A STRAGGLER FROM THE RANKS

In two weeks it swept back, wasted, stubborn, hungrier than ever. On a sultry September afternoon, Dan, who had gone down with a sharp return of fever, was brought, with a wagonful of the wounded, and placed on a heap of straw on the brick pavement of Shepherdstown. For two days he had been delirious, and Big Abel had held him to his bed during the long nights when the terrible silence seemed filled with the noise of battle; but, as he was lifted from the wagon and laid upon the sidewalk, he opened his eyes and spoke in a natural voice.

"What's all this fuss, Big Abel? Have I been out of my head?"

"You sutney has, suh. You've been a-prayin' en shoutin' so loud dese las'

tree days dat I wunner de Lawd ain' done shet yo' mouf des ter git rid er you."

"Praying, have I?" said Dan. "Well, I declare. That reminds me of Mr.

Blake, Big Abel. I'd like to know what's become of him."

Big Abel shook his head; he was in no pleasant humour, for the corners of his mouth were drawn tightly down and there was a rut between his bushy eyebrows.

"I nuver seed no sich place es dis yer town in all my lifetime," he grumbled. "Dey des let us lie roun' loose on de bricks same es ef we ain'

been fittin' fur 'em twel we ain' nuttin' but skin en bone. Dose two wagon loads er cut-up sodgers hev done fill de houses so plum full dat dey sticks spang thoo de cracks er de do's. Don' talk ter me, suh, I ain' got no use fur dis wah, noways, caze hit's a low-lifeted one, dat's what 'tis; en ef you'd a min' w'at I tell you, you'd be settin' up at home right dis minute wid ole Miss a-feedin' you on br'ile chicken. You may fit all you wanter--I ain' sayin' nuttin' agin yo' fittin ef yo' spleen hit's up--but you could er foun' somebody ter fit wid back at home widout comin' out hyer ter git yo'se'f a-jumbled up wid all de po' white trash in de county. Dis yer wah ain' de kin' I'se use ter, caze hit jumbles de quality en de trash tergedder des like dey wuz bo'n blood kin."

"What are you muttering about now, Big Abel?" broke in Dan impatiently.

"For heaven's sake stop and find me a bed to lie on. Are they going to leave me out here in the street on this pile of straw?"

"De Lawd he knows," hopelessly responded Big Abel. "Dey's a-fixin' places, dey sez, dat's why all dese folks is a-runnin' dis away en dat away like chickens wid dere haids chopped off. 'Fo' you hed yo' sense back dey wanted ter stick you over yonder in dat ole blue shanty wid all de skin peelin'

off hit, but I des put my foot right down en 'lowed dey 'ouldn't. W'at you wan' ketch mo'n you got fur?"

"But I can't stay here," weakly remonstrated Dan, "and I must have something to eat--I tell you I could eat nails. Bring me anything on G.o.d's earth except green corn."

The street was filled with women, and one of them, pa.s.sing with a bowl of gruel in her hand, came back and held it to his lips.

"You poor fellow!" she said impulsively, in a voice that was rich with sympathy. "Why, I don't believe you've had a bite for a month."

Dan smiled at her from his heap of straw--an unkempt haggard figure.

"Not from so sweet a hand," he responded, his old spirit rising strong above misfortune.

His voice held her, and she regarded him with a pensive face. She had known men in her day, which had declined long since toward its evening, and with the unerring instinct of her race she knew that the one before her was well worth the saving. Gallantry that could afford to jest in rags upon a pile of straw appealed to her Southern blood as little short of the heroic. She saw the pinch of hunger about the mouth, and she saw, too, the singular beauty which lay, obscured to less keen eyes, beneath the fever and the dirt.

"The march must have been fearful--I couldn't have stood it," she said, half to test the man.

Rising to the challenge, he laughed outright. "Well, since you mention it, it wasn't just the thing for a lady," he answered, true to his salt.

For a moment she looked at him in silence, then turned regretfully to Big Abel.

"The houses have filled up already, I believe," she said, "but there is a nice dry stable up the street which has just been cleaned out for a hospital. Carry your master up the next square and then into the alley a few steps where you will find a physician. I am going now for food and bandages."

She hurried on, and Big Abel, seizing Dan beneath the arms, dragged him breathlessly along the street.

"A stable! Huh! Hit's a wunner dey ain' ax us ter step right inter a nice clean pig pen," he muttered as he walked on rapidly.

"Oh, I don't mind the stable, but this pace will kill me," groaned Dan.

"Not so fast, Big Abel, not so fast."

"Dis yer ain' no time to poke," replied Big Abel, sternly, and lifting the young man in his arms, he carried him bodily into the stable and laid him on a clean-smelling bed of straw. The place was large and well lighted, and Dan, as he turned over, heaved a grateful sigh.

"Let me sleep--only let me sleep," he implored weakly.

And for two days he slept, despite the noise about him. Dressed in clean clothes, brought by the lady of the morning, and shaved by the skilful hand of Big Abel, he buried himself in the fresh straw and dreamed of Cheric.o.ke and Betty. The coil of battle swept far from him; he heard none of the fret and rumour that filled the little street; even the moans of the men beneath the surgeons' knives did not penetrate to where he lay sunk in the stupor of perfect contentment. It was not until the morning of the third day, when the winds that blew over the Potomac brought the sounds of battle, that he was shocked back into a troubled consciousness of his absence from the army. Then he heard the voices of the guns calling to him from across the river, and once or twice he struggled up to answer.

