Chapter 11

"And I told him it was none of his business," said Frank, remorsefully. "O, he will never forgive me now; and who can blame him? Good old man! dear, good old man! My mother told me to be always very kind to him--and how have I repaid his goodness to me!"

It seemed now that the boy could not control his impatience until once more he had seen his benefactor, confessed all to him, and heard him say he was forgiven for his unkindness and ingratitude.

But the old drummer still remained on board the steamer. And Frank had only this faith to comfort him--that if his repentance was sincere, and he henceforth did only what was right, all would yet be well.

The next morning he was viewing the sunrise from the deck, when Seth Tucket came to his side.

"'Once more upon the waters! yet once more! and the waves bound beneath me as the steed that knows his rider--welcome to their roar!' Only they don't bound much, and they don't roar to-day," said Seth. "The boys have found out it's Sunday; and as we're to have a battle 'fore the week's out, they seem to think it's about as well to remember there's a difference in days. How are you, Manly?"

"Better," said Frank, with a smile.

"Happy?"--with a grimace meant to be sympathizing, but which was droll enough to be laughable.

"Happier than I was," said the drummer boy. "Happier than I've been for a long time."

"What! not happier, now you've lost every thing, than when you was hevin' such luck at play?"

"I wasn't happy then. I thought I was. But I was only excited. I am happier now that I've lost every thing; it's true, Tucket."

"Well, I swan to man! I thought you was mourning over your luck, and I was bringing ye sunthin' to kind o' cheer ye up. Glad to hear you've no need. Fine day, but rather windy. Wonder what's the time!"

So saying, Seth drew out the watch, and regarded it with provoking coolness.

"I'm plagued ef the darned thing hain't run down! Say, Frank, ye couldn't think of throwin' in the key, too--could ye? I can't wind her up without a key."

Frank choked a little, but his look was cheerful, as he put his hand in his pocket, and, without a word, delivered over to the new owner of the watch the key also.

"Thank ye; much obleeged;" and Seth "wound her up" with extraordinary parade. Then he shook it, and held it to his ear. Then he said, "All right! she's a puttin' in again, lickety-switch! Good watch, that." Then he set it "by guess." Then he was returning it to his pocket, when a new thought seemed to strike him.

"What do ye do for a watch-pocket, Frank? Gov'ment don't provide watch-pockets, seems."

"I made one for myself," said Frank.

"Sho now! ye didn't, though--did ye? What with?"

"With a needle and thread I brought from home, and with another old pocket," said Frank.

"Well, you air the cutest! Say, what'll ye tax to make me one? I don't care to hev it very large; a small watch, so."

A dry proposal, that. It was not enough to furnish watch and watch-key; but Frank was required also to provide a watch-pocket.

"What do ye say?" asked Seth, with a shrewd squint.

"I'll make you one for nothing," said Frank.

"Come, by darn!" exclaimed Seth; "none o' that, now!"

"None of what?"

"You're a-trying my disposition!"--And, indeed, Tucket was visibly moved; there was a tear in his eye--a bona fide tear. "I've a good disposition, nat'rally; but I shall git riled ef you say much more. I've got your watch, and that's all right. I've got the key, and that's all right, too. But when you talk of makin' a watch-pocket for nothin', I tell ye a saint couldn't stand that."

Frank, who thought he had learned to know pretty well the man's oddities, was puzzled this time.

"I didn't mean to offend you, Tucket."

"No, you didn't. And now see here, Manly. We'll jest compromise this matter, ef you've no 'bjection. I've no watch-pocket, and you've no watch. So, s'posin' you carry the watch for me, and tell me what time it is when I ax ye? That won't be too much trouble--will it?"

"Are you in earnest?" asked Frank.

"Yes, I be, clean up to the hub. The truth is, I can't carry that watch with any kind o' comfort, and I'm bent on gitt'n' it off my hands, ef I hef to throw it overboard. Here! It's yours; take it, and be darned!" said Seth.

