Chapter XII.

The Court Of The King.

After their little adventure, our travellers rode triumphantly into Washington, and Miss Hamilton found her friends glad to receive her the more so that she came as a boarder, and their house was nearly empty.

The Blacks had, in their younger days, been humble followers of Doctor Hamilton; and though their acquaintance with Margaret was slight, as they felt a kind of duty toward all the connection, they were proud to receive her.

"I am anxious about friends whom I have not heard from for some time," she explained; "and I have come here to look round a little."

"Who do you know in the army?" Mrs. Black inquired, not too delicately, considering the reserve with which her visitor had spoken.

Miss Hamilton was not learned in the slippery art of evasion. She simply ignored the question.

"I am exhausted," she said. "Of course I did not sleep any last night; and the ride has been fatiguing. I have but one desire, and that is to rest. Can you show me to my room at once? I feel as though I should drop asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow. When I do sleep, please don't wake me."

When she lay down to rest the afternoon sun was gilding the trees in the square opposite, flaring on the long white-washed walls of the hospital in their midst, and brightening momentarily the pale faces pressed close to the window-bars of the jail beyond. When she woke from the deep and dreamless sleep that seemed to have almost drawn the breath from her lips, it was night. Some one had set a star of gas burning in her room, and left a plate of cake and a glass of wine on the stand at her bedside.

Margaret raised herself like one who has been nearly drowned and still catches for breath, gathered her benumbed faculties and recollected where she was. All was quiet within the house; and without there was stillness of another sort, a silence that was living and aware, a sense as of thousands waking and watching. Now and then there came from the hospital across the street some voice of a sleepless sufferer, the long, low moan of almost exhausted endurance, the broken cry of delirium, or the hoarse gasp of pneumonia.

After a while these sounds became deadened, and finally lost in another that rose gradually, deepening like the roll of the sea heard at night.

Margaret went to her window and leaned out. The sultry air was heavily-laden with fragrance from the flower-gardens around, and in the sky the large stars trembled like over-full drops of a golden shower descending through the ambient purple dusk.

That sea-roll grew nearer as she listened, and became the measured tramp of men. Soon they appeared out of the darkness at the left, marching steadily line after line, and company after company, to disappear into darkness at the right. They moved like shadows, save for that multitudinous muffled tread, and save that, at certain points, a street-light would flash along a line of rifle-barrels, or catch in a flitting sparkle on a spur or shoulder-strap. Then, like a dream, they were gone; darkness and distance had swallowed them up from sight and hearing; and again there was that strange, live stillness, broken only by the complaining voices of the sick.

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As Margaret looked, the dim light in one of the hospital-wards flared up suddenly and showed three men standing by a bed near one of the windows. They lifted the rigid form that lay there, and placed it on a stretcher; two of the men bore it out, and the light was lowered again, After a little while the men appeared outside bearing that white and silent length between them, through the dew and the starlight, and were lost from sight behind the trees. When they returned, they walked side by side; and what they had carried out they brought not back again.

The watcher's heart sent out a cry: "O Father in heaven! see how thy creatures suffer."

In the excitement of the last part of her journey, and the exhaustion following it, she had almost forgotten her object in coming; but this sight brought it all back. She remembered, too, that she had been dropping into the old way of taking all the burden on her own shoulders; and even in crying out for pain, she recollected the way of comfort. How sweet the restfulness of that recollection! As though a child, wandering from home, lost, weary, and terrified, should all at once see the hearth-light shining before him, and hear the dear familiar voices calling his name. She thought over the lessons learned during that blessed retreat, that Mecca toward which henceforth her thoughts would journey whenever her soul grew faint by the way. The half-forgotten trust came back. Who but He who had set the tangles of this great labyrinth could lead the way out of it? Who but He whose hand had strung the chords of every human heart could ease their straining, and bring back harmony to discord? Where but with Him, the centre of all being, could we look for those who are lost to us on earth?

