I knew Ned Ferry was having that inner strife with which we ought always
to credit even Gholson's sort, and I had a loving ambition to help him
"take the upper fork." So doing, I might help Charlotte Oliver fulfil
the same principle, win the same victory. When, therefore, Gholson put
the question to me squarely, Would I speak to Ferry? I consented, and as
the four of us, horsemen, left our beasts in the stable munching corn,
Gholson began a surprisingly animated talk with our host, and Ferry,
with a quizzical smile, said to me "Talk with you?--shall be happy to;
we'll just make a slight _détour_ on this side the grove and
woods-pasture, eh?"
He meant the north side, opposite that one by which we had come from
church. Here the landscape was much the same as there; wide fields on
each side the fenced highway that still ran north and south, and woods
for the sky-line everywhere. We chose an easy footpath along the
northern fence of the grove, crossed the highway, and passed on a few
steps alongside the woods-pasture fence. We talked as we went, he giving
the kindest heed to my every word though I could see that, like any good
soldier, he was scanning all the ground for its fighting values, and,
not to be outdone, I, myself, pointed out, a short way up the public
road, a fence-gap on the left, made by our camping soldiers two nights
before. It was at another such gap, in the woods-pasture fence, that we
turned back by a path through it which led into the wood and so again
toward the highway and the house-grove. The evening General Austin sent
me to Wiggins it was at this gap that I saw old Dismukes sitting
cross-legged on the ground, playing poker; and here, now, I summoned the
desperation to speak directly to my point.
I had already tried hard to get something said, but had found myself at
every turn entangled in generalities. Now, stammering and gagging I
remarked that our experiences of the morning, both in church and out,
had in some way combined with an earlier word of his own to me, and
given me a valuable thought. "You remember, when I wanted to shoot that
Yankee off my horse?"
"Yes; and I said--what?"
"You said 'This isn't your private war.' Lieutenant, I hope those words
may last in my memory forever and come to me in every moral situation in
which I may find myself."
"Yes? Well, I think that's good."
"It seems to me, Lieutenant Ferry, that in every problem of moral
conduct we confront we really hold in trust an interest of all mankind.
To solve that problem bravely and faithfully is to make life just so
much easier for everybody; and to fail to do so is to make it just so
much harder to solve by whoever has next to face it." Whurroo! my blood
was up now, let him look to himself!
"Yes?" said Ferry, picking at the underbrush as we sauntered, and for
some time he said no more. Then he asked, "You want me to apply that to
myself, in--in the present case?" and to my tender amazement, while his
eyes seemed to count his slackening steps, he laid his arm across my
shoulders.
An hour of avowal could not have told me more; could not have filled me
half so full of sympathy, admiration and love, as did that one slight
motion. It befitted the day, a day outwardly so quiescent, yet in which
so much was going on. A realization of this quiet activity kept us
silent until we had come through the woods-pasture to its southern
border, and so through the big white field-gate into the public road;
now we turned up toward the grove-gate, and here I spoke again. "Do you
still think we ought to wait here for the command?"
That from a private soldier to his captain! Yet all my leader answered
was "You think there's cause to change our mind?"
"I don't know, Lieutenant; do you think Jewett has run back into his own
lines?"
"Yes, I think so; and you?"
"Why, eh,--Lieutenant, I don't believe there's a braver man in Grant's
army than that one a-straddle of my horse to-day! Why, just the way he
got him, night before last,--you've heard that, haven't you?"
"Yes, the General told me. And so you think--"
"Lieutenant, I can't help believing he's out here to make a new record
for himself, at whatever cost!"
We went on some steps in silence and entered the gate of the
house-grove; and just as Ferry would have replied we discovered before
us in the mottled shade of the driveway, with her arm on Cécile's
shoulders as his lay on mine, and with _her_ eyes counting _her_
slackening steps, Charlotte Oliver. They must have espied us already out
in the highway, for they also were turned toward the house, and as we
neared them Charlotte faced round with a cheery absence of surprise and
said "Mr. Smith, don't we owe each other a better acquaintance? Suppose
we settle up."