Chapter XII: The Outlaw’s Love

I know not. I ask not if guilt’s in that heart;
But I know that I love thee, whatever thou art.—MOORE.

They followed him up into the porch and through the double doors to a broad, unfurnished central hall, where several guerrillas were on guard.

Four doors on the right hand and four on the left opened into rooms on each side of this hall.

Corsoni led the way to the third door on the right hand, saying:

“My dear wife is in there. Had we not better consign Miss Fielding to her care?”

“Thanks, yes! My fair travelling companion has been on horseback, riding hard and exerting herself in other violent exercises for about six hours; and must be greatly in need of aid and comfort just now,” answered Goldsborough.

Corsoni opened the door and holding it open, bowed and said:

“Miss Fielding, my dear wife is in there. Will you enter?”

But before Elfie could answer, and indeed while Vittorio was still speaking, Alberta herself came out, and taking Elfie in her arms, kissed her on both cheeks, saying:

“Welcome to the greenwood, Elfie!” and drew her into the room.

It was a spacious apartment, with a wide fireplace. Over the fireplace was a richly-carved mantel-shelf. In the wall above there was an old fresco painting. A wood-fire burned on the hearth. Each side the chimney were tall windows, reaching from floor to ceiling.

Every part of the room was dilapidated, and not by the gentle action of time but by the merciless desecration of war. The beautiful figures in the carved marble mantelpiece were chipped and broken off. The fresco painting was scraped until its subject could not even be guessed at.

The glass in the windows was in many places broken and replaced by pasteboard. The gorgeous historical paper that had once covered the walls now hung in strips.

And the room was almost entirely unfurnished; floor and windows were bare of covering. In one corner stood a rude, temporary bedstead, the work of some guerrilla carpenter; and on it was laid a mattress and pillows, with the redeeming accessories of clean sheets and blankets. There was a rough table, supporting a tin basin and a stone pitcher of water; with a clean towel laid over them. One low chair and two or three rude three-legged stools completed the “conveniences” of the room.

Alberta led Elfie into this room, took the pillows off her bed, and put them on the chair, one on the seat and the other against the back, and made Elfie sit down and rest her bruised and tired frame.

“Alberta, had you any hand in this?” said Elfie, bursting into tears.

“In what, dear?” inquired the guerrilla’s wife, who was now stooping over the fire, bringing the brands together with her naked hands, because she had no tongs.

“With this outrageous act of bringing me off?”

Alberta made the fire blaze up cheerfully, and then answered:

“When I made my escape from Washington, I fell in with some of Albert’s men, who guided me to their colonel. I found that he had been instrumental in the deliverance of my dear Vittorio, who was then with him. When Albert heard where I had been and whom I had seen, he had a thousand questions to ask about you, all of which I answered as well as I could. Among the rest I told him that you were planning a picnic to the Great Falls. That was all I had to do with your abduction, Elfie.”

“Was that, really, all? Did you not encourage him in it?”

“No! At the time I spoke of the proposed picnic I had no idea that he would dream of such a desperate deed as to cross the river and seize you, as it were, from between the very teeth of the Federal forces! It was a mad act; but he loves you madly, Elfie!” said the guerrilla’s wife.

She then passed to the door and called one of her husband’s men, and in a low tone gave him an order, and then she drew a stool to the side of Elfie and sat down, saying:

“I am the only woman in the encampment, and I have to wait upon myself or be waited on by men. I generally prefer the former. You will sup and sleep alone with me to-night, Elfie, and I will keep you with me, and guard you from annoyance until a chaplain can be found to marry you to Albert, and give him the legal right to protect you.”

“Marry me to that guerrilla! Never! Never! It cannot be done legally without my consent, and that they shall never have! The villain threatened to find a minister who would dispense with the bride’s consent, as well as with the marriage license and the wedding ring! But oh, Alberta, you will not permit this outrage to be perpetrated under your roof! You are a lady, or you were one once—at least, the daughter of a gentleman. You will protect me!” exclaimed Elfie, losing, in the failure of her physical strength, half her courage.

