Brave Mrs. Lyle [pp. 51-61]

BRA VE JIRS. L YLE.
BRAVE MRS. LYLE.
HE heroism of common life finds
little space in history. Of that
more passive form of courage, called fortitude, which bears its burdens with a
spirit steadfast and unbroken, the world
takes small account. Like the air and
sunlight, it pervades earth with an atmosphere of blessing, but is so generic
in its scope as to be held cheap.
Champions of law and liberty, in Arkansas, had fallen upon troublous times.
The Federal flotilla of gunboats, that
swept down the Mississippi to aid in the
Vicksburg struggle, virtually segregated
the States west of the river; thus constituting a new department, more or less
isolated in situation and circumscribed
in action. General Foreman, once a representative of the State in the councilhalls of the nation, but now a zealous
leader in the Confederate ranks, had returned to his native soil, and was enforcing a vigorous and ruthless conscription.
Adherents to the Union cause, outside
the pale of Federal protection, had learned to expect no quarter. Compelled allegiance to the rebel authorities, or the
most bitter persecution-perhaps even
death-these were the alternatives offered. There was no escape, except in
stealthy flight. In counties more remote,
lying west of the White River, affairs had
assumed a perilous aspect. To be an
avowed Unionist there, was to dare dangers the most imminent, and invite penalties the most appalling.
Nathaniel Lyle, a native of Pennsylvania, emigrated to Arkansas at an early
day, and at the breaking out of the war
was a well-to-do planter, in the western
part of the State. A large inheritance
of principle and pluck stood as atonement for meagre educational endow
ments; and these invaluable characteristics had been supplemented by that
last best gift to man-a loving, sensible,
heroic wife. But with the choice presented, of duty or trial, principle or persecution, there was no trembling hesitation, no weak dalliance. Mrs. Lyle knew
what it was to suffer and be strong.
The solemn November day on which
our story opens had been harsh and vexatious. The cows, at milking-time, had
been perverse and vicious, completing a
long catalogue of provoking peccadilloes
with the final upsetting of a generous,
well-filled milk-pail, wasting at once the
product of their own day's scanty pickings, and the tired housewife's patient
strippings. What made the matter far
worse, was the fact that the milk had a
special, predestined use. There was no
mistake about it this had been a day of
marked disaster. Even the staid and
decorous old plow-horses, Darby and
Joan, whose historical record, in the
matter of runaways, was without a blemish, had that morning, while coming
down the long lane with a load of "lightwood," with evidently preconcerted action, pricked up their ears, caught the
bit, and dashed down the road as if,
contemptuous of humble pedigree, they
would rival the proudest achievements
of the best-bred Hambletonian.
This all-pervading, morbific tendency
must have been atmospheric; else why
should Charlie, the prince of good fellows, have lost his proverbial good-humor to such an extent as to declare that
Nat, his baby brother, was a perfect little vixen, and to wonder what in the
world he was ever made for, unless it
was to "torment folks to death?" Sure
enough, this was a problem that had
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