Chapter III: Part 3

"Negro! face as white as mine, Sir! Well, yes, negro, I suppose,--slave, any way,--do you want him summoned in here? Do you want to see him? He gives his testimony intelligently enough. Or shall we send for Mrs. Edgar? For it's high time _she_ were thrown on her own resources, instead of being maintained at our expense for the benefit of the enemy."

Precisely as he finished speaking sounded a peal from the great organ, and Mr. Deane just half understood the look on the minister's face as he turned from him to listen.

A better understanding would have kept him silent longer; but, unable to control himself, he said,--

"We're buying that at too high a price. Better go back to drunken Mallard,--a great sight better. McClellan would tell us so; so would Jeff Davis."

"What can be done?" asked the minister.

Never had that good man looked and felt so helpless as at this moment. His words, and still more his look, vexed and surprised the ever-ready Deane.

"Exactly what would be done, if the woman played fifty times worse, and looked like a beggar. A medium performer with an ugly visage would not find us stumbling against duty. No respect should be shown to persons, when such a charge is brought up. The facts must be tested, and Miss Edgar--What's the reason she never owned she was a Mrs.?"

"Why, Deane, did you ever hear me address her or speak of her in any other way? I knew she was a married woman."

"Did you know she had a husband living, too?"

"No."

Mr. Muir spoke as if it were beneath him to suppose that use was to be made, to the damage of the woman, of such acknowledgment.

"It don't look well that people in general are ignorant of the fact. I tell you it's suspicious. It strikes me I never heard _anybody_ call her anything but Miss Edgar. Excuse me; of course you knew better."

"Yes, and some beside myself. She told me she was a married woman. But really, Deane, we couldn't expect, especially of a woman who has been living for months, as it seems to me, in absolute retirement, that she should go about making explanations in regard to her private affairs. I have inferred, I confess, that she had in some unfortunate manner terminated her union with her husband; and I have always hoped that her coming here might prove a providential, happy thing,--that somehow she might find her way out of trouble, and resume, what has evidently been broken off, a peaceful and happy life. She is familiar with happiness."

"Well, Sir!" Deane exploded on the preacher's mildness, of which he had grown in the last few seconds terribly impatient, "I don't know how far Christian charity may go,--a great way farther, it seems, than it need to, if it will submit to the impertinence of a traitor's coming among us and accepting our support, at the same time that she takes advantage of her sex and position to betray us. For _that_ business stands just where it did before. There isn't the slightest doubt that she will find abettors enough who are as false and daring and impudent as herself. Whether we shall suffer them is a question, it seems. Excuse my plain speaking, but I am surprised all round."

"No more than I am, Mr. Deane. It is, as you say, our duty immediately to examine into this business; but we cannot, look at it as you will, we cannot do so with too much caution. It is a disagreeable errand for a man to undertake. Let us at least defer judgment for the present. I will speak to Mrs. Edgar about it myself, and communicate the result immediately to you. Do you prefer to remain here till I return?"

He arose as he spoke, but Deane rose also. It had at last penetrated the brain of this most shrewd, but also very dull man, that the business might be conducted with courtesy, and that a little skill might manage it as effectually as a good deal of courage.

"No, no," he said; "he could trust the business to the minister. Liked to do so, of course. If there was any shame or remorse in the woman, Mr. Muir was the proper person to deal with it."

And so Deane retired.

But when he was gone, the minister stood listening to his departing steps as long as they could be heard; then he sat down in his study-chair, and seemed in no haste to go about the business with which he stood commissioned.

Still the organ-music wandered through the church. Prayer of Moses, Miserere, De Profundis, the Voice of One crying in the Wilderness, a Song in the Night, the darkness of desolation rifted only by the cry for deliverance, tragic human experience, exhausted human hope, and dying faith,--he seemed to interpret the sounds as they swept from the organ-loft and wandered darkly down the nave among the great stone pillars, till they stood, a dismal congregation, at the low door of the vestry-room, pleading with him for her who sent them thither, and astounding him by the hot calumniation that preceded them.

At last, for he was a man to _do_ his duty, in spite of whatsoever shrinking,--and if this accusation were true, it would be indeed hard to forgive, impossible to overlook the offence,--the minister walked out from the vestry into the church.

The organist must have heard him coming, for she broke off suddenly, and dismissed the boy who worked the bellows, at the same moment herself rising to depart.

Just then the minister ascended the steps that led into the choir.

She had no purpose to remain a moment, and merely paused for civil speech, choosing, however, that he should see she was detained.

He did not accept the signs, and, with his usual grave deference to the will of others in things trivial, allow her to pass. He said, instead,--

"Mrs. Edgar, I wish you might give me a moment, though I do not see how what I have undertaken can be said in that length of time. I choose that you should hear from one who wishes you nothing but good the strange story that troubles me."

"I remain, Mr. Muir," was the answer; and she sat down.

The subject was too disagreeable for him to dally with it. If the charge were a true one, no consideration was due; if untrue, the sooner that was made apparent, the better.

