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under him at Mier, an' slept i' the same dungeon wi' him | escaped with Greene from Perote; and he believed the at Perote.

"And you would do me a good turn?"

"What is it ?" asked Adam, cautiously.

"It is about my cousin Virginia. There are hard days coming, and there will soon be no one to help her."

men of those days to be the demi-gods and heroes of the age. Indeed, his ideas of liberty were of a giantesque character that in no way fitted themselves to the necessities and prudences of modern life and polity.

It is easy to understand how such a man should have

"There's Maister Mordaunt. He's a nice lad, as far as pledged himself with an honest enthusiasm to the

I can judge, an' wise beyont what's written."

"Why do you say that, Adam? Have Mordaunt and I ever loved each other? And do we not both love Virginia? I shall leave her in your care."

66

Deed, Maister Tom, you leave me a hard charge. I ken naught aboot women folk, an' it's easy to mak' a fool o' yoursel' on unkent ground."

Southern cause-and yet no nature rings through all its depths and Tom Navarro found a certain pleasure in the fact that his rival, Mordaunt, was in opposition to him; he was not sorry that a great gulf had arisen between the young lawyer and his lovely cousin, Virginia McKaine. She was standing now watching him approach-a very lovely woman, with large dark eyes and a white, broad fore

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"But you'll do it, Adam-yes, you will," and the young soldier in gray grasped the old gardener's hand, and walked rapidly toward a large white house just visible among the trees and shrubbery.

There was little wonder that this garden-place suggested Eden to his mind; it was an acre of unimaginable sweetness and beauty, and in a dim way Tom Navarro was sensible of it. But it was not beauty of this kind that touched him deepest.

He loved Nature, but he loved her in heroic proportions, and outside of hedges and fences; and this taste indicated his general disposition. He could understand nothing in moderation, and was restive under all restrictions, however imaginary.

head-a woman that reminded you of those flowers in fairy books, out of whose golden hearts come elfin queens. She stood waiting on the broad steps of the piazza, and the wavy banners of yellow jasmine dropped from the lattice all around her.

Tom comforted himself with that picture of a whiterobed woman in a frame of golden flowers through many a starving bivouac, and set it before him on many a weary march.

Her words dropped like soft notes of music on the sweet, warm air.

"Tom, dear Tom, you are to meet father at the ford. He went an hour ago. Have you come to say good-by?" She touched tenderly his braided sleeve, and lifted his

His father had fought at Mier and San Jacinto, and sword and kissed it.

In such a crisis as this love, pride, hope, fear rose sud- | weapons in her armory? General McKaine was a trave denly, swiftly, as a flock of doves rise into the upper air. soldier, but he had feared to put his wife and daughter There was no longer any doubt in Tom's heart; the face face to face with the inevitable deprivations before them. bending toward him was an open book. There was some excuse for this. Mrs. McKaine was a Virginia was the more hopetul of the two. An unsatis- doll in all but the mere accident of material. In the befied desire, a disappointed hope, had,never yet come to ginning of the trouble, when men were anxious and disher. The luxury of her life had scarcely yet been touched. | puting, and every household feeling the jar of the coming

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TOM NAVARRO.

THE NEXT MOMENT TOM'S ARMS WERE AROUND HER, AND SHE WAS WEEPING HAPPY TEARS UPON HIS NECK."

Victory was the birthright of Texans; their traditions were of conquest and desperately-won battles; and what Texas was, she believed the whole South to be.

She allowed nothing for disaffection, for selfishness, for treachery; hers was a blind, passionate allegiance, an unreasonable enthusiasm, whose cost was yet to count.

Tom knew the odds better, and he foresaw for the beautiful, trusting woman at his side a bitter fight. Were the Vol. XIV., No. 4-27.

collision, she had only wondered "how people could make her so uncomfortable."

The last shred of her husband's credit had been spent in maintaining this toy-wife 'n the tool' paradise, where alone she could make her habitation. He hoped that Virginia would rise to emergencies, but, perhaps, emergencies might never come; the war might be over soon; there were more chances than these, and the general was

a man inclined to take chances. Besides, his nephew, Mordaunt, would remain in Austin, and he had promised to look after things. Mordaunt, was a prudent young man, and had General McKaine's affairs very much in his hand.

It was a delicate task to tell a beautifully-dressed woman that her muslins and laces would soon wear out, and that they could not be renewed; that gold was all in hiding, and Confederate money of little value; that there were fears of negro insurrections, and that Indians had been seen within twenty miles already.

Many lovers would have shrunk from mingling in the first poetry of their betrothal, details of farming matters, and entreaties as to small economies and petty necessities; but when it was all over, and he stood among the six hundred brave men who that afternoon

"Put their foot in the stirrup, And shook their bridles free,"

he knew that it was well done.

