion for it." 
 
 Cloud : " Can I accompany him. General, en- 
 tirely independent." 
 
 Gen. J : " Yes, Lieutenant, he acts as he 
 
 Ukes with you or not." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " I think I Avill serve under you 
 to-day, boy." 
 
 Cloud : "No, father; this is no proper service 
 for a general." 
 
 Gen. J : " He is right; stay with me Gen. 
 
 Cloud." 
 
 The Lieutenant and Garland Cloud ride away; 
 and the two old generals lay down on their 
 blankets and sleep until morning, when they 
 awake and continue their conversation. 
 
 Gen. Cloud : Did you sleep General ? I did 
 quite soundly." 
 
 Gen. J : " Oh, j^es ; I was completely ex- 
 hausted. I wish that boy of yours was trained 
 in the cavalry manual." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " He tells me he has memorized 
 every word of both it and the arm}^ regulations. 
 I know him to be an expert rider." 
 
 Gen. J : "I am pleased to learn this. He 
 
 is a good scout, a fine judge of human nature, 
 and thoroughly understands the great advan- 
 tages afforded against men in a moment of 
 temporary excitement or confusion by the loss of 
 their presence of mind. 
 
 "How feeble is the vigor of the pursuit to 
 what I expected; the enemy must be badly 
 crippled. It is nearly night. Yonder comes the 
 Lieutenant. It has not been long since the relief 
 started to him." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "I do not see anything of Gar- 
 land in the party." 
 
 Gen. J : " Oh, we may not see him for a 
 
 week to come." 
 
 " Well, Lieutenant, I perceive you have cap- 
 tured some prisoners and horses." 
 
GENERAL W. E. J. 
 
 105 
 
 Lieutenant : " Yes, General, but this is partly 
 your young infantryman's work. He can shame 
 the best of us on horseback. 
 
 " He got among detached parties of a Dutch 
 squadron, and actually destroyed them. They 
 could not ride, nor shoot, nor use the sabre ; 
 and their clumsy horses could not run. The 
 horse he rides is well trained, and goes like a 
 flash. He wounded some, or else they were 
 disabled in falling off their horses. He soon had 
 the horse loaded with the ammunition of sixteen- 
 shooters, and has fired about five hundred times 
 to-day. He did not mind tackling a half dozen 
 Dutchmen at a time. But this afternoon the 
 Dutch were relieved. He soon began to be 
 cautious, and did not attempt to provoke their 
 fire, nor to run on to a half dozen detached in a 
 party; he sent me word that they were the 
 best regulars in the Federal army, then next to 
 us." 
 
 Gen. J : " That will do, Lieutenant. Feed 
 
 your men on horses. 
 
 " This dispatch. Gen. Cloud, is a peremptory 
 order from Gen. Stewart to burn this wagon 
 train, which is worth more to the army than my 
 commission. If I do not obey the order, he 
 will court-martial me. If I obey it, and he 
 learns that I might have saved the train, he will 
 then reprimand me for not exercising dis- 
 cretionary judgment. What would you do 
 under similar circumstances ?" 
 
 Gen. Cloud : "I would obey the order when 
 satisfied that it was impossible to save this valu- 
 able property, which is not, from every present 
 indication, yet the situation." 
 
 Gen. J : " Yes, and me if I don't take 
 
 that course." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Well, General, I shall take this 
 opportunity to rejoin my command, as I may 
 not soon have another. So I bid you adieu for 
 the present." 
 
 Gen. J : " Good fortune to you, Gen. 
 
 Cloud. Farewell." 
 
 Some time after the Confederate army had 
 crossed the Potomac and encamped in Virginia, 
 Garland Cloud reported to Gen. J . 
 
 Cloud : " Well, Gen. J , had you booked 
 
 nit' as lost this time ?" 
 
 Gen. J : " No, Garl, I shall never do that 
 
 until the sod is growing green over your grave. 
 The old General is uneasy about you, as you 
 were not accounted for when the last of our 
 rear guard crossed the river ; but I sent him 
 word that you would turn up yet all right. 
 You must have a large credit now on your 
 Gettysburg account. I see the fine horse has a 
 flesh wound on the rump." 
 
 Cloud : " Yes, General, father seems to re- 
 gard this service as being more dangerous than 
 charging batteries, but I do not thus consider it. 
 I have caused them all the annoyance that I 
 could. The horse, brave, fine fellow, got that 
 scratch from long range. ' 
 
 Gen. J : " Now Garl, I wish you would 
 
 take charge of that squadron, and put it through 
 every evolution of the drill and sabre exercise. 
 
 H: * H: * * :*: l(c 
 
 " That will do. You understand that as well 
 as some of my oldest and most efficient officers. 
 Let me see some of those grand feats of horse- 
 manship the boys have been telling me about. 
 ******* 
 
 " Well, Garl, there are few men in any service 
 can outride you." 
 
 Cloud : " Now, General, I will turn the horse 
 and trappings over to you, and go and see the 
 wreck of my command !" 
 
 Gen. J : " Ah ! wreck it is, too. I un- 
 derstand that on the retreat. Gen. Lee, when 
 passing a small body of troops, asked Gen. Long- 
 street whose battalion that was ; and that he 
 shed tears when answered, ' That, General, is 
 Pickett's division.' I will keep the horse for you 
 until you are sent on the scout again." 
 
 Cloud: "That will be most kind. Good-by. 
 General." 
 
 Gen. J : " Good-b)% Garland. Our Avatch- 
 
 words are the same. Some time in the gloomy 
 midnight or on the field of battle we will meet 
 again." 
 
1U6 
 
 .IVIYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXYI. 
 
 THE TRANSFER, AND PART OF ITS SEQUEL. 
 
 " Who loves raves— 'tis youth's frenzy— but the cure 
 
 Is bitterer still ; as charm by charm unwinds 
 Which robed our idols, and we see too sure 
 
 Nor worth, nor beauty dwells, from out the mind's 
 Ideal shape of such ; yet still it binds 
 
 That fatal spell, and still it draws us on, 
 Keapiug the whirlwind from the oft sown winds; 
 
 The stubborn heart, its alchemy begun, 
 Seems ever near the prize— wealthiest when most 
 undone." — Bykon. 
 
 Cloud: "Capt. Harman, I have just been re- 
 lieved from my guard-jsost, and ordered to report 
 to you. What does this mean? " 
 
 Capt. Harman: "How are you, Capt. Cloud? 
 Let me congratulate you." 
 
 Cloud : " Captain, don't make sport of a poor 
 ragged soldier." 
 
 Capt. H : "There is no sport. Here is 
 
 your commission in the cavahy of the regular 
 
 army, and an order to report at once to Gen. J . 
 
 AVe are sorry to lose you ; but I have long been 
 expecting this, and have been surprised at its 
 delay." 
 
 Cloud: "Well, it is a surprise to me of which 
 I did not even dream." 
 
 Soon after he is greeted by his general. 
 
 G-EN. J : "Well, Capt. Cloud, I am pleased 
 
 to find you prompt. I want you to take the 
 Gettj'sburg horse and accoutrements, and proceed 
 
 witliout delay to S , in the South-west, where 
 
 you will find a squadron of rich men's sons — a 
 regular mob. Take charge of them, and drill 
 them thoroughly, at the same time leaving no 
 clause of the most rigid discipline unenforced. 
 They will hate you, but never mind that. 
 
 " I expected to accompany you, but I am forced 
 to remain here now to answer a charge for not 
 burning a wagon train, instead of bringing it out 
 of Pennsylvania. I may be able to join you 
 within two months. I want you to commence 
 with that squadron what I mean to enforce in 
 every company in that department. Make a 
 model squadron. The material is the very best 
 in the world." 
 
 Capt. Cloud: "I shall comply with your 
 wishes, General, to the very best of my ability." 
 
 Gen. J : ■' I am satisfied that you will not 
 
 disappoint my expectations. You are a young 
 man of the mountains, and are destined to see 
 desperate service in them, for which the credit 
 will be small ; but it is a service of the most grave 
 importance to the Soutli. 
 
 "In loving the cause Avhich we serve, you are 
 I think, Capt. Cloud, the only young man I know 
 who loves her Avith the blind desperate de- 
 votion similar to mine; that would treasure her 
 memory, long years after she is dead, with the 
 same constant fidelity as when she was young, 
 beautiful and strong, promising to stand proudly 
 forth among the nations of the earth crowned 
 with a diadem of unsurpassable glory. But now, 
 my dear boy, she is maimed, sick and emaciated ; 
 yet still she is that same late beautiful and lovable 
 form. Let us stand by and defend her lowly 
 couch of death; and force from her ruthless de- 
 spoilers their reluctant consent to her decent 
 burial and funeral obsequies worthy the lofty 
 nobility of her tender years. 
 
 " Think of her poverty-stricken orphans. It is 
 for them that we fight, from this day forward, 
 to secure for them a peace under the old flag 
 that will enable them to scrape up the fragments 
 from among the debris of ruins, and with these 
 lay a foundation upon which their posterity, as 
 they are able to procure materials, may build a 
 new structure, that will, in time, render their exist- 
 ence tolerable. 
 
 "I am regarded as being heartless and unfeeling. 
 It is false. I am miserable. My pangs of cruel, un- 
 abating agony have made me reckless and rendered 
 me indifferent to myself — and myself only. The 
 world cannot look down into my heart and read 
 the secret emotions there concealed. Because I am 
 rough outside, because I enforce discipline with 
 unfeeling severity, and because I am wicked, I 
 am deemed a hater of the human race. I admit 
 that I hate corruption, and the political abomi- 
 nations that have deluged the country with 
 blood ; but the true, the pure, and the good I 
 reverence and adore. 
 
 " Your father detailed to me your sentiments 
 expressed to him, the night you came to me near 
 Gettysburg. This is why I am talking to you 
 with so much freedom. Although you are so 
 
THE TRANSFER, AND PART OF ITS SEQUEL. 
 
 107 
 
 young, there is harmony between our spirits. I 
 want you to know me, since we are to work 
 together, perhaps die together, — not that either. 
 Cloud, for you will be there when I am no more. 
 
 "I love the poor toil-worn agriculturist, and 
 deplore the ruin that has overwhelmed and will 
 yet overwhelm him. When this war is over, the 
 South cannot be represented by anything in this 
 world, so truly well as by Byron's picture of 
 modern Greece. What a spectacle ! The black 
 curse of demoralization will run riot over the 
 laud. The rich will be poor and helpless; the 
 poor will be discontented and desperate. 
 
 "We need not regret the war nor its results: 
 it was an inevitable destiny. Come it must at 
 some time. Better now, before the country grew 
 more prosperous and powerful. We poor worms 
 had better bear its wasting storms of desolating 
 destruction, than for them to he reserved for 
 generations unborn. 
 
 " What will it matter to us a hundred years 
 hence? Long before that period of time will 
 have elapsed, the country will be recovered from 
 the material effects of the war, but of the moral 
 efifect — never. The high standard of morality 
 and honor and integrity for which this country 
 was once so characteristically famous, will go 
 glimmering with the things that were, and be re- 
 placed by deceit, treachery, fraud, and every 
 imaginary kind of intriguing chicanery. These 
 will be practiced by persons of both sexes once 
 possessed of irreproachable reputations. They 
 will resort to these degrading devices of low cun- 
 ning in order to gain existence, sustain precarious 
 social positions, or support fast and intemperate 
 living — habits contracted in the flush times of the 
 fickle bubbles of war — by their wits, rather than 
 take their true and proper stations in hfe, and 
 support themselves by respectable and honest 
 labor. 
 
 " All these things are the legitimate offsprings 
 of war, and are felt, to some extent, by every na- 
 tion connected with it directly, although the soil 
 upon which the actual conflict is waged may be 
 in a remote region of the globe. History teaches 
 this. With the army of occupation, in Mexico, 
 I witnessed it. 
 
 " Never has any country on the earth suffered 
 
 from this blighting curse worse than this country 
 must sufifer after this war is over, because there 
 are so many people to be affected by it ; and then 
 there is no hamlet so remote, no hovel so humble 
 as entirely to ©scape this thrice damnable influ- 
 ence, neither North nor South. 
 
 " Garland, remain firm, I entreat you, in your 
 faith and resolutions to be the devoted friend of 
 the tillers of the soil ; for upon them rests the 
 country's only hope. 
 
 " Eemember my words. Think of them, and 
 compare with them the signs of tlie times, as you 
 may some day, away yonder on the other side 
 of this bloody curtain of smoke and flame, see and 
 experience them. Then you will, I hope, bestow 
 a thought of kindness on the spot, wherever it 
 may be, that is the lonely, friendless grave of 
 your friend, poor, uncouth, eccentric old Bill 
 J ." 
 
 Capt. C : "Oh, alas! my poor General!" 
 
 Gen. J : "Ah, Garland! I see you pity 
 
 me, and deplore the cause for which I am suffer- 
 ing so bitterly — the sad and cruel fate in store 
 for my poor country. This from your young, 
 tender and yet pure and innocent heart, is a real 
 comfort to me. I am little pitied and less loved 
 in this cold world, but it may be my own fault. 
 But how could I help it ? My heart was buried 
 beneath the wild waves of the Gulf of Mexico, 
 with my lost Kose. I was unable to dissemble, 
 and act a part I could not feel ; and hence I be- 
 came estranged from society and the world, and 
 have thus, I suppose, forfeited all claim to the 
 consideration and sympathy of mankind. 
 
 " This is enough. Your tears to me are more 
 preciously eloquent than all the words your 
 tongue could speak. Until we meet again in the 
 South-west, farewell." 
 
 Capt. C : " Farewell, my General and my 
 
 friend. While I live, I shall remember your sad 
 words." 
 
 Gen. J : " God bless you, Capt. Cloud, my 
 
 dear young friend." 
 
 Now Ave find Garland Cloud on the parade- 
 ground, in front of his squadron, addres.?ing the 
 soldiers. 
 
 Capt. Cloud : " Officers, soldiers, young gen- 
 tlemen : I have been ordered here by the Con- 
 
108 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 federate Government to take command of you, 
 drill, discipline, and prepare you for active ser- 
 vice; and to do this rapidly and thoroughly. 
 This means unpleasantness for you, but I have no 
 discretion. 
 
 " I am pained to find you utter strangers to the 
 simplest rudiments of what you must begin to 
 experience this day. 
 
 " From the order which will be promulgated, 
 there will be no deviation on my part, under any 
 state of circumstances ; but in every instance will 
 its provisions be enforced, and the penalties for 
 their infraction promptly inflicted." 
 
 The scene changes to Cloud's head-quarters. 
 
 First Citizen : " Capt. Cloud, my friend and I 
 are fathers of two of the young officers under 
 3'our command, on a visit to them. The com- 
 jDlaints are loud against your severity, so much 
 so that we have been induced to bear to you a 
 remonstrance signed by every member of your 
 command." 
 
 Capt. Cloud : "To me remonstrances are in 
 vain. I am simply obeying orders — a duty which 
 good soldiers perform blindly — simply what these 
 young men have sworn to obey." 
 
 Second Citizen : " Then you will not modify 
 your stringency?" 
 
 Capt. C : " By no means and in no wise, 
 
 gentlemen." 
 
 First Citizen : " Well, Captain, this is discour- 
 aging for the boys." 
 
 Cloud is again before his squadron. 
 
 Capt. C : " Officers and soldiers : your mu- 
 tinous remonstrance has been read with surprise. 
 It is the authority and dignity of the Government, 
 and not mine, that you assail. From this mo- 
 ment, every one, without exception, connected 
 with similar insubordination, Avill be transferred 
 to Gen. Lee's infantry. 
 
 "Kid-glove, band-box soldiers are handsome 
 to look at on reviews and grand parades, where 
 there are lady spectators; but they are soon 
 spoiled in the dust, mud and hard knocks of 
 an active campaign. 
 
 "It is a concession from the Government 
 that you are not in the infantry. Your horses 
 are mustered into the service, and just as much 
 under the control of the Government as you are 
 
 yourselves. It is my duty to see that they are 
 properly treated. 
 
 " You are gentlemen. A true soldier must be 
 a gentleman. Once separate the duty of a sol- 
 dier toward his immediate commander from your 
 ideas of the school-boy's resentment, and your 
 chief trouble will be over. I am held as strictly 
 accountable to my superiors as you are to me. 
 The day will come, and before long, when you 
 will recognize your present folly." 
 
 The scene changes to the parlor of the home 
 of one of Cloud's officers. 
 
 First Young Lady : " Capt. S , how hand- 
 somely your squadron marched through town 
 this evening. How was it that not one left 
 his place, or scarcely turned his head to greet his 
 friends, while all the other companies were nearly 
 broken up and scattered over town?" 
 
 Capt. S : " That tyrant, Capt. Cloud, would 
 
 not allow it; nor could one of us leave camp to 
 come in to-night, Avithout his permission; and 
 we must be in'our places by sunrise." 
 
 Second Young Lady : " He doesn'tseem unkind. 
 I think when his sun-bronzed face was flushed, 
 as his tall form appeared — when he rode forward 
 on that handsome deep bay horse, in response to 
 the request of the Colonel that he thank the 
 ladies, in the name . of the regiment, for the flag 
 which they presented — that he was the picture of 
 good-nature and kindness; but at other times he 
 appeared very sad." 
 
 Lieut. M : "I should think he would be 
 
 sad, since he has not one friend in the squadron 
 and never speaks to any one; nor is he ever 
 spoken to except when the stern compulsions of 
 duty render it unavoidable." 
 
 Miss M : "Why, brother Joe, you ought 
 
 to be ashamed. Where did he go to-night ? " 
 
 Lieut. M : "He stayed in camp, and let 
 
 all the other officers come to town ; and all the 
 men, too, he granted a leave of absence, fifty at a 
 time, for two hours — but I pity those who fail 
 to return within the specified.time, or get drunk. 
 I guess he knew nobody would invite him; and 
 had he been so much favored as to receive an 
 invitation, I am certain that he would have de- 
 clined. . He commands the regiment to-night." 
 
 Miss M — -: "Brother Joe, could you have 
 
THE TRANSFER, AND PART OF ITS SEQUEL. 
 
 109 
 
 heard the comphments lavisheil upon you all, 
 and upon his laconic, yet beautifully appropriate 
 little acknowledgment speech, and the ludicrous 
 remarks made about the disgraceful comparison 
 which the other companies made with your two, 
 you would feel flattered. To whom is all this 
 due? How did the men get their handsome 
 new uniforms, cavalry saddles, sabres, revolvers, 
 carbines, etc.? Why are the accoutrements so 
 bright and the horses so sleek? Why can the 
 men ride so well and march so finely? Then, 
 finally, why do the other companies lack all these 
 things? Answer these questions creditabh^, so 
 that the answers will support your position taken 
 against your commander." 
 
 Lieut. M : "I am forced to admit, sissie, 
 
 that this is all his work, and necessary, were we 
 ever going to the front. But the Colonel told 
 us again this evening, that the speech of this 
 Captain, in which he intimated that the time 
 when we would need discipline was near, was 
 mere bombast; that we were organized to guard 
 the pubUc works in this section, and that we 
 will do this until the war is over." 
 
 Miss M : "Hum! What does Col. S 
 
 know about war? But I hear cousin Carrie 
 coming down stairs. I wish she could have 
 aiTived in time to witness all this controverted 
 military display to-day. She will take my 
 side." 
 
 Servant Girl: "Here is a note for Capt. 
 S ." 
 
 Lieut. M : "Wliat is it, S ? Tou are 
 
 pale as a ghost." 
 
 Capt. S : " Read for yourself, Lieutenant." 
 
 MissM : "Why brother, you are as pale as 
 
 Capt. S ." 
 
 Lieut. M : "Eead it, sissie, for the informa- 
 tion of all." 
 
 Miss M [Reading] : 
 
 " ' Head-quarters, Cavalry Camp, 
 "'Sept. 8, 1863. 
 
 " 'Capt. S will inform all the officers of the 
 
 first squadron who are in town that we march at 
 five a. m. to-morrow, sharp, with light baggage. 
 The remaining companies of the regiment will 
 
 they 
 
 in a condition to take 
 
 follow as soon 
 the field. 
 
 '"Our destination is lower East Tennessee, 
 to meet Burnside. I state this fact, in order 
 to give you Avarning to take appropriate leave of 
 your friends, because it will be many a weary 
 day before you see them again. 
 
 '' ' Respectfully, 
 
 " ' Garland Cloud, 
 
 '"Capt. C. S.A.' 
 
 "There now, you see the kind of home-guards 
 you are. 
 
 "Cousin Carrie, I wanted you to help me in 
 defending this poor captain, whom they hate on 
 account of his rigid discipline, because they said 
 they would never need it. 
 
 "But why, coz, you are as pale as anybody 
 else." 
 
 Miss Carrie Harman^ "*Let me see that 
 note, please, coz. Why, that, is my best friend, 
 who saved dear Edgar's life. -Was Edgar here, 
 he would challenge you all to mortal combat. 
 This young gentleman is one of the bravest of 
 the brave, with a heart as tender as a school- 
 girl's ; and his father is a general who has dis- 
 tinguished himself on all the bloodiest fields, 
 everywhere that Jackson's old corps has fought." 
 
 Capt. S : "Well, Lieutenant, since he is 
 
 Miss Carrie's friend, and has all the ladies here 
 enlisted in his defense, we will have to apolo- 
 gize and seek his friendship. — This business 
 breaks up our ball arrangements rather sadly." 
 
 Lieut. M : "Yes, we retract; for who dare 
 
 offend 'The Angel of Consolation.'" 
 
 Now the scene is a running battle ground. 
 
 Gen. J : "Captain, who commands these 
 
 men here?" 
 
 Capt. S : " I do, sir, this company." 
 
 Gen. J : "Who are those ahead here, 
 
 where that heavy firing is?" 
 
 Capt. S : "Look here, stranger, what of 
 
 your business is this ? I have my orders to take 
 up a position on the next hill yonder, and have 
 not time to waste answering questions. You 
 had better get out of here about as fast as you 
 can." 
 
 Gen. J : "I am Brig.-Gen. J , com- 
 
110 
 
 IVfYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 manding this department, and have just arrived 
 on this field to find our forces, as far as I can 
 see, in panicky disorder and flight. I am unable 
 to learn anything." 
 
 Capt. S : "Beg pardon, G-eneral. You 
 
 are a stranger to me. Capt. Cloud is up there, 
 with the other company of his squadron, and 
 some two or three hundred stragglers from other 
 commands rallied by him and his officers. He 
 says that unless we hold the enemy in check, in 
 this rough country, until dark, our little army 
 will be destroyed." 
 
 Gen. J : "Thank you. Captain. Obey 
 
 your orders now." 
 
 The General rode forward and joined Cloud. 
 
 Capt. Cloud: " Well, my General, I am very 
 glad to see you, but regret that you should find 
 things so desperate as they are. For God's sake 
 gallop to the rear and collect all the stragglers, tlie 
 artillery and everything possible for defense, on 
 the bluffs beyond the creek. They are flanking 
 me. I must fall -back to the next hill in a few 
 minutes. The men are discouraged, and have no 
 confidence in the General, who has been running 
 for more than a hundred miles, and much of the 
 time far more precipitately than necessary. 
 
 "My boys are better than veterans, because 
 they do not know Avhen they are whipped. They 
 are all my friends now." 
 
 Gen. J : " My anticipations are more than 
 
 realized. The scout can command and inspire 
 others to action. My staff are rallying stragglers 
 at the point indicated. I will hasten back. Don't 
 let them capture your fine, brave feUows ; and 
 send me word occasionally at what time you 
 will probably be obliged to fall back to that 
 point, and I will send you word how the out-look 
 is for defense." 
 
 Capt. C : " They can never drive me to 
 
 the creek to-day." 
 
 Gen. J : " Well, then, by to-morrow I shall 
 
 be organized. I shall try to see you to-night." 
 
 They parted, but met again that night. 
 
 Capt. C : "Well, General, things will 
 
 appear better in the morning than they did 
 to-day l" 
 
 Gen. J : "Oh, yes, Captain. Everyone 
 
 will be in his place, and I shall have some veteran 
 
 regiments here before day-light. I hope we can 
 soon turn the joke on the blue-coats." 
 
 Capt. C : " I was pleased to hear the court 
 
 acquitted you." 
 
 Gen. J : "Yes; and I plead guilty to the 
 
 specification of disrespect to my commanding 
 officer, and told the court, in his presence, that if 
 I had ever shown bim any respect, I begged his 
 pardon." 
 
 The scene changes to the bivouac cf Cloud's 
 officers. 
 
 Capt. S : " Well, Lieutenant, Capt. Cloud 
 
 is a trump." 
 
 Lieut. M : " Yes, I cannot see how he es- 
 capes death. He does not seem to think of 
 danger for himself, but is very careful about ex- 
 posing the men." 
 
 Generals J and Cloud meet. 
 
 Gen. J : " Ha ! there, Gen. Cloud, whence 
 
 did 3'ou hail?" 
 
 Gen. C : " How are you. Gen. J ? I did 
 
 not expect to meet you. I left the army the da)'' 
 after the battle of Spottsylvania Court-house, 
 and came out here to testify before a court-mar- 
 tial to-day. I am waiting for the train to come 
 along, to return to my post. How do you hap- 
 pen to be here ? " 
 
 Gen. J : " I have been up to M on busi- 
 ness, and have just arrived on the west-bound 
 train, returning to my command, which has, since 
 Longstreet evacuated East Tennessee, been 
 slowly verging toward the East." 
 
 Gen. C : " Come, General, and sit down 
 
 with me in the waiting-room, and tell me about 
 my boy, and your rough-and-tumble fall and 
 winter campaigns in the Tennessee mountains. 
 I have heard of your terrible sufferings, both 
 from hunger and cold." 
 
 Gen. J : " I guess I will do that, General, 
 
 and then sleep until morning, instead of riding to 
 my command to-night, as I intended doing. We 
 may not soon meet again. Cloud. It is a long 
 time since Gettysburg, yet this is the first time 
 we have met in all those days. 
 
 " We are of the true old revolutionary stock of 
 yeomanry. Cloud, S3'mpathetic, kindred spirits, 
 who understand and can appreciate each other. 
 Your boy is the same : sturdy, watchful, active, 
 
THE TKANSFER, AND PART OF ITS SEQUEL. 
 
 Ill 
 
 cool, self-reliant, and reliable, — acquitting himself 
 at all times and under all circumstances with the 
 same comparative degree of credit that he ac- 
 quitted himself in the army of Northern Virginia. 
 
 "On my arrival here I found the situation all 
 but hopeless; no discipline; more like a mob 
 than an army. By the first of November I had 
 discipline, and the men were fairly drilled. 
 
 " On the 4th day of November, I set out to 
 surprise Burnside's cavalry, nearly one hundred 
 
 miles from my camp, at R , down on the 
 
 Holstein River, near Clinch Mountain. I marched 
 (lay and night, until the morning of the 6th, at 
 daybreak. Then I surprised and captured a large 
 part of the command, with valuable trains, stores, 
 and treasure, and returned in safety with all the 
 booty and prisoners. 
 
 " To give you an idea of the commanders I 
 found here : The colonel of a regiment of mounted 
 infantry had never joined me until after the 
 fighting was over that day. I sent him an order 
 to escort the captured trains, and press forward 
 all night with the utmost vigor, while I followed 
 with prisoners, horses, and my command. Be- 
 fore day this home-guard hero got tired and 
 sleepy, and went into camp. This blocked the 
 road, -and delayed the column about an hour, 
 before I could work my way to him. He had 
 never met me. Wanted to know what I had to 
 do with it. I was flatly told that he captured the 
 
 train, and would do as he pleased with it. I 
 
 put him under arrest, and never let up until he 
 was cashiered. 
 
 " The first day out I put Capt. Garland under 
 arrest half a day, on account of a gun going off 
 in his command; but it was for effect in the com- 
 mand more than anything else, although he 
 answered me rather curtly when I rode up and 
 asked him about it. 
 
 " On the morning of January 1st, 1864, with the 
 mercury below zero, we set out and marched day 
 and night for forty-eight hours ; and fought all 
 day at the end of the march, when the enemy 
 surrendered. I had more men frozen to death 
 than were killed in the fight. 
 
 " Sometime after this, I surprised and captured 
 a regiment of infantry, near Cumberland Gap. 
 
 " During all this time we had no tents or other 
 
 shelters, and no cooking utensils ; for forty days 
 we never saw our baggage, nor a clean shirt; 
 and we subsisted for seven days at one time on 
 a little parched corn. Our bread, when we had 
 any, was unsifted corn-meal, made up on an oil- 
 cloth and baked before the fire on a chip, or a flat 
 rock. 
 
 "Capt. Garland's and other scouting parties 
 severely damaged the enemy in no small way. He 
 was sent against some large bands of bushwhack- 
 ers, and saw some rough times, but destroyed them 
 in the end. They captured him once, and had 
 the rope ready to hang him ; but finally let him 
 go on some mutual truce, with apparently all the 
 advantage in their favor. I think they were in- 
 fluenced by the threat that every cabin would be 
 burnt, and all the women and children carried off 
 to a fort, in retaliation for any harm inflicted on 
 him. 
 
 "Another time he rode into a regiment of 
 Federal cavalry alone, when reconnoitering in a 
 dense fog ; but the quick and well-trained horse 
 wheeled and brought him out of the danger be- 
 fore a move was made to prevent it. 
 
 " On another occasion, when reconnoitering on 
 foot, he was captured; but escaped by jumping 
 from the wagon in which he was being trans- 
 ported and guarded with some infantry prison- 
 ers to the rear, through a rough country, on a 
 dark night, and was in his saddle again at day- 
 break. 
 
 " He has served as a member of a court-martial; 
 and I sent him to take command of the lame- 
 horse camp, where a large number of men imagined 
 they had found a bomb-proof for the war ; but 
 he soon broke it up. I never saw a hardier 
 soldier." 
 
 Gen. C : " You have suffered fearfully. 
 
 General. With us, we are coming to the final 
 stage, and the last scene. We will never be north 
 of Richmond again. That is the universal feeling 
 among both officers and men. We had 87,000 
 muskets at the first of the Wilderness. Every 
 day the number decreases, and we enroll no more 
 recruits." 
 
 Gen. J : "Yes, Cloud, the end cannot be 
 
 far now. 
 
 " How is the little hero, Col. Flowers?" 
 
112 
 
 MYSTIC EOMAXCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Gen. C : "Safe and well. There is hardly 
 
 more than a corporal's guard of his original regi- 
 ment left. I hear my train coming to part us, 
 General." 
 
 Gen. -T : '• Ah, Cloud, to part us ! that is 
 
 the word! Yes, to part us! but till when? 
 Echo must answer! " 
 
 Gen. C : " We cannot tell. God bless you, 
 
 my friend. Farewell." 
 
 Gen. J : " I part with you sadly, Cloud. I 
 
 feel some strange sensation, which I suppose they 
 term a presentiment, that one of us is under the 
 wing of the Death Angel. I hope that it is not 
 you. Farewell." 
 
 The campaigns referred to in the foregoing 
 conversation have been much under-estimated 
 by the historian. Upon them and their results 
 most important issues depended ; great interests 
 were involved in their decision. 
 
 Early in September, 1863, important events 
 were transpiring in East Tennessee. Chattanooga 
 Avas the great objective and strategic point — 
 the Federals the defenders, the Confederates the 
 aggressors. With the latter the gods of war long 
 seemed disposed to be most propitious. 
 
 But early in the fall campaign a most disas- 
 trous reversal of the fortunes of war became the 
 heritage of the Confederates, that then greatly 
 marred and ultimately dissipated all their dearly 
 bought yet vital advantages. 
 
 This great and irreparable misfortune was the 
 loss of Knoxville, the key of upper East Tennes- 
 see, which severed direct communication between 
 Generals Lee and Bragg, and deprived the Con- 
 federates of a large — and one of the most bounti- 
 ful — supply districts in the Southern States ; with 
 its wheat crop but recently harvested, and its 
 abundant and maturing corn crop still in the 
 fields, its cattle and swine in the pasture and the 
 forest. 
 
 If this was all but hopelessly ruinous to the 
 Confederates, it was incomparably valuable to the 
 Federal army, and became at once the source of 
 vitality to man and beast in the Union camp. 
 
 For these potent reasons, it at once became the 
 purpose of the Confederates to drive the Union 
 troops out of the district ; that of the latter to 
 liold the desirable country at any sacrifice. 
 
 This foreshadowed desj^erate struggles, trying 
 hardsliips, and excruciating suflferings. 
 
 The country is broken, mountainous, and inter- 
 spersed with rapid rivers, rising in the mountains 
 and rapidly decending to the valleys. 
 
 Gen. Burnside commanded a powerful and well- 
 equipped army with which to hold the disputed 
 territory. Opposed to this formidable host was 
 little better than a rabble — a mob — a few thousand 
 ragged, poorly-armed, poorly-fed, and undisci- 
 plined troops. 
 
 Hence the Federal army took up a triumphant 
 line of march for South-western Yirginia, meet- 
 ing little more opposition from its feeble adver- 
 saries than is usually met in the skillful resistance 
 of a well-disciplined picket force. 
 
 This march continued uninterruptedly until the 
 Confederates were driven out of Tennessee, and 
 the Federal army had entered the fruitful blue- 
 grass region of South-western Vitginia. 
 
 Here Gen. J comes upon the scene once 
 
 more, and the Federal commander finds himself 
 not only check-mated but also out-manoeuvred, 
 and forced to retreat without accepting the chal- 
 lenge to combat. 
 
 Gen. J soon brought order and discipline 
 
 into requisition and practice, and restored confi- 
 dence in the ranks of his little army. 
 
 In less than two months he surprised, routed 
 and captured a large part of Burnside's cavalry, 
 with the camp equipments, trains, stores and 
 treasure of great vj^lue. 
 
 In the meantime, Lieut.-Gen. Longstreet was 
 detached, with a strong army corps from the 
 Confederate army, in front of Chattanooga, and 
 advanced by rapid forced marches upon Knox- 
 ville and the rear of Burnside, Avho was thus 
 forced to fall back precipitately, and take refuge 
 behind the defenses of Knoxville, where was his 
 
 depot of supplies. Gen. J followed in his 
 
 footsteps. 
 
 In a short time Knoxville was a Ijeleaguered 
 city, Burnside's army suffering the pangs of a 
 siege beneath the gathei'ing pall of desjjair; for 
 starvation or unconditional capitulation daily 
 grew to be inevitable alternatives as the meagre 
 stores of provisions steadily diminished. 
 
 Gen. Bragg's disastrous repulse at Missionary 
 
THE TRANSFER, AND PART OF ITS SEQUEL. 
 
 113 
 
 Eidge constituted the foundation of hope for the 
 l.esieged. Reilef may be sent from Chattanooga ; 
 but could it arrive in time ? 
 
 The situation was famiHar to G-en. Longstreet. 
 If he could capture- Knoxville and its defenders, 
 he might then turn on the column marching to 
 theirrehef, and rout or annihilate it; while should 
 it come upon his rear, he would have no al- 
 ternative but to raise the siege and retreat in 
 the direction of Virginia. This would expose 
 his colun:in to an attack in the flank, and its re- 
 treat to be cut oflf by a column of the Federal 
 army marching from Cumberland Gap, also, de- 
 signed to aid in the relief of the imperiled 
 army of Burnside. Gen. Sherman was detached 
 from tlie Federal army at Chattanooga, with a 
 grand corps, for the diUverance of his distressed 
 comrades at Knoxville. 
 
 Gen. J had completed the cordon of in- 
 vestment which consummated Burnside's environ- 
 ment, while Maj.-Gen. Ransom, with a fine 
 division^ from the army of Northern Virginia, 
 was advancing to support and assist Longstreet. 
 
 The situation was critical. The suffering sus- 
 pense of Gen. Burnside's army became intense, 
 and daily grew more painfully hopeless. 
 
 On the 28th of November the beleagured 
 army was reduced to desperate straits. But a 
 few rations of bran and the mules and horses 
 remained as a supply for subsistence. To add to 
 the distress and discomfiture of the besieged 
 Longstreet kept up a terrific bombardment both 
 day and night, to which, however, Burnside re- 
 plied with spirit and serious effect. 
 
 Up to this date the weather had been extremely 
 mild. But on this night, winter set in vigorously ; 
 and Long-street's preparations to attempt to take 
 Knoxville by storm were complete. 
 
 His bombardment was vigorous and appallingly 
 redoubled at this time 
 
 The winter wind blew a sweeping gale, that 
 roared and howled and thundered in the mount- 
 ains, the hills, the ravines, and the forests with 
 which Knoxville is surrounded, and almost lifted 
 sentinels, pioneers and gunners off their feet. 
 Apparently, it had defiantly risen to outrival the 
 deafening terrors of the antagonists' cannon, 
 beneath whose pealing shocks the ground trem- 
 
 Ijled for miles around, and whose reverberations 
 clashed and crashed and groaned as they met and 
 mingled with the wailing moans of the tempest's 
 icy breath. 
 
 Screaming shells filled the air. These terrible 
 projectiles exploded continuously, lighting up the 
 scowling elements in one incessant blaze, while 
 portions of shells and their charges of missiles 
 came hissing down among the troops on duty 
 and those vainly seeking to sleep in their biv- 
 ouacs. It was thus rendered truly a night of grim 
 terrors ! 
 
 Long before day-light Longstreet's columns of 
 assault were moving on the flaming batteries, and 
 against breast-works, battlements and parapets, 
 with deep trenches and ditches in front, guided 
 by the reflection of light streaming from rifles and 
 cannon — Gen. McLaws commanded the assaulting 
 troops. 
 
 The objective point was Temperance Hill, upon 
 which stood the frowning battlements of a for- 
 midable fortress — the key of Knoxville. 
 
 With the famishing Federals, it is a supreme 
 moment. They know the columns of their fi-iends 
 are hastening to their succor; and, nerved by des- 
 peration and the all but forlorn hope of rehef, 
 they nobly man the works, stand to their guns, 
 and bravely vow to die or hold the fort. 
 
 Above the roar of the wind and the thunder 
 of cannon rose the clear notes of the song from 
 lips pale with cold and quivering with emotion — 
 " Hold the Fort, for I am coming." 
 
 Telegraph wires had been stretched by the 
 Federal troops on the outer edges of their 
 trenches, in order that they might trip the ad- 
 A-ancing Confederates and precipitate them head 
 foremost into the ditches. 
 
 As they approached the works, a withering fire 
 of musketry greeted them. The advance fine — 
 or rather the first men of the disordered mass — 
 for lines and columns there were none — was 
 precipitated into the ditch. Their yelling friends 
 came rushing madly forward to meet the same 
 fate, falling, with fixed bayonets, upon those who 
 had fallen before them. The sappers and miners 
 of the pioneer corps, with axes and scaling-ladders, 
 were inextricably blended in the disorder and 
 confusion, and proved a detriment, rather than 
 
114 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLL'E AND THE GREY. 
 
 a benefit to the assault. Men behind could know 
 nothing of the situation in front. On they rushed 
 to helpless destruction. 
 
 Want of harmony and concert of purpose or 
 actual misunderstanding, if not disobedience of 
 orders, seemed to prevail among the Confederate 
 commanders. Longstreet claimed that his orders 
 were disobeyed ; but this pretext often serves the 
 turn of commanders as an excuse for their failure. 
 
 While Longstreet was the Ney of the Confed- 
 erate army, as a lieutenant to an able com- 
 mander, as a detached and independent com- 
 mander, forced to rely on his own skill and 
 strategy, he was a monumental failure to rival 
 poor Banks or Burnside. 
 
 To add to the horrors of the sanguinary scene, 
 the Federal troops behind the breastworks and 
 in the fort hurled a shower of hand grenades on 
 to the struggling mass of Confederates in the 
 trenches and ditches, while grape-shot and minnic- 
 balls literally swept the face of the ground upon 
 which the Southern troops stood. 
 
 The result of the assault remained not long in 
 suspense. 
 
 The capture of the threatened fort would 
 quickly seal the doom of the beleaguered army; 
 but the storming column Avas ill-starred. 
 
 Again and again the baffled Confederates made 
 the vain attempt to carry the works by storm 
 only to be met anew by discomfiture and over- 
 whelmed by fresh disaster. 
 
 By noon the forlorn assault was abandoned, and 
 a truce established, in order to care for the 
 wounded and bury the dead. 
 
 The Confederate loss was appaUing. The dead 
 were in tiers and heaps in and around the 
 trenches, mingled with and often under whom 
 Avere helpless wounded men in great numbers. 
 Thus terminated the plan to take the city by storm. 
 Now came the alternative of reducing the gar- 
 rison to submission by starvation. To insure this 
 result, but a very few days would be required. 
 
 But before these critical days, that contained 
 so much suspended destiny for the combatants, 
 should come and go, the advancing columns would 
 arrive to succor the distressed and famishing 
 Federals. 
 
 Nothing remained for the Confederates but to 
 
 retard the advance of these columns until hunger, 
 cold and despair forced Burnside to surrender or 
 to raise the siege and retreat. 
 
 Longstreet determined to hazard the former 
 chance. 
 
 The column, advancing from Cumberland Gap, 
 
 was met and driven back by Gen. J , Avhile 
 
 Sherman was greatly annoyed at finding the 
 direct route im2')raeticable and a swollen river to 
 cross. Opposition frowned on its banks. Bridges 
 and ferries were destroyed. The prospect of 
 rescuing his friends became desperate. 
 
 But the stakes for which he played were too 
 high for an ambitious and rising commander 
 to yield resignedly, and to Avithdraw from the 
 desperate game Avith placid indifference ; and he 
 persevered. 
 
 After much fatiguing eflbrt, he succeeded in 
 surmounting many formidable and opposing bar- 
 riers, and effected a crossing of the river. 
 
 But, Avas he not too late? He would most 
 undoubtedly* be obliged to pass over ground stub- 
 bornly contested inch by inch, before Burnside 
 Avould be reheved. If he could only apprise him 
 that the river had been passed, and relief, if tardy, 
 was sure. But could such tidings pass the close 
 and vigilant cordon of investment, which would 
 be more than usually alert? Nothing Avas more 
 certain than that the Federal commander would 
 attempt to send a messenger through Longstreet's 
 lines into Knoxville. And unusual watchfulness 
 Avas maintained, with the hope of intercepting 
 any one who might make the attempt. 
 
 HoAvever, a shrcAvd and daring officer in Sher- 
 man's command undertook the perilous duty; 
 not only undertook, but also accomplished it 
 most successfully. 
 
 Upon the arrival of this welcome messenger, 
 Burnside suspended negotiations, in order to con- 
 sider terms of surrender, and assumed a defiant 
 attitude. 
 
 This decided the fate of the siege. It was raised 
 by Longstreet during the night, and he began a 
 retreat but little more promising than Burnside's 
 predicament had been for so many days. 
 
 Yet, however, he succeeded in extricating his 
 army and saving his train and munitions through- 
 out a harassing retreat. 
 
THE TRANSFER, AND PART OF ITS SEQUEL. 
 
 115 
 
 Gen. J prevented the Cumberland Gap 
 
 column from attacking Longstreet's flank, hover- 
 ing with his intrepid cavalry, for many days, 
 lietv/een the two antagonists, and often fighting 
 desperately. 
 
 For many days and nights his command passed 
 tlie day in battle array and the night in the saddle, 
 with no rations but a httle corn, which the men 
 rarely had fire to parch ; and, in addition, the 
 weather was very cold. 
 
 Thus Longstreet's campaign failed, and left 
 tiie Federal army in indisputed possession of the 
 long contested and vitally important territory, 
 with a line of direct communication between Vir- 
 Linia and the South-west. 
 
 This was a deadly wound to the Confederacy, 
 and assured the practicability of Gen. Sherman's 
 march to the sea and the dismemberment of the 
 Southern Empire. 
 
 Burnside pursued Longstreet and encamped at 
 Bean's Station, a beautiful watering place some 
 miles from where the Confederate commander 
 had halted, at the pretty town of Eodgersville, 
 i-esolved to retreat no farther. 
 
 After a few days, Longstreet, with true bull- 
 dog tenacity, — his predominating characteristic, 
 which rendered him in\ancible when simply exe- 
 cuting an order under Gen. Lee, — turned upon his 
 adversary and assaulted his position with the 
 sudden impetuosity of an irresistible avalanche. 
 
 It is a clear, still, sharp December morning as 
 Longstreet's grey columns, like undulating waves, 
 roll steadily and grandly down the charming 
 valleys and over the picturesque hillocks, which 
 intersperse the intervening miles that separate the 
 contending armies. 
 
 Soon the thrilling notes of the rifle ring 
 through the calm and frosty air, as the advancing 
 Confederates rush upon and sweep from their 
 path the Federal pickets, to startle the Union 
 troops, cracking jokes and cooking breakfast in 
 tranquil serenity around their camp-fires. 
 
 Unsuspecting disturbance from the noAv foiled 
 and crippled Confederates, the Federal troops are 
 but little prepared for this abrupt summons to 
 Vjattle. 
 
 Close upon the heels of the hard-pressed and 
 rapidly driven pickets are the yelling enthused 
 
 Confederates. The thundering of the hoofs and 
 the roar of the wheels of the artillery trains roll 
 away from the frozen road in ominous tumult 
 and reverberate, echo and re-echo away back 
 amid mountain crags and ravines and over the 
 Federal camp. 
 
 Intense excitement is prevailing in the Union 
 camp, but it is unmixed with symptoms of panic 
 or even disorder. As batteries gallop into posi- 
 tion and regiments swing into line of battle at 
 double-quick step, Longstreet's grey lines de- 
 bouch into the open valley in front of Burnside's 
 position, which they move upon with unfaltering 
 steps, apparently contemptuous of the tornado of 
 shot and shell which sweep and rend the face of 
 the ground over which they rush. 
 
 Such are moments in which the hearts of 
 men, with all their hopes and inspirations, seem 
 to soar upward to the stars of heaven, whether, 
 alas ! the souls of many follow swift and soon. 
 
 Burnside is everywhere hurled back from the 
 field and driven until darkness in mercy spreads 
 lier sable mantle, to close the sanguinary conflict 
 and murderous carnage. 
 
 Gen. J is master of Burnside's rich supply 
 
 train. 
 
 Longstreet procrastinates a whole da.y. 
 
 The second morning, long before daylight, 
 however, he advances in solid phalanx, with his 
 whole force upon Burnside's new position, san- 
 guine that dawn of day will witness it over- 
 Avhelmed by an irresistible onslaught, only to 
 find the works and camp evacuated. Burnside 
 withdrew during the night, retreating in the 
 direction of Knoxville. 
 
 Longstreet has few fruits of his victory. 
 
 He has lost the opportunity of achieving a 
 grand triumph, and retires inactively into winter 
 quarters. 
 
 Gen. J , in the meantime, prosecutes an 
 
 active cavalry campaign throughout the winter, 
 inflicting much damage on the enemy, but at the 
 cost of extreme hardships and great suffering 
 from exposure to cold and hunger, numbers of 
 his men freezing to death in (heir saddles. 
 
 Garland Cloud was one of the dashing horse- 
 men who accompanied his cool, sagacious, and 
 skillful commander in tnese perilous mountain 
 
116 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANOES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 expeditions, and whose confidence the young 
 mountaineer possessed in a degree due only to 
 educated and experienced officers. For this reason 
 many important and dangerous duties fell to the 
 lo-t o£ young Cloud, by the directions of his 
 brave and devoted commander. 
 
 History tells not the story of this chivalrous 
 general of the Old Dominion, who merited eulo- 
 gies to rival those lavished upon more conspic- 
 aous but never more deserving leaders. 
 
 With a small force he destroyed more than 
 hvice his number in the Federal ranks, captured 
 hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth in stores 
 within the space of six months, with a loss 
 of less than one hundred men, from all causes, 
 in his own ranks. Few others, iii either army, 
 could claim such results in a winter campaign 
 amid the mountains ; yet he received no adequate 
 credit at the time, nor iias justice suice been ren- 
 dered to his name. 
 
 History has told the story of Longstreet's 
 change of base from his East Tennessee winter 
 quarters to the field of the wilderness, a tale, 
 therefore, unnecessary for us to repeat. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE MIDNIGHT MEETING, AND SEQUEL, 
 
 "'TIS night when meditation bids us feel 
 
 We once have lov'd, though love is at an end ; 
 The heart lone mourner of its baffled zeal, 
 
 Though friendless novr still dreams it has a friend." 
 — Byeon. 
 
 The early summer days of 18G4 did not find 
 the army of Northern Virginia checkmating the 
 army of the Potomac, as the previous year had 
 witnessed it doing. 
 
 Now the early June flowers find that once 
 proud and invincible army still dragging its 
 shattered, bleeding columns along the despair- 
 ing retreat from the disastrous ' Field of G-ettys- 
 burg " up to the very gates of the Confederate 
 Capitol. 
 
 And, Grod ! what a retreat I A whole year 
 from Grettysburg to Richmond! What a sterile 
 track hes in its wake ! Fredericksburg, the Wil- 
 derness, Spottsylvania Court-house, each and all 
 
 the ghastly tomb of army corps! Now comes 
 the appalling slaughter-pens of Cold Harbor. 
 
 All the available troops are drawn from every 
 quarter of the South to the defense of Richmond. 
 The chivalrous Breckenridge leaves the valley of 
 Virginia, and hastens to the support of G-en. 
 Lee, which leaves the road open to Lynchburg 
 and Danville, in rear of Lee and Richmond. The 
 temptation is too great to resist. 
 
 Maj.-Gen. Hunter, with a fine army, is dis- 
 patched from Harper's Ferry and Winchester, to 
 seize this favorable opportunity to cut off Gen. 
 Lee's comunications with the South. He moves 
 unopposed by rapid forced marches up the valle}' 
 turnpike. The situation is appalling. In two 
 days more he will pass Staunton. G-en. Lee is 
 powerless. 
 
 He can throw no force adequate to cope with 
 this army, in its pathway, short of Lynchburg; 
 nor is there time for this move to avert the 
 threatened danger. 
 
 G-en. Lee detaches G-en. E with a corj^s to 
 
 save Lynchburg and to protect his rear. It is 
 found that Hunter has a day's march the advan- 
 tage, and will reach Lynchburg first unless his 
 progress can be arrested for one day. But there 
 are no troops in the land that can be thrown in 
 his path in sufficient force in time to arrest his 
 marcli for an hour. 
 
 The eyes of the South and the Confederate 
 
 army now turn to G-en. J in the South-west. 
 
 He may throw one-tenth of Hunter's numbers 
 in his path, composed of raw militia, dismounted 
 cavalry, and a few decimated regiments of 
 infantry. 
 
 The plan is conceived, the order issued, and 
 
 G-en. J proceeds by rail to Staunton barely 
 
 in time to meet Hunter's advance one day's 
 march down the pike. What a forlorn pros- 
 pect! But it is the last hope for the South and 
 Lee. 
 
 G-en. Lee knows and appreciates his man. 
 
 Gen. J is the right man in the right place; 
 
 and he has lieutenants upon whom he can 
 depend in such crises as great emergencies some- 
 times develop. 
 
 There is little time for preparation, less neces- 
 sity for special and systematic disposition to 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MEETING, AND SEQUEL. 
 
 117 
 
 meet the enemy, because there is no certainty 
 which road he will choose. 
 
 The alert vigilance of Gen. J assures him 
 
 the knowledge of his adversary's movements far 
 enough in advance to intercept his march, no 
 matter on which road ;_ and he assumes an inter- 
 mediate position, and waits. 
 
 It is Saturday evening, the 4th day of June ; 
 
 midsummer heat prevails. But Gen. J 's 
 
 bivouac is in a dense grove of timber : hence it is 
 shady, cool, enjoyable as a peaceful scene. 
 
 But the anticipations of the morrow, — these 
 mar the refreshing enjoyment of the cooling 
 mountain zephyrs which sigh and chant their 
 plaintive melody amid the tender leaflets of the 
 forest; sad and anxious suspense pervades the 
 camp. 
 
 The momentous duty which had devolved on 
 the little band is a theme for solemn reflection. 
 Officers and men, as a rule, appear meditative 
 and restless. 
 
 But in the little camp there are two officers 
 Avho seem to have flung forgetfulness around 
 them, and to be indifferent as to themselves. 
 Seated on the grass, against the trunk of a tree, 
 they are intently interested in a closely contested 
 game of chess, when the shadows of evening- 
 close over them to suspend their pleasing diver- 
 sion. They are practiced players, too, in the 
 game of life and death. One of them is ]\faj. 
 Brewer, once an officer in the old army of the 
 United States, a member of an old chivalrous 
 Maryland family, and a special favorite of Gen. 
 J ; the other is Garland Cloud. 
 
 Maj. Brewer : " Put up the chess-men, Capt. 
 Cloud, until after the battle, as it is too dark to 
 play. To-morrow we must doubtless try our 
 skill in a far more serious game." 
 
 Capt. C : "Yes, and get checkmated, too, 
 
 with the odds so much against us. But whither 
 goes that deep drawn sigh?" 
 
 Maj. B : " Back to my Maryland's shore, 
 
 and the old judge, my dear father, whom I shall 
 never see again." 
 
 Capt. C— — •: "Well, Ave cannot divine to-day 
 what is in the store-house of Fate for to-morrow. 
 
 ' Sufficient unto the day ' you know , so let 
 
 lis try to sleep the sleep of the innocent, and 
 
 dream of the days of happy childhood that we 
 shall never see again." 
 
 Cloud walks away for a few moments. 
 
 Maj. B [Solus]: " Poor;: impetuous, philo- 
 sophical, destiny-confiding Cloud, would that I 
 could share your contempt for the dangers of the 
 battle-storm." 
 
 A courier rides up to the bivouac after they 
 are asleep. 
 
 Courier : " Gentlemen, Maj. B and Capt. 
 
 C , Gen. J desires to see you at once at 
 
 his head-quarters." 
 
 Capt. C : " Some desperate enterprise for 
 
 us. Major." 
 
 Maj. B : " This is what I have anticipated 
 
 for several days." 
 
 They mount and are soon before their General. 
 
 Capt. C ; "Oh, my General! this is the 
 
 weird midnight taper of Gettysburg again, amid 
 the spectral shadows of a sombre forest's silent 
 gloom. Is it the dark shade of the Death Angel's 
 wing hovering over our little band ?" 
 
 Gen. J : "Yes, Garland, to-morrow he 
 
 will swoop down upon us. But this is that mid- 
 night meeting which I told you would come, 
 when we parted last, in the lower valley, when 
 you were settmg out for the infantry camp. 
 Just two weeks ago to-night I parted with 
 your father among the shadows of the depot's 
 flickering midnight-lamp. Day before yesterday 
 he was in the hurricane of death at Cold Harbor ; 
 to-morrow it is my turn. 
 
 "Gentlemen, the situation is desperate. My 
 orders are imperative without one provisional ex- 
 ception. Gen. Lee dispatches to stop Gen. Hun- 
 ter's march one day at any cost. Three thousand 
 seven hundred mixed troops, with one little bat- 
 tery, against thirty thousand with thirty pieces 
 of heavy field ordnance. At last the day comes 
 for us to prove the sincerity of our first love. 
 To-morrow our waning country's altar demands 
 some new sacrifices. Are you prepared to join 
 with me to-night in a solemn pledge to devote 
 ourselves to that tottering shrine ?" 
 
 Capt. Cloud: "Always, now and forever." 
 
 Maj. Brewer: "The same are my sentiments, 
 my resolve." 
 
118 
 
 MYSTIC EOMAxVCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 Qen. J 
 
 he chanted : 
 
 ■ Byron truly sang our lot when 
 
 ' Vainly his Incense burns, his victim bleeds :— 
 Poor child of doubt and death, whose hope is built on 
 reeds. ' 
 
 " The enemy have obliqued, and will advance 
 up the Port Eepublic road. We must cross the 
 river. It will take until some time in the fore- 
 noon to get all the forces to the river, across and 
 in position to receive the enemy. This I shall 
 attempt to do with my centre resting on the lit- 
 tle village of P , my left on the river bank, 
 
 and my right on the woodlands. 
 
 " I wish you to cross the river without delay ; 
 advance through a grove about half a mile be- 
 yond P , and there, on the edge of the field, 
 
 post your seven hundred men to best advantage: 
 Cloud on the right, covering the road. If you 
 are prompt, you can be in position by daybreak ; 
 and you will not be idle many moments. Now 
 hear my orders: 
 
 " Hold the enemy in check until I send you 
 an order to fall back, which will be as soon as I 
 am in position, provided you are then hard 
 pressed. Let the enemy pass your post only 
 over your bodies. Inspire all your men individ- 
 ually with this unyielding spirit. Fight in your 
 position — die there if you must — but neither 
 fight nor die retiring. I pity, but cannot help 
 you. May God give you aid. 
 
 " Eememher my parting words to you, Cloud, 
 on another occasion, and apply them at this mo- 
 ment. Grol Good-night." 
 
 Capt. C : " I remember them well. Good- 
 night, my General." 
 
 Maj. B : " I will remember my dut}^. 
 
 Good-night, my General." 
 
 They rode rapidly away to obey this desperate 
 order. 
 
 Gen. J : "Ah! Capt. M , those are two 
 
 noble fellows to select for such certain doom. 
 But they are the men for an emergency like this; 
 to stand unmoved, after the last spark of the 
 most forlorn hope is extinct, and they are left 
 enveloped in the darkness of eternity." 
 
 Now Cloud and Brewer appear in the liattli'- 
 storm. 
 
 Maj. B : '"Look out there, Captain, the 
 
 cavalrj' is going to charge you again." ^ " 
 
 Capt. C : " You will find out in a moment 
 
 what kind of cavalry that is." 
 
 Maj. B : " I see. They are unliml^ering gun 
 
 after gun, not more than five hundred )'ards from 
 our line. "What an ordeal! We must endure if, 
 and cannot reply. Our two little guns will not 
 last ten minutes. They intend to smoke out thiw 
 hornets' nest." 
 
 Capt. C : "Look Major! The prelude i- 
 
 over. The blue waves which are to engulph us 
 are beginning to roll forward." 
 
 Maj. B : "Come a little this way. I will 
 
 meet you. The crisis is at hand, Captain. Let 
 us sell our lives dearly. How do j^ou feel? It 
 seems to me that the ferryman of the dark river 
 has me by the hand. Should you escape, tell my 
 brother, the doctor, to let all the family know 
 that I died, as our ancestors have often, worthy 
 of the ancient name I bear." 
 
 Capt. C : "I feel that our doom is sealed. 
 
 We need have no scruples about exposing our- 
 selves. Fortunately, the old fence ridge affords 
 the men much protection ; but we must remain 
 on our feet. Let us walk along the line, and 
 entreat every man to stand up to his duty to 
 the death. Poor felloAvs, how nobly they have 
 endured this torrent of iron hail for nearly three 
 hours ! " 
 
 The scene changes to the field-hospital of the 
 Federal army. 
 
 Maj. Pleasington: "Why, Capt. Cloud, I have 
 searched for you all over the field. One of 5'our 
 Avounded officers told me that you were killed up 
 yonder in the lane by a cannon-ball; that your 
 sword was picked up, with a severed hand firmly 
 clasping the hilt. — How are you. poor fellow?" 
 
 Capt. C : "My sands of life are numbered, 
 
 Major, and ebbing out. In an hour from now 
 you may bury me up yonder beneath that 
 battle-scarred willow-tree. I thought to-day, 
 during the storm that raged around me, it would 
 be a quiet resting-place. Take the things from 
 my pockets, and send them in a little package 
 to my mother. You know where, and you Avill 
 find a way. Send with them a line, telling how 
 I died, and how and where you buried me. 
 
THE MIDNIGHT MEETING, AND SEQUEL. 
 
 119 
 
 Thank God that you are here. Stay by mo, if }ou 
 can, to the end; it will not be long." 
 
 Maj. P : " Doctor, come here. Save this 
 
 man, who ha.s twice saved me. He is bleeding to 
 death. Don't shake your head." 
 
 SuRGEON-GrENERAL : " All the doctors in Chris- 
 tendom can't save him, Major. He Avould die 
 under an operation." 
 
 Maj. P ; " Pra}^, then, tell me how long 
 
 he can Hve without it? " 
 
 Surg.-Gen : " Less than an hour. He is sink- 
 ing rapidly." 
 
 Capt. C : "You need not talk in an under- 
 tone. Doctor. Perform the operation. If I should 
 die under it. Heaven will hold you blameless." 
 
 Surg.-Gen: "All right. I must do it myself. 
 I have nobody to spare. Our own wounded are 
 dying for want of attention." 
 
 Capt. C : " Thank you, Doctor. Now, Ma- 
 jor, tell me about the battle." 
 
 Maj. P -: " We were nearly whipped, but 
 
 now we hold the field, and are camping on it 
 to night. But why are you smiling?" 
 
 Capt. C : "Only because the object of our 
 
 .sacrifice is attained." 
 
 Maj. P : " Your gallant Gen. J lost 
 
 his life leading a charge on our disordered hne, 
 which probably saved us from defeat. Some of 
 his class-mates and associates in the old army, 
 are burying him with the honors of war. Maj. 
 Brewer, who fought with you, is mortallj'- wound- 
 ed. He wished me to bear you his greeting, if 
 I found you alive, and to tell you that you had 
 fairly won a colonel's stars to-day. I have 
 promised to see him again. He saj^s about six- 
 sevenths of your mutual force remained on the 
 field." 
 
 Capt. C : "Now, Major, I want to take one 
 
 last look at this summer Sabbath's setting sun. 
 There, now, I am ready to inhale the soothing 
 chloroform. Let me hold your hand. Major, or 
 rather you hold mine. I am going to sleep, but 
 who will arouse me from slumber again ? I hear 
 a band playing the Dead March, and the drum's 
 mufHed roll. It is my General's cortege to his 
 lonely grave. I feel the mystic volatile's sub- 
 tilty creeping through my veins. Farewell, Major; 
 
 farewell, world ; and my native land, farewell; 
 for thee I " 
 
 Yes: Gen. J is dead, and buried with the 
 
 honors of war, by generous foemen. lie was 
 respected for his gallantry on that fatal field; he 
 was esteemed for his high type of chivalry and 
 irreproachable character as a gentleman. His 
 desperate mission is accomplished; he met the 
 expectations of his chief with fidelity ; obeyed 
 his orders to the letter, and died like a soldier. 
 The enemy's advance was stayed twenty-four 
 hours. Thus Lynchburg was saved, and a vital 
 wound warded off from the heart of the slowly 
 dying Confederacy. 
 
 Poor Gen. J 1 he no longer bears his great 
 
 and silent sorrow over the earth; no more will 
 lie appear at the head of his squadrons on his 
 white charger ! Let us hope that he has at last 
 reunited with his long lost bride. 
 
 Maj. Brewer died on the field of battle. 
 
 Upon this field were some pitiful scenes. 
 
 A number of old men and boys from the im- 
 mediate vicinity of the battle-ground were en- 
 gaged in the terrible conflict. The havoc among 
 them was fearful. 
 
 Late m the evening, after the firing had ceased, 
 and the shadows began to spread their mantle 
 over the ghastly ground, old ladies, young ladies, 
 and little children were on the field seeking their 
 friends. Often, alas ! their search was sadly re- 
 v?-arded. Then the wails of despair which rose, 
 to drown the shrieks of the wounded, melted the 
 stony hearts of veteran foemen to tender com- 
 passion. 
 
 There^ was an aged mother bending over her 
 son ; here, was a wife, with her babe upon her 
 breast, moaning piteously over her husband; 
 yonder^ a group of little children screaming round 
 the rigid form of their father; a young girl 
 wringing her hands in voiceless agony, as she 
 crouched beside the lifeless form of her brother : 
 and up on the hill-side, beneath the weeping- 
 willow-tree, a faithful dog sat beside his dead 
 master howhng mournfully, — seemingly the only 
 friend of the deceased! 
 
120 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 T H E T H R E E VI C T t M S OF RETALIATION. 
 
 "Tills is thy curse oh! man, thy hard decree! 
 That boundless Upas— that all blasting tree, 
 Whose roots are the Earth — whose leaves and branches be 
 The skies which rain their plagues on men like dew; 
 Disease, death, bondage — all the woes we see, — 
 And, worse, the woes we see not which throb through, 
 The immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new." 
 
 — Byrox. 
 
 April, 1865, found the Confederacy in the last 
 throes of death. But, oh, how hard she struggled, 
 how slowly she died ! 
 
 Through to the last, her ragged, starving sol- 
 diers maintained their dignified and lofty bearing; 
 displayed their intrepid courage and indomitable 
 will; her officers retained "the pomp and cir- 
 cumstance " of authority, and exercised the pre- 
 rogatives of a hving and mighty empire. Even 
 to the extreme of retaliation were their war 
 attributes employed in the same degree as when 
 their cause was most promising. 
 
 Away down in the wilds of North Carolina 
 some Federal freebooters ruthlessly executed 
 three Confederate officers, in the early days of 
 April. 
 
 Two or tliree days later, a party of Federal 
 officers fell into the hands of a hot-headed Con- 
 federate general, who was acting almost inde- 
 pendently on the extreme out-posts, and hovering 
 on the advance flank of the Union army. 
 
 In retahation for his officers who had been exe- 
 cuted, he resolved that three of his captives should 
 die. 
 
 Concerning such matters there was little cere- 
 mony in border semi-guerilla warfare. Usually 
 the victims were selected by lot, condemned and 
 executed all in a few moments. Sometimes they 
 were sent near or into the enemy's line, in order 
 that they might be speedily found, to inspire the 
 designed terror, or prevent a repetition of the 
 occasion for which they were doomed. 
 
 These murders were most generally committed 
 by independent commanders of small forces, with- 
 out the sanction or the knowledge even of their 
 superiors, to whom the facts were seldom or 
 never officially reported. 
 
 By regular commanders in the field, these 
 atrocities were committed rarely, and then only 
 in extreme cases and under greatly aggravated 
 circumstances. 
 
 We have occasion now to portray one of these 
 pitiful scenes, conducted, however, with more 
 than ordinary decency and humanity, if we may 
 be permitted to associate these names with such 
 diabolical brutality and savage murder. 
 
 The scene is at an out-post head-quarters in a 
 rural farm-house. 
 
 Confederate Ofi-icer: Col. Cloud, there are 
 three prisoners outside, under charge of my guard, 
 
 sent you by G-en. R , with this dispatch, which 
 
 relates to them. Please relieve me of them, that 
 I may rejoin my command immediately." 
 
 CoL. C : "ilaj. H , go with him, and 
 
 receive them ; then turn them over to the officer 
 of the guard." 
 
 The officers retire with the prisoners. 
 
 " What can this all mean, sending prisoners to 
 the out-post?" [Beads.] 
 
 "•Head-quarters, Department of 
 
 '"April, 1865. 
 '"Special Order Xo. 369: 
 
 " ' 1st. Col. Garland Cloud, commanding the 
 cavalry, will cause to be executed at daybreak 
 of the 8th inst., just beyond his extreme out- 
 post, in retahation for the three officers of this 
 command, executed on the 4th inst., the follow- 
 ing named officers of the United States Army, 
 selected by lot, this day ; to wit : 
 
 '"Lawrence Pleasington. Major U. S. Cavalry. 
 
 " 'Milton Land, Captain Co. Gr , Illinois '' 
 
 " ' Frank Stone, 1st Lieut. Co. K ■' 
 
 "'2d. He will leave their bodies on the spot 
 where they are executed, with a copy of this 
 order attached to each body. 
 
 " ' 3d. Immediately after the execution he will 
 withdraw his pickets, and resume the line of 
 march indicated in Special Order No. 364. 
 
 '"By Command of Brig.-Gen. R- 
 
 '"Sam. M. O'H , 
 
 " ' Maj. A. A. A. Gen. ' 
 
 "Oh, my God! that poor Pleasington should 
 be one of them. Poor, miserable, unfortunate 
 
THE THREE VICTIMS OF RETALIATION. 
 
 121 
 
 man ! Wretched inim that I am to have this 
 liorrible order to execute. I would rather desert 
 to the enemy than obey it." 
 
 The officer returns. 
 
 Maj. H : " Col. Cloud, one of the prisoners 
 
 •begs to see you. Oh, Colonel, it is pitiful, heart- 
 rending to witness them ! " 
 
 CoL. C : " Sunnnons all the officers imme- 
 diately, Major." 
 
 Maj. H : "They wiU all be here in a few 
 
 moments." 
 
 Other officers enter. 
 
 Col. C : "Gentlemen: There are three 
 
 United States officers hete under my charge. I 
 am ordered to execute them at day-break. This 
 is terrible. The war cannot last thirty days longer. 
 Talk it over, and I will join you again in ten 
 minutes." 
 
 Col. Cloud passes out, but soon reenters the 
 room. 
 
 Maj. H : " Colonel, the unanimous opinion 
 
 is that you would be justified, under the circum- 
 stances, and by the noble cause of humanity, in 
 permitting them to escape to-night." 
 
 CoL. C — — : "Gentlemen: Our sentiments 
 and our feelings are in accord, but our positions 
 are not,- the cruel order is to me, not to you. 
 Who among you will volunteer to be officer of 
 the guard, and assume the responsibility of ac- 
 counting for those prisoners, merely relieving 
 the officer now on duty and receiving your in- 
 structions from him? I observe you are all 
 silent. This is conclusive as to what you would 
 do were either one of you in my place. This is 
 all I desired to learn. The order must be ol^eyed. 
 You are dismissed, gentlemen." 
 
 The officers especially called go out. 
 
 "Major, have the guards trebled, and rigid in- 
 structions given to each man. Then bring me 
 Lieut. Stone. Say to the other two that I shall 
 see them one at a time, and render them every 
 facility and assistance in my power, in preparing 
 for their sad fate, and- in communicating with 
 their friends. I shall devote every moment of 
 the night to them." 
 
 The officer goes out, and reenters with a pris- 
 oner and guards. 
 
 Maj. H : " Here is Lieut. Stone, Colonel, 
 
 as directed." 
 
 Col. C : "Take a seat for a moment, 
 
 please. 
 
 "Now, Major, ride over to G , and tell Col. 
 
 T 's chaplain that he must come here and 
 
 spend the night in administering the Divine con- 
 solations of his licuveuly mission. Explain to 
 him." 
 
 The officer goes out, leaving prisoner and 
 guards. 
 
 "Lieutenant, my poor fellow-man, what can 
 I say to you or offisr to do for you that will not 
 appear hollow mockery ? " 
 
 Lieut. S : "Oh, Colonel! My poor wife 
 
 and httle babes ! It is of them that I am thinking ! 
 My last whisper will lisp their names ; my last 
 breath will go out a sigh for them. You are kind 
 to send for a minister. The Major told me that 
 you said I could write. I do not blame you. 
 Colonel. I saw the three poor men for whom 
 we must die going out to their death. We depre- 
 cated the inhuman act. How I felt for them. 
 Now I know how they felt." 
 
 Col. C : " Yes, Lieutenant, you can write 
 
 all you Avish. I will send everything you all 
 desire, by a truce, into your lines, early in the 
 morning. Just step into the next room. There 
 is everything — candle, writing material, table, and ' 
 all that you need for writing. When you finish 
 your letter, you can go at once into another 
 room and see the chaplain. You shall not be 
 disturbed." 
 
 Lieut. S : " Thank you. Colonel. This is 
 
 more than I expected." 
 
 CoL. C : "Corporal, go and tell the officer 
 
 of the guard to send me Capt. Land ; and also to 
 tell Maj. Pleasington that I will send for him in 
 about thirty minutes." 
 
 The guards go out with their prisoner, but soon 
 reenter with another captive. 
 
 Capt. Land: "Oh! Col. Garland Cloud, cousin 
 to my poor Emma, it is you, the little prattling 
 boy Avho clung to my neck and wept so bitterly 
 when we started for Illinois, that is to make her a 
 widow, and her sweet innocent little babes — 
 orphans ! Oh, Garland ! if she could only look 
 upon your stern, pale face now, with her grand, 
 
122 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 sweet blue ej'e.-;, her lilooil would run into icy con- 
 gealment. How often she lias written to nie : 
 'Milton, if you are captured, try to fall into 
 cousin Garland's, or uncle Cloud's hands: they 
 will treat you well, the kind, noble, good hearts! ' 
 I have complied with her request." 
 
 Col. C : " Oh, alas ! Milton, my poor cousin, 
 
 that I should have lived to see this day. I would, 
 under any other circumstance, put my own Mfe 
 into the breach to save you. I am in no way 
 responsiljle for your present terrible fate, and I 
 am powerless. I cannot help you further than to 
 furnish you a minister, and to allow you time to 
 make all dispositions, in writing, that you desire, 
 which I will send into your lines by sun-rise in 
 the morning. Nerve yourself. At day-break, my 
 poor cousin, must this inhuman decree be executed. 
 You have little time to waste in lamenting your 
 fate to me. Pass through that door. You will 
 find Lieut. Stone in the room waiting, and a 
 table and writing material for you. Now, cor- 
 poral, I am ready for Maj. Pleasington." 
 
 Capt. Land: " Oh, Garland! how can I break 
 this cruel news to her ? " 
 
 Guards depart with Capt. Land, but return 
 with Maj. Pleasington. 
 
 Col. Cloud: "Oh, Maj. Pleasington, has it 
 come to this ? Is all the kindness and consideration 
 we have bestowed upon each other to terminate 
 thus ? Why did you not let me die when I was 
 at death's door with my lost arm ? But for you, 
 in another hour I would have quietly passed 
 away; and now, with what a horrible reward I 
 must repay you !" 
 
 Maj. P : "Calm your emotion. Colonel. I 
 
 am an educated soldier. This is a hazard of war, 
 thai has fallen to my lot. It is but just. It was 
 no more nor less than a shameful murder, execut- 
 ing the three officers for whom we three victims 
 must suffer. I Avill die like a soldier. I do not 
 blame you, Colonel. I know you would be the 
 last man in the world to put me into this jeop- 
 ardy if you could help it. I understand your 
 position. Since I am destined for this wretched 
 doom, I am thankful that I have your sympathy 
 to comfort me in my last sad hour, and your 
 kindness to permit me to communicate with those 
 
 the vej-y thought of whom wring.'^ my miserable 
 heart." 
 
 Col. C : "In that room, Major, there are 
 
 table and writing material. When you are 
 through writing, there is a chaplain ready to 
 commune and pray with you. My order does 
 not specify the mode of execution : hence, I have 
 determined to make it the regulation-file of sol- 
 diers ; and they will fire from their saddles but one 
 volley, at day-break to-morrow morning, just 
 beyond our lines. There is one chance perhaps 
 in ten thousand that all three may not be in- 
 stantly dispatched. Were I in that situation and 
 condition, I knoAV what course I should pur- 
 sue. Our pickets will retire immediately after 
 this volley is fired; and in a few moments the 
 bodies will be in the hands of your people. Now, 
 go in and write your cruel letters." 
 
 Maj. P : "I understand you. Thank you. 
 
 Colonel." 
 
 Guards go out with Maj. Pleasington. The officer 
 returns. 
 
 Col. C : "Now, Maj. H , cause the 
 
 commandants of each battalion to draw lots, to 
 determine which one shall furnish thirty-six 
 men and three commissioned officers to execute 
 this fearful order. This decided, command the 
 officers to draw lots, to find which three must go ; 
 and then, again, the men must draw, in order to 
 ascertain the thirty-six who must become the 
 cruel files of fatal execution. All this com- 
 pleted, arm the men with Mississii^pi rifles ; march 
 them quietly into the dining-room ; have them 
 stack their ai-ms, and then march them back to their 
 bivouacs, and let them sleep. During the night 
 the guns will be loaded. I am going to separate 
 the poor victims, and send one out on each 
 public road. 
 
 "Ask, also, Major, for alwut a dozen volunteer 
 singers, to sing a hymn at the last closing sacred 
 service, immediately after the conclusion of 
 which the sad and mournful corteges will move 
 off for the places of their bloody, murderous 
 destinations." 
 
 It is the silent hour of three o'clock in the 
 morning ; the camp fires have flickered low or 
 gone out ; even the horses are asleep. The pine 
 forest of North CaroHna siglis and moans plain- 
 
THE THREE VICTIMS OF RETALIATION. 
 
 123 
 
 lively as it.s bi-anches are gently fanncil 1)}^ tlie 
 Api'il-night wind. A spectral crescent moon 
 swings low in the Eastern sky, casting its faint, 
 slanting rays into the deep gloom of the dismal 
 pine-woods, creating a weird and unearthly ap- 
 pearance. In the midst of all this there is a 
 large, old frame dwelling, tenanted by two old 
 bachelors. The parlor-room is unoccupied and 
 bare save the thick meshes of spider-webs with 
 which the large high ceiling is covered. In one 
 end of this deserted, neglected, dirty, and cheer- 
 less abode there is to-night a small table, upon 
 which burns a small feeble tallow-candle, whose 
 slight radiance does not illuminate one-tenth part 
 of the gloomy apartment. Fit stage and scenery 
 for the dread, solemn, heart-rending scene so 
 cruelly being enacted upon it! 
 
 Behind the table stands the ghostly figure of 
 the man of God, clad in the official sacerdotal 
 robes of the Episcopal Church. In front of him, 
 their heads vesting against the little table, their 
 knees upon the dirty, moldy floor, are the 
 kneeling, grief-smitten, heart-broken, earth-hope- 
 less forms, of three officers of the ITnited States 
 army, engaged in supplicating the Throne of 
 Mercy, the last refuge to which ever instinct- 
 ively turn the truly miserable, and the utterly 
 despairing hearts, when the helping or the saving 
 fi-iendly hand of earth is out of reach forever- 
 more. Dreadful to contemplate! — three brave 
 men, whose cheeks would not blanch beneath 
 the impi-egnable battlement's angry frown of 
 death, guilty of no crime, and in the full vigor of 
 health and of manhood, participating in their 
 own funereal ceremonies. They are about to re- 
 ceive'thelast Communion — the most blessed con- 
 solation the Church can bestow. 
 
 Behind this group, around which hovers a 
 halo of such awe-inspiring shadows : the man of 
 God and the Death Angel — the one barely visible, 
 the terrible oppressive feeling that the other is 
 equally near and real unmistakably perceptible — 
 Icneel about tv^-enty grim-faced soldiers of the 
 Southern army. Behind these, in the thick 
 gloom, kneels the towering form of Col. Cloud, 
 convulsed with emotion, and sobbing as if his 
 heart would break. One by one he has already 
 taken final leave of the unhappy men whose 
 
 lamps of .sweet and hope-dawning life he has 
 been ordered to extinguish; he does not wish 
 them to see his face again. 
 
 Slowly, in a mournful, tremulous voice, the 
 man of God pronounces the lines of a closing- 
 dirge, "Nearer, my God, to Thee;" and the sol- 
 diers with much difficulty, because of the choking 
 emotions, which they cannot stifle, sing in cad- 
 ences, .slow, plaintive, and direful : — 
 
 " Now, like a wanderer — 
 Daylight all gone, 
 Darkness comes over me— 
 
 My rest a stone: 
 Yet in my tlreams I'll be 
 Nearer, my God, to Thee— nearer to Thee." 
 
 Then the good man commends their souls to 
 God, and one by one bids the wretched, hope- 
 less men an affecting farewell, as they are led 
 away and delivered up to the cruel ministers of 
 dljath. Then for a few moments more he re- 
 mains alone in silent solitary prayer. Now,with 
 the spectral candle in his hand, he passes out of 
 the terrible room, almost frightened at the hol- 
 low, lugubrious echoes of his own foot-steps, 
 closes the door behind him, and listens on the 
 portico,with folded arms, to the receding sounds' 
 of the horses' hoofs of the three merciless parties. 
 Thus he continues standing, until almost simul- 
 taneously three volleys of musketry ring through 
 the still, dewy air : then he exclaims: '■^ Lord Jesus 
 Christ receive their souls/" 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE LAST SCENE OF THE TENTED FIELD. 
 
 "Desperately his soldiers still fight on. 
 Determined to die or yet be free. 
 Unconscious ot wha*t their general's done 
 
 Beneath that budding apple-tree. 
 But, look ! a courier is hastening on 
 
 To still the cannon's deafening roar. 
 While silently they stack their arms 
 To fight on Virginia's soil no more." 
 
 From Lee's Sukeendek. 
 
 After a halt of nine months in front of Peters- 
 burg, Gen. Lee again resumes his retreat from 
 " The Field of Gettysburg," leaving behind him 
 a wake of devastation and death rai-ely surj: 
 in history, seldom equalled. 
 
124 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY. 
 
 From this ghastly buryiug-ground he moves 
 away in the direction of the South-west, facing 
 the red glow of the setting sun, with his back to 
 a redder scene of blood, which deluged the earth 
 in his last futile struggle to repel the onslaught 
 which broke his puny lines and forced him to 
 evacuate his long and well defended Avorks. 
 
 Thus reduced to the mere skeleton of an army, 
 ragged, bare-headed, bare-footed, and famishing, 
 he takes up his line of march through an open 
 country, after an overwhelming defeat, in the 
 face of a victorious, well-clothed, well-fed, well- 
 equipped enemy that nearly twenty times out- 
 number him. Matchless chieftain ! devoted fol- 
 lowers ! thus to move after every ray of hope is 
 vanished. 
 
 But in this there was method and policy. 
 Well did Gen. Lee know that all was over ; still 
 he wished to escape the humiliation of surrender- 
 ing at discretion the brave remnant of his once 
 proud and mighty army. Well did he reahze 
 that this feeble band could inspire respect amid 
 the victorious and exultant ranks of the enemy ; 
 that before its wasting yet serried phalanx the 
 multitudinous hosts would pause and stand at bay. 
 
 But still, however, above all these considera- 
 tions was that supreme incentive which swayed 
 and convulsed his noble nature with intensified 
 emotion: that of securing for his desolate and 
 mourning country an honorable and a tolerable 
 peace. 
 
 Inspired bj'^ these powerful and laudable mo- 
 tives, which shed about his name a ray of glory 
 that reflects more lustre upon the grandeur of 
 his fame than his most masterful feats of arms, 
 he marches to gain the fastnesses of the great 
 blue mountains, many miles away. 
 
 After some days of weary marching, at last, 
 sometimes wrapped in gauzy veils of misty haze, 
 the dim outlines of the great and cloud-kissed 
 peaks are descried, seeming to beckon their dis- 
 tressed sons to hasten on to their protecting 
 friends; for such these grand old mountains had 
 oftentimes proved to the sons of Virginia and 
 the South. 
 
 But these friendly guardians were, like the in- 
 viting refuge of the distant headland promontory 
 to the perishing mariner, surrounded by engulf- 
 
 ing waves. He sees safety in the dim distance ; 
 but, sadder than none, it is safety he may not 
 reach. Thus was it with the imperiled band of 
 Gen. Lee. At length it found itself emcom- 
 passed by the engulfing surge of blue waves; 
 and thus it was forced to stand at bay. 
 
 The stage for the last scene was destined to 
 render one of the most obscure county seats in 
 the old Dominion forever famous — " The Appom- 
 attox" of endless historical renown. 
 
 This quaint old town contains a little dingy 
 brick court-house, in a diminutive square, sur- 
 rounded by a lew shabby store and shop build- 
 ings, — thus does it appear in the early days of 
 April, 1865, when Gen. Lee halts, plants his guns, 
 and forms in battle array upon this sequestered 
 spot, where the once proud and invincible army 
 of Northern Virginia atacks its nine thousand 
 muskets forever. 
 
 It is somewhat painful to take issue with the 
 grave historian on one feature of this scene, — that 
 of the famous apple-tree, under which Gens. 
 Lee and Grant are reputed first to have met — and 
 to assure the reader that this is an errone9us im- 
 pression ; that the two great captains never met 
 under " that budding apple-tree." That story is 
 pure fiction. 
 
 But Gen. Lee and some of his heutenants 
 meet under this gnarled apple-tree, just beginning 
 to bud, and hold a short council of war, at 
 which it is decided to surrender. This is on the 
 morning of the 8th of April, 1865. From this 
 spot starts the ever memorable flag of truce to 
 the Federal army. 
 
 A little later the commanders of the two armies 
 meet in an open field, converse less than ten 
 minutes, and then ride back to their quarters. 
 This is their first meeting. 
 
 About noon they meet again ; this time in a 
 room of Maj. McLane's house, definitely to ter- 
 minate the tragedy in which ihey have been so 
 long engaged. 
 
 The terms accorded to Gen. Lee in the articles 
 of capitulation here consummated are magnani- 
 mous to a degree that reflects undying credit on 
 Gen. Grant, and will ever glow on " the pictured 
 page" of history, should the lustre of his military 
 renown ever wane. 
 
THE LAST SCENE OF THE TENTED FIELD. 
 
 125 
 
 Nothing was more certain than that Gen. Lee 
 could be forced to surrender, and in a short time, 
 at discretion. 
 
 But behold the respect in which his triumphant 
 foeman holds him! No disposition is manifested 
 that a desire even is entertained to humiliate the 
 vanquished chieftain of the South, nor to com- 
 promise his common soldiers by imposing the 
 hard conditions of surrender that might be ex- 
 acted and enforced. 
 
 When these honorable and favorable condi- 
 tions were secured, what a weight of anxiety 
 must have been lifted from Gen. Lee's agonized 
 mind. For what haunting probabilities of the woe 
 this supreme crisis might develop, must have 
 oppressed him since the failure of Pickett on 
 Cemetery Hill! 
 
 He knew that it was merely a question of 
 time ; that sooner or later he was doomed to be 
 vanquished. 
 
 The day after the terms of surrender were 
 signed, the disconsolate Confederates part with 
 their rifles, lay aside their trusty companions, 
 and bid farewell to their commander, Avhom they 
 love so well. 
 
 At this moment, strong men weep like little 
 children. 
 
 "You did your part well little band; 
 
 Outnumbered, yet braveand true you stood, 
 Ever battling for the land 
 
 Of the brave, the noble, and the good. 
 Farewell, Southern fallen braves: 
 
 We thy loss most deeply feel; 
 We'll strew flowers o'er your graves: 
 
 Yearly at your tombs we'll kneel." 
 
 The only object which the South had any hope | 
 to gain, that for which she has struggled since | 
 the fatal field of Gettysburg, is attained: an honor- I 
 able peace and protection. \ 
 
 The Star of the Confederacy has set forever ; j 
 the Star of the Union has risen re-illuminated to 
 set Nevermore ! 
 
 Three friends who have been continually 
 together, in their laborious duties and painful 
 dangers, from the first day at the Wilderness 
 until this scene, which is their last, are seated 
 once more by their bivouac fire, after returning 
 from their farewell visit to Gen. Lee. 
 
 Gex. Cloud: "Well boys, the end has come 
 
 at last; all our precious blood has been shed in 
 vain." 
 
 Col. Flowers: "Yes, General; but man pro- 
 poses and God disposes ; and so let us try to be 
 resigned, and to believe that it is all for the 
 best." 
 
 Maj. Harman- "I guess the Colonel has got 
 the true philosophy on us this time General." 
 
 Gex. Cloud: "Yes, it is better to accommodate 
 ourselves to the circumstances than to allow 
 them to accommodate themselves to us ; which 
 they would certainly do. 
 
 "I have been counting up, as we rode back 
 from Gen. Lee's quarters, how many of our three 
 original companies will stack their arms. There 
 are but seven of them now present with guns, 
 and four company officers — fourteen of us alto- 
 gether, out of three hundred and sixty, who 
 were mustered into the service at the commence- 
 ment of the war; not less than three hundred of 
 them are dead, and about forty of the remainder 
 have been wounded." 
 
 Col. Flowers. "I wish Col. Garland was 
 here to go home with us." 
 
 Gen. Cloud : " Ah ! poor boy ! poor Garl. It 
 will be many a weary day before ever he sees 
 home. God only knows what will become of 
 him. The Tennessee bushwhackers, against 
 whom he operated, have sworn vengeance 
 against him. He dares not return home; and be 
 does not know where to go nor what to do 
 until the reign of terror, which we are destined 
 to have, is over. He writes to me that he has 
 some idea of plunging into the North; but he 
 has no money, and his arm is gone: so he cannot 
 earn a subsistence at hard labor. That miserable 
 Dutchman, Mueller, an inveterate enemy of his. 
 is affiliating with those murderous desperadoes, 
 and will inform them where he is, should he 
 return honie or to any point within a long dis- 
 tance of home. He is now somewhere on the 
 coast of North CaroHna. It was cruel to put 
 him into active field service after he was so 
 badly maimed. He has done much hard fighting 
 since, and but little scouting duty. He appeared 
 only in the light of simply obeying orders, 
 and took no other interest in the services he 
 rendered." 
 
126 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEET. 
 
 Maj. Harman: "None of us has met him since 
 his promotion." 
 
 Gen. Cloud; "I have not since the night of 
 Gettysburg." 
 
 Col. Flowers: "What can Mueller have 
 against Col. Garland? He was a Confederate 
 officer, and loud-mouthed for the wai-." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: " He was a coward. Somewhere 
 in the Tennessee campaigns he was abandoning 
 his post in the line, at a critical moment; and 
 Garl rallied the men and re-posted them; caught 
 Mueller by the collar, and at the same time, 
 brandishing his sword, roughly rebuked him for 
 his cowardice. 
 
 " During the same campaign he gave a lot of 
 his men leave to go home; and Garl picked 
 them up the first day out from camp, and re- 
 turned them to their command. 
 
 " This greatly increased M 's indignation, 
 
 besides making enemies of all the men, who have 
 sworn vengeance. 
 
 " Even now there are numerous political secret 
 societies, known ostensibly as Red Strings, etc., 
 but really Union Leagues, all over our country, 
 having for their principles the division of all the 
 landed property among themselves. All the 
 deserters have already joined them. Many of 
 the soldiers will join them. Demoralization, 
 discord, and every species of confused anarchy 
 Avill distract our country until we get some 
 established government in the States; and wnth 
 the railroads destroj'ed, and no mail service in 
 operation, this will take a long time." 
 
 Col. Flowers: "It is sad to return home to 
 find this state of afTairs. I will huxe been 
 absent four years in a few more days. Poor 
 Garland, my best friend, how I pity him!" 
 
 Maj. Harman "And then to know that we 
 cannot help him, nor even hear from him, 
 renders his case still more deplorable." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: ''It is another one of his war 
 curses. From the very first he has averred that 
 he would never see another happy day on the 
 earth ; and it now begins to appear as if he was 
 right. Except his most devoted friend, poor 
 
 Gen. J , from all that I can learn, he was one 
 
 of the saddest soldiers in the army. At Gettys- 
 burg he pictured to me his gloomy forebodings. 
 
 both for the country and for himself. I much 
 fear his predictions are to be fulfilled." 
 
 Steadily the martial hosts vanish; directly they 
 have all disappeared, leaving the hitherto un- 
 known village to resume the monotonous tenor 
 of its way; nothing save the ashes of their camp- 
 fires remain to indicate tliat legions haA-e lately 
 thronged these sterile hills. The war is ended 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 MOUNTJOY HOUSE IN THE STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 " The tree will wither long before it fall. 
 The hull drives on though masts and sails be torn; 
 The roof-tree sinks, but moulders on the hall. 
 In massy hoariness ; the ruined waU, 
 Stands when Its wind-worn battlements are gone ; 
 The bars -iurvive the captive they enthrall. 
 The day drags through though storms shut out the 
 sun." — Byeon. 
 
 Norman Mount joy: "My dear Helen, for 
 months have I struggled to spare you the cruel 
 stroke which it becomes my bitter and painful 
 duty now to inflict, rather than suffer you to go 
 on day after day as I have gone, hoping even 
 against hope, until it smites you all at once with 
 a thousand public-envenomed darts. I can no 
 longer supply the means to support our princely 
 extravagance. I am a ruined man, with inevi- 
 table bankruptcy and disgrace staring me in the 
 face, if it continues one month longer. 
 
 " For many years our expenditures have been 
 frightful; for months and months they have 
 averaged $10,000 per month. The loss of our 
 Southern trade, and the money there due us, and 
 of the several valuable cargoes captured by 
 the Southern privateers, have sadly impaired the 
 capital of the firm — so much so that even in the 
 business itself it has become necessary to re- 
 trench in every possible way. The plain, unvar- 
 nished truth is, that our excessive expenditures 
 have absolutely absorbed every dollar of my cap- 
 ital that should have been left in the business. 
 Truly, I am now in the firm on sufferance only. 
 At a meeting to-day it w-as agreed that I might 
 draw $10,000 per annum for my family expenses. 
 Such are the lamentable facts and the true state 
 of the circumstance to which we are under the 
 
MOUNTJOY HOUSE IN THE STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 127 
 
 unavoidable necessity of accommodating our- 
 selves. I trust you will do this with that chur- 
 acteristic tact and skillfulness for which you are 
 so famous.'' 
 
 Mrs. Mountjoy : " Norman Mountjoy, do I 
 dream, or am I listening to the sound of your 
 real voice, and looking into your face with my 
 open eyes? Do you tell me this worse than 
 ghostly story, on the very even as it were of 
 our daughter's nuptial ceremonies ? How am I 
 to get along? It will take more than your paltry 
 year's allowance to supply the bridal robes, to 
 say nothing of the presents, the party, and the 
 supper. 
 
 "I know you can borrow money. You have 
 plenty of friends who will either loan you the 
 funds or indorse your note for a sum sufficient 
 to consummate the dream of my life. I cannot 
 think of relinquishing this, although I know that 
 I am on a sinking ship, without reahzing all that 
 it implies. But we must by all means, at any 
 hazard, buoy up and keep afloat until we get the 
 girls into the haven, let come to us whatever may 
 after this is done. The money to do this I must 
 and will have." 
 
 Mr. Mountjoy: "Helen, is it possible that I 
 have never known you in all these years of our 
 smoothly gliding journey of life ? I have never 
 yet denied your shghtest wish nor your most 
 axtravagant demand. Unmurmuringly have I 
 supplied them with a lavishingly open hand, until 
 noAV I have nothing left but my unsuiiied and 
 sacred honor, which, too, you eagerly demand. 
 
 " Yes, there are hundreds of men who would 
 loan me any amount of money within the 
 liounds of reason, unquestioned. Why? Simply 
 because they consider my name gilt edge; they 
 would not know my true condition. As a man 
 of honor, it would be my bounden duty fully to 
 inform any friend to whom I might apply, just 
 how I am situated ; then very few, if any one of 
 them, would aid me. I shall not apply to any of 
 them : hence there will be no cause for dissem- 
 bling nor occasion for explanations." 
 
 Mrs. Mountjoy: '"Then you flatly refuse to 
 assist me? Fie on your sentimental compunc- 
 tions, when there is so much at stake. 
 
 " After the girls are married, we could procure 
 
 the money among thrni to cancel the obligations 
 contracted in assisting to complete their happi- 
 ness and secure their independence for life ; and 
 even if we failed to do this, the end to be attained 
 abundantly justifies the means that it appears 
 necessary to employ in order to succeed. 
 
 " The failure to make the anticipated occasion 
 one equal to expectation will be prima facias evi- 
 dence to the world that we are under a mys- 
 terious cloud. This may blast the pi-ospects of 
 our children, and make us appear as the leading 
 characters in a disgraceful scene of a consummate 
 force." 
 
 Mr. Mountjoy: "Helen, all these things have 
 had my serious consideration. 
 
 " It is an infallible principle in the divine law 
 of human nature that he who does wrong is ad- 
 monished, before and during the act, by the dic- 
 tates of conscience. It is often as criminal to 
 conceal the truth as to steal. Where pecuniary 
 interests are involved between man and man, he 
 Avho deceives him wlio assumes the risk, by false 
 representations or appearances, is a criminal. This 
 law is clearly and unmistakably expounded, and 
 is thus interpreted by all true and unbiased 
 minus. 
 
 "For any loss or damage thereby entailed, 
 morally, the responsibihty is more terrible than 
 A\ould be that of the professional depredatoi- 
 who had taken a similar amount, or inflicted a 
 like injury with violent hands. The breach of 
 confidence in the former instance, added to the 
 milder and more genteel yet by no means less 
 dangerous system of theft and robbery, can but 
 enhance the enormity of the crime far beyond 
 that of the latter, who makes the rude, uncere- 
 monious despoiling . of maiakind a life business. 
 Against him all the world is on guard: he is 
 watched and suspected. 
 
 "It is, therefore, unpardonable dishonesty to 
 contract any obligation, with a reasonable moral 
 certainty that it can never be Hquidated. No 
 matter if not one word is uttered on the subject, 
 the silence implies a tacit admission that all is 
 right — yes, and more: it is, with the interest 
 being put in jeopardy, a declaration ; because of 
 the abiding faith in the culprit's moral honesty 
 that if all is not right, the nidulo-ence would not 
 
128 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 be accepted. This is a predicament in wliich I 
 will never place myself. I love my children, and 
 suffer unmitigated torture to be under the neces- 
 sity of causing them pain or disappointment. 
 But, Helen, if I had twice as many loved ones, 
 twice and thrice as dear to me as those I now 
 have, I would not stoop to one mean or dishonest 
 act, to keep them from the poor-hocse. I may 
 yet fill a pauper' s gi-ave, but I will die an honest 
 MAN. My remotest posterity shall never have 
 cause to blush at the mention of my name. No 
 mask on the earth will ever degrade my brow, nor 
 deck it with the red glow of burning shame. 
 
 "Not one of our children, save alone Eva, has 
 one iota of heart in her marriage, nor love for the 
 husband to whom it will bind her. I have told 
 Oglethrop that Eva will be without a dowry, and 
 the brave, noble fellow said that it Avas her he 
 wanted; he would make her comfortable and 
 happy, and he will. 
 
 "Concerning the other parties, if money con- 
 siderations influence them, I shall not pity their 
 disappointment, nor will it render the girls more 
 unhappy than they would otherwise have been. 
 I Avill leave informing them to you." 
 
 Mrs. M : "You don't imagine, I hope, that 
 
 I am fool enough to do it. As to love in those 
 matches, that is nonsense. The vulgar proverb 
 that ' when poverty comes in at the front door, 
 love flies out at the back window,' has in it more 
 reality than romance. 
 
 "But, Norman Mountjoy, let me tell you, once 
 for all, that your sentimental sermon has had no 
 tendency to change my mind. My resolution is 
 taken, my purpose firmly estabhshed. The money 
 I am going to have, without your aid." 
 
 M : "It appears that you are applying the 
 
 proverb in our own case with a vengeance. Let 
 me warn you that I wash my hands of the trans- 
 action. If you raise any money, it must be with 
 the positive understanding that I am in no way 
 responsible. If I am driven to desperation, I 
 shall publish this caution to the world. 
 
 "In calm prosperity, I have permitted you to 
 guide the helm at pleasure. Now, in the crisis of 
 the storm, at a day forever too late, I must assert 
 my long lethargic yet proper authority. Since 
 
 vou will abandon my steerage, I am resolved that 
 you shall not wreck my honor with your own. 
 
 " Had I asserted my rightful authority at the 
 proper time, this deep mortification and shameful 
 rupture would not now exist. I have acted 
 most indiscreetly, and must now pay for my folly 
 a terrible penalty." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Have no fears ; I will in no 
 
 wise compromise you." 
 
 With the ferocity of the baffied lioness flash- 
 ing in her grand eyes, the lustre of whose beauty 
 still glows with undiminished loveliness, and her 
 winning face, yet unblemished bv the wrinkling 
 strokes of time, livid with rage, she defiantly 
 turns her back on her noble, long-indulgent hus- 
 band, and proudly glides out of the room. 
 
 Poor Mountjoy; admirable, adorable relic of a 
 race that is no more — of an age that is dead! 
 He has received a mortal wound, piercing deeply 
 into the fountain-source of his vitals — hopelessly 
 incurable. He is truly a broken-hearted man. 
 
 At this late d&y, when overwhelmed with the 
 dire burdens of other cruel misfortunes, he sees 
 his queenly idol, at whose shrine he has bowed 
 with a bUndly confiding adoration for more than 
 twenty years, divested of her divine robes of 
 true and pure womanhood, standing before him 
 in the nude enormity of her rebellious mutiny 
 against the hallowed sacredness of plighted 
 vows and conjugal devotion. The ideal diadem 
 of other and brighter days, Avhen she was his 
 joy, his pride, and his hope, is displaced by the 
 dark and deeply obscuring mask. Now she is un- 
 scrupulously avowing her resolution to go forth 
 and practice the curse-breeding art of fraudulent 
 deception. 
 
 Her heart, once so tender, so loving, and so 
 , pure that her guardian angel could have but 
 adored her with the purity of a celestial devo- 
 tion akin to that mutual spiritual love ever 
 springing eternally in the breasts of the heavenly 
 born hosts, she has cruelly, unfeelingly steeled 
 against the loving, noble appeals of her dis- 
 tressed husband's sad and wretched heart. 
 
 She denies him the priceless boon of so much 
 as one httle word of comforting consolation — a 
 balm which the broken, bleeding heart craves 
 with sleepless fondness, even when there is no 
 
MOUNTJOY HOUSE IN THE STOKM-CLOUD. 
 
 129 
 
 source to which the anxious, weary eyes of the 
 despairing watcher may turn, in anticii^ation of 
 beliolding that blessed form approaching, to ad- 
 minister the soothing antidote. 
 
 Such is a vain desire, doomed and fated to be 
 reahzed — never in this world. Ten thousand 
 times more bitter and cruel must be the pangs 
 of disappointment experienced by him wlio 
 possesses their source in the copious profusion of 
 pearly richness, when he finds the sparkhng 
 wealth of its fountain closed and barred, coldly, 
 unfeelingly against the craving thirst of his 
 parched and lacerated soul. This inestimable 
 treasure of Norman Mountjoy, he finds in the 
 trying hour of his direful extremity, when he 
 turns to it as a last source to seek that consola- 
 tion which he sorely needs in this bitter moment 
 of cruel misfortune, hopelessly, irretrievably sacri- 
 ficed on the altar of a madly blind Ambition ! 
 
 Years- ago, unknown to him, the Guardian 
 Angel of this spell-bound dream of his life has 
 been again and again forced to turn away from 
 his fond charge, and weep. Worse and worse 
 grew this frenzied madness, until at length his 
 influence was utterly disregarded ; he was under 
 the inevitable necessity of reluctantly abandon- 
 ing her to the fate of her choice, and of stand- 
 ing alone on his mountain top of nobihty and 
 honor. 
 
 A very few days after the unpleasant inter- 
 view between this hitherto agreeable couple, who 
 have at this time discovered that their spirits 
 are widely severed, we find Helen Mountjoy 
 alone in the superbly furnished private office of 
 a wealthy down-town firm, apparently laboring 
 under the almost uncontrollable emotion of some 
 highly agitating excitement. Evidently, she is 
 impatiently waiting for some momentarily ex- 
 pected party. Quite soon, however, is her anxious 
 vigil rewarded. Samuel Van Allen and Felix 
 Mortimer enter the apartment together, in a state 
 of ill-disguised embarrassment; and both in the 
 same breath greet her with the ejaculation : 
 
 "Why, my dear Mrs. Mountjoy, to what are 
 we indebted for this quite unexpected but most 
 agreeable surprise ? " 
 
 With an air of freezing disdain and dignified 
 haughtiness, she recoils a pace, hurhng at first one 
 
 and then the other looks of proud and triumph- 
 ant defiance ; then re-advancing, a paper in each 
 hand, — while the two men turn livid, then pale, 
 and tremble violently, — she extends her hands, 
 one to each, as she says in a thrilling tone : 
 
 "Read, Villains; and learn whether or not 
 there is pleasure in my visit! " 
 
 As each victim, in the presence of his relentless 
 persecutor, opened the paper and beheld the well- 
 known characters of his own hand-writing, em- 
 bodied in a clandestine hillet-doux, intended for 
 other eyes than those that had read the dark 
 mystery of its secret intrigue, he felt as though 
 he would like to vanish through the floor. 
 
 Each letter was of the same purport, nearly 
 the same words — one addressed to Beatrice, the 
 other to Rosalind Mountjoy. They ran : — 
 
 "May 1st, 1865 
 "Miss Beatrice Mountjoy: 
 
 "My Heart's Adoration: 
 
 "Every contemj^lated ar- 
 rangement for our stolen meetings has been 
 completed. Together, Mr. Mortimer and I, 
 have' rented and furnished a cosy Httle cot- 
 tage in a romantic spot, just beyond the sub- 
 urbs — a nice drive there and return — where we 
 can go, with you and Rosalind, in a handsome 
 carriage ; enjoy each other's society for a while, 
 and no one else in all the world need be any the 
 wiser, as all of us will have equally potent mo- 
 tives for guarding our mysterious secret, both 
 before and after your marriage. 
 
 "To-morrow, at two o'clock p. m., go veiled to 
 
 Place, where you will find a carriage with 
 
 black horses, standing closely to the north side of 
 the statue : enter it, without a word : the driver 
 will be posted. Don't fail. 
 
 " Your devoted slave, 
 
 "Samuel Van. Allen." 
 
 Mortimer: "Well, Madam, to say the least, 
 we have all been guilty of an unpardonable indis- 
 cretion. Beyond any sort of doubt the young 
 ladies have most imprudently encouraged us, in 
 meeting all our advances more than half-way." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Miserable, detestable wretches ! 
 
 Married men — ingrates ! life beneficiaries of Nor- 
 man Mountjoy, your more than friend, who 
 
130 
 
 ^lYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 would have confided the care of his daughters, 
 regarding you virtually in the light of a member 
 of the family — to your honor, as though you were 
 his own brothers. If this is the gratitude that you 
 have feigned to feel — the coin in which you repay 
 friendships, I pity those upon whom you would 
 wreak vengeance. 
 
 " Should this become known, your lives are 
 not worth a penny. And become known it will, 
 unless you make ample atonement before the sun 
 goes down to-morrow. 
 
 " One condition : never dare recognize nor 
 communicate with ray daughters again. Under- 
 stand me : I shall never either meet or recog- 
 nize you. Should you wish to communicate witl. 
 me in relation to obtaining these evidences of 
 your guilt, commission a third party. I scorn to 
 speak another word to you, more than to inform 
 you that early day after to-morrow you will find 
 your abominable cases of base infidelity to your 
 own pure wives, and fiendish perfidy to the con- 
 fiding friendship of my sadly duped family, in 
 the hands of attorneys, with changeless and un- 
 relenting instructions." 
 
 Before either one could sufficiently compose 
 himself to reply, she had passed out of the door 
 into the street, entered her carriage, and was roll- 
 ing rapidly away. 
 
 Van A : "Well, Felix, we are in a pretty 
 
 pickle. See to what the anticipated sweets of 
 stolen felicity have brought us. Ecstacies of bliss 
 not only too fierce to last, but even too much for- 
 bidden ever to be realized! Th« sheen of beauty 
 decking those temptingly fragrant roses, was 
 guarded by sharp and merciless thorns, which 
 still remain deeply and immovably punctured in 
 our flesh." 
 
 Mortimer: "Oh, and I see no available rem- 
 edy ! Our irretrievable ruin may be the ultimate 
 penalty. For my part, I would pay fifty thou- 
 sand dollars to be out of it. The amorous 
 minxes! Never were men more tempted and en- 
 couraged. It is past my comprehension to under- 
 stand how those letters fell into the old lady's 
 hands. I should rather be at the mercy of any 
 other woman in the city." 
 
 Van a : " It is of httle consequence how 
 
 she obtained those tell-tale papers : we know she 
 
 has them; and with us the vital question is to 
 get them and ourselves out of her grasp. I will 
 pay fifty thousand dollars; but I do not beheve 
 that she will accept it. She wiU squeeze us for 
 our last drop of blood. I move that we go to 
 Madam Vais-entre, and employ her to negotiate 
 the matter for us. She is a match for Madam 
 Mountjoy. We will authorize her not to ex- 
 ceed twenty-five thousand dollars, and if this is 
 ; declined, to ascertain the final ultimatum de- 
 j manded. What say you, Fehx ?" 
 
 Mortimer: "Agreed; let us go at once." 
 
 Madam Vais-entre is famous in the science of 
 clairvoyance. She is wealthy; and among her 
 aristocratic neighbors, she is reputed to be fairly 
 entitled to a claim to respectability. Certainly 
 there is nothing disreputable about her house nor 
 her surroundings. The most respectable of both 
 sex, openly and fearlessly call at her residence at 
 any seasonable hour, day or night, to seek her ser- 
 vices in divers ways. Hence, by degrees, she 
 becomes the repository of many and varied 
 secrets. 
 
 To her immediate neighbors the fact is not 
 known ; yet nevertheless, tlu-ough her instrumen- 
 tality some of the shadiest intrigues ever per- 
 petr-ated in high life are negotiated. In this 
 role she is utterly unknown, except in aristo- 
 cratic society; and even there not extensively. 
 She is far more cawtious in selecting her clients 
 than some famihes in the most exclusive circles 
 are in discriminating as to the characters of 
 young men permitted, and even sohcited to call 
 on the young lady members of such households. 
 
 To Mrs. Mountjoy, Madam Vais-entre is no 
 stranger ; hence she will neither be shocked nor 
 surprised at finding this lady representing Van 
 Allen and Mortimer, to negotiate terms with 
 her, concerning the result of which she is far 
 more anxious than they imagine her to be. 
 
 Norman and Evahna Mountjoy are alone to- 
 gether at home. 
 
 Evalina: "My poor, dear papa: What terrible 
 thing has happened ? What is the matter with 
 you ? What crushing, silent, unutterable sorrow 
 is bowing down your head as though it was 
 overburdened with the ponderous weight of 
 years, and distracted with cruel anxiety and 
 
MOUNTJOY HOUSE IN THE STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 131 
 
 liopeless cares ? Have you never another smile, 
 another loving word, another caress, another kiss 
 for your httle Eva, who loves and pities you, 
 oil, more than words can tell? 
 
 " Come, papa, let me put my arms round your 
 neck once again, as I used to do in the good, 
 bright days of yore — tliat dear old time of happy 
 childhood, when cruel care had written no sor- 
 row-wrinkles on your placid brow, and your 
 face ever wore a sweet and tranquil smile. Oh, 
 whither have they flown — those blessed days, 
 with all their joys ? Alas ! cruel Custom's giddy 
 splendors have robbed us of our serene and 
 loving bhssfulness. Let me kiss your Hps as 
 tiien, my poor papa, and soothe your aching 
 brow with the gently loving caress of my hand. 
 There, now, my papa, rest your weary head on 
 my shoulder. 
 
 " I could not go away to-night into the festive 
 throng, and leave you alone to the mercy of 
 your consuming sorrow. I have staid at home 
 to try and comfort you." 
 
 MouNTjoY : " God bless you, my angelic Eva. 
 I would not exchange the bliss of this blessed 
 night, alone with my darling, for years of ci'ui'l, 
 liitter, disappointing life. How thankful I am 
 for this precious opportunity. You are my last 
 and only hope in this heartless world. Poor 
 Cassandra ! poor Beatrice I poor RosaHnd ! — fur 
 them there is no happiness treasured up in the 
 storehouse of Fate. You are each about to em- 
 bark on the all-serious voyage of life : they, as the 
 victims of cruel, plotting, match-making con- 
 ventionahty, with neither heart nor love as a 
 soothing balm to ameliorate the bitterness of 
 their social sacrifice; you, of your own free will 
 and choice. You are a good, sensible girl, Eva; 
 you have made a most admirable choice for 
 your life companion. I am proud of it. It is 
 now with you whether your lives are happy or 
 miserable. 
 
 "Look into your loving father's care-worn 
 face ; picture it indelibly on the tablet of your 
 memory ; and hearken unto the words that lie 
 utters to you, while your eyes thus lingeringly 
 gaze upon him; and let them be engraved on 
 your heart as though seared with a rod of white 
 heated iron. 
 
 "Eva, you can reduce Orlando Oglethrop 
 to the pitiable extremity in which you now 
 behold me, or you can render him ever bright 
 and joyous, as you now recall knowing me in the 
 olden time, which to me is dead forevermore. 
 
 "If you devote your days and your nights to 
 the giddy whirl of social frivolities, and neglect 
 your husband and your home; and if, in addition 
 to this, you spend all the money he can make ; 
 run him into debt; and coldly, cruelly, unfeelingly 
 lash him with your tongue because he cannot 
 nourish your extravagance more bountifully, you 
 will drive him to the wretchedness of despair. 
 On the other hand, if you are a comforting help- 
 mate to him; save all you can; cheer him Avith 
 your smiles ; firmly insist in the very outset of 
 your journey of hfe, that plainer and cheaper 
 appointments connected with all departments of 
 your household than those he will be resolved 
 to supply, is preferable to you; and that when 
 brightened by the halo of cheerfulness which true 
 and pure love will shed around them, they will 
 be far more handsome than the most elegant 
 luxuries would appear, in the chilly atmosphere 
 of difiident formality that pervades the conjugal 
 abodes of aristocratic coldness; — how happy, how 
 thrice blessed is his lot! 
 
 " Take this latter course, my child; stand by and 
 pursue it with unwavering constancy, and you 
 will render him supremely happy. Even the bitter 
 trials of misfortune would be alleviated by the 
 soothing balm of such an exquisite antidote ; for 
 misfortune often pines for sympathy. 
 
 " There is no other road to happiness for you 
 in this world; no foundation for the shade of a 
 hope in the eternal. You must start poor. You 
 do not know even the bare definition of the term 
 economy. Alas! you have never witnessed its 
 practical operation in any respect whatever. In 
 applying it, your good sense must be your 
 guide. 
 
 " iSTow, my Eva, let me take your nand in mme, 
 as a binding token of fidelity, while I tell you 
 the secret of my bitter woe. Nerve yourself, my 
 poor daughter, in order that the revelation I 
 am about to make may not shock you beyond 
 your capacity for endurance. I have told Orlando, 
 the brave, noble fellow ! 
 
