g."

"It was a sickening disappointment," acknowledged Edward. "We listened
and listened. He's got a tremendous reputation, you know--Jackson.
Foreordained and predestined to be at the crucial point at the critical
moment! Backed alike by Calvin and God! So we looked for a comet to
strike Fitz John Porter, and instead we were treated to an eclipse. It
was a frightful slaughter. I saw General Lee afterwards--magnanimous,
calm, and grand! What was really the reason?"

Cleave moved restlessly. "I cannot say. Perhaps I might hazard a guess,
but it's no use talking of guesswork. To-day I hope for a change."

"You consider him a great general?"

"A very great one. But he's sprung from earth--ascended like the rest of
us. For him, as for you and me, there's the heel undipped and the
unlucky day."

The officers of the first grey regiment began to bestir themselves.
_Fall in--Fall in--Fall in!_ Edward rose. "Well, we shall see what we
shall see. Good-bye, Richard!" The two shook hands warmly; Cary ran to
his place in the line; the "Tuckahoe" regiment, cheered by the 65th,
swung from the forest road into a track leading across an expanse of
broom sedge. It went rapidly. The dew was dried, the mist lifted, the
sun blazing with all his might. During the night the withdrawing
Federals had also travelled this road. It was cut by gun-wheels, it was
strewn with abandoned wagons, ambulances, accoutrements of all kinds.
There were a number of dead horses. They lay across the road, or to
either hand in the melancholy fields of sedge. From some dead trees the
buzzards watched. One horse, far out in the yellow sedge, lifted his
head and piteously neighed.

The troops came into the neighbourhood of Gaines's Mill. Through grille
after grille of woven twig and bamboo vine they descended to another
creek, sleeping and shadowed, crossed it somehow, and came up into
forest again. Before them, through the trees, was visible a great open
space, hundreds of acres. Here and there it rose into knolls, and on
these were planted grey batteries. Beyond the open there showed a
horseshoe of a creek, fringed with swamp growth, a wild and tangled
woodland; beyond this again a precipitous slope, almost a cliff,
mounting to a wide plateau. All the side of the ascent was occupied by
admirable breastworks, triple lines, one above the other, while at the
base between hill and creek, within the enshadowing forest, was planted
a great abattis of logs and fel