V^r. fr-li,;' ■'•;;. ?.■:'; 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 '0<: 
 
 Si^jt iqiiirijl^t !f0* 
 
 Slielf...Mi. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 

 Copyright 1893, 
 
 WEST, JOHNSTON & CO. 
 
 Richmond, Va. 
 
 PRESSES OF EVERETT WADDEY CO. 
 
Froa 
 Dixie. 
 
 )|( f^i Origir\al articles cor^tributed by SoUtl^err^ 
 writers for pUblicatior^ as a SoUver\ir of tl^e 
 /Aen\orial Bazaar for th^e ber\efit of tl:\e Aor^U- 
 rqer^t to tb^e Private Soldiers ar\d Sailors of 
 ti^e Cor^federacy ar\d t}\e establishn^er^t of tl\e 
 A.UseUrT\ for Cor\^federate Relics, with\ h\ereto- 
 fore lir^pUblished poerT\s, by son\e wt\o h^ave 
 " crossed over tl^e river." 
 
 C 
 
 '^ 
 
 % Ridirrtoqd, Ya. : WEST, vJOHHSTOH & CO., 
 
 yyy' 
 
 nDCCCXCIlI. 
 
13c5ication: 
 
 To THE Unforgotten Dead of an Honored Cause, 
 
 This Book is Dedicated 
 
 By their Compatriots, in Admiration of 
 
 Unrecorded Valor. 
 
■ ■ 
 
 . It would hardly he fair to the authors tvhose contribu- 
 tions make up this hook, to send 
 
 out into the vjorld without a word of explanation : 
 . These poems and stories have been collected from their 
 various authors by simply stating to them the cause 
 in behalf of which this book is published. Tiie 
 book as a whole is a tribute to the Confederate 
 Soldier from some of tlie most prominent of our 
 Southern authors. It urill be sold for the benefit of 
 the Monument to the Confederate Private Soldier and 
 Sailor, to be erected in Richmond, Virginia, and for a 
 Museum of Confederate Relics, to be established in 
 the Executive 3Iansion of the late Confederate States. 
 Without exception these men and women have 
 already wox their laurels, and a gift from their pe)is 
 is no empty or unmeaning thing. 
 
 . It seemed to me that no list of prominent Southern 
 authors could be called fairly representative ivhich 
 omitted the name of Father Ryan, the poet-priest of 
 the war. By the kind permission of his valued 
 friend, Mrs. D. Hannis Taylor, of Mobile, Alabama, 
 I have inserted three poems of his written in Mrs. 
 Taylor's Album, and which have never before been 
 given to the public. 
 
. For the same reason, I desired most earnestly to in- 
 corporate some lines of the poet who fought, while 
 the other poet prayed /or the cause equally dear to 
 both. Mrs. Sidney Lanier has consented to the puh- 
 Ucation of a short poem by her gifted husband, 
 which is, perhaps, the only one of his poems which 
 has heretofore been withheld from the press. 
 
 . To the daughter of James Barron Hope I am in- 
 debted for the sonnet which bears her honored 
 father^ name. 
 
 . The poem bearing the signature of John R. Thomp- 
 son was given to me by the lady to vJiom it iras 
 written. 
 
 . The rest of the contributions come from the authors 
 themselves, with the glad cordiality characteristic of 
 Southern enthusiasm. 
 
 KATE PLEASANTS MINOR. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Alison Stewart, by M. G. McClelland 11 
 
 To Lucie, by Sidney Lanier 39 
 
 Sketch of Sidney Lanier, by William Hand Browne 40 
 
 Solitude, by John B. Tabb 52 
 
 The Indian of San Salvador, by John B. Tabb 53 
 
 My Soul— She Hath Great Care for Me, by Rob't Burns Wilson, 54 
 
 Song, by Amelia Rives 59 
 
 Pendleton Neil of Rosalia, by William W. Archer 63 
 
 The Wanderer, by James Lane Allen 102 
 
 To A Saxon Woman, by Thomas Nelson Page 104 
 
 The Red Lord OF the Soil, by James Barron Hope 105 
 
 Miss Isabella, by N. B. Winston 109 
 
 Benedicite, by John R. Thompson 121 
 
 Prologue, by Father Ryan 123 
 
 In Venice, by Father Ryan 124 
 
 Easter Sunday, by Father Ryan 126 
 
 Moon Possessed, by Charles Washington Coleman 127 
 
 Some Data, by Sarah Barnwell Elliott 133 
 
 The Furlough, bv John B. Tabb 166 
 
ALISON STEWART. 
 
ALISON STEWART. 
 
 The ten years following immediately on 
 the close of the civil war was a bitter bad 
 time in the South, and particularly in Vir- 
 ginia. Her tobacco trade was gone, her 
 farms had been turned into battle-fields; all 
 the debts predicated on negro property had 
 come on the land, and there was no staple, 
 like cotton, to fall back on; all this added to 
 the horrors of reconstruction. To the women 
 those ten years were a nightmare of mis- 
 fortune and effort. They were bound to 
 new conditions, like victims to a wheel, 
 and broken by them. Life was disrupted, 
 even paralyzed, and homes which had been 
 in families since the settlement of the country 
 passed into other hands. 
 
 Among others, the fortunes of war had 
 borne heavily on the Stewarts of Hovendon. 
 It was the old story, hoary with repetition, 
 the grisly sequence of debt, devastation, dis- 
 sipation and death. What would you? Pas- 
 sions unchained run wild courses ere they 
 are kenneled again. 
 
12 Frovi Di: 
 
 ixie. 
 
 Alison Stewart stood in the old hall at Ho- 
 vendon, one October night and listened to the 
 tall clock in the corner wheeze midnight. Her 
 hands were wrung together and flung down in 
 front of her to the strained extent of her arms; 
 her brow was drawn into vertical lines and 
 her eyes, in the lamp-light, looked hard and 
 bright with the smarting of unshed tears. 
 She gazed about her with pained intentness, 
 like a person focusing impressions, striving 
 to secure sharp minuteness in detail. She 
 had lived amid these surroundings for eight- 
 and-twenty years, and it had taken her fore- 
 fathers many times that number to accumu- 
 late them. Her breath tangled in her throat 
 so that she was forced to sob for relief. She 
 lifted the lamp and moved slowly about, 
 touching one thing and another, as though 
 taking leave of them, realizing how hard it 
 was, and swaying a little as she walked, like 
 a wind-stirred sapling. She was a woman 
 whose local attachments were woven into her 
 being. 
 
 Presently she left the hall, crossed a vesti- 
 bule and entered a chamber, closing the door 
 softly behind her. The room was in scrupu- 
 lous order, but bore no evidence of being 
 
Alison Stewart. 13' 
 
 occupied. It was furnished after a by-gone 
 fashion, with quaint chairs, spindle-legged 
 tables, a tall chest of drawers, ornamented 
 with brass-work and a handsome four-poster 
 of finely carved mahogany, black with age. 
 Beside the bed stood the little carpet-covered 
 steps rendered necessary by the height of 
 the structure, heaped high with feather bed 
 and mattresses. Between the windows was a 
 handsome cheval-glass and over the mantle 
 was a quaint subdivided mirror in a tarnished 
 gilt frame, both of which Alison avoided, 
 fearing to confront her own reflection. 
 
 She crossed the room, placed her lamp on 
 the candle-stand and sat down on the little 
 bed-steps, resting her head against the pil- 
 low. This had been the bridal chamber, the 
 birth chamber, and the death chamber of 
 many generations. Her grandfather, her 
 father, she herself, and three of her brothers 
 had all first beheld the light of the material 
 world within these walls. Not Dougal — the 
 youngest son, the boy next her in age — he, 
 by accident, had been born elsewhere. She 
 was glad that it should have happened so, 
 and* then angry with herself for being glad. 
 But it seemed fitting that Dougal should have 
 
14 From Dixie. 
 
 been born elsewhere — at a wayside tavern. 
 And yet he had been of her own flesh and blood 
 — a Stewart — even as those others, the three 
 gallant lads who had died, as soldiers should, 
 with their backs to the blood-soaked earth, 
 their faces upturned to that infinite into 
 which they had passed. She kept that fact 
 before her steadfastly, not daring to let it go — 
 that Dougal was of the same flesh as those 
 others ; she needed to keep it so, in order not 
 to be gentle and forbearing about him ; his 
 spirit had been so diff'erent. It was easier to 
 be gentle now that death stood between them 
 — death whose strange mystery shadowed 
 evil, and made unkindness shrink together 
 and vanish from sight. If only death had 
 come on the field of battle, or here, quiet- 
 ly, naturally, as it had come to her hon- 
 ored father. But death by his own hand — 
 death in the reaction end of a drunken frolic ! 
 It was bitter for a Stewart to realize that so a 
 Stewart had faced the eternal mystery. 
 
 Nor was this the worst. Five days after 
 Dougal had been laid in his grave, a stranger 
 had come to her bringing another mortgage 
 on the place, a much heavier mortgage than 
 that left by her father which she had hoped 
 
Alison Stewart. 15 
 
 so earnestly to be able to pay. This last in- 
 strument was held by a stranger — a ^' carpet- 
 bagger," as they were called, one of those who 
 had come to the South for gain after the strug- 
 gle. It contained her signature as well as 
 her brother's, and Dougal had sworn to its 
 verity, before a notary, ere affixing his own ; 
 telling some plausible story of her being un- 
 able to come to the notary's office herself. It 
 had been irregular, but neither notary nor 
 mortgagee had been over-scrupulous. Hoven- 
 don was a good property in spite of bad man- 
 agement. 
 
 In the shock and surprise of it, Alison had 
 been strained to keep from betraying her 
 brother ; to make her face impassive and her 
 voice steady while she declared her intention 
 of sustaining her brother's action. She did 
 not acknowledge the forged signature. in so 
 many words ; she could not. But she sent 
 the man away satisfied that the security he 
 held would prove good paper. She knew 
 that she was beggared and homeless, but she 
 knew also that it would be better so than that 
 the dead man should be doubly dishonored. 
 
 When the first bitterness past, she took to 
 making excuses for him, to putting the blame 
 
16 From Dixie. 
 
 on those hard campaigning years during 
 which men were often forced to resort to 
 liquor to counteract under-feeding and over- 
 strain; in many instances to keep body and 
 soul together. The habit had fastened on 
 Dougal then, and his will had never been 
 strong enough to force it to loosen its grip. 
 He had taken liquor to deaden the pain of 
 an old wound; to help him through the strain 
 of trying to bring order from chaos; to 
 deaden old memories and new griefs. Finally, 
 he drank hard to quell the shame of drinking 
 at all, and so on to the culminating tragedy. 
 
 After that Alison had decided that the 
 plantation must go. Judiciously managed, 
 it might bring enough to satisfy all demands 
 and make the financial record clean. A 
 friend of the family — Mr. David Lipscomb — 
 came forward and helped her arrange mat- 
 ters, found a purchaser for the place, house- 
 hold plenishing and stock, just as it stood, 
 and effected the final settlement on a better 
 basis than she could have done. This was her 
 last night under the old roof, and she felt it. 
 
 Alison reached out her hand and stroked 
 the pillow, sobbing out words and sentences 
 as though in answer to a plea. 
 
Alison Stewart, 17 
 
 '* There, dear! — rest — rest! I know! I un- 
 derstand! 'Twas the evil old habit which 
 misled him — the sinful old habit contracted 
 amid cold, hunger and bloodshed. He wasn't 
 himself when he did it — not your boy — not 
 my brother. It is forgiven now; forgiven 
 and made straight in this world. And for 
 the rest — God is pitiful! God is pitiful!" 
 
 The next morning, when she was making 
 her final preparations, a servant came to say 
 that Mr. Lipscomb was on the front porch 
 and wished to speak to her. She went out 
 to him at once. 
 
 A clever, capable man was David Lips- 
 comb, although unlike most Southerners, he 
 had an abrupt, almost brusque manner. He 
 was in better financial condition than most 
 of his neighbors, having saved a good deal of 
 cotton on an estate he owned in the South, 
 which happened to be apart from the track of 
 army devastation ; judicious management 
 had done the rest for him, so that he was 
 really a man of means still. He had the rep- 
 utation, however, of being a hard-natured 
 and close-fisted fellow, practical in the ex- 
 treme, and devoid of inconvenient sentiment. 
 Alison respected his straight-forward integ- 
 
18 From Dixie. 
 
 rity, and liked him from habit and associa- 
 tion. Just now she was grateful to him for 
 the help he had given her in business mat- 
 ters, as well. Her greeting was, therefore, 
 unusually, cordial. 
 
 ''Shall we go in," she suggested; ''or do 
 you prefer remaining out here ? I know 
 how you like sitting outside generally." 
 
 " It's pleasant here," Mr. Lipscomb de- 
 clared, and deposited his long frame upon one 
 of the porch benches. 
 
 Alison seated herself, also, a little apart^ 
 and made small talk ; to which her visitor 
 gave not the slightest heed. 
 
 After ten minutes, during which his gaze 
 wandered appraisingly over his surroundings, 
 Lipscomb turned to the lady abruptly : 
 
 "It's a good place to live — this," he said. 
 "It's a pity you've got to leave it." 
 
 Alison winced. Her glance took in the 
 gracious sweetness of every detail — the slope 
 of the lawn, the swaying of the trees, gay 
 bedight with autumn foliage, the pale beauty 
 of late blooming flowers, the stately comfort 
 of the old mansion. A wave of home-sick- 
 ness, of love for it all ; of futile, passionate 
 regret submerged her. She could only re- 
 spond by an affirmative gesture. 
 
Alison Stewart. 19 
 
 "It hurts to give it up, I reckon," her vis- 
 itor proceeded, " it's a bad wrench, and all 
 that. Women feel this sort of thing. They 
 value homes and plenishing more than men 
 do. To most men one house is the same as 
 another ; but women are made different. 
 Tell me is the wrench severe ?" 
 
 He bent forward and looked at her. 
 
 Again Alison had but a gesture for him. 
 Her voice stuck in her throat. 
 
 Lipscomb moved uneasily, and struck his 
 boot with his riding whip. Her emotion dis- 
 concerted him. He liked her to feel that 
 way ; but wished she would be sensible in 
 the exhibition of it. He had something to 
 say to her, and wanted to put it sensibly, and 
 to have it so received. 
 
 ''What will your aunt do ? " he questioned, 
 alluding to an invalid maiden lady who had 
 always made her home at Hovendon. 
 
 '' She will remain with me — that is, not 
 just at first, but as soon as I can make a home 
 for us," Alison explained. '' She will go to 
 cousin John's for a visit until I can see about 
 rooms. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped just 
 at first. Cousin Selena and auntie never got 
 on, and I fear auntie will be very uncomfort- 
 
20 From Dixie. 
 
 able. She's brave about it, poor dear ; slie 
 knows I shall take her away the moment it 
 becomes possible." 
 
 ^'Has she nothing of her own ?" 
 
 Alison shook her head. 
 
 " What she had was invested in tobacco 
 during the w^ar and stored in Richmond. It 
 would have realized handsomely for her, but 
 for the burning of the town at the evacuation. 
 She lost everything." 
 
 '' She'll be a great care to you ? " 
 
 Alison smiled. ^' I'm very fond of her," 
 she said, " and even if I were not, my father 
 invested that money of h^r's that was lost. 
 Auntie has a claim on me, even outside of 
 affection." 
 
 Lipscomb worried with his whip. 
 
 " See here, Alison," he said suddenly, 
 ' ' you're used to this place and fond of it ; 
 it's natural you should feel cut up about leav- 
 ing. Why don't you stay ? You can if you 
 like. Your aunt will be better satisfied to 
 stay, and she's old and ought to be consid- 
 ered. The place can be held by one man as 
 well as another. I'll hold it if you like." 
 
 Alison stared at him. AVhat possible con- 
 nection could there be between his purchase 
 
Aliso7i Stewart. 21 
 of Hovendon and her remaining, unless . 
 
 She beamed on him suddenly, her cheeks 
 dimpling. It was a foolish plan, but very 
 kind. How people misjudged him ! 
 
 ''You would buy this plantation and let 
 me rent from you ? " she questioned, smiling. 
 " That's good of you, David, but it isn't wise. 
 I know nothing whatever of farming, and 
 would make an unsatisfactory tenant." 
 
 Lipscomb set her straight at once. 
 
 " You're off the track," he explained, has- 
 tily, " I don't want a farmer. I can attend to 
 all that myself — its man's work anyhow. 
 What I mean is that I'll buy Hovendon for 
 my wife." 
 
 ^^Your ! What?" 
 
 "My wife! You! Don't you catch on? 
 I want you to marry me and keep on living 
 here ; or you can go away for a little while, 
 if you prefer it, and then come back. It's a 
 good plan all around ; and your aunt can 
 live with us. Think it over, Alison. I'm 
 not a bad fellow to live with." 
 
 Alison drew back, a sudden and discourte- 
 ous desire to laugh taking possession of her. 
 Did ever lover make his advances in so un- 
 lover-like a fashion before, she wondered. 
 
22 From Dixie. 
 
 Then she realized that he was not a lover at 
 all ; only a blundering, kindly friend, who 
 was making a hideously awkward mistake, 
 but making it with the best intentions. She 
 was provoked, and at the same time touched 
 by it. 
 
 Meanwhile, her companion having gotten a 
 start, talked on with volubility, like a man 
 setting forth the business advantages likely 
 to accrue from a specified combination. He 
 wanted a wife and a home and could afford 
 both ; he was tired of the discomforts of 
 bachelor existence. He wanted her, more- 
 over, for he had discovered her to be, in their 
 late association, both sensible and practical. 
 He knew her people and she knew his. It 
 would be a first-rate arrangement, and every- 
 body might be made comfortable. 
 
 Alison hearkened quietly. There was no 
 mention of the word love, no simulation, or 
 travesty of the emotion. That would have 
 disgusted her. This did not ; it simply sad- 
 dened her, showing so low a standard of val- 
 ues. Things specified were to be exchanged, 
 even, for things understood, and all was to be 
 fair and square within the law. Could she 
 do it ? Could she buy Hovendon back at 
 
Alison Stewart. 23 
 
 such a price ? Would the dead who had 
 loved it counsel such a transaction ? Did 
 honor, womanhood, and righteousness coun- 
 tenance it ? There could be but one answer. 
 The unspecified values loomed large before 
 her, and she shuddered. It was impossible — 
 this thing ; more, it w^ould be iniquitous. 
 This man did not understand — was taking a 
 surface view. He meant well, but was blun- 
 dering over it. She must stop him from set- 
 ting up tables for money changers in a tem- 
 ple. 
 
 With a few swift words she thanked him, 
 in her aunt's name and her own, for his in- 
 terest in their welfare — she could not put it 
 otherwise — and she gave him full measure 
 of gratitude for kind intentions. Then she 
 showed him that his scheme was untenable. 
 
 '^A woman may not, with honor, sell her 
 birthright, even within the law," she said. 
 " She must love a man nobly, unselfishly, 
 truly, and he must so love her or their union 
 is unsanctified. God gives us that one celes- 
 tial thing — just that portion of His divine 
 essence to glorify our lives with. And if we 
 wilfully degrade it, make love the servant of 
 utility, set our jewel of price in the skull of 
 
24 From Dixie. 
 
 a toad, will we not deserve that evil things 
 shall happen? Can we complain when 
 wrong begets wrong? You do not truly wish 
 this thing. You did not think earnestly 
 about it." 
 
 Lipscomb stared at her. Material things 
 had supreme value in his eyes. Talk like 
 this seemed foolishness to him. He had not 
 expected it of so sensible a woman. He 
 wanted her more than ever, but he did not 
 in the least agree with her views. 
 
