A Daughter of Maryland — page 168: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A DAUGHTER OF MARYLAND. 145 inent in years past was sadly missing now. Major Lancier stalked grimly through the silent halls without speaking to any one. Aurian remained in the seclusion of her room almost the entire day. Mrs. Ralston declared she hoped she should not see another such a day. Without the weather was almost as gloomy as the countenances within | the manor. Dull, gray clouds obscured the sun until mid- afternoon, when the sky took on a peculiar, lurid hue no one failed to observe and speak about. The more imagina- tive declared it foretold the coming war and bloodshed. Even the slaves of Sylvania felt an unusual restraint, giving over almost entirely the pleasures of the day. And Christmas was but a premonition of the days to follow. The war cloud deepened, and as it grew darker and darker, men seeemd to forget their business to gather in knots on the street corners to discuss the issues of the hour. The lively little village of Sharpsburg lost its thriv- ing aspect; its stores were closed and the owners ignored the trade of those who came to buy the necessities of life. Major Lancier, on a visit to Hagerstown, declared that he was obliged to wait two hours before he could get anybody to put him up a pound of tea, and then he forgot to take it home with him! It was so everywhere. The mechanic left his bench, the farmer his plow, to talk of the latest rumor from the center of trouble. Embryo statesmen sprang up from remote districts to discuss the all-important question, and orators, great and small, were everywhere abroad arguing pro and con what the unlettered masses never fully understood, what the more learned construed into a meaning to suit their prejudices. More bitter grew these discussions and wilder the arguments, until on April 12,. 1861, the shot at Sumter rotsed the North to the startling truth of its situation, and fired to frenzy the hearts of the South. War was at last a foregone con- clusion. Not until then had either side begun to realize the awful 900 GOmMIG