"It is said that the organist of St. Peter's is not as loyal a citizen of the United States as might be hoped by those who admire and trust her most; and not only so, but that she is the wife of a Rebel leader, and in communication with Rebels. It sounds harsh, but I speak as a friend. I do not credit these things; but they're said, and I repeat them to relieve others of what they might deem a duty."

Swiftly on his words came her answer.

"You have not believed it, Sir?"

Looking at her, it was the easiest thing for the minister to feel and say,--and, oh, how he wished for Deane!--

"Not one word of it, Madam."

"That is sufficient,--sufficient, at least, for me. But do they, does any one, desire that I should take the oath of fealty to the Constitution and to the Government? I am ready to do either, or both. I hardly reverence the Constitution more than I do the man who is at the head of our affairs. To me he is the hero of this age."

The minister smiled,--a cordial smile, right trustful, cordial, glad.

"It may be well," said he. "These are strange days to live in, and we all abhor suspicion of our loyalty. Besides, it may be necessary; for suspicion of this character is an ungovernable passion now. For myself, I should never have asked these questions; but it is merely right that you should know the whole truth. A person who reports of himself that he has escaped from Charleston avers that he has recognized in the organist of St. Peter's the wife of General Edgar. I don't know the man's name. But his statement has reached me directly. I give you information I might have withheld, because I perfectly trust both the citizen and the lady who has rendered us such noble service here."

"And such trust, I may say, is my right. I shall not forfeit it," said the organist, rising. "I am ready, at any time, to take the oath, and to bear my own responsibilities, Mr. Muir. I have neither fellowship nor communication with Rebels, and I deem it a strange insult to be called a spy. 'T is a great pity one should stay here to vex himself with puerile gossip."

She pointed to the stained windows emblazoned with sacred symbols, glorious now with sunlight, bowed, and was gone.

VI.

There came, on Easter night, to the door of the organist's apartment, the "contraband" who at present was sojourning under the protection of Mr. Gerald Deane.

The hour was not early. Evening service was over, and Julius had waited a reasonable length of time, that his errand might be delivered when she should be at leisure. He might safely have gone at once; for guests never came at night, and rarely by day,--the organist's wish being perfectly understood among the very few with whom she came in contact, and she being consequently "let alone" with what some might have deemed "a vengeance." But it satisfied her, and no other dealing would.

Either this man--Julius Hopkins was his name--had not so recently come to H---- as to be a stranger in any quarter of the town, or he had made use of his time here; for he seemed familiar with the streets and alleys as an old resident.

To find the organist was not difficult, when one had come within sight of the lofty spire of the church, for it was under its shadow she lived; but if he had been accustomed to carry messages to her door for years, he could not now have presented himself with fuller confidence as to what he should find.

When Mrs. Edgar opened the door, not a word was needed, as if these were strangers who stood face to face. In her countenance, indeed, was emotion,--unmeasured surprise; in her manner, momentary indecision. But the surprise passed into a lofty kindliness of manner, and the indecision gave place to the most entire freedom from embarrassment. She cut short the words he began to speak with an authoritative, though most quiet,--

"Julius, come in."

It was not as one addresses the servant of a friend, but spoken with an authority which the man instantly acknowledged by obedience. He came into the room, closed the door, and waited till she should speak. She asked,--

"Why are you here?"

He answered as if unaware that any great change had taken place in their relations.

"My master sent me. At last I have found my mistress. It took me a great while."

"Is your master still in arms?"

The man bowed.

"Against the Government?"

"_He_ says, _for_ the Government."

"Of Rebels?"

He bowed again.

"Then, there is no answer,--can be none. Did he not foresee it?"

The slave did not answer. What words that he came commissioned to speak could respond to the anguish her voice betrayed? She spoke again; she had recovered from the surprise of her distress, and, looking now at Julius, said,--

"You are excused from replying; but--you do not, in any event, propose to return home?"

"Yes, Madam, yes,--immediately, immediately."

It was the first time he had discovered this purpose, and he did so with a vehemence expressive of desire to vindicate himself where he should be understood. She answered slowly, but she did not seem amazed, as Deane would infallibly have been, as you and I had been,--such doubting worshippers, after all, of the great heroic.

"Do you not hear, Julius, everywhere, that you are a freeman? Is it possible no one has told you so? Do you not know it for yourself? It is likely."

"It don't signify. I tended him through one course,--he got a bad cut, Master did,--and I'll take care of him again. I a'n't through till he is."

"Is he well?"

"Thanks to me, and the Lord, he _is_ well of the wound again, and gone to work."

At the pause that now ensued, as if he had only been waiting for this, the slave approached nearer to his mistress; but he did not lift his eyes,--he desired but to serve. She was so proud, he thought,--always was; if he could only get _himself_ out of the way, and let this ugly, cruel business right itself without a witness! Master knew how to plead better than any one could for him. He produced a tiny case of chamois-leather.

"Master sent you this," he said; and it seemed as if he would have given it into her very hands; but they were folded; so he laid it on the edge of the piano, and stepped back a pace. He knew there was no need for him to explain.

Well she understood. Her husband had done his utmost to secure a reconciliation. Love had its rights, its sacrifices; with these she had to do, and not with his official conduct and public acts.