 " I should have made love to you," he 
 said, doubtfully, not knowing very well how 
 to commence, now. 
 
 " You should feel love for the woman you 
 make your wife," she responded. " If you 
 had made love to me, not feeling it, I'd have 
 felt myself outraged; as the matter stands 
 I'm "only distressed that you should have 
 formed a low estimate of me — should have 
 thought me a women capable of selling her- 
 self ; for that is the unvarnished verity of a 
 proposal such as yours." 
 
 '^ It's nothing of the sort," he retorted, 
 stung by her plain speaking; " 1 do love you. 
 Only I didn't think you'd care for senti- 
 mental talk." 
 
Alison Steiuart. 25 
 
 " I don't/' she declared, '' unless it pre- 
 sents a truth. I want to be loved, and so do 
 you, if you'll stop and think about it, and so 
 does everybody. God made us that way; 
 and you do 7iot love me, or you would have 
 understood and offered me your best for my 
 best, instead of w^hich you enumerated mate- 
 rial wares, like a huckster, and tried to secure 
 my birthright with pottage. Values should 
 be in kind — material things for material 
 things, and for spiritual things those things 
 which are spiritual. No other law can ope- 
 rate." 
 
 The man could not accept his failure. He 
 was used to depending for success on money 
 and tangible, marketable values. They had 
 never failed him before, and he could scarcely 
 credit that they would ultimately fail him 
 now. Her opposition stirred him, and his 
 nature began to warm a little. 
 
 ''It's a dear old place," he said, '' and life 
 here must be happy." 
 
 " It is a dear old place," she assented, " and 
 life here would be bliss under certain condi- 
 tions." 
 
 ''Not with me?" 
 
26 From Dixi 
 
 ixie. 
 
 " Not with any man I came to, simply be- 
 cause of it. Hovendon isn't worth the price — 
 my womanhood." 
 
 He rose to go. 
 
 ''What will become of yon?" he ques- 
 tioned. 
 
 She looked up at him bravely, and ex- 
 tended her hand. 
 
 " I'm going to work," she said. ''A woman 
 can always do that — her hands can keep her 
 head, or vice versa, if there's any strength 
 within her. My aunt will be with me and 
 we shall get on." 
 
 " My plan is best," persistently. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You are. depreciating marriage," he 
 frowned. 
 
 ''Not so," she flashed back. "You did 
 that. I am restoring a sanctuary." 
 
 He held her hand uncertainly an instant, 
 then his closed strongly over it; a new light 
 dawned in his eyes. 
 
 " I do love you, Alison — love you better 
 than you know." 
 
 Her response was instant: "Thank you 
 for saying that," she said. "It rehabilitates 
 us both; but it is impossible for me to be 
 
'Alison Stewart. 27 
 
 your wife. My heart holds only friendship 
 for you." 
 
 The next four years for Alison were years 
 of toil and frequently of disappointment and 
 anxiety. She rented a small house in a 
 neighboring village, fitted it up with furni- 
 ture reserved from Hovendon, and brought 
 her aunt home to live with her. She man- 
 aged economically, doing a large part of the 
 work herself, so that their one servant might 
 have more leisure to wait upon her aunt, for, 
 as time went on, old Miss Stewart became 
 almost helpless. Through the exertions of 
 friends, notably those of David Lipscomb, 
 who got himself appointed school commis- 
 sioner on purpose, Alison had obtained the 
 public school of the county and was able to 
 hold it. This gave a certain, though small, 
 income for part of the year at least, and she 
 took in sewing, and even essayed to write a 
 little, after the manner of women thrown on 
 their own resources. She had no large suc- 
 cesses, and the struggle was continuous; but 
 she got on fairly well, and the fact that her 
 youth was slipping from her in toil troubled 
 her but little. She kept up her courage and 
 
28 From Dixie. 
 
 cheerfulness, keeping her home and her face 
 bright, no matter how somber the outlook. 
 It would '^ count in the aggregate somewhere," 
 she thought, and no Stewart had ever shown 
 cowardice save Dougal — poor Dougal! 
 
 The hardest thing to endure was the 
 homesickness which overwhelmed her at 
 times — the longing for earth, sky and water 
 in the combination which had gladdened her 
 childhood and youth. She would wake up 
 at night with the sound in her ears of the two 
 rivers, which bounded her old home, rushing, 
 lover-like, to their union ; or the surging of the 
 wind through the branches of the old oaks and 
 horse chestnuts. The scent of the old gar- 
 den flowers would haunt her also, the clove 
 pinks, the calycanthus, the honeysuckle, 
 roses, and sweet star jessamine. Others are 
 not so constituted that one spot of earth is 
 the only home the w^orld contains for them, 
 but she was. She pictured Hovendon over 
 and over to herself in all the phases of its 
 yearly round — pictured it in the morning 
 freshness of spring-time, with the sun just 
 peeping above the mountains, and the sweet 
 dewy breath of the germinating earth stirring 
 softly the ambient atmosphere — pictured it 
 
Alison Stewart. 29 
 
 with the noon-tide heat of mid-summer upon 
 it when the whole universe seemed wrapped 
 in siesta ; with the autumnal beauty on the 
 hills, after a hard frost when the brown earth 
 was frothed up in places until it resembled 
 dirty river foam, when the corn-crakes called 
 from the riverside and the partridge whistled 
 in the stubble fields. And again she would 
 picture it under a winter moon with the tree 
 limbs ice-jeweled and glittering, and the 
 world a wide white mystery of snow and 
 silence. 
 
 All these thoughts and longings she kept 
 to herself, knowing how futile fretting was, 
 and how dark it would make life for the in- 
 valid. But she hearkened avidly to intelli- 
 gence about her old home, and sometimes 
 wished that David Lipscomb would forget 
 the past and come and discuss with her his 
 plans for Hovendon. He owned the place 
 and lived at it, having bought it from the 
 mortgagee immediately after their interview. 
 She liked knowing that a friend's feet trod 
 the old rooms, a friend's life set itself to the 
 old surroundings. Whenever she met Lips- 
 comb she went out of her way to be cordial, 
 but he responded shyly, always avoiding the 
 
30 From Dixie. 
 
 subject of Hovendon, and holding himself 
 aloof. It grieved her. 
 
 One day she accidentally heard that Lips- 
 comb was ill. This troubled her and she 
 wrote several notes of inquiry, to which no 
 answers were returned. Later she knew that 
 hope had been abandoned, and then that he 
 had entered into rest. 
 
 Directly on the heels of this intelligence 
 came a note from Lipscomb's lawyer notify- 
 ing her of the time set for the funeral, and 
 enclosing a sealed envelope which, he ex- 
 plained, he had been directed to place in her 
 hands immediately after the death of his 
 client. 
 
 Alison locked herself into her own room 
 while she examined this enclosure. 
 
 It was not a letter, nor even a message. 
 It w^as a copy of what seemed a clause from 
 a will, and was in the dead man's hand- 
 writing. It briefly set forth that the testator 
 did " will and bequeath to Alison Stewart the 
 plantation called Hovendon — hereinafter de- 
 scribed ; formerly the heritage of her family, 
 and by testator purchased, to have and to 
 hold, with all stock, tools, machinery and 
 household stuff thereunto pertaining, for her 
 
Alison Steiuart. 31 
 
 own use and behoof, in fee simple, for all 
 time, provided the said Alison Stewart should 
 abstain from attending the testator's funeral, 
 and from expressing any interest in his death 
 whatever." 
 
 Alison's first emotion was bewilderment. 
 That a man should deliberately set a reward 
 on disrespect to himself was a thing most as- 
 tonishing ; a freak of posthumous eccen- 
 tricity entirely inexplicable. Then what a 
 position for her ! If she should go to this 
 funeral she would appear to herself an inter- 
 loper, pushing forward to a place from which 
 she had been warned — more, from which she 
 had been offered payment to absent herself. 
 
 Tears of anger and mortification sprang 
 to her eyes. How could he do so cruel a 
 thing ? How dared he fix for her so low a 
 standard ? It was all of a piece with that 
 other offer. He thought sentiment, friend- 
 ship, conduct, everything had a price. It 
 was horrible ! Years before he had offered 
 her Hovendon as a bribe to come to him. 
 Now he offered her Hovendom as a bribe to 
 stay away. She would show him that she 
 was not a woman who could be bought. In the 
 face of the whole world she would show him. 
 
32 From Dixie. 
 
 Then she wept bitterly, because of the 
 friend he had been to her, because of his 
 cruel misjudgment, and because of the look 
 which had dawned in his eyes that moment 
 in which he declared that he loved her bet- 
 ter than she knew. 
 
 What would be the world's comment when 
 this singular document should be made pub- 
 lic did not trouble her. She was an un- 
 sophisticated woman, and her mind grasped 
 and busied itself only with their relative 
 positions to each other — his and hers. What 
 might be the popular verdict on the affair, 
 for the time, lay outside her consciousness. 
 The dead man had intimated a desire to be 
 buried in the Stewart burial lot, which at the 
 sale of the estate Alison had reserved. When 
 applied to for permission, she made no ob. 
 jection. This man had hurt her sorely, had 
 misjudged her even in death; but she felt 
 no animosity towards him, nor was she un- 
 willing that he should rest among her loved 
 ones. This wish of his so to rest appeared 
 to give the lie to premeditated unkindness. 
 This bequest was a blunder, like that other, 
 only worse. He did not understand; for 
 from such as he the arcana of things is hid- 
 
Alison Steiuart. 33 
 
 den. Then she put aside judgment, accord- 
 ing to her wont, and grieved for her old 
 friend sincerely. 
 
 It was better so. 
 
 Before the funeral services were com- 
 menced, standing beside the coffin in the old 
 hall, Alison glanced about, and was touched 
 to see how unchanged it was; how every 
 mark of Stewart occupancy had been pre- 
 served. No new pictures supplied the places 
 of those she herself had removed; the furni- 
 ture and ornaments were as she had left 
 them; even a riding whip and cap of her 
 own, forgotten in the move, hung still on the 
 hat-rack. A lump rose in her throat and 
 remained there. And when, later, she be- 
 held Dougal's old horse grazing peacefully 
 on the lawn, the tears gathered so thick and 
 fast that she could scarcely see the pall- 
 bearers moving just in front of her with 
 their burden. 
 
 When the services had been completed, 
 the lawyer, coming to Alison's side, requested 
 the sympathetic crowd of friends and neigh- 
 bors to return to the house. It was Lips- 
 comb's wish that his will should be read im- 
 mediately, he explained, and in their pres- 
 
S4 From Dixie. 
 
 ence. Then he gave Alison his arm, and the 
 procession, greatly marveling, all trooped 
 back to the house. They marveled more 
 when Lawyer Corbet, keeping Alison still be- 
 side him, unfolded the document in question 
 and made public its contents. 
 
 The will was concise, more so than is cus- 
 tomary, but perfectly correct and legal. After 
 the disposition of a few legacies, the residue 
 of the estate, including Hovendon, was enu- 
 merated and summed up, making a property 
 of considerable importance. And this pro- 
 perty, in entirety and without reservation, 
 was bequeathed to Alison Stewart and her 
 heirs forever. His reason for the bequest 
 the testator also made plain in one pithy sen- 
 tence. ''Unlike most people I know," he de- 
 clared, " Miss Stewart subordinates money 
 always to things that are higher, making it 
 the servant, instead of the master; there- 
 fore, she seems to me a fit person to be trusted 
 with the administration of money, and in 
 giving her mine I feel assured she will do 
 with it the good which I might have done." 
 
 But that which Alison valued most was a 
 folded slip of paper endorsed ''A message to 
 be given Miss Stewart after the reading of 
 
Alison Stewart. 35 
 
 my will." She took it away with her and 
 opened it alone. 
 
 There was but a sentence, written with a 
 hand that showed pain and exhaustion. It 
 said: ^' Dear, forgive me the final test! Some 
 twist in my nature forces me to it, although 
 I knoic you will be true to yourself and your 
 ideals. Forgive me! and in token of pardon 
 come back to the home you love, accepting 
 it as a gift of affection and admiration from 
 the man who has always — always — loved you 
 better than you knew." 
 
 M. G. McClelland. 
 
SIDNEY LANIER 
 
TO LUCIE. 
 
 There is a little word, they say, 
 
 A little word, 
 Which, like the murmur of some cooing bird, 
 
 Will nestle in thy heart of hearts, 
 Certes, some day. 
 
 I know not whether I shall speak 
 
 This word to thee; 
 Love send that he who utters it, 
 
 Fair child, Lucie, 
 Be never blind, like Cupidon, 
 
 Nor false, nor weak. 
 
 For some of us are true as steel, 
 
 As he need be 
 Who reads the meaning of this word to thee, 
 
 And prays its echo in thy heart, Lucie, 
 
 To hold him leal. 
 
 Sidney Lanier. 
 
 St. Valentine' 8 Day, 1880. 
 
SIDNEY LANIER. 
 
 Sidney Lanier, the eldest son of Robert 
 and Mary Lanier, was born in Macon, Geor- 
 gia, February 3d, 1842. His ancestors on the 
 father's side were Huguenot refugees; his 
 mother was a descendant of the Andersons 
 of Virginia, a family of Scottish lineage. He 
 entered, at an early age, Oglethorpe College 
 in his native State — an institution not now 
 in existence — where he took his degree with 
 the highest honor. 
 
 At the outbreak of the late war, when he 
 was but nineteen years of age, he enlisted in 
 the Georgia Battalion, which afterwards 
 formed a part of the Army of Northern Vir- 
 ginia. During his service here, as one of his 
 fellow-soldiers writes me, " he exhibited the 
 courage, patient endurance, and all the other 
 high qualities of the martial spirit; steady 
 adherence to discipline, as well as the bright 
 insouciance characteristic of the American 
 citizen-soldier." 
 
Sidney Lanier. 41 
 
 His thirst for knowledge was not checked 
 by the hardships and privations of a soldier's 
 life in the field. In camp, my informant tells 
 me, he devoted much of his leisure time to 
 study, and obtained a useful knowledge of the 
 German language by the aid of pocket gram- 
 mars and small collections of poetry which 
 he translated. By similar study he also ob- 
 tained a good knowledge of French, which he 
 not only read Avith ease, but spoke almost 
 with fluency. '^ For all knowledge," m.y in- 
 formant continues, " he had an unappeasable 
 hunger ; in all odd moments, with every 
 chance acquaintance, gaining something." 
 During all his campaign life his beloved flute 
 accompanied him, though sometimes he had 
 to give away part of his slender ration that 
 it might find room in his haversack; and its 
 music cheered many a w^eary hour for him- 
 self and his comrades. 
 
 In 1862 he was transferred from the infan- 
 try to the mounted signal corps; and in 1864 
 was appointed signal officer on the steamer 
 Annie. Shortly after his appointment this 
 steamer was captured off Wilmington by a 
 Federal blockader. When the capture was 
 seen to be inevitable, the commander of the 
 
42 From Dixie. 
 
 steamer directed him to distribute a small 
 amount of treasure on board among the 
 officers and men. This he did with impar- 
 tiality to all save himself. In some way one 
 old sailor had been overlooked in the distri- 
 bution, and Mr. Lanier at once divided his 
 own small share with him. 
 
 Some of the officers of the steamer, who 
 were English, wished him to pass himself off 
 as an Englishman to avoid imprisonment; 
 but his courageous and truthful nature re- 
 jected all falsehood and deception, even in 
 war. He frankly avowed his nationality and 
 rank, and was sent as a prisoner to Point 
 Lookout, where he remained in confinement 
 until the end of the war. Some of his fellow 
 prisoners still speak with feeling of the un- 
 varying constancy and cheerfulness with 
 which he bore the many trials and hardships 
 of a prisoner's lot, which told with peculiar 
 severity upon a constitution naturally deli- 
 cate; and it was at this time that were sown 
 the seeds of that disease which was never 
 thenceforth to quit its hold upon him. 
 
 After the restoration of peace he studied 
 the law and became a partner in the firm of 
 Lanier & Anderson, at Macon, his seniors 
 
Sidney Lanier. 43 
 
 being his father and his maternal uncle. In 
 December, 1867, he married Miss Mary Day, 
 of Macon. 
 
 The duties of his profession, after awhile, 
 proved too arduous for him; and the occur- 
 rence, more than once, of a hemorrhage from 
 the lungs, after the exertion of pleading, 
 warned him that he could only continue the 
 practice at the risk of his life. 
 
 His health, indeed, became so seriously 
 impaired that his medical advisers considered 
 a change of climate absolutely necessary, and 
 sent him, in 1872, to San Antonio, Texas, 
 where he remained for several months. Of 
 this strange old town, its history, and his ex- 
 periences in it, he gave a graphic description 
 in the pages of a periodical then published 
 in Baltimore. 
 
 His tastes and studies had long inclined 
 him to literature, and many contributions 
 from his pen had appeared in various jour- 
 nals, and been received with favor. It now 
 seemed as if he were forced by absolute ne- 
 cessity into the path of his predilection. He 
 saw the desirableness of fixing his residence 
 in some important centre of intellectual activ- 
 ity, and thought of making New York his 
 
44 From Dixie. 
 
 home. On his way to that city, in Septem- 
 ber, 1873, he stopped for awhile in Baltimore, 
 and during this stay the director of the Pea- 
 body Orchestra, hearing at the house of a 
 friend, Mr. Lanier's performance on the flute, 
 was so struck by the grace and delicacy of 
 the execution, as well as by the beauty of the 
 composition, which was original, that he of- 
 fered him the position of first flute in the 
 orchestra. To this a moderate salary was 
 attached, and as the duties allowed him ample 
 time for other work, he accepted the offer and 
 retained the position for three seasons, during 
 which time he wrote, for the periodical press, 
 many articles and poems, which showed a 
 steady increase of literary power. 
 
 During this period appeared his remarka- 
 ble poem '' Corn," which first won him a 
 more extended recognition, and showed to 
 those who had scarcely heard his name that 
 a poet of no ordinary gifts was challenging a 
 hearing. This poem, which is like a piece of 
 rarest jewel-work — full of subtle delicacies 
 and tendernesses of thought, bright flashes of 
 the most radiant fancy, passionate sympathy 
 with Nature, and strange audacious felicities 
 of expression — while it charms us with its 
 
Sidney Lanier. 45 
 
 beauty, is not the less impressive for the les- 
 son it conve3^s — its eloquent protest against 
 the lower tendencies of modern life, in its 
 pursuit of mere material things shutting its 
 eyes to the wonders and beauties around it, 
 and closing its ears to the soft admonitions 
 and gentle solicitations that follow it every- 
 where. Indeed, scarce any of his work shows 
 the mere play of fancy without suggestions 
 of deeper purpose. Always 
 
 " the root of some grave thought is understruck 
 
 so rightly 
 As to justify the foliage and the waving flowers 
 above." 
 
 In his '' Symphony," which, though less 
 likely to be popular, is perhaps even a nobler 
 poem than '' Corn," this purpose is still more 
 clearly expressed in the poetic interpretation 
 of the voices of the various instruments as 
 from the pure heaven of music they plead 
 with the human heart. 
 
 In the spring of 1875 he spent some 
 months in Florida, traveling and collecting 
 the materials of a bright little book which 
 he afterwards published. 
 
 The managers of the Centennial Exhibi- 
 tion of 1876, having included among the fea- 
 
46 From Di 
 
 xie. 
 
 tures of the opening ceremonies, a hymn and 
 an ode, applied to Mr. Whittier, a Northern 
 poet, for the former, and for the latter to Mr. 
 Lanier as a poet of the South. 
 
