BOOK FOURTH — THE RETURN OF THE VANQUISHED
I. — THE RAGGED ARMY
The brigade had halted to gather rations in a corn field beside the road, and Dan, lying with his head in the shadow of a clump of sumach, hungrily regarded the “roasting ears” which Pinetop had just rolled in the ashes. A malarial fever, which he had contracted in the swamps of the Chickahominy, had wasted his vitality until he had begun to look like the mere shadow of himself; gaunt, unwashed, hollow-eyed, yet wearing his torn gray jacket and brimless cap as jauntily as he had once worn his embroidered waistcoats. His hand trembled as he reached out for his share of the green corn, but weakened as he was by sickness and starvation, the defiant humour shone all the clearer in his eyes. He had still the heart for a whistle, Bland had said last night, looking at him a little wistfully.
As he lay there, with the dusty sumach shrub above him, he saw the ragged army pushing on into the turnpike that led to Maryland. Lean, sun-scorched, half-clothed, dropping its stragglers like leaves upon the roadside, marching in borrowed rags, and fighting with the weapons of its enemies, dirty, fevered, choking with the hot dust of the turnpike—it still pressed onward, bending like a blade beneath Lee's hand. For this army of the sick, fighting slow agues, old wounds, and the sharp diseases that follow on green food, was becoming suddenly an army of invasion. The road led into Maryland, and the brigades swept into it, jesting like schoolboys on a frolic.
Dan, stretched exhausted beside the road, ate his ear of corn, and idly watched the regiment that was marching by—marching, not with the even tread of regular troops, but with scattered ranks and broken column, each man limping in worn-out shoes, at his own pace. They were not fancy soldiers, these men, he felt as he looked after them. They were not imposing upon the road, but when their chance came to fight, they would be very sure to take it. Here and there a man still carried his old squirrel musket, with a rusted skillet handle stuck into the barrel, but when before many days the skillet would be withdrawn, the load might be relied upon to wing straight home a little later. On wet nights those muskets would stand upright upon their bayonets, with muzzles in the earth, while the rain dripped off, and on dry days they would carry aloft the full property of the mess, which had dwindled to a frying pan and an old quart cup; though seldom cleaned, they were always fit for service—or if they went foul what was easier than to pick up a less trusty one upon the field. On the other side hung the blankets, tied at the ends and worn like a sling from the left shoulder. The haversack was gone and with it the knapsack and the overcoat. When a man wanted a change of linen he knelt down and washed his single shirt in the brook, sitting in the sun while it dried upon the bank. If it was long in drying he put it on, wet as it was, and ran ahead to fall in with his company. Where the discipline was easy, each infantryman might become his own commissary.
Dan finished his corn, threw the husks over his head, and sat up, looking idly at the irregular ranks. He was tired and sick, and after a short rest it seemed all the harder to get up and take the road again. As he sat there he began to bandy words with the sergeant of a Maryland regiment that was passing.
“Hello! what brigade?” called the sergeant in friendly tones. He looked fat and well fed, and Dan felt this to be good ground for resentment.
“General Straggler's brigade, but it's none of your business,” he promptly retorted.
“General Straggler has a pretty God-forsaken crew,” taunted the sergeant, looking back as he stepped on briskly. “I've seen his regiments lining the road clear up from Chantilly.”
“If you'd kept your fat eyes open at Manassas the other day, you'd have seen them lining the battle-field as well,” pursued Dan pleasantly, chewing a long green blade of corn. “Old Stonewall saw them, I'll be bound. If General Straggler didn't win that battle I'd like to know who did.”
“Oh, shucks!” responded the sergeant, and was out of hearing.
The regiment passed by and another took its place. “Was that General Lee you were yelling at down there, boys?” inquired Dan politely, smiling the smile of a man who sits by the roadside and sees another sweating on the march.
“Naw, that warn't Marse Robert,” replied a private, limping with bare feet over the border of dried grass. “'Twas a blamed, blank, bottomless well, that's what 'twas. I let my canteen down on a string and it never came back no mo'.”
Dan lowered his eyes, and critically regarded the tattered banner of the regiment, covered with the names of the battles over which it had hung unfurled. “Tennessee, aren't you?” he asked, following the flag.
The private shook his head, and stooped to remove a pebble from between his toes.
“Naw, we ain't from Tennessee,” he drawled. “We've had the measles—that's what's the matter with us.”
“You show it, by Jove,” said Dan, laughing. “Step quickly, if you please—this is the cleanest brigade in the army.”
“Huh!” exclaimed the private, eying them with contempt. “You look like it, don't you, sonny? Why, I'd ketch the mumps jest to look at sech a set o' rag-a-muffins!”
He went on, still grunting, while Dan rose to his feet and slung his blanket from his shoulder. “Look here, does anybody know where we're going anyway?” he asked of the blue sky.
“I seed General Jackson about two miles up,” replied a passing countryman, who had led his horse into the corn field. “Whoopee! he was going at a God-a'mighty pace, I tell you. If he keeps that up he'll be over the Potomac before sunset.”
“Then we are going into Maryland!” cried Jack Powell, jumping to his feet. “Hurrah for Maryland! We're going to Maryland, God bless her!”
The shouts passed down the road and the Maryland regiment in front sent back three rousing cheers.
“By Jove, I hope I'll find some shoes there,” said Dan, shaking the sand from his ragged boots, and twisting the shreds of his stockings about his feet. “I've had to punch holes in my soles and lace them with shoe strings to the upper leather, or they'd have dropped off long ago.”
“Well, I'll begin by making love to a seamstress when I'm over the Potomac,” remarked Welch, getting upon his feet. “I'm decidedly in need of a couple of patches.”
“You make love! You!” roared Jack Powell. “Why, you're the kind of thing they set up in Maryland to keep the crows away. Now if it were Beau, there, I see some sense in it—for, I'll be bound, he's slain more hearts than Yankees in this campaign. The women always drain out their last drop of buttermilk when he goes on a forage.”