132 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 " You are a poor, dowerless girl, not a million- 
 aire's daughter, as the world imagines. You 
 have witnessed your fortune melting away around 
 you, in the gay and festive scenes through which 
 you have been passing for the last few years. 
 I am a poor man. My family is unprepared for 
 the transition. My heart is broken. 
 
 "Do not mention this to your sisters, nor betray 
 any emotion on account of it. Your mother 
 desires to guard the matter as a profound secret 
 from you all until after the wedding; but I could 
 not bear the idea of withholding it from you. 
 And this opportunity, and the tender manifesta- 
 tions of sympathy and love which you have so 
 profusely lavished upon me to-night, have com- 
 bined to influence my determination to undecive 
 you in regard to the treacherous cloud lowering 
 so near, and ready to obscure the bright light 
 which shines with such glorious brilliancy in your 
 so much envied home, leaving you all in the ever 
 rayless midnight of despair ; as I am now. 
 
 "Do not grieve for the loss ; you are young. The 
 world, with a promising future, is before yor. 
 You will gradually but surely advance. You 
 enjoy yet unsuUied honor and spotless purity, 
 worth more, ten thousand times, than untold 
 millions of gUttering gold, and all the false honors 
 it could bestow. 
 
 "For myself I do not care. I could cheerfully 
 descend to a more humble sphere of life, and there 
 be happy. It is for my family that riiy heart 
 bleeds. It would kill your poor mother should 
 the storm that has been so long brewing sud-_ 
 denly burst with its furious violence upon her 
 head. 
 
 " As a leading merchant, from my first day in 
 that sphere until now, more than thirty years, I 
 have never in any respect or degree swerved 
 from the path of strict integrity and honor. I 
 have nothing connected with my counting-house 
 to look back upon with shame or regret. From this 
 fact now springs my chief source of consolation. 
 
 "Oh, my daughter, how little the gay and festive 
 social world knows of silent sorrows and secret 
 struggles that much of the money which con- 
 tributes to its enjoyment have cost its overworked 
 commercial slaves, in the gloomy, cheerless pre- 
 cincts of the counting-house. Here, often the 
 
 heart grows sick and the brain whirls, harassed 
 with the vexatious and disappointing problems 
 ever occurring and recurring again. And at the 
 same time, the incessant drain which the always 
 increasing and pressing demands of the home 
 circle make, as they steadily encroach upon the 
 reserve forces, and undermine themselves, the 
 vital safety of its pleasure-nourishing institutions, 
 perpetually engulfing some poor, harrassed toiler 
 in miserable ruin I 
 
 " The mental strain and nervous debility thus 
 engendered saps the healthy current of the sys- 
 tem, and soon drives the wretched victim, if not 
 to crime or suicide, certainly into a premature 
 grave. Note a business man with heavy dark 
 circles under the eyes, his appetite failing, his 
 conversation languid and forced, and his entire 
 deportment abstracted and listless, and you will 
 see a man upon whom the immedicable malady is 
 surely preying. The gay world may meet him in 
 that brilliant drawing room of his palatial home, 
 and receive his sickly, meaningless smile, wholly 
 unsuspecting that a cruel and merciless torment 
 is steadily causing his vitality to ebb out. Many 
 will gaze with envious eyes upon the gilded mag- 
 nificence of his princely mansion, and the manifest 
 fullness of joy in which his family revel, and 
 exclaim, ' Fortunate, thrice happy man ! ' 
 
 "These are the stern and dreary truths that I 
 desired to impress on your youthful mind, my 
 Eva. Remember them ; treasure them up in your 
 tender heart, and so model your course of life 
 as always to shield you and yours from the hope- 
 less thraldom of the sure and inveterate curse 
 which they infallibly entail. 
 
 " Eva, my dear child, keep the words I have 
 uttered to you to-night fresh in your mind when 
 the tongue now speaking them is silent and cold 
 in the grave. I am warning you now, as it were, 
 from the margin of the tomb. Ere long, in a 
 few little weeks, or at most months, and you 
 will see your father's troubled face and hear his 
 trembling voice no more." 
 
 Eva : " My poor papa ! Oh, crudest of all 
 fates ! Papa, forgive me ere you leave me ; and 
 pray Heaven to pardon me for the part I have 
 unconsciously taken in bringing upon your de- 
 voted head this terrible, more than cruel, wretch- 
 
MOUNTJOY HOUSE IN THE STORM-CLOUD. 
 
 133 
 
 edness. I have never asserted it to any one but 
 Effie, yet these extravagant folUes have always 
 been loathsome to me. 
 
 " This is why I selected Orlando : in order that 
 I mig-ht escape from the endless slavery of social 
 exactions such as ours, to the bhssful quietude 
 and sweet repose of the tranquil hfe Effie has 
 always been pictiiring tome. Oh papa! it will 
 break my heart, the thought that if we had all 
 been as economical as Effie has been, you might 
 now be Avell and happy. And she was worth 
 more money than all four of us ever were, yet 
 she never has spent more than half her allowance 
 on herself, still everybody, everywhere she goes, 
 loves her for her own sweet, simple self, more 
 t!ian any of us were ever loved. 
 
 '•In her plain yet handsome and tastefully 
 made dresses, she always appears more fascina- 
 ting than any of us, in our costumes costing 
 many times more than hers. 
 
 " Sometimes I have made a feeble attempt 
 toward remonstrating with mamma, but in vain. 
 She would tell me that I was intended to wash 
 dishes and mend old clothes for some trash like 
 Oglethrop ; that I would then be able to econo- 
 mize to my heart's content. I suppose that.her 
 words were prophetic. Poor mamma! I do not 
 know what will become of her, when the storm 
 which you have pictured to me, overtakes her. 
 
 "Cassandra, Beatrice, and Rosalind will be 
 protected ; but they loathe the sheltering care to 
 Avhich they are going. I esteem Col. Wortliington, 
 but never could endure the presence of the other 
 two, with all their influential wealth and exalted 
 social station ; but they will be kind to my sisters." 
 
 M : "Yes; and they will care for your 
 
 mother. There has always been the strongest mu- 
 tual friendship between her and each of them. 
 Usually, she drops any member of our social 
 circle who fails in business, or in any other 
 way passes under a cloud; but not so with 
 them. When Atkinson, Flowers & Co. failed, 
 sh. threw open her doors more widely and cor- 
 dially than before ; and she has since planned the 
 union between them and her hapless daughters 
 Instinctively, I have ever since felt an aversion 
 toward them, but always try to persuade myself 
 that it spnngs from the natural repugnance that 
 
 business men all cherish for those of their brethren 
 who have dropped out of line by the wayside. 
 I have never been able to regard their failure in 
 a favorable light. More than ever noAV should I 
 like to hope and believe that it was fair and 
 honest; and that poor Mrs. Flowers was not 
 victimized, with other creditors of the firm. But 
 the truth is, they started too soon, and were at 
 once strong. 
 
 " Wortliington is the unljleraished soul of 
 honor, and would surely make Cassandra happy, 
 if there was not so great a disparity between 
 their ages ; and if she loved him. 
 
 "As to forgiving you, my poor daughter, there 
 is no cause to forgive. Neither Heaven nor I can 
 deem you guilty. You are neither directly nor 
 indirectly responsible for the disastrous conse- 
 quences which have overwhelmed me. 
 
 " Your mother has conducted her social cam- 
 paigns, under, and in strict conformity with the 
 tactics of the school in which she was trained. 
 But for the war and its bUghting, ruinous in- 
 fluences and effects, we never would have known 
 a financial want. This proves how unstable and 
 uncertain in this world are tlie best grounded pros- 
 pects and hopes." 
 
 Eva : " How thankful I am that you do not 
 blame me, my dear papa. It would kill me to 
 think that you blamed me. Papa, how cruel it is 
 in mamma to be resolved to sacrifice poor little 
 Effie to naughty cousin Arnold." 
 
 M : " Yes, but her labors will be in vain. 
 
 Worthington is against her, and no power in this 
 world can change him. I think that is why she 
 so readily consented to give you to Oglethrop, — 
 she thought it would put Worthington under 
 obligations to her, and ultimately to secure his 
 cooperation and influence with Effie, in behalf of 
 Noel, who is so bad that it makes me blush to think 
 he is related to my family by kindred ties of blood 
 — but still, however, your mother is blind to his 
 most glaring faults, and mildly terms them natural, 
 youthful foibles. I have no sort of fear that 
 Arnold Noel will ever be any nearer related to 
 Effie than he now is ; and there is fixed between 
 them a fathomless impassable guLf." 
 
 Eva: "Mamma is so desperately resolved, I 
 much fear she will cause Effie great trouble 
 
134 
 
 MYSTIC KOMAXCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 before she evei' determines to abandon her 
 purpose." 
 
 M : " That is of little moment, as long as it 
 
 does not succeed. It were a thousand times 
 better for Effie if these efforts drive her into the 
 grave, rather than into a union with Arnold 
 Noel." 
 
 Eva : " Oh, my dear papa, Effie loves you so 
 fondly, your troubles would afflict her as cruelly 
 as they do me. How sadly painful your dis- 
 tressing words are now — they will forever rankle 
 in my breast! 
 
 " Papa, tell me pray, is there no way in this 
 world to save you ? Can Gilead suj^ply you no 
 balm of hope ? Is there nothing that you can 
 even imagine possible to attempt, that by the 
 barest miracle could either bring you relief or 
 temporarily alleviate the bitterness of your cruel 
 lot? Whisper but the faintest breath of the 
 comforting consolation of a shade, the most 
 mythical form of hope. Oh, my poor papa ! yoar 
 own littlo Eva would give freely and joyfully her 
 young life to save you. Speak to me, papa, of 
 hope !" 
 
 M ■: "It were cruel, my darhng, to de- 
 ceive you. There is no hope. I am beyond the 
 reach of mortal skill and power; my case is 
 hopelessly incurable." 
 
 Scene changes to the sitting-room of Mount- 
 joy House, where Madam Vais-entre and Helen 
 Mountjoy meet. 
 
 Madam Vais-entre : " Why, my dear Mrs. 
 Mountjoy, I am so glad to see you. I meet you 
 to-day as a peace-maker; and I desire to arrange 
 with you the unfortunate unjileasantness between 
 yourself, Van Allen and Mortimer." 
 
 Mrs. M : " The villains ! You can arrange 
 
 nothing with me. T am resolved to bring them 
 into court. What proposition have you to make, 
 pray?" 
 
 Madam V : " My authority is rather in- 
 definite, being merely of a nature empowering 
 me to open negotiations with a view to paving 
 the way to an ultimate amicable, or at least 
 peaceable and quiet, settlement. It would l^e a 
 very shocking and a most damaging affair to get 
 before the public, scandalous alike to all parties 
 when once in the mouths of gossips. 
 
 '• It would, therefore, be far better for the 
 sake of your family, and in view of the interesting 
 period so near at hand with your daughters, to 
 punish those imprudent, disloyal Benedicts witli 
 heavy damages in money, as a partial bahn to 3'Oiu- 
 much outraged feelings. I am persuaded that 
 they would each pay a few thousand dollars to 
 stifle the matter." 
 
 Mrs. M : '"A few thousand dollars? I 
 
 would not even stoop to consider a direct offer of 
 less than fifty thousand dollars from each of them ; 
 and this I might indignantly refuse. Until you 
 can talk more definitely, our interview is at an end. 
 Grood-day, Madam Vais-entre." 
 
 The clairvoyant departs, and soon joins Van 
 Allen and Mortimer. 
 
 Madam V : " Oentlemen, the case is des- 
 perate. If you wish it settled, authorize me to 
 make a direct offer of one hundred thousand dol- 
 lars, and place me in a position to close the offer 
 the same moment it is made. She is furious, and 
 will hardly talk about settling at all. Unless you 
 have some very compromising letters from the 
 young ladies, with which I can throw a damper 
 on her aggressive rage, nothing can be done. I 
 have no assurance that she will accept any offer 
 that could be made." 
 
 Van a : "We have not the scratch of a 
 
 pen from them ; and more than this, to our detri- 
 ment, they have never acted, except on the one 
 occasion, "but with the most perfectly commendable 
 decorum and modest jiropriety. We had better, 
 therefore, I think, arrange a check, Mortimer, and 
 authorize Madam V to settle the matter be- 
 fore sun-down to-day." 
 
 Mortimer: " Certainly, by all means, and with- 
 out delay." 
 
 She departs Avith the check, and later, returns 
 Avith the letters. 
 
 ;Madam V : " Well, gentlemen, l^re are 
 
 yoiu' dangerous letters. 'You have paid dearly 
 for seeking forbidden fruit. But for mj^ being pre- 
 pared for her on the spu&of the moment, the set- 
 tlement would not now be made." 
 
 She then withdrew from the scene. 
 
 Van a : " Oli, Mortimer, chisfoUy is a ter- 
 rible blow! Should any unusual stringency or 
 business depression occur, the want of this sum 
 
THE SPIKITS OF DEFIANCE AND MENACE. 
 
 135 
 
 of money will seriously cripple us ; but, my God, 
 I would rather part with the last dollar, and go to 
 the bottom of the river, than allow thiy affair to 
 be made public." 
 
 M : " This is the way that I feel about it. 
 
 It is a lesson that we will carry to our graves. It 
 now appears clear to my mind that we both had 
 much better sense than to have placed ourselves 
 in a position where we were even liable to be- 
 come subject to the dangers of such disastrous 
 consequences as these which have overtaken us, 
 and those worse calamities which we have escaped. 
 It makes my blood run cold to think to what a des- 
 perate result this miserable indiscretion might have 
 led. 
 
 " It now strikes me as being a little singular that 
 they both should have insisted on our writing to 
 them each a separate letter." 
 
 Van a : "Ah, Mortimer, had our blood 
 
 run as cold then as it runs now, we would not be 
 in this pUght. — This is the experience of almost 
 all men who, either through indiscretion or actual 
 crime, get into trouble. Could they have seen 
 as clearly and felt as sensibly while in fancied 
 security they were weaving about themselves 
 the meshes of the inextricable net, as they see 
 after they awake to the realization of their situa- 
 tion, and find that they are hopelessly entangled 
 in the toils of their own ingenious folly, they 
 would stop and regain a place of safety before 
 the last open spot is forever closed around them. 
 But it is ever the same with all men who embark 
 in any forbidden or improper enterprise or career, 
 as it was in this lamentable instance with us. 
 They become blindly infatuated with the delusive 
 enchantments of their mad and ruinous folly. Tliis 
 blunts the naturally keen perceptions of the finer 
 sensibilities, and stifles the mutinous admonitions 
 of the ever infallibly true conscience. Then they 
 are rational madmen, capable of perpetrating any 
 unnatural excess, and awake to find ' The way of 
 the transgressor is hard.' " 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE SPIRITS OF DEFIANCE AND MENACE. 
 
 " For a woman's heart when loving, loyal is past any 
 proving: 
 And a woman's will is strong, never bent by Passion's 
 
 blows : 
 And should any seek to harm her, flery scorn is woman's 
 
 armor; 
 And her pride Is cold and frozen as eternal Arctic 
 snows." 
 
 — M. A. Billings. 
 
 Mrs. Mount joy: "Now, Arnold, I have ar- 
 ranged that you and Effie be left alone in the 
 parlor for a time this evening, and I want you to 
 make good use of the opportune moment thus 
 aflforded you, and win her hand. Don't be back- 
 ward. She treats you very graciously, and appears 
 to take a lively interest in the story of your 
 cruises. This is the very best sign in the world. 
 Put the question boldly and press it obstinately, 
 and the chances are all in your favor that she 
 will commit herself, and you will have won your 
 fortune in one little evening. Go to her at once." 
 
 Arnold Noel: "You can rest assured, my 
 dearest aunt, that I shall do my very utmost to suc- 
 ceed; for this is the dearest and the all-absorbing 
 dream of my Ufa." 
 
 Mrs. M : " That is right, my boy ; you are 
 
 very sensible." 
 
 Noel left liis aunt, and entered the parlor. 
 
 Arnold Noel: "Well, Miss Effie, I have told 
 you everything I can think of concerning the 
 navy and the sea. But permit me now to say to 
 you that there is a nearer, and to me dearer sub- 
 ject about which I wish to speak to you, for which 
 I crave your earnest attention and most serious 
 consideration. That is your own self, and my 
 love for ." 
 
 Effie : " Pursue that subject no further, Arnold 
 Noel. My heart and my hand can never be yours 
 — not even if you were a prince. I will hold no 
 conversation on the subject. Our interview is at 
 an end forever. Farewell." 
 
 She indignantly walks from the parlor. 
 
 Noel [Solus] : "Well, that is the coolest I ever 
 read of. I must seek in some other quarter for 
 wealth, ease, and luxury. Hang it! To think of 
 
136 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 the good, jolly times I have lost for the sake of 
 this scornful, unappreeiative girl." 
 
 Her aunt enters the parlor. 
 
 Mrs. M : "What, Arnold, alone so soon? 
 
 Ihnx is this?" 
 
 Xoel: '-She left me forever, the instant I 
 broached the subject." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Keep up courage, boy. I will 
 
 take her in hand and teach her some manners 
 ;ind common sense. A pest on that Dutch aunt 
 •f hers." 
 
 jSToel : " Do anything you like and can. I am 
 certainly a dead failure when she will not listen 
 to my uttering a word." 
 
 She at once sought and found Effie. 
 
 Mrs. M : " How is this, Effie, that you treat 
 
 Arnold so badly?" 
 
 Effie : " I have not treated him badly, madam, 
 my aunt. He had the presumption to insult 
 me by attempting to make love to me. I left his 
 company, which I was under no promise to remain 
 in. This was my right. Pardon me, I do not de- 
 sire to talk about it." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Beware, miss, how you talk to 
 
 me. You may repent it. Arnold is in every 
 way your equal." 
 
 Effie : " I do not wish to wound your feeUngs, 
 nor to have you wound mine. What does it sig- 
 nify if he is my superior in many things, which 
 I doubt not he is — am I bound to throw myself at 
 his feet ? Never, a thousand times never. Under- 
 stand me, my aunt, I am not your daughter I 
 do not recognize your right to make a match for 
 me. I owe you nothing; am tmder no obliga- 
 tion to you, beyond the good-will and love of a 
 niece ; and this I have ever faitlifully rendered 
 you. We will now part this very instant ; and I 
 shall never again darken your door until you 
 have utterly abandoned this question." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Do not be so hasty, Effie. I 
 
 did not mean to offend you. It will appear strange 
 for you not to be at the wedding." 
 
 Effie; "You can easily frame a plausible ex- 
 cuse. Grood-by." [Bxit] 
 
 Mrs. M [Solus] : " I have met ray match 
 
 for once. Who could have thought that this 
 quiet, modest girl would have said a word con- 
 trary to my wish ? But I swear to bring her to 
 
 terms, and to make her bitterly repent this auda- 
 cious conduct." 
 
 Behold this unscrupulous woman, with her 
 masterful bent of inclination to evil! Nothing 
 is too outrageous for her to attempt if it but 
 promises to consummate her wicked designs — 
 to enslave purity, innocence and happiness in the 
 thraldom of vice, of sin, and of wretchedness ! 
 
 Poor Effie Edelstein! sweet child of Nature, 
 fair flower of beauty and of goodness! Alas, 
 that this shadowy phantom of plotting mischief 
 should hover about, and ever seek to darken thy 
 pathway, redolent with perfumes exhaled from 
 springing blossoms of hope ! 
 
 Oh, guardian angels, defend her nowj 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FROM THE SHORES OF THE DARK RIVER. 
 
 " While the purple lilacs 1)10890111 
 
 We have, dearest, met again. 
 
 And the robin and the blue-bird 
 
 Greet us with their sweet refrain. 
 In the soft and gentle twilight, 
 
 Where we of ttlmes, love, have met, 
 Won't you tell me, little darling, 
 That you dearly love me yet?" 
 
 Sextimental Song. 
 Effie : " Lawrence, do I dream, or are Ave sit- 
 ting here side by side as m the peaceful, happy 
 days of yore ? Yes, this is you. It cannot be a 
 delusive spirit, such as I have met so many times 
 in the shadowy realms of inconstant dream-land. 
 " Oh how good Grod has been to you, to shield 
 you throughout this long and cruel war, when the 
 grave was so often opened to receive you, and 
 to snatch you out from the very jaws of death!" 
 Lawrence Pleasington ; " Yes, my dear Effie. 
 it is I ; and I am very happy and thankful that 
 we are once more safely together, and my days 
 of danger and separation from you are over. 
 
 " The last ordeal through which I passed was 
 the worst of all, a thousand times more terrible 
 than all the balance of the war together — that 
 rayless night 'of death! Oh, the unutterably 
 nameless horrors ! there in the dire, cheerless mid- 
 night of that dreary pine wilderness, making 
 ready for death amid the stern formalities of 
 preparation for my execution, which I knew were 
 
FEOM THE SHOEES OF THE DAKK EIVEE. 
 
 137 
 
 going on around me. The thoughts of you and 
 of mother that tortured my agonized soul ! — every 
 moment I died a thousand deaths !" 
 
 Effie : " Oh, Lawrence ! how good we ought 
 ever to be, as an acknowledgment of our grateful 
 thankfulness to heaven for your miraculous de- 
 liverance in the last final moment of that horrible 
 night. Surely an angel guarded you. I have 
 often wondered whether or not Grarland Cloud 
 took any part. in sparing your life — whether, in- 
 deed, it was in his power to have done so. That 
 lie would have saved you if he could, I do not 
 doubt." 
 
 Lawrence: "I, too, have studied much about 
 I his. It was only possible, in two ways : to load 
 the guns with blank cartridges, or to instruct the 
 soldiers to fire over my head. This last I feel 
 confident he would not have ordered. I beheve 
 he would have thus loaded the guns, provided it 
 was known to no person but himself. This pos- 
 sibility I am, as a matter of course, unable to de- 
 termine. I cannot say whether or not I heard 
 bullets. I experienced a sensation such as no 
 other occasion in this world could produce. The 
 rlear, sharp voice of the officer: 'Ready!' the 
 click of the locks, 'aim! fire!' ran through my 
 frame like a current of electricity. The Winding 
 Hash and simultaneous report, like the shock of a 
 sudden thunder-clap, bhnded and deafened me, 
 and there was a roaring in my head. I was weak. 
 I must have nearly or quite lost consciousness. 
 I rather indistinctly remember deciding in my 
 mind that I was killed. See to what extremes 
 the imagination will lead. Had I been subject to 
 heart disease, I should undoubtedly have died. 
 
 "When I reached head-quarters, two hours 
 later, I found my letters and other httle trinkets 
 already there." 
 
 Effie : " Well, thank God ! however it may have 
 been, you are safe now ; so let us talk on more 
 pleasing subjects than that shocking experience 
 through which you have passed." 
 
 Lawrence : " Well, of what shall it be ? If I 
 undertake to talk about you and our anticipated 
 relations, you might serve me as you did my per- 
 sistent rival. I will try to dream the time away 
 until Christmas— that to me happiest of all the 
 joyous days of my life. I wish it was to-morrow, 
 
 that Time might not have so much space in which 
 to play her fickle freaks." 
 
 Effie; " Well, it cannot be otherwise. The 
 time will soon pass away. We can see each 
 other whenever we wish, thanks to Col. Worth- 
 ington for securing you a position in the bank. 
 Aunt Helen would annoy me, but she shall not 
 have the opportunity. I am not going near her 
 again until there is no danger of her broaching 
 her distasteful subject. We will be happy, and 
 the time will glide smoothly and serenely for us, 
 between the pleasant moments in which we shall 
 enjoy each other's society." 
 
 Lawrence : " Yes, my darling, it will not be 
 like the tedious, gloomy days of separation of the 
 past four dark and cheerless years. — We will be 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIIL 
 
 THE QUADRUPLE HYMENEAL CONSUMMATION. 
 
 " Few— none— find what they love or could have lov'd : 
 
 Though accident, blind contact and the strong 
 Necessity of loving, have removed 
 
 Antipathies, but to recur ere long. 
 Envenomed with irrevocable wrong; 
 
 And circumstance, that unspiritual God 
 And miscreator, makes and helps along 
 
 Our coming evils, with a cruel crutch-like rod,— 
 
 Whose touch turns hope to dust— the dust we all have 
 
 trod" —Byron. 
 
 The preparations and the appointments for the 
 occasion of the wedding at Mountjoy House far 
 outstripped, in magnificence and splendor, the 
 most extravagant dreams entertained at an 
 earlier day by its ambitious, scheming mistress — 
 the mother of the four young ladies destined to 
 bestow their hands, with their vows of phghted 
 troth, if not their hearts, to the four men with 
 whom they are to be formally bound for life. 
 
 We have beheld her wringing ' her poor hus- 
 band's heart with relentless, unpitying c^pelty; 
 and then again extorting the money to supply 
 the demands of this sumptuous festival from the 
 two would-be false and traitorous friends of her 
 family, with the audacious coolness of a consum- 
 mate actress scientifically versed in all the dark 
 mysteries of the delicate art of black-mailing. — 
 We saw her displaying throughout the progress 
 
138 
 
 IMTSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 of the aflair the most unwavering firmness and 
 disdainful indignation — proud, haughty, injured, 
 tender-hearted, dehcate creature ! 
 
 As Milton i^ictured the scornful and lofty 
 bearing of fallen Satan, on some occasions in the 
 horrible realms of the Infernal, so ai^pears this 
 most wonderful woman — still the more wonder- 
 ful when better known — while the gorgeous 
 preparations "were in progress, and when they 
 were completed. And as on tlie last evening, near 
 the hour of the ceremonies, she is receiving her 
 guests, she beams with radiant smiles; her nat- 
 ural imperiousness shows no indication of having 
 descended from the heights of its unrivaled pres- 
 tige in the brilliant past, when she was the 
 envied, matchless young queen of fashion, society, 
 and beauty. Now, as then, she seems the perfect 
 picture — the veritable quintescence of earthly 
 happiness. So completely is she mistress of her 
 faculties, and of the mysterious art of dissem- 
 bling, that it would baffle the most astute effort of 
 the skillful analytical reader of human nature 
 to detect in her face, her actions, or her voice 
 the faintest trace of that secret devouring flame 
 of cruel and undying torment ever raging in her 
 breast, permitting her no peace by day and in- 
 cessantly haunting her dreams by night. 
 
 Still, however, with untiring perseverance and 
 an indomitable will, well worthy the grandest 
 cause in this world, has she pursued, still is pur- 
 suing, and ever purposes to pursue, her ambitious 
 schemes^ until the last design is perfected and ac- 
 complished. She will not hesitate as to the means 
 employed. She will grasp and use them with 
 unscrupulous indifference of the bitter affliction 
 and the cruel despair she forces other and unsus- 
 pectingly innocent hearts to endure. For three 
 of her own beautiful and most amiable daughters 
 she has conceived and modeled destinies of life 
 bitterly disappointing to them, dooming their 
 days o^earthly existence to elegant yet still pitiful 
 wretchedness. 
 
 She has broken her husband's once fondly do- 
 ting heart. To what infamy she has decended in 
 the dubious transactions with Van Allen and 
 Mortimer, conjecture may never divine ; and where 
 she will stop in her des[)erate endeavors to blast 
 the happiness and the fondly cherished hopes of 
 
 Lawrence Plea^ington and EfRe Edelstein. we in- 
 voluntarily shudder to contemplate. 
 
 This is the woman, envied, adored, worshiped, 
 to whom the most exclusive in tlie grand metro- 
 pohs would deem the permission to pay per- 
 sonal homage a highly honored privilege. Thus 
 she is viewed by the hosts of the social eclat 
 thronging around her on the evening referred to, 
 as bidden guests to tlie marriage feast. So it is 
 with many, ah, many, in this world, who conceal 
 beneath a smiling countenance, a false and decep- 
 tive heart ! 
 
 In their private boudoir, are closeted the three 
 eldest daughters — the legitimate victims of a 
 mother's cruel intrigue. 
 
 Cassandra: "Well, girls, you appear charming 
 in your witching bridal robes. Are you in 
 reality as brilliant as you seem? For me, I feel 
 as if about to participate in the solemnities of 
 a funeral. From my heart I wish this was, in- 
 stead of my wedding robe, my burial shroud." 
 
 Beatrice: "I cry 'Amen,' Cassandra. We are 
 a fated trio. Alas, for the result of our ill-starred 
 lives! I have always clung to the delusion that 
 this would never be." 
 
 Rosalind : " Ah, my unhappy sisters, how truly 
 your feehngs and sentiments harmonize with my 
 own. — To think of Eva, — how I would envy her 
 going to the altar as she goes, with heart and 
 hand bestowed together, if it would better our 
 lots! She will fulfill her destiny with credit and 
 honor, the sweet child of Fortune, upon whom 
 Destiny and all the Graces have been pleased 
 to smile with kindest benignity." 
 
 Cassandra: "Poor, suffering father! I can 
 never cease to reproach him because he did not 
 assert his rightful prerogative as master of bis 
 own house, and save us ; for I know he has never 
 approved of mamma's course. She is the most 
 heartless woman in the world." 
 
 Beatrice: "Her equal never lived; and still 
 none know her. All the world regards her as a 
 model wife and mother. — As a modeler of misery, 
 she is a success." 
 
 The scene changes to Mountjoy's chamber. He 
 and Evalina are together. 
 
 Eva: "My poor papa! I have come to see 
 you, and to ask your blessing, before I go to the 
 
THE QUADRUPLE HYMENEAL CONSUMMATION. 
 
 139 
 
 church. You do not know how it grieves me 
 that you are not able to go." 
 
 Mountjoy: "I would like to see you married, 
 my ehild, but I am glad that I am unable to see 
 my other daughters wedded to misery. No good 
 will ever result from their marriages. Where is 
 Effie? I want to see her, and ask her to stay with 
 me a few days. I shall be very lonely when you 
 are gone. " 
 
 Eva: "Effie and mamma have quarreled con- 
 cerning Arnold, and she will not be here. I am 
 very sorry about it." 
 
 Mountjoy: "Poor Effie! God alone knowsthebit- 
 ter trials which she may be doomed to experience." 
 
 Eva: "Papa, Orlando and I are decided 
 to remain with you, and afford you all the com- 
 fort we can, in lieu of a bridal tour. I Avanted 
 to do this, both to save the expense and to be 
 near you, to minister to your wants; and he con- 
 sented willingly to botli features of my proposi- 
 tion. We will stay with you as long as you 
 need our services." 
 
 Mountjoy: "May God bless you, my loving and 
 dearly beloved daughter, as fervently and as truly 
 as I do now ; and may he prosper and shield you 
 in all the vicissitudes of your journey of hfe, from 
 all harm with which its many dangers may 
 threaten you." 
 
 Eva: "Thank you, my dear papa! Kiss me 
 now, and put your arms around me once more, 
 while I fold mine lovingly about your neck. 
 Now then, if you were well, and no longer a 
 victim of sickness and sorrow, I should be happy. 
 God bless and comfort you, my papa. Orlando 
 and I will steal away from the festive throng, 
 and come to you a while, after we return from 
 the church." 
 
 Mountjoy: "That is enough, my daughter. 
 You may keep them waiting for you. Good- 
 by until you return." 
 
 Here alone, confined to his room, languishes 
 the rapidly sinking, neglected husband, who for 
 twenty-five years has supplied his wife with all 
 the elegant luxuries that money could buy or 
 heart desire. 
 
 Now, since their stormy mterview, she rarely 
 ever speaks to him; and when she does speak, it is 
 with unkindness. 
 
 This true and noble m,an is dying by slow, 
 cruel, torturing degrees, the hopelessly incurable 
 victim of a broken heart, caused alone by his 
 heartless wife's unfeeling conduct. 
 
 The congratulations, the supper, the party, 
 the presents, and the fijial leave-takings were 
 much the same as those ao often and so graphi- 
 cally portrayed by master artists, engaged in pro- 
 ducing pictures of the bright and smiling side of 
 life. We do not attempt this. Our materials are 
 disappointments, liQart-aches, and tears. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE DARK CONSPIRACY-. 
 
 " Black was the minrl that coolly couM have planned, 
 Such cruel deeds for a desperate hand." 
 
 —ANONYMOUS. 
 
 Helen Mountjoy, Atkinson and Stringfehow 
 are closeted together. 
 
 Mrs. Mountjoy : " Now, my good sons, what I 
 wanted to see you about, is concerning the en- 
 gagement between that conte;nptible sharj^er, 
 Pleasington, and Effie — the head-strong little sim- 
 pleton. I could freely burn that traitor. Cloud, for 
 not letting him die, or for not finishing his med- 
 dlesome career in that bungling execution. Such 
 trash is fit only for gibbets of retaliation. If the 
 fool had hung him, I would not now have all this 
 trouble. I have sworn that Effie Edelstein 
 shall be Arnold Noel's bride, and I mean to keep 
 my oath. This unpromising engagement mu^t be 
 broken. I must have your assistance about it ; 
 that is all." 
 
 Atkinson : " Why certainly, dear mother, any- 
 thing that I can do to aid you, will be most 
 cheerfully performed. I do not, as a matter of 
 course, know your plan, nor in what way I might 
 promote its success." 
 
 Stuingfellow : " That is exactly my ticket, 
 my mother. But just at this moment, for the life 
 of me, I am unable to see in what way either of 
 us can further your project. 
 
 " Now, there is Silas Worthington, who is in 
 the very position to render you all the service 
 you require in this enterprise, to complete its sure 
 and speedy success ; and his relations to you are 
 the same as our own." 
 
140 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Mrs. M : " Yes, the ingrate ! he is under 
 
 obligations to me. It was solely my object to 
 secure this claim on his services for this very pur- 
 pose, — in order that they would be ready at my 
 command whenever the present crisis might 
 come, — that I consented, at his request, to give 
 Eva to Oglethrop — about the same ash-cat stripe 
 as Pleasingtou. Now, he actually laughs at me, 
 as he imagines, in a good natured way ; and tells 
 me, with the most complacent nonchalance, that 
 whatever influence he can command, if any, 
 would be thrown in the scale against me. He 
 means it, too. I know the man. All New York 
 cannot turn him. He never gave me any grounds, 
 is in no way joledged to assist me. I merely ex- 
 pected it on general principles. I think if he 
 was not an utter stranger to the sense of the im- 
 perative demands of personal gratitude and the 
 reciprocity of its obligations, he could not have 
 for one moment hesitated about the decision that 
 my appeal to him should have received. 
 
 "I find, from this instance, as well as from 
 many others, that one can never implicitly rely 
 on one's friends to repay, mutually, favors pa.st. 
 But this case is simply outrageous and entirely 
 unpardonable." » 
 
 Atkinson: "Unfortunately, the fact that 
 Worthington does not hold Arnold in very high 
 esteem, is the chief point in his opposition, — you 
 know he is Effie's guardian. In business circles 
 down-town, I am sorry to say Arnold is regarded as 
 a very wild and somewhat dissipated young man." 
 
 StRiNGFELLOW : " Ycs, mother, this is true; and 
 the opinion, I regret, is but too Avell grounded. 
 Arnold is much slyer since he came back from 
 the navy than he was before ; still the fact is 
 patent that he has not in the least improved." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Well, this has nothing to do with 
 
 my purpose. Effie would influence him to aban- 
 don all his youthful follies. Yery soon he would 
 be redeemed. 
 
 " Now for my plan and its execution, about 
 which there must be the least possible delay : — 
 
 " By some means, Lawrence Pleasington must 
 he put Old of the way, and so effectually as to stand 
 as an obstacle to my plan no more. Do you 
 
 UNDERSTAND ?" 
 
 Atkinson : " Oh, horrors — commit murder or 
 
 something little or no better! What! Do you 
 imagine us capable of this atrocity ? Never, 
 never ! We cannot be parties to this crime." 
 
 Mrs. M : " There is no need to commit 
 
 murder, nor any other crinle of a more scarlet 
 hue than such as that in which the hands of both 
 have already been deeply imbued. Why, my 
 amiable, virtuous, honest sons, I wonder that the 
 angels do not come and carry j^ou away bodily 
 from this wicked world I 
 
 "What, pray let me most earnestl}^ ask you, 
 has Avashed from your sensitive consciences the 
 ignominious stain of the cool, deliberate, system- 
 atic, unfeeling, pitiless and cruel robbery of 
 Gertrude Flowers and her two little orphan 
 children? This without granting or leaving them 
 even the pittance legally theirs, had the failure 
 of Atkinson, Flowers & Co. been legitimately 
 honest; to say nothing of the other creditors, 
 paid at a shamefully low percentage of a com- 
 promise scale, with their own money, after using 
 it a year without interest. 
 
 "Ah, well may you start, and sink back in your 
 seats in despair ! I pity you, and want you to 
 pity me. I have not mistaken my men. You 
 will assist me without another manifestation of 
 reluctance." 
 
 Atkinson : " It was you, madam, my mother, 
 who first suggested that disreputable affair, or we 
 should never have di'eamed of it." 
 
 Mrs. M : " Silence ! You were apt and 
 
 eager scholars, poor whining second Adams, and 
 without the manly firmness to reject an improper 
 suggestion from a woman. Understand me. I 
 did that to get you in my power, which I am 
 thankful that up to this moment you have never 
 given me occasion to use against you, as I then 
 feared you might, in relation to other matters. I 
 hold that power over your heads, fully conscious 
 of the terror that it awakens in your hearts. 
 From this moment do my bidding unmurmuringh'-, 
 and all will glide smoothly and serenely for you ; 
 and you will find me as docile and as amiable as 
 a pet lamb. But cross my wish with but the 
 .■^lightest indication of defiance to my will, and 
 you will arouse a savagely furious lioness to the 
 desperation of the most cruel and unmerciful 
 heartlessness. 
 
THE DAKK CONSPIRACY. 
 
 141 
 
 " I shall immediately confer with Madam Vais- 
 entre, and learn from her the most desirable course 
 to be pursued, and the most approved, available 
 and practicable means to be employed in follow- 
 ing it up to a successful issue. If she does not at 
 once know, she has ample facilities for ascertain- 
 ing so quietly that no one in the daylight world 
 will ever have the remotest inkling of what is 
 transpiring while in process of development, nor 
 how it was brought about after it becomes public 
 property. Caution is not an adequate term fully to 
 express fully the prudent care I shall exercise in 
 covering up our steps as we move along, and in 
 making doubly sure that no suspicious fingers 
 point in our direction. 
 
 "Now, thus far the question is settled. In due 
 time I shall apprise you of the parts you are to 
 play, and as to how and when they are to be per- 
 formed. The expense and all the trouble as to 
 details shall have my attention. Grood-night." 
 
 Atkinson: "Well, Adam, we are in a pretty 
 dilemma. That woman is desperate. See how 
 true is the proverb of retribution. Ours has been 
 so tardy that we had almost forgotten that we 
 owed it. Now it is about to explode with all its 
 long pent-up reserve forces, and compel us to 
 pay the terrible penalty, with its many long years 
 of ever-compounding interest. What the aggre- 
 gated sum total may be ere we see the end, my 
 blood runs cold at the bare and but casual con- 
 templation. Poor, innocent Gertrude Flowers! 
 the widoAv's woes and the orphans' tears we have 
 caused you and yours — alas ! their magnitude 
 and their cruel pangs may be immeasurably ter- 
 rible! Uh, Adam! why did we do that dark 
 and horrid deed, whose legitimate offspring are 
 now demanding at our hand the black perpetra- 
 tion of perhaps still more deeply dyed and in- 
 famous crimes against yet other innocent and 
 unoffending hearts, doomed to endure torturing 
 agonies that are untold ?" 
 
 Stringfellow : " Ah, Ira ! regrets are unavail- 
 ing now. Nothing in this world 'can recall those 
 cruel wrongs. There is neither atonement nor 
 redemption for us here, nor hereafter. 
 
 " If G-ertrude Flowers, or either of her children, 
 or all three, are Hving, and I knew their where- 
 abouts, I would return my part of her stolen for- 
 
 tune with interest. It should not be left to heirs 
 with Madam Mountjoy's blood in their veins. 
 
 " In our family relations, also, we are doomed 
 to wretchedness. Our young wives do not and 
 never will love us ; and the chances are that they 
 will find younger men more congenial to their 
 tastes, and love them clandestinely. There are 
 a thousand means by which our ills may be aug- 
 mented and again multiplied." 
 
 Atkinson : " You are uttering uncomfortable 
 truths, Adam. I wish we knew the fate of Mrs. 
 Flowers, or, rather, the present abiding-place of 
 her and her children, or any one of them now 
 living, and I should readily join you in making 
 such restitution as is in our power. If we could 
 but do this, I should then defy Madam Mountjoy, 
 and fiatly refuse to take any part in a criminal or 
 even unfairly purposed act. Let us put the mat- 
 ter in aljle legal hands, and instruct that every pos- 
 sible effort be made to find Mrs. Flowers or one 
 of her children." 
 
 Stringfellow : " All right, Ira, we will do this 
 to-morrow, and find in the meantime some pre- 
 text to procrastinate with the Madam. I am 
 thoroughly horror-stricken at the idea of partici- 
 pating in the cruel outrage which she now de- 
 signs to commit on poor Pleasington, whose little 
 finger is truly worth more than young Noel's 
 ignoble heart. Satan would blush at the thouo-ht 
 of this vile atrocity." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE BLIGHTING WAVE OF NAMELESS WOE. 
 
 " Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art 
 
 An unseen Seraph, we believe in thee, 
 A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart. 
 
 But never hath seen, nor e'er shall see 
 The naked eye thy form, as it sliould be : 
 
 The mind hath made thee as it peopled heaven, 
 Even with its own desired phantasy. 
 
 And to a thought such shape and image giv'n 
 As haunts the unquenched soul, parch'd, wearied, wrung 
 and riven." — Bykon. 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington and a bank-teller are 
 together at the home of the former. 
 
 Bank Clerk: "Let us go up to your room, 
 Lawrence, before we go out. I want to write a 
 note and brush my hair." 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington : " All right, Tim, I too 
 
142 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE XSD THE GREY. 
 
 Avant to brush my boot^. Glad you named it ; I 
 Avas about to forget it.'' 
 
 They go at once up lo Lawrence's room. 
 
 Bank Clerk : " Lawrence, I am very warm and 
 thirsty. Have you some Avater in the room ?" 
 
 Lawrence: " No ; but I will go for some ice-water. 
 Make yourself at home. I shall not be many 
 minutes." 
 
 * H: * * * * 
 
 Bank Clerk: "Ah! that is indeed refresh- 
 ing. — By the Avay, that Effie of yours eclipses all 
 our belles. You are most fortunate in possessing 
 such a rare jewel." 
 
 Lawrence: "I do not yet possess her, Tim; and 
 I have always heard that there is ' many a slip 
 between the cup and lip.' " 
 
 Scene changes to the president's room in the 
 bank, next day. 
 
 Chief OF Police: " Have you no suspicion as 
 to any one who might have participated in the 
 robbery ? Have you noticed no suspicious look- 
 ing parties around the bank lately ?" 
 
 President: " Nothing whatever unusual. We 
 have actually no clue, and no sort of grounds 
 upon which we can base a suspicion against any 
 one." 
 
 Chief : " Well, then, it is clear to my mind 
 that some one connected with the bank is in the 
 party. It is not the work of an utter stranger, 
 but of a person intimately acquainted with the 
 building, and with the inside of the bank, even 
 to the inmost chamber of the vaults. Here, sir, 
 is the starting-point upon which work must im- 
 mediately begin, if you wish to ferret out the 
 crime and capture the guilty parties, and, per- 
 haps, recover some of your money." 
 
 President : " All right, sir, that is what we 
 want. Spare neither effort nor expense that 
 promises to reward you with success. By all 
 means take the most prompt and vigorous meas- 
 ures, with every one connected with the institu- 
 tion, from myself down to the humblest mes- 
 senger-boy." 
 
 Chief : " It will be necessary to search the 
 dwelling or room of every one employed in the 
 bank.' 
 
 President : " Stop at nothing, I tell you, man ; 
 
 and do not hesitate to begin your unpleasant 
 work." 
 
 The officer goes outAvith the president, but re- 
 turns alon« soon. 
 
 Chief : " Is your name Lawrence Pleasingtou, 
 young man T 
 
 Lawrence: "Yes, sir, that is my name." 
 
 Chief : " I want you to take a little Avalk Avith 
 me, and to assist me someAvhat in seeking a clue 
 to the robbery." 
 
 Lawrence: "All right, sir, I am entirely at your 
 service." 
 
 They go out, and proceed to the police station, 
 and meet the president. 
 
 Chief : " This is the culprit, Mr. President. 
 — Now, Pleasington, you understand the situation. 
 You know, without my telling you, that you are 
 at police head-quarters, a prisoner, charged with 
 the crime of robbing the bank, your employers — 
 ungrateful man. The proof against you is over- 
 whelming. We have found much of the missing 
 money concealed in your own bed-room. The 
 very best thing for you to do now, is to make a 
 clean breast of it, and thus put us on the tracks 
 of your accomplices, and the way to recover the 
 balance of the stolen money. It Avill go much 
 lighter with you if you thus assist us. Heaven 
 itself cannot save you." 
 
 Lawrence : "I am the victim of some vile and 
 villainous plot. I know no more about the rob- 
 bery than an unborn babe. Heaven alone may 
 bear me witness that I speak the truth ; but I 
 am innocent." 
 
 President : " Come now, Pleasington, this act- 
 ing Avill avail -you nothing. I should rather have 
 lost all the missing money than to have believed 
 this of you. But of your guilt there cannot be 
 the semblance of a shadoAv of doubt. It is as 
 clear and positive as the noonday sun. I am 
 utterly dumbfounded. I cannot perceive what 
 could have ever possessed you — ^you with a rec- 
 ord so enviable and a future brighter with 
 promise and fuller of hope than that enjoyed by 
 any other young man in the land, no matter what 
 his family name, influence and Avcalth might be- 
 stow upon him. To think that you would stake 
 all these, and lose them in this infamous game — 
 an act immeasurably degrading, for which there 
 
THE BLIGHTING WAVE OF NAMELESS WOE. 
 
 143 
 
 can be no excuse, and connected with which 
 there cannot be one single mitigating circum- 
 stance ! Col. Worthington will be here to-night. 
 This will break his heart." 
 
 Lawrence : " If I was on the gallows, and had 
 but barely time to utter three words before the 
 trap would spring, they would come in clarion 
 tones: I am innocent. 
 
 "My 'bright future is what has caused this 
 deadly venomous blow to be wreaked upon me 
 with such mad fury. I can see, from the light 
 in which the case has been presented to my 
 mind, that I am doomed to the most miserable 
 and wretched fate to which flesh and blood is'ever 
 consigned without the shadow of a chance to 
 escape from its hideous consequences. I see the 
 ruins of all past and the wrecks of future hopes 
 commingling in one Avild mass impelled by chaotic 
 velocity, whirling downward into the fathomless 
 gulf of black and ignominious oblivion. I am 
 powerless. Do unto me as you may, at the end 
 I will be the same unchanged and unchangeable 
 victim of inexplicable circumstances, and shall 
 be unable to make any other answer but that 
 already declared unto you. I realize that for this 
 world, all is as effectually over with me as if I was 
 guilty. And to the hard and cruel decree I can 
 but bow my head in mute despair." 
 
 Chief of Police : " Sergeant, put him in the 
 sweat-box until the morning. See that no one 
 speaks to him, and allow nothing passed to him. 
 Some of this starch must be gotte:: out of him. 
 
 " Now, President, that is decidedly the best 
 acting I ever met in my long and varied expe- 
 rience; but I think he will weaken." 
 
 President : " I can assure you that it troubles 
 and puzzles me beyond measure. Worthington 
 is our only hope to induce him to reveal those 
 who were his accomplices. So until morning, as 
 far as I am able to judge, there remains nothing 
 further to be done." 
 
 Chief: "Nothing, sir. You may now go 
 home. I shall leave no stone unturned to find a 
 clew to lead me to the discovery of the other pai-- 
 ties. Some trifle or uncovered foot-print may 
 unexpectedly betray them." 
 
 The next morning Silas Worthington calls on 
 poor Pleasington. 
 
 Worthington; "Oh, Lawrence,T- alas ! thou 
 wretched boy, you have opened the flood-gates 
 of misery! Your poor mother now lies stark 
 and cold in the icy embrace of death — the vic- 
 tim of a broken heart; and a more horrible re- 
 ceptacle than the grave is gaping to receive you. 
 I had intended to talk severely serious to you ; 
 but now you are draining your cup of woe to its 
 bitter dregs, I will spare you the mortification of 
 listening to my reproachful words." 
 
 Lawrence: "Oh, my Grod! I can bear any- 
 thing now. — Spirit of my angelic mother, hover 
 over thy poor despairing son ; and for the sake of 
 the worthy name he bears, attest unto the world 
 that he is innocent, and the victim of some dark 
 and mysterious machination. — Col. Worthington, 
 I know your opinion. I am powerless to change 
 it. Speak! Nothing can now add to my present 
 torture." 
 
 Worthington: " Wefl, Lawrence, I have ob- 
 tained a guarantee, that, on condition you reveal 
 the whole affair to me, with the names of all the 
 parties connected with it, you shaU be imme- 
 diately and unconditionally released. I think 
 this best ; for I >tell you frankly that nothing else 
 can save you from a long term of years in State 
 prison." 
 
 Lawrence: "I thank you for your kind inter- 
 cession; but if I had a thousand lives doomed 
 to endless imprisonment, and divulging one iota 
 relative to the robbery, or as to how the money 
 got into my room, would redeem them all, I 
 could not divulge one word, because I know 
 nothing. On this point, it is idle to talk to me, 
 because I cannot do what is desired : give in- 
 formation that I do not possess." 
 
 Worthington : " Eeflect upon this after I am 
 gone, when you are alone. If you want me, let it 
 be known, and I will come." 
 
 Lawrence : " I shall never want you again, un- 
 less something in some way transpires to cause 
 you to change your opinion. Until then I must 
 bid you a last farewell." 
 
 They parted, and Worthington joined the 
 president of the bank. 
 
 President : " Well, Colonel, what was the result 
 of your intervieV ? " 
 
 Worihington: "Just the same as yours. You 
 
144 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 might subject him to the most cruel, slow torture, 
 and he would never change his position. He has 
 taken his stand and will go to the grave unyielding. 
 
 President : " Well, it is a sadly deplorable 
 case." 
 
 Worthington soon called on poor broken- 
 hearted Effie. 
 
 Worthington: " Well, Effie, my poor child, the 
 chilling winds of ill-favored Fate are beating 
 furiously down upon us. I pity you. I know the 
 cruel blow has crushed you without mercy." 
 
 Effie : " It is more terrible than the day of 
 doom. But tell me truly, is Lawrence guilty ? " 
 
 Worthington : " Alas ! it is impossible for him 
 to be innocent. All the proof and the circum- 
 stances are against him so strongly as to leave 
 him not the benefit of a single doubt. Yet still 
 he obstinately denies it, and maintains that he is 
 innocent." 
 
 Effie : " Then my resolution is taken. I de- 
 sire to make my will, to remain sealed Avhile I live ; 
 then I am going at once into the deepest seclusion 
 of a convent, there to pass my remaining days — 
 a broken-hearted, hope-bereft woman." 
 
 Worthington : " Effie, that is madness. I im- 
 plore you do not throw away your brightly prom- 
 ising young life so rashly ! " 
 
 Effie : "All words are idle. The sun of my 
 life has gone down ! The world shall not mock 
 me to my face. If Lawrence is false and base, 
 who in this world can I trust and esteem as noble 
 and true ? That fair young brow, the gem-like 
 emblem of honest purity ; that ever temperate 
 and exemplary life, so nobly brave and faithful to 
 his suffering, bleeding country on whose altar 
 his youthful blood flowed so freely, now degraded 
 and blackened with the indelible stain of the 
 basest ignominy ! After this, what is there in the 
 world for me to trust ? He was my ideal of manly 
 purity and excellence. Before my mind no other 
 can ever rise to the same exalted eminence upon 
 which I beheld him stand. 
 
 " My friend, be good to me now, and accord 
 my wish without delay; because this night I am 
 resolved to pass to my living tomb, whence I 
 shall never emerge again, until I am borne out to 
 the silent church-yard. This is the consecration 
 of my plighted vows, the proof of my abiding 
 
 constancy, and the test of my fidelity and undy- 
 ing devotion." 
 
 Late this same evening, in the deepening gloom 
 of his lonely prison-cell, there came to poor Law- 
 rence Pleasington a letter, which ran as follows : 
 
 "June — , 1865. 
 " Maj. Lawrence Pleasington. 
 
 ''''My lost Friend: 
 " When we said good-night, so gay and 
 cheerful, the last time, how little we dreamed 
 that it was for evermore ! 
 
 "Oh, Lawrence, that we have lived to see the 
 light of this day, so bitterly fraught with hopeless 
 disappointment and irremediable wretchedness! 
 What shall I — what can I say to you ? 
 
 "A blinding flash of lightning and' deafening 
 peal of thunder from a serenely cloudless sky, 
 could not have so shocked and surprised me as 
 did the cruel tidings of the terrible fate that had 
 overtaken you — a fate a thousand times more 
 dreadful than the mof^t horrible death — the death- 
 knell of all our hopes, — the direful force that has 
 cruelly severed our hopes forever. 
 
 " I know what unutterable agonies you are 
 suffering, and pity you from the depths of my 
 soul. Beyond this point I cannot go — am power- 
 less to help you. 
 
 " The dark mystery which has overwhelmed 
 you is between you and your God, where I fear 
 it must remain. 
 
 "You are in prison, as you may be doomed to 
 remain for many long and weary years. I also 
 am going to a convent prison. This is the strong- 
 est proof I can afford you of my faithful adher- 
 ance to my phghted vows and constant devotion to 
 yourself. This ma}^ prove an empt}'- source of 
 consolation; but it is, under the existing circum- 
 stances, all that I can render you. While your 
 life is dark and cheerless, embittered with the 
 gall of despair, you shall know that I am not 
 bright and joyous amid the giddy and madden- 
 ing whirl of the fickle, flattering and false social 
 world. I will not accept its smiles nor give it 
 mine. 
 
 " I should call and see you, but think it better 
 for us both that I remain away, as I am going 
 into the convent to-night. 
 
THE BLIGHTING WAVE OF NAMELESS WOE. 
 
 Ul 
 
 " Words fail me. I cannot express what I feel. 
 Bear your trying afflictions, your cruel hardships 
 and hopeless fate with Christian fortitude and 
 resignation. At best, our days would have been 
 transient and comparatively few, and, perhaps, far 
 less blissful than we anticipated. Be that as it 
 might have been, we now know that to us the 
 realization of that happy day-dream anticipation 
 is ove'-, blighted, — forever gone. 
 
 " Let us live for the hereafter, and strive to meet 
 again in the great and ever-enduring Unknown. 
 God help and bless you. 
 
 " Until we have passed over the dark river — 
 Farewell. 
 
 "Your sj^npathetic friend, 
 
 " Effie Edelstein." 
 
 Two days later, in the retirement of her exile 
 and within the pure and sacred precincts of the 
 convent of the Blessed Cross of Mercy, the heart- 
 stricken, world-weary Effie received the following 
 answer to her letter : 
 
 " County Prison, June — , 1865. 
 " Miss Effie Edelstein. 
 
 " My lost Love: 
 " The last and only consolation I shall ever 
 know in this world, reached me last evening in 
 your tenderly kind and dehcately comforting let- 
 ter, for which I thank you a thousand times more 
 than pen can write or tongue could tell. 
 
 "You do not unfeelingly reproach me. The 
 tenoT- of your letter satisfies me that you at least 
 hope I am innocent. 
 
 "Circumstances that are utterly dumbfounding 
 and unanswerable are against me. All the world 
 will be forced to beheve me guilty. But, my lost 
 Effie, before G-od, in the name of our pure and 
 ever constant love, and in the name of my angelic 
 mother, I solemnly declare to you, in the sad and 
 bitter cadence of an eternal farewell, — the verit- 
 able breathing of my dying words to you, my 
 unhappy darling — that of this crime I am as in- 
 nocent as the angels in Heaven. That I cannot 
 prove it, is my more than cruel misfortune, not 
 my fault. With the world it is just the same 
 as if I was guilty, but not with my conscience, 
 my God, and my poor Effie, who is taking upon 
 herself a cross of self-denial almost as burden- 
 10 
 
 some and as physically severe as that which I 
 shall be forced to bear. I should have wished 
 this otherwise, and that you might yet be happy, 
 if that was possible. But now I know it is too 
 late to entreat you to pursue a different course. 
 You have already taken the step, from which all 
 the world could not induce you to recede. You 
 know your heart and feelings, which have deter- 
 mined you to banish yourself from the world. I 
 pity you, my darling. But for your sake, the 
 blow would not be altogether so terribly crushing 
 as it now is. 
 
 " Yes, my Effie, my hfe shall be ever pure and 
 blameless. I will live for you and Heaven, where 
 I hope we may meet again. Always remember 
 and pray for me. My thoughts will cling to you 
 until their forcp is stilled in death. — Farewell. 
 "Your unhappy friend, 
 
 " Lawrence Pleasington." 
 
 Thus parted these two devoted, young, and lov- 
 ing hearts. How could Heaven permit them to 
 become the victims of this hard and cruel fate ? 
 Was it the doom of retribution pronounced against 
 the third and fourth generations, that they had 
 inherited ; which had been handed down to them 
 as a legacy from wicked forefathers, whose crim- 
 inal bones had been sleeping beneath the snows 
 of two hundred winters, far away beyond the At- 
 lantic's blue and sleepless tide ? The mysterious 
 echoes of ages, wafted from those distant shores, 
 must answer. 
 
 Against poor Pleasington the most speedy, vig- 
 orous, and unrelenting prosecution was waged, 
 until he was, in due form of law, pronounced 
 guilty. 
 
 Poor, brave, noble young man, what a demoni- 
 acal echo that one terrible word made in the grim 
 and breathless silence of the dreary old Court- 
 room and its adjacent corridors, as it fell in stern 
 and pitiless tone from the lips of the jury's fore- 
 man ! The handsome young soldier, care-worn, 
 haggard and pale from the terrible ordeal through 
 which he has lately passed, stands forth before 
 the bar of the Court, to hear the sealing notes of 
 his doom. 
 
 He had spurred his charger up to the muzzles 
 of Jackson's guns at Stone Bridge ; of Col. Cloud's 
 
146 
 
 JklYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 in the valley of Virginia and on the plains of 
 Manassas ; and of Hood's on the field of Gettys- 
 burg. He had passed through the rayless night 
 of death in the North Carolina pine-woods, and 
 faced her grim visage at other points a thousand 
 times; had served his country long and well, 
 where he could proudly and defiantly look danger 
 in the face; but how different now the nature 
 of the menace with which he is imperiled I 
 Alone, and friendless, and helpless, with the very 
 weapons of truth and justice — the only defense 
 and succor that could have availed him — perverted 
 and turned against him. Such is the gloomy pict- 
 ure which he now beholds. 
 
 At Stone Bridge, alone, among enemies, with 
 his life in the most imminent peril, he had beheld 
 the youthful face of Garland Cloud bending anx- 
 iously over him, and heard the kind tones of his 
 sympathetic voice speaking words of comfort and 
 cheer ; and again, under similar circumstances, he 
 had received at the hands of Col. Cloud on the 
 plains of Manassas, identically the same treat- 
 ment. Even on the night when the stern pre- 
 parations for his execution were going on around 
 him, every possible kindness and the most unmis- 
 takable manifestations of sympathy had been his. 
 Now, in the trying crisis of the present moment, 
 surrounded by his own people, for whom he had 
 fought and bled, he quietly turns his eyes from 
 face to face, seeking the slightest indications of 
 sympathy — but, alas ! poor boy, in vain. 
 
 In each sternly set face, he could clearly read 
 the revelation, that every heart in all that throng, 
 then crowding the room almost to suffocation, 
 was desperately steeled against him. In silence, 
 he then listens to the long lecture of the Judge, 
 and hears his sentence — the last day the extreme 
 penalty of the law would permit — being pro- 
 nounced against him. 
 
 He IS rushed with precipitancy away to the 
 State prison, where the harshly-grating massive 
 door closes behind him, shutting out the sunhght 
 
 of hope — FOEEVEB. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE SERIOUSLY MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 
 
 " Roll on, noble rivers, In grandeur and pride; 
 Waft the stores of my country from every side. 
 Bring a full share of wealth o'er the wide-spreading 
 
 sea; 
 Though comfort and hope, they be strangers to me." 
 —Miscellaneous. 
 
 We last met Garland Cloud amid the pitiful 
 and trying scene of preparation for the execution 
 of " The three victims of retaliation," in the spec- 
 tral night-shadows of the North Carolina lowland 
 piny woods. 
 
 About the same time, we heard a conversation 
 between his father, Gen. Cloud, and some brother 
 officers, by their last night's bivouac fire at Appo- 
 mattox, from which we learned that Garland 
 dared not return home. 
 
 This was true. The daring young horseman 
 was thoroughly acquainted with the desperate 
 state of aff'airs in his native section, and knew 
 too well the character of the men who had sworn 
 vengeance against him, to place himself, unarmed, 
 in a position where they could get him in their 
 power. 
 
 Immediately, then, after Gen. Joseph E. John- 
 ston's surrender. Garland Cloud fled for life; in- 
 tending to seek a safe asylum where he would be 
 unknown, in a Northern State, until his native 
 land could aff"ord him a more promising and con- 
 genial dwelling-place. 
 
 The first day he set foot on the soil of the State 
 which he had selected, still dressed in the uniform 
 of a Confederate colonel, he was arrested by the 
 civil authorities, who claimed that he was a local 
 desperado who had been committing depreda- 
 tions in the country, throughout the war, and 
 against whom there were a number of indict- 
 ments standing ready on the docket, in order to 
 make quick disposition oi him whenever he might 
 be captured. 
 
 In vain did Cloud protest that they were mis- 
 taken. His captors would permit no explanation, 
 but told him bluntly that his ruse, under the dis- 
 guise of a rebel colonel, would not avail him ; that 
 his time had come. Court was then in session. 
 
THE SERIOUSLY MISTAKEN IDENTITY. 
 
 147 
 
 He passed the night, heavily shaclvled, in the iron 
 cage of the county jail. 
 
 Early the next morning he was placed in the 
 dock for trial. 
 
 Judge: " Sam Greg, are you ready for trial?" 
 
 Cloud : " Your Honor, I am not. I am not the 
 man; which fact I can prove by officers and 
 soldiers — citizens of your county — if you will lay 
 this matter over a few days until they reach home. 
 I demand this in the name of equity and justice." 
 
 Judge : " If that is the only ground for delay, 
 the trial will proceed. We' are not disposed to 
 grant any time for your clan to come and break 
 open the jail, and release you. There are plenty 
 of good citizens who will swear that you are the 
 right man. If you are what you claim — a traitor 
 and rebel — you deserve the penitentiary, or rather 
 the halter ; therefore we cannot go far astray in 
 condemning you. The garb you wear would shame 
 an honest man." 
 
 Cloud : " There are no indictments against me 
 for treason, sir; and I deny your right to refuse 
 me a fair trial, by putting my liberty in jeopardy 
 without first giving me the time and opportu- 
 nityto prove that I am not the man named in the 
 indictments." 
 
 Judge: "Silence. Proceed with the trial. 
 Have you any counsel, Greg?" 
 
 Cloud : " I am not Greg. I defy you to try me 
 as him. I have no counsel, and will not submit 
 to this outrage." 
 
 Judge : " We appoint you to defend him, Mr, 
 R. ." 
 
 The jury is soon impanelled. Three Dutchmen 
 swear most positively that he was the ring-leader 
 of the gang that had robbed their houses and 
 stolen their horses. One after another the jury- 
 men convict him on three indictments, without 
 so much as even leaving their seats. 
 
 Without a moment's delay he is brought to the 
 bar of the Court for sentence, and in a sarcas- 
 tically solemn tone the Judge says: "Sam Greg, 
 if you have aught to say why sentence shall not 
 be pronounced against you, in accordance with 
 the verdicts of the jury rendered againsfe you, say 
 it now, or ever after hold your peace." 
 
 Cloud: "I have. You have denied me fair 
 and impartial justice, manifesting your unblush- 
 
 ing partiality by asserting that if innocent of the 
 alleged charges, I was a halter-deserving rebel. 
 You have transformed a Court of justice into a 
 stage for a scene of ribald mockery — a Star-Cham- 
 ber Inquisition. And now you mock me with 
 your cold formality, when not even a, voice from 
 Heaven could stay your predetermined sentence, 
 nor abate its diabolical severity. 
 
 " I protest against it, but to no more purpose 
 than a feeble swimmer, riding the tempest-flying 
 wave, might sue for safety. I hurl back your 
 accusations as basely infamous, damnably unjust, 
 barbarously, inhumanly cruel; stigmatizing my 
 life with an odious curse that will warp with its 
 obloquy, attaint with its poison, and freeze with 
 its Arctic congealment_ the getiial currents of 
 the soul, transforming its hghtest burden into 
 the unmerciful torments of a raging hell, that wiU 
 eternally prey upon the riven fragments of the 
 heart, blotting out forever the last gleam of hope. 
 
 "May all the distress, affliction, sorrow and suf- 
 fering that you thus cause to pursue and curse 
 my after-life, re-act with undying severity upon 
 you and your posterity forever. Bear witness. 
 Oh, ye eternal heavens! that I receive and must 
 suffer an unjust penalty, and avenge my inno- 
 cence." 
 
 Judge: "Were your words appropriate, and 
 employed in a worthy cause, they might move 
 me to compassion. The Court sentences you to 
 the fullest extent of the law — thirty years in the 
 Penitentiary at Bay City, and regrets the want 
 of power to make the term one hundred years." 
 
 On board the train, bound toward his prison 
 home, Cloud hears his name, and feels, simulta- 
 neously, his shackled hand firmly pressed in the 
 strong grasp of two powerful hands. Turning 
 his sad eyes, he almost involuntarily, half to him- 
 self, half to the man he beholds by his side, ex- 
 claims, "Lieut. Stone!" 
 
 Lieut. Stone: "Col. Cloud!" 
 
 For a moment the two men gaze at each other 
 in silence, while the wells of their hearts are in 
 commotion, and sending up to the eyes great 
 pearly drops of briny tears. The sheriff and 
 his guard posse look at the two men, and then at 
 one another, with astounded wonderment, because 
 they know Lieut. Stone to be one among the first 
 
148 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 aud most influential citizons of their county. 
 At length Stone asks, and Cloud briefly explains, 
 the cause of his present and most uncomfortable 
 predicament and future hopelessness. 
 
 Lieut. S : " Col. Cloud, I have not yet 
 
 reached home. It has now been three years 
 since I have seen my wife and babies. I was 
 waiting here for the down train, and recognized 
 you through the window. But for you, my loved 
 ones would never see me more. None can ever 
 call you to account for the action now ; and I tell 
 you that you purposely spared my life. The vol- 
 ley fired at me was nothing but blank cartridges. 
 I owe you a debt that I can never cancel ; and 
 this is an unexpected and deplorable opportunity 
 for me to manifest the sincerity of my gratitude 
 to you, and to make one instalment of its pay- 
 ment. I will never settle quietly down at home, 
 nor for one day cease nor abate my eflforts, until 
 you are a free man." 
 
 Cloud: "I thank God that they did not harm 
 you. Thank Him all your days, for shielding and 
 delivering you from that terrible danger. On 
 that score I have no claim upon you. Let us not 
 talk about the bitter ordeal of that ghostly night. 
 It was the most cruelly trying experience of my 
 life, to which even the gloom of the present ray- 
 less prospect cannot be compared. 
 
 " For charity's ^ake, and in the naine and cause 
 of humanity, if you desire to do something that 
 will remove this unjust, remorseless and cruel 
 burden, beneath whose crushing weight I am 
 doomed, alas! to groan unpitied for so many 
 dreary years, I shall be most thankful to you, and 
 patiently await the result, never doubting that it 
 will arrive. 
 
 " But I implore you to suppress my true name. 
 In the name of that Heaven that spared your life, 
 I entreat you, do not permit my name to become 
 connected with this apparent infamy, that might 
 be magnified and misconstrued as it flies over the 
 world." 
 
 Lieut. S : " I shall be more speedy than you 
 
 dream. — Upon the honor of a soldier, your name 
 shall be guarded with the silence of the grave." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 THE BANEFUL SUPERNATURAL AXD ITS VAXQUISHIXO 
 ANTIDOTE. 
 
 " Oil that the desert were my dwelling place. 
 With one fair Spirit for my minister, 
 That I might all forget the uman race, 
 And hating no one, love but only her! 
 Ye Elements! — in whose ennobling stir 
 
 I feel myself exalted— can ye not 
 Accord me such a being? Do I err 
 
 In deeming, such Inhabit, many a spot. 
 Though with them to converse can rarely be our 
 lot?" — Btkon. 
 
 Two MONTHS after we left Garland Cloud talk- 
 ing to Lieut. Stone on the train, in shackles, he 
 is seated in the parlor of an aunt of his, in one 
 of the most war-wasted districts of the Old 
 Dominion, two hundred miles from his father's 
 home. He has been there now for three days. 
 He is. pale, care-worn, emaciated, melancholy. 
 
 There is a military government in the State, 
 which has stopped Brownslow's high-handed 
 game of kidnapping, and fully suppressed the 
 roving bands of free-booters, but which cannot 
 control the rifle of the secret assassin. This fact 
 young Cloud understands, and knows that, there- 
 fore, he dares not return home, nor even write a 
 letter. 
 
 As we now behold him. he has a fair suit of 
 clothing on his back, and one-half dollar in his 
 pocket. 
 
 It is night. All the members of the family 
 have retired except Fannie, a bright little fairy- 
 like maiden of less than twenty summers. She 
 is sitting in silence, gazing most intently into 
 the gloomy face of her cousin, but at length speaks. 
 
 Fannie: " Now, cousin Garland, you promised 
 to tell me to-night why you are so melancholy; 
 and I am all impatience to know what heavy 
 sorrow or malady is oppressing you so cruelly 
 that the woeful image of your face causes tears 
 — involuntary, spontaneous tears — to come into 
 my eyes." 
 
 Cloud : " Why, my sweet coz, in my tender 
 youth I was wedded to misfortune. My bride 
 was the then young and beautiful Confederacy 
 Avhose deep crimson-dyed grave, where I beheld 
 her ghastly remains buried, to moulder down 
 to obhvion's darkest shade, left me a bankrupt in 
 
THE BANEFUL SUPERNATURAL AND ITS ANTIDOTE. 
 
 149 
 
 spirit — an orphan of the heart. The companions 
 of my youth are all quietly, peacefully sleeping 
 on distant battle-fields. Why was I left for a 
 sadder fate ? Why did the dread missile of death 
 seek only my enfeebled arm? Oh that it had in 
 mercy shattei'ed my body and stilled my proud 
 heart while it yet beat buoyant with youth and 
 hope, leaving a spotless name with the 'unnum- 
 bered dead. ! Then I would not now be nameless 
 forevermore.' 
 
 "You conjure me to look at the bright side. 
 How can I, all being but darkness ? To-morrow 
 I leave you and all brightness, for many, many 
 weary days." 
 
 Fannie: "Alas! what a deep-cast gloom over- 
 shadows you. But pray stay with us. Do not 
 ^•o forth, weak, feeble, despondent. Tarry until 
 invigorating strength and reviving spirits return 
 once more. I will sing for you; cheer you with 
 fantastic pictures of fairy-land romance; build 
 air-castles in some imaginary vale of Vaucluse, 
 ^vhere the zephyrs are laden with fragrant per- 
 fume dispelled by orange-blossoms, and odorif- 
 erous with the magnolia's exhalations. — But, pray, 
 whither are you going?" 
 
 Cloud: "To this dream-land you would pict- 
 ure, did it exist. I don't know, coz; the situation 
 is not clear to me. But it is so late that we must 
 say good-night." 
 
 Fannie: "Good-night, cousin Garland. May 
 your sleep be refreshing and your dreams far 
 brighter than your thoughts." 
 
 Cloud : " Good-night, little coz ; sweet slumbers 
 and bhssful dreams to you. 
 
 "Nature's, own, joyous, happy child — she is 
 gone. Her fairy foot-falls are receding; now 
 they die away in the distant hall, and I am alone, 
 as I must ever be ; guiltless, yet still a pardoned 
 wretch. Alas! the deep thralldomof that hapless 
 curse ! My heart sickens, my brain reels at its 
 contemplation. I would have died ere it ex- 
 pired; but what have I gained by my release 
 from it? A hopeless, life-long misery, an- 
 guish, sorrow, despair — and what? Or soon, 
 or late — death." 
 
 Garland Cloud sits in the rocking-chair, head 
 bowed down upon his breast, under the mystic 
 influence of some strangely potent spell, half 
 
 sleep, half trance. Evidently the same Avhich 
 creeps ujjon mortal flesh, when a vision from the 
 Unknown comes to the immortal spirit inhabiting 
 the frail, weak body of mortal man. And that 
 such visions do come, both from the celestial and 
 infernal worlds, either in mild and less percep- 
 tible, or strong and more overpowering currents 
 of spiritual electricity, who of rational intelli- 
 gence can doubt, and at the same time accept 
 the doctrine of that still small voice of ever 
 admonitory warning, speaking to the soul of 
 danger and of death ? And that other doctrine 
 of the alluring, beguiUng, menacing, threatening 
 wiles of Satan, tempting man to sin — sometimes 
 in a mild and almost imperceptible guise of seem- 
 ing modesty and abashed timidity ; then again 
 in his hideous form, almost perceptible to the 
 naked eye, and speaking in a voice almost audi- 
 ble to the natural ear? — Thus he appears and 
 speaks to-night to Garland Cloud, whose con- 
 science has begun already to transform him into 
 a moral coward. 
 
 A combined force of strangely ordered circum- 
 stances has conspired to induce him to assume 
 the mask. This brave, frank, generous, noble 
 spirit, that had quailed before no mortal danger • 
 valued and esteemed by friends as an ideal self- 
 educated youtlif ul officer ; and respected by ene- 
 mies who knew him, for his magnanimous hu- 
 manity, has hesitated, wavered, recoiled before a 
 moral social duty : the duty of announcing openly, 
 frankly, and fearlessly to his friends and to the 
 world, if necessary, just what had befallen him,^^ 
 and how it had occurred. Instead of this he 
 took refuge behind the miserable subterfuge of 
 concealment — that shuffling make-shift of curse- 
 breeding falsehood — the most prolific source of 
 social hope- and happiness-destroying damnation 
 that ever lays hold of weak, irresolute humanity 
 with its heavy and merciless hand. After its 
 fiendish grasp is once securely fixed, no earthly 
 power can ever force it to relax. 
 
 At first this dark subterfuge is presented Avith 
 graceful seemliness. Its obliging convenience is 
 usually gratefully accepted, owing to the momen- 
 tary annoyance or embarrassment that is dis- 
 tressing or threatening the hapless victim. This 
 small eiTor is lonely behind its great veil of con- 
 
150 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 cealment and sternly demands company; and 
 sooner or later is satisfied, until at length that 
 bosom becomes a groaning, living, earthly hell. 
 This is of a nature so horrible that, could all 
 such victims at the same time utter their doleful 
 shrieks and waUs of stifled agonies, w^ith the 
 shrillness that the heart would send them forth 
 to pierce the startled air, nothing ever has 
 occurred since the flood, and never may occur 
 again, until the av^ful grandeur of the Day of 
 Judgment bursts upon the earth, that would create 
 such soul- moving lamentations. 
 
 It is this that drives the proud, hard-pressed 
 merchant into the inextricable entanglements of 
 the interminable labyrinths of prevarication, ulti- 
 mate crime and disgrace, — surely crim.e, when- 
 ever he contracts obligations under the cloak of 
 misrepresentations or concealment as to the pre- 
 cariousness of his affairs, when he knows facts, 
 that if known to his creditor, the accommodation 
 wpuld be withheld. Morally, there is no differ- 
 ence between the concealment and the false rep- 
 resentation and little between either and down- 
 right robbery. 
 
 It is this concealment of some indiscretion or 
 other disreputable episode in the lives of people, 
 and the perpetual dread that they will become 
 known, that renders such lives more intolerable 
 than the publication of their concealed chapters 
 could possibly make them. It is the murderer's 
 sleepless terror and flight, when naught but the 
 accusing conscience pursues. 
 
 "We deal with this question only in the rela- 
 tions that it bears to .his life and its temporal 
 vveal or woe. This is a feature of visible, tan- 
 gible, to many of but too truly well-known, real 
 existence, needing the light of no revelation to 
 make it clear ; and it defies skepticism. 
 
 It is, beyond any question, the immortality of 
 man at which the Infernal powers aim; but in 
 the mortal relations this direful influence works 
 at the same time untold ills. To combat this, is 
 our bounden duty and special province ; while the 
 other belongs to the ordained man of God. 
 
 Apparition of Satan: "Mortal of sin and 
 sorrow, list and dream ! Thy shame shall folloAV 
 thee, magnified, to credible guilt. With this for 
 their weapons, thy envious, unsated enemies shall 
 
 marshal against and pursue thee with secret 
 obloquy, assailing thee in high or low places; 
 shall undo thy prospects and turn thy hopes to 
 dust, driving thee to pangs and extremities to 
 which the present is thy unreached Paradise. 
 Thou shall not escape, save by defying thy 
 fast-breeding ills in a courageous flight from 
 an intolerable existence. Be wise : or suffer, and 
 drag untold numbers down with thee to wretched- 
 ness." 
 
 Cloud: "Have I slept ! What terrible visions 
 have haunted me, more vividly real than if under 
 the noonday's sun! Misery, ruin, and all the 
 inconceivable woes, real or imaginary, in the 
 hard decree of earth-born affliction ! It will be 
 thus. And is there no escape ? No, none ! And 
 what can be worse than the eternal dread of 
 this — but the reality. Oh, horrors ! To-morrow 
 I will say adieu to this hospitable roof, walk 
 away, and quietly end it all in the placid water 
 alcove the dam of the forge. What misery this 
 would cause poor Fannie and the family ! But 
 perchance they will never know it. To-morrow 
 night I know not what may be." 
 
 Early the next morning Cloud met his little 
 cousin, wlien the following conversation took 
 place : 
 
 Fannie: "I am provoked, cousin Garland, that 
 they did not call me in time to breakfast with 
 you. I have just finished my breakfast." 
 
 " Cloud : "I was waiting for you. I have bid 
 ;iunty and the boys farewell, and now, little coz, 
 comes the last pang: I must saygood-by to you." 
 
 Fannie: "But you cannot shake me ofiF so 
 lightly. I shall wander down the lane and over 
 the bridge with you. I have much to sa}' 
 to you before farewell. Now, why that look of 
 disappointment? Don't you want my company, 
 or do you dread my lecture, or whatever you 
 term it?" 
 
 Cloud: "Neither. Would I could ever have 
 such company and counsel." 
 
 Fannie: "Cousin Garland, this despondency 
 shames your nature and name, that never flinclied 
 or recoiled before mortal hardship, privation, or 
 danger. 
 
 " Look now, on your distressed, poverty-stricken, 
 ruined country, the same land that you buckled 
 
THE BANEFUL SUPERNATURAL AND ITS ANTIDOTE. 
 
 151 
 
 on your armor and drew your sword so many 
 times to defend, now defenseless and helpless. 
 See the desolate homes, the bleak and solitary 
 chimneys standing as grim monuments of war- 
 wasting destruction, and your fallen comrades' 
 widows and orphans, all appealing to you, in 
 mutely silent yet solemn eloquence, to be your- 
 self again; to be brave as of yore, and lend your 
 aid to heal their ghastly wounds. 
 
 " The energy and brain power tha^ could work 
 (he rustic mountain-boy from the ranks to the 
 command of a thousand brave men, can do some- 
 thing in the peaceful battles of life, when the cry 
 for help is so stern and pressing. 
 
 " You say that had you been five years older you 
 would now be famous ; and that you would rather 
 have Jackson's name than a thousand years of 
 life. Jackson was never so truly glorious amid 
 the wildest shouts of his victorious legions as I 
 would be now were I a man, and that man you, 
 m the struggle to redeem my war-blighted coun- 
 try from the thralldom of misery hovering over 
 its blue hills, once so verdant, and its magic 
 vales, once so fruitful, like the grim visaged 
 Destroying Angel. Oh ! I had such horrid dreams 
 about you last night, that I could not bear to see 
 you leave without speaking to you of all these 
 things. 
 
 " Now I am going to take your hand in both 
 of mine ; and while I thus hold it, I want you to 
 promise me, in the name of a true soldier's sacred 
 honor, that you will take care of yourself, and do 
 everything in your power for poor Virginia, your 
 disconsolate mother." 
 
 Cloud: "Little coz, for your sake, and in mem- 
 ory of this moment, I will strive to do my duty." 
 
 Fannie: "Now I must return to th^ house. I 
 am glad you came to see us. When shall I ever 
 see that anxious, sorrow-stricken face again? 
 
 "Now, cousin Garland, seal your promise with 
 the kiss of a cousin's pure love. My poor cousin, 
 farewell. May God bless you." 
 
 Cloud : " Little coz, I cannot say when we may 
 ever meet again. God bless your pure httle soul. 
 Farewell." 
 
 "Alas ! how her retiring footsteps widen the space 
 between us. Now she disappears over the brow 
 of the hill. 
 
 " Nevermore shall my tear-dimmed eyes behold 
 that graceful form, nor my ears listen to the har- 
 monious cadence of her enchanting voice. Too 
 good for earth. She has saved me from a watery 
 shroud. Adieu. 
 
 " Without money and without friends ; with an 
 odium darker than the demon's curse to pursue 
 me, which I must strive to keep silent as the 
 tomb ; but with the secret dread of its muffled 
 approach ever haunting, threatening to crush and 
 contemn me — an invisible spectral ghost hover- 
 ing about, shadowing and ever darkening life's 
 pathway — I go forth an exile from the home of 
 my boyhood days, maimed and enfeebled and 
 oppressed with the gloomy shades of Futurity's 
 dim picture, a wanderer on the devious, cheer- 
 less road of life. Visions of youth's dream, fare- 
 well! 
 
 " Ever ringing in my ears must be the vibrating 
 and endless echo of that one admonitory word, 
 Duty ! duty I duty I 
 
 Oh that I may never disobey it, nor its stern 
 charge forget!" 
 
 "Once more upon Life's ocean, yet once more; 
 
 May the waves bound beneatla rae as a steed 
 That knows his rider. — Welcome to their roar — 
 
 Swift be their guidance whereso'er it lead, 
 Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed ; 
 
 And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale — 
 Still must I on, for I am as a weed. 
 
 Flung from the rock on Ocean's foam to sail 
 Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's 
 breath prevail." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 THE CHANGING WIND AND TIDE. 
 
 " In the desert a fountain is springing— 
 In the wide waste there is a lone tree — 
 In the solitude a bird is singing. 
 That speaks to my spirit of thee." 
 
 — Bykon. 
 
 The fifth day after Garland Cloud parted with 
 his cousin Fannie, he is at the railroad depot of 
 an important Virgiania grain -shipping town, one 
 hundred miles from the residence of his aunt; 
 a distance which he had traversed on foot. 
 
 This is a section of the State where he is a 
 stranger, a county in which he believes there 
 
152 
 
 MYSTIC EOIVIANCES OF THE BLUE AlsD THE GREY. 
 
 is not one person who knows him — the reason 
 that induced him to wend liis way in that dh-ec- 
 tion. He has just reached the place, and is both 
 tired and hungry. 
 
 In ten minutes after his arrival a passenger 
 train steams up to the depot. There is quite a 
 large crowd on the platform, hurrying to and fro. 
 Cloud rises from the box upon which he was 
 seated, and slowly, and indifferently, and aim- 
 lessly saunters down the platform, and mingles 
 with the tlii'ong. As yet he has spoken to no one. 
 nor has any one spoken to him. 
 
 Just now he meets Avith an incident as unex- 
 pectedly as if it had been a tangible spirit in the 
 broad light of day; an incident such as often 
 wholly revolutionizes the lives of people, and 
 such, too, as are occurring somewhere every day — 
 events that cool, dispassionate, non-enthusiastic 
 persons, as well as the far more numerous rabble — 
 which might with probably greater propriety be 
 styled "the happy-go-lucky" class — regard as 
 being entirely fortuitous, purely accidental. 
 
 But these, we, with due deference to the opin- 
 ions of others, are compelled to esteem, view- 
 ing them in the light which is reflected upon 
 them from our stand-point, as clearly unquestion- 
 able and irrefutably established cases of the ever- 
 mysterious, all-unseen, all-controlling, all-dispens- 
 ing hand of Destiny — that Destiny which shapes, 
 builds up and overturns our affairs both great 
 and small, despite our most carefully planned, 
 cautiously prosecuted and vigorously executed 
 counteracting opposition. 
 
 Cloud feels a hand clasp his arm, and hoars a 
 voice pronounce his name from behind him. 
 Turning round, his eyes meet those of a well- 
 known and familiar war friend; a man who has 
 known him under all circumstances, in all po- 
 sitions where he had acted in dark and bloody 
 scenes ; a member of an old and prominent com- 
 jnercial firm, composed of three brothers, domi- 
 ciled in a large town less than a hundred miles 
 away — a man in whose store-house he had his 
 head-quarters, and whose brother had been his 
 adjutant when he was operating against the 
 bands of mountain desperadoes — a man at whose 
 tabic • he had taken many a repast, and in whose 
 residence he had occupied a room for a long time. 
 
 when wounded and unable to endure the jDriva- 
 tions of the lield. This friend says: 
 
 ■■ Why, Cloud, whence came you? We heard 
 that Kirk's band hung you at the close of the 
 war. I am glad to find you above the sod, old 
 boy — the last man in the world that I expected to 
 meet here, but the very one I want, if your leisure 
 serves you." 
 
 Cloud : " Well, I\Ir. Daiio, how happy I am to 
 meet you. I assure you it is a most agreeable sur- 
 prise. I was captured at the close of the war, 
 and have been free now only a few days. I can- 
 not go home for fear of those blood-thirsty vil- 
 lains. I have just ai-rived here, and am so over- 
 burdened with serving leisui-e that I am actually 
 embarrassed to know how to dispose of it. What 
 can I do for a friend, true and tried when I was 
 wounded and in distress? " 
 
 DaNo : " W^e want to buy some surplus grain 
 that is away back in the mountains, twenty or 
 thirty miles from here. I came doAAii on this train 
 to see whether or not I could arrange with a mer- 
 chant,orsome one else, to undertake it; andyouare 
 the first man to whom I have spoken, and will be 
 the only one to whom I shall speak, if I can agree 
 with you to do the business. We will furnish the 
 money, and allow you five per cent., provided you 
 find enough to make it an object; otherwise, we 
 will recompense you for your time. What say 
 you?" 
 
 Cloud: "It is a bargain. 1 will do my best 
 for you." 
 
 DaNo : " W^hat luck ! If we are quick, 1 ean 
 return on the up train, now nearly due." 
 
 To Garland Cloud this simple incident was a 
 foundation of adamantine solidity and most-^von- 
 drous magnitude. Upon this sprang up one of 
 the most extraordinarj-, yet vicissitudinally check- 
 ered careers that ever fell to the lot of mortal 
 man in the purely civil walks of life, situated as 
 he was then, and di'iven as he must be afterward, 
 by adverse winds of envious opposition, and 
 waste-sweeping hurricanes of fell, merciless dis- 
 aster, upon Fortune's dismal rocks of dreary and 
 cheerless desolation. 
 
 The work wliich he undertook for his frienn, 
 then clutched with the desperation that the 
 drowning man grasps the drifting straw, proved 
 
THE CHANGING WIND AND TIDE. 
 
 153 
 
 lay more important than sJtbqr he or even his 
 friend liad anticipated. Thio was undertalcen 
 with a liope tiiat it might be the temporary means 
 of warding off the menacing giiost of -abject want, 
 liiuiiiiiating vagrancy, and gnawing hunger. All 
 of these he had acutely felt preying, upon him 
 most savagely during the past four days, on the 
 lonely, war-desolated liighwa,^-. Without a single 
 meal at a table, and with a bed at night on the 
 grass beneath the friendly foliage of a forest tree, 
 he made the journey : because he had no money to 
 pay for either, and was yet too proud to seek 
 lodging or meals without it. His solitary fifty- 
 cent piece fed him four days and ferried him over 
 two rivers. But this new employment soon filled 
 Ills pockets with money. 
 
 The wants of the country were dreadful, and 
 the pitiable condition of the people often heart- 
 rending to behold. Very many times, poor, Aveak 
 women and delicate httle children came on foot 
 twenty miles, packing their little burdens of grain, 
 ia order to obtain a trifle of much-needed mone}'. 
 Those who had a horse left, brought their stock 
 on its back ; and others yet still more fortunate, 
 loaded wagons. 
 
 All these little and larger, steadily pouring, and 
 ever increasing streams, rapidly, rapidly filled up 
 cars. At the high prices which grains then com- 
 manded, every four cars counted one hundred 
 dollars for G-ar land Cloud; and occasionally that 
 number were filled and shipped in one day. 
 
 The merchants were grasping and merciless in 
 their barter dealings with the poor, helpless farm- 
 ers, entirely in the power of those blind mercena- 
 ries ; who could not perceive the mad folly they 
 were perpetrating when" killing the goose in order 
 to secure the golden egg." They did this when 
 refusing to receive anything but cash or grain 
 for stajjle articles, and when selling other goods, 
 at from two to five hundred per cent, profit, in pay- 
 mem for farm products, for which they would not 
 allow more than two-thirds actual cash value. 
 
 Cloud witnessed these things day after day, with 
 deep chagrin, rankling mortification, and bitter 
 indignation. 
 
 At length, poor women who had (?bme twenty, 
 sometimes even fifty miles, to procure a little cof- 
 fee, cotton yarn, or other staple in exchange for 
 
 articles of produce such as appeared in the mer- 
 chants" proscribed list, began to go to Cloud with 
 tears in their eyes, and to implore him most pit- 
 eously to buy their eggs, their chickens, their 
 cheese, butter, or whatever it was, at any price, 
 in order to enable them to obtain the articles for 
 which they came so far, and with such painful 
 inconvenience. 
 
 He now had hundreds of dollars idle, which every 
 day was steadily increasing in amount. This de- 
 cided him to yield to their solicitations. He bought 
 some of their produce, and made trial shipments 
 to old comrades, who, poor and dependent like 
 himself, had embarked in the commission trade at 
 points of commercial interest. These were men 
 whom he beheved would exert themselves, be 
 prompt, and make honest returns. He wrote 
 them, fully detailing the situation of the poor 
 farmers, and the circumstances under \^•hicll he 
 had been driven to make the experimental pur- 
 chases and shipments. 
 
 The results were of the most gratifying nature, 
 and aroused in the young cavalryman the long 
 lethargic and wellnigh extinct embers of his fiery 
 genius. 
 
 Wheat harvest is passed, a magnificently boun- 
 tiful one; and the golden grain will soon be ready 
 for market. 
 
 It is midnight of an August Saturday when 
 Cloud finishes loading his last car, receives his 
 bill of lading, sees the cars that he has ready 
 coupled on to the freight train, di'ops his letter in 
 the post-box, and starts across a meadow and 
 orchard to his room, nearly a quarter of a mile 
 distant. 
 
 On the way he seats his weary frame under the 
 boughs of a grand old walnut-tree, to think quietly 
 for awhile, where nothing will chsturb his reflec- 
 tions. 
 
 Thus seated, he in fancy sees the pale ghastly 
 features of his lamented friend and beloved Gene- 
 ral, as they appeared one night in the valley of 
 Virginia; and hears his sorrowful and plaintive 
 voice, as he heard it then, when he was entreated 
 by his now long-mourned commander to devote 
 his life to the interest of the poor toil-worn agri- 
 culturists of his desolate yet ever sunny South. 
 And beside this spectral shadow of a vanished 
 
154 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 friend, hand in hand, stands the angehc form of 
 little Fannie, radiant with the glowing splendor of 
 her grand soul, as she stood before him on that 
 but lately flown July morning, pleading with 
 him in behalf of the same sad cause ; enthusiasti- 
 cally contrasting the glories of peaceful heroism 
 and devotion, with Jackson's undying military 
 renown. 
 
 Up to this moment he has done, perhaps, all 
 that he could do, yet the labor has been per- 
 formed without special effort or extra exertion. 
 Now the spectral forms which imagination places 
 before the closed eyes, speak, or seem to speak, 
 together : 
 
 " Your time is at hand. Act! Act! Act!" 
 
 From this seat G-arland Cloud arises under the 
 strongly intensified conviction that to him his 
 duty has been revealed, and its pathway clearly 
 demonstrated. With his hand upon his heart, he 
 raises his tear-dimmed eyes to Heaven's clear 
 and starry vaulted dome — night's mystical and 
 canopied wonder — and swears, there beneath the 
 sombre shadow of the low spreading thick foli- 
 age of that old walnut-tree, in the solemn silence 
 of this summer midnight, by the ghostly shades 
 of his battle-slumbering comrades, to devote his 
 life, through weal or woe, to promoting the inter- 
 est and encouraging the prosperity of the hus 
 bandmen of their Southern-land — the land they 
 loved so fondly, and died for so bravely, often amid 
 the victorious shouts of their legions, with their 
 yet defiant " Bonnie Blue Flag " flaunting in the 
 breeze, as the last sands of their devoted lives 
 were ebbing out — unembittered by the humilia- 
 ting spectacle reserved for their survivors, of wit- 
 nessing it trailing in the dust. 
 
 But for one sadly lamentable circumstance, here 
 is a rare and enviable character well worthy of 
 emulation. But, alas ! that terrible circumstance — 
 overcasting with a gloom deeper and blacker 
 than the most rayless midnight that ever oppres- 
 sed the earth with its impenetrable darkness, all 
 that he is or ever may be ; covering with a stain 
 that all the Atlantic's flood of blue and crystal 
 tides could never wash away, a fast-set ebon- 
 dye that all the Polar snows might never bleach 
 to its wonted whiteness — that deadly fatal con- 
 cealment. Its spectral ghost haunts- him as he 
 
 walks, slowly walks, on to his room. How deeply 
 he regrets it — yet all too late. The terrible step 
 has been taken with unthinking indiscretion, and 
 can be recalled nevermore, but must remain for- 
 ever the same in the eternal past. It is a deeply 
 planted and most securely rooted seed; ever 
 flourishing in dark luxuriance that defies alike the 
 summer's droutlis and winter's frosts; always 
 heavily laden with, and still prolifically yielding 
 its bitter fruits, from which the wretched planter 
 is doomed to eat, in sadness and woe, all the days 
 of his weary life. 
 
 Oh! as our mind lingers upon this wretched 
 mortal's silent and heart-rending agonies, and his 
 pitiful struggles to bear up beneath a crushmg 
 thralldom, while striving to respond with unmur- 
 muring, unswerving faithfulness to the stern 
 behest of imperious Duty's unpitying voice, what 
 emotions thrill our being ! Now, as from this 
 picture,— which is of necessity hidden from the 
 eyes of the world in which its victim moves, 
 where it might not enlist the slightest breath of 
 pitying sympathy, was its reality known, — we turn 
 to the bright and hope-buoyant young lives all 
 over this land who are doomed to kindred fates, 
 — tears, unAvorthy yet bitter, blinding tears of pity 
 well up from the deep, almost sterile cavities of 
 oui heart. Our cold benumbed, weary fingers 
 clutch the pen yet tighter; and we resolve 
 anew that our midnight lamp shall never be ex- 
 tinguished until our task is done, and our per- 
 chance unimpressible, yet conscientiously earnest, 
 voice of warning has gone forth on the swift 
 wings of the pure winds, telling all men whither 
 they are tending. 
 
 Poor Cloud ! he is past the hour when pity's 
 tear or misery's voice can soothe the bitterness of 
 his woe or warn his wayward foot from the brink 
 of the shppery precipice where he once stood 
 hesitating whether or not to assume the mask 
 of concealment. When he decided to accept its 
 services, this was the mad leap over the giddy 
 crag and down into the fathomless deptlis of the 
 yawning abyss of never-ending despair, from 
 whence he may rise no more. Hence, for him 
 we have no tears to waste, no word to stir the 
 wells of other hearts to overflow in sympathy, 
 because all pity would be bestowed in vain. 
 
THE CHANGING WIND AND TIDE. 
 
 155 
 
 But we draw the dark outlines of the grim 
 and spectral shadows that have extinguished his 
 lamps of hope, and enveloped his fair young hfe 
 with a gloomy darkness that no prosperity, no 
 power, no love can ever permanently and wholly 
 re-illuminate, with the desire that they may cause 
 sympathy and excite alarm for those who have 
 not quite taken the irretrievable step that sooner 
 or later leads to ruin. Thus we hope to arouse 
 vigilance and action before it is too late ; to put 
 forth determined and properly directed efforts 
 to save those tempted hkewise — something far 
 more feasible and practicable, and of graver im- 
 port to this great country than all the missionary 
 work beneath the cerulean dome of heaven ! 
 
 Cloud's usefulness to the agriculturist may often 
 and for long periods appear unimpaired. But 
 what is life to him, and what is he? He is 
 but the ghostly spectre of vanished hope ; his life 
 doomed to be but a cruel dream, with its every 
 destined sweet deeply impregnated with the tinc- 
 ture of poison's gall. Yet still must he be suffi- 
 ciently endowed and uncomplainingly nerved — 
 
 " In strength to bear what time'cannot abate. 
 And feed on bitter fruits without accusing Fate." 
 
 The breakfast of the Sabbath morning finds 
 him with his resolution taken and the plans con- 
 nected with it matured. 
 
 Now, in the peaceful pursuits of life, does the 
 trained genius of the scout and the commander, 
 the strong point characteristically in his nature, 
 begin to manifest the potency of its usefulness: 
 decision, coolness, action, simultaneously blended. 
 
 Five minutes' time suffices for him to arrange 
 witli the railroad agent and his brother to care 
 for his interests for ten daj^s. 
 
 When the sun goes down he is two hundred 
 miles on his way to the East. Monday night he 
 sleeps in New York. 
 
 He finds Silas Worthington early Tuesday 
 morning. The old Colonel receives him cordially, 
 and listens with interest to his concisely detailed 
 plans. "When he has finished, he is quietly in- 
 formed that he will be immediately placed on a 
 footing to buy all the goods he desires or may 
 desire. In addition to this, the Colonel gives him 
 an important agency. 
 
 He returns by Philadelphia, Baltimore, and 
 Richmond. In each of these commercial centres 
 he establishes most important connections : among 
 others, the buying of grains for mills, on commis- 
 sion, for cash ; they furnishing the money. 
 
 He arranges for the shipment of every species 
 of produce ; and to draAv to a liberal extent on 
 bills of lading against all shipments whenever he 
 desires to do so. 
 
 In New York he buys an immense stock of 
 goods for the market to which they are intended 
 to go.' 
 
 Learning from New York merchants the prices 
 at which similar goods would be offered in agri- 
 cultural districts not located in the Southern 
 States, he has a large number of posters printed, 
 naming prices at which he will sell many leading 
 articles : " Strictly for cash ; no bartering under 
 any circumstances whatever." Then follows the 
 bold and startling announcement that, "For every 
 descriptionof produce, a fair market value will 
 be paid in cash." 
 
 Thus situated, he returns. The same day he 
 arrives he leases an immense store and ware- 
 house down at the railroad track, for a merely 
 nominal rent. Before noon he has some carpen- 
 ters and a gang of freedmen at work putting the 
 premises in good order. By the time the goods 
 arrive, everything is ready. 
 
 Heat once employs the most experienced sales- 
 men. For himself he fits up an office between the 
 store and the ware-house. In this ware-house 
 all produce is received and weighed, and the 
 owner furnished with a ticket by which the set- 
 tlement is made in the office. But before the 
 produce is bought it is sampled in the ware- 
 house; and the owner passes with his samples 
 into the office, where Cloud buys his stock. 
 Then, after the settlement, and the man has re- 
 ceived his money, he is cordially solicited to call 
 again whenever he has anything to sell; and 
 passes from the office out into the store. But 
 Cloud never once intimates to a man that he 
 wishes to sell him goods ; yet, notwithstanding, 
 he always sells more than he could have sold 
 had he attempted to buy the produce for part 
 trade and with far less trouble. 
 
 In the brief space of two months, the business 
 
156 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 is so large that it astonishes even himself : it en- 
 slaves him. Wagons arrive from a distance of 
 one hundred miles on either side of the railroad. 
 Everything Cloud touches turns to gold. By 
 the New Year's season, he is the most prosperous 
 man within a radius of one hundred miles around 
 him ; and is far surpassing the business of any one 
 else. 
 
 He reduces the price of goods to a fair and 
 legitimate standard, and opens up channels to 
 receive everything the farmer can produce, at 
 liberally remunerative figures. He certainly fairly 
 redeems his pledges fully a thousand times more 
 extensively than he had any reason or grounds 
 to anticipate. Still he goes on increasing. 
 
 For eighteen hours every day, he labors in- 
 cessantly. He is in bed no more than four hours, 
 from one to five o'clock a. m. 
 
 Just now he finds, as it were, an oblivion of 
 blissful forgetfulness, without time to think of the 
 past, and feels : 
 
 " Tet though a dreary strain, to this I cling, 
 So that it wean me from the weary dream 
 Of selfish grief or gladness— so it fling 
 
 Forgetfulness around mo, it shall seem 
 To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THE CUAMBKR OF DEATH. 
 
 " There is not a flower on all the hills ; the frost is on 
 the pane ; 
 I cannot live to see the snow-drops come again. 
 
 *********** 
 O sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day 
 
 is done; 
 The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun — 
 Forever and forever with those just souls and true— 
 And what is life, that we should moan? why make we 
 
 such ado? 
 
 *********** 
 
 On the chancell'd casement, and upon that grave of 
 
 mine, 
 In the early, early morning, the summer sun will 
 
 shine." —Tennyson. 
 
 After the bustling excitement of preparation is 
 over — the jubilee of the wedding celebration has 
 died away, the debris been removed, and the old 
 mansion has assumed an air of pensive quiet, in 
 ominous sympathy with its unhappy master, — 
 Norman Mountjoy rallies again sufficiently to 
 
 attend to business in a purely mechanical method, 
 acquired from long years of perpetual habit. But 
 the heart of the poor man is no more in his work : 
 it is broken, and its fragments are buried in the 
 sepulchre of the past. Literally, his soul has gone 
 from him. 
 
 He knows that the wife of his bosom has grown 
 heartless and unscrupulous. -That she has stooped 
 to employ some basely ignoble means in order to 
 command sufficient money to prepare the brilliant 
 and princely wedding of her daughters, he is most 
 positively assured; as to its nature, he as a matter 
 of course cannot conjecture. 
 
 His wife, the adored idol of his early manhood 
 and of his life's summer, has been almost entirely 
 estranged from him ever since their unpleasant 
 interview relative to funds for this identical pur- 
 pose. 
 
 The fate of poor Pleasington, and the blighted 
 life of hapless Effie also weigh with bitter sever- 
 ity upon his mind. He feels satisfied that Pleas- 
 ington is not only innocent, but that he was the 
 victim of some demoniacal machination, and that 
 Mrs. Mountjoy is its cause and instigator. Two 
 days after Effie's retirement within the seclusion 
 of the convent. Madam Mountjoy calls at that 
 institution to see Miss Edelstein ; but this young 
 heart-stricken mourner obstinately refuses to grant 
 her admittance. 
 
 The misgivings of Effie in relation to the cause 
 that wrought Lawrence's destruction, and so 
 cruelly blighted her own fair young life once so 
 full of blissful dreams, are the same as those of hef 
 poor, slowly-dying uncle. 
 
 After Madam Mountjoy's return from this visit, 
 she is hke a demented creature, a very Uoness in 
 human form ; and appears the picture of despair — 
 a prey to that unrelenting demon: remorse oi 
 conscience. This spirit, in her case, has been 
 aroused from the callousness of lethargic inertness, 
 only when she finds that the spoils of her more 
 than savage atrocity are securely beyond her 
 grasp, and safe from the reach and power of her 
 fiendish influence. She ceases to make calls or ta 
 receive visits. 
 
 Two months later, Arnold Noel, her nephew 
 of such truly kindred congeniality of nature and 
 propensity, is arrested for an aggravated case of 
 
THE CHAMBER OF DEATH. 
 
 157 
 
 burglary in his own city, and is held in thirty 
 thousand dollars bail, which his father furnishes, 
 the young culprit jumps, and the old gentleman 
 has to pay. 
 
 This eifectually terminates all the damnable de- 
 signs of his wicked aunt in relation to him, as far 
 as he is now concerned. But, alas 1 it does not 
 atone for the ruin which'they have alread}' entailed 
 upon others, nor relieve them from the odium, 
 nor the active operation of the cruel, impending 
 thralldom beneath which they groan. 
 
 As to ISTorman Mountjoy, he is preparing for 
 the end with all the diligence and dispatch of 
 which his feeble and ever-declining strength ad- 
 mits, because he knoAvs that it is near. 
 
 Oglethrop and Eva are his source of consoln- 
 tion and cheer — true, faithful, constant. For them 
 he wrestles with the grim, unpitying Angel; of 
 them he thinks. For their sakes he plans and 
 labors ; rouses himself, by superhuman efforts, to 
 endure the painfully trying ordeal of going to and 
 from business ; and laboring in it, daj^ after day, 
 in order to arrange for the future of these two 
 tenderly devoted children. He desires to instruct 
 his son-in-law in 'the firm principles and sterling 
 truths requisite to direct and control a young man, 
 that he may achieA^e certain and stable success, 
 and establish a well-merited reputation as a mer- 
 chant of undeviating integrity — the unblemished 
 soul of honor. This he had himself ever been, 
 and as such he will sink into the grave. Early in 
 the cold and bleak December of 1865, these la- 
 bors are all consummated to his satisfaction. 
 
 Christmas-day he is no longer able to leave his 
 room. From this day, he sinks rapidly. On Ncav 
 Year's eve it is evident that the end is near with 
 the poor, patient sufferer, Avho, i-ational and 
 in the full possession of his faculties, never utters 
 a groan. 
 
 Oglethrop and Eva keep a solemn watch-meet- 
 ing — a sad yet beautiful picture of devotion and 
 resignation, here in this chamber of death — the 
 two young and tender-hearted children watching 
 beside the couch of a dying father, in the last hours 
 of the dying year. 
 
 With a great effort he partially raises himself 
 higher upon the pillows and speaks : 
 
 " Eva, get Tennyson's poems, please, my dar- 
 
 ling, and read me the second part of ' Tlie May 
 Queen." 
 
 "Now, my children, remember this, and its 
 beautifid gospel sentiments, breathed in every line. 
 Yes, I too, shall be ''often, often near you' if I 
 can. I know yon will come sometimes to see 
 my gi'ave. 
 
 "One thing: bury me neatly; plain, but not 
 extravagantly. This is an injunction; do not, I 
 entreat you, disregard it. Be kind to your mother; 
 she is mad with despair — the victim of circum- 
 stances which pecuhar social influences and 
 errors have heaped upon her. God help her! 
 
 " Well, my children, I am keeping the watch- 
 meeting with you, a double watch-meeting. 
 
 "Last year, my Eva, we were at the church, 
 Avatching and praying for peace for our poor 
 country during the New Year. Thank God Ave 
 have lived to see it. Now I am watching and 
 waiting for that peace that will last for evermore, 
 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and the 
 weary are at rest.' 
 
 "Live my children, I beg of you, live true, natu- 
 ral lives. In your private, social and other relations 
 in and Avith the world, act fully up to Avhat you 
 appear. Do not dissemble and deceive ; for your 
 own hearts would give your actions the lie, and 
 the conscience forever render your lives miserable 
 by its perpetual accusations. 
 
 "There is rarely very httle, if any, present 
 pleasure or benefit in acting and living falsely — 
 in appearing to the world in the light of day, a 
 far different creature from what in God's and 
 your own sight you are viewed. And its certain 
 and unavoidable penalties are terrible. 
 
 "I have, in my active career as a merchant, a 
 husband, and a father, but one feature in my life 
 to look back at AA'ith regret; and that is not one 
 of commission, but of omission. It eclipses and 
 darkens my whole life with the rayless blackness 
 of despair. It is comprised in my neglect of duty 
 to my family, in omitting to govern my own 
 household Avith wise and prudent economy. Now 
 I am paying the penalty : sinking into the grave 
 the pitiable A'ictim of a broken heart. But I thank 
 God that it is this, and not dishonor. 
 
 "I could have taken my station in a lower 
 sphere of life, and been resigned; but your poor 
 
158 
 
 MYSTIC KOI^IANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 mother could not. She did not realize, could not 
 realize the situation, nor what she was doing. 
 
 " This disappointment ci'ushed all hope out of 
 my being. I have been lingering in slow and 
 fearful torture; but now the pangs of going are 
 much alleviated, since I can leave you, my poor 
 children, with a brightly promising future opened 
 up for you. Take care of it. Guard it with re- 
 ligious zeal; and never permit yourselves to be 
 allured from the path of Uuth, honor, right, and 
 you will fulfill your destiny most nobly, by leading 
 pure lives illuminated with the brilhancy of ex- 
 emplary usefulness. 
 
 "Remember my words, because they are the 
 oflFsprings of a bitter experience — and still more: 
 they are uttered from between the threshold of 
 Time and the portal of the great Unknown. 
 
 " Should my summons come suddenly, before 
 your sisters come again, tell them I love and pity 
 them in my last moments ; and that I left with 
 you my blessing and my farewell. 
 
 " And httle EfSe, the wounded dove — poor, 
 broken heart ! I will not have to wait but a httle 
 while for her to come — convey to her in tender 
 words, gentle tokens of my sympathy and my 
 love ; and that my consolation is, that when for 
 her cross she receives a crown, Ave shall meet 
 again Tell her that for her this was my last 
 farewell. 
 
 " And now, my little children, I am weary and 
 sleepy. I go to sleep, but you must call me as 
 the New Year is coming in, for I would hear the 
 knell of the departing year, as you must hear 
 mine." 
 
 It is the immortal, the spirit of poor Mount- 
 joy, that has rallied the prostrate form, animated 
 the pallid cheek, unloosened the tongue from the 
 paralytical chords rf death, that enables him to 
 speak. This creates in the breasts of his sorrow- 
 stricken children the delusive hope that he has 
 taken a sudden turn for the better. 
 
 He sleeps as tranquil as a little babe — the 
 beautiful sleep of the innocent, with a sweet smile 
 on his lips. 
 
 The gas is turned low, and renders the appear- 
 ance of the apartment semi-spectral. Perhaps, 
 with the dim shadows reflected by the low- 
 burning lights, is mingled, too, the awe-inspiring 
 
 hues of shade created by the solemu iuliueuce of 
 the presence of the Death Angel. 
 
 Without, the merciless northern blast of winter's 
 chill and cruel wind wails a mourful requiem. 
 
 Steadily the unerring, ever-moving hand on 
 the dial of Time ghdes smoothly along, meting 
 out, one by one, its measure of little seconds from 
 the great reservoir of inexhaustible Eternity ; 
 unheeding the mortal agonies that are wreaked 
 upon the children of Earth, while these items of 
 infinitesimal ages are multiplying one short hour. 
 
 At last, the old clock on the mantel, that has 
 measured so many painfully weary and sleep- 
 less hours for the poor sufierer within the past 
 year, marks ten minutes to midnight. Then Eva 
 goes cautiously up to the bed-side, and falteringly, 
 yet softly and tenderly, says: "Father, the hour 
 is come for the bells to toll." ' 
 
 Slowly he opens his grand, sad, dim eyes, and 
 turns them from first one object to another around 
 the room ; finally they rest upon his children — • 
 fixed in a steadfast gaze of fondest tenderness. 
 
 Now, like a thunder clap, the first sharp notes 
 from the brazen throats of a myriad of bells are 
 borne and wafted by the cold and bitter wind 
 and break upon the startled ear of night — the 
 death summons of a year. 
 
 Poor, world-weary, sinking sufierer I He hears; 
 for he smiles, and makes a perceptible effort to 
 fold his arms more tightly across his breast. As 
 the peaHng chorus swells and reverberates, his 
 eyes gradually close ; the flush on the cheek, that 
 rose with the smile, fades as its traces vanish ; and 
 the face assumes a marble placidity. There is no 
 labored breathing — not a struggle within that 
 poor, pain-racked breast. 
 
 Poor children! they think, "how easy papa has 
 gone to sleep;" and he has, too, gone quietly to 
 sleep — the sleep that hath no dreams. 
 
 As the last knell of the^ bells is tolled and 
 dying away, and while the departing year, with its 
 stores of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, fes- 
 tivity and death, is fast disappearing on the 
 completed revolution of the wheel of Time, the 
 suffering soul is free, and winging its way to its 
 long and merited abode. 
 
 Norman Mountjoy is deadi Poor, world- 
 weary, heart-broken, noble, pure, true manl 
 
THE ANGELS OF THE MOUNTAIN. 
 
 159 
 
 Alas that he should pay a penalty so terrible for 
 au omission of duty so apparently trivial in its 
 nature. Sad to reflect, that it was so shamefully 
 abused by a cruel hearted, a basely unappreciative 
 wife. Wretched woman ! when she beheld the 
 matured fruit which she had planted from the 
 seeds of indiscretionj nurtured so lavishly fi-om am- 
 bition's copious fountain for so many years, rather 
 than submit to the humiliation of partaking of 
 its bitter substance, she did not scruple to stab 
 him to the heart with a yet more unmerciful and 
 venomous thrust than the dagger which found 
 Duncan's breast, directed thither by the wicked 
 whisper of a woman. 
 
