THUNDER RUN
Allan Gold, teaching the school on Thunder Run, lodged at the tollgate
halfway down the mountain. His parents were dead, his brothers moved
away. The mountain girls were pretty and fain, and matches were early
made. Allan made none; he taught with conscientiousness thirty
tow-headed youngsters, read what books he could get, and worked in the
tollgate keeper's small, bright garden. He had a passion for flowers. He
loved, too, to sit with his pipe upon the rude porch of the toll-house,
fanned by the marvellous mountain air, and look down over ridges of
chestnut and oak to the mighty valley below, and across to the far blue
wall of the Alleghenies.
The one-roomed, log-built schoolhouse stood a mile from the road across
the mountains, upon a higher level, in a fairy meadow below the mountain
clearings. A walnut tree shaded it, Thunder Run leaped by in cascades,
on either side the footpath Allan had planted larkspur and marigolds.
Here, on a May morning, he rang the bell, then waited patiently until
the last free-born imp elected to leave the delights of a minnow-filled
pool, a newly discovered redbird's nest, and a blockhouse in process of
construction against imaginary Indians. At last all were seated upon the
rude benches in the dusky room,--small tow-headed Jacks and Jills, heirs
to a field of wheat or oats, a diminutive tobacco patch, a log cabin, a
piece of uncleared forest, or perhaps the blacksmith's forge, a small
mountain store, or the sawmill down the stream. Allan read aloud the
Parable of the Sower, and they all said the Lord's Prayer; then he
called the Blue Back Speller class. The spelling done, they read from
the same book about the Martyr and his Family. Geography followed, with
an account of the Yang-tse-Kiang and an illustration of a pagoda, after
which the ten-year-olds took the front bench and read of little Hugh and
old Mr. Toil. This over, the whole school fell to ciphering. They
ciphered for half an hour, and then they had a history lesson, which
told of one Curtius who leaped into a gulf to save his country. History
being followed by the writing lesson, all save the littlest present
began laboriously to copy a proverb of Solomon.
Half-past eleven and recess drawing on! The scholars grew restless.
Could the bird's nest still be there? Were the minnows gone from the
pool? Had the blockhouse fallen down? Would writing go on forever?--The
bell rang; the teacher, whom they liked well enough, was speaking. _No
more school!_ Recess forever--or until next year, which was the same
thing! No more geography, reading, writing, arithmetic, and spelling; no
more school! Hurrah! Of course the redbird's nest was swinging on the
bough, and the minnows were in the pool, and the blockhouse was
standing, and the sun shining with all its might! "All the men about
here are going to fight," said Allan. "I am going, too. So we'll have to
stop school until the war is over. Try not to forget what I've taught
you, children, and try to be good boys and girls. You boys must learn
now to be men, for you'll have to look after things and the women. And
you girls must help your mothers all you can. It's going to be hard
times, little folk! You've played a long time at fighting Indians, and
latterly I've noticed you playing at fighting Yankees. Playtime's over
now. It's time to work, to think, and to try to help. You can't fight
for Virginia with guns and swords, but every woman and child, every
young boy and old man in Virginia can make the hearts easier of those
who go to fight. You be good boys and girls and do your duty here on
Thunder Run, and God will count you as his soldiers just the same as if
you were fighting down there in the valley, or before Richmond, or on
the Potomac, or wherever we're going to fight. You're going to be good
children; I know it!" He closed the book before him. "School's over now.
When we take in again we'll finish the Roman History--I've marked the
place." He left his rude old desk and the little platform, and stepping
down amongst his pupils, gave to each his hand. Then he divided among
them the scanty supply of books, patiently answered a scurry of
questions, and outside, upon the sunshiny sward, with the wind in the
walnut tree and the larkspur beginning to bloom, said good-bye once
more. Jack and Jill gave no further thought to the bird's nest, the
minnows in the pool, the unfinished blockhouse. Off they rushed, up the
side of the mountain, over the wooded hills, along Thunder Run, where it
leaped from pool to pool. They must be home with the news! No more
school--no more school! And was father going--and were Johnny and Sam
and Dave? Where were they going to fight? As far as the big sawmill? as
far away as the _river_? Were the dogs going, too?
Allan Gold, left alone, locked the schoolhouse door, walked slowly along
the footpath between the flowers he had planted, and, standing by
Thunder Run, looked for awhile at the clear, brown water, then, with a
long breath and a straightening of the shoulders, turned away.