“Oh, I don't set up to be a popinjay,” retorted Welch witheringly.
“Popinjay, the devil!” scowled Dan, “who's a popinjay?”
“Wall, I'd like a pair of good stout breeches,” peacefully interposed Pinetop. “I've been backin' up agin the fence when I seed a lady comin' for the last three weeks, an' whenever I set down, I'm plum feared to git up agin. What with all the other things,—the Yankees, and the chills, and the measles,—it's downright hard on a man to have to be a-feared of his own breeches.”
Dan looked round with sympathy. “That's true; it's a shame,” he admitted smiling. “Look here, boys, has anybody got an extra pair of breeches?”
A howl of derision went up from the regiment as it fell into ranks.
“Has anybody got a few grape-leaves to spare?” it demanded in a high chorus.
“Oh, shut up,” responded Dan promptly. “Come on, Pinetop, we'll clothe ourselves to-morrow.”
The brigade formed and swung off rapidly along the road, where the dust lay like gauze upon the sunshine. At the end of a mile somebody stopped and cried out excitedly. “Look here, boys, the persimmons on that tree over thar are gittin' 'mos fit to eat. I can see 'em turnin',” and with the words the column scattered like chaff across the field. But the first man to reach the tree came back with a wry face, and fell to swearing at “the darn fool who could eat persimmons before frost.”
“Thar's a tree in my yard that gits ripe about September,” remarked Pinetop, as he returned dejectedly across the waste. “Ma she begins to dry 'em 'fo' the frost sets in.”
“Oh, well, we'll get a square meal in the morning,” responded Dan, growing cheerful as he dreamed of hospitable Maryland.
Some hours later, in the warm dusk, they went into bivouac among the trees, and, in a little while, the campfires made a red glow upon the twilight.
Pinetop, with a wooden bucket on his arm, had plunged off in search of water, and Dan and Jack Powell were sent, in the interests of the mess, to forage through the surrounding country.
“There's a fat farmer about ten miles down, I saw him,” remarked a lazy smoker, by way of polite suggestion.
“Ten miles? Well, of all the confounded impudence,” retorted Jack, as he strolled off with Dan into the darkness.
For a time they walked in silence, depressed by hunger and the exhaustion of the march; then Dan broke into a whistle, and presently they found themselves walking in step with the merry air.
“Where are your thoughts, Beau?” asked Jack suddenly, turning to look at him by the faint starlight.
Dan's whistle stopped abruptly.
“On a dish of fried chicken and a pot of coffee,” he replied at once.
“What's become of the waffles?” demanded Jack indignantly. “I say, old man, do you remember the sinful waste on those blessed Christmas Eves at Chericoke? I've been trying to count the different kinds of meat—roast beef, roast pig, roast goose, roast turkey—”
“Hold your tongue, won't you?”
“Well, I was just thinking that if I ever reach home alive I'll deliver the Major a lecture on his extravagance.”
“It isn't the Major; it's grandma,” groaned Dan.
“Oh, that queen among women!” exclaimed Jack fervently; “but the wines are the Major's, I reckon,—it seems to me I recall some port of which he was vastly proud.”
Dan delivered a blow that sent Jack on his knees in the stubble of an old corn field.
“If you want to make me eat you, you're going straight about it,” he declared.
“Look out!” cried Jack, struggling to his feet, “there's a light over there among the trees,” and they walked on briskly up a narrow country lane which led, after several turnings, to a large frame house well hidden from the road.
In the doorway a woman was standing, with a lamp held above her head, and when she saw them she gave a little breathless call.
“Is that you, Jim?”
Dan went up the steps and stood, cap in hand, before her. The lamplight was full upon his ragged clothes and upon his pallid face with its strong high-bred lines of mouth and chin.
“I thought you were my husband,” said the woman, blushing at her mistake. “If you want food you are welcome to the little that I have—it is very little.” She led the way into the house, and motioned, with a pitiable gesture, to a table that was spread in the centre of the sitting room.
“Will you sit down?” she asked, and at the words, a child in the corner of the room set up a frightened cry.
“It's my supper—I want my supper,” wailed the child.
“Hush, dear,” said the woman, “they are our soldiers.”
“Our soldiers,” repeated the child, staring, with its thumb in its mouth and the tear-drops on its cheeks.
For an instant Dan looked at them as they stood there, the woman holding the child in her arms, and biting her thin lips from which hunger had drained all the red. There was scant food on the table, and as his gaze went back to it, it seemed to him that, for the first time, he grasped the full meaning of a war for the people of the soil. This was the real thing—not the waving banners, not the bayonets, not the fighting in the ranks.
His eyes were on the woman, and she smiled as all women did upon whom he looked in kindness.
“My dear madam, you have mistaken our purpose—we are not as hungry as we look,” he said, bowing in his ragged jacket. “We were sent merely to ask you if you were in need of a guard for your smokehouse. My Colonel hopes that you have not suffered at our hands.”
“There is nothing left,” replied the woman mystified, yet relieved. “There is nothing to guard except the children and myself, and we are safe, I think. Your Colonel is very kind—I thank him;” and as they went out she lighted them with her lamp from the front steps.
An hour later they returned to camp with aching limbs and empty hands.
“There's nothing above ground,” they reported, flinging themselves beside the fire, though the night was warm. “We've scoured the whole country and the Federals have licked it as clean as a plate before us. Bless my soul! what's that I smell? Is this heaven, boys?”
“Licked it clean, have they?” jeered the mess. “Well, they left a sheep anyhow loose somewhere. Beau's darky hadn't gone a hundred yards before he found one.”
“Big Abel? You don't say so?” whistled Dan, in astonishment, regarding the mutton suspended on ramrods above the coals.
