117. CXVII.
I MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF A FAMOUS CHARACTER.
If you will turn, my dear reader, to the famous history which
has immortalized the name of Cervantes, you will find that the
characters of the drama, whenever they fall into difficulties, are
accustomed to bewail, in pathetic paragraphs, their unhappy
situation, and thus arouse, as far as possible, the interest and
sympathy of the reader.
Had I the genius of the great soldier and historian, I
might here dwell on the most unfortunate chance which had
thus dashed all my hopes, and extinguished, “at one fell swoop,”
all my rosy dreams of soon meeting May Beverley again. But
alas! I am only a humdrum ex-lieutenant-colonel and A. A. G.,
drawing the outline of my life—not a dramatic writer at all.
Thus I am compelled to request the kind reader to place himself,
if possible, in my situation, and to imagine how I felt. I
proceed to relate what ensued.
Farley and myself lay down, but, in spite of the long ride we
had taken, from dawn to dark, felt no disposition to sleep. My
companion at first remained so quiet that I thought he had fallen
asleep; but a few moments afterward I found that this was far
from being the fact. Turning sluggishly over, as a man does
when changing his position during slumber, his lips were placed
close to my ear; and, in a whisper so low that the low singing
of the fire almost drowned it, he said:
“Don't go to sleep—I am going to escape. Don't answer—
listen!”
The guard turned and approached; then, with measured step,
receded. He had evidently heard nothing.
“As soon as every thing is perfectly quiet,” Farley whispered,
in the same low tone, “I will give the signal and spring upon
the sentinel. He will resist, and his carbine will go off in the
struggle—but I will wrench it from him; it is a repeating rifle,
and then let the first man who attempts to stop me look to himself!”
I turned over, as Farley had done, and whispered:
“Give the signal when you are ready.”
He moved his head slightly, and then lay perfectly still, with
his eyes closed; but I could see that he was looking from under
the lids at the sentinel.
One by one all the noises of the camp subsided—the horses
ceased stamping—nothing was heard but the measured tramp of
the sentinel.
As he turned his back in one of his rounds, Farley rose suddenly
on his elbow and looked about him.
Not a movement among the recumbent figures greeted this
manœuvre, and, as the guard turned, Farley was again apparently
sound asleep.
Once more the sentinel approached; remained a moment
stationary beside the fire, warming his hands; then he turned
his back once more on his round.
No sooner had he done so than Farley exclaimed “Now!” and
rose to his feet. With a single bound he was on the sentinel,
and clutched his weapon, while I caught him by the throat.
What we had anticipated took place. The carbine went off in
the struggle, and in an instant the camp was aroused, and we
were completely surrounded. Farley darted into the shadow
of the trees—I followed—and we commenced running; but
everywhere foes started up in our path, and the moment had
evidently come when we must surrender or die.
At that instant there suddenly resounded in our very ears the
sharp crack of pistols; and, before I could realize the source from
which the sound issued, a wild cheer rang through the wood,
and a party of cavalry-men, in gray coats, rushed into the camp,
trampling over the Federal soldiers, who were seen running to
arms.
What followed did not occupy ten minutes. A scattering and
aimless fire came from the Federal cavalry-men, half of whom
were only partly awake; and then, at the ringing order of a
slender individual, mounted on an iron-gray mare, they threw
down their arms, and offered no further resistance.
The slender personage leaped from horseback, by a camp-fire
burning beneath an oak, and, as he did so, I had a full view of
him. He was a man apparently about thirty years of age, of
middle height—thin, lithe, vigorous, and as active in all his
movements as a wildcat. His face was entirely beardless; his
hair light; his lips thin, and wreathed with a satirical smile,
which showed his brilliant teeth; his eyes gray, sparkling, and
eternally roving from side to side. This personage wore a plain
gray suit, and a brown hat with a golden cord; his only arms
were two pistols in his loose swaying belt of black leather,
clasped over a red sash.
“Well!” he said, in brief, quick accents, as the prisoners were
ranged in a line by the fire, “how many horses?”
A sergeant touched his hat, and said:
“I think there are about sixty, Major.”
“How many prisoners?”
The sergeant counted rapidly.
“Fifty-five, Major.”
“Where is the commanding officer?”
“Here I am,” growled our friend, the black-bearded; “whom
am I to surrender to?”
“To Mosby,” was the reply of the slender individual, with a
keen glance of his gray eye.