"Good-bye, little place!" he said, and strode down the ravine to the
road and the toll-house.
The tollgate keeper, old and crippled, sat on the porch beside a wooden
bucket of well-water. The county newspaper lay on his knee, and he was
reading the items aloud to his wife, old, too, but active, standing at
her ironing-board within the kitchen door. A cat purred in the sunshine,
and all the lilac bushes were in bloom. "'Ten companies from this
County,'" read the tollgate keeper; "'Ten companies from Old
Botetourt,--The Mountain Rifles, the Fincastle Rifles, the Botetourt
Dragoons, the Zion Hill Company, the Roaring Run men, the Thunder Run--'
Air you listenin', Sairy?"
Sairy brought a fresh iron from the stove. "I am a-listenin', Tom.
'Pears to me I ain't done nothing but listen sence last December! It's
got to be sech a habit that I ketch myself waking up at night to listen.
But I've got to iron as well as listen, or Allan Gold won't have any
shirts fit to fight in! Go on reading, I hear ye."
"It's an editorial," said Tom weightily. "'Three weeks have passed since
war was declared. At once Governor Letcher called for troops; at once
the call was answered. We have had in Botetourt, as all over Virginia,
as through all the Southern States, days of excitement, sleepless
nights, fanfare of preparation, drill, camp, orders, counter-orders,
music, tears and laughter of high-hearted women--'"
Sairy touched her iron with a wet finger-tip. "This time next year
thar'll be more tears, I reckon, and less laughter! I ain't a girl, and
I don't hold with war--Well?"
"'Beat of drums and call of fife, heroic ardour and the cult of Mars--'"
"Of--?"
"That's the name of the heathen idol they used to sacrifice men to.
'Parties have vanished from county and State. Whigs and Democrats,
Unionists and Secessionists, Bell and Everett men and Breckinridge
men--all are gone. There is now but one party--_the party of the
invaded_. A month ago there was division of opinion; it does not exist
to-day. It died in the hour when we were called upon to deny our
convictions, to sacrifice our principles, to juggle with the
Constitution, to play fast and loose, to blow hot and cold, to say one
thing and do another, to fling our honour to the winds and to assist in
coercing Sovereign States back into a Union which they find intolerable!
It died in the moment when we saw, no longer the Confederation of
Republics to which we had acceded, but a land whirling toward Empire. It
is dead. There are no Union men to-day in Virginia. The ten Botetourt
companies hold themselves under arms. At any moment may come the order
to the front. The county has not spared her first-born--no, nor the
darling of his mother! It is a rank and file different from the Old
World's rank and file. The rich man marches, a private soldier, beside
the poor man; the lettered beside the unlearned; the planter, the
lawyer, the merchant, the divine, the student side by side with the man
from the plough, the smith, the carpenter, the hunter, the boatman, the
labourer by the day. Ay, rank and file, you are different; and the army
that you make will yet stir the blood and warm the heart of the world!'"
The ironer stretched another garment upon the board. "If only we fight
half as well as that thar newspaper talks! Is the editor going?"
"Yes, he is," said the old man. "It's fine talking, but it's mighty near
God's truth all the same!" He moved restlessly, then took his crutch and
beat a measure upon the sunken floor. His faded blue eyes, set in a
thousand wrinkles, stared down upon and across the great view of ridge
and spur and lovely valleys in between. The air at this height was clear
and strong as wine, the noon sunshine bright, not hot, the murmur in the
leaves and the sound of Thunder Run rather crisp and gay than slumbrous.
"If it had to come," said Tom, "why couldn't it ha' come when I was
younger? If 't weren't for that darned fall out o' Nofsinger's hayloft
I'd go, anyhow!"
"Then I see," retorted Sairy, "what Brother Dame meant by good comin'
out o' evil!--Here's Christianna."
A girl in a homespun gown and a blue sunbonnet came up the road and
unlatched the little gate. She had upon her arm a small basket such as
the mountain folk weave. "Good-mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good-mahnin', Mr.
Cole. It cert'ny is fine weather the mountain's having."
"Yes, it's fine weather, Christianna," answered the old man. "Come in,
come in, and take a cheer!"
