John McElroy

“ Aunt Debby's wheel hummed and droned still louder, but her pleasant tones rode on the cadences like an Aeolian harp in a rising wind:
“Man may trouble and distress me, 'T will but drive me to Thy breast; Life with trials hard may press me; Heaven will bring me sweeter rest. O, 'tis not in grief to harm me, While Thy love is left to me. O, 'twere not in joy to charm me, Were that joy unmixed with Thee.”
He wondered weakly why ther were no monasteries in this land and age, to serve as harbors or refuge for those who shrank from the fearfulness of war. ”

“ Rachel crumpled the letter in her hand, with a quick, angry gesture, as if crushing some hateful, despicable thing, and her clear hazel eyes blazed.
“He is evidently a hopeless coward,” she said to herself, “when all that has passed can not spur him into an exhibition of proper spirit. If he had the love for me he professed it could not help stimulating him to some show of manliness. I will fling him out of my heart and my world as I would fling a rotten apple out of a basket.” ”

“ On straw in the oven-like barracks, and under the few trees in the camp-ground, lay the flushed and panting soldiers, waiting wearily for that relief which the descending sun would bring.
The hospital to which Rachel had been brought differed from the rest of the sheds in the camp by being whitewashed within and without, which made it radiate a still more unendurable heat than its duller-lustered companions. A powerful odor of chloride of lime and carbolic acid shocked her sensitive nostrils with their tales of all the repulsiveness those disinfectants were intended to destroy or hide. ”

“ One day the startling news reached camp that an overwhelming Rebel force under Gen. Zollicoffer was on the eve of attacking the slender garrison of Wildcat Gap. The “assembly” was sounded, and the regiment, hastily provided with rations and ammunition, was hurried forward to aid in the defense of the threatened outpost.
Nature, as if in sympathy with the gathering storm of war, ceased her smiling. The blue, bending skies were transformed into a scowling, leaden-visaged canopy, from which fell a chill incessant rain. ”

“ Deadly fear clutched Harry Glen's heart as the angry notes of the bullets jarred on his senses. Then pride and the animal instinct of fighting for life flamed upward. So swiftly that he was scarcely conscious of what he was doing he snatched a cartridge from the box, tore its end between his teeth, and rammed it home. He replaced the ramrod in its thimbles with one quick thrust, and as he raised his eyes from the nipple upon which he had placed the cap, he saw that the Rebel squad had gained the foot of the knoll and started up its side. ”

“ There was a loneliness about the spot that was terrible. Over it hung the “thought and deadly feel of solitude.” The only break for miles in the primeval forest was that made for the narrow road. House or cabin there was none in all the gloomy reaches of rocks and gnarled trees. It was too inhospitable a region to tempt even the wildest squatter.
The flood of moonlight made the desolation more oppresive than ever, by making palpable and suggestive the inky abysses under the trees and in the thickets.
Fortner looked up the road to his right and listened intently. ”

“ Every hair of his head stood stiffly up in mortal terror when a huge catamount, screaming like a fiend, leaped down from a tree, and confronted them for an instant with hideously-gleaming yellow eyes.
“Cuss-an'-burn the nasty varmint!” said Fortner angrily, snatching up a pine knot from his feet and flinging it at the beast, which vanished into the darkness with another curdling scream.
“Don't that man know what fear is?” wondered Harry, ignorant that the true mountaineer feels toward these vociferous felidae about the same contempt with which a plainsman regards a coyote. ”

“ But with that perversity that nature seemingly delights in, there had arisen in his heart since he had lost her, such a love for Rachel Bond as made life without her, or without her esteem even, seem valueless. To go into a strange part of the country and begin life anew would be to give her up forever, and this he could not do. It would be much preferable to die demonstrating that he was in some degree worthy of her. ”

