CHAPTER XIII
A STEWART COMES TO HIS OWN
As Walter approached his father's house, he saw lights moving about in the upper chambers, and he began to fear the worst.
"Have you heard any news of my father?" he asked the sergeant.
"None, except that he is a pretty sick man and not expected to last long."
"How did the captain and all of you come to know about me?"
"The servants will talk and it's few family secrets they don't know and tell. Your father invested in some niggers as soon as he got here in order to show his contempt for the Yankees' invasion, but they're too new to have any of the family pride that the old ones used to have. Why an old family servant would rather die than tell any of the happenings at the big house, but these darkies of your father's have blown his business broadcast."
Walter shivered at the man's tone and his revelations.
In order not to alarm the house unduly they dismounted at the gate and left the private to lead the horses around to the stables while the sergeant went with Walter. Their ring brought a servant to the door, who stood in white-eyed astonishment as he saw the young man, worn and haggard with anxiety and beside him, an officer in grey.
"W'y, w'y, gent'men, dis hyeah's a confede'ate house."
"Shut up and let us in. Make as little stir as possible, and bring my mother to the parlor. Sergeant, this will be a family meeting."
"You know my orders, sir."
"I do, and I am enough of a soldier not to want you to disobey them; but I prefer seeing my family alone. Examine the room where I shall talk with my mother, and have the places of egress guarded. I think the windows let out on a veranda."
"There may be more than one outlet, and I have not enough men to guard them if there is."
"You forget, sergeant," said Walter haughtily, "that I am a soldier and a gentleman."
"I'm not much of either yet," returned the non-commissioned officer calmly, "but I'm learning enough of a soldier's business to know how to obey orders."
"You are right," said the younger man blushing "Come, let's examine the room together and see what dispositions we can make."
At this period, Private Wilkins came in from his errand. They stationed him outside and passed into the room. It was a large apartment, with three long windows, opening, as Walter had surmised, on the veranda.
"You see," pursued the sergeant, "it's just as I said. You have too many places by which to leave, though I do not doubt your honor."
"Let us see," said Walter going to the door. "Ah, this will serve you," and he held up a key. "Lock this door that shuts off one outlet. One of you patrol the veranda and the other hold the hall. Will that suit you?"
"Perfectly." And the sergeant proceeded to do as directed. He stationed Wilkins in the hall, and then as he was about to step out upon the veranda, turned, and on a sudden impulse, saluted the young private as if he were an officer.
He had hardly left the room, when Mrs. Stewart came rushing in.
"Walter, Walter, my boy!"
"Dear little mother."
"Oh, you are well, you are well, aren't you?"
"In body, yes, mother, but— but— am I in time?"
"Thank God, yes." The young man bowed his head and the gesture itself, was a prayer of thanksgiving that God understood.
"I have so much that I want to say to you, mother, but take me to him at once. I am afraid that it will be too late. You shall have a talk with me afterwards." He put his arm affectionately about his mother's waist.
"Wait a moment, Walter," she said. "He is yet conscious. Oh, Walter, Walter, humor him, humor him in his dying moments. Promise, whatever he asks."
"Whatever he asks? Why, what can he ask?"
"Perhaps one great thing. Your father has not changed, even in the hands of death."
"I shall promise what I can without lying."
"If necessary, my son, lie, to ease your father's heart. Have I ever given you such advice before? Will you do it?"
He looked at her fondly for a moment, and then answered firmly, "I will lie, if need be. Take me to him."
They started out but Walter turned back to call the sergeant.
"I am going to my father's room," he said.
"I will come as far as the door," he said, "for the rest, I leave that to you. Go on."
As they passed up the broad steps, Mrs. Stewart asked in some agitation, "What does the presence of those soldiers mean?"
"Don't disturb yourself, mother, but I was taken on the way here after I had passed the reb—the Confederate lines, and I am a prisoner."
She grasped him by the arm. "A prisoner?" she gasped.
"Don't be alarmed," he went on soothingly, "I shall be paroled, the captain has as good as promised it, and then I shall be here with you."
"That is almost good," she replied, "and you will have less to promise."
The light was turned low in the sick room, and a nurse glided out as they entered. Walter's sister passed out also, and in passing pressed his hand.
Mrs. Stewart left her son at the door and went forward to the bed, a shadowy, gliding form in the dim room.
"Here is Walter," she said softly.
The sick man opened his eyes, and said weakly, but with some of his old coldness, "Raise the light, and let me see him."
"Father!" the boy stood over the bed.
The eyes that even then death was glazing, grew brighter as the colonel looked upon his son, but the words that he whispered huskily were, "Thank God, he does not wear their uniform. Walter!"
The young man threw his arms about his father and held him close to his heaving breast. His eyes were tearless, but his bronzed face was pale and his throat throbbed convulsively. "Father, I am so sorry to have grieved you, so sorry."
"You're a Stewart," said the old man weakly, but dotingly. "They always were—they always were strong-headed. But you won't go back to them, will you, Walter? Will you? For your father's sake, for the sake of Virginia, you won't go back to—the Yankees?"
"I cannot lie to you, father, now," the filming eye formed a new light, and his mother started forward.
"What!"
"I could not go back to them if I would. I was taken on the way here, and am a prisoner in the hands of our own people."
