To left, to right, along our lines was heard the thud, thud, of the ramrods, and percussion-cap boxes were slid around the waist to be handy. Penhallow and others drew their pistols. The cannon were now fully replaced, the regimental flags unrolled, and on the front line, long motionless, the trefoil guidons of the two divisions of the Second Corps fluttered feebly. The long row of skirmishers firing fell back more and more rapidly, and came at last into our lines.

Penhallow said, turning to Gibbon, "They have—I think—they have no supporting batteries—that is strange." Haskell and Gibbon had gone as he spoke and the low crest was free at this point of all but the artillery force. To left, the projecting clump of trees and the lines of the Second Corps—all he could see—were ominously quiet.

Gibbon came back to the crest. He said, "We may need backing if they concentrate on us; here our line is too thin." And still the orderly grey columns came on silently, without their usual charging-yell.

"Ah!" exclaimed Penhallow without lowering his glass, as he gazed to our left. The clamour of cannon broke out from little Round Top.

"Rifles!" exclaimed Gibbon. "Good!" Their left made no reply, but seemed to draw away from the fire.

"I can see no more," said the Colonel, "but they stopped at the Emmitsburg road."

The acrid odour of musketry drifted across the field as he turned to gaze at the left wing of the fast coming onset. Far to our right they came under the fire of Cemetery Hill and of an advanced Massachusetts regiment. He saw the blue flags of Virginia sway, fall, and rise no more, while scattered and broken the Confederates fled or fell under the fury of the death messages from above the long-buried dead of the village graves. "Now then, Cushing!" cried Hunt, and the guns on the Crest opened fire.

It was plain that the long Confederate lines, frayed on each flank, had crowded together making a vast wedge of attack. Then all along our miles of troops a crackle of musketry broke out, the big guns bellowing. The field was mostly lost to view in the dense smoke, under which the charging-force halted and steadily returned the fire.

"I can't see," cried Cushing near by.

"Quite three hundred yards or more," said the colonel, "and you are hurt, Cushing. Go to the rear." The blood was streaming down his leg.

"Not I—it is nothing. Hang those fellows!" A New York battery gallantly run in between disabled guns crowded Cushing's cannon. He cried, "Section one to the front, by hand!"

He was instantly obeyed. As he went with it to the front near to the wall, followed by Penhallow, he said, "It is my last canister, colonel. I can't see well."

Dimly seen figures in the dense smoke were visible here and there some two hundred yards away, with flutter of reeling battle-flags in the smoke, while more and more swiftly the wedge of men came on, losing terribly by the fire of the men at the wall along the lines.

Cushing stood with the lanyard of the percussion trigger in his hand. It seems inconceivable, but the two men smiled. Then he cried, "My God!"—his figure swayed, he held his left hand over a ghastly wound in his side, and as he reeled pulled the lanyard. He may have seen the red flash, and then with a bullet through the open mouth fell dead across the trail of his gun.

For a moment Penhallow was the only officer of rank near the silent battery. Where Cushing's two guns came too near the wall, the men moved away to the sides leaving an unguarded space. Checked everywhere to right and left, the assailants crowded on to the clump of trees and to where the Pennsylvania line held the stone wall. Ignorant of the ruin behind them, the grey mass came on with a rush through the smoke. The men in blue, losing terribly, fell back from a part of the wall in confusion—a mere mob—sweeping Webb, Penhallow and others with them, swearing and furious. Two or three hundred feet back they stopped, a confused mass. General Webb, Haskell and other officers rallied them. The red flags gathered thicker, where the small units of many commands stood fast under the shelter of a portion of the lost wall. Penhallow looked back and saw the Massachusetts flags—our centre alone had given way. The flanks of the broken regiments still held the wall and poured in a murderous fire where the splendid courage of the onset halted, unwilling to fly, unable to go on.

Webb, furious, rallied his men, while Penhallow, Haskell and Gibbon vainly urged an advance. A colour-sergeant ran forward and fell dead. A corporal caught up the flag and dropped. A Confederate general leaped over the deserted wall and laid a hand on Cushing's gun. He fell instantly at the side of the dead captain, as with a sudden roar of fury the broken Pennsylvanians rolled in a disordered mass of men and officers against the disorganized valour which held the wall.

The smoke held—still holds, the secret of how many met the Northern men at the wall; how long they fought among Cushing's guns, on and over the wall, no man who came out of it could tell. Penhallow emptied his revolver and seizing a musket fought the brute battle with the men who used fists, stones, gun-rammers—a howling mob of blue and grey. And so the swaying flags fell down under trampling men and the lost wall was won. The fight was over. Men fell in scores, asking quarter. The flanking fires had been merciless, and the slope was populous with dead and wounded men, while far away the smoke half hid the sullen retreat of the survivors. The prearranged mechanism of war became active. Thousands of prisoners were being ordered to the rear. Men stood still, gasping, breathless or dazed. As Penhallow stood breathing hard, from the right wing, among the long silent dead of Cemetery Hill, arose a wild hurrah. It gathered volume, rolled down the long line of corps after corps, and died away among the echoes of the Pennsylvania hills. He looked about him trying to recover interest. Some one said that Hancock and Gibbon were wounded. The rush of the melee had carried him far down the track of the charge, and having no instant duty he sat down, his clothes in tatters. As he recovered strength, he was aware of General Meade on horseback with an aide. The general, white and grave, said to Haskell, "How has it gone here?"

An officer cried, "They are beaten," showing two flags he held.

Meade said sharply: "Damn the flags! Are the men gone?"

"Yes, sir, the attack is over."

He uncovered, said only, "Thank God!" gave some rapid orders and rode away beside the death-swath, careful, as Penhallow saw, to keep his horse off of the thirty scattered flags, many lying under or over the brave who had fought and lost in this memorable charge.

Penhallow could have known of the battle only what he had seen, but a few words from an officer told him that nowhere except at this part of the line of the Second Corps had the attack been at all fortunate.

On the wide field of attack our ambulance corps was rescuing the hundreds of wounded Confederates, many of them buried, helpless, beneath the bodies of the motionless dead. Two soldiers stood near him derisively flaunting flags.

"Quit that," cried the Colonel, "drop them!" The men obeyed.

"Death captured them—not we," said Penhallow, and saw that he was speaking to a boyish Confederate lieutenant, who had just dragged himself limping out of the ghastly heap of dead.

Touching his forehead in salute, he said, "Thank you, sir. Where shall I go?"

"Up there," replied the colonel. "You will be cared for."

The man limped away followed by Penhallow, who glanced at the torn Confederate banners lying blood-stained about the wall and beyond it. He read their labels—Manassas, Chancellorsville, Sharpsburg. One marked Fredericksburg lay gripped in the hand of a dead sergeant. He crossed the wall to look for the body of the captain of the battery; men were lifting it. "My God!—Poor boy!" murmured the colonel, as he looked on the white face of death. He asked who was the Rebel general who had fallen beside Cushing.

"General Armistead," said an officer—"mortally wounded, they say."

Penhallow turned and went down the slope again. Far away, widely scattered, he caught glimpses of this rash and gallant attack. He was aware of that strange complex odour which rises from a battlefield. It affected him as horrible and as unlike any other unpleasant smell. Feeling better, he busied himself directing those who were aiding the wounded. A general officer he did not know said to him, "Stop the firing from that regiment."

A number of still excited men of one of the flanking brigades on our right were firing uselessly at the dimly seen and remote mass of the enemy. Penhallow went quickly to the right, and as he drew near shouted, "Stop those men—quit firing!" He raised his hand to call attention to his order. The firing lessened, and seeing that he was understood he turned away. At the moment he was not fifty feet from the flanking line, and had moved far down the slope as one of the final shots rang out. He felt something like a blow on his right temple, and as he staggered was aware of the gush of blood down his face. "What fool did that?" he exclaimed as he reeled and fell. He rose, fell, rose again, and managed to tie a handkerchief around his head. He stumbled to the wall and lay down, his head aching. He could go no further. "Queer, that," he murmured; "they might have seen." He sat up; things around him were doubled to his view.

"Are you hit?" said Haskell, who was directing stretcher-bearers and sending prisoners to the rear.

"Not badly." He was giddy and in great pain. Then he was aware of the anxious face of Josiah.

"My God! you hurt, sir? Come to look for you—can you ride? I fetched Dixy—mare's killed."

"I am not badly hurt. Tighten this handkerchief and give me your arm—I can't ride,"

He arose, and amazed at his weakness, dragged himself down the slope, through the reforming lines, the thousands of prisoners, the reinforcing cannon and the wreckage of the hillside. He fell on his couch, and more at ease began to think, with some difficulty in controlling his thoughts. At last he said, "I shall be up to-morrow," and lay still, seeing, as the late afternoon went by, Grey Pine and Ann Penhallow. Then he was aware of Captain Haskell and a surgeon, who dressed his wound and said, "It was mere shock—there is no fracture. The ball cut the artery and tore the scalp. You'll be all right in a day or two."

Penhallow said, "Please to direct my servant to the Sanitary Commission. I think my friend, the Rev. Mark Rivers, is with them."

He slept none. It was early dawn when Rivers came in anxious and troubled. For the first time in years of acquaintance he found Penhallow depressed, and amazed because so small a wound made him weak and unable to think clearly or to give orders. "And it was some stupid boy from our line," he said.

His incapacity made Rivers uneasy, and although Penhallow broke out to his surprise in angry remonstrance, he convinced him at last that he must return to Grey Pine on sick leave. He asked no question about the army. Insisting that he was too well to give up his command, nevertheless he talked much of headache and lack of bodily power. He was, as Rivers saw, no longer the good-humoured, quiet gentleman, with no thought of self. In a week he was stronger, but as his watchful friend realized, there was something mysteriously wrong with his mental and moral mechanism.