"I was going to propose to you,"--stammered Frank from his too full heart,--"to take the watch, and pay you for it when I can."

"Ez for that the pay's no consequence. I was more to blame than you; and the loss ought to be mine."

"But----" insisted Frank.

"No buts! Besides, I never make bargains Sundays." And Seth turned away, abruptly, leaving the watch in Frank's hand.

The boy would have called him back, but a rush of emotions--joy, gratitude, contrition--choked his voice. A dash of tears fell upon the watch as he gazed on it, and pressed it, and would have kissed it, had he been alone. It was his again; and that, after all, was an unalloyed satisfaction. He could lie awake nights and study days to devise means to reward Seth's generosity. And he would do it, he resolved. And Mr. Sinjin should know that he had recovered the prize, and that he held it all the more precious since he had found out the giver.

XX.

SUNDAY BEFORE THE BATTLE.

Frank was leaning over the rail of the schooner gazing down at the beautiful flashing water, and thinking of home. It was Sunday there, too, he remembered; and he could almost hear the sweet-toned bells solemnly chiming, and see the atmosphere of Sabbath peace brooding over field and village, and feel the serious gladness of the time. The folks were getting ready for church. There was his father, shaved and clean, in his black stock and somewhat threadbare, but still respectable, best coat. And there was Helen, bright and blooming, with her bonnet on, and with her Bible and question-book in her hand, setting out for the morning Sunday-school. His mother was not going to meeting; she was to stay at home with Hattie, and read to her, or, what was better, comfort her with affectionate, gentle, confiding words. But Willie was going with Helen, as he seemed anxious, by strut, and hurry, and loud, impatient talk, to let every body know. And Frank wished from his heart that he could be with them that day; and he wondered, did they miss him, and were they thinking of him, far off here in Carolina waters, alone in the midst of such crowds of men?

"Wouldn't I like to be in that boat, boys!" said Ellis. "Don't she come dancing on the waves!"

"She's pulling towards us," said Atwater. "I believe they're coming aboard."

"O, Atwater!" cried Frank, as the boat drew near. "There's a face there I know! One you know, too!" And he clapped his hands with joy; for it was a face he had seen in Boston, and he felt that it came with news from home.

The rare brightness kindled in Atwater's eyes as he gazed, and remembered. The boat came alongside, and hailed the schooner. And a man in the bow, as it rose upon a wave, seizing hold of the ladder of tarred rope, stepped quickly upon it, and came on board, cordially received by Captain Edney, who appeared to have been expecting him.

"It's the minister that married Atwater!" the rumor ran round among the troops. "What's his name, Frank?"

"His name's Egglestone," said Frank, his heart swelling with anxiety to speak with him.

The minister had come on a mission of Christian love to the soldiers of the expedition; and having, the day before, sent word to Captain Edney of his arrival, he had in return received an invitation to visit the schooner and preach to the men this Sunday morning.

A previous announcement that religious services would probably be held on board, had excited little interest; the troops surmising that the chaplain of the regiment, who had never been with them enough to win their hearts or awaken their attention, was to rejoin them, and preach one of his formal discourses.

But far different was the feeling when it was known that the "man that married Atwater" was to conduct the exercises. Then the soldiers remembered that they were New Englanders; and that here also God's Sabbath shed its silent influence, far though they were from the rude hills and rocky shores of home.

'Tis curious how a little leaven of memory will sometimes work in the heart. Here was half a regiment of men, who had come to fight the battles of their country. As with one accord they had left the amenities of peaceful life behind them, and assumed the rugged manners of war. Of late they had seemed almost oblivious of the fact that God, and Christian worship, and Christian rules of life were still in existence. But to-day they were reminded. To-day the child was awakened--the child that had known the wholesome New England nurture, that had sat on mother's knee, and had its earliest thought tuned to the music of Sunday bells; the child that lay hidden in the deep heart of every man of them, the same lived again, and looked forth from the eyes, and smiled once more in the softened visage of the man. And the man was carried back, far from these strange scenes, far from the relentless iron front of war, across alien lands, and over stormy seas,--carried back by the child yearning within,--to the old door yard, the village trees, the family fireside, the family pew, and the hushed congregation.

