"Yes," said Margaret. "But there are great flashes of light through it, Judith."

They were walking beneath linden trees, fragrant, and filled with murmurous sound. The street here was quiet; only a few passing people. As the two approached the corner there turned it a slight figure, a girl dressed in homespun with a blue sunbonnet. In her hands was a cheap carpet-bag, covered with roses and pansies. She looked tired and discouraged, and she set the carpet-bag down on the worn brick pavement and waited until the two ladies came near. "Please, could you tell me—" she began in a soft, drawling voice, which broke suddenly. "Oh, it's Mrs. Cleave! it's Mrs. Cleave!—Oh! oh!"

"Christianna Maydew!—Why, Christianna!"

Christianna was crying, though evidently they were joyful tears. "I—I was so frightened in this lonely place!—an'—an' Thunder Run's so far away—an'—an' Billy an' Pap an' Dave aren't here, after all—an' I never saw so many strange people—an' then I saw you—oh! oh!"

So brushed aside in this war city were all unnecessary conventions, that the three sat down quite naturally upon a wide church step. An old and wrinkled nurse, in a turban like a red tulip, made room for them, moving aside a perambulator holding a sleeping babe. "F'om de mountains, ain' she, ma'am? She oughter stayed up dar close ter Hebben!"

Christianna dried her eyes. Her sunbonnet had fallen back. She looked like a wild rose dashed with dew. "I am such a fool to cry!" said Christianna. "I ought to be laughin' an' clappin' my hands. I reckon I'm tired. Streets are so hard an' straight, an' there's such a terrible number of houses."

"How did you come, Christianna, and when, and why?"

"It was this a-way," began Christianna, with the long mountain day before her. "It air so lonesome on Thunder Run, with Pap gone, an' Dave gone, an' Billy gone, an'—an' Billy gone. An' the one next to me, she's grown up quick this year, an' she helps mother a lot. She planted," said Christianna, with soft pride, "she planted the steep hillside with corn this spring—yes, Violetta did that!"

"And so you thought—"

"An' Pap has—had—a cousin in Richmond. Nanny Pine is her name. An' she used to live on Thunder Run, long ago, an' she wasn't like the rest of the Maydews, but had lots of sense, an' she up one mahnin', mother says, an' took her foot in her hand, an' the people gave her lifts through the country, an' she came to Richmond an' learned millinery—"

"Millinery!"

"Yes'm. To put roses an' ribbons on bonnets. An' she married here, a man named Oak, an' she wrote back to Thunder Run, to mother, a real pretty letter, an' mother took it to Mr. Cole at the tollgate (it was long ago, before we children went to school) an' Mr. Cole read it to her, an' it said that she had now a shop of her own, an' if ever any Thunder Run people came to Richmond to come right straight to her. An' so—"

"And you couldn't find her?"

"An' so, last week, I was spinning. An' I walked up an' down, an' the sun was shining, clear and steady, an' I could see out of the door, an' there wasn't a sound, an' there wa'n't anything moved. An' it was as though God Almighty had made a ball of gold with green trees on it and had thrown it away, away! higher than the moon, an' had left it there with nothin' on it but a dronin', dronin' wheel. An' it was like the world was where the armies are. An' it was like I had to get there somehow, an' see Pap again an' Dave an' Billy an'—an' see Billy. There wa'n't no help for it; it was like I had to go. An' I stopped the wheel, an' I said to mother, 'I am going where the armies are.' An' she says to me, she says, 'You don't know where they are.' An' I says to her, I says, 'I'll find out.' An' I took my sunbonnet, an' I went down the mountain to the tollgate and asked Mr. Cole. An' he had a letter from—from Mr. Gold—"

"Oh!" thought Margaret. "It is Allan Gold!"

"An' he read it to me, an' it said that not a man knew, but that he thought the army was goin' to Richmond an' that there would be terrible fightin' if it did. An' I went back up the mountain, an' I said to mother, 'Violetta can do most as much as I can now, an' I am goin' to Richmond where the army's goin'. I am goin' to see Pap an' Dave an'—an' Billy, an' I am goin' to stay with Cousin Nanny Pine.' An' mother says, says she, 'Her name is Oak now, but I reckon you'll know her house by the bonnets in the window.' Mother was always like that," said Christianna, again, with soft pride. "Always quick-minded! She sees the squirrel in the tree quicker'n any of us—'ceptin' it's Billy. An' she says, 'How're you goin' to get thar, Christianna—less'n you walk?' An' I says, 'I'll walk.'"

"Oh, poor child!" cried Judith! "Did you?"

"No, ma'am; only a real little part of the way. It's a hundred and fifty miles, an' we ain't trained to march, an' it would have taken me so long. No, ma'am. Mrs. Cole heard about my goin' an' she sent a boy to tell me to come see her, an' I went, an' she gave me a dollar (I surely am goin' to pay it back, with interest) an' a lot of advice, an' she couldn't tell me how to find Pap an' Dave an' Billy, but she said a deal of people would know about Allan Gold, for he was a great scout, an' she gave me messages for him; an' anyhow the name of the regiment was the 65th, an' the colonel was your son, ma'am, an' he would find the others for me. An' she got a man to take me in his wagon, twenty miles toward Lynchburg, for nothin'. An' I thanked him, an' asked him to have some of the dinner mother an' Violetta had put in a bundle for me; but he said no, he wasn't hungry. An' that night I slept at a farmhouse, an' they wouldn't take any pay. An' the next day and the next I walked to Lynchburg, an' there I took the train." Her voice gathered firmness. "I had never seen one before, but I took it all right. I asked if it was goin' to Richmond, an' I climbed on. An' a man came along an' asked me for my ticket, an' I said that I didn't have one, but that I wanted to pay if it wasn't more than a dollar. An' he asked me if it was a gold dollar or a Confederate dollar. An' there were soldiers on the train, an' one came up an' took off his hat an' asked me where I was goin', an' I told him an' why, an' he said it didn't matter whether it was gold or Confederate, and that the conductor didn't want it anyhow. An' the conductor—that was what the first man was called—said he didn't reckon I'd take up much room, an' that the road was so dog-goned tired that one more couldn't make it any tireder, an' the soldier made me sit down on one of the benches, an' the train started." She shut her eyes tightly. "I don't like train travel. I like to go slower—"

"But it brought you to Richmond—"

Christianna opened her eyes. "Yes, ma'am, we ran an' ran all day, making a lot of noise, an' it was so dirty; an' then last night we got here—an' I slept on a bench in the house where we got out—only I didn't sleep much, for soldiers an' men an' women were going in and out all night long—an' then in the mahnin' a coloured woman there gave me a glass of milk an' showed me where I could wash my face—an' then I came out into the street an' began to look for Cousin Nanny Pine—"

"And you couldn't find her?"

"She isn't here, ma'am. I walked all mahnin', looking, but I couldn't find her, an' nobody that I asked knew. An' they all said that the army from the Valley hadn't come yet, an' they didn't even know if it was coming. An' I was tired an' frightened, an' then at last I saw a window with two bonnets in it, and I said, 'Oh, thank the Lord!' an' I went an' knocked. An' it wasn't Cousin Nanny Pine. It was another milliner. 'Mrs. Oak?' she says, says she. 'Mrs. Oak's in Williamsburg! Daniel Oak got his leg cut off in the battle, an' she boarded up her windows an' went to Williamsburg to nurse him—an' God knows I might as well board up mine, for there's nothin' doin' in millinery!' An' she gave me my dinner, an' she told me that the army hadn't come yet from the Valley, an' she said she would let me stay there with her, only she had three cousins' wives an' their children, refugeein' from Alexandria way an' stayin' with her, an' there wasn't a morsel of room. An' so I rested for an hour, an' then I came out to look for some place to stay. An' it's mortal hard to find." Her soft voice died. She wiped her eyes with the cape of her sunbonnet.

"She had best come with me," said Margaret to Judith. "Yes, there is room—we will make room—and it will not be bad for Miriam to have some one.... Are we not all looking for that army? And her people are in Richard's regiment." She rose. "Christianna, child, neighbours must help one another out! So come with me, and we shall manage somehow!"

Hospitality rode well forward in the Thunder Run creed. Christianna accepted with simplicity what, had their places been changed, she would as simply have given. She began to look fair and happy, a wild rose in sunshine. She was in Richmond, and she had found a friend, and the army was surely coming! As the three rose from the church step, there passed a knot of mounted soldiers. It chanced to be the President's staff, with several of Stuart's captains, and the plumage of these was yet bright. The Confederate uniform was a handsome one; these who wore it were young and handsome men. From spur to hat and plume they exercised a charm. Somewhere, in the distance, a band was playing, and their noble, mettled horses pranced to the music. As they passed they raised their hats. One, who recognized Judith, swept his aside with a gesture appropriate to a minuet. With sword and spur, with horses stepping to music, by they went. Christianna looked after them with dazzled eyes. She drew a fluttering breath. "I didn't know things like that were in the world!"

A little later the three reached the gate of the house which sheltered Margaret and Miriam. "I won't go in," said Judith. "It is growing late.... Margaret, I am going to the President's to-night. Father wishes me to go with him. He says that we are on the eve of a great battle, and that it is right—" Margaret smiled upon her. "It is right. Of course you must go, dear and darling child! Do not think that I shall ever misunderstand you, Judith!"

The other kissed her, clinging for a moment to her. "Oh, mother, mother!... I hear the cannon, too, louder and louder!" She broke away. "I must not cry to-night. To-night we must all have large bright eyes—like the women in Brussels when 'There was revelry by night'—Isn't it fortunate that the heart doesn't show?"

The town was all soft dusk when she came to the kinsman's house which had opened to her. Crowded though it was with refugee kindred, with soldier sons coming and going, it had managed to give her a small quiet niche, a little room, white-walled, white-curtained, in the very arms of a great old tulip tree. The window opened to the east, and the view was obstructed only by the boughs of the tree. Beyond them, through leafy openings, night by night she watched a red glare on the eastern horizon—McClellan's five-mile-distant camp-fires. Entering presently this room, she lit two candles, placed them on the dressing table, and proceeded to make her toilette for the President's House.

