The Debatable Land Part 19

Chapter XV

Treats of the Distribution of Tracts in the Valley of the Shenandoah.

The Shenandoah goes by the eastern edge of the wide valley, murmuring its own musical name, "Shenandoah," as if it knew the word's significance in glory, tumult, and pain, but had taught all three to march to a quiet requiem; "Shenandoah"--old, unhappy, far-off things, under the lulling and palliation now of many years.

Gard rode directly south, through plodding, dusty lines of haggard-eyed men, and came to it a few miles above the junction and the famous Ferry.

The cannon boomed all day on his left over by the larger river. He rode by daylight and openly and none seemed to doubt him; his dress and little printed tracts were pa.s.sports enough for the time. He fell into the habit, first by impulse and then by policy, of carrying a tract in his hand, using its subject and phraseology for the next conversation and entering on the subject promptly.

It gave him a sense of detachment and isolation of a peculiar kind, this urging on some weary and hurrying group a doctrine of peace, compa.s.sion, and humility, as if the manner and language were working inward and growing less alien to him, and he really were a mysterious evangelist--a messenger with spiritual tidings and council. He noticed--and it seemed from its recurrence to have a certain pathos--that, after the laughter which rose around him in most cases had subsided, the faces would lose their weariness and strain, and seem to express another side of their humanity. They reminded him, then, of the fruit-seller and the policeman on the avenue, where he used to go to and from the Brotherhood of Consolation and the Church of the Trinity, who recognized in him some one apart and remote from the current of events--the river of humanity on the avenue.

It was even a more turbulent river that was pouring west and southwest along the two railroads leading from the Ferry. They were beginning to tear up and burn the northern line, but along the other the trains still moved in puffing succession. To Gard the sense of the part he played was strong almost to reality. The quaint, biblical, old-world phrases which he ever kept reading and repeating reacted upon him. He seemed, even to himself, to become intangible and apart.

"What shall a man take in exchange for his soul?" halting his horse and taking out the little white tract.

"I don't know. If you've got a plug of tobacco I might trade."

"If I had any, friend, I would give it to you freely."

The man looked at him curiously.

"I reckon you would now. This the best you know how, ain't it?"

Others who had stopped laughed and swarmed around. "Give me one!" "Me one!"

"There are more who need them."

"Oh, all right."

"No hogs here."

"Good-luck to you, elder."

The stream flowed on, some chuckling over their tracts, some silent. An officer said:

"You ought to get a pa.s.s, elder." So he came to where the Shenandoah murmured its musical name. A range of blue mountains rose beyond it.

There seemed to be little going on by the river. The retreat had shifted to the west along the railroads into the Opequan valley, and he turned and rode west among low, wooded hills. It was Wednesday. They were tearing and burning the southern of the two railroads now--an endless row of bonfires of the ties, the iron rails laid across them to be heated for bending.

"'Let not your hearts be troubled.'"

A man bending over a rail drew his hand back, swore l.u.s.tily, and straightened up.

"What's that? Oh!" He took the tract.

"That's what it says, sure enough. Maybe you don't know that rail was hot." The tract was pa.s.sed around. One read aloud, "He hath taken charge and command. He hath established His law."

Gard sat motionless on his horse, looking placidly over their heads to the pale-blue horizon.

"Who is the one greatest in authority here?"

"This side of G.o.d Almighty and Winchester. I reckon you mean the old man. Hi, lieutenant!" The cantering officer pulled up. "He wants the general."

"Does, does he? What for?"

A pause. Gard dropped his eyes to the officer who was reading the tract.

"It is said to be best that I should have his permission to--"

"Oh, I see. Come along, then."

They rode beside the track through strata of heat and smoke from the fires, Gard following. It occurred to him that he had given his name on an impulse the day before as Moselle, and would possibly need it now.

They came to a group of hors.e.m.e.n, talking, except one in front of them, who watched the toiling squads silently. He wore a full black beard, and sat his horse awkwardly.

"This seems to be some kind of a missionary, general. He wants to see you."

The general glanced up under the brim of his slouched hat; then suddenly flung back his head, so that his big beard stood out from his chest, and said, simply:

"What do you want?"

"I am directed by a Session of the Brethren to distribute these."

"Who are you?"

"Of a congregation in Maryland."

"What is your name?"

"Moselle."

"Who are the Brethren?"

"We are called Dunkers by those not of our communion. We do not use the name."

"There was a church of that sect near Sharpsburg."

"It is our church."

"They seemed to be German. You have no accent."

"It was said to be the reason I was chosen--the speaking freely the language. It was said at the Session."

"Very well."

He dropped his eyes to the tract in his hand.

Gard remained placid, persistent.

"It was said a permission might be written."