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UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

SAN DIEGO Donated in memory of

John W. Snvder

by

His Son and Daughter

Ps

33

YS OF S II ODD

BY HENRY

P 11 I L A I IV B. PBTEKBON A '

DAYS OF SHODDY,

A NOVEL OP

THE GREAT REBELLION

IN

1861.

BY HENRY MORFOED.

AUTHOR OF " SHOULDER-STRAPS."

PHILADELPHIA:

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,

306 CHESTNUT STREET.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

TO

HON. CHARLES P. DALY, JOHN R. BRADY AND HENRY HILTON,

JUDGES OF THE COURT OF COMMON PLEAS

OF THE

CITY AND COUNTY OF NEW YORK,

DURING

THE THREE YEARS OF WAR FOR THE UNION,

WHO HAVE NOT ONLY

KEPT SPOTLESS THE JUDICIAL ERMINE,

BUT

DISCOUNTENANCED ALL DISLOYAL PRACTICES

AND

HELD THE GOLDEN MEAN OF PATRIOTIC CONSERVATISM,

THE TRUE DEMOCRACY, — THIS STORY OF THE OPENING DAYS OF THE GREAT STRUGGLE

IS

EESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY THEIR

FRIEND AND SERVANT IN THE SAME FAITH,

THE AUTHOR.

NEW YORK CITY, DEC. IST, 1863.

PREFACE.

THE Days of Shoddy, as the reader will readily an ticipate, are the opening months of the present war, at which time the opprobrious name first came into gen eral use as a designation for swindling and humbug of every character ; and nothing more need be said to indi cate the scope of this novel. It would be easy for the writer, if he felt disposed to forestall criticism, or if he doubted that the work itself would be found its own apology, — to point out those features in its construction most likely to provoke unfavorable comment, and to prove (at least to his own satisfaction) that all such points, pos sibly to be considered blemishes by others, were really beauties of the first prominence. The fact is, meanwhile, that he does not feel that any prefatory apology is neces sary, while he does recognize the propriety of a few words of explanation that may not be supplied by the body of the work. The considerable number of foot notes appended in certain portions, giving to the book at times more the appearance of a dry statistical volume or an erudite history than a mere work of current romance, may be regarded as an innovation, but the writer hopes cannot be considered objectionable in a novel having for its foundation the hard facts of contemporary history, — in spite of the denunciations of August William Schlegel, the distinguished German critic and essayist, against

23

24 PREFACE.

"notes to a poem," which he declares to be as much out of place as " anatomical lectures on a savory joint served up at table." The objection may lie quite as strongly against " notes to a novel" ; but if so, Sir Walter, whose prefatory and appendiary remarks in many of his novels were merely notes set in another form, must be called as the quite sufficient antagonist of the German. — A second objection might lie against the discursive .character of certain portions of the work, but it is hoped will not do so when we remember how we trifle with side-issues that seem pleasant, in every relation of life, from the child turning aside to pluck flowers or catch butterflies on his way to school, to the soldier loitering his night at the theatre when he knows that the interests of the country call him to hurry on to the field without an hour's delay. — And still a third might be urged against the large ag gregate of denunciation of national vices, with so small a proportion of pointed personalities ; while the explana tion of that feature, if any is necessary, lies in the belief that the exposure of the vices and follies of the time will be found much more effectual for the common good, if it indicates, and provokes examination of official documents, than it could be if it closed inquiry as well as excited it, by merely gibbeting a few prominent wrong-doers, under their real names. The writer, in conclusion, takes the opportunity of thanking press and public for the very great kindness shown to a previous venture in the same direction, and of promising that if their favor continues, the mine of romance of the rebellion, thus opened, will not be allowed to lie unexplored. NEW YORK CITY, Dec. 1, 1863.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Coffee Joe, the Newsboy — The Thirteenth of April, 1861 — News of the Bombardment and Capture of Sumter — Public feeling on that occasion — The Sumter Hoax — Dry- goods and Patriotism — Charles Holt, Burtnett Haviland, and Tim the Errand-boy — Volunteering, Generosity, and

what Tirn thought of the arrangement 31

I

CHAPTER II.

Aunt Bessy White and Kate Haviland — The profits of School- teaching in the Country — A last reminder of the Revolu tion, Amos Haviland — A hurrah, and flag-raising on a spire — The news of Sumter — The Apotheosis of the American Flag — A crash, and a search for it — Sharpening the Sword — The departure 48

CHAPTER III.

The Fullerton house on East Twenty-third Street — Mrs. Fuller- ton and Miss Dora — A couple of people of decidedly Southern proclivities — NedMinthorne, an Excellent Catch as a Husband — Two or three rows, as " Parlor Entertain ments" — Mr. Charles Holt as a Son-in-Law 64

CHAPTER IV.

The Merchant and his Fifth Avenue Residence — A glance at Up-town Luxury — A Mercantile Letter, a Dinner and a Summons — An Interview a la mode, between Husband

25

26 CONTENTS.

and Wife — How Burtnett Haviland went home— The Romance of Half a House — A dear little Wife that waited at the door— A Supper, and the Shadow that fell over it 81

CHAPTER V.

A Short Chapter and a dull one — All History and no Romance — The Rising of the People — Statistics and incidents of Flag-raising — Rosettes, patriotic carts and "Union" public-houses — Movements and Events after Sumter — • The President's Proclamation — Danger of the Capital and Baltimore — Military preparations in the Great City.. 104

CHAPTER VI.

Sunday morning at the Havilands' — A Domestic Scene — The Husband's patriotic resolution — The picture of Valley Forge — The Wife's noble but dangerous Resovle — South ern and Northern Women during the War — The story of Sarah Sanderson — Burtnett Haviland's unknown Tempta tion — Church-going and Satinets, after Sumter 113

CHAPTER VII.

The Departure of the Seventh Regiment — A few words of Justice to that Organization — Theodore Wiuthrop and his career — How young Foster went away — How Burtnett Haviland met an Acquaintance — Captain Jack — Ellsworth and the First Fire Zouaves — One Soldier who did not wish to be an Officer 131

CHAPTER VIII.

Katfe Haviland at the Fullertons' — Her Arrival, Examination and Instructions — Myra and Mildred, the "Young Wretches" — A Story that was interrupted — Mrs. Fuller- ton's Law-papers and "property near Montgomery" — How Ned Minthorne lost his Letter — An interview between Millionaire and Teacher — How Ned Minthorne recovered his Letter 146

CHAPTER IX.

Another Chapter that is not Romance, but History — The " Days of Shoddy," as they were — The human Reptiles that sprung up among the Demi-Gods — The great opportunity

CONTENTS. 27

for Plunderiiig, and how it was embraced — Shoddy Swiudles in and about New York — Old Boats, old Satinets, old Reputations and new Villainies — National, State and City Movements — Is the Modern Sodom to be lost or saved? 172

CHAPTER X.

The departure of the Fire Zouaves — Public Confidence in them — The scene of the 29th of April — Speeches, parades and presentations — Retrospectory — How Burtnett Havi- land kept -his Resolution — The extraordinary Friend ship of Charles Holt, merchant — The Parting of Husband and Wife — How an unlucky Box tumbled over, and how Tim wrote a Letter inconsequence 197

CHAPTER XL

How Kate Haviland, the Teacher, was called to the Seat of Judgment, and how she conducted herself there — Humility and Arrogance — A Trap, and who fell into it — What Kate Haviland overheard Behind the Curtain — Mary Havilaud's Picture — A whole Hash of Revelations — A Letter, and some anxiety about another 222

CHAPTER XII.

How Charles Holt, the Merchant, displayed his Delicacy and became his own Errand-boy — Mary Haviland's Visitor, with closer peeps at his Character — What the Merchant found in an old Drawer — How the Visits multiplied and the Net drew closer — A little "bribery and corruption" — Kate Haviland's Researches, and how much she Dis covered 241

CHAPTER XIII.

Voyage of the Fire Zouaves to Annapolis — Their Condition, Character, and the Influences for and against them — Arri val at Washington — Camp Lincoln and Camp Decker — Burtnett Haviland's • Letters, and the Effect they pro duced — The Regiment getting ready for work 264

CHAPTER XIV.

The Fire Zouaves on Secret Service — Landing at Alexandria — The First Capture of the War — How the Zouaves became railroad laborers — Taking the Fairfax Cavalry — A "Fire

28 CONTENTS.

in the Rear," of unpleasant character — A Startling Re port—Death and Mad Imprudence of Col. Ellsworth 284

CHAPTER XV.

Charles Holt with a Call abroad— How he paid a Farewell Visit to Burnett Haviland's — Miss Sarah Sanderson's Little Amusement, and a Compact following — How the Mer chant made a Confidante of Mary Haviland, and bade her good-bye — Five Minutes in the room of Olympia Holt.... 303

CHAPTER XVI.

Kate Haviland's next and last Visit to Mary — City and Country Morals, and the general appreciation thereof — A Woman who had been crying, and who glanced too much out of the Window — How the Two "agreed to disagree" — No Letters, and the Story of the Guard-house — Miss Sarah Sanderson's supplementary information 321

CHAPTER XVII.

More of Kate Haviland — Her biggest and most important Pupil • — Ned Minthorne in a new character — Tobacco-smoke and Impudence in the School-room — A new theory in Natural History — How the Millionaire inspected the Common People, you know! — Kate Haviland making another Dis covery and executing a War-dance 338

, CHAPTER XVIII.

The Fire Zouaves at Shooter's Hill — Col. Farnham — Camp Life and Equestrianism Extraordinary — The Major as John Gilpin — Captain Jack's Company at Alexandria — Whiskey, Darkey Sentinels, Pugilism and Dry Straw — Captain Bob's Pocket-full — A word more of Burtnett Haviland 351

CHAPTER XIX.

The Merchant coming Home — Wine at. the St. Nicholas — A little "Urgent Business" — How Sarah Sanderson saw a Ghost and found it Human — A Servant-girl " on leave" — Alone in the House— The Tempter and his Victim- How even a Man of the World may be puzzled — A sudden Change and a Disappearance 369

CONTENTS. 29

CHAPTER XX.

The Battle of Bull Run — The " On to Richmond" cry, and how it was obeyed — McDowell's '' grand army'' — The Advance — The battle of the 18th July— Pause of the 19th and 20th • — The opening of the 21st — Battle of Bull Run proper, with a sketch of the Field and of the Corps-movements — The Battle, the Panic, and the End 392

CHAPTER XXL

The Zouaves called to Battle — The Blow that struck Burtnett Haviland at the same moment — A True Heart in its Despair — The Zouaves in Battle — The three Charges and three Repulses — End of a "Favorite Regiment" — How Burtnett Haviland became a Rebel — How Charles Holt took the road to Richmond — And how the Clerk ceased to be a Soldier 413

CHAPTER XXII.

The Grief and Shame that followed Bull Run — New York on the Twenty-second of July — How the City and the Country mourned for their Supposed Dead — Mary Havi land at Duffsboro — Aunt Bessy's reminiscences of Amos Haviland — Sad News from the Battle in Virginia — How the omens thickened and Mary Haviland temporarily became a Widow 428

CHAPTER XXIII.

Hurrying to the End — An official Visit to Mrs. Fullerton, and some Strange Operations between the Millionaire and Kate — What the Teacher had found in the Drawer — A "Burst-up" — Burtnett Haviland looking for a Wife — Sarah Sanderson as a Cat in the Garret — Little Tim in play once more — A re-union 444

' CHAPTER XXIV.

The Tobacco-Warehouse at Richmond — Some last passages in the History of Mr. Charles Holt, Merchant — The Fuller- tons in Secessia — Last glimpses of the Zouave and his wife — How Kate Haviland and Aunt Bessy had a Visitor, and the sequel — A farewell, and yet no farewell, to the "Days of Shoddy." '. 403

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

CHAPTER I.

COFFEE JOE, THE NEWSBOY — THE THIRTEENTH OF APRIL, 1861 — NEWS OF THE BOMBARDMENT AND CAPTURE OF SUM- TER— PUBLIC FEELING ON THAT OCCASION — THE SUMTER HOAX — DRY-GOODS AND PATRIOTISM — CHARLES HOLT, BURTNETT HAVILAND AND TIM THE ERRAND-BOY — VOLUN TEERING, GENEROSITY, AND WHAT TIM THOUGHT OF THE ARRANGEMENT.

ROUND the corner of Ann Street into Broadway, at Bar- num's Museum, broke a newsboy, and ran rapidly across towards the Astor House and the mercantile streets on the north side of the town, a bundle of papers under his arm, just procured, after a tough scramble and a short fight, from the Herald press-room on Ann Street, the door of which was hopelessly beset by a multitude of the anxious disseminators of general information.

Yery dirty faced was the newsboy, known at the "hotel" which he patronized, by the soubriquet of " Coffee Joe," and shabby and ragged were the ill-fitting clothes that sheltered him from the statute against indecent exposures in the street, and kept him out of the clutches of the police. The wreck of a blue coat that he wore had once belonged to a full-grown man, and the sleeves were turned back six inches, to expose his grimy hands, while the draggled skirts nearly swept the ground ; the patched arid greasy trowsers might have been reduced from their original size in the same proportion ; one

31

32 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

boot and one shoe, both in a state of serious dilapidation, the former run down at the heel and the latter guiltless of a string, covered so much of his feet as did not peep out at the yawning toes ; and the cap smashed low on the top of a shock head frowsed by his last night in the Newsboys' Lodg- ing-House and since uncombed, seemed almost certain to have passed through a dozen previous ownerships and been at least two or three times thrown away before it had come into his possession.

Not a romantic or even a picturesque figure, certainly — this type of the modern Mercury, who has not only supplanted the ancient but outdone him both in speed and lying. And yet he becomes a highly important figure at times, as he first holds in his hand the intelligence which is to thrill thousands of hearts with pride or sorrow. And in this instance, as Coffee Joe hurried across Broadway, skilfully heedless of carts or omnibuses, and took his way past the Astor House towards some of the jobbing streets in which he seemed to have special customers, he formed for the moment a leading attraction. Others of the fraternity followed close behind and scattered themselves among the throng that seemed to fill the whole lower part of the city ; but Coffee Joe, who had succeeded in securing the first instalment of the latest edition, was ahead and consequently in great demand. Yelling as he ran, a cry which seemed to strike with terrible force every heart upon which it fell, he still did not pause to gather the fruit of the excitement he had sown ; and the cries of " Here, boy 1" "Give us a paper !" and the grasps made at the pack age under his arm, did not prevent his making excellent time to one of the corners above, and dashing down, with his cry still ringing, into the mercantile precincts of Murray Street. Let it not be supposed, meanwhile, that the fever of the seekers after information who lined the sidewalk in front of the Astor House remained uncooled ; for some of Coffee Joe's compatriots came on rapidly and in good order, and the damp sheets with half a column of intelligence and twenty lines of sensation-heading, flew around as if they had been another description of leaves and blown by another gale than the breath of general anxiety.

*

T II K I) AYS OF S II O I) D Y . 33

When it is understood that the time was Saturday after noon the 13th of April, 1861, and that the cry of Coffee Joe was " Extry Herald ! Buruin' and surrender of Fort Sumter !" the cause of all the excitement will be apparent. Nor is it necessary to do more than merely allude to the feeling over all the loyal States at that crisis, the events and the sensa tions of which are yet a part of the late memories of this generation. How about Anderson and his little band, up holding the flag when all around it floated a bunting unknown to Washington and the Fathers, had clustered a feeling not more personal than natural. Ho\v the whole land had re joiced when he removed from Moultrie to Sumter and seemed to hold Charleston at his mercy. How the popular heart had writhed over the exhaustion of his supplies, the miserable failure of the attempt to reinforce him with the Star of the West, and the action or inaction of a government which seemed to have neither power nor will to sustain the national honor. How a miserable hoax, with the statement that An derson had attacked and reduced Moultrie and bombarded Charleston, had a few daysbefoi-e created a wild delirium of delight, that settled back to despair when the falsity of the story was known. How Saturday morning had brought the intelligence of the bombardment of Sumter and the outrage on the flag; and how all day long the reports of the conflict had varied but gradually grown more threatening, business suspended, the newspaper offices and bulletins besieged, the corners occupied by infuriated crowds, and the popular heart sick unto death as the last rumor came that Sumter was in flames and must surrender.

It was at the moment when this report had been for a few minutes bulletined, when the first sheets of the extras an nouncing it were just damp from the press and in the hands of the excited newsboys, that Coffee Joe made his way, hot, dirty and self-important, past the gesticulating crowd at the Astor House and down into one of the commercial streets leading to the North River, just above it.

" Extry Herald ! Last edishin ! Burnin' and surrender of Fort Sumter !" rang his shrill cry, broken at every moment by some one stopping him on the sidewalk, jerking one of 2

34 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the sheets before he had fairly extricated it from the bundle, and tossing into his hand the half-dime or five pennies that the politic newsboy demanded for so late and so precious an announcement.

He was half way down the street, midway between Broad way and College Place. No matter what letter of the alpha bet would supply the initial necessary to designate that par ticular street. He was in front of a large iron-fronted import ing and jobbing cloth-warehouse, the wide gilt sign over the door of which may read, for the purposes of this narration, " Charles Holt & Andrews."

" Here, boy I" in a loud tone ; and Coffee Joe ran up the iron steps to supply an extra to one of the junior clerks who stood in the half-opened door, pennies in hand. The trade rapklly effected and the pennies pouched to the satisfaction of the vendor, that important personage ran on down the street with his accustomed yell, while the clerk, glancing for an instant at the display-lines at the head of the first column of the paper, shut the door and disappeared within.

It was later than the hour at which most of the jobbing- houses generally closed their business for the day at that time of the year ; but the necessity of packing and shipping cer tain goods sold to Western customers, and the impossibility that day of attending very steadily to any description of work for more than five minutes at a time, had prevented the store closing up ; and the principal and several of his clerks remained at their posts, making occasional darts out into the street and even up as far as the Astor House to catch the latest news, and then returning to make some pretence of ex amining accounts and comparing invoices, but really to talk more or less connectedly over the events of that day for which it seemed that all the previous days of the nation .must have been made.

The interior of the heavy importing cloth-house of Charles Holt & Andrews at that moment presented an appearance very familiar to all those whose business has frequently led them into places of corresponding character, but novel and instruc tive to those who have either never seen such places at all,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 35

or merely passed them with a glance in through the door ways at what seemed to be wildernesses of merchandize.

An immense room, perhaps one hundred and fifty feet in depth by thirty wide, with high ceilings finished with orna mented cornices and a row Of slim fluted iron pillars extend ing from front to rear in the centre and supporting the weight stored in the stories above. No less than three pairs of heavj- double doors opening to the street, but two of them closed, with a "fist" scrawled on a piece of paper inside the glass, and the direction : " The other door." To the left, in front, nearly one quarter the width of the whole room taken away by the space occupied for the outer stairway, closed in with ground glass and iron lattice-work. In the centre and towards the rear an oblong skylight, through which the light came softened down from above, throwing into bold view certain descriptions of goods that the buyer could be allowed to view closely without damage to the interests of the seller. At the right, a heavily balustraded stairway leading up to the floor above, and below it another running in a parallel direction but leading down into the dusky basements. All around and on every side, covering every available foot of space and making blocks of goods with aisles between, some thing like the squares and streets of a city, woollens of every color, cost and texture, from the finest and softest Saxony broad-cloth that ever the Emperor put on, on a night when there was " a good deal expected of him in society," to the heaviest and clumsiest pilot-cloth that ever wrapped Pilot Joe in a rough night off the Hook ; woollens in cubic roods of unopened cases, and in great piles of uncut rolls that spoke only of wholesaling on the most magnificent scale and seemed sufficient to clothe all the generations that had lived since the Flood. Here and there a costly velvet glittering like a diamond among ordinary gems; and at rare intervals some cube of brilliant stuff for the wear of the softer sex, enlivening the whole like some sprinkling of the sex itself amid the rough mass of its opposite ; but the great bulk woollens of weight, of cost, and of undeniably male destina tion. Up that heavy stair, down its opposite intothe regions below, everywhere within those massive doors, the stock and

36 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the general appearance of what is so well known as an ex tensive cloth-house in the metropolis. Extending nearly across the room at the rear, the counting-room, only separated from the rest by a massive and high walnut railing, with half a dozen desks, single and double, broadly lighted from the rear end of the skylight, some of them bearing heavy can vassed account-books, and others devoted to the more hurried purposes of cashier and salesmen. A coal-burning Franklin stove, not yet closed up for the summer and with a slight fire of Breckinridge coal yet sparkling and sputtering there — an immense safe built into the wall and one of the doors stand ing half open — two or three high stools for the desks and as many comfortable office-chairs for lounging during more idle hours. Such was the picture presented, in all inanimate par ticulars, at the moment wheir-Cofft-e Joe's extra flew into the house of Charles Holt & Andrews, late on that April after noon.

Mr. Charles Holt, the senior partner of the house, and head of what was believed to be one of the most prosperous dry- goods firms' in the city, had remained at his place of busi ness, like his subordinates, somewhat beyond ordinary busi ness hours, and sat leaning back on one of the office-chairs within the railing, solacing himself with a prime Havana, silent and apparently in thought, and his right hand listlessly (or perhaps nervously) playing with the heavy chatelaine guard-chain that dangled from his vest. The merchant might have been forty years of age, or perhaps two or three years past that mature period. He seemed above the middle height, well-formed, in fine health and preservation, with dark Iwur, dark eyes, and a placid if not pleasant face, wearing no beard except a very short side-whisker running down to the level of his mouth, — was faultlessly dressed in black, except that his coat was an "office" one instead of frock or dress, and the hat that stood on the desk near him was new, tasteful and becoming. He looked the successful and, at the same time, respectable man of business, to perfection; and something more than the average keenness of observation was necessary to perceive that there were certain lines under the eyes and about the month, easily worn by passion at forty years or be-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 37

fore, but seldom set even by hard work without some propor tion of indulgence.

At one of the desks close beside him stood Mr. Wales, the book-keeper, — a gray-haired, quiet and respectable-looking man, running down a column of figures in one of his books, before delivering them over to the care of Silas C. Herring for the night. One of the clerks, Mr. West, was reading an evening paper, standing and leaning against the railing on the opposite side of the counting-room from his employer; and another, Mr. Burtnett Haviland, was arranging some packages of goods, at a little distance, into more becoming order before closing.

As the latter is destined to play quite as important a part in this relation as even his employer, he is entitled to the same justice of a brief personal description. He was appa rently not more than twenty-five or twenty-seven years of age, a little above the medium height, rather slight than stout, but with no impression of weakness or ill health. He was brown-haired and hazel-eyed, wearing his broun beard ful\ but short, a little of the ruddy tinge of exercise and constanV employment upon his cheek, dressed in a dark-gray business, suit fitting him very loosely — altogether a pleasant, clever, good-looking fellow, a successful salesman of dry-goods, and popular enough in his general demeanor to make him a de sirable acquisition in the dry-goods trade there or elsewhere, though scarcely a man of peculiar mark to catch the eye of the casual observer.

" See here, Mr. Holt, the thing is done !" said Foster, one of the junior clerks — a bright-eyed, dark-haired, round-faced boy of twenty — stepping hastily back from the door, with the extra in his hand. " Sumter is on fire, and Major Anderson has agreed to surrender!" Foster was very young, little more than a boy, in feeling as well as years, and there was a grief in his tone that might easily have been followed by weeping and sobbing. Some of these very young people take griefs and shames much harder, whether they have reference to a lost love or a lost land, than they are likely to do after a few years of hardening in the world. The lazy young scamp was only teaching a great moral truth, when he turned over

38 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

on his bed at midnight, informed of the sudden death of his father, said: "How sorry I shall be — in the morning!" and dropped to sleep again. He was too busy, with sleep, to be grieved then! The young have not only freshness of heart to feel grief or joy, which their elders lack, but they are less busy and absorbed, and have time to be sorry.

"Eh!" said Holt, the merchant, taking the paper from Foster's hand and glancing his eye over the heading. " Yes^ so he has. The thing is done, indeed. Wales," to the book keeper, "who knows but that may bring on a regular fight? and then all those Southern accounts that have been doubtful would not be worth a snap of the fingers!"

"Just so, as you say, Mr. Holt," said the placid and gray- headed Wales. "There may be a war, and then I do not see much chance for collecting them."

Charles Holt, the merchant, rose to his feet and walked two or three times across the counting-room. His face looked sombre, and his mouth was working with displeasure. Of what was he thinking ? — the shame and wrong that had fallen upon the country, or the fact that all the Southern accounts were apparently gone beyond recall ? No one who saw his face at that moment, could answer. There was an Eye look ing down into his heart, meanwhile, and the sublime intelli gence informing that Eye could have decided the question. But it did not, to mortal mind.

Mr. Holt had laid down the paper after glancing at the heading of the news, and Wales, after also glancing at it for an instant, handed it over to Haviland, who stepped forward a little eagerly to catch a glimpse of it after he had finished his work. The clerk took it, threw himself hastily upon ari unopened case. of goods, and seemed to be perusing the double-leaded column with almost painful interest.

The front-door again opened at that moment, and a small figure came in from the street and back toward the counting- room. It was that of little Tim, the errand-boy, who had probably never known any other name. He had a letter in his hand, and brought it at once to Mr. Holt, displaying, as he did so, a face and a figure equally singular. Perhaps it may have been some idea of benevolence, and perhaps it may have

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 89

been mere oddity, that induced the merchant to take this queer little morsel of humanity into his employ. He was some fourteen years old, stout enough for his age, but not too tull for ten. He had a shock head of stiff, straight red hair, too unmanageable to allow of his putting on his cap in the ordinary manner, that useful head-covering being ac cordingly hung upon half a dozen tufts of the human scrub bing-brush, springing from the back of his crown. His broad face, which would not otherwise have been ill-looking, was marred by a cast in the left eye which gave him the most comical squint imaginable. Though the other eye was straight enough, no one had ever been able to discover ex actly the direction in which Tim was looking; and it was gen erally supposed that he would have been invaluable as a spy, from that qualification. An orphan, or worse, he. had been for two years in the employ of Holt and Andrews, quick and willing enough as an errand-boy, able to read the direction on a letter or a package when not too badly written, capable of making, very slowly and with difficulty, certain odd hiero glyphics which were just decipherable as writing, and supposed to have little knowledge or observation beyond. A couple of suits of ordinary dark cassimere or satinett, with cheap caps and coarse shoes to match, furnished the little fellow with outer clothing for a year ; and he was known to sleep somewhere over on the east side of the town, in poor lodg ings but a little remove better than those of Coffee Joe. That was all, known of him by his employers or those employed with him : that was all, cared for him by any except perhaps one of the whole number. And why was not that enough ? What more of interest could there possibly be in the life or fortunes of the insignificant errand-boy ?

Little Tim's one straight eye seemed to be quite sufficient to make him aware that something unusual was agitating the people in the store, and perhaps he had been listening to the conversation that had taken place there during the earlier part of the day, or caught something of the purport of the talking in the street, for he squinted worse than ever in the efi'ort to look serious and respectable, as he handed the letter to Mr. Holt ; and then he fell back into his normal condition,

40 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

so expressive of abject poverty and dependence, by crowding himself between two dry-goods boxes that were separated a few inches, and sitting on the floor, his odd face peering elfishly out, and his crooked eye seeming to play about like a flash of heat-lightning as he twisted it hither and thither in the effort to look into the faces of all his superiors at once.

Burtnett Haviland held the newspaper before his face with one hand, while the other supported his shoulders on the box, for several minutes — long enough to have read over the half column of telegraphic announcement at least half a dozen times. His face was sheltered from the others by the paper, and as he uttered no word they could have no idea what was the effect produced upon him or what were the thoughts passing through his mind. But directly all doubt on the sub ject was dissipated, for they saw him drop the paper, throw his face between both his hands, and give vent to such sounds as showed that the strong man was sobbing. Yes — sobbing ; the word is written, and it need not be recalled. It has been said that poor young Foster, the junior clerk, came very near to shedding tears as he glanced at the heading of the intelli gence and saw how the country had been insulted and dis graced : here was a much older man than he, who should have had more knowledge of the world and whose years should have made him firmer and calmer — actually breaking into sobs over the disgrace inflicted upon his country, as he might have done over the body of an only child. Shame upon his manhood ? No ! Shame upon the cold and sluggish heart that does not realize how nearly deep feeling and true courage are allied, and how exquisitely above all pathos are those words of Bayard Taylor, concluding his picture of the Crimean soldiers singing "Annie Laurie" and thinking through tears of Mary and Norah at home, then marching to death before the iron mouths of the Russian cannon on the Malakoff, without a blench or a tremor : —

"The bravest nre the tenderest; The loving are tho daring."

There are hearts that have bled over the wrongs and out rages inflicted upon the country, since that day, and over the

T Tl E DAYS OF SHODDY. 4.1

fear of final loss which must ever haunt devoted love, — more sadly than the same hearts have ever sorrowed for the death and burial of their dearest. And if there is a hope that the Land of the West will ever arise from the ashes of its humili ation and put on the full glory which belongs to it as the freest and greatest among nations, that hope must be born of the belief that the God of Nations has been besought for it in prayer, with such agonized wrestlings as would have pleaded for the life of one dear beyond all expression, or for the safety of a perilled soul.

But enough of this. Burtnett Haviland was sobbing over the degradation of his country, beyond a question, and his employer and his associates saw the strange spectacle. The two mismatched eyes between the boxes saw the exhibition, too, for the queer face was drawn into as near an, approach to sympathy as it was capable of expressing, and there may even have been moisture trembling under those short, stubby eye-lids.

Not a word was spoken* by either of the persons present, for several minutes. Each was thinking, without doubt, in bis own way and from his own point of view, of the crisis which had been reached and the evidence before them of even mor bidly patriotic feeling. At length Mr. West said, illustrat ing the mercantile habit of thinking that there must be ma terial and action before results : —

"Talking about fighting — what are we going to do it with ? We have no army. No army at all — not more than eight or ten thousand ; and to punish those hounds as they deserve we shall need a hundred."

" Humph !" said Charles Holt, though he added no words to explain whether the expression was one of assent or dis sent. The face of Haviland was yet buried in his hands, though his sobs had ceased and he was evidently listening. Who knows but he was a little ashamed to meet the gaze of his companions, after such an exhibition of child-like emotion ?

" The Mexican War game must be played over again," West went on. "We must have men enough to sweep over every one of the seceded States like a whirlwind "

"Enough to tumble down every house in Charleston, and

42 THE DAYS OF SHODDF.

sow salt where every blade of grass grows in the neighbor hood," broke out young Foster, who had before with difficulty restrained himself.

" We shall need at least an hundred thousand," repeated West. How little he, or any of the others, realized the miserable insufficiency of that "hundred thousand," for any such purpose as putting down the gigantic rebellion, or how many more than that hundred thousand would lie in soldiers' graves before the struggle had more than commenced ! How little even the President, surrounded by his Cabinet at Wash ington, and preparing to call out seventy-five thousand troops, realized the extent of the task upon which he was about to enter ! How little has he, and have they, and have we, real ized the stupendousness of the undertaking to restore the Union, many a day since the 13th of April, 1861 !

"An hundred thousand? — a great number of troops! Where can they be got ?•' said the gray-haired and prudent Mr. Wales, whose habit of dealing with the hard reality of figures necessarily made him exceedingly prudent in his cal culations.

" Got ? by volunteering !" replied young Foster, who sprung to the solution with a bound, as is the manner of line-hastened youth.

"And I will be one of the volunteers !" cried Burtnett Haviland, uncovering his face, springing from the box on which he had been seated, shaking back the hair from his forehead with the gesture of one who is throwing otf an incubus, and standing firmly erect in the aisle between the piles of dry-goods.

" You ?" asked the merchant, in a tone of surprise, which indicated that if he had considered the raising of an army as necessary or possible, he had thought of it as taking place somewhere in Maine or Wisconsin, and by no means at his own door.

" Yes, //" repeated Haviland. " Let the call be made, as it must be made if they are not all traitors at Washington as well as at Charleston, and I will be one,"

"And your family ?" asked the prudent Mr. Wales. " You Lave a wife and child. Can you afford to leave them ?"

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 43

" God help me ! — I had forgotten them .'" said the young man ; and deeply as he had been excited, a smile flitted over his face at the thought that even for one moment he could have forgotten the two dearest objects of his love. " No, I suppose I cannot go, even when the call is made, for a soldier's pay is very little, and I cannot leave Mary and little Pet to sufl'er and perhaps to starve. Eh, well ! Heigho !"

During all the conversation just recorded, Mr. Holt, the merchant, as before indicated, had seemed to take little in terest in it and to be absorbed in thought. Now, there was a marked change in his manner, though only a close observer could have detected it. There was a new light in his eye, and a slight flush upon his cheek, making him decidedly finer- looking than before, while he rose from his chair, threw the remains of his cigar into the grate and stood erect near the railing, outside of which Haviland yet kept his position. What could have produced this sudden change in the calcu lating merchant and the cool man of business ?

" There may not be any such call for troops as you antici pate, Mr. Ilaviland," he said, "and even if there should be, I certainly was for the moment surprised at your idea of quitting my employment to become a soldier. But we all owe something to our country, of course ; and I can only say that if a call for troops does take place, and you really wish to do your share in revenging this gross insult to our flag, you need not think so discouragingly of the pecuniary affair. I should of course continue your salary during your absence, and in the event of any misfortune to yourself I believe that I should be liberal enough to see to it that your family did not suffer."

There had been persons disposed to say of Charles Holt, in previous days, that he was not the person to display Quixotic liberality — that he never entered into a contract unless he had at least a fair probability of getting the best of the bargain. How must those narrow and illiberal persons, had they been present at that juncture, have acknowledged the falsity of their allegations and owned the grandeur of the spectacle of the American merchant standing boldly up in the

44 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

first hour of his country's need, and offering to pay out of his own coffers for the services of a soldier to swell the ranks of her defenders !

At least such was the aspect of princely liberality which the proposal bore to Haviland, who allowed his feelings to master him sufficiently to step forward to the railing, grasp his employer by the hand (a liberty which he was by no means in the habit of taking), and thanking him out of a full heart.

" I thank you indeed, very much, Mr. Holt," he said, " and I am too poor to refuse your kind offer if I really have occa sion to become a volunteer. There may be no occasion ; but if there is, be sure that I shall be among the first, now that you have made my mind easy as to the duty I owe my family, — and that I shall try to keep you from being a loser by your generous kindness."

" Oh, you will have occasion," said young Foster, who had no doubt by this time fully planned out half a dozen cam paigns to avenge Sumter, and who certainly had acquired the soldier-fever to quite as great an extent as Haviland. " Per haps I ought not to ask you, Mr. Holt," he went on, after a half moment of hesitation, " but suppose that / should find myself in the same condition, would you continue my salary and look a little after the welfare of my old mother ?"

It could not have been that the merchant was any respecter of persons, in providing prospective soldiers before they were demanded; but certainly his face fell a little at this question, and he did not answer in quite so high and patriotic a tone :

" You ? Why — yes — I suppose so."

It is just possible that there was even a shade of vexation in his voice. Perhaps he knew that if the country really did need protectors, enthusiastic boys like young Foster were not likely to make quite such reliable soldiers as older and better-seasoned men like Haviland. Perhaps he merely hesitated in pity for the extreme youth of the boy, thinking of the chances of the battle-field, the possible grief of the mother over her son, and all that class of emotional specula tions. Perhaps — but the other hypotheses must develope themselves in due course.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 45

During the course of this conversation the spring afternoon had closed nearly into dusk, the remaining business of ti,e clay had been completed by the junior clerks and the porter, no more extras were bawled in the street — in fact no more were needed or looked for, now that the catastrophe was known ; and the house of Charles Holt & Andrews closed for the night, the persons we have named separating with widely different feelings. It is not necessary, at this period, to follow the reflections of the merchant as he wended his way through the still-excited and yet gesticulating crowd on the corner of his street and Broadway, to catch one of the omnibuses for his up-town residence — what those reflections really were, will be much more satisfactorily developed in the action which soon followed. Grave old Mr. Wales took a car for his quiet home on the west side of the town, his head a little confused, between the figures of his daily habit and the strange excitement which had just burst in and sent them flying hither and thither. West was not so excited by the thought of the peril threatening his country, as to forget the little game of billiards which he had promised to play With one of his brother clerks at a saloon not far from the Park, after dinner ; and he strolled away to keep his engage ment. Young Foster, who still would keep jumpirig at his conclusions, almost forgot his hat as he left the store, in the excitement of the national crisis and the thought how proud his old mother would be to see him in a gray uniform pre cisely like that worn by the Seventh (he had made up his mind that his corps, at least, would certainly dress in that highly becoming manner), and how much prouder still she would be when, after performing some wonderful feat of arms as a common soldier in the ranks, he should come home radiant under a somewhat rapid promotion and with the epau lettes (the shoulder-straps were not then known as they are to-day) of a general !

Burtnett Haviland, as he left his place of employment and walked for some distance up Broadway before taking the ear which was to bear him to his home, bore a heart filled with conflicting emotions. He had within him, perhaps, none of the materials of the hero except courage and devotion. His

46 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

reading, though somewhat extensive and very gerieri , had not led him much among the demigods of romance and romantic history — lie knew of them, but had never sat at their feet and worshipped. Possibly he had never even been aware that his heart beat more warmly for the honor and welfare of his native land, than that of any one of the first half dozen men he might happen to meet in the street; and possibly he would have been as much shocked at the very idea that he could do any thing patriotically heroic, as he could have been by the knowledge that he had done some thing dishonest and shameful. He was simply a whole hearted and patriotic citizen, proud of the flag under which he lived, and the country that had been growing so fast in power and glory ; grateful for the peace and protection which had been accorded him under the best system of government known to the history of the world ; pained, shocked and horrified at the thought that red-handed traitors against such a government and such a country could be found ; and deter mined, so far as in him lay, that the means should not be wanting to crush out the rebellion which began to threaten the national existence. He had felt and resolved thus, as a matter of duty — not because he thought of being, or wished to be, a hero.

But what a change had one short hour made in his position in the world ! An hour before he had been engaged in the peaceful pursuits of mercantile life, with no thought that he should ever change the sphere of his action, — a happy hus band and father, with no intention of ever being separated from the objects of his love, for any longer period than an occasional day passed in business or recreation. Now he stood committed to his companions, his country and his own heart, to don the garb of a soldier, to separate himself for perhaps a long period from all that he held dear in the world, and to plunge into a mad exposure of his life on the battle field. For not for one instant had he doubted, after reading the contents of Coffee Joe's extra, that a war for the preserva tion of the Union must come, and come at once ; and not for an instant had he faltered in his determination, expressed in that moment of excitement, to be among the first to respond

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 47

to any call made upon the citizen soldiery of the land. Of the life that was to be perilled he thought but little — fewer men think of the exposure of their lives, when going into difp-culty and danger, than the popular belief would warrant. But Mary and Pet — his dear little wife and the one child of his love — he did think of the possible parting with them, with a prescient anxiety little short of agony; and it is not strange that he passed along the street, and saw the groups of gesticulating men gathered upon every corner, and saw the old flag drooping from flag-staff and shop-windo'w, with such a feeling as if he had become suddenly set apart and separated from the world — a determined but a sad-hearted martyr to evil times and inevitable duties.

Tim, the errand-boy, also went home, with his head quite as full of new sensations as either that of his employer or his employer's clerk. As he plunged down Frankfort Street and across the Swamp towards the garret where his straw pallet was nightly spread out, he muttered words between his teeth which were almost as unaccountable to himself as they may possibly be to the reader.

" Don't know 'bout that !" he said. " Boss was a big sight williner to hev Misser Hevlin go 'way, than he was to let Fosser go, an he keers a great deal the mos' about Hevlin, for Fosser ain't much use, no how. Wonner what he wants Hevlin to go 'way fur? Peru him ! he does want Hevlin to go 'way — I know it ! Missers Hevlin cum down to the stove tother day, and I seen Boss look at her so funny! Pern him ! I've seen him look at her two'r three times, jes so — jcs as if his mouth was a-waterin' an' he wanted to eat her up. Wonner if big men like Boss ever do eat up wimmeri, when they're other fokeses, or wot they want of 'em ! Dern him ! he'd better not try it on Missers Hevlin, cos Misser Hevlin kep all them big boys from lickin' me, more'n a good many weeks ago, an I been wishin' he was my fader ever since. Dern him 1 don't know !" and here Tim's specula tions ceased to rumble out of his misshapen- mouth, though it is highly probable that he thought the more intently because he closed the vent which had so far given him partial relief.

Is it as true to-day as it was many a century ago, that the

48 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

" weak things of this world" are " chosen to confound the mighty ?" And had the little squinting errand-boy, from his loop-hole between the two dry-goods boxes, seen at a glance what had been entirely overlooked by other and straighter eves ? We shall see.

CHAPTER II.

ATJNT BESSY WHITE AND KATE HAVILAND — THE PROFITS OF SCHOOL-TEACHING IN THE COUNTRY — A LAST REMINDER OF THE REVOLUTION, AMOS HAVILAND — A HURRAH, AND FLAG-

RA1S1NG ON A SPIRE TlIE NEWS OF SUMTER — TlIE

APOTHEOSIS OF THE AMERICAN FLAG — A CRASH, AND A

SEARCH FOR IT — SHARPENING THE SWORD — TlIE DEPAR TURE.

" GOING away to-morrow. How can we spare you ?" and the hand of the speaker moved caressingly over the chestnut hair of her companion, as if there was something gained by touching in as many places as possible the form that would soon be beyond even the reach of sight.

" Yes, aunt, going away to-morrow," was the reply, with a return of the caress, in the laying of the brown head close up against the sheltering shoulder, and a closer pressure of the other hand that was not busy smoothing the glossy hair, "lam sorry to leave you all, especially you and grandpa; but you know that I can do better in the city, and that I am really tired of this ceaseless labor in the school-room. Why aunt," and there was a quiet smile creeping away from the corners of her mouth as she spoke, "do you know how much I have really made at trying to drum knowledge into those stupid little heads, in a whole twelvemonth ?"

" No, Kate," was the reply of the aunt. "I suppose not much, but enough to "

" Buy a pair of Congress gaiters, exactly. You know, aunt, that my strongest point, as a teacher, is arithmetic. I

THE 1) A Y 3 O F SHODDY. 49

think I have Coaxed and pounded more of that into the little numskulls, than any thing else. Well, I have been applying it to my own labor and its receipts, and I find that after laboring seven hours a day for a whole year, the amount I have cleared by teaching a country school, over and above what it has cost me for my board, clothes and other necessary expenses, has been exactly two dollars and fifty cents !"

"Why, child, it can't be possible!" said the aunt, the caressing hand still moving over the brown hair meanwhile. "Is that all you have made? Well, it isn't much, is it! But the board, you know —

" The board I could have had for nothing ? Yes, I know it, aunt ; but what would you have said of my teaching school at all, if I could not even pay my board and was obliged to be dependent upon charity after all !"

" You were always so sensitive upon that point, Kate," said the aunt, "that "

" So sensitive that I was right ; was I not, aunt ?" and the young face for a moment looked up at the elder one bent above it, with so bewitchingly gentle and loveable an expres sion, that the answer was a kiss, and the words in reply only came murmured through it :

" Yes, yes, Kate, you were always right !" Then after a pause. "But we shall be so lonely without you, when you are away in the great city."

"And yet I shall not be far from you, aunt," said the young girl. " Xot fifty miles ; and I can run home and see you any afternoon when I can get away. I shall have only two chil dren to manage, at Mrs. Fullerton's, instead of thirty Or forty; and think of my receiving more money for doing that little labor than for teaching that whole noisy school! I must go, I should go, you know, dear aunt."

" Of course you must — of course you should," was the reply, " and it is only my selfishness at thinking how lonely I shall be when you are gone, that makes me talk in this way as if I could hold you back by speaking. Go, Kate, fulfil the duty to which you seem to be called, and God bless and keep you." The hand laid on the young girl's head had stopped its caressing movement, now, but it still rested there, and 3

50 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

beside it lay another, and they wore both giving the dear pressure of love and blessing, as the lips syllabled that short and fervent and unstudied prayer.

" Hark ! what was that ? It sounded like a hurrah, and yet it could not be, "here on Sunday morning."

The speakers were Mistress Bessy White, widow, and her niece, Kate Haviland, the only daughter of a dead brother. And the place where the conversation occurred was in the doorway and on the porch of a pleasant little farmhouse, in the out-skirts of what may be here designated as Duffs- boro, a country village within forty miles of the commercial metropolis, and on the edge of one of the great battle-fields of the Revolution, that is oftenest named from the intimate connection of /he Father of his Country with the details of the conflict which took place there on one hot and bloody day of 1777.

The humble but comfortable-looking little farm-house, only a story and a half in height, with a porch that was covered with roses and vines in the later season, stood half-hidden among the trees that bordered the main road leading into the village, and on the southern slope of a gentle knoll that gave it cool breezes and seemed to elevate it above the dust of the road and the level of the travel that passed along it. An hundred yards past the house, to the west, the road curved, and the houses of the village could be seen glimmering through the trees, in summer, rising on the slope of an opposite and higher hill, with a little village church standing near the summit, and its sharp white spire thrown out clear against the blue sky. The houses of the main village could be seen even more easily than usual, in the soft but clear air of that April morning, for a slight shower had laid the dust late the evening before, and the spring had only brought fonvai'd the foliage to that condition of bursting from the bud in green and satin-like sprigs, graphically designated by the country farmers as "the size of a crow's-foot." Not only the church spire but the church itself, and the outlines of most of the houses of the village, could be seen through the trees, look ing from the porch of the farm-house. A little later in the morning, and the sound of the bell from that spire would be

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 51

heard ringing pleasantly across the intervening fields, calling the villagers and the country people to morning service ; and half an hour still later, the road and the path that bordered it would be dotted with people in carriages, and people on horseback, and people on foot, all pressing on through the fresh April sunshine, at least to the form of worship of the Benevolence whose smile it seemed to typify.

Perhaps that April sunshine might have peeped through many a window and glinted through the opening foliage of many a broad tree, before it rested upon a fairer vision than that on the piazza of the little farmhouse — age and youth, both in the perfection of physical beauty and mental good ness.

Sixty years might have passed over Mrs. Bessy White, widow, and they had of course done their work, but they had done it gently and lovingly as beseemed the good. Her brown eyes had lost something of their light, but no opacity in their circumferences indicated that the sight had been seri ously impaired ; there were many wrinkles on the once fair face, but they seemed to have crept and nestled there,, not been graven there by the sharp touch of *passion or the agony of long sorrow ; the hair that peeped beneath the front of the widow's cap was heavily grayed, but it was grayed evenly, there were none of the heavy dashes of white in the midst of the dark, denoting intense suffering, mental or physical, and the gray hair was almost a halo round the head ; the tall form was bent a little, but a very little, as it showed beneath the carefully pinned kerchief and under the gray morning- dress, but it did not need a keen eye to see that that form had once been almost a sculptor's model, and that it had lost little of its roundness or elasticity as thirty crept on to forty, and forty to fifty, and fifty to the sixth decade. A very pleasant picture, to any eye capable of taking in the beauty of coming age, would have been the motherly woman, even had she , held beside her no foil to throw her into contrast without un dervaluing her.

No fitter foil could have been presented, than that shown in bonny Kate Haviland, twenty-two and as fair that day as her aunt had probably been forty long years before, of medium

52 THE DAY'S OF SHODDY.

height, two inches shorter than the matron beside her, she was not eclipsed and obscured by a morning-wrapper, as she might have been at the same hour in the city ; and her neatly- fitting dress of light print showed a plump and well-rounded form, broad though slightly sloping at the shoulders, pliant at the waist, the chest well thrown forward and the figure erect, and a springy little foot occasionally peeping out from beneath the skirts and patting the floor of the piazza, to show that nature, careful of the face and figure, had not disdained care even upon that portion which spurned the ground.

We have said that nature had been careful of face as well as figure ; and yet hundreds of observers might have been found, not willing to concede that Kate Haviland could lay any positive claims to beauty. They would have been out numbered, however ; for only a small proportion of mankind, are aware that beauty cannot be found except in features moulded after the Medician Yenus or some other pattern of Greek antiquity, and there are quite a large proportion of observers who find it in any combination which pleases them, makes them happier when they behold it, and indicates the possession of true goodness. The head may have been a shade too large for due proportion with the body, especially in the frontal region, and the brow may have been a little too fully rounded for perfect elegance. Then, again, the very dark eyes, almost black, with sweeping dark lashes, may have been a little too close together, and the nose too much de pressed at the root, so as to rise a little too obtrusively from the level of the face. But all this was forgotten in the wealth of chestnut brown hair, swept plainly back from the full fore- he-ad and presenting on the back of the head a luxuriance that owed nothing to false braids and painful matching among the stock of the wig-maker — the clear cheek, very fair, but a little browned by the sun and showing a rose fighting with a dimple in the centre — the lips full and with a little pout, slightly petulant, perhaps, but much more merry, loving and mischievous — and the full chin and rounded throat, exhibiting rather determination than weakness of character.

Such was the picture presented by Kate Haviland, the whilome countrv-school-mistress who was about to abandon

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 53

that any thing-but-sinecurical profession for the life of a pri vate school teacher and governess in the city ; and Aunt Bessy had certainly full warrant in personal attraction, as she had in the knowledge what a good, and true, and brave and loving heart lay within all this, for the long continued caress with which she seemed to protest against the young girl's leaving her.

There was another portion of the picture which would have been presented to a spectator who stood on the steps of the portico in front and looked towards the house, but which was not taken in by the knowledge of either of the persons just introduced. The two had stepped out from the door, during their conversation, entirely upon the floor of the piazza, and the instant after they had done so the door had been filled by a third person. This was an old man — very old, to all appearance ; his once tall form thin and bent, his hair only a mocking memory of the thick locks that once clustered on his head, and the little remainder white as the driven snow ; his poor old face one mass of deep wrinkles crossing each other like the line work on a fine steel-engrav ing ; hjs eyes opaque and apparently fixed on vacancy ; his lower jaw dropping and the toothless mouth exposed, as if from very inability to kee'p the nerves at sufficient tension to hold it in place ; his withered hands so thin that they were little more than claws, one keeping its trembling hold on the top of a stout bone-headed cane and the. other an equally trembling grasp on the lintel of the door, the whole frame shaking as if it would soon tremble itself away to the dust of its original elements. Old — very old ; standing on the last crumbling verge of possible mortality. And all this had Amos Haviland warrant to be, for he had once fought, though then only a boy, in the closing battles of the Revolution, and had himself seen the proud face of Washington and heard the cheers that went up from the thinned ranks of the patriot army, when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. He had afterwards fought with Brown on the northern lines, in the battles of 1812-15, and won a commission there which had given him a sword ; but he had always regarded that portion of his career as secondary in glory to the other, and while

54 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the brain had remained clear enough to make his relations in telligible, they had almost always been of what he saw when a boy during the great struggle, instead of what he had done and seen done in the flush of his manhood. Old — very old : death seemed almost to have forgotten him, for ninety and ninety-five had yet escaped the spoiler, and he stood on tho verge of that almost impossible age — one hundred ! A few months more would see him a centenarian. He talked little, now, and not very intelligibly, though he had still enough brain remaining to understand what was said to him, and still enough left of his decaying vigor to crawl out from his little room on the ground floor, leaning on the arm of his daughter or one of his grandchildren, or tottering along alone on his heavy cane. He had crawled out, now, without either of his relatives being aware of his presence, and stood thus framed in the door behind them, looking out, through his dim eyes and in silence, on them and on the clear April morning.

" Hark !" again said Kate Haviland, when a moment had passed after her last exclamation. " It is a hurrah — I can hear the words distinctly ! What can it mean, here on Sunday morning ?"

" I do not know, my dear, I am sure," answered the aunt. " It must -be some of the wild fellows from the city, who have no respect for the day, coming here to disturb us."

Another moment of pause, and then

" Look !" said the young girl, whose eyes were something keener than those of Aunt Bessy. " See — there are people on the roof of the church yonder, and one is climbing to the top of the steeple !"

" Oh no, my child, that cannot be," said Aunt Bessy. " They certainly would not permit such work up at the vil lage, on the Sabbath, unless the church was on fire ; and I do not suppose they would hurrah about that."

(The good old lady had probably never been present at a fire in any of the metropolitan cities, or she might have been aware that there is no occasion in all the line of accident or adventure, more likely to provoke noise or bring out any num ber of shouts of the most enthusiastic description, than a fire ! But of that hereafter, possibly.)

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 55

" One of them is climbing the steeple," persisted Kate, while the old lady was rubbing her spectacles for a more ac curate view. " There, he has reached the top and is busy fastening something there."

" True as you live !" said Aunt Bessy, when she had pol ished her spectacles, put them carefully upon her temples and fairly surveyed the strange proceeding. " The church must be on fire, or they would never allow such things on Sunday ! But why don't we see the smoke ?"

" No — see, aunt !" cried Kate, with a strange tremor in her voice, and a still stranger trembling at her heart, as she saw the figure that had been at the top of the spire glide down again, then a dark mass of something soft and loose- looking go up as if it ran upon a rope, and the moment after a flag floated out on the westerly breeze from the very top of the steeple. " See, aunt, it is the American flag !"

" I declare it is !" exclaimed the old lady. " Well, I be lieve I love that flag \vell enough to see it anywhere else, but of all the pranks I ever saw in rny life, that is the oddest to climb the church steeple and hang it there on a Sunday morning !"

" Aunt !" said the young girl, a sudden thought striking her, and the recollection of the troubled news from the South com ing into her mind, though they at the little farm-house had heard nothing since some days before, when Anderson was known to be leaguered in Suinter, and the government was talking of trying to reinforce him — "Aunt, it is no freak! Something has happened ! that flag does not go up for noth ing 1 Who knows ? Perhaps Major Anderson has taken Charleston, or burned it down I I hope he has, and then they may raise flags anywhere they please on Sunday morning — on the top of the pulpit, if they like !" . .

"Hush, Kate, you are crazy!" said Aunt Bessy. "You are a good girl, but you must not think of putting flags in the pulpit. They don't belong on churches, my dear !"

"Anywhere — everywhere !" cried the young girl. "After the Cross, the flag of one's native land is the holiest thing in the world. I would not have it put over the Cross, but any where beneath it, or even beside it. As there does not hap-

56 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

pen to be a cross on the top of our steeple, I think they can not get the flag too high, if there is any news from the South that demands it."

The young girl did not know it; but that day and that hour, the morning of Sunday the fourteenth of April, 1831, was proving that others besides herself believed in setting the flag beside the Cross, or immediately beneath it. She saw one flag go up ; it was the type of ten thousand floating up at the same hour. She heard a faint hurrah, from a few voices: the sound was but the echo of a shout that was jarring the very heavens, as it went up from a thousand miles square of loyal American territory. She saw, though faintly and afar off, what she and others may remember with pride to the last day of their lives, whatever may be the after fate of the nation — the apotheosis of the American Flag.

It will long remain a question, perhaps, whether that mo ment was not the niost glorious in all American history. Nor has the history of any land its parallel, in the sudden spring ing into life and vigor of a feeling that had slept and seemed to be dead or dying. The flag had been the emblem dishon ored — it was now the emblem worshipped. A week before, it had hung as a limp rag from the flagstaff, scarcely noticed — apparently powerless — degraded for the first time in its long record. It had seemed, during the days and weeks through which the authorities at Washington had paltered and wavered, as if any reprobate might have torn down that flag, spat upon and trampled upon it, subjected it to any shame and degrada tion, without any man born under it having nerve and hope enough to strike the traitor to the earth. A few hours — a few days — and what had been the change, in country and in city ! No longer, then, a weak and inanimate thing, drooping from flagstaffs scarcely able to support it, and moved by no breeze that had power to shake out its folds, — it blew out, that Sab- . bath morning, free and clear to the heavens whose morning flush, and blue of noon, and midnight glory of azure and star light, were in its stripes and stars — blew out on the winds of the free and unconquered North, the breeze that fluttered it added to and strengthened by the voices of twenty millions of people, who had never before known that flag to be dishonored,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 57

and who had resolved to give up their lives before they would permit dishonor to be entailed upon it. Let some rash hand have been then laid in violence upon the bunting which had before seemed of so little consequence to the men of America — let some rash hand but have been laid upon it then, where the eyes of men, or women, or even of children, in the loyal States, could see the outrage, and the life of the owner of that hand would not have been worth a pin's purchase. He had better, at that moment, been in the midst of that howling pack who in the ultra South were bearing the flag to mocking and dishonored burial — he had better been there and dared be true to his country, than in any poi'tion of the loyal States and fallen under the anger of those who dared not be false to it!

Should the American Union have crumbled away to ruin the very day after, and the old flag under which it had won its three 'quarters of a century of triumphs been pulled down and laid reverently away forever, in curious museums and the old arsenals where they gather the warlike relics of the past — could this impossible thing have occurred — never saw any flag on earth so bright a close to its destiny as that which would then have been recorded of the Flag of the Union. One moment eclipsed, it had burst at once into a glory and a sacreduess unmatched by any banner ever borne since that behind which the crusading hosts marched out to Palestine. Not one man, but the collective strength of all the loyal States, had hugged it anew to the heart. Not one had gazed upon it with a new devotion, but every eye that could see the blue sky and the spring sunlight. Not from one building in a hundred had it waved, as in ordinary times, but from every flagstaff, and front, and roof, and awning-post, where it was possible to display the emblem of the national pride. Not from one mast or gaff at our docks, had it floated, but from .the spars of every craft that bore one yard of bunting, from the proudest ship to the humblest fishing-boat. Not alone had it waved in flaunting silk and enduring worsted — in great flags that might have headed an army, — but in every size of flag and description of material, from the standard large enough to wrap a dozen dead gloriously in its folds, to the

58 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

penny toy-flag of the boy. It had been seen on the stage- top, on the harness and bridle of the cartman's horse, on the lappel of the gentleman's coat, on the point of the lady's par asol. From hotel, and store, and private house, it had waved*; and raised to the top of Bunker Hill Monument of the Puri tan, it had been answered by the flap of its mate from the spire of Old Trinity of the Churchman, and even that an swered back by the flutter of still another mate from the dome of the Cathedral of the Catholic. Had ever flag been so honored ? Had ever devotion to a flag told so pregnant a story, of what it costs to be a great nation, and what it must cost to plunge one into disruption and destruction ? And would not the Flag, could it have disappeared forever from national view the very day after that apotheosis, have ended i s career more gloriously than any formed by the hand of man since the creation ?

But all this, which is to-day a matter of history and of historical speculation, was unknown and unthought of by Kate Haviland, in whose heart was mei'ely bubbling up that feeling of true though blind patriotism which has seemed to be the characteristic of woman in all countries and in all ages, — as she saw the emblem of her country's pride flung from the spire of the little village church at so unseasonable a time as to indicate that some event of importance must have occurred.

Her words of devotion to the flag, which have been so long Interrupted by this digression, had indeed scarcely left her lips when her attention \vas attracted by a horseman riding rapidly down the road from the eastward, and about to pass the house toward the village. She recognized him at the same moment as Ben Davidson, a stripling brother of one of her girl scholars ; and as the young man happened to have his head turned toward the house, the recognition was mutual. He drew rein as he came close to the gate, threw his hand over his shoulder toward the church, and said : \ " Do you see the red, white and blue there ? They have got it out, away at the top of the steeple !"

" Yes " said the young girl, " 1 see it. But what does it

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 59

mean ? Has any thing happened ? Have you any news from the South ?"

" Why, haven't you heard ?" asked Davidson, speaking in a loud voice, but evidently in too much of a hurry to think of alighting. " The secessioners attacked Sumter on Friday ; it is burning and must be surrendered to-morrow. We got the news last night, up in the city. Winter and Drexel came down this morning, and they are having a terrible time there. Everybody going crazy, and they're about as crazy up yonder at the village. Flags going up everywhere, I guess."

" Were Major Anderson and all his men killed ?" asked Aunt Bessy, in a voice agitated enough to have belonged to a much younger woman.

" Nary a one of them," said Davidson. " They have promised to surrender the fort and come away. But that don't make any difference. There is going to be a war, sure. They have got some of the city papers down at the village, and they say there will be a call made in a day or two — perhaps to-morrow — for troops to put down the rebels. What do you think of that ? That's what the flag means, upon the top of the steeple yonder. But I mustn't stay any longer. Good mornin', ladies. G'lang, Bob !" and away galloppcd Mr. Ben Davidson, to do his late share among the Hag-raisers and other national demonstrators up at Duffsboro.

Neither the aunt, the niece, nor the young stripling who gave them this intelligence, had seen the old man standing in the door. Had they done so, they would have seen that he put one trembling hand up behind his ear, to catch the words of the horseman more plainly, then that he seemed to shake and shiver even more than his habit, and that he turned and tottered away from the door just as Davidson gallopped off.

" Good heaven !" exclaimed the young girl. "They have fired on the flag and burned Sumter. And there is to be a war. Oh, how I wish I was a man !"

" I am very glad you are not, my dear," said the old lady, and the look of love with which she regarded the young girl showed that she really was grateful6 for the impediment of sex which would keep that fair young head from danger when

60 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

war should break upon the land. " There will be enough men without you, and God is over us all !"

"Yes, aunt, God is over us all," answered the young girl. " But he does nothing for us without human hands, and he allows some of us to work confoundedly hard for the bread we eat and the clothes we wear. Calling for soldiers all over the country. And only think how many thousands they may need! And then if they should not come ! But they will come, aunt, if there is one spark of the spirit of the old times left among us — and I hope there is !"

" I hope so," said the aunt. " But come — this will be your last day at church, and I suppose they will hold church to day, even if there is a flag flying from the top of the steeple."

" Yes, aunt, it is nearly time, now !" and the two turned away from the piazza, to go in. But they were not to go to church that day, though perchance to enter a place equally sacred.

As they entered the door from the portico, there was a loud, ringing crash heard in some portion of the back part of the house, a clank as of metal, ending with what seemed to be a heavy thump on the floor. Both aunt and niece started, though without the least idea from what the sound could have proceeded.

" Something must have fallen in the kitchen, I think," said the aunt, after a moment's pause, and she passed through the hall, directly back, to see whether some marauding dog or cat had not disturbed the equilibrium of a pot or a kettle, and sent it crashing down to the floor in that manner. Kate had a fancy that the sound came from the story above, and passed through the door to the right and up the stairway to ascer tain. Neither discovered any thing out of due order, and the moment after they again met in the hall.

" Something has tumbled down somewhere," said the young girl, oracularly. " Things don't make such noises as that when they are lying still and behaving themselves." Suddenly the light went out from her face, and an expression of intense anxiety took its place.* "Aunt, maybe it was in grandpa's room! Only think — suppose he has -."

THE DATS OF SHODDY. 61

"Oh, you clear child, don't frighten me to death !" exclaimed Aunt Bessy. "If he has fallen so as to make that noise, he must be dead as a stone by this time !" So he would have been, for she quite forgot that the poor old man had not weight enough remaining to produce such a crash, had he fallen through the entire house, from garret to cellar'! " Dear me, Kate ! come with me ; I am so frightened !" and together, aunt and niece, both trembling with apprehension, opened another door to the left, passed through the half-darkened " best room," or parlor, and opened another door which led into the little room of old Amos Haviland. There and then a sight was presented which fully explained the sound they had heard, and which neither of them will ever forget, to their dying day.

The poor old man (as ice know, though his relatives did not) had heard Ben Davidson telling of the attack upon Sum- ter and the flag. How much his dimmed sense had caught of the truth involved in the attack, of the plans and purposes of the rebels, and of the President's call for troops, can never be known until the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed ; but that he had caught something of the peril of the nation, and of the need of soldiers, was evident; and it was the most touching thing in nature, to see how the old fire lived yet — the merest slumbering spark, but pore and steadfast, in the very dying ashes of his mortal frame.

Over the little looking-glass in his room, for many a long year, had hung the sword used by him in the war of 1812 — a heavy old sabre, brass-hilted, and in an iron scabbard. The old man had wished to have it hung in that place, on the op posite side of his little room from the bed, so that he could look upon it and recall the past, even when too weak and ill to remove from his pallet. And there it had remained — not even taken down when the careful housekeepers dusted the room ; and it is probable that the old man's hand had not rested upon it for a quarter of a century, however often his dimmed eyes may have taken in that parallel to the reminder of the weak and broken Kichelieu, of the time when he "at Rochelle did cleave the stalwart Englisher."

Coming in from the door, after hearing the news brought

62 THE DAYS OF SH'ODDY.

by the horseman, the centenarian hatl evidently first paid a visit, to the kitchen (the next room), and possessed himself of the large file used for sharpening knives at the table. Then he had crawled back to his own room, managed to mount a chair, and tried to take down his old sword. The chair had given way beneath him, or his weak limbs had refused their office, for he had fallen to the floor, and the chair lay over turned at a little distance from him. At the same time the sword, loosened from its nail, had come clattering down, striking the little table under the glass and then the floor, making the loud noise they had heard upon the piazza, and flying out of the scabbard, as his weak hand could never have extricated it from the rust in which it wras imbedded. The poor old man had been so badly hurt by the fall, as to be un able to rise (he would never rise again, it seemed probable, till the day of the last resurrection) ; but he had managed to grasp the hilt of the sword, and to retain the file ; and at the moment when Aunt Bessy and Kate entered the room, in a cramped sitting position, and evidently in such suffering that he uttered a low moan at intervals, he was trying to draw the file over the dulled and rusted edge of the weapon, sharp ening it for use !*

" Grandpa ! dear grandpa !" spoke Kate, kneeling down beside him, while Aunt -Bessy seemed so much alarmed that she could scarcely keep her feet and could not utter a word. " Grandpa ! dear grandpa ! are you hurt ?" But the old man did not heed her — perhaps he did not even hear her. His eyes, less opaque-looking and more life-like than they had been for years, still seemed to be staring at vacancy ; he was still trying to draw the file across the rusted edge of the old sword ; and as Kate knelt beside him, she could catch his broken words — very low and fitful, and intermingled with moans, but yet intelligible to her watchful ears :

" Sharpen it — sharpen it — rebels — fight — soldiers — sharpen it — rebels — fight — soldiers."

Who shall say that this was not the Spirit of 'Seventy-Six bequeathing its Massing and its injunction to the men of

* The incident of the "Sharpening of the Sword" is no effort of the writer's imagination, but taken from a relation of real life made at the time.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 63

'Sixty-One — sharpening the national sword destined to exe cute judgment upon the foes of the land and the enemies of the human race ?

With the help of one of the farm-hands called in for that purpose, Aunt Bessy and Kate carefully and tenderly removed the old man to his bed and disposed his tortured limbs there in comparative comfort. Aunt Bessy was about to hang up the sword again, but Kate interpreted aright the look of his eye and the clutch of his hand, and laid it on the bed beside him. There the weak right hand grasped it and never released its hold until it let go of life. His eyes closed after a time, and the moan ceased. He was dropping away to his last sleep — the excitement of the moment and the shock of the fall had been too much for the frame worn and enfeebled by nearly a hundred years. He seemed to know but one thing — the news of the morning; for the only utter ance they caught was an occasional repetition — very low and broken — of the words he had been uttering when they entered the room :

" Sharpen it — sharpen it — rebels — fight — soldiers !"

When the two grieving relatives, kneeling by his bed-side — grieving, and yet with no bitter tear to shed over so ap propriate a close to a life so much prolonged beyond the common lot of mortality, — when they and the half-dozen of neighbors who had gathered into the death-chamber at their call, heard the words no more and saw that the right hand had released its weak clutch upon the sword, they saw, too, that the old soldier had departed on that long march some time ordered for all of us by the Great Captain.

When Kate Haviland, after the death, went out again to the piazza, it was afternoon, the stars and stripes were yet waving from the top of the spire of the little church at Duffs- boro, and she caught the rattle of the drum of the little militia company, somewhat prematurely called together, — from the village. " There are no Sabbaths in war," says some writer who must have passed through a national strug gle something like our. own ; and the centenarian soldier, without his dulled senses knowing the fact, had died with the old flag flapping above him, and the fife and drum — most martial of all martial music — sounding n« if for his departure.

CHAPTER III.

THE FULLER/TON HOUSE ON EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET —

MllS. FULLERTON AND MlSS DORA A COUPLE OF PEOPLE OF

DECIDEDLY SOUTHERN PROCLIVITIES — NED MlNTHORNE, AN EXCELLENT CATCH AS A HUSBAND — TWO OR THREE ROWS, AS "PARLOR ENTERTAINMENTS" — MR. CHARLES HOLT AS A SON- IN-LAW.

A HANDSOME house on East Twenty-third Street not far from Madison Avenue. A very handsome house, brown- stone with high stoop of the same material, very wide front, the window-caps sculptured into fruits, grape-clusters and vine-leaves, and over the door a heavy mass of fruit and floral sculpture, enclosing an oval shield, with — alas for American aristocracy ! — never a single quartering of arms to place upon it. The basement windows heavily barred, perhaps to prevent the servant girls looking out at the grass-plats in the front yard. The railings of the front yard very heavy and massive. The door-way from the landing, very deep and heavy, in dark oak, with lace curtains showing through the glass panellings of the inner doors. At the windows on the drawing-room floor heavy lace curtains, and outside of them at each window one red and one yellow side curtain of rich satin heavily fringed and tasselled, evidently for the placing of sallow faces, or their opposites, in proper lights for display. With in, a wide hall, guiltless of oil-cloth or carpeting on the stair, and hall 'floor and stair-steps in polished oak. A Flora, in marble or plaster (the casual observer could not say which) in a niche at the first turn of the stairs. Still further within the penetralia, a double parlor or drawing-room on the first floor, with arch between, the carpets of velvet tapestry, the walls painted in the faintest blush rose color, and the heavy foliated cornice matched by a massive floral centre-piece supporting a largo chandelier of glass over bronze, with a dozen burners G4

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 65

and a perfect cloud of dripping and tingling reflectors. The furniture in dark wood and hair, with an oval piano standing behind the arch, and a harp near it. On a marble centre- table, in front, a sweet little bust of Mozart, under a glass shade, and half a dozen picture albums and books scattered around it. On the walls some ten or a dozen pictures, all landscapes in oil, and all (as close observation would show) compositions of European scenery or transcripts of Floridian swamps or Carolina coasts.

On the floor above, in front, a large parlor ; the walls in the same color, the furniture corresponding with that below, but more massive : a heavy bronze chandelier, with shades of porcelain ; an upright piano beside the door opening from the hall; heavy rose worsted and white lace curtains at the very deep windows — each really forming an alcove ; a centre- table with a few books ; a card-table, with a chess-board lying upon it; the few pictures on the walls, engravings, 'mostly portraits, and these, again, of Southern statesmen or soldiers. This room evidently affectod by the family and by those visitors who had enough of intimacy to be received for pleasure and not for the mere show of acquaintance. The whole house rather a success than otherwise, in point of style, and needing either wealth to support it, or excellent credit. Mrs. Fullerton, the lady whose name figured on the cards sent out from it, considered it as decidedly the most stylish house in town, asking nothing from Townsend or John Anderson ; and all her visitors, who wished to be received a second time on as good footing as that achieved at first, took especial pains to make the elegance of the appointments (as u-ell as the beauty and grace of the hostess and her family) matters of no infrequent mention.

Three persons occupied the parlor on the second floor, at a certain hour on Sunday evening the Fourteenth of April. The first (by seniority as well as by virtue of her proud posi tion) was Mrs. Olympia Fullerton, widow of Randolph Ful- Irrton, purser in the United States Navy, now 'some years deceased. She was understood to have been born, some five and forty years before, near Columbia, South Carolina, the wealthy daughter of the still wealthier Judge Brixtone, of 4

66 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

that locality; while her husband, dating back a few years earlier than herself in age, had sprung into existence not far from Carrolton, Maryland. She had been educated (so it was said) at one of the female academics of Virginia, and had consequently escaped any infection of Northern heresy, to which so many Southern young ladies, a few years ago, were so dangerously exposed while pursuing their studies in the private academies of New York and New England. Mr. Fullerton, never resident in the North until long after his marriage, had consequently escaped any Northern infection, in like manner; and it might have been said, with truth, daring the life-time of the worthy purser, that a more decided and thorough-going couple, as to Southern sentiment, could not very well be found wit'hin the limits of the free States. Their four children were not much more likely to suffer from any Puritan taint, than the parents, especially as they were zealously guarded against evil influences ; and when Mr. Randolph Fullerton, purser in the United States Navy, one evening undertook to go on board the United States brig Guineahen, then lying at Port Mahon, in the Mediterranean, with more bottles of wine under his uniform than exactly conformed to the navy regulations, and fell overboard from the boat and was drowned, — his widow, even in the midst of her grief, did not forget the obligations due to herself as a Southern lady, and had always since kept up that broad line of demarcation which should exist between those who are sound on the Southern institution and those who have any disposition to waver. The money upon which the style of the house on Twenty-third street (not at all diminished since the death of her husband) had been kept up, was sup posed to be derived from her paternal estates near Columbia ; and we are not at all prepared, at this stage of the narration, to say that the popular belief on this point erred in any particular.

Mrs. Fullerton, occupying a cushioned rocking-chair nea; the window,- and rocking backwards and forwards in what we may before have designated as a peculiarly American fashion, was a decidedly pretty woman, in spite of advancing years, and under the gaslight might well have been taken to be ten

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 67

years younger. She had never forgotten the art of so dis posing herself, on chair or sofa, as to throw out the best points of her tall and well-formed figure to the best advan tage ; her dark evening-dress, with only one heavy gold chain around her neck, and descending to her watch and waist-belt, — only this too much in the way of jewelry, well threw out a complexion that might have been a shade too dark, if falsely relieved by bad dressing ; her very dark eyes seemed to have lost nothing of their youthful light ; and there did not seem to bo one thread of silver in the dark hair, with its slight wave, drawn back from her proud forehead, and tastefully disposed above the small ears and under a head-dress which seemed to be a marvelous combination of her own hair, vel vet, and alternate beads of pearl and jet. She had a proud lip — no one could deny it — a little full and pouting, but wonderfully well-shaped ; her nose was almost classical in the fineness of its outline ; and the whole result was, as we have before indicated, that she looked much younger than her actual age, and a decidedly pretty woman.

Place aux dames — all of them — here as well as elsewhere ; and the next sketch of the group must be that of Miss Eudora Fullerton, usually denominated Dora, the eldest unmarried daughter of the hostess. It needed almost a second look on the part of the person fii'st introduced to the two — to believe that they could be mother and daughter; so different seemed to be the style of their faces in almost every particular. And yet, strangely enough, after that second look, no one could doubt the. relationship, even if previous information left the matter an open question. There was an indescribable some thing, no one could say precisely what, common to both, which only needed observation to develope itself. Was it in the eyes ? — yes, perhaps so ; for Dora Fullerton, though she had inherited her father's light-brown hair, and was really a blonde in that particular, had taken her mother's dark eyes — eyes dark enough to be counted as black, at a little distance ; and the combination of dark eyes and fair hair, was that singularly effective one, so much prized in some of the Southern countries of Europe, and sometimes seen, here, when Mrs. Thalia Wood takes a fancy to put away her own

f)8 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

dark hair and appoar in the characteristic wig of the " Fair One with the Golden Locks."

As to the other features of her face — the young lady had a singularly bold and prominent forehead, a little too high and a little too full, the intellectual evidently predominating over the feeling and passional (which some of us do not hold to be " an excellent thing in woman") ; the nose was sharp cut, clear, handsome and decided, without a fault in its outline, but perhaps a shade too high from the face at the base ; the checks were handsomely moulded, and with a suspicion of a dimple at times in each, but too thin for perfection ; and the complexion was that blending between brown and fair, which seems to combine the charms of both and leave nothing to be desired. The bust was v.ery full and mature, for her age (less than eighteen) and for the supple slightness of arm and shoulder ; and it was evident that when standing she would be taller than the middle height, and a most proud and queenly (not to say defiant-looking) figure. Nothing has as yet been said of the lower features of the face, because here admiration ceases, and the gazer, half spell-bound in admira tion, shakes off the influence and becomes unpleasantly free a,gain. All the lower portion of Dora Pullerton's face was too thin and insignificant for the upper. The cheeks fell in too fast, and actually hollowed below the level of the nose ; the mouth was too small, the lips too thin, proud, and hard, with indications in a droop at the corners, that they might easily be sullen and petulant ; and the chin was small, sharp and weak — the very worst index of character presented in the whole catalogue. A pretty girl, certainly, and a stately figure in parlor or ball-room, and yet one at whom the close observer might be disposed to look more than, twice before putting the happiness of a life-time into her keeping. It should have been said, before this time, that the young lady wore a light stuff evening-dress, with ear-rings and a fair display of jewelry, the picture being thus concluded.

And even this long description must be followed by another — that of the third person of the group on that Sun day evening. And here the apology of the old French royal ist again comes into play ; for as he could only have his head

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 69

cut off, and make the bother appertaining to that operation, once, — let it be remembered that these people will never need a second photographing. Beside Miss Dora, who was loung ing on the sofa under the full light of two or three of the burners of the chandelier — sat a gentleman on that occasion. A man of perhaps twenty-five years of age, tall and rather slight in liguve, dressed in dark clothes in the very extreme of the mode, with a head of very light brown curling hair, side-whiskers long and pendant after the Dundreary pattern, blue eyes, well-cut features, except a slight snub in the nose, and a face that might have been good-looking enough, and even handsome, if relieved of an expression of lazy, smiling inanity, very nearly approaching to idiocy in appearance. His collar was garotte to an extreme, though that fashion was only then being introduced ; the diamond ring on his right little finger would have furnished the stock in trade for a jeweller of moderate capital ; the cornelian seal ring on his left was nearly large enough for stamping an official docu ment, and must have made sad havoc with his innumerable pairs of gloves from Bajeux and Courvoisier ; and his patent- leather boots, which he generally extended at full length when sitting, could only be matched in the magnificence of their polish by his extensive and immaculate wristbands, that only needed to be ruffled to excite the envy of the departed spirit of some beau of the time of Charles the Second, or roue of the Regency of the Duke of Orleans.

This person was known as Edward Minthorne, Esq., the name being taken from the innumerable invitations to bulls, parties, suppers, conversaziones, opera-parties, etc., which continually reached him in the season ; or from the covers of the perfumed billets, boxes, hampers, and other packages, which at snort intervals came to him while lounging away the warm season at Newport or Saratoga. There were some persons who called him Xed Minthorne ; but they were peo ple of quality and condition, and could do bold things ; for Mr. Minthorne was known to be the last heir and representa tive of one of the richest patroon families of Xew York City, worth a million in his own right, with nobody able to say how many more millions might come to him at the death of

70 T H E D A Y S OF SHOD I) Y.

various relatives who must drop off out of his way in due season. He was a fool, of course — had never been known to utter ten words that could be construed into strong common sense — had never done any tlwng, except eat, drink, ride, smoke and dawdle — and appeared to be about as capable of taking care of himself,- if placed in circumstances of want or difficulty, as a kitten of ten days old. But then, what occa sion had he to take care of himself? "Was he not rich enough for ten men ? And what vicissitude could possibly fall upon his landed property up the river or his houses and stores in the city, leaving him to the mercy of the world ? None what ever; and the good people of the set in which he moved, especially the marriageable young ladies and the prudent mam mas and guardians who managed them, petted and idolized him as if he had been a young demi-god.

All but one, that is to say ; and the exception was just then very near him. For more than a year before the period of this story he had been a frequent visitor at the house of Mrs. Fullerton ; and for more than six months all the other mar riageable ladies had virtually given him up as beyond their reach, he being understood to be under a tacit if not an ex plicit engagement to marry Miss Dora Fullerton. She did not treat him with studied respect — not even with common civility, at times. Was be not "hooked," to use a vulgar, but very expressive word ? Could she not hold him, no mat ter what was her line of conduct ? She rather thought she could ! She had brains — he had none : what hope could there be for a man placed at that disadvantage, crawling out from under the moral thumb of a pretty and attractive wo man, no matter whether she treated him with marked respect or the very opposite ? Not that she dreamed of openly in sulting him — of course not. That would have been ruin to her hopes ; for even fools sometimes know when they are kicked, though they may be oblivious when a large pin is thrust into them. And all her " hopes" lay in the wealth of Minthorne, once in possession of which she would ride over the world at her leisure. She had been taught by her mother — and in fact needed little teaching to that end, — that it was not a matter of the slightest consequence whether she loved or

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 71

even respected the man wh-jm she expected to marry; that every man and every thing born or made north of Mason and Dixon's line was of course wretched, plebeian and contemp tible ; but that, with a sufficient quantity of gilding, even one of these poor wretches could be matrimonially swallowed. She had determined to swallow Minthorne, as the richest morsel (pecuniarily) that had yet come within her grasp, or could be likely to do so, unless she went to Europe (a step, for certain reasons, not practicable) or unless one of the fa vorite aspirations of certain people on this continent should be carried out, and an order of nobility created for her to pick, at her own sweet will, among the dukes, marquises and earls thus scattered over the land. She had determined to swallow him, but not gingerly, or with any indication that she was the obliged party in the engagement. On the con trary he must be made to know and feel his place continually — to come at her will and go when she pleased ; and to do the young lady justice, there really was every appearance that she had made an accurate calculation. Ned Minthorne made no " scenes" and no harsh remarks whatever, when he came to fulfil an engagement to drive her out, and found her just stepping into the carriage of one of his rivals. He never sulked, when he came in to spend an evening and found his inamorata enjoying a fit of sullenness which she called "headache," and paying him no more attention than she might have done to a dog whose place was at her feet. He never presumed to argue with her at any length or with the least ill-feeling, when her ultra-southern sentiments came out in their full strength and she took the notion into her head to denounce every Northern man, without a single exception, as a poor, white-livered, thin-blooded milksop, not fit for the wiping of the shoes of a real Southern lady. While the secession had been going on, he had borne with all this and as much more as she chose to heap upon the North, including, of course, her declarations that the Southern rebels were patriots, the Northern loyalists all brutes and would-be tyrants, and the idea of ever getting back the seceded States into the Union, something to be laughed at, loathed and spat upon. At the moment when our observation falls upon them, Miss

I

72 T H E D A Y S O F S 11 O D D Y .

Dora had just subjected her devoted slave to one of those tasks which seem to have been devised by the malignant fates for the special torment of impatient mortality. She had set him, with a very stylish but signally inconvenient paper- folder, to cutting the leaves of a book of several hundred pages, and insisted upon having them all cut before she deigned to look at one of them, while she would certainly look at not more than two or three before she would throw it down in disgust. (Let us put in another parenthesis here, to say that the man who first practised the enormity of send ing out a bound book with the leaves uncut, should have been compelled to cut book-leaves with a lead-pencil or a pair of scissors, during the whole remainder of his existence, in which case he would perhaps have suffered a punishment somewhat commensurate with the injury he has inflicted upon humanity.) The leaves of this particular book were thin and limp. Ned Minthorne's fingers were not the nimblest in the world, and he was making a decidedly slow job of it, while the beauty sat idle upon the sofa, and pouted and " poohed" and patted her foot upon the carpet in the most violent dissatisfaction at his slow proceedings. At last she broke out :

"Well, slow-motion, how much longer are you going to be before you allow me to read a word ?"

" Really, Miss Fullerton, I can't say — that is — yes I can, in a minute." And the millionaire, while the young lady was so stupefied with anger that she could only stare at him in surpris-e, actually laid down his folder, counted the number of leaves he had cut, and the number yet remaining to be ex perimented upon, drew out his watch and made a calculation in the rule of three, that if he had been so many minutes cutting a certain number (about one-sixth), he would be able to complete the task in about such a period.

" You are a fool !" exclaimed the young lady at this junc ture ; and the unfortunate book, which had been temporarily laid upon her lap, found itself flying across the room with singular rapidity, and going plump into the bosom of a very decollde lady represented in an engraving on the opposite wall.

THE DAYSOF SHODDY. 73

"Really, Dora "was all the expostulation the young

man was able to utter, for the divinity cut him short with: —

" Don't talk to me! You are the most provoking man in the world, and you are never satisfied half so well as when you can put me out of temper and get me to make a fool of myself !" It is just possible that the spectre of a lost million or more had loomed up the instant after she committed the unladylike action, and that she felt the necessity of calling herself a fool in order to balance the account of having desig nated him in the same manner the moment before.

But she need not have given herself any trouble on that account, for the stupid placidity of Mr. Minthorne's temper did not seem to be in the least disturbed. He merely looked at the Southern girl as she bounced up from the sofa and then sat down again, and remarked, in the most matter-of- fact manner possible : — ! 9

"Well — ah — yes, I believe that I do like to see you a little out of temper, Miss Fullerton, better than when you are in a good humor, because then you are so demned piquant and pretty, you know !"

" Do you really think me pretty ?" asked the young lady, her face all smiles again in a moment, and her narrow mind (so sadly belying that full forehead) always cayght by com pliments to her personal attractions. She was so gracious, now, that her hand managed to drop upon if not into that of Minthorne; and Mrs. Fullerton, who had heard and seen all the preceding from her place in the easy chair, and thought for the moment that her dear Dora might be playing the game of temper and superiority a little too far, — felt completely reassured and dropped back to her rocking with a sweet motherly confidence that her darling was doing honor to her training and managing her future husband with much ad dress.

But calms are sometimes short and treacherous, especially in the tropics, and the worst of squalls follow them, habitually. Mr. Xed Minthorne, putting his hand into the skirt-pocket of his coat to extricate his handkerchief and fill a little heavy time by dabbing its perfumery to his nose, accidentally drew out a newspaper, which fell upon the carpet. He reached

74 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

riown to pick it up and return it to its position, but Miss Dora took it (not to say jerked it) from bis hand, opened it, and the sensation headings of one of the daily Sunday papers stood revealed, prominent among them the " Dastardly Outrage on the American Flag!" "No Terms to be Hereafter Kept with the Rebels !" etc., a statement that the Cabinet were in session at Washington and that a large body of volunteers would be called out to put down the rebellion, flanking the account of the Sumter outrage in another column. Instantly the face of the young lady fired up, her black eyes darted cruel lightnings, her whole frame seemed to be quivering with in dignation, and she broke out, dashing down her hand upon the paper : —

" You dare, sir, to bring such a paper as that into this house !"

For just one instant there was a curious expression on the face of Xed Minthorne. A person who had seen it and who did not know what an absolute ninny the young man was, would have believed it to be keen, searching and self-confi dent. Of course any person who had seen it and who did know him, could only have supposed that he had been mistaken. At all events, if there had been any thing more than usual, it was gone in. an instant, and the face was just as placidly stupid as ever. He merely replied in a tone of very great surprise : —

" Why— that paper ? That is only the !"

" Only the !'' almost yelled the young lady, tearing the

paper to atoms meanwhile and dashing down the pieces on

the carpet. "Only the ! And what more could it be, I

should like to know I A nasty black abolition paper, trying to stir up our slaves," ("our" was good, in that connection) "to murder us in our beds ! I would not have believed it of you, Mr. Minthorne! Would you, mother! Oh! oh! oh!" and either overcome by her emotions or thinking that tears ought to make their appearance at about that period, for the effectiveness of the tableau, — she fell back upon the sofa and sobbed, with her face hidden by both her handsome white hands.

Ned Minthorue was affected. If Dora Fullerton was

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 75

charming when angry, she was overpowering when in tears ; and the young man had proceeded so far as to put both his hands on one of the young lady's, and endeavor to remove it from her face, with a few endearing words, when Mrs. Fullerton, who had likewise been watching this scene in the drama of courtship, thought it politic to interpose.

" Mr. Minthorne," she said, rising so suddenly from her chair that the young man did not see her until her stately form loomed immediately before him. " Mr. Minthorne, I really feel it to be necessary, in this instance, to interpose the authority of a mother. Whether you have intended to do so or not, this is twice already, within a few minutes, that you have managed to excite my daughter in a manner very pain ful to me as well as to herself."

" But, madam — " began the offender.

" I beg you will allow me to finish," said the stately woman, while Miss Dora still kept her hands over her face, displaying not only the hands but the rings to excellent advantage. " You should have known, sir, that the wrongs and outrages suffered by the South have made a great impression upon M.S- /"

" You allude to the — the whipping of the slaves, setting blood-hounds on them, and all that sort of thing — pshaw ! that is the other side ! You mean the — the — " and here he broke down. Had any man, not an acknowledged ninny, dared to hint at the things conveyed in the early part of that sentence, in the house of Mrs. Fullerton, perhaps not even the recollection of several millions at stake could have pre vented her ejecting the offender with ignominy. But Min thorne was such a fool, and he had so evidently blundered, that she did not think it either necessary or politic to pay any attention to the remark ; and she merely went on :

" We have been brought up, Mr. Minthorne, both of us, among a society and in a section of country where high and chivalrous feeling has some regard paid to it. You are some what excusable if you have not been surrounded by the same influences ; but I ask it of you, as a mother who has the welfare of her daughter very much at heart, that at this moment when the miserable hounds here at the North are

76 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

heaping still worse insults upon our dear down-trodden South, you will not introduce into this house any thing calculated to injure our patriotic feelings, and especially those of my daughter, who is very sensitive and not a bit strong."

There was only one thing that Ned Minthorne could possi bly say at that stage of the peroration, and he said it.

" No, madam."

At which gentlemanly promise, and a sufficient time having elapsed to make that measure proper, the hands of the young lady came gradually down from her face, and her tears ceased, though there was an occasional catch in her breath, bearing the same relation to a sob that is borne to a hurricane by a gentle spring zephyr.

"As for that thing /" and the dignified lady touched the

with her foot as it lay upon the floor — " it has always

been a lying, deceitful, abominable abolition sheet, hounding on Sumner and Greeley, and doing every thing it could to trample upon every Southern institution and every Southern feeling !"

When it is known that the sheet alluded to had never up to that time, and has never since, referred to either of the agitators named, without abusing them — that it had been up holding and defending the Southern side of the national question, during all the difficulty, so continually that its loyalty to the Union was more than doubtful — and that not many days after the time treated of, its editor and proprietor was obliged to throw out the flag from his windows, under the threat of having his building torn down and being himself taken out and hung, — the justice of Mrs. Fullerton's adjec tives may be estimated, and some calculation may be formed of what description of Northern sheet it would have needed to be, that she did not designate as " lying, black abolition."

" There — there, mother, go back to your seat and don't say any thing more about it !" said the gentle and impulsive Miss Dora, who probably felt well assured that her lover could not answer her mother's tirade if he would, and who had by this time enjoyed quite enough of the peculiar sensation of the quarrel, to be anxious for another novelty. Her mother was

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. r<7

about obeying the gentle behest, and the white hand would in another moment have fallen again on that of Minthorne, sealing a full reconciliation, — when there was a ring at the bell, a foot heard ascending the oaken stairs, and the moment after Mr. Charles Holt, merchant, entered the room.

Each of the persons previously there rose to meet him and shake his hand, establishing the fact that he was an intimate acquaintance. But in his salutation of " Mother !" to one of the ladies and his familiar mode of saying " Dora !" to the other, something more was revealed. The merchant was a son-in-law of the handsome hostess of the Southern proclivi ties ; and a sister of the impulsive young lady on the sofa presided, or had presided, over his house and heart. Whether from his family connection, or from some other cause, he did not seem to be at all in awe of these terrible people ; and a closer observer than Ned Minthorne appeared to be, would have seen that something very like forced deference, un accountable in the descendants of the chivalry of the South, towards a man who had not a drop of Southern blood in his veins and who was a mere merchant, was actually paid to him.

" Torn papers on the floor !" he said, after the greetings were over. " What does that mean ? Eh, Dora ?"

The young lady colored as if she had before been known to tear papers (and other things), and as if that phase of her disposition was no novelty to her brother-in-law. " Only an old paper," she stammered out after a moment, "that I — that has not been picked up."

" Xot very old — only this morning," commented Holt, stooping down, picking up a portion of the torn paper, look ing at the date, and then throwing it down again. " However, one day is an age now-a-days. Of course, you saw what it contained ?"

The inquiry seemed to be addressed to both mother and daughter. Neither answered, and Minthorne looked as if he had sense enough to feel for both and to be uncomfortable. Holt went on :

" I did not allude to the Sumter business — that you saw last night, — but to the statement that the Cabinet had been

78 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

all night in session ; that active measures had been decided upon, and that there will probably be a call for troops, to morrow, over the whole country."

Strangely enough, neither Miss Dora nor her mother, who had been so outraged at the very sight of the heading-lines conveying the intelligence of that proclamation, a few moments befure, — went into tears or raved over the insults offered to the South, now ! What a mysteriously calming if not de pressing influeuce the merchant seemed to exercise, the mo ment he entered the room ! Was it merely the iron will of a hard man of the world, radiating out and affecting insensibly all whom he approached, or was it something more ?

" There is a devil of a row brewing," he continued, meet ing no answer. " They will need fifty or a hundred thousand ni'-n, and that is no small army. I wonder whether they can all be raised immediately ?"

" If they are, the whole fifty or a hundred thousand ought to be hanged before they had marched one mile !" broke out Mrs. Fullerton, who could endure the restraint no longer. "And the man who would help to raise one of them — "

"As /shall do," interrupted the merchant. " Well ? — the man who would help to raise one of them, ought to be — "

" Bah !" was the singular word with which the dignified lady concluded the sentence which had threatened to end in such a wholesale denunciation.

" Come here, Dora !" said the merchant, in a tone very like one of command, walking towards one of the front windows at the same moment. The young lady obeyed, while Mrs. Fullerton rose from her chair near the other one, and left the room, as if to avoid hearing what was to be said, and Min- thorne, who had walked over to the other side of the room and picked up the unfortunate book, sat down again upon the sofa, and busied himself with it, with the air of a man who felt that for the moment he was very much in the way, with a very dull prospect of escape.

" Put that in your pocket," said the merchant, handing Dora a very small package, when they were at the window and out of ear-shot of the millionaire. " Of course you do not want to have him see you receive it?"

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 79

" No ! no !" answered the young lady, in a low voice that had in it something approaching shame and agony.

" I thought not 1" said the merchant, his tone something that might, under other circumstances, have seemed a sneer. " What the deuce is that noise ?"

"Oh," answered Miss Dora, "only Myra and Mildred, squabbling, as usual, in the room above. They think they are obliged to go to bed too early, and they are almost un manageable, altogether."

" Singular !" said Holt, in a tone that conveyed his impres sion of the fact not being singular at all.

" They will make less noise in a day or two, or they will probably get killed," replied the affectionate sister. "We have just been employing a new governess, somebody named Ilaviland, from the country ; and we hired her because she had been a country school-mistress, used to flogging children. When she conies, if she doesn't keep those young wretches in order, out she goes, and that in a week."

" Right," said the merchant, playing with the tassel of the window-curtain. " Make everybody obey, around you, or out with them ! Haviland, eh ? Oddly enough, I have a clerk with the same not-very-common name, or had one, for he is going to volunteer, and ha ! ha ! — do you remember what your mother started to say a moment ago about 'the man who would help to raise one of them' ? — I have promised to pay him his salary while he is gone, and take care of his family."

" You ?"

" Yes, I!"

"How much of a family has he ? and how old is he ?"

" What business is that of yours ?" asked the merchant, not over politely. Then he smoothed his tone, half laughed, aud answered :

" Oh, he is young — twenty-eight or thirty ; and his family, he says, consists of a wife and one child. Any thing else you want to know ?"

" Yes — one thing more. Have you ever seen his wife ?"

" Humph— yes — perhaps so !" was the answer, and at the moment the eyes of the two met ; and Ned Minthorne, had

80 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

he been near enough to the merchant and his sister-in-law to see the intelligence conveyed in either glance, and keen enough to read it, would have found something much more worthy of his attention than the dull book with the half-cut leaves, over which he was whiling away time on the sofa.

" Dare you !" was the brief sentence that came from the lips of the young lady, hissing through them with something that sounded like the venom of the serpent when grasped and powerless.

" Ha ! ha ! do you not think it may pay?" was the answer, in a low, chuckling tone, such as one uses who is thoroughly satisfied with himself and the world. And here the conver sation ended, and the interlocutors, with an apology to Min- thorne from Holt, returned to the centre of the room. Mrs. Fullerton joined the circle in a few moments, and the conver sation fell upon other and less exciting subjects than national affairs — those trifling topics in which the mother and daughter seemed to be perfect — the merchant no novice — and Ned Minthorne, millionaire and fashionable ninny, more at home than he could possibly be in any other line of conversation. Half an hour later the merchant rose to leave, Minthorne followed him, and the silence and quiet of repose soon after wards fell upon the handsome brown-stone house in East Twenty-third street, however far from quiet, during all that long night, were some other sections of the great city, seeth ing, bubbling and fermenting beneath the yet only half- digested news from Charleston harbor, and the added excite ment of the patriotic but intemperate comments made upon it in the daily and Sunday papers.

CHAPTER IT.

THE MERCHANT AND HTS FIFTH AVENUE RESIDENCE — A

GLANCE AT LTP-TO\VN LUXURY — A MERCANTILE LETTER —

A DINNER AND A SUMMONS — AN INTERVIEW A LA MODE, BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE — How BURTNETT HAVI- LAND WENT HOME — THE ROMANCE OF HALF A HOUSE — • A DEAR LITTLE WIFE THAT WAITED AT THE DOOR — A SUPPER, AND THE SHADOW THAT FELL OVER IT.

We have seen Charles Holt and Burtnett Haviland, the merchant and bis clerk, leaving the store of the former on Saturday evening, not together by any means, nor with the same means of convej'ance in view, but each having the same apparent object — to go home. It will now be neces sary to roll back the tide of time for one day and return to that evening, in order that more may be known of both men and their domestic relations' as well as their patriotic emo tions, and in order that at least a glance may be caught at the temple in which the household gods of each were treasured. Not only in right of his years but his position, the merchant is entitled to the first place and must be accorded it.

Charles Holt, when he had reached Broadway, did not at once enteman omnibus of the Fifth Avenue line, as he had at first intended. There was yet light enough remaining to make a stroll up Broadway pleasant j and he had either not been so stunned by the news of the national shame and hi? own prospective pecuniary loss, as to be discouraged and down-hearted, or something else had occurred calculated to overbalance such sad feelings. He looked pleasantly, even smilingh' ; and as he emerged a few moments after from the bar-room at Delmonico's with a fresh Havana between his lips, no one would have believed him to be a man of position and responsibilit}-, living under the shadow of a crushing national shame and so fully impressed with his own duty to 5 81

82 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the country as to be willing to make heavy pecuniary sacrifices to meet its needs. The smoke from his cigar curled pleas antly upward, his foot rung clearly on the pavement as he lounged slowly on, read the signs once more that he had be fore read ten thousand times, and looked in at the windows to see the porters lighting the gas-burners for the display of articles of use or luxury that no one was very likely to pur chase on that particular evening. Occasionally he would meet an acquaintance not too much absorbed in the sensation of the hour to speak to him, and then he would exchange salutations and pass with the most courtly ease. Men who had chanced to know him in youth, but who had not risen so fast in the world as lie had done, would turn their heads after he had gone by, and think what a fortunate as well as eminently respectable man was the head of the great firm of Charles Holt and Andrews ; and handsome women, of whom the street was not yet entirely thinned, would glance from their carriages or throw" a pleased look after him as they saw him on the side-walk, thinking that he was (as indeed he was) a fine-looking man, and that it could be no undesirable thing to hold the position of head of his household. Once he met a little boy with tJniou rosettes, that had been gradually creeping out for some days, in response and defiance to the secession cockades known to be flaunted at Baltimore, Wash ington and all over the South, and that this evening seemed to have sprung up in a crop of red, white and blue flowers that no man could number. He, bought one, paid his silver quarter for it, accepted the offered pin from the bey, pinned it to the left lappel of his coat, and passed on — having per formed one more duty to his country, at least — that of put ting on the national colors and taking part in the patriotic madness of the hour.

Opposite St. Thomas' Church the dusk began to gather, his cigar was smoked out, and he fancied that he had threaded the jostling crowd sufficiently and taken quite exercise enough. He hailed one of the Fifth Avenue line of stages, and stepped in. Thenceforward, for half an hour, he was absorbed and melted away into that great car-and-omnibus-riding crowd which forms so large a part of 2vew York society every morn-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 83

ing and evening ; and it would have been difficult to display or even to preserve any decided individuality. With his thoughts we have nothing to do, as they must show them selves in action ; and even his sensations on being crushed between a fat old lady who sat on him and a thin young lady who looked so pale and fragile that he dared not make room for himself by sitting on her, must be passed over as matters of no moment. At the end of the half hour he emerged from the eclipse of the 'stage, and walked quietly up the.steps of his own handsome house on Fifth Avenue, so near to Dr. Spring's Church that the spire of that building, had it chosen to topple over, might have done serious damage to his- roof and the elaborate ornamention of his brown-stone cornices.

One of those thin pass-keys of the Butler pattern, that seem so slight and yet tumble locks of such formidable strength, admitted him, and he passed into the hall, where the lamp was already lighted. The house was a double one, of immense size, and within as well as without it told of great wealth as well as of a taste managing that wealth somewhat more understandingly than is usual in aristocratically-repub lican Xew York. Xo bare floor or stairway, here. The walls of the hall were handsomely frescoed, Venus Aphrodite and the Triumph of Galatea being the subjects filling the centre on either side and bordered with heavy scrolls of fruit and flowers with their extreme edges just touched with gold. All the finishing of the hall and stairway, with the doors opening on either side, was in oak — no imitation in grainers'- paint, but a fine dark, solid wood that looked English. The floor was covered with costly Indian matting that gave back no sound of the foot and had not the cold look of oil-cloth ; and the same warm taste was visible in the carpeting of the stairs, in the heavy velvet of which showed red and gold- color in profusion. The hall lamp was held by a handsome bronze knight in armor, who stood at the foot of the stair ; and in the niche of the landing, half way up, was a rich gold-bronze reduction of Kiss' famous Amazon, its flash in. the gas-light corning distinctly even to the door..