Through the window came the sound of the restless city. It was like the beating of a distant sea, with a ground swell presaging storm. The wind, blowing from the south, brought, too, the voice of the river, passionate over its myriad rocks, around its thousand islets. There were odours of flowers; somewhere there was jasmine. White moths came in at the window, and Judith, rising, put glass candle-shades over the candles. She sat brushing her long hair; fevered with the city's fever, she saw not herself in the glass, but all the stress that had been and the stress that was to be. Cleave's latest letter had rested in the bosom of her dress; now the thin oblong of bluish paper lay before her on the dressing table. The river grew louder, the wind from the south stirred the masses of her hair, the jasmine odour deepened. She bent forward, spreading her white arms over the dark and smooth mahogany, drooped her head upon them, rested lip and cheek against the paper. The sound of the warrior city, the river and the wind, beat out a rhythm in the white-walled room. Love—Death! Love—Death! Dear Love—Dark Death—Eternal Love—She rose, laid the letter with others from him in an old sandalwood box, coiled her hair and quickly dressed. A little later, descending, she found awaiting her, in the old, formal, quaint parlour, Fauquier Cary.

The two met with warm affection. Younger by much than was the master of Greenwood, he was to the latter's children like one of their own generation, an elder brother only. He held her from him and looked at her. "You are a lovely woman, Judith! Did it run the blockade?"

Judith laughed: "No! I wear nothing that comes that way. It is an old dress, and it is fortunate that Easter darns so exquisitely!"

"Warwick will meet us at the house. We both ride back before dawn. Why, I have not seen you since last summer!"

"No. Just before Manassas!"

They went out. "I should have brought a carriage for you. But they are hard to get—"

"I would rather walk. It is not far. You look for the battle to-morrow?"

"That depends, I imagine, on Jackson. Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps the next day. It will be bloody fighting when it comes—Heigho!"

"The bricks of the pavement know that," said Judith. "Sometimes, Fauquier, you can see horror on the faces of these houses—just as plain! and at night I hear the river reading the bulletin!"

"Poor child!—Yes, we make all nature a partner. Judith, I was glad to hear of Richard Cleave's happiness—as glad as I was surprised. Why, I hardly know, and yet I had it firmly in mind that it was Maury Stafford—"

Judith spoke in a pained voice. "I cannot imagine why so many people should have thought that. Yes, and Richard himself. It never was; and I know I am no coquette!"

"No. You are not a coquette. Ideas like that arrive, one never knows how—like thistledown in the air—and suddenly they are planted and hard to uproot. Stafford himself breathed it somehow. That offends you, naturally; but I should say there was never a man more horribly in love! It was perhaps a fixed idea with him that he would win you, and others misread it. Well, I am sorry for him! But I like Richard best, and he will make you happier."

He talked on, in his dry, attractive voice, moving beside her slender, wiry, resolute, trained muscle and nerve, from head to foot. "I was at the Officer's Hospital this morning to see Carewe. He was wounded at Port Republic, and his son and an old servant got him here somehow. He was talking about Richard. He knew his father. He says he'll be a brigadier the first vacancy, and that, if the war lasts, he won't stop there. He'll go very high. You know Carewe?—how he talks? 'Yes, by God, sir, Dick Cleave's son's got the stuff in him! Always was a kind of dumb, heroic race. Lot of iron ore in that soil, some gold, too. Only needed the prospector, Big Public Interest, to come along. Shouldn't wonder if he carved his name pretty high on the cliff.'—Now, Judith, I have stopped beneath this lamp just to see you look the transfigured lover—happier at praise of him than at garlands and garlands for yourself!—Hm! Drawn to the life. Now we'll go on to the President's House."

The President's House on Shockoe Hill was all alight, men and women entering between white pillars, from the long windows music floating. Beyond the magnolias and the garden the ground dropped suddenly. Far and wide, a vast horizon, there showed the eastern sky, and far and wide, below the summer stars, there flared along it a reddish light—the camp-fires of two armies, the grey the nearer, the blue beyond. Faint, faint, you could hear the bugles. It was a dark night; no moon, only the flicker of fireflies in magnolias and roses and the gush of light from the tall, white-pillared house. The violins within were playing "Trovatore." Warwick Cary, an aide with him, came from the direction of the Capitol and joined his daughter and brother. The three entered together.

There was little formality in these gatherings at the White House of the Confederacy. The times were too menacing, the city too conversant with alarm bells, sudden shattering bugle notes, thunderclaps of cannon, men and women too close companions of great and stern presences, for the exhibition of much care for the minuter social embroidery. No necessary and fitting tracery was neglected, but life moved now in a very intense white light, so deep and intense that it drowned many things which in other days had had their place in the field of vision. There was an old butler at the President's door, and a coloured maid hovered near to help with scarf or flounce if needed. In the hall were found two volunteer aides, young, handsome, gay, known to all, striking at once the note of welcome. Close within the drawing-room door stood a member of the President's Staff, Colonel Ives, and beside him his wife, a young, graceful, and accomplished woman. These smilingly greeted the coming or said farewell to the parting guest.

The large drawing-room was fitted for conversation. Damask-covered sofas with carved rosewood backs, flanked and faced by claw-foot chairs, were found in corners and along the walls; an adjoining room, not so brightly lit, afforded further harbourage, while without was the pillared portico, with roses and fireflies and a view of the flare upon the horizon. From some hidden nook the violins played Italian opera. On the mantles and on one or two tables, midsummer flowers bloomed in Parian vases.

Scattered in groups, through the large room, were men in uniform and civilians in broadcloth and fine linen. So peculiarly constituted were the Confederate armies that it was usual to find here a goodly number of private soldiers mingling with old schoolmates, friends, kindred wearing the bars and stars of lieutenants, captains, majors, colonels, and brigadiers. But to-night all privates and all company officers were with their regiments; there were not many even of field and staff. It was known to be the eve of a fight, a very great fight; passes into town were not easy to obtain. Those in uniform who were here counted; they were high in rank. Mingling with them were men of the civil government,—cabinet officers, senators, congressmen, judges, heads of bureaus; and with these, men of other affairs: hardly a man but was formally serving the South. If he were not in the field he was of her legislatures; if not there, then doing his duty in some civil office; if not there, wrestling with the management of worn-out railways; or, cool and keen, concerned in blockade running, bringing in arms and ammunition, or in the Engineer Bureau, or the Bureau of Ordnance or the Medical Department, or in the service of the Post, or at the Treasury issuing beautiful Promises to Pay, or at the Tredegar moulding cannon, or in the newspaper offices wrestling with the problem of worn-out type and wondering where the next roll of paper was to come from, or in the telegraph service shaking his head over the latest raid, the latest cut wires; or he was experimenting with native medicinal plants, with balloons, with explosives, torpedoes, submarine batteries; or thinking of probable nitre caves, of the possible gathering of copper from old distilleries, of the scraping saltpetre from cellars, of how to get tin, of how to get chlorate of potassium, of how to get gutta-percha, of how to get paper, of how to get salt for the country at large; or he was running sawmills, building tanneries, felling oak and gum for artillery carriages, working old iron furnaces, working lead mines, busy with foundry and powder mill.... If he was old he was enlisted in the City Guard, a member of the Ambulance Committee, a giver of his worldly substance. All the South was at work, and at work with a courage to which were added a certain colour and elan not without value on her page of history. The men, not in uniform, here to-night were doing their part, and it was recognized that they were doing it. The women, no less; of whom there were a number at the President's House this evening. With soft, Southern voices, with flowers banded in their hair, with bare throat and arms, with wide, filmy, effective all-things-but-new dresses, they moved through the rooms, or sat on the rosewood sofas, or walking on the portico above the roses looked out to the flare in the east. Some had come from the hospitals,—from the Officer's, from Chimborazo, Robinson's, Gilland's, the St. Charles, the Soldier's Rest, the South Carolina, the Alabama,—some from the sewing-rooms, where they cut and sewed uniforms, shirts, and underclothing, scraped lint, rolled bandages; several from the Nitre and Mining Bureau, where they made gunpowder; several from the Arsenal, where they made cartridges and filled shells. These last would be refugee women, fleeing from the counties overrun by the enemy, all their worldly wealth swept away, bent on earning something for mother or father or child. One and all had come from work, and they were here now in the lights and flowers, not so much for their own pleasure as that there might be cheer, music, light, laughter, flowers, praise, and sweetness for the men who were going to battle. Men and women, all did not come or go at once; they passed in and out of the President's House, some tarrying throughout the evening, others but for a moment. The violins left "Il Trovatore," began upon "Les Huguenots."

The President stood between the windows, talking with a little group of men,—Judge Campbell, R. M. T. Hunter, Randolph the Secretary of War, General Wade Hampton, General Jeb Stuart. Very straight and tall, thin, with a clear-cut, clean-shaven, distinguished face, with a look half military man, half student, with a demeanour to all of perfect if somewhat chilly courtesy, by temperament a theorist, able with the ability of the field marshal or the scholar in the study, not with that of the reader and master of men, the hardest of workers, devoted, honourable, single-minded, a figure on which a fierce light has beaten, a man not perfect, not always just, nor always wise, bound in the toils of his own personality, but yet an able man who suffered and gave all, believed in himself, and in his cause, and to the height of his power laboured for it day and night—Mr. Davis stood speaking of Indian affairs and of the defences of the Western waters.

Warwick Cary, his daughter on his arm, spoke to the President's wife, a comely, able woman, with a group about her of strangers whom she was putting at their ease, then moved with Judith to the windows. The President stepped a little forward to meet them. "Ah, General Cary, I wish you could bring with you a wind from the Blue Ridge this stifling night! We must make this good news from the Mississippi refresh us instead! I saw your troops on the Nine-Mile road to-day. They cheered me, but I felt like cheering them! Miss Cary, I have overheard six officers ask to-night if Miss Cary had yet come."

Warwick began to talk with Judge Campbell. Judith laughed. "It was not of me they were asking, Mr. President! There is Hetty Cary entering now, and behind her Constance, and there are your six officers! I am but a leaf blown from the Blue Ridge."

"Gold leaf," said Wade Hampton.

The President used toward all women a stately deference. "I hope," he said, "that, having come once to rest in this room, you will often let a good wind blow you here—" Other guests claimed his attention. "Ah, Mrs. Stanard—Mrs. Enders—Ha, Wigfall! I saw your Texans this afternoon—" Judith found General Stuart beside her. "Miss Cary, a man of the Black Troop came back to camp yesterday. Says he, 'They've got an angel in the Stonewall Hospital! She came from Albemarle, and her name is Judith. If I were Holofernes and a Judith like that wanted my head, by George, I'd cut it off myself to please her!'—Yes, yes, my friend!—Miss Cary, may I present my Chief of Staff, Major the Baron Heros von Borcke? Talk poetry with him, won't you?—Ha, Fauquier! that was a pretty dash you made yesterday! Rather rash, I thought—"

The other withered him with a look. "That was a carefully planned, cautiously executed manoeuvre; modelled it after our old reconnoissance at Cerro Gordo. You to talk of rashness!—Here's A. P. Hill."

