Chapter 24

She hastened off, and a little later a dishevelled straggler, with a cloth about his forehead, burst in at the open door.

“They're shelling the town,” he cried, waving a dirty hand, “an' you'll be prisoners in an hour if you don't git up and move. The Yankees are comin', I seed 'em cross the river. Lee's cut up, I tell you, he's left half his army dead in Maryland. Thar! they're shellin' the town, sho' 'nough!”

With a last wave he disappeared into the alley, and Dan struggled from his bed and to the door. “Give me your arm, Big Abel,” he said, speaking in a loud voice that he might be heard above the clamour. “I can't stay here. It isn't being killed I mind, but, by God, they'll never take me prisoner so long as I'm alive. Come here and give me your arm. You aren't afraid to go out, are you?”

“Lawd, Marse Dan, I'se mo' feared ter stay hyer,” responded Big Abel, with an ashen face. “Whar we gwine hide, anyhow?”

“We won't hide, we'll run,” returned Dan gravely, and with his arm on the negro's shoulder, he passed through the alley out into the street. There the noise bewildered him an instant, and his eyes went blind while he grasped Big Abel's sleeve.

“Wait a minute, I can't see,” he said. “Now, that's right, go on. By George, it's bedlam turned loose, let's get out of it!”

“Dis away, Marse Dan, dis away, step right hyer,” urged Big Abel, as he slipped through the hurrying crowd of fugitives which packed the street. White and black, men and women, sick and well, they swarmed up and down in the dim sunshine beneath the flying shells, which skimmed the town to explode in the open fields beyond. The wounded were there--all who could stand upon their feet or walk with the aid of crutches--stumbling on in a mad panic to the meadows where the shells burst or the hot sun poured upon festering cuts. Streaming in noisy groups, the slaves fled after them, praying, shrieking, calling out that the day of judgment was upon them, yet bearing upon their heads whatever they could readily lay hands on--bundles, baskets, babies, and even clucking fowls tied by the legs. Behind them went a troop of dogs, piercing the tumult with excited barks.

Dan, fevered, pallid, leaning heavily upon Big Abel, passed unnoticed amid a throng which was, for the most part, worse off than himself. Men with old wounds breaking out afresh, or new ones staining red the cloths they wore, pushed wildly by him, making, as all made, for the country roads that led from war to peace. It was as if the hospitals of the world had disgorged themselves in the sunshine on the bright September fields.

Once, as Dan moved slowly on, he came upon a soldier, with a bandage at his throat sitting motionless upon a rock beside a clump of thistles, and moved by the expression of supreme terror on the man's face, he stopped and laid a hand upon his shoulder.

“What's the trouble, friend--given up?” he asked, and then drew back quickly for the man was dead. After this they went on more rapidly, flying from the horrors along the road as from the screaming shells and the dread of capture.

At the hour of sunset, after many halts upon the way, they found themselves alone and still facing the open road. Since midday they had stopped for dinner with a hospitable farmer, and, some hours later, Big Abel had feasted on wild grapes, which he had found hidden in the shelter of a little wood. In the same wood a stream had tinkled over silver rocks, and Dan, lying upon the bank of moss, had bathed his face and hands in the clear water. Now, while the shadows fell in spires across the road, they turned into a quiet country lane, and stood watching the sun as it dropped beyond the gray stone wall. In the grass a small insect broke into a low humming, and the silence, closing the next instant, struck upon Dan's ears like a profound and solemn melody. He took off his cap, and still leaning upon Big Abel, looked with rested eyes on the sloping meadow brushed with the first gold of autumn. Something that was not unlike shame had fallen over him--as if the horrors of the morning were a mere vulgar affront which man had put upon the face of nature. The very anguish of the day obtruded awkwardly upon his thoughts, and the wild clamour he had left behind him showed with a savage crudeness against a landscape in which the dignity of earth--of the fruitful life of seasons and of crops--produced in a solitary observer a quiet that was not untouched by awe. Where nature was suggestive of the long repose of ages, the brief passions of a single generation became as the flicker of a candle or the glow of a firefly in the night.

“Dat's a steep road ahead er us,” remarked Big Abel suddenly, as he stared into the shadows.

Dan came back with a start.

“Where shall we sleep?” he asked. “No, not in that field--the open sky would keep me awake, I think. Let's bivouac in the woods as usual.”