 His disease, unhappily, still made progress; 
 and the occurrence of an abscess in the lungs 
 made a second trip to Florida advisable. 
 Several months spent in the soft climate of 
 Tampa brought at least some improvement, 
 and enabled him to continue his literary 
 work. 
 
 In the winter of 1879-80 he delivered a 
 course of lectures on " English verse, espe- 
 cially Shakespeare's," in The Johns Hopkins 
 University, and those who attended them 
 must have been struck with the thorough- 
 ness with which he laid the foundations of 
 his work, no less than with his affluent and 
 happy illustrations of the principles laid 
 down. In fact, he was compelled, as an in- 
 troduction to his treatment, to build up from 
 the ground a system of English prosody. 
 The views here enounced, he afterwards ex- 
 pounded and developed into his Science of 
 English Verse, of which I may say — and it is 
 a matter to which I have given some study — 
 that this work contains the only clear and 
 
Sidney Lanier. 47 
 
 rational system of English prosody that I 
 have ever met ; those usually appended to 
 grammatical treatises being mere confusions 
 of confusions. 
 
 Our friend had long noted with regret a 
 serious insufficiency in the better juvenile 
 literature of our time. Books written nowa- 
 days for the improvement of the young for 
 the most part fall into two categories, which 
 we may call the '' goody-goody" and the 
 "rough-and-ready." Or, to speak less flip- 
 pantly, those that aim at cultivating the 
 spiritual and moral faculties are apt to deli- 
 quesce into watery sentimentality, while 
 those that would strengthen the practical 
 side of character lack elevation and nobility. 
 To supply the want here, he prepared two 
 books for boys, the Froissart and King Arthur, 
 the one a book of fact, giving the brightest 
 side of real chivalry in history; the other of 
 fiction, giving the noblest and purest ideal of 
 chivalry in legend. It has become somewhat 
 the fashion of late to sneer at the word 
 " chivalry," especially among those who have 
 the most imperfect conception of its meaning. 
 But as our friend defined it: ''To speak the 
 very truth; to perform a promise to the utter- 
 
48 From Di 
 
 xie. 
 
 most; to reverence woman; to maintain right 
 and honesty; to help the weak; to treat high 
 and low with courtesy; to he constant to one 
 love; to be fair to a bitter foe; to despise 
 luxury; to preserve simplicity, modesty, and 
 gentleness in heart and bearing" — to which 
 I may add, to be always ready to accept and 
 face the consequences of our actions — tliis 
 does not seem to me a view of life and its du- 
 ties which any society should plume itself on 
 having outgrown. Or, if it be indeed obso- 
 lete, let it at least linger yet a while to brighten 
 the fairy-land of childhood. 
 
 In the winter of 1880-'81 he delivered a 
 course of public lectures in the University 
 on English literature, and in especial the 
 leading works of fiction and romance. His 
 friends greatly feared that the exertion would 
 be too hard a task for one in his weak condi- 
 tion ; but he insisted upon fulfilling his engage- 
 ments. In the following spring his malady 
 had made such alarming progress that he 
 determined, as a last resort, to try open-air 
 life in a milder climate, and for this purpose 
 went to the hilly country near Asheville, 
 North Carolina. Resolute to work while life 
 was in him, he took with him not only his 
 
Sidney Lanier. 49 
 
 incomplete manuscripts, but also various in- 
 struments of ph3^sical research, that he might, 
 if possible, win something for knowledge out 
 of the hours thus reprieved from death. But 
 the end was too near at hand, and not only 
 was all work presently impossible for him, 
 but he had to be conveyed to the village of 
 Lynn to die. Here every care was bestowed 
 on him, and those among whom he had come 
 as a stranger tended him as a friend; while 
 his devoted wife ministered to his wants and 
 soothed his last hours with that constant 
 affection that had been the crowning blessing 
 of his life. 
 
 Disconnected as it seems, one thread of 
 purpose runs through all his work. This 
 thread is found in his fervid love for his 
 fellow-men, and his never-ceasing endeavors 
 to kindle an enthusiasm for beauty, purity, 
 nobility of life, which he held it the poet's 
 first duty to teach and to exemplify. As he 
 himself has written of a poet: 
 
 " His song was only a living aloud: 
 His work was a singing with his hand." 
 
 No discouragements, no disappointments, 
 no sufferings of body, no anxiety of mind, 
 4 
 
50 From Dixie. 
 
 could abate his ardor of learning; and even 
 in the last months of his life he took up new 
 and difficult studies, and worked at them as 
 long as he had the power. He could not bear 
 to leave unaccomplished anything he had un- 
 dertaken; and when really dying, still worked 
 on, that he might not depart with a single 
 promise unfulfilled. 
 
 He had a strong wish to live; not from a 
 fear of death, but from his passionate desire 
 to accomplish more perfectly the task to 
 which his life was dedicated. 
 
 To quote the words of one who was very 
 near to him: "I cannot express the w^onder 
 and beauty of the reconciliation of his in- 
 domitable human will and vivid personality 
 with an absolute trust in God — a trust which 
 neither required nor wished for explanation 
 of his dearest longings." 
 
 Despite manifold adversity, frequent dis- 
 appointment, and occasional injustice — des- 
 pite much that would have hardened or 
 embittered a spirit of less sweet composure, 
 no trace of cynicism, of bitterness, or even 
 repining, could be found in his whole work 
 or his whole life. He accepted his lot, not 
 with resignation merely, but with sunny 
 
Sidney Lanier. 51 
 
 cheerfulness. The armor of fortitude that lie 
 had addressed, flashed brightness all around. 
 He wrought faithfully throughout his short 
 day, and far into the deepening twilight. He 
 has left behind him enough to show what he 
 might have done, and an undying memory 
 in the hearts of all who knew him, for all 
 who knew him may call themselves his 
 friends. 
 
 May we not apply to him, in a nobler 
 sense, words written of one who died with 
 high purposes unfulfilled — 
 
 Literarum quaesivit gloriam : Videt Dei. 
 
 William Hand Browne. 
 
SOLITUDE. 
 
 Thou wast to me what to the changing year 
 Its seasons are — a joy forever new; 
 What to the night its stars, its heavenly 
 dew, 
 
 Its silence: what to dawn its lark-song clear; 
 
 To noon, its light — its fleckless atmosphere. 
 Where ocean and the overbending blue 
 In passionate communion, hue for hue, 
 
 As one in Love's circumference appear. 
 
 0, brimming heart, with tears for utterance, 
 Alike of joy and sorrow! lift thine eyes 
 And sphere the desolation. Love is flown; 
 
 And in the desert's widening expanse. 
 Grim silence, like a sepulchre of stone. 
 Stands charneling a soul's funereal sighs. 
 
 John B. Tabb. 
 
THE INDIAN OF SAN SALVADOR. 
 
 What time the countless arrow-heads of lio-ht 
 Keen twinkled, on the bended heavens 
 
 back-drawn, 
 With deadly aim, at signal of the dawn. 
 To slay the slumbering, dusky warrior, night — 
 I dreamed a dream. And, lo! three spirits 
 white 
 As mist that gathers when the rain is gone, 
 Came w^alking o'er the waters, whereupon 
 The very waves seemed quivering with 
 affright. 
 
 I woke, and heard, while yet the vision 
 stayed, 
 A prophecy: " Behold the coming race 
 Before whose feet the forest kings shall fall 
 Prostrate; and ye, like twilight shadows tall, 
 
 That w^ither at the sun's uplifted face, 
 Shall pass in silence to a deeper shade." 
 
 John B. Tabb. 
 
MY SOUL— SHE HATH GREAT 
 CARE FOR ME. 
 
 A FANTASIE. 
 
 Softer the air doth blow by far, 
 Than here on the hill it blew last night. 
 No space in the sky for a single star; 
 Only the moon and the clouds at war, 
 Only the lonely wind and I, 
 Are abroad on the fields, in the blurred gray 
 light. 
 
 We two — we alone — and afield we meet. 
 
 Alone — and afield, we pass and greet, 
 
 With a sigh, greets the wind, and I, with a 
 
 sigh; 
 And wherefore, pray, should we pass by. 
 Meet, and not greet, like the friends we are. 
 
 Think not we are not understood. 
 That language in all lands holds good. 
 
My Soul — She hath Great Care for Me. 55 
 
 A tear for the eye, a sigh for the heart, 
 Though far as the moon from the earth apart. 
 No creature born of hmcl or sky. 
 Need wait for words, nor wait for art. 
 To meet and greet, and be well-known, 
 To meet and greet in the fields alone. 
 
 There is no bourne beyond the reach 
 Of sorrow; no soul lives and bides 
 So far but she will visit each; 
 Through every fortress wall she glides, 
 In every creature's life she hides. 
 There is not need that art should teach. 
 For sorrow knoweth sorrow's speech. 
 
 The wind flies on his rustling path; 
 Now from the naked wood he calls. 
 So one might say, Hark! how the wrath 
 Of winter shakes the forest walls. 
 
 But all things are of kin, the sere. 
 The green, the living and the dead. 
 The young, the old; no more are they 
 Apart than are the night and day. 
 
56 From Dixie. 
 
 And hearking, now, I do but hear, 
 My soul's cry in that sound of dread. 
 
 What, then, shall I, not walk at ease 
 On this crisp grass and breathe this air, 
 And hear my heart beat in the trees. 
 And with fair fancies please my mind, 
 The while my spirit in despair, 
 Goes yonder — moaning with the wind ? 
 
 Why should I not be free from care 
 A little space? Her way she knows. 
 There is no flight she will not dare: 
 Far with the flying wind she goes, 
 Swift leaping through the branches bare. 
 My thoughts, ye must not follow there! 
 My soul, she will not let me rest, 
 There is but little time to spare, 
 She will return, that wretched guest, 
 Stay ye, and build me, whiles ye dare, 
 Some cooling comfort in my breast. 
 
 My soul — she takes no care for me. 
 She makes for me no end of woes, 
 
3Iy Soul — She hath Great Care for Me. 57 
 
 No reason and no fears hath she, 
 She knows not mercy nor repose. 
 
 Wlien so at rest I fain woukl be, 
 
 Safe and content with friends to hear 
 
 Their wholesome chat, or make me cheer 
 
 With wine in some brave company. 
 
 Then, whether winds blow Sonth or North, 
 
 Or whether I would choose to go, 
 
 She will not spare, but drags me forth, 
 
 Nor asks if I would have it so. 
 
 She cares not if the skies be clear, 
 
 Or if the clouds be hanging low. 
 
 Nor if the chilly world be drear 
 
 With wintry rains, or white with snow; 
 
 It matters not the storm might blow 
 
 The birds from their night perch, but she 
 
 Holds on her way. Come weal or woe 
 
 She hales me to this upland lea. 
 
 And hence through wood and field to show 
 
 The scenes she thinks I ought to see. 
 
 And hint of dreams that I should know. 
 
 Hist! yonder by the locust tree 
 
 I see her pacing to and fro. 
 
58 From Dixie. 
 
 I dream of happy da3^s to be, 
 And yet I would not care to throw 
 The burthen off and be set free. 
 3l7j soul — she hath great care for me. 
 
 Robert Burns Wilson. 
 
SONG. 
 
 Sing the snow of winter, 
 And sing the summer green. 
 More w^hite and fresh she is, 
 Than either one, I ween. 
 More dainty than the summer, 
 More fair than winter snow. 
 And lighter is her foot-fall 
 Than the lightest winds that blow. 
 
 Then sing heigh-ho! 
 
 The lass that I love so. 
 
 The floAvers were her God-dames: 
 On the day that she was named 
 The blue-bells gave those eyes to her, 
 By which the heavens are shamed. 
 Her hair was dowered by marigolds, 
 Her lips by pimpernels, 
 And one and all did in her breath 
 Unite their faery spells. 
 
 Then sing heigh-ho! 
 
 The lass that loves me so. 
 
 Amelie Rives, 
 
PENDLETON NEIL OF ROSALIA. 
 
PENDLETON NEIL OF ROSALIA. 
 
 Colonel Pendleton Neil was now a man of 
 seventy-two, tall, spare, always clean-shaven 
 and, owing to a limp, always walked with a 
 cane. His title of ''Colonel" was compli- 
 mentary, as he had never been in battle. 
 
 "Before tlie war" he had possessed a 
 moderate fortune, but his loyalty to the Con- 
 federacy induced him to invest all he had in 
 Confederate bonds. The last of his race, he 
 now lived alone on his plantation "Rosalia," 
 situated on James River, in one of the upper 
 counties of Virginia. 
 
 Colonel Neil w^as a gentleman of retiring 
 disposition, modest, humble-minded and 
 courteous. In the days of his prosperity he 
 had scarcely even called himself a farmer, for 
 his lameness and reading habit had com- 
 bined to give him a disinclination for the 
 active farmer's pursuits, while fortune had 
 enabled him to leave such things to a brother 
 and an overseer. The brother fell at Spotsyl- 
 vania; in short the Colonel had survived all 
 his nearest relatives. The only office he had 
 held in his county was one that all the 
 
64 From Dixie. 
 
 changes of war could not take from him, the 
 office of vestryman in his church. 
 
 Plainly, then. Colonel Neil could not be 
 accepted as a typical Virginia planter. There 
 had never been upon his place any one as 
 ignorant as he of farming; nor had he ever 
 been considered the ablest man in his county. 
 He had, indeed, been a great lover of books, 
 but they were simply the companions of a 
 lame man, to whom' active life was painful. 
 In harmony with his contemplative habit of 
 mind, was a love of fishing, but his was 
 scarcely the sportsman's way. He had 
 always found pleasure in spending hours 
 upon the river bank watching his row of five 
 or six fishing rods. 
 
 Thus the dawn of that memorable period 
 in Virginia known as the Reconstruction 
 Era, found Pendleton Neil less able to cope 
 with its adversities than most of his neigh- 
 bors. And yet, when the whites of that 
 county decided to attempt to wrest it from 
 carpet-bag rule, they selected him as the 
 strongest candidate for the position of county 
 clerk. They argued that his spotless char- 
 acter, his gentleness, his record as a kind 
 master of his former slaves, would secure the 
 
Pendleton Neil of IkOsalia. 65 
 
 negro vote. They were mistaken. He was 
 defeated by a carpet-bagger. 
 
 The end of the campaign left him reduced 
 to real poverty, though his neighbors scarcely 
 realized the extent of his needs. 
 
 We all recall his appearance, his placid face, 
 his unvarying response, ''I thank you; I 
 thank you," when he was addressed by friend 
 and neighbor. His limp made the bow 
 which invariably accompanied this speech 
 seem very low and noticeable. Tliose who 
 had known him long could never recall the 
 time he had laughed, but they had often re- 
 marked his smile, kindly, and, when in a 
 group of men, so quiet by contrast as to con- 
 vey the impression that it was sad. His was 
 a gentle disposition of that kind stilled by 
 long and unexcited pursuit of such pleasure 
 as reflective reading, such farming as enabled 
 liim to take a bird's-eye view of his fields from 
 the piazza in the morning, and for the pros- 
 pect to reverently thank God, and courteously 
 thank the overseer at night. His estate was 
 now mortgaged. 'Here and there were 
 patches of corn worked by some of his former 
 slaves on shares, but such shares as reached 
 him did not pay his store-bill. George Israel, 
 5 
 
66 From Dixie. 
 
 an old one-armed negro, his former slave, 
 was the Colonel's principal assistant. This 
 aged darkey had, through superstitious awe of 
 the carpet-bagger's mandate, voted against 
 his old master, but he was ready to do the 
 Colonel's bidding in all except politics. 
 
 The Colonel, on this particular day, had 
 just returned from his visit to the country 
 store, where he had been to pay his bill. He 
 had been so accustomed to having his estate 
 run itself that the idea of personal need had 
 been slow in impressing him. As he stood 
 in his porch now and looked over fields yel- 
 low with broomstraw, out of which was reared 
 the tottering remnant of the sorghum-mill, 
 marked by the straggling stems of sassafras 
 bushes and the stunted pokeberry and pine, 
 and noted everywhere a barren waste where 
 wheat and corn had once waved, the scene as, 
 it used to be, rose before him. He could re- 
 call it as it had looked, just at this sunset 
 hour as he shaded his eyes with his hand, for 
 it was then that the dazzling beams were 
 flung with blinding directness beneath the 
 eaves of the veranda. He could see in his 
 mind the procession of hands returning to 
 quarters after the day's work, Creorge Israel 
 
Pendleton Neil of Bosalia. 07 
 
 always in the lead. He could hear their 
 laughs, and he could remember that special 
 evening when George, espying his figure in 
 the porch, had said in a voice of jolly com- 
 mand, " Boys, dar Marse Pen ; les cdl march 
 up dar an pay our respects, case dis he wedd'n 
 day." ("The rarscle had somehow remem- 
 bered that was the day," thought the Colonel, 
 with a smile. ) And he recalled how they came 
 in column, some bearing hoes, some trace- 
 chains, some baskets, and how they smiled 
 at him and saluted him with " Good eve'n, 
 Marse Pen." ("The rarscles ; they knew 
 how much it pleased me," thought the Col- 
 onel, as he smiled again at the recollection.) 
 It had touched him so much that he had said : 
 " Boys, I thank you; I thank you." And, 
 seeing that it pleased him, they had after 
 that dropped into the habit of coming by each 
 evening and bowing to him, with a cheery 
 and respectful " Good even', Marse Pen." 
 He could remember the sincere good-will 
 shining in their eyes whenever they went 
 through that evening ceremony, commanded 
 by the slave and obeyed by the master, ever 
 afterwards, and pleasing to both. And now 
 they were all gone save George and Kastus, 
 
68 From Dixie. 
 
 and George's one daughter. " Faithful 
 George ! " muttered the Colonel, " and Ras- 
 tus — who began so badly. But I can blame 
 none of those my slaves. I advised them to 
 go. I told them it would be to their advarn- 
 tage to go, because I knew I could do nothing 
 more for them now." 
 
 As these glimpses of old times came be- 
 fore him this autumn evening he bowed his 
 head and said, as if affirmatively to some ut- 
 terance he had- just heard: "Yes, we are 
 drifting." Then he entered his house ; but 
 he had taken in the present situation. He 
 began to think over resources, and he came 
 to the conclusion that as he had nothing in 
 sight he had no right to incur further finan- 
 cial obligations. So the Neil bills-of-fare 
 were now such as the Colonel's slaves would 
 have grumbled at in the old days. 
 
 He had not long before asserted that he 
 found much pleasure, and some advarntage, 
 in cultivating his geyard'n. Indeed, since 
 that remark, he had applied himself with 
 greater industry, and had extended his till- 
 ing operations to farming. 
 
 The Colonel now made a careful calculation 
 of the returns he would have from his crops, 
 
Pendlcto)! Neil of Bomlia. 69 
 
 pigs, and chickens, and — he laughed here, in 
 a knowing way to himself, as his face beamed 
 almost cunningly with his inward satisfaction 
 over this last eminently practical and seem- 
 ingly insignificant, though at the same time 
 bold, bit of business enterprise of his — and 
 ha ! ha ! lightwood ! A matter, he thought, 
 most people would pars by, and yet he anti- 
 cipated a handsome revenue — cash revenue 
 from the sale of lightwood. He had heard 
 that prices in Richmond were as much as 
 fifty cents a bundle ; but, for the sake of ar- 
 gument, he Avould cut that figure down. He 
 would say twenty-five cents a bundle. He 
 thought, with more and more satisfaction, of 
 the rapidly growing number of bundles piled 
 up in his smoke-house. He would wait until 
 he gathered a boat-load. Here was cash — 
 so much cash in your hand, sir. The Colonel 
 almost feared to acknowledge how large the 
 pile already was, and so he went about in his 
 w^oods, axe in hand, splitting pine-knots or 
 cutting rich faggots from the heart of grow- 
 ing trees. 
 
