 CHAPTER 55. A DEAD LETTER. With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of the compass than I can tell. Sometimes the fishermen said how many, but I might be quite wrong in repeating it. One thing at any rate was within my compass. It had been blowing to the top of its capacity direct from the sea, but now it began to blow quite as hard along the shore. This rough ingratitude of wind to waves which had followed each breath of its orders produced extraordinary passion and rigged them into pointed windcocks. Captain, we can't live this out, cried Barnes. We must run or ashore at once. The tide has turned. We might be blown out the sea with one oar. Then the Lord himself could not save us. Crippled as we were we contrived to get into a creek or backwater near the major's gate. Here the men ran the boat up, and we all climbed out, stiff, battered and terrified, but doing our best to be most truly thankful. Go home, Captain, as fast as you can and take the young lady along of you, said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the weltering breadth of disaster. We are born to the drip but not you, sir, and you are not so young as you was, you know. I am younger than I ever was, the Lord of the manor answered sternly, yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his better half, who had never heard of his danger. None of that nonsense to me, Barnes, you know your position, and I know mine. On board of that boat you took the lead, and that may have misled you. I am very much obliged to you, I am sure, for all your skill and courage which have saved the lives of all of us, but on land you will just obey me. Certainly, Captain, what's your orders? Nothing at all. I give no orders, I only make suggestions. But if your experience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let us try it at once. At once, Barnes! Erema, run home, this is no scene for you, and tell Margaret to put on the double bottom boiler with the stock she made on Friday and a peck of patent peas. There is nothing to beat pea soup, and truly one never knows what may happen. This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him. Running up his drive to deliver that message, at one of the many bends I saw people from Brunsey hurrying along a footpath through the dairy farm. While the flood continued this was their only way to meet the boat's crew. On the steps of Smuggler's Castle, as Bruntland's house was still called by the wicked, I turned again and the new sea-line was fringed with active searchers. I knew what they were looking for, but scared and drenched and shivering as I was, no more would I go near them. My duty was rather to go in and comfort dear Aunt Mary and myself. In that melancholy quest I could do no good, but a great deal of harm, perhaps, if anything was found by breaking forth about it. Mrs. Hawkins had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered. Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Raspers Fly by an inland road and she kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband to distract his mind from disaster. That trouble had happened when she could not look out of her window without knowing. But could it be right, at their time of life, to stand in the wet sew and challenge Providence and spoil the first turkey-pult of the season? But when she heard of her husband's peril in midst of all his losses, his self-command and noble impulse first of all to rescue life, she burst into tears and hugged and kissed me and said the same thing nearly fifty times. Oh, just like him, just like my Nicholas! You thought him a speculative, selfish man! Now you see your mistake, Arama. When her veteran husband came home at last, thoroughly jaded and bringing his fisherman to gulp the pea-soup and to gallop the turkey, a small share of mind but a large one of heart is required to imagine her doings. Enough that the major kept saying, Pooh, Pooh! and the more he said the less he got of it. When feelings calmed down we returned to fax, our host and hero, who in plain truth had not wholly eclipsed me in courage, though of course I expected no praise and got none, for people hate courage in a lady. To put it more simply, the major himself making a considerable fuss as usual, for to my mind he could never be Uncle Sam, produced from the case of his little church service, to which he had stuck, like a Britain, a sealed and stamped letter addressed to me at Castlewood in Berkshire, stamped not with any post office tool but merely with the red thing which pays the English post. I knew the clear firm hand, the same which on the envelope at Shocksford had tempted me to meanness. The letter was from Thomas Hoyle, the major had taken it from the pocket of his corpse. All doubt about his death was gone. When he felt his feet on the very shore and turned to support his mother, a violent wave struck the back of his head upon Major Hawkins' pillar-box. Such sadness came into my heart, though sternly it should have been gladness, that I begged their pardon and went away as if with a private message, and wicked as it may have been, to read was more than once to cry. The letter began abruptly. You know nearly all my story now. I have only to tell you what brought me to you, and what my present offer is. But to make it clear I must enlarge a little. There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself. He forbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly perhaps to secure my escape, and partly for other reasons. If he had been brought to trial, his duty to family and himself would have led him, no doubt, to explain things, and if that had failed I would have returned and surrendered myself. As things happened there was no need. Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless the hole has been piled on my head, your father's home was destroyed, and he seems to have lost all care for everything. Yet how much better off was he than I? Upon me the curse fell at birth, upon him after thirty years of ease and happiness. However, for that very reason perhaps, he bore it worse than I did. He grew embittered against the world which had in no way ill treated him. Whereas its very first principle is to scorn all such as I am. He seems to have become a misanthrope, and a fatalist like myself, though it might almost make one believe the existence of such a thing as justice, to see pride pay for its wickedness thus, the injury to the outcast son recoiled upon the pampered one, and the family arrogance crowned itself with the ignominity of the family. In any case there was no necessity for my interference, and, being denied by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally driven to double my duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging upon mine. So we too, for many years, wandered about, shunning islands and insular prejudice. I also shunned your father, though, so far as I know, he neither sought me nor took any trouble to clear himself. If the one child now left him had been a son, heir to the family property and so on, he might have behaved quite otherwise, as he would have been bound to do so. But having only a female child who might never grow up and if she did was very unlikely to succeed, he must have resolved at least to wait. And perhaps he confirmed himself, with the reflection that even if people believed his tale, so long after the date and so unvouched, so far as family annals were concerned, the remedy would be as bad as the disease. Moreover, he owed his life to