Judith, with her Prussian soldier of fortune, a man gentle, intelligent, and brave, crossed the room to one of the groups of men and women. Those of the former who were seated rose, and one of the latter put out an arm and claimed her with a caressing touch. "You are late, child! So am I. They brought in a bad case of fever, and I waited for the night nurse. Sit here with us! Mrs. Fitzgerald's harp has been sent for and she is going to sing—"

Judith greeted the circle. A gentleman pushed forward a chair. "Thank you, Mr. Soule. My father and I stay but a little while, Mrs. Randolph, but it must be long enough to hear Mrs. Fitzgerald sing—Yes, he is here, Colonel Gordon—there, speaking with Judge Campbell and General Hill.—How is the general to-day, Mrs. Johnston?"

"Better, dear, or I should not be here. I am here but for a moment. He made me come—lying there on Church Hill, staring at that light in the sky!—Here is the harp."

Its entrance, borne by two servants, was noted. The violins were hushed, the groups turned, tended to merge one into another. A voice was heard speaking with a strong French accent—Colonel the Count Camille de Polignac, tall, gaunt, looking like a Knight of Malta—begging that the harp might be placed in the middle of the room. It was put there. Jeb Stuart led to it the lovely Louisianian. Mrs. Fitzgerald drew off her gloves and gave them to General Magruder to hold, relinquished her fan to Mr. Jules de Saint Martin, her bouquet to Mr. Francis Lawley of the London Times, and swept her white hand across the strings. She was a mistress of the harp, and she sang to it in a rich, throbbingly sweet voice, song after song as they were demanded. Conversation through the large room did not cease, but voices were lowered, and now and then came a complete lull in which all listened. She sang old Creole ditties and then Scotch and Irish ballads.

Judith found beside her chair the Vice-President. "Ah, Miss Cary, when you are as old as I am, and have read as much, you will notice how emphatic is the testimony to song and dance and gaiety on the eve of events which are to change the world! The flower grows where in an hour the volcano will burst forth; the bird sings in the tree which the earthquake will presently uproot; the pearly shell gleams where will pass the tidal wave—" He looked around the room. "Beauty, zeal, love, devotion—and to-morrow the smoke will roll, the cannon thunder, and the brute emerge all the same—just as he always does—just as he always does—stamping the flower into the mire, wringing the bird's neck, crushing the shell! Well, well, let's stop moralizing. What's she singing now? Hm! 'Kathleen Mavourneen.' Ha, Benjamin! What's the news with you?"

Judith, turning a little aside, dreamily listened now to the singer, now to phrases of the Vice-President and the Secretary of State. "After this, if we beat them now, a treaty surely.... Palmerston—The Emperour—The Queen of Spain—Mason says ... Inefficiency of the blockade—Cotton obligations—Arms and munitions...." Still talking, they moved away. A strident voice reached her from the end of the room—L. Q. C. Lamar, here to-night despite physicians. "The fight had to come. We are men, not women. The quarrel had lasted long enough. We hate each other, so the struggle had to come. Even Homer's heroes, after they had stormed and scolded long enough, fought like brave men, long and well—"

"Ye banks and braes and streams around The castle o' Montgomery—"

sang Mrs. Fitzgerald.

There was in the room that slow movement which imperceptibly changes a well-filled stage, places a figure now here, now there, shifts the grouping and the lights. Now Judith was one of a knot of younger women. In the phraseology of the period, all were "belles"; Hetty and Constance Cary, Mary Triplett, Turner MacFarland, Jenny Pegram, the three Fishers, Evelyn Cabell, and others. About them came the "beaux,"—the younger officers who were here to-night, the aides, the unwedded legislators. Judith listened, talked, played her part. She had a personal success in Richmond. Her name, her beauty, the at times quite divine expression of her face, made the eye follow, after which a certain greatness of mind was felt and the attention became riveted. The pictures moved again, Mrs. Fitzgerald singing "positively, this time, the last!" Some of the "belles," attended by the "beaux," drifted toward the portico, several toward the smaller room and its softly lowered lights. A very young man, an artillerist, tall and fair, lingered beside Judith. "'Auld lang Syne!' I do not think that she ought to sing that to-night! I have noticed that when you hear music just before battle the strain is apt to run persistently in your mind. She ought to sing us 'Scots wha hae—'"

A gentleman standing near laughed. "That's good, or my name isn't Ran Tucker! Mrs. Fitzgerald, Captain Pelham does not wish to be left in such 'a weavin' way.' He says that song is like an April shower on a bag of powder. The inference is that it will make the horse artillery chicken-hearted. I move that you give John Pelham and the assemblage 'Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled'—"

The singing ended, there was a wider movement through the room. Judith, with Pelham still beside her, walked on the portico, in the warm, rose-laden air. There was no moon, and the light in the east was very marked. "If we strike McClellan's right," said the artillerist, "all this hill and the ground to the north of it will be the place from which to watch the battle. If it lasts after nightfall, you will see the exploding shells beautifully." They stood at the eastern end, Judith leaning against one of the pillars. Here a poet and editor of the Southern Literary Messenger joined them; with him a young man, a sculptor, Alexander Galt. A third, Washington the painter, came, too. The violins had begun again—Mozart now—"The Magic Flute." "Oh, smell the roses!" said the poet. "To-night the roses, to-morrow the thorns—but roses, too, among the thorns, deep and sweet! There will still be roses, will there not, Miss Cary?"

"Yes, still," said Judith. "If I could paint, Mr. Washington, I would take that gleam on the horizon."

"Yes, is it not fine? It is a subject, however, for a mystic. I have an idea myself for a picture, if I can get the tent-cloth to paint it on, and if some brushes and tubes I sent for ever get through the block."

"If I had a tent I certainly would give it to you," said Pelham. "What would you paint?"

"A thing that happened ten days ago. The burial of Latane. The women buried him, you know. At Summer Hill.—Mrs. Brockenborough, and her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. Somebody read me a letter about it—so simple it wrung your heart! 'By God,' I said, 'what Roman things happen still!' And I thought I'd like to paint the picture."

"I read the letter, too," said the poet. "I am making some verses about it—see if you like them—

"For woman's voice, in accents soft and low, Trembling with pity, touched with pathos, read O'er his hallowed dust the ritual for the dead:

"'Tis sown in weakness, it is raised in power'— Softly the promise floated on the air, While the low breathings of the sunset hour Came back responsive to the mourner's prayer. Gently they laid him underneath the sod And left him with his fame, his country and his God!"

"Yes," said Judith, sweetly and gravely. "How can we but like them? And I hope that you will find the tent-cloth, Mr. Washington."

Reentering, presently, the large room, they found a vague stir, people beginning to say good-night, and yet lingering. "It is growing late," said some one, "and yet I think that he will come." Her father came up to her and drew her hand through his arm. "Here is General Lee now. We will wait a moment longer, then go."

They stood in the shadow of the curtains watching the Commander-in-Chief just pausing to greet such and such an one in his progress toward the President. An aide or two came behind; the grand head and form moved on, simple and kingly. Judith drew quicker breath. "Oh, he looks so great a man!"

"He looks what he is," said Warwick Cary. "Now let us go, too, and say good-night."



CHAPTER XXXI

THE FIRST OF THE SEVEN DAYS

Miriam and Christianna sat at the window, watching. The day was parching, the sky hot blue steel, the wind that blew the dust through the streets like a breath from the sun himself. People went by, all kinds of people, lacking only soldiers. There seemed no soldiers in town. Miriam, alternately listless and feverishly animated, explained matters to the mountain girl. "When there's to be a battle, every one goes to the colours.—Look at that old, old, old man, hobbling on his stick. You'd think that death was right beside him, wouldn't you?—ready to tap him on the shoulder and say, 'Fall, fall, old leaf! But it isn't so; death is on the battlefield looking for young men. Listen to his stick—tap, tap, tap, tap, tap—"

Christianna rose, looked at the clock, which was about to strike noon, left the room and returned with a glass of milk. "Mrs. Cleave said you was to drink this—Yes, Miss Miriam, do!—There now! Don't you want to lie down?"

"No, no!" said Miriam. "I don't want to do anything but sit here and watch.—Look at that old, old woman with the basket on her arm! I know what is in it—Things for her son; bread and a little meat and shirts she has been making him—There's another helping her, as old as she is. I mean to die young."

The people went by like figures on a frieze come to life. The room in which the two girls sat was on the ground floor of a small, old-fashioned house. Outside the window was a tiny balcony, with a graceful ironwork railing, and heavy ropes and twists of wistaria shaded this and the window. The old brick sidewalk was almost immediately below. For the most part the people who passed went by silently, but when there was talking the two behind the wistaria could hear. A nurse girl with her charges came by. "What's a 'cisive battle, honey? Yo'd better ask yo' pa that. Reckon it's where won't neither side let go. Why won't they? Now you tell me an' then I'll tell you! All I knows is, they're gwine have a turrible rumpus presently, an' yo' ma said tek you to yo' gran'ma kaze she gwine out ter git jes' ez near the battle an' yo' pa ez she kin git!" Nurse and children passed, and there came by an elderly man, stout and amiable-looking. His face was pale, his eyes troubled; he took off his straw hat, and wiped his forehead with a large white handkerchief. Appearing from the opposite direction, a young man, a case of surgeon's instruments in his hand, met him, and in passing said good-day. The elder stopped him a moment, on the hot brick pavement before the wistaria. "Well, doctor, they're all out Mechanicsville way! I reckon we may expect to hear the cannon any moment now. I saw you at Gilland's, didn't I, yesterday?"

"Yes, I am there—"

"Well, if by ill luck my boy is wounded and brought there, you'll look out for him, eh? Youngest boy, you know—Blue eyes, brown hair. I'm on the Ambulance Committee. We've got a string of wagons ready on the Nine-Mile road. You look out for him if he's brought in—"

The surgeon promised and each went his way. Three women passed the window. One was knitting as she walked, one was in deep black, and a third, a girl, carried a great silver pitcher filled with iced drink for some near-by convalescent. Two men came next. A negro followed, bearing a spade. One of the two was in broadcloth, with a high silk hat. "I told them," he was saying, "better bury her this morning, poor little thing, before the fighting begins. She won't mind, and it will be hard to arrange it then—" "Yes, yes," said the second, "better so! Leave to-morrow for the Dead March from 'Saul.'"

