25 The Flight Across the Hills

We did not speak for some time. The moon came out and cast a faint, silvery glow. Elinor’s face was pale, but her eyes were bright and brave.

“Are you afraid?” I asked.

“No,” she replied with a little laugh. “Have you not promised to guard me?”

The course that I chose was simple. I intended first that we should reach a town about forty miles to the eastward, and after a rest there we would continue in the same way. The eastern part of our State is a mass of mountains, wild and lonely at all times, but far more so in 1862 than now, and the greater part of the scanty population was devoted to the Union cause. Travelling among them—and it would not require long to reach the wilderness—we would be safe. I intended, after crossing the mountains, to take my wife to her uncle, Paul Warner, in Washington, and then I would offer myself for service in the Eastern army. I could not do less, since, having volunteered, I now belonged to the Government. The plan seemed easy and safe were it not for the anger and tenacity of Varian, who I believed would not scruple to use for his private purposes the forces intrusted to his care by the South. I told Elinor briefly that I would take her to Washington, and asked if she approved.

“I think it best,” she said.

Then we rode on in silence again. It was a warm summer night. The threatening clouds were gone and only little patches of harmless white floated in the sky. It was peace once more, and my flight from my grandmother’s house and my escape from the bullets seemed far away. The road led among the hills and through the forests. The branches of the trees, ghostly in the dusky light, waved at us, but they made no threat. The houses were far between. A dog barked at us once, but we rode on unheeding.

“It is like an elopement,” I said.

“It is one, is it not?” replied Elinor, with a happy little laugh.

“And you never cared for Varian?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “He attracted me at first with his splendour, but when he drew nearer I feared him. When he sought to marry me whether I would or not, I hated him.”

We relapsed into silence again, and after a while I saw a slender bar of gray light on the eastern edge of the world.

“The day is coming,” I said; “but the night has not been unhappy, Elinor.”

The smile and the blush pursued each other over her face again, and then she answered:

“But think of your responsibilities, Henry.”

“My chief responsibility now,” I said, “is to get something for you to eat.”

I had food in the knapsack, but intending, too, that she should rest and sleep, I looked eagerly for a farmhouse. The full day was flooding the earth, and the hills swam in the rosy light. I saw presently a thin column of blue smoke outlined against the clear sky, and we rode toward it.

“We shall rest there,” I said to Elinor.

“Do you think it safe?” she asked.

“We have come at least thirty miles, and we can not afford to break down our horses.”

She said nothing more, but gave me a glance of implicit trust. Now, in the morning light, she looked tired, although she held herself as bravely as ever, and I knew that rest was needed.

It was but a plain farmhouse, and they were plain people who met us when I shouted at the door, a middle-aged man and his middle-aged wife, who looked at us with intense curiosity but asked no questions, a forbearance for which I was grateful.

“We have ridden all night,” I said, “and the lady is faint. Will you give her food and rest?”

It was the woman who answered, and she did not speak in words, but she took Elinor in her arms and half carried her into the house. Then they gave us such as they had, and after that the woman took Elinor away.

“She must sleep,” she said when she returned alone. “Do you ride far?”

“Yes,” I replied, “and for life.”

The woman made no reply at the moment, resuming her household work. But she turned to me presently as I sat by the window, and said:

“I do not know who you are, nor she, and these are bad times, but tell me that you are doing no wrong.”

“We were married last night,” I replied, “and I am taking my wife to her own uncle. Those who threaten us have no claim.”

She said no more, but went into Elinor’s room and came back presently with word that she was sleeping. “Poor child!” she said, “what a bridal morning!”

I went out to help the farmer look after the horses, which needed rest as badly as we, and to watch for pursuit. The man was like his wife, sparing in words but good of deed.

“These are fine horses,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied, with grateful recollections of William Penn, “they were chosen by one who knew.” Then I asked him the distance to the town at which I intended to make our first stop, and he answered that it was twenty miles.

“But the road is rough,” he said. “The hills get steeper the farther you go.”

I did not answer. I was looking back in the direction from which we had ridden, seeking traces of pursuing horsemen.