He had told Virginia that his was the easiest part of the struggle, and he was right. When things have taken the step backward it is incredible how easy the descent is.

Tom's warning had come none too soon. It was evident to Virginia that the whole reckless household must be reordered, and this was bitterly resented by the servants.

Fortunately, Mrs. McKaine kept a kind of tearful state in her own room, and did not actively interfere; and as soon as the threatened changes reached Adam's ears he took the first opportunity of strengthening Virginia's hands.

"There's a plenty o' gude garden stuff to spare, my young lady," he said; "an' if so be you're willing, I'll e'en tak it into Austin an' sell it. Every siller bit tells thae days."

It was a great humiliation, but she had neither gold nor silver, and with Confederate bills she could buy neither tea, coffee, sugar, salt nor clothing, etc. Good women ⚫generally know by some fine touch where truthfulness is to be found; and Virginia looked in Adam's face and trusted him fully; she had every cause; and, small as were the returns from this venture, they were a very great comfort and relief.

Mordaunt was the first to interfere with this traffic. He met Adam before the hotel one morning, and peremptorily ordered him home.

"You ought to be thrashed, old man, for taking advantage of Miss McKaine's unprotected condition. How dare you sell the produce of her place ?"

"Dinna you ask questions you've no right to ask, my lad." And then, dashing down the vegetables he was measuring, he turned to Mordaunt with an expression that amazed him. "Thrash me, indeed! Touch me, if you daur, an' I'll shoot the right hand ciear aff you !” The stern, set face, the flashing eye and the promptly cocked pistol, emphasized the few curt sentences quite sufficiently. A teamster loitering near said, quietly:

"Better make tracks, youngster; that's Adam Moir. If you want to pick a quarrel with him you'll get the best ready-made fight in the State."

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"It's God's truth, I ought to be i' the battle-field, if I only kent which side to fight on !"

That evening Mr. Mordaunt rodo over to the McKaine place, and told Virginia that Adam Moir must be dismissed. There had been a time when she would have found it hard to disobey that suave, authoritative manner. But she had been measuring lately her own strength very often with refractory servants and unjust contractors, and she positively told her cousin that she could not run the farm without Adam's help.

Mr. Mordaunt bowed and cought the presence of Mrs. McKaine. In a few minutes Virginia knew, from the hysterical sobbing, and the agitated running about of the servants, that her mother had been informed of the degradation of the family.

The McKaines peddling vegetables! She wondered how her own child could have been so wicked. What could the Greens and the Browns and the Whites say? It was too cruel. No woman was ever so shamefully used, etc., etc. At length, after two hours distress, the lady was soothed with various anodynes and many unreasonable promises; but Virginia had never before felt so utterly hopeless and distressed.

She threw herself upon one of the sofas of the longclosed drawing-room, and sobbed with the abandon of a little child.

Mordaunt heard her with an aching heart. He loved Virginia in his calm way, and he really believed that her honor and respectability were involved in the step he had taken. After a while he prevailed on her to talk with him.

What was she to do, she asked, angrily. The servants were destitute of clothing, her own wardrobe was in a miserable condition, and her mother could not be made to understand the necessity of giving up any of her personal luxuries.

"Hire out some of your negroes."

"I have not one to spare. Most of the men have been drafted to the fortifications of Galveston. I have had to put the younger women in the field, and the elder ones are not able to do all the spinning, weaving and knitting necessary. There is not a hand to spare. I have had to work very hard myself."

Mordaunt offered his purse freely.

He had promised the General to advance what funds they needed. He was her cousin; he would fain be something far nearer and dearer; Virginia had only to speak.

"I am Tom Navarro's promised wife. It is impossible that I can receive help from you."

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Mordaunt could do nothing after this frank atement but reiterate his offer in the least objectionable manner possible.

Adam had more practical advice. He was almost pleased when he heard that the vegetable trade must be abandoned.

"It's a clear Providence," he said, an' 'the mustang feeling' didna come wambling o'er me yon way for naething. Keep a gude heart, my young lady; you hae mony a braw thing you can sell, an' I'll e'en gae my ways to Mexico, an' get you a' you want."

So one by one Virginia's trinkets disappeared-Adam only knew where. But with their proceeds he brought After that Adam purposely lingered on the avenue, and four times from the Rio Grande some coarse clothing, some did not leave Austin until his last onion was sold. tea, coffee, and other necessaries. The trip was a very dangerous one, but Adam knew his ground, and he came back safe every time.

