It was a wonderful period of mental development for this wild young
creature of the woods, when Hilary received in his sudden transition
to the “valley kentry” his first adequate impressions of civilization.
He learned that the world is wide; he beheld the triumphs of military
science; he acquiesced in the fixed distinctions of rank, since he must
needs concede the finer grades of capacity. But courage, the inherent,
inimitable endowment, he recognized as the soul of heroism, and in all
the arrogance of elation he became conscious that he possessed it. This
it was that opened his stolid mind to the allurements of ambition. He
rejoiced in an aspiration.
He was brave. That was his identity--his essential vitality! Was
he ignorant, poor, the butt of the campfire jokes, because of his
simplicity in the wide world’s ways, slothful, slow, wild, and
turbulent? He took heed of none of this! He was the bravest of the
brave--and all the command knew it!
With an exultant heart he realized that Captain Bertley was aware
of the fact, and often took account of it in laying his plans. The
regiment of which this squadron was a part belonged to one of those
brigades of light cavalry whose utility was chiefly in quick movements,
in harassing an enemy’s march, in following up and hanging on his
retreat, and sometimes in making swift forced marches, appearing
unexpectedly in distant localities far from the main body and adding
the element of surprise to a sudden and furious onslaught. Often
Hilary was among a few picked men sent out to reconnoiter, or as the
rear-guard when the little band was retreating before a superior force
and it was necessary to fight and flee alternately. It was now and
again in these skirmishes that he had the opportunity to show his pluck
and his strength and his cool head and his ready hand. More than once
he had been the bearer of dispatches of great importance sent by him
alone, disguised in citizen’s dress and his destination a long way off.
Thus did the captain commanding the squadron demonstrate his confidence
in the boy’s fidelity and courage and resource. For his ready wit in an
emergency was hardly less than his courage.
“What did you do, then, with the Colonel’s letter that you were
to deliver at brigade head-quarters?” asked the Captain in much
agitation, but with a voice like thunder and a flashing eye, when one
day Hilary returned from a fruitless expedition, with his finger in his
mouth, so to speak, and a tale of having encountered Federal scouts,
who had stopped and questioned him, and finally after suspiciously
searching him, had turned him loose, believing him nothing more than he
seemed--a peaceful, ignorant country boy.
Hilary glanced ruefully down at the hat that he swung in his hand, then
with anxious deprecation at the Captain, whose face as he stood beside
his horse, ready to mount, had flushed deeply red, either because of
the reflection of the sunset clouds massed in the west or because of
the recollection that he had earnestly recommended the boy to his
superior officer, for this dangerous mission, and thus felt peculiarly
responsible; for the letter had contained details relating to the
Colonel’s orders from brigade headquarters, his numbers, and other
matters, the knowledge of which in the enemy’s hands might precipitate
his capture, together with all the detachment.
“It’s gone, sir,” mumbled Hilary, the picture of despair; “I never
knowed what ter do, so--”
“So you let them have that letter--when I had told you how important it
was!”
“I don’t see how it could have been helped, since the boy was
searched,” said Captain Blake, the junior captain of the squadron, who
was standing by. “I am glad he came back to let us know.”
“That’s why I done what I done,” eagerly explained Hilary. “I--I--eat
it.”
“All of it?” cried Captain Bertley, with a flash of relief.
“Yes, sir, I swallowed it all bodaciously--just ez soon ez I seen ’em
a-kemin’ dustin’ along the road.”
“Well done, Baby Bunting!” cried the senior officer, for thus was
Hilary distinguished among the troopers on account of his tender years.
The gruff Captain Blake laughed delightedly, a hoarse, discordant
demonstration, much like the chuckling of a rusty old crow. He seemed
to think it a good joke, and Hilary knew that he, too, was vastly
relieved to have saved from the enemy such important information.
“Pretty bitter pill, eh?”
“Naw, sir,” said Hilary, his eyes twinkling as he swung his hat in his
hand, for he could never be truly military out of his uniform; “it war
like eatin’ a yard medjure of mustard plaster, bein’ stiff ter swaller
an’ somehow goin’ agin the grain.”
The senior captain gravely commended his presence of mind, and said he
would remember this and his many other good services. As he dismissed
the young trooper and still standing, holding a sheet of paper against
his saddle, began to write a report of the fate of the letter that
had so threatened the capture of the whole command, Hilary overheard
Captain Blake say in his bluff, extravagant way, “That boy ought to be
promoted.”