She knew well what that trifle of a chamois case contained. It was the miniature of their child, the little one of earth no more, but heaven-born: the winged child, with the flame above its head,--symbols with which, of old, they loved to represent Genius. This miniature was set in diamonds; it was the mother's gift to the father of the child: this woman's gift to the man whom loyal men to-day call traitor, rebel, alien, enemy.

And thus he appealed to her. Oh, tender was the voice! This love that called had in its utterances proof that it held by its immortality. The love that pleaded with her appealed to recollections the most sacred, the most dear, the perpetual,--knowing what was in her heart, knowing how _it_ would respond.

But there, where Julius left the miniature, it lay; a letter beside it now, and a purse of gold,--pure gold,--not a Confederate note among it.

Poor Julia Edgar! she need not open the case that shone with such starry splendor. Never could be hidden from her eyes the face of the child. How should she not see again, in all its beauty, the garden where her darling had played, little hands filled full of blooms, little face whose smiling was as that of angels, butterflies sporting around her as the wonderful one of old flitted about St. Rose,--alas! with as sure a prophecy as that black and golden one? How clearly she saw again, through heavy clouds of tears that never broke, the garden's glory, all its peace, its happiness, its pride, and love!

No argument, no word, could have pleaded for the father of the child like this. But it was love pleading against love,--Earth's beseeching and need, against Heaven's warning and sufficience.

At last she spoke again.

"What is your reward, Julius, for all this danger you've incurred for him, and for me?"

"He said it should be my liberty."

How he spoke those words! LIBERTY! it was the golden dream of the man's life, yet he named it with a self-control that commanded her admiration and reverence.

"I give it to you at this moment, here!" she said.

For an instant the slave seemed to hesitate; but the hesitation was of utterance merely, not of will.

"My errand isn't half done, Madam. I never broke my word yet. I'll go back."

"Tell him, then, that I gave you your freedom, and you would not accept it. And--_go_ back! 't is a noble resolve, worthy of you. Take the purse. I do not need it. Say that I have no need of it. And you will, perhaps."

No other message for him? Not one word from herself to him! For she knew where safety lay.

The slave looked at her, helpless, hopeless, with indecision. The woman was incomprehensible. He had set out on his errand, had persevered through difficulties, and had withstood temptations too many to be written here, with not a doubt as to the success that would attend him. He remembered the wife of General Edgar in her home; to that home of happy love and noble hospitality, and of all social dignities, he had no doubt he should restore her. But now, humbled by defeat, he said,--

"I've looked a great while for you, Madam. I would never 'a' give up, though, if I'd gone to Maine or Labrador, and round by the Rocky Mountains, hunting for you. I heard you singing in the church this morning, and I knew your voice. Though it didn't sound natural right,--but I knew it was nobody else's voice,--as if the North mostly hadn't agreed with it. And I heard it yesterday somewhere,--that's what 'sured me. I was going along the street, when I heard it; but it was not this house you were in."

"And it was you, then, Julius, who betrayed me to the person who supposes himself to be your protector,--and this because you thought surely I must be glad to return, when I had lost my friends here through ill report! Is that the way your war is carried on?"

"My war, Madam?"

But Julius did not look at his mistress; he looked away, and shrugged his shoulders. The device of which he was convicted had seemed to him so good, so sure, nevertheless had failed.

She had scarcely finished speaking, when a note was brought to the door. It was from Adam von Gelhorn.

"I am making my preparations to go at nine to-morrow," said the
note. "Will you come to the church before? I would like to
remember having seen you there last, at the organ. There's a
bit of news just reached me, said to be a secret. General
Edgar's command aims at preventing the junction of our forces
before Y----. He is strong enough, numerically, to overthrow
either division in separate conflict, and this is his
Napoleonic strategy. But he will be outwitted. There's no doubt
of it. Do not despair of our cause, whatever you hear during
the coming fortnight. I shall report myself immediately to
McClellan, and he may make a drummer-boy of me, if he will.
Henceforth I am at his service till the war ends.

"VON G----."

Thrice she read this note; when her eyes lifted at last, Julius was still standing where she had left him. She started, seeing him, as if his presence there at the moment took a new significance; her heart fainted within her.

Had _he_ heard this secret of which Von Gelhorn spoke? It was her husband's _life_ that was in jeopardy!

"When are you going, Julius?" she asked.

"To-morrow. Oh, Madam, give me some word for him!"

Red horror of death, how it rises before her sight! She shuddered, cowered, sank before the blackness of darkness that followed fast on that terrific spectacle of carnage, before which a whirlwind seemed to have planted her. She heard the cries and yells, the groans and curses of bleeding, dying men; saw banners in the dust, horsemen and horses crushed under the great guns, mortality in fragments, heaps upon heaps of ruin on the field Aceldama.

Where was he? Who would search among the slain for him? Who from among the dying would rescue him? Who will stanch his bleeding wounds? Who will moisten his parched lips? Whose voice sound in the ears that have heard the roar of guns amid the crash of battle? What hand shall bathe and fan that brow? What eyes shall watch till those eyelids unlock, and catch the whisper of those lips? Nay, who will save his life from the needless sacrifice? tell him that his plans are known, warn him back, warn _him_ of spies and of treachery? Has Julius betrayed him?

