The Long Roll
covered with long strides the frozen road. It led him over a lofty hill
whose summit commanded a wide prospect. Allan, reaching this height,
hesitated a moment, then crossed to a grey zigzag of rail fence, and,
leaning his arms upon it, looked forth over hill and vale, forest and
stream. The afterglow was upon the land. He looked at the mountains, the
great mountains, long and clean of line as the marching rollers of a
giant sea, not split or jagged, but even, unbroken, and old, old, the
oldest almost in the world. Now the ancient forest clothed them, while
they were given, by some constant trick of the light, the distant,
dreamy blue from which they took their name. The Blue Ridge--the Blue
Ridge--and then the hills and the valleys, and all the rushing creeks,
and the grandeur of the trees, and to the east, steel clear between the
sycamores and the willows, the river--the upper reaches of the river
James.
The glow deepened. From a farmhouse in the valley came the sound of a
bell. Allan straightened himself, lifting his arms from the grey old
rails. He spoke aloud.
Breathes there the man with soul so dead,--
The bell rang again, the rose suffused the sky to the zenith. The young
man drew a long breath, and, turning, began to descend the hill.
Before him, at a turn of the road and overhanging a precipitous hollow,
in the spring carpeted with bloodroot, but now thick with dead leaves,
lay a giant oak, long ago struck down by lightning. The branches had
been cut away, but the blackened trunk remained, and from it as vantage
point one received another great view of the rolling mountains and the
valleys between. Allan Gold, coming down the hill, became aware, first
of a horse fastened to a wayside sapling, then of a man seated upon the
fallen oak, his back to the road, his face to the darkening prospect.
Below him the winter wind made a rustling in the dead leaves. Evidently
another had paused to admire the view, or to collect and mould between
the hands of the soul the crowding impressions of a decisive day. It
was, apparently, the latter purpose; for as Allan approached the ravine
there came to him out of the dusk, in a controlled but vibrant voice,
the following statement, repeated three times: "We are going to have
war.--We are going to have war.--We are going to have war."
Allan sent his own voice before him. "I trust in God that's not
true!--It's Richard Cleave, there, isn't it?"
The figure on the oak, swinging itself around, sat outlined against the
violet sky. "Yes, Richard Cleave. It's a night to make one think,
Allan--to make one think--to make one think!" Laying his hand on the
trunk beside him, he sprang lightly down to the roadside, where he
proceeded to brush dead leaf and bark from his clothing with an old
gauntlet. When he spoke it was still in the same moved, vibrating voice.
"War's my _metier_. That's a curious thing to be said by a country
lawyer in peaceful old Virginia in this year of grace! But like many
another curious thing, it's true! I was never on a field of battle, but
I know all about a field of battle."
He shook his head, lifted his hand, and flung it out toward the
mountains. "I don't want war, mind you, Allan! That is, the great stream
at the bottom doesn't want it. War is a word that means agony to many
and a set-back to all. Reason tells me that, and my heart wishes the
world neither agony nor set-back, and I give my word for peace.
Only--only--before this life I must have fought all along the line!"
His eyes lightened. Against the paling sky, in the wintry air, his
powerful frame, not tall, but deep-chested, broad-shouldered, looked
larger than life. "I don't talk this way often--as you'll grant!" he
said, and laughed. "But I suppose to-day loosed all our tongues, lifted
every man out of himself!"
"If war came," said Allan, "it couldn't be a long war, could it? After
the first battle we'd come to an understanding."
"Would we?" answered the other. "Would we?--God knows! In the past it
has been that the more equal the tinge of blood, the fiercer was the
war."
As he spoke he moved across to the sapling where was fastened his horse,
loosed him, and sprang into the saddle. The horse, a magnificent bay,
took the road, and the three began the long descent. It was very cold
and still, a crescent moon in the sky, and lights beginning to shine
from the farmhouses in the valley.
"Though I teach school," said Allan, "I like the open. I like to do
things with my hands, and I like to go in and out of the woods. Perhaps,
all the way behind us, I was a hunter, with a taste for books! My
grandfather was a scout in the Revolution, and his father was a
ranger.... God knows, _I_ don't want war! But if it comes I'll go. We'll
all go, I reckon."
"Yes, we'll all go," said Cleave. "We'll need to go."
The one rode, the other walked in silence for a time; then said the
first, "I shall ride to Lauderdale after supper and talk to Fauquier
Cary."
"You and he are cousins, aren't you?"
"Third cousins. His mother was a Dandridge--Unity Dandridge."
"I like him. It's like old wine and blue steel and a cavalier poet--that
type."
"Yes, it is old and fine, in men and in women."
"He does not want war."
"No."
"Hairston Breckinridge says that he won't discuss the possibility at
all--he'll only say what he said to-day, that every one should work for
peace, and that war between brothers is horrible."
"It is. No. He wears a uniform. He cannot talk."
They went on in silence for a time, over the winter road, through the
crystal air. Between the branches of the trees the sky showed intense
and cold, the crescent moon, above a black mass of mountains, golden and
sharp, the lights in the valley near enough to be gathered.
"If there should be war," asked Allan, "what will they do, all the
Virginians in the army--Lee and Johnston and Stuart, Maury and Thomas
and the rest?"
"They'll come home."
"Resigning their commissions?"