“What?” said Captain Bertley, glancing back over his shoulder with the
pencil in his hand. “Baby Bunting with a command!”
Despite the ridicule of the idea Hilary’s heart swelled within him as
he strolled away, for he cared only to deserve the promotion and the
confidence shown him, even if on account of his extreme youth and
presumable irresponsibility he was debarred from receiving it.
He could not have said why he was not resentful of being called
“Baby Bunting” by Captain Bertley. He felt it was in the nature of
a courteous condescension that the officer should comment on the
inadequacy of his age and the discrepancy between his limited powers
and his valuable deeds--almost as a jesting token of affection, kindly
meant and kindly received. But the name fell upon his ear often with a
far different significance; the camp cry “Bye, oh, Baby Bunting,” was
intended to goad him to such a degree of anger as should make him the
sport of the groups around the bivouac fire. The chief instigator of
this effort was a big, brutal cavalryman, by name Jack Bixby. He had a
long, red beard; long, reddish hair; small, twinkling, dark eyes, and
a powerfully built, sinewy, well-compacted figure. He was superficially
considered jolly and genial, for few of his careless companions were
observant enough of moral phenomena or sufficiently students of human
nature to take note of the fact that there was always a spice of
ill-humor in his mirth. Malice or jealousy or grudging or a mean spirit
of derision pervaded his merriment. He found great joy in ridiculing
a raw country boy, whose lack of knowledge of the world’s ways laid
him liable to many mistakes and misconceptions, and at first Hilary’s
credulity in the big lies told him by Jack Bixby and his simplicity
in acting upon them exposed him to the laughter of the whole troop.
This was checked in one instance, however; having been instructed that
it was an accepted detail of the observances of a soldier, Hilary
was induced to advance with great ceremony one day, and duly saluting
ask Captain Bertley how he found his health. The officer was standing
on ground somewhat elevated above the site of the camp, in full gray
uniform, a field-glass in his hand, his splendid charger at his
shoulder, the reins thrown over his arm. The humble “Baby Bunting”
approaching this august military object, and presuming to ask after
the commanding officer’s health, was in full view of a hundred or more
startled and amazed veterans.
But Captain Bertley had seen and known much of this world and its
ways. He instantly recognized the incident as a bit of malicious play
upon the simplicity of the new recruit, and he took due note, too, of
his own dignity. He realized how to balk the one and to support the
other. He accepted the unusual and absurd demonstration concerning
his health by saying simply that he was quite well, and then he
kept the boy standing in conversation as to the state of a certain
ford some distance up the river, with which Hilary was acquainted,
having been of a scouting party which had been sent in that direction
the previous day. The staring military spectators, their attention
previously bespoken by Bixby, saw naught especial in the interview, the
boy apparently having been summoned thither by order of the officer
to make a report or give information, and thus the joke, attenuated
to microscopic proportions, failed of effect. It had, however, very
sufficient efficacy in recoil. Before dismissing Hilary the Captain
asked how he had chanced to accost him in the manner with which he had
approached him, and the boy in guilelessly detailing the circumstance,
before he was admonished as to his credulous folly, betrayed Bixby
as the perpetrator of the pleasantry at his expense, and what was far
more serious at the expense of the officer. Jack Bixby, dull enough,
as malicious people often are, or they would not otherwise let their
malice appear--for they are not frank--did not see it in that light
until he suddenly found himself under arrest and then required to mount
the “wooden horse” for several weary hours.
“You’ll be hung up by the thumbs next time, my rooster,” said the
sergeant, as he carried the sentence into effect. “The Cap’n ain’t
so mighty partial to your record, no hows. He asked me if you hadn’t
served with Whingan’s rangers, ez be no better’n bushwhackers, an’ ye
know he is mighty partic’lar ’bout keepin’ up the tone an’ spirit o’
the men.”