When, long after sunrise, Mrs. Black entered her visitor's chamber, she found Margaret kneeling by the window, fast asleep, with her head resting on the sill.

There was plenty of news and excitement that morning. All communication with the North was cut off, the President and his family had come rushing in at midnight from their country-seat, and there was fighting going on only a few miles out of town. It was altogether probable that the Confederates would be in the city before night.

Mrs. Black told all this with such an air of satisfaction in the midst of her terror that Margaret made some allowance for embellishment in the story. Evidently the good woman enjoyed a panic, and was willing to be frightened to the very verge of endurance for the sake of having it to tell of afterward. She went about in a sort of delighted agony, gathering up her spoons and forks, and giving little shrieks at the least unusual sound.

"If they should bombard the city, my dear," she said, "we can go down cellar. I have an excellent cellar. It is almost certain that they will come. We must be in a strait when the treasury-clerks come out. And such a sight! They passed here just before I went up to call you, all in their shirt-sleeves, and looking no more like soldiers, dear, than I do this minute. Half of them carried their rifles over the wrong shoulder, and seemed scared to death lest they should go off. And no wonder; for the way the barrels slanted was enough to make you smile, even if there were a bomb-shell whizzing past your nose. {596} The muzzles looked all ways for Sunday, so to speak. There were little boys with them, too. I don't see where their pas and mas were, if they've got any. It's a sin and shame. Do eat some more breakfast, pray! You may as well have a full stomach; for if we should be obliged to hide in the cellar, we might not dare come up to get a mouthful for twenty-four hours. I do hope it won't be a long siege. If they've got to come in, let'em come. I'm sure they would be too much of gentlemen to molest a houseful of defenceless females. As for poor Mr. Black, he doesn't count. Though he is my husband, I have seen braver men, not to speak of women. I had to threaten him, this morning, within an inch of his life, to prevent him from running a Confederate flag out of the window. He keeps one in his trunk, in case it should be needed. He declared he heard firing in the avenue. Bless me! What is that?"

"One of the servants has broken a dish."

"The destructive minxes! But where are you going, dear? Over to the hospital? Oh! they don't admit visitors on Sunday. Even on week-days you can't get in till after the surgeons have gone their rounds, and that is never before ten o'clock. It is military rule, you know; as regular as clock-work. It won't come ten till sixty minutes after nine o'clock, not if you perish. The first time I went in there, the soldier on guard came near running me through with his bayonet, just because I didn't walk in a certain particular road. I tried to reason with him; but you might as well reason with stocks and stones. There was the man in the middle of the road, and there was the point of his bayonet within an inch of my stomacher; and the upshot of the matter was, that I had to turn about and walk in a straight road instead of a curved one, for no earthly reason that I could see. You really cannot get in to-day. Wait till to-morrow, and I will go over with you."

Margaret smoothed on her gloves.

"Mrs. Black," she said, "did you ever hear of the man who said that whenever he saw 'Positively no admittance' posted up anywhere, he always went in there directly?"

"Well," the lady sighed, "I can't say but you may get in. You are your grandfather's granddaughter, and he never said fail. Only, be sure you look your best. You remember the song your mother used to sing about the chief who offered a boatman a silver pound to row him and his bride across the stormy ferry; and the Highland laddie said he would, not for the 'siller bright,' but for the 'winsome lady.' Many's the time I cried to hear your poor mother sing that, and how they all perished in the storm, and the father they were running away from stood on the shore lamenting. Your grandfather would wipe his eyes on the sly, and wait till she had finished every word of it; and then he would speak up and say that she had better be singing the praises of God. May be the officers over there will be like the Highland boatman, and do for you what they would n't do for an ugly old woman like me."

Margaret closed her ears to that piercing sentence, "the song your mother used to sing "--O silent lips!--and going out, crossed over to the hospital.