 But brave man, admirable mind, constant, 
 faithful heart! To stand firm for the true and 
 the right, and behold all liis hopes vanish, the 
 last prospect in life destroyed, and even expe- 
 rience life itself steadily, day by day, ebbing out, 
 rather than stain the fair and brightly shining 
 name with dishonor — rare and beautifully exem- 
 plary manhood! The last of his name in his race 
 and line, he leaves to the great world a noble ex- 
 ample of virtue, and an appalling warning against 
 ill-order and neglect in the little world of honae. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THE ANGELS OF THE JIOUNTAIN. 
 
 " His quoen, the garden queen his rose, 
 Unbent by winds, uncliillecl by snows. 
 Far from the winters of the West 
 By every breeze and season blest."— BYEON. 
 
 We last saw Gertrude and Rosalia Flowers in 
 their own mountain cabin, the evening when, 
 long years ago, they related to Carrie Harman the 
 story of their lives and wrongs, and were by her 
 christened "The Angels of the Mountain." 
 
 We were, when taking leave of them, promis- 
 ed that after the gloomy shadow of the war- 
 cloud had been dispelled, we might be permitted 
 to meet them once more in the sacred retirement 
 of their remote seclusion. But we are doomed to 
 sad disappointment. We have tarried too long in 
 our wanderings. The mountain roses have been 
 plucked and borne away ; the strong eagles of the 
 valley have swooped down upon the timid doves, 
 
 and carried them away from their own cozy 
 mountain cote. 
 
 Little Rosa has bloomed to 2:)erfect and most 
 beautiful womanhood. Their Jesse returned to 
 them in safety. 
 
 The admiration and sympathy of Carrie Har- 
 man for these two adopted children of the mount- 
 ain, would neither permit their pathetic story 
 nor themselves to remain buried amid the 
 obscurity of their simple neighbors, in the deep 
 remoteness of their lonely solitude. She visited 
 them, and induced others to visit them, and 
 actually, as it were, forced them to go to the 
 valley. They were both admired and esteemed 
 by every one with whom they became acquainted 
 
 Upon both Carrie Harman's father and brother, 
 they produced a vital impression, which resulted 
 in a rather novel double wedding during the 
 hoUdays of the Christmas of 1865, and a grand 
 festival at the Harman mansion. We now find 
 the guests there assembled, to enjoy the liberal 
 profusion of this happy occasion. But we are 
 not specially interested in the present relations of 
 the happy couples, and will not for the moment 
 disturb them. 
 
 But, after the guests have all partaken of the, 
 supper, let us hear what one of the most honored, 
 yet still a volunteer waiter at the table, and Miss 
 Carrie, who are seated alone at a small side-table, 
 to enjoy a quiet supper, have to say. 
 
 Carrie: "Well, General, it is a comfort to sit 
 down. I know you must be wearied. I should 
 be vexed at you for forcing yourself into this 
 menial position that young people should fulfill, 
 were it not that I have both the pleasure and the 
 honor of supping with you." 
 
 Gen. Cloud: "I could not resist the tempta- 
 tion to assist the "Angel of Consolation" in her 
 burdensome duties as mistress of ceremonies on 
 this happy occasion; and the pleasure of this 
 quiet moment with her would more than com- 
 pensate for the labors which I have performed, 
 were they a hundred times as great." 
 
 Carrie: " Thank you for that comphment, 
 which I prize, coming as it does from one who 
 detests flattery. 
 
 " But, by the way General, do you not regard 
 this as a novel affair? " 
 
160 
 
 I^IYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Gen. C : ''It wants only one thing to have 
 
 rendered it indeed unique — that is you, and Jesse, 
 the heroic httle Colonel; and I am rather sur- 
 prised and somewhat disappointed that you two 
 are left out." 
 
 Carrie : " How unkindly ungenerous and un- 
 charitable it is of you to say this, G-eneral, when 
 neither of us ever for one moment even dreamed 
 of such a thing. Col. Flowers is to be to me as 
 a brother; I to him as a sister : this is settled. 
 
 " To use a vulgarism, I do not know one young 
 lady ' who would not accept him at the drop of a 
 hat.' I for one, was the opportunity afforded me, 
 but for the fact that there are reasons unknown 
 to any one but myself, that keep me free from 
 matrimonial entanglements. One cannot always 
 vouch for the freedom of one's heart, but I am re- 
 solved to be free in person, at least, until my vow 
 is fulfilled. 
 
 " Our young men are so badly demoralized by 
 the war that, as to the most of them, a girl can- 
 not promise herself much when marrying any one 
 of them." 
 
 Gen. : "That last remark is a sad and 
 
 lamentable truth, and I often cannot refrain from 
 shuddering when I contemplate the dissipation 
 and the degeneracy that I witness spread broad- 
 cast everywhere I go ; and still it increases every 
 day." 
 
 Carrie : " Oh, it is horrible! -I deplore it ; and 
 I much fear that this will prove a greater calamity 
 to the country than all the Islighting effects of the 
 war itself. 
 
 " The dear, dead faces were radiant with honor, 
 and noble as the pictures of true manliness — their 
 sad memory is a comfort. But an unworthy man 
 is continually augmenting his own depravity, and 
 leaving behind him, as he journeys over the earth, 
 its indelible stains, which contaminate and mar 
 with venomous poison many other lives. 
 
 "When did you last hear from Col. Garland, 
 General ? " 
 
 Gen. C : " Not since the surrender ; nor 
 
 have I the remotest idea where the poor boy is. 
 This is enough to warp, sour and embitter his 
 life for all time. I do not think that lie would 
 be in much danger at home, certainly there could 
 be no sort of risk in his writing; but this he does 
 
 not know. I feel quite certain that if he did, he 
 would write. I do not suffer much uneasiness 
 about him; yet still I would like to know where 
 he is and what he is doing." 
 
 Carrie : " How cruel that this ghost of the 
 war should still haunt him. Our gratitude to you 
 and him can never be repaid. 
 
 "How does his lady-love bear his silent al>- 
 sence? Does she remain faitliful and true, vrndc 
 this severely trying test? " 
 
 Gen. C : " Fortunately there are no such 
 
 tender relations between him and any young lady. 
 He has no lady-love to sigh for him." 
 
 Carrie : " How singular ! and his life the verit- 
 able spirit of romance. Did he correspond with 
 no young lady during all those dreary years of 
 home- and social-severing strife ? " 
 
 Gen. C : "All the romance about him was 
 
 intense and earnest; and I am compelled to 
 admit that, though apparently desperate and 
 madly reckless, it was cool and deliberate action. 
 
 " In regard to your question, it is direct and 
 pointed; and a true, non-evasive answer forces 
 me to reveal a sacred secret, confided to me under 
 pecuhar circumstances : 
 
 " On the field of Gettysburg, I reprimanded him 
 for his rash and reckless exploits, which I have 
 since much regretted. 
 
 " In self-defense he, among many other things, 
 detailed to me the particulars and results of a cor- 
 respondence between himself and a young lady, 
 together with the motives which actuated him to 
 engage in it at the outset, and the desires that 
 prompted him to continue it. 
 
 " Pardon me. Miss Harman, if I say too much, 
 when I inform you that it is you who could give 
 me ten times more information about the nature 
 and the reality of this correspondence than he 
 gave me. You have forced me to say to you 
 what no one could have done. To all the world 
 besides, my lips are sealed.' 
 
 Carrie : " Well, General, there is nothing in 
 that correspondence to cause either of us to 
 blush. Of it and its results I am piously proud. 
 There is in all his cautiously guarded pages 
 naught but careful reserve. Not one sentence, 
 phrase, or even word meant as coming to clothft 
 a personal sentiment from him to me. for myself 
 
THE ANGEL AND THE FIEND. 
 
 161 
 
 alone, that would console or soothe the weary 
 longings in the heart of a sentimental, sighing 
 maiden. G-en. Cloud, I tell you they would chill 
 an icicle. 
 
 " His beautiful sentiments, flowing with the 
 currents of all his profuse compliments, that might 
 have flattered a Venus, were in the name of the 
 mountain boys and the country. Thattvas ally 
 
 At this stage of their conversation a messenger 
 comes in to say that their presence is specially 
 desired in the parlor. Supper being finished, 
 they hasten to respond. 
 
 In the parlor every one is on the tip-toe of 
 expectation, awaiting in breathless suspense for 
 the announcement of some strange and startling 
 mj-stery connected with Mrs. G-ertrude 'Flowers. 
 
 On the afternoon train a gentleman arrived 
 from the East, and registered at the principal 
 railway-town hotel, a number of miles from the 
 Harman mansion. 
 
 After taking some refreshment, he made special 
 inquiries of the landlord concerning Mrs. Flowers, 
 of Little Beaver Mountain ; and, as a matter of 
 course, learned her connection with the festive 
 occasion at the Harman homestead. Without 
 delay he procured a conveyance, and ordered the 
 driver to speed post-haste, in order to arrive 
 there before the gay scene should close ; which 
 was done, much to his gratification. This was an 
 eminent New York lawyer, and a member of the 
 firm employed by Ira Atkinson and Adam 
 Stringfellow several months previou.s, to find 
 !Mvs. Flowers and to restore to her her rightful 
 heritage, with interest, after its long years of pur- 
 loined service had aided them to amass colossal 
 fortunes. 
 
 For a long time the efibrts of the attorneys 
 were discouragingl}^ futile. 
 
 At length, however, late in December, Silas 
 Worthington's eye chanced to fall on their ad- 
 vertisement. His well disciplined business mind 
 at once recalled the circumstance of the Clxrist- 
 mas presents of himself and Efiie Edelstein, sent 
 to the poor mountain widow in acknowledg- 
 ment of the care and kindness bestowed by her 
 son on Lawrence Pleasington ; and he recalled 
 also the address, and at once informed the at- 
 torneys 
 
 Upon this information the gentleman referred 
 to, set out personally to investigate whether or not 
 the clue thus obtained would lead to the result 
 they sought to accomplish. 
 
 After a few moments' consultation with the 
 senior Harman and Jesse Flowers, the interview 
 was arranged between the attorney and Mrs. 
 Harman, to take place immediately in the private 
 parlor, in the presence of the most intimate 
 friends of the two families, as they were before 
 the wedding, but now merged into one. 
 
 In response to the interrogatives of the legal 
 man, Mrs. Harman stated concisely the same points 
 which she so fully and graphically detailed in the 
 chapter," The Mountain Cabin"; which satisfied 
 him that she was the veritable Gertrude Flowers 
 whom he sought; and resulted in his declaring 
 her to be the legitimate heiress of " an immense 
 fortune, which he. was prepared to transfer to 
 her." 
 
 CHAPTER XLL 
 
 THE ANGEL AND THE FIEND WRESTLE WITH THE 
 GRIM MESSENGER. 
 
 "I can't forget the day she died. 
 
 She placed her hand upon my head, 
 And softly whispered, 'keep my child' 
 And then they told me she was dead." 
 • —Old Song. 
 
 Such were the lines, which, in her delirium 
 from a fiercely wasting fever, the pale, patient- 
 faced Sisters of Charity, as they anxiously watched 
 beside her lowly cot, often heard ESie Edelstein 
 repeating, in the middle days of January, 1866. 
 Thus her mind traveled back in it's wildly incoher- 
 ent wanderings to that affecting scene in her ten- 
 der childhood of the death and the parting with her 
 mother; and that other still more recent and bit- 
 terly cruel experience of persecution Irom which 
 she sought refuge in her present asylum for a little 
 while,there to wait for that more secure and endur- 
 ing protection that always comes as a grateful boon 
 to the pure in heart who can find no repose nor 
 peace in fife — " the merciful quietude of the cold 
 and silent grave." 
 
 The diagnosis of the physicians determined her 
 case to be one of pulmonary consumption, sud- 
 
162 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 denly developed from the deep-rooted seeds of a 
 violent cold; but, poorEffie, how little they knew 
 of the mysterious truth 
 
 Let those who desire to know the veritable 
 origin and the actual nature of her malady read 
 Washington Irving's most beautiful and patheti- 
 cally tender essay, " The Broken Heart." There 
 this case is pictured in its true and appropriate 
 colors, so vividly natural that we dare not at- 
 tempt a description of it, because to do so would 
 be but to produce something so nearly modeled 
 after this masterpiece from that matchless pen, 
 as to incur the risk of an^apparently well-grounded 
 charge of that most detestable of all non-legally 
 punishable crimes — plagiarism. 
 
 Effie was ill — confined to her bed — when she 
 heard of her dear uncle's death. 
 
 From this day, it was but painfully evident to 
 her sympathetic sisters — among whom there were 
 many hearts which had bled like her own — that 
 her days were few. They were satisfied, before 
 the end of the first month of the new year, that, 
 wrapped in her shroud of spotless white, rivaling 
 the bleached and snowy ermine that in its purity 
 mantled the earth, Effie Edelstein, whose heart 
 and life had been ever pure and spotless as that 
 snow, would be borne out from the friendly shel- 
 ter of the consecrated walls and bars which form 
 a saintly prison where the weary soul may find 
 .peace and security alike from persecution's darts 
 and passion's flames, to the endless repose of the 
 silent church-yard. 
 
 Her earthly wealth was bequeathed to Orlando 
 and Eva. 
 
 The same night on which tidings of Effie's pros- 
 pective death reached her, Helen Mountjoy took 
 poison. She lingered for ten days, was often ra- 
 tional, and talked freely to Orlando and Eva. 
 
 Remorse of conscience was preying upon her 
 withunpityingseverity every breath she drew, on 
 to that which was her last; when she died, as she 
 had long lived, in miserable wretchedness. 
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 CONFIDING THK DA UK SECRET. 
 
 " A man cannot possess anything better than a good 
 Woman, nor anything worse than a bad one." 
 
 — SIMONIDES. 
 
 The year 1866 was well advanced wken there 
 came to G-arland Cloud a letter from Orlando 
 Oglethrop, proposing to form a firm, to be com- 
 posed of himself, Cloud, Jesse Flowers, and Edgar 
 Harman, to be domiciled in New York, for the 
 purpose of prosecuting a dii-ect Southern trade 
 with such Southern branches or connections as 
 might be deemed desirable and expedient. 
 
 After consulting Flowers and Harman, Cloud 
 proceeded to New York with their powei-s of 
 attorney, to consummate the arrangement. This 
 he entered into with alacrity, because it opened 
 up to him for the benefit of the Southern people 
 a far more extended field in which to labor. 
 
 The arrangement was completed, business to 
 open September 1st, 1867. It was stipulated that 
 Cloud should master the cotton trade, the art of 
 grading and classing. In order to do this, he at 
 once arranged to spend part of the season of 
 1866-67 in a prominent New York office, and 
 at the same time to have his home interests prop- 
 erly protected. 
 
 This plan was suggested l\v Silas Worthington, 
 who had become Cloud's warmest and most ad- 
 miring friend. 
 
 The time for starting a business such as con- 
 templated, was most propitious. Rarely, if ever, 
 was there a firm organized with brighter or more 
 hope-inspiring promises than those which cheered 
 the four young men who were preparing to em- 
 bark in the enterprise just indicated. 
 
 While in New York, Cloud met and became 
 most intimate with Major Eugene Lovelace^ the 
 staff officer whom he captured in the winter of 
 1861-2, in the parlor of the Fairchilds, where he 
 was so happily entertained by Miss Leonora. 
 
 After he has been in New York some two 
 months, he is seated one night in a private parlor 
 alone with Oglethrop, where they had met pur- 
 suant to an appointment. 
 
CONFIDING THE DAEK SECRET. 
 
 163 
 
 Cloud : Well, Lieutenant, it is of DOor Pleas- 
 ington and his woes, and of nothing else, that we 
 are to talk to-night. Poor fellow ! How I pity 
 liim ! " 
 
 OoLETHRor: "Yes, Colonel, for that we have 
 met. I have promised to tell you something 
 about which it makes my blood run cold to think. 
 I may do wrong, but J rely on your word of 
 honor that in case it can be turned to no account 
 in poor Lawrence's behalf, you will never think 
 of it very intensely in the presence of any one, 
 and breathe it under no circumstances." 
 
 Cloud: " I swear that it shall be as securely 
 locked in my breast as if it was eternally buried 
 in the grave." 
 
 Ogletiirop: " Oh, my Grod! alas that it is 
 my mother-in-law of whom I must speak — a 
 name that should be sacred and hallowed. What 
 a memory to associate with the dead I 
 
 " She commenced to make her confession to 
 Eva and I, about midnight of the second night 
 after she drank the poison. She was perfectly 
 rational, and suffered the agonies of torment 
 while recounting the terrible deeds. 
 
 " She stated that her first erroneous step was 
 inducing Atkinson and Stringfellow to rob Mrs. 
 Flowers. 
 
 " Previous to this she had conceived the idea 
 of a union between these two men and her two 
 daughters. Her object was, while augmenting 
 their store of wealth, thus to place them in her 
 power, in order to insure their compliance with any 
 wish she might choose to intimate to thera. This 
 part of her plot was all that she designed it to be. 
 
 " The next was to procure money to furnish the 
 princely wedding of her daughters, after she 
 learned her husband's distressingly straitened 
 circumstances. 
 
 " She skillfully arranged to place her two 
 daughters in the society, and under the ostensi- 
 ble protection of Van Allen and Mortimer, having 
 previously instructed the poor girls how unseemly 
 to conduct themselves, with utmost ahandon of 
 propriety. 
 
 "The girls acted their parts to perfection. 
 They agreed to clandestine meetings, and stipu- 
 lated that they must be at some out-of-town cot- 
 
 tage, which their intended victims could rent and 
 furnish indefinitely; and that as soon as com- 
 pleted, they must each write a letter to each girl, 
 fully describing the locality, the time, the place, 
 and mode of their first meeting. 
 
 " The letters were not tardy in coming, and 
 went, as a matter of course, into the mother's 
 hands, who used them so adroitly as to obtain all 
 the mpney she wanted. 
 
 "After the wedding, her schemings wanted 
 then only the union of Arnold Noel and poor 
 Effie to make them all a success fully equal to 
 her cruel heart's desire ; and she was not slow 
 in her mind and actions to conceive and put to 
 work such machinations as she deemed would 
 insure the result which she sought to attam. 
 
 "But, fiendish horrors! this involved putting 
 Lawrence out of the way. 
 
 " She drew, or rather drove, Atkinson and 
 Stringfellow into this plot; but found so many 
 readily available facihties, that it was not neces- 
 sary to bring into it her biddable son,s-in-law. I 
 am truly glad that this stain is not upon them, 
 since they have doubtless made restitution to 
 Mrs. Flowers ; which fact goes far toward prov- 
 ing that but for their mother-in-law's influence, 
 they might never have been guilty of that igno- 
 minious crime. 
 
 " It seems, from the tenor of her narration, that 
 the most confidential teller in the bank in which 
 Lawrence was employed, the night watchman 
 and two poHcemen on the beats most nearly ad- 
 jacent to the bank, were easily bought into the 
 scheme, with a large sum of money — the balance 
 of that so adroitly extorted from Van Allen and 
 Mortimer. 
 
 " The plan was this : On leaving the bank in 
 the evening, the teller was to take quite a large 
 sum of money with him — having previously ar- 
 ranged with Lawrence to call for him at his 
 home, to go out together for the evening. 
 
 " Once in the home of Lawrence, then there 
 was nothing more to do than to frame some pre- 
 text to get into his room, and find an opportunity 
 there to conceal the money, where it would be 
 found as irrefutable evidence of Lawrence's 
 guilt. 
 
164 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 " During the night, while one of the policemen 
 •watched, the other was to slij) into the bank the 
 back way and tie the watchman hard and fast in 
 the director's private room ; and the watchman 
 was to tell the story that masked men tied him, 
 among whom there was one who knew the-com- 
 bination, opened the safe, took the "money, and 
 then locked the safe again. Lawrence knew the 
 combination. 
 
 " The next day, when search was instituted in 
 the houses and rooms of bank employes, be- 
 cause of this fact being stated that one of the 
 robbers knew the combination, the money, or 
 rather about one-fourth the amount missing, was 
 found in poor Lawrence's room, which speedily 
 doomed him to his present gloomy and hopeless 
 fate. 
 
 " It seems that the safe was not touched in the 
 night, that stouv being merely a part of the plan 
 to fix the evidence of guilt upon Lawrence with 
 greater certainty. 
 
 " It was not, perhaps, the design of the plotters 
 to take any more money from the bank than the 
 amount to be left in Lawrence's room : but the 
 opportunity was too good and the temptation too 
 great. There can be no doubt but that the teller 
 appropriated the balance. 
 
 " This made it go much harder Avith Lawrence, 
 as the bank officers and the authorities believed 
 that he knew who had the balance of the missing 
 money, and might give them information that 
 would lead to its recovery." 
 
 Cloud: "The demon's subtlety! "Were the 
 angels from Heaven to come down and testify to 
 poor Pleasington's innocence, no court nor gov- 
 ernor would believe them. This woman's con- 
 fession, had it been legally taken, would have 
 no sort of weight, without some evidence 
 of the guilt of the actual criminals ; and this 
 we cannot well get. Her testimony that she 
 liad employed those parties to commit the 
 crime, but that she did not see it committed, 
 and hence could not have known who did 
 commit it, would amount to nothing, not even 
 if we had it in shape, without corroboration ; 
 and there can be no corroboration but tes- 
 timony sufficiently overwhelming to convict the 
 
 guilty parties ; and that is not within the reach 
 of mortal man." 
 
 Ogletukop: "Then you really think we can 
 do nothing for him." 
 
 Cloud : " That is worth no more to Lawrence 
 Pleasington than a dream would be, except to 
 convince two or three of us that he is innocent ; 
 and that amounts to noticing while all the balance 
 of the world will believe him guilty. No, Lieut. 
 Oglethrop, it would be cruel to attempt to do 
 anything for him with not the ghost of a show 
 to succeed. Against the terrible array of evi- 
 dence on record against him we have absolutely 
 nothing to offer that is either pertinent or plausi- 
 ble* a dying woman's confession made to two 
 of her own family, and those two persons 
 Pleasington's devoted friends. 
 
 " So far as I am concerned, I do not doubt but 
 this is just how the infernal plot was concocted 
 and executed, in order to blast Pleasington's fair 
 fame and life ; but no governor would accept it 
 as a basis upon which he would consent to issue 
 a pardon." 
 
 Oglethrop : " Poor Lawrence ! then he must 
 continue to drag out the weary flays of long and 
 tedious years in the dread hopeless gloom of that 
 dreary, cheerless prison. 
 
 " To think of the misery and ruin that mis- 
 guided woman has caused and wrought! Her 
 husband and Effie in -their graves — Effie in a 
 hving, almost the real tomlj — and Lawrence's 
 life a thousand times worse than the grave. 
 
 " Mrs. Flowers and her little children — the silent 
 sorrow and lonely suffering she caused them to 
 endure, no tongue may ever tell nor pen record, 
 except that terrible account of the Recording 
 Angel. 
 
 "Add to all this, then, the humiliation' and 
 anguish she meted out to her own daughters, and 
 few parallels can be found in any age or life, 
 hardly excepting ' Bloody Lady Macbeth.' " 
 
THE INTKIGIJE. 
 
 165 
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE INTRIGUE. 
 
 " Vice Is a monster of so frightful mien, 
 As to toe hated, needs but to be seen; 
 But, seen too oft, familiar witli her face, 
 We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 
 
 —Pope. 
 
 Lovelace: "Now, Col. Cloud, I want to tell 
 you that I owe you an undying debt of gratitude, 
 because you did not divulge when and hoAv you 
 captured me ; and that you thus saved me from 
 disgrace. 
 
 "In consideration of this fact, I have a plan 
 for you, to give you for a paramour one of the 
 handsomest and finest society ladies in this city 
 — a genuine, romantic, free-love affair, which re- 
 quires no money, and in which you run no risks 
 in any respect whatever. It is one of those 
 peculiar cases where the lady wants a lover who 
 is unknown in society, and not a permanent resi- 
 dent in the city. 
 
 " It comes about in this way : Madam Vais- 
 entre is a party wealthy and aristocratic, a kind 
 of fortune-teller, one whom the first people visit 
 without scruple, to consult on any subject. In 
 this special line of which I am now speaking, she 
 is known to but very few. I am known to her 
 to an extent that she has confided in me, to 
 select for the lady named a discreet and suitable 
 companion. The lady has apphed to her to find 
 her such a person. As a matter of course, I do 
 not and cannot know who the lady is, because 
 she belongs to the class of society in which I 
 move, and is some one whom I am liable to meet 
 in a fashionable gathering of the hon ton, any 
 evening during the season. She knows that by 
 some means the Madam finds gentlemen well 
 vouched for, but that is all. 
 
 "I thought of you the moment she mentioned 
 the subject to me, and promised to carry you up 
 this evening. Neither Madam nor the lady must 
 know your true identity, nor will you know the 
 lady's. She will never call any one's name, in 
 either society or business circles, with whom she 
 is acquainted; nor must you breathe the name of 
 ain^ one of that class with whom you may be 
 
 acquainted, for fear it might be, perchance, some 
 of her own family. 
 
 " You will meet the lady in the Madam's pri- 
 vate parlor. If you fancy each other, you will 
 there arrange a subsequent meeting at some 
 other point indicated by the lady, but a place of 
 the highest respectabihty, where neither gentle- 
 man nor lady would blush to be seen, either going 
 to or coming from, at any hour of day or night. 
 Upon this you may most implicitly rely. That 
 you might some time become a resident of the 
 city and a member of society, is something for 
 which I am not responsible. Just now you are 
 about as far from being either as any gentleman 
 I know. You wiU go ? " 
 
 Cloud : " Well, Major, it is a bad sort of an 
 affair to get mixed up in. Still, I have some curi- 
 osity to see what this lady resembles. In that 
 there cannot be much harm." 
 
 Lovelace: "Ah! my friend, wait until you 
 know the Avays of the world in city life, and you 
 will soon get bravely over your rural squeamish- 
 ness about «uch matters. Why, my dear sir, those 
 of prominence who are not mixed up in some 
 affair of this nature, form the exceptions. I do 
 not attempt to defend, but, to the contrary, de- 
 plore the degenerate unhealthiness of social moral 
 restraint, that tolerates and fosters and renders 
 such conduct but mildly unpopular in some circles 
 of society." 
 
 Pursuant to appointment they are in the pres- 
 ence of Madam Vais-entre, in her house. 
 
 Lovelace : " Madam Vais-entre, my friend 
 Scud, of whom I spoke to you last evening." 
 
 Madam A^'ais-entre : "Ah, I am glad to know 
 you. Walk right in." 
 
 Lovelace: "You will find me in the billiard- 
 room on the next corner. Colonel, when you leave 
 here. Good-night, Madam." 
 
 He departs, and the Madam, with Cloud, enters 
 her private parlor. 
 
 Madam V : " Col. Scud, Mrs. Lovewell." 
 
 Mrs. Lovewell: "I am pleased to make your 
 acquaintance, Colonel, and trust that we may be 
 good friends." 
 
 Cloud : " Thanks, madam, and accept similar 
 sentiments. I know of no reason why we should 
 be enemies." 
 
166 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Madam V : "I will leave the Colonel in 
 
 your care now, Mrs. Lovt-weil." 
 
 She withdraws from the room. 
 
 Mrs. L : "Well, Colonel, you understand 
 
 my desire for cultivating your friendship to be 
 the sole object of my seeking your acquaintance, 
 I presume ? " 
 
 Cloud : " Perfectly, madam, but imagine that 
 with my ajDpearance that desire vanished." 
 
 Mrs. L : " Just to the contrary. Are you 
 
 disposed to meet my Adews — or rather to meet 
 me again for a more definite interview ? " 
 
 Cloud: "Certainly." 
 
 Mrs. L : " Well, ihen, go to-morrow at half- 
 past four in the afternoon, to the street and num- 
 ber indicated by this card. I have rented the 
 house, which is elegantly furnished, and have it 
 in chai'ge of servants. Ring the bell, and hand 
 the card to the servant, who will then admit you. 
 If I am not there, you will not have to wait many 
 minutes. Now, I must reluctantly bid you good- 
 evening, as we are not expected to have a pro- 
 tracted interview here; and then it is time that I 
 should be home." 
 
 Cloud. "All right. You can rely on seeing 
 me." 
 
 The next day Cloud is in the counting-room of 
 Silas Worthington, with this gentleman. 
 
 CoL. Worthington: "Look here now, Cloud, 
 you have been promising to dine with me at 
 home, for a long time, but you never fullfil j^our 
 promise. This is a dark, stormy day, and there 
 is nothing doing. I am going to dine at home 
 to-day, at three o'clock; and then I am going 
 to a directors' meeting. Come to the office, half- 
 past two, sharp ; go up in the carriage and dine 
 with me; then, if you want to go down town 
 again, I will send the coachman with you; if not, 
 you can remain and entertain the Madam, who is 
 all curiosity to see the Rebel Scout, as we all call 
 you. As I have told her that you had promised 
 to dine with us, she has been expecting you. 
 
 " Poor woman, I am such a slave to business 
 that she, in consequence, passes many lonely 
 evenings; but the requirements of trade demand 
 my time." 
 
 Cloud: "I think I can go to-daj^ as well as 
 any other time. Yes, Colonel, I will go to-day. 
 
 I shall not want to be down town again. I will 
 be on hand jiromptiy." 
 
 Worthington : " All right ; I shall depend on 
 it. I will write the Madam a note informing 
 her that she can expect you with me, without 
 doubt, to dinner this afternoon." 
 
 Cloud: "Then I will go directly to my head- 
 quarters and make my arrangements accordingl3\" 
 
 Promptly, Col. Worthington and Garland Cloud 
 arrived at the superb residence of the former, 
 and entered the parlor. Even here the old gentle- 
 man could not refrain from talking on his favor- 
 ite theme — " the new South and her commercial 
 future." Of all others, this was the one subject 
 tViat most interested young Cloud. He tried to 
 persuade himself that for this one cause — the 
 interest and prosperity of the decimated South — 
 he lived; and that besides this he had no object 
 in life. For these reasons, with eager avidity, he 
 grasped the opportunity at all times and under 
 all circumstances, to listen to the sage and ex- 
 perience-matured counsels and precepts which 
 his old friend was ever so ready to inculcate and 
 impress into and upon his susceptible mind. 
 
 Last evening we saw Cloud with a Mrs. Love- 
 well, and heard him make an engagement to 
 meet her at half -past four this evening. In con- 
 sequence of this he feels a little nervous lest he 
 may be detained at the Colonel's table and after 
 dinner, so long as to be unable to keep his en- 
 gagement promptly. 
 
 After the two men have been engaged in ani- 
 mated conversation some minutes, a rustling of 
 silks behind admonishes them that Mrs. Worth- 
 ington is entering the room, and that the formali- 
 ties of an introduction mus't be performed. 
 
 The tall, athletic form of Cloud rises and 
 turns with true military gracefulness to face his 
 hostess; and the first glance of his eye discovers 
 standing before him in queenly majesty a form 
 as athletic, almost as tall, and far more graceful 
 than his own, and a beautiful face glowing with 
 tints of resplendent crimson, but which, as soon 
 as he is fully faced about and has fixed his 
 piercing eye upon her, turns ashy pale ; and she 
 trembles violently. 
 
 Col. Scud and Mrs. Lovewell stand face to face. 
 
 This is a dilemma, a crisis — perhajis a fainting 
 
THE INTEIGUE. 
 
 167 
 
 scene. Never had Cloud exjierienced a danger 
 for which he would not have gladly exchanged 
 the embarrassing position of the present moment. 
 Yet, as he has often been in those desperate games 
 when his life was at stake, he fully realizes the 
 situation, and that something must be done to 
 avert a ruinous catastrophe. His characteristic 
 coolness and self-control do not forsake him. 
 But stepping forward with the most nonchalant 
 sang-froid, he extends his hand, and says, in a 
 re-assuring tone: 
 
 "My dear madam, I am dehghted to make your 
 acquaintance; and .can assure you that I am a 
 very quiet, inoffensive person, not at all the man- 
 devouring character of war repute as you may 
 have pictured me. So calm your fears : I am a 
 notorious coward when I have to face a lady." 
 
 Mrs. WoRTniNGTON: "Pardon my weakness. 
 Colonel. I was like some who ai-e suddenly 
 brought face to face with a being that they have 
 learned to regard as terrible. The moment you 
 faced me, I thought of the flashing sabre about 
 Avhich I have heard the soldiers talk, and was 
 about to utter a womanish scream. I would not 
 make a very brave soldier. I am glad to make 
 your acquaintance, and extend to you a cordial 
 Avelcome." 
 
 Col. Worthington: "You need never laugh at 
 me again for surrendering to Col. Cloud so 
 meekly, my dear, since his mere 2:)resence h«s so 
 much disconcerted you." 
 
 Mrs. W : "No, dear, you shall liever hear 
 
 that from me again." 
 
 By this time the erratic young wife is composed, 
 and enters into the conversation with an appar- 
 ently hearty relish. 
 
 The dinner, the small talk, etc., etc., are per- 
 haps similar to the majority of such affairs, unin- 
 teresting often to those who are actively par- 
 ticipating in them. 
 
 Immediately after dinner Col. Worthington 
 takes his leave to attend the meeting of directors 
 of a stock company, leaving Cloud in the care of 
 his wife. 
 
 After the Colonel is gone, the two culpables 
 look at each other for some moments in painful 
 suspense, as though they both dread to speak ; 
 but Cloud breaks the silence. 
 
 Cloud: "My God! Do I dream, or do I see 
 with my open eyes? — Mrs. Worthington, in 
 Heaven's name, are you mad ? " 
 
 Mrs. W : "Oh! Col. Cloud, this is a judg- 
 ment sent on me in time to save me. Have pity 
 on me, and do not betray me. I have as yet 
 been false to my husband in my heart only. As 
 a matter of course our anticipated meetings are 
 at an end, and never again will I be guilty of 
 such a thing. It is my fault; do not reproach 
 I j'ourself. What a blessing that you came to dine 
 here to-day. 
 
 "Col. Worthington is an angel, but so deeply 
 immersed in business that he neglects me, or I 
 fancy he does neglect me. 
 
 "Several of my lady acquaintance have told me 
 about having lovers ; and this Madam Vais-entre 
 assured me that this was quite fashionable among 
 married ladies of the first famihes, and that it 
 was my only remedy. 
 
 "Just to think that the amiable and discreet 
 stranger, as ignorant as a babe, of New York and 
 its society, whom this wicked woman selected for 
 me, should be my husband's esteemed friend! 
 What an escape we have both had ! 
 
 "This has made a Christian of me, at least on 
 that subject, no matter how lonely and slighted I 
 may feel. 
 
 "In your estimation, I am sunk low and deep 
 in the seething gulf of infamous connubial 
 infidelity." 
 
 Cloud : " Have no fears, madam. I shall never 
 expose you. Always remember this day and your 
 vow. Farewell." 
 
 Garland Cloud leaves the threshold of his 
 friend's door, fully resolved that no sohcitation 
 vshall ever induce him to darken it again. He feels 
 that another weight is added to his already crush- 
 ing burden of woe. How can he ever face that 
 friend again? Ever he must feel and imagine, 
 when in his presence, that the conscience-stricken 
 wife has made a complete confession to her hus- 
 band, making the affair serve to exonerate herself 
 as far as possible, lest by some other means he 
 might learn it, and so colored as to cause her to 
 appear in a very unfavorable light. 
 
 On the other hand, this misguided woman ever 
 trembles at the approach of her husband ; tearing 
 
168 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 that by some chance, he has during the day be- 
 come acquainted with her secret. 
 
 Thus, day after day, these two persons suffer a 
 penalty for their indiscretion that no words can 
 measure, — " that of silent unutterable dread, and 
 the shadowy images that are ever and anon con- 
 jured up as its concomitant horrors." 
 
 Once more, the inexorable mask fastens itself 
 on Cloud with still greater security, and serves to 
 cover a second act, or contemplated one, which on 
 his part is equally as bad. 
 
 Had the aifair progressed, it is doubtful whether, 
 as long as he did not knoAV that the woman was 
 related to friends of his, he would have suffered 
 much compunction of conscience relative thereto. 
 He might never have taken the trouble to reflect, 
 that although then unknown to any member of 
 her family, he was liable to make the acquaintance 
 of those most intimately i-elated to her; and at 
 any time to meet them with her under circum- 
 stances calculated to render the situation extreme- 
 ly embarrassing. 
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE DAY-DREAM OF A GLOOMY LIFE. 
 
 " The mosses of thy fountain still are sprinkled, 
 By thine Elyslan water drops; and the face 
 Of thy cave-guarded spring, by time unwrinkled 
 Peeps forth, the meek eyed genius of the place." 
 — Byeon. 
 
 The prosperity of Cloud's Virginia business is 
 undiminished during his sojourn in New York. 
 He returns home after an absence of five months, 
 thoroughly satisfied that he is sufficiently initiated 
 in the cotton trade speedily to become an adept in 
 the business. 
 
 He enters upon his routine labors as though he 
 had returned from a short business trip. 
 
 During his absence from the town, Judge Har- 
 iiian, the fatlier of Edgar and Carrie, settles there 
 in order to prosecute a manufacturing business in 
 which he becomes largely interested. His resi- 
 dence is some five hundred yards from the town, 
 at " the cave spring." 
 
 Edgar and his Rose, with her brother Jesse, 
 remain for the time being at the old mansion, 
 many miles distant. 
 
 Before Cloud"s return, a brother merchant, who 
 hates him most intensely, and who is also a zeal- 
 ous church member of the same persuasion as the 
 Harmans, has become intimate with the family, 
 and smitten by the charms of Miss Carrie. He 
 immediately learns, however, how deeply and 
 firmly rooted their friendship is for Cloud. 
 
 On arriving at home, Cloud is surprised to find 
 this man, if possible, a more enthusiastic friend of 
 his than the Judge himself. 
 
 As a matter of course, he cannot avoid an early 
 visit to the father of Edgar Harman and the mother 
 of Jesse Flowers. 
 
 Miss Carrie is absent on a viiiit to the same rela- 
 tives with whom she was that night staying, when 
 tlie young officers under Cloud were express- 
 ing the vindictive feelings which they chershied 
 for him. 
 
 The Judge and his good lady much desire that 
 Cloud shall take a room in their large house, and 
 his meals at their table; but this he will not con- 
 sent to do. 
 
 During the temporary absence of the Judge 
 from the parlor, Mrs. Harman makes it a point 
 to express regrets that Miss Carrie is absent ; and 
 to say that she trusts Cloud will not be sparing 
 with his visits on her account Avhen she is at 
 home. 
 
 Carrie Harman returns home on the last day 
 of April. The next day there is a May-day Sun- 
 day-school picnic and dinner in the grove near 
 her father's house. Cloud is a member of the 
 active committee ; so is Miss Carrie. 
 
 The weather is unusually warm for the season. 
 Cloud is at the cave spring bright and early. 
 He has just received pine-apples and other deli- 
 cacies by express from Richmond, and is donat- 
 ing toward the dinner. These he is jDutting into 
 the capacious stone spring-house, in order that 
 they may be cool by dinner-time. 
 
 Up to this moment Cloud and Miss Harman 
 have never met. 
 
 As Cloud comes out of the spring-house door, 
 which is some six feet from the mouth of tjie 
 cave, whence issues the hmpid, crystal spring, 
 half concealed by the shadow of the cave, close 
 to the side, quite even with the mouth, with hair 
 half disheveled, half curled in nature's wavy 
 
THE DAY-DREAM OF A GLOOMY LIFE. 
 
 169 
 
 ringlets, in nymph-like beauty to rival Numa's 
 fairy-fabled Egeria, his eyes behold a witching 
 image — the graceful form of Carrie Harman, of 
 whom he has dreamed so many dreary years, 
 amid so many varying scenes. 
 
 At one enthusiastic bound, both her velvet hands 
 clasp his soUtary hand, as in accents of thrilling 
 pathos she says: "Oh, Col. Cloud! savior of my 
 dear brother, inspirer of all that has been grand 
 and noble in my life, am I at last permitted to 
 thank you in person for your patriotic kindness 
 and unselfish devotion to poor Edgar?" 
 
 Cloud: ''I am enraptured with pleasure to 
 meet you in this romantic spot. I tlaought you 
 were Egeria, haunting this pretty cave. For the 
 past you have paid me a thousand times over 
 again. I am your debtor. And for the ecstasy of 
 this moment, standing as I am, almost in the 
 mouth of a fairy-land cave with " The Angel 
 of Consolation," no words are adequate to the 
 occasion;- nor yet to express to you my grati- 
 tude for your angelic care of the children of the 
 mountain." 
 
 Carrie: " Ah, Colonel, upon these points I see 
 that we can never agree ; so, therefore, we will 
 leave them in the past, with its other stories 
 and images of dark and saddening scenes. It is 
 enough that we are to labor together to-day in a 
 charming entertainment, under the auspices of a 
 cause so glorious — a most lovable scene of bUss- 
 ful peace, in harmonious accord with our ob- 
 scurely visaged conception of what/ishould be the 
 happy rest of eternity. You must take no ex- 
 ceptions to the rudely informal mode of my 
 greeting. We have been too long friends now to 
 stand on ceremonies as to the simple form of an 
 introduction." 
 
 Cloud: "You are right, Miss Carrie on all 
 these points. I would not exchange this greeting 
 for a hundred introductions; and I deeply thank 
 you for having thus accorded me the inexpressi- 
 ble pleasure this meeting affords, beyond what 
 there could have been in one occurring at any 
 other place, and under different circumstances. 
 
 "I am delighted with my good fortune in hav- 
 ing the honor of laboring with you to-day in this 
 good cause." 
 
 Carrie : " We are exceedingly fortunate in 
 
 having secured your services, together with your 
 liberal donation; for both of which I sincerely 
 thank you, and at the same time assure you that 
 both will be duly appreciated by the school and 
 the community. 
 
 " Colonel, I hope to be successful in inducing 
 you to take an active interest in our Sabbath- 
 school, and in the building of our new church." 
 
 Cloud: "Certainly; I will do anything I can. 
 I am a friend to the good causes of every nature, 
 although I lay no claims to goodness myself. 
 
 " I must return to the village now. I will join 
 you promptly at the hour designated for the com- 
 mittee to meet." ■ 
 
 Carrie : " I must then introduce you to the 
 young ladies. The ladies here think you are 
 a hermit, or exceedingly selfish. They say you 
 avoid introductions, and never have made a 
 call. They all have an idea that you are an old- 
 time friend of our family. I told some of them 
 that your father claims you are far more afraid 
 of a lady than of a cannon." 
 
 Cloud: "If they say anything about to-day, 
 liereaf ter, tell them that I am not afraid of " Angels 
 of Consolation." 
 
 Carrie : " Oh, now, Colonel, that is an unkind 
 injunction, one I cannot obey ; because some of 
 them are genuine little angels, and well qualified 
 to console the most forlorn heart." 
 
 Cloud : " I do not yet know them in that light. 
 Let them engrave this fact in bold relief by acts 
 that will entitle them to this claim, and I will 
 then recognize it." 
 
 The picnic and the dinner are a grand success. 
 Throughout the day G-arland Cloud and Carrie 
 Harman are inseparable. Whenever they are not 
 actuaMy at work,and passing from one part of the 
 grounds to another amid the beautiful cedars 
 and pines, she is on his arm, as though they had 
 been intimate friends from childhood. In the 
 opinion of spectators they are the happiest couple 
 at the picnic. But most of the people present do 
 not regard this fact as being an indication of any- 
 thing beyond the delight of two old friends on 
 their first day of meeting after a separation of 
 more than six years. 
 
 To one person this appearance of a warmly 
 attached intimacy between the youngc couple is 
 
170 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AXD THE GKEY. 
 
 bitterly mortifying, and fills him-Avitli implacable 
 chagrin. This individual is Walton Paulona, the 
 merchant who is so much attached to the Har- 
 raan family, so deeply fascinated by the charms 
 of Miss Carrie, and wlio has suddenly discovered 
 that he is a firm friend to G-arland Cloud. 
 
 Time rolls on into June. Cloud has subscribed 
 one-fifth part of the sum to build the new church ; 
 and tlirough his New York friends he has suppHed 
 the Sunday-school with a handsome and exten- 
 sive library. He is also a teacher in the school and 
 a regular attendant at church. 
 
 To and from both these places Miss Harman 
 is always his companion. He never attempts to 
 escort, and never makes a call on any other 
 young lady. To visit her, he will not neglect his 
 business ; but many are the notes that pass back 
 and forth between them tlii-ough the week. 
 
 At length Cloud recognizes a fact that has ex- 
 isted for nearly six years, despite his efforts to 
 persuade himself that it has not: that Carrie 
 Harman is the dream of his life, and the custodian 
 of his mortal fate, for weal or woe. 
 
 He at once resolves that the reahty of this 
 question shall not continue poised in doubtful or 
 uncertain suspense. He therefore makes an ap- 
 pointment to call upon her on a certain evening 
 during the week. The elders are discreetly absent; 
 thus he finds himself quietly alone in the parlor 
 with the one woman who ever kindled within 
 his breast the faintest spark of love. His heart 
 beats wildly in this supreme moment that is to 
 decide his fate ; far more wildly than if he was 
 riding into the jaws mi. death. Yet he is cool, and 
 every outward indication of emotion is absent 
 from his apparently serene face. He does not hesi- 
 tate nor delay, but boldly approaches the subject. 
 Cloud: "I requested this interview, Miss 
 Carrie, for the sole and express purpose of speak- 
 ing to you on a most delicate subject, that may 
 be very disagreeable, and at the same time very 
 vmexpected and surprising to you. However, 
 be this as it may, I must speak, regardless of the 
 consequences; and I crave that you will deign to 
 listen with all the patient indulgence and forbear- 
 ance that your generous, tender heart can accord. 
 
 •' Our acquaintance and friendship were germi- 
 nated, have been cultivated and developed from 
 
 the moment that you penned me the first note 
 breathing naught, dreaming naught, but a loving 
 sister's gratitude, up to the moment you met me, 
 in nymph-like witching imagery at the mouth of 
 the cave. It has been one unbroken series of 
 incomprehensibly strange realities, more marvel- 
 ous than fairy-tale romance. 
 
 "As they progressed, my interest in them 
 became more and more intensified. I persuaded 
 myself, or fancied I persuaded myself, that the 
 foundation of this ever-growing interest was my 
 devotion to the cause in wliich we were mutually 
 engaged. Strange mutuaUty! — I creating, and 
 you soothing, mortal woes. 
 
 " When the lapse of time forced me to admit 
 a deep sentiment of personal admiration and es- 
 teem, it was that of the nature of pure reverence, 
 such as I cherish for the Sisters of [Mercy. Be- 
 yond this, I strove to stay my wildest dreams 
 from straying. 
 
 " When the war was ended, I deemed our rela- 
 tions severed. I had not presumed to write you 
 so much as a friendly letter up to the moment of 
 our meeting on that bright May morning. 
 
 " Instantly then, some strange spell, as if it 
 were the magical touch of the enchanter's wand, 
 possessed and thriUed my being. Steadily and 
 persistently has it grown on me, despite my vain 
 struggles to overcome its tendency. I have tried 
 to persuade myself to vow that I would see you 
 no more, only to find myself resolving to see you 
 again. 
 
 " I was sensibly conscious of my folly. I 
 dreaded the inevitable wreck of hope to which I 
 was madly flying ; but realized that I was power- 
 less to resist the force that impelled me onward, 
 or to escape its impending consequences. 
 
 "I have been a soldier. I am now a man of 
 business. Neither position has given me a social 
 polish. I detest flattery at all times and under 
 all circumstances. In any enterprise I am impa- 
 tience personified : cannot brook suspense : must 
 rush on to results. 
 
 '' Miss Carrie, I cherish for you the most inten- 
 sified love : 1 am not to blame. I have struggled 
 against, it tried to persuade myself that I was 
 merely laboring under the spell of some wild 
 hallucination ; but all in vain. 
 
THE DAY-DEEAM OF A GLOOMY LIFE. 
 
 171 
 
 " I dare not let the situation remain in sus- 
 pense. If this sentiment can be reciprocated, I 
 must know it ; if it be hopeless, I must know it. 
 
 " I cannot expect your love to flow, if at all, 
 with the same fierce spontaneity as my own. 
 But if the subject be not repugnant, and if there 
 be merely a disposition to cultivate it, then I am 
 content. 
 
 " You are the only lady for whom I have ever 
 experienced this tender and endearing sentiment. 
 A decision I crave and await. No matter what 
 its nature, it still will be a mercy." 
 
 Carrie : " This, Col. Cloud, is an announcement 
 that takes me entirely by surprise, and finds me 
 altogether unprepared to cope with it. I deemed 
 your heart impregnable, and have never, there- 
 fore, permitted myself to dream of making upon 
 it an impression. True, I have long esteemed 
 you as an ideal type of bravely chivalric nian- 
 hood, and prized you as a friend — yes, a brother. 
 But had the secret longings of mj^ heart sought 
 to dream of more tender and delicate sentiments, 
 the icy coldnessof your letters would have chilled 
 the little spark to extinction long before it had 
 reached the point of ignition to claim a recogni- 
 tion even as a spark. How then could it ever have 
 produced a pure, fervent flame of love ? 
 
 "Now, like an overwhelming tornado, you an- 
 nounce your love. I can hardly believe my ears 
 but that they are deceiving me. 
 
 "This is a very serious question. Col. Cloud, 
 that demands calm reflection and mature con- 
 sideration. I will so consider it, and also counsel 
 with you. Then in due time, I will express to you 
 frankly and fully my decision." 
 
 Cloud : " I shall then, Miss Carrie, regard the 
 future of this affair as being not utterly hopeless, 
 and thus feehng, bid you good-night." 
 
 Carrie : " Good-night." 
 
 He leaves her alone to muse and soliloquize as 
 follows : 
 
 " Well, just what I could not dare expect; and 
 had I dared hope, what, above all things else, I 
 most desired : that this man should love me. My 
 sorrowful day-dream of so many years, sorrow- 
 ful because apparently hopeless, is realized. The 
 envied, prosperous man, the brave and untiring 
 friend of- humanity, regarded as cola and indif- 
 
 ferent to everything earthly save the cause iu 
 which he is engaged, wherein seems to be all his 
 heart and soul in concentric combination-^to 
 love with quick and fierce impetuosity! Can I 
 believe it ? The great wild fish that I feared no 
 art could ever catch — to think that he has been 
 entangled in Cupid's meshes while I was trying 
 to devise some skillful plan to capture him. I awi 
 fortunate. 
 
 "Oh, he fancies that his love is wild, fierce, 
 and heart-consuming, and that mine must yet be 
 ignited ; does not even exist in low, smoldering 
 embers. How little these cold, matter-of-fact- 
 hearted creatures know us poor, emotional girls ! 
 
 " His love is cold as an Arctic berg, compared 
 with the raging volcano that is consuming my 
 wildly throbbing breast, and must be suppressed. 
 I must dissemble ; must consider ; must hesitate ; 
 must not, for formality's sake, reveal my pure, 
 womanly emotions,, while these indifferent men 
 may declare theirs at pleasure. And they may, 
 while we are employing time to consider what 
 Ave had already, before appealed to, fully decided, 
 ' be drawn away,' as they are pleased to term it, 
 after some other pretty face, and against this 
 we have no security, not even when their vows 
 have been sacredly sealed! Inconstant, treach- 
 erous, lieart-breaking men ! 
 
 " The churl ! to declare his love and say good- 
 night both in the same breath ; thinking I was 
 too bashfully timid to look him in the face. What 
 stupidity! The diot! I could listen to his dis- 
 cordant strain until it died into an echo, and then 
 sigh to hear more, did it discourse only of love." 
 
 As to Cloud, for him the sun seems to shine 
 brighter and the birds to sing sweeter than ever 
 sun had shone or birds sung at any other period 
 of life, since the mellow summer sunshine of his 
 own native blue mountains gleamed for him in 
 careless days of dreamy happj'- childhood — thosa 
 mountains that the last of seven years is now 
 swiftly passing over since his eye beheld them, 
 with their majestic summits kissing the clouds. 
 
 He now realizes, or rather acknowledges to 
 himself, that it was through all the luring dream 
 of Carrie Harman that prompted him to conceal 
 from the world the unhappy nature of that won- 
 drous peril from which Lieut. Stone delivered 
 
172 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 him; when, of all other persons m the world, she 
 was the one who would have synapathized most 
 deeply with him. 
 
 Now he feels thafe there is no longer a question 
 about the realization of his dfeam; and that soon 
 he Avill possess the priceless reward of his far- 
 reaching prudence. 
 
 testacies of bliss are stoeets sublime ivhen they 
 are not too fierce to last ! 
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 TUE LONG-CHERISHED REVENGE. 
 
 " Hate and euvy, with visage blacli, 
 And the serpent, Slander, are on thy track; 
 Falsehood and guilt, remorse and pride. 
 Doubt and despair, in thy pathway glide; 
 Never had warrior greater need : 
 Pause, and gird all thy armor on." 
 
 —BATTLE OF Life. 
 
 Franz Mueller: " Well, Smith, you have been 
 to the camp of Cloud, our hated enemy, and find 
 him a prosperous and highly esteemed merchant, 
 away out there where he is unknown, so X under- 
 stand?" 
 
 Smith Brooks: "Even so; and he is so pop- 
 ular and powerful that I dared not breathe one 
 word against him. The moment I mentioned 
 his name to any one, even a negro, that individ- 
 ual went into raptures about Cloud, extolling him 
 to the skies. He has too good a footing there 
 for us to reach him." 
 
 Mueller: "And you hinted to no one a word 
 about his convictshijs at Bay City, and left him in 
 his glory undisturbed, after we have so long and 
 diligently sought to find his hiding-place?" 
 
 Brooks: "No. I tell you, man, it would have 
 been madness. But I made a discovery which 
 may result in our being able to uncover and reach 
 his vulnerable point. 
 
 "Just to think of it! Judge Harman's daughter, 
 the belle, you know, of the adjoining county be- 
 fore they moved away, is thought to be engaged 
 to him, or in a fair way to become so. 
 
 " The Judge believes in Cloud, perhaps because 
 he appears to be a rising man. But you know 
 the Judge is a stickler for honor, and much prides 
 himself on his proverbially renowned ancestry. 
 Might not this be employed as a means, and be so 
 skillfully brought to bear against Cloud, as to dis- 
 comfit and ruin him?" 
 
 Mueller: "Let us see: Your brother wrote 
 you from Tennessee that the mule- trader who 
 staid all night with him, was one of the guards 
 Avho carried Cloud to the penitentiary, and that 
 it was positively the same man who had charge 
 of the execution of the three Federal officers in 
 the early days of April, 1865." 
 
 Brooks : " Then there can be no doubt but 
 that Cloud escaped from the prison; because my 
 brother wrote as you have said. How could 
 Cloud be at liberty? You know my brother sug- 
 gested that we keep a lookout for him, as he was 
 smart enough to escape, and would most likely 
 do it." 
 
 Mueller: "Yes, we have him now at last. 
 You write a letter, anonymously, to Judge Har- 
 man, merely stating that there is a terrible dark 
 and mysterious secret to the community where 
 he now is, against Cloud, and refer to me for 
 particulars and facts, and I will picture him. 
 The Judge knows me personally. Send this 
 letter to your brother to mail. Did Cloud see 
 you ? " 
 
 Brooks: "Certainly. He showed me a polite 
 contempt — a more stinging sarcasm than an 
 openly abusive insult. His face glowed and his 
 brow was haughty and defiant as when, on the 
 dark charger, he was leading his blood-thirsty 
 squadrons in a furious charge on a mass of flying, 
 scattered infantry." 
 
 Mueller: " The merciless A-illain. And I sup- 
 pose like he looked when he had me by the col- 
 lar, and was brandishing his then bloody sword 
 over my head; or as he looked when he was 
 taking your leav^ of absence from you all, and 
 placing you under guard, to be returned to your 
 regiment. Every dog has his day, and ours is 
 coming now. How sweet to contemplate the 
 realization of our too long-deferred but now swiftly 
 fierce revenge." 
 
THE LONG-OHEKISHED REVENGE. 
 
 173 
 
 Thus is it ever with the meaner mind. Gar- 
 land Cloud had risen by his own exertions, aided 
 by his brilliant genius, from the ranks to his posi- 
 tion above these men. They, possessing neither 
 minds lofty enough to appreciate his merit, nor 
 souls unselfish enough to rejoice in his success, 
 in their petty malice not content with throwing 
 obstacles in his pathway in revenge for fancied 
 injuries received at his hands, sought to pull him 
 from the heights to which by slow and laborious 
 ascent he had climbed. They fancied by dis- 
 honoring him and dimming the lustre of his 
 bright name, their own tarnished titles would 
 gain lustre from the fallen brightness; as others 
 beside them are striving every day to mount to the 
 stairs of their ambition upon the ruin and lifeless 
 bodies of those, they, in their eager struggle, cast 
 lieneath their feet. 
 
 But Revenge, — twin sister of Hate, more power- 
 ful than princes, stronger than the boasted 
 strength of Israel's prophet, deceived by a wo- 
 man's false-hearted smiles, more potent than all 
 the creeds of ancient pagan or modern Christian, 
 blacker than the waters of the dark river when 
 Charon, in its gloomy midnight rows his craft, 
 — had entered into the hearts of these men, and 
 impelled them to plan and create the cruel down- 
 fall and the merciless destruction of Garland 
 Cloud. 
 
 CHATTER XLVI. 
 
 WORK-A-DAY SKETCHES OF BUSINESS LIFE. 
 
 "But the youthful form grows wasted and weak, 
 And sunken and wan is the rounded cheek : 
 The brow is furrowed, but not with years : 
 The eye Is dimmed with Its secret tears : 
 And streaked with white is the raven hair; 
 These are the tokens of the conflict there." 
 
 —BATTLE OF LIFE. 
 
 Garland Cloud is in his office. The railroad 
 agent enters. 
 
 LoRENzi: "Can you give me a memorandum, 
 Colonel, of the cars you are loading, as I want to 
 make up my wa^-bill?" 
 
 Cloud : " Certainly, Mr. Agent. Be seated. I 
 will go into the ware-house for it at once, and 
 return directly." 
 
 He goes out, and soon a gentleman enters. 
 
 Da:Ro : "Why, how are you, Mr. Agent ? Where 
 Is Col. Cloud?" 
 
 LoRENZi: "Why this is the gentleman for 
 whom he bought so much grain when he first 
 came here. He has jugt stepped out into the 
 ware-house for a moment. Be seated. Glad to 
 see you, sir." 
 
 DaSo : "Yes sir, he served our interests faith- 
 fully. I understand he prospers." 
 
 L : " He is the best send the farmers of this 
 
 section ever had. He works incessantly almost 
 day and night. He is sober and charitable, but 
 no allurement can tempt him from business.. The 
 young people are piqued because they can never 
 get him to a party. I am sure there are weeks 
 that he never undresses at night nor sleeps in a 
 bed." 
 
 DaNo : " He was the same way in the army, 
 from the time I first knew him a private soldier 
 until the war closed. He would lay by a fire 
 nearly all night, studying tactics and army regu- 
 lations, which he could retain, master, and put 
 into execution so thoroughly as to standjon a par 
 with old graduated officers. But here he comes." 
 
 Cloud • ' Here is your memorandum, Mr. 
 Agent. Why Mr. Daiio, what wind blew you 
 hither? Some good one I hope. How are you? " 
 
 Dano: "I am quite well, thank you. I came 
 down to see you relative to an arrangement to 
 control the wheat crop of this section and upper, 
 middle and East Tennessee in the interest of some 
 large exporters and extensive mills. Can you go 
 into it, and arrange your affairs to be absent from 
 your business here three or four weeks right 
 away ? " 
 
 Cloud: "Certainly, provided it pays. The 
 agent's brother Charles is my confidential man, 
 an excellent and a good one, too." 
 
 Da^o: "Come up, then, Saturday night and 
 remain over Sunday." 
 
 Cloud: "Very well. We will then have time 
 plenty to talk over the matter and arrange the 
 details." 
 
 DaiJo: " Then good afternoon. I shall depend 
 upon you." 
 
 Cloud : " If I am able to get there, you will see 
 me. Good-day, sir." 
 
174: 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 He departs and Charles Lorenzi enters. 
 
 Chas. Lorenzi: "Ha! Colonel, I just saw Miss. 
 Carrie at the depot, seeing her cousins off" on the 
 train; and when Mr. Dano spoke to her and told 
 her that his business here was with you, you 
 should have seen how she blushed and lilushed. 
 I tell you she loves you, sure as we live." 
 
 Cloud : " It is a pity that you are not a girl. 
 You think of nothing but girls and love. I find 
 your Miss Bettie's name all over the blotters and 
 in sundry other places. The drawing-room 
 claims these frail sentimentalities: this is no place 
 for them. 
 
 "I* want you to put on your soberest steady 
 cap, for I am going away on to-morrow's after- 
 noon train, to be ab.sent some weeks." 
 
 Chas. L - — : " All, right sir. Everything is 
 shipped, I will go to supper." 
 
 He goes out, and Charley, the colored porter, 
 comes in. 
 
 Cloud : " How now, Charley, Satan's sleep imp ? 
 Are you ready to begin to load those cars? It 
 must be done before we sleep." 
 
 Charley : " Yah, sah, all redde, sah. I dis cum 
 in specting may be ye wants me to take note ober 
 to Miss Carrie. Seed her dis eben. She look at 
 me mite strate, like she spects note. Golly, I jis 
 likes to take notes to dat lade." 
 
 Cloud: "No boy, not to-night. Car are too 
 scarce and demurrage too sure to wastt time with 
 Cupid's whims. Weightier things are on my mind 
 noAV." 
 
 Charley : "Bery well den, Ize dis goen to slmb 
 dem niggers." 
 
 Charley goes out, and Judge Harman and Paul- 
 ona enter. 
 
 Judge Harman: "Always at work, Colonel. 
 How are you this evening? " 
 
 Cloud: "Yes, gentlemen, you know the pen- 
 alty of ' the sweat of the brow.' I am striving to 
 fulfill the sentence to the best of my ability, but 
 think that just now, in fulfilling it, I am serving 
 the farmers and the raihroads more than any one 
 else; which I suppose may be also a duty. 
 
 Paulona:- "I called. Colonel, to see if I could 
 buy some drafts." 
 
 Cloud : " All you want. I need piles of cur- 
 rency. It is quite difficult just now to get 
 
 cars to move stuff, but that does not diminish the 
 demand for money." 
 
 Judge H : " You seem to be the Exchange 
 
 Bank here, Colonel. 
 
 " It was very kind in you to advance the entire 
 amount of your large subscription to the Church 
 Building Fund, and the committee thanks you. 
 By the way, you failed to attend the meeting 
 today." 
 
 Cloud : " In the exchange business, the advan- 
 A'antage is mostly in my favor. As to the sub- 
 scription, it had to be paid some time ; 3'ou need- 
 ed the money, and so I thought it best to wipe out 
 my part of it. At the hour of your committee- 
 meeting, my friend DaHo was here, which kept 
 me away." 
 
 Judge H : "I regret that you did not call 
 
 while my nieces were here. They were anxious 
 to see you, because so many of their relatives 
 t.nd friends served under you, and on account of 
 the stories they have heard those soldiers tell 
 about you." 
 
 Cloud: "I am sorry that I did not have time 
 to call. Well, gentlemen, call again. I am always 
 glad to see you. Good-night." 
 
 They leave Cloud alone to continue his work. 
 
 Charley [coming singing]: " 'Twill cause you all 
 to shed a tear, o'er the grave of my sweet Kittle 
 Wells." 
 
 Cloud: "Charley, those lines 
 
 ' Sometimes I wish that I was dead. 
 And laid beside liei- in the tomb— 
 
 The sorrows that bow down my head'. 
 Are silent as the midnight gloom.' 
 
 have always impressed me most seriously." 
 
 Charley: "GoUy, I, don't wonder at dat, 
 kase you seze mo' ob de mid-nites dan any odder 
 man in dese diggens. Oh, Lorde ! dis nigger ii;e 
 tired an' sleepe, fur shurc." 
 
 Cloud: " Give me two or three licks of ' the 
 break-down, ' and then to your pallet." 
 
 Charley dances furiously for several minutes. 
 
 Charley: "Golly, boss, dat makes me swete." 
 
 Later in the night the room is dark; a noise 
 wakes Cloud. 
 
 Cloud: "Charles! Oh, Charles! 
 
 Charley: "Sah." 
 
 Cloud: "What is that noise, boy?" 
 
WORK-A-DAY iSIvETCHES OF BUSINESS LIFE. 
 
 116 
 
 Charley: "Somebody rolen' bacco outen de 
 war-house. Ize been waked up by it, but waze 
 frade to call you." 
 
 Cloud: "No gun, no pistol, and no anything. 
 Where is the axe?" 
 
 Charley: "De axe down in de war-house. 
 Wherze you gwine, boss? Les get outen de 
 bake door. It'll hurt our feet to jup out de up- 
 stair winder. GroUy, dayze up dare too. Ah, Ize 
 getten behind de desk. Don't go in de war- 
 house, boss." 
 
 Cloud : " Come out of there, coward. It is noth- 
 ing but hogs rooting the big scales about on the 
 outside platform, and raising up and letting one 
 edge fall. You big fool, to think I would jump 
 from a window. I went up there to try to look 
 out at the front window, and finding it nailed up, 
 was why I hurried down-stairs." 
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 THE BITTER FRUIT OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 "He who ascends the mountain top shall find 
 
 The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 
 He who surpasses or subdues mankind, 
 
 Must look down on the hate of those below. 
 Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
 
 And far beneath, the earth and ocean spread, 
 Round him are ley rocks, and loudly blow 
 
 Contending tempests on his naked head. 
 And thus rewai'd the toils which to those summits led" 
 
 —BYRON. 
 
 Nothing in this world of woe is so sure and 
 'inevitable as retribution in some shape, either 
 mental, physical or social, one if not all, for mis- 
 deeds. Violating either the laws of nature, the 
 laws of the social circle in which we move, or the 
 laws of the land, constitute the grand errors and 
 crimes of mortal life. 
 
 It is such misdeeds and their retribution that 
 produce nearly all the woe and wretchedness that 
 afflict, with a scourge-like curse, so many fami- 
 hes ; and so cruelly disturb the peace and well- 
 being of society all over this busy and prosper- 
 ous world. 
 
 Retribution may, and often does, come tardily ; 
 but then it is apt to come at a time and in a 
 shape not expected, and hence strikes heavily. 
 
 Not unfrequently, a towering ambition to rise 
 
 in the gradation scale in some sphere where 
 promotions and honors are to be sought and 
 attained, or to achieve success in the ordinary 
 battles of life, prove tp be the means of drawing 
 down upon mankind consequences almost as 
 direful and as terrible as the retribution entailed 
 as a direct legacy, which misdeeds bequeath. 
 Hence all are, if neither misdeeds nor mistakes, 
 certainly misfortunes ; especially when they cre- 
 ate such detrimental results. 
 
 If they do not thus prove, it is never because 
 there are not people to create and help forward 
 .such ill-breeding consequences ; people too, who 
 are in the same walks of life from which the 
 aspirant has emerged, and who were his warmest 
 friends before he started on the ascent up the 
 sHppery steep in his desperate struggle to reach 
 the pinnacle of Fame, or the height of earthly Glory. 
 
 This is an innate proneness inseparable from 
 human nature, and the legitimate oflfspring of 
 jealousy and envy. To a majority of this class of 
 people, the discomfiture or the fall of their rising 
 fellow-being, is a source of secret, if not of ex- 
 pressed, gratification; although the aspirations at 
 which he aimed were moderate, certainly by 
 no means inordinate, yet sufficiently elevating 
 above the plane from which he has risen or is 
 striving to rise, to alienate from him both the 
 sympathy and friendship, as well as the afi'ection, 
 of those whom he has left or seeks to leave 
 below. 
 
 That he aspires to benefit or is actually benefit- 
 ing them, often makes not the shghtest differ- 
 ence ; for if they have not struck, nor even aided 
 and abetted the striking of the fatal blow, they 
 will feel a sense of consolation springing from 
 the conscious certainty that it has been struck, 
 and effectually. 
 
 It matters not how kindly and even consider- 
 ably condescending he may be toward them, they 
 are sure to deem him overbearing and proud, and 
 certain to consider him as continually scornfully 
 snubbing or ridiculing them. This latter remark 
 may apply more forcibly to the middle walks of 
 life and downward, than to the classes above the 
 intermediate line. 
 
 From a very close scrutiny of G-arland Cloud's 
 career, we perceive in him, deeply rooted, this 
 
176 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 ambition. Perhaps this is his in an extremely- 
 inordinate degree, coupled with a tireless, cease- 
 less, almost sleepless perseverance, supported by 
 an indomitable will guided by a calmly nerved 
 hand. These attributes are usually supported 
 by masterful self-control, .and directed by the 
 dictates of a cool judgment, ever impelling its 
 possessor, obstinately driving him, often slovi'ly, 
 yet still steadily and patiently, onward over one 
 obstacle after another, inch after inch, in the direc- 
 tion of the objects which he. set .out to attain ; 
 and Avhich, once seeing, he ever keeps in view, 
 never faltering, nor hesitating, nor turning back 
 in that discouraging and dangerous course. 
 
 From the very outset. Cloud seems to have 
 fairly reahzed the situation and the nature of the 
 obstacles which he must surmount, and to have 
 determined to do this alone and unaided. In 
 r«is his extreme youth appears to have been the 
 most retarding obstacle. 
 
 It would seem, from the fact that he cut loose 
 from both kindred and neighbors when embark- 
 ing in the fatal ship of the "Lost Cause," that he 
 then knew enough about the weakness of human 
 nature to withhold him from making the attempt 
 to rise among them or to allow them to aid him 
 in so doing, when he declined to permit them to 
 elevate him several rounds up the ladder, and 
 announced, "I will rise from the ranks or die in 
 the ranks." 
 
 Dreading the ridicule that failure always at- 
 taches to those who attempt the seemingly unrea- 
 sonable, we never find him confiding to any one 
 the nature of _ his aspirations, nor seeking recog- 
 nition for any dreamy claim to merit which he 
 may have cherished, and which he doubtless did 
 cherish. 
 
 Twenty-eight months in the ranks of an infan- 
 try regiment did not seem much like fighting out 
 of the ranks any other way than into the grave ; 
 yet at last we saw him suddenly rise. 
 
 From the picket bivouac and the out-post ser- 
 vice of 1861 up to the last interview with her, 
 that Carrie Harman, although for so many years 
 but the spectral shadoAV of a most forlorn and to 
 Cloud's mind, clearly ill-fated hope, was the in- 
 spiring genius of many, if not all of his acts, is 
 too obvious to admit a discussion; and to the 
 
 inHuenee of tln.s hapless spell we can safely at- 
 tribute his greatest misfortune : concealing the 
 sequence of " the mistaken identity." 
 
 Ilis present relations v.-ith her, and position 
 and prosjiects in the commercial world, are such 
 as to provoke the envy of those who have been 
 his most appreciative friends for two years, in 
 the region of his domicile. These were people, 
 who, had .she not appeared on the scene, and her 
 society been so thoroughly monopolized by him, 
 would never have been inclined to harbor one 
 spark of envy or one unkind feeling against him ; 
 but who are now, for all these reasons combined, 
 nevertheless-, in a state of mind to be prepared 
 not seriously to regret his downfall. 
 
 As to Mueller and his accomplices, their origi- 
 nal grounds of hatred, upon which they based the 
 oath of vengeance, would never have been mani- 
 fested against any other officer on account of a 
 similar discharge of duty, except alone G-arland 
 Cloud, their hitherto own humble neighbor. 
 
 Several persons are together in Paulona's 
 office. 
 
 Paulona : " Well, Judge, Mueller's letter in re- 
 ply to yours is rough on Col. Cloud. A terrible 
 shock to the community, if it be true." 
 
 Judge Harman: "Yes; but I believe it a base 
 concoction of falsehood." 
 
 Paulona: "So do I; yet still I think it too 
 grave to be disregarded. I deem it your duty to 
 all parties to write to the warden of the peni- 
 tentiary at Bay City, and ascertain the truth or 
 the falsehood of this grave charge. Furthermore. 
 I would suggest that Charles Lorenzi write to the 
 Colonel, and give him, in the meantime, a chance 
 either to explain or refute this accusation. 
 
 "We should not condemn an innocent man, 
 nor can the community afford to permit an im- 
 postor to sail about among its citizens under the 
 colors of a gentleman. Where is the Colonel 
 now, Charles?" 
 
 Charles Lorenzi: "His address is K . 
 
 Judge, I think Paulona is right about this, ard 
 that I should write fully by this mail." 
 
 Judge Harman: "Perhaps so; then we will 
 both write, as suggested." 
 
 They separate. The same evening the Judge 
 is at home and unusually serious. 
 
THE BITTER FRUIT OF RETRIBUTION. 
 
 177 
 
 Carrie : " Why are you so morose this even- 
 ing, dear father? Are you unwell, or what has 
 liappened?" 
 
 Judge H : " I have always, in every pos- 
 sible way, encouraged your friendship for Col. 
 Cloud; but read this terrilole letter, Carrie, my 
 child, and find, if it be true, how sadly we are 
 both disappointcil in our estimation of the real 
 character of this seemingly admirable man. 
 Should it prove true that he is false and un- 
 worthy, I can never again fix in my mind an 
 ideal of true and perfect manhood — hardl}^ trust 
 any one." 
 
 Carrie : " It is false, my father. It is but the 
 cowardly stab of an enemy, through the whisper- 
 ing medium of vile slander — the Satanic subterfuge 
 of calumnious obloquy, designed to blast the hopes 
 and the life of a man on whom Fortune deigns to 
 smile. 
 
 " Wouid a base and degraded man pursue the 
 high, the useful, and the noble calling in which 
 he is so helplessly yet devotedly enslaved ? I 
 say no, a thousand times no. Not because he is 
 an esteemed friend, but because it is his meed 
 of merit that I would accord were he an utter 
 stranger." 
 
 Judge H : "Well, fond girl, I would, were 
 
 I in your place, not write'^o him again until the 
 matter is cleared up. Good night." 
 
 He retires and leaves her alone in the parlor. 
 
 Carrie [Solus]: "Palsied be the hand that 
 penned, accursed be the brain that conceived, this 
 all blighting slander, more fell and destructive 
 than the contagious breath of the pestilence. It 
 is already sapping my vitality. I feel the venom- 
 ous fangs buried in my young and affection- 
 ate heart, the poison coursing through my veins. 
 Would that I had given him my true heart's an- 
 swer, and gone with him immediately to the altar, 
 before there was a chance for the grim shadow 
 of this horrid ghost to estrange him from me. 
 Oh that I could see and reassure him this night!" 
 
 Some days later the Judge, Charles Lorenzi 
 and Paulona are again in the latter's office. 
 
 Judge H : "Well, gentlemen, here is a 
 
 conclusive telegram from the warden, branding 
 the charge against Col. Cloud as a base falsehood, 
 just as I told you. I am ashamed that I did not 
 d2 
 
 burn th(^ anonymous letter, and never breathe its 
 nature, instead of writing to that most execrable 
 Dutchman." 
 
 Paulona: "That is indeed gratifying." 
 
 Charles Lorenzi : " That is the best news I 
 have heard since the war." 
 
 The railroad agent now enters the office. 
 
 Lorenzi: "Mr. Paulona, here is an express 
 package from Col, Cloud for you." 
 
 Paulona : " A special power of attorney. Here 
 is a conundrum." 
 
 Charley now comes hurriedly in with a letter. 
 
 Charley : " Massah Charles, herze a letter 
 from de boss man, sure." 
 
 Charles Lorenzi reads the letter, turns ghastly 
 pale, and trembles like an aspen-leaf before the 
 mad breath of the tempest; then he reads it 
 aloud : 
 
 " K , Tenn., August 4th, 1867. 
 
 "'Mr. Chas. Lorenzi: 
 " Dear Sir : 
 
 " ' The contents of your letter 
 startled and shocked me more than a clap of 
 thunder from a clear sky, and as much as the 
 terrors of Doom's-day itself could have done. A 
 credited slander is as blighting to my prospects, 
 hopes, and future of this life as any truth could 
 be, however damnable. So true is this, that it 
 renders the ill unbearable. 
 
 " 'Ere this scrawl is read by you, the hand that 
 pens it, and the heart that never recoiled before 
 a mortal danger, will be cold and still in the icy 
 embrace of death, beneath the rippling bosom of 
 the waters of the Tennessee. 
 
 "A long and hopeless farewell. 
 
 " Your desperate friend, 
 
 " Garland Cloud." 
 
 All : " Oh, horrors ! what have we caused ? " 
 Charley : " Oh Lorde ! Oh Lorde ! Wo-a-day ! 
 De onle frend ob dis pore chile ded. Misable 
 me ! Oh Lorde! whatze gwine ter become ob me 
 now ? " 
 
 Charley rushes out into the street and past the 
 dejjot, where, while still lamenting as if his poor 
 true and faithful heart will break, he suddenly 
 meets Miss Harman, who accosts him : 
 
178 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 " Charley, in Heaven's name, what lias hap- 
 pened to you ? " 
 
 CiiARLEv: "Oh, alack, missus! my ondliest 
 frend ded — drowned — poor nigger got nuffen left 
 him now." 
 
 Carrie; "Who is dead? Speak, boy!" 
 
 Charley : Oh, missus I dis am an ebel hour — a 
 sorry day I My ondliest friend, Col. Cloud, ded 
 missus; de life an' lite of dis town done fade 
 away an' done gone out, an' ebery ding will be 
 ded again. G-od help us, missus!" 
 
 Carrie: "Oh, my Grod! I must go home. 
 Oh, alas, thou crudest of all fates, thou heart- 
 severing death ! Envious Heaven, to permit me 
 such delusive dreams I Cruel, heartless man, thus 
 to destroy them I Break, my surging heart, poor 
 bankrupt of wild, inconstant anticipations ! Hope, 
 doff thy joyous plumage, cease thy airy flights, 
 and fold thy reckless wings on the baneful Upas' 
 all-blighting branch, and seek solace from its 
 deadly, agony-breathing nectar. 
 
 " What more of life remains for me to live ? I 
 am but one more victim of the broken heart, 
 doomed to pine away my weary existence in un- 
 pitied silence! 
 
 "Poor Effie Edlestein! now I know the bitter 
 depths of thy nameless woe ! " 
 
 Miss Harman goes into mourning, and with- 
 draws from society. 
 
 Miserable Cloud I Could he have known the 
 constant intensity of this woman's devotion, and 
 realized the cruel wound which his desperate 
 stab would inflict in her pure and tender heart, 
 surely he would never have so unfeelingly blight- 
 ed her fair young life. 
 
 But, poor wretch, how could he know this ? 
 He had passed less than one dozen Sabbaths in 
 her society, and one other evening — that on 
 which he declared his love. It was on this even- 
 ling only, that any tender relations between 
 themselves had ever been mentioned. At all 
 other times their conversation had been confined 
 exclusively to the labors in which they had been 
 engaged and the scenes through which they had 
 passed in the by-gone time; or to projects for the 
 alleviation of suffering humanity in the future. 
 This was all. 
 
 Between them, the social gulf of the olden- 
 
 time had been broad, deep, and impassable ; heuce it 
 could have been only with misgivings that Cloud 
 finally introduced the delicate subject. When he 
 said good-night to her that evening, how little he 
 then dreamed that it was for evermore ! 
 
 How often, in this world, do people lightly say 
 good-night, walk down a street a block, and turn 
 the corner, expecting to return in an hour, next 
 day, or the next week, "when that absence is 
 doomed to be for long and dreary years, or for 
 an endless eternity. Some sudden accident or 
 recounter consigns them instantly either to prison 
 or the tomb, or causes a flight little better or 
 more comforting to contemplate than death or a 
 felon's cell. 
 
 Look how admirably Cloud's dark secret was 
 guarded ; so Avell, that could he have known the 
 result of the inquiry sent to the prison, its dan- 
 gers would have been totally destroyed and the 
 haunting shadows of its ghostly spectre forever 
 dispelled. 
 
 Still, how appalling to contemplate the dis- 
 pensations of that wondrous Hand, that orders 
 and directs the little, apparently irrelevant and 
 insignificant points that overturn and destroy all 
 the skillfully planned and carefully constructed 
 strength of whatever they may be so small a part, 
 or to which they may be, even howsoever re- 
 motely related. It seems to be a moral impos- 
 sibiUty to escape their consequences. 
 
 Such things are of a nature to render the 
 ground taken by the superstitious tenable, if not 
 sufficient to confirm their faith in the doctrine, 
 that, intimately connected with them is an invis- 
 able, supernatural hand. Certain it is, that there 
 exists some fate, against the influence of Avhich 
 the arts of man to design and his powers to exe- 
 cute counteracting forces, are ever unavailing. 
 That grand coward — conscience — -flies from imagin- 
 ary dangers. 
 
 The reported suicide of Cloud created a pro- 
 found sensation in the community where was his 
 adopted home. As is always the case under 
 similar circumstances, the latent propensities of 
 people with whom he had been maintaining active 
 business relations, were promptly manifested. 
 
 Let a business man very suddenly and unex- 
 pectedly pass under a seriously damaging cloud, 
 
SO^IE OTHER HEART-ACHES. 
 
 179 
 
 or into the grave, and at once many of those 
 Avith whom he has been dealing for years with 
 liarmonious smoothness, discover flaws in his 
 transactions. 
 
 Train loads of grain are in transit on Cloud's 
 account. Connected with these transactions are 
 drafts, checks and sundry "other considerations 
 unaccomplished, to the amount of many thou- 
 sands of dollars ; and agents are actively engaged 
 at many points receiving and loading more. At 
 home, there is a large stock of assorted goods, 
 and some purchase bills unpaid. 
 
 Drafts and checks are protested; accounts and 
 shipments are attached, and lawsuits instituted 
 V)etween merchants, and by banks against the 
 merchants. 
 
 The grain accounts of numerous farmers in the 
 vicinity of his store, for whom he made ship- 
 ments on their own credit, to pay which as a last 
 act he sent currency, are bought up at twenty- 
 five cents on the dollar. 
 
 All summed up, there are wide-spread con- 
 fusion, disaster, sorrow and suffering, to which 
 must be added many no better than criminal acts, 
 connected with this sad affair. These sprang as 
 direct and legitimate fruits from one and the same 
 seed, — a seed of unwise indiscretion, deliberately 
 and willfully planted by Garland Cloud himself, 
 in culpable disobedience to the dictates of his 
 own better jiadgment, against which his con- 
 science arose in stubborn rebellion. 
 
 From the bitter fruits of this seed he had almost 
 incessantly eaten ever after. That ill-breeding 
 germ matured in the affair of his hapless im- 
 prisonment at Bay City, was planted in his re- 
 solve to bury the sad story of that painful experi- 
 ence in the silence of obHvion; was matured to 
 deadly perfection, by his persistent effort to ful- 
 fill the condition of that fatal resolution. He not 
 only suffered the penalty himself, but entailed, 
 directly or indirectly, on untold numbers of other 
 human beii 
 
 COWARDICE. 
 
 CHAPTEE XLYIII. 
 
 SOME OTHER HEART-ACHES. 
 
 " Love, by liarsh evidence, 
 
 Thrown from its eminence, 
 Even God's providence 
 
 Seeming estranged. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Owning her weakness, 
 
 Her evil behavior. 
 And leaving with meekness, 
 
 Her sins to her Saviour." 
 
 —The Bbidge of Sighs. 
 
 Beatrice Atkinson : "Well, sister Cagsandra, 
 and how are you progressing with your free-love 
 affair? And what of your lover? What does 
 he look like, and how do you fancy him ?" 
 
 Cassandra Worthington: "I most miracu- 
 lously escaped the affair, by the identical man, the 
 very next day after I met him at Madam Vais- 
 entre's, coming to dinner with the Colonel. This 
 man was a Southerner, and the Colonel was per- 
 haps the only man in the city who Avould have 
 invited him to dinner : he is so nearly an utter 
 stranger here. 
 
 "What a strange fatality that he should be one 
 among the Colonel's most esteemed friends ; and 
 that he should come here, of all times, on that 
 particular day, to dinner! I tell you, girls, I felt 
 as though I was sinking through the floor when I 
 recognized him; but he came very promptly to my 
 relief in a way to prevent a scene. That affair so 
 thoroughly frightened me, that I abandoned all 
 idea of having a lover, and resolved to be hence- 
 forth a resigned, true, and faithful wife." 
 
 Rosalind Stringfellow : " Oh, Cassa, that was 
 Heaven's own blessing ! 
 
 "If any two women were ever in a living, 
 earthly torment, Beatrice and I are the ones. I 
 do not see how we are to endure it much longer. « 
 How I envy you! Your lot is perfect bliss, com- 
 pared to ours. 
 
 "The men are unkind; we despise them, and 
 would escape and turn back from our wicked 
 career if we could. They know who we are and 
 where we live. They are what might be termed 
 elegant sports. They defy us to abandon them, 
 and coolly tell us that the penalty will be full 
 
180 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 exposure. We therefore fear tlioin as we would 
 Satan, with his chains and firebrand in hand. 
 
 " But alas, was this all and the worst of our 
 ills, our lives would be a paradise to what they 
 are now, Avith the dread reahties of their tortiu'c 
 day after day l^earing down with ever augment- 
 ing affliction. 
 
 "Some sharks possess our secret, and day by 
 day they bleed us afresh for hush-money. The 
 amounts of their demands have grown to such 
 frightful magnitude that it would soon break a 
 bank to meet them. We can no longer obtain 
 the money from our husbands. We have just 
 pawned our diamonds, in order to raise the funds 
 necessary to keep them silent for a time; but it is 
 only deferring the evil hour, which must como at 
 last with redoubled severity. 
 
 "I tell yon, Cassa, there is neither help nor hope 
 for us poor miserable wretches, except in flight 
 or suicide. In flight, there- cannot be niucli, if 
 any, hope; and we already have enough to answer 
 for in the hereafter, without deeper dyeing our 
 stained souls Avith the unpardonable sin of self- 
 destruction. 
 
 "Then again, on the other hand, exposure, and 
 being denounced and driven from home and 
 protection, by righteously indignant husbands, is 
 frightful to contemplate, and would be truly intol- 
 erable. What can we do? Oh, Cassa! we are mad!" 
 
 Beatrice- "Yes, Cassa, Rosa has told you of 
 our lamentable, pitiable and utterly helpless con- 
 dition. 
 
 " Thank God that 3^ou are still safe and pure, 
 and thus both capable and worthy to give some 
 wholesome and much needed advice to your un- 
 happy, unworthy, and sinful sisters. Oh, Cassa! 
 help us, because you ' are the only one in this 
 world to whom we can confide the dark secrets 
 of our dreadful trials ; and at the same time pray 
 strive to forgive us. 
 
 "You know our mutual trials, when Ave three 
 together drained tlie cup of woe to its last bitter 
 dregs — that cruel cup that poisoned the pure 
 and healthful current of our young lives, and 
 crushed out from our hearts every vestige of 
 earthly hope. Oh, Cassa! remember those bitter 
 trials over which we have together wept so many 
 times, while we were yet as pure and as innocent 
 
 as the angels in heaven — and we might have so 
 remained, as Eva has, had Ave, like her, been per- 
 mitted — and do not, I implore you, do not judge 
 us too harshly !" 
 
 Cassandra: "Oh, my poor si.sters, hoAv I pit}'' 
 you! I can judge you only as I must judge my- 
 self. That I am not as you are uoaa', is owing to 
 no prudence nor goodness of my own. I can for- 
 give you, as I hope to be forgiven, and as I know 
 God Avill forgive you if you Avill at once turn and 
 flee from the near and certain destruction that 
 so nearly enthrals you as to preclude almost the 
 possibility of escape; yet still there remains to 
 you barely time to be saved. 
 
 " My poor miserable sisters, you have noAV 
 nothing left you in tins Avorld, Avhere j-ou liaA'e 
 never knoAvn true happiness. Your only hope 
 is beyond the sun, in the great Eternal. Turn, 
 I implore you, turn before it be too late, and 
 flee to that one source of consolation and safety 
 that remains your only solace and shelter. Nov.- 
 is the time — this day. Delay but for to-morrow, 
 and you are lost, and hopelessly. 
 
 "NeA'er pay another penny; ncA'er see those 
 accursed lovers again ; and never let your hus- 
 bands see you more. 
 
 " Take the money you have, and fl}', fly; not as 
 though it Avas for life alone, but for still far more 
 ■ — your souls. 
 
 " Seek the deep seclusion of a convent. Con- 
 fide to the Mother Superior the nature of your 
 relentless pursuers, from whom you seek jsrotec- 
 tion ; confess your sins, and she will take you in 
 and afford you comfort. There you can repent, 
 and learn to minister unto suffering humanity, and 
 thus perform a most beautiful mission of mercy. 
 
 " This is open to, and invites you as a last 
 refuge the only flight in Avhich you can even hope 
 for present safety and ultimate reitose. This is 
 indeed gloomy and cheerless; but what is any- 
 thing else which you could attempt ? You have 
 already abandoned your husbands, and are flee- 
 ing from the dread consequences of that act as 
 much for their honor as for your OAvn safety. 
 
 "Your mysterious disappearance Avill create a 
 sensation, and overwhelm your husbands Avith 
 grief and anxiety. But to Avhat does all that 
 amount, compared with the disgraceful humilia- 
 
SOME OTHER HEART-ACHES. 
 
 181 
 
 tion of exposure, and all its direful and incon- 
 ceivable consequences, among which the grave 
 , probabilities of suicide are too terrible for con- 
 templation. You cannot afford to delay and to 
 hesitate in deciding which course you will take : 
 the one gently leading to tolerable security, or 
 the one rushing on with wild and furious impet- 
 uosity to swift and surely inevitable destruction." 
 
 Beatrice: "Oh, Cassal- my blessed, thrice 
 blessed sister, ministress of mercy, grace and 
 hope, angelic dehverer of my body and of my 
 soul from present torment and from an unending 
 hell ! — put your arm around my degraded neck, 
 kiss once more my shame-polluted cheek, and 
 bless me, for I am saved. Your counsels have 
 triumphantly prevailed. I am resolved on imm'e- 
 diate flight to the Elysian repose of that tranquil 
 refuge to which you have directed my wayward, 
 stumbling footsteps from this crime-benighted 
 pathway. There, no matter how gloomy be its 
 sombre-shadowed walls, nor how bitterly morti- 
 fying to the flesh its restraining discipline, I shall 
 find a kindly benignant, earthly refuge. 
 
 Rosalind : " And I also, Cassa, my sister, to us 
 Heaven's ordained medium, to pronounce to our 
 despairing hope-exiled souls the dulcet words elec- 
 trified by the ever glorious and revivifying current 
 of consolation, that as they soothingly permeate 
 down, deep down into the empty, hollow, hun- 
 gry caverns of our wretched hearts echo and re- 
 echo again and again in stirring, comforting tones, 
 the thrilling reverberation of Peace ! Peace! Oh, 
 thou only hope-inspiring word. Peace, blessed 
 Peace, to thee I flee ! Oh, my sister, let me press 
 you to my heaving bosom once more, and kiss your 
 cheek while you bless me!" 
 
 Cassandra: "Not my Hps on your cheeks nor 
 brows, nor yours on mine, my sisters, poor peni- 
 tent children of our angelic father ; but it shall 
 be LIPS TO LIPS and hearts to hearts ! 
 
 "MayG-od bless and comfort you with His 
 loving grace and holy spirit, my miserable sisters; 
 and may He grant you for guardian angels, to 
 watch over and to shield you from every danger 
 and from all harm, the tenderly loving spirits of 
 our error-unsullied father and saintly martyred 
 Effie — should her spirit fly its sacred prison while 
 you remain in yours. 
 
 " For myself, my earth-banished sisters, while 
 I live and am able to move, I will visit you once 
 every week, and minister unto you in every way 
 within my power." 
 
 '• I alone of all the world must be the custo- 
 dian of your secret, and know the place of your 
 living tomb. This, I hope, will afibrd you some 
 consolation. 
 
 " As we suffered together in our tender but 
 hope-wasting years, and were each to the other, 
 by turns, our only comfort and consolation, let us 
 now still remain constant, true and faithful to one 
 another throughout the remainder of our weary, 
 dreary, cheerless journey of life. 
 
 "As my countenance, visits, fidelity, undying 
 love and endless devotion to you may cheer, com- 
 fort and strengthen you in your new lives ; so may 
 your patience, your resignation, your faith, your 
 hope, teach, help, guide and enlighten me to under- 
 stand, to appreciate, to fulfill my duty toward 
 you, the world, myself, and my God. 
 
 "Now, my heart-broken and sin-stricken sis- 
 ters, here with you, in unworthiness as deeply 
 dyed as you, I most solemnly vow, from this day 
 henceforth, to devote my life and to exert my 
 energies in the cause of weak and sufi'ering hu- 
 manity here in this great and wicked city, and 
 see if I cannot accomplish some good; to atone, 
 in some degree, for the wayward and frivolous 
 follies of the past; and, in due time, perhaps, 
 connect my labors directly with yours. 
 
 " I shall be devoted, faithful, and loving to my 
 husband. This change in my life, and the cause 
 in which I shall engage, will meet his warmest 
 approbation, receive his most zealous support, 
 and render him supremely happy — something, 
 undutiful woman that I have been, I have never 
 yet once studied nor striven to accomplish. 
 
 " There, now, my weeping sisters, your tears 
 and mine have together mingled, as we have on, 
 the necks of one another wept. These blessed 
 tears are washing away your dark impurities and 
 mine. This is a scene to make angels rejoice 
 — not alone one, but three sinners togethtr 
 repenting. 
 
 " Life with us has been one grand failure. Let 
 us therefore make death one grand and glorious 
 success. As redeemed Magdalens, then, we can 
 
182 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 in purity soar away to a blessed welcome, where 
 father will be waiting for us to come — 
 
 " ' To He within the light of <iod, as I lie upon your 
 
 Where the wicked cease front troubling, and the 
 weary are at rest.'" 
 
 Grand, noble shades of a departed father ! see 
 them triumphing over the vile weeds of dark 
 luxuriance, from the evil seeds sown by a wicked 
 mother in then- young and tender hearts, the nat- 
 ural abodes of purity and of love. 
 
 But for the want and absence of good seed 
 there to germinate and be nurtured, the evil 
 ones quickly sprang up in that genially salubrious 
 soil, and flourished in undisputed mastery until the 
 multiplicities of their production were struggling 
 to force out some germs from their overburdened 
 and encumbered soil to seek a lodgment in other 
 tender, pure and innocent hearts. Yet suddenly, 
 as if by some magical breath, the one long, lowly 
 smoldering and apparently but utterly extinct 
 spark of a father's purity is fanned into a raging 
 flame, that instantly scorches and consumes them, 
 root and branch, expelling their .venomous dross, 
 cleansing and purifying the poor, polluted, aching 
 hearts. 
 
 Beauty of beauties, the wondrously sublime 
 picture of a crime-burdened and despau'-eugulfed 
 human wretch firmly and apparently irretrievably 
 held in the suction of the whirlpool's fathomless 
 quick-sands, where every feeble effort toward 
 extrication tends to sink the victim only deeper 
 and more hopelessly in that dread social Serbo- 
 nian bog, rising up, as if by one grand, herculean 
 effort, from the clinging mire to the solid suface 
 of the eternally rock-bound shore; fleeing for 
 safety and for life to the eulogistic fountain of 
 tears to wash away the dark, deep stains from 
 the impure heart, that purity may shine in un- 
 dimmed splendor, and illuminate with transcend- 
 ent, empyreal brilliancy that regenei-ate and re- 
 deemed soul FOR EVERMORE ! 
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 THE WOES OF THE FORSAKEN HtTSBANDS. 
 
 " The mills of the gods grind slowly, 
 But they grind exceeding fine." 
 
 The mansions of Ira Atkinson and Adam String- 
 fellow are adjacent, both having been built at the 
 same time, with the dividing wall forming a part 
 of each building. They are elegant, and contain 
 to repletion all that heart could wish to render 
 life both comfortable and happy, save alone that 
 one often shadowy and delusive element that is 
 purely spiritual — an attribute that is inseparable 
 from, and that will blend with naught but purity; 
 a most beautiful thought that is always "softly 
 bodied forth;" an adorable sentiment ; an ecsta- 
 tic emotion ; a high and holy passion — love. The 
 utter absence of this home-brightening essential 
 in the luxuriously appointed households of Atkin- 
 son and Stringfellow, and in its stead, on the part 
 of the Avives, absolutely cold-hearted indifference, 
 bordering even on loathing and hatred, render 
 them anything but the abodes of happiness. 
 
 The masters of these homes, having already 
 steeped their hands, long years before, in the in- 
 delible, deep, double dye of most atrocious crime, 
 are, as a natural consequence, suspicious of and 
 mistrust everybody with whom they come in con- 
 tact, no matter what the nature of the relation 
 nor who the parties. 
 
 They are each sufficiently old to be the father 
 of his young wife. It is, the world over, a con- 
 stitutional weakness in old men to be jealous of 
 young and beautiful wives, whether their grounds 
 be real or imaginary; and this veritable ghost of 
 the imagination not infrequently drives the 
 woman whom it causes to be unjustly charged 
 with infidehty and unjustly persecuted, to make a 
 foundation for it, true and real. 
 
 Unfortunately, in these instances, the founda- 
 tion for jealousy was not a spectral shadow, but 
 a sadly true reality. 
 
 The two men are at all times prepared to re- 
 ceive from their wives nearly any style of an- 
 nouncement; so, therefore, when they retuni 
 home on the evening of the day on which wo 
 
THE WOES OF THE FORSAKEN HUSBANDS. 
 
 183 
 
 saw in the last chapter their two wives Avith 
 their sister arranging to abandon their husbands 
 and their princely homes, and seek an asylum 
 within the cheerless precincts of a convent, the 
 husbands are but little astonished, and but slightly 
 mortified to find, from under the hands of their 
 faithless wives, notes, each of which alike ran as 
 follows : 
 
 " Park, New York, May, 1867. 
 
 "My Husband: 
 
 " That 1 have never loved, can never 
 love you, you are consciously sensible. On this 
 point I have never deceived you. I have never 
 acknowledged nor professed to love you. 
 
 " You know the sad history and true nature of 
 our formal courtship, and little better than mock 
 marriage, entailing on me, as far as my heart was 
 concerned, the odious bondage of a legalized and 
 a church-sanctioned prostitution, which to me is 
 too fraught with pain to be needlessly recounted. 
 
 "I know that my presence and the thoughts 
 which it ever is conjuring up in your mind, tend 
 but to augment your unhappiness, and perpet- 
 ually to render my existence more intolerable. 
 
 " For all these reasons combined, I have this 
 day resolved to leave your roof, to part with you, 
 and to turn my back on the hollow mockeries 
 and the cruel delusions of the social world for- 
 ever; and shall therefore, without further explan- 
 ation, say ' Farewell.' 
 
 "Beatrice." 
 
 Atkinson: "Well, Adam, the end has come at 
 last." 
 
 , Stringfellow : "Yes, Ira; it indeed seems to 
 me that our cups of woe should now be full to 
 overflowing. 
 
 " Surely this will satisfy G-ertrude Flowers' 
 relentless Avenger. Oh, what a surfeit of bitter 
 fruit that curse-breeding crime has forced us to 
 eat ! It seems that the restitution did not suffice 
 as an ample atonement, but that the miseries of 
 our doom are endless. Perhaps it is better that 
 the women, unfaithful creatures, are gone. But, 
 poor wretches, T wonder what Avill become of 
 them." 
 
 A : "Why, they will go somewhere with 
 
 their lovers. They have absorbed nearly half of 
 
 our fortune in the past few months. It was truly 
 friglitful; and had we not shut down on it a 
 month ago, it would never have stopped until 
 we were beggans. 
 
 " It now appears that they have been all the 
 while preparing for this step, and deliberately and 
 systematically working to get possession of our 
 last dollar before they left us. 
 
 "I am unable to understand where the money 
 went. Our households have been economically 
 administered, and I do not believe either one of 
 our wives has bought an article for her wardrobe 
 during the past three months. Blockhead dotards 
 that we were not to divine all this, instead, like 
 simpletons, mistaking their well dissembled gra- 
 ciousness for loving devotion, and hoping to buy 
 off their last vestige of antipathy, our money 
 flowed like water." 
 
 Some five days after the disappearance of their 
 wives, these two men begin to receive at their 
 business office from leading retail houses, bills 
 for enormous amounts, all sold on the written 
 orders of the wives, which accompany them as 
 vouchers. This establishes the validity of the 
 bills, and clearly fixes upon the husbands the 
 liability for their payment. 
 
 All the new accounts had been opened after 
 the husbands had been compelled to curtail the 
 supply of money, for which the ever increas- 
 ing demands called. This was, therefore, with 
 the wives, one more desperate expedient to hold 
 at bay those most voracious of all cormorants, 
 ilie blackmailers, by giving them, in lieu of money, 
 an extravagantly increased amount in goods, 
 until, finally tiring of this, they demanded money 
 again. And so great was the terror of those 
 wretched women, that, in order to raise it, they 
 pawned their diamonds. 
 
 Just now, with the advent of these uncom- 
 fertable bills, the woes of Atkinson and String- 
 fellow commence with a vengeance that is both 
 merciless and unrelenting. They are prepared to 
 submit to the loss of their faithless wives with 
 uncomplaining resignation ; but when it comes to 
 beholding the bulk of their remaining fortunes 
 following them, the crisis is at a climax. The 
 old men's spirits are completely broken; they 
 suddenly lapse into a morbid state of waning 
 
184 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 apath}^ as to their ordinary affairs of life. Bur- 
 dened with self-reproach and the weight of 
 years, and afflicted with the corroding cares of 
 disappointment, they become the melancholy 
 victims of the often slow, but relentlessly sure 
 remorse of conscience. 
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 JOSEPHA DEL-CAMPANO. 
 
 " In that tale I find, 
 The furrows of long thought and dried up tears, 
 Which ebbing, leave a sterile track behind. 
 O'er which all heavily the journeying years, 
 Plod the last sands of life, where not a flower appears." 
 
 —Byron. 
 
 The young woman bearing the name at the 
 head of this chapter was a beauty belonging to 
 the middle-class of society, in 1867. Of her 
 family antecedents and her own, suffice it to say 
 that they are unexceptionably good. Her educa- 
 tion was above the average for her class, and her 
 manners were polished and attractive. 
 
 It was her misfortune to be introduced to 
 Arnold Noel, after he fled from the impending 
 consequences of ciime committed in his native 
 city, leaving liis father to pay his bail. 
 
 This young scapegrace at once became desper- 
 ately enamored of Josepha Del-Campano, and 
 courted her with apparently enthusiastic sincerity. 
 She fully reciprocated his passion. 
 
 The speedy result was that three or four of the 
 young lady's intimate friends one day accom- 
 panied her on a little excursion into a neighbor- 
 ing State, where there was a quiet wedding. 
 
 The young couple then returned, to reside at 
 the home of the bride. 
 
 For some time this young imp of Satan, Noel, 
 was devoted and very attentive to his fondly- 
 trusting wife, and supplied all the money requi- 
 site for her comfort; although she was all the 
 time deceived as to what profession he followed 
 and how he obtained his money. 
 
 He was connected with a band of thieves — the 
 only genial calling or natural element for him. 
 
 At length he began to tire of the young woman. 
 He absented himself for days together. Rapidly 
 
 his true character began to develop. He often 
 came home bearing unmistakable indications of 
 dissipation. 
 
 The tears and the remonstrances of Josepha 
 made no more impression on him than the wind 
 blowing on the bald head of a granite-capped 
 niouiitain. 
 
 One day he invited her to take a ride. He 
 stopped in front of a house and conducted her 
 into the parlor. There he introduced her to a 
 man who he informed her would now be her 
 lover, as he was going to leave her; and at the 
 same time coolly stated to her that he had been 
 no more than a lover, as their marriage was 
 simply but a mock one, the pretending Justice of 
 the Peace who performed the sham ceremony 
 being one of his own accommodating associates. 
 And thus without further ceremony he left her. 
 
 She feigned satisfaction, and thus was permit- 
 ted to return home, in order to pack a trunk, 
 Avhich enabled her to delude and escape from the 
 ruthless villain to whose fiendish care she had been 
 consigtied. 
 
 Deceived, disgraced, forever bhghted, she grew 
 hopelessly despondent for a time, and then rallied 
 to a temper of rash desperation. 
 
 She arraigned Man under the charge of being 
 the deliberate and willful perpetrator of her ruin, 
 and she swore a desperate revenge on mankind. 
 
 She well knew the power of the spell that her 
 fatal beauty might wield over the pliable hearts 
 of men. And she madly, furiously, recklessly 
 entered upon a career of horrible crime. 
 
 Thus are many of the most wicked and dan- 
 gerous women goaded to desperation, deceived, 
 lured, driven from paths of purity and the throne 
 of honor, by the base treachery of mankind. 
 Again, after they have made one misstep, the 
 hard decrees of that society which yet bestows 
 its greeting smiles upon their destroyers, preclude 
 their return — they are outcast waifs forever. 
 
THREE IN LIEU OF FOUR 
 
 185 
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 THREE IN LIEU OF FOUR. 
 
 " And this Is life : men come and go 
 And heed me not, 
 Forgetting all, I quiet rest, 
 By all forgot." 
 
 — M. A. BILLINGS. 
 
 The failure of Garland Cloud to fulfill his part 
 of the compact does not retard the New York 
 enterprise with which his name was to have been 
 most prominently associated. No delay is occa- 
 sioned on account of his terribly caused absence 
 from the post of duty which he had pledged him- 
 self to assume. There are some expressions of 
 disappointment and regret; his name and signa- 
 ture are stricken from the articles of copartner- 
 ship ; the firm is promptly organized under the 
 style of Oglethrop, Harman & Co., and com- 
 mences business at the time originally specified, 
 as though G-arland Cloud had never been expect- 
 ed to be a member. Out of pure charity his name 
 is not only expunged from all association which 
 it bore with the firm, but it is not referred to in 
 conversation. Thus it is that the man who would 
 have been the moving spirit in the enterprise is 
 rapidly forgotten. 
 
 Such is human nature, and a wisely ordered 
 essential in its composition, that for the bereave- 
 ment and the affliction entailed by death there is 
 a mysteriously soothing antidote — Time; which, 
 as a general rule, heals the wounds inflicted in the 
 hearts of sorrowing friends, and even neSr and 
 dear relatives, more speedily and effectually than 
 any remedy relieves those sorrows caused by 
 some quite comparatively trivial and temporal 
 misfortune. 
 
 Wounds inflicted by death usually heal. But it 
 is the broken heart severed by the dart of disap- 
 pointed, baffled, or hopeless love that is incurable, 
 for Avhich sometimes there is no remedy. Such 
 is a malady that the great healer, Time, often fails 
 to cure or abate. 
 
 It is not, therefore, in the harmony of things 
 for the death of G-arland Cloud — no matter how- 
 ever horrible its nature is esteemed by his friends, 
 
 — to interfere materially with their life-plans, nor 
 long to retard their prosecution. 
 
 This seems to be a wisely ordered dispensation 
 of Providence — that when any important person 
 in any sphere of public life or duty is suddenly 
 cut off by the releniless hand of the Destroying 
 Angel, however indispensable his services may 
 seem, there is always some one ready to supply 
 his place ; so that usually there is Uttle or no detri- 
 ment suffered by the interest involved under the 
 care and direction of the dead, before he was 
 swiftly deprived of life. 
 
 Such doctrine, however, fails to hold good in 
 the case of more tender and endearing ties of life, 
 where the loss of its fondest and most cherished 
 object breaks the doting heart and leaves it to 
 pine in silent and ceaseless sorrow, with no at- 
 tainable relief but death, with its blissful quietude 
 and endless repose. 
 
 To Garland Cloud, in the main at least, was due 
 the foundation of the New York enterprise. But 
 when he failed to appear to fill his place as the 
 building architect, there were others to take the 
 position he would have occupied ; and the struct- 
 ure rose in stately magnificence, and perhaps as 
 surely and rapidly as though he had remained as 
 its creative and directing genius. 
 
 The combined capital of the firm is such as to 
 give it an immediate and a high rating; and noth- 
 ing in human shape may be more nearly perfect 
 than the beautiful and unblemished character of its 
 young, sober, energetic, intelligent and promising 
 members. Every one at all familiar with it, pre- 
 dicts for this firm an enviably prosperous career. 
 Perhaps it is fortunate that the shadow of Gar- 
 land Cloud's blighting curse is destined never to 
 cross the threshold of the door leading to the 
 prospective counting-room of his admiring and 
 confiding friends. 
 
 Had he remained, they might have become in- 
 nocent victims, and been thus forced to partake 
 with him, at least to a certain extent, of the bit- 
 ter fruits of the indiscretions of his misguided 
 and erroneous mistakes and misdeeds, 
 
186 
 
 IVIYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 THE WOUNDED AND FORLORN DOVE. 
 
 " She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps! 
 And lovers are round her sighing ; 
 But coldly she turns Irom their gaze and weeps, 
 For her heart in his grave is lying." 
 
 — MOOEE. 
 
 Carrie Harman is inconsolable. So long styled 
 the angel of consolation herself; yet still for her 
 there is no such being. 
 
 Little dreamed G-arland Cloud of the cruel stab 
 he would inflict in a true, devoted, loving heart 
 whose pulsations vibrated for him alone, and 
 thrilled at the sound of his name. He believed 
 that she disliked him as cordially as he devotedly 
 loved her. For this reason he deemed that his 
 mad act would cause her no pang, otherwise than 
 one of regret that she had ever known him. 
 
 How often, alas, misunderstanding or miscon- 
 struing each other severs the ties of love ! This 
 celestial passion is prone to be over-jealous, 
 strongly inclined to skepticism whenever a guard- 
 ed reserve essaya to conceal the true emotions of 
 the heart, to stifle the fondest sentiments and 
 most ardent longings of the soul — that of declar- 
 ing or confessing- an unspoken love. Alas, that 
 it should thus sometimes be rendered voiceless 
 for evermore ! 
 
 How frequently men love women almost to in- 
 sane desperation, and construe the artful strategy 
 of the fair enchantresses as cold and repulsive in- 
 diflference, when in reality their smothered fiame 
 of affection contains more pent up devotion than 
 ever convulsed the heart of an inconstant man. 
 Deep motive sometimes prompts this baffling dis- 
 simulation: to prove the sincerity of the man 
 who overwhelms the doubting girl with bewil- 
 dering declarations of love; to rend the chain 
 that binds her to less desirable entanglements in 
 the subtle meshes of Cupid's luring snare, or to 
 await the pending issue of more promising expec- 
 tations. Most often, in all probability, the latter 
 cause exercises the swaying influence by which 
 the lady is actuated. It matters little, however, 
 with the man, which motive controls the woman : 
 
 he is certain to conclude that she neither appreci- 
 ates his passionate sentiment nor cares for him. 
 Thus are many buds of love blasted ere they 
 blossom; some hearts broken and left to j^ine 
 with the bhght of irretrievable woe. 
 
 To Carrie Harman, Charles Lorenzi and Walter 
 Paulona are unbearable. Why this is so she, 
 perhaps, could not explain. It is in all proba- 
 bihty an instinctive aversion. 
 
 Poor Carrie ! very soon after receiving the 
 tidings that so cruelly wounded her, she leaves 
 her father's roof and returns to the scenes of her 
 childhood's home, and of her labors in dark and 
 trying days of the near past — days to others no 
 more dark and trying than these present are to 
 her. Amid the bright faces of her former little 
 proteges of the mountain, beaming with Nature's 
 true smiles, she finds the one grain of comfort 
 she is conscious of experiencing anywhere, under 
 any circumstances, in any relation of life. 
 
 Numbers of young gentlemen seek to comfort 
 her, but in vain. For more than two years she 
 continues to mourn. 
 
 She hears from Gen. Cloud the story of the 
 ancient curse of his family, and also of his warn- 
 ing to Garland on " the field of Gettysburg." 
 
 In Garland's farewell letter to his father he 
 wrote : "I wish I could bequeath to Jesse 
 Flowers all my vanished prospects and hopes." 
 
 Evidently the "prospects" were measurably, 
 at least, of a commercial nature. But the "hopes " 
 — ah ! the hopes — to what or to whom did they 
 relate ? Beyond any question to Carrie Harman. 
 To what other being could they relate ? What 
 other creature of earth, bearing the imprint of 
 angelic beauty and heavenly grace, could cause 
 the fountain of hope to spring in that arid sor- 
 row-parched breast ? To Garland Cloud, Carrie 
 Harman was all the world. Without her, life was 
 disrobed of its every charm. 
 
 For these reasons, what could be more natural, 
 after he was obliged to regard her but as a van- 
 ished dream, to desire that she should become 
 the life-jewel of Jesse Flowers? This young 
 man was Cloud's dearest male friend. A better 
 and truer young man could rarelj^, if ever, be 
 found beneath a saintly sphere. 
 
THE WOUNDED AND FORLORN DOVE. 
 
 187 
 
 Because G-arland Cloud thus esteemed and ad- 
 mired him, and desired that he should become 
 the custodian, the protector and the comforter of 
 poor, disconsolate Carrie, she, doubtless, was 
 materially impressed with the conviction that 
 duty to the memory of her vanished idol sternly 
 required her to make that sacrifice on the shrine 
 of love, should it ever be demanded. Thus in- 
 tiuenced, she had nothing to do but wait, as she 
 ministered to her fond charges through many 
 mournful days. 
 
 Perhaps this emphatic declaration of Cloud, 
 made on the dread confines of the "Nevermore," 
 created a deep impression on the mind of Jesse 
 Mowers. Certainly there was nothing more 
 natural than for Carrie Harman to make a vul- 
 nerable impression on his heart, especially since 
 there remained no visible barrier between him 
 and her, to preclude him from entering and pres- 
 sing the suit of love. 
 