Hilary, contradictorily enough, lost all sense of injury and shame in
sorrow that he should have divulged Bixby’s agency in the matter and
brought this disaster upon the trooper, who perhaps had only intended a
little diversion, and had neither the good taste nor the good sense to
perceive its offensiveness to the officer. Bixby _had_ served in a band
generally reputed bushwhackers, who did little more than plunder both
sides, and in which discipline was necessarily slight. And thus after
this episode they were better friends than before. True, in the days
of dearth, for these men must needs starve as well as fight, when only
rations of corn were served out, which the soldiers parched and ate
by the fire, and which were so scanty that a strict watch was kept to
prevent certain of them from robbing their own horses, on the condition
and speed of which their very lives depended, Hilary, as in honor
bound, being detailed for this duty, reported his greedy comrade, but
in view of the half-famished condition of the troops Bixby’s punishment
was light, and the incident did not break off their outward semblance
of friendship, although one may be sure Bixby kept account of it.
So the years went--those wild years of hard riding and hard fighting;
sleeping on the ground under the open skies whether cloudy or clear--it
was months after it was all over before Hilary could accustom himself
to sleep in a bed; roused by the note of the trumpet, sometimes while
the stars were yet white in the dark heavens, with no token of dawn
save a great translucent, tremulous planet heralding the morn, and that
wild, sweet, exultant strain of reveille, so romantic, so stirring,
that it might seem as if it had floated down, proclaiming the day, from
that splendid vanguard of the sun. So they went--those wild years, all
at once over.
The end came on a hard-contested field, albeit only a thousand
or so were engaged on either side. The squadron, in one of those
wild reckless assaults of cavalry against artillery, for which the
Confederate horse were famous in this campaign, had gone to the attack
straight up a hill, while the muzzles of the big, black guns sent
forth smoke and roar, scarcely less frightful than the bombs which
were bursting among the horses and men riding directly at the battery.
It was hard to hold the horses. Often they swerved and faltered, and
sought to turn back. Each time Captain Bertley, with drawn sword,
reformed the line, encouraging the men and urging them to the almost
impossible task anew. At it they went once more, in face of shot and
shell. Now and again Hilary, riding in the rear rank, with his saber
at “the raise,” heard a sharp, singing sibilance, which he knew was a
minie-ball, whizzing close to his ear, and he realized that infantry
was there a little to one side supporting the battery. The rush,
the turmoil, the blare of the trumpets sounding “the charge,” the
clamor of galloping hoofs, of shouting men, the roar of cannon, the
swift panorama of moving objects before the eye, the ever-quickening
speed, and the tremendous sensation of flying through the air like
a projectile--it was all like some wild tempest, some mad conflict
of the elements. And suddenly Hilary became aware that he was flying
through the air without any will of his own. The horse had taken the
bit between his teeth, and maddened by the noise, the frenzy of the
fight, was rushing on he knew not whither, his head stretched out,
his eyes starting, straight up the hill unmindful of the trumpet now
sounding the recall and the heavy pull of the boy on the curb. Hilary
was far away in advance of the others when the line wheeled. A few more
impetuous bounds and plunges, and he was carried in among the Federal
guns, mechanically slashing at the gunners with his saber, until one
of the men, with a well-directed blow, knocked him off his horse with
the long, heavy sponge-staff. So it was that Hilary was captured. He
surrendered to the man with the sponge-staff, for the others were
busily limbering up the guns; they were to take position on a new
site--one less exposed to attack and very commanding. They had more
than they wanted in Hilary. He realized that as he was on his way to
the rear under guard. The engagement was practically at an end, and
the successful Federals were keenly eager to pursue the retreating
force and secure all the fruits of victory. To be hampered with the
disposition of prisoners at such a moment was hardly wise, when an
active pursuit might cut off the whole command. Therefore the few
already taken, who were more or less wounded, were temporarily paroled
in a neighboring hamlet, and Hilary, the war in effect concluded for
him--for the parole was a pledge to remain within the lines and report
at stated intervals to the party granting it--found himself looking
out over a broad white turnpike in a flat country, down which a cloud
of dust was all that could be seen of the body of cavalry so lately
contending for every inch of ground.
Now and again a series of white puffs of smoke from amidst the
hillocks on the west told that the battery of the Federals was shelling
the woods which their enemy had succeeded in gaining, the shells
hurtling high above the heads of their own infantry marching forward
resolutely, secure in the fact of being too close for damage. Presently
the battery became silent. Their vanguard was getting within range
of their own guns, and a second move was in order. The boy watched
the flying artillery scurrying across the plain, as he struck down a
“dirt-road” which intersected the turnpike, and soon he noticed the
puffs of white smoke from another coign of vantage and the bursting of
shells still further away.
