On the crest of the bank there was confusion and clamour, shots and shouts, the groans of the fallen, a horrible uproar. Out of the storm came a high voice, "It air a-goin' to stay, and I air a-goin' to stay with it!"

Billy Maydew had the flag. He stood defiant, half enveloped in its folds, his torn shirt showing throat and breast, his young head thrown back against the red ground. "I ain't a-goin' to quit—I ain't a-goin' to quit! Thunder Run and Thunder Mountain hear me what I am a-sayin'! I ain't a-goin' to quit!"

Allan Gold laid hold of him. "Why, Billy, we're coming back! There's got to be a lot of times like this in a big war! You come on and carry the colours out safe. You don't want those fellows to take them!"

Billy chanted on, "I ain't a-goin' to quit! I put it here jest like I was putting a hop pole in Christianna's garden, and I ain't a-goin' to dig it up again—"

Dave appeared. "Billy boy, don't be such a damned fool! You jest skeedaddle with the rest of us and take it out of them next time. Don't ye want to see Christianna again, an' maw an' the dogs?—Thar, now!"

A bullet split the standard, another—a spent ball coming from the hillside—struck the bearer in the chest. Billy came to his knees, the great crimson folds about him. Cleave appeared in the red-lit murk. "Pick him up, Allan, and bring him away."

It was almost dusk to the green and rolling world about the field of Kernstown. Upon that field, beneath the sulphurous battle cloud, it was dusk indeed. The fighting line was everywhere, and for the Confederates there were no reinforcements. Fulkerson yet held the left, Garnett with conspicuous gallantry the centre with the Stonewall regiments. The batteries yet thundered upon the right. But ammunition was low, and for three hours Ashby's mistake as to the enemy's numbers had received full demonstration. Shields's brigadiers did well and the blue soldiers did well.

A body of troops coming from the wood and crowding through a gap in a stone fence descended upon the Rockbridge battery. Four regiments of the Stonewall brigade clung desperately to the great uneven field which marked the centre. The musket barrels were burningly hot to the touch of the men, their fingers must grope for the cartridges rattling in the cartridge boxes, their weariness was horrible, their eyes were glazed, their lips baked with thirst. Long ago they had fought in a great, bright, glaring daytime; then again, long ago, they had begun to fight in a period of dusk, an age of dusk. The men loaded, fired, loaded, rammed, fired quite automatically. They had been doing this for a long, long time. Probably they would do it for a long time to come. Only the cartridges were not automatically supplied. It even seemed that they might one day come to an end. The dusk deepened. They had, beneath the red-lit battle clouds, a glimpse of Garnett, a general chivalric and loved, standing in his stirrups, looking out and upward toward the dark wood and Sullivan's fresh regiments.

A sergeant came along the line stretching a haversack open with his hands. In it were cartridges. "I gathered all the dead had. 'T isn't many. You've got to shoot to kill, boys!" A man with a ball through the end of his spine, lying not far from a hollow of the earth, half pool, half bog, began to cry aloud in an agonizing fashion. "Water! water! Oh, some one give me water! Water! For the love of God, water!" A grey soldier started out of line toward him; in a second both were killed. Garnett settled down in his saddle and came back to the irregular, smoke-wreathed, swaying line. He spoke to his colonels. "There are three thousand fresh bayonets at the back of these woods. General Jackson does not wish a massacre. I will withdraw the brigade."

The troops were ready to go. They had held the centre very long; the cartridges were all but spent, the loss was heavy, they were deadly tired. They wanted water to drink and to hear the command, Break ranks! Garnett was gallant and brave; they saw that he did what he did with reason, and their judgment acquiesced. There was momently a fresh foe. Without much alignment, fighting in squads or singly, firing as they went from thicket and hollow at the heavy on-coming masses, the Stonewall Brigade fell back upon the wood to the south. The blue wave saw victory and burst into a shout of triumph. Kimbal's batteries, too, began a jubilant thunder.

Over the field, from Fulkerson on the left to the broken centre and the withdrawing troops came a raw-bone sorrel urged to a furious gallop; upon it a figure all dusk in the dusk, a Cromwell-Quixote of a man, angered now to a degree, with an eye like steel and a voice like ice. He rode up to Garnett, as though he would ride him down. "General Garnett, what are you doing? Go back at once, sir!"

As he spoke he threw himself from the saddle and closed his gauntleted hand with force on the arm of a drummer boy. "Beat the rally!" he commanded.

The rapid and continuous rolling filled like a sound of the sea the ears of the Stonewall Brigade. Garnett, in a strange voice, gave the counter-order. The men uttered a hard and painful gasp. They looked and saw Stonewall Jackson lifted above them, an iron figure in a storm of shot and shell. He jerked his hand into the air; he shouted, "Back, men! Give them the bayonet!" The drum beat on. Colonels and captains and lieutenants strove to aid him and to change the retreat into an advance. In vain! the commands were shattered; the fighting line all broken and dispersed. The men did not shamefully flee; they retreated sullenly, staying here and there where there were yet cartridges, to fire upon the on-coming foe, but they continued to go back.

The 5th and the 42d with Funsten's small cavalry command came hastening to the broken centre and there made a desperate fight. The 5th Virginia and the 5th Ohio clanged shields. The 84th Pennsylvania broke twice, rallied twice, finally gave way. Two Indiana regiments came up; the 5th Virginia was flanked; other blue reinforcements poured in. The last grey commands gave way. Fulkerson, too, on the left, his right now uncovered, must leave his stone fence and save his men as best he might. Rockbridge and Carpenter and Waters no longer thundered from the heights. The grey infantry, wildly scattered, came in a slow surge back through the woods where dead men lay among the spring flowers, and down the ridge and through the fields, grey and dank in the March twilight, toward the Valley pike. Night and the lost battle weighed upon the army. The shadowy ambulances, the lights of the gatherers of the wounded flitting few and far over the smoke-clouded field, made for a ghastly depression. Sick at heart, in a daze of weariness, hunger and thirst, drunk with sleep, mad for rest, command by command stumbled down the pike or through the fields to where, several miles to the south, stretched the meadows where their trains were parked. There was no pursuit. Woods and fields were rough and pathless; it was now dark night, and Ashby held the pike above.

A camp-fire was built for Stonewall Jackson in a field to the right of the road, three miles from Kernstown. Here he stood, summoned Garnett, and put him under arrest. The army understood next day that heavy charges would be preferred against this general.

To right and left of the pike camp-fires flamed in the windy night. Passing one of these, Richard Cleave cut short some bewailing on the part of the ring about it. "Don't be so downcast, people! Sometimes a defeat in one place equals a victory in another. I don't believe that General Banks will join General McClellan just now. Indeed, it's not impossible that McClellan will have to part with another division. Their government's dreadfully uneasy about Washington and the road to Washington. They didn't beat us easily, and if we can lead them up and down this Valley for a while—I imagine that's what General Johnston wants, and what General Jackson will procure.—And now you'd better all go to sleep."

"Where are you going, Cleave?"

"To see about the colonel. They've just brought him to the farmhouse yonder. Dr. McGuire says he will get well—dear old Brooke!"

He went, striding over the furrowed field past groups of men sleeping and moaning as they slept. The stars were very bright in the clear, cold, windy night. He looked at them and thought of the battle and of the dead and the wounded, and of Judith and of his mother and sister, and of Will in the 2d, and of to-morrow's movements, and of Stonewall Jackson. A dark figure came wandering up to him. It proved to be that of an old negro. "Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?"

"Marse Charlie whom, uncle?"

"Marse Charlie Armetage, sah, mah young marster. I 'spec you done seed him? I 'spec he come marchin' wif you down de pike f'om dat damn battlefield? I sure would be 'bleeged ef you could tell me, sah."

"I wish I could," said Cleave, with gentleness. "I haven't seen him, but maybe some one else has."

The old negro drew one hand through the other. "I's asked erbout fifty gent'men ... Reckon Marse Charlie so damn tired he jes' lain down somewhere an' gone ter sleep. Reckon he come down de pike in de mahnin', shoutin' fer Daniel. Don' you reckon so, marster?"

"It's not impossible, Daniel. Maybe you'll find him yet."

"I 'specs ter," said Daniel. "I 'spec ter fin' him howsomever he's a-lyin'." He wandered off in the darkness, and Cleave heard him speaking to a picket, "Marster, is you seen Marse Charlie?"



CHAPTER XVI

RUDE'S HILL

Stonewall Jackson and his army in slow retreat up the valley came, the second day after Kernstown, to the gorge of Cedar Creek. A bridge had once been here; there remained the blackened cross-timbers and a portion of the flooring. The water below was cold, deep, and rapid. Rather than breast it, the army made shift to cross on the charred wood. An infantry command, stepping gingerly, heard behind it shots and shouts—a Federal cavalry charge upon the rear guard. Several of the men, listening too absorbedly, or not content with the present snail-like motion, suddenly left the timbers and entered the rough and swollen creek that poured beneath. Their exclamations in this berth were piteous, and their comrades fished them out with bayonets and laughter.

Upon the night of the 26th Banks's troopers occupied the northern shore of Tom's Brook. Ashby held the southern side, and held it fast. Behind that safe and vigilant and valiant screen the Army of the Valley moved quietly and in good spirits to the points its general had in mind. The army never knew what were these points until it found itself actually upon the ground. It is morally certain that had he lived, a recalcitrant, in former days, no amount of peine forte et dure would have opened the lips of Stonewall Jackson had he willed to keep them closed. During their earlier acquaintance officers and men alike had made many an ingenious endeavour to learn the plans they thought they ought to know. They set quaint traps, they made innocent-seeming remarks, they guided right, they guided left, they blazed beautiful trails straight, they thought, to the moment of revelation. It never came. He walked past and around and over their traps. Inquisitive officers found themselves not only without a straw of information, but under displeasure. Brilliant leading remarks shone a moment by their own brilliancy, then went out. The troops conjectured one road—they went by another; natives described the beauties of the village before which they were sure to break ranks—at eve they experienced the hospitalities of quite another town. Generals in the ranks demonstrated that they were going to turn on Shields, or that they were going east by the old Manassas Gap and whip Geary, or northeast and whip Abercrombie. They did none of the three. They marched on up the valley to Rude's Hill near Mount Jackson. About this time, or a little later, men and officers gave it up, began to admire, and to follow blindly. A sergeant, one evening, put it to his mess. "If we don't know, then Banks and Shields and Fremont and Milroy and McClellan and Lincoln and Stanton don't know, either!" The mess grew thoughtful; presently it took the pipe from its mouth to answer, "Dog-gone it, Martin, that's true! Never saw it just that way before."