Christianna came up the tiny path and seated herself, not in the
split-bottomed chair to which he waved her, but upon the edge of the
porch, with her back to the sapling that served for a pillar, and with
her small, ill-shod feet just touching a bed of heartsease. She pushed
back her sunbonnet. "Dave an' Billy told us good-bye yesterday. Pap is
going down the mountain to-day. Dave took the shotgun an' pap has
grandpap's flintlock, but Billy didn't have a gun. He said he'd take one
from the Yanks."
"Sho!" exclaimed Sairy. "Didn't he have no weapon at all?"
"He had a hunting-knife that was grandpap's. An' the blacksmith made him
what he called a spear-head. He took a bit o' rawhide and tied it to an
oak staff, an' he went down the mountain _so_!" Her drawling voice died,
then rose again. "I'll miss Billy--I surely will!" It failed again, and
the heartsease at her feet ran together into a little sea of purple and
gold. She took the cape of her sunbonnet and with it wiped away the
unaccustomed tears.
"Sho!" said Sairy. "We'll all miss Billy. I reckon we all that stay at
home air going to have our fill o' missing!--What have you got in your
basket, honey?"
Christianna lifted a coloured handkerchief and drew from the basket a
little bag of flowered chintz, roses and tulips, drawn up with a blue
ribbon. "My! that's pretty," exclaimed Sairy. "Whar did you get the
stuff?"
The girl regarded the bag with soft pride. "Last summer I toted a bucket
o' blackberries down to Three Oaks an' sold them to Mrs. Cleave. An' she
was making a valance for her tester bed, an' I thought the stuff was
mighty pretty, an' she gave me a big piece! an' I put it away in my
picture box with my glass beads. For the ribbon--I'd saved a little o'
my berry money, an' I walked to Buchanan an' bought it." She drew a long
breath. "My land! 't was fine in the town--High Street just crowded with
Volunteers, and the drums were beating." Her eyes shone like stars.
"It's right hard on women to stay at home an' have all the excitement go
away. There don't seem to be nothin' to make it up to us--"
Sairy put away the ironing-board. "Sho! We've just got the little end,
as usual. What's in the bag, child?"
"Thar's thread and needles in a needle-case, an' an emery," said
Christianna. "I wanted a little pair of scissors that was at Mr.
Moelick's, but I didn't have enough. They'd be right useful, I reckon,
to a soldier, but I couldn't get them. I wondered if the bag ought to be
smaller--but he'll have room for it, I reckon? _I_ think it's right
pretty."
Old Tom Cole leaned over, took the tiny, flowery affair, and balanced it
gently upon a horny hand. "Of course he'll have room for it! An' it's
jest as pretty as they make them!--An' here he comes now, down the
mountain, to thank ye himself!"
Allan Gold thanked Christianna with simplicity. He had never had so
pretty a thing, and he would keep it always, and every time he looked at
it he would see Thunder Run and hear the bees in the flowers. It was
very kind of her to make it for him, and--and he would keep it always.
Christianna listened, and then, with her eyes upon the heartsease, began
to say good-bye in her soft, drawling voice. "You're going down the
mountain to-day, Mrs. Cole says. Well, good-bye. An' pap's goin' too,
an' Dave an' Billy have gone. I reckon the birds won't be singin' when
you come again--thar'll be ice upon the creeks, I reckon." She drew her
shoulders together as though she shivered for all the May sunshine.
"Well, good-bye."
"I'll walk a piece of the road with you," said Allan, and the two went
out of the gate together.
Sairy, a pan of biscuits for dinner in her hand, looked after them.
"There's a deal of things I'd do differently if I was a man! What was
the use in sayin' that every time he looked at that thar bag he'd see
Thunder Run? Thunder Run ain't a-keerin' if he sees it or if he don't
see it! He might ha' said that every time he laid eyes on them roses
he'd see Christianna!--Thar's a wagon comin' up the road an' a man on
horseback behind. Here, I'll take the toll--"
"No, I'll take it myself," said Tom, reaching for the tobacco box which
served as bank. "If I can't 'list, I reckon I can get all the news
that's goin'!" He hobbled out to the gate. "Mornin', Jake! Mornin', Mr.
Robinson! Yes, 't is fine weather for the crops. What--"
"The Rockbridge companies are ordered off! Craig and Bedford are going,
too. They say Botetourt's time will come next. Lord! we used to think
forest fires and floods were exciting! Down there in camp the boys can't
sleep at night--every time a rooster crows they think it's Johnny
Mason's bugle and the order to the front! Ain't Allan Gold going?"