“It’s twenty miles by the straight road,” resumed the man; “but there is a path a few miles longer, which one who does not want to be overtaken might follow, even if he got there a little later.”

I thanked him for his friendly hint, and offered him money—I had with me a plentiful supply of both gold and bank notes—but he would take nothing, nor would his wife. “We do this for the girl’s pretty face,” she said.

Then Elinor came forth, glowing with restored health and strength, and we rode on, the kindly couple watching us until we passed out of sight.

“It is a good world after all, is it not?” said Elinor with a happy smile; “and there are good people in it, are there not, Henry?”

“Yes,” I replied, “when one comes to them with a face like yours.”

“For shame, sir, to make such an absurd compliment to your own wife!”

We followed the path as the man had described it to me, and it led among the lonely and higher hills. We passed few houses, and they were only cabins set in the little coves. The summer was fading, and the edges of the leaves had begun to turn dry and curl up. The air was pure and crisp with the early breath of autumn, and we heard the light wind singing among the leaves. We saw the white and dusty road once or twice below us, curving around the base of hills, but unyielding to temptation we remained in the higher and more difficult path.

We were two hours on the way, when Elinor put her hand upon my arm and pointed to the valley below us.

“Blanchard and his men,” she said.

I was devoutly thankful now for the farmer’s advice, and also for the trees that sheltered our path. Blanchard and about twenty troopers were riding on the road parallel with us. We saw them distinctly through the leaves.

“They obtained the direction from some one in the village,” I said, as I stopped the horses, “and they think to overtake us. We shall let them pass.”

We watched them until the road made another curve around a hill, and the last we saw was the flash of steel from a soldier’s rifle barrel. We had escaped them easily; but since they would ride to Hungerford, the town to which we had intended to go, the pursuit had become a grave matter. Varian was not with the troopers, but I had recognised Blanchard at their head, and I knew that he was not a man who would abandon the pursuit quickly.

“What shall we do?” asked Elinor, thinking the same thought.

“We must turn toward the South,” I answered, and I named another town which I believed that we could reach before night. She uttered no word of fear or complaint, and we rode on the new course, arriving at our destination a little earlier than I had expected. I gave Elinor again into the charge of a hospitable farmer’s wife, and we continued early the next morning toward the east, finding ourselves now on the first slopes of the mountains and in country which could be truly called doubtful ground, ridden over by the armed partisans of both North and South; by bands that claimed to belong to either, according to their convenience, and who robbed according to their pleasure. Yet we saw no enemy, and I began to believe that we had eluded Blanchard, although I knew that even in such a thinly settled region news travels fast and we could not hope to pass unnoticed.

It turned warmer again, and the country was strangely lonely. Below us lay a little valley, but it was still and dead; the heat hung over it in a fine yellow haze; there was no ripple of a breeze in the grass. A shallow brook crept bravely over its brown sands. Far up the valley was a house, but it seemed desolate. We began to feel as if we were exiles. Great armies were marching; the fate of a nation was impending, and only we two rode between earth and sky. Whatever was happening was happening without us, and yet we were content.

We rode into the valley and across it, not meeting any human being nor hearing the sound of one. It was just the same drowsy summer afternoon, with the waves of heat rolling up from the south, and the rays of the western sun striking with dazzling brightness on hill and level.

We crossed the valley and again were in the rolling country, but gazing beyond into another and farther valley on the way we could see neither soldier nor civilian; only the hills and the forests. When I looked back I noticed that the brightness of the sun was dimmed in the east; a faint gray mist was creeping through the golden glow, and the trees on the crest of the hills were blurred; the day was closing, and now I saw no farmhouse to shelter Elinor. I produced cold food, and then dismounting, that our tired horses might rest, we ate our little supper and watched the night come in the east.

