________________________________________________
_ In two weeks it swept back, wasted, stubborn, hungrier than ever. On a
sultry September afternoon, Dan, who had gone down with a sharp return of
fever, was brought, with a wagonful of the wounded, and placed on a heap of
straw on the brick pavement of Shepherdstown. For two days he had been
delirious, and Big Abel had held him to his bed during the long nights when
the terrible silence seemed filled with the noise of battle; but, as he was
lifted from the wagon and laid upon the sidewalk, he opened his eyes and
spoke in a natural voice.
"What's all this fuss, Big Abel? Have I been out of my head?"
"You sutney has, suh. You've been a-prayin' en shoutin' so loud dese las'
tree days dat I wunner de Lawd ain' done shet yo' mouf des ter git rid er
you."
"Praying, have I?" said Dan. "Well, I declare. That reminds me of Mr.
Blake, Big Abel. I'd like to know what's become of him."
Big Abel shook his head; he was in no pleasant humour, for the corners of
his mouth were drawn tightly down and there was a rut between his bushy
eyebrows.
"I nuver seed no sich place es dis yer town in all my lifetime," he
grumbled. "Dey des let us lie roun' loose on de bricks same es ef we ain'
been fittin' fur 'em twel we ain' nuttin' but skin en bone. Dose two wagon
loads er cut-up sodgers hev done fill de houses so plum full dat dey sticks
spang thoo de cracks er de do's. Don' talk ter me, suh, I ain' got no use
fur dis wah, noways, caze hit's a low-lifeted one, dat's what 'tis; en ef
you'd a min' w'at I tell you, you'd be settin' up at home right dis minute
wid ole Miss a-feedin' you on br'ile chicken. You may fit all you wanter--I
ain' sayin' nuttin' agin yo' fittin ef yo' spleen hit's up--but you could
er foun' somebody ter fit wid back at home widout comin' out hyer ter git
yo'se'f a-jumbled up wid all de po' white trash in de county. Dis yer wah
ain' de kin' I'se use ter, caze hit jumbles de quality en de trash
tergedder des like dey wuz bo'n blood kin."
"What are you muttering about now, Big Abel?" broke in Dan impatiently.
"For heaven's sake stop and find me a bed to lie on. Are they going to
leave me out here in the street on this pile of straw?"
"De Lawd he knows," hopelessly responded Big Abel. "Dey's a-fixin' places,
dey sez, dat's why all dese folks is a-runnin' dis away en dat away like
chickens wid dere haids chopped off. 'Fo' you hed yo' sense back dey wanted
ter stick you over yonder in dat ole blue shanty wid all de skin peelin'
off hit, but I des put my foot right down en 'lowed dey 'ouldn't. W'at you
wan' ketch mo'n you got fur?"
"But I can't stay here," weakly remonstrated Dan, "and I must have
something to eat--I tell you I could eat nails. Bring me anything on God's
earth except green corn."
The street was filled with women, and one of them, passing with a bowl of
gruel in her hand, came back and held it to his lips.
"You poor fellow!" she said impulsively, in a voice that was rich with
sympathy. "Why, I don't believe you've had a bite for a month."
Dan smiled at her from his heap of straw--an unkempt haggard figure.
"Not from so sweet a hand," he responded, his old spirit rising strong
above misfortune.
His voice held her, and she regarded him with a pensive face. She had known
men in her day, which had declined long since toward its evening, and with
the unerring instinct of her race she knew that the one before her was well
worth the saving. Gallantry that could afford to jest in rags upon a pile
of straw appealed to her Southern blood as little short of the heroic. She
saw the pinch of hunger about the mouth, and she saw, too, the singular
beauty which lay, obscured to less keen eyes, beneath the fever and the
dirt.
"The march must have been fearful--I couldn't have stood it," she said,
half to test the man.
Rising to the challenge, he laughed outright. "Well, since you mention it,
it wasn't just the thing for a lady," he answered, true to his salt.
For a moment she looked at him in silence, then turned regretfully to Big
Abel.
"The houses have filled up already, I believe," she said, "but there is a
nice dry stable up the street which has just been cleaned out for a
hospital. Carry your master up the next square and then into the alley a
few steps where you will find a physician. I am going now for food and
bandages."
She hurried on, and Big Abel, seizing Dan beneath the arms, dragged him
breathlessly along the street.
"A stable! Huh! Hit's a wunner dey ain' ax us ter step right inter a nice
clean pig pen," he muttered as he walked on rapidly.