 " I am not kyarst down by the outlook 
 yet," he thought with much gratitude, as he 
 requested such darkies as he met to be sure 
 
70 From Dixie . 
 
 to hail the next hatteau on the river, and in- 
 form the captain to stop at Rosalia landing 
 for a load of lightwood. Two days after 
 that, as the Colonel went to his smoke-house, 
 he saw^ that the hasp had been prized out, 
 and the entire stock of lightwood was gone. 
 For a moment he w\as paralyzed at this theft. 
 He returned to his library and thought a 
 while. Later in the day he requested such 
 darkies as he met to tell the boatman that 
 he would not require his services until the 
 next trip. He kept the fact of the robbery 
 to himself. It w^as not the loss of the fruit 
 of so much labor that hurt him, but the 
 thought that anyone thereabouts w^ould steal 
 from him. 
 
 The Colonel's farming operations were 
 checked again for a time by an incident en- 
 tirely unforeseen. He had watched with in- 
 creasing pride his experiment of chicken- 
 raising. Out of thirty-three only two had 
 died — one being sickly from the time it w^as 
 hatched — and one had been killed by a mink, 
 before the hen-house was hedged around 
 with such a net-w^ork of rock and tin fortifi- 
 cations, that it became impregnable against 
 future minks. The Colonel decided to send 
 
Pendleton Neil of Rosalia. 71 
 
 eighteen of the finest chickens by boat to 
 Richmond. 
 
 " Not alone because I can use ready cash 
 to some advarntage, but it is time to put my- 
 self in connection with the — the provision 
 marts," he said to himself. And yet, looking 
 at the fine array of plump chickens, he dis- 
 liked the idea of parting with any of them. 
 They followed him about the yard, knew his 
 presence so well that he had grown attached 
 to them all. 
 
 '' I will have to pick them out by charnce. 
 I — I — hate to decide upon the fate of any 
 one," he continued, regretfully, as he fed 
 them a few days before their intended ship- 
 ment. 
 
 That very night the hen-house was broken 
 open and seven chickens stolen. It was no 
 mink this time ; the planks had been ripped 
 from the rear. The Colonel now became in- 
 dignant, and, though saying nothing pub- 
 licly, he thought quite bitterly that some 
 special enemy must be lurking in that vicin- 
 ity. The next night four morQ chickens 
 were stolen in the same way, the thief doubt- 
 less inferring that boldness was the secret of 
 success in chicken-stealing. Colonel Neil 
 
72 From Dixie. 
 
 now resolved that he would watch the hen- 
 house. '' I have a right — I owe it to myself," 
 he said firmly, " to protect my — my — pre- 
 serves." 
 
 He armed himself with the long single- 
 barrelled shot gun with which, as a young 
 man, he had hunted ducks about the creeks 
 and marshes. Then he stationed himself at 
 his window commanding a view of the hen- 
 house, and sat there for a week, night after 
 night until day-break, when he dropped into 
 a doze. But his chickens were safe. 
 
 There was another watcher, whose sentinel 
 duty was unknown to the Colonel — Uncle 
 George Israel. After the second theft the 
 aged darkey had missed the chickens, and 
 when he asked the Colonel about them had 
 learned of the robbery. 
 
 He displayed much indignation, and went 
 off with the remark, " I spicions de one whar 
 done dat — I got my spicions of de ve'y nig- 
 ger an I gwi keep close eye on dat hen-house. 
 Why'nt dey steal some other white folk chick- 
 en ? What dey warn steal fum Marse Pen 
 for ? " 
 
 George Israel, therefore, kept an eye on the 
 hen-house. On a night when the moon was 
 
Pendleton Xcil of Rosalia. 73 
 
 full the sentinel Colonel thought he heard 
 George Israel's voice crying : '' I see you all 
 stealin' dem chicken." 
 
 The Colonel picked up the gun and, stand- 
 ing before the open window, said in a loud 
 voice : '' Halt ! Stop or I shoot ! " He saw 
 one and then a second figure jump from be- 
 hind the hen-house. His further call, "Stop 
 instantly ! " only caused the two persons to 
 move rapidly across the yard, and his hands 
 trembling with excitement, he raised his gun 
 and fired at random. A yell followed as one 
 of the figures rolled over : " My Lord ! I 
 killed." The Colonel knew the voice, and in 
 the moonlight he could identify the person 
 as Rastus Johnson. No matter what execu- 
 tion the load of bird-shot had accomplished, 
 it had plainly not ended the life of Rastus, 
 for he quickly arose, and sped away, once in 
 a while venting exclamations of pain. The 
 Colonel noticed that Rastus' companion halt- 
 ed at the moment of the report, and retraced 
 his steps towards Rastus, but seemingly losing 
 courage, rushed away. This individual the 
 Colonel was almost certain was Nehemiah 
 Nottum. The shot and shouts speedily 
 brought out every one on the place. 
 
74 From Dixie. 
 
 The Colonel was agitated. 
 
 " I — I — did my bounden duty in geyarding 
 my — my preserves, but I regret this occur- 
 rence. I must have struck the misguided 
 wretch severely, for he seemed to fall upon 
 the grabs heavily." It was then about four 
 o'clock in the morning, and the Colonel's ex- 
 ploit had broken the rest of everybody for the 
 remainder of the night. " Who was the 
 thief ? " was the question which was renewed 
 after daylight. The Colonel said nothing 
 save to himself. 
 
 ''I had thought Rastus, though a slave of 
 bad inclinations, as a youth, I had thought 
 he had mended his ways. I surely had the 
 right to geyard my preserves, and yet I would 
 rarther he had stolen all the chickens than 
 have discovered him as a thief. It is strange 
 — a strange charnce that he was the — the — 
 recipient of this charge of bird-shot, for I 
 took no aim ; I fired as a warning only." 
 
 " Nemmine bout you," was George Israel's 
 observation, made with a knowing look, when 
 he was asked about the shooting. " Nem- 
 mine bout you, what I know I know; what I 
 see I see; what I hear I hear. Y'all think Marse 
 Pen too ole to handle gun. He — heyah. Yah! 
 
Pendletoit Xcil of Bosalia. 75 
 
 Lor! bang! Zoo/ An den dee was a shout. He 
 — lieyah — yaJt! Too ole to handle de gun! 
 I lay de ain nar nnther nigger gwi fool long 
 Marse Pen hen-house 'gin." 
 
 The unlooked-for adventure shook the 
 Colonel's nerves that day very much. He 
 was conscious of a worn-out and perturbed 
 feeling, and for the first time in several weeks 
 did not go into the held and garden. The 
 day was quite oppressive, and though with 
 secret misgivings that he was allowing a 
 spirit of lethargy to steal him from duties 
 demanding his attention, he could not resist 
 the inclination to remain in the shade of his 
 cool porch with the solace of his books. In 
 his agricultural zeal he had been forced to 
 lay them aside, and while missing his favor- 
 ite authors very much all that time, he had 
 never been so irresistibly drawn towards 
 them as he was to-day. He felt that they 
 could soothe him. He was agitated physi- 
 cally and troubled in mind over the fact that 
 he had shot a man, how severely he did not 
 know, though he had been assured that a 
 load of bird-shot could not have done serious 
 damage at the distance from which he fired 
 it. "Ah, this is true, indeed," he soliloquized, 
 
76 From D 
 
 IX ic. 
 
 as his eyes caught one of his liked papers in 
 the Spectator, and his face resumed almost 
 the habitual placid expression which the 
 day's worry had driven away from it. 
 
 " Yes, sir," remarked the Colonel to the 
 book, " I agree with you perfectly — perfectly. 
 You are right, sir — you are right, and you ar,e 
 kind. I thank you — I thank you." Then 
 he read, in a low tone, a passage he had often 
 read before, as follows: 
 
 " I have always preferred cheerfulness to 
 mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the 
 former as an habit of the mind. Mirth is 
 short and transient; cheerfulness fixed and 
 permanent. Those are often raised into the 
 greatest transports of mirth who are subject 
 to the greatest depression of melancholy; on 
 the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not 
 give the mind such an exquisite gladness, 
 prevents us from falling into any depths of 
 sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning 
 that breaks through a gloom of clouds and 
 glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up 
 a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it 
 with a steady and perpetual serenity." 
 
 " True, very true. A friendly admonition 
 at this — this precise moment, in view of this 
 
Pendleton Neil of Tiosalia. 77 
 
 morning's mischarnce. No, no, not strictly 
 speaking a mischarnce. Arfter all, a — a — 
 conjunction of circumstarnces over which I 
 have had no commarnd — positively no com- 
 marnd. I surely had the moral right to defend 
 my — my — preserves, my — my — keyarsle ; for 
 a man's home is his keyarsle." 
 
 In all his life the Colonel had never had a 
 greater feeling of indebtedness to his es- 
 teemed friend, Joseph Addison, than at this 
 moment. 
 
 Late that evening the excitement reached 
 fever-heat at Rosalia and thereabouts, when 
 it was learned that Colonel Pendleton Neil 
 was actually under arrest, in custody of a 
 constable at the courthouse, charged with fe- 
 loniously shooting him, the said Rastus John- 
 son, w^ith intent to maim, disfigure, disable, 
 and kill, against the peace and dignity of 
 this Commonwealth. News, however, travels 
 slowly in tlie country. The Colonel was ar- 
 rested as he sat alone in his porch. 
 
 No magistrate could be found that night to 
 bail him, and so Pendleton Neil laid in jail 
 tossing feverishly, for the air was hot. He 
 could not sleep, for the rudeness of the ad- 
 venture had agitated him ; but before break 
 
78 From Dixie. 
 
 of day he had resolved himself into his habit- 
 ual cheerful frame of mind. Then he said : 
 
 " Strange things have come to pars in Virgi- 
 nia indeed. Here I am in a dungeon, charged 
 with the murder of one of my former slaves. 
 And the keeper of this dungeon, the man 
 who locks me in, was once a slave of my 
 neighbor. Ah, we are drifting. Poor old 
 State. We are drifting!" 
 
 He detected through the jail bars the re- 
 flection of the sun as it was rising, and a cool- 
 ing breeze seemed to come through the win- 
 dow with the light. 
 
 "Ah, that is pleasant arfter such a close, 
 stifling night," he muttered. 
 
 Then he noticed the three holly-trees near 
 the walls of the jail, and their branches shook 
 with the emulating fluttering of the blue- 
 bird company, whose merry chatter was glad- 
 some ; and now above the midst of this ma- 
 jority, there aspired an outburst from the 
 humbler rest of a fence bush, an outburst 
 cleaving through and soaring over their ag- 
 gregated sounds, and brilliantly whirling in 
 aery evolutions; rich jewels of wondrous vo- 
 calization, as though the modest-hued ma- 
 ligned cat-bird, was triumphing by right of 
 
Pendleton Neil of Rosalia. 79 
 
 merit over its detractors, and working revenge 
 in these notes evokeful of admiration. 
 
 " How blythely those birds sing among the 
 trees ! " he said, with a smile. " I farncy if I 
 were a prisoner long I would always be tempt- 
 ing them to sing by my window. Just here 
 my thoughts recur to an old — yes, very old — 
 sonnet. Strange ; I have skyarsely read it 
 in twenty years. Let me see — by whom — by 
 whom ? Lovelace, was it not ? The Cavalier 
 poet, Lovelace, I am sure — quite sure. Love- 
 lace — Richard Lovelace ; I think written in 
 prison, perhaps just before he died. I never 
 thought I would recall it under such circum- 
 starnces, but it is apposite, very apposite. 
 
 * Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage, 
 Minds innocent and quiet take 
 
 That for a hermitage, 
 If I have freedom — ' 
 
 "Ah, now," he murmured; ''I have lost 
 the thread, I fear. I fail to recall that line. 
 Let me see — let me see: 'And in my soul am 
 free.' I remember that — that laudable, ex- 
 cellent sentiment, indeed. Mnd in my soul 
 am free.' Just before that: 'If I have free- 
 dom ' — freedom. Ah, it is here ! I have it — 
 
80 From Dixie. 
 
 * If I have freedom in my love, 
 And in my soul am free, 
 Angels alone, that soar above, 
 Enjoy such liberty.'" 
 
 In his enthusiasm he stepped hastily to 
 the centre of his cell, as he said, " such lib- 
 erty! " and his face lit up very much as he 
 repeated the lines, but the energetic and rev- 
 olutionary motion of the arm endangered his 
 balance, for he had lost his cane, and stand- 
 ing was not easy without it, as one of his legs 
 was shorter than the other, and his recent 
 agricultural labors had lately caused it to 
 pain him. 
 
 " Poor Lovelace! " he said; " I recall his 
 career more distinctly now; wounded, de- 
 spoiled of his fortune, sick and in prison, 
 and died before the cause for which he fought 
 was restored. Those are noble sentiments of 
 his in this — this verse. I wish I could place 
 my hand this very moment upon what he 
 wrote. There is something more of like 
 felicity. Let me see: 
 
 * When linnet-like confined, I 
 With shriller note shall sing ' 
 
 What is the rest?" He paced his cell thought- 
 fully, but the remainder of the sonnet eluded 
 
Pendleton Xeil of Rosalia. 81 
 
 his memory, and while he was engrossed in 
 the effort to recall the lines, his reflections 
 were interrupted hy some noise outside the 
 jail walls. He could hear voices, low at first, 
 and then it seemed that caution had been 
 dismissed and the talking was loud and gen- 
 eral. 
 
 " Gentlemen, good mornin','' the Colonel 
 heard one of them say. '' I have just learned 
 of this outrage. It is time now to hang 
 somebody, openly, boldly, and without fur- 
 ther delay." 
 
 ''My gracious!" the prisoner thought, 
 aghast; "they are going to resort to deeds 
 of violence. Stop there! stop there! " he 
 shouted. Then with trembling hands he 
 drew the cumbersome cell bunk to the win- 
 dow and stood upon it, by means of which 
 elevation he was enabled to see the group 
 below^ and be seen by them. 
 
 " Gentlemen! gentlemen! my friends! " he 
 exclaimed, as loudly as he could. All glanced 
 up and saw^ him. To their eyes he looked 
 many years older and broken. His usually 
 clean-shaven face was now whitened by the 
 rough outcroppings of beard caused by the 
 omission for tw^o mornings of his daily use 
 
82 From Dixie. 
 
 of the razor. The steadily increasing heat of 
 the cell had brought out streams of sweat 
 upon his forehead, and the movement of the 
 bunk from the position where it had stood 
 undisturbed for many months, had sent forth 
 a cloud of dust, much of which adhered in 
 ugly black stripes to the damp surface of 
 Pendleton Neil's countenance heretofore so 
 placid and kindly. Several of those in the 
 group below were heard to say afterwards 
 that they could never forget that face as seen 
 between the jail bars which were grasped by 
 the two hands, trembling and grimy from 
 such unusual contact. 
 
 ''My God! I will not stand that sight," 
 shouted Reverley Digges. '' God bless you. 
 Colonel; God bless you, sir! " He waved his 
 hat to the prisoner. '^ We'll not let you stay 
 in that hole five minutes longer." Then all 
 of them waved to him. 
 
 ''My friends, my friends — gentlemen!" 
 called the Colonel, as he vainly attempted to 
 strengthen the volume of his utterances by 
 clearing his throat. " Please make no hos- 
 tile demonstration; no resistance of the con- 
 stituted authorities. Let us proceed in the 
 proper way." 
 
Pendleton Neil of nomlia. 83 
 
 Here the group was enlarged by the pres- 
 ence of two new-comers, breathless, travel- 
 stained and red in the face from their hur- 
 ried journey, for they had walked or run all 
 the way. These parties were John Ransom 
 and Bill Byley, both having shot-guns upon 
 their shoulders, the armament of the latter 
 being increased by the formidable-looking 
 cheese-knife which he had caught up at the 
 store and stuck in his belt. 
 
 " No, I d'warn look at him. I ainter goin' 
 to ever see his face through no jail bars," 
 said Bill Byley, fixing his eyes sternly upon 
 the ground, ''I'm here for business." 
 
 The group grew rapidly in a few minutes, 
 and now numbered eighteen men — three 
 more bringing shot-guns, and one having his 
 old army musket. 
 
 '' My friends, your attention, please," the 
 Colonel again shouted, as well as he could in 
 his agitation, for the crowd seemed to be ani- 
 mated by a delicate sentiment leading them 
 to simulate an inability to see him behind 
 the bars of a jail, especially after Bill Byley 's 
 emphatic remark. ''My friends," the pris- 
 oner proceeded to say, " please do nothing 
 until the arrival of the magistrate." 
 
84 From Dixie. 
 
 ''Come on/' shouted Ransom; ''come on, 
 boys ! Come on, ole Virginia ! " 
 
 They moved around to the front of the 
 jail and out of sight of the prisoner. The 
 unusual hum of voices at that early hour had 
 waked the negro jailor, and when imperative 
 blows were showered upon the door he 
 opened the window above, and leaning out, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 "Who dat mak'n dat noise down dar?" 
 
 "Ransom, I swar I got a good mind to 
 pink the nigger," said Bill Byley to his com- 
 panion, as he brought his gun to his shoulder; 
 " a dam black crow cawin' up thar over a 
 gentleman." 
 
 "Hoi' on; what's lie savin'?" returned 
 Ransom, in a low tone. " What's the nigger 
 sayin' ? " 
 
 The jailor's eyes stared first with amaze- 
 ment, and then fright. " Gent'mun, what 
 de marter down dar ? " he asked. 
 
 " We are here to demand the instant re- 
 lease of Colonel Neil," returned Mr. Fel- 
 lington. 
 
 "Take that head out of that window, you 
 dam black crow, or I'll pink you cert'n," 
 shouted Bill Byley, unable to restrain himself. 
 
Pendleton Xeil of Romlia. 85 
 
 The head was withdrawn in a twinkling, 
 and the window fell. The panes having left 
 their frames, the jailor could now conduct 
 negotiations without raising it. 
 
 " Gent'mun, I'll open de do'. Y'ain gwi 
 trouble me, is you ? Mis' Brade tole me I 
 boun't lock 'im up," cried the official, as his 
 teeth chattered with terror. 
 
 '' I knew it," shouted Bill Byley. '^ John 
 Ransom, I toF you that worm was at the bot- 
 tom of this. He's a goner when I see him." 
 
 " Yas, boss, Mis' Brade de one vrhar say I 
 gotter do it — de word done pass I gotter do 
 it — " jabbered the jailor, scarcely knowing 
 what he was saying. "Speyar me, my mars- 
 ters; speyar a po' igneunt nigger." 
 
 '' You will not be harmed," said Fellington. 
 "Release the prisoner instantly. You have 
 been imposed upon." 
 
 "All right; I gwi let him out dis vey min- 
 ute," returned CcTsar, much relieved and 
 hastening off. 
 
 He was at the door in an instant with his 
 charge, who was enthusiastically received. 
 But the raiders, or, as they were termed by 
 some Northern historians of that day, " the 
 infuriated mob," received a check at this 
 
86 From Dixie. 
 
 stage of the proceedings from none other than 
 Col. Pendleton Neil himself. He greeted 
 them indeed warmly, shaking each one by 
 the hand. 
 