me, at great risk of my own, and to pay such a debt with the hangman's rope would scarcely appear quite honorable, even in the best society. It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from my knowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps. We went our separate ways in the world, none of us very fortunate. One summer in the black forest I fell in with an outcast Englishman, almost as great a vagabond as myself. He was under the ban of the law for writing his father's name without license. He did not tell me that, or perhaps even I might have despised him, for I was never dishonest. But one great bond there was between us we both detested laws and men. My intimacy with him is the one thing in life which I am ashamed of. He passed by a false name then, of course, but his true name was Montague Hawken. My mother was in very weak health then, and her mind for the most part clouded, and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I had done for her sake. That man pretended to take the greatest interest in her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who would cure her. We avoided all cities, as he knew well, and lived in simple villages, subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the little income left by my grandfather Thomas Hoyle. But compared with Hawken we were well off, and he did his best to swindle us. Luckily all my faith in mankind was confined to the feminine gender, and not much even of that survived. In a very little time I saw that people may repudiate law as well from being below, as from being above it. Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt of everything. We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all our kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two. Let me go into Freiberg that time to-morrow night and listen. I asked him nothing as to what he meant for I was beginning to weary of him as of everybody. However I thought it just worth while having some one who bought my wicker work to enter the outskirts of the town on the following evening and wait to be told if any news was stirring. And the people were amazed at my not knowing that last night the wife of an English lord, for so they called him, though no lord yet, had run away with a golden bearded man, believed also to be English. About that you know more perhaps than I do, but I wish you to know what that hawken was and to clear myself of complicity. Of Herbert Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say, as Sir Montague Hawken has said, that I plotted all that wickedness from spite toward all of Castlewood name is to tell as foul a lie as even he can well indulge in. It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word of mine. To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. But he seems to have guessed it once that there was something strange in my history, and then after spying and low prying at my mother to have shaped his own conclusion. Then having entirely under his power that young fool who left a kind husband for him, he conceived a most audacious scheme. This was no less than to rob your cousin, the last lord Castlewood, not of his wife and jewels and ready money only, but also of all the disposable portion of the Castlewood estates. For the lady's mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all the land settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal with him. And though at the date of the marriage he could not really deal at all with him, your father still being alive, it appears that his succession, when it afterward took place, was bound at any rate as against himself. A divorce might have cancelled this, I cannot say, but your late cousin was the last man in the world to incur the needful exposure upon this they naturally counted. The new Lady Hocken, as she called herself, which as much right as Lady Castlewood, flirted about while her beauty last, but even then found her master in a man of deeper wickedness, but if her poor husband desired revenge, which he does not seem to have done perhaps, he could not have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, which devoured her beauty like Herod and his glory. I believe that she still lives, but no one can go near her, least of all the fastidious Montague. At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath and exclaimed, thank God, I know not how many times, and perhaps it was a crime of me to do it even once. Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little accident, for he meant to have married the Lady after her husband's death, and set you at defiance, but even he could not do that now little as he cares for opinion. What did he do but shift hands altogether? He made up his mind to confer the honour of his hand on you, having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became the very opposite of what they had been hitherto. Your father's innocence now must be maintained instead of his guiltiness. With this in view he was full enough to set the detective police after me, me who could snap all their noses off, for he saw how your heart was all set on one thing and expected to have you his surf for ever, by the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed as they always do. He also failed in his overtures to you. You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no ill will, but rather admire your courage. You acted in a straightforward way and employed no dirty agency. Of your simple devices I had no fear. However, I thought it as well to keep an eye on that hawken, and a worthy old fool, some relation of his, who had brought you back from America. To this end I kept my headquarters near him, and established my mother comfortably. She was ordered sea-air and has had enough. Tomorrow I shall remove her. By the time you receive this letter we both shall be far away, and come back no more, but first I shall punish that hawken. Without personal violence this will be done. Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just. My mother's little residue of life must past in ease and comfort. She has wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her three hundred pounds a year to be paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing. You will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which she sets great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back to England. I happen to know that you have it now. In return for these just acts you have the right to set forth the whole truth publicly to proclaim your father's innocence and, as people will say, his chivalry, and which will perhaps rejoice you also to hear no more of. Thomas Hoyle. P.S. Of course I am trusting your honour in this, but your father's daughter can be no sneak, as indeed I have already proved. CHAPTER 56 What a most wonderful letter! cried the major, when, after several careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show him. He calls me a, quote, worthy old fool. He calls me a, quote, worthy old fool. He calls me a, quote, worthy old fool. He calls me a, quote, worthy old fool. He calls me a, quote, worthy old fool. Unquote, does he? Well, I call him something a great deal worse. An unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a subverter of rank, and a radical. And because he was a bastard, is the whole world base? And to come and live like that in a house of mine, and to pay me no rent, and never even let me see him? Your grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him the cold shoulder. Of