Dora Darling the daughter of the regiment |
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| 21. | CHAPTER XXI. |
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 | CHAPTER XXI. Dora Darling |  |
21. CHAPTER XXI.
The next morning, when Dora awoke with an aching
head and heavy eyes, she recalled the occurrences of the
past night as a horrible dream, and smiled at the feeling of
terror that had accompanied her first moment of consciousness;
but the smile vanished when, as she sprang to her
feet, the long dirk dropped from her dress, and fell rattling
to the floor. Sinking upon the edge of the bed,
Dora fixed her eyes upon it, and gradually recalled the
whole chain of events connected with it.
Her first impulse was to go at once to Mr. Brown, and
tell him the story, relying upon his judgment to do whatever
should be best for both men; but when, after a hasty
toilet, the young nurse looked for a moment into the hospital
before going out, she found so many matters awaiting
her attention, that she was unable to get away until
after the hour when she knew the chaplain would be engaged
in his own duties: she was, therefore, obliged to
defer seeing him in private until evening; for, although
he regularly came into the hospital at a stated hour both
morning and afternoon, there would then be no opportunity
for conversation.
When Dora, in her rounds, found herself approaching
Merlin's bed, she hesitated, and shrank back. The eyes
of the sick man caught the movement, and a deep flush
of mortification covered his face, while he humbly said, —
“Good morning, Miss Dora.”
“Good morning, Merlin. Can I do anything for you
this morning?” replied Dora, coldly, and without her
usual smile.
“If it isn't too much trouble, would you bathe my
head and face a little; I feel pretty hot,” said the man,
in an apologetic sort of way.
“Yes, I will come in a moment,” returned Dora, readily,
although in the same constrained manner.
From the outer room she brought some warm water,
mixed with spirit, and applied herself to the task before
her, gently and carefully, but in perfect silence.
Presently Merlin said, softly, —
“I want, ever so much, to tell you something, Miss
Dora. Can I?”
“Yes, if it will be of any use to you,” said Dora, hesitatingly;
for she had just done the bathing, and was
longing to get away.
“Can any one hear, do you suppose?”
“No; this next bed is empty, and Robbins is fast
asleep. No one can hear, if you speak low.”
“If you will comb my hair while I talk, they won't
think strange of your stopping so long with me,” suggested
Merlin.
“Well, I will comb your hair; but I can't stop a great
while, for I haven't been all round yet; and when I have,
I am going to read to Sherman and Phillips a little
while.”
“I'll try not to be long; but I do want to tell you
about it, Miss Dora, for I can't bear you should think I
am such a villain as I'm afraid you do.”
He paused and looked up, but Dora averted her eyes,
and made no answer to his appealing tone.
Merlin sighed heavily, and went on in a low voice: —
“Rob Judson and me are neighbor's sons, and was
both raised on the banks of the Kentucky River, two or
three hundred miles west of here. We played together
when we was boys, and when we got older we went
shooting and rowing in one another's company, and was
great friends, as young men's friendships go. By and by
he went off to New Orleans with a load of cotton for his
father, and stopped there two or three years trading,
and one thing and another. When his father died, he
came home and took the place, being the only child they
had.
“By this time my sister Susan, that was a little girl
when Rob went away, had got grown up into as pretty a
young woman as was in them parts, though she was always
kind of slender and delicate. Well, Rob and she
took a great fancy to one another, and was always walking,
or riding, or going out on the river, and keeping
he hadn't any one to object; so they called themselves
engaged, and Sue began to get ready to be married.
“Just at this time a sister of mother's died, and left
one girl — all the child she had — to our care. She had
been living in Massachusetts, and it was from there that
Nelly wrote, and said that her mother was gone, and had
left a letter for my mother, which she sent along with
her own.
“Mother said, right off, that she must come and live
with her, and be a child to her in the room of Sue when
she got married. Father hadn't no objections to make,
and, of course, I hadn't; so I was sent off to fetch her.
I stopped a little while in Andover, when I got there,
along with the folks where Nelly was, so that before we
begun our travels we had got real well acquainted, and
before we got to Kentucky I was regularly smashed with
her, and she seemed to like me about first rate.