It was Mr. Egglestone's aim, in the beginning of the sermon he preached that morning, to remind the soldiers of their childhood. "It is a thought," he said, "which almost moves me to tears,--that all these hardy frames around me were but the soft, warm, dimpled forms of so many infants once. And nearly every one of you was, I suppose, watched over by tender parents, who beheld, with mutual joy, the development of each beautiful faculty. The first step taken by the babe's unassisted feet, the first articulate word spoken by the little lisping lips,--what delight they gave, and how long were they remembered! And what thoughts of the child's future came day and night to those parents' breasts! and of what earnest prayers was it the subject! And of all the parents of all those children who are here as men to-day, not one foresaw a scene like this; none dreamed that they were raising up patriots to fight for freedom's second birth on this continent, in the most stupendous of civil wars.

"But Providence leads us by strange ways, and by hidden paths we come upon brinks of destiny which no prophet foresaw. Now the days of peace are over. Many of you who were children are now the fathers of children. But your place is not at home to watch over them as you were watched over, but to strive by some means to work out a harder problem than any ever ciphered on slates at school."

Then he explained to his audience the origin of the war; for he believed it best that every soldier should understand well the cause he was fighting for. He spoke of the compact of States, which could not be rightfully broken. He spoke of the serpent that had been nursed in the bosom of those States. He related how slavery, from being at first a merely tolerated evil, which all good men hoped soon to see abolished, had grown arrogant, aggressive, monstrous; until, angered by resistance to its claims, it had deluged the land with blood. Such was the nature of an institution based upon selfishness and wrong. And such was the bitter result of building a LIE into the foundations of our national structure. Proclaiming to the world, as the first principle of our republican form of government, that "all men are created free and equal," we had at the same time held a race in bondage.

"Neither nation nor individual," said he, "can in any noble sense succeed, with such rotten inconsistency woven into its life. It was this shoddy in the garment of our Goddess of Liberty, which has occasioned the rent which those needles there"--pointing to some bayonets--"must mend. And it is this shoddy of contradiction and infidelity which makes many a man's prosperity, seemingly substantial at first, promising warmth and wear, fall suddenly to pieces, and leave his soul naked to the winds of heaven."

It was not so much a sermon as a friendly, affectionate, earnest talk with the men, whom he sought to counsel and encourage. There was a melting love in his tones which went to their inmost souls. And when he exhorted them to do the work of men who feared God, but not any mortal foe, who dreaded dishonor, but not death, he made every heart ring with the stirring appeal.

Then suddenly his voice sank to a tone of solemn sweetness, as he said,--

"Peace! O, my brothers! struggle and violence are not the all of life. But God's love, the love of man to man, holiness, blessedness,--it is for these realities we are created, and placed here on this beautiful earth, under this blue sky, with human faces and throbbing human hearts around us. And the end of all is PEACE. But only through fiery trial and valiant doing can any peace worth the name come to us; and to make the future truly blessed, we must make the present truly brave."

Before and after the discourse the men sang some of the good old tunes which all had been familiar with at home, and which descended like warm rain upon the ground where the scattered seed of the sermon fell.

The services ended, Mr. Egglestone went freely among the soldiers, and conversed with any who wanted to have speech of him; especially with Atwater; whose wife he had seen a few days before leaving Boston, where she came to see him, having learned who he was, and that he was about departing for the army in which her husband served.

After long waiting, Frank's turn came at last. They sat down on a bench apart; and the clergyman told him he had lately seen his mother, and that she had charged him with many messages. And one was a message of sorrow.