course you won't pay him a farthing. Ah, you forget he is dead, I answered, and his poor mother with him. At least he behaved well to his mother. You called him a hero. When you knew not who he was, poor fellow, he is dead. And in spite of all, I cannot help being very sorry for him. Yes, I daresay, women always are, but you must show a little common sense, Erema. Your grandfather seems to have had too much, and your father far too little. We must keep this matter quiet. Neither the man nor the woman must we know, or a nicer we shall have in all the county papers. There must be an inquest, of course, upon them both. But none of the fellows read this direction, for the admirable reason that they cannot read. Our coming forward could do no good, and just now Bruntsey has other things to think of. And, first and foremost, my ruin, as they say. Please not to talk of that, I exclaimed. I can raise any quantity of money now, and you shall have it without paying interest. You wanted the course of the river restored, and now you have more. You've got the very sea. You could float the bridle veil itself, I do believe, at Bruntsey. You have suggested a fine idea, the major exclaimed, with emphasis. You certainly should have been an engineer. It is a thousand times easier, as everybody knows, to keep water in than to keep it out. Having burst my barricade, the sea shall stop inside and pay for it. Far less capital will be required. By Job, what a fool I must have been, not to see the hand of Providence in all this. Mary, can you spare me a minute, my dear? The noblest idea has occurred to me. Well, never mind, if you are busy. Perhaps I had better not have stayed it crudely, though it is not true that it happens every hour, as shall turn it over in my mind throughout the evening service. I mean to be there, just to let them see. They think that I am crushed, of course. They will see their mistake, and, Erema, you may come. The gale is over and the evening bright. You sit by the fire, Mary, my dear. I shall not let you out again. Keep the silver cattle boiling. In church I always think more clearly than where people talk so much. But when I come home, I require something. I see, I see, instead of an idle, fashionable lounging place for nincompoots from London, instead of flirtation and novel reading vulgarity show an indecent attire and positively immoral bathing, we shall now have industry, commerce, wealth, triumph of mechanism, lofty enterprise, and international goodwill. A harbor has been the great want of this coast. See what a thing it is at Newport. We will now have a harbor and floating docks, without any muddy, malaria river, all blue water from the sea, and our fine cliff range shall be studded with good houses, and the whole shall be called Erema Port. Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not at Brunsea. Enough for this excellent man and that still more excellent woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the day is long, which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps. Inasmuch as to the busy every day is short. But Mrs. Hawken, though as full of fouls as ever, gets no white sultans nor any other rarity now from Sir Montague Hawken. That gentleman still is alive, so far at least as we have heard of, but no people owning any self-respect ever deal with him to their knowledge. He gambled away all his father's estates, and the Major bought the last of him for his youngest son, a very noble Captain Hawken, according to his mother's judgment, whom I've never had the honor of seeing. Sir Montague lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his cousin still hopes that he may turn honest. But, as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a few words to be said, as soon as all necessary things were done at Brunsea and at Castlewood, and my father's memory cleared from all stain, and by simple truth ennobled, in a manner strictly legal and consistent with heavy expenses, myself having made long deposition and received congratulations as soon as it was possible, I left them all and set sail for America. The rashness of such a plan, it is more easy for one to establish than two to deny, but what was there in it of peril or of enterprise, compared with what I had been through already? I could not keep myself now from going and reasoned but little about it. Meanwhile, there had been no further tidings of Colonel Gundry or Firm or even Martin of the Mill himself, but one thing I did which showed some little foresight, as soon as my mind was made up and long before I could ever get away, I wrote to Martin Clogfest, telling him of my intention and begging him if he had any idea of the armies or the Sawyer or even Firm or anything whatever of interest, to write, without losing a day, to me directing his letter to a house in New York whose address Major Hawken gave me. So many things had to be done, and I listened so foolishly to the Major, who did his very best to stop me, and came to be May 1862, nearly four years after my father's death, before I could settle all my plans and start. For everybody said that I was much too young to take such a journey all by myself and, quote, what everybody says must be right, unquote, whenever there is no exception to prove the rule. Quote, Aunt Mary's, unquote, are not to be found every day, and this again helped to throw me back and getting away from England, and but for his vast engineering ideas and another slight touch of rheumatic gout brought upon herself by Mrs. Hawken through setting seven hens in one evening, the Major himself might have come with me, quote, to observe the new military tactics, unquote, as well as to look for his cousin Samson. In recounting this, I seemed to be as long as the thing itself was in accomplishing, but at last it was done, and most kindly I was offered the very thing to suit me, permission to join the party of a well-known British officer, Colonel Chariton, of the engineers. This gentleman, being of highest repute, as a writer upon military subjects, had leave from the federal government to observe the course of this tremendous war, and perhaps he will publish some day, which seems as yet to be wholly wanting, a calm and impartial narrative of that unparalleled conflict. At any rate he meant to spare no trouble in a matter so instructive, and he took his wife and two daughters, very nice girls, who did me a world of good to establish them in Washington, or wherever the case might require. Lucky as this was for me, I could not leave my dear and faithful friends without deep sorrow, but we all agreed that it should be only for a very little time. We landed first at New York, and there I found two letters from Martin of the Mill. In the first he grumbled much, and told me that nothing was yet known about Uncle Sam. And in the second he grumbled, if possible, more, but he gave me some important news. To wit he had received a few lines from the Sawyer, who had failed as yet to find his grandson, and sadly lamented the misery he saw and the shocking destruction of God's good works. He said that he could not bring himself to fight, even if he were young enough, against his own dear countrymen, one of whom was his own grandson. At the same time he felt that they must be put down for trying to have things too much their own way. About slavery he had seen too much of niggers to take them at all for his equals, and no white man with any self-respect would desire to be their brother. The children of Ham were put down at the bottom, as