University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.

A few days after these events, Dora stood, one pleasant
afternoon, in the door of the hospital tent, looking
wistfully out over the golden-brown hills and brilliant
forest. She was tired, and not quite well, and was just
wondering whether Mr. Brown would ask her to take a
walk with him, and whether, if he did not, she might go
with Picter, when a gay voice called her by name, and
Captain Karl rode up on a fine spirited horse.

“Mademoiselle la Vivandière looks moped this afternoon,”
said he. “Don't she want a little excursion into
the country?”

“Yes, indeed,” cried Dora, eagerly; “but how do you
mean, Captain Karl?”

“Why, I am going with a part of my company to escort
a foraging party, who are proposing to help a secesh
farmer, about five miles from here, get in his crop of
corn. If you'll come along, you shall have a seat in one
of the wagons, or a horse, if you like to ride.”

“O, how splendid! I'll ride on horseback, if you'd
just as lief.”

“Just exactly, and rather, because you can ride with
me. Aren't you afraid of a horse?”

“I reckon I'm not. I've always ridden, ever since
I was a little girl.”

“And can you `reckon' how long that is?” asked
Captain Widsor, with a quizzical smile.

Dora colored hotly, for she was becoming keenly sensitive
to her little inaccuracies of language and deportment
and had, indeed, corrected most of them under the
gentle hints of her kind friend the chaplain. Captain
Karl's ridicule, however, was quite a different matter;
and she felt more disposed to resent than profit by it.

“I think I had better not go to ride until I have asked
Mr. Brown,” said she, carefully. “I will go and see
him now.”

Captain Karl sprang off his horse, and walked along
beside her.

“Don't be dignified, Dora Darling,” said he, with a
merry smile. “Remember that I'm the very earliest
friend you made in the regiment, and the only one who
ever came to call on you at your own home. You're not
going to be cross with me for laughing at you a little
— are you?”

“No, Captain Karl,” said Dora, stopping short, and
putting out her hand to be shaken; “you were quite
right, and I was very silly to mind, only I hate to be
wrong about anything.”

“Well, it's not often that you are. Come, what's the
use of hunting up the chaplain? I know just as well as
he about the safety, or the propriety, or whatever it is,
that you're doubting about. You're not afraid to go
without leave, I suppose — are you?”

“No,” replied Dora, promptly. “Of course I don't
have to ask leave, only I like to tell Mr. Brown what I
am going to do.”

“O, well, you can tell me this time. He isn't in, I
know; I saw him walking off with the colonel about half
an hour ago.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Here's Hepburn, however. Hepburn, is Mr.
Brown in?”

“No, sir, I believe not,” said the man, saluting respectfully.

“Where is he gone, Hepburn? do you know?” asked
Dora, eagerly.

“No, Miss Dora, not exactly; but I think he and the
colonel went to look at the north works. I heard them
speak of it.”

“Well, we can't go out there,” exclaimed Captain
Windsor, impatiently. “I ought to be off in ten minutes,
at the outside. Come, Dora, don't be foolish about it.
I wouldn't ask you if it wasn't right.”

“Well, I will go,” said Dora, still rather doubtfully.

“That's right,” cried Windsor, regaining his pleasant

smile. “Hepburn, run to the stables, and get that little
white nag I was trying this morning when you were down
there. I said then it was a regular lady's horse, although
I'm afraid, Dora, you won't be able to ride lady fashion for
want of a side-saddle; but vivandières never ride on side-saddles.”

“I never had a side-saddle; so I can do better without
than with it,” said Dora, skipping along gleefully; for
the idea of a fresh, free gallop in the bracing autumnal
air set all her blood tingling, and revived an instinct of
her nature stigmatized by her aunt Wilson as “tomboy,”
and by her mother as “wild.”

“Come, now, that looks like having a good time, Dora
Darling,” laughed Captain Karl. “Here we are,” continued
he, as Hepburn brought up the horse. “Isn't it a
jolly little nag? I'll speak to the colonel, and have him
kept for your own use. Give me your foot; now, then,
up you go! Here's the rein. You sit like an angel.
Now we must trot, for the train has started this half an
hour, and we must get to the head of it before the fighting
begins.”

