University of Virginia Library

X.
WHY I DID NOT RETURN WITH LANDON.

I turned quickly.

Within three paces stood a young lady of slender
and graceful figure, exquisitely fair complexion,
large, brilliant eyes, and dark auburn hair, a few
stray ringlets of which escaped from one of those
small, round hats worn in 1864.

The figure drooped; the eyes were swimming
in tears; but there was something calm and proud
in the countenance, which indicated an entire absence
of anything like fear.

For an instant every one gazed at her in silence.
How could she have reached that spot without our
knowledge? A glance indicated all. Upon a flat
tombstone, half hidden behind the trunk of the willow,
lay a veil. It was evident that the young lady
had witnessed all from that spot, the drooping leaves
of the weeping willow concealing her.

“I will read the burial service,” she said, in a
low voice, and advancing toward the graves. “I
have my prayer-book, and am not afraid.”

There was something proud and tranquil in those

low tones; and the voice, like the face, made a profound
impression upon me.

I looked at Landon. He had become extremely
pale, but exhibited, otherwise, no emotion.

Making the young lady a profound bow, he said,
with frigid courtesy: —

“I thank you, Miss Adair; this is an unexpected
meeting.”

“Yes, sir, my appearance no doubt astonished
you,” came in the same calm tone, though the
bullets were whistling above; “and yet it is easily
explained. You are aware that I live near, and this
evening I walked down by moonlight to visit the
Chapel. When the fight took place I stayed, and
when the men begun to dig the graves for these poor
soldiers, I thought I might be allowed to read the
service over them. Was I wrong, sir? 'Tis little for
a woman to do for her defenders.”

Landon listened to these words in the profoundest
silence; but it was easy to see from his compressed
lips that he was the prey of bitter emotion.

“Thanks, madam,” he said, when she had
finished, and saluting as coldly as before. “I
accept your offer.”

For an instant she did not move, and her eyes
were riveted to his countenance.

“Captain Landon,” she said, at length, “I wish
to speak to you for a moment.”

And she walked away from the group, Landon
following. When they had gone a few paces, I
heard her say to him, in a low voice: —

“You look at me very coldly: why do you do so?
We cannot be friends, but we need not be enemies.
I have no bitterness in my heart. I have forgotten
the past. At the graves of these poor dead, I pardon
all.”

“Ah! Miss Adair has forgotten; she pardons!”

The low words were accompanied by a harsh
laugh, full of bitter irony.

“From my heart,” was the sad reply.

Landon rose to his full stature, and, in a voice
full of coldness, almost of sarcasm, said: —

“Miss Adair is too good.”

The young lady's head rose suddenly erect at
these words, and I read in her face, covered now
with a deep flush, an expression of hauteur which
surpassed that of her companion.

“Enough, sir!” she said; “I will not further
annoy you.”

And, turning from him, she was about to leave the
spot. All at once, however, her eyes fell upon the
coffins — the graves. That spectacle seemed to melt
all her pride, and drive away every trace of anger.
She stopped — gazed at the coffins — then her head
sank, and I heard a low sob issue from her lips.

“Why do you speak to me so?” she murmured,

hurriedly, turning to Landon. “Is it kind? Is it
courteous? Should not I speak thus to you, rather?
I knew a St. Leger Landon, once, who — alas! war
has changed you, sir.”

And she covered her eyes with her hand.

Before Landon could reply, a cheer rang beyond
the crest. A shower of bullets whistled above us.
The enemy were evidently advancing.

“Miss Adair will pardon me,” said the Partisan,
coldly, “but I must bury my comrades; all is
ready.”

She replied by a calm inclination, raised a handkerchief
to her eyes, and in a moment they had returned
to the graves.

Then I witnessed a strange and moving spectacle,
which I shall never forget, — a young girl was reading
by moonlight the burial service over the dead. The
pen is powerless to depict the pathetic scene, and I
should like to be a painter to place those figures
upon canvas, — the rudely clad Partisans, bareheaded,
and leaning upon their carbines; Landon, with
folded arms, and chin resting on his breast; at the
head of the graves, the delicate girl with the ringlets
falling upon her shoulders, the pure eyes fixed upon
the book from which she was reading, the lips unagitated
by the least tremour as she slowly uttered the
sublime words of that unapproachable burial service
of the Episcopal Church. Imagine these figures

grouped in the moonlight, with the weeping willow
for a background, by those “unknown graves,” as
they are called to-day, add the hiss of bullets, the
shouts from the crest of the hill, and you will have
formed some idea of the scene on that September
night.

The young lady's voice did not tremble; her bearing
never lost its sweet composure. At last the
burial service terminated, and the musical accents
died away. Then the earth rattled on the coffins,
quick hands filled the graves, and the three mounds
rounded beneath the spade.

Scarcely had the work been completed, when a
mounted man came at full gallop down the hill, and
hastened to the side of Landon.

“Well!” said the latter, in his brief tones.

“The enemy are driving us, captain. Lieutenant
Arden told me to say that they are two or three regiments
at least, and he won't be able to hold his
ground more than ten minutes!”

“Good! say I am coming!” And Landon leaped
on his horse. All at once his eye fell upon the
young lady, and he paused. Then he said, quietly:
—

“Colonel Surry, will you oblige me by conducting
Miss Adair beyond reach of danger? That is her
father's house on the hill;” he pointed as he spoke
to a mansion within view; “and she ought not to

remain here, as we will be fighting at this spot in
five minutes.”

“I am not afraid,” said the young lady in a perfectly
composed voice.

“I beg Miss Adair will accede to my request,”
said Landon, coolly; “and that you, colonel, will
oblige me. You can rejoin me at Millwood. I do
not mean to make any stand here. My object is
accomplished, and I am going to fall back, whether
driven or not.”

With these words Landon bowed to the young
lady, and, clearing the fence, galloped up the hill.

Suddenly Arden met him, falling back rapidly.
The crest of the hill swarmed with blue cavalry,
firing quick volleys, and uttering loud cheers as the
rangers doggedly gave ground. There was nothing
for me to do but to conduct the young lady from the
dangerous spot, or simply join in the retreat, and I
chose the former. Throwing my cape over my horse,
behind the saddle, I mounted, assisted her to her
seat, and we galloped off in the midst of a shower
of bullets, hissing like winged serpents around us.[1]

“Are you afraid?” I said.

“Not at all, sir.”

And the speaker plainly was not.

We leaped a low fence, passed across a field, and
ascended at full gallop a slope beyond.

From this elevated position I saw all. Landon's
men were giving back step by step before enormous
odds. The ground around the Old Chapel was full of
clashing sabres, trampling hoofs, and quick shots
flashing like fireflies against the dark foliage of the
willows.

Then suddenly, as it were by enchantment, the
swords ceased to clash, the hoofs to trample, and the
shots to resound. All I heard was an occasional
shout, and the stifled hum of a large force of Federal
cavalry, drawn up in a long, dark column on
the slope of the hill beyond the Chapel.

Landon and his Night-Hawks had vanished like
phantoms in the darkness.