their noses and lips were announced, according to divine revelation, and for sons of Japtha to break up the noblest nation in the world on their account was like rushing in to inherit their curse, as sure as his name was Samson Gundry, those who had done it would get the worst, though at yet they were doing wonders, and there could be no doubt about one thing, which party it was that began it. But come what would of it, here he was, and never would Saul Mills see him again unless he brought firm Gundry. But he wanted news of poor Miss Rayma, and if any came to the house they must please to send it to the care of Colonel Baker, headquarters of the army of the Potomac. This was the very thing I wished to know and saw now how stupid I must have been not to have thought of it long ago, for Colonel Baker was, to my knowledge, an ancient friend of Uncle Sam and had joined the National Army at the very outbreak of the war, well known not only in California but throughout the States for gallantry and conduct. This officer had been a great accession to the federal cause when so many wavered and so he was appointed to a good command. But alas, when I told Colonel Chariton my news I learned from him, who had carefully watched all the incidents of the struggle, that Uncle Sam's noble friend had fallen in the battle of Ball's Bluff while charging at the head of his regiment. Still there was hope that some of the officers might know where to find Uncle Sam, who was not at all a man to be mislaid and being allowed to accompany my English friends I went on to Washington. We found that city in a highly nervous state and from time to time ready to be captured. General Jackson was almost at the gates and the President every day was calling out for men. The Army of Virginia had been beaten back to entrenchments before the capital and generally was invading Maryland. Battle followed battle, thick as blows upon a threshing floor and though we were always said to be victorious the enemy seemed none the more to run away. In this confusion what chance had I of discovering even the Sawyer? Colonel Chariton, who must have found me a dreadful thorn in the flank of his strategy missed no opportunity of inquiry as he went from one valley to another. For the war seemed to run along the course of rivers though it also passed through the forest and lakes and went up into the mountains. Our wonderfully clever and kind member of the British Army was delighted with the movements of General Lee who alone showed scientific elegance in slaying his fellow countrymen and the worst of it was that instead of going after my dear Uncle Sam Colonel Chariton was always rushing about with maps, plans and telescopes to follow the tracery of Lee's campaign to treat of such matters as far beyond me as I am most thankful to confess neither will I dare to be sorry for a great man doing what became his duty. My only complaint against him is that he kept us in continual fright. However, this went by and so did many other things though heavily laden with grief and death. And the one thing we learned was to disbelieve ninety-nine out of every hundred. Letters for the Sawyer were dispatched by me to every likely place for him and advertisements put into countless newspapers but none of them seemed to go near him. Old as he was he avoided feather beds and roamed like a true Californian but at last I found him in a sad, sad way. It was after the Battle of Chancellorsville and our army had been driven back across the Rappahannock quote our army, unquote I call it because although we belonged to neither party fortune had brought us into contact with these and knowing more about them we were bound to take their side and not only that but to me it appeared altogether beyond controversy that a man of large mind and long experience such as Uncle Sam had should know much better than his grandson which cause was the one to fight for. At the same time firm was not at all to be condemned and if it was true as Martin Klugfast said that trouble of mine at my absence had driven him into a prejudiced view nothing could possibly be more ungracious than for me to make light of his judgment. Being twenty years old by this time I was wiser than I used to be and now made a practice of thinking twice before rushing into peril as I used to do in California and to some extent also in England for though my adventures might not have been as strange as many I myself have heard of especially from Suonisco nevertheless they had comprised enough of teaching and suffering also to make me careful about having any more and so for a long time I kept at the furthest distance possible in such a war from the vexing of the air with cannons till even Colonel Chariton's daughters perfectly soft and peaceful girls began to despise me as a coward knowing what I had been through I indulged their young opinions therefore they were the more startled when I set forth under a sudden impulse or perhaps impatience for a town very near the headquarters of the defeated General Hooker as they were so brave I asked them whether they would come with me but although their father was known to be there they turned pale at the thought of it this pleased me and made me more resolute to go and in three days time I was at Falmouth a town on our side of the Rappahannock here I saw most miserable sights that made me ashamed of all trifling fear when hundreds and thousands of gallant men were dying in crippled agony who or what was I to make any fuss about my paltry self clumsy as I was some kind and noble ladies taught me how to give help among the sufferers at first I cried so at everybody's pain while asking why ever they should have it that I did some good by putting them up to bear it rather than distress me so and when I began to command myself as custom soon enabled me I did some little good again by showing them how I cared for them their poor weak eyes perhaps never expecting to see a nice thing in the world again used to follow me about with a faint slow roll and a feeble spark of jealousy that I should have had such a chance of doing good one fold to others and a thousand fold to self at this turn of life when I was full of little me is another of the many most clear indications of a kind hand over me every day there was better than a year of ordinary life in breaking the mind from its little selfish turns and opening the heart to a larger power and all this discipline was needed for one afternoon when we all were tired with great heat upon us suddenly and the flies beginning to be dreadful our chief being rather unwell and fast asleep the surgeons away and our beds as full as they could be I was called down to reason with an applicant who would take no denial a rough man a very rough old man and in a most terrible state of mind said the girl who brought the message and room he would have or he would know the reason the reason is not far to seek I answered more to myself than her as I ran down the stairs to discomfort that old man at the open door with the hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching shriveled cheeks now wearily raising his battered hat stood my dear Uncle Sam the Sawyer Laura Massey young lady be you all together daft in my best of days never was I lips for kissing and the beautiful as creature come now I ain't saved your life have I now oh yes fifty times over fifty thousand times Uncle Sam don't you know Arama my eyes be dashed and dashed they be to forget the look of yours my dearie seven days have I marched