So much could be seen, of the luxury which surrounded the merchant, by merely entering the hall. The visitor who

84: THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

set his foot within the door which opened to the right as he entered, would have found a drawing-room fitted with every elegance known to the age — rosewood ; crimson velvet ; heavy English tapestries ; pictures by well-known modern artists, European and American, with no lack of the warmer subjects of personal delineation, and yet nothing to which the most fastidious prudery could object ; a heavy clock of ormolu ; a piano of the best Germ\n manufacture ; costly bronzes on the mantels, representing various progressions of dress and arms in English history ; boM\s in superb bindings, scattered on tables covered with heavy velvets, and interspersed with statuettes in ivory and Parian, of different celebrities in the musical world — all that wealth ef costly adornment with which so many American mansions have within the past ten years become overloaded, to the serious depletion of the purses of those who indulge in them, — and which are almost as im pertinent as tedious in the recital.

But if the visitor supposed that the proprietor of this estab lishment had followed a very common national custom, and heaped up luxuries in his hall and parlors as show-rooms, to the beggaring of the other details of his house, that visitor was very likely to be undeceived when admitted within additional portions of the penetralia. Especiall v~ would he have become aware that Mr. Charles Holt, in fitting up his superb man sion, had not neglected liimxdf. For no thicker was the velvet carpeting of the room to the right, than was that of the corresponding apartment to the left, which the merchant en tered the moment after he had closed the outer door. No thicker in texture, but much larger in figure; for that of this room, which seemed to belong exclusively to the proprietor, was of grass-gi'een, cut into small diamonds by bars of gold- color; while the windows had close inner-blinds, only thinly veiled by curtains of festooned lace. The furniture was in oak. like the furnishing of the hall, and among it could be de tected an escritoire or secretary standing near one of the windows ; a large book-case with the books hidden away by curtains of crimson silk ; a lounging-chair of the Chinese pat tern — capable of being converted into any thing, from a mere stool to a bed ; and a large iron safe, so ingeniously disguised

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 85

in manufacture and grained to the appearance of the universal oak, that it seemed to be nothing more than a beaufet to sus tain a silver water-pitcher, a liquor case with bottles, and half a dozen silver goblets and Bohemian glasses. The mas ter of all these conveniences had evidently been expected \ for a gas lamp with a snake attachment connected with the chan delier, was lighted and stood on a small table very near the escritoire and beside the easy-chair. The master, too, of all these conveniences, should have been the happiest of men, so far as outward circumstances could affect him, and always provided, of course, that his domestic surroundings were equally perfect and congenial. How nearly they were so, will be gradually but very satisfactorily ascertained.

The merchant had evidently riot quite done with the thoughts possessing him while crowded in the stage, for he threw himself into the easy-chair the moment he had entered the room, pressed it back until it became half chair and half lounge, and mused for several minutes with his eyes shut and in silence. Then he threw back the chair to be a chair alone, drew it to the escritoire, opened that convenience, drew out paper and rapidly indited a letter. Taking the privilege of the literary Asmodeus to look over his shoulder, we may say that this letter was addressed to his junior partner, Mr. Beverly Andrews, then in Europe on purchasing-business for the firm, and that one portion of it ran as follows :

"Taking all that has happened into consideration, there is no question •whatever that the country must now fight or go to pieces. The South is weak, but ready ; we are strong, but unprepared. This will make the strug gle a longer one, when it coines, than most people suppose; and those who are prepared, can make more money out of it than could be made in ten times the same period of peace. We shall lose heavily by our Southern customers, and Northern ones must repay the loss — that is all. We must have a large body of soldiers, and those soldiers must be clothed. All parties will at first be frightened at incurring enormous expense, and they will be clothed meanly. Buy up all that you can of very common army cloths, light and dark-blue, as of course they will retain the colors of the regular service. Double our in tended investment, also, in cotton goods, as cotton must rise under the new

aspect of affairs. You can draw on Peabody for $ , in addition to avails

now ill his hands, for which I will provide by the current steamer."

So it will be seen that Mr. Charles Holt had a shrewd eye to business, even if he felt the national affliction to some ex-

86 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

tent, and that he did not intend to permit losses by Southern customers seriously to impair the fortunes of the firm. Some of his calculations were rather shrewd — were they not? as, for instance, that in first plunging into a war, everybody would be frightened at the coming expense, and try to pro ceed as cheaply as possible ; while after a time, and when once fairly involved in it, a hundred millions would seem no move than ten had seemed at the beginning. Perhaps he had gam bled a little, some time in his life, and seen how carefully the player risked his first small stakes, to become utterly reckless, after a while, of risks that seemed to afford the only prospect of winning back what had been already lost. If so, did he not develop some of the qualities of a safe even if a bold player ?

Not many minutes served to conclude the letter, which he put into an inner pocket, unsealed, in view of the possibility that he might need to add or change something before the sailing of the steamer on Monday. Then he shut the escri toire, locked it, replaced the key in his pocket, threw the easy- chair back into precisely the same position that it had before assumed, and ruminated for at least five minutes more.

It is not to be supposed that he had not heard, at any time within the past fifteen minutes, sounds proceeding from the room immediatly above his own. Those sounds had been faint, and somewhat muffled by the thick floor and ceiling, but still easily distinguishable as the tinkling of glasses, loud laughter, and occasional pounding on the floor. Strange sounds to come from an upper room of a gentleman's house, one would have said, and especially strange when himself had been for the whole day absent and had brought no com pany whatever home with him. Yet the merchant had not seemed to heed them, though he certainly heard them, and once or twice made an impatient dash of the pen, as if the noise merely interfered with his directions to his partner. They had not ceased when he finished the letter and took his second rumination.

After sitting in this manner for the few minutes named, Mr. Holt leaned back and twice jerked the silver bell-pull immediately behind him. The summons was very quickly

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 87

answered by a man-servant, to whom the master addressed one word :

" Dinner ?"

"Yes, sir, ready whenever you wish, sir !" was the reply, and the servant opened a door leading from the rear of the apartment through a small dark room, threw open a second door, and ushered the merchant into a handsome dining-room, where a table was set sufficient in size for the accommodation of at least a dozen, and profusely covered with plate, china and glass, but with only one chair set before it and with only the dishes which one person would use. That single chair the merchant occupied, and two minutes sufficed for a quick- moving and pretty female servant to set before him a dinner worthy of some modern Lucullus. No costly luxury of the market, whether of fish, flesh, fowl, or fruit, failed to be there represented; and the neat-handed servant-girl, who had evidently been subjected to some pretty severe training be fore she acquired that perfection, "understood him and his wishes so well that he merely needed to make a sign, without uttering a word, and the demand was fulfilled — even to the pouring out of one or another of the different kinds of wine with which the solitary banquet was graced. Solitary, for not one word was spoken iuring the fifteen or twenty minutes — perhaps half an hour—that the merchant consumed in dis cussing it. A banquet, because food enough was set before him, and consequently prepared for waste in the servants' hall, to have satisfied the hunger of twenty men. Some pitier of poverty, conversant with the want and wretchedness of a great city, and the thousands who drag around their weary limbs and nightly crawl away to miserable beds, without having had their hunger even once partially appeased, — some man like this, who should have stood beside Mr. Charles Jloli, on that occasion, might temporarily have had the heart-ache, spite of the fact that the wealth which supplied the banquet was truly enough the merchant's own, and that he had an undoubted right, humanly speaking, to dispose of his own as he liked. The merchant himself, it is highly probable, thought of that luxurious dinner and of others which preceded and followed it, one day when the table at which he ate was

88 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

not quite so plentifully spread and the food not quite so savory.

All things have an end, and the quickest of all things to end is an American dinner — except when Smith, who fares meanly at home and never dines at any place more luxurious than a shilling restaurant, finds himself transiently sitting at one of the bountiful repasts spread for him by Beach at the Cattskill Mountain-House, or Anderson on 'the good Cham- plain steamer " XJnited States," determines that he will have a full meal for once in his life (seeing that the cost is all the same), and valiantly goes through with fish, flesh and fowl, entrees and entremets, pies, puddings, custards, jellies, ice creams, melons and peaches, down to the cheese, nuts and raisins, in spite of the fact that all the other guests have long before left the table, and that the waiters are looking three- pronged forks at him because they have set him down as " no gentleman," and because they are waiting to set the table for another relay of hungry people. All other American dinners but this of Smith, and that of Brown when he gives a hun dred-dollar "blow-out"' to four friends at the Maison Doree, whereat all parties eat themselves sick and drink themselves blind and stupid, — have an end. And all this has nothing to do with Mr. Charles Holt, who wrfl a quick diner, and who, if he wasted food by having an unreasonable quantity and variety prepared for him, did not gormandize it.

His dinner ended, the merchant tossed off yet another glass of wine after he had rism, drew his hand across his brow as if he was wiping away any fume it might have left in his brain, lit a cigar that he took from a side-pocket, and went back to his own apartment. The merriment from the room above seemed yet to be sounding; and immediately on enter ing the room he gave the bell the same double pulj as before. The same man-servant entered at ouce, and stood mutely within the door. Evidently, if he had nothing more (and had he not much more ?) this man kept order among his servants, whenever they came into personal relation with himself.

" Go up to your mistress, and say that I wish to see her, here," was the order, no sooner given than obeyed in the dis-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 89

appearance of the servant. Perhaps five minutes elapsed, while the merchant again sat in his easy chair, but in. a much more erect position than before, and putted silently on his cigar that was gradually filling the room with the subtle fragrance of its Cuban birth. Then the door leading into the hall opened, a little suddenly and as if the hand that impelled it was trembling with temper, and a lady stepped into the room and closed it behind her. It was worthy of notice that the door closed less violently than it opened, and that the step which carried the lady within the room from the thresh old was slower than that with which she had approached it, and seemed like the pulling up of a fast horse that had been under very rapid way. It might have appeared as if the at mosphere into which she came, so to speak, was heavier and more dense than that from which she had emerged, and that she could not move quite so rapidly through it.

The words uttered to the servant have indicated that this lady was the wife of Charles Holt, and such was the fact. Bearing this important relation to the merchant, and also to two others who have before been sketched in this narration, a word of description of her is unavoidable.

She might have been twenty-eight years of age, to judge by the whole contour of face, figure and carriage, though there were various points in her appearance, each of which would have varied the estimate if taken by itself. Her figure was tall, exquisitely rounded, and even the least in the world inclining to embonpoint, though il had lost nothing of its erectness and gave a very fine impression of the volup tuous pride of Juno. The short sleeves of her evening dress of dark shot silk, left the arm revealed, and gave even moVe opportunity, by its perfect and yet substantial mould, to judge of the outline of the remainder of the figure, than might otherwise have been enjoyed. Her face was some thing fuller than that of her sister Dora, as became her fuller figure, though there were many of the same characteristics in both. The same petulance on the lip, and the same diminu- tiveness of the lower part of the face, though the forehead was not so full, and the coldly intellectual seemed less fully developed. The complexion was (or had been) nearly the

90 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

same, and there was the same dark eye, nearly passing for black, without quite the same natural scorn flashing out from it. The hair was perceptibly darker, though still rather light than dark, and just enough waved to add to the charm of its wonderful luxuriance. Handsomer than Dora, a little darker and fuller in the general effect, and yet —

The fact is, that we must have been describing this woman more as we know her to hare been, than as she was at this juncture. Such variations from strict fidelity have occurred and will occur again. The past shines through the present, in face and form as well as in any other particular that can be grasped by the human mind. The poor lost courtezan met yesterday in a bye-street, did not look so wholly beyond sympathy as she would have done, with her bleared eyes and bloated face, and wrapped in her dirty and faded finery, had we not remembered her under other auspices, many a long year ago. It is doubtful whether the mother ever quite loses the impression that her son is still her " baby boy," with Bunny curls on his brow and the glow of early youth on his cheek, though that son has really grown gray-haired and broken, with crows-feet under the eyes and all the charms of youth passed away, as seen by the eyes of others. And it is certain that the auld-wife, looking into the face of John Anderson her Jo, and crooning that sweetest of all ballads of a love beyond time or change, did not quite see him as he stood beside her then, with his hair thin and white and his limbs tottering downward to their final rest, but as she had seen him in the early days, when 'his hair was brown and curly and he leapt the style with a boyish delight to come to her at the milking.

Thank God that this is so, for it may save us loves that might otherwise pass away before we were quite ready to lose them !

Olympia Holt, (for she bore the Christian name of her mother,) with all the charm of face and form that has been indicated, bore yet something in both that made the heart first sad, then almost filled it with horror. There was an unsteadiness and want of assertion in step and position, contrasted with an evident temper inclined to be even too

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 91

self-reliant, that created the most painful suggestions. She could not be what she was, if all was right — she should have been more or less. Then her hair gave the impression of being a little dishevelled and a good deal uncared for ; and nothing so far takes from the perfection and dignity of a womanly presence. The lip, too, was trembling and unsteady, not softened from its sullenness, but quivering as if with perpetual conflict of what would be said and dared not. Last of all, and yet most significant of all, the eye was wavering and furtive, continually attempting to flash a defiance that faded away in cringing submission, and with a redness in the lids that might have been caused by long weeping and might have been produced by other causes quite as sorrowful.

And now let it be seen what were the relations existing between husband and wife, after eight years had elapsed since the marriage of Charles Holt and Olympia Fullerton ; and perhaps some light, though not all that must come in the future, may be thrown on the mysterious eclipse of this woman. Her husband's first word may do something to hasten the explanation.

" Drunk ?" -Not in such a tone as might have been used if the fact had been thought pitiable, but as if the inquiry had been a mere matter of business, preparatory to another.

" No ! sober enough ! — soberer than I wish I was !" came the reply, jerked out from between lips and teeth only by a violent effort. " But what is that to you ?"

"A great deal," answered the merchant — he still sitting, she still standing, with no invitation to do otherwise. It was evident that she had not sat down with that man, in a long period. "A great deal, because one needs to talk differently with a drunken woman, and with one reasonably sober."

"I am sober enough for you, then, Charles Holt!" was the reply, with defiance, and yet defiance subdued and kept under, in the tone. " Speak on, and get done with it, if you have any thing to say !"

" In my time, not yours," said the merchant. " By the way, I do not see how you could very well be sober, by the jingling of glasses and the pounding of feet, besides the

92 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

drunken shouting, that have been going on up-stairs during the half hour I have been in the house."

" That was my room, I suppose you know it, and you have nothing to do with what goes on inside of it !" was the reply.

"Except," said the merchant-'-" except when you make so much noise there that you disturb me in my room, which is very inconvenient^and cannot be allowed ; and except — " and here he paused, as if he wished 'to think twice before he spoke, or perhaps for the very purpose of exciting her curiosity.

"And what is the other 'except'?"

" Except when there is company in that room, whom I do not choose you shall entertain."

" Indeed !" was the coldly-insulting reply of the wife.

" Yee, indeed !" said the husband, echoing her word, with a corresponding emphasis. " Who are those, up-stairs ?" and his finger pointed towards the ceiling that again the moment before had been echoing with the muffled trample of feet.

" None of your business, I tell you !" came the reply ; but even in the act of saying the words the slavish submission came on the heels of the defiance, and she began to recount the names of half a dozen wealthy but characterless young men about town — such miserable and injurious wine-bibbing drones of society as those who figure, at short intervals, in the disreputable trials that shame our large cities.

" Stop !" said the husband, " I do not care for their names, except one. What I want to know, and what I will know, is

— is there ?" and he mentioned the name of a

well-known man about town, whose handsome face, courtly manners and libertinism have of late years been about equally acknowledged.

"And again I say that it is none of your business !" re peated the wife.

" Woman !" said the merchant, threatening in his tone, now, whatever there might have been before. " I thought you had got over defying me! It is time you had done so, and the quicker the better !"

" What is it to you whether he is there, more than any- other ?" was the question in reply, but with the defiance

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 93

changed to sullen submission once more. " Do you think that he. can disgrace your house, or me?"

" Xo !" answered the merchant. " I have no fear on the pubject. But I will not permit him within this house, and you know it. Have your drunken orgies, according to custom and arrangement," with a terribly significant emphasis on the latter word ; " but if 1 catch him here he will go out of the window, and there will be an expose, I am afraid — that is all !"

" Man !" cried the evidently agonized woman. " I will tell you the truth as to his being here, if you will tell me why you will not permit him to come with the other — wretches."

" I will do it," said the merchant. " As well now as ever. Speak on."

" He is not in this house, and has not been here this week, upon my honor," said the wife.

" Very well," was the answer. " Now I Avil] keep my promise. The reason why I will permit those other people whom you very properly call 'wretches,' to come to this house and enjoy your pleasant society, and why I will not allow you to receive him, — is, that you love him."

« Well—if I did ? if I do?" cried the wife, bitterly. "What then ? You have just said that you have no fear of his dis gracing me or the house : what harm, then, can he do?"

" Xo fear in the world of his disgracing you or the house — that I repeat," said the merchant. " But there are two luxuries, wine and love, and I can only allow you one of them. I buy you the best wines — drink deeply as you please, but you cannot have the other at the same time. That is mine ! So keep that man out of the house — you under stand !"

" Ye£, I understand ! Devil !" said the woman, between her clenched teeth.

" Possibly !" was the cool reply. " But don't call names : H does not pay, with me. Now go up-stairs to your guests, and have it through ! I am going out."

Olympia Holt turned away. What her eyes expressed it is not very easy to say — rage, fear, misery, all so blended that no human analyst could separate them. What was in

94: THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

her heart, none but the All-seeing Eye could pretend to judge. She laid her hand on the door.

" Stop," said the merchant, as he lit another cigar and turned down the light to go out. " You were round in Twenty-third Street yesterday, I understood. Do they want me, there ?"

" Yes — that is — I believe so," answered the wife, her tone changed entirely, and her whole expression seeming like that of abject humiliation.

" Very well — I will see them to-morrow, then. That will do — you may go. No — I forgot to tell you, though perhaps some of your friends have already brought you the intelli gence, that your other friends down in South Carolina have been attacking Fort Suinter and raising the deuce generally. Good-night."

Before the last words were fairly spoken, the degraded wife had left the room, arid, by the time she had rejoined her friends in the room above, the dignified husband had passed out again into the street, where there is no occasion at present to follow him. As we have already seen, on the evening following, that of Sunday, he kept his promise to visit the Fullertons, and his conversation with Dora at the window seemed to have been the legitimate consequence of these closing^words.

The home of the merchant has been explored, and the joy and comfort of the domestic relations existing in the midst of so much splendor faithfully depicted : it is time, now, to join the merchant's clerk as he, too, takes his course up Broad way, towards another home and scene, presenting a marked contrast.

Some indication has been given in a previous chapter, of the feelings of Burtnett Haviland on that Saturday evening, not only when the intelligence of the fall of Sumter was brought to him in the store, but after he had left it on his way up-town. But something more may be said on the sub ject, for he is not only a very prominent character in this narration, but he presents a type of popular feeling at that juncture, not the less worth study because the number of persons sharing in it may have been comparatively few. He

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was very sensitive on national subjects — over-sensitive, as those who knew him best sometimes alleged, and as he him self believed in his calmer moments. The country was to him a mother, quite as dear as any human mother could have been ; and he could not think of any shame or dishonor coming to her, without an indignant grief at the heart, any more than he could have done of the foulest wrong or dis honor falling upon her who had given him birth. Those bitter tears he had shed in the store, had not been by any means the first escaping from his eyes for the same cause ; for during the previous few months he had seen the ruin coming — had BOOH the rebellion gathering head, unchecked — had seen the power of the nation lying dead or dormant — had feared the worst, and doubted whether the end would not be the destruction of the last republic ever inaugurated on earth. More than once his wife had said to him, partially in jest and yet with a good deal of earnestness in her manner, that " she believed that he thought more of the country than he did of her and Pet" ; and while he had gathered both within his arms at that word, he had at the same time answered that " he did not know but he did!"

Walking up Broadway that evening, a little in advance of the merchant, he did not lounge like him. He was not walking, like him, so much for exercise (for he had quite exercise enough in his business hours) or to kill time (for he had no time hanging so heavily on his hands that he needed to perform such a murderous operation upon it) as because the motion of his limbs was a i*elief, just then when his brain was so full of heavy and anxious thought. He, too, saw the articles of show in the windows as he passed, and thought how miserably vain and trifling was humanity, " pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw," at the very moment when the thunders of God's judgment were breaking in the heavens. He wondered how long it might be before national ruin closed those showy windows, or riotous violence laid the fairest monuments of Xew York's commercial prosperity level with the street. lie, too, met a small boy (as did every one who walked Broadway that evening), and bought a red, white and blue rosette, with a silver star in the centre, which

96 T,HE DAYS OF SHODDY.

he pinned to the lappel of his vest ; but he pressed the national colors reverently to his lips as he did so.

Near Canal Street an elderly merchant of his acquaintance, coming down-town on his way to one of the Brooklyn ferries, met and accosted him. He had been heavily in the Southern grocery trade, and during the preceding few weeks passers-by had seen a palmetto-tree standing in his front office, as one more "concession to the South," and a rank insult to every loyal man who passed. His position, therefore, on the national question, was fairly understood.

"Well, Sumter has gone, at last," he said, as he shook hands with the young clerk.

" Yes," answered the latter. " I fancy that they have about filled the cup of their outrages, now."

" Which ?" asked the merchant. Then he added : " But I need not ask. I suppose I know you — you are about as mad as the rest of them."

" Perhaps so," said Haviland. " Perhaps we are all mad ; but if I do not miss a figure, you will see such a spectacle of national indignation in these streets, before many days are over, or even before many hours, as history never recorded."

" What do you mean ?" asked the other, his manner ex pressing any thing but satisfaction at the thought. ,,"Mean? Why, mean that the people will rise, if the government does not call them up !" replied the clerk. (It must be remembered that the proclamation was not published until the next morning.)

" Rise in arms, and to put down the South, here ?" asked the merchant, a very perceptible sneer in his tone.

" Rise in arms, here, not to put down the South, as you call it, but to put down the Southern traitors !" was the reply. "And if they do not, the city of New York deserves to be sunk with Sodom and Gomorrah !"

" Bah ! Mark my words, young man," said the merchant, starting on, " if there is any rising here, and any troops leave this city, four times as many will go to help the South as to fight against it. If you were not very young in comparison with myself, you would know that the interest of the Southern States is the interest of New York, as opposed to that of the

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 97

manufacturing abolition East, and that when the Southern trade all went permanently away, we might as well shut up our doors at once. A rising against the South ? Bah ! But you will think better of it to-morrow morning ! Good night !" and he passed on. downward, while Haviland pur sued his course up Broadway.

Here was more food for sad and serious thought. "Was it indeed true, that the great commercial city was rotten with such sentiments as these ? Were there many merchants, near enough to fools, and inclined enough to be traitors, not to know and assert that the interest of New York lay with the Union and not with any miserable section, however large ? Was this leaven really spread very widely ? Was there to be a "conflict at the North," when every man needed to hold the one great, true, overwhelming patriotic feeling? If so, God help the country, indeed ! But he could not — would not believe it ; and the near sequel showed how much more the gray-haired merchant knew of the temper even of the mercantile community, than the clerk who had not counted more than half his number of years !

Haviland saw the bill-boards of the theatres as he went by,* and read the announcements on them, very much as one studies the architectural details of the inside of a church when attending the funeral of a dear friend within it. He knew that an hour later, when the doors should open and the lights and the music beckon, hundreds would flock in, and mimic love and agony — perhaps mimic war, be repre sented, the latter by mighty armies of four or six, while such a struggle as the world never saw was gathering over the land. He would himself just as soon have gone out from the

* It may be a matter of interest, at no distant day, to know what were the performances at the New York theatres when Anderson was defending Sum- ter and the civil war beginning. Forrest was pluj'ing Virginua, at Niblo's; Laura Keene was running the '• Seven Sisters;" Edwin Booth was playing Shyluck, nnd Charles Dillon Be/pJieyor, at the Winter Garden'; Wallaek was running Wilkins' successful play, " Henriette ;" Fox was doing "Mother GOOSA" and Robt. Johnston the "Bag Picker," at the New Bowery ; and Spalding's and Rogers' Circus was at the Old. " Un Ballo in Maschera" and " Moses in Egypt" were the features at the Academy of Music, then just closing its season.

6

98 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

funeral of all he loved best in the world, and stepped into theatre or ball-roonx, as to have done so on that evening ; and hud he been able to judge the future and read the hearts of others, he would have known that many thought like him self, and that the box-books of the theatres then and for many a long day after would show the effects of the national discouragement.

At Astor Place the young man crossed to Third Avenue and took a car upward. Thereafter, for half au hour or less, he too was eclipsed and crushed in the stifled atmosphere of a car, and smothered beneath dresses and bundles, as his em ployer was in the Fifth Avenue stage at about the same period. The eclipse came to a conclusion, however, as in the other case, and the young wlerk emerged from the obscurity to the light of his home on East Forty-eighth Street, between the Second and Third Avenues.

A neat little brown-stone house it was that he approached, a link between the palatial residences of the same material on the more fashionable streets and avenues, and the humbler houses of brick in which men of moderate salaries and small expectations are generally content to find a home. A neat little brown-stone house — and yet more costly than the clerk could have afforded to occupy, had he and his peaceable little family not been willing to submit to that " dividing" of a house which is especially anathematized with a very different meaning to the word, in Scripture. In other phrase, Burtnett Havilaud only rented half a house — a most humiliating admission to make in his behalf, and one that is accordingly made with the due proportion of fear and trembling. There have been romances written, setting forth almost every other description of living, than this; but this is unquestionably a novel feature, to be admitted when all the rest of the book is proved to have been stolen from Alexandre Dumas, Dickens, Balzac, Bulwer, Fenniiuore Cooper, Simms, and even perhaps Cobb and Ned Buntline. Particular shaped houses have been made the habitations of heroes and heroines, from Hawthorne's " House of the Seven Gables" to the " Semi- Detached House" of some English noodle who thought that the success of the former lav in the architecture of the build-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 99

ing instead of the brains of the writer ; and there is no knowing whether some second-hand imitator did not go still further down and write of the " House with the Mahogany Balusters" or the " Castle with the Big Crack over the Door." Then we have had plenty of stories located in houses where families lived alone, and not a few in tenement- houses where the floors numbered seven, with six families of nine children each on every floor. But we have had none showing the abodes of the really "middle classes," who hover between wealth and poverty — between partial want and comparative luxury ; and so let this story be known, if no better distinguishing title can be found for it, by the name of the " Story of a Man Who Only Occupied Half A House."

Burtnett Haviland had been married four whole years, and yet his wife had never quite forgotten the days gone by, when he came to visit her in her mother's little cottage in the country, and when she used to watch for him from the door and meet him at the gate. There were no roses or climbing honey-suckles in the scant front yard of the little house on East Forty-eighth Street, and so some of the conditions of romance were wanting ; but the heart could supply, it appeared, all that nature denied, and the young wife had the unfashionable habit, when she knew the time at which she might expect her husband's return, if her domestic avocations allowed, of stepping down to the door and waiting to give him welcome, albeit the important mistress of the family who occupied the lower half of the house (alas ! — another confession must be made, and the Haviland family only occu pied the upper, and cheaper !) — albeit that important lady had more than once suggested that the front stoop belonged exclusively to the lower occupants, and that people who lived above had no business upon it any longer than might be necessary to pass in and out ! Spite of all this, Mary Haviland had a habit of coming down to meet her husband when she could guess at the time of his return ; and though it was a little late on this evening, the dusk fairly fallen and the gas lighted in the street, she stood on the upper step of the stoop, the full glare of one of the street lamps falling upon

100 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

her pleasant face and neat figure, and showing that gladness in her eyes at the husband's approach, which can neither be disguised nor simulated.

A pleasant picture indeed was Mary Havilaud, with her blonde hair swept plainly back from her Madonna forehead ; her brown eyes radiant with the pure love-light which belongs especially to the mistress of a happy home when standing on her own door-stone ; her well-cut and almost purely Grecian features, with the lips budding, the cheeks a little flushed and the chin dotted with a cunning little dimple ; and her cheap but neat wrapper of dark small figured delaine revealing a figure a little below the middle height and yet erect, full moulded, and giving evidence of the most robust health. A close view, it may be thought, to be caught beneath the doubtful lamp-light from the street ; and if so, let it be sup posed that a part of it was caught a few moments after, in the broader light which fell on the supper-table.

A clasping of the hand, a kiss and a gentle word of greet ing, then a reminder from the wife that supper had been some time waiting ; and the married pair, a pair indeed, entered the hall, closed the door and passed up the stairway to the floor above. With the exception of two sleeping- apartments on the third floor, the whole space occupied by the Havilands was upon that they had just reached ; and through the open door leading into the rear apartment showed a neat little supper-table with their single female servant sitting beside it, and a plated tea-pot pouring out fragrant steam from the top of a small range set in front of the closed grate. The door of the front apartment was also open, as if every thing had been thrown wide to admit the coming husband ; and a diminutive chandelier of only two branches, dependent from the ceiling, threw a pleasant light from a single burner, on a carpet of that peculiar wood color known as " English oak" ; tables, a mirror and a small sofa in walnut ; a few framed engravings of excellent quality on the satin-papered walls (no less than two Washingtons among them — one a copy of the great head by Stuart and the other a proof of Barley's fine equestrian figure) ; a small book case, with a fair representation of current literature ; small

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photographs of husband and wife, and a larger one of " Pet," over the mantel ; and a cylinder stove standing brightly polished but guiltless of fire, under it. Opening out of this room, and also into the hall, was the small bed-room which formed the inner penetralia of the happy household, where the little girl of three years already lay in childish sleep, in her diminutive crib, where husband and wife would erewhile repose — for, alas ! — how long ?

The eyes of love are very keen — too keen, as we some times think when there is a momentary grief to be hidden or a less creditable cause of embarrassment to be dissembled. There had been no want of warmth or gladness on the part of her husband as he met her at the door and accompanied her up to the little parlor ; yet Mary Haviland saw, intuitively, that his mind was not quite at ease, that his hand trembled a little with nervousness, and that his eye was sad and troubled. The fact was, it may be supposed, that to the man who felt himself self-doomed to temporary if not eternal earthly sepa ration from those whom he loved so dearly, the very sight of wife and home had brought a more marked agitation — no fal tering in purpose, but a still more bitter consciousness of what the resolution involved.

"And what is it, Burtey ?" at length asked the wife, as the domestic was placing the tea-service on the table, in the other room. She used the diminutive as a term of endear ment — a very common and very effective practice with those little women, — and assuming the existence of trouble with out even asking the preliminary question. She locked her hand in his arm at the same moment, and looked up into his face with such trust and confidence as should have made him, and no doubt did make him for the one instant during which he forgot the coming weight of his cross, the happiest fellow in the world.

" What is what, little one ?" he answered, with an evasion seldom practised by either member of that domestic partner ship.

" Your trouble — you have one — don't tease me, or I shall pinch you 1" and she laid her fingers on his coat sleeve as if she really intended to carry out the dangerous threat.

102 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

" Don't p'nch, or I shall have you taken up for assault and battery ! Trouble ? No, I think not 1 Shall we go to sup per ?" So answered the husband. (It will be noticed that the merchant dined and his clerk supped, at about the same hour — strange difference in the habits of two men in the same line of employment, and two men whose digestive organs may be supposed to have been very nearly similar !)

"Not a step until you have told me what is the matter," said the wife. " There is trouble, I know it ! You are not sick ? — no, I know that. Have you lost something — been worried ? insulted ? Has any thing happened in your busi ness ?"

" Torment ! I meant at least to have my supper in peace, but I suppose that I cannot !" said the husband, in a tone that he endeavored to make as cheerful as possible, but that somehow had earnest and deep feeling in it. "Yes, we have all been insulted — we have all lost something ! Come to the table, and I will tell you."

They passed together through the narrow passage, flanked with a clothes-closet on the one hand and a range of standing drawers and shelves reaching to the ceiling on the other, that led to the other room ; and while the servant-girl handed 'the crisp brown toast and Mary Haviland poured out the aro matic tea, the husband told in a few words the story of Sum- ter, which seems destined never to come to an end with the allusions made to it in these pages.

" Can this be possible ? oh, dear ! oh, dear !" said the little woman, who, herself naturally proud and patriotic to some extent, had been influenced by the conversation and manner of her husband during the preceding months of trouble and anxiety, until she had become nearly as great an enthusiast as he in all matters that touched the honor and welfare of the nation.

" This is all possible — this has all happened !" answered the husband, (though it must be unromantically confessed that his mouth was partially full of toast at the moment, his utter ance not being improved thereby).

"And what is to be the end of it all ?" asked the wife, who

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naturally felt that the national troubles could neither end nor stand still, just here.

" War — long, bloody and desolating war !" said the hus band, no toast in his mouth now, his voice sinking very low, and his eyes looking out from beneath his bent brows at the little woman seated on the other side of the table.

If there was earnestness and anxiety in that glance, the same qualities were shown in that which was returned, for Mary Haviland nearly dropped the tea-cup which she was about to re-fill, her face perceptibly paled for the moment and her whole manner seemed agitated. The wife understood all that must come upon herself, in that single short sentence. She knew her husband to be brave, physically as well as morally. She knew him to have a high sense of personal duty in all relations. She knew how he despised the sender who should have been the goer, in any line of action. She knew how deep and abiding was the anxiety for the nation which lay upon his heart — an anxiety which had not alone manifested itself in their hours of conversation by day, but sometimes broken out from his lips in the words of troubled dreams when he lay beside her at night. He had said, with that peculiar glance, that there must be bloody and desolating war, and he had said in that glance and in the tone of his utterance, that he must form a part of that bloody pageant whenever it should be arrayed. She believed him, as she might have done one of the archangels of heaven'; and from that moment she knew that the unbroken companionship of the last four years was soon to be no more for a time and might be no more forever !

And yet no shrinking — no ! Sadness and sorrow, deep in the heart, but no shrinking ; and even the sorrow so shut down that it should not have power to issue from the lips. Some of those little women have a power of being heroines without fuss, lamentably denied to us of the sterner and stormier sex ; and Mary Haviland, who had been fluttered and nervous the moment before, now that she knew the worst, shook off the agitation and looked her own calm self again, almost smiling, as she said :

" I understand you, Burtey ! You know best ! What a

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terrible tea-drinker you are, when you finish two cups and ask for the third before I have finished even one !"

Little Pet, who had heard Papa's voice even in her first nap, rushed out in her night-clothes at this juncture, her brown - eyes half shut and blinded by the light, and her curly hair all damp and tumbled. Then she had to be taken up and kissed, and before her presence even the omens of war and domestic separation faded away, to come back again when the house grew still and Burtnett Haviland, encircled by the fond arms that might soon be exchanged for a more bony pressure, "talked in his sleep."

CHAPTER V.

A SHORT CHAPTER AND A DULL ONE — ALL HISTORY AND NO ROMANCE — THE RISING OF THE PEOPLE — STATISTICS AND INCIDENTS OF FLAG-RAISING — ROSETTES, PATRIOTIC CARTS AND " UNION" PUBLIC HOUSES — MOVEMENTS AND EVENTS

AFTER SlJMTER THE PRESIDENT'S PROCLAMATION DANGER

OF THE CAPITAL AND BALTIMORE — MILITARY PREPARATIONS IN THE GREAT CITY.

THEN came the rising of the people.

History has no more glorious spectacle than that which followed the fall of Sumter and the issue of the President's Proclamation calling for troops to assert the honor and dignity of the nation. Xo such rebellion had ever been known, in the magnitude of its preparations or the guilt of its object; and no such rising had ever been seen, in the number of men in volved in it or the sacreduess of the cause for which they were preparing to combat. The sight may have been a glo rious and a stirring one, when the New York Liberty Boy ran out of his workshop, with his grimed hands and sooty face, to take part against the murderous action of the British soldiery at Goldeu Hill, — or when the Massachusetts farmer

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 105

left his plough standing in the furrow and the oxen to be un yoked by other hands, as he rushed home to grasp the mus ket and make himself a deadly thorn in the side of the red coats who had massacred his brothers at Lexington. But the men of the Revolution were the men of rougher and hardier times, scarcely emerged, yet, from the perils of the old French war, and surrounded still by savages for whom the fire-lock was kept ever loaded in the house and the hand ever trained to wield the weapon. The men called to combat this rebel lion were the men of peace — the men of work and of trade, bred in an age when luxury had surrounded them with an imperceptible but all-powerful net to fetter their limbs, — un accustomed to war, incredulous that such a calamity could fall upon them, and as unprepared as men could be, in every regard, for the summons to such a trial.

It may be said again — history has no more glorious specta cle than this rising. Southern traitors had considered such a thing a sheer impossibility, and made the want of warlike spirit in the North one of the bases of their evil calculations, even if they did not expect active aid in their own behalf. Quasi-traitors at the North (like him of the palmetto-tree and the well-bred sneer of age and experience, noticed in the last chapter) had formed the same opinion, extending even to the supposition of New York casting in her lot with South Caro lina, as opposed to Pennsylvania and the Eastern States. The truest lovers of their country had held little or no hope of such a demonstration as would dishearten rebellion and teach the world a needed lesson. William Howard Russell, L L.D., new in his appointment as American special correspondent of the London Times, had passed through New York and writ ten to his journal that the whole nation was lying in apathy from which it could not be aroused, caring for nothing but eating and drinking, rioting and making love — an essentially un military nation, from which nothing energetic could be hoped or expected. Such had been the omens and the ex pectations: what was the glorious reality!

Saturday evening and night, as has been seen, were a period of wild anger and sorrow — indignation and de termination as yet blind and uushapen. Sunday was a day

106 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

of flag-raising, to an extent unparalleled in the history of that sacred day. The glorious omen of the apotheosis of the flag has before been mentioned, but something more may be said of its generality, as part of the history of the time. Monday, with the coming of the President's proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand troops, brought a marked increase in the number of flags floating from every mast and steeple, draped over every door and drooping from every roof and cornice. The costliest residences on the avenues vied with the places of trade and the public buildings in throwing out the national banner. The stocks of manufactured flags in the stores soon began to be exhausted, and the prices doubled and trebled without any abatement in the demand. Soon the stock of silks, buntings and other ordinary flag- materials began to run low : then flannels and muslins of the proper colors came into requisition. Every liberty-pole flaunted its flag, and hundreds of poles were raised, both in city and country, where they had never stood before, even in the hottest political contests. The public building that had been inadvertently left without a flag-staff when erected, suddenly found such an appendage not only proper but in dispensable. The man who could manage to procure a flag and did not do it, stood in danger of insult at least. The proprietor of any public place who neglected to throw out the ensign, was looked upon with distrust : if he refused, he was indebted to public forbearance and not to public respect, for freedom from serious injury — a freedom which he did not always preserve until the close of the excitement. In some instances, where buildings were occupied by people of oppo site sentiments, the openly loyal took the precaution to hang out the flag with letters appended announcing which of the varying interests made that concession to individual feeling or the public voice.* At one time the leading streets of New York City were so festooned with flags as scarcely to leave

* A notable example of this was shown at one of the public buildings in New York City. One of the daily newspapers, which occupied the lower part of the building, and the loyalty of which was very seriously doubted, re fused to throw out the flag; and one of the departments of the City Govern ment, occupying the upper stories, took care that the flag they flung out should designate where it belonged.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 107

the mercantile signs visible ; and the flap .of bunting was so general as to keep the eyes of the passer-by in a continual quiver of movement. A careful statician, whose fancy for numbers would probably have led him to count the number of heart-beats consumed in the duration of its dearest joy, made the estimate, from personal observation, that the num ber of flags of all descriptions visible on Broadway, from the Battery to Union Square, on one of the hottest days of the ex citement, was not less than six thousand, and that from ten to fifteen thousand were at the same time waving, flapping and hanging in all the other different streets and avenues of the city.

Anotbej display in which the public feeling broke out, was in Union rosettes, stars, breast-pins, and other trifles of per sonal adornment. The rosette-fever, particularly, began early and spread beyond computation. Commencing with the very evening of Sumter (as we have seen) the wearing of those emblems of fealty to the Union grew more general day by day, until within a week after the fall of that fort, the man who did not display something of the kind on his breast or at his lappel, was very likely to have his loyalty seriously suspected. Ladies, too, assumed those emblems, quite as eagerly, though not with the same generality, as their hus bands, brothers, and lovers ; and among the most grateful services that could be rendered by fair hands was the weaving of one of those "favors," to be worn not in honor of herself, but her country. (What would not some of us be willing to pay, now, had we preserved some of those stars, rosettes, and other emblems of universal loyalty, then so common as to appear unworthy of hoarding, but long since passed into the hands of the children as playthings, and already so gen erally lost that scarcely one can be found even in a museum or a private collection !)

Another phase of loyalty (the reserved force of which a dry joker might have designated as the re-publican) was shewn in the signs of the public houses, especially those of moderate class and character. Here and there, in city and country, there had been a " Union Hotel," as there had been a "United States" or a " Washington." But within a day

108 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

or two after Sumter the number began to increase to an un heard-of extent ; and in the cities, especially, scarcely a block existed without at least one place of public resort designated as the "Union." Clothing, shoe, hardware, and even thread-and-needle stores followed ; and the same care ful numerist to whom allusion has before been made, com puted that within a week after the great outrage, no less than twelve hundred stores, saloons, and other places depending upon the public patronage, could have been found, in the city of Xew York alone, bearing that word which had suddenly become so endeared. A trifling circumstance, as some may hold, and one not worth recording; but it may not be con sidered a trifle, as indicating the general feeling, wjjen it is re membered that each of those assuming it was acting to secure additional popularity, and that each, consequently, was ful filling what he held to be the public requirement. It may have been even a more trifling thing, when the cartman, not satisfied with the rosette on his breast and the flags he had stuck into the bridle of his horse, came down-town one morn ing with the same magic word, " Union," scrawled in hasty paint on the front-board of his cart,' — and when another, the proprietor of a new spring- cart with permanent sides, dis played it to astonished Broad Street with the whole vehicle striped red, white and blue, from shaft to end-board ; but these, like the others, were glorious " straws," showing the blowing and direction of the national " wind," and in the days to come they may become part of the history of this sensation period. The whole country was rising, as the people of no land ever rose before ; and the flags and emblems that have here been recounted were but the surface indications of the sterling ore of patriotism that lay beneath. And for what was the rising ? For a political polity or a party platform ? No ! Let not this fact go down to history distorted, many as have already been the attempts to falsify it. Xor was the rising even for revenge upon the traitors of the rebel States, bit terly as burned the sense of degradation in the breasts of loyal men, at the outrage which had been committed on the American Flag. It was not even for this that such men as Burtnett Haviland groaned most deeply in the night hours,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 109

when the horror and misery of a coming war loomed up to them ; and it was not even for this that they were so willing to risk all that they had before held most dear, in the camp and in the field. It was for the Union — the very word blazoned on the front of the drayman's cart. They believed their government to be the freest and best on earth — they believed that it had done nothing to forfeit their respect or their allegiance — they saw it in danger and knew that it must fall, unless their hands supported it. For this they raised flags and wore the national colors — for this they rose, held public meetings, denounced treason, prepared to fight. For this — nothing less and nothing more, — they have fought throughout the war, — except a fanatic few, on either extreme, a mere fragment, incapable of making one hair white or black on the national head, but for their fatal power to hinder and embarrass others. The day was when that fanatic few scoffed every man who dared be a conservative lover of his country, with the slighting and sneering epithet of " doughface," or the still more contemptible cry of "Union saver;" but it remains to be seen whether the great lesson has not already been laid to heart even by them, and the tried, steadfast, devoted lovers of the Union, first, last and all the time, begun to be reckoned at their true worth in the national exchange 1 History, not this romance, must deal with the particulars of the great national events and developments which followed Sumter closely. The President's call for seventy-five thou sand troops, on Monday, the 15th of April ; the certainty that loyalty could not recede, that treason would not, and that war was actually inaugurated ; the coming home of Anderson and his brave men from Sumter; the sad knowledge that to carry on the great struggle by sea, the nation had only twenty- four antiquated vessels, carrying three hundred and eighty guns, and by land the skeleton of an army of less than ten thousand men ; the popular gatherings which raised and voted moneys so liberally for the public defence, and which, ap proaching even the mob spirit, compelled the throwing out of reluctant flags and the sudden somersaults of men and newspapers before considered disloyal ; the issuing by Fer-

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nando Wood, Mayor of New York, of a proclamation calling upon all good citizens to "stand by the Union and the Con stitution," written perhaps with the same pen with which he had only a few days before assured the Governor of Georgia that he was in favor of the continued shipment of arms to the seceded States ; the peril that was known to be gathering around Baltimore and Washington — around Harper's Ferry Armory and the Norfolk Navy Yard ; — these and a hundred other details, otherwise of interest, can only be indicated — • not related. Enough to say, once more, that the country was alive — awake — earnest — determined ; springing boldly for ward to the contest, however the image of a big man being stealthily robbed of his weapons and having his hands tied, from behind, at the same moment that a smaller but full-armed antagonist was approaching him in front, would intrude itself upon minds fond of drawing singular comparisons.

It is perhaps best for us, often, that we do not realize the whole truth of any situation at once, but come to the under standing by degrees. There have been many lamentations vented, first and last, over the want of conception of the magnitude of the great contest, at first so conspicuously displayed, and the prophecies of the rebellion being " ended in three months," that fell from prominent lips. This may have been all providential : the country was enough alarmed with what it saw, to be aroused and inspirited ; had it seen all, it might have grown terrified and faltered at the very moment when hesitation would have been absolute ruin. One moment of vacillation, and no future time could have regained the ground thus surrendered to rebellion and anarchy. Enough to say, once more, lhat what it saw it sprung to meet, as no nation ever before rose — as no nation will probably ever find at once necessity and spirit to rise again — young and old, rich and poor, male and female, giving heart, voice, action, wealth, to the national cause.

Nor was the essential military point, that of the enlistment of soldiers themselves, without which all the other prepara tions could only have been a melancholy pretence, — at all wanting at this juncture ; and to that point a few more words must be devoted. State militia and citizens who had never

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. Ill

worn a sword or carried a gun, competed with each other in the readiness with which existing organizations were prepared for temporary service and new ones formed for " two years or the war'1 — the two years being then the longest supposa- ble limit for which the struggle could continue. All the loyal States responded nobly to the call of the President, and readily as nobly. Some of the Pennsylvania troops, ordered to rendezvous at I[arrisburgh, reached that city even in ad vance of the order coming to them, affording to Pennsylvania the honor of furnishing the first soldiers (several companies of the Twenty-fifth) who entered the national Capital for its defence. Four Massachusetts regiments, ordered on the afternoon of Monday to report at Boston, began arriving there on Tuesday before nine o'clock in the morning, and more than fifteen hundred men were at the rendezvous before noon — an instance of celerity in gathering for warlike pur poses, not often paralleled and never surpassed.

New York, the conservative and commercial city, upon the friendship or supineniss of which the Southern leaders had largely calculated for the early success of the rebellion, — nobly gave the lie to all the base hopes which had been formed of it, as did the State of which it formed so important a part. It seemed to grow into a great military recruiting centre and place of warlike preparation, as it had been only the week before the great centre of commercial enterprize and all the arts of peace. Not many hours elapsed after the President's call, before the hindrances in the way of enlisting melted away and the difficulty seemed to rest with those who prepared to stay at home. It is of course impossible, at this dis tance of time, to specify the order in which the different regi ments of the New York State militia, located in and near the great city, made their tenders of service to the Government. Enough that all, not hopelessly out of service on account of defective drill and thinned ranks, sprang forward with the same alacrity. The tender of the Seventh, Col. Lefferts, the pet regiment, will always be peculiarly remarked, because they offered themselves with full ranks and in readiness to march within twenty-four hours, (though only for the limited period of thirty days), while others of the regiments, equally

112 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

patriotic and equally anxious, needed at least a little time for preparation for longer service, dole upon the heels of the Seventh came the Seventy-first, Col. Vosburgh ; the Sev enty-ninth, Col. McLeay; the Sixth, Col. Pinckney; the Fifty-fifth, Col. Le Gal ; the Sixty-ninth, Col. Corcoran ; the Twelfth, Col. Butterfield ; the Eighth, Col. Lyons ; the Second, Col. Tompkins ; the Fifth, Col. Schwarzwaelder ; the Thirteenth, Seventeenth, and Fourteenth, of Brooklyn, Cols. Abel Smith, Graham and Wood, and perhaps others that escape hasty recollection. Of these the Fourteenth and Seventy-ninth took two-years service, the others enlisting for the three months of the existing crisis.

Volunteer organizations for the war sprung up with incredi ble rapidity, and their ranks filled with astonishing speed. The appellations of almost all those organizations are now historic, as some of their brave men have fallen upon almost every battle-field o£ the great struggle ; and the names of Duryea's Fifth Zouaves, or " Advance Guard," — of Hawkins' Ninth Zouaves, of McChesney's (afterwards %Bendix's) Tenth, or " National Zouaves,"— of Col. Stiles' Ninth N. Y. S. M., that afterwards enlisted for the full term of service, — and of fifty or an hundred regiments out of the nearly two hundred that have first or last borne the honor of the Empire State in their keeping, — are too familiar in the memories of readers of the current history of the war, to, make their recapitula tion necessary in a relation of this character. Some of these have long since come home with thinned ranks, torn banners and heads wreathed with the very halo of glory ; others have fallen under misfortune or been sacrificed by incapacity, and are known no more in the army they once adorned ; still others are yet fighting the great battle,* under different com mand from that in which they first breasted the iron storm, and with different comrades at their sides, but with the same old purpose animating their hearts. It is only with men and events embraced in the three-months' service, and with one corps that should have had a longer existence than envious fortune vouchsafed it, — that we are obliged more peculiarly to deal.

* September, 1863.

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That single corps, enlisted for a much longer period than it remained in existence, and embracing material which should have made it a splendid success instead of a signal failure, was the First Regiment New York Fire Zouaves, organized by an officer whose abilities seemed to be entirely wasted upon it, and whose fate was even sadder than its own. And the tie which binds this narration more closely to Ellsworth's Zouaves than to any other corps that took part in the early movements of the war, is the fact that one of the most im portant characters embodied in it, cast his lot with that regiment of citizen soldiers, for reasons and under circum stances which will be soon hereafter explained.

CHAPTER YI.

SUNDAY MORNING AT THE HAVILANDS' — A DOMESTIC SCENE — THE HUSBAND'S PATRIOTIC RESOLUTION — THE PICTURE OF VALLEY FORGE — THE WIPE'S NOBLE BUT DANGEROUS RE SPONSE — SOUTHERN AND NORTHERN WOMEN DURING THE WAR — THE STORY OF SARAH SANDERSON — BURTNETT HAV- ILAND'S UNKNOWN TEMPTATION — CHURCH-GOING AND SATI NETS, AFTER SUMTER.

THAT was a strange, sad Sunday which dawned upon the little household of Burtnett Haviland in East Forty-eighth Street, albeit the sun shone brightly, and all the appearances of nature were in harmony with the advancing season. Poor Mary Haviland, standing on the verge of her first great sorrow, had borne as heavy a weight on her heart through the night, as the husband whose coming absence she mourned ; and if no moan arose from her lips during that troubled slumber which preceded the dawn, while the hardier and stronger man was wrestling with fate in his sleep, it was bodily habit and not absence of tortured feeling which gave the restraint Half asleep and half awake, as the morning 7

1 14 THE DAYS OF S II O 1) 1) V.

broke, she dreamed that her husband was gone — that a huge black figure, whose features she could not see for a dense, dark veil, but which seemed to have a hand nearly as- large as a human body, had snatched him away from her, in spite of her outstretched arms and her piteous entreaties, and dashed him down a precipice that she could riot even fathom with her eyes. She rushed towards the verge to follow bun — then shuddered and drew back in moi'tal fear — then juvoke with a sharp scream, which broke other slumbers than her own. Little Pet (who was seldom designated by any other appellation, though she bore the sweet name of Louise) had been fighting sleep with her tiny fists and rounded arms for at least half an hour, trying unavailingly to open her eyes, and bruising her diminutive nose in her pugilistic operations, when the waking cry of her mother completed ,the exorcism of the spirit of slumber. One bound out of her little crib, and a pair of chubby legs were flying over the side of the bed, with the white clothing wofully deranged, and the two parents nearly pulling her apart in a playful squabble for the first kiss of the little brown-curled darling.

" I fight 'oo !" said the spoiled little beauty, doing honor to the bad instructions of Sarah, (the servant-girl,) or some of their visitors, taking the part of her mother in the contest, doubling her ponderous fists and squaring away at her father from the pillow.

The father laughed, as we almost always laugh at a certain proportion of the Amazon in the softer sex, whether they be three years old or several times that age. But Mary Havi- land did not laugh. Something in the child's words had jarred her already over-wrought feelings. Though uttered in play and in perfect unconsciousness, why must that word " fight" have come between herself and her husband, at that moment of all the moments in their lives ? The husband saw the shadow on her face, and understood it but too well.

" There, Pet, take this bunch of keys," reaching over to his pocket and getting them at the same time, " get into your little bed again and play with them until mamma gets up." Then to his wife, as the little one slid away and tumbled ajjain into the crib to enjoy her new possession of jingling

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iron and brass : " What is it, little woman ? And what did you scream about, a little while ago ?"

" You know, Burtey !" answered the wife, nestling close to him and laying her head on his breast. " You know, for I heard you talking in your sleep more than twenty times during the night. You have been thinking that we were to be separated, and so have I. But, oh, Burtey, I hope you have not been dreaming as I have done ! Did I wake up with a scream ? Well, it is no wonder, for I dreamed that I saw a great black hand catch you — that I screamed and tried to hold you back — but that it dashed you over a deep, dark gulf; and I was thinking of throwing myself over after you, and _yet afraid to do it, when I woke — screaming, I suppose."

" Poor little wife ! Rough dreams indeed !" said the hus band. "But you see no black hand has thrown ine over the precipice, in reality. So your dream is false and there is nothing to scream about."

"Nothing y?.t!" answered the wife. "But the future, Burtey — the dark, sad future !"

" Mary," said the husband, very gravely and yet very tenderly, caressing the head that nestled near him the while. " You .understood me last night, I know. I saw that you did, and tried not to spoil your night's rest by saying more. There will be — there must be — a call for troops. I do not know when it may come, but it should come at once. That call must be met, and met the very moment that it is given. The response must come from the people. If the land is to be saved, it must be saved by those who have hearts to know and feel its peril, and who have joys and comforts that they can resign in its behalf. Nothing less than such a sacrifice can be accepted by the God of Nations. I know and feel it. The rich who can buy commissions and play soldier — the very poor who have nothing to leave and are -bettered rather than worsted by going into a soldier's life — neither of these have any thing to sacrifice ; and they will be Cains, not Abels, in the dark day. It is such as myself, who have every thing to lose and nothing to gain by fighting for the country/who must save the land or it will perish."

The beautiful eyes of his young wife looked up at him as

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he lay. There were tears in them, but there was no dissent from the words he was saying, and the head even sadly nod ded its acquiescence.

"Stop," said the husband. " Little woman, you always will insist upon lying in the front of the bed, out of some nonsensical excuse about 'seeing to Pet.' Now pay for it. (Jet up, that is a good soul, and bring me that red-covered History of the Revolution from the top-shelf of the book-case in the other room."

Mary Haviland had never yet learned the peculiar horror which belongs to the nineteenth century, against that phrase in the marriage-service which speaks of a Avife "obeying'' her husband. She rather enjoyed, than otherwise, a requirement from his lips which she could properly fulfil, with the pleasant feeling it brought that she was adding a little to the obligation under which ho rested to treat her kindly and love her dearlv. She was not strong-minded, and the necessity of apologizing for her in this place is submitted to as well as acknowledged. The conversation of a few friends of the proper cerulean hue, or a little experience at those notable conventions in which it is demonstrated that maternity has somehow been transferred to the opposite sex from that for which it was originally in tended, — might have made her wiser, given her a proper idea of her own dignity as a wife — enabled her to accept all the kind offices which her husband chose to tender her, without doing any in return — and kept her from the gross impropriety which she committed on this occasion. Not knowing any better, Mary Haviland actually obeyed her husband when he asked her for the book ! Her little bare white feet went pat ting on the carpet, and her white night deshabille fluttered lovingly round the dainty limbs that it somewhat saucily ex posed, as she ran out into the parlor, procured the red-covered volume that he desired, and tripped back again into the bed room. There she flung the book at him, with a ferocity which might have damaged some unfortunate fly happening between it and her husband's body ; crept back into bed (it was Sun day morning, early, and no time at which either needed to use remarkable diligence) ; nestled a little closer than before, beside him, on account of the chill of her short excursion ; and pre-

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pared to listen to what the red-covered book might have to say on the duties which men owed to their country in all ages, and those which they paid without a murmur in those first times of the free Land of the West which "tried men's souls." It was only a picture to which he was about to call her attention — only a picture at which she glanced as the rising sunshine peeped in at the blinds. Only a picture, and yet it told more than volumes of words could have done, of the patriot duty of that time, seen in the light of days gone by. The scene was evidently Valley Forge in that terrible winter of 1778, which has since made so many hearts bleed even as the feet of the poor soldiers of liberty were then bleeding. A winter of deep snows and piercing winds, with the Ameri can army well-nigh discouraged, sore present privations added to past defeat, and only the presence of the master mind and the master hand sufficient to prevent total despondency. A miserable hut stood in the foreground, its roof half disman tled, its clapboards broken, its chimney gone, and a wreath of thin smoke creeping out from between the shivered shingles of the roof, to denote that some poor apology for a fire was burning within. Night was coming, as denoted by the sun setting behind masses of cold, heavy clouds. The snow lay thick upon the ground, showing tracks of men and horses hither and thither, — almost covering a fence to the right, to show the depth to which it had fallen. Behind lay the dark, sombre woods, the position of the branches of the nearest trees indicating that they were writhing and groaning in a fierce winter wind. By the door of the hut stood the Father of his Country, pale, sorrowful but determined, and his hat removed in evident deference to the condition of those before him. Two soldiers were just shouldering their muskets to go upon guard, as could be seen by the gesture of the General, pointing up a bleak hill to the left. Arid oh, what figures for a guard, ou a sharp winter night ! One had the cocked hat of the continental service, with the side broken and the hair coming out at the crown ; the other wore what remained of an officer's chapeau, all bruised and battered and the ends drawn to the head with loops of twine. Both were in tatters, at elbows, knees, and the bottoms of their fraved and worn

118 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

trousers — a very mockery of clothing, for the bitter weather that surrounded them. One wore two boots, the one nearly perfect but the other with the end entirely gone and the bared toes kissing the snow. The second, one shoe, dilapidated and lashed at the ancle with thick strings, arid the other foot only covered with a coarse cloth that seemed to have been tied around it in the same manner. Behind the two was an or derly, apparently in attendance on the General — but little bet ter clothed than his companions, and his thin face and sunken eyes showing the sad effects of cold and privation, while his attitude was so palpably shivering that the gazer could uot well look upon it without experiencing a similar feeling. A most cheerless and melancholy picture, and yet one that had been executed by a powerful hand, and bearing the very im press of the time treated of. It must have been a cold and unpatriotic eye that could look upon the scene unmoved, and no such eye was gazing upon it on that Sunday morning. The husband, who had studied it often and never without a painful swelling in the throat, turned his gaze upon his wife when she had been regarding it for several minutes in silence, and saw that there were tears trembling on her eye-lids. Far down through the years, more than three quarters of a century after the suffering of Valley Forge had been endured, one of the patriotic women of America was paying a weeping tribute to the bravery and devotion of her forefathers ; and the hus band was sadly content with what he saw.

"This," he said, "is what the men of the Revolution en dured. I have looked at this picture often during the past year, when men have been loud in their professions of devo tion to the country, and I have wondered how many could have endured Valley Forge. I wonder, now, how many can go through one tithe of the same suffering. But thousands must do so, or we have no country. There must be lonely homes, widowed wives, orphaned children, or we must sink down to be a scoff and a bye-word among nations. I ask you, Mary, if I have a right to hold my home, my comfort and even my life, so dear as to shrink back from the trial ?"

For a moment Mary Haviland did not answer. Her heart was quite as full as her eyes ; for the picture, while speaking

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of duty, had at the same time spoken of the inevitable hard ships of the soldier's life, and it was something terrible to feel that her arms were to be exchanged for the cold bed of the bivouac and perhaps for the still colder embrace of death. Fur the instant her husband believed that she faltered ; and his voice was low and broken with deep feeling as he partially repeated his last words :

" Mary, my own wife, I ask you if I have a right to hold you, my home, my life, dearer than my duty to my country ?"

" Xo !" said the wife determinedly rising from the pillow and looking him steadily in the face — that morning pillow on which a great many conversations take place, in different regions of this round world, while very few find a chronicler. " Xo ! go and do. your duty !" and there was not the suspicion of a tear in the wife's eyes, now, and not a tremor in her voice. With one more struggle, just past, she had determined to give her husband up to his country, as her part of the great sacrifice ; and she rightly believed that if she did so at all, she should do so with cheerfulness and even with pride, cheering him for his duty instead of weakening him by tears and womanly wailings over their separation. . Thenceforth, the little woman said to herself — (and she had a habit, weak and gentle woman that she was, when fully aroused 'to her duty, of doing the thing upon which she had resolved) — if she could avoid such an exhibition by any effort of the will, he should not see another tear trickling down her cheeks or even standing in her eyes. She would be content, happy, even merry, in his presence, helping him away, when the time should come, as if he was only going on some, pleasure- party that would keep him a while from her society ; and. if the tears would come sometimes, to take their revenge in floods, and if the overwhelming feeling would break out sometimes in sobs and wailings over her great sorrow, she would see to it that no such manifestation was made in his presence, to give him a sadder image of her, which' he must carry in the faithful mirror of his heart while in the tedious camp, or to unnerve his hand in the day when all his manhood might be required of him in battle.

These women of America — these wives, and mothers, and

120 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

sisters, and sweethearts, — have had much to do with the varying tide of fortune in the War for the Union. They scarcely know the fact themselves, but they have held in their hands the balance of our success or failure, as woman has done, in every civilized age and country, when motives were to be sought as a means of strength. If from the fields of the rebel South have sprung forth so many men to be their defenders that they have seemed to embrace more than the entire population, the secret of the Cadmus crops of armed men has been found more in the fierce rebellious patriotism of the women of their households, than even in the public need and the forced conscriptions. The women of the rebel States espoused the war from the beginning — made it theirs, gave their personal services (honorably and dishonorably), and literally drove into the ranks thousands upon thousands who might otherwise have yielded to supineness, luxury or cowardice. " No bridal ring for inc., until we have suc ceeded !" has been the cry of the expectant bride ; " No stay-at-home lounger or coward for my son !" has been the echoing cry of the mother ; while the wife has severed the yet dearer tie with the words " No rest in my arms for the man who will not help to drive back the Yankee invader !" Female circles, in the leading cities of the Confederacy, have made solemn leagues, and kept them, to countenance no able- bodied man who remained at home when what they called the "country" demanded his service; sneers, threats arid implorings have joined in making a force of compelling power well nigh resistless ; sisters have morally as well as literally buckled on the swords and strapped the knapsacks of their brothers, and urged them off to the field ; and, these things done, the women of the rebel South have gone one step further and become spies, decoys and daring midnight riders, to entrap unwary Union officers or bring destruction on bewildered Union forces fighting their way through darkness and treacherous swamps and unknown roads. Evil energy, no doubt, and energy expended in a bad cause. The edito rial copperhead may find but few sympathizers in his waitings over the treatment of liolle Boyd, of Martinsburg, in the Old Capitol Prison, while she was hissing out " My Maryland,"

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with the very venom of the secession serpent ; and the women of the North may well draw back with a shudder from the emulation of such females as those who held Stoughton's head in their laps while their messengers were spurring in hot haste for troops to effect his capture. ]Jut even the last was no worse a breach of hospitality than the driving of the nail into the head of iSisera by the Scriptural Jael ; and there comes up to mind, whenever real or apparent degradation is submitted to by woman for the sake of what she holds to be patriotism, the dark and fearful image of Judith, warm from the caresses of Holofernes, sitting on the side of his couch, with her night-robes dishevelled, her white arms gleaming ghastly in the light of the cresset from the recess, and her wild eyes glittering with baleful fires, as she warily draws from its scabbard at the side of the sleeping man the steel which is in another moment to make but a headless trunk of the warrior flushed as much with his victory over her as over the laud he had been conquering. And as we think with shuddering admiration of the woman of old, there is at least a shadow of excuse, if no admiration, for the subtle, active, dangerous female fiend of the secession. The very opposite has been the action of the women of the North. Partially, perhaps, because the foot of the invader has not been treading at their doors — because the mission on which their husbands, brothers and lovers went forth seemed rather to attack than to defend (while in truth the whole duty of the Union army has been to defend, not a mere section of country, but a whole broad land, a Union and a Constitu tion), — partially from this seeming, no doubt, but much more from the peculiarities of their lives and education, they have taken no such stand as their whilome sisters of the rebel South. Except in the gentle and womanly task of ministering to sickness and relieving suffering, they have seemed' to take no part whatever in the struggle. They have leagued to gether, at times, for the most meritorious purposes, but it was to prepare lint and bandages for the wounded, or delicacies to send to those hospitals where our disabled soldiers were )ying. And it is not certain that their ghastly preparations for the surgeon's aid, exhibited in crowded cities and trump-

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ctcd through the newspapers, have not sometimes cost us more in the way of frightening away enlistments, than they have saved us in lives and convalescence. A few of them (to whom be all honor and praise !) have left happy homes to b<|pome ministering angels after the battle-field and in tho sick hospital ; and here and there one has been possessed of the spirit of Joan of Arc, the Mtiid of Saragossa or Moll Pitcher, changed sex for the time and carried the sword or the musket. And a few have done like Mary Haviland — • buried deep in their hearts whatever of sorrow they felt at giving up those they loved to absence, hardship and probabl0 death, and speeded them away with cheerful words and smiling faces. But beyond this they have never gone. No circle of society has been closed against the man who had youth, health, competence for his family, physical endurance, and every obligation as well as inducement for becoming a patriot soldier, and yet who ignobly remained at home when the existence of the republic seemed hanging upon his action. They have had no public word of reprobation for the mock soldier who assumed the uniform of his country's service and then basely absented himself from the field. They have had no frowns, they have not even withdrawn their smiles, for those who every day proved themselves to be drones or cow ards. They have paid that homage which woman all the world over pays to the epauletted shoulder, without stopping to inquire whether that shoulder bore any of the weight of the country's destiny. The women of the loyal North, in a word, have with but few exceptions failed to make the War for the Union a personal interest, and left it to be the war of the men alone ; and the result has been seen in a supineness and an eventual fading out of the war-spirit, which is inevi table when woman fails to throw her love, her scorn and till her influence, into the scale of patriotism.

It has been said that Mary Haviland, though she had no more idea of playing the heroine than had her husband of be coming a hero — though she was only moved, like him, by a sense of duty, — resolved that she, for one, would play the Spartan part and send away the pride and hope of her life with a smile. What it cost her to make and keep this reso-

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Jution, is among the secrets not yet to be made known. And certain it is, that had she known what that very appearance of calm resignation was eventually to cost her, she would have been far from making the effort. But this, again, antici pates what only the future should reveal. Enough to say that half an hour after the close of the conversation we have recorded, the young wife was moving about her household avocations, while Sarah was making a tremendous clatter with the breakfast dishes, and Haviland sat with little Louise on his lap, frolicking with her after the manner of a great school-boy, and giving no more indication than his wife that he did not expect to remain quietly at home for the next de cade.

But here it becomes necessary to say a word of the "neat- handed Phyllis" who prepared the breakfast for the Havi- lands, and who may be found to have more connection with this scries of actual events than her two dollars per week seemed to warrant. Sarah was not in the desolate condition of poor Tim, as to patronymic. She had a second name, and that name, alliteratively enough, was Sanderson, ISTor was she one of those waifs who float into service' anywhere and everywhere, unknown and uncared for. When Mary How- land, now Mary Haviland, had been a young girl in the little village of Duffsboro, and when Burtnett Haviland, himself a native and resident of the same rural paradise, had been com mencing his mercantile career as a clerk in the leading '•' store " of that village — Sarah Sanderson, the pretty daughter of a poor and proud widow, had also been living in a small house in the neighborhood, not too well educated or too useful, but with ideas above her station and some danger of falling into the temptations so plentifully spread about her by the unscru pulous. Two years after Mary Haviland's marriage, and when with her husband she had become a resident of the great city, after losing every one of her blood-relatives by death or removal to the Pacific shore, — on one of her visits to her old home she had found the widow Sanderson dead, Sarah penni less, helpless and without a home, and the perils of her situa tion inevitably thickening. She had taken compassion upon her, at the same time that she had been glad of the opportu-

124 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

4

nity of securing "help" in her little house without introducing a stranger, — had induced Sarah to accompany her to the city, taught her what she lacked in the knowledge of house-keep ing, and though employing her as a servant, treated her much more as a member of her own family than as one holding that relation.

Not much to the young wife's surprise, she had found the girl captious, proud and difficult to manage — at least for a time. Her propensity for the street had been among the most difficult things to conquer, and left to herself the young girl would assuredly have gone to ruin within a twelve-month. Gradually she had improved in conduct as in capacity, as she could not well fail to do under the kind treatment received from. both husband and wife ; and though still at times unac countably captious and sullen, and with an occasional pro pensity for handling the table service as if it had been some living thing and she hated it, Mary Haviland had grown to consider her honest, reliable and valuable. That very morn ing the young wife had been thinking, while musing upon the probable coming absence of her husband, that she would not even then be entirely alone, without any one near who knew him and understood her — that Sarah would be with her still, and that Sarah, then, would be almost like a near relative, in the place she would fill in the household.

It was not the privilege of the young wife to look quite so clearly into the hearts of those surrounding her, as may be done here, under the Asmodean power of the romancer. Had she been able to do so, she might have formed a somewhat novel and startling opinion of the character of her "help," and of the companion \ipon whom she would be obliged to depend so much during the absence of her husband. For the better understanding of what is soon to follow, it is necessary that no mystery shall hei'e remain as to the character of the almost flaxen -haired, gray-eyed, handsome, childish-faced and petite figured girl of t\vent}'-two or thereabouts, who was on that Sunday morning making so terrible a clatter among the breakfast dishes.

As before indicated, Haviland had been a country shop clerk before coming to the great city. How much of ac-

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quaintanco and even of familiarity with all classes such a situation involves, is well known to all who have had the op portunity for observation. Business is not transacted imper sonally, there, as on Broadway or Chestnut Street. The shop-keeper knows nearly every one who sets foot within his building, and nearly every one correspondingly well knows the shop-keeper and especially the shop-keeper's clerk. With the latter, particularly, customers who come very often, become pleasantly familiar. If the clerk is reasonably good-looking (courteous he must be), the younger female portion of his regular visitors get to know him very well indeed, the more certainly because his stock is very miscellaneous, and there are sometimes little jars of toothsome bon-bons on one side of the shop, while occasionally a remnant of ribbon, too short to sell to advantage, may chance to be given away on the other.

Burtnett Haviland had never been a " scamp," as the phrase is. Had he been, he would never have made the loving and excellent husband who has been in the mind's-eye of the writer all this while ; for " reformed rakes" do not "make the best husbands," and every vice of youth scars the moral nature as sadly as an ugly wound disfigures the physi cal. Yet the good-looking clerk had chucked girls under the chin, occasionally, when filling that chrysalis position in mer cantile life — had even, beyond doubt, occasionally stolen half a dozen kisses from a peachy cheek, in forced or permitted exchange for a handful of bon-bons. He had done so, perhaps more than once, with the pretty and spoiled little daughter of widow Sanderson. There had been the beginning and end of his imprudence in that regard ; and of late years marriage, removal, and the whirl of city life and business, had so filled his mind with other things that it is doubtful whether he even remembered, when the little girl came to fill a place in his house as a servant, that such an event had ever occurred. Something else, too, he had probably forgotten, which she had not permitted to pass away so easily. One night, at the same period of his life, the young girl had been caught at the store in a heavy thunder-storm, no one being present in the build ing but themselves. She had been terribly frightened and

126 THE T) A Y S OF S II O I) T> Y.

disposed to scream, and he had very innocently put his arm around her, and held the little fluttering heart near his own — • a most dangerous and improper position, by the way, even in. thunder-storms, unless they are very heavy, and the people as near relatives as brother and sister. After the thunder storm, in that instance, it being night, and his employer coming in, the clork had accompanied his protege home and left her at her mother's door.

These little incidents may have been known to Mary Havi- land, or they may have escaped her knowledge altogether. Her husband, who believed that the marriage tie should be a real one, with thorough confidence, would at all events have told them to her at any moment, if he had happened to think of them us worth telling. They were nothings to him, and would be the merest trifles to her. But not so to the young girl, whose whole existence seemed to have been affected by them. Though not a living person upon earth, besides her self, had ever dreamed of the fact, she had loved Burtnett Haviland with the best love of her warped, perverted nature, from the days when he gave her bon-bons and stole a kiss from her cheek in the country-store. From the night when he held her in his arms and seemed to shelter her from the thunder, that love had become mad arid ungovernable within, however it had left no mark without. From the hour when he accompanied her home, she had entertained a sort of dim impression that he was her " beau" — a country phrase almost ignored in the city, which may mean every thing or nothing. She had considered herself, ignorant and uncultivated as she was, quite the equal of the young clerk, and believed that some day, away off in the future, when he married, he would marry l\?.r. "When she heard of his marriage engagement, she had sulked. When he married, after passing away from her sight for many months, and really quite .forgetting that there was such a person as the little flaxen-haired girl in existence, — she had sulked still more, a,nd the wicked devil in her heart had risen up to hate Mary Haviland, his wife — to wish her all ill — to wish that she was dead !

Then had come the death of her mother — the period of her own helpless dependence — and the offer of Mary Havilaud to

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take her into her own house as companion more than servant. And this was the person to whom the young wife, in the in nocent goodness of her own heart, had made the offer ! She would have refused it instantly, preferring liberty with the chance of any vice or crime that it might bring, but that it offered her the chance of being near the man whom she yet considered as her " beau." She had accepted it with that end in view, neither knowing or caring (though old enough, at twenty, to realize all the danger to which she might be sub jecting herself), what might be the event of her living in the same house with him, without one religious or moral princi ple to be her safeguard.

Two years had gone by. Burtnett Haviland, absorbed in his devoted affection for his wife, and realizing that when Heaven gave such a woman to any man, it gave him enough, — had never dreamed of the temptation that lay in his path. It, is to be hoped and believed that had he known it, he would have removed it out of the way, not fallen into it. But hu man nature is weak and unreliable — perhaps blindness was the only safety. Almost any man had better pray to be de livered from any similar temptation than hope to escape it if it once comes to him. Haviland, however those chances might have balanced, had been blind indeed — seeing the girl daily, and yet never reading the feeling that spoke in lip and eye, and that sometimes even trembled in the voice. During those two years her love for him had grown more absorbing, more calculating, more wicked — a love that did not. deify the object, and that merely seemed to exist because the feeling ministered to selfishness. She had felt, ever since his mar riage, that she should have been his wife. She had felt, when first she saw his child, that that child should have been hers. What she saw of the mother in little Louise, she hated with a deadly intensity : what she saw of the father she could love and caress. Sometimes she would snatch up the child sud denly, seeing one of these natures, and caress it : then she \vould descry the other, and almost dash it down, to the terror of Pet, who feared her almost as much as she childishly loved her, — and to the surprise, at first, of both parents, who even tually set down all her actions to odditv and the whims of an

128 THE DAYS OF S II O D D Y.

ill-balanced nature. Of course her hatred to the wife had strengthened as her love for the husband increased; and there was quite enough of evil thought in her heart to have budded out in murder, but — and the cause which restrained her hand from injury to either Mary Haviland, who, as she actually believed, stood in her way, or to the poor little child, who should have had the same father but another mother, not even the wild, untrained, perverted he'art could well have explained to itself.

This was the member of Burtnett ITaviland's household, upon whom both himself and his wife blindly depended for companionship to the latter in the event of his long absence !

There was another dependence, but that was entirely of a secondary character. Haviland knew that his cousin Kate, a handsome rattle-pate and the torment of every circle into which she was introduced, had grown tired of school-teaching in the country and taken an engagement to come to the city and teach fewer children for the same amount of money ; balancing the account of service rendered by receiving more undervaluing looks and more insulting words, in one day, in her new employment, than she could have seen and heard in a twelvemonth, in her old profession. He could only sup pose, however, that she would find very little time to spend away from her new responsibilities and under his roof; and he did not know that the family into which she was about to enter had any connection whatever with that of the merchant his employer.

It is just possible that with a clearer knowledge than that existing, of the influences upon his own and Mary JIaviland's welfare, which both the females just named were eventually to exert, the husband might have made some difference in his arrangements for absence. But the fates have their will, generally.

Something more of that April Sunday, and a word of its politico-religious aspects. The young clerk had not yet enough shaken off the Puritan habits acquired during his country life, to be in the practice of absenting himself en tirely from the House of God on the Sabbath ; and he rightly calculated, in the present instance, that the discourse to which

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he would listen, attend whatever church he might, must have some bearing on the great national question which absorbed his own mind. And he might indeed have taken his chance at a venture, among all the houses of worship in the city, without fear of missing the necessary mental pabulum. For the patriotic fever had invaded the pulpit quite as much as it had done the counting-house and the street, and perhaps with more reason than either. In the quiet little church which he attended on that day with his wife, the unpretentious minis ter, who had usually been in the habit of avoiding politics and preaching the religion of his Master, — perhaps because he felt that he could wash his hands of any agency in bring ing about the distracted condition of the country, indulged in no boisterous declamation, but told the story of Sumter as directly and as plainly as he had erewhile told that of Calvary, lamented that the days should have come when brother must lift up his hand against brother, and yet con cluded his temperate discourse with the declaration that re bellion against the best of governments was the blackest of sins ; that the constituted authority of the nation must be maintained at all hazards ; and that the duty of every true man who could bear a weapon, was to spring forward at the earliest call and aid in restoring the ascendency of the flag over every foot of soil it had once shadowed.

The preacher of a larger and more prosperous church, whose diatribes against slavery and denunciations of every one holding even tacit fellowship with that institution, had done so much to weaken the fraternal bond and bring about the contest just inaugurated, raved, denounced and vilified as of old, but seemed to believe that raving and de nunciation would win the battles of the Union, as he neither urged the formation of an army nor prayed for its success when it should be formed. Here one preached to a congre gation so wealthy, indolent and exacting, that all agitation • was forbidden, and he could only allude to the crisis in the mildest and tenderest of terms. And there another had a large proportion of the Southern interest among his auditors, and dared only to mince his words and call rebellion "un fortunate disagreement " and the outrage upon the flag " a

130 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

movement to be regretted." But all, or nearly all, had their shy at the event ; until the volume of oratorical thunder poured out in the one city, could it have been gathered and let off in concert, would quite have equalled that of the bombardment of Sumter itself.

We have seen how the clerk attended church, and what he heard. Is it to be supposed that the merchant was more of a heathen than he ? Certainly not ! At the orthodox hour, one of Brewster's handsomest landeaux rolled up to the sidewalk in front of his house on Fifth Avenue ; he entered the carriage, faultlessly arrayed and immaculately gloved, and was whirled three whole squares to the place of wor ship. There he reclined at case in his luxuriously cushioned pew, only secured in that eligible location by the annual payment of one thousand dollars, and almost sobbed with emotion when the preacher intimated that the great calamity of war had fallen upon the country solely on account of the per sonal sins and extravagances of its people — that each should practice a return to early simplicity and economy in life, justice towards others, and the cleansing of his walk and conversation from all that could injure mankind or offend the Divine Being. He almost sobbed — not quite : perhaps he would have sobbed outright but for the scene of Saturday evening with his wife, just past, and that of Sunday evening with that pleasant family the Fullertons, yet to conie, — be tween which the church-going was sandwiched.

Besides he was thinking (and this makes a further excuse for his failing to derive full spiritual benefit from that able discourse) whether S. & Co., of Boston, were likely to have yet on hand any considerable proportion of the damaged satinets of which they had bought so many and sold so few during the preceding winter — whether there were many blue ones among them — how satinets would serve for United States uniforms, instead of cloth — how cheaply he could buy them before S. & Co. thought of the new use to which they could be turned — and whether it would pay him to take the five o'clock train that very evening and go eastward to satisfy himself as to the feasibility of the speculation, lie did not go East by the five o'clock train, as has been demon-

T II E I) AYS OF SHODDY. 131

strated by his presence that evening in the city ; but there is reason to fear that he must have taken that route the next morning, or sent forward a confidential agent ; for the dam aged satinets . But of them, like Felix's repentance

and Mr. Charles Holt's fulfillment of the solemn duties en joined on him by the sermon, by and bye!

CHAPTER VII.

THE DEPARTURE OP THE SEVENTH REGIMENT — A FEW WORDS OF JUSTICE TO THAT ORGANIZATION — THEODORE WINTHROP AND HIS CAREER — How YOUNG FOSTER WENT AWAY — How BURTNETT HAVILAND. MET AN ACQUAINTANCE — CAPTAIN JACK — ELLSWORTH AND THE FIRST FIRE ZOUAVES — ONE SOLDIER WHO DID NOT WISH TO BE AN OFFICER.

FRIDAY the nineteenth of April brought a pageant to the city of New York, novel then, but since become lamentably common — the going away of a regiment to the war. The great city had known citizen soldiery for a long period — had seen them on parade and when they departed on excursions — had boasted that no finer body of men, taken suddenly from the counter and the workshop, existed upon earth — had heard their steady tramp and seen their perfect array, on Fourths of July and parade days — had seen the Prince of Wales and his staff of soldiers reviewing them, and heard those repre sentatives of English pride wonder whether fighting men could really be made in that manner. It had seen those troops in the street, more than once, when possible mob-danger threatened and their muskets seemed necessary to prevent domestic violence. It had watched them when they went away on such great occasions as the trip to Richmond for the obsequies of Monroe, and the visit to Boston to honor the in auguration of the statue of Warren on Bunker Hill. It had seen the citizen soldiery on holidays and when acting as

132 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

merely an armed police ; but it bad never before sent any of them away to fight.

Monday had brought the President's proclamation and re moved from the minds of men like Burtnett Ilaviland any doubt whether they would at once be called upon to do battle for the country. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday had brought intelligence of still more threatening belligerent movements in the seceded States and on the borders — the call of the Confederates for troops ; the refusal of three of tho governors to furnish one soldier for the Union cause ; the burning of the bridges between Washington and Baltimore, as if to isolate the doomed cities of the border; the planting of rebel batteries on the heights opposite Washington ; the danger everyday growing more imminent, and every day mak ing manifest by more agonizing appeals, that the Capital of the natioh, with the public archives and all the machinery of the government, might at any hour fall into the rebel hands. An derson had come home; the Massachusetts Sixth had gone down ; troops from New York had been called for — actually implored : troops, without one more hour of dangerous delay. The Seventh had sprung up to meet the call. Fullest in ranks and most perfect in drill, it was believed that it would have more weight and influence in discouraging the rebels in the neighborhood of Washington, than four times the number of men otherwise organized, because it had been, as a body, at Richmond, had been seen and appreciated by the Virgin ians, and had been reckoned "conservative" (i. e. not "abo lition") to such an extent that many of the Southerners had declared : " There is one regiment of soldiers we are sure of — the Seventh will not fight against ws." To show that the Seventh would fight against them or against any other ene mies of the country, was rightly held as likely to have a de pressing influence on that portion of the secessionists who had calculated upon sympathy at the North. There is no doubt that, for the moment, the influence of the movement was in deed depressing — that the advance of the Seventh to Wash ington did more than the presence of ten times the number of other troops might have done, to prevent an immediate at tack upon the Capital. Their drill and numbers wore feared

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 133

. — their wealth, respectability and moral influence were held even more in dread.

It has been the fashion, since that time, to decry the Sev enth Kegiment, before so feted and honored. The fashion began on the day when they marched back up 13 road way from that thirty days' campaign, their uniforms soiled and dusty, but their weapons bloodless, their banners unrent, and their ranks all full except in the absence of one gallant young mem ber* who already lay in his grave in Greenwood, and a few who had remained to take part in the longer service of other regiments. But if they came back from a bloodless campaign, let it be said that they icent away to a bloody one, not only in their own belief but in the opin-ion of all the thousands who gathered to witness their departure. Not one of those who on that eventful Friday saw them leave their armory, the first of the New York soldiery to peril their lives for the Union — not one of the business men who crowded out from their stores to witness a movement which carried away so many of their own class, to meet all the uncertainties of war — not one of the idlers who looked at them as they marched down Broadway, and lazily respected a patriotic vigor and prompti tude which they could not emulate — not one of the women who waved handkerchiefs to them from the windows and the sidewalks, as swept by the long steady lines of shapely men in sober gray picked out with black, with faces calmly grave and many of them seeming too young and too tenderly reared for soldiers, with blankets rolled, knapsacks strapped, and the two gleaming brass howitzers wheeling before, — not one of all these believed that they would even pass through Baltimore without a deadly struggle, or without leaving some of their number* dead to seal the curse of that city then so deeply execrated in the loyal North. They believed themselves, they were believed by others, to be marching to conflict and death ; what more of self-sacrificing bravery could they have Shown, had the event justified the worst apprehensions? They were marching, too, in reality, to that which tries the mettle of the Boldier quite as much as the exposure of the battle-field — wea-

* Jonathan Lawrence Keese, son of the late John Keese, the well-known book- auoiiunoer and table wit, killed by accident while encamped near Washington.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

rying labor of foot and hand, to which except as gymnasts they had been little used. If the Seventh in that campaign had no occasion to fight the rebel enemy, they found occasion that tried the stoutest spirit, to fight the demons of sloth and indulgence, when they threw by their white gloves, assumed the axe, the spade and the rope, dragged cannon and rebuilt burnt bridges, beneath a Maryland sun, on their toilsome way from the seaboard to Annapolis Junction. All this is little, now, it is true, compared to what trained soldiers have since endured ; but it was much then and for them. And more as they showed what they could do and were willing to do if need. came, than for what they were really called to do, the Seventh have ever since deserved honor instead of undervalu ation, for their "March to Washington."

In a certain sense, too, they were realty marching to death • — the death of their corps. From the day on which they made their sadly triumphant progress down the crowded streets of New York and swept away from the jostling and shouting thousands gathered in the New Jersey Railroad Depot at Jersey City, — the Seventh, as it before existed, has been known no more. One Iry one the members of this "show-regiment which has done no service" have dropped away and entered other organizations engaged in the War for the Union, until nearly four hundred of the original number have been fighting for the cause— most of them promoted to the rank of officers out of the respect paid their character and discipline, and scattered through every grade from Lieu tenant up to General. Others have filled their places, the name and strength of the corps have been maintained ; but the Seventh as it was — the Seventh that Winthrop chron icled — is a thing of history.

And in that name which has crept unawares into the last sentence, there was another interest involved in the departure of the " pet regiment." Marching close beside the howitzers as they passed down Broadway on that eventful Friday when the Massachusetts Sixth were struggling with the crowd in the streets of Baltimore, was a young man, known on the roll as " Theodore Winthrop," who had only joined the regiment when it was ordered to active service. Agile-framed, light-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 135

haired and blue eyed, with something of arrogance in the curl of the light-moustached lip and the full swell of the nos tril — he would have been a man of mark, the cap removed from his broad brow, in any drawing-room. But he was un noticed there and then, and among men who had been heard of while he had not. He believed that he had brain, and some of those who kneAV him best had a corresponding im pression. Traveller, philosopher, nature-lover, Sybarite, he had seen and felt more than most men of twice his age ; and yet he was a nobody. His opportunity had not come — it was only to come when his head should be low in the dust. He had volume upon volume of manuscript, novels and essays finished and unfinished, lying in the compartments of the escritoire in his little room on the slopes of Staten Island ; but they were of no use — merely mediocre, the publishers said. He had essayed the publishing experiment : Grub Street had decided against him, while it sent out inane trash by the million, and pirated alike brains and balderdash from abroad. He was quiet, if not content : he was going to save the country now, and write more and better romances afterward. He did not know or dream it, but he was carving out his literary name with the very weapon, he carried. He was to become the chronicler of the " March of the Seventh ;" — that was to make him a pet with the publishers and readers of the Atlantic Monthly (a placer of fame for any man who has the fortune to fall into its good graces) ; a few weeks later, when the Seventh had passed up Broadway again, done with labor and returned home, he was to die a soldier's death at Big Bethel ; and then was to come immortality — regard in the hearts of his countrymen for what he had been and what he might have been, and literary appreciation, for which he would have given an eye or an arm when alive, to the ex tent of twenty or thirty editions when he had passed into that happy state of existence which we have no warrant for believing that there has ever entered a mere author, a critic or a publisher.

But all the while that this, which may or may not be called the " Apology for the Seventh," has been coming from the pen of a writer who has never had any connection, honorary

136 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

or otherwise, with that regiment, — the course of this narra tion has been brought to a provoking stand-still — very much as a line of street cars might be by the laying of the hose across the track, at a fire. Quite as provoking to the con ductor as the passengers ; and at the very earliest moment when the hose can be removed with safety to the public inter ests, let it be so removed and the blocked cars pass on.

Young Foster, junior clerk in the house of Charles Holt & Andrews, had found a vent for his juvenile enthusiasm in joining the Seventh, and he was among the t \velve hun dred who passed down Broadway on that eventful Friday. Foster was not only very sanguine, as such young people are apt to be, but very sanguinary, as the young are not apt to be, any more than their elders. He not only believed that he should save the country in some notable manner, and come home with the single star of a brigadier-general at least, — but he was "down on'' Baltimore, remembered his academic classics, thought of delendo-ing Carthage, believed that Bal timore ought to be " wiped out," and that he was one of the destroying angels commissioned to perform that sublime operation. He had accordingly taken a hint from the talk about Billy Wilson's Zouaves, then already in course of or ganization, and provided himself with a concealed revolver, which was a little against the rules, for privates, but not entirely unallowable, — and a hermetically-hidden bowie-knife, which was indefensible and atrocious. At least ten of the rebels were expected (by himself and his mother) to fall in any attempt made on the life of young Foster ; and rebeldom generally acted with great wisdom in keeping out of his way, albeit he lost his revolver at Philadelphia and did not find himself in the proper funds to buy another, and albeit the bowie-knife found its best office, very soon after, in opening oysters down at Annapolis.

Foster had invited all his friends in the store to come out and "see him off." Haviland, who had been so pulled about by half a dozen friends anxious to have him join one and another regiment then in course of formation, that he had as yet enrolled his name in neither, — with others accepted the invitation as well as the chance to see the first corps going

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 137

away to the war, and came out to Broadway just as the regi ment began to pass. He had many friends in the organization, and might perhaps have joined it but that he believed his duty as a soldier would lie beyond thirty days. He met many nods and many waves of the hand in recognition, as the good-looking fellows went by ; and at last he caught not only a wave of the hand but almost a bow from Foster, who was resplendent and gorgeous in his new uniform and appro priating to himself nearly every flutter of alfemale handker chief along the whole line. Then the files passed on, the crowd closed in behind them, the flags fluttered, music sounded and the cheers replied, farther down the street ; and the Seventh was to be seen no more.

Just at that moment and when the crowd was closing in behind the line of soldiers, Haviland felt a hearty slap upon the shoulder and heard himself addressed by name. He turned, to see a line-looking man of thirty-five to thirty- eight; five feet ten or eleven in height; handsome in face, though the cheeks were a little bronzed by exposure and touched with the faintest suspicion of late hours and current dissipation ; dark haired, but with a tinge of red in the brown ; heavy dark whiskers with a still more decided dash of red, worn all around the face, but the upper lip clean shaven. A man of mark, beyond a question, with a merry smile on his well-formed mouth and a quizzical glance out of the corner of his eye, while the mouth could at times assume 'an expression strangely sad and the eye could be indignant and even wicked-looking. The sort of man to be fallen in love with by women not above a certain scale of intellectual and moral requirement, very readily — the sort of man to win warm friendships — and yet the sort of man who could lose both the prizes named, occasionally, by a mis-step in which carelessness was more of a component part than wrong-headedness or want of good feeling. A man capable of bearing warm regard to others, at least for a certain period ; and then somewhat addicted to nursing the most deadly hatred, that years and opportunity for revenge could scarcely satisfy. A newspaper writer of experience, a wit, an incarnate fireman, and an old member of the Seventh. A

138 THE DAYS OF .SHODDY.

man who looked every inch the soldier, with his erect figure and in his well-fitting military blue, with the designating mark of a Captain on the shoulder and the light-infantry bugle on the front of his foraging-cap. Such was " Captain Jack" (as he need only be known), on the clay when he touched Burtnett Haviland on the shoulder and by that simple act decided the whole future course of his destiny.

"Ah, Jack, is that you ? I did not see you !" said the clerk, as he recognized the man who had accosted him.

" I saw you some minutes ago," said Captain Jack. " Got lots of friends in the regiment, I suppose."

"A good many," answered Haviland. " One of our clerks among the number. Hallo ! I did not notice — you are in uniform ! Are you going ?"

" I should think so !" said the Captain. " Don't you see, I have got things on my shoulders, and am going to carry a toasting-fork instead of a shooting-iron."

"Yes, I see," laughed Haviland. Then in a different tone he added. " Well, I am going myself, but I have not decided where I shall enrol my name."

" Going, and have not yet enrolled your name !" exclaimed the Captain. " Xow then, 13urt, 1 am in luck. The very man I wanted !"

" In what ?" asked Haviland. " What is your number ?"

" Haven't the least idea what is to be our number," replied Captain Jack. "All our fellows, though, are to be Number One. 15ut see here," and he pointed to an object at a very little distance- — "that will show you all about it."

A new store was in process of erection very near the corner of the street by which they were standing, and the inevitable pile of bricks had gathered in front, of the rising structure, to the disfigurement of the street, the vexation of passers-by, and the gratis instruction of the whole population in that branch of the military art which consists in the passage of any formidable obstruction thrown up by an enemy. On the side-walk face of the brick fortification, rendered safe from the appropriative fingers of old-paper gatherers by the planked moat which surrounded it, flaunted a showy hand-bill, of

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189

which the following is a true copy, size and style of display- type only excepted :

DOWN WITH SECESSION !

THE UNION MUST AND SHALL BE PRESERVED.

TO THE MEMBERS OP THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT.

The government appeals to the

KEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT

for one regiment of

ZOUAVES.

The subscriber is detailed in New York for the purpose of drilling and equipping the regiment after being organized. The companies \vill be allowed to select their own officers.

The roll for Company is at the Engine House, No.

from 10 A.M. to 12 P.M., daily.

COL. ELLSWORTH, of Chicago Zouaves.

"That is the idea!" said Captain Jack, when his com panion had taken sufficient time for the reading of the poster. " Going to have the finest body of fellows that ever shouldered a musket. Been used to rows, all their lives, you know," he continued, with a proper appreciation of one of the peculiar missions of the Department. " And won't they fight, I should like to know ?"

" I should think they would," answered Haviland.

" You can bet your life they will !" said the Captain, mimicking the tone and manner of some of the Moseys arid Sikesej^s who had not then (and have not yet) quite all gone out of the organization.

The whole history of that ill-starred regiment is a com mentary on that remark of Captain Jack. It sprung into existence from a corresponding idea, and was organized by a man who had peculiar facilities for managing and yet mis managing it.

Some two years before, in the "weak, piping times of peace/' when soldiering was a holiday and display all that

140 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

was thought of in that connection, an association of young men had been formed in Chicago, with Ehna (or Elmer) E. Ellsworth as their Captain, under the name of the United States Zouave Cadets. Ellsworth, an enthusiastic young lawyer with much versatility and little practice, had been an enthusiastic admirer of the exploits of that terrible branch of the French service, the Zouaves, and their competitors, the Turcos, both largely dependent for their efficiency upon their gymnastic powers and their proficiency in a peculiar descrip tion of drill. He had fancied that this drill could be intro duced with advantage in the United States service, and the Zouave Cadets formed the first embodiment of the idea. They were principally composed of young business men, clerks and others, respectable in character, and able to com mand enough of both time and money for the purposes con templated. They were subjected to almost as rigid bodily discipline as so many prize-fighters preparing fur the ring, liquor in any shape being forbidden, and all other enervating indulgences put under ban. They commenced the practice of the Zouave drill, amended and improved by Ellsworth, and after a few months became as perfect in it as useless (from exhaustion and over-use of the system) for almost any other occupation in life. At about the time they had thor oughly mastered the drill and become the admiration of gaping thousands who flocked to their exhibitions — while they could handle the rifle like a mere wand and contort themselves into every impossible and unnecessary shape, they probably would not have been able to stand, in actual combat, before the same number of any ordinary militia in the country. But they made a splendid show, and that seemed to be all that was required. At the national exhib ition held at Springfield, Illinois, in the summer of 18GO,. the Zouave Cadets took, without any pretence at successful rivalry, the prize of a magnificent stand of colors offered to the corps showing the greatest perfection in drill; and then their great end was achieved. They became the theme of popular admiration — the very ideal of soldiers. A few months later they came to the City of New York, by invitation, re ceived the courtesies of some of the State militia orgauixa-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

tions, and gave some exhibitions which confused the specta tors as to the object of many of the peculiarities of drill, quite as much as they delighted by their brilliancy of execu tion. Half a dozen corps were at once talked of among the Xew York gymnasts, in emulation of the Chicago success, but (fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be) none of them were formed.

Among the admiring spectators of the drill of the Zouave Cadets, at Springfield and Chicago, in 1860, was that remark able person who was elected to the Presidency at the close of that year. He admired the drill, proportionately as he un derstood little or nothing of it. (There had been no Zouave drill, whatever, in his Indian war experience, though had he been on the opposite side in the fight, he might have found something very like it.) He admired the young Captain of the Zouaves, and came to the sage conclusion that the man. who could do that, could do almost any thing — almost "make an almanac." Accordingly, when the progress from Spring field to Washington, by way of New York, commenced (to suffer such a sudden interruption at Harrisburgh), young Ells- Avorth, abandoning his new position of Quartermaster of Northern Illinois and Paymaster of the State, was a member of his suite, going proudly to make his debut on that broad stage of the whole nation, which he believed so much fuller of promise than his one State. Arrived at Washington, the President seemed a little puzzled to know what to do with, his protege ; and the wavering of intention in his mind is said to have run for a time between making him Chief Clerk of the War Department, or Second Lieutenant in the regular army (two posts not entirely similar), the latter being finally decided upon.

At this opportune moment, for Ellsworth, came the break ing out of the rebellion. He had probably no ambition what ever to be a subordinate in a service in which any one of a thousand other men could be as valuable as himself, while he felt that he had capacities for another and widely-different command. He had courage, energy and patriotism, and he believed that he could be useful in a higher charge and with a corps organized and drilled after his own system. He at

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once applied for permission to recruit a regiment for active service, the Colonelcy to be conferred upon him when he suc ceeded in that object. This permission was granted, all the loyal States lying before him, "where to choose." And now came that choice which proved at once his appreciation of the possession of cei'tain qualities and his want of perception of the absence of others.

Col. Ellsworth did not choose New York as the place in which to raise his Zouave regiment, without excellent rea sons for that selection. A regiment, to be fully effective, should be recruited and organized in one locality. Next, Chicago would not be likely to furnish enough athletic and willing men to form a regiment with the original Zouaves, even if all the latter should be as willing to fight as they had once been to drill. Then, the Colonel hud made many valu able acquaintances in New York, during the visit of the Zouaves, and he had witnessed the bravery, agility and rat tling character of the New York firemen. He naturally be lieved that the man who could walk the slippery gutter of a six-story house undaunted at midnight, amid ilame and smoke, with that gutter a glare of ice and the heavy pipe of the en gine in his hand, after dragging that engine five miles at a run, — would not be likely to flinch before a battery or to break down under the fatigues of the most arduous campaign. The New York firemen were the men for his purpose, beyond a question. And to a certain extent he was right, for they had (as they have) the twin qualities of bravery and endurance. 'But there were two points upon which he had made no cal culation or erred in his estimate — their readiness to fall quickly under strict discipline, and his own fitness as the man to command and develop them. These two points were to present themselves, and to be solved, in the future. Just then he was high in hope and energetic in action, raising the regi ment wrhich was to be the pride of the service, and upon the fighting qualities of which, as we have seeij, Captain Jack, not altogether in jest, was disposed to " bet his life."

"And you think that / am one of the men who ought to be in a fighting regiment ?" asked Haviland, when much less

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 143

time had elapsed after Captain Jack's remark than has been consumed in this episode of the Ellsworth history.

"You come from a fighting State," said the Captain, who knew something of the early history of the clerk. "And you have always looked to me like a man who would be pleasanter as a friend than an enemy."

" Thank you for your good opinion," said Havilaud. " I hope and believe that I am no coward. But we are all yet to be tried."

" There are other qualities than mere courage that are to be tried," answered the Captain. " It is the awfullest bosh in the world about people being afraid when going into battle. The most nervous man in the service is likely to be the worst dare-devil, after the first fire, for he gets angry soonest, at seeing the brains of some one he knows, scattered all over him ; and when he is once fairly mad he wants holding back instead of pushing ahead."

"You talk as if you had seen service," suggested the clerk. " Have you ?"

"Xever on the land, but a little at sea," replied the Cap tain. " I had the honor of wearing Uncle Sam's blue a little

while on board the old , and if a man can be scared

anywhere under fire he can on shipboard, where he cannot run away even if he has ever such a fancy for it, but must stay and take wrhat comes. And yet I never saw more than one man who showed the white feather when shot were flying, and he had been made a wreck beforehand by the scurvy."

"But suppose that I should wish to join the Zouaves," said Ilaviland, returning to the subject as if his fancy had really been taken with the idea, — " would Ellsworth have me ? I am not a fireman."

" Have you never been ?" asked the Captain.

" Oh, yes," answered the clerk, " I joined old Thirty-eight two or three years ago, did a little duty with her down-town, and then backed out because I was too lazy or because it kept me too much from home — I do not know which !"