 '' No, gentlemen," he said, " I keyarnt con- 
 sent to leave this court-house until the 
 formality of an examination by a magistrate 
 is through with. You apprehend that I have 
 been dungeoned upon a charge, fabricated I 
 hold, but yet that charge is spread upon that 
 court-house record. It is written there 
 against me and sent forth by a magistrate. 
 My acquittal or conviction must be recorded 
 along with that charge. I keyarnt leave 
 until this formality is complied with. My 
 friends, we have enemies — the old State has 
 enemies — and this — this loyalty on your part 
 to me — this — keyindness never to pars from 
 my memory, may be used not alone to our 
 personal detriment — that we could stand — 
 but to the detriment of our beloved and 
 stricken State, and our equally beloved and 
 stricken South. My fellow-county men, — 
 my — words at this precise moment keyarnt 
 afford me the medium by which to fittingly 
 set forth my — my — deep appreciation of your 
 keyindness, but I purpose to — to place in 
 
Pendleton Neil of Rosalia. 87 
 
 writing at an early day, a more appropriate 
 recital of my feelings on this occasion, one 
 giving you a testimonial your bold and — and 
 chivalric attention to me by right should, and 
 does, imperatively demarnd, and which the 
 absence of leesure now, and the present ex- 
 cited condition of my — my mind prevents me 
 from enunciating. Gentlemen, I thank you ; 
 I thank you." 
 
 The magistrate for this district was 
 Nehemiah Nottum, a negro. He appeared 
 in the court-room accompanied by Solon 
 Brade. 
 
 Magistrate Nottum, in answer to the 
 Colonel's dignified " demarnd as a citizen and 
 Virginian, to know why I am arrested and 
 inkeyarcerated," stated that it was upon com- 
 plaint of Rastus Johnson. Rastus had been 
 about the court-house all night, and was soon 
 on the witness stand. His statement was to 
 the effect, that an early hour, just before day, 
 he was on his way to the mines. He was 
 walking rapidly along the path behind 
 Colonel Neil's house, and hearing an impera- 
 tive demand to halt or he would be shot, be- 
 came frightened, and ran across the yard, 
 and the first thing he knew he was shot in 
 
88 From Dixie. 
 
 the back. He recognized Colonel Neil's 
 voice, and noticed that the report of the gun 
 proceeded from the Colonel's house. 
 
 ''He is right in his statement as to the — 
 the whereabouts of the firearm," said the 
 Colonel with great firmness, as he glanced 
 around the court-room. "And he was — he 
 was presumably the — the recipient of a 
 wound, or doubtless several punctures, more 
 or less severe, from the weapon I myself dis- 
 charged. I — I — had the right, undoubtedly 
 the prerogative of every citizen, for a man's 
 home is his keyarsle, I had the right to — to 
 protect my preserves." The Colonel then 
 made his statement. 
 
 Just here Solon Brade, the carpet-bagger, 
 said he would take the liberty of remarking, 
 for the enlightenment of all concerned, that 
 having heard Rastus Johnson's recital, and 
 seeing that Rastus apprehended further at- 
 tack from Col. Neil, he had informed Rastus 
 that he undoubtedly had the right to get a 
 warrant for the Colonel's arrest. 80 as a 
 matter of self-protection this was done. 
 
 The result of this examination was satis- 
 factory, and among the archives of his native 
 county, along with the only charge ever pre- 
 
Pendleton Neil of Bosalia. 89 
 
 ferred against Pendleton Neil, of Rosalia, was 
 the entry — 
 
 " Case desmysd. 
 
 " Nehemiah Nottum, J. P." 
 
 " Neemi' Nottum, I warn see you," said 
 Unc' George Israel, after the crowd had 
 moved out on the court-house green. The 
 two walked to a corner of the yard. 
 
 '' Looky heyar, nigger," exclaimed Unc' 
 George, ''what you warn come arter Marse 
 Pen chick'n for? Whyn't you steal chick'n 
 fum po' white people ef you gwi steal um? 
 What you warn steal fum my quality folk 
 for?" 
 
 " What you got do wid me?" was the surly 
 response. 
 
 " I got dis," was the significant answer. 
 " You better stay 'way fum dat hen-house. 
 / gwi do some shoot'n' next time an' I gwi 
 shoot. You know w^hat kind 'r shot you gwi 
 git fum me?" 
 
 ''What kind shot?" 
 
 " You gwi git wrought-iron nails. Deni de 
 kind I gwi put in my gun. When dat load hit 
 a nigger — good-bye, nigger! Looky heyar," 
 the speaker continued, in a confidential and 
 gently advisory tone, as he placed his hand 
 
90 From Dixie. 
 
 on the listener's shoulder, ''looky heyar, nig- 
 ger, e/you warn yo' -i/^sides all jus' wropped 
 roun' an' nailed toguther, like hoops roun' 
 cider barr'l, an' the nails cleencked so dey 
 won' come out, you jus' prize nuth'r plank ofF'n 
 dat hen-house. I gwi teck my powder-horn 
 to Mr. Kansom's for to fill it dis vey night. 
 I nuv'r use bird-shot when I hunt 'r nigger. 
 I d' warn no hammer to drive clem nails whar 
 I gwi git." 
 
 " Who you tell'n' all dat to?" was the re- 
 ply. '' Lord, I ain' studd'n' 'bout you, Unc' 
 George." 
 
 ^' I done say all I gwi say. Lemme see," 
 observed the old darkey, counting on his fin- 
 gers and looking ofi' thoughtfully. " Half- 
 poun' — better say ivhole poun' — wrought-iron 
 nails, Mr. Ransom, an' box caps, an' two 
 poun' powder. Dis vey night, an' I gwi load 
 her mos' to de brim; but I gwi clean her out 
 fus\ She shoot, too, dat ole musket feyarly 
 do shoot. My Lord, how she do keyar 'r 
 load! Umph! stan' fum out de front!" 
 
 He waved his hand as if to warn all per- 
 sons in the vicinity to clear the track. This 
 was the first intimation given in that region 
 that George Israel was the possessor of a gun, 
 
Pendleton Neil of Rosalia. 91 
 
 and Nehemiah Nottum was astonished at this 
 sudden claim to superior markmanship by a 
 one-armed colored man. But Nehemiah 
 looked at him derisively and asked: 
 
 "Who you talk'n to 'bout steal'n chick'n?" 
 
 ''I tell'n you; J see you. I heerd you say 
 'prize slow, Rastus, prize slow.' And you see 
 me when I come to de do' an holler to you 
 all." 
 
 " Nem mine bout you, nem mine bout you," 
 was the answer. '^ You think case niggers wid 
 one arm is skeeus, you vey import'nt. I kin 
 chop off my arm, too. Dat what you did I 
 believe. I don' believe no doctor cut off dat 
 arm. I spicions you cut dat arm off pu'pose 
 to say yovi de onliest one-arm nigger what 
 dee is. Don meek no mo miration roun me, 
 I tell you." 
 
 ''You better go long an ten' y'own business," 
 was Uncle George Israel's warning repl3^ " I 
 do'n teck no word fum ar nowhar nigger like 
 you is no how. Dat's jus' what you is. You 
 ain nuth'n. Y' ain got no pedegree ; y' ain 
 got no title whar you kin prove." 
 
 " Looky heyar — looky heaj-r, George Israel! 
 Don' crowd me, don' crowd me," remonstrated 
 Nehemiah, taking off his hat and slinging it 
 
92 From Dixie. 
 
 to the ground. "Don use no sayins like dat 
 to me." 
 
 ^'Who us'n any sayins?" 
 
 '^Youis— " 
 
 " You liar, you liar. Don' you come roun' 
 wid no lie 'bout my us'n sayins. Ef you don' 
 look sharp you wake up in 'r graveyard to- 
 morrer an' you wonder how you git dar." 
 
 " 117^0 gwi sen' me dar? " 
 
 ''Nem mine who gwi sen' you dar. You 
 think case you kin read out de book you know 
 ev'ything, but y' ain gwi read nuth'n in no 
 book whar kin tell who sont you dai\ You 
 keep fool'n roun' me you wake up to-morrer 
 mornin early in graveyard, sho, an you be a 
 skel't'n, too. Lord know you ainter gwi 
 meek no good look'n skel't'n. . Looky heyar, 
 Nee'mi'," the speaker concluded, in a confi- 
 dentially low tone, " You de blackest nigger 
 I uv'r did see. I don' see how dee got you so 
 black." 
 
 ''Ole nigger," replied Nehemiah, as he 
 picked up his hat and smiled, " I seed you at 
 de cirkeus whar here dis August gone twelve 
 munt. You was dar, warn't you? " 
 
 "Of cose I at de cirkeus." 
 
Pendleton Xeil of Bomlia. 93 
 
 '^ Did'n you see dat rhi'ro.stis whar horn 
 com'n out de top of his nose? " 
 
 ^' Yas, of cose, I see de rhi'ro.s-tis. What 
 you ax'n sich fool question like dat for?" 
 
 '^ Did'n you see 'im when he eat'n straw 
 same as a cow? " 
 
 "Yas, nigger, yas; I see dat." 
 
 ''Well; I warn say dis, ole black man: 
 Did you know dee was 'r flee on dat rhi'vo.s'tis' 
 back; but dat ain meek no difference to de 
 rhi'rostis. He kep on eat'n dat straw. He 
 nuv'r know ar flea was dar — de flea so mighty 
 small. Well, dat how much I studd'n 'bout 
 you, ole nigger. I do'n know you is 'hout. I 
 ain heyar ney word you spoke. Lem me 
 see," continued Nehemiah, smiling to him- 
 self and exploring the vicinity with his eyes, 
 '' Well, I declar, I de onliest man in dis co't- 
 yard dis minute. I wonder whar dat po' ole 
 nigger, George Israel, is, whar brag so much 
 case he think he de onliest one-arm nigger in 
 de worl? Las' time I see 'im was day 'fo 
 yisfdy. Well, I feel'n right lonesome stand'n 
 heyar all by niysef. I bes' sing some. Umph, 
 de Lordy, Lord}^ how lonesome I is right dis 
 minnit. I give mos' anything to see some- 
 body, even ef 't was a dog." 
 
94 From Divie. 
 
 Having uttered this sarcasm, Nehemiah 
 Nottum beat time on the ground with one 
 foot, and looking up into the clouds hummed 
 softly: 
 
 " Shine along, shine along, my home is on de Jordan- 
 1-a-n', 
 My home is on de Jordan." 
 
 Uncle George Israel's eyes flashed fury. 
 He seemed to restrain a desire to do personal 
 injury to the singer, and said, after a pause: 
 
 " I don' have no call for Nowhar Niggers, 
 nohow. A Nowhar Nigger better stay way 
 fum me. Well, I better be mov'n on de sto 
 fo it close." 
 
 Then, addressing the imaginary store- 
 keeper again, he said: ''Mr. Ransom, put 
 plenty powder in dat horn, an I warn dem 
 wrought-iron nails wid shmy pints. Lucinda, 
 teck de shutter off''n dat winder and put de 
 bench whar I kin sit right dar. Don' fool 
 wid dat gun, gal ! — hit's loaded up to de brim. 
 I hunt'n niggers now, an I warn have 'r good 
 res' thew de winder so I kin put dat whole 
 load in 'r nigger's hide, an 'r Nowhar Nig- 
 ger's hide at dat." 
 
 With this brief outline of prospective and 
 immediate speeches to be made to his daugh- 
 
Pendleton Neil of Tiosalia. 95 
 
 ter, and to Ransom, the old darkey walked 
 off in one direction and Nehemiah Nottum in 
 another, each informing himself in a lond 
 voice, and with evident satisfaction, just what 
 he intended doing, the upshot of it all being 
 that one-armed niggers and Nowhar Niggers 
 were to be swej^t from the face of the earth. 
 It had been a trying three days' experience 
 to the Colonel. His nerves had been tugged 
 at in a way unparalleled in his long career, 
 and he was very weary that night as he sat 
 alone in his library by the light of a single 
 candle, and though without sleep for two 
 nights and physically distraught, his mind 
 was not yet calm enough to give him 
 slumber. He found the Spectator on the table 
 just where he had hastily placed it when he 
 had been arrested as a felon, and the volume 
 was partially open, for in his haste he had 
 closed it at a favorite page on which he had, 
 in his agitation, involuntarily laid a bit of 
 lightwood he had intended to forward to the 
 commercial marts as a sample, and thus it 
 seemed that this lightwood had kept the 
 pages apart there, with an intimation that it 
 was ready to furnish him illumination suffi- 
 cient to see the soothing calm of Joseph Ad- 
 
96 From Dixie. 
 
 dison, who spoke of cheerfulness as " an habit 
 of the mind, daylight in the mind, filling it 
 with steady and perpetual serenity." 
 
 '^ Yes, yes," said the Colonel, as he opened 
 the book at this page, ''yes, yes — very true. 
 A lesson here, a useful lesson. Ah, I try not 
 to think of the day and it's terrible warning 
 to me. I thank God that I did not wound 
 Rastus severely, for to have done him serious 
 bodily harm under the doubtful circum- 
 stances surrounding his — his — identity, 
 would have been fearful to my future peace 
 of mind. While I myself have been so sure 
 about the presence of Rastus on my preserves 
 that night, yet my reason, my — my reflective 
 ability should have — have — admonished me 
 how easily I might be mistaken. In the 
 eaply morning — by the light of the moon — 
 and my eyesight probably defective ! This 
 assuredly teaches — warns — how careful old 
 men should be in using firearms." 
 
 He was yet restless — restless. He had 
 never known his hands to tremble so long. 
 ''What a day of excitement this has been," 
 he muttered, " beginning with the sun-rise. 
 Ah!" he smiled, as his face lit up with the 
 recollection of the songsters of the wood who 
 
Pendleton Neil of Rosalia. 97 
 
 had gladdened far him the descent of the 
 dawn. This was indeed the most soothing 
 feature of the eventful experience. " How 
 blythely they sang crowding those holly trees 
 so near the prison walls. Wise, indeed, me- 
 thinks, to leave trees standing there, and 
 birds should always be — be accorded this 
 charnce — this perch from whence to — to pro" 
 mulgate their music through the jail-bars. 
 How blythely they sang! " he said again, as 
 he clasped his hands over his knees and 
 looked down thoughtfully. " Let me see — I 
 remember. It was this which set me to 
 thinking of the forgotten lines of Lovelace — 
 Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier poet: 
 
 ' AVhen linnet-like, confined, I 
 With shriller note shall sing ' 
 
 I will find them." He soon had the right 
 
 book in his hand. '^\h! yes, here it is — the 
 
 most beautiful — touching — of all of them, 
 
 to my thinking: 
 
 'When linnet-like, confined, I 
 With shriller note shall sing 
 The mercy, sweetness, majesty, 
 And glories of my King; 
 When I shall voice aloud how good 
 He is, how great should be, 
 Th' enlarged winds that curl the flood 
 Know no such liberty ! ' 
 
98 From Dixie. 
 
 Eloquent indeed — sadly resounding with the 
 — the spirit of the — the dying Cavalier, for 
 he was dying then, as I now recall; his re- 
 maining days were but few — yes — but few. 
 He was — his theme was — his earthly monarch 
 — his — his — temporal sovereign, when he 
 said : 
 
 AVith shriller note shall sing 
 The mercy, sweetness, majesty, 
 And glories of my King; ' 
 
 and yet to my mind these — this — this — 
 tribute seems almost like a hymn — a hymn to 
 God — to the Ruler above — grarnd — " 
 
 The old tall clock in the library corner 
 began to tell off twelve strokes, and the Colo- 
 nel looked up quickly and startled. 
 
 '' Midnight — midnight — and now Sunday. 
 I had forgotten, and this is our church-day." 
 
 He put aside the book and took from the 
 table a worn volume, yellow of page and big 
 of print. '' Yes — ah, yes — 
 
 ' The mercy, sweetness, majesty, 
 And glories of my King.' 
 
 Yes — is it not appropriate? this — this — mo- 
 ment. And — and when I go over the — the 
 
Pendleton yell of Bosalia. 99 
 
 varst experiences and dangers I have parsed 
 through this day, this eventful day — 
 
 'When I shall voice aloud how good 
 He is ' 
 
 Ah! the very lines of the — the wounded and 
 — and — broken and dying Cavalier are — 
 are — ." The Colonel did not finish the sen- 
 tence, for he closed his eyes reverently, and 
 presently turned the leaves of the Book of 
 Common Prayer of his church and read its 
 form of Evening Family Prayer, as had been 
 the wont of his ancestors at Rosalia, as the 
 shadows fell. So Pendleton Neil, following 
 an ancient and honorable custom, devoutly 
 went through the Confession of Sins with a 
 prayer for contrition and pardon; prayer for 
 grace to reform and grow better; and as each 
 word w^as lifted by faith from its page and 
 sent upward, the Colonelread: — 
 
 "Reform whatever is amiss in the temper and 
 disposition of our souls ; that no unclean thoughts, 
 unlawful designs or inordinate desires, may rest 
 there. Purge our hearts from envy, hatred and 
 malice ; that we may never suffer the sun to go 
 down upon our wrath ; but may always go to our 
 rest in peace, charity and good will, with a con- 
 science void of offence towards Thee and towards 
 men — " 
 
100 From Dixie. 
 
 ^' Offence towards Thee and towards men," 
 echoed the Colonel, thoughtfully, as he 
 paused and allowed the book to close in his 
 hand. '^\nd two nights ago I prayed against 
 unlawful designs and hatred and malice. 
 Was there not malice in my heart, anger, as 
 I waited armed all night watching for the 
 man I shot? And I designed to shoot him — 
 unlawfully designed. May I be forgiven — 
 may I be forgiven when I too think of 
 
 'The mercy, sweetness, majesty, 
 And glories of my King.' 
 
 Amen — amen — oh, my God, amen! Grateful 
 — grateful that this man's death is not to 
 my — my charge. For this mercy, my King, 
 I thank Thee— I thanh Thee." 
 
 As he bowled his head in silent prayer the 
 candle fell, and presently his eyelids w^ere 
 weighted with sudden sleepiness as he groped 
 the way to his room, and when the sun rose 
 Sunday morning, while the birds sang 
 blythely by his window, he lay across the 
 bed upon which he had fallen, and his know- 
 ledge of them and of all around him was 
 shut off, nor did he speak again in the few 
 
Pendleton Xeil of nomlla. 101 
 
 (lays he lingered, save once, and then he 
 shaded his eyes with his hand as though 
 viewing his fields, and laughed softly. to him- 
 self as he muttered, '' the rarscles, they knew 
 how much it pleased me." 
 
 William W. Archer. 
 
THE WANDERER. 
 
 My lamb is missing from the nightly fold, 
 And bleak the wind that sweeps the darken- 
 ing wold; 
 Where wandereth she, so late and over-bold, 
 With timid feet. 
 
 Hath any seen a lamb that's gone astray, 
 Caught on the thorns that lined her home- 
 ward way. 
 Or slipping down the steep, alack-a-day! 
 With piteous bleat? 
 
 Why to the storm is turned her tender 
 
 breast? 
 Her fold was full of love, and warmth, and 
 
 rest. 
 There w^as no lamb so sheltered and caressed 
 The sun beneath. 
 
 Or is she housed in an alien fold 
 With simple head forgetful of the old 
 And fated soon to shiver witli the cold 
 Upon the heath? 
 
The Wanderer. 103 
 
 Some thief hath stolen my lamb, though 
 
 many had he, 
 And all the world had but this one for me. 
 An idle shepherd I shall ever be 
 With idle crook. 
 
 There was but one I ever wished to guide 
 Over the chasm or up the mountain side, 
 And pipe to on the meadows green and wide, 
 
 From shady nook. 
 Oh, Thou Good Shepherd! seek her in the 
 
 path 
 That many a pitfall, many a sorrow hath; 
 On her bewildered head let not thy wrath 
 
 Eternal break. 
 