They moved on a little way and entered a young pine forest, where Big Abel gathered a handful of branches and kindled a light blaze.

“You ain' never eat nigger food, is you, Marse Dan?” he inquired as he did so.

“Good Lord!” ejaculated Dan, “ask a man who has lived two months on corn-field peas if he's eaten hog food, and he'll be pretty sure to answer 'yes.' Do you know we must have crawled about six miles to-day.” He lay back on the pine tags and stared straight above where the long green needles were illuminated on a background of purple space. A few fireflies made golden points among the tree-tops.

“Well, I'se got a hunk er middlin',” pursued Big Abel thoughtfully, “a strip er fat en a strip er lean des like hit oughter be--but a nigger 'ooman she gun hit ter me, en I 'low Ole Marster wouldn't tech hit wid a ten-foot pole.” He stuck the meat upon the end of Dan's bayonet and held it before the flames. “Ole Marster wouldn't tech hit, but den he ain' never had dese times.”

“You're right,” replied Dan idly, filling his pipe and lighting it with a small red ember, “and all things considered, I don't think I'll raise any racket about that middling, Big Abel.”

“Hit ain' all nigger food, no how,” added Big Abel reflectively, “caze de 'ooman she done steal it f'om w'ite folks sho's you bo'n.”

“I only wish she had been tempted to steal some bread along with it,” rejoined Dan.

Big Abel's answer was to draw a hoecake wrapped in an old newspaper from his pocket and place it on a short pine stump. Then he reached for his jack-knife and carefully slit the hoecake down the centre, after which he laid the bacon in slices between the crusts.

“Did she steal that, too?” inquired Dan laughing.

“Naw, suh, I stole dis.”

“Well, I never! You'll be ashamed to look the Major in the face when the war is over.”

Big Abel nodded gloomily as he passed the sandwich to Dan, who divided it into two equal portions. “Dar's somebody got ter do de stealin' in dis yer worl',” he returned with rustic philosophy, “des es dar's somebody got ter be w'ite folks en somebody got ter be nigger, caze de same pusson cyarn be ner en ter dat's sho'. Dar ain' 'oom fer all de yerth ter strut roun' wid dey han's in dey pockets en dey nose tu'nt up des caze dey's hones'. Lawd, Lawd, ef I'd a-helt my han's back f'om pickin' en stealin' thoo dis yer wah, whar 'ould you be now--I ax you dat?”

Catching a dried branch the flame shot up suddenly, and he sat relieved against the glow, like a gigantic statue in black basalt.

“Well, all's fair in love and war,” replied Dan, adjusting himself to changed conditions. “If that wasn't as true as gospel, I should be dead to-morrow from this fat bacon.”

Big Abel started up.

“Lis'en ter dat ole hoot owl,” he exclaimed excitedly, “he's a-settin' right over dar on dat dead limb a-hootin' us plum in de mouf. Ain' dat like 'em, now? Is you ever seed sech airs as dey put on?”

He strode off into the darkness, and Dan, seized with a sudden homesickness for the army, lay down beside his musket and fell asleep.

III

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

At daybreak they took up the march again, Dan walking slowly, with his musket striking the ground and his arm on Big Abel's shoulder. Where the lane curved in the hollow, they came upon a white cottage, with a woman milking a spotted cow in the barnyard. As she caught sight of them, she waved wildly with her linsey apron, holding the milk pail carefully between her feet as the spotted cow turned inquiringly.

“Go 'way, I don't want no stragglers here,” she cried, as one having authority.

Leaning upon the fence, Dan placidly regarded her.

“My dear madam, you commit an error of judgment,” he replied, pausing to argue.

With the cow's udder in her hand the woman looked up from the streaming milk.

“Well, ain't you stragglers?” she inquired.

Dan shook his head reproachfully.

“What air you, then?”

“Beggars, madam.”

“I might ha' knowed it!” returned the woman, with a snort. “Well, whatever you air, you kin jest as eas'ly keep on along that thar road. I ain't got nothing on this place for you. Some of you broke into my smokehouse night befo' last an' stole all the spar' ribs I'd been savin'. Was you the ones?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Oh, you're all alike,” protested the woman, scornfully, “an' a bigger set o' rascals I never seed.”

“Huh! Who's a rascal?” exclaimed Big Abel, angrily.

