Chapter VIII: Part VII: Betsey Clark in Dream-Land (2)

"Like a true man, Clark, inspired by a true woman--the phantom-wife, and artiste--ran, leapt, flew to arms and deathless glory. Ah, God! to arms, and fadeless glory! He had no time to grieve, or grumble; or to criticise this general, or that battle. He looked over the heads of cowards and traitors in his own camp, at the noble men in arms, and who bravely fought, and nobly died, for the Country. He saw, and gloriously emulated such men as Lyon, Saxton, Hunter, Fremont--and Baker! Baker!--O Oregon! my tears fall with thine, for him! He was mine, yours--ours! Ours, in his life; in his nobleness; in his soul-arousing eloquence; in the valor, and the effulgent glory of his death--the result of another whim, and lo! the consequences!

"And now, see! Behold the smoke of yonder battle! Death rides on cannon-balls, to-day! And, to-night, there will be much mourning in the land; for strong men in thousands are giving up the ghost. Weep not, O widow, for God accepts such sacrifices; mourn not, O orphans, He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will hold thee in His keeping; thy grateful country will not let thee want for bread; and, by-and-by, it will be a proud boast of thine, 'My father died to redeem the land from treason!'

"Death rides on cannon-balls, to-day, in the fight that we are seeing. Tom Clark is a hero. See! he leads the van. God spare him! What a presence! What blows he deals for Liberty and the Union! Lo! the thundering battalions of the brave and bold, but insane, misguided, and revengeful foe, sweep down the embattled plain, their war-cry ringing out above the belching roar of artillery; and, with such might and valor do they charge, that Freedom's cohorts reel and stagger beneath the dreadful shock of arms. Another such a charge, and all is lost. But, see, there comes a man from the ranks--a common soldier--his voice rings clearly out upon the sulphur-laden air: 'Follow me!' The inspiring words and action kindle new fire in the wavering breasts of hundreds. They rise; they throw themselves upon the foe--they hush his battle-cry in death. He is repulsed! 'Who did that?' demands an aide-de-camp. 'Private Thomas W.,' is the response. 'Hero! greet him in my name, as Color Sergeant,' says the General; and Tom Clark is promoted on the field.

"The first day's fight is over. It is renewed next day, and, when the tired guns give over with the sun, a group of soldiers are gathered round a man. 'Who is it?' 'Who is it?' 'I thought you knew--why, it is the man who saved the Tenth Brigade--and was rewarded on the spot--Captain Thomas W.!'

"With the sunrise, came the foe! 'Pass the word along the line, there--Captain Clark is wanted at the tent of the General-in-Command!' He goes.

"' Captain Clark, do you see yonder battery of the enemy? It must be taken, or we are lost. If I give you command of a regiment whose colonel was killed yesterday, can you take it?' 'I will try.' ... 'General, the battery on the left is ours,' says an aide-de-camp an hour afterwards. 'It is taken, and all its men are either dead or prisoners!' 'Indeed! So soon? Greet the commander in my name, and salute him as Colonel Thomas W.'

"Another day dawns on the ensanguined field--a field where privates were heroes and generals poltroons! Hard fighting is before us. Up, up the soldiers spring; and on, on to death or victory they rush. Oh, it was a splendid sight--those death-defying demi-gods, who, had they in previous battles had but a Man to lead them, would have taken fifty rebel strongholds in as many hours. But such was not the drift of the 'pretty little game.' More men must die, more ditches must be dug, and more human bones must fill them, else how can Ministers carry out their whims; how else can the enemy be fought and placated at the same time? It isn't Constitutional! besides which it hurts the prospect for the Presidency of the re-United States--which prospect would be forever marred, and the 'little game' played out, if we fought without gloves, and violated our Constitutional obligations by kicking the wind out of the foe, who is trying might and main to strangle the Nation. He might hereafter say: '_You_, sir, fought without gloves on!' which wouldn't do, you know.

