"Are they married?" I softly asked Harry3 at the first opportunity, but he could not tell me. He knew only that Ferry had been expected to arrive about an hour before midnight; if he arrived later the wedding would be deferred5 until to-day. On our whole ride we met no one from Gallatin until near the edge of the town we passed a smiling rider who called after us, "You-all a-hurryin' for nothin'!"
We dropped to a more dignified6 gait and moved gayly in among our gathering7 friends, asking if we were in time. "No--o! you're too late!--but still we've waited for you; couldn't help ourselves; she wouldn't stir without you."
The happy hubbub8 was bewildering. "Where's this one?" "Where's that one?" "See here, I'm looking for you!" "Now, you and I go together--" "Dick Smith! where's Dick Sm'--Miss Harper wants you, Smith, up at the bride's door." But Miss Harper only sent me in to Charlotte.
"Richard, tell me," the fair vision began to say, but there the cloud left her brow. "No," she added, "you couldn't look so happy if there were the least thing wrong, could you?" Her fathoming9 eyes filled while her smile brightened, and meeting them squarely I replied "There's a-many a thing wrong, but not one for which this wedding need wait another minute."
"God bless you, Richard!" she said; "and now you may go tell Edgard I am coming."
Old Gallatin is no more. I would not mention without reverence10 the perishing of a town however small, though no charm of antiquity11, of art or of nature were lost in its dissolution. Yet it suits my fancy that old Gallatin has perished. Neither war nor famine, flood nor fever were the death of it; the railroad and Hazlehurst sapped its life. Some years ago, on a business trip for our company--not cavalry12, insurance,--I went several miles out of my way to see the spot. Not a timber, not a brick, of the old county-seat remained. Where the court-house had stood on its square, the early summer sun drew tonic13 odor from a field of corn. In place of the tavern14 a cotton-field was ablush with blossoms. Shops and houses had utterly15 vanished; a solitary16 "store," as transient as a toadstool, stood at the cross-roads peddling17 calico and molasses, shoes and snuff. But that was the only discord18, and by turning my back on it I easily called up the long past scene: the wedding, the feast, the fiery19 punch, the General's toast to the bridal pair, and the heavy-eyed Colonel's bumper20 to their posterity21! It was hardly drunk when a courier brought word that the enemy were across Big Black, and the brigade pressing north to meet them. Charlotte glided22 away to her room to be "back in a moment"; into their saddles went the General, the Colonel, the Major and the aide-de-camp, and thundered off across the bridge in the woods; Charlotte came back in riding-habit, and here was my horse with her saddle on him, and the Harpers and Mrs. Wall clasping and kissing her; and now her foot was in Ferry's hand and up she sprang to her seat, he vaulted23 to his, and away they galloped24 side by side, he for the uttermost front of reconnoissance and assault, she for the slow but successful uplifting of Sergeant25 Jim back to health and into his place in the train of our hero and hers. In the little leather-curtained wagon26, with the old black man and his daughter, and all her mistress's small belongings27, and with my saddle and bridle28, I followed on to the house where lay the sergeant, and where my horse would be waiting to bear me on to Ferry's scouts29.