 We may be permitted to imagine that Jesse 
 contemplated this enterprise with misgivings. 
 Well did he know the lofty esteem cherished by 
 Carrie for him ; yet he could but remember that 
 it was simply the solicitous regard of a sister, 
 and nothing more. Under these circumstances, 
 we cannot deem it very wonderful that he per- 
 mitted the months to go by and multiply, years 
 before he ventured to speak of love. 
 
 Besides, the memory of Garland Cloud, as it 
 was associated with Carrie Harman, doubtless in- 
 spired Jesse with a certain sense of awe : the ter- 
 ril^le end of the absent adorer of the Angel of 
 Consolation was sufficiently painful to deter this 
 modest young gentleman from hurriedly seeking 
 to occupy the void in the aching heart of the fair 
 and silent mourner. 
 
 In the fall of 1869, Jesse Flowers visits his 
 old mountain home. While in the dreamy dells 
 of his childhood years, he, modestly doubting, 
 sues for Miss Harman's hand. Whatsoever be 
 the nature of the influence that decides her, it 
 results in her consenting to return with him to 
 New York — his bride. 
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 BUSINESS AND SOCIAL FLASHES. 
 
 " Commerce, friendship, love, all blend- 
 Weal or woe— all social ties but tend. 
 To bow at her slirine, and liowsoe'er bold. 
 Yield to tUat winning goddess— Gold." 
 
 —ANON. 
 
 Business, society, love, and war are inseparably 
 connected with and irretrievably subject to the 
 influence and the power of money. Hence it is 
 that business, which is ever esteemed and designed 
 to be the greatest of all money-producing factors, 
 is one grand social lever and creator. Business 
 makes or mars society, in this latter-day accepta- 
 tion of the term, according to the extent of its 
 prosperity or the magnitude of its reverses. 
 
 The scale of social rank is, as a rule, measured 
 and graded by the amount of money its members 
 can lavish on all the appointments and equipages 
 that make up the perfect role of brilliant and 
 matchless display. As the full tide of prosperity 
 rolls up its hoards of wealth, so is the social posi- 
 tion of the fortunate advanced ; while, as the ebb 
 tide takes them away, so is the social status of the 
 unfortunate diminished. 
 
 Let it be but known that a man is prospering 
 rapidly, or that he has become a millionaire, — 
 though the nature of his business is not such as 
 the most scrupulous approve, and though many of 
 the transactions from which he derives his -syealth 
 are of questionable repute, — still both he and his 
 family receive the smiles of society, and their 
 friendship is sought with eagerness, and assidu- 
 ously cultivated. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if he has made heavy 
 losses, is losing, is in a faihng condition, or has 
 ah-eady failed, all the world instinctively expe- 
 riences a thrill of aversion for him ai;d his. 
 
 The firm of Ogiethrop, Harman & Co. prospers 
 AvonderfuUy. Business pours into it from all over 
 the South, in one perpetual and ever-increasing 
 stream. 
 
 Ogiethrop's wife is so well known and prized 
 as to be regarded a general favorite in society. 
 Rosalia Harman, nee Flowers, and Carrie Flow- 
 ers, nee Harman, formerly esteemed Angels of the 
 
188 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE' GEEY. 
 
 Mountain and of Consolation, are both soon her 
 constant friends. 
 
 They, as a general rule, are for some time placed 
 in the rather ostracized Southern element of so- 
 ciety; and are, therefore, quite exclusive; and 
 manifest the most serene indifference. 
 
 Cassandra Worthington, who is almost fanatic- 
 ally immersed in the cause and works of philan- 
 thropy, is also, as a matter of course, their friend. 
 Together these four women become enlisted in 
 the same cause, and work largely in direct con- 
 cert with the Sisters of Charity — Beatrice and 
 Rosalind. 
 
 The four ladies make a new departure as to 
 themselves and their homes. They wear no jew- 
 elry, no extravagant nor superfluous apparel, nor 
 do they administer their households but with the 
 most modestly simple yet still comfortable econ- 
 omy. This enables them to contribute continually 
 and liberally to the wants of suffering humanity, 
 that they know personally to be both worthy and 
 deserving of assistance. 
 
 Mrs. Worthington previously set the exam- 
 ple in this direction by selling her handsome 
 diamonds, with the cordial approbation of hci- 
 husband, who values and appreciates people not 
 by what they wear in the way of clothing or or- 
 naments, and devotes their proceeds to the cause 
 in which she has already engaged herself. 
 
 After this change in the course of his wife's 
 life, Silas Worthington is a new man. Instead of 
 leaving the uncongenial society of his wife, as it 
 had been in the past, to attend a business meet- 
 ing, or to meet a friend on business on an evening 
 after dinner, he remains at home, or goes out 
 with her; and both seem personified devotion 
 and happiness combined. 
 
 In time, Rosalia Harman and Carrie Flowers 
 became known and appreciated for themselves, 
 everywhere in the compass of that social sphere 
 where Cassandra Worthington and Evalina Ogle- 
 throp inove. 
 
 The members of the firm of Oglethrop, Har- 
 man & Co., and their estimable and beautiful 
 wives, are now basking in the salubrious and 
 congenial smiles of fortune. With them the cur- 
 rent of life has ever been more than comparatively 
 smooth and cheerful for the times in which they 
 
 lived. No great and terrible personal misfortunes 
 have ever fallen to the lot of any one of them, 
 except the heart-aches experienced by Carrie 
 Harman for Garland Cloud and his sad end; and 
 these, it seems, have yielded to the treatment of 
 that great and mystic heart-healer — Time. There 
 were no convents in the land where she dwelt, 
 and she went to the mountain, and was healed. 
 
 The trials and the wrongs of the Flowers 
 children had passed the climax of their bitterness 
 during the tender years of the j)Oor fatherless 
 little ones; and the experience through which 
 they passed after they arrived at the years of 
 accountability, had tended to beautify their lives 
 and to prepare them to shine in the paths of use- 
 fulness and honor. 
 
 The Harmans had lost much property by the 
 war, but, nevertheless, do they now appear to 
 advantage. 
 
 Oglethrop, and his jewel of a wife, have met 
 no crosses. 
 
 Exempt from unmerciful disaster, and far re- 
 moved from and shielded against the baneful in- 
 fluence and too often potent sway of temptation, 
 these six young people should glide smoothly 
 over life's ocean in peaceful serenity and blissful 
 happiness; and this they will do, provided they 
 do not draw the penalties of indiscretion, nor the 
 retribution of crime upon themselves. 
 
 Had Effie Edelstein been a dowerless girl, Law- 
 rence Pleasington's hopes and happiness would 
 never have been shattered on her account. Seek- 
 ing to win her as an heiress was neither an indis- 
 cretion nor a crime ; but entailed a terrible mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 Had Garland Cloud resisted the temptation to 
 conceal something that properly and justly was 
 no disgrace, he would be, with his former friends, 
 useful, prosperous, and esteemed. 
 
 It is those who bear the relentless scourge of 
 misfortune courageously, and pass through the 
 fiery crucible of temptation unscorched, who are 
 truly heautiful. 
 
THE LONELY MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER. 
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE LONELY MYSTERIOUS TRAVELEU. 
 
 "In my youth's summer. I dirt sing of cue. 
 
 The wandering outlaw of his own darli mind : — 
 
 Again I seize the theme but then begun. 
 And bear it with me as the wind 
 
 Bears the cloud onward," —Byron. 
 
 In the winter of 1869-70, there is on a rail- 
 road survey in the Louisiana lowlands a well dres- 
 sed, pecuHarly mysterious stranger ; all alone, with 
 the light field paraphernalia of a civil engineer, he is 
 passing quietly along at the rate of twenty miles 
 per day, on foot. 
 
 As to his business and himself, he is obstinate- 
 ly reticent wherever he takes refreshments at 
 noon or lodges at night. At other times of the 
 day he rarely ever speaks to any one, although 
 he passes near numbers of people, sometimes right 
 among hundreds of cotton-pickers, and through 
 the main streets of large towns. 
 
 Just now there is considerable excitement 
 about the building of the anticipated road, which 
 has been long deferred ; hence, therefore, many 
 are the conjectures, and rumors are rife as to the 
 object of this soHtary individual ; and the tidings 
 of his coming travel before him. 
 
 The most current conclusion is that he is locat- 
 ing depots on the sly, and spying out the most 
 desirable property, in the interest either of the 
 company or of speculators, who will send secret 
 agents to buy it quietly. 
 
 It is evident from the bronzed appearance of 
 his face, that he has long been exposed to the 
 vertical rays of a Southern summer's sun. 
 
 When within about forty miles of the termi- 
 nus of the road, a Friday's noon finds him near 
 the beautifully appearing mansion of an exten- 
 sive cotton planter, nesthng in a handsome grove 
 on a high, gravelly knoll. 
 
 Being hungry, and seeing no other house ahead 
 of him nearer his line of travel than this one, 
 he turns aside to seek his dinner there, just as he 
 has turned every day for the past week at other 
 points, to other houses on his pathway. 
 
 Arriving at the gate he shouts loudly: " Halloo ! " 
 
 Instantly the blustering old gentleman makes 
 his appearance on the portico, and sings out, 
 "Halloo yourseli" 
 
 Traveler: " Can a tired, hungry man get din- 
 ner here, sir? " 
 
 Planter: "Certainly; walk right in, sir. Be 
 seated just a moment, while I go and have you a 
 plate prepared, as we are now dining. All read}^, 
 sir, come in." 
 
 A young lady of the family has surrendered 
 her place at the table, in order to make room for 
 the new comer promptly. She is a beautiful, 
 blooming, blushing, Southern rose ; and her name 
 is Manonia. 
 
 She takes a sly peep at the stranger through 
 the aperture of a door slightly ajar, as he sits at 
 the table. Then she glides into the parlor, seats 
 herself at the piano, and plays the dreamy air of 
 a Southern sentimental song, " The Broken Spell," 
 singing one verse and the chorus with the thrill- 
 ing pathos of a music-nurtured child of sunny 
 Italy. 
 
 " Years I may spend still in pleasure. 
 But memory will cling to me yet. 
 There are feelings that words cannot m'easure, 
 There are tones that I. cannot forget. 
 
 Vain are the vows we have plighted : 
 
 Would that we never had met ; 
 Love's a flower that blooms to be blighted, 
 
 And a star that X'ose but to set." 
 
 The dulcet notes of her voice echo through 
 and die away in the large high rooms and halls, 
 faintlybut sweetly penetrating to the distant and 
 closed dining-room. 
 
 She then rises from the instrument, takes up 
 a peacock's-tail- feather duster, and dusts the fur- 
 niture as she soliloquizes: 
 
 "The same face of the stranger of whom I 
 have so often dreamed, and awoke weeping. Yes, 
 the same, plain as daylight. 
 
 "Well, from my stolen peep, I cannot see that 
 there is any cause connected with him to weep 
 over How very ridiculous! But that is just like 
 dreams. In order to interpret, one must trans- 
 pose them, and draw an inference opposed to what 
 they appear to mean. 
 
190 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 "But they are coming from dinner, and I must 
 dust from here." 
 
 Planter: "And how do you manage to make 
 a living, stranger, with but one hand?" 
 
 Traveler: "Oh, in various ways, sir. I can 
 do all the head work of building a railroad. I 
 am a merchant, and a thorough master of every- 
 thing connected with commerce in the commis- 
 sion, or the general wholesale and retail business, 
 and of the keeping of all the books of either line 
 named. Could subsist as a book-keeper, was that 
 the only show to hve." 
 
 Planter: "Oh, then I can give you a hand- 
 some job. I have started my son in a large 
 business at the toAvn five miles from here, and I 
 am exceedingly anxious to procure the services 
 of a practical business man and book-keeper, to 
 stay with, and train him for at least a year. 
 What Avould you undertake the Avork for, by the 
 year?" 
 
 Traveler: " About twelve thousand dollars, I 
 I suppose, if I Avould undertake it at all, which 
 would not do now." 
 
 Planter: "I reckon you don't lose much 
 sleep about making a living. Oh, I remember 
 now. You must be the man I heard of at town 
 last evening. Are you not going over the survey 
 of this railroad ? ' ' 
 
 Traveler : " Yes, sir; but in the most informal, 
 careless manner." 
 
 Planter: "Oh, I understand it all now. Can 
 you tell me anything concerning the road or its 
 prospects ? " 
 
 Traveler: "Absolutely nothing, sir. The 
 company now negotiating for it will quickly 
 liuild if they get it; but there seems' to be inter- 
 minable delays and all kinds of obstacles to pre- 
 vent any successful issue of the enterprise." 
 
 Planter: "How long would it take you to 
 teach a man to keep books, and would you teach 
 a class, provided such terms as you might your- 
 self propose were complied with?" 
 
 Trave-ler: "I could give a man a practical 
 start and copious examples for his future guidance, 
 in a month. I have never thought about attempt- 
 ing to teach, and at present I have not the time. " 
 
 Planter: "I Avill pay you one hundred dol- 
 lars, board and send you to toAvn and back here 
 
 every day, if you Avill teach my sou; and I am 
 sure you can get a good, large class. Will you 
 stop long enough to ascertain?" 
 
 Traveler: "Impossible. I am on my Avay to 
 take the contract to build a long and difficult bridge 
 on the railroad beyond the river. I can leave 
 you my address and will take yours; you can 
 see your friends and write to me the result. I 
 will then, if your letter warrants it, write and tell 
 you if I have time to return and fulfill your 
 engagement before the work on the bridge is 
 ready for me to commence on it. Here is my 
 address on this envelope. I must now be off. 
 What is my bill? " 
 
 Planter : " Nube G-arland. All right, Mr. Gar- 
 land, thanks. I shall write to you very soon. 
 Your bill is to call again should you ever pass this 
 way. Say no more to me about pay. I wish 
 you would stop over a few days ; but since you 
 will not, here is my address on this envelope." 
 
 G-arland : " Eldred Donne. Thanks to you, Mr. 
 Donne. I am exceedingly grateful to you for 
 your generously proffered and hospitably extended 
 kindness, and much regret my inability to com- 
 ply with your wishes. Farewell." 
 
 Donne : " FarcAvell, my friend. Much success 
 to you." 
 
 Just as this man is passing out of the gate, he 
 hears the old gentleman call his name, and turning, 
 says: "Yes, sir; what do you wish ? " 
 
 Donne : " See here, Mr. Garland, this is Friday 
 noon. You cannot reach your destination before 
 Sunday noon, if you should travel on that day. 
 Your road is both muddy and swampy. Stop 
 over until Monday. To-morrow I can find out 
 just what can be done. Monday, bright and 
 early, I will start you behind a fast team -that 
 Avill land you at your destination before night, 
 and that will bring you back the next day if you 
 can return. AnyAvay, you will only lose a day and 
 at the same time you will escape a slavish walk. 
 From here on, there is not very much to be 
 seen, and you cannot follow the survey half the 
 distance, there is so much water in the swamps, 
 and even on the bottom-lands, just noAv." 
 
 Garland: "That appears a fair and liberal 
 proposition ; but I would do you an injustice to 
 
THE LONELY MYSTERIOUS TRAVELEE. 
 
 191 
 
 accept it, because there is scarcely the shaduAV of 
 a chance that I will ever return." 
 
 Donne ; "I will not feel harshly toward you 
 if 3'ou do not, and still make you the offer with 
 the distinct understanding that you are not to 
 return." 
 
 Garland : " All right then, sir, I will remain. 
 But look at those fine squirrels in that hickory 
 tree. Have you a gun ?" 
 
 Donne: "Yes sir; but I never shoot, and 
 yoi: cannot." 
 
 Garland : " Give me the gun and I will soon 
 show you." 
 
 Donne : "Well, I never saw such shooting: 
 four Avithout missing; that is a fine mess." 
 
 Garland : " Then I will stop." 
 
 The ultimate result is the formation of a class, 
 and its being taught by Nube Garland. 
 
 During the first two weeks, the old gentleman, 
 who is an incessant talker, tells his guest all his 
 own history, during the evenings between supper 
 and the old planter's invariable nine o'clock hour 
 for retiring. 
 
 He married at the early age of eighteen, and 
 very soon thereafter inherited and amassed a hand- 
 some property in one of the old cotton States. 
 
 He indorsed largely for friends. The old 
 bankrupt law went into operation, and they, to 
 a man, took the benefit of it. He would not 
 take such benefit; but instead, paid the obliga- 
 tions to the last dollar, and this reduced him to 
 chill and pincliing penury. 
 
 He is a powerful, muscular man ; and he made 
 it a point, after paying the last dollar — Avhich he'^ 
 did by raising two crops on rented land, and by 
 driving hogs from Tennessee — to whip every man 
 whose debts he had paid. 
 
 This resulted in thirty odd true bills of indict- 
 ment being found against him at one sitting of 
 the grand jury. 
 
 Finding it too hot, on account of this state of 
 legal jeopardy, to be comfortable or safe, he mi- 
 grated between two suns, to the "cany regions" 
 of Texas ; and, after there making a few crops, 
 he then moved to Louisiana and settled in the 
 woods on the spot where his house now stands. 
 
 He had one negro man, himself, and one boy 
 larcfe enough to work when he started his ncAV 
 
 home. With this small force he opened the laud, 
 and raised sufficient surplus cotton the first year to 
 buy another hand. 
 
 From this period his prosperity was rapid to 
 a degree that the war found him the owner of 
 hundreds of slaves, an immense plantation, and 
 the most extensive store to be met anywhere in 
 that section. 
 
 At the close of the war his slaves were gone ; 
 but he had several cotton crops on hand that 
 yielded a very handsome fortune in gold. 
 
 He had then four living children, and he made 
 each one of them independent by placing one- 
 fourth of his war cotton as a dowry to each child. 
 
 The old gentleman himself then goes to work 
 on the plantation, leading a gang of freedmen; 
 continuing the year round, right along, one year 
 after another. 
 
 He is a man of boundless ambition, and has, 
 withal, a passion that is simply terrible when it 
 is once thoroughly aroused. In his day he has 
 been a carnate devil, and as wicked as the arch 
 fiend could wish him. But he is ever, to some 
 extent, restrained by the gentle influence of his 
 meekly patient, angelically devoted wife. 
 
 Through her influence he finally professed re- 
 ligion and joined the church sometime previous 
 to the war. 
 
 He is given to fits of despondency whenever 
 the drouth or the cotton-worm is cutting short 
 his crop ; then he leaves his religion at home, 
 goes to toAvn and drinks too much. On these 
 occasions he is specially ugly and disagreeable. 
 
 He has two sublime quahtits, drunk or sober : 
 the story of distress and want of the poor always 
 moves him to compassionate kindness and liberal 
 charity; and he is the soul of honor. 
 
 This man lives for his .children. And at this 
 period, two of them, the eldest, a son, the young- 
 est, a daughter, have caused him much trouble by 
 marrying contrary to his will ; the son to his own 
 cousin ; the daughter to a young man who was 
 raised, as the saying goes, " with a silver spoon 
 in his mouth," but who is left, at the close of the 
 war, "as poor as a church mouse," ignorant of 
 all kinds of business and unused to work, having 
 never in his precious life soiled his dainty hands 
 with any class of labor, but kept them ever en- 
 
192 
 
 IklYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 cased in delicate kids. In a word, he needs 
 everything else in the world except a wife. He 
 was too young to go to the war. 
 
 The other two children are single; the son, 
 who is the merchant, and the daughter, who is at 
 home — the exquisitely charming Manonia. This 
 son is christened Eldred, for his father. 
 
 The third Sunday that the stranger has been 
 there, the son comes home on a visit, when the 
 following conversation occurs : 
 
 DonnE, Sr. : " Well, son, and how runs the 
 business ? " 
 
 Donne, Jr. : " Tamely, father ; too much credit. 
 Everything is forever going out, and notliing com- 
 ing in. 
 
 " That man Garland, who is teaching me book- 
 keeping, says that nothing short of a mint of 
 money can keep such a craft afloat, and that we 
 have not got yet; still, he don't know it. But 
 where is he ? " 
 
 Donne, Sr. : "Oh! out somewhere. He is a 
 deep mystery to me. He courts not, but rather 
 shuns, our society. Is as jDolite and respectful as a 
 dancing-master, Avhich shows that his breeding 
 has been refined. He will talk to me with fas- 
 cinating eloquence about war, business, and rail- 
 roads ; but he has no word for women folks. — 
 Does he know it all about books and business ? " 
 
 Donne, Jr. : "He does; and he is teaching me 
 far more than he agreed to do. If I only knew 
 all he knows, I could succeed. 
 
 " He is not sociable, and never converses with 
 one of us on any subject outside of our lessons; 
 and in this he is seriously earnest, and as solemn 
 as a preacher. 
 
 " Manonia, were I here with him every even- 
 ing, as you are, I would find out his history, which 
 is, beyond question, a most romantic love story." 
 
 Manonia: "Why, Eldred, the man has now 
 been here more than two weeks, and in all that 
 time he has never yet once deigned so much as 
 to speak to me. He actually seems half-fright- 
 ened whenever ma speaks to him at the table. 
 
 "Father has twice asked him about love expe- 
 rience, and he rather impatiently replied each 
 time, 'Yes; I have been there;' and then he 
 adroitly changed the subject. How can I Ijreak 
 such Arctic ice ? 
 
 '■'He sits here alone, writing, or with his head 
 resting on his hand, as if deeply immersed in 
 thought, until midnight, and even later. Father 
 goes early to bed, and I go to the dining-room. I 
 am sure that were I to remain, he would instantly 
 leave the parlor." 
 
 Donne, Jr. : "He would show both your pres- 
 ence and 3'^our questions more respect than he 
 does father's. Virginians are famous for chivahy 
 and gallantry toward the fair sex. He is young, 
 clearly manifests that he is temperate, and there- 
 fore, no matter what his sorrows or his disaji- 
 pointments may have been in the past, the ro- 
 mantic is perhaps slumbering in his soul, yet is 
 not extinct. But there is his footstep in the hall. 
 
 Speak of and his you know, will appear. 
 
 So we will drop this subject." 
 
 Manonia: "Yes; I think we had better dis- 
 cuss it no more, never." 
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 UNFOLDING TUE iMYSTERY. 
 
 " He, who, growu aged in this world of woe, 
 In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life. 
 So that no wonder waits him; nor below. 
 Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife. 
 Cut to the heart again with the keen knife." 
 
 — Bybon. 
 
 On Monday night following the Sunday on 
 which the conversation that terminated at the 
 closing of the last chapter ensued, the man Gar- 
 land occupies his customary seat at a table in the 
 centre of Eldred Donne's grand parlor, with a 
 lamp on the table, his back to the fire-place, in 
 which there flickers a low, smoldering fire that 
 reflects scarcely any light, between the hours of 
 nine o'clock and midnight, writing as rapidly as 
 the hand can drive the pen. 
 
 The house is as still as death, so that the tick- 
 ing of the old eight-day clock in the dining-room 
 sounds like the measured beat of a forge-hammer 
 in perpetual motion. The night is oppressively 
 dark, and a cold sleet-storm is moaning and howl- ' 
 ing outside. 
 
 The one lamp in the middle of the large old 
 parlor is so dim, and lights the room so imper- 
 
UNFOLDING THE MYSTERY. 
 
 193 
 
 fcrtl}-, that woird sliadows are reflected on all 
 sides; and the ancestral portraits with which 
 the walls are profusely adorned, look down upon 
 the strange man, or seem to look, so like veri- 
 table ghosts, that it makes him shudder to raise 
 his eyes to look at them. 
 
 He is occupied writing examples and instruc- 
 tions for his class, and with the corroding canker 
 of his own dark thoughts; which, evidently, are 
 much of the time far away from the page of 
 manuscript that is steadily and rapidly growing 
 beneath his hand, and the room in which he is 
 seated. Certainly, he has no heart there. 
 
 At least such is the conclusion of Manonia, 
 who has stolen noiselessly into the parlor, and 
 taken a seat in a darkly shadowed corner of the 
 hearth with her knitting, after watching him 
 more than two hours. She can observe him and 
 knit at the same time. To her mind, she is wit- 
 nessing a solitary performance of a highly 
 wrought dramatic act ; and so she is. 
 
 Sometimes he sings in a low, plaintively sad re- 
 frain the same lines over and over again, at inter- 
 vals of some minutes, without checking the cease- 
 less scratch, scratch of the pen : 
 
 " I have sailed 'neath alien skies; 
 
 I have trod the desert path ; 
 I have seen the storm arise. 
 
 Like a giant in his wrath ; 
 Every danger I have known, 
 
 That a reckless life can feel, 
 Yet her presence is not flown, 
 
 •And her bright smiles haunt me still.' " 
 
 At length he throws down the pen rather im- 
 patiently, and rests his forehead on the velvet- 
 cushioned edge of the table for several minutes, 
 breathing laboriously as if dozing; then, sud- 
 denly rousmg up with a start, he soliloquizes 
 aloud : 
 
 " Thou fairy image of bhghted hopes. Angel of 
 Consolation ! Why haunt my solitary wretched- 
 ness, since we are severed for evermore ?" 
 
 At this point he suddenly discovers the pres- 
 ence of Manonia, and, nonplussed with confusion, 
 he ejaculates with stammering embarrassment: 
 
 "Oh! a thousand — oh! — pardon — Miss, I was 
 not aware — my mind was straggling — I forgot — 
 was quite unconscious of your presence at the 
 13 
 
 moment — must have been absorbed or dreaming 
 and aroused up muttering. Don't be alarmed." 
 
 Manonia : " No harm, sir. I should beg your 
 pardon for being here ; but the fire was out in the 
 dining-room, and I came quietly in here, hoping 
 not to disturb you." 
 
 Garland : " You owe no apologies for being in 
 your own parlor, where you properly reign su- 
 preme its mistress. It is I that owe you apologies 
 and penalties for having usurped its use. Treat 
 my presence hereafter as though you were alone. 
 Never quit your realm again because I am sitting 
 here, either Avriting or thinking. Usually I am 
 quiet. I will no more think aloud when you are 
 here." 
 
 Manonia : " Use the parlor as though you were 
 at home. We are far down ' South in Dixie,' 
 yet still we strive to show civil strangers who 
 come among us, always the most cheerful hospi- 
 tality that we can ; and to extend to them our 
 blunt, old-fashioned style of welcome." 
 
 Garland: "Stranger! civility! home! — what 
 deep meaning these words impart ! I have been 
 so long among the rude and semi-civilized that I 
 must be more strange than I am stranger, and 
 strangely uncivil. I am informed that contact 
 with madmen has made men mad. 
 
 "When I came under the shadow of this 
 friendly roof, thirty months had then elapsed 
 since I had uttered a word to a lady or woman- 
 kind ; hence it is no wonder that I am uncouth, 
 and have lost my wonted politeness. 
 
 "Better days and brighter thoughts have been 
 my lot. 
 
 " But pardon me, I am beyond the boundary 
 of my proper sphere. These are things of no 
 import. I will not allude to them, nor will I thus 
 intrude upon your attention again any other 
 subject." 
 
 Manonia : " I pity you, sir ; and am persuaded 
 that it is a question replete with grave import to 
 which you allude. My curiosity to know more 
 of it is intensely excited; it must be romantic, and 
 fraught with deeply thrilling interest. Please, 
 sir, would you very much object to recounting it 
 for me ?" 
 
 Garland: "It has never been breathed to 
 mortal ears; and I have always intended that it 
 
194 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 never should escape my lips. At this moment, 
 such is still the state of my inclination. I can 
 assure you that in it there is not one iota of in- 
 terest for you ; and it Avould be painful to me to 
 relate. 
 
 "But before exphcitly answering your ques- 
 tion, tell me, please, did I speak inteUigibly loud 
 just now?" 
 
 Manonia : " You did, sir, as clearly and as dis- 
 tinctly audible as you do even now. That little 
 sentence is what has most tended to arouse my 
 curiosity !" 
 
 G-ARLAXD : " Then you have a clue that is the 
 key to my story, but for which nothing in this 
 world could induce me to narrate it, because in 
 doing so the pity Avhich you now generously 
 cherish for me will vanish, to give place to a sen- 
 timent of contemptible abhorrence. At all events, 
 however, I will not confide it to you, only on the 
 express condition that you give me your most 
 sacred promise not so much as to hint it to any 
 one until after I am gone." 
 
 Manonia: "I most solemnly promise not to 
 divulge it even after you are gone, should you so 
 prefer ; and I further promise that my f eehngs of 
 pity shall not abate because of the story being an 
 unpleasant one to yourself. 
 
 " I am now all impatience to hear a real life- 
 picture romance. I have always heard that truth' 
 is often stranger than fiction." 
 
 Garland : " Very well, then, if this story must 
 ever be told, there is rarely a more appropriately 
 fitting time for its disclosure than to-night, when 
 the war and wails of the elements are distressing 
 nature — in strikingly sympathetic accord with the 
 war of the narrator's life with the tempest-lashed 
 waves of Time, and the storm of emotion that wiU 
 surge in his breast while the slumbering mystery 
 is unfolding from its long and silent sleep. 
 
 "Nerve yourself. Miss Donne, to hear some 
 shocking recitals ; if as shocking to you as they 
 are painful to me, I much fear that your antici- 
 pated pleasure may but prove a mocking disap- 
 pointment. 
 
 " As you know, from the tenor of my inadver- 
 • 'i • 
 
 tant disclosure a few moments ago, there is a 
 
 lady connected with it ; and you are aware that 
 
 Avithout a lady the story would be wholly di- 
 
 vested of every semblance of the romantic. I 
 tell you that it would not exist. 
 
 " You have heard me telling your father about 
 my war engendered enemies and my business 
 career since the war. The relation the lady in 
 question bore, both to the machinations of those 
 bitter, unscrupulous, unprincipled enemies and 
 my future mercantile plans and prospects at that 
 time, is what sent me aimlessly adrift on the 
 great and boisterous ocean of life, to be driven 
 and buffeted as a weed by its waves ; and doomed 
 me to the hard and pitiable fate of being an 
 orphan of the heart for evermore. 
 
 " Those enemies realized that this was my only 
 vulnerable point, and assailed it with fiendish 
 vengeance. I loved this adorable young lady 
 with zealous devotion, and I believe now, that 
 she reciprocated my passionate fondness. 
 
 "My enemies perverted truth, and concocted 
 the most damnable and black conspiracy ever con- 
 ceived by a Satanic mind — far more terrible than 
 the swiftly dispatching dagger of the assassin, 
 because it inflicted a cureless wound of hngering 
 and horrible torture. 
 
 " Had I not loved this girl, or had she alone, 
 among all the others whose friendship and esteem 
 had vanished, stood firm and confidingly unshaken 
 in her faith, I would have defied the whole crew, 
 and shown for their malicious attack a disdainful 
 contempt. 
 
 " But, alas ! the curse of vanished centuries was 
 upon me. 
 
 " My faithful confidential clerk and a Christian 
 merchant wrote me a joint letter, bearing the de- 
 spairing intelligence of the thoroughly complete 
 revulsion of public sentiment unanimously against 
 me. 
 
 " This pictured, the hopeless estrangement from 
 me of the friendship of the young lady's family, 
 which declared was so vindictively bitter that the 
 old gentleman who was by many years my 
 oldest friend in that section of country, and per- 
 haps the most devoted, personally, that I had in the 
 world, would not so much as condescend to write 
 to me on the subject ; but that he had suggested 
 that my own confidential man was in duty bound 
 to write me, and the merchant had from a chari- 
 table impulse, voluntarily joined him. 
 
UNFOLDING THE MYSTERY. 
 
 195 
 
 '' They informed nie, in the concluding para- 
 graph of thcii' letter, that while they were dis- 
 posed to build a more liberal construction out of 
 tlie aflair for me, than any other person in the 
 community, still the circumstances were of such a 
 nature as to preclude the possibility of their ever 
 again recognizing me. 
 
 "They therefore advised me to have my afl'airs 
 settled by an attorney; and for the sake of my 
 i)wn feelings, never to return again to where 
 naught but the grave of my hopes would be 
 found. 
 
 "Nothing — not one faint gleam of the sem- 
 l)lance of hope — remained for me on the face of 
 the earth after I had read that heart-rending 
 letter. 
 
 " This drove me almost mad. For me, the 
 Avorld had come to a sudden end. Promptly, over- 
 come by despair, I resolved to seek the only 
 refuge left me : the friendly shelter of the rip- 
 pling, peaceful river. 
 
 " I made a power of attorney to the merchant 
 just referred to, authorizing him to have my busi- 
 ness wound up, and my earthly aiFairs settled; 
 and with this I sent a large sum of money by 
 express to pay oflf any unsettled balance due my 
 patrons, together with other definitely explicit 
 instructions, and wrote a few, hasty farewell 
 letters. 
 
 "When all was accomplished, I remembered 
 that I had a balance of some five hundred dollars 
 in the hands of a firm in the city, which had es- 
 caped my mind while making up my documents. 
 I went and drew it; but there was some delay, 
 so that the train passed before I could get it 
 ready; and I left it at the express oflfice to go 
 the next day. Then I returned to my hotel, and 
 packed and labeled my trunk for shipment. 
 
 "At this time, the sun was nearly down. I 
 then at once set out to wend my way to some 
 lonely spot on the river below the city, to seek a 
 watery grave. 
 
 " Just as twilight was beginning to drape the 
 earth and the water with her shadowy mantle 
 while I was in a dim pathway in a dense forest, 
 rapidly approaching the river bank, some chil- 
 dren who lived a little way down the river, over- 
 took me. 
 
 "A bright, talkative httle girl of the party 
 wanted to know if I was going to their house ; 
 and when informed that I was not, she promptly 
 told me that I was lost, as there was no road be- 
 yond their house — nothing but wild, precipitous 
 crags and cliffs. 
 
 "She then told me a story about a man, who, 
 she said, had drowned himself in the big, deep 
 bend of the river just ahead of us, and that the 
 Devil had carried his soul away to the bad place, 
 because the preacher said that whoever kills him- 
 self is doomed to torment. 
 
 " The words of this guileless child kndled on 
 my wretched heart, and I faltered and wavered; 
 then softly told the child that I was taking a 
 Avalk, and must turn and hasten back to the city, 
 or darkness would overtake me. 
 
 " Up to the moment that I had met these inno- 
 cent children, I had only thought of escaping 
 from the intolerable miseries of this Hfe, and not 
 of those to which I would be flying in the dark 
 Unknown. Since they aroused my mind to a re- 
 flective realization of the horrible step I was 
 taking, it appeared a thousand times more appall- 
 ing and terrible than all the multiplied and com- 
 bined ills of earth, whether real or imaginary, 
 could possibly be ; and my resolution was to fly, 
 fly — where, I knew not, cared not, if it was but 
 * away from all places, all scenes, and all people, 
 where and to whom I had ever been known. 
 
 " I hastened back to the city, to my room, and 
 snatched up my shawl; then to the express ofiice, 
 and withdrew the money package before men- 
 tioned; then to a dark alley, where I wrapped 
 myself in my shawl, pulled my hat down over 
 my eyes, and then hurried to the depot, arriving 
 barely in time to board a South-bound train, from 
 the dark side opposite the depot. 
 
 "I paid my fare to a junction about one hun- 
 dred miles distant; crouched down in a dark cor- 
 ner, and was not again disturbed. Arrived at the 
 junction, I bought a through ticket to the farthest 
 possible Southern point, and continued the jour- 
 ney uninterruptedly. 
 
 "Very soon thereafter I found myself in a yellow- 
 fever-plague-stricken city; where it was almost 
 impossible to bury the victims of that scourg- 
 ing epidemic, so terribly rapid and frightfully 
 
196 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 numerous were the cust-s of mortality. I deemed 
 this cause more worthy of my hfe than the river, 
 and plunged into it to aid the suffering in every 
 way in my power; and exposed myself day and 
 night with reckless indifference for more than 
 two months, without feeling at any time at all 
 physically indisposed. 
 
 " From that point onward you have heard my 
 story : the voyages to Mexico and South Amer- 
 ica ; the hide trade, and the railroad-building in 
 which I have been engaged up to the day of my 
 arrival here. 
 
 " From the moment I entered the car, the first 
 night of my flight, up to this night, not one 
 familiar object or face has ever greeted my eye, 
 and all who ever knew me deem me the victim 
 of suicide. Ere now I have been long since for- 
 gotten. 
 
 " Oh that all the people and memories of the 
 past were only as dead to me as I am to them. 
 Heaven alone knows my vainly silent struggles 
 to consign these sadly bitter memories to sombre 
 obHvion and never-awakening f orgetf ulness ! But 
 go where I will, do what I may, the ghostly 
 shadows of the past haunt me still, haunt me ever. 
 
 " This is the substance of my story, the source 
 of my sorrows. If the details on any special 
 point are not sufficiently exphcit to satisfy your_ 
 curiosity, you are at liberty at some future time, 
 opportunity serving you, to question me. 
 
 " The clock has just tolled the hour of one ; 
 now is the time that ghosts are abroad, and that 
 we should not be here." 
 
 Manonia : " Mercy, how late it is ! How thank- 
 ful I am for the courtesy you have accorded me 
 in narrating this story, that so closely bordei-s 
 on the terrible and the tragic. It has aroused in 
 my nature a deep and sympathetic interest. 
 
 "I trust that our strange acquaintance may 
 not prove unpleasant to you during the remain- 
 der of your sojourn with us , and so I must say 
 good-night. Oh, Mr. Grarland, I am so sorry for 
 you! " 
 
 Garland : " Grood-night. May my story not 
 disturb your dreams." 
 
 Left alone, he continues to soliloquize as follow? : 
 
 " Gruileless innocence ! winning witchery ! 
 fairy enchantress ! Unschooled in coquettish 
 
 arts — a novice in the icy formalities of the cold- 
 hearted duplicity of the giddy social world, Na- 
 ture's own chUd of the open heart's best, ever 
 true and pure impulse ! Deep black eyes, more 
 to be dreaded than the frowning battlements of 
 Gibraltar, and more irresistible ! Directed against 
 a defenseless heart, it could but become their 
 helpless preJ^ 
 
 " But my heart, had I one, would be unmoved 
 alike by the emotions of hope or the tremors of 
 dread. Poor, lone wreck of the past! wretched, 
 sick, riven! Hopes may spring and perish in thy 
 fountainless desert without provoking one pang 
 of disappointment or one sigh of regret. 
 
 " Until the last few hours arrived with their 
 strange events, I have been obstinately resolved 
 to avoid this simple child of Nature. But why 
 deny her amusement, if such there be for her 
 in my narrative ? Surely it would be most dis- 
 agreeable in me to withhold this innocent diver- 
 sion when I can accord her whatever pleasure 
 she may derive from it, knowing who and what 
 she is, without forgetting who and what I am. 
 The guK separating our spheres is as impassable 
 as that dividing heaven and earth. Hers, purit}-, 
 innocence, and truth; mine, deceit, concealment 
 and falsehood — even to my very name. I would 
 start at its merely true echo as at the blast of the 
 Archangel's trumpet. I made my life, without 
 valid cause, a false nature, that has since been 
 transformed into an endless curse. 
 
 " Her impressions can be naught but the pass- 
 ing thought of the moment, mine but the cold in- 
 difference of my frozen existence. Away hence 
 with these insane musings." 
 
 This poor remorse-scourged, conscience-strick- 
 en wretch bows his head, overcome by the subtle 
 influence of the stupefying spell that sudden!}- 
 thrills liis being as the ethereal form of an evil 
 spirit approaches him, and speaks to the helpless, 
 half-dreaming ear : 
 
 " Hesitating, ambling hypocrite. It is not in 
 thy anatomy to serve Heaven's exacting King; 
 still with my brand of falsehood decking thy 
 brow, thou seekest to rebel against allegiance to 
 my power. 
 
 " A flickering spark of respect for the Naza- 
 rene hath twice, through His agencies, ^tayed thy 
 
UNFOLDING THE IVIYSTERY. 
 
 197 
 
 murderous hand, raised to destroy thyself. Thou 
 wast forewarned of the affliction thou wouldst 
 cause others, and the bitter wretchedness of thy 
 own lot, didst thou continue to live. 
 
 " If thy loyalty must be retained by strategy, 
 thy restless ambition and false position suffice. 
 Go forth and prosper. Thy identity is oblivion. 
 This fair daughter of Grace will love thee, will be 
 thy foundation and spring to wealth. It wert 
 well for thee to secure the peaceful sweets of life, 
 and cease to roam aimlessly over the earth. Her 
 e^'es shalt soften thy stubborn heart, her charms 
 tame thy stern will, so obdurately steeled against 
 their alluring spell. Softly, unconsciously, but 
 steadily and surely, will they find their way into 
 thy being. Thou desireth peace, honor, purity — 
 they bide thj' pleasure. 
 
 " When thy star is in its ascendency and the 
 .sun of glory is shining brilliantly around thee, we 
 will meet again. If then found obdurate and 
 vacillating, disdaining to obey the dictates of thy 
 ambition, pride wilt rouse thee to action. 
 
 " This child of Heaven wilt tame thy fierce 
 nature, but only to store greater reserves of wrath 
 against thee ; for unto all others, with continued 
 disobedience to my will, shalt be added the curse 
 of her wrongs. 
 
 " Serve me truly and faithfully, and all shalt 
 be well Avith thee on the earth. Seek to rebel 
 against, and attempt to fly from my service, and 
 the bitter fruits of the past have been but the 
 diluted essence of those thou shalt ever pluck, in- 
 flicting miserable torture, as the inevitable conse- 
 quences of disobedience. Be wise, and escape 
 them. Until then, adieu ! " 
 
 Garland : " Thank Heaven, it is but a dream ! 
 The horrid nightmare conjured into shadowy vis- 
 ions by the vivid recollections of the by-gone 
 time, ever fresli and present memories, as undying 
 as their wounds in my heart are cureless, pro- 
 voked but to bleed afresh, by recalhng and re- 
 picturing their sadly woeful scenes. 
 
 "Vain and idle dreams! Your colors of more bitter 
 afflictions have no terrors for me, your flattering 
 illusions of happiness no charms. BetAveen me 
 and this fair Southland flower there is not, never 
 can be, affinity. Rather than make one advance 
 ill the direction even of attempting to gain her 
 
 most indifferent esteem ; yes, rather than so much 
 as consider it seriously, I would suffer my re- 
 maining arm to be severed from my battle-scarred 
 body. 
 
 "Cruel delusions of the sad past! I have not 
 forgotten thy bitterly deceptive, hear t-Av ringing 
 pangs, that I should permit anything on earth, 
 however alluring, to tempt me into l^etraying in- 
 nocent purity, Avith the hope-blasting phantom of 
 a spectral and shadoAA'y love, was such vile base- 
 ness within the bounds of possibility. 
 
 "No; a thousand times no ! Neither this most 
 beautiful creature, nor any other fair daughter of 
 earth shall ever behold me in any hght sufficiently 
 amiable to enlist even so much as a mere passing 
 sentiment of cordial friendship. 
 
 " This is my resolution despite the dreams of 
 day or the nightmare visions of darkness. 
 
 What! I the blighter of womanly happiness, 
 to gratify the selfish cravings of an empty heart, 
 famishing for unattainable peace? Never! 
 Never ! ! Never ! ! ! 
 
 CHAPTER LYI. 
 
 the I.MPRUnEXT WOOING. 
 
 " When she had spoken, I turned to go away, 
 But the sweet little creature, she bid me to stay; 
 She said that she was lonely— her heart it would 
 
 break — 
 Her voice— 'twas so lovely, her hand I did take." 
 — Saveet Evelina. 
 
 The days come and go, while Garland's engage- 
 ment hastens to its close. 
 
 Each night, one after the other, finds him at his 
 usual post and occupation, Avith patient Manonia 
 always at hers, in the corner with the traditional 
 knitting. 
 
 In her opinion he is rudely taciturn and morose, 
 but in replying to her questions, to Avhich he al- 
 ways repHes Avith pohshed politeness and truly 
 refined courtesy. But still, tliis fact notwithstand- 
 ing, she experiences an embarrassing delicacy iu 
 asking questions or introducing conversations, 
 when the man is incessantly at work, as he always 
 is until long after that hour when stern propriety 
 forces her to bid him good-night. She deems 
 
198 
 
 IVIYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 him icy indiflforence ; unemotional selfishness, and 
 utterly devoid of appreciation. 
 
 During the last week of his sojourn, as then 
 contemplated, he is invited to the wedding of 
 one couple and to the festival of another couple. 
 It is so arranged, that in each instance it is neces- 
 sary for him to accompany Manonia. And such 
 is the position in which he is placed, that no 
 man not an utter stranger to chivalrous gallan- 
 try, can decline without incurring the stigma of 
 being a morose boor. 
 
 The wedding is five miles, from the Donn6 
 plantation. 
 
 Time : early candle-light. 
 
 The supper is over, and at about ten o'clock 
 the guests begin to disperse. 
 
 When Garland and Manonia are ready to take 
 their leave, it is ascertained that the horse which 
 he rode has shpped the halter, and quietly de- 
 parted home without a rider. 
 
 This necessitates Garland, or rather he accepts 
 it as the inevitable, to walk back in front of 
 Manonia's horse, a feat which he performs so 
 swiftly and so very cheerfully that the young 
 lady cannot restrain herself from expressing en- 
 thusiastic applause. 
 
 The evening after the wedding, Manonia is at 
 the store when Garland is ready to set out for 
 the plantation. As a matter of course, they ride 
 out together. 
 
 The next evening. Garland and Manonia are 
 returning to the plantation from the festival just 
 about sunset. When some two miles from their 
 destination, Garland's leg, a little above the knee 
 strikes a snag that tears his pantaloons down to 
 the hem at the bottom. 
 
 This circumstance so embarrasses him as to pro- 
 voke Manonia to tease him on account of, as she 
 styles it, such an insignificant trifle ; too ridiculous 
 to be confused by, since he could not have avoided 
 this unexpected accident. 
 
 On the evening foUowing the festival, and the 
 last but one that Garland ever expects to spend 
 at the Donne homestead, he returns from the 
 store to theplantation again with Manonia. The 
 last two miles of the ride is through a frightful 
 storm of wind, and in deluging torrents of cold 
 pelting raiu. 
 
 After supper, Garland excuses himself to the 
 old planter, and proceeds at once to his writing, 
 which he designs to finish that night. From the 
 moment that he takes up the pen until half-past 
 nine o'clock, he utters a single word to no one; 
 nor does the customary voice of Manonia greet 
 his ear, who he imagines has retired in conse- 
 quence of the drenching she has received. At 
 the hour mentioned, his work is completed, and 
 he throws down the pen, exclaiming : 
 
 " Thank God this loathsome, monotonous task 
 is done." 
 
 Manonia: "And you have finished your labors, 
 have you, Mr. Garland? " 
 
 Garland : Oh, yes ; at last, Miss Donne, they 
 are completed. They have been very irksome and 
 excessively slavish, because I have performed 
 the manual part of them in just one-third of tlie 
 time they justly demanded. 
 
 Manonia : " Oh, yes, sir, you have worked 
 .hard and constantly. I have often wondered 
 how you could endure it so long and incessantly." 
 
 Garland : " Ah, Miss Donne, this has become 
 a second nature with me, to work unremittingly 
 whenever I have the opportunity. But this 
 experience of teaching I shall never repeat 
 again I have had enough of it to last me all my 
 days. 
 
 "What a fearful night without! How pite- 
 ously, lonely, and plaintively sad is the moaning 
 and the groaning of the wind. It is on a night 
 such as this that I always think of the poor 
 tempest-driven crews, far, far at sea." 
 
 Manonia: "Such nights are fearful on land; 
 on the sea they must be indescribably terrible. 
 I shudder to think of a ship full of peojile at the 
 mercy of an angry sea." 
 
 Garland: "The buflfeting Avaves of Time on 
 the sea of life, when the winds are adverse 
 and boisterous, are yet still worse; for I have 
 experienced both to an ample degree, and am, 
 therefore, able to arrjve at a fairly correct con- 
 clusion. With the Avild raging of a tempest- 
 lashed ocean is, in mj'^ mind, closely allied the 
 idea of a life tossed hither and thither over the 
 earth, bj' the all-impelling heavings of the cruel 
 waves of unmerciful disaster. From the one I 
 am ever unable Avhollv to dissever the idea of the 
 
THE laiPRUDENT WOOING. 
 
 199 
 
 other; I deem the affinity of both as being to 
 each other so inseparably connected." 
 
 Manonia: "This much reminds me of that 
 other wild night on which you told me the sadly 
 impressible story of the great trial and bitter 
 disappointment of your life. 
 
 " Your sojourn with us now draws speedily to 
 a close. One evening more, and we will no 
 longer see you sitting there at that table, writing 
 as if for dear life; nor hear the sound of your 
 voice again, softl}^ humming some sad refrain. 
 
 " One week hence, and we will not engage so 
 much as one mere passing thought of yours. 
 Alas! what a pity that in this short life, we 
 make agreeable acquaintances, only to part with 
 them soon and forever." 
 
 Gtarland: "Yes, Miss Donn6, my duties close 
 here to-morrow. I must hasten to others. But 
 when and Avherever I go, I shall bear with me 
 grateful and pleasing memories of the kind hos- 
 pitality so generously extended to me beneath 
 this friendly roof, that will live many days — yes, 
 years hence. 
 
 " Parting with' friends, old or new, when we 
 feel assured that it is to meet again nevermore, is 
 jjainfully sad. With regretful reluctance have I 
 parted from acquaintances of an hour, years ago, 
 and shall forget them entirely — never . Hence 
 you perceive from this circumstance how impos- 
 sible it will be for me to forget this kind family. 
 
 "But, by the way, last evening you said that to- 
 night you would volunteer me some sound advice." 
 
 Manonia: "So I did promise, and am ready 
 to perform. I advise you to go back at once and 
 seek the girl whom you loved so much, or some 
 other one; marry, and settle down. Briefly and 
 pointedly, this is my advice. "_, 
 
 G-arland : " Such counsel is more easily prof- 
 fered than followed. As to my lady-love of yore, 
 she is as dead to me as though she was all this 
 time peacefully sleeping in the gloomy church- 
 yard. We are severed forever. 
 
 " True it is that I might seek, and, after long 
 and patient years of cultivated acquaintance, en- 
 gage the affections of a lady suited to my fancy, 
 before I had told my story, but certainly not after. 
 And if not related until after securing esteem, then 
 that favorable sentiment would quickly vanish. 
 
 "T have neither the inclination, the patience 
 nor the time requisite to undertake and pursue so 
 delicate an enterprise ; and,_f urthermore, I do not 
 intend ever again to recount my painful story. 
 Thus you see how utterly impossible it would be 
 for me to follow your advice ; for wliich I am, 
 nevertheless, gratefully thankful to you." 
 
 Manonia: "All this is purely imaginary; 
 would rarely prove to be a true reahty. My ad- 
 vice is good, sound, and practicable." 
 
 Garland: "I readily grant you all but the 
 practicability. 
 
 " I shall never return to that region which was 
 the location of my sad scenes of the past ; hence, 
 in order to follow your advice it would be neces- 
 sary for me to sue for the hand of some fair 
 stranger. 
 
 "Years are likely to dawn and wane, as the 
 ceaseless gliding- wheel of Time unerringly makes 
 its never-varying revolutions, before I am again 
 as much acquainted with another young lady as I 
 am now with yourself. 
 
 " Just imagine, merely for the sake of argument, 
 that you were yourself placed in that unenviable 
 predicament: then recall my dark chapter, as de- 
 tailed to you, and you can but vaguely appreciate 
 the position of the hapless fair one whom you 
 have advised me to. victimize." 
 
 Manonia : " I am not in her place, and hence 
 am unprepared either to make or imagine an 
 answer for her." 
 
 Garland: "Then imagine yourself in her 
 place, and we will continue the argument." 
 
 Manonia : " No, sir ; that is a position in life 
 that I cannot occupy by imagination, but must be 
 solicited to fill it." 
 
 Garland: "Well, then, I will, in order to 
 humor the current of the argument, and to drive 
 you from an erroneous position on untenable 
 ground, solicit you to occupy her position, and to 
 answer for her. That is sufficiently pointed." 
 
 Manonia : " The question would have to as- 
 sume a more earnestly serious form, on your part, 
 before I entertain it." 
 
 Garland : " With the same seriousness, then, 
 if you please, as your own sentiment could possi- 
 bly be, relative to the same question." 
 
200 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Maxoma: '•Then, in that case, I will assume 
 the argument." 
 
 Garland: '''Well, then, Miss Donne, could 
 you, under all the circumstances, after a fair de- 
 gree of acquaintance, so much as barely entertain 
 the idea of becoming my wife ? " i 
 
 Manonia : " I could, without hesitation, pro- j 
 vided you promise never to take me far away 
 from father and mother." 
 
 G-arland: "But you can't mean it. You say 
 this merely to sustain your argument in support 
 of a false doctrine." 
 
 Maxoxia: "I mean it in good, quiet earnest- 
 ness, if your question means the same." 
 
 Garland : " Your heart and hand, and the 
 seal of the first kiss of love ! " 
 
 Manonia: "Yes." 
 
 Garland: "Why, Miss Donne, you must be 
 rashly dreaming! Consider well what j^ou are 
 doing, before plunging into the darkness — a step 
 of which you will surely repent, and a vow from 
 which you would, after due deliberation, plead 
 for a release. You should know a husband long 
 and well." 
 
 Manonia: "Marriage is a lottery of life. I 
 know you about as well as it is possible for a single 
 girl to know a man. Those whom I have long 
 known and esteemed as being ideal models of 
 perfection, have proven sad failures as husbands, 
 and rendered miserable the lives of the poor, con- 
 fiding girls who thus rashly intrusted their happi- 
 ness to their keeping." 
 
 Garland: "But, my dear young lady, reflect 
 a little. I am both nameless and heartless, well 
 calculated to render a fair, a hopeful life such as 
 yours, miserable with the most cruel pangs of 
 bitter disappointment. I am not an object worthy 
 ot a pure and priceless afi'ection, such as yours 
 would be; nor am I able to reward it with that 
 reciprocally deep, true, and unblemished devotion 
 which it would demand and expect, and for which 
 the unquenched thirst of a pure and loving heart 
 would ever pine in vain. 
 
 " That day, when it would have been possible 
 for me to scatter some roses among the keen 
 thorns of life, to cheer and gladden its di-eary, 
 trial-beset, sorrow-incumbered pathway for some 
 true, aflfectionate, pure and good woman, has 
 
 gone by. You would but waste your young allec- 
 tions and lavish your heavenly concentrated love 
 on the spectral phantom of a most bitterly cruel 
 delusion. 
 
 -I should, with all the debilitated force of the 
 shattered fragments of my once strongly imjietu- 
 ous and bravely ennobled spirit, strive to render 
 your life happy, and to reward j^our devotional 
 sacrifice, made for a wretched man, with that bliss- 
 ful comfort for which all hearts sigh with longing 
 fondness — but, alas, only in vain ! Earthly happi- 
 ness and I are hopelessly estranged; with me it 
 will nevermore dwell. And the ghostly shadows 
 of the past that haunt me forever, would darken 
 and distress your life, for they are contagious 
 blighters of all hope-springing consolation. _ 
 
 "Again, there is another serious question for 
 our consideration. This union could be thought 
 of only as an afiair of the future. Should I em- 
 brace it, and was it once again to rekindle in my 
 heart one flickering spark of long-extinguished 
 liope, during the long absence before the proba- 
 tional time would elapse, while the little bird was 
 singing in my partially re-animated heart its de- 
 lusive song of hope, in the lonely railroad camp, 
 you would slowly but surely repent of this rashly 
 precipitate act. My heart's softened incrusta- 
 tion would once more be subjected to the tortur- 
 ing cauterization of the searing iron, and receive 
 in its crushed and mangled mass one more wound 
 to bear with me in still, cold, unmurmuring-, blood- 
 less silence. Imagine, reflect on all this, as it must 
 transpire." 
 
 Manonia : " There is no necessity for you to go 
 on the railroad again. You have an opportunity 
 to engage in business here. You can go, and 
 arrange your railroad afi'airs and return in tlu-ee 
 or four days. For more or longer absence there i$ 
 no need. 
 
 "Then we can often see each other during 
 the season of probation which we may deem ap- 
 propriate to adopt. In the meantime, I shall 
 strive to dispel your fears, and prove to your 
 satisfaction that I am not only a most violent 
 detester of, but also an utter stranger to. fickle 
 inconstancy. 
 
 " My first love was blasted on the bloody bat- 
 tle-field. For that true and devoted one, I have 
 
§ c 
 
 !2 '^ 
 
THE IMPEUDENT WOOING. 
 
 201 
 
 now mourned longer than you lia-\e mourned for 
 your lost idol. I never expect you to love me 
 as you once loved her, nor can I love again as I 
 did once. On this point there should be between 
 us a mutually consonant sympathy. 
 
 " I see in you a noble manliness going to de- 
 struction, and merely because you see proper to 
 estrange yourself from the social world. You 
 can yet be saved and won back to life aud hope, 
 and I can render you cheerful and happy." 
 
 GtArland: " Then you shall be my divine genius, 
 come weal or come woe ! I am going to take you 
 at your word. By the stage to-morrow night I 
 will go, and cancel my railroad engagements, and 
 return at once, to await the time when I shall con- 
 summate one with you, my volunteer guardian 
 angel! Xow then, that fair hand and sacred 
 seal." 
 
 Manoxia : " There, my word is pledged. Now 
 Avhile you still hold my hand, promise me on the 
 sacred honor of a gentleman that you will return 
 and faithfully fulfill this life- and hope-depending 
 engagement with me." 
 
 G-arland: "I certainly will. Though false to 
 myself and all the world besides I Avill strive to 
 be true and faithful to you." 
 
 Manonia : " That suffices. Now pray excuse 
 me. Grood-night." 
 
 G-ARLAND : " G-ood-night, fair angel of the South, 
 good-night. 
 
 " Heaven defend you, poor confiding child of 
 Nature's own sweet innocence ! You are betray- 
 ed, deceived, and have bartered away your pure 
 life's happiness for a shadowy skeleton of ill-fated, 
 hope-wasting delusion, the treacherous oflfspring of 
 mere mythical dreams. Madly have you plunged 
 ;Vom the giddy summit of the precipice, down, 
 deep doAvn the yawning abyss into the fathom- 
 less gulf of unending despair. I lured you not. 
 I desired not, do not desire, this very strange 
 complication. 
 
 '■'Oh ye shadowy powers, controlling my ill- 
 starred destiny, bear me witness, that, in order to 
 have it not thus, I would part with my remaining 
 arm ! It would be more honorable, yes, ten thou- 
 sand times more honorable to break this vow, that 
 should be sacred, than consummate it, and thus 
 make and help along the burning shame to Avhich 
 
 it tends, and tlie untold ills to which it must in- 
 evitalily lead. 
 
 " Doubtless but few men are worthy the hand 
 she throws away on a nameless wretch. Who 
 could love angels, must fondly love her. But 
 what is, whatever can be my love but the pois- 
 onous breath of pestilential, hope-blighting de- 
 struction ? Ah ! the bitter ashen-cored fruit of 
 the Dead-sea shore; tempting perhaps to the 
 eye, but full of and laden with contagious bane, 
 that will sap and dry up the healthful current of 
 her peaceful, confiding soul. Alas I alas! What 
 have I done ? What must I do ? What can I 
 do?" • 
 
 The night before the one on which Garland is 
 to return from his trip,'to cancel his railroad en- 
 gagements, poor Manonia, whose day-dreams are 
 replete with ecstatic anticipations of future bliss, 
 sleeps peacefully on her couch of spotless white — 
 though less white and pure than her own guile- 
 less life and innocent heart. As she thus sleeps 
 in dreams, an Angel of Mercy appears by her bed- 
 side and speaks to her : 
 
 " Gentle child of earth, lend thy pure spirit's 
 ear to a voice of warning in mercy sent unto thee. 
 Beware of the stranger whom thou hast most 
 imprudently enslirined in thy innocent heart; and 
 escape while yet there is time, ere thou awake, 
 as thou must and shalt, firom thy dream of bliss 
 to find it but a dreadful woe, that wilt sorely 
 grieve thee, and for which thou shalt Aveep most 
 bitterly. He desireth to let thee go free." 
 
 Poor Manonia awakes with a start, weeping as 
 though her tender heart would break. 
 
 Manonia: "What horrid dreams! How for 
 my love I have wept, and saAv my future life full 
 of misery. I Avonder if he will come back to- 
 morrow, or Avill he never return? Away, idle 
 dreams and despicable doubts I He will come: all 
 Avill be well • I will be happy. 
 
 " Though angels and men revile, still AA'ill I trust 
 liira Avith an unshaken, steadfast and abiding faith 
 — as true and constant as the rocks that all the 
 ocean's fury cannot shake, as firmly abiding as the 
 everlasting hills ! " 
 
202 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY. 
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 THE wanderer's PRIZE IX THE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 
 
 "Oh beauty! fatal toeauty, that could lure, 
 The sous of Heaven from their blissful sjjhere, 
 
 To oarth, sin, flood— the wrath of God t'endure— 
 Who turnM not from that doom, when warn'd from 
 here. 
 
 Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good, 
 
 A shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; 
 A flower that dies when first it 'gins to bud, 
 
 A brittle glass that's broken presently." , 
 
 — Shakspeaee. 
 
 NuBE G-ARLAND, as he is known to the Donne 
 family, returns promptly, and in strict compliance 
 with his solemn vow made to the strangely in- 
 fatuated Manonia. 
 
 We say that he returns. Yes, he returns, fully 
 resolved to tmdo the part thus far wrought to- 
 ward the consummation of a seriously complicated 
 mischief and an inestimable wrong. 
 
 In his own mind, he is fully prepared to tear 
 himself rudely away from her, in Hie event that 
 he is unsuccessful in prevailing on the young lady 
 to put the affair in the great and promiscuous 
 category of idle jests. 
 
 "While he is a man, agreeable to his own story 
 as rekted to Manonia, who has been guilty of a 
 terrible indiscretion which clearly demonstrates 
 a very lowly ebbed moral courage, that consigns 
 him to pass his days under the dark shadows of 
 the cloud of a life-long and unavaiHng regret, he 
 is not hopelessly dead to the keen sensibilities of 
 the finer and more ennobling impulses of a nature 
 constitutionally exalted and true. He knows, 
 feels and appreciates to the fullest and most ter- 
 rible extent, the all-crushing weight of the bur- 
 den of his own curse, which he deems will but 
 prove the sure and inevitable despoiler of the 
 peace and joy of Manonia's pure and faith- 
 abounding life. For himself, he realizes a deep 
 sense of the unmistakable consciousness that 
 nothing earthly can ever impart so much as the 
 most transient and fleeting ecstasies of true and 
 substantial happiness; and that, therefore, it will 
 be both a moral and a physical impossibility for 
 
 him to bestow on any one aught but wretched 
 miser}'. 
 
 This sad fate he most earnestly desires that 
 Manonia shall escape ; and he shudders at the 
 gloomy contemplation of the stern ghost of her 
 ever-approaching yet never-ending, afflicting dis- 
 appointments, that is certain to haunt both him- 
 self and her. To avoid this, furthermore aug- 
 ments his anxiety to disentangle her, and free 
 himself from the meshes of Cupid's ingeniously 
 designed net; which it is almost beyond the lat- 
 itude of doubt, was set by the young lady her- 
 self, either unwittingly or willfully. 
 
 As to Manonia, she is too pure, too innocent 
 and good ; too deeply imbued with the confiding, 
 joyous, rapturous quintescence of nature, in the 
 primeval beauty of its unsullied endowmenfe even 
 to heed the admonitory dreams of suspicion, 
 although whispered in dulcet strains by an angel 
 of light. How, then, may she be expected to doubt 
 with her open eyes, especially when that doubt- 
 ing must run contrary to the fondest j^earnings 
 of her tender lieart ? 
 
 Descended on her mother's side directly from 
 the good, olden-time primitive Quakers of North 
 Carolina, and on her father's side from a clear- 
 lilooded Scotch-Irish line, — to which many tradi- 
 tional superstitions inherent with both nations 
 from which it sprung still cling with tenacious 
 obstinacy ; from the peculiar religious tenets of 
 the one side, and the strangely superstitious faith 
 of the other, — she imbibed the idea — firmly, im- 
 movably fixed is it in her mind as an infallible 
 doctrine — that in the lottery of life, for each man 
 and each woman there is a mate — a connubial 
 mate — styled "the right one"; and that if they 
 will but patiently bide the time, one will at last 
 appear ; the two will finallj' meet and recognize 
 each other; and some circumstance, however 
 trifling it may be in appearance, will, notwith- 
 standing the absurdity of the confidence, ulti- 
 mately lead on to the destined result of their 
 union. 
 
 Garland struggles persistently for a time, but 
 struggles in vain, to persuade the young lady that 
 it is impossible for him to regard the affair in any 
 other light but that of a mere jest — a simple, pas- 
 time flirtation on her part; or that it will be 
 
THE WANDERER'S PRIZE IN THE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 
 
 203 
 
 necessary for liiin to make an Eastern business 
 trip before engaging in permanent co-partner- 
 ship with her brother. 
 
 Slie behoves that he is her fate-ordained life- 
 companion, and resolves to hold him firmly to 
 the responsible post of liability to which he com- 
 mitted himself. He is truly compromised, and 
 finds himself, at last, without one single expe- 
 dient of an honorable character, by which it may 
 be at all possible to extricate himself from that 
 position. 
 
 And, as if to multiply his already distressing 
 embarrassment, he begins most sensibly to ex- 
 perience unmistakable indications of the certainty 
 that he is rapidly passing under the supreme 
 influence of the all-controlhng power of her 
 magnetic spell, which with him fast becomes 
 irresistible. 
 
 Less and less strongly grows his resolution to 
 tear himself violently away from the luring fasci- 
 nation and witchery of her sway. At first he 
 hesitates , then, after a second protracted inter- 
 view, he wavers; and, finally, in three "or four 
 days, he abandons the idea of flight altogether, 
 and unconditionally surrenders, with a fairly firm 
 resolution to devote his life to the fair woman 
 who declares that she is going to save him ; to 
 deliver him from the burdensome oppression of 
 remorse beneath which he groans; to redeem him 
 from the perdition of despair in which he is 
 plunged ; and to win him back again to the bliss- 
 ful felicity of peace, hope and love. What beau- 
 tiful philanthropy ! How divinely charitalile ! 
 Generous, guileless, matchless, but misguided 
 Manonia ! 
 
 We are told by the highest authority ever 
 recorded on earth, that beauty of the daugh- 
 ters of the most wicked and perverse men in the 
 worst age of the world, attracted the sons of 
 G-od — as it would seem, under a liberal con- 
 struction of the testimony — from even, perhaps, 
 their stations in glory, or unquestionably from 
 what was much the same ; birth-right heritages 
 to such stations, could the allusion have been to 
 pien not angels. Can it then be a theme of 
 wonder that an earth-born child of Heaven, en- 
 dowed with all the perfectness of Beauty's 
 charms and Grace's smiles ever inherited by flesh 
 
 and blood, should win such a sin-stricken son of 
 Earth from his benighted, rayless sphere so far 
 beneath her own? 
 
 Had it been within the harmony of possibilities 
 for seeds of falsehood to produce and bring to per- 
 fection pure fruits of truth ; had Garland stood 
 forth under true colors, with nothing concealed 
 beneath the thick veil of his then impenetrable 
 mask of dark deception ; and had it been com- 
 patible with the hard decree of his irradicable 
 taint of wrong for him to escape its stern penal- 
 ties, he would have been saved indeed. And not 
 only saved, but he would also have been a sub- 
 stantial blessing to the people in the section of 
 his adopted home, as well as to Manonia herself, 
 whom he would then have been able to render 
 permanently and supremely happy. 
 
 When the time for celebrating the nuptials 
 is at first deferred to Manonia's decision, she 
 names Christmas of that year ; but when she per- 
 ceives that. Garland is restless, and desires to 
 make a business trip, and wait until the new year 
 before he concludes the co-partnership with her 
 brother, she then determines that they shall be 
 legally and solemnly united immediately; and 
 they are on the first of March, accordingly, mar- 
 ried. Strange match ! Unique incidents ! Mys- 
 terious destiny ! 
 
 Let us pause a moment and reflect. Look 
 how slender, how frail, and how improbable 
 were the threads of circumstances that led to this 
 unpropitious union. 
 
 Garland, so far as that section of country was 
 concerned, was passing through it merely as an 
 aimless wanderer ; prospecting over the survey of 
 a contemplated railroad, with an object to ascer- 
 tain the most desirable points for taking con- 
 tracts to build bridges. There was no certainty, 
 scarcely any probability, that he would ever see 
 the work under progress, as building the road then 
 stood, as it long had done, in apparently hopeless 
 abeyance. 
 
 For two miles before he reached the Donne plan- 
 tation, he had been looking for a place to dine ; 
 and before turning aside to this house, he stood 
 on a high hill and looked two miles ahead, to see 
 if there was not some other promising habitation 
 nearer to his line of travel than the one in view. 
 
20i 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 Had either object of his seeking just named, 
 obtained, his foot never would have crossed the 
 tlireshold, his form never darkened the door of 
 the Doune mansion, whence his shadow can 
 nevermore be dispelled. 
 
 When he said farewell, and was passing out 
 through the portal of the gate, had no hailing 
 voice arrested his footstep, he was then gone 
 forever. 
 
 On the night of his first conversation with 
 Manonia, had not his soUloquy been an audible 
 exclamation, he would have passed from the 
 parlor without speaking to her ; and she Avould 
 then never have heard his wild and startling 
 story, that so deeply stirred her sympathy and 
 awakened in her heart so warm an interest in 
 the mysterious narrator who had suffered so 
 much keen and terrible affliction. 
 
 But still, however, we have yet seen that 
 neither of these delicately slender threads was 
 rent asunder; and that they led to an almost 
 incredible result. 
 
 Some time following the wedding, the fact 
 transpires that after the first week of Gai'land"s 
 sojourn at Donne's, the entire family decided that 
 this would be a desirable result; and that the 
 young lady had not only been abundantly en- 
 couraged, but she had been also strongly urged 
 to pursue the altogether extraordinarily strange 
 course which she did, in this singular afiiiir of 
 love- and match-making. 
 
 Throughout the entire current of the negotia- 
 tions, she certainly acted her part well, if not 
 wisely — and that her action was extremely 
 indiscreet, no reasonable person will hesitate to 
 admit. 
 
 Garland was, however, as will be demonstrated 
 in future chapters of this " drama of life," a man 
 of a pecuhar type and composition, and prepos- 
 sessing above the average degree of that quaUty 
 inherent with mankind, as well as being endowed 
 with a singular power of fascination that Avas 
 mysteriously attractive to the few persons -\\ ith 
 whom he was on terms of moderate intimacy. 
 So clearly denned and fully recognized was this 
 fact, as to dissipate to a large extent the well mer- 
 ited censure, or the ground for it, that Manonia's 
 (■ulpability appears to deserve ; except as to the 
 
 precipitation of her course without fu-st ascer- 
 taining, from well authenticated and undoubted 
 sources, who this man w^s, and what was the 
 true nature of his character. This omission was 
 the fatally weak jDoint in her conduct. 
 
 But for the false nature of his masked hfe, al- 
 though, in all his days, the very worst act of his 
 had been recounted to her before he dreamed of 
 .so much as enhsting her indifferent esteem, the 
 mask concealed no crimes. The worst feature of 
 his life not revealed to her was his assumed name. 
 Still we say, aU these things notwithstanding, 
 had he only confessed all to her, he would yet 
 have been not wholly unworthy of her love. 
 
 This, he failed to do, and hence but justly in- 
 curred the worst imaginable penalties of earthly 
 damnation that could possibly be inflicted by the 
 sleepless and unpitying ministers of retribution, 
 who, though often tardy about putting their 
 scourges of justice into operation, are neverthe- 
 less infalhble, and will, or soon or late, make a ter- 
 rible visitation witn lashes of most unmerciful 
 chastisement. 
 
 From this point on to the scene in which he 
 appears on the stage in this drama for the last 
 time, Garland is one of the strongest, one of the 
 most wonderful and astonishing real characters 
 on the shady side of hfe's mysteries that we 
 have ever met, or of whom we have even read in 
 books of unquestionable authenticity, yet not half 
 so well vouched for as his story shall be. 
 
 Our pages of charity for him and his, ended 
 when he married that beautiful, pure and innocent 
 woman, while still wearing the mask of falsehood ; 
 and therefore we shall be henceforth unsparing, 
 and connect him directly with events that will fully 
 and most authentically corroborate all the start- 
 ling vicissitudes of his strangely checkered career 
 faithfully and truly presented by us. All that is 
 beautiful and noble shall stand out in bold relief, 
 in company with the reprehensible, the ignoble, 
 the dark and the criminal. 
 
 Immediately after the wedding, the co-partner- 
 ship between Garland and young Donn^ is con- 
 summated. 
 
 Up to and until some time after this event, 
 Garland is ignorant of the true condition of the 
 business in which he has launched. When at 
 
THE WANDERER'S PRIZE IN THE LOTTERY OF LIFE. 
 
 205 
 
 length, after long and tedious work, he has the 
 accounts adjusted and the books in a shape to 
 strike a balance, he finds that an immense stock 
 of goods has been purchased for one-third cash, 
 and much more than half of this sold on a credit, 
 to whom, he, as a matter of course, does not know ; 
 and the entire amount of the purchase balances 
 remains unpaid, to which has been added sundry 
 orders. 
 
 The cotton crop is more than half out of the 
 country. After closely interrogating his partner 
 and chief clerk, he ascertains that two-thirds of 
 the sales on credit have been made to irrespon- 
 sible freedmen, and a ride of two days reveals 
 the startling fact that most of them have already 
 made way with their crop and its proceeds. He 
 now informs his partner, his father-in-law, and 
 his wife that the firm is insolvent; and at the 
 same time announces to Manonia his determi- 
 nation at once to withdraw. 
 
 The old gentleman is nearly frantic, the son in 
 despair, and Manonia deeply distressed on their 
 account. 
 
 Finally, all three combined, prevail upon Gar- 
 land to remain in the firm, to take the helm, and 
 to make a desperate effort to save the sinking craft. 
 This necessitates an immediate trip to New 
 Tork and New Orleans. Garland undertakes 
 this trip with more reluctance than he would 
 have experienced in making ready for a battle ; 
 but he goes. 
 
 Before starting he sets the most vigorous col- 
 lecting machinery to work. 
 
 His trip proves a successful one, and he returns 
 promptly, notwithstanding the prophecy of many 
 knowing ones to the contrary. 
 
 The firm does a good season's business, and 
 collects a large per cent, of bad and doubtful debts. 
 They build a handsome residence, and G-arland 
 and his bride occupy it. 
 
 Never did a man work harder than wretched 
 G-arland works all day and until midnight, at 
 which hour he leaves the office, to join his wife. 
 At five o'clock in the morning he is dressed and 
 at work at a desk in the parlor, until breakfast. 
 Except the hours of dining and on Sundays, this 
 is the extent of the time he spends in the society 
 of his wife. 
 
 He reduces the price of goods fully twenty-five 
 per cent., and establishes a reliable local cotton 
 market; and is, therefore, soon the most pop- 
 ular man in the country with the planting interest, 
 and highly esteemed in the metropolitan markets 
 of the Union. 
 
 It was necessary for him to make four business 
 trips each year. 
 
 The unpleasantness connected with, and owing 
 to his peculiar position under an assumed name in 
 the world,' inseparable from those business jour- 
 neys and the incessant work at home, arouse in 
 Garland a desire to abandon the business, which 
 is, in the fall of his second season, in excellent 
 condition. 
 
 His wife's brother-in-law has a fine and well- 
 stocked plantation which he desires to trade for 
 Garland's business interest, and Garland is eager 
 to secure the opportunity thus ofi'ered for him to 
 escape from the commercial conflict to the peace- 
 ful retirement of a planter's life. 
 
 The plantation is in an out-of-the-way, semi- 
 civihzed community, some fifteen miles from the 
 town. For this reason, Manonia entreats him, 
 with tears streaming down her cheeks, not to 
 make the transfer ; and to her prayers he yields. 
 
 This same season the corn crop proves a failure. 
 The immense fall and winter stock of goods for 
 the firm from New York is caught in the river 
 by low water, and delayed about three months — 
 a damaging misfortune. 
 
 In the meantime, the price of cotton declines 
 so fearfully that it is evident the firm will be 
 forced to carry over large balances, as well as to 
 advance corn to make the next crop. 
 
 In view of these facts. Garland proceeds, early 
 in February, to the West, to buy and ship the 
 corn. He finds the Ohio and Mississippi rivers 
 frozen tightly above Cairo. At Cincinnati, St. 
 Louis, and Evansville he tries in vain to secure 
 tonnage for the first opening of navigation. 
 
 At last he buys a steamboat and two barges, at 
 Cairo ; and he here waits for the ice to break up. 
 Nearly a month, however, elapses before the ves- 
 sels are finally loaded in Indiana. 
 
 The steamer runs aground, and there remains 
 for nearly two weeks. On the way down, also. 
 
20G 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 one of the barges strikes a suag, which results in 
 its loss with its cargo. 
 
 After the steamer and other barge are unloaded, 
 they are sold in New Orleans for nearly their 
 original cost. 
 
 Garland borrows a large sum of money in New 
 Orleans, where he is esteemed one among the 
 first business men in the State, and one of the 
 best judges of cotton to be found outside of the 
 city, and would be styled an expert even here. 
 
 He also estabhshes a branch housa in a rich 
 planting section, in order to work off the goods 
 carried over from the past season. In every pos- 
 sible way, he makes the most desperate efforts this 
 season ; and in August, it is the most promising 
 one since the close of the war. 
 
 In this month he goes to market, and buys a 
 very large stock of goods. 
 
 On his return home, he finds the worms eating 
 the cotton. The crop is cut short, and the price 
 declines to an extent sufficient to demoralize the 
 planters. 
 
 As if to consummate the climax of misfor- 
 tunes, the small-pox breaks out in the country, 
 transforming the plantations into pest hospitals, 
 and suspending business for about two months. 
 
 The result is that Garland's firm cannot pay 
 bills at maturity, and he determines to go into 
 liquidation. . To this the father-in-law and part- 
 ner strongly object. 
 
 The final issue is a sale to the father-in-law for 
 his paper, on sufficient time to allow the firm to 
 recover, which paper the firm indorses to its 
 creditors; and as this paper is strengthened by 
 the support of the old gentleman's valuable plant- 
 ing property, the arrangement is accepted by the 
 creditors. The assets of the firm more than 
 double the liabihties, were they only available. 
 
 As to the father-in-law and partner, the sale is 
 a sham — a mere makeshift to gain time ; but with 
 Garland, it is bona-fide, binding, and final. 
 
 It was covenanted that Garland and partner 
 are to run the business for the old gentleman, as 
 salaried men ; and not long after, Garland is sent 
 to New Orleans to make business arrangements 
 for the season for his successor. After three 
 weeks' assiduous effort, he finds it morally impos- 
 sible to borrow a dollar for the new firm, or to 
 
 buy goods on the usuahy favorable terms tliat he 
 had always obtained them. 
 
 While in New Orleans, Garland's best and most 
 admiring friend — one of the oldest and most suc- 
 cessful cotton factors in the city — strongly ad- 
 vises him to go immediately to the "Future City," 
 then about beginning to make an effort toward 
 becoming a cotton market, and there engage in 
 the cotton commission trade, where he would 
 find an ample field to employ his fine talents and 
 extraordinary capacity. 
 
 On his return he at once announces his resolu- 
 tion to follow the advice of this New Orleans 
 friend. 
 
 To Manonia's protestations and entreaties his 
 ear is deaf, and against her tears his heart is steeled. 
 The only concession she can obtain, is his prom- 
 ise that she may visit her parents as often and 
 remain with them as long as she pleases. Thus vir- 
 tually dies the last sickly sprig of her fast with- 
 ering happiness, and chimes the last cruel knell 
 to her hopes. 
 
 Now, for the first time, she beholds the seeds 
 of indiscretion which she has so haplessly sown, 
 begin to germinate. Poor child! she wiU see 
 their plants spring up and flourish most luxuri- 
 antly with their copious nurturing from the 
 fountain of her sad tears, until the day when she 
 must eat their matured and bitter fruits, in dry- 
 eyed and silent sorrow. 
 
 Without any delay, Garland proceeds to the 
 Future City, and perfects all preliminary arrange- 
 ments for commencing business on July 1st, 
 1873. 
 
 The day on which he returns to his Louisiana 
 home for his wife, the vast store-houses of his 
 father-in-law are one mass of smoldering ruins ; 
 they have been burned the previous night. Thus 
 closely upon the heels of each other, follow mis- 
 fortune and disaster. 
 
 In his visits to cities where were scores of 
 men who had once known him intimately under 
 his true name, this man Garland had, up to the 
 day of his location in the " Future City " never 
 been recognized, although he had often met some 
 of them in a casual and informal manner. 
 
 Time had changed him wonderfully. Care and 
 anguish had sprinkled his hair with grey, and his 
 
A EAILWAY INCIDENT 
 
 207 
 
 beard had become iieavy; and turlhenuorc, his 
 identity was, too, obscured by an artificial arm 
 that was so perfect an imitation of the natural 
 that many persons with whom he transacted 
 business did not know that his arm was like his 
 life — false. 
 
 He is able to locate as many as twenty men 
 engaged in active business, in the "Future City," 
 who knew him under his real name, at the time 
 he enters the list as a merchant in that rising 
 metropohs of the Mississippi valley. 
 
 One among the number had been an officer in 
 the same brigade with him for nearly a year, up 
 to the time when he lost his arm. Near his new 
 domicile reside two own cousins from one branch 
 of his family, and an aunt from the other branch. 
 
 Surely it requires a desperate nerve to sustain 
 a man thus circumstanced and situated; yet still, 
 however this may be, he arrives here, and opens 
 his house on the appointed day, apparently with 
 indiiferent fearlessness. 
 
 CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 RAILWAY 
 
 N C I D E N T, 
 
 " In him the painter labor'd with his skill 
 To hide deceit and give the harmless shew. 
 
 An humble gait, calm look, eyes waiting still, 
 A brow unbent, that seem'd to welcome woe; 
 
 Cheeks neither red nor pale, but mingled so 
 That blushing red no guilty instance gave. 
 
 Nor ashy pale the fear that false hearts have." 
 
 — Shakspeake. 
 
 In a palace-car bound from Washington to 
 New York, and fast approaching Philadelphia, be- 
 tween the years of 1870 and 1873, one day, there 
 is a little group composed of Edgar Harman, 
 Jesse Flowers and their wives. 
 
 A few seats in front of them, and on the oppo- 
 site side of the car, a man with a bronged yet 
 fair face and full auburn beard, wearing a broad- 
 brimmed Southern hat, half concealing his feat- 
 ures, occupies a seat, and seems to be traveling 
 alone. 
 
 At length, after closely scrutinizing him for 
 some time, Edgar Harman speaks to Mrs. Flowers 
 as follows : " Sissie, I beheve that is Col. Cloud's 
 
 ghost, sitting over yonder. What do you think 
 of him?" 
 
 Carrie : " I have been watching him some time, 
 and do not deem him a ghost at all, but think 
 that there sits Col. Cloud liimself, alive and in 
 good health. Wlnit think you, Jesse? " 
 
 Flowers : "I really think that is him. ' ' 
 
 Rosalia: " Go and speak to him, Edgar, and 
 make sure." 
 
 Harman steps over to the man, and returns 
 in a moment shaking his head. 
 
 Edgar "We are mistaken. I asked him if 
 he was not a Virginian, when he rattled off: ' Par- 
 donnez moi, monsieur, je ne comprend pas ce que 
 vous dit,' — and he has two good hands, which is 
 conclusive, could I have understood his jargon." 
 
 Rosalia: "Oh ! then he is a Frenchman, and said : 
 ' Pardon me, sir, I do not understand what you say. ■ " 
 Flowers: "It is certainly a very striking- 
 resemblance." 
 
 Carrie: "There he goes; he stops at Phila- 
 delphia. Yes, you are right, Edgar; we are mis- 
 taken. He carries his valise in the same hand 
 that would be missing was he Col. Cloud." 
 
 The firm of Oglethrop, Harman & Co., in New 
 York, continues to prosper, to grow in popularity 
 and tnfluence as the years ghde by ; and its mem- 
 bers continue exempt from all family, all social, 
 all business crosses and misfortunes. 
 
 The wives of these gentlemen, together with 
 Cassandra and her tAvo erratic sisters of the con- 
 vent, continue their good works of charity and 
 mercy. 
 
 With all the parties, gentlemen and ladies, ex- 
 cept the two social exiles, everything glides as 
 smoothly, as merrily as marriage bells; and even 
 these two unfortunates are by far more happy 
 than they had ever been during the days of their 
 married wretchedness. Further than this it is 
 not within the limits of our province to deal 
 with the bright and the happy phases of human 
 hfe. These brief and potent sketches suffice to 
 draw most impressively the lines and shades of 
 contrast between them and their gloomy oppo- 
 sites, which it is our painful lot nightly to por- 
 tray; and they furthermore serve amply to 
 demonstrate the sweet rewards for walking in 
 Duty's paths, and for heeding Honor's voice. 
 
208 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 THE courtesan's REVENGE. 
 
 " Misshapen Time, cope's mate of ugly Night, 
 Swift, subtle post-carrier of grizzly Care; 
 Eater of youth, false slave to false delight. 
 
 Base watch of woes, siu's pack-horse, virtue's snare, 
 O Time, thou tutor to both good a,nd bad. 
 
 Teach me to curse him that thou taught'st this ill ! 
 At his own shadow let the thief run mad, 
 Himself, himself seek every hour to kill." 
 
 — Shakspeaee. 
 
 It Avill be remembered that Josepha Del-Cam- 
 pano, the pitiable victim of Arnold Noel, who 
 betrayed her under the nefarious delusion of a 
 sham marriage, and then abandoned her, swore a 
 desperate vengeance against the treacherous race 
 of mankind, and plunged into a reckless career of 
 crime. She did this in order the better to secure 
 opportunities to accomplish her hate-envenomed 
 design, as well as to fly that atmosphere of purity 
 which she had once breathed. 
 
 In pursuance of this resolution, she adopts the 
 life of a courtesan. She is conscious that she is a 
 model picture of perfection, both in physique and 
 form, besides being the mistress of a rare and 
 most attractively fascinating beaut3^ 
 
 She plots to turn the giddy heads of men occu- 
 pying the first social positions and abounding in 
 wealth, by luring them under the honor-destroy- 
 ing sway of her enchanting spell, that she may 
 then at pleasure wring alike their purses and their 
 hearts, and gloat over the writhing throes of their 
 torture to the fullest satiety. 
 
 In this, alas for the weakness of mankind and 
 their susceptibility to the witching charms of 
 beauty, though it be reeking in the sulphurous 
 odors of the deepest damnation of the blackest 
 social hell, she schemes not in vain. 
 
 We cannot pursue her wild career throughout 
 its many vicissitudes, both because of the want of 
 space and of its inappropriateness. We drag her 
 execrable shadow of a woman once true and 
 pure but vilely betrayed, on the stage at all, be- 
 cause this is necessary, in order to present 
 in these perpetually-shifting and ever-varying 
 scenes, in their legitimate colors, some of the 
 
 poisonous fruits of Arnold Xoel's evil deed-, 
 springing as natural consequences, in strict ac- 
 cordance with the laws of the "philosophy of 
 cause and effect." 
 
 It must suffice to say in passing, that in the 
 earlier days of her sinful life, she destroyed the 
 peace and happines.s of more than one family, and 
 drove more than one victim to suicide. 
 
 Later she dupes a man of such prominence as 
 to be esteemed worthy the name of " Magnate." 
 to install her in a mansion in her own right and 
 title, with palatial appointments. Here the dig- 
 nitaries of Justice meet to feast, drink, and issue 
 restraining mandamuses of injunction at their mid- 
 night sessions in this wicked paramour's vice- 
 gilded saloon. She induces a beneficiary of the 
 "Magnate" to waylay and .shoot him like a dog. 
 This case is too notorious and well known to re- 
 quire comment. 
 
 But the story of her crowning ecstasy of re- 
 venge yet remains to be told. Its foundation and 
 development were due to a circumstance which 
 transpired Avhile she was yet the reigning evil 
 genius of the "Magnate." 
 
 Arnold Noel was living with a notorious shop- 
 lifter as his wife. This fact Josepha learned. 
 Then she engaged a beautiful and artful soiled 
 dove to fascinate Arnold. In the meantime, she 
 sought and secured the acquaintance of his para- 
 mour, the shop-lifter, and ingratiated herself into 
 her favor by buying her stolen goods at fancy 
 prices. 
 
 In her scheme to have Arnold lured by the 
 crafty wiles of a new siren she was not disap- 
 pointed. This accomplished, she is not long in 
 causing indubitable evidence of the fact to be 
 presented to the open eyes of Tilla, the shop- 
 lifter. That green-ej^ed monster — Jealousy — at 
 once seizes her, and drives her to desperate mad- 
 ness. But she is largely under the influence of 
 Joseph^, who counsels moderation. This prevails 
 the more readily, owing to the strong out-pour- 
 ings of sympathy manifested with subtle tact by 
 her patroness. This assures her, and induces her 
 to admit Josepha into her confidence. By this 
 means, the relentless woman learns Arnold's habits 
 and haunts, together with his true name and the 
 residence of his father's family. In the mean- 
 
THE COURTESAN'S REVENGE. 
 
 209 
 
 time, Arnold's new infatuation is also in her con- 
 fidence. 
 
 A wealthy gncst of a prominent hotel is "spot- 
 ted " through the instrumentality of Josepha. It 
 is ascertained that a large treasure of valuables 
 is carelessly left about his room on bureau and 
 tables. 
 
 Between the two rival women Arnold is re- 
 duced to most desperate straits for money. Each 
 threatens to forsake him unless her wants are 
 supplied. The tempting bait of the wealthy hotel 
 guest is offered to him. Eagerly he takes it. 
 
 Josepha, as a matter of course, has not been 
 idle. She knows when the robbery is to be com- 
 mitted. Due precautions are taken that the 
 thief shall not leave the hotel, and that the evi- 
 dence of his guilt shall be complete and over- 
 whelming. And thus it proves. 
 
 Arnold Noel is arrested in the hotel, with the 
 stolen property in his possession. 
 
 He is speedily "railroaded " through the courts 
 to conviction, and sentenced to the extreme pen- 
 alty of the law. 
 
 Now, Josepha arranges the programme for a 
 scene. The two rival women are induced to be 
 at the grating of the condemned Arnold's cell, at 
 the same hour. Just after the war of words be- 
 tween themselves has subsided, and they have 
 mutually united now to torture the disconsolate 
 Arnold with reproaches, Josepha appears before 
 the grated door, and gazes in triumph at the cow- 
 ering destroyer of her youthful purity and its 
 dream of love. The fury of the enraged honess 
 gleams in her eyes, her face is radiant with fiend- 
 ish delight, as she says with withering sarcasm 
 and cold-hearted mockery : 
 
 "Well, 1 hope you are enjoying yourself. 
 Thank God,— if I may be permitted to pollute 
 that sacred name with my sin-cursed lips— conta- 
 gion caught from your vile and deceptive kiss, the 
 dread blight of innocent purity — you are at last 
 wedded to a twenty years' bride you may not 
 leave to the ruthless caprices of another lover, as 
 you once essayed to leave me. Base deceiver I 
 Long have I waited for this moment. Blessed 
 day that dawned to hght my way to its raptures ! 
 In swarms, I perceive your singed moths gather 
 around you now. Deluded wretches ! Not soon 
 
 14 
 
 again will your treacherous flame of love — ac- 
 cursed ingrate ! — glow to allure confiding virtue 
 to destruction. May my curse and its ever mul- 
 tiplying evils be your curse, and that of your 
 house and name ! While I live, it shall pursue 
 and afflict you and yours with a pitiless vengeance 
 that shall not abate." 
 
 Arnold : " Have a little pity for my father's 
 innocent family, if not for me." 
 
 Josepha: "Pity! pity! Ha! ha! Yes, such 
 as you had for me and my father's innocent fam- 
 ily will I have for you and yours. Remember 
 me ! Mark my words ! I was your victim then : 
 you the plausible despoiler. You are my victim 
 now : I am your heartless persecutor. Know, 
 Arnold Noel, and bear with you the consolation 
 that your present undoing is my handiwork, and 
 that I shall plan and leave for you a heritage of 
 endless woe." 
 
 Josepha brought into play secret influences to 
 induce Arnold's father to take Tilla into the 
 bosom of his familj^, as an estimable and inno- 
 cent girl, the lawful wife of his son. As soon as 
 she had there won sympathy, and become a fa- 
 vorite with the family and its friends, she is ex- 
 posed in her true character. Then, as a matter 
 of course, they are horrified at the thought that 
 they have entertained a vile miscreant in the guise 
 of an injured angel. 
 
 Arnold escapes, but is soon arrested, and re- 
 turned to his doom, through the connivance of 
 Josepha. 
 
 In time he is released by the Executive of the 
 State. In a very few months he is returned to 
 his old quarters, for the same term of years as 
 those to which he was first doomed. He is the 
 victim of unanswerable circumstances, innocent of 
 the crime for which he is condemned. Josepha 
 deems his penalty a partial retribution for her 
 own cruel wrongs. 
 
 During the early months of this second im- 
 prisonment, his father, mother and two of his 
 sisters die, "the pitiable victims of broken heart." 
 
 Josepha's vow is fulfilled : " Even as thou hast 
 meted out unto me shame and ruin, so have I 
 meted it out to thee again, measure for measure!'' 
 
210 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 IN THE FUTURE CITY. 
 
 " In my school days when I had lost one shaft, 
 I shot his fellow of the self -same flight 
 The self-same way, with more advised watch, 
 To And the other forth: and, b^ advent'ring both, 
 I oft found both. I urge this childhood proof. 
 Because what follows is pure Innocence. 
 I owe you much : and, like a wilful youth. 
 That which I owe is lost : but if you please 
 To shoot another arrow that self-same way 
 Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt 
 As I shall watch the aim : or to find both 
 Or bring your latter hazard back again, 
 And thankfully rest debtor for the first." 
 
 — Shakspeake. 
 
 Garland, Hope & Co. is Nube Garland's firm, 
 that opens a house, July 1st, 1872, in the " Future 
 City," as Cotton and General Southern Commis- 
 sion Merchants. 
 
 In addition to Garland, the firm contains three 
 excellent young men from the South, one of 
 whom is to be largely backed by his father 
 and some relatives of means. As to the other 
 two, it is expected that a large volume of busi- 
 ness will be controlled through the influence of 
 their relatives and friends, especially in the States 
 of Alabama and Mississippi. 
 
 As stated in a previous chapter, between the 
 time of Garland's preliminary visit to the " Fu- 
 ture City," and his landing there for the purpose 
 of permanently locating, the stores of his Loui- 
 siana successor are burned. 
 
 He finds this event has seriously changed the 
 aspect of affairs relative to his new enterprise. 
 As soon as it is known among the creditors in 
 the " Future City," they at once feel a presenti- 
 ment that they are never to get back all their 
 money. 
 
 In making his preliminary visit, Garland count- 
 ed on the friendship, the countenance, and the 
 assistance of these same creditors, as the very 
 ground-work upon which he then calculated to 
 build a commercial structure. He did not ex- 
 pect to borrow money from them, nor to have 
 their, indorsement of his paper. But he designed 
 to fill his Southern orders by their aid, and 
 thus more than compensate them for the loss of 
 
 his former trade and the deferred payment of 
 the balances due to them by .his late firm in the 
 South, while benefiting, his new firm. He hoped 
 and believed this would awaken among these 
 men a sincere interest in his success, and induce 
 them, whenever it was practicable, to speak a 
 good word for his house. 
 
 During that first visit, he called on and con- 
 .sulted no other parties in relation to his project ; 
 and with two or three insignificant exceptions, the 
 nature of the • encouragement he received was 
 all that he could possibly have desired, far more 
 flattering than he anticipated. 
 
 When he finds the stores of his father-in-law 
 in ashes, he has himself strong misgivings con- 
 cerning the firm being able to cancel their <lebts, 
 even if the partial insurance is paid promptly 
 and in full. For he knows that as soon as the 
 business fails as a supply depot, seven-tenths of 
 the customers never will pay a dollar; and that 
 they are within the pale of Homestead-protec- 
 tion so securely as to defy compulsorj'- collection. 
 
 On his arrival in the " Future City," therefore, 
 he finds among the creditors, with few and rare 
 exceptions, a marked and repulsive coldness. He 
 frankly tells them he fears that he will have to 
 pay part of the money by his own personal ex- 
 ertions. This does not seem to turn the current 
 any more in his favor. 
 
 The idea that he has a large sum of money 
 from the assets of his old firm, drawn out before 
 the sale to his successor, becomes current, and is 
 thoroughly beheved to.be true among the credit- 
 ors in question. 
 
 Some of these creditors are peculiarly vindic- 
 tive. We can hardly reconcile their manifesta- 
 tions of this spirit with consistency. We might 
 with propriety name them, but this is unneces- 
 sary. We may indicate a few of them by names 
 appropriate to their proneness. 
 
 These creditors influenced other parties; and 
 still others were drawn on their side, from 
 motives and for reasons that will duly appear, 
 although their names will not. 
 
 Bright names, such as soar high above petty 
 malice, speak never but kindly of disagreeable 
 competitors, and disdain to be uncharitable to the 
 unfortunate, are hallowed lights that shine with 
 
IN THE FUTURE CITY. 
 
 211 
 
 rarely approachable refulgence among the dark 
 shadows of the envious, dissembling, malicious 
 crew. They are most beautiful and radiant dia- 
 monds of the purest water, that will stand the 
 wear of time, cut all that falsehood and injustice 
 can hurl against them, and yet remain unihm- 
 med. Hence it is with a thrill of pleasure that 
 we image in the sleepless majesty of the mind 
 such strong and matchless characters of perfect 
 moral manhood. What an appalling contrast the 
 bright tints of the clear, brilliant and shining- 
 lights reflect, when they penetrate and shed a 
 beaming ray upon the gloomy back-ground in the 
 odious picture of the dark side of life. 
 
 In this relation, we propose to present a true 
 and well-authenticated picture throughout, not in 
 defense of Nube G-arland, nor to make his un- 
 worthiness appear more monstrous, but to demon- 
 strate yet other shades of human life requisite to 
 consummate its portrait. We shall follow in the 
 wake of occurrences just as they have transpired 
 and maybe thoroughly substantiated in the com- 
 mercial centre where located. 
 
 The opposition this man G-arland meets is de- 
 signed to preclude him from the possibility of per- 
 fecting arrangements that will enable him to do 
 anything in the direction of conducting a regular 
 business, or even starting it on a legitimate and 
 practicable basis. 
 
 One creditor of his old firm, who might appro- 
 priately be termed " Duplicity," professes much 
 solicitude for G-arland's success, and specially de- 
 sires to assist him in making financial arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 The assistance rendered is in the shape of in- 
 troducing him to the proper bank officers after 
 they are privately admonished to have nothing to 
 do with him. Some of the other creditors act a 
 more honorable part — that of secret work without 
 the guise of professed friendship. It is needless 
 to name them. 
 
 One modest, quiet creditor deserves to be styled 
 the " True Friend. " While the prospect of his losing 
 his large claim is no less disagreeable to him than 
 to the other a«id smaller creditors, still he has suf- 
 ficiently investigated the affair to be satisfied that 
 it is not fraudulent. Hence, being a true, just 
 man, he will not stoop to condemn and persecute 
 
 an unfortunate debtor overtaken by disasters that . 
 have sprung from unavoidable causes. 
 
 Garland soon finds that the doors of all promi- 
 nent and desirable banks are closed against him ; 
 and that, alone and unaided, he must combat the 
 powerful and aggressive influence of his vindic- 
 tive creditors at home and abroad. Nothing 
 could well appear more hopeless and forlorn than 
 his now discouraging prospects for success in his 
 efibrts barely to start a business. 
 
 In talking the matter over with the "True 
 Friend," that wise, able, and successful merchant 
 frankly informs Garland that his enterprise is a 
 fated impossibility. 
 
 Nevertheless, whatever may be Garland's con- 
 victions — is he capable of experiencing such — he 
 does not meekly accept the inevitable. 
 
 This obstinate efibrt and indomitable persever- 
 ance of his demonstrates a singularly peculiar freak 
 of fortune, partaking strongly of the nature of a 
 mysterious dispensation from the guiding power 
 of a strangely ordered destiny. 
 
 Similarly situated, under the same force of cir- 
 cumstances, nine hundred and ninety-nine men 
 out of every thousand, although in full enjoyment 
 of untarnished virtue and true moral courage, 
 would have abandoned an enterprise so wholly 
 devoid of prospect, or hope, or probability of suc- 
 cess. Why, then, the man Garland clings to it so 
 tenaciously is, at this time, when the story of his 
 Antecedents is unknown, a mystery to every one 
 acquainted with him and his efforts; now, with 
 all the details before us, it seems incredible. Was 
 it misguided moral courage, erroneous ingenuity, 
 or what was it ? We are unable to answer. 
 
 This strange and mysterious individual has 
 apparently no future in life worth a struggle. 
 Liable as he is, as indorser for the paper of his 
 unfortunate Louisiana successor, with the bitter 
 vindictiveness of the holders of this paper com- 
 bined against him, there seems little to encourage 
 him to start a business as it were, in the very 
 jaws of a menacing danger threatening him with 
 the most merciless and crushing destruction. 
 And, then again, he furthermore has the ghost 
 of his false position- ever at his heels. Less 
 serious things drive men Avho are well established, 
 not only out of business, but to self-destruction. 
 
212 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Almost every day lie meets parties whom he 
 recognizes, but none of tliem seem to remember 
 him. 
 
 As a rule he avoids talking about the past, 
 but when he does speak of it, with the one ex- 
 ception of his name, he confines himself to truth, 
 even to the county of his nativit\", the regiments 
 in which he served, and the rank of himself in 
 that service from first to last. 
 
 After finding the true state of afi'airs and real- 
 izing the precariousness of the difficulties in which 
 they involve him, he is very cautious how he 
 naoves, and extremely quiet in all his operations. 
 However, the busines.s community, to its surprise, 
 soon learns that he has an account with a small 
 new bank, and is doing a large amount of busi- 
 ness from Texas all the way to Georgia — far 
 more than many old-established houses, amount- 
 ing frequently to thousands of dollars in one day 
 Avitlr Memphis alone. 
 
 When the panic strikes him, his prospects are 
 flattering indeed. For a new and not strong 
 house, he has a large amount of exchange re- 
 mitted from Memphis, drawn by the best bank 
 there," on New York, to come back dishonored — 
 the Memphis bank having failed while the bills 
 were in traiisit as remittance. Besides this, two 
 or three Memphis firms owing him large amounts 
 fail, and others are in consequence of the finan- 
 cial lock-up, unable to meet their bills promptly 
 for purchases in transit at the commencement 
 of the panic. 
 
 Just now it appears that Garland is effectually 
 crushed. The expectations of assistance from 
 the friends of his partners totally fail. Not a dol- 
 lar nor business worth a dollar, ever reaches the 
 firm. 
 
 But dark as all seems. Garland does not de- 
 spair. In a very short time the Memphis bank 
 arranges to start again, and he is able to get the 
 paper of the bank discounted. 
 
 Before *the banks resume currency payment, 
 there is a distressing demand for cash to pay 
 cotton-pickers in the South. Garland's keen and 
 ever alert acumen perceives that this circumstance 
 constitutes the strategical point of the cotton 
 campaign, and the foundation for the future of 
 the trade in the " Future City." 
 
 His little bank does not belong to the Clearing 
 House Association, and never stops paying cur- 
 rency. He therefore draws all the money he 
 can obtain, and sends three good men to the most 
 promising cotton districts, with instructions to 
 secure consignments with the least possible spot 
 cash advances, to take ojxlers for goods of any 
 class against the cotton up to a full advance, or 
 to promise the balance of a full advance in cur- 
 rency, by express, on the arrival of the cotton in 
 his market. 
 
 The result of this adventure is immediate and 
 surprisingly large shipments of cotton, that daily 
 increase. And as this novel genius makes a 
 new departure in the commission business by 
 proposing to buy goods for Iris shippers free of com- 
 mission, his orders for goods are nearly as large 
 as those of any wholesale grocery house in the 
 Southern trade. This feature creates for him 
 the uncompromising enmity of one grocery firm 
 doing an immense Southern business. 
 
 Up to the season when Garland's house enters 
 the field, this city has never been a cotton mar- 
 ket, and there is only one legitimate cotton com- 
 
 inission house here, S & Co., the pioneer 
 
 house of the trade in this city, — a firm whose 
 members are always and under all circumstances 
 warm and earnest friends to Garland, and who 
 will not permit agents to talk against him nor 
 to his detriment. Both members of this firm 
 ever encourage him. They understand and ap- 
 preciate how vastly he will aid them to establish 
 a market in their city, and to draw a large vol- 
 ume of shipments to it — a result for which they 
 have labored many years in the face of the ante- 
 diluvian jeers and discouragements from the 
 very men whose interests should have prompted 
 them to encourage and assist this commercial 
 life-inspiring enterprise. 
 
 This firm does not despise Garland's unques- 
 tionable talents and undoubtedly fine knowledge 
 of, and thorough experience in, this important 
 business, nor hesitate to pattern after him where 
 tangible success is crowning his every effort. This 
 house is strong, and at once adopts the plan of 
 sending out men with money, and thus to meet 
 success in a degree commensurate with the greater 
 
IN THE FUTUKE CITY. 
 
 213 
 
 magnitude of tlieir resources that Garland has 
 reahzed. 
 
 Several otlier firms this season launch out in 
 the cotton business. All are soon inspired to 
 make the same effort. Within sixty days this 
 city is a cotton market ; a fixed fact. 
 
 In the meantime, F & Co., pork-packers, 
 
 F & B , flour merchants, and W & 
 
 K , wholesale grocers, extend extraordinary 
 
 facilities to Garland, and are friends, if not to 
 him personally, certainly to his enterprise. It is 
 
 also about this time that George M , then in 
 
 the fancy-goods trade, and J. W. P. presi- 
 dent of the Cotton Compress Co., become friends 
 with and begin to take a hvely interest in Garland. 
 Up to this period in his metropohtan career, he 
 is a grand, courageous, and admirable character — a 
 model worthy of emulation in every respect, save 
 alone his false position, but for which we now 
 see him on the high road to a pinnacle of unparal- 
 leled success, influence, power, and usefulness, 
 in comparison with the circumstances under which 
 he started, and the nature of the line of business 
 in which he is engaged. 
 
 But, alas! the long treasured and ever accumu- 
 lating retribution of that atoneless curse still re- 
 mains unspent. Can any mortal skill, ingenuity^ 
 exertion, will or power, or all combined, redeem 
 and spare him from its ultimate consequences? 
 Or will these masterful struggles to escape, only 
 tend to delude and to lead him into the entangle- 
 ments of its treacherous snare ? 
 
 This should be an interesting and an instructive 
 study : whether it be possible for a man wholly to 
 escape in this world the real palpable penalty^ 
 either in a greater or a less degree, that his false 
 or criminal acts merit and demand. 
 
 Here is a man with the talent, the skill, the 
 strategy, the nerve, the daring requisite to ac- 
 complish anything human in a strife with events 
 controlled and directed only by human dispen- 
 sation. But what will all these avail him in a 
 conflict with the silent and mystical powers of an 
 unknown and invisible destiny ? We are driven 
 to the unwavering conclusion that he is helpless, 
 bhnd, and cannot escape. 
 
 What a lamentable thralldom for a man to be 
 involved in — a man capable of rendering to the 
 
 future prosperity of the city such extensively 
 valuable commercial services in promoting an 
 enterprise upon which depends, in an inestimable 
 degree, the approaching, or at least the feasible, 
 greatness of the city ; an enterprise to which he 
 is as zealously devoted as any man engaged in it 
 who is free and untrammeled from the detrimental 
 embarrassment of perpetually existing under the 
 sombre gloom of a menacing cloud ! 
 
 How can and why will an unworthy man de- 
 vote, as it were, his very life in a laudable struggle 
 to advance the interest of a community, actuated 
 entirely by worthy motives ? It is impossible for 
 this man to reap a benefit from his assiduous 
 labors that will not, and immediately, advance the 
 general welfare of the community ten times as 
 much as that to be realized for himself. Ewry 
 step he makes in the direction of extending the 
 infant trade at this period of its delicate exist- 
 ence, is planting a seed that will spring up and 
 bear permanent and increasing fruit. This will 
 continue to enhance the prosperity of commerce 
 for all time, no matter what may be his fate as an 
 individual actor. 
 
 A most trivial but potent incident trahspires 
 early in the season under consideration, that 
 makes an uncompromising enemy for Garland of 
 a strong, new cotton house. This firm seems to 
 entertain the idea that all the business from one 
 section is its own by an inaUenable right; and 
 thus it develops. 
 
 Garland has an agent passing through that sec- 
 tion one day, on a mail-train that stops at a depot 
 for a freight to come up. This agent steps off, 
 and hands a card to each of a few planters who 
 are standing on the platform, but has no time to 
 talk. This results in one of the leading planters 
 dividing a forty bale shipment, the next day, 
 equally between the two houses. The day on 
 which the cotton arrives, Garland's competitor, 
 who is young in the business, and at this time 
 utterly ignorant of the classification and grade 
 valuation of cotton to that fine degree of techni- 
 cal nicety requisite to afford him absolute security 
 against being "picked up" by a sharp broker, 
 makes a very large sale, in which the twenty bales 
 referred to are included. There is some extra 
 delay about delivering the cotton, and more about 
 
214 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 getting the sales made up and remitted, while, in 
 the meantime, the market becomes active, buo}^- 
 ant and advancing. Neither one of the parties 
 knows of the shipment to the other. G-arland is 
 ignorant of the circumstances under which the 
 shipment has been made to his house, as well 
 as of tlie fact that the shipper is a customer of 
 his competitor. 
 
 Garland is a classer of cotton equal to any in 
 any market, and thoroughly skilled in both the 
 New Orleans and New York methods of conduct- 
 ing a cotton commission business under the most 
 approved, the most practical, and most scientific 
 rules. 
 
 One of the first principles is, rigidly to class 
 every bale in a list, and thus ascertain its exact 
 average value before offering it for sale ; the next 
 is to mail to each shipper a notification of the 
 number of bales he has in the list, the same day 
 it is sold ; and next to make up and forward the 
 sales promptly. 
 
 G-arland sells the twenty bales about a week 
 after he receives them, on an advanced and ex- 
 cited market ; so that they net over twelve dol- 
 lars per bale more than the twenty sold by his 
 competitor. This brings him a large per cent, of 
 business from that section; and his competitor 
 believes it is the result of sinister unfairness, 
 while, in reaUty, Garland is himself ignorant of 
 the cause. Circumstances very nearly similar to 
 the one just related, made for Garland a number 
 of other, but less important enemies. 
 
 It is a little remarkable that his emphatic injunc- 
 tion to all his soliciting representatives is, never 
 to say a word, and that he never writes a line 
 detrimental to any other house; nor seeks, l)y 
 any unfair means, to take business away from 
 any one, up to the point in his career now under 
 consideration. 
 
 As to poor Manonia, she is literally buried alive 
 in a hotel, and quite ill — almost past hope. Gar- 
 land returns to her from his office at midnight, 
 and leaves her at six o'clock in the morning. But 
 personally, he is as kind to her as any man in the 
 world could be, never giving her an angry word ; 
 and she loves him with all the passionate devoted- 
 ness of her ardent Southern nature. 
 
 Just as soon as she is able to travel, she sets 
 out to pay her first visit to her parents, leaving 
 Garland subject to the baneful influence of his 
 own dark mind. 
 
 Before leaving, she consummates an act of 
 beautiful charity, that is productive of much good 
 fruit. This act is accomplished through the me- 
 dium of the following conversation : 
 
 Manonia : " My dear, have you ever noticed 
 the boy, little Frank, who takes the meal-tickets 
 at the dining-room door?" 
 
 Garland: " Yes, casually, in passing. What 
 of him ? " 
 
 Manonia: "He is a very bright, sweet child; 
 and he has been very kind to me, and cheered 
 me during many an hour that would have hung 
 monotonous and dreary on my hands. He has a 
 widowed mother, and they are very destitute. I 
 want you to do something for him for my sake."' 
 
 Garland: "Certainly. How much shall I give 
 him ? " 
 
 Manonia : " Oh ! I don't mean that. I want you 
 to take him into your office, and pay him what- 
 ever he is worth." 
 
 Garland : " I would rather pension him oft' 
 than be bothered with him. Those hotel boys 
 learn nothing but badness, and he would prove an 
 intolerable nuisance in the office." 
 
 Manonia: "Now, don't say that, please, about 
 him, for he is an exception. He begged me to 
 ask you. His father was once a wealthy cotton 
 merchant; but left his wife and boy beggars, 
 owing to people having swindled him. during a 
 long illness before he died. The poor little fellow 
 wants to learn the business. Take him, please. 
 It might be the means of making a useful man of 
 him, and of saving him from drifting down with 
 the muddy tide in the maelstrom of the scum and 
 dregs of life. If he gives j^ou the least annoyance, 
 blame me, but don't scold him." 
 
 Garland: "All right, then; I will give him a 
 fair trial." 
 
 Manonia : " How good you are ! How pleased 
 he will be." 
 
 The second month, Garland pays this boy 
 
 Frank G. P. , fifty dollars, solely on the 
 
 score of merit. From that time, his destiny is 
 established, and he steadily rises. He is a mimick- 
 
THE MUTUAL AND SECEET INQUISITOKIAL LEAGUE. 
 