"Either one will do — good excuses both," said the Captain. "Meanwhile you have been quite fireman enough to como

M4 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

under the rule. And now say the word, for I must get up to the Carriage-house. But stop — what do you want ?"

"A rifle, I suppose !" said the prospective recruit, very in nocently.

" What!" cried the Captain. "I mean what rank will you expect ? We can make you a sergeant — I don't know but we can find you a Second Lieutenancy, if — "

"If I wanted any such position," answered Haviland, calmly. "I do not know — I may not be fit for a private, and I certainly am not (it for an officer ; and whether I go with this regiment or some other, I expect no position but one in the ranks."

Captain Jack turned short around and took such a look at the speaker as a naturalist bestows upon a very rare curiosity suddenly brought to view. Then he caught Haviland by the arm, whirled him round to the sun, and made a steady survey of his face. At last with a prolonged "Phew !" and a "By Moses, I believe the man is iu earnest !" he released him.

" In earnest ? Certainly ! Why not ?" said Haviland. '

" Well, you are just the first man I ever saw, who did not want an office, civil or military!" broke out the Captain. " Any more like you down at the store ? If there are, fetch them up, and I will have a regiment of my own — all privates. The worst trouble we have is, that everyone wants something on his shoulder, or two or three stripes on his arm, and nobody is willing to go into the ranks. They remind me a little, sometimes, of the Yankee militia company, in which every one wanted to command and none to serve, and they had to compromise the matter by appointing them all Brigadier- Generals and letting them take command week about !"

Had the Captain been speaking a few weeks later, he might have quoted a still more notable instance in the British Union Regiment, so auspiciously commenced and so ingloriously abandoned, and of which the newspaper wits reported that there were something over two hundred officers, and one pri vate, until they broke him down by over-fatiguing him at drill, and the poor fellow finally perished in the cruel attempt to form him into a hollow square I

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 145

But being reduced to the single jocular illustration, the Captain concluded with it, and with the repeated question :

" And you really are willing to go into the service as a private ?"

" Not only willing, but determined to do so," answered Haviland.

" Will you go with me ?" asked the Captain, in a tone that had lost all its levity.

"I will," answered the singular recruit; and that word passed, the deed was done. Burtnett Haviland was not the man to give his word lightly, or to falsify it when it was once given. Captain Jack, much as he might wonder at the sin gular fancy which preferred the ranks to the place of a non commissioned officer, or even a commission, — understood the speaker well enough to be sure of his adherence to any line of duty he had marked out for himself; and he merely said, as he shook him warmly by the hand :

" Will you come up to the Carriage-house to-night ?"

"No — to-morrow," answered Haviland. The Captain was gone ; the- singular interview was terminated ; and Burtnett Haviland was a Fire Zouave.

It is not worth while to speculate on the reasons which really moved him to this singular resolution. Enough that this is only the romance of history, and that the choice was actually made under the circumstances related, though some of the doubters may whistle incredulously, as did Captain Jack in the first moment of his surprise. Perhaps the clerk had no other motive than the one alleged — his desire not to enter upon any responsibility for which he was not thoroughly fitted. Perhaps he had another and rarer feeling — an after thought of that which he had uttered to his wife in their bed chamber, — that his sacrifice for the honor of his native land would not be all that was demanded of him, if he allowed himself to accept command over others and become any thing more than a mere soldier. Perhaps he had a more selfish motive — a belief that the true spirit and romance of war were to be found by the camp-fire and in the rough comradely of the common soldier, instead of in the tent of the officer, — and that he connected himself with the Fire Zouave regi- 9

146 THE BAYS OF SHODDY.

mont, wlion the suggestion was made to him, because lie believed that the most splendid dash of the service would be found in their midst. All these are hypotheses. He did not select the place of a private, because it involved less danger than the position of an officer : had that feeling possessed him, he would not have enlisted at all. So much is certain — no more.

At all events, it is sure that had some hundreds of others in the Union service rated their own capabilities no higher than did the New York dry-goods clerk, and not pressed themselves forward to Colonelcies and Brigadier-Generalships until they knew at least enough of the art of war to make them » respectable Sergeants or Second Lieutenants, — we should have wasted fewer lives, spent less hard-won wealth, and been nearer to the end in view, than can now be said of the great national struggle.

CHAPTER VIII.

KATE HAVILAND AT THE FULLERTONS' — HER ARRIVAL, EX AMINATION AND INSTRUCTIONS — MYIIA AND MILDRED, THE " YOUNG WRETCHES" — A STORY THAT WAS INTERRUPTED — MRS. FULLERTON'S LAW-PAPERS AND " PROPERTY NEAR MONTGOMERY" — How NED MINTHORNE LOST HIS LETTER • — AN INTERVIEW BETWEEN MILLIONAIRE AND TEACHER— HOW NED MINTHORNE RECOVERED HIS LETTER.

IT becomes necessary at this juncture, to pay another visit to the residence of the Fullertons, on East Twenty-third Street, into which an additional element of interest had en tered since the Sunday evening when Charles Holt paid it that singular visit. That new element of interest was Kate Haviland. Saturday of the following week had come, and on the evening before the young girl had reached the city, two or three days behind her appointed time, on account of the death and burial of poor old Amos Haviland, wrho now

THE DAYS OF S IT O D D Y . 147

slept peacefully under 1ho shadow of that very spire whence the flag had been waving that Sunday morning.. She had made only a flying call of half an hour at the house of her coiisin, where she romped with little Pet — set Mary first to looking glum once more over the idea of her husband going away at all, and then to laughing over the figure which she \va.s sure he would cut in the short jacket and baggy trousers of the Zouave — and put Sarah Sanderson into an ill humor for a week by caricaturing some of the peculiar friends whom that young lady had left behind her at Duffsboro. That done, she had " reported for duty," as she militarily expressed it, at Mrs. Fullerton's, and spent the evening in such an exam ination at the hands (or more properly tongues) of that esti mable lady and her accomplished daughter, as would have put most girls of her age out of countenance as well as out of temper, — but which said examination, with the arrogant instructions accompanying it, had produced precisely the same injurious effect on the temper and spirits of Kate Haviland, that would be achieved against the physical integrity of one of the new iron-clads by bombarding it with putty pellets* from a pop-gun.

Mrs. Fullerton, accompanied by Dora, had taken her up into the nursery and school-room, thirty minutes after her arrival and before she had found time to more than half swal low her light supper, — and subjected her to a series of ques tions in grammar and geography which showed that the mother must lately have been " reading up" in the children's books, and yet that she did not quite know the difference be tween a noun and a participle, or have any very definite im pression whether the Cape of Good Hope did or did not pro ject into the Bay of Fundy. This duty done and the answers of the catechumen being received as satisfactory (we regret to say that they were considerably more quizzical than cor rect, in several instances) — both mother and daughter had taken a hand at catechizing her as to her political sentiments, and impressing upon her the enormity of holding any belief at variance with the divine right of a Virginian or a South Carolinian to ride booted and spurred over the universe, and the superior saeredness of black slavery over Christianity

148 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

as a heaven-appointed institution. Mischievous and politic Kate, who realty did not care one snap of her nimble white finger for the whole question at issue between the abolitionists and the pro-slavery zealots, however well she understood the peril of the country and reprobated the wicked madness of secession, — mischievous Kate had at once realized into what a nest of ignorant Southern prejudice (perhaps of secession treason) she had dropped — thought for one moment of aban doning a place so uncongenial, then concluded that the situa tion would be rather funny than otherwise, at least for a time — taken her cue and made her responses accordingly.

When asked by Mrs. Fullerton whether she had ever been in the South and seen any of the dear happy negroes in lov ing attendance on the proprietors who took such tender care of them — she had replied at once that she was born among slaves, in one of the Middle States that had not yet quite abolished the institution ; and she had improvised for the occasion a dear old black nurse who had carried her in her arms and held a good deal more of her love than her own father and mother. When interrogated by the same lady as to what she knew of Hinton Rowan Helper's " Impending Crisis," that book falser than Munchausen and more injurious than the " Age of Reason" (such were the lady's words) — she had replied with an inquiry whether it was a novel or a re cipe-book — a query quite re-assuring to the catechist. When Dora put in a question as to her reading of the Tribune, she had had no scruples of conscience whatever against saying that she never opened that sheet, unless she wanted wrapping- paper or something to light a fire. And when the same ener getic young lady inquired of her whether she had ever read "Uncle Tom's Cabin" which she further characterized, parenthetically, as '.' a mess of ridiculous stuff, proving that the writer had never been in the South for a single day," — the reply of Kate (who had really wasted two days and nights in reading and crying over that most effective piece of un scrupulous imagination set down for reality), had been that she once found the book lying on the window-sill, read two pages of it and then threw both volumes into the mud-gutter. It remains to be seen what entry the recording angel had

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

made against the late country school-mistress for these atro cious departures from veracity : she had not herself felt any the worse after them, and they had answered the purpose of putting two very anxious ladies into such beatific satisfaction that they would sleep like humming-tops.

This catechism concluded and all the replies found emi nently satisfactory, the dignified lady had condescended to explain to her new dependant the reasons why she was so searching in her inquiries. She wished it to be understood, she said, that her family were none of the miserable canaille (she did not use that word, but another much rougher and signifying very nearly the same thing) of the North, and she could not under any circumstances permit the tender minds of her young children to be tainted with disgraceful principles that might afterwards need to be eradi cated at the cost of severe suffering. Her family was wealthy, as every one understood, and she was willing to pay the governess liberally for any services rendered ; but she must be allowed to designate precisely what those services should be, and she must insist upon unquestioning obedience to her requirements. To which she added that the poor dear children were not cart-horses, and must not be overworked or ill-treated, but dealt with as became their birth and station. To which Dora added, parenthetically, that if those children were not kept in better order than they had been by the former governess, and made to pay more attention to their lessons, there would be occasion for a very hasty settlement some morning, which she hoped that Miss Haviland (toss of the head accompanying the polite prefix) would wish to avoid.

Did there exist any one else in the world, we wonder, of the age and tastes of Kate Haviland, who, seeing and hear ing all this and learning what was the atmosphere of the household she had entered, would not have fled from it as from a pestilence — even kilted her skirts and rushed away through the dusk, before sleeping one night in an air so un congenial and threatening ? Perhaps not ; but as for Kate Haviland, her only comment on the increasingly-pleasant

150 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

developments of character had been a mental one, shaped into words something like the following :

"A nice, pleasant family, I fancy ! And won't I have a nice time among you ! But won't there be fun, one of these days, and won't you have a nice time of it with me!"

Her reply to the injunctions of the respectable and dignified matron and her daughter had not been by any means a lengthy or circumlocutions one, but one which some of us have erewhile known to throw a gabbling termagant into worse rage than could have been induced by applying to her half the hard words in the language. Sweeping all the injunctions and all the insinuations up into one imposing heap, Kate had recognized, accepted and crowned the grand total •by the utterance of the comprehensive assent :

" Yes, ma'am !"

Then Mrs. Fullerton and her daughter, informing her that she would not be required to assume any charge over her pupils until the following day, that they had already re tired and could not be seen that night, and that by follow ing the servant she would find her sleeping-room, — had swept away. Kate had heeded the injunction, found a neat- enough little room on the third floor fitted up for her reception, and found — not the repose of the innocent, for had she not been telling terrible fibs ? — but the rest of a young girl remarkably easy in her own conscience, remarkably careless of some things that would have been great vexations to others, and altogether bored, bothered and sleepy.

The morning had introduced her to her charges, Myra and Mildred, and opened to her one more new chapter in expe rience. She had found Myra a tall, awkward girl of eleven, with Dora's light hair and dark eyes, and the promise of being very like her, both in good looks and arrogance, when she grew older. Mildred she had found a plumper and browner child of nine, with hair darker and a little more decided in its wave, less arrogance, more affection, more pertness and mis chief, and every indication of being quite as much trouble to manage, as the other. She had found both hopelessly and wretchedly ignorant, whether from the incapacity of the person who preceded her (the children had been too precious,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 151

all the while, and their blood too much distinguished above that of ordinary mortals, to go either to a public or even a private school) — or the fact that the family arrangements made teaching them impossible. The mother had been too busy with her own plans and projects, and Dora too much removed from sympathy with* thorn by difference of age (the children were, in point of fact, a sort of unexpected second crop on the Fullerton clover-field) — that neither had paid them any attention except to " humor," scold and slap — three very necessary operations, no doubt, in family management, but scarcely enough without other accompaniments. They had been smattered with (no other word than this new one will express the fact) in the primary branches, in grammar, geography, history, philosophy, and even in French, without acquiring enough solid knowledge to be able to write one line intelligibly or add three figures correctly. Kate Haviland, bringing them with her into the little school-room in the morning (a back apartment on the third floor, plainly car peted, with walnut furniture, two writing desks, a small case for school-books and a map of the United States on the wall) — had seated the little people in the best manner that a total unwillingness to obey permitted, attempted to put them through their educational paces, found the state of affairs as before indicated, and discovered, within fifteen minutes, that any further attempt at enlightening their minds would be labor worse than wasted, until she could succeed in acquiring some kind of personal influence, whether of love, respect or fear, over them.

To this end, dropping the grammar with which she had been muddling their unregulated brains while vexing her own, just at the moment when we have occasion again to enter unbidden into the Fullerton abode, she dropped sud denly from her chair into a sitting position on the carpet, drew one of the children down on each side of her, and com menced to teach a primary school in her manner.

" Shall I tell you a story, girls, instead of bothering with those dreadful old books ?"

" Oh, yes, yes, tell us a story ?" shouted little Mildred, enough of the child, as yet, to be fond of hearing personal

152 THE D-AYS OP SHODDY.

narrations, though old enough to have a shrewd suspicion, all the while, that most of them were unadulterated fibs. " Yes, tell us a story !"

" Once upon a time, then," began the model school-mis tress, her wealth of chestnut jjair half down about her ears, her handsome face all aglow with mingled mischief and the desire of pleasing and winning .the children, each arm around the waist of a pupil, and her body rocking them and herself backward and forward after a fashion that no natural school girl will need to have explained — " once upon a time there was a man who had two children. They were both girls, very pretty, and about the age of little Myra and Mildred — "

" That's us!" put in Mildred, displaying her early gram mar in what Sain AVeller would have called the "obserwa- tiou."

" — They were about the age of little Myra and Mildred," the teacher went on, "and I don't know but they may have looked a little like two girls who have those very pretty names. Well, one day there came a nice-looking lady into the garden where they were playing, and showed them a box full of gold and jewels, that she would give them if they would take a number of pretty books that she had in a little satchel, and learn them all by heart."

" Oh, Jeminy !" cried little Mildred, again. "Wouldn't / have read the books, though, if I could get lots of gold and di'mond jewels by doin' it ! Wouldn't you, Myra ?"

" I don't know," answered that very upright young lady of eleven, wh« had not, so far, been at all captivated. " Never mind her — go on, if you are going to tell the story !" This to Kate, and with an air of command which would not badly have become the dignified head of the estab lishment. The subject of the peremptory order took a glance at her, smiled without being observed by either of the chil dren, and went on :

" — If they studied the books and learned all their lessons, they were not only to have the gold and jewels, but be al lowed to put them on and go out into a beautiful grove where there were brooks of clear water, and the birds sing-

j THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 153

ing, and the sunshine on the grass, and the trees waving, and every thing that was pleasant and beautiful."

" Oli, Jeminy !" again cried Mildred, who seemed to have adopted that as her standard adjuration. "Wouldn't that have been nice ! Now I know that I should have read the books — or made believe I had read them !" and here the na ture so early warped peeped out in the most melancholy manner possible to conceive. Deception in people of older years is terrible, and falsehood indefensible except under cir cumstances that change the very nature of the act. But in the young it is simply heart-sickening — the most un-natural thing in all nature. Innate depravity is an injurious humbug : the little ones come to us from the hand of God, with the gloss of the early leaves and the fragrance of the blossoms — so nearly pure that of themselves they will never develop serious evil or wanton falsehood. They have the latent capa bilities for evil ; and these, which could no more spring up and grow and bear fruit than the seed in the ground could do, without air and sunshine — these we of older years develop in them. Every broken promise made by a mother to her child — every punishment threatened, or reward offered, by a father, and never fulfilled — is something to develop this most forward of the evil germs, falsehood. Think of it, fathers and mothers, when you make promises. to your children that you never intend to fulfil, or utter in their presence what they must know to be falsehoods! — think of it; and if the day should come when the daughter of your love refuses to bestow her confidence upon you, deceives .you, and starts upon some dangerous course with your hand made powerless to restrain her, — or if the son of your pride makes his life, his hopes and his troubles a secret from you, so that you can hold no steadying hand over the first tottering steps of his career in the world, — know that you are reaping what you have sown in the promises broken and the shallow deceptions practised towards imitative childhood !

All this because little Mildred indicated that she might possibly have deceived the pretty lady as to her learning the lessons set her ! Yes, all this, and yet not too much upon a subject which concerns every father and mother in the uni-

THE DAYS OF S H O D D Y . ^

verse, and of which the understanding and the action sprincr ing from it, must continue its influence when the now pre eminent troubles of Secretary Seward, and Lord Lyons, and Prince Gortschakoff, and Count Montholon,* shall have be come mere insignificant specks in the far distance of time.

However this discovery of the Fullertou code of morals may have shocked Kate Haviland and given her an addi tional insight into the labor which would be required to make those young people any thing more than intellectual savages, it did not seriously interrupt her story. She went on :

— " If they didn't study their lessons and learn what the pretty lady had told them to learn, they were not to have any of the gold or jewels, or to go out into the beautiful grove at all, and a big black man — oh, so big and black, was to come and carry them away into a great dark pit, and — "

How this interesting story would eventually have ended, and how the young school-teacher might have gone on to explain, after a while, that the pretty lady was Knowledge, the gold and jewels the blessings of Intelligence, the beauti ful grove the World to those capable of enjoying it, the black man Ignorance, and the dark pit the blindness arid misery of the untaught, — how all this might, could, would or should have occurred (to borrow a little of the teacherls own phrase ology in the study of grammar) — will probably never be known. There was an interruption, a little more effectual than that of a moment previous ; for at this stage of the proceedings the dignified Myra, who had not indulged in many criticisms on the story, caught the name of the big black man, and fancied that she had made a terrible discovery, which she signified by exclaiming, very loudly and deci sively :

" I don't believe a word of it ! It is a nasty, black Aboli tion lie !"

There is no intention whatever on the part of the writer, to depict an angelic character in Kate Ilavilaud, a real per sonage — no saint, certainly, but a very nice little sinner ! Had such been the intention, her fibs of the night before would have been carefully kept from view. She was a merry,

* September, 1863.

* THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 155

rattling, wide-awake (to use another slight vulgarism) and whole-hearted girl, capable of a great deal of good and a small proportion of evil, but very human, as Lady Alice Hawthorne exclaims when the kiss she has been expecting seems to linger on its way. She had temper — plenty of it ; and determination — as those may be made aware who do her the justice to follow out her career. The only difference be tween this young lady and many others who seem to be half the time angry and the other half unhappy, while she enjoyed life with the same zest which is supposed to tingle through a harp-string, — is that she kept her temper for great occasions and was sunny and full of enjoyment the rest of the time, while they fritter away their angry force in continued little driblets of ill-nature. On the present occasion, one drop too much of the Fullerton* gall had been suddenly poured into her cup.

" Do you say that to me, you minx !" were all the words uttered; but her two hands, small enough but by no means powerless, caught the offending hoyden by the two shoulders, and in the space of twenty seconds she received such a shak ing as set her teeth chattering, her breath coming short, her eyes full of angry tears, and herself very nearly tumbling out of her clothes! It is just possible that the young teacher, who seldom applied either hand or rod in the way of correc tion, had before practised the same punishment on some re fractory boy at her little school in the country, and found it very effectual ; for she seemed to shake with a will. The chill thought so, arid under the impression that she might possibly be shaken to death before the operation closed, con cluded to submit (at least for the time), and whimpered out, as well as the shaking would allow : —

"Please — don't — shake me — so — and — I won't — say — so-o- o — again 1"

But little Mildred, who was generally in a fight or a quarrel with her sister, did not wish to see her harshly treated by any one else, and blurted out : —

" You nasty thing ! I'll tell my mother !"

There might have been a corresponding shaking in store for Miss Mildred, for the governess was not at all likely to

156 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

mince matters when she had commenced; but at that moment another interruption in the programme occurred.

About an hour previous to the time of this occurrence, Mr. Ned Minthorne, millionaire and noodle, walking his morning rounds of inanity, called at the Fullertons' as he seldom failed to do during some hour of the twenty-four, every day when he was in town. He found Mrs. Fullerton just sealing in a large envelope a letter which had an inner directed en velope around it. Mrs. Fullerton seemed to color, became flustered a little, then accepted the situation and threw off all embarrassment. Why should she be embarrassed, in fact, before a person so low in mental calibre as Ned Minthorne, and one who lay so completely under the thumbs 01 herself and daughter ? At last her daughter and herself held a mo ment of whispered conversation^ (excellent treatment of the morning visitor !) and then the mother somewhat hesitatingly opened a conversation which may be stated as follows : —

" Mr. Minthorne, my daughter and myself have concluded to make a confidant of you."

"Very much obliged, madam, I am sure," answered Min thorne, in his own feeble way, apparently very little enlight ened and not much enraptured by this striking proof of per sonal esteem.

"Pray be seated," said Mrs. Fullerton, indicating a chair. The visitor took one, and the lady another, while Miss Dora, who affected soft seats, dropped upon the sofa as usual.

" Perhaps you had rather speak to Mr. Minthorne, my dear ?" said the mother, inquiringly, when this arrangement for personal comfort was concluded.

"No — speak to him yourself," answered the daughter, not too respectfully, and as if the whole thing bored her a little.

"Very well, my dear," said the mother. "Mr. Minthorne, you have now been for so long a time a frequent visitor at this house, that you cannot be ignorant of our position or sentiments."

Mr. Ned Minthorne would have done no violence to the truth by saying that if he did not know the sentiments of that particular family, on almost every subject, the ignorance must bo his own fault, as he had had all the possible varia-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 157

tions scolded, whined or wept into him, first and last. He- said nothing- of this kind, however (how could he — the gilded calf — the nobody ?) and merely replied, in the most natural (fool?) manner in the world, that "he hoped he was not a stranger — that was — to the feelings and sentiments of Mrs. Fullerton and her estimable daughter — she knew."

" I am very glad to find that you understand us so well," said Mrs. Fullerton, with a permissible bridling at the com plimentary word. " That will make every thing1 easier. Among other things you understand, sir, of course, that my daughter and myself are entirely Southern in feeling ?"

Mr. Minthorne, who might have made the same energetic statement that he did know that interesting fact, merely as sented in a manner qu;te as satisfactorily vacuous as he had shown in his reply to the previous question.

" We have extensive property in the South," the lady went on to say, "and of course our interests lie there. The aboli tionists have brought on a war against South Carolina and the other Southern republics,* and of course poor weak women like my daughter and myself can do nothing to stop it; but we can feel, sir, feel! Men of your family and position feel with us, the disgrace of this abolition outrage \\ and they ouyht to assist us in doing what little we can do to revenge it. I mean," and h«re the lady flushed a little, again, and corrected herself — " I mean that they should do nothing- to help carry out the schemes of the abolitionists. Do you not think so ?"

" Certainly, madam," was the reply of the millionaire, who, if he had not brains enough to understand the whole drift of the " Southern matron's" remarks, could at least take in and answer the last simple question.

* See "The History of South Carolina, from its First European Discovery to it* Erection into a Republic," etc. By AVilliam Gillincre Siimns. Pub lished by Redfield, New York, 1860.

f If Mrs. Fullerton and her fniuily use the phrase "abolition" somewhat too often, the fault does not lie with the writer. The ultra pro-slavery South has had no other adjective, except the corresponding one, "incendiary," for many a long year, fit to apply to any man or any measure not especially pledged to keep all the offices in the hands of the fire-eaters. And the good Vdy's dictionary, as we have already seen, was not likely to be very copious Wi synonyms.

158 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

"We have property down in Alabama, not far from Mont gomery," continued Mrs. Fullerton, "and in order that it may not be confiscated, it is necessary that — that — my lawyer and myself should hold a little intercourse with people in that neighborhood. That is right and natural, is it not ?"

"Perfectly right and natural," answered the millionaire, almost as senteutiously (because the words were already set for him) as if he had been a man of ordinary common sense 1

"They tell me that by the Baboon's proclamation" (this was the name by which the Southern lady dignified the Pre sident of the United States) — "it is against the law to hold any communication whatever with those States which belong to the — which have, that is, seceded. IVow is not that hard ? I ask you, Mr. Minthorne, as a friend of my family," and here she glanced over to the sofa, where the fine form of Dora was artistically displayed, as if she regarded her as the all-sufficient attraction and the millionaire as something more than a mere "friend of the family," — "I ask you if that is not hard, and wrong ?"

The lady's voice was broken, and if there were no tears in her eyes, there was certainly an appearance that they could be called there with very little effort, when she contemplated the bitter injustice of the government and the peril of her property "near Montgomery"; and it is no marvel that Ned Minthorne, ninny as he was, raised sufficient spunk to say, without half so much drawl as usual in his tone, and even bringing his hand down on his knee with a slap that must have tingled, as he spoke :

" Madam, the man that would keep you and your daughter from Montgomery — that is — I mean from your property there, — ought to be — I can't say exactly, but — I don't know what ought to be done with him !"

The mother accepted the sympathy, and the daughter, by this time curled up on the sofa in what is sometimes desig nated as a "kittenish" way (beware of the claws of people, especially female people, who assume the ways of the kitten!) — even she deigned to bestow a look upon her faithful adorer, congratulating herself on the fact that he was not quite an

THE DATS OF SHODDY. 159

absolute nobody, after all, even if he had been born in the North and born a fool.

" I see that you fully understand and appreciate our posi tion," said the lady, "and so I can have no delicacy about speaking the rest of my mind to you. Every few days I havr» papers to send down, from — from my lawyer, to "

" Tut, tut I Confound it.! I knew who your lawyer was not long ago. Let me see — what is his name ?" inquired Minthornc, corrugating his brows in a terrible effort to re member, and yet with something in his tone that the matron did not altogether like. She took one long, keen glance sit him from under her brows, but saw nothing to awaken any more unpleasant impression, — before she replied :

" Oh, Mr. ," and she mentioned a name that could not

have been found in the Legal Directory for 18 61, one whit more than it could to-day. But Minthorne, the do-nothing, was not likely to know much about the names of all the law yers in New York City; and so what was the difference ?

"Ah, oh, yes, I remember," was the satisfactorily stupid reply of the man who had had the wrinkles in his brow.

"As I was going to say," the lady went onk apparently not over well pleased at the interruption, after all, — " I have some papers to send down every few days, and they are taking so much pains to stop every thing and watch everybody, and there is so much trouble along the railroads" (they had begun to burn bridges at Big Gunpowder) " that really I do not know, sometimes, how I can get any through at all. And this was what I wanted to consult you about. Here is a little package of law papers, that I am very anxious to get down at once, and I really do not know how to send them. Would it be putting you to too much trouble, if I should ask you to get some friend of yours who is going to Washington, to take this, and allow no one to see it, and leave it at the address there ? It can easily enough get down, I believe, from Wash ington."

"Of course not — certainly not — I will see that it is deliv ered by some one of my friends going down — that is, if 1 do not go down myself. A fellow wants to see all that is going on, you know and I may go down myself to-morrow," an-

160 THE DAYS OF SHODDY

swered the noodle, taking the large letter and sticking it into his skirt pocket without even troubling himself about the ad dress ; and his whole manner falling, in the speech, into such a very near approach to idiocy, that Dora Fullerton. looked at him once more froni her place on the sofa, and wondered how she could have held a particle of even temporary respect for him a few moments before — he was such an absolute, unmiti gated, irredeemable golden calf.

A few moments later, after saluting the mistress of the establishment with that empresHement which was so eminently her due, and kissing the hand of Miss Dora, who received the homage with what she regarded as the native dignity of a queen — Ned Minthorne left the house, perhaps to look for the friend who was to carry Mrs. Fullerton's law papers to Wash ington on their way to Montgomery, perhaps to arrange for going himself, perhaps merely to kill a little more time before strolling homeward to lunch.

And yet it was Ned Minthorne who tapped a few minutes later at the door of the little school-room, and who opened it the moment after he had done so, just in time to effect a diver sion in favor of the offending rebel children, and perhaps to prevent such a family TOW as might have obliged the young school-teacher to leave her employment and deprived this nar ration of some of its most instructive incidents.

The next thing in order is to inquire how he came there, and how he, who had but a little while before left the Fullerton mansion for the day, should now have been tapping at the door of the school-room. Was there an unsuspected acquaint ance between the millionaire and the governess, and did the former, when he had concluded his call upon the members of the family proper and pretended to leave the house, really make a mere transfer of himself from the parlor to the school room ? Not yet — that is, certainly not ; for the double reason that of course Kate Haviland could not have been brought to consent to any thing so improper and deceptive,— and that (perhaps the latter is the better reason of the two) the mil lionaire and the young teacher had never seen each othe1* NO-T— the mechanical construction of Mr. Ned Minthorne's clothes was at fault. Pardon the remark, that is so regret-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

fully made in the interest of truth and patience, all the extensive manufacturers of that indispensable article known as the sewing-machine, — but we have never understood the full meaning of that gross modern vulgarism. " let her rip !" until instructed by this great invention. Many and various of our friends left partially denuded iu the street, at times when the highest sartorial perfection was desirable, by the giving away of seams that should have been enduring as those of a seventy-four riding out a hurricane, and others leaving portions of their garments behind them when the whole would naturally have been considered better than a part, — induce this side-reflection, which is not by any means intended to undervalue the little brownie without which the labors of the tailor and the sempstress would no longer be sufficient to clothe an overcrowded world. Ned Miu- thorne, wearing the best, the newest and the most fashion able garments known to Broadway, was still not removed above the accidents and infirmities inseparable from wearing any clothes whatever. He had his little infirmities, too, one of which was attachment to an occasional coat which fitted him more perfectly than any of the many others in his possession; and in the event of such a treasure being discovered, he some times clung_to the favorite garment for days in succession without having the tailor look after the seams.

Such a reckless course could only bring trouble, eventually, as it did on this occasion. On the morning of the interview with Mrs. Fullerton and her daughter, Mr. Minthorne unfor tunately wore one of his pet coats, not less than two weeks in wear and unexamined as to the state of its seams from the day when it came from under the ferruginous and calorific " goose." One of his skirt pockets, without his being aware of the fact, had just yielded its flimsy pretence of sewing — Anglice, "ripped"; to that pocket he confided the missive entrusted to him by Mrs. Fullerton ; and the consequence was that before he had passed ten steps through the hall on his way to the door, the precious missive tumbled out on the floor and all the " law papers" connected with the estimable lady's " property near Montgomery" were placed at the mercy of any unscrupulous person who happened to pass. 10

162 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

The first " unscrupulous persou" chanced to be Kate Havi land, who trod upon the packet as she came up from her late breakfast, on her way to the school-room, immediately pre vious to the occurrences there which have already been de tailed. She saw that it was a letter of considerable size, which had evidently been dropped by accident ; and she would at once have thrown it in upon the mantel of the parlor near which it lay, but being an unmitigated daughter of Eve she naturally glanced at the direction, and then — why then she paused and thought a little. She had very keen, quick young eyes, the paper of the outer envelope was unfortunately thin, and pressing it close with her finger as she read the direction : " Mr. Lionel Taylor, No. • F. Street, Wash ington, D. C." — she saw, or thought she saw, shining through the paper, another direction very like — she could not make out what the name was, though something like " Walker" or " Walters," as it was partially covered by the outer name ; but the direction below happened not to be opposite the other lines on the outside, and was certainly like " Mont gomery, Alabama, Confederate States of America."

It has been said that the young girl thought "a little." Perhaps that word does not properly indicate the rapid action of her mind. She thought, as some of the graphic story-tellers used to say of sensations when one of them had been up a tree, the branch breaking and a bear waiting at the bottom, — "a good deal in a little while." Union to the heart's core, she was not by any means ignorant of the na tional daily movements and theYules set by the Government for those who meant to show themselves good citizens. Here was indeed matter for thought. The people of the house Southern by birth and education, and boasting of sentiments very nearly approaching secession — a letter under cover to some man in Washington, and really intended for Mont gomery, the Capital of the Seceded States, in spite of the prohibition against any intercourse — was there not indeed ground for thought and suspicion ? Kate Haviland thought so, as she resolved her own course for the present by thrust ing the package into the large pocket of her dark delaine, under the coquettish bordered white apron which she was

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 168

going to wear in the school-room, and muttered, not loud enough for any one to hear except those recording intelli gences who had already iu all probability set down so heavy an account against her in their inaccessible day-books : — .

" If I do not smell a very large mice here, then I have no nose ! And if anybody down at Montgomery, Alabama, gets, this letter before I satisfy myself whether it does not contain a lot of treasonable information for the rebels, I hope they will let me know !"

Whereupon the young lady betook herself to the upper room and her duties as teacher, as we have seen — ap parently forgetting that she had made her delaine a tem porary post-office, or that there was such a thing in the world as a suspicious letter.

Mr. Ned Minthorne, at first blissfully ignorant of the loss of correspondence sustained, did not long remain so. He had not been absent from the house more than ten minutes, when the bouquet of a neglected ash-box saluted his nasal organ, agitating his physical system to a fearful degree and throwing him completely off his mental balance. At once his hand went into his pocket, in search of the perfumed handkerchief which was to enable him to pass the abomina tion without fainting, and in a moment thereafter he became conscious of the loss which he (or some one else) had sustained. The letter was gone — good gracious ! And Mrs. Fullerton's " property near Montgomery" — good gracioiis again ! — what would become of it ? The millionaire noodle seemed to have some idea of the reparation of damages, for he commenced retracing his steps, as nearly as he could remember, looking down at the ground all the while, as cfosely as if he had dropped a cambric needle instead of a package that could be seen for half a block. Judging from the previous intercourse between the lady who intended to be his mother-in-law, and himself, and the mental relation which seemed to have been established — it could only have been the desire to keep on good terms with the lady and her daughter which made Mr. Ned Minthorne so anxious to re cover the lost packet ; and yet the words which he muttered

164 THE. DAYS OP SHODDY.

immediately after discovering the loss did not seem to bear out that idea : —

" Confound this ripped pocket ! The old lady will rip quite as badly as the pocket, though, and that is some com fort ! What a fool I was — so anxious to get it' and get awav., that I did not even look at the direction ; and now if seme fool should have picked it up and carried it off to the Post- office, what a splendid, chance is lost !"

Mr. Ned Miiitimrne, though treading over every foot of sidewalk with such religious inspection, found nothing of the missing object. He reached the house, ran up the steps and rang the bell again. Possibly he might have dropped it before he had left the house, instead of after. The servant who again admitted him knew him too well to say a word, when not questioned ; arid as he was confident that if he did not find the packet he should at least find the senders in some one of the rooms, he asked her nothing and she disappeared once more into the subterranean regions. He stepped into the lower parlors — no one was there ; the ladies had evidently not yet come down-stairs from the room where he had left them. He ascended the stairs, looking carefully for the letter all the while, and entered the front room before described, and where the interview of that morning had taken place, No one there, either : the ladies had flitted again. (The fact was, that they had both left the house, in different directions, within two minutes of his own departure ; but this he could not know.) As a very intimate friend of the family, licensed to go anywhere, he had no delicacy about running up and down stairs as much as he pleased ; and as he knew that Dora sometimes went up to the rooms on the third floor, when she wished to be peculiarly sulky and exclusive, he proceeded in that direction. As he passed the door of the little school-room, towards one of the other chambers, he heard voices within. There were the ladies, beyond a doubt. So he tapped at the door, then fancied that he might have missed the response made, and opened it, to find the young school-teacher and her pupils in the situation described several pages back.

In spite of his want of sense, the millionaire must have

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 165

had some eye for beauty and the picturesque, for he seemed to be enough struck with surprise and interest at the picture of the young girl seated on the floor with her two pupils beside her, to look on them in silence for at least a minute. During that time Miss Myra, who, under a new excitement, instantly recovered from the effects of her shaking, fount! tongue to say, loud enough for the gentleman to hear if he had been listening very intently :

"That's Ned Minthorue."

To which Miss Mildred added, as if aware that such an introduction could not be half compendious enough for a total stranger like their new teacher :

"Ned Minthorne's courtin' my sister Dora, and is going to marry her."

Whether Ned Minthorne heard these explanatory remarks, or not, is a matter of no consequence. However questionable their source or the breeding they displayed, they opened quite an interesting ~new page to Kate Haviland. She liked to know people as quickly as possible, without being half as anxious that they should form the same ready estimate of her. The self-sufficient young lady was engaged to be mar ried, then, or something equivalent to engaged, to the rather handsome and aristocratic but weak looking person standing in the door. Her surprise, meanwhile, passed away a little sooner than that of the millionaire ; and she made no motion to rise, nor gave any indication that she did not consider her position the most dignified possible, as she looked the intruder steadily in the face, and said inquiringly :

" Well, sir ?"

" I really beg your pardon," answered the intruder, still holding fast of the door. " My name is Minthorne. You do not know me, of course."

"Yes she does, though 1" put in Miss Mildred.

" I have not previously had that pleasure," replied the young teacher, with much dignity in her words but a mis chievous smile on lips the beauty of which Ned Minthorne was not fool enough quite to ignore.

"I did not mean to intrude," continued the millionaire.

166 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

" My name is Min.thorne, as I said, and I would not do that sort of thing, you know."

" What a fool it is !" mentally commented Kate Haviland, struck with the evident weakness of manner.

''I was looking for Mrs. Fullerton, or Miss Dora, and thought that — that is — perhaps one of them might have been in this room. I heard somebody speaking here."

" Mrs. Fullerton and her daughter have both just left the house, to make some morning calls, I believe," answered the teacher, with a conclusive tone in the remark which indi cated : " Be kind enough to follow them, or at least shut the door and go away." Ned Minthorne did not take the hint, if a hint was intended. He said :

" I am very sorry. I did not know but one of the ladies,

might have you have not happened to see such a thing

as a letter lying about, this morning — within the last half hour — anywhere — have you ? Excuse my asking, but the letter is of some consequence to me, you know."

" Oho !" said the young girl to herself. " Here is the writer of the letter, then, and the Fullertons may not be con cerned, after all !" Then followed the instantaneous reflec tion : " But the danger of the document may not be the less to the country, and I won't give it up until I know more about it — see if I do !" What she said aloud, and in re sponse to the inquiry, was : " No — I have just come to the house, sir, and know nothing whatever about any letters."

" Yes she does, though ! She has got one in her pocket now — a big one ! See !" AVithout Kate being aware of the fact, the letter had worked up in her pocket, as she moved in rocking herself backward and forward ; Myra sat on the right side of her and had caught a glimpse of the end beyond the pocket ; and before the young teacher could have a thought of what was about to occur, that young female reprobate had made a grasp at it, caught it from the sheltering apron, and wraved it in the air, before the astonished eyes of the mil lionaire, with that triumphant exclamation !

Here was a situation ! To say that Kate Haviland did not flush blood-red at the humiliating position of being caught in a rank falsehood by a stranger, iii the presence of her two

THE D A Y S OF SHODDY. 167

pupils, and one of thorn the means of her detection, — would be to record an absolute impossibility. Hatred of the young wretch who had betrayed her— shame at the detection — doubt whether she had not indeed done something very wrong and disgraceful, without intending it — all surged through her mind, with that much greater rapidity than anv ever achieved by the favorite " lightning'' — the speed of thought. All the blood in her body seemed concentrated in her face and head ; there was fire in her eyes and a singing sensation in her ears. Great heaven ! — to what humiliation had she not subjected herself, even on the first day of her residence in that house ! — and would not death on the spot be preferable to any other fate which could befall her ? And yet through all this there ran a consciousness that she had not intended to commit either a crime or a meanness — that she had acted from what she believed to be the highest and noblest of motives. No ! — she would not break down be neath the shame of the situation ! — she would force back that rebellious blood ! — she would maintain the propriety of what she had done, even though that effort was to be made in the face of an obvious fool, (the very worst sort of person in the world to impress or convince), and though the next minute might necessitate her leaving the house and her em ployment that very day.

It has before been intimated that for Kate Haviland to will was to do. When she said that the rebellious blood should flow back, the rebellious blood better knew its fate than some other rebellious forces seem to do, and went back at once. Her face was nearly as white, though not quite so calm, as usual, before Ned Minthorne recovered breath from his sur prise, to say, starting forward a little way from the still- open door :

"Why, that is my letter, now, you know ! What does this mean — Miss — Miss — what the deuce is your name ?"

"My name is Haviland !" answered the young girl, spring ing up from the floor, at this juncture, with an alacrity which nearly sent the two children, who had been sitting partially on her skirts, sprawling against the two sides of the little room. There was no shame in her face, now, nor was there

1G8 THE DAYS 0 F SHOD 1) Y.

any approach to that merriment which usually flowed so easily into her dimpled cheek and cherry lips. Its expres sion was strong, earnest, womanly determination ; and Ned Minthorne saw it, as she advanced to where he was standing, near the door, and asked*: —

'• You say this is your letter. Is it indeed yours ?"

" Mine ? yes 1" answered the millionaire, but there was no great amount of confidence expressed in the tone of his reply. It was surprising with what severity, such as might have he- longed to an examining judge on the bench with a shrinking culprit before him, the young girl put her next question. The two children, astonished and a little frightened at what seemed to be going on, and yet prevented from running away out of the room by the presence of the interlocutors near the door, had backed up into the t\vo corners of the rear end of the room, nearly or quite out of ear-shot, and probably heard no intelligible word of what followed.

" Did you write this letter ?" asked the teacher, and her eyes sought those of the millionaire with an expression which the latter, if he had brain enough to understand them, was not likely soon to forget.

"I? — yes — that is, no," stammered Minthorne. "I did not write the letter, and yet — yet I know — that is I know pretty much, what is in it; and it is mine ! And look here ! — what kind of a young lady do you call yourself, Miss — Miss — Hadley — Hamilton — "

" Haviland," corrected the owner of the name.

" — Miss Kaviland, then, to possess yourself of letters be longing to other people, and then deny having them. Do you not know that that is — that it is — something or other, confound the name, that the law does not allow, and that can be punished — "

" Not quite so severely as treason — holding correspondence with the enemy, can it ?" asked the young girl, her eyes still upon the millionaire, and her face stern as if it had never flickered oil' a smile upon the world around her.

" What do you mean ?" asked Minthorne.

" This," answered the teacher, coming close to the million aire, holding the letter equally near to his eyes and her own

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 169

and tracing1 her finder along it. " If this letter is yours, you know that this outside is only a cover, and that within there is a letter addressed to the rebel capital."

"And what do you make of that?" asked the young man, apparently with less indecision in tone than he had before manifested.

" What I have just named — treasonable correspondence with the rebel leaders," answered the young girl.

".Will you give me that letter?" asked the millionaire, reaching out his hand for it at the same time.

" 1 will not!" said Kate Haviland. " You are a man, and I am only a woman, and if you choose to show yourself a brute, perhaps you oan take it from me. If you do, I will denounce you for what you are, within an hour, if you are the last man on earth and I starve in the streets. You never send this letter to Montgomery, and it never leaves my hands, until I know that it carries no intelligence that can aid the enemy !"

Brave Kate ! Brave and true ! Had there been more like you, women as well as men, the city of New York would not have been made, as indeed it was made, during all the early days of the rebellion, the fountain-head from which the rebel leaders drew all the information they needed, of the plans, purposes and resources of the loyal States. The Under ground Mail would not have revenged, as it did, the Under ground Kailroad, — one injury to the public service and the welfare of the nation, built upon and defended by another the very opposite, which had preceded it. It is not the province of this narration to personate the men known to have been engaged in carrying on treasonable correspondence with the enemy, during all the opening months of the war. Had there been legal proof against them, as there was moral, they would not have remained all this while at liberty : as there is not such legal proof at the command of loyal men, the time has not yet come when their names can even be mentioned with safety in such a connection as this. Some of them at the time held high position, penned their treasonable correspondence in public offices where they had been placed by the deluded people, and forwarded that treasonable cor-

170 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

respondence at the public expense. Some of them have since lost those high positions ; and some have since regained them, or gained others equally Honorable, so far as address is concerned. Some of them will sit in the next Congress* and hold a controlling influence in arranging the future weal or wo of the nation. God help the nation, in such hands ! Half the infidels in the loyal States have been converted to a belief in the truths of revealed religion, within the past two or three years, from the impression that there must be a Day of Judgment for the purpose of pronouncing doom upon such men, and that there must be a place wherein they can expiate those crimes against humanity and liberty for which they seem so unlikely to be punished during this life !

Then happened (that is to say, on the heels of the declara tion of Kate Haviland, that she had " put her foot down" against surrendering the letter, to be forwarded to Mont gomery) — something that she was very far from expecting, and something that may surprise even the attentive reader of these pages. It may not be possible even to say what did happen,, or why it happened. Strong feeling sometimes makes sudden metamorphoses, to which those of Ovid were only slight variations of the same creature. Men who have brains become suddenly devoid of them, under circumstances of great peril ; and those who before seemed to have little more than the crude understanding of the idiot, become not only men, but men of brilliant intellect. There may be something in the unparalleled circumstances of this unholy rebellion, producing the same effect where it would seem to be the most incredible.

Under the excitement (it must have been) of the moment, and the absolute need that he should regain possession of the letter on some terms, Mr. Ned Minthorne seemed to be actu ally transformed. All his weak, dawdling, listless manner vanished ; and Miss Dora Fullerton, with all the flow of Southern blood in her veins, would no more have said an insulting or overbearing word to the man who at that moment stood before Kate Haviland, than she would have

* September, 1S63.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 171

thrust her right hand into a grate-full of coal in full blast. There was not one particle of drawl in his speech, though the voice was very low, as he said :

" There — we have had enough of this ! — give me that letter !"

The young girl's face had been painfully red not long be fore. Xow it grew almost white, in the intensity of her sur prise. Was this reaJly the same man with whom she had been conversing ? She gazed at him with a strange fascina tion, in silence and for quite a moment, and then she asked :

" Who are you ?"_

" I told you my name, before. Minthorne. Let me have that letter ; Jov I must go, and I need it at once."

" To send it to Washington ?" asked the young girl.

Minthorne looked into her face one moment. "Xo," he answered.

" Xo ?"

" Xo — nor to use it in any manner in which the interests of the United States of America will be injured. Upon my honor /" His words were very low, so that the children still standing in the back part of the room could not have under stood him if they had been literally " all ears."

Without another word Kate Haviland handed him the packet : he put it into his pocket (his other pocket), said " Good morning ; and you had better forget what has been said and done here since I entered this room !" and was gone. A moment afterwards, Xed Minthorne, millionaire and noodle, once more emerged from the house of Mrs. Fullerton, with out meeting either that lady or her daughter, went dawdling down the street, and was 'shortly afterwards engaged in one of the most eclectic games of billiards known to the profes sion, at one of the most fashionable establishments for that indulgence, in the neighborhood of Union Square. Where he went after his weak nature had fortified itself with the excitement of punching about a few ivory balls on a green baize table with a long stick, as another and stronger man might have fortified his with a glass of fiery liqueur and two strong cigars, — it is not necessary at this time to inquire.

Kate Haviland of course obeyed the injunction to " forget"

172 THE DAYS OF 'SHODDY.

all that had occurred, and pursued that duty with such con scientiousness that she did very little else (mentally) during the remainder of the day, than continually to forget what she had the moment before been remembering in spite of herself. In order to quiet the apprehensions of some who might fear for the future of Misses Myra and Mildred under the instruc tions of a teacher of such ambiguous character — it may be said that during the day she managed to tell the story she had commenced, without being even once insultingly inter rupted — that before a week Myra (as much from love as fear, and yet with a due proportion of both in mind) would as soon have jumped out of the third story window as played a trick corresponding to the one in which she had indulged on that eventful morning — and that not many days elapsed be fore Mrs. Fullerton loftily declared herself pleased with the new governess, and Miss Dora remarked that " the young wretches had not been so still, any time within a twelve month."

CHAPTER IX.

ANOTHER CHAPTER THAT is NOT ROMANCE, BUT HISTORY — THE " DAYS OF SHODDY," AS THEY WERE — THE HUMAN REPTILES THAT SPRUNG UP AMONG THE DEMI-GODS — THE GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR PLUNDERING, AND HOW IT WAS EMBRACED — SHODDY SWINDLES IN AND ABOUT NEW YORK — OLD BOATS, OLD SATINETS, OLD REPUTATIONS AND NEW VILLANIES — NATIONAL, STATE AND CITY MOVEMENTS — Is THE MODERN SODOM TO. BE LOST OF SAVED ?

IT would be for the honor of human nature, if no necessity existed that the words following, and many others, should ever be read or written. Yet the design has been to furnish a faithful chronicle of the time, one partaking quite as much of the character of history as that of romance; and though it may be allowable for the painter in sunny lauds to bring

T H K DAYS OF SHODDY. 173

home only pleasant little bits of reminiscence caught from moments when he saw the sun aslant on such a valley or the evening falling on such a glorious combination of rock, and tree and river, — yet the word-painter has not the same liberty of choice ; and the faithful chronicler who accompanies this Cole, or Church or Gilford, and who pretends to give an ac curate account of the country visited, cannot be allowed only to dwell upon such pleasant scenes and golden moments : he must treat sometimes_of all that is hideous, loathsome and disgusting — all that is annoying, dangerous and terrible. Fearful gulfs lie, in reality, among the mountains which the artist makes merely enjoyable adjuncts of his picture ; storms burst upon broad-stretching plains ; and foul reptiles creep among luxuriant foliage. It is the duty of some to tell the whole truth, while others can be allowed only to exhibit the glorious points which honor nature and -deify humanity.

It is a task of no ordinary repulsiveness, to put upon re cord, amid the brightest glories that have ever been gathered by the American name, a shame which must endure as long as it has a place in history. Xota shame unparalleled in the career of nations, but one from which we should have'kept ourselves free, under the broad light of this epoch and in view of all past experience. That shame is and has been, trading and thriving upon the suffering and necessity of the republic.

It has been the duty of some of the earlier chapters of this work, to descant upon the glories which displayed themselves in the national character and action, immediately after the fall of Sumter — that attachment to the flag, personal courage and devotion, manifested in rushing to the ranks .of the army and pouring out wealth for the public service, which can never be forgotten until men ceasq to be divided into nation alities. Wo to the world that there is another and a darker side to the medal ! If the rising was matchless in the sub limity of its numbers, courage and devotion, it was accom panied by another rising, almost if not quite unparalleled in the whole record of baseness. If the true men of the re public rose to be demi-gods, in the sublimity of their sacri fices made and offered, there was a residuum among them —

THE DAYS £F SHODDY.

an evil spawn of men who at the same time sunk to be the meanest reptiles that ever crawled the earth. If Russell's dictum and the taunt of past years, that we were "nothing but a nation of shopkeepers," were at once disproved, — an other and a fouler charge, that we were capable of trading upon any necessity and making the " almighty dollar" out of transactions the most disgraceful, was proved to be true of too many in our midst. It might be established that as a nation we were brave and loyal : God help us 1 — it has not been proved that as a nation we were honextf

The title given to the work of which this chapter forms a part, is "The Days of Shoddy." And the name* has nbt Iwen chosen without due consideration of its meaning ; for the first weeks of the war, to which it peculiarly refers, gave to that word, before but little known, a wide and disgraceful significance. It has been, from that day, and must be in the dictionaries of all future periods, a synonym for miserable, pretence in patriotism — a shadow without a substance. Shoddy coats, shoddy shoes, shoddy blankets, shoddy tents, shoddy horses, shoddy arms, shoddy ammunition, shoddy boats, shoddy beef and bread, shoddy bravery, shoddy libe rality, shoddy patriotism, shoddy loyalty, shoddy statesman ship, shoddy personal devotion, — these and dozens of other ramifications of deception have gone to make up the applica tion of the name ; and it is an eternal disgrace to be obliged to say that in every one of the particulars named, the history of this struggle, and especially of its earlier months, has proved that we can vie with any people who ever practised the great art of knavery.

We are not alone in the world, of course, in this disgrace. Rotten ships, foundered horses, arms sold to enrich favorites, trading and trafficking in every thing that should have been

* There may be many, even nt this day, who do not understand what this substance really is, which has lately given a new popular word to the English language at the same time that it has eternally disgraced one branch of tho English family. "Shoddy," properly speaking, is the short wool carded or worn from the inside of cloth, without fibre or tenacitv, and with no capa bility of wear, and yet easily made into the semblance of more durable goods. The name is now used, however, as applied to cloth, in a more general sense — to signify any description of rotten or improper material.

THE DATS OF SHODDY. 175

held sacred, show on the pages of English history at almost any time during the last three hundred years, and no doubt would show at a still more remote period if the record was not made obscure by distance. Whole pages of Maeaulay might have been written of our own time, when they describe the terrible condition in which the entire British governmental polity lay for some time~ after the accession of William the Third,* and the state of thorough disorganization in which the whole commissariat was sunk when James the Second made his descent upon Ireland, f And that the same mighty England, accustomed to great wars, has not yet learned per fect wisdom in some of these particulars, is known by all who remember the gross mismanagement of the British commis sariat during the first months of the war in the Crimea. As if to prove that man in all ages and in all countries is a thief when his own country is to be damaged and his own country men robbed, Xenophon preserves us in his " Anabasis" the shameful fact that the Greek troops of Cyrus, marching against Artaxerxes, four hundred years before Christ, were starved

* " From the time of the Restoration to the time of the Revolution, neglect anrl fraud had been almost constantly impairing the efficiency of every de partment of the government. Honors and public trusts, peerages, baronet cies, regiments, frigates, embassies, governments, commissionerships, leases of crown-lands, contracts for clothing, for provisions, for ammunition, par dons for murder, for robbery, for arsons, were sold at Whitehall scarcely less openly than asparagus at Covent Garden, or herrings at Billingsgate. Bro ker.-* had been incessautly plying for custom in the purlieus of the court. * * * * From the palace which was the chief seat of this pestilence, the taint had diffused itself through every office and through every rank in every office, and had everywhere produced feebleness and disorganization."— [Jlacmtluy, Hist, of Enyland, vol. III., p. 48, Crosby & Nichols' edition.

t'' A crowd of negligent or ravenous functionaries * * * plundered, starved and poisoned the armies and fleets of William. * * * The beef nnd brandy which he [Shales] furnished, were so bad that the soldiers turned from them with loathing; the tents were rotten: the clothing was scanty; the muskets broke in the handling. Great numbers of shoes were set down to the account of the government; but two months after the Treasury had paid the bill, the shoes had not arrived in Ireland. The means of trans, porting baggage and artillery were almost entirely wanting. An ample number of horses had been purchased in England with the public money, and had been sent to the banks of the Dee. But Shales had let them out for harvest-work to tho farmers of Cheshire, had pocketed the hire, and had left the troops in Ulster to get on as best they might." — [3Iacaulay, Hist, of England, vol. III., p. 336.]

170 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

and robbed by their commanders and commissaries, that their own pockets might be filled with this "blood-money" of an army. And some of the heaviest thunder of denunciation poured by Demosthenes into the ears of the Athenians, sounded against those public plunderers who enriched them selves, wore costly robes and built luxurious palaces, while the State and the army were being beggared to supply them with that added wealth. But what is all this to us ? — and what satisfaction is there in contemplating it, except such a grim and horrible triumph as Lucifer might have felt, plung ing down from the radiant battlements of heaven to the gloom and despair of the lower pit, at the knowledge that he was not the first of the celestial intelligences who had fallen into the same disobedience and the same irretrievable ruin ? We should have been honest, had the whole world before us and around us proved false and treacherous : we should not have permitted the most sublime rising that ever took place to preserve a nationality, to be marred and belittled by a rising equally general for theft and plunder.

There seems to have been a general declaration, in acts if not in words, at the moment when the dangers and necessities of the government began to be manifest, to this effect : " The country is falling into trouble — it will be frightened and dis tracted — it must have materials for carrying on a war, sud denly — it must take such things as are offered, and there will be neither time nor heart to examine — we can make what profit we please — and it is no crime to cheat the government." There was a time when some mercantile reputations in the country stood, not only above any positive charge of dishonest dealing, but even above suspicion. Not all those mercantile reputations have been discovered to be bubbles, during this struggle, but it has certainly been proved that none were too hiyh to come under absolute proof of dishonesty. Govern ment officials have been themselves fearfully weak if not ac tually sharing dishonest profits with contractors ; and con tractors have so habitually outraged all decency by their swindles,' that the very name of " contractor" has long been a scoff in the streets and the word upon which any performer in the theatre could bring down rounds of reprobatory ap-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 177

plause. These frauds began with the beginning, and it is evident that they \viil not end until the clo.se. The leech has fastened upon the bloud of the nation, and it will not let go hs hold until the victim has the last drop of its blood sucked away, or finds strength, in recovered health, to clash the rep tiles from its bleeding sides. It was not only yesterday that the army was clothed in rags when unimpeachable clothing was bargained for : to some extent the same wretched condi tion of affairs exists to-day.* It was not only last year or the year still previous, that the soldiers ate mouldy biscuit and gangrened beef: fare very little better supplies them to day, though the exposure has ceased to lie a popular one in the newspapers, and the soldiers themselves have grown so used to the wrong treatment, or so hopeless of amelioration, that they cease to utter loud complaints in letters addressed to the public journals. Vessels are in the employment of the government, to-day, at scandalous prices, and used for dan- gvrous service, when they are neither sea-worthy nor in re pair, just as they were two years ago when there was some shadow of excuse for their selection, in the existing haste and necessity ; and if the old Governor and the still older Xiagara went the way of all rotten boats some time ago, it is not long since two old Staten Island ferry-boats, the Clifton and the Sachem, were sent upon service at Sabine Pass, for which they were no more fitted than the same number of mud-scows would have been, — and happily lost to the rebels. If the windows of men's souls and the secrets of government con tracts could both be laid open to the public view, to-day, the discovery would be made that quite one-half the national expenditures during the two and a half years of the war for the suppression of the rebellion, have been lavished upon un worthy favorites or picked away piece-meal by gross decep-

* September, 1863. In the Department of which Fortress Monroe is the head-quarters, and where certainly there is not remarkably active service, it has needed monthly distributions of clothing, during 1863, to prevent the sol diers from being absolutely naked. As there has been no public investiga tion of this abuse, which is, however, a common subject of sneering allusion at Monroe, \ve hivve no license to give the names of Hie firms supplying either the cloths or the clothing, and can only say that they are among the very LII-I/IK! nnil MOST KKSrKCTABI.R di-iilem in tl>? ffunitri/.

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lions. Half Ihc cost of the struggle having been thus felo niously added, half the possible duration within the limits of public patience has of course been subtracted; and if (which no one contemplates as possible) there should eventually be a premature and disastrous termination to the war, let it be understood that the cause of the ruin will be found' in the con tinued and unendurable sivindles which have created a false impression in the public mind that the war itself is only kept up to give still farther opportunities for plundering.

The city of New York, head of the commercial operations of a whole continent, has of course been the place of purchase of most of the supplies necessary for the government service, and equally of course the theatre of most of the disreputable transactions alluded to. Many of the unreliable goods furnished have been manufactured at the East; and some of the principal " shoddy mills," where a substance known to be totally unfit for human wear is every day made into an apology for cloth, to weaken, to sicken and freeze the defenders of the country, are located in Connecticut. No doubt Boston and Philadelphia have quite contributed their share to the national disgrace. But the city of New York must stand pre-eminent in this, as in every thing honorable or disgraceful; and it is' almost entirely with transactions connected with the great commercial metropolis, that this humiliating record has to do. Nor is there occasion of enter ing into many particulars of the frauds connected with the city of New York : the public recollection is smarting under them ; the names of the guilty parties are well known to the great body of readers ; and such personation- as could bring an additional blush (can they indeed blush ?) to the cheeks of the most noted of the robbers of their motherland, would be beyond the scope of a work of this character. Let a few type instances suffice to recall public recollection sufficiently for the purposes of this chronicle.

There is a story upon record, of a droll character who went one day into a livery stable (proverbially a place for cheap dealing and acute conscience) and inquired the price that would be charged him for a horse arid carriage to go a few miles into the country. The livery-keeper replietkwith his

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price — a modest one, beyond pejrad venture, — whereupon the droll very coolly remarked : " Oh, y,ou are mistaken ! I did not ask you how much you would wll the establishment for, but how much you would hire it to me for, for a couple of hours !" The local legend does not record what was the eventual issue of this transaction ; but something of the same kind might with propriety have been said, by the gov ernment officials, of charters of boats proposed in their behalf, where the price charged for a month's hire was afterwards proved to have been very nearly or quite the whole value of the vessel, the government taking the risk of loss and obligation to pay the whole value set by the owners in that event, in addition ! Dozens and scores of vessels were hired, in the harbor of Xew York and no doubt in other harbors as well, of which the owners afterwards made their boasts, when they had been retained in the government em ploy for two, three or at the most six months, that they had received the full value of their vessels and had them back again as sound as ever. There was not even shame enough, on the part of those unscrupulous persons, to conceal the fact that they had attempted and succeeded in perpetrating a great fraud on the government, as there might have been if they had been speaking of transactions with private indi viduals : on the contrary they chuckled publicly over that "smartness" for which some discriminating fiend, specially commissioned for the purpose, will yet treat them to an extra roasting in perdition, above that received by ordinary scoun drels.

It has often been said that " society" is an excellent insti tution, not only from the legal protection which its rules and observances afford to those who would otherwise be too weak or too modest to take care of themselves, but because to some extent it enforces the concealment of the worst points in the characters of each, and prevents sensitive people going mad at the great" aggregated spectacle of human depravity. This phase of the questionable and yet necessary protection which it affords to doubtful characters, has probably never been more • strikingly illustrated than it Lids fair to be to-day and

4

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in connection with the very outrages upon which we have been commenting. , *

If only one man had been engaged in filling his purse at the public expense, no matter how rich and powerful he bad grown, it is just possible that there might be 'enough of deter mined virtue and righteous indignation in the community, to " taboo;' him in the street and on 'Change, to make his seat an unenviable one at church and plant a few thorns and pin points of shame in his nightly pillow. But it unfortunately happens that the number of the impeccable is very limited as compared with those to be assailed, and that consequently there is a sort of " Mutual Defence Association" existing just now in'almost every large community in Anjerica, whose great end and object is to stifle outcry on this very subject. " Help me keep my skirts clear, and I will assist in holding you harmless," is the motto of this extensive organization of notables ; and surrounded by such phalanxes, who have first helped themselves to nearly all that was worth appro priating and then banded together to prevent detection or even accusation, — what chance would there really be for the lonely prophet of just wrath who dared to raise his voice in personal denunciation? A penny whistle in a hurricane, would be that weak, small voice raised amid the universal clamor.

Besides, there is naturally some objection, on the part of the most scrupulously honest of men, to being on bad terms with all his neighbors ! And as the wrong has been so broadly disseminated over the land, and as it has permeated every class of society, from the occupant of the policy-shop to that of the pulpit, one is really cautious how he fires into a crowd, lest the shot intended to cripple a contractor a hundred leagues away, may have the unexpected effect of " winging" an intimate acquaintance — perhaps even a kins man ! There have been so many vessels to be supplied — so many suits of clothing to be furnished — so many thousands of arms to be procured — so many regiments to be fed, going to or from the seat of war (no allusion is here made, be it understood, to the Philadelphia Volunteer Refreshment Saloons, among the true and far-seeing benevolences of the

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time) — so many victorious officers^ to be banqueted at the public expense — so many fallen to be buried, with long arrays of carriages, and gloves and music ad infinitum — so many different sorts of "relief" to be furnished to the wives and children of absent soldiers — so many trips of official person ages to Washington, or the different State capitals, or the various battle-fields, to arrange for something that never needed to be done and is consequently and very properly not done — so many "little jobs," in short, to supply opportunities missed in the more extensive ones, — that the brother, if dis posed to be too particular, might think twice before he took the hand of his twin, and the wife hesitate at putting on the new bracelet brought her by her husband, until she had full assurance that it had not been forged out of the melting down of the national wealth.

As a consequence of all this, society will not be at present seriously disrupted on account of the new element which has crept into it, and men who should carry a scarlet letter " S" upon the forehead, much more prominent than the " A" on the breast of poor Hester Prynne, will be allowed to wear their own unblushing fronts. Denunciators, when they do spring up, will generalize instead of particularizing. Preach ers, in their pulpits, when they feel the necessity of hurling a bolt of wrath, will be careful not to look, at that awkward moment, at the pew where my Lord Baron de Shoddy, just inducted into his splendid new villa of -Shoddyhurst, sits proudly in his shining raiment and forms the cynosure of admiring eyes. Political speakers, though they may thunder, will thunder innocuously at some supposed speculator who lives, not in New York, Boston or Philadelphia, but in a very distant "Borribhoola Gha" across some wide imaginary ocean. Poets will jingle abuse, but they will disguise the shining arrows of wit so cleverly that not even the object aimed at will be aware that he is touched. And novelists — well, novelists will be found human like their fellows ; and even they will present, on this subject, innumerable bushels of imaginative and deprecatory chaff, to a ridiculously small measure of personal wheat.

At which stage of the argument the writer hereof becomes

182 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

aware thai he is giving forcible proof of his own prophecy, and that if lie would not lose the opportunity entirely, in the present connection, and present the most melancholy instance on record of a " Hamlet" without ever a Prince, at least a brief glance must be taken of a few of the frauds and blun ders which, coming together, and each seeming to be espe cially arranged for the aid of the other, disgraced the opening days of the war in certain prominent localities. And Hot the old clo' dealer of Chatham Street, who, about that time, advertised that he would pay the very highest price for cast- off clothing, as he had " extensive orders from the govern ment," — nor yet the boatman on a certain shore-section not far from the same city, who was seen digging off a schooner that had been lying ashore, bilged and abandoned, for five years, " to carry troops down South with," as he said, — neither of these is to be the type. Prominent men, more or less clearly indicated, gleam through the whole lamentable series of operations, the record of which has lain entirely beyond the scope of the eleven hundred pages of Van Wyck, and even over-labored the Albany printers, so that though it has been loud enough in the public voice, it has not reached the public eye in the report of the Legislative Committee appointed to investigate the mingled dishonesties and incapa cities.

The crowning feature of that immediate time was of course to be found in the great clothing contracts for thirty thousand troops, in which popular clothing firms were engaged — affairs probably no worse than others which accompanied and imme diately followed them, but thrown into peculiar prominence by their extent and their being the first to come under expo sure — affairs which at once marked the names of those concerned in them as proper subjects to bear the prefix of "Shoddy" itself, for jokes in the street and "gags" at the theatres, without which town wits, writers and actors might all have been deprived of some of their very best opportu nities.

It is equally obvious that most of the frauds upon the government then and immediately after perpetrated, could riot have met with the same evil success, had there not been

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either collusion on the part of the authorities, or equally lamentable though not equally culpable contusion and mis management. He would be a bold man, to charge that nearly every person at that time in public office was a shame less swindler, and the alternative is to believe that frightened haste and incapacity were the true explanations of the con duct exhibited. The otherwise high character of most of the officials involved, gives at least some ground for belief that this charitable explanation is the true one, and that instead of their being conspirators leaguing with private villains to defraud the government, they were merely well-meaning in- capables, frightened out of their propriety, and running aroun^ with that admirable want of knowledge where they were going or what they were doing, graphically illustrated by some of the country people in comparing them to the evolu tions of " a hen with her head off !"

The New York Legislature was in session when the news of the fall of Sumter burst upon the country. That body naturally shared in the general alarm and indignation, and as the elected exponent of the popular feeling in the State, at once assumed the duty of providing for the emergency. A law was passed, on the Tuesday following the announcement of that astounding news and that of the President's Proclama tion, appropriating three millions of dollars for the public de fence, and empowering the Board of State Officers* to expend that sum in raising, organizing and equipping thirty thousand men, also authorized by that act. Really, this Board had lit tle to do in the way of raising troops, for men were rushing to arms in uncounted thousands : their principal duty lay in overseeing the organization into regiments, looking after the legality and propriety of the elections of officers which were to be made by the regiments themselves, providing for their proper arming and equipment, and getting them ready for the

* The names of the gentlemen composing this Board, for the additional reminder of the time which they convey, may also be mentioned here. They were: Edwin D. Morgan, Governor ; Robt. Campbell, Lt. Governor; David R. Floyd Jones, Secy, of Sttite ; Robt. 'Denniston, Comptroller,- Charles G. Myers', Attorney General ; Philip Porsheimer, Trcaaurer ; and Van R. Rich mond, State E>njiiicer. Of these, after Gov. Morgan, Mr. Durshuiiner was a leading actuary in tiriuy affairs.

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field as speedily as possible. Nor is there the slightest doubt, it is only justice to say, that the Governor, at least most of the other members of the Board, and the officers of his Staff as Commander-in-Chief of the State, who filled especially arduous positions in the equipment and fitting-out of the troops, intended to do the very best that lay in their power, to gather those troops readily, equip and send them off most efficiently. And it is only justice to say, again, that they would have presented a much better record than they did iu reality, had not that unholy conflict between City, State and Nation early begun to manifest itself, which in a wider sphere had done so much to give birth to the rebellion, and which will be found, unless yet undeveloped wisdom arises to bar the door of divided feeling which admits the evil, the con troll-ing cause of our national undoing.

The National Government had at that moment neither arms nor money ; and it needed the one and the expenditure of the other without a moment's delay. It was very willing to have the States raise the troops demanded, in their own way, fur nish the money necessary to equip and send them off, and look to it (the General Government) for eventual repayment. But it could not quite " keep still" all the while. It felt the neces sity of making occasional embarrassing suggestions as to au thority which the State Government (clearly iu the right, so far) was not slow to meet with equal tenacity. Here and there an officer (as in the case of Colonel Ellsworth, before noticed) was sent on from Washington with " authority" to raise a regiment ; while the fact was, if there was any State authority at all, that the President could have given nothing more than a recommendation that he or any other in the same relative position should be commissioned by the Governor. This muddle of " authority," in the case of Colonel Ellsworth and his Zouaves, grew into a serious difficulty with reference to their "ordering off" — a sad earnest of the reverses they were afterwards to suffer. Then the authorities at Washing ton had no idea whatever, how many troops they really wanted, and scarcely how many they had ordered ; and here grew up another matter of embarrassment, eminently worthy of the time when nearly all thatvwas not dishonesty seemed

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to be inefficiency. By the Proclamation calling for seventy- five thousand troops, the quota of the State of New York would have been seventeen regiments, numbering thirteen thousand, two hundred and eighty men.* The defection of Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee arid Arkansas, seriously affected the calculation, and made the quota of New York, if the whole seventy-five thousand men were to be raised, nearly twenty thousand. The legislature had believed, from the first, that troops might be more easily raised then than at a later period, and that they might be found " handy to have in the" national " house" ; and their authorization had been, as we have seen, thirty thousand. It will scarcely be believed that such stupid blindness as to the future can have existed at Washington, but such is the fact : the very moment it was known that thirty thousand New York troops were being, raised, there were rumors that a large part of them would be rejected ; and it needed the visits of two different Committees to the National Capital, before the government could be induced to receive and recognize the whole thirty thousand. (As an indication of the war-spirit of the State of NewYork, it may be said, here, that the whole thirty thou sand, in thirty-eight regiments, were organized, officered and equipped, and left the State for the seat of war, within ninety days from the date of the original call.) After Bull Run, anil when the power and extent of the rebellion began to appear in their full proportions, the government at Washington be gan to sigh over lost opportunities, and to be willing to accept more men, instead of less, than the State of New York was willing to furnish. It is anticipating events to refer to it in this connection, but no other opportunity can occur, and there

* The figures of the original call upon all the States supposed loyal, were as follows: Maine, one Regiment, 780 men; New Hampshire, one, 780; Ver mont, one, 780 ; Massachusetts, two, 1,560 ; Rhode Island, one, 780 ; Connec ticut, one, 780; New York, seventeen, 1.3,280; New 'Jersey, four, 3,123 Pennsylvania, sixteen, 12,500; Delaware, one, 780; Maryland, four, 3,123 Virginia, three, 2,349; North Carolina, two, 1,560; Tennessee, one, 780 Kentucky, four, 3,123; Arkansas, one, 780; Missouri, four, 3,123; Illinois six, 4,683; Indiana, six, 4,683; Ohio, thirteen, 10,153; Michigan, one, 780 Wisconsin, one, 780; Iowa, one, 780; Minnesota, one, 780. Total, 73,391 The balance of 7o,000, l,tioy, to be supplied by thu District of Columbia.

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is really an appropriateness in saying that it was at this time (to wit, immediately after Bull Run,) that the conflict between ,the National and State authorities, in the raising of troops, again and yet more injuriously manifested itself. Men, call ing themselves military men, who lacked character to inspire confidence at home, and who could not have procured authority within the city of New York, where they were known, to organ ize a gang of street-sweepers, — applied to the War Department for authority to raise regiments within the State of New York, without consultation with the State government, and were listened to. It is alleged that some of them offered baits for command, in tendering corps of peculiar name and organi zation ; and however that may have been, certain it is that some of the active men who at that time managed affairs in tlio War Department, found capabilities in most of these men, which those who knew them best would never have suspected ; and such authorizations were given — not less than fifty in two months, a part of them to drunken vagabonds and even convicts ! And from those authorizations sprung most of the disgrace which has since been reflected on the service, from the State. The regiments "originally raised, under State au thorization, took away such men as Duryea, Davis, Slocum, Peck and others who have since reflected honor upon high command ; and Hawkins, Bendix and many others who de served higher command than they ever attained. It was un der the new system of outside meddling that the disgraceful scenes of Staten Island, East New York and the Red House were inaugurated, with habitual drunkards and even convicts pretending to command American citizens, with fudged mus ter-rolls and forged orders, the whole culminating in the last ing disgrace to the service, of D'Utassy immured at Sing Sing.

Such was the inequality of the action at Washington, with w^hich the State authorities were obliged to contend, — one day unwilling to receive the troops raised at their order, and the next willing to overstep their own authority to raise more than the State would furnish under its recognized system. This was very early in the war ; and the country might have been better served could we say that nothing like the

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same vacillation has been shown at a later period. But the nation will not soon forget the events which followed the disastrous (though able) retreat of Banks from' the Shenan- doah Valley, early in 1862, the agonized appeals made to the leading loyal States for militia to " save Washington" onco more, and the repudiation of those very calls which followed when the folly of the "big scare" (as it was then well termed) had been discovered. Governor Andrews, of Massachusetts, took the alarm communicated by the official telegraphic des patches, in such earnest that he called out all the troops in and near Boston, on the Common ; and Washington came veiy near to being invaded on the opposite hand, by the force of that State, at once. The Seventy-first Regiment of New York National Guards hurried down, believing that they would almost or quite find Washington captured, to bo coolly received in that city with a denial that they were wanted or that he had called for any three mouths militia men, and that if they were " business men," as they alleged, and not willing to enlist for the war — they could go home ! They had no authority to go home, meanwhile ; they had not been mustered into the service of the United States, and con sequently not even the officers could get legal leave to absent themselves from the camp for an hour, so that they were about half the time under arrest by the Provost Marshal and in the lock-up ; and they were finally mustered in just one week before they were mustered out and sent home. So much for the change in management, in this particular at least; and so much for the hindrances and misunderstandings which did at least something to relieve the State officers from the blame of all the blunders, hindrances, robbei'ies and malfeasances which have occurred.

This somewhat long explanation of the embarrassments which arose at that time and have since continued through the conflict of State and National authorities, might be carried even further and pointed with a still more terrible moral, iit view of the later experiment in which the General Govern ment has attempted to ignore the States altogether, while the States have been quite as tenacious as ever of their authority — to wit, the great national conscription. But

188 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

there are blunders so palpable and failures so admitted that reprobation is literally wasted upon them; and the men of this time* have probably seen the last instance that will ever be exhibited while we remain a nation, of a popular government throwing off all confidence in the patriotism of the people, and hoping to make profitable substitution of the principle of Federal force in loyal States. The present gen eration may not live to see the evil impetus thus given to the injurious doctrines of ultra State-rights, entirely checked ; but let us hope that it has seen the worst of the conflict, which has power, if directed long enough by the hands of un scrupulous men, to wreck us at the very moment when we may have triiuuphed over both domestic rebellion and foreign enmity.

As if to prpve that all the evils of divided interest could not be found in one direction, the city of New York felt moved (from patriotic motives, of course) to take its little shy at proving that nothing could be done without it. Im mediately after Sumter a National Defence Committee was formed, most of the members severely respectable, though some who figured most prominently in it had not always been inactive men in matters in which their own interest and that of the public happened to be blended. It is said by an old dramatist that while the evil perpetrated by men is very likely to exist after they are dead, the good is generally buried in the same grave as themselves (" or words to that effect") ; and this may perhaps be the cause of there being very little remembered to-day with reference to that highly respectable Committee, except that they were a little in the way, and that they, with the aid of Col. Ellsworth, who was crazy after rifles when none worth the name could be fur nished, supplied the Fire Zouaves with no less than seven different calibres and thirteen descriptions of weapon, to one regiment — an advantage in fighting which the dullest student of military science cannot fail to perceive. They also aided the magnificent Fernando to make five thousand dollars more out of the celebrated Mozart regiment than he might otherwise have been able to do, by giving him a " haul" at each of the

* September, 1863.

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overcoats furnished to that body ; and this benevolence, like the military wisdom just mentioned, should not be ignored. That Committee has long since passed away, and its place has been supplied by the Joint Committee on National Af fairs, of the Common Council — a stupendous body, princi pally composed of gentlemen of classical education and re finement, who have been all the while immaculate in gloves; readv to go to Washington or Albany, at any time, to consult with the President or the Governor on — no one has an exact idea what; indispensable at banquets and balls supplied to the whole " tag, rag and bob-tail " of politics by the public money; and at times profusely immense in their telegraphic despatches, especially when New York was about being bombarded by the rebel iron-clads and new fortifications were necessary to be built the same night. Something may have been forgotten, of the distinguished services of both these Committees, but human memory is fallible, and at the present moment the impression exists that neither was ever much else than a shallow and somewhat expensive humbug. But all this while the " thirty thousand" clothing contract has been waiting for its ventilation. Let it wait no longer. Clothing was wanted, and wanted as quickly as possible, for the thirty thousand troops being raised by the State of New York. That it should be respectable and comfortable, such as would befit citizen soldiery going forth to the defence of their country, was a natural understanding that needed no words of contract to enforce it. Without such an under standing in his own mind, no soldier, however patriotic, would have enlisted. That the State and the country should be fairly dealt by in furnishing it. was as much understood, in the mind of every honorable man, as it would have been had the purchaser been a private individual and a personal friend. The State Board of Officers entrusted their Trea surer with the duty of making the contract for'such clothing, though into whatever blunders or errors he and the whole State Board fell, the report of the committee of the New York legislature on these operations makes it evident that they had the company of some very high-sounding patriotic names that have since then been continually recurring in the

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newspapers as the strongest and loudest friends of the Union and the instructors of government in the whole national policy. The Treasurer found respectable* and reliable persons in tlie city of New York, doing extensive business, and entered into a contract with them to supply several thousand suits, at such prices as should have procured plain but strong and durable clothing for the service. The manufac ture of the clothing went on, and the soldiers waited for it. Suddenly, and without any one being aware whence the whisper proceeded, there grew a rumor that these persons were not making the clothing of such goods as would quite fulfil the needs of the soldiers or the expectations of the State officers. This could not be perhiitted, by any means : this must be made straight, at any hazard. Gov. Morgan held a consultation with the new Quartermaster-General of the State,* and both the officials decided that the plan of the Treasurer, to have one of his own employees inspect the clothing, must be modified, materially. At the suggestion of the Governor, and from a list furnished by him, the Quar termaster selected four men whose standing in society and advantages in intimate acquaintance with the qualities of goods, would insure at once that no bribery could be practiced upon them and that they could not well be deceived as to the worth of the garments they should inspect. Now would every opportunity for dissatisfaction and faultfinding be most certainly removed. Now every thing was sure to be correct and satisfactory. Seemingly no more effectual pre caution could have been taken by the Governor and Quarter master-General, who were both undoubtedly beyond reproach in the matter, and thoroughly in earnest; but the same evil fate and worse managementTvliich had at first taken the task of procuring clothing out of the hands of the Quartermaster and put it into those of the State Board, seemed disposed to follow to the end. The manufacture went on, and the requisite number of suits were finished, inspected, declared satisfactory, and delivered. When delivered, and when inspected by the practical eyes of men who were to wear them, a certain proportion were respectable and almost up to the standard

* General Chester E. Arthur.

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^

required by the contract, and the rest the veriest insult to the men for the clothing of whose backs and limbs they were intended, that ever emanated from the most disreputable slop-shop in the universe. It would seem that the shelves of all the cloth-houses on the continent must have been ransacked for the oldest, thinnest, most rotten arid moth- eaten specimens of satinet,* that had been accumulating as refuse stock for the previous twenty years. Straws could have been shot through some of the garments, they were so thin, open, coarse and "sleezy" (for the meaning of which latter term, reference may be made to the first tailor of the reader's acquaintance) ; in others whole generations of greedy moths seemed to have been running riot ; and still others were so rotten from long lying and dampness on the shelves, that there was no difficulty whatever in holding up the material and thrusting the finger through it as it might have been thrust through soaked blotting-paper.

This was the stuff, unfit for any negro in a Southern cot ton-field, designed for the American white man to wear, when performing the highest and holiest duty known to the citizen— that of battling for the liberty and honor of his coun try ! This was the mode in which certain American citizens testified to their devoted patriotism, their commercial in tegrity and their appreciation of the needs of the soldier. This was the stuff, too, that had been inspected by men holding the very highest position, whose signatures to the indorsement upon every package gave assurance that they had examined and approved every garment.

But it is the fate of scape-goats, always, to carry the sins of others as well as their own ; and this affair furnishes no exception to the rule. The first operations of any class that chance to come into public view, startle much worse than corresponding ones which follow ; and other soldiers' clothing

•* Many persons, probably, have no knowledge of the manufacture of the material known as "satinet," and its difference from cloth. Whereas "cloth," in its ordinary acceptation, is a material made entirely of wool, "satinet" is made with cotton warp and wool filling, and has a peculiar faculty of becoming gray, thread bare and unsightly, after a very small proportion of wear. What rotten and moth-eaten satinet must be, may be imagined even by those who have never been brought into contact with it.

I»9 THE DAYS OF SHO TTD Y .

has, since that time, been quite as badly made, quite as inef ficiently inspected, and all parties remained the purest patriots in public estimation — stars in society, paragons in politics, patterns in benevolence, admired in spirit-stirring oratory, and, perhaps, saints in the calendar.

In another respect, too, the scape-goat comparison holds good, as none better know than those who have escaped public attention while it so seriously damaged others. The cloth dealers are entitled to their full share of the odium, in this and other instances of the manufacture of worthless clothing. That they sold to th'e clothing contractors material even more worthless than the latter knew, is beyond doubt. It has been seen what Charles Holt, a type man of this class, directed his partner to purchase in Europe, in view to meet a large demand for soldiers' clothing material — the cheapest and poorest cloths that could be found of any approach to the required color ; and the very day on which his name ap peared in the. daily papers appended to a subscription of one thousand dollars to the Union cause, at one of the'great mer chants' meetings of that week, — case after case of the most worthless satinets that the Eastern markets could furnish, was being carted up to the store ' of Charles Holt & Andrews, from one of the Boston lines of steamers. Where a part of the bad materials of the " respectable firm" came from, he knew, if we do not; and other dealers of the same pure, high-toned and patriotic impulses, could have explained the place and mode of procurement of most of the others. They kept out of the public view, however: the clothing- manufacturers loaded themselves with an odium which will never leave them while a man of this generation remains alive, while their equally culpable coadjutors, the cloth-dealers, almost totally escaped and have done so while furnishing worthless materials throughout the entire war.

Does it seem that something too much has been said of these frauds against the government, practised at the open ing of the war, and that somewhat too intense reprobation lias been bestowed upon them ? , They err who think so, or who believe that even half enough has yet been said and done to stamp the human vipers with infamy. It is not only

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 193

that they were, to the extent of their action, committing mat ricide by crippling, paralyzing and rendering helpless so that others could murder her, the country that was their mother : nearly every swindling contract, then and throughout the war, has done something more and worse than this. Every rotten old boat sent to sea with Union soldiers on board, likely to sink at any moment and bury them at one fatal plunge, has been a bid for the wholesale murder of brothers, such as the very fiends in hell must have contemplated with infernal ad miration. Every shoddy suit, every defective blanket, and every pair of shoes with the soles pasted to the uppers (no fancy, this latter, but something that has been seen by too many who were brought into contact with quartermasters' operations) has been the means of making a TJni0n soldier suffer what he need not have suffered in the chances of war, nnd at last brought him to crippled limbs or consump tion. Every mouldy biscuit or pound of gangrened beef has been a bid for sickness in the field, or fever, delirium and death in the hospital. Every defective arm, every sawdust shell and every worthless horse, has left him at the mercy of a fierce and unscrupulous enemy. Every dollar swindled away from the public purse has been so much subtracted from the very life-blood of the nation. Every public theft has been an effort for the public downfall. Every swindling shoddy contractor, so far as his abilities went, has been a national murderer. Every person, of whatever name or employment, buying for the government what wras worthless or injurious — whether guns known to be worthless (whether with or without touch-holes — a mooted point) ; ships fitted for any other service than the one intended ; broken-kneed stage-horses, passed for the consideration of two dollars per head by the inspector ; every one of this class of operators, of whom the list might be extended indefinitely, with or with out his own intention has been an accessary to what may eventually be the national death. And if there is a special providence at once watching over nations and individuals, the day of doom that may be coming to the nation and its domestic foes — will be a day to be remembered.

Say not, oh historian of the coming time, that too much 12

194 THE DAYS OF S H O D D Y.

stress has been laid upon these terrible dishonesties,' here or elsewhere, and that the true lover of his country will do something to conceal the sins and follies of that country, instead of bringing them with still more painful prominence bffore the eyes of the world. Every withering utterance may be a pang to the speaker ; but the uninspired prophet of to-day must feel as his inspired prototype of the early ages may have done — that wo is him if he speaks not the truth of the people of his own blood, even as he might of those removed from him by race and distance. To "foul his own nest" by decrying it, was thought to be a detestable feature in the conduct of the bird of the fable ; but men can not always be subjected to- the same rules. Not the nest, which he must ever love, but the unclean birds that make their home within it, must be the theme of denunciation ; and the Brutus of to-day must reverse history and sit in judgment upon his father, or even his Mother, if need be ! If not, and if reprobation is to 'be withheld because it might strike those bound to us by the ties of kindred and country, all future time must change its estimation of some of the brightest examples of old heroism, and Demosthenes and Cicero must be hurled down from the high places which they won by denouncing, not the countries that gave them birth, but the vipers of disloyalty and pitiable meanness who -but for them would have crawled in continued security until they had given the last sting to national existence.

Write not, oh historian _of the coming time, words that shall excuse or even undervalue such disloyalty, until this generation has passed away and there are no longer those remaining whose cheeks have burned and whose hearts have bled at the alternate shame and sorrow forced upon them. Wait, at least, until the carriages cease to splash us with their mud, as they roll by with plumed and diamonded dames —the cnrriages, the plumes, the diamonds, and even the rn- .<•/>!'< lub/'l if >/, all achieved by trading upon the necessities of the nation. Wait until Mayors of Cities, Honorable Mem bers of Congress, Senators, Governors, and those wrho rule cities and fill high places in every relation of civil life, cease to offend our moral noses in the street by the aroma of cor-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 195

rnption which they carry about with them, shaming us in our poverty if we wear a thread-bare coat or fall into the k misfortune of a note sent to protest, while the sleek raiment they wear has been in too many instances purchased by send ing to protest every feeling of patriotism and every dictate of honesty ! Wait until the shadow of death passes away from homes to which the cries of suffering soldiers who went out from them have come up too late, asking for aid from private hands to replace the ragged clothes in Avhieh they were shivering, to supply shoes to their naked feet, and to give them blankets that wrould afford them shelter from the clamp ground on which they were sucking up pestilence at every pore of their bodies. Wait until the poor mother has at least partially forgotten 'her darling boy, murdered in this manner, long before the bullet of an enemy had the op portunity of reaching him : wait until the country has to some extent ceased groaning over the thousands upon thou sands of lives and 'the millions of wealth wasted in the blunders and inefficiencies of management — every single life and every single dollar thus wasted, being something to be deplored ten times more than ten times their number sacri ficed with Reason supplying the altar and Honesty holding the sacrificial knife !

For blood, the life of the individual, and wealth, the life- blood of the nation, are so intimately blended together that no power can dissever them in the estimate of loss And in the same wrong which wastes either or both, national success is made impossible and national disaster inevitable. " Like master, like man !" is a motto holding quite as good, to-day and in speaking of the operations of a great war, as it was yesterday and when the varying characters of farmers and their hired laborers were to be considered. When inefficiency and dishonesty equip a regiment and select its officers, it need be no wonder to find the regiment unled in the hour of conflict, the^ officers skulking, the men disorganized, the weapons uncared for and misused, companies formed in line by backing them up against the nearest fence, and the sharp, ringing words of the command to mount, in the cavalry arm, changed to that somewhat ambiguous double order which has

196 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

for months past been supplying merriment to the newspapers : " Prepare to git upon your critters ! — Git !" And under offi cers so appointed, and who have seen such examples among the highest of those from whom they have themselves derived authority, wilful waste of the public property is no wonder, but a natural result. No wonder when we find hundreds of tons of quartermasters' stores and army supplies recklessly burned the moment there is any possibility of an attack upon them, by officers too ignorant, too indolent or too cowardly to defend them or superintend their removal to a place of safety; no wonder that muskets have remained piled by the thousand, out-of-doors and exposed to rain and rust — that weapons have been flung away on march or retreat, as if they had cost no more than so many straws or corn-stalks gleaned from a stubble-field in autumn — that hay has been left rotting by the ton on the levee at Cairo, while the cavalry-horses within a hundred miles were literally starving for the want of it — that even on Capitol Hill at Washington, the dragoon quartered there has habitually flung down the hay of his horse into the mud, to be trampled into manure, and his corn in the midst of it, to be trampled and wasted in the same manner, or to be appropriated by bands of predatory hogs that better understood its value and its use !

All these details and suggestions are heart-sickening — let there be lio more of them. The whole melancholy story is told in two brief words — dishonesty and incapacity. And yet one brief word will sum up the whole still more con cisely and more appropriately for this connection — "shoddy."

That " righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people," is a dictum long ago set down by an authority that not many men are rash enough to question. It remains to be soon whether we have shown vice and dishonesty enough to be doomed beyond hope, or whether there has yet been shown enough of virtue, bravery, patriotism and self-sacrificing devotion, to redeem in the eyes of the God of Nations the wTide-spread Sodom of dishonesty and unfaithfulness, and leave us yet worthy to be a people in His sight.

And here, passing again from the general subject of the blunders and dishonesties which came in with the commence-

THE DAYS OP SHODDY. 197

merit of the war and have to some degree cursed the strug gling nation up to the present moment, — the careers of parti cular persons named in this narration must be rapidly foU lowed ; and happy indeed will humanity be if the discovery is not made that there are deeper and deadlier crimes against patriotism, than even those which have been so plainly char acterized in this most uninteresting and yet most necessary chapter.

CHAPTER X.

THE DEPARTURE OF THE FIRE ZOUAVES — PUBLIC CONFIDENCE

IN THEM THE SCENE OF THE 29lH OF APRIL SPEECHES,

PARADES AND PRESENTATIONS RETROSPECTORY HOW BURT-

NETT HAVILAND KEPT HIS RESOLUTION — THE EXTRAORDI NARY FRIENDSHIP OF CHARLES HOLT, MERCHANT — THE PARTING OF HUSBAND AND WIFE — How AN UNLUCKY Box

TUMBLED OVER, AND HOW TlM WROTE A LETTER IN CONSE QUENCE. «.

THE First Regiment of Fire Zouaves left the city of New York for the seat of war, on Monday, the Twenty-ninth of April, 1861. To the brave fellows who composed it and to the ardent young Colonel in command, the day of departure seemed to be an age after the call of the President for troops had been made, though really only two weeks had elapsed since the Proclamation. They had intended to get off earlier, and would have done so but for some of the difficulties in or ganization inseparable from the formatiori'of any peculiar body of soldiery, and some of the blunders in management, on the part of well-meaning outsiders, to which reference has before been made. Every nerve had been strained by the Chief Engineer of the New York Fire Department,* the Treasurer of the Fundf so sacred to the firemen, and the other

* The present popular Chief Engineer, now serving his second term — Mr. John Decker.

f Mr. John S. Giles, whose name has for many years been identified with the best interests of New York firemen.

108 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

officers and leading men of the Department, at once to enable the regiment to move early and to make it as practically efhV cient as possible. Every Engine, Carriage and Truck-house in the city had been made practically a recruiting office, the interests of the fire-service for the time almost forgotten in the new and absorbing work of patriotism ; and the number of active firemen going away seemed so great (nearly one- quarter of the whole enrolled force in the city) that some of tho careful and not-over-sanguine property-owners believed that their houses, in the event of a fire, would be left to burn at leisure. Flags had waved and music sounded, universally, among the men so long known as the defenders of life and property against the devouring element; but for a sterner and nobler purpose than when they had merely waved and sounded for an Annual Parade or the torch-light reception of a favorite company coming home from a visit or a tournament. But they had not been necessary to induce the enlistment of enough men to form the regiment — far from it. More than another regiment of men, in numbers, had made application for places in the corps, and been denied from -some defect in health or some known obliquity of moral character. The Fire Zouaves, both in the intention of Col. Ellsworth and the lead ing spirits of the Department, were to be picked men, ready for any service and capable of reflecting honor on the city that sent them forth ; and all fondly believed that the selection had been" made successfully. ff ever a regiment was sent out with full confidence and bright prospects, this had that dis tinction. Others, composed of miscellaneous material and of men whose courage and endurance had never been proved, might cover themselves with glory or fall into comparative disgrace : the Fire Zouaves, with Ellsworth at their head and otherwise officered* by men commanding the entire confidence of their fellows, had no peradventure in their coming career, which every omen indicated and assured.

* The field ami leading line officers of this regiment were ns follows : —

Colonel, Elmer E. Ellsworth; Lieut.-Col., ; Major., John A. Cregier ;

Captains: Company A., John Coyle ; Co. B., Edward Byrne; Co. C., Michael C. Murphy ; Co. D., John Downey; Co. E., John B. Leverich ; Co. F., Wil liam H. Burns; Co. G., Michael A. Tagen; Co. H., William Hackett; Co. I., John AVildey ; Co. J., Andrew D. Furtell.

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It has been no unusual circumstance for the head of a family to make certain calculations of the future of its 'members. Of half a dozen sons and as many daughters, the career of each has been foreshadowed to the quick eye of the parent. In John, Peter, Thomas, William and Timothy, there was something for which to fear. John was laborious and obedient, but dull-witted ; Peter keen-witted and lively, but unmanageable ; Thomas, a good boy in other respects, lacked health and stamina ; William had no mental fault, but was really so insignificant-looking that nothing brilliant could be predicted of him ; and Timothy had never been any thing more than a " runt," looked down upon and despised by all the other members of the family. It has not been very easy for the parent to decide upon the future of either of them, each having some drawback or foible making thorough suc cess in life unlikely. But Walter — ah, there at last has been a fixed and well-grounded hope ! Walter was so handsome, so intelligent, so brave, so forward in his learning, so ready at every thing to which he turned his hand, so much a favorite with all who met him — that there could be no failure in his life and no question of the brilliant celebrity at which he would arrive. So of Clara, the pet daughter. While Jane and Susan and Mary and Marma and little Esther had each some fault or weakness which threatened their future, Clara, the beauty and the favorite, could be nothing less than the wife of a noble and honored man, and her self one of the queens of the society surrounding her. The parent has sometimes been called to bitter reflections on past calculations and the uncertainty of all human hopes, when John and Peter and Thomas and William and Timothy, all humdrum but very respectable heads of growing families, with broad acres calling them master and money in bank, have gathered home to the funeral of Walter, brilliant genius who could do nothing practical, who tried every thing and partially succeeded in everything but fully succeeded in noth ing, and died at last penniless and unhonored, of a broken heart and a ruined constitution. Or when the brothers and Jane and Susan and Mary and Martha and little Esther, all plain and unassuming but respectable heads of families,

200 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

have been obliged to read through blinding tears tho shame of beautiful and gifted Clara, wandered away alike from her old home and the teachings of those who loved her, and lost thenceforth to them and to herself.

Which train of reflection may or may not be thought to have legitimate connection with the expectations formed of the Fire Zouaves when they went away, in comparison with other regiments, and the result realized from those expecta tions, under the same comparison, — according as the reader possesses or lacks the faculty of making apposite* compari- sions out of things in themselves very different — seeing in a sheep sometimes a reminder of a saw-mill, or in a penny- whistle a suggestion of the Parthenon.

It was a brilliant spectacle presented in the streets of New York on that day when this oddly-favorite regiment marched. Perhaps not so many saw the departure, as had attended the going away of the Seventh and of the Sixty-ninth ; Uut no others had been so honored in a general ovation. And this turn-out was a cheerful one, as the first-named had been sad. A few days had materially changed the popular feeling. Washington, which had been threatened, was already pro nounced " safe" in the hands of thousands of soldiers who had" gathered from every loyal State and made a promising lodgment on the opposite side of the Potomac. And that few days had already inured the people to the sights and sounds of warlike preparation, so that the files of soldiers passing down the street on their way to the scene of conflict, no longer seemed to be going martyr-like into the jaws of some great dark monster, from which not one in ten could ever emerge alive. Men had already ceased to be oppressed by nightmare dreams of the great horror which lay beyond the Potomac ; and women no longer threw their arms around their children when alone with them, under the impression that to-morrow they must be fatherless, even if the loyal States should not be overrun by red-handed rebels and them selves murdered on their own hearth-stones. Even the theatres had ceased to be a mockery, and habitues had returned to the practice of their nightly visits; while the crowds on Broadway looked again into the decorated win-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 201

do\vs and the ladies recommenced their purchases of finery: so rapidly do \ve accommodate ourselves to any novelty or any necessity. ,

Thousand upon thousand of spectators gathered at Broad way and Canal Street, to see the manly fellows in their natty grey Zouave suits picked out with red, and with red shirts and the red chasseur cap, come out from their head-quarters and form ranks for the reception of colors and the subsequent march to the place of embarkation. Still other thousands lined Broa'dway from Canal Street to the Astor House, down which the pageant was to pass. The air seemed literally thick with waving flags and answering handkerchiefs, while every worn was one of confidence and joy and every shout one of unalloyed hope for the country under such manifesta tions. Twelve hundred firemen were in the ranks, ready to meet a different foe but scarcely a moje dangerous one than that they had so long battled, — when a little after noon the last preliminary arrangement was completed, the ladies, the offi cers of the regiment, and the Committee of the Fire Depart ment had assumed their places, and a deafening cheer rent the air as the tall form and high Norman face of Wickham* were seen as he stepped forward to entrust to the Zouaves the special banner prepared for them by the Department. And something of wrhat the loyal citizens of New York ex pected of the regiment was embodied in the words of this man, who had once faced death in a more terrible form than it wears upon any battle-field, f as he said: "People have high hope in you. You have established a character for noble daring which has secured the admiration and the tribute of all. When the fire-bell rings in the night the citizens rest secure, for they know that the New York firemen are omnipo tent to arrest the progress of destruction. * * * You are called to quench the flames of rebellion, and we know that whether in the midst of burning cities or on the heated fields

* Mr. William II. Wiekhain, then President of the Fire Department.

f Mr. Wickham, when Secretary of the North Atlantic Steamship Com pany, was one of the survivors of the terriblo foundering of the steamship San Francisco, on the night of the 5th January, 1856 — an event scarcely paralleled in its horrors even by that of the Central America.

202 T II E T) A Y S OF SHODDY.

of war, you will sustain your own high character, and that this banner will ever wave in triumph, though it wave in the midst of ruins." Then, amid cheery yet more deafening, fol lowed the response of Col. Ellsworth, his sad, pale face, still vigorously earnest, at once foreshadowing his reckless bravery and his doom, — promising that if eve/ the regiment came back, it would bring those colors unsp'otted as then, and pledging his own life and the lives of all his command to that sacred vow. There might have been 'a tremor in the voice, though there would not have been a colder pallor on his yo\mg check, had he known how soon his own share in that vow would ho fulfilled, and what was to be the fate of those colors, left un- cared for, soiled and ragged in the lumber-room of an old warehouse at Alexandria, while the regiment went to meet its ruin, and only rescued long after, to hang ingloriously among the trophies of tjie. Department.

Then followed, amid demonstrations not less enlivening, another presentation which showed the respect and confidence borne in time of need by th'e- millionaires of the great com mercial city, towards those whom they were in the habit of holding as nobodies in the social scale under other circum stances, and passing without more recognition than would be bestowed upon the most abject inferiors. The wife of one of the quintuple millionaires of New York* had prepared with her own hands and purchased with an atom of her wealth, another stand of colors to be borne by the Zouaves ; and these were presented through that officer who has now won the right to be considered one of the guardians of the flag, from his noble command for the" instant death of the wretch daring to profane by lowering it.f This done, and the second pre • sentation answered by the young Zouave Colonel, the regi ment moved away, under flaunting flags and waving hand kerchiefs, amid shouts and cheers and the sounding of martial music, and escorted by the flower of the whole Fire Depart ment, down Broadway to the Park and the Astor House, where still another stand of colors were to be presented to this corps of men who had all their lives been accustomed to

* Mrs. Augusta Aslor, wife of Mr. John Jacob Astor, Jr. f General John A. Dix.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 203

few fabrics softer in texture than the red flannel of their fire- shirts, but who seemed now destined to be smothered under costly silks that the fairest hands had embroidered.

