Produced by David Widger
By Winston Churchill
Winter had vanished. Spring was come with a hush. Toward a little islandset in the blue waters of Charleston harbor anxious eyes were strained.
Was the flag still there?
God alone may count the wives and mothers who listened in the still hoursof the night for the guns of Sumter. One sultry night in April Stephen'smother awoke with fear in her heart, for she had heard them. Hark! thatis the roar now, faint but sullen. That is the red flash far across theblack Southern sky. For in our beds are the terrors and cruelties of liferevealed to us. There is a demon to be faced, and nought alone.
Mrs. Brice was a brave woman. She walked that night with God.
Stephen, too, awoke. The lightning revealed her as she bent over him. Onthe wings of memory be flew back to his childhood in the great Bostonhouse with the rounded front, and he saw the nursery with its highwindows looking out across the Common. Often in the dark had she come tohim thus, her gentle hand passing over aim to feel if he were covered.
"What is it, mother?" he said.
She said: "Stephen, I am afraid that the war has come."
He sat up, blindly. Even he did not guess the agony in her heart.
"You will have to go, Stephen."
It was long before his answer came.
"You know that I cannot, mother. We have nothing left but the little Iearn. And if I were—" He did not finish the sentence, for he felt hertrembling. But she said again, with that courage which seems woman'salone:
"Remember Wilton Brice. Stephen—I can get along. I can sew."
It was the hour he had dreaded, stolen suddenly upon him out of thenight. How many times had he rehearsed this scene to himself! He, StephenBrice, who had preached and slaved and drilled for the Union, a renegadeto be shunned by friend and foe alike! He had talked for his country, buthe would not risk his life for it. He heard them repeating the charge. Hesaw them passing him silently on the street. Shamefully he remembered thetime, five months agone, when he had worn the very uniform of hisRevolutionary ancestor. And high above the tier of his accusers he sawone face, and the look of it stung to the very quick of his soul.
Before the storm he had fallen asleep in sheer weariness of the struggle,that face shining through the black veil of the darkness. If he were tomarch away in the blue of his country (alas, not of hers!) she wouldrespect him for risking life for conviction. If he stayed at home, shewould not understand. It was his plain duty to his mother. And yet heknew that Virginia Carvel and the women like her were ready to followwith bare feet the march of the soldiers of the South.
The rain was come now, in a flood. Stephen's mother could not see in theblackness the bitterness on his face. Above the roar of the waters shelistened for his voice.
"I will not go, mother," he said. "If at length every man is needed, thatwill be different."
"It is for you to decide, my son," she answered. "There are many ways inwhich you can serve your country here. But remember that you may have toface hard things."
"I have had to do that before, mother," he replied calmly. "I cannotleave you dependent upon charity."
She went back into her room to pray, for she knew that