I saw the Harpers only twice again before the war was over. Nearly all winter our soldiering was down in the Felicianas, but by February we were once more at Big Black when Sherman with ten thousand of his destroyers swarmed30 out of Vicksburg on his great raid to Meridian31. Three or four mounted brigades were all that we could gather, and when we had fought our fiercest we had only fought the tide with a broom; it went back when it was ready, a month later, leaving what a wake! The Harpers set up a pretty home in Jackson, where both Harry and Gholson were occasional visitors, on errands more or less real to department headquarters in that State capital; yet Harry and Cécile did not wed4 until after the surrender. Gholson's passion far Charlotte really did half destroy him, while it lasted; nevertheless, one day about a year after her marriage, when I had the joy of visiting the Harpers, I saw that Gholson's heart was healed of that wound and had opened in a new place. That is why Estelle, with that danger-glow of emotion ever impending32 on her beautiful cheek, never married. She was of that kind whose love, once placed, can never remove itself, and she loved Gholson. Both Cécile and Camille had some gift to discern character, and some notion of their own value, and therefore are less to be excused for not choosing better husbands than they did; but Estelle could never see beyond the outer label of man, woman or child, and Gholson's label was his piety33. She believed in it as implicitly34, as consumingly, as he believed in it himself; and when her whole kindred spoke35 as one and said no, and she sent him away, she knew she was a lifelong widow from that hour. Gholson found a wife, a rich widow ten years his senior, and so first of all, since we have reached the page for partings, good-bye Gholson. "Whom the gods love die young"--you must be sixty years old now, for they say you're still alive. And good-bye, old Dismukes; the Colonel made a fortune after the war, as a penitentiary36 lessee37, but they say he has--how shall we phrase it?--gone to his reward? Let us hope not.
But what is this; are we calling the roll after we have broken ranks? Our rocket has scaled the sky, poised38, curved, burst, spread out all its stars, and dropped its stick. All is done unless we desire to watch the fading sparks slowly sink and melt into darkness. The General, the Major, his brother, their sister, my mother, Quinn, Kendall, Sergeant Jim, the Sessionses, the Walls--do not inquire too closely; some have vanished already, and soon all will be gone; then--another rocket; it is the only way, and why is it not a good one? Harry and Cécile--yes, they still shine, in "dear old New Orleans." Camille kept me on the tenter-hooks while she "turned away her eyes" for years; but one evening when we were reading an ancient book together out dropped those same old sweet-pea blossoms; whereupon I took her hand and--I have it yet. There, we have counted the last spark--stop, no! two lights beam out again; Edgard and Charlotte, our neighbors and dearest friends through all our life; they glow with nobility and loveliness yet, as they did in those young days when his sword led our dying fortunes, and she, in her gypsy wagon, followed them, binding39 the torn wound, and bathing the aching bruise40 and fevered head. Oh, Ned Ferry, my long-loved partner, as dear a leader still as ever you were in the days of bloody41 death, life's choicest gifts be yours, and be hers whose sons and daughters are yours, and the eldest42 and tallest of whom is the one you and she have named Richard.
The End
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1
bawled
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| v.大叫，大喊( bawl的过去式和过去分词 )；放声大哭；大声叫出；叫卖（货物） | |
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pickets
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| 罢工纠察员( picket的名词复数 ) | |
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3
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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4
wed
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| v.娶，嫁，与…结婚 | |
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5
deferred
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| adj.延期的，缓召的v.拖延，延缓，推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 )；服从某人的意愿，遵从 | |
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6
dignified
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| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
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7
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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8
hubbub
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| n.嘈杂；骚乱 | |
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9
fathoming
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| 测量 | |
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10
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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11
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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12
cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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13
tonic
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| n./adj.滋补品，补药，强身的，健体的 | |
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14
tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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15
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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16
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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17
peddling
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| 忙于琐事的，无关紧要的 | |
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18
discord
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| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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fiery
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| adj.燃烧着的，火红的；暴躁的；激烈的 | |
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20
bumper
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| n.(汽车上的)保险杠；adj.特大的，丰盛的 | |
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21
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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22
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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23
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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24
galloped
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| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
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25
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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26
wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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belongings
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| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
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28
bridle
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| n.笼头，束缚；vt.抑制，约束；动怒 | |
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29
scouts
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| 侦察员[机，舰]( scout的名词复数 )； 童子军； 搜索； 童子军成员 | |
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30
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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31
meridian
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| adj.子午线的；全盛期的 | |
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32
impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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piety
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| n.虔诚，虔敬 | |
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34
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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35
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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36
penitentiary
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| n.感化院；监狱 | |
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lessee
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| n.（房地产的）租户 | |
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38
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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39
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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40
bruise
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| n.青肿，挫伤；伤痕；vt.打青；挫伤 | |
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41
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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42
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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