An Echo of Antietam | Page 4

come over Philip a feeling of
weakness, of fainting courage, a disposition to cry out, "Nothing can be
so terrible as this. I will not bear it; I will not go." By a tyrannical effort
of will, against which his whole nature cried out, he unwound her arms
from his neck and said in a choked voice:--
"Darling, this is harder than any battle I shall have to fight, but this is
what I enlisted for. I must go."
He had reached the door of the summer-house, not daring for honor's
sake to look back, when a heartbroken cry smote his ear.
"You have n't kissed me good-by!"
He had kissed her a hundred times, but these kisses she apparently
distinguished from the good-by kiss. He came back, and taking her
again in his embrace, kissed her lips, her throat, her bosom, and then
once more their lips met, and in that kiss of parting which plucks the
heart up by the roots.
How strong must be the barrier between one soul and another that they

do not utterly merge in moments like that, turning the agony of parting
to the bliss of blended being!
Pursued by the sound of her desolate sobbing, he fled away.
The stable-boy held the dancing horse at the gate, and Mr. Morton and
his sister stood waiting there.
"Good-by, Phil, till we see you again," said Miss Morton, kissing him
tenderly. "We 'll take good care of her for you."
"Will you please go to her now?" he said huskily. "She is in the
summer-house. For God's sake try to comfort her."
"Yes, poor boy, I will," she answered. He shook hands with Mr.
Morton and jumped into the buggy.
"I 'll get a furlough and be back in a few months, maybe. Be sure to tell
her that," he said.
The stable-boy stood aside; the mettlesome horse gave a plunge and
started off at a three-minute gait. The boy drew out his watch and
observed: "He hain't got but fifteen minutes to git to camp in, but he 'll
do it. The mare 's a stepper, and Phil King knows how to handle the
ribbons."
The buggy vanished in a cloud of dust around the next turn in the road.
The stable-boy strode whistling down the street, the minister went to
his study, and Miss Morton disappeared in the shrubbery in the
direction of the summer-house.

II
Early next morning the country roads leading into Waterville were
covered with carts and wagons and carriages loaded with people
coming into town to see the regiment off. The streets were hung with
flags and spanned with decorated arches bearing patriotic inscriptions.

Bed, white, and blue streamers hung in festoons from building to
building and floated from cornices. The stores and places of business
were all closed, the sidewalks were packed with people in their Sunday
clothes, and the windows and balconies were lined with gazers long
before it was time for the regiment to appear. Everybody--men, women,
and children --wore the national colors in cockades or rosettes, while
many young girls were dressed throughout in red, white, and blue. The
city seemed tricked out for some rare gala-day, but the grave faces of
the expectant throng, and the subdued and earnest manner which
extended even to the older children, stamped this as no ordinary
holiday.
After hours of patient waiting, at last the word passes from mouth to
mouth, "They are coming!" Vehicles are quickly driven out of the way,
and in a general hush all eyes are turned towards the head of the street.
Presently there is a burst of martial music, and the regiment comes
wheeling round the corner into view and fills the wide street from curb
to curb with its broad front. As the blue river sweeps along, the rows of
polished bayonets, rising and falling with the swinging tread of the men,
are like interminable ranks of foam-crested waves rolling in upon the
shore. The imposing mass, with its rhythmic movement, gives the
impression of a single organism. One forgets to look for the individuals
in it, forgets that there are individuals. Even those who have brothers,
sons, lovers there, for a moment almost forget them in the impression
of a mighty whole. The mind is slow to realize that this great dragon, so
terrible in its beauty, emitting light as it moves from a thousand
burnished scales, with flaming crest proudly waving in the van, is but
an aggregation of men singly so feeble.
The hearts of the lookers-on as they gaze are swelling fast. An afflatus
of heroism given forth by this host of self-devoted men communicates
itself to the most stolid spectators. The booming of the drum fills the
brain, and the blood in the veins leaps to