Part 14 (1/2)

He put the lemon down. ”Captain Cleave, I very particularly wish to know what are General Banks's instructions from Was.h.i.+ngton. Were Jarrow here he would find out for me, but I have sent Jarrow on other business. I want to know within four days.”

There was a moment's stillness in the room; then, ”Very well, sir,” said Cleave.

”I remember,” said Jackson, ”that you sent me the scout here. He does good service. He is at your disposal for the next few days.” Drawing ink and paper toward him, he wrote a few lines. ”Go to the adjutant for anything you may need. _Captain Cleave on Special Service._ Here, too, is the name and address of a Catholic priest in Frederick City. He may be depended upon for some readiness of mind, and for good-will. That is all, I think. Good-night, captain. In four days, if you please. You will find me somewhere between Martinsburg and the river.”

”You spoke, sir,” said Cleave, ”of a captured dispatch from General Kelly. May I see it?”

Jackson took it from a box upon the table. ”There it is.”

”Do you object, sir, to its reaching General Banks?”

The other retook the paper, glanced over it, and gave it back. ”No, not if it goes by a proper courier.”

”Has the former courier been sent to Richmond?”

”Not yet.” He wrote another line. ”This, if you wish to see the courier.”

”That is all, sir?”

”That is all, captain. Within four days, near Martinsburg. Good-night.”

The two soldiers saluted and left the room, going softly through the hall, past the door where the aide was now studying the Capture of Andre and out into the moonlight. They walked down the long board path to the gate, unlatched this, and turned their faces toward the camp. For some distance they were as silent as the street before them; then, ”If ever you had taught school,” said Allan, ”you would know how headings out of reading books and sentences that you set for the children to copy have a way of starting up before you at every corner. _The Post of Honour is the Post of Danger._ I can see that in round hand. But what I can't see is how you are going to do it.”

”I want,” said the other, ”one half-hour quite to myself. Then I think I'll know. Here's the picket. The word's _Bethel_.”

The Stonewall Brigade was encamped in the fields just without the town.

It was early in the war and there were yet tents--long line of canvas ”A's” stretching in the moonlight far over the rolling ground. Where the tents failed there had been erected tiny cabins, very rude, with abundant ventilation and the strangest chimneys. A few field officers were quartered in the town and Jackson had with him there his permanent staff. But captains and lieutenants stayed with the men. The general of them all ruled with a rod of iron. For the most part it swayed lightly, with a certain moral effect only over the head of the rank and file, but it grew to a crus.h.i.+ng beam for the _officer_ who did not with alacrity habitually attend to his every duty, great or small. The do-nothing, the popinjay, the intractable, the self-important, the remonstrant, the _I thought, sir_--the _It is due to my dignity, sir_--none of these flourished in the Army of the Valley. The tendencies had been there, of course; they came up like the flowers of spring, but each poor bloom as it appeared met an icy blast. The root beneath learned to send up to the sky a st.u.r.dier growth.

Company A, 65th Virginia, numbered in its ranks men who knew all about log cabins. It was well lodged, and the captain's hut did it credit.

Richard Cleave and Allan, entering, found a fire, and Tullius nodding beside it. At their step he roused himself, rose, and put on another log. He was a negro of sixty years, tall and hale, a dignified master of foraging, a being simple and taciturn and strong, with a love for every clod of earth at Three Oaks where he had been born.

Cleave spoke. ”Where is Lieutenant Breckinridge, Tullius?”

Tullius straightened himself. ”Lieutenant Breckinridge is at the colonel's, sah. An' Lieutenant Coffin, he's at the Debatin' Society in Company C.”

Cleave sat down before the pine table. ”Give Allan Gold something to eat, and don't either of you speak to me for twenty minutes.” He propped his head on his hands and stared at the boards. Allan seated himself on a box beside the fire. Tullius took from a flat, heated stone a battered tin coffee-pot, poured into an earthenware cup some smoking mixture, and brought it to the scout. ”Hit ain't moh'n half chicory, sah,” From an impromptu cupboard he brought a plate of small round cakes. ”Mis'

Miriam, she done mek 'em fer us.”

Cleave spoke from the table. His voice was dreamy, his eyes fixed upon the surface before him as though he were studying ocean depths.

”Tullius, give me a dozen coffee berries.”

”Er _cup_ of coffee, you mean, Ma.r.s.e d.i.c.k?”

”No, coffee berries. Haven't you any there?”

Tullius brought a small tin box, tilted it, and poured on the table something like the required number. ”Thar's all thar is.” He returned to his corner of the fire, and it purred and flamed upon the crazy hearth between him and the scout. The latter, his rifle across his knees, now watched the flames, now the man at the table. Cleave had strung the coffee berries along a crack between the boards. Now he advanced one small brown object, now retired another, now crossed them from one side to the other. Following these manoeuvres, he sat with his chin upon his hand for five minutes, then began to make a circle with the berries.

He worked slowly, dropping point after point in place. The two ends met.

He rose from the table. ”That's all right. I am going to brigade headquarters for a little, Allan. Suppose you come along. There are some things I want to know--those signals, for instance.” He took up his hat and sword. ”Tullius, you'll have Dundee saddled at four o'clock. I'll see Lieutenant Breckinridge and the colonel. I won't be back until after taps. Cover the fire, but wait up for me.”