 To the calm pastures of a better land 
 Where all the sheep are tended by Thy hand 
 And follow ever as Thou dost command 
 My wanderer take! 
 
 James Lane Allen. 
 
TO A SAXON WOMAN. 
 
 Thou honorest, lady, much the constant 
 
 strain, 
 The stream of Saxon steel that stays thy 
 
 heart; 
 Of its heroic past thou worthy art; 
 Its future sure whilst such as thou remain. 
 Stout-fibred as thy soul t' endure all pain, 
 Staunch as when first it had its virile start, 
 Strong to command in some stout viking's 
 
 heart. 
 Whose dragon pennon flouted fierce the main. 
 Oft hath it since dyed many a crimson plain, 
 In many a 'leaguered town held death at bay; 
 Fine tempered in the dainty, gentle frame 
 Of Saxon womanhood defied his sway. 
 Fame on the scaffold wrested oft from shame 
 The dauntless Teuton blood, the valorous 
 
 Saxon strain. 
 
 Thomas Nelson Page. 
 
THE RED LORD OF THE SOIL. 
 
 He saw the ships come sailing on his streams, 
 He marked the forts which rose along his 
 
 strand ; 
 Sore trouble entered in his thoughts and 
 
 dreams, 
 The great trees fell before the white man's 
 
 hand, 
 And wild fowl rose from nian}^ a broad lagoon 
 Scared at the thunder of his musketoon. 
 Marking this havoc, and the slaughtered 
 
 game. 
 Before his fancy cruel famine rose, 
 His so-called friends he only knew as foes. 
 Then, in his heart there entered hate and 
 
 shame; 
 
 And well might then the Indian warrior start 
 
 The Saxons' swords Avere thirsty at his heart! 
 
 Preaching the cross, they crucifixion gave. 
 
 And loud for Freedom, made the chief a 
 
 slave! 
 
 James Barron Hope. 
 
MISS ISABELLA. 
 
MISS ISABELLA. 
 
 Situated well back from the county road 
 was the little church of Mount Calvary. It 
 was a simple wooden structure, nothing more 
 than an old-fashioned meeting-house, but it 
 had played a great part in the lives of the coun- 
 try peojile, who gathered there once every 
 week — some to exchange greetings, some to 
 talk over the condition of crops, and others 
 to sing lustily old-time hymns, such as ''Rock 
 of Ages," and to w^orship God in their own 
 honest way. One thing about Mount Cal- 
 vary impressed me always as being very 
 unique. Into the walls, broken and cracked 
 as they were in many places, several plain 
 marble slabs had been inserted ; the inscrip- 
 tions upon these slabs showed that they were 
 there to commemorate the lives of church 
 members who had passed away. I never saw 
 this in any other small country church, and 
 many a Sunday morning my attention was 
 so fixed by the inscrij^tions that I found my- 
 self reading them over and over, when I 
 
IK) From Dixie. 
 
 should have been listening to the earnest 
 words of the consecrated old preacher. One 
 of these slabs had been erected to the mem- 
 ory of Miss Isabella Westmore. The inscrip- 
 tion said that she was a woman of " exalted 
 Christian character, a devoted church mem- 
 ber, a loving Sunday-school teacher, who, 
 after a life filled with good works, had died 
 at the age of forty-seven." 
 
 Recalling these words, my memory goes 
 back a few years to the summer when I 
 nursed Miss Isabella through her last illness. 
 Some one came to me and said that Miss Isa- 
 bella (there was no need of giving her full 
 name — we all knew her as 3Iiss Isabella) was 
 sick, and alone, except for her paralytic bro- 
 ther and their old servant Chloe. It was a 
 gentle hint that I should go to her; I took it 
 and went. How well I recall what a beauti- 
 ful day in June it was. The cherry trees 
 along the avenue were filled with birds, sing- 
 ing and chirping; the sloping lawn, uncut, 
 was a mass of sweet clover, and I thought as 
 I drove up to the old house, there was a pe- 
 culiar charm in the scene. What an old 
 home it was, not changed in any way since 
 '61, and how it and Miss Isabella seemed 
 
Miss Isabella. Ill 
 
 suited to one another. She was so unlike the 
 women of to-day — as active, as useful as they, 
 there was always a timidity, a reserve about 
 her, which made her appear very quaint and 
 old-fashioned. As I passed the door and 
 missed her usual kindly smile and hearty 
 welcome, I seemed to realize for the first time 
 what Miss Isabella wvas to the old place; how 
 without her it was not just the same. I 
 stepped into the parlor to lay aside my hat, 
 the room had a musty, close odor, as if it had 
 not been aired for some days. This, of itself, 
 was evidence of Miss Isabella's illness. Of 
 all the rooms in the house she felt most pride 
 in this one. It had been furnished by her 
 mother fifty years ago, and Miss Isabella had 
 kept it just the same, and always in perfect 
 order, letting in only enough light to show off 
 the family portraits hung upon the walls. 
 Two of these portraits were very fine speci- 
 mens of Thomas Sully's work. As I looked 
 upon them, the forms stately, the faces strong 
 and intellectual, I felt that I understood anew 
 the dignity of the race from which Miss Isa- 
 bella had sprung. After this I mounted the 
 winding stairs and came to Miss Isabella's 
 own room, the same one in the southwest 
 
112 From Dixie. 
 
 Aving of the house which she had occupied 
 since her girlhood. Its furniture was just 
 what the present fashion is seeking to repro- 
 duce — white, with a decoration of wild roses 
 and green leaves — it gave the room a fresh 
 air, like a summer garden; and there Miss 
 Isabella lay, as a queen would, I thought, 
 among her snowy pillows, a damask spread 
 thrown across her feet, a dainty muslin cap 
 framing her pale, suffering face. On one side 
 of the bed stood an old negro woman, who 
 held a cup in her hand, and seemed to be 
 trying to persuade Miss Isabella to partake 
 of its contents. On the other side sat a man, 
 who appeared to be very old, his beard and 
 hair were very gray, and he supported him- 
 self upon a crutch; his flashing black eye 
 alone showed that his age was not as great as 
 it seemed. Feebly and wearily he swayed 
 back and forth a palm-leaf fan, seeking to 
 drive away the flies from the invalid's bed. 
 I knew that Miss Isabella would not be in- 
 clined to have me supplant these old and 
 trusted companions, yet it was evident that 
 some young and steady hand was needed at 
 that bedside. It was only by degrees that I 
 was allowed to beat up the pillows, to admin- 
 
3Iiss Isabella. 113 
 
 ister the potion from the cup, and finally to 
 take possession of the fan, which the paralytic 
 brother had been manipulating. Miss Isa- 
 bella had a good night, and the next morn- 
 ing I found myself installed permanently as 
 her nurse. 
 
 It was a very sad time; a very trying time, 
 From the first Miss Isabella's illness Avas 
 known to be fatal. She was aware of it, and 
 often spoke of death as a release, though she 
 said she would have been glad to live a few 
 years longer, had it been God's will. Some 
 days, when a new remedy had given her tem- 
 porary relief, an expression of hope would 
 brighten her worn face, but it never lasted 
 many hours. Her suffering soon renewed 
 itself, often intensified, and I think it was 
 only her Christian fortitude which kept her 
 from crying out in bitterness and despair. 
 It was not possible that she should derive 
 much pleasure from anything, yet many 
 times she smiled in deep gratitude over a 
 rose, or some sweet thing brought her by a 
 friend; to Chloe, her old servant, she always 
 spoke words of comfort; and some days, 
 when she seemed to feel stronger, she would 
 have her poor paralytic brother come and sit 
 
114 From Dixie. 
 
 by her bed, and as long as her strength 
 lasted she would stroke lovmgly and tenderly 
 his wasted, thin hands. An old family dog, 
 partially blind and deaf, crept very often into 
 the room, and lay for hours at the foot of the 
 bed, disturbing the peace by scratches and 
 moans; yet Miss Isabella would never allow 
 any one to drive him out. '' Fido is so faith- 
 ful," she would simply say, and no one had 
 the heart to expel the poor creature. 
 
 Through all these weeks of agony one little 
 possession seemed to have taken firm hold of 
 Miss Isabella's heart. On the south end of 
 the mantel in her room there stood an un- 
 framed photograph, which w^as evidently a 
 new acquisition. When I first went to Miss 
 Isabella it was quite clean and fresh, and 
 could not have been in its place more than a 
 Aveek or two. It represented a man of about 
 fifty, with a neatly trimmed beard, but with 
 the back hair rolled under, as it was worn 
 thirty or forty years ago. Often during each 
 day Miss Isabella would have me bring this 
 photograph to her, when she would gaze upon 
 it intently, as if studying closely its every fea- 
 ture. At such times I noticed a smile upon 
 her face, but it was always a smile of inde- 
 
Mi^s Isabella. 115 
 
 scribable sadness. Sometimes she kept the 
 photograph with her, placing it beneath her 
 pillow, and drawing it out from time to time, 
 looking upon it with that same sorrowful 
 smile. As terrible as Miss Isabella's physical 
 suffering was — her trouble was one of those 
 insidious internal diseases, developing into 
 dropsy as death approached- — I could look 
 upon it more calmly than upon this despair 
 of hers, which I came to feel was not a new 
 thing in her life. A few days before con- 
 sciousness left her — later the dropsy attacked 
 the brain — she asked me as usual for the 
 photograph. I placed it in her hands. She 
 looked upon it with more earnestness than 
 ever before; she stroked it with her thin 
 fingers, as if it had been a human face. 
 Suddenly, convulsed by some insuppressible 
 passion, she turned and buried her own face 
 in the pillows. I knelt by the bed and placed 
 my hand over hers. Turning again, she 
 looked at me, her face transformed by a radi- 
 ant smile, though the tears streamed down 
 her wasted cheeks. ''I loved him,'' she said; 
 then, the reserve of years being broken down 
 with the utterance of these words, she wept 
 violently. How thin and worn with age and 
 
116 From Dixie. 
 
 illness she looked! How the gray hairs and 
 the wrinkles blended on her brow! There 
 was absolutely nothing one could do, except 
 to catch her few broken words, and ask God 
 to soften this final agon}^ of a loving, self- 
 sacrificing soul. 
 
 From what Miss Isabella said then, and 
 from what older people told me later, I was 
 enabled to get at the truth of the matter. 
 Miss Isabella was the only daughter in a large 
 family. Her mother whom Sully represents 
 as a truly beautiful woman, died in '59, and 
 Miss Isabella, then quite young, was left with 
 her widowed father and nine brothers. As 
 ever}^ one knows, the civil war came on in 
 '61; four of Miss Isabella's brothers qualified 
 for service in the Confederate army; the other 
 five were young things, demanding of her much 
 care and attention. Though quite a girl her- 
 self, she was already engaged to be married to a 
 youth who, in their school days, had capti- 
 vated her heart. With so many burdens 
 coming upon her at once, the young girl felt 
 that she had no right to think of self, and so 
 her lover was put off, and family duties took 
 the first place in her life. It was not an easy 
 thing to do; yet, having been ardently de- 
 
3fiss Isahella. 117 
 
 voted to her mother, she felt unwilling to 
 desert the obligations which her mother had 
 left unfulfilled. - The young man whom she 
 was to have married enlisted, like every other 
 loyal soul, in the service of his State, and 
 though he pleaded for marriage before his 
 departure, it seemed best that they should 
 wait. 
 
 The war passed. It had done a terrible 
 work for Miss Isabella. Two of her brothers 
 liad been killed; the otJier two came back 
 broken in health. Never before had such 
 demands been made upon her; with a sor- 
 rowful heart she surrendered herself to them. 
 Her lover had quarrelled with her, because she 
 was unwilling to go away with him and leave 
 these demands unmet. No doubt the lover 
 was right. Miss Isabella should have gone 
 with him and escaped all these later years, 
 so lonely and sad; but then it seemed to her 
 only right to do as she did. She had very 
 little heart for marriage, or anything apart 
 from grief, in '65. Those days about Peters- 
 burg had taken from her the one brother 
 whom she loved most tenderly. He was a 
 splendid young fellow, two years older than 
 Miss Isabella. They had slept in the same 
 
118 From Dixie. 
 
 cradle, been nursed together by Chloe, and 
 had shared with one another all their pleas- 
 ures and sorrows from their earliest years 
 down to the day when Miss Isabella sat weep- 
 ing over his dead body at Chimborazo, whither 
 he had been carried from Petersburg. 
 
 After this Miss Isabella always wore two 
 plain gold rings upon one finger. As time 
 passed they became almost as one ring, so 
 completely had they fitted into each other. 
 The one, I learned, had been her mother's 
 wedding ring; the other she had taken from 
 the hand of her dead brother,, who had re- 
 ceived it from a young girl he meant to wed. 
 The young girl soon married some one else, 
 and Miss Isabella could never desecrate the 
 ring by returning it to her. After Miss Isa- 
 bella's death, when we were clearing the old 
 house, we discovered neatly and carefully laid 
 away the full uniform of a Confederate pri- 
 vate. It evidently had only been worn a few 
 times; possibly on dress parades. A bundle 
 of letters, tied with a faded ribbon, were in 
 the same drawer, two daguerreotypes, repre- 
 senting a boy and a girl, and on the top of all 
 an old gray felt hat, covered with dirt, and 
 shot through and through, one bullet having 
 
Miss Isabella. 119 
 
 cut in two a small Confederate flag which had 
 been embroidered on one side. 
 
 From what Miss Isabella herself told me, I 
 understood that the photograph, which she so 
 often requested to have brought to her, had 
 come into her possession only the week be- 
 fore her illness commenced. She had gone 
 into the city to do some light shopping; pass- 
 ing the business place of her old lover, she 
 was strangely moved to stop and speak with 
 him. Usually so timid and shrinking, it 
 seemed then but natural she should do this. 
 He was changed, very changed, but not so 
 much as she; yet standing there, shaking his 
 hand across his counter, how the past twenty 
 years disappeared, and their youth came back 
 to them! At parting, he gave her that pho- 
 tograph, telling her that he would see her 
 again. She went home, no one can tell with 
 what hope in her heart; that fatal illness 
 came on, she died, and they did not meet 
 again. I can never forget the afternoon when 
 Miss Isabella breathed her last. Conscious- 
 ness had left her some days before; her breath- 
 ing became very difficult; we threw open the 
 south window and wheeled her bed near it; 
 I put my arm beneath her head and lifted it 
 
120 From Dixie. 
 
 up to meet the sweet southern breeze. Ex- 
 cept the twitter of a bird or two above the 
 window and the far-away low of a neighbor's 
 cow, not a sound was to be heard. It was 
 three o'clock, the most quiet hour of a sum- 
 mer's day. How lonely and barren the fields 
 looked as they stretched away from the old 
 house; no laborers, no grain in them, only a 
 few old apple trees filled with deserted robins' 
 nests. A few desperate gasps, a few almost 
 imperceptible breathings, and it was over. 
 Miss Isabella had passed away ! I was aroused 
 by the convulsive, even childlike, sobs of her 
 paralytic brother, who clung to the foot of 
 her bed. Chloe put her arm about him; Fido 
 leaped up and licked his hands. Together 
 the three went out of the room. 
 
 When Miss Isabella was buried a beautiful 
 wreath of white roses was laid upon the grave. 
 I am sure some one from the city sent it. 
 
 N. B. Winston. 
 
BENEDICITE. 
 
 TO V. C. P. 
 
 I saw her move along the aisle, 
 
 The chancel lustres burned the while, 
 
 With bridal roses in her hair: 
 
 Ah ! Never seemed she half so fair. 
 
 A manly form stood by her side, 
 We knew him worthy such a bride; 
 And prayers went up to God above 
 To bless them with immortal love. 
 
 The vows were said — we knew not yet. 
 But all were filled with fond regret. 
 So much a part of us she seemed 
 To lose her quite we had not dreamed. 
 
 Like the '^ fair Inez," beloved, caressed, 
 She went into the Shining West; 
 And, though one heart with joy flow'd o'er. 
 Like hers, she saddened many more. 
 
122 From Dixie. 
 
 Lady, tho^ far from childhood's things, 
 Thy gentle spirit folds its wings, 
 We offer now to him and thee, 
 A tearful benedicite! 
 
 John R. Thompson. 
 
TO 
 
 Prologue. 
 
 Let no song be sung to thee, 
 
 That does not thrill with virtue's tone, 
 That is not written in the key 
 
 And chords of purity alone. 
 
 And let no one sing for you 
 
 Whose heart hath never touched the skies, 
 Who cannot bring from Heaven's blue 
 
 The only songs your heart can prize. 
 
 Whoso sings for thee — his song 
 
 Should soar beyond mere earthly art — 
 
 And few the hands that sweep along 
 The grandest octaves of the heart. 
 
 Father Ryan. 
 
IN VENICE. 
 
 The summer rose, the sun has flushed 
 With crimson glory, may be sweet; 
 
 'Tis sweeter when its leaves are crushed 
 Beneath the tread of wanton feet. 
 
 The rose that waves upon its tree 
 In life, sheds perfume all around; 
 
 More sweet the fragrance floats to me, 
 Of roses trampled on the ground. 
 
 The waving rose with ev'ry breath, 
 Scents, carelessl}^ the summer air, 
 
 The wounded rose bleeds fortli in death, 
 A sweetness far more ricli and rare. 
 
 It is a truth beyond our ken, 
 
 And yet a truth all may read, 
 It is with roses as with men, 
 
 The sweetest hearts are those that bleed. 
 
In Venice. 125 
 
 The flower, which Bethlehem saw bloom 
 Beneath the Virgin Mother's face, 
 
 Gave not the fulness of perfume. 
 Until the Cross became its vase. 
 
 Father Ryan. 
 
EASTER SUNDAY. 
 
 I kneel at the open tomb, 
 
 I pray in a whispered breath; 
 
 From Calvary fades the gloom, 
 And glory gleams on death. 
 
 He rises — He who died, 
 With triumph on his brow, 
 
 And the Cross of the Crucified 
 Is vindicated now. 
 
 And death has lost his dread, 
 And all the graves become, 
 
 But places where the dead, 
 Rest on their pathway home. 
 
 Father Ryan 
 
 At Amiens, France. 
 
'■7 
 
 1/ 
 
 MOON POSSESSED. 
 
 [After the French Prose of Charles B£lfc«ielaire.l 
 
 And as she slept, one arm beneath her head, 
 
 As sleeps the Titian Venus, came the moon 
 
 And clasped a long white arm about her 
 
 throat. 
 
 And touched her lips, and whispered low 
 
 to her:-_ 
 
 Because thou hast felt my kiss, 
 Child, give I this fate to thee — 
 
 Whatever thy life may miss. 
 Like mine shall thy beauty be. 
 
 In thine eyes shall be multiform lights, 
 
 Of the wave as it upward rides; 
 With the love of the darkling nights, 
 
 The clouds and the shifting tides. 
 
 Forever thine eyes shall turn. 
 
 To the place where thou may'st not go; 
 Forever thy heart shall yearn. 
 
 For the loves thou may'st not know. 
 
128 From, Dixie. 
 
 The scent of the far strange flowers, 
 Shall quicken a throb in thy brain; 
 
 And out of the silent hours, 
 Come music akin to pain. 
 
 My lovers shall love thee well, 
 
 For of those have I made thee queen, 
 
 Whose throats I have clasped in a spell, 
 Whose eyes as the sea are green^ 
 
 Whose hearts have forever yearned, 
 For the women they may not know, 
 
 Whose eyes have forever turned, 
 To the land where they may not go. 
 