That simple defiance, and the bare act of cocking his pistol, had been to him like a glass of brandy to a struggling inebriate. It was in vain that he told himself, as he rode rattling home, that he was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and a man on the shady side of fifty. The old fighting, roving spirit was roused, and he muttered fiercely as he struck the astonished cattle:

These were the only bright events in nearly three years of terror, poverty and anxiety-of days of unaccustomed toil, and the stress of nights that hoped for nothing for the morrow.

Adam was away on his fifth trip when the news of

General McKaine's death came. The poor shattered body was brought back to Texas, and somehow the knell of his funeral bells was felt to be the knell of hope.

No one pretended any longer to disbelieve bad reports; every heart had sat down in stupid misery to face the worst. But Virginia struggled on with her daily shifts and labor, and her sharp endurance of hourly misery, just as a doctor struggles against a cancer; or a general, without arms or provisions, still defends an important fortress.

At length even this hopeless struggle became impossible. It was dangerous to be so far away from help and neighbors; the country was full of emancipated slaves; there was no semblance of law; every one was doing what was right in his own eyes.

Mordaunt persuaded Virginia to remove her mother to a small cottage in Austin. The end was near, and it was even some comfort to be released from an active struggle with fate.

One warm moonlight night some prescient feeling kept knocking softly at her soul, and she could not sleep. So much sorrow and trembling in every house, and yet there was no whisper of it in the calm air. Only the passionate love-songs of fiery mocking-birds, or the low monotonous chanting from the negro camps among the ripe corn, broke the charmful stillness.

Presently she saw a group of men come out of the shadow. They rode silently and swiftly, and took the ford and the San Antonio road. Another group-and another! What messengers of evil fortune were these?

She ran tremblingly to the end of the lot, and watched for the next group as it rode silently into the broad strip of moonlight. Alas! alas! she knew then who they weredisbanded Confederates, pushing sternly and swiftly to their desolate homes on the Western prairies.

"Oh, my dear God! Oh, my dear God !"

That was all she could say, as, wringing her hands, she stumbled blindly over the rough corn-ridges and the fallen logs of the cedar-fence.

In this first shock of realization she had no grief for anything but the death of the cause she loved. It was one of those supreme moments when the soul rises above all selfish considerations; it would have been easy then for Virginia to have died for her ideal. Yes, it is a great thing to have once in life felt this exaltation; if only for a moment, the soul is greater ever afterward for its sublime sorrow. How long, how doubly long now, was the weary waiting and watching, the hoping and the despairing! But when the joy is ready, then it comes.

One afternoon, as Virginia was arranging her mother's pillows and wrappings, she saw a sudden light in the fretful face, and the next moment Tom's arms were around her, and she was weeping happy tears upon his neck.

He had brought nothing back with him but a true heart and his sword and horse. He had not a dollar of money, and Virginia was nearly as poor; but the McKaine place had been rented for a year, and Tom had been promised employment in a Galveston cotton-house. Love declared it possible to live on a thousand dollars a year and be divinely happy, and Virginia and Tom were quite willing to test the situation.

The marriage was hastened by an unfortunate quarrel with Mr. Mordaunt. He had called on Mrs. McKaine with reference to the renting of the McKaine place, and while he was explaining the conditions to her, Virginia and Tom came into the room together.

Now, Mordaunt was not by any means a quarrelsome man. He hated a Confederate, and he hated Tom Navarro, but with these exceptions it may be said that he loved his neighbor,

But the gladness in Tom's face was aggravating. He disliked his easy manners-swagger he called it and the faded gray coat was an intolerable offense to him. But he made an effort to say the common words of courtesy, and then took his leave in a very irritable temper.

The next day they met on the avenue. There were a number of Lavacca teamsters leaning against their wagons, whittling and spitting, and talking about cotton; and a little group of citizens discussing the flight of Governor Murrah, and the robbing of the treasury by the disbanded Rio Grande troops.

Mordaunt spoke with great bitterness of the runaway officials, and then, touching Tom's sleeve, said: "I should think an honest man would"Would what, sir ?"

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Both men were getting desperately angry, the crowd of citizens were mostly slipping away, and the teamsters were quietly putting their right hands in their breasts. There was a kind of "dare" in every man's face, and Mordaunt was quite inclined to take it.

"Well, he answered, with a contemptuous shrug, "you ought to be. You have been well whipped in it." "It's a lie! Take it back !"

There was an ominous click of pistols, but Mordaunt leaned against the china-tree and looked calmly at the circle of stern faces around him.

"I say you were whipped."

"I say Texas was never whipped-never. She yielded in this fight because her sister States did. If the United States likes to fight the quarrel over on Texas soil, let her try it again."

"Try it again!" echoed the men, gruffly, with another click.

"You-are-a crowd-of-bravos !"

After that no one knew exactly what was said, or who said it. Several shots were fired, Mordaunt's pistol fell ringing on the stone pavement, and his arm hung helpless at his side.