Rude's Hill formed a strong natural position. There was water, there were woods, there was an excellent space for a drill-ground. Jackson's directions as to drill-grounds were always characteristically explicit. "Major: You will see that a camp is chosen where there are wood, water, and a drill-ground—" emphasis on the drill-ground. At Rude's Hill they drilled and drilled and drilled. Every morning rang out adjutant's call, every morning there were infantry evolutions, artillery evolutions. The artillery had some respite, for, turn by turn, the sections went forward ten miles to do picket duty for Ashby, Chew's Horse Artillery being continually engaged with the Federal outposts. But the infantry drilled on, drilled and wondered at Banks. One week—two weeks!—and the general in blue with nineteen thousand men still on the farther side of Tom's Brook!

Despite the drilling the Army of the Valley had a good time at Rude's Hill. Below brawled the Shenandoah, just to the east sprang the Massanuttens. There was much rain, but, day by day, through the silver veil or the shattered golden light, lovelier and more lovely grew the spring. The army liked to see her coming. In its heart it felt a springtime, too; a gush of hope and ardour. The men hardly counted Kernstown a defeat. It was known that Old Jack had said to one of the aides, "I may say that I am satisfied, sir." And Congress had thanked the Army of the Valley. And all the newspapers sang its praises. The battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas, the shelling of Newbern in North Carolina, the exploits of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, the battle of Kernstown in the Valley—so at the moment ran the newspapers. And day by day recruits were coming in; comrades as well who had been in hospital or home on furlough. In that fortnight the Army of the Valley grew to number nearly six thousand men.

At Rude's Hill there was an election of company officers. The proceedings—amazing enough to the professional soldier—put into camp life three days of excitement and salt. Given a people of strong political proclivities suddenly turned soldier; given human grudges and likings, admirations and contempts; given the ballot in military as in civil life; given a chance to inject champagne into the ennui of camp existence, and in lieu of gun practice to send off sky-rockets and catherine wheels; given a warm personal interest in each private's bosom as to whom, for the next twelfth month (if the war lasted that long), he was going to obey—and there resulted a shattering of monotony comparable to a pitched battle.

The elections were held in beautiful, vernal groves. That there would be changes it was believed; change was in the air! For days beforehand the character for conduct, courage, and general agreeableness of every man who wore three bars on his collar, or two, or one, or who carried chevrons of silk or chevrons of worsted, had been strictly in the zone of fire. Certain officers nearing certain camp-fires felt caucuses dissolving at their approach into an innocence of debating societies engaged with Fabius Maximus or Scipio Africanus. Certain sergeants and corporals dreamed bars instead of chevrons, and certain high privates, conscious of merit, saw worsted chevrons, silk chevrons, and gold bars all in one blissful night.

But when election day dawned bright and clear, with a fine chorus of birds and an especial performance by the regimental bands, when roll call was over, and camp duties were over, and morning drill was over (no relaxation here! There was only one day in the week on which Old Jack let up on drill, and that wasn't election day!) and the pickets had reluctantly marched away, leaving their votes behind them, and a section of artillery had gone off, swearing, to relieve Chew, and the men could at last get down to work, to happy babbling, happy speechifying, happy minding the polls, and when in the cool of the afternoon the returns were announced, there were fewer changes than had been predicted. After all, most of the officers were satisfactory; why let them down with a jolt? And the privates were satisfactory, too. Why take a capital comrade, a good cook and forager and story-teller, and make him uncomfortable by turning him into an officer? He was nice enough as he was. Not that there were no alterations. Several companies had new captains, some lieutenants stepped down, and there was a shifting of non-commissioned officers. In Company A of the 65th Lieutenant Mathew Coffin lost out. The men wished to put up Allan Gold for the lieutenancy, but Allan declined. He had rather, he said, be scout than lieutenant—and what was the use in changing, anyhow? Lieutenant Coffin was all right. Hadn't he been as brave as a lion at Kernstown—and any man is liable to lose his temper at times—and wouldn't we hate him to have to write back to that young lady at home—? The last plea almost settled it, for the Confederate heart might be trusted to melt at the mention of any young lady at home. But all the Thunder Run men were against Coffin, and Thunder Run turned the scale. In the main, however, throughout the army, company officers were retained, and retained because they were efficient. The election was first-rate fun, and the men cheered the returns, then listened to the orders of the evening from the same old bars and chevrons. The sun went down on a veritable love feast—special rations, special music, special fires, and, between supper and tattoo, an entertainment in each regiment.

The 65th had a beautiful programme, its debating and literary societies, its glee clubs, chess and checker circles, old sledge associations, Thespians and Greek Letter men all joining forces. The stage was a piece of earth, purple brown with pine needles. Two huge fires, one at either side, made a strong, copper-red illumination. The soldier audience sat in a deep semicircle, and sat at ease, being accustomed by now to the posture of tailor or Turk. Only recruits sought logs or stones upon which to sit. Tobacco smoke rose like incense.

The chief musician "sounded on the bugle horn." The Glee Club of Company C filed on the stage with three banjos and two guitars, bowed elegantly, and sang the "Bonny Blue Flag." The applause was thunderous. A large bearded man in the front row lifted a voice that boomed like one of Ashby's cannon. "Encore! Encore!" Company C sang "Listen to the Mocking Bird." The audience gently sighed, took the pipe from its lips, and joined in—

"Listen to the mocking bird—Listen to the mocking bird.... The mocking bird still singing o'er her grave. Listen to the mocking bird—Listen to the mocking bird.... Still singing where the weeping willows wave."

The pine trees took it up, and the hazel copses and the hurrying Shenandoah.

"Twas in the mild September—September—September, And the mocking bird was singing far and wide."

"Far and wide.... That's grand, but it sure is gloomy. Next!" The chief musician, having a carrying voice, made announcements. "No. 2. Debate. Which will first recognize the Confederacy, England or France? With the historic reasons for both doing so. England, Sergeant Smith. France, Sergeant Duval.—The audience is not expected to participate in the debate otherwise than judicially, at the close."

The close saw it decided by a rising vote that England would come first—Sergeant Smith, indeed, who chanced to be a professor of belles-lettres at a great school, having declared, with the gesture of Saint John on Patmos, that he saw approaching our shores a white winged ship bearing her declaration of amity. "No. 3," intoned the first musician. "Recitation by Private Edwin Horsemanden."

Private Edwin Horsemanden gave the title of his selection, a poetic selection. Some of his fellow privates looked puzzled. "'Oz Etaliahn?'—What does 'Oz Etaliahn' mean? Cherokee or Choctaw, which? Explain it to us, Eddy. Is it something to eat—or to drink? ''T is true, 'tis pity, 'tis pity 'tis 'tis true'—but most of us never went to college!... Oh, an opera house!—In Paris, do you say? Go on, Eddy, go on!"

"At Paris it was, at the opera there,— And she looked like a queen in a book that night—"

"Never saw one out of a book, did you?... Yes, I saw a gypsy queen once.... And the queen of the circus.... There's a man in Company D once saw the queen of England, saw her just as plain! She was wearing a scoop bonnet with pink roses around her face.... Sh! Shh!"

"Of all the operas that Verdi wrote."

"Who's Verdi?"

"The best, to my taste, is the 'Trovatore.'"

"'Trovatore?' Eddy, isn't that the serenading fellow who goes on singing till they hang him? Oh, Lord, yes! And the anvil chorus! The anvil chorus comes in there. Go on, Eddy. We feel perfectly at home."

"And Mario"

"Hm! stumped again."

"can sooth with a tenor note The souls in Purgatory."

The large bearded man was up once more. "I rise to object. There isn't any such place. The com—commanding general'll put him in irons for misrepresenting the sidereal system. There's only heaven, hell, and the enemy.—Yaaaaih, Yaai.... Yaaai, yaaaah, yaaaaih! Certainly, sergeant. The pleasure is mine, sir. Don't mention it, I beg. Mum's the word!"

"The moon on the tower slept soft as snow"—

"Gee-whiz! what a snowball! Didn't the tower break down? No! You amaze me. Go on, Eddy, go on. We know the natural feelings of a sophomore."

"And who was not thrilled in the strangest way As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, 'Non ti scordar di me?'"

"What's that? Wait a minute, Eddy! Let's get the words. I always did want a chance at German.—Now you say them slowly and we'll repeat.... Why, man alive, you ought to be proud of your linguistic accomplishments!... Well, I'll begin, and we'll fire by platoons.

"Non ti scordar di me?—"

"Attention! Company A!"

"Non ti scordar di me?— Non ti scordar di me?"

"Very good! We'll get the meaning after we learn the words. Company B!"

"Non ti scordar di me?"

"Well roared, Bottom! Company C!"

"Non ti scordar di me?"

"Look out, or General Banks'll be sending over Tom's Brook to know what's the matter! Company D!"

"Non ti scordar di me?"

"Company D goes to the head of the class! Company E!"

"Non ti scordar di me?"

"'Ware pine cones! Company E's shaking them down.... This class's getting too big. Let's all learn the words together, so's Private Horsemanden can go on with his piece! Attention, 65th! Make ready! Take aim! Fire!"

"NON TI SCORDAR DI ME?"

"Now Eddy.... Oh, yes, you go on! You aren't going to cheat us that way. We want to know what happened when they stopped talking German! Hasn't anything happened yet."

"Non ti—"

"Sh! Go on, Eddy boy, and tell us exactly what occurred."

Private Edwin Horsemanden had pluck as well as sentiment, and he went on. Moreover he had his revenge, for at bottom the 65th was itself tender-hearted, not to say sentimental. It believed in lost loves and lost blossoms, muslin dresses, and golden chains, cypress shades and jasmine flowers,

"And the one bird singing alone to his nest, And the one star over the tower."

The 65th sighed and propped its chin on its hand. Presently the 65th grew misty-eyed.