"Oh, I don't mind the stable, but this pace will kill me," groaned Dan.
"Not so fast, Big Abel, not so fast."
"Dis yer ain' no time to poke," replied Big Abel, sternly, and lifting the
young man in his arms, he carried him bodily into the stable and laid him
on a clean-smelling bed of straw. The place was large and well lighted, and
Dan, as he turned over, heaved a grateful sigh.
"Let me sleep--only let me sleep," he implored weakly.
And for two days he slept, despite the noise about him. Dressed in clean
clothes, brought by the lady of the morning, and shaved by the skilful hand
of Big Abel, he buried himself in the fresh straw and dreamed of Chericoke
and Betty. The coil of battle swept far from him; he heard none of the fret
and rumour that filled the little street; even the moans of the men beneath
the surgeons' knives did not penetrate to where he lay sunk in the stupor
of perfect contentment. It was not until the morning of the third day, when
the winds that blew over the Potomac brought the sounds of battle, that he
was shocked back into a troubled consciousness of his absence from the
army. Then he heard the voices of the guns calling to him from across the
river, and once or twice he struggled up to answer.
"I must go, Big Abel--they are in need of me," he said. "Listen! don't you
hear them calling?"
"Go way f'om yer, Marse Dan, dey's des a-firin' at one anurr," returned Big
Abel, but Dan still tossed impatiently, his strained eyes searching through
the door into the cloudy light of the alley. It was a sombre day, and the
oppressive atmosphere seemed heavy with the smoke of battle.
"If I only knew how it was going," he murmured, in the anguish of
uncertainty. "Hush! isn't that a cheer, Big Abel?"
"I don' heah nuttin' but de crowin' er a rooster on de fence."
"There it is again!" cried Dan, starting up. "I can swear it is our side.
Listen--go to the door--by God, man, that's our yell! Ah, there comes the
rattle of the muskets--don't you hear it?"
"Lawd, Marse Dan, I'se done hyern dat soun' twel I'm plum sick er it,"
responded Big Abel, carefully measuring out a dose of arsenic, which had
taken the place of quinine in a country where medicine was becoming as
scarce as food. "You des swallow dis yer stuff right down en tu'n over en
go fas' asleep agin."
Taking the glass with trembling hands, Dan drained it eagerly.
"It's the artillery now," he said, quivering with excitement. "The
explosions come so fast I can hardly separate them. I never knew how long
shells could screech before--do you mean to say they are really across the
river? Go into the alley, Big Abel, and tell me if you see the smoke."
Big Abel went out and returned, after a few moments, with the news that the
smoke could be plainly seen, he was told, from the upper stories. There was
such a crowd in the street, he added, that he could barely get
along--nobody knew anything, but the wounded, who were arriving in great
numbers, reported that General Lee could hold his ground "against Lucifer
and all his angels."
"Hold his ground," groaned Dan, with feverish enthusiasm, "why, he could
hold a hencoop, for the matter of that, against the whole of North America!
Oh, but this is worse than fighting. I must get up!"
"You don' wanter git out dar in dat mess er skeered rabbits," returned Big
Abel. "You cyarn see yo' han' befo' you fur de way dey's w'igglin' roun' de
street, en w'at's mo' you cyarn heah yo' own w'uds fur de racket dey's
a-kickin' up. Des lis'en ter 'em now, des lis'en!"
"Oh, I wish I could tell our guns," murmured Dan at each quick explosion.
"Hush! there comes the cheer, now--somebody's charging! It may be our
brigade, Big Abel, and I not in it."
He closed his eyes and fell back from sheer exhaustion, still following, as
he lay there, the battalion that had sprung forward with that charging
yell. Gray, obscured in smoke, curved in the centre, uneven as the
Confederate line of battle always was--he saw it sweep onward over the
September field. At the moment to have had his place in that charge beyond
the river, he would have cheerfully met his death when the day was over.
Through the night he slept fitfully, awaking from time to time to ask
eagerly if it were not almost daybreak; then with the dawn the silence that
had fallen over the Potomac seemed to leave a greater blank to be filled
with the noises along the Virginia shore. The hurrying footsteps in the
street outside kept up ceaselessly until the dark again; mingled with the
cries of the wounded and the prayers of the frightened he heard always that
eager, tireless passing of many feet. So familiar it became, so constant an
accompaniment to his restless thoughts, that when at last the day wore out
and the streets grew empty, he found himself listening for the steps of a
passer-by as intently as he had listened in the morning for the renewed
clamour of the battle on the Maryland fields.