The forest, at the horizon’s edge, grew misty and indistinct, then faded, a golden glow hung over the treetops for a few moments and fled, the hills sank away, and the valley became invisible; all the east was gone, and the twilight passed on over the circle of the heavens into the mist, where the sun yet lingered, a shield of red fire. The long rays of intense light fell like lances across hill, valley, and plain, shone there a while and then were gone; the sun slid down behind the highest hill, a cloud of red and gold, the colours rising above each like terraces, marking for a little where it had sunk, then the luminous cloud yielded to the shadows, and the world was clothed in darkness.

We expected coolness to come with the night, but the air swam in a heavy, damp heat, that relaxed the muscles and dimmed the brightness of the mind. In this prison of thick, vaporous air, energy seemed to be going, and we felt a sense of depression.

The heat increased; the clouds were rolling like waves across the sky. From the southwest behind the hills came a hum, and I knew that a storm would soon be upon us. I took the army coat of rubber which the provident William Penn had tied to my saddle, and wrapped it around Elinor.

The hum in the southwest turned to a mutter, then grew to a roar, the lightning flamed in flash after flash across the sky like the swift strokes of a gigantic sword-blade, the thunder boomed in long, rolling crashes, and then rushing and roaring the rain came, sweeping in blinding sheets through the forests, and over the hills and valleys, and flowing in little rivers of mud and water in every path and road.

The dry earth for a time received the rain into itself and was glad; the cracks and seams, made by the heat, filled up; the thirsty grass, refreshed, raised its head, the dry foliage lost its brown, and blossomed anew in freshest green. The hot earth steamed at first with the vapours that rose, but presently the air began to turn cool, and the whole earth soaked in the steady pour.

We stopped under the thick boughs of a tree and sought protection from the rain, but I soon saw that the effort was useless; it beat through the leaves and upon us, and, knowing nothing else to do, we rode slowly on hoping that it would soon cease, its mission to cool and moisten the thirsty earth finished. But it did not cease; the clouds still rolled across the sky, and no light showed there save when the lightning flamed through; the thunder crashed in irregular volleys, and the rain swept on, sheet after sheet, in unceasing repetition.

It was a summer storm of lightning, thunder, and rain, a peculiar product of our American weather, but none the less violent and uncomfortable because of its peculiarity. The wants of the thirsty earth had been satisfied long since, but it pounded on, the water sweeping in torrents down the hillsides, and the wind whistling and moaning among the trees.

In the darkness, which was deep save when lit up by the lightning, we wandered from the road and could not find it again. We had trusted to our horses, but their spirit was gone, and lowering their heads they waited for us to guide. The wet bushes and the slender boughs of the trees swished across our faces and tore our clothes. Our horses’ feet sank deep in the soft earth, and they stumbled with our weight; we let the reins go, leaving it to their instinct to wander to the safest path. The lightning which blazed so often in our faces only dazzled us, not showing the way, and the moment the flash was gone the darkness settled around us again, thick, close, and impervious; the thunder crashed, and then the echo rolled far among the hills like the rumble of marching artillery; the boughs cracked before the wind and fell, and in the darkness we heard the sweep of new torrents, and the thud of the soft earth falling from the hillsides into the valley below. But we struggled on, and Elinor, turning a cheerful face to me, smiled, and said we must expect some hardships.

The lightning stopped by-and-bye, dying away in a few faint jets; the thunder rumbled among the hills for the last time and was gone; the wind no longer moaned and shrieked, and the snapping of the boughs, which had sounded like volleys of pistol shots, ceased, but the rain poured down in a steady, even flow, as if it would end only with the night. I was glad that the lightning had gone, but this monotonous and unbroken beat of the water was sombre and promised no rest.

We rode on for hours, hearing nothing but the steady drumming of the rain, the occasional sticky sigh of the yielding earth as it slid away from the hill and fell into the valley below. The thick vapours began to rise again from the steaming earth, but the clouds parted after awhile, and a pale glimmer of sky appeared, though the rain did not cease. The night light was too faint to disclose the way, and merely imparted a ghostly quality to the dripping forest and blur of hills that showed through; the boughs reached out long arms trying to hold us back, and here and there they were crossed in such queer shapes that the black lines made gigantic faces.