Jt was nearly evening when, the presentation at the Astor House accomplished and their steps on Broadway retraced, the regiment filed down the long pier at the foot of Canal Street, to their embarkation <?n board the old Baltic, once so proudly bearing her share of the honors of that Collins Line which disputed the empire of the sea with the Cunarders, but ever since lying, except at long intervals, in sullen and mo tionless discontent at the ruin of so brave a promise. Was it an omen that Ellsworth and his Zouaves were to take their first steps towards the armed service of their country, on board a vessel of that line so sacrificed to national meanness and personal accident ? Who shall say !

Burtnett Haviland, from whose fortunes the course of this narration has seemed to be too long separated, shared, as :i

private in the ranks of Company iu all the fatigues and

all the honors of that parting ovation. The die once cast in his choice of the regiment, there had been no falling back from his promise. He had enrolled his name at the Carriage- house of Hose No. — the day following the conversation before recorded between himself and Captain Jack, on Broad way, at the time of the departure of the Seventh. He had anuounced the new course of his destiny to his wife, the same evening on which the resolution was formed, and thenceforth devoted himself to such preparations as seemed to be neces sary for his own welfare as a soldier and the comfort of his wife and family during his coming absence.

In another particular, too, he had been steadfast, prone as we all are to vacillation when home or comfort beckons to a change of purpose, and few antitypes as there may be at the present day of that La Tour d'Auvergne who preferred the title of " First Grenadier of France" to any epauletted com mand that could be tendered. Captain Jack, proud of his recruit, and a little astonished at his stubbornness in such a rare direction, had mentioned him to Col. Ellsworth, and at once received in his behalf an offer of a Second Lieutenancy. This liaviland had declined, as he had before done the three

204 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

stripes of the Sergeant"; and this had ended the matter in that particular direction. jBut he had been obliged to resist another temptation of the same character, coming to him from a source altogether unexpected ; and here he had found an enemy more difficult to conquer — the evident wish and anxiety of his wife that he should be "something more than a common soldier. " •

The offer of Mr. Charles Holt, merchant, to continue the salary of his clerk while in service in the army, and to look after the welfare of his family, has not been forgotten by the reader, nor was it likely that it should be forgotten by either of the parties interested. Though with a little delicacy in volved in the action, on the very day when he signed the en rolment, the clerk informed his employer of the carrying out of his intention to enlist; and he remarked with pleasure, that the merchant seemed to have no objection to re-affirm. in cool blood a promise that he might have made under the in fluence of sudden excitement, and that he seemed rather pleased than otherwise to have the opportunity of proving his good faith. So cordial seemed the great man towards a, subordinate with whom his acquaintance had before been only the formal intercourse of employer and employee, that "he had even offered, unasked, to " drop in and spend an hour at his house before he went away." The force of the courtesy of wealth towards humble worth could not well have gone further; and the clerk felt the obligation with a strength proportioned to the straight-forward honesty of his own nature.

Three days before the marching of the Fire Zouaves, the merchant, in the fulfilment of this promise, for the first time set foot within the little home of the clerk in East Forty- eighth Street He was by no means a stranger to Mary Haviland, as she had many times, during her husband's em ployment by Holt & Andrews, had occasion to call for him at the store, at the close of business hours, and when some arrangement had been made for an evening down-town in each other's company. An introduction between the mer chant and the wife of his clerk had followed as a matter of course, one evening when the former happened to put him-

THE DAYS OF S IT O P D Y . 205

self in the way of receiving (not to say forcing) such an indorsement of the character of the lady who visited his clerk at the store. Xot much conversation had followed, then or afterwards. But the merchant, if he had not conversed to any great extent with her, had at least looked at the hand some wife of his good-looking clerk (Vide the past observa tions of Tim the errand-boy, -on that subject.)

Three days before the inarching of the Zouaves, as has been said, the merchant paid the promised visit to the house and family of the clerk. He found the wife sewing, the hus band reading aloud to her, little Pet playing sleepily on the floor, in sad need of being put to bed, and Sarah too busy about the crockery-renovating operations which follow supper (he caught the usual clatter of dishes from that young lady, through the half-opened door between the two rooms) to at tend to the wants of the drowsy child. He found a very happy home, with nothing of the shadow of coming disrup tion seeming to loom 'over it. If he. experienced at that moment any of the sensations which Apollyon Beelzebub, Esq., gentleman-at-leisure, is supposed to have experienced on the first day when he paid a visit to Mrs. Eve Adam at her neat little country residence on the Euphrates, there is no warrant for recording the fact in this connection. He was cordially received, though with a very little of that empres- settient which the proudest of us little people cannot a;void showing in the presence of the great. But, a thorough gen tleman (at least in the outward manner and when he chose), the merchant did not seem to need five minutes to put both host and hostess at their ease; and he had not been ten minutes in the room when Mary Haviland caught herself saying (of course not aloud, for that would have been neither complimentary to her husband nor his guest) :

" What a very pleasant man he is ! So different from what he appeared to be, down at his place of business ! I 'declare that I really like him !"

If the little woman did not say so much in words, her eyes showed the fact that she was pleased, to- those of both hus band and guest, and both were pleased in return. The merchant for reasons best known to himself, and Burtuett

20iJ THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

Haviland because he felt ho\v good and kind a protector heaven might really have raised up for his wife and child, in the event that his parting with them, so soon to come, should be the last.

But if the pretty face of Mary Haviland smiled with pleasure when the merchant had for a few minutes exerted his undeniable powers of fascination, it broke into a broad glow of delight when he drew from his side-pocket and threw down on the table before her husband, a Lieutenant's commission in the very regiment in which she knew him to stand enrolled as a private ! People have no right to be enthusiastic and demonstrative, but some of them are so, and there is no power on earth that can change their natures in that regard. Mary Haviland was as proud of her husband as any woman can be of the one dearest to her heart without breaking the command of God and worshipping the creature instead of the Creator. She knew him to be good, she be lieved him to be able, and she thought it his right to be great. She would not have doubted his capacity to (ill any office to which the will of the people might have elected him, even to the Chief Magistracy of the republic. Could her own hand have lifted him to the highest position, the task would have been performed as the mere according to him of a right, and with no belief that he could fail to fill such a place with full honor and high public approbation. She had infinitely more pride in him than he had in himself, and was always disposed to think of him as scarcely having his place, when she saw him filling any subordinate position. All this without think ing for a moment that he had not risen fast enough, that any fault would attach to him if he held a much humbler position than that he really occupied, or that he would not be quite her equal if several degrees lower in the scale of respectability and influence. Yet his being higher would have suited her better, not for her sake but his own. She had bowed, as we have seen, to patriotic necessity and duty, crushed down every repining, and determined to send him forth to battle with the remembrance of a face that shed sunshine instead of weeping tears upon .his departure. And yet she had not by any means crushed down an idea which had crept into her

THE DAYS OF S IT O T> T> Y. 207

dear little head, and which she had not communicated to him simply because she considered its fullilment impossible and its expression likely to worry him — that he ought to go as an officer instead of a private. He must go — yes — that was duty — the country needed him ; but could he not' do as good and even better duty to the country, in command instead of in the ranks with the common people? (Mary Haviland 's husband was not one of the "common people" — to her: Fiddler Joe, the darkey who plays for half the ambiguous dances in Water Street, has a poor apology for a wife if she does not rate him as a little superior to the average of his color — something more than a "common nigger.") But Mary Haviland had not expressed this one idea of her mind, simply because she would have thought it worrying for no purpose. Meanwhile, as the best of husbands do not tell their wives every thought that creeps" into their minds, or the history of every adventure they encounter, Burtnett Haviland had said nothing to his wife of the flattering offers made him. Jle had not done this, because he intended to carry out the resolution he had formed — because he knew the pride held in him by his wife, which would lead he,r to think that he should have accepted one of the oilers — and because he knew how much more difficult it would be, then, to adhere to his deter mination.

Such was the position of affairs when Charles Holt, mer chant, laid down the Lieutenant's commission on the little table, somewhat. to the annoyance of Haviland, who saw an other struggle before him, — but, oh, how much to the delight of the proud wife ! We have already recorded the proper condemnation against people being enthusiastic ; but Mary Haviland, who has been (so far) the type of a devoted and good little wife, could no more have resisted the impulse which led her, her face all aglow, to rush up and grasp the hand of the benefactor with a "Ah, how good 'you are, Mr. Holt! How very much we thank you !" than she could have resisted any thing else that seemed to be unobjectionably correct and remarkably pleasant.

To the intense surprise of the wife, a shadow of vexation (one of very few that she had ever seen there during four

208 THE DAYS OF SHOPPY.

years of marriage) crept over the face of the husband, and lie did not take up the paper that she had supposed would so delight him, as he said :

" I thank you very much, Mr. Holt, I am sure, for this great kindness, but I cannot accept it, I have already refused a similar offer from the Colonel, and I am going in the ranks."

"Phew !" almost though not quite whistled the merchant, in spite of the obligations of good breeding. , ,

" What !" quite said Mary Haviland, without any propen sity to whistle, but with something nearer to a pout on her ripe and rosy lips than was in the habit of finding a lodg ment in that pleasant locality.

" Just what I said, my dear," spoke the husband, in a tone which if not vexed was more than usually decided. " I did not tell you that my Captain and Col. Ellsworth offered me a Lieutenant's commission, but they did so, and I refused it."

"And why did you do so, Burtey ?" asked the wife, more in curiosity than in vexation, now, and throwing in the affec tionate diminutive without thought of the presence of a stranger.

" I had my own reasqns for it, Mary," said the husband. " Please believe that they were satisfactory, and do not ask me any further."

The wife obeyed. Her vexation went away almost as rapidly as it had come, even if her wonder remained ; and she said no more. One of the little hopes of her life, however, born but the instant before, had already been extinguished. That was not much matter — let it pass !

'.'And am I to understand that you mean to adhere to your determination and to go in the ranks when a commission is offered you without cost to yourself, Mr. Haviland ?" asked the merchant.

" Unalterably, unless " and here he paused.

"Unless what — may I ask?" inquired the merchant, after the pause of an instant.

"Unless — no — I will not ask the question." Had he done so, the inquiry would have been whether the merchant con sidered the acceptance of the commission a matter of pecu-

THE DATS OF SHODDY. 209

niary duty, as it would remove something; of his own cost of paying a salary during his absence.

" I am glad you do not, for I think that I understand you," said the merchant. "I do not like to be misunderstood." The tone, now, the least trifle lofty. "But once more-: — will you not accept this commission ?"

" No," answered the clerk. "With a thousand thanks for the trouble you have taken, and for all your kindness — no !"

" I am sorry !" said the merchant. To do him justice, he looked sorry. To do him still further justice, he was sorry. He was pleased that Burtnett Haviland was going away to the war : he would have been infinitely better pleased had he gone away as an officer. Why ? Was this man so sympa thetic that the position of his clerk could interest him in that manner ? Scarcely — in fact, not at all. After what has been seen of Charles Holt in his domestic relations, it would be idle to attempt further mystification, if any has indeed been, carried on, as to his plans and purposes. He was sending Burtnett tfaviland away, so far as his own action could in fluence that of the clerk, because he wished a clear field for the attempted dishonor of his handsome wife. There ! — the word is out, — a plain, bold, bad, ugly word, but one that will not be recalled. Charles Holt's " shoddy" propensity rau somewhat more deeply than the same vein in many others, but not deeper, as there is painful reason to know, than in at least some others of his near neighbors at that period. With the event of his experiment, so far eminently successful, we have at present nothing to do. The same pen which in formed us how often the " best laid schemes o' mice and men gang agley," also advised us of "the rough wind blawin' the heather bloom," and the certainty that, once swept away, there was no power on earth to restore it. The combat between vice and virtue is as old as the history of man ; and if the one has conquered at times, to the joy of the angels, has not the other quite as often, making harsh laughter in those sombre realms where the lost welcome each other ? No one has a right to despair under temptation ; but who shall presume upon it, any more than upon human life, the continu ance of reason or of happiness ? Vice is determined — virtue 13

210 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

V

is weak — God help the best of us when under strong and overweening temptation, and recover us, if He will, even when we have fallen !

But even if this motive be ascribed to the merchant, why should he have exhibited any anxiety to raise the husband from the ranks to the post of an officer ? Why benefit a man whom he was planning to injure in the most deadly manner ? Why make a man who was possibly to become, for the very b^st of reasons, his mortal enemy, more powerful than he would be of his own choice ? Strange and yet natural ques tions, thot cannot be left without answer. Kings used some times to ennoble (in title) the husbands of wives whom they dishonored, or those wives themselves, in order to make the game nobler for the royal chase ; and contemporary records make it almost certain that Alfieri, the Italian poet, and the Countess of Albany — wife of one of the last of the Stuarts, and so by claim " Queen of England," — would have married instead of living illicitly together after the death of the Count of Albany, but that the Countess thought it nobler to have the first poet of the time at her beck and call as a lover, than bound to her as a husband, and Alfieri himself found corres ponding pride in being able to think that he had a Queen for a mistress ! But Charles Holt was not likely to be so daintily exclusive that he could not approach the wife of a " common soldier," and must, therefore, make him an officer ; and the solution of his anxiety must be found in the added probabili ties he could supply, for keeping him out of the way.

It is just possible that the merchant, quick at figures and not yet entirely oblivious of the " calculus of probabilities" mastered through such tribulation in educational days, had been studying over army reports in the histories of great wars, and making the discovery that of a given number of persons who go into battle, ten or perhaps twenty common soldiers come out unharmed, to one wearing the dangerous distinctions of the commissioned officer. It is just possible that he had some premonition how assiduously those wild South-western marksmen would devote themselves to the shooting of Union officers, as they certainly have done in every contest from Bull Run to Gettysburg ; and that he

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 211

had heard something of that " setting in the fore-front of the battle" which, for more than twenty-five hundred years, has been considered an effectual way of disposing of a "trouble some customer." We say these things are just possible ; and if it should happen that they were really taken into serious consideration, why might not Mr. Charles Holt's investment, in trouble and perhaps in money, to procure Burtnett Havi- land a commission, have been found quite as profitable as any of his transactions in rotten satinets, 'if he could only have conquered that stubborn will of his clerk and decorated him with a gilt wreath on his cap, and a pair of shoulder- straps ?

Half an hour after this peremptory refusal of the commis sion on the part of Haviland, the merchant left the little house on East Forty-eighth Street, his pulses more inflamed than they had before been by the beauty of Mary Haviland, his ideas of the wisdom of her husband not materially enhanced, and one part of his musings taking shape in the following muttered words (which neither the writer nor the reader is expected to understand) :

" Two families in that house ! Confound it ! I wish peo ple would live in houses by themselves, and not huddle up in this kind of second-hand gentility."

He had not left the house five minutes when the shadow passed away from the faces of both husband and wife and the usual sunshine returned. The unfortunate commission had gone away again in the pocket of the merchant, the die was cast that it was not to be accepted, and neither Mary Havi land nor her husband spoke further on the subject, except that the wife, summing up her impressions gathered of the mer chant during the whole visit, and speaking with that sweet frankness which formed a part of her character, said :

" I do believe that Mr. Holt is an excellent man, and I am sure that I like him very much — very much indeed !"

The days intervening between that time and the departure of the husband changed to hours, and even those hours be came few The parting was near at hand. Burtnett Havi land knew, then, as he hud never known before, what it was to exile himself from all that had so long been the blessing

212 THK DAYS OF SHODDY.

of his life. Ho did not often shed tears, though it was not seldom that he fc.lt them ; and on that Monday morning when the last pang was to be endured and he knew that the next sun would rise upon a wide separation, it is no reproach to his manliness to say*tnat he choked a little as he attempted to swallow the dainty breakfast that Mary had provided with her own hands as the last. Partings are hard, arid cruel, and difficult, precisely in proportion as the, hearts that are to be severed have been closely woven together and the companionship has been long and uninterrupted. And soldiers who have spirit to dare, have yet hearts to suifer. Legendary history tells us much of how Cincinnatus left his plough still standing in the furrow, with the oxen yoked to it, and hurried away to use sXvord instead of ploughshare, when Rome called him once more to defend her against the victorious slaughterers of Minucius. But it telis us nothing of the hasty call he may have made at his little homestead at Janiculum, beyond the Tiber, that lay directly on his road to the scene of the great conflict, and told Racilia to send a slave and have the oxen unyoked, and held her for one moment to his heart, her dark locks blended with his own long fair hair, and patted the heads of his younger children, and almost forgotten Rome and her needs as he wondered whether he should fall, this time, beneath the swords of the Yolscians, or gain such power and glory in victory as would enable him to fulfil the one long wish of his heart and bring back to Rome the banished Kseso. If he had no thought for this, he may have been an abler general, but he must have been a worse husband and father, than we are prone to be lieve him.

Then came the parting itself. 'No pressure so sadly sacred, of the husband's arms around the pliant form of the wife, had ever before taken place, even in the little room so conse crated to their married joys and confidences, as that which encircled it for the last time that Monday morning. Never, he thought, had the rounded arms of the wife. been so cling- ingly fond in their pressure — a bond ctf the rarest and ten- derest human flesh, that a rude grasp could almost sever like a wisp of straw, and yet a bond more difficult to break than

THE D A Y S OF SHOD D Y . 213

any that ever encircled a living form, whether for good or evil. Never, he thought, had she been so truly the perfect woman, in the warmth of her caresses, the love-light in her eyes, the glow on cheek and lip, as then, when he was to lose her for so long — perhaps forever ! Had all the powers that preside over destiny conspired to place within his grasp, at that moment, all that the heart could desire, with the very object of making the loneliness that should follow more in tense and agonizing, they could not have inspired a manner at parting, more maddeningly conducive to that end. Per fection itself — no ! not perfection. What, then, was wanting ? We have seen, long since, the martyr resolution that Mary ITaviland made, that she would crush down within her soul the sorrow sure to come to her in the last days of their union and so likely to be overmastering at thetmoment of separation . — that she would speak no more sad or foreboding words — that neither before nor when the moment for parting came, should there be a tear on her cheek or a sob in her breath — that she would not dishearten but inspirit " her soldier," and send him forth with his last glimpse of her haloed with a smile which should be an omen for his futiire. When he was gone . — then — what the lonely walls of her room, her pillow and the crib of her child might know — that was something which could not affect him, and it lay between God and her own soul. Such had been her resolution, from the morning when she knew that the die was cast, when the sad picture of Yalley Forge came up to the patriot as pictures of Gethse- mane and Calvary sometimes come up to inspirit the shrink ing Christian with the memory of how much worse trials and struggles than his own were once endured by the Man of Sorrows. Such had been her resolution. What it had cost her to keep it, heaven only knew, but she had kept it indeed. Not one tear or sign of hopeless regret — not one word to indicate that she would have been happier had he remained. Not one tear or one word of regret, amid all the expressions and the proofs of fondness, on that morning of parting. And will it be believed that Burtnett Haviland, who had so labored to impress upon her the duty which she owed to the country to give him up without a murmur, even as he owed

214 , THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

a corresponding duty to meet all its requirements with manly readiness — that Burtnett Haviland, now and in ' the nn- whispered thoughts of his own heart, would have preferred to hear some word of irnploration to stay, that he must en tirely disregard, and to see SQine tear of regret which he must leave undried upon the cheek !

These men are so unreasonable — the best and most thought ful of them ! " Do not weep for me !" says the dying husband. " I will not shed a tear for you !" is the response of the afflicted wife, who in the reply is only showing her implicit obedience, and yet the dying husband grows almost angry enough at it to forsake his intention of dying, alto gether. " Console yourself, my dear ! Though / shall be gone, the world need not be a blank to }^ou. Find some other who will love and. treasure you, and be happy !" says another in similar circumstances, with much kind earnest in his voice. " I have been thinking that I need not live alone, and I sh.all look for some one to fill your place, as soon as possible after you are gone !] replies this obedient wife, and though she, too, is only expressing her intention to obey what has been given as a solemn injunction, the shock to the hus band's amor propre is so great that he flounces out of the dying bed, upsets the stand with all its doctor's phials, raves round the room, and recovers in spite of fate on purpose to disappoint the jade who dared to take him at his word. No doubt Collatinus, when he left Lucrece to join the camp of the Kiyig, said to her : " Make yourself comfortable, my dear ! Don't work too hard ! Laugh, sing and be as happy as possible while I am away." And yet the boast of Col- latinus to the sons of Tarquin was, that while others might probably be gadding about and making themselves merry, his wife would be found eschewing all merriment during his absence and soberly intent on her domestic duties ! Yery unreasonable, of course, and yet very like what human nature has been doing every day since the flood. It is not best even to accept any man's spoken estimate of himself, in the ordinary relations of life. When he says : " Oh, I am a poor miserable devil !" it is not prudent to address him as such in the next conversation ; and when a lady murmur^

THE DAYS OF SHODDY, 215

confidentially : " How I have faded ! My-eyes have lost all their sparkle, and — only think of it ! — I have no complexion left at all !" — it is an enemy for life that he bargains for who accepts the conclusion or even does not flatly contradict it.

Had Mary Haviland been wise, as she was good, loving and patriotic, she would at least have " turned on the water" (to use another gross but very expressive modern vulgarism) and uttered some word of wild regret, at the last moment. She was not wise — she was only brave and determined ; and the result was to some extent disastrous — more disastrous, afterwards, than the most lugubrious prophet could then have imagined.

But so they parted, with one convulsive clasp of Pet and one long embrace of the wife, on the part of the husband, on the little stoop — with Sarah Sanderson, one of the break fast-dishes in hand, looking curiously down the stairs on the group at the door — with the husband's " God bless you, little woman !" and the wife's " Do take care of yourself, Burtey !" Then, as she stood on the stoop, .with Pet clinging at her side, and Sarah, dish still in hand, come down to the door and framed in it, she sa\v his erect figure, in its neat gray Zouave uniform, pass out to the Avenue and disappear into a down-town* car. He was gone : she was alone. Through what was each to pass, and how changed was life to be for both, long before the eyes of each that looked their last should fall again upon the other !

Only the recording angels arid the heart of man that had been tried in the same furnace of loneliness and suffering could see what occurred but a few moments after, when the wife, lying on her bed in an agony of tears, with poor little Pet weeping too and childishly trying to comfort her, buried her flushed face in the pillow and sobbed out : " Oh, Burtey ! Burtey ! How could I let you go ? When shall I see you again ? Oh, Burtey ! Burtey !" And when Sarah Sanderson, hearing the sobs and broken words that came from the little chamber, stood outside with her own eyes full of tears but her pretty lips compressed and her face the very embodiment of wronged and vindictive feeling, and shook her small

216 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

clenched fist at something that seemed to be within the same chamber as the wife and mother.

These latter had been the events of the morning. All the parade, the presentations and the glorifications' had since oc curred ; and late in the afternoon Haviland, a private in the

ranks of Company of the Fire Zouaves, marched down

Canal Street with the rest of his regiment, towards the Baltic, as was more or less clearly said before this recapitula tion of previous events.

The scene was a magnificent one, and one long to be re membered. April was changing into May, and every breath seemed such perfection that merely to live was a luxury. No brighter or more glorious sun ever shone, than that which had all day kissed the uniforms and flashed upon the arms and banners of the Zouaves. Nature, at least, was offering them no unfavorable omens. And the spectacle at the foot of Canal Street was if possible finer and more im posing than any thing which had preceded it in the pageantry of the day. The noble steamer lay moored at her wharf trembling with the internal fires that were in a few moments to be her irresistible motive power. Flags floated from her mast heads, and from bow and stern and the bridge between her wheel houses. Around her, stretching away as far as the eye could reach, were vessels of every chiss and character, all radiant with bunting of such glaring colors that a rain bow seemed to have fallen and scattered itself in a thousand pieces on every hand ; but amid them all the old stripes-and- stars everywhere prominent, as is an undertone sometimes in music when the variations flutter hither and thither and ob scure but never hide the theme. Out in the river beyond a hundred steamboats were gliding, all radiant, too, with colors, and among them darted skiffs and wherries, seeming like greater and less attendant spirits on the great event of the day. But the splendid spectacle of even all these inanimate objects was dwarfed by the mass of humanity grouped in the neighborhood and affording constant change in motion and position. The decks, masts and shrouds of every vessel com manding a view of the embarkation, the roofs and windows of every house supplying a glimpse of the arrival of the regi-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 217

ment, were filled so densely with human beings, of both sexes and all ages, that it seemed impossible to escape the crushing down of some building, or the slipping off of some clinging mass of humanity into the river. The space on the wharves reserved by the police for the soldiers, was kept with the usual difficulty ; and all was life, bustle, pleasant confusion and happy expectation. Inconveniences there were, of course, and they were materially added to by the presence at the wharf of a large amount of quartermasters' and commissaries' stores awaiting transportation — barrels, bales and heavy boxes, filling half the space within the enclosure, and seri ously narrowing the room allotted to the soldiers. But if the latter saw them, they thought, no doubt, more of the certainty of food and other necessaries which those packages promised, than of the temporary inconvenience caused by their presence.

Some delay had occurred in the preparations for imme diately embarking the regiment, (did any man ever hear of a regiment that embarked at the time first specified, anymore than of a procession that moved until all the spectators along the line had been wearied out by waiting ?) and the Zouaves stood at ease and partially broke ranks for a time, half an hour after they had reached the wharf. Some of the soldiers took the opportunity of exchanging yet a few more "last words" with wives or sweet-hearts who had followed them through the crowd (as the wife of Burtnett Haviland, with better judgment, had not; for of all places for a last parting, in the midst of a mixed and miscellaneous crowd is the least dignifled) ; and still others leaned on their rifles and chatted •with friends who pressed up to urge or promise the sending of letters during absence.

A part of the first files of Company stood at that

moment close beside one of the piles of quartermasters' stores before noticed. Among those packages of goods were some heavy boxes, one piled on the top of another to the height, possibly, of a man's head. Immediately beside the spot where Haviland was standing, in conversation with some of his old acquaintances come down to " see him off," one heavy rase of goods lay on the top of another, a little carelessly placed and overhanging the lower one, so that no great effort

218 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

would be necessary to topple it over on the feet and lower limbs of a person standing in front. Suddenly, while in the midst of his conversation, but standing nearer to the boxes than any of the others and almost alone, the upper box, evi dently propelled by a sudden force from behind, toppled over and made a rapid descent for Ilaviland's feet. Had it struck him fairly, as there seemed a probability of its doing, the career of the young soldier would have been ended, in that capacity, before begun, for the box had weight enough to have broken a leg or crushed a foot to jelhr. Haviland saw the fall just in time to spring back and escape the worst, and some of the others partially caught the box as it descended, so that the only effect was that it struck him somewhat severely on one of the legs, crippling him a little and prom ising a stiif limb for days.

It is a very natural impulse, when something inanimate tumbles down upon any of us, to endeavor to discover what has* been the moving power ; and Haviland, even in the midst of his internal execrations and outward rubbings, looked hastily over the fallen box to see what lay behind it. A policeman, who had happened to be very near and 'see the operation, had his hand upon the collar of a nondescript object in that direction ; and one of the Zouaves, with both his hands on the other side of the collar, seemed about to inflict summary vengeance upon it. Haviland was obliged to look twice before he recognized little Tim, the errand-boy, squint ing if possible more terribly than ever, half crying, and dis figured by such a tall, shiny second-hand hat, evidently just out of one of the slop-shops of Chatham Street, and newly assumed in honor of the great occasion, that a want of re cognition was easily excusable. The policeman was about dragging him off: the Zouave felt that he should be first kicked and cuffed.

" Come along ! I know you of old !" said the policeman, who probably had never before set eyes on him since the day when he was himself first elevated to the dignity of blue cloth and locust.

" Let me have him ! I'll 'tend to him !" said the Zouave, who had belonged to a fire company very much in the habit

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 219

of settling their own little disputes without appealing to tedious and expensive legal proceedings.

" I haint been, a-doin' nothin' !" said poor Tim, thus held between the two grips.

" Didn't you push over that box, say ?" said the Zouave. "Look-a-here, you can't lie out of that, you know! I seen ye !"

" So did I," said the policeman. " Let him go — I'll attend to him."

" Stop !" said Burtnett Haviland, recognizing the errand- boy, and wondering what could have induced such an attempt at injuring him by one whom he had before thought warmly attached to him. " Is that you, Tim ? You didn't throw that box over on me, did you ?"

.^ " Maybe I shoved it over, leanin' agin it," answered the boy, after the pause of a moment. There was something in. the pause, and in the whole manner of the boy, which satis fied Haviland that he had indeed pushed over the box* and done it intentionally. But why ? That was the mystery, and one that there was not time ^'ust then to inquire into. At all events, he did not wish to have poor Tim go to the station-house, when he could not 1)6 near to keep him out of serious trouble ; and he said to the officer and to his own demonstrative comrade :

" Let the boy go. I know him : he belongs in our store, and there must be some mistake about it. He would not try to hurt me !"

"No, Mr. Hevlin, I wouldn't! Boo! hoo ! hoo !" cried poor Tim, now fairly broken down between thanks for the kindness arid fear lest he might be lugged off after all.

The Zouave had by this time released his hold ; the police man, who did not wish to lose his sight of the embarkation by going away to the station-house, alsp released him, with the injunction :

" Now get out of this, you young scamp, and home with you as fust as your legs can carry you ! If I catch you here again, I'll put you where the dogs won't bite you !" >,

" Good-bye, Mr. Hevlin !" cried the boy, his knuckles in his eyes, and preparing to heed the admonition

220 T n E D A.*L S OF SHODDY.

" Good-bye, Tim ! Go home, before you get into any more trouble !" answered Haviland, and the boy scudded away, looking back at him, when at some distance, with a concen trated- squint which seemed to comprehend all things on earth and in the air, and then disappearing in the crowd. Haviland rubbed his damaged leg a little more, wondered a little more whether all parties had been mistaken or whether the boy had gone crazy, and then dismissed the matter in the excitement of the embarkation. A few moments after, the ranks were formed, the Zouaves marched on board the Baltic, and yet another speech was administered to them by that Kentucky statesman with the Roman name who had not yet become a Major General without command and a foreign minister needing appointment to the same post twice within a year. The Zouaves were by that time so weary of march ing and speech-making, that they cared very little whether they were being addressed by that speaker, who knew nothing whatever about them, their natures or wishes, or by "Brother Corbitt,"* who knew them from fh'e-cap to boot-sole. Not long after, they were passing down the Bay and out to sea, on their way to Annapolis, and the pageant of the departure of the First Fire Zouaves had faded from the eyes if not from the memory of New Yorkers.

Burtnett Haviland had of course left the address 'at which letters would be expected to reach him most readily, at the store, for the benefit of any of his brother-clerks who might wish to keep up the old friendship by "dropping him a line." This.had been posted on a slip of paper beside the stairway, where all could see it — even those whose eyes had some obli quity in their direction. Mr. West, who posted it, had little thought who would be the first to profit by that little but necessary item of information. Late into the night which followed the departure of the Zouaves, hour after hour over a greasy pine table in the garret of a miserable old house on the East side of the town, with a sputtering candle so near his nose that there was constant danger of burning that use-

* Rev. William P. Corbitt, the popular Methodist divine, for a long time a great favorite with the New York firemen.

THE PAYS OF SHODDY. 221

ful member of the face or setting fire to the red scrubbing-

o o

brush above it, — with his eyes rolling horribly, his tongue stuck out of bis mouth to the full extent of that appendage, and all the indications of the severest and most earnest labor, — sat Tim, the errand-boy, with a stubby and spattering pen, thick ink and a villainously greasy whole sheet of foolscap — writing a letter. "Poor Tim ! — it was undoubtedly the first letter, worthy of the full magnificence of that name, that he had ever written ; and though the Thirteenth Labor of Her cules may have taxed the full powers of that mythical hero, the effort was a feeble one compared to the struggles of the errand-boy, trying to enrol himself in the list of " war cor respondents," to justify himself in the eyes of his friend, and to subserve the cause of virtue generally. Those over- watching intelligences to whom we have more than once before had occasion to refer, if they were keeping a sharp look-out for the good of mankind on the East side, on that eventful night, may have been peeping over poor Tim's shoulder and reading the odd scrawl which follows, barring the actual chirography, in which 'capital and small letters, writing and printing, were ludicrously mixed and jumbled, so that mere type would fail in any attempt at imitation : —

"Mister Hevlin. I doant want your to think that I ara a litel raskel and a retch wich .some prigs says I am, only humly on account of my i's bein cruked. Dern it, I cant holp thet, cin I ? I want to toll your this ere. I like your like everrything, stead o hatin your. Doan't your rcmcmbir wen you hit them are boys as was a hazin of mee ? Ses I then I'll do ennything I cin for Mister Hevlin. Dod dern it — I spose I must apeared a verry bad boy wen I nokt over the box and hit your. I hed to ly wen you askt me, to kepe that ere poleeser from a lugin me off by the eer, but I did thro the box ovir onto your, a purpus. I doant hardly no how to tel your what I done it fur, but I musst. I ment to hirt your, not mutch but a little so's to kepe your from goin away. I thout mebbe you'd stay home ef you was lame. Mister Holt — dern him — doeseut mene no good to Missers Hevlin. I've seen him a. lukin at hir when she was down to the stoar, and a smakin of his lipps. Mebbe he haits her for soinethin, and seem's to me's ef he would most eat hir. He wantid your to go away, and I thout your outnent to go. Seems to me's ef your had better come back if you cin — ony doant tell Mister Holt for he woud kil me thet 'd be what wus the matter — dern him. Doant think herd of me dear Mister Hevlin. This ere is from jure litcl frend Tim the arrant boy."

CHAPTER XL

How KATE HAVILAND, THE TEACHER, WAS CALLED TO THE SEAT OF JUDGMENT, AND HOW SHE CONDUCTED HERSELF THERE — HUMILITY AND ARROGANCE— A TRAP, AND WHO FELL INTO IT — WHAT KATE HAVILAND OVERHEARD BEHIND THE CURTAIN — MARY HAVILAND'S PICTURE — A WHOLE HASH OF REVELATIONS — A LETTER, AND SOME ANXIETY ABOUT ANOTHER.

IF Kate Haviland believed, when she had succeeded in impressing the two spoiled Fullerton children with some sense of her authority and winning commendation from their mother and elder sister, that her troubles were over, or that her path of learning (to others) was to be thenceforth one of flowers, — she was not quite the wise and wide-awake girl tbat certain previous movements would indicate. The ignorant, narrow-minded and purse-proud are proverbially brief in their fits of satisfaction, and liable to go off at any moment into paroxysms of the opposite feeling, for which they have not much more care than capacity to give an ac count. They are cats : smooth the fur the right way all the while, and nothing can be pleusanter than their purring, even towards a dependant ; but woe to the rash hand, especially one beneath them in position, that happens to rub it the backward way and evoke those electric sparkles which are so sure to be followed by an angry yell and the tearing of the claws ! From such people, for every kind word that has before fallen, there are sure to be scores of sharp epithets and cutting allusions, cancelling, ten times over, all the good impressions they may before have made by their transient exhibition of winning qualities. Happy they who, placed in dependence upon such people for the very bread that is to be eaten day by day, have before entering into any relation with them, learned the difficult art of bearing with patience, or that still more useful though less amiable art of putting 222

THE PAYS OF SHODDY. 223

on the defensive armor furnished to order by contempt, and ignoring the insults and undervaluations altogether ! Which of the two philosophies was most nearly in the possession of the young governess, or whether she could lay claim to either, will be better understood when she has been exhibited in other phases of her employment.

She had been nearly a month in her charge at the Fuller- tons', and it was approaching the middle of May, when the back of the employing cat received its first stroke in the reverse direction. On the afternoon previous to the morning to which attention is specially called, there had been what may be designated as a " row" in the little school-room. Both Myra and Mildred, after a day or two of such extra ordinary obedience and goodness that the young teacher believed the treacherous calm could not last, had solaced themselves by breaking out into sullenness and rebellion. Myra had refused to pay any attention whatever to her lesson in geography (in which study, by the way, she had since Kate's coming managed to learn the difference between a cape and a continent), and when reprimanded and made to stand on the floor for half an hour until she committed it to memory, called the teacher by that forcible but inelegant epithet "a nasty, ugly beast." This had led to the ears of that young lady being soundly boxed (a mode of punishment for which we have no defence to offer, but one quite as effectual as improper, sometimes). Thereupon Mildred, singularly reticent up to that period, had communicated the startling intelligence that " her mother said she [to wit, Kate] was a big black nigger and wanted whipping herself." In support of which theory Mildred had "pitched into" the teacher and done her small devoir at kicking her on a portion of the anatomy not commonly mentioned in connection with a lady — namely, the shins! Arid this had led to the latter young lady being placed in a horizontal position and soundly — to use another word which we believe does not often enter into the material of modern romance — spanked! Under this vigorous action the rebellion had been brought to an early conclusion ; but, as some other rebellions may do when they come to their inevitable end or defeat, it had left evil conse-

224 THE DAYS OF S II O D D Y.

quences behind it in its effect upon society. Not that, either of the children would have told of this little esca'pade, any more than of some of corresponding character which bad preceded it. Miserably educated and half spoiled, with nearly all the vices which could well be attached to the dis positions of such people, Myra and Mildred had yet shown that one virtue — indisposition to tell out of the school-room what had occurred within it, — on which Kate believed that something better and nobler might one day be built up. They had not run away and detailed to mother or sister how they had been beaten, bruised and mangled by the female -Ogre of the Tree of .Knowledge. But unfortunately, in this instance, Mrs. Fullerton had happened to be within ear-shot of the scream which little Mildred vented when subjected to -that peculiarly unpleasant " laying on of hands," and the result had been the calling of both children into her presence, the same evening, and the extracting from them, by threats of flogging them soundly herself, of such ex par/e testimony as would convict Kate Haviland, in the same court, of a most gross and unprovoked outrage against the quiet of the Fullerton family and the peace and dignity of the same.

While taking her late breakfast the next morning, Kate had been informed by the dignified matron, with a chilling tone in her voice, calculated to freeze the marrow of de pendent people, — and with a frown on her brow, as Jovian as the different sexes permitted, that she, the matron, " wished to see her [the teacher] in the front room, immediately after breakfast." After which the matron had swept away, and Kate, who saw the storm gathering, had prepared for the ordeal with such putting on of fear and trembling as her own slightly-jolly disposition rendered possible. This was the situation of affairs when bonny Kate entered the room into which we have been more than once before introduced, on the morning in question.

Cortesi made a terrible Medea : who does not remember her, in that character and during the short opera season at Xiblo's in 1858-9 ? When that proud, massive, statuesque woman, with her eyes fire, her brow corrugated into whip cords, and passionate love and hate shaking every nerve in

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 225

her system until some awful convulsion seemed inevitable — when she stood with a child in either hand, awaiting the coming of their faithless father, — the impression on the mind of the auditor was that in real life a woman possessed of the same nature and similarly circumstanced, would not be a pleasant person to come home to ! Mrs Pullerton may or may not have seen Cortesi in that rendering : certain it is that on the morning in question she looked only less terrible than the Mexican prima donna, and seemed to have taken a hint from her in position, as she awaited the culprit, sitting in a high-backed chair in regal state, her foot on an ottoman, and one of the outraged darlings on either side of her.

Jt would I)e pleasant to say that Kate Ilaviland, on this occasion, maintained the dignity of the family and was not seriously impressed by the aspect of the stately matron. She did not maintain that dignity at all, and was evidently very much impressed. She approached the seat of judgment with the true air of a juvenile culprit — eyes cast down, a sort of shuffling hesitation in her gait, and only needing the little finger stuck into the corner of her mouth, to be the very ideal of the school-girl of twelve coming to be feruled. She approached the awful tribunal, and there her eyes sought the floor yet more humbly and her hands crossed before her very much as the paws of Van Amburgh's lion do when the courage of the beast is becoming conquered by the mastering spirit of the man and he wishes the gesture to say : " There — please don't use that rawhide, any more on my delicate cuticle, and I'll never do so again — never, never !"

Mrs. Fullerton, who had been preparing a volley of vitup eration to pour out on the head of a self-willed and arrogant girl who had outraged the dignity of her family, saw the humble aspect that approached her, and she was just a little nonplussed by the difference from what she had expected. If the girl had been defiant — why then she would have known precisely what to say to make her shrink within her number- three gaiters ; but what could she say to a dependant who was so manifestly frightened at what she had done and so full of deprecation of the wrath awaiting her ? Paixhans, Dahlgrens and Parrotts may be all well enough, and indeed H

226 THE T) A Y P OF SHODDY.

indispensable, when a stone fort or a stout war-vessel is to be bombarded ; but who would think of employing one of those mighty modern engines of war against a tea-chest or one of the kindling-wood cob-houses built by idle children ? Jove might have no objection to heating one of his best thunderbolts and hurling it at a refractory Titan ; but would not even Jove be a little ashamed to throw away such a ponderous bolt on Commodore Xutt ? Yet what was to be done ? Allow pity to stand in the way of justice, and thus en courage further departures from the path of duty? Never!

— the dignified matron declared to herself, emphatically

never ! At least *o»ic. punishment must be awarded — at least some example must be made of the offender. Ahem !

" So, miss !" began the indignant mother, while Myr^i and Mildred, one on either hand, leaned across the back of their progenitor's chair and exchanged the words of felicitation following : —

" I say, Mil ! she looks as if she was going to be licked herself !''

" Yes, don't she, though ! And oh Jeminy, won't she catch it !" /

Both of which observations Miss Kate Haviland heard, and put them away in her mental pocket-book for future reference.

" So, miss !" repeated the matron, not having received any response from the palsied tongue of the culprit.

"Well, ma'am?" answered the teacher, humbly and in quiringly.

"So, you have already been disregarding my positive in structions, it seems !" pursued the maternal mentor.

" I don't know, ma'am, I'm sure I don't !" half sobbed the culprit, who was either dreadfully affected or a most con summate actress.

"You do know!" answered the matron, the instinct of overbearing demeanor rising within her as her dependant seemed to sink lower in humility. " You do know ! These dear children tell me that you have actually laid your hands upon them in violence."

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 227

"Oh, no^ ma'am, they couldn't tell you so!" replied the culprit. " Such dear little things, that I love so much "

" Restrain any allusion to your feelings, Miss Haviland I" said the dignified woman. "It is a matter of very little con sequence whether you love my daughters or not: you are to teach them, and to treat them with proper consideration — that is all !"

" Yes, ma'am," answered the disgraced teacher — the same words, but uttered much more humbly, that she had used on her original examination.

"My daughters tell me," pursued the outraged mother, " that you last night administered severe punishment to both of them."

" Oh, no, nra'am," again replied the teacher, " I couldn't — "

" She did ! — she knows she did !" broke out Miss Myra, associate justice at her mother's right hand. "She slapped my ears, so," suiting the action to the word, "just as if I was a cat 1"

"And she slapped me,, too — hard — hard as ever she could !" followed Miss Mildred, junior associate at her mother's left, " Myra seen her — there, now !"

"And what were you doing, to make Miss Haviland punish you in that manner ?" asked the mother, with that knowing expression of the face which a counsel uses when questioning his own witness on a point which he has before fully investi gated in private and is now bringing out in public.

" Nothing at all, Ma !" answered Miss Myra, with such a look of injured innocence as might belong to a Peri on trial for highway robbery.

" Nor I neither, Ma !" chimed in Miss Mildred. " She just went and — and — and — spanked me, for nothing at all."

" Children, don't talk so fast !;' said the mother, in a tone of reproof — very gentle reproof; which conveyed : "Naughty darlings ! How proud mother is of you !"

Let it be said, here, that of all occasions for administering reproof on account of treatment of children, the most appro priate is to be found in the presence of the children them selves. If Mr. Smith has occasion to reprove his goveraess for excessive harshness, he should always have the children

228 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

present when he does so, as it adds so materially to the re spect borne by them to the governess and puts all parties on such a satisfactory footing. And when Mr. Jones finds it necessary to have a little plain talk with his wife, or Mrs. Jones with her husband, about something in the management of their darlings, and when a pleasant little domestic tiff, not to say a quarrel, is morally certain to arise between the two — by all means the little ones themselves should be witnesses of the whole affair, because they will thereafter so much better understand the anxiety felt for their welfare by both father and mother ! The effect is still better if Mr. Smith breaks in upon the governess with his reproof, at the very moment when she has just succeeded after a long light with a stubborn will and an ugly temper; and if Mr. or Mrs. Jones takes the op portunity of administering reproof to the marital partner the moment after punishment has been awarded to the child. In either case, a pleasant state of affairs may be calculated upon at some future day ; and nature is so just in its compensa tions, that in such instances, at least, those, who sow are very likely to have the privilege of reaping the profitable crop.

" You see, Miss Haviland," said the mother, loftily, "both my children agree as to your action. I heard their screams myself, and there cannot be any doubt in the world that you beat them both — beat them, I say — my children. Now what have you to say for yourself?"

" Nothing, ma'am !" answered the school-teacher, still in the same tone of submission.

"Nothing? I should think not !" said the mother. "It is well that you have that sense of propriety, Miss, at least I I think you understood, when you first came into this house, that your business was to teach these dear girls, and not to impose upon them. Am I to understand that you now realize your position better, and that if I overlook this misconduct I may expect better attention to my orders for the future ?"

" Certainjy, ma'am!" answered Kate. "The dear little things, lovely and innocent as they are, shall not be hurt on any consideration. But I don't think I could possibly have touched one of them, for I never, correct children under my care, when they are behaving properly. I suppose, ma'am,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 229

that if either of the dear little girls did misbehave themselves, you would wish them taught to do better ?"

" Of course," said Mrs. Fullerton, with that sublime con fidence that her children could not misconduct themselves under any circumstances, which made the authorization of no effect whatever. " But I do not believe, Miss Haviland, that my children ever conduct themselves in such a way as to re quire what you are pleased to call correction."

" No, Ma ! nary time !" asserted Myra, with a proof of the classic severity of her education, broadly conveyed in the elegance of her English

" Oh no, Ma ! We're always as good as — as — as — " and finally little Mildred thought of the necessary comparison, more or less appropriate — " as rats !"

" Now I couldn't have laid my hand angrily upon one of these little ladies, because they are so good," said the teacher, with something in her voice that a little belied the downcast humility of her previous demeanor, and that made the matron glance at her for the moment uneasily. " I don't think I have punished any little girl in the last year, except two. One of them called me a ' nasty, ugly beast,' and I boxed her ears ; and the other one designated me as a ' big black nigger,' and kicked me, and I am afraid that I took her across my knee. I think I should do it again, with almost any lady's chil dren."

" Why that was us!" broke out little Mildred, fairly caught in the toils. " That was what Myra said before she slapped her, and that was what I done before she spanked me ! See \vbat a story-teller she is !"

" Oh, you did do something, then, my little dears, before you were punished, did you ?" asked the teacher, humble and downcast-looking no longer, but erect and radiant. " Now, madam, you have at last got the truth, and perhaps you like it ! Have you any further directions to give me, how I am to manage these children who never misbehave themselves?"

" Miss Haviland, you may take these children away to the nursery, and don't let me hear an}7 thing more about them for the next month !" was the reply of the dignified rnothei1, who was not too great a fool, even with all her pride, to realize

230 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

how completely she had herself been victimized, and how the young girl, with her studied humility, had entrapped the two ill-tempered and ungovernable children into betraying their own misconduct and vindicating her. It is just possible that she mustered common-sense and good feeling enough, for the moment, to be aware that the children were in very good hands, and that the less intermeddling indulged in as to their management, the more hope that they might not become alto gether ungovernable even by herself.

But 31adam was not yet to escape the trouble of her attempted oversight of the education of her children, as it appeared. Myra had shown a cramp in her hand-writing, giving reason to fear that she might be afflicted with some chronic disease in her hand ; and the teacher had been anxious to consult the mother on the subject, without caring to break through her habitual reserve. And now a proper opportunity seemed to offer. Jn a few words she expressed her fears and inquired whether her employer would come to the school-room to examine the writing-book.

" No," said Ihe mother, who had a not unnatural horror of places where children are being taught — "bring the writing- book here, in a few minutes, after you have set the girls their lessons, and we will see what is the matter."

A very little affair, apparently, to decide whether she should step to the school-room to make the necessary examination, or whether the teacher should come to her in that room ; and yet more actually hung upon that decision than any finite mind could calculate.

Mrs. I^ullerton left the room, immediately after the conver sation recorded; and at the same time Kate Haviland, accom panied by the two slightly crest-fallen children, took her way to the school-room. Some fifteen minutes afterwards, her pupils set down to certain lessons to which they would be likely to attend during her absence, very much as children in larger schools do when all oversight is temporarily withdrawn from them, — the young girl, writing-book in hand, returned to the room in which she was once more to have audience of her "patroness."

Mrs. Fullerton had not yet returned, and when she entered

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 231

the room the teacher for the moment believed that it was unoccupied. • She stepped Within, and had advanced half way up the room when she became aware that there were persons within it, and yet concealed, in conversation. It may be re membered that the windows of this room were so deep as literally to form alcoves, and that they were shaded by heavy rose-colored worsted curtains, besides those of lace which showed from the street — so that persons sitting or standing within would be entirely sheltered from observation by others within the room, and the tone of their conversation con siderably muffled. It is not for this chronicle to say that Miss Dora Fullerton had arranged the upholstery of these windows with especial reference to their convenience for flirtation, but recesses of this same character have been known to be devoted to purposes very similar, and some Puritan fathers and prudish mothers have also been known to object to their construction, on grounds displaying not too much confidence in the' propriety of male and female hu manity. As a lounging-place, Miss Dora somewhat affected it, whether alone or with 'company; and that pleasant May morning, with air that even the million breaths of the city could not make other than delicious, floating in through the half opened window, it was certainly a most rational spot for a quiet hour of reading or conversation. The latter was the purpose to which it was devoted in the present instance, as Kate Haviland discovered when she had half-way crossed the room. One of the voices she at once recognized as that of Dora Fullerton : the other left her in doubt for an instant but not longer — it- belonged to Mr. Ned Minthorne. There was, or should have been, no reason for the sudden flush which came into the face of bonny Kate on making the latter discovery ; but perhaps it was only a secondary and remote effect of the intense red which had burned over brow, cheek and bosom, nearly a month before, at the moment of that unfortunate detection in the school-room ; and perhaps some thing mysterious and uncxplainable which had occurred just before the departure of the millionaire, that morning, had a little to do with this temporary emotion. Temporary it was ; and the young girl was about to kave the room, or at least

232 THE DAYS OF S II O D D Y.

to go out of possible ear-shot, when one word not only pre vented her pursuing that laudable intention, but actually drew her nearer to the concealing curtain. That word — she could not be mistaken — came from the lips of the millionaire, and it was " Haviland."

"Eh?" thought the young girl — "something about me? What right have these people to be making me a subject of conversation, I should like to know ! Of course I have no right to listen, but I must hearjMstf one word.''

And she did listen, and heard many more words than one. There is no intention of defending this conduct on the part of the teacher, who, especially in virtue of her profession, should have been fully up in all the proprieties of society and indignantly incapable of listening to a single sentence not intended for her ears. JBut it has been more than once before intimated that the scope of this narration includes the representation of persons as they are and not as they should be ; and it is just possible that ninety-nine hundredths of the good people who at this juncture feel ready to say : " What a perverted state of society that writer must have habitually seen, or what a disingenuous mind he must pos sess — always to be exhibiting his ideal women as peeping at doors, listening at curtains or appropriating letters that do iiot belong to them }" — it is just possible, we say, that ninety- nine hundredths of those very good people, under the proper temptation, would do quite the same thing, or worse. And besides, good sir, or nuidame, these are not " ideal women," at all, but real personages — poor fallible flesh and blood, with all the hopes, fears, ordinary virtues and extraordinary weak nesses, of humanity. They could quite as easily be depicted as immaculate ; just as a certain eminent photographer not long ago informed me of his dissatisfied lady sitter that he really could not make the picture any handsomer and yet have it resemble her, but that if she preferred it he had no objection to making her a copy of the handsomest por trait in the gallery and letting her carry 'it home as her own ! Women, in romances, could easily be drawn, of un faltering propriety as well as unimpeachable morality : the great trouble might be that they would not at all resem-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 233

ble the people of real flesh and blood whom we met to-day in the street and will meet again to-night at the opera or in society.

Kate Haviland listened, and heard more than one word. Before she heard many, not even the fear of Mrs. Fullerton corning in and catching her in that undignified position could have drawn her away until she had heard at least a certain number more. It was the name of Haviland that she had heard, and she heard that name repeated. Evidently it had before been spoken by Dora.

" Haviland ? Haviland ? A nice ambrotype and a deuced pretty face, you know !" said the millionaire, inquiringly. " Haven't you got some person of the same name in the house ?"

" Why how do you know ?" asked Dora, in a quick, jerky voice.

" I ?" said the noodle. " Oh, I met a young lady — that is — a girl, I should say, the other day on the stairs, and I heard one of the little girls call her by some name like ' Miss Haviland.'"

" Oh," replied the young lady. " Yes, we have a person of that name, here — a teacher, from Khode Island, or New Jersey, or some other outlandish place ; a coarse thing — "

" I o\ve you one more for that, Miss Dora Fullerton !" said the listener, between her teeth and so low that there was no danger of being overheard. " A ' coarse thing,' am I ? See if I do not make a settlement with you, before I am done, quite as effectual a,s any that I have made with either of your spoiled sisters !"

" Xo, if she is coarse, it could not have been the same per son that I met," said Minthorne. " She was rather pretty, I thought — that is — I mean that she was not — that is, I have seen homelier people."

"You have, have you?" spoke Miss Dora Fullerton, in a voice the very reverse of pleasant. " I am really much obliged to you, Mr. Minthorne, that you don't think her the handsomest person in the house, I am sure !"

" Now really, Miss Fullerton — " began the millionaire.

" Don't talk to me, sir !" said the young lady. " Come

23i THE DAYS OF S H O T) D Y.

into this house and foil in love with the school-teachers, and the chambermaids, and even the cook, if you like, but I had a little rather that you would not go to praising them to mv face !"

" How can you be so cruel," replied the millionaire to this very sensible speech, "when you know — "

" Know what, sir ?" broke in the young lady.

" — That there is only one face in the house worth any money — that. is — worth thinking about — you know what I mean, I am sure !" and the listener fancied that about that time a hand was taken, or some other personal advance made towards a reconciliation ; for the lady's next words were in a very different tone :

" Well, there ! Don't say any thing more about it, and I won't scold you any more, if you really like me so much. But don't look at that school-teacher again, or I shall hate you !"

" Certainly not — that is — if I meet her again 1 shall shut up both eyes and look the other way," said the noodle, who certainly seemed disposed to adopt the most effectual pre cautions against any further temptation. " But this picture — you know ! The name on the back of it is certainly ' Hav- iland,' and yet it is not a bit like her /"

" No," answered the lady. " Not a bit like hei — a great deal handsomer. I do not suppose that the owner of this picture is any relative of the person who teaches our chil dren."

" And if you do not know — of course it is none of my busi ness — but a fellow likes to be ppsted about all these things," said the millionaire, deprecatingly, " how did you come by it ?"

" Oh, funnily enough ! ha ! ha !" said the young girl, the laugh sounding strangely discordant to the listener. " I do not know that I ought to tell you, but I suppose 1 must ! My brother-in-law, Mr. Holt, was here last night, and 1 found it beside the chair in which he was sitting, only a few moments after he left. I suppose that he must have dropped it out of his pocket, by accident." ,

" But why he ?" asked the millionaire noodle, who in spite of his known weakness of mind, seemed sometimes to have

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 235

powers of ratiocination and habits of sticking to a subject, surprising even if they were not troublesome. " Why should he be carrying around good-looking Haviland women in hiss pocket, you know ?"

" Bah ! you don't know him !" said the lady, and tho listener could recognize that her tone had changed from the careless discordance of a moment before, not to petulance .like that which it had exhibited in the preceding customary quarrel with her lover, but to low and concentrated bitterness like that of violent but suppressed anger. " He may ruin us — destroy us all, if he likes, and if he ever hears what I say ; but Charles Holt is a scoundrel, and no woman is safe in his hands. That picture is the portrait of the wife of one of hid clerks. How he got possession of it, I do not know, though I would almost give my life to know. What I do know is that he has sent the husband away to the war, and that — • there ! — what have 1 been saying ? It is all nonsense, of course: don't ask me any thing more about it! Don't!" And the listener knew that without any of the petulant af fectation which sli-e had exhibited when speaking of her not long before, she was choking down tears and sobs of anger, if she had not indeed burst into unrestrained indulgence of the passion.

And what was the effect of all this upon Kate Haviland ? Precisely what might have been expected, and very nearly what she deserved ! People have no right to listen to what 'is not intended for their ears, as has already been insinuated in this connection ; and those who outrage the rule must sub mit to the punishment. The young girl, brave, self-reliant and not a little jolly, had within five minutes been placed in possession of a mass of information that was scarcely better than ignorance, while it had the power of making her ex ceedingly uncomfortable, and perhaps imposed upon her onerous and painful duties without giving her the means of fulfilling them: Something wierd and strange seemed whirl ing and dancing in her head ; her feet, as she turned to leave the room (for she had forgotten all about the writing-book, now, and thought only of escaping from, possible detection) seemed to be numb and treading upon air ; and it was really

236 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

with quite an effort that she succeeded in ascending the stairs and gaining the privacy of her own little bed-room. There she tried to think more calmly, and partially succeeded; though what would she not have given, at that moment, to lay her dizzy head upon the bosom of Aunt Bessy, and con sult her as to the true meaning of all that she had heard ! Poor child ! — the wisdom of the simple country woman would have been of no possible use to her : she had gone beyond her aunt's atmosphere as well as her knowledge, and that which required to be done required to be done by herself alone.

And what was it that she had discovered, even partially, • from the conversation just overheard ? First : that Dora Fullerton hated as well as fooked down upon her, and that any visitor at the house who even recognized her as of the same flesh and blood with the family, was to be tabooed. That was no great wonder, and for, that she had been partially prepared from the first hour of her acquaintance with the Ful- lertous. Second: that Mr. Ned Minthorne was the strangest mixture possible to imagine — apparently part fool, for no man not a fool, and possessing his wealth, Avould permit him self to be overborne by such arrogant stupidity as that of Dora. And yet not altogether fool ; for she could not forget that one moment in her own school-room, weeks before, when he had seemed to be a self-possessed, clear-headed, even com manding man — one to be respected as well as obeyed. And not by any means at all simple or transparent ; for evidently he had not told Dora Fullerton, to whom he was engaged (so at least the children averred, and she had no reason to doubt the statement), one word of his adventure with her in the school-room ; and she had just heard him give a false ex planation of his having seen her at all, something in his speech all the while indicating that he was endeavoring to make sly discoveries with reference to her and to Dora's feel ings towards her. An odd problem, certainly, for clearer heads than the puzzled little "noddle of the school-teacher! Third : a corroboration of previous suspicious that something was wrong in the relation sustained by Mr. Charles Holt towards his mother-in-law. Once during the fortnight she

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had happened to be present for a few moments when the merchant was in the room with both mother and daughter, and she had seen that both bowed to him with-a cringing and yet defiant subserviency, totally different from their con duct to any other visitor. And what, coupled with this, did Dora's exclamation mean : " He may ruin us — destroy us all, if he likes, and if he ever hears what I say" ? Some mystery of misfortune, if not of crime, was certainly involved, and the whole family had a share in it. What could it be, and how far would its existence imperil the comfort or the peace of a resident in the household ? Kate Haviland might even have been a witness of the interview between the merchant and his wife, in his own house, and though she would have been still more impressed with the existence of some terrible mystery, and seen the degradation that had fallen upon Olympia Holt, another member of the same family, yet she would have been quite as unable as at this moment to decipher the strange hieroglyphics with which fate sets down the first records of all that is occult and dangerous. Fourth — and the thing of most immediate and pressing moment : a picture of her cousin Burtnett's wife was in the possession of the Fullerton family, fallen from the pocket of Charles Holt, his old em ployer ; and it was a matter of remark in mouths not likely to jest upon such a subject, that the merchant had sent away his clerk that he might the more easily accomplish his dis honor ! What perils were these indeed surrounding Mary Haviland ? An hour before, she would have staked her life on the }Toung wife's fidelity and the impossibility of her being placed in such circumstances as even to put her good name at hazard : now, there were the words of Dora and the fact that the portrait had been in the possession of the merchant, to make her at least pause and consider. And yet what to do, granting that any such peril really ex isted ? Destiny, in permitting her to overhear that conver sation, seemed to have set her a task : what was it, and how was it to be accomplished ? "Speak to Mary Haviland on the subject ? — if innocent of imprudence, (and that she could not be guilty of more, the young girl knew), and if the pic-

233 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

tare had merely come into the merchant's hands by some mere accident, — the question might offend the wife, and at the same time establish for herself the most detestable of all reputations, that of the spy and the meddler. Write to Burt- nett Haviland and tell him what she had heard ? — that might establish the same reputation in his regard, besides paining and worrying him, without accomplishing any good. Was ever the brain of a poor little woman more puzzled, than Kate Haviland's in that half hour in her chamber, before she bad sufficiently composed herself to descend' to the school room and attend once more to the interests of her pupils ?

At length she did descend, however — found their tasks neglected and Myra engaged in tying Mildred up to a desk with one of her garters, with the declared intention of flogging her soundly with the ruler when she had got her into proper position — re-established order in that troublesome community of two — and then, while they at least for the moment pursued their studies, sat down to write — what ? — a letter to Burtnett Haviland, exhibiting at least part of the resolutions which she had finally formed.

Her cousin and herself had been very dear friends since childhood, though he was some years the elder. She had been his "little wife" at school, under the roof of the red school- house at the foot of the hill and beside the alder pond half a mile from Duffsboro ; and when separated they had ever since been occasional correspondents. Perhaps no one un derstood the odd, merry girl better than her cousin ; and when she met him they had always been in the habit of exchang ing sly hints and making odd comparisons, a little unintelli gible and very nonsensical, sometimes, to those who did not understand the peculiarities which seemed — so to speak — to run in the Haviland stock. As a consequence, though Kate was in the present instance writing with a purpose and a very serious one, she either thought it best to spice the letter with her old manner, so as tu avoid alarming her cousin too much with her own apparent seriousness, — or found it im possible to avoid the peculiarity. The odd mixture read partially as follows : —

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UP IN MY SCHOOL ROOM. WITH TWO CHILDREN WHO WILL NOT STUMY

AND WILL GABBLE, NfiW YORK, MAY , 1861.

Dear Cousin : —

Did I promise to write to you, before you went away ? If so, here is the fulfilment of the promise. If not, you are getting more than you deserved or expected, and ought to be duly grateful to the overruling providences for this little dash in upon the (supposed) tedium of your soldier life. I do not know but 1 should have written you before, if I had not been very busy. Apart from my duty of keeping these two charming Pullerton children from un- leurning any thing of the little they know, (they have never learned any thing but that splendid science — mischief!) I have been studying some ab struse problems in scriptural antiquity. I have been very desirous to know what was the precise market value of Cain's best brindle heifer; whether they really were potatoes or only Jerusalem artichokes that Shem's pig rooted up in Japhet's garden; who was the ship-builder that put a new bowsprit into the Ark, and whether it was oak or chestnut; where Jubal bought his fiddle-strings; whether Miriam's timbrel was a bass-drum or only a darkey tamborine; with several other problems of groat interest to humanity. I have a big pile of books all around me, in seventeen different languages and well thumbed, and when I solve any of the questions I will let you know by telegraph. And now for yourself. Don't get shot, and don't contract the bad habit, while you are lying idle in camp, of playing division-loo for buttons. Especially don't cut off the buttons from your coat to play with. Wash your face at least once a week : you will find that healthier than doing it once a month. Do you dreadful Fire Zouaves really set fire to one of your tents every night, for the sake of putting it out with a cannon, or is that only a story they tell? Let me know when you answer this, if you ever do answer it, I wish you could pick mo up a nice little nigger somewere down there — a dwarf if you can find one. I want him for a page, some day when I get to be Queen of the Cannibal Islands. If you can't find me a dwarf, send me one of the ordinary style, not too large, and I will put it stone on his head and keep him down. •****! suppose that you hear from Mary every day, so that I need not tell you any thing about -Tier. She was well when I ran up the other day, and so was Pet — well and kicking. (She kicked me.) By the way, an odd genius that old employer of yours, Mr. Holt, must be. He must take a very warm interest in you, for he had a picture of your wife in his pocket when he was here yesterday, and dropped it out so that the family got hold of it (I did not see it) and were admiring her and saying what a lucky fellow you were. But now you have had enough of my gossip. Scribble me something, some day when you have time, with a stubby pencil on a piece of greasy paper (isn't that the way you soldiers do?) on the head of a drum or the seat of one of your camp-stools.

Ever your affectionate good-for-nothing cousin

KATE HAVILAND.

There were a few words of tlTe conversation between Dora Fullerton and Ned Mintho.rne, that Kate Haviland, running away when satisfied that there was to be nothing more con cerning herself or her family, did not catch. They were of

240 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

public if not of private interest, and may be very briefly de tailed as a pendant to this chapter.

"Ma's letter, that was to go down to Montgomery?1' asked the young lady, when the excitement of the conversation be fore detailed had « passed over. "I do not know whether she has asked you about it, or not — I have never thought of it. Did you send it ?"

" No !" said the millionaire.

" What !" almost shouted the young girl, half springing to her feet, her face ashy white with something like fear, and then instantly red with anger. "You did not send it? You dared—"

" My dear Miss Fullerton," said the noodle, who had been looking at her very calmly and with that in his eyes w«hich would have been close observation by any man 'not a fool — "don't be alarmed ! If there was any thing of consequence in it—"

" You're a fool ! — a miserable fool !" almost hissed the young lady. " There was life, death, ruin, every thing in that package !"

" Good gracious !" said the noodle — " so much property near Montgomery ! I had no idea, you know."

"Jiah!" said the young girl, speaking at the millionaire but really to herself. " If Ma thought you were to be trusted at all, why did she not trust you altogether? There was important information there, from the Men of the True South., in this city, for President Davis. If that is lost, or if it has got into the wrong hands, some of our necks will be cheap ! Where is the letter ? Do you know that?"

" Oh, yes," said the noodle. " That is, I know where it was. Your mother said that it was of a good deal of con sequence, though I thought, you know, that it was all about property — property is the main thing, after all — and as I hadn't much to do — I never do have much to do, in the spring, before a fellow can get away to some of the watering- places — why, I just ran down to Washington and delivered it myself, you know."

" Pshaw I then the letter is delivered, after all !'' said the

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»

young lady. "And what was the use of frightening me in that manner ?"

" Why, / didn't say any thing to frighten you, I am sure !" said the millionaire. "You asked me if I sent it; I said no. You hadn't asked me yet if I had taken it, don't you see ?"

"Yes, I see!" answered Miss Dora. "But I wish, Ned Minthorne, that you would be more like other people."

" Which of them ?" asked the subject of this compli mentary wish.

"Any of them that have brains!" was what the lady thought ; but what she said was : " Oh, anybody, everybody ! never mind ! Come — let us go down to lunch." And to lunch they went down accordingly.

CHAPTER XII. How CHARLES HOLT, MERCHANT, DISPLAYED HIS DELICACY

AND BECAME HIS OWN ERRAND-BOY — MARY HAVILAND'S VISITOR, WITH CLOSER PEEPS AT HIS CHARACTER WHAT

THE MERCHANT FOUND IN AN OLD DRAWER — How THE

VISITS MULTIPLIED AND THE NET DREW CLOSER — A LITTLE " BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION" — KATE HAVILAND'S RESEARCH, AND HOW VERY MUCH SHE DISCOVERED.

IT will again be necessary to go back a little, in the order of time, that the reader, who of course must not on an account be left mystified with what so puzzles all the characters in the 'life-drama, may understand precisely what had really occurred to affect the fortunes and the reputation of Mary Haviland.

Up to Monday the 29th of April, when the Zouaves left New York — though a part of the time absent from the store of his employers, Burtnett Haviland had drawn his salary and applied it to the use of his family. After his departure, the arrangement made by the liberality of Mr. Charles Holt, was that the salary should still be paid weekly, as it had 15

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•

been when the clerk was at home ; and as Mr. Holt could always command an errand-boy if no higher medium of com munication, and as it would be not only a slight incon venience for Mrs. Havilaud to go or send for the weekly amount, but also a little sacrifice of independence to ask for what was really not earned and only supplied by the kindness and public spirit of an employer, — It had also been arranged that the money should bo sent up at the close of every week, the wife receipting for it in each instance or monthly, so as to supply the proper vouchers for the accounts kept between the partners. These suggestions had all been made by the merchant himself, and accepted by the clerk with the thanks which seemed to be due to the nobility of mind which dictated them. Though he could not, with any delicacy, pro pose such arrangements himself, there had not been any sense of humiliation on the part of Burtnett Haviland or his wife in falling into them, as public spirit for the military service of the country just at that time ran so high that scores and perhaps even hundreds of merchants felt that they were doing nothing more than their duty in continuing the salaries of their clerks while absent, they being themselves incapacitated by age. or prevented by business from joining the ranks of the national defenders. It was felt, and very properly, that while the clerk underwent the fatigue and bodily exposure of the service, his employer was very lightly sharing in the onerous burthen by paying him his salary as a sort of substi tute. The merchants of New York, and of other leading cities, reflected honor on themselves by pursuing this course ; and the manly liberality of those who made such arrange ments and adhered to them even when the first heat of the war-fever was over, cannot be affected by the miserable " shoddy" meanness of many others who stipulated to make such payments to the families of their absent clerks, repu diated the arrangement when they were in the service and had lost the power to return, and literally left their wives and families to starve except as relieved by the narrow public bounty.*

* This was another phase of the "shoddy" which should bo unshrinkingly exposed, and would be so in this connection but for the impossibility of

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There was another side to this story, of course — a side with which private employers had nothing to do and the swindling propensity developed itself among those who pre tended to be serving the country. • When the regiments were hurriedly organizing and it seemed to be the duty as well as the wish of every able-bodied man to join them in some ca pacity, the public councils and heads of departments of many of the cities (New York especially, again) announced that any of their subordinate officers who wished to enter the service, would have their places kept, and their salaries continued during absence. Some of these, good fellows, took the offer in. the same spirit in which it was made, and went into the army to fight and to return when the fight was over. Too many others saw a fresh opportunity for money-making, and embraced it. They went into the army, it is true, but as or namental officers who could not and would not have any thing laborious or dangerous to do, drawing large salaries in such situations and yet retaining their well-paid positions at home, double duty to be meanwhile discharged by the under-paid subordinates remaining at their posts. Or they took the still more profitable positions of commissaries and army contrac- 'tors, absenting themselves at Washington or with the army in such very speculative " service^' and yet drawing their official salaries and having the name of being " patriots" who had " sprung up at the call of duty" and " left every thing for the sake of their country !" Has even the " shoddy" record any thing more contemptible ?

It is already reasonably well understood that Burtnett Ha- . vilaud had no selfish or money-making intentions when he ac cepted his employer's offer and enrolled his name among the First Fire Zouaves. Let it be equally well understood that Charles Holt had no intention of repudiating his promise to pay his salary and to " provide for his family" during his ab-

gathering up the names now forgotten. Obligations to employers living or dead were repudiated, in hundreds of cases, and many of those oases crept into the law courts, from which the grea I -grand-children of the claimants may possibly recover something. In many cases this most execrable mean ness was successful, the oath of the employer that he "never promised any thing of the kind" being conclusive against the claim when the claimant was dead or absent and there was no " black and white" to support it.

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scnce. If there was any danger whatever, it was that he might " provide" for them too well ! Punctuality was among the merchant's leading virtues. The regiment had gone away on Monday, and a week's salary was due on the Monday fol lowing. That very evening he presented himself at the house on East Forty-eighth Street, to perform the noble duty of Lord Almoner in person instead of entrusting it to a mere subordinate. Of course this was delicacy — pure delicacy. Who could say that the mere subordinate might not rush roughly in, throw down the stipend with a coarse : " Here's your money, Ma'am !" as if she had been a pauper on the town, and rush out again as roughly ? — while he could hand over that money with the delicacy of a true gentleman and such courtesy that the taking of it might seem to be a favor conferred upon him instead of the opposite. Pure delicacy — we say again. By-and-bye, when the situation had grown to be a more accustomed one and less danger of lacerated feeling would be involved, the subordinate, even the errand- boy, might be trusted : not now. So the merchant made the personal visit indicated.

There are few prettier human pictures to be found in a long search, than Mary Haviland presented as she herself answered the bell at the summons of the merchant, and stood in the doorway inviting him to enter. It was past dusk, and the light of the lamp in the lower hall shone like a glory full upon her blonde hair and threw her neat and compact figure into the most admirable and rounded relief. Then the hand that she extended in welcome when she recognized her husband's kind friend and employer, was so creamy white and so taper, and it was given with such evident warmth and good feeling, that had the merchant not been beyond a new incitement in that direction, one might easily have been created by the proximity.

" I am very glad to see you, Mr. Holt. How kind you are to come !" said the guileless wife, merely thinking of the call as one of personal friendship. But in, an instant she remem bered that the call might have a pecuniary motive, and that her words of gladness might be supposed to refer to that. Whereupon she wished, for a moment, that there was no such

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

thing as money in the world, or that her o\vn tongue was better regulated, and blushed a dear little faint roseate blush that just tinted her forehead and cheeks and made her ten times handsomer than ever. But the tongue had other offices, it fulfilled them, and by the time the little blush had fairly died away, the merchant had accepted her invitation and followed her up the stair to the little front parlor. In another moment the chandelier was lighted, and the two were seated in conversation, with the apparent freedom from restraint of very old friends.

Mr. Charles Holt, merchant, was an incarnate man of the world, all the keenest and worst senses of that phrase being embodied in his description. Xot a wise man, for no scoun drel is truly wise, even the wisdom of this world being alone taken into the calculation, — but a keen and nubile one, those qualities sometimes supplying the place of the nobler with very good effect, He bad been educated in nearly every school, from the college to the casino, from the banking-house to the bagnio. He had as many faces as any Hindu god in the whole Brahminical calendar — each one as sharp and clear cut as one of the facets of a diamond. Unfortunately, in this relation, we have seldom occasion to see more than two facets, the defiant and the villainous. Meeting three different strangers within a given ten minutes, the chances were that he would find occasion to present a different face to each, and that the impressions formed of him by each would be so different that a fight could easily be engineered on the prin ciple of the gold and silver sides of the same shield. Perhaps he cared as little for literature, perse, as any man of the age ; and yet he could read Byron with force and propriety, arid make any new acquaintance believe, within five minutes, that he was a devoted lover of the poetical and the tender, with out one grain of the hard or the practical in his disposition. He was not scrupulously moral (this may have been indicated before), and yet he could and would preach such a Puritani cal sermon when occasion required, that, old Plymouth Rock- would almost have tingled with delight to hear him. 'His attachment to the marriage bond was not such as to make him. lose his nightly rest in grieving over the numerous infractions

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

of that sacred tie constantly supposed to be occurring (this, too, may have been before indicated); and yet he could so inveigh against Free Love and Mormonism that neither Stephen Pearl Andrews nor Orson Hyde would have allowed him within ten miles of their supposed-to-be-different-but-really- similar conventicles. Given five minutes for a change of auditors and motive, and he could and would take the very reverse on any one of these subjects or any one of an hundred others. He was, in short, "all things to all men" — a man of great versatility and power, with strong enterprise and won derful ability of acquiring, retaining and managing wealth, with insatiable and most unscrupulous appetites — a bold, bad, dangerous man, and yet with something shining through all, which indicated that he had at some time in life received some hard blow from the world and was taking a Luciferian delight in achieving those revenges which are all that remain to the lost spirit.

If there was any one science that Charles Holt had tho roughly mastered, it was that of approach, jus-t as the French Emperor has made it his speciality to learn to icait. He never approached people in that way so graphically described by some of the rough-talkers — "wrong end foremost." He was generally unerring in his judgment of time and place, and would no more have thought ef approaching a widow at the grave-yard, before she had returned from the funeral of her husband, than a bride only two days after marriage or an outraged wife at the moment when she was smarting under fierce jealousy of her husband.* He would no more have dreamed of hinting at improper personal regard for Mary Ha- viland, before creeping into her confidence by initial steps, 1 han he would of sawing off his own head, a la " Richard No. 3" of the old Mitchell's Olympic days. He had one unfailing mode of approach, and he knew it and intended to practice it. Apart from any personal experience in that direction, he had read " Never Too Late to Mend," and knew^why Susan Mer- ton tolerated Meadows' company when poor George Fielding

* Late Novels.

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was away in Australia. His, first approach was to speak to her of h(jr husband.

This he did, on the evening in question, with the apparent warmth of a true friend and the admiration of a brother pa triot. He spoke of his business talents, the loss to the force at the store which he was found to bej the pity that he should be called away, his noble spirit in espousing his country's cause, and the loneliness which the wife must feel during his absence. In ten minutes he had won poor little Mary Havi- land'a heart even more than before (won it, of course, in that inoffensive sense which allowed no thought of coldness or dis loyalty to her husband) ; and when, half an hour later and after picking up a book from the table and reading two or three of "Whitticr's poems with excellent intonation and feel ing, and after performing the pecuniary portion of his errand with such tact that it merely seemed to be one of the high bred courtesies of a society something above her own — when all this had been done and the merchant rose to go away, it was no marvel whatever that the young wife accompanied him to the door with undisguised pleasure at the visit beam ing upon her face, — and that when he took her soft little hand in his own daintily-gloved palm at parting, and held it for the just one instant longer than strict propriety would have al lowed, she neither frowned, uttered any petulant remark, nor jerked it away.

Mary Ilaviland returned up-stairs less lonely than she had been since the departure of her husband, and very much pleased — very much indeed — with her late visitor and the chance which had thrown around her, to some extent, the protecting care of so noble a man and so true a friend of Burtnett Haviland as his employer !

Charles Holt, merchant, stepped brisRly towards the Third Avenue and across to the Fifth before taking his course down town, rubbing his bends meanwhile and more than once clap ping them together as if patting applause to some capital actor who had just made an excellent point. He was ap plauding a capital actor — himself; and he believed that he had made an excellent point in the impression created by hig personal manners on the wife of his clerk, and the assurance

248 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

he had given her that he was the true and warm friend of her husband ! So far, so good ; indeed, very good : the rest would cunie iu due time.

Yet what would he not have given, he thought, to be able to follow up that impression before it had time to cool ! This could not be, for under no circumstances could he find an ex cuse for visiting the little house on East Forty-eighth Street before the next Monday, and meanwhile he must fret — yes, fret and burn, under the consciousness of time wasted. \ ;

But there are unquestionably ministering spirits watching over the evil as well as the good, and affording opportunities to the one as well as the other. Less than forty hours after, and when this thought was yet fresh in his mind, he had oc casion to pull open a drawer in the counting-room to which any of the senior clerks had access ; and he chanced upon a perfect placer of valuables — for him. Nothing that would have brought fifty cents if offered at auction, and yet at the moment of the discovery the merchant felt that they enriched him more than a contract to supply rotten satinet or sleezy cloth for clothing for ten regiments, could have done. A little memorandum-book, bearing the name of Burtriett Havi- laud and partially filled with private notes in pencil ; a white silk handkerchief marked with his initials ; a volume of Gerald Massey, with his name on the fly leaf; and last of all but more than all, an old but excellent little ambrotype of Mary Haviland, in a morocco case stamped with her name. Here was a placer, indeed — and all his own. The ambrotype was a charming one, the soft rounded features and blonde hair having taken well in it, as they oftener do in that description of picture than any other, and the dust upon the case indi cating that it must have lain in the drawer for a considerable period and been forgotten. That he would keep, at all haz ards, and feed the fire in his blood by gazing upon the sweet face at his leisure. As for the memorandum-book, the hand kerchief and the volume of poems — they would furnish him the very excuse that he coveted, for " dropping in" again at the house of the original, at once, and with the opportunity of creating a deeper impression of his care and anxiety for her welfare, instead of any danger of awakening suspicion.

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This programme was strictly carried out. The evening of that day saw the merchant again at the house on East Forty-eighth Street, and once more in the presence of its young mistress. He found the gratitude he had expected, for the restoration of the handkerchief and the memorandum- book, which however seemed to be valued only (he was obliged to note) because they furnished additional reminders of the absent husband ; and if he had a momentary pang at seeing the young wife furtively convey to her lips the book that contained his hand-writing, he was consoled by the fact that she did not ask after the ambrotype and evidently did not know or. had forgotten-its having been in her hus band's possession. With reference to. the kissing of the book, it is only justice to Charles Holt to say that he was rather prepared for than surprised at that manifestation. If husbands cannot prevent little infringements on their marital rights by wide-awake and unscrupulous men of the world, those men of the world, constituting themselves lovers, are sometimes obliged to witness very painful indications of at tachment in the wives towards their husbands, by which they, the lovers, are defrauded, but xto which they have never yet been able to establish a formula of objection. This Charles Holt knew by sad experience, and being pre pared to make due allowance h'e did not suffer so much from the yet existing attachment of Mary Haviland to her husband, shown by the pressure of her lips to the memoran dum-book, as he might have done had he never before seen such a proof of weakness.

This time, as the visit was somewhat early and the spirit of sleep had not yet sealed up the eyes of that young person, Pet came into the arena and furnished the merchant with another instrumentality for ingratiating himself into the good graces of the mother. He took the sweet little child upon his knee, talked baby-talk to her that seemed to come with a strange grace from lips that could be so severe, ran his fingers through her clustering curls and remarked (with a long look of admiration at the latter which he would not have cared to hazard without that excuse) that her hair was a shade darker than her mother's, but woutd scarcely be so silkily beautiful

250 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

as hers when she grew up ; then kissed her with much fatherly kindness and a side-glance which might have said to a wiser than Mary Haviland that he would have preferred to kiss older and riper lips instead, and finally yielded her to Sarah Sanderson and Morpheus with a tenderness which conveyed to the flattered mother : " How blessed should I be if / had such a child !"

Then his powers of reading came again into p]uy — not as if he had any intention of "showing them off,'' but as if he read in the same unstudied way as the birds sing. Haviland, a lover of the wierdly beautiful, had Praed in his little book case, and his unsuspected guest read the " Bridal of Belmont" and the " Legend of the Haunted Tree" so pleasantly and naturally that the young hostess, as she pursued with her fingers the sawing which she could not quite forego even for so honored a visitor, found' herself borne insensibly back /to the times Avhen belted knights and noble ladies rode through the English greenwood, and when there was yet life and revelry in the grim old castles that now frown down on the Rhine tourist.

And when he laid by the book with an audible sigh, glanced at his watch and arose to go, with a look which said : " I haye been so many minutes in Paradise : now for so many hours of banishment !" was there not an answering sigh in the breast of the young wife, and did she not feel that by some pleasant chance a member of society higher than her own, of experience wider and views of the world more com prehensive, had suddenly been thrown into the current of her life, at the moment when she would otherwise have been so lonely without that accident, — and that she was very happy in his society ? It is almost qertain that this question must be answered in the affirmative.

• And had the young wife, only a few days parted from her husband, already forgotten him or learned to undervalue him ? And was there an answering throb in her heart to the evil passions surging up within the breast of the libertine mer chant ? No ! — a thousand times No ! to each of these ques tions. Not one clinging tendril of her love had fallen away from her husband : not one impure thought had crossed her

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 251

mind or could cross her mind without being shuddered at and started from like a hoi-rid reptile meeting her in some summer path. Her tempter had yet to learn, perchance, the wide dif ference between merely dazzling the fancy of a true woman, and touching her heart or poisoning the fountain of her truth. Perchance, we say : let the result be duly waited for. And meanwhile let all remember that these distinctions, though positive, are narrow, and that there is. a road to the heart and the life, through the fancy, which sometimes betrays and often endangers.

When Charles Holt, again ushered to the door by the young hostess, and again holding that soft little hand in his own for a single instant as he took it, left the house on that second evening, the insatiate devil within him raged fiercely and triumphantly. His keen eyes saw how the glamour had fallen over the eyes of the wife, while they could not see the purity and truth that lay as a reserved force at the bottom of her character. He should triumph — he knew that he should triumph — much more quickly than he had ever be lieved ; and then — the future must take care of itself, and he had wealth, power and will to mould even human hates and revenges to his own purpose.

When Charles Holt left the house that evening, the young -wife, except that she felt herself even more than before pleased with his company and conversation, did not realize that any change had taken place in her own position towards her husband or the world. And yet a marked change had taken, place, the after results of which were to be of the most pain ful and almost irretrievable character. Mary Haviland might have realized the fact, had she known the real composition of her own household; but of this, as we have before seen, she could have no idea. Sarah Sanderson was to her a mere humble companion and "help": she was very nearly or quite to be her fate.

Like attracts like with wonderful certainty and celerity — • the remark is a truism. Evil is especially cognizant of evil. What the pure eyes of the young wife could not see, the jealous and jaundiced orbs of Sarah Sanderson saw without an efl'ort. A strange mixture of weakness and wickedness,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

with only possibilities of goodness, — she had yet strength in licr passions and in the powers of observation which they engendered. She had seen, even through the narrow door way, on the first evening, how the face of the merchant was all smooth and gentlemanly decorum without, all fierce and reckless passion below the surface. . She had seen, too, how the yuung wii'e received his attentions with more sincere pleasure ihun she had ever before shown 'in the presence of any one except her husband. Then had occurred the second meeting, and on one pretext and another the young girl had passed in and out, overheard snatches of the conversation, and seen how the eyes of the wife showed even more pleasure than be fore and how the face of the visitor shone with yet more terribly concentrated passion through his mask. And then had arisen the thought — it was her time 1 — the opportunity of her life had come 1

It is no secret, with what an unreasonable and hopeless affection the young girl had for years regarded Burtnett Haviland, nor how, living in the same house with himself aud his wife, she had weakly and without purpose hated the latter. Here came the purpose with the opportunity, full- born from her brain at once, albeit probably she had never heard of Minerva or the Jovian plan of reproduction. Here was a proud and powerful man, who would become the lover of the wife if possible. If he could do so, then would she be lost to the husband forever; for Haviland was not the man, as she well knew, to brook infidelity of the heart more than that of the body. Then would he be free, or at least there would stand no one between him and herself. But suppose the wife should resist — what then? Then all would remain as before, and she would be still an outcast. No — here came another thought into the warped and perverted mind — why should she be ? Suppose that the wife should remain pure and loyal, would it not serve every purpose if the husband could be brought to believe her false and so induced to cast her off forever ? The ground for suspicion once given in the visits of the merchant, it would be strange if she could not play into his hands to effect the absolute ruin of the woman she hated, or at least manage to destroy her by weaving

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 253

around her the appearances of guilt. From that moment the latent malice became the active and the' practical; and in that change what a perilous net became woven around the feet of Mary Haviland !

The Monday evening following, when the next week's salary was due the family of the absent soldier, brought the third visit of the merchant, who, if he held out as he began, was not at all likely to need the aid of any errand-boy in transacting his business in that particular section of the town. This time the fates favored him in another special regard. When he reached the house he was admitted by Sarah in stead of the hostess, and he found the latter absent and not yet to return for half an hour. Through the door between the two rooms he saw that the supper table was in readiness and little Pet playing on the floor with a pussy nearly as large as herself. He took his seat in the front room, the girl lighted the gas and when she had done so went back to her employment in the dining-room. The' merchant trifled with a book, called the child, who did not seem disposed to desert the cat for his company, and eventually called the girl her self, who obeyed the summons with great alacrity. He had just thought of something that might be of importance, and the absence of Mrs. Haviland afforded him an excellent op portunity to put his thought into practice. Who could tell that he might not need the co-operation of the servant, who was, as his eyes had told him the first time he looked at her attentively, pretty, vain and not too scrupulous? An ally is a good thing to have in any house where an important opera tion is to be performed ; . and people whose God is Success instead of Right do not always keep close hold of that rule which forbids to "speak of things in the kitchen that are for bidden in the parlor." So the merchant called Mary Havi- laud's "help," and she came at once.

" Your name is Sarah, is it not ?" asked the merchant.

" Yes, sir," answered the girl, with a not ungraceful attempt at a courtesy — " Sarah Sanderson."

" A pretty name enough," said Charles Holt, who really thought it a most detestable alliterative combination. " And 'you are a pretty girl, Sarah 1 Do you know it ?"

254 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

The young girl might have answered with all propriety that she did know the fact, quite as well as any person could in form her ; but she merely blushed a very little, and replied: " You are very good, sir, to say so."

" Yes, very pretty indeed, Sarah," continued the tempter, who saw that his compliments were by no means displeasing, and realized better than before that the girl was as proud as Lucifer. " You ought to be mistress of a nice little house, instead of working in one ! Don't you think so ?"

She had thought so, many a time, and in fact all the time when she thought on the subject at all ; but this was putting the matter a little bluntly, and she merely replied, in a tone which showed that she was really not very doubtful about the matter :

" I don't know, sir, I am sure."

Flattery, the first of evil agencies, having now done its work, the man of the world considered it time that he should employ the second — bribery. He put his hand into his pocket, and carelessly drew out a well-filled purse.

" They don't pay you very well here, do they, Sarah ?"

" Xot very well, sir — only two dollars a week," said the girl, who had always managed to spend all her wages in cheap finery, and who had consequently always been a little dissat isfied with the amount of her earnings.

"A mere trifle — nothing for you!'1'1 said the merchant. " Why, it cannot even keep you in clothes. You seem to me to be a very good girl, Sarah, and I like you. Perhaps I may have it in my power, one day, to do something for you — get you a nice beau, or something else you will like as well. Meanwhile, you may want a new dress. You have had the trouble of opening the door forme to-night, and you may need to do -so at other times. Here is a trifle for you — put it into your pocket, and you need not mention it to your mis tress. If you are a very good girl, I shall have another to spare for you one of these days."

A trifle ? It was a bright double-eagle that he put into Sarah Sanderson's palm, and that she, after a single instant of wondering hesitation, dropped into her pocket. How big and bright it looked to her eyes, and how big and bright, too,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 255

to the eyes of Pet Louise, who had followed the truant cat into the room and was very near when that unexpected dou ceur astonished and delighted the receiver.

How many thanks, and of what description, the young girl might have repaid the merchant for his gift, is among the mysteries foredoomed to meet no solution. If there had been any part of Sarah Sanderson before left in the sei'vice of the Havilands, there was nothing left after the flight of the double-eagle from the purse of the tempter to her pocket. It bought her, body and soul. She understood, intuitively, that some service would be required of her, which would have been differently bargained for if entirely correct ; but what ever it might be, she was quite ready to render it.

It was the coming home of Alary Haviland, which prevented any further conference between the pair of oddly-matched conspirators and left the reply of the " help" in doubt. She came in with her own pass-key, very quietly ; and had she arrived but the moment before, she might have happened upon the very instructive spectacle of her accommodating paymaster chatting with and bribing her servant. As it was, bhe saw nothing and suspected nothing. The merchant met her with great empressement as well as great respect, and with a repetition of that manner which said that he was again temporarily coming into a paradise of happiness, just as he had before made signal his sense of departure from it. The young wife was again pleased to see him, warmly took the hand he extended, and made no secret that she was flattered by this third visit within eight days. Supper was waiting her — an humble supper, but such as their circumstances per mitted : would he join her ? He did join her, after she had for just one moment bustled about as all housewives will do when they have unexpected company at a meal ; and he seemed to drink the tea she poured him, with a relish, and to eat with -the appreciation of a true gourmand the flaky tea- l.iscuit that she had moulded with xher own fair hands and set into the oven of the little range before going out. Here was another quiet and delicate compliment paid her ; and when Charles Holt said with an air of very grave truth and feeling,

256 THE DAYS OF SIIODDY.

that " he had not so enjoyed any meal in a twelve-month," she believed him and appreciated his taste.

There was one momentary awkardness during the meal, which might have grown into a still greater one but for skill and readiness in averting the danger. Little Pet, not yet being asleep, was taken up by the mother after the tea had been poured, and passed the balance of the meal on her lap, adding materially to the charm of the picture at which the merchant gazed from the other side of the little table. Suddenly, in a moment of silence between the elder people, that very young person remembered a historical incident of her long experience, and felt disposed to com municate it.

" Big man gived Sary big purty yellowmoney !" — such was her version of the event which had occurred in the other room while she was experimenting upon the cat, and which neither of the operators had thought it necessary to conceal from her. The effect of the remark was for the moment very like that supposed to be produced by. one of Gilmore's "Swamp- Angels" when it first dropped a four-mile shell into the cradle of the rebellion. Though very feebly propelled, it was a- shell of no ordinary danger. The merchant had his second cup of hot tea at his lips, and came near dropping it. He did not drop it, however, and if he colored the gas-light was not favorable for the exhibition. Miss Sarah Sanderson, who stood in waiting by the mantel, was fortunately behind her mistress, and her momentary flush of shame, succeeded by a deadly pallor of fright, could not be seen by the person most interested. Had the eyes of the hostess rested upon her, instead of upon the trained features .of the merchant, the confusion would certainly have been observed and the endan gered bird had some warning before the snare closed about her. All this was the work of an instant, however. The merchant came to the relief of the new " firm," the moment he could set down his cup, with :

" You shouldn't tell tales out of school, little dear ! Who would believe it, Mrs. Haviland ? — I dropped a quarter into your girl's hand for taking the trouble to admit me, and the little darling appears- to have noticed even that !"

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 257

" 'Es ! Sary, et itty Pet see purty yellow money."

Here might have been another awkwardness, for Miss Sarah unquestionably had the contraband gold still in her pocket, and quite as unquestionably had no quarter of a dollar to substitute for it, even if she had sufficient readiness. But the merchant was by that time fully on his guard, and col lected enough to have played for his life, much more for his success against the unfortunate tongue of a " three-year- old."

" Xo, little Pet, see here ! — here is something prettier than any thing that Sarah has got !" His hand went into his pocket, there was the jingling of coin, and it came out again, the instant after, with a half-eagle in the fingers.

" Pray do not, Mr. Holt !" said the mother, deprecatingly, seeing at least a part of the intention.

'' Oh, pray let me have my own way, madam, with the little folks !" said the merchant. " Here, Miss Sarah, if that is your name," (the "Miss" and the "if that is your name" were well put, in that connection) — " be good enough to hand me a pair of stout scissors and to give me a piece of ribbon or tape."

The mother said no more ; both requests were complied with by Sarah ; and in a moment or two the merchant had artistically drilled a hole through one edge of the gold piece with the sharp point of the scissors, inserted the narrow blue ribbon given him, handed it over to be hung around Pet's neck, and the little child was admiring the brightness of the yellow coin and had forgotten that any one else in the world had "purty money." The danger was arrested. :

"Rather a neat operation, that !" said Charles Holt to him self, as he buttered another biscuit after the affair was over. " I have not only managed to get Sarah and myself out of a scrape that might have been devilish awkward, but found one more way to please the blonde beauty and place her under obligation !"

Reading was dispensed with for that evening, the supper

and the episode of the child's memory having occupied all

the time that the merchant felt it prudent to spend in the

house on that occasion. In order to avoid jarring what was

16

2-") 8 THE PAYS OF SHODDY.

otherwise so pleasant and so prosperous, by introducing any thing sordidly pecuniary, the arch-schemer allowed the wife to see him drop a little envelope on the mantel of the front room, and knew that she understood it to be the weekly salary of her husband. Then he stepped across to the door, as if to take his leave. The wife, still conscious of the honor done her by his repeated calls, prepared to accompany him once more to the door.

"By the way," he said, stopping at the threshold, and as if something before forgotten had just occurred to him, ^be fore your husband went away, he and I were speaking of your probably being a little lonely sometimes, and he did me the honor to accept, in your behalf, my promise that I would drive around some evening and ask you for your company to one of the theatres. May I hope that you will fulfil your husband's wish and gratify me so much ?"

"If it was his wish — certainly !" said the young wife, with out one suspicion of the truth of the allegation or one doubt that the conversation had really occurred. Her husband and herself had both been very fond of theatrical performances and spent many leisure evenings in that equally abused and lauded mode of beguiling the present in the past or the possi ble. What more natural, even if he had forgotten to speak to her on the subject, in the many pre-occupations and emo tions of his departure, — than that he should have been willing to provide her with this pleasure, especially in company so unexceptionable that he had to some extent confided her to it? She had not one instant's thought of wrong or impro priety connected with the invitation or its acceptance, and if she hesitated at all, did so under doubt whether she should allow their kind friend to take so much trouble on her behalf. All this passed in an instant; any doubt of the policy of such a, course vanished as quickly ; and she concluded the sentence which had been begun conditionally, without any condition whatever : —

" Certainly, Mr. Holt, if you will take so much trouble, 1 will go with you, some evening, with great pleasure."

For the instant Charles Holt was confounded (it could not have been that he was shamed) by the unsuspecting inno-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 259

ccnce of this woman. He had expected doubts and hesita tions, and he did not know Mary Haviland well enough to be aware that if she had doubted the propriety of the course, she would at once have said " Xo !" She had answered altogether too easily and too quickly for his calculation. But men of the world must be prepared for unexpected successes as well as unexpected rebuffs, and there was nothing of the triumph which he really felt, in his voice, as he said, pressing his advantage : —

'•' You delight me, my dear madam, by assenting so readily to your husband's wish. Let me see — this is Monday. May I drive round, then, on Wednesday evening, and expect the pleasure of your company to see Joe Jefferson's burlesque Mazijppa at the Winter Garden ?"

"I do nut know any thing to the contrary," said the wife. "Yes, I shall be pleased to go the,re if you will be kind enough to come for me."

And so, with the same respectful intimacy which had marked their two previous partings, but perhaps the hand of the unsuspecting wife held yet a little longer in the palm of the tempter, — they separated at the door, and Mary Haviland went again up-stairs, to seek her nightly rest, and to dream — • of Charles Holt ? — no, of her absent husband and the lovo with which, if God spared and shielded him amid the dangers of battle, he would yet surround her !

" Easier than I thought !" said the merchant, as he crossed to a car. (He had not thought it advisable, on ordinary oc casions, to come to Forty-eighth Street in his carriage, for reasons that prudent people will very readily understand.) " Easier than I thought ! I was afraid there might be a check here, but no ! Once at the theatre, and publicly talked about as going out with some other person than her husband, alone, — I do not think she can very well retreat afterwards."

Wednesday evening brought the merchant and his car riage — not the handsome landau in which he sometimes rode in the Central Park and made his calls -upon his recognized fashionable acquaintances, — with a liveried coachman on the^ box, and his arms (on a field vert a griffin rampant argent, holding a key or in the dexter claw and in the sinister gripping

260 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

a human heart gules, with the motto : "L'un ou Pantre," of which " Your money or your life !" might perhaps be a some what free rendering) on the dark panels, — but a plain close carriage, with a handsome span before jt'and a driver out of livery. This man understood, be it remembered, all the poli cies as well as all the proprieties, and knew a thousand times better than to startle the young wife of his poor clerk by the reminder that livery might give her of the new world into which she was so imprudently allowing herself to be carried by the irresistible Maelstrom of wealth and passion ; and llio plain close carriage was the result.

Mary Haviland would have been something more or less than woman, if she had felt no sensation of pride and gratifi cation when the merchant handed her into the carriage (she so seldom rode in one ! — people of her position seldom do, and seldom will until some benevolent pestilence sweeps over all the Northern cities and carries off the whole race of livery- keepers and hack-swindlers, who make less than half the money they would do by liberal dealing, and yet manage to make many a tired limb walk when it would ride if the purse was heavierNor imposition less abhorrent) — she would have been more or less than woman, we say, if she had felt no sen sation of pride when the merchant, faultlessly dressed and fine-looking, handed her into the carriage and took his seat by her side, falling himself and leading her into pleasant chat, as readily as he brushed a fleck of dust from his Saxony coat with his snowy cambric. And when she floated into tho theatre on his arm, and took her seat in the private box by his side (another so-called luxury — that private box — to which she had never before dreamed of aspiring), and when lorgnette after lorgnette was levelled at her in that place (as they would probably not have been, had she occupied a less con spicuous position) with undisguised admiration of the beauty and simple grace of "the pretty blonde with the rich hus band," — she might have been easily pardonable if even slightly intoxicated by the aroma to which she was so little accus tomed, and touchingly grateful to the proud man who had for the moment stooped down from his height to give her a new and innocent pleasure.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 261

Perhaps she was a little intoxicated, both by her surround ings and the conversation of that man who chatted so easily of all the dramatic and musical celebrities whom she, had never known, from the stars of the early days of the Old Park on this side of the Atlantic, to Malibran and Taglioni gleaming like meteors from the other. To her, so lately a cuuntry-girl and even now but a novice in all the prides arid luxuries of the great city, to some extent a new world seemed opening; and it was not strange if more than once while Joe JeiFerson was making Byron ridiculous and giving a new beauty to Tartar history by his rendering of Mazeppa the Second, her thoughts wandered away from the play, to the luxury of wealth, the pity that all could not share in its advan tages, the kindness of those who even for one moment gave the humble and lowly a glimpse into the glories ordinarily denied them.

And did her thoughts wander nowhere else ? If not — then the innocent taste was really becoming perverted with melan choly rapidity, and the merchant was winning even more rapidly than he knew. Nowhere else ? — yes, the little wife had an occasional thought that would have been a terrible Mordecai in the gate of Haniau Holt if he could but have fathomed it — how much pleasanter, after all, the play would be, even in the commonest seat of the parquette or gallery, if "Burtey" could only sit beside her and enjoy it with her, instead of being far from her, away out in the lonely night, leading the desolate life of a soldier.

