Chapter 3
The colonel grinds his teeth and clinches his fists at this reflection. He is a husband and father himself, and now he understands some features in the old doctor's trouble which had puzzled him before. He strolls across the street to the sidewalk under the quaint old red-brick, dormer-windowed houses where lights are still gleaming, and where groups of people are chatting and laughing in the pleasant air. Many of them are in the rough uniform of the army--teamsters, drivers, and slightly wounded soldiers out on pass from the neighboring field hospitals. The old cabriolet is being trundled off to some neighboring stable after a brief confabulation between the driver thereof and the landlord of the tavern, and the colonel is about hailing and tendering the Jehu another job for the morrow, when he sees that somebody else is before him; and, bending down from his seat, the driver is talking with a man who has come out from the shadow of a side porch. There is but little light in the street, and the colonel has turned on reaching the curb, and is seeking among the windows across the way for one which may possibly prove to be the young lady's. He is interested in the case more than ever now, but the windows give no sign. Some are lighted, and occasional shadows flit across them, but none that are familiar. Suddenly he hears a sound that brings him back to himself--the tramp of marching feet, and the sudden clash of arms as they halt; a patrol from the provost-marshal's guard comes quickly around a corner from the soft dust of a side street, and the non-commissioned officers are sharply halting all neighboring men in uniform, and examining their passes. Several parties in army overcoats shuffle uneasily up the street, only to fall into the clutches of a companion patrol that pops up as suddenly around the next corner beyond. "Rounding up the stragglers," thinks the colonel, with a quiet smile of approval, and, like the soldier he is, he finds time to look on a moment and watch the manner in which the work is done. The patrol seems to have possessed itself of both sides of the street at the same instant, and "spotted" every man in blue. These are bidden to stand until their papers are examined by the brace of young officers who appear upon the scene, belted and sashed, and bearing small lanterns. Nor are uniforms alone subject to scrutiny. Ever since Second Bull-Run there has been much straggling in the army, and not a little desertion; and though a fortnight has passed since Antietam was fought, the provost-marshal's men have not yet finished scouring the country, and a sharp lookout is kept for deserters. Those civilians who can readily establish their identity as old residents of the town have no trouble. Occasionally a man is encountered whom nobody seems to know, and, despite their protestations, two of those characters have been gathered in by the patrol, and are now on their way to the office. The colonel hears their mingled complaint and blasphemy as they are marched past him by a file of the guard, and then turns to the nearest of the officers--
"Lieutenant, did you note the man who ran back from where that cab is standing?"
The officer of the patrol looks quickly up from the "pass" he is examining by the light of his lantern, and at sight of Colonel Putnam his hand goes up to the visor of his cap.
"No, colonel; was there one? Which way did he go?"
"Straight back to the shadow of the porch; just a minute ago. What attracted my attention to him was the fact that he was deep in talk with the driver when your men rounded the corner, and did not seem to see or hear them. Then I turned to look at that corporal yonder, as he crossed to halt a man on the east side, and at sound of his voice this fellow at the cab started suddenly and ran, crouching in the shadow, back to the side of the tavern there. It looks suspicious."
"Come with me, two of you," says the lieutenant, quickly, and, followed by a brace of his guard, he crosses the street, and his lantern is seen dancing around the dark gallery. The colonel, meantime, accosts the driver:
"What took that man away so suddenly? Who is he?"
"I don't know, sir. I never seen him afore. He stopped me right here to ask who the gentleman was I was drivin'. I told him your name, 'cause I heard it, and he started then kinder queer, but came back and said 'twas the citizen he meant; and the boss here had just told me that was Doctor Warren, and that his daughter was up-stairs. Then the feller jumped like he was scared; the guard had just come round the corner, and when he saw them he just put for the barn."
"Is there a barn back there?" asks the colonel. The driver nods assent. A moment's silence, and then the colonel continues: "I want to see you in the morning. Wait for me here at the hotel about nine o'clock. Meantime say nothing about this, and you'll lose nothing by holding your tongue. What was his face like--this man I mean?"
"Couldn't see it, sir. It was dark, and he had a beard all over it, and wore a black-felt hat--soft; and he had a cloak something like yours, that was wrapped all over his shoulders."
"Remember, I want to see you here in the morning; and hold your tongue till then."
With that the colonel hastens off on the trail of the searching-party. He sees the lantern glimmering among some dark buildings beyond the side-gallery, and thither he follows. To all appearances the spot is almost a _cul de sac_ of wooden barns, board-fences, and locked doors, except for a gateway leading to the yard behind the tavern. The search has revealed no trace of the skulker, and the lieutenant holds his lamp aloft as he examines the gate and peers over the picket fence that stands barely breast-high and bars them out.