On the day after the battle Penhallow asked to have his wife telegraphed that he was slightly wounded, and that she must not come to him. Rivers wrote also a brief and guarded letter to Leila of their early return to Grey Pine.

In a vain effort to interest the colonel, he told him of the surrender of Vicksburg.—He asked where it was and wasn't John there, but somewhat later became more clear-minded and eager to go home.



CHAPTER XXV

Rivers gathered no comfort from a consultation of surgeons, who talked of the long-lasting effects of concussion of the brain. Made careful by the sad change he had observed in Ann Penhallow when last seen, he sent his telegram for Leila to the care of the post-mistress, and a day later a brief letter.

Understanding the mode of address, Mrs. Crocker walked at once to Grey Pine, and found Leila in the garden. "Where is your aunt?" she asked.

"Lying down in her room. I got your kind note about the fight last evening. Is it true? Is the news confirmed?"

"Yes. There was a terrible battle at Gettysburg. The Rebels were defeated by General Meade and are retreating."

"I did not tell Aunt Ann anything. I waited to hear, as I was sure I would from Uncle James. Is there evil news?"

"I don't know. Here is a telegram to my care for you from Mr. Rivers. It must have been delayed—and then came this letter to Mrs. Penhallow from him."

"Then—then—there is bad news," she cried as she tore open the telegram and stood still.

"What is it?—you know how we all love him."

"Uncle Jim is wounded—not seriously—and will be here shortly."

"Oh, but I am sorry—and glad."

"Yes—yes—I must tell aunt at once. She has not left her room for two days, and I forbade the maids to talk of the victory until it was sure—now she must know all. I must tell her at once."

"Why not get Dr. McGregor?"

"No—no," she returned with decision. "I shall know best how to tell—it wants a woman."

The ruddy, stout post-mistress looked at the tall young woman with sudden appreciation of her self-command and mental growth. "Maybe you're about right, but I thought—well, fact is, I've seen of late so many people just tear open a letter—and go all to pieces."

Leila smiled. "You don't know my aunt. Now I must go. Oh, this war—this war! To-morrow will scatter joy and grief over all the land."

"Yes, I've been near about mobbed to-day. Good-bye."

The messenger of evil news went straight from the garden path, where the roses were in unusual abundance. To her surprise she saw her aunt on the back porch. As Leila hesitated, she said, "I saw Mrs. Crocker from my window, Leila. She gave you something—a letter—or a telegram. What is it? I suppose after what I have heard of the Confederates at York and Carlisle, they may be in Harrisburg by this time and the railroad to the west cut off. It may be well to know." She spoke rapidly as she came down the steps to meet her niece. "It is as well James Penhallow is not in it."

The two women stood facing one another in one of those immeasurably brief silences which are to timeless thought as are ages. Her husband safe, General Lee victorious—some slight look of satisfaction could be seen in her face—a faint smile, too easily read—and then—

"Well, dear, your news?"

Anger, tenderness, love, pity—all dictated answers. "Aunt Ann, I have bad news."

"Of course, dear. It was to be expected. You won't believe me, but I am sorry for you and for James."

The face of the tall young woman flushed hot. She had meant to spare her—to be tender. She said, "General Lee is retreating after losing a great battle at Gettysburg."

Her aunt said quickly, "But James Penhallow—he is in Washington?"

"No, he was in the army—he is wounded—not seriously—and he is coming home."

"I might have known it." A great illumination came over her face not understood by Leila. She was strangely glad for him that he had been in the field and not in peaceful safety at Washington. With abrupt change of expression, she added, "Wounded? Not seriously. That isn't like him to come home for a slight wound. You or Mark Rivers are hiding something."

"Not I, aunt; but any wound that kept him off duty would be better cared for here. Lee's defeat leaves him free for a time—I mean at ease—"

"Don't talk nonsense!" she cried. "What do I care for Lee—or Meade—or battles! James Penhallow is all the world to me. Victory!"—she flamed with mounting colour—"it is I am the victor! He comes back with honour—I have no duties—no country—I have only my love. Oh, my God! if he had died—if—if—I should have hated!—" She spoke with harsh vehemence, and of a sudden stopped, and breathing fast gasped in low-voiced broken tones, "Don't stare at me—I am not a fool—I am—I am—only the fool of a great love. You don't know what it means. My God! I have no child—James Penhallow is to me children, husband—all—everything." She stood still, wide-eyed, staring down the garden paths, a wonder of yearning tenderness in her face, with Rivers's letter in her hand.

"Read your letter, Aunt."

"Yes—yes—I forgot it." She read it, and said, "It only confirms the telegram."

The storm of passionate emotion was over. Leila amazed and fearful of results—twice seen before—watched her. "You have seen," she said in a low voice, "the soul of a great love laid bare. May you too some day, my child, love as I do! Have no fear for me—I see it in your looks. Come in—I have to see to things—I have to give some orders—there will be much to do." She was at once quiet, and composedly led the way into the house, the astonished girl following her.

In the hall Mrs. Penhallow said, "I fear, dear, I have left too much of the management of the house to you—of late, I mean. What with the farms and stables, I am not surprised that things have not been quite as James would desire. I am going to relieve you a little. I suppose the stables are all right."

"They are," returned Leila, feeling hurt. Her aunt had not been in the kitchen or given an order for nearly a month, and house, farm and stables, had been by degrees allowed to slip into Leila's well-trained and competent hands. Meanwhile Ann Penhallow had gradually failed in health and lost interest in duties which had been to her, as Rivers said, what social pleasures were to some women. She yielded by degrees and not without resistance to mere physical weakness, and under the emotional stress of war, and above all the absence of the man on whom she depended, had lapsed to McGregor's dismay into a state of mind and body for which he had no remedy.

Every physician of large experience must have seen cases of self-created, unresisted invalidism end with mysterious abruptness and the return of mental, moral and physical competence, under the influence of some call upon their sense of duty made by calamity, such as an acute illness in the household, financial ruin, or the death of a husband. The return of a wounded man and the need to care for him acted thus upon Ann Penhallow.

Leila looked on in surprise. Her aunt's astounding indifference to the results of defeat for her beloved South when she learned of her husband's injury left the younger woman utterly bewildered. Nothing in her own nature, as she thought it all over, enabled her to understand it, nor was her aunt's rapid gain in health and cheerfulness during the next few days more easy to explain. At first with effort, but very soon with increase of ability, she gradually became more and more her old self.

Ann Penhallow spent the remainder of the next day in one of those household inspections which let no failure in neatness or order escape attention. James Penhallow's library was to be cleaned and cared for in a way to distress any man-minded man, while Leila looked on. Had her aunt's recent look of ill-health represented nothing but the depressing influence of a year of anxiety? And, if so, why under the distress of a nearer and more material disaster should she grow so quickly active, and apparently strong in place of becoming more feeble. She followed her aunt about the house trying to be helpful, and a little amused at her return to some of the ways which at times annoyed Penhallow into positive revolt. As she thought of it, Ann was standing over a battered army-chest, open and half full of well-worn cavalry uniforms.

"Really, Leila," she said, "these old army clothes had better be disposed of—and that shabby smoking-jacket—I have not seen it for years. Why do men keep their useless, shabby clothes?"

"I think Uncle Jim wouldn't like those old army uniforms given away, aunt; and don't you remember how he looked like an old Van Dyke portrait in that lovely brown velvet jacket?"

Ann, standing with the much used garment in her hand, let it drop into the chest, saying, "I really cannot see the use of keeping things as men love to do—"

"And women never!" cried Leila, closing the lid of the box, and remarking that he would like to find things as he left them; and had Aunt Ann noticed that there were moths about the bear skins. Now a moth has the power of singularly exciting some women—the diversion proved effectual.

And still as the week went by Ann seemed to be gaining in strength.

At lunch, a telegram from Charles Grey, Baltimore, said, "Penhallow here, doing well. Will return on the 14th, by afternoon train, with Rivers and servant."

"Read that, dear—I want you, Leila, to ride to the mills and tell Dr. McGregor that I will send the carriage for him in time for him to meet your uncle at the station. I had better not meet him—and there will be Mark Rivers and Josiah and—but you will see to all that."

"Certainly, aunt."

"It will be the day after to-morrow. Be sure that the doctor makes no mistake. There are two trains—he will be on the four o'clock express." This was in the manner of her Aunt Ann of former days. "Shall I write it down?"

Leila cried, "No," and fled, laughing.

The next day to Leila's surprise and pleasure her aunt came down to breakfast and quietly took her place as mistress of the tea-urn. The talent of common sense as applicable to the lesser social commerce of life was one of Leila's gifts, and she made no comment on her aunt's amazing resumption of her old habits. Ann herself felt some inclination to explain her rapid recovery of health, and said as she took the long-vacant seat at the breakfast table, "I think, Leila, the doctor's last tonic has been of use to me—I feel quite like myself." Having thus anticipated her too sharp-eyed niece's congratulations, Leila's expression of pleasure came in accordant place. Whereupon they both smiled across the table, having that delicate appreciation of the needs of the situation which is rarely at the service of the blundering mind of man.

The moment of gentle hypocrisy passed, the mistress of Grey Pine took up her memoranda for the day, and said with some attempt at being just her usual self, "I shall walk to Westways after breakfast—Pole needs to be talked to. The meats have been of his worst lately." Then with a glance at the paper, "Your uncle's books must be dusted; I quite forgot it; I will set Susan to work this morning."