“Them dogs barkin’ again! Waal, I’m glad ter be wide o’ thar mark,”
said a familiar voice at his elbow; the speaker was Bixby, a paroled
prisoner, too, having been captured further down the hill during the
general retreat.
Hilary was not ill-pleased to see him at first, especially as something
presently happened which made him solicitous for the advice and
guidance of an older head than his own. By one of the vicissitudes of
war victory suddenly deserted the winning side, and presently here
was the erstwhile successful party in full retreat, swarming over
the flat country, the battery scurrying along the turnpike with two
of its guns missing, captured as they barked with their mouths wide
open, so to speak. The hurrying crash and noisy rout went past like
the phantasmagoria of a dream, and these two prisoners were presently
left quite outside the Federal lines by no act or volition of their
own, and yet apparently far enough from Bertley’s squadron, for the
pursuit was not pressed, both parties having had for the nonce enough
of each other. The first object of the two troopers was to procure food
of which they stood sadly in need. They set forth to find the nearest
farmhouse, Hilary on his own horse, which in the confusion had not
been taken from him when he was disarmed, and Bixby easily caught and
mounted a riderless steed that had been in the engagement, but was now
cropping the wayside grass.
A thousand times that day Hilary wished, as they went on their journey
together, that he had never seen this man again. All Jack Bixby’s
methods were false, and it revolted Hilary, educated to a simple but
strict code of morals, to seem to share in his lies and his dubious
devices to avoid giving a true account of themselves. In fact their
progress was menaced with some danger. Having little to distinguish
them as soldiers, for the gray cloth uniform in many instances had
given place to the butternut jeans, the habitual garb of the poorer
classes of the country, they could be mistaken for citizens, peacefully
pursuing some rustic vocation, and this impression Bixby sought to
impose on every party who questioned them. He feared to meet the
Federals, because of their paroles, which showed them to be prisoners
and yet out of the lines, and he thought this broken pledge might
subject them to the penalty of being strung up by the neck.
“That air tale ’bout our bein’ in the lines an’ the lines shrinkin’
till we got out o’ ’em ain’t goin’ ter go down with no sech brash
fellers,” he argued with some reason, for the probabilities seemed
against them.
And now he dreaded an encounter with Union men, non-combatants, for
the same reason. He slipped off his boot at one time and hid the
paper under the sole of his foot. “Ef we-uns war ter be sarched they
wouldn’t look thar, mos’ likely.” And finally when they reached the
house of an aged farmer, who with partisan cordiality welcomed and fed
them, declaring that although he was too old to fight he could thus
help on the southern cause, Bixby took advantage of his host’s short
absence from the dining-room to strike a match which he discovered in a
candlestick on the mantel piece, for the season was too warm for fires,
and lighting the candle he held the parole in the flame till the paper
was reduced to a cinder; then he hastily extinguished the candle.
When once more on the road, however, Bixby regretted his decision. For
aught he knew they were still within the Federal lines. The Union
troops had doubtless been reinforced, for they were making a point of
holding this region at all hazards. He was a fool he said to have burnt
his parole--it was his protection. If he were taken now by troops not
in the extreme activities of resisting a spirited cavalry attack, who
had time to make his capture good, and means of transportation handy,
he would be sent off to Camp Chase or some other prison, and shut up
there till the crack of doom, whereas his parole rendered him for the
time practically free.
“Why didn’t you keep me from doin’ it, Hil’ry?”
“Why, I baiged an’ baiged an’ besought ye ’fore we went in the house
ter do nothin’ ter the paper,” said Hilary, wearied and excited and
even alarmed by his companion’s vacillations, so wild with fear had
Bixby become. “I wunk at ye when the old man’s back was turned. I even
tried ter snatch the paper whenst ye put yer boot-toe on the aidge of a
piece of it on the ha’thstone an’ helt it down till it war bu’nt.”
“I war a fool,” said Bixby, gloomily. “I wish I hed it hyar now.”
“I tole ye,” said Hilary, for he had spent the day in urging the fair
and open policy, let come what might of it, “I tole ye ez I war a-goin’
ter show my parole ter the fust man ez halts me, an’ ef I be out’n
the lines, an’ he won’t believe my tale, let him take it out on me
howsumdever the law o’ sech doin’s ’pears. Nobody could expec’ me ter
set an’ starve on that hillside till sech time ez the Fed’rals throw
out thar line agin.”
“I wisht I hed my parole agin,” said Bixby, more moodily still.
