as for instance that of a wife, sister, daughter and sweetheart. Thus Ravenel the father and Colburne the admirer, fretted daily over the obstinate treasonableness of Miss Lillie. Patriotism she called it, declaring that Louisiana was her country, and that to it she owed her allegiance.
It is worthy of passing remark how loyal the young are to the prevailing ideas of the community in which they are nurtured. You will find adult republicans in England, but no infant ones; adults monarchists in our own country, but not in our schools and nurseries. I have known an American of fifty whose beliefs, prejudices and tastes were all European, but who could not save his five children from being all Yankee. Accordingly this young lady of nineteen, born and nurtured among Louisianians, held firm for Louisiana in spite of the arguments of the adored papa and the rather agreeable admirer.
The Doctor liked Colburne, and respected his intellect. He rarely tired of talking with him on any subject, and concerning the war they could go on interminably. The only point on which they disagreed was the probable length of the contest; the southerner prophecying that it would last five or six years, and the northerner that the rebels would succumb in as many months. Miss Ravenel sometimes said that the North would give up in a year, and sometimes that the war would last forty years, both of which opinions she had heard sustained in New Orleans. But, whatever she said, she always believed in the superior pluck and warlike skill of the people of her own section.
"Miss Ravenel," said Colburne, "I believe you think that all southerners are giants, so tall that they can't see a Yankee without lying down, and so pugnacious that they never go to church without praying for a chance to fight somebody."
She resented this satire by observing, "Mr. Colburne, if I believe it you ought not to dispute it."
I am inclined to think that the young man in these days rather damaged his chances of winning the young lady's kind regards (to use a hackneyed and therefore decorous phrase) by his stubborn and passionate loyalty to the old starry banner. It was impossible that the two should argue so much on a subject which so deeply interested both without occasionally coming to spiritual blows. But why should Mr. Colburne win the kind regards of Miss Ravenel? If she were his wife, how could he support her?
He had little, and she had nothing.
While they were talking over the war it went on. One balmy summer day our little debating club of three sat in one of the small iron balconies of the hotel, discussing the great battle which had been fought, and rumor said won, on the heights around Manassas Junction. For a week the city had been wild about the 'on to Richmond' movement; and to-day the excitement culminated in a general joy which was impatient for official announcements, flags, bells and cannon. It was true that there was one suspicious circumstance; that for twenty-four hours no telegrams concerning the fight had come over the wires from Washington; but, excepting a few habitual croakers and secret copperheads, who were immediately frowned into silence, no one predicted evil tidings. At the last accounts "the grand army of the Potomac" was driving before it the traitorous battalions of the South; McDowell had gained a great victory, and there was an end of rebellion.
"I don't believe it—I don't believe it," Miss Ravenel repeatedly asseverated, until her father scolded her for her absurd and disloyal incredulity.
"The telegraph is in order again," observed Colburne. "I heard one of those men who just passed say so. Here comes somebody that we know. Whitewood!—I say, Whitewood! Any thing on the bulletin-board?"
The pale young student looked up with a face of despair and eyes full of tears.
"It's all up, Colburne," said he. "Our men are running, throwing away their guns and every thing."
His trembling voice hardly sufficed for even this short story of shame and disaster. Miss Ravenel, the desperate rebel, jumped to her feet with a nervous shriek of joy and then, catching her father's reproving eye, rushed up stairs and danced it out in her own room.
"It's impossible!" remonstrated Colburne in such excitement that his voice was almost a scream. "Why, by the last accounts—"
"Oh! that's all gone up," groaned Whitewood, who was in such a state of grief that he could hardly talk intelligibly. "We've got more. We've got the end of the battle. Johnson came up on our right, and we are whipped all to pieces."
"Johnson! Why, where was Patterson?"
"Patterson is an old traitor," shouted Whitewood, pushing wildly on his way as if too sick at heart to talk more.
"It is very sad," observed the Doctor gravely. The thought occurred to him that for his own interests he had better have stayed in New Orleans; but he lost sight of it immediately in his sorrow for the seeming calamity which had befallen country and liberty and the human race.
"Oh! it's horrible—horrible. I don't believe it. I can't believe it," groaned Colburne. "It's too much to bear. I must go home. It makes me too sick to talk."
CHAPTER VI.
MR. COLBURNE SEES HIS WAY CLEAR TO BE A SOLDIER.
Stragglers arrived, and then the regiments. People were not angry with the beaten soldiers, but treated them with tenderness, gave them plentiful cold collations, and lavished indignation on their ragged shoddy uniforms. Then the little State, at first pulseless with despair, took a long breath of relief when it found that Beauregard had not occupied Washington, and set bravely about preparing for far bloodier battles than that of Bull Run.
Lieutenant-Colonel Carter did not return with his regiment; and Colburne read with a mixture of emotions that he had been wounded and taken prisoner while gallantly leading a charge. He marked the passage, and left the paper with his compliments for the Ravenels, after debating at the door of the hotel whether he should call on them, and deciding in the negative. Not being able as yet to appreciate that blessing in disguise, Bull Run, his loyal heart was very sad and sore over it, and he felt a thrill of something like horror whenever he thought of the joyful shriek with which Lillie had welcomed the shocking tidings. He was angry with her, or at least he tried to be. He called up his patriotism, that strongest of New England isms, and resolved that with a secessionist, a woman who wished ill to her country, he would not fall in love. But to be sure of this he must keep away from her; for thus much of love, or of perilous inclination at least, he already had to acknowledge; and moreover, while he was somewhat ashamed of the feeling, he still could not heartily desire to eradicate it. Troubled thus concerning the affairs of the country and of his own heart, he kept aloof from the Ravenels for three or four days. Then he said to himself that he had no cause for avoiding the Doctor, and that to do so was disgraceful treatment of a man who had proved his loyalty by taking up the cross of exile.
This story will probably have no readers so destitute of sympathy with the young and loving, as that they can not guess the result of Colburne's internal struggles. After two or three chance conversations with Ravenel he jumped, or to speak more accurately, he gently slid to the conclusion that it was absurd and unmanly to make a distinction in favor of the father and against the daughter. Quarrel with a woman; how ridiculous! how unchivalrous! He colored to the tips of his repentant ears as he thought of it and of what Miss Ravenel must think of it. He hastened to call on her before the breach which he had made between her and himself should become untraversable; for although the embargo on their intercourse had lasted only about a week, it already seemed to him a lapse of time measureable by months; and this very naturally, inasmuch as during that short interval he had lived a life of anguish as a man and a patriot. Accordingly the old intimacy was resumed, and the two young people seldom passed forty-eight hours
