Chapter 9

The other matter is one to which he hastens with eager heart. Twice he has written to Doctor Warren since their parting at Washington, and he has asked permission to call upon them at Hastings before returning. His orders come before any reply. He therefore writes to Hastings the day before he leaves home, begging that a telegram be sent to meet him at the Metropolitan, the war-time rendezvous of army men when in New York on leave, and his face is blank with disappointment when the clerk tells him that no telegram has been received. He has a day at his disposal, and he loses no time, but goes up the river by an afternoon train, and returns by the evening "accommodation" with uneasy heart. Doctor Warren and Miss Bessie had not yet come back was the news that met him at the pretty little homestead. The doctor had been ill in Washington, and when he was well enough to start the young lady was suddenly taken down. Abbot is vaguely worried. He anxiously questions the kindly old housekeeper, and draws from her all that she knows. She is looking for letters any moment; but the last one was from Willard's, four days since, saying they would have to stay. Miss Bessie was suddenly taken ill. Won't the gentleman come in? and she will get the letter. He takes off his cloak and forage cap, and steps reverently into the little sitting-room, wherein every object is bathed in the sunshine of late afternoon, and everywhere he sees traces of her handiwork. There on the wall is Guthrie's picture; there hangs his honored sword and the sash he wore when he led the charge at Seven Pines. With the soldier-spirit in his heart, with the thrill of sympathy and comradeship that makes all brave men kin, Abbot stands before that silent presentment of the man he knew at college, and slowly stretches forth his hand and reverently touches the sword-hilt of the buried officer. He is not unworthy; he, too, has led in daring charge, and borne his country's flag through a hell of carnage. They are brothers in arms, though one be gathered already into the innumerable host beyond the grave. They are comrades in spirit, though since college days no word has ever passed between them, and Abbot's eyes fill with emotion he cannot repress as he thinks how bitter a loss this son and brother has been to the stricken old father and fragile sister. Ah! could he but have known, that day on the Monocacy; could he but have read the truth in the old man's eyes, and accepted as a fact his share of that mysterious correspondence rather than have unwillingly dealt so cruel a blow! His lips move in a short, silent prayer, that seems to well up from his very heart; and then the housekeeper is at his side, and here is the doctor's letter. It is too meagre of detail for his anxiety. He reads it twice, but it is all too brief and bare. He is recalled to himself again. The housekeeper begs pardon, but she is sure this must be Mr. Abbot, whose letters were so eagerly watched for all the time before they went away. She had heard in the village he was killed, and she is all a-quiver now, as he can see, with excitement and suppressed feeling at his resurrection. Yes, this is Mr. Abbot, he tells her, and he is going straight to Washington that he may find them. And she shows him pictures of Bessie in her girlhood, Bessie at school, Bessie in the bonnie dress she wore at the Soldiers' Fair. Yes, he remembers having seen that very group before, at Edwards's Ferry, before Ball's Bluff. She prattles about Bessie, and of Bessie's going for his letters, and how she cried over them. He is all sympathy, and bids her say on as he moves about the room, touching little odds-and-ends that he knows must be hers; and he is loath to go, but eager too, since it is to carry him back to her. He writes a few lines on a card to tell them of his visit and his orders, should they fail to meet; he begs the doctor to write, and warns him that he must expect frequent letters; and then, with one long look about the sunlit, love-haunted room, with one appeal for brotherly sympathy in his parting gaze at Guthrie Warren's picture, he strides back to the station, and by sunrise of another day is hurrying to Washington. In his breast-pocket he carries the compact little wad of letters, all addressed to himself, all written in her own delicate and dainty hand, yet sealed from his eyes as securely as though locked in casket of steel. Though he longs inexpressibly to read their pages and to better know the gentle soul that has so suddenly come into his life, they are not his to open. What would he not give for one moment face to face with the man who had lured and tricked her--and with his name!

