第40章

Aunt Debby Brill.

Beneath the dark waves where the dead go down, There are gulfs of night more deep;But little they care, whom the waves once drown, How far from the litght they sleep.

And dark though Sorrow's fearful billows be, They have caverns darker still.

O God! that Sorrow's waves were like the sea, Whose topmost waters kill.

-Anonymous.

It was nearly noon when Harry awoke.The awakening came slowly and with pain.In all his previous experiences he had had no hint even of such mental and bodily exhaustion as now oppressed him.

Every muscle and tendon was aching a bitter complaint against the strain it had been subjected to the day before.Dull, pulseless pain smoldered in some; in others it was the keen throb of the toothache.Continued lying in one position was unendurable; changing it, a thrill of anguish; and the new posture as intolerable as the first.His brain galled and twinged as did his body.To think was as acute pain as to use his sinews.Yet he could not help thinking any more than he could help turning in the bed, though to turn was torture.

Every organ of thought was bruised and sore.The fearful events of the day before would continue to thrust themselves upon his mind.

To put them out required painful effort; to recall and comprehend them was even worse.Reflecting upon them now, with unstrung nerves, made them seem a hundred-fold more terrible than when they were the spontaneous offspring of hot blood.With the reflection came the thoguhts that this was but a prelude--an introduction--to an infinitely horrible saturnalia of violence and blood, through which he was to be hurried until released by his own destruction.

This became a nightmare that threatened to stagnate the blood in his veins.He gasped, turned his back to the wall with an effort that thrilled him with pain, and opened his eyes.

Naught that he saw reminded him of the preceding day.Sunny peace and contentment reigned.The door stood wide open, and as it faced the south, the noonday sun pushed in--clear to the opposite wall--a broad band of mellow light, vividly telling of the glory he was shedding where roof nor shade checked his genial glow.On the smooth, hard, ashen floor, in the center of this bright zone, sat a matronly cat, giving with tongue and paw dainty finishing touches to her morning toilet, and watching with maternal pride a kittenish game of hide-and-seek on the front step.Through the open doorway came the self-complacent cackling of hens, celebrating their latest additions to their nests, and the exultant call of a cock to his feathered harem to come, admire and partake of some especially fat worm, which he had just unearthed.Farther away speckled Guinea chickens were clamoring their satisfaction at the improvement in the weather.Still farther, gentle tinklings hinted of peacfully-browsing sheep.

Inside the house, bunches of sweet-smelling medicinal herbs, hanging agains the walls to dry, made the air heavy with their odors.Aunt Debby was at work near the bright zone of sun-rays, spinning yarn with a "big wheel." She held in one hand a long slender roll of carded wool, and in the other a short stick, with which she turned the wheel.Setting it to whirling with a long sweep of the stick against a spoke, she would walk backward while the roll was twisted out into a long, thin thread, and then walk forward as they yarn was wound upon the spindle.When she walked backward, the spindle hummed sharply; when she came forward it droned.There was a stately rhythm in both, to which her footsteps and graceful sway of body kept time, and all blended harmoniously with the camp-meeting melody she was softly singing:

"Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave and follow Thee;Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, Thou from hence my all shalt be.

Perish every fond ambition--

All I've sought, or hoped, or known;

Yet how rich is my condition--

God and Heaven still my own."

A world of memories of a joyous past, unflecked by a single one of the miseries of the present, crowded in upon Harry on the wings of this well-remembered tune.It was a favorite hymn at the Methodist church in Sardis, and the last time he had heard it was when he had accompanied Rachel to the church to attend services conducted by a noted evangelist.

Ah, Rachel!--what of her?

He had not thought of her since a swift recollection of her words at the parting scene on the piazza had come to spur up his faltering resolution, as the regiment advanced up the side of Wildcat.Now one bitter thought of how useless all that he had gone through with the day before was to rehabilitate himself in her good opinion was speedily chased from his mind by the still bitterer one of the contempt she must feel for him, did she but know of his present abject prostration.

After all, might not the occurrences of yesterday be but the memories of a nightmare? They seemed too unreal for probability.Perhaps he was just recovering consciousness after the delirium of a fever.

The walnut sticks in the fireplace popped as sharply as pistols, and he trembled from head to foot.

"Heavens, I'm a bigger coward than ever," he said bitterly, and turning himself painfully in bed, he fixed his eyes upon the wall.

"I was led to believe," he continued, "that after I had once been under fire, I would cease to dread it.Now, it seems to me more dreadful than I ever imagined it to be."Aunt Debby's wheel hummed and droned still louder, but her pleasant tones rode on the cadences like an Aeolian harp in a rising wind:

"Man may trouble and distress me, 'T will but drive me to Thy breast;Life with trials hard may press me;

Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.

O, 'tis not in grief to harm me, While Thy love is left to me.

O, 'twere not in joy to charm me, Were that joy unmixed with Thee."He wondered weakly why ther were no monasteries in this land and age, to serve as harbors or refuge for those who shrank from the fearfulness of war.

He turned over again wearily, and Aunt Debby, looking toward him, encountered his wide-open eyes.