Chapter 11

WAITING

For weeks after this sail on the lake my life was like a fête day. Expeditions of all sorts were planned and carried out for my pleasure. One day we were exploring the lake shores in a boat; the next, we went back into the country, as far as we could go and return before evening; a third day we climbed the mountains somewhere and got glorious new views of what the world is. Nothing could hinder, in those days, but that my draught of pleasure was very full. Whatever weight might lie at my heart, when I found myself high, high up above the ordinary region of life, resting on a mountain summit from which I looked down upon all that surrounded me other days; a little of that same lifting up befel the thoughts of my heart and the views that have to do with the spirit's life. I stood above the region of mists for a little. I saw how the inequalities of the lower level, which perplex us there, sink into nothing when looked upon from a higher standpoint. I saw that rough roads led to quiet valleys; and that the blessed sunlight was always lying on the earth, though down in one of those depths one might lose sight of it for a time. I do not know how it is, but getting up into a high mountain has a little the effect of getting out of the world. One has left perplexities and uncertainties behind; the calm and the strength of the everlasting hills is about one; the air is not defiled with contentions or rivalries or jealousies up there; and the glory of creation reminds one of other glory, and power, and wisdom and might; and one breathes hope and rest. So I used to do. Of all our excursions, I liked best to go up the mountains. No matter how high, or by how difficult a road.

Mamma and papa were only now and then of the party. That I was very sorry for, but it could not be helped. Mamma had seen it all, she said; and when I urged that she had not been to this particular "horn," she said that one "horn" was just like another, and that when you had seen one or two you had seen them all. But I never found it so. Every new time was a new revelation of glory to me. If I could have had papa with me, my satisfaction would have been perfect; but papa shunned fatigue, and never went where he could not go easily. I was obliged to be content with my brother and my brother's friends; and after I had made up my mind to that, the whole way was a rejoicing to me, from the time I left the house till we returned, a weary and hungry party, to claim mamma's welcome again. Our party was always the same four. Mr. de Saussure and Hugh Marshall were, I found, very intimately at home with my father and mother, and naturally they were soon on the same footing with me. As far as care went, I had three brothers to look after me, of whom indeed Ransom was not the most careful; and as to social qualifications, they were extremely well-bred, well-educated, and had a great deal of general and particular cultivation. In the evenings we had music and conversation; which last was always very pleasant except when it turned upon American affairs. Then I had great twinges of heart, which I thought it wise to keep to myself as closely as possible.

I remember well the twinge I had, when one evening early in September De Saussure came in, the utmost glee expressed in his eyes and manner, and announced his news thus; -

"They have had a battle at Springfield, and Lyon is killed."

"Who is Lyon?" I could not help asking, though it was incautious.

"You should not ask," he said more gently as he sat down by me; "you have no relish for these things. Even the cause of liberty cannot sweeten them to you."

"Who is Lyon, De Saussure?" my father repeated.

"A Connecticut fellow." The tone of these words, in its utter disdain, was inexpressible.

"Connecticut?" said my father. "Has the war got into New England? That cannot be."

"No, sir, no, sir," said Ransom. "It is Springfield in Missouri. You find a Yankee wherever you go in this world."

"Wilson's Creek is the place of the battle," Mr. De Saussure went on. "Near Springfield, in Missouri. It was an overwhelming defeat. Lyon killed, and the next in command obliged to beat off."

"Who on our side?" asked my mother.

"Ben McCulloch and Price."

"How many engaged? Was it much of an affair?"

"We had twenty thousand or so. Of course, the others had more."

"It doesn't take but one or two Southerners to whip a score of those cowards," said Ransom.

"Why should not the war have got into New England, Mr. Randolph?" my mother asked. "You said, 'That cannot be.' Why should it not be?"

"There are a few thousand men in the way," said my father; "and I think they are not all cowards."

"They will never stand before our rifles," said De Saussure.

"Our boys will mow them down like grass," said Ransom. "And in New Orleans the fever will take care of them. How soon, mother, will the fever be there?"

Mamma and Ransom compared notes upon the probable and usual time for the yellow fever to make its appearance, when it would wield, its scythe of destruction upon the fresh harvest of life made ready for it, in the bands of the Northern soldiers in Louisiana. My whole soul was in a stir of opposition to the speakers. I had to be still, but pain struggled to speak.

"You do not enjoy the prospect -" Hugh Marshall said, softly.

I only looked at him.

"Nor do I," said he, shaking his head. "A fair fight is one thing. - It is a terrible state of affairs at home, Miss Randolph."

I had the utmost difficulty to keep quiet and give no sign. I could have answered him with a cry which would have startled them all. What if Thorold were ordered down there? He might be. He would go where he was ordered. That thought brought help; for so would I! A soldier, in another warfare, I remembered my ways were appointed, even as his; only more wisely, more surely, and on no service that could by any means be in vain. But yet the pain was very sharp, as I looked at the group who were eagerly discussing war matters; my father, my mother, my brother, and De Saussure, who in the interest of the thing had left my side; how keen they were! So were others keen at home, who had swords in their hands and pistols in their belts. It would not do to think. I could but repeat to myself, - "I am a soldier - I am a soldier - and just now my duty is to stand and bear fire."

