20 A Beneficent Jailer

I was almost able to walk again when Elinor entered my room, showing excitement.

“Henry,” she said, “if you could only leave now!”

“I am doing very well. Why should I hurry?”

“The Southern troops have come.”

Then she told me news at which I should not have been surprised, owing to the unsettled character of our State and the doubtful nature of all territory not directly occupied by either army. A considerable Southern force coming from the southeast had passed in the rear of the Northern army and invaded our region.

“And who do you think is its commander?” asked Elinor.

I could not guess.

“Colonel Varian,” she replied, “and Aunt Ellen is exultant. She says that the Northern army is soon to be defeated, and that never again will it invade the South.”

A detachment of Southern troops arrived that night, and its commander entered my room.

“What! Henry Kingsford here, and wounded, and my prisoner!” exclaimed a mellow voice. “You have only yourself to blame. Did I not warn you? Did I not tell you in Washington that the fire and spirit of the South would overcome all obstacles? You did fairly well at Shiloh, but that was a trifle, sir. We shall sweep the Yankee chaff into the sea; we shall devour it like a fire in dry grass.”

The man who showed so much enthusiasm and mixed his metaphors so finely was Major Titus Tyler, ruddy, healthy, and evidently glad to see me, his prisoner though I was.

“Henry,” he repeated, “it fills my soul with delight to meet you again. I heard that a Yankee was here, but I did not know it was you, although I should have guessed it, as this is the house of your grandmother—a most noble specimen of the womanhood of the old school. Ah, if she were only a few years younger—no, if I were only a few years older—God bless my soul! I do not mean to be ungallant—I might stand in a relationship to you that would give me a right to bring you to your senses. The Lord never meant for you to be a Yankee, Henry; that’s the reason he gave you that wound, and put you here out of the reach of harm. It was the only way to keep you from making a permanent fool of yourself.”

I did not wish to be a prisoner, but since I had become one I was glad that my jailer was Major Titus Tyler. He brought with him a breeze of good humour. He delighted my grandmother with his ornate courtesy and absolute confidence in the complete triumph of the South. When I introduced him formally to Madam Arlington he bent halfway to the floor, and kissing her hand, said:

“Madam, I bow to a true representative of the glorious old South which we both love and honour.”

“Major,” she replied, “I am only an old woman, but I hope that I am a true patriot.”

“Madam,” he continued, “you cruelly abuse yourself when you say ‘old woman.’ There are a few rare beings who remain forever young. I trust that it is needless for me to say more.” .

He was full of gossip, and half of it was about Varian, under whose command he was, and who, he said, was proving himself to be a soldier of genius and a man of power. If his advice had been followed the battle of Shiloh would have resulted in a great Southern victory. Even now he was organizing dashing cavalry raids, which would cut off the Northern forces from all their communications and drive them into a corner, where their defeat would be a matter of course. His value in the field was equalled only by his worth in the Cabinet, and when the time was ripe he was sure to bring England and France to the help of the South. All Europe was for the South; and the two great warlike nations there, the one with the naval force and the other with the land force, were only waiting the word to interfere. But the South felt some hesitation about accepting help, as she did not wish to divide the honour of thrashing the Yankees. De Courcelles, he said, was with Varian. He had not been able to resist the temptation of winning glory, and he enlisted, behaving like a hero at Shiloh. Pembroke and Tourville were in the East with Lee, but he had not heard from them in a long time. Then he reverted to Shiloh, where he had fought under Varian.

“It was a great battle, Henry,” he said; “and we failed to win a victory only because our leader, Albert Sidney Johnston, was killed. History will say so.”

I did not know what history, which has many voices, would say, but I could not argue his pet point with the major.

No prisoner ever had a more lenient captor than I. It was my convenience and not his own that he seemed to consult. And “Would I object to this?” and “Only the necessity of war compels me to curtail your liberty, Henry,” and “You know that I think of you as a son and not as an enemy.” But he did not neglect his own comfort. Major Titus Tyler was a wise man, accustomed to the best his world afforded, and all the luxuries that the house contained were soon at his service. They were offered, too, with a willing and generous hand. He remained a prime favourite with my grandmother, who saw to it personally that he had the finest. He described to her in glowing language the glories of the far South. We in Kentucky lived more after the Northern fashion, households seldom being luxurious; and the major told us how different was a home on the great plantations in the Gulf States.

“And I tell you, my dear Madam Arlington,” he said, “that among civilized human beings only two kinds of government have any degree of permanency—a monarchy and an aristocratic republic. Day labourers and workmen, and, in fact, all people who are absorbed in daily business, can not develop a faculty for the higher forms of government. It needs leisure, madam; and none have leisure and at the same time a great stake in the country save the wealthy landed gentry. The North, with its shopkeepers and mechanics, must fall to pieces.”

He found a willing disciple in my grandmother, who all her life had been a firm believer in the exclusive virtues of a landed aristocracy; and I, having learned wisdom, kept silent. He also preached his gospel to Elinor, who, I think, did not consider the subject the most important of the universe.

“What a woman she is growing to be!” said Major Tyler to me. “God bless my soul! but the South of my youth could boast no finer. I don’t know, I don’t know, perhaps I’m not too old yet, and the South will soon end this.”

I reminded him that he would commit bigamy if he married both my grandmother and Elinor.

“Don’t be jealous, Henry,” he said, laughing with great zest; “I’m no Mormon. In fact, I’m not a marrying man at all; but if I were, maybe I could show you boys a trick or two.”

