University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRAVE BID GOOD-BYE TO THE FAIR.

Another circumstance disgusted Colonel Carter even
more than the affair of the majority. He received a communication
from the War Department assigning his regiment
to the New England Division, and directing him to
report for orders to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler.
Over this paper he fired off such a volley of oaths as if
Uncle Toby's celebrated army in Flanders had fallen in
for practice in battalion swearing.

“A civilian! a lawyer, a political wire-puller! a militiaman!”
exclaimed the high-born southern gentleman, West
Point graduate and ex-officer of the regular army. “What
does such a fellow know about the organization or the
command of troops! I don't believe he could make out
the property returns of a company, or take a platoon of

skirmishers into action. And I must report to him, instead
of he to me!”

Let us suppose that some inconceivably great power
had suddenly created the Colonel a first-class lawyer, and
ordered the celebrated Massachusetts advocate to act under
him as junior counsel. We may conjecture that the
latter might have been made somewhat indignant by such
an arrangement.

“I'll make official application to be transferred to some
other command,” continued Carter, thinking to himself.
“If that won't answer, I'll go to the Secretary myself
about it, irregular as personal application may be. And
if that won't answer, I'll be so long in getting ready for
the field, that our Major-General Pettifogger will probably
go without me.”

If Carter attempted to carry out any of these plans, he
no doubt discovered that the civilian General was greater
than the West Point Colonel in the eyes of the authorities
at Washington. But it is probable that old habits of soldierly
obedience prevented him from offering much if any
resistance to the will of the War Department, just as it
prevented him from expressing his dissatisfaction in the
presence of any of his subordinate officers. It is true that
the Tenth was an unconscionable long time in getting ready
for the field, but that was owing to the decay of the
enlisting spirit in Barataria, and Carter seemed to be as
much fretted by the lack of men as any body. Meantime
not even Colburne, the officer to whom he unbosomed himself
the most freely, overheard a syllable from him in disparagement
of General Butler.

During the leisurely organization and drilling of his regiment
the Colonel saw Miss Ravenel often enough to fall
desperately in love with her, had he been so minded. He
was not so minded; he liked to talk with pretty young
ladies, to flirt with them and to tease them; but he did
not easily take sentiment au grand serieux. Self-conceit
and a certain hard-hearted indifference to the feelings of

others, combined with a love of fun, made him a habitual
quiz. He acknowledged the charm of Lillie's outlines and
manner, but he treated her like a child whom he could
pet and banter at his pleasure. She, on the other hand,
was a little too much afraid of him to quiz in return; she
could not treat this mature and seemingly worldly-wise
man with the playful impertinence which sometimes
marked her manner towards Colburne.

“Miss Ravenel, have you any messages for New Orleans?”
said the Colonel. “I begin to think that we
shall go just there. It will be such a rich pocket for General
Butler's fingers.”

In speaking to civilians Carter was not always so careful
of the character of his superiors as in talking to his
subordinate officers.

“Just think of the twelve millions of gold in the
banks,” he proceeded, “and the sugar and cotton too, and
the wholesale nigger-stealing that we can do to varnish
over our robberies. It grieves me to death to think that
the Tenth will soon be street-firing up and down New Orleans.
We shall make such an awful slaughter among
your crowds of old admirers!”

“I hope you won't kill them all.”

“Oh, I shan't kill them all. I am not going to commit
suicide,” said the Colonel with a flippant gallantry which
made the young lady color with a suspicion that she was
not profoundly appreciated.

“Do you really think that you are going to New Orleans?”
she presently inquired.

“Ah! Don't ask me. You have a right to command
me; but don't, I beg of you, order me to tell state secrets.”

“Then why do you introduce the subject?” she replied,
more annoyed by his manner than by what he said.

“Because the subject has irresistible charms; because it
is connected with your past, and perhaps with your future.”

