The Battle Ground Part 62

"We keep house for the soldiers now," she said, and went out to make things ready.

As he plunged into the warm water and dried himself upon the fresh linen she had left, he heard the sound of pa.s.sing feet in the broad hall, and from the outside kitchen there floated a savoury smell that reminded him of Cheric.o.ke at the supper hour. With the bath and the clean clothes his old instincts revived within him, and as he looked into the gla.s.s he caught something of the likeness of his college days. Beau Montjoy was not starved out after all, he thought with a laugh, he was only plastered over with malaria and dirt.

For three days he remained in the big brick house lying at ease upon a sofa in the library, or listening to the tragic voice of the mother who talked of her only son. When she questioned him about Pickett's charge, he raised himself on his pillows and talked excitedly, his face flushing as if from fever.

"Your son was with Armistead," he said, "and they all went down like heroes. I can see old Armistead now with his hat on his sword's point as he waved to us through the smoke. 'Who will follow me, boys?' he cried, and the next instant dashed straight on the defences. When he got to the second line there were only six men with him, beside Colonel Martin, and your son was one of them. My G.o.d! it was worth living to die like that."

"And it is worth living to have a son die like that," she added, and wept softly in the stillness.

The next morning he went on again despite her prayers. The rest was all too pleasant, but the memory of his valley was before him, and he thirsted for the pure winds that blew down the long white turnpike.

"There is no peace for me until I see it again," he said at parting, and with a lighter step went out upon the April roads once more.

The way was easier now for his limbs were stronger, and he wore the dead man's shoes upon his feet. For a time it almost seemed that the strength of that other soldier, who lay in a strange soil, had entered into his veins and made him hardier to endure. And so through the clear days they travelled with few pauses, munching as they walked from the food Big Abel carried in a basket on his arm.

"We've been coming for three weeks, and we are getting nearer," said Dan one evening, as he climbed the spur of a mountain range at the hour of sunset. Then his glance swept the wide horizon, and the stick in his hand fell suddenly to the ground; for faint and blue and bathed in the sunset light he saw his own hills crowding against the sky. As he looked his heart swelled with tears, and turning away he covered his quivering face.

XI

THE RETURN

As they pa.s.sed from the shadow of the tavern road, the afternoon sunlight was slanting across the turnpike from the friendly hills, which alone of all the landscape remained unchanged. Loyal, smiling, guarding the ruined valley like peaceful sentinels, they had suffered not so much as an added wrinkle upon their brows. As Dan had left them five long years ago, so he found them now, and his heart leaped as he stood at last face to face. He was like a man who, having hungered for many days, finds himself suddenly satisfied again.

Amid a blur of young foliage they saw first the smoking chimneys of Uplands, and then the Doric columns beyond a lane of flowering lilacs. The stone wall had crumbled in places, and strange weeds were springing up among the high blue-gra.s.s; but here and there beneath the maples he caught a glimpse of small darkies uprooting the intruders, and beyond the garden, in the distant meadows, ploughmen were plodding back and forth in the purple furrows. Peace had descended here at least, and, with a smile, he detected Betty's abounding energy in the moving spirit of the place. He saw her in the freshly swept walks, in the small negroes weeding the blue-gra.s.s lawn, in the distant ploughs that made blots upon the meadows. For a moment he hesitated, and laid his hand upon the iron gate; then, stifling the temptation, he turned back into the white sand of the road. Before he met Betty's eyes, he meant that his peace should be made with the old man at Cheric.o.ke.

Big Abel, tramping at his side, opened his mouth from time to time to let out a rapturous exclamation.

"Dar 'tis! des look at it!" he chuckled, when Uplands had been left far behind them. "Dat's de ve'y same clump er cedars, en dat's de wil' cher'y lyin' right flat on hit's back--dey's done cut it down ter git de cher'ies."

"And the locust! Look, the big locust tree is still there, and in full bloom!"

"Lawd, de 'simmons! Dar's de 'simmon tree way down yonder in the meadow, whar we all use ter set ouah ole hyar traps. You ain' furgot dose ole hyar traps, Ma.r.s.e Dan?"

"Forgotten them! good Lord!" said Dan; "why I remember we caught five one Christmas morning, and Betty fed them and set them free again."

"Dat she did, suh, dat she did! Hit's de gospel trufe!"

"We never could hide our traps from Betty," pursued Dan, in delight. "She was a regular fox for scenting them out--I never saw such a nose for traps as hers, and she always set the things loose and smashed the doors."

"We hid 'em one time way way in de thicket by de ice pond," returned Big Abel, "but she spied 'em out. Yes, Lawd, she spied 'em out fo' ouah backs wuz turnt."

He talked on rapidly while Dan listened with a faint smile about his mouth.

Since they had left the tavern road, Big Abel's onward march had been accompanied by ceaseless e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. His joy was childlike, unrestrained, full of whimsical surprises--the flight of a bluebird or the recognition of a shrub beside the way sent him with shining eyes and quickened steps along the turnpike.