"May have gone in here," he mutters. "Come on!"
But the search here only reveals half a dozen avenues of escape. The man could have gone back through several doors into the building itself, or eastward, through some dilapidated yards, into a street that was uninfested by patrols, and dark as the bottom of a well. "It is useless to waste further time," says the lieutenant, who presently rejoins the colonel behind the tavern, and finds him staring up at the rear windows. To him the young officer, briefly and in low tone, reports the result of his search.
"I presume there is nothing else I can do just here, is there, colonel?" he asks. The colonel shakes his head.
"Nothing that I can think of, unless you look through the halls and office."
"We are going there. Shall I light you back to the street?"
"Er--ah--no! I think I'll wait here--just a moment," says the colonel, and, marvelling not a little, the subaltern leaves him.
No sooner is he gone, followed by his men, than Colonel Putnam steps back to the side of an old chain-pump that he has found in the course of his researches, and here he leans for support. Though his shoulder has set in shape, and is doing fairly well, he has had two rather long drives this day, and one fatiguing experience; he is beginning to feel wearied, but is not yet ready to go to his bed. That was Doctor Warren's shadow, bent and feeble, that he saw upon the yellow light of the window-shade a moment ago, and he is worried at the evidence of increasing weakness and sorrow. Even while he rests there, irresolute as to what he ought to do--whether to go and insist on his right, as a man and a father, to be of some comfort to another in his sore trial, or to respect that father's evident wish to conceal his daughter's interest in the trouble that had come upon them--he is startled to see another shadow, hers; and this shadow is in hat and veil. Whither can they be going at this hour of the night? 'Tis nearly ten o'clock. Yes, surely; there is the doctor's bent shadow once more, and he has thrown on an outer coat of some kind. Then they are going back by the night train. They shrink from having it known that she was here at all; that she was in any way interested. And the doctor wants to make his escape without the pang of seeing or being seen again by those who witnessed his utter shock and distress this day. So be it! thinks the colonel. God knows I would not intrude on the sanctity of his sorrow or her secret. Later, when they are home again, the matter can be looked into so far as getting specimens of this skulking felon's handwriting is concerned, and no one need know, when he is unearthed, that it was a young girl he was luring under the name of another man. So be it! They may easily elude all question now. Night and the sacred mantle of their evident suffering will shield them from observation or question.
The colonel draws deeper into the shade of the barn. It seems a sacrilege now to be thus spying upon their movements, and he is ashamed of the impulse that kept him there. He decides to leave the yard and betake himself to his lodgings, when he is suddenly aware of a dark object rising from under the back porch. Stealthily and slowly the figure comes crouching out into the open yard, coming towards where the colonel stands in the shadow of the black out-buildings; and then, when close by the pump where he stood but a moment before, it rises to its full height, and draws a long breath of relief. It is a man in a soft black-felt hat, with a heavy, dark beard, and wearing one of the biggest of the great circular capes that make a part of the officer's overcoat, and are most frequently worn without the coat itself, unless the weather be severe.
The colonel is unarmed; his pistols are over at the room he temporarily occupies in town; he is suffering from recent injury, and one arm is practically good for nothing, but he loses no time in lamenting these points. The slight form of the girl approaches the window at this very instant as though to pick up some object on the sill, then disappears, and the light vanishes from the room. From the figure at the pump he hears a stifled exclamation of surprise, but no articulate word; and before the figure has time to recover he stands close beside it and his voice breaks the stillness of the night.
"Your name, sir, and your regiment? I am Colonel Putnam."
He has laid his hand on the broad shoulder under the cloak and plainly feels the start and thrill with which his words are greeted. He even fancies he can hear the stifled word "God!" The man seems stricken dumb, and more sharply the colonel begins his stern query a second time, but gets no farther than "Your name," when, with a violent wrench, the stranger is free; he makes a spring, trips over some loose rubbish, and goes crashing to earth.
"The guard!" yells the colonel, as he throws himself upon him, but the man is up in an instant, hurls off his antagonist, and, this time, leaps off into the darkness in comparative safety. But he has left a clew behind. As the soldiers of the provost guard come running around into the yard and the windows are thrown up and eager heads peer forth in excited inquiry, Colonel Putnam raises to the light of the first lantern a hairy, bushy object that he holds in his hand; it is a false beard, and a big one.
"By Jove!" says the lieutenant. "It must be some rebel spy."
III.