“ The great mental and bodily strain Harry had undergone since he had first heard the sound of cannon in the morning at the foot of Wildcat should have made him desperately weary. But the sight of the man falling before his gun had fermented in his blood a fierce intoxication, as unknown, as unsuspected before as the passion of love had been before its first keen transports thrilled his heart. ”

“ Denslow's departure, Rachel tossed her hat into one corner, and without farther undressing flung herself down upon the coarse blankets of the cot, in utter exhaustion of mind and body. Nature, beneficent ever to Youth and Health, at once drew the kindly curtains of Sleep, and the world and its woes became oblivion.
Early the next morning the shrill REVEILLE called for a resumption of the day's activities. She was awakened by the fifes screaming a strenuously cheeful jig, but lay for some minutes without opening her eyes. ”

“ The broad cotton field was covered with solid masses of Rebels, rushing forward with their peculiar fierce yell.
“Fire!” shouted the Colonel in front of her. The six field-pieces to her right split her ears with their crash. A thousand muskets blazed out a fire that withered the first line of the advancing foe. Another crash, and the Rebels had answered with musketry and artillery, that tore the cedars around her, sent the fence rails flying into the air, and covered the ground with blue-coats. Her faithful mare shied, caught her hoof in a crack in the limestone, and fell with a broken leg. ”

“ Great Caesar! if the boys only had legs as active as your tongue what a racer the regiment would be! Cavalry'd be nowhere.”
Toward the foot of the mountain their path led them across a noisy, swollen little creek, whose overflowing waters were dyed deeply red and yellow by the load of hill clay they were carrying away in their headlong haste. A little to the left lay a corpse of more striking appearance than any they had yet seen. It was that of a tall, slender, gracefully formed young man, clad in an officer's uniform of rich gray cloth, lavishly ornamented with gilt buttons and gold lace. ”

“ A disorderly stream of men, fragments of the shattered right, caught her in its rush, and she was borne back to the open fields lying along the pike. There, as when a turbulent river empties into a bay, the force of the current subsided, and she was dropped like silt. The cowardly ones, hatless and weaponless, ran off toward the pike, but the greater portion halted, formed in line, called for their comrades to join them, and sent for more cartridges.
Almost dropping with fatigue, Rachel made her way to a pile of cracker-boxes by an Osage-orange hedge, on a knoll, and sat down. ”

“ We can afford to be careless how the germ of love is planted. The main thing is how it is watered and tended, and brought to a lasting and beautiful growth. Rachel's ambition gratified, there had been a steady rise toward flood in the tide of her affections. She was not long in growing to love Harry with all the intensity of a really ardent nature. ”

“ There are very few who do not roll under their tongues as a sweet morsel the belief that their superior goodness or generosity has brought them trouble and affliction from envious and wicked inferiors.
So the honey that mingled with the gall and hysop of Harry Glen's humiliation was the martyr feeling that his holiest affections had been ruthlessly trampled upon by a cold-hearted woman. ”

“ That you would make such a husband as I should cherish and honor, of whom I should be proud, and whose strong, kindly arms would be my secure support and protection until death claimed us, I have not the slightest doubt. But when I ask myself whether this is really love—the sacred, all-pervading passion which a woman should feel for the man to whom she gives herself, body and soul, I encounter the strongest doubts. ”

“ Rachel Bond.
Chapter XVIII. Secret Service. The flags of war like storm-birds fly, The charging trumpets blow, Yet rolls no thunder in the sky, No earthquake strives below. And calm and patient Nature keeps Her ancient promise well, Though o'er her bloom and greenness sweeps The battle's breath of hell. Ah! eyes may well be full of tears, And hearts with hate are hot, But even-paced come round the years, And Nature changes not. ”

“ All unconscious that her appearance was to the invalids who looked upon her like a sweet, health-giving breeze bursting through a tainted atmosphere, Rachel passed wearily along the burning walks toward the Surgeon's office, with a growing heart-sickness at the unwelcome appearance of the task she had elected for herself.
The journey had been full of irritating discomforts. Heat, dust, and soiled linen are only annoyances to a man; they are real miseries to a woman. ”