“This is the reward of doing your duty, Big Abel,” remarked Dan, gravely. “Never do it again, remember. The next time Virginia is invaded we'll sit by the fire and warm our feet. Good morning, madam.”

“Why ain't you with the army?” inquired the woman sharply, slapping the cow upon the side as she rose from her seat and took up the milk pail. “An officer rode by this morning an' he told me part of the army was campin' ten miles across on the other road.”

“Did he say whose division?”

“Oh, I reckon you kin fight as well under one general as another, so long as you've got a mind to fight at all. You jest follow this lane about three miles and then keep straight along the turnpike. If you do that I reckon you'll git yo' deserts befo' sundown.” She came over to the fence and stood fixing them with hard, bright eyes. “My! You do look used up,” she admitted after a moment. “You'd better come in an' git a glass of this milk befo' you move on. Jest go roun' to the gate and I'll meet you at the po'ch. The dog won't bite you if you don't touch nothin'.”

“All right, go ahead and hide the spoons,” called Dan, as he swung open the gate and went up a little path bordered by prince's feathers.

The woman met them at the porch and led them into a clean kitchen, where Dan sat down at the table and Big Abel stationed himself behind his chair.

“Drink a glass of that milk the first thing,” she said, bustling heavily about the room, and browbeating them into submissive silence, while she mixed the biscuits and broke the eggs into a frying-pan greased with bacon gravy. Plump, hearty, with a full double chin and cheeks like winter apples, she moved briskly from the wooden safe to the slow fire, which she stirred with determined gestures.

“It's time this war had stopped, anyhow,” she remarked as she slapped the eggs up into the air and back again into the pan. “An' if General Lee ever rides along this way I mean to tell him that he ought to have one good battle an' be done with it. Thar's no use piddlin' along like this twil we're all worn out and thar ain't a corn-field pea left in Virginny. Look here (to Big Abel), you set right down on that do' step an' I'll give you something along with yo' marster. It's a good thing I happened to look under the cow trough yestiddy or thar wouldn't have been an egg left in this house. That's right, turn right in an' eat hearty--don't mince with me.” Big Abel, cowed by her energetic manner, seated himself upon the door step, and for a half-hour the woman ceaselessly plied them with hot biscuits and coffee made from sweet potatoes.

“You mustn't think I mind doing for the soldiers,” she said when they took their leave a little later, “but I've a husban' with General Lee and I can't bear to see able-bodied men stragglin' about the country. No, don't give me nothin'--it ain't worth it. Lord, don't I know that you don't git enough to buy a bag of flour.” Then she pointed out the way again and they set off with a well-filled paper of luncheon.

“Beware of hasty judgments, Big Abel,” advised Dan, as they strolled along the road. “Now that woman there--she's the right sort, though she rather took my breath away.”

“She 'uz downright ficy at fu'st,” replied Big Abel, “but I d'clar dose eggs des melted in my mouf like butter. Whew! don't I wish I had dat ole speckled hen f'om home. I could hev toted her unner my arm thoo dis wah des es well es not.”

The sun was well overhead, and across the landscape the heavy dew was lifted like a veil. Here and there the autumn foliage tinted the woods in splashes of red and yellow; and beyond the low stone wall an old sheep pasture was ablaze in goldenrod. From a pointed aspen beside the road a wild grapevine let down a fringe of purple clusters, but Big Abel, with a full stomach, passed them by indifferently. A huge buzzard, rising suddenly from the pasture, sailed slowly across the sky, its heavy shadow skimming the field beneath. As yet the flames of war had not blown over this quiet spot; in the early morning dew it lay as fresh as the world in its beginning.

At the end of the lane, when they came out upon the turnpike, they met an old farmer riding a mule home from the market.

“Can you tell me if McClellan has crossed the Potomac?” asked Dan, as he came up with him. “I was in the hospital at Shepherdstown, and I left it for fear of capture. No news has reached me, but I am on my way to rejoin the army.”

“Naw, suh, you might as well have stayed whar you were,” responded the old man, eying him with the suspicion which always met a soldier out of ranks. “McClellan didn't do no harm on this side of the river--he jest set up a battery on Douglas hill and scolded General Lee for leaving Maryland so soon. You needn't worry no mo' 'bout the Yankees gittin' on this side--thar ain't none of 'em left to come, they're all dead. Why, General Lee cut 'em all up into little pieces, that's what he did. Hooray! it was jest like Bible times come back agin.”