It so happened that on that very evening, at about eight o'clock (only one day, by the way, after the occurrences last detailed at the Fullerton mansion), Kate Haviland, who had not before been able to leave the house long enough for that purpose, ran out Twenty-third. Street to the Third Avenue, seized a car (that word exactly expresses the air with which she took possession of one side of the vehicle, spread her rea sonably voluminous skirts over one-half the length of the cushion on that side, and patronized the conductor with five cents), and just fifteen minutes thereafter was making a call, as she supposed, on her female cousin-in-law.

Sarah Sanderson admitted her. Mary Haviland was ab-

262 THE DAYS OF S II O D I) Y .

sent. Where ? Gone to the theatre, the girl said, with an. unpleasant expression of satisfaction on her elfish little face, — with Mr. Holt, the merchant, who had just driven round and taken her away in his carriage,

" Phew !" said Kate Haviland to herself, something coming up in her throat and something else seeming to settle down dark over her eyes. " Her husband two weeks gone, and she riding about in carriages and going to theatres with his wealthy employer ! Phew ! Stop — it may be only once, and in that event not entirely beyond pardon. Sarah, has Mrs. Haviland been out with Mr. Holt, before ?"

The double-eagle had sharpened the young girl's eyes, keen enough before. She saw that there was worry in the face of the teacher, and instinctively felt that she could not do Mrs. Haviland more harm than by placing her in as bad a position as possible before her relative. " Yes, ma'am," she answered — " several times — that is, about t\vice or three times, I guess."

" Ph — h — h — ew !" again said Kate Haviland to herself, but this time with the whistle, to which she had a little un- feminine proclivity, very much prolonged. "Been out with him twice or three times before ! The habit is a regular one, then, it seems ! And he the man he is represented to be by members of his own family ! I am afraid that the possession of the portrait is no mystery. And yet who could have be lieved it, when she seemed to love Burtey so truly and to be such a dear devoted little wife !"

All this to herself, of course; but Sarah Sanderson, who was busied in getting little Pet ready for bed, had leisure to look into the eyes of the teacher and see how the trouble was gathering deeper there. She was pleased by the observation. She was not a poor insignificant little thing — a nobody, to be put about and made nothing of! She could make herself of some consequence. She could wound Mary Haviland, the usurper, who stood in her place ! She would do so, deeper • and deeper, now that the thought had come to her and the opportunity offered itself.

The portrait — perhaps something could be learned about that — thought the teacher, and she felt no delicacy in making

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 263

the attempt, now that the most painful suspicions of the \veakness (not the guilt, be it remembered) of the young wife had begun to be entertained. She went to the mantel of the front room and began turning over the few articles it con tained. She knew nothing ofHhe portrait said to be in the hands of the Fullertons, as of course she had not seen it ; but there were two clues to its identity — its being an ambrotype, and the name of Mary Ilaviland upon the case, which could not by any means be common to the pictures in possession of the family. After fumbling with the minerals, Red Riding Hood match-safes and other trifles on the mantel, a few moments, and opening and shutting the cases of the half dozen of family daguerreotypes and ambrotypes lying there — • she called to Sarah, who had returned to the other room and left her to her apparently childish amusement.

" Sarah, there was an ambrotype here, that I was trying to find — one of Mrs. Haviland, with her name in gilt letters on the case. Do you know what has become of it ?"

" I am sure I don't know," very naturally answered the girl, who did not know any thing about it. She remembered the picture, by the description, but had no idea where she might have seen it last. The fact was that she had not seen it for many months, Burtnett Haviland having carried it down to the store to have the broken case repaired, and then forgotten it there, as husbands have a bad habit of doing when they undertake to perform errands for the household. He had other and more valuable pictures of the same dear face, and the little ambrotype had been quite ignored in favor of the still better specimens of the same art succeeding it.

But Kate Havilan'd was not to be foiled by the ignorance of the girl. "It seems to be gone," she said. "Perhaps Mr. Ilaviland may have taken it away with him to the war.''

"Xo, I guess not," said the girl. "He had a picture taken of her, only a day or two -before he went away, on leather, or something of that kind, so that he could carry it in his pocket-book and not have it broken. I don't think he took any other."

"What can have become of it, then ?" persisted the in quisitor. "I am sure I saw it there not long ago." A little

264 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

fib, for a purpose, and answering a very different purpose from the one intended,

" Yes, I am sure I saw it there after Mr. Haviland went away," answered the girl, her ideas as to time fixed by the questioner. Then the perpetual thought of Mary Haviland, her haunting spectre, came into her mind, and she added, without any thought how well the reply would carry out her own intentions : " Mrs. Haviland must have given it away to somebody, I suppose."

That closed the conversation. Strange how little will sometimes satisfy those already half satisfied ! Five minutes afterwards, Kate Haviland left the house with a sore heart, convinced that Burtnett's wife was in the habit of going to the theatres with a man of doubtful character, that she had given him her picture, and that she was sly as well as weak. Thenceforth confidence between the two, both so good and both so true, was necessarily destroyed, and Mary Hav iland had lost one of her guardian angels. Kate's next letter to her cousin, which very soon followed, was full of a sad, sober earnest, and had not even one jesting allusion to relieve it.

CHAPTER XIII.

YOYAGE OF THE FlRE ZOUAVES TO ANNAPOLIS — TlIEIR CON DITION, CHARACTER, AND THE INFLUENCES FOR AND AGAINST THEM — ARRIVAL AT WASHINGTON — CAMP LINCOLN AND CAMP DECKER — BURTNETT HAVILAND'S LETTERS, AND THE EFFECT THEY PRODUCED — THE REGIMENT GETTING READY

FOR WORK.

IT now becomes proper, for a certain period, to follow the fortunes of Burtnett Haviland, private in the First Regiment of Fire Zouaves, and of the organization to which he had attached himself in entering the Union Army. To pass to sterner if not sadder scenes than those with which we have already been conversant, and to note some of the early

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 265

peculiarities of that struggle to destroy the great republic, which kept pace with the efforts before and after made to destroy that other little republic — a home.

The Fire Zouaves dropped down the bay and went to sea, on board the Baltic, on that Monday evening the 29th of April, with high hopes and noble aspirations. The enthu siastic young Colonel, only half acquainted with the material of his men, believed it to be excellent ; and he possessed that sacred hunger of patriotism (to alter a little an old and well- known phrase) which made any means of fulfilling his desire apparently sufficient for the end. His men had been hastily gathered ; but had he not the assurance of those who should know them best, and of his own observation of the actions of the firemen, that they were far better than any other com mander could hope to gather ? Their weapons had only been found at the moment of starting, and of course they knew nothing whatever of their use; but were not their hands used to the tools of their various trades and to the implements of their fire-duty, and could they not learn more quickly than the same number of men taken from any other class of society ? They had not been drilled even in the marchings and facings which constitute the A. B. C., of soldierly education ;* but had they not been used to the semi-soldierly discipline of the fire-parade, and how much trouble could it possibly be to change that discipline to the necessary move ments of the camp and the field, especially under his instruc tion, when he had won the credit of being the first drill-master on the continent ?

Such were the hopes and beliefs of the young Colonel. Some of the other officers of the regiment knew that the organization was little more than a mob, with sufficient bad material to vitiate the remainder, and that peculiar indepen dence in composition which could scarcely be brought to submit to that necessary restraint called discipline. They knew that the common soldiers did not look up to the officers, nor even hold many of them in any personal respect. They

* Only a single and very short attempt at drilling the Zouaves in the facings was made before they went away — at the old building in Franklin Street.

266 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

had been brother members in the same company — had been "Jack" and " Bill" and " Bob" to each other, and were so still. They might temporarily keep their tongues silent and their passions under control, \vhen on parade or under the im mediate eye of the Colonel or one of the other field officers ; but even the Colonel had too much familiarized himself with them and made them too nearly comrades and not enough sol diers under his command. Off parade and when away from the eyes of the field officers, discipline was actually a thing unknown. Equality, in its largest sense, was the rule, with plenty of liberty but not much fraternity. The Captain slapped his hand on the shoulder of the private and said " How are you, Jim ?" just"as he had done when they were running together as members of Old Two Hundred and Eighty-Seven Truck. The private returned the Captain's slap and invited him to "smile, "when circumstances were favorable and good humor prevailed ; and when ill-temper arose be had no hesitation whatever in recommending that officer to "go to" — some place not set down in ordinary geographies, calling him a " foo-foo" with a very harsh adjective prefixed, or threatening to " lick him when he got him in a square place." At times, rumor said, the private really did administer that corrective to his officer, and with out any subsequent action being taken to punish what would in any other organization have been called a " want of respect" at least !

Then the firemen, as any one who knew thorn well should have known, were naturally clannish to a degree never else where equalled since Graham of Claverhouse attempted to marshal the Highlanders in opposition to the forces of King "William, and found all his sins against the Covenanters revenged in the effort.* Soldiers they might become, but

* There is no finer piece of humorous earnest in the language, than M:i- oaulay's description of the "Military Character of the Highlanders," in t!,e thirteenth chapter (vol. III.) of his "History of England," in which he shows what Claverhouse < then Viscount Dundee) had to contend with in ranking »n firniy out of the Highland clans, and the pleasant probabilities that the Caiuerons, the Macdonalds, the Gordons, the Grants, the Campbells, the jVI:icgregor?, or some other leading clan might, at any moment, break out into a, quarrel with some hereditary fue, or that at any hour '• the right wiug of

THE DAYS OF S TI O D DY. 267

they could never cease to be firemen and attached to their respective fighting as well as working companies; and at any moment a dispute was likely to arise between two members of different engine companies, whether One Hundred and Ninety did or did not "wash" One Hundred and Eighty-Nine, at Laird's Pole on Thanksgiving Day of a certain year, or whether One Hundred and Eighty-Eight did or did not pass One Hundred and Eighty-seven fairly, coming down Chatham Street hill on the night of a certain fire in the Eighth. It is a melancholy fact that our fire organizations have not always been the most peaceful in the world, even when coming home from the funerals of deceased brothers ; and such little dis putes between, members of different companies were almost sure to result in open hostilities at the time, or the smoulder ing of anger to a future period, infinitely worse. It was almost impossible, meanwhile, for an officer to be either feared or obeyed, except by such members of the regiment as had feared and obeyed him in another relation ; and the effect of all this, and of bickerings and disputes about old Engineer elections and examinations before the Board of Fire Commis sioners, may be imagined by any one who has closely ob served one of the so-called " happy families" of the menag erie.

There was something worse even than this, in the regiment; and long before they had completed their prosperous sea- voyage and landed at Annapolis, even the blindly enthusiastic Colonel had become aware of it. There were nearly thirteen hundred men attached to the organization when it left New York, and at least two or three hundred were thieves and vagabonds. Burtnett Haviland had scarcely composed him self to sleep, down in the dusky steerage of the Baltic, on the first night out and when the ship was yet in sight of the Jersey coast, before he had occasion to fight in the dark for the retention of his watch and pocket-book ; and some were really robbed without being able to trace the depredators, before they reached the place of disembarkation. The officers

the army might be found firing on the centre, in pursuance of some quarrel two hundred years old, or that a whole battalion might march back to its native glen because another battalion had been placed in the post of honor."

268 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

did all in their power to overawe the ruffians and maintain order, but they could do but little ; and calm observers, if any there were in the regiment, saw serious trouble ahead, before they again set foot on the land.

Such was Burtnett Haviland's opening experience- as a soldier, and such were the omens for the future usefulness of the regiment staring him in the face. And if he had a mo mentary regret that his lot had not been cast, by his own choice, among men who promised to do more honor to llu: service, — he had at least the consolation of knowing that he had taken a wise course in refusing to accept any command. To serve was bad enough : 'to command would have been murder of body and soul. Such at least was the experience of poor Ellsworth, and of Farnham and Crogier and the more capable Captains, before their connection with the regi ment closed in one or another misfortune.

There was, of course, much to relieve this somewhat gloomy picture. The body of the regiment was formed of elever fellows, full of the capability as well as the will of enjoyment. Hilarity without disorder reigned among many of the circles into which the Zouaves naturally segregated, and high hopes of future honor and usefulness still animated those who had within them the truth of patriotism. More than once during the passage down, vessels were descried and rebel privateers believed to be looking out for the trans port-ships ; and the alacrity with which the Zouaves answered the calls to arms on such occasions, evidenced, what every one knew before, however — that if they had little proclivity for discipline they lacked neither courage nor a firm deter mination to uphold the honor of the flag. These were fal?e alarms, of course, and the voyage ended without accident or obstruction, other than those supplied by the shoal water of the Chesapeake and a little official stupidity to make it effectual.

The Baltic was off Annapolis on the morning of Thursday the 2d of May, exchanging salutes with the Cunard steam ship Kedar, that had preceded her but yet had on board the Fifth New York, Duryea's Zouaves, destined afterwards to reflect such glory on the volunteer service. General Butler

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 269

was in command at Annapolis and in high feather ; and the town was literally one vast camp, with the Sixth, Eighth and Thirteenth of Xe\v York, Massachusetts Fourth and Boston Flying Artillery, and two Pennsylvania regiments. The Sixty-ninth New York were meanwhile doing yeomen's ser vice in guarding the railroad between Annapolis and the Junction, so laboriously repaired by the Seventh on their march.

The Zouaves disembarked, after many delays — without some of which at intervals the voyage would have been incomplete. — and made the rest of the journey by rail, reaching Washing ton between eight and nino o'clock on Friday evening the 3d, after a long delay at Annapolis Junction and much of what is known in foraging phrase as "chicken experience." Thoroughly beaten out by their different modes of travel, in spite of the hardihood of their frames under ordinary cir cumstances, half fed and with rest broken altogether, they would have presented a miserable sight to the spectator, had there been light enough to observe them, as they came in at the Washington Depot that Tiight, the cars packed to reple tion, and nearly as many on the outside as the inside, clinging to the tops like so many bees to the hive at swarming time. But this did not conclude the infliction. The feme of the Zouaves and the expectation of what they were to do in arms had widely preceded them ; there were not yet too many soldiers in Washington for its defence, and every new regiment was at once an object of interest and congratulation ;. and though it was so dusky that nothing more than a gray mass could be discerned beneath the starlight, the foot-sore and weary (and it must be added, swearing) fellows were marched all the way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Kailroad Depot to the White House, more or less paraded there, and addressed in a speech which they neither heard nor heeded, by a President of the United States who could not see them to distinguish them from so many street boys ! Then another weary and foot-sore march (let it be remem bered that the boys were taking their first lesson in trudging under knapsacks and in military order) the entire length of Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, to quarters in the Hall

270 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

of Representatives that had never before been so thoroughly filled or so oddly occupied, and to those chances for supper which might have been doubtful enough but for the fore thought of some of the officers who had learned the art of "foraging" under other circumstances, and the commissariat of one of the Massachusetts regiments already occupying a portion of the national building.

It was one "week that the Zouaves lounged in the chairs of Honorable Members, made burlesque speeches, told stories of doubtful morality but undoubted jollity, smoked their cigars and carried things witli a high hand generally, in that Hall where so many worse follies had before been per petrated and have since been continued, by men claiming much higher position than the Fire Regiment. It was during that week that fortune favored them with a fire of magnif icent proportions, in the burning of one of the temporary hospitals, giving them an opportunity for the display of that one accomplishment (fire duty) which they certainly possessed in a perfection beyond all others, and furnishing one of the wits of the time with the mot iif^egard to them, that "if any body wanted the Fire Zouaves to go through a body of rebels, the proper course would be to ring a fire-bell on the other side of the. enemy, and they would sweep away all opposi tion within two minutes." It was within that week, too, that Burtnett Haviland received the odd letter of poor little Tim, read it twice, then kissed the spot where his wife's name was mentioned, said: "The poor boy must be crazy!" put the letter into his pocket and thought no more of it — until after wards.

It had been on Friday that the Zouaves reached Washing ton. Though they commenced preparations to leave the Capitol on Thursday, it was not until Friday the 10th of May that they finally left the scene of their Congressional exploits and marched to the camping-ground selected for them. And it may be said, here, that subsequent events seemed to give some countenance to the old omen, as Friday proved to bo their dies irce. In addition to the two Friday movements just recorded, they moved from the camp now selected, to the second, on Friday ; it was on Friday that they captured

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Alexandria and lost their brave hat rash and head-strong young Colonel ; and it was on Friday that they took up their line of march for tlfe battle-field of Manasses (Bull Hun), which virtually "wiped out" the organization.

This first camp lay beyond Anacosti bridge, in Maryland, three and a half miles from the Capitol, one and a half from the Xavy-Yard bridge (then guarded by two companies of tho New York Seventy-first) and about a quarter of a mile south from the Insane Asylum which crowns the heights opposite the city. The location was consequently about four miles from Alexandria, at which place the rebels were reported to have from one thousand to three thousand troops, though after events made it doubtful whether there had been at any one time in the town more than five hundred.

The camp, named Camp Lincoln (after the President — perhaps because he had not bored the boys with a longer speech on the night of their reception : perhaps because of Colonel Ellsworth's personal attachment to that dignitary), was not remarkably well selected, the ground being a deal level, very retentive of rain and liable to mud, and woods flanking it. on either side within a distance of one hundred yards, rendering it liable to dangerous night-approach by the enemy, unless under remarkable vigilance. It was capitally laid out, however, under the direction and special care of the new Lieutenant-Colonel, Egbert L. Farnham, who joined the regiment here in that capacity, leaving a position in the Seventh to assume it. The new Adjutant, Loeser (after wards temporarily Colonel) also joined the regiment hero and began to make his soldierly qualities felt in the organiza tion.

Here, for the first time, Burtnctt Haviland and most of his companions had their first experience of what could be truly called "camp life." They learned how damp a bed straw when well sunken into the mud, can make ; but they learned, at the same time, how much better and less injurious to the bodily health is even that soft, damp bed, than any one dry and hard and not capable of yielding to the graduated pres sure of the human body. They learned how much more of sound than of substance there was in the name of the cele-

272 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

brated " Sibley" tents, an improvement (believed by many to be backwards) on the old bell tent of the European armies, — with an iron tripod for centre and cookiitg support, and a ventilator at top that would permit the rain to come in when that refreshing form of the watery element was descending, and soak the sleepers thoroughly, red blankets and all. They were firemen, however, used to water, and rather thrived under such regimen than otherwise. They learned how monotonous a day can be, when broken up by no great effort of body or mind, however varied by morning reveille, and the serving of rations, and roll call, and guard mounting, and morning parade and drill, and dinner, and parade and drill again, and cards, newspapers, conversation and writing letters, for recreation, till tattoo at nine o'clock and the put ting out of lights for another night of tossing about in the red blankets. They learned that breakfast cooked al frexco and dinners prepared in the same manner, when the beef was reasonably fresh, the bread and biscuits neither dry nor mouldy, the coffee not all beans, the fresh fish not a flat con tradiction of the name and the mess-cooks not too incapable, — tasted about as well as they would have done when pre pared in smoky kitchens and served by waiters with black skins and white aprons, anywhere along in the line of luxury between Crook's in Chatham. Street and Pelmonico'a on Fourteenth. They learned, at least to some extent, how truly the occupation of a soldier is a trade, and how much labor and earnest application are necessary before it can be mastered — what blunders and oversights are inevitable, and what marchings and countermarching^, facings and filings, are to be endured with patience, before the human machine can become useful to the God of War in whose hands he is after wards to be a living puppet. They learned, too, and finally, something of that experience which no soldier, volunteer or regular, ever forgets after a little indulgence in it within a hostile section — picket guard. The long, lonely hours in darkness and storm — the feeling that a cat, or a Iwena of not too 'fierce propensities, would be better company than none — the doubt at what moment a bullet may come whizzing through the bushes and supply a subject for the hospital

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 273

Burgeons, if it does not put a period to the career of the picket — the overstraining of the eyes in looking through the gloom at distant or doubtful objects, that may or may not be creeping up for a shot at the sentry or an attack on the camp — the overstraining of the ears in listening for sounds that never come or that prove to be very different from those at first imagined — the thoughts of home, and lighted rooms, and places of public amusement, and gatherings of friends — the wonder how late it is, how soon the relief is to come, and whether, after all, a man is not a fool to place himself in any such position — all this belongs to the experience of the picket guard ; and all this, in forms more or less positive, the Zouaves endured around that first camp on the Eastern Branch of the Potomac, though such of them as lived and kept heart to join other regiments, afterwards found another and sharper experience in the same direction, along the lower Potomac, the Chickahominy, the Rapidan and the Rappa- h an nock, when the hostile forces only lay separated by nar row rivers, and picket-shooting had become an amusement, for both armies, about as common as rabbit-hunting in time of peace. It may be imagined with what yearning the young soldier in whose fortunes this narration is principally interested, thought of Mary and little Pet and his pleasant home, when his chanced to be the lot of the picket, and the long night-hours that seemed as if they would never bring the morning, crept slowly by.

There was one variation in the life of the Zouaves in camp, then and afterwards, that should not be passed entirely with out notice. Some allusion has already been made to the clannishness of the members. They were a class as well as clannish ; and the body from which they had been selected, never ceased to consider them members or to hold some over sight upon their movements. Holiday excursions down to the camp, by men who had no idea whatever of going into camp for any more warlike purpose, became fashionable at once among the stay-at-home Xew Yorkers, — just as Green wood is considered a good place for an idle, laughing summer- afternoon ride or stroll, by people who have no desire what ever to go there and be buried. There mav have been good 17

274 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

feeling in all this, as there certainly were variety and amuse ment for the Zouaves ; and no doubt kind messages were interchanged between soldiers and their friends and families, through the means of such visits to the Zouaves and to any, one of five hundred other regiments, that might never have been conveyed under different circumstances ; but there are some who have always doubted the nobility of position of the able-bodied man, equally capable with his friends of leaving home and business and taking the chances of war in their company, -paying mere idle holiday visits to them in camp, and then going calmly back to his own pursuits or pleasures, while the soldiers went on to fight the battles of the nation. Of course these parenthetical remarks, if there is any severity in them, do not apply to those who have at any time during the war visited the camps on official business, for the purposes of benevolence, or even to carry out the very ostentatious presentations of municipal and civic bodies : they apply only to the useless, insignificant human butterflies who have had the face to show themselves where they had no excuse for not remaining permanently, and yet where they lacked courage or patriotism to remain. Neither discipline nor efficiency have very often been promoted by the visits of any : and so let the subject be dismissed.

The Fire Zouaves remained a week at Camp Lincoln : then came a change. A better location had been selected for them, on the banks of the Potomac, three miles below and imme diately opposite the Washington Arsenal, and occupying a part of the lands of a Virginian named George Washington Young, a large landed proprietor and slave-owner, who never managed to make the fire-boys believe that he was any thing more amiable than a covert secessionist. Here they had an elevated position, fine wood and water, and a splendid parade- ground stretching back from the river. They took posses sion of the new location on Friday the 17th of May, and pitched the tents composing the camp with the belief that they were not soon to be called to the more active duties of the war, and that the pleasant parade-ground might be their place of daily exercise for weeks if not months, until they had gained some proficiency in that drill which was to make them

DAYS OF SHODDY. 275

true soldiers. And so they might have done, to some extent, even in the brief space that was really allotted to them in that position, but for the same blundering mismanagement which had seemed to cling to them from the beginning. What an odd medley of weapons they carried away from New- York, has already been seen ; and it did not need any extended military experience to know that a regiment going into action with thirteen different varieties of fire-arms and all the thir teen in different stages of uselessness, could not be very effi cient. They were promised new arms from Washington ; and through some strange miscalculation which may have had its origin in Col. Ellsworth's unconscious belief that he was still drilling a company of Chicago Zouaves for exhibition instead of a regiment for active and dangerous service — the olla podrida of weapons had been left stacked under guard, at the previous camp, and were again so deposited at Camp Decker,* and the Zouaves only drilled in the marchings and facings.

There was to be only one week at Camp Decker, as there had been only one at Camp Lincoln. Thursday the 23d May arrived. The fateful Friday was again approaching, and with it the fate of individuals and of the regiment. Just now the fate of the individual is of even more consequence than that of the aggregate, and it must have precedence. There had been serious difficulties in the reception of letters from home by the regiment; but at last some regularity had been secured, and a daily communication with Washington established through the means of a boat and a "special agent"; and at this juncture some of the arrears of correspondence began to come in. Among the letters received that Thursday were two by Burtnett Haviland — one from his wife and the second from Kate.

The morning was pleasant, the young soldier was for the time at leisure, and he went down to the bank of the Potomac to secure a fair opportunity for reading without interruption those missives which should again brighten the link binding

* So named in honor of Mr. John Decker, then and now Chief Engineer of the New York Fire Department. — before referred to aa one of the great promoters of the regimental organization.

276 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

him to his home. The Zouave made a pleasant picture as he took his seat upon a convenient stone lying near the bank, with the white beach shelving below, and prepared for the perusal. A bird, sitting in one of the trees near the bank, seemed to think so, for he sang on as if soldiers were not haunting his favorite grounds and as if there was no war in the land.

" Sing away, little birdie," said the Zouave, turning up a face somewhat browned from what it had been a month be fore, but trim in beard, healthy in complexion, and comport ing well with the neatness of his gray uniform. " Sing away, little birdie. Your music is not quite so loud as that of Wallace's band, which it seems costs too much to have any longer ; but it will answer as an undertone while I read my letters from home. You can't carry a musket, little fellow, unless they make them very small up in bird-paradise ; but you have one advantage of me — if I had your wings and knew how to use them as you do, I fancy I should just pop over to New York to-night, and be back again in the morning "

" Whir — r — r," and the bird, as if he had some home to look after, flew away. " There he goes,2' said Haviland, breaking the seal of Mary's letter and catching it to his lips as he did so, " but my letters remain. Here it is — dear little band ! — dear little wife !" and he read on. It \vas such an epistle as he had already received several times before from her since his leaving New York, in spite of the interruption of the mails ; for the wife had written almost daily during the first week, and he had answered her, though in pencil and not with his best chirography, nearly as often. This letter had been written' nearly ten days, but as the latest it was quite as welcome as it would have been with less time consumed in the delivery. It was one of those gentle, cheerful, wifely little epistles, such as some happy fellows have the joy of re ceiving when they are absent — all well, all happy though a '•title lonely, with dear good wishes, and a love that could never change indicated at the end by a thousand imaginary kisses. To transcribe such a letter and expose it to the com-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 277

mon gaze would be little less than sacrilege against the most sacred revelations of the tenderest of all human bonds.

Burtnett Haviland read the letter twice over, as if it had been the face of his living wife and he could not be quite con tented with perusing it. Then he pressed it again to his lips (this man was what the world would call a "spoony," in the romantic depth of his affection for his wife — the writer is quite aware of the fact), laid it on his knee and turned to the second. ;

" Kate's funny, hurried hand-writing," he said as he broke the seal. " I am very glad to hear from her, and I am sure there is a laugh inside of this, if nothing more."

There was a laugh within it, for the Fire Zouave first smiled as he read, then laughed outright at the oddity of the young girl's conceits in scriptural antiquity. Then suddenly he laughed no more — his face sobered — and something like a frown settled on a brow where frowns had seldom been in the habit of finding place. " What is this she says ?" he mut tered aloud. "Charles Holt carrying around a picture of iny wife?" Then he paused a moment, the hand containing the letter resting on his knee, and his face full of trouble. "Pshaw! stuff — nonsense — it cannot be! Somebody has told Kate this, or she must have mistaken some other picture hurriedly seen, for Mary's. Charles Holt with my wife's pic ture in his possession ? Not a bit of it. He might have taken one from the mantel in the house, when he came there to see me, but he certainly would not have done so without a motive, and he could have had none whatever. I do not be lieve a word of it. "

Burtnett Haviland's nature was too true and honest to make him very quick of suspicion. It did not follow that, his suspicions once aroused, he might not be found fatally tenacious of them and the most deadly of enemies. Such men are sometimes terrible when the depths of their beings are stirred ; and it is never best to stir them unpleasantly. But he had said that Charles Holt could have no motive for possessing himself of his wife's picture ; and he could have sworn, and would have sworn, that it had not come into his hands by any act of hers. Still he did not feel so pleasantly

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as he had done the moment before. The sunshine was not quite so bright, the bird sung no longer in the tree, and the yellow Potomac rushed by him more sullenly. One drop poisons the purest spring, and the fresh waters must long trickle down from the hills and wash the polluted fountain, before the last trace of the taint is borne away. Ca3sar was right when he said that his wife must not only be virtuous but above suspicion. Stained garments may wash white ; stained records seldom do; stained reputations never entirely. It was just as well for Menelaus that Helen went away with Paris, though his life was thenceforth to be one of war on that account. For he had seen the lovelit eyes of the young Trojan answered by glances from the fair partner of his throne, that made him rest unquietly on his lion-skin couch at night; and he had heard of the young type of every manly grace lying at her feet, his sunny curls played with by her tiny white fingers, through long summer days of that fatal embassy at Sparta, while he himself was absent in Crete ; and it was quite as well that he should come home to find the woman he so worshipped fled away altogether, as to lie by her side in mingled love and doubt and hope and fear and devouring jealousy, and to find his worst suspicions corrobo rated at some future Any.

Haviland did not think of all these things, and yet he was unquieted. But the drum was rolling, up at the camp, and he must join his comrades. He took the two letters, the one so different from the other in its effects, and attempted to put them into the inner breast-pocket of his Zouave jacket. Their going in was obstructed by a thick, clumsy piece of paper al ready there, and he drew it out. It was the letter received from little Tim a few days before, and almqst unconsciously he opened it. What was it that made the face of the Zouave change so suddenly ? It had lost its ruddy smile before, and become a little troubled and thoughtful. Now it grew dark as night, for one instant, and the hazel eyes flashed with an expression that had probably never visited them before since they first opened to the light. He saw the words — and he could no more have removed his eyes from them or prevented their burning into his brain, than he could have emulated the

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. . 279

little bird he had so lately apostrophized, and flown away : " Mister Holt — dern him — doesn't mene no good to Missers Hevlin. I've seen him a lookin at hir when she was down to the stoar, and a smakin of his lipps. * * * He wantid your to go away, and I thoat your outnent to go. Seems to me 's ef your had better come back if your cm."

" In the mouth of two or three witnesses may eveiy word be established," says an authority which we all reverence somewhat more than we obey it ; and good old Bishop Butler tells us, in his "Analogy of Religion," that while the rising of the sun one morning, to a man observing it for the first time, would only mark it in his mind as a beautiful phenome non that had never been exhibited before and might never be exhibited again, yet when the same spectator saw it rise again with precisely the same surroundings, on the second morning, he might begin to believe that such a spectacle was not un usual, and when he saw the rising in the same manner on the third morning, would be justified in assuming that three such coincidences could not have been accidental and that it would probably rise every morning thenceforward. Burtnctt Havi- land bad put Tim's letter into his pocket with a " Pshaw !" and words that indicated his belief that the little fellow was crazy : he had managed to throw off, at least partially, the disquiet which Kate's information of the picture naturally awakened ; but when the two were confronted each seemed to assume a different shape and consistency. He had said to himself, the moment before, discrediting the statement of Kate, that Charles Holt could have no motive for procuring her picture. He had totally forgotten the picture left at the store, and did not remember it then or for a long time after ward. Motive was the thing that had been wanting to the belief, and here it was, before supplied in little Tim's letter ; aud great God ! — what a motive !

Tempests may be blinding in the fury of their rain and wind, whirlwinds may sweep material objects to destruction and swollen rivers rush- down with a fury defying the human hand to check or even the human fancy to measure ; but all these are very tame and slow to the operations of the mind of an active man when the flood-gates of a new thought or

280 THE .DAYS OF SHODDY.

especially of a new suspicion have just been opened and every thing that can possibly bear upon the subject comes rushing in. Without one glance before of all this, at once swept through the brain of Haviland all the events and recollections of the days following Sumter. How Charles Holt had him self proposed to make his going to the war possible by con tinuing his salary, while he had not manifested corresponding anxiety to assist young Foster in the same manner; how the merchant had introduced himself into his house and tried to make his going away more certain and easy (might it not be

more deadly ?) by procuring him a commission ; how but

here another thought, darker and worse than any of the others, crept up into his mind, never to be dislodged thence until suffering had done a work he then little conjectured. Could it be possible that at that moment, suddenly learning to doubt all others, the trusting husband of half an hour before could begin to doubt even his wife ? It could be possible — it was possible — it was true.

Burtnett Haviland was a true, good, warm, loving hus band ; he was a\good man, a brave and a patriotic one ; that was all. He was neither a very wise man nor an archangel. For the interest of this narration it is to be wished that he might have been one or the other — wise men are so rare, and archangels so interesting. He had never for one instant doubted his wife, any more than he had doubted God and Heaven ; but then he had had no occasion. He had never known by experience the meaning of that fatal word — jealousy ; but then he had been so fenced away from the necessity of knowing it that he must have been either fiend or fool to manufacture such a gratuitous torture for himself and others. Now that the temptation had come, he was human and con sequently weak. It is to be wished, again, that he had not been so — that it was the task of "the writer to set down upon this page the record of one more man who had implicit and abiding faith in woman, and fortitude to believe her true under every appearance of falsehood. There is nothing nobler in all dramatic literature than the conduct of Gonzaya in Sheridan Knowles' great drama, " The Wife" — maddened by accusations against the fair fame of the lady of his love,

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and yet never faltering for one moment in the belief that 51117 appearance against her, even to the apparent passing of the night in her chamber by the reprobate St. Pierre, must be the result of conspiracy against her, and could not indicate any thing against her truth. But Gonzagas of this creation are rare, if, indeed, they exist outside of the creative genius of the dramatic poet. The true measure of the posfribilvfy of jealousy, though not of jealousy itself, is probably to be found in the two conditions of love and trial. Xo man can be truly jealous, who does not love : perhaps.it may be said that no man who loves, is beyond the possibility of jealousy when subjected to the full severity of trial. Men have been found who even jested at the word and passed through all the rela tions of life without one moment of that painful experience ; and yet when the hair has grown gray upon their brows and that age come to them when the fiercer passions should all have been laid at rest, the demon of jealousy has awoke to stir them to new exertion or to mar their peace. They have found a new love, stirring their beings to a depth before un known, or they have been placed under trial before undreamed of; and the capabilities of their natures have then been proved to be the same as those of other men. To all which may be added that the possibility of jealousy is something like temptation to any vice : beyond a certain point of oppres sion the resistive power ceases and the field so gloriously con tested is lost.

At that moment and from that moment Burtnett Ilaviland doubted his wife. Not that he believed her to be guilty, but that the impression seemed unavoidable that she was weak and in consequence unsafe. He remembered, now, how warmly the merchant had been received by her — a subject of congratulation to him, then, that she would have a power ful friend remaining near her ; a subject of suffering, now, that she might be under the influence of an unscrupulous enemy. And something more. Oh, how we can turn every thing to self-torture, when the mood is upon us ! Does the reader remember with what heroic determination Mary Havi- land had kept down her tears and her regrets at his coming absence, from the moment her husband read her that stern

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lesson of duty in the picture of Y alley Forge, and how she had martyred her own heart to send him away from her with out a sad thought of their parting ? That day, on. the banks of the Potomac, that very absence of tears and spoken regrets came up as a witness against her ! Absorbed in a new friendship, if nothing warmer and dearer, the wife of his love and the mother of his child had been almost willing to have him leave her. Cruel — unjust — mad, of course, all this, on the part of that tortured thinker ; but it is a truth, if a sor rowful truth, that is being recorded.

Again that drum. Some movement was certainly going on in camp. This feeling must be shaken off at every hazard. The Zouave, who had some time before risen from his stony seat and been pacing the young sod on the river bank, turned to walk toward" the camp. As he did so, a couple of New York city visitors, in company with one of the officers of the regiment, came down towards the river, and they met, As they exchang-ed greetings, one of them, a subordinate city- official and an acquaintance who had sometimes visited at Haviland's house with his sister, said : —

" Why, Haviland, you look dull. What is the matter ? Unwell ?"

" No," answered the Zouave. " Perhaps a little bilious — nothing more."

" I hope they are all well at home ? You have had letters, I suppose ? I have not seen your people for some time, though by the way, I did see your wife the other evening, but did not get a chance to speak to her. She was at the Winter Garden, and looked very well."

"Ah, indeed? Glad to hear that she was enjoying herself. That was what I told her to do, when I came away," answered the Zouave, something a little forced in 'his utterance, mean while, that the friend did not notice. " Did you see who was with her ?"

"Eh ?" said the New Yorker, pleasantly — "want to know that, do you ? Well, really I don't know. .She was in a private box with a gentleman — one of her relatives, probably — a rather fine-looking middle-aged man, with short side- whiskers and dressed very handsomely."

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" Oh yes, I know. One of her cousins, from Boston — Mr. Williams," Haviland managed to utter, and the friend, with a nod, passed on down to the river. How he managed to articulate that falsehood, he never knew himself, for the words he had just heard, coming immediately after what had before occurred, struck and stunned him as a blow on the head might have done, and the words that he uttered inter nally at the same moment were : " Great God ! — what next ? That man is Charles Holt !"

Two minutes after, Captain Jack was standing on parade, his company forming and evident bustle throughout the whole camp. Burtnett Haviland strode rather than walked up to him, his face darker than any man had ever before seen it, touched his hat in military style to the officer, and said, in a low voice but one that evinced much earnestness :_ —

" Captain, I want you to do me a great favor. I want you to get me a few days' furlough, to go to New York."

" I am sorry you ask it just now, Mr. Haviland," said the Captain. " I would do any thing in my power, for you, you know ; but I am afraid Colonel Ellsworth will not wish to spare a man. Your face looks troubled — nobody dead, I hope !"

" No," said the Zouave. " But for certain reasons I wish to go to New York at once — this very day if possible."

" I am afraid it is not possible, if you have not the excuse of a death," said the Captain. "I was just wondering why I did not see you at your place in the first file. Don't you see the muskets coming, yonder ? We have been here a month, you know, and done nothing. The Colonel is half crazy, and I fancy we are all anxious to have something to do. I tell you as a friend, not as your officer, that this regiment must drill hard in the firings and general use of the musket, to-day, as we are under orders for secret service to-night."

" To-night !" echoed Haviland.

"Yes, to-night," said the Captain. "You see how difficult it would be to get a furlough for any purpose, and besides — "

" Besides," said Haviland, as Captain Jack paused, " it would not look very well to go away just when the regiment was going into a fight? Eh, Captain ?"

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" That was what I meant," was the reply.

"Just so," said the private, "and I hope you know me well enough to believe that I would not ask for a furlough under such circumstances, or even take one if offered. I did not know there was to be any movement, of course. If there is to be any work, count me in for my share of it, and'' be kind enough to forget that I said any thing on the sub ject."

" I know, of course, that you had not heard the report when you made the request. All right !" said the Captain ; and giving and receiving another salute, the private stepped quickly to his company, received his weapon and took his place in the ranks. Perhaps nothing could have been more grateful to him, at that moment, than this promise of imme diate action, that, if it would not put him entirely at ease, would at least drown too rapid thought and make anxiety comparatively endurable. To some extent bis private griefs were to be swept away in the public service, as his private afl'airs are again to be, for a time, merged in the fortunes of the regiment.

CHAPTER XIY.

THE FIRE ZOUAVES ON SECRET SERVICE — LANDING AT ALEX ANDRIA — THE FIRST CAPTURE OF THE WAR — How THE ZOUAVES BECAME RAILROAD LABORERS — TAKING THE FAIR FAX CAVALRY — A " FIRE IN THE REAR," OF UNPLEASANT CHARACTER — A STARTLING REPORT — THE DEATH AND MAD

IMPRUDENCE OF COLONEL ELLSWORTH.

" SECRET service" was the word used by Captain Jack to Haviland, as expressive of the peculiar condition in which the regiment was at once to be placed, rendering any fur lough difficult if not impossible to obtain. And "secret ser vice" was the word that had been for an hour previous run ning around the camp, seeming to have arrived with the new

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weapons. Where or for what purpose, no one seemed to have any idea, and it may be said that no one had any anxiety on the subject. The Zouaves were as unquestion ably brave, personally, as restless and undisciplined as a body ; and to them any change, especially if it involved that " fight" for which they had been " spoiling," seemed prefer able to the comparative monotony of camp life. They could not know, nor was it necessary they should do so, that a gen eral movement of the forces at Washington into Virginia, was to take place that night, under favor of the "bright May moon." The new arms proved to be Springfield muskets, for all the regiment except the two flank companies, for the latter of which Enfield rifles were supplied. And all the balance of the day the Zouaves drilled in what they should have been instructed in from the beginning — the loadings, firings and general use of their weapons. Thoroughly tired were even those hardy fellows, when the evening closed down and the drill was exchanged for the striking of tents and other preparations for the immediate evacuation of Camp Decker, to all which the light of the full moon lent a welcome aid.

It was midnight before the steamboats that were to carry the Fire Argonauts on their expedition, which they had a premonition would be likely to thin the ranks of some of them and hand them over to the mercies of Dr. Gray, the Crimean surgeon,- — arrived in the river opposite and made preparations for taking them on board. These were two river-craft of no especial note then or afterwards — the Mount Yernon and James Gray. But even those moderate craft could not make a landing at the river bank, on account of the slope of the sandy beach, and the soldiers were obliged to go on board by means of a bridge of boats (the launches of the Pawnee), serious if not dangerous, delay being caused by that necessity. It was perhaps two o'clock when the last man stepped over the side, and the first faint premonitions of day began to tint the eastern sky as they steamed silently as pos sible down the Potomac. Not till the day was fairly breaking, and they were off Alexandria and heading in for the shore, with the dark hulk of the Pawnee Iving in the river bevoud

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as a sullen and silent witness of this first war movement of the Federal forces, — did they become thoroughly certain of their destination. Their orders were, they then understood, to capture that dilapidated old town, important from its posi tion, eminently secession in its popular tendencies, and well- known to be sheltering a rebel force more or less numerous.

The boys were well in towards the town before any notice seemed to be taken of them by the rebel sentries posted on the wharves and around the warehouses that just began to have their dark and mouldy sides touched by the first light of morning. Crack ! — crack ! — went the warning muskets, however, the moment the discovery was made ; and the gray figures of the sentries could be seen dodging rapidly away from what they evidently believed to be a dangerous neigh borhood. It may have been a mark of enthusiasm, but it certainly indicated any thing rather than discipline — that a dozen or two of muskets were discharged, without orders, towards the flying pickets, at such distances that the shots could not possibly do any good or any harm, — and that loud cheers burst from the throats of the Zouaves, as if over the capture of a town which they were as yet only approaching. But then our aborigines always attacked with shouts and war-whoops; and the fire-boys generally yell a little louder when going to a fire than when going home from one that has already been extinguished ! *

No resistance whatever was offered to the landing; and the pickets once out of sight, there was nothing left to mark the existence of a hostile force in the town, as, in broad day light and with the sun just coming up beyond the Potomac, Colonel Ellsworth stepped with his Zouaves on the old wharves at Alexandria — captors, so far without a struggle, of the first rebel town to fall into Federal hands. His exact position and the orders under which he was acting (or not acting) were only known to himself and perhaps his Lieutenant- Colonel ; but as the whole details are now unfortunately too well known, they may be briefly given at this period.

Col. Wilcox, commanding the Fort Michigan, had been ordered, as senior officer, to take his own and the Fire Zouave regiments, with one of the United States batteries, and effect

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the capture of Alexandria. The Zouaves were to go down by steamboat, in the manner already shown, while the Michi gan regiment was to cross the Potomac and make the march by land. The two regiments were to effect a junction, or at least concert the attack upon the town before entering it, and Col. Wilcox of course to hold the right of making the final dispositions. In pursuance of this plan, Col. Wilcox, with his regiment and the battery of four pieces, had left Washington by the Long Bridge, at nearly the same time as the embarka tion of the Zouaves, and must have been, at the time of their landing, rapidly approaching the town. Col. Ellsworth, how ever, bravely insubordinate himself and therefore the last man in the world to teach subordination to a regiment of peculiarly independent character, had been unable to repress his desire to strike the first blow in the War for the Union ; and his land ing without artillery and without concert with his superior, had been the consequence. It may be that the difference between the fate of the two officers was at that moment marked by Providence as the result of the partial obedience to orders of the one and the absolute obedience of the other : the one to lie in a grave too early for his abilities and conferring no benefit, even if honor, on the great cause by his death — the other to suffer hardship and imprisonment, but to wear event ually the star of a Brigadier and do long and important ser vice in the struggle.

Such had been the arrangement, and such the departure from it. But the young Zouave Colonel Irad doubtless his own plans and purposes, that death, hovering then in the air above him though unseen by mortal eye, was so soon to seal up from mortal knowledge ; and whether acting entirely upon his own judgment, or from partial conference with his supe rior, he at once gave a first order which showed some appre ciation of the military position. This was to Captain Jack, to take his company of eighty men, as the most thoroughly disciplined and reliable in the regiment, march rapidly across the town, secure what rolling-stock might be found at the Depot of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and tear up the track beyond the Depot in such a manner as to prevent

288 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the removal of any munitions of war or the arrival or depart ure of any rebel troops by rail.

No sooner was the order given than it was promptly obeyed ; and Burtnett Haviland, wrho had already participated in the capture of the first town taken by Union troops, was thus sent into participation in the first capture of rebel soldiery, as well as into peril so deadly that no ordinary chance of war could be likely to blot away the recollection.

It was now some time past sunrise, when Captain Jack's company filed rapidly up King Street towards the Railroad Depot lying some two miles away. The very heart of the town was to be crossed ; but so far as any signs of life were concerned, the command might almost as well have been traversing some city of the dead. One third of the inhabi tants had fled at the first alarm — the rest had concealed them selves. Here and there, around some corner of the miserable tumble-down place a male figure could be occasionally seen, but it shuffled away as rapidly, at sight of the soldiers, as legs could very well carry it. Occasionally a slip-shod woman, or a lounging negro, could be seen dodging along one of the ill- paved streets, but even they seemed as apprehensive as all the other inhabitants, that neither life nor property was safe under the Zouave invasion. At times, too, Captain Jack and bis men could see a movement of some half-closed shutter, indicating that vengeful eyes, whether of male or female, might be flashing through crannies, while the lips between them might be muttering male curses or saying female pray ers backwards; and it would not have surprised any of the more intelligent members of the company, if at any moment the crack of a rifle had come suddenly from some one of the closed houses and put the locked step of the Zouaves into confusion. Whatever the " Union feeling" so anxiously looked for, might be elsewhere, there was evidently little or nothing of it in Alexandria ; and though on some spots in the Old Dominion it was believed that the coming of the Federal soldiers would be hailed as a deliverance from hated tyranny, too certainly here it was only regarded as an inroad of that tyranny itself.

And here perhaps it may be proper to say a word more

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with reference to that "Union feeling" at the South, which has caused so many disputes and contradictions at the North, und the existence or non-existence of which has been a question as steadily mooted as was that of the sea-serpent shortly after that terrible marine nondescript made his first appearance in. the shape of two or three barrels lashed together with old ropes, off Nahant. To some it does exist, to others it does not — even in the same spot. Generally speaking, however, it is found to be, where its existqnce would be of any service to the Union cause, very much like the benevolence of that gentleman who never gave anything to any charity — "neither here nor there." And it has per haps been unreasonable to expect it — at least under the sur rounding circumstances. The government, from the beginning, have taken no pains to foster and very little to protect it, while the rebel authorities, in their own behalf, have clone both for the opposite feeling. The property of the rankest rebel has been protected and his person held sacred, \vhen the Union troops have taken possession of any district before held by the Confederates ; and however ultra may have been his offences against loyalty, there has been no more thought of punishing him than there habitually is of meting out justice to one of the roughs of the " dangerous districts" of New York city, who belongs to the dominant faction, is a useful malP'at elections, and has only shot one of the poor devils who intended to Vote the wrong way ! The offence of the rough is " bailable," and eventually forgotten or rather looked upon as a virtue : that of the rebel is passed over for " policy" pake, and eventually forgotten if not rewarded. When the rebels take possession of a district in which the Union power has before been dominant (though, to be sure, their oppor tunities in that line are something like the liabilities of the unfortunate company who have been making a costly play thing out of the Great Eastern — limited) they dragoon every man who is either known or suspected to have rendered aid and comfort to the " Yankee invader," and if he finally escapes with his neck he certainly does not with any thing to feed or clothe the other parts of the body. It has therefore become, very naturally, the part of prudence to espouse the Confederate 13

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cause, as no one ,can say when the tide of battle may turn sufficiently for the overrunning of a small section, and the Confederates both punish the refractory and protect the "patriotic" (in their way) as the Federals do not. As well might a crop of wheat be expected to spring from the trodden paving-stones of Broad Street or Wall, as Union sentiment where its manifestation is likely to bring punishment and cannot bring protection. What the early colonists learned of the savages might long ago have been learned by the descendants of those colonists, had they been even respect ably wise and observant. So many of the Indian tribes as they taught by force of arms that it was safer and cheaper to be friends than enemies with the whites, became and re mained their friends : so many as they failed to teach that needed lesson were and remained their bitter and injurious foes. Wherever the hand of the Federal Union is proved to be stronger than the grasp of that black mongrel which has sprung from the unholy embrace of Southern treason and Northern fanaticism — secession, — there will be found "Union feeling" ; and that man is a fool who expects to find it else where.

Perhaps the whole idea may be illustrated more drolly and yet not a whit less earnestly, by the experience of the bank-clerk and the French depositor, during that period of depression following the United States Bank explosion. Pierre had money in the bank ; the banks were breaking all around him ; therefore Pierre came to draw his money out of the ban.k. He was red of face and terribly excited : the clerk was cool and equable. Pierre demanded his money, with many hard words and many exclamations that he " vant him ver mooch, and must 'ave him immediate — yes by gar !" The clerk drew out his money and handed it over. "Vat 1" said the depositor, "you 'ave my monish ?" "Cer tainly," said the clerk. " You 'ave him all ze times ?" queried the depositor. "Of course," said the clerk. "Zen by gar," said the depositor, " I not vant him at all !" " What do you mean by your shilly-shallying ?" said the clerk. " If you want your money, say so and take it along ; if you do not, don't bother !" " Eh, by gar," said the Frenchman,

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putting the great financial question of confidence in a new light, " zis is vat I mean. If you no 'ave my monish, so zat I can't get him nevare, zen I vant him ver mooch, all ze times. If you 'ave my monish, so zat I can get him ven I vant him, zen I no vant him at all !" Wherever the Union forces stand in such a relation to the rebels that the exist ence of " Union feeling" is necessary to turn the balance and give eventual success, there will be none to render that aid : wherever the power of the government is thrown forward in such overwhelming force that it asks no aid to achieve suc cess and can command what it would otherwise be obliged to ask — there will be Union sentiment in abundance.

Though there are and have been throughout the war, noble and glorious examples of devotion to the old flag and desire for its regained supremacy, in the very heart of the disloyal territory, and though whole communities may be eventually found in which the true feelings of the people would incline to loyalty if permitted, — yet, taken as a great average, rebei- dgm is about as rebellious as human nature is said to le human ; and that military leader or that ruler who depends upon Union sentiment for any considerable assistance, except as he compels it, will find the same splendid success once achieved by the aquatic experimentalist who tied bladders to his feet and depended upon them to keep him above water, in hip first (lush at swimming. Military success is the touch stone for evoking fealty to the Union, in any part of the rebel territory over which it sweeps ; and let no man lean upon a staff of less unfailing dependence. It is scarce!} necessary to say, in returning to the single event from which we have so widely digressed, the march of Captain Jack and his handful of Zouaves through Alexandria, — that there had then been no time for the acquirement of all this wisdom since attained at so costly a price, but that this earliest cap ture of the war was made upon the plan afterwards to become so popular — force inadequate if not contemptible, no overwhelming power to overawe treason, and of course no invitation of corresponding strength, to that loyal sentiment which may have been lying dormant in the poisoned com munity.

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Slowly and steadily the Zouaves held on their way, how ever, in close order, in comparative silence, and ready for any hostile demonstration. Something more than half an hour at rapid step, and they Avere in sight of the Orange and Alex andria Depot. A train was just shooting away, loaded with • munitions, valuables, and fleeing men, women and children ; and another, in sight, had just been hailed by the people at the Depot and ordered to back away as rapidly as possible — an order which was being executed with all haste. At the same moment that this spectacle met the view of the com pany, some of the scouts who had been thrown forward, brought in word that at the Slave-Pen, a block away to the right and hidden by the intervening buildings, a rebel cavalry company seemed mounting for attack or flight. There was evidently work ahead, but of what character the Captain could not well decide at that moment. One point wras clear — the track of the road, the subject of his first instructions, must be tern up instantly, to prevent any further movements of the rolling-stock. Another — that when engaged in the labor of tearing up the track, his men would not be favorably situated to receive a headlong cavalry-charge, unless — and at this point the quick eye of the Captain caught the solution of the pro blem in a moment.

Only a hundred or two of yards beyond the Depot road entered a cutting of considerable depth, and t work must be done. Vulnerable as his command might be to a cavalry-charge of possibly much superior numbers, when half of them should be acting as railroad-laborers of the reverse order, — the cavalrymen wTould be able to make Hut a moderate charge through a cutting where the only footing for their horses must be among railroad-ties and iron-rails. Quick as the thought had been, necessarily was the action upon it. A moment threw the Zouaves between the walls of the embankment; and in five or ten the tough fellows, fancy ing for the time that they were digging out some buried comrade from the ruins of a fire at home, had so deranged the track of the Orange and Alexandria road in that imme diate vicinity, that neither car nor locomotive was likely to go over it until extensive repairs should be completed. Had

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they been aware what a system of railroad destruction on both sides they were assisting to inaugurate, to go on until nearly one-third the whole railroad wealth of the country should lie in ruins, — even the well-seasoned men who had grown used to seeing Mrs. Fitz-Piunick's pearl-and-rosewood piano rolling down stairs at a fire, her costly mirrors shied out of the window, and her tapestry carpets soaked and thrown over a gutter to prevent its catching blaze from the heat — might have paused in horror as they pried up rails arid sent ties and sleepers into one wreck of confusion.

But they had little time to think of these things, even if they had the disposition. The task was scarcely done when word came to the Captain from his scouts that the cavalry was certainly mounting and forming, apparently for a charge, and no one could say what additional force, infantry or cav alry, might have come up in the interval. The cavalry must not be allowed to form. Moments were pressing, as they had indeed been all the while since the landing. The company were evidently on their good behavior, for they obeyed like old soldiers, and dropping pries and seizing muskets they formed again at a word. Double-quick back to the corner of the street at the Depot, then sharp to the left for one long block, down the lateral one that ran beside it, and facing across the street to the west they were in full view of the Slave Pen and the cavalry that threatened fight or escape.

"Price, Birch & Co., Dealers in Slaves," (so"' read their singularly suggestive sign over the door, indicative of whip ping as well as selling) had evidently for the time ceased the slave business. They had had "a good thing of it" (to quote one more expressive modernism) in other and more peaceful days, judging by the extent of their accommodations for what Exeter Hall hates but England loves. In front stood a large brick dwelling-house, and behind it two im mense slave-pens (literally jails or prisons) also of brick, one each for males and females, the walls some twenty or' twenty-five feet high, and the doors and windows so strongly grated with iron as not to indicate that the occupants were in the habit of clinging to their temporary home with peculiar tenacity. Just then they had all gone out (as the Zouaves

29-i THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

afterwards found) with a single exception remaining in the male department, and that single exception, oddly enough, bearing the name of " George Washington." Price, Birch & Co. 's building had ceased to be a pen for black slaves, and become the quarters of a part of the military power of the budding Confederacy. In front, some mounting, some at tempting to form into line with the others, and some riding around to the rear of the building and apparently getting away, was a squadron of the Fairfax Cavalry, in their gray coats and broad black hats — capitally mounted though some what shabbily equipped, and looking as if they might be dangerous foes under different circumstances.

Quick as thought, at the word of command, the Zouaves covered the cavalry with their pieces, and every motion at mounting or forming or riding away was suspended as if each of the horsemen had been suddenly turned to stone. They were caught — overpowered — helpless ; there was no alter native but surrender or the sudden emptying of more than half the saddles of the command. The Zouaves had made the first personal as well as material capture of the war ; and every heart beat so high with exultation that weariness, thirst and danger were forgotten, and the shouts rising to their lips could scarcely be restrained. Captain Jack, leaving his com pany covering every man as before, was just about to step forward and receive the formal surrender, when — God of Heaven I—what was that ?

There are.jBome moments in life full of such unheard-of and hopeless agony and horror, that the man who once meets them is alike incapable of forgetting, and of ever experienc ing their counterparts. They come by land and sea, in the daylight and in the dusk night, falling usually with no warn ing and apparently with no end to subserve except the test ing of that metal out of which humanity is made. The treacherous sea has most of them : the steady land presents them sometimes in such terrible force that even the sea is robbed of its supremacy. They seem blows from the very clenched fists of the gods, dashed down in an anger that has no mercy. They stun — they blind — they choke — they make or unmake us Beneath them we lose the noblest parts of

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our natures, or put on semblances almost divine. They have their purpose, beyond a doubt, that humanity will never be wise enough to see until the Great Unveiling. Sometimes they come at the very moment when a great success has made them less easy to endure : sometimes when long strug gle against other and minor misfortunes has given preparation for the worst and yet unstrung the nerves that must meet it. Sometimes they merely calm and ennoble, as when Herndon, after providing for the welfare of every woman and child on the Central America, and when human energy could avail no more for the safety of his own life or any of the others com mitted to his charge, yielded to the weariness of his labor, lay down and slept the peaceful sleep of childhood, within fifteen minutes of the awful plunge that he knew to be in evitable. Sometimes they freeze into stolidity, as when Luce, inert in action, stood calmly on the deck of the Arctic and went down with her as if he had been merely a statue of stone placed in that position. Sometimes they provoke to bravado, sublime and yet pitiful, as when Follansbee, know ing that the last moment of the St. Denis had come, stood on the deck as the last boat shoved away and the ship be neath him reeled for the final plunge, winding his watch ! Sometimes they come when a man all health and hope slips down between two cars of a railroad train and the wheel is already pressing him that in another second is to crush him into a mere pulp of blood and bones and flesh ; sometimes when the accused, standing in the dock and confident of his acquittal, hears that awful word "Guilty !" drop from the set lips of the juryman ; sometimes when the physician comes once too often to the bedside and says : " You may live half an hour." Some meet them at the very moment of actual death, and so with reference to them the agonized man is dumb forever; others when the apparent doom is yet escaped by the breadth of a hair. Driesbach the beast-tamer meets one when the attendant has locked the door W the cage and gone away, leaving him powerless to escape from the fangs of the unbroken lion that is all the while lashing the bars with his tail and crouching for a spring that may come at any moment — sees it for thirty long minutes of fixed eye

i!96 THE 1) A Y S O F SHODDY.

and bated breath, man against beast, hope against despair, till the keeper comes at last and the peril is averted ; Van Amburgh, his rival and perhaps his master, meets one when the tigress of the "Tiger King" springs upon him on the stage, buries his whole shoulder in its engulfing mouth, and leaves him with no hope of deliverance except the sledge-hammer blow of that iron arm and hand, crushing brute brow and brain like the fabled stroke of "Front de Boeuf." Eliot War- burton sees one of them as he stands on the deck of the burn ing Amazon, and in the horror of that moment the glory of all the Orient lands is forgotten : he can do nothing but die, and dies as becomes a man. Gilman Applet) v sees another on his burning Constitution on Lake Erie, and again when the storm is dashing her on the rocks that in another mo ment will grind her to powder; but his wild, reckless will alike denes the good and the evil, and with two pistols in his belt, literally driving his frightened passengers to safety, or sitting astride of his overburthened safety-valve, with his eye glaring fiendishly down on the frightened engineer, he seems to dash the very thunderbolts from the 'immortal hands and reverse the decrees of fate. No man is quite the same after enduring one of these moments; for though he ma.;/ be bettor arid wiser, as befits one who has stood on the threshold and seen the Mystery face to face, — yet he maybe wilder and more reckless, as one who feels that there is no terror possible to be added to his experience.

All which may or may not have a legitimate connection with the event of that particular moment in front of the old •Wave Pen at Alexandria. There was horror enough, cer tainly, to mark the culmination of any man's experience of pain, disappointment, bitter anger, and that other and baser pas- nion — -fear. For at the very instant that Captain Jack moved to receive the sword of the surrendering cavalry-officer, there was a sharp rattle and clash behind him and his company, the tramp of ffhrfted feet upon the pavement, the roll of wheels, and almost before he could turn his head a battery of four United States pieces dashed up, unlimbered, trained full upon his company and himself, so near that the discharge of grape must have swept the street clear of every living man,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 2'J7

and he heard the quick voice of Wilcox, full of hurry and anxiety, shout to the officer in charge of the guns : —

" Fire !"

How many in the company saw the peril, no man knows. Every man in it, questioned afterwards, would have said he saw it, for no man likes to lose the credit of having known, as well as passed through, a great danger. So many as did forsake their aim at the sound, and catch a glimpse of what lay behind, undoubtedly set their teeth and waited their fate in dogged despair. Captain Jack, the first to see the impend ing catastrophe, and probably the only one who understood it, followed Shakspeare, " swore a prayer," and waited for his doom with an impression that the whole thing was an "outrage — to blow away a company at the mouths of a battery, just when they were about making a neat haul of prisoners.

But all this did not occupy an instant,, as the space after an officer of a regular battery gives the command to fire and before the command is executed, is singularly short to those who happen to stand in the way. But what did the hesita tion mean ? Why did not the iron come tearing through their ranks ? Strange 1 Yes, strange — one of those hair-breadth chances which partake a little of the character of the miracle. Colonel Wilcox had believed his regiment the only Union force in the town — seen the grey uniform of the Zouaves as he came rapidly up, and supposed it to be the prevailing rebel color — and the danger had been that just related. By the merest accident Lieut. Ramsay, of the regulars, who commanded the battery (and who afterwards had his head shot off, fighting bravely at Bull Run) had chanced to see a Zouave uniform or two as the battery came in through the city ; and at the mo ment when the fatal command was given, the thought had darted suddenly into his head that the Zouaves might have reached the city in advance. This had withheld the last order to the cannoniers, and by just so narrow a chance had the taking of Alexandria been saved from going upon record as even a darker and sadder tragedy than it now exhibits in the early history of the war. Sorrow for the cause of the nation, for the lives of many brave% men, and the peace of many hearts nuw broken, — that even so narrow an escape as this from the

298 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

murder of friends has not always been accorded by the en vious fates, and that once and again, from Big Bethel to some of the last fights of the summer campaign of 1863 in Virginia, score after score of lives has been lost, and regiment after regiment disabled, by mistakes in uniform, flag or position, quite as stupid and quite as sad as that which sacrificed a great battle and a kingdom, in English history, through the belief that foes were coming into the fight, carrying the Rising Sun of York, instead of friends bearing the Silver Star of Oxford.

It is surprising how short a space of time may be consumed in occurrences that take a considerable -period in their most concise relation. It did not seem more than a moment after tbe-unlimbering of those guns, when Colonel Wilcox spurred his horse past the left flank of the Zouaves, dashed up to the Captain and drew rein in front of him, with the sharp, angry, puzzled inquiry :

"Who are you ?"

" Captain , commanding Company . , of the First

Fire Zouaves," replied the Captain, who had scarcely yet re covered from the impression that he should by that time have ceased answering questions on this side of the line between life and death.

" What !" exclaimed tho Colonel, who .had before enter tained no more idea that the Zouaves could be in that posi tion, than that they were quartered in South Carolina. " And what are you doing here, then ?"

" Obeying orders 1" answered Captain Jack, with just the least dash of offended dignity in his tone. He knew Wilcox, at a glance, but did not know that he had any business, after threatening to blow his company out of existence, to follow it up by bullying him in the execution of his duty. "I was sent by Colonel Ellsworth, who holds the town, to tear up the track of the railroad yonder. I had just done it, and was making a capture of that body of rebel cavalry, when your little arrangement for blowing us away with that bat tery spoiled the fun, and about half of them have taken the chance to get away."

" Humph !" baid the Colonel, who saw that the last allega-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 299

tion was true, at least. " If that is the case, look to your prisoners."

" Thank you for nothing !" muttered Captain Jack, as the Colonel wheeled his horse and dashed back to the battery and his own regiment that was now coming up and filling the whole street close behind. A moment more sufficed to throw his men into such position that no further attempts at escape on the part of the cavalry were possible, and the rebel Cap tain Ball stepped forward and delivered up his sword. The whole number of the rebel force when the Zouaves came upon the ground, had been about their own number, eighty ; but the interruption had enabled half of them to get away, and the capture actually made was that of thirty-six men and forty horses — unimportant of itself, but embodying some interest from the fact that it was the first capture of men in the war, as the taking of Alexandria was the first re-possession of any town that had fallen into rebel hands, by the Federals.

The rebel cavalry were being disarmed and placed under guard, while details of the Zouaves and the First Michigan had commenced exploring the Railroad Depot and the Slave Pen for traces of the Virginia troops who had been quartered there, — when a mounted scout rode hastily up the street from the direction of the river and stooped from his saddle to speak to Col. Wilcox, who had dismounted. He spoke in a low tone and the conversation was carried on out of easy ear shot of the men, but some of the command saw that the Colonel's face grew agitated and that his eyes seemed anxious and troubled. A moment more, and the scout rode away again, while Colonel Wilcox, coming up in front of the spot where the body of the Zouave company yet stood in position, and said, so loud that all could hear him :

" Captain, my men will relieve your company of the charge of the prisoners. I have other service for you. There is a hill about two miles west-south-west, between the Fairfax and the Leesburg roads, called Shooter's Hill. It has a com manding position, and it may be necessary to make a post there at once. You* will go forward with your company and take possession immediately. Never mind being a little tired, boys. Away with you, quick !"

300 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

What is the magnetism which informs us when we are hear ing a positive lie or only being entrusted with half of a truth ? That we do have such intuitions, is beyond question. Captain Jack knew, just as well as he could have done had the fact been sworn to him by most competent authority, that Shooter's Hill was not a matter of any such consequence to the Colonel, just then, that he would send the tired Zouaves out to take possession of it. Besides, he had no superior officer in the town, from whom he could have received orders, by the scout, to make any such movement. Then, be was in too much of a hurry to get them away, as a few minutes could not possi bly make so much difference in the occupation of a mere out post. There was something else, and that something had a connection with the hurried riding in of the scout. What ? He was soon to be answered.

The company were ready in file for marching, when the Colonel drew Captain Jack aside for a moment, and said, in. a low, agitated voice :

" (let your fellows away as quick as you can, Captain ! Every moment is an. hour! The next scout that comes in may say a word too much !"

" In God's name, what is the matter, Colonel ?" asked Captain Jack, his tone as low and anxious as that of the other. " I saw that something was wrong, but could not guess what. In a scrape below ?"

" I meant to tell you before you went," said the Colonel. " Worse than a scrape. Oh, why will men go beyond their orders and make fools of themselves ! Your Colonel has just been killed at the Marshall House, by the landlord, and God knows whether Farnham can even manage the rest of the regiment and keep them from burning down the town, even if we can keep these in the dark a few hours."

" Colonel Ellsworth killed !" gasped the Captain, who seemed as incapable of realizing that a man could be killed in so short a time, as the man who backed up the validity of his own note was incredulous of the possibility of a man dying " within ninety days."

" Yes, killed, and the landlord with him," said the Colonel. "But you will hear all about it, soon enough. Get out to

THE 'DAYS OF SHODDY. 301

Shooter's Hill as fast as you can, and not a word to the boys about it until the day is over."

" The landlord killed, too 1 Well, that is some comfort I" muttered Captain Jack, as he went back, took his place at the head of his company and marched them away at quick step up the Fairfax Road. They were very foot-sore and weary, and fancied that one place was enough to capture in a single day ; and Burtnett Haviland, file-leader of the first file, caught himself thinking that if the bottoms of his feet Avere not blistered and his stomach was not empty, they probably would be by the time ;they had finished their march and found breakfast. But they had taken a town and cap tured the Fairfax Cavalry, the boys thought — that was some thing ; and so they stepped away with very good spirits towards Shooter's Hill, which Avas to form, with its neigh borhood, the scene of almost all their camp experience in Virginia.

Ellsworth dead ! Yes, that Avas the story told by the Colonel, and too truly he indicated the misfortune. The 3'oung Colonel had already reached the end of his career — the close of all his brilliant anticipations of the life of a patriot soldier: He had seen the rebel flag flying on the top of the Marshall House, a dingy old brick building at the corner of King and Pitt Streets — had had too much headlong patriotism to despise the exhibition, too much courage to hesitate at any peril, and too little prudent forethought to be capable of taking care of hirhself or others. He had sprung into the house on the mad as well as useless errand of tear ing down that flag, been shot through the heart by Jackson, in performing it, and his slayer laid dead beside him by Brownell, Avho could revenge his Colonel but could not re member to shoot quickly enough to save him. He was dead, and his plans and purposes as \vell as his hopes dead Avith him ; while his regiment had its own welfare to look after, under officers Avho an hour before had no dream of assuming such a responsibility.

That is the story of the death of Ellsworth, somewhat more briefly told than in the inflated relations and atrociously bad plays with which, as the first death of an officer in the War

302 THE BAYS OF SHODDY.

for the Union, it has since supplied current literature. It was a mad, reckless waste of life and desertion of command — nothing more nor less. Washington was a hero at Prince ton, when he rode between the cross-fires of the two forces, and Xapoleon at Lodi when he charged over that deadly bridge, — because all was lost to each without the exertion, and the stake was worth life. But the one would have proved himself a fool by exposing himself in the same man ner in a mere skirmish, and the other by leading an ordinary forlorn-hope instead of directing it. Ellsworth at once proved his personal bravery and his unfitness for command, when he went on a service for which (if it was to be done at all) he should have sent a corporal's guard, and lost his life in taking down a rebel rag of very doubtful cleanliness, from the roof of a second-rate Virginia tavern. Two of bis own Zouaves had " taken down" its predecessor from the same roof, only a few days before, at much less cost, by climbing out and stealing it after dinner, and one of them bringing it away wrapped round his body and concealed under his clothing ! And they could have performed the same task again, if necessary.

Striking the balance of the reckless exposures of the Union War against its poltrooneries, perhaps there might be less to complain of. For against one officer throwing away his life in this manner, we might set another lying at ease behind a haystack during a whole battle ; and against a second dare devil we might oppose another' taking a sudden fancy, when under fire, for whortleberries growing in the remotest parts of a wood;* but unfortunately one fault does not quite do away with the disadvantages of the other, and the middle ground of bravery in conflict seems about as indispensable for the success of our armies, as the middle ground of conservative policy for the furtherance of the national cause.

* Some of the participants in the first battle of Bull Run, belonging to the New York Militia Regiments, will not have much difficulty in remember ing either of the circumstances here alluded to.

CHAPTER XV.

CHARLES HOLT WITH A CALL ABROAD — How HE PAID A FAREWELL YISIT TO BURTNETT HAVILAND'S — Miss SARAH SANDERSON'S LITTLE AMUSEMENT, AND A COMPACT '.FOLLOW ING — How THE MERCHANT MADE A CONFIDANTE <ap MARY HAVILAND, AND BADE HER GOOD-BYE — FIVE MINUTES IN THE ROOM OF OLYMPIA HOLT.

AGAIN the active operations of war must drop for a time into the back-ground and the course of this narration return to those actors in the drama who have not passed into the theatre of actual bloodshed. Only temporarily ; for the war- clouds thicken, and one of those fierce struggles of one rank of the descendants of Cain with another, which sometimes make us doubt the identity of human origin, is in the near prospect.

It has been more than intimated, before this, that Mr. Charles Holt, merchant, some of whose " little amusements" have begun to dawn upon the mind of the reader as at least liable to moral objection, — was not by any means a mere man of pleasure, or even of fashionable vice, but a thorough, in carnate commercial manager as well, carrying on an extensive business with signal ability, and losing no opportunity, proper or improper, to add to a fortune already believed to be colos sal. Xo better proof of this need be adduced than the man ner in which he had seized upon the needs of the government, at the very earliest moment, and entered into those cloth spec ulations paying and promising so finely. To this fact may be added another apparently very different — that if " the course of true love never did run smooth," that of false and dishon orable love is at least liable to an occasional ripple ; and the connection between the two facts will soon be made ap parent.

Coining into the store late of an afternoon not far from the

303

?>( )-A T HE DAYS OF SHODDY.

close of May, the merchant was accosted by Mr. Wales, the gray-haired book-keeper :

" Quite a number of letters this afternoon, Mr. Holt, and one that is privately addressed. It bears the London post mark, and you will find it lying on your desk."

Charles Holt took up the letter, broke the seal and ran his eye hastily over it. It was from London, by the steamer that had reached Boston only the day before, and bore the signa ture of Mr. Beverly Andrews, his partner, who yet remained abroad. One portion of it ran as follows :

"All your advices are duly noted; and so far as I have judged it prudent to do, I have acted upon them. But the fact is that for the fir.st time in iuy life, in a plain matter of business, I fiud myself at fault. The Sumter affair lias created almost as much excitement here as it undoubtedly has done at home; and things are confused terribly. Exchanges begin to run against us so that I scarcely know what to buy and what to leave untouched. I wculd give almost any thing to have your older and (you must not think I intend to flatter) clearer head, here, even for consultation an hour or two. I suppose it is too much to ask, but could you not manage to run over, even if you went back by the same steamer? I cannot possibly leave here, in the present pos ture of American credit ; and yet I feel that some large operations might be performed if one could only be perfectly sure of his footing."

For five minutes the merchant leaned on the desk, holding the letter in his hand, and in silence. His brow was bent, as if many conflicting thoughts were beating beneath it, and then the cloud cleared away. lie had decided.

" Mr. Wales," he said, "you had better see Mr. Xellis to morrow morning before you come down-town, and tell him that he must give up his arrangement for going to Chicago, until a month or two later. We shall need all our force at their posts."

"I will attend to it, sir," answered Wales, a thorough old martinet, who never questioned orders but obeyed them.

" I am going to England by the Cunarder from Jersey City to-morrow," the merchant continued. The fact was all that he had any occasion to announce : the why was his business and his alone. " Some of those Western accounts must be sent out by mail — have them attended to at once. Send to the office and have me a forward state-room engaged, if there is one left. If I can see Xellis in the morning before

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 305

I leave, all well ; if not, I will hand you a letter with full instructions for him, as I go down."

"Very well, sir," answered the book-keeper. "Do you have any idea of the time of your return ? As I suppose that your arrangement is somewhat sudden, we may have occasion to answer the question."

" I may I'eturn by the same steamer," said the merchant. " If not, by the next ; and I shall not be absent more than thirty to forty days, at the longest. You understand the arrangement, I suppose ?"

" Entirety, I believe," said the book-keeper, and the merchant slipped the letter into his. side-pocket and left the store. He stepped out to Broadway, then down to the front of the Astor House and motioned to the driver of one of the carriages in waiting there. A few words, and the carriage whirled off up Broadway, with its occupant lounging on the back seat, but his head so thrown forward that the chin reposed upon his breast, and the brow again wrinkled with thoughts that seemed to keep his brain continually busy.

It was a little past sunset when the carriage, having pur sued Third Avenue fi'om Astor Place, wrhirled into East Forty-eighth Street and set the merchant down just below the corner, driving round into the Avenue afterwards and awaiting him. . For reasons of his own, which may have been delicate unwillingness to be seen habitually going in a carriage to a house the occupants of which so 'seldom used that costly mode of conveyance, and which may have had the far less creditable motive of not wishing to be observed at all, — he had only been driven to the house once or twice, in a considerable number of visits. On the pi'esent occasion he walked briskly down the sidewalk and as briskly up the steps, like one who had much business to do in a ver}* limited period. The May evening was soft and pleasant, and many doors along the street had been left standing open — among others, that of the house he was about entering. He had, or fancied that he had, now, sufficiently the footing of an intimate acquaintance, to pass in, under those circumstances, Avithout ringing, and merely tap at the door at the head of the stairs. lie followed out the first part of this intention, but found the 19

THE DAYS OF S II 0 D I) Y.

remainder impossible. As he passed the dining-room door at the head of the stair, he saw that it was open, cast a glance within but perceived no one. Passing to the other door, he found that also open, and as he was about to tap his knuckles upon the casing as a summons, saw that there appeared to be only one person in the room and that person Sarah Sanderson.

The eyes of the merchant had the habit of taking in all the details of a scene at a single glance, as well as embracing the whole contour. They exercised that power in the pre sent instance. He saw that the young girl was alone and that she had not heard his foot on the stair or at the door. He saw, too, that she stood with her face turned three- quarters away from the door, that she held a letter in both hands and was applying it to her lips. Kissing a letter, eh ? — thought the merchant. Xo ! — every thing else rather than that. She was licking the letter instead of kissing it — taking the innocent liberty of coaxing open the seal by dampening the gum of the envelope with her lips and tongue ! Aha ! — and the merchant read the story at on'ce. She was tampering with correspondence ! Perhaps he had seen such a thing done before : at all events he did not,utti;r any audible sound of surprise or indignation. He merely took three steps to the spot where the young. girl was stand ing — steps that she'_did not hear any more than those which had preceded them, — reached his hand partially over her shoulder and took away the letter with a quick jerk.

Sarah Sanderson half screamed with the surprise and fright, then turned and recognized the merchant, and finished by trembling like a leaf and nearly falling upon the door. Beyond the half-suppressed scream and an attempt at repeat ing it, not a word could she utter.

" Stop your noise and don't make a fool of yourself!" said the merchant, with the calm superiority of older years and better practised villainy, and at the same time catching a glance at the envelope in his hand, which showed that it bore the Washington post-mark and that it was directed to Mrs./ Mary Haviland in the well-known writing of his absent clerk. " Where is Mrs. Haviland ?''

THE DAYS -OF SHODDY. 307

" She has — gone out," stammered the culprit.

"And you are alone in the house ?" queried the immaculate judge.

" Yes, sir. Please " and here the small hands began

to clasp themselves and the merchant became aware that pleading was about to commence.

" I tell you again to stop your noise, except when /speak to you," said the man of experience, whose mind had already taken in and revolved the thought how much more completely this discovery would place the young girl in his power. " Now then, what were you doing with this letter ?" . " Please, sir, I was only trying to — to — to fasten it up — oh, don't tell of me, Mr. Holt ! Please don't !" and the Lands went together again and more pleading was likely to begin, though there was no flush of shame on the cheek and the eyes were entirely dry.

" I will tell of you, and have a policeman here in five minutes, if you do not do precisely as I bid you !" said Charles Holt, determined to finish the fright at once and crush out the last spark of hope except in plain truth and abject obe dience. " Now I have you in my power, Sarah, and can ruin vou in a moment. I will do it if vou try to deceive me or

•/ if • it

disobey me. Tell me the whole truth, and you will be in no danger. What were you doing with that letter ?"

"I was trying — to — to — "

"Open it, by dampening the gum?" the merchant helped her out.

"Yes," answered the girl, evidently with a violent effort.

"Yes, so I thought!" said the merchant, with that sneer in his tone which a lawyer uses when he has at last extorted the injurious admission from the reluctant witness. " Now, then, one thing more, and you had better answer this ques tion quite as candidly — why were you opening this letter ?"

It has before been remarked that there was no flush of shame on the cheek of Sarah Sanderson at her detection. Now, and at this question, the whole cheek became one intense crim son, until it seemed that more blood than the whole body ought to have contained, was concentrated in the face. The merchant saw it, and his mental comment was as quick s\?- the

308 THE DAYS OP SHODDY.

flush. She attempted to answer, and yet she could not an swer the truth.

" Because — because I wanted to — to hear from Mr. Ilavi- land— "

" Because you love Mr. Haviland !" and these words were spoken in a low, concentrated tone, close clown to the ear of the young girl. She started away from him, trembled yet more violently than before, and if there had been any possi bility of the amount of blood in the face being added to, that addition was made at the moment. If she tried to speak, the words stuck in her throat, for she uttered no sound except what might have been the gurgle of one choking. Her eyes ivere bent to the floor.

" Look at me," said the merchant. As if compelled, she obeyed, and met eyes that had power but little pity in them. " Now answer my question, without any further delay, or you will be very sorry that you had not done so."

The answer came, but the eyes went down again to tho floor and the assent was given in three or four nods that told more than words could have spoken.

"That is well," said the merchant. "Xow one thing more — you hate his wife. She is in your way."

" Oh, heavens ! what are you saying ?" broke out the young girl, looking apprehensively towards the door. " Suppose she should hear us !"

"Xo fear of that !" answered Charles Holt. "My ears tell me when any one is approaching. Answer my question."

"Yes," said the girl, finding voice this time, and the voice having an indescribable sound of angry dislike that might have been any thing but reassuring to the subject of the reply.

" I thought so, and that is very well also," said the tempter. " Xow, Sarah, we shall get on very well together, I fancy."

"And you will not tell of me, Mr. Holt ?" asked the girl, somewhat reassured by the less threatening, even patronizing tone in which the last words had been uttered.

" Tell of you ? — no, not if you obey my. orders," answered the merchant. " Tell of you ? — no. You are more of a woman than I thought — have loves and hates, and I like you

THE DAYS OF S II () D I) Y . 809

the better for them. And besides, you hato given me a new idea, for which I am going to be very grateful in some of those nice yellow pieces that you have seen before. And by the way, here is one of them."

As an earnest of the future as well as a reminder of the past, Charles Holt's hand again went into his pocket and emerged with a gold coin within the fingers, which he at once transferred to the palm of the young girl.

" Now listen to me for one moment, and see that you pay attention to what I am going to say," he went on. " You love Burtnett Haviland, and you hate his wife because she is in your way. Obey me, and she may get out of 'the way, al most before you know it."

" Out of the way ! — She ?" queried the girl, an expression of fierce delight passing over her face, but still friended with something of uncertainty, as if such a joy must be impossible.

" I said so," answered Charles Holt, " and what I say I generally have the power of proving. Now mind — by your having the letter in your hands, before it came to Mrs. Hav iland, you must be in the habit of taking in the letters your self."

" Almost always," answered the girl.

" Make it always, then," directed her mentor. " Let every one of the letters that comes to the house pass through your hands. Stop — what is the name of the post-man who serves on this route ? And where does he live ?"

" His name is and I have heard that he lives in East

. Street, not far from the Station," was the answer, the

young girl's eyes somewhat expressive of that wonder and alarm which come of getting beyond one's depth.

" That will do," said the merchant. " I will see him, arid any letters that come here for Mrs. Haviland will be given to 3*011, and if she happens to go to the door, there will be none for her — those, I niean^that are in her husband's hand-writing. See to it that she does not have one more letter from him, un til I come here again. Do you understand me ?"

" I think I do !" said the neophyte.

" Something more — you take the letters to the Station, do you 110 L ?"

310 TIIEDAYS OF SHODDY.

"Yes, sir — or hand them to the post-man."

" Well, then, stop every one~of Mrs. Haviland's letters ad dressed to her 'husband. If one of them goes, all the rest of the labor will be thrown away. Not one— mind.'1

" Oh sir — Mr. Holt — what are you going to do !" broke out the young girl, completely off her depth in villainy, shocked and stunned by the idea of entirely breaking up that correspondence between husband and wife into which she had only intended to pry, and quite as much frightened at the possible result as she had been at the prospect of discovery in her comparatively trifling crime.

" My own business, and yours !" answered the merchant, severely, to her frightened inquiry. " And mind — you have no choice in the matter! If you do not do as I have or dered, and do it effectually, I will have you taken up for break ing open letters, and sent to the State Prison ; if you do, you may some day find that the man you love is your own, the woman you hate out of your way, and yourself a woman. Hush ! — some one is at the door and coming up the stair. ?u)t another word — remember !"

The last word was spoken threateningly, though very low ; and the lips from which it emanated were scowling. One moment after, when Mary Havilanet" entered the back room wiljh little Louise, Sarah Sanderson was making a clatter there, as if she had been steadily at work for an 'hour, and Charles Holt was pacing slowly up and down the parlor, hum ming a ballad tuny in a low, gruff voice, to " make assurance double sure" and supply an explanation if one of his last •words should have happened to be heard by the returning wife. vThe young girl, as she busied herself about the supper arrangements, may have been frightened and flustered at the thought of the situation into which she was being plunged deeper and deeper by her own fault and the ascendancy of that strange man in the parlor ; but she had no more inten tion of disobeying him than she could have had of sawing off one of her own little hands with the dull carving-knife in the box on the dresser. And as for the merchant himself — he was not flustered or frightened one whit. He had simply performed another " operation" — one quite in his line — if not

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 311

in cloths and cassimeres, in something quite as saleable — hu man happiness and perhaps human souls.

Mary Haviland heard the step and the voice of the mer chant in the parlor, as she surmounted the stair, and she went first into the dining-room, dropped Pet and her bonnet, and came into the parlor through the passage. How very hand some she looked — really, as well as to the eyes of the scheming merchant and man of pleasure ! Her cheeks, that did not redden as do some others, to the extent of ungracefulness, by walking, were yet a little flushed with exercise, and her dark dress with its plain little white collar and cuffs, touched her blonde hair with something almost angelic. Charles Holt did not see the "angel" quite so plainly as he recognized the woman ; but he was touched, nevertheless.

80 far, in intercourse that had now lasted for nearly a month, never for one moment had that subtle and powerful voluptuary forgotten the prudence and propriety of his role. Not one word had yet been sp.oken that could compromise his position with the wife, simply because he had not been certain that the time had come. He preferred, generally, the McClellan system of warfare, that is twice or three times as long as it should be at building a bridge, but builds it, at last, two or three times as strong as is necessary. He knewr, intuitively, that too soon would be worse than too late, in that quarter, and that one premature fright would d'estroy future chance for all time. He had seen, all the while, that the young wife, left so lonely and thrown so much into his society, was growing more and more pleased with his visits and reliant upon him. That was something — it was even almost enough, in his mind ; for no matter how slight may be the slope of the inclined plane, give it length enough and it will cyme down to the lowest level desired. With this in view, he had so far been able to restrain himself; and the nearest approach to familiarity yet attained had been the holding of one of the little hands something too long for strict propriety, and a kiss which he had once or twice impressed upon that innocent member with apparent courtly dignity and yet with lips that burned more than the young wife knew. So far the restraint had lasted : how much longer

312 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

was it, to last and how much longer could it last, with such visions continually beaming before him ? One step for ward — one step if no more, before the long swell of the Atlantic should roll between them on the evening of the morrow.

Mary Ilaviland received her guest with even more warmth than had been her wont. AVhen he held out both hands to her, one of hers fell into each, and she allowed him to retain them long, as he walked beside her towards the front window where the light of the May evening was fast fading away into dusk. It was time for lighting the little chandelier, and yet not only he but she felt that no other light was needed. Nothing could have been more dangerous. Sunlight may be exhilarating and moonlight may be entrancing, but neither can for one moment compare with the soft dusk uncertainty of twilight, in its peril to two who love, or fancy that they love, or wish to fancy that they love, each other.

Then followed what the pen of the narrator has no fancy for portraying, and yet what cannot be avoided — a little bit of acting on the one side, which would have made Ned Booth or Ned Davenport expire with envy, — and a corresponding bit of womanly yielding, not to say culpable weakness, on the other, which might have induced Mary Gannon (^uceu of all the juvenile simplicities) to indulge at least in a small exhibi tion of feminine spite.

The two were very near together as they took seats near the window — nearer than they had sat on any previous occa sion. The dark may have been the reason of this accident. A few commonplaces, and the tone of the merchant's voice sunk veiy low, at the same time that his hand, which had been toying with the. tassel of the tidy on Mary Haviland's chair, fell over on her lap and rested there, partially upon" one of her own. Then it crept closer to the companion member, and at last encompassed it. Neither of the motions were opposed or resisted by the young wife. The grasp of the merchant closed warm around the little hand in his own, and Mary Ilaviland heard him utter a deep, low sigh, almost a groan in its intensity. The instant after, she saw him spring to his tout and clasp his haud to his brow, as if some

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 318

sudden pain had struck him there or some deadly recollection stung him like an asp. It was the most natural thing in the world for the little woman to spring from her chair and grasp her guest by the arm, in real anxiety.

" You are in pain — sick ?" she asked, that bewildering touch still upon his arm.

" No — }*es," with another sigh, half a tone still lower than its predecessor. " Do not mind me, I beg of you."

" But I must mind you !" said the wife. " I cannot see you suffer and be unmoved."

" Can you not ? Then God bless your kind, good heart !" said the consummate actor, sinking back again into his chair and allowing the little hand to slide down his arm until it not only touched his hand but actually took it unbidden. Then a shudder as he felt the touch, and then he continued: "And yet I am afraid, Mrs. Haviland — may I not say Mary ? — that I must either never come into your presence1 again, or you may be doomed to see much more of such suffering, without any power in the world to relieve it." He was calmer now (as an attendant physician might have said after the paroxysm of a patient), and did not sigh again in the same heart-rending manner.

"What can you mean ?" asked the young wife, her hand still retaining his in her grasp, with some kind of idea in her heart that she was playing ministering angel. So she was, but — bless her little innocent heart ! — to a very different sub ject from what she imagined.

" Oh, I am a fool, if not a villain !" said the merchant, his whole expression one of dissatisfaction and anger with him self for this betrayal. " What right have I to cloud your life with my unhappiness, with my — "

" Unhappiness !" echoed the young wife, to whom, it must be confessed, spite of the content of her state, unlimited wealth and position had seemed to be a bar against the pos sibility of such a thing as that word represented. "Unhap piness ? You, so good and so powerful, unhappy?"

" I could bite off my tongue for allowing me to .utter that word," exclaimed the merchant. "And yet it is out, and I cannot recall it. Unhappiness ? yes ! — of course you could

811 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

not be aware of the fact, but I have no home, and have never had one. There are words Chat we cannot speak, and some that we must not. But after my unguarded speech," (oh, very unguarded !) " I suppose that I owe you the justice of explaining that my home is a hell, and that my marriage has never been any thing more than a mockery."

How sadly he seemed to be in earnest, now! — and how impossible it seemed that all this could be assumed ! Alas ! — in this pne passage he assumed nothing, as the reader of this narration is partially aware, and as he may become more fully -convinced before it closes. And who does not know how much more terribly real the tragedian becomes, though only pla}ring his part, when he chances upon some passage which befits his own real life ?

" My dear, good friend ! How I pity you !" said Mary Haviland, his hand yet in hers and their chairs very near.

" 'Pity's nkin to love' — Shakspeare !" said the merchant to himself. " I arn getting on famously." But his lips uttered something very different.

" Yes, you do pity me — I believe it, I know it !" he said, his hand more than returning the kindly pressure. "And that — can you believe it ?— makes me more wretched."

" My pity make you wretched !" echoed the young wife, not fully enough versed in the alchemy of human thought to understand how that effect could be produced.

" Yes, wretched beyond thought !" said the merchant. "Oh Mrs. Haviland — Mary — you do not know how I am torturing myself as well as you, and yet what a straw I am on the current of a misery I cannot resist. I came to bid you good-bye, and I meant to do so, calmly; but see what a child I have been — what a child I am !"

"To bid me good-bye?" asked the wife. "What do you mean ?"

" That I am going to Europe to-morrow," said the actor, " and that I could not go without seeing you— you and your little house once more."

" Going to Europe !" said the wrife, and her tone and man ner were so sincere that the close observer had no difficulty iu discerning how she felt the coming loneliness.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 315

"Yes," answered the merchant, "I am suddenly called there, and I must be absent for weeks, at least. I can bid good-bye to my own lonely home without one pang; but if you only knew, Mary — there, you see I have called you by that sweet name again, and you have not scolded me ! — if you only knew how much of my enjoyment — of my happi ness — has lain for weeks past in the visits I have paid to this little house — how much nearer, even for a few brief hours, it has been to supplying me a hame than any other spot in the world, — you would know what has so unmanned me and made me a child when I. came for a moment again into a heaven of goodness, to go out of it for so long !"

He had risen as he spoke the last words, and reached over to the little table on which it had been set, for his hat. He was going, and going for so long. How kind and good and flattering he had been, to be happy in her humble dwelling when he could not be in his own luxurious home ! What a good, honest, impulsive man he was, and how little the world could be likely to understand him ! How much of her life he had lately made, and how lonely she should be during his absence ! Such were the thoughts of Mary Haviland — . just those thoughts, nothing less or more. And when Charles Holt moved towards the door of the little room and she said : " I am really so sorry you are going !" her soul was in her words as well as in her face. And when Charles Holt, as if moved by an irresistible impulse for which he could not be more accountable than the madman for his ac tion or the man under the influence of the exhilerating gas for his antic, — when Charles Holt sprang forward, said : "Mary — dear Mary! good-bye and God bless you !" caught his arm with convulsive suddenness around her and pressed his burning lips to hers, — she did not repulse him or even start back ; nay more, it is to be believed that beneath the hot pressure of his lips there was for one instant the throb of a sensation through the rose-leaves under which the sweet blood coursed ! — that she actually returned his kiss !

Close your spiritual eyes as well as your physical ones, oh Burtnett Haviland, soldier in the Army of the Union, as you stand on guard on one of the wharves at Alexandria and hear

316 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the Potomac rippling by in the twilight ! Close them, so that by no chance you can peer through the many miles of dusky air lying between the Yirginian city and your wedded home, and see how foul a serpent is creeping into the para dise of 3Tour love, and how the flowers do not even shrink away and fold themselves at the approach of his poison !

And you, ye overmatching intelligences who make record of every minute as well as every day of our mortal lives ! — • be careful how you do your duty at this moment ! Analyze well that subtle substance called the heart of woman, before 3rou set down' the record that can never be blotted away ! There are very sad shames and wrongs in the world, but there are benevolences. Woman's life is one long martyr dom to the drain made upon her heart, even as man's be comes a torture and a suicide under the demands made upon his brain. If there is shame and wrong, let it be so recorded ; but if a holier feeling moves and the heart is blind instead of erring, let the record bear no more. For the same Divine Lips that added to the merciful dismissal of the woman taken in adultery : " Sin no more !"— -^promised eternal blessings to the giver of even a cup of cold water in the name of Faith and Goodness ; and there may be those who bear the benevo lence even upon their lips, that they believe shall save from wretchedness and despair, and who therein sin not but blindly and erringly tread a path whose last footstep will yet be within the courts of Heaven !

" Without any exception the most successful little opera tion I have managed in a long while," said Charles Holt, to himself, as wrhile Mary Havilan J, her head all a strange whirl which she by no means understood, was preparing sleepy little Pet for her crib, he stepped again into the long-delayed carriage and was~whirled down the Avenue. "If she ever forgets that kiss, or ever again closes the door that I have so snugly opened, until I am quite as willing to do it as herself • — then my name is not Charles Holt, or I am a milksop. 'Now I can afford to go to Europe, and who knows how ripe1 some of the fruit may be against I return !"

Probably some of the billiard players who were knock ing away at the balls in the buck room of a saloon on the

THE PAYS OF SHODDY. 317

Third Avenue just above Thirty-fifth Street, and who certain! j could not be accused of being over-censorious in their morals — seeing that Sunday was their grand gala day there, — would have shuddered a little and missed some very easy caroms, had they known what was the real errand of the well-dressed and emincntly-respectable-looking man who a few minutes afterwards stepped into the bar of that establishment, asked to look at the Directory, and came back to the billiard-room to find it. Quite as probably the post-man whose full name and direction were just then so diligently sought after, might have indulged in a corresponding shudder, had he been aware of the temptation which was a few minutes later to be offered him. But the billiard-players were ignorant, and if the post-man had any scruples it is to be believed that he parted with them at a stated price, as men have habitually done from the days of Judas downward. Certain it is that Charles Holt succeeded in transacting his business to his eminent satisfaction, though his purse became somewhat lightened thereby; and that within a very short space of time there after he was set down by the carriage and dismissed it (after paying nearly all the vehicle was worth) at the door of his own house on Fifth Avenue.

He passed into the house,' as we have seen him do on a former occasion, with his pass-key and without summoning a servant. His splendid drawing-rooms lay in the same cold and empty magnificence that has before been indicated. A servant, hearing his step in the hall, came up from the "lower regions," saw that it was "the master," and dodged down again. He entered his own room, found 'the light burn ing low, turned it up, lit a cigar, threw himself into the easy chair and smoked a few minutes with his eyes closed. Then he threw away the half-smoked cigar, turned his face to the ceiling a,s if listening, remained perfectly silent for a moment, with a "Humph !" passed out again into the lighted hall, and ascended the broad stairway. His tread was slow and loiter ing — the exact opposite of what it had been when running up the steps of the house on East Forty-eighth Street — the precise antipodes of the step of a lover hurrying to meet the dearest object in the world. He trod slowly: had he known

318 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the future, he certainly would have trodden yet slower or he would never have ascended that stair at all ; for there was a drop of life-blood (whose — no matter) oozing away at every step !

At the head of the stair he turned to the left and followed the upper hall so many feet as brought him to a door imme- d;;itdv over his own. It was closed, and he tapped lightly upon it with his hand. No answer from within. Then he tupped louder, and waited an instant. Still no answer.

" Humph ! I wonder if she can be out at this time in the

evening, or only " he did not close the sentence, but

open6d the door and entered. What he saw when within, must be set down at a little more length than the extent of his observation at that moment.

The room, immediately over his own, was of the same size, and fitted up with the same luxury for female purposes that his showed for tbe uses of manhood. The curtains were of heavy dark blue silken damask, and the walls of blue several shades lighter ; the two sofas and the chairs were of rose wood, covered with some very rich dark blue worsted stuff with silken raised figures ; the carpet was Venetian, of a rich small pattern and warm colors ; a massive pier-glass filled the space between the windows, from floor to ceiling ; a piano with legs of carved rosewood showing beneath the heavy dark cloth, stood on one side of the room ; two or three feet from the pier-glass stood a table, the legs also of carved rose wood, covered with a damask cloth, and on it a liqueur-case, with glasses, a basket with cake and a salver half filled with hot-house grapes ; near it stood a small table with chess-men and a pack of cards in a counter case ; and beyond it still another, of larger size, had several costly articles of vertu, scattered over it. A splendidly appointed room, and yet a most painful one to look in upon. For the carpet was stained and littered ; the cover on the piano was awry ; one of the sofas was slewed out of its place and the tables ar ranged without any regard to propriety ; one of the glasses on the large table was tumbled over, a bottle out of the liqueur-case, and a piece of cake lying over the side of the basket; and looking through a door leading out of the apart-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 319

ment into a smaller one adjoining it, a tumbled bed could be seen, evidently lounged upon and then remaining unmade. Splendor in neglect and ruin — so unlike what could be seen in any other portion of the house that it has been our duty to traverse.

And yet this was not all — no, nor the one-millionth detail of the painful sight which revealed itself under the lighted chandelier to the eye of the merchant, and which must have filled any other observer with disgust and horror. > For at the foot of the sofa standing opposite the door, as if she had tumbled from it in restless sleep, lay Olympia Holt — her un bound hair streaming backwards on the floor ; her dress \vofully disarranged, so that the contour of the splendidly rounded limb was too plainly revealed ; her dress of rich dark silk unloosed at the throat and bust ; and her breathing that short stertorous snort which tells the condition of a sleeper better than almost any other test that can be applied. A most painful — a most disgusting sight ! If the room showed splendor neglected and in ruins, what was this ? — a beautiful woman prone and insensible on the floor — humanity also in ruins, and that humanity of the same sex which supplied our mothers, our sisters, our wives and sweet-hearts !

" Drunk and insensible on the floor, by all that is unen durable !" was the exclamation of the spectator. "What is the next degradation ? That was the reason every thing was so still. Here ! hallo ! wake up !" and he ad vanced across the room, stooped down and shook the sleep ing woman. Apparently he might as well have attempted to wake one of the mummied Ptolemies whom the antiqua rians will not leave alone in their crypts. A second shake, and he desisted from the attempt. As he ceased, the eyes of the sleeping woman opened, though how much they saw was doubtful. The disgusted husband did not see that they opened at all, for when he looked down they were apparently close shut, "and there certainly had been no change in the breathing. Disgusted — did we say ? — that word faintly ex presses 'the sensations of the husband, fresh (however un- holily) from the presence of beauty and purity, and outraged

320 T II E I) A Y S OF SHODDY.

by this spectacle of degradation to a degree beyond words and almost beyond thought. How much of this had he before endured, whether the fault \vhich originated it was his own or that of some other ? What writhings' might the proud man, splendid even in his vices, have suffered during long years of this debasement ? It seemed as if he must have endured much, for his lip set heavily and his brow lowered threateningly. " Sot ! disgrace !" at length broke from lips that seemed .to speak without opening ; and at the same mo ment, moved by an impulse for which he could not probably himself have accounted, and under the culmination of a feeling of shame and anger which had been accumulating for years, with whatever of justice or injustice, — this man, who had never before in all his life broken the great first law of chivalry by laying violent hand upon a woman, with a muttered curse drew back his booted foot and twice so vio lently kicked the sleeper that he even moved the body upon the floor ! There was no sign of sensibility, that he saw, though the eyes opened again as he turned away, then closed again as suddenly.

The merchant stepped to the bell, rang it violently and waited a moment. A female servant came rapidly up the stairs, tapped, stepped within the room, and waited for his orders.

" Get one of the other girls, undress that woman and put her to bed," he ordered. " When she gets so that she can understand you, if she ever does, tell her that I am going to England to-morrow, and that I stepped to her room to tell her as much, but found her so sick that she conld not listen to me. That is all— go !"

The servant disappeared down the stairs in search of the required assistance. The merchant, with one look at the mass of lost womanhood on the floor, went out, closed the door and descended to his own room, which he did not afterwards leave until his carriage was called at nearly eleven. But the door of Olympia Holf's room had only closed behind him, when the degraded woman opened her eyes once more, struggled to a sitting position, shook her trembling fist after

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ith an expression on the face that if drunken was yet riac, and muttered thickly through her clenched teeth : retch ! devil 1 It has come at last ! Be careful, now, er get a chance at you !"

CHAPTER XVI.

