"Good-morning," I murmured.
"Good-morning," he responded, tardily and grimly. "Well, you _air_ in a
hurry."
"Not at all, sir. I'm sorry to seem so; it's not the tip-top of
courtesy,--"
"No, it ain't too stinkin' polite."
"True; but neither are the enemy, and they're early risers, you know."
"Well, good Lord! don't hang back for my sake!"
I put on an offended esteem. "My dear sir, you've no call to take
offence at me. I'm waiting because my business is too--well, if I must
explain, it's--it's too important to be risked except by good safe
daylight; that's all."
[Illustration: "Well, you _air_ in a hurry!"]
Oh, he wasn't taking offence. His reptile temper crawled into hiding,
and when I said day was breaking, he said he would show me my way.
"Why, I keep the plain road, don't I?"
No, he would not; only wagons went that way, to cross the creek by a
small bridge. I could cut off nearly two miles by taking the bridle-path
that turned sharply down into the thick woods of the creek-bottom about
a quarter of a mile from the house and crossed the stream at a sandy
ford. "Ride round," he said, "and I'll show you from the front of
the house."
Thence he pointed out a distant sycamore looming high against the soft
dawn. There was the fence-corner at which the bridle-path left the road.
He icily declined pay for my lodging. "We never charge a Confederate
soldier for anything; that's not our way."
Day came swiftly. By the time I could trot down to the sycamore it was
perfectly light even in the shade of an old cotton-gin house close
inside the corner of the small field around which I was to turn. The
vast arms of its horse-power press, spreading rigidly downward, offered
the only weird aspect that lingered in the lovely morning. I have a
later and shuddering memory of it, but now the dewy air was full of
sweet odors, the squirrel barked from the woods, the woodpecker tapped,
and the lark, the cardinal and the mocking-bird were singing all around.
The lint-box of the old cotton-press was covered with wet
morning-glories. I took the bridle-path between the woods and the field
and very soon was down in the dense forest beyond them. But the moment
I was hid from house and clearing I turned my horse square to the left,
stooped to his neck, and made straight through the pathless tangle.
Silence was silver this time, speed was golden. But every step met its
obstacle; there were low boughs, festoons of long-moss, bushes, briers,
brake-cane, mossy logs, snaky pools, and things half fallen and held
dead. If at any point on the bridle-path, near the stream, some cowpath,
footpath, any trail whatever, led across to the road, my liers-in-wait
were certainly guarding it and would rush to the road by that way as
soon as they found I was flanking them. And so I strove on at the best
speed I could make, and burst into the road with a crackle and crash
that might have been heard a hundred yards away. One glance up the
embowered alley, one glance down it, and I whirled to the right, drove
in the spur, and flew for the bridge. A wild minute so--a turn in the
road--no one in sight! Two minutes--another turn--no one yet!
Three--three--another turn--no one in front, no one behind--
The thunder of our own hoofs
Was all the sound we heard.
A fourth turn and no one yet! A fifth--more abrupt than the others--and
there--here--yonder now behind--was the path I had feared, but no one
was in it, and the next instant the bridge flashed into view. With a
great clatter I burst upon it, reached the middle, glanced back, and
dropped complacently into a trot. Tame ending if--but as I looked
forward again, what did I see? A mounted man. At the other end of the
bridge, in the shade of overhanging trees, he moved into view, and well
I knew the neat fit of that butternut homespun. He flourished a revolver
above his head and in a drunken voice bade me halt.
I halted; not making a point of valor or discretion, but because he was
Charlotte Oliver's husband. I read his purpose and listened behind me as
we parleyed. "Don't halt me, sir, I'm a courier and in a hurry."