without thanking the Lord and hot coals of fire has he poured upon me now for his mercy and earth forever to think of you to think of you as like my own child as could be only of more finer breed here standing in front of me like this here there I never dreamed to do that again and would scorn a young man at the sight of it the Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping he simply turned his tanned and weathered face towards the doorpost not to hide his tears but reconcile his pride by feigning it I felt that he must be at very low ebb and all that I had seen of other people's sorrow had no power to assuage me inside the door to keep the hot wind out and hide my eyes from the old man's face I had some quiet little sobs so we could both express ourselves it is poor firm the poor poor lad oh what has happened to him that I should see the day Uncle Sam's deep voice broken to a moan and he bowed his rough forehead on his arm and shook then I took him by the sleeve and brought him in not dead poor firm your only one not dead as soon as words would come I asked and trembled for the opening of his lips not dead not quite but tens times worse he hath flown into the face of the Lord like Saw and his armor bearer he hath fallen on his own sword and the worst of it is that the darn thing won't come out again firm the last person in the world to do it oh Uncle Sam surely they have told you no lies no lie at all my dear and not only that but he wanteth now to die and won't be long first I reckon but no time to lose my dear the Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his leaving of the world can he raise a bed and a doctor here if he would but groan I could bear it a bit instead of bleeding inward and for sartan sure I would groan nicely if only by force of habit at first sight of a real doctor there are half a dozen here I said or at least close by he shall have my own bed but where is he we've lain in in the sand he answered simply for to dry his perspiration that week the poor chap is that he steameth night and day miss never would you know him for our firm now any more than me for Samson Gundry ah me but the Lord is hard on us slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor firm to the hospital while with light feet but a heavy heart I returned to arouse our managers speedily and well were all things done and in half an hour firm lay upon my bed with two of the cleverest surgeons of New York most carefully examining his wasted frame these whispered and shook their heads as in such a case was indispensable and listening eagerly I heard the senior surgeon say no he could not ever bear it the younger man seemed to think otherwise but to give way to the longer experience then dear Uncle Sam having brought a new hat at the corner of the street came forward knowing too well what excitement is and how it changes everyone I lifted my hand for him to go back but he only put his great hot web of fingers into mine and drew me to him softly and covered me up with his side he heareth Nort Nort Nort he whispered to me and then he spoke aloud gentlemen and ladies or ladies and gentlemen is the more correct form nowadays have I leave to say a word of two then if I have as your manner to me showeth and heartily thanking you for that same my words shall go into an acorn cup this lad laid out at your mercy here was a fine young fellow as the west ever hath raised straight and nimble and could tell no lie family reasons as you will excuse of drew him into the arms of rebellion I may have done and overdone it myself in arguing cantrips and convictions whereof to my knowledge good never came yet at any rate off he went anyhow and the force of nature drew me after him no matter that to you I dare say but it would be if you was in it ladies and gentlemen here he is and no harm can you make out of him although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking bravely hath he fought and made his way to a colonel ship worth five thousand dollars if they ever pay their wages never did I think that he would earn so much having never owned gifts of machinery and concerning the handling of the dollars perhaps will carry my opinion out but where was I wandering of a little thing like that it hath pleased the Lord who doeth all things well when finally come to look back upon the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this young man for going again his grandfather from California free state mind you he come away to fight for slavery and how hath he magnified his office by shooting the biggest man on that side the almighty foe of the union the foremost captain of Midian the general in whom they trusted no bullets of ours could touch him but by his own weapons he hath fallen and soon as Ephraim Gundry heard it he did what you see done to him Uncle Sam having said his say which must have cost him dearly withdrew from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax and grimy to be sure that it was firm I gave one glance for firm had always been straight tall and large and then in a miserable mood I stole to the saw your side to stand with him am I to blame is this my fault for even this I am to blame I whispered but he did not heed me and his hands were like hard stone after a long hot heavy time while I was laboring vainly the saw your also through exhaustion of excitement weary and afraid to begin again with new bad news as beaten people expect to do the younger surgeon came up to him and said will you authorize it to cut an up to show your museums what a western lad is never by the blue river he shall have a good grave so help me God to my own my man you misunderstand me we have more subjects now than we should want for fifty years war knocks the hole of their value on the head we have fifty bodies as good as this and are simply obliged to bury them what I mean is shall we pull the blade out can he do anything with that their blade in him I have heard of a man in Kentucky once yes yes we know all those stories Colonel suit the newspapers not the journals this fellow has what must kill him inside he has worn to a shadow already if there it is left die he must and quick stick inflammation is set up already if we extract it his chance of surviving is scarcely one in a hundred let him have the one then the one in the hundred like the ninety and nine lost sheep the Lord can multiply a hundred fold some three score and some a hundred fold I will speak to him gentlemen while you try the job end of chapter fifty-six chapter fifty-seven of Arama this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Linda Dodge Arama by R.D. Blackmore chapter fifty-seven female suffrage all that could be done by skill and care and love was done for firm our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she could be spared and all the other ladies vied and zeal for this young soldier so that I could scarcely get near him his grandfather's sad and extraordinary tale was confirmed by a wounded prisoner poor Ephraim Gundry's rare power of sight had been fatal perhaps to the cause he fought for or at least to its greatest captain returning from desperate victory the general wrapped in the folds of night and perhaps in the gloom of his own stern thoughts while it seemed quite impossible that he should be seen encountered the fire of his own troops and the order to fire was given by his favorite officer Colonel Firm Gundry when the young man learned that he had destroyed by a lingering death the chief idol of his heart he called for a rifle