Major Milroy

“ But, Mr Mildmay, I have one very important question to ask you—do you believe that there is such a thing as a future state?"
"Most surely," said I; "though we all live as if we believed there was no such thing. But why do you doubt it?"
"Because," said the poor fellow, "when I was an officer's servant, I was one day tending the table in the ward-room, and I heard the commander of a sloop of war, who was dining there with his son, say that it was all nonsense—that there was no future state, and the Bible was a heap of lies. ”

“ Milroy was, for a time, loud in his praises of Cluseret as the beau ideal of an officer, and their friendship was fraternal. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxi. p. 779.] In the winter, however, their mutual admiration was nipped by a killing frost, and a controversy sprung up between them which soon led to mutual recrimination also in the superlative degree. They addressed their complaints to General Halleck, and as the papers passed through my headquarters, I was a witness of their berating of each other. ”

“ When sure that she was gone, Oliver placed a hand on each side of the face bending over him, and said:
“Don’t thank me, Mildred; I don’t deserve it, for my first wicked thought was to let him drown, but when I remembered how much you loved him, I said I’ll save him for Milly, even though I die. It is far better that the poor cripple should be drowned than the handsome Lawrence. Do you love me more for saving him, Milly?”
“Yes, yes,” answered Mildred; “and so does Lilian, or she will when I tell her, for you know you saved him for her, not for me.” ”

“ Our regular scouts, who generally travelled by night in Confederate dress, brought in rumors almost every day of an intended attack on Winchester by troops from Lee's army. In May I was given special charge of these scouts. So uniform were their reports as to the proposed attacks that I gave credence to them, and advised Milroy that unless he was soon to be largely reinforced it would be well to retire from his exposed position. He refused to believe that anything more than a cavalry raid into the Valley or against him would be made, and he felt strong enough to defeat it. ”

“ I used to think maybe he’d fall in love with Milly; but,—Geraldine says she knows too much for a man like him really to care for; and I guess she does, for anybody can see I’m a simpleton,—and he certainly likes me the best,—don’t he, Milly? Why, how red your cheeks are,—and no wonder, it’s so hot in this pent-up room. Let’s go down,” and without waiting for an answer, Lilian tripped down the stairs, followed by Mildred and Oliver,—the latter having forgotten his headache in the pleasure of seeing his former playmate. ”

“ Darkness ended the struggle for the day. Johnson then left one brigade to prevent Milroy from escaping toward the east and went off with the remainder of his division to form across the Martinsburg pike, about three miles north of Winchester, to intercept Milroy's retreat in that direction.
While these events were going on in the Valley, Imobden's cavalry was engaged in breaking up the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Romney, to prevent Milroy from receiving any reinforcements from the west. ”

“ Perhaps even Myles had no great desire to hasten matters. He knew that whenever war was declared, he himself would have to bear the brunt of the battle, and even the bravest man hesitates before deliberately thrusting himself into a fight.
One morning Myles and Gascoyne and Wilkes sat under the shade of two trees, between which was a board nailed to the trunks, making a rude bench—always a favorite lounging-place for the lads in idle moments. Myles was polishing his bascinet with lard and wood-ashes, rubbing the metal with a piece of leather, and wiping it clean with a fustian rag. ”

“ I love every speck of you, Oliver, and, if I could, I’d give you my feet, though they ain’t much handsomer than yours, they are so big!” and she stuck up a short, fat foot, which, to Oliver, seemed the prettiest he had ever seen.
“No, Milly,” he said, “I’d rather be the deformed one. I want you to grow up handsome, as I most know you will!” and, resuming his task, he looked proudly at the bright little face, which bade fair to be wondrously beautiful.
Mildred did not like to work if she could help it, and, climbing upon the bed, she lay there while Oliver stitched on industriously. ”

“ It would be so nice to be with Milly every day and know that she was beyond the reach of his grandmother’s cruelty, and bursting into tears he stammered out his thanks to the Judge, who without a sign of recognition for old Hepsy, who was dipping candles with a most sour expression on her puckered lips, started back through the deep snow-drifts, feeling more than repaid, when he saw the little, eager face pressed against the pane, and then heard a sweet, young voice calling him “the best man in the world.” ”