The stir of the retreat did not reach the stable where he lay; all night
the army was recrossing the Potomac, but to Dan, tossing on his bed of
straw, it lighted the victor's watch-fires on the disputed ground. He had
not seen the shattered line of battle as it faced disease, exhaustion, and
an army stronger by double numbers, nor had he seen the gray soldiers lying
row on row where they had kept the "sunken road." Thick as the trampled
corn beneath them, with the dust covering them like powder, and the
scattered fence rails lying across their faces, the dead men of his own
brigade were stretched upon the hillside, but through the long night he lay
wakeful in the stable, watching with fevered eyes the tallow dips that
burned dimly on the wall.
In the morning a nurse, coming with a bowl of soup, brought the news that
Lee's army was again on Virginia soil.
"McClellan has opened a battery," she explained, "that's the meaning of
this fearful noise--did you ever hear such sounds in your life? Yes, the
shells are flying over the town, but they've done no harm as yet."
She hastened off, and a little later a dishevelled straggler, with a cloth
about his forehead, burst in at the open door.
"They're shelling the town," he cried, waving a dirty hand, "an' you'll be
prisoners in an hour if you don't git up and move. The Yankees are comin',
I seed 'em cross the river. Lee's cut up, I tell you, he's left half his
army dead in Maryland. Thar! they're shellin' the town, sho' 'nough!"
With a last wave he disappeared into the alley, and Dan struggled from his
bed and to the door. "Give me your arm, Big Abel," he said, speaking in a
loud voice that he might be heard above the clamour. "I can't stay here. It
isn't being killed I mind, but, by God, they'll never take me prisoner so
long as I'm alive. Come here and give me your arm. You aren't afraid to go
out, are you?"
"Lawd, Marse Dan, I'se mo' feared ter stay hyer," responded Big Abel, with
an ashen face. "Whar we gwine hide, anyhow?"
"We won't hide, we'll run," returned Dan gravely, and with his arm on the
negro's shoulder, he passed through the alley out into the street. There
the noise bewildered him an instant, and his eyes went blind while he
grasped Big Abel's sleeve.
"Wait a minute, I can't see," he said. "Now, that's right, go on. By
George, it's bedlam turned loose, let's get out of it!"
"Dis away, Marse Dan, dis away, step right hyer," urged Big Abel, as he
slipped through the hurrying crowd of fugitives which packed the street.
White and black, men and women, sick and well, they swarmed up and down in
the dim sunshine beneath the flying shells, which skimmed the town to
explode in the open fields beyond. The wounded were there--all who could
stand upon their feet or walk with the aid of crutches--stumbling on in a
mad panic to the meadows where the shells burst or the hot sun poured upon
festering cuts. Streaming in noisy groups, the slaves fled after them,
praying, shrieking, calling out that the day of judgment was upon them, yet
bearing upon their heads whatever they could readily lay hands on--bundles,
baskets, babies, and even clucking fowls tied by the legs. Behind them went
a troop of dogs, piercing the tumult with excited barks.
Dan, fevered, pallid, leaning heavily upon Big Abel, passed unnoticed amid
a throng which was, for the most part, worse off than himself. Men with old
wounds breaking out afresh, or new ones staining red the cloths they wore,
pushed wildly by him, making, as all made, for the country roads that led
from war to peace. It was as if the hospitals of the world had disgorged
themselves in the sunshine on the bright September fields.
Once, as Dan moved slowly on, he came upon a soldier, with a bandage at his
throat sitting motionless upon a rock beside a clump of thistles, and moved
by the expression of supreme terror on the man's face, he stopped and laid
a hand upon his shoulder.
"What's the trouble, friend--given up?" he asked, and then drew back
quickly for the man was dead. After this they went on more rapidly, flying
from the horrors along the road as from the screaming shells and the dread
of capture.