KATE HAVILAND'S NEXT AND LAST VISIT TO MARY — CITY AND COUNTRY MORALS AND THE GENERAL APPRECIATION THEREOF — A WOMAN who HAD BEEN CRYING, AND WHO

GLANCED TOO MITCH OUT OF THE WINDOW— HOW THE TWO

" AGREED TO DISAGREE" — No LETTERS, AND THE STORY OF THE GUARD-HOUSE — Miss SARAH SANDERSON'S SUPPLEMEN TARY INFORMATION.

THE peculiar feeling which opprcssd Kate Haviland, with reference to the wife of her cousin, after the episode of the ambrotype, and after that visit to Forty-eighth Street which revealed to her the (supposed) fact that her cousin-by-mar riage was in the habit of going to theatres with a comparative stranger during the absence of her husband, — cannot very well be described and could not easily be analyzed even by the young girl herself. Herself pure as the modest little vio let that she had been in the habit of plucking under the hedges and by the borders of the woods iu the early spring-time- she knew and thought of vice only as a name ; but she had caught the name and heard of the reality, nevertheless. She had heard in her quiet country home, that the great city was one correspondingly great haunt of vice and crime, where sin was the rule and virtue the exception ; and she had necessa rily contracted something of that indefinable horror which many of the good people of the country indulge towards the city, who believe in the exploded nonsense about green fields making mankind more honest and upright than stone pave ments, — and who do uot know that the country " party," its 20

322 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

"night-meetings" and its long and lonely walks in a wooded solitude unattainable within the "fire limits," exert the same doubtful influences that are brought into play and allowed scope by the ball, the theatre, and places more openly dedicated to the service of vice, in the city so set under ban. Those good people who cannot be brought to believe that tempta tion can assume the same dangerous and insidious forms, un der the green trees and in the rustic paradises of the country, and do the same effectual work of desolating the heart and the life, as on pavements and under tiled roofs that cover three or four stories ; — who do not suspect that the same moral ruin can be wrought among budding boys and incipient young men, playing division-loo or draw-poker all the Sunday long in the upper story of the country wheel-wright shop or the hay-mow of the farmer, that could be entailed upon them by the plate-glassed and gilded gambling-halls of the metropolis ; • — \vho do not know that Old Bill, buying his bad liquor by the keg, and keeping himself in a continual muddle with potations of it a.s he sits at home — or Young Bill, dashing about with his fast team and stopping to drink half a dozen times at each of the country taverns he passes, — is going quite as prosperously down the road of drunkenness as any old maa or young man of the city, who procures his means of intoxication at the most splendid or the most degraded of the places of universal supply; who do not realize that frivolity goes to church under the little white spire in the vil lage, just as frivolity displays itself in the pews of Bro\vn — that misers crawl and schemers plot, universally — that the good and the evil exist everywhere, so mixed and blended that no mortal eye can discern their boundaries — that thefts, slanders, marital falsehoods, debaucheries, unhappy and crimi nal marriages, murders, and all the long array of crimes, spring up on every square rood of God's footstool, as rank fungi in dank and rotting swamps, — and that there is no ex clusive patent for goodness or even for wickedness, existing in any particular' spot of the earth's surface because it hap pens to be capped with a flag-stone or tufted with a few blades of grass.

Sharp, bright, intelligent Kate Haviland had imbibed

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 323

something of this prejudice of the country against the city, long before, and only living in it for a few weeks had not yet been able to make the proper mental equation. She had but two points of view of society in the city — the Fullerton house, and that of her cousin. The first was not by any means such a place as would be likely to disabuse a young mind of unfavorable impressions ; and what had she seen of tire state of affairs at the second ? Much as she had loved and respected Mary, and much as she was disposed yet to love and respect her, the omens might have been puzzling if not unfavorable, to more hackneyed minds than that of the teacher ; it seemed to her that any thing and anybody, however pure, might be corrupted in such a Babel ; and the fact is that she quitted Forty-eighth Street, on the day of the visit there before recorded, with her head in a whirl, her heart ill at ease, and a sort of dim and indefinite impression creeping over her that all her country education had been only a tithe of the truth, and that New York must be a second Sodom, worso than the original and somehow forgotten in the punitory distributions of aerial brimstone in a state of combustion.

As a result of these things, the foot of the young girl did not cross the threshold of her cousin's house for weeks, confident as she would have been, under other circumstances, of Mary's loneliness, and much as she might have been anxious, under those circumstances, to relieve that loneliness and comfort her in her husband's absence. She believed that Mary llavi- land, without guilt but iu great weakness, was " consoling" herself; and that belief at once removed the wish 'and the duty. Then the young girl had really plenty to do iu the Fullerton residence, what with the arrogances of Mrs. Ful lerton (never quite so decided, however, since her signal discomfiture in the great "overhauling'')'; the impertinences of Miss Dora; the difficulty of keeping Myra and Mildred from the most serious infractions of all those rules supposed to be set down for the government of children not intended for subsequent savage life ; and another little occupation, ia the frequent presence of Mr. Ned Minthorne in the school room, of which something more will be seen at a very early period. All these causes, combined, kept her absent from

324 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the house until the beginning of June, and consequently ignorant of any tiling that had occurred there since her previous visit.

But one pleasant June morning, past the middle of that month, when Mrs. Fullerton had declared her intention of taking both Myra and Mildred down-town and having one more portrait taken of each of the dear children — so that they would have no studies demanding her attention until the afternoon, — bonny Kate felt all her good-nature predominant and her desire to see how Mary was "getting along" alto gether too strong to be resisted. She smoothed down her chestnut hair a little, swung herself twice round before the glass in her room to see that her dress of pretty brown-and- white French gingham had the proper fall and sweep for the street, crowned her rattle-head with a coquettish little jockey hat (just then coming into use), and sallied forth for a walk and a voyage of discovery.

Her cheeks glowing with the exercise of her walk of a mile and a half, and her blood tingling pleasantly with the soft June air and the sun that she felt were both playing among the opening roses around her old home in the country, the young girl reached the little house on Forty-eighth Street, rang, and was admitted by Mary Haviland herself. The first glance that Kate caught of the face of the wife, told her that some marked change had come upon her. She looked troubled, care-worn and anxious, and it did not need much imagination to believe that there had recently been tears in her eyes. This would have been quite enough to disarm any ungenerous suspicion of her young cousin, and to put the two good, whole-hearted and loveable little souls once more en rapport with each other, as they had always before been and as they never should have ceased to be, — but that two hindrances intervened. First : Kate noticed that when Mary took her seat near the window of the front room and resumed her sewing that had been temporarily interrupted, her eyes were most of the time downcast in a manner quite unusual for her ; and that the rest of the time they were glancing about, and especially towards the window, in a troubled and restless way that seemed furtive and anxious to

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 325

escape observation. This was not the Mary of old — Kate said to herself; and as she had many a time read that the eye of guilt was downcast and furtive, there seemed some- Dung in her conduct to corroborate the most painful suspicions. Besides — and here a new light broke upon the very keen young person, quite as reliable as many of the lights which guide the feet of elder people until they lose their way and tumble over. She had no knowledge, of course, that Charles Holt had gone to Europe : and the thought crept into her busy brain — what if his visits had become so frequent that Mary had no idea at what time of day another might occur, and if her furtive glances towards the window and the constant clown-casting of her eyes should be in anxiety to see him and fear of an awkward arrival while she [Kate] w^s in the house ! If she thought such really was the case, how quickly she wouM get out of that house and never set foot jn it again while Burnett llaviland was absent and such visits were permitted — never.

Second : Mary Haviland herself had a word to say about any continued cordiality between Kate and herself. She had depended much upon Kate's running over often to see her, and making company in her loneliness. Since her husband's departure, she had only called three or four times, and within the past three weeks, not at all. She probably — Mary thought • — had found gayer company down at the rich house on Twenty-third Street, and did not care to spend any of her valuable time upon a poor " grass-widow. " If so, let her stay away — that was all ! And as a consequence, though Mary received her visitor kindly enough, that day, she did so without any pretence at cordiality ; and so barrier number t\vo between the little women was firmly established.

Kate did not ask after Burtnett and when his wife had heard from him. She really did not dare do so, after her ob servations of the wife's face and manner, for fear of increasing her agitation and producing an effect by no means desirable. Mary wondered why she did not inquire, was ready to pour out her whole heart-full of trouble if she only would do so, and thought her more heartless than ever from the omission. So that bond -winch mi "'lit. and should have drawn them to-

326 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

gether hold them apart — not to be joined again for — alas ! — how long !

Does the picture seem exaggerated ? Do not kind, good, whole-hearted people, who have the dearest reasons in the world for clinging together more closely than one fibre of oak to another, grow separated in this manner, from vague sus picions and slight misunderstandings that should not be al lowed to influence them for one moment, and sometimes never unite again while the life of both endures ? We fear, too sadly, that they do, and that in the great day of final account, not open quarrels resulting from radical differences, but nameless nothings springing from one word too much, one glance too many, or the lack of one or the other, will be found to have desolated more human hearts than all the battle-fields of history have sacrificed of human bodies !

The veriest commonplaces, that might have been indulged by two strangers accidentally meeting, instead of two persons connected by the closest ties of blood and old acquaintance, were the result of all this. Little Pet ran in from the other room, eventually, lugging a doll a little larger than herself ; and in Kate's involuntary catching her up and hugging her out of all discretion, there was for one moment a chance that the feelings of both might melt and confidence be re-estab lished. But no ! — Her High Mightiness was not in the best of humors, and she had some suspicion that the raiment of her darling (which said darling had lost one leg and was in a serious state of dilapidation) might be creased by the too-close pressure, 'and consequently she was put down in a moment, after uttering this solemn and impressive adjuration and statement :

" Put Pet down, Katy ! 'Oo muss up Dolly ! Pet don't like 'oo !"

Within ten minutes Kate Haviland discovered that her time was nearly exhausted, or, in other words, that she had never before found the atmosphere of the house so uncon genial and did not care to stay in it another moment. How ever, there was one point upon which she intended to satisfy herself before leaving — that of the ambrotype. Though she had not since heard any thing of it as in the possession of Mr.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 327

Holt or the Fullertons, yet that such a picture of Mary had been in their hands was beyond doubt : would the wife, if the subject should be introduced, honestly state how it came to be out of her own custody ? If so, there might not be any seriops misconduct, after all ; while falsehood or pre varication would stamp the intention as an improper one be yond peradventure. There was nothing, for this end, but to repeat, with variations, the same manoeuvre that had been practised upon Sarah ; and this the young girl immediately put in practice. Shaking off her depression, so far as was possible, humming a snatch, meanwhile, from the popular opera, " I Handorgani," she rose from her chair and stepped to the mantel, apparently having discovered some new beauty in the photograph of Pet which hung over it. After stand ing there a moment and fumbling a little among the pictures and other iricumbrances of that usually overloaded receptacle, she said, in the most natural of tones and as if there was not a thought of purpose in the inquiry :

" Seems to me, Mary, that some of your pictures are gone off the mantel. What has become of them all ? There was a very pretty little ambrotype of yourself, that I was admir ing when I came up to the city and meant to ask you to give me some day. I don't see it now."

" I do not know what you can possibly mean," answered the young wife, with that candor born of truth. " I dusted off the mantel not an hour ago, and every picture was there that has been there for the last six months, I am sure."

Kate turned and looked at her as she said this. Not one indication in her face that she was telling a falsehood (as she was not — the reader well knows). But Kate knew (or thought that she knew — which was quite the same thing !) that this must be a falsehood ; and she said to herself that the woman who could conceal or pervert the truth in this manner, without one sign of blenching on the countenance, must be a miserable little deceiver, altogether unworthy of credit in any particular. Whereupon, without any further experiments as to -her cousin's truth, she turned away from the mantel, curtly said that "her time was up, and she must go back to her school-room," bade Mary good-morning and

328 • THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

ran down the stairs to the street-door, leaving the house with a determination that she would not come into it again in one while — that she wouldn't!

Poor Mary Haviland sighed, after Kate had left the room. During all the brief visit she had felt that some marked change must certainly have taken place in the young girl — that her words were curt and her manner dictatorial — and that the last chance of Kate's affording to herself any companionship during the absence of her husband, was quite as effectually gone as if she had been dead. If such was to be the atmo sphere thrown out by one of her visits, she had no 'objection whatever to her remaining absent all the while ; for there in one thing worse than utter loneliness — uncongenial company; and at the moment when Alexander Selkirk fancied himself arrived at the summit of human unhappiness in his little retirement on the isle of Juan Fernandez, there is no doubt whatever that he might have been made much more miserable than any loneliness- could make him, by the presence of one ignorant, peeping, chattering human magpie of his own sex, or one woman who had the happy faculty of always misun derstanding and crossing him — always wanting to stay at home and scrub the poles of his hut when he particularly wished her to go fishing with him — always going to sleep in the midst of the m6st thrilling passage of the story he was telling her — and always managing to be asleep and snoring when he came to bed.

Kate Haviland had decided that Mary's beaten eyes, furtive glances and general depression indicated "something wrong. " So they did, too truly ; but how far were they from indi cating, in truth, what she suspected ! The young wife was unhappy — wretched — miserable ! — how truly miserable, only those can conjecture who have had the whole fabric of their happiness seem to crumble away as suddenly and as tho roughly. Yesterday the mistress of a happy home, with a husband fondly loving and as fondly beloved, at her side : to-day a lonely wife, widowed perhaps by something worse than death I

Not one single letter for a whole long month. Not one. Writing often herself, but receiving no answer — none. There

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 329

could be no mistake in the matter, for had she not interro gated the postman at the door, after waiting- in vain for weeks, and received his assurance that every letter for that distribution passed into his hands, and that none had come, bearing her name ? This indicated sickness and perhaps death. No — for in the one case some comrade would cer tainly advise the wife, at his request, of the situation of the husband ; and in the other the officers of the regiment would consider it their duty to convey the intelligence of their bereavement to the afflicted family. No — sickness or death could not be the cause: something worse must certainly have supervened. And what could be that " something worse"'/

One channel of information was beyond the meddling of Charles Holt and his postman, and accessible to Mary llavi- land as well as to others. That channel was the daily news paper, with its correspondents everywhere and all the while peeping and grasping for the least item of information con cerning the men and the movements of any of the local regiments. From the newspaper she learned that the com pany of the Fire Zouaves to which her husband belonged, had been for some time detached from the body of the regiment and employed in guarding the government warehouses in Alexandria. That company, then, was within easy reach of Washington and the mails, and the failure could not be on account of any difficulty in communication. That knowledge made the mystery greater and the heart of the young wife more hopelessly sad as she endeavored to fathom it.

Then, only the day before Kate's visit, she had what ap peared to be a peep behind the curtain. And such a peep ! — if a true one, she prayed heaven that she might be spared any closer and more definite. That evening one of her few '• pleasant neighbors " " happened in," to chat a few moments and to " give her a little company when she knew she must be so lonesome," as the visitor kindly expressed it. It did not become evident to the wife, but it would have done so to a close observer, that the visit was paid especially to un bur then the mind of the visitor of certain news that was trouble some in the keeping and needed help to hold it properly. Not five minutes of conversation had elapsed when the

3.30 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

" pleasant neighbor" took occasion to remark that one of her relatives had just been clown at Washington and Alexandria, and that, among other persons, he had seen Burtnett Havi- land.

" Did he see him ?" asked the young wife, glad at last to hear something definite from him — that he was alive and with bis regiment, — and ready to pour out her whole heart to the kind friend who had been so good as to bring her news of her husband.

" Yes, he saw him," said the visitor, " and no doubt you are glad to hear from him, though I suppose he writes very often."

The young wife was just about to give her the startling information that for weeks past he seemed not to have written at all, and the statement might have provoked comment and inquiry not favorable to the success of the plotters : but the tongue of the " pleasant neighbor" was too rapid for her, and before she could undeceive her on that point, the informant went on :

" But oh, my dear, I don't believe your letters tell you the half of what is going on down there. The soldiers do not appear to have gone down to fight, but just for a spree. You must not feel hurt about it, my dear, but John says that the company at Alexandria is doing nothing but drink — drink — drink, gamble, and — some other things that I think I had better not mention to you."

The heart of the wife beat quick for an instant, then sunk low and almost died within her. But she forced herself to be calm and indeed to smile some kind of a sickly libel upon merriment, as she said :

" Oh, Burtnett tells me that they are enjoying themselves; but are they so very wild ?"

" Yery wild ? Enjoying themselves ? I should think so, my dear!" said the "pleasant neighbor." " Oh, you don't half know what goings on they have, nearly all the time ; and I fancy your husband would not be very likely to write in any of his letters what I hear about him."

"About him ?" gasped the wife.

"Yes, about him!" echoed the informant. "I don't know

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 331

that I ought to have said any thing about it. I did not moan to say a word, but I have let rny foolish tongue run away with me, and gone so far, now, that I suppose I must tell you the whole of it. Don't be too much hurt, my dear."

" I ? oh, I shall not be hurt at all !" answered the young wife, forcing such a discordant laugh as some sufferer on the rack might utter to prove that mind was still superior to matter.

"Soldiers are a horrid set, always — no offence to your hus band, my dear," pursued the visitor. " I suppose they are all alike when they get away from our sight, so there is no use in thinking too much about them. Well, it seems that the whole town is full of women of the very worst character — worse than any of the dreadful wretches on Broadway, and you know how bad they are !"

" I have heard," said the wife, in a low tone.

"Well," said the visitor, "the town is full of just such dreadful women, and a good many of the soldiers forget that they have any wives at home."

" I do not believe that of my husband !" said the wife, with a good deal of her old energy and a little asperity.

" I dare say not," replied the visitor. " That is right — al ways believe the best you can of these men ; and bad enough is the best, clear knows ! Well, the other night, while John was asleep in the quarters of one of the officers, there was an alarm and a musket fired, and the sentinels rushed towards an old building not far from the dock, that was used as a sort of temporary prison. The evening before they had been obliged to put two or three of the worst of these women' up in one of the chambers of the upper story, to prevent mischief, my dear ; and a little after midnight the sentry in the yard had been nearly killed by a man dropping upon him from the window of the room where the women were shut up. He had fired his musket as he fell, and that had caused the alarm. When the other sentries came, they found that the man who had fallen from the window was one of the Zouaves. lie was drunk, and his leg was so badly injured that he could not get away. They took him up and put him in the guard house. I need not tell you, my dear, what his name was or

832 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

what his character must have been, to lie up among those women, at that time of night, and then dropping out of the window !"

"And you mean to say that soldier was — " gasped the wife ; and there her voice failed.

" I mean to say that soldier was your husband, if you will have it all !" said the informant, with the demeanor of a per son who had been compelled to do a very distasteful duty.

"And I mean to say that it is a falsehood — a base, cruel falsehood !" uttered the young wife. " I don't believe one word of it !"

"Just as you please, my dear," said the "pleasant neigh bor," putting on an air of offended dignity. " That is always what people get for telling the truth ! The next time you want to hear from your husband, somebody else may tell you !"

"I hope to heaven somebody else will have sense enough to keep such news to themselves !" said the wife.

" Hoity toity !" commented the visitor; and she went away in high dudgeon, to be a bitter enemy of Mary Haviland ever after. And it may as well be said that she went away to be hated by Mary Haviland quite as cordially.

But she left an impression behind her that could no more be shaken off, however the young wife might make the effort, than the earth can obliterate the chasm made in its bosom by the earthquake, or the tree the scar ploughed down its side by the lightning. " I do not believe one word of it!" had been the reply to the " pleasant neighbor. " But "I do be lieve too much of it !" was her commi'mion with her own heart. She had always heard terrible stories of the crimes and vices of soldiers, though she had thought nothing of them when her husband went away, and had not even conceived the possibility of his falling off from his goodness and his love for her, into any of thorn. What else than this could really be the explanation of his long silence ? Had he not indeed been over-tempted, fallen into evil courses from bad compan ionship, and then" been ashamed even to write to her with the same hand stained with the coarse vices of the libertine ? He might not be utterly lost to her — he might come back to her, some day, if the chances of war should spare him, and be

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 333

nearly the same. But he could never be more than " nearly ;" for when once a serious flaw begins to exhibit itself in our idol, though we may love it still, we can never worship it more.

It was a sleepless night for Mary Haviland, that followed this revelation ; and in the silence of the dark hours, hugging up to her bosom the child that had no longer slept in its little crib since its father's departure, she rained tears on its uncon scious face, and kissed it, and thought whether some day in the near future, that would not be all that she could claim as a reminder of the by-gone happy days ! And it was on the morning after that night, of all the mornings' of her whole life, that Kate Haviland visited her and marked her heavy eyes and her furtive glances at the window. If the young girl could only have known the fact, those glances at the window were the truest tests of her agonized love for her husband ; for she was listening — listening — listening yet, for the ringing of the bell by the post-man, who might bring her a letter to disprove all her suspicions and quiet all her fears ; looking — looking — looking yet, to see him coming up the street and bringing some word of comfort for her lonely heart.

Suppose that at this stage of the narrative, keeping in mind the story of the "three black crows" ejected from his stomach by the unfortunate subject, — we " boil down" the story of the Zouave dropping from the window, and ascertain what truth there really was in the report. The task is a very brief one. During the visit of the " pleasant neighbor's" re lative to Alexandria, such a circumstance had really occurred. There were a considerable number of women of loose char acter in the town, a part of them brought down by a Maine regiment that should have been Puritanic enough to know better. Some of them had been abandoned there or left the command of their own will when the regiment marched away. On the night in question two or three of the uproarious fe males were really committed to that upper room in the old house, and locked up as well as put under guard. During the night one of the Zouaves managed to elude the sentinel and climb in at the window, cat-like, just as he had often be4 fore done when intent on saving life or property at a fire.

834 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

After a time he came out again, by the same substitute for a door, but was careless as well as a little tipsy, missed his foot ing and tumbled down into the yard below. The sentry fired as before stated, the other guards came up, and the blending of Leander and Sam Patch was taken away and put under lock. So far the story had really been told to the "pleasant neighbor" by her returned relative. But what had all this to do with Burtnett Haviland, and how did his name happen to be involved ? Simply thus. One of the sentries who came up and arrested the midnight prowler, was the husband of Mary Haviland, and the narrator mentioned the circumstance of his being an acquaintance of both. Whether the "pleas ant neighbor" really managed to get the names confused into the wrong relation, or whether she- understood the fact all the while and merely thought that the story would sound better by making that slight inversion, is a question not easy to de cide. She told it as before described, with the result indi cated ; and whether she blundered or plunged wilfully into the lie, is something which she, not we, may have occasion to settle hereafter.

Meanwhile, the poison will not be found without its anti dote, if the first ten readers will take the lesson of this inci dent and be somewhat more careful of the exactness of the next relation made by each, that can in any way affect the character of others.

If Kate Haviland left the little house on Forty-eighth Street, that day, with her opinion of her cousin's wife sadly deteriorated, she was destined not to reach her own home before the depreciation should be much more signal and un qualified. It so happened that at the moment when she quitted the house, Sarah Sanderson, having disposed of the breakfast-dishes and put the kitchen into the requisite order, was about sallying out, basket on arm, to make some family purchases at the grocery at the corner. She came down the stoop very close behind the young teacher, and quickening her steps a little, came up to her before she had half measured the distance between the house and the Third Avenue. The two girls, as will be remembered, had been born very nearly together, and though not moving in precisely the same.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 335

rank in society, were necessarily well acquainted. As they joined company that morning, a few words of conversation were inevitable. These were commonplaces, until Kate, mil of the thoug-ht of her cousin, felt constrained to say :

" Sarah, Mrs. Haviland says that there has no picture gone off the mantel since I came to the city."

Sarah, who well remembered the previous conversation, felt it necessary to back up what she had said on that occa sion, and threw up her own unoccupied hand in holy horror, as she exclaimed :

" Oh ! — what — a — story !"

" I thought so !" said Kate, sententiously. " But you need not tell Mrs. Haviland that I asked any thing about it. I suppose she knows her own business."

Something in the young girl's tone told the servant that she was displeased with Mary Haviland ; and that restless devil of hate to the wife of the man she loved, lately called into renewed life by the wrongs she was inflicting upon that wife, suggested that this must be the proper period to speak a truth to her prejudice.

" Mrs. Haviland ought to know her own business," said the flaxen-haired little wretch. " But if you had seen all that / have, Miss Kate, maybe you would not think she did !"

Xow if there was any thing in the world that Kate Haviland hated and despised, it was prying into family business through servants ; and at almost any other time, had she been so addressed by Sarah, she would have closed the conversation by the curt : " Mind your own concerns, and don't meddle with those of your mistress !" but just then she was puzzled and worried. Eve has left in all the descendants of her own sex (as well as a few of the other) proof that she ate the apple not because .she coveted or needed it, but from curiosity to know how such a thing as a golden pippin might taste ; and the desire to gain at least some clue to the matter that was evidently wrong in her cousin's family, made the present temp tation too strong for the teacher. She did not rebuff the ten derer of illicit information, but rather encouraged as well as piqued her with :

" Ah ? and what have you seen, I' should like to know ?"

33 3 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

" I seen " (the writer is not responsible for Miss Sarah Sanderson's grammar, any more than for the peculiar lingual gymnastics of some of the other characters embodied in this .story) — " I seen Mr. Holt, the merchant that brings her the money, have Mrs. Haviland in his arms the other night, hug- gin' and kissin' her."

" Sarah Sanderson, you are telling me a lie !" said the young girl, turning suddenly upon her.

For one instant the eyes of the servant blazed with rage, then they softened, and she said, looking the teacher steadily in the face :

" I hope I may die this minute, if he didn't, and if I didn't see it with my own eyes I"

" You dare swear to that ?" asked Kate Haviland, shocked and yet half convinced.

" I do swear to it, now !" said the girl, "and may I never live to see to-morrow if it is not the truth !" The reader knows that she wan telling the truth, or at least something very nearly approaching to it; though there has not before been occasion to reveal the fact that Sarah Sanderson, on the night before the merchant's departure for Europe, was keeping a close watch through the door between the two rooms, and that the merchant was not sufficiently prudent in the location of his demonstrations to prevent her seeing the most import ant event that occurred.

This blow, coming so close upon the others, somewhat staggered the teacher, and made her almost as blind in the eyes and dizzy in the head as she had been a few weeks be fore when confronted by her own shame and Xed Minthorne. It would have needed but little more to make her totter in the street — twenty years older, and under the same pressure of feeling, she would have done so.

" Lost ! lost ! oh, poor Burtey !" washer mental comment. But her lips syllabled something different, and that was :

" Sarah Sanderson, if you are telling me the truth, you have been doing right in telling it to me, because I am a rel ative ; but if you ever say as much to any one else, even to Mr. II -iv i I and when he comes back, without my permission, yon will be doing very wrong and no one can tell what injury

T HE DAYS O F R II O I) !» V . P,3 ,

you may cause. If you have been telling a falsehood, with that oath — well, you will get roasted some time, that is all !"

" Humph ! I don't care if you never believe me !" was the model servant-girl's reply, as having reached her destination at the corner grocery, she flung away into it with her basket, not over-well satisfied with herself, while bonnie Kate, to escape the hot sunshine of the June meridian, took one of the cars just passing, and was jolted, jerked and pounded along down the Avenue to Twenty-third street.

Sarah Sanderson would have been somewhat better satis fied than she really was when she stepped into the grocery at the corner, could she have known the impression really made by her words. The information tallied, though shame fully, with all the circumstances that had preceded it, and Kate Haviland believed so much of the story that she would almost have given her right hand for the privilege of dis crediting it. Her actual concern at the apparent heart- lessness of Mary and her shame at belonging to the same sex that could deceive under such a guise of angels of light, found an odd blending with the reserved merriment of her own character, just as she stepped from the car at Twenty-third street and tripped along towards what she sometimes men tally designated as the Fullerton " menagerie," with herself the Amazon Queen and trainer of the animals, in the characteristic remark, not more than half muttered :

" I wish to gracious I was not a woman ! I shall trick somebody one of these days, I know I shall ! No — I don't wish any thing of the kind, though ; for if I was a man I should never know what to do with my bjg hands, and a pretty figure I should cut with a crop of sedge-grass growing oa my chin — ough !"

21

CHAPTER XVII.

MORE OF KATE HAVTLAND — HER BTCSC.EST AND MOST IM PORTANT PUPIL — NED MINTHORNE IN A NEW CHARACTER — TOBACCO-SMOKE AND IMPUDENCE IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM — A NEW THEORY IN NATURAL HlSTORY — HOW THE MILLION AIRE INSPECTED THE COMMON PEOPLE, YOU KNOW KATE

HAVILAND MAKING ANOTHER DISCOVERY AND EXECUTING A "WAR-DANCE.

Miss KATY had thrown off the worst of her depression, and concluded to live and be as happy as possible, in spite of all the wickedness that she supposed to exist in the world, . — at about the time she reached the house so flatteringly designated in the previous chapter, tripped up to her cham ber and disrobed herself of her walking attire, preparatory to entering the ;< cage" with her "animals."

When she did so, or in other words descended to the school-room in which she by that time expected to find her pupils, she found only one bearing that relation, and that one was altogether of an odd sex and style to come under the tuition of a young lady, though a good many inconsiderate persons, holding the same relative position, have first or last put themselves under the same perilous influence. In short, Kate Haviland's single pupil was of the male sex, approach ing six feet high, and looking old enough to have mastered nearly all the rudiments of ordinary education.

He sat at her desk, or perhaps it may be more correctly stated that he sat on it, as though a portion of his person rested on the arm chair in which the daimy figure of the young girl generally reposed when she was throned in her full authority, he leaned back so far that at least half his length, including all his legs, was sprawled upon the desk, his 338

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

patent-leathers just cosily perched between the ink-stand and the pot of mucilage, and his stupendous width of trowsers (thru an innovation, now an almost exploded antiquity) literally covering the whole of the green cloth of which the top of the article of school-furniture was composed. The 'trowsers aforesaid, as well as the coat that surmounted them and the vest which formed an isthmus between the two con tinents of clothing, was of a very light creamy gray, the nearest possible approach to white without being it ; the hat which surmounted his head was of the same color, round and low in the crown and narrow in the brim, reminding the observer something of an inverted soup-plate applied to im proper uses (such hats have since that time become common, but never " proper," although dignified by the name of "tourist"); the neck-tie which confined his garotte was of the richest and bloomiest cherry-color, and the kid-gloves covering his well-shaped hands were the nearest approach that could be found at Stewart's, to the same tropical hue. A switch malacca cane, with the counterfeit presentment of a woman's bent leg as the head, lay across his lap; and all this, and the book which the student seemed to be attentively perusing, was to be seen through a halo of tobacco-smoke emanating from a cigar of the Emperor brand, not less than eight inches in length and good for a cost of two hundred and fif'iy dollars the , thousand, which reposed in a state of blissful conflagration between his lips.

This was Kate's pupil, by name Ned Mint home ; and she must have lost something of the awe with which he had inspired her on that eventful morning^e^'their first meeting, for her first act on taking in the whpl£/aspect of the man and his surroundings, was to forget all that had oppressed her during the morning, to literally double up with merriment until she leaned against the door frame for support, and to laugh one of those loud, clear, ringing, girlish laughs which the hackneyed woman of the world would give half the charms she has rnanageii to preserve, — to be able to throw out once more. One of those peals which combine the exquisite melody of the human voice with the trill of a black-bird singing in the alders by some brook-side early in spring.

310 THE DAYS OF S II 0 D 1) Y.

One of those embodiments of mirth and melody for which we might have been puzzled to find a fitting comparison, had Adelina Patti, the little red-bird of song, never rippled out "Una voce," " Batti batti," i"E d'amai-mi," — or her rival sister Carlotta never trilled that " Laughing Song" which even makes us forget bird-music.

Ned Minthorne, millionaire and noodle, rather seemed to enjoy the laugh than otherwise, when it had made him fully aware of the presence of the young girl. He dropped his book a little lower, but neither put it down altogether nor took down his feet from the desk, as he said :

" Oh, you are there, are you — you know ! Come here ! — • I want to talk to you !"

" Bah ! you wretch, spoiling my room and making me sick the whole day with your tobacco-smoke ! I wish they would take you men and use you for chimneys when they build houses, so that you could become avenues for smoke to join- heart's content !" was the emphatic response to this modest demand.

" Ha ha ! he he!1' laughed the millionaire, with such an expression of idiocy that it was really pitiable. " Not a bad idea, by gracious! I'll ask Trimble, when he builds my next block of houses, if he can't put in half-a-dozen fellows I know — you know."

" Ned Minthorne — stop that !" was the reply to this speech. What the lady meant, may be something of a mystery to us, but it did not seem to be to the object of the command, for the expression of his face changed instantly ; and, strangely enough, he did not seem to feel that his dignity was outraged by that simple girl, without wealth or position, and nothing but a school-teacher, addressing him in that reprehensibly familiar manner. There is reason to believe that had either the dignified Mrs. Fullerton or her exigeant daughter over heard that style of address, however, there would have been stormy weather in and about that latitude, very shortly after wards.

Not yet did the millionaire noodle make any movement to take down his feet from the desk. He seemed, in fact, to be quite as much at ease in that position when the young mis-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 341

tress of the room was present, as he had been when alone. He merely held out his hand — that hand so burthened with the immense seal-ring — and said, again :

" Come here."

The young girl crossed. the room and held out her hand. He took it in his, lifted it to his lips with a gesture of courtly grace that would have sat well upon him if he had not been a fool, and pressed his lips to the fingers that were yet rosy with the flush of her morning's exercise. The movement did not seem to be at all repulsive to the young girl, even if it had riot been expected, for the hand rested in that of the millionaire a moment even after he had lowered it from his lips.

" Slop," said Kate. " Where are they ?"

" They — ah — the rhinoceros and the young filly are both gone out with the cub, and not back yet," was the zoological response to this very enigmatical question.

" For shame !" said the teacher.

" Well, I am ashamed — see me blush !" said the pupil.

" Back of your ears, so that nobody can see it !" was the response.

" How very well you are looking this morning !" said the millionaire. "Now that I see you closer, you are almost handsome."

"Am I ?" answered the young girl, with a pout on her lip, real or assumed. " Well, you are not ! You look like every thing that is dreadful, in that new suit. It is new, isn't it ? Get off my desk, and come out here \vhere I can have a fair look at all that cream-color and red."

And before the millionaire could quite conjecture what she was about to do, the teacher caught him by the shoulder, seizing the chair at the same time, and gave him such a whirl that the extensive legs, trowsers and all, came off the desk in double-quick time, and the owner had occasion for quite all his gymnastic experience to prevent his measuring his length upon the floor. He proved equal to the occasion, however, and landed safely upon his feet ill the middle of the room, concluding the performance by one of those appeals for ap plause so commonly made by prima donne and premieres

34:2 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

danseuses at the theatres. Though not much used to the habits of those places of amusement, the young girl under stood the gesture and patted applause with her little hands, the compliment being received with a low bow and the lead ing performer thereafter remaining erect.

"And you don't like it, eh ?" was the inquiry of the ill-used individual, when he had finally reached the perpendicular.

"As a means of using up a good deal of cloth and hiding away the man so that no one can find him, the thing is rather a success," said the young girl, " but as a suit of clothes — no, I don't like it in the least,"

" Expect to see me in black, then, to-morrow," said the pupil, " and that black fitting me a little closer than my skin. Will that suit ? — I mean, will that suit suit ?"

"Don't be a ninny!" was all the reply, which certainly seemed an 'in appropriate one, as addressed to a man who had been recognized as a fool from the moment of his entrance into society.

" Where have you been ?" asked the millionaire, in the most matter-of-fact tone in the world, and precisely as if he thought that he had a right to ask the question, — dropping into a chair at the same time.

"None of your business, impudence!" was the reply. "And yet I don't care if I tell you. I have been visiting at the house of a man whose wife has forgotten him in a little more than a month of absence. What do you think of that ?"

"A month is a long time — you know," drawled the mil lionaire — the first drawl he had vented in a considerable pe riod, it will be observed, — and indulged in apparently more as a matter of habit than from any natural proclivity to that mode of utterance.

" Stop !" said the young girl, holding up her finger with a gesture of mock threatening.

" What a little tyrant you are !" said the millionaire, with out the least drawl whatever.

" I mean to be worse," said the teacher, "if you keep in truding on my school-room and disarranging every thing. And there is your book on the iloor. What were you read ing ?"

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 343

" See !" answered the millionaire, picking up the book and handing it to her.

"Natural History, upon my word ! Who would have be lieved that you could peruse any thing so practical ?" com inented the lady.

" I ? oh, I am very practical," said the millionaire. "But by the way, your book is not extensive enough — does not go deep enough into the relations of the different classes of birds. Did it ever strike you that the mosquito is lineally descended from the crane or the blue heron — some one of those long- legged birds that they used to fly their falcons at ? Scare your mosquito a little, after he is gorged, as I did one a little while ago, and he rises just as the heron used to do when he sa\v the falcon coming — his long legs dangling behind him in the same manner ; and I am going to look over my Buffon and my Cuvier, to-morrow, to see whether either of those old jokers recognized the resemblance."

" Will you ever get done with that nonsense ?" was the re ply to all this.

" If that is nonsense, I would like to know where your wisdom is to be found !" said the amateur naturalist. " Oh, I suppose you expect to find that in another description of bird — the owl — the totem of school-mistresses."

" As the jack-daw is of lazy fellows with fine clothes !" shot back the teacher.

" Good — very good ! you will be almost witty, by-and-bye !" was the encouraging reply, the male hands patting applause in their turn.

" Hark !" said the young girl.

" Yes, I hear," said the millionaire. "The caravan is nr- riving. I, will run down to the parlor — you know. Day-day !" and he held out his hand once more for that of the young girl, who responded to the gesture and allowed him to kiss her fingers with the same courtly manner as before, though she replied to his farewell with a rather equivocal com pliment :

" Day-day, you goose I"

Ned Miuthorue left the room and took his way to the parlor on the floor below, awaiting the coming in of his ex-

O -i-i THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

pectant mother-in-law and his still more expectant bride ; and when those important personages finally disembarked and reached that place of family resort, they found the young man playing a medley of airs on the piano there, in which " Old Hundred," the " Last Rose of Summer" and " I'll Bet my Money on the Bob-tailed Hoss" seemed to be blended about as oddly as ideas were generally supposed to be in his queerly-constituted brain.

4 Kate Haviland walked the floor in silence and evidently in thought, after the millionaire had left the room. She had been merry and almost merry-mad in his presence: a very diil'ercnt mood appeared to possess her at that moment. And yet the expression on her face did not seem to be actually one of trouble — it w,as more like deep and absorbed feeling, with a little wonder and newness (so to speak) blended with the other mental ingredients.

Of all the odd things that could have been imagined, possi bly the oddest was to find the proud, vacuous ninny million aire a habitue of Kate Haviland's school-room and so much at home there that both he and the gay young girl could take liberties in speech that are not likely to be taken except by the most intimate acquaintances. And it might have been supposed that such an intimacy could not exist in the house of Mrs. Fullerton. And yet it did so, not only with the knowledge of that good lady, but of her daughter. Xo one but a recognized fool could have been permitted to form the same intimacy, within the walls of that house, and yet re tained his relations with mother and daughter — that fact is beyond question. But every reader knows that among all savage nations the half-witted are held sacred and permitted to do many things from which ordinary mortals are debarred. There had been a "flare-up," as we have seen, when Ned Minthorne first mentioned having met Kate Haviland upon the stairs; but afterwards, when he one day requested Miss Dora to "take him to the school-room and let him see how they managed that sort of thing — you know," she graciously accorded the privilege, without the slightest' idea that he had ever before been inside the walls of that room. And when he afterwards took a fancy to stroll in and see the children

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 8-15

study, without her company, and she chose to say something ill-natured about it, he quite disarmed her by saying that "a fellow ought to learn something about sueh things as the nursery and the school-room and all that sort of thing — you know, because he might some day have such things of his own." Dora. Fullcrton meant that he should at least entor upon wedlock, that recognized preliminary to the filling of educational halls ; and her blush and simper, accompanied by a slap of the hand intended to be playful, gave the millionaire thereafter the entree to the school-room. And if for a mo ment mother or daughter could have believed that any dan ger was possible from such visits, they would both have been quite re-assured by the air with which he informed them, on his second or third visit, that " it was really devilish refresh ing — that is, funny, you know — to see those common people doing things — he had not been used to that sort of people — you know." Thus was repaired every breach in the social wall, and all anxiety was dismissed.

The millionare oddity had strolled into and out of the school-room, sometimes when lie came to the house. and found the family absent — sometimes when Dora gave evi dence of being bored with him and virtually gave him per mission to " go away " He generally, in fact always, when either Myra or Mildred was present, sat silently studying the sublime mysteries of teaching, or dawdling with a book. There could not be any harm in that — could there ? Rea sonable people would be likely to think not ! And as both writer and reader are supposed to be reasonable people, the one has no hesitation in assuring the other that so far as he knows, no harm whatever resulted. If the millionaire and the school-teacher at this stage addressed each other some what familiarly and seemed to have a good understanding, the fact only proved that America was growing to be more truly a republic than before ; and if the millionaire was a little more careful of his language in the young girl's presence than when otherwise confronted, what did that prove except that the school-room had been found a profitable place of study even for the noodle ?

But here this theme must be dismissed, as to Mr. Ned

34(3 T,H E DAYS OF SHODDY.

Minthorne ; though Kate llaviland does not yet disappear from view.

After her promenade which followed the departure of Minthorne, the young girl, still apparently absorbed in thought, sat down at her desk, leaned her head upon her hand, and closed her eyes, waiting the coming of the chil dren, who would, as she supposed, be sent in by their mother (to get them out of the way) the moment their hats and street-dresses were removed.

She had no need to wait long, for one of her pupils, at least. A trampling like that of a couple of race-horses was heard in the little chamber adjoining the school-room, used by Mrs. Fullerton as a wardrobe ; and through it the two children dashed from their own, opening the door so vio lently as to threaten the integrity of the latch, and plunging in as if learning was the sweetest morsel in the world and they had beea kept in a state of starvation from want of it. Miss Myra preceded, bearing in her arms one of the drawers of Mrs. Fullerton's private bureau, which she had unfortu nately found unlocked and partially open as she came through the room, a heap of finery of every description, blended with small packages wrapped in paper, and a mis cellaneous jumble of almost every thing that a careless woman would throw into some spot of which she always kept the key, showing in charming profusion from the top of the drawer. Behind her came Miss Mildred, who had paused in the clothes-room long enough to array herself in a silk apron, a mantilla and a costly veil belonging to Dora, the very sight of which in such use would have driven that young person of weak nerves very nearly into hysterics. It was evident, at a glance, that neither of the children had sup posed the teacher to be within the school-room, and that they had made up their vigorous minds for a spree among Ma's and Dora's finery, with that room as a capital place for its display.

The sight of the teacher1 sitting at the desk somewhat took the two young ladies aback, and they paused suddenly, just within the door — very suddenly, in fact. The stoppage was the more violent, without doubt, from the energetic exclama-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 347

tion of Kate : " What have you been doing, you young monkeys !" and aware that, discovered, they would at once be obliged to disgorge their plunder, they turned to retrace their steps. But they had come in very violently ; Mildred, behind, ran upon Myra iu front ; the drawer that the latter carried was nearly as large as herself and altogether too bulky for safe holding in small hands ; and the result of all this was that the foot of Mildred caught in her long mantilla, she fell against Myra, and the two children and the drawer went down in a heap aud with a crash, about half the articles in the drawer aforesaid temporarily emancipating themselves from confinement and flying out upon the carpet.

The children scrambled to their feet pretty rapidly ; and at the word of command from the teacher : " Pick up every one of those things, and put them back where they belong, instantly 1" accompanied by an energetic stamp of the foot, • — Myra scrambled up all the articles that she saw, thrust them back into the drawer, and the two disappeared through the door about as rapidly as they had first made their ap pearance.

" What a beautiful row there would be before many hours, if I should allow the two seraphs to play all the finery into ribbons !"' said the young girl to herself; and just then chancing to cast her eyes on the floor behind one of the chairs near the door, she discovered that quite a number of small articles of the finery had fallen at that distance and not been seen by the child in picking up the contents of the drawer. She was on the point of calling Myra back and enforcing discipline by making^her pick up the remainder, but finally concluded to perfo*rm the office herself, take the lost articles into the room and see that the drawer was properly restored to its place and the clothing hung where it belonged.

A pair of gloves, a roll of ribbon, an India fan and two pieces of paper were the articles which had managed to get behind the chair, and which the young school-teacher thus rescued. Both the papers were of the dimensions of a full sheet of foolscap paper folded four times into the shape of a document for filing or sending by letter. Neither had any indorsement on the back ; aud the teacher would probably

34:3 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

have carried them at once into the room and disposed of them, had not the singularity of color of the one attracted her attention. It was very yellow and seemed so old that she fancied it might be some document connected with the early history of the family — perhaps even as far back as the time of the Revolution, when the Brixtones might have had something to do with Sumter or Marion — with Entaw or King's Mountain. The young girl did not know how rapidly paper sometimes musts and yellows when shut away from light and air, and how a document that has only seen a quar ter of a century may put on the semblance of four times that age. Believing that it must be very old, and having a very big bump of reverence for every thing of the antique, hidden away somewhere under the chestnut hair — she took the lib erty of just opening that yellow paper before returning the articles to the room where they belonged, and saw — what ? It is not the province of this narration to say precisely what, at the present moment. Something that at first interested her by its novelty, because she had never before seen a paper of the kind ; then something that struck her by a similarity of names and made her start as if a small bomb-shell had burst iu one corner of the apartment. She looked again at the paper — rubbed her eyes — muttered over a name or two as if in surprise and some doubt — then read the paper all over again, stuck it into that inevitable pocket, and sat down at her desk.

Two or three minutes of uninterrupted meditation, with her head between both hands, and then the young- girl raised it with such a shake as almost sent the chestnut hair flying loose down her shoulders, sprang to her feet with the not- over-iutelligible exclamation: "It must be so! — it is so ! A pretty party, you are ! Hurrah for Jiickson !" and then and thereupon went into a saltatory movement about the room, which might have been a Avaltz if she had only found a part ner, but which really seemed to be accompanied by such sup pressed convulsions of laughter, such writhings and contor tions of delight, and such un-christian movements 'generally, as to suggest the war-dance of a very athletic young Indiau just after he has taken the scalp of his hereditary enemy.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 349

The teacher had certainly made a strange discovery, the full amount and purport of which' will soon be under stood — unearthed a secret which had lain buried, not for a hundred years, but for many more than all those numbered in her own life. A secret, the knowledge of which might exer-% else an untold influence upon her own fortunes and those of others. And all this by a mere accident! No ! — let the word be substituted by that better word, providence, and then let the wonder 'cease.

There are no "accidents," really, though we, pretending to be a Christian people, delight in so expressing ourselves as to deny the existence of a God capable of exercising an over sight upon a human life, oftener than once in a twelvemonth. The fact is that he exercises it continually, in every instant of 'that human life, or not at all ! It was no accident, the other day, which sent half a dozen steam-tugs in to a certain pier at the same time, all ready to steam out again at an in stant's warning and save the lives perilled by one huge steamer making her course between the two severed ends of another. Others than the architect of St. Peter's and the spiller of ink over bad manuscript, "build better than they know," not only in the tragic but the comic. It was not even accident, but a sense of fitness weighing upon her, of which she was entirely unconscious, which induced a sleepy young lady coming home late from the Japanese Ball, to hang her " order of dancing" of that great event, on the umbrella of Aminadab Sleek, in Karl Mailer's statuette of that Burto- nian character, occupying one end of the mantel. It belonged iu that place, by the inevitable fitness of things, and would have been wasted anywhere else.

And there is no wonder, even if a singularity, in the late discovery of that which has long remained hidden. The eye sees what it needs to see, at once : all that remains it after wards takes in by degrees if at all. Very often it goes to the end without discovering half which really lies in the possibility of sight. Only last summer, at Niagara, a habitue who had made that popular resort his " stamping-ground" every summer for twenty years, came in to dinner one day,, big with the discovery of a tree of gigantic proportions and

350 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

great beauty, that he had never seen before, on that very limited continent, Goat Island.

Going up the Hudson a dozen years ago, the writer was in the pilot-house of the steamer with an old North River pilot ^who had passed up and down the river nearly every day for thirty years. Just above West Point, on that occasion, ho looked off to the west bank and said: "By George," [or some other name] ".there is a house I never saw before !" The writer looked, and saw a little old brown house, close down to the bank, that had certainly been built not less than half a century, and signified to the pilot that he must have seen it before, during some one of his ten thousand passages up and down. "No," said the pilot, in such a tone and with such a manner that he left no doubt of the correctness of his allega tion — " of course the house has stood there all the while, but I tell you that I have never happened to see it till this mo ment." Did the writer still doubt the correctness of the pilot's memory ? If he did at that time, he has ceased to doubt, in the light of added experience. For behind him, as lie writes, hanirs a framed copv of that marvellous etchin^

i •. O

from Moritz Retzsch, the " Game of Life," in which the young man is playing at chess with the devil for his own soul. He has had the picture in possession for nearly or quite twenty years, and made it a habitual study, and yet less than a year has elapsed since he one day found a spider crawling over the edge of the tomb-stone on which the com batants have set their chess-board. Since then, the spider has been one of the most conspicuous objects in the picture ; and as the suggestion of little Brown Eyes cannot be received as conclusive — that the spider had been all that while crawl ing up from the sculptures on the side of the tomb below, and only made his appearance at that time, — it only remains to suppose that it must have been there all the while, but that the eye had only then recognized that feature in the de tail.

So much for the discovery of things long hidden, and the accidental or providential character of the modes employed in their revelation. Enough, in addition, on the events of that day, to sa3r that after a time the young girl concluded her

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 351

" war-dance" and calmed herself sufficiently to. fulfil her duties. Not all her duties, perhaps, — for she retained that old yellow paper in her own possession, when she carried in the remainder and added them to the heterogenous collection in the drawer. And something more than her duties, per- ( haps, — as before she slept that night she wrote and forwarded a letter to Burtnett Haviland, in which the reader would have been puzzled to trace any of the merriment shown in her former epistle.

CHAPTER XYIII.

THE FIRE ZOUAVES AT SHOOTER'S HILT, — COLONEL FARNITAM — CAMP LIFE AND EQUESTRIANISM EXTRAORDINARY — MAJOR C. AS JOHN GILPIN — CAPTAIN JACK'S COMPANY AT ALEX ANDRIA — WHISKEY, DARKEY SENTINELS, PUGILISM AND DRY STRAW — CAPTAIN BOB'S POCKET-FULL — A WORD MORE OF BURTNETT HAVILAND.

THE Fire Zouaves held Shooter's Hill, two miles south west of Alexandria, between the Fairfax •and Leesburg roads, and commanding views of both through the few scrubby trees that fringed it, while the towering bulk of the Fairfax Seminary could be seen a few miles further to the south west, and beyond it the great road stretched Jjjvay towards Fairfax Court-House. They were building Fort Ellsworth there ; and there, as has before been said, occurred most of their experiences and exploits in camp life.

Lieutenant-Colonel Xoah L. Farnham, so suddenly become Colonel of the Regiment by the death of Colonel Ellsworth, did not go mad when suddenly left in the streets of Alexan dria with that horde of half-disciplined and impracticable men ; and afterwards, when the same unfortunate officer was lying in the hospital, after Bull Run, suffering and slowly dying with the terrible wound in his head received in that

THE DAYS OF S II 0 D D Y .

battle, and the debility arising from earlier and neglected in juries, — he made his preservation of reason on that occasion the test of his general power to retain it, in an exclamation not easily to be forgotten.

" They tell me you have been out of your head, Colonel," said one of the other officers, coming in to see him as he lay writhing on his pallet of suffering.

" Do they ?" said the Colonel, grimly. " They lie, then — that is all ! If I did not go crazy at the moment when Ellsworth left me in the streets of Alexandria, with that lot of fellows and no idea what under heaven to do with them — • why, there is not pain and suffering enough in the world to drive me crazy : you may bet on that !"

Colonel Farnham, known among his familiars as " Pony," from his short stature and compact figure, was the very in carnation of a soldier, by nature ; and under other circum stances than those in which he chanced J:o be placed, he would unquestionably have illustrated the service. The little man, with his thin face, high check-bones, dark hair and eyes and poor pretence at beard in a thin goatee, had been a capital gymnast when resident in the great city and a " fire-laddie" ; and when a member and officer of the Seventh, with which he marched away, he had spent many of his hours in the bunk-room, reading military books and planning oper ations in that active service which he then little expected to enter, — while his associates were finding other and more congenial employment. It is just possible that, placed origi nally in command of the Fire Zouaves and given time to dis cipline them before they were thrown into service, he might really have made the general dream of their capabilities a reality and left a proud record of the regiment to be read in the future.

But this is mere speculation. Enough to know that if any man ever had his " hands full" of any body of men, the new Colonel was placed in that position immediately after the fall of Ellsworth. And no man who was a member of the com mand will be likely to forget the two days in Alexandria following that event, with the body of the Zouavoe drunk and unmanageable, the town threatened with fire in an hundred

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 353 '

places from tlieir revengeful hands, theft frequent and rapine not beyond very rational fear. All day and all night, on both those days, the few remaining true to discipline, with the Michigan troops, were busied in hunting out the skulkers and returning them to their commands; and when on the Monday following the death of Ellsworth the regiment finally left their quarters at the Railroad Depot and marched to take position at Shooter's Hill, it is a matter of question Avhether the people of the old " secesh" town, no longer afraid of their very lives, or the Colonel, with his command once more gathered into something approaching discipline, felt the more grateful for the order dictating the movement.

One company, that of Captain Jack, with Burtnett Havi- land'yet in the ranks, found different employment from the rest of the regiment, in guarding the government warehouses skirting the river at Alexandria, a duty for which their better discipline and greater steadiness made them available. With them we shall have occasion to deal presently : our imme diate view is to be taken of the body of the regiment and the builders of Fort Ellsworth.

They were a merry body of fellows, beyond a question, and when away from temptation they behaved like men and soldiers. Fort Ellsworth sprang up quite as rapidly, in comparison, under their active hands and ready spades, as the extensive lines of fortifications opposite Washington were growing under those of the Sixty-ninth and the other regi ments of New York State Militia. They were happy, con tented, even jolly. If they were ill-fed, they fared no worse in that particular than any other regiment in the service ; and if the soldiers of some of the regiments were damaged in comfort and actually suffering in health from the miserable quality of the shoddy clothing and blankets furnished them, the Zouaves had not the same cause of complaint. In fact, long before most of the regiments had any hope of seeing the Quartermaster with requisitions for new clothing, they had shed their shabby gray and appeared in the blue Zouave pants arid jacket, with red shirt, in which (or a part of which) they afterwards went into their first and last battle.

The fire-boys were fire-boys still, at Shooter's Hill as they 22

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

had been in their native city. Not one but expected to return, some day, and connect himself with his favorite machine ; not one but could and would tell the same stories of the night when the old wall on Broadway fell over and buried an engineer and half of Fifteen's fellows, or the time when Forty-eight got fast in a snow-bank, at the corner of Broorne and Mercer, and let Forty-nine pass her,— that they had been in the habit,of telling before war came upon the land. Not one but could " bet his life" when occasion required, on the honor of a friend or the capacity of an engine ; and scarcely one but was both ready and willing to give the most trusty of his comrades what he graphically designated as a " mash in the jaw" when he " came foo-foo-ing around" with some story that did not please. The musket was only a temp'orary substitute for the trumpet, the brake and the spanner; and not even Farnham could make the boys soldiers instead of firemen.

One ambition spread a little among the officers, meanwhile — that was peculiarly soldierly. That was the desire to learn to ride. It is well known that not one man in ten, at the North, is sufficiently at home in the saddle to be able to make a good dragoon ; and not one in fifty is capable of riding with sufficient grace to escape unpleasant attention among profes sional riders. Of the Fire Zouaves, in gross, perhaps the scale of equestrian power was almost as low as it would have been found among the same number of old salts who had spent half their lives at sea. But the Virginians rode well as well as rode capital horses — that every man in the regi ment could see, whether looking at them as they casually passed, or through the spectacles of an enemy. To the rank and file, this made very little difference ; but some of the officers were more ambitious. Suppose some of the line should rise to the dignity of field officers or be placed upon the staff! — and suppose some of the field should have occa sion to be almost constantly in the saddle ! Such things were not inevitable, of course, but they were quite as likely as that the female daughter of the house of Toodle should marry a man with the name of Thompson. Therefore — said both field and line officers — we will perfect ourselves in riding,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 355

while there is an opportunity. They did so, to a great ex tent ; and it is to be believed that no spot on the earth's surface ever saw such specimens of equitation as some of the Virginia roads surrounding the camp, when leisure allowed and horses were supplied by the " accident" of a " secesh" Virginian tumbling off his steed and forgetting to get up and mount him again !

Captain , of Company , could tell us a good

story, if he only would, how he longed, nay, yearned for a horse of splendid proportions and gallant mettle, with the which he would at once perfect his equestrian education and astonish the whole camp with the knightly grace and firmness of seat which might have belonged to one of the old Paladins • — how one day a steed, coal black and glossy, from which his rebel owner had just accidentally* tumbled off, was brought in to him and tendered for his coveted exercise — how the horse neighed, curveted, and did many other acts and things calcu lated to allure him to a seat in the saddle — how his orderly, just before he essayed to mount, tendered him a pair of spurs, of the which he felt a trifle shy, but the which he did not dare refuse, owing to the many who stood around to witness the first mounting of the neophyte — how the orderly then and thereupon buckled on the spurs aforesaid, of which the rowels seemed to the expectant rider of about a foot in length each — how he mounted, with the assistance of the orderly at the horse's head — how the horse playfully shied the moment after, throwing him violently to one side, upon which one of the spur rowels entered the horse aforesaid about twelve inches — how he dismounted over the horse's head, the next instant, somewhat in a confused condition, without any assistance from the orderly whatever — how the horse turned around and nosed him, when he lay half stunned and alto gether discomfited upon the ground, with motions and ges tures which said quite as plainly as words : " Poor devil ! What did you fall off for ?" — and how he did not ride any more, at that juncture, on Virginian horses and with spurs.

But Captain will not tell the story, and he must even

be content with its relation, the name suppressed, by one

356 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

who could have tumbled off, under like circumstances, a little more heavily than himself.

Major C (there was only one Major in .the regiment,

and so any attempt to disguise his personality must be futile) had a more extensive experience, arid in some senses it may be said a more unpleasant one. To say that the Major rode very badly might be a libel : to say that he rode very well would be a still more culpable perversion of truth. He practised much, and certainly improved, though he did not achieve that thickening of the cuticle which could render him, after a few miles' ride, free from sensations best known to unpractised riders who go up from the Crawford House to the top of Mount Washington and back again the same day. Of the epidermis of such people, under peculiarly unfor tunate circumstances it may be said that it is " neither here nor there." Of that of the Major, after his equestrian practice of a particular day, very nearly the same might be said without exaggeration.

Not many days after the occupation of Shooter's Hill and the commencement of the fortification there, a detachment of two companies was thrown out to Cloud's Mills, on the Fair fax Road, with pickets lying a mile beyond. This brought the Zouaves into the immediate vicinity of the rebels, so that firing between the pickets began to be prevalent, and the ut most vigilance became necessary. One scalding day in June, when walking was a labor and riding a torture, the Major rode out to Cloud's Mills, and aftenvai'ds to the full extent of the Federal lines, to look after the vigilance and the welfare of the pickets. He wras a little plethoric that day, and sensa tion seemed to ooze out to the skin very easily. Though not by any means angry or indignant, it may be said that he " chafed," as the caged lion is reputed to do, though perhaps not in the same sense. By the time he had ridden to the station of the last picket, the Major might have said, without exaggeration, that he had ridden quite enough for that day ; and a close observer would have seen that he scai'cely kept so erect in the saddle as he had done early in the morning. In fact, from " causes beyond his own control," he leaned forward a little, something after the manner of that estiina-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. , 357

ble gentleman and model historian but sad innovator on the science of equitation, who so often sets gratis riding-lessons in the Central Park.

Riding away from the most distant of the pickets, with pleasant visions of the relief he should embrace when once more arrived at Fort Ellsworth, the Major took what he con ceived to be a "short cut" through the woods and away from the main road, gave his horse another, and galloped for ward. His seat in the saddle became less endurable and the motion of the horse more intolerable ; but was he not getting back to camp and to repose? When he had galloped so far that he fancied he should again have struck the main road, and yet without being able to recognize any landmark — he took the liberty of inquiring of one of the estimable residents of the soil, whom he met, whether he was on the right road for Shooter's Hill. He was answered in the affirmative, by that reliable person, so decidedly that he felt almost ashamed to have asked the question and galloped on yet more briskly than before. Mile upon mile, it seemed to the tortured Major, and the day growing hotter and hotter, with all the other circumstances aggravated, that have before been hinted at — and still no appearance of Fort Ellsworth.

Still riding ahead, the Major proved that he possessed the material for a commander, by taking a view of the position. Something was wrong, unquestionably — but what ? A little astronomical knowledge conjoined with the suspicious cir cumstances, gave him the clue. The sun was on his right instead of his left : he was going the wrong way. Dimly the fact began to reveal itself — he had lost his way and the estimable citizen had been lying ! — he was some miles with in the enemy's lines, and riding rapidly into the rebel strong hold of Fairfax Court House !

" About ship !" sings out the Captain when he discovers that his vessel has been swayed out of her course by false currents and is just going head on to some rock that must shiver her to atoms. The Major did not shout to his helms man, being the helmsman himself; but he swayed hard on the near rein, which the Captain before mentioned would have designated as the " port tiller rope," and brought his

358 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

equestrian vessel about as rapidly as possible. Just at that moment he found an additional incentive for wheeling sud denly, for over the crest of a hill immediately ahead dashed three rebel horsemen, who had caught sight of him and who rode as if there was no such thing in the world as want of sympathy between the horse and his rider.

Then followed one of those events which the writer feels himself entirely inadequate to describe. The Major was a brave man — none braver in the Federal army then or after ward. Many a man, before that time, had seen him under circumstances quite as trying to the nerves and quite as peril ous to life as the shock of any battle conflict. Some of the same persons afterwards saw him riding among the bullets on Manasses, swearing a little, but apparently no more ex cited by bodily fear than if he had been ordering up another engine to a big fire or making an insurance calculation. And yet the Major, in this instance, ran away — ignomiuiously ran away ! He had his pistols, but they were only two against six — fearful odds for the weaker party. His four horse's- legs, so far as they could go, were just as good as twelve — therefore — " g'lang !"

There are several rides in history, mythology and romance, that might be introduced profitably, here, except that none of them rise equal to the parallel. How the old Greek heroes of the mythological period swept down to the hunt of the Calydonian Boar — how the men of the Scottish border dashed through Liddesdale after the rievers of their cattle fleeing away to their mountain fastnesses — how the Wild Huntsman of the German forests rushed by with horn and hound, on un holy nights when all the demons of the air were unloosed — nay, how John Gilpin rode on that fateful day when he dined everywhere and nowhere, — all these might be brought in, with great advantage to the general interests of the literature of many lands, but they would only furnish a dim shadow of the stern reality of that flight and that pursuit. Away with you, up hill and down hill, horses that bear the rebel cavalrymen, for nobler prey will not be hunted during all the war ! Let out another link, gallant roan that bears the Major, for he will never need your best speed more imminently than he

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 359

needs it at the present juncture ! Let the scrubby trees of the Fairfax Road and the shabby worm-fences all sweep by like the sudden shift of a panorama or the flash from railroad-car windows ! Away ! away ! — after a life, and to save one !

But if language fails to describe that flight and that pur suit, what shall be said of the sufferings of the flying Major, before worn out with equitation, and now only able to keep his saddle from the grimest of all necessities. Let the reader make no attempt to roll with him, or writhe, or bend forward, or lean back, or change from one dreadful position to a worse, as every leap brings a new blister to the skin and every spring half tears out another nerve or half dislocates another bone ! There is terrible heat pouring down from tho sky, but what is it to that apparently radiating up from the earth ? Saint Lawrence was broiled on a gridiron ; but the gridiron, if we are correctly informed, remained stationary and did not gallop. Saint Ilenuinigildus was flayed alivo before being cut in pieces ; but he was at least allowed (so far as any volition of his tormentors was ^concerned) to re- main quiet during the unpleasant operation. The flying Major was a worse victim than either of these : he was both flayed and roasted at a speed of twenty-five miles the hour.

The four legs were triumphant over the twelve, after all the vengeance of the fiends had been exhausted on the unfor tunate horseman. It seemed an age and a flight of fifty leagues before the pickets beyond Cloud's Mills came in sight, but they did come in sight at last, and a shot or two sent the rebel pursuers to the right about. The Major rode in under the sheltering fire. He was saved — what there was left of him ! Draw the curtain. There is no cold cream in the army commissariat, though rest and cold water applica tions may do something. The Major will ride again, and ride better than ever, some day — just as the pedestrian will eventually walk further and with less suffering, on the heel once blistered to torture !

These are only glimpses of the camp-life at Fort Ellsworth, but they must suffice. So wore on June and July with the main body of the Fire Zouave regiment, while the war-cloud was gathering darker and darker over all Virginia, rebel fort-

3(30 T H K DAYS OF SHODDY.

ification answering to fortification built by Federal hands, and the thunder muttering before that great conflict which was to drench the soil of Fairfax with the blood of so many who had but lately been brothers.

The main body of the regiment — we have said. Let it be remembered that one company, that of Captain Jack, held post at Alexandria and guarded the munitions of war and pro visions stored in the warehouses on the wharves. It may as well be remembered here, for it is certain that th'e Zouaves at Shooter's Hill did not forget the fact, and that when they found opportunity to express themselves they did so some thing in the manner following : —

"Eh — yah ! You fellows of Company are nothing but

a set of foo-foos ! Soft bread and houses to sleep in, for you, while the rest of us have nothing softer than hard tack and sleep in the mud ! Eh — yah ! much good you do !"

Captain Jack had certainly a company somewhat better disciplined than the balance of the regiment, and he cer tainly manifested much better talent in managing them than most of the others (though the other Captains, and their subalterns, no doubt did wonders under the circumstances and with their material). But if it should be said that the discipline of even Captain Jack's Company was much superior to that of the regular service, there is some fear that the statement might smack of exaggeration. In the last chapter casually came out one of the occurrences in which some of the company figured — that of the women, in the old ware house and the Zouave creeping in at the window, in which the good name of Burtnett Haviland was so sadly made to suffer at home. Let us glance at a few more of the salient points of guard-life at Alexandria.

If there was any commodity, liquid or solid, difficult to keep intact in the neighborhood of the Zouaves, it was whiskey. Perhaps the same difficulty may sometimes have existed in the vicinity of other Zouaves, and even of those soldiers who never wore baggy trousers — who knows? At all events, nearly every time that Captain Jack left his quarters, located in an old dwelling house not far from the wharves, when he returned the stock on hand would be

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 361

materially reduced and yet no culprit discovered. Pete, the escaped contraband who acted as body-servant, was not drunk on those occasions, so he could not be the depredator : yet how could the favorite compound be abstracted without Pete's knowledge ?

Going out to the regimental quarters one day, Captain Jack held a conference with that indispensable darkey before leaving, and calmly informed him that the stealing of whiskey had now gone far enough, and that if on his return he dis covered that any further depredations had taken place, he, Pete, would be incontinently tied up and more soundly flogged than he had been during all his days of " involun tary servitude." The negro muttered something about: " Try to keep urn, Masser Captin !" and with that assurance the officer departed. Coming back to the house after dusk, and well knowing that the sentries, in obedience to orders, had left the house to itself and kept their posts nearer the river, the Captain was hailed by a threatening voice from the dark quadrangle, as he approached the house :

"Who come dar ? Keep off, I tell you, or I shoot !"

No answer to the challenge, and the Captain approached still closer. This time it came still louder aud more hurriedly, and with evident fright in the voice.

" Keep off dar, I tell you 1 Keep off, or I shoot ! Can't come foolin' round dis nigger no more !" Then with some thing approaching a yell, as the object of its terror ap proached still nearer, the voice repeated : " Keep off, I tell you, or dis nigger shoot ! Keep away, now mind !"

" Why, who the deuce are you, and what are you doing here?" spoke the Captain for the first time, as through the dusk he descried the negro, somewhat darker than the dusk itself, standing sentry before the door with one of the condemned muskets, that he knew to be unloaded, from the old storehouse, the musket shaking and the poor darkey's knees trembling still worse, with terror.

"Oh, is dat you, Masser Captin !" said the negro, dropping his musket with a very howl of joy. " Oh, lord, I'se so glad ! Tot it was some o> dem fellers again ; and den I lose de whiskey, sure, and get licked into de bargain !"

362 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

Under the double impulse of his past fright and big present joy, poor Pete at last explained the secret of the whiskey disappearances. The moment they found the Captain had gone away to any distance, some of the Zouaves were in the habit of coming to the house, tying up the poor negro and then helping themselves to the liquor, untying him when they left, but effectually sealing his mouth by the threat that if he dared to tell what had become of it they would "flog him within an inch of his life." Between such a double fire had the victim been placed ; though it is scarcely necessary to say that after his valorous attempt to defend his own skin and the Captain's whiskey by keeping guard in the dark with an unloaded musket, he was not again 'allowed to be placed in the same position.

Another trouble, imminent with the commandant, was the impossibility of teaching the men that they were soldiers and nothing else — that they were not now firenien and gymnasts. This trouble has been before alluded to, but it had a ludicrous illustration in a single instance. There was an alarm, one day, down on one of the wharves just below the storehouses ; and going down to see what had occurred, the officers found that the "P. R." had suddenly made its appearance in the antique city, seriously to the detriment of the armed service. Two fellows were in a " rough-and-tumble" clench on the pier, pounding each other merrily. One seemed to have been a Zouave and a sentry, at no distant period, from certain cast-off appurtenances lying on the dock ; and the other appeared to be a gentleman of bivalvular ante cedents, from one of the oyster-boats in the river. Rigid inquiry established the fact that the little physical discus sion had originated in this wise :

Occupant of the oyster-boat approached the wharf at a point where the regulations strictly forbade any landing to be allowed. Zouave, musket on shoulder, hailed him with : " Look a here ! Jest you keep off, will you ? See this thing ?" tapping his musket. " This shoots — this does ! So jest keep off!" "Bah! you're a smartey !" ejaculated the gentleman in the oyster-boat. " Very big, you are, because you have a uiusket and I haven't any ! Jest put '^^n that

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 363

musket, and I'll ." He needed to proceed no further

with the challenge. The gallant member of Two-hundred- and-fifty-seven Hose was not in the habit of backing out from what he considered a " square fight." Down went his musket and off went all his other warlike appurtenances. The gentleman from the oyster-boat landed without hin-' drance, and the little exercise in the " P. R." commenced, afterwards kept up with such spirit on the part of the boatman that when the officers arrived the Zouave was under and considerably damaged. The ex-sentry did not understand then, and probably (if he is alive) does not understand to this day, why he should have been arrested and sent to the guard-house for his " ex-sentri-city."

Still another trouble, and one more difficult to manage than either of the others, was that propensity for variety mani fested by the Zouaves in common with all other bodies of armed men since the time when Xerxes found a few hundred thousands of his million going back to Persia without formal furloughs — a propensity cruelly designated by the moderns as desertion. Probably not many of the boys wished to escape from the service, but they did want to get away to AVashington or elsewhere and enjoy a few days of liberty and jollity oot attainable within sound of their drum-beat. And they did it. Especially after the cars began to ryn north- wrard again on the Leesburg road, were there vacancies con tinually occurring in the ranks. Evidently they left with the aid of the cars, but no one could ascertain how, as the trains were examined inside and outside before starting. One day, however, the station-master came to Captain Jack and made a report. He had discovered the modus operandi. The fel lows were in the habit of stowing themselves away under the cars, on the trucks, until some stoppage might occur after leaving the town, when they would drop off quietly and seek their "fresh fields and .pastures new."

The station-master informed Captain Jack that there were lat that moment three of his men stowed away under the cars of the train about to start, and suggested that they had better be removed. Captain Jack thought a moment, and adopted a

364 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

peculiar plan for their removal. He ordered a load of straw to be scattered along the track a few hundred yards ahead, where the " skedaddlers" could not be aware of the operation — and that straw set on fire. Then he ordered the engineer to go ahead and stop his train immediately over the burning 'straw. Bees have been known to come out of their trees, and -rats from their holes, from the employment of similar processes ; and once upon a time, in Algeria, was it not Mar shal Magnan who proved that there is nothing in a name by adopting that any thing but ruagnan-imous plan of smoking out the Arabs from their caves or letting them stay in and be smothered ? At all events, three -Zouaves came out from under the Leesburg train, at that particular juncture, quite as rapidly as they had ever run to a fire ; and they did not again attempt that mode of escape without being fully aware how much dry straw there might be in the neighborhood.

One more reminiscence of life in Alexandria, and this tells not against the soldiers, but the officers — and, what is more, against the officers of the regular service.

An United States steamer lay off the town when Ellsworth went down with his Zouaves, and the same vessel kept guard there during all their sojourn. The officers were jolly fellows ;

Captain Jack was a jolly fellow ; and Captain Bob S ,

of the regular army, was quite as jolly as either. The two officers had semi-occasional invitations to visit and dine on board the steamer, especially when they bad themselves sent off a few boxes of claret or baskets of champagne that had come into their own possession. One day claret was the medium, and the two officers lingered somewhat long in the ward-room, so that it was dark when the boat's-crew was called away to convey the guests to the shore. When they landed, Captain Jack had just brains enough left to be aware that the jolly tars should have some compensation for their row, and he thrust his hand into his pocket, took out the handful of silver change to be found there, and poured it into the palm of the coxswain. Captain Bob, who was "droopy," roused at this, with a : " See here — bo-o-oys ! — there's a liz zie m-o-o-re for ye!" thrust his hand into his pocket and

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 365

passed over his handful ; whereupon the boat's-crew, with many pulls of the top-knot, rowed away, and the two officers separated for their respective quarters.

The next morning Captain Jack, very early, was favored with a visit from Captain Bob. Captain Jack was cool, se rene and happy : Captain Bob seemed puzzled and discom fited. " Captain Jack, did I lend you any money last night ?" " Not a cop !" " Did I lend anybody any, that you saw !" " \o !" " Did you see me use any money at all, anywhere ?" " Yes — I saw you give a handful of money, out of your trousers pocket, to the sailors who brought us ashore, — just after I had given them a handful myself." " Thunder and lightning !" said Captain Bob — " then I have just given them a twenty dollar gold piece, two tens, a few gold dollars and a lot of silver — just every dollar I had in my possession !" '• .Phew !" whistled Captain Jack. " Oh, that won't do, you know !" said Captain Bob — " I must go off and see about it !— can't be stripped in that manner !" " Think I wouldn't, if I were you," said Captain "Jack. " And why in thunder not ?" added Captain Bob. " Because they might take a fancy to say that you must have been drunk," sug gested Captain Jack. " So they might — I think I will let it slide !" concluded Captain Bob. And he did so. The boat's- crew must have realized somewhere between fifty and sixty dollars of Captain Bob's money by that pull of a few minutes . — probably the best pay of the kind on record ; and yet that amount might have been worse spent, in any one of a dozen different modes that will suggest themselves to the imagina tive mind.

And yet one more incident, which must be preserved here, lest the coming American Scott and the coming American Macaulay may both chance to miss it in making up their act ual and imaginative records of the war. Let the Macaulay dig out for himself the particulars of those melancholy re cords involving the hanging of a member of one of the Penn sylvania regiments at Fort Ellsworth, for the shooting of a woman, — and that sad spectacle, when the first dead and wounded of the war came in from General Schenck's terrible mishap at Vienna, with the secession men, women and chil-

366 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

dren gathering around the cars at the Leesburg depot at Al exandria, as they were disembarked, reviling the dead, taunt ing the living wounded, and showing the most fiendish joy at the disaster, till the Zouaves and their Michigan comrades could stand the insults no longer and charged bayonets upon the pack of wolves that then turned to be sheep of a very timid order. Let the historian dig out these for himself : we have to do, just now, only with one more grand provocative to merriment.

Concealed arms were all the while amongthe bugbears that haunted the Union soldiers daring the early campaigns in Virginia. Swords, muskets and pistols could be found hid den almost everywhere by the rebels, above ground and under ground, ready for use the moment they dared bring them forth. Alexandria was a secession hold, and many seizures of con cealed arms had been made there, until the Union officers be lieved that the contraband stock must be very nearly exhaust ed. But one night orders came for the Zouave company and one company of the Michigan troops, to surround a certain block half a dozen squares from the wharves, and seize a can non, or perhaps two, hidden there, the locality of which had at last been betrayed. Solemnly and sternly, at daylight the next morning, the troops marched from their quarters and drew a cordon around the entire block. Solemnly and' stern ly they entered every house, searched it from garret to base ment, explored the yards and even dug up the cellars where the loose earth rendered the burying of a piece practicable. Much perspiration they expended, and much wonder they vented, for at least one piece must be there — they knew. And a little after noon they found the gun so dangerous in rebel hands, lying in one of the back yards ; and they gathered solemnly and reverently around it. It was a child1 a toy can non, just four inches long! And two companies of the Uni ted States forces had been "sold" for almost an entire day, by one of the cleverest " put up jobs" of the century.

It is time to return for a moment to Burtnett Haviland, who shared the fortunes of the other Zouaves of Captain Jack's company, in keeping watch over the warehouses at Al exandria. Nothing has been said of his state of feeling,

THE PAYSOF SHODDY. 367

since weeks before when the regiment was about moving from Camp Decker. What had he heard from his wife ? What had occurred to soothe or to intensify that lacerated and al most exasperated feeling which moved him to apply for a furlough on the day of the departure ? He had heard noth ing from his wife — not one word, from that day. Letters had ceased to come to him, though that no stoppage in the mails could be the cause of the continued failure, was but too evident, from his occasional reception of letters from others — his cousin Kate among the number. The reader knows what he was likely to hear from his home, through her : none of his other correspondents had any occasion to speak of his wife, or would have any thought of doing so. He had heard nothing of her — nothing — not one word, — from the hour when the careless remark of his acquaintance showed her to have been in a place of popular amusement with the merchant ; and as a consequence, in spite of himself, from that hour he had seen her with the eyes of his mind, in no other relation but that of a gay, heartless woman who had forgotten her husband and plunged into fashionable dissipation as a substi tute for his society.

Precisely what Haviland believed of his wife at this junc ture, it is difficult to say : it might have been difficult for him self to explain. That he had been driven by a combination of circumstances to believe her weak and heartless if not criminal, and his own domestic happiness destroyed for the remainder of their natural lives, — is beyond question. What he harbored of discontent and anger, of the feeling of in tense wrong, and of the necessity of some future revenge, he was precisely the man to have kept altogether to himself, even had the dearest of friends stood at his elbow. And if he had not found a total change of his nature, in the unexpected cir cumstances crowding upon him, he had at least been stunned (so to speak) and found some of the better qualities of that nature paralyzed. That he should not have allowed himself to receive those suspicious circumstances blindly — that he should have shown more faith and trust in the woman who had for four years slept upon his heart — that he ought to have investigated the reports that seemed so injurious, and found

308 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

some means to discover why he received no letters, instead of receiving that failure as a proof that he was cast off and forgotten — that he should have gone home, all other researches failing, at any price, even that of desertion, — may all be true ; and yet no man knows precisely how he would have acted under corresponding circumstances.

Enough to say that he seemed to have accepted his fate — that he applied for no furlough and held no more conversation with Captain Jack on the subject — that he mechanically asked for letters when the mail for the Company arrived, and swal lowed any disappointment he might have felt, at that sad word to the expectant, "None !" — that he grew taciturn and comparatively moody, and asked no questions of the New York visitors who might have chanced to say at least some word to enlighten if not to comfort him — that, he mechani cally performed his duties as a soldier, his uniform, accoutre ments and person always in order and himself quoted as a model of discipline and reliability — and that during all this time his ruddy cheek grew thinner, his eye heavier and more lowering, his lips more silent, and himself less and less, day by day, the frank, whole-hearted, joyous man who had so con scientiously and ardently enlisted in the Union service. To which may be added that with his hair cut short to his head, for coolness, and with his beard clipped close, after the man ner of all the Zouaves who had any, he was shamefully dis figured, and half his best friends would ftot have known him under that radical change.

"We shall catch one more glimpse of him, at a very early period, and before he became a part of that sorrowful spec tacle set for the eyes of the world on the plains of Manasses, on the 21st of July, 1861.

CHATTER XIX.

THE MERCHANT COMING HOME — WINE AT THE ST. NICHOLAS — A LITTLE " URGENT BUSINESS" — H< »w SARAH SANDERSON SAW A GHOST AND FOUND IT HUMAN — A SERVANT GIRL "ON LEAVE" — ALONK IN THE HOUSE — THE TEMPTER AND HIS A'lCTIM — HoW EVEN A ^AN OF THE "WORLD MAY BE PUZZLED — A SUDDEN CHANGE AND A DISAPPEARANCE.

SATURDAY EVENING, 13th of July. That afternoon the Cu- nard steamer had gone to her moorings at Jersey City, and half a dozen of her passengers, not yet quite content with the companionship they had kept for the previous ten days ou shipboard, had gone up to the St. Nicholas, dined, and indulged somewhat freely in " Green Seal"' and other varieties of the liquid products of French vineyards and Jersey cider-presses. One of the party had taken a different carriage from the- others, at the pier, promising to keep the appointment nearly as soon as his companions. He had reached the hotel but a little while after them, in fact, but with quite .time enough elapsing to permit of a hurried visit to a mercantile house in a. street which the reader of this narration has before had oc- rasion to enter. Man of pleasure as was this passenger by the Persia, hurrying away from his enjoynlents on board that steamer, to other and wilder orgies on the land — he was yet a man of business, and the ramifications of an extensive trade were to be looked after before even the parting banquet could he enjoyed. The merchant shook hands with Air. Wales and nodded to one or two of the others, glanced hastily over half a dozen letters especially kept for him by the gray-headed book-keeper, made inquiries as to certain important opera tions, commended the position of a few things and found fault with a corresponding number by way of keeping up the 23 3G9

370 THE DAYS OF SHODDY,

necessary balance of discipline, and then rolled away in his carriage — hurrying home to the embraces of his family, as most or all of his subordinates believed; to the St. Nicholas and a species of dissipation not very usual with him, in reality.

The scope of this narration does nofc bring us within any close view of the movements of the merchant during his few weeks of previous absence. Except in the rare yet not im possible event of the loss of a steamer by fire or storm, there is very little of mark in voyages by steam between two nations only separated by a paltry three thousand miles. Things have changed materially since some of us, then at adult age and even now only a little gray about the tem ples, confidently prophesied that any attempt to traverse the ocean by steam must be a melancholy failure. They have changed almost as much, in the staunchness and reliability of those very steamers, since poor Power went away in the President and buried all that wealth of Irish humor where so many other gems too bright for the world had preceded it — . " down with Wally, drownded, in .the deep, deep sea !" as Burton used to say with a pathos of drollery that made the eyes moist while the laugh was yet rippling from the lips. They have changed again, and in another direction, since the day when Collins directed a fleet of steamers unequalled in speed and power — when America was at the head of the passenger-trade between Xew York and Liverpool — and when the world fondly believed that she had wisdom and liberality enough to hold fast what she had attained. The Cu narder dwarfs and outstrips all others, now, even when there is no war in the Western World to make an excuse for the failure of our capital and the want of spirit of our merchants. They may change again, some day, for better or for worse; as the whole '"communication of intelligence between the two continents certainly will change when Cyrus W. Field and his brother American blunderers, unwarned by the history of the past and the omens of the present, have assisted in laying down once more, with the aid of American capital, an Atlantic Telegraph Cable with both its ends on British soil, and the only hope that it will not add to

THE DATS OF SHODDY. 371

the consolidation of British power and the consequent crip pling of our own, lying in the chance that it may again refuse to work, from its location in those regions of eternal aurora-borealis where air and water necessarily conduct more electricity than land-wire or sea-cable.

Mr. Charles Holt, merchant, had made a pleasant run over on the steamer, relieved the burthened mind of Mr. Beverley Andrews, assisted him in some financial arrangements just bold enough to be successful and just near enough to the verge of being dishonorable to escape that reputation, made a terrible onslaught upon those styles of goods which he felt would supply "his country's need,'' lounged a couple of days at the " Crystal Palace, inspected a couple more of old castles that he had happened to miss on previous visits and that lay very near London, heard Tietjens for the first time and Sims Reeves for the fiftieth, and then made a pleasant run back again, after blending the " utile" and the " dulce" something on the principle of that thrifty young merchant who once went on his "wedding and collecting tour." He had gone — he had transacted his business — he had returned, to transact other business-: s.o few words tell what might otherwise be made a lo/ig .story. And this brings us back once more to that popular caravanserai from which we had wandered even beyond the reach of its tremendous dinner- summons — the St. Nicholas.

It was some six o'clock when the party took their seats at the table in one of the private parlors of that hotel ; and it was about eight when the merchant, looking at "his watch, declared his inability to remain longer, because business of the most1 pressing character demanded that he should look after it immediately. The good steamer that had carried them safely over, the courteous Captain who commanded her, America and England (the latter in compliment to two or three of the guests who were of British birth), and each of the party by name, had all been toasted meanwhile; and while there was not a member of the party who could be spoken of as "drunk," in the vulgar acceptation of the word, there was not one but had taken sufficient wine to fever his blood and destroy the cooler balance of his judgment.

372 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

What with the still-sensible motion of the steamer and the effects of the wine he had taken, Charles Holt, when he left the table amid the regrets of the party and stepped down to the office of the hotel to order a carriage, was nearer tipsy than he had before been for many a long day. And yet not tipsy — only heated, exhilarated, and the cooler and more re liable nature of the man for the time held under thrall by a power foreign to itself.

At a little later than half-past eight the same evening, Sarah Sanderson was descending the steps of Burtnett Havi- land's little house on East Forty -eighth Street, basket on arm, to make some late purchases at the baker's and the grocery- man'^. Just as she reached the last step and descended to the side-walk, she was confronted by the figure of a man who stopped full in front of her. For the instant she did not re cognize him — the next, as she caught a glimpse of his face by the light of the street-lamp, she saw that it was the merchant.

The false are always cowardly, and alniost^ilways super stitious. They are themselves outrages upon nature, and believe all other outrages upon it to be possible. For the moment, so suddenly had the merchant come upon her, and so little had she dreamed of his* being within thousands of miles of herself, the girl was disposed to believe his appear ance supernatural; and she bandy escaped uttering one of those screams of terror, ranging between a howl and a yell, which are considered more forcible than agreeable, even by the ablest defenders of the music of the human voice. A Fcream which might have perilled more than her ill-regulated brain could then have imagined. She did not scream, how ever, for before she could fairly modulate the sound, the voice of Charles Holt reassured while it rated her, and she did not even drop her basket.

" What is the matter, you little fool ?" it said. " You tremble, and seem ready to scream ! Do you think that I am a ghost ?''

"Oh no, sir, 'I don't, now," said the girl, "but indeed' you scared me for a moment. I did not know you was back.''

"And I did not know it myself, until an hour or two ago/' ,-iaid the merchant. " Never mind that, now. I came

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 873

to-day. It is very lucky that I met you here. Come this way — there may be some one listening around these stoops."

A portion of both sides of Forty-eighth Street, between Second and Third Avenues, and nearest the latter, was then unimproved ground, not even enclosed from the street, and some of the lots scattered over with huge boulders of stone not yet cleared away from the blasting that had taken place in the neighborhood. Few persons passed up and down the broken sidewalk ; and it was not easy to find a better place for a conversation not intended to be overheard, than opposite the vacant lots. The merchant's eye had scanned the fact, weeks before, and it was to that place that he rather preceded than accompanied the servant-girl.

" Now," he said when they had reached the spot, " I wish to know all that has taken place since I have been absent. Did you obey my orders ?"

" Every one of them," was the answer.

" How many letters has the post-man brought for Mrs. Haviland ? — I mean letters from her husband ?''

" None — not one."

" You are sure ?"

" Yes, sir, I know he hasn't brought her any."

" Humph ! well, I rather thought he wouldn't, after the little conversation I had with him !" said the merchant, his tone very much like a sneer. "And how many have you allowed her to send him ?"

" I don't think she has sent any, though she has written a good many," answered the girl. " She always sent me with the letters, I guess, and I have kept them all. Maybe ehe may have put one or two into the box herself — I think not, though. Lately she does not write any, as she never receives any answers."

" Hum ! no, I suppose not !" commented the merchant. " Well, Sarah, you appear to be a very good girl, so far. By the way, those letters are not safe for you to keep — let me have them the first opportunity. Now tell me something more. How is your mistress ? Well ?"

" She's well enough," replied the girl, with something in her tone which implied that she was even too well for her own

374 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

individual fancy. " But she is a little mopey and peaked — • she couldn't help being that, I suppose."

" ]STo," said the merchant, "that is all natural enough. Been lonely, of course — poor thing ! ^Now that I am back again, she must not be left alone so much. She is alone now, I suppose ? And where were you going when I met you ?"

" Oh, I was going up to the grocery and the baker's," said the young girl, answering the last question first. "And she is alone — not a soul but herself and the little girl in the whole house."

" You mean in her part of it," said the merchant, recalling a thought that had more than once crept into his head — what a bore it was that people could not live in houses without other families under the same roof, and how — . But that portion of his contemplation may be quite as well left un written.

" Xo, I don't mean any thing of the kind !" said the girl, in reply. " She is all alone — all but the little girl. You will find no oil-cloth in the hall, when you go in, for the family that lived below moved out in the country, on a farm, two or three weeks ago. "

Are there fiends who move beside us and stand at our el bows wherever we go, ready to drop a temptation or a foul suggestion into the heart and the ear, at aiw opportune mo ment — just as there certainly are ministering angels always beside us, ready, whenever permitted, to whisper some sug gestion of good and drop some seed that may blossom for eternal life ? Is there an Anteros to be worshipped as well as an Eros, the one as a bribe to absent himself and be an in nocuous enemy, as the other is to be wooed and welcomed as a dear friend ? And were the philosophical heathens of old right after all, in this particular ? Who knows ? Certain it is that some of us, when only a minor evil is in the heart, find temptation and opportunity for one more damning, so often that the Tempter becomes a reality instead of an ab straction ; and even the saint irpon his knees and the minis tering angel beside the couch sometimes have occasion to shriek out their prayer for deliverance.

Charles Holt stood silent for some moments after the girl

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 375

had uttered the last words. He could not have spoken, then, had his existence depended upon the effort. More than forty years of life had done nothing to render him marble in feeling, however they might have made him unyielding as -that stone in heart and purpose. lie could yet thrill — enjoy — suffer. For a moment after the girl had ceased speaking, one short sentence rung through his head with an hundred repe titions — so many repetitions, that not one tenth part of the number could really have been made by the voice with in that space. "All alone — except the little girl!" "All alone — except the little girl !" " All alone — except the little girl !" The strong man trembled, under the weight of that sudden and overwhelming temptation — to what, even he scarcely knew himself. In one moment every thing had changed to him. Restraints he had dreaded were removed as if by some infernal providence. Opportunities he had never hoped for, sprang forth to meet him. The steamer had arrived at the right moment. He had dined at the St. Xich- olas at the right time, and taken carriage at the very instant. There was a thrill in all his nerves — a choking in his throat — a beating of heavy hammers at his temples. How much of this was wine and how much the natural development of hu man passion, is a matter for the physiologists to decide at their leisure.

But the nerves calm more quickly, after forty and before the weakness of decay comes on, than they do at twenty-five ; and if resolutions are less quickly formed they are formed with more steadiness. Whatever the surprise and whatever the temptation, the one was overcome and the other accepted, before the girl, standing in the dim shadows by the open lot, had time for more than a few heart-beats of wonder at his sudden silence. When the merchant spoke again, his voice was certainly hoarser than it had been before, as if he might have taken a chill even in the warm summer air ; but it was quite clear and steady.

" You are going up to the grocery, you say ?"

" Yes, sir ; and to the baker's ; and the baker will be shut up if I stand here much longer."

" Humph, well, Sarah, you can take your time and need

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

not hurry back to the house," said the merchant, his tones equable as they could have been in directing the overlooking of an invoice. " I am going down to chat with Mrs. Havi- land awhile, and she will not miss you, while 7 -am there, if you run in to see some of the neighbor girls and do not come back for an hour or even longer. Do you hear me ?"

" Yes, sir," said the girl, " but Mrs. Haviland " and she

was going on to say that some of the articles from the gro cery might be wanted, when the voice of the merchant, hoarse as before but much sharper, interrupted her.

" I asked you if you heard what I said, and you answered 'Yes.' That is enough. Now obey my orders without question. It is now nearly nine," pulling out his watch and deciphering the hour even in the dim light. " Go and do your errands. At ten o'clock — not a moment before — come back to the house. Do you hear me this time ?"

" Yes, sir," answered the girl, her voice lower, more broken, and as if frightened. How nearly she understood the man, only the overwatching intelligences can say. That she under stood something, and was a little frightened thereat, was but too- evident.

"You know me" continued the tempter, now become the master, " and you know that I can ruin you the moment I choose. Here is something more to buy ribbons-^that proves that I can be a good friend to you when you obey me," and the girl felt that he dropped a heavy golden double-eagle into her fingers. "Disobey me, and you will very soon know the consequences. By ten o'clock I shall be done chatting with Mrs. Haviland, and you may come back. Now go and do your errands, and then pay your visits."

His voice had lost all its severity of a moment before, and seemed almost playful.. If there was any perception of his true meaning in the mind of Sarah Sanderson, and if she had one spark of feeling left for the honor and reputation of the woman she at once served and hated — that change in tone somewhat reassured her. She turned away without another word, and went towards Third Avenue with her basket, while the merchant, watching her disappearing form for a moment,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 377

then retraced his steps down the street to the door of the house he had before approached.

The door was closed, and he rang the bell. It is doubtful whether that singular, bold, bad man, who had passed through so many varied scenes and enjoyed so many triumphs as well as suffered so many agonies — had ever before rung the bell for admission to any house, with precisely the same course of reflection while waiting for the answer to the summons.

Two or three minutes — they seemed many more to Charles Holt — and then a light foot descended the stair and the door opened. / Mary Haviland stood once more before the man. who had, without her knowledge, exercised so controlling a power over her destiny, and who seemed likely to sway it still further — where, heaven only knew ! She recognized him at once, even in the dim light that came down from the land ing; and when he said : " Mrs. Haviland !— Mary !" and held out both his hands to her, it was with something very like a cry of joy that she rather flung than put both those small hands into his grasp. And when she said, in response to his words : " Mr. Holt — J am very, very glad to see you !" she told nothing more than the truth, and her eyes, which the merchant saw had grown sadder and larger than he had known them a few weeks earlier, seemed to light up with joy that could not be controlled.

For just one instant that confidence and trust touched the man of the world ; but it was only for one instant. The next, that subtle flattery fell upon other and more dangerous senses, and the demi-god became the fiend ! She thought of the bare appearance of the hall, without oil-cloth or any covering to the floor, and apologized for it in the simple words: "You, must excuse the looks of our hall floor — laying down the oil cloth here belongs to the people who occupy the lower story, and they have moved away suddenly and left it as you see !'' arid those very words recalled the haunting sentence : "All alone — except the little girl !" No, he did not relent : had he ever relented, or been foiled in any purpose of his will ? Never ! — and it was scarcely time, then, to begin !

Hark ! there came the very echo to his thought ! Never woman spoke words with less of improper meaning than her

378 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

gentle : " We are all alone — little Pet and I. Sarah has gone out. Come up-stairs !" but they fell upon the ears of that man — God forgive him ! — almost as an invitation to pursue his schemes of lawless love ! There are men (aye, and. women !) who see voluptuousness in the marble and catch libidinous sensations from the very songs of birds. They are coarse, material Bjorns standing beside the Frithiofs of love and devotion, and seeing in Ingeborg the Fair only a woman to be torn shrieking away IVom her husband's side, while the Viking beholds her as something holier than mortal flesh, to be worshipped afar off witli a purer flame than that which once burned in the temple of Balder. And of the;n and of all such let the solemn invocation be uttered once more — God pity and help them ! For they lack all that makes earth beautiful and heaven possible.

Mary Haviland turned to lead the way up-stairs. There was a small table standing at the foot, when.! the hat-rack of the departed family had stood so lately, and Charles Holt laid down his hat upon it. As he did so, though the light was very dim, he caught thj) glitter of the brass key on the inside of the door. Then, another thought perhaps, and per haps merely the carrying out of one before harbored. It was but a turn of the head, quick as lightning, to 'see that the young wife was going steadily up the stair, with her back towards him, — and then a turn of the wrist, almost as quick, but steady and careful, so that not even a click should be heard. It was done — the merchant was alone in the house with the woman whom he had marked as his victim — alone except as to the little child that lay cradled in sleep — alone, and with the door locked, so that none — not even Sarah with her pass-key — could enter from without !

There was no light, or a very dim one, in the back-room. In the front, one burner of the small chandelier was ablaze ; affording sufficient light for the unromantic task of "mending'' upon which the young wife had been engaged before disturbed, and proving (by the care taken not to waste the illuminating vapor) that the gas-bills were habitually paid on call !

Mary Haviland set a chair for her visitor, very near where her own remained, and resumed her seat as well as her work;

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 379

while perhaps it may be said the merchant resumed his ! He had, for the first time, an opportunity to scan the counte nance of the youhg wife closely, and to see the inroads which disappointment and anxiety had been making upon it. It was so much thinner, and the eyes looked so large and mourn ful, while something like a quiver, born of many tears, played continual]}' around the mouth. But the blonde, hair seemed brighter than ever; the beauty of the young wife had not been of that fragile order incapable of bearing the least depletion ; and it may be said that she was more winningly — more melt- ingly — beautiful than ever before. If the heart of the mer- chant^for one moment smote him in the knowledge thatmdVe than half the shadows on that fair face had been of his set ting, other and less creditable feelings, promoted no doubt by the fiery wines he had so lately been drinking, surged up wards and drowned all impulses of mercy.

But this man was a man of business, always — as has before been remarked. There was not a joy so dear or an agony so acute that in the midst of it he could not count dollars and cents ! He had ascertained, at the store, that the salary of the clerk had not been paid for the past week ; and after the first commonplaces he drew from his pocket a little roll of bills and handed them to the wife, who nodded her thanks and dropped them into her pocket with the tiniest of charm ing blushes for the moment lighting up a face that had become almost too fair if not pale. Then the recollection of the service for which the money was paid, and that total separation from her husband which she could neither explain nor understand, came suddenly over her, her work fell upon her lap, she dropped her head forward, and the merchant could see that two or three bright tears trickled away from her eyes and gemmed her cheeks. Mary Haviland could not conceal feeling as she had done before her husband's depar ture ! — who can be as strong after a month of fever and ex haustion, as when the system is healthy and the veins bound ing with life ?

The merchant drew his chair close to that, of the unhappy woman — drew it up so quickly that she perhaps did not know of the movement. The next instant he had both her

380 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

hands in his and was leaning over close to her. She made no effort to withdraw her hands, and the tempter was even deceived if she did not faintly return his warm pressure. An instant more, and he had dropped upon one knee at the side of her chair, thrown his left arm around her shoulder and drawn her over to him. Even this movement was not resisted, and the fair head fell upon his shoulder as if the neck had long been aching with the effort to support it. " Mary !" said the merchant, his voice so expressive of sympathy and affection that it might have won a less yielding woman than Mary ITaviland ; and at the same instant his hand bent forward to the face that lay half upturned to the light, and his lips glued themselves to those which should have been so sacred against such a touch.

" No — you had better not kiss me," once said a lady in a particular presence, the words rippling from her tempting mouth in a musical burst that was half laughter. "Those who kiss me have a bad habit of never forgetting the touch of my lips !" The man who was warned did not heed — he persisted in his opportunity — and as a result, from that moment there grew a thrill upon his memory that not even changing years, gray hairs, pain, toil and suffering could ever take away. In that one touch he read the secret of all the thraldoms held over strong men by weak woman — by Semirarnis over Ninus, by Cleopatra over Antony, by Rosamond over Henry of England, by Gabrielle over the Conqueror of the League, by Castlemaine over the Merry Monarch, by Montespan over Louis, by — (let us bring down the comparison to our own times)— by Mrs. Howard over the husband of Eugenie. 'Ever after he carried about with him a recollection which enslaved him to one as it emancipated him from all others. Had those lips been evil, he would have been ruined from that instant : as they were pure in every pulse that beat beneath them, and fragrant in every breath that issued through gates of pearl to those crimson portals, they only opened to him anew life whose duration ended with the beginning of the life beyond.

This is the story, briefly told, of the witchery of the lips. If their touch is thus madness when only purity arid goodness

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 381

dictate the pressure, what indeed must it be when the pulses are running riot with passion and all the better angels of our nature have veiled their eyes from the spectacle of the man turned for the moment to the demon ! Whatever may have been the thoughts and intentions of Charles Holt the instant before, the touch of those marvellous lips maddened him as a dozen additional bottles of wine might ha-vtf failed to do — removed efery restraint. — broke down every barrier — and made him a fiend to be wrestled and prayed against with all the failing energies of poor human nature.

In one instant he had flung his arms around the waist of the young wife ; his sacrilegious hands gathered her close to him without any regard to the propriety of his touch ; his lips devoured hers with burning kisses that dropped thickly as sparks from some great conflagration and seemed to blister where they fell ; and his tongue, even between those most unholy and enforced caresses, uttered words of miscalled love so reckless and dangerous that no ear could misunder stand them.

" Mary ! Mary ! My own Mary ! How I have waited for this moment ! I have loved you — 1 love you, deeply, fondly • — as I never before have loved woman in all my life ! You love mr, I know that you do ! You are mine ! — you must be mine — body, soul and spirit ! Come here — closer — you are all mine, and there is no power under heaven that cau take you out of my arms !"