And he threw back his shoulders, straightened his cravat, and examined himself in the glass with evident pleasure.

Everything went very smoothly with Major Titus Tyler until the Rev. Elkanah Armstrong came to see me again. Being a minister and theoretically a noncombatant, Mr. Armstrong was entirely free from danger of molestation, and he was also the kind of man who would not hesitate to express his opinions without regard to time or place.

“Sheer folly! sheer folly, sir!” he said to Major Tyler. “You have set up a certain number of theories that you want to believe, and you have tried so hard to make yourself believe them that you have succeeded at last. I tell you, sir, that not one of your doctrines, however true it may have been in the beginning, will serve as a dam against the flood of changes that time brings.”

Major Tyler was astounded at this rough reply, and he confided to me later his belief that Mr. Armstrong was not a gentleman. “The man is lacking in breeding and also those instincts which indicate good blood,” he said, “and I refuse, sir, to argue important political and social questions with one so far beneath me.” Having assumed this attitude, which gave him great consolation, he was able to tolerate the minister, and affairs again assumed their tranquil progress under the roof of Madam Arlington. The major’s detachment consisted of only six soldiers who were quartered about the place, my grandmother in her intense loyalty to the Southern cause receiving them willingly. The major, although he gave various grand reasons, did not know why he was there. Varian, who was farther to the eastward, he said, was preparing a heavy blow at the Northern army, and he, Major Titus Tyler, was to have an important share in it. I suspected, however, that the personal interests of Varian had something to do with the occupation of my grandmother’s house, but I remained silent.

As I grew better Elinor’s visits became fewer and briefer. I had not seen her for a week, when, at last, I was able to walk across the hall. The doctor came that day and said it would be his final visit.

“In a little time you will be as well as ever,” he said, “and be able to run as fast as any other Yankee from our troops.”

The major added that he would allow me the liberty of the house, but I must not attempt to go farther.

“If you should try to escape I shall be under the dreadful necessity of ordering one of my men to shoot you, Henry,” he said; “and, God bless my soul, what a catastrophe that would be!”

I looked from the hall door at the fresh greenness of the earth and sunshine of the skies, and thought what a misfortune it was to be shut a long time within doors. As I turned away I met Elinor, and I seized her hand eagerly.

“You have come once more!” I said. “I was afraid that I would not see you again.”

But she drew her hand away shyly, and replied:

“I wish to speak to Madam Arlington.”

She ran to my grandmother’s apartment, leaving me there, and on the afternoon of the same day Varian arrived. I was in my own room when he entered—a splendid figure in a fine Southern uniform, unstained by use, his sword at his side.

“Believe me when I say that I am glad to see you again, Mr. Kingsford, and to see you well,” he said, extending his hand, which I took. “I hope that my representative, Major Tyler, has not made affairs difficult for you here. It would be a rough jest, in truth, if a man were straitened in his own house.”

I assured him that I had received only kindness from Major Tyler, who was an old friend of mine.

“I knew that he was such, and for that reason I sent him here,” said Varian.

He spoke then of the war and its progress, enlarging upon the Southern successes in the East, and predicting brilliant victories for his cause in the West; he called my attention to his prophecies when we were together in Washington, but I saw that his mind was not upon those matters, that he used them merely as an approach to something else.

“I shall speak to you of a delicate subject, Mr. Kingsford,” he said presently, “and I do it with the more freedom because I believe that you have known the lady since childhood and are a friend of the family.”

“I doubt whether I am the right man to receive your confidences,” I replied, foreseeing well what he would say.

“In brief, I am thinking of getting married despite the war,” he continued, seeming not to notice my words, “and the lady is Miss Maynard, as you perhaps have guessed. I am fortunate enough to be received with great favour by her aunt and guardian, Mrs. Maynard, and that, I believe, would be decisive in most countries. Doubtless it will have its weight here, especially as I am with hope that my addresses are not unwelcome to Miss Maynard herself. It may be that after the war I shall take her to Paris or London. She would adorn the finest court in Europe.”

He spoke with an appearance of great fervour, and seemed to take no note of my countenance, as if he were a young man confiding his hopes to his best friend. I am glad that I was able to remain impassive, and I took a sudden, resolution to match his own assurance.

“I am sorry that I can not wish you success, Colonel Varian,” I replied; “but I intend to marry Miss Maynard myself, if I can.”

“You are frank,” he said, frowning.

“Not more so than you.”

“Then you mean that it shall be a contest between us.”

“You have long known that it is so.”

He was silent a while, and then he added:

“If it is to be a contest, as it certainly will be, you must admit that you are at a great disadvantage. You are here the prisoner of your rival.”

“It is true, but one does not have to live long to know that Fortune has many faces, and she sometimes turns one and then another to a man.”

“I see that I shall have an enemy who is worth conquering.”

He said no more, and after paying his respects to my grandmother, left for his headquarters. Madam Arlington liked him. His manners, she said, indicated that he was a great soldier. Major Tyler came to me the next morning in much grief.

“I must leave you, Henry,” he said, “and we were getting along so peacefully too. You gave me no trouble at all, and this is a campaign to my liking. But I must go South on other service. A man named Blanchard is to succeed me in the command here, and I have recommended you to him as a model prisoner.”

The major left a few hours later, much to his regret and ours. Madam Arlington bade him adieu with real sorrow.

“If my hopes for the South have wavered at any time you have restored them, Major Tyler,” she said.

“I shall come again, madam,” he replied; “and I trust that it shall be with glory. I bore my part in the Mexican war, and I hope to do as well in this greater struggle.”

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