The Guns of Bull Run Part 13

CHAPTER VII

THE HOMECOMING

A great and exultant cheer went up from the ma.s.sed thousands in Charleston. A smile pa.s.sed over Beauregard's swarthy face and he showed his white teeth. Colonel Leonidas Talbot regarded the white flag with feelings in which triumph and sadness were mingled strangely. But the emotions of Harry and his comrades were, for the moment, those of victory only.

Boats put out both from the fort and the sh.o.r.e. Discipline was relaxed now, and Harry, St. Clair and Langdon went outside the battery. A light breeze had sprung up, and it was very grateful to Harry, who for hours had breathed the heavy odors of smoke and burned gunpowder. The smoke itself, which had formed a vast cloud over harbor, forts and city, was now drifting out to sea, leaving all things etched sharply in the dazzling sunlight of a Southern spring day.

"Well, old Wait-and-See, you have waited, and you have seen," said Langdon to Harry. "That white flag and those boats going out mean that Sumter is ours. Everything is for the best and we win everywhere and all the time."

Harry was silent. He was watching the boats. But the negotiations were soon completed. Sumter, a ma.s.s of ruins, was given up, and the Star and Bars, taking the place of the Stars and Stripes, gaily snapped defiance to the whole North. "It begins to look well there," said Beauregard, gazing proudly at the new flag.

All the amenities were preserved between the captured garrison and their captors. Anderson was sent to the Baltic, which still hovered outside, and the Union vessels disappeared on their way back to the North. Peace, but now the peace of triumph, settled again over Charleston, and throughout the South went the joyous tidings that Sumter had been taken. The great state of Virginia, Mother of Presidents, went out of the Union at last, and North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas followed her, but Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri still hung in the balance.

Lincoln had called for volunteers to put down a rebellion, but Harry heard everywhere in Charleston that the Confederacy was now secure. The Southerners were rising by the thousands to defend it. The women, too, were full of zeal and enthusiasm and they urged the men to go to the front. With the full consent of the lower South the capital was to be moved from Montgomery to Richmond, the capital of Virginia, on the very border of the Confederacy, to look defiantly, as it were, across at Washington over a s.p.a.ce which was to become the vast battlefield of America, although few then dreamed it. The progress of President Davis to the new capital, set in the very face of the foe, was to be one huge triumph of faith and loyalty.

Harry heard nothing in Charleston but joyful news. There was not a single note of gloom. Europe, which must have its cotton, would favor the success of the South. Women who had never worked before, sewed night and day on clothing for the soldiers. Men gave freely and without asking to the new government. An extraordinary wave of emotion swept over the South, carrying everybody with it. Charleston shouted anew as the newspapers announced the news of distinguished officers who had gone out with the Southern States. There were the two Johnstons, the one of Virginia and the other of Kentucky; Lee, Bragg, of Buena Vista fame; Longstreet, and many others, some already celebrated in the Mexican War, and others with a greater fame yet to make.

Harry heard it all and it was transfused into his own blood. Now a letter came from his father. That obstinate faction in Kentucky still held the state to the Union. Since Sumter had fallen and Charleston was safe, he wished his son to rejoin him in Pendleton, whence they would proceed together to Frankfort, and help the Southern party. His personal account of the glowing deed that had been done in Charleston harbor would help. He was sure that his old friend, General Beauregard, would release him for this important duty.

Harry's heart and judgment alike responded to the call. He took the letter to General Beauregard, finding him at the Charleston Hotel with Governor Pickens and officers of his staff, and stood aside while the general read it. Beauregard at once wrote an order.

"This is your discharge from the Palmetto Guards," he said. "Colonel Kenton writes wisely. We need Kentucky and I understand that a very little more may bring the state to us. Go with your father. I understand that you have been a brave young soldier here and may you do as well up there."

Harry, feeling pride but not showing it, saluted and left the room, going at once to Madame Delaunay's, where he had left his baggage. He intended to leave early in the morning, but first he sought his friends and told them good-bye.

"Don't forget that we're going to have a great war," said Colonel Leonidas Talbot, "and the first battle line will be far north of Charleston. I shall look for you there."

"G.o.d bless you, my boy," said Major Hector St. Hilaire. "May you come back some day to this beautiful Charleston of ours, and find it more beautiful than ever."

"I'll meet you at Richmond later on," said Arthur St. Clair, "and then we'll serve together again."

"I'll join you at the White House in Washington," said Tom Langdon, "and I'll give you the next best bed to sleep in with your boots on."

