Part 13

I paid my respects to Governor Wise, and thanked him for my release; was introduced to Colonel Lee, (now the Rebel general,) and to the officers of the little squad of marines who had carried the stronghold of the "invaders," as the Governor persistently called them. In company with "Porte Crayon," Mr. Strothers, a native of that part of Virginia, and well known by his sketches of Southern life in "Harper's Magazine," I went to the engine-house, and there saw the marks of the desperate defence and of the desperate bravery of John Brown and his men. I saw, too, John Brown himself. Wounded, bleeding, haggard, and defeated, and expecting death with more or less of agony as it was more or less near, John Brown was the finest specimen of a man that I ever saw. His great, gaunt form, his noble head and face, his iron-gray hair and patriarchal beard, with the patient endurance of his own suffering, and his painful anxiety for the fate of his sons and the welfare of his men, his reticence when jeered at, his readiness to turn away wrath with a kind answer, his whole appearance and manner, what he looked, what he said,--all impressed me with the deepest sense of reverence. If his being likened to anything in history could have made the scene more solemn, I should say that he was likest to the pictured or the ideal representation of a Roundhead Puritan dying for his faith, and silently glorying in the sacrifice not only of life, but of all that made life dearest to him. His wounded men showed in their patient endurance the influence of his example; while the vulgar herd of lookers-on, fair representatives of the cowardly militia-men who had waited for the little force of regulars to achieve the capture of the engine-house and its garrison, were ready to prove their further cowardice by maltreating the prisoners. The marines, who alone had sacrificed life in the attack, were sturdily bent on guarding them from any harsh handling. I turned away sadly from the old man's side, sought and got the information he wanted concerning "his people," as he called them, and was rewarded with his thanks in a few simple words, and in a voice that was as gentle as a woman's. The Governor, as soon as he was told of the condition of the prisoners, had them cared for, and, in all his bitterness at their doings, never spoke of them in terms other than honorable to himself and to them. He persistently praised John Brown for his bravery and his endurance; and he was just as firm in declaring him the victim of shrewd and designing men, whose schemes he would yet fathom.

The day was a busy one; for little squads of regulars were sent out on the Maryland Heights to search for the stores accumulated there; and each foraging party was followed by a tail of stragglers from all the volunteers on the ground, who valiantly kept on to the Maryland side of the bridge that crossed the Potomac, and then, their courage oozing out of their fingers and toes both, stopped there and waited for the return of the regulars. On the instant of their arrival, each time fetching a great hay-wagon full of captured goods, tents, picks, spades, pikes, the tag-rag and bobtail party at once set to work to help themselves to the nearest articles, and were soon seen making off homeward with their contraband of war on their backs. The plunder, however, was not confined to the captured property. A strong force of militia soon invaded the armory, and every man helped himself to a rifle and a brace of pistols, and then, tiring of the load, began to chaffer and bargain for their sale. Governor Wise was called on to interfere and preserve the Government property; he came into the little inclosure of the works, and began an eloquent address, but seeing its uselessness, broke off and put his Richmond Grays on guard; and then the distribution of public property was made through the regular channels,--that is, the men inside brought guns and pistols to the men on guard, and they passed them out to their friends beyond, so that the trade went on almost as free as ever.