They are not at Willard's, says the clerk, when Major Abbot arrives and makes his inquiries. The doctor paid his bill that morning and they were driven away, but he does not think they left town. Yes, telegrams and letters both had come for the doctor, and the young lady had been confined to her room a few days, and was hardly well enough to be journeying now. Abbot's orders require him to report at the War Department on the following day, and he cannot go to rest until he has found their hiding-place. Something tells him that she has at last discovered the fraud of which she has been made the victim, and he longs to find her--longs to tell her that if the real Paul Abbot can only be accepted in lieu of the imaginary there need be no break in that strange correspondence; he is ready to endorse anything his fraudulent double may have written provided it be only love and loyalty to her.

It is late at night before he has succeeded in finding the hack driver who took them away, and by him is driven to the house wherein they have sought refuge. All distressed as he is at thought of their fleeing from him, Paul Abbot finds it sweet to sit in the carriage which less than twelve hours ago bore her over these self-same dusty streets. He bids the hackman rein up when he gets to the corner, and wait for him. Then he pushes forward to reconnoitre. Lights are burning in many rooms, but the neighborhood is very silent. Far down an intersecting avenue the band of some regiment is serenading a distinguished senator or representative from the state from which they hail, and Abbot can hear the cheers with which the great man is greeted as he comes forth to tender his acknowledgments, and invite the officers and such of his fellow-citizens as may honor him, to step in and "have something." It is a windy night in late October. The leaves are whirling in dusty spirals and shutters bang with unmelodious emphasis, and all the world seems dreary; yet, to him, with love lighting the way, with the knowledge that the girl he has learned to worship is here within these dull brick walls, there is a thrill and vigor in every nerve. No light burns in the hallway; none in the lower floor of the number to which he has been directed. He well knows it is too late to call, even to inquire for them, but the army has moved, and at last is pushing southward again, feeling its way along the Blue Ridge, and he so well knows that the morrow must send him forward to resume his duties. If he cannot see _her_, it will be comfort, at least, to see her father. He is half disposed to ring and ask for him when a figure comes around a neighboring corner and bears slowly down upon him. The night lamps are dull and flickering and the stranger is a mere shadow. Where Major Abbot stands enveloped in the cloak-cape of his army overcoat there is no light at all. Whoever may be the approaching party he has the disadvantage of being partially visible to a watcher whose presence he cannot be aware of until close at hand. When he has come some yards farther Abbot is in no doubt as to his identity, and steps forward to greet him.

"Doctor Warren, I am so glad to have found you, for I must hurry after the army to-morrow, and only reached Washington this evening. Tell me, how is Miss Bessie?"

The doctor is startled, as a matter of course, but there is something in the young soldier's directness that pleases him. Perhaps he is pleased, too, to know that his own views are correct, and that the moment Paul Abbot reached Washington he has come in search of them. He takes the proffered hand and holds it--or, rather, finds his firmly held.

"Bessie has been ill, but is better, major; and how did you leave them all at home? I have just been taking a walk of two or three blocks before turning in. Fresh air is something I cannot do without. How did you find us?"

"By hunting up your hackman. I was grievously disappointed at not finding you at Hastings, where I went first, or here at Willard's. Did you not get my letters and telegrams?"

"They were forwarded, and came last night."

"Then you moved this morning to avoid me, doctor. Does it mean that I am to be punished for another man's crime? Guthrie's picture had no such unfriendly welcome for me, and I do not believe you want to hide her from me. Tell me what it is that makes Bessie avoid me of her own accord. Has she heard the truth about the old letters?"

Doctor Warren is silent a moment, looking up into the young soldier's face. Then he more firmly grasps his hand.