Harry gave his farewells with deep and genuine regret. Whether their manner was grave or frivolous, he knew that these were good friends of his, and he sincerely hoped that he would meet them again. Madame Delaunay spoke to him almost as if he had been a son of hers, and there was dew in his eyes, because he could never forget her kindness to the lad who had been a stranger.

He resumed his civilian clothing and put his gray uniform, fine and new, of which he was so proud, in his saddle bags. Kentucky had declared herself neutral ground, warning the armies of both North and South to keep off her sacred soil, and he did not wish to invite undue attention. He intended, moreover, to leave the train when he neared Pendleton, at the same little station at which he had taken it when he started south.

It was a different Harry who started home late in April. Four months had made great changes. He bore himself more like a man. His manner was much more considered and grave. He had seen great things and he had done his share of them. He gazed upon a world full of responsibilities and perils.

But he looked back at Charleston the gay, the volatile and the beautiful, with real affection. It was almost buried now in flowers and foliage. Spring was at the full, every breeze was sharply sweet with gra.s.sy flavors. The very triumph and joy of living penetrated his soul. Youth swept aside the terrors of war. He was going home after victory. He soon left Charleston out of sight. A last roof or steeple glittered for a moment in the sun and then was gone. Before him lay the uplands and the ridges, and in another day he would be in another land.

He crossed the low mountains, pa.s.sed through Nashville again, although he did not stop there, his train making immediate connection, and once more and with a thrill, entered his own state. He learned from casual talk on the trains that affairs in Kentucky were very hot. The special session of the Legislature, called by Governor Magoffin, was to meet at Frankfort early in May. The women of the state had already prepared an appeal to the Legislature to save them from the horrors of civil war.

Harry saw that he had not left active life behind him when he came away from Charleston. The feeling of strife had spread over a vast area. The atmosphere of Kentucky, like that of South Carolina, was surcharged with intensity and pa.s.sion, but it had a difference. All the winds blew in the same direction in South Carolina and they sang one song of triumph, but in Kentucky they were variable and conflicting, and their voices were many.

He felt the difference as soon as he reached the hills of his native state. People were cooler here and they were more p.r.o.ne to look at the two sides of a question. The air, too, was unlike that of South Carolina. There was a sharper tang to it. It whipped his blood as it blew down from the slopes and crests.

It was afternoon when he reached the little station of Winton and left the train, a tall, st.u.r.dy boy, the superior of many a man in size, strength and agility. His saddle bags over his arm, he went at once to the liveryman with whom he had left his horse on his journey to Charleston, and asked for another, his best, for the return ride to Pendleton. The liveryman stared at him a moment or two and then burst into an exclamation of surprise.

"Why, it's Harry Kenton!" he said. "Harry, you've changed a lot in so short a time! You were at the bombardment of Fort Sumter, they tell me! It's made a mighty stir in these parts! There were never before such times in old Kentucky! Yes, Harry, I'll give you the best horse I've got, there ain't one more powerful in the state, but pushin' as hard as you will you can't reach Pendleton before dark, an' you look out."

"Look out for what?"

"Bill Skelly an' his gang. Them mountaineers are up. They say they're goin' to beat the rich men of the lowlands an' keep Kentucky in the Union, but between you an' me, Harry, it's the hate they feel for them that think harder an' work harder an' make more than themselves. Bill Skelly is the worst man in the mountains an' he has gathered about him a big gang of toughs. They're carin' mighty little about the Union or the freedom of the slaves, but they expect to make a lot out of this for themselves. Now I tell you again, Harry, to look out as you go through the dark to Pendleton. The country is mighty troubled."

"I will," replied Harry, with vivid recollection of his ride from Pendleton to Winton. "I am armed, Mr. Collins, and I have seen war. I served in one of the batteries that reduced Fort Sumter."

He did not say the last as a boast, but merely as an a.s.surance to the liveryman, who he saw was anxious on his account.

"If you've got pistols, just you think once before you shoot," said Collins. "Things are sh.o.r.ely mighty troubled in these parts an' they're goin' to be worse."

"Have you heard anything of my father? Is he at Pendleton?"

"He was two days ago. He'd been up to Louisville where the Southern leaders had a meetin', but couldn't make things go as they wanted 'em to go, an' so he come back to Pendleton. People are tellin' that he's goin' to Frankfort soon."

Harry thanked him, threw his saddle bags across the horse, a powerful bay, and, giving a final wave of his hand to the sympathetic liveryman, rode away. He had little fear. He carried a pair of heavy double-barreled pistols in holsters, and a smaller weapon in his pocket. The horse, as he soon saw, was of uncommon power and spirit and he snapped his fingers at Skelly and his gang.