“I will protect you so far as I am able to do so. Be sure of that, Elfie. But you do surprise me beyond measure, Elfie. I thought you loved Albert Goldsborough,” said the guerrilla’s wife in amazement.

“Love that horse-stealing, house-firing vagrant!” indignantly exclaimed Elfie.

Alberta passed coolly over these injurious epithets, which were certainly as applicable to Vittorio Corsoni as they were to Albert Goldsborough, and she answered calmly:

“You certainly loved him once, when he had done nothing to distinguish himself, and if you truly loved him then, you love him still, for true love knows no ‘shadow of turning.’”

“He whom I loved then was a gentleman, or I thought him such, not a barn burner, not a hen-roost robber!” answered Elfie, contemptuously.

Again Alberta ignored the degrading terms that were applied to the guerrilla chief; for in truth nothing on earth had power to move her impassive nature, unless it were something nearly concerning Vittorio Corsoni, her idolized lover-husband, and she said:

“Albert Goldsborough was destined by his parents and by mine to marry me, and you knew it from the first, yet you saw him and loved him, and won his love. Not that I regretted your success. I was very glad to be well rid of my cousin, for I was fully determined to marry Vittorio Corsoni, my beloved. But you took him away from me, only, it seems, to cast him off from yourself. In truth, I cannot understand such inconstancy,” she gravely added.

“You cannot! Do you suppose, then, that _my_ love can survive esteem, and walk hand in hand with contempt?” said Elfie, scornfully.

“No, I do not. Nor has Albert Goldsborough done anything worthy of contempt, but everything worthy of admiration.”

“Pouncing upon me, and carrying me off by main force against my will, was among the rest of his admirable achievements, I suppose you think,” sneered Elfie.

“Yes, for it was a brave deed.”

“Very brave, to kidnap a weak girl.”

“Yes, it was, for he seized that girl, as I said before, from between the teeth of the enemy. Elfie, have you any idea what he risked when he crossed the river for your sake?” gravely inquired Alberta.

“He risked the halter, I suppose, and I wish to goodness he had got it,” answered Elfie, bitterly.

“Yes, he did, heartless girl. He risked capture and an ignominious death for your sake. He risked all knowingly and willingly, for when, for love of you, he crossed the Potomac, he knew that Scott’s Nine Hundred—and _they_ are _your_ guerrillas, Elfie—were on the north side of the river below the Monocacy, and that Rosenthal’s cavalry were on the same side above the Monocacy, and that the scouts of one or the other force would be sure to strike his trail.”

“Rosenthal’s cavalry!” echoed Elfie, passing over everything else in her surprise at hearing this phrase.

“Yes, Rosenthal’s cavalry. You didn’t know that Major Rosenthal is in command of the regiment in which he first enlisted as a private soldier, did you?”

“Major Rosenthal! No.”

“That proves how much earlier and more accurate our information is than yours.”

“Or how much better the devil is served than the Lord!” muttered Elfie.

“But our information is obtained for nothing from devoted friends, who risk their lives to keep us posted as to the movements of the enemy, and yours, when you get any, is purchased at high prices from mercenaries, who sleep when they should watch, and invent fictions when they should chronicle truths.”

“But Major Rosenthal! Did you say Major Rosenthal?” pursued Elfie, still harping on Justin.

“Yes. He was promoted to a majority for gallantry in the field.”

“And he is in command of his regiment?”

“I told you so.”

“But how is that?”

“In the very last battle in which his regiment was engaged the colonel was dangerously wounded, the lieutenant colonel was taken prisoner, and the senior major killed; so that the command of the regiment devolved on Major Rosenthal. His regiment was soon after ordered to W. And he is now crossing the valley. Observe how early and how accurate is our information. Now to get back to Albert Goldsborough. With Scott’s Nine Hundred in Montgomery and Rosenthal’s cavalry in Frederick, your lover, when he crossed the river for your sake rushed recklessly between two fires.”