"I do _not want_ to avoid you, Abbot, but it is only natural that now she should find it hard to meet you. Three days after you left she caught me fairly, and finding that the letter in my hand was yours, she noted instantly the difference between the writing and that of the letters that came to her at home. Something else had roused her suspicions, and I had to tell her that there had been trickery, and she would have no half-way explanation. She probed and questioned with a wit as keen as any lawyer's. She made me confess that that was why I told her Paul Abbot was dead when I got back to her at Frederick. He was dead to us. And so, little by little, it all came out, and she was simply stunned for a while. It made her too ill to admit of our travelling, and she made me tell her when you were expected back, and bring her here. In a day or two we will start homeward."

"And meantime I shall have had to start for the front. Doctor Warren, give her this little package--her own letters. Tell her that I have read no line of one of these, but that, until I can win for myself letters in her dear hand there will be no peace or happiness for me. These are the letters that were sent to you at Frederick, with a few remorseful lines, from the scoundrel who wrought all the trouble. His original motive was simply to injure me, in the hope that he might profit by it. He sought to break an engagement of marriage that existed between me and Miss Winthrop, of Boston. Before he succeeded in making this breach it is my belief that he had become so touched and charmed by the letters she wrote that even his craven heart was turned to see its own baseness. He had every opportunity of tampering with our mail. He felt, when I was left wounded at the Monocacy, that that would end the play; and then, in his despair and remorse, he deserted. He was around Frederick a day or two in disguise, and sought to see you and her. Failing in that, he sent you by the landlady the packet that was afterwards taken from your overcoat by the secret-service men; and the next thing he came within an ace of being captured by his own colonel. Escaping, he was believed to be a rebel spy, and so implicated you. It was to search for him I was sent to Boston. There Miss Winthrop formally broke our engagement, and I would be a free man to-day, doctor, but for your daughter; and now it is not freedom I seek, but a tie that only death can break. You came to Paul Abbot when you thought him sorely wounded, and she came with you. Now that he is sore stricken he comes to you. If it will pain her I will ask no meeting now, but don't you think I owe her a good many letters, doctor? Won't you let me pay that debt?"

It is a long speech for Abbot, but his heart is full. The old gentleman's sad face seems to thaw and beam under the influence of his frank avowal and that winning plea. Abbot has held forth his other hand, and there the two men stand, both trembling a little, under the influence of a deep and holy emotion, clasping each other's hands and looking into each other's face. They are at the very door-step of the old-fashioned boarding-house which was so characteristic a feature of the capital in the war-days. The door itself is but a few arms'-lengths away, and all of a sudden it softly opens, and, with a light mantle thrown over her shoulders, a tall, slender, graceful girl comes forth upon the narrow porch.

"Is that you, papa? I heard your step, and wondered why you remained outside. Was the door locked?"

There is an instant of silence. Then a young soldier, in his staff uniform, takes three quick, springing steps, and is at her side. The doctor seems bent on further search for fresh air, for he turns away with a murmured word to his trembling companion, and Bessie Warren finds it impossible to retreat. Major Abbot has seized her hand, and is saying--she hardly hears, she hardly knows, what. But it is all so sudden; it is all so sweet.

XI.