I do not know how long a time had passed when we heard the regular beat of horses’ feet; at first it seemed to be ahead of us, then on one side, then on the other; but at last I decided that it was behind us, and approaching. Our horses had drifted into some kind of path, and we turned them back into the woods, not knowing who rode behind, nor, in truth, whether it was our fancy playing us some strange trick.

The muffled thud of footsteps in soft earth grew louder, and a ghostly legion rode by, a hundred or more in single file, in the faded gray of the Southern army, their caps drawn low and little streams of water running down their faces, their heads bent over, every man silent, and riding as if he were without life and tied to his horse; the horses themselves drooped heavy heads, and the reins hung on their saddle-horns. All was sombre and silent; no gleam of metal or colour lighted up the procession, and thus it passed silently by; out of the mists and vapours it came, and into the mists and vapours it went.

Day dawned, and the brisk sunshine soon made us dry and warm, and after a little more of the cold food and water, and a stop to rest our weary horses, we resumed our journey.

I was glad to note by the sun that we still rode to the northeast, and thus had kept the true direction. We would go on. We must meet some one soon who could tell us where we were, and as I formed the resolution we saw from the hill upon which we stood a troop of mounted men appear in the valley below.

They were far off, but the dazzling light shone full upon the horsemen, and my heart leaped within me when I recognised the blue uniforms of the North, the welcome colour for which I had been straining my eyes so long. Surely we could find shelter in the Northern lines. They rode in a long column, heads erect, their faces to the wind and the north, not like the drooping and sombre procession that we had seen the night before.

The notes of a trumpet, mellow, inspiring, and clear, came up from the valley and echoed through the woods and hills, where it died in a soft and liquid note. The horsemen stopped and formed in a line across the meadow. We wondered what this meant, but looking up the valley, we saw another troop of horsemen emerge from a wood, and they were in gray, not in blue. Our own progress would have to await the issue of a battle.

The valley lay before us like a board, and the men moved upon it in perfect unison, their figures decreased a little by the distance, but their features almost visible in the faultless sunlight. Again the trumpet notes, mellow, cheerful, and echoing, came up to us, but this time it was the Southern trumpet that sounded. The two lines of horsemen moved toward each other.

We dismounted, and while I held the bridles of both horses we walked to the edge of the hill, intent upon the battle that was about to unroll before us. Elinor’s lips parted, her face pale and her eyes shining.

The speed of the approaching lines increased from a walk to a canter; little jets of flame burst from each, and the rattle of carbine and pistol shots came to our waiting ears. It was a sputtering fire, now rising, now falling, then dying away, but beginning again in a moment. Little clouds of white smoke rose, but were soon left behind by the swift riders. Some horses, saddles empty, still kept their places, and galloped shoulder to shoulder with their comrades. It was a fine spectacle seen from afar, full of life, spirit, and movement, and the wounds were hid.

The strip of green between the approaching lines narrowed rapidly; they seemed about to melt into one. The pistol fire died like an echo, and was succeeded by silence. We were too far away for the tread of the horses to reach us, but this silence lasted only a moment. Two lines of sabres glittered in the air, and then the opposing horsemen hurled themselves upon each other. We heard the crash and the shouts, and saw the sabres as they rose and fell.

There was for a moment a confused and mingled mass of men and horses, and we hung over it breathless, until out of the tumult and turmoil one line of riders emerged in the semblance of order, leaving the other only a huddle. The men in blue still rode, and the men in gray were down.

The line of blue horsemen turned back, and the sabres rose again. The gray must choose between death and surrender.

But the notes of another trumpet came from the woods, and another body of horsemen, compact and numerous, galloped toward the field of conflict. These, too, were in gray, and they outnumbered the little Northern band fivefold.

A shout of triumph burst from the second battalion in gray, and reached us as we stood upon our hill. The cavalry in blue stopped, fired a few scattering shots, and galloped down the valley, disappearing. The others did not pursue, but gathered around their defeated comrades, took up the dead, and then passed out of the valley at the other end, Southerners and Northerners disappearing in different directions. Thus died my hope of sheltering Elinor behind the Northern sabres.

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