Mohun; Or, the Last Days of Lee and His Paladins Part 78

"That you will never surrender, but be taken in arms!"

With which mild and inoffensive joke I shook hands with Tom, informing him where to find me; made Miss Katy a bow, which she returned with a charming smile and a little inclination which shook together her ringlets; and then leaving the young people to themselves, I mounted my horse, and returned to the Cedars.

All the way I was smiling. A charming influence had descended upon me.

The day was brighter, the suns.h.i.+ne gayer, for the sight of the young fellow, and the pretty little maiden, with her blue eyes, like the skies, and her ringlets of silken gold!

VI.

ON THE BANKS OF THE ROWANTY.

When I again set out for the cavalry, a few days after the scene at Blandford church, the youth and suns.h.i.+ne of those two faces still dwelt in my memory, and I went along smiling and happy.

Not even the scenes on the late battle-field beyond the Rowanty, made my mood gloomy; and yet these were not gay. Graves were seen everywhere; the fences were broken down; the houses riddled by b.a.l.l.s; and in the trampled roads and fields negroes were skinning the dead horses, to make shoes of their hides. On the animals already stripped sat huge turkey-buzzards feeding. My horse s.h.i.+ed as the black vultures rose suddenly on flapping wings. They only circled around, however, sailing back as I disappeared.

Such is war, reader,--a charming panorama of dead bodies and vultures!

Turning into the Quaker road, I went on until I reached the head-quarters of General William H.F. Lee, opposite Monk's Neck. Here, under the crest of a protecting hill, where the pine thickets afforded him shelter from the wind, that gallant soldier had "set up his rest"--that is to say a canva.s.s fly, one end of which was closed with a thick-woven screen of evergreens. My visit was delightful, and I shall always remember it with pleasure. Where are you to-day, general, and good comrades of the old staff? You used to laugh as hard as you fought--so your merriment was immense! Heaven grant that to-day, when the bugles are silent, the sabres rusting, you are laughing as in the days I remember!

Declining the friendly invitation to spend the night, I went on in the afternoon; and on my way was further enlivened by a gay scene which makes me smile even to-day. It was in pa.s.sing General Butler's headquarters near the Rowanty. In the woods gleamed his white tents; before them stretched the level sandy road; a crowd of staff officers and others, with the general in their midst, were admiring two glossy ponies, led up by two small urchins, evidently about to run a race on them.

Butler--that brave soldier, whom all admired as much as I did--was limping about, in consequence of a wound received at Fleetwood. In the excitement of the approaching race he had forgotten his hurt. And soon the urchins were tossed up on the backs of their little glossy steeds--minus all but bridle. Then they took their positions about three hundred yards off; remained an instant abreast and motionless; then a clapping of hands was heard--it was the signal to start--and the ponies came on like lightning.

The sight was comic beyond expression. The boys clung with their knees, bending over the floating manes; the little animals darted by; they disappeared in the woods "amid thunders of applause;" and it was announced that the roan pony had won.

"Trifles," you say, perhaps, reader; "why don't our friend, the colonel, go on with his narrative?"

True,--the reproach is just. But these trifles cling so to the memory!

I like to recall them--to review the old scenes--to paint the "trifles"

even, which caught my attention during the great civil war. This is not a history, friend--only a poor little memoir. I show you our daily lives, more than the "great events" of history. That is the way the brave Butler and his South Carolinians amused themselves--and the figure of this soldier is worth placing amid my group of "paladins." He was brave--none was braver; thoroughbred--I never saw a man more so.

His sword had flashed at Fleetwood, and in a hundred other fights; and it was going to flash to the end.

I pushed on after the pony race, and very soon had penetrated the belt of shadowy pines which clothe the banks of the Rowanty, making of this country a wilderness as singular almost as that of Spottsylvania. Only here and there appeared a small house, similar to that of Mr.

Alibi's--all else was woods, woods, woods! Through the thicket wound the "military road" of General Hampton; and I soon found that his head-quarters were at a spot which I had promised myself to visit--"Disaway's."

Two hours' ride brought me to the place. Disaway's was an old mansion, standing on a hill above the Rowanty, near the "Halifax bridge," by which the great road from Petersburg to North Carolina crosses the stream. It was a building of considerable size, with wings, numerous gables, and a portico; and was overshadowed by great oaks, beneath which gleamed the tents of Hampton and his staff.

As I rode up the hill, the staff came out to welcome me. I had known these brave gentlemen well, when with Stuart, and they were good enough, now, to give me the right hand of fellows.h.i.+p,--to receive me for old times' sake, with "distinguished consideration." The general was as cordial as his military family--and in ten minutes I was seated and conversing with him, beneath the great oak.