Cold and gray in the mist of the morning the long columns have filed down from the heights, and are massed at the water's edge. It is chill December, and the frost has eaten deep into the ruddy soil of Virginia, but the Rappahannock flows swiftly along, uncrusted by the ice that fetters Northern streams, yet steaming in the biting air. Fog-wreaths rise from the rippling surface, and all along the crowded shore the clouds hang dense and heavy. Nowhere can one see in any direction more than a dozen yards away; all beyond is wrapped in swirling, eddying fog-bank. Here in the thronging ranks, close at hand, men speak in low tones as they stamp upon the frozen ground or whip their mittened hands across the broad blue chests to restore circulation and drive the ache and numbness away. Here and there are some who have turned their light blue capes up over their heads, and take no part in the low-toned chat. Leaning on their muskets, they let their thoughts go wandering far away, for all men know that bloody work is coming. The engineers are hammering at their bulky pontoons now, and down at the water's edge the clumsy boats are moored, waiting for chess and balk carriers to be told off, and the crews to man the heavy sweeps. Up on the heights to the rear, planted thickly on every knoll and ridge, are the black-mouthed guns, and around them are grouped the squads of ghostly, grisly, fog-dripping cannoneers. One may walk along that line of heights for mile after mile, and find there only grim ranges of batteries and waiting groups of men. All is silence; all is alertness; all is fog. Back of the lines of unlimbered cannon, sheltered as far as possible from returning fire, the drivers and horses and the heavy-laden caissons are shrouded in the mist-veil, and the staff officers, groping to and fro, have to ask their way from battery to battery, or go yards beyond their real objective point. Little fires are burning here and there, and battery-lanterns are flickering in the gloom. Out on the face of the stream, too, one can see from the northern shore weird, dancing lights, like will-o'-the-wisps, go twinkling through the fog; and far across the waters, from time to time, there is heard the sudden crack of rifle. The Southern pickets are beginning to catch faint glimpses of those lights, and are opening fire, for vigilant officers are there to interpret every sound and sight, and with the first break of the wintry dawn they grasp the meaning of the murmur that has come for hours from the upper shore. "The Yanks are laying bridges" is the word that goes from mouth to mouth, and long before the day is fairly opened the nearing sounds and the will-o'-the-wisp lights out there in the fog tell the shivering pickets that the foe is more than half-way across. Daybreak brings strong forces into line along the southern bank, all eyes straining through the fog. Out to the front the ping! ping! of the rifles has become rapid and incessant, and by broad daylight all the river bank and the walls of the buildings that command a view of it are packed with gray riflemen ready for work the instant those bridge-heads loom into view. When seven o'clock comes, and the fog thins just a little, there are the bridge-ends, sure enough, poking drearily into space, but the only signs of the builders are the motionless forms in blue that are stretched here and there about the boats or planks, only faintly visible through the mist; the working parties have been forced to give it up. Back they come, what is left of them, and tell their tale among the sympathizing blue overcoats in the wearying ranks, and officers ride away up the slopes, and there are moments of suspense and question, and then the thud of sponge-staff and rammer among the batteries, and a sudden flash and roar, tearing the mists asunder; another, another; and then, up and down along the line of heights, the order goes, and gun after gun belches forth its charge of shot and shell, and back from the walls of Fredericksburg comes the direful echo and the crash of falling roof or gable. "Depress those muzzles!" is the growling order. "The whole bank is alive with rebs, and we must shell 'em out before those bridges can be finished." The elevating screws are spun in their beds, the shell fuzes cut down to the very edge. Some guns are so near the river that they are rammed with grape and canister; and so, for an hour, the thundering cannonade goes on, and the infantry crouch below, and swear and shiver, and once in a while set up a cheer when occasion seems to warrant it. And then, covered by this furious fog-bombardment, the engineers again push forward their bridge-builders, and cram their pontoons, and launch them forth upon the stream. It is all useless. No sooner do they reach the bridge-end when down they go by the dozens before the hot fire of a thousand Southern rifles. So dense is the fog that the gunners cannot aim. Shot, shell, and canister go shrieking through roof and wall, and ripping up streets and crossings; but the plucky riflemen hug the shore in stern determination, and again the bridges are abandoned.

