Henry Morford

“ If the battles of the Union are lost, half the fault will lie with the women who have preferred their own ease and the contentment of their own affections, to the peril of their native land; and if those battles are won, no small share of the credit will be due to those true-hearted descendants of Molly Starke, who have emulated the self-sacrificing spirit of the women of old Rome and sent off the husbands they loved and the sons upon whom they leaned, to win their love and confidence over again on the battle-field, or to die for the worshipped flag and the perilled nation! ”

“ It is murder and ruin in their own households—it is battle and death around those they love—it is desolation and destruction to the land! Go!—those who cannot witness my power without blenching, should never seek me; and you blench like those sick girls—I have seen you blench before?"
"Seen me?" echoed Leslie.
"Seen you!" was the fierce reply of the sorceress. "Fool! do you think I cannot penetrate that thin disguise—that old man's hair and those false wrinkles? ”

“ Aunt—Aunt—don't scold me, but I love him. That is the truth; and don't you scold me, but help me if you can."
"Until this hour, Emily," said the aunt, gravely, and taking the hand of her niece kindly in her own, "I had simply been determined that you should not be forced into a marriage with Colonel Bancker, if I could prevent it. Within this half hour I have made up my mind to go farther. I know that you love Frank Wallace; I believe him to be a good man, and I know him to be a brave one; and now you shall marry him, if any aid I can offer will help you to that end!"
"Aunt! Aunt! ”

“ Far away among the mountains, a hundred and fifty miles distant, the boom of that terrible cannonade was heard, announcing the conflict to loyalist and rebel who had no other means of knowing that it was in progress. At times the firm earth shook with the continued reverberations, as if an earthquake was passing; and combatants even stood still in the very face of the deadliest danger, under a momentary impression that some fearful convulsion of nature must be in progress and that the sinking sun must be going down on the last day of a crumbling earth. ”

“ The wide, glorious, open world, with its flowers, its waters, its sunshine, and its smiling human faces worth them all, had once more called the man who had so lately believed himself shut away from life and enjoyment forever; and he was answering the call.
Not that Richard Crawford was happy, even while the music was sounding over the lake and nature was wooing him with her midsummer smile. He had loved—he yet loved—truly and devotedly; and without his realizing what evil influence could have fallen like a blight upon all his hopes, those hopes were destroyed. ”

“ The bones in the rebel regiments seemed to be crushed like window-glass in a hailstorm; masses of gory pulp that had but a few moments before been men, began to form an absolute coating for the ground; and the fierce yells of attack had become awfully commingled with the shrieks of those mangled beyond endurance and dying in agony. It was too much for human bravery to withstand—probably no troops in the world would have stood longer under that withering fire, than the brave but misguided tools of the secession heresy. ”

“ Will you swear it?" he asked, in the same low, solemn tones.
"I do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almighty God," said John Crawford, lifting his hand to heaven, remembering some portions of the oath so commonly administered in our courts of justice, and adding on some words not commonly used in the same connection, "that I am a true and loyal soldier in the service of the United States, and the enemy of all rebels and traitors! Amen!"
"Thank God!" said the old man, solemnly. "If I cannot die with the old flag over me, I can at least have the company of those who uphold it! ”

“ My father is sinking fast—his will is made—Egbert Crawford, whom you call a murderer, is at this moment at my home—I am to marry him this very day!"
"You are to marry him, after this warning?" said Josephine Harris, looking at her with surprise not unmingled with horror. "Then you do not believe me, or you would marry a villain! You are not glad to know that the man you once loved, and who yet loves you so dearly, is true and loyal? I have indeed meddled where I was not wanted, and Richard Crawford—indeed—indeed she was not worthy of you!" ”

“ The sound was like an icy sword-blade thrust into a slumbering and tepid fountain—startling all the water spirits from repose and propriety,—or like Christmas suddenly obtruded, keen and pure, into the sluggish rest of midsummer. Of what the old man mused as his waking thoughts recognized the sound, can never be known—possibly of the wealth which he had garnered and of the broad lands over which that sound went ringing—all his own, but his own in what miserable mockery! Of what Colonel Egbert Crawford thought when the sound smote his ears, is much more certain. ”

