The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, No. 65, March, 1863

"She shall have a marble monument now, poor mother!" thought the son, picking his way through the long, tangled grass of the dreary place. Not a tree, not a shrub in sight. Not even the sward kept carefully. The slate had fallen flat, or, more likely, had been thrown down, and no hand had cared to raise again a stone to the memory of a despised enemy, who had never been even seen in Walton.

When Swan tried to move the stone, a thousand ugly things swarmed from beneath it. He dropped it, shuddering, and passed on. A white marble tablet of some pretension stood near, and recorded the names of

ZEPHANIAH FOX,ANDAZUBAH, HIS WIFE

They died the, same day and their bones rest here, till the final resurrection.

He glanced at the date,—

JUNE 14th, 1805.

And he had never heard of it!—never guessed it! But then, he had not heard at all from Dorcas. Poor Dorcas! how had she borne this sudden and terrible bereavement? All that he might have been to her in her sorrow, for one moment all that he had not been, floated by him. The yellow melted away that had so long incrusted his soul, and he felt on his bared breast, as it were, the fresh air of truth and constancy,—of all that makes life worth the having.

He drove away,—away over the broad fields and the well-remembered meadows, out upon the Dummerston road, and over the Ridge Hill. Well, life was not all behind him!

He took out his watch. It was time to keep his appointment. He left the horse at the tavern-door, and walked up the road towards the trysting-place, the old pear-tree. He looked wistfully at it, and sprang over the wall, with considerable effort, as he could not but admit to himself. That old pear-tree! They had called it old fifteen years ago,—and here it stood, as proud and strong as then! The two great branches that stretched towards the south, and which he had often thought had something benignant in their aspect, as if they would bless the wayfarer or the sojourner under their shade, still reached forth and spread abroad their strong arms. But to-night, whether from his own excited imagination, or because the early frosts had stripped it of its leaves and so bereaved it of all that gave grace to its aspect, or perhaps from the deepening twilight,—however it was, the old tree had a different expression, and stretched forth two skeleton arms with a sort of half-warning, half-mocking gesture, that sent a shudder over his frame, already disturbed by the successive presence, in the last two or three hours, of more emotions than he could comfortably sustain.

Swan was not an imaginative person. Yet the tree looked to him like a living, sentient thing, dooming him and warning him. As in the compression of the brain in drowning, it is said forgotten memories are hustled uppermost, and the events of early life vividly written on the consciousness,—so in this unwonted stir of past and present associations, Swan found himself remembering, with a thrill of pleasure that was chased by a spasm of pain, the last evening on which he had parted from Dorcas. He remembered, as if it were but now, how he had turned towards the pear-tree, when Dorcas had gone out of sight and he dared not follow her, and that the pear-tree had seemed to hear, to see, to sympathize with him,—that it had spread out great blessing arms on the southern air, and had seemed to encourage and strengthen his hopes of a happy return.

Was the fearful expression it now wore a shadow, a forerunner of what he might expect? He shook off, with an effort that was less painful than the sufferance of the thought, both fears and prognostics. He turned his back and walked rapidly and uneasily up and down the path between the tree and the old well.

He had left Dorcas blooming, lovely, and twenty-two. As blooming, as lovely, as lithe, and as sparkling, she was now. His own eyes had seen the vision.

But would she remember and love him still? For the first time it occurred to him that he must himself be somewhat changed,—changed certainly, since old Taft did not recognize him, after all the hogsheads of rum he had sold him! For the first time he felt a little thrill of fear, lest Dorcas should have been inconstant,—or lest, seeing him now, she might not love him as she once did. A faint blush passed over his face.

He raised his eyes, and Dorcas stood before him at the distance of a few feet: the bloom on her delicate cheek the same,—the dimpled chin, the serene forehead, the arch and laughing eyes!

Somehow, she seemed like a ghost, too; for, when he stepped towards her, she retreated, keeping the same distance between them.

"Dorcas!" said Swan, imploringly.

"What do you want of me?" answered a sweet voice, trembling and low.

"Are you really Dorcas? really, really my Dorcas?" said Swan, in an agony of uncertain emotion.

"To be sure I am Dorcas!" answered the girl, in a half-terrified, half-petulant tone.

In a moment she darted up the path out of sight, just as Dorcas had done on the last night he had seen her!