“Do you expect a fight?” asked Dora, a little anxiously.

“Why, I don't know,” said her companion, looking at
her with a mocking smile. “Are you frightened?”

“O, no, not at all,” replied she, seriously. “I was
only thinking what a pity I didn't put on my belt with
the flasks and things.”

“O, that was it! You are all ready for action, then?”

“Yes, indeed; why, that is what we expect when we
enter the army — isn't it?” said Dora so seriously that
Captain Karl burst out laughing.

“O, you funny little thing!” cried he, “you make me
laugh so I shall certainly die some day if I see much of
you.”

“And shan't you if you don't?” asked the vivandière,
pouting a little.

“Not in the same way, mademoiselle. If I lose you
I shall die of crying instead of laughing — dissolve, instead
of exhaling; that will be the difference. But,
hillo! see here! we are going to meet both our masters
at once; and while I shall catch it for not having started
sooner, you will fare just as badly for having started
at all.”

“Mr. Brown is not my master; and I am not at all
afraid of `catching it,' as you call it, from him or any
one else,” said Dora, proudly.

“Nonsense, Do! You know that you are as much
afraid of him as possible, and that if he looks black at
your going, you will turn right about, and trot meekly
back to quarters. And I have got into my scrape entirely
from anxiety to take you with me.”

“I shan't turn back and leave you,” said Dora, decidedly.

“Not if the parson says you must?” asked Windsor,
mischievously.

“There's no must about it. He has no right to say
must,” replied Dora, pettishly.

There was no time for her companion to reply, as the
two parties had now approached near enough to speak.

Colonel Blank, frowning a little as his eyes fell upon
his recreant officer, pulled out his watch, and said, after
a glance at it, —

“I believe you were to start at three, Captain Windsor.
It is now half past.”

“Yes, sir,” said Captain Karl, respectfully saluting;
“I have been detained, but shall soon overtake my command,
who set forward at the appointed hour under
charge of Lieutenant Fosdick.”

“I believe there were no orders for the vivandière to
accompany the expedition,” continued Colonel Blank,
glancing at Dora rather disapprovingly.

“No, sir; but I supposed there would be no objection,”
said the captain, with an assured air.

Whatever the colonel replied, as he passed on, was lost
to Dora, for Mr. Brown at this moment laid his hand
upon her horse's neck, and asked pleasantly, but yet in a
tone that the girl fancied somewhat arbitrary, —

“Why, where are you going now, my child?”

“I am going with Captain Karl, sir, to take a ride.”

“But where?”

“We are going to protect the foragers, I believe, sir.”

“And who is going to protect you, my child, if you

meet the enemy? I think it is hardly a safe expedition
for you, Dora. Suppose you make an excuse to Captain
Windsor, and come back with me to camp. I will get a
horse, and ride with you, if you wish.”

“Thank you, sir; but I think I will go with Captain
Karl,” said Dora, resolutely, as she caught the eye of
her companion, who was looking pleadingly at her from
behind the chaplain.

“But, Dora,” continued Mr. Brown, speaking a little
lower, “it seems to me hardly proper for you to go off
in this manner, with no protector but so young a man,
who will, besides, be too busy to look after you, in case
of an attack. And I do not fancy your style of horse-manship
either.”

Dora's cheeks flamed, and the tears rushed to her eyes.
She longed to submit to the judgment of her friend, and
yet she could not bear the appearance of submission, under
the mocking eyes of Captain Karl. The chaplain
anxiously watched her face, and saw there the struggle
between pride and duty. He feared that the former was
about to conquer, and her first embarrassed words confirmed
the fear.

“I always rode so at home, sir; and I think Captain
Karl can take care of me.”

“Come, Dora, I must be off,” interposed the captain,
hurriedly, as Colonel Blank paused and looked around.
“Never fear, Mr. Brown, for your pupil. I shall take

the best of care of her; and in fact you know I am one
of her adoptive fathers.”

The chaplain said no more, but Dora caught the disapproving
expression of his face as he turned away; and
had it not been for very shame, she would have turned
her horse's head, and hastened after him to make her submission.

