III
The corporal looked after his captain with an expression of mingled
amazement, grief, and philosophy. He seemed to be saying to himself that
there unfortunately were times, after all, when one could not rely upon
the most reliable of men. When he returned to the group he found the
captain bending over the girl and saying: "Why is it that you don't want
us to search upstairs?"
The girl's head was buried in her crossed arms. Locks of her hair had
escaped from their fastenings, and these fell upon her shoulder.
"Won't you tell me?"
The corporal here winked again at the man next to him.
"Because," the girl moaned--"because--there isn't anybody up there."
The captain at last said timidly: "Well, I'm afraid--I'm afraid we'll
have to----"
The girl sprang to her feet again, and implored him with her hands. She
looked deep into his eyes with her glance, which was at this time like
that of the fawn when it says to the hunter, "Have mercy upon me!"
These two stood regarding each other. The captain's foot was on the
bottom step, but he seemed to be shrinking. He wore an air of being
deeply wretched and ashamed. There was a silence!
Suddenly the corporal said in a quick, low tone: "Look out, captain!"
All turned their eyes swiftly toward the head of the stairs. There had
appeared there a youth in a grey uniform. He stood looking coolly down
at them. No word was said by the troopers. The girl gave vent to a
little wail of desolation, "O Harry!"
He began slowly to descend the stairs. His right arm was in a white
sling, and there were some fresh blood-stains upon the cloth. His face
was rigid and deathly pale, but his eyes flashed like lights. The girl
was again moaning in an utterly dreary fashion, as the youth came slowly
down toward the silent men in blue.
Six steps from the bottom of the flight he halted and said: "I reckon
it's me you're looking for."
The troopers had crowded forward a trifle and, posed in lithe, nervous
attitudes, were watching him like cats. The captain remained unmoved. At
the youth's question he merely nodded his head and said, "Yes."
The young man in grey looked down at the girl, and then, in the same
even tone which now, however, seemed to vibrate with suppressed fury, he
said: "And is that any reason why you should insult my sister?"
At this sentence, the girl intervened, desperately, between the young
man in grey and the officer in blue. "Oh, don't, Harry, don't! He was
good to me! He was good to me, Harry--indeed he was!"
The youth came on in his quiet, erect fashion, until the girl could
have touched either of the men with her hand, for the captain still
remained with his foot upon the first step. She continually repeated:
"O Harry! O Harry!"
The youth in grey manoeuvred to glare into the captain's face, first
over one shoulder of the girl and then over the other. In a voice that
rang like metal, he said: "You are armed and unwounded, while I have no
weapons and am wounded; but--"
The captain had stepped back and sheathed his sabre. The eyes of these
two men were gleaming fire, but otherwise the captain's countenance was
imperturbable. He said: "You are mistaken. You have no reason to--"
"You lie!"
All save the captain and the youth in grey started in an electric
movement. These two words crackled in the air like shattered glass.
There was a breathless silence.
The captain cleared his throat. His look at the youth contained a
quality of singular and terrible ferocity, but he said in his stolid
tone: "I don't suppose you mean what you say now."
Upon his arm he had felt the pressure of some unconscious little
fingers. The girl was leaning against the wall as if she no longer knew
how to keep her balance, but those fingers--he held his arm very still.
She murmured: "O Harry, don't! He was good to me--indeed he was!"
The corporal had come forward until he in a measure confronted the
youth in grey, for he saw those fingers upon the captain's arm, and he
knew that sometimes very strong men were not able to move hand nor foot
under such conditions.
The youth had suddenly seemed to become weak. He breathed heavily and
clung to the rail. He was glaring at the captain, and apparently
summoning all his will power to combat his weakness. The corporal
addressed him with profound straightforwardness: "Don't you be a derned
fool!" The youth turned toward him so fiercely that the corporal threw
up a knee and an elbow like a boy who expects to be cuffed.
The girl pleaded with the captain. "You won't hurt him, will you? He
don't know what he's saying. He's wounded, you know. Please don't mind
him!"
"I won't touch him," said the captain, with rather extraordinary
earnestness; "don't you worry about him at all. I won't touch him!"
Then he looked at her, and the girl suddenly withdrew her fingers from
his arm.
The corporal contemplated the top of the stairs, and remarked without
surprise: "There's another of 'em coming!"
An old man was clambering down the stairs with much speed. He waved a
cane wildly. "Get out of my house, you thieves! Get out! I won't have
you cross my threshold! Get out!" He mumbled and wagged his head in an
old man's fury. It was plainly his intention to assault them.
And so it occurred that a young girl became engaged in protecting a
stalwart captain, fully armed, and with eight grim troopers at his back,
from the attack of an old man with a walking-stick!
A blush passed over the temples and brow of the captain, and he looked
particularly savage and weary. Despite the girl's efforts, he suddenly
faced the old man.
"Look here," he said distinctly, "we came in because we had been
fighting in the woods yonder, and we concluded that some of the enemy
were in this house, especially when we saw a grey sleeve at the window.