They passed. A church bell began to ring. Miriam moved restlessly. "Is not mother coming back? She ought to have let me go with her. I can't knit any more,—the needles are red hot when I touch them,—but I can sew. I could help her.—If I knew which sewing-room she went to—"

Christianna's hand timidly caressed her. "Better stay here, Miss Miriam. I'm going to give you another glass of milk now, directly—There's a soldier passing now."

It proved but a battered soldier—thin and hollow-eyed, arm in a sling, and a halt in his walk. He came on slowly, and he leaned for rest against a sycamore at the edge of the pavement. Miriam bent out from the frame of wistaria. "Oh, soldier! don't you want a glass of milk?"

"Oh, soldier" looked nothing loath. He came over to the little balcony, and Miriam took the glass from Christianna and, leaning over, gave it to him. "Oh, but that's nectar!" he said, and drank it. "Yes—just out of hospital. Said I might go and snuff the battle from afar. Needed my pallet for some other poor devil. Glad I'm through with it, and sorry he isn't!—Yes, I've got some friends down the street. Going there now and get out of this sun. Reckon the battle'll begin presently. Hope the Accomac Invincibles will give them hell—begging your pardon, I'm sure. That milk certainly was good. Thank you, and good-bye, Hebe—two Hebes." He wavered on down the street. Christianna looked after him critically. "They oughtn't to let that thar man out so soon! Clay white, an' thin as a bean pole, an' calling things an' people out of their names—"

Men and women continued to pass, the church bell to ring, the hot wind to blow the dust, the sun to blaze down, the sycamore leaves to rustle. A negro boy brought a note. It was from Margaret Cleave. "Dearest: There is so much to do. I will not come home to dinner nor will Cousin Harriet neither. She says tell Sarindy to give you two just what you like best. Christianna must look after you. I will come when I can."

Sarindy gave them thin crisp toast, and a pitcher of cool milk, and a custard sweetened with brown sugar. Sarindy was excited. "Yaas, Lawd, dar's sho' gwine ter be doin's this day! What you reckon, Miss Miriam? Dar's er lady from South Callina stayin' cross't de street, 'n' she's got er maid what's got de impidence ob sin! What you reckon dat yaller gal say ter me? She say dat South Callina does de most ob de fightin' 'n' de bes' ob it, too! She say Virginia pretty good, but dat South Callina tek de cake. She say South Callina mek 'em run ebery time! Yaas'm! 'n' I gits up 'n' I meks her er curtsy, 'n' I say ter her, 'Dat's er pretty way ter talk when you're visitin' in Virginia, 'n' ef dat's South Callina manners I'se glad I wuz born in Virginia!' Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy agin, 'n' I say, 'Ain' nobody or nothin' ever lay over Virginia fer fightin' 'n' never will! 'N' ef Virginia don' mek 'em run ebery time, South Callina needn't hope ter!' 'N' I asks her how come she never hear ob Gineral Stonewall Jackson? Yaas'm. 'N' I curtsy ter her ebery time—lak dis! 'N' ain' she never hear ob Gineral Lee? An' I ain' er doubtin' dat Gineral Wade Hampton is a mighty fine man—'deed I knows he is—but ain' she never heard ob Gineral Johnston? 'N' how erbout Gineral Stuart—Yaas'm! 'n' the Black Troop, 'n' the Crenshaw Battery, 'n' the Purcell Battery. Yaas'm! 'n' the Howitzers, 'n' the Richmon' Blues—Yaas'm! I sho' did mek her shet her mouf!—Braggin' ter er Virginia woman ob South Callina!"

The two went back to the large room. The air was scorching. Miriam undressed, slipped her thin, girlish arms into a muslin sacque, and lay down. Christianna drew the blinds together, took a palm-leaf fan and sat beside her. "I'll fan you, jest as easy," she said, in her sweet, drawling voice. "An' I can't truly sing, but I can croon. Don't you want me to croon you 'Shining River'?"

Miriam lay with closed eyes. A fly buzzed in the darkened room. The fan went monotonously to and fro. Christianna crooned "Shining River" and then "Shady Grove." Outside, on the brick pavement, the sound of feet went by in a slender stream.

"Shady Grove! Shady Grove— Going to Church in Shady Grove—"

The stream without grew wide and deep, then hurrying. Christianna looked over her shoulder, then at Miriam. The latter's long lashes lay on her cheek. Beneath them glistened a tear, but her slight, girlish bosom rose and fell regularly. Christianna crooned on,

"Shady Grove! Shady Grove— Children love my Shady Grove—"

Boom! Boom!—Boom, Boom! Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!

Miriam started up with a cry. Outside the window a hoarse and loud voice called to some one across the street. "That's beyond Meadow Bridge! D' ye know what I believe? I believe it's Stonewall Jackson!" The name came back like an echo from the opposite pavement. "Stonewall Jackson! Stonewall Jackson! He thinks maybe it's Stonewall Jackson!"

Boom—Boom—Boom—Boom, Boom!

Miriam rose, threw off the muslin sacque and began to dress. Her eyes were narrowed, her fingers rapid and steady. Christianna opened the window-blinds. The sound of the hurrying feet came strongly in, and with it voices. "The top of the Capitol!—see best from there—I think the hills toward the almshouse—Can you get out on the Brook turnpike?—No; it is picketed—The hill by the President's House—try it!" Christianna, turning, found Miriam taking a hat from the closet shelf. "Oh, Miss Miriam, you mustn't go—"

Miriam, a changed creature, steady and sure as a fine rapier, turned upon her. "Yes, I am going, Christianna. If you like, you may come with me. Yes, I am well enough.—No, mother wouldn't keep me back. She would understand. If I lay there and listened, I should go mad. Get your bonnet and come."

The cannon shook the air. Christianna got her sunbonnet and tied the strings with trembling fingers. All the wild rose had fled from her cheeks, her lips looked pinched, her eyes large and startled. Miriam glanced her way, then came and kissed her. "I forgot it was your first battle. I got used to them in Winchester. Don't be afraid."

They went out into the hot sunshine. By now the greater part of the stream had hurried by. They saw that it flowed eastward, and they followed. The sun blazed down, the pavement burned their feet. The mountain girl walked like a piece of thistledown; Miriam, light and quick in all her actions, moved beside her almost as easily. It was as though the hot wind, rushing down the street behind them, carried them on with the dust and loosened leaves. There were other women, with children clinging to their hands. One or two had babes in their arms. There were old men, too, and several cripples. The lighter-limbed and unencumbered were blown ahead. The dull sound rocked the air. This was a residence portion of the city, and the houses looked lifeless. The doors were wide, the inmates gone. Only where there was illness, were there faces at the window, looking out, pale and anxious, asking questions of the hurrying pale and anxious folk below. The cannonading was not yet continuous. It spoke rather in sullen thunders, with spaces between in which the heart began to grow quiet. Then it thundered again, and the heart beat to suffocation.

The wind blew Miriam and Christianna toward the President's House. Tall, austere, white-pillared, it stood a little coldly in the heat. Before the door were five saddle horses, with a groom or two. The staff came from the house, then the President in grey Confederate cloth and soft hat. He spoke to one of the officers in his clear, incisive voice, then mounted his grey Arab. A child waved to him from an upper window. He waved back, lifted his hat to the two girls as they passed, then, his staff behind him, rode rapidly off toward the sound of the firing.

Miriam and Christianna, turning a little northward, found themselves on a hillside thronged with people. It was like a section of an amphitheatre, and it commanded a great stretch of lowland broken here and there by slight elevations. Much of the plain was in forest, but in some places the waist-deep corn was waving, and in others the wheat stood in shocks. There were marshes and boggy green meadows and old fields of pine and broom sedge. Several roads could be seen. They all ran into a long and low cloud of smoke. It veiled the northern horizon, and out of it came the thunder. First appeared dull orange flashes, then, above the low-lying thickness, the small white expanding cloud made by the bursting shell, then to the ear rushed the thunder. On the plain, from the defences which rimmed the city northward to the battle cloud, numbers of grey troops were visible, some motionless, some marching. They looked like toy soldiers. The sun heightened red splashes that were known to be battle-flags. Horsemen could be seen galloping from point to point. In the intervals between the thunders the hillside heard the tap of drum and the bugles blowing. The moving soldiers were going toward the cloud.

Miriam and Christianna sank down beneath a little tree. They were on a facet of the hill not quite so advantageous as others. The crowded slopes were beyond. However, one could see the smoke cloud and hear the cannon, and that was all that could be done anyhow. There were men and women about them, children, boys. The women were the most silent,—pale and silent; the men uttered low exclamations or soliloquies, or talked together. The boys were all but gleeful—save when they looked at the grown people, and then they tried for solemnity. Some of the children went to sleep. A mother nursed her babe. Near the foot of this hill, through a hollow, there ran a branch,—Bacon Quarter Branch. Here, in the seventeenth century, had occurred an Indian massacre. The heavy, primeval woods had rung to the whoop of the savage, the groan of the settler, the scream of English woman and child. To-day the woods had been long cut, and the red man was gone. War remained—he had only changed his war paint and cry and weapons.

Miriam clasped her thin brown hands about her knee, rested her chin on them, and fastened her great brown eyes on the distant battle cloud. Christianna, her sunbonnet pushed back, looked too, with limpid, awe-struck gaze. Were Pap and Dave and Billy fighting in that cloud? It was thicker than the morning mist in the hollow below Thunder Run Mountain, and it was not fleecy, pure, and white. It was yellowish, fierce, and ugly, and the sound that came from it made her heart beat thick and hard. Was he there—Was Allan Gold there in the cloud? She felt that she could not sit still; she wished to walk toward it. That being impossible, she began to make a little moaning sound. A woman in black, sitting on the grass near her, looked across. "Don't!" she said. "If you do that, all of us will do it. We've got to keep calm. If we let go, it would be like Rachel weeping. Try to be quiet."

