35. CHAPTER XXXV.
THE DEAD AND THE LIVING.
OF all Paul Haverill's comfortable buildings, house,
stables, barn and negro quarters, there was left
him only one cabin which the fire had not consumed.
That stood a little distant from the rest, and
had been occupied by Lois before her husband died. It
was superior to the other cabins then; it was neat and
tidy now, and there they laid the dead lieutenant, in his
grey uniform, with a little flag of stars and bars across
his breast. This was Charlie's thought, and it was very
mete that he who to the last had believed in the righteousness
of the Confederacy should have her sign above
him. There was no other spot except the cabin where
Maude could stay, and the entire day and night she sat
by her dead Arthur, whom, now that he was dead, she
cherished in her heart as a martyr and a hero, questioning
even the ground on which she had hitherto stood so
firmly, and asking herself if, after all, the South was so
very far out of the way, or if the Union were worth the
fearful price the Southern people were paying for it.
Maude did not know herself in this mood. It was so
unlike all her former theories, and more than once she
pressed her hot hands to her still hotter head, and asked
if she was going mad.
Crouched beside Maude, with his blue eyes fixed upon
her with a pitying, remorseful look, was Charlie.
“Poor Maude,—poor sister! I am so sorry. I never
thought,—I did not know; you used to laugh about him
so to Uncle Paul. I'd give my life to bring him back
for you. Did you love him so very much?” Charlie said,
in broken sentences, and then Maude shivered from head
to foot, but made him no reply.
She had not loved him so very much, but his violent
death and all the horrors attending it had shaken her
terribly, and could he have come back to life she would
have tried to love him, and with her iron will would
have crushed that other love, the very knowledge of
which had made her heart throb with so much joy.
But the dead come not to life again, and the next
morning they buried Arthur Tunbridge in the grassy
enclosure where Paul Haverill's wife was sleeping with
the infant son who, had he lived, would have been just
Arthur's age. The blue coated soldiery, who had been
his deadly foes, paid him every military honor possible
within their means, even marching to his grave behind
the stars and bars which lay upon his coffin; but when
they came back from the burial, they bore the national
flag, whose folds that peaceful summer night floated in
the breeze from the top of Lois's cabin.
Very kind, and gentle, and pitiful was Tom's demeanor
toward Maude. During the day and the night,
when she had sat by Arthur in Lois's cabin, he had not
been near her; but, after all was over, he went to her,
and, with the authority of a friend and brother, insisted
that she should take the rest she needed so much. And
Maude gave way at the sound of his soothing, quieting
voice, and, with a flood of tears, did what he bade her
do. And then Tom sat by her, and bathed her throbbing
head, and smoothed her beautiful hair, and paid
back in part the services she had rendered him when he
lay sick in Squire Tunbridge's house.
Maude was not ill,—only exhausted,—both physically
and mentally, the exhaustion showing itself in the quiet,
listless state into which she lapsed, paying but little
attention to what was passing around her, and offering
no suggestion or remonstrance when told of her uncle's
plan to accompany Captain Simms and his men to Knoxville.
Over Paul Haverill, too, a change had passed. The
attack upon him by his old friends and neighbors, though
long expected, had been sudden and terrible when it
came, and as he watched the burning of the house which
had been his so long, he felt that every tie which bound
him to the old place was severed. Then came swiftly
the fearful tragedy of the mountains, when Arthur was
brought to him dead. Stunned and bewildered by the
startling events which had followed each other so rapidly,
Paul was hardly able to counsel for himself, and assented
readily to the plan which had really originated
with Captain Carleton, who had another scheme underlying
that, but who suggested both so skillfully that Paul
Haverill fancied they were his own ideas, and gave them
as such to Maude. They would go to Knoxville with the
soldiers, he said; thence to Nashville. They had some
relatives living there, and, after resting for a little, they
would continue their journeyings North, going, perhaps,
as far as New York.
“I always wanted to travel North,” he said, “but
my affairs kept me at home. Now I have no affairs.
My neighbors have relieved me of such commodities,
and I want to get away from a spot where I have witnessed
such dreadful things. We all need change.
You, Maude, more than I, and Charlie more than either.
I don't know what has come over the boy. That horrible
night and morning were too much for him.”
Maude knew that so far as Charlie was concerned,
her uncle had spoken truly. Charlie was greatly
changed, and his eyes had in them a scared look, as if
every detail of the horrors of the fight on the mountain
had stamped itself indelibly upon his mind, and was
never for an instant forgotten.
He needed a change of place and scene; and as she
could not return to Arthur's desolate home, whither the
sad news had been sent at once, Maude assented to the
Nashville arrangement, and in three weeks was comfortably
settled at a Nashville hotel, with Lois as her
attendant. Her uncle, Charlie, and Captain Carleton
were with her, the latter constantly putting off his
journey to Rockland, where they were so anxiously waiting
for him. He had written to Rose immediately after
his arrival at Nashville, telling her of all that had transpired,
and speaking of Maude De Vere as one whom he
hoped to make his wife. This time the letter went safely,
and Rose replied at once, urging Tom to come, and
insisting that Mr. Haverill, Maude and Charlie should
accompany him.
“They saved Will's life as well as yours,” Rose wrote.
“I have a right to them all, and especially to the noble
Maude. Bring her to me, Tom, and let me coax back
the color to her dear face and the brightness to her eyes.
I shall come myself and get her if she refuses.”
Maude had never known the companionship of a sister,
—had never had a single intimate girl friend except
Nettie Tunbridge, who died. Independent, strong willed
and self-reliant, she had cared but little for any society
except that which she found with nature in the wild
mountains of Tennessee; but now, broken and shocked,
and shorn of some of her strength, she longed for sympathy
and companionship, and something in Rose
Mather's sprightly letter made her heart yearn toward
the little lady who had written it, and the pleasant
home which Rose described as beautiful with the summer
bloom.
“I will think about it by and by,” she said to her
uncle; “but for the present it is nice to rest here in
Nashville.”
So for a time longer they lingered in Tennessee, while
Rose waited impatiently for them and fretted at the delay.