Night soon came, and it was made hideous by the drunken noise and turmoil of the crowd in the village; matters were made worse, too, by the Governor's order to impress all the horses; and the decent, sober men trudged home rather out of humor with their patriotic sacrifice; while the tipsy and pot-valiant militia fought and squabbled with each other, and only ceased that sport to pursue and hunt down some fugitive negroes, and one or two half-maddened drunken fellows who in their frenzy proclaimed themselves John Brown's men. Tired out at last, the Governor took refuge in the Wager House;--for an hour or two, he had stood on the porch haranguing an impatient crowd as "Sons of Virginia!" Within doors the scene was stranger still. Huddled together in the worst inn's worst room, the Governor and his staff at a table with tallow candles guttering in the darkness, the Richmond Grays lying around the floor in picturesque and (then) novel pursuit of soft planks, a motley audience was gathered together to hear the papers captured at John Brown's house--the Kennedy farm on Maryland Heights--read out with the Governor's running comments. The purpose of all this was plain enough. It was meant to serve as proof of a knowledge and instigation of the raid by prominent persons and party-leaders in the North. The most innocent notes and letters, commonplace newspaper-paragraphs and printed cuttings, were distorted and twisted by the reading and by the talking into clear instructions and positive plots. However, the main impression was of the picturesqueness of the soldiers resting on their knapsacks, and their arms stacked in the dark corners,--of the Governor and his satellites, some of them in brilliant militia array, seated around the lighted table,--and of the grotesque eloquence with which either the Governor or some of his prominent people would now and then burst out into an oratorical tirade, all thrown away on his sleepy auditors, and lost to the world for want of some clever shorthand writer.

In the morning I was glad to hear that my belated train had spent the last forty-eight hours at Martinsburg, and I did not a bit regret that my two days had been so full of adventure and incident. Waiting for its coming, I walked once more through the village, with one of the watchmen of the armory, who had been captured by John Brown and spent the night with him in the engine-house, and heard in all its freshness the story now so well known. Then I bade Governor Wise good-bye, and was duly thanked for my valiant services to the noble Mother of States, and rewarded by being offered the honorary and honorable title of A.D.C. to the commander-in-chief of Virginia, both for past services and for the future tasks to be met, of beating off invading hosts from the North,--all in the Governor's eye. Luckily for both sides, I declined the handsome offer; for my next visit to Virginia was as an A.D.C. to a general commanding troops, not of the North, but of the United States, invading, not the Virginia of John Brown's time, but the Virginia of a wicked Southern Confederacy.

Not long after, I received a letter of thanks from Governor Wise, written at Richmond and with a good deal of official flattery. His son Jennings, an old acquaintance of mine in pleasant days in Germany, came to see me, too, with civil messages from his father. Poor fellow! he paid the forfeit of his rebellious treason with his life at Roanoke Island. His father pays the heavier penalty of living to see the civil war fomented by him making its dreadful progress, and in its course crushing out all his ancient popularity and power.

In spite of many scenes of noble heroism and devoted bravery in legitimate warfare, and in the glorious campaigns of our own successful armies, I have never seen any life in death so grand as that of John Brown, and to me there is more than an idle refrain in the solemn chorus of our advancing hosts,--

"John Brown's body lies mouldering in the ground, As we go marching on!"

In the summer of 1862, I was brought again to Harper's Ferry, with my regiment, and the old familiar scenes were carefully revisited. The terrible destruction of fine public buildings, the wanton waste of private property, the deserted village instead of the thriving town, the utter ruin and wretchedness of the country all about, and the bleak waste of land from Harper's Ferry to Charlestown, are all set features in every picture of the war in Virginia. At my old head-quarters in Charlestown jail there was less change than I had expected; its sturdy walls had withstood attack and defence better than the newer and more showy structures; the few inhabitants left behind after the ebb and flow of so many army waves, Rebel and Union succeeding each other at pretty regular intervals, were the well-to-do of former days, looking after their household gods, sadly battered and the worse for wear, but still cherished very dearly. Of my old acquaintances, it was a melancholy pleasure to learn that Colonel Baylor, who was mainly anxious to have me hanged, had in this war been reduced to the ranks for cowardice, and then was shot in the act of desertion. Kennedy was still living at home, but his brother was in the Rebel service. The lesser people were all scattered; the better class of workmen had gone to Springfield or to private gun-shops in the North,--the poorer sort, either into the Rebel army or to some other dim distance, and all trace of them was lost.