“I wish to Heaven the fires had closed upon him and made an end of him and his horse-thieves then and there!” bitterly exclaimed Elfie.

“You don’t! If you ever loved him, you love him still. If you ever loved him, you love him more than ever for the perils he has braved for your sake,” said Alberta, positively.

“I tell you—” passionately began Elfie; but she was interrupted by a low rap at the door.

“Come in,” said Alberta.

And the door opened and a young guerrilla entered, bringing in one hand a kettle of hot water, which he sat down on the hearth before the fire, and holding in the other hand a paper parcel.

“That is my good boy,” said Alberta, as she stirred the fire to make it burn and keep the kettle hot—“that is my good boy! But, Gill, what shall we do for tea? Use saffron root again?”

“No, ma’am! See here. Captain Mutchison sent you this with his compliments,” said the young man whom Alberta called Gill, handing over the paper parcel that he had held in his hand

“Tea! real tea!” said Alberta, holding the parcel up to her face and gratefully inhaling its fragrance. “Oh, tell the captain I am ever so much obliged to him. Elfie, child, I have not had a cup of tea since I took one with Erminie at the parsonage. But I am very glad to have some now, for your sake as well as mine.”

“I suspect that tea is a part of the spoils of our picnic,” replied Elfie.

“Nothing in life more likely. Now do you know that circumstance actually adds piquancy to its flavor!” exclaimed Alberta, as she went to an old glass cupboard in a corner of the room and took from it a small tin tea pot, in which she poured a portion of the tea, and afterwards filled it up with boiling water and set it on the hearth to draw.

Meanwhile the young guerrilla, who had left the room, returned, bearing a small rude pine table and a coarse crash table cloth, which he arranged for supper.

Alberta took from her corner cupboard a few cracked cups, saucers and plates, and set them upon the table, while her guerrilla waiter went out and brought in a loaf of bread, a plate of broiled chicken and a paper of loaf sugar.

“Gill, my boy, you are the prince of purveyors!” said Alberta, as she received the good things and arranged them to her liking.

“All these with the compliments of Captain Mutchison,” said Gill, as he delivered them over.

“Of course! spoils of our picnic,” exclaimed Elfie.

“And this,” said Gill, who had again flitted out empty-handed and now flitted in with a canteen of fresh milk, “this with Abershaw’s compliments.”

“Rich new milk for our tea! This is indeed a luxury. Where did it come from, Gill?”

“Abershaw drove in a herd of cows this evening,” answered the boy.

“One would really think that we were living the border life of Scotland in the olden time, when cow-stealing was the most popular profession among the landed gentry and their retainers,” mused Elfie.

“Never mind. Don’t quarrel with your supper, my dear. When you have led a guerrilla life as long as I have, you will learn to take what is set before you and be thankful. Gill! is that thunder?” inquired Alberta, as a low muttering sound was heard in the air outside.

“Yes, ma’am, there is an awful black cloud rising. The men think there will be a storm—a great storm.”

“It is very late in the season for a thunder-storm. But then it has been so unusually warm. Gill!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Are all our men on this side the river?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And have all Colonel Goldsborough’s force re-crossed?”

“All ma’am.”

“Then I am glad the storm is coming up! The river will rise and the fords be impassable, and so pursuit will be cut off, even if the enemy should be so mad as to wish to ‘beard the lion in his den.’ You can retire now, Gill.”

The young guerrilla pulled his forelock by way of making a bow, and then left the room.

“Come, Elfie, draw up your chair,” said Alberta, as she set the teapot on the table.

“I would like to wash my hands first,” said Elfie, holding up her fingers.