A charming cordiality inspired the words and countenance of the great soldier. Nearly four years have pa.s.sed, but I remember still his courteous smile and friendly accents.

All at once, the figure of a young woman appeared in the doorway. At a glance I recognized the golden ringlets of Katy Dare. She beckoned to me, smiling; I rose and hastened to greet her; in a moment we were seated upon the portico, conversing like old friends.

There was something fascinating in this child. The little maiden of eighteen resembled a blossom of the spring. Were I a poet, I should declare that her azure eyes shone out from her auburn hair like glimpses of blue sky behind sun-tinted clouds!

I do not know how it came about, or how I found myself there, but in a few moments I was walking with her in the autumn woods, and smiling as I gazed into the deep blue of her eyes. The pines were sighing above us; beneath our feet a thick carpet of brown ta.s.sels lay; and on the summit of the evergreens the golden crown of sunset slowly rose, as though the fingers of some unseen spirit were bearing it away into the night.

Katy tripped on, rather than walked--laughing and singing gayly. The mild air just lifted the golden ringlets of her hair, as she threw back her beautiful face; her cheeks were rosy with the joy of youth; and from her smiling lips, as fresh and red as carnations, escaped in sweet and tender notes, like the carol of an oriole, that gay and warbling song, the "Bird of "Beauty."

Do you remember it, my dear reader? It is old--but so many good things are old!

"Bird of beauty, whose bright plumage Sparkles with a thousand dyes: Bright thine eyes, and gay thy carol, Though stern winter rules the skies!"

Do you say that is not very grand poetry? I protest! friend, I think it superior to the _chef d'oeuvres_ of the masters? You do not think so?

Ah! that is because you did not hear it sung in the autumn forest that evening--see the ringlets of Katy Dare floating back from the rosy cheeks, as the notes escaped from her smiling lips, and rang clearly in the golden sunset. Do you laugh at my enthusiasm? Well, I am going to increase your mirth. To the "Bird of Beauty" succeeded a song which I never heard before, and have never heard since. Thus it is a lost pearl I rescue, in repeating some lines. What Katy sang was this:--

"Come under, some one, and give her a kiss!

My honey, my love, my handsome dove!

My heart's been a-weeping, This long time for you!

"I'll hang you, I'll drown you, My honey, my love, my handsome dove!

My heart's been a-weeping, This long time for you!"

That was the odd, original, mysterious, incomprehensible poem, which Katy Dare carolled in the sunset that evening. It may seem stupid to some--to me the words and the air are charming, for I heard them from the sweetest lips in the world. Indeed there was something so pure and childlike about the young girl, that I bowed before her. Her presence made me better--banished all discordant emotions. All about her was delicate and tender, and pure. Like her "bird of bright plumage" she seemed to have flitted here to utter her carol, after which she would open her wings and disappear!

Katy ran on, in the pauses of her singing, with a hundred little jests, interspersed with her sweet childlike laughter, and I was more and more enchanted--when all at once I saw her turn her head over her shoulder.

A bright flush came to her cheeks as she did so; her songs and laughter ceased; then--a step behind us!

I looked back, and found the cause of her sudden "dignity," her demure silence. The unfortunate Colonel Surry had quite disappeared from the maiden's mind.

Coming on rapidly, with springy tread, I saw--Tom Herbert! Tom Herbert, radiant; Tom Herbert, the picture of happiness; Tom Herbert, singing in his gay and ringing voice:--

"Katy! Katy!

Don't marry any other!

You'll break my heart and kill me dead, And you'll be hung for murder!"

Wretch!--I could cheerfully have strangled him!

VII.

THE STUART HORSE ARTILLERY.

An hour afterward I was at the camp of the Stuart horse artillery.

Five minutes after greeting Tom, who had sought Katy, at "Disaway's"--been directed to the woods--and there speedily joined us--I left the young ones together, and made my way back to the mansion. There are few things, my dear reader, more disagreeable than--just when you are growing poetical--when blue eyes have excited your romantic feelings--when your heart has begun to glow--when you think "I am the cause of all this happiness, and gayety!"--there are few things I say--but why say it? In thirty seconds the rosy-faced youngster Tom, had driven the antique and battered Surry quite from the mind of the Bird of Beauty. That discomfited individual, therefore, took his way back sadly to Disaway's, leaving the children his blessing; declined the cordial invitations to spend the night, mounted his horse, and rode to find Will Davenant, at the horse artillery.

Their camp was in the edge of a wood, near the banks of the Rowanty; and having exchanged greetings with my old comrades of the various batteries, and the gallant Colonel Chew, their chieftain, I repaired to Will Davenant's head-quarters.

These consisted of a breadth of canva.s.s, stretched beneath a tree in the field--in front of which burned a fire.