The thousands who have come and gone through Harper's Ferry and past Bolivar Heights will recall the waste and desolation of what was once a blooming garden-spot, full of thrift and industry and comfort almost unknown elsewhere south of the fatal slave-line; thousands who are yet to pass that way will see in the ruins of the place traces of the avenging spirit that has marked forever the scene of _John Brown's Raid_.

SCHUMANN'S QUINTETTE IN E FLAT MAJOR.

It was near sundown when we reached the sea-side hotel. By the time we were settled in our apartment, and I had my invalid undressed and in bed, the soft, long summer twilight was nearly over. The maid, having cleared away the litter of unpacking, was sitting in the anteroom, near enough to be within call. The poor suffering body that held so lightly the half-escaped spirit lay on the bed, exhausted with the journey, but feeling already soothed by the pleasant sea-breeze which sighed gently in at the open window.

Our rooms were on the ground-floor of a one-story cottage. A little distance off was the large hotel, to which the cottage was attached by a long arcade or covered gallery. We could hear fragments of the music which the band was playing to the gay idlers who were wandering about the balconies or through the hotel grounds; while laughs and little shrieks, uttered by the children as their pursuing nurses caught them up for bed, mingled not unpleasantly with the silvery hum arising from the fashionable crowd and the festal clang of the instruments.

Sleep half hovered over, half winged off from the pillow. I fanned the peacock plumes slowly to and fro in the delicious air, gazed with a suppressed sigh on the darkening West, and repeated with a rhythmical beat the beautiful Hebrew poem in Ecclesiasticus, which I had so often recited through many long years by the side of that sick-bed, to soothe the ear of the sufferer. I had just reached these lines,--

"A present remedy of all Is the speeding coming of a cloud, And a dew that meeteth it, By the heat that cometh, Shall overpower it.

"At His word the wind is still; And with His thought He appeaseth the deep; And the Lord hath plumed islands therein,"--

when I noticed that sleep had settled firmly on the dark eyelids, and the panting breath came through the poor clay in little soughs and sighs, as if body and soul, tired with combat, had each sunk down for a momentary rest on the weary battle-field of life.

The music of the band had ceased; the gay crowd had withdrawn into the hotel to prepare for the entertainments of the evening, and there was a lull of human sounds. Then arose the grand roar of the ocean, which with the regular break of the billows on the beach beneath the cliff made the theme where before it had played the bass.

I crept stealthily out of the bed-room, and, after exchanging my travelling-gown for a cool white robe, stretched my tired body on the lounge in the anteroom.

There I lay with cold finger-tips pressed against burning eyelids, and icy palms holding with a firm grasp throbbing temples, under which flowed the hot, seething tide of mortal anguish, anxiety, and aching love. Some one touched me on the shoulder. I looked up. It was Max who was standing beside me.

"There is a great musical treat for you," he said in a low voice. "The A---- Society is here, and also part of B----'s Opera Troupe, with Madame C----, and D----, the great tenor. The troupe and society united are to give such a concert as rarely falls to the lot of mortals to hear. I never saw a better programme. Look!"

I read over the concert-bill. First there was an overture; then several scenes from "Lucia di Lammermoor,"--that great Shakspearian drama, whose dread catastrophe of Death and Doom leaves in the memory of the hearer a heavenly sorrow unmixed with earthly taint. It was the master-work of two poets, Scott and Donizetti, who had conceived it at the best period of their lives, when they were in all the vigor of manhood, and when mind and fancy had become ripened by experience. It was formed in one of those supreme instants, which come like "angels' visits" to artists, when they were enabled, through a power more like inspiration than art, to throw aside all outward influences, and fashion as deftly as Nature could the sad life of the Master of Ravenswood and his "sweet spirit's mate."

The Lucia scenes were grouped together and occupied the main part of the programme. They were those that told the story of the brief passion, from the sweet birth of love up to the solemn hour when both lovers passed away to that resting-place "where nothing could touch them further."