She looked at the slave. But before she looked, her heart reproached her for having doubted him.

"You will need this gold," she said. "Take it. Restore the miniature to your master. And go,--go at once. If success be in store for _him_, I share not the shame of it. If defeat, adversity, sickness,--your master knows his wife fears but one thing, has fled but from one thing. Her heart is with him, but she abhors the cause to which he has given himself. She will not share his crime."

Difficult as these words were to speak, she spoke them without faltering, and they admitted no discussion.

The slave lingered yet longer, but there was no more that she would say. Assured at last of that, he said,--

"I obey you," and was gone.

He was gone,--gone! and she had betrayed nothing,--had given no warning,--had uttered not a word by which the life that was of all lives most precious to her might have been saved!

VII.

By eight o'clock next morning Mrs. Edgar was in the church. Von Gelhorn preceded her by five minutes; he was walking up the aisle when she entered, impatient for her appearing, eager to be gone,--wondering, boy-like, that she came not.

He has performed a prodigious amount of labor since they last met. His pictures were all removed to the Odeon, he said. His studio, haunt of dreams, beloved of fame so long, stripped and barren, looked like any other four-walled room,--and he, a freeman, stood equipped for service.

Yes, an hour would see him speeding to the capital. In less time than it had taken him to perfect his arrangements he should be at the head-quarters of the commander-in-chief,--to be made a drummer-boy of, as he said before, or serve wherever there should be room for him.

He stood there so bright, so ready, eager, daring, was capable of so much! What had _she_ done to usurp the functions of conscience, and assume the voice of duty? She had done what she could not revoke, and yet could not contemplate without a sort of terror,--as if to atone, to make amends for disloyalty, which, coming even as from herself, a crime in which she had chief concernment, was not to be atoned for by repentance merely, nor by any sacrifices less than the costliest. She had sought her husband's peer,--deemed that she had found him,--therefore would despatch him to the battle-field, by valor to meet the valiant. But now the light by which she had hurried forward to that deed was gone, and she stood as a prophetess may, who, deserted of the divinity, doubts the testimony of her hour of exaltation.

While they talked,--both apparently standing at an elevation of serene courage above the level of even warring men and heroic women, but one causing such misgiving in her heart as to fix her in that mood, and forbid an extrication,--Fate led a lady down the street, who, passing by the church and seeing the door ajar, went in. She should find in the choir some written music, used in yesterday's services, which she had forgotten to bring away. Out of the pure, bright sunshine she stepped into the dark, cold shadows, and had come to the choir before she heard the voices speaking there. Shrined saints that hold your throne-like niches in the old stone walls! gilded cherubim that hover round the organ's burnished pipes! what sight do you look down upon? She walked up quietly,--it was her way, a noiseless, gliding way,--there stood the organist and Adam von Gelhorn! As if hell had made a revelation, she stood looking at those two. And both saw her, and neither of the three uttered one word, or essayed a motion, till she, quietly, it seemed, though it was with utmost violence, turned to go again.

Then--soft the voice sounded, but to her who spoke there was thunder in it--the organist called after her, "Sybella!"

She, however, did not turn to answer, neither did she falter in going. Departure was the one thing of which she was capable,--and what could have hindered her going? What checks Vesuvius, when the flood says, "Lo, I come!"? Or shall the little bird that perches and sings on a post in the Dismal Swamp prevent the message that sweeps along the wire for a thousand miles?

Von Gelhorn, disturbed by her coming and departure, in that so slight vibration of air caused by her advance and her retreat, swayed as a reed in the wind, stood for a moment seeking equipoise. Vain endeavor!

Not with inquiry, neither for direction, his eyes fell on Julia Edgar.

"Go," she said.

She said it aloud; no utterance could have been more distinct. He strode after Sybella.

She heard him come, but did not pause, or turn, or falter. He came faster, gained upon, and overtook her. It was just there by the church-door. And then he spoke. But not like a warrior. It was a hoarse whisper she heard, and her name in it. At _that_ call she turned. When she saw his face, she stood.

Why avert her face, indeed, or why go on?

"I am going away,--in search of death, perhaps. I don't know. But to battle. Will you not come back and listen one moment?"

She stood as if she could stand. Why did he plead but for one moment? Battle! before that word she laid down her weapons. Under that glare of awful fire the walls of ice melted, as never iceberg under tropic sun.

Battle! One out of the world who had been so long out of _her_ world! Out of her world? So is beauty dead and past all resurrection of a surety, when the dismal winds of March howl over land and sea!

"Yesterday," he said, "I came to church. Not to hear you, but I heard you. You conquered me. I was giving a word for you to your friend and mine, when God led you in here. Do not try to thwart Him. We have tried it long enough. If you should go into my studio,--no, there's no such place now, but if you went into the Odeon, you would see some faces there that would tell you who has haunted my dreams and my heart these years. Forgive me now that I'm going away. Let me hear you speak the very word, Sybella."

How long must sinner call on God before he sees the smile of Love making bright the heavens, glad the earth, possible all holiness, probable all blessing? For He has built no walls, fastened no bars and bolts, blasted no present, cursed no future. If Love be large, rich, free, strong enough, it brings itself with one swift bound into the Heavenly Kingdom where the Powers of Darkness have almost prevailed.

