Robert W. Chambers

“ At times, to Berkley, it seemed as though every tree, every hill, every thicket was watching him with sombre intent; as if Nature herself were hostile, stealthy, sinister, screening terrors yet unloosed, silently storing up violence in dim woods, aiding and abetting ambush with all her clustering foliage; and that every river, every swamp, every sunny vista concealed some hidden path to death.
He stood rigid at his horse's head, lance in hand, dirty, smoke-blackened, his ears deafened by the cannonade, his eyes cool and alert, warily scanning hill and hollow and thicket. ”

“ Ailsa came forward slowly.
"Shall I look for it, Celia?"
"No, Honey-bell." She turned lightly and went into the back parlour, smiling mysteriously to herself, her vast, pale-blue crinoline rustling against the furniture.
"My sister-in-law," said Ailsa, after an interval of silent constraint, "is very Southern. Any sort of kinship means a great deal to her. I, of course, am Northern, and regard such matters as unimportant."
"It is very gracious of Mrs. Craig to remember it," he said. "I know nothing finer than confidence in one's own kin." ”

“ Your father walks now; and by the time you are here he will be able to drive on Fifth Avenue and in the new Central Park. But he is not the man who left this city at the head of his regiment. His hair and moustache are white as snow; there are a thousand tiny wrinkles on his hands and features. All that heavy colour is gone; only a slight flush remains on his thin face. He is very handsome, Phil. Once, never dreaming of what was true, I thought he resembled you. Do you recollect my saying so once? Even you would recognise the likeness now. He is absorbed, wrapped up in you. ”

“ But across the open fields wreckage from the battle was streaming in every direction; and so stupid and bewildered with fear were some of the fugitives that McDunn's battery had to cease its fire for a time, while the officers ran forward through the smoke, shouting and gesticulating to warn the mass of skulkers out of the way.
And now a fearful uproar of artillery arose immediately to the west, shells began to rain in the river woods, then shrapnel, then, in long clattering cadence, volley succeeded volley, faster, faster, till the outcrash became one solid, rippling roar. ”

“ Egerton's 20th Dragoons came out of a concealed valley on a trot, looking behind them, their rear squadron firing from the saddle in orderly retreat; the Zouaves, powder soiled, drenched in sweat, bloody, dishevelled, passed to the left of the battery and lay down.
Then, from far along the stretch of woods, arose a sound, incessant, high-pitched—a sustained treble cadence, nearer, nearer, louder, shriller, like the excited cry of a hunting pack, bursting into a paroxysm of hysterical chorus as a long line of gray men leaped from the wood's edge and swept headlong toward the guns. ”

“ Out of the fiery tunnel came tearing his terrified horse, riderless; out of the billowing, ruddy vapours reeled Berkley, dragging the carbineer.
It was the regiment cheering him that the Zouaves heard.
The fields were now swimming in bluish smoke; through it the Zouaves were reforming as they marched. Little heaps of brilliant colour dotting the meadow were being lifted and carried off the field by comrades; a few dismounted carbineers ran hither and thither, shooting hopelessly crippled horses. Here and there a dead lancer lay flat in the grass, his scarlet pennon a vivid spot beside him. ”

“ It was Arthur Wye; and Letty knew him, and halted, trembling; but Ailsa called to her in a frightened voice, for, confused by the smoke, they had come out in the rear of a battery among the caissons, and the stretchers had turned to the right, filing down into the hollow where the barns stood on the edge of a cedar grove.
Already men were hard at work erecting hospital tents; the wounded lay on their stretchers, bloodless faces turned to the sky, the wind whipping their blankets and uncovering their naked, emaciated bodies. The faces of the dead had turned black. ”

“ Benton as Letty and Ailsa came up, out of'breath, "we've got to get these sick men under shelter! Can you two girls keep their blankets from blowing away?"
They hurried from cot to cot, from mattress to mattress, from one heap of straw to another, from stretcher to stretcher, deftly replacing sheet and blanket, tucking them gently under, whispering courage, sometimes a gay jest or smiling admonition to the helpless men, soothing, petting, reassuring. ”

“ Paddle-wheels churning, the rotund boat swung into the Brooklyn dock. Her gunwales rubbed and squeaked along the straining piles green with sea slime; deck chains clinked, cog-wheels clattered, the stifling smell of dock water gave place to the fresher odour of the streets.
"I would like to walk uptown," said Ailsa Paige. "I really don't care to sit still in a car for two miles. You need not come any farther—unless you care to."
He said airily: "A country ramble with a pretty girl is always agreeable to me. ”

“ Through the wards of their hospital Ailsa and Letty saw the unbroken column of the sick pass northward or deathward; from their shuttered window they beheld endless columns arriving—cavalry, infantry, artillery, engineers, all seeking their allotted fields or hillsides, which presently blossomed white with tents and grew blue and hazy with the smoke of camp fires.
All day long, rain or sun, the landscape swarmed with men and horses; all day long bugle answered bugle from hill to hill; drums rattled at dawn and evening ”

“ Park, avenue, and square shrilled with their windy fifes; the towering sides of the transports struck back the wild music of their bands; Castle William and Fort Hamilton saluted them from the ferries to the Narrows; and, hoarse with cheering, the people stared through dim eyes till the last stain of smoke off Sandy Hook vanished seaward. All of which immensely diverted Berkley.
The city, too, had become a thoroughfare for New England and Western troops hurrying pell-mell toward the capital and that unknown bourne so vaguely defined as the "seat of war." ”

