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I heard that you were wounded at Kernstown!" "It was nothing. It is healed.... I will write to your father at once." "He will be glad, I think. He likes you.... Have you a furlough? How long can you stay?" "Love, I cannot stay at all. I am on General Jackson's errand. I must ride on to Gordonsville--It would be
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sweet to stay!" "When will you come again?" "I do not know. There will be battles--many battles, perhaps--up and down the Valley. Every man is needed. I am not willing to ask even a short furlough." "I am not willing that you should.... I know that you are in danger every day! I hear it in the wind, I see
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it in every waving bough.... Oh, come back to me, Richard!" "I?" he answered, "I feel immortal. I will come back." They rose from the rock. "The sun is setting. Would you rather I went on to the house? I must turn at once, but I could speak to them--" "No. Aunt Lucy is in town, Unity, too.... Let's say
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good-bye before we reach the carriage." They went slowly by the quiet road beneath the flowering trees. The light was now only on the hilltops; the birds were silent; only the frogs in the lush meadows kept up their quiring, a sound quaintly mournful, weirdly charming. A bend of the road showed them Isham, the farm horses, and the great
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old carriage waiting beneath a tulip tree. The lovers stopped, took hands, moved nearer each to the other, rested each in the other's arms. Her head was thrown back, his lips touched her hair, her forehead, her lips. "Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye!" He put her in the carriage, kissed her hands as they lay on the door ledge, and stood back.
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It was not far to the Greenwood gates; the old, slow horses moved on, the carriage rounded a leafy turn, the road was left to the soldier and his horse. Cleave rode to Gordonsville that night as though he carried Heaven with him. The road was fair, the moon was high. Far-flung, beautiful odours filled the air; the red ploughed
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earth sent its share, the flowering fruit trees theirs, the flowers in the wood, the mint by the stream. A light wind swung them as from a censer; the moved air touched the young man's forehead. He took off his hat; he rode rapidly with head held high. He rode for hours, Dundee taking the way with even power, a
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magnificently silent friend. Behind, on an iron grey, came the orderly. Riding thus together, away from organization and discipline, the relations between the two men, officer and private, were perfectly democratic. From Rude's Hill across the Massanuttons and from Swift Run Gap to Charlottesville they had been simply comrades and fellow Virginians. They were from adjoining counties, where the one
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had practised law and the other had driven a stage. There were differences in breeding, education, and employment; but around these, recognized by both, stretched the enormous plane of humanity. They met there in simple brotherliness. To-night, however, Cleave had spoken for silence. "I want to be quiet for a while, Harris.--There is something I have to think of." [Illustration:
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THE LOVERS] The night was all too short for what he had to think of. The pink flush of dawn, the distant view of Ewell's tents, came too soon. It was hard to lower the height and swell of the mind, to push back the surging thoughts, to leave the lift and wonder, the moonlight, and the flowering way. Here,
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however, were the pickets; and while he waited for the corporal of the guard, standing with Harris on a little hill, before them the pink sky, below them a peach orchard, pink too, with a lace-like mist wreathing the trees, he put golden afternoon and moonlight night in the bottom of his heart and laid duty atop. Ewell's camp, spread
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over the rolling hills and lighted by a splendid sunrise, lay imposingly. To the eyes of the men from the Valley the ordered white tents of Trimble's and Taylor's and the Maryland line had an air luxuriously martial. Everything seemed to gleam and shine. The guns of the parked batteries gave back the light, the colours seemed silken and fine,
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the very sunrise gun had a sonorousness lacking to Chew's Blakeley, or to McLaughlin's six-pounders, and the bugles blowing reveille a silvery quality most remarkable. As for the smoke from the camp-fires--"Lord save us!" said Harris, "I believe they're broiling partridges! Of all the dandy places!" Cleave laughed. "It's not that they are so fine, but that we are so