Had he kept the kiss on his lips with which he had parted from her,—that kiss which, to him at least, had been one of betrothal?

The short day was nearly dead. In the gloom of the darkening twilight, Swan stood leaning against the old tree and looking up the path where the figure had disappeared, doubting whether a vision had deluded his senses or not.

Was Dorcas indeed separated from him? Was there no bringing back the sweet, olden time of love to her? She had seemed to shrink from him and fade out of sight. Could she never indeed love him again?

It was getting dark. But for the great, broad moon, that just then shone out from behind the Ridge Hill, he would not have seen another figure coming down the path from the house. Swan felt as if he had lived a long time in the last half-hour.

A woman walked cautiously towards him, apparently proceeding to the well. She stooped a little, and a wooden hoop round her person supported a pail on each side, which she had evidently come to fill. It was no angel that came to trouble the fountain to-night. She pulled down the chained bucket with a strong, heavy sweep, and the beam rose high in the air, with the stone securely fastened to the end. While she drew up and poured the water into the pails, she looked several times covertly at the stranger. The stranger, on his part, scanned her as closely. She belonged to the house, he thought. Probably she had come to live on the Fox farm at the death of the old people,—to take care of Dorcas, possibly. Again he scanned her curiously.

The face was an ordinary one. A farmer's wife, even of the well-to-do, fore-handed sort, had many cares, and often heavy labors. Fifty years ago, inventive science had given no assistance to domestic labor, and all household work was done in the hardest manner. This woman might have had her day of being good-looking, possibly. But the face, even by moonlight, was now swarthy with exposure; the once round arm was dark and sinewy; and the plainly parted hair was confined and concealed by a blue-and-white handkerchief knotted under her chin. The forehead was freely lined; and the lips opened, when they did open, on dark, unfrequent teeth. These observations Swan made as he moved forward to speak to her; for there was no special expressiveness or animation to relieve the literal stamp of her features.

"Can you tell me, Madam,—hem!—who lives now on this place? It used to belong to Colonel Fox, I think."

He called her "Madam" at a venture, though she might, for all he could see, be a "help" on the farm. But it wasn't Cely, nor yet Dinah.

At the sound of his voice the woman's whole expression changed. Her quick eyes fell back into a look of dreamy inquiry and softness. She dropped her pails to the ground, and stood, fenced in by the hoop, like a statue of bewilderment,—if such a statue could be carved.

Was his face transfigured in the moonlight, as she slowly gathered up old memories, and compared the form before her with the painted shadows of the past? She answered not a word, but clasped her hands tightly together, and bent her head to listen again to the voice.

"I say! good woman!"—this time with a raised tone, for he thought she might be deaf,—"is not this the old Fox farm? Please tell me who lives here now. The family are dead, I think."

The woman opened her clenched hands and spread the palms outward and upward. Then, in a low tone of astonishment, she said,—

"Good Lord o' mercy! if it a'n't him!"

He moved nearer, and put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.

"To be sure it is, my good soul. Don't be frightened. I give you my word, I am myself, and nobody else. And pray, now, who may you be? Do you live here?" he added, with a short laugh.

He addressed her jocosely; for he saw the poor frightened thing would never give him the information he wanted, unless he could contrive to compose her. It was odd, too, that he should frighten everybody so. Dorcas had hurried off like a lapwing.

"Swan Day!" said the woman, softly.

"That is my name, Goody! But I am ashamed to say, I don't remember you.

Pray, did you live here when I went away?"

"Yes," said she, softly again, and this time looking into his eyes.

"Tell me, then, if you can tell me, whose hands this farm fell into? Who owns the place? Has it gone out of the family? Where is Dorcas Fox?"

He spoke hastily, and held her by the arm, as if he feared she would slide away in the moonlight.

"Dorcas Fox is here, Swan. I am Dorcas."

"You? you Dorcas Fox?" said he, roughly. "Was it a ghost I saw?" he murmured,—"or is this a ghost?"

He had seen a bud, fresh, dewy, and blooming; and now he brushed away from his thought the wilted and brown substitute. Not a line of the face, not a tone of the voice, did he remember.

"Don't you see anything about me, Swan,—anything that reminds you of Dorcas Fox?" said the woman, eagerly, and clasping her hands again.

His eyes glared at her in the moonlight, as he exclaimed,—

"No, my God! not a feature!"