Now if Carter had looked in the least as he spoke, I
fear that Miss Lillie would have been flattered and gratified.
But he did not; he had a quizzing smile on his audacious
face; he seemed to be talking to her as he would to
a child of fourteen. Being a woman of eighteen, and sensitive,
she was not pleased by his confident familiarity,
and in her inexperience she showed her annoyance perhaps
a little more plainly than was quite dignified. After
watching her for a moment or two with his wide-open,
unwinking eyes, he suddenly changed his tone, and addressed
her with an air of entirely satisfactory respect.
The truth is that he could not help being at times semi-impertinent
to young ladies; but then he had delicacy of
breeding enough to know when he was so; he did not quiz
them in mere boorish stupidity.

“I should be truly delighted,” he said, “I should consider
it one of the greatest honors possible to me—if I
could do something towards opening your way back to
your own home.”

“Oh! I wish you could,” she replied with enthusiasm.
“I do so want to get back to Louisiana. But I don't
want the South whipped. I want peace.”

“Do you? That is a bad wish for me,” observed Carter,
with his characteristic frankness, coolly wondering to
himself how he would be able to live without his colonelcy.
As to how he could pay the thousand or two which he
owed to tailors, shoemakers, restaurateurs and wine
merchants, that was never to him a matter of marvel
or of anxiety, or even of consideration.

In obedience to a curious instinct which exists in at least
some feminine natures, Miss Ravenel liked the Colonel, or
at least felt that she could like him, just in proportion as
she feared him. A man who can make some women tremble,
can, if he chooses, make them love. Pure and modest
as this girl of eighteen was, she could, and I fear, would
have fallen desperately in love with this toughened worldling,
had he, with his despotic temperament, resolutely

willed it. In justice to her it must be remembered that
she knew little or nothing about his various naughty ways.
In her presence he never swore, nor got the worse for
liquor, nor alluded to scenes of dissipation. At church he
decorously put down his head while one could count
twenty, and made the responses with a politeness meant
to be complimentary to the parties addressed. Her
father hinted; but she thought him unreasonably prejudiced;
she made what she considered the proper allowance
for men who wore uniforms. She had very little
idea of the stupendous discount which would have to be
admitted before Colonel Carter could figure up as an angel
of light, or even as a decently virtuous member of
human society. She thought she stated the whole subject
fairly when she admitted that he might be “fast;”
but she had an innocently inadequate conception of the
meaning which the masculine sex attaches to that epithet.
She applied it to him chiefly because he had the mumental
self-possession, the graceful audacity, the free and
easy fluency, the little ways, the general air, of certain
men in New Orleans who had been pointed out to her as
“fast,” and concerning whom there were dubious whisperings
among elderly dowagers, but of whom she actually
knew little more than that they had good manners and
were favorites with most ladies. She had learned to consider
the type a satisfactory one, without at all appreciating
its moral signification. That Colonel Carter had
been downright wicked and was still capable of being so
under a moderate pressure of temptation, she did not believe
with any realizing and saving faith. Balzac says
that very corrupt people are generally very agreeable;
and it may be that this extraordinary fact is capable of a
simple and sufficient explanation. They are seared and
do not take thing seriously; they do not contradict you
on this propriety and that belief, because they care nothing
about proprieties and beliefs; they love nothing, hate
nothing, and are as easy to wear as old slippers. The
strict moralist and pietest, on the other hand, is as hard
and unyielding as a boot just from the hands of the
maker; you must conform to his model, or he will conscientiously
pinch your moral corns in a most grievous manner;
he cannot grant you a hair's-breadth without bursting
his uppers and endangering his sole. But pleasant as
our corrupt friends are apt to be, you must not trust your
affections and your happiness to them, or you may find
that you have cast your pearls before the unclean.

These reflections are not perhaps of the newest, but they
are just as true as when they were first promulgated.

Concerning the possible flirtation to which I have alluded
Doctor Ravenel was constantly ill at ease. If he found
on returning from a walk that Lillie had received a call
from the Colonel during his absence, he was secretly
worried and sometimes openly peevish for hours afterward.
He would break out upon that sort of people, though always
without mentioning names; and the absent Carter
would receive a severe lashing over the back of some gentleman
whom Lillie had known or heard of in New Orleans.

