I
Captain Parrol Hartroy stood at the advanced post of his picket-guard,
talking in low tones with the sentinel. This post was on a turnpike
which bisected the captain's camp, a half-mile in rear, though the camp
was not in sight from that point. The officer was apparently giving the
soldier certain instructions--was perhaps merely inquiring if all were
quiet in front. As the two stood talking a man approached them from the
direction of the camp, carelessly whistling, and was promptly halted by
the soldier. He was evidently a civilian--a tall person, coarsely clad
in the home-made stuff of yellow gray, called "butternut," which was
men's only wear in the latter days of the Confederacy. On his head was a
slouch felt hat, once white, from beneath which hung masses of uneven
hair, seemingly unacquainted with either scissors or comb. The man's
face was rather striking; a broad forehead, high nose, and thin cheeks,
the mouth invisible in the full dark beard, which seemed as neglected as
the hair. The eyes were large and had that steadiness and fixity of
attention which so frequently mark a considering intelligence and a will
not easily turned from its purpose--so say those physiognomists who have
that kind of eyes. On the whole, this was a man whom one would be likely
to observe and be observed by. He carried a walking-stick freshly cut
from the forest and his ailing cowskin boots were white with dust.
"Show your pass," said the Federal soldier, a trifle more imperiously
perhaps than he would have thought necessary if he had not been under
the eye of his commander, who with folded arms looked on from the
roadside.
"'Lowed you'd rec'lect me, Gineral," said the wayfarer tranquilly, while
producing the paper from the pocket of his coat. There was something in
his tone--perhaps a faint suggestion of irony--which made his elevation
of his obstructor to exalted rank less agreeable to that worthy warrior
than promotion is commonly found to be. "You-all have to be purty
pertickler, I reckon," he added, in a more conciliatory tone, as if in
half-apology for being halted.
Having read the pass, with his rifle resting on the ground, the soldier
handed the document back without a word, shouldered his weapon, and
returned to his commander. The civilian passed on in the middle of the
road, and when he had penetrated the circumjacent Confederacy a few
yards resumed his whistling and was soon out of sight beyond an angle in
the road, which at that point entered a thin forest. Suddenly the
officer undid his arms from his breast, drew a revolver from his belt
and sprang forward at a run in the same direction, leaving his sentinel
in gaping astonishment at his post. After making to the various visible
forms of nature a solemn promise to be damned, that gentleman resumed
the air of stolidity which is supposed to be appropriate to a state of
alert military attention.