My eyes lingered over the titles of the scenes, while my memory swiftly recalled their characteristics:--the First Duet between Lucia and Edgardo, a passionate burst of youthful love, as delicious as the tender dialogues between Romeo and his Juliet;--the Sextette, that masterly pyramidal piece of vocal harmony, in which the voices group around those of the two lovers, and all mount up glowingly like a flame on a sacrificial altar;--the heart-rending passage where Lucia's spirit, frantic through woe, rises supreme over native timidity and irresolution, and, with one fierce burst of love and grief, which startles alike tyrant and friend, soars aloft in the terrible, but grand realm of madness;--and the Finale, where the dying Edgardo sighs out that delicious air which has been well styled, "a melody of Plato sung by a Christian soul."

The programme closed fitly with Schumann's Quintette in E flat Major.

This Quintette is one of remarkable power and beauty. It is for 'rano, viola, first and second violin, and 'cello. It is divided into four movements: _Allegro brillante_; _In moda d'una Marcia_; _Scherzo_; and _Allegro ma non troppo_.

As I handed the bill back to Max, he whispered to my maid, who left the room an instant, and returned with a mantle on her arm.

"Come," he said, in a decided tone, "you must go, and quickly, too, for they are already playing the overture. You can surely trust Ernestine with the watching, as you will be such a short distance off; my serving-man shall wait in the arcade, and come for you, if you are needed."

Then, raising me with kind force from the lounge, he wrapped the mantle around me. As we passed out, we stood for an instant at the bed-room-door, looking at the invalid. The breath still came in short pants, but the truce was being kept: sleep had come in between as a transient mediator.

I noticed in the dim light the attenuated frame, the shrunken features, the pinched nostrils, the very shadowy outlining of death. With choking throat and swelling breast I looked at Max, my eyes saying what my voice could not,--

"I cannot go."

Without a word of reply, he lifted me out of the apartment, and in a few moments we were sitting in a dim corner of the concert-room, listening to the charming First Duet.

The scenes followed one another rapidly, and displayed even more powerfully than I had ever noticed before the one pervading theme. Sense and imagination became possessed with it; at each succeeding passage the interest increased continuously, until at the end the passion mounted up as on mighty wings and carried my sad heart aloft and beyond "the ordinary conditions of humanity."

The prima donna, Madame C----, and Signor D----, the tenor, had a sad story of scandal floating about them; it was on every one's lips. Madame C---- was no longer in her first youth, but she was still very beautiful, more attractive than she had been in her younger days,--so those said who had seen and heard her years before.

Her young womanhood had been devoted to patient, honest study, which was rewarded with success, and calm, passionless prosperity. She had married brilliantly, and left the stage, but after an absence of many years had returned to it to aid her husband in some reverse of fortune. Her married life had been tranquilly happy, for she had loved with all the sweet serenity of a cold, unexacting nature.

But now it was whispered that this beautiful, pure woman, who had resisted--indeed, like another Una, had never felt--the temptations which had environed her on the stage, and in the courtly circle to which she had been raised by her husband's rank, was being strangely influenced by a gifted, handsome tenor singer, with whom she had been associated since her return to her professional life.

This person was about her husband's age, a year or two her senior, and unmarried. The infatuation, it was said, existed on both sides, and the two lovers were so blinded by their strange passion as to seem unconscious of any other sight or presence. The husband, report added, behaved with remarkable prudence and good breeding; indeed, some doubted if he noticed the affair,--for he treated not only his wife, but the reputed lover, with familiar and kind friendliness.

The recollection of this scandal flitted over my memory as I listened to the First Duet. Madame C---- was a blonde; she had rich, deep violet eyes, and a lovely skin: her hair, too, was a waving mass of the poet's and painter's golden hue. She was about middle height, and had a full, well-developed person.

"When I saw her in Paris and Vienna, twenty years ago," whispered Max, "she was too pale and slender, and the expression of those brilliant eyes was as cold and still as glacier depths."

