Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/574

562 repast as usual, but seasoned by fresh air. Afterwards they strolled through the lines of the cavalry, whose horses were picketed in the park, exchanging friendly greetings with their gallant deliverers. Then, wearied and ready for sleep, they lay down on their cots in the open air to pass their first quiet night in the happy sense of security; for pickets of Kirke's men had been posted round the park — although, as he remarked, if the enemy had not pluck to stop and fight it out, they would certainly not have pluck to come back again. The two doctors alone had occupation in tending the sick, including Kirke's men who had been brought in wounded, some thirty in number, besides his subaltern.

One member of the garrison, however, was absent from his place at dinner. When Kirke went in on his first arrival to make his report to the brigadier, the poor old man was found dead on the drawing-room couch. The doctor called it heat-apoplexy; at any rate, the revulsion of feeling would appear to have been too much for him. To most of the garrison the event did not cause surprise, the brigadier's feebleness of mind and body having been apparent to all; but the calamity was unexpected by his wife, and for the time she seemed quite stupefied by the shock. Silently she sat for a time holding her dead husband's hand, gazing at the inexpressive features; and then, when she was led away by Mrs. Hodder, and the body was removed into a side-room preparatory to interment in the morning, she passed the night in wandering visits to it from her own apartment, her thoughts occupied perchance with pleasant memories of the past, mingled with remorse that she had treated the poor old man unkindly during his last days.

Another side-room was occupied by the young widow, Mrs. O'Halloran, who, tended by Mrs. Peart and Dr. Grumbull, gave birth that night to her third child, soon to be the eldest; for before morning the two sick children drew their last troubled breath, and their little forms lay still and silent, covered by a sheet, awaiting morning burial.

And poor young Raugh was not moved with the other wounded. Maxwell said there would be no use in disturbing him, and he was left in the sick-room, Olivia, who refused to be relieved of the duty, watching by him. She had gone to the lad's bedside when the news was told her of her husband's death, and was sitting there when Yorke entered the room in the early part of the night. It was almost empty, save for a cot in the middle on which lay the dying youth, while Olivia's pallid face was lighted up by the dim light of the flickering wick in a cup of oil placed on a little table beside the pillow. The poor boy was quiet enough now, and lay breathing slowly and apparently insensible. His nurse from time to time moistened his lips with water.

Yorke came and stood behind her, watching the face of the dying lad.

Olivia was the first to speak. "I knew it must be you," she said, turning round and showing a face which looked as if some shock had deprived it of the power of expressing emotion. "Why are you not taking the rest you must want more than any one? There is little to be done here, you see," she added, with a glance towards the slowly breathing figure beside them." Had you not better leave us?" and her voice seemed to say that she wished to be alone.

But as the young man moved sorrowfully away, she rose, and following, called him by name. Silently they stood facing each other, the one with dishevelled hair and dust-covered face, dressed in a grey flannel blouse and linen trousers which had once been white, a sword and pistols in his belt, a battered pith-helmet in his hand; the other with little to mark the lady by her dress, but with the same graceful carriage as ever, although care and sorrow seemed in this short time to have driven out the first freshness of youth from the sweet face. Olivia was the first to speak. "Mr. Yorke, you must know what I want to ask. No one has told me yet what has become of ——" she faltered over the completion of the question.

"I have been engaged in trying to find him all this evening," he replied, "and have now come back only because it was too dark to continue the search. It seems unaccountable how I should have failed to discover" — the colonel's body he would have said, but checked himself, and added, "but I will begin again the first thing in the morning; we shall surely be successful then."

"Thank you," said Olivia, with fervour; then after a pause she added, "and oh, Mr. Yorke, can you forgive my selfish petulance just now? Captain Buxey has told me of your noble conduct, how you wanted to go yourself instead of him, and it was entirely his overruling. I felt from the first," she went on, after another pause, "that he would never escape, and every time he left my sight I used to think it must be the last. I knew what their news