“ The little girl clapped her hands with delight. "O yes, yes!" she exclaimed. "I think my papa was a soldier, and my mamma a beautiful lady, that was always ill. But there were black people where we lived," she suddenly said.
The doctor had little doubt before but that this little waif the sea had cast up at his door was his cousin's long-lost daughter, and these sudden flashes of light on the all-but-forgotten past that came to Milly's mind did but confirm it. And he felt sure now that he should have to yield his place—the first place in the little girl's affection—to another. ”

“ A long walk over the Cornish cliffs in the gusty North wind from the Atlantic had made me drowsy, and as I sat before the fire my thoughts wandered from Russian politics and the Italian situation to Millie—and the "KAYSER": Millie, who was short of stature and round-backed, who showed her fifty-odd years unflinchingly to the world; Millie with her felt slippers and her overall and coarse hands; Millie, the possessor of a sugar-card—and the mighty War Lord, stern and implacable, trying to subdue the world to his will. ”

“ Why, I’d give more for Milly’s little finger than for that gutta percha’s whole body. Afraid of the dark,—little fool! How can he coo round her as he does! But I’ll put a flea in his ear. I’ll tell him that in Mildred Howell’s face, when she thought that he was dead, I saw who it was she loved. I ain’t blind,” and the Judge paced up and down the room, while Mildred kept on her way, and soon reached the gable-roof.
“A pretty time of day to get here,” growled old Hepsy; “after the worst is over, and he got well to bed. ”

“ No,” said Milly.
“It can be no one else.”
“Indeed?” said Milly, “are you sure?”
“It is not—” Before he could say more, she put her hand upon his mouth.
“Yes it is!” said Milly. “The young lady (she is very like the miniature, Mr. Edmund, but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, with a little servant-maid. As you always dated your letters from the college, she came there; and before I saw Mr. Redlaw this morning, I saw her. She likes me too!” said Milly. ”

“ Such proving to be the case, he turned round to confront Milly—Milly true to type, wearing a grimy matutinal apron, an expression half sleepy, half sullen, and a horrid soot smudge on her ripe, red, right cheek.
In this guise (so sedulously does life itself ape the conventions of its literature and drama) Milly looked as lifelike as though viewed through the illusion of footlights. Otherwise, as Staff never failed to be gratified to observe, she differed radically from the stock article of our stage. ”

“ The flame of life had never burned clearer or more steadily in Mildred, and every day she felt a growing confidence in having won so complete a possession of her whole bodily machinery that it would hardly be in the power of Milly to dethrone her. ”

“ For a while we felt that Milly was on the verge of being lost to us.
It was our love of the Unerring Artistic Adjustment of Nature that inspired us. We could not give her over to a lumberman, doubly accursed by wealth and provincialism. We shuddered to think of Milly, with her voice modulated and her elbows covered, pouring tea in the marble teepee of a tree murderer. No! In Cypher’s she belonged—in the bacon smoke, the cabbage perfume, the grand, Wagnerian chorus of hurled ironstone china and rattling casters. ”

“ Right beside our tents, was encamped a small body of Milroy's men, who had come up to Harrisburg with some of that general's baggage trains, having escaped after the battle of Winchester, in which his troops were so effectually scattered. Their drill, and especially the exercises with the bayonet were watched by us greenhorns with the greatest admiration. In the evening, a rumor was spread abroad that the rebels were approaching in large numbers, and that all the citizens had been ordered to report themselves for duty within a few hours. ”

“ When he got back to the car Millie had just a moment to greet him as a hero before it developed that the milk was no use to the baby unless it could be heated.
“That will be very difficult,” said the doctor.
Millie rolled her lovely eyes up at him under the dissipated hat.
“You can think of some way, can't you, Jack?” she said.
“Certainly,” he answered, glad to show that a poet has more invention than a scientist. “There must be a fire in the engine.” He wanted to sit down and demand Millie's undivided attention while he described to her the transformation in the ogress. ”