"Then I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower She used to wear in her breast It smelt so faint and it smelt so sweet.—"

The pipe dropped from the 65th's hand. It sat sorry and pleased. Private Edwin Horsemanden went on without interruption and finished with eclat. The chief musician cleared his throat. "The Glee Club of Company H will now—"

The Glee Club of Company H was a large and popular organization. It took the stage amid applause. The leader bowed. "Gentlemen, we thank you. Gentlemen, you have just listened to a beautiful novelty—a pretty little foreign song bird brought by the trade-wind, an English nightingale singing in Virginian forests.—Gentlemen, the Glee Club of Company H will give you what by now is devil a bit of a novelty—what promises to be as old as the hills before we have done with it—what our grandchildren's grandchildren may sing with pride—what to the end of time will carry with it a breath of our armies. Gentlemen, the Glee Club of Company H gives you the Marseillaise of the South. Attention!"

"Way down South in the land of cotton, 'Simmon seed and sandy bottom—"

The 65th rose to its feet. Its neighbour to the right was the 2d Virginia, encamped in a great open field; to the left the 5th, occupying a grove of oaks. These regiments were busied with their own genial hour, but when the loudly sung air streamed across from the 65th they suspended their work in hand. They also sung "Dixie." Thence it was taken up by the 4th and the 33d, and then it spread to Burk and Fulkerson. The batteries held the top of Rude's Hill, up among the night wind and the stars. The artillerymen took the air from the infantry. Headquarters was situated on the green bank of the Shenandoah. Staff and couriers and orderlies hummed or sang. Stonewall Jackson came to the door of his tent and stood, looking out. All Rude's Hill throbbed to "Dixie."

On went the programme. "Marco Bozzaris" was well spoken. A blacksmith and a mule driver wrestled for a prize. "Marmion Quitting the Douglas's Hall" was followed by "Lula, Lula, Lula is Gone," and "Lula" by "Lorena," and "Lorena" by a fencing match. The Thespians played capitally an act from "The Rivals," and a man who had seen Macready gave Hamlet's Soliloquy. Then they sang a song lately written by James Randall and already very popular,—

"I hear the distant thunder hum, Maryland! The Old Line bugle, fife and drum—"

An orderly from headquarters found Richard Cleave. "General Jackson wishes to see you, sir."

The general's tent was not large. There were a table and two stools, on one of which sat Jackson in his characteristic position, large feet accurately paralleled. On the table, beside the candle, lay three books—the Bible, a dictionary, and "Napoleon's Maxims." Jackson was writing, his hand travelling slowly across a sheet of dim blue, lined, official paper. The door flap of the tent was fastened back. Cleave, standing in the opening, saluted.

"Take a seat, sir," said the general, and went on to the end of his page. Having here signed his name, he dropped the quill and slightly turned so as to face the waiting officer. From under his high bronzed forehead his blue eyes looked quietly upon Cleave.

The younger man returned the gaze as quietly. This was the first time he had been thus summoned since that unlucky winter evening at Bloomery Gap. He remembered that evening, and he did not suppose that his general had forgotten it. He did not suppose that Jackson forgot anything. But apparently it was no longer to be counted against him. Jackson's face wore the quiet, friendly, somewhat sweet expression usual to it when all was calm within. As for Cleave himself, his nature owned a certain primal flow and bigness. There were few fixed and rigid barriers. Injured pride and resentment did not lift themselves into reefs against which the mind must break in torment. Rather, his being swept fluid, making no great account of obstacles, accepting all turns of affairs, drawing them into its main current, and moving onward toward some goal, hardly self-conjectured, but simple, humane, and universal. The anger he might have felt at Bloomery Gap had long passed away. He sat now attentive, collected, broad-browed, and quiet.

"Major Cleave," said Jackson, "you will take an orderly with you and ride across the mountains. General Ewell is at Gordonsville with a somewhat larger force than my own. You will take this letter to him," he folded it as he spoke, "and you will talk to him as one intelligent man to another."

"Do you mean, sir, that I am to answer his questions?"

"Yes, sir. To the best of your ability. There is impending a junction between General Ewell and myself. He wishes to know many things, and seems to think it natural that I should tell him them. I am not a great letter writer. You will give him all the information that is common to the army."

Cleave smiled. "That, sir, is not a great deal."

"Perhaps it is not, sir. You are at liberty to give to General Ewell your own observations and expectations. You will, however, represent them as your own."

"May I ask, sir, when this junction is to occur?"

"I have not decided, sir."

"Does General Ewell know when it will occur?"

"Not precisely. He will be told in good time."

"Whether, when you move, you move north or west or south or east, is, I suppose, sir, purely a matter of conjecture?"

"Purely, sir."

"But the morale of the army, its efficiency and spirit, may be freely praised and imparted?"

"Yes, sir, freely. Upon your return I shall want from you your impression of General Ewell and the troops he commands." He drew toward him a map which lay on the table. "You will ride through Massanutton Gap by Conrad's Store and Swift Run Gap. Thence you will make a detour to Charlottesville. There are stores there that I wish reported upon and sent on to Major Harman at Staunton. You will spend one day upon that business, then go on to Ewell."



CHAPTER XVII

CLEAVE AND JUDITH

The hospital at Charlottesville, unlovely and lovely, ghastly and vital, brutal, spiritual, a hell of pain and weakness, another region of endeavour and helpfulness, a place of horror, and also of strange smiling, even of faint laughter, a country as chill as death and as warm as love—the hospital at Charlottesville saw the weary morning grow to weary noon, the weary noon change toward the weary latter day. The women who nursed the soldiers said that it was lovely outside, and that all the peach trees were in bloom. "We'll raise you a little higher," they said, "and you can see for yourself. And look! here is your broth, so good and strengthening! And did you hear? We won on the Peninsula to-day!"

At four o'clock Judith Cary gave to another her place beside a typhoid pallet and came out into the emerald and rose, the freshness and fragrance of the spring. The Greenwood carriage was waiting. "We'll go, Isham," said Judith, "by the University for Miss Lucy."

Isham held open the door. "No'm, Miss Judith. Miss Lucy done sont wuhd dat de ladies'll be cuttin' out nuniforms clean 'twel dark. She say don' wait fer her—Mrs. Carter'll bring her home."

Judith entered the carriage. An old acquaintance, passing, paused to speak to her. "Isn't there a greater stir than usual?" she asked.

"Some of General Ewell's men are over from Gordonsville. There goes General Dick Taylor now—the one in grey and white! He's a son, you know, of Zachary—Old Rough and Ready. General Jackson, too, has an officer here to-day, checking the stores that came from Richmond.—How is it at the hospital?"

"It is very bad," said Judith. "When the bands begin to play I laugh and cry like all the rest, and I wave and clap my hands, and I would fight on and on like the rest of you, and I do not see that, given people as they are, the war could have been avoided, and I would die to win, and I am, I hope, a patriot—and yet I do not see any sense in it! It hurts me as I think it may hurt the earth. She would like, I believe, something better than being a battlefield.—There is music again! Yesterday a man died, crying for the band to hush. He said it drowned something he needed to hear."

"Yes, yes," replied her friend, nodding his head. "That is perfectly true. That is very true, indeed!—That band's coming from the station. They're looking for a regiment from Richmond.—That's a good band! What are they playing—?"

"Bright flowers spring from the hero's grave, The craven knows no rest,— Thrice cursed the traitor and the knave, The hero thrice is blessed—"

The Greenwood carriage rolled out of the town into the April country. The fruit trees were in bloom, the woods feathering green, the quiet and the golden light inestimable after the moaning wards. The carriage went slowly, for the roads were heavy; moreover the former carriage horses were gone to the war. These were two from the farm, somewhat old and stiff, willing, but plodders. They went half asleep in the soft sunshine, and Isham on the box went half asleep too. Judith would have been willing to sleep, but she could not. She sat with her gaze upon the fair spring woods and the amethystine hills rising to blue skies. The carriage stopped. Isham bent down from the box. "Miss Judith, honey, er gent'man's on de road behin' us, ridin' ter overtek de kerridge."

"Wait for him, then," said Judith. "There is some message, perhaps."

While they waited she sat with folded hands, her eyes upon the purple hills, her thoughts away from Albemarle. The sound that Isham made of surprise and satisfaction did not reach her. Until she saw Cleave's face at the window she thought him somewhere in the Valley—fighting, fighting! in battle and danger, perhaps, that very day.

Her eyes widened, her face had the hush of dawn; it was turned toward him, but she sat perfectly still, without speaking. Only the door was between them, the glass down. He rested his clasped hands on the ledge, and his dark, moved face looked in upon her. "Judith," he said, "I did not know.—I thought it was one of the others.... I hope that you are a little glad to see me."

Judith looked at him a moment longer, then swayed a little forward. She bent her head. Her cheek touched his clasped hands, he felt her kiss upon them, and her forehead resting there.

There was a moment's silence, deep, breathless, then Cleave spoke. "Judith ... Am I mad?"

"I believe that you love me," she said. "If you do not, it does not matter.... I have loved you for two years."

"Maury Stafford?"

"I have never believed that you understood—though what it was that made you misunderstand I have never guessed.... There is no Maury Stafford. There never was."

He opened the door. "Come out," he said. "Come out with me into the light. Send the carriage on."

She did so. The road was quiet, deserted, a wide bright path between the evening hills. Dundee following them, they walked a little way until they came to a great rock, sunk in the velvet sward that edged a wood. Here they sat down, the gold light bathing them, behind them fairy vistas, fountains of living green, stars of the dogwood and purple sprays of Judas tree. "How I misunderstood is no matter now," said Cleave. "I love you, and you say that you love me. Thank God for it!"

They sat with clasped hands, their cheeks touching, their breath mingling. "Judith, Judith, how lovely are you! I have seen you always, always!... Only I called it 'vision,' 'ideal.' At the top of every deed I have seen your eyes; from the height of every thought you have beckoned further! Now—now—It is like a wonderful home-coming ... and yet you are still there, above the mountains, beckoning, drawing—There and here, here in my arms!... Judith—What does 'Judith' mean?"

"It means 'praised.' Oh, Richard, I heard that you were wounded at Kernstown!"

"It was nothing. It is healed.... I will write to your father at once."

"He will be glad, I think. He likes you.... Have you a furlough? How long can you stay?"

"Love, I cannot stay at all. I am on General Jackson's errand. I must ride on to Gordonsville—It would be sweet to stay!"

"When will you come again?"

"I do not know. There will be battles—many battles, perhaps—up and down the Valley. Every man is needed. I am not willing to ask even a short furlough."

