It is idle, however, to speculate in "if's," even when their significance is so sadly obvious as it is in this case. Facts are facts, and the all-dominating fact on that 16th of April, 1861, was that President Lincoln had called upon Virginia for her quota of troops with which to make war upon the seceding States, and that Virginia had no mind to respond to the call.
It was certain now, that Virginia – however reluctantly and however firmly convinced she might be that secession was uncalled for on the part of the Southern States, would adopt an ordinance of secession, and thus make inevitable the coming of the greatest war in all history, where otherwise no war at all, or at most an insignificant one, would have occurred.
There was no question in the minds of any body at the Court-house on this sixteenth day of April, 1861, that Virginia would secede as soon as a vote could be taken in the convention.
The county was a small one, insignificant in the number of its white inhabitants, – there being six negroes to one white in its population, – but it was firmly convinced that upon its attitude depended the fate of Virginia, and perhaps of the nation. This conviction was strong, at any rate, in the minds of the three local orators who had ordered a muster for this day in order that they might have an audience to harangue. These were Colonel Gregor, of the militia and the bar, Lieutenant-Colonel Simpson, also of the bar and the militia, and Captain Sam Guthrie, who commanded a troop of uniformed horsemen, long ago organised for purposes of periodical picnicking. This troop afterward rendered conspicuously good service in Stuart's First Regiment of Virginia cavalry, but not under Captain Guthrie's command. That officer, early in the campaign, developed a severe case of nervous prostration, and retired. The militiamen also volunteered, and rendered their full four years of service. But Lieutenant-Colonel Simpson retired during his first and only skirmish, while Colonel Gregor discovered in himself a divine call to the ministry of the gospel, and stayed at home to answer it. But all this came later. In April, 1861, these three were the eager advocates of war, instant and terrible. Under inspiration of the news from Richmond, they spouted like geysers throughout that day. They could not have been more impassioned in their pleas if theirs had been a reluctant community, in danger of disgracing itself by refusing to furnish its fair share of volunteers for Virginia's defence, though in fact every able-bodied man in the county had already signified his intention of volunteering at the first opportunity.
But the orators were not minded to miss so good an opportunity to display their eloquence, and impress themselves upon the community. Colonel Gregor, in a fine burst of eloquence, warned his fellow citizens, whom he always addressed as "me countrymen," to examine themselves carefully touching their personal courage, "for," he thundered, "where Gregor leads, brave men must follow."
Later in the day, Lieutenant-Colonel Simpson hit upon the happy idea, which his superior officer at once adopted, of ordering the entire militia of the county into camp at the Court-house, where the three men eloquent might harangue them at will between drills. The two field-officers told the men that they must now regard themselves as minute men, and hold themselves in readiness to respond at a moment's notice to the country's call, for the repelling of invasion, whensoever it might come.
All this impressed Baillie Pegram as ridiculous. That young gentleman had a saving sense of humour, but he was content to smile at a foolishness in which he had no mind to join. The young men of the county responded enthusiastically to the encampment call. It meant for them some days of delightful picnicking, with dancing in the evening.
Baillie Pegram, having business to transact in Richmond, absented himself from a frolic not to his taste, and took the noonday train for the State capital.
II
The bringing up of agatha
Agatha Roland was a particularly well ordered young gentlewoman, at least during her long, half-yearly visits to her aunts at The Oaks. At home with her maternal grandfather, Colonel Archer, she was neither well nor ill ordered – she was not ordered at all. She gave orders instead, in a gentle way; and her word was law, by virtue of her grandfather's insistence that it should be so regarded, and still more by reason of something in herself that gently gave authority to her will.
Agatha had been born at The Oaks, and that plantation was to be her property at the death of her two elderly maiden aunts, her dead father's sisters. But she had been taken as a little child to the distant home of her grandfather, Colonel Archer, and after her mother's death she had lived there alone with that sturdy old Virginia gentleman.
She was less than seven years old when he installed her behind the tea-tray in her dead mother's stead, and made her absolute mistress of the mansion, issuing the order that "whatever Miss Agatha wants done must be done, or I will find out why." Her good aunts sought to interfere at first, but they soon learned better. They wanted the girl to come to them at The Oaks "for her bringing up," they said. Upon that plan Colonel Archer instantly put a veto that was not the less peremptory for the reason that he could not "put his foot down" just then, because of an attack of the gout. Then the good ladies urged him to take "some gentlewoman of mature years and high character" into his house, "to look after the child's bringing up, so that her manners may be such as befit a person of her lineage."
To this appeal the old gentleman replied:
"I'll look after all that myself. I don't want the child taught a lot of nonsense, and I won't have her placed under anybody's authority. She doesn't need control, any more than the birds do; she shall grow up here at Willoughby in perfect freedom and naturalness. I'll be responsible for the result. She shall wear bonnets whenever she wants to, and go without them whenever that pleases her best; when she wants to go barefoot and wade in the branches, as all healthy children like to do, she shall not be told that her conduct is 'highly improper,' and all that nonsense. O, I know," he said, in anticipation of a protest that he saw coming, "I know she'll get 'dreadfully tanned,' and become a tomboy – and all the rest of it. But I'll answer for it that when she grows up her perfectly healthy skin will bear comparison with the complexion of the worst house-burnt young woman in all the land, and as for her figure, nature will take care of that under the life of liberty that she's going to live, in the air and sunshine."
"But you'll surely send her to school?"
"Not if I retain my senses. I remember my humanities well enough to teach her all the Latin, Greek, and mathematics she needs. We'll read history and literature together, and as for French, I speak that language a good deal better than most of the dapper little dancing-masters do who keep 'young ladies' seminaries.' We'll ride horseback together every day, and I'll teach her French while I'm teaching her how to take an eight-rail fence at a gallop."
The remonstrances were continued for a time, until one day the old gentleman made an end of them by saying:
"I have heard all I want to hear on that subject. It is not to be mentioned to me again."
Everybody who knew Colonel Archer knew that when he spoke in that tone of mingled determination and self-restraint, it was a dictate of prudence to respect his wish. So after that Agatha and he lived alone at Willoughby, a plantation in Northern Virginia three or four days distant by carriage from The Oaks.
Morning, noon, and night, these two were inseparable companions. "Chummie" was the pet name she gave him in her childish days, and he would never permit her to address him by any other as she grew up.
Old soldier that he was, – for he had commanded a company under Jackson at New Orleans, and had been