Christianna, who had moaned as she crooned, hardly knowing it, at once fell silent. Another woman spoke to her. "Would you mind holding my baby? My head aches so. I must lie down here on the grass, just a minute." Christianna took the baby. She handled it skilfully, and it was presently cooing against her breast. Were Pap and Dave over there, shooting and cutting? And Billy—Billy with a gun now instead of the spear the blacksmith had made him? And Allan Gold was not teaching in the schoolhouse on Thunder Run....

The woman took the baby back. The sun blazed down, there came a louder burst of sound. A man with a field-glass, standing near, uttered a "Tchk!" of despair. "Impenetrable curtain! The ancients managed things better—they did not fight in a fog!"

He seemed a person having authority, and the people immediately about him appealed for information. He looked through the glass and gave it, and was good, too, about lending the glass. "It's A. P. Hill, I'm sure—with Longstreet to support him. It's A. P. Hill's brigades that are moving into the smoke. Most of that firing is from our batteries along the Chickahominy. We are going undoubtedly to cross to the north bank—Yes. McClellan's right wing—Fitz John Porter—A good soldier—Oh, he'll have about twenty-five thousand men."

A boy, breathing excitement from top to toe, sent up a shrill voice. "Isn't Jackson coming, sir? Aren't they looking for Jackson?"

The soldier who had drunk the milk was discovered by Miriam and Christianna, near their tree. He gave his voice. "Surely! He'll have come down from Ashland and A. P. Hill is crossing here. That's an army north, and a big lot of troops south, and Fitz John Porter is between like a nut in a nut cracker. The cracker has only to work all right, and crush goes the filbert!" He raised himself and peered under puckered brows at the smoke-draped horizon. "Yes, he's surely over there—Stonewall.—Going to flank Fitz John Porter—Then we'll hear a hell of a fuss."

"There's a battery galloping to the front," said the man with the glass. "Look, one of you! Wipe the glass; it gets misty. If it's the Purcell, I've got two sons—"

The soldier took the glass, turning it deftly with one hand. "Yes, think it is the Purcell. Don't you worry, sir! They're all right. Artillerymen are hard to kill—That's Pender's brigade going now—"

Christianna clutched Miriam. "Look! look! Oh, what is it?"

It soared into the blue, above the smoke. The sunlight struck it and it became a beautiful iridescent bubble, large as the moon. "Oh, oh!" cried the boy. "Look at the balloon!"

The hillside kept silence for a moment while it gazed, then—"Is it ours?—No; it is theirs!—It is going up from the hill behind Beaver Dam Creek.—Oh, it is lovely!—Lovely! No, no, it is horrible!—Look, look! there is another!"

A young man, a mechanic, with sleeves rolled up, began to expatiate on "ours." "We haven't got but one—it was made in Savannah by Dr. Langon Cheves. Maybe they'll send it up to-day, maybe not. I've seen it. It's like Joseph's coat in the Bible. They say the ladies gave their silk dresses for it. Here'll be a strip of purple and here one of white with roses on it, and here it is black, and here it is yellow as gold. They melted rubber car-springs in naphtha and varnished it with that, and they're going to fill it with city gas at the gas works—"

The bubbles floated in the clear air, above and beyond the zone of smoke. It was now between four and five in the afternoon. The slant rays of the sun struck them and turned them mother-of-pearl. An old man lifted a dry, thin voice like a grasshopper's. "Once I went to Niagara, and there was a balloon ascension. Everybody held their breath when the fellow went up, and he got into some trouble, I don't remember just what it was, and we almost died of anxiety until he came down; and when he landed we almost cried we were so glad, and we patted him on the back and hurrahed—and he was a Yankee, too! And now it's war time, and there's nothing I 'd like better than to empty a revolver into that fine windbag!"

The sound in the air became heavier. A man on horseback spurred along the base of the hill. The people nearest stopped him. "Tell you? I can't tell you! Nobody ever knows anything about a battle till it's over, and not much then. Is Jackson over there? I don't know. He ought to be, so I reckon he is! If he isn't, it's A. P. Hill's battle, all alone."

He was gone. "I don't believe it's much more than long-range firing yet," said the soldier. "Our batteries on the Chickahominy—and they are answering from somewhere beyond Beaver Dam Creek. No musketry. Hello! The tune's changing!"

It changed with such violence that after a moment's exclamation the people sat or stood in silence, pale and awed. Speculation ceased. The plunging torrent of sound whelmed the mind and stilled the tongue. The soldier held out a moment. "Close range now. The North's always going to beat us when it comes to metal soldiers. I wonder how many they've got over there, anyhow!" Then he, too, fell silent.

The deep and heavy booming shook air and earth. It came no longer in distinct shocks but with a continuous roar. The smoke screen grew denser and taller, mounting toward the balloons. There was no seeing for that curtain; it could only be noted that bodies of grey troops moved toward it, went behind it. A thin, elderly man, a school-teacher, borrowed the glass, fixed it, but could see nothing. He gave it back with a shake of the head, sat down again on the parched grass, and veiled his eyes with his hand. "'Hell is murky,'" he said.

No lull occurred in the firing. The sun as it sank reddened the battle cloud that by now had blotted out the balloons. "When it is dark," said the soldier, "it will be like fireworks." An hour later the man with the glass discovered a string of wagons on one of the roads. It was coming citywards. "Ambulances!" he said, in a shaking voice.

"Ambulances—ambulances—" The word went through the crowd like a sigh. It broke the spell. Most on the hillside might have an interest there. Parents, wives, brothers, sisters, children, they rose, they went away in the twilight like blown leaves. The air was rocking; orange and red lights began to show as the shells exploded. Christianna put her hand on Miriam's. "Miss Miriam—Miss Miriam! Mrs. Cleave'll say I didn't take care of you. Let's go—let's go. They're bringing back the wounded. Pap might be there or Dave or Billy or—Miss Miriam, Miss Miriam, your brother might be there."

The long June dusk melted into night, and still the city shook to the furious cannonading. With the dark it saw, as it had not seen in the sunshine. As the soldier said, it was like fireworks.

Beginning at twilight, the wagons with the wounded came all night long. Ambulances, farm wagons, carts, family carriages, heavy-laden, they rumbled over the cobblestones with the sound of the tumbrels in the Terror. It was stated that a number of the wounded were in the field hospitals. In the morning the knowledge was general that very many had lain, crying for water, all night in the slashing before Beaver Dam Creek.

All the houses in Richmond were lighted. Through the streets poured a tide of fevered life. News—News—News!—demanded from chance couriers, from civilian spectators of the battle arriving pale and exhausted, from the drivers of wagon, cart, and carriage, from the less badly wounded—"Ours the victory—is it not? is it not?—Who led?—who fought?—who is fighting now? Jackson came? Jackson certainly came? We are winning—are we not? are we not?" Suspense hung palpable in the hot summer night, suspense, exaltation, fever. It breathed in the hot wind, it flickered in the lights, it sounded in the voice of the river. For many there sounded woe as well—woe and wailing for the dead. For others, for many, many others, there was a misery of searching, a heart-breaking going from hospital to hospital. "Is he here?—Are they here?" The cannon stopped at nine o'clock.

The Stonewall Hospital was poorly lighted. In ward number 23 the oil lamps, stuck in brackets along the walls, smoked. At one end, where two pine tables were placed, the air from the open window blew the flames distractingly. A surgeon, half dead with fatigue, strained well-nigh to the point of tears, exclaimed upon it. "That damned wind! Shut the window, Miss Cary. Yes, tight! It's hell anyhow, and that's what you do in hell—burn up!"

Judith closed the window. As she did so she looked once at the light on the northern horizon. The firing shook the window-pane. The flame of the lamp now stood straight. She turned the wick higher, then lifted a pitcher and poured water into a basin, and when the surgeon had washed his hands took away the reddened stuff. Two negroes laid a man on the table—a gaunt North Carolinian, his hand clutching a shirt all stiffened blood. Between his eyelids showed a gleam of white, his breath came with a whistling sound. Judith bent the rigid fingers open, drew the hand aside, and cut away the shirt. The surgeon looked. "Humph! Well, a body can but try. Now, my man, you lie right still, and I won't hurt you much. Come this side, Miss Cary—No, wait a moment!—It's no use. He's dying."

The North Carolinian died. The negroes lifted him from the table and put another in his place. "Amputation," said the surgeon. "Hold it firmly, Miss Cary; just there." He turned to the adjoining table where a younger man was sewing up a forearm, ripped from wrist to elbow by a piece of shell. "Lend me your saw, will you, Martin?—Yes, I know the heat's fearful! but I can't work by a lamp that has Saint Vitus!" He turned back to his table. "Now, my lad, you just clench your teeth. Miss Cary and I aren't going to hurt you any more than we can help. Yes, above the knee." The younger surgeon, having finished the cut, wiped away with a towel the sweat that blinded him. "The next.—Hm! Doctor, will you look here a moment?—Oh, I see you can't! It's no use, Mrs. Opie. Better have him taken back. He'll die in an hour.—The next."

The ward was long, low ceiled, with brown walls and rafters. Between the patches of lamplight the shadows lay wide and heavy. The cots, the pallets, the pew cushions sewed together, were placed each close by each. A narrow aisle ran between the rows; by each low bed there was just standing room. The beds were all filled, and the wagons bringing more rumbled on the cobblestones without. All the long place was reekingly hot, with a strong smell of human effluvia, of sweat-dampened clothing, of blood and powder grime. There was not much crying aloud; only when a man was brought in raving, or when there came a sharp scream from some form under the surgeon's knife. But the place seemed one groan, a sound that swelled or sank, but never ceased. The shadows on the wall, fantastically dancing, mocked this with nods and becks and waving arms,—mocked the groaning, mocked the heat, mocked the smell, mocked the thirst, mocked nausea, agony, delirium, and the rattle in the throat, mocked the helpers and the helped, mocked the night and the world and the dying and the dead. At dawn the cannon began again.



CHAPTER XXXII

GAINES'S MILL

Dawn broke cold and pure, the melancholy ashen seas slowly, slowly turning to chill ethereal meads of violets, the violet more slowly yet giving place to Adonis gardens of rose and daffodil. The forests stood dew-drenched and shadowy, solemn enough, deep and tangled woodlands that they were, under the mysterious light, in the realm of the hour whose finger is at her lips. The dawn made them seem still, and yet they were not still. They and the old fields and the marshes and the wild and tangled banks of sluggish water-courses, and the narrow, hidden roads, and the low pine-covered hilltops, and all the vast, overgrown, and sombre lowland were filled with the breathing of two armies. In the cold glory of the dawn there faced each other one hundred and eighty thousand men bent on mutual destruction.