“Well, suh, 'twuz des like dis,” explained Big Abel, poking the roast with a small stick. “I know I ain' got a bit a bus'ness ter shoot dat ar sheep wid my ole gun, but de sheep she ain' got no better bus'ness strayin' roun' loose needer. She sutney wuz a dang'ous sheep, dat she wuz. I 'uz des a-bleeged ter put a bullet in her haid er she'd er hed my blood sho'.”
As the shout went up he divided the legs of mutton into shares and went off to eat his own on the dark edge of the wood.
A little later he came back to hang Dan's cap and jacket on the branches of a young pine tree. When he had arranged them with elaborate care, he raked a bed of tags together, and covered them with an army blanket stamped in the centre with the half obliterated letters U. S.
“That's a good boy, Big Abel, go to sleep,” said Dan, flinging himself down upon the pine-tag bed. “Strange how much spirit a sheep can put into a man. I wouldn't run now if I saw Pope's whole army coming.”
Turning over he lay sleepily gazing into the blue dusk illuminated with the campfires which were slowly dying down. Around him he heard the subdued murmur of the mess, deep and full, though rising now and then into a clearer burst of laughter. The men were smoking their brier-root pipes about the embers, leaning against the dim bodies of the pines, while they discussed the incidents of the march with a touch of the unconquerable humour of the Confederate soldier. Somebody had a fresh joke on the quartermaster, and everybody hoped great things of the campaign into Maryland.
“I pray it may bring me a pair of shoes,” muttered Dan, as he dropped off into slumber.
The next day, with bands playing “Maryland, My Maryland,” and the Southern Cross taking the September wind, the ragged army waded the Potomac, and passed into other fields.
II. — A STRAGGLER FROM THE RANKS
In two weeks it swept back, wasted, stubborn, hungrier than ever. On a sultry September afternoon, Dan, who had gone down with a sharp return of fever, was brought, with a wagonful of the wounded, and placed on a heap of straw on the brick pavement of Shepherdstown. For two days he had been delirious, and Big Abel had held him to his bed during the long nights when the terrible silence seemed filled with the noise of battle; but, as he was lifted from the wagon and laid upon the sidewalk, he opened his eyes and spoke in a natural voice.
“What's all this fuss, Big Abel? Have I been out of my head?”
“You sutney has, suh. You've been a-prayin' en shoutin' so loud dese las' tree days dat I wunner de Lawd ain' done shet yo' mouf des ter git rid er you.”
“Praying, have I?” said Dan. “Well, I declare. That reminds me of Mr. Blake, Big Abel. I'd like to know what's become of him.”
Big Abel shook his head; he was in no pleasant humour, for the corners of his mouth were drawn tightly down and there was a rut between his bushy eyebrows.
“I nuver seed no sich place es dis yer town in all my lifetime,” he grumbled. “Dey des let us lie roun' loose on de bricks same es ef we ain' been fittin' fur 'em twel we ain' nuttin' but skin en bone. Dose two wagon loads er cut-up sodgers hev done fill de houses so plum full dat dey sticks spang thoo de cracks er de do's. Don' talk ter me, suh, I ain' got no use fur dis wah, noways, caze hit's a low-lifeted one, dat's what 'tis; en ef you'd a min' w'at I tell you, you'd be settin' up at home right dis minute wid ole Miss a-feedin' you on br'ile chicken. You may fit all you wanter—I ain' sayin' nuttin' agin yo' fittin ef yo' spleen hit's up—but you could er foun' somebody ter fit wid back at home widout comin' out hyer ter git yo'se'f a-jumbled up wid all de po' white trash in de county. Dis yer wah ain' de kin' I'se use ter, caze hit jumbles de quality en de trash tergedder des like dey wuz bo'n blood kin.”
“What are you muttering about now, Big Abel?” broke in Dan impatiently. “For heaven's sake stop and find me a bed to lie on. Are they going to leave me out here in the street on this pile of straw?”
“De Lawd he knows,” hopelessly responded Big Abel. “Dey's a-fixin' places, dey sez, dat's why all dese folks is a-runnin' dis away en dat away like chickens wid dere haids chopped off. 'Fo' you hed yo' sense back dey wanted ter stick you over yonder in dat ole blue shanty wid all de skin peelin' off hit, but I des put my foot right down en 'lowed dey 'ouldn't. W'at you wan' ketch mo'n you got fur?”
“But I can't stay here,” weakly remonstrated Dan, “and I must have something to eat—I tell you I could eat nails. Bring me anything on God's earth except green corn.”
The street was filled with women, and one of them, passing with a bowl of gruel in her hand, came back and held it to his lips.
“You poor fellow!” she said impulsively, in a voice that was rich with sympathy. “Why, I don't believe you've had a bite for a month.”
Dan smiled at her from his heap of straw—an unkempt haggard figure.
“Not from so sweet a hand,” he responded, his old spirit rising strong above misfortune.
His voice held her, and she regarded him with a pensive face. She had known men in her day, which had declined long since toward its evening, and with the unerring instinct of her race she knew that the one before her was well worth the saving. Gallantry that could afford to jest in rags upon a pile of straw appealed to her Southern blood as little short of the heroic. She saw the pinch of hunger about the mouth, and she saw, too, the singular beauty which lay, obscured to less keen eyes, beneath the fever and the dirt.
“The march must have been fearful—I couldn't have stood it,” she said, half to test the man.
Rising to the challenge, he laughed outright. “Well, since you mention it, it wasn't just the thing for a lady,” he answered, true to his salt.
For a moment she looked at him in silence, then turned regretfully to Big Abel.
“The houses have filled up already, I believe,” she said, “but there is a nice dry stable up the street which has just been cleaned out for a hospital. Carry your master up the next square and then into the alley a few steps where you will find a physician. I am going now for food and bandages.”