"I am not willing that you should.... I know that you are in danger every day! I hear it in the wind, I see it in every waving bough.... Oh, come back to me, Richard!"

"I?" he answered, "I feel immortal. I will come back."

They rose from the rock. "The sun is setting. Would you rather I went on to the house? I must turn at once, but I could speak to them—"

"No. Aunt Lucy is in town, Unity, too.... Let's say good-bye before we reach the carriage."

They went slowly by the quiet road beneath the flowering trees. The light was now only on the hilltops; the birds were silent; only the frogs in the lush meadows kept up their quiring, a sound quaintly mournful, weirdly charming. A bend of the road showed them Isham, the farm horses, and the great old carriage waiting beneath a tulip tree. The lovers stopped, took hands, moved nearer each to the other, rested each in the other's arms. Her head was thrown back, his lips touched her hair, her forehead, her lips. "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!"

He put her in the carriage, kissed her hands as they lay on the door ledge, and stood back. It was not far to the Greenwood gates; the old, slow horses moved on, the carriage rounded a leafy turn, the road was left to the soldier and his horse.

Cleave rode to Gordonsville that night as though he carried Heaven with him. The road was fair, the moon was high. Far-flung, beautiful odours filled the air; the red ploughed earth sent its share, the flowering fruit trees theirs, the flowers in the wood, the mint by the stream. A light wind swung them as from a censer; the moved air touched the young man's forehead. He took off his hat; he rode rapidly with head held high. He rode for hours, Dundee taking the way with even power, a magnificently silent friend. Behind, on an iron grey, came the orderly. Riding thus together, away from organization and discipline, the relations between the two men, officer and private, were perfectly democratic. From Rude's Hill across the Massanuttons and from Swift Run Gap to Charlottesville they had been simply comrades and fellow Virginians. They were from adjoining counties, where the one had practised law and the other had driven a stage. There were differences in breeding, education, and employment; but around these, recognized by both, stretched the enormous plane of humanity. They met there in simple brotherliness. To-night, however, Cleave had spoken for silence. "I want to be quiet for a while, Harris.—There is something I have to think of."



The night was all too short for what he had to think of. The pink flush of dawn, the distant view of Ewell's tents, came too soon. It was hard to lower the height and swell of the mind, to push back the surging thoughts, to leave the lift and wonder, the moonlight, and the flowering way. Here, however, were the pickets; and while he waited for the corporal of the guard, standing with Harris on a little hill, before them the pink sky, below them a peach orchard, pink too, with a lace-like mist wreathing the trees, he put golden afternoon and moonlight night in the bottom of his heart and laid duty atop.

Ewell's camp, spread over the rolling hills and lighted by a splendid sunrise, lay imposingly. To the eyes of the men from the Valley the ordered white tents of Trimble's and Taylor's and the Maryland line had an air luxuriously martial. Everything seemed to gleam and shine. The guns of the parked batteries gave back the light, the colours seemed silken and fine, the very sunrise gun had a sonorousness lacking to Chew's Blakeley, or to McLaughlin's six-pounders, and the bugles blowing reveille a silvery quality most remarkable. As for the smoke from the camp-fires—"Lord save us!" said Harris, "I believe they're broiling partridges! Of all the dandy places!"

Cleave laughed. "It's not that they are so fine, but that we are so weather-beaten and rusty! They're only in good working-day trim. We'll have to polish up at Rude's Hill."

"This is the 1st Maryland on the hillside," said the guide the corporal had given; "there with the blue flag. Mighty fine feathers, but I reckon they're gamecocks all right! Elzey's Brigade's over beside the woods—Virginian to the backbone. Trimble's got a fine lot—Georgians and Alabamians and Mississippians. Here come some of the 2d Virginia Cavalry! Ain't they pretty?"

They were. But Harris stood up for the absent Valley. "Huh! Ashby's good enough for me! Ashby's got three stallions—the white he's fondest of, and a black like a piece of coal, and a red roan—"

The guide nodded energetically. "Oh, we think a heap of Ashby ourselves! There ain't anybody that the men listen about more eagerly. We ain't setting up on this side of the mountains to beat him! But I reckon the 2d and the 6th'll do right well when they get a chance. Yes, sir, General Taylor's Brigade. He's got a lot of Frenchmen from Louisiana—Acadians I've heard them called—and they can't speak a word of English, poor souls!—There goes their band again. They're always playing, dancing, and cooking rice. We call them Parlavoos—name of their county, I reckon.—He's got Wheat's Battalion, too. Sorrow a bit of a Frenchman there—they're Irish Tartars!—That's headquarters, sir. By the apple orchard."

An aide brought Cleave to a fair-sized central tent, set beside a great wine sap just coming into bloom. Around it was a space of trodden earth, to one side a cheerful fire and a darky cook, in front a pine table, over which a coloured boy was spreading a very clean tablecloth. Out of the tent came a high, piping voice. "Good-morning, Hamilton! What is it? What is it?—An officer from General Jackson? All right! All right! glad to see him. Tell him to wait—Jim, you black idiot, what have I done with that button?"

The aide smiled, Cleave smiled. There was something in the voice that announced the person, quaintly rough, lovable and gallant,—"dear Dick Ewell." He came out presently, a small man with a round bald head, hook nose and bright eyes.

"This the officer? Glad to see you, Major—Major Cleave? Stay to breakfast. Bob, you black rascal, another plate! Can't give you much,—mysterious inward complaint, myself,—can't eat anything but frumenty.—Well, sir, how is General Jackson?"

"Quite well, general."

"Most remarkable man! Wants to tie a bandage round everybody's eyes but his own!"—all this plaintively treble. "Would ask to have it off if I was facing a firing party, and in the present circumstances don't like it at all!—Did you happen to meet any of my couriers?"

"Yes, general. One at the foot of the Massanuttons, one in Elk Run Valley."

"Got to send them. Got to ask what to do. By God, out on the plains with fifty dragoons I'd know! And here President Davis has made me a major-general, and I don't know!—Draw up to the table, sir, draw up! You can drink coffee; I can't. Can't sleep at night; don't want to lie down; curl up on the ground and think of my fifty dragoons.—Well, sir, and what does General Jackson say?"

"I have a letter for you, sir."

He presented it. Ewell, head on one side like a bird, took and opened the paper. "I really do believe the sun's up at last! What does he say? 'Move in three days by Stanardsville. Take a week's rations. Rest on Sunday. Other directions will be given as needed.' Hm! Highly characteristic! Never anything more than a damned dark lantern!—Well, it's something to know that we're going by Stanardsville and are to rest on Sunday! Where is Stanardsville?"

"It is a few miles this side of Swift Run Gap."

The general helped his guest to cornbread and himself began upon frumenty. "All right! I'll move, and I suppose when I get there old Jackson'll vouchsafe another gleam.—Bob, you damned Ethiopian, where are your wits? Fill Major Cleave's cup.—Glad to welcome you, major, to Camp Ewell. Pretty tidy place, don't you think?"

"I do indeed, sir."

"Have you seen Dick Taylor's beauties—his Creoles and Tigers and Harry Hayes, 7th Louisiana? The Maryland Line, too, and Trimble and Elzey? Damned fine army! How about yours over there?" He indicated the Blue Ridge with a bird-like jerk, and helped himself again to frumenty.

"Your description applies there, too, sir. It's a little rough and ready, but—it's a damned fine army!"

"Kernstown didn't shake it?"

"Kernstown was as much a victory as a defeat, sir. No, it didn't shake it."

"Morale good?"

"Extraordinarily so. That army is all right, sir."

"I wish," said Ewell plaintively, "that I knew what to make of General Jackson. What do you make of him, major?"

"I make a genius, sir."

Ewell raised his shoulder and ducked his head, his bright round eyes much like a robin's. "And he isn't crazy?"

"Not in the very least."

"Well, I've had my doubts. I am glad to hear you say that. I want to think mighty well of the man who leads me. That Romney trip now?—of course, I only heard Loring's side. He doesn't just wind in and out of mountains for the fun of doing it?"

"I think that, generally speaking, he has some other object in view, sir. I think that acquaintance with General Jackson will show you what I mean. It develops confidence in a very marked fashion."

Ewell listened bright-eyed. "I am glad to hear you say that, for damn me, confidence is what I want! I want, sir, to be world-without-end-sure that my commanding officer is forever and eternally right, and then I want to be let go ahead!—I want to be let feel just as though I were a captain of fifty dragoons, and nothing to do but to get back to post by the sunset gun and report the work done!—And so you think that when my force and old Jackson's force get together we'll do big things?"

"Fairly big, sir. It is fortunate to expect them. They will arrive the sooner."

Ewell bobbed his head. "Yes, yes, that's true! Now, major, I'm going to review the troops this morning, and then I'll write an answer for General Jackson, and you'll take it to him and tell him I'm coming on by Stanardsville, just as he says, and that I'll rest on Sunday. Maybe even we'll find a church—Presbyterian." He rose. "You'd better come with me.—I've got some more questions to ask. Better see my troops, too. Old Jackson might as well know what beautiful children I've got. Have you any idea yourself what I'm expected to do at Stanardsville?"

"I don't know what General Jackson expects, sir. But my own idea is that you'll not be long at Stanardsville."

"He'll whistle again, will he?"

"I think so. But I speak without authority."

"There's an idea abroad that he means to leave the Valley—come east—cross the mountains himself instead of my crossing them. What do you think of that?"

"I am not in his council, sir. The Valley people would hate to see him go."

"Well, all that I can say is that I hope Banks is puzzled, too!—Jim, Jim! damn you, where's my sword and sash?"

As they went Ewell talked on in his piping voice. "General Jackson mustn't fling my brigades against windmills or lose them in the mountains! I'm fair to confess I feel anxious. Out on the plains when we chase Apaches we chase 'em! We don't go deviating like a love vine all over creation.—That's Harry Hayes's band—playing some Frenchy thing or other! Cavalry's over there—I know you've got Ashby, but Flournoy and Munford are right wicked, too!"

"The—Virginia is with you, sir?"

"Yes. Fine regiment. You know it?"

"I know one of its officers—Major Stafford."

"Oh, we all know Maury Stafford! Fine fellow, but damned restless. General Taylor says he is in love. I was in love once myself, but I don't remember that I was restless. He is. He was with Loring but transferred.—You went to Romney together?"

"Yes, we went together."