The old man settled back with a glad sigh. "This is very good," he said, "very good. They can never have your services again. Better a prisoner in the camp of our people—our people—you said, Walter, than a general of those—aliens. Now I am content."
"Would you not better rest now?" asked his son gently.
"Yes, yes, I will rest," and he relaxed again upon his pillow.
Walter was easing his arms from underneath the grey head, when the muscles of the dying man took on strength again. His eyes opened.
"Would you," he said almost fiercely, "would you go back to them again if you could?"
Walter cast one agonizing look at his mother's appealing eyes, then he answered firmly, "No, father, not if I could."
His father smiled. "I knew it," he murmured. "He is a Stewart, and a Stewart must come back to his own. Now I shall rest."
He sank into a soft slumber, and mother and son left the room on tiptoe.
"Come, you will go and see Emily now," said his mother. "Let them come to my room," he said, "wherever you have placed me. We must make it as easy for Sergeant Davis as possible."
The morrow proved that the colonel had been right. He had rested, and the rest was one that should be eternally unbroken.
As soon as he found that the home was a place of death and mourning, the sergeant, be it said to his credit, relaxed some of his vigilance, and Walter was allowed to attend to the duties connected with his father's funeral with greater freedom. The same day, his parole was granted, and the house given over again to privacy.
In spite of a natural sorrow for his father's loss, Walter felt a sense of peace, even joy, at the reconciliation. The words, "Now I shall rest," rang in his head with soothing cadence. It was so much better this way than that his father should have gone from him in anger and reproach.
The joy Walter felt in coming back into the family circle proved how much his heart must have been hungering for it. Drawn by a strong enthusiasm for what he deemed the right, he had gone off into the wilderness to face death. But he had not ceased to look back with longing eyes towards the flesh-pots of Egypt. Being back to them, he was not prone to question why he came. The fact in itself, was sufficiently pregnant of content. Somehow, he did not feel ashamed of the satisfaction he felt in having the parole solve a vexing problem. He had lied to his father, had he not, in saying that he would not go back if he could? And then, he began to quibble with himself. Had he lied, after all? Was it not merely the premature assertion of a condition of mind that was to be? Would he go back if he could? He was not sure. His father had called him a Stewart, and that meant much. It was sweet to be there, with his own family, in the great old place. Going to the window, his eyes swept the surrounding landscape with restful satisfaction.
There was the broad sweep of lawn, and across that, rugged against the sky, the dark row of outbuildings, the kitchen, the stables and the negro cabins, and beyond that, the woods. It was fine and manorial, and appealed to the something in Walter which is in every Anglo-Saxon, the love of pomp and circumstance and power. After all, it was for this he had been dragged from the camp and from the hardships of war, and was it not a pleasant change? Fate had been kind to him. There were many young fellows who would envy him, so why should he repine?
While he was still in the midst of his meditations, his mother came into the room.
"Brooding again?" she said. "You must not do this, my son."
He blushed and raised his hand in protest, but his mother went on, "I know you were influenced by a strong principle, my son, a principle so deeply rooted that you were willing to give up everything for it, and you are longing to be back again. But yours are, after all, only the common fortunes of war."
The young man's face was burning, and all the thoughts that had just passed through his mind came surging back in an accusing flood. He saw that he had weakened on the side of his affections, and that for a little while he had put home and ease and mother-love before the cause for which he had once been so hot. His shame. seethed in his face.
"You know what I told father," he said, "that I would not go back if I could?"
"Yes, yes, I know, and I understand what the falsehood cost you, but weighed against what it brought to your father and me, it seems justifiable. Why, Walter, don't you see that even a lie that softens a father's deathbed is a noble sacrifice?"
"I should feel the better if it were that way, but it is not a lie. It is coming to be true."
"Your heart is really coming over to the South?"
"Not to the South so much as to you and Emily and home and father's memory."
"Walter, Walter," she cried, embracing him, "this is nothing to hang your head about; this is true nobility!"
Her mother-love blinded her sight to his moral defection, but he saw and saw clearly, and was ashamed.
"It is strange," Mrs. Stewart mused, "how things have balanced. If the South has gained an adherent in you, the North has just taken one of Virginia's own sons."
"What do you mean?" "The news came to us this morning that Nelson Etheridge has not returned, but has gone over to the Union lines."
"How do you know that?" cried Walter, starting up.
"We sent Cæsar with the horse this morning."
"Oh, I wanted to take it over myself and thank Miss Etheridge in person."
"You will have many chances to thank her," said his mother. "She is a great friend of Emily's and is often here."
"I am very glad," he stammered, "that is, on Emily's account."
When his mother left him, he too, went from the room, and sought the room where his father lay. He drew back the cloth and looked at the calm face, as stern and white as a figure in marble. Even in death, the lips had found their old line of compression, and the chin had not lost its decision.
"Oh, my father," said Walter, "I am a weaker man than you, but I am more your son than I knew." He replaced the cloth and went sadly away.
The funeral of Colonel Stewart was a piteous affair. The remnants of the families about came to pay their respects to the dead. But mostly, they were women or old men. The army had taken the rest. The clergyman who conducted the services wore the grey under his gown, and as soon as his work was done, left his vestments and rode back to the regiment of which he was chaplain.
People looked askance at Walter or did not look at him at all. To them, he had the shame of being a Unionist on parole, but within him there was a greater shame that he was neither with them nor against them.