When Mrs. Edgar saw these two coming up the aisle together, she understood, and, turning full towards them, sang a song such as was never heard before within those old gray walls.

VIII.

Mr. Muir was but a man. Powerful indeed in his way, but it was behind his pulpit-desk, with a sermon in his hands, his congregation before him,--or in carrying out any charitable project, or in managing the business specially devolving on him. He was nobody when he emerged from his own distinct path,--at least, such was his opinion; and being so, he would not be likely to attempt the enforcement of another view of his power on other men. He was afraid of himself now,--afraid that his own preferences had made him obtuse where loyalty would have given him a clearer vision.

Pity him, therefore, when Mr. Deane learned that the son of bondage in whose deliverance he took such proud delight, as surely became a good man who greatly valued freedom, aye, valued it as the pearl beyond all price,--when he learned that the slave had been seen going to the organist's room, and returning from it, and had not since been seen in H----.

Mr. Muir reflected on these tidings with perplexity, constrained, in spite of him, to believe that the slave had actually come on a secret errand, which he had fulfilled, and that not without enlightenment he had returned to his master.

The indignation a man feels, a man of the Deane order especially, when he finds that he has been imposed upon, though the deception has been in this instance of his own furtherance and establishment,--this kind and degree of indignation brought Mr. Deane like a firebrand into the next vestry-meeting. An end must be made of this matter at once. It was no longer a question whether anything had best be done. Something _must_ be done; the public demanded, and he, as a good citizen, demanded, that the church should free herself of suspicion.

Mr. Muir felt, from the moment his eyes fell on Deane, that _he_ played a losing game. Vain to help a woman who had fallen under that man's suspicion, useless to defend her! What should he do, then? Let her go? let her fall? Allow that she was a spy? Permit her disgrace, dismissal, arrest possibly? When War takes hold of women, the touch is not tender. Mr. Muir, it was obvious, was not a man of war. And he had to acknowledge to the Musical Committee, that, as to the result of his conversation with Mrs. Edgar, he had learned merely what was sufficient, indeed, to satisfy _him_ of her loyalty, and that she would scorn to do a spy's work; but he had no proof to offer that might satisfy minds less "prejudiced" in her favor.

It was impossible not to perceive the dissatisfaction with which this testimony was received.

The Committee, however favorably disposed toward the organist, had their own suspicions to quiet, and a growing rumor among the people to quell. Positive proof must be adduced that the organist was not the wife of a Rebel general, or she must be removed from her place.

At a time when riot was rife, and street-tumult so common that the citizens, loyal or disloyal, had no real security, it was venturesome, dangerous, foolhardy, to allow a suspicion to fix, even by implication, on the church. If the organist, already sufficiently noted and popular in the town to attract within the church-walls scores of people who came merely for the music,--if she were suspected of collision with Southern traitors, she must pay the price. It was the proper tax on loyalty. The church must be free of blame.

So Mr. Muir, a second time on such business, went to Mrs. Edgar.

Various intimations as to what brave men might do in precisely his situation distracted him as he went. The fascinations of her power were strongly upon him. If he was a hero, here, surely, was a heroine. And in distress! Had Christian chivalry no demand to make, no claim on him?

All the way, as he went, he was counting the cost of his opposition to the vestry's will. If he only stood alone! If neither wife nor child had rights to be considered in advance of other mortals, and which, for the necessities of others, must surely not be waived! If Nature had not planted in him prudence, if he had only not that vexatious habit of surveying duties in their wholeness, and balancing consequences, he might, at the moment, enter into Don Quixote's joy. But,--and here he was at the head of the flight of stairs that led to her chamber, face to face with her.

Advance now, Christian minister! He comes slowly, weighed down by his burden of consequences, and, as at one glance, the organist perceives the "situation." He has come with her dismissal from the church. She sees it in the dejected face, the troubled eyes, the weariness with which he throws himself into the nearest chair. The duty he has in hand he feels in all its irksomeness, and makes no concealment thereof,--indeed, some display perhaps.

From a little desultory talk about church-music, through which words ran at random, Mrs. Edgar broke at last, somewhat impatiently.

"What is it, Mr. Muir? Must your organist take the oath?"

The question caught him by surprise; it was uppermost in his thoughts, this hateful theme; but then how should she know it? He lost the self-possession he had been trying to maintain, the dignity of his judicial character broke down completely; he was now merely a kind-hearted man, a husband and father it is true, but for the moment those domestic ties were not like a fetter on him.

"I require no such evidence of your loyalty, Mrs. Edgar," he said,--"no evidence whatever."

"But--does not the church?"

This question was asked with a little faltering, asked for his sake; for evidently some knowledge he had, and had to communicate, that embarrassed him almost to the making of speech impossible.

"The church! No,--it is too late for that!"

And now he had thrown down the hateful truth. There it lay at the feet of the woman who at this moment assumed to the preacher's imagination a more than saint's virtue, a more than angel's beauty.

"What then?" she said. "What next, Mr. Muir? Do they want my resignation?"

"Yes."

