28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE DEAD ALIVE.
IT was the night of the third of July, the anniversary,
as she supposed, of her husband's death,
and Rose was sitting up unusually late. She
could not sleep for thinking of one year ago, and the
white-faced man who lay upon the battle-field with the
rain falling upon him.
It was a clear starlight night, and she leaned many
times from her open window and looked up at the kindly
eyes keeping watch above her. But she did not see the
figure coming down the street and up the walk to their
own door; the figure of a worn-out soldier, who from
the prison at Salisbury had escaped to Tennessee, and
had come from thence straight on until the midnight
train dropped him at the Rockland station.
The light was behind her, and Will saw her distinctly
as he went up the avenue, and he stopped a moment to
look at her. She was very pale, and much thinner than
when he saw her last, but never, even on her bridal day,
had she seemed so beautiful to him as then, when leaning
from her window, and apparently listening for something.
It was the sound of his footsteps as he came up the
walk which had attracted her attention, and when it
ceased so suddenly as he stopped under the trees, she
felt a momentary pang of fear, for burglars had been very
common in the town that summer. Possibly this was
one of the robbers, and Rose was thinking of alarming
the house, when the figure emerged from under the
shadow of the trees, and came directly up beneath the
window, while a voice which made Rose's blood curdle
in her veins, called softly,
“Rose, darling, is it you?”
Had the dead come back to life? Was that her husband's
voice, and that his step in the lower hall? Rose
had supposed the front door bolted. She had not heard
it open, and now, when the steps sounded upon the
stairs, her heart gave one throb of fear, as all the old
superstitious stories of New England lore rushed to her
mind. Perhaps on this anniversary of his death he had
come back to see her. And perhaps—
Rose did not finish the sentence, for the opening of
her own door disclosed the wasted figure of a man wearing
the army blue, his face very pale, but lighted up with
perfect joy as he stretched his arms toward the shrinking
woman by the window, and said:
“Come to me, darling; I am no ghost.”
Then she went to him, but uttered no sound. Her
heart was too full for that, and seemed bursting from
her throat as she laid her head upon the bosom of her
husband, and felt his arms around her waist and neck.
Her stillness frightened him, it was so unlike her, and
lifting her from the floor, he took her in his lap, and said
to her:
“Speak to me, Rose. Let me hear your voice once
more. You thought I was dead, and you've been so
sorry.”
“Yes, killed at Gettysburg,” came gaspingly at last;
and then a storm of tears and kisses fell upon Will's face,
and Rose's arms were thrown about his neck as she tried
to tell him how great was her joy to have him back
again.
“I have been so lonely,” she said, “for everybody is
gone. Jimmie, and Annie, and poor Tom, too, is a prisoner
at last, so mother and I are all alone, except”—
Just then it occurred to her that her husband had no
suspicion of the great joy in store for him.
“How shall I tell him?” she thought, and her eyes
went from his face to the basket and chair where baby's
clothes were lying.
The little white dress, with its shoulder knots of blue;
the flannels and the soft wool socks were all there in
plain sight, and Will saw them, too, as his eye followed
Rose's.
“Rose, tell me, what is that? What does it mean?”
he asked, and then, without a word, Rose led him into
the adjoining room, where in his crib slumbered her
beautiful boy,—their beautiful boy rather. He was hers
alone no longer, for the father was there now, and the
happiest moment he had ever known was that when he
knelt by his baby's cradle, and felt how much he had for
which to thank his Maker. He could not wait till morning
before he heard the sound of his first-born's voice,
and he took him at once in his arms, every pulse thrilling
with pride and exquisite delight, as he felt the soft, baby
hands in his own, and looked into the beautiful dark
eyes which met his so wonderingly as baby awoke and
gazed up into his face. It was not afraid of him, and
Rose almost danced with joy as she saw it smile in its
father's face, and then turn slily away.
“It was so terrible till baby came last Christmas,” she
said, beginning to explain how they believed him dead,
and how much she had suffered. “Even baby did not
make me as glad as it ought,” she continued, “for I could
not forget how happy you would have been to come
home and find him here, and now you've come. God is
very, very good; I love him now, Will, better, I hope, than
I love you, or baby, or anything. I've given baby to Him,
and given myself, too, but he had to punish me so hard
before I would do it.”
Then together the re-united couple knelt and thanked
the Father who had remembered them so mercifully, and
asked that henceforth their lives might be dedicated to
his service, and all they had be subject to his will.
There was no more sleep in the Mather mansion that
night, for by the time Mrs. Carleton and the servants had
recovered from their surprise and joy, the early morning
was red in the east, and the sun was just beginning to
show the returned soldier how pleasant and beautiful
his home was looking.
The people of Rockland had not intended to have
much of a celebration on that Fourth of July. The
churchyard was too full of soldiers' graves, and the war-clouds
were still too dark over the land, while the battle
of the Wilderness, where so many had perished, was too
fresh in their minds to admit of much festivity; but
when it was known that Will Mather had come home the
town was all on fire with excitement. Every bell was
rung, and the cannon of Bill Baker memory bellowed
forth its welcome, while in the evening impromptu fireworks
attested to the people's delight. Then followed
many days of delicious quiet in which Will told his wife
and mother the story of his wanderings, but said very
little of his life in Salisbury. That was something he
could not mention without a shudder, and so he passed
it over in silence, choosing rather to tell of his journey
across the mountains, where so many friendly hands had
been stretched out to help him. He had every name
upon paper, and was only waiting for an opportunity to
show his gratitude in some tangible form. Especially
was he grateful to Paul Haverill, whose name became a
household word, together with that of Charlie and Maude
De Vere. Of her Rose thought so often, wishing she
could see her, and resolving when the war was over
either to write at once or go all the way to the Mountains
of Tennessee to find her.
“Poor Tom!” she often sighed. “If he could only fall
into so friendly hands.”
But everything pertaining to Tom was shrouded in
gloom. The last they heard he was in Columbia, while
Jimmie still pined in Andersonville, if indeed he had not
died amid its horrors. Exchanged prisoners were constantly
arriving at Annapolis, where both Mrs. Simms
and Annie were, and every letter from the latter was
eagerly torn open by Rose in hopes that it might contain
some news of her brothers. But there was none,
and the mourning garments which, with her husband's
return, were exchanged for lighter, airier ones, seemed
only laid aside for a few weeks until word should come
that one or both of her brothers were with the dead
whose graves were far away beneath a Southern sky.