“I don't see how I ever lived among such a disreputable
population,” he would say. “I look upon myself sometimes
as a man who has just come from a twenty-five
year's residence among the wealthy and genteel pirates of
the Isle of Pines. I actually feel that I have no claims
upon a decent society to be received as a respectable
character. If a New Boston man should refuse to shake
hands with me on the ground that my associations had
not been what they should be, I could not find it in my
heart to disagree with him. Among that people I used to
wonder at the patience of the Almighty. I obtained a
conception of his long-suffering mercies such as I could
not have obtained in a virtuous community. Just look at
that Colonel McAllister, who used to be the brightest
ornament of New Orleans fashion. A mass of corruption!
The immoral odor of him must have been an offense to the
heavens. I can imagine the angels and glorified spirits

looking down at him with disgust, and actually holding
their noses, like the king in Orcagna's picture when he
comes across the dead body. There never was a subject
brought into our dissecting room so abominable to the
physical senses as that man was to the moral sense.”

“Oh, papa, don't!” implored Miss Lillie. “You talk
most horridly when you get started on certain subjects.”

“My conversation is'nt half pungent enough to do justice
to the perfume of the subject,” insisted the Doctor.
“When I speak or try to speak of that McAllister, and of
similar people to be met there and everywhere, I am
obliged to admit the inadequacy of language. Nothing
but the last trump can utter a sound appropriate to such
personages.”

“But Colonel McAllister is a very respectable middle-aged
planter now, papa,” said Lillie.

“Respectable! Oh, my child! do not persist in talking
as if you were still in the nursery. Saint Paul, Pascal,
Wilberforce couldn't have remained respectable if they
had been slaveholding planters.”

To Colonel Carter personally the Doctor was perfectly
civil, as he was to every one with whom he was obliged
to come in contact, including the reprobated McAllister
and his similars. Even had he been of a combative disposition,
or been twice as prejudiced against Carter as he
was, he could not have brought himself in these days and
with his present loyal enthusiasm, to discourteously entreat
an officer who wore the United States uniform and
who had bled in the cause of country against treason.
Moreover he felt a certain degree of good-will towards
our military roue, as being the patron of his particular
friend Colburne. Of this young man he seemed almost as
fond as if he were his father, without, however, entertaining
the slightest thought of gaining him for a son-in-law.
I never knew, nor read of, not even in the most unnatural
novels, an American father who was a matchmaker.

So the autumn and half the winter passed away, without

any one falling in love, unless it might be Colburne.
It needed all his good sense to keep him from it; or rather
to keep him from paying Miss Ravenel what are called
significant attentions; for as to his being in love, I admit
it, although he did not. To use old-fashioned language,
alarming in its directness and strength of meaning, I suppose
he would have courted her if she would have let him.
But there was something in the young lady's manner towards
him which kept him at arm's length; which had
the charm of friendship, indeed, but no faintest odor of
even the possibility of love, just as certain flowers have
beauty but no perfume; which said to him very gently
but also very firmly, “Mr. Colburne, you had better not
be in a hurry.”

At times he was under sudden and violent temptation.
The trusting Doctor placed Lillie under his charge to go
to one or two concerts and popular lectures, following
therein the simple and virtuous ways of New Boston,
where young ladies have a freedom which in larger and
wickeder cities is only accorded to married women. On
the way to and from these amusements, Lillie's hand resting
lightly on his arm, and the obscurity of the streets veiling
whatever reproof or warning might sparkle in her eyes,
his heart was more urgent and his soul less timid than
usual.

“I have only one subject of regret in going to the war,”
he once said; “and that is that I shall not see you for a
long time, and may never see you again.”

There was a magnetic tremulousness in his voice which
thrilled through Miss Ravenel and made it difficult for her
to breathe naturally. For a few seconds she could not
answer, any more than he could continue. She felt as we
do in dreams when we seem to stand on the edge of a
gulf wavering whether we shall fall backward into safety
or forward into the unknown. It was one of the perilous
and decisive moments of the young lady's life; but the
end of it was that she recovered self-possession enough to

speak before he could rally to pursue his advantage.
Ten seconds more of silence might have resulted in an engagement
ring.