“ When Abe's wrath subsided from this ebullient stage back to its customary one of simmer, Kent ventured to return.
“Say,” said he, pulling over the coats and blankets near the fire, “where's the canteen?”
“There it is by the cups. Can't you see it? If it was a snake it'd bite you.”
“It's done that already, several times, or rather its contents have. You know what the Bible says, 'Biteth liek a serpent and stingeth like an adder?' Ah, here it is. But gloomy forebodings seize me: it is suspiciously light. Paradoxically, its lightness induces gravity in me. ”

“ Jake Alspaugh began to think that there was not likely to be any fight after all, and his spirits rose proportionately. Abe Bolton growled that the cowardly officers had no doubt deliberately misled the regiment, that a fight might be avoided. Kent Edwards saw a nodding May-apple flower—as fair as a calla and as odorous as a pink—at a little distance, and hastened to pick it. He came back with it in the muzzle of his gun, and his hands full of violets. ”

“ And as the moon and the stars shone through or around each of the clouds, making the lighter ones masses of translucent glory, and gilding the edges of even the blackest with silvery promise, so the thoughts of Rachel Bond suffused with some brightness every possible happening to him. If he achieved anything the achievement would have for its chief value that it won her commendation; if he fell, the blackness of death would be gilded by her knowledge that he died a brave man's death for her sweet sake. ”

“ It was Jacob Alspaugh crossing the parade ground in more than Solomonic splendor of uniform. His inflated form bore upon it all the blue and tinsel prescribed by the Army Regulations for the raiment and insignia of a First Lieutenant of Infantry, with such additions as had been suggested by his exuberant fancy. His blue broadcloth was the finest and shiniest. Buttons and bugles seemed masses of barbric gold. From broad-brimmed hat floated the longest ostrich feather procurable in the shops. Shining leather boots, field-marshal pattern, came above his knees. ”

“ The terrors of human suffering which they see but for an instant, as when the lightning in the night shows the ravages of the storm, encompass us about and abide with us continually. We are called upon for another kind of fortitude, and we must look for our reward otherwise than in the victor's laurels. We can only have to animate us our own consciousness of a high duty well done. ”

“ Harry tried in vain to make an appropriate response.
“I'll clean hit up for ye,” she said to Harry, as she saw Fortner beginning to furbish up his own rifle for the next day's duties.
That she was no stranger to the work was shown by the skill with which she addressed herself to it. Nothing that a Kentucky mountaineer does has more of the aspect of a labor of love, than his caring for a find rifle, and any of them would have been put to shame by the deftness of Aunt Debby's supple hands. ”

“ No gallantry could avail against such overwhelming numbers as assailed the Union right. The stream of disorganized men flowing back from the thickets became wider and swifter every minute; every minute, too, the din of the conflict came closer; every minute the tide of battle rolled on to regiments lying nearer the pike.
A Surgeon with a squad of stretcher-bearers came up to where Rachel was sitting. ”

“ Kent turned the canteen upside down and placed its mouth upon his tongue. “No,” he said, with deep dejection, “all that delicious fluid of yesterday is now like the Father of his Country.”
“Eh?” asked Abe, puzzled.
“Because it is no more—it is no more. It belongs to the unreturning past.”
“I say,” he continued after a moment's pause, “let's go out and hunt for some, there must be plenty in this neighborhood. Nature never makes a want without providing something to supply it. Therefore, judging from my thirst, this country ought to be full of distilleries.” ”

“ But every sense began informing her that yesterday's experience was not a nightmare of her sleep, but a waking reality. The morning sun was already pouring hot beams upon the thin roof over her head. Through the wide cracks in the partition came the groans and the nauseating odors which had depressed her so on the day before. Mingled with these was the smell of spoiled coffee and ill-cooked food floating in from the kitchen, where a detail of slovenly and untaught cooks were preparing breakfast. ”