Part 75 (2/2)
At last he kissed her tenderly and turned to the others.
His sister walked blindly toward him.
”Oh, Robert, you have broken my heart--”
”I know, Annie, that you'll blame me,” he answered, gently.
She slipped her arms about his neck.
”No, I shall not blame you. I understand now. I only grieve--”
Her voice broke. She struggled to control herself.
”How handsome you are in this solemn hour, my glorious, soldier-brother--” Again her voice failed.
”The pity and horror of it all! My husband and my son will fight you--and--I--shall--pray--for--their--success--oh--how can G.o.d permit it!--Goodbye, Robert!”
Her arms tightened and his responded. His hand touched her hair and he said slowly:
”If dark hours come to us, my sister, we are children again roaming the fields hand in hand. We'll just remember that.”
She kissed him tenderly.
”And success or failure, dear Annie,” he continued, ”shall be in G.o.d's hands--not ours. I go to lead a forlorn hope perhaps. But I must share the miseries of my people.”
He slipped from her arms and silently embraced his daughter, and again her mother.
”Say goodbye to the other children for me when you see them, dear.”
Blair took his extended hand.
”I know what you feel, Colonel Lee,” he said solemnly. ”I'm only sorry I could not hold you.”
”Thank you, my friend. My people believe, and I believe that we have rights to defend. And we must do our best--even if we perish.”
He strode quickly to the door, and paused. A sudden pain caught his heart as he crossed its threshold for the last time. He looked back, lifted his head as in prayer and pa.s.sed out.
He mounted his horse and rode swiftly through the beautiful spring morning toward Richmond--and Immortality. The women stood weeping. The President's messenger watched in sorrow.
CHAPTER x.x.xVIII
When John Brown cunningly surveyed the lines around those houses in Kansas, observed the fastenings of their doors, marked the strength of the shutters, learned the names of their dogs, crept under the cover of darkness on his prey as a wild beast creeps through the jungle and hacked his innocent victims to pieces, we know that he was a criminal paranoiac pursuing a fixed idea under the delusion that G.o.d had sent him.
Yet on the eighteenth of July, 1861, Colonel Fletcher Webster's regiment, the Twelfth Ma.s.sachusetts, marched through the streets of Boston singing a song of glory to John Brown which one of its members composed. They were also marching Southward to kill. The only difference was they had a Commission.
War had been declared.
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