“What a hard heart you have!” she laughed. “No
greater cause of regret than that! And here you are, going
to lay waste my country, and perhaps burn up my
house. You abolitionists are dreadful.”

He immediately changed his manner of conversation
with a painful consciousness that she had as good as ordered
him to do so.

“Oh! I have no sort of compunction about turning the
South into a desert,” he said, with a poor attempt at making
merry. “I mean to take a bag of salt with me, and
sow all Louisiana with it.”

And the rest of the dialogue, until he left her at the
door of the hotel, was conducted in the same style of laborious
and painful trifling.

As the day approached for the sailing of the regiment,
Colburne looked forward with dread yet with eagerness
to the last interview. At times he thought and hoped
and almost expected that it would bring about some decisive
expression of feeling which should give a desirable direction
to the perverse heart of this inexplicable young
lady. Then he reflected during certain flashes of pure
reason, how foolish, how cruel it would be to win her affection
only to quit her on the instant, certainly for
months, probably for years, perhaps for ever. Moreover,
suppose he should lose a leg or a nose in his first battle,
how could he demand that she should keep her vows, and
yet how could he give her up? But these last interviews
are frequently unsatisfactory; and the one which Colburne
excitedly anticipated was eminently so. It took
place in the public parlor of the hotel; the Doctor was
present, and so were several dowager boarders. The regiment
had marched through the city in the afternoon, surrounded
and cheered by crowds of enthusiastic citizens,
and was already on board of the coasting steamer which

would transfer it to the ocean transport at New York.
Colburne had obtained permission to remain in New Boston
until the evening through train from the east.

“This is a proud day for you,” said the warm-hearted
Doctor. “But I must say that it is a sad one for me. I
am truly grieved to think how long it may be before we
shall see you again.”

“I hope not very long,” answered the young man with
a gravity and sadness which did not consort with his
words.

He was pale, nervous and feverish, partly from lack of
sleep the night before.

“I really think it will not be very long,” he repeated
after a moment.

Now that peace was apparently his only chance of returning
to Miss Ravenel, he longed for it, and like most
young people he could muster confidence to believe in
what he hoped. Moreover it was at this time a matter of
northern faith that the contest could not last a year; that
the great army which was being drilled and disciplined
on the banks of the Potomac would prove irresistible
when it should take the field; that McClellan would find
no difficulty in trampling out the life of the rebellion.
Colonel Carter, Doctor Ravenel and a few obstinate old
hunker democrats were the only persons in the little State
of Barataria who did not give way to this popular conviction.

“Where are you going, Mr. Colburne?” asked Lillie
eagerly.

“I don't know, really. The Colonel has received sealed
orders. He is not to open them until we have been
twenty-four hours at sea.”

“Oh! I think that is a shame. I do think that is abominable,”
said the young lady with excitement. She was
very inquisitive by nature, and she was particularly anxious
to know if the regiment would reach Louisiana.

“I am inclined to believe that we shall go to Virginia,”

resumed Colburne. “I hope so. The great battle of the
war is to be fought there, and I want to take part in it.”

Poor young man! he felt like saying that he wanted to
be killed in it; mistaken young man! he believed that
there would be but one great battle.

“Wherever you go you will be doing your duty as a
patriot and a friend of the interests of humanity,” put in
the Doctor, emphatically. I confidently anticipate for you
the greatest successes. I anticipate your personal success.
Colonel Carter will undoubtedly be made a general, and
you will return the commander of your regiment. But
even if you never receive a grade of promotion, nor have
a chance to strike a blow in battle, you will still have performed
one of the highest duties of manhood and be entitled
to our lasting respect. I sincerely and fervently
envy you the feelings which you will be able to carry
through life.”

“Thank you, sir,” was all the answer that Colburne
could think of at the moment.