Not so now, I thought,--for they fairly blazed with a passionate fire, as the music welled up on her beautiful quivering lips; indeed, the melody appeared to come from them, as much as from her mouth, and I seemed to be listening with my looks as well as my hearing. She was not well, evidently,--for there was a bright red, feverish spot on either cheek, and her movements were feeble and trembling; but her voice was full of the deepest pathos.

"In her best days she never sang so well," said Max, as the room rang with applause at the termination of the duo, "Time may have taken away a little fulness from her lower notes; but the touching tenderness which envelops them, as a purple mist hanging over a forest in autumn, fully compensates for the loss of youthful vigor."

Her voice was, indeed, wonderful,--not simply clear and flexible, but dazzling and glancing, like the lightning that plays around the horizon on a hot midsummer's night; and her execution was as if the Cherub All-Knowledge and the Seraph All-Love had united their divine powers in one human form.

In the Sextette, which followed, the tenor showed to great advantage. His voice, though no longer young, was beautifully managed; it had an exquisite _timbre_, and on this night there was added to it a rare expression and character.

When he asked the poor trembling Lucia if the signature to the marriage contract was hers, there was a concentrated rage in his singing that was fearful; and Madame C---- almost cowered to the floor, as he held her firmly by the wrist,--for the scenes were sung in costume and with action,--and demanded,--

"A me rispondi. Son tue cifre? Rispondi!"

Her affirmative was like the silvery wail of a fallen angel. Then followed the terrible imprecation passage. He darted out the

"Maledetto sia l'istante!"

with such startling fury that the notes and words seemed to be forked, stinging, serpent tongues.

The _Stretta_ ensued, and the music-tide flowed so high and full that the fashionable audience forgot all artificial conventionalities, and yielded themselves freely to the ennobling emotions of human sympathy. Above the whole sublime assemblage of sounds wailed out that fearful note of the fallen cherub; and the fainting of Lucia, at the close of the Sextette, I felt sure was not a feigned one.

As the curtain fell over the temporary stage, several gentlemen hurried out to make inquiries about Madame C----, for there seemed to be an opinion similar to mine pervading the room. The curtain rose, and it was announced that she was too ill to sing again; but the murmur of regret was silenced almost immediately by the appearance of the chorus with Signor D----, the tenor.

They began the Finale. Signor D----looked haggard and wan, but very stern, and there was more of wrath than repentance in his singing. Was it fancy or reality? The heart-rending

"O bell' alma innamorata!"

seemed to be accompanied by distant, half-veiled sobs. No one else appeared to notice them, and I half doubted their reality.

The Finale ended; and for a few moments the gay crowd buzzed, and some stood up and looked about at their neighbors. The interval was short, however,--for the Quintette performers came upon the stage, and took their places.

I leaned back and covered my face with my hand. My memory was still ringing with echoes of the forlorn cry of wrecked love, mingled with the imaginary sobs I had just heard; therefore I hardly listened to the majestic opening of full, harmonious chords, which lead grandly into a sort of cantabile movement.

The curious modulations which followed aroused me, and I soon busied myself in tracing the changes from major to minor, and from one minor key to another, as sorrows chase each other in life. Just at this part of the composition occurs the passage which sounds like a weird, ghostly call or summons: when I heard it, my fancy began working, and, like Heine, I saw spectres in the music sounds.

The air seemed to have grown suddenly "nipping and eager." I unconsciously drew my mantle around my shoulders, as a shiver ran over me, such as nurses tell us in childhood is caused by some one walking over our graves. I fancied I saw before me the ghost scene in "Hamlet." There was the castle platform,--the gloomy battlements,--the sound of distant wassail; and dimly defined by the vague light of my fancy, stood the sad young Danish prince, shivering in the "shrewd, biting" night-air, tortured with those apprehensions and sickening doubts

"That cloud the mind and fire the brain,"

but talking with a feigned and courtly indifference to his dear friend, "the profound scholar and perfect gentleman," Horatio; and in the gloom around them seemed to be arising the questionable shape which was

"So horridly to shake his disposition."