But this young man is wounded, and I have nothing to say to him. I will
even take it for granted that there are no others like him upstairs. We
will go away, leaving your d---d old house just as we found it! And we
are no more thieves and rascals than you are!"
The old man simply roared: "I haven't got a cow nor a pig nor a chicken
on the place! Your soldiers have stolen everything they could carry
away. They have torn down half my fences for firewood. This afternoon
some of your accursed bullets even broke my window panes!"
The girl had been faltering: "Grandpa! O grandpa!"
The captain looked at the girl. She returned his glance from the shadow
of the old man's shoulder. After studying her face a moment, he said:
"Well, we will go now." He strode toward the door, and his men clanked
docilely after him.
At this time there was the sound of harsh cries and rushing footsteps
from without. The door flew open, and a whirlwind composed of blue-
coated troopers came in with a swoop. It was headed by the lieutenant.
"Oh, here you are!" he cried, catching his breath. "We thought----Oh,
look at the girl!"
The captain said intensely: "Shut up, you fool!"
The men settled to a halt with a clash and a bang. There could be heard
the dulled sound of many hoofs outside of the house.
"Did you order up the horses?" inquired the captain.
"Yes. We thought----"
"Well, then, let's get out of here," interrupted the captain morosely.
The men began to filter out into the open air. The youth in grey had
been hanging dismally to the railing of the stairway. He now was
climbing slowly up to the second floor. The old man was addressing
himself directly to the serene corporal.
"Not a chicken on the place!" he cried.
"Well, I didn't take your chickens, did I?"
"No, maybe you didn't, but----"
The captain crossed the hall and stood before the girl in rather a
culprit's fashion. "You are not angry at me, are you?" he asked timidly.
"No," she said. She hesitated a moment, and then suddenly held out her
hand. "You were good to me--and I'm--much obliged."
The captain took her hand, and then he blushed, for he found himself
unable to formulate a sentence that applied in any way to the situation.
She did not seem to heed that hand for a time.
He loosened his grasp presently, for he was ashamed to hold it so long
without saying anything clever. At last, with an air of charging an
intrenched brigade, he contrived to say: "I would rather do anything
than frighten or trouble you."
His brow was warmly perspiring. He had a sense of being hideous in his
dusty uniform and with his grimy face.
She said, "Oh, I'm so glad it was you instead of somebody who might
have--might have hurt brother Harry and grandpa!"
He told her, "I wouldn't have hurt em for anything!"
There was a little silence.
"Well, good-bye!" he said at last.
"Good-bye!"
He walked toward the door past the old man, who was scolding at the
vanishing figure of the corporal. The captain looked back. She had
remained there watching him.
At the bugle's order, the troopers standing beside their horses swung
briskly into the saddle. The lieutenant said to the first sergeant:
"Williams, did they ever meet before?"
"Hanged if I know!"
"Well, say---"
The captain saw a curtain move at one of the windows. He cantered from
his position at the head of the column and steered his horse between two
flower-beds.
"Well, good-bye!"
The squadron trampled slowly past.
"Good-bye!"
They shook hands.
He evidently had something enormously important to say to her, but it
seems that he could not manage it. He struggled heroically. The bay
charger, with his great mystically solemn eyes, looked around the corner
of his shoulder at the girl.
The captain studied a pine tree. The girl inspected the grass beneath
the window. The captain said hoarsely: "I don't suppose--I don't suppose--
I'll ever see you again!"
She looked at him affrightedly and shrank back from the window. He
seemed to have woefully expected a reception of this kind for his
question. He gave her instantly a glance of appeal.
She said: "Why, no, I don't suppose you will."
"Never?"
"Why, no, 'tain't possible. You--you are a--Yankee!"
"Oh, I know it, but----" Eventually he continued: "Well, some day, you
know, when there's no more fighting, we might----" He observed that she
had again withdrawn suddenly into the shadow, so he said: "Well, good-
bye!"
When he held her fingers she bowed her head, and he saw a pink blush
steal over the curves of her cheek and neck.
"Am I never going to see you again?"
She made no reply.
"Never?" he repeated.
After a long time, he bent over to hear a faint reply: "Sometimes--when
there are no troops in the neighbourhood--grandpa don't mind if I--walk
over as far as that old oak tree yonder--in the afternoons."
It appeared that the captain's grip was very strong, for she uttered an
exclamation and looked at her fingers as if she expected to find them
mere fragments. He rode away.
The bay horse leaped a flower-bed. They were almost to the drive, when
the girl uttered a panic-stricken cry.
The captain wheeled his horse violently, and upon his return journey
went straight through a flower-bed.
The girl had clasped her hands. She beseeched him wildly with her eyes.
"Oh, please, don't believe it! I never walk to the old oak tree. Indeed
I don't! I never--never--never walk there."
The bridle drooped on the bay charger's neck. The captain's figure
seemed limp. With an expression of profound dejection and gloom he
stared off at where the leaden sky met the dark green line of the woods.
The long-impending rain began to fall with a mournful patter, drop and
drop. There was a silence.
At last a low voice said, "Well--I might--sometimes I might--perhaps--
but only once in a great while--I might walk to the old tree--in the
afternoons."