“ Orderlies brought water in artillery buckets; ward-masters passed swiftly to and fro; a soldier stood by a pile of severed limbs passing out bandages to assistants who swarmed around, scurrying hither and thither under the quiet orders of the medical directors.
A stretcher was brought; Colonel Arran opened his heavy lids as they placed him in it. His eyes summoned Berkley.
"It's all right," he said in the ghost of a voice. "Whichever way it turns put, it's all right. . . I've tried to live lawfully. . . . It is better to live mercifully. I think—she—would forgive. . . . Will you?" ”

“ Across the foot of his couch lay folded an invalid's red hospital wrapper; beside his bed stood the slippers. After a few moments he rose, stepped into the slippers, and, drawing on the woolen robe, belted it in about his thin waist. Then he limped out to the veranda.
In the dusk the bird sang timidly. Berkley could just make out the outlines of the nearer buildings, and of tall trees around. Here and there lights burned behind closed windows; but, except for these, the world was black and still; stiller for the deadened stamping of horses in distant unseen stalls. ”

“ And Camilla's pale face was pressed against her hot cheeks and the girl's black sleeve of crape encircled her neck.
She whispered: "I—I try to think it reconciles me to losing Jimmy.
. . . War gave me Stephen. . . . Yet—oh, I cannot understand why
God's way must sometimes be the way of battle!"
Ailsa saw and heard and understood, yet, all around her fell an unreal light—a terrible fiery radiance, making voices the voices, of phantoms, forms the outlines of ghosts. ”

“ It is man alone who takes it, and suffers it. Humanity calls it justice. But I have learned that what the laws of men give you is never yours to take; that the warrant handed you by men is not for you to execute. I—have—learned—many things in the solitary years, Berkley. . . . But this—what I am now saying to you, here under the stars—is the first time I have ever, even to myself, found courage to confess Christ."
Very far away to the south a rocket rose—a slender thread of fire. ”

“ Berkley's face became ashen.
Colonel Arran said: "Is there punishment more terrible than that for any man?"
Presently Berkley drew his chair closer.
"I wish you to know how mother died," he said simply. "It is your right to know. . . . Because, there will come a time when she and—you will be together again . . . if you believe such things."
"I believe."
For a while the murmur of Berkley's voice alone broke the silence. Colonel Arran lay with eyes closed, a slight flush on his sunken cheeks; and, before long, Berkley's hand lay over his and remained there. ”

“ The hill road to the burning bridge was now choked with Colonel Arran's regiment, returning to the crest of the hill; through the blackish and rolling smoke from the bridge infantry were creeping swiftly forward toward the river bank, and very soon the intermittent picket firing began again, running up and down the creek bank and out across the swamp lands, noisily increasing as it woke up vicious volleys from the woods on the opposite bank, and finally aroused the cannon to thunderous anger. ”

“ One moment there was a perfect whirlwind of scarlet pennons flapping around him, another and he was galloping alone across the grass, lance crossed from right to left, tugging at his bridle. Then he set the reeking ferrule in his stirrup boot, slung the shaft from the braided arm loop, and drew his revolver—the new weapon lately issued, with its curious fixed ammunition and its cap imbedded.
There were groups of gray infantry in the field, walking, running, or standing still and firing; groups of lancers and dragoons trotting here and there, wheeling, galloping furiously at the men on foot. ”

“ Who this impassioned military critic was, shouting opinions to the sky, Berkley never learned; for presently there was a great jingling and clatter and trample of horses brought around, and the officers, whoever they were, mounted and departed as they had arrived, in darkness, leaving Berkley on his cot in the storehouse to stretch his limbs, and yawn and stretch again, and draw the warm folds of the blanket closer, and lie blinking at the dark, through which, now, a bird had begun to twitter a sweet, fitful salute to the coming dawn. ”

“ All day long they manoeuvred and double-quicked; all day and all night herds of surprised farm horses destined for cavalry, light artillery, and glory, clattered toward the docks; files of brand-new army waggons, gun-carriages, smelling of fresh paint, caissons, forges, ambulances bound South checked the city traffic and added to the city's tumult as they jolted in hundreds and hundreds toward the wharves—materially contributing to Berkley's entertainment. ”

“ And Berkley saw Colonel Arran rising from the ground, saw him glance at his horse, turn and look behind him where the Confederate skirmishers were following on a run, kneeling to fire occasionally, then springing to their feet and trotting forward, rifles glittering in the sun.
A horse with an empty saddle, its off foreleg entangled in its bridle, was hobbling around in circles, stumbling, neighing, tripping, scrambling to its feet again, and trying frantically to go on. ”

“ To add to the complication and confusion, more wounded arrived from the firing line above and beyond to the westward; horses began to fall where they stood harnessed to the caissons; a fine, powerful gun-team galloping back to refill its chests suddenly reared straight up into annihilation, enveloped in the volcanic horror of a shell, so near that Ailsa, standing below in a clump of willows, saw the flash and smoke of the cataclysm and the flying disintegration of dark objects scattering through the smoke. ”