“Good—HEAVENS!” exclaimed Alberta, in real, downright consternation. “What have you been about, Elfie? Who have you been butchering? I am accustomed to the sight of blood, but I never saw such a pair of hands in all my life! What ever have you been doing with them?”

“I have been proving how well I love Guerrilla Goldsborough, and how willing I was to be carried off by him. I have heard that it is considered an ignominy for a man to lose his ears, and I knew that Guerrilla Goldsborough deserved such ignominy; and I have been doing my best to inflict it upon him!” replied Elfie, as she went to the wash basin which Alberta had filled with water for her.

“You do not mean to say that you tried to tear his ears off with your nails!” exclaimed Alberta, in amazement.

“If he has got any ears left it isn’t my fault,” replied Elfie, defiantly, as she wiped her hands and sat down to the tea table.

“Well,” said Alberta, “I have sometimes had to look on while hamlets were burning and spies hanging, but I could not have done anything like that.”

Notwithstanding that Elfie had been seized and carried off by guerrillas, and ought to have been in despair, she was not. On the contrary, she was hungry; and so she made a very good supper, and with very little assistance from Alberta, she cleared the table of everything eatable on it.

Meanwhile outside the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the rain poured.

It was not a storm to alarm any one who was not exposed to its fury; for at that season of the year thunder and lightning could not be very violent or dangerous. But the rain! Surely, since the deluge never had rain fallen in such torrents.

“The fords will be impassable for a week,” said Alberta, exultingly, as she went to the window and looked out and listened to the pouring, dashing, lashing rain.

Elfie sighed deeply, thinking that the rise in the river would make rescue for her all the more unlikely.

Alberta went to the door of her room and called Gill, who seemed to be on duty in the hall outside.

“Take away this service, Gill,” she said.

And the youth, to make short work, stretched the door wide open and lifted the table, with all upon it, and carried it bodily out of the room.

Alberta and Elfie drew in their chairs to the fire.

“You do not know, Elfie, what a respite from anxiety it is to me to be sure of one night’s undisturbed rest! This storm that is raging outside will lull me to repose as the sweetest music in the world would fail to do,” said Alberta, with a sigh of intense relief.

“But how and why?” inquired Elfie.

“Oh, because I know while the storm is raging and the rain is pouring the river is also rising, and the fords will be impassable, and our camp will be safe from attack for one night, and we may sleep in peace! Oh, Elfie! unless you had lived as I have lived for the last three years, in the midst of ‘war’s alarms,’ you could never realize what a blessed relief there is in the feeling sure that we may sleep in peace for one night!”

“Oh! Alberta, what a life for you—for you, a daughter of the house of Goldsborough—reared in luxury and refinement! How can you bear it? Why do you bear it? Why do you not accept Erminie’s offer, and seek refuge with her?” earnestly inquired Elfie.

“Why? Do you ask me why?” exclaimed Alberta, and her cold eyes, fixed upon the fire before her, dilated and burned, and her impassive face glowed as she replied:

“My lot is cast with his and with his cause!”

“Oh, Alberta! when you were in Washington, you told us that you had taken the oath of allegiance, in good faith, and that you meant to keep it! And here I find you among the guerrillas again! sympathizing with them, aiding and comforting them in every way! Have you no respect for your oath, no regard for yourself, no fear even of your God?” inquired Elfie.

A strange smile passed over the face of the guerrilla’s wife; still gazing straight before her into the fire, she answered, slowly:

“I have one idol, one religion, one rule of action! Elfrida, nearly four years have passed since I left all, to share the fortunes of Vittorio Corsoni, my beloved! Dark enough those fortunes have been, Heaven knows! But I have never repented becoming his wife—never, Elfie! Neither of us have known a shadow of turning in our attachment to each other. And now I would not exchange my condition as the outlaw’s wife to be the most honored lady in the land! Nor would he part with me for a kingdom! We are all in all to each other. He is more to me than ever lover or husband was to woman before! I am more to him than ever was sweetheart or wife to man! We are one; we can never be divided. Nothing—no, nothing shall ever part us! not life, not death, not eternity! In all the gloom and horror of our downward course—and downward it is, Elfie—downward even to the depths of hell!—we have the one, great, deep joy of knowing that we go on together, inseparable forever! Yes, on earth or in hades, inseparable forever! I will never again leave him, or be left by him, for a single day. On the only one occasion when we parted since our marriage, he was captured, tried and condemned to die. I found my way to Washington, determined to deliver him or to die with him. Yes, if I could not procure his release, I was determined to do that which should place me by his side in the prison, or send me swiftly after him to the scaffold!”

“Oh, Alberta! you make my blood run cold!” exclaimed Elfie.

“In such a pursuit, what were oaths to me? I had one idol—my Vittorio! one religion—his service! one rule of action—his welfare! Happily his release was effected by a stronger arm and a shrewder wit than mine. And he is with me once more, and henceforth we part no more. Where he stays, I will stay; where he goes, I will go. What he dares that will I dare. The pains and privations he suffers I will share, and when he ceases to live I will die!”

Alberta ceased to speak, but continued, with her hands clasped upon her knees, to gaze into the fire.

Elfie did not answer these wild words; she remained silent—struck dumb, as it seemed, with astonishment at the vehement earnestness of self-devotion in one she had deemed so cold and calm. What could have inspired Alberta with this self-sacrificing, _soul_ sacrificing passion? Was it the beauty, fire and enthusiasm of the young Italian, who had so successfully wooed her? Certainly Vittorio Corsoni, if not as handsome as a grand Apollo, was as beautiful as a lithe Adonis. But then he was so very dark; and how any woman could really and desperately love such a slight Adonis, with such dark hair and eyes, Elfie could not imagine! How could she, when she herself was but a little bit of a creature, with hair and eyes as dark as Vittorio’s own, and when her ideal of ‘a fine figure of a man’ was a tall, fair-haired Apollo?

While Elfie sat gazing into the fire, and musing over these mysteries, there came a soft tap at the door.

Alberta sprang up eagerly and went to open it. The voice of Vittorio Corsoni was heard to say:

“It is late, love. It is nearly two o’clock.”

“I know it is,” murmured Alberta.

“How will you dispose of your guest?”

“She must sleep with me, Vittorio, dearest. She is but an inexperienced girl; and there is no place in this house, full of rough soldiers, where she can sleep in peace except with me, the only woman in the camp,” said Alberta.

A deep sigh from Corsoni followed these words, and then he murmured in a lower tone:

“I had just been congratulating myself that we should all rest, without thinking of an attack to-night! But, as Heaven hears me, I would rather sit with you, and watch all night in the hourly expectation of an assault and a battle, than be banished from you, though we pass the night in peace!”

Alberta replied in a low and tender murmur, inaudible to all but the ears for whom it was intended.

A whispered conference ensued, and then Corsoni said:

“Well, love, I shall lie on the floor outside your door to-night, and like a faithful dog will guard your slumbers.”

“It is only for a few hours,” she said.

And then followed a few more gentle, inaudible murmurs, and Colonel Corsoni left the door. And Alberta closed and fastened it, and returned to her friend.

“It is late, Elfie! And you must be excessively tired after your long ride. Get ready for bed, child! You shall be quite safe with me,” said the guerrilla’s wife, beginning to put the chunks of fire together to keep them burning through the night.

Elfie took her little watch from its hiding-place and looked at the time. It was nearly three o’clock. And feeling really almost worn out with fatigue, she undressed herself and went to bed, and fell fast asleep even before Alberta laid down beside her.

Meanwhile, without the storm raged, the wind howled and shrieked, the rain poured and dashed; and the roaring of the rising waters was heard above it all!

And to the battle-worn guerrillas, sweeter than the music of the spheres, sounded this warring of the elements, for it assured them of one night’s safety.