but all refused him knowing too well what his purpose was then under the trees without a word or sigh he set the hilt of his sword upon the earth and the point to his heart as well as he could find it the blade passed through him and then snapped off but I cannot bear to speak of it and now few people might suppose it but the substance of which he was made will be clear when not only by his own knowledge of his case but also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more frankly acknowledged in the new world than in the old one it was proved that with a good constitution it is safer to receive two wounds than one even though they may not be at the same time taken Firm had been shot by the captain of Mexican robbers as long ago related he was dreadfully pulled down at the time and few people could have survived it but now that stood him in the very best stead not only as a lesson of patience but also in the question of cartilage but not being certain what cartilage is I can only refer inquiries to the notebook of the hospital which has been printed for us it was enough to know that shattered as he was and must be this brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time successfully with that great enemy of the human race to whom the human race so largely consigned one another and themselves but some did say and emphatically Uncle Sam that Colonel Firm Gundry for a colonel he was now not by courtesy but commission would never have held up his head to do it but must have gone on with his ravings for death if somebody had not arrived in the nick of time and cried over him a female somebody from old England and even after that they say that he never would have cared to be a man again never would have calmed his conscious with the reflection so commonplace and yet so high that having done our best according to our lights we must not dwell always on our darkness if once again and for the residue of life there had not been someone to console him a consolation that need not have and is better without pure reason coming as that would come from a quarter whence it is never quite welcome enough for me that he never laid hand to a weapon of war again and never shall unless our own home is invaded for after many months each equal to a year of teaching and of humbling there seemed to be a good time for me to get away and attend to my duties in England of these I had been reminded often by letters and once by a messenger but all money manor seemed dust in the balance where life and death were swinging but now Uncle Sam and his grandson having their love knit afresh by disaster were eager to start for the sawmill and trust all except their own business to Providence I had told them that when they went westward my time would become for starting eastward and being unlikely to see them again I should hope for good news frequently and then I got dear Uncle Sam by himself and begged him for the sake of firm's happiness to keep him as far as he could from Pennsylvania Sylvester at the same time I thought that the very nice young lady who had jumped upon his nose from the window Miss Annie I forgot her name or at any rate I told him so would make him a good straightforward wife so far as one could tell from having seen her and that seemed to have been settled in their infancy and if he would let me know when it was to be I had seen a thing in London I should like to give them when I asked the Sawyer to see to this instead of being sorry he seemed quite pleased and nodded sagaciously and put his hat on as he generally did to calculate both them gals have married long ago he said looking at me with a fine soft gaze and bad handfuls their mates have got of them but what made you talk of them Missy or my lady as now you are in the old country I hear and what made you think of them like that my dearie I can't tell what made me think of them how can I tell why I think of everything still it was an odd thing for your ladieship to say Uncle Sam I am nobody's ladieship least of all yours what makes you speak so I am your own little wandering child whose life you saved and whose father you loved and who loses all who love her even from you I am forced to go away oh why is it always my fate my fate hush said the old man and stopped my outburst at his whisper to talk of fate my dearie shows either one thing or the other that we have no will of our own or else that we know not how to guide it I never knew a good man talk of fate the heathens and pagans made it the Lord in heaven is enough for me he always hath allowed me my own free will though I may not have handled them cleverly and he giveth you your own will now my missy to go from us or stop with us and being as you are a very grand young woman now owning English land and income paid in gold instead of greenbacks the same as our nugget seems likely to my ideas it would be wrong to think so much as to ask you is that what you are so full of in and what makes you so mysterious I did think that you knew me better and I had a right to hope so concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of you might do this or you might do that according to what you was told or even more according to what was denied you for poor honest people like firm in me to deal with such a case as out of knowledge for us it is go by the will of the Lord and dead again your own desires but dear uncle Sam I cried feeling that now I had him upon his own tender hooks you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature for daring to talk about fate just now but to what else comes your own conduct you are bound to go against your own desire if you have such a lot of free will why must you do what you do not like to do well well perhaps I was talking rather large the will of the world is upon us as well and we must have respect for its settlements now let me I said with a trembling wish to have everything right and maidenly so much harm from misunderstandings and they are so simple when it is too late let me ask you one or two questions uncle Sam you always answer everybody and to you a crooked answer is impossible business is business that's all you said my dear I contract accordingly very well then in the first place what do you wish to have done with me putting aside all the gossip I mean of people who have never even heard of me why to take you back to sawmill with us where you always was so natural in the next place what does your grandson wish to take you back to sawmill with him and keep you there till death do you part as chances to all mortal payers and now uncle Sam what do I wish you say we all have so much free will it is natural that you should wish my dear to go and be a great lady and marry a nobleman of your own rank and have lots of little nobleman then I fly against nature and the fault is yours for filling me so with machinery the Sawyer was beaten and he never said again a woman cannot argue End of Chapter 57 Chapter 58 of Arama This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Linda Dodge Arama by R. D. Blackmore Chapter 58 Beyond Desert and Deserts From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred and fury of that wicked war we set our little convoy forth with passes procured from either side According to all rules of war Firm was no doubt a prisoner but having saved his life and taken his word to serve no more against them remembering also that he had done them more service than ten regiments The federal authorities were not sorry to be quit of him He, for his part being of a deep