“For hearts of truest mettle Absence doth join, and time doth settle.”

ANONYMOUS

It were a vain endeavor to attempt the telling of what filled the heart and soul of Surrey, as he marched away that day from New York, and through the days and weeks and months that followed. Fired by a sublime enthusiasm for his country; thirsting to drink of any cup her hand might present, that thus he might display his absolute devotion to her cause; burning with indignation at the wrongs she had suffered; thrilled with an adoring love for the idea she embodied; eager to make manifest this love at whatever cost of pain and sorrow and suffering to himself, through all this the man never once was steeped in forgetfulness in the soldier; the divine passion of patriotism never once dulled the ache, or satisfied the desire, or answered the prayer, or filled the longing heart, that through the day marches and the night watches cried, and would not be appeased, for his darling.

“Surely,” he thought as he went down Broadway, as he reflected, as he considered the matter a thousand times thereafter, “surely I was a fool not to have spoken to her then; not to have seen her, have devised, have forced some way to reach her, not to have met her face to face, and told her all the love with which she had filled my heart and possessed my soul. And then to have been such a coward when I did write to her, to have so said a say which was nothing”; and he groaned impatiently as he thought of the scene in his room and the letter which was its final result.

How he had written once, and again, and yet again, letters short and long, letters short and burning, or lengthy and filled almost to the final line with delicate fancies and airy sentiment, ere he ventured to tell that of which all this was but the prelude; how, at the conclusion of each attempt, he had watched these luminous effusions blaze and burn as he regularly committed them to the flames; how he found it difficult to decide which he enjoyed the most, writing them out, or seeing them burn; how at last he had put upon paper some such words as these:

“After these delightful weeks and months of intercourse, I am to go away from you, then, without a single word of parting, or a solitary sentence of adieu. Need I tell you how this pains me? I have in vain besieged the house that has held you; in vain made a thousand inquiries, a thousand efforts to discover your retreat and to reach your side, that I might once more see your face and take your hand ere I went from the sight and touch of both, perchance forever. This I find may not be. The hour strikes, and in a little space I shall march away from the city to which my heart clings with infinite fondness, since it is filled with associations of you. I have again and again striven to write that which will be worthy the eyes that are to read, and striven in vain. ’Tis a fine art to which I do not pretend. Then, in homely phrase, good by. Give me thy spiritual hand, and keep me, if thou wilt, in thy gentle remembrance. Adieu! a kind adieu, my friend; may the brighter stars smile on thee, and the better angels guard thy footsteps wherever thou mayst wander, keep thy heart and spirit bright, and let thy thoughts turn kindly back to me, I pray very, very often. And so, once more, farewell.”

Remembering all this, thinking what he would do and say were the doing and saying yet possible in an untried future, the time sped by. He waited and waited in vain. He looked, yet was gratified by no sight for which his eyes longed. He hoped, till hope gave place to despondency and almost despair: not a word came to him, not a line of answer or remembrance. This long silence was all the more intolerable, since the time that intervened did but the more vividly stamp upon his memory the delights of the past, and color with softer and more exquisite tints the recollection of vanished hours, hours spent in galloping gayly by her side in the early morning, or idly and deliciously lounged away in picture-galleries or concert-rooms, or in a conversation carried on in some curious and subtle shape between two hearts and spirits with the help of very few uttered words; hours in which he had whirled her through many a fairy maze and turn of captivating dance-music, or in some less heated and crowded room, or cool conservatory, listened to the voice of the siren who walked by his side, “while the sweet wind did gently kiss the flowers and make no noise,” and the strains of “flute, violin, bassoon,” and the sounds of the “dancers dancing in tune,” coming to them on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another and a far-off world, listened, listened, listened, while his silver-tongued enchantress builded castles in the air, or beguiled his thought, enthralled his heart, his soul and fancy, through many a golden hour.

Thinking of all this, his heart well found expression for its feelings in the half-pleasing, half-sorrowful lines which almost unconsciously repeated themselves again and again in his brain:

“Still o’er those scenes my memory wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care;
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.”

Thinking of all this, he took comfort in spite of his trouble. “Perhaps,” he said to himself, “he was mistaken. Perhaps” O happy thought! it was but make-believe displeasure which had so tortured him. Perhaps yes, he would believe it she had never received his letter; they had been careless, they had failed to give it her or to send it aright. He would write her once again, in language which would relieve his heart, and which she must comprehend. He loved her; perhaps, ah, perhaps she loved him a little in return: he would believe so till he was undeceived, and be infinitely happy in the belief.

