The Militants Part 13

"I wish I could tell you how pretty her voice was when she said things like that, as if she cared that I'd had a strenuous day and was a little tired.

"'How do you know I'm going to Falmouth? How do you know how far I've ridden?' I asked her, astonished again.

"'I'm a witch,' she said. 'I find out everything about you-all by magic, and then I tell our officers. They know it's so if I tell them. Ask Stonewall Jackson how he discovered the road to take his cavalry around for the attack on Howard. I reckon I helped a lot at Chancellorsville.'

"'Do you reckon you're helping now?' I asked, throwing my saddle over Zero's back. 'Strikes me you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy hand over fist.'

"That girl surprised me whatever she did, and the reason was--I figured it out afterward--that she let herself be what few people let themselves be--absolutely straightforward. She had the gentlest ways, but she always. .h.i.t straight from the shoulder, and that's likely to surprise people. This time she took three steps to where I stood by Zero and caught my finger in the middle of pulling up the cinch and held to it.

"'I'm not a traitor,' she threw at me. 'I'm loyal to my people, and you're my enemy--and I'm saving you from them. But it's you--it's you,'

she whispered, looking up at me. It was getting dark by now, but I could see her eyes. 'When you put your hand over mine this morning it was like somebody'd telegraphed that the one man was coming; and then I looked at you, and I knew he'd got there. I've never bothered about men--mostly they're not worth while, when there are horses--but ever since I've been grown I've known that you'd come some time, and that I'd know you when you came. Do you think I'm going to let you be taken--shot, maybe? Not much--I'll guard your life with every breath of mine--and I'll keep it safe, too.'

"Now, wasn't that a strange way for a girl to talk? Did you ever hear of another woman who could talk that way, and live up to it?" he demanded of me unexpectedly.

I was afraid to say the wrong thing and I spoke timidly. "What did you do then?"

He gave me a glance smouldering with mischief. "I didn't do it. I tried to, but she wouldn't let me.

"'Hurry, hurry,' said she, in a panic all of a sudden. 'They'll be coming. Zero's fast, but you ought to get a good start.'

"And she hustled me on the horse. And just as I was off, as I bent from the saddle to catch her hand for the last time, she gave me two more shocks together." Silent reminiscent laughter shook him.

"'When am I going to see you again?' asked I hopelessly, for I felt as if everything was mighty uncertain, and I couldn't bear to leave her.

"'To-morrow,' said she, prompt as taxes. 'To-morrow. Good-by, Captain Carruthers.'

"And she gave the horse a slap that scared him into a leap, and off I went galloping into darkness, with my brain in a whirl as to where I could see her to-morrow, and how under creation she knew my name. The cold bath had refreshed me--I hadn't had the like of it for nine days--and I galloped on for a while feeling fine, and thinking mighty hard about the girl I'd left behind me. Twenty-four hours before I'd never seen her, yet I felt, as if I had known her all my life. I was sure of this, that in all my days I'd never seen anybody like her, and never would. And that's true to this minute. I'd had sweethearts a-plenty--in a way--but the affair of that day was the only time I was ever in love in my life."

To tell the truth I had been a little scandalized all through this story, for I knew well enough that there was a Mrs. Carruthers. I had not met her--she had been South through the months which her husband had spent in New York--but the General's strong language concerning the red-haired girl made me sympathize with his wife, and this last sentiment was staggering. Poor Mrs. Carruthers! thought I--poor, staid lady, with this gay lad of a husband declaring his heart forever buried with the adventure of a day of long ago. Yet, a soldier boy of twenty-three--the romance of war-time--the glamour of lost love--there were certainly alleviating circ.u.mstances. At all events, it was not my affair--I could enjoy the story as it came with a clear conscience. So I smiled at the wicked General--who looked as innocent as a baby--and he went on.

"I knew every road on that side the river, and I knew the Confederates wouldn't dare chase me but a few miles, as it wasn't their country any longer, so pretty soon I began to take things easy. I thought over everything that had happened through the day, everything she'd said and done, every look--I could remember it all. I can now. I wondered who under heaven she was, and I kicked myself that I hadn't asked her name.

