I dared not retort, but I looked so hard at his paunch that the General
smiled. Then he asked me if I knew where we were then camped, and I said
we were on the Meadville and Fayette road, near Franklin, twenty miles
southeast of Fayette and--
"That will do. Now, beyond Fayette, about seven miles north, there's a
place--"
"Clifton?"
"Don't interrupt me, Smith. Yes, Clifton. You're not to reach there
to-night--"
"I can do it, General."
"You can do as you're told; understand?" I understood.
"The enemy are in Fayette to-night," he continued. "So when you get
half-way to Fayette, just across Morgan's Creek, you'll take a dim fork
on the right running north along the creek. Ever travel by the stars?"
I began to tell how well I knew the stars, but he stopped me. "Yes;
well, keep straight north till you strike the road running east and west
between Fayette and Union Church. You'll find there a little
polling-place called Wiggins. Turn west, toward Fayette, and on the
north side of the main road, opposite the blacksmith's shop, you'll come
to a small--"
"I see."
"What do you see?" His frown scared me to my finger-tips.
"Why, I suppose I'm to find there a road down Cole's Creek to Clifton."
"Smith, if you interrupt me again, sir, you'll find the road back to
your regiment. Opposite that blacksmith's shop you'll see a white
cottage. There's a young lady stopping there to-night, a stranger, a
traveller. The old lady who lives there has taken her in at my request.
See that the young lady gets this envelope. It's no great matter, merely
a pass through our lines; but it's your ostensible business till you get
there; understand?"
I thought I did until I glanced at the superscription: Miss Coralie
Rothvelt.
"Now, here is another matter of much more importance." He showed, but
retained, another envelope. "Behind the house where you're to find Miss
Rothvelt there's a road into Cole's Creek bottom. The house you're to
stop at to-night, say from twelve o'clock till three or half-past, is on
that road, about five miles from Wiggins, from Clifton and from Fayette.
I'm sending you there expecting the people in that house will rob you if
you give them half a chance."
"I understand, General; they'll not get it."
"Smith, I want them to get it. I want them to rob you of this." He
waggled the envelope. "I want this to fall into the hands of the enemy;
as it will if those people rob you of it."
I snapped my eyes. He smiled and then frowned. "I don't want a clumsy
job, now, mind! I don't want you to get captured if you can possibly
avoid it; but all the same they mustn't get this so easily as to suspect
it's a bait. So I want you to give those villains that half-chance to
rob you, but not the other half, or they may--oh, it's no play! You must
manage to have this despatch taken from you totally against your will!
Then you must reach Clifton shortly after daylight. Ferry's scouts are
there, and you'll say to Lieutenant Ferry the single word, Rodney.
Understand?" He pretended to be reconsidering. "I--don't know
but--after all--I'd better send one of my staff instead of you."
"Oh, General, if you send an officer they'll see the ruse! I can do it!
I'll do it all right!"
"I'm most afraid," he said, abstractedly, as he read my detail, which
Gholson brought in. "Here,"--he handed it to me--"and here, here's the
despatch too."
"What's the name, General, of the man whose house I'm to go to?"
"You'd best not know; I want you to seem to have stumbled upon the
place. You can't miss it; there's no other house within two miles of it.
Good-bye, my lad;"--he gave me his hand;--"good luck to you."
Gholson, in the Adjutant-general's tent, told me Ned Ferry had named me
to the General as a first-class horseman and the most insignificant-
looking person he knew of who was fit for this venture.
"Ned Ferry! What does Ned Ferry know about my fitness?"
"Read the address on your despatch," said Gholson, resuming his pen.
I snatched the document from my bosom, into which I had thrust it to
seize the General's hand "Oh, Gholson!" I said, in deep-toned grief, as
I looked up from the superscription, "is that honest!"
He admitted that by the true religionist's standard it was not honest,
but reminded me that Ned Ferry--in his blindness--was only a poor
romanticist. The despatch was addressed to Lieutenant Edgard
Ferry-Durand.
Major Harper's black boy brought me the Yankee's horse with my bridle
and saddle on him; an elegant animal as fresh as a dawn breeze. Also he
produced a parcel, my new uniform, and a wee note whose breath smelt of
lavender as it said,--
"Papa tells us you are being sent off on courier duty to-night. What a
heart-breaking thing is war! How full of cruel sepa'--"
That piece of a word was scored out and "dangers" written in its place.
The missive ended all too soon, with the statement that I was requested
to call, on my way out of camp, at the side gallery of the house--
Sessions's--and let the writer and her sister and her cousin and her
father and her aunt see me in my new uniform and bid me good-bye.