It was a day or two after that he touched his mother's black dress and looked inquiringly into her face. back to me;" on the other his father's grave called out for expiation. He was yet far from a decision, when his "Your father?" she said gravely; "he mother coming in with the officer compelled died just a year ago." John did not dare to ask what it was that killed him. The disregarded warning of his mother's letter came back to his mind; and turning away his face he went through such an agony of self-reproach as threw him back into the fever, and for another week seriously imperiled his life. When at length he was pronounced out of danger and seemingly in a fair way to recover-it was quite two months after his capture he began to fret about his position. "I'm a prisoner, I suppose?" he said one day, interrogatively. "Certainly," answered his mother. "And" hesitatingly, "is there any probability of my exchange?" him to it. For the time I suppose remorse was stronger than love. Or it may be that in his weak and feeble state he was dominated by his mother's stronger will. At any rate he took the oath, conscious as he did it that he was trying to repair one act of treason by committing another, and that by the act he was alienating himself from Nathalie beyond any hope of reconciliation. As he wrote his name slowly and painfully in the designated place, his glance fell on the date of the paper. It was the third of September; by an odd, and as it seemed to him fatal coincidence, the very day that had been appointed for his marriage. After that fifteen years passed away. Mrs. Winthrop looked him calmly in the The war with all its shifting scenes went face. "I have already seen the Secretary of War," she said, "and arranged about your release. All you will have to do will be to take the oath." John looked up nervously. He was still feeble and his tones were impatient and querulous. by, peace came once more, men's passions quieted down and people took up again the pursuits and pastimes of their former life. Not much of the time did John Winthrop spend in his old home. The blot on the family record was a silent and bitter reproach. His first sight of it shocked him as he had never been shocked before. By and But that means not going back again," by it came to have a sort of fascination to he said. Mrs. Winthrop nodded. "Of course," she said, "if the Government gives you your freedom it has a right to ask that." "I'd rather not have it," he murmured, "on such terms." His mother looked at him severely. "You don't suppose," she said, "now that I've got you I'm going to let you turn rebel again. If your patriotism is all gone, there ought to be some gratitude to me and some respect for your father's memory." He closed his eyes as if unwilling to hear more and she left him. How much of a struggle was going on in his mind she could hardly know. It was the alternative that he thought he had settled a year before come up again under conditions that made it a hundred times more difficult. On the one hand he could hear Nathalie saying, "If you ever desert the flag don't come him, so that he often took down the book and turned over its pages to where the ugly black word stared him in the face. His mother would have torn the paper out, but he would not permit it. “Let it stay,” he said bitterly. "My father's grandchildren may read it in a clearer light." But he wrote beneath these words: "Entered the 55th South Carolina Volunteers April 18, 1861; taken prisoner by the U. S. Government at Malvern Hill July 1, 1862; released on taking the oath of allegiance September 3, 1862." In other respects, too, home was not the pleasantest place for him. The neighbors he fancied looked on him with suspicion; and his brothers and sisters, though they were kind in their treatment, yet withheld from him the entire confidence they gave to one another. Concerning that one year of his life he never spoke, and they, however anxious they may have been, never ques tioned him. His life so far, he told himself, had been a failure. He would begin it over again in a new sphere. So he came to New York and went into business. In five years he had made a fortune. He put his money into governments, locked them up in the safe deposits vaults, and went to Europe just at the breaking out of the Franco-Prussian war. His military warrant which he did not hesitate to use gave him a footing in the German army and enabled him to follow the fortunes of the victorious troops through their several engagements into Paris. Here and elsewhere on the Continent he spent some time, running over occasionally to England and journeying as far east as Egypt and the Holy Land. While he was abroad his mother died. Between him and the old place there was now no link of association. With his brothers and sisters he had almost no