LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      “Never, Frank; I shall never be your wife, whether I marry him or no.”

      “All I ask of you now is to pause. This is no time for marrying or for giving in marriage.”

      “There I agree with you; but as my word is pledged to him, I shall let him be my adviser in that.”

      Late on that same night Ada saw her betrothed and bade him adieu. She bade him adieu with many tears, for he came to tell her that he intended to leave Frankfort very early on the following morning.

      “My staying here now is out of the question,” said he. “I am resolved to secede, whatever the State may do. My father is resolved against secession. It is necessary, therefore, that we should part. I have already left my father and mother, and now I have come to say goodbye to you.”

      “And your brother, Tom?”

      “I shall not see my brother again.”

      “And is that well after such words as you have spoken to each other? Perhaps it may be that you will never see him again. Do you remember what you threatened?”

      “I do remember what I threatened.”

      “And did you mean it?”

      “No; of course I did not mean it. You, Ada, have heard me speak many angry words, but I do not think that you have known me do many angry things.”

      “Never one, Tom: never. See him then before you go, and tell him so.”

      “No, he is hard as iron, and would take any such telling from me amiss. He must go his way, and I mine.”

      “But though you differ as men, Tom, you need not hate each other as brothers.”

      “It will be better that we should not meet again. The truth is, Ada, that he always despises anyone who does not think as he does. If I offered him my hand, he would take it, but while doing so he would let me know that he thought me a fool. Then I should be angry and threaten him again, and things would be worse. You must not quarrel with me, Ada, if I say that he has all the faults of a Yankee.”

      “And the virtues, too, sir; while you have all the faults of a Southern But, Tom, as you are going from us, I will not scold you. I have, too, a word of business to say to you.”

      “And what’s the word of business, dear?” said Tom, getting nearer to her, as a lover should do, and taking her hand in his.

      “It is this. You and those who think like you are dividing yourselves from your country. As to whether that be right or wrong, I will say nothing now, nor will I say anything as to your chance of success. But I am told that those who go with the South will not be able to hold property in the North.”

      “Did Frank tell you that?”

      “Never mind who told me, Tom.”

      “And is that to make a difference between you and me?”

      “That is just the question that I am asking you. Only you ask me with a reproach in your tone, and I ask you with none in mine. Till we have mutually agreed to break our engagement you shall be my adviser. If you think it better that it should be broken, better for your own interests, be man enough to say so.”

      But Tom Reckenthorpe either did not think so, or else he was not man enough to speak his thoughts. Instead of doing so, he took the girl in his arms and kissed her, and swore that, whether with fortune or no fortune, she should be his, and his only. But still he had to go, to go now, within an hour or two of the very moment at which they were speaking. They must part, and before parting must make some mutual promise as to their future meeting. Marriage now, as things stood at this Christmas time, could not be thought of even by Tom Reckenthorpe. At last he promised that, if he were then alive, he would be with her again, at the old family-house at Frankfort, on the next coming Christmas Day. So he went, and as he let himself out of the old house, Ada, with her eyes full of tears, took herself up to her bedroom.

      During the year that followed the year 1861 the American war progressed only as a school for fighting. The most memorable action was that of Bull’s Run, in which both sides ran away, not from individual cowardice in either set of men, but from that feeling of panic which is engendered by ignorance and inexperience. Men saw waggons rushing hither and thither, and thought that all was lost. After that the year was passed in drilling and in camp-making, in the making of soldiers, of gunpowder, and of cannons. But of all the articles of war made in that year, the article that seemed easiest of fabrication was a general officer. Generals were made with the greatest rapidity, owing their promotion much more frequently to local interest than to military success. Such a State sent such and such regiments and, therefore, must be rewarded by having such and such generals nominated from among its citizens. The wonder perhaps is, that with armies so formed battles should have been fought so well.

      Before the end of 1861, both Major Reckenthorpe’s sons had become general officers. That Frank, the soldier, should have been so promoted was, at such a period as this, nothing strange. Though a young man, he had been a soldier, or learning the trade of soldier, for more than ten years, and such service as that might well be counted for much in the sudden construction of an army intended to number seven hundred thousand troops, and which at one time did contain all those soldiers. Frank, too, was a clever fellow, who knew his business, and there were many generals made in those days who understood less of their work than he did. As much could not be said for Tom’s quick military advancement. But this could be said for them in the South, that unless they did make their generals in this way they would hardly have any generals at all, and General Reckenthorpe, as he so quickly became, General Tom as they used to call him in Kentucky, recommended himself specially to the Confederate leaders by the warmth and eagerness with which he had come among them. The name of the old man so well known throughout the Union, who had ever loved the South without hating the North, would have been a tower of strength to them. Having him, they would have thought that they might have carried the State of Kentucky into open secession. He was now worn out and old, and could not be expected to take upon his shoulders the crushing burden of a new contest. But his eldest son had come among them eagerly, with his whole heart; and so they made him a general.

      The poor old man was in part proud of this and in part grieved.

      “I have a son a general in each army,” he said to a stranger who came to his house in those days; “but what strength is there in a fagot when it is separated? Of what use is a house that is divided against itself? The boys would kill each other if they met.”

      “It is very sad,” said the stranger.

      “Sad!” said the old man. “It is as though the devil were let loose upon the earth; and so he is; so he is.”

      The family came to understand that General Tom was with the Confederate army which was confronting the Federal army of the Potomac and defending Richmond; whereas it was well known that Frank was in Kentucky with the army on the Green River, which was hoping to make its way into Tennessee, and which did so early in the following year. It must be understood that Kentucky, though a Slave State, had never seceded, and that therefore it was divided off from the Southern States, such as Tennessee and that part of Virginia which had seceded, by a cordon of pickets; so that there was no coming up from the Confederate army to Frankfort, in Kentucky. There could, at any rate, be no easy or safe coming up for such a one as General Tom, seeing that, being a soldier, he would be regarded as a spy, and certainly treated as a prisoner if found within the Northern lines. Nevertheless, General as he was, he kept his engagement with Ada, and made his way into the gardens of his father’s house on the night of Christmas Eve. And Ada was the first who knew that he was there. Her ear first caught the sound of his footsteps, and her hand raised for him the latch of the garden door.

      “Oh, Tom, it is not you?”

      “But it is though, Ada, my darling!” Then there was a little pause in his speech. “Did I not tell you that I should see you to-day?”

      “Hush! Do you know who is here? Your brother came across to us from the Green River yesterday.”

      “The

Скачать книгу