Sairy spoke from the path. "Course he's goin'--he and twenty more from
Thunder Run. I reckon Thunder Run ain't goin' to lag behind! Even Steve
Dagg's goin'--though I look for him back afore the battle. Jim's goin',
too, to see what he can make out of it--'t won't harm no one, I reckon,
if he makes six feet o' earth."
"They're the only trash in the lot," put in Tom. "The others are
first-rate--though a heap of them are powerfully young."
"Thar's Billy Maydew, for instance," said Sairy. "Sho! Billy is too
young to go--"
"All the cadets have gone from Lexington, remarked the man on horseback.
They've gone to Richmond to act as drill-masters--every boy of them with
his head as high as General Washington's! I was at Lexington and saw
them go. Good Lord! most of them just children--that Will Cleave, for
instance, that used to beg a ride on my load of hay! Four companies of
them marched away at noon, with their muskets shining in the sun. All
the town was up and out--the minister blessing them, and the people
crying and cheering! Major T. J. Jackson led them."
"The Thunder Run men are going in Richard Cleave's company. He sets a
heap o' store by Allan, an' wanted him for second lieutenant, but the
men elected Matthew Coffin--"
"Coffin's bright enough," said Tom, "but Allan's more dependable.--Well,
good-day, gentlemen, an' thank ye both!"
The wagon lumbered down the springtime road and the man on horseback
followed. The tollgate keeper hobbled back to his chair, and Sairy
returned to her dinner. Allan was going away, and she was making
gingerbread because he liked it. The spicy, warm fragrance permeated the
air, homely and pleasant as the curl of blue smoke above the chimney,
the little sunny porch, the buzzing of the bees in the lilacs. "Here's
Allan now," said Tom. "Hey, Allan! you must have gone a good bit o' the
way?"
"I went all the way," answered Allan, lifting the gourd of well-water to
his lips. "Poor little thing! she is breaking her heart over Billy's
going."
Sairy, cutting the gingerbread into squares, held the knife suspended.
"Have ye been talkin' about Billy all this time?"
"Yes," said Allan. "I saw that she was unhappy and I tried to cheer her
up. I'll look out for the boy in every way I can." He took the little
bag of chintz from the bench where he had laid it when he went with
Christianna, and turned to the rude stair that led to his room in the
half story. He was not kin to the tollgate keepers, but he had lived
long with them and was very fond of both. "I'll be down in a moment,
Aunt Sairy," he said. "I wonder when I'll smell or taste your
gingerbread again, and I don't see how I am going to tell you and Tom
good-bye!" He was gone, humming "Annie Laurie" as he went.
"'T would be just right an' fittin'," remarked Mrs. Cole, "if half the
men in the world went about with a piece of pasteboard round their necks
an' written on it, 'Pity the Blind!' Dinner's most ready, Tom,--an' I
don't see how I'm goin' to tell him good-bye myself."
An hour later, in his small bare room underneath the mossy roof, with
the small square window through which the breezes blew, Allan stood and
looked about him. Dinner was over. It had been something of a feast,
with unusual dainties, and a bunch of lilacs upon the table. Sairy had
on a Sunday apron. The three had not been silent either; they had talked
a good deal, but without much thought of what was said. Perhaps it was
because of this that the meal had seemed so vague, and that nothing had
left a taste in the mouth. It was over, and Allan was making ready to
depart.
On the floor, beside the chest of drawers, stood a small hair trunk. A
neighbour with a road wagon had offered to take it, and Allan, too, down
the mountain at three o'clock. In the spring of 1861, one out of every
two Confederate privates had a trunk. One must preserve the decencies of
life; one must make a good appearance in the field! Allan's was small
and modest enough, God knows! but such as it was it had not occurred to
him to doubt the propriety of taking it. It stood there neatly packed,
the shirts that Sairy had been ironing laid atop. The young man,
kneeling beside it, placed in this or that corner the last few articles
of his outfit. All was simple, clean, and new--only the books that he
was taking with him were old. They were his Bible, his Shakespeare, a
volume of Plutarch's Lives, and a Latin book or two beside. In a place
to themselves were other treasures, a daguerreotype of his mother, a
capacious huswife that Sairy had made and stocked for him, the little
box of paper "to write home on" that had been Tom's present, various
trifles that the three had agreed might come in handy. Among these he
now placed Christianna's gift. It was soft and full and bright--he had
the same pleasure in handling it that he would have felt in touching a
damask rose. He shut it in and rose from his knees.