 The lovers of nights and of clouds, 
 
 Of the uniform multiform sea, 
 Wave-dashed with the whiteness of shrouds. 
 
 My lovers and thine shall be. 
 
 Heed not that men call thee mad, 
 
 Of the scent of the far strange flowers, 
 
 Of the marvellous music and sad. 
 Struck out of the silent hours. 
 
3foon Possessed. 129 
 
 Thou shalt hear what their ears shall miss, 
 Shalt see what they may not see. 
 
 For that thou hast felt my kiss, 
 Child, give I this fate to thee. 
 
 And stirring not she opened slow her eyes 
 
 In wonder at the strangeness of her dream; 
 And, spirit-still, the long pale moonbeam 
 slipped 
 From round her throat and lay along the 
 floor. 
 
 Charles AYashington Coleman. 
 
SOME DATA 
 
So let us watch, a single pale star keeping 
 
 Its vigils o'er the tide. 
 No truth is lost for which the true are weeping, 
 
 Nor dead for which they died." 
 
SOME DATA. 
 I. 
 
 " What is the song the sea-wind sings — 
 The old, old song it singeth for aye? 
 It seems to breathe a thousand things 
 Ere the world grew old, and sad, and grey." 
 
 You want some data for a sketch of Ted's 
 life. He was a very reserved fellow, but I 
 suppose I knew him as well as any one did. 
 I might give you facts and dates, but I can 
 give you four scenes in Ted's life that will be 
 better, I think. I was so vividly impressed 
 at those times, that whenever he is men- 
 tioned they rise before me as clearly as if set 
 down on canvas. 
 
 We were cousins, and I, an undersized, 
 rather sickly orphan, knew no other father 
 or mother than Ted's, nor any other home, 
 nor wanted to know. 
 
 Ted broke the ponies — kept the fishing 
 tackle and guns in order — and licked all the 
 fellows who called me " Molly." I did his 
 Latin and Greek when we sat side by side in 
 the old town school, and later, when we 
 went to college, the same division of labor 
 
134 From Dixie. 
 
 took place. In the end, our debts were 
 divided by two — Ted graduated creditably, 
 and I was not a disgrace to the class as a 
 sportsman. Not to be able to ride, to shoot, 
 and to manage a boat, was on our course con- 
 sidered a true and deep disgrace, and from 
 this Ted saved me. 
 
 He was never happy away from the water, 
 and never away from it any longer than he 
 could help. His father owned Head Island, 
 and Headland was our home. It was a big, 
 white, old-fashioned, Southern country house, 
 with nothing fine about it save the avenue and 
 the people. Comfort, and plenty, and peace, 
 and good-will, and health — happiness came 
 without seeking. Some things at Headland 
 I will never forget ; one was the view. 
 Standing in the deep piazza, one looked out 
 from under the shadow of the great live-oaks, 
 over a wide sweep of sun-lit or storm-swept 
 water, clear out to Far Island, where the 
 broad Atlantic roared and thundered. I 
 have never seen any sky so blue, nor any 
 water that sparkled so. Another thing was 
 the jonquils — white jonquils — masses and 
 masses of them that bloomed just before we 
 moved into the town of Deep Haven for the 
 
Some Data. 135 
 
 summer — " As pure as the souls of children," 
 Ted said once to himself, and I overheard him. 
 He would gather reckless quantities and put 
 them in his boat when he went out. He 
 would watch them withering in the sun, 
 while they filled the air with sweetness. 
 " What better death than sunshine, or what 
 pleasanter grave than the water?" he would 
 say, and scatter them overboard. 
 
 A third thing that Headland was famous 
 for was the cooking. You see, all of one end 
 of the kitchen was open fire-place. I have 
 been in model kitchens with shining stoves, 
 and trim pans arow, but for good cooking, 
 with all flavors and juices preserved, give me 
 the big open fire-place of the old Southern 
 kitchen. They were necessarily disorderly, 
 for the cook, in oider to give his genius full 
 play, had to have so many assistants. They 
 have often been described, but you have never 
 heard of Headland's stuffed crabs and terra- 
 pin soup, that were unrivaled — of the calla- 
 pash and callapee — of the sweet wafers and 
 rice waffles — nor of the rendering of game 
 and fish that was a symphony in taste. Of 
 course Uncle Edward died of gout ; just be- 
 fore the war, fortunately, and Aunt Mary 
 
136 From Dixie. 
 
 followed him in a month — broken-hearted. 
 Marriage was a success in those days. 
 
 There was another memorable thing at 
 Headland — the beds. They absolutely wooed 
 one to sleep ; the linen was so fine, the pil- 
 lows were so big. I preferred to lie awake 
 and enjoy the comfort, and watch the red 
 glow from the light wood fire play on the white 
 walls — on the white frill around the top of 
 the big four-poster — on the silhouettes of my 
 grand-parents, in their funny gilt frames, 
 that hung over the dressing-table — on the 
 dressing-table itself, standing on four long, 
 slim legs, held together at the bottom by a 
 shelf, at the top by two shallow drawers 
 which supported an oblong looking-glass. 
 If I had only a thousand dollars I would give 
 it all for that old dressing-table. I think I 
 could find Ted's face in that glass. 
 
 Ted had some strange ways. He would 
 float alone in his boat on the moonlit waters 
 all night. He would spend nights and days 
 in the woods and swamps, and he knew the 
 voice and habits of every beast and bird that 
 lived there. But the first time that Ted took 
 shape for me, so that I had any impression 
 
Some Data. 137 
 
 at all of his looks, was once while we were at 
 home from college. 
 
 It was a brilliant day in Jnly, with a stiff 
 breeze blowing, that put a cap on every ripple 
 in Deep Haven sound — "river," we called it. 
 So much for the wind; the sun was scorching. 
 There was a devil-fish expedition on foot 
 among our uncles, and fathers, and cousins, 
 and we were keen to go. Ted had his own 
 boat and oarsmen, but that was not the point. 
 It is dangerous sport, and Ted was not alto- 
 gether well, and Aunt Mary was miserable; 
 so Uncle Edward said a flat-footed " No " to 
 us, although he was the leader of this very 
 expedition. Ted, however, manned his boat, 
 got his harpoon and lances in order, stretched 
 his line, and asked me to go with him to see 
 the fun. At the last moment cousin Fred 
 stepped into our boat, and sat down near me 
 where I was holding the tiller ropes. Cousin 
 Fred always dressed in white in summer, 
 Av^ith a dandy white hat and a white umbrella. 
 The most immaculate person possible. This 
 day, as he sat down. Uncle Edward looked at 
 him quizzically. 
 
 " You are aiding and abetting my boys in 
 rebellion, Frederick," he said. Cousin Fred. 
 
138 From Dixie. 
 
 drew his hand over his beard thoughtfully, 
 and his eyes smiled behind his glasses. 
 
 " I understood that Ted and Robin were 
 going as spectators," he answered, " and four 
 oars do not promise a long cruise." 
 
 ''Yet, that looks like work," and Uncle 
 Edward pointed to Ted's harpoon and skill- 
 full}^ coiled line. 
 
 " So it does," Cousin Fred, answered, mus- 
 ingly, " but perhaps those are put in for safe- 
 ty. Suppose a dangerous fish should attack 
 us? These waters abound in jelly-fish." 
 
 Uncle laughed. " You are always on their 
 side," he said; "but, remember, there is your 
 Cousin Mary to settle with." 
 
 We followed modestly behind the big boats 
 as they made their way over to Broad Creek, 
 drawing out a little further than the rest, 
 which was perfectly in keeping with our part 
 as audience. Presently a wing appeared 
 above the water ; every boat dashed forward 
 except ours. Ted, standing in the bow, har- 
 poon in hand, made his men back water, and 
 Cousin Fred, smiled. Very soon we heard 
 cries and exclamations, and saw confusion in 
 the little fleet; then we knew that the fish 
 had gone. They had turned to come back. 
 
Some Data. 139 
 
 when a black wing swept all the oars from 
 one side of our boat ! Ted's harpoon literally 
 hurtled through the air as he sprang back- 
 ward to save himself ; the next instant he 
 was in his former place, hatless, with the line 
 spinning through his hands ! The boat 
 righted itself, the terrified negroes drew in 
 the remaining oars, and we went rushing 
 through the foaming water after the great 
 sea-monster. Cousin Fred, lowered his um- 
 brella, and taking out his handkerchief 
 waved it to the forsaken fleet, while he said: 
 " Be ready to cut the line, Ted; this speed is 
 dangerous." Then I looked at Ted as he 
 stood bare-headed at the bow of the boat, 
 clearly outlined against the pale summer sky, 
 and for the first time I realized him. Tall, 
 slim, well poised, Saxon features, and fair 
 hair that the wind pressed back as it whistled 
 by; a jaw like a rattlesnake, and blue Celtic 
 eyes that were gleaming and flashing ! I 
 have never forgotten it. I can hear how the 
 wind whistled — how the water swished by us 
 — I can see the moving panorama of the dis- 
 appearing land — see how the day died down 
 behind us — how the ocean rose up before us, 
 
140 From Dixie. 
 
 and Ted standing there the incarnation of 
 youth, and strength, and joy! 
 
 Later, when the battle was over, and we 
 were beating our slow way back with the dead 
 devil-fish dragging in the rear, Ted sat down 
 beside me that I might help him with his 
 hands. His thick gloves had been torn to 
 ribbons by the spinning line, and the skin of 
 his palms had followed suit, and now he 
 wanted me to pull the remains of the gloves 
 off, and the fragments from where the dried 
 blood held them. 
 
 "Wait till Aunt Mary can bathe them, 
 Ted?" I pleaded. 
 
 " Dip them over the side," Cousin Fred, 
 said, coolly, from where he was amusing him- 
 self driving the sharks away from the carcass 
 we had in tow. 
 
 I caught Ted's hands from the water; I had 
 only just learned how much I loved him. 
 
 "It will burn you like the mischief!" I 
 said. 
 
 " If it burns like the devil, it does not mat- 
 ter now," he answered. " I've won ! " 
 
11. 
 
 "All my days I'll go the softlier, sadlier, 
 For that dream's sake !" 
 
 Isabel was our third cousin, and I do not 
 remember any time in her life when I did 
 not adore her. I had a great deal to do with 
 teaching her to walk, and I taught her to 
 read entirely. To me she was always beauti- 
 ful, though every one declared that she 
 changed wonderfully between fifteen and 
 eighteen. Down at Far Island in the sum- 
 mer, where all the little children went bare- 
 footed and paddled all day on the edge of the 
 surf, Isabel never ventured more than to wet 
 her little toes unless I held her hand. 
 " Wobbin," she called me; and I dug canals, 
 built houses, picked up shells, and even 
 humbled myself to make mud-pies for her. 
 As years advanced, I caught crabs with her; 
 I baited her hooks; I read aloud, and helped 
 her with her lessons. Then Ted and I went 
 to college, and Isabel went off to school. For 
 three years I did not see her, but we corres- 
 
142 From Di. 
 
 ne. 
 
 ponded regularly. When she was eighteen 
 she returned to Deep Haven, the loveliest 
 vision I have ever seen. " Robin," she called 
 me; and kissed me as she had always done, 
 and as quietly as if I were w^ood or stone. She 
 was a little taller than T, not much, but she 
 laughed and patted me on the head, then 
 looked up at Ted, whose eyes had never left her 
 since she entered the room. She shook 
 hands with him; she standing a little behind 
 me with her left hand on my shoulder, and 
 called him "Cousin Ted," and my heart 
 b.unded within me as I thought how much 
 more she was mine than his! She talked to 
 me of all the old days, how I had taught her 
 the things she most cared for, and how she 
 used to think that all the wisdom of the 
 world was mine. 
 
 ''And I am not sure that I was wrong, 
 Robin," she said, '' and when we get down to 
 Far Island we will dig some canals and make 
 some mud-pies for old times' sake." 
 
 "Of course," I answered; "we will say the 
 alphabet if you like, and go out even now and 
 dig for doodles." 
 
 How she laughed; such a sweet, ringing 
 laugh ! 
 
Some Data. 143 
 
 Ted sat almost silent, sometimes watching 
 us as we talked together on the sofa — some- 
 times looking past us out of the window. I 
 think it was the first and only time I ever 
 felt that I had something apart from Ted, 
 and was glad to have it so. The sun w^as 
 setting as we walked home, and all the 
 splendid pageant of the evening clouds was 
 mirrored in the sound. Joy seemed to be 
 bubbling and rushing through my veins — I 
 felt as if walking on air — as if breathing the 
 beautiful colours, and the stillness seemed to 
 throb Avith life and happiness. Then Ted's 
 voice fell on the silence, and a deadening 
 power was in it that arrested everything. 
 
 " She is like a white jonquil, and they say 
 Cousin Fred, is in love with her." 
 
 In love with Isabel — my Isabel ! A sudden 
 fury possessed me; then the reflection came, 
 how could he help it ? and I asked quietly : 
 ''Who says so?" 
 
 " Mother." 
 
 ''I don't blame him," I said. 
 
 ''Who could?" Ted answered. "Cousin 
 Fred, is a man of the world," he went on 
 slowly, " has been everywhere, is rich and 
 handsome. What do you think, Robin ? " 
 
144 From D 
 
 ixie. 
 
 A moment before I had thought of Isabel 
 as mine, and not Ted's ; now I looked on him 
 as an ally. 
 
 ''Cousin Fred./' I said, " is a Methuselah!" 
 
 "Thirty," Ted answered, "and girls like 
 that sort of thing. You are only twenty-one, 
 and I twenty-three; she may callus callow !" 
 
 " Why, man, I've brought her up !" I cried. 
 
 We went down to Far Island for July and 
 August; most of Deep Haven did, for both 
 Deep Haven and Far Island belonged to 
 the Clan. It was only a collection of rough 
 frame houses interspersed with tents, some- 
 times of canvas, sometimes of palmetto, 
 where everybody marooned for the sake of 
 the sea-bathing. ' It was all temporary, be- 
 cause Far Island was sometimes covered by 
 the sea in the September storms. But it was 
 idyllic: comfortable uncles and aunts; old- 
 fashioned, shy girls; boats of all shapes and 
 sizes; violins, guitars, and banjos for music; 
 surf-bathing, fishing, and boating by daylight 
 and moonlight for fun; idleness; health; 
 youth; good servants; what could be wanted 
 more ? The storms were brief, and the rain 
 came seldom in that fairy-land; indeed, shel- 
 ter from the sun was a far greater question 
 
Some Data. 145 
 
 than protection from the rain, and for both 
 pnrposes frames were run out from the houses 
 and thatched with broad pahnetto leaves, 
 while for floor there was the white sand. 
 A¥e would gather sometimes at one house, 
 sometimes at another, with cool melons and 
 guitars, and hammocks, and smoking-chairs 
 and tools; and golden hours would pass while 
 the fresh sea-wind rustled the dry palmetto 
 leaves, or the rain pattered and splashed on 
 them — and the boom of the sea kept time to 
 the thrum of the music, and the wind swept 
 the soft songs away. Then the afternoon 
 wanderings on the wide white beach, when 
 the world was wrapped in the golden glow^ of 
 the dying day, and the sea-gulls dipped and 
 skimmed from wave to wave. 
 
 All those days, and places, and people are 
 ever wrapped in a golden mist for me. No 
 words can describe the life, and no mortal 
 eye will ever see its like again, for the civili- 
 zation that made it has passed away. They 
 are scattered to the four winds of Heaven 
 now, those quiet gentle folk, and the world 
 says that it is best. That they were degen- 
 erating; that like all aristocracies they were 
 being put on the shelf by the vigorous, 
 10 
 
146 From Dixie. 
 
 pushing masses. Perhaps; but in the ship- 
 wreck that overtook them, they showed them- 
 selves to be the stuff of which martyrs are 
 made. Not many of them are left, but 
 whenever you meet one of those exiles, you 
 find a passionate love for that old time and 
 place, and an unquenchable longing, looking 
 out from tired eyes. Those of them who 
 died on the battle-field, full of strength and of 
 heroic purpose, had the best of it. But do 
 not suppose that Far Island and its inhabi- 
 tants was like any seaside resort of to-day; 
 not at all; even the young men were a little 
 shy. I think I was the one privileged char- 
 acter, an*d it was because, as my cousin 
 Emma said, ''Robin is poetical and musical — 
 is everything, indeed, that a lady-like little 
 man can be — quite fit to fetch and carry for 
 Isabel." Nor was it all music and melons. 
 Manly sport was the rule. Among the 
 younger men, Ted led, and even among the 
 veterans he was taking position. For me, I 
 had but one thought, Isabel; and but one 
 occupation interfering with Cousin Fred. 
 Whenever I saw them together, I would ap- 
 pear on the other side of Isabel with some 
 claim on her attention, and she never failed 
 me. 
 
Some Data. 147 
 
 Sometimes Cousin Fred, would smile, and 
 once he said— ^' What will you do, Isabel, 
 when Robin falls in love, and carries his 
 weal and woe to other ears? " .For the mo- 
 ment I hated him, and looked it, but for 
 answer his eyes only twinkled a little more 
 as they met mine, until Isabel answering — 
 '' I will turn you into a brother, then, Cousin 
 Fred." — a new possibility came to the front, 
 and we looked away from each other. But 
 whenever Ted took his place by Isabel's side, 
 I felt quite safe from Cousin Fred.; sorry for 
 him, because w^e were two to one. 
 
 One day a heavy wind-storm came up 
 which was alarming in itself, but terrifying 
 in the light of the fact that a large fishing 
 expedition had gone out. By sunset all the 
 boats but four had come in; by midnight, all 
 but Ted's. By morning Far Island was mis- 
 erably anxious, and boats went out in every 
 direction; but as the day grew, they came 
 back one after another without any tidings. 
 All the men were sitting about in groups, 
 smoking furiously; most of the feminine 
 community were gathered about poor Aunt 
 Mary, sitting dry-eyed and white, in her si- 
 lent house. I stood on the beach with a spy- 
 
148 Fro VI Dixie. 
 
 glass until I was exhausted, then I went to 
 Isabel. She was sitting alone with a book 
 open before her. 
 
 '' How can you read? " I asked, taking a 
 seat. 
 
 " Ted is so brave and skillful," she said, 
 slipping her hand in mine. ^'And he never 
 fails, does he? " 
 
 '' Never," I answered, " not even in his 
 college examinations." 
 
 '' He is weakest there? You are hard on 
 him." 
 
 I turned on her sharply and began a rapid 
 defense of my hero. 
 
 " He is a poet," I finished. ''He has never 
 written a verse, but he lives it — he feels it — 
 feels all the beauty and pathos of the uni- 
 verse. Look into his eyes and you will see 
 it — if we ever look into his eyes again! " 
 
 " Hush!" she whispered. 
 
 " How cold your hand is! " I cried. 
 
 " It is yours that is cold," and she drew 
 hers quickly aw^ay. 
 
 Near sunset a rumor came that something 
 had been sighted. 
 
 " Go and find out," Isabel said, and went 
 indoors, while I took my way to the beach. 
 
Some Data. 149 
 
 My glass trembled so at first that I could see 
 nothing, then I descried a speck that in the 
 setting sun looked like the wing of a pink 
 curlew; suddenly it flashed into the silver of 
 a gull's wing. My breath came sharply — it 
 was a sail boat, but had veered away. 
 
 " Something is wrong with her," Cousin 
 Fred. said. 
 
 " Great God! " cried Uncle Edward, ''where 
 are my lazy scoundrels? Csesar, call out the 
 hands — have that boat ready in five minutes 
 if you love your life! Robin, stay with your 
 aunt; if it should not be Ted it will kill 
 her!" 
 