retentive nature bore in his wounded breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime To me he said not a single word about his bitter fortune and he could not bring himself to ask me whether I would share it Only from his eyes sometimes I knew what he was thinking and having passed through so much grief I was moved with deep compassion Poor firm had been trained by his grandfather to a strong earnest faith in providence and now this compelled him almost to believe that he had been specially visited for flying in the face of his good grandfather and selfishly indulging his own stiff neck His punishment had been hard and almost heavier than he could bear Whatever might happen to him now the spring and flower of his life were gone He still might have some calm existence but never win another day of cloudless joy and if he had only said this or thought about it we might have looked at him with less sadness of our own But he never said anything about himself nor gave any opening for our comfort to come to him Only from day to day he behaved gently and lovingly to both of us as if his own trouble must be fought out by himself and should dim no other happiness and this kept us thinking of his sorrow all the more so that I could not even look at him without a flutter of the heart which was afraid to be a sigh At last upon the great mountain range through which we now were toiling with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks and a sparkling veil for sunrise Dear Uncle Sam who had often shown signs of impatience drew me apart from the rest Straight forward and blunt as he generally was he did not seem altogether ready to begin but pulled off his hat and then put it on again the weather being now cold and hot by turns and while he did this he was thinking at his utmost as every full vein of his forehead declared and being at home with his ways I waited Think you got ahead of me? No, not you, he exclaimed at last in reply to some version of his own of my ideas which I carefully made a non-entity under the scrutiny of his keen blue eyes No, no Missy, you wait a bit Uncle Sam was not hatched yesterday and it takes fifty young ladies to go round him Is that from your size, Uncle Sam, or your depth? Well, a mixture of both I do believe Now the last thing you ever would think of if you lived to be older than Washington's nurse is the very thing I mean to put to you only you please must take it well according to my meaning You see our firm go into a shadow, don't you? Very well, the fault of that is all your own Why not up and speak to him? I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam and I spare no efforts to fatten him I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook but soon he will have suanisco Oh, engine be darned It's not the stomach, it's the heart as once nourishment with you poor lad He look at that pitiful at you sometimes, my faith I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his mewens or cry at the lean face that does it You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam and he never does anything of the kind I am sure there is nothing to laugh at No, no, to be sure not I made a mistake, heroic is the word of course everything is heroic It is heroic, I answered Some vexation at his likeness If you cannot see it, I am sorry for you I like large things and I know of nothing larger than the way poor firm is going on You to stand up for him, Colonel Gundry answered as if he could scarcely look at me You to talk large of him, my lady, Castlewood while you were doing of his heart into small whittles Well, I did believe if no one else that you were a straightforward one and what am I doing that is crooked now? Well, not to say crookedness, Reema No, no, only on consistent when squared up Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me today What is inconsistent? What is there to square up? He fetched a long breath and looked wondrous wise Then, as if his main object was to irritate me he made a long stride and said Supe's a villain now Let it boil over then You must say what you mean Oh, Uncle Sam, I only want to do the right I desay, I desay But have you got the pluck miss Our little Missy would have done more than that But come to be a great lady Why, they take another tune With much mine, of course, it might be otherwise But none of them have much of that despair Your view is a narrow one, I replied Knowing how that would astonish him You judge by your own experience only And to do that shows a sad want of breath As ladies in England express it The Sawyer stared and then took off his hat And then felt all about for his spectacles The idea of being regarded by a female From a larger and loftier point of view Made a new sensation in his system Yes, I continued with some enjoyment Let us try to look largely at all things, Uncle Sam And supposing me capable of that What is the proper and the lofty course to take He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes And with three words discomfited me Pop for question Much as I had heard of women's rights Equality of body and mind with man And superiority and morals It did not appear to me that her privilege Could be driven to this extent But I shook my head till all my hair came down And so if our constitutional right Of voting by color was exercised On this occasion it claimed the timid benefit Of ballot With us, a suggestion for the time discarded Has often double effect by and by And though it was out of my power to dream Of acting up to such directions There could be no possible harm In reviewing such a theory theoretically Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts Nor even so much as that, safely may I say When Firm and myself met face to face On the third day after Uncle Sam's ideas Our little caravan of which the Sawyer was the captain Being bound for Blue River and its neighborhood Had quitted the Sacramento track by a fork on the left Not a league from the spot where my father Had bitten a dew to mankind And knowing every twist and turn of rock Our drivers brought us at the camping time Almost to the verge of chaperone I knew not exactly how far we were come But the dust cloud of memory was stirring And though the mountains looked smaller Than they used to look The things done among them seemed larger And wandering forth from the camp to think When the evening meal was over Lo, there I stood in that self-same breach Or portal of the desert In which I stood once by my father's side With scared and weary eyes Vainly seeking safety's shattered landmark The time of year was different Being the ripe end of October now But though the view was changed in tent It was even more impressive Somber memories and deep sense of grandeur Which is always sad And solemn lights and stealing shadows Compressed me with thoughtfulness In the mouth of the gorge Was a gray block of granite Whereupon I sat down to think Old thoughts, dull thoughts Thoughts as common as the clouds That cross the distant plain And as vague as the wind that moves them They please and they pass And they may have shed kindly influence But what are they? The life that lies before us is In some way too, below us Like yarn-vast amplitude of plain But it must be traversed foot by foot And laboriously travailed Without the cloudy vaporing Or the high-flown meditation And all that must be done by me Alone with none to love me And which for a woman is so much worse Nobody ever to have for my own To cherish, love, and cling to Tear upon tear and peak over