She hurried on, and Big Abel, seizing Dan beneath the arms, dragged him breathlessly along the street.
“A stable! Huh! Hit's a wunner dey ain' ax us ter step right inter a nice clean pig pen,” he muttered as he walked on rapidly.
“Oh, I don't mind the stable, but this pace will kill me,” groaned Dan. “Not so fast, Big Abel, not so fast.”
“Dis yer ain' no time to poke,” replied Big Abel, sternly, and lifting the young man in his arms, he carried him bodily into the stable and laid him on a clean-smelling bed of straw. The place was large and well lighted, and Dan, as he turned over, heaved a grateful sigh.
“Let me sleep—only let me sleep,” he implored weakly.
And for two days he slept, despite the noise about him. Dressed in clean clothes, brought by the lady of the morning, and shaved by the skilful hand of Big Abel, he buried himself in the fresh straw and dreamed of Chericoke and Betty. The coil of battle swept far from him; he heard none of the fret and rumour that filled the little street; even the moans of the men beneath the surgeons' knives did not penetrate to where he lay sunk in the stupor of perfect contentment. It was not until the morning of the third day, when the winds that blew over the Potomac brought the sounds of battle, that he was shocked back into a troubled consciousness of his absence from the army. Then he heard the voices of the guns calling to him from across the river, and once or twice he struggled up to answer.
“I must go, Big Abel—they are in need of me,” he said. “Listen! don't you hear them calling?”
“Go way f'om yer, Marse Dan, dey's des a-firin' at one anurr,” returned Big Abel, but Dan still tossed impatiently, his strained eyes searching through the door into the cloudy light of the alley. It was a sombre day, and the oppressive atmosphere seemed heavy with the smoke of battle.
“If I only knew how it was going,” he murmured, in the anguish of uncertainty. “Hush! isn't that a cheer, Big Abel?”
“I don' heah nuttin' but de crowin' er a rooster on de fence.”
“There it is again!” cried Dan, starting up. “I can swear it is our side. Listen—go to the door—by God, man, that's our yell! Ah, there comes the rattle of the muskets—don't you hear it?”
“Lawd, Marse Dan, I'se done hyern dat soun' twel I'm plum sick er it,” responded Big Abel, carefully measuring out a dose of arsenic, which had taken the place of quinine in a country where medicine was becoming as scarce as food. “You des swallow dis yer stuff right down en tu'n over en go fas' asleep agin.”
Taking the glass with trembling hands, Dan drained it eagerly.
“It's the artillery now,” he said, quivering with excitement. “The explosions come so fast I can hardly separate them. I never knew how long shells could screech before—do you mean to say they are really across the river? Go into the alley, Big Abel, and tell me if you see the smoke.”
Big Abel went out and returned, after a few moments, with the news that the smoke could be plainly seen, he was told, from the upper stories. There was such a crowd in the street, he added, that he could barely get along—nobody knew anything, but the wounded, who were arriving in great numbers, reported that General Lee could hold his ground “against Lucifer and all his angels.”
“Hold his ground,” groaned Dan, with feverish enthusiasm, “why, he could hold a hencoop, for the matter of that, against the whole of North America! Oh, but this is worse than fighting. I must get up!”
“You don' wanter git out dar in dat mess er skeered rabbits,” returned Big Abel. “You cyarn see yo' han' befo' you fur de way dey's w'igglin' roun' de street, en w'at's mo' you cyarn heah yo' own w'uds fur de racket dey's a-kickin' up. Des lis'en ter 'em now, des lis'en!”
“Oh, I wish I could tell our guns,” murmured Dan at each quick explosion. “Hush! there comes the cheer, now—somebody's charging! It may be our brigade, Big Abel, and I not in it.”
He closed his eyes and fell back from sheer exhaustion, still following, as he lay there, the battalion that had sprung forward with that charging yell. Gray, obscured in smoke, curved in the centre, uneven as the Confederate line of battle always was—he saw it sweep onward over the September field. At the moment to have had his place in that charge beyond the river, he would have cheerfully met his death when the day was over.
Through the night he slept fitfully, awaking from time to time to ask eagerly if it were not almost daybreak; then with the dawn the silence that had fallen over the Potomac seemed to leave a greater blank to be filled with the noises along the Virginia shore. The hurrying footsteps in the street outside kept up ceaselessly until the dark again; mingled with the cries of the wounded and the prayers of the frightened he heard always that eager, tireless passing of many feet. So familiar it became, so constant an accompaniment to his restless thoughts, that when at last the day wore out and the streets grew empty, he found himself listening for the steps of a passer-by as intently as he had listened in the morning for the renewed clamour of the battle on the Maryland fields.
The stir of the retreat did not reach the stable where he lay; all night the army was recrossing the Potomac, but to Dan, tossing on his bed of straw, it lighted the victor's watch-fires on the disputed ground. He had not seen the shattered line of battle as it faced disease, exhaustion, and an army stronger by double numbers, nor had he seen the gray soldiers lying row on row where they had kept the “sunken road.” Thick as the trampled corn beneath them, with the dust covering them like powder, and the scattered fence rails lying across their faces, the dead men of his own brigade were stretched upon the hillside, but through the long night he lay wakeful in the stable, watching with fevered eyes the tallow dips that burned dimly on the wall.
In the morning a nurse, coming with a bowl of soup, brought the news that Lee's army was again on Virginia soil.
“McClellan has opened a battery,” she explained, “that's the meaning of this fearful noise—did you ever hear such sounds in your life? Yes, the shells are flying over the town, but they've done no harm as yet.”
She hastened off, and a little later a dishevelled straggler, with a cloth about his forehead, burst in at the open door.
“They're shelling the town,” he cried, waving a dirty hand, “an' you'll be prisoners in an hour if you don't git up and move. The Yankees are comin', I seed 'em cross the river. Lee's cut up, I tell you, he's left half his army dead in Maryland. Thar! they're shellin' the town, sho' 'nough!”