CHAPTER VII

"Well, I expect I be changed, Swan," said Dorcas, sadly.

She said nothing about his change; and, besides, she had recognized him.

"They say my Dorcas favors me, and looks as I used to. Come, come up to the house; Mr. Mowers'll be glad to see you. You don't know how many times we've talked you over, and wondered if ever you'd come back! But, dear sakes! you can't think what a kind of a shock you give me, Swan! Why, I expected nothin' but what you was dead, years ago!"

Here was a pretty expression of sentiment! Swan only answered, faintly,—

"Did you?" and rubbed his eyes to wake himself up.

They walked slowly towards the house. The great red walls stood staring and peaceful, as of old, and the milkers were coming in from the farmyard with their pails foaming and smoking, as they used to do fifteen years before. In the door-way, with his pipe in his mouth, stood Henry Mowers, the monarch of all he surveyed. He had come, by marriage, to own the Fox farm of twelve hundred acres. He had woodland and pasture-land, cattle and horses, like Job,—and in his house, health, peace, and children: dark-eyed Dorcas and Jemima, white-headed Obed and Zephaniah, and the twins that now clambered over his shoulder and stood on his broad, strong palms,—two others, Philip and Henry, had died in the cradle.

Dorcas the younger stood in the doorway, and leaned gracefully towards her father. She whispered to him, as the stranger approached,—

"There's the man coming now with mother! I thought't was a crazy man!"

The mother came eagerly forward, anxious to prevent the unrecognizing glance, which she knew must be painful.

"What do you think, Henry? Swan Day has come back, just in time to spend Thanksgiving with us!"

"Swan Day? I want to know!" answered Henry, mechanically holding out his hand, and then shaking it longer and longer in the vain attempt to recall the youthful features.

"Well! if ever!" he continued, turning to his wife, with increased astonishment at the perspicacity she had shown, while Swan's eyes were fixed on the slender figure of the young Dorcas, seeming to see the river of life flowing by and far beyond him.

Keeping up a despairing shaking, Henry walked the stranger into the old square room, where the once sanded floor was now covered with a carpet, and a piano strutted in the corner where the bed used to stand. But still in the other corner stood the old "buffet," and the desk where Colonel Fox kept his yellow papers. How stern, strong, and mighty Henry looked, with his six feet height, his sinewy limbs and broad chest, and his clear, steady eyes, full of manliness! How cheery the old parlor looked, too, as the evening advanced, and Dorcas lighted the pine-knots that sparkled up the chimney and set all the eyes and cheeks in the room ablaze! That was a pleasant evening, when the three elders chatted freely of all that had come and gone in Swan's absence,—of those who had died, and those who were living, and of settlers even far beyond Western New York!

"It will be like old times to have you here to-morrow at Thanksgiving, won't it?" said Henry.

"Won't it?" echoed Dorcas.

Swan said it would, and good-night.

When he was gone, little Dorcas exclaimed,—

"What a queer little old man, mother! isn't he?"

"How, queer, Dorcas?" said her mother, curious to compare the effects on the minds of the different members of the family of their visitor's appearance.

"Oh, so odd-looking! such queer little eyes! and no hair on the top of his head! and such funny whiskers!" said Dorcas, smoothing her own abundant locks, and looking at her father and brothers, whose curls were brushed back and straight up into the air, a distance of three inches, after the fashion then called "Boston." The smallest child gave an instinctive push over his forehead at the remark, and Zephaniah added,—

"He's as round and yellow as a punkin!"

"He looked stiddy to Dorcas all the time," said 'Mima, roguishly.

"Now you shet up, you silly child!" said Dorcas, with the dignity of a twelve-month's seniority.

"Wal, he dropped this 'ere in my hand, anyhow, as he went out," said Obed, opening his hand cautiously, and showing a Spanish doubloon.

"Oh! then you must give it right back to him to-morrow, Obe!" said the honest sisters; "it's gold! and he couldn't 'a' meant you should hev it!"

"I do' know 'bout that! I'll keep it t'll he asks me for 't, I guess!" said Obed, sturdily.

"What did you think about him, Henry?" said the wife; "you wouldn't 'a' known him?"

"Never! there a'n't an inch o' Swan Day in him! They say people change once in seven years. I should be loath to feel I'd lost all my looks as he has!"

