A telegram summoned the Blight a home next day. Marston was in bed with
a ragged wound in the shoulder, and I took her to tell him good-by. I
left the room for a few minutes, and when I came back their hands were
unclasping, and for a Discarded Knight the engineer surely wore a happy
though pallid face.
That afternoon the train on which we left the Gap was brought to a
sudden halt in Wildcat Valley by a piece of red flannel tied to the end
of a stick that was planted midway the track. Across the track, farther
on, lay a heavy piece of timber, and it was plain that somebody meant
that, just at that place, the train must stop. The Blight and I were
seated on the rear platform and the Blight was taking a last look at
her beloved hills. When the train started again, there was a cracking of
twigs overhead and a shower of rhododendron leaves and flowers dropped
from the air at the feet of the Blight. And when we pulled away from the
high-walled cut we saw, motionless on a little mound, a black horse, and
on him, motionless, the Knight of the Cumberland, the helmet on his
head (that the Blight might know who he was, no doubt), and both hands
clasping the broken handle of his spear, which rested across the pommel
of his saddle. Impulsively the Blight waved her hand to him and I could
not help waving my hat; but he sat like a statue and, like a statue,
sat on, simply looking after us as we were hurried along, until horse,
broken shaft, and shoulders sank out of sight. And thus passed the
Knight of the Cumberland with the last gleam that struck his helmet,
spear-like, from the slanting sun.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Knight of the Cumberland, by John Fox Jr.