Great heaven ! — what was this revelation to Mary Havi- land ? — She who had up to that moment no more dreamed of bestowing upon him a love more intense than that she could have borne a father or brother, than she had of plunging body and. soul into eternal perdition ! She who might have been, and no doubt had been, imprudent — first in her gratitude to wards him, on account of her husband, and again through her loneliness, the great diiference in their ages, and that igno rance of the nature of unholy passion which was a part of her very being ! She who might have acted as if centering an unholy love around that man, but who had all the while never dreamed of any thing more than friendship and pro tection ! What were the sensations of that spotless wife, the

:5<S2 T H E D AYS OP S H O D D Y.

doubtful past all illumined as by a lightning- flash, and the whole horrible precipice on which she had been standing made too revoltingly plain ? What did she suffer in those few moments, clasped in the arms of that hot-blooded, fierce-tem pered man,'his kisses raining upon her lips and cheeks, his physical power enchaining her, and his words stunning her ears while his fiery and blood-shot eyes literally devoured her face ? Xot even her broken and agonized words could give any indication of the terrible fear and horror that oppressed her ; for words are sometimes powerless, and they are almost always so when they should carry the force of the thunder.

"Oh, Mr. Holt! oh sir! Shame! Shame! Oh, do let me go ! Please let me go ! You frighten me ! You suffo cate me ! My God I — my husband ! Oh, sir ! you forget that 1 am a wife ! Do let me go ! Please let me go !"

No response, except that clasp tightening yet more closely, the hands more reckless, and the words more and more fearful. Then a horrible culmination of fear took possession of the outraged wife, and the strength that madness gives, came to her relief. Came to her relief too, at the very mo ment when the past delirium for an instant weakened her tempter and the stiffened nerves relaxed. By an almost su- perhunfljjh effort she released herself and flung him off, spring ing to her feet, and dealing him, as she did so, a blow of some force, merely by accident and without the least intention of resisting violence by violence in that manner. The merchant was on his feet at the same instant, and his eyes glared upon her with the passion of rage that the apparently-intentional blow had engendered, blended with the fierce energy of will that had only become more violent from resistance. She could see that the human tiger was fairly aroused — all the bad passions in play — all the advantage on his side. Man against woman ; reckless strength and long experience against weakness and innocence ; wealth, that always compels what it cannot buy, and habitually makes merchandize of the feelings and the honor of poverty — against that poverty in its most helpless form ; all overbalancing against her — not one hope that was not crushed down by a deadly fear !

At this stage ol the narration, it becomes a matter of re-

T HE DAYS OF SHODDY. 383

gret that this story is not a inclo-drama — only a relation of the actual life of to-day. A little change in time and place would so smooth away the difficulties ! How easily, in the melo-drama aforesaid or the novel of the intense school upon which it is founded, the heroine can always pick up or have conveniently about her those little articles necessary for her rescue ! It /is always so convenient, in either of the walks of " litter-attire" just named, for the Lady Isolinda, borne away from her sheltering bower by the demoniac Lord of Noirdiable. immured in liis lonely tower and visited by the tyrant baron at midnight with the basest intentions, just as he lays hand upon her, to break out with a :' Ha ! ha ! — vil- lian, you are foiled !" and present full at his breast a horse- pistol of such dimensions that it could not be conveniently carried even under modern crinoline — thus holding him at bay till the walls of the tower can be battered down, precisely at the right moment, by two men, three women and a boy, headed by her true lover, the young Knight of Silvergilt, who was a thousand miles awav only a few minutes previous, but has annihilated space as easily as probability, — and the rescue duly accomplished ! And what difficulty has lovely Susan, the cottager's daughter, in linding a table-knife of athletic- proportions, lying loosely around, ready to catch up" and give the corresponding threat against his life or her own, when De Hirsute, the whiskered town villain, makes his deadly on slaught upon her fair fame, down in the meadow, out in the summer-house, or anywhere else that may be most convenient for the story ? Alas ! — real life has its limitations, and the nineteenth century is peculiarly e.m'g<jn»t. Mary Haviland should have been provide/1 with a six-shooter or at least, a big jack-knife, to make the narrative run smoothly; but the poor little woman would really have been a good deal worse scared at such a thing, had she possessed the first, than any person at whom she pointed it ; and there is really no way of ac counting for the presence of a big knife in the room, seeing that the time was too early in the season for the peeling of apples or peaches. Her scissors, even had she thought of them, were not large enough to supply a dagger of very dan gerous proportions ; and besides, the more formidable of the

384 'THE DAYS OF S H 0 T> B T .

two points might have been broken off by Pet a day or two before, in an effort at Archimedean leverage between two slabs of the chimney-piece, and Sarah failed to signal a "grinder." So there is really nothing left for it, but to fall back upon the solemn, sombre reality of a poor little woman in terrible peril, with no means of defence and apparently none of escape.

We left the two, a moment since, confronting each other. It was but a moment that the pause endured. In the next, the hand of Charles Holt was laid upon the young wife's wrist, and he spoke two words in a tone that he strove to render something other than fierce, and yet one terribly decided :

" Come here !"

Therevwas not strength enough in Mary Haviland, and she knew it, to resist his drawing her towards him ; but there was yet strength, as she believed, in prayers and tears, and she burst into an agony of sobs, as she uttered : —

"Oh, don't ! Please don't ! Don't hurt me, please don't! For God's sake, Mr. Holt, please let me go!''

Alas, once more ! Her soft blonde hair had become par tially dishevelled during the first struggle,. and fell be witch- in gly over the rounded and dimpled shoulders left partially uncovered in the freedom of her summer-evening dress. There was enough even in the charms revealed, to excite colder and purer men than Charles Holt : there was enough to make him nearer mad than ever. Even the tears softened and added to the attraction of the pleading face ; and the ripe lips really 'trembling in fear and agony, quivered an ungovernable feel ing into the human animal.

" I have told you; Mary Haviland," said the merchant— and his voice was steady, firm and threatening — "that I will never let you go until you are mine ! I love you — deeply and devotedly. You love me, though you dare not own it. Your husband has deserted you — you' have no choice but to accept my love and protection."

Again that low, broken answer — " Please let me go !" Suddenly a new thought of hope struck the young wife, and she gave utterance to it at once " Oh, Mr. Holt, you do not know to what danger you are subjecting me — and yourself.

T HE DAYS OF SHODDY. 385

Sarah has only gone out for a few minutes : she may come back at any moment, and then we should both be ruined." • " Not yet !" said the merchant, triumphantly, his hand still around her wrist. " Sarah has gone to the grocery and the baker's, and I have ordered her not to come back until ten — more thaA three-quarters of an hour, yet."

"You have seen her? — you ordered her? Oh, my God !" and the cry was one of heart-breaking agony. The moment before, the young wife had caught one lightning glance at mysteries before dark and hidden. Now she caught another and scarcely less terrible. She had seen the. merchant chatting aside with Sarah, when he supposed him self unnoticed, before he went to England. She had thought nothing of the circumstance then — but now ! Little Pet had seen him giving the girl money, and he had taken so much pains to turn off the conversation at the table. It had been "yellow money," gold, as the child said, after all. Sarah Sanderson was a suborned tool of the merchant, and her enemy ! She had obeyed his orders and left her mistress to be destroyed ! Putting aside the peril of the present moment, she was deserted and alone — had not one friend left in the city ! Father of the innocent ! — what should she do ?

Once before this time Mary Haviland has been seen in a position to develop extraordinary strength of will — when ^lie crushed down her tears and her regrets and allowed her husband to believe her cheerful when he went away. Since that time she has been seen as showing no marked energy, but at times absolute weakness. Something of the causes of that blending of strength and weakness, may have been found in her paternal blood of the Ilowlands of New England, used to fighting the descendants of Moby Dick on the far Pacific, where nerve and readiness were life, — and in the soft, calm, yielding blood of her mother's Quaker family. It was her first great peril, and under its very im minence thought and determination rose to meet it — deter mination in despair and blindness of body and soul, but yet quick, active and efficient. One moment more of agony formed her resolution, and a half moment more began to put it into action. /

24

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

Charles Holt, the merchant, had no doubt been surprised a great many times in his life, but it is doubtful whether the greatest of all those surprises did not fall upon him at that time. For as he still held the wrist of the young wife and repeated the commanding words: " Come here !" she turned, literally threw herself into his arms, clasped her own around his body, glued her lips to his face and covered it with pas-, sionate kisses ! Could the man believe his senses ? Still more — could he believe his ears the next moment ? The woman was actually laughing as she clung to him with really .shameless familiarity, and her words were :

" Love me, do you, Charley Holt ? Well, I wonder if this farce has not been played far enough ! Why don't you kiss me ? You are not half a lover !"

Actually the man was so surprised that he recoiled. It is very possible that for that one moment the suspicion struck him that this woman was one of the most consummate actresses in the world — not only a false but a shameless wife, who had " played him" (to use an expression that the fishermen, if not the politicians, will understand) in the dis guise of a pure modesty, and that instead of being the winner he was really the victim ! A man of decidedly exclusive tendencies, especially in his vices, that would not have suited his mental calculation by any means. He could defy heaven and beard the fiends, to win what could not be won by others and should not have been by himself; but what any other could win, however precious, was chaff before his breath and dust under his feet. Yes, it must be said that at " Charley Holt ?" and the flippant use of the word " lover," that bold, bad man actually recoiled. He could not utter a word. The tempted, now apparently become the temptress, went on, still laughing, and there was not keenness enough in the brain yet a little affected by the fumes of the wine, to know how hysterical that laughter really was :

" Why, what a sober face you have, all at once ! Don't you love me, after all ? I never saw such a man as you are, in all my life !" and half a dozen more kisses rained upon his face.

Suddenly, and before the merchant had yet spoken, she

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 387

drew away from him, went to the door leading out into the hall (the other was shut already) closed it and turned the key ! After that movement, the lover so suddenly outrun in the

course of his balculations scarcely needed her " Prav. sit

»/ * >

clown, and excuse me a moment !" to induce him to drop into the chair from which he had lately risen, and wait the next proceeding of this singular creature. He followed her with his eyes, as with a familiar nod and a smile she passed through the half-opened door into the little bed-room adjoining, and there for the moment disappeared from his sight, the door still retaining its half-open position. He never saw her again, after the folds of her soft evening-dress disappeared behind the bed-room door. He will never see her again, until that great assemblage of all ages and all nations, for whose trum pet summons the reverent ear unconsciously keeps listening over all the noise of the street, the chorus of the opera, the hum of busy voices, the great commingled shout of human joy and the still greater aggregate moan of human sorrow !

Mary Haviland passed into that little bed-room, every nerve one shudder of excitement and her physical and her mental systems both so overtasked that she was on the point of fall ing in a dead faint on the floor, — reached over into her bed and caught up the little girl that lay slumbering there ; opened the door that led from the bed-room into the hall, with such careful fingers that the slight click of the latch did not sound above the painful catching of her breath and the wild beatmg of her heart ; descended the stair so softly that if there was even a creak it did not reach to the ear of the watcher in the room above ; laid her hand upon the street-door, started with fear when she found it locked and with joy when she saw the glitter of the key ; unlocked it, opened it, went out, closed it again, Math the same careful hand ; and all unbonneted as she was, with no mantle, her thin slippers, and her unbound hair streaming about her shoulders — but with the child which seemed all that was left to her in the world, still sleeping peacefully in her arms, — fled away into the night !

For perhaps five minutes the merchant retained his position in the chair, waiting for the return of the woman who had so puzzled him. Then, hearing no rustle within and anxious to

T H K DAYS OF SHODDY.

solve the mystery in one way or another, he rose and went to the door. He looked in. The door into the hall was nearly wide open, and- the light from the burner at the head of the stairs streamed into the room. There was no one there ! He Went to the bed, of which the light covering was turned down, and for some unexplainable reason felt within it, In the mid dle his hand encountered a warm spot — the nest out of which the little bird had just been taken. He said nothing, but set his teeth hard and passed along the hall into the back-room. No one there. Then he descended the stairs and laid his hand on the street door. It opened at once, without any aid of the key. He saw it all. The door had been unlocked — the

woman was gone

It may be incorrect to say that the merchant " saw it all." It might have been a puzzling study to see " all" of that sin gular adventure. But he saw enough. Only one exclama tion escaped his lips, as he took his hat from the little table, put it on his head and left the house with that peculiar slam of the door which does not indicate the possession of an equable temper. That exclamation was, slurring a little gross profanity:

" Tricked at last, by all that is outrageous !"

The little house on East Forty-eighth Street was at last truly "alone." Without a great deal of concert among the members, it is true, another family had " moved away."

Perhaps fifteen minutes after the departure of the mer chant, Sarah Sanderson, who had been spending the allotted time in gossip with some of her companions in one of the neighboring basements, returned to the house and admitted herself with the pass-key, a little doubtful, all the while, whether the influence of the merchant would be quite suffi cient to save her from the scolding she had deserved by diso bedience. She found the light burning, but no one in the house, and when she had called " Mrs. Haviland !" and ejac- lated, " Where can she be ?" to her satisfaction, she explored the bedroom. Little Pet was gone, as well as her mother ; and from the moment of making that discovery the girl was struck dumb with horror. She, too, " saw it all," or thought that she did ! Mrs. Haviland had eloped with Mr. Holt, or

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 389

been carried off by him — there could be no doubt of it. And Sarah Sanderson, hardened as she had been by the defects of her early education and the wrongs she had already com mitted against her mistress, was not yet so totally lost as not to feel some upbraidings of conscience and some terrors for the future. What would be the end of all this ? This she asked herself, sitting dumb and stupid in the room that Mrs. llaviland had so lately 'deserted, and listening, far into the night, to hear if there should not be some noise at the door or some other symptoms of her returning. Xo. sound what ever ; and as the summer night wore on, the poor girl became so frightened that she dared not go to bed, but fell uneasily asleep in her chair, dreaming that her betrayed mistress was being dragged screaming away by three men with masks over their faces, while a fourth, who looked like Burtnett Hav- iland, was pelting her (Sarah) with paving-stones. One at last hit her on the side of the head, and she awoke to find that it was daylight, the gas still burning, and that she had fallen over out of the chair and struck her head against the pommel of another standing near.

Around the house, after daylight, the girl staggered like one in a dream. She was not more frightened and worried, than stunned. It seemed to her that all the world had turned topsy-turvy in a night, and that every one must fa^l off into thin air. If she had sinned, terribly was she suffering at that moment, however a little time might reconcile her to all her past deeds and all their future consequences. She called " Mrs. Haviland !" again, from garret to cellar, and looked under the beds. All that she discovered, in this search, was that the young wife had taken nothing from the house except the clothes in which she sat — not a bonnet, shawl, and not even a cent of the few dollars in money that had been lying in a little pocket-book in one of the cupboards. She did not know (perhaps Mary Haviland did, and thought of it before she left the house) that the merchant had paid her the past week's salary of her husband, and that she had it in her pocket at the time of flight. If not with Mr. Holt, then, she must have gone away penniless ; and that fact proved, more conclusively than any other, that she .had fled with the mur-

390 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

chant. Stop ! — there was one fact yet more conclusive — the merchant had told her, weeks before, that if she would obey his orders, Mrs. Haviland should soon be " out of her way" ; and after that what question could remain ?

At last this loneliness and fear became unendurable. The girl well knew the street and number of the Fullerton house, where Kate resided — though she had never been there. By ten o'clock that morning, as a consequence, Kate Haviland was informed by one of the servants that a girl was waiting below to see her. She went down, and found Sarah Sander son in that state of mind and body that might have been expected — very confused in the one, shaky in the other. A few words revealed the story which the girl came to tell, and in which she by no means told all the truth (that part, espe cially, which concerned her enforced absence from the house). She had gone to the grocery, she said — met Mr. Charles Holt, who told her he was going down to the house— had been absent between a half and three-quarters of . an hour— and when she came back, had found the house deserted and all those evidences of a sudden flight.

Bonnie Kate Haviland was " bonnie" no longer for that mument. She looked "wolfish," to use a Westernism. She had believed pome unpleasant things of her cousin's wife ; but this — elopement and final ruin — this was too much ! Seducer or seduced (as she believed them) would have fared badly in her hands at that moment, little and dainty as they were.

Ten minutes afterwards the young girl had her gipsy flat on her head and was accompanying Sarah Sanderson up to Forty-eighth Street. There was still no one within the house, nor could any indication be found to discredit the belief of Sarah that Mary Haviland had eloped with the merchant — • fleeing with that suddenness to prevent being caught by the girl on her return.

By that afternoon's mail another letter from Kate Haviland to her cousin Burtnett, written on Mary's little writing-case in her own parlor, and upon paper that the young wife had specially designed for keeping up correspondence with him, — left the citv for Alexandria or wherever the Fire Zouaves

THE DAYS Of SHODDY. 391

should be "on service." What that letter contained, in the then prevailing state of mind of the young teacher, may be easily imagined. It told Burtnett Haviland that the night before, beyond doubt or hope, his wife had abandoned her home at a moment's notice and eloped with the merchant, his former employer !

Three things more must be said before the close of this chapter. One, that Sarah Sanderson, at Kate's suggestion, though with many fears and quakings, remained in the aban doned house, to " see what would turn up," using the money left behind by her mistress, to purchase what food was neces sary for her very small family. The second, that Charles Holt, whether already for the time sick of a city where such disappointments as his own could be met with, or with some business connected with his "shoddy" operations to transact at Washington, left New York ibr the Capital on Wednesday morning the 17th. The third, that Kate Haviland, after her researches at the house on Forty-eighth Street and her ar rangements for the subsistence of Sarah Sanderson, went back to Mrs. Fullerton's and the care of those seraphs, Myra and Mildred, with an indefinite impression floating about beneath her chestnut hair, that all men were scoundrels, that all women were fools, and that if any of the male sex ever tried tricks of that character upon .her, they would be very likely to have a good time of it !

CHAPTER XX. THE BATTLE OP BULL RUN — THE "ON TO RICHMOND" CRY,

AND HOW IT WAS OBEYED — McDoWELL'S " GRAND ARMY" —

THE ADVANCE — THE BATTLE OF THE 18TH JULY — PAUSE

OF THE 19TH AND 20TII — TlIE OPENING OF THE 21ST — BAT TLE OF BULL RUN PROPER, WITH SKETCH OF THE FIELD AND

THE CORPS-MOVEMENTS THE BATTLE, THE PANIC AND THE

END.

THE history of the battle of Bull Run has never yet been so related as to clear away much of the mystery at first sur rounding it and make the world fully aware why and how that thunderbolt of national disaster fell out of an apparently cloudless sky — how it was brought on, and fought, and won, and lost. The cause of truth might be subserved, did space permit the writer fully to avail himself of the copious mate rials furnished,* and to narrate with that particularity which trenches upon the province of the historian, the story of that battle which has so much influenced the national cause at home, and so affected our name in arms abroad. The limits, however, of this^ story, now necessarily approaching its con clusion, render impossible any thing more than a brief and

* By Lieut. William H. White, the desultory but graphic historian of the Mexican War. unquestionably the closest and most capable student of all the battles of the War for the Union, from its commencement, and to whom the •writer has before had the happiness of avowing his obligations for the mate rials of the description of the battle of Malvern Hill, in the previous volume of this series — "Shoulder-Straps." Mr. White is not to be either credited or held responsible for the operations of the Fire Zouaves, in their formation, campaign, before, during and after the battle — the data for the movements of that corps, during all its career, being derived from personal observation, from the journals and letters of "A. 0. A.," who went down with the regiment as a> fighting newspaper-correspondent in the interest of the Fire Department, •was captured at Bull Run and kept for ten months a prisoner at Richmond, Charleston and elsewhere, — and from the relations of officers and members of the Zouave and other regiments.

392

T it E D A Y S O F SHODDY. 393

rapid recapitulation of leading events and movements con nected with that battle, while so much is necessary as a part of the history of the time, as well as from the influence pro duced on the fortunes of leading characters in the narration, by the closing events of the conflict. And in this hasty re view of the battle, it must be understood that only the corps- movements of the Union troops can be given, while the rebels are more or less dealt with as a formidable aggregate.

"On to Richmond !" was the cry. The seat of the rebel government had been removed to Richmond from Mont gomery, and the belief then existed — first, that Richmond could easily be taken ; — second, that to take Richmond and capture the rebel President and Cabinet, would close the se cession. The second of these opinions is still retained when nearly three years have passed since the first effort; the first is as fresh as ever in the public mind, when some hundreds of thousands of lives have been sacrificed on tbe.road and some dozens of the most gallant reputations in the nation sent to keep them company.

Secretary Seward had predicted that the war would be over in three months. Beginning in April, the three months ended in July. What was called a mighty army lay in and around Washington, and extensive fortifications stretched south-westward over Arlington Heights into Virginia. From the beginning the power and determination of the rebels had been underrated, and in spite of the fact that nearly or quite two thousand cannon and more than two hundred thousand stand of arms had fallen into their hands by theft and capture, they were said to have " no weapons." Scott, noble, glorious, but broken down and superannuated, sat in his easy-chair at his headquarters in Washington, tapped the maps on the wall with his cane and scolded the young officers. Only once in a long period was he even able to ride out to the field in his carriage and overlook a few of the more important evolutions. Yet he "commanded." McDowell commanded under him, doing what he could to form an army out of raw materials, but, as an old army officer, painfully aware that no army had as yet been formed, though one of the finest in the world might still grow up in the near future.

394 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

But " On to Richmond !" was the cry. Congress, not doing mischief enough otherwise, bellowed -it, and the country took up the cry.. The radicals, who felt that some share 'of the responsibility of the struggle rested upon them, insisted upon it ; and the conservatives, who felt that the struggle could not close too soon, acknowledged the justice of the demand. McDowell was not ready, but he must " go ahead." He has not been the last man, in the Union service, hounded on at the wrong time and undersuicidal circumstances — then abused and underrated for failure. But enough of this, and quite enough to recall to recollection what so many well remember when reminded.

Brigadier General Irwin McDowell had a " grand army" — so the journals designated it, and so the people spoke of it. In numbers it was really formidable as compared with any body of troops that had before assembled on this continent ; and Gov. Andrew's happy phrase for it, of " an aggregation of town meetings" (to which allusion may before have been made) had not yet been applied. But even in numbers it was contemptible, as compared with the force that subsequent events showed to be needed, and as contrasted with the hordes that sprung up on either side, when it had been des troyed, and sown in the Virginian furrows after the manner of the dragon's teeth. Let us for on-e moment, before exam ining what was done by this force, glance at its numbers and composition, when it took up its line of march from Arling ton Heights and the various encampments around Washing ton, at 3 P.M., on Tuesday, the 10th of July, 1861, to sweep away the army of the rebel Beauregard, and "put an early close to the secession."

At that early day a " division" was the largest command in the service, "corps d'armee" (since better known among the rough wits as " corps dammee") not having yet come into use in the United States armies. The Army of the Poto mac was made up of live of those divisions, each, with the exception of the fourth (or " reserve") composed of two or more brigades. The reserve was not subdivided into brigades, but held in one entire command. There were in all, eleven brigades. Of cavalry there were eight companies,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 395

all regulars. There were twelve regiments of three-months militia, thirty-six of Volunteers from the various States, one battalion of marines and another of foot regulars — composing the infantry force. The artillery consisted of fifty-five pieces, light and heavy, divided into eleven batteries and one section of two pieces attached to the New York Seventy-first. One of these batteries, of six pieces, belonging to the Eighth New York, was thrown out of service the day before the battle, by the expiration of the term of service of the members, and marched away at that awkward moment, giving rise to a piquant charge which will not soon be forgotten, of their hav ing " inarched to the rear to the sound of the enemy's guns." The whole force of artillery remaining was therefore forty- nine pieces of all calibres, twenty-eight b«ing rifled. The batteries were fully horsed and equipped, but the section ac companying the Seventy-first was drawn by drag-ropes manned by detachments from that regiment.

The men, armament and horses of the " grand army" may be summed up briefly thus : thirty-three thousand five hun dred infantry, one thousand artillery and five hundred caval ry : thirty-five thousand men of all arms. Horses — artillery one thousand, and 'cavalry five hundred — in all fifteen hun dred. Artillery, forty-nine pieces ; sabres and cavalry car bines, five hundred ; bayonets, thirty-three thousand.

The highest officer in rank was a Brigadier General. Two of the division commanders — Tyler of the first, and Runyou of the fourth — were Brigadiers, both belonging to the three- months men. The other three, Hunter, Heintzelman and Miles, were Colonels, all of the regular army. Each of the eleven brigades was led by a Colonel. Four of "these — Keyes, W. T. Sherman, Franklin and Andrew Porter, be longed to the regular service ; the others, Schenck, Richard son, Burnside, Wilcox, Howard, Blenker and Davies, were volunteers, temporarily detached from their regiments.

There were eighteen regiments from New York ; four from Michigan ; two each from Ohio and Pennsylvania ; one from Minnesota and one from Wisconsin. New England had four teen, of which Maine sent four, Massachusets three, Connecti cut three, Rhode Island two, and Vermont and New Hamp-

S96 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

shire each one. New Jersey had seven regiments, all in Gen. Runyon's reserve, and consequently (as well as very unfor tunately) never thrown into the fight, though a part of them did good service in checking the retreat. One of the Penn sylvania regiments, the Fourth, took the same view of the situation, as that embraced by the New York battery, and marched away when the conflict was actually beginning. This, with the reserve subtracted, left the advancing army with only forty-one regiments, or less than thirty thousand men of all arms.

On the 17th, McDowell entered Fairfax Court-House and drove the rebels towards Centreville and Manasses, making some unimportant captures of material, but the South Caro lina troops who had previously held that place, escaping. The pursuit was not pushed beyond Centreville, owing to the early exhaustion of the raw troops.

On the morning of the 18th, the situation of the various commands was as follows : Tyler's first division at Centreville ; Hunter's second at Fairfax Court-House ; Heintzelman's third at Sangster's and Fairfax Stations ; Runyon's fourth in reserve ; and Miles's Fifth between Fairfax Court-House and Station.

Each of the brigades encountered obstructions on the march, from trees felled across the roads and other incumbrances, that were yet easily removed by the axemen of the commands. The pioneers, however, had no power to sweep away the Virginian forests, fill up Virginian swamps or level the face of the country ; and obstructions to advance a thousand times more serious were found eventually in those peculiarities of the "Old Dominion."

Richardson's brigade of Tyler's division passed on through Centreville and advanced towards Bull Run Valley. At noon Gen. Tyler commenced a reconnoisance in force, with this brig ade, consisting of the Twelfth New York, First Massachu setts and Second and Third Michigan — all volunteers ; Ayres' battery and two companies of cavalry. This force, moving up the Run through troublesome timber, near Blackburn's Ford, two and- a half miles from Centreville, came upon a strong rebel force, and the first hostilities were commenced by Ayres, with a vigorous reply from the rebels, who had the advantage

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 397

of shelter. The eventual result of this skirmish was that the Federal troops were virtually repulsed, (the Twelfth New York, Col. Wai rath, behaving badly) — and that after a vigor ous shelling of the woods by Ayres, Richardson fell back in good order upon Centreville. The Federal loss in this opening fight was perhaps one hundred 'in killed, wounded and missing.

Friday the 19th and Saturday the 20th, though with heavy skirmishes on both days, were principally employed in re- connoisances, the body of the Federal army remaining quietly in camp in the various positions taken on the 11th and 18th. The rebels who had been driven from Fairfax Court-House, Germantown, Centreville and other points in the neighborhood, during those two days of fatal delay joined the main body under Beauregard, strongly posted on the formidable range of • hills near Manasses. Naturally a very strong position, this had been further strengthened by miles of earthworks and acres of that formidable obstruction so well known to military men as abattis ; while thick woods so screened their works on the crests and sides of the hills that it required the sharp est scrutiny, even when close upon them, to discover their precise locality before suffering the worst results of their .presence.

Beauregard was evidently informed in good time of the determination of McDowell to advance upon Manasses, — through some one of the many ramifications of that treachery which paralyzed all the Union movements at the commence ment of the war, and has ever since so sadly crippled them. He was thus enabled to withdraw his troops from the Northern side of Bull Run, in time to escape McDowell's skilfully-planned and well-executed attempt to effect their capture. The precautionary spirit of that officer, leading him even to check by a lift of the finger the cheers about to break from the troops as he rode through them at Centreville, for fear of the noise that might thus be created, — was of little use when rebel spies and traitors lurked at every corner, ready to betray each successive movement !

Bull Run, insignificant then and now in size, unknown then except to the dwellers in its neighborhood, but now as

898 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

historic as the Danube or the Tiber, — is a small stream having its source in the Bull Run Mountains, flowing in a direction generally South-east, and falling into the Ocoquan about three and a half leagues from the junction of the latter stream with the Potomac. Narrow in width, it is usually very low in the dry weather of summer, but in winter almost always deep and unfordable. At times, even in summer, heavy rains and their consequent freshets swell it within a few hours so that the fords are rendered impassable. The country, on either side, is thickly wooded and hopelessly broken, making it the most troublesome of barriers to an armed advance in the face of defences so easily thrown up on the surrounding hills.

Man asses is seven miles distant in a South-west direction from Centreville ; and the latter is a small village of a few straggling houses, lying on a ridge of hills taking a direction nearly North and South. The Centreville and Manasses road runs along this ridge and crossing Bull Run at Mitchell's Ford, about equi-distant between the two villages. The Warrenton turnpike runs nearly East and West over the ridge, through Centreville, and crosses Bull Run some four miles from that village, at the Stone Bridge, first passing over one of its tributaries, Cub Run, by a bridge of mason-work two miles west of Centreville ; — the latter and smaller stream falling into Bull Run about half way between the Stone Bridge and Blackburn's Ford That ford is nearly South east of Centreville, distant about three miles, and the lowest down-stream of any near the scene of action. Passing up stream, the next is Mitchell's Ford ; then the Stone Bridge — • each at the distance of about one mile. Another ford one and a half miles above the Stone Bridge, and still another at Sudley's Springs, ten miles North-west of Centreville. This brief view of the ground partially or altogether covered .by the battle, may do at least something to make intelligible the movements rapidly following.

The original purpose of Gen. McDowell had been to turn the rebel position on their right, but a reconnoisance in person con viced him that such a movement was impracticable ; and the affair of the 18th stamped as equally futile an intended

T H K DAYS OF S H O D D Y. 899

attempt to cross at Blackburn's Ford, which would bring his forces directly in front of the rebel main position at Man as ses. The only alternative remaining was to turn the enemy's extreme left Hunter's and Heintzelman's divisions were accordingly put under orders to cross at Sudley's and the ford below ; Tyler's to threaten the Warrenton turnpike by the Stone Bridge, leaving Richardson's brigade to watch Black burn's Ford against a possible attempt to flank by the rebels; Miles, sending one brigade to Richardson, with the remain der to occupy the heights at Centreville, in reserve. The plan was to cross at the upper fords, less strongly defended because the enemy had been expecting an attack on his right • — press down to the Stone Bridge before reinforcements could be thrown there, form a junction with Tyler's division crossing there, strike the enemy's flank, then turn to the right and force his left, attacking his rear and destroying the railroad leading down to the Valley of Virginia, where a heavy force was know to be concentrated. The rebels, meanwhile, were really in force at all the fords except Sud ley's ; and the Stone Bridge was strongly defended by artillery and thick abattis.

The various columns were directed to move from their camps at half-past two o'clock on the morning of Sunday, July 21st. Tyler marched out on the Warrenton turnpike at the time designated, and arrived in front of the Stone Bridge at six. His force then consisted of Schenck's and Sherman's brigades, with Ayres' and Carlisle's batteries. After posting his troops and examining the position, Tyler fired the iirst gun of the battle proper of Bull Run, at half-past six, elicit ing no I'esponse, and leaving the question an open one whether the rebels did not themselves intend to attack by a flank movement at Blackburn's Ford.

Hunter's division had meanwhile followed Tyler by the same road until Cub Run was crossed, then wheeled to the right and moved North towards Sudley's Ford. Heintzel man's division broke camp at the same time, but was blocked for three hours by Hunter being in the way, near Centreville. He then followed Hunter across Cub Run, and wheeled to the left for the ford next below Sudley's ; but no such road as

400 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

that reported by the scouts was found to exist there, and the division was pushed on to Sudley's Ford.

During the march of the two columns dense clouds of dust were seen rising in the direction of Manasses ; and before the head of Hunter's division reached Sudley's, a heavy body of rebels was seen at the distance of a mile, advancing to meet the expected attack. The loading brigade of Hunter, Burn- side's, reached the ford at half-past nine, when intelligence was received that the enemy was in force in front. Even at this early hour the heat of the July morning began to be oppressive, and the thick clouds of dust rising from every direction not only obscured the view, in advance of the smoke of battle, but caused intolerable suffering among the Union forces, as it no doubt must have donexamong those of the enemy.

A brief halt for rest and water — too brief, in the already exhausted condition of the troops — and Burnside pushed for ward, the Second Rhode Island crossing first, throwing out skirmishers to the front and on both flanks. These were met in a few moments by those of the enemy, firing commenced, the main body of the regiment fell into line of battle, the battery wheeled into position and opened fire, and the battle of Bull Run commenced in earnest.

The ground over which Burnside moved was thickly wooded and hilly, for about a mile between the Sudley road and the Run ; on the other side, or right of the road, it was for an equal distance divided between fields, hills and woods. A mile South from the Run the country on both sides of the road was more open ; and still farther beyond, large rolling fields extended a mile or more to the Warrenton road. A small tributary of Bull Run, fringed with thick woods, crossed the battle-field ; and in the valley of this water-course, at that point, ran the Warrenton turnpike. While the Second Rhode Island was there engaging, the remainder of the brigade formed on the right of the road.

It was at this juncture that Col. Hunter, pressing forward with the advance, was severely wounded and obliged to leave the field, his command falling upon Col. Andrew Porter of the First Brigade. The Second Rhode Island became hard

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 401

pressed, and the Second New Hampshire, the First Rhode Island and Seventy-first New York went forward to their support, the First Rhode Island coming into position first, owing to greater celerity in forming. The Second Rhode Island had gallantly held its own and even forced the enemy back for a short distance, though Col. Slocum was killed, Major Ballou badly wounded, and the regiment under com mand of Lt. Col. Wheaton. Col. Martin led the Seventy- first New York splendidly into action, planted his two Dahlgren boat-howitzers, and worked them most effectually. The battery of the Second Rhode Island, Capt. Reynolds, meanwhile did heavy service, nearly silencing some of the rebel batteries masked in the woods at the right, and driving back six regiments thrown forward to force that position. The Second New Hampshire came into action and fought well, though Col. Martin was early wounded and the regiment fell under the able command of Lt. Col. Fiske. The whole of Burnside's force was now under fire, and Col. Porter's first brigade was ordered up to his support.

The enemy, at this time, was drawn up in a line extending along the Warrenton road, from a house of some size and half a dozen hay-stacks fronting the extreme Federal right, to a smaller house lying a little beyond the left of the divi sion. A rebel battery was masked behind the first of these houses, others along the lines ; and a thin wood partially in front of their right gave shelter to that wing, while shrubbery and fences screened their centre and left.

Griffin's battery opened a deadly fire upon the batteries on the rebel left, and not onlysilenced or drove them back, but threw that wing into confusion. The right of Porter's bri gade was now thrown forward, including the marines under Major Reynolds ; the Twenty-seventh New York Volunteers, Col. Slocum ; the Fourteenth Brooklyn, Col. Wood ; the Eighth New York, Col. Lyons ; and Major Palmer's seven companies of cavalry in the rear. These troops went gal lantly forward, and the enemy fell back in some disorder ; at thje same time that Burnside was pouring the fiercest of his attack on the rebel right, still clinging to its protecting woods with great tenacity. The Second Rhode Island battery being 25

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

hard pressed in its turn, Sykes' regulars were sent to its assistance, dashed in under a terrible fire and delivered stag gering volleys into the very face of the enemy. At this moment Burnside succeeded in breaking the rebel right and driving them from the shelter of the woods. They came flying towards the Federal right, and their discomfiture was completed by a withering fire from the Xew York Twenty- seventh. But Col. Slocum of that regiment (the second of that name cut down on the field) was now badly wounded, the rebels fought with the ferocity of desperation, and the aid of the New York Eighth and Fourteenth, scut to reinforce the Twenty-seventh and cut them off, came too late or proved too feeble, and the broken right of the enemy at last got into shelter in safety.

At this time, eleven o'clock, A.M., the heat of the day had so culminated that severe and almost unendurable suffering commenced in both armies ; and those engaged, fond of American history, began to appreciate, better than ever before, the suffering said to have been experienced on the day of Monmouth. From whatever "shoddy" mismanagement many of the Federal troops had received no food that morn ing ; not one-tenth of their canteens were filled with water or had been during the march ; the sun poured down rays that seemed direct emanations from the fiery furnace ; the dust choked, the smoke blinded ; and the raw troops certainly had good reason to feel that their first baptism in the terrible reality of war was to be an effectual one. Poor fellows ! — . many of them came to think, before the conclusion of that day, that their position at eleven in the morning, unenviable as it was, had been rather desirable than otherwise, in com parison !

The head of Heintzelman's delayed division (which in cluded the Fire Zouaves) reached Sudley's Ford at that hour. Gen. McDowell was by that time at the front, and ordered Ileintzelman to send forward two regiments to prevent the flanking of the troops already engaged. Heintzelman threw forward the First Minnesota, Col. Gorman, to the left of the road, and the Eleventh Massachusetts, Col. Clarke, directly up it. He accompanied the Massachusetts regiment in per-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

son, and placed it in position. The rest of the division followed close, with the exception of Arnold's battery and its supports formed of part of Heintzelman's second brigade. His first, under Franklin, was formed of the First Minnesota, Col. Gorman ; Fifth Massachusetts, Col. Lawrence ; and the Eleventh Massachusetts, Col. Clarke. His second, under Wilcox, comprised the First and Fourth Michigan, Lt. Col. Comstock and Col. Woodbury ; the Eleventh New York (Fire Zouaves), Col. Farnham ; and the Thirty-eighth New York (Scott Life Guards), Col. J. II. Hobart Ward. His third, under Howard, numbered the Third, Fourth and Fifth Maine, Cols. Tucker, Berry and Dunnels ; and the Second Vermont, Col. St. Clair.

The line of high ground beyond the "Warrenton road, before spoken of, running from the house with haystacks on the hill west of the Sudley road, to another hill more than half a mile to the east of the road, was at this time the particular object of the Federal attack, the first mentioned point yet more especially. Ricketts' battery was to take part in this attack, and took position within a thousand feet of the enemy's batteries.

Tyler's first division had meanwhile been busy. As soon as the divisions of Hunter and Heintzelman were fairly en gaged, the brigades of Sherman and Keyes (at about noon) were sent across the Run by a ford just discovered below the Bridge. Sherman's brigade, in the advance, consisted of the Sixty-ninth and Seventy-ninth New York, Cols. Corcoran and Cameron ; the Thirteenth New York Volunteers, Col. Quimby ; and the Second Wisconsin, Lt. Col. Peck. Keyes, on the left, commanded the First, Second and Third Con necticut, Cols. Burnhfl,m, Terry and Chatfield ; and the Second Maine, Col. Jameson.

Sherman, after crossing, ascended the steep bluff on the opposite side without molestation, the Sixty-ninth New York leading. No artillery accompanied the column, from the impossibility of crossing it by the ford. Here he encoun tered a body of the retreating enemy, but a few moments after, under the shelter of a cluster of pines near the bank ; and it was in riding rashly forward to intercept the retreat,

404 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

that the gallant Lt. Col. Haggerty, of the Sixty-ninth, was shot down by a rebel marksman at short range and in full view of his regiment, Firing on both sides followed, but Sherman was intent upon forming a speedy junction with Hunter, and his forces pushed on towards the field where the two divisions were already hotly engaged. Reaching the field he formed in the rear of Porter's brigade, and joined in the pursuit of the rebels, then falling back to the left of the Sud- ley road. Quimby's Thirteenth were in the advance, followed in their order by the Second Wisconsin, Seventy-ninth and Sixty-ninth New York. Quimby's regiment advanced steadily down the hill, across the road and up the further slope to tho top of the ridge lately occupied *by the enemy, from which it opened fire upon them in their new and favorable position. Quimby continued his advance and the rebels retreated, until they reached a point where the heat of the conflict had been raging against Heintzelman and Ricketts' battery severely cut up. The other regiments of the brigade followed, .in good order though under a severe cannonading from Iho rebel pieces on the ridge ; and sheltered for a moment under the banks of the deep roadway from the terrible fire of artil lery and musketry pouring down the ridge, as they prepare to dash over the crest and engage in some of the most splendid fighting of the day, — they must be left for the time, while we trace the fortunes of the gallant brigade of Keyes.

This brigade crossed Bull Run, closed well up to Sherman's left, some eight hundred yards above the Stone Bridge. Af ter crossing, Keyes marched at once up the opposite slope and formed on Sherman's left. In a few moments this brigade, now forming the extreme left of the entire army engaged, came into conflict with a strong body- of rebel cavalry sup ported by infantry, and drove them with heavy loss. Its own course was finally arrested by a severe fire from a cluster of buildings standing on the heights above the Warrenton road. The second Maine and Third Connecticut were ordered to assault the position, which proved for the moment a Chew's House or Hoguemont against their advance. They performed that duty splendidly, under a deadly fire from a rebel battery of eight and a strong body of infantry, — carried the buildings

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 405

and held them for a time. Then, finding those buildings in turn commanded by a battery on the heights behind, they marched by the left flank from the heights across an open, field to the shelter of the banks of Bull Run, half a mile be low. Up this ravine the whole brigade pressed, with a view of turning a rebel battery which commanded the Warrenton road at Stone Bridge. This diversion caused the enemy to retire from that point, and gave Capt. Alexander, of the en gineers, an opportunity, gallantly embraced, of crossing the bridge, cutting away the abattis and making way for the pas sage over of Schenck's brigade, with Ayres' and Carlisle's batteries, thus brought to participate in the action. But the rebel 'battery only limbered up and moved to a new position, from which it kept up a galling fire. Keycs skilfully ma noeuvred his force out of that unsafe position, by a flank movement around the base of a sheltering hill, came to a front, advanced a hundred }rards and prepared to charge up the hill and capture the troublesome battery.

But by that time symptoms of disaster to the Federal right became palpable, and Gen. Tyler ordered Keycs to face by the right flank, file to the right, recross the Run, and join the main body of the Federal troops, already in full retreat.

It is at this juncture necessary once more to leave the left and return to the right and centre, last seen in preparation for those desperate and final charges on the long ridge held by the enemy on the hill west of the Sudley road, which were to decide the whole event of the battle. •

Three times the forces left in that position assaulted that ridge bristling with musketry and pouring down one contin uous rain of the most deadly missiles known to modern war fare — the defenders half hidden behind formidable obstruc tions at every point of the line : the assailants unsheltered and convenient marks for all that rebel valor driven to des peration could pour down upon them. Yeteran troops have recoiled under less discouraging circumstances than those in which the worn-out and sweltering soldiers of the Union staggered up to that assault, beneath the blazing sun of the early midsummer afternoon, unfed, athirst and doubtful of the capacity of many of their commanders : literally raw levies

406 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

might have been excused if they had scarcely attempted the assault at all. Sad to say that human justice is so uncertain ! — the relations of the panic of that afternoon, which have ever since filled the land and been wafted far and wide beyond the Atlantic, have been unaccompanied by any reminder how nobly those very men fought when there was yet one hope or one chance of victory !

Three times that assault was made. Twice it was repulsed. The third time, nothing could stand before the ill-regulated but desperate courage of the assailants. The rebel lines wavered — they gave way — they broke : and foot by foot the Federals pressed them backwards. Still further — away from the hill and so far down and beyond it that they were liter ally hidden from sight, — the rebel's were forced backwards. To all appearances the central position was swept — the field was in the hands of the Federal forces — the day was won ! IS"o thought of hunger or fatigue, then ! Fatigue was for gotten in the thought of victory : hunger was filled in that most glorious of banquets at which the soldier sits down with bravery as his warrant, and feasts with the gods in the con sciousness of developed power.

A few moments of triumph, then doubt, to bo followed by despair. Dense clouds of dust arose in the West and North west, far beyond the point to which the main body of the rebels had been driven. Then the head of their column ad vanced again — so lately broken, now broken no longer, but closed up and threatening, and evidently reinforced! ]STo military eye but saw the omen too plainly. Fresh rebel troops had arrived : whence, none could tell, but whence was really a matter of little consequence. Not a few — not a brigade or even a division, but thousand upon thousand ! — ab solutely what seemed to be an army quite as large as their own, of rebel reinforcements. They could not know, what the country and the whole world knew too soon — that Gen eral Joe Johnston, the very ablest and most dangerous of the rebel commanders, with twenty or twenty-five thousand troops, had been allowed to slip away from the force intended to hold them in check if not to bring them into actual engage ment, near Winchester, and to reach that hard-foughten field

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 407

at the very moment when the worst could be done by those troops for the cause of the nation and for humanity.

The story of the battle proper, after this point was reached, is all too briefly told, though some of the most desperate fighting of the day took place after the arrival of the rebel reinforcements. "What Washington felt when he saw the last hope of his campaign of 17"l6-7, destroyed by the pouring of an overpowering British force against hi§ exhausted troops at the close of the day of the battle of Long Island — what Napoleon felt when he saw that the long line of troops ad vancing to Waterloo, by Wavres, were those of Blucher in stead of Grouchy — something like this must have been ex perienced, in however less a degree, by McDowell and the other officers who with him saw the imminence of the danger and the probability of ruin.

A fourth time the rebel force poured forward to the ridge, now overwhelming in numbers and flushed with a certainty of victory. Franklin's brigade, of the First Minnesota, Fifth and Eleventh Massachusetts, met the first shock with great gallantry, unavailing as that gallantry eventually proved. The enemy regained the ridge, and now held it against all attempts to dislodge them. Col. Wilcox's brigade, on the left of Franklin, met the heaviest of this shock, but in the more particular account yet to be given of the special fortunes of the Fire Zouaves, the fate of that brigade is involved. Heintz- elman led forward several of the regiments of this command, in person, in support of different batteries, and they were broken one by one — a point of military policy which will al ways remain a question. And here occurred another of those blunders in identity, which have before been alluded to as so fated during the war. The First Minnesota and a rebel brigade mutually mistook each other, from the fact that the rebel uniform and that of many of our militia, was the same — black-trimmed gray ; and they were close together and the rebels partially sheltered within a belt of timber above the road, before the mistake was discovered. In the deadly fire which then opened, almost into each other's faces, the Minnesota troops, sadly outnumbered, were literally cut to pieces, Kicketta' battery was cut up and disabled, and Heintz-

408 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

olman was wounded in the arm, though he did not leave the field.

All the regiments of Wilcox's brigade suffered terribly hore — not only the Fire Zouaves, but the First and Fourth Michigan — both the latter doing duty nobly long after they were broken. The last but best regiment of this brigade, the New, York Thirty-eighth Volunteers of Col. J. H. Hobart "Ward, held their ground manfully, once drove the rebels en tirely in their attack on Ricketts' battery, but were finally driven back and scattered by a force beyond human power to resist. It was in attempting to make a last rally of this bri gade that Col. Wilcox, fighting determinedly, was taken by the rebels, afterwards to supply one of the most notable, prisoners to the dens at Richmond.

Howard's brigade, on the left of Wilcox, now suffered terri- lily in the assaults of the enemy upon Griffin's battery. Of this brigade, the Fourth Maine, Colonel Barry, showed in domitable courage and extraordinary discipline, and did not lose its organization for a moment, even when under the dead liest fire and actually decimated. The Fourteenth Brooklyn fought nobly for a time, but that regiment had yet to win its after-glorious reputation, and they too broke after a time and went to the rear. In the attempt to rally them, the gallant Colonel Wood was severely wounded and supplied the rebels with their second captured Union Colonel. In attempted support of Griffin's battery, too, the marines, a battalion of the Twenty-seventh New York under Major Bartlett, and the Eighth New York State Militia, were all ordered up. The Eighth gave evidence of courage and determination to fight, but a part of their field was miserably inefficient if not basely cowardly, and they were soon broken and more than half the time left without a regimental officer in command. Once the Quartermaster, Lieut. Cornell, took command and fought them for a while en amateur, and once Major Wadsworth, finding them wandering in the woods like lost children, swear ing terribly and shooting very much at random, performed the same service for them for a few minutes ; but this was all that was realized out of the excellent material and very good

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 409

discipline of a regiment certainly worthy, if well led, to have ranked beside or next to the Seventy-first.

We have now seen the fate of the Fourteenth and the Eighth, of Porter's brigade. His cavalry did all that the broken nature of the ground would permit ; but the marines broke in spite of every exertion ; and only the battalion of the Twenty-seventh remained entirely unbroken, and retired, when they did so, without panic.

We left Burnside's brigade of Hunter's division, some time since, under heavy fire between the Sudley road and the Run, to the left; and aid under Sykes, from Col. Andrew Porter's, coming up to its relief. The battery of the Second Rhode Island and the howitzers of the New York Seventy-first did splendid service, and Burnside, with the support of Sykes, drove the rebels in confusion before him and was enabled to open upon the body opposed to Porter. He sent the Second New Hampshire to the support of Howard, and with the re mainder of his brigade went into the woods in the rear, to supply the troops with ammunition, which was nearly ex hausted.

Sherman's brigade was lost sight of, some time ago, shel tered under the banks of the roadway near the crest of a hill on the Sudley road. Here Sherman received orders from McDowell to attack at once, and the Second Wisconsin went steadily over the crest for a time, but broke at last, Western hunters though they were, under a fire that might have stag gered veteran troops. The Seventy-ninth New York were now ordered to cross the ridge and drive the rebels from the sheltering clusters of pines which gave them such advantage. Worthy of the reputation of their race was the stubborn at tempt of the Scotsmen to fulfil that duty, in the face of re peated repulses. They Avavered and rallied again, several times, but were at last driven back to the shelter of the road way, leaving their brave Col. 'Cameron dead on the field.

Now came the turn of the Sixty-ninth, and if the Gael had just displayed his stubborn bravery, here was a chance for the exhibition of the fiery heroism of the Celt. Quimby's Thirteenth was hotly engaged on another ridge a little to the left, aud the event in that direction seemed doubtful, when

410 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

Colonel Corcoran led his brave Irishmen over the ridge, in the face of such a fire as few troops ever successfully encoun tered — such a fire as up to that time had never been poured over any portion of the American continent, but since that time, alas ! — too often paralleled and even exceeded in vio lence. It is the same old story once more to be told over — . advance, repulse, rally, the tasking of every energy ; then final repulse, with the gallant Corcoran in the hands of the enemy — the third and last of the Union Colonels taken pris oner.

It was about four o'clock, P.M., when the last charge of the Sixty-ninth was made. By that time the Federal troops had begun to give way under the pressure of Johnston's rebel reinforcements and disaster in that quarter became apparent. Schenck, crossing Stone Bridge after Sherman and Kcyes, had been recalled in the midst of local success. Kicketts' and Griffin's batteries had been taken and retaken three times, but finally left in the hands of the enemy for lack of hoi'ses to draw them away. The rebels captured no others during the engagement, properly so called.

By that time (four, P.M.), the field of Bull Run had been fought, won and lost ; and the whole force on the other side of Bull Run was in full retreat. Heintzelman's- and Hunter's divisions retreated by Sudley's Ford, and Sherman's and Keyes' by the ford near the Stone Bridge. Burnside, whose brigade was the least disorganized, covered the retreat at Sudley's. The Rhode Islanders and the New York Seventy- first; brought off their guns in safety. At this period of the retreat the Twenty-Seventh and Thirty-eighth New York, Fourth Maine, Fifth Massachusetts, First Minnesota, Seven ty-first New 'York, First and Second Rhode Island, all dis played coolness and brought np the rear with steadiness that would not have done discredit to veterans.

The details of the action of the reserve, not actually included in the battle, must necessarily be omitted, as well as the corps- movements of the main body, while they retained regularity worthy of the name, and after the event of the action was decided. It was not until more than an hour after the retreat had commenced — when really no danger from the enemy was

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 411

longer to be apprehended, and when even the rashest bravery could not have saved the lost battle, — that the retreat became a flight and the feeling of discouragement a panic. They err who say that the battle of Bull Run was lost by the coward ice of the Union troops. It was lost by a lack of numbers from the first* — delay in marching, owing partially to the in experience of officers and partially to the want of endurance of raw troops on the route — the knowledge of the country possessed by the rebels and lacking in the Federals, giving the former at all times the advantage in position — the wooded, broken and easily-defensible nature of the ground held by the rebels — and more than all and above all, by the rebel General Johnston being allowed, as before recorded, to reach the field at that very inopportune moment, with his overwhelming reinforcements. Most of the troops fought well — the three- months militia regiments peculiarly well — when even decently led and while there was a hope of success . remaining : they were simply beaten out, exhausted and overpowered. And if any man wants any more explanations of the melancholy failure than have already been furnished, let him find them, after the manner of Victor Hugo explaining away Waterloo, in some supposition that " God was tired of" McDowell or the Ameri can Union.

How the panic commenced, before the retreating army reached Cub Run, throwing the disorganized regiments into and over the top of those that yet remained intact, and break ing the whole mass into one frightened horde, throwing away arms, clothing, every thing, in the madness of fear and the sin gle thought of dishonorable flight, — no man can tell, to this clay, any more than that panic can be explained which made the Old Guard frightened sheep at "Waterloo. Some say the soared teamsters ; others particular regiments ; still others, reports that the enemy (themselves too badly cut up to pursue at all) were close upon their backs with still other reinforce-

«•' McDowell, leaving his reserve, only carried 17,500 men of all nrrns and 12 pieces of artillery over Bull Run and into action. The rebels could not then have had less than 20,000 to 25,000 on the ground, nnd Johnston's rein forcements brought up their strength to 40,000 — tho Union forces actually eu- gaged buing cutnuiuborod two, to one.

412 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

ments ; and yet others, the inevitable tendencies of humanity under discouragement. Only God knows the secret cause : the fact, meanwhile, is painfully patent to mankind. The dis graceful affair occurred. A beaten army left the field, in no worse order than hundreds of other beaten armies have re treated ; but nothing more than a mob reached the choked-up bridge at Cub Run, under the suddenly-opened fire of the enemy ; and certainly nothing less melancholy than a mob staggered fainting, foot-sore, half-clothed, crazed and demo niac, along the roads leading to Centreville, to be checked a little by the reserve there, to re-occupy the abandoned camps in that neighborhood, or to straggle through the night towards Alexandria, Arlington Heights and Washington, carrying ter ror and panic everywhere, and doing even more injury to the nation after leaving the field, than they had caused in its forced abandonment.

The pitying eye of heaven has seldom looked down on sadder scenes than some of that night. Men half-dressed, barefoot, bareheaded and delirious, fighting for the ambu lances with the wounded, dragging officers from their horses, mounting them and riding away ; wounded and exhausted men crawling to the brooks, drinking and dying there ; piteous cries for help and oaths of impatience on every hand and at every step ; carriages filled with civilians or men on horseback dashing down the dusky roads, heedless of life or limb in their career; arms lying abandoned everywhere,. as if the toil and sweat of the nation had not bought them ; frightened inquiries on every hand, from those who had not shared in the conflict, and still more frightened answers from those who were leaving it ; brave men become -cowards, demoralization universal, and despair seeming to brood over the whole scene in the thick gathering clouds that were before many hours to expend themselves in rain on the abandoned battle-field and cool the fevered lips of the dying even while adding to the tortures of their wound's.

One word more — to say that besides the heavy material loss of the Union forces, the loss in men numbered nineteen officers, four hundred and sixty two non-commissioned officers and men, killed and wounded, and about twelve hundred

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 413

taken prisoners ; — and then let the curtain of silence, thick as that of the falling night, be drawn over the general sad result of the battle of Bull Run, while we return to trace rapidly and briefly the fortunes of the Fire Zouaves in that conflict, and especially those of Burtnett Haviland, through whom the whole has a pertinency to this relation.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ZOUAVES CALLED TO BATTLE — THE BLOW THAT STRUCK BURTNETT HAVILAND AT THE SAME MOMENT — A TRUE HEART IN ITS DESPAIR — THE ZOUAVES IN BATTLE— THE THREE CHARGES AND THREE REPULSES — END OF A "FAVO RITE REGIMENT" — How HAVILAND BECAME A REBEL — How CHARLES HOLT TOOK THE ROAD TO RICHMOND — AND now THE CLERK -CEASED TO BE A SOLDIER.

THE battle call came to the Zouaves on Tuesday the 16th of July, at which time the companies at Fort Ellsworth and those on duty beyond received orders to prepare for a march and the word "advance movement" began to be bruited in the camp. Then broke out afresh the petty jealousy which has before been noticed, against the Company employed on other service ; and though the fire-boys had no objection whatever to a nearer insight into the mysteries of actual warfare, they could not avoid venting such remarks as :

" Oh ho ! we are going to fight, are we ? But you don't

catch Company S°'l^S — n°t they ! They are having a

soft thing of it down at Alexandria ; and catch them going any nearer to a fight than that, if they know it !"

Perhaps the grumblers were a little surprised, and not a little mortified, when the cars from Alexandria that carne in to the line of the road where they were forming, a mile south of Cloud's Mills, on Wednesday morning, brought Company

, and found it formed and ready for the march, before any

other of the regiment ! Perhaps they would have been a

414: THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

little more surprised, could they have heard what passed be tween Captain Jack and the General in command at Alexan dria, on Tuesday — the Captain's request that the Company might be allowed to join the balance of the command — the veteran General's grufl': " Young man — when you are as old as I am, and have seen as many battles, you will think twice before you go into any fights that you can keep out of !" — and the Captain's reply : " Very likely, General ; but every one of my command would rather be killed — at least killed a little, — than have the name of shirking when the rest of the regiment is going into active service 1"

The same note of preparation heard at Fort Ellsworth and Cloud's Mills, of course sounded at Alexandria on Tuesday, and the same rumor of the " onward movement" rangamoiig the Zouaves there, and the Michigan troops who assisted in holding the town, that was stirring up the companies beyond. Activity, energy, bustle, were the order of that day of prep aration for sterner service than any they had so far seen ; and }*et there was one man among the Zouaves, who showed noth ing of either — who moved like a man in a dream — with set and glaring eyes, compressed mouth, and something in his whole demeanor that would have told any close observer that he was passing through that period of quiet despair which follows the acme of 'mental suffering.

That man was Burtnett Haviland. The same hour which spread among the Zouaves the knowledge that they were to participate in the army's advance movement, had brought him a letter from Washington by the mail-boat, bearing the New York post-mark, and in Kate's well known hand writing. What that letter contained, may be easily judged, when it is remembered that Kate Haviland had written it in his own house, within an hour after the discovery of his wife's sup posed elopement ! What that true-hearted man suffered un der that culminating blow which could never be followed by one deadlier or more cruel, can only be known by those (and they are few — and yet too many !) who have passed through the same terrible ordeal.

The Zouave was on guard on one of the wharves when the letter was handed him, and very fortunately he was alone

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 415

when he opened and read it. For he would not have been pleased at the neighborhood of too close observers, however friendly, when the worst fears of the last two months were all realized a thousand times over, and the last hope of his life destroyed. "When he bent down his head, leaning- upon the weapon that at that moment seemed to be bis only friend, felt the hot tears gushing from his eyes in another and a deeper sorrow than he had known that fatal night in the store of Charles Holt & Andrews, and great sobs burst forth and shook his strong frame as if the very foundations of his be ing were breaking up. When at length he raised his head, with one fearful oath which the recording angels who pity human sorrow while they measure human crime, can scarcely have set down against him, — threw the unwelcome missive into the dirt that lay thick upon the wharf, and ground it with his heavy heel till it was a mere mass of illegible fragments. The ruin was complete and final. He believed that his destiny was accomplished — that the sacrifice he had felt him self called upon to make for his country, was made to the uttermost, in a bereavement fifty times worse than the mere vielding up of his life. The yielding up of his life ! — ah, there was one thought of consolation. He had, just then, no wish for life ; nor had he yet even constructed- out of the wreck of his hopes, that raft upon which so many float for a time -after existence is a burthen — revenge. His regiment was going into battle : the chance was welcome — he would go with it and die ! After that one fearful oath he spoke no word aloud. , There was no one to whom to speak it ; and there are exti'emities of outrage and misery, under which dead, stubborn silence, with the lip rigid and the eye set like stone, forms the only exponent of feeling. And yet perhaps it was a revenge which that wronged husband thought for the moment of taking — one of those revenges which gods might exhibit, and weak, loving women sometimes display to shame the arrogance of those who would claim to be their masters — the terrible revenge of going away from the chance of any struggle that might interfere with the mad course of unscrupulous crime, and leaving that unrestrained indulgence to punish itself in the future.

416 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

This was the state of feeling with which one member of Captain Jack's Company went forward to the fight : who knows how many others, in that, and other companies, may have suffered equally from some other cause as shameful, and yet found no chronicler of the wrong or its eifects ?

The whole Zouave regiment, with the others of Wilcox's brigade (already named in the preceding general account of the battle), moved from Cloud's Mills on Wednesday morn ing, and caught a new taste of the quality of " active service" by sleeping that night, without blankets or any shelter, in a miserable muddy swamp some eight or ten miles south of Fairfax, where frogs, lizards and water-snakes had an undis puted pre-ehiption, — after making an unsuccessful detour to trap the rebel troops at Burke's Station, and seeing the smoke rising during the day at a distance, from Fairfax Court House, then being sacked by the forces advancing from Washington.

On Thursday night they encamped at Burke's Station, and on Friday pushed on to Centreville, coming in while the can non were yet sounding at the close of the skirmish of that day. All night long poor Farnham, the Zouave Colonel, lay sick in an ambulance, unfit to move one step further, but the soul too large for his broken and enervated body. At two in the morning they were again under arms, in the waning moonlight, and ready for the march as the other unfed troops (one more imprecation on the " shoddy" quartermasters who starved them while filling their own capacious pockets !) could be under the circumstances. But it was seven o'clock before they could move, other divisions (as .has been seen) occupy ing the road towards Man asses.

At seven the brigade moved forward, over the broken and stony. road between Centreville and Manasses, the best hours of the morning lost, the air fearfully sultry, the sun coming down with a blinding glare which seemed like that of meri dian, and the exhausted men even then dropping so fast that there was scarcely a rood of the road not darkened with some human form incapable of further exertion and doomed to death if left to writhe in the heat of the coming noon. But the word was " Hurry I" and on they pressed — faster — faster, at every mile, as it seemed to the unaccustomed soldiers.

T HE DAYS OF SHOD I) Y , 417

Half-past ten, and they were near Cub Run Before them could be heard the boom of cannon and seen the rising smoke of the battle already begun. 'Then rose what is to be found at times in every true man — excitement overcoming fatigue, and that power born of temporary madness. An aide-de-camp dashed down the road from Heintzelman, who had been long on the watch, ordering Wilcbx's brigade forward instantly. There were yet two miles to traverse, to reach Sudley, where the bravery and dash of the brigade, upon which the General so largely counted, were sorely needed for the support of the hotly-engaged centre. To the Zouaves, especially, this was something like what the ringing of a "general alarm" iTad been in the days of fire-duty. Away went coats, in some in stances caps, even shoes — every thing but guns and ammuni tion, and on they dashed at double-quick, exhausted and beaten out, but believing that they had work before them and de termined to do it or die. More than once Burtnett Haviland, one of the most able-bodied men in the advance companies, rushing on under the blistering sun, through the choking dust, and feeling the blood surging to his head like a tide of hot lava that seemed to scorch every vein and wither every nerve, — doubted whether that object of which he was in Hrarch— death ! — would not be found ingloriously in the light ning flash of sun-stroke, before the bullet of any enemy could have opportunity to reach his heart !

It wns noon when they reached Sudley's Springs, and a moment's halt was ordered to " fill canteens." Down to the rivulet not yet reddened with the blood that was so soon to thicken it, sprang the tired fellows ; but even this justice was to be denied them, for before one-third had succeeded in ob taining a drop of the fluid so necessary for the maintenance of human life, there was another call for help that came out of the deafening roar and blinding smoke immediately in front, and the order " Forward !" was again given. There was but a little time more of pride for the Zouaves, but that pride .yet existed. The order was obeyed, and the Zouaves rather plunged than marched forward into that hell of deadly strife — of cannon roar, and the crack of small arms, and shouts, and smoke, and blinding dust — which seemed so ini- 26

418 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

possible for airy man to escape when he should once have entered it.

The Zouaves were in the advance. Ayres' regular battery, as they reached the spot on the right of Sudlcy's Ford whore the centre was so hotly engaged, was hardly pressed, and they wheeled short to the right and4 rushed up a stony side-road that climbed the wooded hill, to support that battery. So far there was no lack of discipline. Orders wore obeyed almost with the precision of regulars. A moment placed Ihe body of the regiment in position, and they opened fire, while the right wing dashed into what they supposed to be the shelter of a clump 'of woods, to support, A most deadly " shelter," indeed ! The whole clump wos a masked battery, with infantry at either edge! At not more than pistol-shot distance it burst into the faces of the Fire Zouave^, who found, then and there, that there was something in the world yet more trying to human courage than the smoke and flame of their favorite service and the tottering of red-hot walls in the air above their heads ! They broke ; and yet discipline could not have been all lost at once, as some detractors aver; for military men will know what is contained in the fact that the first company only drove back the second about twenty feet, and that the second counted off under that fire, two men falling in their ranks as they did so ! Burtnett Haviland's file-closer had just answered "two !" as a fragment of shell struck him in the forehead, scattering his brains over the file- leader ; and yet neither shell nor bullet seemed to be billeted for him.

The regiment was yet in good order whon it dropped down the hill a hundred yards for shelter; and it was in good order, though somewhat thinned, when it made the second advance, not many minutes afterwards, to clear the clump of woods and take the annoying battery. But the fates seemed against it, even if courage could have availed against overpowering numbers. PoorFarnham reeled in his saddle — a rebel bullet, had struck him in the side of the head, tearing off his ear and injuring the brain. These men were not soldiers enough to be maddened by the sight of their leader tottering in bis seat and only held on his horse by supporting hands — they

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 419

were only discouraged by it. They broke again, worse than before, and fell back once more under the shelter of the hill, where they were again formed with some difficulty. "Want of discipline and steadiness was beginning to tell, now, at the very moment when its lack or its possession was to make or mar the whole future of the regiment.

Heintzelman — that bundle of nerves, whose thin, active figure, ever in motion, seems the incarnation of restless dis content, — hurled some fierce oaths as he put. himself at the head of the Zouaves, ordering the Michigan troops of the brigade forward to support, and led them to that third charge which was the only one connected with their action on the field, that he thought proper afterwards to mention in ,his official report. The little General was grim and "wolfish," just then — not the less so from the pain of his wound. Just as the brigade advanced up the hill, the rebels poured out from their shelter upon Ayres' battery, and showed not less than three brigades of Mississippi and/ Alabama troops, supported by a squadron of cavalry known as the "Black Horse." The odds were really hopeless, and this time the Zouaves broke disgracefully, the cavalry riding through them with only the emptying of a few saddles, to meet destruction a few moments after at the hands of the Union troopers of Capt. Colburn. Two companies of tin; Zouaves maintained order for the time, and did their part in a sharp fight over the guns of Ayres' battery, assisting at last in bringing away all the pieces but one ; and many of the regiment did duty afterwards as skirmishers ; but Farn- ham had at last fallen and was to lie un cared for during all that long day and night and with the rain of the next day beating him into the mud it was forming; Downey and many others of the best officers and men of the organization were prisoners in the hands of the rebels, doomed to a year of suffering in the prisons of Richmond, Charleston and Colum bia ; and the career of the regiment, as a regiment, was ended from that moment. Traits of nobility there were to be exhibited by individual members, worthy of any body of troops in any service ; some of the most valued members were to permit themselves to be dragged off as prisoners,

420 THE DAYS OP SHODDY.

contrary to all the usages of war, rather than desert the wounded who were imploring their aid ; one of the Captains was to crawl back all the way from Centreville to Cub Run, that night, to look after the life of an orderly-sergeant, so unendurably footsore all the \vhile as to be obliged to throw a\vay his shoes and return barefoot, — and stopping at mid night on the bridge choked up with dead, to give water from his canteen to the dying who implored it; those and other noble traits were to be exhibited, but to no purpose for the eventual salvation of the regiment. Disorganization . had commenced and no human power could check it.

Half an hour after their last repulse, when the general retreat commenced, the Fire Zouaves were among the most disorderly bodies in the whole army. When the panic began and disgraceful flight became the order of the day, there seemed to be no bound to the miserable poltroonery of a large propor tion. None in all the army bragged so of their courage and disgusted all listeners with the account of the exploits they had performed, as those members of the regiment who had run away without doing any thing else. Captain Jack's company mustered forty men at Fort Ellsworth the night following, and for a time again guarded the warehouses at Alexandria. Others straggled into Alexandria and Washing ton, without commanders, and were fed like beggars on charity, by other troops. More than half of those who remained, disgracefully deserted and reached New York and other places in the North, within a few days after the battle, disguised or boldly shameless. They recruited vainl3r at Eedloe's, and went into camp vainly at Fortress Monroe. No power could save what was doomed ; and within a year from the date of its organization, the Fire Zouave Regiment, upon which so many hopes had been built when Ellsworth sailed away with it from the city of New York — after winning honor in some particulars but covering itself with eternal disgrace in others — after being alternately over-glorified and disgracefully ill-used,* — was mustered out of the service,

* Thiit may as well bo said hero which has never yet, as we believe, been made public, but which is certainly true and very important a? affecting fhe career and conduct of this unfortunate regiment. Must of the Zouaves bo-

THU DAYS OF SHODDY. 421

melted away and has been heard of no more, except as its name has occasionally crept in to illustrate a newspaper paragraph, or the circumstances surrounding some particular member have been found singular enough (as in the present instance) to warrant weaving them into the romance of history.

With which observation, once more and for the last time the course of this narration leaves the general events of the war to trace briefly out the remaining fortunes of the leading characters.

Burtnett Haviland was unwounded during either of the des perate charges made by the Zouaves at Sudley. The blood and brains of comrades continually spattered over him and occasionally made him sick at heart, but because he had really sought death there seemed to be no bullet directed at his life. Even fighting over the guns of Ayres' battery, three times in hand-to-hand conflict, twice Avith foot-soldiers and once with a, mounted officer, and twice of the three times killing his man, — he had not even a scratch ! He was once swept down and literally run over by one of the charges made by the rebels on the battery, and believed for the moment that his time was come, as he lay temporarily prostrate and guns flashed and swords gleamed above him. Anv one who saw

*

him might have believed him gone beyond hope, as were indeed many of those who fought at his side, in that very charge. But he rose again, swept away from the spot in the irresistible rush, by some miracle unwounded and not even bruised by the trampling feet of men and horses, though his outward appearance was certainly not improved by that An- taean contact with his mother earth, so little calculated to en dow him with additional strength. He had long before lost

lieved themselves, when they enlisted, to bo going for three months: after wards thej agreed to remain in service one year; and when they were mus tered in, in front of the Capitol, by Major McDowell, they were forced to agree to their term being made three yeam. or disgrace themselves by apparent cowardice. Ellsworth may not have been guilty of intentional deception : if he was not, he made a sad mistake and other parties were sadly culpable. There was nothing more essentially " shoddy" about any thing in the whole early management of the wnr. than the blundering shown in the arrangements uiude fur and with this regiment.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

his canteen, thrown away his coat, suspenders and red shirt, only retaining pants, shoes, cap and his white shirt — white by courtesy, for amid the sweat, and dust, and grime, the shirt, like his face, was nearer to aLmost any other color than that of purity, and the man would have possessed keen eyes who even recognized in that desolate, grimy and bandit-looking figure the once neatly-dressed and really handsome clerk of Charles Holt & Andrews.

Then came the panic, the rush and the mad desperation in which he was borne away with all the others. He heard noth ing, saw nothing, except sounds and sights of terror and dis organization, .culminating as the flight extended and the fugi tives were borne farther from the field, in the opening of the rebels upon them with cannon at Cub Run, and the struggling of the mass of disorganized humanity across that stream — over the choked bridge and through the water below and above it. The Zouave scarcely knew how he himself crossed, so stunned and deafened was he by the general confusion ; but he must have forded at some shallow part of the stream, for he was wet to the knees. He staggered up the bank, and gained the edge of a little thicket of scrubby oaks near the bank. The sounds of flight and pursuit were all around him, but not in his immediate neighborhood ; and for a mo ment he dropped down upon the stump of a fallen tree, to catch breath. Haviland had been flying like the rest, for the past half hour — there is no use of attempting to disguise the fact, — flying for his life. He bad forgotten, for the time, his desire for death, as many another man has done when the spectre he invoked came too near ; or he had seen how many of the Union troops were being captured, and he dreaded, more than the sacrifice of his life, the • possibility of being- dragged away to a rebel prison.

At all events, the next movement of this man, after sitting down upon the stump of the fallen tree, showed that his grief had been made subordinate to other considerations. Under the edge of the brush of the tree-top lying on the ground, he caught sight of a ghastly object. It was the body of a dead rebel, a large man, with the number of the Tenth Mis sissippi regiment on his gray cap, who had been killed there

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 423

or crawled there to die, some hours earlier in the battle. Burtnett Haviland staggered to his feet, and a new thought, as well as the culmination of a new feeling, took possession of him. He did not know that fate was bearing him on and that he merely played his part; he believed that he was act ing1 entirely from his own volition. The new feeling that cul minated was the sudden desire to save his life or escape from imprisonment, which had been born within the past half-hour. The new thought was the belief that the means for both were at hand. Under such circumstances, to will is to do, and very little time is consumed in preliminary operations. In a mo ment he had loosened the clothes of the dead rebel at the waist, and in another moment had drawn off' the trousers and drawn them on (hot 'as was the addition to his wardrobe) over his own. For the coat he had no necessity — his own diity white shirt was quite sufficient to make him a "butter nut." He threw down his own cap, put on that of the half- denuded Mississippian, caught up the old long rifle that lay beside him, and was for the time, to all intents and purposes, a rebel.

His plans, at the moment, may be told in a word. While upon ground in the rebel possession, in that guise he would be safe even against capture, and if captured by any of the re treating Union troops he would of course be beyond danger, as he had the means in his possession of proving his iden tity. If he thought of ridicule in that connection, the idea did not trouble him sadly; for the man who runs away in his own clothes is not much less ridiculous than the man who escapes in thjose of another 1

A moment, and there was the cry of voices coming down the road from the North-west, outside of the clump of trees. The new rebel ran to the edge of the wood and looked out. A carriage was dashing down to the Centreville road, from the banks of the Run above — one of the many containing civilians who had gone out from Washington and the neigh borhood, to feast their eyes on that bloody spectacle, as the Roman patricians might have done on the agonies of the gladiators fighting with each other or with beasts in the arena, — highly edified because out of danger — both ! One

42-i THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

moment's glance told the Mississippian pro iein. , so much ; the next showed that close behind were ten or a dozen rebels, attracted by the beauty of the turn-out and intent on making a capture. The horses were going at speed, and though two or three of the rebels were a little ahead, it seemed doubtful whether they could reach the edge of the road in time to in tercept the carriage ; while the carriage could no^t swerve from its course, owing to the rocks and trees to the left, and must pass within six feet of where he stood. The gray-clads seemed to have exhausted their ammunition, and could not fire : there was every chance that the occupants of the car riage would escape : he hoped and believed that they would, though of course he could do nothing to aid them at that moment.

Suddenly, as the carriage came nearer, he started forward. A man had thrust his head out of the right window of the vehicle, to see how matters were progressing or to urge yet greater speed. Rapid as was the movement, Burtnett Havi- land saw and recognized that peculiar and well-known face in an instant. That man was Charles Holt, the merchant, his old employer and the betrayer of his wife ! Did we say, a few pages back, that the husband whose domestic happiness Avas thus ruined, had not yet found time to build the raft " re venge" out of the wreck of his hopes ? If so, he built that raft very rapidly at this moment ! Shame, wrong, hatred, every thing rose within him in an instant, and his hand was ready for any deed. He would kill the seducer, now while he had the opportunity ! Then another thought followed, quite as rapidly : he would throw him into the hands of the rebels, and trust to them for his suffering a thousand deaths ! No sooner thought than done. The carriage was close at hand and still flying rapidly : it had cleared the rebels trying to cut it off, and would escape. He had tried the rifle, before — found it unloaded, and so could not shoot the horses and stop their career. But he could do something else, and he did it. Springing to the side of the road as the carriage swept up, he clubbed the long, heavy Mississippi rifle and brought it with all his force ful into the face of the horse nearest him. Not even the flying speed of the animals could

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 425

overbalance such a check. A second blow, given before they could recover and spring forward again, sent the horse to the ground, the other falling over him, and the carriage half-over turned on the top of both ; at the same time that a couple of revolver-shots came from the carriage window and one of them went through Haviland's gray cap, very nearly afford ing him that chance of death for which he had been looking during all the earlier portion of the day.

The door of the carriage was dashed open in an instant, and Charles Holt, the only occupant, sprang out. The driver Avas already on his. feet. The hindrance had been sufficient to give the rebels behind time to come up, and as he touched the ground, he, as well as the driver, was in the hands of half a dozen of the gray-dads. He looked at Haviland, but diil not recognize him in that changed garb, with his short hair and beard, and beneath that load of grime. Had he done so, and done it but one moment earlier, the two remain ing shots in his revolver would probably have been better aimed !

" Who are you ?" asked one of the rebels, who all belonged to a native Virginian regiment.

" Tenth Mississippi — don't you see ?" answered the Zouave, pointing to his cap.

" Oh yes. Well, you did that smart enough, anyhow. Got a hole through your cap, too, pretty near the head. Did he do it, just now ?"

" Yes," said Haviland.

"Well, confound his Yankee blood !" said the rebel. "He won't do so any more, just now, I'll bet 1"

" I think he is an officer, trying to escape in other clothes. Take good care of him, and don't let him get away !" said the Zouave, with a refinement of ingenuity Avhich did great honor to his short military education.

" Don't you want any thing ? We couldn't have got him, you know, if you hadn't stopped him !" said the rebel, as the rest were just completing their operations upon watch, jewelry, Avell-filled purse, and ail the other articles in the merchant's possession. Others were getting up the fallen horses and preparing to drive away with tlieir prisoner.

426 THE DAYS OF S H O U D V.

" No, nothing — / have been paid well enough !" answered the virtual captor.

"Hallo! here is a picture! the Yank has got a woman somewhere !" exclaimed one of the rebels.

" A picture ? let me see it !" said Burtnett Haviland, stop ping forward. How much that word " picture" recalled, in. connection with that man and his own hnppiness ! What if this should be the one to, which Kate had referred !

There was something in the voice that startled the mer chant for a moment. He looked hard at Haviland, but no human eye, not even that of his wife, could have recognized him under that change in every particular. Haviland took the picture, and at that moment, like a revelation, came to him what he had before forgotten — that he had had that pic ture down at the store, and left it there where the merchant could very easily have obtained it without any good will of his wife The thought disturbed him, for it half unsettled what had been total misery submitted to and therefore en durable. As he examined the little ambrotype, two or three of the butternuts were looking over his shoulder.

" Purty, I tell you !" said one of them. -

" Them Nuthern wimmen isgallus, I reckon !" said another, who had been North on' an oyster-boat and seen " around the market" and perhaps even Broadway.

" The Yank's mistress, I suppose !" said Burtnett Haviland, in a loud tone, glancing at the prisoner out of the corner of ' his eye at the same moment.

Charles Holt was a scoundrel, but no coward; and lie lacked one vice — that of boasting over female conquests never achieved — the dirtiest, meanest, foulest vice of this age. Not even among those greasy butternuts would he do that, even by implication !

"No, by heaven !" he said, in a tone that left no doubt as to his sincerity. "That woman never was my mistress, though the Lord knows I have tried hard enough to make her sol She was too smart — too good, I suppose, for me! That is enough, and it is none of your business, you thieves, any thing about it."

liaviland reeled again, as if struck by one more of those

THK DAYS OF SHODDY. 427

ever-recurring blows. Superadded to the exhaustion and the excitement of the day, this discovery of the picture and asser tion of the merchant were too much for him. There was vertigo in his head, and a trembling in his limbs; and he was so fearfully excited that he was almost on the point of betray ing himself and sharing the merchant's imprisonment by one imprudent question. But a thought of his danger and of the merchant's intended if not actual guilt, confessed by his own lips, calmed him a little, and he said:

" Give me this picture, boys, for my share. You may have the rest,"

"Agreed !" said two or three voices, for such a distribution rather pleased the rebels than otherwise ; and Haviland dropped the picture into one of his pockets, as he said :

"Well, take care of the Yankee, boys. Some of our fel lows are below here, and I must go down and look for them."

Xo effort was made to detain him, and he turned away and plunged into the woods, looking back to see the rebels lifting the carriage around in the road and thrusting Charles Holt and the driver int^> it, preparatory to giving them a ride into the lines of Beauregard, as a turn on the road to Richmond.

Half an hour later, skirting the woods stretching down Cub Run and striking thence across to the Centreville road, Havi land was beyond danger from rebel capture and up with some of the retreating Union regiments. Before that time, finding them no longer necessary, he had thrown away the rebel pants and cap, easily supplying the place of the latter with one of the Federal caps' that so plentifully strewed the way, and adding a jacket and a couple of revolvers to the equipment. At dusk the crowd of fugitives had carried him into Centre ville, amid such scenes as have been hurriedly described in the previous chapter, but without their producing any effect, for the time, upon him. His brain was whirling with new thoughts. Life might be worth something, even yet. "What if some dreadful mistake had occurred, after all ! — if his wife should yet be innocent! Oh, to get to New York without the delay of one moment ! — to solve the mystery which seemed so much thicker than it had ever done before !

Among the forty Zouaves who reported to Captain Jack

428 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

at Fort Ellsworth on Monday night, was Haviland. But ho did not remain. One glance at his sad face and one hearing of his earnest words : " I -tnuxt go to New York, Captain, im mediately !" procured him an informal leave from that officer, then become for the time the virtual commander of what there was left of the regiment. The same hand supplied him with clothes to replace those he had lost on the field, and money fur his temporary use. Tuesda)' morning took him to Wash ington, then one mass of fright, mourning, inefficiency, wounded soldiers, beggared contractors, newspaper correspondents penning lies and guesses, officers without commands, com mands without officers, drunkenness, and all that could dis grace the capital of a great nation. And Wednesday noon, the 24th of July, landed him in the city of New York, which he had left under such widely-different circumstances not quite three months before, and where Coffee Joe, the news boy, a little dirtier and more dilapidated than we have seen him in the spring, met him at the ferry with the sixteenth extra of that day, giving two more lines of particulars from the lost field. •

CHAPTER XXII.

THE GRIEF AND SHAME THAT FOLLOWED BULL RUN — NEW YORK ON THE TWENTY-SECOND OF JULY — How THE CITY AND THE COUNTRY MOURNED FOR THEIR SUPPOSED DEAD — . MARY HAVILAND AT DUFFSBORO — AUNT BESSY'S REMINIS CENCES OF AMOS HAVILAND — SAD NEWS FROM THE BATTLE IN VIRGINIA — How THE OMENS THICKENED, AND MARY HAVILAND BECAME TEMPORARILY A WIDOW.

•

THERE was a celebrated painter of old, who, when pressed to attempt a certain grand picture which should embody great interest arid command the attention of the whole world, refused to do so from the insufficiency of his artistic materials and his own powers. He would attempt it, he said, when

•THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

il

N

the blue vault of heaven was supplied him for a canvas, when the light of sun and stars and the forked vividness of the lightning were all given him as colors for his palette, and when Jove should inform his right hand with his own tre mendous power for their handling. Until then, his canvas should be a blank, so far as any connection with that great subject was concerned.

Very nearly the same disclamatory remark might with alt propriety be made, when it is demanded that a writer should attempt description of any of those peculiarly black days which have fallen in the midst of the many dark ones of the republic — making men's hearts sink within them under a fear little less deadly than that which might fall in the sudden and unwelcome dawning of the Morning Star — clouding the brow with a black shadow through which the sunlight of heaven could no more shine than through the heavy stones that lie closed above a burial-vault — turning love, the first passion of mankind, into a hollow mocker}^ and avarice of wealth or power, the second, into a weakness not worth the indulging — making idleness a torture and occupation impossible. Days when there has seemed to be but one key-note to everything in the heaven above or the earth beneath : " Lost ! lost !" — just as through every touch of one of Hogarth's greatest pictures there is one feeling of desolate finality running, from the sun that is never to rise again, going down behind the sea, to the watch dashed to pieces by the dying madman, the murderer swinging ghastly upon his gibbet, the hour-glass with the last sands just dropping out, and the half-open book with its last page bearing the significant " Finis." Days which have made the nation old in an hour, and caused its collective hair to whiten as that of the perilled wretch has sometimes done when too much fear and agony for human endurance were crowded within a limited space. Days which have "made history" with fearful rapidity, and which have yet within them, perhaps, a more fearful curse than any yet developed, in the temptation to "make novels!"

The most notable of these, as yet, and perhaps the most desolately blind and Lopeless of all, was the Monday follow ing the defeat of the Union forces at Bull Run. The Peuin-

430 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

eular repulse from before Richmond, Fredericksburg, the second Bull Hun — all have been more important reverses, in an actual military point of view, but they have all been com parative trifles in public feeling, because they have all fallen in the midst of extended warlike operations, and after other reverses and amid counterbalancing victories, destroying their otherwise fearful isolated prominence. Nations are saddle- fcorses, in the capacity to bear reverse as well as debt : they may be able to carry a mailed warrior after long practice, but the weight of a child worries them at first, and they do not willingly bear even the empty saddle itself. Nations are children, with the same necessity for growth in any particular and with the same capacity for discouragement, exhibited by the boy as compared to the man. A torn coat is not much to a man of years and experience, who has worn an hundred different coats and looks forward to wearing an hundred more ; but a torn coat is desolation to the boy just verging towards manhood, whd has been for the first time permitted trem blingly to overstep the bound and put on that modern sub stitute for the ancient toga mrilce. The first clearly defined blast of the trumpet of fame tingles through the nerves more deliciously than any after utterance ; the first shaft of hostile criticism wounds more deeply than any bolt that can be launched at the man grown seasoned to abuse ; and it may be that the first love torn away by death or falsehood leaves a more terrible void than any after wrenching away of the whole race could create. To destroy a first effort in any direction is little less than a "slaughter of the innocents" — that first effort is so truly meant, so proudly looked upon, so over valued.

The blow of the defeat at Bull Run fell with peculiarly crushing force on the community, because it marked the failure of a first essay — the slaughter of one of those national "innocents." The battles of the republic had always before been on that limited scale which made them little more than skirmishes in comparison with the great conflicts of Europe and Asia ; for a long time, before the breaking out of the rebellion, with the single exception of the short con test with Mexico, peace had been our constant and happy

THE DAYS OF SHODDY 431

mtional condition The answer to the call of the President n n d the forming of the Army of the Potomac, had been our first trial in what was considered war on a grand scale. We had failed — miserably failed. "Who wonders that the young national heart should have bled — that the omen for the future should have been held discouraging — that desolation and despondency should have settled down anew, with every new detail and corroboration of the great misfortune, on the hope that had been before so unreasonably and even childishly buoyant ?

Xew York city waaonce more prominent, in the grief that followed Bull Run, and nowhere else could the spectator from another land have discovered so quickly, how sadly the pall had fallen over and shrouded the banner. And this, too, had a warrant. New York had- license to be chief mour ner at what seemed, for the moment and to the faint-hearted, the nation's burial. Xo fight has ever since taken place, in which so many favorite organizations and so many of what may be called "citizen soldiery," have taken part. Reference to the account of the battle heretofore given in these pages, as well as to common memory, will afford a reminder that with the exception of the Seventh and t\vo or three other regiments which had failed to recruit in sufficient numbers for taking the field, the whole body of the " household troops" were known to have been engaged in the conflict. The Eighth, the Seventy-first, the Twelfth, the Sixty-ninth, the Seventy-ninth, the Brooklyn Fourteenth,*, the Fire Zouaves — these were all type regiments for themselves and others ; and the general diffusion of sorrow which their " cutting-up" Avould cause may well be imagined even by those who had no blood-kin perilled in their ranks. For the slaughter of the "American Guard" arid its brother regiments, there would be closed doors in many a mercantile house and crape at the bell-pulls of many of the wealthy dwellings of the metropolis ; over the decimation of the " fire-boys" there would be half-masted flags and mourning draperies on every engine, hose and carriage house within the fire-limits ; and to the " Wirra ! wirra !" of the Irish woman, wide over the city, mourning a son, a husband or a brother killed in the

4.?>2 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

thinned ranks of the Sixty-ninth, there would answer the " Och hone-a-rie !" of her Scottish sister, crooning the same lament over her dead of the Seventy-ninth, that rung hun dreds of years ago through Lochabar and. the Braes of Appin.

The news from the field — blended truth and falsehood — came precisely in such a shape as to produce the worst possi ble feeling of anxiety and discouragement. They could not have been more dexterously managed, had some fiend taken a contract for breaking half the hearts in the city. First the movement was heralded with such loud boasts of the cer tainty of the Union Army routing out the rebel wolf from his lair of woods and batteries at Manasses, that the hearers ceased to remember that there were chances in war and that victories could not be bespoken like coals or beef-steaks ! Then on Saturday and again on Sunday, came intelligence of the taking of Fairfax Court House and the affair at Black burn's Ford, the latter really a repulse to the Union forces, in effect, but both gilded with all the mendacious arts of newspaper letter-writers who seemed to think that boasts and hollow self-glorifications were the most Pcileable commodities in tlie whole market of intelligence, and made to appear like signal successes that only needed to be followed up to anni hilate the rebels and " crush the rebellion." Sunday was es pecially prolific in " victories" that had never been won, and skirmishes in which the advantage was skilfully set on the wrong side. But through all these reports ran the one fea ture — desperate fighting. If the Union troops had so far been successful, they had been so at the price of heavy loss — there seemed to be no doubt on that point. This made the public heart sore, though not discouraged. For the victory that had been promised, even the price of the blood of friends and brothers could be paid, and yet no repining. But the con dition of success was inexorable ; and there was a lacerated spot in that heart, ready to receive the next blow that was so soon to fall.

Monday morning, in the papers of that date, brought the sensation headings of a great battle that had been fought on the day previous, near^tfanasses, and at a place called " Bull's llun." (It needed days and even weeks be/ore the terminat-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 453

ing " s" was dropped, at the instance of some who happened to have known the topography of Virginia in the days of peaci'.) The letters and other accounts which followed these headings, indicated no serious reverse, but something like a drawn battle, yet the old burthen of the song again repeated — d<: operate fighting and heavy loss. Certain regiments of the Xew York troops were particularized as having made the most desperate charges and defences, leaving one quarter or one half their numbers, as the case might be, dead on the field. The Seventy-first, the Sixty-ninth, the Seventy-ninth and the Fire Zouaves, as pet regiments, were particularly spoken of, their valor lauded while their whole corps were slaughtered — by the reporters ! And even yet the public feeling endured and did not murmur, however much it mourned. Even this for victory ! • :» .

The morning grew later, and the bulletins began to bear startling additions to the news of the regular editions. The rebels had gained a slight advantage on Sunday afternoon — the Union troops had fallen back from the attack. Still the same undertone — desperate fighting and heavy loss. The general heart began to be discouraged. All that heavy slaughter, after all, without result — with even disadvantage to the Union arms !

An hour or two still later — and then burst the peal of woful thunder that shocked and stunned all ears. Extras made their appearance, and the anxious crowds around the bulletins separated to read the words that seemed the death knell of the republic. Not a drawn battle — not a slight re pulse — not a defeat — but a total and irredeemable rout ; the Union troops flying like frightened sheep, disorganized and disheartened, back upon Washington, and the victorious and infuriated rebels slaughtering them at will ! Whole regi ments of favorite troops, not decimated, but annihilated. Every corps — the whole army — cut to pieces. Not enough left to form the nucleus of another army — not enough to offer an effectual defence of Washington, where the Confederates would certainly be stabling their horses in the Capitol and burning the public records ill the Departments, before the rising of another sun 1 27

434 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

Tales of horrible cruelty and yet more horrible butchery. Squads of ambulances fired upon by whole parks of rebel artillery, and all the wounded they contained blown to infini tesimal fragments. Disabled men begging for quarter, but bayoneted by hundreds and even by thousands, by the infu riated conquerors. The dead hacked in pieces with sabres, as so many hogs might have been, and their very quarters dis tributed among different rebel corps as trophies. Indian bar barities outdone, and the very atrocities of the Sepoys at Meerut and Cawnpore dwarfed into insignificance. Loss — defeat — panic — hopeless ruin — slaughter 1

Such were the reports. We know, to-day, how grossly exaggerated they were, as the previous reports of the suc cesses had been. We know, now, how the Union troops won the battle before they lost it, and that the panic only com pleted what outnumbering had begun. We know, now, how small was the loss of almost every regiment in the Union army, compared to what troops had often suffered before in other services, and what others have since suffered in our own. We know, too, that while too many of the allegations of cruelty made against the rebels were disgracefully true, and while many must remain a damning stain against them to the last day of recorded time, — many of them were the miser able exaggerations of the frightened or the more miserable tales of the unscrupulous. We have seen one of the Captains who was bracked into four pieces on the field (according to these reports) come Rack from the Ilichmoud prisons without any marks of that cruel operation. We have winnowed out the wheat from the chaff of voluminous misrepresentation, and know very nearly the truth of the story of Bull Bun, which would never have wrought us half the in jury that it has done, at home and abroad, if we had not been frightened children yelling at the bugaboo of a servant.

But all these reports were terrible reality, then. They had their work of extracting tears and groans, and they did it. Oh Rachel of the nation, how you did mourn that day, for your children ! — how you did shed tears of blood in response to those kindred drops which seemed to have been poured out so unavailingly on the battle-field !

THE DATS OF SHODDY. 435

What a day was that in the city of New York ! — and who that passed through can ever forge i it ! The day after Sum- ter had been a spasm — this was an agony. The city lying beneath the blazing heat of mid-summer — men panting for very breath in the streets. The country seeming to lie under the blaze of the wrath of God, and panting for its very life. Business suspended— sellers with no wish to sell — buyers with no heart to buy. Men meeting with inquiries of sad omen, and parting without comfort. More hands wrung in silence or with broken words, than had ever been in any one day since the birth of the nation. Frenzied inquirers after friends and relatives known to have been in the lost battle ; no answers of consolation even from those who had reached the city from the scene of the disaster. No pride in the.past, — nut even the pride of believing that our troops had deserved victory if they had failed to secure it; no sunlight in the future, with those ill-omened birds, false and unscrupulous reports, darkening the air. Anxiety — discouragement — deso lation — mourning without certainty of death but without hope of life — everywhere ! God in His infinite mercy grant that that blackest of all the dark days of the nation may never find a parallel !

But the terrible news disseminated on the 22d of July, reached other hearts than those that throbbed within the great cities. The blow did not fall so soon, by a few hours, in the more quiet and isolated country sections, but it came with no less crushing force from its short delay. The stony streets of the cities had not alone echoed to the tread of the armed men who marched away to the campaign that was ending so disastrously: the green lanes of the country had known the same gathering and departure, and the plough and the scythe waited there for the returning hand, even as the counter and the workshop waited in the town. There was to be wailing along the green lanes as well as along the stony streets — fear, discouragement and indignation around the doors of the little country tavei'n as well as under the porches of the Astor House and the Continental.

Mary Haviland had been just a week at the little farm house at PuiTsboro, when the news of Bull Run broke over

436 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

the land. The reader, not purposely but unavoidably kept in the dark as to her whereabouts after leaving the house on East Forty-eighth Street, that terrible night, may before this time have suspected that she had gone home— home to the place of her birth and the sheltering arms of Aunt Bessy White. She had done so, indeed. Protected by the police man at the corner, and accompanied by him to the residence of her family physician on Sixth Avenue, she had found rest and refuge there, and on the Monday following gone down to the little farm-house, to be received with almost delirious pleasure and pity by the good old lady. All her griefs had been poured into the sympathizing ears of Aunt Bessy, and they had all been consoled by the assurance of that model aunt who should have been mother to half a generation, that "wickedness would yet be punished and those who truly loved and trusted be once more made happy." Then Kate had come down on the Wednesday following, for reasons which will be hereafter fully understood; and between the two strangely separated by misunderstanding, explanations had been made which sent them into each other's arms with sobs and kisses — the school-mistress humble and abashed, Mary sweet-tempered and forgiving. Not even Kate could tell the wife how much she had misjudged her husband, as she could not know the secret of the lost letters and the false hood of the malicious reports affecting his character. But she had been able to say enough to the wife, from intercourse personally held'with Burtnett Haviland by lettei1, and in the midst of her confessions that " she had probably half-broken his heart by meddling with what she had much better left alone — doing what she would never do again until she grew old enough to be Methusaleh's grandmother !" — to satisfy Mary that her husband's silence had been the result of neither guilt nor coldness, to show her how false her own position had probably grown to be in his eyes, and to make her yearn ing love and burning desire for his return even a thousand times deeper and more intense than they could have been without the knowledge of that misunderstanding. One of the first fruits of all this, in fact, had been the penning of a letter by Mary, addressed to her husband at Alexandria,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 437

which, had it reached him before his departure, would have sent him into battle with a different care for his life from that which he at first exhibited. But, as the reader well knows, that letter could' only have reached Alexandria after the de parture of the Zouave Company ; and it probably lay there waiting1 for him, with full explanations which would have made him the happiest man in the world, at the moment when he rushed insanely back through that town, on his way to New York and the quest for his wife, after the battle ! So vigorously and persistently we often strain body and brain, in the distant pursuit of that which lies precisely under our own noses !

Ho\v stronger and stronger every day, then, in the heart of the puzzled and anxious but ever-loving little wife, grew this desire for her husband's return, which had only been a dull pain before the late events, but now became a torture ! What if he should never come back-— if her letter should fail to reach him and he wander away, in some of the army move ments, where communication was impossible ! What if that which had before been only a dim shadow of evil, should change to be a terrible reality — if he should be killed without ever knowing, while in life, how truly her heart beat for him alone, how false had been every word that set a shadow be tween them !

Bonnie Kate, the busiest, the most cheerful and the mad dest minx that ever puzzled a village or threw new life into a dulled circle in the great city — would have been an excellent medium for the elevation of Mary's spirits, and would, in fact, so have kept her in pleasant confusion as to afford little time for despondent thought, — but that she had really so humbled her own position before her cousin's wife, by her terrible mistakes and misunderstandings, as to be placed temporarily on what might be called the " retired list" in the service of mischief, or, as she herself expressed it, "obliged to be good when she did not wish to, one bit !" And Aunt Bessy, ever good and hopeful, might have been found the quite-sufficient consoler, had a shadow not rested over her heart and the household, in the memory of the late death of Amos Havi- laiid, on whose grave the young grass had scarcely yet Degun

438 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

*

to spring, and whose shade scarcely yet seemed to have de parted from the doors it had unobtrusively haunted.

. Aunt Bessy would talk of him, not alone to Kate, who had like herself been with him and known him to the last, but to Mary, who had for yaars only seen him during very brief visits, though she yet retained enough recollection of him to make the knowledge that he had passed away, even in his century of old age, a saddening one. And this, which kept alive the blended relations of war and death, was by no means the mental pabulum on which the nervous and worried woman, who had so lately been tried beyond her whole strength, should have been fed at that juncture. " Misery loves company," of course, as the old "proverb has it; but it does not follow that misery always grows less poignant by the association ; and while it might be sadly jarring to the nerves of the widow of a week, to be thrown suddenly into the society of half a dozen brilliant and laughing men and women of the world, with wit, music and rattle alike at the ends of their tongues and fingers, yet she might be quite as well prepared, at the end of a given period, to meet her lonely fate and do battle with the world, as if that period had been passed in the company of half a dozen people with long faces, black dresses, white handkerchiefs, and who- managed to excite each other to sympathetic tears and sobs every half hour.

Poor Mary Haviland, driven into new anxiety with refer ence to her absent husband, found little to buoy up her spirits, in the temporary humility and silence of saucy Kate or the sadly patriotic conversation of Aunt Bessy. No matter — the end was coming, and coming, rapidly.

On Sunday, the 21st of July, at meeting at the little village church at Duffsboro, the ladies from the old farm-house learned by conversation among the groups gathered at the door before service, that newspapers had come down from the city the evening before — that the Army of the Potomac had advanced. — that a battle (represented as a Union victory) had been fought on Thursday — that another and heavier battle was un avoidable and might even then be in progress or decided. It is now well known that the battle was at that very hour in-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 439

deed in progress, and that then (half-past ten to eleven) the whole body of the Federal troops were first being hurled against the enemy, so that the spiritual ears of the worship pers, could they have been keen enough, might have heard sounding over the hum of conversation at the door, and after wards floating in at the open windows to blend with the sleepy drone of that summer noon discourse, the thunder of the cannon then crashing over the field of Manasses.

There may have been an 'hundred hearts in that little con gregation, beating with fear and anxiety for those dear to them and exposed to the shock of battle ; but it is only our province to measure the heart-beats of three in that whole number. Aunt Bessy folded upon her breast the hands still so fair, when she heard that the two armies were actually meeting in the first battle, — bent down her head and uttered a prayer that the heavens heard though the ear of man lost ii — a prayer for perilled lives and for the land. Kate Havi- land trembled like an aspen leaf, then shook off the feeling, took home to her heart that peculiarly Yankee confidence which knoivs that its own must conquer, and waited calmly for what was to follow. Mary Haviland met the issue veiy differently from either. Unnerved and overtasked as she had before b«en, her heart seemed to die within her and lie thence forth in her bosom a dull, cold lump of lead or stone ! The previous four days had been to her an omen of her husband's death — he was a member of that Fire Zouave regiment so depended upon, in advance, for deeds of daring whenever called upon to perform them, and so likely to be sent into the very thickest of the conflict — he would fall if he had not fallen, and the hopes of her whole life would expire with him. Yet, as of old, she determined to suffer in silence ; and she did not even tell to Kate or Aunt Bessy, as they went homeward from the little church, how deadly was the fear that oppressed her. But nature had its revenge on suppression, as usual ; her pillow was that night wet with hopeless tears ; and only a mockery of sleep came to her, clasping little Pet close in her arms, just before' the robins began to sing in the peach-trees at dawn.