A body of grey troops, marching toward Cold Harbour, was brought to a halt within a taller, deeper belt than usual. Oak and sycamore, pine and elm, beech, ash, birch and walnut, all towered toward the violet meads. A light mist garlanded their tops, and a graceful, close-set underbrush pressed against their immemorial trunks. It was dank and still, dim and solemn within such a forest cavern. Minutes passed. The men sat down on the wet, black earth. The officers questioned knew only that Fitz John Porter was falling back from Beaver Dam Creek, presumably on his next line of intrenchments, and that, presumably, we were following. "Has Jackson joined?" "Can't tell you that. If he hasn't, well, we'll beat them anyhow!"

This body of troops had done hard fighting the evening before and was tired enough to rest. Some of the men lay down, pillowing their heads on their arms, dozing, dozing in the underbrush, in the misty light, beneath the tall treetops where the birds were cheeping. In the meantime a Federal balloon, mounting into the amethyst air, discovered that this stretch of woodland was thronged with grey soldiers, and signalled as much to Fitz John Porter, falling back with steadiness to his second line at Gaines's Mill. He posted several batteries, and ordered them to shell the wood.

In the purple light the guns began. The men in grey had to take the storm; they were in the wood and orders had not come to leave it. They took it in various ways, some sullenly, some contemptuously, some with nervous twitchings of head and body, many with dry humour and a quizzical front. The Confederate soldier was fast developing a characteristic which stayed with him to the end. He joked with death and gave a careless hand to suffering. A few of the more imaginative and aesthetically minded lost themselves in open-mouthed contemplation of the bestormed forest and its behaviour.

The cannonade was furious, and though not many of the grey soldiers suffered, the grey trees did. Great and small branches were lopped off. In the dim light they came tumbling down. They were borne sideways, tearing through the groves and coverts, or, caught by an exploding shell and torn twig from twig, they fell in a shower of slivers, or, chopped clean from the trunk, down they crashed from leafy level to level till they reached the forest floor. Beneath them rose shouts of warning, came a scattering of grey mortals. Younger trees were cut short off. Their woodland race was run; down they rushed with their festoons of vines, crushing the undergrowth of laurel and hazel. Other shells struck the red brown resinous bodies of pines, set loose dangerous mists of bark and splinter. As by a whirlwind the air was filled with torn and flying growth, with the dull crash and leafy fall of the forest non-combatants. The light was no longer pure; it was murky here as elsewhere. The violet fields and the vermeil gardens were blotted out, and in the shrieking of the shells the birds could not have been heard to sing even were they there. They were not there; they were all flown far away. It was dark in the wood, dark and full of sound and of moving bodies charged with danger. The whirlwind swept it, the treetops snapped off. "Attention!" The grey soldiers were glad to hear the word. "Forward! March!" They were blithe to hear the order and to leave the wood.

They moved out into old fields, grown with sedge and sassafras, here and there dwarf pines. Apparently the cannon had lost them; at any rate for a time the firing ceased. The east was now pink, the air here very pure and cool and still, each feather of broom sedge holding its row of diamond dewdrops. The earth was much cut up. "Batteries been along here," said the men. "Ours, too. Know the wheel marks. Hello! What you got, Carter?"

"Somebody's dropped his photograph album."

The man in front and the man behind and the man on the other side all looked. "One of those folding things! Pretty children! one, two, three, four, and their mother.—Keep it for him, Henry. Think the Crenshaw battery, or Braxton's, or the King William, or the Dixie was over this way."

Beyond the poisoned field were more woods, dipping to one of the innumerable sluggish creeks of the region. There was a bridge—weak and shaken, but still a bridge. This crossed at last, the troops climbed a slippery bank, beneath a wild tangle of shrub and vine, and came suddenly into view of a line of breastworks, three hundred yards away. There was a halt; skirmishers were thrown forward. These returned without a trigger having been pulled. "Deserted, sir. They've fallen back, guns and all. But there's a meadow between us and the earthworks, sir, that—that—that—"

The column began to move across the meadow—not a wide meadow, a little green, boggy place commanded by the breastworks. Apparently grey troops had made a charge here, the evening before. The trees that fringed the small, irregular oval, and the great birds that sat in the trees, and the column whose coming had made the birds to rise, looked upon a meadow set as thick with dead men as it should have been with daisies. They lay thick, thick, two hundred and fifty of them, perhaps, heart pierced, temple pierced by minie balls, or all the body shockingly torn by grape and canister. The wounded had been taken away. Only the dead were here, watched by the great birds, the treetops and the dawn. They lay fantastically, some rounded into a ball, some spread eagle, some with their arms over their eyes, some in the posture of easy sleep. At one side was a swampy place, and on the edge of this a man, sunk to the thigh, kept upright. The living men thought him living, too. More than one started out of line toward him, but then they saw that half his head was blown away.

They left the meadow and took a road that skirted another great piece of forest. The sun came up, drank off the vagrant wreaths of mist and dried the dew from the sedge. There was promise of a hot, fierce, dazzling day. Another halt. "What's the matter this time?" asked the men. "God! I want to march on—into something happening!" Rumour came back. "Woods in front of us full of something. Don't know yet whether it's buzzards or Yankees. Get ready to open fire, anyway." All ready, the men waited until she came again. "It's men, anyhow. Woods just full of bayonets gleaming. Better throw your muskets forward."

The column moved on, but cautiously, with a strong feeling that it, in its turn, was being watched—with muskets thrown forward. Then suddenly came recognition. "Grey—grey!—See the flag! They're ours! See—" Rumour broke into jubilant shouting. "It's the head of Jackson's column! It's the Valley men! Hurrah! Hurrah! Stonewall! Stonewall Jackson! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihhhh!—'Hello, boys! You've been doing pretty well up there in the blessed old Valley!' 'Hello, boys! If you don't look out you'll be getting your names in the papers!' 'Hello, boys! come to help us kill mosquitoes? Haven't got any quinine handy, have you?' 'Hello, boys! Hello Kernstown, McDowell, Front Royal, Winchester, Harper's Ferry, Cross Keys, Port Republic! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaihh!' 'Hello, you damned Cohees! Are you the foot cavalry?'—65th Virginia, Stonewall Brigade? Glad to see you, 65th! Welcome to these here parts. What made you late? We surely did hone for you yesterday evening. Oh, shucks! the best gun'll miss fire once in a lifetime. Who's your colonel? Richard Cleave? Oh, yes, I remember! read his name in the reports. We've got a good one, too,—real proud of him. Well, we surely are glad to see you fellows in the flesh!—Oh, we're going to halt. You halted, too?—Regular love feast, by jiminy! Got any tobacco?"

A particularly ragged private, having gained permission from his officer, came up to the sycamore beneath which his own colonel and the colonel of the 65th were exchanging courtesies. The former glanced his way. "Oh, Cary! Oh, yes, you two are kin—I remember. Well, colonel, I'm waiting for orders, as you are. Morally sure we're in for an awful scrap. Got a real respect for Fitz John Porter. McClellan's got this army trained, too, till it isn't any more like the rabble at Manassas than a grub's like a butterfly! Mighty fine fighting machine now. Fitz John's got our old friend Sykes and the Regulars. That doesn't mean what it did at Manassas—eh? We're all Regulars now, ourselves.—Yes, Cold Harbour, I reckon, or maybe a little this way—Gaines's Mill. That's their second line. Wonderful breastworks. Mac's a master engineer!—Now I'll clear out and let you and Cary talk."

The two cousins sat down on the grass beneath the sycamore. For a little they eyed each other in silence. Edward Cary was more beautiful than ever, and apparently happy, though one of his shoes was nothing more than a sandal, and he was innocent of a collar, and his sleeve demanded a patch. He was thin, bright-eyed, and bronzed, and he handled his rifle with lazy expertness, and he looked at his cousin with a genuine respect and liking. "Richard, I heard about Will. I know you were like a father to the boy. I am very sorry."

"I know that you are, Edward. I would rather not talk about it, please. When the country bleeds, one must put away private grief."

He sat in the shade of the tree, thin and bronzed and bright-eyed like his cousin, though not ragged. Dundee grazed at hand, and scattered upon the edge of the wood, beneath the little dogwood trees, lay like acorns his men, fraternizing with the "Tuckahoe" regiment. "Your father and Fauquier—?"

"Both somewhere in this No-man's Land. What a wilderness of creeks and woods it is! I slept last night in a swamp, and at reveille a beautiful moccasin lay on a log and looked at me. I don't think either father or Fauquier were engaged last evening. Pender and Ripley bore the brunt of it. Judith is in Richmond."

"Yes. I had a letter from her before we left the Valley."

"I am glad, Richard, it is you. We were all strangely at sea, somehow—She is a noble woman. When I look at her I always feel reassured as to the meaning and goal of humanity."

"I know—I love her dearly, dearly. If I outlive this battle I will try to get to see her—"

Off somewhere, on the left, a solitary cannon boomed. The grey soldiers turned their heads. "A signal somewhere! We're spread over all creation. Crossing here and crossing there, and every half-hour losing your way! It's like the maze we used to read about—this bottomless, mountainless, creeky, swampy, feverish, damned lowland—"

The two beneath the sycamore smiled. "'Back to our mountains,' eh?" said Edward. Cleave regarded the forest somewhat frowningly. "We are not," he said, "in a very good humour this morning. Yesterday was a day in which things went wrong."

"It was a sickening disappointment," acknowledged Edward. "We listened and listened. He's got a tremendous reputation, you know—Jackson. Foreordained and predestined to be at the crucial point at the critical moment! Backed alike by Calvin and God! So we looked for a comet to strike Fitz John Porter, and instead we were treated to an eclipse. It was a frightful slaughter. I saw General Lee afterwards—magnanimous, calm, and grand! What was really the reason?"

Cleave moved restlessly. "I cannot say. Perhaps I might hazard a guess, but it's no use talking of guesswork. To-day I hope for a change."

"You consider him a great general?"

"A very great one. But he's sprung from earth—ascended like the rest of us. For him, as for you and me, there's the heel undipped and the unlucky day."