“ This state of affairs had drawn the scream from Aunt Martha, and at the instant when Wallace reached the door the people in the carriage were screaming but incapable of getting out, the horses were plunging to such a degree that they must have broken loose in a moment, after making a wreck of the carriage and trampling to death the poor fellow who lay senseless under their feet. At the same time it seemed worth a dozen lives to plunge into that storm of lashing hoofs and do anything to rescue driver and riders from their peril. ”

“ No call is so irresistible as that which appeals to the sympathy of a true woman; and no crime is so unpardonable as that which trifles with such sympathy. Less than half an hour had elapsed, and Aunt Betsey, a little ashamed and a good deal frightened at what had been done, had gone up-stairs to escape the possibility of first meeting the young girl if she should come,—when Josephine, looking impatiently out of the window at the road leading down from the hill towards the centre of the village, saw a young lady coming down the path at the side of the road and approaching the gate. ”

“ If you leave at once, without attempting to consummate any more of your designs, you are safe from any exposure—I promise you so much, on the honor of a true woman. If you are not gone before to-morrow morning, without any further attempt at entangling Mary Crawford, I promise you, in the name of God who sees us both at this moment, that I will not only expose you before John Crawford and his family, but that I will do what I can to bring you to justice. Mary Crawford knows all your falsehood and crime, but she, like myself, will keep silence when you are gone.
Josephine Harris. ”

“ Great men will develope themselves at some period or other in their lives, however they may previously have been kept back by adverse circumstances; and Judge Owen had never yet enjoyed the opportunity of showing half his mighty energies. Armed with the double power of a parent and the law, he felt that he could combat anything—even a young and delicate woman: gifted with a rigid sense of right which rose above all personal considerations, he felt that to that right he could sacrifice anything—even the privacy and sanctity of his domestic relations. ”

“ Frank Wallace was so astounded at the extraordinary success of his manœuvre, and at the same time at his own detection, that he dropped crutch and cane, allowed his sham wounded leg to straighten, and stood holding the wig in his hand as if he had no power to lay it down. Mrs. Owen screamed, that seeming to be the duty of hospitality when such a breach of good manners had been committed in her parlor. Josephine Harris paled, flushed, and finally fell back into a chair in such convulsions of laughter that she cried like a child. ”

“ Tom Leslie was every thing else than a coward; and yet he had shuddered before at the sight and the memory of the "red woman:" he whitened and shuddered now. What if another meeting with that mysterious woman was at hand?—if the scenes of the Rue la Reynie Ogniard were about to be re-enacted? The French name and the words "from Paris," the place, which seemed to him undoubtedly the same of his adventure with Harding—all made up a presumption of identity that was for the moment overwhelming.
But those who show surprise or emotion quickest are not slowest to recover from its effects. ”

“ When business is impossible, and idleness an agony. When the old flag is looked up to without pride, and the very pulses of patriotism seem dead because they have no hope to keep them in motion. When all is darkness—all discouragement—all shame—all despair. These are the tears of a broad land—this is the spectacle we witness when a nation weeps. The loyal men of this generation have wept more bitterly and sorely, within the past two years, than those wept who saw the armies of the Revolution starved and outnumbered—who pined in the Prison-Ships and tracked the bloody snow at Valley Forge. ”

“ Yet what could the poor girl do, except to wait the crash and be ready to act as peacemaker when the worst came to the worst? The one thing she would have liked to do, was precisely the thing she dared not do for her life—that was, to spring up, catch her young lover by the arm, drag him out into the garden, pet him a good deal and kiss him a very little, and send him home doubtful whether he was walking on his head or his heels—while her old beau might spend the whole evening, if he liked, with Aunt Martha. ”

“ Thousands of men have died from wounds of not half the apparent consequence; and yet the wearer of this was the smiling and even-tempered man of the new uniform—going back to-morrow! The world has not lost all its heroes yet; and some of them have the same fancy for a clean shirt and spotless broadcloth, when attainable, as Murat displayed for a velvet cloak, or white plume and plenty of gold embroidery on his trousers, when making the most reckless of charges at the head of the most dashing cavalry in the world. ”