As she turned into a curved road that approached the door, a soldier pacing there presented his bayonet, probably the same one that had threatened Mrs. Black's plaited linen stomacher.

"You must go the other way," he said with military brevity.

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The smaller the warrior, the greater the martinet. Doubtless this young man regarded his present adversary with far more fierceness than he would have shown toward a six-foot Texan grey coat, with a belt bristling with armor, and two eyes like two blades.

Margaret retreated with precipitance, hiding a smile, and took the other road.

"Your pass, ma'am," said a second soldier at the step.

"I haven't any," she said pitifully, and looked with appealing eyes at an officer just inside the door.

He came out immediately.

"What is your pleasure, madam?" he asked, touching his hat.

She told her errand briefly, and handed him the letters she had brought.

Mrs. Black had not overrated the power of the winsome lady. The surgeon in charge, for this was he, merely glanced over the letters to learn the bearer's name and State. He had already found her face, voice, and gloves such as should, in his opinion, be admitted anywhere and at all times.

"Please come in," he said courteously. "It is almost inspection time now, and I must be on duty. But if you will wait in my office a little while, I shall be happy to escort you through the wards."

"Thank you! But cannot I go now, by myself?" said Margaret.

He drew himself up stiffly, in high dudgeon at the little value she set on his escort. "Certainly! You can do just as you please."

She thanked him again, and went up the hall, utterly unconscious that she had been greatly honored.

The hall was very long, so long that the door at the furthest end looked as though only a child could go through without stooping, and the wards were built out to right and left. She visited every one, walking up and down the rows of beds, her eager glance flashing from face to face. There was no face there that she had ever seen before. With a faint voice she asked for the names of those who had lately died. The names were as strange as the faces. Finally she sat down in one of the wards to rest.

The inside of the hospital was altogether less gloomy than the outside had appeared. They were in a bustle of preparation for inspection, putting clean white covers on the beds and the stands, regulating the medicine-table and the book-shelves, squaring everything, looking out that the convalescents were in trim, belt-buckles polished, shoes bright, hair smooth, jackets buttoned up to the chin.

The ward looked fresh and cheerful. The white walls were festooned with evergreen, green curtains shaded the windows, and the floor was as white as a daily scouring could make it. Nearly half of the patients were dressed, and eagerly talking over the news; and even the sickest there looked on with interest, and brightened occasionally.

"Fly round here!" cried the ward-master, a fair-faced, laughing young German. "They've gone into the next ward. Hustle those clothes out of sight somewhere. Tumble 'em out the window! Kohl, if you groan while the surgeons are here, I'll give you nothing but quinine for a week. Can't somebody see to that crazy fellow up there! He's pulling the wreath down off the wall. Pitch into him! Tell him that he shan't have a bit of ice to-day if he doesn't lie still. And there's that other light-head eating the pills all up. I'll be hanged if he hasn't swallowed twenty-five copper and opium pills! {598} Well, sir, you're dished. Long Tom, mind yourself, and keep your feet in bed."

"I can't!" whispered Tom, who seemed to be a mere boy, though his length was something preposterous. "The bed is too short."

"Well, crumple up some way," said the ward-master, laughing. "I'll have you up next week, fever or no fever. If you lie there much longer, you'll grow through the other side of the ward."

"It isn't my fault," Tom said pitifully to Miss Hamilton, who sat near him. "When I went to bed here, five weeks ago, I wasn't any taller than the ward-master; and now I believe I'm seven feet long. I believe it was that everlasting quinine!" And poor Tom burst into tears.

"Here they are!" said the ward-master. "Attention!"

Instantly all was silence. Each convalescent stood at the foot of his bed, and the nurses were drawn up inside the door. The little procession of surgeons appeared, marched up one side of the ward and down the other, and out the door; and the inspection was over.

As they passed by her, one of them, in drawing his handkerchief from his pocket, drew with it a card, which, unseen by him, dropped at Margaret's feet. She took it up, and saw the photograph of the gentleman who had dropped it, dressed in the uniform of a Confederate colonel.