Then, as Dan moved on, the farmer raised himself in his stirrups and called loudly after him. “Keep to the Scriptures, young man, and remember Joshua, Smite them hip an' thigh, as the Bible says.”

All day in the bright sunshine they crept slowly onward, halting at brief intervals to rest in the short grass by the roadside, and stopping to ask information of the countrymen or stragglers whom they met. At last in the red glow of the sunset they entered a strip of thin woodland, and found an old negro gathering resinous knots from the bodies of fallen pines.

“Bless de Lawd!” he exclaimed as he faced them. “Is you done come fer de sick sodger at my cabin?”

“A sick soldier? Why, we are all sick soldiers,” answered Dan. “Where did he come from?” The old man shook his head, as he placed his heavy split basket on the ground at his feet.

“I dunno, marster, he ain' come, he des drapped. 'Twuz yestiddy en I 'uz out hyer pickin' up dis yer lightwood des like I is doin' dis minute, w'en I heah 'a-bookerty! bookerty! bookerty!' out dar in de road 'en a w'ite hoss tu'n right inter de woods wid a sick sodger a-hangin' ter de saddle. Yes, suh, de hoss he come right in des like he knowed me, en w'en I helt out my han' he poke his nose spang inter it en w'innied like he moughty glad ter see me--en he wuz, too, dat's sho'. Well, I ketch holt er his bridle en lead 'im thoo de woods up ter my do' whar he tu'n right in en begin ter nibble in de patch er kebbage. All dis time I 'uz 'lowin' dat de sodger wuz stone dead, but w'en I took 'im down he opened his eyes en axed fur water. Den I gun 'im a drink outer de goa'd en laid 'im flat on my bed, en in a little w'ile a nigger come by dat sez he b'longed ter 'im, but befo' day de nigger gone agin en de hoss he gone, too.”

“Well, we'll see about him, uncle, go ahead,” said Dan, and as the old negro went up the path among the trees, he followed closely on his footsteps. When they had gone a little way the woods opened suddenly and they came upon a small log cabin, with a yellow dog lying before the door. The dog barked shrilly as they approached, and a voice from the dim room beyond called out:--

“Hosea! Are you back so soon, Hosea?”

At the words Dan stopped as if struck by lightning, midway of the vegetable garden; then breaking from Big Abel, he ran forward and into the little cabin.

“Is the hurt bad, Governor?” he asked in a trembling voice.

The Governor smiled and held out a steady hand above the ragged patchwork quilt. His neat gray coat lay over him and as Dan caught the glitter and the collar he remembered the promotion after Seven Pines.

“Let me help you, General,” he implored. “What is it that we can do?”

“I have come to the end, my boy,” replied the Governor, his rich voice unshaken. “I have seen men struck like this before and I have lived twelve hours longer than the strongest of them. When I could go no farther I sent Hosea ahead to make things ready--and now I am keeping alive to hear from home. Give me water.”

Dan held the glass to his lips, and looking up, the Governor thanked him with his old warm glance that was so like Betty's. “There are some things that are worth fighting for,” said the older man as he fell back, “and the sight of home is one of them. It was a hard ride, but every stab of pain carried me nearer to Uplands--and there are poor fellows who endure worse things and yet die in a strange land among strangers.” He was silent a moment and then spoke slowly, smiling a little sadly.

“My memory has failed me,” he said, “and when I lay here last night and tried to recall the look of the lawn at home, I couldn't remember--I couldn't remember. Are there elms or maples at the front, Dan?”

“Maples, sir,” replied Dan, with the deference of a boy. “The long walk bordered by lilacs goes up from the road to the portico with the Doric columns--you remember that?”

“Yes, yes, go on.”

“The maples have grown thick upon the lawn and close beside the house there is the mimosa tree that your father set out on his twenty-first birthday.”

“The branches touch the library window. I had them trimmed last year that the shutters might swing back. What time is it, Dan?”

Dan turned to the door.

“What time is it, Big Abel?” he called to the negro outside.

“Hit's goin' on eight o'clock, suh,” replied Big Abel, staring at the west. “De little star he shoots up moughty near eight, en dar he is a-comin'.”

