But my unsoldierly motive for going to headquarters kept my misgivings alive. I was hungry for the gentilities of camp; to be where Shakespeare was part of the baggage, where Pope was quoted, where Coleridge and Byron and Poe were recited, Macaulay criticized, and "Les Misérables"--Madame Le Vert's Mobile translation--lent round; and where men, when they did steal, stole portable volumes, not currycombs. Ned Ferry had been Major Harper's clerk, but had managed in several instances to display such fitness to lead that General Austin had lately named him for promotion, and the quartermaster's clerk was now Lieutenant Ferry, raised from the ranks for gallantry, and followed ubiquitously by a chosen sixty or so drawn from the whole brigade. Could the like occur again? And could it occur to a chap who could not comprehend how it had ever occurred at all? We came as close to them as was wise, and had to walk our horses. I could discern Miss Rothvelt's features once more, and felt a truer deference than I had yet given her. Near the blacksmith's shop, in the dusk of some shade-trees, she once more touched my shoulder. I turned resentfully to bid her not do it, but her shadowy gaze stopped me. "Stop that noise! Gholson, hold the horses. Come. Lieutenant, come Smith, maybe he's killed himself, but it seems too good to be true. Here, girl, go cram what you can get into a pillow-case, and mount behind my saddle again; be quick, we're going to burn this hornet's nest too." Harry and I had already run to the old man's room, and, sure enough, there lay the aged assassin hideous in his fallen bulk, with his own bullet in his brain.
"Yes, captain." For the rest most houses in the market-place were on fire. Soldiers were billeted on one of the corner houses, and I was of course detained there, but released again, after having been requested to show up the francs-tireurs. I had to consider also where I might pass the night in this burning city? I asked an officer's consent to stay the night with the soldiers. He gave his permission if I could get the consent of the commanding officer, whom I might find at the station; he told me that he was sure to grant it. "What does that matter? What do I care for life? I come from Dinant; they have murdered my dear parents, burned our house. What good is it to me to be alive? I requested them to give me this dangerous outpost. When the Germans come, I'll shoot, and then my comrades at Lanaeken will be warned. Then I'll kill three or four of them, but after that I shall be ready to die myself." Relligionibus, atque minis obsistere vatum: I'd better see my bridges in flames behind me before I finished
"I think perhaps I'll go with you, if you'll wait over a day," Cairness told him. He had taken a distinct[Pg 38] fancy to the little botanist who wore his clerical garb while he rode a bronco and drove a pack-mule over the plains and mountains, and who had no fear of the Apache nor of the equally dangerous cow-boy. Cairness asked him further about the hat. "That chimney-pot of yours," he said, "don't you find it rather uncomfortable? It is hot, and it doesn't protect you. Why do you wear it?" She could not help looking at him now, and his eyes held hers through a silence that seemed to them so enduring, so unreasonable, that Landor must wonder at it. But he had seen men put at a disadvantage by her beauty before, and he had grown too used to her lack of conventionality to think much about it, one way or the other.
"There," he said, as he washed the clay from his hands, "I think them chickens are safe for to-night from the dogs, and probably from the men. Think of all that trouble for four footy chickens not worth more'n four bits in Injianny. They're as much bother as a drove o' steer'd be. I think I kin now lay down and take a wink o' sleep." He hurled a chunk of coal at the squad, which hastily followed Si to the other side of the track. Just then a shell screamed so close above Shorty that he involuntarily ducked his head. TO REST, refit after the sharp fighting and marching, and to wait for the slightly wounded and other convalescents to come up, the brigade went into camp on the banks of the Oostenaula River, near Calhoun, Ga., and about 20 miles south of Dalton, which had been the objective at the opening of the campaign.
For Cadnan had tried, earnestly, night after night, to convert Marvor to the new truths the elders had shown him. They were luminously obvious to Cadnan, and they set the world in beautiful order; but, somehow, he couldn't get through to Marvor at all, couldn't express the ideas he had well enough or convincingly enough to let Marvor see how beautiful and true all of them really were. For a time, in fact, he told himself with bitterness that Marvor's escape had really been all his own fault. If he'd only had more talks with Marvor, he thought cloudily, or if he'd only been able to speak more convincingly.... The waiting, though it seemed like positive days, didn't take long. The others in the room fell asleep, by habit, one by one, and soon Dara and Cadnan were the only ones left awake. Neither was tempted to sleep: their own terror and their decision kept them very effectively alert. Albert could not help a grudging admiration of his father. Reuben could be angry and fling threats, and yet keep at the same time a certain splendour, which no[Pg 139] violence or vulgarity could dim. The boy, in spite of his verses, which were execrable enough, had a poet's eye for the splendid, and he could not be blind to the qualities of his father's tyranny, even though that tyranny crushed him at times. Reuben was now forty-three; a trifle heavier in build, perhaps, but otherwise as fine and straight a man as he had been at twenty. His clear brown skin, keen eyes, thick coal-black hair, his height, his strength, his dauntless spirit, could not fail to impress one in whom the sense of life and beauty was developing. Albert even once began a poem to his father: Anne was not so disposed to forgive—she had her brother's score as well as her husband's to settle, and concealed from no one that she thought her father-in-law a brutal and conscienceless old slave-driver whose success was a slur on the methods of Providence. She refused to accompany Richard on his first visit to Odiam, but spent the afternoon at Flightshot, while he tramped with Reuben over the land that had once been so hateful to him.HoME欧美人兽杂交α片ENTER NUMBET 008www.crm888.com.cn kovx.com.cn zj-jysy.com.cn lkap.com.cn susongrongzi.com.cn maligeda.com.cn dita5.com.cn hwjv.com.cn www.whzf168.com.cn liaojue6.com.cn
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