"Resigning their commissions."
Allan sighed. "That would be a hard thing to have to do."
"They'll do it. Wouldn't you?"
The teacher from Thunder Run looked from the dim valley and the
household lamps up to the marching stars. "Yes. If my State called, I
would do it."
"This is what will happen," said Cleave. "There are times when a man
sees clearly, and I see clearly to-day. The North does not intend to
evacuate Fort Sumter. Instead, sooner or later, she'll try to reinforce
it. That will be the beginning of the end. South Carolina will reduce
the fort. The North will preach a holy war. War there will be--whether
holy or not remains to be seen. Virginia will be called upon to furnish
her quota of troops with which to coerce South Carolina and the Gulf
States back into the Union. Well--do you think she will give them?"
Allan gave a short laugh. "No!"
"That is what will happen. And then--and then a greater State than any
will be forced into secession! And then the Virginians in the army will
come home."
The wood gave way to open country, softly swelling fields, willow
copses, and clear running streams. In the crystal air the mountain walls
seemed near at hand, above shone Orion, icily brilliant. The lawyer from
a dim old house in a grove of oaks and the school-teacher from Thunder
Run went on in silence for a time; then the latter spoke.
"Hairston Breckinridge says that Major Cary's niece is with him at
Lauderdale."
"Yes. Judith Cary."
"That's the beautiful one, isn't it?"
"They are all said to be beautiful--the three Greenwood Carys. But--Yes,
that is the beautiful one."
He began to hum a song, and as he did so he lifted his wide soft hat and
rode bareheaded.
"It's strange to me," said Allan presently, "that any one should be gay
to-day."
As he spoke he glanced up at the face of the man riding beside him on
the great bay. There was yet upon the road a faint after-light--enough
light to reveal that there were tears on Cleave's cheek. Involuntarily
Allan uttered an exclamation.
The other, breaking off his chant, quite simply put up a gauntleted hand
and wiped the moisture away. "Gay!" he repeated. "I'm not gay. What gave
you such an idea? I tell you that though I've never been in a war, I
know all about war!"
CHAPTER III
THREE OAKS
Having left behind him Allan Gold and the road to Thunder Run, Richard
Cleave came, a little later, to his own house, old and not large,
crowning a grassy slope above a running stream. He left the highway,
opened a five-barred gate, and passed between fallow fields to a second
gate, opened this and, skirting a knoll upon which were set three
gigantic oaks, rode up a short and grass-grown drive. It led him to the
back of the house, and afar off his dogs began to give him welcome. When
he had dismounted before the porch, a negro boy with a lantern took his
horse. "Hit's tuhnin' powerful cold, Marse Dick!"
"It is that, Jim. Give Dundee his supper at once and bring him around
again. Down, Bugle! Down, Moira! Down, Baron!"
The hall was cold and in semi-darkness, but through the half-opened door
of his mother's chamber came a gush of firelight warm and bright. Her
voice reached him--"Richard!" He entered. She was sitting in a great old
chair by the fire, idle for a wonder, her hands, fine and slender,
clasped over her knees. The light struck up against her fair, brooding
face. "It is late!" she said. "Late and cold! Come to the fire. Ailsy
will have supper ready in a minute."
He came and knelt beside her on the braided rug. "It is always warm in
here. Where are the children?"
"Down at Tullius's cabin.--Tell me all about it. Who spoke?"
Cleave drew before the fire the chair that had been his father's, sank
into it, and taking the ash stick from the corner, stirred the glowing
logs. "Judge Allen's Resolutions were read and carried. Fauquier Cary
spoke--many others."
"Did not you?"
"No. They asked me to, but with so many there was no need. People were
much moved--"
He broke off, sitting stirring the fire. His mother watched the deep
hollows with him. Closely resembling as he did his long dead father, the
inner tie, strong and fine, was rather between him and the woman who had
given him birth. Wedded ere she was seventeen, a mother at eighteen, she
sat now beside her first-born, still beautiful, and crowned by a lovely
life. She had kept her youth, and he had come early to a man's
responsibilities. For years now they had walked together, caring for the
farm, which was not large, for the handful of servants, for the two
younger children, Will and Miriam. The eighteen years between them was
cancelled by their common interests, his maturity of thought, her
quality of the summer time. She broke the silence. "What did Fauquier
Cary say?"
"He spoke strongly for patience, moderation, peace--I am going to
Lauderdale after supper."
"To see Judith?"
"No. To talk to Fauquier.... Maury Stafford is at Silver Hill." He
straightened himself, put down the ash stick, and rose to his feet. "The
bell will ring directly. I'll go upstairs for a moment."
Margaret Cleave put out a detaining hand. "One moment--Richard, are you
quite, quite sure that she likes Maury Stafford so well?"
"Why should she not like him? He's a likable fellow."
"So are many people. So are you."
Cleave gave a short and wintry laugh. "I? I am only her cousin--rather a
dull cousin, too, who does nothing much in the law, and is not even a
very good farmer! Am I sure? Yes, I am sure enough!" His hand closed on
the back of her chair; the wood shook under the sombre energy of his
grasp. "Did I not see how it was last summer that week I spent at
Greenwood? Was he not always with her?--supple and keen, easy and
strong, with his face like a picture, with all the advantages I did not