“Hosea is there by now,” said the Governor, turning his head on a pillow of pine needles. “He started this morning, and I told him to change horses upon the road and eat in the saddle. Yes, he is there by now and Julia is on the way. Am I growing weaker, do you think? There is a little brandy on the chair, give me a few drops--we must make it last all night.”

After taking the brandy he slept a little, and awaking quietly, looked at Dan with dazed eyes.

“Who is it?” he asked, stretching out his hand. “Why, I thought Dick Wythe was dead.”

Dan bent over him, smoothing the hair from his brow with hands that were gentle as a woman's.

“Surely you haven't forgotten me,” he said.

“No--no, I remember, but it is dark, too dark. Why doesn't Shadrach bring the candles? And we might as well have a blaze in the fireplace to-night. It has grown chilly; there'll be a white frost before morning.”

There was a basket of resinous pine beside the hearth, and Dan kindled a fire from a handful of rich knots. As the flames shot up, the rough little cabin grew more cheerful, and the Governor laughed softly lying on his pallet.

“Why, I thought you were Dick Wythe, my boy,” he said. “The light was so dim I couldn't see, and, after all, it was no great harm, for there was not a handsomer man in the state than my friend Dick--the ladies used to call him 'Apollo Unarmed,' you know. Ah, I was jealous enough of Dick in my day, though he never knew it. He rather took Julia's fancy when I first began courting her, and, for a time, he pretended to reform and refused to touch a drop even at the table. I've seen him sit for hours, too, in Julia's Bible class of little negroes, with his eyes positively glued on her face while she read the hymns aloud. Yes, he was over head and ears in love with her, there's no doubt of that--though she has always denied it--and, I dare say, he would have been a much better man if she had married him, and I a much worse one. Somehow, I can't help feeling that it wasn't quite just, and that I ought to square up things with Dick at Judgment Day. I shouldn't like to reap any good from his mistakes, poor fellow.” He broke off for an instant, lay gazing at the lightwood blaze, and then took up the thread. “He had his fall at last, and it's been on my conscience ever since that I didn't toss that bowl of apple toddy through the window when I saw him going towards it. We were at Chericoke on Christmas Eve in a big snowstorm, and Dick couldn't resist his glass--he never could so long as there was a drop at the bottom of it--the more he drank, the thirstier he got, he used to say. Well, he took a good deal, more than he could stand, and when the Major began toasting the ladies and called them the prettiest things God ever made, Dick flew into a rage and tried to fight him. 'There are two prettier sights than any woman that ever wore petticoats,' he thundered; 'and (here he ripped out an oath) I'll prove it to you at the sword's point before sunrise. God made but one thing, sir, prettier than the cobwebs on a bottle of wine, and that's the bottle of wine without the cobwebs!' Then he went at the Major, and we had to hold him back and rub snow on his temples. That night I drove home with Julia, and she accepted me before we passed the wild cherry tree on the way to Uplands.”

As he fell silent the old negro, treading softly, came into the room and made the preparations for his simple supper, which he carried outside beneath the trees. In a little bared place amid charred wood, a fire was started, and Dan watched through the open doorway the stooping figures of the two negroes as they bent beside the flames. In a little while Big Abel came into the room and beckoned him, but he shook his head impatiently and turned away, sickened by the thought of food.

“Go, my boy,” said the Governor, as if he had seen it through closed eyes. “I never saw a private yet that wasn't hungry--one told me last week that his diet for a year had varied only three times--blackberries, chinquapins, and persimmons had kept him alive, he said.”

Then his mind wandered again, and he talked in a low voice of the wheat fields at Uplands and of the cradles swinging all day in the sunshine. Dan, moving to the door, stared, with aching eyes, at the rich twilight which crept like purple mist among the trees. The very quiet of the scene grated as a discord upon his mood, and he would have welcomed with a feeling of relief any violent manifestation of the savagery of nature. A storm, an earthquake, even the thunder of battle he felt would be less tragic than just this pleasant evening with the serene moon rising above the hills.

Turning back into the room, he drew a split-bottomed chair beside the hearth, and began his patient watch until the daybreak. Under the patchwork quilt the Governor lay motionless, dead from the waist down, only the desire in his eyes struggling to keep the spirit to the clay. Big Abel and the old negro made themselves a bed beneath the trees, and as they raked the dried leaves together the mournful rustling filled the little cabin. Then they lay down, the yellow dog beside them, and gradually the silence of the night closed in.