He rode first at a long, easy walk, knowing too well to push hard at the beginning, and the afternoon pa.s.sed without anything worthy of his notice save the loneliness of the road. In the two hours before sundown he met less than half a dozen persons. All were men, and with a mere nod they went on quickly, regarding him with suspicion. This was not the fashion of a year ago, when they exchanged a friendly word or two, but Harry knew its cause. Now n.o.body could trust anybody else.

The setting sun was uncommonly red, tinting all the forest with a fiery glow and Harry looked apprehensively at the line of blue hills now on his right, whence danger had come before. But he saw nothing that moved there. No signal lights twinkled. The intervening s.p.a.ce was a ma.s.s of heavy green foliage, which the eye, now that the twilight was at hand, could penetrate only a few score yards. A northeast wind off the distant mountain tops was cold and sharp, and Harry, who wore no overcoat, shivered a little.

Young though he was, he remembered the liveryman's caution, and he watched the forest on either side, as well as he could. But he depended more upon his keenness of ear. He did not believe the stirring of any large force in the thickets could pa.s.s him unheard, and, having nursed the strength of his great horse, he felt that he could leave almost any pursuit far behind.

The twilight sank into a dark and heavy night. The moon and stars lay behind drifting clouds and, now and then, came a swish of cold rain. Harry was not able to see more than a few yards to right or left, when the road ran through the woods, as it did most of the time, and not much further when fields chanced to lie on either side.

He was within a mile of Pendleton, and his heart began to throb, not with thoughts of Skelly, but because he would soon be in his old home again. Ten or fifteen minutes more, and he would see the solid red brick house rising among the clipped pines. But as he pa.s.sed the junction of a small road coming down from the hills, his attentive ear gave warning. He heard the sound of hoofs and many of them. He drew in for a moment under the boughs and listened.

Harry's instinct warned him against the troop of men that he heard. Collins, the liveryman, had told him that the country was full of trouble. This region was neither North nor South. It was debatable land, of which raiding bands would take full advantage, and, despite the risk, he wished to know what was on foot. He was almost invisible under the boughs of a great oak which hung over the road, and the horse, after so many miles of hard riding, was willing enough to stand still. The rain swished in his face and the leaves gave forth a chilly rustle, but he held himself firmly to his task.

The hoofbeats came nearer and then ceased. The hors.e.m.e.n stopped at the point, where the narrower road merged into the larger and, as they were clear of the foliage, Harry caught a view of them. There was no moonlight, but his eyes had grown so well used to the darkness that he was able to recognize Skelly, who was in advance, an old army rifle across his saddle bow. Behind him were at least fifty men, and Harry knew they were all mountaineers. They rode the scrubby mountain horses, more like ponies, and every man carried a rifle.

Harry divined instantly that they had come down from the hills to make a raid upon the Confederate stronghold, Pendleton. War was on, and here was their chance to take revenge upon the more civilized people of the lowlands. Skelly was giving his final orders and Harry could hear him.

"We'll leave the main road, pull down the fences an' ride across the fields," he said. "We'll first take the house of that rebel and traitor, Colonel Kenton. It'll be helpin' the cause if we burn it clean down to the ground. If anybody tries to stop you, shoot. Then we'll go on to the others."

A growl of approval came from the men, and some shook their rifles as a sign of what they would do. Harry knew them. Mostly moonshiners and fugitives from justice, they cared far more for revenge and spoil than for the Union. He shuddered as he heard their talk. His own home was to be their first point of attack, and those who resisted were to be shot down.

He waited to hear no more, but, keeping in the shadow of the boughs and riding at first in a walk, he went on toward Pendleton. He was sure that Skelly's men had not heard his hoofbeats, as there was no sound of pursuit, and, three or four hundred yards further, he changed from a walk to a gallop. Careless of the dark and of all risks of the road, he drove the horse faster and faster. He was on familiar ground. He knew every hill and dip, almost every tree, but he did not pause to notice anything.

Soon he saw a light, then a dark outline, and his heart throbbed greatly. It was his father's house, standing among the clipped pines, and he was in time! Now his horse's feet thundered on the brief stretch of road that was left, and in another minute he was at the gate opening on the lawn. A man, rifle in hand, stood on the front steps, and demanded to know who had come.

"It is I, Harry, father!" cried Harry. "Skelly and his crowd are only a mile behind me, coming to destroy the place!"

Harry heard his father mutter, "Thank G.o.d!" which he knew was for his coming. Then he quickly led the horse inside the gate, turned him loose and ran forward. Colonel Kenton was already coming to meet him and the hands of father and son met in a strong and affectionate clasp.

"We will have to get out and go into the town," said Harry. "You and I alone can't hold them off. Skelly has at least fifty men. I saw them in the road."