“After we got home I couldn't do anything but just
hang round after Nelly, and was a good deal more attentive
to her than Rob was to Sue all along. The old folks
laughed some, and Sue and my younger brother were always
poking fun at us; but we didn't care. I had got
Nelly to say she'd have me when her year's mourning for
her mother was out, and my father had agreed to make
over a part of the farm to me, and let me carry on the rest
for him; and so we was all fixed comfortable — at least
trouble hadn't died out.
“In the first place, we lost mother; and that was a
hard matter to pull through for all of us. Then Sue said
she wouldn't be married for a year from the day she
buried her mother, any how; and so it was concluded
that my wedding should be put off too, and all of us be
married the same day, and till then the two girls would
keep house together.
“Just after this I was called to Cincinnati on business,
and stopped there some months, making arrangements for
my farming operations, and seeing to affairs generally.
This was only a year ago, or less, and the folks in Cincinnati
was all up about the war. I went to all the meetings,
and got quite wrought up about it, and was more
than three quarters of a mind to enlist and fight for the
good old Union that had kept me and mine in peace and
plenty ever since old Peter Merlin followed on after
Boone, and settled in Kentucky. But when I was all
ready to put down my name, I'd think of Nelly, and if I
should get killed before my three years was out, what
would she do then? So, after a while, I concluded to go
home, and talk the matter over with her and the folks. I
hadn't said anything about it in my letters; in fact I
hadn't written many letters about anything, nor Nelly
hadn't written often to me. But neither of us were very
good at it; so I didn't think strange of it.
“Well, I got home, quite unexpected, late in the afternoon
of a first-rate October day, and ran into the house
all ready to hug and kiss both the girls, and old dad, too,
for that matter. But there wer'n't no one in the lower
part of the house, and so I went up stairs. The door of
Sue's chamber was locked, and, even when I told who it
was, she was some time in opening it. The first look I
got at her I saw she'd been crying. I gave her a good
hug and kiss, and then I asked where was Nelly.
“`Out walking with Rob,' says Sue.
“`And why didn't you go too?'
“`Cause they didn't want me,' says she, choking down
another crying fit.
“Well, I thought these was curious kind of proceedings;
but I didn't mean to get mad for nothing; so I kind
of pooh, poohed at Sue for being jealous, and talked about
other matters, reckoning that if there was any trouble in
the wind I shouldn't be long of finding it out.
“After a while Rob and Nellie came back. They said
they was mighty glad to see me home, and said I'd ought
to have let them know I was coming, so's they might
have stopped to home and seen me.
“I was as pleasant and chatty as they was, and any
one would have thought all was going first rate amongst
us; but I knew well enough that all Sue's laugh and talk
was made up, and that she rather, by half, have a good
cry than to speak a word; and I couldn't but feel as if
when they first saw me, and had been trying ever since
to pull the wool over my eyes with their pretty speeches.
“Then, as for myself, I didn't naturally feel very
sprightly when I had all these ideas working in my head,
though I wasn't going to let any of 'em see how 'twas
with me.
“After a while father come in, and set down, and I
begun to talk about the war with him; but I soon found
I'd got the wrong pig by the ear. The old man was a
out and out secesh; and when I said something about
enlisting on the Union side, he swore the worst kind that
if I did he'd never see my face again.
“Then Rob he come over to where we was setting,
and father and he begun to talk a way that riz my dander
right up. I hadn't never thought nor cared much
about such things till I heard so much of them in Cincinnati,
and so I didn't really know how father was likely
to go when it come to the pinch; and as for Rob, though
he used to talk rather on the Southern side, I had no
idea he was going to be so bitter about it as he come
out now.
“Well, we all got pretty well heat up in the argooment;
but we didn't come to no conclusion, and Rob
went off home.
“I wanted to set up a while, and have a chat with
Nelly; but she slipped off along with Sue, and I went to
home.
“After this, for a week or two I staid round, not
saying a great deal to any one, but keeping up a great
thinking. I watched Rob and Nelly close enough; but
they didn't see that I did, and after a while they began
to show out pretty plain. Whenever they could, they'd
slip and sly round, and get together for a walk or a row,
or to set round in the garden and on the river bank.