Daybreak, and the broad expanse of valley opening away to the south is just lighting up in chill, half-reluctant fashion, as though the night had been far too short or the revels of yester-even far too long. There is a swish and plash of rapid running waters close at hand, and here and there, where the stream is dammed by rocky ridge, the wisps of fog rise slowly into air, mingling with and adding to the prevailing tone of chilly gray. Through these fog-wreaths there stands revealed a massive barrier of wooded and rock-ribbed heights, towering aloft and shutting out the eastern sky, all their crests a-swim in floating cloud, all their rugged foothills dotted with the tentage of a sleeping army. Here, close at hand on the banks of the rushing river, a sentry paces slowly to and fro, the dew dripping from his shouldered musket and beading on his cartridge-box. The collar of his light-blue overcoat is muffled up about his ears, and his forage cap is pulled far down over his blinking eyes. As he paces southward he can see along the stream-bed camps and pale-blue ghosts of sentries pacing as wearily as himself in the wan and cheerless light. Trees are dripping with heavy charge of moisture that the faintest whiff of morning air sends showering on the bank beneath; and a little deluge of the kind coming suddenly down upon this particular sentry as he strolls under the spreading branches serves to augment the expression of general weariness and disgust, which by no means distinguishes him from his more distant fellows, but evokes no further comment than a momentary huddling of head and shoulders into the depths of the blue collar, and the briefest possible mention of the last place of all others one would be apt to connect with cooling showers. Facing about and slouching along the other way the sentry sees a picture that, had he poetry or love of the grand and beautiful in his soul, would a thousand-fold compensate him for his enforced vigil. Every moment, as the timid light grows bolder with its reinforcement from the east, there opens a vista before his eyes that few men could look upon unmoved. To his right the brawling Shenandoah, swift and swirling, goes rushing through its last rapids, as though bent on having one final "hurrah" on its own account before losing its identity in the welcoming waters of the Potomac. Hemming it in to the right--the east--and shutting out the crimson dawn are the massive bulwarks of the Loudon Heights climbing towards the changing heavens. Westward, less bold and jagged, but still a mighty barrier in almost any other companionship, are the sister heights of Bolivar, scarred and seamed with earth-work and rifle-pit, and bristling with _abattis_ and battery. Down the intervening valley plunges the Shenandoah and winds the macadam of the highway, its dust subdued for the time being; while, straight away to the front, mist-wreathed at their base from the sleeping waters of the winding canal, cloud-capped at their lofty summit from the bank of vapor that hovers along the entire range, rock-ribbed, precipitous, magnificent in silent, stubborn strength, the towering heights of Maryland span the scene from east to west, and stand superb, the background to the picture. All as yet is sombre in tone, black, dark green, and brown and gray. The mist hangs heavy over everything, and the twinkle of an occasional camp-fire is but the sodden glow of ember whose life is long since burned out. But, see! Through the deep, jagged rift where runs the Potomac, along the rock-bound gorge through which in ages past the torrent burst its way, there creeps a host of tiny shafts of color--the skirmishers, the _éclaireurs_, of the irresistible array of which they form but the foremost line--the coming army of the God of Day. Here behind the frowning Loudon no such light troops venture; but, skilled riders as they are,
"Spurring the winds of the morning,"
they pour through the rocky gap, and now they find their lodgment on every salient of the grim old wall beyond the broad Potomac. Here, there, everywhere along the southern face are glinting shafts or points on rocks or ridge. Seam and shadow take on a purplish tinge. The hanging mass of cloud beams with answering smile upon its earthward face as gold and crimson and royal purple mantle the billowy cheeks. Now the rocks light up with warmer glow, and long, horizontal shadows are thrown across the hoary curtain, and slowly the gorgeous cloud-crests lift away and more and more the heights come gleaming into view. Now there are breaks and caverns here and there through the shifting vapors, and hurried little glimpses of the cliffs beyond, and these cloud-caves grow and widen, and broad sheets of yellow light seem warming up the dripping wall and changing into mist the clinging beads of dew. And now, far aloft, the fringe of firs and stunted oaks is seen upon the summit as the sun breaks through the shimmering veil, and there, fluttering against the blue of heaven, circled in fleecy frame of vapor, glowing, waving in the sky, all aflame with tingeing sunshine, there leaps into view the "Flag of the Free," crowning the Maryland heights and shining far up the guarded valley of the Shenandoah. A puff of smoke juts out from the very summit across the stream; the sentry eyes it with a sigh of reviving interest in life; five, ten, twenty seconds he counts before the boom of the salute follows the sudden flash and wakes the echoes of the opposite cliffs.