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weather-beaten and rusty! They're only in good working-day trim. We'll have to polish up at Rude's Hill." "This is the 1st Maryland on the hillside," said the guide the corporal had given; "there with the blue flag. Mighty fine feathers, but I reckon they're gamecocks all right! Elzey's Brigade's over beside the woods--Virginian to the backbone. Trimble's got a fine
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lot--Georgians and Alabamians and Mississippians. Here come some of the 2d Virginia Cavalry! Ain't they pretty?" They were. But Harris stood up for the absent Valley. "Huh! Ashby's good enough for me! Ashby's got three stallions--the white he's fondest of, and a black like a piece of coal, and a red roan--" The guide nodded energetically. "Oh, we think a
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heap of Ashby ourselves! There ain't anybody that the men listen about more eagerly. We ain't setting up on this side of the mountains to beat _him_! But I reckon the 2d and the 6th'll do right well when they get a chance. Yes, sir, General Taylor's Brigade. He's got a lot of Frenchmen from Louisiana--Acadians I've heard them called--and
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they can't speak a word of English, poor souls!--There goes their band again. They're always playing, dancing, and cooking rice. We call them Parlavoos--name of their county, I reckon.--He's got Wheat's Battalion, too. Sorrow a bit of a Frenchman there--they're Irish Tartars!--That's headquarters, sir. By the apple orchard." An aide brought Cleave to a fair-sized central tent, set beside a
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great wine sap just coming into bloom. Around it was a space of trodden earth, to one side a cheerful fire and a darky cook, in front a pine table, over which a coloured boy was spreading a very clean tablecloth. Out of the tent came a high, piping voice. "Good-morning, Hamilton! What is it? What is it?--An officer from
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General Jackson? All right! All right! glad to see him. Tell him to wait--Jim, you black idiot, what have I done with that button?" The aide smiled, Cleave smiled. There was something in the voice that announced the person, quaintly rough, lovable and gallant,--"dear Dick Ewell." He came out presently, a small man with a round bald head, hook nose
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and bright eyes. "This the officer? Glad to see you, Major--Major Cleave? Stay to breakfast. Bob, you black rascal, another plate! Can't give you much,--mysterious inward complaint, myself,--can't eat anything but frumenty.--Well, sir, how is General Jackson?" "Quite well, general." "Most remarkable man! Wants to tie a bandage round everybody's eyes but his own!"--all this plaintively treble. "Would ask to
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have it off if I was facing a firing party, and in the present circumstances don't like it at all!--Did you happen to meet any of my couriers?" "Yes, general. One at the foot of the Massanuttons, one in Elk Run Valley." "Got to send them. Got to ask what to do. By God, out on the plains with fifty
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dragoons I'd know! And here President Davis has made me a major-general, and I don't know!--Draw up to the table, sir, draw up! You can drink coffee; I can't. Can't sleep at night; don't want to lie down; curl up on the ground and think of my fifty dragoons.--Well, sir, and what does General Jackson say?" "I have a letter
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for you, sir." He presented it. Ewell, head on one side like a bird, took and opened the paper. "I really do believe the sun's up at last! What does he say? '_Move in three days by Stanardsville. Take a week's rations. Rest on Sunday. Other directions will be given as needed._' Hm! Highly characteristic! Never anything more than a
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damned dark lantern!--Well, it's something to know that we're going by Stanardsville and are to rest on Sunday! Where is Stanardsville?" "It is a few miles this side of Swift Run Gap." The general helped his guest to cornbread and himself began upon frumenty. "All right! I'll move, and I suppose when I get there old Jackson'll vouchsafe another gleam.--Bob,
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you damned Ethiopian, where are your wits? Fill Major Cleave's cup.--Glad to welcome you, major, to Camp Ewell. Pretty tidy place, don't you think?" "I do indeed, sir." "Have you seen Dick Taylor's beauties--his Creoles and Tigers and Harry Hayes, 7th Louisiana? The Maryland Line, too, and Trimble and Elzey? Damned fine army! How about yours over there?" He indicated
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the Blue Ridge with a bird-like jerk, and helped himself again to frumenty. "Your description applies there, too, sir. It's a little rough and ready, but--it's a damned fine army!" "Kernstown didn't shake it?" "Kernstown was as much a victory as a defeat, sir. No, it didn't shake it." "_Morale_ good?" "Extraordinarily so. That army is all right, sir." "I
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