53. CHAPTER LIII.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
— Gray's Elegy.
Mr. Shingles had an acquaintance among the gentlemen
of the press; and, chancing to meet his quill-driving friend,
he told him Morton's story. It appeared, accordingly, beautifully
embellished, in one of the evening papers, and was
copied, the next morning, into several others. Consequently,
Morton had scarcely risen from breakfast, when he was visited
by half a dozen persons, editors and others, eager to hear his
adventures, for the gratification of their own curiosity, or
that of the public. As he detested such visitations, and as
several of his callers, from their countenances alone, inspired
him with an earnest longing to kick them down stairs, he
hastened to avoid the nuisance by escaping into the street.
Since the tidings he had heard from Shingles, his native town
had lost all attraction for him; in fact he shrank from going
thither, and willingly lingered another day in New York.
Going to Buckland's lodgings, he renewed his persuasions
of the evening before, and strongly urged him to leave New
York. Buckland assented to every thing he said; and, hearing
of a ship about to sail for the East Indies, Morton went
with his friend to the merchant to whom she belonged, and
induced him to engage a passage in her.
Returning to his hotel at about two o'clock, a waiter
brought him a card, telling him that a boy had just left it for
him. It was Rosny's; and on it were scrawled with a pencil
the following concise and characteristic words: —
Dear M.: Uncle Sam in a deuse of a hurry. Ordered to
the island this afternoon. Off for Mexico to-morrow. Sorry
not to see you, but haven't a minute to spare. Good luck. —
Au revoir.
Yours till doomsday,
Rosny.
Morton went to the recruiting office where he had been
with Rosny on the day before, learned the time and place of
the embarkation, was on the spot at the hour named, and in a
few minutes saw Rosny striding down the wharf in most
unmilitary haste, his hair fluttering in the wind. He was so
engrossed in making certain arrangements, and issuing his
mandates to the soldiers who were to row him and some other
officers to Governor's Island, that he did not observe Morton,
who stood quietly leaning against a post.
“Hallo, Dick,” said the latter at length. “Haven't you
eyes to see your friends?”
Rosny turned, in great surprise, and greeted him most
emphatically.
“Come, Morton,” he said, as he was stepping into the
boat, “you'll change your mind after all, — won't you? —
and meet me at Vera Cruz.”
“I'll sit at home, and read your exploits in the papers,”
replied Morton.
“Well; a wilful man must have his way. Adieu.”
“Good by. May you live to be a general, or any thing
else you like, short of the presidency.”
“Why, shouldn't I make a good president?”
“No.”
“What? too progressive, — too wide awake, — too enlightened,
ey?”
“Yes, and too pugnacious.”
“There you are again, Boston all over. I'll be president
yet, if only to spite the Bostonites. You shall write my life,
and I'll give you an office for it. Farewell.”
Morton watched the receding boat till it was almost out of
sight, waved his hat to Rosny, who waved his own in return,
and walked back to the hotel, wondering what would be the
issue of his old classmate's ambitious schemes.
How, among a throng of brave men, Rosny gained a name
for determined daring; — how, on every occasion that offered,
he displayed the fire of the Frenchman, and the stubborn
mettle of the Saxon, whose blood mingled in his veins; —
how, though sick and wounded, he dragged himself from the
hospital at Puebla, and, mounting his horse, pushed forward
with the advancing columns; — how gallantly, under the
murdering storm of musketry and grape, he led his intrepid
blackguards up the rocks of Chapultepec; — how, while
shouting among the foremost, he climbed the hostile rampart,
a bullet plunged into his brain, and dashed him, quivering and
dead, to the foot of the scaling ladders; — all this, and more
likewise, is it not written in the New York Herald?