"But," said Leila, "he does hate that, Aunt Ann. The last time she succeeded in setting together 'Don Juan' and 'St. Thomas a Kempis.'"

Ann laughed, and said with some of her old sense of humour, "It might do them both good—dust them yourself."

"I will," said Leila, liking the task.

"And when you ride this afternoon, see Mrs. Lamb. The cook tells me that she hears of that scamp, her son, as in the army—a nice kind of soldier." A half-dozen other errands were mentioned, and they parted, Ann adding, "There is no mail to-day."

They met again at lunch. "It is too bad, Leila, Billy was given the letters and forgot them and went a-fishing. There was a letter for you from Mark Rivers about your uncle. Does he think me a child? I read it."

"You read it, Aunt!" exclaimed Leila astonished at this infraction of their household law.

"Of course I read it. I knew it must be about James." Leila made no reply, but did not like it.

"Here it is, my dear. I fear James is in a more serious state than I was led to believe by their first letters. There is also a letter from John to you." She did not ask to see it, and Leila took both missives and presently went away to the stables. Even John, as was plain, was forgotten in her aunt's anxiety in regard to her husband.

Her many errands over, Leila riding slowly through the lonely wood-roads read the letters:

"My Dear Leila," wrote Rivers, "you had better let your aunt know that the Colonel's wound must have so shocked the brain, though there is no fracture, as to have left him in a mental state which gives me the utmost anxiety. You will sadly realize my meaning when you see him. Be careful how you tell your aunt.

"Yours truly,

"MARK RIVERS."

Here indeed was trouble. Leila's eyes filled and tears fell on the paper. She rode on deep in thought, and at last securing the message of calamity in her belt opened John's letter.

"I write you, dear Leila, from my tent near Vicksburg, this 5th of July. The prisoners from Pemberton's army are passing as I write. Our men are giving them bread and tobacco, and there is no least sign of enmity or triumph. I am pretty well worn out, as the few engineers have been worked hard and the constant nearness of death in the trenches within five to one hundred feet of the Rebel lines was a situation to make a man think—not of course while in immediate danger, but afterwards. I had some narrow escapes—we all had. But, dear Leila, it has been a splendid thing to see how this man Grant, with the expressionless face, struck swiftly one army after another and returned to secure his prey.

"I cannot even now get a leave of absence, and I am beyond words anxious to hear about dear Uncle Jim. Just a line from him makes me think he was to be with General Meade and in that great battle we won. A telegram to the Engineers' Camp, Vicksburg, will relieve me.

"It is unlikely, if we go South, that I shall see you for many a day. All leaves are, I find, denied. War—intense war like this—seems to me to change men in wonderful ways. It makes some men bad or reckless or drunkards or hard and cruel; it makes others thoughtful, dutiful and religious. This is more often the case among the men than you may think it would be. Certainly it does age a fellow fast. I seem to have passed many years since I sat with you at West Point and you made me feel how young I was and how little I had seen of life. It was true, but now I have seen life at its worst and its best. I have had too the education of battle, the lessons read by thousands of deaths and all the many temptations of camp life. I believe, and I can say it to you, I am the better for it all, and think less and less of the man who was fool enough to do what with more humility he will surely do once more, if it please God that he come out of this terrible war alive.

"When you see me again, you will at least respect my years, for one lives fast here, and the months seem years and the family Bible a vain record, as I remember that the statement of births comes after the Apocrypha which leaves room for doubt."—

Leila smiled. "How like him," she murmured.

"I said months. There are (there were once last week) minutes when one felt an insolent contempt of death, although the bullets were singing by like our brave hornets. Is that courage? I used as a boy to wonder how I would feel in danger. Don't tell, but on going under fire I shiver, and then am at once in quiet possession of all my capacities, whatever they be worth. A man drops by my side—and I am surprised; then another—and I am sure I won't be hit. But I was three weeks ago in my leg! It made me furious, and I still limp a bit. It was only a nip—a spent bullet. I wanted to get at that anonymous rascal who did it.

"Do wire me, and write fully.

"Yours, JOHN.

"P.S. I wonder where Tom McGregor is, and Pole's boy and Joe Grace, and those Greys who went diverse ways. As you never talk of yourself when you write those brief letters on notepaper the size of a postage stamp, you might at least tell me all about these good people in Westways."

She telegraphed him, "Uncle Jim slightly wounded, is coming home. Will write. Leila Grey."

About four in the afternoon of this July 14th Ann Penhallow kissed her husband as he came up the porch steps. He was leaning heavily on Mark Rivers's arm. He said, "It is quite a long time, Ann. How long is it?" Then he shook off Rivers, saying, "I am quite well," and going by his wife went through the open door, moving like one dazed. He stood still a moment looking about him, turned back and speaking to his wife said, "I understand now. At first it seemed strange to me and as if I had never been here before. Ever feel that way, Ann?"

"Oh, often, James." No signal of her anguish showed on the gallantly carried face of the little woman.

"Quiet, isn't it? When was it I was hit? It was—wasn't it in May? Rivers says it was July—I do not like contradiction." His appreciation of time and recognition of locality were alike disordered, as Rivers had observed with distress and a too constant desire to set him right. With better appreciation of his condition, Ann accepted his statement.

"Yes—yes, of course, dear—it is just so."

"I knew you would understand me. I should like to go to bed—I want Josiah—no one else."

"Yes, dear," and this above all else made clear to the unhappy little lady how far was the sturdy soldier who had left her from the broken man in undress uniform who clung to the rail, as he went slowly up the stairway with his servant. In the hall he had seen Leila, but gave her no word, not even his habitual smile of recognition.

Ann stared after them a moment, motioned Rivers away with uplifted hand, and hastening into the library sat down and wept like a child. She had been unprepared for the change in his appearance and ways. More closely observant, Leila saw that the lines of decisiveness were gone, the humorous circles about the mouth and eyes, as it were, flattened out, and that the whole face, with the lips a little languidly parted, had become expressionless. It was many days before she could see the altered visage without emotion, or talk of him to her aunt with any of the amazing hopefulness with which the older woman dwelt on her husband's intervals of resemblance to his former self.

He would not ride or enter the stables, but his life was otherwise a childlike resumption of his ordinary habits, except that when annoyed by Ann's too obvious anxiety or excess of carefulness, he became irritable at times and even violent in language. He so plainly preferred Leila's company in his short walks as to make the wife jealous and vexed that she was not wanted during every minute of his altered life. He read no books as of old, but would have Leila read to him the war news until he fell asleep, when she quietly slipped away.

Mark Rivers resumed his duties for a time, unwilling to abandon these dear friends for whom McGregor, puzzled and perplexed, had no word of consolation, except the assurance that his condition did not grow worse.

At times Penhallow was dimly aware of his state; at others he resented any effort to control him and was so angry when the doctor proposed a consultation that the idea was too easily given up, for always in this as in everything his wife agreed with him and indulged him as women indulge a sick child. The village grieved for the Colonel who rode no more through Westways with a gay word of greeting for all he met. The iron-mills were busy. The great guns tested on the meadows now and then shook the panes in the western windows of Grey Pine. They no longer disturbed Ann Penhallow. The war went its thunderous way unheeded by her. Unendingly hopeful, the oppression of disaster seemed only to confirm and strengthen her finest qualities. Like the pine-tree winning vigour from its rock-clasped roots, she gathered such hardening strength of soul and body from his condition as the more happy years had never put at her command.

"No letters to-day, Miss Leila," said the post-mistress standing beside the younger woman's horse. "Just only them papers with their lists of killed and wounded."

"I must always be Leila, not Miss Leila," said the horsewoman.

"Well—well—I like that better. How's the Colonel?"

"Much the same—certainly no worse. It is wonderful how my aunt stands it."

"Don't you notice, Leila, how she has kind of softened? Me and Joe was talking of it yesterday. She always was good, but folks did use to say she was sort of hard and—positive. Now, she's kind of gentled—noticed that?"

"Yes, I have noticed it; but I must go. Give me the papers. You love a talk."

"There's no news of John?"

"None of late. He is with General Grant—but where we do not know."

"It's right pleasant to have Josiah back. Lord! but he's strong on war stories—ought to hear him. He was always good at stories."

"Yes, I suppose so. Good-bye."

James Penhallow sat on the back porch in the after luncheon hour to get with the freshness of October what sunshine the westerning sun was sifting through the red and gold of the maples beyond the garden walls. He was in the undress uniform of the artillery, and still wore the trefoil of the Second Corps. An effort by Ann to remove his soiled army garb and substitute his lay dress caused an outbreak of anger which left him speechless and feeble, and her in an agony of regretful penitence. Josiah, wiser than she, ventured to tell her what had happened once before when his badge of the glorious Second Corps had been missing. "After all, what does it matter?" she said to herself, and made no effort to repair the ragged bullet tear South Mountain left in his jacket, and in which he had at his worst times such childlike pride as in another and well-known general had once amused him.

He was just now in one of his best conditions and was clearly enjoying the pipe he used but rarely. Ann at his feet on the porch-step read aloud to him with indifference to all but the man she now and then looked up to with the loving tenderness his brief betterment fed with illusory hope.

"What's that, Ann?" he exclaimed; "Grant at Chattanooga! That's John's ideal General. Didn't he write about him at—where was it? Oh! Belmont."

"Yes, after Belmont, James."

"When does Mark Rivers go back?"

"To-morrow. He is always so out of spirits here that I am really relieved when he returns to the Sanitary Commission." He made no reply, and she continued her reading.

