The Long Roll
"A native of the South Branch valley," he said crisply. "That's a
disaffected region."
"Yes, sir. It is. But there are one or two loyal families."
"You wish to go on to Frederick this afternoon?"
"Yes, sir. As soon as my horse is a little rested. My orders are to use
all dispatch back to Romney with General Banks's answer."
The colonel, seated at a table, weighed General Kelly's letter in his
hand, looked at the superscription, turned it over, and studied the
seal. "Do the rebels on the other side show any signs of coming
activity? Our secret service men have not been very successful--they
make statements that it is hard to credit. I should be glad of any
reliable information. What did you see or hear coming through?"
The lieutenant studied the floor a moment, shrugged, and spoke out.
"Ashby's active enough, sir. Since yesterday I have just grazed three
picket posts. He has vedettes everywhere. The report is that he has
fifteen hundred troopers--nearly all valley men, born to the saddle and
knowing every crook and cranny of the land. They move like a whirlwind
and deal in surprises--
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold--
Only these cohorts are grey, not purple and gold. That's Ashby. On the
other hand, Jackson at Winchester need not, perhaps, be taken into
account. The general impression is that he'll stay where he is until
spring. I managed to extract some information from a mountain man above
Sleepy Creek. Jackson is drilling his men from daylight until dark. It
is said that he is crazy on the subject--on most subjects, in fact; that
he thinks himself a Cromwell, and is bent upon turning his troops into
Ironsides. Of course, should General Banks make any movement to
cross--preparatory, say, to joining with General Kelly--Jackson might
swing out of Winchester and give him check. Otherwise, he'll probably
keep on drilling--"
"The winter's too far advanced," said the colonel, "for any such
movement upon our part. As soon as it is spring we'll go over there and
trample out this rebellion." He weighed Kelly's letter once more in his
hand, then restored it to the bearer. "It's all right, Lieutenant
McNeill. I'll pass you through.--You read Byron?"
"Yes," said Lieutenant McNeill briefly. "He's a great poet. 'Don Juan,'
now, and Suvaroff at Ismail--
He made no answer, but he took the city.
The bivouac, too, in Mazeppa." He restored General Kelly's letter and
the accompanying slip to his wallet. "Thank you, sir. If I am to make
Frederick before bedtime I had better be going--"
"An aide of General Banks," remarked the colonel, "is here, and is
returning to Frederick this afternoon. He is an Englishman, I believe,
of birth. You might ride together--Very opportunely; here he is!"
A tall, blond being, cap-a-pie for the road, had loomed in dark blue
before the tent door. "Captain Marchmont," said the colonel, "let me
make you acquainted with Lieutenant McNeill, a _loyal_ Virginian bearing
a letter from General Kelly to General Banks--a gentleman with a taste,
too, for your great poet Byron. As you are both riding to Frederick, you
may find it pleasant to ride in company."
"I must ride rapidly," said McNeill, "but if Captain Marchmont--"
"I always ride rapidly," answered the captain. "Learned it in Texas in
1843. At your service, lieutenant, whenever you're ready."
The road to Frederick lay clear over hill and dale, past forest and
stream, through a gap in the mountain, by mill and barn and farmhouse,
straight through a number of miles of crystal afternoon. Out of
Williamsport conversation began. "When you want a purchaser for that
horse, I'm your man," said the aide. "By any chance, _do_ you want to
sell?"
McNeill laughed. "Not to-day, captain!" He stroked the brown shoulder.
"Not to-day, Dun--Dandy!"
"What's his name? Dundandy?"
"No," replied the lieutenant. "Just Dandy. I'm rather fond of him. I
think we'll see it out together."
"Yes, they aren't bad comrades," said the other amicably. "In '53, when
I was with Lopez in Cuba, I had a little black mare that was just as
well worth dying for as a woman or a man or most causes, but, damn me!
she died for me--carried me past a murderous ambuscade, got a bullet for
her pains, and never dropped until she reached our camp!" He coughed.
"What pleasant weather! Was it difficult getting through Jackson's
lines?"
"Yes, rather."
They rode for a time in silence between fields of dead aster and
goldenrod. "When I was in Italy with Garibaldi," said Captain Marchmont
thoughtfully, "I saw something of kinsmen divided in war. It looked a
very unnatural thing. You're a Virginian, now?"
"Yes, I am a Virginian."
"And you are fighting against Virginia. Curious!"
The other smiled. "To be where you are you must believe in the
inviolability of the Union."
"Oh, I?" answered Marchmont coolly. "I believe in it, of course. I am
fighting for it. It chanced, you see, that I was in France--and out of
service and damnably out at elbows, too!--when Europe heard of Bull Run.
I took passage at once in a merchant ship from Havre. It was my
understanding that she was bound for New Orleans, but instead she put
into Boston Harbour. I had no marked preference, fighting being fighting
under whatever banner it occurs, so the next day I offered my sword to
the Governor of Massachusetts. North and South, they're none of mine.
But were I in England--where I haven't been of late years--and a row
turned up, I should fight with England."
"No doubt," answered the other. "Your mind travels along the broad and
simple lines of the matter. But with us there are many subtle and
intricate considerations."
Passing now through woods they started a covey of partridges. The small
brown and white shapes vanished in a skurry of dead leaves. "No doubt,
no doubt!" said the soldier of fortune. "At any rate, I have rubbed off
particularity in such matters. Live and let live--and each man to run
the great race according to his inner vision! If he really conflicts
with me, I'll let him know it."
They rode on, now talking, now silent. To either side, beyond stone
walls, the fields ran bare and brown to distant woods. The shadow of the
wayside trees grew longer and the air more deep and cold. They passed a
string of white-covered wagons bearing forage for the army. The sun
touched the western hills, rimming them as with a forest fire. The
horsemen entered a defile between the hills, travelled through twilight
for a while, then emerged upon a world still softly lighted. "In the
country at home," said the Englishman, "the waits are practicing
Christmas carols."
"I wish," answered the Virginian, "that we had kept that old custom. I
should like once to hear English carols sung beneath the windows on a
snowy night." As he rode he began to sing aloud, in a voice not
remarkable, but good enough to give pleasure--
"As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing,
'This night shall be born
Our Heavenly King--'"
"Yes, I remember that one quite well," said Captain Marchmont, and
proceeded to sing in an excellent bass,--
"He neither shall be born
In housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise,
But in an ox's stall--
"Do you know the next verse?"
"Yes," said McNeill.
"He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen
As are babies all!"
"That's it," nodded the other. "And the next goes,--
"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 passed 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 pass from Williamsport?"
McNeill gave it to a blue soldier, who called a corporal, who read it by
a swinging lantern. "Very good. Pass, 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, clustering 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 passport 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