"Ah, Smith, be not deceived! Whenever you see a man bringing forth the
fruits of the Spirit while he neglects the regularly appointed means of
grace, you _know_ there's something wrong, don't you? He went to church
this morning--_of course_; but how often does he go? What's wrong with
our dear friend--I don't like to say it, for I admire him so; I don't
like to say it, and I never have said it, but, Smith,--Ned Ferry's a
romanticist. We are relig'--what?"
"O--oh, nothing!"
At one point our way sloped down to a ramshackle wooden bridge that
spanned a narrow bit of running water at the edge of a wood. Beyond it
the road led out between two fields whose high worm-fences made it a
broad lane. The farther limit of this sea of sunlight was the grove that
hid the Sessions house on the left; on the right it was the
woods-pasture in which lay concealed a lily-pond. As Gholson and I
crossed the bridge we came upon a most enlivening view of our own
procession out in the noonday blaze before us; the Sessions buggy; then
Charlotte' little wagon; next the Sessions family carriage full of
youngsters; and lastly, on their horses, Squire Sessions--tall, fleshy,
clean-shaven, silver-haired--and Ned Ferry. Mrs. Sessions and Miss
Harper, in the buggy, were just going by a big white gate in the
right-hand fence, through which a private way led eastward to the
lily-pond. A happy sight they were, the children in the rear vehicle
waving handkerchiefs back at us, and nothing in the scene made the
faintest confession that my pet song, which I was again humming, was pat
to the hour:
"To the lairds o' Convention 'twas Claverhouse spoke,
Ere the sun shall go down there are heads to be broke."
"Gholson, if it isn't Ned Ferry's religion that's worrying you just now
about him, what is it?"
My companion looked at me as if what he must say was too large for his
throat. He made a gesture of lament toward Ferry and broke out, "O--oh
Smith,"--nearly all Gholson's oh's were groans--"why is he here? The
scout is 'the eyes of the army'! a man whose perpetual vigilance at the
very foremost front--"
"Why, what do you mean? You know we're here to rejoin the company as it
comes down from Union Church to camp here to-night. _That's_ what we're
here for."
"Yes,--yes,--but, oh, don't you _see_, Smith? For you, yourself, that's
all right; you've got to stay with him, and I'm glad you have. But
he--oh why did he not go on hours ago, to meet them?"
"Why should he? Isn't it good to leave one's lieutenant sometimes in
command; isn't it bad not to?"