The officers of the first grey regiment began to bestir themselves. Fall in—Fall in—Fall in! Edward rose. "Well, we shall see what we shall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran to his place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th, swung from the forest road into a track leading across an expanse of broom sedge. It went rapidly. The dew was dried, the mist lifted, the sun blazing with all his might. During the night the withdrawing Federals had also travelled this road. It was cut by gun-wheels, it was strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, accoutrements of all kinds. There were a number of dead horses. They lay across the road, or to either hand in the melancholy fields of sedge. From some dead trees the buzzards watched. One horse, far out in the yellow sedge, lifted his head and piteously neighed.

The troops came into the neighbourhood of Gaines's Mill. Through grille after grille of woven twig and bamboo vine they descended to another creek, sleeping and shadowed, crossed it somehow, and came up into forest again. Before them, through the trees, was visible a great open space, hundreds of acres. Here and there it rose into knolls, and on these were planted grey batteries. Beyond the open there showed a horseshoe of a creek, fringed with swamp growth, a wild and tangled woodland; beyond this again a precipitous slope, almost a cliff, mounting to a wide plateau. All the side of the ascent was occupied by admirable breastworks, triple lines, one above the other, while at the base between hill and creek, within the enshadowing forest, was planted a great abattis of logs and felled trees. Behind the breastwork and on the plateau rested Fitz John Porter, reinforced during the night by Slocum, and now commanding thirty-five thousand disciplined and courageous troops. Twenty-two batteries frowned upon the plain below. The Federal drums were beating—beating—beating. The grey soldiers lay down in the woods and awaited orders. They felt, rather than saw, that other troops were all about them,—A. P. Hill—Longstreet—couched in the wide woods, strung in the brush that bordered creek and swamp, massed in the shelter of the few low knolls.

They waited long. The sun blazed high and higher. Then a grey battery, just in front of this strip of woods, opened with a howitzer. The shell went singing on its errand, exploded before one of the triple tiers. The plateau answered with a hundred-pounder. The missile came toward the battery, overpassed it, and exploded above the wood. It looked as large as a beehive; it came with an awful sound, and when it burst the atmosphere seemed to rock. The men lying on the earth beneath jerked back their heads, threw an arm over their eyes, made a dry, clicking sound with their tongue against their teeth. The howitzer and this shell opened the battle—again A. P. Hill's battle.

Over in the forest on the left, near Cold Harbour, where Stonewall Jackson had his four divisions, his own, D. H. Hill's, Ewell's, and Whiting's, there was long, long waiting. The men had all the rest they wanted, and more besides. They fretted, they grew querulous. "Oh, good God, why don't we move? There's firing—heavy firing—on the right. Are we going to lie here in these swamps and fight mosquitoes all day? Thought we were brought here to fight Yankees! The general walking in the forest and saying his prayers?—Oh, go to hell!"

A battery, far over on the edge of a swamp, broke loose, tearing the sultry air with shell after shell tossed against a Federal breastwork on the other side of the marsh. The Stonewall Brigade grew vividly interested. "That's D. H. Hill over there! D. H. Hill is a fighter from way back! O Lord, why don't we fight too? Holy Moses, what a racket!" The blazing noon filled with crash and roar. Ten of Fitz John Porter's guns opened, full-mouthed, on the adventurous battery.

It had nerve, elan, sheer grit enough for a dozen, but it was out-metalled. One by one its guns were silenced,—most of the horses down, most of the cannoneers. Hill recalled it. A little later he received an order from Jackson. "General Hill will withdraw his troops to the left of the road, in rear of his present position, where he will await further orders." Hill went, with shut lips. One o'clock—two o'clock—half-past two. "O God, have mercy! Is this the Army of the Valley?"

Allan Gold, detached at dawn on scout duty, found himself about this time nearer to the Confederate centre than to his own base of operations at the left. He had been marking the windings of creeks, observing where there were bridges and where there were none, the depth of channels and the infirmness of marshes. He had noted the Federal positions and the amount of stores abandoned, set on fire, good rice and meat, good shoes, blankets, harness, tents, smouldering and smoking in glade and thicket. He had come upon dead men and horses and upon wounded men and horses. He had given the wounded drink. He had killed with the butt of his rifle a hissing and coiled snake. He had turned his eyes away from the black and winged covering of a dead horse and rider. Kneeling at last to drink at a narrow, hidden creek, slumbering between vine-laden trees, he had raised his eyes, and on the other side marked a blue scout looking, startled, out of a hazel bush. There was a click from two muskets; then Allan said, "Don't fire! I won't. Why should we? Drink and forget." The blue scout signified acquiescence. "All right, Reb. I'm tired fighting, anyway! Was brought up a Quaker, and wouldn't mind if I had stayed one! Got anything to mix with the water?"

"No."

"Well, let's take it just dry so." Both drank, then settled back on their heels for a moment's conversation. "Awful weather," said the blue scout. "Didn't know there could be such withering heat! And malaria—lying out of nights in swamps, with owls hooting and jack-o'-lanterns round your bed! Ain't you folks most beat yet?"

"No," said the grey scout. "Don't you think you've about worn your welcome out and had better go home?—Look out there! Your gun's slipping into the water."

The blue recovered it. "It's give out this morning that Stonewall Jackson's arrived on the scene."

"Yes, he has."

"Well, he's a one-er! Good many of you we wish would desert.—No; we ain't going home till we go through Richmond."

"Well," said Allan politely, "first and last, a good many folk have settled hereabouts since Captain John Smith traded on the Chickahominy with the Indians. There's family graveyards all through these woods. I hope you'll like the country."

The other drank again of the brown water. "It wasn't so bad in the spring time. We thought it was awful lovely at first, all spangled with flowers and birds.—Are you married?"

"No."

"Neither am I. But I'm going to be, when I get back to where I belong. Her name's Flora."

"That's a pretty name."

"Yes, and she's pretty, too—" He half closed his eyes and smiled blissfully, then rose from the laurels. "Well, I must be trotting along, away from Cold Harbour. Funniest names! What does it mean?"

"It was an inn, long ago, where you got only cold fare. Shouldn't wonder if history isn't going to repeat itself—" He rose, also, tall and blonde. "Well, I must be travelling, too—"

"Rations getting pretty low, aren't they? How about coffee?"

"Oh, one day," said Allan, "we're going to drink a lot of it! No, I don't know that they are especially low."

The blue scout dipped a hand into his pocket. "Well, I've got a packet of it, and there's plenty more where that came from.—Catch, Reb!"

Allan caught it. "You're very good, Yank. Thank you."

"Have you got any quinine?"

"No."

The blue scout tossed across a small box. "There's for you! No, I don't want it. We've got plenty.—Well, good-bye."

"I hope you'll get back safe," said Allan, "and have a beautiful wedding."

The blue vanished in the underbrush, the grey went on his way through the heavy forest. He was moving now toward sound, heavy, increasing, presaging a realm of jarred air and ringing ear-drums. Ahead, he saw a column of swiftly moving troops. Half running, he overtook the rear file. "Scout?"—"Yes—Stonewall Brigade—" "All right! all right! This is A. P. Hill's division.—Going into battle. Come on, if you want to."

Through the thinning woods showed a great open plain, with knolls where batteries were planted. The regiment to which Allan had attached himself lay down on the edge of the wood, near one of the cannon-crowned eminences. Allan stretched himself beneath a black gum at the side of the road. Everywhere was a rolling smoke, everywhere terrific sound. A battery thundered by at a gallop, six horses to each gun, straining, red-nostrilled, fiery-eyed. It struck across a corner of the plain. Over it burst the shells, twelve-pounders—twenty-pounders. A horse went down—the drivers cut the traces. A caisson was struck, exploded with frightful glare and sound. About it, when the smoke cleared, writhed men and horses, but the gun was dragged off. Through the rain of shells the battery gained a lift of ground, toiled up it, placed the guns, unlimbered and began to fire. A South Carolina brigade started with a yell from the woods to the right, tore in a dust cloud across the old fields, furrowed with gullies, and was swallowed in the forest about the creek which laved the base of the Federal position. This rose from the level like a Gibraltar, and about it now beat a wild shouting and rattle of musketry. Allan rose to his knees, then to his feet, then, drawn as by a magnet, crept through a finger of sumach and sassafras, outstretched from the wood, to a better vantage point just in rear of the battery.

Behind him, through the woods, came a clatter of horses' hoofs. It was met and followed by cheering. Turning his head, he saw a general and his staff, and though he had never seen Lee he knew that this was Lee, and himself began to cheer. The commander-in-chief lifted his grey hat, came down the dim, overarched, aisle-like road, between the cheering troops. With his staff he left the wood for the open, riding beneath the shelter by the finger of sumach and sassafras, toward the battery. He saw Allan, and reined up iron-grey Traveller. "You do not belong to this regiment.—A scout? General Jackson's?—Ah, well, I expect General Jackson to strike those people on the right any moment now!" He rode up to the battery. The shells were raining, bursting above, around. In the shelter of the hill the battery horses had at first, veteran, undisturbed, cropped the parched grass, but now one was wounded and now another. An arm was torn from a gunner. A second, stooping over a limber chest, was struck between the shoulders, crushed, flesh and bone, into pulp. The artillery captain came up to the general-in-chief. "General Lee, won't you go away? Gentlemen, won't you tell him that there's danger?"

The staff reinforced the statement, but without avail. General Lee shook his head, and with his field-glasses continued to gaze toward the left, whence should arise the dust, the smoke, the sound of Jackson's flanking movement. There was no sign on the left, but here, in the centre, the noise from the woods beyond the creek was growing infernal. He lowered the glass. "Captain Chamberlayne, will you go tell General Longstreet—"

Out of the thunder-filled woods, back from creek and swamp and briar and slashing, from abattis of bough and log, from the shadow of that bluff head with its earthworks one above the other, from the scorching flame of twenty batteries and the wild singing of the minies, rushed the South Carolina troops. The brigadier—Maxey Gregg—the regimental, the company officers, with shouts, with appeals, with waved swords, strove to stop the rout. The command rallied, then broke again. Hell was in the wood, and the men's faces were grey and drawn. "We must rally those troops!" said Lee, and galloped forward. He came into the midst of the disordered throng. "Men, men! Remember your State—Do your duty!" They recognized him, rallied, formed on the colours, swept past him with a cheer and reentered the deep and fatal wood.

