Westways: A Village Chronicle Part 65

Mrs. Crocker called after her, "You forgot the papers."

"Burn them," said Leila. "I have heard enough-and more than enough, and Aunt Ann never reads them."

Penhallow had found time to visit his home twice in the winter, but found there little to please him. His wife was obviously feeling the varied strain of war, and Leila showed plainly that she too was suffering. He returned to his work unhappy, a discontented and resolutely dutiful man, hard driven by a relentless superior. Now, at last, the relief of action had come.

No one who has not lived through those years of war can imagine the variety of suffering which darkened countless homes throughout the land. At Grey Pine, Ann Penhallow living in a neighbourhood which was hostile to her own political creed was deeply distressed by the fact that on both sides were men dear to her. It must have been a too common addition to the misery of war and was not in some cases without pa.s.sionate resentment. There were Northern men in the service of the Confederacy, and of the Southern graduates from West Point nearly fifty per cent, had remained loyal to the flag, as they elected to understand loyalty. The student of human motives may well be puzzled, for example, to explain why two of the most eminent soldiers of the war, both being men of the highest character and both Virginians should have decided to take different sides.

Some such reflection occupied Leila Grey's mind as she rode away. Many of the officers now in one of the two armies had dined or stayed a few pleasant days at Grey Pine. For one of them, Robert Lee, Penhallow had a warm regard. She remembered too General Scott, a Virginian, and her aunt's Southern friend Drayton, the man whom a poet has since described when with Farragut as "courtly, gallant and wise." "Ah, me!" she murmured, "duty must be at times a costly luxury.-A costly necessity," she concluded, was better-that left no privilege of choice. She smiled, dismissing the mental problem, and rode on full of anxiety for those she loved and her unfortunate country. Our most profound emotions are for the greater souls dumb and have no language if it be not that of prayer, or the tearful overflow which means so much and is so mysteriously helpful. She found both forms of expression when she knelt that night.

In the afternoon the refres.h.i.+ng upland coolness of evening followed on the humid heat of a hot June day. Towards sunset Ann Penhallow, to her niece's surprise, drew on her shawl and said she would like to walk down to the little river. Any proposal to break the routine of a life unwholesome in its monotony was agreeable to Leila. No talk of the war was possible. When Ann Penhallow now more and more rarely and with effort went on her too frequently needed errands of relief or consolation, the village people understood her silence about the war, and accepting her bounty somewhat resented an att.i.tude of mind which forbade the pleasant old familiarity of approach.

The life was unhealthy for Leila, and McGregor watched its influence with affection and some professional apprehension. Glad of any change, Leila walked with her aunt through the garden among the roses in which now her aunt took no interest. They heard the catbirds carolling in the hedges, and Ann thought of the day a year ago when she listened to them with James Penhallow at her side. They reached in silence an open s.p.a.ce above the broad quiet backwater. Beyond a low beach the river flowed by, wide and smooth, a swift stream. From the western side the sunset light fell in widening shafts of scarlet across the water.

"Let us sit here," said the elder woman. "I am too weak to walk further"-for her a strange confession. As they sat down on the mossy carpet, Leila caught the pa.s.sive hand of her aunt.

"I suppose you still swim here, every morning, Leila? I used to like it-I have now no heart for anything."

Leila could only say, "Why not, aunt?"

"How can you ask me! I think-I dream of nothing but this unnatural war."

"Is that wise, aunt? or as Dr. McGregor would say, 'wholesome'?"

"It is not; but I cannot help it-it darkens my whole life. Billy was up at the house this morning talking in his wild way. I did not even try to understand, but"-and she hesitated-"I suppose I had better know."

This was strange to Leila, who too hesitated, and then concluding to be frank returned, "It might have been better, aunt, if you had known all along what was going on-"

"What would have been the use?" said her aunt in a tone of languid indifference. "It can end in but one way."

A sensation of anger rose dominant in the mind of the girl. It was hard to bear. She broke out into words of pa.s.sionate resentment-the first revolt. "You think only of your dear South-of your friends-your brother-"

"Leila!"

She was past self-control or other control. "Well, then, be glad Lee is in Pennsylvania-General Ewell has taken York and Hagerstown-there will be a great battle. May G.o.d help the right-my country!"

"General Lee," cried Ann; "Lee in Pennsylvania! Then that will end the war. I am glad James is safe in Was.h.i.+ngton." Leila already self-reproachful, was silent.

To tell her he was with the army of the North would be cruel and was what James Penhallow had forbidden.

"He is in Was.h.i.+ngton?" asked Ann anxiously.

"When last I heard, he was in Was.h.i.+ngton, aunt, and as you know, John is before Vicksburg with General Grant."

"They will never take it-never."

"Perhaps not, Aunt Ann," said Leila, penitent. The younger woman was disinclined to talk and sat quiet, one of the millions who were wondering what the next few days would bring.

The light to westward was slowly fading as she remained with hands clasped about her knees and put aside the useless longing to know what none could know. Her anger was gone as she caught with a side glance the frail look of Ann Penhallow. She felt too the soothing benediction of the day's most sacred hour.

Of a sudden Ann Penhallow bounded to her feet. A thunderous roar broke on the evening stillness. The smooth backwater s.h.i.+vered and the cat-tails and reeds swayed, as the sound struck echoes from the hills and died away. Leila caught and stayed the swaying figure. "It is only the first of the great new siege guns they are trying on the lower meadows. Sit down, dear, for a moment. Do be careful-you are getting"-she hesitated-"hysterical. There will be another presently. Do sit down, dear aunt. Don't be nervous." She was alarmed by her aunt's silent statuesque position. She could have applied no wiser remedy than her warning advice. No woman likes to be told she is nervous or hysterical and now it acted with the certainty of a charm.