“If you find yourself near a post-office you will let us
know it, won't you?” asked Lillie with a thoughtless
frankness for which she immediately blushed painfully.
In the desire to know whether Louisiana would be attacked
and assaulted by Colonel Carter, she had said more
than she meant.

Colburne brightened into a grateful smile at the idea
that he might venture to write to her.

“Certainly,” added the Doctor. “You must send me a
letter at once when you reach your destination.”

Colburne promised as he was required, but not with the
light heart which had shone in his face an instant before.
It was sadly clear, he thought, that he must not on any
account write to Miss Ravenel.

“And now I must say good-bye, and God bless you,”
he sighed, putting out his hand to the young lady, while
his face grew perceptibly whiter, if we may believe the reports
of the much affected dowager spectators.

As Miss Ravenel gave him her hand, her cheeks also
became discolored, not with pallor however, but only
with her customary blush when excited.

“I do hope you will not be hurt,” she murmured.

She was so simply kind and friendly in her feelings that
she did not notice with any thrill of emotion the fervent
pressure, the clinging as of despair, with which he held
her hand for a few seconds. An hour afterward she remembered
it suddenly, blushing as she interpreted to herself
its significance, but with no sentiment either of love
or anger.

“God bless you! God bless you!” repeated the Doctor,
much moved. “Let me know as early and as often as
possible of your welfare. Our best wishes go with you.”

Colburne had found the interview so painful, so different
from what his hopes had pictured it, that, under pretence
of bidding farewell to other friends, he left the hotel
half an hour before the arrival of his train. As he passed
through the outer door he met the Colonel entering.

“Ah! paid you adieux?” said Carter in his rough-and-ready,
jaunty way. “I must say good-bye to those nice
people. Meet you at the train.”

Colburne merely replied, “Very well sir,” with a heart
as gloomy as the sour February weather, and strolled
away, not to take leave of any more friends, but to smoke
an anchorite, uncomforting segar in the purlieus of the station.

“Delighted to have found you,” said the Colonel intercepting
the Ravenels as they were leaving the parlor for
their rooms. “Miss Ravenel, I have neglected my duty for
the sake of the pleasure—no, the pain, of bidding you
good-bye.”

The Doctor cringed at this speech, but expressed delight
at the visit. Lillie adorned the occasion by a blush as
sumptuous as a bouquet of roses, and led the way back to
the parlor, defiant of her father's evident intention to

shorten the scene by remaining standing in the hall. The
Doctor, finding himself thus out-generalled, retorted by
taking the lead in the conversation, and talked volubly for
ten minutes of the magnificent appearance of the regiment
as it marched through the city, of the probable length of
the war, and of the differing characteristics of northerners
and southerners. Meanwhile Miss Ravenel sat quietly,
after the fashion of a French demoiselle, saying nothing,
but perhaps thinking all the more dangerously. At last
the Colonel broke loose from the father and resolutely addressed
himself to the daughter.

“Miss Ravenel, I suppose that you have not a friendly
wish to send with me.”

“I don't know why I should have,” she replied, “until
I know that you are not going to harm my people.
But I have no very bad wishes.”

“Thank you for that,” he said with a more serious air
than usual. “I do sincerely desire that your feelings
were such as that I could consider myself to be fighting
your cause. Perhaps you will find before we get through
that I am fighting it. If we should go to New Orleans—
which is among the possibilities—it may be the means of
restoring you to your home.”

“Oh! I should thank you for that—almost. I should
be tempted to feel that the end justified the means.”

“Let me hope that I shall meet you there, or somewhere,
soon,” he added, rising.

His manner was certainly more earnest and impressive
than it had ever been before in addressing her. The tremor
of her hand was perceptible to the strong steady hand
which took it, and her eyes dropped under the firm gaze
which met them, and which for the first time, she thought,
had an expression deeply significant to her.

“If she turns out to have any prospects”—thought the
Colonel as he went down stairs. “If they ever get back
their southern property”—

He left the sentence unfinished on the writing tablets
of his soul, to light a segar. His impulses and passions
were strong when once aroused, but on this subject they
had only begun to awaken.