"She had heard unwelcome news of you," he said, holding the boy's hand. "And she wished me to say to you what I could to save you from what she dreads most--what any wise, loving mother dreads most for her child. But is there need of my saying any thing? By what your captain tells me, and still more by what your face tells me, I am convinced that I may spare my words. You have had in your own experience a better lesson than any body can teach you. You have erred, you have suffered. And"--he took a letter from his pocket--"I have something here to make you remember what you have learned--I think, for always."

Frank had listened, humbly, tremblingly, full of tears which he did not shed for the eyes that were about them. But now he started, and took the letter eagerly. "What's it? any bad news?" for he felt an alarming presentiment.

"I do not think it is bad. If you had seen what I saw, you would not think so either." Mr. Egglestone's manner was exceedingly tender, and his voice was liquid and low. "All is well with your folks at home; both with those who are there as you left them, and with the one whose true home is not there any longer, but in a brighter land, we trust."

"O!"--it was almost a cry of pain that broke from Frank. "Hattie?"

"Yes, Frank; it is of Hattie I am speaking. She has passed away. I was present, and saw her depart. And she was very calm and happy, and her last look was a smile, and her last words were words of hope and love. The letter will tell you all about it. I recall one thing, however, which I will repeat, since it so nearly concerns you. They were speaking of you. And she said, 'Maybe I shall see him before any of you will! Yes!' she added, her face shining already like a spirit's with the joyful thought, 'tell him how I love him; and say that I shall be with him when he does not know!' And I am sure that, if it is possible for souls that have escaped from these environments of flesh to be near us still, she will often be near you, loving you, influencing you. Perhaps she is present now, and hears all we say, and sees how badly you feel, and thinks you would not feel quite so badly if you knew that she is happy."

Frank would have spoken, to ask some earnest question which arose in his heart; but his feelings were too much agitated, and he could not trust his voice.

"We will believe such things are true of our lost ones," Mr. Egglestone said, with a parting pressure of the boy's hand. "For, with that faith, we shall surely try so to live that, when they approach us, they will not be repelled; and thus we will be guarded from evil, if not by any direct influence of theirs, then by our own reverence and love for them."

With this he took his leave. And Frank crept into his bunk, and turned away his face, before he dared to open and read his mother's letter.

In that letter there were no reproofs for his misconduct. But in place of such his mother had written the simple story of Hattie's death, with many affecting little details, showing her thoughtful tenderness for all, her cheerful sweetness, and her love for Frank. Then followed affectionate messages from them at home, who were very lonely now, and longed to have him with them--all which had a power beyond any reproaches to win the boy back to that purity of heart and life which belonged to his home-affections, and was safe when they were strong, and was imperilled when they were forgotten.

"O, to think," he said to himself, "only this morning I was imagining how it looked at home to-day--and it is all so different! I am gone, and now Hattie is gone too!"

XXI.

UP THE SOUND.

So passed that Sunday, memorable to the expedition; for it ushered in the battle-week.

Besides the transports and store-ships belonging to the coast division, a squadron of United States gunboats, under command of Commodore Goldsborough, had rendezvoused at the inlet. These were to take care of the rebel fleet, attend to the shore batteries, and prepare the way for the operation of the land forces.

All the vessels destined to take part in the advance were now over the bulkhead, in Pamlico Sound. On Monday, the sailing vessels were hauled into position, each astern of its steam-consort, by which it was to be towed. Sixty-five vessels of various classes were to participate in the movement; while upwards of fifty were to remain behind at the inlet, holding in reserve sixty days' supply of stores for the entire expedition.

The stay at the inlet had occasionally been enlivened by the arrival of refugees, white and black, from the coast of North Carolina. Some of these were citizens escaped from the persecutions meted out by the rebels to all who still remained loyal to the old flag. Some were deserters from the confederate army, in which they had been compelled to serve. Others were slaves fleeing from bondage to freedom.

Again, on Monday, a sail-boat hove in sight, and, being overhauled by one of the gunboats, proved to be loaded with these fugitives. They were mostly negroes; two of whom were bright, intelligent boys, who gave such evidence of joy at their escape, of loyalty to the Union, and of a thorough knowledge of the country, that Flag-officer Goldsborough retained them for the information they might be able to give, while the rest were sent ashore.