"'Damn that Colonel Thomas W. If the fellow keeps on at that rate, we'll surely whip somebody--badly. Curse the fellow, he don't believe in the glove business, or in the "Erring Sisters' theory,"' soliloquized somebody on a certain day. 'This'll never do! Aid, come here; go tell Colonel Clark take possession of the Valley down yonder, and hold it at all hazards till nightfall!' 'But, General, he has only seven hundred men--the foe is thirteen thousand strong!' 'So much the worse for'--he meant Clark, but said, 'the enemy--they will fight like tigers.' And the aid transmitted the order--shaking hands with the Colonel as he rode away, muttering, 'Poor fellow! His goose is cooked for a certainty! What a pity he stands in somebody's light--somebody who is jealous of even a private's fame. Ah me!' and he rode back to headquarters, wondering whose turn next it would be to face the forlorn hope--such a singular number of which this Rebellion has developed.

"But there was no flinch in Colonel Thomas W.--no flinch in his men. They all saw the hazard; but _they_ were Men and Soldiers. _They_ knew how to obey orders, when their superiors did not. But then again, they had no hopes of success in a general election; they had no 'little game.'

"'Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do or die.'

And they done it!

"On, on, like more than Spartan heroes, on they dashed, literally, as absolutely as anything earthly can be, 'into the jaws of death--into the mouth of hell.' I have a minnie bullet on my table that plowed a furrow through a brother's heart of mine in that same dreadful valley! Away they went--that gallant band, that gallant man; and many a bullet went crashing through skulls and bones as they went; and many a soul sped its way to God ere the cohort reached the knoll in the valley. Once there, they were no longer men--they were as sublime exemplar gods. But a man fell--fell before the resistless force of a hundred horses charging with all of Treason's vehement strength, and the gallant man went down, and the thunder of iron hoofs exploded in his ear, and then the cloud passed on.

"And Thomas Clark went down--down, as Truth, and Justice and I went down; but he rose again--so ever does Truth and Justice; and as for me, _Je renais de mes cendres_--let those beware by whom I fell.... Down to the gory soil he went; but even while the woman sat there in the grotto, gazing till her eyeballs fairly ached with intensity--sat gazing with suppressed breath, so still was she--sat gazing, her blood on fire, her pulse beating three hundred to the minute, beating with a deep, fierce, tumultuous fire; sat gazing stilly, while her heart bounded and thumped within its bony citadel as if impatient of its duress, and longing to burst its tabernacle, and let the imprisoned soul go free; sat gazing, while her eyes, large grey eyes, all the while gleamed with a light that proved her capable of giving birth to heroes--even while thus she gazed on the wheeling squadrons, the charging hosts, and the great guns, as they gave forth their fiery vomit, charged with sudden deaths--the man, Tom Clark, sprung to his feet again, and, as he staunched his blood with one hand, he pointed with the other at the foe. 'Follow me!' he cried. 'See! we are reinforced! On to victory--on!' And his voice rose above the tempest, and it flew over the spaces, and it fell upon the ears of a 'great man,' and the 'great man' wrung his hands, and he thought: 'Not dead yet! Damn the fellow! He will make us win a victory--and that'll never do! Dear me! that cursed fool will spoil my little game! Oh, for night, or a fresh division of--the enemy! I must reinforce him, though, else it'll get into that infernal _Tribune_--or into that cursed George Wilkes' paper--and that'll spoil my little game! Ho, there! Aid, go tell General Trueman to reinforce Colonel Thomas W. _My little game_!' and he arranged his epaulettes and gave his moustache an additional killing twist. In the meantime, Tom Clark had charged the enemy with bayonets with the remnant of his own force, followed by hundreds whom his example had transformed into something more sublime than fighting soldiers.

"And now occurred one of those conflicts which make or mar the fortunes of a nation: one of those terrible multi-personal combats which mark a century's history, and strike the ages dumb with awe; one of those terrific scenes in the world's great drama, that mark historic epochs, and enshrine men's names in fiery letters upon the scrolls of Fame.

"The charge and the action were short, sharp, swift, desperate; but at its close the

"'Flag of the Planet gems,
With saphire-circled diadems,'

floated proudly over the scene of Treason's battle lost--a Nation's battle won!

"Day closes again; and the wounded hero in an ambulance was borne fainting--almost dying, from the field. 'Colonel Clark, can I do anything for you?' said one of the fighting generals to the stricken man--a bullet had gone through him. 'You are a noble fellow, and I speak for myself, your comrades in arms, and for our country. Can I--can they, can we, can she--do anything for you, in this sad hour of your destiny? If so, I beg you to speak.'