Mr. Muir said this with a humbled, deprecating gesture of the hand. At the same time bowed his head.

"I commission you to carry it," she said.

"I will not," he answered, almost ferociously.

"Mr. Muir!"

"I consider it an outrage."

"No,--a misunderstanding."

That mild magnanimity of speech completed the overthrow of his prudence.

"A misunderstanding, then, that shall be rectified to your honor," he exclaimed, "in the very place where it has gained ground to your dishonor. If you resign, Mrs. Edgar, it must be to come at once to my house as a guest. If the people are infatuated, the minister need not be of necessity. My wife will welcome you there; if the law of the gospel cannot protect you from suspicion, it can at least from harm."

So all in a moment the man got the better of Mr. Muir. What a deliverance was there! This was the man who had preached and prayed for the Government till more than once he had been invited to march out with the soldiers as their chaplain to battle, opening his doors to one whom the loyal church rejected,--opening them merely because she was a woman on whom suspicion he believed to be unjust had fallen.

Her face lighted, her eyes flashed, she smiled. These were precious words to hear from any good man's lips. They broke on the air like balm on a wound.

"Not for all the world would I allow it," she answered. "This is no time to complicate affairs. I thank you, and I confess you have surprised me. I did not expect this even of you. It is needless for me to say that I feel this disgrace as you would feel it; but I understand the position of the church, and cannot complain. If I were guilty, this treatment would be only too lenient. And it is almost guilt to have incurred suspicion."

"I will never be the bearer of your resignation, then,--never, Mrs. Edgar! I wash my hands of this business!"

She smiled again. The man in his wrath seemed to have seized on a child's weapon. He interpreted her smile, and said,--

"My position will be well understood, if another is the bearer. And I wish it to be. I wish men to know that I have no hand in this business. The church is a persecutor. I, her son, am ashamed of her."

"It has given me my opportunity to make a defence. And I can make none, Mr. Muir. My great mistake was in remaining here. Ruin, however, is not so rare a thing in these days that I should be surprised by it, even if it overtake me."

"Ruin! Aye. What curses thicken for their heads who have brought this upon us! Unborn millions will repeat them, and God Almighty sanction and enforce them."

Mr. Muir paused. What arrested him? Merely the countenance of the woman before him. If all those curses had gathered into legions of devils, crowding, swarming, furious, armed with lash and brand, about the form of one who represented love, joy, beauty, all preciousness to her, the terror and the anguish looking from her face could not have been intensified. But she said no word.

How should she speak?

As if in spite of him, and of all he had been wont to hold most sacred and potential, in spite of church and congregation, Constitution and country, the minister had spoken simply for humanity under oppression; had he not earned her confidence? Did he not deserve to know at least what real ground there was for the suspicions roused against her?

Nay, nay! When did ever Love seek deliverance at the cost of the beloved? What woman ever betrayed to secret friend the sin of him she loves? Let all creation read the patent facts, behind them still remains the inviolate, sacred _arcanum_, and before it stands sentinel Silence, and around it are walls of fire.

Not from this woman's lips should mortal ever learn she was a Rebel's wife!

For Mr. Muir, in his present mood, it was only torture to prolong this interview. He felt himself unfit for counsel or argument,--unfit even for confidence, had it been vouchsafed. But he held, with a tenacity that could not but have its influence on his future acts and life, to the purpose that had broken from him so suddenly, and not less to his own surprise than to the organist's. From this day she was at liberty to seek protection under his roof from threatened mobs and hot-headed church-wardens. Mr. Deane was one man, he himself was another; and if a day was ever coming to the world when Christian magnanimity must rise in its majesty and its strength, that day had surely dawned; if the Christian ministry was ever to know a period when the greatness of its prerogatives was to be made manifest, that period had certainly begun.

IX.

From this interview Mrs. Edgar went to make her preparations for the flitting she had already determined upon. She resolved to lose no time, and consoled Mr. Muir by making known her resolution, and seeking his assistance, when he was in a condition adapted to the bestowal.

But scarcely were her rooms bared, her trunks packed, and the day and mode of her departure determined upon, when an order came to H---- from a high official source, so authoritative as to allow no hesitation or demur.

"Arrest the organist of St. Peter's Church, Mrs. Julia Edgar."

And, behold, she was a prisoner in the house where she had lodged!

Opposition was out of the question, protest hardly thought of. One glance was broad enough to cover this business from end to end, and of resistance there was no demonstration. Her work now was to restore the room, denuded and desolate, to its late aspect of refinement and cheer.

Well, but is it the same thing to urge others on to sacrifice, and yourself to bring an offering? to gird another for warfare, and yourself endure hardness? to incite another to active service, and yourself serve by passive obedience? to place a sword in the right hand of the valiant, and bare your heart to the smiting of a sword in the same cause of glory?