"Fine fellow, but unhappy. Canker somewhere, I should say. Here we are, and if General Jackson don't treat my army well, I'll—I'll—I'll know he's crazy!"

The review was at last over. Back under the wine sap Ewell wrote his answer to Jackson, then, curled in a remarkable attitude on the bench beneath the tree ("I'm a nervous major-general, sir. Can't help it. Didn't sleep. Can't sleep."), put Cleave through a catechism searching and shrewd. His piping, treble voice, his varied oaths and quaintly petulant talk, his roughness of rind and inner sweetness made him, crumpled under the apple tree, in his grey garb and cavalry boots, with his bright sash and bright eyes, a figure mellow and olden out of an ancient story. Cleave also, more largely built, more muscular, a little taller, with a dark, thin, keen face, the face of a thinking man-at-arms, clad in grey, clean but worn, seated on a low stool beneath the tinted boughs, his sword between his knees, his hands clasped over the hilt, his chin on his hands—Cleave, too, speaking of skirmishes, of guns and horsemen, of the massed enemy, of mountain passes and fordable rivers, had the value of a figure from a Flemish or Venetian canvas. The form of the moment was of old time, old as the smell of apple blossoms or the buzzing of the bees; old as these and yet persistently, too, of the present as were these. The day wore on to afternoon, and at last the messenger from Jackson was released.

The—Virginia had its encampment upon the edge of a thick and venerable wood, beech and oak, walnut and hickory. Regimental headquarters was indeed within the forest, half a dozen tents pitched in a glade sylvan enough for Robin Hood. Here Cleave found Stafford sitting, writing, before the adjutant's tent. He looked up, laid down his pen and rose. "Ah! Where did you come from? I thought you in the Valley, in training for a brigadier!" He came forward, holding out his hand. "I am glad to see you. Welcome to Camp Ewell!"

Cleave's hand made no motion from his side. "Thank you," he said. "It is good when a man can feel that he is truly welcome."

The other was not dull, nor did he usually travel by indirection. "You will not shake hands," he said. "I think we have not been thrown together since that wretched evening at Bloomery Gap. Do you bear malice for that?"

"Do you think that I do?"

The other shrugged. "Why, I should not have thought so. What is it, then?"

"Let us go where we can speak without interruption. The woods down there?"

They moved down one of the forest aisles. The earth was carpeted with dead leaves from beneath which rose the wild flowers. The oak was putting forth tufts of rose velvet, the beech a veil of pale and satiny green. The sky above was blue, but, the sun being low, the space beneath the lacing boughs was shadowy enough. The two men stopped beside the bole of a giant beech, silver-grey, splashed with lichens. "Quiet enough here," said Stafford. "Well, what is it, Richard Cleave?"

"I have not much to say," said Cleave. "I will not keep you many moments. I will ask you to recall to mind the evening of the seventeenth of last April."

"Well, I have done so. It is not difficult."

"No. It would, I imagine, come readily. Upon that evening, Maury Stafford, you lied to me."

"I—"

"Don't!" said Cleave. "Why should you make it worse? The impression which, that evening, you deliberately gave me, you on every after occasion as deliberately strengthened. Your action, then and since, brands you, sir, for what you are!"

"And where," demanded Stafford hoarsely, "where did you get this precious information—or misinformation? Who was at the pains to persuade you—no hard matter, I warrant!—that I was dealing falsely? Your informant, sir, was mistaken, and I—"

A shaft of sunshine, striking between the boughs, flooded the space in which they stood. It lit Cleave's head and face as by a candle closely held. The other uttered a sound, a hard and painful gasp. "You have seen her!"

"Yes."

"Did she tell you that?"

"No. She does not know why I misunderstood. Nor shall I tell her."

"You have seen her—You are happy?"

"Yes, I am happy."

"She loves you—She is going to marry you?"

"Yes."

The wood stood very quiet. The shaft of light drew up among the boughs. Stafford leaned against the trunk of the beech. He was breathing heavily; he looked, veritably, a wounded man. "I will go now," said Cleave. "I had to speak to you and I had to warn you. Good-day."

He turned, the leaves crisp beneath his footfall. "Wait," said Stafford. "One moment—" He drew himself up against the beech. "I wish to tell you why I—as you phrase it—lied to you. I allowed you to rest under that impression which I am not sure that I myself gave you, because I thought her yet trembling between us, and that your withdrawal would be advantageous to my cause. Not for all of Heaven would I have had her turn to you! Now that, apparently, I have lost her irrevocably, I will tell you that you do not love her as I do. Have I not watched you? Did she die to-day, you would go on to-morrow with your Duty—Duty—Duty—! For me, I would kill myself on her grave. Where you and I were rivals and enemies, now we are enemies. Look out for me, Richard Cleave!" He began to laugh, a broken and mirthless sound. "Look out for me, Richard Cleave. Go!"

"I shall," said Cleave. "I will not keep a watch upon you in such a moment, nor remember it. I doubt neither your passion nor your suffering. But in one thing, Maury Stafford, you have lied again. I love as strongly, and I love more highly than you do! As for your threats—threatened men live long."

He turned, left the forest glade and came out into the camp lying now beneath the last rays of the sun. That evening he spent with Ewell and his staff, passed the night in a friendly tent, and at dawn turned Dundee's head toward the Blue Ridge.



CHAPTER XVIII

McDOWELL

At Stanardsville he heard from a breathless crowd about the small hotel news from over the mountains. Banks was at last in motion—was marching, nineteen thousand strong, up the Valley—had seized New Market, and, most astounding and terrific of all to the village boys, had captured a whole company of Ashby's! "General Jackson?" General Jackson had burned the railway station at Mt. Jackson and fallen back—was believed to be somewhere about Harrisonburg.

"Any other news?"

"Yes, sir! Fremont's pressing south from Moorefield, Milroy east from Monterey! General Edward Johnson's had to fall back from the Alleghenies!—he's just west of Staunton. He hasn't got but a brigade and a half."

"Anything more?"

"Stage's just brought the Richmond papers. All about Albert Sydney Johnston's death at Shiloh. He led the charge and a minie ball struck him, and he said 'Lay me down. Fight on.'"

"Fort Pulaski's taken! The darned gunboats battered down the wall. All of the garrison that ain't dead are prisoners."

"News from New Orleans ain't hilarious. Damned mortar boats bombard and bombard!—four ships, they say, against Fort Saint Philip, more against Fort Jackson. Air full of shells. Farragut may try to run forts and batteries, Chalmette and all—"

"What else?"

"Looks downright bad down t' Richmond. McClellan's landed seventy-five thousand men. Magruder lost a skirmish at Yorktown. All the Richmond women are making sandbags for the fortifications. Papers talk awful calm and large, but if Magruder gives way and Johnston can't keep McClellan back, I reckon there'll be hell to pay! I reckon Richmond'll fall."

"Anything more?"

"That's all to-day."

The village wag stepped forth, half innocent and half knave. "Saay, colonel! The prospects of this here Confederacy look rather blue."

"It is wonderful," said Cleave, "how quickly blue can turn to grey."

A portion of that night he spent at a farmhouse at the western mouth of Swift Run Gap. Between two and three he and Harris and Dundee and the grey were again upon the road. It wound through forests and by great mountains, all wreathed in a ghostly mist. The moon shone bright, but the cold was clinging. It had rained and on the soft wood road the horses feet fell noiselessly. The two men rode in silence, cloaks drawn close, hats over their eyes.

Behind them in the east grew slowly the pallor of the dawn. The stars waned, the moon lost her glitter, in the woods to either side began a faint peeping of birds. The two came to Conrad's Store, where the three or four houses lay yet asleep. An old negro, sweeping the ground before a smithy, hobbled forward at Harris's call. "Lawd, marster, enny news? I specs, sah, I'll hab ter ax you 'bout dat. I ain' heard none but dat dar wuz er skirmish at Rude's Hill, en er skirmish at New Market, en er-nurr skirmish at Sparta, en dat Gineral Jackson hold de foht, sah, at Harrisonburg, en dat de Yankees comin', lickerty-split, up de Valley, en dat de folk at Magaheysville air powerful oneasy in dey minds fer fear dey'll deviate dis way. Howsomever, we's got er home guard ef dey do come, wid ole Mr. Smith what knew Gin'ral Washington at de haid. En dar wuz some bridges burnt, I hearn, en Gineral Ashby he had er fight on de South Fork, en I cyarn think ob no mo' jes now, sah! But Gineral Jackson he sholy holdin' de foht at Harrisonburg.—Yes, sah, dat's de Magaheysville road."

The South Fork of the Shenandoah lay beneath a bed of mist. They crossed by a wooden bridge and came up again to the chill woods. Dim purple streaks showed behind them in the east, but there was yet no glory and no warmth. Before them rose a long, low mountain ridge, a road running along the crest. "That certainly is damn funny!" said Harris; "unless I've taken to seeing sights."

Cleave checked his horse. Above them, along the ridge top, was moving an army. It made no noise on the soft, moist road, artillery wheel and horse's hoof quiet alike. It seemed to wish to move quietly, without voice. The quarter of the sky above the ridge was coldly violet, palely luminous. All these figures stood out against it, soldiers with their muskets, colour-bearer with furled colours, officers on foot, officers on horseback, guns, caissons, gunners, horses, forges, ordnance wagons, commissary—van, main body and rear, an army against the daybreak sky.

"Well, if ever I saw the like of that!" breathed the orderly. "What d'ye reckon it means, sir?"

"It means that General Jackson is moving east from Harrisonburg."

"Not a sound—D'ye reckon they're ghosts, sir?"

"No. They're the Army of the Valley—There! the advance has made the turn."

Toward them swung the long column, through the stillness of the dawn, down the side of the ridge, over the soundless road, into the mist of the bottom lands. The leading regiment chanced to be the 2d; colonel and adjutant and others riding at the head. "Hello! It's Richard Cleave!—The top of the morning to you, Cleave!—knew that Old Jack had sent you off somewhere, but didn't know where.—Where are we going? By God, if you'll tell us, we'll tell you! Apparently we're leaving the Valley—damn it all! Train to Richmond by night, I reckon. We've left Fourth of July, Christmas, and New Year behind us—Banks rubbing his hands, Fremont doing a scalp dance, Milroy choosing headquarters in Staunton! Well, it doesn't stand thinking of. You had as well waited for us at the Gap. The general? Just behind, head of main column. He's jerked that right hand of his into the air sixteen times since we left Harrisonburg day before yesterday, and the staff says he prays at night most powerful. Done a little praying myself; hope the Lord will look after the Valley, seeing we aren't going to do it ourselves!"