"'Alas! no, my friend,' replied he, reviving, only to swoon again. A little cold water on his temples partially dissipated the coma, but not all the fog from his perceptions; for his general's words, 'Can _she_,' considerably obfuscated his intellect, and he thought: 'He means Betsey--that's the only _she_ I know of.' And then he strengthened up for a last dying effort; strove to collect his thoughts, partly succeeded, and said: 'Nothing more, dear general. Yes. No. I'm--dy--ing--going--home. Tell Betsey--_dear_ Betsey--I did not--find her out till--it was--too--late. Tell her that I loved--her from my--soul--at last. Tell her--that'----

"She can't stand the pressure any longer--globe or no globe, hermit or no hermit--not another minute. _You_ Bet! It's a pretty how de do, me a settin' here, and poor Tom laying there, killed a'most to death!' shrieked the fair girl in the grotto of the hermit of the silver girdle, waked up beyond endurance by the skillful magic of the weird recluse. And repeating the Californian, 'You _Bet_!' with vehement emphasis on the last word, she sprung to her feet, in spite of the warnings of the man who dealt in magic crystal globes in the precincts of a forest wild--upsetting table, tripod, stool and hermit, in her eagerness to reach Tom's side and give him wifely ministry.

"What luck she might have had in bridging Phantom River I know not, having omitted to remain long enough for inquiry, not having had time to thus devote; but this I do know, namely, that she nearly kicked the veritable Mr. Thomas W. Clark completely out of bed--the bed at whose foot was a window, whose upper sash was down--the identical window through which came all the 'funny things' of this most veracious history, which, of course, is all true. Betsey woke from excitement, Tom from being kicked, and both had finished their double dreams.

"'What'n thunder's up now, Bet--no, Lizzie, I mean?' said he, checking the less respectful utterance, and modulating his voice to what he doubtless intended to be a 'velvet-dulcet cadence,' but which wouldn't pass for that in Italian opera. 'Not nothing, Tommy, dear.' 'Not nothing, Lizzie?' 'Not nothing.' 'That ain't grammar, sweet.' 'I was paragorically speaking, my turkle dove! Only I've been having two very funny dreams.' 'You! _Two_ dreams? That _is_ queer!' 'You Bet!' 'What about, Lizzie?' 'Oh, all about how we didn't love each other as we ought to, husband.' 'And, dorg on my buttons, wife, if I haven't had two just such dreams myself--all about a precipice, and a pile--Oh, wasn't it a pile, though?' 'You Bet!' 'And my dreams were all about how I ought to love you, and didn't--and then, again, I did.' 'That's a dear!' 'You Bet!' 'Let's love each other this time out, will _you_?' 'I will; will _you_?' 'You _Bet_!' 'Let's profit by our dreams. I mean to; won't you?' 'I'll _try_!' '_I'll_ try!' 'We'll both try!' 'You BET!' And they tried to forgive and forget.

"Will you do the same?" asked the Rosicrucian of the "Angular Character," who had told his own story in disguise. The latter saw that his secret was out; yet his heart was touched, for, as a great tear-drop rolled down his cheek, he said, with smothered breath, the holy words--"I'll try!" "Amen!" said the Rosicrucian. "Amen!" said we all; and then, turning to his auditors again, the story-teller said: "Friends, go thou and do likewise; and so long as you live, I charge you never to forget the Rosicrucian nor his story; nor IT, the Shadow; nor Hesperina, the Light; nor Otanethi, the Genius of the Hour; nor the silver-girdled Hermit, and his Crystal Globe in a forest wild; nor, above all, the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down."

* * * *

A day or two afterwards we reached Panama, and after that we saw but little of our entertainer; but before I finally lost sight of him he told me that he was about writing some Rosicrucian stories, the MSS. of which he would send to me when ready. I have received some, and they will be published by me as soon as I can spare time to attend to it, which will be--

"When this cruel war is over"
P. B. R.
UTICA, _November, 1863_.

From SINCLAIR TOUSEY

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End of Project Gutenberg's Tom Clark and His Wife, by Paschal Beverly Randolph

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