Down the road before them suddenly they saw a dust, and a steely
glitter--not so strong a reflection, however, as marching infantry
throws out. A squad of cavalry was approaching at a steady pace.
Jack Bixby’s first idea was flight; this the condition of the jaded
horse rendered impolitic. Then he thought of concealment--in vain. On
either hand the level, plowed fields afforded not the slightest bush
as a shield. The only thicket in sight was alongside the road and now
in line with the approaching party whom it so shadowed that it was
impossible to judge by uniform or accoutrements to which army they
belonged.
“Hil’ry,” said Jack Bixby, “let’s stick ter the country-jake story;
I’ll say that I be a farmer round hyar somewhar, an’ pretend that you
air my son. That’ll go down with any party.”
“I be goin’ ter tell the truth myself, an’ show my parole, whoever
they be; that’s the right thing,” said Hilary, stoutly.
“But I ain’t got no parole,” quavered Bixby.
“Tell the truth an’ I’ll bear ye out,” said Hilary. “Tell ’em that thar
be so many parties--Feds an’ Confeds an’ Union men an’ bushwhackers,
an’ we-uns got by accident out’n the lines an’ ye took alarm an’
_dee_stroyed yer parole. I’ll bear ye out an’ take my oath on it; an’
ye know the old man war remarkin’ on them cinders on the aidge o’ the
mantel shelf an’ ha’thstone ez we left the house.”
“Hil’ry,” said Bixby, as with a sudden bright idea--anything but the
truth seemed hopeful to him--“I’ll tell ye. I’ll take yer parole an’
claim it ez mine, an’ pretend that ye air my son--non-combatant, jes’ a
boy, ez ye air.”
“But it’s got _my_ name on it. It’s a-parolin’ of _me_,” said Hilary,
“an’ I _ain’t_ no non-combatant.”
“But I’ll claim your name; I’ll be Hil’ry Knox, an’ tall ez ye air, yer
face shows ye ain’t nuthin’ but a boy. Nobody wouldn’t disbelieve it.”
“I won’t do it! I won’t put off a lie on ’em! I hev fought an’ fought
an’ I’ll take the consekences o’ what I done--all the consekences o’
hevin’ fought. _I_ am Hilary Knox, an’ I be plumb pledged by my word of
honor. But I’ll bear ye out in the fac’s, an’ thar’s nuthin’ ter doubt
in the fac’s--they air full reasonable.”
He had taken the paper out of his ragged breast-pocket to have it in
readiness to present to the advance guard, who had perceived them and
had quickened the pace for the purpose of halting them. Perhaps Bixby
had no intention, save, by sleight-of-hand, to possess himself of the
paper. Perhaps he thought that having it in his power the boy would
hardly dare to contradict the story he had sketched and the name he
intended to claim as the owner of the parole; if Hilary should protest
he could say his son was weak-minded, an imbecile, a lunatic. He made
a sudden lunge from the saddle and a more sudden snatch at the paper.
But the boy’s strong hand held it fast. Jack Bixby hardly noted the
surprise, the indignation, the reproach in Hilary’s face--almost an
expression of grief--as he turned it toward him. With the determination
that had seized him to possess the paper, Bixby struck the boy’s wrist
and knuckles a series of sharp, brutal blows with the back of a strong
bowie-knife, which had been concealed in his boot-leg at the surrender.
They palsied the clutch of the boy’s left hand. But as the quivering
fingers opened, Hilary caught the falling paper with his right hand.
“Let go, let go!” cried Jack Bixby in a frenzy; “else I’ll let you hev
the blade--there, then!--take the aidge--ez keen ez a razor!”
The steel descended again and again, and as the boy was half dragged
out of the saddle the blood poured down upon the parole. It would have
been hard to say then what name was there!
A sudden shout rang out from down the road. The approaching men had
observed the altercation, and mending their pace, came on at a swift
gallop.
With not a glance at them, Jack Bixby turned his horse short around and
fled as fast as the animal could go, striking out of the road and into
the woods as soon as he reached the timbered land.
Poor “Baby Bunting,” dragged out of his saddle, fell down in the road
beneath his horse’s hoofs, and all covered with white dust and red
blood there he lay very still till the cavalrymen came up and found him.