Cleave drew his horse to one side. "I'll wait here until he comes up—no, not the Lord; General Jackson. I want, too, to speak to Will. Where in column is the 65th?"

"Fourth, I think. He's a nice boy—Will. It was pretty to watch him at Kernstown—V. M. I. airs and precision, and gallantry enough for a dozen!"

"I'll tell him you said so, colonel! Good-bye!"

Will, too, wanted to know—he said that Mr. Rat wanted to know—all the fellows wanted to know, what—("I wish you'd let me swear, Richard!") what it all meant? "Mr. Rat and I don't believe he's responsible—it isn't in the least like his usual conduct! Old Jack backing away from cannons and such—quitting parade ground before it's time!—marching off to barracks with a beautiful rumpus behind him! It ain't natural! Mark my words, Richard, and Mr. Rat thinks so, too, it's General Lee or General Johnston, and he's got to obey and can't help himself!—What do you think?"

"I think it will turn out all right. Now march on, boy! The colonel says he watched you at Kernstown; says you did mighty well—'gallant for a dozen!'"

General Jackson on Little Sorrel was met with further on. Imperturbable and self-absorbed, with his weather-stained uniform, his great boots, his dreadful cap, he exhibited as he rode a demeanour in which there was neither heaviness nor lightness. Never jovial, seldom genial, he was on one day much what he was on another—saving always battle days. Riding with his steadfast grey-blue eyes level before him, he communed with himself or with Heaven—certainly not with his dissatisfied troops.

He acknowledged Cleave's salute, and took the letter which the other produced. "Good! good! What did you do at Charlottesville?"

"I sent the stores on to Major Harman at Staunton, sir. There was a good deal of munition." He gave a memorandum.

One hundred rifled muskets with bayonets. " " Belgian " " " Fifty flintlocks. Two hundred pikes. Five hundred pounds cannon powder. Two " " musket " Five thousand rounds of cartridge. Eight sets artillery harness. Ten artillery sabres. One large package of lint. One small case drugs and surgical instruments.

"Good, good," said Jackson. "What day?"

"Monday, sir. Virginia Central that afternoon. I telegraphed to Major Harman."

"Good!" He folded the slip of paper between his large fingers and transferred it to his pocket. "I will read General Ewell's letter. Later I may wish to ask you some questions. That is all, major."

Cleave rode back to the 65th. Presently, the sun now brilliantly up, the Army of the Valley, in no sunny mood, crossed the bridge over the Shenandoah. There was a short halt. A company of Ashby's galloped from the rear and drew off into a strip of level beside the bridge. A section of artillery followed suit. The army understood that for some reason or other and for some length of time or other the bridge was to be guarded, but it understood nothing more. Presently the troops passed Conrad's Store, where the old negro, reinforced now by the dozen white inhabitants, gaped at the tramping column. The white men asked stuttering questions, and as the situation dawned upon them they indulged in irritating comment. "Say, boys, where in the Lord's name air you going? We want you on this side of the Blue Ridge—you ain't got any call to go on the other!—if you've got any Tuckahoes, let them go, but you Cohees stay in your native land—Valley men ain't got no right to go! What'd the women say to you along the road? Clearing out like a passel of yaller dogs afore there's trouble and leavin' them an' the children to entertain the Yankees!"

Harris, coming up with the orderlies, found the old negro at his mare's bridle. "Well, marster, I sholy did think I wuz tellin' de truf, sah, 'bout Gin'ral Jackson holdin' de foht at Harrisonburg! En now he done 'vacuate hit, en Gin'ral Banks he prance right in! Hit look powerful cu'rous, hit sho do. But dar! I done seed de stars all fallin' way back in '33, en dat wuz powerful cu'rous too, fer de worl' didn't come ter an eend—Mebbe, sah, he jes'er drawin' dat gent'man on?"

Sullen and sorry, the army marched on, and at noon came to Elk Run Valley on the edge of Swift Run Gap. When the men stacked arms and broke ranks, it was upon the supposition that, dinner over, they would resume the march. They did not so; they stayed ten days in Elk Run Valley.

All around were the mountains, heavily timbered, bold and pathless. Beyond Conrad's Store, covering Jackson's front, rushed the Shenandoah, the bridge guarded by Ashby's men. There were pickets enough between the river and the camp; north, south, and east rose the mountains, and on the other side of Swift Run Gap, near Stanardsville, lay Ewell and his eight thousand. The encampment occupied low and flat ground, through which ran a swollen creek. The spring had been on the whole inclement, and now, with suddenness, winter came back for a final word. One day there was a whirl of snow, another was cold and harsh, on the third there set in a chilly rain. It rained and rained, and all the mountain streams came down in torrents and still further swelled the turbid creek. One night, about halfway through their stay, the creek came out of its banks and flooded the surrounding land. All tents, huts, and shelters of boughs for a hundred feet each side acquired a liquid flooring. There arose an outcry on the midnight air. Wet and cursing, half naked and all a-shiver, men disentangled themselves from their soaked blankets, snatched up clothing and accoutrements, and splashed through a foot of icy water to slightly dryer quarters on the rising ground.

Snow, rain, freeze, thaw, impatience, listlessness, rabid conjecture, apathetic acquiescence, quarrels, makeups, discomfort, ennui, a deal of swearing (carefully suppressed around headquarters), drill whenever practicable, two Sunday services and one prayer meeting!—the last week of April 1862 in Elk Run Valley was one to be forgotten without a pang. There was an old barn which the artillery had seized upon, that leaked like a sieve, and there was a deserted tannery that still filled the air with an evil odour, and there was change of pickets, and there were rain-sodden couriers to be observed coming and going (never anything to be gotten out of them), and there were the mountains hung with grey clouds. The wood was always wet and would not burn. Coffee was so low that it was served only every other day, besides being half chicory, and the commissary had been cheated into getting a lot of poor tobacco. The guardhouse accommodated more men than usual. A squad of Ashby's brought in five deserters, all found on the backward road to the Valley. One said that he was sick and that his mother had always nursed him; another that he was only going to see that the Yankees hadn't touched the farm, and meant to come right back; another that the war was over, anyhow; another that he had had a bad dream and couldn't rest until he saw that his wife was alive; the fifth that he was tired of living; and the sixth said nothing at all. Jackson had the six put in irons, and it was thought that after the court martial they would be shot.

On the twenty-ninth Ashby, from the other side of the Shenandoah, made a demonstration in force against the enemy at Harrisonburg, and the next day, encountering the Federal cavalry, drove them back to the town. That same afternoon the Army of the Valley, quitting without regret Elk Run Valley, found itself travelling an apparently bottomless road that wound along the base of the mountains.

"For the Lord's sake, where are we going now?"

"This is the worst road to Port Republic."

"Why are we going to Port Republic?"

"Boys, I don't know. Anyway, we ain't going through the Gap. We're still in the Valley."

"By gosh, I've heard the captain give some mighty good guesses! I'm going to ask him.—Captain, what d' ye reckon we camped ten days in that mud hole for?"

Hairston Breckinridge gave the question consideration. "Well, Tom, maybe there were reasons, after all. General Ewell, for instance—he could have joined us there any minute. They say he's going to take our place at Elk Run to-night!"

"That so? Wish him joy of the mud hole!"

"And we could have been quickly reinforced from Richmond. General Banks would know all that, and 't would make him even less eager than he seems to be to leave the beaten way and come east himself. Nobody wants him, you know, on the other side of the Blue Ridge."

"That's so—"

"And for all he knew, if he moved north and west to join Fremont we might pile out and strike Milroy, and if he went south and west to meet Milroy he might hear of something happening to Fremont."

"That's so—"

"And if he moved south on Staunton he might find himself caught like a scalybark in a nut cracker—Edward Johnson on one side and the Army of the Valley on the other."

"That's so—"

"The other day I asked Major Cleave if General Jackson never amused himself in any way—never played any game, chess for instance. He said, 'Not at all—which was lucky for the other chess player.'"

"Well, he ought to know, for he's a mighty good chess player himself. And you think—"

"I think General Banks has had to stay where he is."

"And where are we going now—besides Port Republic?"

"I haven't any idea. But I'm willing to bet that we're going somewhere."

The dirt roads, after the incessant rains, were mud, mud, mud! ordinarily to the ankles, extraordinarily to the knees of the marching infantry. The wagon train moved in front, and the heavy wheels made for the rest a track something like Christian's through the Slough of Despond. The artillery brought up the rear and fared worst of all. Guns and caissons slid heavily into deep mud holes. The horses strained—poor brutes! but their iron charges stuck fast. The drivers used whip and voice, the officers swore, there arose calls for Sergeant Jordan. Appearing, that steed tamer picked his way to the horses' heads, spoke to them, patted them, and in a reasonable voice said, "Get up!" They did it, and the train dragged on to the next bog, deeper than before. Then da capo—stuck wheels, straining teams, oaths, adjuration, at last "Sergeant Jordan!"

So abominable was the road that the army went like a tortoise, a mud tortoise. Twilight found it little more than five miles from its starting-point, and the bivouac that night was by the comfortless roadside, in the miry bushes, with fires of wet wood, and small and poor rations. Clouds were lowering and a chilly wind fretted the forests of the Blue Ridge. Around one of the dismal, smoky fires an especially dejected mess found a spokesman with a vocabulary rich in comminations.

"Sh!" breathed one of the ring. "Officer coming by. Heard you too, Williams—all that about Old Jack."

A figure wrapped in a cloak passed just upon the rim of the firelight. "I don't think, men," said a voice, "that you are in a position to judge. If I have brought you by this road it is for your own good."

He passed on, the darkness taking him. Day dawned as best it might through grey sheets of rain. Breakfast was a mockery, damp hardtack holding the centre of the stage. A very few men had cold coffee in their canteens, but when they tried to heat it the miserable fire went out. On marched the Army of the Valley, in and out of the great rain-drenched, mist-hidden mountains, on the worst road to Port Republic. Road, surrounding levels, and creek-bed had somehow lost identity. One was like the other, and none had any bottom. Each gun had now a corps of pioneers, who, casting stone and brushwood into the morass, laboriously built a road for the piece. Whole companies of infantry were put at this work. The officers helped, the staff dismounted and helped, the commanding general was encountered, rain-dripping, mud-spattered, a log on his shoulder or a great stone in his hands. All this day they made but five miles, and at night they slept in something like a lake, with a gibing wind above to whisper What's it for?—What's it for?