Is it not wondrous how even the tiniest grain of love will permeate the saddest and sorest recesses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life? O Love, thou sweet, thou young and rose lipped cherubim, how does thy smile illuminate the universe! how does thy slightest touch electrify the soul! how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to heaven!

With Surrey, to decide was to act. The second letter, full of sweetest yet intensest love, his heart laid bare to her, was written; was sent, enclosed in one to his aunt. Tom was away in another section, fighting manfully for the dear old flag, or the precious missive would have been intrusted to his care. He sent it thus that it might reach her sooner. Now that he had a fresh hope, he could not wait to write for her address, and forward it himself to her hands; he must adopt the speediest method of putting it in her possession.

In a little space came answer from Mrs. Russell, enclosing the letter he had sent: a kindly epistle it was. He was a sort of idol with this same aunt, so she had put many things on paper that were steeped in gentleness and affection ere she said at the end, “I re-enclose your letter. I have seen Miss Ercildoune. She restores it to you; she implores you never to write her again, to forget her. I add my entreaties to hers. She begs of me to beseech you not to try her by any further appeals, as she will but return them unopened.” That was all.

What could it mean? He loved her so absolutely, he had such exalted faith in her kindness, her gentleness, her fairness and superiority, in her, that he could not believe she would so thrust back his love, purely and chivalrously offered, with something that seemed like ignominy, unless she had a sufficient reason or one she deemed such for treating so cruelly him and the offering he laid at her feet.

But she had spoken. It was for him, then, when she bade silence, to keep it; when she refused his gift, to refrain from thrusting it upon her attention and heart. But ah, the silence and the refraining! Ah, the time the weary, sore, intolerable time that followed! Summer, and autumn, and winter, and the seasons repeated once again, he tramped across the soil of Virginia, already wet with rebel and patriot blood; he felt the shame and agony of Bull Run; he was in the night struggle at Ball’s Bluff, where those wondrous Harvard boys found it “sweet to die for their country,” and discovered, for them, “death to be but one step onward in life.” He lay in camp, chafing with impatience and indignation as the long months wore away, and the thousands of graves about Washington, filled by disease and inaction, made “all quiet along the Potomac.” He went down to Yorktown; was in the sweat and fury of the seven days’ fight; away in the far South, where fever and pestilence stood guard to seize those who were spared by the bullet and bayonet; and on many a field well lost or won. Through it all marching or fighting, sick, wounded thrice and again; praised, admired, heroic, promoted, from private soldier to general, through two years and more of such fiery experience, no part of the tender love was burned away, tarnished, or dimmed.

Sometimes, indeed, he even smiled at himself for the constant thought, and felt that he must certainly be demented on this one point at least, since it colored every impression of his life, and, in some shape, thrust itself upon him at the most unseemly and foreign times.

One evening, when the mail for the division came in, looking over the pile of letters, his eye was caught by one addressed to James Given. The name was familiar, that of his father’s old foreman, whom he knew to be somewhere in the army; doubtless the same man. Unquestionably, he thought, that was the reason he was so attracted to it; but why he should take up the delicate little missive, scan it again and again, hold it in his hand with the same touch with which he would have pressed a rare flower, and lay it down as reluctantly as he would have yielded a known and visible treasure, that was the mystery. He had never seen Francesca’s writing, but he stood possessed, almost assured, of the belief that this letter was penned by her hand; and at last parted with it slowly and unwillingly, as though it were the dear hand of which he mused; then took himself to task for this boyish weakness and folly. Nevertheless, he went in pursuit of Jim, not to question him, he was too thorough a gentleman for that, but led on partly by his desire to see a familiar face, partly by this folly, as he called it with a sort of amused disdain.