"Isn't that Leila with Rivers, Ann?"

"Yes. He likes to walk with her."

"So would any man." A faint smile—very rare of late—showed in her pleased upward look at the face—the changed face—she loved.

The pair of whom they spoke were lost to view in the forest.

"And you are glad to go?" said Leila to Rivers.

"Yes, I am. I can hardly say glad, but now that your uncle is, so to speak, lost to me and your aunt absorbed in her one task and the duties she has taken up again, our pleasant Dante lessons are set aside, and what is there left of the old intellectual life which is gone—gone?"

"But," said Leila gaily, "you have the church and my humble society. Why, you are really learning to walk, as you did not until of late."

Making no reply to her personal remark, he was silent for a moment, and then said with slow articulation and to her surprise, for he rarely spoke of himself, "Nine years ago I came here, a man broken in mind and body. This life and these dear friends have made me as strong as I can ever hope to be. But the rest—the rest. I know what power God has given me to bring souls to him. I can influence men—the lowly and—well, others, as few can. I cannot live in cities—I dare not risk the failure in health; and yet, I want—I want a larger field. I found it when your aunt's liberality sent me to the army. There in my poor way I can serve my country—and that is much to me." He was silent.

"But," she said, "is there not work enough here? and the war cannot last much longer. Don't think you must ever leave us."

"I shall—I must. There are limitations I cannot talk of even—above all to you. Your aunt knows this—and your uncle did—long ago."

"What limitations?" she asked rashly.

"You are the last person, Leila Grey, to whom I could speak of them. I have said too much, but"—and he paused—"I am tired—I will leave you to finish your walk." The great beautiful eyes turned on him for a moment. "Oh, my God!" he exclaimed, and reproaching his brief human weakness left her abruptly, walking slowly away through the drifting red and gold of leaves rocking in air as they sauntered to earth, and was at last lost to view in the woodland.

Leila stood still, puzzled and sorrowful, as she watched the tall stooping form. "How old he looks," she murmured. "What did he mean? I must ask Aunt Ann." But she never did, feeling that what he had said was something like a cautiously hinted confession. In the early morning he was gone again to the field of war.



CHAPTER XXVI

Through the winter of 1863-4 at Grey Pine things remained unaltered, and McGregor concluded that there was no hope for happier change. Rare letters came from John Penhallow to his aunt, who sent no replies, and to Leila, who wrote impersonal letters, as did John. Once he wrote that his uncle might like to know, that after that pontoon business in the night at Chattanooga and General Farrar Smith's brilliant action, he, John Penhallow, was to be addressed as Captain. As the war went on, he was across the Rapidan with Grant in May.

At Grey Pine after breakfast the windows and both doors of the hall were open to let the western breezes enter. They lingered in the garden to stir the mothers of unborn flowers and swept through the hall, bearing as they passed some gentle intimation of the ending of a cold spring.

The mail had been given to the colonel, as he insisted it should be. With some appearance of interest he said, "From Mark, for you, Ann."

"None for me, Uncle?" asked Leila, as she went around the table. "Let me help you. How many there are." She captured her own share, and for a moment stood curious as she sorted the mail. "Army trash, Uncle! What a lot of paper is needed to carry on war! Here is one—I have seen him before—he is marked 'Respectfully referred.'"

The colonel released a smile, which stirred Ann like a pleasant memory, and fed one of the little hopes she was ever on the watch to find. "What is your letter, Ann?" he asked.

Looking up she replied, "It is only to acknowledge receipt of my draft. He is in Washington. I gather that he does not mean to come back until the war is over." "Over!" she thought; "Lee is not Pemberton, as Grant will learn." It was of more moment to her that Penhallow was easier to interest, and ate as he used to do.

"Is your letter from John, Leila?" he said. "I don't like concealments."

"But, I didn't conceal anything!"

"Don't contradict me!"

"No, sir."

Ann's face grew watchful, fearing one of the outbreaks which left him weak and querulous.

"Well," said the colonel, "read us John's letter. There is as much fuss about it as if it were a love-letter."

There is no way as yet discovered to victoriously suppress a blush, but time—a little fraction of time—is helpful, and there are ways of hiding what cannot be conquered. The letter fell on the floor, and being recovered was opened and read with a certain something in the voice which caused Ann critically to use her eyes.

"DEAR LEILA: I am just now with the Second Corps, but where you will know in a week; now I must not say.—"

"What's the date?" asked Penhallow.

"There is none."

"Look at the envelope."

"I tore it up, sir."

"Never throw away an envelope until you have read the letter." Ann looked pleased—that was James Penhallow, his old self. Leila read on.

"I am glad to be under canvas, and you know my faith in General Grant.

"Tell Aunt Ann I have had three servants in two weeks. These newly freed blacks are like mere children and quite useless, or else—well—one was brutal to my horse. I sometimes wish Josiah was twins and I had one of him.—"

"What's that?" asked Penhallow. "Twins—I don't understand."

"He wishes he had a servant like Josiah, Uncle."

"Well, let him go to John," said the Colonel, with something of his old positive manner.

"But you would miss him, James."

"I will not," he returned, and then—"What else is there?"

"Oh—nothing—except that he will write again soon, and that he met Mr. Rivers in Washington. That is all—a very unsatisfactory letter."

For a day or two the colonel said no more of Josiah, and then asked if he had gone, and was so obviously annoyed that Ann gave way as usual and talked of her husband's wish to Josiah. The old life of Westways and Grey Pine was over, and Josiah was allowed by Ann to do so little for Penhallow that the black was not ill-pleased to leave home again for the army life and to be with the man whom as a lad he had trusted and who had helped him in a day of peril.

No one thought of any need for a pass. He was amply supplied with money and bade them good-bye. He put what he required in a knapsack, and leaving Westways for the second time and with a lighter heart, set off afoot to catch the train at Westways Crossing. The old slave was thus put upon a way which was to lead to renewed and unpleasant acquaintance with one of the minor characters of my story.

Tired of unaccustomed idleness Josiah grinned as he went across country thinking of the directions he had received from Leila of how he was to find John Penhallow.

"You know he is captain of engineers, Josiah. Now how are you going to find him? An army is as big as a great city, and in motion, too."

"Well, missy," said Josiah, "the way I'll find him is the way dog Caesar finds you in the woods." He would hear no more and left her.

Josiah knew many people in Washington, black and white, and after some disappointments went with a lot of remounts for cavalry to join the army in the Wilderness, where he served variously with the army teams. On an afternoon late in May, 1864, he strode on, passing by the long lines of marching men who filled the roadways on their way to the crossing of the North Anna River. He had been chaffed, misdirected, laughed at or civilly treated, as he questioned men about the engineers. He took it all with good-humour. About three, he came near to a house on the wayside, where a halt had been ordered to give the men a brief rest. The soldiers dust-grey and thirsty scattered over the clearing or lay in the shadow of the scrub oaks. Some thronged about a well or a wayside spring, or draining their canteens caught a brief joy from the lighted pipe so dear to the soldier. Josiah looked about him, and knew the log-cabins some distance away from the better house to have been the slave-quarters. Beyond them was a better built log-house. Apparently all were deserted—men, cattle and horses, were gone. He lay down a little way from the road and listened to the talk of the men seated in front of him. He heard a private say, "A halt is as bad as a march, the dust is a foot deep, and what between flies and mosquitoes, they're as bad as the Rebs."

"Ah!" said an old corporal, "just you wait a bit. These are only a skirmish line. July and Chickahominy mosquitoes will get you when your baccy's out."

"It's out now."

Josiah was eager to question some one and was aware of the value of tobacco as a social solvent. He said, "I've got some baccy, corporal."

The men in front of him turned. "For sale—how much?"

"No," said Josiah. "My pouch is full. Help yourselves."

This liberal contribution was warmly appreciated, and the private, who was the son of a New York banker, interested in the black man, asked, "What are you doing in this big circus?" It was the opening for which Josiah waited.

"Looking for an engineer-captain."

The corporal said, "Well, like enough he'll be at the bridge of the North Anna—but the engineers are here, there and anywhere. What is his name?"

"Thank you, sir. My master is Captain Penhallow."

"Well, good luck to you."

"Take another pipe load," returned Josiah, grateful for the unusual interest.

"Thank you," said the private, "with pleasure. Tobacco is as scarce as hen's teeth."

"That's so. Who's that officer on the big horse? He's a rider whoever he is."

"That's the ring-master of this show," laughed the private.

"Not General Grant!"

"Yes." Josiah considered him with interest.

There was of a sudden some disturbance about the larger of the more remote cabins; a soldier ran out followed by a screaming young woman. Her wild cries attracted attention to the man, who was at once caught and held while he vainly protested. The men about Josiah sat up or got on their feet. The young woman ran here and there among the groups of soldiers like one distracted. At last, near the larger house at the roadside she fell on her knees and rocked backwards and forwards sobbing. Josiah at a distance saw only that a soldier had been caught trying to escape notice as a young woman followed him out of the house. It was too well understood by the angry men who crowded around the captive.

The general said to his staff, "Wait here, gentlemen." He rode through the crowd of soldiers, saying, "Keep back, my men; keep away—all of you." Then he dismounted and walked to where the girl—she was hardly more—still knelt wailing and beating the air with uplifted hands. "Stand up, my good girl, and tell me what is wrong."

The voice was low and of a certain gentleness, rarely rising even in moments of peril. She stood up, "I can't—I can't—let me go—I want to die!"

The figure, still slight of build in those days, bent over her pitiful. "I am General Grant. Look up at me. There shall be justice done, but I must know."