With a last wave he disappeared into the alley, and Dan struggled from his bed and to the door. “Give me your arm, Big Abel,” he said, speaking in a loud voice that he might be heard above the clamour. “I can't stay here. It isn't being killed I mind, but, by God, they'll never take me prisoner so long as I'm alive. Come here and give me your arm. You aren't afraid to go out, are you?”
“Lawd, Marse Dan, I'se mo' feared ter stay hyer,” responded Big Abel, with an ashen face. “Whar we gwine hide, anyhow?”
“We won't hide, we'll run,” returned Dan gravely, and with his arm on the negro's shoulder, he passed through the alley out into the street. There the noise bewildered him an instant, and his eyes went blind while he grasped Big Abel's sleeve.
“Wait a minute, I can't see,” he said. “Now, that's right, go on. By George, it's bedlam turned loose, let's get out of it!”
“Dis away, Marse Dan, dis away, step right hyer,” urged Big Abel, as he slipped through the hurrying crowd of fugitives which packed the street. White and black, men and women, sick and well, they swarmed up and down in the dim sunshine beneath the flying shells, which skimmed the town to explode in the open fields beyond. The wounded were there—all who could stand upon their feet or walk with the aid of crutches—stumbling on in a mad panic to the meadows where the shells burst or the hot sun poured upon festering cuts. Streaming in noisy groups, the slaves fled after them, praying, shrieking, calling out that the day of judgment was upon them, yet bearing upon their heads whatever they could readily lay hands on—bundles, baskets, babies, and even clucking fowls tied by the legs. Behind them went a troop of dogs, piercing the tumult with excited barks.
Dan, fevered, pallid, leaning heavily upon Big Abel, passed unnoticed amid a throng which was, for the most part, worse off than himself. Men with old wounds breaking out afresh, or new ones staining red the cloths they wore, pushed wildly by him, making, as all made, for the country roads that led from war to peace. It was as if the hospitals of the world had disgorged themselves in the sunshine on the bright September fields.
Once, as Dan moved slowly on, he came upon a soldier, with a bandage at his throat sitting motionless upon a rock beside a clump of thistles, and moved by the expression of supreme terror on the man's face, he stopped and laid a hand upon his shoulder.
“What's the trouble, friend—given up?” he asked, and then drew back quickly for the man was dead. After this they went on more rapidly, flying from the horrors along the road as from the screaming shells and the dread of capture.
At the hour of sunset, after many halts upon the way, they found themselves alone and still facing the open road. Since midday they had stopped for dinner with a hospitable farmer, and, some hours later, Big Abel had feasted on wild grapes, which he had found hidden in the shelter of a little wood. In the same wood a stream had tinkled over silver rocks, and Dan, lying upon the bank of moss, had bathed his face and hands in the clear water. Now, while the shadows fell in spires across the road, they turned into a quiet country lane, and stood watching the sun as it dropped beyond the gray stone wall. In the grass a small insect broke into a low humming, and the silence, closing the next instant, struck upon Dan's ears like a profound and solemn melody. He took off his cap, and still leaning upon Big Abel, looked with rested eyes on the sloping meadow brushed with the first gold of autumn. Something that was not unlike shame had fallen over him—as if the horrors of the morning were a mere vulgar affront which man had put upon the face of nature. The very anguish of the day obtruded awkwardly upon his thoughts, and the wild clamour he had left behind him showed with a savage crudeness against a landscape in which the dignity of earth—of the fruitful life of seasons and of crops—produced in a solitary observer a quiet that was not untouched by awe. Where nature was suggestive of the long repose of ages, the brief passions of a single generation became as the flicker of a candle or the glow of a firefly in the night.
“Dat's a steep road ahead er us,” remarked Big Abel suddenly, as he stared into the shadows.
Dan came back with a start.
“Where shall we sleep?” he asked. “No, not in that field—the open sky would keep me awake, I think. Let's bivouac in the woods as usual.”
They moved on a little way and entered a young pine forest, where Big Abel gathered a handful of branches and kindled a light blaze.
“You ain' never eat nigger food, is you, Marse Dan?” he inquired as he did so.
“Good Lord!” ejaculated Dan, “ask a man who has lived two months on corn-field peas if he's eaten hog food, and he'll be pretty sure to answer 'yes.' Do you know we must have crawled about six miles to-day.” He lay back on the pine tags and stared straight above where the long green needles were illuminated on a background of purple space. A few fireflies made golden points among the tree-tops.
“Well, I'se got a hunk er middlin',” pursued Big Abel thoughtfully, “a strip er fat en a strip er lean des like hit oughter be—but a nigger 'ooman she gun hit ter me, en I 'low Ole Marster wouldn't tech hit wid a ten-foot pole.” He stuck the meat upon the end of Dan's bayonet and held it before the flames. “Ole Marster wouldn't tech hit, but den he ain' never had dese times.”
“You're right,” replied Dan idly, filling his pipe and lighting it with a small red ember, “and all things considered, I don't think I'll raise any racket about that middling, Big Abel.”
“Hit ain' all nigger food, no how,” added Big Abel reflectively, “caze de 'ooman she done steal it f'om w'ite folks sho's you bo'n.”
“I only wish she had been tempted to steal some bread along with it,” rejoined Dan.
Big Abel's answer was to draw a hoecake wrapped in an old newspaper from his pocket and place it on a short pine stump. Then he reached for his jack-knife and carefully slit the hoecake down the centre, after which he laid the bacon in slices between the crusts.
“Did she steal that, too?” inquired Dan laughing.
“Naw, suh, I stole dis.”
“Well, I never! You'll be ashamed to look the Major in the face when the war is over.”