There was little chance in those days at Lucerne for me to be alone with papa. The opportunities we had we both enjoyed highly. Now and then mamma would be late for breakfast, or even take hers in bed; once in a while go out to a visit from which I begged off. Then papa and I drew together and had a good time. One of these chances occurred a few days after the news came of General Lyon's death. We were alone, and I was drawing, and papa had been watching me a little while in silence.

"Daisy," he began, "am I wrong? It seems to me that you do not look upon matters at home with just the eye that the rest of us have for them?"

"What matters, papa?" I said, looking up, and feeling troubled.

"You do not like the war."

"Papa, - do you?"

"Yes. I think our countrymen are right, and of course I wish that they should have their rights."

"Papa," said I, "don't you think it must be very strong reasons that can justify so dreadful a thing as a war?"

"Undoubtedly; but the preservation of liberty is one of the strongest that can be conceived."

"Papa - you know I want liberty for the blacks."

"It is like you, my dear child," my father said, after pausing a minute; "it is like your generous nature; but Daisy, I think those people do not want it for themselves."

"Papa, if they did not, I should think it would be one of the strongest arguments on my side; but I am sure they do. I know a great many of them that do."

"Did not you, perhaps, bring about that desire in them, by your kind and possibly somewhat misjudged indulgences?"

"No indeed, papa; it was our overseer, with his wicked ways. That Mr. Edwards is dreadful, papa!"

"All overseers are not good," said my father with a sigh. "The people at Magnolia are as well treated, on the whole, - as they can be anywhere, I think, - I hope."

"You do not know, papa. If they are, you have said all. And there is our old Maria, who has nothing to do with Mr. Edwards; she has no hope nor anticipation which does not go beyond this world; and it is so with a great many of them. They have that hope; but they sing, "I am bound for the promised land!" - in a minor key; and to a plaintive air that makes your heart ache."

"Yours, Daisy," said my father with a somewhat constrained smile.

"Papa," I went on, trembling, but I thought it best to venture, - "if the issue of this war could be to set all those people free, I could almost be glad."

"That will not be the issue, Daisy," he said.

"Papa, what do you think will?"

"It can have but one issue. The Southern people cannot be put down."

"Then, if they succeed, what will be the state of things between them and the North?"

"It is impossible to tell how far things will go, Daisy, now that they have actually taken up arms. But I do not think the Southern people want anything of the North, but to be let alone."

"How would it be, if the North succeeded, papa?"

"It cannot succeed, Daisy. You have heard a different language, I suppose; but I know the men, - and the women, - of the South. They will never yield. The North must, sooner or later."

I could not carry this on, and turned the conversation. But I had to listen to a great deal of the same sort of thing, in which I took no part. It came up every day. I discovered that my mother was using her influence and all her art to induce our two young friends to return home and enter the Southern army. She desired with equal vehemence that Ransom should take the same course; and as they all professed to be strong in the interests and sympathies that moved her, I was a little puzzled to understand why they delayed so long. For they did delay. They talked, but nothing came of it. Still we went on fresh excursions and made new expeditions; spending days of delight on the mountain sides, and days of enchantment in the mountain valleys; and still our party was of the same four. It is true that papa did not at all share mamma's eagerness to have Ransom go; but Ransom did not greatly care for papa's likings; and in the case of the others, I did not see what held them.

The printed news from home we had of course, regularly; and as far as I could without being watched, I studied them. The papers after all were mostly Southern, and so filled with outrageous invective and inflated boasting, that I could not judge anything very certainly, from what they said. Nothing of great importance seemed to be transpiring between the belligerent parties. I supposed that it wanted but some such occurrence or occasion to send off our three young men like a ball from a rifle, straight to the seat of war. Meanwhile we enjoyed ourselves. Others did, and I did also, whenever I could put down fear and lift up hope; and I was young, and that happened to me sometimes. So the weeks ran on.

"I really don't see why I should be in a hurry to plunge myself into that angry confusion of things at home," Hugh Marshall said one day. "It seems to me, they can get through it without my help."

"Well, you are not in a hurry." I answered.

We were out as usual for a day's pleasure among the mountains, and Hugh and I were resting on a sunny bank waiting for the others to come up. We had distanced them.

"What do you think about it?" he said, suddenly drawing himself up from the grass and looking in my face.

"Men do not rule their course by what women think," - I answered.

"No, you are wrong; they do! Sometimes they do," - he said. "I have no mother nor sister to counsel me; only Mrs. Randolph bids me go home and be a soldier; but I would as lieve take advice from you. What would you tell me to do - if I were your brother?"

"I do not tell Ransom anything."

"He is under his mother's tutelage; but I am not. Tell me what to do, Miss Randolph. I am sure your counsel would be good. Do you wish me to go and fight the North, as your mother says I ought?"