correspondence. Though knowing many people he lived a life alone. Tired of Europe he came back to America and traveled at the West three years, from 1874 to 1877. During the time since the war he had never gone farther south than Philadelphia. Of the Kershaws he had heard not a word. They might be dead for all he knew. At any rate he had forfeited his claim to inquire. He had no the cemetery-the Kershaw plot was familar to him-and read the story on their tombs. With nervous haste he turned toward the cemetery. The fresh Spring air, the songs of birds, the brightness of the flowers he only noticed as they carried back his memory over the long years. It was the twentysixth of April, the very day on which sixteen years before he had marched out of Charleston. People were walking to-day, he noticed, in the same direction with himself, laden with baskets of flowers; and the spectacle emphasized in his mind the contrast between the two eras. As he entered the cemetery he saw others strewing the mounds with blossoms, and then he remembered that this was the Decoration Day of the South. He had seen the same thing done a month later in the North, but here and now it struck him with a new and tender meaning. At length he reached the Kershaw plot. From afar off he saw that it had a story to tell. Fifteen years ago it was empty; now a monument stood in the center with onetwo-three-four-five mounds at its base. Leaning on the railing he read the names. PEYTON KERSHAW Colonel of the 55th S. C. Volunteers, Fell at Fredericksburg Dec. 13, 1862. right even to feel an interest. And yet he That was the father. That winter of 1877 his physician ordered him South. There was not much the matter with him, but the doctor talked up Aiken and St. Augustine, and there came a longing on him which he had oftentimes before repressed to revisit some of the old scenes. So he spent February in Florida, March at Savannah and Aiken, and towards the end of April found himself on his way home in Charleston. He had not meant to go there he told himself. And yet, to tell the truth, the visit had floated in front of him all winter; and now that he was there he became all at once eager to learn about his friends. But what might not have happened in fifteen years? He stopped in front of a store where they would be sure to know, but he dared not ask. No, he would go to FRANCES EFFINGHAM KERSHAW Born Aug. 15, 1809; Died October 4, 1876. That was the mother. Next came the sons: EFFINGHAM KERSHAW Born Feb. 17, 1836; Fell at Chancellorsville May 2, 1863; RANDOLPH KERSHAW Born May 28, 1830; Fell at Gettysburg July 3, 1863. J. C. CALHOUN KERSHAW Father, mother and three boys, three of them killed in the war! Besides Nathalie that was all the family. John drew a breath of relief. At any rate she was not here. But wait; here was another name occupying one side of the stone. What was that? He read it in a sort of daze; read it over again; then, beginning to take in its signifi cance, raised his hat in reverent gratitude while he read it for the third time: IN MEMORY OF JOHN TEMPLETON WINTHROP. Fell at the Battle of Malvern Hill July 1, 1862, Æt. 22. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." "I don't deserve it," he exclaimed, "but it's a sort of vindication. Thank God that she has n't thought of me all these years as unfaithful!" As he leaned against the railing he obstructed the gate, and was not aware of the fact nor of any one's approach until he heard a voice saying, "Will you be so kind as to let me pass?" Whose was the voice? He turned around like a flash! The speaker was a lady dressed in black and heavily veiled. The features he could not see, but the voice he would swear to among a thousand. "I beg pardon," he said mechanically, and stood aside. The lady on her part had hesitated, struck perhaps by some familiarity in his look or tone. Seemingly unable though to place it, she entered the plot and began to hang the wreaths and dispose the flowers which a servant had carried, John watching her meanwhile. On the side where his own name was cut she seemed to linger longest, and hung there, too, he noticed, the choicest of her supply. It was ill-inannered in him he knew to watch, but if his life had depended on it he could not take himself away. Once or twice she stopped in her work and looked towards him as though on the point of coming out. At length, the task being finished, she came. Her veil was now thrown back, disclosing the face of Nathalie Kershaw, no longer the eighteen-year-old girl, but a woman matured in trial and schooled in suffering, with the soul light streaming through her eyes. Her beauty was altered, not diminished, by time. "Excuse me," she said in the soft low voice he remembered so well," but have you any particular interest in this plot ?” Was he then so changed? He had