May the second was of a piece with May the first. On the morning of May the third the clouds broke and the sun came out. It found the troops bivouacked just east of the village of Port Republic, and it put into them life and cheer. Something else helped, and that was the fact that before them, clear and shining in the morning light, stretched, not the neglected mountain road they had been travelling, but a fair Valley road, the road to Staunton.

Jackson and his staff had their quarters at the neighbouring house of General Lewis. At breakfast one of the ladies remarked that the Staunton road was in good condition, and asked the guest of honour how long it would take the army to march the eighteen miles.

"Is that the exact distance?" asked the general. "Eighteen miles?"

"Yes, sir; just about eighteen. You should get there, should you not, by night?"

"You are fortunate," said the general, "in having a great natural curiosity at your very doors. I have long wanted to see Weyers's Cave. A vast cavern like that, hollowed out by God's finger, hung with stalactites, with shells and banners of stone, filled with sounding aisles, run through by dark rivers in which swim blind fish—how wonderful a piece of His handiwork! I have always wished to see it—the more so that my wife has viewed it and told me of its marvels. I always wish, madam, to rest my eyes where my wife's have rested."

The bugles ringing "Fall in!" were positively sweet to the ears of the soldiers of the Valley. "Fall in? with pleasure, sir! Eighteen miles? What's eighteen miles when you're going home? It's a fine old road anyhow, with more butterflies on it! We'll double-quick it all the way if Old Jack wants us!"

"That man back there says Staunton's awfully anxious. Says people all think we've gone to reinforce Richmond without caring a damn what becomes of the Valley. Says Milroy is within ten miles of Staunton, and Banks's just waiting a little longer before he pulls up stakes at Harrisonburg and comes down the pike to join him. Says Edward Johnson ain't got but a handful, and that the Staunton women are hiding their silver. Says—Here's Old Jack, boys! going to lead us himself back to Goshen! One cheer ain't enough—three cheers for General Jackson!"

Jackson, stiffly lifting the old forage cap, galloped by upon Little Sorrel. His staff behind him, he came to the head of the column where it was drawn up on the fair road leading through Port Republic, south and west to Staunton. Close on the eastern horizon rose the Blue Ridge. To this side turned off a rougher, narrower way, piercing at Brown's Gap the great mountain barrier between the Valley and Piedmont Virginia.

The column was put into motion, the troops stepping out briskly. Warm and lovely was the sunshine, mildly still the air. Big cherry trees were in bloom by the wayside: there was a buzzing of honey bees, a slow fluttering of yellow butterflies above the fast drying mud puddles. Throughout the ranks sounded a clearing of throats; it was evident that the men felt like singing, presently would sing. The head of the column came to the Brown's Gap Road.

"What's that stony old road?" asked a Winchester man.

"That's a road over the mountains into Albemarle. Thank the Lord—"

"Column left. MARCH!"

It rang infernally. Column left. MARCH!—Not a freight boat horn winding up the James at night, not the minie's long screech, not Gabriel's trump, not anything could have sounded at this moment so mournfully in the ears of the Army of the Valley. It wheeled to the left, it turned its back to the Valley, it took the stony road to Brown's Gap, it deeply tasted the spring of tragic disappointment.

The road climbed and climbed through the brilliant weather. Spur and wall, the Blue Ridge shimmered in May greenery, was wrapped in happy light and in sweet odours, was carpeted with wild flowers and ecstatic with singing birds. Only the Army of the Valley was melancholy—desperately melancholy. Here and there through openings, like great casements in the foliage, wide views might be had of the Valley they were leaving. Town and farm and mill with turning wheel were there, ploughed land and wheat fields, Valley roads and Valley orchards, green hills and vales and noble woods, all the great vale between mountain chains, two hundred miles from north to south, twenty-five from Blue Ridge to Alleghenies! The men looked wistfully, with grieved, children's faces.

At the top of the mountain there was a short halt. The up-hill pull had been hard enough, heavy hearts and all! The men dropped upon the earth between the pine trees of the crest. For the most part they lay in the sullen silence with which they had climbed. Some put their heads upon their arms, tilted hat or cap over their eyes. Others chewed a twig or stalk of grass and gazed upon the Valley they were leaving, or upon the vast eastward stretch of Piedmont, visible also from the mountain top. It was bright and quiet up here above the world. The sunshine drew out the strong, life-giving odour of the pines, the ground was dry and warm, it should have been a pleasant place to drowse in and be happy. But the Valley soldiers were not happy. Jackson, riding by a recumbent group, spoke from the saddle. "That's right, men! You rest all over, lying down." In the morning this group had cheered him loudly; now it saluted in a genuine "Bath to Romney" silence. He rode by, imperturbable. His chief engineer was with him, and they went on to a flat rock commanding both the great views, east and west. Here they dismounted, and between them unfurled a large map, weighting its corners with pine cones. The soldiers below them gazed dully. Old Jack—or Major-General T. J. Jackson—or Fool Tom Jackson was forever looking at maps. It was a trick of his, as useless as saying "Good! good!" or jerking his hand in the air in that old way.

* * * * *

That evening the Army of the Valley slept in emerald meadows beside Meechum's River in Albemarle. Coming down the mountain it had caught distant glimpses of white spirals of smoke floating from the overworked engines of the Virginia Central; and now it lay near a small country station, and there on the switch were empty cars and empty cars!—cars to go to Richmond on. The army groaned and got its supper, took out its pipe and began, though reluctantly enough, to regard the situation with a philosophic eye. What was done was done! The Blue Ridge lay between it and the Valley, and after all Old Joe must be wanting soldiers pretty badly down at Richmond! The landscape was lovely, the evening tranquil and sweet. The army went to bed early, and went in a frame of mind approaching resignation. This was Saturday evening; Old Jack would rest to-morrow.

Sunday dawned clear and sweet. Pleasant morning—no drill, and light camp duties—coffee, hot biscuits, good smoke—general Sunday atmosphere—bugler getting ready to sound "Church!"—regimental chaplains moving toward chosen groves—"Old Hundred" in the air.—"Oh, come on and go! All the people are going at home."

And, after all, no one in the Army of the Valley went to church! The bugler blew another call, the chaplains stopped short in their sedate stride, short as if they had been shot, "Old Hundred" was not sung. Break camp—Break camp!

The regiments, marching down to Meechum's Station, were of one mind. Old Jack was losing his religion. Manassas on Sunday—Kernstown on Sunday—forced marches on Sunday—Sunday train to Richmond. Language failed.

There were long lines of cars, some upon the main track, others on the siding. The infantry piled in, piled atop. Out of each window came three or four heads. "You fellows on the roof, you're taller'n we are! Air we the first train? That's good, we'll be the first to say howdy to McClellan. You all up there, don't dangle your legs that-a-way! You're as hard to see through as Old Jack!"

Company after company filed into the poor old cars that were none too large, whose ante-bellum days were their best days, who never had time now to be repaired or repainted, or properly cleaned. Squad by squad swung itself up to the cindery roof and sat there in rows, feet over the edge, the central space between heaped with haversacks and muskets.

"2d—4th—5th—65th—Jerusalem! the whole brigade's going on this train! Another's coming right behind—why don't they wait for it? Crowding gentlemen in this inconsiderate fashion! Oh, ain't it hot? Wish I was going to Niagara, to a Know-Nothing Convention! Our train's full. There's the engine coming down the siding! You all on top, can you see the artillery and the wagons?"

"Yes. Way over there. Going along a road—nice shady road. Rockbridge's leading—"

"That's the road to Rockfish Gap."

"Rockfish Gap? Go 'way! You've put your compass in the wrong pocket. Rockfish Gap's back where we came from. Look out!"

The backing engine and the waiting cars came together with a grinding bump. An instant's pause, a gathering of force, a mighty puffing and, slow and jerkily, the cars began to move. The ground about Meechum's Station was grey with soldiers—part of the Stonewall, most of Burk's and Fulkerson's brigades, waiting for the second train and the third train and their turn to fill the cars. They stood or leaned against the station platform, or they sat upon the warm red earth beneath the locust trees, white and sweet with hanging bloom. "Good-bye, boys! See you in Richmond—Richmond on the James! Don't fight McClellan till we get there! That engine's just pulling them beyond the switch. Then that one below there will back up and hitch on at the eastern end.—That's funny!" The men sitting on the warm red earth beneath the locust trees sprang to their feet. "That train ain't coming back! Before the Lord, they're going west!"

Back to Meechum's Station, from body and top of the out-going train floated wild cheering. "Staunton! We're going to Staunton! We're going back to the Valley! We're going home! We're going to get there first! We're going to whip Banks! We've got Old Jack with us. You all hurry up. Banks thinks we've gone to Richmond, but we ain't! Yaaaih! Yaaaaihhh! Yaaaih! Yaaaaaaih!"

At Meechum's Station, beneath the locust trees, it was like bees swarming. Another train was on the main track, the head beautifully, gloriously westward! "Staunton! Good-bye, you little old Richmond, we ain't going to see you this summer!—Feel good? I feel like a shouting Methodist! My grandmother was a shouting Methodist. I feel I'm going to shout—anyhow, I've got to sing—"

A chaplain came by with a beaming face. "Why don't we all sing, boys? I'm sure I feel like it. It's Sunday."

How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord—

In Staunton it had been a day of indigo gloom. The comfortable Valley town, fair-sized and prosperous, with its pillared court house, its old hotel, its stores, its up and down hill streets, its many and shady trees, its good brick houses, and above the town its quaintly named mountains—Staunton had had, in the past twelve months, many an unwonted throb and thrill. To-day it was in a condition of genuine, dull, steady anxiety, now and then shot through by a fiercer pang. There had been in town a number of sick and convalescent soldiers. All these were sent several days before, eastward, across the mountains. In the place were public and military stores. At the same time, a movement was made toward hiding these in the woods on the other side of the twin mountains Betsy Bell and Mary Grey. It was stopped by a courier from the direction of Swift Run Gap with a peremptory order. Leave those stores where they are. Staunton grumbled and wondered, but obeyed. And now the evening before, had come from Port Republic, eighteen miles toward the Blue Ridge, a breathless boy on a breathless horse, with tidings that Jackson was at last and finally gone from the Valley—had crossed at Brown's Gap that morning! "Called to Richmond!" groaned the crowd that accompanied the boy on his progress toward official Staunton. "Reckon Old Joe and General Lee think we're small potatoes and few in a row. They ain't, either of them, a Valley man. Reckon this time to-morrow Banks and Milroy'll saunter along and dig us up! There's old Watkin's bugle! Home Guard, come along and drill!"