She looked up a moment at the kind grave face, then with bent head and hands over her eyes she sobbed out what none but the general could hear. His voice grew even more distinctly soft as touching her shoulder he said, "Look at that man. Oh, bring him near—nearer. Now, be sure, is that the man? Look again! I must be certain."

With a quick motion she pushed his hand from her shoulder as she stood, and pointing to the brute held by two soldiers cried, "That's him—oh, my God! Take him away—kill him. Le' me go. Don't you keep me." She looked about like some hopelessly trapped, wild-eyed animal.

"You may go, of course," said the low-voiced man. "I will set a guard over your house."

"Don't want no Yankee guard—le' me go—I've got nothin' to guard—I want to die." She darted away and through the parting groups of men who were clear enough about what they knew had happened and what should be done.

The dark grey eyes of the General followed her flight for a pitying instant. Then he remounted, and said to the scared captive, "What have you got to say?"

"It's all a lie."

The general's face grew stern. He turned and asked for an officer of the Provost Guard. A captain rode up and saluted. "I have no time to lose in trying this scoundrel. We can't take along the only witness." He hesitated a moment. "Let your men tie him to a tree near the road. Let two of the guard watch him until the rear has gone by. Put a paper on his breast—make his crime clear, clear." He said a word or two more to the officer, and then "put on it, 'Left to the justice of General Lee.'"

"Is that all, sir?" said the amazed officer.

"No—put below, 'U.S. Grant.' The girl will tell her story. When the cavalry pass, leave him. Now, gentlemen, the men have had a rest, let us ride on."

Josiah a hundred feet away heard, "Fall in—fall in." The tired soldiers rose reluctant and the long line tramped away. Josiah interested sat still and saw them go by under the dust-laden air. The girl had gone past her home and into the woods. The guards curiously watched by the marching men passed near Josiah with their prisoner and busied themselves with looking among the hazel, scrub oak and sassafras for a large enough tree near to the road. As they went by, he saw the man.

"My God!" he exclaimed, "it's Peter Lamb." He moved away and lay down well hidden in the brush. It was a very simple mind which considered this meeting with the only being the black man hated. The unusual never appealed to him as it would have done to a more imaginative person. The coming thus on his enemy was only what he had angrily predicted when he had Peter in his power and had said to him that some day God would punish him. It had come true.

The men who had arrested Peter and were near enough to hear the brief sentence, understood it, and being eagerly questioned soon spread among the moving ranks the story of the crime and this unexampled punishment. It was plain to Josiah, but what was to follow he did not know, as he rose, lingered about, and following the Provost's party considered the wonderful fact of his fulfilled prediction. The coincidence of being himself present did not cause the surprise which what we call coincidences awaken in minds which crave explanations of the uncommon. It was just what was sure to happen somehow, some day, when God settled Josiah's personal account with a wicked man. He had, however, an urgent curiosity to see how it would end and a remainder of far-descended savagery in the wish to let his one enemy know that he was a witness of his punishment. Thinking thus, Josiah went through the wayside scrub to see how the guard would dispose of their prisoner.

The man who had sinned was presently tied to a tree facing the road. His hands were securely tied behind it, and his feet as rudely dealt with. He said no word as they pinned the label on his breast. Then the two guards sat down between Peter and the roadway. Men of the passing brigades asked them questions. They replied briefly and smoked with entire unconcern as to their prisoner, or speculated in regard to what the Rebs would say or do to him. The mosquitoes tormented him, and once he shuddered when one of the guards guessed that perhaps the girl would come back and see him tied up. The story of Grant's unusual punishment was told over and over to men as the regiments went by. Now and then soldiers left the ranks to read the sentence of what must mean death. Some as they read were as silent as the doomed wretch; others laughed or cursed him for dishonouring the army in which this one crime was almost unknown. A sergeant tore the corps mark from his coat, and still he said no word. The long-drawn array went on and on; the evening shadows lengthened; miles of wagon trains rumbled by; whips cracked over mules; the cavalry guard bringing up the rear was lost in the dust left by tramping thousands; the setting sun shone through it ruddy; and last came the squadron net of the Provost-marshal gathering in the stragglers. Tired men were helped by a grip on the stirrup leather. The lazy loiterers were urged forward with language unquotable, the mildest being "darned coffee-coolers." At last, all had gone.

Josiah rose from his hiding place and listened as the clank of steel and the sound of hurried horsemen died away. No other noises broke the twilight stillness. He walked back to the roadside, and stood before the pinioned and now lonely man. "You're caught at last, Peter Lamb."

"Oh, Lord!" cried the captive. "It's Josiah. For God's sake, let me loose."

"Reckon I won't," said Josiah.

"I'm in agony—my arms—I shall die—and I am innocent. I did not do anything. Won't you help me?"

"No—the Rebs will come and hang you."

The man's cunning awoke. He said the one thing, made the one plea which, as he spoke, troubled Josiah's decision. "Is the Squire alive?"

"Why shouldn't he be alive?" asked Josiah, surprised.

"Oh, I saw in a paper that he was wounded at Gettysburg. Now, Josiah, if he was here—if he was to know you left me to die."

Josiah was uncertain what he would have done. His simple-minded view of things was disturbed, and his tendency to be forgiving kindly assisted to give potency to the appeal. He said, "I won't set you free, but I'll do this much," and he tore the paper from Peter's breast, saying, "You'll get off with some lie when the Rebs come." Then he turned and walked away, tearing up the death warrant and hearing the wild pleas of the painfully bound man.

The night had come, but save for the faintly heard complaint of some far-distant dog, there was nothing to break the quiet of the deserted land which lay between the two armies. Having torn to pieces and carefully scattered the bits of paper, Josiah, who while doing one thing could not think of another, began to reflect on what he had done. He had been too long in servitude not to respect authority. If any one knew—but no one could know. He himself had said that what had come upon Lamb was a judgment—the act of one who had said, "I will repay." It troubled a mind whose machinery was of childlike incapacity to deal with problems involving the moral aspects of conduct. Perhaps this had been a chance to give Lamb an opportunity to repent by setting him free; but there had already been interference with the judgment of God. More personally material events relieved the black from responsibility. His quick ear caught the sound of troopers, the sharp notes of steel clinking; he had no mind to be picked up by the enemy's horse, and dismissing all other considerations he took to the woods and walked rapidly away. Late in the evening he crossed the North Anna with a train of wagons, as driver of an unruly mule team, one of which had rewarded his driver in kind for brutal use of the whip and perverted English. The man groaning in the wagon informed Josiah concerning mules and their ways. After a day or two he was pleased to get back on his legs, for when bullets were not flying the army life was full of interest. A man who could cook well, shave an officer or shoe a horse, never lacked the friends of an hour; and too, his unfailing good-humour was always helpful. An officer of the line would have been easy to find, but the engineers were continually in motion and hard to locate. He got no news of John Penhallow until the 29th of May, when he came on General Wilson's cavalry division left on the north side of the Pamunkey River to cover the crossing of the trains. These troopers were rather particular about straggling negroes, and Josiah sharply questioned told the simple truth as he moved toward the bridge, answering the questions of a young officer. A horse tied to a sapling at the roadside for reasons unknown kicked the passing cavalry man's horse. The officer moved on swearing a very original mixture of the over-ripe English of armies. Swearing was a highly cultivated accomplishment in the cavalry; no infantry profanity approached it in originality. The officer occupied with his uneasy horse dropped Josiah as he rode on. A small, dark-skinned negro, rather neatly dressed, spoke to Josiah in the dialect of the Southern slave, which I shall not try to put on paper. He spoke reflectively and as if from long consideration of the subject, entering at once into the intimacies of a relation with the man of his own colour.

"That horse is the meanest I ever saw—I know him."

"He's near thoroughbred," said Josiah, "and been badly handled, I reckon. It's no good cussin' horses or mules—a good horseman don't ever do it—horses know."

"Well, the officer that rides that horse now is about the only man can ride him. That horse pretty nearly killed one of my general's staff. He sold him mighty sudden."

"Who's your General?" queries Josiah.

"Why, General Grant—I'm his headquarter man—they call me Bill—everybody knows me."

He rose at once in Josiah's estimation. "Who owns that horse?" asked Josiah. "I'd like well to handle his beast."

"He's an engineer-officer, name of Penhallow. He's down yonder somewhere about that pontoon bridge. I'm left here to hunt up a headquarter wagon."

"Penhallow!" exclaimed Josiah, delighted. "Why, I'm down here to be his servant."

"Well, let's go to the bridge. You'll get a chance to cross after the wagons get over. I've just found mine." They moved to one side and sat down. "That's Wilson's cavalry on guard. Worst dust I ever saw. Infantry dust's bad, but cavalry dust don't ever settle. The Ninth Corps's gone over. There come the wagons." With cracking of whip and imprecations the wagons went over the swaying pontoons. Bill left him, and Josiah waited to cross behind the wagons.

On the bridge midway, a young officer in the dark dress and black-striped pantaloons of the engineers moved beside the teams anxiously observing some loosened flooring. A wagon wheel gave way, and the wagon lurching over struck the officer, who fell into the muddy water of the Pamunkey. Always amused at an officer's mishap, cavalry men and drivers laughed. The young man struck out for the farther shore, and came on to a shelving slope of slimy mud, and was vainly struggling to get a footing when an officer ran down the bank and gave him a needed hand. Thus aided, Penhallow gained firm ground. With a look of disgust at his condition, as he faced the laughing troopers he said, with his somewhat formal way, "To whom am I indebted?"

"Roland Blake is my name. Isn't it Captain Penhallow of the engineers?"