From free Levi's cabin, which was still standing, though a battle had raged in the fallen woods beyond it, and men had fought and been buried within a stone's throw of the doorstep, they heard the steady falling of a hammer and caught the red glow from the rude forge at which the old negro worked.

With the half-forgotten sound, Dan returned as if in a vision to his last night at Cheric.o.ke, when he had run off in his boyish folly, with free Levi's hammer beating in his ears. Then he had dreamed of coming back again, but not like this. He had meant to ride proudly up the turnpike, with his easily won honours on his head, and in his hands his magnanimous forgiveness for all who had done him wrong. On that day he had pictured the Governor hurrying to the turnpike as he pa.s.sed, and he had seen his grandfather, shy of apologies, eager to make amends.

That was his dream, and to-day he came back footsore, penniless, and in a dead man's clothes--a beggar as he had been at his first home-coming, when he had stood panting on the threshold and clutched his little bundle in his arms.

Yet his pulses stirred, and he turned cheerfully to the negro at his side.

"Do you see it, Big Abel? Tell me when you see it."

"Dar's de cattle pastur'," cried Big Abel, "en dey's been a-fittin'

dar--des look."

"It must have been a skirmish," replied Dan, glancing down the slope. "The wall is all down, and see here," his foot struck on something hard and he stooped and picked up a horse's skull. "I dare say a squad of cavalry met Mosby's rangers," he added. "It looks as if they'd had a little frolic."

He threw the skull into the pasture, and followed Big Abel, who was hurrying along the road.

"We're moughty near dar," cried the negro, breaking into a run. "Des wait twel we pa.s.s de aspens, Ma.r.s.e Dan, des wait twel we pa.s.s de aspens, den we'll be right dar, suh."

Then, as Dan reached him, the aspens were pa.s.sed, and where Cheric.o.ke had stood they found a heap of ashes.

At their feet lay the relics of a hot skirmish, and the old elms were perforated with rifle b.a.l.l.s, but for these things Dan had neither eyes nor thoughts. He was standing before the place that he called home, and where the hospitable doors had opened he found only a cold mound of charred and crumbled bricks.

For an instant the scene went black before his eyes, and as he staggered forward, Big Abel caught his arm.

"I'se hyer, Ma.r.s.e Dan, I'se hyer," groaned the negro in his ear.

"But the others? Where are the others?" asked Dan, coming to himself. "Hold me, Big Abel, I'm an utter fool. O Congo! Is that Congo?"

A negro, coming with his hoe from the corn field, ran over the desolated lawn, and began shouting hoa.r.s.ely to the hands behind him:--

"Hi! Hit's Ma.r.s.e Dan, hit's Ma.r.s.e Dan come back agin!" he yelled, and at the cry there flocked round him a little troop of faithful servants, weeping, shouting, holding out eager arms.

"Hi! hit's Ma.r.s.e Dan!" they shrieked in chorus. "Hit's Ma.r.s.e Dan en Brer Abel! Brer Abel en Ma.r.s.e Dan is done come agin!"

Dan wept with them--tears of weakness, of anguish, of faint hope amid the dark. As their hands closed over his, he grasped them as if his eyes had gone suddenly blind.

"Where are the others? Congo, for G.o.d's sake, tell me where are the others?"

"We all's hyer, Ma.r.s.e Dan. We all's hyer," they protested, sobbing. "En Ole Marster en Ole Miss dey's in de house er de overseer--dey's right over dar behine de orchard whar you use ter projick wid de ploughs, en Brer Cupid and Sis Rhody dey's a-gittin' dem dey supper."

"Then let me go," cried Dan. "Let me go!" and he started at a run past the gray ruins and the standing kitchen, past the flower garden and the big woodpile, to the orchard and the small frame house of Harris the overseer.

Big Abel kept at his heels, panting, grunting, calling upon his master to halt and upon Congo to hurry after.

"You'll skeer dem ter deaf--you'll skeer Ole Miss ter deaf," cried Congo from the rear, and drawing a trembling breath, Dan slackened his pace and went on at a walk. At last, when he reached the small frame house and put his foot upon the step, he hesitated so long that Congo slipped ahead of him and softly opened the door. Then his young master followed and stood looking with blurred eyes into the room.

Before a light blaze which burned on the hearth, the Major was sitting in an arm chair of oak splits, his eyes on the blossoming apple trees outside, and above his head, the radiant image of Aunt Emmeline, painted as Venus in a gown of amber brocade. All else was plain and clean--the well-swept floor, the burnished andirons, the cupboard filled with rows of blue and white china--but that one glowing figure lent a festive air to the poorly furnished room, and enriched with a certain pomp the tired old man, dozing, with bowed white head, in the rude arm chair. It was the one thing saved from the ashes--the one vestige of a former greatness that still remained.

As Dan stood there, a clock on the mantel struck the hour, and the Major turned slowly toward him.

"Bring the lamps, Cupid," he said, though the daylight was still shining.