"Who was that last surgeon in the line?" she asked of Tom.

"That's our surgeon, Doctor A----. He is a Virginian."

"Who is his guarantee here, do you know?" she inquired.

"He's a friend of Senator Wyly's," Tom said.

An orderly came to the door. "Every man who is able to carry a rifle get ready to go down to Camp Distribution," he said. "Don't let any of 'em shirk, Linn. Send some of those fellows down to the office to be examined. Every man is wanted."

As Margaret went out, she saw Surgeon A---- hasten from one of the wards, and look along the floor of the hall, as if in search of something. His face was very pale, she saw, and he looked up sharply at her as she approached him.

"Perhaps you miss this photograph, Col. A---," she said, offering it to him.

His face reddened violently as he took it. "Has any one seen it besides you, madam?" he asked.

"No one."

"Will you give me an opportunity to explain?" he asked eagerly. "If you would permit me to call on you, or accompany you out now--"

"By no means," she replied coldly. "I do not wish to hear any explanation. I am here on business of my own, and shall not, probably, take any further notice of what I have seen. But if on second thought I should consider myself obliged to mention it, you can make your explanation to Mr. Lincoln."

She left him at that, and went home to hear Mrs. Black's compliments on her success.

There were no more visits that day; but the next morning a close carriage was sent to the door, and Margaret began her rounds.

In the afternoon she found herself going out Fourteenth street toward Columbia Hospital. There was a shower, and as the horses plodded along through the pouring floods of southern rain, she leaned her face upon her hand and wondered sadly what was to come of this search of hers, and if that strange, irresistible impulse on which she had been shot, like Camilla on her spear, over every obstacle to her coming, had been, after all, but a vain whim.

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Looking up presently, she found that they were in the midst of what seemed to her an army, soldiers crowding close to the carriage, and stretching forward and backward as far as she could see. It was the Sixth corps, one of them told her, going out to meet Early and Breckinridge.

They were marching in a mob, without order, plodding wearily through the rain that just served to wash from them the stains of their last battle. Their faces were browned and sober, their clothes faded and stained; many, foot-sore with long marches, carried their shoes in their hands. They were little enough like the gay troops she had seen march away from home.

When they came to the college hospital, it was found impossible to reach the side-walk through that crowd, and Margaret ordered the driver to wait till they should pass. As she leaned back in her carriage and watched the living stream flow slowly over the hill, a gentleman came out of the hospital, and, standing on the sidewalk opposite her, seemed to be looking for some one among them. Presently his face brightened with a recognizing smile, and he waved his handkerchief to one who was riding near. As the horseman drew up between her and the sidewalk, Margaret's heart seemed to leap into her mouth. He was wrapped in a cloak, and a wide-brimmed hat, still dripping from the spent shower, shaded his face; but she knew him at the first glance.

"O Mr. Granger!"

A shout from the convalescents collected outside the tent wards drowned her glad cry, and the next instant she would not for the world have repeated it. By a sudden revulsion of feeling, the face that had flushed with delight now burned with unutterable shame and humiliation.

For the first time she looked on what she had done as the world might look upon it--as Mr. Granger himself might look upon it. Friends or foes, he was a gentleman, and she a lady, and not a baby. She, wandering from place to place, unbidden, in search of him, weeping, praying, making a fool of herself, she thought bitterly, and he sitting his horse there gallantly, safe and merry, within reach of her hand, showing his white teeth in a laugh, stroking down his beard with that gesture she knew so well, taking off his hat to shake the raindrops from it, and loop up the aigrette at the side!

She had time to remember with a pang of envy the quiet, guarded women who sit at home, and take no step without first thinking what the world will say of it.