"That will do, gentlemen-my arm is broken. I have had the pleasure of speaking my mind, and I have paid for it-as I expected."

He turned into the first store, and sent for a doctor, while his late opponents reloaded slowly their empty pistols, and put them indifferently in their breasts. It had been a very ordinary matter to all of them except Tom Navarro. He felt thoroughly ashamed and annoyed, and, after some consideration, went after Mordaunt with a half-formed resolution of apology in his heart. But the doctor was setting the broken limb, and neither the time nor the manners of any one present favored the intention.

This circumstance showed him that he would be better in an atmosphere more free from old friends and associates, and he resolved at once to go to Galveston. So his marriage was rather hurriedly and rather quietly performed, and the slant shadow of regret dimmed what ought to have been the happiest day of his life.

Their removal to Galveston had one good result-it roused Virginia's mother from her long-indulged invalidism. To one shut up for years in the dreamy life of an inland plantation, the gaslit streets and busy stores were as wonderful as a fairy tale; and the pretty cottage behind the oleander bushes was a very happy little nest.

With one exception, Tom was out of his element. He longed like a bird for the prairies; the brick streets shut him in like a prison; he was only half-complete without his horse.

But the country was fast settling to work again, and he hoped by the end of the second year to have saved enough

INCIDENTS OF THE BURNING OF ROANOKE. "HE CUT LOOSE ONE OF THE FORWARD HORSES, AND MOUNTED HIM."

to farm at least a portion of the McKaine place. They were beginning to talk of this event, to recall to each other the sweet garden-place and the cool, lofty, latticed rooms of the dear homestead, when a swift and almost irresistible shadow gathered round them.

The heavens shut them in with murky clouds, the air was oppressively hot, fierce gleams of sunshine, rattling thunder and beating rains brought vegetable and reptile life into profuse and loathsome prominence, and men seemed to sink beneath some oppressive influence, and to have no power to fight the enemy watching them.

Tom and Virginia sat still, hoping and fearing until retreat was impossible; and they were shut in with the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the terror that wasted at noonday.

Fortunately, they were among its first victims-fortu. nately, because it had not then attained its full malignity, and nurses and physicians were procurable. In three weeks they were out of danger, and Tom began to think of his cotton-book again.

He walked slowly down to his office, but there was no longer any business for him to do. The stores were closed, the streets grass-grown, the air full of the crashing of ice and the groans of the sufferers, while above and around, and pervading everything was that one peculiar, sickening odor.

Oh, now for the cool waters of the Colorado and the airs of heaven that were at that moment swaying the flowery grass of its prairies like some new, happy melody !"

Full of this single, devouring thought, he hastened against every adverse circumstance to realize it, and before Christmas they were all again in their old home.

Many elements mingled in their return, though joy was greatly in the ascendant; but it was impossible to enter the half-ruined rooms and not feel a keen regret. The furniture had been stolen or much injured; the garden had become a wilderness, and Adam's pretty log-cabin had been turned into a stable.

But these things are long since remedied. Tom's farming has been a great success, and the McKaine place has been made so beautiful again that even Mrs. McKaine has ceased to talk of its past glories.

It is said that a smart attack of yellow fever entirely changes the constitution; certainly something has changed this lady for the better, for she spends her time now in

caring for Tom's children instead of playing the part of a sensitive invalid in a darkened room.

Tom and Mordaunt have forgotten their old jealousy and become friends, for Mordaunt is, as he deserves to be, a very popular mau. No one can say worse of him than that he has a quick eye for the main chance, and that he is disposed to approach it by agreeable paths.

In following out this principle he married a beautiful and wealthy Anglo-Spanish heiress of San Antonio, and has repeatedly sought and received great political trusts.

During the canvas for his first election, he was not a little pleased to see Adam Moir, at the head of forty rangers, come up to the ballot-box and poll a solid vote for him.

"There is the hand, Captain Moir, you once threatened to shoot off me," said Mordaunt, cheerfully, in acknowledgment; and Adam answered, with a sly laugh:

"You had aye a turn for meddling, Mr. Mordaunt, and it's safer in Texas to poke in public affairs than in private ones. I like you wees enough to keep you from danger." Unfortunately, Adam did not always keep himself out of danger, and when he was sixty-three years of age he got a wound from a Lipan warrior which sent him back to his log-cabin at the foot of the McKaine garden. It had long been waiting for him, and there he lives happily enough unto this day.

He orders the garden affairs, and rides into Austin with Tom on all public occasions; but he spends the largest part of his time in trotting after Miss Virginia, aged four years, and in enthusing Tom's eldest boys with such a love for "camping out," and such a hatred of Indians and Mexicans, that there is no kind of doubt he is educating two admirable Texas rangers.

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