For this was what they called him--“_Poor Baby Bunting!_” They were
a small reconnoitering party of his own comrades, and it was with a
hearty good will that they pursued Jack Bixby who fled, as from his
enemies, through the brush. Perhaps his enemies would have been gentler
with him than his quondam friends could they only have laid hands on
him, for they all loved “Baby Bunting” for his brave spirit and his
little simplicities and his hearty good-comradeship. Hilary recognized
none of them. He only had a vague idea of Captain Bertley’s face with
a grave anxiety and a deep pity upon it as the officer gazed down at
him when he was borne past on the stretcher to the field hospital
where his right arm was taken off by the surgeon. He was treated as
kindly as possible, for the remembrance of his gallant spirit as well
as humanity’s sake, and when at last he was discharged from the more
permanent hospital to which he had been removed he realized that he
had indeed done with war and fine deeds of valiance, and he set out to
return home, tramping the weary way to the mountain and his mother.
After that fateful day, when maimed and wan and woebegone he came forth
from the hospital and journeyed out from among the camps and flags
and big guns and all the armaments of war, thrice splendid to his
backward gaze, it seemed to him that he had left there more than was
visible--that noble identity of valor for which he had revered himself.
For he found as he went a strange quaking in his heart. It was an
alien thing, and he strove to repudiate it, and ached with helpless
despair. When he came into unfamiliar regions, and a sudden clatter
upon the lonely country road would herald the approach of mounted
strangers, halting him, the convulsive start of his maimed right
arm with the instinct to seize his weapons and the sense of being
defenseless utterly would so unnerve him that he would give a
disjointed account of himself, with hang-dog look and faltering words.
And more than once he was seized and roughly handled and dragged
to headquarters to show his papers and be at last passed on by the
authorities.
He began to say to himself that his courage was in his cavalry pistol.
“Before God!” he cried, “me an’ my right arm an’ my weepon air like
saltpetre an’ charcoal an’ sulphur--no ’count apart. An’ tergether
they mean _gunpowder_!”
And doubly bereaved, he had come in sight of home.
But his mother fell upon his neck with joy, and the neighbors gathered
to meet him. The splendors of the Indian summer were deepening upon the
mountains, with gorgeous fantasies of color, with errant winds harping
æolian numbers in the pines, with a translucent purple haze and a great
red sun, and the hunter’s moon, most luminous. The solemnity and peace
stole in upon his heart, and revived within him that cherished sense of
home, so potent with the mountaineer, and in some wise he was consoled.
Yet he hardly paused. In this lighter mood he went on to the
settlement, eager that the news of his coming should not precede him.
There was the bridge to cross and the rocky ascent, and at the summit
stood the first log cabin of the scattered little hamlet. From the
porch, overgrown with hop vines, he heard the whir of a spinning wheel.
He saw the girl who stood beside it before she noticed the sound of
his step. Then she turned, staring at him with startled recognition,
despite all the changes wrought in the past two years. “It air me,” he
said, jocosely.
From his hollow eyes and sunken cheeks and wan smile her gaze fell
upon his empty sleeve. She suddenly threw her arm across her face.
“I--I--can’t abide ter look at ye!” she faltered, with a gush of tears.
He stood dumfounded for a moment.
“Durn it!” he cried. “I can’t abide ter look at myself!”
And with a bitter laugh he turned on his heel.
He would not be reconciled later. The wound she had unintentionally
dealt him rankled long. He said Delia Noakes was a sensible girl.
Plenty of brave fellows would come home from the war, hale and hearty
and with two good arms, better men in every way, in mind and body
and heart and soul, for the stern experiences they were enduring so
stanchly. The crop of sweethearts promised to be indeed particularly
fine, and there was no use in wasting politeness on a fellow with
whom she used to play before either of them could walk, but whose
arm was gone now, through no glorious deed wrought for his country,
for which he had intended to do all such service as a man’s right
arm might compass, but because he was a fool, and had made a friend
of a malevolent scoundrel, who had nearly taken his life, but had
only--worse luck--taken his right arm! And besides he had seen enough
of the world in his wanderings to know that it behooves people to
look to the future and means of support. He had learned what it was to
be hungry, he had learned what it was to lack. He was no longer the
brave and warlike man-at-arms, “Baby Bunting.” He had no vocation,
no possibility of a future of usefulness; he could not hold a gun or
a plow or an ax, and Delia doubtless thought he would not be able to
provide for her. And “dead shot” though he had been he could not now
defend himself, he declared bitterly, much less her.