The Guns of Shiloh: A Story of the Great Western Campaign by Joseph A. Altsheler (portable ebook reader txt) 📗

grandmother in the house, who'd like mighty well to see you, Mr. Mason.”

Dick concluded that it was useless to ask any more questions just yet, and he, Warner and the sergeant, dismounting and leading their horses, walked toward the house with Jarvis and Ike. Jarvis, who seemed singularly cheerful, lifted up his voice and sang:

Thou wilt come no more, gentle Annie, Like a flower, thy spirit did depart, Thou art gone, alas! like the many That have bloomed in the summer of my heart. Shall we never more behold thee? Never hear thy winning voice again? When the spring time comes, gentle Annie? When the wild flowers are scattered o'er the plain?

It seemed to Dick that the man sang spontaneously, and the deep, mellow voice always came back in faint and dying echoes that moved him in a singular manner. All at once the war with its passions and carnage floated away. Here was a little valley fenced in from the battle-world in which he had been living. He breathed deeply and as the eyes of Jarvis caught his a sympathetic glance passed between them.

“Yes,” said Jarvis, as if he understood completely, “the war goes around us. There is nothing to fight about here. But come into the house. This is my sister, the mother of that lunkhead, Ike, and here is my grandmother.”

He paused before the bent figure of an old, old woman, sitting in a rocking chair beside the chimney, beside which a fire glowed and blazed. Her chin rested on one hand, and she was staring into the coals.

“Grandmother,” said Jarvis very gently, “the great-grandson of the great Henry Ware that you used to know was here last spring, and now the great-grandson of his friend, Paul Cotter, has come, too.”

The withered form straightened and she stood up. Fire came into the old, old eyes that regarded Dick so intently.

“Aye,” she said, “you speak the truth, grandson. It is Paul Cotter's own face. A gentle man he was, but brave, and the greatest scholar. I should have known that when Henry Ware's great-grandson came Paul Cotter's, too, would come soon. I am proud for this house to have sheltered you both.”

She put both her hands on his shoulders, and stood up very straight, her face close to his. She was a tall woman, above the average height of man, and her eyes were on a level with Dick's.

“It is true,” she said, “it is he over again. The eyes are his, and the mouth and the nose are the same. This house is yours while you choose to remain, and my grandchildren and my great-grandson will do for you whatever you wish.”

Dick noticed that her grammar and intonation were perfect. Many of the Virginians and Marylanders who emigrated to Kentucky in that far-off border time were people of cultivation and refinement.

After these words of welcome she turned from him, sat down in her chair and gazed steadily into the coals. Everything about her seemed to float away. Doubtless her thoughts ran on those dim early days, when the Indians lurked in the canebrake and only the great borderers stood between the settlers and sure death.

Dick began to gather from the old woman's words a dim idea of what had occurred. Harry Kenton must have passed there, and as they went into the next room where food and coffee were placed before them, Jarvis explained.

“Your cousin, Harry Kenton, came through here last spring on his way to Virginia,” he said. “He came with me an' this lunkhead, Ike, all the way from Frankfort and mostly up the Kentucky River. Grandmother was dreaming and she took him at first for Henry Ware, his very self. She saluted him and called him the great governor. It was a wonderful thing to see, and it made me feel just a little bit creepy for a second or two. Mebbe you an' your cousin, Harry Kenton, are Henry Ware an' Paul Cotter, their very selves come back to earth. It looks curious that both of you should wander to this little place hid deep in the mountains. But it's happened all the same. I s'pose you've just been moved 'round that way by the Supreme Power that's bigger than all of us, an' that shifts us about to suit plans made long ago. But how I'm runnin' on! Fall to, friends—I can't call you strangers, an' eat an' drink. The winter air on the mountains is powerful nippin' an' your blood needs warmin' often.”

The boys and the sergeant obeyed him literally and with energy. Jarvis sat by approvingly, taking an occasional bite or drink with them. Meanwhile they gathered valuable information from him. A Northern commander named Garfield had defeated the Southern forces under Humphrey Marshall in a smart little battle at a place called Middle Creek. Dick knew this Humphrey Marshall well. He lived at Louisville and was a great friend of his uncle, Colonel Kenton. He had been a brilliant and daring cavalry officer in the Mexican War, doing great deeds at Buena Vista, but now he was elderly and so enormously stout that he lacked efficiency.

Jarvis added that after their defeat at Middle Creek the Southerners had gathered their forces on or near the Cumberland River about Mill Spring and that they had ten thousand men. Thomas with a strong Northern force, coming all the way from the central part of the state, was already deep in the mountains, preparing to meet him.

“Remember,” said Jarvis, “that I ain't takin' no sides in this war myself. If people come along an' ask me to tell what I know I tell it to 'em, be they Yank or Reb. Now, I wish good luck to you, Mr. Mason, an' I wish the same to your cousin, Mr. Kenton.”

Dick, Warner and the sergeant finished the refreshments and rose for the return journey. They thanked Jarvis, and when they saw that he would take no pay, they did not insist, knowing that it would offend him. Dick said good-bye to the ancient woman and once again she rose, put her hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes.

“Paul Cotter was a good man,” she said, “and you who have his blood in your veins are good, too. I can see it in something that lies back in your eyes.”

She said not another word, but sat down in the chair and stared once more into the coals, dreaming of the far day when the great borderers saved her and others like her from the savages, and thinking little of the mighty war that raged at the base of her hills.

The boys and the sergeant rode fast on the return trail. They knew that Major Hertford would push forward at all speed to join Thomas, whom they could now locate without much difficulty. Jarvis and Ike had resumed their fence-mending, but when the trees hid the valley from them a mighty, rolling song came to the ears of Dick, Warner and the sergeant:

They bore him away when the day had fled, And the storm was rolling high, And they laid him down in his lonely bed By the light of an angry sky. The lightning flashed, and the wild sea lashed The shore with its foaming wave, And the thunder passed on the rushing blast As it howled o'er the rover's grave.

“That man's no fool,” said Dick.

“No, he ain't,” said the sergeant, with decision, “nor is that nephew Ike of his that he calls a lunkhead. Did you notice, Mr. Mason, that the boy never spoke a word while we was there? Them that don't say anything never have anything to take back.”