Folly, however, it was not, save in such measure as the subtle telegraphings between spirit and spirit can be thus called. Unjustly so called they are, constantly; it being the habit of most people to denounce as heresy or ridicule as madness things too high for their sight or too deep for their comprehension. As these people would say, “oddly enough,” or “by an extraordinary coincidence,” this very letter was from Miss Ercildoune, a letter which she wrote as she purposed, and as she well knew how to write, in behalf of Sallie. It was ostensibly on quite another theme; asking some information in regard to a comrade, but so cunningly devised and executed as to tell him in few words, and unsuspiciously, some news of Sallie, news which she knew would delight his heart, and overthrow the little barrier which had stood between them, making both miserable, but which he would not, and she could not, clamber over or destroy. It did its work effectually, and made two hearts thoroughly happy, this letter which had so strangely bewitched Surrey; which, in his heart, spite of the ridicule of his reason, he was so sure was hers; and which, indeed, was hers, though he knew not that till long afterward.

“So,” he thought, as he went through the camp, “Given is here, and near. I shall be glad to see a face from home, whatever kind of a face it may be, and Given’s is a good one; it will be a pleasant rememberance.”

“Whither away?” called a voice behind him.

“To the 29th,” he answered the questioner, one of his officers and friends, who, coming up, took his arm, “in pursuit of a man.”

“What’s his name?”

“Given, christened James. What are you laughing at? do you know him?”

“No, I don’t know him, but I’ve heard some funny stories about him; he’s a queer stick, I should think.”

“Something in that way. Helloa! Brooks, back again?” to a fine, frank-looking young fellow, “and were you successful?”

“Yes, to both your questions. In addition I’ll say, for your rejoicing, that I give in, cave, subside, have nothing more to say against your pet theory, from this moment swear myself a rank abolitionist, or anything else you please, now and forever, so help me all ye black gods and goddesses!”

“Phew! what’s all this?” cried Whittlesly, from the other side of his Colonel; “what are you driving at? I’ll defy anybody to make head or tail of that answer.”

“Surrey understands.”

“Not I; your riddle’s too much for me.”

“Didn’t you go in pursuit of a dead man?” queried Whittlesly.

“Just that.”

“Did the dead man convert you?”

“No, Colonel, not precisely. And yet yes, too; that is, I suppose I shouldn’t have been converted if he hadn’t died, and I gone in search of him.”

“I believe it; you’re such an obstinate case that you need one raised from the dead to have any effect on you.”

“Obstinate! O, hear the pig-headed fellow talk! You’re a beauty to discourse on that point, aren’t you!”

“Surrey laughed, and stopped at the call of one of his men, who hailed him as he went by. Evidently a favorite here as in New York, in camp as at home; for in a moment he was surrounded by the men, who crowded about him, each with a question, or remark, to draw special attention to himself, and a word or smile from his commander. Whatever complaint they had to enter, or petition to make, or favor to beg, or wish to urge, whatever help they wanted or information they desired, was brought to him to solve or to grant, and never being repulsed by their officer they speedily knew and loved their friend. Thus it was that the two men standing at a little distance, watching the proceeding, were greatly amused at the motley drafts made upon his attention in the shape of tents, shoes, coats, letters to be sent or received, books borrowed and lent, a man sick, or a chicken captured. They brought their interests and cares to him, these big, brown fellows, as though they were children, and he a parent well beloved.

“One might think him the father of the regiment,” said Brooks, with a smile.

“The mother, more like: it must be the woman element in him these fellows feel and love so.”

“Perhaps; but it would have another effect on them, if, for instance, he didn’t carry that sabre-slash on his hand. They’ve seen him under steel and fire, and know where he’s led them.”

“What is this you were joking about with him, a while ago?”

“What! about turning abolitionist?”

“Precisely.”

“O, you know he’s rampant on the slavery question. I believe it’s the only thing he ever loses his temper over, and he has lost it with me more than once. I’ve always been a rank heretic with regard to Cuffee, and the result was, we disagreed.”

“Yes, I know. But what connection has that with your expedition?”

“Just what I want to know,” added Surrey, coming up at the moment.

“Ah! you’re in time to hear the confession, are you?”

“’An honest confession ’You know what the wise man says.”

“Come, don’t flatter yourself we will think you so because you quote him. Be quiet, both of you, and let me go on to tell my tale.”

“Attention!”

“Proceed!”

“Thus, then. You understand what my errand was?”

“Not exactly; Lieutenant Hunt was drowned somewhere, wasn’t he?”

“Yes: fell overboard from a tug; the men on board tried to save him, and then to recover his body, and couldn’t do either. Some of his people came down here in pursuit of it, and I was detailed with a squad to help them in their search.