"I wish people would not fight at all," I said, with my heart straitened.

"Of course; but here we are in it, or they are; and it is the same thing. Don't you think they can get through it without me? or do you say as your mother, - 'Every one go!' "

He looked at me more earnestly than was pleasant, and I was greatly at a loss what to answer. It was wisest for me not to commit myself to a course opposed to my mother's; and yet, truth is wisest of all. I looked to see Ransom and Mr. De Saussure, but they were not in sight.

"You are not speaking in jest," I said; "and I have no business to speak in earnest."

"You never speak any other way," he rejoined. "Tell me your mind. You are never violent; do you feel as Mrs. Randolph does about it? Would you like me better if I went heart and soul into the fray at home?"

"That would depend upon the-views and motives with which you went into it."

"Well - if I did it for love of you?" he said smiling.

"I cannot imagine that anybody should do such a thing for love of me. Nothing but the strongest and purest convictions of duty can justify such a thing as fighting."

"I suppose I know what that means," he said somewhat gloomily.

"No," said I hastily, "I don't think you do."

"What does it mean, then?" he asked.

"Permit me to ask first, Are your convictions strong and clear, that it is your duty to go home and enter the war for the South?"

"That's a searching question," he said laughing. "To say yes, would be to condemn myself at once. To say no, - what would that do for me with Mrs. Randolph?"

"You are not speaking to Mrs. Randolph," I said, half under my breath.

He looked up eagerly in my face. "You do not think as she does!" he said. "You do not believe in fighting, under any circumstances?"

"Yes, I do, Mr. Marshall," I said; and I felt myself colour. "I do believe in fighting, when it is to relieve the oppressed, to deliver those who are trampled upon, or to save ourselves or others from worse than death."

"Our friends at the South can hardly be said to be in such extremity," he said, looking rather perplexed; "unless you believe all that the papers say about Yankee invaders; and I for one am not ready to do that."

"Nor I," I said; "I know them too well."

"Then who is so bitterly oppressed just now, Miss Randolph?"

"If you do not know of anybody, I would not fight, Mr. Marshall."

"Really?" said he. "Perhaps I ought to go home and take care of my twelve hundred people at Vincennes. Is that your thought?"

"Are they in need of care?" I asked.

" 'Pon my word, I don't know. Perhaps it would be nearer right to say, take care of myself; for if the war should come the way of Vicksburg, and Yankee arms have a little success, there might be the mischief to pay at Vincennes. On reflection, I don't see how I could take care of myself, either. Then you do not bid me go?" he asked again.

"You remember our words one day about insignificant lives?"

"Yes!" he cried eagerly; "and I have been longing ever since to ask you to explain more fully what interested me so much. I never could get a chance. I assure you, I have felt to the bottom of my heart what it is to have one's existence really worth nothing, to anybody. How may it be better? My life has to do with nothing but insignificant things."

"But you must define insignificance," I said.

"Is it needful?"

"I think so. What makes things insignificant? Not their being small, - or common?"

"What then, Miss Randolph?"

"Small things, and common things, are often to the last degree important, you know, Mr. Marshall."

"Yes; but however small and common, I cannot feel that I am important, in any degree," he said, half laughing.

"We were talking of lives, and things."

"Yes. Excuse me. Well?"

"I think I see the crowns of two hats, down below, which belong to some people that we know."

"Is it they?" he exclaimed; - "and I wish they were farther off. Finish what you were going to say, Miss Daisy! Do not leave me in ignorance now, after bringing me so far."

"I can only tell you what I think," I said.

"And that is precisely what I want to hear," he answered earnestly.

"You will not agree to it, though, and I do not know that you will even understand me. Mr. Marshall, I think that nothing is insignificant which is done for God; and that everything which is not done for Him, directly or indirectly, is insignificant or worse."

"I do _not_ understand -" he said thoughtfully. "In what sense can a thing be 'done for God?' Unless it is building a church or founding a hospital."

"Very few churches have been built for God," I said. "At least I think so."

"Why, the old monks -" Mr. Marshall began. But just then our missing companions came up, and he stopped. They had been lured aside from the way by the sight of some game. We had no more private talk; but Hugh Marshall was sober and thoughtful all the rest of the day.

He sought such talks with me now whenever he could; and seemed to enter into them like a man, with an earnest purpose to know the truth and to do his work in the world if he could find it. I grew, in a way, very fond of him. He was gentle, well-bred, happy-tempered, extremely careful of my welfare and pleasure, and regardful of my opinions, which I suppose flattered my vanity; well-read and sensible; and it seemed to me that he grew more agreeable every day.

The accounts from the seat of war in America were not very stirring just then; nothing great was done or expected; and the question of our young men's return to take part in what was going on, was suffered for a time to fall out of sight. Meanwhile we left Lucerne and went to Geneva. There was more society, in a quiet way; and there was a fresh harvest of pleasure to be reaped by me and for me in the domains of nature.