Her companion seemed to have received a much less
serious impression from the interview, and as they pushed
their horses into a rapid trot, he said, gayly, —

“Well, Dora Darling, we rubbed through that scrape
better than I expected. The old man will have had his
dinner before we get back, and I shall be received with
open arms; that is, if I am successful, as I intend to be.”

“What old man?” asked Dora, shortly.

“Why, the colonel, of course, little goosie. I don't
call the parson `old man.”'

“Nor the colonel isn't old, either,” persisted Dora.

“What of that? You are very critical to-day, mademoiselle.
We always call the colonel `old man,' just as
we call our papas `the governor' at home.”

“I never called my father `governor.”'

“I dare say not. Girls don't, I suppose, because to
be a young woman's father, is not to govern-her. Boys
are more tractable, you know.”

“I shouldn't think they'd like to call any one `governor,'
if they are,” said Dora, positively.

“Why not, you delicious little innocent?”

“Because I should hate any one that didn't leave me
any choice about minding him; and if he had a right to
make me mind, I should want to keep it out of sight.”

“You dreadful rebel!” cried Captain Karl, in affected
horror. “Do you hate the chaplain, then?”

“No, because he has no power over me. If he had
been able to say I must and should go back with him to-day,
and I had gone, I am afraid I should have hated
him.”

“Then you came with me just to show that you were
your own mistress?”

“I don't know. Was it?” asked Dora, with a look
of mortification.

“To be sure it was. Not very flattering to either of
us — is it?”

“But that wasn't all. I wanted first to go, because I
thought it would be pleasant; and then —”

“Well, then, after you met Brown, what made you
keep on?” persisted the captain, maliciously.

“Well,” began Dora, doubtfully, “I think it was
partly because you said I wouldn't.”

“That's a great deal better than the other reason, to
be sure! Why don't you say you came because you had
a mind to, and was afraid of being laughed at if you
didn't?”

Dora made no reply; but, as she rode along, she made

a firm resolution to confess to Mr. Brown, on her return,
the weakness and folly of her course, as she now viewed
it, and in future to be careful, in escaping from the wise
control of one friend, not to become the slave of another's
ridicule.

From this reverie she was suddenly aroused by the
voice of her companion, saying, rather anxiously, —

“What under the canopy has become of those fellows?
This is the road the scout described as the nearest, and
the one I told Fosdick to take. But we ought to have
overtaken them by this time.”

“The road doesn't look as if they had just passed,
either,” said Dora.

“Don't it? That's a regular mountaineer's thought,
little Do. We must have missed some turn or fork, and
must face about and look for the right road.”

“Perhaps this one may lead where we want to go, and
we can meet the company on the spot.”

“Let me see. About ten miles from camp due north
was the direction, and we have certainly ridden eight. I
think I should know the place from the description that
fellow gave of it. A long red farm-house between two
hills, with a range of barns across the valley. The secesh
that owns it had contracted to supply a rebel cavalry
corps somewhere towards Monterey, and has just stuffed
his barns. Won't it be jolly to empty them for him?”

“Well, do you think we shall reach the place this way?”

asked Dora, finding that her companion continued his
course.

“Yes; I don't see how we can help it. We are travelling
due north, and when our hour is up, I shall expect
to see the farm-house looming up right across the road.”

“Here's a long hill before us. Perhaps we shall see
it from the top.”

“I shouldn't wonder if we did. Come, hurry up your
nag, and see who will be there first.”

Dora lightly struck her horse with the switch cut for
her by Captain Karl, and scampered along beside the tall
charger ridden by that officer, very much as the Black
Prince may have attempted to keep pace on his scrubby
little pony with his captive, King John of France,
mounted upon his noble war horse.

Unequal, however, as the race might seem, it terminated
in the arrival of the contestants at their goal in the
same moment, and Dora was in the midst of some triumphant
remarks upon the subject, when she was doubly
interrupted; first, by the captain's exclamation of,
“There's the farm, and there are our fellows,” and
secondly, by a pistol shot from the thicket close beside the
road, that sent a ball humming close above Windsor's
head.