Then they'd try to brass it out that they'd met by accident;
but any fool could see how it really was.
“Still I didn't say anything, but lay low, and kept
dark, watching for what would come next. All this
time, while they were getting careless, and I was getting
mad, poor little Sue was just breaking her heart in her
own quiet way. She wasn't never a rugged body, and
mother had always took care of her most as if she was a
baby; and after mother died, the girl seemed for a while
as if she'd die too of fretting after her. But then she
took to Rob kinder than ever, and seemed to feel as if he
was going to be father and mother, and husband and
all, to her. But now — well, when I looked at her pale
face and great, shiny eyes, and heard her sigh, and saw
her put her hand over her heart, as she looked after her
lover and my girl walking off together, it would seem
to me as if I could draw a bead on that fellow with a
good will.
“At last there came a day that settled up matters for
all hands of us, except the reckoning between Judson
and me; that's to come yet.
“Father had got to go to Lancaster to court, and
calculated to be away all night. I advised Sue to go
along with him for the change, and to freshen her up a
bit. Nelly thought, too, that she'd better go, and told
her she'd have a chance to buy some of her wedding fixings.
To that Sue didn't say a word; but she looked in
Nelly's face till I thought the girl's cheeks would have
blazed right out. She didn't say no more, but went up
to her own room, and I guess took her turn at crying a
spell. As for Sue, she only sighed in that broken-hearted
fashion, as she looked after her, and then said, —
“`I needn't go to Lancaster to be out of the way,
Harry. They don't mind where I am.'
“I made as if I didn't take her meaning, and laughed
at her feeling in any one's way because she was poorly;
but I still urged her to go to Lancaster, till finally she
agreed, and before noon father and she set off. After dinner,
I took my gun, and said I was going out to look for
partridges. Nelly didn't say much; but I knew, by her
looks, it suited her plans to have me go; and when she
asked me, kind of careless, which way I was going, I
told her right directly contrary to the way I really meant
to take.
“I walked away as brisk as could be, for I knew she'd
in the woods, I took the back track, and got round close
to the house again, though not the side I had started
from. When I'd got a good stand, I fixed myself in a
tree to watch for the game that I thought would be along.
“Sure enough, in about half an hour, I see Rob Judson
riding up to the door as bold as brass, and sending
his horse round to the stable. He went into the house,
and staid so long that I began to be afraid he'd do all
his courting there, and I shouldn't have a chance to say
the little word I wanted to in the matter.
“But, after a spell, I see them come out, and stroll
round the garden a few minutes, and then they headed
for the woods, right exactly at the spot where I was
waiting for 'em. They walked very slow, and as soon
as they was well in the woods, they set down to have a
good cosy chat. As luck would have it, they chose a
tree right next to the one where I was roosting, and I
could hear every word they said.
“It wan't very nice kind of talk for me to listen to,
nor it ain't the kind I'd want to tell over to you, Miss
Dora; but it let me into the whole state of matters
between them two, and that was what I wanted to find
out. I listened till I was fairly sick at my stomach, and
then I just let myself down, with my gun in my hand,
and stood afore 'em.
“Nell screeched and turned as white as a sheet, and
when he looked at my rifle, and thought of his own
three miles off at home.
“I looked at 'em both a spell, and then I says, without
any bluster, —
“`I hain't got any remarks to make to neither one of
you. All I want to know is, how soon you can marry
this girl, Rob Judson, and take her out of the house
where my sister lives.'
“The fellow scowled, and he twisted, and he tried to
laugh; and at last he sort of mumbled out that he didn't
know as he had ever said anything about marrying of
her. He thought I calculated to do that.
“That sort of talk riz my temper right up. I didn't
make any bluster, though. I felt too bad for that. I
just put a new cap on my rifle, and struck the ramrod
down on the bullet I'd put in when I started. Rob
watched me as a trapped wolf watches the hunter that's
loading for a shot at him; but he didn't speak, and
when I'd got through, I just says quietly, —
“`Robert Judson, that girl is my cousin, and, whatever
tricks she's played on me, I ain't going to see any
man make a fool of her. You take this here piece of
paper and pencil, and write down a promise to marry
her and take her home just as soon as the matter can be
fixed. Then you sign your name, and swear to keep it
fair and square. Come, I'm a waiting.'