fancied it, but had hardly been willing to admit it even to himself. Had his voice chang-d too? He would at least make the experi ment. "I beg your pardon," he said gravely, "for seeming to intrude, but I have that interest in the plot which a man may have who sees his own name—” He got no further. With his first word her look of quiet courtesy had changed to one of perplexity and concern; as he went on it became eager expectancy; before he reached this break she had put out her hands and was saying, "I know! I know! you are John Winthrop come back to forgive me." He raised his hand as if to hold her off. "I am John Winthrop," he said, “but not John Winthrop who died for your cause, not he whom you have been enshrining for fifteen years as a martyr. I am John Winthrop the traitor, doubly so; first to the North, then to the South. It is for you to forgive me, Miss-shall I call you Miss Kershaw? In the face of these changes I know not what may have happened.” DECORATION DAY, 1879. THE golden sunlight falls across the far off southern plains, Where, free from battle's fierce alarms, slumber our comrades brave. The swift years circle on their course; it seems but yesterday The freemen of New England rose and seized their waiting arms; To fight and die, if it must be, for country and for right. Through quiet valleys sounded clear the war-drum's rolling beat, Brave souls rushed on where battle's surge was crowned with crimson foam. Along the rivers running deep amid the southern pines, Where the Atlantic rollers sweep Carolina's sandy shore, We know that sorrow grew apace through all the lengthened days, Ah, proudly beat the pulse when came the news of victories won : Now silent are the forests old amid whose cool retreats We keep the names that fame has crowned; the heroes slumbering lie Strew flowers on their graves to-day; when comes the winter snow Strew flowers upon their graves, and still remember grasses grow Why should we keep the bitterness of years so full of pain, When God's fair blooms have hid from sight the red blood of the slain ? O'er frowning ramparts, where once shone the sentry's gleaming steel, The wealth of beauty that falls out from God's o'er-flowing hand And tattered flags hang motionless, and dim with peaceful dust. The past is past; the wild flowers bloom where charging squadrons met; Thomas S. Collier. THE CONFLICTS OF LABOR AND CAPITAL IN ENGLAND: The time is past when Trades-unions were nothing more than secret societies of the worst kind, whose members preyed upon manufacturers and broke down trades. These societies have acquired both legal existence and civil personality; their habitual proceedings if not always the most prudent, economically speaking, have at least ceased to be violent, and choose regular paths instead of inspiring terror and being a perpetual menace to persons and property. But this happy change has not brought every one into sympathy with Trades-unions. On the other side of the British Channel these unions have many enemies; some hostile to their very principle, and others altogether distrustful of certain of their acts. They contend first of all that their least inconvenience is that they are useless so far as regards their principal object, the increase of wages, since when labor is abundant, in the case where two workmen strive to procure the same piece of work, there is no society in the world, no power on earth, which can increase wages permanently or hinder their reduction; whilst, reversing the situation, there is no manufacturer able to prevent the increase of these wages, an 1 From the Journal des Economistes: Paris. inevitable increase were there no Tradesunions at all. It follows, they add, that under unfavorable circumstances—and it is precisely under such circumstances that their action seems to be needed-unionists cannot accomplish their ends except by resorting to means equally oppressive, unjust and violent. They see themselves obliged to prevent supernumerary workmen from coming into competition with laborers who are at work; to hinder those who are out of work from offering their labor at a reduced rate and filling the places in the shops of those who exact higher wages. In short, they say, strikes have never been remunerative. Even when workmen have succeeded, as occasionally, in extorting from the manufacturer the five or ten per cent. increase of wages demanded, the loss of pay which they had to submit to during the strike, added to the contributions which they were compelled to make to the treasury of the unions, more than counterbalanced this transient advantage, to say nothing of the effect which follows this compulsion, directly or indirectly, in the increased price of the articles produced, so that as a consumer the successful striker loses, and that too beyond what he has gained as a laborer. |