Big Abel nodded gloomily as he passed the sandwich to Dan, who divided it into two equal portions. “Dar's somebody got ter do de stealin' in dis yer worl',” he returned with rustic philosophy, “des es dar's somebody got ter be w'ite folks en somebody got ter be nigger, caze de same pusson cyarn be ner en ter dat's sho'. Dar ain' 'oom fer all de yerth ter strut roun' wid dey han's in dey pockets en dey nose tu'nt up des caze dey's hones'. Lawd, Lawd, ef I'd a-helt my han's back f'om pickin' en stealin' thoo dis yer wah, whar 'ould you be now—I ax you dat?”
Catching a dried branch the flame shot up suddenly, and he sat relieved against the glow, like a gigantic statue in black basalt.
“Well, all's fair in love and war,” replied Dan, adjusting himself to changed conditions. “If that wasn't as true as gospel, I should be dead to-morrow from this fat bacon.”
Big Abel started up.
“Lis'en ter dat ole hoot owl,” he exclaimed excitedly, “he's a-settin' right over dar on dat dead limb a-hootin' us plum in de mouf. Ain' dat like 'em, now? Is you ever seed sech airs as dey put on?”
He strode off into the darkness, and Dan, seized with a sudden homesickness for the army, lay down beside his musket and fell asleep.
III. — THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
At daybreak they took up the march again, Dan walking slowly, with his musket striking the ground and his arm on Big Abel's shoulder. Where the lane curved in the hollow, they came upon a white cottage, with a woman milking a spotted cow in the barnyard. As she caught sight of them, she waved wildly with her linsey apron, holding the milk pail carefully between her feet as the spotted cow turned inquiringly.
“Go 'way, I don't want no stragglers here,” she cried, as one having authority.
Leaning upon the fence, Dan placidly regarded her.
“My dear madam, you commit an error of judgment,” he replied, pausing to argue.
With the cow's udder in her hand the woman looked up from the streaming milk.
“Well, ain't you stragglers?” she inquired.
Dan shook his head reproachfully.
“What air you, then?”
“Beggars, madam.”
“I might ha' knowed it!” returned the woman, with a snort. “Well, whatever you air, you kin jest as eas'ly keep on along that thar road. I ain't got nothing on this place for you. Some of you broke into my smokehouse night befo' last an' stole all the spar' ribs I'd been savin'. Was you the ones?”
“No, ma'am.”
“Oh, you're all alike,” protested the woman, scornfully, “an' a bigger set o' rascals I never seed.”
“Huh! Who's a rascal?” exclaimed Big Abel, angrily.
“This is the reward of doing your duty, Big Abel,” remarked Dan, gravely. “Never do it again, remember. The next time Virginia is invaded we'll sit by the fire and warm our feet. Good morning, madam.”
“Why ain't you with the army?” inquired the woman sharply, slapping the cow upon the side as she rose from her seat and took up the milk pail. “An officer rode by this morning an' he told me part of the army was campin' ten miles across on the other road.”
“Did he say whose division?”
“Oh, I reckon you kin fight as well under one general as another, so long as you've got a mind to fight at all. You jest follow this lane about three miles and then keep straight along the turnpike. If you do that I reckon you'll git yo' deserts befo' sundown.” She came over to the fence and stood fixing them with hard, bright eyes. “My! You do look used up,” she admitted after a moment. “You'd better come in an' git a glass of this milk befo' you move on. Jest go roun' to the gate and I'll meet you at the po'ch. The dog won't bite you if you don't touch nothin'.”
“All right, go ahead and hide the spoons,” called Dan, as he swung open the gate and went up a little path bordered by prince's feathers.
The woman met them at the porch and led them into a clean kitchen, where Dan sat down at the table and Big Abel stationed himself behind his chair.
“Drink a glass of that milk the first thing,” she said, bustling heavily about the room, and browbeating them into submissive silence, while she mixed the biscuits and broke the eggs into a frying-pan greased with bacon gravy. Plump, hearty, with a full double chin and cheeks like winter apples, she moved briskly from the wooden safe to the slow fire, which she stirred with determined gestures.
“It's time this war had stopped, anyhow,” she remarked as she slapped the eggs up into the air and back again into the pan. “An' if General Lee ever rides along this way I mean to tell him that he ought to have one good battle an' be done with it. Thar's no use piddlin' along like this twil we're all worn out and thar ain't a corn-field pea left in Virginny. Look here (to Big Abel), you set right down on that do' step an' I'll give you something along with yo' marster. It's a good thing I happened to look under the cow trough yestiddy or thar wouldn't have been an egg left in this house. That's right, turn right in an' eat hearty—don't mince with me.” Big Abel, cowed by her energetic manner, seated himself upon the door step, and for a half-hour the woman ceaselessly plied them with hot biscuits and coffee made from sweet potatoes.
“You mustn't think I mind doing for the soldiers,” she said when they took their leave a little later, “but I've a husban' with General Lee and I can't bear to see able-bodied men stragglin' about the country. No, don't give me nothin'—it ain't worth it. Lord, don't I know that you don't git enough to buy a bag of flour.” Then she pointed out the way again and they set off with a well-filled paper of luncheon.
“Beware of hasty judgments, Big Abel,” advised Dan, as they strolled along the road. “Now that woman there—she's the right sort, though she rather took my breath away.”
“She 'uz downright ficy at fu'st,” replied Big Abel, “but I d'clar dose eggs des melted in my mouf like butter. Whew! don't I wish I had dat ole speckled hen f'om home. I could hev toted her unner my arm thoo dis wah des es well es not.”
The sun was well overhead, and across the landscape the heavy dew was lifted like a veil. Here and there the autumn foliage tinted the woods in splashes of red and yellow; and beyond the low stone wall an old sheep pasture was ablaze in goldenrod. From a pointed aspen beside the road a wild grapevine let down a fringe of purple clusters, but Big Abel, with a full stomach, passed them by indifferently. A huge buzzard, rising suddenly from the pasture, sailed slowly across the sky, its heavy shadow skimming the field beneath. As yet the flames of war had not blown over this quiet spot; in the early morning dew it lay as fresh as the world in its beginning.