Staunton did little sleeping that Saturday night. Jackson was gone—Ashby with him. There was not a Confederate vedette between the town and Banks at Harrisonburg—the latter was probably moving down the pike this very night, in the dark of the moon. Soldiers of Edward Johnson—tall Georgians and 44th Virginians—had been in town that Saturday, but they two were gone, suddenly recalled to their camp, seven miles west, on the Parkersburg road. Scouts had reported to Johnson that Milroy was concentrating at M'Dowell, twenty miles to the westward, and that Schenck, sent on by Fremont, had joined or would join him. Any hour they might move eastward on Staunton. Banks—Fremont—Milroy—three armies, forty thousand men—all converging on Staunton and its Home Guard, with the intent to make it even as Winchester! Staunton felt itself the mark of the gods, a mournful Rome, an endangered Athens, a tottering Carthage.

Sunday morning, clear and fine, had its church bells. The children went to Sunday School, where they learned of Goliath and the brook Hebron, and David and his sling. At church time the pews were well filled—chiefly old men and women and young boys. The singing was fervent, the prayers were yet more so. The people prayed very humbly and heartily for their Confederacy, for their President and his Cabinet, and for Congress, for their Capital, so endangered, for their armies and their generals, for every soldier who wore the grey, for their blocked ports, for New Orleans, fallen last week, for Norfolk that the authorities said must be abandoned, for Johnston and Magruder on the Peninsula—at that very hour, had they known it, in grips with Hancock at Williamsburg.

Benediction pronounced, the congregation came out of the churchyards in time to greet with delight, not unmixed with a sense of the pathos of it, certain just arrived reinforcements. Four companies of Virginia Military Institute cadets, who, their teachers at their head, had been marched down for the emergency from Lexington, thirty-eight miles away. Flushed, boyish, trig, grey and white uniformed, with shining muskets, seventeen years old at most, beautifully marching with their band and their colours, amidst plaudits, tears, laughter, flowers, thrown kisses, they came down the street, wheeled, and before the court house were received by the Home Guard, an organization of grey-headed men.

Sunday afternoon brought many rumours. Milroy would march from McDowell to-morrow—Banks was coming down the turnpike—Fremont hovering closer. Excited country people flocked into town. Farmers whose sons were with Jackson came for advice from leading citizens. Ought they to bring in the women and children?—no end of foreigners with the blue coats, and foreigners are rough customers! And stock? Better drive the cows up into the mountains and hide the horses? "Tom Watson says they're awful wanton,—take what they want and kill the rest, and no more think of paying!—Says, too, they're burning barns. What d'you think we'd better do, sir?" There were Dunkards in the Valley who refused to go to war, esteeming it a sin. Some of these were in town, coming in on horseback or in their white-covered wagons, and bringing wife or daughter. The men were long-bearded and venerable of aspect; the women had peaceful Quaker faces, framed by the prim close bonnet of their peculiar garb. These quiet folk, too, were anxious-eyed. They would not resist evil, but their homes and barns were dear to their hearts.

By rights the cadets should have been too leg weary for parade, but if Staunton (and the young ladies) wished to see how the V. M. I. did things, why, of course! In the rich afternoon light, band playing, Major Smith at their head, the newly-arrived Corps of Defence marched down the street toward a green field fit for evolutions. With it, on either sidewalk, went the town at large, specifically the supremely happy, small boy. The pretty girls were already in the field, seated, full skirted beneath the sweet locust trees.

V. M. I., Home Guard, and attendant throng neared the Virginia Central. A whistle shrieked down the line, shrieked with enormous vigour—"What's that? Train due?"—"No. Not due for an hour—always late then! Better halt until it pulls in. Can't imagine—"

The engine appeared, an old timer of the Virginia Central, excitedly puffing dark smoke, straining in, like a racer to the goal. Behind it cars and cars—cars with men atop! They were all in grey—they were all yelling—the first car had a flag, the battle-flag of the Confederacy, the dear red ground, and the blue Saint Andrew's Cross and the white stars. There were hundreds of men! hundreds and hundreds, companies, regiments, on the roof, on the platforms, half out of the windows, waving, shouting—no! singing—

"We're the Stonewall. Zoom! Zoom! We're the openers of the ball. Zoom! Zoom!

"Fix bayonets! Charge! Rip! Rip! N. P. Banks for our targe. Zip! Zip!

"We wrote it on the way. Zoom! Zoom! Hope you like our little lay. Zoom! Zoom! For we didn't go to Richmond and we're coming home to stay!"

Four days later, on Sitlington's Hill, on the Bull Pasture Mountain, thirty miles to the west of Staunton, a man sat at nightfall in the light of a great camp-fire and wrote a dispatch to his Government. There waited for it a swift rider—watching the stars while the general wrote, or the surgeons' lanterns, like fireflies, wandering up and down the long green slopes where the litter bearers lifted the wounded, friend and foe.

The man seated on the log wrote with slow precision a long dispatch, covering several pages of paper. Then he read it over, and then he looked for a minute or two at the flitting lanterns, and then he slowly tore the dispatch in two, and fed the fire with the pieces. The courier, watching him write a much shorter message, half put forth his hand to take it, for his horse whinnied upon the road far below, and the way to Staunton was long and dark. However, Jackson's eyes again dwelt on the grey slopes before him and on the Alleghenies, visited by stars, and then, as slowly as before, he tore this dispatch also across and across and dropped the pieces on the brands. When they were burned he wrote a single line, signed and folded it, and gave it to the courier. The latter, in the first pink light, in the midst of a jubilant Staunton, read it to the excited operator in the little telegraph station.

"God blessed our arms with victory at McDowell yesterday.

"T. J. JACKSON "Major-General."



CHAPTER XIX

THE FLOWERING WOOD

"Thank you, ma'am," said Allan. "I reckon just so long as there are such women in the Valley there'll be worth-while men there, too! You've all surely done your share."

"Now, you've got the pot of apple butter, and the bucket with the honeycomb, and the piece of bacon and the light bread. If you'd come a little earlier I could have let you have some eggs—"

"I've got a feast for a king.—All these fighting men going up and down the Valley are going to eat you out of house and home.—I got some pay two months ago, and I've enough left to make it fairer—"

He drew out a Confederate note. The woman on the doorstep looked at it admiringly, and, taking it from him, examined either side. "They make them pretty as a picture," she said. "Once't I was in Richmond and saw the Capitol. That's a good picture of it. And that statue of General Washington!—My! his horse's just dancing as they say Ashby's does to music. One of those bronze men around the base is a forbear of mine." She gave back the note. "I had a little mite of real coffee that I'd have liked to give you—but it's all gone. Howsoever, you won't go hungry with what you've got. Have you a nice place to sleep in?"

"The nicest in the world. A bed of oak leaves and a roof all stars."

"You could stay here to-night. I've got a spare room."

"You're just as good as gold," said Allan. "But I want to be out where I can hear the news. I'm a scout, you see."

"I thought that, watching you come up the path. We're learning fast. Used to be I just thought a soldier was a soldier! I never thought of there being different kinds. Do you think the army'll come this way?"

"I shouldn't be surprised," said Allan. "Indeed, I'm rather expecting it. But you never know. How many of your people are in it?"

"A lot of cousins. But my sons are with Johnston. Richmond's more'n a hundred miles away, I reckon, but all last night I thought I heard the cannon. Well, good-bye! I'm mighty glad to see you all again in the Valley. Be sure to come back for your breakfast—and if the army passes I've got enough for one or two besides. Good-bye—God bless you."

Allan left behind the small brick farmhouse, stopped for a drink at the spring, then climbed a rail fence and made across a rolling field of bright green clover to a width of blossoming woods, beyond which ran the Mt. Solon and Bridgewater road. From the forest issued a curl of blue vapour and a smell of wood smoke. The scout, entering, found a cheerful, unnecessarily large fire. Stretched beside it, upon the carpet of last year's leaves, lay Billy Maydew, for whose company he had applied upon quitting, a week before, the army between McDowell and Franklin. Allan snuffed the air. "You build too big a fire, Billy! 'Tisn't a good scout's way of doing."

Billy laid down horizontally upon the leaves the stick he had been whittling. "Thar ain't anybody but home folks to smell it. Didn't we see Ashby on the black stallion draw a line like that thar stick across the Valley with a picket post for every knot?" He sat up. "Did you get anything to eat?"

"I certainly did. There surely are good women in the land!" Allan disburdened himself. "Rake the coals out and get the skillet."

Afterwards they lay prone upon the leaves and talked. They had much of life in common; they were as at home with each other as two squirrels frequenting the same tree. Now, as they lay beneath two clouds from two briar-roots, they dwelt for some time upon Thunder Run, then from that delectable region turned to the here and now. Allan had taught Billy, finding him a most unsatisfactory pupil. Billy had in those days acquired little book learning, but a very real respect for the blond giant now lying opposite to him. Since coming to the army he had been led to deplore his deficiencies, and, a week ago, he had suggested to Allan that in the interim of active scouting the latter should continue his education. "When thar air a chance I want to swap into the artillery. Three bands of red thar," he drew a long finger across his sleeve, "air my ambition. I reckon then Christianna and all the Thunder Run girls would stop saying 'Billy.' They'd say 'Sergeant Maydew.' An artillery sergeant's got to be head in ciphering, and he's got to be able to read words of mor'n one—one—"

"Syllable."

"That's it. Now they aren't any printed books hereabouts, but you've got it all in your head—"

"I can't teach you much," Allan had said soberly, "whispering under bushes and listening for Schenck's cavalry! We might do something, though. You were an awful poor speller. Spell 'sergeant'—now 'ordnance'—now 'ammunition'—'battery'—'caisson'—'Howitzer'— 'Napoleon'—'Tredegar'—'limber'—'trail'—'cannon-powder'—"