“`And s'pose I won't do it?' says he, a trying to get
up a little spunk.
“Then just as sure as God's in heaven I'll put this
bullet through your head before you're a minute older,”
says I, calm and still, and tapping on my rifle. Rob he
looked at me a minute, and I reckon he see that I meant
just what I said, for, after shifting round a little and
looking all sorts of ways, he blurts out, —
“`Well, give us the paper.'
“I tossed him a letter that I had in my pocket, and a
pencil, and then I said over what he was to write down,
and see him sign it. Then I made him repeat an oath
that would make your hair stand on end if I was to tell
it to you, that he'd keep to his agreement, and I put the
paper back in my pocket.
“`Now,' says I, `go back to the house, and get your
horse about the quickest; and don't you never show your
face there but once more, and that'll be when you come
after this girl. That needn't be three days from now.
As for you, Nell, I'll let you stop in the house till then,
for the sake of your mother, that was sister to my mother;
but don't you speak one single word to Sue, if you know
what's good for yourself. You're not fit company for
her, and you've done her harm enough already. I hope
you feel as if you'd made a good return for the way she
and her mother have always treated you. But I ain't
going to twit, and I shan't never speak about this again
tongues, there's no need of any one but us three knowing
that I had to help you to a husband with my rifle.'
“I had turned away when I got through speaking,
and was walking off, when I heard a kind of a rush; and
first I knew there was Nelly on the ground at my feet,
a clinging round my knees and sobbing so's she couldn't
hardly speak. I reckoned she felt ashamed of herself,
and kind of cut by my ha'sh words; and so I says, in a
softer sort of way, —
“`Get up, Nell. I won't say no more; and bimeby,
like enough, I shan't feel so bad as I do now.'
“`But I don't want to marry him,' says she, most
choking with her sobs. `You're twice the man that he is,
and I think more of you every way. I won't have a
feller that is scared into taking me. I like you, Harry,
better than I ever did, and I don't want to lose you.
Can't you make it up no way?'
“I looked down at the girl a kneeling and a clinging
there, with her sweet, pretty face turned up, and all her
curls a tangling round her neck, and I couldn't but feel
it strange, Miss Dora, that I'd got over all fancy for her,
so that I'd as soon have took a snake in my arms as her.
She was handsome, and I reckon she never looked handsomer
than that minute; and she was awfully in airnest
— that was plain enough to see; but as for making up, as
she called it, I wouldn't, nor I couldn't, have done it if
I pitied her, and I couldn't feel so wrathy with her as I
had done, when I see her so kind of broken. So I says,
very gentle, —
“`No, Nelly, you can't never be nothing to me again.
I'm rough and rude, I know; but I never could love any
woman that wasn't just as particular in her ways as the
first lady in the land should be. I'm awful sorry for
you, and for myself, and more'n all for poor Susan, who's
been the most wronged after all, and is the least able to
stand it. But what's done can't be undone nohow; and
the way I've fixed it, is, I think, the best for all parties.
“`Get up, Nelly, and go home now, and remember
what I said about keeping out of Sue's way. The sight
of you will about kill her after this day's work.'
“`But ain't I never to see her, or you, or uncle any
more, after I am married?' asks Nelly.
“`Not at present. By and by, perhaps, when time
has sort of healed up our hearts, and you've proved by
your life that you are really truly sorry for the doings of
this last three months, perhaps we may all come together
again in a sort of way. Blood is thicker than
water, and we shan't forget that you are our cousin.
But just now, you'll see the sense of keeping yourself
pretty much out of sight of poor Sue, at least, and if
Judson knows what's good for himself, he'll do the same.'
I turned off into the woods with that, and wandered
in her own room, and she didn't come down all the
next day.
“But, Miss Dora, ain't you tired of my talk by this
time?”
“No, Merlin, not in the least; but I am neglecting other
things to listen to you. I must go now for a while; but
this afternoon, when the men have all had dinner, I should
like ever so much to hear the rest. Won't you try and
sleep now?”
| CHAPTER XXI. Dora Darling | |