He had on his uniform. They had been slow in coming--the uniforms--from
Richmond. It was only Cleave's patient insistence that had procured them
at last. Some of the companies were not uniformed at all. So enormous
was the press of business upon the authorities, so limited was the power
of an almost purely agricultural, non-manufacturing world suddenly to
clothe alike these thousands of volunteers, suddenly to arm them with
something better than a fowling-piece or a Revolutionary flintlock, that
the wonder is, not that they did so badly, but that they did so well.
Pending the arrival of the uniforms the men had drilled in strange
array. With an attempt at similarity and a picturesque taste of their
own, most of them wore linsey shirts and big black hats, tucked up on
one side with a rosette of green ribbon. One man donned his
grandfather's Continental blue and buff--on the breast was a dark stain,
won at King's Mountain. Others drilled, and were now ready to march, as
they came from the plough, the mill, or the forge. But Cleave's company,
by virtue of Cleave himself, was fairly equipped. The uniforms had come,
and there was a decent showing of modern arms. Billy Maydew's
hunting-knife and spear would be changed on the morrow for a musket,
though in Billy's case the musket would certainly be the old smoothbore,
calibre sixty-nine.
Allan's own gun, left him by his father, rested against the wall. The
young man, for all his quietude, his conscientious ways, his daily work
with children, his love of flowers, and his dreams of books, inherited
from frontiersmen--whose lives had depended upon watchfulness--quickness
of wit, accuracy of eye, and steadiness of aim. He rarely missed his
mark, and he read intuitively and easily the language of wood, sky, and
road. On the bed lay his slouch hat, his haversack, knapsack, and
canteen, cartridge-box and belt, and slung over the back of a chair was
his roll of blanket. All was in readiness. Allan went over to the
window. Below him were the flowers he had tended, then the great forests
in their May freshness, cataracts of green, falling down, down to the
valley. Over all hung the sky, divinely blue. A wind went rustling
through the forest, joining its voice to the voice of Thunder Run. Allan
knelt, touching with his forehead the window-sill. "O Lord God," he
said, "O Lord God, keep us all, North and South, and bring us through
winding ways to Thy end at last." As he rose he heard the wagon coming
down the road. He turned, put the roll of blanket over one shoulder,
and beneath the other arm assumed knapsack, haversack, and canteen,
dragged the hair trunk out upon the landing, returned, took up his
musket, looked once again about the small, familiar room, then left it
and went downstairs.
Sairy and Tom were upon the porch, the owner of the wagon with them.
"I'll tote down yo' trunk," said the latter, and presently emerged from
the house with that article upon his shoulder. "I reckon I'll volunteer
myself, just as soon 's harvest's over," he remarked genially. "But,
gosh! you-all'll be back by then, telling how you did it!" He went down
the path whistling, and tossed the trunk into the wagon.
"I hate good-byes," said Allan. "I wish I had stolen away last night."
"Don't ye get killed!" answered Sairy sharply. "That's what I'm afraid
of. I know you'll go riskin' yourself!"
"God bless you," said Tom. "You've been like a son to us these five
years. Don't you forget to write."
"I won't," answered Allan. "I'll write you long letters. And I won't get
killed, Aunt Sairy. I'll take the best of care." He took the old woman
in his arms. "You two have been just as good as a father and mother to
me. Thank you for it. I'll never forget. Good-bye."
Toward five o'clock the wagon rolled into the village whence certain of
the Botetourt companies were to march away. It was built beside the
river--two long, parallel streets, one upon the water level, the other
much higher, with intersecting lanes. There were brick and frame houses,
modest enough; there were three small, white-spired churches, many
locust and ailanthus trees, a covered bridge thrown across the river to
a village upon the farther side and, surrounding all, a noble frame of
mountains. There was, in those days, no railroad.
Cleave's hundred men, having the town at large for their friend, stood
in no lack of quarters. Some had volunteered from this place or its
neighbourhood, others had kinsmen and associates, not one was so forlorn
as to be without a host. The village was in a high fever of hospitality;
had the companies marching from Botetourt been so many brigades, it
would still have done its utmost. From the Potomac to the Dan, from the
Eastern Shore to the Alleghenies the flame of patriotism burned high and
clear. There were skulkers, there were braggarts, there were knaves and
fools in Virginia as elsewhere, but by comparison they were not many,
and theirs was not the voice that was heard to-day. The mass of the
people were very honest, stubbornly convinced, showing to the end a most
heroic and devoted ardour. This village was not behindhand. All her
young men were going; she had her company, too. She welcomed Cleave's
men, gathered for the momentarily expected order to the front, and
lavished upon them, as on two other companies within her bounds, every
hospitable care.