Listen! Up on the westward heights, somewhere among those frowning batteries, a bugle rings out upon the air--
"I can't get 'em up, I can't get 'em up, I can't get 'em up in the mo--orning,"
it merrily sings, and the rocks of Loudon echo back the spirited notes. Farther up the valley a distant drum rattles, and then, shrill and piercing, with hoarse, rolling accompaniment, the fifes of some infantry regiment burst into the lively trills of the _reveille_. Another camp takes up the strain, off to the left. Then the soft notes of the cavalry trumpets come floating up from the water-side, and soon, regiment after regiment, the field-music is all astir and the melody of the initial effort becomes one ringing, blaring, but most effectually waking discord. Loud in the nearest camp the little drummers and fifers are thumping away at "Bonnie Lass o' Gawrie." Over by the turnpike the rival corps of the--th Connecticut are pounding out the cheerful strains in which Ireland's favored bard declared he would "Mourn the hopes that leave," little dreaming that British fifes and drums would make it soldier music--"two-four time"--all the world over. Halfway across the valley, where the Bolivars narrow it, an Ohio regiment is announcing to the rest of the army, within earshot, that it wakes to the realization that its "Name it is Joe Bowers," tooted and hammered in "six-eight time" through the lines of "A" tents; and a New York Zouave organization turns out of its dew-dripping blankets and cordially blasphemes the musicians who are expressing as their conception of the regimental sentiment, "Oh, Willie, we have missed you." And so the chorus goes up and down the Shenandoah, and the time-worn melodies of the earliest war-days--the days before we had "Tramp, tramp," and "Marching through Georgia" (which we never _did_ have in Virginia), and even lackadaisical "When this crew-el war is o-ver," are the matins of the soldiers of the Union Army.
At last the uproar dies away. Here in the neighboring camp the sergeants are rapidly calling the rolls, and some companies are so reduced in number that no call over is necessary--a simple glance at the baker's dozen of war-worn, grisly looking men is sufficient to assure the sergeant of the presence of every one left to be accounted for. In this brigade they are not turning out under arms just now, as is the custom farther to the front. It has been cruelly punished in the late battle, and is accorded a resting-spell pending the arrival of recruits from home. One first sergeant, who still wears the chevrons of a corporal, in making his report to his company commander briefly says:
"Rix came back last night, sir; returned to duty with his company."
"Hello, Hunnewell!" sings out the officer addressed, calling to the new adjutant, who is hurriedly passing by. "What does this mean? Are the wagons back?"
"No," says the adjutant, halting short with the willingness of a man who has news to tell. "Some of the provost-marshal's men came up last night from Point of Rocks and fetched Rix with them, and letters from the colonel. Both he and Abbot made complaint of the man's conduct, and had him relieved and sent up here under guard. Heard about Abbot?"
"No--what?"
"He's appointed major and assistant adjutant-general, and goes to staff duty; and the colonel will be back this week."
"Does he say who's to be quartermaster?" asks the lieutenant with eager interest, and forgetting to record his congratulations on the good-fortune that has befallen his regimental comrade.
"No," says Mr. Hunnewell, with some hesitancy. "There's a hitch there. To begin with, does anybody know that a vacancy exists?"
"Why, Hollins has been missing now ever since the 18th of September, and he must be either dead or taken prisoner."
The adjutant looks around him, and, seeing other officers and men within earshot, though generally occupied with their morning ablutions, he comes closer to his comrade of the line and the two who have joined him, and speaks with lowered voice.
"There is some investigation going on. The colonel sent for such books and papers of Hollins's as could be found about camp, and an order came last night for Captain Dodge to report at once at Frederick. He was better acquainted with Hollins than any one else--among the officers anyway--and he knew something about his whereabouts the other times he was missing. This makes the third."
"Three times and out, say I," answers one of the party. "I heard some talk at division headquarters when I was up there last night: the general has a letter that Colonel Raymond wrote soon after he was exchanged, but if it be anything to Hollins's discredit I wonder he did not write to Putnam. He wouldn't want his successor to be burdened with a quartermaster whom he knew to be--well--shady, so to speak."
"That's the one thing I never understood about Abbot," says the captain, sipping the cup of coffee that a negro servant had just brought to him. "Some more of that, Belshazzar; these gentlemen will join me. How he, who is so blue-blooded, seems to be on such terms of intimacy with Hollins is what I mean," he explains. "It was through him that Hollins was taken into companionship from the very start. He really is responsible for him. They were class-mates, and no one else knew anything of him--except vaguely."