"I must go, Big Abel--they are in need of me," he said. "Listen! don't you hear them calling?"

"Go way f'om yer, Ma.r.s.e Dan, dey's des a-firin' at one anurr," returned Big Abel, but Dan still tossed impatiently, his strained eyes searching through the door into the cloudy light of the alley. It was a sombre day, and the oppressive atmosphere seemed heavy with the smoke of battle.

"If I only knew how it was going," he murmured, in the anguish of uncertainty. "Hush! isn't that a cheer, Big Abel?"

"I don' heah nuttin' but de crowin' er a rooster on de fence."

"There it is again!" cried Dan, starting up. "I can swear it is our side.

Listen--go to the door--by G.o.d, man, that's our yell! Ah, there comes the rattle of the muskets--don't you hear it?"

"Lawd, Ma.r.s.e Dan, I'se done hyern dat soun' twel I'm plum sick er it,"

responded Big Abel, carefully measuring out a dose of a.r.s.enic, which had taken the place of quinine in a country where medicine was becoming as scarce as food. "You des swallow dis yer stuff right down en tu'n over en go fas' asleep agin."

Taking the gla.s.s with trembling hands, Dan drained it eagerly.

"It's the artillery now," he said, quivering with excitement. "The explosions come so fast I can hardly separate them. I never knew how long sh.e.l.ls could screech before--do you mean to say they are really across the river? Go into the alley, Big Abel, and tell me if you see the smoke."

Big Abel went out and returned, after a few moments, with the news that the smoke could be plainly seen, he was told, from the upper stories. There was such a crowd in the street, he added, that he could barely get along--n.o.body knew anything, but the wounded, who were arriving in great numbers, reported that General Lee could hold his ground "against Lucifer and all his angels."

"Hold his ground," groaned Dan, with feverish enthusiasm, "why, he could hold a hencoop, for the matter of that, against the whole of North America!

Oh, but this is worse than fighting. I must get up!"

"You don' wanter git out dar in dat mess er skeered rabbits," returned Big Abel. "You cyarn see yo' han' befo' you fur de way dey's w'igglin' roun' de street, en w'at's mo' you cyarn heah yo' own w'uds fur de racket dey's a-kickin' up. Des lis'en ter 'em now, des lis'en!"

"Oh, I wish I could tell our guns," murmured Dan at each quick explosion.

"Hush! there comes the cheer, now--somebody's charging! It may be our brigade, Big Abel, and I not in it."

He closed his eyes and fell back from sheer exhaustion, still following, as he lay there, the battalion that had sprung forward with that charging yell. Gray, obscured in smoke, curved in the centre, uneven as the Confederate line of battle always was--he saw it sweep onward over the September field. At the moment to have had his place in that charge beyond the river, he would have cheerfully met his death when the day was over.

Through the night he slept fitfully, awaking from time to time to ask eagerly if it were not almost daybreak; then with the dawn the silence that had fallen over the Potomac seemed to leave a greater blank to be filled with the noises along the Virginia sh.o.r.e. The hurrying footsteps in the street outside kept up ceaselessly until the dark again; mingled with the cries of the wounded and the prayers of the frightened he heard always that eager, tireless pa.s.sing of many feet. So familiar it became, so constant an accompaniment to his restless thoughts, that when at last the day wore out and the streets grew empty, he found himself listening for the steps of a pa.s.ser-by as intently as he had listened in the morning for the renewed clamour of the battle on the Maryland fields.

The stir of the retreat did not reach the stable where he lay; all night the army was recrossing the Potomac, but to Dan, tossing on his bed of straw, it lighted the victor's watch-fires on the disputed ground. He had not seen the shattered line of battle as it faced disease, exhaustion, and an army stronger by double numbers, nor had he seen the gray soldiers lying row on row where they had kept the "sunken road." Thick as the trampled corn beneath them, with the dust covering them like powder, and the scattered fence rails lying across their faces, the dead men of his own brigade were stretched upon the hillside, but through the long night he lay wakeful in the stable, watching with fevered eyes the tallow dips that burned dimly on the wall.

In the morning a nurse, coming with a bowl of soup, brought the news that Lee's army was again on Virginia soil.

"McClellan has opened a battery," she explained, "that's the meaning of this fearful noise--did you ever hear such sounds in your life? Yes, the sh.e.l.ls are flying over the town, but they've done no harm as yet."

She hastened off, and a little later a dishevelled straggler, with a cloth about his forehead, burst in at the open door.

"They're sh.e.l.ling the town," he cried, waving a dirty hand, "an' you'll be prisoners in an hour if you don't git up and move. The Yankees are comin', I seed 'em cross the river. Lee's cut up, I tell you, he's left half his army dead in Maryland. Thar! they're sh.e.l.lin' the town, sho' 'nough!"

With a last wave he disappeared into the alley, and Dan struggled from his bed and to the door. "Give me your arm, Big Abel," he said, speaking in a loud voice that he might be heard above the clamour. "I can't stay here. It isn't being killed I mind, but, by G.o.d, they'll never take me prisoner so long as I'm alive. Come here and give me your arm. You aren't afraid to go out, are you?"