"If he should think of me at all," she said to herself, "he would fancy me at home, trailing my dress over his carpets, making little strokes with a paint-brush, having a care lest I ink my fingers, or teaching Dora to spell propriety--as I ought to be! as I ought to be! I need a keeper!"

But still, with her veil drawn close, she looked at him steadily; for, after all, he was going into battle, and he was her friend. As she looked, he glanced up at one of the hospital windows, and immediately his glance became an earnest gaze. He ceased speaking, and his face showed surprise and perplexity.

"What do you see?" his friend asked.

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"Strange!" he muttered, half to himself. "It is only a resemblance, of course, but I fancied I saw there a face I know, looking out at me. It is gone now."

Whatever it was, the sight appeared to sober as well as perplex him. He took leave of his friend, and, drawing back to join his regiment, brought his horse round rather roughly against Miss Hamilton's carriage.

"I beg your pardon, madam!" he said at once, taking off his hat to the veiled lady he saw there.

He must have thought her scarcely courteous; for she merely nodded, and immediately turned her face away.

He rode slowly on, looking back once more to the hospital window, and in a few minutes was out of sight.

"Will you get out now?" asked the driver.

Margaret started.

"Why, yes."

She went in and seated herself in the hall. "I want to rest," she said to a soldier who stood there. "I don't feel quite well."

A slight, elderly lady in a black dress, and with her bonnet a little awry, came down the stairs, and stood looking about as though she expected some one.

"Can you tell me where Miss Blank is to be found?" she asked of the soldier to whom Margaret had spoken. "She has been out in the tent wards, and there she comes," he said, nodding toward a young woman who came in at the door furthest from them, and, with a face expressive of apprehension, approached the waiting lady.

"You wished to see me?" she asked tremulously.

"Yes," was the reply. "You will be ready to return home to-morrow, or as soon as communication is reestablished. I will send your transportation papers to-night. You need not go into the wards again."

The young woman stared in speechless distress and astonishment, her eyes filling with tears.

"Is that Miss Dix?" Margaret asked of the soldier.

"Yes," he replied. "She makes short work of it. That is one of the best nurses, and the best dresser in the hospital."

"Why is she dismissed?"

"Miss Dix has probably heard something about her. She's a good young woman, but the old lady is mighty particular."

Margaret rose to meet Miss Dix as she came along the hall.

"I am going to stay in Washington a few days," she said, "and I would like to be useful while I am here. Can I do anything for you?"

"Who are you?" asked the lady. Margaret presented her credentials, and Miss Dix glanced them over, then looked sharply at their owner.

"I am afraid you are too young," she said.

"I am twenty-eight, and I feel a hundred," said Margaret.

"Do you know anything about nursing?"

"As much as ladies usually know."

"Will you go to a disagreeable place?"

"Yes, if it is not out of the city."

"Come, then; my ambulance is at the door."

In two minutes the carriage was dismissed, and Margaret was seated in the ambulance, and on her way down to the city again.

"You will be very careful who you speak to," the lady began; "you will dress in the plainest possible manner, wear no ornaments, and, of course, high necks and long sleeves. Your hair--are those waves natural?"

"Yes'm!" said Margaret humbly, and was about to add that perhaps she could straighten them out, but checked herself.

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"Well, dress your hair very snugly, wear clean collars, and don't let your clothes drag. It looks untidy. Is that dress quite plain?"

Margaret threw back the thin mantle she wore, and showed a gray dress of nunlike plainness.

"That will do," the lady said approvingly.

Here they turned into the square, and got out at the door of the hospital Margaret had visited the day before. She was introduced to the officer of the day, received an astonished bow from the surgeon-in-charge in passing, caught a glimpse of Doctor A----, and was escorted to her ward.

"Be you the new lady nurse?" asked Long Tom.

"So it seems; but I am not quite sure," she said.

"I'm proper glad," said Tom, with an ecstatic grin. "I liked the looks of you when I saw you yesterday."

"And so here I am 'at the court of the king,'" she thought.