At the name of the formidable partisan, every prisoner turned
quickly and fixed his eyes upon the speaker. Mosby was evidently
their bugbear, and they expected, doubtless, to be shot
without ceremony, so persistent had the Northern journals been
in representing the partisan as a ruthless bandit.
Mosby's thin lips curled satirically. The evidence of interest
betrayed by his prisoners seemed to amuse him.
“See that these men are entirely disarmed,” he said to a
lieutenant, “and then have their horses brought. I am going
back.”
As he spoke, his eye fell upon myself and Farley.
“Who are these?”
Farley advanced, and, with a smile, held out his hand.
“You don't recognize your old friends, Mosby?”
“Farley! Is it possible?”
“Yes, and this is Colonel Surry, of General Jackson's staff.”
I had the honor of being stared at by the prisoners when the
name of Jackson was thus uttered, as Mosby had been.
He saw it, and laughed.
“Glad to recapture you, Colonel,” he said; “as we ride back,
I will get you to tell me your adventures. Captain Mountjoy!”
An officer of erect and military carriage, calm expression, and
dark eyes, penetrating but sad, advanced at this summons, and
made the military salute.
“Captain, see that the prisoners are mounted and—but you
are as white as a sheet, Mountjoy!”
“Only a little scratch, Major!” was the reply of the officer,
with a smile, but as he spoke his form tottered.
Mosby caught him as he was about to fall, and turned with a
savage glare in his eyes toward the Federal captain, at whom
he shook his clinched hand.
“This man is worth the whole of you!” he growled, “and if he
dies!”—
Mountjoy opened his eyes, and rose erect.
“It was only a little faintness, Major,” he said, smiling. “What
order did you give?”
“Richards will see to it, Mountjoy,” was the reply. “Can
you ride?”
“Without difficulty, Major.”
And he turned toward his horse.
“Hold on a minute,” said Mosby; and, untying the red sash
around his waist, he bound up the bleeding arm of Captain
Mountjoy, and then assisted him to mount.
“That is one of my best and bravest officers,” he said, as he
came back. “But we are losing time. I am going to move back,
gentlemen; take such horses as you like.”
In ten minutes the column of cavalry was moving on, with
the mounted prisoners. Farley and myself rode in front with
Mosby.
He laughed at the narrative of our mishaps, and I found him
a most agreeable companion. Perfectly simple and unassuming
in appearance and address, Mosby was not in the least like the
ferocious bandit which the correspondents of Northern journals
had represented him to be; and it was hard, indeed, to realize
that the laughing personage, with the beardless face and careless
carriage, riding at my side, was the redoubtable chief of partisans—the
terror of the Federal invaders.
“My dear Major,” I said, laughing, as we rode on, “you are
not at all like the bloody wild-boar of the Yankee newspapers.
I think I could meet you in the woods of `Mosby's Confederacy'
here, without the least fear of having my throat cut or my pocket
picked by you or your gentry—things which our blue-coated
friends yonder evidently expected.”
Mosby laughed.
“That is easily explained,” he replied. “When my men capture
or destroy an army train, the Federal generals are crippled
—they get into trouble at head-quarters—and they defend themselves
by making me out a robber and bushwhacker, instead of
a chief of partisans.”
“That is probably the origin of the whole thing.”
“Undoubtedly. Why am I a `bushwhacker,' Colonel? I am
regularly commissioned by the Confederate States War Department
as major of cavalry; I command regularly enrolled troops;
and I carry on open warfare, under the Confederate flag, and
wearing Confederate gray. Why am I a robber? It is a part
of my duty to capture all the war material of the enemy I can,
including greenbacks, which are used in Loudoun and other border
counties by our Government, and the want of which makes
the unpaid Federal soldiers dissatisfied. I have captured millions,
and I am poorer to-day than when I entered the service.”
“Which certainly pays badly.”
“It pays me well in other ways. No man ever had better
friends than I have in this region and the Valley, both of which
I have tried to defend. I intend to fight for the possession of
the country to the last; and, if the Confederate cause goes under,
I will be the last to lower my flag.”
“Long may it wave over `Mosby's Confederacy,' my dear
Major! and may you always appear upon the scene at a time as
lucky as to-night!”
Thus, in talk about many things, the night passed. At sunrise
I parted with the gallant Mosby, and Farley, who decided
to remain and go upon another scout with him. The horse I
rode was Mosby's parting present to me.
On the same afternoon I came in sight of The Oaks.