To have urged out of beautiful and studious retirement the painter of precious pictures, that he may lift the soldier's burden and gird himself for fasting through long, toilsome marches over mountains, through wilderness, swamp, and desert, and for encountering Death at every pass in one of his manifold disguises,--that he may lie on a field of blood, perchance, at last, the fragment of himself, for what? that he may say, finally, if speech be left him, he has fought under the flag, that at Memphis its buried glory may have resurrection, that at Sumter it may float again from the battlements, that at Richmond it may be unfurled above Rebellion's grave,--is it the same thing to have accomplished this by way of atonement, and in your own body to atone, by your humiliation, by suspicion endured? She deemed it a small thing that she was called to suffer,--that, when honor was won, she must bear disgrace instead. What, indeed, was a year's or a lifetime's imprisonment, looked on in the light of privation or sacrifice? Yet _so_ to atone, since thus it was written, for the sin of one who was in arms against the nation's government! Oh, if anywhere, of any loyal citizen, it might be looked upon, accepted, _as_ atonement!

In one thing she was happy, and of right. Music never failed her. Art keeps her great rewards for such as serve her for her sacred self. Therefore let her arise day after day to the same prospect of sky, and sea, and busy street, and silent, shadowy church-yard. I bless the birds that built their nests in the elm and willow branches for her sake. The little creatures flitting here and there, in all their home-ways and domestic management, were dear as their song to her.

But in this life, though there might be growth, it was the growth that comes through pain endured with patience, through self-control maintained in the suspense and the anguish of death.

For what, then, did she long in his behalf whose fate was shrouded in thick darkness from her? For victory? or for defeat? A prison? mutilation? disablement? burial on the battle-field? or a disgraceful safety? Constantly this question urged itself upon her, and the heroic love, that in its great disclosures could not fail, shrank shuddering back in silence.

Thanks to God, she need not choose. The Omniscient is alone the Almighty!

X.

Three months after this order of arrest came another of release,--as brief and as peremptory.

Deane's patriotism, that really had endangered the church with a mob and the organ with demolishment, was the cause of the first despatch. Colonel Von Gelhorn, who had routed General Edgar and driven him and his forces at the point of the bayonet from an "impregnable position," was in the secret of the second.

Close following this order of release, so closely that one must believe he but waited for it before he again presented himself to his mistress, came Julius, the bearer of a message in whose persuasive power he himself had little hope. Defeated, wounded, dying, her husband called this second time to her.

The slave, this day a freeman by all writs and rights, ascended again to her apartment when the order of release had been received.

Surprise awaited him. Alas, what it says for us! our heroes, who have surely the right of unlimited expectations, are as likely to be surprised by heroic demonstrations as the dullest soul that never strove for aught except its paltry starving self. But the hero surprised is not surprised into uncomprehending wonder, but rather into smiles, or tears, or heartrending, out of which comes thankfulness.

Yet a bitter word escaped him; he could deem even Liberty guilty of an injustice, when she was involved in the judgment that awaits the guilty. As if never before under the government of God it was known that the overthrow of evil involved sorrow, aye, and temporal ruin, aye, and sometimes death, to God's very angels! But to that word she answered,--

"Hush! I have been among friends,--even though some believed I was their enemy in disguise. I have nothing to complain of. Duties must be done. But, Julius, you have come to tell me of your master. Tell me, then."

"Such news, Madam, as you will not like to hear, though I have travelled with it night and day. Colonel Von Gelhorn sent me. He said I would be in time. I didn't wait to hear him say that twice."

"_He_ sent you? Where, then, is my husband?"

"He is a prisoner, Madam."

"A prisoner! Whose?"

"Colonel Von Gelhorn's."

Was it satisfaction that filled the silence following this question?

"But safe? but well, Julius?"

"No, Madam, not safe nor well."

"Wounded? Julius, speak! Why must I ask these dreadful questions? Tell what you came to tell."

"He is wounded, Madam. He has never been taken away from the church where I carried him first after he fell. He had three horses shot under him. Oh, Madam, if it hadn't been for him, his whole army would have been lost! He wants you now."

"Let us go, then. Guide me. The shortest way. You're a free man, Julius. Act like one, freely. Wounded,--Von Gelhorn's prisoner. Then at last he's mine again!"

* * * * *

Hers again! In the church she found him. In her arms he died.

And he said,--nor let us think it was with coward weakness blenching before the presence of Death, shaming the day he died by a late repentance,--

"I have been deceived. But I deceived others. Who will forgive that? It is so hard for me to forgive! You have fought your fight like a hero, loyal to the core, but I"----

Nevertheless, her kiss was on his dying lips. _She_ forgave him. Must he, then, go out from her presence into everlasting darkness?

WET-WEATHER WORK.

BY A FARMER.

V.