peak The finest mountains of the world Are soaring into the purple firmament Like northern lights they flash Or flush or fade into a reclining gleam Like ladders of heaven they bar themselves With cloudy air and like heaven itself They rank their white procession Lonely, feeble, puny I look up with awe and reverence The mind pronounces all things small Compared with this magnificence Yet what will all such grandeur do The self-defensive heart inquires For puny, feeble, lonely me Before another shadow deepened Or another light grew pale A slow, uncertain step drew near And by the nearest chance It happened to be Ephraim Gundris I was quite surprised and told him so And he said that he also was surprised At meeting me in this way Remembering how long I had been there I thought it most irrational But checked myself from saying so Because he looked so poorly And more than that I asked him kindly How he was this evening And smoothed my dress to please his eye And offered him a chair of rock But he took no notice of all these things I thought of the time when he would have behaved So very differently from this And nothing but downright pride Enabled me to repress vexation However, I resolved to behave as kindly As if he were my own grandfather How grand these mountains are, I said It must do you good to see them again Even to me, it is such a delight And what must it be to you, a native? Yes, I shall wander from them no more How I wish that I had never done so Have men less courage than women, I asked With one glance at his pale, worn face I owe you the debt of life And this is the place to think and speak of it I used to talk freely of that, you know You used to like to hear me speak But now you are tired of that And tired of all the world as well, I fear No, I am tired of nothing except my own Vile degradation I am tired of my want of spirit That I cannot cast my load I am tired of my lack of reason Which should always guide a man What is the use of mind or intellect Reasoning power, or whatever it is called If the whole of them cannot enable a man To hold out against a stupid heart I think you should be proud, I said While trembling to approach the subject Which never had been touched between us At having a nature so sensitive Your evil chance might have been anybody's And must, of course, have been somebody's But nobody else would have taken it so So delightfully as you have done Delightfully, is that the word you use? May I ask who gets any delight from it? Why, all who hate the southern cause I replied with sudden turn of thought Though I had never meant to use the word Surely that needs no explanation They are delighted, are they? Yes, I can very well believe it Narrow-minded bigots Yes, they are sure to be delighted They call it a just visitation, of course A righteous retribution And I hope I may never get over it I pray you to take it more gently, I said They are very good men and wish you no harm But they must have their own opinions And naturally they think them just Then all their opinions are just wrong They hope to see me go down to my grave They shall not have that pleasure I will outlive every old John Brown of them I did not care too since to live just now Henceforth I will make a point of it If I cannot fight for true freedom anymore Having ruined it perhaps already The least I can do is give them no more triumph To its bitter enemies I will eat and drink and begin this very night I suppose you are one of them As you put their argument so neatly Suppose you consider me a vile slave driver You are very ill, I said With my heart so full of pity that anger could not enter You are still very ill and very weak How could you drive the very best slave now Even such a marvel as Uncle Tom Firm Gundry smiled On his lean, dry face there shone a little flicker Which made me think of the time when he brought the jest book Purchased at Cincinnati to make himself agreeable to my mind And little as I meant it I smiled also Thinking of the way he used to come out with his heart-fought jokes And expect it I wish you were all that you used to be, he said Looking at me softly through the courage of his smile Instead of being such a grandlady I wish you were a little more like yourself I answered without thinking You used to think always there was nobody like me Suppose that I am of that same opinion still Tenfold, fiftyfold, a millionfold To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd When you have shown no sign of it For your own dear sake I have shown no sign The reason of that is too clear to explain Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it Why, who would have anything to say to me A broken down man, a fellow marked out for curses One who hates even the sight of himself The lowest of the low would shun me He turned away from me And gazed back toward the dismal, miserable, spectral desert While I stood facing the fruitful, delicious, flowery Paradise of all the world I thought of the difference in our lots And my heart was in misery about him Then I conquered my pride and my littleness and trumpery And did what the gentle, sweet Eve might have done And never have I grieved for that action since With tears on my cheeks quite undissembled And a breast not ashamed of fluttering I ran to firm gundry and took his right hand And allowed him no refuge from tender wet eyes Then before he could come to see the meaning of this haste Because of his very high discipline I was out of his distance and sitting on a rock And I lifted my eyes full of eloquence to his And then I dropped them and pulled my hat forward And said as calmly as was possible I have done enough The rest remains with you, firm gundry The rest remained with him Enough that I was part of that rest If not the foundation or crown of it Something desirous to be both and failing If fail it ever does From no want of trial Uncle Sam says that I never fail at all And never did fail in anything Unless it was when I found that blame nugget For which we got three wagon-loads of greenbacks Which, when prosperity at last revives Will pay perhaps for greasing all twelve wheels Jaller admits not that failure even As soon as he recovered from canine dementia Approaching very close to rabies At seeing me in the flesh once more So that the Sierra Nevada rang with avalanches of barking He tugged me to the place where his teeth were set in gold And proved that he had no hydrophobia His teeth are scanty now But he can still catch a salmon And the bright zeal and loyalty of his soft brown eyes And the sprightly elevation of his tail Are still among dogs as preeminent As they are to mankind inevitable Now the war is past And here we sit by the banks of the soft blue river The early storm and young conflict Of a clouded life are over Still, out of sight There may be yet a sea of troubles to buff it with But it is not merely a selfish thought That others will face it with me Dark mysteries have been cleared away By being confronted bravely And the lesson has been learned That life, like California flowers Is of infinite variety This little river ten steps wide On one side all has lupins And on the other side all lockspurs Tell why, can anybody Can even itself so full of voice and light Unroll the reason? Behind us tower the stormy crags Before us spread soft tapestry of earth And sweep of ocean Below us lies my father's grave Whose sin was not his own But fell upon him And found him loyal To him was I loyal also And my father should be And in my lap lies my reward For I am no more Eurema