'Lindy'--that's all I knew, and I guess I said that over a hundred times. I wondered why she'd told me not to go to Kelly's Ford, but I worked that out the right way--as I found later--that her party expected to cross there, and she didn't want me to encounter them; and then the river was too full and they tried a higher ford. And I'd run into them.

Yet I couldn't understand why she planned to cross at Kelly's, anyway, because there was pretty sure to be a Union outpost on the east bank there, and she'd have landed right among them. That puzzled me. Who was the girl, and why on earth was she travelling in that direction, and where could she be going? I went over that problem again and again, and couldn't find an answer.

"Meanwhile it was getting late, and the bracing effect of the cold water of the Rappahannock was wearing off, and I began to feel the fatigue of an exciting day and a seventy-five-mile ride--on top of nine other days with little to eat and not much rest. My wet clothes chilled me, and the last few miles I have never been able to remember distinctly--I think I was misty in my mind. At any rate, when I got to headquarters camp I was just about clear enough to guide Zero through the maze of tents, and not any more, and when the horse stopped with his nose against the front pole of the general's fly I was unconscious."

I exclaimed, horrified: "It was too much for human nature! You must have been nearly dead. Did you fall off? Were you hurt?"

"Oh, no--I was all right," he said cheerfully. "I just sat there. But an equestrian statue in front of the general's tent at 11 P.M. wasn't usual, and there was a small sensation. It brought out the adjutant-general and he recognized me, and they carried me into a tent, and got a surgeon, and he had me stripped and rubbed and rolled in blankets. They found the despatches in my boots, and those gave all the information necessary. They found the letter, too, which Stoneman had given me to hand back to General Ladd, and they didn't understand that, as it was addressed simply to 'Miss Ladd, Ford Hall,' so they left it till I waked up. That wasn't till noon the next day."

The General began chuckling contagiously, and I was alive with curiosity to know the coming joke.

"I believe every officer in the camp, from the commanding general down, had sent me clothes. When I unclosed my eyes that tent was alive with them. It was a spring opening, I can tell you--all sorts. Well, when I got the meaning of the array, I lay there and laughed out loud, and an orderly appeared at that, and then the adjutant-general, and I reported to him. Then I got into an a.s.sortment of the clothes, and did my duty by a pile of food and drink, and I was ready to start back to join my chief. Except for the letter of General Ladd--I had to deliver that in person to give the explanation. General Ladd had been wounded, I found, at Chancellorsville, but would see me. So off I went to his tent, and the orderly showed me in at once. He was in bed with his arm and shoulder bandaged, and by his side, looking as fresh as a rose and as mischievous as a monkey, sat a girl with red hair--Linda Ladd--Miss Ladd, of Ford Hall--the old house where I first saw her. Her father presented me in due form and told me to give her the letter and--that's all."

The General stopped short and regarded me quietly.

"Oh, but--" I stammered. "But that isn't all--why, I don't understand--it's criminal not to tell the rest--there's a lot."

"What do you want to hear?" he demanded, "I don't know any more--that's all that happened."

"Don't be brutal," I pleaded. "I want to know, for one thing, how she knew your name."

"Oh--that." He laughed like an amused child. "That was rather odd. You remember I told you that when they were chasing us I took shelter and shot the horses from under some of the Southerners."

"I remember."

"Well, the first man dismounted was Tom Ladd, the girl's cousin, who'd been my cla.s.smate at the Point, and he recognized me. He ran back and told them to make every effort to capture the party, as its leader was Captain Carruthers, of Stoneman's staff, and undoubtedly carried despatches."

"Oh!" I said. "I see. And where was Miss Ladd going, travelling your way all day?"

"To see her wounded father at Falmouth, don't you understand? She'd had word from him the day before. She was escorted by a strong party of Confederates, including her brother and cousin. She started out with just the old negro, and it was arranged that she should meet the party at the cabin where I found her writing. They were to go with her to Kelly's Ford, where she was to pa.s.s over to the Union post on the other bank--she had a safe-conduct."

"Oh!" I a.s.similated this. "And she and her brother were Confederates, and the father was a Northern general--how extraordinary!"

"Not in the least," the General corrected me. "It happened so in a number of cases. She was a power in that campaign. She did more work than either father or brother. A Southern officer told me afterward that the men half believed what she said--that she was a witch, and got news of our movements by magic. Nothing escaped her--she had a wonderful mind, and did not know what fear was. A wonderful woman!"

