Part 16 (1/2)

”He neither shall be rocked In silver nor in gold But in a wooden cradle That rocks on the mould--”

Alternately they sang the carol through. The sun went down, but the pink stayed in the sky and was mirrored in a tranquil stream which they crossed. It faded at last into the quiet dusk. A cricket chirped from a field of dried Michaelmas daisies. They overtook and pa.s.sed an infantry regiment, coming up, an officer told them, from Harper's Ferry. The night fell, cold and still, with many stars. ”We are not far from Frederick,” said Marchmont. ”You were never here before?”

”No.”

”I'll take you at once to General Banks. You go back to Kelly at Romney to-morrow.”

”Just as soon as General Banks shall have answered General Kelly's letter.”

”You have an occasional fight over there?”

”Yes, up and down the line. Ashby's command is rather active.”

”By George! I wish I were returning with you! When you've reported I'll look after you if you'll allow me. Pleasant enough mess.--Major Hertz, whom I knew in Prussia, Captain Wingate of your old army and one or two others.”

”I'm exceedingly obliged,” said McNeill, ”but I have ridden hard of late, and slept little, and I should prove dull company. Moreover there's a good priest in Frederick who is a friend of a friend of mine.

I have a message for him, and if General Banks permits, I shall sleep soundly and quietly at his house to-night.”

”Very good,” said Marchmont. ”You'll get a better night there, though I'm sorry not to have you with us.--There are the lights of Frederick, and here's the picket. You have your pa.s.s from Williamsport?”

McNeill gave it to a blue soldier, who called a corporal, who read it by a swinging lantern. ”Very good. Pa.s.s, Lieutenant McNeill.”

The two rode on. To left and right were lighted streets of tents, varied here and there by substantial cabins. Commissary quarters appeared, sutlers' shops, booths, places of entertainment, guardhouses, a chapel.

Soldiers were everywhere, dimly seen within the tents where the door flap was fastened back, plain to view about the camp-fires in open places, cl.u.s.tering like bees in the small squares from which ran the camp streets, thronging the trodden places before the sutlers, everywhere apparent in the foreground and divined in the distance. From somewhere came the strains of ”Yankee Doodle.” A gust of wind blew out the folds of the stars and stripes, fastened above some regimental headquarters. The city of tents and of frame structures hasty and crude, of fires in open places, of sutlers' shops and cantines, and booths of strolling players, of chapels and hospitals, of fluttering flags and wandering music, of restless blue soldiers, oscillating like motes in some searchlight of the giants, persisted for a long distance. At last it died away; there came a quiet field or two, then the old Maryland town of Frederick.

CHAPTER XI

”AS JOSEPH WAS A-WALKING”

At eleven that night by the Frederick clocks an orderly found an Englishman, a Prussian, a New Yorker, and a man from somewhere west of the Mississippi playing poker. ”General Banks would like to speak to Captain Marchmont for a moment, sir.”

The aide laid down his cards, and adjusted his plumage before a long mirror. ”Lieber Gott!” said Major Hertz, ”I wish our general would go sleep and leafe us play the game.”

Captain Marchmont, proceeding to a handsomely furnished apartment, knocked, entered, saluted, and was greeted by a general in a disturbed frame of mind. ”Look here, captain, you rode from Williamsport with that fellow of Kelly's. Did you notice anything out of the usual?”

The aide deliberated. ”He had a splendid horse, sir. And the man himself seemed rather a mettled personage. If that's out of the usual, I noticed that.”

”Oh, of course he's all right!” said the general. ”Kelly's letter is perfectly _bona fide_, and so I make no doubt are McNeill's pa.s.sport and paper of instructions. I gave the letter back or I'd show you the signatures. It's only that I got to thinking, awhile ago, after he'd gone.” He took a turn across the roses upon the carpet. ”A man that's been in politics knows there are so many dodges. Our spies say that General Jackson is very acute. I got to thinking--” He came back to the red-covered table. ”Did you talk of the military situation coming along?”

”Very little, sir.”

”He wasn't inquisitive? Didn't criticise, or draw you on to talk--didn't ask about my troops and my movements?”

”He did not, sir.”

The general sighed. ”It's all right, of course. You see, he seemed an intelligent man, and we got to talking. I wrote my answer to General Kelly. He has it now, is to start to Romney with it at dawn. Then I asked some questions, and we got to talking. It's all straight, of course, but on looking back I find that I said some things. He seemed an intelligent man, and in his general's confidence. Well, I dismissed him at last, and he saluted and went off to get some rest before starting.

And then, somehow, I got to thinking. I have never been South, and all these places are only names to me, but--” He unrolled upon the table a map of large dimensions. ”Look here a moment, captain! This is a map the department furnishes us. It's black, you see, for the utterly disloyal sections, shaded for the doubtful, and white where there are Unionists.

All Virginia's black except this northwest section, and that's largely shaded.”