"Yes, well disguised with Rebel mud. What a mess! But, by George! not worse than you when I first saw you."

"Where was it?" asked Blake.

"I can give a good guess. You were quite as lovely as Mr. Penhallow." It was a third officer who spoke. "By the bye," he added, "as Blake doesn't present me, I am Philip Francis."

"I can't even offer to shake hands," returned Penhallow, laughing, as he scraped the flakes of mud from his face. "I saw you both at the Bloody Angle. I think I could describe you."

"Don't," said Francis.

"Some people are modest," said Blake. "I think you will soon dry to dust in this sun. I have offered myself that consolation before. It's the only certainty in this land of the unexpected."

"The wagons are over; here comes the guard," said Francis. "It's our beastly business now. Call up the men, Roland."

"Provost duty, I suppose," said Penhallow. "I prefer my mud."

"Yes," growled Francis, "human scavengers—army police. I'm out of it this week, thank Heaven."

The last wagon came creaking over the bridge, the long line of cavalry trotted after them, the Provost Guard mounted to fall in at the rear and gather in the stragglers.

"Sorry I can't give you a mount," said Blake, as he turned to recross the bridge.

"Thank you, I have a horse on the other side." As he spoke a breeze stirred the dead atmosphere and shook down from the trees their gathered load of dust.

Francis said, "It's half of Virginia!"

Blake murmured, "Dust to dust—a queer reminder."

"Oh, shut up!" cried Francis.

The young engineer laughed and said to himself, "If Aunt Ann could see me. It's like being tarred and feathered. See you soon again, I hope, Mr. Blake. I am deep in your debt." They passed out of sight. No one remained but the bridge-guard.

The engineer sat down and devoted his entire energies to the difficult task of pulling off boots full of mud and water. Meanwhile as the provost-officers rode back over the pontoons Francis said, "I remember that man, Penhallow, at the Bloody Angle. He was the only man I saw who wasn't fight-crazy, he insisted on my going to the rear. You know I was bleeding like a stuck pig. It was between the two attacks. I said, 'Oh, go to H—-!' He said, 'There is no need to go far.' I am sure he did not remember me. A rather cool hand—West Point, of course."

"What struck me," said Blake, "was that he did not swear."

"Then," said Francis, "he is the only man in the army who would have failed to damn those grinning troopers."

"Except Grant," said Blake.

"So they say.—It's hard to believe, but I suppose the Staff knows. Wonder if Lee swears. Two army commanders who don't swear? It's incredible!"

As Penhallow, left alone, tugged at a reluctant boot, he heard, "Good Lord! Master John, that's my business."

He looked up to seize Josiah by the hand, exclaiming, "How did you get here?—I am glad to see you. Pull off this boot. How are they all?"

"The Colonel he sent me."

"Indeed! How is he? I've not heard for a month."

"He's bad, Master John, bad—kind of forgets things—and swears."

"That's strange for him."

"The doctors they can't seem to make it out. He hasn't put a leg over a horse, not since he was wounded." Evidently this was for Josiah the most serious evidence of change from former health.

"How is Aunt Ann?"

Tugging at the boots Josiah answered, "She's just a wonder—and Miss Leila, she's just as pretty as a pansy."

Penhallow smiled; it left a large choice to the imagination. "Pansy—pansy—why is she like a pansy, Josiah?"

"Well, Master John, it's because she's so many kinds of pretty. You see I used to raise pansies. That boot's a tough one."

"Have you any letters for me?"

"No, sir. They said I wasn't as sure as the army-post. Got a note from Dr. McGregor in my sack. Hadn't I better get your horse over the bridge—I liked his looks, and I asked a man named Bill who owned that horse. He said you did, and that's how I found you. He said that horse was a bad one. He said he was called 'Hoodoo.' That's unlucky!"

"Yes, he's mine, Josiah. You would like to change his name?"

"Yes, sir, I would. This boot's the worst!"

Penhallow laughed. "That horse, Josiah, has every virtue a horse ought to have and every vice he ought not to have. He'll be as good as Aunt Ann one day, and as mean and bad as Peter Lamb the next day. Halloa there, guard! let my man cross over."

Hoodoo came quietly, and as Penhallow walked his horse, Josiah related the village news, and then more and more plainly the captain gathered some clear idea of his uncle's condition and of the influence the younger woman was exerting on a household over which hung the feeling of inexorable doom. As he read McGregor's letter he knew too well that were he with them he could be of no practical use.

The next few days John Penhallow was kept busy, and on June 2nd having to report with some sketch-maps he found the headquarters at Bethesda Church. The pews had been taken out and set under trees. The staff was scattered about at ease. General Grant, to John's amusement, was petting a stray kitten with one hand and writing despatches with the other. At last he began to talk with members of the Christian Commission about their work. Among them John was aware of Mark Rivers. A few minutes later he had his chance and took the clergyman away to the tents of the engineers for a long and disheartening talk of home. They met no more for many days, and soon he was too busy to think of asking the leave of absence he so much desired.



CHAPTER XXVII

The effort to crush Lee's army by a frontal attack led to the disastrous defeat of Cold Harbor, and Grant who was never personally routed resolved to throw his army south of the James River. It involved a concealed night march, while his lines were in many places but thirty to one hundred feet from the watchful Confederates. The utmost secrecy was used in regard to the bold movement intended, but preparations for it demanded frequent reconnaissances and map-sketching on the part of the engineers. A night of map-making after a long day in the saddle left John Penhallow on June 6th a weary man lying on his camp-bed too tired to sleep. He heard Blake ask, "Are you at home, Penhallow?" Few men would have been as welcome as the serious-minded New England captain who had met Penhallow from time to time since the engineer's mud-bath in the Pamunkey River.

"Glad to get you by yourself," said Blake. "You look used up. Do keep quiet!"

"I will, but sit down and take a pipe. Coffee, Josiah!" he called out. "I am quite too popular by reason of Josiah's amazing ability to forage. If the Headquarters are within reach, he and Bill—that's the general's man—hunt together. The results are surprising! But I learned long ago from my uncle, Colonel Penhallow, that in the army it is well to ask no unnecessary questions. My man is very intelligent, and as I keep him in tobacco and greenbacks, I sometimes fancy that Headquarters does not always get the best out of the raids of these two contrabands."

"I have profited by it, Penhallow. I have personal memories of that young roast pig, I think your man called it a shoat. Your corps must have caught it hard these last days. I suppose we are in for something unusual. You are the only man I know who doesn't grumble. Francis says it's as natural to the beast called an army as barking is to a dog."

"Of course, the habit is stupid, Blake. I mean the constant growl about the unavoidable discomforts of war; but this last week has got me near the growling point. I have had two ague chills and quinine enough to ring chimes in my head. I haven't had a decent wash for a week, and really war is a disgustingly dirty business. You don't realize that in history, in fiction, or in pictures. It's filthy! Oh, you may laugh!"

"Who could help laughing?"

"I can to-day. To-morrow I shall grin at it all, but just now I am half dead. What with laying corduroys and bridging creeks, to be burnt up next day, and Chickahominy flies—oh, Lord! If there is nothing else on hand in the way of copies of maps, some general like Barnard has an insane curiosity to reconnoitre. Then the Rebs wake up—and amuse themselves."

Blake laughed. "You are getting pretty near to that growl."

"Am I? I have more than impossible demands to bother me. What with some despondent letters—I told you about my uncle's wound and the results, I should have a fierce attack of home-sickness if I had leisure to think at all."

Blake had found in Penhallow much that he liked and qualities which were responsive to his own high ideal of the man and the soldier. He looked him over as the young engineer lay on his camp-bed. "Get anything but home-sick, Penhallow! I get faint fits of it. The quinine of 'Get up, captain, and put out those pickets' dismisses it, or bullets. Lord, but we have had them in over-doses of late. Francis has been hit twice but not seriously. He says that Lee is an irregular practitioner. It is strange that some men are hit in every skirmish; it would bleed the courage out of me."

"Would it? I have had two flesh wounds. They made me furiously angry. You were speaking of Lee—my uncle greatly admired him. I should like to know more about him. I had a little chance when we were trying to arrange a truce to care for the wounded. You remember it failed, but I had a few minute's talk with a Rebel captain. He liked it when I told him how much we admired his general. That led him to talk, and among other things he told me that Lee had no sense of humour and I gathered was a man rather difficult of approach."

"He might apply to Grant for the rest of his qualities," said Blake. "He would get it; but what made you ask about sense of the humorous? I have too little, Francis too much."

"Oh," laughed Penhallow, "from saint to sinner it is a good medicine—even for home-sickness."

"And the desperate malady of love," returned Blake. "I shall not venture to diagnose your need. How is that?"

"I?—nonsense," laughed the engineer. "But seriously, Blake, about home-sickness; one of my best men has it badly—not the mild malady you and I may have."

"You are quite right. It accounts for some desertions—not to the enemy, of course. I talked lately of this condition to a Dr. McGregor—"

"McGregor!" returned Penhallow, sitting up. "Where is he? I'd like to see him—an old comrade."

"He is with our brigade."

"Tell him to look me up. The engineers are easily found just now. He was an old schoolmate."

"I'll tell him. By the way, Penhallow, when asking for my mail to-day, I persuaded the post-master to give me your letters. Don't mind me—you will want to read them—quite a batch of them."

"Oh, they can wait. Don't go. Ah! here's Josiah with coffee."

"How it does set a fellow up, Penhallow. Another cup, please. I had to wait a long time for our letters and yours. Really that place was more tragic than a battlefield."