He was smiling to himself again as he sat, with his great shoulders bent forward and his scarred hand on his knee, looking into the fire.

"General," I said tentatively, "aren't you going to tell me what she said when she saw you come into her father's tent?"

"Said?" asked the General, looking up and frowning. "What could she say?

Good-morning, I guess."

I wasn't afraid of his frown or of his hammer-and-tongs manner. I'd got behind both before now. I persisted.

"But I mean--what did you say to each other, like the day before--how did it all come out?"

"Oh, we couldn't do any love-making, if that's what you mean," he explained in a business-like way, "because the old man was on deck. And I had to leave in about ten minutes to ride back to join my command.

That was all there was to it."

I sighed with disappointment. Of course I knew it was just an idyll of youth, a day long, and that the book was closed forty years before. But I could not bear to have it closed with a bang. Somewhere in the narrative had come to me the impression that the heroine of it had died young in those exciting war-times of long ago. I had a picture in my mind of the dancing eyes closed meekly in a last sleep; of the young officer's hand laid sorrowing on the bright halo of hair.

"Did you ever see the girl again?" I asked softly.

The General turned on me a quick, queer look. Fun was in it, and memory gave it gentleness; yet there was impatience, too, at my slowness, in the boyish brown eyes.

"Mrs. Carruthers has red hair," he said briefly.

THROUGH THE IVORY GATE

Breeze-filtered through s.h.i.+fting leaf.a.ge, the June morning sunlight came in at the open window by the boy's bed, under the green shades, across the shadowy, white room, and danced a noiseless dance of youth and freshness and springtime against the wall opposite. The boy's head stirred on his pillow. He spoke a quick word from out of his dream. "The key?" he said inquiringly, and the sound of his own voice awoke him.

Dark, drowsy eyes opened, and he stared half seeing, at the picture that hung facing him. Was it the play of mischievous sunlight, was it the dream that still held his brain? He knew the picture line by line, and there was no such figure in it. It was a large photograph of Fairfield, the Southern home of his mother's people, and the boy remembered it always hanging there, opposite his bed, the first sight to meet his eyes every morning since his babyhood. So he was certain there was no figure in it, more than all one so remarkable as this strapping little chap in his queer clothes; his dress of conspicuous plaid with large black velvet squares sewed on it, who stood now in front of the old manor-house. Could it be only a dream? Could it be that a little ghost, wandering childlike in dim, heavenly fields, had joined the gay troop of his boyish visions and s.h.i.+pped in with them through the ivory gate of pleasant dreams? The boy put his fists to his eyes and rubbed them and looked again. The little fellow was still there, standing with st.u.r.dy legs wide apart as if owning the scene; he laughed as he held toward the boy a key--a small key tied with a scarlet ribbon. There was no doubt in the boy's mind that the key was for him, and out of the dim world of sleep he stretched his young arm for it; to reach it he sat up in bed.

Then he was awake and knew himself alone in the peace of his own little room, and laughed shamefacedly at the reality of the vision which had followed him from dreamland into the very boundaries of consciousness, which held him even now with gentle tenacity, which drew him back through the day, from his studies, from his play, into the strong current of its fascination.

The first time Philip Beckwith had this dream he was only twelve years old, and, withheld by the deep reserve of childhood, he told not even his mother about it, though he lived in its atmosphere all day and remembered it vividly days longer. A year after it came again; and again it was a June morning, and as his eyes opened the little boy came once more out of the picture toward him, laughing and holding out the key on its scarlet string. The dream was a pleasant one, and Philip welcomed it eagerly from his sleep as a friend. There seemed something sweet and familiar in the child's presence beyond the one memory of him, as again the boy, with eyes half open to every-day life, saw him standing, small but masterful, in the garden of that old house where the Fairfields had lived for more than a century. Half consciously he tried to prolong the vision, tried not to wake entirely for fear of losing it; but the picture faded surely from the curtain of his mind as the tangible world painted there its heavier outlines. It was as if a happy little spirit had tried to follow him, for love of him, from a country lying close, yet separated; it was as if the common childhood of the two made it almost possible for them to meet; as if a message that might not be spoken, were yet almost delivered.