 215 
 
 ing genius, that never has to be told or shown 
 how to do anything the second time, in order to 
 understand it perfectly. 
 
 His mother, a dehcate little woman, he very 
 soon transfers from the garret and squahd pov- 
 erty to plenty and comfort. 
 
 At the present day, there are-few men as well 
 recompensed for their services as is this young 
 man. 
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 THE MUTUAL AND SECRET INQUISITORIAL LEAGUE. 
 
 " Yet I must think less wildly;—! have thought 
 Too long aud darkly, till my brain became 
 In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought ; 
 A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame; 
 And thus untaught in youth my heart to tame, 
 My springs of life were passion. 'Tis too late ! " 
 — BYKON. 
 
 Early in the winter of 1873-4, associated with 
 six other merchants, Garland is a member of a 
 society or league of seven, organized to ascertain 
 the moral habits principally of men in their OAvn 
 employ, and those with whom they are most in- 
 timately related in business. After this para- 
 mount object is attained, they gather any other 
 subordinate information that either the fancy or 
 the whims of any two of the members may 
 prompt them to demand. Especially is it stipu- 
 lated that any member on duty seeking informa- 
 tion of any specific nature shall report to the 
 meetings any other striking information that may 
 casually chance to come under his observation. 
 
 The members of this novel commercial associa- 
 tion are all older men than Garland, and all but 
 he are well established and substantial merchants 
 of the most rigid moral school Some of them 
 are deemed a little eccentric. 
 
 One of them with whom Garland is intimate, 
 one evening suggested the utihty of a compact of 
 this nature to Garland and two others, in the pri- 
 vate office of one of their number. The plan is 
 at once agreed upon, and three other parties then 
 named who would be acceptable as members. 
 These last mentioned merchants are consulted, 
 and the next night the league is organized. 
 
 Every member is sworn to observe a super- 
 
 Masonic secrecy as to the existence of the organ- 
 ization, its objects, its workings ; and never to 
 expose to the pubhc any information gathered by 
 its numbers that might prove damaging in the 
 shghtest degree, unless the interests of some one 
 of their members imperatively demand it. In 
 case of any member being referred to by the 
 party whom such knowledge would affect, he 
 may then impart it without specially indicating 
 the source whence it is derived, as he would in 
 strict confidence give any other commercial in- 
 formation. They are not to seek information for 
 the benefit of any other parties than the members 
 themselves. 
 
 Any member guilty of disreputable commercial 
 conduct is to be expelled. 
 
 No new members are ever to be admitted. 
 One member is to be on duty every night, so 
 that the turn of each will occur but once a week. 
 The duties of this member, when no special 
 nor extraordinary instructions are imposed upon 
 him, are to shadow drinking, gambhng and other 
 disreputable resorts, and there watch for the em- 
 ployes, etc., of himself and brother members. 
 While thus engaged, it is but a natural presump- 
 tion that the member on duty will find other 
 people than those for whom he is looking, occa- 
 sionally straying in devious paths. Such instances 
 as' these, if of notable importance, it is expected 
 he will report at the meeting held the week in 
 which the information comes into his possession. 
 It is agreed that immediately after the adjourn- 
 ment of each meeting, every member shall call to 
 account such of his people as have come under 
 the ban of the inquisition's proscribed list, and 
 privately inform them separately the exact na- 
 ture of the damaging discoveries, give them all 
 one chance; but at the same time duly notify 
 them that a repetition will not be excused. 
 
 The members of this strange fraternity deter- 
 mine to test the secret workings of family gro- 
 cery-stores, in localities where the laboring poor 
 reside and deal. To this end, they make up a 
 little purse, purchase a diminutive pair of post- 
 office scales, and place these, together with a part 
 of the fund, each night, in the hands of the mem- 
 ber on duty, with instructions to send some 
 colored person or small poor child to buy some 
 
216 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 articles sold by weight from a few different stores 
 doing a fairly large trade, and to weigh them 
 promptly, at the same time carefully noting the 
 purported weight of the seller and the weight by 
 the delicate scales opposite each item, observing 
 to keep each store's list distinctly separate from 
 the others. The plan is to accumulate a com- 
 bined result, including one hundred stores scat- 
 tered all over the city, from which they design 
 to make an average. 
 
 Howsoever trivial and insignificant this enter- 
 prise may appear at the first casual and hasty in- 
 spection and consideration, it is simply wonder- 
 ful — almost incredible — what a vast and strangely 
 varied amount of important information a similar 
 organization may accumulate, in the brief space 
 of but one week, in any city of ten thousand in- 
 habitants, or in any manufacturing establishment 
 employing one thousand people. 
 
 We allow this chapter to cover the space of 
 some pages, not only because one of our way- 
 ward charactei-s is directly connected with its 
 subject-matter, but also because it reflects a shade 
 of a peculiar hue that does not obtain in the com- 
 position of the colors furnished by our regular 
 characters, without which a true life-picture would 
 be falsely incomplete ; and furthermore, because 
 they are of a nature, at least to a large extent, 
 that may not easily be obtained by other means, 
 the immunity of the transgressors from detection 
 and exposure being comparatively well assured. 
 
 This is a process that will unmask one species 
 of unblushing crime, that of the bold and auda- 
 cious theft and robbery that exceeds all other 
 methods of criminally obtaining possession of 
 property, for which the perpetrators are rarely 
 or never legally punished, and seldom, if ever, 
 personally rebuked by the organs of the public. 
 These the transgressors usually disarm by lavishly 
 liberal patronage ; and by being charitable and 
 loudly profuse in their donations to the church, 
 they most easily dispel from themselves all sus- 
 picion of their outrageous and basely glaring 
 dishonesty. 
 
 What is more atrocious and criminal than, day 
 by day throughout the year, again and again,^ 
 systematically to steal a portion of the scanty, 
 meagre, hard-earned subsistence from the toil- 
 
 worn, poverty-stricken, drudgerj^-enslaved man 
 and his emaciated children in the pinching 
 wretchedness of the squahd garret? Why 
 should this loathsome depredator, who flourishes 
 and revels in luxury, honored and esteemed in 
 every community in the large towns and in the 
 great cities, not be held as accountable, and pun- 
 ished with a proportionately severe penalty, as 
 the hungry urchin who steals a loaf of bread ? 
 
 The time for the first meeting arrives, to find 
 every member of this organization promptly on 
 hand and ready to report. 
 
 President: "Gentlemen, we have met in pur- 
 suance to the resolutions adopted at our pre- 
 liminary meeting, and for the purpose then indi- 
 cated. The secretary will read the reports of the 
 members for the week, which will be disposed 
 of as the meeting may deem proper." 
 
 Secretary: "Now, gentlemen, give me your 
 attention, if j^ou please, and I will proceed to 
 read the reports as they have been submitted 
 for your information : 
 
 " ' January 4th, 1874. 
 
 "'To President M. S. I. League: 
 
 "'I have the honor to report that I 
 found Mr. Low's book-keeper playing faro and 
 losing money. He was also drinking freely, and 
 presented a general appearance of recklessness. 
 
 " ' Mr. Still's cashier and Mr. Waterman's in- 
 voice clerk were two-parts drunk, and making 
 the rounds of saloons and other disorderly houses, 
 and, at the same time, conducting themselves in 
 a manner quite ungentlemanly. 
 
 "'Mr. Thorn's collection clerk and Mr. Mundy's 
 stockman were dancing and treating in a saloon 
 on C avenue. 
 
 " ' Two of Mr. Garland's account-sales clerks 
 and two of my salesmen .were full of beer, and 
 drinking at the rate of about a glass eveiy five 
 minutes. 
 
 " ' I observed a number of leading bank men 
 and merchants, and the employes of like insti 
 tutions and houses gambling, drinking to excess, 
 or in company of questionable repute. And, I 
 am pained to have to report that I saw a number 
 of couples from good, respectable society, going 
 
THE MUTUAL AND SECRET INQUISITORIAL LEAGUE. 
 
 217 
 
 in the direction of and coming from places of 
 doubtlessly bad character. 
 
 " ' I was horrified to see a dear friend of mine 
 with the wife of another acquaintance of mine, 
 
 enter a well known resort near N and 
 
 streets; then a few minutes later his wife with 
 another man gUded into the same place; and, 
 soon after, his daughter followed with a bank 
 cashier who has a wife and grown-up children. 
 
 " ' I am exceedingly thankful that our regula- 
 tions do not require us to report the names of 
 people outside of our own business relations. 
 " ' Respectfully submitted, 
 
 " ' Timothy Fair.' " 
 
 As the other reports are of much the same 
 tenor and purport we exclude them, except the 
 consolidated reports on the one hundred stores, 
 which result as follows : 
 
 UHt of the entire number, seventeen gave full 
 weight on every item, and eighty-three short 
 weight, ranging from twenty to forty per cent., 
 and averaging twenty-seven per cent., including 
 the weight of the heavy paper in which the small 
 parcels are wrapped. 
 
 There is a panic among the employes of the 
 seven houses represented in this secret league, 
 and their names very soon cease to figure in the 
 weekly reports. 
 
 This brief reference to a deplorable and serious 
 subject but vaguely reflects a faint ray of hght 
 on the shady side of hfe, under the mantle of 
 which a sadly large per cent, from the middle 
 and upper ranks of society might, at any time, be 
 found lurking. 
 
 There is but one feature of it all, however, with 
 which the laws of the land and the authorities 
 constituted under them may successfully cope : 
 this systematic, commercial pilfering from the 
 confiding pubUc, thus Easily duped. ' Open, loud 
 exposure of, and vigorously severe punishment 
 inflicted on some of that cormorantic crew might 
 have a most salutary influence over them all; 
 though with none of the others will emblazoned 
 scandal operate either as a remedial or a mitiga- 
 ting influence. 
 
 Each particular feature is a distinctly and well- 
 defined type of social pestilence that baffles the 
 
 skill of all moral and social physicians, and defies 
 their antidotes — maladies that exposure rather 
 tends to aggravate than to abate — but that the fear 
 of public notoriety will often check, sometimes 
 cure. 
 
 Society, collectively, controls, or rather might 
 control, the only infallible remedy in existence, 
 or the one that might under any earthly possi- 
 bility exist. 
 
 A few discreet and honoraljle members of soci- 
 ety in any community may, in a very short time, 
 discover the members of that society who are 
 leading hves such as should ever render them un- 
 worthy the esteem of the circle in which they 
 move, or even tending in that direction. This 
 accomplished, then quietly inform the wayward 
 ones of the true nature of the situation; and that 
 the alternative is to mend these erratic propen- 
 sities or suff'er the consequences of exposure — the 
 pain of banishment from the pure atmosphere of 
 their forfeited sphere down to the level of that 
 plane to which they properly belong by reason 
 of having adopted the abominations there prac- 
 ticed. This might save more, both as a preven- 
 tive and as a remedy, than all the "Temper- 
 ance Crusades," " Police Courts," " Workhouses," 
 and "Reformatories" in the world, combined 
 and multiplied over again, have ever saved or 
 ever will save. 
 
 The time for society to effect the reformation 
 of its viciously predisposed members, is before 
 they have lost their caste and standing; and alone 
 by the gently soothing balm of its own quiet and 
 charming influence may this result be attained ; 
 but never, or at most, extremely rare will be the 
 exceptional cases, through the interposition of the 
 customary mediums of coersive agencies, which 
 rather tend to make and help along than to cure 
 their malignant disorders. 
 
 These are stubborn, irrefutal3le facts that the 
 sooner the philanthropist recognizes in their true 
 light, the better by far it will be for the nobly 
 grand cause in which he is engaged, and in which 
 it is a lamentable misfortune that a mistaken zeal 
 should often lead him astray. 
 , The proverb : " The school of experience is a hard 
 one," contains often "more truth than poetry." 
 A thousand-fold more forcible is its apphcation 
 
218 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 •\vlien the subject-matter' of its lesson thus in- 
 culcated is contained only in the dark chapters 
 of the book of " Human Nature." But good 
 people, in order to learn this ignoble lesson truly, 
 that knowledge must be drained, with the cruel 
 dregs, from the melancholy depths of the most 
 bitter experience. 
 
 One of the principles of this organization of 
 seven is that its members shall be true to one 
 another; and that one member may imjiart to 
 another at any time, either in or out of the regu- 
 lar meetings, any information of whatever nature, 
 whether obtained on or off duty, that personally 
 concerns only himself, and does not in any way 
 relate to other members, nor to the chief objects 
 for which they all are together combined. 
 
 It is a startling observation — the almost in- 
 credible rapidity with wliich the information col- 
 lected by this league accumulated, and what a 
 strangely curious volume of the dark mysteries of 
 life grew weekly within the Uds of the minutes 
 of its meeting.s. 
 
 The index clues that point toward the catas- 
 trophe to which great institutions and houses are 
 rushing with swift impetuosity, are there record- 
 ed ; and witliin this hidden volume lay concealed 
 from the light of day the leading outline of the 
 dark mysteries of " the great Whisky Ring," in 
 sul:)stance about the same as that which ultimately 
 exploded the seductive spell of its potent sway. 
 
 One day, on the Cotton Exchange, Mr. Low, 
 the president of this league, in conversation with 
 the commercial reporter of a leading daily, makes 
 a trifling, incidental allusion to that question, that 
 the reporter grasps as being a pertinent clue that 
 may lead to a " big find "; and which, as he reasons, 
 may be most assiduously followed up under the 
 specious guise of collecting statistics without 
 arousing any suspicion, and which ultimately 
 conducts him safely to the realization of the laud- 
 able object which he sets out to attain: "the 
 disastrous undoing of that grand, national, spoli- 
 ating combination." 
 
 Through the members of the league, G-arland 
 from time to time learns something of the muddy 
 seethings of the subtle under-current which his 
 adroit energy and far-reaching enterprise, is pro- 
 voking to form against him. This, from the tur- 
 
 bulent restlessness of its impatient nature, it is 
 easily perceptible, will rise some day in mad fury 
 to sweep him from a position that is daily grow- 
 ing so enviable that will speedily become securely 
 impregnable and placidly defy the most formid- 
 able forces that may possibly assail him here, 
 seeking to banish him eflfectually from the last 
 vestige of a commercial existence. 
 
 Outside the circle of his brother members of 
 the league, he never intimates to any one that 
 the nature of the unequal struggle in which he 
 will soon be forced to engage is at all known to 
 him, the " True Friend " alone excepted. They 
 rarely meet, and then, as a rule, in a way that 
 is impracticable to discuss a subject so mysteri- 
 ously sinister as is this. This estimable gentleman 
 admits that all G-arland's misgivings are well- 
 founded, but at the same time, ne declares most 
 emphatically that he is wholly unable to divine 
 the motives that prompt men of means, influence 
 and high standing in business circles, to stoop to 
 the attempt even, to crush a weak and compara- 
 tively friendless man. He deems that all should 
 appreciate Garland's struggles as an humble actor 
 in their lower ranks, in the grand battle to gain 
 the control of a leading Southern industry and 
 the trade that is inseparable from it, in which the 
 city is now engaged and which will but tend to 
 promote the common interest of the whole in a 
 degree far greater than may by any means ever 
 benefit their anticipated victim. 
 
 Sometimes people are too much blinded by 
 jealous prejudice to jDerceive clearly their own 
 interest, and are willing even to sacrifice this, to 
 a certain extent at least, in order to gratify their 
 malice. In the instance of this spirit, as mani- 
 fested toward Garland, however, the aversion 
 and spite must have been generated and influ- 
 enced by the promptings of strongly actuating 
 instinct, that vaguely intimated his dark and 
 mysterious character. This appears logically rea- 
 sonable, because there is some divining ken in 
 the intellectual faculties of mankind, wliich often 
 seems to understand that there are hidden sins in 
 the hearts of other people, although there be no 
 way by which this feeling might be explained. 
 
THE WILDLY FLUCTUATING VICISSITUDES. 
 
 219 
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 TUE WILDLY FLUCTUATING VICISSITUDES. 
 
 " There is thy gold ; worse poison to men's souls, 
 Doirjg more murders in this loathsome world. 
 Than these poor compounds thou may'st not sell. 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 Poor wretch! dark ambition and deep pride, 
 And cold disdain, for the buffeting tide, 
 Which thou would'st stem or sink in the vain 
 Attempt, were the compounds of thy deadly bane. 
 Could'st thou have brooked the ills of fate; 
 Or had'st thou been true, or mend'd ere too late, 
 And with a modest station been content, 
 Thou might'st not had greater faults to repent. 
 But thou must soar and fight for loft'er sway. 
 And be all or nothing, in one little day." 
 
 — Shakspeake. 
 
 As THE weeks come and go, G-arland, with a 
 daily increasing business, finds his perplexities and 
 difficulties constantly augmenting. 
 
 The money market is hare and perfectly 
 stringent. 
 
 Owing to his acute knowledge of the value 
 of cotton, and firmness against the principle of 
 making concessions, he cannot always sell when 
 he wishes to do so ; in fact, the buyers meet his 
 views, only when they are forced to take his 
 cotton to complete their orders. 
 
 His demands for money are very soon in excess 
 of the ability of his little bank to supply. Here 
 is a dilemma. He has 'tried in vain to place his 
 account with other banks during the flush times 
 and the dullest season of the year before the 
 panic. Of what use will it be to make the attempt 
 now, when the banks are all taxed to their ut- 
 most capacity to supply the sorely pressing 
 demands of their own customers ? 
 
 However, he does nevertheless try; and not 
 only does he try, but he actually succeeds in 
 negotiating arrangements with three of the best 
 banks in the city, in one day. 
 
 He has a deep plan to do business under the 
 same privilege as is in vogue in New Orleans ; viz. 
 to borrow money on his bills of lading, giving 
 at the same time to the bank an order on the 
 transportation company to deliver the cotton on 
 its arrival to some certain ware-houses, and an 
 order on these to deliver their receipts to the 
 bank when they receive the cotton. 
 
 In New Orleans, the cotton factor who wishes 
 to borrow money on cotton before it arrives, takes 
 the bills of lading for the number of bales that 
 he desires to hypothecate, as collateral security 
 for each loan the bank grants him, and indorses 
 his order on them to deliver the cotton that 
 they represent to the ware-house with which he 
 designs to store it. Then he makes out an order 
 on the ware-house to deliver the cotton described 
 by marks in the face of the bills of lading to the 
 order of his bank, and attaches all to his note 
 foixliscount. The bank then sends the order and 
 the bills of lading by its own collector or runner 
 to the ware-house; the ware-house man accepts 
 the order and retains the bills of lading. 
 
 The bank has its security, the best in the world — 
 a genuine ware-house receipt for cotton ; the factor 
 gets his money ; all parties are mutually satisfied 
 with the transaction, as well as being equally 
 benefited by it. In the " Future City " the ware- 
 houses issue a separate receipt for every bale of 
 cotton under serial numbers, beginning at number 
 one, with the first bale received in the month of 
 September, and terminating with the last one 
 received in August — a system that first originated 
 in the tobacco ware-house, and was then apjDlied 
 to cotton bales instead of tobacco hogsheads, be- 
 cause at first all the cotton was stored in tobacco 
 ware-houses. Garland regards the system as 
 being a nuisance, and tries to have it abolished. 
 
 So far as the transactions with \he banks are 
 concerned, they might, however, be effected un- 
 der the "Future City" system, with the same 
 facility as under that in vogue in the Crescent 
 City ; and to secure that end Garland makes his 
 arrangements. 
 
 Then, for almost the only time during his busi- 
 ness career, he breathes freer for a brief space of 
 days; and he tries to flatter himself that the 
 worst is over. 
 
 By some unaccountable fatality, however, there 
 is a strong influence m the Board of each bank 
 against him on the bill of lading arrangement; and 
 in just three days after it is made, he is informed 
 that he can have all the money he wants on the 
 spot ware-house receipts accompanied by certifi- 
 cates of insurance, but on no other terms, against 
 cotton security. 
 
220 
 
 MYSTIC ROMAx^CES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 He is at last cornered. He has agents out in 
 all directions in the cotton belt, who have made 
 numerous arrangements under which parties are 
 shipping cotton; and they are daily making still 
 further arrangements with new shippers. 
 
 He has no resources with which to tide over the 
 time between the drafts coming in for payment 
 and the arrival of the cotton. And as if further 
 to aggravate the embarrassing situation, the rail- 
 road becomes blocked with more cotton than it 
 has facilities to move, so that it does not arrive 
 promptly, while the drafts are not delayed. 
 
 It is the twentieth of the month. On the first 
 day of the next month he will have city bills 
 to pay, ranging from between twenty and thirty 
 thousand dollars, and cotton drafts to meet for 
 perhaps a greater amount ; and, in all probability, 
 before a bale of cotton arrives. 
 
 In the meantime, the instalment notes of his 
 Louisiana successor become due ; several of the 
 insurance companies succumb to the pressure of 
 the panic ; the firm of his father-in-law collects 
 no- money from the planters, and the creditors 
 are menacing Garland. 
 
 It is difficult to conc-eive a more lioj^eless and 
 helpless predicament in Avhich a man may be 
 placed right in the active stages of a prosperous 
 and rapidly growing business, than that which 
 now distresses wayward Garland. 
 
 Up to this time, his record as a merchant will 
 most favorably stand the test of comparison with 
 the business men of this age, many of whom make 
 most disgraceful failures that do not pay their 
 creditors five per cent., under less plausible pre- 
 tenses than he has had for suspending, both in 
 Louisiana and also in the "Future City." But 
 now the time has arrived when that alternative 
 seems to be inevitable — the last and only course 
 that harmonizes with honor. 
 
 There are few persons Avho know this strange 
 man, who would hesitate to doubt that he would 
 rather go to his last long sleep at the bottom of 
 the noble Mississippi, than to a:bandon his ill-fated 
 project, created under the- stimulating intoxica- 
 tion of an ambitious delusion. But he neverthe- 
 less resolves to abandon his doomed craft. On 
 Saturday night he leaves the office determined 
 
 to suspend on Monday. It is a bitter, gloomy 
 contemplation. 
 
 He had once heard from an old cotton mer- 
 chant, in his narratives of the ups and downs of 
 the trade, and the rise and fall of houses in it, 
 during a period of half a century, some strange 
 stories about the many expedients to Avhich sink- 
 ing houses resorted to keep afloat until the crisis 
 of the storm Avas safely passed. 
 
 Early on Sunday he meets and has an inter- 
 view with a man who has been employed in the 
 banks, and who also knows that Garland is em- 
 barrassed for the want of actively available facil- 
 ities to meet cotton drafts, owing to his inability 
 to obtain money until the cotton arrives. This 
 man tells him of numerous instances of mer- 
 chants who he knew to have been detected 
 doing business on spurious collaterals, without 
 experiencing any trouble other than being obliged 
 to make their accounts good. These he says the 
 bank officers well knew would be made good, no 
 matter what else was permitted to suflfer. 
 
 He then finally suggests to Garland the feasi- 
 bility of such a plan of operations, as a sure means 
 of relief, and offers, for quite areasonable consider- 
 ation, to assist him in bringing it to perfection. 
 
 He suggests that Garland have blank ware- 
 house receipts filled up with the dates^ numbers and 
 marks of those he is receiving, in order that they 
 will be exact duplicates of genuine receipts, and 
 turn them over to him, and he will have them sig- 
 ned so skillfully that the signature will without 
 difficulty or suspicion., pass with any of the banks. 
 He says he can make a set of duplicates for each 
 bank, should Garland desire or need so many. 
 
 This is a great temptation, but Garland rejects 
 it Avith contemptuous disdain. In parting, the 
 man tells him that should he decide to change his 
 mind at any time, his services are obtainable. 
 
 By Sunday's mails Garland receives the most 
 l^itterly reproachful letters from his father-in-law 
 and brother-in-law, for having abandoned them, 
 Avith the debts of the old firm unpaid, which are 
 noAV threatening them Avith immediate and ir- 
 retrievable ruin. Besides thtse, he also receives 
 one from Manonia, breathing the most tender 
 sentiments of love and devotion for himself, but, 
 at the same time pathetically appealing to him to 
 
THE WILDLY FLUCTUATING VICISSITUDES. 
 
 221 
 
 make one herculean effort to relieve the distress 
 of her father, and save him from the cruel dis- 
 aster that is about to overvs^helm him. G-arland 
 is in a gloomy plight to afford consolation and 
 relief to the afflicted and the suffering. 
 
 Immediately after supper this same Sabbath 
 evening, he goes to his office ; locks the outer and 
 inner doors ; makes a fire ; turns the gas jet at 
 his desk lovr ; and passes the sohtary hours be- 
 tween slowly pacing to and fro, and sitting with 
 his head rechning on his desk, thinking, dream- 
 ing, sighing. 
 
 There is a war of fiercely conflicting emotions 
 raging in this hope- void, woe-begone breast ; and 
 he soliloquizes : 
 
 Oh Grod, oh Heaven! names of refuge, sources 
 of consolation to me baned and barred! Alas 
 that thitherward I may not turn for counsel and 
 comfort! False wretch! Base, damnable deceiver ! 
 Too late, too late ! I cannot recall those way- 
 ward steps, nor again retrace them. 
 
 " Far above me, up, up precipitous and impas- 
 sable steeps, is that broad and beauteous plain of 
 honor, whence I descended, and from which I 
 am an exile and a stranger ! Below, down, deep 
 down lies the yawning abyss — the fathomless gulf 
 of perdition. 
 
 " To advance but another step is to make the 
 dread and desperate phmge. Here I am on bar- 
 ren wastes and icy crags, amid the tempest's fury 
 that must sweep me from this untenable sphere. 
 Then, as for myself, I am lost, lost ! 
 
 " But can I save any others without engulfing 
 still some with me? Poor Manonia! but for 
 her, I would care nothing for my own fate. 
 Under no state of circumstances that rests within 
 the pale of posibilities can I save her. I must 
 go a veritable beggar onto the street — an object 
 of scorn and contempt, to brook the jeers and in- 
 sults of my gloating enemies. The doom of her 
 father and brother is sealed. What then can I 
 any longer be to her ? Would it not be better 
 to save them for her, and that she should lose me 
 forever, than that all should be lost ? If she but 
 knew that shadowy and false nature of my ex- 
 istence, my loss, for myself, would not cost her a 
 pang. 
 
 " But how can it be within my power to save 
 them. Surely they must sink with me. 
 
 " Oh that I could deprive my enemies of their 
 rejoicings over my fall ! What would I do to 
 foil them? What would I hesitate to do? 
 Nothing that Shakspeare makes Juliet conjure 
 Friar Lawrence bid her do, rather than yield to 
 the consequences of the dangers that menanced 
 her. 
 
 " But why are they my enemies ? Merely be- 
 cause it is the will of Fate. I have purposely pro- 
 voked no one. I am and have been laboring for 
 the interest of this city.- For that reason, if for 
 no other, I am entitled to a far greater degree of 
 favorable consideration and kindUer encourage- 
 ment than I have received from the masses of 
 those acquainted with the true nature of my 
 undertakings. 
 
 " I have offered the banks unquestionably safe 
 security, in the best shape it was possible for me 
 to present it under the circumstances, and de- 
 mand money, to which, by the nature and im- 
 portance of my business, I am clearly entitled, 
 but which I am unable to obtain. 
 
 " Would it, then, if the banks are sufficiently 
 unwary to permit it, be a great wrong to obtain 
 this same money from them for identically the 
 same purpose, without any security? I do not 
 believe it would. 
 
 "But to what terrible consequences may not 
 this lead? To what can it lead that is more to 
 be dreaded than the disasters tliat are now about 
 to crush me ? Why, nothing ; no, nothing. Not 
 even the dungeon's gloom nor its clanking chains 
 of bitter slavery. 
 
 " This scheme to use duplicate ware-house re- 
 ceipts appears to promise — what? Are there not 
 sinister features in that? Would it not be for- 
 gery ? Could it be safe for one day ? I distrust 
 it. It is but an infamous plot to entrap me. I 
 would be immediately arrested the first day. I 
 will not touch it. 
 
 "But then, what would being arrested amount 
 to with me ? I might as well go to prison for 
 combatting to sustain a wortliy cause by unfair 
 means — to contravene unjust persecution, as to . 
 go on the street a vagrant for abandoning it. Can 
 the end justify the means ? 
 
222 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY. 
 
 " lusignificaut as it would generally be es- 
 teemed, my failure, just now, would be a calamity 
 to the cotton interest here. 
 
 " But I must consult a lawyer. I will write 
 at once. I will tide over to-morrow some way, 
 and trust to Fate." 
 
 Garland at once turns up the gas jet, and 
 writes: 
 
 "Hon. Simon Retainer. 
 
 "City. 
 
 ^ Dear Sir : 
 
 "Enclosed find — amount, your cus- 
 tomary fee for a legal opinion, which I wish 
 carefully considered for a friend of mine, dehvered 
 personally to me by your messenger, before m. 
 to-morrow, on the following point, to wit : 
 
 " Suppose a merchant, in active business, with- 
 out making any statement relative to the genu- 
 ineness of the paper, should use with a bank as 
 collateral security against loans, duplicates of 
 genuine ware-house receipts, for goods which he 
 actually held; with no intention to defraud the 
 bank, but with a fixed determination to pay the 
 money at maturity ; and using the money strictly 
 in his business, witjiout squandering or in any 
 way attempting to conceal or put it beyond the 
 reach of the law in the operations of its process : 
 and should the bank, before the money was due, 
 discover the worthless character of the collaterals, 
 and arrest the party, who would then declare his 
 abihty and willingness to redeem his pledge ; and 
 was he able to demonstrate that such was a true 
 state of the situation — would he, under the strict 
 letter of the law, be subject to criminal penalties? 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "NUBE GrARLAND." 
 
 This letter is addressed, and the writer walks 
 by the post-office, and deposits it in the night-box. 
 
 He then goes to his hotel, and retires to sleep 
 — the disquiet sleep of the wretched, who know 
 not peaceful repose. 
 
 Monday morning, he finds that two hundred 
 bales of cotton have arrived since Saturday even- 
 ing, which make ten thousand dollars that will 
 be available that day; and there are bills of 
 
 lading for four huntked bales, in the mails. Early 
 in the day, he sells three hundred bales. That will 
 unlock seven or eight thousand dollars more 
 within the next three days. 
 
 Before ten o'clock, he receives the foUowing: 
 
 ^^ Dear Sir: 
 
 '• In reply to your question, I have to 
 say that it is a well-estabhshed principle of law 
 that to constitute a crime, in cases like that sup- 
 posed by you, the intention to cheat and defraud 
 must exist in the mind at the time the act is 
 performed. 
 
 " As a matter of course, the state of the mind 
 can be arrived at or estabhshed only by inference 
 drawn from the acts of the party at the time and 
 after the transaction is made. In such cases, the 
 natural presumption generally is that the bent of 
 the mind at the time was criminal. 
 
 "But in a case with all the points and circum- 
 stances just as you have proposed them, the law 
 and decisions would not, in my opinion, sustain a 
 criminal conviction. 
 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " Simon Retainep, Atty. 
 
 " N. Garland, Esq." 
 
 This is the opinion of an eminent practitioner, 
 who has served many years on the bench. 
 
 Thirty minutes after reading this letter. Gar- 
 land is closeted with the same man who had ad- 
 vised him to resort to that means for relief, and 
 opens the interview: 
 
 Garland: "Now, Mr. Expedient, I want to 
 say here to you that I mistrust your sincerity, 
 and beheve that you come to me as a miserable 
 decoy, in the interest of my enemies, who thus 
 hope to trap me. I have, however, determined 
 to test your sincerity. If you are acting, and 
 propose to act in good faith, copy and subscribe 
 to this paper, in your own handwriting, as a 
 pledge." 
 
 Expedient: " Certainly I will ; but I suppose 
 you will allow me to retain a copy, or give me a 
 counter-paper '^*' 
 
 Garland: "No, sir; I will do neither; nor 
 anything but pay you the price per thousand 
 named by yourself." 
 
THE WILDLY FLUCTUATING YICISSITUDES. 
 
 223 
 
 Expedient: "Very well, then; I will at once 
 accept your terms. When shall I expect some- 
 thing to do ? " 
 
 Gtarland: "To-night — if it can be arranged 
 so soon." 
 
 A few minutes later, Garland is in a printing 
 establishment, having the blanks run off. Before 
 supoer, four clerks have filled up twelve hundred 
 of them, and they are in the hands of Expedient 
 for manipulation. 
 
 At nine o'clock the next morning they are re- 
 turned with the signature so Avell executed that 
 an expert would be staggered to decide, in a com- 
 parison, wherein there is any difference between 
 it and the genuine one. 
 
 G-arland and Expedient are alone in a private 
 room. 
 
 G-ARLAND : " You havB done all you promised ; 
 and now here is your money. I want you now 
 to understand me, and to appreciate your position. 
 You are in my power. I shall at all times keep 
 myself in a shape to take up this paper without 
 delay. Do not, then, I warn you in advance, 
 delude yourself with the imagination that I am 
 at your mercy; nor make the fatal mistake of 
 attempting to use me in any way through the 
 influence of this connection between us ; because 
 if you do, let me tell you it will be woe unto 
 yourself. 
 
 "I have taken the precaution in this matter to 
 make ample preparation to guard myseK against 
 all such possible contingencies. I shall use you 
 the same way, whenever occasion requires, for 
 the same consideration; and you will not delay 
 nor demand extra remuneration. 
 
 " I know you now to be a very dangerous man ; 
 but be true to your villainy with me, and I will 
 never harm you, not even though I am in trouble, 
 so long as I am well assured that you did not 
 cause its origin." 
 
 Expedient: " You need have no fears. There 
 was no danger of my ever betrajang you, any 
 way; now you are doubly safe. I now under- 
 stand why you demanded that tell-tale document." 
 
 G-arland : " You are correct in your surmises. 
 I know human nature sufl&ciently well to be as- 
 sured that any man who will propose what you 
 did, and do what you have done, will not hesitate 
 
 to levy blackmail or to sell his secret, as long as 
 there is no danger of putting his own neck into 
 the halter ; but while you cannot do either V/'ithout 
 becoming the chief defendant yourself, you are 
 harmless. To be more explicit, I can at all times, 
 and under all circumstances defy you. 
 
 "My purpose is not to harm the banks, but 
 merely to obtain money to which I am entitled, 
 or which the nature and importance of my busi- 
 ness should entitle me to receive; and I want 
 immunity from all such annoyance as you might 
 cause, and I have got it. That is all." 
 
 At twelve o'clock on this same day. Garland 
 has to his credit in four banks sixty thousand 
 dollars, on the faith of tliose twelve hundred 
 worthless bits of paper. These represent a value 
 of more than eighty thousand dollars. They are 
 accepted by the banks without hesitation or ques- 
 tion, and money loaned thereon, which he has 
 sought in vain to obtain on the faith of legitimate 
 A'alue — and value which he would now be most 
 happy to place under the control of the banks, in 
 lieu of the detestable trash which he does deposit. 
 
 Here, now, at last, is the matured fruit of a 
 little evil seed sown nine years before, in, com- 
 paratively speaking, almost aij innocent way— 
 a seed the production of which Garland struggled 
 to destroy, but which the irrevocable decree of 
 destiny had rendered irradicably fixed; secure 
 against every ingdliuity of man; able to defy 
 every means that he might attempt to employ for 
 its extirpation, as long as he did not assail it with 
 unalloyed truth, and show in reahty the nude 
 deformity of the deceptive artifice by which it 
 was at first planted and germinated. Thus the 
 M^eed grew unchecked ever after, blossomed and 
 produced fruit each time a little nearer matured. 
 First the assumption of a false name; next the 
 marrying of Manonia under that name ; and now, 
 finally, the perpetration of a great commercial 
 criine. 
 
 This is a matter in its exact similarity to such 
 prodigious numbers of cases in this country — a 
 very inconsiderable per cent, of which never 
 come to the light of day — that is fraught with such 
 stupendous importance to society and its peaceful 
 prosperity, looming up in a horrible form of 
 hideous monstrosity and gigantic magnitude so 
 
224 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 fiendishly diabolical and so appallingly burdened 
 with overwhelming curses, that we dare not light- 
 ly pass it by, nor wholly ignore its execrable de- 
 structiveness. 
 
 Taking a merely casual view of the case, hastily, 
 as people of this fast country and age are prone 
 to consider such, it is apt to receive an un- 
 merited verdict, and the gravity of its import 
 be too charitably estimated. 
 
 This is now a case that furnishes a commercial 
 lesson of such momentous proportions that its 
 value is not at all likely to be duly appreciated — 
 a damnable thraUdom of hope-wasting, life-blight- 
 ing destruction, in which untold and unknown 
 thousands of good and useful men are perpetually 
 enchained ; and who are every day of their false 
 and dungeon-haunted hves, imperihng the bril- 
 liant prospects, the cherished dreams, the price- 
 less name of promising and happy families. 
 
 Take Garland's case, as it developed, and it 
 will awaken palliating sympathy in the breast of 
 the average man, and receive from him a sen- 
 timent of charitable forbearance, to which it 
 really seems that he is, at least partially, entitled. 
 He is engaged in a grand and laudable enter- 
 prise, which he has striven to prosecute with 
 honorable fidelity, with unflagging energy, in- 
 domitable will, unyielding fortitude and coura- 
 geous tenacity, in the face of crushing difficulties 
 and hopeless discouragement, that are truly 
 admirable. His distress has not sprung from any 
 present misconduct on his part. And as to his 
 motives, they are, unquestionably, unimpeach- 
 able. He does not dream, to all perceptible ap- 
 pearances, of defrauding the banks. 
 
 If he d(ics design to defraud, he Avill raise a 
 quarter of a million of money, take a short busi- 
 ness trip, and fail to return. If his object is not 
 fraud, he will be far more sure to redeem that 
 dangerous paper at the maturitj^ of his notes 
 than were all his transactions based on genuine 
 documents; because there could then be no dan-- 
 ger of incurring criminal penalties. 
 
 His business is wonderfully important to the 
 commercial prosperity of his adopted city. So, 
 taking a liberal view of the case, as it appears 
 hedged around by its strangely peculiar circum- 
 
 stances, we are almost jsersuaded to concede that 
 the end justifies the means. 
 
 But, alas! when we endeavor to apply the 
 inexorable and unbending rules of honest truth 
 and majestic right to test the fabrication of this 
 structure, it crumbles to dust. It will not bear 
 an analytical scrutiny, because, no matter how 
 beneficial the result might prove to the commu- 
 nity or to the cause of humanity — even though it 
 emancipate the pauper and the indigent toiler, 
 and elevate them to independent affluence — it can- 
 not stand, founded on deception and constructed 
 by falsehood, from means unfairly obtained. 
 Could it be possible for it to become the means 
 of turning to the metropolis all the cotton in the 
 land, or of saving the whole city from being 
 plunged into annihilating ruin, not even both of 
 these powerful results would justify nor excuse a 
 course that truly, at all times, and under every 
 state of circumstances or shade of color of a 
 pretext, must remain unpardonable. 
 
 This man had flattering promises and bright 
 business prospects to tempt him, besides other 
 personal considerations. Extravagant dissipation 
 leads many merchants into the snare of adopting 
 this infamous expedient in some shape or other, 
 in order to buoy up and keep afloat their sinking 
 ships, without any reasonable prospect or defina- 
 ble plan for the future. Thus they drift as if by 
 hazard, with no hope of ever extricating them- 
 selves, from the whirlpool of entanglement into 
 which they are rushed by the fierce billows; 
 although it is rarely the case that any one of 
 them either designs or desires to defraud the 
 banks or delude the private parties whom he 
 victimizes. They make one forbidden shuffling 
 shift, and it works well. Then it was so con- 
 venient in a case of extreme and pressing emer- 
 gency, that it becomes but a natural result for 
 it to be applied as a remedy to the next case of 
 difficult embarrassment. And with men who find it 
 necessary to seek relief through the medium of 
 this expedient, trouble that imperatively demands 
 it, is ever occurring and recurring. 
 
 In a little time the first transaction appears, 
 demanding attention; soon the next follows, 
 and other and new ones 'intermingle in the 
 meantime, so that every day the doomed wretches 
 
THE WILDLY FLUCTUATING VICISSITUDES. 
 
 225 
 
 become deeper and deeper involved, until finally 
 tliey find themselves most helplessly and hope- 
 lessly shackled, loaded down with the galling 
 chains and the ruinous consequences of their 
 misdeeds ; and discover also, that the plea of their 
 honest intentions is both untenable and unavail- 
 ing. Now they become reckless and extravagant 
 if they were not already so; and if they were, 
 which almost always is the case, they become 
 yet more desperately rash. 
 
 To all these general rules, Garland was a re- 
 markable exception. He worked harder than 
 before, maintained his constitutional habits of 
 temperance, and an almost miserly personal 
 economy. His life merged into one concentral 
 purpose, to which everything else with him was 
 subordinate : to steer that ponderous, unwieldly 
 overburdened craft of commerce into the haven 
 for which he had launched her — to become the 
 first and leading power in the cotton trade. 
 
 This opening he had discovered, but never 
 dared dream of striving to fill, because he knew 
 from the commencement that with him it must 
 be one ceaseless struggle for bare existence in 
 the humble ranks of commerce ; and even this 
 was very doubtful. But immediately on find- 
 ing himself able to control an unlimited amount 
 of money, he began to dream and to plan. 
 
 He effects an early settlement with the credit- 
 ors of his Louisiana successor, and obtains posses- 
 sion of all that paper. He then writes in answer 
 to their reproachful letters: "I have taken up all 
 ^'our notes, which may possibly prove to be an 
 act of selling myself into slavery ; and should it 
 thus become, remember, I conjure you, when the 
 echo of my clanking chains is wafted to you 
 on the wings of the wind, that your unkind, un- 
 just and cruel letters forged some of their unmer- 
 ciful links." This done, he leaves that matter 
 where, years before, he left his own name — with 
 the things of the past. 
 
 After this, he fits out his ship, and sets sail on a 
 wild voyage leading through the most danger- 
 ously treacherous reefs and breakers and rocks, 
 subject and trusting to the guidance of breeze or 
 gale or storm, without Hfe-preserver, boat, rudder 
 or anchor, fully resolved with her to float or with 
 her to sink. Eeckless, peril-beset captain ! 
 
 His partners, his crew, and all those who are 
 tempted by her imposing statehness, her apparent 
 staunchness, and the rapid speed she promises 
 to hazard something in her cargo, are in blis.sful 
 ignorance of her true condition, and the dangers 
 that menace her and them. 
 
 Business flows to G-arland's firm like water, in 
 one perpetual and ever-swelling stream. 
 
 How promising the beautiful craft, had her tim- 
 bers been substantial and the structure supported 
 only by the truth ! But, alas ! the quicksands are 
 beneath, and her structure is held together by 
 falsehood's brittle cement. 
 
 G-arland's firm Avill be dissolved by limitation, 
 September, 1874. In the latter end of the active 
 cotton-shipping season, an old gentleman who 
 has heard of Garland's fine talents and thorough 
 education in the cotton trade, tlirough a promi- 
 nent New Orleans house ; and of his rapid rise in 
 the face of such serious difiiculties; and his flatter- 
 ing prospects for the future, through a prominent 
 New York firm, comes on to the " Future City,"and 
 remains quietly around there for some weeks. 
 Then he makes Garland's acquaintance, and pro- 
 poses a co-partnership of five years with Garland, 
 for his son, with three hundred thousand dol- 
 lars in cash. Garland, after a week's considera- 
 tion and inquiries, accepts the offer for Sept. 
 1st, 1874. 
 
 The old gentleman is exceedingly anxious that, 
 in the interim^ Garland shall so manage his busi- 
 nes as to lay a grand foundation for the new firm. 
 The holding of a large fine of cotton, and making 
 a sale of a champion list, at a season of the year 
 Avhen it will attract general attention, is suggested. 
 And if possible, the engaging of a large amount 
 of business for the next season is desirable. By 
 making preliminary advances against the grow- 
 ing crop, this is practicable ; and he is urgent to 
 know the utmost that may be done. 
 
 Garland informs him that he thinks he can 
 carry five thousand bales of cotton into August, 
 and advance one hundred thousand dollars on the 
 growing crop ; but that he will be obliged to bor- 
 row the money, to be paid the first of September. 
 
 Then a lawyer is engaged, and the articles and 
 contract of co-partnership are signed and sealed. 
 
 It is conditioned that Garland shall do what he 
 
226 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 lias asserted he can do. And he is to lay out on 
 the tables a list of all the cotton samples that his 
 sample-room will hold, which he estimates will 
 amount to three thousand bales ; and also to have 
 this list photographed, and then handsomely- 
 lithographed on the back of cards and circulars, 
 to be sent all over the cotton belt accessible to 
 the " Future City" trade. This Hst of cotton is to be 
 sold in the last week of August, and an M — Re- 
 publican^ with the commercial report of the sale 
 marked, mailed to every man to whom the litho- 
 graph of it had been sent. 
 
 Furthermore, Garland is to buy and elegantly 
 furnish a residence in the most desirable and 
 healthful section of the city ; and in it furnish his 
 new partner and wife a home, as long as mutu- 
 ally agreeable to all parties. 
 
 His partner is to bear half the expenses and 
 losses that may be incurred in connection with 
 the commercial feature of this compact. 
 
 The old gentleman is to deposit a forfeit of one 
 hundred thousand dollars in Government bonds, 
 as a guarantee that his part will be faithfully per- 
 formed, provided that Garland fulfills his promise 
 as stipulated. 
 
 In all the morning papers of the first of Sep- 
 tember the notices of the dissolution of the old, 
 and the formation of the new firm are to appear, 
 as the first intimation to be made pubUc. Until 
 then no one is to be apprised of the revolution to 
 take place in this firm. 
 
 The house is bought under the hammer for 
 about one-half of its value : a grand old mansion 
 with large and beautiful grounds. The whole, 
 inside and out, is beautifully painted and frescoed, 
 the grounds beautified, and an iron fence placed 
 in front. Then the house is superbly furnished 
 throughout. 
 
 This is the nature and character of the resi- 
 dence to which Manonia returns from her once 
 happy childhood's home. She says it is too 
 grand and too stylish for her. But she tries to be 
 happy and cheerful, to reward Garland for the 
 relief that he afforded her father and brother. 
 
 On the first day of June, Garland is carrying a 
 fearful load, amounting to more than six hundred 
 thousand dollars, mostly represented by thou- 
 sands of bales of cotton, and more than one mil- 
 
 lion pounds of hog product. JIc actually owes 
 the banks about a half a million of money, and 
 might just as easily owe them a full million. 
 Both outside banks and numerous private parties 
 pre.ss him to accept loans. He does withdraw 
 one loan from a bank, and transfers it to a private 
 firm, as a matter of accommodation. The reason 
 that he owes no more money, is simply because 
 he cannot employ it. He has all that he can use, 
 including the one himdred thousand dollars which 
 he obhgated himself to advance to aid in the cul- 
 tivation of the growing cotton crop. This he is 
 and has been advancing at the rate of twenty-five 
 thousand dollars per month. 
 
 He now holds in his own safe the genuine re- 
 ceipts for more than five thousand bales of cotton, 
 while the banks hold perhaps nearly ten thousand 
 spurious ones, purporting to represent this same 
 cotton. 
 
 The cotton list, amounting to between twenty- 
 five hundred and three thousand bales, is laid out ; 
 and a beautiful photograph made of the room. 
 Tills is now handsomely lithographed on the back 
 of circulars and cards, which are mailed to the 
 cotton districts of the South, whence there is g, 
 probabiUty that cotton may be influenced to the 
 " Future City." 
 
 The grand Fourth of July procession in cele- 
 bra.tion of the completion of the great bridge, 
 together with Independence Day, takes up its 
 march, with Garland's firm represented by a 
 strong wagon loaded with bales of cotton just as 
 they leave the plantation press. This wagon is 
 drawn by powerful mules. A framed photograph 
 of the large cotton hst is suspended from -the 
 ends of each bale of cotton. Above them, on 
 either side of the wagon, is a strip of muslin, 
 containing in large black letters the name of 
 Garland's firm, and this prophetic inscription: 
 "The Future City a rising market. Good for 
 250,000 bales. Crop of 1874-5." This is all;' 
 there is no regaha, no decorations ; nothing 
 about this wagon that does not portray the lofty 
 aspirations and far-reaching purposes of Nube 
 Garland. 
 
 Strange scenes, unique occupations for the 
 prince of criminals, at least of that city at that 
 time, to appear engaged in! Yet they are, never- 
 
THE WILDLY FLUCTUATING VICISSITUDES. 
 
 227 
 
 theless, recorded realities divested of every iota of 
 the romancer's dreamings. 
 
 About this time, Garland contracts for about 
 one hundred thousand dollars' worth of bagging 
 for cotton. He also conceives the idea of having a 
 controlUng influence in or of owning a ware-house 
 for the storing and compressing of cotton. His 
 chief motive is to have for his own receipts of 
 cotton ample facilities unencumbered by the mer- 
 chandise of other large receivers; and for which, 
 according to his reasoning, the capacities of the 
 only legitimate compress ware-house will prove 
 inadequate, and hence occasion much vexatious 
 delay in delivering to the buyers. Furthermore, 
 he believes that cotton press-stock is destined to 
 be, and immediately, the best property in the city. 
 
 He proceeds at once in search of a suitable site 
 for the building, and to the negotiation for two 
 or three blocks of vacant property. This attracts 
 attention. " Any ware-house that can control G-ar- 
 land's business will prosper," is freely admitted 
 and asserted, even by parties unfriendly to him. 
 
 One Avealthy estate owns the most desirable 
 property. Quickly a representative of this estate, 
 and four other parties connected with the largest 
 iron works, prominent banlcs, etc., from the most 
 conservative class, wait on Garland, and propose 
 a stock company of six persons. Tliis meets Gar- 
 land's views ; is just what he would have desired, 
 had he imagined it a thing possible to obtain. 
 Hence he is the originator of the scheme that 
 created, as well as the cliristener of " The Factors' 
 and Brokers' Cotton Compress Co.," to-day a 
 wealthy and prosperous corporation. 
 
 Through the father of his prospective partner 
 and connections of his in the commercial world, 
 Garland is admitted into a ring formed to make 
 a corner in pork for September. Garland is to 
 buy quietly from time to time all the September 
 contracts that he can, in one hundred thousand 
 pound lots, buyer's option, prior to the last day of 
 August ; and at the same time to purchase all the 
 spot stock that he can find, and store it. It is 
 easy for him to do this without in any way creat- 
 ing suspicion, as he uses one hundred thousand 
 pounds of meat sometimes in one week, and is 
 always buying ahead and storing stock. It is 
 generally understood that he expects to use three 
 
 times as much meat in the Southern trade after 
 the first of September as he is using at present. 
 
 It is calculated that he may, in all probability, 
 buy, in spot stock and contracts, five million 
 pounds by the close of August, necessitating a 
 cash outlay of about fifty thousand dollars. And 
 he buys about half a million pounds per week, on 
 the average basis of eleven cents. 
 
 His future partner's side buy five million 
 pounds, buyer's option contracts, for September, 
 on a basis of ten cents. On this, and all that Gar- 
 land may buy, they are equally to divide the re- 
 sults. Owing to the nature and extent of the 
 combination, there can be no doubt but a large 
 and active advance will ensue. This, on ten mil- 
 lion pounds of stock, points to a moderately 
 modest fortune. 
 
 Such is Garland's position and prospects when 
 he enters upon the second half of July, within 
 forty-five days of the grand haven in which there 
 will be absolute safety beyond the reach of storms, 
 far from the rock-bound coasts upon which the 
 sweeping surge has so long and so often threat- 
 ened to hurl him. Once safely arrived, he can 
 then complacently defy all eartlily power that 
 might either threaten or assail him in his impreg- 
 nable security. 
 
 The task appears already achieved. There is 
 no more money to be borrowed. The cotton hst 
 is to be sold ; some twenty thousand dollars more 
 to be advanced to the cotton States, and his con- 
 tract will be accomphshed. 
 
 Then he wiU be enabled in one day to remove 
 from existence all the dangerous paper with which 
 he has so long kept afloat, and which has en- 
 abled him to pass by and over the di-ead breakers, 
 where otherwise there could have been no escape 
 from the threatened and sure ruin of a hopeless 
 and irreparable wreck. 
 
 The first day of September he expects will in- 
 stall him in a position of influence, prestige and 
 power in the business world that may insure the 
 realization of the wildest dreams, and gratify the 
 aspirations of the most towering ambition. 
 
 With an active capital amounting to hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars, bank facilities for a mil- 
 lion more, and the unlimited commercial credit 
 which his new firm is likely to enjoy as soon as 
 
228 
 
 IVIYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 it is introduced to the imblic in the Hue in which 
 it is designed to be engaged, there is, comparatively 
 speaking, no hmit to the results that may he 
 possible to attain. 
 
 The twenty-ninth of July is the day appoiiitcil 
 to organize the Cotton Compress Co. 
 
 Apparently, the dangers are all passed. The 
 nature of Garland's transactions has neither 
 been suspected nor questioned. All the banks 
 understand that their notes are to l>e canceled 
 in the early days of September. It does not seem 
 l^ossible that anything may transpire to disturb 
 the serenit}^ of the waters during the remainder 
 of the voyage. 
 
 1 As the Indiaman, for months lazily traversing 
 the placid waters of sleeping tropical seas, sees at 
 length the dim outline of the welcome home- 
 ward shores looming up against the distant blue 
 horizon — far across the gold-tinted crystals of the 
 deep as they ripple in the mellow rays of the mid- 
 summer setting sun, only to find those waters on 
 the morrow lAshed by the Tornado's unsparing 
 whip, driving her helplessly — whither her captain 
 knows not, to a fate, be it what it may, from which 
 he is powerless to stay her : so does G-arland per- 
 ceive the dark and angry cloud suddenly and un- 
 expectedly rolling \x]), shutting out the lights 
 which gleam so brilliantly in his hope-beaming 
 sky — a hope bnilt on sand and fashioned of reeds 
 ■ — and quickly feels the howling blast of the tem- 
 pest's breath. 
 
 Contrary to every commercial calculation and 
 probability, the cotton market, which earlier in 
 the season promised to be buoyant and advanc- 
 ing in August and September, suddenly breaks 
 down — grows panicky ; then becomes so com- 
 pletely demoralized that September contracts are 
 selling at a figure that justiP/^s the street esti- 
 mates that the cotton held by Garland's firm ;^'ill, 
 should the market become no lower, which the 
 signs of the times indicate that it may do, lose 
 at least one hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 Naturally, the banks are alarmed, and will either 
 call for their money, or demand a margin equiva- 
 lent to the shrinkage in the value of the cotton. 
 The situation is far too serious and urgent to be 
 ignored. Something must be done, and quickly. 
 
 The "True Friend" calls on Garland, and tells 
 
 him frankly that he must unload; that there is 
 no other alternative or salvation for him. The 
 same course is unanimously urged upon him by 
 his brother members of the league, in meeting 
 for deliberation. He is forced to admit the stern 
 necessity of adopting this advice. 
 
 In the meantime, meat is tending upward, 
 and he has bought contracts within a few days 
 for a million pounds, which stand open, on the 
 Avords of honor and faith of mutual memoran- 
 dums, that the margins shall be deposited and the 
 contracts dehvered on the fifth day of August. 
 
 Numerous parties, both in this country and 
 Europe, have been negotiating for the large list of 
 extra fine and fancy cottons held by Garland's 
 house. He feels that, under his contract, the 
 cotton must go to one party, in one unbroken lot. 
 The decline will justify him in selling before the 
 stipulated time. 
 
 But the delivery and caring for the one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars advanced to the South, is 
 the grand difficulty ; yet it is a problem of easy 
 solution with a man of Garland's fertility in 
 creating resources. As he holds the genuine 
 receipts for every bale of that list of cotton, he 
 may easily deliver it. Then it is but necessary 
 for him to procure sufficient fraudulent meat 
 receipts to take up one hundred thousand dollars 
 of the loans obtained on the spurious cotton re- 
 ceipts — a transaction most agreeable AAith the 
 banks — and then apply the proceeds of the large 
 list in cancehng others of the same obligations. 
 In this wise, the relief may be quickly found. 
 
 Accordingly, without any delay, most favor- 
 able arrangements are made for moving the cot- 
 ton; the transaction is published; the papers are 
 mailed to the South as agreed. In the mean- 
 time, forty thousand dollars of cotton paper is 
 taken up with meat paper, and all the necessary 
 arrangements made for the exchange of the 
 requisite amount. 
 
 Thus it seems that another impending crisis is 
 passed, one more threatening danger averted; and 
 that, despite adverse winds and untoward cir- 
 cumstances. Garland will yet safely land. 
 
 "What a fearful and horrible existence! What 
 will power it must require to sustain a man un- 
 der such circumstances, even though he has 
 
WRECKED ON THE STRAND OF TIME. 
 
 229 
 
 no other cares to harass his mmd! How, then, 
 it is possible for Garland, burdened as he is with 
 the management of a large and actively working 
 business, embracing enormous and compH- 
 cated enterprises, to pass through this ordeal, 
 month after month, without manifesting any 
 symptoms of anxiety, is a deep mystery. Every 
 breath he drew was bated by the intensified 
 emotion of that feeling of suspense experienced 
 by soldiers Avhen advancing on a position where 
 they think the enemy hes in ambush, and whence 
 they are in momentary expectation of a withering 
 volley — a thrilling sensation never yet truly 
 portrayed. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 WRECKED ON THE STRAND OF TIME ! 
 
 "Oh unexpected stroke, worse than death!" 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 —Milton. 
 " What am I? Nothing : but not so art thou, 
 
 Soul of my thought, with whom I traverse earth, 
 Invisible, but gazing, as I glow. 
 
 Mixed with thy spirit, blended with thy birth, 
 And feeling still with thee in my crushed feelings' 
 dearth." 
 
 — Bybon. 
 
 Just as soon as the announcement of the big 
 cotton transaction is made public, it becomes a 
 topic of interest on the street and in the Ex- 
 changes, of mingled admiration, jealousy, envy 
 and hatred. Almost all classes are agreed in the 
 opinion that Garland will be " cornered " in the 
 delivery of the cotton, and find himself unable to 
 transfer the ware-house receipts for so large a lot, 
 representing so much money, from the banks to 
 the buyer. It is necessary for the buyer to have 
 the receipts before he can procure a bill of lading. 
 Tliis he must have in order to negotiate the draft, 
 enabling him to pay for the property. This 
 buyer is himself one, who, as a competitor, will 
 not sympathize with Garland, should he become 
 embarrassed in the dehvery of the goods. 
 
 From all quarters the progress of the affair is 
 watched with impatient suspense. It is under- 
 stood that the buyer will demand in the first in- 
 stalment, receipts to cover an amount of one 
 hundred thousand dollars. 
 
 On the morning of July 28th, Garland is 
 duly notified that at half-past two o'clock, p.m., 
 the receipts must be ready. 
 
 He is fully apprised of the character of the talk 
 on the streets, and the predictions that are freely 
 expressed. He therefore, because of his danger- 
 ous position, experiences an increased feeling of 
 apprehension for the result ; but he has permitted 
 himself to be drawn into an ambuscade under an 
 enfilading fire, and no longer is able to exercise 
 discretion, further than to take the chances of 
 running the gauntlet. He cannot with propriety 
 recede from the transaction; for that is now 
 impossible. 
 
 He, however, grasps the idea that he may, with- 
 out any breach of good faith and in strict con- 
 formity with commercial integrity, assume a po- 
 sition that will provoke the buyer to repudiate 
 the transaction. There are no rules of the Ex- 
 change relative to the method of delivering and 
 receiving payment for cotton. The seller may 
 use his discretion. Therefore, Garland notifies 
 the buyer that, upon the surrender of the ware- 
 house receipts, he must have the money in cur- 
 rency — a demand he believes simply impossible 
 for the buyer to meet. He knows that there is 
 no difficulty about delivering the cotton receipts ; 
 but he is, moreover, sensible of the danger it in- 
 volves. But at the appointed hour, this opinion 
 notwithstanding, the currency is ready. 
 
 Now, Garland resolves to distribute the money 
 that same evening among his banks, and take up 
 so many receipts that no wild stories may disturb 
 the bank officers. By the time the balance of 
 the cotton is ready to deliver, he will, with the 
 money he wiU then receive, be able to redeem 
 the last of the spurious cotton receipts. 
 
 But so much time %s consumed in counting the 
 money and the receipts, that the banks are all 
 closed ; and it is only by chance that he deposits 
 the money in the vault of the bank nearest to 
 his office that night. 
 
 In going home that evening, as on all other 
 evenings, he will pass the door of one of his 
 other banks, just before reaching the street-car. 
 
 The sun is setting ; the atmosphere is stifling 
 and oppressively hot. As he is about to pass the 
 bank, the book-keeper, who is standing in the 
 
230 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 door, informs him that the cashier desires to see 
 him a moment in the office. 
 
 Arriving at the office, he is ushered into the 
 private apartment, where he finds not only the 
 cashier, but also the president, an attorney and 
 the cashier of another of his banks. Horrors! 
 they know his secret — the long-caged mystery 
 has at last escaped. 
 
 The buyer had proclaimed that he had a large 
 numl)er of the receipts for which he paid cash, 
 and was, fi-om the ready facility with which they 
 had been dehvered to him without the participa- 
 tion of a bank, somewhat suspicious that there 
 was either some mysterious power behind the 
 scenes, or some concealed fraud. As neither 
 bank had delivered a receipt nor received a dol- 
 lar of the money, they were not sIoav to believe 
 the same. 
 
 The officers of the two banks met together, 
 compared figures, and sent to the ware-house, 
 where they obtained the startling information 
 that the entire stock of cotton held for all parties, 
 minus that large hst then ordered out, was con- 
 siderably less than the number of receipts which 
 they held for Garland's house alone. 
 
 When confronted with these facts, he does not 
 hesitate one moment, but states the situation just 
 as it exists; tells them what he has done and 
 can do ; and that by the first day of September, 
 the last dollar will be paid, provided his business 
 is allowed to remain undisturbed by the deleteri- 
 ous influence of that unpromising discovery ; that 
 he will pay a large amount the next day, and 
 then steadily reduce the balances until the debt 
 is canceled. Further, if they deem a harsher 
 course more wise and expedient, they will then 
 have to take their chances amid the heterogene- 
 ous mass of Je6ns from the'- wrecks of ruin that 
 must inevitably ensue. 
 
 During the progress of this scene, on the very 
 threshold, as it were, of a dungeon's grim and 
 checkered grate, there is not the slightest visible 
 demonstration of emotion nor discomposure dis- 
 played by Garland. 
 
 And his proposition is accepted almost without 
 hesitation or doubt as to its fulfillment. With 
 its acceptance there is vouchsafed to him a most 
 solemn pledge that, provided he does not fail to 
 
 redeem his proffered word of honor — all upon 
 which the banks now have to rely — the knowl- 
 edge of his disreputable slips shall never pass 
 beyond the breasts of those who are present. 
 The meeting breaks up, and Garland goes on 
 home as though it had been no more than an 
 ordinary and regular business affair — that is, so 
 far as is indicated by appearances. 
 
 It would seem that he is Fortune's favorite in 
 passing critical and dangerous crises. 
 
 He owes these two banks two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars, for which they hold no vaUd se- 
 curity ; and besides this, he owes a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars that must be paid the first of August, 
 four days hence. 
 
 The next morning he meets his appointment 
 promptly at nine o'clock ; assists to organize the 
 Cotton Compress Co. ; is elected a director, and 
 pays his first assessment as a stockholder just as if 
 nothing at all unusual had transpired the previous 
 evening. 
 
 Then, before noon, he makes good his promise 
 to the two banks, by paying them the amounts 
 stipulated for that day. 
 
 Before the close of this day, however, the hori- 
 zon grows dark with an overspreading cloud of 
 portentous gloom. 
 
 The cashier of the other bank present at the 
 time that Garland's uncomfortable negotiation 
 transpired, broke his pledge, and informed the 
 vice-president and a leading director of his bank 
 of the whole situation, and what had been prom- 
 ised. The vice-president utterly disregarded 
 the pledge of his cashier ; and without consulting 
 or notifying the other bank, he began a vigorous 
 course of aggression, and held before Garland's 
 eyes almost hourly the menacing image of a 
 felon's cell in the county prison. 
 
 At noon, on the first day of August, he informs 
 this banker that at the opening of bank hours on 
 the next day the last dollar will be paid. Not- 
 withstanding this promise, and the fact that in 
 four days his bank has been paid ninety of the 
 one hundred and tAventy thousand dollars due it 
 by Garland's firm, after five o'clock, p. M., of 
 this same day that vice-president, who is a mem- 
 ber of a large pork-packing firm, comes to Gai-- 
 land's office with an invoice made out from Gar- 
 
WRECKED ON THE STRAND OF TIME. 
 
 231 
 
 land's to his firm for a half a million pounds of 
 2:)ork. He leaves it to Garland's option to receipt 
 the same and transfer the property, or to go to 
 prison that night. The amount of balance that 
 his bank will thus gain for one night is onl}' 
 about ten thousand dollars. 
 
 Garland meets all his obligations maturing on 
 the first of the month, and pays the other bank a 
 large amount besides. But all these things com- 
 bined drive him to such desperate straits that he 
 borrows fifty thousand dollars on the faith of 
 some of the redeemed worthless paper. 
 
 On the next morning he pays the pressing bank 
 the last dollar. 
 
 Before noon, the vice-president has disclosed 
 the secret to the proper parties, for it to be 
 quickly and fully advertised. 
 
 This is Saturday.' When Garland leaves his 
 office for home, the other bank wants only six- 
 teen thousand dollars of being paid in full, and 
 that he expects to pay on Monday. Thus, in the 
 space of five days, he provided for three hundred 
 thousand dollars ; and he still owes a quarter of a 
 million of money. 
 
 On Sunday, Garland's accustomed places in 
 church and Sabbath-school are vacant. He suf- 
 fers the stifled agonies of torment within the 
 charming seclusion of his own beautiful home — 
 charms and beauties that, with their enchantments 
 and pleasures, for him are at an end. 
 
 For hours he is alone in the grand double par- 
 lors with the doors closed, curtains drawn low, 
 and the blinds tuined down— Manonia and the 
 other persons thinking he is out. 
 
 The darkened apartments and the solemnity of 
 their solitude are in strict harmonj- with the 
 thoughts and the emotions of this wretched man, 
 as he writhes unmasked beneath the scourging 
 lash of retribution. 
 
 From one end of the room, the stern features 
 of Lee and Jackson, in half life-size on their war 
 steeds, in the scene of their last meeting, look 
 reproachfully down upon him through the misty 
 gloom; while- on either side are an exquisite 
 Beatrice and a matchless Madonna — the one, in 
 her consummate beauty, seeming to gaze with 
 fixed and scornful rebuke ; the other, with saintly 
 pity 
 
 As he returns the gaze of first one and then 
 another, as his eye glances from face to face of 
 these his favorite paintings, he instinctively ex- 
 periences a sensation that inspires a strongly 
 superstitious belief that in this moment, amid this 
 voiceless scene, he is receiving a presentiment that 
 the time is near when they must part. That this 
 is now perhaps the scene which must be his last 
 upon that stage. 
 
 Now, pausing suddenly, he exclaims in a voice 
 husky with emotion, " I swear, until I am free 
 from these cursed chains of ignominious slavery, 
 never again to enter this palatial precinct fraught 
 with such vivid perceptions of airy images conjur- 
 ing up haunting fancies from the shadowy realms 
 of the supernatural, unknown and mystic worlds. 
 
 " Oh, untarnished names of my brave chief- 
 tains, that I was only sleeping that innocent, 
 tranquil, and reposing slumber with you ! Fare- 
 well ! Since I am unworthy to meet the inanimate 
 semblance of j^our honest eyes, I must leave you. 
 Farewell, my Beatrice! I have no claims upon 
 you 1 But, my Madonna ! can you not teach me 
 how and where to find a balm to soothe my cure- 
 less wounds? Oh, thou image of the saintly 
 mother of the true and the good, farewell! My 
 other little treasures, farewell, too! We shall 
 meet when I am unshackled ; and then I will live 
 with you in sadness, or else we are parting 
 for evermore ! " 
 
 Now this miserable man stands for a moment in 
 the door, while some unavailing, unatoning tears 
 course their way down his care-stricken face as 
 he gazes back into the parlors. Slowly he turns 
 away, and closes the door behind him. 
 
 After bathing his face and eyes, he joins Ma- 
 nonia, poor woman, who little dreams of the ter- 
 rible nature of that volcano smoldering beneath 
 the brittle, treacherous crust upon which the false 
 idol that she so indiscreetly enshrined in her pure 
 heart, is standing. He has never breathed one 
 word to her of that feai-ful ordeal through which 
 he has been and is still passing, nor to his part- 
 ners, nor any other person than those who were 
 present at that torturing interview of a tew even- 
 ings before. 
 
 His sleep and its visions this Sabbath night are 
 
232 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 no more pleasing than his sohtary exijerience had 
 been during the evening in the parlors. 
 
 Could words depict the suflferings of this mis- 
 erable man during six days and seven nights, in 
 colors sufficiently vivid to render them distinct 
 to the understanding, so that they might be prop- 
 erly estimated in a clear light — in the forcible 
 nature of their true reality — they would be suffi- 
 cient by themselves, to say nothing of those 
 springing from the same source for months pre- 
 vious to this period, and which must, as a matter 
 of course, continue to flow unabated — to deter 
 any rational man from incurring the risk of be- 
 coming subject to similar disastrous consequen- 
 ces, for which untold gold, nor honors, nor power 
 could ever compensate. That deep midnight of 
 the mind, where all its ministers are but the grim- 
 visaged geniuses of despair- — could it be possible 
 to picture it to the world as it is, it would drive 
 many who are hovering about its ragged edges 
 away, so far and so effectually, that they would 
 never make the fearful plunge into its uninviting 
 and inliospitable realms, as they are now blindly 
 ready to do — to rue their rashly mad act only 
 when too late, when regrets will be unavailing. 
 
 Long before bank hours on Monday morn- 
 ing, Garland is apprised that scores of persons 
 know his condition ; and that the tidings there- 
 of are rapidly spreading. He learns from the 
 manager of a commercial agency, in person, that 
 his office is already in possession of the damaging 
 information. 
 
 That other creditors will learn this fatal truth, 
 is now beyond doubt; but Garland believes that 
 he can make a showing that will insure an ami- 
 cable adjustment. Laboring under this impres- 
 sion, he sets about writing letters, and doing other 
 things preparatory to the temporary modifica- 
 tions of his plans. 
 
 At two o'clock, p. M., he draws eight thousand 
 dollars in currency from one bank, and from there 
 directs his steps to another bank to draw a like 
 amount; thence to pay the balance due the bank 
 Avhere he was first confronted with the tangible 
 ghost of his Grimes. 
 
 This bank acted with him in strict conformity 
 and good faith — true to the pledge made l)y its offi- 
 cers on that night. He had paid the money due it 
 
 so rapidly, simply because he had been driven to 
 similar measures with the other bank so much 
 sooner than stipulated — not owing to any annoy- 
 ance from its officers. 
 
 The first package of eight thousand doUars 
 is a very large bundle, the bills all being of 
 small denominations. A few blocks away from 
 his office the package bursts, and he runs into 
 a bank to obtain larger bills. This is nqt con- 
 venient, and therefore he accepts the cashier's 
 check for the amount, payable to the order of 
 his firm. This occasions considerable delay. 
 
 When he arrives at the other bank its currency 
 has been sent to the Safe Deposit Company, so 
 that after some detention, he obtains only five 
 thousand dollars — several minutes after three 
 o'clock. 
 
 Before he is a block away from this bank, he is 
 informed that the little bank with which he fii'st 
 commenced to do business has discovered the 
 true situation, since he left his office, and has in 
 this short time placed the case in the hands of 
 the Police Department ; and that the officers are 
 already out to arrest him and every one connected 
 with his office. 
 
 He now at this late hour hastens home to ap- 
 prise poor Manonia of the blow that is about to 
 crush her hopes. She swoons under its weight, and 
 lies insensible for some time. 
 
 He tells her of the other trouble through which 
 he has been passing, and assures her that he had 
 expected to arrange this present one in an hour. 
 He gives her the casliier's check and five thou- 
 sand dollars currency, and tells her to deliver 
 them in his absence to no one but officers of the 
 law. Now he seats himself on the portico to 
 await the officers ; and he has not many minutes 
 to Avait, 
 
 In leaving the house he tells Manonia that he 
 may return in time for supper. She does not 
 know that he is iinder arrest, as he went down 
 stairs and met the officers at the front-door. A 
 few moments later he is at the County prison, 
 where he finds his partners and nearly every one 
 of his employes under arrest. 
 
 No terms, arrangement, nor even propositions, 
 will be considered other than paying the com- 
 plaining bank in full, immediately. Garland ob- 
 
WRECKED ON THE STRAND OF TUIE. 
 
 233 
 
 stinately refuses to do anytliing without liis other 
 creditors being present as participants; but 
 states if they are promptly summoned he will 
 make a statement, and propose something for the 
 mutual security of all. He unhesitatingly admits 
 that the paper held by the bank is worthless, and 
 asserts that he alone is to blame.. 
 
 His request to have his other creditors sum- 
 moned is treated with contemptuous indignity, 
 and he is ordered to a dungeon. During the night 
 his house is ransacked, and it is the opinion of 
 some neighbors who are with Manonia that she 
 will not live until morning. 
 
 Now early the next day the arrested parties, all 
 except Garland, are released. He writes a card to 
 his creditors, in which he asserts that, if released 
 at once and permitted to remain at hberty even 
 under the most rigid police surveillance, no one 
 will lose a dollar. But the authorities ridicule the 
 idea , and the pressing bank demands its money 
 in full. This conceded, the officers of that bank 
 care not what course the other creditors pursue. 
 
 On the next night, the principal creditors meet 
 at the prison, and Garland states from memory 
 the condition of the business in which he has 
 been engaged. 
 
 The next morning, August the 6th, the papers 
 contain columns relative to this affair. One lead- 
 ing journal says of him : 
 
 " He is rather handsome, prepossessing, and is 
 master of most engaging manners and conversa- 
 tional powers. He was a bold and daring officer 
 in the rebel army, where he lost his arm. With 
 all his sins, he has done more than any other 
 man toward establishing a cotton market here 
 and influencing cotton to it. His business talents, 
 qualifications, and experience are extraordinary, 
 and not often excelled. His entire business, em- 
 bracing gigantic and most comphcated transac- 
 tions, he has at his fingers' ends." 
 
 The creditors are not able to agree among them- 
 selves. This results in the matter going at once 
 into bankruptcy. 
 
 A certain element among the creditors, or some 
 
 of them, beheves that there is a very large sum of 
 
 money buried somewhere, that may be unearthed. 
 
 Manonia has no money. The creditors seize 
 
 the house and fui'niture: hence she is forced 
 
 to vacate, and return to her father's home. Her 
 wardrobe is plain, cheap and scanty. Garland's 
 is not worth fifty dollars, and hardly cost more 
 when new. In that quarter, at least, no money 
 has been squandered. 
 
 As to Garland, he remains in confinement, 
 month after month, while his assets are constantly 
 melting away under the control of mexperi- 
 enced hands. 
 
 By the fifteenth of September, his joint pork 
 operations would have realized a clear gain of 
 over half a milhon of money. 
 
 All of this stock that passed into the hands of 
 the creditors, they sold at once, before the large 
 advance was established. The contract with the 
 parties concerning the large list of cotton was 
 not carried out Ijy the creditors, and hence the 
 other side was absolved from performing their 
 part. By some strange means, more than two 
 hundred bales of cotton mysteriously disappeared, 
 and were never found. Some ten thousand 
 dollars in commercial notes left with a bank the 
 day on which Garland was arrested, to be used 
 as collateral for a loan to be granted the next 
 day, vanished ; and the bank that issued the 
 eight thousand dollar cashier's check for the 
 same amount of currency, claimed and obtained 
 this check in the bankrupt court. Thus that 
 amount was lost to the creditors. 
 
 Trivial matters, such as these just related, 
 would be too small to receive the sUghtest con- 
 sideration had they been the work of a man of 
 Garland's character and proclivities. But when 
 they lay at the doors of great and reputable 
 financial institutions, they assume an aspect of 
 gravely serious import, and deserve attention as 
 portraits of a shady feature of the weakness of 
 human nature, even in quarters wdiere evil or 
 dubious practices should not only find no place 
 to harbor, but should be far above suspicion. 
 
 While Garland is in prison awaiting the result 
 of his legal destiny, a prominent attorney and 
 member of the State Senate one day calls on him. 
 This gentleman had served with Garland as the 
 commanding officer of a battalion in the same 
 brigade for four consecutive campaigns, up to 
 the very battle in which the latter lost his arm ; 
 I knew him well ; and appears to remember him 
 
234 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 distinctly as Cajjt. G-aiiand, and to recall the £act 
 that he was promoted to the rank of Colonel, 
 and at the same time transferred to a new com- 
 mand. They talk over their old experiences, 
 and they meet often from this time forward. 
 
 After the lapse of five months, the creditors are 
 forced to conclude that there is nothing for 
 which to censure Garland but the criminal 
 irregularities of his bank negotiations, and that 
 these had not been designed to defraud his vic- 
 tims. Otherwise, there is absolutely nothing 
 morally wrong to urge against him, and no other 
 party takes any share in his prosecution, except 
 the little bank that had him arrested; and the 
 managers did this persistently at first, as a 
 means to secure the full payment of their claim — 
 privately. 
 
 Their plan was to multiply charges to an extent 
 to render giving bail out of the question, if not 
 impossible. 
 
 Garland is represented by fine criminal talent 
 in the legal ranks. No attempt to give bail is 
 ever made until after the grand jury finally dis- 
 poses of the case by finding five bills of indict- 
 ment. Upon these the prosecutors rely that the 
 amount of bail will be fixed at not less than fifty 
 thousand dollars; still, however, it is fixed at five 
 thousand; and the comrade of the old brigarle 
 procures bondsmen. 
 
 The country customers had not paid the credi- 
 tors a dollar. When Garland is liberated the 
 cotton season is so far advanced that the pros- 
 pects for collecting are poor indeed ; yet still he 
 collects about five per cent, of the amount due 
 his late firm in the South. 
 
 He is soon in business again, for the sole pur- 
 pose, so far as the present is concerned, of trying 
 to collect for the creditors. 
 
 He makes a silent arrangement with two 
 brothers, who put up a little money — ^less than 
 one-tenth of the amount agreed — which their 
 stipulated salaries soon absorb. 
 
 Some friends assist Garland with small sums. 
 These melt away in the steady suction of una- 
 voidable expenses. 
 
 Manonia returns, and they go to humble 
 housekeeping. This she in a great measure 
 maintains by a laundry. 
 
 A year passes. Garland is' making money, 
 handling unmerchantable cottons. For this pur- 
 pose, soon he has machinery established. 
 
 But before long he is swindled by New York 
 and Philadelphia parties on some large lots. 
 Then the market suddenly breaks doAvn when he 
 has a heavy stock on hand, and takes all that he 
 has made, leaving him a loser by several thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 Court after Court, his case is continued at the 
 solicitation of the creditors of the bankrupt firm. 
 His bondsmen die or become insolvent. The pros- 
 ecutors try to have him re-arrested, but the Court 
 denies the motion. The prosecuting bank in the 
 meantime fails. 
 
 Nearly three years elapse. The creditors, 
 through the wasting medium of the Bankru25t 
 Court, after all the shrinkage and loss of avail 
 able assets immediatelj^ after the crash, and the 
 loss of eighty per cent, of the Southern advances, 
 have been paid more than fifty cents oh the 
 dollar. 
 
 Now Garland is tried and convicted. This 
 arouses the public. The jury, the Court, and the 
 merchants — even many of those who had always 
 been his enemies, — the cottoji presses and ship- 
 ping interest, protest against the execution of 
 sentence. In consequence of this, he is a few 
 days thereafter pardoned without ever leaving 
 the jail, before he is sentenced by the Court. 
 
 Had the curse of the past, which had pursued 
 him so many years, been as effectuallj' obliteratd 
 as the one of the present, there might have been 
 still hope on earth for him. 
 
 About this time a cotton house fails, with some 
 of his funds on hand; and just two weeks after 
 his release from jail, his cotton estabhshment and 
 machiner}^ burn, only partially insured. After 
 long and tedious delay, adjustments and settle- 
 ments are made. 
 
 Now Garland arranges to re-build not only the 
 destroyed works, but to build in addition thereto 
 an extensive factory, all to be completed by the 
 first of September. 
 
 While this is progressing, the largest bank in 
 the city fails, with every dollar he has to pay his 
 workmen. But he is assisted after some delay, 
 and continues the work. 
 
WKECKED ON THE STRAND OF TIME. 
 
 235 
 
 It was necessary to buy and store cotton to run 
 on for three months. This is bought through ad- 
 vances from a few friends and a bank, with the 
 understanding that the works will be in operation 
 on or before September the first. Just as soon as 
 they are pi'epared to start, there is a partner ready 
 with all the money that can be used. 
 
 In August, Manonia goes on a visit to her 
 father. 
 
 There are constant delays and disappointments 
 about the completion of machinery. September 
 finds the works far from completion. The Sep- 
 tember delivery of cotton arrives. Cotton begins 
 to decline. Everything is contrary. The bank 
 wants its money ; so do some other parties. 
 
 The morning of the eighteenth of September 
 comes. The machinists are positive that the 
 works could start on the twenty-fifth of the 
 month. Garland is satisfied they may start by 
 October the first, at the farthest. 
 
 On this day — September the eighteenth — G-ar- 
 land is notified that the contemplated partner has 
 reconsidered the matter, and determined not to 
 embark in the enterprise. 
 
 Tliis information is a death-knell to G-arland, 
 that tolls the distracting tocsin of despair, which 
 he at once resolves to stifle in the terrible act of 
 self-destruction. 
 
 He is now thoroughly satisfied that he can 
 neither escape the cruel consequences of his ever- 
 pursuing curse, nor obtain any measure of re- 
 demption from it in this world: and that, no 
 matter what the nature of the enterprise in which 
 he embarks, nor however true the fidelity and 
 undeviating the honesty of purpose with which 
 he follows, the result will be failure and ruin, 
 let the mortal encouragment and support be 
 what they may. He is forced to beUeve, and the 
 conviction perpetually haunts him, that to this 
 source is due all the unaccountable forces of un- 
 friendly opposition and unnatural difficulties that 
 he encountered in every honorable move he at- 
 tempted to make in the past. 
 
 He sets about making preparations for the dark 
 exit with methodical system. 
 
 A plan of the works is drafted, and expHcit de- 
 tails are written. All the remainder of that day 
 and all night he is thus employed. 
 
 He has between five and six hundred dollars, 
 all told. 
 
 Some time previous to this, he borrowed five 
 hundred dollars from a poor widow, and was to 
 give lier children employment when the works 
 were comp^jited. Early next morning, he goes, 
 and returns her money. 
 
 He is wearing a very fine gold watch and chain, 
 the property of Manonia, a present from her 
 father in the prosperous age before the war, when 
 she was a happy girl. 
 
 He seeks a friend, and borrows two hundred 
 dollars ; then he registers a chattel mortgage on 
 his household effects in favor of that friend, and 
 sends the money and her watch to Manonia. 
 Now he pays to his housekeeper the small 
 amount due her, and leaves whatever balance 
 there is remaining in the bank. These things 
 consume all the forenoon; now he goes home. 
 
 The afternoon he passes writing to Manonia and 
 her family. He tells her that but for her his 
 dreadful end would not be so painful and bitter ; 
 but expresses the hope that she may be happier 
 with her people, whom she loves so much, than 
 she had ever been with him. Asserts that he has 
 been so long estranged and so widely banished 
 from happiness that it is utterly impossible for 
 him, under any state of circumstances, to have 
 rendered her happy ; and beyond human power 
 for him to avoid causing her misery as unending 
 as life itself; that he is thankful they had no 
 children to inherit his shame ; that he has made 
 life a failure ; and he entreats her to forget, as he 
 knows that she could never forgive him. He 
 closes this cruel letter with these pathetic and 
 melancholy lines : 
 
 " Fare thee well— thus disunited. 
 Torn from every nearer tie ; 
 Seared in heart and lone and blighted — 
 More than this — I scarce can die." 
 
 Sadly, tenderly, he bids the little inanimate ob- 
 jects about the house farewell; and just as the 
 sun is setting, he leaves the house, with his vial 
 of potent bane-forever. Now he hastily bends 
 his steps in the direction of some old coal-fields 
 just beyond the suburbs of the city, among which 
 he had once lived, where he knows of an accessi- 
 
236 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 ble cavern, in whicli he designs to lind a lonely 
 death-bed and an uukuown orave. 
 
 AMID THE DARK CAVERNS GLOOM.' 
 
 This woe-begone, self-abandoned, God-forsaken 
 Avretch, by the aid of the dimly flickering light 
 of a small waxen taper, which he lights on arriv- 
 ing at the mouth of the cave, penetrates to the 
 dark and dismal recess of its dreary depths, sets 
 the little luminary in the niche of a rock, and 
 repeats these most impressive lines from Cato's 
 soliloquy. 
 
 "Eternity! thou pleasing, dreadful thouglit ! 
 Through what variety of untried being, 
 Through what new scenes and changes must we pass? 
 The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me, 
 But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. 
 I am weary of conjectures. This must end them. 
 Thus am I doubly armed ; my death and life. 
 My bane and antidote are both before me; 
 Tfiis in a moment brings me to an end : 
 But this informs me I shall never die. 
 The soul secured in her existence smiles 
 At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
 The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years 
 But thou Shalt flourish in immortal youth. 
 Unhurt amid the war of elements. 
 The wreck of matter and the crash of worlds ! " 
 
 "Oh, alas, that the remorse of the coward, 
 Conscience, should have brought — nay, driven me 
 to this fearful extremity! This is the last fell 
 stroke of the Avenger's scourging lash. What 
 a terrible penalty ! What a sad expiation ! All, 
 all alone, here must I die. 
 
 " How many years I have escaped this last 
 fiendish wrath of the curse, through prolonged 
 and oft wellnigh intolerable torture, only ulti- 
 mately to taste its poignant bitterness ! How I 
 have blindly struggled to avert the pangs of this 
 unhallowed act, the mystic witnesses of the super- 
 natural realms alone know ! 
 
 " That heaven which I can never enter, bears 
 me testimony that the thirsty cravings of my 
 wretched heart have ever been to be true and good, 
 — boons of honor and purity to me forbidden, be- 
 cause my life and name were perverted and false 
 — a prolific curse, that from a little germ to a huge 
 monster grew. 
 
 "0 Earth! with all thy maddening delusions 
 and vain strifes, thy trials, disappointments, and 
 
 heart-aches ; and thou, blessed Sun ! that often- 
 times gladdens the crushed heart; and thou, 
 Moon ! luminary of darkness ; and ye bright little 
 stars! infalhble guides to the despau-ing mariner 
 adrift on the wide waste of waters, and to the 
 wanderer astray in the trackless desert or in the 
 pathless wilderness — and all things that are beau- 
 tiful and good, — farewell ! Ah, yes, farewell ! 
 forever farewell ! 
 
 "My God! whither, whither shall I fly? 
 
 "0 Heaven! Saviour! Have mercy on 
 my poor soul, that has ever abhorred my false 
 and wayward life! Spare it, then, from the 
 eternal doom of a never-ending hell, and let it 
 expiate in some definite ages of purgation, I 
 jjray, for the sins of a life in which it never 
 found dehght. Lord, if it be thy good pleasure, 
 grant me a doom less severe than I deserve ! 
 
 " Thou subtile, life-severing potion! what dis- 
 mal affinity the ghostly shadows of this dreary 
 pit bear to thy dark potency. Swift be thy 
 surceasing course, to still with speed the now 
 feebly throbbing currents of my despairing life ! 
 
 "How tasteless! — as but a harmless draught 
 of water. But ah, my fingers and my toes 
 tingle as though their nerves had been distended 
 and suddenly relaxed. My heart throbs with 
 stifling palpitation. Ah, my senses vanish! 
 The death bells ring in my ears ! I sink ! It is all 
 over! I die! Lord be merciful! Spare — spa " 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 MORE EVIL FKUIT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 " Retribution thus decreeth : 
 What thou dost to others mete, 
 
 Shall to thee again be meted ; — 
 Sowing tares, ye reap not wheat." 
 
 — M. A. Billings. 
 
 From the time of Samuel Tan Allen's disagree- 
 able and disastrous complication with Madam 
 Mountjoy, resulting from his contemplated in- 
 trigue with one of her daughters, the hand of an 
 nnpropitious Destiny appeared to be ever against 
 him. Prosperity vanished from him as a flitting 
 shadow, which seemed perpetually reflected in 
 mocking derision from the frowning brow oi 
 
MORE EVIL FRUIT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 237 
 
 angry Fortune. His affairs became more and more 
 straitened, and caused him continually increasing 
 embarrassment. 
 
 At first he adopted, as an expedient, the un- 
 healthy system of "commercial killing." This 
 in itself was shameful business faith, closeh' 
 bordering on criminal hypocrisy. 
 
 As this sickly practice invariably leads from 
 bad to worse, it alone could not long serve his 
 turn. Soon it became necessary for him to re- 
 sort to jjrevarication, and grossly to misrepresent 
 his condition, in order to strengthen that treach- 
 erous and pusillanimous support upon which he 
 leaned, and which alone upheld the 'tottering 
 Avails of his failing structure. 
 
 When a merchant or other person occupying a 
 position in the world in which public confidence 
 is reposed, and in which public interest might be 
 jeopardized, advances thus far on the road lead- 
 ing to black and damnable dishonor, he has, no 
 matter how unconscious of the fact he is or how 
 widely far his intentions are therefrom, become 
 the helpless slave of circumstances, and is hope- 
 lessly shackled with all the degrading chains 
 thereto appertaining. 
 
 Such was, in the naturally true course of 
 events, the miserable predicament in which Van 
 Allen found himself engulfed. 
 
 His family was as old as the city itself, and its 
 escutcheon was untarnished by one stain of re- 
 proach. He was a churchman of high standing 
 and influence in the very first order of congrega- 
 tions of the most prominent church in the great 
 metropolis of New York. His own household 
 was all that education, culture, refinement, social 
 position, purity and piety could make it. To 
 Lim it was devoted to the verge of a fondly 
 cherished idolatry — an interesting, a promising, 
 liopeful, happy little circle, which never dreamed 
 that the husband and father was faithless to his 
 own family, and false to that piety which he 
 professed. 
 
 Here was a man with the priceless heritage of 
 family honor ; the most tenderly endearing ties 
 of the present; the powerful influences of re- 
 ligion and public confidence to restrain him, to 
 conjure him — nay, more : almost, as it were, to 
 bind him Avith hallowed chains of golden purity, 
 
 far and securely away from devious and forbidden 
 paths, steadily, systematically, surely rushing on- 
 ward, and ever nearer and nearer still, to the 
 brink of perdition. 
 
 How could he stoop to porvert all this enviable 
 and bounteous wealth, to subserve the masked 
 phantom of the basest infamy ? How turn away 
 from the sweet and delicate charms of a pure 
 and confiding wife, to bask in the cold, hollow, 
 mocking, deceptive smiles of a heartless, imperi- 
 ous, unmerciful and cruel mistress ? Oh, how 
 could he thus lavish his treasure and sacrifice his 
 honor on that deadly shrine of reeking lust? 
 How turn nis back upon that home of love and 
 that church of redeeming salvation, to face a grim ' 
 and cheerless pile of unpitying granite, and in it a 
 living tomb behind a dreary, solitary dungeon's 
 hope-excluding bars ? 
 
 However, he all this conjecture founded as well 
 as it may, that was, notwithstanding, the identi- 
 cal course pursued by Samuel Van Allen. It was 
 but a step from conjugal infidelity and hypocrisy 
 to crime. Soon he was a forger and an embezzler. 
 
 With this fatal step began a life of mental tor- 
 ture, such as only a man who has staked so much 
 in a desperate game can know. The church, his 
 home, and all their endearing and sacred associa- 
 tions, were but purgatory to him. The gilded 
 perfumed boudoir of his mistress was an earthly 
 hell, to which he seamed bound by adamantine 
 chains. 
 
 Deeper and deeper grew the sucking quicksand 
 of his thralldom. 
 
 His mind became abstracted, and his deport- 
 ment listless; his face haggard and careworn — he 
 was a hopeless wreck of his former self. 
 
 His family and friends were alarmed with fear 
 lest there was some strange and incurable malady 
 slowly but surely sapping his vitals. Ah, how 
 prophetic were their conjectures; but how far 
 from the true source of his wasting leprosy was 
 directed so much as the shade of suspicion ! 
 
 Remorse of conscience was unceasingly gnaw- 
 ing at his heart-strings ; and the shadow of that 
 most terrible of all spectres, " the ghost of jus- 
 tice," haunted him day and night. Every face 
 he beheld on the street turned toward him as if 
 to cast a scrutinizing glance ; every step he heard 
 
238 
 
 IklYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AXD THE GEEl. 
 
 on the floor seemed as if approaching his office ; 
 and every time his door-bell rang he involuntarily- 
 started, and shuddered at the bare fancy that 
 there was the inexorable pursuer, ready to grasp 
 him with the heavy and relentless hand of the 
 law. 
 
 Thus hours — long, irksome, tedious hours of 
 agonizing suspense, dragged themselves away, 
 each in itself an age of torture, until they were 
 multiplied into years. — What a life ! 
 
 All things in this world, sooner or later, come 
 to an end, so did this feature of Van Allen's doom 
 of torment. 
 
 One morning he leaves home as usual. This 
 day his long-time apprehensions are realized. The 
 heavy hand is upon him. He finds himself, at 
 last, fast bound in the toils of Justice. The Aven- 
 ger, with his chastening rod of retribution, has 
 overtaken him. 
 
 He is conducted to the bar of the Court with- 
 out delay, to plead to indictments which have 
 already been found against him. He pleads 
 guilty. This evening the sun sets upon the walls 
 of a prison, within which he is decked with the 
 striped insignia of his shame. 
 
 But the home — ah the home ! The sun sets 
 upon a home of despair, in which the star of hojje 
 has gone down forever. The curse that fol- 
 lows the wrong-doer has entered, wreaking its 
 unmitigated vengeance upon innocent heads. 
 
 The poor wife is smitten with a piercing stroke 
 of frenzy, from which she never rallies, but be- 
 comes a raving maniac. The amiable daughter 
 is stricken by the venomous shaft, and soon dies 
 heart-broken; and the tidings are ere long wafted 
 up from the asylum that the mother, too, is dead. 
 
 Then the Executive deems that the author of all 
 this woe and death has drained the cup of retri- 
 bution to the last bitter dregs, and pardons the 
 murderer, to give him an opportunity of attend- 
 ing his victim's funeral. What a spectacle I What 
 a terrible warning ! Let us draw the veil over 
 the heart-sickening scene. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 THE wanderer's RETURN. 
 
 " Break, break, break, 
 
 Ou thy cold, grey stones, oh sea! 
 But the tender grace of a day that Is dead 
 Will never come back to me." 
 
 — Texxtson. 
 
 The blighting frosts have transformed the deep 
 green foliage of Virginia's fair landscajjes into a 
 robe of sere and yellow, golden and brown and 
 red — a variegated coat of many colors. The chill- 
 ing winds pelt fiercely upon this fantastic mantle of 
 the forest, and steadily rend it into shreds, cover- 
 ing the ground with its beauteous fragments. 
 
 Here and there may be seen, now and then, a 
 grand old sentinel of departed centuries with his 
 majestic Kmbs denuded. 
 
 Amid tliis solemn, impressive scene of Nature, 
 in which all things wear the melancholy imprint 
 of death, on the lofty summit of an old field, on 
 a branch of the Blue Ridge Range, there might be 
 seen, just before noon, a lone, travel-weary indi- 
 vidual. Here, standing with head bare and the 
 wind playing with his long hair and beard, he is 
 gesticulating wildly and addressing the panorama 
 which spreads in undulating waves far away all 
 round him, until the outlines are lost in the misty 
 curtain of blue, with that emotional vehemence 
 that animated beings are wont to insj^ire. He 
 personifies all upon which he gazes, as he thus 
 casts his words forth upon the wings of the 
 wind : 
 
 " Oh my own, my native blue mountains ! rag- 
 ged crags and heaven-ward towering peaks! And 
 oh, ye murmuring, sleepless cascades and thunder- 
 ing cataracts ! do I once again behold you, fondly 
 cherished scenes of childhood's blissful dreams, 
 Avith my open eyes, unchanged by wrinkles of 
 the heavily journeying years and unscathed by 
 war, the same as when I bid you farewell long, 
 long years ago — long though not very many? 
 Oh, how sad and ominous was that parting ! Ten 
 thousand times more bitter and joyless is this 
 meeting ! 
 
 "Oh mountains! here is thy long-absent and 
 wandering son; from Avar's wasting flames, the 
 
THE WANDERER'S RETURN. 
 
 239 
 
 perils of the deep, and Death's haunted vallej's 
 found in traversing earth, covered with shame, 
 steeped in crime's thrice crimsoned dye, all un- 
 worthy to receive thy greeting smile. Nor man, 
 nor thee, nor Heaven will wash from my dese- 
 crated brow its brand of burning ignominy. I 
 left thee, young, and brave, and pure, and true. 
 T return prematurely aged, and cringing, and de- 
 filed, and false. Times unnumbered have I pined 
 to stand here as I stand now. Ah ! in dreams, 
 on the unfriendly shores of foreign lands, have I 
 stood here as in the by-gone time, with a thrill of 
 hope ; but now that emotion is unknown. Would 
 that I had not come ! 
 
 "Oh! But in yonder valley, in that farm-house 
 once dwelt my mother. My mother, oh my 
 mother! are you there now? Like the mount- 
 ains and the brooks, do you still live ? or, Hke the 
 leaves of the forest, have you withered and 
 fallen ? " 
 
 He now picks up his hat, and with slow and 
 hesitating steps approaches the house. 
 
 At the house there is a crowd of tlie neighbors 
 gathered, as it is Sunday — a custom much in vogue 
 in many rural districts of the Southern States. 
 
 The stranger arrives, is invited in, and accepts 
 a seat; but no one recognizes him. 
 
 More than sixteen years have elapsed since he 
 left that home circle, a beardless boy. For ten 
 years he has been mourned as dead ; is really 
 well nigh forgotten. But still he is, nevertheless, 
 in his father's house, and beholds the well-re- 
 membered faces of both father and mother, some 
 of his sisters, and a few of the guests. 
 
 All traces of the wild excitement of a few 
 moments before have disappeared, and his face 
 lias assumed an expression of listless stoicism. 
 No one would guess the wildly conflicting emo- 
 tions now warring in his breast. At last one of 
 his sisters says : 
 
 " Does no one know Garland Cloud ? " 
 
 She is right. After long and silent absence, 
 the erratic wanderer is again at the home of his 
 tender years and unsullied innocence, whence the 
 ebbing tidal wave has rolled him back. 
 
 The story of the past appears fraught with 
 bitter memories, that seem to conjure up the most 
 excruciating anguish. 
 
 He has no money, no purpose, no prospect, no 
 hope ; and is subject to fits of melancholy and de- 
 spondency that often last for hours, during which 
 time he lies on the ground in some secluded spot, 
 thinking — thoughts that his God and himself 
 alone will ever know. 
 
 Months, the entire winter, pass away. He is 
 so much enfeebled that he rarelj^ ever goes beyond 
 his father's premises. 
 
 Garland Cloud has one unmarried sister who 
 was a little girl when he left home. During his 
 aljsence, she has bloomed to mature and charming 
 womanhood. 
 
 His gloomy abstractions touch her tender and 
 sympathetic heart. She yet remembers him as 
 she saw him the last day ut the Mountain Mead- 
 ows, and vanishing the next morning like a spec- 
 tre through the shadows of the grey twilight, a 
 proud, true, pure, and noble youth. And she 
 again remembers the dread story, as mild frag- 
 ments of it reached her father's home through the 
 mails, of his blighted hopes and reputed end; and 
 her year? of mourning, such as none but a sister 
 or a mother may know, for the lost son or 
 brother. 
 
 Also she remembered the sweet, angelic, more 
 than sister mourner, who with her had sorrowed 
 many days in the meek resignation of incurable de- 
 spair as they again and again together mingled 
 their tears, and each on the other's neck wept 
 in true sisterly love— Maimle Cloud and Carrie 
 Harman. 
 
 And she pities her brother with the keen 
 sensation generated by a yearning to alleviate a 
 bane for which there is no antidote — a senti- 
 ment whose only fountain is the heart of pure 
 innocence. 
 
 In graphic strains of melting pathos she re- 
 counts to him the pitiful story of the mournful 
 lamentations of Carrie Harman. Thus for the 
 first time he has forced upon him the overwhelm- 
 ing conviction that " The Angel of Consolation," 
 the dream of his youthful days, the idol of his 
 shadowy manhood, the queen of his earthly 
 hopes, and the genius of his mortal despair, had 
 loved him with a regally royal adoration that 
 shamed his own cowardly inconstancy that in- 
 duced and permitted him to wring her heart. 
 
240 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 blast her hopes, and veil her Ufa in a shroud of 
 sombre sadness. This adds fresh pangs to his 
 excruciating agonies, which were before all but 
 unbearable. 
 
 G-radually the guileless little sister artfully seeks 
 to draw from her disconsolate brother the story 
 of his wanderings. For months she never per- 
 mits him out of her sight many minutes at a 
 time. Wherever he goes, she is by his side, striv- 
 ing to console and lure him away from the terri- 
 ble thralldom in which he is a prey to his own 
 dark mind. 
 
 After a long time, when spring has come, the 
 flowers are on the hills, and the birds are singing 
 in the tender foliage of the forest, he sits with his. 
 sister amid the charming sweetness of a sylvan 
 grove, just as it has sprung from Nature, deep in 
 the wilds of an unpruned mountain wilderness, 
 and says : 
 
 "Ah! my sweet sister, if you knew the bitter 
 and inexpressible sadness which entwines about 
 the memories of the past, you would not impor- 
 tune me with such subtle suasion to recall and 
 recount my untold miseries to you. 
 
 "But, oh! my sissie, with the afflicting yet 
 thrice-blessed name of Carrie Harman is the very 
 quintessence of my unhappy life blended. Of 
 the cruel depth of this fearful truth, God alone in 
 heaven can ever know the unutterable reality. 
 
 " From the moment I was rescued from my 
 watery shroud up to this hour, go where I would, 
 do what I might, the ghost of Carrie Harman 
 haunted me, haunts me still, will haunt me ever. 
 
 " Life ceased to have a charm for me. There 
 is scarcely a danger on the earth or the deep to 
 which I have not recklessly exposed myself ; yet, 
 with rare exceptions, in maddening strifes in the 
 battle of hfe, designed to benefit the human race, 
 I thought that thus to die would be no suicide. 
 
 "But some mysterious providence seemed to 
 preserve me. I was never sick among even the 
 most scourging epidemics; no other danger 
 harmed me. 
 
 " I traversed Mexico and the South American 
 States amid brigands and savage hosts ; made and 
 lost moderate fortunes. I have been in many 
 enterprises, and hved for many years at the same 
 place. 
 
 "One of the saddest and most unfoi-tunate 
 transactions in which I became involved was 
 getting married. Except Carrie Harman, this is 
 the most painful memory of my distorted and ill- 
 starred life — something that created an endless 
 but unavaihng regret. 
 
 " Why I married, I am unable to explain. I 
 suppose I was mad. I did not love as man should 
 love. This was impossible. 
 
 "The photograph about which you have asked 
 me so many questions was hers. She was as 
 good as she was beautiful — both as beautiful and 
 as good as Carrie Harman. She loved me blindly 
 — my lost and unhappy bride ! A loss I must ever 
 mourn; a bereavement that no words can ever 
 portray. It is a theme much too painful to think 
 about seriously; too agonizing to discuss. Pray 
 spare me the torture which further details would 
 inflict. 
 
 " Oh that I could tear this distressing memory 
 from my mind, which is prone upon it forever to 
 dweU. 
 
 "I beg of you, now, my good sister, do not 
 again recall this sorrowful subject. I would for- 
 get it, forget Carrie Harman — all connected Avith 
 the past — that I have ever lived, and start life over 
 anew, if such were possible." 
 
 Cloud makes money during the summer sell- 
 ing goods b}' sample on commission. 
 
 In the fall he is selected as an advance agent 
 for a colony. 
 
 And now once more he bids adieu to his native 
 hills to enter upon new and varied scenes. This 
 time, perhaps, he turns his back to the enchanting, 
 spell-binding views of the mystic Blue Mountains 
 forever. But his face is to the restless surge of 
 the deep, blue Atlantic, and his frail bark is again 
 launched on the seething waves of the tempestu- 
 ous sea of life — a mystery to all the world — almost 
 to himself. 
 
WHERE THE PALMETTO BUDS AND THE MAGNOLIA BLOOMS. 241 
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 WHERE THE PALMETTO BUDS AND THE MAGNOLIA 
 BLOOMS. 
 
 " Let us go where the wild flowers bloom, 
 Amid the soft dews of the night, 
 Whore the orauge dispels its peri'ume. 
 And the rose speaks of love and of light." 
 
 —Sentimental Song. 
 
 Garland Cloud soon finds himself under the 
 genial sunshine and dreamland skies of the Italy 
 of America — the land of the orange and the rose, 
 where the blight of winter is unknown ; where 
 zephyrs fragrant with rare and dehcate per- 
 fumes forever sip and waft odors from never- 
 fading flowers; where plants and fruits of every 
 clime will grow; where, in a thousand spots, 
 may be found more than the fabled vale of 
 Vaucluse; where, more than elsewhere, there is 
 a paradise on earth ; where blushing Nature 
 blooms in eternal spring-time and reproduces the 
 grand and. matchless enchantments of our imaged 
 G-arden of Eden — oftentimes creating a veritable 
 ideal oasis in the sandy waste. 
 
 Of all other spots on this continent, or on 
 the face of the whole globe, as to that matter, 
 nowhere else may be found a more concentrated 
 interest for the human race — especially the 
 invalid and the afflicted — than that belt of the 
 United States whose shore is laved by the 
 cooling swash of the Gulf Stream, where frost 
 is unknown. Nowhere else has Nature left so 
 visibly the imprint of a bounteously lavish hand 
 that bestowed her gifts with such unmeasured 
 prodigality. 
 
 Upon this delight-inspiring coast stands the 
 oldest town in America, built by hands from the 
 Old World — or, at least, the oldest whose story 
 has been portrayed on the "pictured page" of 
 history. 
 
 Elsewhere there may be, and more than proba- 
 bly are, buried ruins built by the Carthaginians, 
 the Romans, or, yet more likely, by the Phoeni- 
 cians, in times of great antiquity. 
 
 Somewhere there must be a foundation for 
 the well-preserved legend of " The Lost Atlantis " 
 of the Romans, who must have largely credited 
 
 the story, or rather, perhaps, did not doubt its 
 authenticity. 
 
 Somewhere in the Western world, there must 
 have been land known to the Roman navigators, 
 which, owing to the want of compass, new men 
 were unable again to find after some sudden 
 vicissitude had crippled navigation until those 
 acquainted with the distant shores were all 
 dead. 
 
 But, however, we have unquestionable testi- 
 mony to support the claim of this quaint sea- 
 coast town to the appellation of ancient — the 
 mother of towns in the United States. 
 
 This fact alone should shed upon that shore 
 where stands this venerable place a bright ray, a 
 refulgent halo of reverential interest worthy to be 
 consecrated as hallowed and sacred, were there 
 no other charms about it to bind the admiring 
 beholder with ravishing rapture. But there are 
 other captivating charms with thriUing fascina- 
 tions entwined about them, before which, to the 
 carnal sensibilities of mankind, this relic of the 
 centuries pales to insignificance. 
 
 The old Fort claims the attention of tourists. 
 Its tragic legends are familiar to the student or 
 the reader. of American history. 
 
 Along with the Fort stands the ancient Cathe- 
 dral, whose lamp has been kept trimmed and 
 uninterruptedly burning for more than two hun- 
 dred years. 
 
 Farther down South, along the coast, are the 
 ruins of the old Indigo and Sugar Works, and 
 plantations. 
 
 Here was once maintained a serfdom rarely 
 paralleled in the history of slavery. The un- 
 fortunate sufferers were mostly colonies lured by 
 their ruthless masters to emigrate from Greece 
 and the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 There is nothing pictured In "Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin" to approximate the atrocities to which 
 these hapless and helpless victims were subjected. 
 
 Their domiciles of torture were many miles 
 from the ancient town, the residence of the Gov- 
 ernor, with a broad river intervening. 
 
 In time, their burdens grew much and multi- 
 plied until they became unbearable ; and the 
 poor wretches conspi red against their masters. 
 
 A few men w^orked at night, and were assisted 
 
242 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AXD THE GEET. 
 
 by others to com23lete their weekly tasks, in or- 
 der to secure a sufficient hohday to give them 
 time to visit, and lay their grievances before the 
 Governor. They were obliged to swim the river, 
 both going to and returning from the town. 
 
 The Governor graciously listened to their pray- 
 ers for relief, and invited them to come at once 
 to the town with all their people, and take up 
 their abode under his protection. 
 
 As soon as dark, after their return, they col- 
 lected their people ; armed the men with wooden 
 spears and other improvised weapons ; formed 
 them into a hollow square, so as to present a 
 solid phalanx on either side, surrounding the old 
 people, women and children, and marched away 
 in bold defiance of their chagrined and menacing 
 masters. 
 
 Thus emancipated, they became an important 
 factor to the ancient town, where many of their 
 descendants are to be seen to this day. 
 
 They are yet an exclusive and rather ostracized 
 race; but unjustly, because they are a proud, an 
 intelligent, industrious, and withal a good people. 
 They are known as " Mornarcains." 
 
 This term usually is meant to imply contempt, 
 inferiority, or some other indefinable slur, Avhen 
 employed by other races ; who often aver that 
 they are speaking of a mongrel people, whose 
 blood is deeply tainted with that of the negro. 
 
 Nothing is more basely false. Such is due 
 more to ignorance of the true history of this long- 
 suffering and much-persecuted people, to current 
 prejudice and common report, than to willful ma- 
 liciousness on the part of their often slandering 
 neighbors. 
 
 Naturally new-comers hear and believe these 
 stories. If they casually inquire who such peo- 
 ple are, the answer, " Oh, they are nothing but 
 ' Mornarcains,' " usually suffices to put to rest all 
 interested inquisitiveness. 
 
 The poor people are patient, and never resent, 
 nor strive to counteract their injuries, which really 
 appear to cause them no concern. Their com- 
 plexion is very light Creole. Among the women 
 are Andalusian beauties, with long black hair and 
 large, dark, dreamy eyes. 
 
 This race is widely dispersed through the State, 
 
 and, except in the savage tribes, were for long 
 periods of time almost its only inhabitants. 
 
 But enough of this interesting people, and 
 something more of the country. 
 
 Few countries, and no other section of the 
 United States, have ever been scourged, and smit- 
 ten, and paralyzed in the struggling vicissitudes of 
 the march of civilization, as this fair and smiling 
 land of which we write. 
 
 The jealous rivals of the olden time often 
 almost depopulated it. To its few citizens the 
 savage hosts never ceased to be a murderous and 
 devastating terror, until nearly the middle of the 
 present century. 
 
 The Civil War, and the reign of terror which 
 followed in its wake, retrogressed settlement and 
 prosperity almost to the deplorable condition in 
 which the savages left them. 
 
 Not until about the year 1870, did actual set- 
 tlement and development set in. 
 
 Since 1876, enthusiasm, progress and "booms,' 
 have been the predominating features prevailing 
 in this " sunny land of flowers." 
 
 In 1883, her destiny is fixed, her future more 
 than a shadowy dream : she is the winter garden 
 of America — the invalids' asylum of Earth. 
 
 The capital of earth to her sceptre is beginning 
 to bow ; the golden streams of the world to pour 
 into her lap. 
 
 Her waste, howling swamps, where the scream- 
 ing panther, the snarhng bear, and the deep- 
 mouthed roaring alligator have held undisputed 
 carnivals as monarehs of the forest and the deep 
 since Creation's dawn, are in jirocess of trans- 
 formation to blooming Edens. 
 
 Her orange-groves are rapidly becoming the 
 wonder of the world, while all other productions 
 of the tropics are found to flourish prolifically. 
 
 This is true of the southern belt only, below 
 the frost line; north of this, however, the 
 orange and other hardy fruits are quite success- 
 fully cultivated. 
 
 Many poor pepole are greatly deluded and 
 swindled by "land sharks." These miscreants 
 pubhsh falsely colored statements to attract emi- 
 gration; and then induce the unsuspecting vic- 
 tims to settle on unsuitable land. 
 
 The variety of soil is very great. Some sec- 
 
WHERE THE PALMETTO BUDS AND THE MAGNOLIA BLOOMS. 243 
 
 tions are entirely unsuited to industries whicli 
 are admirably adapted to other sections; there is 
 much laud valuable for other purposes, upon 
 which oranges will never grow. 
 
 This fact many people learn to their disgust 
 and sorrow, only after all their money and some 
 years of time, have been wasted in the useless 
 attempt to accomplish an impossibility. 
 
 This is truly the poor man's country, after he 
 once becomes acclimated and secures a foothold. 
 But if he lands here very poor, ignorant of the 
 country, and a stranger to the phenomena of the 
 climate, he may anticipate some bitter and very 
 trying experiences during the first season, as well 
 as some cruel disappointments. But, however, 
 these features are steadily improving with the 
 civilization and the prosperity of the country. 
 
