Part 28 (1/2)
”Company D goes to the head of the cla.s.s! Company E!”
”Non ti scordar di me?”
”'Ware pine cones! Company E's shaking them down.... This cla.s.s's getting too big. Let's all learn the words together, so's Private Horsemanden can go on with his piece! Attention, 65th! Make ready! Take aim! Fire!”
”NON TI SCORDAR DI ME?”
”Now Eddy.... Oh, yes, you go on! You aren't going to cheat us that way.
We want to know what happened when they stopped talking German! Hasn't anything happened yet.”
”Non ti--”
”s.h.!.+ Go on, Eddy boy, and tell us exactly what occurred.”
Private Edwin Horsemanden had pluck as well as sentiment, and he went on. Moreover he had his revenge, for at bottom the 65th was itself tender-hearted, not to say sentimental. It believed in lost loves and lost blossoms, muslin dresses, and golden chains, cypress shades and jasmine flowers,
”And the one bird singing alone to his nest, And the one star over the tower.”
The 65th sighed and propped its chin on its hand. Presently the 65th grew misty-eyed.
”Then I smelt the smell of that jasmine flower She used to wear in her breast It smelt so faint and it smelt so sweet.--”
The pipe dropped from the 65th's hand. It sat sorry and pleased. Private Edwin Horsemanden went on without interruption and finished with eclat.
The chief musician cleared his throat. ”The Glee Club of Company H will now--”
The Glee Club of Company H was a large and popular organization. It took the stage amid applause. The leader bowed. ”Gentlemen, we thank you.
Gentlemen, you have just listened to a beautiful novelty--a pretty little foreign song bird brought by the trade-wind, an English nightingale singing in Virginian forests.--Gentlemen, the Glee Club of Company H will give you what by now is devil a bit of a novelty--what promises to be as old as the hills before we have done with it--what our grandchildren's grandchildren may sing with pride--what to the end of time will carry with it a breath of our armies. Gentlemen, the Glee Club of Company H gives you the Ma.r.s.eillaise of the South. _Attention!_”
”Way down South in the land of cotton, 'Simmon seed and sandy bottom--”
The 65th rose to its feet. Its neighbour to the right was the 2d Virginia, encamped in a great open field; to the left the 5th, occupying a grove of oaks. These regiments were busied with their own genial hour, but when the loudly sung air streamed across from the 65th they suspended their work in hand. They also sung ”Dixie.” Thence it was taken up by the 4th and the 33d, and then it spread to Burk and Fulkerson. The batteries held the top of Rude's Hill, up among the night wind and the stars. The artillerymen took the air from the infantry.
Headquarters was situated on the green bank of the Shenandoah. Staff and couriers and orderlies hummed or sang. Stonewall Jackson came to the door of his tent and stood, looking out. All Rude's Hill throbbed to ”Dixie.”
On went the programme. ”Marco Bozzaris” was well spoken. A blacksmith and a mule driver wrestled for a prize. ”Marmion Quitting the Douglas's Hall” was followed by ”Lula, Lula, Lula is Gone,” and ”Lula” by ”Lorena,” and ”Lorena” by a fencing match. The Thespians played capitally an act from ”The Rivals,” and a man who had seen Macready gave Hamlet's Soliloquy. Then they sang a song lately written by James Randall and already very popular,--
”I hear the distant thunder hum, Maryland!
The Old Line bugle, fife and drum--”
An orderly from headquarters found Richard Cleave. ”General Jackson wishes to see you, sir.”
The general's tent was not large. There were a table and two stools, on one of which sat Jackson in his characteristic position, large feet accurately paralleled. On the table, beside the candle, lay three books--the Bible, a dictionary, and ”Napoleon's Maxims.” Jackson was writing, his hand travelling slowly across a sheet of dim blue, lined, official paper. The door flap of the tent was fastened back. Cleave, standing in the opening, saluted.
”Take a seat, sir,” said the general, and went on to the end of his page. Having here signed his name, he dropped the quill and slightly turned so as to face the waiting officer. From under his high bronzed forehead his blue eyes looked quietly upon Cleave.
The younger man returned the gaze as quietly. This was the first time he had been thus summoned since that unlucky winter evening at Bloomery Gap. He remembered that evening, and he did not suppose that his general had forgotten it. He did not suppose that Jackson forgot anything. But apparently it was no longer to be counted against him. Jackson's face wore the quiet, friendly, somewhat sweet expression usual to it when all was calm within. As for Cleave himself, his nature owned a certain primal flow and bigness. There were few fixed and rigid barriers.
Injured pride and resentment did not lift themselves into reefs against which the mind must break in torment. Rather, his being swept fluid, making no great account of obstacles, accepting all turns of affairs, drawing them into its main current, and moving onward toward some goal, hardly self-conjectured, but simple, humane, and universal. The anger he might have felt at Bloomery Gap had long pa.s.sed away. He sat now attentive, collected, broad-browed, and quiet.