It is a pelting November rain. No leaves are left upon the branches but a few yellow flutterers on the tips of the willows and poplars, and the bleached company that will be clinging to the beeches and the white oaks for a month to come. All others are whipped away by the night-winds into the angles of old walls, or are packed under low-limbed shrubberies, there to swelter and keep warm the rootlets of the newly planted weigelias and spruces, until the snows and February suns and April mists and May heats shall have transmuted them into fat and unctuous mould. A close, pelting, unceasing rain, trying all the leaks of the mossy roof, testing all the newly laid drains, pressing the fountain at my door to an exuberant gush,--a rain that makes outside work an impossibility; and as I sit turning over the leaves of an old book of engravings, wondering what drift my rainy-day's task shall take, I come upon a pleasant view of Dovedale in Derbyshire, a little exaggerated, perhaps, in the luxuriance of its trees and the depth of its shadows, but recalling vividly the cloudy April morning on which, fifteen years agone, I left the inn of the "Green Man and Black Head," in the pretty town of Ashbourne, and strolled away by the same road on which Mr. Charles Cotton opens his discourse of fishing with Master "Viator," and plunged down the steep valley-side near to Thorpe, and wandered for three miles and more, under towering crags, and on soft, spongy bits of meadow, beside the blithe river where Walton had cast, in other days, a gray palmer-fly, past the hospitable hall of the worshipful Mr. Cotton, and the wreck of the old fishing-house, over whose lintel was graven in the stone the interlaced initials of "Piscator, Junior," and his great master of the rod. As the rain began to patter on the sedges and the pools, I climbed out of the valley, on the northward or Derbyshire side, and striding away through the heather, which belongs to the rolling heights of this region, I presently found myself upon the great London and Manchester highway. A broad and stately thoroughfare it had been in the old days of coaching, but now a close, fine turf invested it all, save one narrow strip of Macadam in the middle. The mile-stones, which had been showy, painted affairs of iron, were now deeply bitten and blotched with rust. Two of them I had passed, without sight of house, or of other traveller, save one belated drover, who was hurrying to the fair at Ashbourne; as I neared the third, a great hulk of building appeared upon my left, with a crowd of aspiring chimneys, from which only one timid little pennant of smoke coiled into the harsh sky.

The gray, inhospitable-looking pile proved to be one of the old coach-inns, which, with its score of vacant chambers and huge stable-court, was left stranded upon the deserted highway of travel. It stood a little space back from the road, so that a coach and four, or, indeed, a half-dozen together, might have come up to the door-way in dashing style. But it must have been many years since such a demand had been made upon the resources of bustling landlord and of attendant grooms and waiters. The doors were tightly closed; even the sign-board creaked uneasily in the wind, and a rampant growth of ivy that clambered over the porch so covered it with leaves and berries that I could not at all make out its burden. I gave a sharp ring to the bell, and heard the echo repeated from the deserted stable-court; there was the yelp of a hound somewhere within, and presently a slatternly-dressed woman received me, and, conducting me down a bare hall, showed me into a great dingy parlor, where a murky fire was struggling in the grate. A score of roistering travellers might have made the stately parlor gay; and I dare say they did, in years gone; but now I had only for company their heavy old arm-chairs, a few prints of "fast coaches" upon the wall, and a superannuated greyhound, who seemed to scent the little meal I had ordered, and presently stalked in and laid his thin nose, with an appealing look, in my hands. His days of coursing--if he ever had them--were fairly over; and I took a charitable pride in bestowing upon him certain tough morsels of the rump-steak, garnished with horse-radish, with which I was favored for dinner.

I had intended to push on to Buxton the same afternoon; but the deliberate sprinkling of the morning by two o'clock had quickened into a swift, pelting rain, the very counterpart of that which is beating on my windows to-day. There was nothing to be done but to make my home of the old coach-inn for the night; and for my amusement--besides the slumberous hound, who, after dinner, had taken up position upon the faded rug lying before the grate--there was a "Bell's Messenger" of the month past, and, as good luck would have it, a much-bethumbed copy of a work on horticulture and kindred subjects, first printed somewhere about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and entitled "The Clergyman's Recreation, showing the Pleasure and Profit of the Art of Gardening," by the Reverend John Laurence.

It was a queer book to be found in this pretentious old coach-inn, with its silken bell-pulls and stately parlors; and I thought how the roisterers who came thundering over the road years ago, and chucked the bar-maids under the chin, must have turned up their noses, after their pint of crusted Port, at the "Clergyman's Recreation." Yet, for all that, the book had a rare interest for me, detailing, as it did, the methods of fruit-culture in England a hundred and forty years ago, and showing with nice particularity how the espaliers could be best trained, and how a strong infusion of walnut-leaf tea will destroy all noxious worms.

And now, when, upon this other wet day, and in the quietude of my own library, I come to measure the claims of this ancient horticulturist to consideration, I find that he was the author of some six or seven distinct works on kindred subjects, showing good knowledge of the best current practice; and although he incurred the sneers of Mr. Tull, who hoped "he preached better than he ploughed," there is abundant evidence that his books were held in esteem.

Contemporary with the Rev. Mr. Laurence were London and Wise, the famous horticulturists of Brompton, (whose nursery, says Evelyn, "was the greatest work of the kind ever seen or heard of, either in books or travels,") also Switzer, a pupil of the latter, and Professor Richard Bradley.

Mr. London was the director of the royal gardens under William and Mary, and at one time had in his charge some three or four hundred of the most considerable landed estates in England. He was in the habit of riding some fifty miles a day to confer with his subordinate gardeners, and at least two or three times in a season traversed the whole length and breadth of England,--and this at a period, it must be remembered, when travelling was no holiday-affair, as is evident from the mishaps which befell those well-known contemporaneous travellers of Fielding, Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams. Traces of the work of Mr. London are to be seen even now in the older parts of the grounds of Blenheim and of Castle Howard in Yorkshire.