The Long Roll | Page 9

trunk beside him, he sprang lightly down to the roadside, where he
proceeded to brush dead leaf and bark from his clothing with an old
gauntlet. When he spoke it was still in the same moved, vibrating voice.
"War's my metier. That's a curious thing to be said by a country lawyer
in peaceful old Virginia in this year of grace! But like many another
curious thing, it's true! I was never on a field of battle, but I know all
about a field of battle."
He shook his head, lifted his hand, and flung it out toward the
mountains. "I don't want war, mind you, Allan! That is, the great
stream at the bottom doesn't want it. War is a word that means agony to
many and a set-back to all. Reason tells me that, and my heart wishes
the world neither agony nor set-back, and I give my word for peace.
Only--only--before this life I must have fought all along the line!"
His eyes lightened. Against the paling sky, in the wintry air, his
powerful frame, not tall, but deep-chested, broad-shouldered, looked
larger than life. "I don't talk this way often--as you'll grant!" he said,
and laughed. "But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, lifted every
man out of himself!"
"If war came," said Allan, "it couldn't be a long war, could it? After the
first battle we'd come to an understanding."
"Would we?" answered the other. "Would we?--God knows! In the past
it has been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was the
war."
As he spoke he moved across to the sapling where was fastened his
horse, loosed him, and sprang into the saddle. The horse, a magnificent
bay, took the road, and the three began the long descent. It was very
cold and still, a crescent moon in the sky, and lights beginning to shine
from the farmhouses in the valley.

"Though I teach school," said Allan, "I like the open. I like to do things
with my hands, and I like to go in and out of the woods. Perhaps, all the
way behind us, I was a hunter, with a taste for books! My grandfather
was a scout in the Revolution, and his father was a ranger.... God
knows, I don't want war! But if it comes I'll go. We'll all go, I reckon."
"Yes, we'll all go," said Cleave. "We'll need to go."
The one rode, the other walked in silence for a time; then said the first,
"I shall ride to Lauderdale after supper and talk to Fauquier Cary."
"You and he are cousins, aren't you?"
"Third cousins. His mother was a Dandridge--Unity Dandridge."
"I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier poet--that
type."
"Yes, it is old and fine, in men and in women."
"He does not want war."
"No."
"Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility at
all--he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work for
peace, and that war between brothers is horrible."
"It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk."
They went on in silence for a time, over the winter road, through the
crystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed intense
and cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains, golden
and sharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered.
"If there should be war," asked Allan, "what will they do, all the
Virginians in the army--Lee and Johnston and Stuart, Maury and
Thomas and the rest?"

"They'll come home."
"Resigning their commissions?"
"Resigning their commissions."
Allan sighed. "That would be a hard thing to have to do."
"They'll do it. Wouldn't you?"
The teacher from Thunder Run looked from the dim valley and the
household lamps up to the marching stars. "Yes. If my State called, I
would do it."
"This is what will happen," said Cleave. "There are times when a man
sees clearly, and I see clearly to-day. The North does not intend to
evacuate Fort Sumter. Instead, sooner or later, she'll try to reinforce it.
That will be the beginning of the end. South Carolina will reduce the
fort. The North will preach a holy war. War there will be--whether holy
or not remains to be seen. Virginia will be called upon to furnish her
quota of troops with which to coerce South Carolina and the Gulf
States back into the Union. Well--do you think she will give them?"
Allan gave a short laugh. "No!"
"That is what will happen. And then--and then a greater State than any
will be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army will
come home."
The wood gave way to open country, softly swelling fields, willow
copses, and clear