At the hour of sunset, after many halts upon the way, they found themselves
alone and still facing the open road. Since midday they had stopped for
dinner with a hospitable farmer, and, some hours later, Big Abel had
feasted on wild grapes, which he had found hidden in the shelter of a
little wood. In the same wood a stream had tinkled over silver rocks, and
Dan, lying upon the bank of moss, had bathed his face and hands in the
clear water. Now, while the shadows fell in spires across the road, they
turned into a quiet country lane, and stood watching the sun as it dropped
beyond the gray stone wall. In the grass a small insect broke into a low
humming, and the silence, closing the next instant, struck upon Dan's ears
like a profound and solemn melody. He took off his cap, and still leaning
upon Big Abel, looked with rested eyes on the sloping meadow brushed with
the first gold of autumn. Something that was not unlike shame had fallen
over him--as if the horrors of the morning were a mere vulgar affront which
man had put upon the face of nature. The very anguish of the day obtruded
awkwardly upon his thoughts, and the wild clamour he had left behind him
showed with a savage crudeness against a landscape in which the dignity of
earth--of the fruitful life of seasons and of crops--produced in a solitary
observer a quiet that was not untouched by awe. Where nature was suggestive
of the long repose of ages, the brief passions of a single generation
became as the flicker of a candle or the glow of a firefly in the night.
"Dat's a steep road ahead er us," remarked Big Abel suddenly, as he stared
into the shadows.
Dan came back with a start.
"Where shall we sleep?" he asked. "No, not in that field--the open sky
would keep me awake, I think. Let's bivouac in the woods as usual."
They moved on a little way and entered a young pine forest, where Big Abel
gathered a handful of branches and kindled a light blaze.
"You ain' never eat nigger food, is you, Marse Dan?" he inquired as he did
so.
"Good Lord!" ejaculated Dan, "ask a man who has lived two months on
corn-field peas if he's eaten hog food, and he'll be pretty sure to answer
'yes.' Do you know we must have crawled about six miles to-day." He lay
back on the pine tags and stared straight above where the long green
needles were illuminated on a background of purple space. A few fireflies
made golden points among the tree-tops.
"Well, I'se got a hunk er middlin'," pursued Big Abel thoughtfully, "a
strip er fat en a strip er lean des like hit oughter be--but a nigger
'ooman she gun hit ter me, en I 'low Ole Marster wouldn't tech hit wid a
ten-foot pole." He stuck the meat upon the end of Dan's bayonet and held it
before the flames. "Ole Marster wouldn't tech hit, but den he ain' never
had dese times."
"You're right," replied Dan idly, filling his pipe and lighting it with a
small red ember, "and all things considered, I don't think I'll raise any
racket about that middling, Big Abel."
"Hit ain' all nigger food, no how," added Big Abel reflectively, "caze de
'ooman she done steal it f'om w'ite folks sho's you bo'n."
"I only wish she had been tempted to steal some bread along with it,"
rejoined Dan.
Big Abel's answer was to draw a hoecake wrapped in an old newspaper from
his pocket and place it on a short pine stump. Then he reached for his
jack-knife and carefully slit the hoecake down the centre, after which he
laid the bacon in slices between the crusts.
"Did she steal that, too?" inquired Dan laughing.
"Naw, suh, I stole dis."
"Well, I never! You'll be ashamed to look the Major in the face when the
war is over."
Big Abel nodded gloomily as he passed the sandwich to Dan, who divided it
into two equal portions. "Dar's somebody got ter do de stealin' in dis yer
worl'," he returned with rustic philosophy, "des es dar's somebody got ter
be w'ite folks en somebody got ter be nigger, caze de same pusson cyarn be
ner en ter dat's sho'. Dar ain' 'oom fer all de yerth ter strut roun' wid
dey han's in dey pockets en dey nose tu'nt up des caze dey's hones'. Lawd,
Lawd, ef I'd a-helt my han's back f'om pickin' en stealin' thoo dis yer
wah, whar 'ould you be now--I ax you dat?"
Catching a dried branch the flame shot up suddenly, and he sat relieved
against the glow, like a gigantic statue in black basalt.
"Well, all's fair in love and war," replied Dan, adjusting himself to
changed conditions. "If that wasn't as true as gospel, I should be dead
to-morrow from this fat bacon."
Big Abel started up.
"Lis'en ter dat ole hoot owl," he exclaimed excitedly, "he's a-settin'
right over dar on dat dead limb a-hootin' us plum in de mouf. Ain' dat like
'em, now? Is you ever seed sech airs as dey put on?"
He strode off into the darkness, and Dan, seized with a sudden homesickness
for the army, lay down beside his musket and fell asleep. _
Read next: BOOK FOURTH - THE RETURN OF THE VANQUISHED: Chapter III - The Cabin in the Woods
Read previous: BOOK FOURTH - THE RETURN OF THE VANQUISHED: Chapter I - The Ragged Army
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