At the end of the lane, when they came out upon the turnpike, they met an old farmer riding a mule home from the market.
“Can you tell me if McClellan has crossed the Potomac?” asked Dan, as he came up with him. “I was in the hospital at Shepherdstown, and I left it for fear of capture. No news has reached me, but I am on my way to rejoin the army.”
“Naw, suh, you might as well have stayed whar you were,” responded the old man, eying him with the suspicion which always met a soldier out of ranks. “McClellan didn't do no harm on this side of the river—he jest set up a battery on Douglas hill and scolded General Lee for leaving Maryland so soon. You needn't worry no mo' 'bout the Yankees gittin' on this side—thar ain't none of 'em left to come, they're all dead. Why, General Lee cut 'em all up into little pieces, that's what he did. Hooray! it was jest like Bible times come back agin.”
Then, as Dan moved on, the farmer raised himself in his stirrups and called loudly after him. “Keep to the Scriptures, young man, and remember Joshua, Smite them hip an' thigh, as the Bible says.”
All day in the bright sunshine they crept slowly onward, halting at brief intervals to rest in the short grass by the roadside, and stopping to ask information of the countrymen or stragglers whom they met. At last in the red glow of the sunset they entered a strip of thin woodland, and found an old negro gathering resinous knots from the bodies of fallen pines.
“Bless de Lawd!” he exclaimed as he faced them. “Is you done come fer de sick sodger at my cabin?”
“A sick soldier? Why, we are all sick soldiers,” answered Dan. “Where did he come from?” The old man shook his head, as he placed his heavy split basket on the ground at his feet.
“I dunno, marster, he ain' come, he des drapped. 'Twuz yestiddy en I 'uz out hyer pickin' up dis yer lightwood des like I is doin' dis minute, w'en I heah 'a-bookerty! bookerty! bookerty!' out dar in de road 'en a w'ite hoss tu'n right inter de woods wid a sick sodger a-hangin' ter de saddle. Yes, suh, de hoss he come right in des like he knowed me, en w'en I helt out my han' he poke his nose spang inter it en w'innied like he moughty glad ter see me—en he wuz, too, dat's sho'. Well, I ketch holt er his bridle en lead 'im thoo de woods up ter my do' whar he tu'n right in en begin ter nibble in de patch er kebbage. All dis time I 'uz 'lowin' dat de sodger wuz stone dead, but w'en I took 'im down he opened his eyes en axed fur water. Den I gun 'im a drink outer de goa'd en laid 'im flat on my bed, en in a little w'ile a nigger come by dat sez he b'longed ter 'im, but befo' day de nigger gone agin en de hoss he gone, too.”
“Well, we'll see about him, uncle, go ahead,” said Dan, and as the old negro went up the path among the trees, he followed closely on his footsteps. When they had gone a little way the woods opened suddenly and they came upon a small log cabin, with a yellow dog lying before the door. The dog barked shrilly as they approached, and a voice from the dim room beyond called out:—
“Hosea! Are you back so soon, Hosea?”
At the words Dan stopped as if struck by lightning, midway of the vegetable garden; then breaking from Big Abel, he ran forward and into the little cabin.
“Is the hurt bad, Governor?” he asked in a trembling voice.
The Governor smiled and held out a steady hand above the ragged patchwork quilt. His neat gray coat lay over him and as Dan caught the glitter and the collar he remembered the promotion after Seven Pines.
“Let me help you, General,” he implored. “What is it that we can do?”
“I have come to the end, my boy,” replied the Governor, his rich voice unshaken. “I have seen men struck like this before and I have lived twelve hours longer than the strongest of them. When I could go no farther I sent Hosea ahead to make things ready—and now I am keeping alive to hear from home. Give me water.”
Dan held the glass to his lips, and looking up, the Governor thanked him with his old warm glance that was so like Betty's. “There are some things that are worth fighting for,” said the older man as he fell back, “and the sight of home is one of them. It was a hard ride, but every stab of pain carried me nearer to Uplands—and there are poor fellows who endure worse things and yet die in a strange land among strangers.” He was silent a moment and then spoke slowly, smiling a little sadly.
“My memory has failed me,” he said, “and when I lay here last night and tried to recall the look of the lawn at home, I couldn't remember—I couldn't remember. Are there elms or maples at the front, Dan?”
“Maples, sir,” replied Dan, with the deference of a boy. “The long walk bordered by lilacs goes up from the road to the portico with the Doric columns—you remember that?”
“Yes, yes, go on.”
“The maples have grown thick upon the lawn and close beside the house there is the mimosa tree that your father set out on his twenty-first birthday.”
“The branches touch the library window. I had them trimmed last year that the shutters might swing back. What time is it, Dan?”
Dan turned to the door.
“What time is it, Big Abel?” he called to the negro outside.
“Hit's goin' on eight o'clock, suh,” replied Big Abel, staring at the west. “De little star he shoots up moughty near eight, en dar he is a-comin'.”
“Hosea is there by now,” said the Governor, turning his head on a pillow of pine needles. “He started this morning, and I told him to change horses upon the road and eat in the saddle. Yes, he is there by now and Julia is on the way. Am I growing weaker, do you think? There is a little brandy on the chair, give me a few drops—we must make it last all night.”
After taking the brandy he slept a little, and awaking quietly, looked at Dan with dazed eyes.
“Who is it?” he asked, stretching out his hand. “Why, I thought Dick Wythe was dead.”
Dan bent over him, smoothing the hair from his brow with hands that were gentle as a woman's.
“Surely you haven't forgotten me,” he said.