 The cool winds from the Gulf Stream trans- 
 form the Southern coast, which otherwise might 
 be a torrid clime, to one of the most moderately 
 temperate sections on the globe, where the ordi- 
 nary range of the thermometer is between 60° 
 and 83°, averaging 73° all the year round. 
 Never is it uncomfortable in the shade at noon- 
 day, nor the use of a blanket unnecessary at night. 
 As a place for winter residence and resort, it is 
 nowhere rivaled. 
 
 Here it is so easy merely to live without great 
 effort, after securing a foothold, that the term, 
 " the lazy man's country," is apt and appropriate. 
 
 But we must desist : this chai-ming theme is 
 luring us far from our proper province. 
 
 Of this matchless clime and land Garland 
 Cloud writes the most glowing letters to his 
 constituency. 
 
 He makes very admirable arrangements for his 
 friends; but their tardy arrival greatly mars their 
 prospects. 
 
 Thia requires Cloud to make a trip to the lead- 
 mg sea-port, where his room is entered, chloro- 
 form administered to him, and he robbed of all 
 his money — except some previously remitted to 
 the East, to purchase supphes for a contemplated 
 arrangement. 
 
 While in this city he is very nearly imperiled 
 once more in the painful embarrassment of mis- 
 taken identity, as the sequence will demonstrate. 
 
 He meets a stranger on the street who thus accosts 
 liini : 
 
 " Are you not Mr. Garland, formerly of the 
 ' Future City ?' " 
 
 Cloud : " No, sir ; my name is Cloud ; my home 
 is in this State." 
 
 Stranger: "I beg your pardon, sir; I readily 
 perceive my mistake. I am a cotton merchant 
 in that city, and you very much resemble a man 
 whom I once knew well there by that name, but 
 the first word you uttered convinced me of my 
 mistake." 
 
 Cloud : " There is often a strangely striking 
 resemblance between two persons. Being mis- 
 taken for another man, about the close of the 
 war, has cost me more trouble than belongs to 
 forty average lives." 
 
 Stranger: " Ye-s, sir; I have known men hung 
 the same way. Good-day." 
 
 Garland Cloud is seriously embarrassed by the 
 loss of his money. His health is much impaired 
 from the effect of the powerful dose of chloroform 
 administered to him. 
 
 He returns to the section selected for his 
 friends. There he finds himself under the ban 
 of suspicion. He is regarded as an impostor. It 
 is doubted whether or not he represents a colony; 
 and it is not believed that he lost any money. 
 
 This is a bitter ordeal; but there is no alterna- 
 tive but to remain and endure it. To leave, M'^ould 
 be but to confirm the strong suspicions enter- 
 tained against him. 
 
 In the meantime he loses nearly every oppor- 
 tunity upon which he had most relied for his 
 friends, long before they arrive. 
 
 From this moment Cloud loses courage and 
 hope. He recognizes the shadow of the unpity- 
 ing avenger still pursuing him, and comes to be- 
 fieve that every member of the innocent, over- 
 confiding colony will become enthralled in the 
 excruciating torture of his situation, and be forced 
 to suffer the inevitable contagion of his own 
 proper curse. 
 
 The poor colonists work with courageous will, 
 but nothing they touch prospers. Anxiety, over- 
 exposure, and insufficient nourishment, together 
 combined, prostrate every member of the colony 
 with fever by mid-summer. Cloud alone remains 
 
244 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 out of bed and able to look after the sick, who 
 are scattered over territory several miles in ex- 
 tent. These people are not acclimated. The 
 tides are unasually high. The locality is natu- 
 rally miasmatic, and the overflow renders it doubly 
 unhealthy. 
 
 Cloud sticks to the people with fidelity. He 
 is their only hope for a long time. His endurance 
 during the summer and fall is incredible. 
 
 But in October he is stricken down, after the 
 colonists are able to take care of themselves, and 
 his life for some time despaired of — it seems that 
 he must die. However, he rallies, gets well, and 
 withdravN^s the shadow of his curse from his 
 friends. 
 
 He goes to a prosperous town and soon forms 
 a commercial co-partnership, which, however, 
 proves unsatisfactory, and is in a short time dis- 
 solved. 
 
 X ow he goes, with verj^ little money, to the 
 city where he had been robbed. Why he goes 
 there, appears a mystery. 
 
 He .s so thoroughly impressed with the convic- 
 tion that the dark curse of his own rayless life 
 had been communicated to the innocent people 
 who had linked their destiny with his, that he 
 now becomes a thorough and fixed convert to the 
 faith that nothing with which he is connected can 
 thrive, but is sure to come to grief and ruin. 
 
 This is a strange man, linked to a strange des- 
 tiny. From this point he appears to enact his 
 role as though following the text of a perfectly 
 planned programme, for which he has been fully 
 prepared by the most careful study and the most 
 patient practice. 
 
 He still believes that he can neither escape the 
 consequences of the curse which has pursued him 
 every day for nearly fifteen years, while ever 
 augmenting its pitiless severity, nor cure it ; that 
 the day has long since gone by when for it there 
 was a remedy. And in contemplating it, as its 
 developments steadily unfold, we are gradually 
 forced to admit the same. 
 
 He seems to have settled down to a dormant 
 state of stoical indifference as to himself, or to 
 have nothing new to fear. 
 
 Can it be that there is nothing — no ghostly 
 shadow from out the hidden stores of those years 
 
 of silent and mysterious absence — to haunt him ? 
 or is it true that there can be naught on earth 
 worse than the present reality ? 
 
 At all events, as to these things he appears to 
 exist in tranquil composure. 
 
 CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 
 
 ' Fair clime 1 where summer ever smiles 
 Benignant o'er thy blessed Isles; 
 There mildly dimpling Ocean's cheek, 
 Keflects the tints of many a peak, — 
 Caught by the laughing waters that lave 
 These Edens of the southern wave. 
 And If at times a transient breeze, 
 Breaks the blue crystal of the seas. 
 Or sweeps one blossom from the trees,— 
 How welcome is each gentle air — 
 That wakes and wafts the odors there; — 
 For the Eose o'er crag or vale- 
 Sultana of the nightingale— 
 The maid for whom his melody, 
 His thousand songs are heard on high,— 
 Blooms blushing to her lover's tale."— Byron. 
 
 The invalid who has but once escaped from his 
 ice-bound northern home to bask in this blessed 
 sunshine, and to feel his languid cheek fanned and 
 kissed by these exhilarating zephyrs, will exclaim, 
 after reading the above lines : 
 
 " Oh, how truly well Byron has pictured that 
 matchless clime ! " 
 
 Within twenty-four hours after his arrival at 
 the " City by the Sea,'' Garland Cloud is in busi- 
 ness ; in ten days, his success is assured. 
 
 In less than a month, he is the commission 
 agent of first-class houses in more than a dozen 
 lines — some of the first houses in the land ; and 
 is selling three-fourths of the goods in such lines 
 purchased by the wholesale trade. 
 
 He is, moreover, planning and organizing to 
 control the leading productions of the country. 
 
 Being a thorough master of the intricate prob- 
 lems of business negotiations, and a man of con- 
 summate commercial experience in every branch 
 of the science, undoubtedly constitute the prime 
 source whence his extraordinary success springs ; 
 because he has no influence to favor him with 
 friendly or material assistance. 
 
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 
 
 215 
 
 His mail propositions — tlie medium through 
 which he opened the negotiations and consum- 
 mated all his important business arrangements 
 and connections, alone and unaided — led on to 
 the results which they were designed to achieve. 
 
 A few months later, his father's family joins 
 him, and the father and brother are associated 
 with him in the business. 
 
 The firm is prosperous, and its future bright; 
 or thus it appears to the world. 
 
 Garland Cloud attends church and Sundaj-- 
 school; but steadily dechnes to accept invitations 
 to go into society, and to be introduced to ladies, 
 even those in the Sunday-school class with him. 
 
 As no local influence may in any way promote 
 his busir ^ss interests, and as he avoids the fair 
 sex and t,huns society, we are unable to detect any 
 sinister motives in his church and Sabbath-school 
 attendance. Perhaps he contemplates leading 
 an exemplary hfe, and cherishes some degree of 
 hope that in this Avay he may wean himself, at 
 least partially, from the weary dream of the bitter 
 past. 
 
 But this with him is like repentance for sins 
 ^vhich are still retained. Although we cannot 
 challenge his motives of the present, by which he 
 is actuated ; nor call into question the purity or 
 the sincerity of his daily Hfe ; nor doubt his desire 
 and resolution to make it useful, true, worthy, and 
 noble, yet still the dark, scowhng ghost of the past 
 hovers about and haunts him. It is the hideous 
 and menacing phantom — his insatiable curse ; the 
 unatoned penalty for wearing a mask ; the skele- 
 ton shadow of all false lives — that incurable moral 
 leprosy. Hence, it is with Garland Cloud as im- 
 possible to go smoothly and correctly down the 
 journey of life, as it would be for mortal powers 
 to stay the wailing breath of the tempest, or to 
 tame the ocean's sweeping surge. 
 
 The Avenger, with unabating force, still holds 
 the retributive scourge suspended, ready to inflict 
 his long-deferred chastisement. This hold he will 
 never relax ; this menace never abate ; will never 
 relinquish the unpitying severity of the stern 
 and unsympathetic executioner, until the mask 
 has been rent and torn bodily from the trans- 
 gressor's face. After this has been done, and he 
 is left standing in the nude deformity of his veri- 
 
 table and degrading shame, a true and horrible 
 semblance of what he has been and is ; an ap- 
 palling object of solemn warning for the world to 
 contemplate, the Avenger will be satisfied for the 
 afTairs of this world. The fullness of the measure 
 of his earthly chastisement will be meted cut to 
 the ofiender ; then he will be left free to start a 
 new and true life, the sole architect and creator 
 of his OAvn temporal redemption. 
 
 Man might, but he never will, tear away the 
 mask with his own hands. Because he will not 
 do this, the Avenger causes cherished plans and 
 skillfully designed projects to be woven into a 
 snare to bring the culprit to grief. Thus he will 
 be misled _ to make the very moves which to him 
 seem the most feasible and proper, but which, 
 of all others he could have made are the ones, 
 as he invariably perceives only when too late, 
 the most certain to precipitate his discomfiture 
 and ruin. 
 
 For Garland Cloud such is the doom laid up in 
 the store-house of Fate, and there held subject to 
 the dispensing hand of Destiny — the Avenger's 
 reserve of retribution. 
 
 This mortal mystery views a struggling people 
 crippled and retarded by the terrible blight of 
 poverty, amid natural resources that but little 
 capita] and effort will develop to fountains whence 
 will flow perpetual streams of wealth — such as 
 will emancipate the country from the bondage of 
 jaenury a»id elevate the indigent to independence. 
 
 The visions of the past and its vows of devotion 
 to tlie tillers of the soil, return anew to Garland 
 Cloud. The shadowy images of that August 
 midnight, as he seemed to behold them beneath 
 the deep-green foliage of the spreading walnut- 
 tree, so many years before, again stand around 
 him amid the purple midnight, of the " land of 
 all-night twilights," under the mystic shadows 
 and in the delicious perfumes of a lovely grove of 
 orange-trees, intermingled with beds of roses. 
 
 The soft and airy images in this superstition- 
 conjuring scene seem to rebuke him for his inert 
 apathy. 
 
 After these extraordinary, if imaged visitations, 
 he resolves to struggle with more intensified zeal 
 td attain the consummation of his projects — the 
 
51G 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE ^EY. 
 
 offsprings of uncurbed ambition, the jirogeny of 
 rational madness. 
 
 The supreme obstacle which intervenes to be 
 surmounted, is the want of an immense sum of 
 money above the available resources and credits 
 at his command — means beyond the ability of 
 home banking facilities to supph^ : a theme which 
 causes him deep solicitude. 
 
 He dreams of the most absurd and improbable 
 expedient, involving both intricate and danger- 
 ous contingencies deeply shaded by dishonor and 
 darkly fraught with crime. 
 
 But what are these considerations to a man 
 with Garland Cloud's elastic scruples, so long as 
 the barriers to the progress of his cherished 
 schemes are thus cleared away ? Though there 
 is no more in favor of their use, than a fair proba- 
 bility that his success might be assured, he would 
 scarcely hesitate to employ any means, regard- 
 less of personal jeopardy. On "the field of 
 G-ettysburg " ^^ve heard him thus vowing to his 
 father, while he was yet young, worthy, noble and 
 true in character — before more than "the mask 
 of war" had shadowed his fair and courageous 
 brow. 
 
 The dream presents a programme as lucid as 
 though it had been printed in glowing lette.rs — or 
 thus it was impressed on the memory of G-ar- 
 land Cloud. 
 
 It is a plan to procure over-issued securities 
 and borrow money on them, the viodus operandi 
 to be executed in a great commercial centre — but 
 so hazardous that few professional swindlers 
 would risk the first and most simple preliminary 
 steps requisite to a successful issue of the venture- 
 some transactions. 
 
 He casually investigates the prehminary feat- 
 ures, without the remotest dream that they will 
 lure him to pursue them. He is amazed, hoAv- 
 ever, to find them identically as indicated by the 
 dream. 
 
 Now, step by step, he follows the other features 
 without the slightest deviation, thoroughly forti- 
 fying each one against ordinary dangers of com- 
 mercial detection, or even suspicion, until the 
 negotiation for the money is actually consum- 
 mated. 
 
 In less than two days after his strange dream, 
 
 he is on the way to execute its ^problematical 
 revelations. 
 
 He dines at home, and tr.kes leave of the family 
 for a fortnight, with lightly indifferent confidence. 
 No member of his firm or family entertains the 
 remotest idea of the nature of his sudden trip, nor 
 the secret purpose carried away in his heart. 
 
 His family-people gaze after his receding form, 
 as it turns the street corner, with apprehensions 
 not unUke those experienced as they looked at 
 him through the misty twilight so many years 
 before, as he was vanishing on that wave of the 
 sea of life which was to bear him onward into 
 the battle-storm. 
 
 The first night out, he dreams that he sees his 
 father's family in tears of despair, and leaving 
 home. 
 
 Had the business arrangements made in con- 
 nection with his forbidden operation rested upon 
 a legitimate and an honorable basis, few are ever 
 consummate with advantages equal to those then 
 promised. 
 
 SOME REMINDERS OF THE BY-GONE TIME. 
 
 On the fourth day of July, while thus sojourn- 
 ing: in the "big city," pending his precarious 
 enterprise, as Cloud is slowly walking under the 
 inviting shade amid the refreshing fountains of 
 a beautiful park, seeking relief from the oppres- 
 sive heat of a super-tropical sun, he meets an un- 
 expected and startling incident. 
 
 He is suddenly arrested by the sound of a 
 voice — a long-forgotten but still familiar voice— 
 calling his name. The voice of one whom he had 
 known amid the stirring, unearthly scenes of fire, 
 lilood and death, in the dark and trying past ; a 
 voice with thrilling pathos in its tones, soul- 
 moving music in its cadence. Turning his face 
 in the direction whence it came, he mentally 
 exclaims : " Shades of Uncle Jake and the fairies." 
 
 What memoirs and associations for the mind 
 to revert to in sadness! And what an awe-in- 
 spiring theme! The early days of the war 
 around the out-posts ; the secret service and its 
 mvsteries; the actors and the actresses who Avere 
 together blended in its excitements and its dan- 
 o-ors — their shadows suddenly and unexpectedly 
 
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 
 
 247 
 
 rising up, as though from the earth, and appear- 
 ing in the broad hght of day in the peaceful dells 
 of an enchanting park, is indeed a startling 
 wonder. 
 
 There, before Cloud's open eyes, sits the veri- 
 table, ebon-faced old man, with hair and beard 
 white as ermine — or thus it appears when con- 
 trasted with the deep black of his face — on the 
 box of a coach, holding a spirited, restless team ; 
 and his good-natured, honest face beaming with 
 a smile of earnest sincerity. And near him, on 
 a bench, are those whom Cloud once knew as 
 Cornelia Earl and Leonora Faicchild, with some 
 bright-eyed, curly-headed children gambolling 
 around them. 
 
 The ladies beckon to Cloud to advance. He 
 does so. As he passes by the coach, the old man 
 bends forward with an extended hand, which is 
 grasped by Cloud, as he exclaims : 
 
 " Ah! Uncle Jake, it does me good to press an 
 honest hand. But who told you it was I, before 
 you called? " 
 
 Jake: "Bress de Lawrd, Massa Cloud, dese 
 ole ize ob mine, dat would no yore ize an' noze if 
 yore hare and berde waz white, an' yore face 
 rinkled az mine. Glad to see yor." 
 
 Cloud: "Thank you. Uncle Jake. I appreci- 
 ate your sentiments. Your memory is acute." 
 
 The ladies explain that one of them is mar- 
 ried to a prosperous lawyer, the other to a 
 banker ; and that they have resided in the city 
 for more than ten years. 
 
 The story of the ladies, relative to the burning 
 of their homes, their flight into the Confederate 
 lines, and subsequent career as hospital nurses in 
 Richmond, is intensely interesting to Garland 
 Cloud, and might prove equally interesting to the 
 few friends of these ladies — friends who would be 
 able to recognize them from reading these pages ; 
 but the circumstances and details are too much 
 like those of many familiar and kindred stories to 
 interest the public. 
 
 After recounting these by-gone incidents, and 
 much other rambling conversation, Cloud ex- 
 cuses himself for not accepting pressing invita- 
 tions to call on the ladies at their homes ; and 
 he takes leave of these friends, around whose 
 
 names cluster so many reminiscences of the dead- 
 line scenes of war. 
 
 On the next Sabbath following this incident, 
 Garland Cloud is standing in the rotunda of his 
 hotel looking out on the street, when a man -ap- 
 proaches him, saying: "Howdaydo?" repeat- 
 ing the words three times, extending at the 
 same time his hand, until Cloud says : 
 
 "Pardon me, sir, but you are mistaken," and 
 starts to turn indifferently away, when the man 
 answers : 
 
 " I am not mistaken, sir. If you are not Gar- 
 land Cloud, whom I once and long knew in Vir- 
 ginia, then my name is not Dano." 
 
 Cloud : •' Mr. Dano ! my best friend in the dark 
 days of yore ? " 
 
 DaNo: "Yes; and your friend in the light 
 day? or any other days, who could and would 
 have saved you from that torturing earthly hell 
 in which I know you have existed every hour of 
 your life, whether waking or sleeping, for thir- 
 teen years this very month, or, perTiaps, next 
 month, and from which you may never find re- 
 demption on this side of the tomb, had you only 
 confided to me a bare hint of the nature of the 
 maddening reality that drove you to despair. 
 
 " I afterwards learned with amazement that all 
 your desperation was the result of the black and 
 damnable machinations of Walter Paulona and 
 Qiarles Lorenzi : the former being actuated by a 
 desire to remove you from between himeelf and 
 the hand of Carrie Harman ; the latter by a pur- 
 pose to step into your business shoes." 
 
 Cloud : " I never once suspected that tl«ir let- 
 ters were basely false. It was my implicit faith 
 in the sincerity of these men and the truthfulness 
 of their statements that drove me tnad. 
 
 " More than two years ago I accidentally met 
 
 Judge R , who told me all the heart-rending 
 
 story — not then heart-rending, because my heart 
 was lifeless to such emotions, but a story which 
 might have saved me, had I merely imagined its 
 existence in that dark hour of the long ago. 
 
 " Ah, my friend! to remember that I was ever 
 induced to believe that the friendship of Carrie 
 Harman had been suddenly estranged from me, 
 yet provokes a pang of agony." 
 
248 
 
 ^lYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AXD THE GKEY. 
 
 Dano : " "Well, Cloud, I have pitied and sym- 
 pathized with you as though you had beeij my 
 brother. I have been gratified to recognize in 
 you one among the few truly honest business 
 men." 
 
 Cloud : " No, don't say that. I do not merit 
 it. The want of an indomitable moral courage to 
 enable me to fling, yes, fearlessly to tear from my 
 life every vestige of falsehood, and to appear as I 
 have been, as I am, and as I feel, has been my 
 bane. 
 
 " Your conjectures as to my life are true. I 
 have ever struggled to appear to the world in a 
 false Hght, so that my life has been a lie. To 
 every one, except myself alone, it has been, and is, 
 a deceptive delusion." 
 
 Da^Jo : " That may all be very true, yet it is not 
 pertinent to the question in point to which I 
 allude. I mean that the irrefutable evidence of 
 your honesty was manifested in the act of your 
 
 contriving to return the T banks the many 
 
 thousand dollars to cover your drafts which were 
 refused by the parties upon whom they were 
 drawn — the fate of all your drafts presented after 
 the publication of your supposed self-destruction — 
 and many months after your disappearance, when 
 the banks had given up the matter as hopelessly 
 lost. 
 
 " Most of your agents acted badly. Paulona 
 and Lorenzi bought up the claims of the farmers 
 for a song, and kept the money you sent to pay 
 such claims. Out of all that was due you, and 
 the large stock of goods on hand, your Eastern 
 friends never received a dollar." 
 
 Cloud : "These are painful themes to discuss* 
 or contemplate. Pray spare me the torture of 
 talking over these scenes of folly, which I shall 
 ever regret, but can never recall nor repair. 
 
 "As a matter of course, you would like to 
 know all the story from then to this day. I have 
 told you more than I intended to tell. Please 
 refrain from asking me for fuller details." 
 
 DaiJo : " Certainly, ■ Cloud. I would not 
 cause you needless pain, merely to gratify my 
 curiosity." 
 
 Cloud : "I would tell you all as freely as any 
 one on earth, but it would do you no tjood and 
 cost me much pain. 
 
 "It is my purpose to make good, sooner or 
 later, every dollar that any one, anywhere, has 
 ever lost on my account. If I can ever get on a 
 true, substantial basis, this may be possible. My 
 talents and capacities are adequate to the task, 
 could they be properly employed in the right 
 direction and cause. 
 
 " But somehow I feel oppressed by a supersti- 
 tious apprehension that anything I undertake is 
 fated, and will be blighted by the curse of the 
 past, from Avhich it seems that there is no escape 
 in this world. 
 
 " I wish that I could detail to you all the com- 
 plications of my present enterprises. Had I met 
 you ten days earlier, I might have told you all 
 about my prospects and wants, and secured your 
 assistance. But it is too late now. The destiny 
 of my future is past my control. With no 
 failures, in my promised facilities, success seems 
 probable. Should fair promises prove delusive, I 
 will be stranded. This will be neither a surpris- 
 ing nor a new experince. I am inured to such 
 fortune." 
 
 DaSo : " I hope you will succeed. You de- 
 serve success. Your greatest trouble is, you can- 
 not learn to make haste slowly. You cannot be 
 content to take a low or intermediate position, 
 and build from it; you must do something grand 
 from the very start, and surpass every one about 
 you." 
 
 Cloud : " I confess that my ambition and my 
 Avill have always outstripped my ability and 
 means." 
 
 DaNo : "I suppose you have connections with 
 Oglethrop, Harman & Co. I am sure that you 
 could get large assistance there." 
 
 Cloud: "No; I have not and shall not. 
 There is too much of the past associated with 
 them." 
 
 For a week, these friends of the olden time are 
 almost inseparable. 
 
 Cloud finally details to this old friend every- 
 thing about his present plans, save the pending 
 dark transaction. Had he met this friend at an 
 earher day, the chances are great that he never 
 Avould have imbued his hand with this crime. 
 
 He felt that this meeting was one last, indefin- 
 able chance that had been afi'orded him to escape 
 
SUNSHINE AND SHADOW. 
 
 249 
 
 from his false fetters, and to enable him to return 
 to paths of truth and honor. 
 
 After he had bidden this friend farewell late 
 at night, and returned to his room, while the 
 friend was speeding aWay for his south-western 
 home. Cloud regrets that he had not grasped the 
 opportimity and told him all. He once was Cloud's 
 savior in a dark hour. Cloud might have ar- 
 ranged with him and through his house to do a 
 safe and honorable business, just half as extensive 
 as tiiat jDlanned in connection with the false and 
 precarious pajier ; and tten canceled that hazard- 
 ous arrangement, and destroyed the paper. But 
 it had passed, as had many other regretted occa- 
 sions, and could not l)e recalled. 
 
 HORRORS OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 After midnight Cloud falls into a deep sleep, 
 from exhaustion — not the refreshing slumber of 
 quiet repose. 
 
 While thus wrapped in the arms of semi-death, 
 G-arland Cloud dreams that he is in his own 
 sunny land in the level, open woodland country ; 
 flymg with his false paper, seeking in vain for 
 a place to hide it, unobserved by his pursuers. 
 Finally he succeeds in eluding them, suffi- 
 ciently to gain his own home, where he fancies 
 he may burn the paper before they can arrive. 
 
 But — great horrors ! — on opening and entering 
 the front gaite, a sti-ang-e and powerful dog catches 
 him by the wrist and holds him firmly, so that he 
 finds it impossible to kick him off, or in any way 
 to extricaite his Hmb, which the brute every 
 moment ia mangling in a most horrible manner ; 
 and he is unable to utter one cry for assistance, 
 while the pursuers are rapidly a{)proaching. 
 
 Just as they arrive at the gate, he awakes 
 with great beads of cold sweat standing all over 
 him, and he is so weak that he can scarcely 
 move or speak. 
 
 He stammers aloud: "Thank God! it is only a 
 dream." But he is unable to sleep, and walks 
 the floor of his room until morning. 
 
 When the sun at length rises. Garland Cloud's 
 mind is made up. He has resolved that before 
 the sun reaches the zenith, the last false bond 
 shall be in 
 
 It will, liowever, be ten o'clock before the 
 vaults in which some of the paper is deposited 
 will be opened. He cannot endure the sus- 
 pense of the intervening hours at the hotel. 
 
 Thus oppressed, he leaves the hotel and goes 
 down town among those of his correspondents 
 who are earhest at their places of business. He 
 finds everything so cheerful, re-assuring and 
 promising, that his gloomy forbodings are quickly 
 dispelled. 
 
 Now, then, he can readily attribute his dis- 
 quieting dream to a late and heavy supper, of 
 which he partook too freely with his friend, 
 after returning hungry from the sea-beach; 
 and he goes to work in extraordinary and good 
 spirits, with no purpose to abandon his un- 
 worthy transactions. 
 
 RAPIDLY CHANGING SCENES. 
 
 Garland Cloud returns to his room, and writes 
 letters for some hours. 
 
 This work complete, he descends to the office, 
 drops his letters in the box — little dreaming of 
 the revolution about to burst upon him, or that 
 he is at the end of the closing scene, in the last 
 act of the widely varying vicissitudes of his 
 strangely checkered and mysteriously eventful 
 career. 
 
 Turning from the letter-box he takes three 
 steps in the direction of the water-cooler, when 
 a well-known man taps him on the shoulder — a 
 man from his own city. 
 
 From this man Garland Cloud learns that the 
 hounds of justice are on his track; that the 
 menacing danger of the heavy hand of the 
 law is hovering over his head. 
 
 After many years his final and inevitable day 
 of retribution has come with crushing vengeance. 
 Fate has decreed, and the guardian angels of 
 the good and the pure have so guided, directed and 
 disposed events as to prevent one farthing of 
 crime-contaminated funds from being employed 
 in connection with the honest and the innocent 
 father and brother, and caused the masked son 
 and brother to be severed, with his abiding curse, 
 from them. 
 
 And furthermore. Providence ordains that he 
 shall be precipitated into the seething eddy of 
 
250 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 the boiling, impetuous whirlpool of the horrors 
 of an earthly hell, where the mask will be 
 stripped from him, and he left standing in the 
 nude deformity of his true but darkly ignoble 
 character. 
 
 Garland Cloud is under surveillance. Instantly 
 he comprehends the hideous reahty. 
 
 From the first moment he bows in humble 
 resignation to the Chastener's scourge. ■ He 
 makes no effort to retard the operation nor to 
 escape the penalties of justice; but he rather 
 lends helping haste to facilitate its process. 
 
 The exposure sprang, apparently, from mere 
 chance — an outside source separate from, and 
 entirely independent of the commercial features 
 of the transaction — the story of an errand boy 
 to his family. This boy had seen some of the 
 paper in Cloud's room. This circumstance 
 founded the story named. After a long time 
 it found its way to the ears of the proper party, 
 to develop the results indicated. 
 
 Who can confute the manifest testimony here 
 afforded, that in all this the invisible finger of some 
 supernatural power had been the means which 
 so influenced and directed all as to bring upon 
 Garland Cloud his long and well-merited retri- 
 bution. Nothing can be clearer or more posi- 
 tive. Mere chance never brought all these httle 
 points together in such harmony and unison. 
 Such was Cloud's superstitious conclusion. 
 
 He at once delivers up all the paper, having 
 gone in company with a detective and withdrawn 
 it all from the parties with whom it was de- 
 posited. Not one of these parties entertained 
 the remotest suspicion why the paper was with- 
 drawn. Some of them canceled the transaction 
 with reluctance. 
 
 A warrant has been in the meantime obtained 
 by the detective for Cloud's arrest. This is 
 served upon him as soon as the last of the paper 
 has been taken up. 
 
 No one of the parties with whom the trans- 
 action had been made will prosecute him. 
 
 However, he waives examination, demands 
 immediate indictment, pleads guilty, and is sen- 
 tenced to a term of years imprisonment, not- 
 withstanding the fact that able ler^al talent main- 
 
 tains the "criminal intent" could not be suf- 
 ficiently estabUshed to sustain conviction. 
 
 As he is entering the corridor of the jail he 
 receives some distressing letters from home. 
 
 While reading these letters an involuntary 
 moan escapes the hps of this wretch, as he slowly 
 paces the dark and gloomy recess of a con- 
 demned cell, and he soliloquizes : 
 
 "Ah, at last I am now draining to the dregs the 
 cup of bitterness ! I have wrung other hearts ; now 
 it comes home to me in the piteous wails of the 
 members of my poor father's family. It is their 
 suffering and not my own, that lashes me now 
 Avith such stinging blows. 
 
 "Now must the dark secrets of my hfe come 
 to hg-ht." 
 
 CHAPTER LXVIII 
 
 THE MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDER 
 A CLOUD. 
 
 " Of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
 The saddest are these— it might have been." 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
 Let us shift the staging a bit, in order to permit 
 two of our early characters to step forth and de- 
 velop some features of their ill-fated roles. 
 
 On a sultry Sabbath morning, a fcAV weeks after 
 Garland Cloud's arrival at his prison home, he ob- 
 tains permission from his keeper to cross the yard 
 for some purpose. 
 
 When turning the corner of a building on the 
 way he suddenly runs almost against another fel- 
 low-unfortunate coming in haste from the oppo- 
 site direction. Both stop as if transfixed as dumb 
 statues to the spots where they stand. 
 
 Where ? when ? or under what circumstances 
 have we before met, are questions which each is 
 mentally asking himself, while they thus remain 
 gazing at each other in speechless wonderment. 
 
 Uji to this moment, Cloud has been persuaded 
 that there is not one man in the prison domain 
 who had ever known him personally in the other 
 life. 
 
 Such is precisely the fancied conviction of the 
 other man. 
 
 But now each is forced to reahze the certainty 
 that he is recognized bv some one who had been 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 251 
 
 more than a merely casual acquaintance of the 
 past. Still, however, they both feel that such 
 acquaintance had been of some nature blended 
 with the terrible or the tragic so closely as to im- 
 print upon the memory of each indelible recollec-* 
 tions not to be forgotten. 
 
 Time, with obliterating furrows, had ploughed 
 and defaced the countenance, yet the sharp out- 
 lines of the well-remembered features still remain 
 to haunt the two men with momentary and mys- 
 tifying suspense. At length Cloud gasps : " Law- 
 rence Pleasington ! " 
 
 Lawrence : " Garland Cloud ! " 
 
 It is a fact. The two proud and daring horse- 
 men have met again, after more than fifteen years 
 since they last met and parted in the spectral 
 darkness of the lugubrious pine forests of North 
 Carolina, amid the ghostly death-scene prepara- 
 tion, with poor Pleasington — as it appeared and as 
 he believed — in the launched ferry on the bosom 
 of the dark river. Yes, they have met again 
 amid the dark and dreary shadows of a living 
 tomb — a scene more terrible than that in which 
 they last parted — ^for them the grave of every 
 earthly hope. They are woeful wrecks of the 
 past ; walking skeletons of their former selves ; the 
 sad remains of two young and handsome soldiers. 
 
 We saw them pure, true and innocent as the for- 
 est-bespangling, silvery dew-drops which gleansed 
 hke pearly gems in the brilliant rays of the " early, 
 early morning's " summer-sunshine of that July 
 Sabbath, as they rushed with flushed cheeks, 
 with hearts wildly buoyant with youth and hope, 
 and with souls on fire across the fatal plains of 
 Manassas, into the iron jaws of flaming death. 
 
 Poor wretches ! With what longing fondness 
 their minds travel back to rest in envy on that 
 spot where slumber, in blissful peace and tranquil 
 repose, the crumbling bones of so many who then 
 with them moved, but fell and died, to be buried 
 in the bloody shroud of honor — the soldier's glori- 
 ous winding-sheet and heroic tomb, so dear to the 
 memory of every true and noble heart. 
 
 What a contrast these tAvo relics of that time 
 now present! Here they are engulfed in the 
 seething eddy of the deepest social damnation. 
 Cloud, a self -sacrificed victim of circumstances on 
 the unhallowed altar of dark Ambition: Pleas- 
 
 ington, the innocent and pitiable victim of the 
 fiendish machinations of a diabolical conspiracy, 
 and the most cruel and heartless treachery, that 
 consigned him to sixteen years in the raylcss 
 gloom of a dungeon life. 
 
 Tongue may never depict, pen may never pict- 
 ure the nameless torture endured by this hapless, 
 ill-fated young man during all those long days of 
 trying agony and weary nights of tedious torment, 
 each in itself an age of living death. 
 
 Think of this, oh ye ministering powers ! and 
 beware being made the dupes of wicked plotters. 
 How often is justice perverted, and thus led to 
 manacle and scourge the innocent! Thus are they 
 entangled so cunningly in the meshes of deceptive 
 falsehood that their seeming guilt appears more 
 overwhelming, clear and positive than truth rarely 
 ever clothes testimony. So thoroughly convinc- 
 ing does such evidence seem, that it is whollj' 
 beyond the ken of mortal man for the victim to 
 attempt to establish innocence, with the ghost of 
 a chance to succeed. Truly, he might not induce 
 any one to entertain the bare idea that there could 
 exist a possibility of the accusation being false. 
 
 Oh ye pure and honest hearts, who love the 
 human race, and would save your young men 
 from i"iin and despair! Here are now before you 
 two cliaracters who afford the material substance 
 out of which lessons of incalculable value may 
 be drawn, with which many a wayward man may 
 be warned of the great and terrible danger in which 
 he must expect to find himself enthralled unless 
 he changes his course. 
 
 Those who cannot be deterred from going on- 
 ward in the road to this earthly hell, by the ap- 
 pealing voices — the echoes of their wail of woe 
 — sent forth into the world by these two men, to 
 be borne onward by the swift wings of sweet 
 freedom's wind, are lost indeed. 
 
 Among all the thousands of the condemned 
 here in the dread role of paying penalties for the 
 abuse of that heritage bequeathed to them by 
 Nature's divine and equitable law, there have been 
 few others who approach Garland Cloud and Law- 
 rence Pleasington as objects that furnish subject- 
 matter coming exclusively from the heart and 
 the mind. But the}'' aff'ord material to make a 
 true picture of that torture which is distinctly 
 
252 
 
 I^ITSTIC EOINJANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 and widely separated from mere penal inconven- 
 ience and physical pain. This is a picture, such 
 as will appeal to refined hearts and lofty minds: 
 those we now so much desire to reach and move 
 with awe and alarm at the contemplation of the 
 realities of a state in which flesh and blood exist, 
 that is so dreadful and terrible as to beggar the 
 power of language. 
 
 As Pleasington is an innocent victim, his suf- 
 fering, as a matter of course, is different from 
 Cloud's, and is not, therefore, as forcibly instruc- 
 tive a lesson to stay the erring in their mad career 
 and cause them to reflect. His case is the ex- 
 ception, not the rule; for men from reputable 
 Avalks of life rarely find themselves in prison with- 
 out cause. For this reason we shall present a 
 much larger part of Cloud's experience — very 
 largely in verhatim copies of his own letters. 
 
 After another embarrassing pause, Pleasington 
 speaks: "G-arland, in Heaven's name! Then it is 
 
 you 
 
 ! I heard that a Garland Cloud from the 
 
 semi-tropical South was here, but never dreamed 
 that he was my once enemy-friend. 
 
 " I am not here under my true name. You are 
 tlie only man here who ever has recognized me; 
 and there are very few who ever knew me. 
 Please never mention my name. 
 
 " Next Sunday, if you are wilhng, I will obtain 
 permission to spend the day with you in your cell, 
 when I will tell you all. We dare not stand 
 here." 
 
 Cloud : "Nothing else could happen, Lawrence, 
 that would afTord me more pleasure here than to 
 spend a day with you. Come by all means. Until 
 then, adieu." 
 
 Lawrence: "I will not disappoint you. Good- 
 day." 
 
 This is a privilege often granted men of long 
 continued good record: to spend a Sunday or 
 other holiday in the cell of a friend until just be- 
 fore the night-watchmen come on duty, when the 
 visitors return to their own cells to be locked up 
 for the night. 
 
 When the day arrives, and the two ex-officers 
 of the Blue and the Grey are caged together. 
 Cloud gives Pleasington a hasty sketch of his 
 career down to his fall and final doom. Then 
 Pleasington proceeds to reciprocate. 
 
 "Well, Garland," he says, with a deep drawn 
 sigh, "for the first time I now open my mouth to 
 speak a word, either directly or indirectly, about 
 the true nature of my own bitter and nameless 
 Avoe within the hearing of mortal ears. 
 » " My first day of convict-life satisfied me that 
 I was in an earthly hell — with demons and fiends, 
 as a rule, for companions, who were more likely to 
 mock me with low, profane and vulgar jeers than 
 to sympathize with me in my great and terrible 
 affliction and sufiering, which I then thought 
 would drive me to the desperation of a raving 
 maniac. I resolved to keep to myself, and remain 
 aloof from other men — a course from which I have 
 never departed. 
 
 " With my early trouble, affliction and cruel 
 bereavement, j^ou are familiar, for which I am 
 really thankful, as it will spare me the pain of re- 
 counting them to you. 
 
 " What a burden of misery the information you 
 have just imparted to me, that Oglethrop and 
 his wife know that I am innocent, lifts from my 
 crushed mind. Ah! but Garland, the mischief can 
 never be mended — it is irreparably and eternally 
 sealed in its fixed destiny by the cruel sods of 
 the grave. 
 
 "Nothing on this earth, nor in the blackest 
 realms of the Infernal world, was ever perpe- 
 trated on man or fiend more cruel and diatohcal 
 than the vengeance wreaked upon me. 
 
 " For years my brain was forever in a feverish 
 state, as though molten lead was being poured 
 into it. The pangs of my heart were incessantly, 
 whether sleeping or Avaking, as acutely excrucia- 
 ting as though it was being steadily pierced by the 
 point of a revolving dagger. 
 
 " Thus I lived without hope, or anything else 
 to look forward to as a source of relief, but death ; 
 which, though the heavily -journeying years 
 quietly and tediously plodded along, would not 
 come. 
 
 " But for the deep and uneffaceable imprint of 
 the blessed training of my sainted mother, which 
 kept me in the paths of honor and truth 
 throughout the demoralizing vicissitudes of the 
 war, I should have committed suicide. Yet I 
 never thought of it only with a thrill of shudder- 
 ing horror, that was, if possible, more painful than 
 
IVIEETIKG OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 253 
 
 my untold anguish o^ soul and racking torture of 
 mind. 
 
 " I at length became, not reconciled and insensi- 
 ble to my cureless malady, but I taught myself,\vith 
 great and patient efTort, to be resigned to my fate 
 and to acquiesce in the hard decree that forced ^ 
 me to endure what could not be cured. 
 
 ■' I resolved to live for the great Hereafter, as I 
 have lived, am continuing to hve, and shall ever 
 live until the blessed end comes at last, with the 
 fidelity and pious devotion of a most zealous 
 hermit. 
 
 " Don't smile incredulously, Garland; from the 
 depths of my soul, I mean it. This is my only 
 source of comfort; and it has so soothed my 
 intense wretchedness as to render existence less 
 intolerable. 
 
 " Ah, Garland, there is no other place in this 
 world where a man can — alone with himself and 
 the spirit-consoling communion which he may 
 enjoy both day and night in the dirty shop and 
 the loathsome cell, in defiance of walls and bars, 
 with the Great Eternal — lead a life as pixre and 
 blameless as it is possible for him to do in the 
 soul-trying position and experience of a State 
 prison, far removed as he is from the world and 
 its evil influences and temptations. Especially 
 true is this of those, who, like me, have not one 
 glimmering, flickering ray of hope beyond their 
 prison walls. 
 
 " I am speaking from experience and realities 
 that should appall you. Five thousand seven hun- 
 dred days and nights, with three hundred and 
 fifty yet to be added ! Think of it a moment! 
 
 " That night of trial and agony through which 
 I passed, under the scourge of that cruel rod 
 which was forced into your reluctant hand in the 
 North Carolina pine-woods, was rapture of bhss 
 compared with the same number of hours in any 
 one of all my dreary thousands of days of prison 
 life. 
 
 "Oh Garland Cloud! from the moment that 
 I found I was uninjured, when the deafening 
 shock of the blinding volley had passed away, up 
 to the moment when I was arrested and con- 
 fronted with that awful charge, there was no 
 hour nor employment of my life so sacred but 
 what I should have embraced you with all the 
 
 ardent enthusiasm that I cherished for, or could 
 have manifested to, the dearest objects of my 
 heart. I well knew that you had deliberately 
 spared my life by loading the guns with hlank 
 cartridges, at the risk of forfeiting your own for 
 willful disobedience of orders. But since that 
 more cruel tocsin sounded the knell to my last 
 hope, I have often, often reproached you most 
 bitterly. 
 
 " Had I then thus perished a sacrifice on my 
 Country's altar, she would have inscribed an epi- 
 taph of honor to my memory. I would have 
 been mourned by fondly loving hearts ; esteemed 
 liy all who knew me as worthy of one pious tear- 
 drop, such as is merited only by the true and the 
 brave — with which the stranger-soldier's grave is 
 often bathed by strangers' eyes in a foreign land. 
 
 " Oh, but now — but now, Cloud ! Pardon my 
 rising tears and my choking voice's huskiness. 
 I am a vagabond-outcast, with that dear country's 
 brand of infamy stamped upon my degraded 
 brow, that has faced the battle-storm so many 
 times in supporting the cause I loved so well. And 
 oh, those loving hearts! rent in twain, shivered, 
 sundered — all these hopeless years have they 
 been moldering beneath the sods of the grave ! 
 And the eyes that would have then bathed my 
 grave, and the kind and tender hearts that would 
 have mourned my loss, would now but coldly 
 gaze upon me with unpitying contempt, and 
 spurn me with unfeeling disdain. Such have 
 been the fiery torture and gloom of my terrible 
 life ; such is the cheerlessness of its unpromising 
 future. 
 
 " But I have run partly ahead of my narrative, 
 or at least its proper order. 
 
 " I have observed your delicacy in abstaining 
 from asking me how I came to be here, after the 
 expiration of my ten years' term in another State, 
 yet I will now tell you. 
 
 " The morning that I left the gloom of that 
 dreary prison-tomb behind me, and emerged into 
 the bright glare of the sun of liberty, which for 
 me had no more cheering anticipations nor com- 
 forting assurances than those bleak scenes of 
 hopelessness out of which I had passed, a man, 
 elegantly attired, of refined deportment and gen- 
 tlemanly appearance, took the seat by my side in 
 
254 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 the car, bound for my destination, whither I was 
 going without object, money, or friends. 
 
 " He at once entered into conversation with 
 me, and informed me that he knew of the 
 sad history of my case and of my innocence, 
 and had come over expressly to meet me. He 
 claimed to be an importer, and that he had valu- 
 able employment for me in connection with his 
 large and rapidly increasing Southern trade. As 
 a matter of course, I realized that I must seek 
 work, and I at once seized this opportunity as 
 a God-send. 
 
 " This man carried me to his suite of rooms, in 
 one of the first hotels of the city, and rigged me 
 out in a handsome and stylish business suit of 
 clothing. 
 
 " That night he carried me out to sundry places 
 of resort for business men, necessitating a very 
 large extent of walking, which much fatigued me. 
 
 " Just before midnight, we returned to his 
 room, where he assigned me one of the beds. 
 Being weary, I at once retired, and was soon 
 soundly sleeping. 
 
 "I awoke after dayhght. It was a violent 
 shaking by a policeman that awoke me. I found 
 myseK a prisoner. The interested importer was 
 gone. A great robbery had been committed in 
 the hotel. Some burglars' tools and articles of 
 the stolen property were in the room with me. 
 The hotel people knew nothing about me, or 
 that I was an occupant of the room. 
 
 " The theory was that I had been prostrated 
 from inhahng the chloroform which had been ad- 
 ministered to the victims of the robbery, and thus 
 rendered unable *to make good my escape with 
 my alleged accomphces. The case and proof 
 were clear against me. 
 
 " At nine o'clock the previous morning, I had 
 been liberated. At the same hour on the morning 
 of which I am speaking, I occupied a cell in the 
 jail. I did not have one day of liberty, 
 
 " The man furnished me with employment — 
 steady employment for six years and seven 
 months — the net time I was doomed to serve in 
 this prison. 
 
 " This is the whole story. I cannot but imag- 
 ine it was the guiding finger of Providence that 
 brought this about, by so directing events as to 
 
 cause them to produce this result, for some pur- 
 pose entirely !:iidden from me in the impenetrable 
 obscurity of the deepest mystery, but yet which 
 still must be for some wisely good purpose, and 
 all for the best. Viewing it as such, I have 
 acquiesced in it with patient and uncomplaining 
 resignation." 
 
 Cloud : " Oh, Heavens ! the execrable villain ! 
 He was either specially employed by the active 
 participants in the first diabolisms perpetrated 
 against you, who were interested in putting you 
 out of the way, or he was merely seeking for 
 a victim unknown in the city, and chanced to 
 strike you. 
 
 "But, Pleasington, we have now consumed 
 half the time you are permitted to remain with 
 me in recounting our mutual woes — the bitter 
 and trying realities of life which we have each 
 known and are now experiencing since the in- 
 terruption of our occasionally spasmodic relations, 
 which grew out of our strange acquaintance and 
 were maintained by our stranger ties of sym- 
 pathy. But, my dear fellow-miserable, those are 
 things of the lamentable and deplorable past — 
 things that are now buried in the grave of our 
 hopes, with the irreclaimable days that cannot 
 be recalled — those mournful days that are dead. 
 With them what have we now to do ? Oh, my 
 poor friend, it is of the gloomy present and 
 the cheerless future that we should think I Let 
 us talk and counsel together of them. 
 
 " As to ourselves, for ourselves, we are as dead 
 as those friends whom we once loved so well 
 The early broken ties that severed our connec- 
 tion and communion with them, which we have 
 mourned so long, are no wider sundered than 
 the ties which linked us to earthly happiness 
 and to mortal hope. But for our country — our 
 reunited and regenerated country — let us hve and 
 work. 
 
 " In our youth's .summer — yes, from its latter 
 spring-time to its mid-summer days — we offered 
 up those tender, promising, hopeful, loving young 
 lives, that had never known a breath of sorrow's 
 wrecking winds, nor felt a pinch fi-om despair's 
 blighting frosts, a sacrifice — yes, a daily sacrifice — 
 throughout the dark and trying years of that 
 long and wasting war, upon its unhallowed altar 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY UNDEK A CLOUD. 
 
 255 
 
 of blood. Then this was demanded of us — this 
 truly noble sacrifice. 
 
 " Now let us devote our bitterly unhappy and 
 most undesirable lives — lives upon which we 
 place not one poor, crooked, blunt-pointed pin's 
 value — to that same country, whether she will 
 have the sacrifices, which she may deem too un- 
 worthy, or no. We can do this. We can com- 
 mence now and here to wage war, relentless and 
 uncompromising war, upon that nlonster enemy 
 of our race. Crime. That destroys and damns all 
 whom it can seduce from honor's paths or vir- 
 tue's thrones. 
 
 " Oh, let us send out from here — from this 
 our prison home, this veritable, earthly hell, 
 and the foster child of that eternal hell — into 
 that world of hberty where the pure and uncon- 
 taminated air fans with its fragrant breezes and 
 cools with its soft and balmy zephyrs the fever- 
 ish brow and the care-wrecked brain ; and where 
 the beauteous sun shines in resplendent bril- 
 liancy, undimmed by the darksome shadows and 
 mystic gloom of prison walls, such a startling 
 and piercing wail of woe that it will enter deep, 
 down deep, into the depth of men's souls." 
 
 Lawrence: "Ah, Cloud! Let me take your 
 hand in both my hands, while I tell you that 
 on this question our hearts beat in unison, 
 and that heart and soul, mind and body, I am 
 with you m anything, in all things, that we can 
 do, or attempt to do, in this grand cause ; which, 
 if properly advocated and appropriately con- 
 strued, rivals the cause and the works of Divine 
 grace itself. For upon the radical principles con- 
 tained in this criminal question — the principles 
 which should be, and are, the ingredients from 
 which might be compounded a potent antidote 
 that would largely counteract its baneful influ- 
 ences — rest all social order and security, all law 
 and all religion. But how may we best promote 
 its advancement ? " 
 
 Cloud : " By writing letters to the utmost ex- 
 tent. Then there is a man in the world par- 
 tially known to you, and somewhat better known 
 to me, M^ho designs writing a book on this sub- 
 ject. He already has a large part of the essen- 
 tially material facts collected and arranged in 
 order. To these he is constantly adding more, 
 
 either to fill up discrepancies or to extend the 
 scope of his design. 
 
 " He knows something of the outhnes of the 
 stories of our personal experience, and that of 
 those who have been more or less blended with us 
 — such as have been, either directly or indirectly, 
 the means that efiFected ours, or those who, in 
 their turn, have been effected by us. In a 
 general, crude, imperfect way, he knows these 
 mere fragmentary sketches. Let us supply the 
 deficiencies. 
 
 " From time to time I wiU send you a memo- 
 randum of the feature of information that you 
 can furnish, that is necessary to complete a link 
 with mine, which you can fill in with abbreviated 
 answers to the questions, in the spaces left 
 between them for that purpose, on the sheet of 
 brown paper which can pass to and fro between 
 us by the trusty hands of our mutual friend, 
 ' The Old Man' ; and I will revise and supply our 
 consolidated reminiscences to the architect of the 
 work. 
 
 " Both your identity and my own, together 
 with that of our friends, as well as that of our 
 enemies, shall be sacredly guarded against detec- 
 tion, for which I will be personally accountable 
 to you here and hereafter. I now most solemnly 
 pledge myself never to expose nor to reveal 
 to any one, in the most indefinite and indirect 
 manner, anything whatever relative to your true 
 personality." 
 
 Lawrence: "All right. Cloud. If any man on 
 this earth could trust you with his very soul's 
 salvation, I am that man." 
 
 Cloud : "Now, then, we have disposed, of that 
 part of our problematical question which relates 
 to the present. Yet the most serious of all still 
 remains to be considered : that part which relates 
 to the future." 
 
 Lawrence : " Ah I of all the sad features of 
 life with me, that is by far the saddest — my dread- 
 ful, gloomy future. What am I to do to sustain 
 life and promote the cause which we have re- 
 solved to espouse, and to which we have mutu- 
 ally pledged ourselves to devote our unpromising 
 lives ? This is a question that puzzles and 
 staggers me so much, is so appalling, that its 
 bare contemplation makes me shudder, and feel 
 
256 
 
 MYSTIC KOMAXCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 that it would be a blessing if I could never pass 
 out beyond this terrible portal except as inani- 
 mate clay. Yet I fancy to me that great mercy 
 is a boon that will be denied." 
 
 Cloud : " You must confide all to Oglethrop, 
 who is, with his wife, your unchanged and change- 
 less friend. They together know your former in- 
 nocence, and the damnable nature of your perse- 
 cution, which they deplore most sincerely. They 
 sympathize with you with all their hearts. Your 
 last calamity will but serve to strengthen their 
 friendship and to increase their solicitude for you. 
 You must contrive to get one letter to him over 
 the 'underground mail route, telling him all. 
 After that, you can correspond with him with 
 impunity, and directly, under the name by which 
 you are known here. 
 
 " Harman and Flowers will have the same de- 
 gree of SYinpathetic fidelity for you as your 
 youthful and faithful comrade Oglethrop. 
 
 " And again, there still is that fatherly friend 
 now sinking beneath the weight of years and the 
 burdensome cares of an active business life, Silas 
 Worthington, who is superior to all uncharita- 
 bleness and conventional compunctions, will take 
 you by the hand and reenshrine you in his noble 
 heart, that never yet has thrilled with, an un- 
 worthy impulse, nor rankled with the pangs in- 
 flicted by that stinging lash — remorse of conscience. 
 
 " These good people will send you into active 
 usefulness, to be regenerated by the benignant 
 influence of the mellow rays of sunshine ; the 
 soothing freshness of perfume-laden zephyrs ex- 
 haled by never- fading flowers ; and a thousand 
 other enchanting charms of bounteously generous 
 nature, to be found nowhere save in that earthly 
 Paradise that can exist but beneath 'Southern 
 dream-land skies.' " 
 
 Lawrence : " You have pertinent reason. Cloud ; 
 a will that nothing can tame; a courage that 
 nothing can subdue. I believed that this course 
 might possibly be open to me; but I wanted cour- 
 age and faith. I never should have attempted to 
 avail myself of the great benefits that it might 
 promise to bestow. But now I shall try it with a 
 hope that it may enable me to spend the remainder 
 of my sad days in promoting the welfare and ad- 
 vancing ths interests of humanity. 
 
 ''Now, what of yourself? Whither tend your 
 masterful experience and yovu" all but matchless 
 talents ? " 
 
 Cloud: "Oh, my friend, that is a question 
 deeply fraught with the jDroblematical and mys- 
 terious unknown. If as I will, in the same path- 
 way, amid the same blessed scenes as those indi- 
 cated to you. 
 
 "But I am not as you — innocent, and pure, 
 and true, and good. My one puny hand is reek- 
 ing with crime to stain a thousand hands with 
 indelible infamy. My wretched life — ^little, if any, 
 less hopeless, and almost as utterly a stranger to 
 happiness as yours has been, from the very day 
 upon which I beheld the battle flag of my idola- 
 trously cherished Confederacy struck for the last 
 time : the same trying moment when I 5'ielded 
 up that sword forever, that had flashed so often 
 and so long amid smoke and flame on blood- 
 slippery fields in her vain and fruitless defense — 
 has been, throughout the tediously weary hours 
 of every day of its existence, naught but a mashed 
 lie. And from its enslaving chains I have never, 
 with all my mortal courage, been able to extricate 
 myself, nor to emancipate my shackled nature. 
 
 "Oh, Pleasington! the gi-eatest curse on this 
 sin-polluted earth is moral cowardice, and that 
 has been mine. 
 
 " Before the charged cannon's mouth I could 
 stand and face certain death unmoved, or suffer 
 the anguish of having my body hacked to pieces 
 with sabres, without uttering a groan. 
 
 "Yet I have fled, and still keep flying and 
 seeking to hide away from a mythical shadow, 
 which, if promptly and properly met in the very 
 outset, at the first indication of its approach, 
 could not have been, in the most serious form 
 that it could have possibly assumed, under no 
 circumstances, a matter of greater consequence 
 than that of occupying a vedette's post on but 
 one stormy, wintry night. 
 
 " It has plunged me deeper and deeper still 
 into the mazy labyrinths of perplexing, madden- 
 ing difficulty, until of late I have neither been 
 swayed nor led, but driven, absolutely driven, by 
 the force of concentrated and inexplicable cir- 
 cumstances, directed by some mysterious and 
 supernatural hand. 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 257 
 
 "But here is a letter from an able minister, in 
 answer to one written him from the jail, in which 
 I intimated what I desired to attempt for suffer- 
 ing humanity. Read it aloud, Pleasington, I de- 
 sire to hear it." 
 
 Lawrence: "Poor Cloud! How I pity you! 
 But I will read what the good man has to say. 
 Perchance it may edify and console us in our 
 gloomy captivity." 
 
 Cloud: "But wait a moment, Pleasington. I 
 have a letter here written last Sunday and Sun- 
 day night, in answer to the one you hold now in 
 your hand. It is addressed to the Sabbath- 
 school of that minister's church. 
 
 "I was a member of the Bible-class, and the 
 recitations of the lesson were always so fascina- 
 ting and interesting as to absorb me for one hour 
 into soothing obhviousness of the past, and to 
 wean me from the weary and haunting dream of 
 its ever-crushing bitterness. 
 
 " Oh that I could have thus lived on, or that 
 I could have then expired before the last echoes 
 of the closing line of the parting song died away, 
 and left me relapsing back into the consciousness 
 of the cruel yet merited reality that I was merely 
 merging from the soothing influence of the care- 
 beguihng opiate of a broken spell ! 
 
 " To-morrow this letter will be mailed. I wish 
 you to read it after you hate read the other, as 
 it is a pen picture of what I dream is, should be, 
 and will be true, in a great measure, in the Hves 
 of all men who wander down from the high road 
 of truth and honor into devious and forbidden 
 paths. And it is, moreover, my true self, as 
 nearly as it is consistent with the harmony of 
 things for me to be identified with truth." 
 
 Lawrence: "Oh, my God, Cloud! you have 
 doubtless been in one perpetual earthly hell be- 
 yond the shadow of these dreary walls, no less 
 terrilDle than the one you are now in. But to 
 read the letters. I am nervous with anxiety to 
 devour their contents. 
 
 " ' SUMMERVILLE, S. C, 1880. 
 
 " ' Col. GrARLAND Cloud : 
 
 " '^My Dear Sir : 
 " ' In consequence of my absence from the 
 City by the Sea. your letter of the 1st inst. was 
 not seen by me until several days after its pub- 
 
 lication : hence my delay in replying to it. If 
 you have therefore attributed my silence to any 
 other cause, I beg you no longer to entertain the 
 thought that, under any other circumstances, I 
 would have been so long in giving you the as- 
 surance that I deeply feel for you in the terrible 
 misfortune which has befallen you. 
 
 " 'The first intelhgence that I received of your 
 downfall was a severe shock and sore disappoint- 
 ment to me. It was a thing that I could not 
 under any circumstances have thought it jDOssible 
 for you to do. Imagine, then, how great must 
 have been the shock when I read in the paper 
 that you had fallen a victim to the subtle temp- 
 ter's deceitful allurements and enticements, which 
 set before you in a flattering manner the certain 
 and speedy way of acquiring riches. My mind 
 immediately reverted to that passage of Scripture 
 which says: 'Make not haste to become rich.' 
 And I thought that you had certainly forgotten 
 that 'there is nothing hid which shall not be 
 revealed; for, the eyes of the Lord are in every 
 place, behokUng the good and the evil.' 
 
 "'I am perfectly aware of the fact, however, 
 that there are moments and hours in which the 
 minds of men are ready to seize upon anything 
 which promises a relief to their jjerplexed souls ; 
 and that these times are such as are fraught 
 with the greatest temptations and the strongest 
 enticements to do wrong. These are the great- 
 est burdens of men's souls, and require more 
 than ordinary courage to resist and vanquish. 
 The strongest men often fall victims to these 
 allurements, and sometimes the best men — those 
 who are known and respected for their high 
 Cliristian character — have fallen into the clutches 
 of the deceiver and tempter. Hence I do not 
 think that it is charitable to censure and blame 
 too severely those who in an unguarded moment 
 yield to the dulcet song of the siren and the 
 flattering deceits of the tempter. I give you, there- 
 fore, the assurance that, notwithstanding the 
 greatness of the surprise and the severeness of 
 the disappointment which I felt when I learned 
 of your unfortunate, and, I must say, vain and 
 sinful attempt to deceive and do wrong, I felt 
 no lack of interest in you, no decrease of 
 solicitude for you, and no want of pity for you. 
 
258 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Your case incited witliiii ine mingled feelings 
 or commiseration ffnd compassion. I actually 
 grieved over your downfall, and wished a thou- 
 sand times over that such had not been your case. 
 
 "'Since reading your letter, I think I speak 
 truly when I say to you, that my pity for you has 
 grown stronger and my sorrow has become deeper; 
 for I see, from the view which you have given 
 of the temptations by which you were assailed, 
 how strong and great were the difficulties which 
 you had to encounter. And just here let me 
 thank you for that letter, I am glad that you 
 wrote h ; for it sets before the world the ex- 
 perience of one tried by temptation, and shows 
 how the tempter entices those whom he desires 
 to entrap. I believe that its publication will 
 have a beneficial efi'ect upon the lives of many 
 young men, and that the characters and souls of 
 many who read it will be saved from ignoble 
 deeds and irretrievable disgrace and degradation. 
 
 '" I am not certain but that your misfortune and 
 serious calamity may prove to you a greater 
 blessing than your conduct has proved a loss. 
 God in his providence may have permitted you 
 to become the victim of the tempter in order to 
 make you the instrument of warning and turning 
 others from the ways of evil. I doubt not but 
 that great and important issues hinge upon the 
 temptations to which you yielded. 
 
 " ' The ways of God are mysterious, and He 
 uses various agents to accomplish His purposes; 
 and who knows but what He has permitted your 
 good name to become disreputable among men, 
 and your honorable character to become stained 
 with the pollution of a great crime, in order that 
 you may be a prominently striking object of 
 warning to arrest others now on the same road 
 to ruin, as well as for the especial purpose of 
 bringing you to a sense of your own danger, and 
 of making you a sharer in the blessings of his 
 salvation ? You have not, therefore, such a great 
 loss to deplore, as it may now seem to you that 
 you have, if you should benefitthe human race and 
 gain a title to an inheritance of God's salvation 
 in heaven, which it is not impossible for you to 
 do, though you may consider yourself the great- 
 est of sinners. 
 
 "'Come now, and let us reason together; 
 
 ' though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be 
 white as snow.' I would not then encourage 
 you in the idea which j'ou entertain of your 
 spiritual condition. I do not believe that the 
 offense of which you have been guilty is the 
 greatest iniquity that you could have committed, 
 though it be great enough to cause you disgrace 
 among men, and great enough to damn you to 
 destruction, yet not great enough so that the 
 mercy of God cannot reach it, nor so great 
 that the charity of men cannot condone and 
 palliate it. Others in the world have been guilty 
 of more atrocious crimes and have perpetrated 
 fouler deeds, and yet they found mercy and 
 obtained pardon, and experienced peace. I 
 would, therefore, counsel and encourage you not 
 to give way to despondent or despairing feelings 
 as regards your future destiny. Do thyself, 
 therefore, no harm, but be faithful to yourself ; 
 to the cause of humanity, which you are well 
 cy^ialified and able to render inestimable service 
 in the very way indicated in your letter; and to 
 the cause o'f honor, right and truth, and all will 
 end for the Dest. 
 
 " ' Let me now assure you that you have my 
 sincere sympathy, and that my prayers daily as- 
 cend to God in your behalf. 
 
 " ' Now, a few words in reference to your father's 
 family. It will give me great pleasure when I 
 return to my charge fo do all that I can to con- 
 sole and comfort them. I will also use every 
 effort to prevent them from being made the objects 
 of unjust proscription and persecution. So far as 
 I am able, I will endeavor to extend to them that 
 charity and sympathy which are due them in 
 their distressed and sad circumstances, and to 
 have others do the same. 
 
 " ' I am glad to learn that your term of confine 
 ment is to be comparatively short. It is enough, 
 however, I think, to satisfy the demands of justice. 
 
 " ' Please let me hear from you, if you are able 
 to write, and give me anything you can say that 
 may be used as 'a weapon against that alluring 
 cause that brought you to grief and ruin. 
 
 " 'With many prayers for your welfare and safety, 
 I remain, your true friend and sincere sympathizer, 
 
 " ' W. Henry D , 
 
 " 'Minister Presbyterian Church.' 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDEE A CLOUD. 
 
 251> 
 
 "Ah, Garland, that is one manly and noble 
 Christian letter." 
 
 Cloud : " Yes, sir ; I have taken that letter for 
 my anchor of faith, by which I am resolved to 
 seek to cling ever in all the relations with the 
 affairs of this life that it is possible for me to hold 
 with mankind. 
 
 ''It is this letter that has confirmed me in a 
 fixed and changeless resolution as to my course, 
 in a line of duty while here, that is now perfectly 
 clear to me, but about which I before wavered 
 and hesitated. But that I shall now strive to fol- 
 low, come weal, come woe, in the direction iu 
 which you are pledged to accompany and assist 
 me. For my part of all this, that letter is the 
 strengthening support to a hitherto unsoUd and 
 unsteady foundation. 
 
 " The answer to the other letter, which you are 
 now to read, may have much to do with my plans 
 for the future, be'cause I fancy that it must elicit 
 some good and practical advice worthy to be in- 
 corporated in my general plan — possibly to mod- 
 ify, if not to model, its predominating features. 
 What the nature of that answer will be cannot, 
 as a matter of course, be anticipated by the vague 
 and uncertain deductions of mere conjecture. 
 Assuming that it will be of the most discourag- 
 ing character, or of the most inappropriate forms 
 of precepts, then it would in no wise effect the 
 main bent of my purpose, which has been already 
 rather crudely mapped out, subject to necessary 
 modifications. 
 
 " After you have read my letter, we will then 
 discuss that feature a bit. Please read to me. I 
 want to hear it in another voice than my own, 
 in order that I may the better judge of its merits." 
 
 Lawrence : " I perceive that you are deeply 
 laying the plans for a universal and most glorious 
 campaign. May it be successful. I will now 
 proceed to read your letter. 
 
 " ' Sunday, October, 1880. 
 
 " 'Newnan-street Presbyterian Sabbath-school, 
 City by the Sea. 
 
 " ^Friends of other days.- 
 
 " ' Words have no adequate power to 
 fulfill the mission of conveying to you the thoughts 
 and feelings of my mind and heart : the vivid, 
 
 realistic picture which they would outline and 
 paint, and which I desire to transmit and suspend 
 to your view in a light of transparent brilliancy, 
 and to impress it on the tablets of your mem- 
 ories in glowing and indelible letters. 
 
 " ' As an example to man, it stands out in bold, 
 distorted, hideous reUef, heralding in every tint 
 and shade of its grim, ghastly, glaring, fiendish 
 visage, the shrill, discordant, piercing notes of warn- 
 ing — which would to God they could resound 
 from every house-top, from evety hill, and in every 
 valley throughout this vast and mighty land i 
 
 " ' To you, good people, they would be only idle, 
 meaningless sounds. Good to-day, and you think 
 that you are forever safe. Alas, that forever ! 
 
 " ' Be not over self-confident. Experience forces 
 the conviction that the men are few who, under 
 some extraordinary force of circumstance and 
 peculiar temptation, goaded to madness either 
 by distress, by pride, or by ambition, might not 
 be influenced to take some rash step that would 
 cause the vibrations of the heart ever after to thrill 
 and tremble with regret, and burning shame to 
 Wight life's fondest hopes and embitter its every 
 joy, demanding the pathetic exclamation of old 
 mother Eve : ' Oh, unexpected stroke, worse than 
 of death ! ' Creating a pang of deeper sorrow than 
 the wail above the dead ! Hopelessly wrecking 
 life on the dreary stream of Time. 
 
 " ' What lesson is so unerring as that of expe- 
 rience ? Of what other benefit to mankind can I 
 now ever be, but to give them mine ? What other 
 duty remains for me to perform in this world? 
 What else to live for, so much as a day ? 
 
 " ' This duty to my race performed, then the dark 
 and lonely grave, where alone there can be found 
 blissful quietude and endless repose. 
 
 " ' All this alone is of no consequence to the so- 
 cial world ; but the lessons which my dark chap- 
 ters teach are full of grave import. They teach 
 that man is ever in danger of faUing, and the in- 
 estimable cost of such a fall. 
 
 " ' Furthermore, they contain a theme fraught 
 with the deepest interest to society : the momen- 
 tous problem of the after lives of the fallen. 
 Whether there exists a possibility for their refor- 
 mation and redemption ; whether they will be 
 permitted to return to lives of usefulness and honor; 
 
260 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 what will be the path of duty society will expect 
 them to follow ? or whether they may not be re- 
 garded as dangerous outlaws, and thus be driven 
 to become confirmed enemies of society, contami- 
 nating others, increasing the records of crime, 
 undermining the safety and peace of society, so 
 that it must ever rest on the brittle, treacherous 
 crust of a smoldering volcano ? 
 
 " ' This is a subject which I have resolved to in- 
 vestigate with a tireless zeal and an impartial, 
 unselfish philosophy, and to bestow upon man- 
 kind, in some shape or other, all the benefit that 
 is contained in the sad lessons which this pain- 
 ful subject teaches, whose lightest burden to me 
 « the doleful echo of that terrible word, Kuin ! 
 
 " 'Again and again I take a calm, retrospective 
 review of the past, and seek to find in all the 
 course of my tempest-tossed life a true solution 
 of the cause or causes that led me on and down 
 to a fate like this. It must have been self-confi- 
 dent, self-willed ambition; and, perhaps added 
 to this was the blunting of the finer sensibilities 
 of nature by long-continued and unparalleled 
 misfortunes. Ambition in war induced reckless 
 exposure to secure promotion. In business, it 
 enslaved me. 
 
 " ' For fifteen years I was a stranger to recrea- 
 tion, pleasure, social intercourse, and influence; 
 caring far less for gain than for rank and position 
 acquired from the fame of my transactions; and 
 from the renown of the extraordinaiy capacity 
 required to handle them. I was in no way in- 
 temperate ; and I was unknown in the haunts of 
 vice, mostly from disinclination, and partly be- 
 cause both were fatal to my ambitious schemes. 
 
 " 'An early social disappointment refused to be 
 healed by distance and time. 
 
 " ' I sought the unfriendly shores of a foreign 
 land, and there eagerly plunged into the madden- 
 ing crowd, without finding a soothing balm. 
 
 " ' After many years of toil from dawn until 
 midnight, I acquired hoards of gold ; but a sudden 
 revolutionary crisis swept it away, almost in a 
 day. 
 
 " ' Then, a broken, hopeless man, I sought an 
 asylum on your genial and friendly shores. 
 
 " ' The first year was an unbroken chapter of 
 sore trials and losses. 
 
 " 'After tliis period, so bitterly painful, had 
 passed away, I found an opening for a road to 
 Avealth and influence, but distant a few years. 
 
 " ' Then came the temptation promising this 
 brilliant success, with the stroke of a single sea- 
 son's business, that hurled me down the yawning 
 abyss into a gulf of cruel and unmitigated despair. 
 
 " ' For the past and the present, I neither de- 
 serve nor do I desire pity. 
 
 " ' I am not an ignorant, inexperienced man. 
 The experience of an average Ufe-time has been 
 crowded into the space of twenty years. My 
 commercial education is consummate, and fixes 
 upon me the grave responsibihty of having capa- 
 city to be among the representative men in any 
 sphere of business. My talents, which even when 
 'unmerciful disaster followed fast, and followed 
 faster ' with crushing blows, should have been only 
 a shinmg light to guide the inexperienced, have 
 stooped to the basest infamy. Had success crowned 
 the hapless eflfbrt, it would not, with all its motives 
 of purity, have been fairly acquired. Under or- 
 dinary circumstances, and a natural state of mind, 
 this would have been clear ; but Ambition drew 
 her veil over my eyes ; the dulcet notes of the 
 siren luUed my doubts and scruples to slumber. 
 I have my reward; and I acquiesce in aU its 
 hardships uncomplainingly. I alone am to blame. 
 
 " ' This untold misery is not bodily suffering, nor 
 is it physical pain. The present is nothing, noth- 
 ing, nothing, only in the relation that it bears to 
 the past and the future. The future contains 
 everything : the daily torture of meeting, m the 
 broad sunlight of liberty, the life-long scorn and 
 the endless contempt of mankind — and no strug- 
 gle can ever redeem me from the crushing odium 
 of its impending thraldom ; for 
 
 • There Is a secret pronenesa In man that no charm can 
 tame, 
 0£ loudly proclaiming his neighbor's shame.' 
 
 " 'As to social restitution, I know that between 
 me and it there rolls a fathomless and an impas- 
 sable gulf. I think of it only as a fated impossi- 
 bility. No charity, no forbearance that may exist 
 for me, can ever remove from my life its cup of 
 unmeasured bitterness. 
 
 " ' My repentance has not been fierce and de- 
 monstrative. Dry sorrow steadily drinks the 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GEET UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 261 
 
 blood. The wells of the heart are empty and 
 closed ; each shadowy picture of the dim future 
 pierces deeper the incisions of its cureless wounds 
 — a bane for which there is no antidote. 
 
 " ' I have been where the fiercest raging billows 
 that ever heaved the bosom of a storm-rid ocean 
 were sweeping the helpless, unmanned ship like 
 a shrouded ghost through the dark and dreary 
 midnight. I have been in a plague-stricken city, 
 where the epidemic raged like a merciless demon, 
 and the King of Terrors appeared to reign su- 
 preme — yes, and I have been again and again 
 in the leaden tempest of battle, where thousands 
 were dying around me. Gladly, without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation, would I brave all these dangers 
 over anew rather than bide this indelible stain, 
 this eternal disgrace — my inseparable heritage; 
 a thraldom from Avhich nothing but death can 
 bring relief. 
 
 " ' I know that it is base ingratitude and gross 
 impiety ; yet from the depths of my soul do I 
 wish that the ball that carried away my arm had 
 shattered my body, and stilled my proud heart in 
 death while it yet beat buoyant with youth and 
 hope, leaving with the numberless dead a spotless 
 name; but I am 'nameless now forevermore.' 
 
 " ' The days of the week fly with wondrous 
 rapidity, amid the thundering hum of factory 
 machinery ; the broad river and the surrounding 
 country plainly visible ; forfeited liberty so near. 
 At night, weary nature forces grateful repose. 
 
 " ' Even this light shade of the picture should 
 startle any one, and deter him from taking the 
 dangerous, fatal road leading to ruin. 
 
 " ' This, coming now whence it comes, may pro- 
 voke smiles of contempt. Pray do not despise it, 
 but guard well your careers ; for who can pene- 
 trate that obscure veil, and glance but for a mo- 
 ment at Futurity's picture — so varied, yet oh, 
 how true ? 
 
 " * Every human being is in this drama of life : 
 his stage the world. Quickly shifting and widely 
 varying are the scenes. It is but a step from the 
 sweetest bUss to the bitterest woe. Often a faint 
 voice of the slightest warning would stay the 
 horrible transition from Avhich there is no re- 
 demption, and for which no repentance can ever 
 atone. 
 
 " ' Danger may be far away in the dim vista of 
 coming years, or it nuiy be nightly crouching on 
 the pillow where the weary head slumbers in 
 innocent repose, whispering into the ear words 
 of infection. Should tangible danger never come, 
 the watchful vigils i:)rovoked by its anticipated 
 approach will neither mar nor blight the beauties 
 and the joj'-s of life. 
 
 '"I recount to you in this semblance of warn- 
 ing, dangers and disasters real.as life, true as the 
 purest gospel. How eagerly would you pause 
 with bated breath, to catch the faintest eclio of 
 a voice from the grave! This voice which I 
 waft to you from beyond the confines of the 
 dreary, dismal shadow of prison walls, is from the 
 dread allegory of the real grave, where living 
 death is no vague and fancy dream, but an untold 
 reality. 
 
 •' 'Now we come to the long and lonely Sab- 
 bath, filled with memories and associations of 
 yore. 
 
 " ' During its early hours, from this uninviting 
 seclusion my thoughts travel back over the vicis- 
 situdes of by-gone times — twenty years now 
 buried with the dead ages of the past. The war 
 cloud looming up in the northern sky ; the shouts 
 and tumult of embattled hosts on blood-crimsoned 
 fields; the death and the grave of the Lost Cause; 
 the after years of a wanderer on the devious, 
 cheerless road, and in the unequal struggle in the 
 battle of life — ultimate victory at length crown- 
 ing years of toil ; then swift disaster, beneath the 
 tropical sun and dream-land skies of a foreign 
 land; then the precipitate velocity down the 
 slippery steep, terminating here. Reflections that 
 conjure up scenes of inexpressible sadness, more 
 bitter than sweet ; mementoes of the past; un- 
 gainly visitors mocking my misery, crowd them- 
 selves with me every Sabbath day into the deep 
 recess, narrow confines, and dark, sombre gloom 
 of this cheerless, solitary cell, whither the rays 
 of the sun never penetrate, and where, literally, 
 comfort and hope never enter. 
 
 ' 'As the day advances, and the shadows ci 
 evening begin to fall, visions of your school and 
 the Bible-class appear pamfully impressive to the 
 imagination at the hour you meet. The pleag,- 
 ing, joyous faces; the harmonious notes of the 
 
262 
 
 IMTSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GRET. 
 
 music; the very words of the songs you used to 
 sing; the venerated teacher propounding ques- 
 tions; answers taking their round; the • tiny 
 envelope ghding from hand to hand — I hear and 
 see, or seem to see and hear, as clearly, as dis- 
 tinctl}^, as when they were no illusion. But when 
 the spell is broken, it is a crushing delusion. 
 
 " ' Yet still disdaining restraint, the spirit — the 
 better, the purer, the nobler impulses of life — will 
 ever continue to soar away on the pinions of 
 fancy, swift as thought, each Sabbath eve to take 
 its wonted part in your angelic devotions; leaving 
 its polluted tenement of clay to the fires of pur- 
 gation, whither its soul-grieving degradation 
 caused its consignment. 
 
 " ' The hours spent with you were among the 
 few truly happy ones that I have known in 
 twenty years ; yet there are none that I now so 
 deeply regret having enjoyed. 
 
 " ' What changes may be wrought by the relent- 
 less hand of Time ere my unworthy form darkens 
 the door of your sanctuary. 
 
 'Some in the old cburch-yard will be laid, 
 
 Others may sleep beneath the sea ; 
 
 And few may be left, of your good class, 
 
 Who once knew and respected me.' 
 
 " ' The mental misery, anguish and torture of 
 the present, no tongue, no pen, no words can 
 unfold. Add to this, mere forfeiture of simple 
 physical liberty, the appalling disasters it entails ; 
 the utter annihilation of all the tender and en- 
 dearing ties of nature, present and prospective ; 
 the blighting, withering curse to the future, in- 
 evitably following, ever haunting, shadowing and 
 darkening like a spectral ghost the pathway of 
 hfe down to the grave. Then come with me 
 just a little while, in the hushed, dreary, dark- 
 some, awful silence of the Sabbath-midnight 
 hour, when nature is not weary; when balmy 
 slumbers and delightful dreams do not come into 
 the little, lonely cell ; when the elements with- 
 out are raging ; when the wild wind wails and 
 moans as if chanting a requiem for the lost; 
 Avhen the memories of the past, the companions 
 of the day, are gone, and other companions, more 
 terrible and merciless, have taken their place. 
 Vision of going from here down to darkness and 
 death, alone and friendless, in the last sad and 
 
 trying hour; with no pitying eye to watch over 
 the lowly cot; no gentle hand to smooth the 
 rude pillow, and soothe the aching, feverish brow ; 
 no sympathetic, tender voice to whisper loving 
 words of comfort to cheer the departing spirit 
 on its dread journey to the unknown world, and 
 you will have a picture but faintly outlining the 
 reality, before which you can but stand aghast. 
 Contemplate it; pause and consider it; look upon 
 it as you will, and it reflects, in some uncertain, 
 figurative similitude, the suffering of the lost soul, 
 doomed without hope to the realms of eternal 
 darkness. 
 
 " ' Yet a feAv fleeting months and the supreme 
 moment of my nameless woe will come, when I 
 will be set adrift on life's tempestuous sea in the 
 frailest craft ever launched on unfriendly waves, 
 with no rudder to steer me ; no breeze to speed 
 me onward; nothing to buoy me up; nowhere 
 to go ; no resting place ; no home in all the wide 
 world — a lone, friendless, blighted man. My en- 
 feebled frame maimed and covered with the 
 scars of battle ; my heart mangled by the shafts 
 of dire misfortune ; my brow decked with burn- 
 ing shame, not unlike the mark of Cain — for I 
 have murdered hojje. The avenues of life for gain- 
 ing daily bread closed against me, I drift with the 
 tide until a sandy beach rises out of the waves ; I 
 am gazing on your fair Southland's genial shores. 
 
 "'As I approach, the sweet native flowers 
 blushingly turn their pretty httle faces away; 
 and the birds cease to chant their sweet refrain. 
 
 " ' This is enough; I drift back with the tide, 
 and the echoes of the surf on the beach, gradualh' 
 receding in the distance, seem to reverberate the 
 dirge of 'never more, never more,' and no other 
 shore has a charm for me. 
 
 " 'ISTow, good people, in the consecrated name 
 of your true Christian charity — in the name of 
 that Heaven we all adore — if there exists a de- 
 finable duty for iiie in this life, if there be a 
 pathway of duty open to me, let me conjure you 
 in some way to indicate where it may be found 
 and how I may know it, so my willing footsteps 
 may seek it, and that I may begin to educate 
 myself to be prepared to pursue it faithfully. 
 
 '"I am, if sinful, still a fellow being. The purest 
 Anglo-saxon blood courses in my veins; my 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 263 
 
 heart is not hopelessly dead and utterly insensi- 
 ble to every pure and noble impulse. I cannot 
 be worse than he whom Christ blessed on the 
 cross. If Christ would do this at the last mo- 
 ment, surely you can condescend to vouclisafe 
 mo a little advice — whether there be balm in 
 G-ilead tor me. I crave no sympathy, no blessing 
 other than that asked above. 
 
 " ' I have no prospects of finding an early grave, 
 and I will in no way hasten it, unless the mere 
 pressure of mental distress causes vitahty to ebb 
 out. And never again will I, under any state of 
 circumstances, swerve from the path of rectitude 
 and duty, should I ever find it more. 
 
 '"A little reflection, a mere passing thought, 
 suffices to satisfy the most sensitive, however 
 reluctantly the truth is admitted, that we are 
 all tending toward, and that, ere many years more 
 have been marked by the dial of Time, we will 
 have passed to one common level — the grave; 
 where weal and woe, pleasure and pain, joy and 
 sorrow, will blend in silent harmony, undisturbed 
 by disdainful smiles. 
 
 " ' I have recalled in vain all I ever heard or 
 read on this subject, to find something more truly 
 appropriate than the lings : 
 
 ' Can storied urn or animated bust. 
 
 Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath? 
 Can Honor's voice provoke the silent dust. 
 
 Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death? 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power. 
 All that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 
 
 Await alike the inevitable hour — 
 The paths of glory lead but to the grave.' 
 
 "'In bidding you a long and, to me, painful 
 farewell, I know nothing that is more consonant 
 with the anguish of the cureless wounds in my 
 wretched heart than that which flowed from 
 the agonized soul of the primitive red man, long, 
 ago, when he exclaimed : 
 
 ' Oft shall glowing hope expire. 
 Oft shall wearied love retire. 
 Oft shall death and sorrow reign. 
 Ere we all shall meet again. 
 When the dreams of life are fled, 
 When its wasted lamps are dead. 
 When In cold oblivion's shade. 
 Beauty, fame, and wealth are laid, 
 Where immortal spirits reign, 
 There may we all meet again.' 
 
 " ' May your good guardian angels ever direct 
 
 your steps throughout hfe's treacherous journey, 
 and shield you from the many dangers lurking 
 beside it, and from all harm. 
 
 ' Adieu ! Once again, farewell! 
 
 " ' Your wretched example, 
 
 " ' Garland Cloud.' 
 
 " Ah, G-arland, this is truly the outpourings of 
 a heart full of wretchedness. What a sad re- 
 flection on human nature and its proneness to 
 depravity, that men capable of cherishing such 
 fine sentiments as are embodied in this letter, 
 will take chances that will render them liable to 
 become subject to such disastrous and ruinous 
 consequences as have overtaken and crushed 
 you." 
 
 Cloud : " Of all that is incomprehensible in this 
 world, that is the most puzzling to explain or 
 understand. In my own case, I cannot try to 
 define why it was thus with me ; yet mysterious 
 as it is to myself, still it is none the less sadly 
 true." 
 
 Lawrence : " Now, G-arland, my time with 
 you is rapidly drawing to a close. Let us talk 
 over the other features of your personal plans, as 
 you intimated having them outlined, in order 
 that I may see how far they may be applied to 
 my own case." 
 
 Cloud: " Well, Lawrence, partly they will ap- 
 ply to your case, but largely they cannot, owing 
 to the wide difference that must obtain between 
 the condition in our after situations and relations 
 in life — assuming that you will be under the pro- 
 tecting influence of powerful frjends. 
 
 " The first step, the base of the foundation of 
 all my future plans, no matter how much their 
 general features of construction ma;y be effected 
 by the influence of any outside order of circum- 
 stances that transpire, is to complete the mastery 
 of the French, the German, the Spanish, and the 
 Itahan languages while here, under a thoroughly 
 theoretical and practical system, some of which 
 I am already well advanced in, as to' the primary 
 principles of their radical construction. This 
 quahfication, added to my commercial experience 
 and most consummate knowledge of human 
 nature, will guarantee me employment as a com- 
 mission salesman, to travel in the interest of the 
 
264 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 first houses of the land, on the express condition 
 of ' i\"o results, no 'pay,' and of States desirous of 
 obtaining emigration in and fr,om those islands, 
 provinces and countries where these tongues are 
 spoken. 
 
 " Thus I expect to earn money to pay any just 
 commercial claims against me, and to reinstate 
 myself in whatever sphere from which there is 
 a feasible prospect of my being able the most 
 advantageously to benefit the human race. Thus 
 I hope to atone, against the reserved wrath of 
 the hereafter, for the transgressions of my 
 erratic life — the only evidence of reformation, 
 the only voucher for repentance, the only offer- 
 ing for atonement, in which I have one particle 
 of faith. Being sorry for the past, merely in 
 consequence of the penalties it entails, without 
 a thorough revolution in the natural bent of 
 the inclinations, and the established current 
 of the lives of men Avho have gone astray, 
 the deep and solid foundations of which changes 
 must be firmly laid while they are writh- 
 ing under the scourging lash of their stern 
 and unpitying Retribution, upon Avhich the 
 structure of their after lives must be erected 
 with undeviating correctness and precise accu- 
 racy, is of no more value, socially or morally, 
 than the cries of a miserable hound from the 
 blows received for trespassing on the culinary 
 premises of his master, which he will repeat 
 again the first opportunity. 
 
 " While I am engaged in the occupations of 
 my after life, I am resolved to write some lines 
 for the press, to say a word in private, and to 
 deliver a free public lecture as often as it is 
 practicable and consistent with the nature of the 
 circumstances under which I may be placed with 
 reference to my travels and labors, for the ex- 
 press purpose of turning men from paths that 
 lead to this or a similar hell on earth. 
 
 " And in addition to this, I am fully deter- 
 mined, after harvest and crop laying-by time of 
 each year, to devote two months of my lonely 
 life in the rural districts of some section of coun- 
 try to teaching ten-day free schools, in order 
 there, in each community, to lay the foundation 
 of a simple system of self-education, such as I 
 have learned in the hard school of experience is 
 
 both efficacious and practical, and which will en- 
 able any clod-hopper, at a cost of two dollars and 
 without the loss of a single hour from his labor, 
 to acquire a fair average business education. 
 The two dollars will supply the books that are 
 absolutely indispensable. 
 
 " Should I be able to accomplish these things, 
 I am persuaded that the inexorable voice of stern 
 duty could demand no more of me in this dreary 
 life. All the latter part you can easily reduce to 
 practice." 
 
 Lawrence : " Yes, I can, and I will, to the ex- 
 tent of m.y ability." 
 
 " Now, Garland, my time with you is up. God 
 knows whether we shall be able to speak to each 
 other again or not before my term expires, per- 
 haps never, 
 
 "Let us, therefore, as a parting salutation, here 
 amid the thickening gloom of this dreary cell, 
 solemnly vow, and call upon these grim and som- 
 bre walls to witness, that to the ends of our lives 
 we will be true and faithful to our mutual pledges 
 made to-day. Give me your hand." 
 
 Cloud: " With all my heart. May health and 
 peace be yours." 
 
 Lawrence : " God bless you. Garland, and de- 
 liver you from the spectral shadow that haunts 
 your life." 
 
 Thus met and parted these two strangely-fated 
 characters, as widely different from each other as 
 the icy pole is separated from the torrid clime. 
 Innocent Pleasington is, however, a tliinker much 
 of the same order as sinful Cloud, whose logical 
 theories have always been philosophicall}^ sound; 
 while the current of his practice has been per- 
 petually muddy with error and crime. 
 
 To Garland Cloud and Lawrence Pleasington 
 are we indebted for the ground-work of most of 
 the chapters in this volume — and especially to 
 the interview which we have just recorded — 
 because without concert of action on their part, 
 it would have been a moral impossibility to get 
 at the essential facts absolutely indispensable to 
 our purpose — facts which one of them alone never 
 could have supplied. But one was always able 
 to furnish the connecting links Avhich were want- 
 ing on the part of the other. 
 
 This interview occurred sufficiently long ago to 
 
MEETING OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY UNDER A CLOUD. 
 
 265 
 
 have been placed as the introductory chapter; 
 but we preferred to keep it in the back-ground, to 
 take its place in the regular order of events, just 
 as they transpired, believing that it was a matter 
 of little or no consequence Avhen we explained 
 exactly how we came in possession of the infor- 
 mation thus acquired. 
 
 As to the copies of letters introduced, they are 
 as authentically genuine as the same number of 
 words copied from the pages of the Bible would 
 be, even to the name of the minister and the 
 Sabbath-school. The letter written by Cloud from 
 the county prison would have appeared, but we 
 failed to procure a copy of it. 
 
 The letter to the Sabbath-school was shoM^n 
 by the chaplain, as it was going through his de- 
 partment's routine for the mail, to a prominent 
 gentleman, as a marvel of a pen-picture of a prison 
 life to a sensitively intelligent mind. This gentle- 
 man had a copy made of the letter. Months after 
 he informed Cloud that he had this copy, which 
 he had read again and again to crowcTs of peo- 
 ple, upon whose minds it had produced a grave 
 impression. He requested Cloud to take the let- 
 ter and see whether or not the copy was correct. 
 It was in this way that we obtained our copy ; 
 Cloud had not" retained a copy of a single sentence 
 of the original. Since that time, those of his let- 
 ters that appear were copied for us from the 
 originals before they were sent to the chaplain to 
 mail. All letters from outside parties have been, 
 and will be, copied from the originals directly into 
 our pages. 
 
 We produce the letters because they reflect in 
 as clear and forcible a light the features of our 
 purpose to which they refer, as anything that we 
 could possibly write might approximately attain 
 the same result ; and because we are not so ego- 
 tistical as to flatter ourselves that we could so 
 touchingly appeal to the hearts of mankind, while 
 addressing all men of intelligence, as those writ- 
 ers have appealed when pouring out their sad 
 hearts' keenly felt emotion to their personal 
 friends — or to those whom they dreamed were 
 friends. 
 
 CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 UNMASKED AND STANDING IN NUDE DEFORMITY. 
 
 " What stings 
 Are theirs I One breast laid cpeu was a school 
 Which would un teach mankind the lust to shine or 
 rule." — Bykon. 
 
 About two weeks after the interview between 
 Cloud and Pleasington, the former enters his cell 
 at night, weary from standing all day in the shop, 
 and feeling unusually depressed and despondent. 
 For a week past his dreams have been torturingly 
 unpleasant, causing sleep to be a horrible night- 
 mare, from which he often has awoke with beaded 
 drops of cold perspiration standing upon his brow. 
 Throughout the day his mind has darkly brooded 
 over these dreary visions, and lapsed into gloomy 
 foreboding? that they were premonitory omens 
 of some great and impending calamity about to 
 be visited upon his father's innocent family as a 
 direct result of his own misdeeds and crimes. Ah, 
 but how little he dreamed of its true nature ! 
 
 On this particular evening, immediately after 
 his lamp is lighted — the next thing in order after 
 closing the iron door— a letter is passed in to him 
 through the grating. It is in the well-kpown 
 •characters of his brother, a fair and promising 
 young man, whose life is now marred and his 
 prospects blighted by the wreck and- ruin caused 
 by the catastrophe which terminated the erring 
 brother's career and consigned him to his present 
 doom. Some ten days previously he had received 
 a letter from this same brother that reproached 
 him bitterly ; and he involuntarily shudders as Jie 
 draws this latter letter from its covering prepara- 
 tory to reading it. A death-warrant would be 
 preferable. It runs : 
 
 "City by the Sea, October, 1880. 
 " My Lost Brother : 
 
 "It becomes my painful duty to inform you 
 that some startling developments, referring to 
 yourself, have been published here this morning, 
 that rendered me speechless with amazement, and 
 stupefied me with shocking horror. They brand 
 the vague intimations which you have made as to 
 the past seven of your ten years of mysterious 
 
266 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 and silent wanderings — silent, at least, to us — as 
 miserable fabrications. More than this, they 
 locate you definitely and unquestionably for every 
 day of that period in Louisiana and the ' Future 
 City,' where you were known as Nube Garland, 
 and lived a married life with a most estimable 
 lady, tlie daughter of a cotton planter, Eldred 
 Donne. Furthermore, they demon.strate that the 
 magnitude of your transactions had startled tlie 
 commercial community, and that the unscrupulous 
 audacity of your financiering had made the bank- 
 ing interest tremble to its foundation with alarm 
 in the ' Future City.' 
 
 " Ahl my wayward brother, the deep mystery 
 of your disconsolate and miserable life is now un- 
 folded. I can now understand why it was not 
 possible for you ever to be happy or cheerful ; 
 and why that fife had no charms for you. 
 
 "Is it possible that you again attempted to 
 commit suicide at the 'Future Citj',' and fled be- 
 cause you failed ? It must be true. This accounts 
 for the pitiable phght you were in wlien you 
 reached home. 
 
 " In your first flight you had no cause to change 
 your name ; a name of which you are the first one 
 ever to be ashamed, and a name tliat you are the 
 first* one to dishonor. Why merely transpose 
 your name by placing your true Christian as your 
 surname, and using a word in a strange language, 
 of the same meaning as your true surname, for 
 your Christian name ? Why not call yourself Gar- 
 land Cloud, just as well as Cloud Garland ? Of all 
 the strange people in this world you are one of 
 the strangest! 
 
 ''That you would change your name and con- 
 tinue to do business with the same cities, and the 
 same houses even, and to visit those cities where 
 you were known by hundreds of people under 
 your true name; that you would "locate in the 
 'Future City,' where there lived those who knew 
 you well; and that you should establish your- 
 self here and open up direct relations with houses 
 in that city with which you had transactions 
 under yo'ur assumed name, appears too incredible 
 to believe. Yet, as I understand it, such are the facts. 
 
 " You know what you have done. I do not 
 know all — and regret that I have life in me now 
 and know so much. 
 
 "As I understand it, a merchant of the ' Future 
 City,' who had been a warm friend to, and taken 
 a deep interest in you, read* an account of your 
 shame in a paper where your trouble occurred, 
 and liis attention was attracted by the fact that 
 your Christian name was the same as the sur- 
 name of the party whom he at once made up his 
 mind that you must be ; and he wrote to Louisiana 
 for the photograph of that man to be sent to the 
 chief of police of this city. 
 
 "Accordingly, Mrs. Manonia Garland sent the 
 
 photograph. Capt. C showed it to me and 
 
 asked me if I was able to place it. It did not 
 look like you did since I can remember you; 
 but it was the same as one you gave sissie, and 
 by the same artist in New Orleans ; so I at once 
 told him it was my brother. The captain did 
 not intimate the truth to me then. 
 
 "The publication was a letter from the 'Fu- 
 ture City' merchant, and another from Eldred 
 Donne, both addressed to the mayor of this city, 
 and evidently not intended for the Press; yet 
 the mayor gave them to the papers. 
 
 "This completes my commercial damnation. 
 Henceforth I shall devote my life to the profes- 
 sion of civil engineering, in building railroads 
 in miasmatic swamps where life is short. But 
 for the home folks, who ra-e iio^\- almost delirious 
 with trouble, I would not live until morning. 
 
 "Your letter, covering a note to Rev. W. H. 
 D , and a lengthy address to the Sabbath- 
 school, has been received. Your request to 
 deliver the same will not be complied with. Thej' 
 will never be delivered. 
 
 "I am writing this letter down tOAvn without 
 the knowledge and contrary to the wish of the 
 family. 
 
 "Your unhapp}^ brother, 
 
 "J .'• 
 
 The letter drops from Cloud's hand ; and he 
 stands as if transfixed to the spot — an image as 
 grim and motionless as the encircling walls of 
 granite that environ him so closely. There is 
 no perspiration standing on the swarthy fore- 
 head; no labored breathing; no change in the 
 pale and haggard features which naturally are 
 ghastly as a spectre, in the ghostly glimmer of 
 the flickering lamplight. What is the matter? 
 
UNMASKED AND STANDING IN NUDE DEFORMITY. 
 
 267 
 
 Is ho paralyzed with terror and dumb with 
 amazement? Ah, no! This is foreign to that 
 ■ neutrahty of nature that could rally such forces 
 of self-control, and command such masterful and 
 seemingly indifferent composure in the supreme 
 moment of a great crisis. 
 
 He had arrived at that point on the stage of 
 his checkered career where no wonder aAvaited 
 him, and where, for himself alone, he recked 
 not what might befall him. 
 
 He is absorbed in rapidly active thought. In 
 a moment he slowly raises his bowed head, and 
 pre:;sing his hand on his forehead, soliloquizes : 
 
 "Garland Cloud — Nube Garland — hunted 
 down, amalgamated, re-united! Falsehood and 
 truth — Oh Truth, thy victorious sceptre prevails 
 at last; may it forever reign ! Blessed Truth, 
 thou has rent in twain and torn in tattered 
 shreds from my life its ingloriously ignominious 
 and damnably enslaving mask ! Unmasked ! 
 Unmasked ! Unmasked ! 
 
 " Free once more from the thraldom of the 
 demon's curse. — But before the world I stand in 
 the nude deformity of my horrible infamy and 
 unutterable shame. 
 
 " What of it ? Where stood I before ? Avaunt ! 
 execrable fiend! 1 will no more with thy hell- 
 ish sway. Speak 'not, whisper not, approach 
 not my grated door ! Away with thy damnable 
 hope-crushing, life-bhghting mask ! I have 
 worn it long, but with rebellious reluctance 
 that has taxed thy wily craftiness to its ut- 
 most cunning to retain it upon me. One 
 stroke of moral courage, to assist me at any 
 moment and in open defiance, I was free- 
 Truth has kindly shattered thy fetters and 
 broken thy spell. I am thy slave no more. On 
 the swift wings of freedom's wind my song of 
 liberty shall go. And my curse be upon thy 
 curse. In the name of truth, the odious loath- 
 someness of thy cruel service, and the shocking 
 story of its bitter penalties will I proclaim. In 
 thine own sub-realm, one victim thou hast lost. 
 From thine own relay-house thy late but now 
 emancipated slave will wage war — uncompromis- 
 ing, relentless war — upon thee and thy detestable 
 cause ; fearlessly hurling defiance in thy teeth 
 and those of thy surrounding minions. I know 
 
 thee and thine from the reality of terrible ex- 
 l)erience. I am one of them no more. 
 
 "Oh ye dehvering powers of truth, defend 
 me! Keep me free and far from the mask and 
 the terrors of a masked life! Eather give me 
 forever the dismal horrors of a dungeon's gloom, 
 free from those haunting spectres that are -ever 
 hovering around the mask. Let me now remain 
 as I am known : my veritable self, with aU my 
 shame and degradation proclaimed to the world. 
 Anything, everything, but the mask again that 
 will transform a palace into an unmitigated hell. 
 And oh! what then can I call it — what name 
 must it merit, in a lone dungeon's life ? Words 
 fail, language recoils from the task. 
 
 "Alasfor those hearts that have bled and those 
 lives that are blighted from the contagious 
 destruction wrongly alone by my false life ! But 
 the evil has been done — past cure, past redemp- 
 tion. Eegrets are unavailing ; and brooding over 
 what might have been can afford me no rehef. 
 So let me turn my thoughts to, and train my 
 mind for, works of usefulness." 
 
 For many days after this experience. Garland 
 Cloud is notably a changed man. He apjjears 
 exhausted, as a traveler after a long and toil- 
 some journey under a heavy burden; but, hke 
 this man, after he has arrived at his destination, 
 laid aside his burden, he rests calmly, with a 
 quiet and placid mind. Cloud seems to be easier, 
 reposing visibly conscious that he is greatly re- 
 lieved, and feeling, no doubt, that a second great 
 crisis in his life has arrived and is pa.ssed. 
 
 In this relation, in a point of mortal vicAv per- 
 taining to this life only, as compared with the 
 immortal vision of spiritual existence, we can but 
 think of Bunyan's Christian, as we contemplate 
 him and his condition after the burden has been 
 severed and rolled from his shoulders, while we 
 are considering Cloud in his emancipated state. 
 Not going beyond this hfe, leaving the spiritual 
 consequences entirely out of the question, and the 
 l:)urden of this man's curse was as grievous and 
 terrilile as that of Bunyan's character, and the 
 import of his delivery from its thraldom of 
 slavery no less a lesson of grave value to man- 
 kind. 
 
 Of all things in this world, from the secret 
 
268 
 
 3IYSTIG ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 longings of his heart, there is no douljt but Cloud 
 most desired to be free from the dark terrors of 
 his masked hfe, which he had long recognized as 
 a pursuing curse that blighted all that he at- 
 tempted, and from "which he could neither escape 
 nor hide awaj^; and that with the influence of 
 its power, he was unable to cope. Yet he lacked 
 the moral courage to tear the mask away with 
 his own hand and say to the world, ^^ There is 
 what I have seemed to be; here is what I have 
 been and what I now am." This courage he 
 never could have found, but would have con- 
 tinued drifting on from bad to Avorse until he 
 drifted into the grave. 
 
 Tearing away the mask from the lives of men is 
 as essentially necessary for their peace of mind in 
 this world, and their deliverance from a haunting 
 terror that is truly maddening — as important to 
 an earthly existence that is nSi almost utterly in- 
 tolerable, as the confessional, repentance and the 
 cross are the only means by which a sinner may 
 attain theological salvation. For all these reasons, 
 then. Cloud received the greatest earthly blessing 
 that could possibly have been bestowed upon 
 him, and the only one that he had received for 
 more than twenty years. 
 
 Now he may be true. What he undertakes, 
 henceforth, provided he thus wills it, can be true, 
 and real, and good ; while, before the mask was 
 torn from him and his true character revealed to 
 the world, it was morally impossible for any per- 
 manent good to be associated with his life, which 
 was but an unmitigated lie. 
 
 When he returned to his true name, his kin- 
 dred and his native land, it was with a deeply- 
 fixed determination to live true and good. So 
 far as all the days of his past life, passed under 
 his true name, were concerned, this might then 
 have been possible, as the cause which first in- 
 duced him to assuma the mask was known. 
 
 Ah ! but there was the mysterious, missing link 
 of the unexplained and untold years of the mad 
 and fierce career of Nube Garland still to pursue 
 him with the pangs of undying remorse. The 
 Avenger, scourge of retribution in hand, yet held 
 this meed of penalty in reserve for infliction, 
 from which, for Garhmd Cloud, there was no 
 escape. 
 
 For nearly three years his life, as to anything 
 oven bordering on crime, was correct; and he 
 struggled as man rarely ever struggles, but in 
 A aiu. Destiny had prepared a doom and led him 
 vn blindl}' to meet and fulfill it. Obedience to 
 tliis stern decree will continue to demand and re- 
 quire much of him throughout the remainder of 
 his unworthy life. 
 
 For fifteen 3'ears he had incessantly acted a lie; 
 for fifteen years he had been driven thereby, 
 deeper and deeper into devious paths of black 
 dishonor and infamous crime. 
 
 We observe that, although Cloud otherwise 
 persuaded himself, being Ijiought to grief and 
 public shame under his true name served not to 
 sever him from his chain of enslaving error. 
 Still he struggled to conceal the relation of his 
 identity with Nube Garland. 
 
 It appears, with this exception, that he at once 
 returned to true princijiles and good resolutions. 
 
 He entered upon the payment of his doom 
 with a well-defined determination to atone to 
 society and the world with more elaborate offer- 
 ings than the mere legal forfeitures, and these 
 atonements he voluntarily rendered. But what 
 could this ever avail him behind the horrible pall 
 of darkening deception ? 
 
 We have witnessed his vain strug^es Avith a 
 trifling cause of deception that ultimately severed 
 him from his adored fatality, Carrie PTarman. 
 Some years later we beheld him mei^ging upon the 
 stage, at the Donne homestead, under the decep- 
 tive guise of Nube Garland. Now not only the 
 ghost of the old deception, but also the spectre of a 
 false name and the haunting shadows of suicide — 
 impressions left on the minds of his friends as a 
 withering blight to the fondest hopes of Carrie 
 Harman — augmented his curse, the ignoble herit- 
 age of a false and treacherous life. We have seen 
 his struggles, with the halloAved support of !Mano- 
 nia's pure and divine influence to strengthen and 
 encourage his efforts, and his failures and his 
 despair. 
 
 Again we saAV him return to his true name 
 under the fixed determination to live true and 
 honorable. But now was added to his curse the 
 Avrongs of Manonia. We have seen him over- 
 taken and overwhelmed by the thraldom of his 
 
UNMASKED AND STANDING IN NUDE DEFOEMITY. 
 
 269 
 
 accumulated sins. Tlis letter to the minister was 
 a grand effort, had it told all the story. Grander 
 still Avas that of the letter to the Sabbath-school 
 and his plans outlined to Lawrence Pleasington. 
 But the curse of damnable deception and diaboli- 
 cal concealment shrouds all their charming beau- 
 ties and admirable brilliancy in the sombre gloom 
 of the midnight of despair. He was farther from 
 the pathway of right and truth, deeper engulfed 
 in the whirlpool of destruction, than ever before 
 in his erratic and ill-breeding life. 
 
 What a wonderful and startling career! Thus 
 to pass from one character to another under an 
 assumed name, and then again to resume the 
 first ; coming in direct contact with people who 
 knew him under his true colors while sailing 
 under false ones. Then, after he was once again 
 Garland Cloud, coming repeatedly in contact, and 
 actually boldly doing business with people Avho 
 knew him once under his false colors as NuIjc 
 Garland. 
 
 Thus he lived for thirteen 3^ears without ever 
 being detected, and but twice imperfectly and 
 only momentarily recognized. The first time 
 Avas on board a palace-car, by friends of his early 
 years. But he quickly and successfully misled 
 them by assuming the role of a Frenchman. The 
 second time was in the " City by the Sea," by the 
 " Future City " merchant, recorded in the chapter 
 "Where the palmetto buds and the magnolia 
 blooms." This merchant know Nube Garland as 
 well as he knew any man on the Cotton Exchange. 
 But Cloud had become so much emaciated and care- 
 worn that the merchant was easily satisfied that he 
 was mistaken, when first impressed with the idea 
 that he had recognized Nube Garland. 
 
 While in the city where he consummated his 
 final and fatal transaction. Cloud daily met and 
 recognized men from the ''Future City," and re- 
 peatedly passed them indifferently, without re- 
 ceiving as much as a suspicious glance from any 
 one of them. 
 
 Then, after he had been consigned to the deep, 
 remote seclusion of confinement for nearly three 
 months, more than a thousand miles away from 
 the scenes in wdiich he had been an actor under an 
 assumed name, a brief newspaper paragraph led to 
 his identification and the open exposure which 
 
 unmasked him. Thus he was left standing be- 
 fore the contemptuous gaze of the world, a nude 
 reality. In this character he received a penalty 
 which he had long anticipated, and which he had 
 ever known that he justly merited. 
 
 Such were his crimes, such were his sufferings, 
 and such was his retribution. 
 
 For his return to the paths of honor and duty 
 he is now entitled to no degree of credit. He 
 was driven back; voluntarily, he never would 
 have returned. 
 
 CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 THE NOBLK PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 "The great men may be those whose name 
 Is written high for worldly eyes : 
 The greatest men are those whose fame 
 
 Reach up and live beyond the skies— 
 Whose lives live out the grand old plan : 
 God's noblest work, a noble man." 
 
 — M. A. Billings. 
 
 About the year 1840, in the great shadows of 
 the White Mountains, there was a lad at a coun- 
 try boarding-school. At the same small village 
 where this school was situated, there were two 
 or three stores. Near the same place there was 
 a foundry. For the work performed in this es- 
 tablishment the men employed received high 
 wages. With their pockets and hands full of 
 money they went to the village to trade in the 
 stores, where our young student observed them, 
 their prodigal expenditures, and learned some- 
 thing of the nature of their trade. Fascinated 
 with a calling that yielded money in suth lavish 
 l^rofusion, he determined to abandon his studies 
 and enter the foundry as an apprentice, which he 
 promptly did. 
 
 In due time he mastered the trade, saved some 
 money, and set out with the " Star of Empire " on 
 its "Westward way." 
 
 After traveling a considerable distance by stage, 
 he arrived on the banks of a majestic river, where 
 he designed to embark, and where there was an 
 extensive stove factory. While waiting for the 
 boat he learned that there was a great demand 
 for moulders, at high wages. 
 
270 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Quickly he observed that he was a sui)erior 
 moulder to any one engaged in the foundry. 
 
 These facts decided him to remain. 
 
 Thus prompted he set out to seek a boarding- 
 house. On his way to accomplish this preliminary 
 negotiation to a residence in a strange city, he 
 crossed over a high hill, whence he looked down 
 upon the works of his new employers. 
 
 From this elevation it was easy for a young 
 mind, buoyant with hope and sanguine with a 
 laudable ambition, to ascend yet higher ; to mount 
 in imagination to the lofty pinnacle of the temple 
 of Fame. He dreamed wildly, as it would seem to 
 a casual, dispassionate observer ; yes, he dreamed, 
 and not only dreamed, but he resolved to do some- 
 thing. With his noble, guileless, pure young heart 
 on glowing fire, and his soul tlorillingwith rapturous 
 ecstacies of brilliant anticipations for the vague 
 prospects concealed behind the mysterious veil 
 of the future, he reared his air-castle which, seem- 
 ingly, had no claim to anything more substan- 
 tial or probable than the pure visionary, yet he 
 was in sober earnest. Thus early he realized in 
 his nature the spark destined to kindle the spirit 
 of indomitable will, and a germ in his soul jDreg- 
 nant with genius. 
 
 This recognition of his capabihties, together 
 with the inspiration of the moment, the situation 
 and its well defined and palpable possibiUties, de- 
 veloped the innate bent of his incUnation ; estab- 
 lished the secure foundation of his Ufe, and 
 indicated the road to its successful prosperity. 
 
 Could every young man or young woman thus 
 understand himself or herself, and appreciate the 
 possibilities and the duties of life when embark- 
 ing on its voyage, while the heart is yet pure 
 and innocent, how many more would reach the 
 temple of Fame, or their destined goal of earthly 
 usefulness, if not of glory, than ever reach the 
 plane even of their aspirations I 
 
 But, ah! those who slip, stumble and fall I 
 These are the waifs of shadowy despair. Their 
 conceptions are obscured by mad infatuations. 
 Blindly they gaze at the temple of Fame or the 
 goal of glory. Upward they seek to rush. They 
 pay no heed to their feet. They ignore the 
 admonition that the path is narrow and rugged. 
 They forget that it winds up slippery steeps. 
 
 They perceive not the pit of Infamy yawning 
 beneath. 
 
 How few, alas, comparatively, early ascertain 
 their legitimate spheres and properly set out to 
 achieve their attainment ! 
 
 Our young friend was not one of this hapless 
 crew. Looking down from the hill, as we have 
 seen him, upon the great manufacturing estab- 
 lishment in which he was to labor on the mould- 
 ing floor as an humble and then a friendless 
 employee among strangers, he resolved : 
 
 "I will be the foreman and a partner in that 
 manufactory." 
 
 This was a grand conception. To create it 
 required some elasticity of imagination. 
 
 The conception was nothing, however, com- 
 pared with the task of its execution. This in- 
 volved long years of slow, tedious, patient toil. 
 "What a nerve, what courage, what a will, 
 must have been required to make the attempt ! 
 
 But this admirable young man had faith in 
 himself ; implicitly trusted the feasibility of his 
 ambitious designs, and worked and waited. 
 
 Self-confidence, combined with true manliood 
 and honest motives, is a beautiful component of 
 sterling character — something to provoke ad- 
 miration and envy. This buoys up the friendless 
 on the lone and cheerless voyage of life, and 
 gives them courage and strength to weather 
 adverse gales, and to stem the bufieting tides of 
 its angry sea. 
 
 Our courageous and self-confident young friend 
 possessed these requisites in superabundance. 
 He also found his proper - sphere, and entered 
 upon it from the true starting point where the 
 road begins — at the foot, content to rise by 
 slow and steady stages. He was resolved to 
 mount, step by step, making sure of his footing, 
 rather than seek to fly upward at one wild 
 bound. 
 
 How many thus start blinded by visionary 
 and erroneous conceptions of duty and the road 
 it should indicate, only to find their delusion has 
 lured them on to failure, if not to ruin I 
 
 Half of many lives, naturally endowed with 
 brilliant talents, and actuated by worthy motives, 
 are thus wasted. After all this reckless prodi- 
 gality of the best days of their lives, the poor 
 
THE NOBLE PHILANTHKOPIST. 
 