Slowly and steadily fell the omens, each worse than the one

440 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

preceding. The afternoon boat of Monday brought down to Duffsboro some of the extras containing the very worst an nouncements of that day of the lost battle, the panic and the rout. They relieved the whole country round with the news that all the regiments containing men from that section had been held in reserve at Centreville, and that consequently there would be no mourning homes in the neighborhood. But what was the " relief" brought by that extra to Mary Havi- land ? The certainty that the Fire Zouaves had been in the very front of the battle — that they had suffered beyond almost any other regiment in the army — that they had been the sub ject of the worst cruelties of the victorious rebels, their men shot down and bayoneted in cold blood, quarter refused, their wounded fired upon in the ambulances, one of their Cap tains quartered and his very body carried away piecemeal ! What hope was there left for Burtrictt Haviland ? — what for his wretched, hopeless, miserable wife ? Thenceforth, spite of the efforts of Aunt Bessy and Kate, who tried to play con solers while their own hearts were full of fear and grief, the poor wife, tearless but suffering a thousand times more than she could have been with the tears flowing freely, rather stag gered than moved about the farm-house ; and when she went to her lonely bed that night, though she sk?pt from sheer exhaustion, sleep was no mercy, so horribly came up in her dreams all the imaginary incidents of the lost battle, thunder, cries, bloodshed — a dark cloud in the foreground of which her husband seemed ever struggling with a host of foes, crying for mercy, fainting, bleeding, dying.

And yet there was one wretched, desolate hope. Xot all could be killed, even in the doomed regiment. The one dear est of all the world to her might have escaped, even if only twenty, or ten, or five, should be left to tell the melancholy story. Oh, if he should be but alive, however wounded, maimed, a mere wreck of the glorious type of manhood who had gone away from her ! — how would her whole future life be one long aspiration of thankfulness to Heaven for even that mercy ! Poor wife ! — not even that sad hope was to be allowed her, while passing through what the reader knows to have been onlv an iuiuginarv bereavement, but as terrible

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 4-11

to her, far the time, as if the most fatal reality had laid hidden behind it.

It was at nearly noon on Tuesday that the young wife, silent and tearless in the agony of her anxiety, sat with little Pet on her lap, at one of the shaded windows overlooking her ]>orch and the road, twining her fingers absently in the silken hair of her ehild, and her eyes looking out on vacancy in that fixed stare which is so near to the glare of the maniac. Aunt Bessy was in the unromantic act of rinsing white clothes from the wash of the day before, beside the old well with its crank and bucket, a few feet from the porch, to the left. Kate was busied in the kitchen behind the passage, in the preparations for dinner, the appetizing savors of which floated wide through the house.

Suddenly Mary Ilaviland heard a voice in conversation with Aunt Bessy at the well. It was the voice of a man — . some one had come up by the little path eastward at the end of the porch. The wife summoned interest enough to turn her eyes more closely in that direction, and then a deadly faiiitness seized her. She saw a man, whose face she did not recognize, in the uniform of a soldier — blue Zouave jacket and pants, with a red fez, but his face browned almost to the color of red earthen, his uniform dingy and discolored, and his right arm slung to his side by a bloody handkerchief depending from, his neck. That last mark told of a participant in some battle — the man might be conversing with her aunt of the great disaster from which he had himself escaped — she must hear the words that were spoken. She staggered to her feet, dragging little Pet by the hand, and moved to the door open ing upon the porch, where she could both see and hear dis tinctly. She might almost as well have moved herself, as she knew the moment after, into point-blank range of one of the rifled cannon that had been so fatal on the heights of Man asses two days before !

The man, as she could not be aware, was a scape-grace member of one of the best families of the neighborhood, well known to Aunt Bessy, most of the time resident in the city, but coming home often enough to be remembered. Nor could she know from the changed uniform that he was a Zouave —

4i2 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

a member of the very corps which had contained her husband — one of the fugitives from the defeat and the regiment, com ing home to be nursed with his wounded arm. But what the eye failed to reveal the lips told too soon and too suddenly. The young wife saw that Aunt Bessy had dropped the clutlu s from her grasp and was starting back with upraised hands, in. surprise and terror. Half-fainting, yet determined, she list ened to what followed :

" It was be-tween three and four o'clock, not far from Sud- ley Church," she heard the soldier say. " We were trying to support Ayres' battery — he and I belonged to the same com pany, you know — but the rebs were too many for us, all the time. He was up and all right, one minute — the next there was a perfect rain of balls over the battery and all around us, and almost at the same moment a squadron of the rebel horse followed the lire. I was hit here, in the arm, pretty badly, but did not fall — only staggered against one of the wheels of a piece. He was not more than six feet from me when the fire went by and the horse followed. I saw him fall, and saw the horses go over him. The next moment the dead were four or iiv,e deep, there, and there was no living man at the bottom of the heap — I know that !"

" You are sure that you could not be mistaken — that it was my poor boy that was killed ?" she heard Aunt Bessy gasp.

"I wish I wasn't!" she heard the soldier reply. "I tell you, Mrs. White, that we belonged to the same company. I thought I ought to stop and tell you. There was not a bet ter fellow in the regiment than Burt Haviland "

The informant went no further, for at that instant, from the piazza, went up a cry of mortal pain and agony that sent Kate flying from the kitchen and Aunt Bessy and the soldier hurry ing to the spot. Mary Ilaviland had not fallen insensible, as some might have done under similar circumstances. She had not even clung to any support, but stood rigidly erect, her veyes set in a fearful spasm, her hand yet grasping that of the frightened child, and her lips repeating that terrible cry which seemed to embody all the torture of an overwrought body and1 a breaking heart. Her lips uttered no word as they led her in ; and sho seemed rigid and motionless but by uo means

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. ' 443

lifeless, as they laid her on her bed, poor little Pet crying over her " tick Mamma !"

And that spasm lasted for more than two hours. Xo stim ulant that the village doctor, suddenly called over by a farm hand on horseback, could administer, had any effect towards rousing her; no anodyne, when he adopted that mode of treatment, had power to throw her into sleep. The doctor sat by her almost in despair, in doubt whether insanity if not death from syncope, might not be the result ; Aunt Bessy and Kate, who knew that she must have heard all, ministered beside her like human angels as they were, and tried to utter broken words of consolation ; but still there was no reply and no movement of the set eyes. Then the spasm seemed to have spent itself. The watchers, late in the afternoon, saw her turn her head for the first time, recognize little Pet, beckon her to the side of the bed and clasp her to her breast; break ing meanwhile into tears and sobs that seemed to rend her very being.

" She is saved !" said the doctor, in a low voice. " There is no danger now."

" Thank God !" said the reverent lips of Aunt Bessy, while Kate went up to the side of the bed, kissed the white forehead of the sufferer, and then remained smoothing down the blonde hair as if she could communicate life and consolation through that gentlest and tenderest of mediums.

The doctor was right — the worst was over. Mary Havi- land, bereaved, as she supposed, of her husband, had deter mined to live for her child, and that agonized clasp of her last link to life had been the first evidence of returned com posure. Within an hour afterwards she arose from her bed, calm, but oh, how unutterably miserable ! Then it was, thought flowing in its accustomed channels, that she began to suffer the full measure of rational grief. Then it was that she realized the whole extent of her bereavement, and knew how many more and worse arrows of agony fate could add, and how many more human capacity could endure, than even those experienced eight days before, on the night of her persecution and her flight.

And here, for a little time, plunged in a grief that had ex-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

hausted its worst and most threatening features within a few hours of its falling, and yet a grief that would probably remain unassuaged until the last day of her life — here, wan dering blindly in the thick darkness of bereavement, yet so petted, caressed and consoled by the three dear ones still left her, that long despair would have been impossible — here, for a very little time, \ve leave the young wife. The light was coming, as we know — it was nearly at hand. That day was Tuesday. Wednesday, as has already been recorded, brought Burtnett Ilaviland to the city of New York. And there after, even we of this writing and reading must wait. Only a faint and feeble picture has here been given of the trials and griefs of one little wife who had given up her husband to the service of his country and believed that she had parted with him forever in life : what pen could depict the trials and the sorrows which have fallen upon so many thou sands of Union wives actually bereaved, and so many thousands of Union homes permanently desolated, during all tlfe long struggle ?

CHAPTER XXIII.

HURRYING TO THE END — AN OFFICIAL YlSIT TO MllS. FuL-

LERTON, AND SOME STRANGE OPERATIONS BETWEEN THE MILLIONAIRE AND KATE — WHAT THE TEACHER HAD FOUND IN THE DRAWER — A "BURST UP" — BURTNETT H AVI LAND

LOOKING FOR A WlFE — SARAH SANDERSON AS A CAT IN THE

GARRET — LITTLE TIM IN PLAY ONCE MORE — A REUNION.

IT is nothing uncommon in geography, as the travellers in many lands can tell us, to find some little stream creeping lazily down out of 1he hills and through the meadows, gathering breadth and force at every mile of its way and yet displaying no sudden change, until it has at last become a rapid, rushing river, resistless in the volume of its waters

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 445

and terrible in the momentum of its current, before which nothing of human erection can stand, and the only manage ment of which is to be found in obedience to the law of its might. Almost as often it happens that a stream of circum stances in personal history, dallying and delaying for months and even for years, arrives one day at a point beyond which there is no delay and after which it sweeps on to the end with a rapidity inconceivable to those who have so long idly watched the. tardy movements of the past, — bearing lives, fortunes, characters, like straws on its current, and closing in an hour what seemed likely to endure for a century. If

"The mills o' the gods grind slow, but grind exceeding flue,"

there are times when the wheel revolves slowly, and others when it whirls and clashes so rapidly as to dazzle and deafen the beholder ; and Immar the Inevitable, swinging his great flail in the garner of fate, sometimes brings down that weapon on the bodies and brains of the condemned Irmenides with slow and measured strokes that can be distinctly heard and counted as they fall ; then anon breaks into a very rage of justice and whirls that power of destruction so rapidly that only the thunder of the aggregated blows meets the ear and only one constant flashing glitter of the polished oak is seen through the gloom that wraps the universe. Something of the same character of increased rapidity must now be assumed by this narration, which only in that way can keep pace with the celerity of the closing events it records ; and all those events must be thrown into the intimate though not involved relations of two closing chapters.

All this while, though it has been more than once shown that Kate Haviland had abandoned her employment in the city and returned to Duffsboro, no clue has been given to the reasons which moved that slightly erratic and cometary person to leave an engagement which she had at least pre tended to take for a considerable period, and to return to a vicinity where her clear profits at school-teaching, according to her own arithmetic, footed up the magnificent figure of twenty York shillings a year ! Any omission of that charac ter must now be repaired ; and in the explanation not only her own fortunes but those of the family of which she had

446 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

been for a little less than three months an outside member, will be found involved.

A somewhat strange scene was presented on Wednesday afternoon, the 17th of July (some days before many of the occurrences already narrated), in the drawing-room of the house of Mrs. Fullerton on East Twenty-third Street — that drawing-room on the first floor which has long since been incidentally described, but in which none of the incidents of this relation have as yet actually occurred. That " best room in the house" has its mission now, for the house has a new visitor.

At the opened piano on that occasion sat Miss Dora, who had evidently, from the appearance of the musical hills and valleys with great ravines between and many five-barred gates and a few dangerous ditches, on the sheet of music set before her, been engaged in that description of violent steeple- chasing over the world of sound, widely known and as widely anathematized by all listeners, as "practising." But though she still sat at the piano, the eyes of the young lady had in them nothing of the devotion or tenderness of music — they were restless, fiery and blazing with anger, as those of a cat may be seen to be when that diminutive tiger is driven into a corner and still worse danger threatens.

At a little distance stood the dignified lady of the mansion, and if the eyes of the young lady had something of threaten ing in them, those of the mother were lakes of fire without soundings. Her dark brows were so bent in rage and her still handsome mouth so wreathed in a blending of terrible anger and ineffable scorn, that he must have been a bold man who expected to hear her next words without wincing. Her shapely arm, from which the light mantle thrown hastily around her shoulders had fallen back, was raised at the mo ment, and her fist clenched as if object and not will was wanting for an Amazonian demonstration ; and there was something about the working of the mouth which indicated that only a little more champing of the teeth would be needed to bring bloody foam from between the lips.

The third person of the group did not seem at all excited, meanwhile. He was a man of medium height, rather thin,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 44:7

with high, bald brow, and hair and beard slightly gray, dressed in dark summer cassimeres, very gentlemanly in appearance and action, and yet with unmistakable marks, to those familiar with criminal life and the detective service, that his business had long been the disguising of his own identity and the making of surreptitious discoveries. This was what he looked to the instructed eye ; and the impres sion did not belie him, for he had been for years one of the most capable and trusted agents of the New York police de partment, not long before this time transferred to the detective service of the State Department, and much employed where tact and gentlemanly manners were both known to be needed. This man sat on a chair four or five feet from the spot where Mrs. Fullerton was standing, one hand playing with his chatelaine watch-chain and the other holding the broad Panama hat of which he had not been relieved. Mrs. Ful- lertou, of the raised arm and the clenched fist, was speaking :

" Send us away, will you ! I'd like to see you, or any of the Baboon's crew, do it ! Dare to lay hands on us, any of you, and you will know what it is to meddle with the best blood of South Carolina !"

"Oho!" said the official to himself, "this woman would hang herself, directly, if I should give her rope enough, but I should have no fancy for carrying things so far." He wished to whistle a little, but he did not, and only said, aloud : " You mistake me very much, madame. ' Send away' is a hard word, and I did not use it. I only said that it would be prudent for you and your daughter to leave the Northern States, at once, and go South; and that arrangements would at once be made for transferring you within the lines of the so-called Confederates."

" ' So-called !' " broke in the enraged woman. " ' So- called !' I should like to know why they should not call themselves Confederates, and who can hinder them ! Jeffer son Davis is more of a President than your miserable — "

" Mother," broke in Dora, who was not quite so mad as her parent. " Mother, remember what you .are saying."

" The good lady does no/, remember what she is saying, T am afraid," said the official, rising, "though of course what

44:8 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

she says is quite safe in my keeping. Meanwhile, ladies," drawing out his watch and casting a glance at the time it revealed, " I am afraid that I shall be obliged to shorten a pleasure of my own and abridge an intrusion upon yourselves, by leaving you to attend to other business. Am I to under stand that you decline to be guided by the advice I have offered ?"

"Altogether, sir!" said the matron, very decidedly. "We will remain here while we please, and go away when we please."

" Perhaps," answered the imperturbable official. " Once more, you had better give me your promise, and keep it, to be absent from this city within the next forty-eight hours."

"And once more I say that I will not submit any logger to this impertinence !" almost shrieked the lady. " We hate you and your miserable government, and do not care .\v,ho knows it ; but they lie who say that we have done any thing to place ourselves in your power, and we will not stir one step. And now, sir, if you will leave this house at once, very well ; if not — "

"People lie sometimes, but handwriting docs not," said the official. " You put me under the necessity, ladies, of adopt ing a tone that I would willingly have avoided. You ivill take my advice, b<5lh of you, within the time I have named, or, women though you arc, you will certainly find the inside of a prison within tweutj^-four hours after that time has ex pired ! Did you ever see this paper before ?" and he threw suddenly open and held out to her a folded paper that he had been drawing out from the inner side-pocket of his coat.

" My letter to Walker !" exclaimed the lady, completely surprised beyond her guard for the moment.

"Exactly!" said the official, in the same equable tone. "Your revelation of the projects of the Men of the True South, some minutes and names of one of the meetings held here, and what some people call treason, in a very explicit shape. Will you think better of it, and take my advice ?"

" We will obey your orders /" said the lady, in a voice broken with rage and hate. " Just like you sneaking spies and thieves, to steal letters out of the mail. We will go,

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 449

and the sooner the better, to get out of this miserable aboli tion nest of peddlers and pickpockets."

" I thought so. We shall depend upon your keeping your promise. Good afternoon, ladies !" and the official bowed himself out as he might have done from the pleasantest of interviews.

" That letter — how ever did it get into their hands ?" asked Dora, when the door had closed.

" Stolen, of course — -just like them !" answered the mother.

" And what are we to do now ?" as another thought struck her. " I shall lose — "

" That fool and his money ? So you will I Oh, I could strangle the whole pack of them !"

" But, mother." said Dora, as still another thought struck her — " why that was the letter that Minthorne took down to Washington himself! What does it mean ? Could he have "

" Betrayed us ?" the mother concluded the question. For a moment her face darkened still more, and she almost hissed out the words : "If he did, and I can make sure of it, he will not live a week !" Then her face lightened again and her voice changed, as she said : " Pshaw ! what is the use of thinking of that? He is too gre^t a fool to do that much harm to anybody."

" Still — why not ask him ?" continued Dora. " Yery luckily he went away before that ruffian came in, and I sup pose he is up in the school-room, dawdling again with those children."

" I will ask him !" said the mother, and rising she stepped out into the hall and ascended the stairs, while Dora, yet a little confused at the complication of affairs, remained seated at the piano but " exercised" in mind only. Perhaps two minutes had elapsed, when she heard what sounded like a scream from the upper part of the house, in her mother's voice, and she followed her hastily up to the third story, where the spectacle that met her view was something to be remembered even by a lady of the " best blood of South Carolina" with that of Maryland added.

When Mrs. Fullerton reached the door of the* school-room, 28

450 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

where she expected to find the millionaire-noodle " dawdling with the children," the door was half open and she heard the millionaire and the school teacher in conversation. Perhaps she did nothing more than some ladies of much more refine ment and principle would have done, in pausing at the threshold for just one moment. But she certainly heard more than most ladies would have been pleased to hear, and listened longer than she had at first intended. " Come, it is time to get done with trifling," she heard the voice of Ned ]Minthorne say, with nothing in it of the drawl and hesita tion that had always saluted her ears when he spoke. t "I have asked you three times, and really I think that if you are ever going to answer me it is nearly time to begin. How many girls out of an hundred, do you think, have an offer of marriage made them once, much less /hrne times?"

" Especially by a man worth a million !" answered the voice of the teacher, blended with a merry, ringing laugh.

" Pshaw ! let me hear no more of that !" said the voice of the millionaire. " If my hand is not worth yours, without my money, it could not be made so by ten millions."

" Spoken like a man, and more than that — like a really nice, clever fellow !" answered the voice of the teacher. " I have more than half a mind to put you out of your misery. Stop ! I have one question to ask you, before I answer yours. Have you ever played false to the Union cause, for one mo ment, since the secession commenced?"

" Never, upon my honor !'' solemnly said the voice of the young man.

"If not, what aid you do with that letter directed to Mont gomery ?" Female voice.

" Took it to Washington, according to the direction, and there sent it in to Secretary Seward, with my compliments, at the State Department." Male voice.

" Bravo !" said the voice of the teacher. " Yes ! — with all my heart !"

It was at this juncture that Mrs. Fullerton, who had with difficulty restrained herself during all that time at the door, found any longer restraint impossible, under the double treacherv that was so evidentlv beins? ena,cted under her own

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 451

roof, and dashed open the door with a scream that might with almost as much propriety have been called a yell. Dora's nimble feet were but an instant in ascending the stairs at the sound, and the scream had scarcely died away, and certainly positions had not changed in interest, when she stood beside her mother in the open door and saw what was being transacted in the school-room — a kind of "dawdling with children" not set down in the programme !

Neither of the children — to wit, Myra and Mildred — was to be seen ; but near the teacher's desk stood Ned Minthorne,- with that young lady clasped in his arms, and kissing her in that deliriously ravenous manner which indicates that the person banqueting has been kept on " short commons" for a considerable time previously, and that he is laying in a store against possible future deprivation. His arms were both round the young girl's pliant waist ; and, shame of shames ! — hers not only clung round his neck as if they had no inten tion whatever of loosening, but she was receiving his kisses and paying back at least a part of them, with that freedom and abandon which are so disgusting — to those who have no share whatever in the feast !

The fact is incredible, but the millionaire and the teacher actually kissed on, and — well, the plain word may as well be used — hugged on, for quite a moment after that scream, and in fact until Miss Dora had a fair view of the interesting operation, and threw in a supplementary howl of her own. Then they seemed both at once to have discovered the presence of uninvited spectators ; and Kate made a motion to release herself with 'a little scream of surprise that com pared with the sounds uttered by either mother or daughter as a zephyr does to a tornado or a penny trumpet to a loco motive whistle ; while Ned Minthorne still kept his left arm around her and merely stared at the intruders as if they had been two new specimens in his pet study of natural history.

All this was a little too much for the " Southern matron," who made a dart forward as if she would tear the lovers not only apart but into several pieces, — followed by Miss Dora, who had already fallen into a speechless passion of tears and sobs. And yet, strangely enough, even in the midst of her

452 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

passion, Mrs. Fullerton seemed to retain Pome regard for and some hope of the million or more, for she began to pour out all the vials of wrath upon the female head and that which wore no gilded crown of wealth.

" You shameless hussy ! You dirty trollope ! These are the goings on in my house, are they ?"

"Mrs. Fullerton," said the millionaire, very calmly, and still without any hesitation in, his speech, " be kind enough to recollect that if there is any fault here it is mine, and to know, if you do not know it already, that this young lady is to be my wife !"

Audacious as were these words and all the surrounding circumstances, it is doubtful if they would have struck either mother or daughter with more surprise than the manly and unembarrassed manner of their utterance, so unlike what they had been used to hearing from the millionaire noodle, — had either been cool enough to recognize the difference. But just now rage was uppermost in the one and spiteful tears pre vailed over the other ; and the mother went on with her ob jurgation :

" You low-lived, low-born, miserable Northern scum, out of my house you go this instant, and you deserve a whip on your back as you go !"

Something in these words produced an effect she had not contemplated, and an effect that might have been escaped (at least for the time) but for their utterance. Kate Haviland had not said one word, so far ; but now she flung herself free from the arm of her lover, thrust her hand suddenly into the bosom of her dress, took out a yellow folded paper and shook it from its folds, as she said, in a tone that was far from being good-humored :

"Hold on, madam, before you call the grand-daughter of a soldier of the Revolution and an officer of the last war, 'low born' and 'low-lived,' and talk about putting a 'whip on her back,' until you get clear of a little of your own negro blood!1'

" What !" cried the millionaire, and he was too nearly struck dumb to say more. Dora Fullerton dropped into a chair and covered her face with her hands, and the light storm of tears and sobs that had before been passing over her deepened into

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 453

such a tempest of agitation as seemed to threaten her life. As for Mrs. Fullerton — it has been said that when standing at the door her scream was almost a yell. The sound that she uttered at this moment blended scream, yell and roar in one ungovernable and indescribable sound of rage, as she sprung forward at the young girl as if she would tear her to pieces with her naked hands, raving out, with other words that cannot be penned here :

" Liar ! liar I wretch ! oh, I will tear out your black, lying heart !"

But Ned Minthorne's hand, small and white but strong enough for that purpose, first thrust Kate Haviland behind him and then shoved away the enraged woman ; and storm as the latter would, the words of the young girl, now tho roughly out of temper, could be heard distinctly :

" Yes, madam — negro blood ! I would have spared you this, had you kept your temper and your tongue. Now take it all, for you have deserved it. I hold in my hand the man umission papers given by your father, Judge Clifton Brix- tone, of Columbia, South Carolina, to you, his slave daughter Olympia, the child of Myra, his quadroon slave. Deny it if you dare, you miserable old woman who talk to a free-born Northern woman about 'low. birth' and 'whips' !"

There are points beyond which the human system, however strong and well-disciplined, cannot resist the pressure of* the spirit that rages within. Mrs. Fullerton made one more spring forward, as she realized that the dark secret of her life was at last discovered, her social position swept away, and her daughter's chances of wealth destroyed ; the;i she threw up her hands to her throat, while the word " Liar !" gurgled there, tottered and fell heavily forward in one of those dense swoons that are mercies to the mind however painful to the body.

The curtain may well be dropped here, as the daughter still sobs helplessly in her chair and the others gather around the miserable woman and try to recover her. And yet, as it goes down, perhaps the reader of this narration may be able to discover what had been the skeleton ever sitting at the feast of this family. Negro blood — a thing well enough.

454 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

in its mixture with white, according to the new lights, — but not yet recognized as a necessary component by "our best society." That reader may remain in doubt, as does the writer, whether Randolph Fullerton, purser in the United States Navy, ever knew that he had married a mestizo wife, the daughter of a quadroon slave, and whether his arriving at such a knowledge was or was not one means of plunging him into the drunkenness which ended in his falling over board and drowning at Port Mali on ; but that reader will not remain in doubt, this clue furnished, how Charles Holt, merchant, must have revolted, after his marriage with Olyni- pia Fullerton the younger, at finding himself trapped in that manner with the "best blood of South Carolina" — how separation between husband and wife was instantaneous and eternal, from the moment of the discovery — how that domestic ruin fostered the seeds of evil in his nature, and made him a worse and wickeder man than he might ever have grown to be under other circumstances — how he be came an unbridled voluptuary and his wife a reckless wine- bibber, the husband keeping the family's secret through all those years, in order to keep that of his own disgrace, hold ing over them all that iron hand which without the key seemed so inexplicable, a,nd actually pensioning them and allowing them to be supposed pure-blooded and wealthy, that some other fool might be trapped with Dora as he had been with Olympia !

The government official of the suave demeanor was right when he said that both the ladies would leave the city of New York within forty-eight hours. On Friday morning Mrs. Fullerton, Dora and the two children went Southward, with how much of means of subsistence suddenly snatched from the abundance which had before surrounded them, it is im possible to relate with certainty. But something else oc curred, upon which neither the official nor yet the family had calculated. Charles Holt was absent from the city, at Wash ington. When informed of the betrayal of the secret and the enforced flight of her family, Olympia Holt arose, girded herself, shook off the dust from her feet against the house where she had so heavily sinned, and suffered, " spoiled the

THE DAYS OF SHODDY'. 455

Egyptians" by loading herself with all the jewelry she pos sessed and all the money and small valuables within her reach, and "wandered on with her people."

Kate Haviland was before that time in the arms (ever those army, enfolding all the world !) of dear, good old Aunt Bessy, at Dufl'sboro, and in some other company that we wot not ; and the drama of the handsome house on West Twenty-third Street was closed.

No slow-moving cars, now — it was in a carriage driven at flying speed (almost like that he had stopped so suddenly on the Centreville road, three days before) that Burtnett Havi land dashed up Cortlandt Street and Broadway and the Third Avenue, on Wednesday, the 24th of July, immediately after his arrival from Washington. His brain was in a whirl. Every hour made him more and more doubtful whether he must not have been the victim of some terrible vil- lany — whether the wife he had supposed lost forever might not be pure and spotless after all. And yet — her flight ? — she must have fled — Kate could not have been deceived — what could that flight mean, but guilt ? Still, those words of the merchant — so unimpeachable a testimony to her truth • — why should they have been spoken in falsehood ? And where was she ? Not at home, of course ; }ret he must go there, and go at once, or go mad. Even to stand where Mary and himself had once been so happy, would be something.

Such was his frame of mind as he dashed up to the front of the house on East Forty-eighth Street, flung open the door of the carriage, and leaped out. He ran up the steps and laid his hand on the knob of the door. It yielded, and he went in, the driver waiting without with the carriage. No body seemed to hear him — the hall floor and the stairs were bare — so unlike the cozy nest of love and home that the little house had been 1 He went up stairs, his brain throbbing wildly and his heart beating with a worse excitement than he had known when making the first charge at Sudley or fight ing over the guns of Ayres' battery. Hurriedly into both rooms and the little bed-room ; but no one to be seen. Every thing nearly as he had known it of old — nothing removed,

456 THE DAYS OF SHODDY

only a little disordered. Ah, there had been fire in the range in the little back-room, and some fragments of bread and meat lay on a plate on the side-board. Joy ! — there was somebody in the house, after all ! But where ?

He passed up the second stair to the bed-rooms, and there his footstep seemed to be heard. A figure darted out of one of the rooms. Was it his wife ? — no, it was the figure of Sarah Sanderson ; but he scarcely knew the face, it was so changed and woe-begone — so pinched and starved-looking. Some of us have seen a cat, discovered when long shut up in a granary or an upper room, and nearly starved as well as made wild with loneliness. The expression of the poor girl's face was something of that desolate and almost fearful char acter.

" Why, Sarah !" was all that the returned Zouave could ejaculate.

For an instant the girl did not recognize him, in his changed uniform and with his bronzed face and close-cut beard and hair. But his Voice reassured her, and the moment she knew that it was indeed Burtnett Haviland whom she saw, she dropped on her knees before him, caught her arms around his leg, burst into tears and sobs that seemed to come from a heart nigh bursting, and broke out with :

" Oh, Mr. Haviland ! what have I done ! kill me — kill me, Mr. Haviland !"

" My wife, Mary — quick, tell me where my wife is !" was the answer of the equally agonized husband.

" Oh, I don't know ! I don't know ! — she went away, some where, and I drove her away, I suppose ! Do kill me, Mr. Haviland — I have been so wicked !"

" You !" said the husband. " What have you done, Sarah ?"

" Oh, every thing that was bad !" sobbed the poor girl, whose week of loneliness in the house, keeping vigil on Kate's bounty and under her orders, waiting for some one to come back and attend to the goods and furniture it contained, seemed to have been blessed by the celestial influences with an insight into her own heart which the poor warped and half-educated nature had never before found strength to take. She arose from her knees — dragged Havilaud into her room

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 457

— showed him the letters that his wife had written and that she had herself kept back from the mail, hidden away in a locked drawer, — and amid tears and sobs and such implora- tions for pity and forgiveness as might have moved a colder heart than she was addressing, told him all she knew of the wrongs under which himself and his wifeliad been suffering ever since their separation. It was a terrible confession, and some men, in the midst of it, might have been moved to a deed, even upon a woman, that would have furnished subject of regret for a whole life. But Burtnett Haviland had been seasoned in sorrow and wrong, within a few weeks. He listened with set teeth, and only once, when the sublime vil- lany of the stopped letters was recounted, broke out with words that the girl little understood :

" The scoundrel ! I oug*ht to have killed him on the spot ! Richmond is no punishment for him!" He did not know, then, let it be remembered, half that Richmond could do in the way of supplying expiation for mortal sin I

"And how could you do this ?" at length he asked, when the whole terrible criiue had been related. " What had Mi's. Haviland or myself done to you, that you should do that villanous bidding ? Oh, Sarah ! Sarah ! — how could you ?"

That thin, pinched, sorrowful face was red as the peony in a moment. All the blood in her little body seemed have rushed into it, as she dropped once more on her knees, clasped her hands so piteously and so repentantly, and uttered that last confession that only the breaking up of the very depths of her being could have wrung from her.

"You must kill me, Mr. Haviland, because I have been so wicked ! I hated your wife because I loved you and had loved you ever since I was a little girl, away off }Tonder in the country. I drove her away, but I would die to bring her back again an'd make you both happy, now 1 Oh, what will become of me?"

We forgive nothing so quickly or so easily as even crime done for love of ourselves. Haviland was mortal, and he forgave the poor girl from that moment, however impossible he might have felt it to be that the wrongs committed could ever be repaired. And then her story added to his chances

458 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

of happiness. His wife had not forgotten or neglected him when he thought her guilty of that wrong: her own yet Un opened letters bore that witness. And yet her story added to his agony, for she had fled away, and Kate knew nothing of her, and all was yet darkness and desolation, with only one glimmering spark to lead to the possibility of happiness.

He questioned the girl further. She had asked the neigh bors — not one of them had seen or heard any thing of the wife since her flight. Moments were years, for the great end of his life seemed no nearer than when he had reached the house. So far, all that remained to him of wife or child, hung over the mantel in their pictures. He had time to breathe a word of forgiveness to the heart-stricken girl, to give her some money, with orders still to remain in the house until she heard from him again, to kiss the dear pictures over the mantel, and to cast one more glance into the little bed room that had been his nest of love before the birds flew away ; and then he sprang again into the carriage and dashed down-town.

To the store, next. It was but a remote chance, but some one there might have a clue to her whereabouts. If her flight had really been innocent, she might have thought of the possibility of his return, and sent her direction there. A wild hope, indeed ! He found the store of Charles Holt & Andrews in confusion, owing to a report which had come on from Washington that the senior partner had gone out to see the battle of Bull Run on Sunday, and that he must either have been killed or taken by the rebels ! And what a de moniac satisfaction there was for the agonized husband, for the moment, looking at the puzzled and anxious faces of Wales, and West, and Nellis, and thinking how much he could tell them of that matter, jf he only would ! But he was not very likely to betray his own secret, even in a boast ; and it is doubtful whether either of the clerks has ever known, to this day, and after all the investigations of the lawyers in winding up the concern and handing over the profits of shoddy contracts to one partner and to distant heirs- at-law of the other, precisely how Charles; Holt fell into the hands of the rebels at Cub Run.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 459

But nothing of Mary. No one of the clerks mentioned her to him, and she had not sent her direction. Another hope gone ! He was turning away heart-sick, and just leaving the store to take that dernier resort of making an application for aid at the police headquarters, when just as he reached the door, little Tim, the cross-eyed and the scrubbing-brush- headed, was coming in with a bundle of letters from the post- office. He remembered the boy's queer dispatch in an instant, and how nearly it had proved to be true. It appeared to make him a link between husband and wife; and when the boy laid^down his letters and came back to the door, there seemed to be a vague hope in the mind of the husband that he who had known what others failed to know, before, might know something now.

"Mister Hevlin, don't think of that ere box Ithrowed over on your leg, or about that ere letter I writ you !" he said, very imploringly, as his old friend took him by the stubby hand. " I didn't mean nothin' bad, Mister Hevlin — I 'clare to man I didn't ! Dern old Holt — I didn't like him, and I don't care ef the seseshers hev ketched him — that's all! I don't believe he meant right by Missers Hevlin, no how, but I s'pose he went away to Europe or England or some of them ere parts, so that he hadn't no time to do nothin', 'r else I dunno what might ha' come of her."

" Ha," said Haviland to himself, "they have evidently heard nothing whatever of the scoundrel's movements, down here at his own place, or the boy would have known of them !" An additional pang of agitated joy went through his heart as he thought of the corroboration thus given to all the circum stances weighing in his wife's favor ; but another deadly fear followed, that he was to catch no clue to her whereabouts from Tim, from the fact that the boy had made no allusion to any such knowledge, even when speaking of her. These thoughts kept him silent for an instant after the errand-boy had ceased speaking ; and all that time the squint eyes were devouring his face with that keenest of all anxieties which looks for forgiveness of an injury, from one almost worshipped. At last the suspense could be endured no longer, and the boy, who really believed that his old friend was growing implacable

460 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

under the reminder of his past conduct, repeated the implora- tion :

" 1 didn't mean no harm, Mr. Hevlin — I 'clare to man I didn't ; and you mustn't think hard o' me !"

" You didn't mean any harm, and you didn't do any harm, Tim," said the husband. " But, Tim, did you ever see any thing of Mrs. Haviland afterwards ? I have just come home, you know, and don't know where to find her. She has gone out of town, I suppose, and didn't expect me back, and so she has shut up the house, and left me no direction." How the heart of the husband beat with anxiety as he framed this ex cuse to the boy for what was yet his possible shame !

" Oh yes, I've seen her," said the boy. " Seen her — dern it, I forgit the day — one day last week. I was down to the

railroad boat at the foot of • Street, carryin' a bundle,

and I seed her go aboard with that derned purty little girl o' yourn with her. She looked kind o' peaked, but I guess she'll get better now you've come — won't she ?"

Poor Tim had been at the Bowery circuses on pit-tickets, two or three times in his uneventful life ; but he had never seen clown or gymnast make such a bolt as Haviland exhib ited, off the steps of the store and down the street towards the wharves that lay full in sight with their mingled masts and smoke-stacks ; and as the seeker disappeared two blocks away, he muttered to himself :

" Wonder what the dernation is the matter of him ! Had all his hair cut off and must ha' got sun-struck down among them are seceshers, I guess !"

Burtnett Haviland, meanwhile, was fleeing as if for his life, towards the pier from which the railroad boat left, which had been designated by the boy. And all the time he was mentally knocking his head with his fist and saying : "'Fool! fool! why did I not think of that? She has gone home — home !"

Some three hours by boat and road, but they seemed three centuries to Haviland, before he dropped from the cars at the little station nearest Duffsboro and walked across the mile of fields separating the village and the railroad. He had asked no questions on the boat, of any who might have known the

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 461

whereabouts of his wife : he was determined to moot complete happiness or utter misery at once — not drink either in by- slow and miserable degrees. Changed as he was, and not so well known as of old in the section of country which supplied many of the passengers for the- way-station, he es caped recognition, or he might have become a subject of general astonishment and conversation, so widely had the news of his death spread within the previous twenty-four hours, among those who had been acquainted with him in other years.

It was past sunset and falling dusk when he stepped from the path behind the house, on the end of the little porch where Aunt Bessy and Kate had stood that Sunday morning and seen the flag raised on the spire of the village-church. Aunt Bessy was coming out of the door. He recognized her at once : he was so much changed that she did not at first know the rough and cropped soldier who accosted her, and it was only when he managed to conquer the rising in his throat enough to say : " How dy'e do, Aunt Bessy ?" that she knew the voice and threw her arms around his neck and greeted him with a cry of joy wild enough to alarm the whole household :

" Burtnett, oh Burtnett !• my dear boy, how glad I am to see you ! You are not killed ! — Heaven be blessed for all its goodness !"

It was a terrible task for the anxious husband to calm down his voice enough to ask : " Is Mary here ?" and by the time he had done so, the good old lady, her own ebullition of joy over, thought of some of the naughty stories she had heard of her nephew while away at the war, and concluded to tease him a little :

" Mary ? Why how should she be here ? Kate is here !"

And at that moment the ci-devant schoolmistress came out of the door. Burtnett Ilaviland had her in his arms before he realized that it was not indeed his wife ; and she heard him mutter : ' " Only Kate !"

" ' Only Kate,' you impudent wretch !" said the merry girl, who even then could not altogether restrain her propensity

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for mischief, though the warmth of her embrace showed the real joy of her heart. " See if I don't pay you for that insult, some time or other 1 You may go away and be killed in earnest, next time 1"

But she spoke to the summer evening breeze that was com ing in over the stubble-fields, or she might as well have done so ; for another figure came out of the door but a moment be hind her, there were two names called in one scream of joy, and holding that figure in his arms the returned soldier, for getting all the past for one moment in the delight of that long kiss of reunion, and eatching those words of heart-felt joy that almost took away the breath of the speaker as she uttered them, ami that told how false must have been every word that militated against the abiding truth and fondness of this dearest of wives: "Burtey! Burtey! oh my husband ; you have come back to me at last ! Burtey ! Burtey ! my husband ! How I have gone mad because I believed that you were dead . — that I should never see you again — that our poor little Pet had no father 1" — did not say : " Only Mary !" but : " My dea"r, darling wife ! — worth all the battles and all the causes in the world !"

And then another figure, much smaller, toddled out into the gathering dusk on the porch, and another embrace, almost as dear, was turned into a temptation to laughter by little Pet's remark, feeling around his face, that "Papa had tut off mos' all his viskers !"

Explanations are proverbially dull, and there are none to make in this instance. It is to be supposed that husband and wife indulged in several octavo volumes of them between that time and the hour next morning when the birds woke them, singing in the peach and cherry-trees under their windows. But to the reader all these have been forestalled ; and even if they had not been, only the merest folly could tempt the recital. Abu Taleb, the great Turkish preacher, refused to lecture in the mosque one morning, because a part of his ex pectant auditory already knew what he was going to say and had no need of being instructed, and the balance did not know what he was going to say and could not be made to under stand within such a limited period ; and his droll idea holds

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good in the present instance. Of those who read, a few have passed through the agonies of such separations between those Avho love, believed to be eternal, and the unutterable joys of such reunions. They know, without an attempt at leading their minds into that channel, what are the words, what the 'broken sobs, what the long embraces, what the wakings in the night and Teachings out of the hands to feel whether the returned happiness has not existed only in a dream, — that come with the weaving together once more of those chords

which make the divinity of human life ; and to them words

f '

would be wasted. The great balance of readers, meanwhile, have never known either the pangs or the transports of such an epitomizing of all that is most enjoyed and all that is most dreaded in the experience of love ; and to them, lacking the knowledge of the "shibboleth," all would appear gross ex aggeration and unreality. The dramatist is right when he drops the curtain suddenly, at least for the moment, on the embrace of rejoined affection or the agonized clasp of the hands over the body of a dead lover or a dead love. Either scene is sacred to the blessed or the bereaved, and either un intelligible to all who stand without the gate. So falls the curtain on the reunion of Burtnett Haviland and his wife — the one apparently rescued from the grave, the other from that worse burial which coiues with falsehood and loss !

CHAPTER XXIV

TOBACCO- WAREHOUSE AT RICHMOND — SOME LAST PAS SAGES IN THE HISTORY OP MR. CHARLES HOLT, MERCHANT

THE FULLERTONS IN SECESSIA — LAST GLIMPSES OF THE ZOUAVE AND HIS WIFE — How KATE HAVILAND AND AUNT BESSY HAD A VISITOR, AND THE SEQUEL — A FAREWELL, AND YET NO FAREWELL, TO THE " DAYS OF SHODDY."

FOR a month Charles Holt had shared the captivity of the Union troops taken at Bull Run and elsewhere — shared all

464 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

that suffering, abuse and near approach to starvation, which will in future days make the old Ligon Tobacco Warehouse on Main .Street, Richmond, the peer in history of the Jersey Prison-Ship, the Old Sugar-House, and almost of the Black- Hole of Calcutta. If the Confederates had food at command, they starved the Union prisoners with full purpose : if they lacked themselves, they had some excuse. Heaven and the future will arrange all that little matter of responsibility and punishment. We have nothing to do, here, with the details of " prison-life at Richmond," which so many have tasted, by the way, within the past three years/ that Richmond is be coming better known to the people of the North than even to most of the native Virginians !

Charles Holt had ample leisure, eating his bad and scanty beef, hard bread, and drinking his bean coffee, to remember his luxurious dinners at the lonely table on Fifth Avenue. He also had leisure, on his miserable pallet, at night, to think of hair-mattresses, beds of down, and other luxuries equally attainable. And he seemed likely to have even more leisure for such profitable contemplations. The Federal government had cither no power or no time, to look after the welfare of its captured soldiers (another branch of "shoddy" ma nagement, not yet finished) — how then could it be expected to look after civilians who had had' no business. whatever on the battle-field, and of whose capture the general verdict was that gruff but expressive Western one — " Sawed 'em right !"

One day, late in August, the merchant had two lady visit ors. Somewhat to his surprise, when he was allowed by the sentry to go to the door and speak to them within ear-shot, they proved to be his wife and mother-inilaw, who had been duly passed within the rebel lines, transported to Richmond, and a day or two before informed that Charles Holt was a prisoner in the Tobacco Warehouse. It would be falsehood to say that the greeting was cordial on either side — it was the reverse. The ladies wanted money — the most universal of all wants, and that which may always be "bet upon" asjthe particular errand of male or female, when no other is known. Mrs. Fullerton, who seemed in high feather in Secessia, prin cipally acted as spokeswoman (a habit of hers) and suggested

THE I) A Y S OF SHODDY. 465

that the merchant owerl something to his wife — that they had influence with the Confederate authorities and might be dis posed to sell him a little indulgence. The merchant, whose breakfast of mouldy bread and muddy coffee had not been satisfactory, was in an ill humor and did not wish to purchase. On the contrary, very much in defiance of the feelings of the sentry (as well as his .bayonet — bayonets "think!") head- dressed the two ladies, at the end of Mrs. Fullertou's per oration, in the following words :

" You are now among the niggers, where you belong — you know why ! You can stay here, or go away again, or rot, or starve, or do any thing else you like, so that none of your cursed brood ever comes near me again. If ever you get another cent of my money, it will be after I am dead. Now go — and the sooner you go to perdition, the better !n

They went, accordingly, and did not trouble him again — at least they did not trouble him again in that manner. Three days afterwards, there was another arrival of prisoners, and some bustle on Main Street in front of the prison, in conse quence. A few of the prisoners tried the dangerous experi ment of thrusting their heads out of the windows to see what was the cause of the disturbance. Three ladies were just turning the corner of Twenty-fifth Street and Main, when one of them looked up and saw the row of heads. A sentry stood at the corner — one of those rough, deadly marksmen from the South-western rivers. The woman, whose eyes were heavy and red with liquor, spoke quickly and sharply to the soldier :

"Look, quick, at the end window there. See that Yankee trying to escape. Shoot him, and I will give you a gold dollar."

The last word was scarcely out of her mouth, when the sentry, wrho probably had no particular objection to riddling any part of the building whore a " Yank" showed his head, raised his piece and fired in the direction indicated. A quick, sharp cry, and the head at that particular window fell inward, while the lady with red eyes handed him the promised dollar, was thanked with a chuckle, and passed on.

" Who was that, my dear ?" asked the elder ladv. whose 29

406 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

eyes bad not caught the features of the man looking out of the window.

"That was my husband," answered Olympia Holt. "He has called me 'nigger' often enough, and just before he went to England he kicked me like a dog! Now he has paid ibv it !"

So he had ! Lying there on tho floor of the Tobacco Warehouse, with the top of his head carried away by the rngged bullet and his frightened companions rushing fearfully up to see who had been the last victim, — he had paid, so far as human life can expiate crime, for his wrongs to Olympia Holt, for his attempts against the honor of Alary Haviland, for his speculations in shoddy, and for all the errors and crimes of a career of prostituted power that had wrought much evil and little good, dazzled the world without bene- fitting it, and brought no blessing to humanity.

Mrs. Fullerton was " in high feather in Secessia." She and her daughters must be so still, if poor Olympia Holt's ruling vice has not ended her career ; fora few weeks ago the Richmond Whig contained a notice of the marriage of the young lady who has been known throughout this narrative as Miss Dora Fullerton, to an officer holding a prominent com mand in the Confederate army. How much he may be de ceived in the "best blood of South Carolina," we have no means of knowing ; but it is almost certain, in the present pecuniary position of the rebels, that she has not secured her coveted " millionaire,'1 though she may find her happy hus band an Earl, Marquis or Duke, some day, in that'appanage of the French Empire known as the Kingdom of Jefl'erson the First. Myra and Mildred, Kate's " young wretches," ac companied the family Southward, and will no doubt grow up in due time to take the places of their elders and illustrate their education.

Burtnett TIaviland, passing to an honorable and useful po sition in another mercantile house, (where, by the way, at his instance, little Tim the squint-eyed is also employed in his old capacity) after his return and the permanent disruption

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. . 467

of the house of Charles Holt & Andrews, — occupies with Mary and little Pet, a house much further up-town than that on East Forty-eighth Street, and very near the Harlem river. They did not return to the same house at all, after the re union, from obvious motives of policy with which the word " neighbors" seems to have some mysterious connection. There is no shadow between their lives ; and he would be a bold man who should attempt weaving another to intercept the sunshine of their happiness, and a skilful man who should succeed. Unlike many others, Haviland had " enough of war" in one three-months campaign. He has not faltered in patriotism or purpose, but the sweet blonde hair of Mary twines around him and the clinging pressure of her lips holds him fast ; and after suffering so much in one absence, how could they separate again ?

The suffering of that time, though a recollection which can never be effaced from the mind of either any more than the

Hebrew Children could afterwards lose the recollection of

0 '

that hour in the Fiery Furnace and the Hand which made the glowing embers harmless as carpets of fallen rose-leaves, • — is not even an occasional sadness to either, now. They can even jest, in the full security of their returned happiness, over what was once an unendurable agony — so rapidly do our very sensations pass and become outworn, in the rapid progress of this lightning age. Not seldom, when the " Havi land mischief" comes upon the ex-Zouave, he torments his wife (though never when any other ear can catch the remark)' by dating some incident before or after " the time when she ran away with the policeman," — and she retaliates by mating a dies nota out of " the time when he jumped out of the store-house window, down at Alexandria." One name sel dom passes between them, however — that of Charles Holt, the merchant. The}'- have buried him, even in the same grave with his splendid powers and his dangerous vices.

Captain Jack, like Haviland tired of war and no longer a soldier, meets him occasionally, and the past that is really so near but seems so far away, comes back to officer and private as they speak for a moment of the deadly peril at the Slave Pen or the fight over the guns of Ayres1 battery at Sudley.

468 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

Xo doubt both have faults, and no doubt both have enemies ; but whether because of this or in spite of it, they are not likely to sever the friendship that grew to its warmest point in the midst of danger.

There is still " help'' in the Havilands' house — the sub dued, chastened and infinitely more loveable remains of what once was Sarah Sanderson. She can be trusted, now, and •will not falter. Both the evil love and the evil hate are dead and buried out of sight. It is doubtful whether Burtnett Haviland has ever told to Mary the whole of the poor girl's story ; and it is quite as well that he should not have done so. Enough that she is safe in his hands, though she may pass out of them, some day, into those of young Foster, not a Brigadier- Geueral, but a brother clerk again with Haviland in his new house, — who has been home with him to tea in a good many instances within the last few months, and who seems a little disposed to concentrate faimself down from miscellaneous ad miration of the whole sex, to adoration of one very small flaxen-haired member of it who has been enough fried and refined in the triple furnace of guilt, suffering and repentance, to make him a faithful wife if he takes the hazard. His bill for smashed crockery may be a little heavy, but what is that as an item in domestic life ?

Bonnie Kate Haviland is bonnie as ever, but Kate Haviland no more. And that remarkable young lady cannot be dis missed without a little additional glimpse of her demeanor and the choice she made in life at the eventful period of this story. How she went down at once to Duffsboro and to Aunt Bessy again, the moment the disruption in the Fuller- ton household occurred, in spite of the fact that she was thrown out of her place as private-teacher and had never a country school to go back to — the reader already knows. Perhaps the reader also at least suspects that the betrothed wife of a millionaire had not much occasion for weary-wig out body and brain for the miserable pittance of a school-mistress ; but the truth is that the merry girl was a little restless, and that if sbe'could have picked up the excuse for doing some thing a little independent and undignified, even if it brought

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. -169

her no money whatever, she would have slightly preferred that course to inactivity. It has already been intimated that she is " Kate Haviland no more," so that if not dead she must be married ; and it is therefore no betrayal of any thing kept for the future,^ to illustrate the feature in her character just mentioned, by saying that on her marriage-day (she would be married in the old country style, in the early evening, at home, and with all her old friends gathered about her, or never marry ! — she said) — she insisted upon spending so much time in polishing up the brass knob of the front door, in a shilling calico, a pair of old gloves, and her chestnut hair in a sad but bewitching tumble, that the earliest of the guests caught her in that not-very-bridal array and occupation, and at first mistook her for a lazy servant-girl behind time !

But this, again, anticipates, even if it does not betray. There was much that preceded that event, and some of it de manding relation.

When Kate carne home again from the city, her first busi ness, as has before been seen, was to discover the truth with reference to the maligned cousin-in-law who had preceded her; and when she found how terribly she had herself erred in estimation, to make such amends by the most abject hu miliation as the generous heart is ever p-rornpt to do when made aware of the injustice it has committed. Her third task, as we have also seen, was the attempt to console Mary Haviland under the fearful grief of the death of her husband. But the second, sandwiched between the other two, was ex clusively personal and even more difficult than either of the others. That was nothing more nor less than to inform A tint Bessy how rapid progress she had been making during her short stay in that very fast place, the city — that she was en gaged to be married ! She tried to command her cheek when she caught the good old aunt entirely-alone, feeding her .brood of poultry, in the back-yard, one morning; but the tell-tale color would come, and she/not only blushed but actually stam mered (think of that, with her glib and saucy tongue !) and came very near to " making a mess of it."

"Why, you dear child !" was the surprised exclamation of Aunt Bessy, pausing with a whole handful of moistened meal

470 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

in her grasp, the hungry brood cackling around her mean while. For such particular business as the distribution of food to her poultry, the good old lady always wore her spec tacles ; and the way in which she looked at Kate under those glasses, at the moment of making the exclamation, the ex clamation and the look both seeming to say : "There — that crazy girl has been at another one of her pranks, that she can't help, I suppose !" — did not in the least tend to reassure the young lady who was making her first "confession."

But when the good aunt fairly understood the whole con fession — that her niece was really engaged to be married to a young man belonging to one of the first families of the great city, a man of fabulous wealth, who might have married the most arrogant belle of Fifth Avenue — she frightened the young girl still more by throwing out the remainder df her meal, going to the little bench that stood near the back-door of the farm-house, setting down her basin, washing her hands and_ drying them on the towel hanging there, and then coming back to the spot where Kate stood, opening her arms and drawing her niece to her bosom, with the motherly love, com pounded with pity, that had always marked her demeanor in the old time.

" Kate," she said, looking the young girl straight in the eyes, "has this man been trifling with you ?" The country suspicion was probing the sincerity of the city ; the honest country woman could not quite believe that wealth and fashion would seek for a bride in that hasty and incongruous man ner ; and heaven knows what terrible thoughts may for the moment have been running through the mind of the widow who was so good herself and yet not so good as to ignore what the preacher told her every Sabbath at church — that this was a " wicked and deceitful world." Poor Kate at least partially understood the protecting fear and fondness of that question and that embrace ; she remembered the pressure that had been given on the little piazza on the Sunday^niorning when she believed she was going away on the morrow ; and a flush as hot as even guilt could have manifested and yet as delicate as the most spotless innocence could have demanded, burned over brow, cheek and bosom, as she replied :

THtf DAYS OF SHODDY. 471

"No, Aunt — dear, good Aunt! It does seem strange enough, does it not, that he should seek me ? But he has nut been trifling at all — he has asked me to behistrue, honest wife, just as Uncle Joseph once asked you."

"Has he? — you dear, dear child !" said the aunt, all her fears driven away in an instant by the words of the young girl, and gathering her still closer to her breast. Then again still another thought took possession of her, and she stated a second doubt of no small consequence.

" Katy, is he good ? So many of those very rich men in the city, I have heard, lead such dreadful lives ! If he should not be good, and you should marry him and find your whole future life embittered by neglect and ill-treatment, while he was pursuing the pleasures that you could not and would not share — what would become of you ? — and how could I live when I knew that you were miserable ?•'

It was Kate Haviland's turn, now, to become the soother and apparently the protector. They were her arms that supplied the next pressure, and it was her voice, all its em barrassment shaken oft' and the old mischief rippling in it most deliciously, that replied :

" Aunt, do not be alarmed. He is a good man — that is, as good as they make them. I would stay siugle until the last man on earth used Sperling's Amphobia and Bray's Patent Hair-Dye and Professor Drown's Patent Anti-Corrosive Artificial Teeth (warranted for two years, or taken back and put into somebody else's mouth) before I would marry a man whom I did not know to be something else than the miserable stuck-up trifler you are thinking of ! I have done better than that, Aunt, depend upon it, though he is a little odd and you may see some things in him that will bother you at first."

" Well, I hope he is all that you believe, Katy, I am sure !'' said the aunt, returning the caress and then releasing the young girl.

" And — Aunt — may I invite him to come over here ?" asked the fiance with again a little hesitation in her manner. " I have promised to write to him in a day or two ; and I have ppoken so much of you and the old place to him, that he

472 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

wished me to ask if he might come and see how you liked him."

" Did he, child ?" asked the aunt, flattered by this proof of attention. " Yes, that sounds well. Certainly, ask him lo come over whenever he likes, if you do not think that he will be afraid of the living and fare of your poor country friends."

" He will be ashamed of nothing that / love," said the young girl, proudly ; " or if he is, and shows it, he may go back to New York when he likes, and look for some one else to help him spend his million or two !"

" You are a good girl, Kate. You always were a good girl — a little wild sometimes, but good — from your cradle," said the aunt, her eyes moist with the sad pleasure of sorrow as she looked back into the past. And with that the con versation closed.

The result of that conversation, however, was that in the letter which went to Xew York from the little village post- office the next morning, Xed Minthorne was invited to pay the farm-house at Duffsboro a visit, whenever his time allowed, and " whenever," as the young girl took care to add, "he could make up his mind to dress soberly and respecta bly and not horrify the country people by making a ninny of himself."

It was more than two weeks after, when Bull Run had been fought and almost all the other incidents herein recorded had taken place — that the good people who came down by the steamboat and line of rail leading to and beyond Duft'sboro, experienced, on the Saturday afternoon run, something like the same sensation felt by the Roman warrior in the thick of the groat battle, when Castor and Pollux burst upon his view, and

'• — He was aware of a princely pair > That rode at his right hand."

In other words, the good people were " takeiv down a peg", as some of them expressed it in their homely but graphic phrase, by the appearance on the steamer and the cars, of a male human flower of such gorgeous color and general ap pearance that all the centuries of ordinary human production seemed to have been mere preparations for his arrival. Mr.

THE DAYS OF SHODDY. 473

Minthorne, on that occasion, strictly obeying the instructions of Kate, who was so anxious that he should in the first instance neither frighten nor shock her friends in the country, and especially Aunt Bessy, — appeared in coat, pants and vest of light violet summer-cloths evidently new and got up for the occasion — the pants even wider than any that he had before worn, and actually forming a loose bag divided by a sectional slit — the coat so short as to be little more than a jacket, and very close at the body, while the sleeves con tained nearly as much material as the- legs of the trousers — • the patent-leathers of the most dazzling polish — the hat another of the " tourist" shape, still lower in the round crown and narrower in the brim than any that had preceded it — the gloves bright yellow — the neck-tie cherry-color — the collar garotte of painful tightness — the malacca cane with the Phidian limb for a head, retained and duly switched — the short light-brown curly hair parted in the middle and form ing little horns at the two brows, something like those that the old painters have unaccountably made Moses wear on Sinai — the side whiskers more luxuriously pendant than ever — and, to complete the equipment, a gold eye-glass (which he had never before been in the habit of wearing, even in his worst moments) dangling by a blue ribbon from his neck and jjeriodically applied to his ^re when he had occasion to draw up his nez retrousse with the affectation of being near-sighted.

This was the figure that the good people saw, coming down on the steamer and on the cars. This was the figure that they saw disembark, with a large valise, at the station nearest Duffsboro, and hire an open country-wagon as a hack to take him over to "Mrs. White's farm-house." And if they were all struck with horror and amazement that any man living could be fool enough to dress in that outrageous manner, what were the feelings of Kate Haviland, when, — after wait ing his arrival with a good deal of real impatience to see the " deal-, good fellow," and some anxiety to know what con cessions he would be found to have made to her wishes on that occasion, — she saw him land at the gate and approach the piazza, valise in hand, in that hideous disguise, his eye-

THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

glass in his eye, and such an expression of goou-natured idiocy rampant from brow to chin that it did not appear as if he knew enough to corne into the house from the street when it rained !

For a moment, at the first glimpse of him, the young girl was so mortified and almost angry, that she came very near bursting into tears, running away up-stairs and refusing to see her visitor at all, or acknowledge that she had ever known him. And certain it is that the wealth of Xed Minthorne did not restrain her from that course of action which would probably have separated them forever. — while something else — yes, the warm regard, respect and love that she bore the odd hu man compound inside of the violet clothes, unquestionably did produce the restraint. She forced down both the tears that wanted to come and the blush of mortification that would come in spite of her, and came out at the door to re ceive the nondescript, meeting him at the- edge of the piazza with outstretched hand, but with the pouting words :

" How you mind me, Xed Minthorne, don't you ! You're a beauty!"

" Humph ! — glad you like me ! Had to get a new suit to come down, you know. How are you all ? Kiss me, Kate !'' was the reply, in his very worst affected drawl — the latter part probably a nnotation from Shakspeare's Hotspur, but spoken, and or/' a, as if original, as he proceeded with his right hand to encircle the young girl's waist and secure the answer to his demand, his left still occupied with holding the valise.

" Set down that valise and don't be a ninny. But here comes aunt, and what will she think of you !" was the reply of the young girl, after the kiss had been warmly accorded by the very lips that carried the pout, aj\d as she saw the good old lady coming out of the door, resplendent in a new cap with bright ribbons, and her very best evening dress, both put on in honor of the expected coming of Kate's "beau."

" Mr. Minthorne — my aunt, Mrs. White," said Kate, intro ducing, though she was in a terrible tremor all the while.

" Glad to see you, Mr. Minthorne," said the good old lady, extending her hand, though there was something of disap-

THE DAYS OF S H O D DY. 475

pointment and almost of pain in her face, that both the young girl and her lover saw, and that produced very different effects on the two. Kate Haviland was nearly ready to sink with vexation and a feeling of bother, and in her heart she was saving : " See if I don't make you pay for this trick and mortification, old fellow, some day when I get my opportu nity !" Ned Minthorne, meanwhile, though he was really impressed by the matronly beauty and evident goodness of Mistress Bessy White, could not stop to recognize such things just then, and carried out his role by a half-idiotic stare and a drawled :

" Glad to have the pleasure of knowing Mrs. White, I am sure. Fine evening, and you have a deuced nice place here, you know !" ^

" Yes, sir, a pleasant place enough for poor folks, and I am glad you like it," answered Aunt Bessy, dryly. Then she called her "help" from within, informed Mr. Minthorne that his room was ready for him, .and sent him up-stairs with the girl, apparently a little in a hurry to get rid of him, and re taining Kate on the porch, as if she had something important to communicate. And so she had — really.

" Kate," she said, when he had gone, adjusting the spectacles on her nose, coming close to the young girl, and this time looking over the glasses instead of under them — " Kate, you dear child, haven't you made a terrible mistake ? I don't think he has been trifling with you, now that I see him, but, Kate, is that man sensible ?"

Those who know. what the last word means, in ordinary country parlance, as opposed to " idiotic" can understand the whole significance of Aunt Bessy's new fear. She really believed that Kate had been promising to marry an absolute natural, and she had keenness enough to know that even wealth could not gild and make endurable such a connection.

But the answer to this was what she had least expected — a clear ringing laugh from. Kate, that went out on the air of early evening and must have made the birds just folding their wings for repose wink their bright eyes in momentary wake- fulness. The ridiculousness of the whole thing had at last

476 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

overcome her vexation, and she was really enjoying it, now that the torture was over.

" Yes, Aunt," she said, when her peal of laughter was ended. " I shall be obliged to betray him, since he will not mind me. He is sensible enough, and some people think that he is smart as a steel-trap. But he is the queerest fellow and the greatest quiz in the world ; and he has put on all that, clothes and manner, on purpose to come down here, set all the people along the line talking, deceive you and vex me."

Aunt Bessy was not in the habit of using hard words ; but she did say,' when her unsuspicious mind had fairly taken in the whole arrangement, and with an emphasis denoting that she might " owe that young man one," some time or other, for attempting to quiz her :

" Drat his picture !"

Yet Aunt Bessy forgave the ex-" millionaire noodle," when be came down stairs on Sunday morning, dressed for church at the little village, in garments rich and costly but plain enough to have beseemed the most unpretending man in the country, and his hair neatly parted at the side, perhaps, by fairer hands than even his own — when his words were those of manly dignity and propriety — and when she saw him look ing upon Kate with a world of pride and affection in his eyes, waiting for the time to come when he should gather her home to hi» heart and hold her there for evermore.

And he did so gather her, as has already been indicated, in due time, — with the double blessing of the good old minister of the village church with the white spire, and of the good aunt who had trained him a wife shaming in beauty and goodness all the " wealthy curled darlings" of fashion, met day by day in the street, in the rich jj raw ing-rooms of Mur ray Hill, at the Tiger Ball," at the opera and at Saratoga.

And that is how bonnie Kate Haviland is Kate Haviland no longer. Married to the millionaire, and as she had her self once $aid — "much more than that — a really nice, clever fellow," in the fall of 1861,— she spent the summer of 1862 with him in Europe ; and that of 1863 has been passed by herself and others (two others — little people, both of the male sex and the same age : a shameful revelation of the ungov-

THE PAYS OF vS II O D D Y . 477

ernable character of the ex-teacher, hut one that must be made I) with Aunt Bessy, beside the rose-bushes and under

the fruit trees of the old farm-house at Duffsboro ; while (

Ned Minthorne, with not much time now for Dundreary mas querading', has again been absent in Europe on special busi ness for the government, with which it would seem probable that he' must have had some confidential connection, under his mask of millionaire noodle, during all the time covered by this relation.

The " Days of Shoddy," as designated by that name, began with the commencement of the War for the Union, though the habit of swindling City, State and National governments even more deeply than individuals, had long before that time been educating the national character for such an issue. They have not ended now, though the struggle may be more or less nearly approaching its termination. It is certain that they will not end until the contest closes, and they may linger long after. While the nation remains in distress or society convulsed, thieves (moral, social and pecuniary) will continue to embrace their opportunity. Men of the stamp of Charles Holt, merchant, will still attempt to outrage every precept of honor and virtue, by such arts as have been shown connected with his career; arid they will not think it beneath them, while they are taking advantage of the absence of patriotic men in the public service, to destroy the peace of homes once happy, — to buy and sell a few rotten satinets, shoddy clothes, shoes with glued soles, muskets without vents and tents made of six-cent muslin, and all other army supplies of a corres ponding character, to maintain or increase ill-won fortunes, or to furnish themselves with the means of indulging the costlier luxuries and vices. Men who can find sale for munitions of war, useful or worthless, at prices four or ten times their actual cost, will not cease to urge such measures as must prolong the evil harvest. So-called statesmen and political Generals who know that they can keep no hold upon rich salaries or public honors from the day when the war closes, will assist in crippling and hindering it, and yet keep ing it fastened upon the country, under one pretence or another of ardent patriotism.

478 THE DAYS OF SHODDY.

The pecuniary dishonesty of the shoddy age will all the while be the most contemptible of all, though by no means the most guilty. The wealth suddenly acquired by knavery is sure to curse its holder with ridicule, if it brings with it no worse punishment. The wife of the shoddy millionaire will buy diamonds that she can neither appreciate nor value and wear them so unfitly and ungracefully that every gem will cast a new ray of light on the splendid misery of her position. The shoddy millionaire himself will struggle for places in social life and public employment, for which he is DO more fitted than desired ; and every upward step which he succeeds in taking will but make him a more shining mark for covert ridicule or open detestation. His daughters will strug gle for incongruous marriages, and be equally miserable whether they succeed or fail ; and his sons will disgrace the country abroad, as types (Heaven save the mark !) of the American gentleman, — will buy worthless daubs in Europe as pictures by the Old Masters, or eat fish with a knife, ask for " more of them 'ere taters'' and send up their plates twice for soup, to the intense disgust of Newport and Saratoga.

And eventually, all that has been ill-won will be as rapidly lost. Cinders in the hand and Dead Sea ashes upon the tongue, must be the end of the objects unholily grasped and tasted. No "moth can corrupt or thieves break through and steal," so certainly and so quickly as with gain acquired at the sacrifice of every noble and patriotic impulse. For God yet lives, the courses of nature are not changed, the sunshine smiles broad upon the earth, the stars keep their places in the blue heaven, the waves of the ocean keep their appointed bound, and the rivers r«ji sparkling to the sea. And in His hand lie the destinies of men, after all that their own hands have wrought — the destinies of the republic, after all that has been done by the faithful to preserve and by the dishonest and the reckless to destroy it.

THE END.

T. B,

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The Missing Bride. Two vol umes, paper cover. Price Oue Dollar ; or iu one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Retribution: A Tale of Paa- sioii. Two vols., paper cover. Price $1.00; or iu one vol., cloth, $1.50.

THe Haunted Homestead. Two

vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in oue vol., cloth, $1.50. THe Curse of Clifton. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

THe Discarded Daughter. Two

vuls., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in oue vol., cloth, $1.50.

THe Deserted \Vife. Two vol umes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in oue volume, cloth, for $1.50.

THe Jealous Husband. Two vol umes, paper cover. Price $1.00; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

THe Belle of Washington. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

THe Initials. A Love Story. Two vols., paper cover. Price Oue Dol lar ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Kate Aylesford. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in oiie vol., cloth, for $1.50.

THe Dead Secret. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or bound in oue vol., cloth, $1.50.

THe Broken Engagement. By Mra. Southworth. Price 25 cents.

(I)

2 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' .PUBLICATIONS.

MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS' WORKS.

The Rejected Wife. Onevolume, paper cover. Price Oue Dollar ; or in one volume, cloth, for 1.50.

Vashion and Famine. One vol ume, paper cover. Price $1. 00; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Mary Derivent. One volume, pa per cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

The Heiress. One volume, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or ip one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

The Old Homestead. One vol ume, paper cover. Price One Dollar •• or in one vol., cloth, $1.50. The edition of these books in one vol ume, paper cover, is the "Railway Edition."

CAROLINE LEE HENTZ'S WORKS.

Planter's Northern Bride.

Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in cloth, $1.50. J.iT»l:i. The Young- Pilot of the Belle Creole. Price $1.00 in paper ; or $1.50 in cloth.

Robert Graham. The Sequel to, and Continuation of Linda. Price $1.00 in paper ; or $1.50 iu cloth.

The Lost Daughter. Two vol«., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or bound in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Courtship and Marriage. Two

vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or iu one vol., cloth, $1.50. I? run: or, The Snow Bird.

Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or one vol., cloth, $1.50. MarriiK Warland. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or bound in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Love after Marriage. Twovols, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or i« one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

The Planter's Daughter. Two

vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Eoline ; or, Magnolia Vale. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

The Banished Son. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in oue volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Helen and Arthur. Two vol umes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or iu one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Ernest. Linwood. Two volupes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.60.

Courtship and Matrimony. Two vols., paper cover. Price Oue Dollar ; or in oue vol., cloth, $1.50.

MRS. HENRY WOOD'S BOOKS.

The Shadow of Ashlydyat.

Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.25.

Squire Trevlyn's Heir. Two

vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.25.

The Castle's Heir. Two volumes, octavo, paper cover. Price One Dol lar ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.25.

Verner's Pride. Two vols., octavo, paper cover. Price $1.00; or in oue vol., cloth, for $1.25. Wo also publish a. " Railway Edition"

of all the above, each onein one volume,

paper cover. Price Oue Dollar each.

A Life's Secret. Price Fifty cents ; or in one vol., cloth, 75 cents.

The Lout Bank Note i and Mar I yn Ware's Temptation.

One vol., octavo, paper cover. Price 50 cents ; or one vol., cloth, for 75 ct».

The Channiiigs. One vol., octavo, paper cover Price 75 cents ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.00.

The Mystery. Price Fifty cents; or bound in one vol., cloth, 75 cents.

The Earl's Heirs. Price Fifty cents; or one vol., cloth, 75 cents.

Aiir'ora Floyd. Price 50 cents ; or a finer edition, in cloth, for $1.00.

Better For Worse. One vol., oc tavo, paper cover. Price 50 cents.

The Foggy Night at Oflford. Price 2"> cents.

THE GREAT NOVEL OF THE WAR.

ghonlder Straps. A novel of New York and the Army in 1862. By Henry Morford, editor of the "New York Atlas." It is the book for Ladies! Gentle men! Soldiers! Wives and Widows, Fast Young Ladies, Slow Young Ladies, Married Men and Bachelors, Young; Ladies about to be Married, and those who have no Matrimonial Prospects whatever! Stay-at-Horne Guards, Government officials, Army Contractors, Aldermen, Doctors, Judges, Lawyers, etc. Complete in tW5 larsre volumes, illustrated, and neatly done up in paper cover«, price One Dollar a copy ; or bound in oue volume, cloth, for $1.50. We also publish a " Itailway Edition" of it, complete In one vol., paper eo» sr, price One Dollar.

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 3

CHARLES DICKENS' WORKS.

ILLUSTRATED OCTAVO EDITION.

David Copperfleld, Cloth, 2.00

Barnaby lluclgc, Cloth, 2.00

Pickwick Papers, Cloth, $2.00

Nicholas Nickleby, Cloth, 200

Great Expectations,. ..Cloth, 2.00 Lamplig liter's Story,. .Cloth, 2.00

Oliver Twist, .....Cloth, 2.00

Bleak House, Cloth, 2.00

Tattle Dorrit, Cloth, 2.00

Dombey and Son, Cloth, 2.00

Sketches by " Boz,".... Cloth, 2.00

Martin Chuzzlewit,...Cloth, 2.00 Old Curiosity Stoop,.... Cloth, 2.00

Shop,.... Cloth, : ories, Cloth,

Dickens' New Stories, 2.00

A Tale of Two Cities, 2.00

American Notes and Pic-Xic Papers, Cloth, 2.00

Price of a set, in Black cloth, in 17 volumes , $32.00

'• " Full Law Library style , 42(10

" " Half calf, sprinkled edges 4S.OO

" " Half calf, marbled edges 50.00

" " Half calf, antique 60.00

" " Half calf, full gilt backs, etc 60.00

PEOPLE'S DUODECIMO EDITION.

Nicholas Nickleby, ...Cloth, 1.75 Great Expectations, ...Cloth, 1.75 Lamplighter's Story, ..Cloth, 1.75 David Copperfleld, Cloth 1 75	Dombey and Son, Cloth, 1.75 Christmas Stories. Cloth, 1.75 Sketches by " Box,". ...Cloth, 1.75 Barnnby Rudge, Cloth 1.75
Oliver Twist, CJoth, 1.75 Bleak House, Cloth 1 75	Martin Chuzzlewit,... Cloth, 1.75 Old Curiosity Shop,. ...Cloth, 1.75
A Tale of Two Cities, ... 1 75	Dickens' Short Stories, 1.50
Dickens' New Stories, 1.50	Message from, the Sea, 1.50

Price of a set, in Black cloth, in 17. volumes $29.00

" " Full Law Library style 35.00

" " Half calf, sprinkled ed^es 42.00

" " Half calf, marbled edges 44.00

" " Half calf, antique 50.00

" " Half calf, full gilt backs, etc 5000

" " Full calf, antique 60.00

" " Full calf, gilt edges, backs, etc 60.00

ILLUSTRATED DUODECIMO EDITION.

Pickwick Papers, Cloth, $3.00

Tale of Two Cities,.... Cloth, 3.00 Nicholas Nickleby,.... Cloth, 3.00 Dnvid Copperfleld, Cloth, 3.00

Oliver Twist,.

.Cloth, 3.00

Christmas Stories, Cloth, 3.00

Sketches by " Boz,"... Cloth, 3.00

Barnaby Rudge, Cloth, 3.00

Martin Chu7.zlewit,...Cloth, 3.00 Old Curiosity Shop,. ..Cloth, 3.00

Little Dorrit.

.Cloth, 3.00

Dombey and Son., Cloth, 3.00

Bleak House, Cloth, 3.00

Eauh of the above are complete in two^cnlumes, illustrated.

Great Expectations,. ..Cloth, 1.75 j Dickens' New Stories, 1.75

Lamplighter's Story, 1.75 1 Message from the Sea, 1.75

Price ijf t. set, in Thirty volumes, bound in Black cloth, gilt backs $4/5.00

1 " Full Law Library style 55. 'K)

* " Half calf, antique 90.00

' " Half calf, full gilt back 90.00

' " Full calf, antique 100.00

• •• Full calf, gilt edges, backs, etc 100.09

4 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.

CHA.UL.KS DICKENS' WORKS.

CHEAP EDITION, PAPER COVER.

This edition is published complete in Tweuty-two large octavo volumes, in paper cover, as follows. Price Fifty cents a volume.

Pickwick Papers. Great Expectations. A Tale of Two Cities. New Years' Stories. Harniiliy limit;*-.

Old Curiosity Shop. Little Don-it.

David Copperfleld. Sketches by " Boz." Dickens' New Stories. American Notes.

Oliver Twist. Lamplighter's Story. Domliey and Sou. Nicholas Nickleby. Holiday Stories.

Martin Chuzzlewit. Bleak House. Dickens' Short Stories. Message from the Sea. Christmas Stories. Plc-Nic Papers.

LIBRARY OCTAVO EDITION. IN SEVEN VOLUMES. This edition is in SEVEN very large octavo volumes, with a Portrait on steel of

Charles Dickens, and bound in the following vari ais styles. .

Price of a set, in Black Cloth, in soyen volumes, $14.00

" " Scarlet .'loth, extra, 1600

" " LHVV Library style, 17 .10

" " Half calf, sprinkled edpcs, 20.00

" '! Half calf, marbled e<li;«s 21.00

•' " Halfralf, antique 2.5.00

" " Halt' calf, full gilt backs, etc., 25.00

CHARLES LEVER'S WORKS.

Fine Edition, bound separately.

Charles O'HIalley, cloth, $1.50

Harry Lorrcqucr, cloth, 1.50

Jack Million, cloth,

Arthur O'Leary, cloth, l.«0

Con Cregan, cloth ,

1.50

1.50 j Knight of Gwynne, cloth,.. 1.50

Dnveiiport Dunn, cloth, 1.50 Valentine Vox, cloth, 1.50

Tom Burke of Ours, cloth,. 1.50 ' Ten THousand a Year,... 1.50

CHARLES LEVER'S NOVELS.

All neatly done up in paper covers.

Charles O'Malley,....Prto? 50 cts.

Arthur O'Leary, 60 cts.

^he Knight of Gwynne, 50

Kate O'Doiioghue, 50

Con Cregan, tlie Irish. Gil Bias, 50

Davenport Dunn, 50

Harry Lorrequer, 50

Horace Temple ton, 50

Tom Burke of Ours, 50

Jack Hint 011, the Guards man, 50

LIBRARY EDITION.

THIS EDITION is complete in FIVE large octavo volumes, containing Charles O'Malley, Harry Lorrequor, Horace Templeton, Tom Burke of Ou,'s, Arthur O'Leary, Jack Hiuton the Guardsman, The Knight of Gwynne, Kate O'Donoghue, etc., hand somely printed, and bound in various styles, as follows :

P-ice of a set in Black cloth $7.50

" Scarlet cloth, 8.00

" " Law Library sheep, 8.75

Hfllf Calf, sprinkled od^p* 12.00

" " Half Calf, marbled edge*,, 12..W

Half Calf, ftuti.iue, .' , lu.08

T. B PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. §

VVILK1K COLLINS' GREAT' WORKS.

Tlie Dead. Secret. One volume, octavo, paper cover. Price fifty cents ; or bouud iu one vol., cloth, for 7.J cts. ; or a fine 12mo. edition, in two vols., paper cover, in large type, for Oue Dollar, oriuone vol., cloth, for $1.50.

The Crossed Path 5 or, Basil.

Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or bound in one vol ume, cloth, for #1.50.

The Stolen Mask. Price 25 cents.

| Hide and Seek. One vol., ocU vo, paper cover. "Price fifty cents; 01 bouud iu oue vol., cloth, for 75 cents.

After Dark. One vol., octavo, paper cover Price fifty cents ; or bouud in one vol., cloth, for 75 cents.

Sights A -foot ; or Travels Beyond Hallways. One volume, octavo, paper cover. Price 50 cents.

Tlie Yellow Mask. Price 25 cts.

Sister Rose. Price 25 cents.

COOK BOOKS.

Petersons' New Cook Book;

or Useful Rec«fipt.« for the Housewife and the Uninitiated. Full of valuable receipts, all original and never before published, all of which will be found to be very valuable and of daily use. One vol., bound. Price $1.50.

Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book. Being her last new book. Oue volume, bound. Price $1.50.

\V iddifield's New Cook Book;

or. Practical Receipts for the House wife. Cloth. Price #1.25.

Mrs. Hale's New Cook Book.

By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale. One volume, bound. Price $1.25.

Miss Leslie's New Receipts for Cooking. Complete in one volume, bound. Price $1.25.

MRS. HALE'S RECEIPTS.

Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million. Containing 4:545 Receipts. By Mrs. Sarah J. Hale. One vol., 800 pages, strongly bound. Price, $1.50.

MISS LESLIE'S BEHAVIOUR BOOK. Leslie's Behaviour Book. A complete Guide and Manual for

Miss

Ladies.

Price $1.50.

FRANCATELLI'S FRENCH COOK.

Francatelli's Celebrated French Cook Book. The Modern Cook. A Practical Guide to the Culinary Art, in all its branches*; comprising, in addition to English Cookery, the most approved and recherchS systems of Frencli, Italian, and German Cooker)' ; adapted as well for the lartreXt establish ments. as for the use of private families. By CHAKLES BLUE FRAXCA- TELLI, pupil to the celebrated CARRMK, and late Ma'tre-d'Hotel and Chief Took to her Majesty, the Queen of England. With Sixty-Two Illustrations of various dishes. Reprinted from the last London Edition, carefully revised and consider ably enlarged. Complete iu one large octavo volume of Six Hundred pages, strougly bound, and printed on the finest double super-calendered paper. Price Three Dollars a copy.

J. A. MAITLAND'S GREAT \VORKS.

Tne Three Cousins. By J. A.

Maitland. Two vols., paper. Price $1 .00 ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50. The "Watchman. Complete in two large vols., paper cover. Price $1.00; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Tlie \Vanderer. Complete in two volumes, paper cover. Price $1.00 ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

Tlie Diary of an Old Doctor.

Twe vols . paper cover. Price $1.00; or bound in cloth for $1.50.

The Lawyer's Story. Two vol umes, paper cover. Price $1.00; or bound in cloth for $1.50.

Sartaroe. A Tale of Norway. Two vols.. paper cover. Price $1.00; or in cloth for $1.50.

MRS. DANIELS' GREAT WORKS.

Marrying for Money. One vol., ortavo. paper cover. Price fifty cent* ; or one vol., cloth, 75 cents.

The Poor Cousin. Price fiO cents. Kate WaUingham. Price 00 cents.

6 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.

DUMAS' WORKS.

Count ol Monte -Crlsto. By

Alexander Dumas. Beautifully illus- tniied. One volume, cloth, $1.30 ; or in two volumes, paper cover, for $1.00.

The Conscript. Two vols., paper cover. Price Oue Dollar ; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.00.

Camille; or the Fate ot a Coquette. Only correct Translation from the OHginal Krouch. Two vol umes, paper, price ijil.oo; cloth, $1.50.

The Three Guartl.Miieu. Price

75 cents, iu paper cosvr, or a filler edition in cloth, for SI. 30.

Twenty Years After. A Sequel to the " Three Guardsmen.'' Price 75 cents, in paper cover, or a finer edition, in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Bragfloniie; the Soil of Athos: being the continuation of "Twenty Years After." Price 75 cents, in paper, or a finer edition, iu cloth, for $1.50.

The Iron Mask. Beinsf the con tinuation of the "Three Guardsmen." Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Louise La Valliere ; or, The

Second Series and end of the "Iron Mask." Two volumes, paper cover. Price $1.00, or iu one vol., cloth, $1.50.

The Memoirs of a Physician. Beautifully Illustrated. Two vols., paper cover. Price Oue Dollar ; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

The Queen's Necklace. A Se quel to the " Memoirs of a Physician." Two vols , paper cover. Price $1.00 ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

Six Years Later; or, Taking- of the Bastile. A Continuation of " The Queen's Necklace." Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or iu one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

Countess ot Charny; or, The Fall of the French Monarchy. Sequel to Six Years Later. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Andree de Taverney. A Sequel to and continuation of the Countess of Charny. Two volumes, paper. Price $1.00 ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

The Chevalier. A Sequel to, and final eud of " Andree De Taverney.'' One vol. Price 75 cents.

The Adventures of a Mar quis. Two vols., paper cover. Price 1.00; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

The Forty-Five Guardsmen. Price 75 cents, or a finer edition in one volume, cloth. Price $1.50.

The Iron Hand. Price 75 cents, in paper cover, or it finer edition in one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Diana of Meridor. Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

Ed m 0*1 d Dantes. Being a, Sequel to Dumas' celebrated novel of the "Count of Monte-Cristo." Price 50 cts.

Annette ; or, The Lady of the Pearls. A Companion to "Camille." Price 50 cents.

The Fallen Angel. A Story of Love and Life in Paris. One volume. Price 50 cents.

The Man with Five Wives. Complete in one volume. Price 50 cts.

George : or, The Planter of the Isle of France. One vol ume. Price Fifty cents.

Geiievieve ; or, The Chevalier of M:iisou Rouge. One volume. Illus trated. Price 50 cents.

The Mohicans of Paris. 50 cts.

Sketches in France. 50 cents.

Isabel of Bavaria. Price 50 cts.

Felina de Chamlnire ; or, The Female tfiend. Price 50 cents.

The Horrors of Paris. 50 cents.

The Twin Lieutenants. One vol. Price 50 cts.

The Corsican Brothers. 25 cts.

FRANK E. SMEDLEY'S WORKS.

Harry Coverdale's Courtship nnd Marriage. Two vols., paper. Price $1.00 ; or cloth, $1.50.

Lorrimer Littlegood. By author of "Frank Fairleijfh." Two vols., paper. Price*!. 00; or cloth, $1.50.

Frank Fairleigh. Oue volume, cloth, $1.50 ; or cheaj edition in paper cover, fo« 75 cents.

Lewis Arundel. One vol., cloth.

Price $1.50 ; or cheap edition in paper

cover, for 75 cents. Fortunes and Misfortunes ot

Harry Racket Scapegrace.

Cloth. Price $1.50 ; or cheap edition

in paper cover, for 50 cents. Tom Racquet; and His Thre«

Maiden Aunts. Illustrated. SOcenU.

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 7

MISS BREMER'S \TEW WORKS.

The Father and Daughter.

By Fredrika Bremer. Two vols. paper. Price ijl.00 ; or cloth, $1.50. The Four Sisters. Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or in oue volume, cloth, for $1.50.

THe Neighbors. Two vols., pap»r

cover. Price Oue Dollar; or In one

volume, cloth, for $1.50. The Home. Two volumes, paper

cover. Price One Dollar; or iu one

volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Life In the Old World} or, Two Tears in Switzerland and Italy. Com plete in two large duodecimo volumes, of near 1000 pages. Price $3.00.

GREEN'S WORKS Off GAMBLING.

Gambling Exposed. By J. H.

Green, the Reformed Gambler. Two vols., paper cover. Price $1.00 ; or In one volume, cloth, gilt, for $1.50. The Gambler's Life. Twovols., paper cover. Price Oue Dollar ; or in one vol., cloth, gilt, for $1.50.

The Secret Band of Brothers.

Two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar ; or bound in one volume, cloth, for $1.50. The Reformed Gambler. Two

vols., paper. Price One Dollar ; or iu one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

M/RS. GREY'S NEW BOOKS.

Little Beauty. Two vols., paper , Cousin Harry* Two vols., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one cover. Price One Dollar; or in oue volume, cloth, for $1.50. | volume, cloth, for $1.. -JO.

The Flirt. One vol. octavo, paper cover, 50 cents ; or in cloth, for 75 cents.

MRS. GREY'S POPULAR NOVELS.

Price Twenty-Five Cents each.

The Man«uvriiig Mother. The Young Prima Donna. Alice Seymour. Baronet's Daughters. Old Dower House.

Hyacinthe. Mary Seaham. Price 50 cents.

Gipsy's Daughter. Lena Cameron.

Belle of the Family. Sybil Lenuard. Duke .and Cousin. The Little Wife. Passion &• Principle. 50 cents.

G. P. R. JAMES'S NEW BOOKS.

The Cavalier. An Historical Ro mance. With a steel portrait of the author. Two vols., paper cover. Price $1.00; or in one vol., cloth, for $1.50.

The Man in Black. Price 50 cts.

Arrah Nell. Price ,»0 cents.

Lord Montagu's Page. Two

voluin»K, paper cover. Price One Dol lar ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Mary of Burgundy. Price 50 cts. Eva St. Clairj and other Tales. Price 25 cents.

MISS ELLEN PICKERING'S WORKS.

Price Tliirty-EigU Cents each.

Who Shall be Heir 1 Merchant's Daughter. The Secret Foe. The Expectant. The Fright. Quiet. Husband.

Ellen Wareham. Nan Darrel. Priuce and Pedlar. The Squire.

The Grumbler. 60 reot» Orphan Niece. 50 cents.

COINS OF THE WORLD.

Petersons' Complete Coin Book, containing Perfect Fac-Si.miles of all the various Gold, Silver, and other Metallic Coins, throughout the World, near Two Thousand in all, being the most complete Coin Book in the World, with fc-.e United States Mint Value of each Coin under it. Price $1.00.

8 T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS.

MISS PARDOE'S WORKS.

The Jealous "Wife. By Miss Par- doe. Complete in one large octavo volume. Price Fifty cents.

The Wife's Trials. By Miss Par- doe. Complete in one large octavo volume. Price Fifty cents.

The Rival Beauties. By Miss Pardoe. Complete iu one large octavo volume. Price Fifty cents.

Romance of the Harem. By

Miss Pard"e. Complete in one large oclavo volume. Price Fifty cents.

Confessions of a Pretty Wo man. By Mis*. Pardoe. Complete in one large octavo volume. Price Fifty cents.

Miss Pardoe'g Complete \Vorks. Tliis cnrnpriSM thu icholt, of the abone Five, workn. find art. bound in cloth, gilt, in one large octavo vol ume. Price $2.50.

The Adopted Heir. By Miss Par- doe. Two vols., paper. Price $1.00; or iu one vol., cloth, for $1.60.

W. H. MAXWELL'S WORKS.

Stories of Waterloo. One of the

best books in tlie English language. One vol. Price Fifty cents.

Brian O'Lynn; or, Luck is Every thing. Price 50 cents.

Wild Sports in West. 50 cents. SAMUEL C. WARREN'S BOOKS.

Ten Thousand a Year. Com plete in two volumes, paper cover. Price One Dollar; or a finer edition, iu one volume, cloth, for $1.50.

Dtary of a Medical Student.

By author of "Ten Thousand a Year." Complete in one octavo volume, paper cover. Price 50 cents.

EMERSON BENNETT'S WORKS.

The Border Rover. Fine edition

bound in cloth, for $1.50; or Kailroad

Edition for One Dollar. Clara Moreland. Fine edition

bound in cloth, for $1.50; or Kailroad

Edition for One Dollar. The Forged Will. Fine edition

hound in cloth, for $1. .50; or Railroad

Edition for One Dollar. Ellen Norbury. Fine edition

hound in cloth, for $1.50; or Kailroad

Edition for One Dollar.

Bride of the Wilderness. Finn edition bound in cloth, for $1.50; or Kailroad Edition for $1.00.

Kate Clarendon. Fine edition bound iu cloth, for $1 50; or Rail road Edition for One Dollar.

Viola. Fine edition, cloth, for $1.50 ; or Kailroad Edition for One Dollar.

Heiress of Bellefonte and Walde-Warren. Price 50 cents.

Pioneer's Daughter; and the I 11 kit o vt it Countess. 50 cents.

DOESTICKS' BOOKS.

Doestlcks' Letters. Complete in two VO!K., paper cover. Price One Dol lar ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Plii-ri-tms-tah. Complete in two volt,., paper cover. Price One Dollar; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

The Elephant. Club. Complete in two vols., paper cover. Price $1.00 ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

Witches of New York. Complete in two vols., paper cover. Price $1.00 ; or in one vol., cloth, $1.50.

• Nothing to Say. Illustrated. Price 50 cents.

DR. HOLLICK'S WORKS.

Dr. Holliek's Anatomy and Physiology ; with a laiye Dis- M'rted Plate of the Human Figure. Price $1.25, bound.

Dr. Holllck's Family Phy sic tan. A Pocket -Guide lor Every body. Complete in one volume, pa per cover. Price 26 cents.

SMOLLETT'S AND FIELDING'S GREAT WORKS.

Peregrine Pickle; and His Ad- ] Tom Jones. Two volumes. $1.00.

ventures. Two vols., octavo. $100. jAmella. One volume. Fifty cent.. Humphrey Clinker. 50 cents j Joseph Andrews. Fifty centt.

T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS' PUBLICATIONS. 9

MILITARY NOVELS. By Lever, Dumas and other Authors.

With Illuminated Military Covert*, in Colors.

Published and for sale at wholesale, by the single copy, or by tb dozen, i undre< , or thousand, ftt very low rates.

Their Sames are as Follows : Charles O'Mallej-,. Price 50 Valentine Vox P-ict

Jack Hintoil, the Guardsman.. 50

The Knight of Gwynne 50

Harry Lorreoiier 50

Tom Burke of Ours 50

Arthur O'Leary 50

Con Cregan's Adventures 50

Kate O'Donoghue. 50 ;

Horace Templeton 50 !

Davenport Dunn 50 I

Following the Drum 50 ;

The Conscript. 2 vols., each 50 \

Twin Lieut eiiants

Stories of \Vaterloo

The Soldier's Wife

Guerilla Chief

The Three Guardsmen... I Twenty Years After

BraReloiine, the Son of Athos... 75

\Vallace, Hero of Scotland 75

Forty-five Guardsmen 75

The Quaker Soldier, Two

volumes, each 50

Sutlers in the Army, Booksellers, Pedlars and Canvassers, can sell thousands of the above works, all of which are published with Illuminated Military cover* in colors, making them the most attractive and saleable books ever printed.

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Mysteries of the Court of Rosa Lambert, t or. The Memoirs

London. Complete in one lar^e

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of an Unfortunate Womau. One vol., bound in cloth, for $1.50; or in two I volumes, paper cover, price §1.00. Mary Price; or, The Adventures of a Servant-Maid. Complete in one vol., bound iu cloth, for $1.50: or iu two vols., paper cover, price $1.0.). Eustace Quentin. A " Sequel to Mary Price." Complete iu one larire vol., bound in rloth. for $1.50; or iu two volumes, paper cover, price $1 HO. i Joseph Wllinot ; or, The Memoirs of a Man-Servant. Complete in one vol., bound in cloth, for $1.50; or iu two volumes., paper cover, price $1.0( . The Banker's Daughter. A Sequel to " Joseph Wilmot." Complete in one vol. .cloth, for $1.50; or in two volumes, paper covar, price $1.00, Lord Saxoudale 5 or. The Court of Kenneth. A Romaffce of the Hig-h- Queen Victoria. Complete in one larare i lands. Complete in one large volume, vol., cloth, for $1.50; or in two vols., ; bound in cloth, for $1.50; or in two

volumes, paper cover, price $1.00.

'Third Series of the Mysteries of the Court of London." Complete In one large vol., bound in cloth, for $1..)0; ov iu two vols., paper cover, for $1 .00.

Veuetia Trelawney; heintf the "Fourth Series, or final conclusion of the Mysteries of the Court of London." Complete in one volume, iu cloth, for , $1.50 ; or in two volumes, paper cover. ! Price Oue Dollar.

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vol., hound in cloth, for *1.5O; or in May Middlrtoii; or. The History two vols., paper cover, price $1.00. of a Fortune. Price 50 cents.

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WAVERLEY NOVELS

Tlie Waverley WOT els. By Sir Walter Scott. With a magnificent Portmll of Sir Walter Scott, engraved from the last Portrait for which lie ever sat, at AblxHtsfurd, with his Autograph under it. This edition is complete in Five largo 'octavo volumes, with handsomely engraved steel Title Pages to each volume, th« whole beiug neatly and handsomely bound in cloth. This is the cheapest and roost complete and perfect edition of the Waveriey Novels published in the world, as it contains all the Author's last additions and corrections. Price Ten Doilari for a complete and entire set bound in cloth.

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The Talisman, (tut- ill in Dili-ward, The Monastery, \Voodstock, Anne of Geierstein,

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Life and Adventures of Per-

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Theatrical .Tourney - Work and Anecdotal Recollec tions of Sol. Smith, Ks<|.

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Polly Peablossom's Wed ding. By the author of "Major Jones' Courtship." Fifty cents.

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New Orleans Sketch Book.

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A

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< Uiief.

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Life of Ninon De L'Knclos. With her Letters on Love, Courtship, Hud Marriage. Price 25 cents.

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Somebody's Luggage. ByChas.

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Father Tom and the Pope.

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Rine Shots at the Great Men.

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NEW AND SPLENDID PREMIUMS!

THE BEST flKD CHEAPEST IN THE WORLD !

This popular Monthly contains nioro for the money than any Magazine in the world. In 18(3i, it will have nearly KlOO pages, Uo to :1U steel plates, 12 colored patterns, and SlOO wood engravings— and all this for only TWO DOLLARS A YEAH, or a dollar less than magazines of its class. Every lady ought to take •• Peterson." In the general advance of prices,** ia the ONLY MA(!A/INE THAT HAS NOT RAISKTJ ITS PRICKS. EITHER TO SINGJLE SUBSCRIBERS OR TO CLUBS; and is, therefore, emphatically,

THE MAGAZINE FOR THE TIMES!

The stories in " Peterson" are conceded to be the bent published anywhere. Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, Ella Rodman, Mrs. Denison. Frank Lee Benedict, the author of ".Susy L'.s Diary," T. S. Arthur, E. L. Chandler MoulUm, (Jabriella Lee, Virginia F. Towuseud, Rosalie Grey. Clara Augusta, and the author of -'The Second Life," besides all tho most popular female writers of America are regular contributors. In addition tn the usual number of shorter stories, there will be given in 18t>4, Pour Original Copy-righted Novelets, viz:

THE MAID OF HONOR— a Story of Queen Bess, By ANN S. STEPHENS.

THE LOST ESTATE— a Story of To-Day,

By the author of "The Second Life."

MAUD'S SUMMER AT SARATOGA, By FRANK LEE BENEDICT.

FANNY'S FLIRTATION, By ELLA RODMAN.

In its Illustrations also, "Peterson" is unrivaled. Tho publisher challenges a compari son between its SU^EHB MtZZOTiNTS AND OTHER SThtX ENGKAVINGS and those in other Magazines, and one at least is given in every number.

COLORED FASHION PLATES tfi ADVANCE,

It is the ONLY MAGAZINE whose Fashion Plates can be relied on.

Each number contains a Fashion Plate, engraved on steel, and colored — from Fashions liter than any other Magazine gives: also, a dozen or more New Styles, engraved on AVood; also, a 1'a.ttern, from which a Dress, Mantilla, or Child's Costume can be cut, with out the aid of a mantua-makcr — so that each number, in this way, will SAVE A Yt AR'S SUJSCm^TION T'.ie Paris. London, Philadelphia and New Vo'rk Fashions are descri bed, at length, each month. Patterns of Caps, Bonnets, Head Dresses, £c., given. ltd

COLORED PATTERNS IK SH!3ROtDSRT, CROCHET, &C.

The Work-Table Department of this Magazine IS WHOLLY UNRIVALED. Every number contains a dozen or more patterns in every variety of Fancy-work; Crochet, Embroidery, Knitting, Head-work. Shell-work, Hair-work, &c., &c., Ac. Every month, a SUPERB COLOR. O PATTERN FCM SLIPPER, PURSE or CHAIR SEAT, &c., is givuu — each of which, at a retail store, would cost Fifty Cents.

"OUR NEW COOK-BOOK."

The Original Household Receipts of "Peterson" are quite famous. For 1864 our "COOK-BOOK'" will be continued: EVERY ONE OF THESE RECUPTS HAS BEEN TESTED. This alone will be worth the price of "Peterson." Other Receipts for the Toilette, Sick-room, ic., &c., will be given.

NEW AND FASHIONABLE MUblC in every number. Also, Hints on Horticulture, Equestrianism, and all matters interesting to Ladies.

TERMS:— ALWAYS IN ADVANCE.

One Copy for One year, ..... $2.00 I Five Copies for One year, - ... $7.50 Three Copies fir One year, - - - - 0.00 | Eight Copies for One year. - - - - 10 00 PREMIUMS FOR GETTING UP CLUBS !— Three, Five, or Eight copies, make a Club. To every person getting up a club an extra copy of the Magazine for IS&i will he given.

Address, post-paid, CHABLES J. PETERSON,

No. 306 Chestnut St., Phila.

4®~A11 Postmasters constituted Agents; but any person may get up a club. Speci mens sent gratuitously, if written for.

CIEIPBT UNI HOUSE III IKE

To Sutlers! Pedlars! Booksellers! News Agents! etc,

T. B. PETERSON &, BROTHERS,

No. 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia,

PUBLISH THE MOST SALEABLE BOOKS IN THE WO'ID

AND SUPPLY ALL BOOKS AT VERY LOW PATES,

The cheapest place in the world to buy or send for a stock of all kinds of Books, suitable for all persons whatever, for Soldiers, and I'oi the Army, and for all other reading, is at the Bookselling and Pub lishing House of T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, Philadelphia.

Any person wanting any books at all, in any quantity, from a single book to a dozen, a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, or larger quantity of books, had better send on their orders at once to the "CHEAP EN BOOKSELLING AND PUBLISHING HOUSE IN THH WORLD," which is at T. B. PETKRSON & BROTHERS, No. 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, who have the largest stock in the coun try, and will supply them and sell them cheaper than any other house in the world. We publish a large variety of Military Novels, with Illustrated Military covers, in colors, besides thousands of others, nil of which are the best selling and most popular books i-n the world. We have just issued a new and complete Catalogue, copies of which we will send- gratuitously to all on their sending for one.

Knclosc one, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, or a thousand dollars, or more, to us in a letter, or per express, and write what kind of books yon wish, and they will be packed and sent to you at once, per first express or mail, or in any other way you may direct, jnst as well assorted, and the same as i£ you were on the spot, with circulars, show bills, ic., gratis. All we ask is to give us a trial.

Address all orders for any books you may want at all, no matter by whom published, or how small or how large your order may be. to the Cheapest Publishing and Bookselling House in the world, which is at

T, B, PETERSON Si BROTHERS,

No. 306 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.

And they will he packed and sent to you within an hour after receipt >f the order, per express or railroad, or in any oilier way you may direct.

^tT Agents, Sutlers, aid Pedlars wanted everywhere, to engage in the sale of our popular selling Books, all of which will be sokl at very low rates.

University of California

SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388

Return this material to the library

from which it was borrowed.

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