Campaigns of a Non-Combatant | Page 7

they clung bashfully to their mother's lap. The old lady was smoking a clay pipe; the man running over some castaway jackets and boots. I remarked particularly the broad shoulders and athletic arms of the woman, whose many childbirths had left no traces upon her comeliness. She asked me, wistfully: "Masser, how fur to de nawf?"
"A long way," said I, "perhaps two hundred miles."
"Lawd!" she said, buoyantly--"is dat all? Why, Jeems, couldn't we foot it, honey?"
"You a most guv out before, ole 'oman," he replied; "got a good ruff over de head now. Guess de white massar won't let um starve."
I tossed some coppers to the children and gave each a sandwich.
"You get up dar, John Thomas!" called the man vigorously; "you tank de gentleman, Jefferson, boy! I wonda wha your manners is. Tank you, massar! know'd you was a gentleman, sar! Massar, is your family from ole Virginny?"
It was five o'clock when I rejoined S., and the greater part of our journey had yet to be made. I went at his creeping pace until courtesy yielded to impatience, when spurring my Pegasus vigorously, he fell into a bouncing amble and left the attach�� far behind. My pass was again demanded above Langley's by a man who ate apples as he examined it, and who was disposed to hold a long parley. I entered a region of scrub timber further on, and met with nothing human for four miles, at the end of which distance I reached Difficult Creek, flowing through a rocky ravine, and crossed by a military bridge of logs. Through the thick woods to the right, I heard the roar of the Potomac, and a finger-board indicated that I was opposite Great Falls. Three or four dead horses lay at the roadside beyond the stream, and I recalled the place as the scene of a recent cavalry encounter. A cartridge-box and a torn felt hat lay close to the carcasses: I knew that some soul had gone hence to its account.
The road now kept to the left obliquely, and much of my ride was made musical by the stream. Darkness closed solemnly about me, with seven miles of the journey yet to accomplish, and as, at eight o'clock, I turned from the turnpike into a lonesome by-road, full of ruts, pools, and quicksands, a feeling of delicious uneasiness for the first time possessed me. Some owls hooted in the depth of the woods, and wild pigs, darting across the road, went crashing into the bushes. The phosphorescent bark of a blasted tree glimmered on a neighboring knoll, and as I halted at a rivulet to water my beast, I saw a solitary star floating down the ripples. Directly I came upon a clearing where the moonlight shone through the rents of a crumbling dwelling, and from the far distance broke the faint howl of farm dogs. A sense of insecurity that I would not for worlds have resigned, now tingled, now chilled my blood. At last, climbing a stony hill, the skies lay beneath me reddening with the flame of camps and flaring and falling alternately, like the beautiful Northern lights. I heard the ring of hoofs as I looked entranced, and in a twinkling, a body of horsemen dashed past me and disappeared. A little beyond, the road grew so thick that I could see nothing of my way; but trusting doubtfully to my horse, a deep challenge came directly from the thicket, and I saw the flash of a sabre, as I stammered a reply. Led to a cabin close at hand, my pass was examined by candle-light, and I learned that the nearest camp of the Reserves was only a mile farther on, and the regiment of which I was in quest about two miles distant. After another half hour, I reached Ord's brigade, whose tents were pitched in a fine grove of oaks; the men talking, singing, and shouting, around open air fires; and a battery of brass Napoleons unlimbered in front, pointing significantly to the West and South. For a mile and a half I rode by the light of continuous camps, reaching at last the quarters of the ----th, commanded by a former newspaper associate of mine, with whom I had gone itemizing, scores of times. His regiment had arrived only the same afternoon, and their tents were not yet pitched. Their muskets were stacked along the roadside, and the men lay here and there wrapped in their blankets, and dozing around the fagots. The Colonel was asleep in a wagon, but roused up at the summons of his Adjutant, and greeting me warmly, directed the cook to prepare a supper of coffee and fried pork. Too hungry to feel the chafing of my sores and bruises, I fell to the