8. VIII.
THE LONELY HOUSE.
It was the end of April when I commenced my journey toward
the Potomac. The weather was charming, the birds sang in the
trees, and the face of nature lay before me, all smiles and sunshine,
her form clothed in that tender green with which she
salutes the spring.
Such was the fine and pleasant season when the writer of the
present memoir, clad in Southern gray, with his horseman's
boots, and gayly-clattering sabre, set out for the wars, his mind
full of rosy dreams, his pulse thrilling with anticipations of
adventure.
To-day he seems quite a stranger to the old battered soldier,
whose pulse rarely thrills, and who is tired of romance and adventure—or
almost.
I made about thirty miles the first day, and stopped that night
in the neighborhood of Beaver Dam, at the house of the hospitable
Colonel F——, who gave me a cordial reception. On the
next morning I again set out, turning my horse's head toward
Raccoon Ford, on the Rapidan.
The country through which I now passed was thinly inhabited,
and toward the afternoon I began to feel convinced that I had
missed my road. This, I soon ascertained from a wayfarer, was
the fact; I had inclined too far toward the right, and my shortest
route now to Culpepper Court-House was by way of Germanna
Ford. Long before reaching that point it began to grow dark,
and I found myself in the region near Chancellorsville known as
the “Wilderness.”
All around me extended a dense and unbroken expanse of
thicket, which the eye vainly tried to pierce. The narrow and
winding road through the gloomy undergrowth resembled rather
a dusky serpent than a highway, and, as I penetrated deeper and
deeper into this mysterious wilderness, the lugubrious sights and
sounds which greeted me were ill calculated to raise my spirits.
The silence was unbroken, save by the melancholy cry of the
whippoorwill, buried in the swampy thicket; and no living
object was seen, except when some huge owl, startled by the
tramp of the horses, flapped his heavy pinions across the road, as
he sought refuge in the shadowy depths of the wood. The moon
had risen, and was struggling amid a bank of clouds; but the
solemn light served only to bring out in clearer relief the sombre
details of the wild and deserted landscape. The long branches
depending above the narrow road resembled the shaggy arms of
goblins, reaching down to grasp and carry the traveller away;
and I know not what melancholy influence, born of the place and
time, weighed down my spirits, filling me with almost superstitious
depression. Here night and a solemn gloom seemed to
reign undisputed, and the notes of the whippoorwill resembled,
to my fancy, the cries of unhappy beings imprisoned in these
mournful solitudes.
That strange Wilderness, now associated with so many scenes
of blood and death, had enticed me into its depths. I was the
captive of its funereal shadows, its ominous sights and sounds,
and, as will soon be seen, I was to explore some of its mysteries.
The depressing influence of the scene evidently affected my
servant also. He drew nearer to me, and suggested that the
horses were too much fatigued to go further.
To this view I assented, and, telling him we would stop at the
first house, continued my way, still pursuing the narrow road
through the unending thickets. I went on thus for another hour,
and, despairing of reaching any house, was about to bivouac in
the woods, when all at once a light was seen glimmering through
the boughs on my right. Never was any sight more welcome,
and pushing on, I came to a brush fence at the foot of a hill,
skirted with pines, upon which the moonlight enabled me to discern
a small house.
Leaping the low fence, I ascended the hill, found myself before
a sort of cottage, with flowers growing round the porch, and a
light in the window; and, dismounting, knocked at the door.
What was my astonishment, to hear, in a sweet and eager voice,
in response to my knock, the words:
“Come! come! you are expected.”
Overwhelmed with surprise, I opened the door and entered.