"We grow old, though," answered she, with a touch of pathos in her voice, as she remembered the words of Swan.

"Old? of course, wife!" was the hearty answer; "but then we've got somethin' to show for 't!"

He glanced at her and the children proudly, and then bidding the young ones, "Scatter, quick time!" he stretched his comfortable six-feet-two before the fire, and smiled out of an easy, happy heart.

"What's looks?" said he, philosophically. "You look jest the same to me, wife, as ever you did!"

"Do I?" said the pleased wife. "Well, I'm glad I do. I couldn't bear to seem different to you, Henry!"

Henry took his pipe from his mouth, and then looked at his wife with a steady and somewhat critical gaze.

"I don't think anything about it, wife; but if I want to think on 't,—why, I can, by jes' shettin' my eyes,—and there you are! as handsome as a picter! Little Dorcas is the very image of you, at her age; and you look exactly like her,—only older, of course.—Everything ready for Thanksgiving? We'll give Day a good dinner, anyhow!"

"Yes, all's ready," answered Dorcas, with her eyes fixed on the fire.

"I knew it! There's no fail to you, wife!—never has been!—never will be!"

Dorcas rose and went behind her husband, took his head in her two faithful hands, kissed his forehead, and went upstairs.

"Little Dorcas" was fastening her hair in countless papillotes. She smiled bashfully, as her mother entered the room, and showed her white, even teeth, between her rosy lips.

"I wonder if I ever did look so pretty as that child does!" said the mother to herself.

But she said to Dorcas only this:—

"Here's your great-aunt's pin and ring. They used to be mine, when I was young and foolish. Take care of 'em, and don't you be foolish, child!"

"I wonder what mother meant!" soliloquized the daughter, when her mother had kissed her and said good-night; "she certainly had tears in her eyes!"

In the gray dawn of the next morning, Swan Day rode out of Walton in the same stage-coach and with the same "spike-team" of gray horses which had brought him thither thirty-six hours before. When the coach reached Troy, and the bright sun broke over the picturesque scenery of the erratic Ashuelot, he drew his breath deeply, as if relieved of a burden. Presently the coach stopped, the door opened, and the coachman held out his hand in silence.

"Fare, is it?"

"Fare."

Opening his pocket-book, he saw the note which he had written to Dorcas, appointing an interview, and which he had forgotten to send to her.

As he rode on, he tore the letter into a thousand minute fragments, scattering them for a mile in the coach's path, and watching the wheels grind them down in the dust.

"'T isn't the only thing I haven't done that I meant to!" said he, with a sad smile over his sallow face.

He buttoned his coat closely to his chin, raised the collar to his ears, and shut his eyes.

The coachman peeped back at his only passenger, touched the nigh leader with the most delicate hint of a whipcord, and said confidentially to the off wheel,—

"What a sleepy old porpus that is in there!"

* * * * *

THE LAST CRUISE OF THE MONITOR

An actor in the scenes of that wild night when the Monitor went down craves permission to relate the story of her last cruise.

Her work is now over. She lies a hundred fathoms deep under the stormy waters off Cape Hatteras. But "the little cheese-box on a raft" has made herself a name which will not soon be forgotten by the American people.

Every child knows her early story,—it is one of the thousand romances of the war,—how, as our ships lay at anchor in Hampton Roads, and the army of the Potomac covered the Peninsula, one shining March day,—

  "Far away to the South uprose    A little feather of snow-white smoke;  And we knew that the iron ship of our foes      Was steadily steering its course      To try the force    Of our ribs of oak."

Iron conquered oak; the balls from the Congress and Cumberland rattled from the sides of the Rebel ship like hail; she passed on resistless, and

"Down went the Cumberland, all a wrack."

The Congress struck her flag, and the band of men on the Peninsula waited their turn,—for the iron monster belched out fire and shell to both sea and land. Evening cut short her work, and she returned to Norfolk, leaving terror and confusion behind her.

The morning saw her return; but now between her expected prey, the Minnesota, and herself, lay a low, black raft, to the lookers-on from the Merrimack no more formidable than the masts of the sunken Cumberland, or the useless guns of the Congress, near whose shattered hulks the Monitor kept guard, the avenger of their loss.