"Why so? I send Josiah for my mail."

"Oh, there were three cold-blooded men-machines returning letters. I watched them marking the letters—'not found'—'missing'—and so on."

"Killed, I suppose—or prisoners."

"Yes, awful, indeed—most sorrowful! Imagine it! Others were forwarding letters—heaps of them—from men who may be dead. You know how apt men are to write letters before a battle."

"I wait till it is over," said Penhallow.

"That post-office gave me a fit of craving for home and peace."

"Home-sickness! What, you, Blake!"

"Oh, that worst kind; home-sickness for a home when you have no home. I wonder if in that other world we shall be home-sick for this."

"That depends. Ah! here comes a reminder that we are in this world just now—and just as we have begun one of our real talks."

An orderly appeared with a note. Penhallow read it. He was on his feet at once. "Saddle Hoodoo, Josiah. I must go. Come soon again, Blake. We have had a good talk—or a bit of one."

At four in the morning of June 14th, when John Penhallow with a group of older engineers looked across the twenty-one hundred feet of the James River they were to bridge, he realized the courage and capacity of the soldier who had so completely deceived his wary antagonist. Before eleven that night a hundred pontoons stayed by barges bridged the wide stream from shore to shore. Already the Second Corps under Hancock had been hastily ferried over the river. The work on the bridge had been hard, and the young Captain had had neither food nor rest. Late at night, the work being over, he recrossed the bridge, and after a hasty meal lay down on the bluff above the James with others of his Corps and slept the uneasy sleep of an overtired man. At dawn he was awakened by the multiple noises of an army moving on the low-lying meadows below the bluff. Refreshed and free from any demand on his time, he breakfasted at ease, and lighting his pipe was at once deeply interested in what he saw. As he looked about him, he was aware of General Grant standing alone on the higher ground. He saw the general throw away his cigar and with hands clasped behind him remain watching in rapt silence the scene below him. "I wonder," thought Penhallow, "of what he is thinking." The face was grave, the man motionless. The engineer turned to look at the matchless spectacle below him. The sound of bands rose in gay music from the approaches to the river, where vast masses of infantry lay waiting their turn to cross. The guns of batteries gleamed in the sun, endless wagon-trains and ambulances moved or were at rest. Here and there the wind of morning fluttered the flags and guidons with flashes of colour. The hum of a great army, the multitudinous murmurs of men talking, the crack of whips, the sharp rattle of wagons and of moving artillery, made a strange orchestra. Over all rose the warning shrieks of the gun-boat signals. Far or near on the fertile meadows the ripened corn and grain showed in green squares between the masses of men and stirred in the morning breeze or lay trampled in ruin by the rude feet of war. It was an hour and a scene to excite the dullest mind, and Penhallow intensely interested sat fascinated by a spectacle at once splendid and fateful. The snake-like procession of infantry wagons and batteries moved across the bridge and was lost to view in the forest. Penhallow turned again to look at his general, who remained statuesque and motionless. Then, suddenly the master of this might of men and guns looked up, listened to Warren's artillery far beyond the river, and with the same expressionless face called for his horse and rode away followed by his staff.

The battle-summer of 1864 went on with the wearisome siege of Petersburg and the frequent efforts to cut the railways which enabled the Confederates to draw supplies from states which as yet had hardly felt the stress of war.

Late in the year the army became a city of huts, and there was the unexampled spectacle of this great host voting quietly in the election which gave to Lincoln another evidence of the trust reposed in him. The engineers had little to do in connection with the larger movements of the army, and save for the siege work were at times idle critics of their superiors. The closing month of 1864 brought weather which made the wooden huts, usually shared by two officers, more comfortable than tents. The construction of these long streets of sheltering quarters brought out much ingenuity, and Penhallow profited by Josiah's clever devices and watchful care. As the army was in winter-quarters, there was time enough for pleasant visiting, and for the engineers more than enough of danger in the trenches or when called on to accompany some general officer as an aide during Grant's obstinate efforts to cut the railways on which Lee relied. Francis, not gravely wounded, was at home repairing damages; but now, with snow on the ground and ease of intercourse, Blake was a frequent visitor in the engineer quarters. When Rivers also turned up, the two young men found the talk unrivalled, for never had the tall clergyman seemed more attractive or as happy.

Of an afternoon late in November Penhallow was toasting himself by the small fire-place and deep in thought. He had had a long day in the intrenchments and one moment of that feeling of imminent nearness to death which affects men in various ways. A shell neatly dropped in a trench within a few feet of where he stood, rolled over, spitting red flashes. The men cried, "Down, down, sir!" and fell flat. Something like the fascination a snake exercises held him motionless; he never was able to explain his folly. The fuse went out as he watched it—the shell was a dead thing and harmless. The men as they rose eyed him curiously.

"A near thing," he said, and with unusual care moved along a traverse, his duty over for the day. He took with him a feeling of mental confusion and of annoyed wonder.

He found Josiah picking a chicken as he sat whistling in front of the tent. "There's been a fight, sir, about three o'clock, on our left. Bill says we beat."

"Indeed!" It was too common news to interest him. He felt some singular completeness of exhaustion, and was troubled because of there being no explanation which satisfied him. Asking for whisky to Josiah's surprise, he took it and lay down, as the servant said, "There's letters, sir, on the table."

"Very well. Close the tent and say I'm not well; I won't see any one."

"Yes, sir. Nothing serious?"

"No." He fell asleep as if drugged.

Outside Josiah picked his lean chicken and whistled with such peculiar sweetness as is possible only to the black man. Everything interested him. Now and then he listened to the varied notes of the missiles far away and attracting little attention unless men were so near that the war-cries of shot and shell became of material moment. The day was cold, and an early November snow lay on the ground and covered the long rows of cabins. Far to the rear a band was practising. Josiah listened, and with a negative head-shake of disapproving criticism returned to the feather picking and sang as he picked:

I wish I was in Dixie land, In Dixie land, in Dixie land.

He held up the plucked fowl and said, "Must have been on short rations."

The early evening was quiet. Now and then a cloaked horseman went by noiseless on the snow. Josiah looked up, laid down the chicken, and listened to the irregular tramp of a body of men. Then, as the head of a long column came near and passed before him between the rows of huts, he stood up to watch them. "Prisoners," he said. Many were battle-grimed and in tatters, without caps and ill-shod. Here and there among them a captured officer marched on looking straight ahead. The larger part were dejected and plodded on in silence, with heads down, while others stared about them curious and from the cabins near by a few officers came out and many soldiers gathered. As usual there were no comments, no sign of triumph and only the silence of respect.

Josiah asked a guard where they came from. "Oh, Hancock's fight at Hatcher's Run—got about nine hundred."

The crowd of observers increased in number as the end of the line drew near. Josiah lost interest and sat down. "Got to singe that chicken," he murmured, with the habit of open speech of the man who had lived long alone. Suddenly he let the bird drop and exclaimed under his breath, "Jehoshaphat!"—his only substitute for an oath—"it's him!" Among the last of the line of captured men he saw one with head bent down looking neither to the right nor the left—it was Peter Lamb! At this moment two soldiers ran forward and shouted out something to the officer bringing up the rear. He cried, "Halt! take out that man." There was a little confusion, and Peter was roughly haled out of the mass. The officer called a sergeant. "Guard this fellow well," and he bade the men who had detected Lamb go with the guard.

Soldiers crowded in on them. "What's the matter—who is he?" they asked.

"Back, there!" cried the Lieutenant.

"A deserter," said some one. "Damn him."

Lamb was silent while between the two guards he was taken to the rear. Josiah forgot his chicken and followed them at a distance. He saw Lamb handcuffed and vainly protesting as he was thrust into the prison-hut of the provostry.

Josiah asked one of the men who had brought about the arrest, "Who is that man?"

"Oh, he was a good while ago in my regiment—in our company too, the 71st Pennsylvania—a drunken beast—name of Stacy—Joe Stacy. We missed him when we were near the North Anna—at roll-call."

"What will they do with him?"

"Shoot him, I hope. His hands were powder blacked. He was caught on the skirmish line."

"Thank you." Josiah walked away deep in thought. He soon settled to the conclusion that the Rebs had found Peter and that perhaps he had had no choice of what he would do and had had to enlist. What explanatory lie Peter had told he could not guess.

Josiah went slowly back to the tent. His chicken was gone. He laid this loss on Peter, saying, "He always did bring me bad luck." Penhallow was still asleep. Ought he to tell him of Peter Lamb. He decided not to do so, or at least to wait. Inborn kindliness acted as it had done before, and conscious of his own helplessness, he was at a loss. Near to dusk he lighted a pipe and sat down outside of Penhallow's hut. Servants of engineer officers spoke as they passed, or chaffed him. His readiness for a verbal duel was wanting and he replied curtly. He was trying to make out to his own satisfaction whether he could or ought to do anything but hold his tongue and let this man die and so disappear. He knew that he himself could do nothing, nor did he believe anything could be done to help the man. He felt, however, that because he hated Peter, he was bound by his simply held creed to want to do something. He did not want to do anything, but then in confusing urgency there was the old mother, the colonel's indulgent care of this drunken animal, and at last some personal realization of the loneliness of this man so near to death. Then he remembered that Mark Rivers was within reach. To get this clergyman to see Peter would relieve him of the singular feeling of responsibility he could not altogether set aside. He was the only person who could identify Lamb. That, at least, he did not mean to do. He would find Mr. Rivers and leave to him to act as he thought best. He heard Penhallow calling, and went in to find him reading his letters. After providing for his wants, he set out to find the clergyman. His pass carried him where-ever he desired to go, and after ten at night he found Mark Rivers with the Christian Commission.