"I am not nervous-it was so sudden. I was startled." She turned away with a quick movement of annoyance, releasing herself from Leila's arm. "Let's go home. Oh, my G.o.d!" she cried, as once again the cannon-roar shook the leaves on the upward slope before them. "It is the voice of war. Can I never get away from it-never-never?"

"You will not be troubled again to-day," said the girl, "and the smaller guns on the further meadow we hardly notice at the house."

Ann's steps quickened. She had been scared at her own realization of her want of self-government and was once more in command of her emotions. "Do not talk to me, Leila. I was quite upset-I am all right now."

The great guns were sent away next day on their errands of destruction. Then the two lonely women waited as the whole country waited for news which whatever it might be would carry grief to countless homes.

On the second day of July, 1863, under a heavy cloud of dust which hung high in air over the approach of the Baltimore Pike to Gettysburg, the long column of the reserve artillery of the Potomac army rumbled along the road, and more and more clearly the weary men heard the sound of cannon. About ten in the morning the advance guard was checked and the line came to a halt. James Penhallow, who since dawn had been urging on his command, rode in haste along the side of the c.u.mbered road to where a hurrying brigade of infantry crossing his way explained why his guns were thus brought to a standstill. He saw that he must wait for the foot soldiers to go by. The cannoneers dismounted from the horses or dropped off the caissons, and glad of a rest lit their pipes and lay down or wandered about in search of water.

The Colonel, pleased to be on time, was in gay good-humour as he talked to the men or listened to the musketry fire far to the left. He said to a group of men, "We are all as grey as the Rebs, boys, but it is good Pennsylvania dust." As he spoke a roar of laughter was heard from the neighbourhood of the village cemetery on his right. He rode near it and saw the men gathered before an old notice board. He read: "Any person found using fire arms in this vicinity will be prosecuted according to law." Penhallow shook with laughter. "Guess we'll have to be right careful, Colonel," said a sergeant.

"You will, indeed."

"It's an awful warning, boys," said a private. "Shouldn't wonder if Bob Lee set it up to scare us."

"I'd like to take it home." They chaffed the pa.s.sing infantry, and were answered in kind. Penhallow impatient saw that the road would soon be clear. As he issued quick orders and men mounted in haste, a young aide rode up, saluted, and said, "I have orders, Colonel, from General Hunt to guide you to where he desires your guns to be parked."

"One moment," said Penhallow; "the road is a tangle of wagons:" and to a captain, "Ride on and side-track those wagons; be quick too." Then he said to the aide, "We have a few minutes-how are things going? I heard of General Reynold's death, and little more."

"Yes, we were outnumbered yesterday and-well licked. Why they did not rush us, the Lord knows!"

"Give me some idea of our position."

"Well, sir, here to our right is Cemetery Hill, strongly held; to your left the line turns east and then south in a loop to wooded hills-one Culp's, they call it. That is our right. There is a row on there as you can hear. Before us as we stand our position runs south along a low ridge and ends on two pretty high-wooded hills they call Round Tops. That's our left. From our front the ground slopes down some forty feet or so, and about a mile away the Rebs hold the town seminary and a long low rise facing us."

"Thank you, that seems pretty clear. There is firing over beyond the cemetery?"

"Yes, the skirmishers get cross now and then. The road seems clear, sir."

Orders rang out and the guns rattled up the pike like some monstrous articulated insect, all enc.u.mbering wagons being swept aside to make way for the privileged guns.

"You are to park here, sir, on the open between this and the Taneytown road. There is a brook-a creek."

"Thanks, that is clear."

The ground thus chosen lay some hundred yards behind the low crest held midway of our line by the Second Corps, whence the ground fell away in a gentle slope. The s.p.a.ce back of our line was in what to a layman's eye would have seemed the wildest confusion of wagons, ambulances, ammunition mules, cattle, and wandering men. It was slowly a.s.suming some order as the Provost Guard, dusty, despotic and cross, ranged the wagons, drove back stragglers, and left wide lanes for the artillery to move at need to the front.

The colonel spent some hours in getting his guns placed and in seeing that no least detail was lacking. With orders about instant readiness, with a word of praise here, of sharp criticism there, he turned away a well-contented man and walked up the slope in search of the headquarters. As he approached the front, he saw the bushy ridge in which, or back of which, the men lay at rest. Behind them were surgeons selecting partially protected places for immediate aid, stretcher-bearers, ambulances and all the mechanism of help for the wounded. Officers were making sure that men had at hand one hundred rounds of ammunition.

Some three hundred yards behind the mid-centre of the Second Corps, on the Taneytown road, Penhallow was directed to a small, rather shabby one-storey farm-house. "By George," he murmured, "here is one general who means to be near the front." He was met at the door by the tall handsome figure of General Hanc.o.c.k, a blue-eyed man with a slight moustache over a square expressively firm jaw.

"Glad to see you, Penhallow. Meade was anxious-I knew you would be on time. Come in."

Penhallow saw before him a mean little room, on one side a wide bed with a gaudy coverlet, on a pine table in the centre a bucket of water, a tin cup, and a candle-stick. Five rickety rush-covered chairs completed the furnis.h.i.+ngs.

Meade rose from study of the map an engineer officer was explaining. He was unknown to Penhallow, who observed him with interest-a tall spare man with grey-sprinkled dark hair a large Roman nose and spectacles over wide blue eyes; a gentleman of the best, modest, una.s.suming, and now carelessly clad.

"Colonel Penhallow," said Hanc.o.c.k.

"Glad to see you." He turned to receive with evident pleasure a report of the morning's fight on the right wing, glanced without obvious interest at the captured flag of the Stonewall Brigade, and greeted the colonel warmly. "I can only offer you water," he said. "Sit down. You may like to look over this map."