The battery in front of Allan began to suffer dreadfully. The horses grew infected with the terror of the plain. They jerked their heads back; they neighed mournfully; some left the grass and began to gallop aimlessly across the field. The shells came in a stream, great, hurtling missiles. Where they struck flesh or ploughed into the earth, it was with a deadened sound; when they burst in air, it was like crackling thunder. The blue sky was gone. A battle pall wrapped the thousands and thousands of men, the guns, the horses, forest, swamp, creeks, old fields; the great strength of the Federal position, the grey brigades dashing against it, hurled back like Atlantic combers. It should be about three o'clock, Allan thought, but he did not know. Every nerve was tingling, the blood pounding in his veins. Time and space behaved like waves charged with strange driftwood. He felt a mad excitement, was sure that if he stood upright or tried to walk he would stagger. An order ran down the line of the brigade he had adopted. Attention!



He found himself on his feet and in line, steady, clear of head as though he trod the path by Thunder Run. Forward! March! The brigade cleared the wood, and in line of battle passed the exhausted battery. Allan noted a soldier beneath a horse, a contorted, purple, frozen face held between the brute's fore-legs. The air was filled with whistling shells; the broom sedge was on fire. Right shoulder. Shift Arms! Charge!

Somewhere, about halfway over the plain, he became convinced that his right leg from the hip down was gone to sleep. He had an idea that he was not keeping up. A line passed him—another; he mustn't let the others get ahead! and for a minute he ran quite rapidly. There was a yellow, rain-washed gulley before him; the charge swept down one side and up the other. This crack in the earth was two thirds of the way across the open; beyond were the wood, the creek, the abattis, the climbing lines of breastworks, the thirty-five thousand in blue, and the tremendous guns. The grey charge was yelling high and clear, preparing to deliver its first fire; the air a roar of sound and a glaring light. Allan went down one side of the gulley with some ease, but it was another thing to climb the other. However, up he got, almost to the top—and then pitched forward, clutching at the growth of sedge along the crest. It held him steady, and he settled into a rut of yellow earth and tried to think it over. Endeavouring to draw himself a little higher, a minie ball went through his shoulder. The grey charge passed him, roaring on to the shadowy wood.

He helped himself as best he could, staunched some blood, drew his own conclusions as to his wounds. He was not suffering much; not over much. By nature he matched increasing danger with increasing coolness. All that he especially wanted was for that charge to succeed—for the grey to succeed. His position here, on the rim of the gully, was an admirable one for witnessing all that the shifting smoke might allow to be witnessed. It was true that a keening minie or one of the monstrous shells might in an instant shear his thread of life, probably would do so; all the probabilities lay that way. But he was cool and courageous, and had kept himself ready to go. An absorbing interest in the field of Gaines's Mill, a passionate desire that Victory should wear grey, dominated all other feeling. Half in the seam of the gully, half in the sedge at the top, he made himself as easy as he could and rested a spectator.

The battle smoke, now heavily settling, now drifting like clouds before a wind, now torn asunder and lifting from the scene, made the great field to come and go in flashes, or like visions of the night. He saw that A. P. Hill was sending in his brigades, brigade after brigade. He looked to the left whence should come Jackson, but over there, just seen through the smoke, the forest stood sultry and still. Behind him, however, in the wood at the base of the armed hill, there rose a clamour and deep thunder as of Armageddon. Like a grey wave broken against an iron shore, the troops with whom he had charged streamed back disordered, out of the shadowy wood into the open, where in the gold sedge lay many a dead man and many a wounded. Allan saw the crimson flag with the blue cross shaken, held on high, heard the officers crying, "Back, men, back! Virginians, do your duty!" The wave formed again. He tried to rise so that he might go with it, but could not. It returned into the wood. Before him, racing toward the gully, came another wave—Branch's brigade, yelling as it charged. He saw it a moment like a grey wall, with the colours tossing, then it poured down into the gully and up and past him. He put up his arms to shield his face, but the men swerved a little and did not trample him. The worn shoes, digging into the loose earth covered him with dust. The moving grey cloth, the smell of sweat-drenched bodies, of powder, of leather, of hot metal, the panting breath, the creak and swing, the sudden darkening, heat and pressure—the passage of that wave took his own breath from him, left him white and sick. Branch went on. He looked across the gully and saw another wave coming—Pender, this time. Pender came without yelling, grim and grey and close-mouthed. Pender had suffered before Beaver Dam Creek; to-day there was not much more than half a brigade. It, too, passed, a determined wave. Allan saw Field in the distance coming up. He was tormented with thirst. Three yards from the gully lay stretched the trunk of a man, the legs blown away. He was almost sure he caught the glint of a canteen. He lay flat in the sedge and dragged himself to the corpse. There was the canteen, indeed; marked with a great U. S., spoil taken perhaps at Williamsburg or at Seven Pines. It was empty, drained dry as a bone. There was another man near. Allan dragged himself on. He thought this one dead, too, but when he reached him he opened large blue eyes and breathed, "Water!" Allan sorrowfully shook his head. The blue eyes did not wink nor close, they glazed and stayed open. The scout dropped beside the body, exhausted. Field's charge passed over him. When he opened his eyes, this portion of the plain was like a sea between cross winds. All the broken waves were wildly tossing. Here they recoiled, fled, even across the gully; here they seethed, inchoate; there, regathering form and might, they readvanced to the echoing hill, with its three breastworks and its eighty cannon. Death gorged himself in the tangled slashing, on the treacherous banks of the slow-moving creek. A. P. Hill was a superb fighter. He sent in his brigades. They returned, broken; he sent them in again. They went. The 16th and 22d North Carolina passed the three lines of blazing rifles, got to the head of the cliff, found themselves among the guns. In vain. Morrell's artillerymen, Morrell's infantry, pushed them back and down, down the hillside, back into the slashing. The 35th Georgia launched itself like a thunderbolt and pierced the lines, but it, too, was hurled down. Gregg's South Carolinians and Sykes Regulars locked and swayed. Archer and Pender, Field and Branch, charged and were repelled, to charge again. Save in marksmanship, the Confederate batteries could not match the Federal; strength was with the great, blue rifled guns, and yet the grey cannoneers wrought havoc on the plateau and amid the breastworks. The sound was enormous, a complex tumult that crashed and echoed in the head. The whole of the field existed in the throbbing, expanded brain—all battlefields, all life, all the world and other worlds, all problems solved and insoluble. The wide-flung grey battlefront was now sickle-shaped, convex to the foe. The rolling dense smoke flushed momently with a lurid glare. In places the forest was afire, in others the stubble of the field. From horn to horn of the sickle galloped the riderless horses. Now and again a wounded one among them screamed fearfully.

Allan dragged himself back to the gully. It was safer there, because the charging lines must lessen speed, break ranks a little; they would not be so resistlessly borne on and over him. He was not light-headed, or he thought he was not. He lay on the rim of the gully that was now trampled into a mere trough of dust, and he looked at the red light on the rolling vapour. Where it lifted he saw, as in a pageant, war in mid-career. Sound, too, had organized. He could have beaten time to the gigantic rhythm. It rose and sank; it was made up of groaning, shouting, breathing of men, gasping, and the sounds that horses make, with louder and louder the thunder of the inanimate, the congregated sound of the allies man had devised,—the saltpetre he had digged, the powder he had made, the rifles he had manufactured, the cannon he had moulded, the solid shot, grape, canister, shrapnel, minie balls. The shells were fearful, Allan was fain to acknowledge. They passed like whistling winds. They filled the air like great rocks from a blasting. The staunchest troops blanched a little, jerked the head sidewise as the shells burst and showered ruin. There came into Allan's mind a picture in the old geography,—rocks thrown up by Vesuvius. He thought he was speaking to the geography class. "I'll show you how they look. I was lying, you see, at the edge of the crater, and they were all overhead." The picture passed away, and he began to think that the minies' unearthly shriek was much like the winter wind round Thunder Run Mountain—Sairy and Tom—Was Sairy baking gingerbread?—Of course not; they didn't have gingerbread now. Besides, you didn't want gingerbread when you were thirsty.... Oh, water, water, water, water!... Tom might be taking the toll—if there was anybody to pay it, and if they kept the roads up. Roses in bloom, and the bees in them and over the pansies.... The wrens sang, and Christianna came down the road. Roses and pansies, with their funny little faces, and Sairy's blue gingham apron and the blue sky. The water-bucket on the porch, with the gourd. He began to mutter a little. "Time to take in, children—didn't you hear the bell? I rang it loudly. I am ringing it now. Listen! Loud, loud—like church bells—and cannons. The old lesson.... Curtius and the gulf."

In the next onrush a man stumbled and came to his knees beside him. Not badly hurt, he was about to rise. Allan caught his arm. "For God's sake—if you've got any water—" The man, a tall Alabamian, looked down, nodded, jerked loose another U. S. canteen, and dropped it into the other's hand. "All right, all right—not at all—not at all—" He ran on, joining the hoar and shouting wave. Allan, the flask set to his lips, found not water, but a little cold and weak coffee. It was nectar—it was happiness—it was life—though he could have drunk ten times the amount!

The cool draught and the strength that was in it revived him, drew his wandering mind back from Thunder Run to Gaines's Mill. Again he wished to know where was the Army of the Valley. It might be over there, in the smoke pall, turning Fitz John Porter's right ... but he did not believe it. Brigade after brigade had swept past him, had been broken, had reformed, had again swept by into the wood that was so thick with the dead. A. P. Hill continued to hurl them in, standing, magnificent fighter! his eyes on the dark and bristling stronghold. On the hill, behind the climbing breastworks and the iron giants atop, Fitz John Porter, good and skilful soldier, withdrew from the triple lines his decimated regiments, put others in their places, scoured with the hail of his twenty-two batteries the plain of the Confederate centre. All the attack was here—all the attack was here—and the grey brigades were thinning like mist wreaths. The dead and wounded choked field and gully and wood and swamp. Allan struck his hands together. What had happened—what was the matter? How long had he lain here? Two hours, at the least—and always it was A. P. Hill's battle, and always the grey brigades with a master courage dashed themselves against the slope of fire, and always the guns repelled them. It was growing late. The sun could not be seen. Plain and woods were darkening, darkening and filled with groaning. It was about him like a melancholy wind, the groaning. He raised himself on his hands and saw how many indeed were scattered in the sedge, or in the bottom of the yellow gully, or slanted along its sides. He had not before so loudly heard the complaining that they made, and for a moment the brain wondered why. Then he was aware that the air was less filled with missiles, that the long musketry rattle and the baying of the war dogs was a little hushed. Even as he marked this the lull grew more and more perceptible. He heard the moaning of the wounded, because now the ear could take cognizance.