The wagon driver deposited Allan Gold and his trunk before the porch of
the old, red brick hotel, shook hands with a mighty grip, and rattled on
toward the lower end of town. The host came out to greet the young man,
two negro boys laid hold of his trunk, a passing volunteer in butternut,
with a musket as long as Natty Bumpo's, hailed him, and a cluster of
elderly men sitting with tilted chairs in the shade of a locust tree
rose and gave him welcome. "It's Allan Gold from Thunder Run, isn't it?
Good-day, sir, good-day! Can't have too many from Thunder Run; good
giant stuff! Have you somewhere to stay to-night? If not, any one of us
will be happy to look after you.--Mr. Harris, let us have juleps all
round--"
"Thank you very kindly, sir," said Allan, "but I must go find my
captain."
"I saw him," remarked a gray-haired gentleman, "just now down the
street. He's seeing to the loading of his wagons, showing Jim Ball and
the drivers just how to do it--and he says he isn't going to show them
but this once. They seemed right prompt to learn."
"I was thar too," put in an old farmer. "'They're mighty heavy wagons,'
I says, says I. 'Three times too heavy,' he says, says he. 'This
company's got the largest part of its provisions for the whole war right
here and now,' says he. 'Thar's a heap of trunks,' says I. 'More than
would be needed for the White Sulphur,' he says, says he. 'This time two
years we'll march lighter,' says he--"
There were exclamations. "Two years! Thunderation!--This war'll be over
before persimmons are ripe! Why, the boys haven't volunteered but for
one year--and even that seemed kind of senseless! Two years! He's daft!"
"I dunno," quoth the other. "If fighting's like farming it's all-fired
slow work. Anyhow, that's what he said. 'This time two years we'll march
lighter,' he says, says he, and then I came away. He's down by the old
warehouse by the bridge, Mr. Gold--and I just met Matthew Coffin and he
says thar's going to be a parade presently."
An hour later, in the sunset glow, in a meadow by the river, the three
companies paraded. The new uniforms, the bright muskets, the silken
colours, the bands playing "Dixie," the quick orders, the more or less
practised evolutions, the universal martial mood, the sense of danger
over all, as yet thrilling only, not leaden, the known faces, the loved
faces, the imminent farewell, the flush of glory, the beckoning of great
events--no wonder every woman, girl, and child, every old man and young
boy who could reach the meadow were there, watching in the golden light,
half wild with enthusiasm!
Wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten
Look away! look away! Dixie Land.
At one side, beneath a great sugar maple, were clustered a number of
women, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts, of those who were going
forth to war. They swayed forward, absorbed in watching, not the
companies as a whole, but one or two, sometimes three or four figures
therein. They had not held them back; never in the times of history were
there more devotedly patriotic women than they of the Southern States.
They lent their plaudits; they were high in the thoughts of the men
moving with precision beneath the great flag of Virginia, to the sound
of music, in the green meadow by the James. The colours of the several
companies had been sewed by women, sitting together in dim old parlours,
behind windows framed in roses. One banner had been made from a wedding
gown.
Look away! look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The throng wept and cheered. The negroes, slave and free, belonging to
this village and the surrounding country, were of an excellent type,
worthy and respectable men and women, honoured by and honouring their
"white people." A number of these were in the meadow by the river, and
they, too, clapped and cheered, borne away by music and spectacle,
gazing with fond eyes upon some nursling, or playmate, or young,
imperious, well-liked master in those gleaming ranks. Isaac, son of
Abraham, or Esau and Jacob, sons of Isaac, marching with banners against
Canaan or Moab, may have heard some such acclaim from the servants left
behind. Several were going with the company. Captain and lieutenants,
and more than one sergeant and corporal had their body-servants--these
were the proudest of the proud and the envied of their brethren. The
latter were voluble. "Des look at Wash,--des look at Washington Mayo!
Actin' lak he own er co'te house an' er stage line! O my Lawd! wish I
wuz er gwine! An dat dar Tullius from Three Oaks--he gwine march right
behin' de captain, an' Marse Hairston Breckinridge's boy he gwine march
right behin' him!--Dar de big drum ag'in!"