 271 
 
 dupes find that tlu-y have Ix-eu all these years 
 oil the wrong road. That they mistook their call- 
 ing, and must, at last, start in some other at the 
 bottom, and ascend slowly or else never rise, but 
 grope and grovel ever in the lowly planes of 
 life. 
 
 This estimable young man made not these 
 mistakes. He started right. Ho had learned 
 his calling. He Avas its master. He went to 
 work with a will. 
 
 No other Avork in the establishment compared 
 Avith his — did not even approach its perfection. 
 
 Soon he is placed in the position as instructor 
 to all the other Avorkmen, much to the disgust of 
 old mechanics who are "wedded to their idols." 
 Bujt he weans them fi'om their prejudices. They 
 soon recognize the value of his first detested 
 innovation. From a spirit disposed to persecute 
 him, they quickly change to his willing pupils. 
 
 From this position he soon rises to that of 
 book-keeper. , Here he finds latitude for the 
 development of other features of his talents in. 
 the ascending scale. This opportunity pavea 
 the way to other advances in his life battle- 
 lines. 
 
 Some years pas-?. A change comes over the 
 spirit of his dream and life. A new light dawns 
 and sheds a gleam of brightness across his path- 
 Avay, and kindles an emotion of strange and bliss- 
 ful hope in his breast. It is something refining, 
 elevating, ennobling — that influence which brings 
 man upward and exalts him far above his normal 
 nature. It is the witching fascination of a young 
 lady of finished education and brilliant accom- 
 phshments — a member of an estimable family. 
 She is Nature's sweet princess. G-raeious good- 
 ness is her attribute — her dowry from the realms 
 of the blessed. 
 
 For him to fall in love with this fair creature 
 was not unreasonable. That she reciprocated, but 
 proves her good taste and discriminating judg- 
 ment ; for who else in ten thousand had more 
 treasure of Nature's priceless jewels to lay at a 
 good woman's feet ? "Who could promise her 
 more of true happiness to lighten the burdens to 
 be borne on the journey of life ? 
 
 Their courtship was the dream of blissful fairy- 
 land romance. No crosses marred its beauty, no 
 
 disappointments its sweets, and no sorroAvs 
 blighted its joys. With them true love flowed in 
 its course gently, smoothly, enchantingly. 
 
 But why delay the truth? They married. 
 For some time Fortune smiled propitiously upon 
 this promising young couple, and he steadily 
 advanced up the hill. 
 
 At length a change came ; a shadoAV crossed 
 the threshold of his prospects; he met a very 
 unpromising check in his upAvard career. His 
 employers failed in the panic of 1857. 
 
 They, however, made arrangements to start 
 again, provided they could raise a certain sum of 
 money. 
 
 After exhausting all their efforts, only a part of 
 the requisite amount could be raised ; and they 
 Avere on the point of relinquishing the enterprise 
 in despair. 
 
 Now, to their amazement, our young friend 
 steps foi'Avard, and hands them his check for the 
 needed sum or deficiency. This is nearly all his 
 savings during the long years he had passed in 
 their employment. They never dreamed that he 
 had saved such a sum. 
 
 He had faith in them and their business. He 
 did not despair Avlien they failed. 
 
 Long had he bided his opportune time to make 
 one grand stride upward tOAvard the goal he early 
 set out to win. It came at last. The very cir- 
 cumstance that seemed to be the knell to his 
 every hope tending in that direction, afforded him 
 that desired opportunity. 
 
 After this, he went to work with new life. 
 For seven years he went on the road, and thus 
 built up a stupendous business. 
 
 Then he returned to the office as a full partner, 
 and assumed" the arduous duties of managing the 
 correspondence, the credits, and the finances of 
 his firm. 
 
 Now does his talent l)egin to develop and his 
 genius to shine. He puts life, as if by magic, 
 into every department of his business. 'He be- 
 comes its very soul and creator. Onward and 
 upward he moves it. The vision which his fancy 
 created so many years ago, when looking down 
 from the hill on the works below — that phantom 
 ship of airy imagination — is now a reality before 
 his open eyes. He treads her decks in the proud 
 
272 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 dignity of her captain, and stands at her helm as 
 her guiding pilot. 
 
 Patient builder ! courageous captain ! match- 
 less pilot of thy own ship and voyage, ever 
 ready for gale or storm ! 
 
 Upon the appearance of the first harbinger of 
 the panic of 1873; he at once began to prepare for 
 it. When its darkest hours came and paralyzed 
 the great commercial centres of the country, he 
 was perfectly easy, with a large suiplus of avail- 
 able cash in bank. 
 
 He has raised his house and business to be the 
 first, in its fine, in the world. 
 
 Ultimately he became the regenerator, the up- 
 lifter, and the redeemer of Garland Cloud. By a 
 .strange dispensation of mysterious destiny, he 
 learned the wild story of Cloud's antithetical 
 career and stormy life. He concluded that Gar- 
 land Cloud was Avorth saving; that there was 
 usefulness in his nature and being that might be 
 rendered available to the world ; and he resolved 
 to save him. 
 
 With the exception of Cloud's unscrupulous- 
 ness, generated by the indiscretion of early de- 
 ception and concealment — his double-life folly 
 that led him deeper and deeper into devious 
 paths — these were kindred spirits. 
 
 By nature. Garland Cloud possessed the fine 
 sentiments and noble aspirations of true greatness 
 in a degree equally as grand as his new-found 
 friend. But Garland Cloud got on the wrong 
 track, and thus grew to be unscrupulous. The 
 war was his bane. There dark ambition, tinged 
 with a hue of the art of deception, became his 
 ruling passion. 
 
 After the war, the influence of this evil tend- 
 ency fastened its hold upon him in the peace- 
 ful pursuits of life, and drove him perpetually and 
 deeper into devious paths, and on to earthly de- 
 struction and social damnation. 
 
 Thus was he enthralled when the good man 
 found and resolved to help and to rescue him. 
 
 This good man did not proclaim to the world 
 that he purposed to save Garland Cloud ; but he 
 talked to the object of his solicitude instead. He 
 was an acute judge of human nature, and he soon 
 learned to read Garland Cloud, and read him 
 analytically. 
 
 He found in Cloud's being a deeply-rooted mc4- 
 ancholy ; a tendency to brood gloomily over the 
 unpromising future, and to despair of life for 
 himself. 
 
 These were maladies he resolved to cure or 
 abate. His remedy was the philosophy of com- 
 mon sense. He appealed to the lethargic man- 
 hood of Cloud, in substance about as follows : 
 
 " You are," he said, " laboring under an erro- 
 neous delusion. It is not all over with you in 
 this world — far from it. Life is worth living to 
 you. To abandon and shirk its duties is cowardice 
 too far beneath your nature and true character to 
 be possible for you to yield to such unmanly pre- 
 dispositions. I want to help — I mean to save 
 you. But you must help me. 
 
 " Place yourself on the broad and solid founda- 
 tion of truth; stick to and build upon it, guaging 
 your structure by the rule of honor, and modeling 
 it by the draft of integrity. 
 
 " If you are hesitating — yield in the slightest 
 degree to shufiiing duplicity and the baneful in- 
 fluence of deception, you are lost indeed. 
 
 "Your reputation as a soldier of the 'Lost 
 Cause ' is beautiful as a brave and intrepid man. 
 But you must now summons to your aid a 
 grander courage than anj^ that ever swayed the 
 soldier in the wild fury of the charge, or nerved 
 him to stand and meet death at' his post — a sub- 
 lime, moral courage. 
 
 "This is the only antidote for 'Moral Cow- 
 ardice;' what you admit has for many years been 
 your bane. 
 
 " Know and conquer thyself, my despondent 
 friend, and you will gain the grandest victory of life. 
 
 "This has been my hardest conflict — the cease- 
 less war with myself to subdue my convulsing 
 passions, and to curb my inordinate ambition. 
 
 " Had I been persecuted and tempted as you 
 have been, I shudder at the bare contemplation 
 of what might have been the consequences. 
 
 "You can live for humanity, but not truly after 
 you abandon yourself. Self-forsaken people are 
 the most desolate waifs of the earth. 
 
 " He who ceases to be a friend to himself, can 
 little expect to attract or retain the friendship of 
 others. No more can he who respects not hiniseK 
 hope for respect from other people. 
 
THE NOBLE PHILANTHEOPIST. 
 
 273 
 
 " Rise up, and be superior to your weakness, 
 jour misgivings, and your most sad want of faith 
 in yourself ! 
 
 " Many men are guilty of greater wrongs than 
 you have ever committed, and never suffer the 
 least reproach. 
 
 "All men make mistakes, greater or smaller; 
 mistakes that are really not crimes. Your faults 
 are of this character. Your mistakes are grave ; 
 but it is the consequences which they entailed, 
 rather than the acts themselves, that constitute 
 the most serious phase of your distress. 
 
 " To any logical mind, it is clear that your mind 
 has never been criminal. Your ambition and 
 your fanaticism on the subject of helping the 
 poor tillers of the soil of your fair and sunny 
 laud, drove you to the desperation of deeming 
 that the end to be attained abundantly justified 
 the means. 
 
 " This rendered you unscrupulous. From this 
 ebbed state of moral compunctions it was but an 
 easy and a natural step to mistakes. 
 
 " Your motives were high and noble. You.had 
 gigantic undertakings to promote. These required 
 vast sums of money, which you did not have, and ■ 
 could not legitimately command. 
 , " While your enterprises were feasible and en- 
 titled to charitable consideration, they were not 
 shaped so as to attract the financial aid they de- 
 served. Their basis could not be recognized in 
 the light of approved security, when presented 
 to the close and critical scrutiny of money lend- 
 ers. You had faith in yourself and your enter- 
 prises. More than this, you believed that you 
 should have received the encouragement and the 
 assistance wanted. The disappointment in not 
 receiving these embittered your mind and soured 
 your disposition. 
 
 "Now you had reached that point when it was 
 easy for you to conclude that to obtain the money 
 with deceptive security was no serious wrong. 
 You reasoned that you would be excusable for 
 obtaining the same money by strategy which you 
 believed you had failed to obtain legitimately. 
 
 " But here was your mortal mistake. Nothing 
 could justify the wrong thus committed. No sort 
 of deception will thrive forever. Sooner or later 
 it must come to grief and, most likely, ruin its in- 
 
 fatuated votary, no matter what the nature of his 
 artifice may be, nor how prominent his own 
 character and position in society and business. 
 
 " Had your masked character remained unex- 
 posed, this awful experience and terrible lesson to 
 you would have been in vain. It would have 
 been simply as impossible for you to return to 
 paths of honor, and to steer your course with the 
 helm of integrity and duty, as it is to turn the 
 current of a mighty river back towards its 
 source. 
 
 " You were wrong, and nothing could ever put 
 j'ou right short of fuU confession or open expos- 
 ure. The first you wanted the moral courage to 
 make. Mercifully, the last was made for you. 
 Thus are you placed right. Easily now may you 
 fulfill a high and noble destiny. To assist you to 
 do this shall be my earnest solicitude and special 
 province." 
 
 Through this friend Garland Cloud became 
 acquainted with other prominent people, who 
 were of great importance to his future and the 
 plans of life mapped out and designed by him to 
 be followed. 
 
 Could every weak and hesitating man, " who 
 has sinned, and suffered for his sin," have a simi- 
 lar friendly and helping hand extended to him at 
 the opportune moment, many would be uplifted, 
 regenerated and redeemed who ever continue to 
 drift down the muddy current of the maelstrom 
 of life, to the seething eddy and destructive whirl- 
 pool of hopeless perdition. Probably Garland 
 Cloud might not have thus continued to drift, 
 had he never met this friend of destiny, as his 
 mind had become settled and his plans been form- 
 ed, as to the future, many months before the 
 first meeting with this friend ; yet certain it is 
 that he would have had much less to cheer and 
 sustain him in the unequal and discouraging strug- 
 gles, with the almost insurmountable obstacles 
 thickly interposed to intercept his course, in the 
 correct voyage of life. Many years longer would 
 it have taken him to reach the haven which he 
 set out to gain, had he never known and received 
 the friendship of The Noble Philanthropist. 
 
274 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 LETTERS OF COMFORT AND WARNING. 
 
 " The quality of mercy Is not strained ; 
 It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven, 
 Upon the place beneath : it Is twice bless'd ; 
 It blesses him that gives and him that takes; 
 It is enthroned In the hearts of kings ; 
 It Is an attribute to God himself." 
 
 — Shakspeaee. 
 
 A MONTH after the Sabbath-day's interview be- 
 tween Cloud and Pleasington, the former receives 
 from the latter, by the trusty hand of their mutual 
 courier, a note with a letter and its enclosure re- 
 ceived by Pleasington from the friends of his early 
 years, or their representative, in answer to the 
 one sent them, in pursuance to the resolution 
 formed during the interview with Cloud. Both 
 letters had passed over the contraband under- 
 ground mail route. The enclosure was in a doubly 
 sealed envelope and addressed in well remem- 
 bered lady characters : 
 
 CoL. Garland Cloud. 
 
 In durance of distress." 
 
 This Cloud carefully lays aside, as if touched 
 by a tlirill of pious awe at beholding it — a sad 
 and painful reminiscence of the days that are 
 dead — and takes up Pleasington's letter, which is 
 in a neat, but unknown lady's hand. It is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Square, New York, Nov., 1880. 
 
 " Major Lawrence Pleasington : 
 
 "My long mourned and esteemed Friend: 
 
 " Your most unexpected yet 
 thrice welcome letter, which is held in unspeak- 
 able and indescribable appreciation, came duly to 
 hand in Orlando's absence on a Southern business 
 tour, which will be prolonged for many weeks to 
 come. In accordance with his parting instruction 
 relative to all letters received to his private ad- 
 dress, yours was opened by me. 
 
 " Oh ! when I saw that it was from you, our 
 long-sought friend whom we have mourned for 
 these six years as dead or lost to us foi-evur, and 
 
 of whom we have sought the country over,' in 
 every quarter without the gloomy confines of 
 prison walls, information, or a clue that might lead 
 to it, I cannot attempt to describe to you the 
 rapturous ecstacies of joy that I experienced ; let 
 it suffice to say that it was supremely full. 
 
 " Your sad and cruel fate, for peculiarly serious 
 reasons, has been excruciatingly painful to us, and 
 has enshrined you in our hearts with all the sanc- 
 tity of endearing affection that can be claimed as 
 a Divine attribute appertaining to kindred tics and 
 blood. What stronger assurance can I offer you 
 of our constant friendship and undying love ? 
 
 " The odium of your dungeon life, of which you 
 write so feelingly and pathetically, may apply to 
 the heartless, unfeeling and unthinking world, but 
 it is foreign to any degree of relation to us, who are 
 not the world, but your friends who hold you as 
 sacredly dear as our own sweet lives. 
 
 " How sad is this last cruel ordeal through 
 which you are passing ; and what strange work- 
 ings brought it about ! 
 
 " But for his train arriving an hour behind 
 time, Orlando would have received you in his 
 own arms when you emerged from the dreary 
 prison. When he called at the door you were 
 gone — whither the officials could not tell. 
 
 " Prom that moment we have had no tidings 
 from you, until this propitious day dawned to 
 light the way for your letter to break in upon us 
 a grateful surprise, and dispel the corroding sus- 
 pense of our melancholy despair ; and, further- 
 more, to re-inspire us with assuring hope, that 
 the gratifying reality of again beholding your 
 face and feeling the warm and re-animated clasp 
 of your hand, will yet be ours; and that we may 
 experience the comforting consolation which will 
 accrue to us from being able to repair the cruel 
 wrongs of which you have been the hapless vic- 
 tim, so far as such may be within the scope of 
 human power to accomplish. 
 
 " How we all join with you in pitying your 
 strange friend. Col. Cloud, through whom, as a 
 fortuitous medium, you will be restored to us. 
 How fortunate that he knew of your innocence, 
 and how providential that he should be thrown 
 with you to tell you about it, as such a sad fate 
 was destined to be bis; but for which circum- 
 
LETTEKS OF COMFOBT AKD WAENING. 
 
 275 
 
 stance, as you write us, we .should never have 
 heard from you again. 
 
 " We have held a family meeting of all the 
 families of the members of Orlando's firm — I, as 
 the representative of ours— and talked over your 
 affairs, and the result is that I have been com- 
 missioned to write to you that you will be placed 
 in charge of most important Southern interests, 
 on ten times more favorable terms than those 
 which you seek ; that you will be supplied with 
 a proper suit of clothing in which to pass the 
 portal of the prison ; and that a carriage will be 
 in waiting to speed you away to safety and 
 friends the moment you have crossed the cruel, 
 forbidding threshold of that dreary, unhallowed 
 habitation. 
 
 "Please hand or send the enclosure by safe 
 conveyance to Col. Cloud. 
 
 " Now, my poor friend, what more can I say 
 to you ? 
 
 " I shall forward your letter to Orlando, from 
 whom you may expect a letter before he returns 
 home. 
 
 " You must write to us often ; and we, on our 
 part, will not neglect to write you, nor to do 
 everything else in our power that we deem 
 might comfort or cheer you in your lone Avay. 
 
 " Your true and sympathetic friend, 
 
 "Eva Oglethrop." 
 
 This letter read. Cloud folds and returns it to 
 its envelope, lays it aside, and then taking up 
 the other one, which he proceeds to open with a 
 hand trembling like the aspen leaf in the wind, 
 while his lips are pale as salt, he slowly reads 
 with stifled emotion : 
 
 " Square, New York, Nov., 1880. 
 
 "CoL. Cloud: 
 
 " Ji^ unforgotten and never forsaken friend : 
 
 " Let me conjure you, in the name of 
 the memory of the dark and trying times in 
 which our young friendship was born, out of 
 which sprung the 'Soldier's Family Relief Asso- 
 ciation,' and which inspired yon with that strange 
 fancy to christen me ' The Angel of Consolation,' 
 — though unworthy that I was and am, to have be- 
 
 stowed upon me a name that caused you to com- 
 mit sacrilege when you first associated it with 
 me, yet still to this day it remains an undimin- 
 ished incentive with me to continue to strive 
 more earnestly to become worthier of it, by dis- 
 pensing all the charity I can in missions of mercy 
 — do not unkindly and unjustly censure my seem- 
 ing impropriety in overstepping the prescribed 
 bounds of etiquette so far as to venture to in- 
 dict a letter to you. My excuse must plead in 
 extenuation for my fault, should you deem me 
 guilty of a serious one. 
 
 " Circumstances which I knew that embittered 
 yom^ life ; some things I have recently heard rela- 
 tive to your checkered career, extending over a 
 period of ten years of wandering, and a sketch 
 in Major Pleasington's letter describing your 
 present gloomy and painful state of mind, rela- 
 tive to your personality for yourself alone, 
 prompt and actuate me with the purest motives 
 of unselfish charity to write you this letter, be- 
 cause I feel that I am thus much indebted to you. 
 
 "Alas! that I must ever feel that but for me 
 — I who was designed to be your evil genius — 
 all the trying scenes through v/hich you have 
 passed during those dreary, tedious years, and 
 through which you are now passing; the marks 
 of wrong that you have left strewn along your 
 backward track ; your suffering and your woes, 
 would never have been. ' Yet God in Heaven 
 knows that on my part it was not willful. Of 
 all persons on this earth, not of ni}" own house 
 and heart, you would have been the last whom I 
 Avould have caused pain or led into difficulties 
 and trouble. 
 
 " To me it matters not what you have been 
 since we last met, what you are now, or what 
 you may be hereafter — I shall remember only 
 what you were then, and what you had been 
 previous to that time ; which was the cruel and 
 fatal crisis in your life ; which was brought upon 
 you by the basest and the most fiendish treachery 
 and falsehood ever perpetrated upon an inoffen- 
 sive victim within the compass of my knowledge. 
 I can think of you only to be impressed anew 
 with the overwhelming conviction that but for 
 that cruel stab of Envy's envenomed dagger, you 
 would ever have remained true and noble and 
 
276 
 
 MYSTIC EOMAXCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 good, because I know that all of wrong that you 
 have done has been contrary to your nature. 
 But enough of this, and something more of the 
 true subject matter of my letter. 
 
 " Our family owes you an enormous debt of 
 gratitude, Avith its accrued and compounded in- 
 terest of now nearly twenty years, not one iota 
 of which has ever been paid. The time has now 
 come, or is near at hand, when we can oflfer to 
 discharge a portion of it with a degree of confi- 
 dential propriety so impressively and manifestly 
 appropriate as scarcely to admit the excuse for 
 hesitating on the ground of fear that such action 
 on our part would or might give you offence, or 
 wound the sensitive impulses of your unconquer- 
 able pride, which we hope, and which, permit me 
 to entreat, that you will accept, leaving the mat- 
 ter entirely with us to arrange. Assure me that 
 you will do this, and I will then unfold to you 
 all our plans. 
 
 " I am exceedingly anxious to have from you 
 the true outlines of the story of your life through 
 the trials of those ten years while we supposed 
 you dead; and most especially those features 
 relative to your attempted suicide at the time of 
 your disappearance from the ' Future City.' With 
 that exception I have had a version of most of 
 the features of the sad narrative as supplied by 
 other people. I should like to know what rela- 
 tion your plans for the future of this sad hfe bear 
 to the life of that period of ten years. If you 
 will condescend to take the trouble upon your- 
 self and endure the pain which it will inflict, 
 please furnish it to me in sacred confidence, if 
 you wish. Please, I beg of you, do me this 
 favor on the score of old friendship which, though 
 ill-fated it was to you, is still with me as lasting 
 as life itself. 
 
 " While you were in the world of libertj^, after 
 your return to your native region, I should have 
 written to you, but I never was able to learn 
 your proper address. Had we been at home 
 while you were in jail, we should have come to 
 see you, whether you were willing or not. 
 
 " It was a sad disappointment to us all when 
 we received your message informing us that you 
 would neither receive our visits nor our tokens 
 of friendship in the form of little articles to 
 
 mitigate the rigorous severity and the stern 
 hardships of prison life, and that you forbid us to 
 Avrite you one Tetter, and refused to write a hne 
 to us. Now let me appeal to the youthful ten- 
 derness and the noble magnanimity of Garland 
 Cloud's heart — Garland Cloud, the soldier boy — 
 as it was from the ' Plains of Manassas ' to the 
 'Hills of Gettysburg.' Was not this cruel treat- 
 ment to friends whose hearts beat for you in 
 tender sympathy, and were filled with emotions 
 of true and zealous interest in you and your 
 welfare ? 
 
 " I feel a deep and solicitous interest in and 
 for the success of the work which Major Pleas- 
 ington wrote that you and he were engaged in 
 assisting some author to compile. This, I 
 know, might be so wrought as to be the means 
 of producing much good in the world. I should 
 not have so far trangressed against your most 
 emphatic injunction, as to write you this or anv 
 other letter while your sojourn continues in 
 that lonesome prison-house, had I not met with 
 this opportunity to send it to you without being 
 subjected to the scrutiny of other eyes before it 
 would be greeted by yours. The officer of the 
 prison, Avhowas the bearer of Major Pleasington's 
 letter, boldly made the proposition to Mrs. Ogle- 
 thorp to perform similar services between the 
 local post-office of the village and the prison, for 
 a money consideration, which was accepted. 
 You can write to us and we to you under cover 
 of the same arrangement, provided that you are 
 willing. I cannot imagine that you could be so 
 cruel as to object. I know that if you do, it 
 would not be your true self, nor the natural 
 promptings of your ^ heart, that you will be 
 obeying. I cannot believe, though you were to 
 tell me so a thousand times over, and all the 
 world would bear you witness that it is so, that 
 all the true and the good impulses that once were 
 yours have been utterly and hopelessly crushed 
 out of your being. 
 
 " Then you will write a line, if but one, to say 
 that cruel faretvell which you did not even vouch- 
 safe in that by-gone time of bitterness to 
 
 "Your ever changeless friend, 
 
 "C-VRHiK Y. Flowers." 
 
LETTEKS OF COMFOKT AND WARNING. 
 
 277 
 
 In reply to this pressing letter Cloud Avrote : 
 
 "November, 1880. 
 "Mrs. Carrie V. Flowers: 
 
 '■'■ Friendly object of my vanished dreams: 
 " I shall not atter^pt to describe to you the emo- 
 tions that thrilled my being when I merely glanced 
 at the long and distinctly well-remembered char- 
 acters of the address on the envelope covering 
 your letter. What, then, can I say of the letter 
 itself? Silence most eloquently answers this 
 question. 
 
 " I write briefly, merely to say, with reference 
 to your letter, that it is impossible for me to 
 answer it now, but that I shall do so, and fully, 
 by Pleasington, when he goes hence, and to make 
 a reciprocal request of you. 
 
 " Should the letter which I wrote you in the 
 winter of 1861, relative to the outpost and scout- 
 ing service, by any chance have survived the 
 lapse of time among the rubbish of the old home- 
 stead, and may now be found, I should be under 
 lasting obhgations if you would write and have 
 it sent to you, and then send it to me. I want 
 some data which it contains to supply a deficiency 
 in the early chapters of the work to which you 
 referred in your letter. 
 
 "Pray, then, consider this letter as being 
 purely of an informal business character; and 
 please write me one solely upon the subject to 
 which it refers. 
 
 "In conclusion, I beg to assure you that I am 
 not insensible to a feeling of gratitude for the 
 rich benevolence of your true friendship, and 
 that my appreciation of the generous charity 
 manifested in bestowing upon me so much lavish 
 sympathy, is not indifferently wanting. 
 
 "Thanking you for your extreme kindness, 
 and your compassionate solicitude to and for 
 me and my welfare, I am, with shameful re- 
 gret, " Your lost friend, 
 
 " Garland Cloud." 
 
 By an early mail came this reply : 
 
 " December, 1880. 
 " CoL. Cloud : 
 
 " My Reclaimed Friend: 
 
 " I have partially complied with your request, 
 
 contained in your much-appreciated letter, which 
 
 is proof positive, that though crushed beneath 
 the merciless force of circumstances and the 
 cruel weight of misfortune, you are still enough 
 your former self to concede to the petitions of 
 your fi-iends what they solicit, but in your own 
 way and time. But I will refrain from quarrel- 
 ing Avith you about it. 
 
 " You do me much injustice to imagine that 
 the correspondence to which you refer had either 
 been lost, destroyed, or left among the cast- 
 away rubbish of the dear old Valley Mansion — 
 those sad letters, solemn reminiscences of those 
 anxious days, those trying weeks, those tedious 
 months and those weary years. While I live 
 and retain one keepsake or one treasured jewel of 
 my tender years, those historical sheets of paper 
 will remain preserved among them. Rememfiei- 
 that the hand that traced their lines by the 
 Avintry bivouac fire, though the bleeding heart 
 that prompted its motion otill beats on, has been 
 long years mingling with its mother dust. 
 
 " No ; you can't have that letter. It is yellow 
 with age, and marked and streaked and blmxed 
 with traces of my maiden tear.-drops — the first 
 that ever man, not related to me by kindred ties 
 of blood, caused me to shed. Then, again, the 
 tears of mature womanhood were rained upon 
 it ; and now, to-day, those of the wife — the 
 faithful and devoted wife— have once more mois- 
 tened its pages. 
 
 "I have made you a faithful copy of that letter, 
 together with two or tliree of my own to you 
 and one or two others of yours to me, all of about 
 the same date, which I trust will serve your pur- 
 pose just as well as the originals. Upon these 
 no other eye than mine has ever gazed since first 
 I looked at them. They will continue to be held 
 thus sacred, as though they Avere mementoes of the ■ 
 dead, so long as I retain my faculties and sight. 
 They recall youthful dreams associated Avith a 
 young friendship, and remind me of a new friend 
 who Avas then sober, grave, serious and true. 
 
 " Should it be in my power to give, or to obtain 
 for you, any other information, to aid the Avork 
 which you have become enlisted in, please let me 
 know what it is. 
 
 "I am much gratified to know that you have 
 formed a resolution to devote your life to good 
 
278 
 
 MTSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 work; to promote the cause of humanity, which 
 is the course to pursue to atone for the errors and 
 the crimes of the past ; to redeem your clouded 
 life upon the earth, and to secure salvation for 
 the life eternal. To do all the good that we can 
 and the least ill that is possible in this life, is life's 
 great duty and supreme object; and doing good 
 consists in alleviating suffering, soothing sorrow, 
 striving to influence the good to remain so, or to 
 become better for the sake of the reward it will 
 give in this world ; to induce the vicious and the 
 criminal to turn from their forbidden ways, for the 
 sake of escaping the pain of the penalties to 
 which they lead in this life ; instructing the igno- 
 rant; encouraging the despondent; comforting 
 the sick and the distressed; declaiming against 
 the errors and the deceptions of society ; and, in a 
 word, raising the moral tone and sentiment of 
 those with whom we come in contact in the walks 
 of daily life, by our conversation and example 
 in all that we say and do. Whether they be our 
 inferiors, our equals, or our superiors, this mat- 
 ters not; it is always possible for us to leave some 
 good impression, however small it may be, upon 
 the minds of the wisest and the best of them, that, 
 not infrequently, amounts to actual influence, 
 and promoting the cause and advancing the in- 
 terest of humanity. Such are what I deem true 
 principles of rehgion, and I tremble for the pro- 
 fessors of the Cliristain faith and character who 
 neglect to practice the same. 
 
 "Since the first wintry morning, now nine- 
 teen years ago, that I quitted the cheerful hearth 
 of my father's mansion to face the driven snow 
 and the northern storm blast, on a mission in my 
 espoused cause, to 'The Mountain Cabins,' I have 
 never once let the sun go down without having 
 tried to accomplish some good, or to gladden some 
 heart, and to my latest day I crave to be able to 
 continue to do the same. 
 
 " Now I want to say to you that this briny, 
 tear-stained, time-yellowed letter of yours, of 
 which I have made you the copy, was the influ- 
 ence that led to this, as well as to the revolution- 
 izing of the lives of two families and the blend- 
 ing of them together — my father's and that of 
 'The Angels of the mountain.' I know of other 
 influences and examples in your poor sad-fated 
 
 life that have produced as much good as this just 
 named ; and I doubt not, that among your seeds 
 of blighting error and damning crime you have 
 sown some good seeds that are producing fruits. 
 
 " How heart-rending to think that you .should 
 have ever sown any bad seed, as well as to know 
 your awful fate ! 
 
 " Oh, my hapless friend ! look upon these pages 
 all blotted by the blinding tears — yes, humble 
 tears, of once proud and haughty, disdainful, 
 scornful, aristocratic Carrie Harman, and remem- 
 ber that she was converted to the cause of hu- 
 manity and usefulness by the influence of the 
 distant acts and the then provokingly indifferent 
 letters of an humble mountain boy ; a boy upon 
 whom,- she now blushes to admit, before that 
 time she would have looked down Avith stunning 
 contempt,: yes, with far more uncharitableness 
 than she would now look upon the most degraded 
 and abandoned wretch as he emerges from your 
 stern and merciless prison walls; for she could, 
 without the least reluctance, take him b.y th.e 
 hand and say, ' my friend, come forth, go into 
 better ways, let me intreat you, and be a man.' 
 Then I beg of you, that with- all your well ma- 
 tured experience and the consummate lessons of 
 life that it has taught you in its hard schools, 
 you do not despair of doing good even while yon 
 are thus shut out from the world, nor of doing 
 more good hereafter than you have ever done or 
 than you ever could have done but for your mis- 
 fortunes. Now convert them into blessings for 
 the human race ; return to your true self and let 
 your natural impulses rule your life and be once 
 again Grarland Cloud. 
 
 "This will smooth your rugged pathway and 
 streAV along its desolate margins a few cheering* 
 flowers. It will last but a little time, the sorrow- 
 ful journey will be a short one and soon over; 
 at most, fifty years will end it :— a little more than 
 twice the time that has elapsed since first wc 
 were friends. Oh! then, my disconsolate friend, 
 take courage and be brave again as of yore. But 
 not that youthful courage that defied the sabre's 
 menacing blade and the cannon's frown of death. 
 No, but that moral courage — something higher 
 and nobler — that can stand unmoved before the 
 scornful uncharitableness of the unthinking world 
 
LETTERS OF COMFORT AND WARNING. 
 
 279 
 
 and there dare to perform an unpleasant and an 
 unthankful duty. 
 
 " How impatiently I shall await that promised 
 letter. Please reward my anxious suspense by 
 opening to me your heart — 'to a friend that not 
 forsakes.' 
 
 " In conclusion, I pray that you will remember 
 the beautiful sentiment and the sublime truths 
 contained in the closing lines of your favorite 
 song, which I often sing, and think of you : 
 
 " 'But there is a future, Oh, thank God, 
 Of life this is so small a part: 
 'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod, 
 But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart.' 
 
 "Your true and devoted friend, 
 
 " Carrie V. Flowers." 
 
 On the last night of the year 1880, Lawrence 
 Pleasington wrote the -following to enclose in a 
 letter to one of his friends : 
 
 "Watching -with the Dying Year in a Dun- 
 geon's Gloom. 
 
 " Death is a sad contemplation — the death of 
 friends and the death of hope — because the places 
 of the departed must be re-supphed by objects 
 that are new and untried ; the former by persons 
 perchance less kind and more inconstant, and 
 the latter by despair. 
 
 " To-night I am keeping a solitary vigil in my 
 lonely, cheerless cell, watching the departure of 
 one, and the arrival of another friend — the death 
 of the old and the birth of the new year. 
 
 " With me, each dying year has been much the 
 same as those that had long since been passing 
 away before it — born in despair, and dying with- 
 out bringing me a hope for this world. But 
 lately I have espied a faint gleam of hope low 
 down on the horizon of my benighted sky, which 
 will cause the new year to dawn with a shade of 
 brightness such as I had never before dared to 
 dream would again be known to me. Now I 
 cherish a shade of hope that I may yet be of 
 some service to the human race. 
 
 " Midnight in a dungeon's spectral and haunted 
 confines is a terrible thing; a reality of which no 
 one on this earth can ever form an adequate con- 
 ception, save alone those with polished l^reasts 
 and refined sensibiHties, who have proved it bv 
 
 the test of bitter experience — and they can never 
 tell to the world, though they may not all conceal, 
 what its horrors are, for such things are untold. 
 
 " But a new year's midnight, when the ghostly 
 spirits of the victims of crime are permitted to 
 burst the cerements of the dead and come forth 
 from their barred and shadowy realm of the 
 mystic unknown, to walk these dismal halls and 
 haunt the cells of their despoilers and their 
 murderers ; until, in fancy, their tufted foot-falls 
 may be heard by ears of flesh and blood — it is 
 then that the blood runs cold, the breathing is 
 bated and suspended, and the startled heart beats 
 with echoing thuds that sound as the measured 
 strokes of some mighty forge-hammer. No sto- 
 ries of a haunted house, nor yet of the traditional 
 church-yard, where grim and menacing spirits 
 are supposed to walk and haunt the night, are 
 half so terrible to timid minds as would be, and is, 
 this seeming reality. Then the minions of hell 
 that are ever here, almost perceptible to the 
 naked eye and palpable to the touch of mortal 
 fingers, mingle freely in the scenes, to work upon 
 the terror-stricken minds of the haunted, after 
 their ghostly tormentors have fled back to their 
 futurity-veiled sphere. 
 
 " This is a New Year's Avatch-meeting, solus, to 
 a mind and heart that have not been polluted by 
 the contagion of debauching poison, nor rendered 
 callous by self-abandonment in the veritable ex- 
 perience of a dungeon life. 
 
 "It is now dead midnight; the lights burn 
 blue. The dying year, with its hopes and de- 
 spair, its anticipations and disappointments, its 
 joys and sorrows, its festivities and deaths, van- 
 ishes — now it is gone forever. Hark, list ! It is 
 but the mournful notes of the village bells, tolling, 
 tolling, tolling, their knell of death. How they 
 startle and pierce the still and icy air ! • 
 
 " Farewell, old year, that has measured me 
 one mark less on the dial of time — one less of 
 sorrow and suffering ! 
 
 " I am, in not ungrateful memory, 
 
 " Lawrence Pleasington." 
 
 We have many other letters written by Cloud 
 and Pleasington and their friends, but deem it 
 needless to transcribe more of them into these 
 
280 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 pages. Several of these letters are from Cloud to 
 the minister, and from the latter to the former. 
 
 But Cloud's last letter to the good man remains 
 unanswered. For some strange and inexpHcable 
 cause, the man of Grod abandoned his partially- 
 reclaimed charge to his fate. 
 
 This seems more strange and unaccountable, 
 when we come to consider the sohcitude which 
 the minister manifested for Cloud in his early 
 days of suffering, and which continued long after 
 ihe relation was definitely established between 
 him and Nube G-arland. To the minister. Cloud's 
 darkest chapters were intimately known months 
 before his last cheering letters were penned. 
 Cloud grieved over the loss of this friend, but 
 ceased not to treasure the precepts and assur- 
 ances contained in his letters, nor to regard them 
 as an anchor of faith and hope. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 THE FAREWELL. 
 
 •' Farewell I 'tis a lonely sound. 
 Ana oftimes brings a sigh ; 
 But give to me tliat better word, 
 
 That comes from the lieart, 'Good-by,' 
 • Good-by, good-by,' will do for the gay. 
 
 When Pleasure's throng is nigh. 
 But the heart feels most when the lips move not. 
 And the eyes speak, the gentle ' Good-by.' " 
 
 —Old Song. 
 
 Lawrence : " Well, Cloud, my friend^ I ob- 
 tained leave for a few moments, and a pass, to 
 run over to say good-by, as I knew you are not 
 under the galling scrutiny of the sleepless gaze of 
 an officer ; and that, therefore, we could have a 
 quiet chat. To-morrow, you know, the end of 
 this will come for me, after sixteen years and 
 seven months, besides the few weeks — I almost 
 forg?t how long — spent in jail. 
 
 " I am soiTy to leave you here, so sorry that, 
 was such a thing possible, I would take half your 
 time upon myself in order to have you go away 
 with me into the other life ; but, since that can- 
 not be, I must leave you behind and go out into 
 the untried reahties of a new existence." 
 
 "Cloud: "Ah! my magnanimous fellow, 
 though you be the only friend I have Avoaring 
 the stripes, and though I know I shall miss the 
 
 little voiceless tokens of that true and unselfish 
 friendship which have often caused me to repeat 
 intuitively and aloud the lines, 
 
 ' 'TIs death to be parted, yet near thee 
 'Tis woe, irretrievable woo,' 
 
 more than fancy can image or words can depict, 
 yet from, the depths of my soul, I rejoice to bid 
 you adieu." 
 
 Lawrence: ''So would I rejoice to bid you 
 adieu, were you going instead of staying ; but 
 let us not quarrel about the inevitable. Moments 
 are too few and precious." 
 
 " What of the commissions, with which you 
 desire to entrust me, the first thing ? " 
 
 Cloud : " I have a long letter on tissue-paper, 
 put up in two shoe-sole shaped packages and 
 pressed until they are no thicker than brown 
 l^aper. I want you to put one under each false 
 sole in your shoes, and thus carry them to Mrs. 
 Flowers, who will expect a letter by your hand 
 and will, therefore, make such an opportunity for 
 you to deliver it as suits her fancy. Please wait 
 for her to indicate this before even intimating to 
 her that you have a letter for her; and, as to 
 others, keep your own counsel, as I am unadvised 
 as to her pleasure on the subject. Tliis is all, 
 Lawrence, except to thank all the good friends 
 for their kind interest and charitable sohcitude 
 in and for me ; and to express to them my regrets 
 that circumstances over which I exercise no con- 
 trol, should have so cruelly precluded me from ac- 
 cepting then' magnanimous offices and friendly 
 visits, so generously tendered to me." 
 
 Lawrence : " Well, Garland, that shades all the 
 shrewd ingenuity to pass out a letter that I have 
 ever heard of in the long and varied catalogue of 
 State prison prohfic and inventive expedients. I 
 will carry it and keep silent. I owe you a letter- 
 carrying debt noAV twenty years old. I shall faith- 
 fully attend to your other requests. 
 
 " Col. Worthington and Ogletlii-op, with their 
 ladies, were here lo see me yesterday, and ex- 
 pressed their mortification at not being able to 
 see you when they were so near you. The old 
 gentleman has changed very little since la^st I saw 
 him. Oglethrop is the perfect picture of man- 
 hood and health. 
 
THE FAREWELL. 
 
 281 
 
 " It is definitely settled that I am to go to the 
 Southern seaboard, to take charge of an im- 
 portant interest — the same port that I wrote you 
 the note about some time ago. Do you still think 
 that we must not correspond while you remain 
 here ? " 
 
 Cloud : " Oh, yes, I do, and decidedly, for the 
 same reasons advanced before. This letter that 
 goes out by you is the last one that I ^hall ever 
 send that does not pass through the regular chan- 
 nel. It does not contain one contraband word. 
 It is merely something that I do not care to be 
 made the subject of prison gossip just now; fori 
 know that the letter would be copied before it 
 Avent forward. Our mutual friend has a copy of 
 it to be used in his work." 
 
 Pleasington : "I guess you are right. Cloud. I 
 never should have used the forbidden route but 
 for the peculiar position in which I was placed. 
 I have not used it to pass one word that could 
 injure the prison or prejudice the interests of the 
 State." 
 
 Cloud : " Has Arnold Noel never yet suspi- 
 cioned your identity ? " 
 
 Pleasington : " Not in the least. I have often 
 been so near him, I could have taken him by the 
 throat. He never knew me very well, and never 
 met me after the second year of the war. Since 
 then time has changed me so much that few of 
 those who then knew me most intimately would 
 recognize me now. Even Col. Worthington and 
 Oglethrop say thej' would not have recognized 
 me, not though they had been seeking me, while 
 Noel continues to appear about the same image 
 as when a boy." 
 
 Cloud: "Well, Lawrence, I trust that you 
 may find such repose and comfort of body, and 
 quiet and peace of mind throughout the remain- 
 der of your Hfe, as will soften and alleviate the 
 cruel memories of the past, to an extent to ren- 
 der existence even more placidly serene than you 
 now dare to dream that it will prove." 
 
 Lawrence: " Oh, well, G-arland ! I have taught 
 myself, resignation in all these years of effort, 
 to bow in meekness before the Chastener, that 
 has enabled me to endure this, and which I be- 
 lieve will assist me to continue to bear my cross 
 zmcomplainingly, and to do my duty to my race 
 
 in a purer atmosphere, under more congenial 
 skies, amid surroundings and scenes that are less 
 diabolical and more brightly cheering. Pray do 
 not forget me, nor to remember our mutual 
 pledges. I shall think of you, and pray for you 
 every day, while I await your greeting letter of 
 friendship and liberty. 
 
 " Now, Garland, one changeless friend must 
 leave you. My blessing remains with you; and 
 may G-od bless and spare you to your friends and 
 our cause of usefulness, in which, I hope, Ave may 
 meet again and together work. So thus Ave must 
 part. Farewell." 
 
 Cloud : " G-od bless and spare you to human- 
 ity, Lawrence. I will be faithful and constant in 
 all things, and will n"fever forget you. My friend, 
 farewell." 
 
 CHAPTER LXXIIL 
 
 " faithful hearts that not forsake." 
 
 And thus the heart will break, yet brokenly live on ; 
 Even as a broken mirror, which the glass 
 In every fragment multiiJlies, and makes 
 A thousand images of one that was. 
 The same and still the more, the more it breaks, 
 And thus the heart will do which not forsakes; 
 Living in shattered guise, and still, and cold. 
 And bloodless, in Its sleepless sorrow aches. 
 Yet withers on till all without is old. 
 Showing no visible sign, for-such things are untold." 
 
 — Bykon. 
 
 "Sept., 1881. 
 " Mrs. Carrie V. Flowers : 
 
 " My best and trriest friend : 
 
 " The intervening months 
 between the receipt of your last sublime letter 
 and this moment, that I then deemed so long, and 
 that appeared so far distant, have one after an- 
 other rolled past, and as I to-night gaze out OA^er 
 the wake of the backAvard track of time, I fancj^ 
 that it was not more than a week ago when that 
 letter first gladdened and grieved mine eye. Yet 
 still, hoAvever, the time is here now when my 
 promise to you is due — when that sad, sad letter, 
 of Avhich I have shuddered and dreaded to think, 
 and hesitated so long to commence, must be writ- 
 ten. I no less now dread the task than at any 
 time in the past — a task from which I Avould gladlj' 
 
282 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 shrink ; a subject of which I would a thousand 
 times over prefer never to think, much less broach. 
 However, it is a theme and duty to which I am 
 fated — am bound with more than admantine 
 chains. So, being thus irretreivably condemned, 
 I will proceed to acquit myself of the letter por- 
 tion of the penalty by its fulfillment. 
 
 " To attempt to answer your letter, especially 
 the last one, with the spectral ghost of one fea- 
 ture of the subject of which j^our first letter de- 
 mands of me to render an account, haunting my 
 mind, and causing a thrill of terror to pervade my 
 being, would be more than folly — it would be 
 madness. 
 
 " Of the darkest chapter of my ignoble career, 
 I shall assume that you have aversion sufficiently 
 authentic both to gratify the demands of curiosity 
 and to satisfy the sohcitude of interested friend- 
 ship. Surely, this is ample as to all particulars, 
 save that blank and mysterious missing .link be- 
 tween the evening on which I disappeared from 
 the ' Future City,' and tlie day on which I re- 
 appeared at my father's home. There my presence 
 was as much a surprise to the family and the 
 neighbors, who were there on that occasion, as 
 though they had witnessed me rise up out of 
 the ground. This is one feature of that subject 
 that is so painful and terrible to contemplate 
 that I have never written one syllable upon it ; 
 about. it I have never breathed one word — have 
 been as silent as the grave; nor have I dared 
 think of it aloud in the presence of any one. If 
 ever the most horrible of all horrors was revealed 
 to mortal man upon this earth, if ev.er the vision 
 of judgment, of death and hell, the grim-visaged 
 terrors of their appearance to the approaching 
 spirits of the lost and the damned, were a veri- 
 table reality, divested of every semblance of im- 
 aginary coloring and feature of superstitious fancy, 
 that experience was then mine. 
 
 " "We have all been taught a divine maxim, 
 that ' Confession is good for the soul' — then why 
 not for the body and the mind as well ? Im- 
 pliciUy trusting to the efficacy of the doctrine as 
 being applicable alike to the one and to the other, 
 I shall proceed to a practical test of the force 
 of the virtues of this antidote as an operative 
 a^ent to counteract the mortal malady. I shall. 
 
 therefore, make to you an honest confession of that 
 deep, dark, and long-guarded secret, before taking 
 up any other point of the promiscuous features 
 of information which your letter demands. I 
 do this Avith a hope that my mind will thereby 
 experience some relief from the torturing rack of 
 painful distress and acute remorse to which it is 
 perpetually exposed. Therefore, without further 
 preliminary cringing, I will free my mind by 
 opening my heart and laying bare to you the 
 fearful story that lies therein concealed. 
 
 " The pangs of suicide; the vision of death and 
 beyond ! 
 
 " After swallowing the potent and venomous 
 drug, there was a strange sensation instantane- 
 ously creeping through my being. The healthful 
 currents of life were being sapped and curdled, 
 and were becoming stagnate and clogged and 
 dormant in their wonted channels. The heart, in 
 consequence, labored heavily to perform its func- 
 tions, but was gradually stifled, as the pure blood 
 which its pulsations expelled from the resei'voir 
 of its great fountain-head, and started out on its 
 vitalizing course, flowed, prematurely back upon 
 its supplying source, as yet but slightly impreg- 
 nated with the deadly bane. This was swiftly 
 permeating the smaller branches, and there leav- 
 ing its work of destruction behind it complete, as 
 it proceeded on with unabated force to encroach 
 upon the heart itself. The great rotary pumping- 
 engine of the heart was rapidly submerged 
 and flooded and disabled; its struggles grew 
 feebler and more feeble still. Upon each failing 
 effort, the. submerging currents rushed back, yet 
 more deeply impregnated with that wasting 
 agent of death. Finally, the faint struggles were 
 barely perceptible, as they steadily and ever con- 
 tinued to decline. The fingers and the toes ting- 
 led. The eye-balls quivered in their sockets. 
 The muscles of the neck and face twitched con- 
 vulsively. The head grew dizzier and dizzier, 
 until it seemed that I was on some wheel that 
 might have been making a million of revolutions 
 l)er minute. There was a roaring sound in the 
 ears resembling the thunder of a monster cataract^ 
 
 " Now the heart surceased to beat. Then there 
 was a moment of painful suspense not unlike, nor 
 yet Avas it just the same sensation as that expe- 
 
FAITHFUL HEARTS THAT NOT FORSAKE.' 
 
 283 
 
 rienced in the la^t instant of consciousness when 
 passing under the influence of chloroform. The 
 ebbing faculties of vitahty were yet able to realize 
 that their annihilation was drawing its work rap- 
 idly nearer and nearer to its final consummation. 
 
 '• Then followed a period of deeper blank be- 
 tween this latter state and a jjrofoundly uncon- 
 scious sleep, during which, could the act which 
 had produced it have then been recalled, no men- 
 tal anguish, no suffering, no bereavement, no sor- 
 row, no disappointment, no misfortune, no loss, 
 no shame, no fear of all the combined terrors and 
 tortures that ever afflicted, scourged, tormented, 
 slew, or consumed man upon this trouble-stricken 
 earth, could have ever tempted, induced, or di'iven 
 me to fly from them and seek refuge in this ! 
 
 " But oh, my God ! even in that horrid dream 
 on the very mystic borders of death, I yet was 
 able to reaUze that it was forever too late, for- 
 ever past recalling ; and that I was swiftly pass- 
 ing into the mysterious realities- of the great 
 Hereafter and of the terrible Unknown. This 
 was the most awful moment ever experienced by 
 mortal mind or spirit ken, without the dreadful 
 reality of that infernal torment of which the 
 preacher sometimes tells us in startling words. 
 
 " Jfow all the ties of consciousness, that had 
 bound together the relations of mind and nature, 
 were severed; and I passed into a state far more 
 vivid than the most impressively realistic dream. 
 While thus enthralled in suspense, aU the thread 
 of my life unfolded, and every act thereof, both 
 great and small, passed in solemn array before my 
 startled and wondering vision. But I could not 
 awake, as from some horrid night-mare dream. 
 The bright spots of life; the clean pages of its 
 history, together with the dark, the stained, and 
 the blurred ones, continued to pass before me, 
 until they came down to this last and final scene, 
 where all was still, on one page of black and ray- 
 less blank. This I comprehended to be a token of 
 my everlasting doom. I seemed to feel, but as yet 
 vaguely, that my spirit was free and on the bor- 
 dering confines of the spirit world, or about to fly 
 thitherward. It seemed that separation had ac- 
 tually taken place, and that my poor, long-suffer- 
 ing body was left stark and stiff and tenantless, 
 to moulder in the unknown depths of that lone- 
 
 some, subterranean vault, while its late tenant 
 was hastening to an existence which it then ap- 
 peared to reahze in conscious conviction was ten 
 thousand times more a-vvful and terrible than it 
 has been or ever can be named. 
 
 "From this uncertain state of semi-stupefac- 
 tion, the spirit suddenly awoke to a keen sensi- 
 bility and deep realization of its immortal force 
 of glowing penetration. It could survey, at will, 
 with its spirit eye, the most distant sphere of the 
 spirit world in all stages, all states, all forms, and 
 in all time. Thus it understood that its own sta- 
 tion was fixed with the hopeless and the damned. 
 Though yet with its clay tenement in the dark 
 vault of earth unflown, its sealed doom was 
 clear, whither it could discern the grim messen- 
 ger coming swiftly through sp£\,ce, on the speedy 
 wings of thought, to guard it hence to its home 
 of terror. 
 
 " Poor soul ! it shuddered and shrunk back 
 upon itself, and would have then flown alone for 
 some blessed station of visible glory, but it was 
 transfixed and bound by the magic spell of its 
 approaching master. It had forfeited those 
 bright realms of peace which spread out before 
 its longing gaze in boundless, endless sublimit3^ 
 
 " There myriads upon myriads of numberless 
 happy spirits appeared in tranquil blissfulness. 
 In semblance they were as near as an earthly 
 picture of comparison can be drawn to approxi- 
 mate the reality of this vision, as I yet retain its 
 impression, which now sinks far below its then 
 forcible perfectness — much the same as joyous, 
 happy girls of meekly modest and innocent 
 purity, whose hopes have never been embittered 
 by one cruel disappointment, and whose lives 
 have never been clouded by one sorrow, when 
 mingling together in some sociably pleasing re- 
 union. Thus appeared the perfect peace, tran- 
 quil contentment, and supreme happiness of those 
 who had not, like me, forfeited their inheritance 
 to a home in that bright world of beatific glory. 
 To my spirit's eye they did not appear just Avhat 
 in fancy we have been taught to picture angel 
 forms; nor was their wide and varied realms f f 
 bliss the same as our imaged Heaven. But they 
 appeared as worlds on worlds, each particular 
 orb, both visilile and invisible to soipnce"s mao-ic 
 
284 
 
 I^rYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 eye, in the vast era and boundless expanse of the 
 starry plain — being a happy spirit world border- 
 ing on limpid rivers and crystal seas, upon the 
 opposite margins of which were other worlds, 
 until thus all were together entwined in one con- 
 tinuous and endless chain of perfect and symmet- 
 rical beauty. Those happy beings appeared in 
 form and beauty much the same as the most ex- 
 quisite model of the sculptor's art, yet a thou- 
 sand times more pleasing to the eye; and they 
 bore the full bloom and deep imprint ' of immor- 
 tal youth,' tliat had been, was, and was to con- 
 tinue to be, eternally changeless, with un abatable 
 faculties and tastes for the fullness of enjoyment 
 of the delicious pleasures of their benignant clime, 
 and the delightful communion of social inter- 
 course and love,- which care, nor sorrow, nor 
 pain can never mar. 
 
 " Their glorious realms of unalloyable happi- 
 ness appeared to be diversified into numberless 
 and perpetually varying scenes of bliss-promoting 
 wonders and rapture-inspiring features, vrhose 
 genial influences lived on ever new. There-were 
 shady groves and enchanting gardens resplendent 
 with unfading flowers and replete Avith immortal 
 fruits. There were hill and dale and valley and 
 plain decked in living green and beauteous 
 flowers, interspersed ever and anon with mur- 
 muring, musical streams, and rippling cascades of 
 living water, covered with groups and commu- 
 nities and villas and cities of their happy habi- 
 tants, employed in many ways. 
 
 "Beyond and above all this, there appeared to 
 be wrapped in a mystic veil of cloud the angelic 
 Heaven, of which we cherish, a vague conception, 
 within the thrice consecrated precincts of which 
 was located the throne of God, whence was 
 dispensed blessings and mercy and grace, to His 
 surrounding dominions. 
 
 " How terrible to gaze with longing admira- 
 tion upon the beauties and the glories of those 
 blessed abodes of the redeemed and happy spirits, 
 and know that their consoling peace is fortified — 
 that one is debarred from their enjoyment for- 
 ever — and to realize, as I did then, that the last 
 act of life by which the self-freed soul was liber- 
 ated from its house of clay was the capital offence 
 which had incurred the liability to that dread 
 
 penalty. Oh, that was one trying moment of 
 indescribable bitterness and supreme anguish to 
 the hope-exiled soul ! 
 
 " Ah! but there was yet one scene wanting to 
 complete the consummation of the trembling, 
 terror-stricken spirit's torturing agony ; to sur- 
 vey the waste howling realms of the damned in 
 torment — that horrible sphere of endless dark- 
 ness, blank and eternal despair; the awful home 
 of my shrinking, frightened soul that was about 
 to be conducted thitherward forevermore to 
 dwell. Here was grim-visaged terror, the mere 
 vision of whose yet untried realities created, 
 each twinkle of an eye, deeper pangs of suffer- 
 ing than all that I had ever experienced in my 
 natural life, could it have been combined into one 
 piercing pang and thrust at one instantaneous 
 stroke of woe into the mortal heart. To eyes 
 and ears of flesh and blood, a true picture and a 
 trj.ie story of the dread reality of that terrible 
 moment, could art's coloring paint or the paucity 
 of words depict it as it was then seen and felt 
 by my crushed soul's acute sensibility, would be 
 a sight, a theme of terrifying horrors to drive 
 mankind to frenzied madness. One glimpse, one 
 pang would suffice to stay any desperate hand 
 raised in armed strife, arrayed against itself for 
 self-destruction. 
 
 " That burning Hell, with its blue sulphurous 
 flames, I did not behold ; yet worse than that, by 
 far, then to my astounded vision was revealed. 
 I saw the lost and the damned suffering in the 
 purple darkness of their eternal midnight, in un- 
 numbered forms and endless degrees, in their 
 worlds of chaotic waste. They were exposed on 
 icy rocks, in boggy fens, and upon the crested 
 billows of raging seas, to the pelting storms and 
 the relentless lash of contending elements. 
 Driven by the waves ; dashed upon the rocks ; 
 caught up by the whirlwind ; spun through space 
 by the hurricane; sitting pensively absorbed in 
 silent despair, wringing the hands ; rushing fran- 
 tically to and fro in wild panic, as the terrified 
 passengers on a sinking ship, or moaning pite- 
 ously, as the last survivor of a family laid low 
 by the fell plague in one dreadful night. Then, 
 in their stern realms of grim terrors, ghastly 
 shadows, woeful horrors, unmitigated despair 
 
FAITHFUL HEARTS THAT NOT FORSAKE. 
 
 285 
 
 and endless pain, the realms of bliss, with all 
 their alluring delights and fascinating joys, burst 
 forth, ever in dazzhng splendors upon the hun- 
 gry view of the damned, causing them con- 
 tinually to pine with ceaseless yet vain desire. 
 Thus, perpetually consumed by hunger and 
 thirst, yet not able to die — powerless to cease to 
 be — their longing suspense, their doom of fate, is 
 fixed, unmeasured by years, uncheered by one 
 distant gleam of hope. 
 
 " Such was ' that wide, that boundless prospect ' 
 that then opened up before my despairing soul. 
 Oh Heaven ! how T then longed to be back in 
 my late esteemed intolerable existence, with all 
 its wretchedness increased a thousand fold. I 
 would have flown from it again, never; but 
 would rather have embraced it as a boon of 
 bliss. 
 
 " Now my guide and guard from those dark 
 and infernal shores drew near, to take charge of 
 my spirit and hasten it onward through space to 
 its dread doom. But just as the fiendish mes- 
 senger was about to enter the dark vault's dismal 
 mouth and rayless gloom, like a flash of light, 
 with flaming sword in hand, a bright angel inter- 
 cepted his approach and bid him stand at bay. • 
 The baffled fiend protested and urged his time- 
 honored right to the forfeited soul. The angel 
 rebuked him for thus hastily pressing his claim 
 before it was due, before the spirit and nature 
 were fully parted; and informed him that while 
 in law and custom the parted soul, when free, 
 was his forfeited right, the Great Judge had in 
 mercy decreed to judge that soul — had then jlis- 
 patched his swift and holy messenger to guard 
 it from farther harm, until its final doom was 
 fixed. Murmuringly the fiend turned away and 
 sped him back towards his ghostly realm, 
 while gradually my spirit sunk back into a state 
 of blank unconsciousness. Thus I passed through 
 the sleep of death and fully experienced ' what 
 dreams may come,' such as are the suicide's 
 appalling terror. 
 
 "At last I came back to conscious life; but 
 for some time I could not realize, nor yet be- 
 lieve, that such was true. When, finally, I did 
 comprehend the situation, and was well assured 
 that I still lived in the flesh, I at first, and for a 
 
 long time — I could not tell how IcMig, though it 
 seemed ages to me then — was unable to move or 
 speak. I was paralyzed and stiff" and cold ; and 
 a raging thirst seemed to be devouring me as a 
 consuming flame. My head and Hmbs ached as 
 though they were ready to burst into shattered 
 fragments. I beheved that I was doomed to die 
 there, helplessly. 
 
 " However, by desperate and persistently con- 
 tinued efforts, I moved, and at length succeeded 
 in getting my hand to my head. There was a 
 perceptible indication of moisture on my fore- 
 head, which my constant exertions to move 
 caused gradually to spread, until, probably in 
 the course of an hour, I was perspiring and able 
 to rise to a sitting posture ; but it was much like 
 Rip Van Winkle rising from his fabled sleep of 
 twenty years. The popping of my joints echoed 
 lugubriously sad through that dark and terrible 
 vault. 
 
 "Sometime later I was once more under the 
 starry canopy of Heaven, much refreshed from 
 drinking some water from a little brooklet and 
 washing my hand and face. It was about two 
 o'clock in the morning. But what morning? I 
 was unable to tell. I walked with much diffi- 
 culty and great pain. 
 
 " Now a crisis was upon me. I was confronted 
 by that great and momentous problem and its 
 menacing question — ' What are you going to do ? ' 
 I was weak and feeble, and still suffering the 
 agonizing tortures of torment. I was in a 
 dilemma of irresolution and perplexing doubt, 
 while I fancied there was a stern voice of com- 
 mand ringing in my ears. ' Fly ! fly ! from Nube 
 Garland and his irredeemable curse, back to Gar- 
 land Cloud and truth and duty.' 
 
 "I had more will to go than inclination to 
 stay. How could I now return to those scenes 
 and experiences from which I had been driven 
 to attempt an everlasting flight ? Would not the 
 reproach of that attempt be Avorse to bear than 
 all that had induced it ? So far as all the world 
 who had ever known me as Nube Garland was 
 concerned, my relation would only be the same 
 as it would have remained had I never returned 
 to Hfe. All the pangs of anguish and feelings of 
 disappointment that my rash act would cause in 
 
286 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREl. 
 
 the world, had ah-eady been most cruelly in- 
 flicted — past recalling, past cure; wounds which 
 my reappearance would but aggravate. Thus 
 influenced, I resolved to fly; but I had no money, 
 and what to do I could not tell. 
 
 "Directly I remembered where Milton Land 
 had lived ten years before, about forty miles 
 away. I was about one mile from a point on a 
 railroad leading to that place — a point at which 
 an out-going freight train would stop at a few 
 minutes past three o'clock in the morning. If I 
 could catch that, and prevail on the conductor 
 to pass me to Milton Land's station, I might there 
 obtain money to carry me back to my native 
 blue mountains, where I then dreamed I 
 would pass my remaining days, be they many or 
 few, in almost hermetical seclusion, far from the 
 seething, surging strifes of life in which I had 
 suffered such sorrow, endured so much pain. 
 
 "Taking from my pocket a large linen hand- 
 kerchief, and tying the corners together, I then 
 .•^lipped it tightly over the top of my head, and 
 under my chin, to form the semblance of a 
 huge bandage. This concealed my side features 
 and covered my lower beard. This done, I set 
 out to reach the railroad. Never in my life have 
 I performed any physical effort that was accom- 
 plished with so much difficulty and at the cost 
 of so much bodily pain. 
 
 "However, I reached the desired point in time, 
 and the conductor, who happened to be intimately 
 acquainted with Milton, passed me without a 
 word of objection, and landed me at my destina- 
 tion before the sun peeped over the neighboring 
 hill-tops. The conductor pointed out to me the 
 residence of Milton Land. 
 
 " I was met at the door by Milton, who never 
 would have recognized me. He was loth to be- 
 lieve at first I was not some imposter, as he had 
 been informed ten years before that I had com- 
 mitted suicide by drowning in the Tennessee 
 river, but that my body had never been found. 
 Yet, however, I quickly satisfied him as to my 
 identity, and told him that I had been drugged 
 nearly to death at the ' Future City,' was thus left 
 penniless ; and that I had sought him in my dire 
 extremity with a hope that I could obtain assist- 
 ance to enable me to get to my native land. This 
 
 he promptly assured me I could have. Then he 
 conducted me into a room in order that I might 
 wash and comb before meeting the family. He 
 left me there alone for a few minutes. 
 
 " After washing, I went to the glass to comb. 
 At the first glimpse I started back aghast. My 
 hair and beard were nearly half grey, and every 
 hair on my neck was as white as wool. My ej'es 
 were sunken, Avith great black circles under 
 them; and my features were contracted and 
 haggard. With the evidence of my missing 
 arm concealed, I could have M^alked the active 
 thoroughfares of the ' Future City,' with impunity, 
 with no fear of being recognized. 
 
 "As to the meeting and day spent with the 
 famil}'— ^just imagine it! That night I bid them 
 adieu and took passage on a mail train that swiftly 
 widened the distance between me and the city 
 Avith which were associated so many sadly bitter 
 memories, and the dark vault for seventy-six 
 hours my tomb. 
 
 "After I was at my father's house the first 
 evening and night, I found that the phantom of 
 Garland Cloud, which had haunted me so many 
 years, was gone; but that there was still, and 
 more horrible to contemplate, the ghost of Nube 
 Garland with me, destined to be and to remain 
 ever present. 
 
 " The horrors of that sleep of death and its 
 frightful dreams weighed heavily upon my de- 
 sponding mind, creating pangs which my enfeebled 
 frame was little able to sustain. 
 
 " Then, added to this, was the keen knife of re- 
 morse, cutting the lacerated mass and pulp of my 
 crushed heart. Remorse for my act — that act of 
 horror that had more than miraculously failed, 
 for the drug was pure and of the most potent 
 known, and had been taken in the accurately 
 measured proportion prescribed by science to 
 dispatch a man of my natural strength and power- 
 ful constitution, and it did its work vrell and 
 finally, had not a super-human power intervened 
 and stayed its fatal influence before the work of 
 destruction was complete — and for my commer- 
 cial brigandage, do you thinlf? Ah, no ; but it 
 was for the poor forsaken Manonia, whom I 
 should never see any more, that I wept ; and for 
 whom my heart began to bleed ever again anew. I 
 
FAITHFUL HEAKTS THAT NOT FOESAKE." 
 
 287 
 
 had beheld her grief, that nearly broke her heart; 
 and now I could not rest one moment, either 
 sleeping or waking, for the haunting image of her 
 pitiful despair. She had been devoted to me to 
 a degree to rival anything I ever read in the most 
 fabulously colored descriptions of romanticly im- 
 aged conjugal aiFection. She was, for a time, 
 happy; but between her father's family and I her 
 heart was about equally divided, with my half 
 rather in the preponderance. When she was with 
 me, temptation never assailed me; but her fre- 
 quent and protracted visits to her family proved 
 my bane. 
 
 "Had she been with me when the emergency 
 came to force a decision, whether I would aban- 
 don my sinking craft of commerce and let her 
 go down with her over burthen, honorably, or 
 buoy her up by casting honor overboard and 
 cahing to my assistance those most disreputable 
 of piratical sloops. Deception and Crime, my ship 
 would have been submerged beneath the en- 
 croaching and disastrous waves of misfortune. 
 But, poor Manonia! she was not there with her 
 angehc influence to counteract and disarm the 
 power of the Tempter, whose slave I was and 
 had been for so many years, whenever I was 
 alone unguarded by some soul of purity which 
 he dared not approach ; or, had she been with me 
 in that last great crisis of supreme trial, I had 
 never known that sleep of death with its dreams 
 of horror. 
 
 " Could I recall that step — that nameless wrong 
 that Hnked her fate with the burden of my curse — 
 I would, to have that it had not been, go back 
 again to that sleep of death, as I was when the 
 angel came, never more to wake. Is this not 
 proof of my remorse ? 
 
 " I struggled hard, but all in vain, to resist the 
 spell that forged the links of that fatal chain that 
 bound her to me, and enslaved her hopes in the 
 direful thraldom of a cruel despair. 
 
 " Ah, my true friend, before the charm of that 
 magic and enchanting spell, I was as powerless 
 to exercise my own free will as I was while 
 under the baneful influence of that potent drug. 
 It has been, is, and ever will be, a mystery too 
 deep for the penetration of my dark mind. 
 Some strange power, unrevealed, decreed — some 
 
 invisible hand of destiny directed, that I should 
 be her fell fatality. " Before her pure chain of 
 love had bound me fast, your image, my true 
 young heart's idol— the first, the last, the only 
 shrine of love upon which, in all truth and sin- 
 cerity, all its incense, with no reserve, was sac- 
 rificed, and but for that fiendish lie that told me 
 how base slander's envenomed whisper, that lied 
 so as to seem true, had ahenated your good 
 friendship from me, for with you, friendship, 
 true friendship, was all that it ever could have 
 been — I Avould have mourned, and felt the same 
 keen remorse for your sake that I have known 
 for poor Manonia in her desolate lot. 
 
 " Against the spell that hnked my soul to you 
 I fought long and well, and was oft and truly 
 warned. Few are the men, with ambition's fire 
 glowing in their hearts, who would not have a 
 fair angel, adored by seraphs and all the world, 
 for a friend, though he knew that nearer he 
 could never be than for distant, unseen smiles 
 and far-sent messages of approbation to cheer 
 him on with tireless courage to stem the oppos- 
 ing tides and brave the adverse storms that 
 would dispute his daring course. I was that 
 aspirant, you the angel, then when you proffered 
 friendship I embraced it with a secret vow, a 
 mental oath, that beyond that safe line of pro- 
 priety's bounds I Avould never attempt, nor seek 
 to go, nor dream of going. 
 
 "My unwhispered plans of ambition to rise 
 were deeply formed before my proud young 
 heart bounded, with one wild and enthusiastic 
 thrill, when first I gazed upon the tented field. 
 But I realized the want of an inspiration, and 
 that your name proved to be to me, a name 
 Avhich I learned to cherish with holy reverence, 
 and to consecrate as my guiding star and my 
 consoling angel, without one selfish thought or one 
 future hope, save such as were far away removed 
 beyond an earthly love, the same as I do now. 
 Had I never met you under the mystic influence 
 of that cave-guarded spring, or had you then met 
 me more coldly formal, and proved afterwards 
 less warmly friendly, my sentiments had ever re- 
 mained unchanged; I had never dreamed that 
 fatal dream of love, for I trembled when I 
 thought of the pangs of a hopeless love. 
 
288 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 " When that decoy letter, that sent me on the 
 wild and tempestuous voyage around the shores 
 of death and hell, reached me, could I then but 
 have known that your true friendship still re- 
 mained unshaken, I would have returned, defied 
 all their reptile crew, faced the whole world, and 
 confessed to you as I confess now. But this was not 
 to be ; upon it rested the interdiction of Fate, and 
 your guardian angel watched over you and 
 shielded 'The Angel of Consolation' from all 
 harm, and gave to you the purest and the truest 
 Christian man that I ever knew. So, thus, were 
 you doubly blessed. 
 
 " How truly well all ended, and would be now, 
 had not that hapless dove, the forlorn Manonia, 
 been draAvn upon the stage as an actress, to 
 perform the saddest role in the sadly cruel 
 scenes. 
 
 " After my return, I spent one night in that 
 town where once you dwelt, where we first met 
 and last parted. 
 
 " In the early summer morning, before the sun 
 rose, I walked over the well-remembered path- 
 way to the cave spring ; looked around and 
 thought backwards to another morning in May, 
 long years ago. The limpid spring, the arching 
 of the cave, the moss-covered spring-house, the 
 venerable shade-tree, and the gravelly walk up 
 the gently sloping decUvity to the mansion, were 
 there unchanged by time, but Carrie Harman 
 was nowhere to be seen. Then I walked pen- 
 sively up to the stile, and sat down upon it, 
 where you once sat by my side, when you would 
 not let me sing some lines of that pathetic song, 
 ' I am Sitting on the Stile Mary,' as I wanted to 
 transpose them ; yet oh ! how prophetic they 
 were. This last morning I sang alone, in a hum- 
 ming, husky voice : 
 
 ' I am sitting on tlie stile, Carrie, 
 
 Where we sat side by side 
 One bright May morning long ago. 
 
 When you were my joy and pride. 
 The corn was springing fresh and green, 
 
 The lark sang loud and high, 
 The red was on your lip, Carrie, 
 
 The love-light In your eye.' 
 
 " I could go no farther. I looked over at the 
 closed windows of the deserted mansion, and of 
 the parlor where last I lightly, and with a hope, 
 
 bade you good-night. ' The graveyard ' did not 
 lie between, Carrie,' but there was one lonely, 
 neglected, unknown grave there, and to bow in 
 meekness at its shrine I had made a pilgrimage. 
 It was ' The grave of my Jwjjes.' 
 
 * * * ■ * 
 
 " Your grateful, yet unworthy friend, 
 
 " Garland Cloud." 
 Half of this letter is omitted, as the answer 
 indicates its nature. 
 
 " Square, New York, Jan., 1882. 
 
 "CoL. Garland Cloud: 
 
 ''My unhappy and much pitied friend : 
 
 " Your comiDassion-eliciting. heartrending, soul- 
 stirring letter, by the friendly hand of our 
 mutual and esteemed friend, Major Pleasington, 
 has been read and re-read, again and again, with 
 feelings of mingled sorrow, pity and awe. Who 
 lives, with heart and soul so dead, as to be un- 
 moved by that letter ? 
 
 " Of that terrible experience in the closing 
 scene of your relation to Nube Garland, which 
 terminated your career and residence in the 
 ' Future City,' I care to say but little — the less 
 the better ; because nothing could be so appro- 
 priate, in the presence of such a frightful and 
 horrible subject as silent awe. 
 
 " I am truly gratified to know that it has been 
 the means of effectually curing you of that bane- 
 ful pYoneness to commit suicide, with which your 
 mind had been so long and so sadly infected ; 
 that this distemper has been thereby so thor- 
 oughly eradicated that you have never since even 
 dreamed of self-destruction, except with a shock- 
 ing thrill of inexpressible horror that drove you 
 yet farther away from this distressing danger. 
 Also, let me say that I am, furthermore, thankful 
 that your present experience has cured you of 
 that fatal and erroneous principle that caused 
 you to reason that to commit a wrong with pure 
 motives, designed to promote a good cause that 
 would directly benefit many thousands of the 
 laboring poor or produce good, was not a crime. 
 I rejoice that you take the view of it that you do; 
 that your fearful penalty was necessary as the 
 only remedy that would have fully effected this 
 
FAITHFUL HEARTS THAT NOT FORSAKE. 
 
 289 
 
 much-to-be-desired result ; and that, therefore, 
 you regard those two appalUng experiences as 
 being the chief and only blessing that you have re- 
 ceived since you first strayed from the path of true 
 honor. Thus they must be, as they have set you 
 back in it again, freed from the galling slavery 
 into which the spell — that fatal spell of the magic 
 mask — had plunged and there held you bound. 
 Now you are a wiser and maj^ be a better man. 
 
 "I now have al)iding faith and boundless con- 
 fidence in your future career, believing that you 
 are yet destined to be the agent and instrument 
 through and with whom the Divine benefactor of 
 mankind designs to dispense inestimable tem- 
 poral blessings upon the human race, by inspiring 
 your purposes and directing your efforts so that 
 they will become the means of saving many 
 thousands from a career of crime, and their near 
 ones and their dear ones from the cruel jjangs 
 wrought by the criminal's disgraceful ruin. 
 
 " Throughout the wild vicissitudes of your 
 strangely checkered career, I can trace the finger 
 of a mysterious Destiny, guiding you from stage 
 to stage, through scene after scene, as he brought 
 you on to this final point of preparation for his 
 great work, else why or how has all this been ? 
 What you designed — desired, was not to be ; and 
 what you dreamed not of, has been — is yours. 
 
 " Viewing the situation from your standpoint, 
 that you' are a hopeless outcast and a friendless 
 exile from the benignant atmosphere of the only 
 social sphere in which you would dream of at- 
 tempting to exist, and which will, therefore, 
 doom you to a lonely life of cheerless desolation, 
 I can but stand, as it were, transfixed Avith ad- 
 miration at beholding the meek resignation and 
 imselfish courage with which you devote your 
 life to the cause of that social world in which you 
 rre unlikely to find, for yourself, much benevo- 
 lence grafted on charity, and Avhere you may 
 expect to meet small personal encouragement. 
 
 " Long years ago, when our bright Southern 
 skies were overcast with darkly portentious 
 gloom, and Dixie's children of the mountain and 
 the vale from day to day, in trembling suspense, 
 whispered with white lips, ' The foe — they come, 
 they come ! ' I admired the youthful, mountain 
 soldier-boy. Garland Cloud, for his unselfish de- 
 
 votion to those who had ill-treated liiiu;.and for 
 his temperate life of purity, that the corruptions 
 of the camp could not infect. 
 
 " Then, you confess to having been an ambi- 
 tious aspirant to have entwined upon your youth- 
 ful brow the trophied laurels of cruel war, man's 
 wasting scourge — that universal and destructive 
 pestilence — and to having enshrined me as an 
 inspiration in your proud heart. It Avas a pleasing 
 duty with me to cheer you on. 
 
 " Now, again, with your pursuing odium of the 
 past, and crushing ignominy of the present, I ad- 
 mire you — and more, a thousand times, with no 
 springing hope of selfishness as then enflamed 
 my young and romantic heart, but with a nobler, 
 higher' hope for the human weal of all hearts — 
 Garland Cloud, regenerated and redeemed ; ma- 
 tured in years; ripe with knowledge acquired 
 from lessons taught in Experience's cruel school; 
 a stern veteran and courageous soldier, brandish- 
 ing in bold defiance the unsheathed sword clrawn 
 in a far more glorious war against the enemy of 
 all mankind, that monster enemy — Crime ! 
 
 " Was I worthy, in that other wasting war, to 
 be your inspiration, I am a thousand times more 
 Avorthy to be so now. Then, in this long struggle 
 in that dark hour that may be coming on, let me 
 be your inspiring and consoling friend. I speak 
 now of your work — the duty of your life. I am 
 yet to speak of yourself, and life for yourself 
 alone. 
 
 "As to the cureless wrongs of your lost and 
 much-regretted Manonia, I am unable to see how 
 you can do better than to let them remain just as 
 they Avould have been had you never awoke 
 from that horrible sleep of death, except that in 
 the future you may now contribute whatever 
 you can towards her support and temporal com- 
 fort ; because, for her, mental remedy you have 
 none. Evidently, it would be worse than mad- 
 ness, under the circumstances now existing, for. 
 you to think of attempting to return and live with 
 her people. It would be, assuming that the last 
 lingering spark of her affection for you has not 
 been wholly extinguished, a cruelty to tear her 
 away from her family again, almost as bad as the 
 other wrongs which she has suffered, even grant- 
 mg that she would consent to such an arrange- 
 
290 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 merit. This is highly improbable ; for now she, 
 doubtless, hates you as cordially as she once loved 
 3'ou passionately, and is, most likely, divorced, if 
 not married again. 
 
 " I think her deplorable and pitiful lot is but 
 the natural consequence and penalty resulting 
 from the most indiscreet imprudence on her part 
 and that of her family. Had she maintained to- 
 wards you that retiring reserve and caution 
 that should always be meted out to unvouched- 
 for strangers by all ladies; or, even before making 
 the final leap into the darkness, had lier family 
 done what custom inexorably demand that they 
 should have done — called on you for references, 
 from whom your credentials could be obtained, 
 you would have never married her. You should 
 not, however, have been induced to marry her. 
 Wliile censuring her imprudence, I am not ex- 
 cusing you. I noted in your letter that you 
 actually reproached me for the extreme warmth 
 with *which I manifested my friendship to you, 
 even after our long-continued and most intimate 
 relations. Certainly, Manonia was no less retiring. 
 
 "Now, it becomes me to make my confession 
 to you — to do which I am compelled to repeat 
 something of the story of the past which I have 
 never told save to myself alone, but to myself so 
 oft that it will be repeating to tell it to you. But 
 in reflecting upon this theme the lines from our 
 once mutually admired 'Poet of the passions,' and, 
 I doubt not, now thrice in harmony with your 
 emotions, involuntarily rush into my mind : 
 
 ' Since my young days of passion, joy or pain, 
 Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string, 
 And both may jar.' 
 
 " And thus out of time, the discord of my story 
 must grate harshly in contrast with the present 
 situation, to which it bears a distant relation. 
 
 "My mterest in G-arland Cloud, after the senti- 
 ments of gratitude which sprung from the depths 
 of pure, sisterly love, were selfish. From grati- 
 tude the gradations upward can be ascended with 
 rapid facility, and the steps are few to the highest 
 emotions and the purest sentiment of the human 
 heart — that of the most intensified love. 
 
 " When I received definite reports from the 
 army as to how the young gentlemen of my 
 own social class were utterly failing to stand the 
 
 moral, crucible test to which they were subjected 
 in camp hfe, and drinking, gambhng, and other- 
 wise conducting themselves in an ungentlemanly 
 manner, I experienced a feeling of inexpressible 
 disappointment, because, from this class I had 
 been educated to understand that I was to draw 
 my prize in the lottery of life. 
 
 " Stories of Garland Cloud's temperate life and 
 unselfish devotion as a soldier, both to his country 
 and his unkind aristocratic comrades, constantly 
 reached me ; and coming, as they did come, from 
 those companions themselves, greatly enhanced 
 these qualities and acts in my estimation. I de- 
 cided in my own mind, that there was a young 
 man in the lowest ranks of the army that would 
 outstrip all of his comrades, with their greater 
 advantages of education, and the powerful influ- 
 ence of wealthy and ofiicial friends against him, 
 alone by his own personal exertions, unaided and 
 unbefriended ; and, though belonging to a lower 
 sphere of life, that in moral character and natural 
 talents he was the superior of any one of my per- 
 sonal young friends in the army, my own dear 
 and idolized brother not excepted. From the 
 moment that this conviction became positively 
 fixed in my mind, I resolved that he should be 
 the prize for me in the lottery of life, unless the 
 blood of his pure young heart was sacrificed on 
 the altar of his country. From that wild Decem- 
 ber day, until that evening of your last good- 
 night, every thought, every action of my life, that 
 bore the most distant relation to you, was aimed 
 to tend to promote the progress, or to hasten the 
 consummation of that result. I dreamed and 
 deemed that it would be an easy conquest, a 
 struggle in which you would, without opposition, 
 surrender at discretion. Alas! how soon and 
 how painfully I learned my mistake I 
 
 " I wrote you letters couched in such warmly 
 expressed terms as to be nothing more nor less 
 than advances, at which my maidenly pride 
 blushed, and against which my true woman's 
 nature revolted. Then I waited on tip-toe of 
 expectation for the reply, after mailing one after 
 another of my numerous and often voluminous 
 letters, containing exhaustive reports of the Avork 
 in which I was engaged, but which, even as to 
 this feature, were simply love-letters. Your re- 
 
"FAITHFUL HEARTS THAT NOT FORSAKE. 
 
 291 
 
 plies were always tardy, aud thus in ill-harmony 
 with the anxiety of my watching heart. Then, 
 when at last they did come — cruel things that they 
 were — in the studied reserve of your guarded cold- 
 ness I was unable to find just one little word of 
 encouragement for which my hungry, thirsty 
 heart was pining, whose expressive fOrce was not 
 so modified by some qualifying term as to^destroy 
 all possibility of placing upon it the least sem- 
 blance of a favorable construction. As I read these 
 letters, I could feel the sensation of an icy tre- 
 mor creeping through my veins and penetrating 
 to my heart, mingled with provoking despair. I 
 was baffled and foiled. 
 
 " Then, finally, I concluded that you must be 
 engaged to some mountain beauty ; for methought 
 that a mountain rose would be more enticingly 
 preferable than a lily of the valley, especially to 
 a mountain boy ; because, if otherwise, I could 
 not dream that you could be indifferent to that 
 then self-esteemed, treasured jewel, Carrie Har- 
 man, and I wept — and wept most bitterly. The 
 thought never once entered my head, I was so 
 honestly sincere and so intensely in earnest, that 
 all this time you were dreading and shunning a 
 coquettish flirtation — something of which I was 
 as incapable of being guilty, and which was as 
 foreign to my nature, as the most degrading vices. 
 " After long years of waiting, when at last we 
 met, my woman's heart s6on discerned that 
 yours, though distant and apparently indifferent 
 and cold, could be. won. When you came to the 
 point of declarmg your love, it was then that I 
 experienced the ecstacies of success, of a crown- 
 ing triumph, which, in that glad hour, I thought 
 compensated for aU the cruel anxiety and bitter 
 disappointments of the past. Ah ! but these were 
 ecstacies of bliss too fierce — too fierce to last. 
 
 "You bade me good-night for evermore, with 
 my heart a stranger to you, and its sentiments 
 strugghng so hard to be free that I could scarcely 
 stifle them. Had I then confessed as I do now !— 
 The sad, sad hues m your old song are appropriate 
 here : 
 
 'And what we might have been, Lorena, 
 Had but our lovings prospered well ! ' 
 
 " But they were doomed by the stern and mer- 
 ciless interdiction of Fate. 
 
 " Oh, my Grod I that I could be spared the mem- 
 ory, much more the repetition, of another syllable 
 of this story. Your regretted Manonia, nor any 
 other woman who was a wife, never mourned more 
 bitterly than I mourned. Oh! cruel, cruel man 
 that you were, in order to escape slander's venom- 
 ously pointed dagger, to wring a heart so truly 
 yours, and Wight the one fond hope of a long- 
 suffering life — that had suffered for you alone! 
 Had you then known my heart, I never could 
 have forgiven you. 
 
 " After my fufl two years of mourning and re- 
 tirement from society, the question of marry- 
 ing was a bitter one. I looked upon the clause 
 of a letter — a farewell letter — you wrote to your 
 fathei', as a positive will that I should marry 
 Jesse Flowers; and that you designed to make me 
 the executrix of that will, and I married — devoted 
 my life as a sacrifice upon the altar of duty. It 
 was, on my part, but meekly bowing in resigna- 
 tion at the shrine of duty ; then, farther than this, 
 my heart — poor, crushed and mangled heart — was 
 not in it. Jesse knew this ; I told him that, had 
 you remained, I should have been your wife. 
 
 " But 1 have since taught myself loving devo- 
 tion, and am as happy as any one can be in a second 
 love, after the heart has once bled ; and here the 
 lines of our poet come again : 
 • Oh ! thyself deceive not ; 
 
 Love may sink by slow decay; 
 But by sudden wrench believe not, 
 
 Hearts may thus be torn away. 
 ' Still thine own its life retaineth; 
 
 Still must mine, though bleeding, beat; 
 And the undying thought which paineth, 
 
 Is that we no more may meet.' 
 
 "Now, as to your future: I admire your res- 
 olution to start the new life on the foundation 
 laid in prison, and commend your desire to prove 
 to the world what is possible for fallen men to 
 do. But I do not think you are right in declining 
 to accept assistance from true friends, who are 
 so anxious to pay you something on their great 
 debt of gratitude. If you think that it wiU be 
 too painful to call at the house, pray see the men 
 m business. 
 
 "Now, my friend, one last request: All the 
 woman's heart that I have is wholly and truly 
 devoted to Jesse Flowers. But I have a sister's 
 
292 
 
 IVIYSTIC ROaiANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 heart and a sister's boundless love — half of these 
 are yours. 
 
 " When I look at my dear brother, in his su- 
 preme happiness with his mountain Rose, and 
 think that but for you, a poor, all but friendless 
 prisoner, languishing all these long and bitter 
 wintry nights in the murky damp of a granite 
 tomb, his bones would now be bleaching or 
 mouldering to dust on the banks of the Potomac, 
 I forget that you have ever been Nube Garland, 
 or that there are crime stains on the solitary 
 hand — stains that I would wash away in briny 
 tears — and say, ' He is my btiotheb I ' Yes, 
 Garland, I am your sister ; and a sister's tender 
 sohcitude and pure love shall be yours, the same 
 as Edgar's. Think of me, then, please, and write 
 to me when you are once more on the great sea 
 of life, as you do of and to your own little sister 
 away down j^onder in * The city by the Southern 
 sea,' and I will write to you ; advise ; cheer you 
 onward ; help you every way I can. 
 
 "Be true, be good, be constant to your 
 purposes, and live the remainder of your cheer- 
 less, sorrowful days, for the good of your race, 
 and for yourself in the great Hereafter. God 
 bless you, my poor brother ; I shall think of and 
 pray for you every night. Do not, I entreat 
 you, do not forget 
 
 "Your devoted sister-friend, 
 
 " Carrie Y. Flowers." 
 
 CHAPTER LXXTY. 
 
 THE ATONEMENT OFFERING. 
 
 "I, who have sinned, and suffered for my sin, 
 
 A wanderer far from hope forever now, 
 A life whose dirge will be, ' It might have been ! ' 
 
 Bolore thy altar, Oh my country, bow. 
 I watch the suns of others rise and set, 
 
 I know that mine has set for evermore ; 
 But this I give thee ; what remaineth yet 
 
 Of future unto me, whate'er its store, 
 Labor, life itself, is thine till life is o'er." 
 
 — M. A. Billings. 
 
 With the term "atonement" are associated 
 both the beautiful and the terrible. The beauti- 
 ful obtains when the offering is a free-will one, 
 joyously made, and secures the full and perfect 
 blessing of forgiveness as its reward. The ter- 
 
 rible is shadowed forth to startle reflective con- 
 templation when the atonement is compulsory 
 and wreaked in the horrible semblance of unmiti- 
 gated vengeance. 
 
 About the earliest account we recall of "atone- 
 ment offerings," made with the free will, bears 
 close relevancy to the immediate exiles from the 
 Garden of Eden — their " Lost Paradise." Almost 
 as ancient, also, is the idea of " atonement " in 
 theJ;ypical form of vengeance, often unrighteously 
 Avreaked, as in the tragic case of Abel. But such 
 cases as this can hardly be classed under that 
 head^ To the punishment of crime does the 
 term, thus qualified, more appropriately apply. 
 
 In this guise we last beheld Garland Cloud, the 
 erratic wanderer, shuddering at the uninviting 
 prospect of his unpromising future. 
 
 Now, once more we take up the thread of his 
 story. We find him again embarked on the 
 voyage of the " new hfe." As he met and faced 
 death so many times in the early years of his 
 first voyage, now does he meet the world and 
 face the stern behests of duty with unfaltering 
 courage. The high standard of moral courage 
 which he imaged in the secluded solitude of his 
 doomed atonement's shadows, has proved more 
 than a dream — a mere mythical delusion. That 
 courage is his. Strengthened by it, he dares to 
 speak and battle for the right. Far more has he 
 accomplished Avithin the pale of the first year 
 than he had any right to anticipate that he might 
 accompUsh in less than five years. Without the 
 slightest modification or abatement, he has re- 
 deemed his pledges in every direction — he con- 
 tinues to redeem them every day of his life. 
 
 Through the press has his poignant phrases as- 
 sailed crime, as no other erring man of the age 
 has ever before openly and defiantly arrayed 
 himself on the side and in the suffering interests 
 of society, after he has paid a legal atonement.' 
 
 From his letters transcribed herein some idea 
 may be formed of the nature of his articles made 
 public. More than this, too, he did : he went on- 
 to the platform, before large audiences, as a free 
 lecturer in the interest of society. Thus he 
 tendered his " Atonement offering." From notes 
 of one of these lectures we are able to make 
 some extracts, such as might interest many per- 
 
THE ATONEMENT OFFEEING. 
 
 293 
 
 sons — lover.* of tlie ti'ue and the riglit. He said ; 
 
 " I stand in your presence, this evening, in the 
 semblance of an object of warning, to address 
 you on the grand problems of ^human life — Peace 
 and Happiness in this world. Beyond this, my 
 province as a teacher does not extend. 
 
 " I stand here aghast at the bare contemplation 
 of my descent from your sphere of blissfulness, 
 where ebb and flow the eternal springs of hope, 
 down the yawning abyss to the isolated bog of 
 despair — dangers and penalties against which it 
 becomes my hapless duty to warn you. 
 
 " Between your sphere and mine there seems 
 to roll a fathomless and an impassable gulf, at 
 least to me. You might not pass it without im- 
 periling that thrice-blessed birthright, which yet 
 is yours to enjoy, to cherish, to treasure as the 
 most sacred and priceless jewel in this world; 
 so precious that, after it has once been lost, all 
 the gold of Ophir, and all the diamonds of Gol- 
 conda, would not suffice to restore it again. 
 
 " Oh, young people ! those of you whose hearts 
 are yet buoyant with youtliful hope, I am here 
 to talk to you. I still cling to one link of the 
 broken chain — that tie which once bound me to 
 the past, and yet keeps ahve in my heart one 
 quenchless spark of reverence for the true and 
 the right, now cherished as sacred, in memory of 
 ' the loved and the lost.' Against this fate I earn- 
 estly desire to warn you. 
 
 " Nothing else could induce me to assume this 
 painful responsibility, and to endure the ordeal of 
 trial which it imposes. Oh, that I could imprint 
 upon each young heart, now under the sound of 
 my voice, impressions of my story, so they might 
 there remain in deathless memory !* 
 
 " Shudderingly, I glance along my backward 
 track, so thickly strewn with wrecks of hope, 
 reeking in the groaning blood of aching hearts, 
 until, far beyond all these ruins and all this woe, 
 I behold that young summer of my youth, as I 
 then stood on the same plane of life where your 
 stations are now. My brow was then wreathed 
 with, hopeful honor. Courageously I gazed up 
 the slippery steep leading to the pinnacle of 
 Fame. With the fiery glow of inordinate ambi- 
 tion igniting a flame of desperation in my heart 
 that would one day dare to tempt even Fate 
 
 itself, there I stood. Ah! hud I then gazed 
 with equal intensity at the pit of Infamy Ijeneath, 
 I would not be here to tell my dread story. 
 
 " To one who falls from your sphere of life, 
 crime is living death , the dungeon's solitude, a 
 living tomb. My own case is an enigma to the 
 philosophy of crime. But, either in a greater or 
 in a less degree, it is the same form the danger 
 may most likely assume to menace some one of 
 you. Human nature is frail and weak, or per- 
 verse and willful. 
 
 '• But had I never suffered shipwreck of for- 
 tune, nor received a legal brand, I would be to- 
 day none the less an orphan of the heart. I 
 would be a moral leper in disguise — respected by 
 the world, but loathsome to myself. For myself, 
 I prefer my present degradation, Avith nothing 
 concealed and nothing to fear. Reputation and 
 pubhc esteem do not make our true character, 
 and are of little intrinsic value, when we know 
 that the unveiled truth would shroud them in the 
 tln-aldom of the blackest social damnation. 
 
 " I have no purpose to enhst your sympathy 
 for myself. But my whole natm-e, so long inertly 
 rusting in stagnation, is thoroughly aroused and 
 fired with a glowing desire and a desperate de- 
 termination to awaken sympathy for yourselves 
 and yours, that may cause you to shun and save 
 you from the odium of that nameless curse which 
 makes joy and me strangers for evermore. 
 
 "I assure you, and most earnestly, too, that my 
 mind had never before been so acutely perceptive, 
 or so infallibly tenacious, as it was amid shadows 
 of the dungeon's solitude. Do you desire to 
 know why this was so ? My mind was cured of 
 its fallacious aberrations. My heart was free 
 from the malady of moral leprosy. The immortal 
 mind, thus purified, elevated my being above its 
 surroundings, and taught me to abominate crime, 
 because of the loathsome degradation to which it 
 sinks mankind, and in which it holds its pitiable 
 victims so hopelessly enthralled. 
 
 " The majesty of the mind defies the dungeon's 
 bars; and, scorning its non-restraining enviroti- 
 ments of brick and granite, flies away to com- 
 mune with virtuous purity, and drink ambrosial 
 nectar from Nature's crystal fountains. It is the 
 pure diamond that passes through the fiery cru- 
 
294 
 
 IklTSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 cible unscorchod, and comes from the test shining 
 in augmented lustre. The mind must rise or sink. 
 If it wills to rise, all the powers of vice, crime, 
 and hell — the triune genius that wields the su- 
 preme sway in abandoned hearts — cannot drag it 
 down, nor stay its triumph. 
 
 ■ " Do not, good people, I imiilore you, do not 
 despise these humble reflections because they are 
 of dungeon birth. Truth, my friends, seeks a 
 dwelling place amid the inhospitable confines of 
 dungeon walls, whenever they hold in their chill- 
 ing embrace a human heart! Wherever the heart 
 of man pulsates, there truth, like death, enters 
 and delivers her message, but does not, like 
 death, take forcible possession. She pleadingly, 
 lovmgly, sues for entertainment. 
 
 " Before you, my friends, I stand this evening 
 enrobed in the habiliments of truth, to live in 
 disguise nevermore. ISTo gold, no prospective 
 friendship, no anticipations of love, could lure 
 me to attempt to conceal what I have been or 
 Avho I am, no matter where I go. Now, one of 
 the highest elements of my duty is to deter 
 other people from descending from the throne of 
 honor. 
 
 "Oh! do not deceive. yourselves. When you 
 part with the path of honor, and cast away the 
 lamp-light of truth, you enter alone and helpless 
 upon the dark and tempestuous sea of crime, ex- 
 posed to all its entangling nets and storms of 
 wrecking contention. It is as if you inhale the 
 contagious breath of the pestilence, and pass on, 
 unconscious that the germ of early death is in 
 your being — yet it is there, subtly developing its 
 life-blighting forces. Suddenly and unexpect- 
 edly, these smite you, sap and poison the foun- 
 tains of vitality, and spread to the anxious and 
 loving ones standing beside that couch of un- 
 timely death. Ah! but this is as nothing to the 
 paralytical stroke of moral leprosy, that breaks, 
 yet stills not the heart. Alas! for the mnocent 
 hearts that are thus broken and lacerated, to 
 bleed in silent sorrow and pine with the blight 
 of irretrievable woe. The paths of honor and 
 shame start out side by sifle. It is but a step 
 from the one to the other. One may move for a 
 time, with a foot in each path, until finally they 
 aljruptly part. 
 
 " Grood people, in the affairs of life and duty 
 in this world, independent of all spiritual con- 
 siderations, there are but two waj's for the trav- 
 eler to pursue; the one is the right, the other 
 the wrong way. And beyond the scope of all 
 controversy you are, each of you, assuredly and 
 unquestionably in one of these ways — you are 
 right or you are wrong. If wrong, you are 
 subject to all the dangers which beset the sinister 
 ways of life, and liable to incur all the fearful 
 penalties which they entail. From the forbidden 
 path there is very rarely a voluntary return, and 
 a full and free confession. Partial returns, with 
 hidden crimes that remain unatoned, are worse 
 yet than the dungeon's haunted gloom. Every 
 moment, whatever is designed for the sweetest 
 bliss of life, is transformed to the bitterest woe. 
 The shadow of an imaginary pursuer haunts the 
 charming joys of the most delightful enter- 
 tainment with pleasant friends, disturbs the most 
 soothing slumbers, and embitters the purest 
 fountains of love. 
 
 " These are tortures fi'om which there is 
 no escape, for which there is no remedy, but 
 to tear away the mask of deception and confess 
 the truth to some trusty friends. Thus may 
 the potent charm of that fatal spell oe broken ; 
 a spell so aptly depicted by the poet in the 
 
 lines — 
 
 'And like the bird whose pinions quake, 
 But cannot fly the gazing snake.' 
 
 "Oh my friends! be there one of you in any 
 stage of this hope-wasting slavery, in the name 
 of all that is lovable, dear and sacred in this 
 life, let me conjuringly implore you to break its 
 galhng chaiift without delay. Shut your eyes 
 and rend these fetters, regai'dless of imaginary 
 consequences. Call around you your dearest 
 ones and nearest friends, and have the gentle 
 tenderness of loving and friendly hands to extri- 
 cate you from the subtle embrace of the destroy- 
 ing mask, the baneful curse of all false lives. 
 Could you realize what it is to have the mask of 
 life, the curse of earth, torn away by the rude 
 and pitiless hand of the law, not one of you 
 would ever experience these nameless pangs. 
 But beware of the mask in its mildest and most 
 seemingly innocent form, because it leads its 
 
THE ATONEMENT OFFERING. 
 
 295 
 
 victims into the (.'lutclios of the Law or drives 
 them beneath the sods of premature graves. 
 
 "Ladies, this cruel truth applies to you with 
 more crushing and overwhelming force than it 
 docs to men — not always be'cause of your own 
 errors so much as on account of the false lives 
 of deceitful men. Forlorn and desolate, indeed, 
 is that man's lot, in tiio realm of bright life, for 
 whose waywardness no true woman's heart would 
 bleed. Each of you can fight intemperance and 
 vice by becoming the guardian angel of your 
 husband, your brother, your cousin, your child- 
 hood's friend, or your sweetheart. Such is the 
 magnetism of a pure woman's power of influ- 
 ence, so skillful her devices for exercising it, 
 when thoroughly determined to win the sway 
 over the conduct of man, that one word, a glance 
 of the eye, even, will tame a man for whom the 
 law's unrelenting scourge has no restraining ter- 
 rors, and sever him from a proneness to stray in 
 devious paths. The wisest, the bravest of men, 
 despots and conquerors, each have been van- 
 quished and tamed by one little woman. You 
 are Nature's queens, destined to reign over 
 society, over the home circle, and over the 
 hearts of men. By demanding these rights and 
 ruling over them with gentle despotism, the 
 only sovereignity you would willingly maintain, 
 you would not be usurping; the world would 
 become better; many bitter tears would never 
 be wept — woman's despairing midnight tears. 
 
 " Oh merciful Heaven ! what silent wretched- 
 ness the mask has caused ! "Were but half its 
 buried secrets known ; were the silent groanings 
 of all the despairing hearts that are lacerated, 
 crushed and rent by the cruel tyranny of its hope- 
 less slavery, sent forth upon the wings" of the 
 wind for but one night, so that all the world 
 might hear them, those who knew not the cause 
 Avould tremble in speechless terror and stand ap- 
 palled, under the conviction that the ministers of 
 doom's-day were on earth, ready to sound the 
 awful judgment knell. 
 
 " Blessed are those who are strangers to this 
 unutterable damnation, that turns the fondest 
 to dust, the brightest dreams of life to the 
 desolate despair ; thrice blessed will be those 
 who pass down to the shores of the dark river, 
 
 and over into the great UnknoAvn, without having 
 experienced the mysteries of this relentless curse. 
 
 '-Well may the ministers of God startle the 
 souls of the wicked with their warning notes of 
 ' woe ! woe ! ' if that doom be as dreadful for spirits 
 as this is for flesh and blood, when it goes not 
 beyond the purgatory of liberty, and buries the 
 mortal secrets of shame beneath the sods of the 
 grave, without the stigma of a legal brand. Then, 
 oh merciful God ! what can T say of those who 
 go down to the darkest depths of an earthly hell ? 
 Where, where are the words adequate to the 
 power of expressive coloring requisite to paint 
 this frightful reality? Unknown to mortal man. No 
 words can depict, no artist could portray the woe- 
 ful despair and haunted gloom that pervade the 
 dread precincts of a living tomb. I have passed 
 through both this purgatory and this hell on earth; 
 and I swear to you, by the sacred memory of all 
 that I have loved, and all that I have lost, and by 
 the untold memory of all that I have suflfered, 
 that they are no vague and fancy dreams, coined 
 by a distempered mind, but realities as crue as 
 the blessed sun that gladdens the world, and as 
 stern as the decree that dooms all mankind to 
 death. 
 
 "Ah! good people, these frightful lessons of 
 experience, drawn from sources so broad, so deep, 
 and so terrible, what ^artling memories cluster 
 about them! Oh, that you could but see and 
 realize them for a moment, in the cruel terrors 
 of their actual existence! May not one of you 
 evcir be nearer the reahty than you are now. Could 
 I, fifteen years ago, heard what you have just 
 heard, or its purport, I would not be standing 
 here to tell my story as a warning to others. Pon- 
 der it weU. Go through it in imagination, because 
 the reahty is immedicable ruin. 
 
 " Those of you who have loved ones, love them 
 lietter. If any of them be wayward, do not spurn 
 and cast them off, but strive to win them back 
 to duty and to love — for the natural channels of 
 kindred ties and blood are such that nothing can 
 stay them; no matter how grevious the cause be 
 that dries them up for a season, some time they 
 will re-flow again over the lapse of years, the 
 l)readth of the world, or the sods of the grave. 
 Better, a thousand times better, that they re-flow 
 
296 
 
 MYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 over the sods of the grave, than over prison walU 
 and a Hving tomb. 
 
 " Such, my friends, is my atonement offering. 
 Deign to accept and treasure it. Its waned lus- 
 tre may serve to keep your life-jev?els bright. 
 Its value is in this fearful contrast." 
 
 Cloud made a retrospective picture of his own 
 career and experience in harrowing colors; a 
 mere outUne of what has been so elaborately por- 
 trayed in this volume. It made a deep impres- 
 sion on the minds of his auditors, and led to 
 earnest discussion. 
 
 The stand he has taken, the labors he has 
 rendered, and the enterprises in wliich he is 
 engaged, seem to promise that Garland Cloud 
 is yet destined to do much for the human race, 
 and truly and honorably redeem his vows made 
 under the shadows of the war-cloud, and in 
 the shades of the dungeon's "gloom. There 
 appears to be every plausible reason to sup- 
 port the presumption that he will pursue the 
 course upon which he has entered, and httle 
 in favor of a suspicion that he w^ill be lured or 
 driven to abandon it for anything less n9ble. 
 There is every reasonable prospect that he may 
 now be many fold more valuable to the world 
 than he ever could have been had be never suf- 
 fered ; and the Avorld seems disposed to use him. 
 If his experience has not been consummate in 
 deceptive arts, and the consequences of such in- 
 discretion amply terrible to constitute lessons 
 of warning, it would be hard to find either a de- 
 votee or a victim possessing these features of the 
 shady Characteristics of erratic life. 
 
 Garland ■ Cloud has declined every overture, 
 coming from friends of the olden time, tendering 
 him assistance, or soliciting him to embark in 
 commercial enterprises. He claims that he is hope- 
 lessly exiled from the world of commerce, and 
 that he is weaned from the desire to enter the 
 conflict there again, where his rashness cost him 
 so many scars, and where, necessarily, he would 
 labor under so many incalculable disadvantages. 
 Perhaps he is right. Men with fair names and 
 ample capital find a hard struggle to stem the 
 commercial tide and hold their own in a business 
 voyage in 1883, and many go under. "What 
 then could a man do without such potent requi- 
 
 sites? Aljsolutt'ly nothing. But Garland Cloud 
 can do much in other fields, those in which he 
 has undertaken to devote himself. 
 
 Garland Cloud's greatest and most perplexing 
 problem is concentrated in that one characteristic 
 word — " Manonia." In this fair name and sad mem- 
 ory obtains the one remaining spectre which yet 
 continues to haunt his cheerless hfe. Back to her 
 his mind ever wanders, to linger in longing fond- 
 ness, and to pine with the agony of unavaihng 
 regrets. "Upon all other subjects he expresses 
 himself with unreserved freedom. About her he 
 speaks rarely, and with guarded brevity. To 
 Carrie Flowers he has said : 
 
 "I can express no intention as to Manonia; 
 she is my lost, my regretted, my ever mourned 
 bride. That I am severed from her — simply the 
 cruel reahty of separation — adds httle, never has 
 added much to my pangs. But the true nature 
 of that fatal and broken chain which once bound 
 her to me, the fearful manner in which fc "vas 
 rent in. twain, her awful wi'ongs and her wretched 
 suffering — it is the thought of these things that is 
 unbearable." 
 
 Carrie : " Have you any tidings from her since 
 your last letter on this subject was mailed to me ? " 
 
 Cloud : " No, my friend ; I know notliing what- 
 ever, save the meagre part, presented in connec- 
 tion with her name that led to unmasking me. I 
 do not know her feehngs ; I have no means of 
 learning them." 
 
 Carrie : " Do you mean ever to write to her? " 
 
 Cloud: "This question I am unable to answer. 
 I could hope that she detests me ; yet I have not 
 the courage to ask her. Her reproaches would 
 drive me mad. Could I learn her sentiments 
 and fate from others than her or hers, without 
 their knowledge, I might make the attempt. But 
 to know that she still cherishes for me any degree 
 of that endearing devotion which ' not time, nor 
 sorrow, nor pain,' can ever stifle in my being, 
 would but add to my present suffering." 
 
 Carrie : " "What do you regard as your duty in 
 this respect, and other social relations of life ? " 
 
 Cloud: "I know not my duty to poor Man- 
 onia; I think it silent absence. In no otlier way 
 can I imagine it possible to pay her due reverence, 
 for my greeting or my appearance would but add 
 
THE ATONEMENT OFFEKING. 
 
 297 
 
 to outrageous wrong, more aggravated iusult: As 
 to social duties, I have none, more than to mend 
 my ways, and strive to do good to others ; I am 
 a social waif." 
 
 Carrie : " I do not see any other feasible course 
 open for you, as to Manonia, but that which you 
 have intimated as the probable one to be adopted 
 and pursued. Were I in her place it would be 
 preferable to me. Her wrongs are irreparable ; 
 her wounds may never heal. Fresh and forcible 
 reminders of you could but probe anew her long- 
 festering punctures of unmerciful sorrow. But to 
 society, to your race and line, you yet owe a duty. 
 Your marriage with Manonia is a nullity. You 
 owe it to yourself and the world to get married, 
 and to cease to be an aimless wanderer. In no 
 other way can you ever fully atone for the past. 
 This is the true incense of your offerings, with- 
 out which they are tendered in vain." 
 
 Cloud: "Oh Carrie! are you the victim of 
 frenzied madness, or are you laboring under the 
 delusion of a deceptive hallucination? Do you 
 imagine that I am capable of marrying while 
 Manonia hves single in her great sorrow? I am 
 debas^l, perhaps, beyond redemption, but I have 
 not yet descended to that stage of detestable 
 degradation. I am, if still human, yet Garland 
 Cloud. The same wretch upon whom you now 
 gaze is wedded to Manonia — she is his hapless 
 bride, no matter about the false nature or delusive 
 name. I cannot, I will not niarry again. The 
 idea is preposterous. No lady is so blind as to 
 marry wretchedness. I am not so unmanly as to 
 seek such a victim. I was the despoiler of Man- 
 onia, but if false to her, I will yet be true to her 
 memory. ' Sweet Angel of the South,' hover over 
 me now and stay the luring fascination of tempt- 
 ing dangers — snares that destroyed thy dreamy 
 bliss!" 
 
 Carrie: "Garland, I am not mad. Your de- 
 votion is noble and manly. Doubly does this 
 demonstrate your duty. To you, Manonia is dead. 
 You will be no less true to her memory than you 
 were to mine when you married her. There was 
 no barrier between us. In Heaven I am as much 
 your bride as you are her husband. You deserted 
 me without any cause. In obedience to your 
 heartless will I sacrificed a cherished memory — 
 
 truer than any ever held in imaged sacredness by 
 you — upon the altar of duty, and married. I have 
 never regretted, do not regret that step. Now I 
 demand of you the same sacrifice. I have a right 
 to expect compliance. Return to Manonia, and 
 throw yourself at her feet, or renounce your 
 allegiance to her forever. Such is your duty to 
 society, the Avorld, yourself and your God. You 
 have no more right to allow your manhood to 
 run to waste from the blight of an unavailing re- 
 gret than you have to commit suicide. You have 
 rendered two true and devoted women miserable. 
 Now you owe it to womenkind to make one good 
 woman happy." 
 
 Cloud : " Carrie, all^words are idle to me, and 
 meaningless on this subject. I confess, with 
 shame, that I owe you much more than my life 
 itself for the pain I caused you. But instead of 
 giving a good woman her meed of happiness, I 
 would but doom her to wretchedness. Joy will 
 dwell not with me. My shadowy existence would 
 dim its lustre, and then extinguish its feebly- 
 flickering rays forever, and another fair woman 
 would become the mournful victim of disappointed 
 love. To the plausible argument of Manonia, 
 whose bent of mind ran much as yours runs now, 
 I once yielded. You know the sequence of that 
 surrender. What good and rational woman could 
 wed such inevitable misery as I could but prom- 
 ise? Ah, Carrie, this is wasted breath we are 
 employing. I shall never offer a trusting woman 
 my hope-devouring curse." 
 
 Carrie: "Garland, you amaze me! Your 
 obdurate will no disappointment, no sorrow, no 
 loss, no bereavement, no pain can tame. The 
 unyielding young trooper stands before me now 
 unchanged and changeless, in proud defiance to 
 the gentle authority of his most solicitous friend, 
 as he stood then in rebellion against the fondest 
 wish of his admiring genius, cruelly denying 
 poor infatuated Carrie Harman the maddening 
 dream of her life. Now he as stubbornly denies 
 recognition to his duty, and turns a deaf ear to 
 its admonitory mandates. Oh, Garland ! I am 
 despairing of you. There is no hope for you. 
 You are lost — lost! " 
 
 Cloud : " Whom would you have me victimize ? 
 Suppose you were free, and met a man, now the 
 
298 
 
 IVIYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 first time — a man who might seek to ■win j^our 
 hand and heart — and you early learned that his 
 life was dirouded in odious shame, what would 
 you do ?" 
 
 Carrie : " Marry him — if his name was G-ar- 
 land Cloud." ! 
 
 Cloud: " Ah, Carrie ! but remember all ladies i 
 are not Carrie Flowers." j 
 
 Carrie : "I do; and that all men are not Gar- | 
 land Cloud. I know a lady, beautiful as day, ! 
 pure as crystal, wise as a sage, and wealthy as — | 
 well, as even quite extravagant ideas could desire : 
 — ready to marry G-arland Cloud. She knows i 
 his story. I am to introduce her to you this i 
 evening. Your suflfering, as depicted to her by ] 
 me, has won her ere you greet her and are | 
 greeted by her smile, which, I am sure, will I 
 gently touch your heart." i 
 
 Cloud : " In this arrangement, it occurs to my 
 mind that you prematurely reckoned on one in- 
 significant yet rather important personage, and | 
 answered for him- without authority. When your 
 fair lady arrives, you may introduce her to my 
 vacant place in the room. I shall not be here to 
 receive her smile, nor to give her mine — that 
 could be but a deceptive lie. Carrie, yours is 
 ' love's labor lost.' " 
 
 Carrie : " Garland, you inexorable ingrate ! 
 G-o back to Manonia. Such devotion should not 
 be cherished in vain. Rarely has such severed 
 love lingered with this abiding constancy. It 
 should — it shall be re-united." 
 