“Well, the naval officers gave us every facility in their power; the river was dragged twice over, and the woods along-shore ransacked, hoping it might have been washed in and, maybe, buried; but there wasn’t sight or trace of it. While we were hunting round we stumbled on a couple of darkies, who told us, after a bit of questioning, that darky number three, somewhere about, had found the body of a Federal officer on the river bank, and buried it. On that hint we acted, posted over to the fellow’s shanty, and found, not him, but his wife, who was ready enough to tell us all she knew. She showed us some traps of the buried officer, among them a pair of spurs, which his brother recognized directly. When she was quite sure that we were all correct, and that the thing had fallen into the right hands, she fished out of some safe corner his wallet, with fifty-seven dollars in it. I confess I stared, for they were slaves, both of them, and evidently poor as Job’s turkey, and it has always been one of my theories that a nigger invariably steals when he gets a chance. However, I wasn’t going to give in at that.”

“Of course you weren’t,” said the Colonel. “Did you ever read about the man who was told that the facts did not sustain his theory, and of his sublime answer? ‘Very well,’ said he, ’so much the worse for the facts!’”

“Come, Colonel, you talk too much. How am I ever to get on with my narrative, if you keep interrupting me in this style? Be quiet.”

“Word of command. Quiet. Quiet it is. Continue.”

“No, I said, of course they expect some reward, that’s it.”

“What an ass you must be!” broke in Whittlesly.

“Hadn’t you sense enough to see they could keep the whole of it, and nobody the wiser? and of course they couldn’t have supposed any one was coming after it, could they?

“How am I to know what they thought? If you don’t stop your comments, I’ll stop the story; take your choice.”

“All right: go ahead.”

“While I was considering the case, in came the master of the mansion, a thin, stooped, tired-looking little fellow, ’Sam,’ he told us, was his name; then proceeded to narrate how he had found the body, and knew the uniform, and was kind and tender with it because of its dress, ’for you see, sah, we darkies is all Union folks’; how he had brought it up in the night, for fear of his Secesh master, and made a coffin for it, and buried it decently. After that he took us out to a little spot of fresh earth, covered with leaves and twigs, and, digging down, we came to a rough pine box made as well as the poor fellow knew how to put it together. Opening it, we found all that was left of poor Hunt, respectably clad in a coarse, clean white garment which Sam’s wife had made as nicely as she could out of her one pair of sheets. ’It wa’n’t much,’ said the good soul, with tears in her eyes, ’it wa’n’t much we’s could do for him, but I washed him, and dressed him, peart as I could, and Sam and me, we buried him. We wished, both on us, that we could have done heaps more for him, but we did all that we could,’ which, indeed, was plain enough to be seen.

“Before we went away, Sam brought from a little hole, which he burrowed in the floor of his cabin, a something, done up in dirty old rags; and when we opened it, what under the heavens do you suppose we found? You’ll never guess. Three hundred dollars in bank-bills, and some important papers, which he had taken and hid, concealed them even from his wife, because, he said, the guérillas often came round, and they might frighten her into giving them up if she knew they were there.

“I collapsed at that, and stood with open mouth, watching for the next proceeding. I knew there was to be some more of it, and there was. Hunt’s brother offered back half the money; offered it! why, he tried to force it on the fellow, and couldn’t. His master wouldn’t let him buy himself and his wife, I suspect, out of sheer cussedness, and he hadn’t any other use for money, he said. Besides, he didn’t want to take, and wouldn’t take, anything that looked like pay for doing aught for a ‘Linkum sojer,’ alive or dead.

“‘They’se going to make us all free, sometime,’ he said, ’that’s enough. Don’t look like it, jest yet, I knows; but I lives in faith; it’ll come byumby’ When the fellow said that, I declare to you, Surrey, I felt like hiding my face. At last I began to comprehend what your indignation meant against the order forbidding slaves coming into our lines, and commanding their return when they succeed in entering. Just then we all seemed to me meaner than dirt.”

“As we are; and, as dirt, deserve to be trampled underfoot, beaten, defeated, till we’re ready to stand up and fight like men in this struggle.”

“Amen to that, Colonel,” added Whittlesly.

“Well, I’m pretty nearly ready to say so myself,” finished Brooks, half reluctantly.