“ John Crawford rejoined the Advance Guard in October, and has since shared in all the perils and glories of that gallant corps. He is still a private—it may be because no commission has offered on such terms as a true man could accept; and it may be because he believes the true romance and glory of war to lie with the soldier, and not the officer—the danger of the lonely picket-guard and the song and story of camp and bivouac, supplying a fresh and glorious excitement to which the superior must always remain a stranger. ”

“ Sly Joe!—why did she use the plural number,—"friends," and "they"? Why will people, even those belonging to the most irreproachable classes of society, indulge in these little fibs upon occasion?
"Oh, Cousin Joe," said Susy, "you do not know what a nice little room we have for you, up-stairs. The vines have climbed up and half covered the window, and a robin has built its nest in one of the branches of the big apple-tree, that hangs so close to it. Little robie will wake you early in the morning, I'll be bound—none of the late lying in bed that they say you all practice in the great city!" ”

“ But Tom Leslie remembered the night under the arches of the Capitol, the stars-and-bars and the mystic circlet of the house on Prince Street, and the mysterious words that procured admission to the house up-town; and he had seen and heard enough of double faces not to be too sure of his ground on any man's word.
"Well, I am glad to know it," he said, in reply to Ralston's disclaimer. "We have not too many true Union men, who have forgotten the particular part of the Union in which they were born, for the sake of the country and the whole country. ”

“ That glance of unnecessary and unladylike scorn which Lady Flora yesterday cast upon a beggar-woman who accidently brushed against her costly robes on Broadway, may have lost her a rich husband, who would otherwise have been deceived until after marriage, as to her real character; and the involuntary act of courtesy of John Hawkins, stooping down to pick up the dropped umbrella of a common woman with a baby and two bundles, in a passenger-car, may make him a friend for life, worth more than all he has won by twenty-five years of hard-working industry and honesty. ”

“ Does war indeed have a mission beyond the national good or evil for which it is instituted? And are its missiles of death and the diseases to which its exposures give rise, especially commissioned to repay past crimes and by-gone errors? Not so, inevitably!—or many a worthless incapable and many a dishonest trader in his country's blood and treasure would before this have bitten the dust,—and Baker, Lyon, Lander, Winthrop and fifty other prominent martyrs to the cause of the Union would yet have been alive and battling for the right! ”

“ It was under such circumstances that Captain Robert Slivers, of the Sickles Brigade, came under his notice that evening, and he was horrified to see what wrecks war really made of men. One eye gone—a face cut to pieces—crippled in one leg, one arm and one foot—good heavens! For the moment the fright of such a spectacle almost overcame every other consideration, and Emily Owen and all her material charms became secondary to the thought of being placed beyond the danger of becoming a thing like that! ”

“ Nature has no sympathy with bloodshed and but little with suffering; and it is only when a God puts off mortal existence that the earth is racked with the thunders and the earthquakes of Calvary. The birds sing as sweetly and the sun shines as brightly as usual, on the day when we lay in the earth all that was mortal of one dearer to us than sunshine or bird-music; and the moon does not turn red or veil her light, even in the presence of midnight murder. ”

“ The next moment the door from the hall opened, and the negro girl, stepping within, said:
"Madame Boutell will have the honor to receive Monsieur and Mesdames, if they will be so good as to ascend the stairs."
"Now for it," said Joe, touching Leslie's arm with a little bit of shudder, real or affected, and speaking in a tone so low that it seemed designed only for his ear and flattered that male person's vanity amazingly. "Now for it!—I have never been anywhere near the infernal regions before, to my knowledge, and you must take care of us!" ”

“ But there are others who know of nothing more thoroughly pleasant than lounging back easily in the cushioned seat of a railway-carriage, with the one close beside, with one hand in reach at any moment, the one face ready to reply in smiles to the look of pleasure given, and the one head ready to repose upon the shoulder when night comes on or the continued motion of the train brings on drowsiness. ”