And now, general orders were read to the troops, announcing to them that they were soon to land on the coast of North Carolina, and reminding them that they were there, not to pillage or destroy private property, but to subdue the rebellion, and to maintain the Constitution and the laws.

Monday and Tuesday were occupied with preparations. But early Wednesday morning--more than three weeks after the arrival of the expedition at the inlet--the signals to weigh anchor and set sail were given.

Commodore Goldsborough's gunboat took the lead. Other vessels of the naval squadron followed. Then came the transports--a goodly spectacle.

"''Twere wuth ten years of peaceful life, one glance at our array,'" observed the poetical Tucket.

Each brigade formed three columns of steamers and sailing vessels in tow; and brigade followed brigade. The shallow water of the sound was scarcely ruffled by a breeze. It lay like a field of silver before the furrows of the fleet. The tall, taper masts of the schooners pointed like needles to the sky under which they moved. The aisles between the three columns of ships were unbroken through the whole length of the fleet, which extended for two miles over the surface of the sound, and advanced with such slow and uniform motion, each vessel keeping its position, that now all seemed moving as one, and again all seemed at rest, with the waters of the sound flowing past their steady keels.

As yet, the destination of the fleet was unknown. As it proceeded at first southward and westward, the rumor grew that Newbern was to be attacked. But it was only the course of the channel which thus far shaped its course; and after a few zigzag turns, the cause of which was inexplicable to the green ones, ignorant of the shoals, it began to steer due north. Then all doubts with regard to its destination vanished.

"Roanoke Island, boys! Roanoke Island!" was echoed from mouth to mouth on board the schooner.

The day was beautiful--only a light breeze blowing, and a few light clouds floating in the blue ether. And now the vessels at the inlet began to sink below the horizon; first, the hulls, then the decks disappeared; and lastly, spars and rigging went down behind the curve of the sphere, and were visible no more to the clearest glass.

At the same time emerged in the west the main land of North Carolina. At first, tall cypresses rose to view, growing as it were "out of a mirror." Then appeared the long swampy shores, lying dim and low, with here and there a miserable fish-house, the sole trace of human habitation.

At sundown the fleet was within ten miles of Roanoke Island. The signal from the flag-ship was given, at which the vessels of each brigade drew together, the clank of running-out chains sounded along the lines, the anchors plashed, and the fleet was moored for the night.

As yet there were no signs of rebels. What the morrow, what the night, might bring forth was all uncertainty. The night set in dark enough. But soon the sky cleared, the moon came out resplendent, and the stars looked down from their far eternal calm upon the evanescent shows of mortal conflict--the batteries of the rebellion yonder, and here the fleet, no more than the tiniest shells to those distant, serene, awful eyes of Deity. And Frank looked up at the stars; and the spirit within him said, "They will shine the same to-morrow night, and the next night, and forever; and whether there is war or peace, whether victory comes or defeat, and whether thou, child, art living or art dead, they know not, they change not, neither do they rejoice or mourn." And the thought sank deep into the heart of the boy as he retired to his bed, and closed his eyes to sleep.

A sharp lookout was kept for the rebel gunboats all night, but they never made their appearance. The next morning the weather was heavy--promising rain. At eight o'clock, however, the signal to weigh anchor--the Union Jack at the foremast, and the American flag at the stern--was telegraphed from the flag-ship, and repeated by the flag-ship of each brigade. Again the fleet got in motion, approaching the entrance to Croatan Sound. The water was shoal, and progress was slow, and soon it came on to rain. It was a dismal day; rain on the decks, rain on the water, rain on the marshy shores of the main land, and over the forests beyond, where the ghosts of blasted trees stretched their naked arms despairingly to the dripping clouds. And now a low swampy point of Roanoke Island pushes out into the dim water, under a veil of rain.