Clemson University - Taps Yearbook (Clemson, SC)

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344 THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. the loss of relatives and friends, but honor unsullied, and a consciousness of duty performed. He chose the latter, and entered the southern army. He had made his choice deliberately and no misgiving was felt when the estrange- ment came. Cast out by relatives and friends had been the lot of many another northern and sometimes a south- ern boy. When even his old college mates gave him up there remained one tie to the happy days of the past. That tie was the constant love of Nonie Rembert. This hap- piness would have been sufficient for Royal but he never knew that she remained true to him. Indignant parents severed the last cord that bound him to his childhood home. He was left alone. Royal Hudson served his adopted country throughout the war ; and when the Southern Cross was furled around the broken staff, he was among those noble men who strived, while hot tears rolled from hunger-furrowed, hopeless faces, to catch a last glimpse of its tattered but honor enshrined folds. The soldier returned to the scene of his early labor and took up the thread of life. The school was opened and prospered. We will not follow him through the years that immediately followed in which he advanced rapidly in his chosen profession. Suffice it to say, that through all the new honors conferred, the same gentleness of manner and the same ideal of duty remained with him. When the events just chronicled had grown dim through the more than a score of years that had elapsed, an old, white haired man, grown old in the service of education and crowned with the greatest honors that learned societies could bestow, decided to visit his child- hood home. When a young man he accepted the estrangement of

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THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. 343 After graduation it was decided that he should go South and begin his profession of teaching. Royal ' s leave-taking was a sad one, but with all the courage at command, he turned from the past and resolutely faced the future. But all was not dark in his new, Southern home. Like all other young fellows similarly situated he found moments in which to build air castles of fame and wealth ; and later, made up his mind that there was no virtue in either, and that all his heart craved was to make one little woman happy. While our young friend was engaged in the peaceful pursuits of love and pedagogy, the nation was in the greatest excitement over state ' s rights and slavery. Speeches had been made in the Senate, and the justness of each side had been proclaimed from platforms north and south. The pedagogue studied the questions at issue and the motives of those who made the arguments, and decided where his allegiance should be placed. The excitement grew intense and every one expected the catastrophe that came January 9, 1861. With the outbreak of war the fortune of Royal Hudson underwent another and more serious change. He had lived several years in the south and had grown in sym- pathy with southern life and thought. He saw the great questions of politics as southerners saw them ; and his honest, chivalrous nature revolted at the treatment his neighbors were given by northern politicians. And was he not a southerner despite the fact of northern birth ? Nothing but kindness had been shown him and he had been made the recipient of an hospitality unknown in other sections. Royal Hudson found presented to him two paths. One preserved his relatives and friends, but at the expense of what he thought right and just. The other course meant

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THE CLEMSON COLLEGE CHRONICLE. 345 loved ones as just punishment for the course that he had elected to pursue. But with the whitening hair and return of childhood — a blessing vouchsafed to old age — the feeling that inspired Goldsmith came over him : Where ' er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart, untroubled, fondly turns to thee. Dr. Hudson found the old homestead and many of his relatives and friends. His parents had long since passed to rest, and only a sister and a brother remained to greet him. His claim to be Royal Hudson was treated as absurd. Why, said his brother, Roy has been dead over twenty years ; he was killed in battle and lies buried in the family cemetery. Dr. Hudson proved to their satisfaction that he was their brother, and the reunion was complete. No word of reproach from either embittered its sweetness. He found some of his old college mates and they for- gave all the past and received him again to their hearts as one given from the dead. It was not so with Arthur Rembert. He could not recognize the slender, girlish boy in the sturdy gray haired man. Roy Hudson had no beard or gray hair, said Rem- bert unwilling to give up his old friend and recognize the stranger. Don ' t you expect a man ' s beard to grow and his hair to get gray? asked Dr. Hudson smiling. But, persisted Rembert, Roy went serenading with us, and-I knew all his secrets. Yes, I remember those serenades and the happiness we had and the love affairs of all the fellows. But, asserted Rembert, as convincing evidence, Roy could sing.