"What is it?" asked Rivers. "Is John ill?"

"No, sir," and he told in a few sentences the miserable story, to the clergyman's amazement.

"I will go with you," he said. "I must get leave to see him, but you had better not speak of Peter to any one."

Josiah was already somewhat indisposed to tell to others the story of the North Anna incident, and walked on in silence over the snow until at the provost-marshal's quarters Rivers dismissed him.

In a brief talk with the provost-marshal, Rivers learned that there had been a hastily summoned court-martial, and in the presence of very clear evidence a verdict approved by General Grant. The man would be shot at seven the next morning. "A hopeless case, Mr. Rivers," said the Provost, "any appeal for reprieve will be useless—utterly useless—there will be no time given for appeal to Mr. Lincoln. We have had too much of this lately."

Rivers said nothing of his acquaintance with the condemned man. He too had reached the conviction, now made more definite, that needless pain for the old mother could be avoided by letting Peter die with the name he had assumed.

It was after twelve at night when the provost's pass admitted him to a small wooden prison. One candle dimly lighted the hut, where a manacled man crouched by a failing fire. The soldier on guard passed out as the clergyman entered. When the door closed behind him, Rivers said, "Peter."

"My God! Mr. Rivers. They say I'll be shot. You won't let them shoot me—they can't do it—I don't want to die."

"I came here because Josiah recognized you and brought me."

"He must have told on me."

"Told what? He did not tell anything. Now listen to me. You are certain to be shot at seven to-morrow morning. I have asked for delay—none will be given. I come only to entreat you to make your peace with God—to tell you that you have but these few hours in which to repent. Let me pray with you—for you. There is nothing else I can do for you; I have tried and failed. Indeed I tried most earnestly."

"You can help if you will! You were always against me. You can telegraph Colonel Penhallow. He will answer—he won't let them shoot me."

Rivers who stood over the crouched figure laid a hand on his shoulder. "If he were here he could do nothing. And even if I did telegraph him, he is in no condition to answer. He was wounded at Gettysburg and his mind is clouded. It would only trouble him and your mother, and not help you. Your mother would hear, and you should at least have the manliness to accept in silence what you have earned."

"But it's my life—my life—I can't die." Rivers was silent. "You won't telegraph?"

"No. It is useless."

"But you might do something—you're cruel. I am innocent. God let me be born of a drunken father—I had to drink too—I had to. The Squire wouldn't give me work—no one helped me. I enlisted in a New York regiment. I got drunk and ran away and enlisted in the 71st Pennsylvania. I stole chickens, and near to the North Anna I was cruelly punished. Then the Rebs caught me. I had to enlist. Oh, Lord! I am unfortunate. If I only could have a little whisky."

Mark Rivers for a moment barren of answer was sure that as usual Peter was lying and without any of his old cunning.

"Peter, this story does not help you. You are about to die, and no one—can help you—I have tried in vain—nothing can save you. Why at a time so solemn as this do you lie to me? Why did you desert? and for stealing chickens? nonsense!"

"Well, then, it was about a woman. Josiah knows—he saw it all. I didn't desert—I was tied to a tree—he could clear me. They left me tied. I had to enlist; I had to!"

"A woman!" Rivers understood. "If he were to tell, it would only make your case worse. Oh, Peter, let me pray for you."

"Oh, pray if you want to. What's the good? If you won't telegraph the Squire, get me whisky; and if you won't do that, go away. Talk about God and praying when I'm to be murdered just because my father drank! I don't want any praying—I don't believe in it—you just go away and get me some whisky. The Squire might have saved me—I wanted to quit from drink and he just told me to get out—and I did. I hate him and—you."

Rivers stood up. "May God help and pity you," he said, and so left him.

He slept none, and rising early, prayed fervently for this wrecked soul. As he walked at six in the morning to the prison hut, he thought over the man who long ago had so defeated him. He had seemed to him more feeble in mind and less cunning in his statements than had been the case in former days. He concluded that he was in the state of a man used to drinking whisky and for a time deprived of it. When he met him moving under guard from the prison, he felt sure that his conclusion had been correct.

As Rivers came up, the officer in charge said, "If, sir, as a clergyman you desire to walk beside this man, there is no objection."

"Oh, let him come," said Peter, with a defiant air. Some one pitiful had indulged the fated man with the liquor he craved.

Rivers took his place beside Peter as the guards at his side fell back. Soldiers off duty, many blacks and other camp-followers, gathered in silence as the little procession moved over the snow, noiseless except for the tramp of many feet and the rumble of the cart in which was an empty coffin.

"Can I do anything for you?" said Rivers, turning toward the flushed face at his side.

"No—you can't." The man smelled horribly of whisky; the charitable aid must have been ample.

"Is there any message you want me to carry?"

"Message—who would I send messages to?" In fact, Rivers did not know. He was appalled at a man going half drunk to death. He moved on, for a little while at the end of his resources.

"Even yet," he whispered, "there is time to repent and ask God to pardon a wasted life." Peter made no reply and then they were in the open space on one side of a hollow square. On three sides the regiment stood intent as the group came near. "Even yet," murmured Rivers.

Of a sudden Peter's face became white. He said, "I want to tell you one thing—I want you to tell him. I shot the Squire at Gettysburg—I wish I had killed him—I thought I had. There!—I always did get even."

"Stand back, sir, please," said a captain. Rivers was dumb with the horror of it and stepped aside. The last words he would have said choked him in the attempt to speak.

Six soldiers took their places before the man who stood with his hands tied behind his back, his face white, the muscles twitching, while a bandage was tied over his eyes.

"He wants to speak to you, sir," said the captain.

Rivers stepped to his side. "I did not tell my name. Tell my mother I was shot—not how—not why."

Rivers fell back. The captain let fall a handkerchief. Six rifles rang out, and Peter Lamb had gone to his account.

The regiment marched away. The music of the band rang clear through the frosty air. The captain said, "Where is the surgeon?" Tom McGregor appeared, and as he had to certify to the death bent down over the quivering body.

"My God! Mr. Rivers," he said in a low voice, looking up, "it is Peter Lamb."

"Hush, Tom," whispered Rivers, "no one knows him except Josiah." They walked away together while Rivers told of Josiah's recognition of Lamb. "Keep silent about his name, Tom," and then went on to speak of the man's revengeful story about the Colonel, to Tom's horror. "I am sorry you told me," said the young surgeon.

"Yes, I was unwise—but—"

"Oh, let us drop it, Mr. Rivers. How is John? I have been three times to see him and he twice to see me, but always he was at the front, and as for me we have six thousand beds and too few surgeons, so that I could not often get away. Does he know of this man's fate?"

"No—and he had better not."

"I agree with you. Let us bury his name with him. So he shot our dear Colonel—how strange, how horrible!"

"He believed that he did shoot him, and as the ball came from the lines of the 71st when the fight was practically at an end, it may be true. He certainly meant to kill him."

"What an entirely, hopelessly complete scoundrel!" said McGregor.

"Except," said Rivers, "that he did not want his mother to know how he died."

"Human wickedness is very incomplete," said the surgeon. "I wonder whether the devil is as perfectly wicked as we are taught to believe. You think this fellow, my dear old schoolmaster, was not utterly bad. Now about wanting his mother not to know—I for my part—"

"Don't, Tom. Leave him this rag of charity to cover a multitude of sins. Now, I must leave you. See John soon—he is wasted by unending and dangerous work—with malaria too, and what not; see him soon. He is a splendid replica of the Colonel with a far better mind. I wish he were at home."

"And I that another fellow were at home. Good-bye."

McGregor called at John's tent, but learned that at six he had gone on duty to the trenches.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Late on Christmas morning of this year 1864, Penhallow with no duty on his hands saw with satisfaction the peacemaking efforts of the winter weather. A thin drizzle of cold rain froze as it fell on the snow; the engineers' lines were quiet. There was no infantry drill and the raw recruits had rest from the never satisfied sergeants, while unmanageable accumulations of gifts from distant homes were being distributed to well-pleased men. Penhallow, lazily at ease, planned to spend Christmas day with Tom McGregor or Roland Blake. The orders of a too energetic Colonel of his own Corps summarily disposed of his anticipated leisure. The tired and disgusted Captain dismounted at evening, and limping gave his horse to Josiah.

"What you done to Hoodoo, Master John? He's lame—and you too."

Without answering John Penhallow turned to greet Tom McGregor. "Happy Christmas, Tom."

"You don't look very happy, John, nor that poor beast of yours. But I am glad to have caught you at last." The faraway thunder of the siege mortars was heard as he spoke. "Nice Christmas carol that! Have you been to-day in the graveyards you call trenches?"

"No, I was not on duty. I meant to ride over to your hospital to have a home-talk and exchange grumbles, but just as I mounted Colonel Swift stopped with a smartly dressed aide-de-camp. I saluted. He said, 'I was looking for an engineer off duty. Have the kindness to ride with me.'"

"By George! Tom, he was so polite that I felt sure we were on some unpleasant errand. I was as civil, and said, 'With pleasure.' A nice Christmas celebration! Well, I have been in the saddle all day. It rained and froze to sleet on the snow, and the horses slipped and slid most unpleasantly. About noon we passed our pickets. I was half frozen. When we got a bit further, the old colonel pulled up on a hillside and began to ask me questions, how far was that bridge, and could I see their pickets, and where did that cross-road go to. The aide was apparently ornamental and did not do anything but guess. I answered with sublime confidence, as my mind got thawed a little and the colonel made notes."