And so a cold and cheerless morning ebbs away; and at last, towards noon, there comes relief. The sun bursts through the clouds, and licks up the fog-bank. The mist-veil is withdrawn, and there stands Fredericksburg, with shattered roof and spire, backed by a long line of gun-bristling heights, and there are the unfinished bridges jutting helplessly out two thirds across the water. A number of the heavy pontoons are still moored close to shore, and while all along under the bank the regiments are ranging into battle order, two or three of them are tumbling into those clumsy arks, cramming them with armed men, and then pushing off into the stream. Failing in working across a narrow causeway, the "Yanks" are taking to their boats and sending over a flotilla. It is a daring, desperate feat, but it tells. Despite the fierce resistance, despite the heavy loss that befalls them, animated by the cheers of their comrades, they push ahead, answering the fire as well as they can, and at last, one after another, the boats are grounded on the southern shore, and, though sadly diminished in numbers, the men leap forth and go swarming up the bank, driving the gray pickets to cover. Others hurry across and reinforce them; then more and more, until they are strong enough to seize the nearest buildings and hold the approaches, and then the working parties leap forward; the bridge is finished with a will, and the comrades of their brigade come tramping cheerily across. Three splendid regiments are they which made that daring venture, mere companies in numbers as compared with their early strength, and one of them is the--th Massachusetts, now led by a captain. Colonel Putnam stands at his side at this moment of triumph and partial rest. He commands the brigade that has done this brilliant work, and now is receiving the thanks sent over from corps headquarters; and the mounted officer, the first one across the bridge, who bears the general's congratulations, is his young chief-of-staff, Major Abbot.

There has been fierce fighting through the streets, stubborn resistance on part of the occupants of the town, and determined effort on part of the thronging force of Union men who are constantly gaining accessions as the brigades come marching over. Just at sunset, with the town fully in their possession, there is sudden turmoil and excitement among the blue-coats gathered around an old brick building near the western edge. There is rushing to and fro; then savage exclamations, shouts of "Kill him!" "Hang him!" "Run him down to the creek and duck him!" and the brigade commander, with Major Abbot and one or two other mounted officers, has quite as much as he can do to rescue from the hands of an infuriated horde of soldiers a bruised, battered, slouching hulk of a man in a dingy Confederate uniform. He implores their protection, and it is only when they see the piteous, haggard, upturned face, and hear the wail of his voice, that Putnam and Abbot recognize the deserter, Rix. Abbot is off his horse and by his side in an instant. Sternly ordering back the men who had grappled and were dragging him, the major holds Rix by the coat-collar and gazes at him in silent amaze.

"In God's name, how came you here, and in this garb?" he finally asks.

Weak with sickness, suffering, and the horrible fright he has undergone, the bully of former days simply shudders and cringes now. He crouches at Abbot's feet, gazing fearfully around him at the circle of vengeful, powder-blackened faces.

"Don't let them touch me, Mr. Abbot! Oh, for God's sake help me. I'm 'most dead, anyhow. I can't talk now. We're 'most starved, too, and Mr. Hollins is dying."

"Hollins!" exclaims Abbot, almost losing his hold on the collar and dropping the limp creature to earth. "What do you mean? where?"

"In there; in the bedroom up-stairs. Oh, major, don't leave me here; these men will murder me!" he implores, clutching the skirts of Abbot's heavy overcoat; but Colonel Putnam signals "Go on," and, leaving his abject prisoner, Abbot hastens up the stairs of the old brick house, and there, in a low-ceilinged room, stretched upon the bed, with wild, wandering eyes and fevered lips, with features drawn and ghastly, lies the man who has so bitterly sinned against him, and whom he has so often longed to meet eye to eye--but not this way.

And it is an awful look of recognition that greets him, too. Shot through and through as he is, tortured with thirst and suffering, praying for help and longing for the sight of some friendly face, it seems a retribution almost too cruel that, in his extreme hour, the man sent by Heaven to minister to his needs should be the one he has so foully wronged, the one of whom he lives in dread. He covers his eyes with a gesture of dismay, and turns fearfully to the wall. There is a moment of silence, broken only by the rattle of the window in its casing as it shudders to the distant boom of the guns far down the line. Then Abbot steps to the bedside and places his gauntleted hand upon the shoulder of the stricken man.

"Hollins! How are you wounded? Have you seen a surgeon?"

No answer for a moment, and the question is gently repeated.

"Shot through the body--rifle-ball. There was a surgeon here last night, but he's gone."