“ His father and Geraldine have always told him he should marry me, and once when some one teased him of you, I heard him say that he shouldn’t want to marry a woman unless he knew something of her family, for fear they might prove to be paupers, or even worse. Oh, Milly, Milly, I didn’t mean to make you cry!” and jumping upon the floor, the impulsive Lilian wound her arms around Mildred, whose tears were dropping fast. ”

“ I called to one of our English-speaking soldiers.
"Explain this paper to him," I said. "There is a letter to the English military at Mitrovitza and one to the Americans. He is to go in the first camion of ours that comes through with his voynik."
Milorad nodded, folded the paper, and hid it carefully among his rags.
"He is to watch continually for his soldier." He nodded again. "This afternoon he is to come here and go with me for fresh clothes, to the Red Cross store-house, and he is to go with me now to town." ”

“ And then, just as he was congratulating himself that he had a tool to his hand as fine and keen-tempered as Milly—and trusty—and that she would not be always making extortionate demands for salary or promotion—like a man—he seemed to love the work for itself—just as he was settling down comfortably to all this Milly had announced her intention of setting up an office of her own. ”

“ Poor Milly! She thought her heart would burst, and nothing but a most indomitable will could have sustained her; kissing him several times she arose, and making some excuse, hurried away up to her room. It took but a moment to put on her bonnet and shawl, and stealing noiselessly down the stairs, she passed out into the winter darkness, pausing for a moment beneath the uncurtained window, to gaze at Oliver, sitting there alone, the dim 71fire-light shining on his patient face and falling on his hair. ”

“ Milroy's brigade of Sigel's corps was lying in the road which leads from Groveton towards the south.
The Rebels were advancing upon him. Schurz, who was still farther south, was retiring before the mass of Rebel troops, who came within reach of Milroy's guns, which thinned their ranks at every discharge. But the Rebels were on Milroy's left flank, which was bending like a bruised reed before their advance. Grover came down with those men who had never failed to do their whole duty. ”

“ He did hear, and comprehended it too, but for some moments he could only weep over her and call her his “darling Milly.” Then, when more composed, he listened while she told him what she knew, interspersing her narrative with the kisses which had so astonished Edith and sent her with the wondrous tale to the drawing-room, from which she soon returned, and marching this time boldly up to Mildred, said:
“That big man says you mustn’t tiss him any more,” and she looked askance at Lawrence, who laughed aloud at the little creature’s attitude and manner. ”

“ Waymarsh fairly looked up at him as from the foot of them. “I don’t know as I ought really to go.”
It was the conscience of Milrose in the very voice of Milrose, but, oh it was feeble and flat! Strether suddenly felt quite ashamed for him; he breathed a greater boldness. “Let yourself, on the contrary, go—in all agreeable directions. These are precious hours—at our age they mayn’t recur. Don’t have it to say to yourself at Milrose, next winter, that you hadn’t courage for them.” And then as his comrade queerly stared: “Live up to Mrs. Pocock.” ”

“ He now no longer found himself stepping out proudly to the beating of the drums, but was compelled to slave away all day grinding the corn. Bewailing his hard lot, he said one day to the Miller, "Ah me! I was once a splendid war-horse, gaily caparisoned, and attended by a groom whose sole duty was to see to my wants. How different is my present condition! I wish I had never given up the battlefield for the mill." The Miller replied with asperity, "It's no use your regretting the past. Fortune has many ups and downs: you must just take them as they come." ”

“ She is my namesake and godchild, and years hence, when your girls, perhaps, have children and homes of their own, Mildred will be mistress here, and the youngsters will talk about another 'Aunt Milly' and her diamonds."
My mother exclaimed, "Hush, dear Milly! Please do not put such a thought into the girl's head. I should never like to think of Mildred filling your place at Denesfield."
"Not while I live, Ellen, of course. Now she is as a daughter to me. You can hardly think how much happiness she has brought to a lonely woman. You must give Mildred to me. ”