 Cloud : " Again are you hasty. Our sever- 
 ance — rendered thus by her wrongs from me — 
 may be eternal. I deserve it; cannot ask it 
 otherwise; yet it precludes the possibihty of 
 other tender ties ever existing between any 
 charming angel of earth and I. No, Carrie ; 
 your anxious solicitude, your care, and j^our 
 trouble have been bestowed but to reward you 
 with fierce disappointment. I would rather pass 
 my days in a dungeon, with Manonia's voiceless 
 portrait, than in a palace with a fairy queen. 
 Good night." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Far down in a little valley in the heart of 
 Louisiana, the sun has set. The crimson fires 
 that its going down had kindled in the west, 
 
 have died away, and from their ashes has sprung, 
 phoenix-like, one solitary evening star. 
 
 Purple shadows sliroud the distant hiUs ; now 
 and then, across the dewy air, the drowsy chirp 
 of some discontented songster, half asleep, is 
 heard. For the rest, there is the dewy silence, 
 and still repose, and ineffable peace of night. 
 
 Where the shadows fall the darkest, in the 
 door of an old plantation homestead set down al- 
 most in the midst of a grove of oaks and hicko- 
 ries and pines, a woman stands. She holds in 
 her hand a spray of honeysuckle, which .she has 
 pulled down from the festooned arch above her 
 head. Her face shows indistinctly through the 
 gloom — beautiful, even with the white seal of 
 sorrow and suffering set upon it. Her eyes, with 
 the wistful sadness of years of waiting in their 
 depths, are fixed upon the distant hills. 
 
 A step upon the walk arouses her from a reve- 
 rie that holds no happiness in its dream. A 
 .figure, coming slowly through the grey twilight, 
 causes her to run down the steps to meet it. It 
 stops as she approaches, and lays a wrinkled, 
 brown hand upon her shoulder. She shps it 
 .through her arm, and they walk thus up the path 
 and into the house. 
 
 " You are late, to-night, father," she says. 
 
 Eldred Donne: "Yes, Manonia; yes, I am 
 late." 
 
 He sits in his arm-chair, watching his daughter 
 as she busies herself about the room. For the 
 beautiful, sad woman, in the dress of plain and 
 simple black, with the eyes that have looked 
 upon more days of sorrow I'lan they have years 
 of life, is Manonia — Garland Cloud's ill-fated bride. 
 
 Eldred Donne Ls changed also. Time has not 
 spared him. She has seamed his face with 
 wrinkles ; she has bent his once erect form, and 
 enfeebled his once firm step, and the snows of 
 her many winters rest thickly upon his head. 
 
 Presently Manonia comes and sits beside him ; 
 then his eyes, that have been fixed upon her 
 musingly, betoken a sudden recollection. 
 
 Donne: "I have abetter for you, Manonia. I 
 had quite forgotten it. Here it is." 
 
 Manonia": " From whom can it have come? 
 I am certain that I never saw that handwriting 
 before." 
 
THE ATONEMENT OFFERING. 
 
 299 
 
 Manonia breaks the seal, moving, as she does 
 so, nearer the hght in the centre of the room, so 
 that her face is quite hidden from her father. 
 
 There is a long, long silence, so long that 
 Eldred Donn6 several times looked at his daugh- 
 ter inquiringly. Surely it was not a letter that 
 should take so much time to read. At length lie 
 
 " Manonia." 
 
 There is no answer; she does not even turn 
 her head; not when he speaks a second time 
 does she look up. At length he rises and goes 
 softly to her side. 
 
 The letter has fallen in her lap ; she sits with 
 her hands clasped across it. The pallor of her face 
 has deepened, and her eyes have the far-away 
 look of one who sees, past the light of this sphere, 
 the visions of a world beyond. 
 
 Donne: "Manonia, my child, speak to me. 
 What is the matter ? " 
 
 Manonia : " My father, you have called me 
 back from among the dead. G-hosts of days that 
 are gone forever ; memories over whose grave the 
 grasses have long been growing; voices, tones — 
 ah ! my father, this has brought them from their 
 sepulchres, unlocked them from their fast-bound 
 sleep." 
 
 She unfolds the letter as she speaks, and while 
 the old man Ustens with attention and wonder, 
 she reads : 
 
 " ' Place, New York, June — , 18 — . 
 
 " ' Mrs. Manonia Garland, 
 
 " 'Rural Rest, La. : 
 
 " ' Madam : — One who is unknown to you, but 
 whose heart has ached over the story of your 
 wrongs, and whose eyes have dimmed in sym- 
 pathy with your sorrows, has a short story to tell 
 you, and craves your pardon should its telling 
 prove tedious or unwelcome. 
 
 " ' Sixteen years ago a woman listened, one 
 night, to a tale that is as old as the first-created 
 hills, but to all ears, at some first time of its tell- 
 ing, is new, and sweet, and very precious. This 
 woman loved the man who told it. You — for- 
 give me if my pen deals a blow here — have also 
 loved, and know what sweet music this story was 
 to the listener's ears. 
 
 "'But a mistaken motive and a false pride, 
 sealed her lips — kept back from their utterance 
 words that her heart wildly longed to speak; 
 and while from the depths of her soul she cried, 
 "I love you," her lips said, "Wait, I must yet 
 consider." 
 
 " ' Miserable procrastination ! to what did it 
 not lead ? Hollow, blighting pride, what untold 
 sorrow did she not store up for herself in listen- 
 ing to its delusive counsels ! But pardon me my 
 digression. I resume my story. 
 
 " ' The breath of slander, fanned into life by 
 envious hate and bitter jealousy, assailed this 
 man. Deluded into the belief that all who heard 
 its lying tongue believed it the voice of truth, 
 and — bitterest blow of all, which her own hand 
 had aided in striking — deeming that the woman 
 he loved listened implicitly to its poisoned tale, 
 he determined upon self-destruction, and left her 
 to mourn him as dead. 
 
 " ' There is a break in my story here which I 
 deem it unnecessary to close. He drifted out of 
 her life, but not, through Heaven's merciful in- 
 tervention, from hfe itself. 
 
 " ' Another woman met him and loved him. 
 Ah, my sister in sorrow, / know truly how well 
 — hoAv bitterly, sorrowfully well ! 
 
 " ' And he married her. Of her wrongs and 
 sorrows, her anguish in the bitter after-time, her 
 weary, slow-creeping days of pain, her sleepless, 
 Jtardily-dragging nights of. misery, your heart 
 knows the full completeness, and mine pities. 
 
 " 'This man's life has been one long night. In 
 its time of summer the frosts of winter blighted 
 it, and her thick-falling snows buried its blossoms 
 of joy in. an icy shroud. 
 
 " ' The measure of his life holds many sins, 
 " full, overflowing, running over." And. a retribu- 
 tive Power has meted out to him, for his many 
 misdeeds, a penance likewise. Truly has it been 
 " measure for measure." 
 
 " ' Disaster has pursued, misfortune has over- 
 taken him. The dreary walls of a prison-tomb 
 have witnessed his repentance, and within the 
 narrow confines of his cell Remorse has been an 
 ever-constant guest. In the still, slow hours of 
 dragging midnights, he has heard the " never, 
 never " whispered by the phantom years, and 
 
300 
 
 IMTSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 the ceaseless whisper of a sleepless conscience 
 has sounded ever in his ears, " It might have been !" 
 
 " 'Oh, is not she whose wrongs and sorrows 
 will pursue him to his grave, and whose 
 mournful face will haunt him until death — is she 
 not avenged ? 
 
 " ' Some time ago ne was urged by one who 
 held his welfare of great interest, to marry. 
 These are his words: "Do you imagine me 
 capable of marrying while Manonia Hves single 
 in her great sorrow? I am debased, perhaps, 
 beyond redemption, but I have not yet descended 
 to that stage of detested degradation. I am, if 
 still human, yet Garland Cloud. * * * j -^y^g 
 the despoiler of Manonia. But if false to her, I 
 will yet be true to her name." 
 
 " ' Interrogated by this same friend as to his 
 duty to the woman he had so cruelly wronged, 
 he replied, "I know not my duty to poor 
 Manonia. I think it silent absence; in no other 
 way can I imagine it possible to pay her due 
 reverence." 
 
 " 'Need I say more? Does not the heart of 
 the woman to whom I am writing know the 
 rest? Is it so cruelly broken that it has no thrill 
 of pity for one who, sinning much, has suffered 
 more? Slie who loved him once, and whose 
 hps have drank deep fi'om the bitter cup which 
 you have drained to the dregs, has forgiven him. 
 Do other wrongs require fuller vengeance ? Are 
 we better than He who would forgive — aye, 
 " seventy times seven ? ' ' 
 
 " ' My story is done — but a word more 
 remains. He is conscious that his sins have 
 been so great that he dare not ask her sinned 
 against for pardon. He is in New York. He 
 does not know or dream of this thing I have 
 done. If you can forgive him, send him hope. 
 " ' Your sister in suffering, 
 
 " ' Cakrue Plowers.' " 
 
 Donne : " So Garland "Cloud is heard from at 
 last. A fine letter, that, fine — in words. How 
 does it run? 'If you can forgive him.' And 
 after the best years of his hfe have been squan- 
 dered, he Avould gather up the pitiful remainder 
 as an atonement to the life he has wrecked. 
 After the sorrow, and the misery, and the des- 
 
 pair — heartless man — that he has caused, he 
 would ask his victim " 
 
 Manonia: "Father, my father, I have suffered 
 enough. Spare me ! " 
 
 She has sufiered in meekness, and borne her 
 sorrows in silence. The great patience which 
 Heaven sometimes vouchsafes its stricken children, 
 has been her endowment. Like unto Him who 
 was reviled by men and jeered at by priests, she 
 whose sweet dreams of happiness Fate has 
 laughed to scorn, at the mockings of the fickle 
 goddess, has " ansAvered not a word." But now, 
 as those old memories come back to her — those 
 bittersweet recollections of the long ago — the pain 
 of their bitterness and the joy of their sweetness 
 once more thrills her heart. She bows her head 
 upon the table, and her eyes grow dim with tears. 
 
 The old man's voice falters, and his eyes 
 grovv dim. That he should add one stab to the 
 cureless wounds already inflicted in the heart of 
 his daughter, unmans him. His head bows, and 
 his rough, hard hand gently strokes her hair, as 
 he says: 
 
 " There, there, Manonia, don't mind me. I'm 
 .old, you know, and I get easily upset. There, 
 there, you shall do as 3"ou like. I never meant — 
 Suppose we let it drop? Yes. Goodnight." 
 
 Manonia: "Good night, my father. Alone — 
 Ah, no, not alone. I cannot be that — never. 
 What memories! "What sweet dead dreams! 
 The man I loved so long ago---My husband 
 once. He who embittered my life; furrowed my 
 brow with lines of care ; dimmed my eyes with 
 tears — bitter blinding tears of sorrow — Why 
 should I pity him who had none for me ? And yet, 
 and yet — ah me! a woman's heart is hard to 
 read." 
 
 The darkness falls with silent wings. Its 
 swiftly descending shadows shut out the dim 
 outlines of the far mountains, the misty hills, the 
 valleys between. The wind chants its lullaby to 
 the sleeping world, through the thick branches of 
 the green old pines; and only the stars, gazing 
 down upon silence, see the white, troubled face 
 of the woman who is striving to read her own 
 heart— her beautiful sad eyes lifted wistfully up- 
 ward to the light of their sleepless and eternal 
 glory. 
 
THE DAWN FROM A LONG AND GLOOMY NIGHT 
 
 301 
 
 CHAPTER LXXY. 
 
 THE DAWN FROiM A LONG AND GLOOMY NIGHT. 
 
 " For lives that hold no pain are held In earthly prison 
 bars, 
 And griefs are often wings whereby our souls can 
 reach the stars. 
 For in the Are the dross is burned, the gold stands pure 
 and good, 
 And she who suffers wears the best, the crown of 
 womanhood." 
 
 — M. A. Billings. 
 
 Mrs. Carrie Flowers, in accordance with the 
 pohte fiction thatsociety allows, is "not at home," 
 although the convenient precaution is, in this 
 case, scarcely necessary, for few would feel in- 
 clined to be abroad — even for the seeking of 
 Mrs. Carrie Flowers — on such a night, one dark 
 and stormy, with the rain coming down in fitful 
 gusts, dashing against the windows, not at all 
 well pleased to find itself so securely barred from 
 the mischief it contemplates and vainly strives to 
 execute. 
 
 She is alone, with the curtains pulled down, 
 and the light falling across the easy chair in 
 which she is snugly ensconced. She is think- 
 ing, with a little running commentary upon her 
 thoughts, which, judging from the expression of 
 her dissatisfied face, and the disconnected sen- 
 tences which fall from her lips, are neither very 
 pleasing nor yet instructive. 
 
 " Two, three — no, foiir weeks, and I have heard 
 not a Avord. It was foolish of me to write that 
 letter — I cannot imagine what G-arland would 
 think of me. And some women do not easily 
 forgive. I am sure I — but then, I am not Ma- 
 nonia, Mrs. Garland Cloud. 
 
 " However, I need not proclaim my foolish- 
 ness from the housetop. I am certain that I 
 shall entertain no one wdth that tale of folly. 
 As for Garland, there is no shaking his firm res- 
 olution. It is a pity; he has caused her much 
 misery, it is true, and it is properly wise that sho 
 should do as she does and pay no heed to my 
 reckless letter ; yet — oh, why could she not be 
 foolish, and forgive him ?" 
 
 Thus, Carrie Flowers, deeply buried in her 
 
 own thoughts, and absorbed in the puzzling maze 
 of her own perplexities, fails to hear the sound 
 of carriage wheels, that, driving hastily up, stop 
 at her docjr ; fails, likewise, to hear the ring at 
 the bell, until the entrance of a servant rouses 
 her to a sense of the present reahties of life. 
 
 Carrie : '• I am ' not at home,' I told you — 
 stay, let me see the card. What! is it possible? 
 Who would have thought it? Show the visitor 
 up, directly." 
 
 For several moments after the departure of the 
 bewildered servant, Carrie Flowers waits, eager 
 impatience manifest in every feature ; at the end 
 of that time, a soft rustle is heard without, the 
 door opens, she takes one eager step forward, 
 and beholds — Manonia. 
 
 kX last these two women, so widely severed 
 yet so closely united, who have suffered the same 
 sorrows and borne the same griefs; who have 
 laid, in the long ago, at the feet of one man the 
 richest treasures of their hearts, to gather up 
 again, in weary bitterness, their shattered frag- 
 ments — these two, in all their lives as far apart 
 as the river from the sea, yet united by the one 
 bond that makes all the world kin — the bond of 
 suffering — stand face to face. 
 
 Something else stands with them. The mem- 
 ories of the long ago rise and confront them. 
 Their long past dreams, their hopes, their sor- 
 row's — with one man's face, and one man's voice, 
 and the bittersweet recollections of one man's 
 memory, and what it has been to each. 
 
 It is too much. All barriers are swept away, 
 all distance removed — sisters in suffering, com- 
 panions in sorrow, the arms of one open, and the 
 Avcury, tired head of the other finds a resting- 
 place upon her breast. 
 
 Carrie: " My poor sister ! There is no need 
 for me to tell you how I feel for you — when 
 hearts speak to hearts, the lips can remain 
 silent." 
 
 Manonia : " Oh, thank you — thank you ! I 
 did not expect this welcome. I was afraid I had 
 not done wisely in coming. It may mean " 
 
 Carrie: " That you, in your loving-kindness, 
 would not send hope, but hrought it. That the 
 man who fancies his sin so grievous that it is 
 past pardon — who has so bitterly crushed a wo- 
 
302 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 man's heart that he would deem it folly and 
 madness to ask that woman ever to find a place 
 in that heart again for him — will bless her to the 
 last hour of the last day of the life that God will 
 give him, and, if she can trust him once more, will 
 render her reward as great as he has rendered 
 her sufferings — this is what it means." 
 
 Manonia : "Ah, if I could but believe it! But 
 so many dreams of mine have been shattered ; so 
 many foundation stones of hope have fallen, that 
 I am afraid — afraid to build again. I have been 
 in the night so long, that the light which you 
 tell me is so near, blinds me. I cannot believe 
 that the world, for me, holds any light." 
 
 Carrie : " Ah, but, my sister, the radiance is 
 glorious. No shadows of the past are so dark 
 that its gleam will not dispel them, its bright 
 beams warm them — the light that ' never yet was 
 on sea or land' — God's hght of love. 
 
 Manonia : " If he but loves me^ah, a woman 
 can forgive so much when she loves, and knows 
 that the sinner holds her dear ! " 
 
 Carrie: " If he were but here now, you should 
 doubt no longer. Oh, if he were but here ! Hark, 
 what is that? Oh, joy, it is liis ring; I know it ! 
 He is coming up. Quick, quick; hide behind this 
 curtain. You will know when to reveal yourself. 
 Oh! was Fortune evermore propitious? What 
 a blessed, blessed night this stormy eve will 
 prove! " 
 
 As Garland Cloud enters the room, Carrie 
 Flowers re-seats herself in the easy chair as com- 
 posedly as the nature of the circumstances will 
 allow, at the same time saying: "This is indeed 
 an agreeable surprise. I did not dream that I 
 was to be rendered happy by a call from you this 
 evening." 
 
 Cloud : " And I did not dream of coming, but 
 
 well, I am afi-aid, Carrie, that I have the 
 
 blues, and " 
 
 Carrie : " You thought of me as an antidote. 
 Quite right; I shall exert myself to the utmost. 
 If you are not cheered to-night, I shall despair of 
 your ever being rendered happy in this life, since 
 you so absolutely refuse the only other available 
 means offered." 
 
 Cloud : " Carrie, I beg of you, do not broach 
 that topic. I do not desire to listen, will not listen. 
 
 I have multiplied wrong with wrong, and my life 
 has been one long catalogue of errors, but I will 
 not add this great evil-doing to the list." 
 
 Carrie : " Then you obstinately refuse to seek 
 comfort in the smiles of any woman ? " 
 
 Cloud : " No woman's smiles can comfort me 
 while I rernember Manonia's tears. And to the 
 day of my death, the memory of those bitter drops 
 my evil life and many sins have caused to flow, 
 will not forsake me. 
 
 — ^When we hold a woman's heart in our hands, 
 and crush it and fling it from us, leaving it bleed- 
 ing among the thorns on the dusty road-side of 
 life; when we guide her ship of happiness among 
 the breakers, and set it adrift on a boundless sea 
 that has no haven of peace nor shores of safety, 
 what man can go back to a woman then and say : 
 ' Forgive me ; your heart is broken ; your life 
 is wrecked; your peace destroyed, but forgive 
 me? ' " 
 
 Carrie : " Where a woman loves, it is easy to 
 forgive." 
 
 Cloud : " But where the hope, the happiness, 
 the heart, is dead, love perishes among the ruins." 
 
 "And rises from the ruins, and lives — -for&verV 
 
 This last sentence was uttered by an invisible 
 speaker, or one who was thus when Cloud en- _ 
 tered the room. At the sound of another voice, 
 a voice often heard, bitterly mourned, well re- 
 membered. Garland Cloud turns. Is it a dream ? 
 Standing before him, her hands extended toward 
 him, her beautiful eyes gleaming with the bright- 
 ness of unshed tears, her pale, sad face turned 
 to greet him in mute appeal, divine forgiveness, 
 pathetic loveliness, is Manonia. 
 
 He stands as if transfixed to the spot, dazed by 
 a wonder that he cannot fathom, fearing to speak 
 lest -the vision might vanish; and the vision, taking 
 one nearer step to him, softly says : " I have come 
 to tell you that I forgive you. I have come to 
 give my life into your hands as trustingly as I 
 once gave it in the long ago. Ah, Garland, the 
 heart I gave you then was young and untried, and 
 the one I offer you now is crushed and broken, 
 but it is yours ; take it, or reject it, what you will." 
 
 Cloud : " Manonia — my wife ! " 
 
 As his arm closes about her, and her head finds 
 the resting-place it never should have lost, that. 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 tlirough weal or woe, in all the life to come, it 
 Avill never lose again, Carrie Flowers, the woman 
 who loved this man once, and who suffered for 
 his sake, rises and moves softly from the room. 
 
 All Is forgiven; we have waited long 
 And suffered much— yet all is for the best; 
 And Love can par<lon many a grievoifs wrong, 
 And lay Its trust in Heaven for the rest. 
 
 CHAPTER LXXVI. 
 
 EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 " My task Is done, my song hath ceased, my theme 
 Has died into an echo ; it is fit 
 The spell should break of this protracted dream; 
 The torch shall be extinguished which hath lit 
 My midnight lamp, and what is writ Is writ; 
 Would that it was worthier ; but I am not now 
 That which I have been, and my visions flit 
 Less palpably before me ; and the glow 
 Which in my spirit dwelt. Is fluttering low. 
 ***** 
 Farewell ! a word that must be, and hath been; 
 A sound which makes us linger ; yet— Farewell 1 " 
 —Byron. 
 
 Eighteen years after ! What a deep and 
 significant meaning this term implies! What 
 memories it conjures up before the minds of 
 Americans ! How the thoughts travel back to 
 dwell upon that by-gone time I What sad days 
 of emotions, mingling with sorrow, rejoicing and 
 mourning, ot discord, desolation, poverty and 
 despair! The South, mourning over her baffled 
 zeal, her "Lost Cause," her perished hopes, her 
 ruined homes, her fallen sons! The victorious 
 legions of the vanquishers, and the triumphant 
 North, rejoicing over the success of the Govern- 
 ment cause. A nation mourning over the bier 
 of her "Martyred President! " 
 
 Eighteen years after the Civil War; eighteen 
 years after the deluging torrents of human blood 
 — a country's mad attempt at fratricide ; and 
 eighteen yeai's after tlj;^ fiendish severing of 
 Lawrence Pleasington arid Effie Edelstein. 
 
 Since then, the sweeping surge of time has 
 rolled on, and submerged, in eternal oblivion, 
 much that vexed and troubled mankind in that 
 trying time of " the long ago." As we look back 
 upon the hideous aspect of that ghastly picture — 
 
 now gaze, half doubting we are dreaming, at the 
 portrait standing out before us in bold relief to- 
 day — we are dumb with amazement and paralyzed 
 with electrifying admiration. 
 
 What wonderful changes the hand of Time 
 has wrought ! Astonishing has been the healing 
 powers of the antidote administered by this silent 
 physician ! 
 
 How it has soothed and cured the rJmkling 
 hate, the devastating ravages, the aching hearts, 
 and the gaping wounds of war ! • 
 
 " Oh, Time ! thou beautlfler of the dead ; 
 Adorner of the ruin, comforter. 
 And only healer when the heart hath bled ; 
 
 Tims— the corrector, where our judgments err— 
 Test of truth, love, sole philosopher—" 
 
 To-day, we glance back at the ruined walls 
 and the broken columns of strife, decaying and 
 crumbling to dust. Amid these vanishing monu- 
 ments of mortal combat, which once " shadowed 
 forth their glory," may be seen, now and then, a 
 feeble, tottering, grim sentinel, still guarding his 
 cherished prejudices and his treasured hate. But 
 these misguided minds the benignant hand of 
 Time is steadily relieving from the onerous posts 
 of their fond and self-chosen charge — mistaken 
 duty's non-definable trust. Around these dis- 
 cordant characters a new generation has sprung 
 up, to whom the war is a legendary story, and 
 upon whom their influence makes not the slight- 
 est impression in the direction of keeping alive 
 the fire-brands of hate. The battle storm-rent 
 plains and fields of this once distracted country 
 are again verdant, blooming, and fruitful over 
 the dreary wastes of brooding desolation and 
 ensanguined destruction. 
 
 From this general declaration, we reserve one 
 exception ; and we are constrained to admit that 
 it is appropriate that this should exist. We seek 
 in vain for brightness or loveliness on the thresh- 
 old, or within the arena, where was ushered forth 
 the first world-startling scene m the tragic drama. 
 These cheering rays illuminate not the sombre 
 ruins of Fort Sumpter. Forever should it stand 
 enveloped in its ghastly shroud — a waste howling 
 wilderness of eternal desolation — as an admonitory 
 monument to posterity, in commemoration of the 
 scourging curse of civil war. The unpropitious 
 
304 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 cradle of the Coufederacy, it should ever remain 
 her sohtary grave. Above these sea-girt, sand- 
 capped ruins of once frovs'ning battlements, the 
 plaintive wave murmurs its sad refrain, the cur- 
 lew chants her mournful melody in discordant 
 strains — meet music for this desolate relic of the 
 Atlantic's once-dreaded child. 
 
 But from this, we follow the wild course of the 
 bloody* conflict, as it rushed onward over the 
 country in one engulfing wave of destruction, 
 and find little remaining to indicate the traces of 
 its. ravages, save alone those mournful "Cities of 
 the Dead," where, 
 
 " On Fame's eternal camping ground, 
 Our nightly tents are spread; 
 And Silence guards with solemn round, 
 The bivouac of the dead." 
 
 The wasted fences have been replaced ; the 
 orchards replanted; the fields restocked with 
 their lowing herds; the ruined homesteads resur- 
 rected from their smoldering ashes; the destroyed 
 cities rebuilt. Long-flown prosperity has returned 
 to hover again in benign graciousness over the 
 valleys, and to rest once more in blessed peace 
 upon the misty summits of the mountains. The 
 yawning, bloody chasm, that once appeared so 
 fathomless and impassable, has been bridged by 
 fraternal bonds, cemented with the adhesive 
 tenacity of common interest and brotherhood. 
 
 From Plymouth's gale-lashed spray 
 To San Francisco's placid bay; 
 From Biscayene's tropic sand 
 To Alaska's frozen strand, 
 
 good will, prosperity and peace reign over a 
 regenerated and an everlasting Union — a free and 
 mighty people. Even the" fierce animosity grow- 
 ing out of the petty bickerings and blunders of 
 reconstruction folly, has yielded to, and been dis- 
 sipated by, the harmonizing influence of more in- 
 timate relations and a closer acquaintance between 
 the people of the once antagonistical sections. 
 
 The great exhibitions and fairs, together with 
 numerous military visits, have done much in the 
 direction of restoring fraternal harmony and mu- 
 tual confidence between the people of the North 
 and the South. The attractions of the Southern 
 climate, as a refuge from the cold blasts of a 
 Northern winter, have exercised a wonderful in- 
 
 fluence, tending to generate a spirit of concilia- 
 tion between the people of the former hostile 
 sections, thus happily drawn together. Each vis- 
 itor carries back with him to his Northern home 
 a more favorable impression of his hosts and their 
 country than he entertained before his sojourn 
 beneath thfiir sunn;;^ skies. This sentiment he 
 disseminates among his friends, and thus are 
 seeds of pacification quietly, imperceptibly, but 
 steadily and surely sown; and noiselessly they 
 produce and mature their fruits. All these good 
 works deserve to be extended, fostered, and en- 
 couraged ; because they create the fraternal and 
 accordant bonds of a common, re-united country. 
 
 The greatest misfortune that yet remains to 
 disturb the placid serenity of the peaceful waters, 
 is the malignant misrepresentations made by 
 scheming and unscrupulous politicians in the 
 heated turmoil and fanatical excitement of an 
 active campaign. Thus are false impressions of 
 a damaging character scattered broadcast over 
 the land. As a rule these stories are utterly un- 
 worthy of credit. At such seasons, honest and 
 impartial missionaries should be sent into the 
 Southern States to procure and publish the legiti- 
 mate truth. 
 
 In this way might much needless discord and 
 bitterness be averted. Between the great masses 
 of the two sections of this once distracted coun- 
 try an ardent desire for harmony has long ex- 
 isted. Wrangling politicians alone marred and 
 delayed the happy consummation of this most 
 desirable state of tranquility. But the day has 
 gone by when they enjoyed unlimited creative 
 powers of mischief. Their influence must grow 
 less as the years vanish. 
 
 The wearers of the Grey, if mistaken, were 
 honest in their convictions. They staked their 
 principles in the desperate game of war, and lost. 
 
 Thus they proved their professions. They are 
 none the less honest now ; none the less have 
 they forcibly demonstrated their abiding fidelity 
 to the Union and the principles maintained by 
 the wearers of the Blue — their magnanimous foe- 
 men — by their zealous efforts to fill up and bridge 
 over the bloody chasm. Beneath the dreamland 
 skies of the South no traitors dwell. 
 
 The wearers of the" Blue never pursued the 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 305 
 
 wearersof the Grey beyond the battlefield ; never 
 stooped to persecute the vanquished with need- 
 less oppression. These antagoni.sts alone, undis- 
 turbed by "bomb-proof" politicians of the '^ stay 
 at home corps" could have settled the difficult 
 problem in short order at any time, had it been 
 submitted to them as peaceable arbitrators. They 
 are now, and have been for many years, thus set- 
 tling it through the influence of organized inter- 
 course in the semblance of formal and most ap- 
 propriate mihtary visits, and in many other ways, 
 laying the broad foundation for everlasting friend- 
 ship. Thus have a nation's woes and a nation's 
 rankling hate been alleviated and neutralized. 
 
 The "fire-eaters" and the fanatics who kindled 
 that red flame of war are rapidly making their 
 final exits from the stage ; and their ultra doc- 
 trines are giving place to equitable ideas of pa- 
 cific moderation, implacable enemies of the 
 early days of reconstruction are amicable friends. 
 As the people of the two great sections come to 
 know and understand one another Ijetter, the 
 more still will their fraternal bonds be strength- 
 ened. Every week, almost, ushers in some new 
 era of influences or associations, tending to pro- 
 mote good feeling and to generate solid and en- 
 during friendship among the people of the "New 
 Union." 
 
 The terms "The Sohd South" and "The New 
 South" are misconstrued and misunderstood : in 
 the first instance, by designing sycoi^hants; in 
 the second, by the great masses of the Northern 
 people. A broad and liberal construction of the 
 true definition implies simply "A New and Solid 
 Union." Where would rest the secure founda- 
 tion of this nation's hope without " A New and 
 Solid South ?" On treacherous quicJcsands. In 
 "The New South" the emancipated slave and 
 the master of the olden time dwell and labor in 
 mutual harmony. Thus is the supreme object of 
 the war attained — the ultimate principles of 
 aboHtionism secured. That this was the real 
 bone of contention over which the spirit of war 
 was generated, no intelligent and well-informed 
 mind can hesitate to admit ; that, sooner or later, 
 it must have inevitably led to open hostilities, 
 there is no room to doubt; and that it was infi- 
 nitely better for these to have developed when 
 
 they did, rather than to have been reserved for a 
 future age and a more numerous people, there is 
 still less reason in favor of a judgment. Hence, 
 therefore, we conclude that the war, under the 
 peculiar nature of the circumstances, was an evil 
 that could not have been averted; a thing neces- 
 sary to preserve and indissolubly cement the ac- 
 cordant ties of the Union. 
 
 Now the grand object and the supreme soHci- 
 tude of the people of this nation should be to se- 
 cure the utmost fruits of their gigantic sacrifices, 
 and to make doubly sure that such fruits are not 
 blighted or destroyed. No effort should be 
 spared that promises to promote their cultivation. 
 Increased intercourse and more intimate relations 
 between the sections once so widely severed by 
 the scourge of murderous strife, would most tend 
 to secure this desirable and happy consummation. 
 Thorough acquaintance with the South and her 
 people are too important considerations to be 
 approximately estimated. Equally important is 
 it for the Southern to know their Northern coun- 
 trymen. These, all the citizens of the Union 
 should mutunlly, carefully and patiently study, 
 learn duly to understand, and strive properly to 
 appreciate. By such means would the trophies 
 of triumph be secured, and the laureled wreath 
 and olive branch of peace entwined and estab- 
 lished/or evermore. 
 
 The witching magnetism of the fertile fields 
 and the salubrious enchantment of the matchless 
 chme of the South are attracting myriads of 
 people away from their ice-bound winters of the 
 North. Fascinated by these charming beauties 
 and wondrous bounties of lavishly generous 
 nature, many become permanently domiciled in 
 this lovely land, and induce friends to join them 
 in tlieir semi-Paradise on earth. 
 
 As the South is the land of flowers, so is it the 
 cradle of love. And those who winter there c^r 
 migrate thither to remain, are sure to fall in love 
 with the climate and the country, and hence, too, 
 with the people. They too, in their turn, learn 
 to love their Northern visitors and neighbors. 
 Thus, this intermingling is Avoiding the links of a 
 fraternal chain as solid and as durable as adamant. 
 
 Let those who wish to know the "True 
 South" "The' New South" and "The SoUd 
 
ZOG 
 
 jviystic romances of the blue and the geey. 
 
 South," of 1883, vividly contrasted with "the 
 decimated, the desolate, the ruined South of 
 1865," enter the Valley of Virginia — the garden 
 spot of America — and proceed Soutji to Salem ; 
 then traverse the majestic mountains to the blue 
 hills of the Southwest, return to Lynchburg, and 
 travel down the James River to Richmond and 
 Noi-folk. 
 
 From this point penetrate North CaroHna to 
 Ashville, amid the misty peaks of the Blue 
 Ridge. Thence scan the smiling gardens and 
 the rice plantations of South Carolina; the 
 mystic mountains and magic vales of Tennessee. 
 NoAv look over the cotton wonderlands of Ala- 
 bama and Mississippi, of Louisiana and Arkansas, 
 with their sugar, rice and wheat fields ; the pro- 
 digious amazements of Texas, too vast and too 
 diversified to be enumerated or indicated. 
 
 Then go to Atlanta, and gaze down in admira- 
 tion upon the astonishing panorama of Georgia, 
 — the New England, the Empire State of the 
 South, in enterprise — elaborately dispersed, and in 
 material pro.sperity. Thence go to Florida, the 
 winter garden of the North, the Italy of 
 America. 
 
 If, in all this vast and varied domain, nothing 
 has been found to attract emigration and to in- 
 duce settlement as permanent residents, the 
 tastes of the seekers would be too fastidious to 
 be satisfied anywhere in this world. 
 
 The known resources of the South are too 
 formidable to be computed; the undeveloped 
 ones are too incredible to be comprehended. 
 Hence, she offers unparalleled inducements to 
 emigrants from all sections of the Union, and 
 from every quarter of the globe. People the 
 South, develop her resources, and there will be 
 the mainspring of prosperity, the mighty right 
 arm of the Nation. 
 
 A beautiful example of reconciliation is afforded 
 by the devoted relations and boundless friendship 
 early established and uninterruptedly main- 
 tained among Edgar Harman, Jesse Flowers, 
 Orlando Oglethrop, their wives, Lawrence 
 Pleasington and some of their friends. 
 
 These reflections lead us back again in the 
 direction of the thread of romance in our story. 
 Our rambles away have merely led over much of 
 
 the same ground upon which our early and pro- 
 gressive scenes developed — simply a casual and 
 somewhat informal review of the transformation 
 wrought by these changing scenes, and the magic 
 touch of the hand of Time. Out of the war and 
 in its wake, as resultant sequences, grew most of 
 the features of our story ; then, therefore, it can 
 hardly be deemed inappropriate that we have 
 sketched various outlines of its material effects, 
 beyond the individuality of our legitimate char- 
 acters. Whatever effected these, as to their 
 ordinary affairs of life, operated in a greater or a 
 less degree, or might have thus influenced many 
 other persons — the generality of the masses of 
 the American people. 
 
 We have wandered over a romantic country, the 
 stage of wild and tragic scenes. The vicissitudes 
 of recuperation through which the Southern 
 States and people have passed, are replete with 
 startling and pathetic romance — struggling with 
 dire poverty amid the sombre shadows of de- 
 spair, cheered on and strengthened by self-abne- 
 gating devotion, alone, and seemingly estranged 
 forever from the realm of Hope. 
 
 Ah, what treasures of romance, in real life. 
 those distressed old mountains and desolate val- 
 leys, as they were in those dark days of yore, 
 hold hidden away in their secret vaults of mys- 
 teries! Some day we ma}'' enter and explore 
 a few of these musty recesses, bring to the light of 
 the sun their guarded treasures, and portray their 
 mystic wonders. Until then, indulgent friends, 
 we crave your forbearance for having made any 
 semblance of digression. Pray attribute this to 
 our zeal in the cause of reconciliation, and our 
 overweening desire to promote national harmony 
 between the people of the North and South. 
 We deem it the duty of every one to put forth 
 some effort, however feeble, in this direction; 
 hence our simple attempt. 
 
 We noAv glance in retrospection, along the 
 backward track, over the course of our stor}', in 
 its tortuous meanderings, briefly to summarize; 
 bind the fibres broken now and then, under the 
 pressure of the concentrated friction of time and 
 circumstance ; resume the readjusted thread of 
 our vanishing theme and pursue it to that scene 
 which is to be its last. 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 307 
 
 This might not be be thus, were our chronicles 
 posted up to 1893, instead of 1883. But to the 
 latter epoch has it led us; beyond this fate 
 interposes the stern interdiction that says, "No 
 farther." Here must we halt. We dare not 
 conjecture even what scenes are yet behind the 
 mysterious curtain of futurity, that may develop 
 sometime, with one or more of our characters as 
 participating actors on the stage where they 
 liave played so long. Earnestly do we wish that 
 wo could seize the prophet's divining ken, and 
 read but this once the future pages of some 
 lives. Alas! we cannot; nor can we trust the 
 perversity of human nature sufficiently to imag- 
 ine what these singular charac'r.rs may yet 
 tlemonstrate, to startle and shock, or to excite 
 admiration in the minda of mankind. We must, 
 therefore, rest satisfied, or not, with what we 
 have, and submit simply what has been and is in 
 our portrait. The inquisitive and the captious 
 can expect no more. 
 
 Following each individual feature, as it is 
 traced along its course, and gauging it by the 
 most rigid rules of the philosophy of " cause 
 and effect," we find we have advanced nothing 
 that these do not imperatively demand. If we 
 have erred in this respect, it has not been on the 
 side of over-elaborate outlining, but rather in the 
 direction of concession. Our aim has been to 
 keep ideas of personality of the author in the 
 back-ground, and to demonstrate absolute de- 
 velopments. Hence, will be observed our often 
 abrupt transition of scenes, with almost no pre- 
 liminary comments 
 
 We are most sensible that this is a departure 
 from the beaten tract — what many style " out of 
 the common ; " yet we are persuaded that it Avill 
 prove a not unacceptable departure, with the 
 majority of readers of refined taste. Such readers, 
 as a rule, if interested in a work at all, find their 
 interest, not in the author nor in his abstract opin- 
 ions, but in his characters, and what they do and 
 say. The description of characters, often most 
 elaborate delineations, even, may be quite accept- 
 able to the average reader of refinement, when 
 the author's egotistical opinion simply, to the 
 same extent, in the same direction, might prove 
 a reading extremely irksome. 
 
 In unmeasured terms, sometimes, have we de- 
 nounced or praised; but not usually have we 
 thus indulged at great length ; and almost always, 
 these efforts were more than semi-descriptive of 
 features of vice or virtue, or their fruits, insepar- 
 able from the roles and the lives of our characters. 
 
 We have been unable to resist the temptation, 
 when some intensified scenes were nearing, or 
 had seemingly reached their chmax, to suspend 
 their ultimate sequences in abeyance ; but in no 
 instance have we failed to develop these in a later 
 period. 
 
 Thus have we sought to hold in reserve some 
 unexpected surprises. How far we have been 
 successful in this direction, the reader alone must 
 render a verdict. 
 
 As to other irregularities and imperfections, we 
 can offer no specia-I apology. We have meant 
 to instruct, with pictured lessons from earn ate life, 
 rather than to amuse with a pleasing vein of humor. 
 We make no sort of pretentions to a claim of 
 literary merit for this work. Such would be ab- 
 surd. We have tried to tell our story with sim- 
 plicity, as we progressed with timid inexperience. 
 If we have moderately succeeded in the direction 
 of rendering it intelligible, our utmost dreams 
 are attained. 
 
 First upon the stage was Garland Cloud, the 
 obscure and youthful mountaineer, the scout and 
 the erratic wanderer. In him were the natural 
 characteristics requisite to assume the hazard of 
 adventure, and to blend with the mysterious and 
 the romantic. His alloted role led him into startling 
 scenes, where these attributes of nature together 
 commingled in wondrous harmony. 
 
 But in reviewing the complete career of this 
 strange and incomprehensible character, in his in- 
 tensely adhesive relations with the strongest fea- 
 tures of romance in our antithetical portrait of 
 real life, we must not ignore the potent influences 
 which thus bound and held him so inseparably. 
 
 Uncle Jake, the old Virginia, common-place, 
 rollicking log-cabin darkey, was the supreme 
 genius, the pecuHar founder, the wonderful arch- 
 itect and the untutored creator from whom, 
 directly, or indirectly, as resultant elements of the 
 developing theme, in the inexplicable order of 
 progression, all this masterful combination of com- 
 
308 
 
 IVIYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 plot sprung. Here starts the mysteriously unfold- 
 ing thread of our singular story. This is the primi- 
 tive source of " The Secret Service League ' of the 
 border. Without Uncle Jake, this particular or- 
 ganization would never have existed; M'ithout 
 Uncle Jake, Qarland Cloud never would have 
 attracted important attention as a scout. I 
 
 The meeting of Garland Cloud and Jesse Flow- 
 ers on the field of Manassas, was an event that 
 shadowed forth in importance second only to Jake. 
 
 The finding and caring for Lawrence Pleasing- 
 ton by those children of the mountain, were 
 simply in seeming obedience to the directing fin- 
 ger of Destiny. In this relation, as to Pleasing- 
 ton's letters, Jake again became an indispensable 
 actor. To these circumstances is due the gratitude 
 on the part of Pleasington, that generated the 
 strange sympathy and peculiar friendship between 
 him and Cloud; that swaj^ed them so strongly while 
 they were yet armed in hostility, and influenced 
 them so powerfully on other occasions. Thus 
 were many features of this volume developed. 
 
 Cloud's service as a scout and kindness to Ed- 
 gar Harman, were auxiliary but necessary cir- 
 cumstances, required to bring Carrie Harman . 
 upon the stage. This, and Jessie Flowers' rela- 
 tions with Cloud, were indispensable to unfold 
 the pathetic and starthng events developed in the 
 thrilling story of Gertrude Flowers. Thus was 
 she re-united with the long severed links of the 
 broken chain of the past ; thus was cast a distant 
 gleam of uncertain light upon the shadowy vis- 
 age of Helen Mountjoy, and her mysterious re- 
 lations with Ira Atkinson and Adam Stringfellow ; 
 and, moreover, thus was the unity of relations 
 among these strong characters re-established, and 
 the true nature of the wonderful romance of 
 Mountjoy House revealed. 
 
 From the very first moment when she comes 
 into the scene, until her last appearance, Carrie 
 Harman is a star of jnatchless magnetism and 
 powerful influence. At once she becomes the 
 inspiration, the genius, the destiny of Garland 
 Cloud, and, in turn, passes, herself, under the 
 spell of his unschooled diplomacy. Gratitude, 
 and a spirit of pure romance, superinduced her 
 admiration and esteem so inordinately cherished 
 for the plebeian soldier boy. 
 
 She, as we have just demonstrated, became 
 lilended in the plot as a direct sequence of Uncle 
 Jake, in the legitimate Hne of offspring — the 
 veritable progeny issuing in strict pursuance of 
 the thread of fairy tale. Beyond, then, obtains 
 indirect fruits from Jake's primitive plant of 
 creation. Carrie Harman becomes a creative 
 genius of thrilling vicissitudes. She propagates, 
 cultivates, and develops, in a high degree, what 
 Jake planted in such simple crudeness. Her 
 aspirations were lofty and noble; her motives 
 and actions were swayed and controlled by the 
 most worthy impulses in this world. 
 
 What she was in the role of purity and good- 
 ness, Helen Mountjoy was in that of deceit and 
 wickedness. To many persons Carrie Harman 
 was a good angel — to many persons Helen 
 Mountjoy was an evil spirit, a fatal curse. Her 
 first victim was Gertrude Flowers. Carrie Har- 
 man proved to be a ministress of mercy and 
 blessing to the poor widow and her children. 
 Next we find Helen Mountjoy victimizing her 
 own family, and some of her not over-scrupulous 
 friends. Finally, we witness her culminating 
 atrocity, wreaked with fiendish fury, upon poor 
 Lawrence Pleasington and confiding Effie Edel- 
 stein. Then the retribution of stricken conscienco 
 ultimately overtakes and drives her to the des- 
 peration of self-destruction. 
 
 Garland Cloud, through indiscretion, under the 
 fell sway of unscrupulous impulses, was led and 
 driven into paths of error, whence the charming 
 potency of Carrie Harman's enchanting influence 
 failed to beguile him. Thus he bequeathed to 
 her the disconsolate heritage of life-long disap- 
 pointment and unavailing regret. 
 
 From this wreck of that phantom ship of Carriu 
 Harman's cherished dreams and the grave of Gar- 
 land Cloud s fondest hope, starts that ill-starred 
 thread of Manonia's fatality. 
 
 From the severance of this thread springs that 
 one which iCads on to Garland Cloud's retribu- 
 tion and exposure, and Lawrence Pleasington's 
 restoration to the friends of his early years — yes, 
 and to more : Thus emerged to the light of day 
 the material subject matter from which this vol- 
 ume was produced. Without the mutual remi- 
 niscences of Garland Cloud and Lawrence Pleas- 
 
EIGHTEEN TEARS AFTER. 
 
 309 
 
 inytoii, the thread of then- story and its pecuhar 
 relations never could have been obtained. With- 
 out the meeting of these prominent characters 
 " Under a Cloud," Lawrence Pleasington never 
 would have learned that his most devoted friends 
 possessed the secret of his innocence, and still 
 remained forever constant to him ; and hence he 
 would never have been restored to them. Thus 
 to Lawrence Pleasington this last act of friend- 
 ship, received from Cloud, became the most im- 
 portant of any of those acts so higlJy prized in 
 the past, because it conveyed an assurance more 
 precious than life itself, Avhich had before been 
 rescued from jeopardy — it assured him that his . 
 fair name was redeemed from the unjust stigma 
 of shame. 
 
 The evil fruits springing from Arnold Noel 
 have been sufficiently outlined. They were 
 simply the direct or the indirect productions of 
 Helen Mountjoy's scheming baseness, and un- 
 toward influence. With his innate propensities 
 for devious conduct stimulated and encouraged 
 by the evil counsels of his wicked aunt, it was no 
 difficult matter for this young villain to engage 
 in anything diabohcal. His third time in prison 
 for the long term now hangs heavily with the 
 weight of long and dreary years over his head. 
 His father, mother, and two of his sisters have 
 been borne to" the silent churchyard, victims of 
 the broken heart, caused by his yet unabatable 
 perversity. 
 
 The miscliief wrought by Helen Mountjoy 
 should be a lesson to unscrupulous wives and 
 mothers, who scheme to consummate ignoble de- 
 signs without compunction or pity for their acts 
 or their victims. 
 
 The career of Garland Cloud should be a lesson 
 to every young and ambitious man. Some phases 
 of his distorted portrait are admirable examples 
 worthy of emulation ; others are fearful lessons 
 of terrible warning. All of these, in both rela- 
 tions, have been amply defined — how they were 
 heterogeneously and antithetically compounded 
 from the noblest and the basest influences. 
 
 The simple meeting, as if by hazard, of Jake 
 and Cloud, of Cloud and Flowers, and of these 
 and Pleasington, insignificant in themselves as- 
 sume great importance when traced to their 
 
 resultant developments. They led to Carrie Har- 
 man ; they led to G-ertrude Flowers and Rosalia ; 
 they led to Mountjoy House and the discovery of 
 its mysteries and their associate relations ; they 
 led to Silas Worthington; they led to the ro 
 mantic, woeful and sadly-fated love between 
 Cloud and Carrie Harman; they led to Cloud's 
 strange complications ; they led to the restora- 
 tion of her fortune to Gertrude Flowers, and the 
 marriage of herself and Rosalia; they led to the 
 formation of the firm of Oglethrop, Harman & 
 Co. ; they led to Garland Cloud's downfall, flight 
 and checkered career; they led to the union be- 
 tween Jesse Flowers and Carrie Harman ; and, 
 finally, they led to the foundation cf most of 
 these chapters, and to the composition of them 
 all. 
 
 Before passing definitely on to the resume of 
 the incompleted thread of our narrative, let us 
 pause a moment in final review. 
 
 Look back at Gertrude Flowers, preparing to 
 leave her palatial home; harken to the lonely 
 widow's pitiful moans of desolate despair, borne, 
 on many a cold and dreary night, from her lonely 
 mountain cabin home, upon the tempest's breath, 
 to the Avenger's ear ; think of Maud Pleasing- 
 ton's overpowcMug agony, and Effie Edelstein's 
 mournful despair, as you, in fancy, follow Law- 
 rence Pleasington through his dreary years of 
 hopeless wretchedness; behold frail Beatrice and 
 Rosahnd flying from the ghost of their shame to 
 the protective seclusion of a convent, in obedience 
 to the advice of Cassandra, their conscience- 
 stricken sister; then turn to the desolate home of 
 Samuel Van Allen, and see the despair of the 
 dying wife and daughter ; now look back at the 
 slow torture of Norman Mountjoy, and stand 
 again with him a moment in that chamber of 
 death, before taking a last, lingering gaze at the 
 authoress of all this woe and premature death — 
 Helen Mountjoy — as she, in terror, is confessing 
 to her daughter Evahna. 
 
 From these scenes of death-producing misery, 
 turn to Garland Cloud's last Sabbath evening in 
 his " Future City " mansion; then to his dream of 
 death; now to the nameless despair of Manonia; 
 then, again, to the lonely cell in which he finds 
 that the mask has been torn from his face and 
 
310 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 life. Think a moment of the heart-aches he has 
 left behind him in traversing the earth, and 
 those he has borne onward with himself. Con- 
 trast all these with the rewards of virtue and 
 truth reaped by Harman, Flowers and Oglethrop, 
 with their angelic wives, and conclude which are 
 the most desirable to pursue and to possess. 
 
 Again we resume the thread of our story. To 
 this, Lawrence Pleasington still chngs, or, per- 
 haps, it adheres to him. His role is yet incom- 
 plete. We have to follow him into some unde- 
 veloped scenes — scenes which should be clothed 
 with absorbing interest. 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington has been a not uninter- 
 esting character. Lawrence Pleasington is the 
 more than ideal character—he is the sublime hero, 
 matchless, unapproachable, admirable man ! Un- 
 rivaled child of resignation, constancy, and devo- 
 tion ! To thee we can impute no fault, lay no 
 stigma upon thy untarnished name. Pleasing, 
 at last, becomes our task, to bring thee forward, 
 free from and untrammeled by the machinations 
 of evil influence, secure from their menace, and 
 place thee upon the stage in thy own element of 
 truth and purity. 
 
 How beautiful, how noble, hoy exemplary the 
 life of this man has ever been, amid trial, perse- 
 cution, and temptation that were overwhelming. 
 Upon his well-poised mind and disciplined virtue, 
 the intoxicating whirl and black demoralization 
 that ran riot in the mad excitement of war, made 
 no impressions, but those of loathing and abhor- 
 rence. "When the blighting pall of suspicion, 
 misfortune, and despair overshadowed him, and 
 hope fled, seemingly, forever, he yet remains a 
 true man. Courageously he bf aves the worst and 
 the most dreadful fate ever wreaked upon an inno- 
 cent man, to which death, in any form of torture, 
 slow or swift, would have been a welcome mercy 
 — an inestimable blessing. 
 
 After all that he has endured, he certainly de- 
 serves a meritorious reward. If this be not ac- 
 corded — if the perversity of Fate interdicts and 
 withholds this well-earned trophy — where Avill 
 hold the faith that patient virtue shall be richly 
 compensated, no matter howsoever long the boon 
 be deferred ? Beyond any question, this would 
 
 shake our abiding confidence ir. the doctrine of 
 ultimate remuneration. 
 
 But we find, during the latter days of his bitter 
 chastisement, the inexorable hand of Destiny 
 relenting and relaxing its unpitying hold; and 
 once more the goddess grows projDitious. A 
 ray of hope breaks in, and reflects a gleam 
 to re-illuminate his long despair-benighted mind. 
 From out the deep gloom of utter hopelessness, 
 amid the storm-lashed billows, on the troubled 
 sea of earthly perdition, he descries a glimmer- 
 ing hght — a beacon, perchance, on some distant 
 headland, some unknown promontory. How 
 eagerly he gazes upon it! What strangely in- 
 tense emotion thrills his being, as he watches 
 this unexpected indication of some haven on that 
 long-dreamed shoreless sea ! What wild conflicts 
 convulse his breast, as he peers through the 
 spectral gloom out over the desolate waste ! Is 
 it a land-light, or a transient meteor? Is it a 
 light to guide the drifting, hope-bereft mariner to 
 safety, or a treacherous delusion, placed high up 
 on inaccessible crags, to warn the voyager of 
 dangerous breakers on a rock-bound coast ? 
 
 Poor Pleasington ! he had cause to tremble, to 
 hesitate and to doubt. Once before a seemingly 
 friendly, but destructively deceptive hght, had 
 lured him to swift disaster, after he had passed 
 safely the perils of the Charybdis despair. 
 
 But now it is plainer. The sharply defined 
 outlines of a practicable shore rise up against a 
 smiling horizon. It is — it is a light upon the land ! 
 How invitingly it beams at last! How brightly 
 it glows in a peaceful haven. Behold now, 
 around it, the friends of yore beckoning inviting- 
 ly and calling, " Come — come ! " Blessed friends ! 
 What enchantments to lure our long suffering 
 voyager from the sea of despair ! Friends, did 
 we say ? Yes, and truly ; that changeless, con- 
 stant friendship that remains unshaken forever, 
 that no misfortune, no envenomed breath of 
 slander can ever chill. Friendship, Heaven's 
 own attribute! 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington was taken at once into 
 the bosoms of the families of his friends. CoL 
 Worthington, Orlando Oglethrop, Edgar Harman, 
 and Jesse Flowers vied with one another in 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 511 
 
 claiming him as their permanent guest dvu-- 
 ing his temporary sojourn in New Yorlc. 
 But at last they compromised, on the basis that 
 his time should be equally divided among them. 
 
 Carrie Flowers and Rosalia Harman were 
 equally as sympathetic and kind as were Cassan- 
 dra Worthington and Evalina Oglethrop, his long 
 ago intimate and admiring friends. Of all these, 
 Carrie manifested the most attentive solicitude. 
 Often, when alone with him, in the parlor of her 
 own mansion, she conversed with him in a 
 tremulous voice and with moistening eyes. Why 
 this was true, she, probably, might have vaguely 
 imagined, but certainly she never explained, nor 
 did any one question her on the subject. Pleas- 
 ington alone observed it. To all others, her emo- 
 tions were an unrevealed mystery, because they 
 Avere never visible when a third person was 
 present. 
 
 Perhaps these symptoms of pitying sympathy 
 thrilled the being of Carrie Flowers, because she 
 Avasjibetter able to realize and to appreciate the 
 depth of Pleasington's nameless woe than any 
 other of his good friends. She had beheld mor- 
 tal suffering that sickens the soul, and she had 
 endured that silent sorrow that never reveals its 
 wretchedness to the world. But then she was 
 not unmindful of the fact that he was a secure 
 link that connected the thread of romance which 
 bound her family and the family of '' the Angels 
 of the Mountain " into one, or mated each one of 
 three persons in the one to each in the other 
 family. Thus she had received the only balm of 
 consolation, after her own heart had bled, that 
 mortal powers could bestow — the unsullied jewel 
 of Jesse Flowers' spotless character and pure 
 devotion. 
 
 It might have been, too, that, as she gazed 
 upon the traces of care so deeply imprinted on 
 the fair features and noble brow of Pleasington, 
 Avhile she reflected that he was the victim of 
 Helen Mountjoy, she recalled the scene in which 
 she had mingled on that bitter winter day in 
 "The Mountain Cabin," twenty years before, 
 when she first, heard the plaintive story of 
 Gertrude Flowers. She recognized that the day 
 on which the thread of her own life became in- 
 extricably entangled and forever blended with 
 
 that of our story, as the onci- brightest and 
 the saddest of its varying years. 
 
 Yet, moreover, who can divine if there was 
 not still another association, almost inseparably 
 entwined with the name and life of Lawrence 
 Pleasington, and certainly so with the relations 
 which these bear to this story, to which the 
 mind of Carrie Flowers reverted in such sad- 
 ness as to conjure up in her heart the deepest senti- 
 ments of pure Avomanly compassion? Innate 
 sympathy for Pleasington, and undying pity for 
 that association, linked, perhaps, with a lingering 
 regret, were ample incentives, despite all dis- 
 sembling arts and powers of self-control, to stir 
 with intense emotion the depths of her soul. 
 
 However, be all or any of these conjectures 
 well founded, or without a shade of claim 
 to validity the result was nevertheless important 
 to Lawrence Pleasington. In Carrie Flowers he 
 found a constant and devoted friend, a source of 
 comforting sympathy which he sorely needed. 
 To him she became, in all the queenly majesty 
 of the zealous and transcendent grandeur of her 
 tender years, "The Angel of Consolation." 
 With her he dehghted to linger. At her home 
 he often called on days when his company was 
 due to other friends. With eager avidity he 
 listened to her cheering words, which pictured 
 hope-dawning happiness for the near future, so 
 clearly, that it seemed as though he might grasp 
 the reality with his outstretched hand as a 
 tangible substance; yet he was unable to realize 
 in it more than the beguiling delusion of a pleas- 
 ing dream — simply the creation of imaginary 
 fancy, springing spontaneously, as the abortive 
 result of the overwrought solicitude of a highly 
 romantic mind. 
 
 At that day, Carrie Flowers was fully conscious 
 that the pages of this story were slowly growing. 
 Well did she know to what extent she had con- 
 tributed to their foundation. Truly she was 
 advised of the character and purport of their 
 contents, up to the last chapter before the present 
 one we are now unfolding. More than ever 
 was she intensely anxious to be instrumental in 
 shaping events out of which the suspended chap- 
 ter was to form and be unfolded before the 
 reader's eyes. Hence, partly, at least, her bound- 
 
312 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 less interest in Lawrence Pleasington ; her uncon- 
 trollable desire to bring his life under the sway of 
 her influence. For this she had an all-absorbing 
 motive. But to him this was as incomprehensible 
 and mysterious as the silent secrets of the grave 
 wherein he had buried his fondest, his last, his 
 only earthly hopes — the cherished object of his 
 youtliful dreams, the idolized adoration of his 
 laurel- wreathed manhood, slumbering and moul- 
 dering to dust for so many mournful years. Then, 
 he turned away from the enchanting portrait of 
 a new hope, shuddering, doubting. 
 
 In sadness his mind wandered back into the 
 desolate shadows of the bitter past, to dwell with 
 fondness upon the treasured memory of one van- 
 ished form ; to recall in sorrowful cadence and 
 with tender reverence the mournful accents of 
 one saintly name. With nothing earthly was 
 Lawrence Pleasington able to associate the idea 
 of the remote dream of dimly imagined Hope, 
 save alone the name and hfe of Effie Edelstein — 
 that loved one for whom he had suffered so 
 much unabatable sorrow, who had suffered such 
 untold anguish for him, in the consecration of 
 her self-sacrificing devotion. Long years be- 
 fore, the news had reached him in his gloomy 
 seclusion that his lost Effie had been borne from 
 her saintly retirement to the peaceful repose of 
 the silent church-yard. Hence, thus he mourned 
 her. 
 
 To Carrie Flowers, and Pleasington's other 
 friends, this latter fact Avas known ; but to her at 
 least, this may not have been accepted as con- 
 clusive and overwhelming testimony that Effle's 
 place might not be re-supplied in his heart. She 
 well knew, from the most consummate experience, 
 the flexible nature of the human heart, and its 
 proneness to yield to the healing antidotes of 
 time and the soothing lullaby of gentle influence. 
 
 Probably she did not conceive that Pleasington 
 might be an excepton to the rule, nor believe that 
 his heart was more abidingly true than her own 
 had been devotedly constant. 
 
 However, Pleasington never mentioned the 
 name that still remained so dear to him, nor did 
 his friends ever allude to it iii his presence. Thus 
 was poor, persecuted, Effie's memory seemingly 
 buried in the bosoms of her friends. It Avas en- 
 
 shrined in the heart of Lawrence Pleasington so 
 deeply that time could never weaken its hold, 
 could never dim the brightness of its long cher- 
 ished remembrance. 
 
 Oglethrop, Harman & Co. had a branch house 
 in a commercial centre of the South. At the same 
 place they had a palatial residence, where some 
 one of them, with his family, and usually the 
 families of the other two, spent the winter. 
 
 Already had it been previously arranged that 
 Lawrence Pleasington was to be domiciled at this 
 home and instructed in the routine of the busi- 
 ness, so that he might become qualified to assume 
 the management in the interest of the firm of his 
 confiding friends. 
 
 After a reasonable sojourn in New York, he 
 gladly took his departure for his new home, amid 
 other scenes more pleasing, leaving behind him 
 associations from which painful reflections were 
 inseparable. These were the shades of his blight- 
 ed fife, the grave of his Hope. 
 
 Once installed in his new sphere, accumulating- 
 duties and gigantic responsibilities devolved upon 
 him with such amazing rapidity, that his mind 
 and time became so much absorbed as measurably 
 to wean him from the weary dream of the past. 
 He was in his legitimate latitude. He recognized 
 fully, and duly appreciated, the wonderful oppor- 
 tunities for unlimited usefulness thus placed at 
 his disposal. At once he became intensely inter- 
 ested in his labors. Rapidly he mastered their 
 intricacies. Soon his friends had unmistakable 
 indications of his developing abihty. 
 
 Early and thoroughly disciplined training re- 
 ceived at the Military School, the stern and pre- 
 cise duties of an active commander in the field, 
 and the long years of practical experience as an 
 accountant — as he was employed during most of 
 the darkest days of his life of trial — had admirably 
 qualified and fitted him for the position to which 
 he was assigned in his new calling. His first care 
 and pride were to meet the expectations of his 
 patrons ; his second to gain information for him- 
 self. In all these directions he far outstripped 
 the most sanguine anticipations of both himself 
 and friends; he succeeded rapidly and admirably. 
 
 With his benefactors the terrible secrets of 
 his hapless life securely reposed. No one at his 
 
EIGHTEEN YEAES AFTEE. 
 
 313 
 
 new borne knew aught concerning his history, 
 except his war record, and that he was a confi- 
 dential friend of Oglethrop, Harman & Co. His 
 sorrows and his sufferings were yet unrevealed 
 mysteries. 
 
 He gained friends, and grew in business and 
 social popularity with surprising rapidity. Carrie 
 Flowers was an ornament and a favorite in the 
 society of that Southern city of Pleasington's 
 adoption. To her influence was his special and 
 speedy advancement largely due. Her vivid 
 portrayal of his many virtues and high order of 
 talents — the veritable nobility of character and 
 true manhood everywhere admired — awakened 
 extraordinary interest in him. 
 
 Not many months elapsed before he had un- 
 consciously and unintentionally made a deep im- 
 pression on the heart of more than one young 
 lady. Quickly the wiles of Cupid were devising 
 subtly constructed meshes of a cunning net, de- 
 signed to entangle him in the toils of love. No 
 unfair means, however, were employed to entrap 
 him. The ladies did not overstep the bounds of 
 strict propriety. They rather brought into requi- 
 sition the attractions of their natal charms, the 
 spell of their graceful beauty, and the winning 
 enchantment of their modest virtue. Many of 
 them were the reigning belles of the socia'l king- 
 doms in which they held their sway. They were 
 the admired of all admirers. At any moment 
 could they, at will, have accepted a heart from 
 scores of those of the first young men of the city, 
 figuratively cast in confusing multiplicity around 
 their fair feet, entreatingly appealing to be 
 chosen. That Pleasington would thus come to 
 sue there could be little doubt. Thus reasoned 
 the young ladies and their intimate friend, Carrie 
 Flowers. 
 
 As to Pleasington he met and treated all with 
 that courteous consideration so natural to an edu- 
 cated officer of the United States army, especially 
 of the old school, to which he had belonged. 
 He was too refined to manifest indifference. In 
 fact, no man of. appreciative sensibilities could 
 remain in such company and not be interested, if 
 not fascinated. He esteemed the young ladies, 
 not only because they were the friends of Carrie 
 Flowers, but also because they were worthy of 
 
 admiration. But the most perplexing feature 
 was that he appeared to have no preference — that 
 he seemed equally to admire and enjoy the so- 
 ciety of them all. 
 
 Of all other persons, Carrie Flowers watched 
 the progress of these social conflicts with the most 
 intense interest. She belie-vecl that Lawrence 
 Pleasington could be weaned from the dream of 
 his hopeless love, and won by some other fair 
 daughter of Eve. She had little faith in the 
 abiding constancy of the heart of man, after he 
 has been severed forever from the object of his 
 transitory affections. She had, herself, received 
 ample proof to sustain her skepticism. That 
 Lawrence Pleasington had proved true and faith- 
 ful to his first love for so many years, there 
 were, to her mind, abundant reasons in the insur- 
 mountable barrier of interposing circumstances 
 over which he exercised no power of control. 
 In her opinion his constancy would not last one- 
 tenth the same length of time amid the surround- 
 ings in which she then beheld him, exposed, as 
 he was, to the captivating allurement of beauty, 
 under the spell of the most refined social influ- 
 ence that ever swayed the heart of man. Posi- 
 tive was she that no susceptible heart could re- 
 sist the encouraging temptation perpetually offer- 
 ing to that of Pleasington to be vitally impressed. 
 Resolved was she to see it put to the utmost test 
 to which social strategy and woman's witching 
 graces could reduce the love engendering science. 
 Pleasington's persistent coyness as to the love- 
 making feature of his social relations with his 
 fair friends, was a marvel to the fascinating en- 
 chantresses themselves, and none the less an in- 
 comprehensible surprise to Carrie Flowers. Be- 
 tween her and the young ladies there existed, as 
 to this subject, the most unreserved confidence. 
 Each fair strategist understood that, upon the 
 slightest indication of a preference on the part of 
 Pleasington, Mrs. Flowers would do everything 
 in her power to encourage the cultivation of the 
 sentiment; all understood that her vitmost skill 
 was employed to induce him to choose among 
 them some object as a favorite. They could rely 
 implicitly on her discretion and prudence as to 
 what she would disclose to him. 
 
 Her inference was that he feared the fate which 
 
Sli 
 
 MYSTIC EO]\IANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKEY. 
 
 lie was assured many of the admirers of the fair 
 creatures were constantly receiving — a cold and 
 unpitying decision that declined to accept and 
 reciprocate their passionately proffered love. For 
 a long time she could not, with propriety, attempt 
 to disabuse his mind in this direction, or, per- 
 haps, this course might have been adverse to her 
 well defined policy. She did all in the bounds 
 of consistency by arranging to throw Pleasington 
 constantly in the company of some one of the 
 young ladies. Thus was he placed constantly 
 under circumstances the most favorable to ignite 
 a spark and kindle the flame of love. His was 
 one ceaseless round of social ovations. If he had 
 vanity that dehghted in admiration, it certainly 
 was flattered to an extent sufficient to gratify 
 the most inordinate desire. Whatever may have 
 been her wishes in the premises, Mrs. Flowers 
 manifested no disposition to disturb the natural 
 tenor of the course of events. 
 
 In the height of this season, she admitted to us 
 that the goal of her ambition was to force us to 
 place Lawrence Pleasington where we had as- 
 sumed the audacity, already, to place herself — in 
 the innumerable category of " the hearts that 
 heal." She assured us, with complacent and con- 
 fiding sangfroid, that the siege was progressing 
 most successfully; that while ali approaches, to 
 outward appearance, seemed invulnerable, there 
 were, unquestionably, deep internal rents and 
 breaches, steadily making inroads to, and under- 
 mining, his stronghold of resistance ; and that it 
 was only a matter of a little time before he would 
 surrender at discretion. She claimed that he was 
 weaned from the binding spell of his di-eam of 
 early love ; that his broken heart was virtually 
 healed ; and that the bitter memory of his great 
 sorrows and fearful suffering was rapidly dissi- 
 pating under the potent influence of j^leasing as- 
 sociations. Earnestly did she importune us to 
 await the development of the scene of romance 
 in which Lawrence Pleasington would be one of 
 the attractive characters. That this scene would 
 unfold, on a select social stage, within a year, she 
 was absolutely confident. She doubted not that 
 this \^^Duld revolutionize one prospective feature, 
 at least, of our romance, as originally mapped out, 
 in accordance with problematical anticipations of 
 what was likely to be the inevitable. 
 
 We, as a matter of course, desired the final so- 
 cial scene in the role of Lawrence Pleasington. 
 His station in the battle of life Avas amply 
 established to meet the requirements of our pur- 
 pose. He was earnestly engaged in many good 
 works. This was in strict accord with the natural 
 bent of his inclination. His intimate relations 
 with Carrie Flowers would have thus enlisted 
 him, no matter how he was disposed; and these 
 stimulated and encouraged his efforts very ma- 
 terially. We could, therefore, do no better than 
 to wait. One year would soon roll round on the 
 wheel of tin>e. And then, it would be cruel to 
 deny the entreating appeal to " The Angel of 
 Consolation," to be allowed to model this last 
 scene, since she had modeled and wrought so 
 many of those left in the wake of the past. 
 
 As Lawrence Pleasington was leisurely walking 
 along the main promenade of the city, one lonely 
 evening, he was suddenly confronted and ad- 
 dressed by an unique individual. The voice 
 seemed familiar, but the features were a blank in 
 his memory. " It must be some phantom of the 
 by-gone time," he thought, as he gazed in won- 
 derment upon the unearthly-appearing visage 
 standing before him. He was puzzled and 
 troubled. At last, he shook his head, and said : 
 
 " You are too hard for me, old man. I am un- 
 able to place you." 
 
 With a twinkle in his bright eye — something 
 Pleasington fancied he had seen many times be- 
 fore — he said : 
 
 " Think a bit, Massa Pleasington." 
 
 Suddenly a flash of light appeared to dawn be- 
 fore Pleasington's mind, as he said slowly, and 
 with visible emotion, at the same time extending 
 his hand: 
 
 " Ghostlj^ shadow of Uncle Jake." 
 
 It was a fact. There stood the venerable form 
 of the old man of another age — superannuated, 
 with locks seemingly more snowy and skin more 
 ebon-hued than in former days, when Pleasing- 
 ton knew him so well, and met him so often, 
 amid many varying and exciting scenes. 
 
 Jake : " Yes, sah ; Massa Pleasington, I spects 
 youze putty nigh right ; dis am berry close ter ole 
 Jake's ghost. De ole man am mighty nigh ter de 
 land ob ghosts. But Ize 'ticular gladt er see you." 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 315 
 
 Pleasington : " I am delighted to see you, 
 Jake ; but ashamed that I had eutirely forgotten, 
 so tliat I should never have recognized you on 
 the street." 
 
 Jake : " But I hadn't forgot you. Youze 
 older and stouter; but de ize and de feturs am de 
 same." 
 
 Pleasington: "But how do you happen to be 
 away here ? " 
 
 Jake: "Oh, sah; dat am eazee 'splained. 
 Missus and Miss Carnelia, aze use ter be, when 
 you uzed ter kno' her, comze here eberry winter, 
 an' I comze wid dem. But, Massa Pleasington, 
 de ole manze not comin' manne timze mo'." 
 
 Jake's voice was husky with emotion, and Pleas- 
 ington hung his head in mute meditation. 
 
 This circumstance — the casual and unexpected 
 meeting with Uncle Jake — afforded suly'ect mat- 
 ter to Pleasington for reflection. It recalled 
 some stirring reminiscences of the dark days of 
 the war, and the young and hopeful summer of 
 his life. 
 
 Pleasington : "I had just left my office, Jake, 
 but come with me. I will return. I want to 
 talk with you." 
 
 The two men walked slowly back to the office. 
 Pleasington looked upon Jake with reverence. 
 Jake gazed up at Pleasington's face with an air 
 of simple and childish affection. 
 
 The old mean's mind was acutely tenacious. 
 He recalled with surprising accuracy many inci- 
 dents which had long since passed to oblivion in 
 Pleasington's mind. He detailed, with astonish- 
 ishing rapidity, the vicissitudes through which he 
 had passed since he left the smouldering ruins 
 of the old homestead mansion and his own 
 " cabin in the lane." When referring to this cir- 
 cumstance, Jake wept like a broken-hearted child. 
 Poor old man ! Nature's child he was ; he is a 
 child again by reason of his dotage. 
 
 Pleasington was missing that evening from his 
 accustomed place in the gay and festive social 
 circle, so uniformly graced by his presence ; he 
 was with Leonoria, Corneha and Jake. The old 
 man brought forth the traditional banjo, and 
 thrilled his friends with the memory of days that I 
 were dead, and the dear " voices that were for 
 ever still." 
 
 "When the shadows of the next evening spread 
 their balmy wings over the beautiful city, Carrie 
 Flowers had met Pleasington's fair friends of the 
 " out-post days," and the renowned Jake, whose 
 romantic and pathetic story she had heard so many 
 times — whose thrilling experiences in their active 
 and exciting lives she had oftener envied and 
 sighed in vain to emulate. 
 
 Among other incidents related to Pleasington 
 by Jake, at various times, the former was much 
 interested in some features of the reminiscences 
 
 of Gen. E , with which the old man seemed 
 
 to be singularly familiar. He pictured most viv- 
 idly the G-eneral's flight, disguise, escape from 
 the country at the close of the war, and long re- 
 sidence, with its innumerable hardships and pri- 
 vations, in a foreign land. Some of these features 
 Pleasington often recounts with unfeigned gusto. 
 
 To some of his friends he said : 
 
 "It seems that there was a famous doctor in 
 the Valley of Virginia, wealthy, and the owner 
 of numerous slaves before the war. This doctor 
 was a member of the Virginia Convention, and 
 denounced E with all the opprobrious epi- 
 thets in the language, owing to his masterful op- 
 position to secession. The doctor's favorite hobby 
 was his rights in the Territories. "With this doc- 
 trine he assailed E continually, Avhenever he 
 
 had the floor. The latter retorted with his usual 
 unanswerable philippics — the ghastly portrait of 
 a civil war and ruin of the South. Time rolled 
 on apace. Sheridan was devastating the Valley 
 
 of Virginia ; Gen. E advancing to meet him. 
 
 The latter was well up to the front, reconnoiter- 
 ing. Citizens were flying pell-mell before the 
 Federal advance, leaving their burning homesteads 
 behind them. One wagon, driven by an over- 
 excited white man, containing a woman, two 
 children, and some odd household effects, speci- 
 ally attracted the attention of the General. He 
 recognized the doctor in the driver. This was 
 the nearest the doctor had ever been to the war. 
 The General had waited long and patiently. He 
 saw at last his supreme opportunity. Memories 
 of the hot debates in the Convention rushed up 
 before his mind. For the moment he forgot the 
 advancing enemy and the flying missiles of death. 
 Standing straight in his stirrups he shouted : 
 
316 
 
 MYSTIC ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 "'Hallo! Hold on there, Doctor. Where are 
 you going, Doctor ? ' 
 
 " Doctor : ' I don't know, General. My house 
 is in flames. I am ruined. Everything I have left 
 is in the wagon. I don't know what to do, nor 
 where I am going.' 
 
 "Gen. E — : 'I know where j'ou are going, 
 doctor ! ' 
 
 " Doctor : ' Where am I going. General ? ' 
 "Gen. E — : 'To hunt for your rights in the 
 Territories, sir.' 
 
 "The old General had his revenge, and rode on 
 apparently gratified. 
 
 "During his wanderings, while an exile, a Ma- 
 jor-General of the United States Army — a native 
 of the Old Dominion — recognized the General's 
 name on the register of a hotel. Now if there 
 was any one thing which the old General hated 
 more cordially than everything else, that object 
 was a native and resident Virginian who had 
 served against her during the war. The United 
 States officer had never met Gen. E person- 
 ally, and hence was unable to recognize him 
 among the guests of the hotel. He, therefore, 
 applied to the landlord for an introduction. The 
 latter, by this time, knew the uncouth old Gen- 
 eral pretty well. He very politely declined to 
 make the introduction desired ; and, at the same 
 tir.ie, informed the applicant that his rank justi- 
 fied liii!! to introduce himself to a fellow-country- 
 man in a strange land. He pointed out the old 
 Confederate commander. The latter, with his 
 broad-brimmed slouch hat well down over his 
 eyes, and his hands behind his back, was leisure- 
 ly promenading back and forth along the grand 
 piazza of the hotel. Approaching him, the United 
 
 States officer, Gen. H , said courteously : 
 
 " 'Gen. E , I presume. I am Gen. H , 
 
 of the United States Army. We met rather un- 
 pleasantly in the Valley of Virginia and else- 
 wliLne ; but I hope we may be friends now, I am . 
 glad to meet you.' 
 
 "Pausing abruptly and eyeing the elegantly 
 dressed soldier carefully, he said slowly and with 
 sententious sarcasm : 
 
 " ' Yes, it used to be Gen. E , and I was 
 
 there, sir.' 
 
 "After an embarrassing pause. Gen. H 
 
 expatiated on the vicissitudes of the war, and 
 ultimately wound up by displaying a beautiful 
 gold medal, which he explained had been pre- 
 sented to him by the officers of his division for 
 gallant and meritorious service on the battlefield. 
 The old general remained silent for some mo- 
 ments, and then said : 
 
 " 'Yes, I see it' 
 
 " Then, brooding reflectively for some time, 
 as he slowly paced the floor, he again paused and 
 said: 
 
 " ' Times have greatly changed.' 
 
 "Gen. H grasped the situation, and doubt- 
 less imagining that the rancorous old rebel was 
 warming up, to some extent, at least, in the 
 direction of appreciation, he boldly launched out 
 in a beautiful little speech, most appropriately 
 worded, to pave the Avay for a lavish compliment 
 from his late antagonist. The latter paused and 
 faced the speaker, when the climax of the per- 
 roration was reached, and the harmonious qa- 
 dences of that musical voice had died awaj^ Thus 
 standing, he made one herculean effort to raise 
 his stooping, decrepit form to the towering 
 dignity of his vanished grandeur, and said in tones 
 of inimitable sarcasm : 
 
 " ' Yes, in the good old days of Christ, they 
 used to hang thieves on crosses, but now they 
 hang ah the crosses on thieves.' 
 
 " The old man had wreaked his revenge, and 
 he then resumed his walk with composed in- 
 difference." 
 
 We might fill a chapter with the quaint 
 speeches of this eccentric and unreconstructed 
 old man, whose prejudices and hatreds neither 
 time nor circumstance has tended to abate ; who 
 never forsakes a friend, and never forgives 
 an enemy in his native State. For the people 
 of the Northern States, who proved their pro- 
 fessions, by facing the battle-storm, he cherishes 
 no animosity. These he esteems. But the pub- 
 lic distractors he detests. He is a marvel of sin- 
 cerity — never dissembling — and the unbending 
 soul of honor. A man of unflinching courage, 
 a mind replete with inexhaustible stores of wit, 
 and immeasurable acumen of cool and tenacious 
 judgment, it is to be regretted that his all but 
 matchless talents and overpowering eloquence 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 31^ 
 
 vrci'e not early employed in the cause of recon- 
 ciliation and in restoring the ruined fortunes of 
 the South. But the contumely cast upon his 
 name by his own people, because of his desper- 
 ate zeal and determinate efforts in the tireless 
 struggles to avert the inevitable disasters vvrhich 
 he so clearly foresaw and so truly predicted for 
 his iTot-headed countrymen, and the cause that 
 banished him so long from his native land, after 
 the end came, doubtless soured his disposition 
 and embittered his life, to an extent estranging 
 his affections from what might have jjroved 
 otherwise a pleasing enterprise. 
 
 With lingering reluctance we leave this inter- 
 esting character, who has moved for more than 
 eighty winters in the dreamy shades of fairy- 
 tale realities. His whole life has been almost one 
 unbroken chain of thrilling vicissitudes, many 
 of which the creators of fiction might strive in 
 vain to rival in imagery. We have, all along, 
 regretted that so little of his war role would 
 blend with the thread of our story — that our 
 characters were not more intimately associated 
 with him. In the camp, on the parade-ground, 
 on the march, and on the battlefield, he trans- 
 formed the sober duties of the commander to a 
 pleasing vein of witty or sarcastic romance. 
 
 Was it possible to disguise his identity beyond 
 the peradventure of recognition, his life and its 
 varied relations would make a j'omance of deeply 
 thrilling interest. 
 
 Here, too, are we constrained to part with 
 Uncle Jake — nature's romantic child. Largely 
 would the latter journey of his life blend with 
 that of the old general in a new story, with these 
 pecuhar men as prominent characters. Jake 
 admired the old general; the latter esteemed and 
 appreciated Jake for his intrinsic merit, sincerity, 
 and, above all, his natal honesty. 
 
 In conclusion, it must suffice to say, as an 
 explanation of these relations, that Leonoria Fair- 
 child was a near relative of Gen. E . 
 
 Leonoria and Cornelia must also disappear. 
 Their roles, as direct participants in our scenes, 
 terminated away back in the early months of 
 the Avar. They have since passed through many 
 varied experiences, but these would not harmon- 
 ize with our story. Only twice have they 
 
 casually and but slightly re-entered in the long 
 and tortuous course of its unfolding. Now they 
 must leave it — and forever. 
 
 The gay season amid the sylvan bowers of the 
 Southern Eden, in which Lawrence Pleasington 
 met such varying experiences, drew towards its 
 close. The day was fixed on which his good 
 angel, Carrie Flowers, would leave him and re- 
 tire to her Northern home. The time was near 
 when his fair friends, the witching daughters of 
 Dixie, would take their departure for the festive 
 conquests of summer watering resorts. Soon 
 Lawrence would be left a prey to the monotony 
 of the dull business season of a Southern city, 
 and the lonely occupant of the charming mansion 
 of his friends. 
 
 To him these were not, probably, altogether 
 pleasing reflections, yet they were the inevitable. 
 He had n.o inclination to visit the land of his 
 nativity and of his sorrows. To his Southern trust 
 he Avas enslaved, but it was a pleasing bondage 
 to him. 
 
 Here he had an opportunity to do good. At 
 his disposal a special fund was placed by Carrie 
 Flowers, to be employed in such charities as he 
 might deem best. Many were the sad and de- 
 spairing hearts by him gladdened and cheered. 
 
 The scenes through which he had passed dur- 
 ing the winter were wonderful. The transfor- 
 mations wrought by one short season, which was 
 far spent before he was known in the brilliant 
 circles in which he moved and where he had met 
 such appreciative favor, were astonishing. He 
 could hardly realize that he was not in the be- 
 guiling delusion of a fairy dreamland — in the 
 hallucination of a deceptive delusion, as he had 
 been so many times in the saJ, sad visions of the 
 past. 
 
 Might it be at all strange if he wondered what 
 another season would develop among scenes so 
 charming and under influences so captivating? 
 Certainly there was no telling; this was far 
 beyond the latitude of conjecture. There were 
 many chances in favor of the doctrine of Carrie 
 Flowers, that the seemingly extinct embers would 
 agcin be ignited, and from their smouldering ashes 
 rise again^ phoenix-like, the glorious blessing of a 
 happier love. There could be no question but 
 
318 
 
 ^lYSTIC KOMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GEEY. 
 
 that the shadows of gloom were vanishing, and 
 lefulgent rays of brightness were dawning in 
 their stead. Nature was asserting her sway; 
 Time was administering her antidotes ; the malady 
 of a settled melancholy, with its " serpent's 
 tooth " of hopeless despair, was steadily and 
 surely yielding to the soothing influences of these 
 potent remedies. Lawrence Pleasington was 
 becoming the new creature of a metamorphosed 
 life. He himself doubted whither these influ- 
 ences were leading or driving him. 
 
 Pleasington's good friend, Carrie Flowers, had 
 been extremely indulgent. She never alluded to 
 any serious sentiments, on his part, in relation 
 to his social complications. Never did she in- 
 timate to him that she imagined it possible 
 for him to become entangled in the meshes 
 of Cupid's ensnaring net. She rather tended 
 her efforts in the direction of impressing his 
 mind with the idea that the solicitous esteem 
 manifested for himself by the blushing Eoses of 
 the South, was but the natural spontaneity of 
 the boundless sociability and exuberant friend- 
 ship inherent with the genial people of their 
 sunny land. Earnestly she desired Destiny to 
 take its course undisturbed. Eagerly she watched 
 its Avavering progress. 
 
 But as the day drew near for her departure, 
 she decided to speak to him. Perhaps she was 
 thus impelled by the promptings of her woman's 
 irrepressible curiosity, or may be she had another 
 and a subtler motive. At all events, she desired 
 to bear off with her an intimation of his senti- 
 ments. And she said to him : 
 
 " Now, Lawrence, my good friend, I have a 
 favor to ask of you. Will you grant it? It shall 
 be a matter of sacred confidence, if you prefer." 
 
 Pleasington : " Certainly, I will grant any favor 
 you can ask, to my life itself. Such is my gratitude." 
 
 Carrie : " Don't talk to me about gratitude. I 
 have simply discharged a debt to humanity, in 
 my solicitude for your welfare, comfort and hap- 
 piness. I have merely sought to win you back 
 to the brightness of life again. I earnestly hope 
 I am succeeding." 
 
 Pleasington : " You are succeeding far beyond 
 the bounds of reasonable possibility, or what I 
 dreamed might ever prove a reality." 
 
 Carrie: "T Avant to know with whom of 
 your fair friends you are now most favorably 
 impressed?" 
 
 Pleasington : " I esteem and appreciate them 
 all very much. I think I have not the slightest 
 preference. Reallj', I have never given the sub- 
 ject a thought. I could like any one of them as 
 a sister. Beyond this, my inclination is not 
 prone to venture." 
 
 Carrie : " I am really disappointed, I felt 
 sure that ere now you would have selected a 
 favorite flower from the pretty group." 
 
 Pleasington: " I have never for one moment 
 indulged a dream — not even as the remotest possi- 
 bility. The young ladies are the admired of many 
 admirers. Many sore hearts are exiled suppli- 
 cants from their disappointing shrines. Had I 
 an emotional fount capable of being thus victim- 
 ized, I know too truly and remember too well 
 the pangs of social discomfiture to jeopardize it 
 where I clearly perceive the baffled expectations 
 of others stranded as helpless wrecks." 
 
 Carrie: " But I can assure you, from my con- 
 summate knowledge of human nature, that you 
 would meet no such experience. I am positive, 
 without, however, having the slightest expressed 
 intimation on the subject, that any of them would 
 be pleased to meet a serious proposition from you 
 half way. Rarely have I observed a gentleman 
 so encouragingly received m society." 
 
 Pleasington : " I prize the fact more than I am 
 able to express to you. But, frankly, my good 
 friend, Avere there no questions about the results, 
 I could not entertain the idea, Avithout a heart in 
 the enterprise ; and this I cannot have — it Avould 
 be impossible." 
 
 Carrie : " But, my friend, you must educate 
 yourself for this responsibility. It is your duty. 
 You owe it to society, to humanity, to your race 
 and line. 'Life is short and time is fleeing.' You 
 have been robbed of much of these heritages. 
 NoAV you are in the prime of manhood. You 
 cannot afford to incur the risk of a penalty for 
 shirking the palpable demands of divine and moral 
 law. There is too much nobihty of natural char- 
 acter in you to be sacrificed on the dreary altar 
 of Disconsolation. Once I felt as you noAv feel. 
 But the dark phantom of stern duty rose up be- 
 
EIGHTEEN YEAES AETEK. 
 
 319 
 
 fore and haunted me perpetually. Its voice was 
 too imperative to be disregarded. }ily melan- 
 choly compunctions yielded to its urgent com- 
 mands. And thus, my friend, I desire to persuade 
 you, is your remedy to be secured." 
 
 Pleasington: " Probably you are right. Your 
 arguments appear to be unanswerable. But it 
 will require time for me to reconcile myself to 
 their application, I shall reiJect upon the subject, 
 because you urge me to adopt its practical prin- 
 ciples. Still, however, otherwise I feel not the 
 sUghtest interest in the probable or, perhaps, more 
 properly speaking, the problematical issue of its 
 consideration." 
 
 Carrie : " Well, I shall not further press the 
 question. Beauty, wealth, and the highest excel- 
 lence of womanly virtue, are, figuratively speak- 
 ing, kneeling at your feet. I can depend on your 
 good judgment to bid them rise in their subhme 
 majesty and receive your blessing. I know that, 
 ultimately, you will accept them considerately 
 and graciously — nay, earnestly sue for their smiling 
 bestowal." 
 
 Pleasington: "I recognize the burden of duty 
 wliich devolves upon me. Whenever I can ex- 
 perience a harmonizing emotit)n of inclination, I 
 shall apprize you that I am vanquished. This may 
 be next winter ; it might be — never. Matrimony 
 is a question too serious to be lightly esteemed." 
 
 To Pleasington the summer and faU were long 
 and monotonous seasons. Business activity did 
 not appear until late in November. Prom his 
 friends in New York he learned that none of 
 them would join him until Christmas-eve. Dur- 
 ing these long and lonesome months he had con- 
 sidered seriously the important subject discussed 
 with Carrie Flowers. 
 
 Early in the fall his fair friends of the past 
 winter, returned to the sunny land of their birth, 
 to gladden it with their smiles, and fill its fragrant 
 zephyrs with the melody of their voices. But 
 they saw much less of Lawrence Pleasington 
 than they had formerly seen when Carrie Flow- 
 ers was present to display her deUcate feats of 
 social strategy. Why it was, he could not ex- 
 plain nor understand, but instinctively he shrunk 
 from the responsibility of acting on her advice. 
 December found him with his relations no more 
 
 intimate with any lady than they were when the 
 gay season closed — rather tended his proneness 
 in the direction of retrogression than that of ad- 
 vancement. Thus he unbosomed himself to his 
 absent friend : 
 
 " December 2, 1882. 
 
 " Mrs. Carrie V. Flowers, New York : 
 
 "Ji// much appreciated frieiid : 
 
 " It is my duty to acknowledge and answer your 
 esteemed letter of the 28th ult., which reached 
 me this evening. How sad to reflect that twenty- 
 two more long days and nights must dawn and 
 wane ere I am to be blessed with your genial 
 greeting. I am very lonesome, and miss you 
 beyond expression. No other can supply your 
 absent company. 
 
 " But, since I want to see you so much, I must 
 still frankly admit, that I dread to meet you. Un- 
 dutifully have I disregarded your injunction. My 
 social status and inclination remain unchanged, 
 except, perhaps, I view the subject with more 
 disfavor than I viewed it when we parted. I re- 
 gret to tell you this. I am pained to disappoint 
 you. Gladly would I make great sacrifices to 
 meet your wishes, in any other direction. But 
 in this they are too serious. I cannot make them. 
 They involve questions of too much import. 
 
 '' A lady expects, with an offer of marriage, a 
 profession of love. This is her right. Without 
 it, made in manifest sincerity, I could not respect 
 the lady who would accept such a suitor. Tins 
 Avould be my predicament : I should be that 
 uninviting wooer. How could I ask one of your 
 friends, whose fair and impulsive nature is pas- 
 sionate, exacting devotion personified, to be my 
 bride ? With what could I reward her affection, 
 if bestowed ? With nothing but the hollow 
 mockery of dissimulation forced from the sterile 
 cavities of my desolate heart. I cannot, I will 
 not, attempt such base deception. My chivalrous 
 instincts of soldierly gallantry, and.the promptings 
 of true manhood, revolt at the bare contemplation. 
 Your friends are adorable. Had I the inestim- 
 able treasures of love to bestow I should at once 
 lay them entreatingly at the feet of some one of 
 these sweet daughters of the South. I once have 
 loved, but, with me, love is at an end. I cannot 
 
320 
 
 MYSTIC EOMANCES OF THE BLUE A^'D THE GEET. 
 
 pretend that I feel an emotion to which I am an 
 utter stranger. 
 
 " With great and patient effort have I tried to 
 reconcile my conscience to a course that might 
 ultimately lead to your expectation. 
 
 "In your grand old parlor have I brooded over 
 this question, amid the purple gloom and haunted 
 loneliness of many a midnight: yes, haunted 
 by a spirit that forsakes me not. There, before 
 me, stood the ideal image of that fair young life, 
 whose broken heart once beat for me alone — a 
 devotion unsurpassed in this world. Think of 
 the bitter abnegation of its sacrifice, voluntarily 
 rendered. A blighting curse on my very thought 
 of inconstancy! Well might the phantom spectre 
 rebuke my musings. It should have paralyzed 
 my reflective faculties. Your own case, my gra- 
 cious friend, offers no parallel to mine. You 
 Avere forsaken — no matter if you had been la- 
 boring under no delusion as to the fate of the 
 object of your adoration. This abundantly justi- 
 fies your doctrine as to your course. But I should 
 have nothing to console me, as an extenuating 
 excuse. It would be monstrous ingratitude to a 
 sacred memory. 
 
 "I have refrained from intimating this mourn- 
 ful subject to you. I have been thankful that 
 your charitable consideration restrained you from 
 alluding to this sad theme. I should not recall it 
 now — nor never — was I not driven to this des- 
 perate extremity, in self-defence, of apparent in- 
 gratitude to you. A proper reverence strictly 
 enjoins silence. No other expression could be so 
 eloquently appropriate. I trust there may be 
 no occasion again to disturb the quietude of its 
 repose — that should be eternal. 
 
 " Pray abandon your social projects for me. I 
 appreciate your solicitude, but no pleasing in- 
 fluence, nor associations, in this world, could ever 
 compensate for the pain the continued endeavor 
 to consummate your plans would inflict. 
 
 " I trust you may be able to appreciate my 
 position. I hope you will pardon my seeming 
 ingratitude, and that this may be the last ex- 
 pression you will ever exact of me on this subject. 
 
 " I am, gratefully, your friend, 
 
 " Lawrenck Pleasington." 
 
 In due course of time he received the following 
 reply : 
 
 " Place, New York, Dec. 10, 1882. 
 
 " Major Lawrence Pleasington ! 
 
 " My Esteemed Friend : 
 
 " Your late letter has been read with interested 
 surprise. It amazes me. Admiration is no ade- 
 quate term to express my emotion. I am con- 
 strained to confess that I am vanquished, and 
 must exclaim ' Evireka ! ' Yes, I have found 
 what I verily believed did not exist — a man of con- 
 stant devotion, whom time, circumstance, nor 
 temptation could never change. The romancer's 
 ideal dream, at last ! WeU have you acted your 
 part! How subtly have you played to his fancy ! 
 Is it conspiracy to refute and overwhelm my 
 cherished doctrines ? For this once,*I am baffled. 
 
 " I shall not, however, abandon my purpose. I 
 shaU sj^eak of it with deeper meaning than ever, 
 and teach you speedily to dwell on it with de- 
 light. Before the season closes, I shall witness 
 you in love, bowing meekly at Cupid's shrine, 
 and standing blushingly at the altar of matri- 
 mony, seahng your plighted vows with one of 
 Eve's fairest daughters. Then your long mourned 
 Effie will be no mf)re regretted. 
 
 " Your constant friend, 
 
 " Carrie V. Flowers.' 
 
 The twenty-fourth of December came, and with 
 it, Pleasington'^ friends, Harman, Oglethrop, and 
 Flowers, with their families. 
 
 The grand double parlors were aglow with the 
 meUow brightness of the chandeliers. All within 
 was perfumed by Southern flowers, and beauti- 
 ful in artful appointments and the assembled 
 company. 
 
 But stifled anticipation seemed to pervade the 
 apartments, except as to Pleasington, who alone 
 Avas tranquil, and unable to divine the cause of 
 the perceptible flutter of restless expectation 
 among his friends. A few moments sufficed to 
 reveal the mystery. 
 
 Robed in bridal splendor, appeared and stood 
 before him, in queenly majesty, witching mod- 
 esty, and blooming loveliness, the graceful form 
 of Effie Edelstein — his long lost love, his resur- 
 rected bride ! 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTER. 
 
 321 
 
 Lawrence Pleasington turned deathly pale and 
 trembled violently. For the moment the shrouded 
 ghost of so many nights became, to his mind, a 
 tangible reality. But there were the heaving 
 bosom, the love-lit eye of the dreamy past. 
 Was it a resemblance so striking that he could 
 not perceive the deception, designed to delude 
 him, or was it a spirit ? Equally discomposed 
 was the faithful woman of so many sorrowful 
 years. She stood convulsed with emotion too 
 deep for utterance, too sacred for mortal appre- 
 riation. Adorable heroine ! 
 
 She was the fir^t to speak. 
 
 Effie: "Lawrence, don't you know me?" 
 
 Her voice sent a current of electric magnetism 
 through his being. The red glow of long-for- 
 gotten joy remounted to his cheek. With one 
 impulsive bound he clasped her to his bosom ; 
 pressed eagerly "the touch of a vanished hand." 
 
 Lawrence : " Effie, my long mourned love ! 
 Tliis is more than a fleeting dream I " 
 
 Effie : " Yes, LaAvrence, there are no shadowy 
 delusions here. The ecstacies of this blessed mo- 
 ment compensate for all I have suffered! " 
 
 Carrie: "My prophesy is fulfilled. Your 
 mourned Effie is no longer regretted. Here 
 is a queenly reward for constant devotion. I 
 proved you. I weighed you in love's sensitive 
 scales, and found you not wanting in its sublime 
 attributes. I rejoice with you. I shall have the 
 unutterable pleasure of witnessing, in this sunny 
 land of love, the happy consummation of the 
 blissful dream of your manhood's years." 
 
 EvALiA : " Effie and Lawrence, my re-united 
 
 friends! Words cannot express the joy I feel." 
 
 Rosalia: "God bless you, my friends! I am 
 
 happy. At last your broken hearts have found 
 
 their healing balm." 
 
 Oglethrop: "Lawrence, behold thy admirable 
 marvel of devotion! Effie, I often told him all 
 the world could never estrange you from him. 
 This is pleasure to me beyond fiction's image." 
 
 Flowers: "I thank G-od that I have hved to 
 see the light of this day, which dawned to illum- 
 inate the way to so much mortal happiness, 
 and that I am here as a participating witness." 
 
 Harman : " My thrice fortunate friends ! I am 
 thrilled with your boundless delights. May your 
 
 future paths be strewn with flowei-s, and may 
 you never know a sorrow." 
 
 Carrie: "This occasion is too sacred for eyes 
 and ears of flesh and blood. Let us retire. 
 When the Christmas bells chime midnight, we 
 will return with the holy man." 
 
 Left alone to the rapture of their own society, 
 Lawrence and Effie, the faithful, the devoted, the 
 true, found themselves genuine children of love, 
 reborn to a reahzation of its fascinations. He 
 was the first to speak. 
 
 Lawrence: "Tell me, darling, how this all 
 came to be? Many years I have mourned you 
 dead. Why has no one sooner undeceived me?" 
 
 Effie: "The story is long and complicated. 
 The pleasure of this hour should scarcely be 
 shadowed by its gloomy recital, but since this 
 propitious Christmas-eve meeting is the result, 
 we may be yet thankful for and bless the other- 
 wise uninviting theme. We will, therefore, pass 
 that feature now, and leave it in the desolate 
 grave of our resurrected hopes. 
 
 " You remember that sad, sad Christmas of 
 1865 — a day on which the doleful notes of woe, 
 borne in those melancholy words, ' It might have 
 been ! ' brought so much of mournful distress to 
 our despairing liearts. This, which you now be- 
 hold, was the bridal robe I should have worn on 
 that glad day. I prepared it in the joyous month 
 of May, when we were so happy together over 
 our re-union, that of our long distracted country, 
 and your safe delivery from the dark valleys of 
 death. Yes, we were, in confiding simplicity, ex- 
 isting in dreams of blissfulness. Poor visions! 
 they were too sweet to last. All those sorrow- 
 ful years I kept this robe, jealously treasured if^— 
 my ill-fated bridal raiment — for the burial shroud 
 of my perished hope. 
 
 "Ah, Lawrence! the memory of those discon- 
 solate days, those cheerless nights, waiting for 
 the summons to come, makes my heart sick. I 
 sank to the borders of the tomb. For months 
 my life was considered the prey of Death ; for 
 forty hours all indications of its lamp were ex- 
 tinct. I was reported gone to the land of ' the 
 Hereafter.' To you this solemn news was 
 wafted. When, at last, I rallied and vanquished 
 the destroying enemy, it was many weeks before 
 
322 
 
 MYSTIC EOBklANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GKET. 
 
 I became rational. There were no lucid inter\als 
 ill my delirium. My attendants believed I must 
 die. It Avas deemed best to leave you thinking 
 my sorrows were at an end. When I did return 
 to conscious responsibility, I realized that you had 
 already suffered the pangs of bereavement — if 
 aught on earth could add to your agony — and 
 were wedded to the loneliness of a hopeless melan- 
 claoly. I was satisfied my days were yet few and 
 numbered. I esteemed it cruel to tell you I 
 lived, when, in a little while, you must again hear 
 the story of my long r(>pose in the solitude of the 
 grave. I insisted that it would lie merciful to 
 leave you under the impression that I was no 
 more. After I was able to rise from my bed, I 
 still considered it better to leave the subject, as 
 to you, undisturbed. I did not expect to live long. 
 
 "As the years plodded on in their slow and 
 monotonous track, I gained strength, and ex- 
 perienced a perceptible emotion of hope that we 
 might meet again. This stimulated my desire 
 for life. Eapidly I recuperated. My eager con- 
 sent was granted that you should know the truth 
 and see me the first day circumstances admitted. 
 
 "Butch, Lawrence, cruel Fate! As the days 
 passed, after this anticipated reality might have 
 been, to multiply weeks and months and years, 
 that ' hope deferred ' which ' maketh the heart 
 sick,' Avas mine with a pitiless vengeance. I 
 could never forgive myself that I had not earlier 
 apprised you that I was not dead. I concluded 
 that you had gone to some secluded spot to hide 
 away from the eyes of the world; and that I was 
 doomed to pass, at last, from my gloomy retire- 
 ment to the silent loneliness of the grave. The 
 bridal dress was again returned to its recess of 
 guarded treasures, to aAvait that solemn ceremony; 
 and I grew resigned to the inevitable. 
 
 " At length, hoAvever, after hope was only a 
 vanished dream, Mrs. Flowers, the good angel, 
 came to tell me that she had pressed your hand 
 and looked into your honest eyes. This was not 
 until uftcr you had departed for the South, and 
 she Avas on 1 he eve of starting to join you. She im- 
 portuned mo to aid her in developing a thrilling 
 surprise. She desired to prove your constancy. 
 Urgently she implored me to come forth from the 
 convent and remain Avith my friends, very quietly, 
 
 untd time to arrive here for this gladsome season 
 and its precious compliments — thrice blessed to 
 us. From that day it has all been her affair. 
 To-night its sequel unfolded before your open 
 eyes. I knoAv your .sad story — never mention 
 it again in tli<' futuiv. 
 
 "This night, se\'en teen years ago, I expected 
 to 1)0 Avith yon, attired as I am now. How long 
 since then! But the infallible doctrine that 
 patient virtue and unyielding honor Avill ulti- 
 mately receive their meritorious reward, those 
 heavily journeying years have abundantly demon- 
 strated to us, tedious as they have been, and hope- 
 less as they have seemed. I thought it Avell that 
 you should thus see me, the first time after our 
 mournful severance, as I should have then ap- 
 peared, save alone these deep and defacing im- 
 prints of care, time and sorroAv. I am delighted 
 to see that these wasting agents of youth and 
 life have dealt no more severely with you." 
 
 Lawrence: "My poor, long-suffering darling, 
 you are as young and fair to me as then, and 
 thrice precious for the fidelity cherished for silent 
 absence, amounting to seeming neglect. Hoav 
 thankful I am for this reserved surprise and the 
 opportunity it has afforded me to prove my con- 
 stancy. I thought Mrs. Flowers Avas in serious 
 earnest about her social plans." 
 
 Effie: "No, she Avas not. But her faith in 
 the fidelity of mankind in general Avas less than 
 mine in you individually. Siie would haA'O dis- 
 couraged you on the first symptom of a dispo- 
 sition on your part to yield to the fascmating 
 temptation with Avhich you were tried. I Avas 
 constantly and fully adAnsed all the time. I should 
 not have blamed you had you surrendered; but I 
 appreciate you all the more that you Avere faitli- 
 ful to my memory." 
 
 Lawrence : " We are agreed on all these points. 
 Now you wear the blessed robe, and the sacred 
 season is here again. At last, after the long 
 and relentless interdiction of time, I impl(5re you. 
 my resurrected darling, let us never permit time 
 to have the latitude to play her fickle freaks, un- 
 til the birth of another day, to dissever us. Before 
 the morning dawns let us be united for aye. 
 Mrs. FloAvci-s said something- about the Christ- 
 mas chimes and the holy man." 
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS AFTEE. 
 
 323 
 
 Effii:: "My plighted vows weio yours m the 
 bright days of yore; they have been constantly 
 yours in the darkest days of my bitter affliction; 
 they remain none the less yours to night. I have 
 ever been as ready to seal and con.'^eerate thcin on 
 the holy altar of pure love as I am now. Mrs. 
 Flowers has all that arranged. When the bells 
 toll midnight, she will come upon the stage with 
 her supporting train — the unrivaled star in the 
 scene. In that solemn hour, amid these sacred 
 associations, here beneath the genial skies of this 
 benignant clime, I shall reward your constant 
 devotion with tiie treasured love of a heart which 
 has ever thrilled with the reveberating emotions 
 of the pulsating notes, unceasingly chanted,' Truly 
 thine ! ' " 
 
 Lawrence : " I wonder if there will be many 
 present, beside our mutual friends." 
 
 Effie : " All of the reigning belles, and some of 
 their admiring gallants, in the social circles where 
 you are known, are to come. But to them the 
 affair is a profound mystery. They will meet a 
 surprise as startling, comparatively, as that which 
 paratyzed you with sudden amazement. Mrs. 
 Flowers has her plot highly Avrought. She de- 
 sires the scene to be clothed with a halo of pleas- 
 ing sensation. Her very being is enveloped in 
 the .quintessence of passionate and creative na- 
 tural romance in real life. Under its magic spell 
 has she lived and moved all her days. She is 
 one of Grod's noblest works, and none the less 
 ' The Angel of Consolation ' to-night, than when 
 she was the guardian spirit of the children of 
 the mountain forest. Our cause is her special 
 charge — our happiness her zealous solicitude. 
 
 "You are a full partner Avith your late confid- 
 ing employers and much appreciative friends. 
 This lovely mansion is ours exclusively. Here are 
 we to dwell. Such is my wish. I desire never to be 
 nearer the scenes of our sorrows and suffering." 
 
 Lawrence : " God bless her ! To her more than 
 to all our other friends combined, are we indebted 
 for this blessed occasion and our promising future." 
 Effie : " That is true. She knows how to 
 pity us. It would move a heart of stone to hear 
 her pathetic recitals of her own bitter experience 
 and silent suffering, as she sometimes confidingly 
 recounted them to me." 
 
 Lawrence: "It is both wonderful and mys- 
 terious — the devoted and unselfish interest she has 
 taken in f)ur behalf, and more especially mine. I 
 am unable to understand what so powerfully in- 
 fluenced her in our favor. I can attribute it to 
 noching but charitable sympathy and immeasur- 
 able philanthrophy, that superinduce such bound- 
 less compassion for distressed, aftlicted, suffering 
 humanity." 
 
 Effie : " That is the cause in the main, on 
 general principles, perhaps sufficient to have 
 prompted her to do all she has done for us. 
 But, ah, Lawrence I there has been, and is, a 
 more powerful incentive that has actuated and 
 still controls her impulsive nature : it is a cher- 
 ished phantom of the past — the hallowed memory- 
 of associations, as these were when, and soon 
 after, your name first became with them blended. 
 Oh, Lawrence! it is the spell of that influence — 
 that nothing can ever subdue until Carrie Flow- 
 ers passes beneath the sods of the grave — that 
 makes her interest in us as lasting as life itself. 
 She has been requested to make our Aveal her 
 own, by one Avhose slightest intimation is, with 
 her, an imperative injunction she would no more 
 disregard than she would break the most sacred 
 commandment. Lawrence, it is gratitude — that 
 divinest of all mortal influences and attributes, so 
 rarelj" found in its sublime perfection in this non- 
 appreciative world — that prompts Carrie Flowers 
 to be to us a ministering comf ortress ; gratitude 
 to one whom she mournfully realizes is lost to 
 her for evermore." 
 
 The great clock in the library strikes the first 
 knell .of midnight. Instantaneousl}' a thousand 
 bolls chime in discordant chorus, and send their 
 1 startling echoes floating away, in mingling rever- 
 berations, on the soft and balmy air — such odorif- 
 erous zephyrs as can be found on Christmas-eve 
 noAvhere else on earth, save alone under the 
 dreamy skies of -some fair and sunny land, such 
 as this is where the re-union of Lawrence and 
 Effie is consummated. It is the greeting of a 
 Southern metropolis to the festive season — the 
 chant of peace and good will 
 
 But, ah ! to those loving hearts, what a thrill 
 of ecstasy the gladsome tocsins send! What 
 a greeting they usher in unto Lawrence and 
 
324 
 
 ^lYSTIG ROMANCES OF THE BLUE AND THE GREY. 
 
 Effie! A charming procession of the gayest of 
 the gay and the fairest of the fair-, beside adoring 
 admirers, file into the main parlor. " The beauty 
 and the chivahy " of this "Southern Queen" 
 are assembled now. To Lawrence, there is no 
 stranger in this merry throng. But amazement 
 is clearly depicted on each face when the lovely 
 woman by his side is observed. 
 
 Gracefully Mrs. Flowers presides over the cere- 
 mony of introduction. She is beaming with the 
 satisfaction of delight — with the anticipation of 
 the crowning triumph of her cherished surprise. 
 Lawrence is greeted without reserve, and with 
 manifest and undisguised admiration. 
 
 If the presence of Effie created surprise, the 
 approach of an" eminent divine, in his sacredotal 
 robes, provokes wonderment that no words can 
 describe. The introduction of the "man of God" 
 to Etiie, and his greeting to the other members 
 of the company over, Mrs. Flowers steps a few 
 paces from the group, turns, faces her guests and 
 friends, and bows. Silence reigns supreme in 
 the appartments. Breathless suspense pervades 
 her audience. Some mysterious scene is about 
 to develop. All reaUze that such is true. Mrs. 
 Flowers says: 
 
 " My Good Friexds : I have called you here 
 after much coaxing importunity, to witness an 
 occasion replete Avith fascinating surprise. Had I 
 sooner intimated its nature there Avould have 
 been no necessity to entreat you to come; but 
 then the pleasure of this moment would not be 
 mine: that of beholding you on the tip-toe of 
 expectation. Before you now, my friends, is un- 
 folding the final scene in a drama of baffled love 
 that has crept on its slow and mournful course 
 through the Avinding vicissitudes of almost eigh- 
 teen years. For nearly seventeen years your 
 friend here has grieved for his fair companion 
 as one who stands by the bier of a departed 
 loved one. For years she has borne in her 
 heart that sorrow known to those only, to whom 
 the certainty comes, that the dearest object of 
 earth is lost forever. To-night they met for the 
 
 first time in all those sad and suffering years. To- 
 night yon are to see the realization of the roman- 
 cer's dream, in actual life. Immediately now, 
 before your open eyes, here, in this Paradise of 
 Love, 3'ou are to see them married. 
 
 "My fan- friends, don't be envious. You 
 have had every opportunity to estrange his finger- 
 ing affection from the memory of, to him, the 
 dead. You failed. He is her rewarding treas- 
 ure ; she is his consecrated jewel. Behold two 
 admirable marvels of devotion! Bestow upon 
 them your smiles. Vouchsafe them your bless- 
 ing. They are Avorthy." 
 
 She then names the conventional and assisting 
 couples, as attendants in the sacred ceremony, 
 and invites the minister to proceed with its 
 solemnization. 
 
 The ceremony is that of the Episcopal Church. 
 This completed, the A'enerable man says : 
 
 "My Children: I know the pathetic story of 
 your sorrows and your sufiering. These you en- 
 dured Avith patient fortitude and virtuous resig- 
 nation. In this pleasing moment you realize 
 your Avell earned rcAvard. It gladdens my heart 
 to bestow upon you Christ's blessing. 
 
 " Now, in this beautiful land and deficious chme 
 — the home of love — from this, your sylvan boAver 
 of enchantment, you may glance back over, the 
 sterile Avaste left behind you, and complacently 
 smile, AA'hile the magic of true loA'e reA^ivifies 
 your long blighted hopes, heals your once broken 
 hearts, and envelopes you in a halo of sii])reme 
 happiness."' 
 
 " My task Is done, my song hath ceased, my theme 
 
 Has died into an echo ; it Is fit 
 The spell should hreak of this protracted dream ; 
 
 The torch shall be extinguished Avhich hath lit 
 My midnight lamp, and Avhat is -wxit is Avrit ; 
 
 Would that it was worthier; but I am not now 
 That which I have been, and my visions flit 
 
 Less palpably before me ; and tlie glow 
 Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering faint and low. 
 
 " Mine be the pain. 
 
 If such there was ; yours the moral of this strain. 
 * * * * 
 
 " Farewell ! a word that must he, and hath been ; 
 
 A sound which makes us linger; yet— Fauewell! 
 
RARE BOOK 
 COLLECTION 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 AT 
 
 CHAPEL HILL 
 
 Wilmer 
 
 146 
 
?i®a 
 
 wHfl