About a year after Rosny's departure, Morton chanced to
be again in New York, when, in going out one morning, he
beheld all the symptoms of some impending solemnity. Flags,
festooned with crape, were strung across Broadway from
building to building. The shops were half closed, and the
streets were fast filling with people. Patriot citizens, exchanging
the yardstick for the sword, strode the sidewalk in
gorgeous panoply; and now and then a mounted warrior cantered
along the pavement, struggling to keep his balance on
his fiery coach horse. In an hour or two more, the pageant
was in full operation. Looking from his hotel window,
Morton beheld a radiant river of shining bayonets, many
colored plumes, and martial millinery, solemnly flowing down
the middle of Broadway, to strange and lugubrious music,
between melancholy shores of black broadcloth and beaver
hats. At length a train of hearses appeared slowly advancing
to the wailing music of the bands, encircled by the harmless
sabres of the civic warriors, playing soldier, around the
remains of those who had borne the part in tragic earnest.
Over every hearse the national flag was drooping, and upon
each was inscribed the name of its unconscious tenant. They
were officers slain in battle during the last Mexican campaign.
Four of the hearses passed. Morton read the names. They
were all unknown to him; but as the fifth approached, he
looked, started, and looked again; for wrought in white upon
the sable drapery he saw, distinct and clear, the name of
Rosny. Descending to the street, he joined the procession;
he even underwent the funeral oration at the City Hall; and
when it was over, shouldering through the crowd, he stood
by the side of all that remained of his old classmate. Rosny's
cap, and the sword he had used so well, lay on the lid of the
coffin; and Morton turned away, with eyes not quite dry, as
he recalled his many genial traits and his undaunted spirit.
To resume. On returning to his hotel after taking leave
of Rosny, Morton found a note awaiting him, directed in a
female hand. He opened it, and read the signature, — Ellen
Ashland, — the name of a lady whom he had well known in
Boston, and who, just before he had sailed for Europe, had
been married to an eminent lawyer of his acquaintance. She
wrote that she had seen an account of his escape from
prison, and arrival in New York, in the morning paper, —
expressed an earnest wish to see him, and invited him to visit
her at the New York Hotel, where she was spending a few days
with her husband.
As the time named was almost come, Morton called a
coach, and drove up town. His friend received him with a
peculiar warmth and earnestness of manner. Morton had
known her as a person of marked character and strong but
strictly governed emotions, not always permitting the expression
of a feeling to keep pace with the feeling itself. He
greatly liked and esteemed her, and her presence disarmed
him, in a great degree, of his usual reserve.
Her husband had been absent all day in Brooklyn, and
would not return till late in the evening.
“It is five years since I have spoken to a lady,” said
Morton, as he seated himself at the tea table.
As he was not scrupulous to wear a mask before her, she
quickly discovered the depressed condition of his mind; and
on her charging him with being very much out of spirits, he
admitted that he was so.
“One would think,” she observed, “that after the sufferings
that you have passed, you would have come home in a
different mood of mind.”
“And so I did,” said Morton.
“You seem in no great haste to see your friends and
relations in Boston.”
“I have no near relations there.”
“But you have friends.”
“Yes; I have heard from them. I met an acquaintance
yesterday.”
“You have heard, then —” And she bent her eyes upon
his face, with a look searching but full of kindness, as if
studying his thoughts.
“Five years,” she continued, “is a long time. Great
changes may have taken place.”
“Changes have taken place,” said Morton.
“You have lost none of your intimate friends, as far
as I know them; but some have left Boston, and some are
married.”
Morton did not look up; but an undefined expression
passed across his face, like the shadow of a black cloud.
When, a moment after, he raised his eyes, he saw those of
Mrs. Ashland fixed upon him with the same earnest gaze as
before. Such scrutiny from another would have been intolerable
to him; but in her it gave him no uneasiness.
A servant entering changed for a time the character of their
conversation. A quarter of an hour afterwards they were
again alone, and Morton was seated near the window, when
his friend approached him, her features kindling with a look
of ill-suppressed feeling, laid her hand on his shoulder, and
said, “Vassall,” — she had always before addressed him as
Mr. Morton, — “my heart bleeds for you — for you and for
Edith Leslie.”
Morton looked up till he met her eyes. The surprise, the
sudden consciousness that she was privy to his grief, the
warm and heartfelt woman's sympathy that he read in every
line of her face, were too much for his manhood, and he
burst into tears.
