The Earth Trembled | Page 3

my question. Are we to have
anything like a general war? Surely, there ought to be enough good,
wise men on both sides to settle the matter."
"The matter might be settled easily enough," he replied lightly. "We
know our rights, and shall firmly assert them. If the Yankees yield, all
well; if not, we'll make 'em."
"But making them may mean a great war?"
"Oh, yes, some serious scrimmages I reckon. We're prepared however,
and will soon bring the North to its senses."
"If anything should happen to my father!" she sighed.
He had led her beneath the shadow of a palmetto, and now breathed
into her ear, "Mary, dear Mary, how much I'd give to hear you say in
the same tone, 'If anything should happen to Sidney'!" She did not

withdraw her hand from his arm, and he again felt it tremble more than
before. "Mary," he continued earnestly, "I have asked your father if I
might speak to you, and he did not deny me the privilege. Oh, Mary,
you must have seen my love in my eyes and heard it in my tones long
since. Mary," he concluded impetuously, "let me but feel that I am
defending you as well as my State, and I can and will be a soldier in
very truth."
She suddenly turned and sobbed on his shoulder, "That's what I fear,--I
can hide my secret from you no longer--that's what I fear. Those I love
will be exposed to sudden and terrible death. I am not brave at all."
"Shall I go home and plant cotton?" he asked, half jestingly.
"No, no, a thousand times no," she cried passionately. "Have I not seen
the deep solemnity with which my father accepted duty so foreign to
his tastes and habits? Can you think I would wish you to shrink or
fail--you who are so strong and brave? No, no, in very truth. Self must
mean only self-sacrifice until our sacred cause is won. Yet think twice,
Sidney, before you bind yourself to me. I fear I am not so brave as
other women appear to be in these times. My heart shrinks unspeakably
from war and bloodshed. Although I shall not falter, I shall suffer
agonies of dread. I cannot let you go to danger with stern words and dry
eyes. I fear you'll find me too weak to be a soldier's wife."
He led her into deeper and shadier seclusion as he asked, "Do you think
I'll hesitate because you have a heart in your bosom instead of a stone?
No, my darling. We must keep a brave aspect to the world, but my
heart is as tender toward you as yours toward me. What else in God's
universe could I dread more than harm to you? But there is little cause
to fear. The whole South will soon be with us, foreign nations will
recognize us as an independent people, and then we will dictate our
own terms of peace; then you shall be my bride in this, our proud city
by the sea."
He kissed away her tears, and they strolled through the shadowy walks
until each had regained the composure essential in the bright
drawing-rooms.

A commission with the rank of captain was speedily offered young
Wallingford. He accepted it, but said he would return home and raise
his own company. This action was also applauded by his friends and
the authorities. Mary saw her father smile approvingly and proudly
upon her choice, and he became her ideal hero as well as lover.
He fulfilled his promises, and before many weeks passed, re-entered
Charleston with a hundred brave fellows, devoted to him. The company
was incorporated into one of the many regiments forming, and Mr.
Burgoyne assured his daughter that the young captain was sure of
promotion, and would certainly make a thorough soldier.
Even in those early and lurid days a few things were growing clear, and
among them was the fact that the North would not recognize the
doctrine of State Rights, nor peaceably accept the Act of Secession.
Soldiers would be needed,--how long no one knew, for the supreme
question of the day had passed from the hands of statesmen to those of
the soldier. The lack of mutual knowledge, the misapprehension and
the gross prejudices existing between the two sections, would have
been ludicrous had they not been fraught with such long-continued
woes. Southern papers published such stuff as this: "The Northern
soldiers are men who prefer enlisting to starvation; scurvy fellows from
the back slums of cities, with whom Falstaff would not have marched
through Coventry. Let them come South, and we will put our negroes at
the dirty work of killing them. But they will not come South. Not a
wretch of them