In Dixie land I'll take my stand,
To live and die in Dixie!
Look away! Look away!
Look away down South to Dixie!
The sun set behind the great mountain across the river. Parade was over,
ranks broken. The people and their heroes, some restless, others tense,
all flushed of cheek and bright of eye, all borne upon a momentous
upward wave of emotion, parted this way and that, to supper, to divers
preparations, fond talk, and farewells, to an indoor hour. Then,
presently, out again in the mild May night, out into High Street and Low
Street, in the moonlight, under the odour of the white locust clusters.
The churches were lit and open; in each there was brief service, well
attended. Later, from the porch of the old hotel, there was speaking. It
drew toward eleven o'clock. The moon was high, the women and children
all housed, the oldest men, spent with the strain of the day, also gone
to their homes, or their friends' homes. The Volunteers and a faithful
few were left. They could not sleep; if war was going to be always as
exciting as this, how did soldiers ever sleep? There was not among them
a man who had ever served in war, so the question remained unanswered. A
Thunder Run man volunteered the information that the captain was
asleep--he had been to the house where the captain lodged and his mother
had come to the door with her finger on her lips, and he had looked
past her and seen Captain Cleave lying on a sofa fast asleep. Thunder
Run's comrades listened, but they rather doubted the correctness of his
report. It surely wasn't very soldier-like to sleep--even upon a
sofa--the night before marching away! The lieutenants weren't asleep.
Hairston Breckinridge had a map spread out upon a bench before the post
office, and was demonstrating to an eager dozen the indubitable fact
that the big victory would be either at Harper's Ferry or Alexandria.
Young Matthew Coffin was in love, and might be seen through the hotel
window writing, candles all around him, at a table, covering one pale
blue sheet after another with impassioned farewells. Sergeants and
corporals and men were wakeful. Some of these, too, were writing
letters, sending messages; others joined in the discussion as to the
theatre of war, or made knots of their own, centres of conjectures and
prophecy; others roamed the streets, or down by the river bank watched
the dark stream. Of these, a few proposed to strip and have a swim--who
knew when they'd see the old river again? But the notion was frowned
upon. One must be dressed and ready. At that very moment, perhaps, a man
might be riding into town with the order. The musicians were not asleep.
Young Matthew Coffin, sealing his letter some time after midnight, and
coming out into the moonlight and the fragrance of the locust trees, had
an inspiration. All was in readiness for the order when it should come,
and who, in the meantime, wanted to do so prosaic a thing as rest?
"Boys, let us serenade the ladies!"
The silver night wore on. So many of the "boys" had sisters, that there
were many pretty ladies staying in the town or at the two or three
pleasant old houses upon its outskirts. Two o'clock, three o'clock
passed, and there were yet windows to sing beneath. Old love songs
floated through the soft and dreamy air; there was a sense of angelic
beings in the unlit rooms above, even of the flutter of their wings.
Then, at the music's dying fall, flowers were thrown; there seemed to
descend a breath, a whisper, "Adieu, heroes--adored, adored heroes!" A
scramble for the flowers, then out at the gate and on to the next house,
and so _da capo_.
Dawn, though the stars were yet shining, began to make itself felt. A
coldness was in the air, a mist arose from the river, there came a
sensation of arrest, of somewhere an icy finger upon the pulse of life.
Maxwelton's braes are bonnie,
Where early fa's the dew,
And 't was there that Annie Laurie
Gie'd me her promise true,--
They were singing now before an old brick house in the lower street.
There were syringas in bloom in the yard. A faint light was rising in
the east, the stars were fading.
Gie'd me her promise true
Which ne'er forgot shall be--
Suddenly, from High Street, wrapped in mist, a bugle rang out. The
order--the order--the order to the front! It called again, sounding the
assembly. _Fall in, men, fall in!_
At sunrise Richard Cleave's company went away. There was a dense crowd
in the misty street, weeping, cheering. An old minister, standing beside
the captain, lifted his arms--the men uncovered, the prayer was said,
the blessing given. Again the bugle blew, the women cried farewell. The
band played "Virginia," the flag streamed wide in the morning wind.
Good-bye, good-bye, and again good-bye! _Attention! Take arms! Shoulder
arms! Right face!_ FORWARD, MARCH!