 In twenty minutes every boat had left the 
 island. I went to the house and took my 
 seat on the steps of the piazza, for within all 
 Aunt Mary's sisters and aunts and cousins 
 were sitting about her. She caught sight of 
 me and came out. I rose to meet her and 
 she clasped my hands convulsively. 
 
 ''I am sure it is Ted's boat," I said. 
 
 A shudder went over her. " But, is he in 
 it? " she whispered. " Oh, Robin, he may 
 have been swept overboard!" 
 
 " Not Ted," I answered. 
 
 " He might have succumbed to the heat." 
 
150 From Dixie. 
 
 " There is the shadow of the sail," I com- 
 forted, again. Then I brought her a chair, 
 and resumed my seat on the steps, while we 
 watched the boats as they went. If it was 
 Ted they would lire a gun. It seemed hours 
 that we watched. Within was the low hum 
 of women's voices, like the voices of those in 
 the house of the dead; without, groups of 
 awe-stilled boys waited on the beach; the 
 silence of death had fallen, and nothing 
 stirred save the wind and the waves. The 
 sun sank down a ball of red; it seemed to 
 rest on the sea for a moment, turning it to 
 blood, then disappeared slowly like the me- 
 chanical sun in a show. The waves bobbing 
 up in front of it, gave it the appearance of 
 going in jerks, as if the machinery needed 
 greasing. In my misery I smiled at the in- 
 congruous thought and the badly managed 
 sunset, but I have never forgotten it. Then 
 everything turned gray. 'The boats were 
 specks — the groups of boys had gathered 
 into one — and the murmur of voices within 
 took a lower tone. Every moment, without 
 the sound of the gun, was a segment of hope 
 gone. I was too anxious to be still, and I 
 took out my watch. 
 
Some Data. 151 
 
 " What do you think? '' Aunt Mary whis- 
 pered, faintly. 
 
 " It will be a half hour yet before they can 
 distinguish the boat," I answered, at random. 
 She took the open watch and fastened her 
 eyes on its face. 
 
 " Five minutes," she said, presently, then 
 — '• ten minutes — fifteen minutes," she went 
 on — ^'twenty." 
 
 What a fool I had been to time her! 
 
 " Twenty-five minutes — twenty-six — " 
 
 " I had no ground for timing them. Aunt 
 Mary," I said. 
 
 " Twenty-seven — twenty-eight — " 
 
 A far, far-off reverberation ! I sprang to 
 my feet, the boys on the beach gave a cheer, 
 the watch dropped with a smash, and all the 
 women rushed out to Aunt Mary, who had 
 fainted. 
 
 Everybody flocked to the beach now, and 
 we talked about nothing," and laughed gaily 
 in the glad reaction. The boats were grow- 
 ing as they neared us, and now we could hear 
 the negroes singing — all the boats singing 
 the same thing — " Roll, Jordan, Eoll ! " It 
 made a great volume of sound, and it was one 
 of the grandest things I have ever heard. 
 
152 From Dixi 
 
 xie. 
 
 Ted was landed safe and sound, and in the 
 face of all that company I did a thing that 
 no man or boy there would have done at the 
 point of the bayonet — I threw my arms round 
 Ted's neck and kissed him ! 
 
 '' Emma will call you u/ilady-like, now," he 
 said, softly, while his eyes shone, and his face, 
 that looked so pale under its bronze, turned 
 quite red. But he kissed me in return, and 
 I know he would rather have fainted. 
 
 That night the moon was full, and coming 
 out from Aunt Mary's room, where I had been 
 telling her over and over again of the scene 
 on the beach, I looked for Ted or Isabel, but 
 could not find them. I felt a little lonely, a lit- 
 tle injured, and stepped into one of the boats 
 that was beached near by. I arranged a 
 comfortable place in the stern, and stretched 
 myself back luxuriously. I could look out 
 over the sweep of the ocean glittering under 
 the moon, or down the long curve of shining 
 beach that dwindled as it went, and far, and 
 far away vanished to a point that seemed 
 almost to touch the quiet stars. The tide 
 was going out, the waves that were little more 
 than ripples, plashed distantly; the wind had 
 fallen. 
 
Some Data. 153 
 
 How long 1 lay tliere I do not know. If 
 all my dreams were waking dreams, or if I 
 slept, I do not know ; but far off up the shin- 
 ing pathway of the beach — far off by the 
 quiet stars, I saw a thing that moved. Slowly 
 it came down the broadening, silvered curve. 
 I watched it, fascinated; a round thing — no, 
 an oblong thing that moved on end; then two 
 little horns appeared. Nearer down the wide 
 w^hite way it came; now half was floating 
 drapery, half was still black. The horns had 
 turned to heads — two people, a man and 
 w^oman ! Slow they came. Nearer; their 
 voices, their words were with me. I could 
 almost have touched them. They stop'ped 
 and looked up to the great moon; then he 
 bent his head between her and the light. 
 
 " I am jealous even of moonbeams," he 
 said, and they turned away toward the house. 
 
 Aunt Mary had broken my watch, so I do 
 not know how long it was before Ted came 
 back alone. I rose up to meet him. 
 
 ''What will Cousin Fred, do?" I asked. 
 
 He turned upon me quickly. His face was 
 all alight; his eyes gleamed like stars; he 
 raised his arms to heaven and looked up 
 while the moonlight made a glory in his fair, 
 
154 From Dixie. 
 
 wind-blown hair — " What matter," he said, in 
 a low vibrating voice; " I've won, and she is 
 mine!" 
 
 I will never forget that picture, how Ted 
 stood there radiant, with his arms stretched 
 up to heaven. 
 
 I stayed all night in the boat. I watched 
 the tide go down — the moon ride higher, and 
 the silvered sea that seemed so sound asleep. 
 There came a moment when it held its 
 breath — not a sound — not a motion — poised 
 at the point of rest! I held my own breath. 
 
 Something stirred somewhere, and a sigh 
 swept by me, and out over the face of the 
 great deep, shivering it into millions of glit- 
 tering ripples. They flashed just once toward 
 the paling moon, then rushed shoreward. 
 The tide had turned, and a new day was 
 pushing up from the underworld. 
 
Ill 
 
 "Would but some winged angel ere too late, 
 Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate." 
 
 Ill 1<S68 Ted was sent for by the General 
 commanding the department where he was 
 then serving as Major of Artillery, and asked 
 if he would take charge of a ruin, called a 
 fort, in one of the harbors. He was to have 
 a limited garrison, and of course, hold the 
 fort to the last gasp. I went with Ted to 
 headquarters, but was not present at the in- 
 terview. When it was over he walked in 
 silence to his room at the hotel. Once 
 there, he drew the one chair in the place to 
 the window and sat down. He had not taken 
 off his hat, and he was occupying the only 
 chair to the exclusion of his guest; two signs 
 of mental excitement that made me expect 
 important revelations. I took my seat on the 
 table, and waited. When he told me, I said 
 quickly — ''That is a forlorn hope, Ted, a 
 useless sacrifice of you. It is sheer folly!" 
 
 ''Folly— forlorn hope! It is a crown of 
 glory!" 
 
15G From Dixie. 
 
 ''Do you forget Isabel and the two boys?" 
 
 ''Would you have those boys hear that I 
 refused the position because of the risk?" 
 
 " It is only a pile of rubbish," I urged. 
 
 " I will hold it, or leave it a pile of bones." 
 
 " Suppose they overwhelm you, what will 
 you say then ? " 
 
 "When that happens I will be dead, and 
 not in a conversational mood. I wish I could 
 put Isabel and the boys in one of the case- 
 mates," he went on, beginning to walk up 
 and down the room; " the little chaps have 
 been under fire, and are not a bit gun-shy." 
 
 I got down from the table. " Good-bye," 
 I said, "I will do my best for your widow and 
 orphans; I suppose the Government will bury 
 you." 
 
 He turned quickly. " I am not going to 
 leave you out of it," he said, " I shall have 
 you transferred." 
 
 As I was only a chaplain, I was assigned 
 next day, and we w^ent down to the fort to- 
 gether. That very afternoon Ted inspected 
 everything, down to the last half-brick, and 
 by night the garrison was his, body and soul. 
 He then insisted that his promised number 
 of men should be made up at once, as the 
 
Some Data. 157 
 
 nights were dark and good for assaults. After 
 the company came I believe Ted prayed for 
 an assault. It did not come that night, nor 
 the next night; but it did come the night 
 after. 
 
 It was awfully dark. Before us was the 
 ink-like water, that we could only hear as it 
 lapped against the walls; behind us, the black 
 hole we called the fort. The sentries looked 
 like ghosts lurking here and there; the still- 
 ness was intense. Ted kept watch himself 
 that night, lying flat on the highest point of 
 debris. The water had been his home, and 
 he knew every sound and motion it could 
 make. Still-liunting had been his delight, 
 and the darkness held no shadow he did not 
 know. I was lying close beside him, yet I 
 could scarcely define his outline in the gloom, 
 and his face looked an impalpable bit of 
 whiteness. 
 
 For hours we lay there, when, shortly after 
 midnight, my musings faded from me, and I 
 became conscious of some disturbing change. 
 I would have said that the atmosphere had 
 tightened about me. I turned; Ted had 
 drawn closer to me, and was gazing over my 
 shoulder, almost. His face was drawn; his 
 
158 Fto)ii Dixie. 
 
 eyes had narrowed to points of light; he was 
 quivering like a high-bred dog on a tense 
 point ! 
 
 ''Yes — ss" he hissed softly, " yis — ss ! " 
 I looked in the direction of his gaze. There 
 was a blacker line on the black water ! 
 
 '' Barges ! " Ted said. '' Go to your head- 
 quarters; and, Robin, bricks can kill, too ! " 
 Then he went away quickly into the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 There came a silent sort of stir in the fort; 
 a little rolling of rubbish as the men went to 
 their positions; a few low-voiced orders, then 
 we waited. The black line came nearer, and 
 behind it another line that turned toward the 
 right. 
 
 A sort of blood-thirsty excitement took pos- 
 session of me, and I fingered the hand-gren- 
 ades impatiently. Our fire was to be held 
 until the moment of landing, when the orders 
 were to give them all we could. It was a 
 breathless moment, then a line of fire darted 
 from point to point, outlining the grim old 
 ruin against the darkness. Cries and shouted 
 orders; for the confusion of surprise was on 
 the enemy; while the whole harbor blazed 
 with shot and shell from other batteries and 
 
Some Data. 159 
 
 gun-boats ! And on the highest point, ex- 
 posed to fire of friend and foe, full in the 
 lurid glare, I saw Ted standing for an instant, 
 glowing with the fierce joy of battle ! 
 
 When all was over, Ted sat down by me. 
 ''It was a near thing, Rob," he said; ''but 
 we won, and 'twas worth ten years of ordi- 
 nary life." He held that brick-pile for 
 months; was wounded, was sick; but he 
 never went to hosiDital. I did, but not by 
 the path of glory. The magazine exploded, 
 nobody knew how, and some fellows were 
 caught in the passage. It was hot work get- 
 ting out those burned, broken creatures from 
 that raging fire, and I would have done bet- 
 ter if I had been bigger. As I got the fel- 
 low I was dragging to the opening, they took 
 him from me so suddenly that I stumbled, 
 and a falling timber caught my leg. 
 
 The enemy were shelling us like fun, but 
 Ted let everything go and worked like a con- 
 vict till I was freed. Then he took me up 
 as if I had been a baby, with the tears roll- 
 ing down his cheeks, and kissed me like the 
 mother he had always been to me. The men 
 who helped were sniffling, but perhaps that 
 was the smoke. 
 
IV. 
 
 " Who knows the end? or in what record written 
 The crowned results abide? 
 The volume closed not with an Abel smitten 
 Or Christ the crucified." 
 
 It is not often given to a people to suffer 
 as the Southern people have suffered, and 
 whether the war was their own fault, or 
 whether it was a judgment on them for their 
 sins of omission and commission, of '' negli- 
 gence and ignorance, " is between them and 
 their God. But whatever was the account 
 against them, it has been wiped out with a 
 sponge dipped in tears and blood, and the 
 slate is clean for the score of this new gen- 
 eration — this " New South." God help them! 
 
 In '64 Ted was ordered to Virginia. We 
 did a good deal of work round the '' Crater " 
 at Petersburg, where Ted lost an arm, and was 
 made brigadier-general. We went through 
 it all, he and I, down to Bentonville. The 
 cause died there, and the blackness of dark- 
 ness seemed to settle over us. Deep Haven 
 had fallen in '62, and everything had been 
 
Some Data. 1^)1 
 
 confiscated. Mont of the country houses had 
 been burned; most of the town houses were 
 occupied by negroes or " carpet-baggers," and 
 all of the lands had been cut up into forty- 
 acre lots and given to the negroes. Some 
 people had gone back, I don't know why, and 
 among them, Ted. He had become possessed 
 of the overseer's house on grandfather's plan- 
 tation, and had settled there with Isabel and 
 the boys. 
 
 ■ Late in 'Qo I had two parishes in the upper 
 part of the State, with a salary of four hun- 
 dred dollars a year — a fortune just after the 
 war. In March, ^66, 1 determined to go down 
 and see Ted and Deep Haven for myself, for 
 the letters were unsatisfactory. I had no 
 trunk, so I packed a large box full of comfor- 
 table things for Isabel's housekeeping, and 
 putting my clothes in my old knapsack, I 
 set forth on my journey. A railway to Deep 
 Haven seemed as bad to me then as a raihvay 
 to Jerusalem does now, and the station, and 
 Cousin Charles Caryl's house as a hotel, was 
 all like a nightmare. I found that I could 
 not get a boat to go over to Ted's until next 
 morning, so I determined to walk out to 
 Headland that afternoon. A Federal General 
 11 
 
102 From Di. 
 
 vie. 
 
 bad made it liis home, lience tlie ferry was 
 kept up. It would take a book to tell all I 
 saw aud heard, and felt on that walk — and 
 Headland itself! The house had been painted 
 afresh, and the grand old trees had been 
 trimmed, and the trunks whitewashed! It 
 had a snobby, shoppy look to it that was 
 dreadful. I hated it! But in the garden 
 Aunt Mary's jonquils were swaying in the 
 wind, and the same old Toby working auiong 
 them. I sat down behind a hedge and cried. 
 I stopped presently, for I was weary with my 
 journey and the walk, and tears hurt a man — 
 even a little man. 
 
 The hedge behind whicb I was sitting 
 went up to the garden, so that I was safe 
 from observation, and to calm myself I looked 
 away from Toby and the jonquils, out over 
 the water. That was unchanged, and a 
 canoe being propelled across by one oar at 
 the stern, looked supremely natural. As the 
 boat neared the shore my heart rose up to 
 my eyes, and I crept along the hedge, watch- 
 ing the little craft like a snake-charmed bird. 
 A fair-haired little boy made it fast to the 
 landing. T don't know how I saw that, for 
 all my l)eing was Avatching the tall, gaunt 
 
Some Data. IGo 
 
 figure in the old gray uniform, with one 
 empty sleeve pinned to his breast. All the 
 gold had gone off of coat and cap ; all the 
 buttons were covered with black. His beard 
 and hair were touched with gray; his face 
 was thin and white and set. He walked up 
 the old path as quietly as if he still owned 
 it, carrying a string of fish. Old Toby met 
 him, hat in hand. 
 
 " Huddy, Mawsa! " 
 
 ^'Well,''Toby?" 
 
 ''Yes, mawsa; lucky, suh." 
 
 " Here are the fish, Toby." The old num 
 took them away to the back of the house, 
 and, left alone, Ted stood there like a wooden 
 image. He did not lean against anything; 
 he did not look at anything until a lady ap- 
 peared on the piazza. He did not look at 
 her, but he took off his cap and held it until 
 Toby came back with some money. 
 
 " Good-bye, Mawsa." 
 
 '' Good-bye, Toby." Then as Ted turned 
 aw^ay the old gray cap went on with a grace 
 no prince could have bettered, and the old 
 negro, leaning on his rake, watched him wist- 
 fully, like a puzzled child. 
 
164 From Dixie. 
 
 A week after this Ted lay dying. Insuffi- 
 cient food, insufficient clothing, and a broken- 
 heart; the doctor called it pneumonia. Isabel 
 and I had been watching all night, witli Ted- 
 die and Robin taking turns to bring in wood 
 for the fire. In the dark hour before the 
 dawn, Ted opened his eyes. 
 
 '^ I wish I had some of mother's jonquils," 
 he said; '^I should like to take them to her." 
 
 ^' 1 will get them," I answered. 
 
 It was a long pull. The sound was as quiet 
 as if smothered by the heavy white mist that 
 lay on it. The stars were beginning to pale 
 before the coming day, and the brimming 
 tide still flowing in, was near its turning. I 
 tied the boat and stole up the walk. All was 
 still as death, save the long grey moss that 
 swayed like ghostly cerements, and the white 
 jonquils that seemed to beckon. 
 
 When I reached them I think I grew mad, 
 a frenzy of hatred and revenge seized me, 
 and I gathered, and gathered, and gathered, 
 till not one was left on the stems. I had 
 brought a rice-fanner, tlie only basket Isabel 
 had, and I filled it to overflowing. The flow- 
 ers secured, I pulled up the roots — pulled 
 and pulled — then trampled and stamped the 
 
Some Data. 165 
 
 beds down — down — down ! My fury was 
 growing, and I went away quickly in the 
 ghastly light that was neither night nor day. 
 I was afraid of myself because of the matches 
 in my pocket. 
 
 AVe put his insignia back on Ted's collar 
 (Isabel had kept the things as women will), 
 and took the black covers off his buttons. 
 We put on his red sash, and his belt and 
 sword, and the gold cross-cannon on the old 
 gray cap that we laid down by his side with 
 the sword; but in the hand that rested on 
 his breast, we put the white jonquils for his 
 mother. 
 
 Did he say any last words? Yes. He said, 
 '^ It has been a hard fight to forgive my ene- 
 mies, Robin, but I've won; and for reward 
 the stranger people sent me all the jonquils." 
 
 Sarah Barnwell Elliott. 
 
THE FUKLOrCfll. 
 
 A South Carolina boy of sixteen had been fnrloughed to go home 
 from the lines near Cold Harbor, June, '64. 
 
 Carelessly exposing himself, while making a farewell visit to friends 
 in the trenches, he was killed by a hostile sharpshooter. 
 
 '^ Home," he said, and westward turning. 
 
 Looked upon the setting sun. 
 '^Heed the child," a sentry mattered, 
 
 "Safety on the rampart none." 
 " Naught I fear," the boy made answer, 
 
 " Battle shock, nor random gun; 
 Homeward all my heart advances, 
 
 Victory 's won!" 
 
 In his eyes the light of morning 
 
 Met the slow-declining day. 
 Where the bow of peace expanding. 
 
 Lit with hope's celestial ray — 
 Born of sunshine, cloud-engendered, 
 
 Sorrow washed in tears away — 
 "Strife to. holy calm surrenders," 
 
 Seems to say. 
 
The FvrJi>in/]i. H\7 
 
 Fair lie stood, as in a vision, 
 
 When witli sudden cry of dread, 
 Forward sprang each sturdy comrade, 
 
 To support the fallen liead. 
 Swift a thirsty flash, unerring, 
 
 To the font of life had sped! 
 Calm he lay. We bent above him; 
 
 " Home he goeth," some one said. 
 With the dew our tears w^ere falling, 
 
 O'er the dead! 
 
 John B. Tabb, 1878.