As the haughty monster approached the scene of her triumph, the shock of an unexampled cannonade checked her career. That little black turret poured out a fire so tremendous, so continuous, that the jubilant crew of the Merrimack faltered, surprised, terrified. The revolving tower was a marvel to them. One on board of her at the time has since told me, that, though at first entirely confident of victory, consternation finally took hold of all.

"D—n it!" said one, "the thing is full of guns."

An hour the contest raged, and then the iron scales of the invincible began to crumble under repeated blows thundered from that strange revolving terror. A slaughtering, destroying shot smashing through the port, a great seam battered in the side, crippled and defeated, the Merrimack turned prow and steamed away.

This was the end of her career, as really as when, a few weeks later, early morning saw her wrapped in sudden flame and smoke, and the people of Norfolk heard in their beds the report which was her death-knell.

So fear ended for a time, and the Monitor saw little service, until at Fort Darling she dismounted every gun, save one, when all her comrades failed to reach the mark. Then, a little worn by hard fighting, she went to Washington for some slight repairs, but specially to have better arrangements made for ventilation, as those on board suffered from the confined air during action.

The first of September a fresh alarm came, when she went down to Hampton Roads to meet the new Merrimack, said to be coming out, and stationed herself at the mouth of the James River, between the buried Congress and Cumberland, whose masts still rose above water, a monument of Rebel outrage and Union heroism. Here she remained expectant for more than two months, all on board desiring action, but thinking the new year must come in before anything could be done.

The last week in December found her lying under the guns of Fortress Monroe, and busily fitting for sea. Her own guns had been put in perfect working order, and shone like silver, one bearing the name of Worden, the other that of Ericsson. Her engineer, Mr. Campbell, was in the act of giving some final touches to the machinery, when his leg was caught between the piston-rod and frame of one of the oscillating engines, with such force as to bend the rod, which was an inch and a quarter in diameter and about eight inches long, and break its cast-iron frame, five-eighths of an inch in thickness. The most remarkable fact in this case is, that the limb, though jammed and bruised, remained unbroken,—our men in this iron craft seeming themselves to be iron.

The surgeon who examined the limb, astonished at the narrow escape, thought at first that it might, by energetic treatment, be cured in a few days; and as the engineer, who had been with the vessel from her launching, was extremely anxious to remain on board, he was disposed at first to yield to his wishes, but afterwards, reflecting that confined air and sea-sickness would have a bad effect, concluded to transfer him to the hospital, the engineer remarking, as he was carried off,—"Well, this may be Providential."

It was Providential indeed!

His place was filled, and the preparations went on briskly. The turret and sight-holes were calked, and every possible, entrance for water made secure, only the smallest openings being left in the turret-top, and the blower-stacks, through which the ship was ventilated. On the afternoon of December 29, 1862, she put on steam, and, in tow of the Rhode Island, passed the fort, and out to sea under sealed orders.

General joy was expressed at this relief from long inaction. The sick came upon deck, and in the clear sky, fresh air, and sense of motion, seemed to gain new life.

The Rhode Island, like all side-wheel steamers, left in her wake a rolling, foaming track of waves, which the Monitor, as she passed over it, seemed to smooth out like an immense flat-iron. In the course of the afternoon, we saw the Passaic in tow of the State of Georgia, like a white speck, far in advance of us.

As we gradually passed out to sea, the wind freshened somewhat; but the sun went down in glorious clouds of purple and crimson, and the night was fair and calm above us, though in the interior of our little vessel the air had already begun to lose its freshness. We suffered more or less from its closeness through the night, and woke in the morning to find it heavy with impurity from the breaths of some sixty persons, composing the officers and crew. Sunrise found us on deck, enjoying pure air, and watching the East.

  "Where yonder dancing billows dip,    Far off to Ocean's misty verge,  Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,    The Orient's cloudy surge.  With spray of scarlet fire, before    The ruffled gold that round her dies,  She sails above the sleeping shore,    Across the waking skies."

During the night we had passed Cape Henry, and now, at dawn, found ourselves on the ocean,—the land only a blue line in the distance. A few more hours, and that had vanished. No sails were visible, and the Passaic, which we had noticed the evening before, was now out of sight. The morning and afternoon passed quietly; we spent most of our time on deck, on account of the confined air below, and, being on a level with the sea, with the spray dashing over us occasionally, amused ourselves with noting its shifting hues and forms, from the deep green of the first long roll to the foam-crest and prismatic tints of the falling wave.