“No—no, I remember, but it is dark, too dark. Why doesn't Shadrach bring the candles? And we might as well have a blaze in the fireplace to-night. It has grown chilly; there'll be a white frost before morning.”
There was a basket of resinous pine beside the hearth, and Dan kindled a fire from a handful of rich knots. As the flames shot up, the rough little cabin grew more cheerful, and the Governor laughed softly lying on his pallet.
“Why, I thought you were Dick Wythe, my boy,” he said. “The light was so dim I couldn't see, and, after all, it was no great harm, for there was not a handsomer man in the state than my friend Dick—the ladies used to call him 'Apollo Unarmed,' you know. Ah, I was jealous enough of Dick in my day, though he never knew it. He rather took Julia's fancy when I first began courting her, and, for a time, he pretended to reform and refused to touch a drop even at the table. I've seen him sit for hours, too, in Julia's Bible class of little negroes, with his eyes positively glued on her face while she read the hymns aloud. Yes, he was over head and ears in love with her, there's no doubt of that—though she has always denied it—and, I dare say, he would have been a much better man if she had married him, and I a much worse one. Somehow, I can't help feeling that it wasn't quite just, and that I ought to square up things with Dick at Judgment Day. I shouldn't like to reap any good from his mistakes, poor fellow.” He broke off for an instant, lay gazing at the lightwood blaze, and then took up the thread. “He had his fall at last, and it's been on my conscience ever since that I didn't toss that bowl of apple toddy through the window when I saw him going towards it. We were at Chericoke on Christmas Eve in a big snowstorm, and Dick couldn't resist his glass—he never could so long as there was a drop at the bottom of it—the more he drank, the thirstier he got, he used to say. Well, he took a good deal, more than he could stand, and when the Major began toasting the ladies and called them the prettiest things God ever made, Dick flew into a rage and tried to fight him. 'There are two prettier sights than any woman that ever wore petticoats,' he thundered; 'and (here he ripped out an oath) I'll prove it to you at the sword's point before sunrise. God made but one thing, sir, prettier than the cobwebs on a bottle of wine, and that's the bottle of wine without the cobwebs!' Then he went at the Major, and we had to hold him back and rub snow on his temples. That night I drove home with Julia, and she accepted me before we passed the wild cherry tree on the way to Uplands.”
As he fell silent the old negro, treading softly, came into the room and made the preparations for his simple supper, which he carried outside beneath the trees. In a little bared place amid charred wood, a fire was started, and Dan watched through the open doorway the stooping figures of the two negroes as they bent beside the flames. In a little while Big Abel came into the room and beckoned him, but he shook his head impatiently and turned away, sickened by the thought of food.
“Go, my boy,” said the Governor, as if he had seen it through closed eyes. “I never saw a private yet that wasn't hungry—one told me last week that his diet for a year had varied only three times—blackberries, chinquapins, and persimmons had kept him alive, he said.”
Then his mind wandered again, and he talked in a low voice of the wheat fields at Uplands and of the cradles swinging all day in the sunshine. Dan, moving to the door, stared, with aching eyes, at the rich twilight which crept like purple mist among the trees. The very quiet of the scene grated as a discord upon his mood, and he would have welcomed with a feeling of relief any violent manifestation of the savagery of nature. A storm, an earthquake, even the thunder of battle he felt would be less tragic than just this pleasant evening with the serene moon rising above the hills.
Turning back into the room, he drew a split-bottomed chair beside the hearth, and began his patient watch until the daybreak. Under the patchwork quilt the Governor lay motionless, dead from the waist down, only the desire in his eyes struggling to keep the spirit to the clay. Big Abel and the old negro made themselves a bed beneath the trees, and as they raked the dried leaves together the mournful rustling filled the little cabin. Then they lay down, the yellow dog beside them, and gradually the silence of the night closed in.
After midnight, Dan, who had dozed in his chair from weariness, was awakened by the excited tones of the Governor's voice. The desire was vanquished at last and the dying man had gone back in delirium to the battle he had fought beyond the river. On the hearth the resinous pine still blazed and from somewhere among the stones came the short chirp of a cricket.
“Oh, it's nothing—a mere scratch. Lay me beneath that tree, and tell Barnes to support D. H. Hill at the sunken road. Richardson is charging us across the ploughed ground and we are fighting from behind the stacked fence rails. Ah, they advance well, those Federals—not a man out of line, and their fire has cut the corn down as with a sickle. If Richardson keeps this up, he will sweep us from the wood and beyond the slope. No, don't take me to the hospital. Please God, I'll die upon the field and hear the cannon at the end. Look! they are charging again, but we still hold our ground. What, Longstreet giving way? They are forcing him from the ridge—the enemy hold it now! Ah, well, there is A. P. Hill to give the counter stroke. If he falls upon their flank, the day is—”
His voice ceased, and Dan, crossing the room, gave him brandy from the glass upon the chair. The silence had grown suddenly oppressive, and as the young man went back to his seat, he saw a little mouse gliding like a shadow across the floor. Startled by his footsteps, it hesitated an instant in the centre of the room, and then darted along the wall and disappeared between the loose logs in the corner. Often during the night it crept out from its hiding place, and at last Dan grew to look for it with a certain wistful comfort in its shy companionship.
Gradually the stars went out above the dim woods, and the dawn whitened along the eastern sky. With the first light Dan went to the open door and drew a deep breath of the refreshing air. A new day was coming, but he met it with dulled eyes and a crippled will. The tragedy of life seemed to overhang the pleasant prospect upon which he looked, and, as he stood there, he saw in his vision of the future only an endless warfare and a wasted land. With a start he turned, for the Governor was speaking in a voice that filled the cabin and rang out into the woods.
“Skirmishers, forward! Second the battalion of direction! Battalions, forward!”
He had risen upon his pallet and was pointing straight at the open door, but when, with a single stride, Dan reached him, he was already dead.