ntenance, so rigid, plain, restrained, altered as through
some effect of soft and sunny light. The blue of the eye deepened, the
iris enlarged, a smile came to his lips. His stiffly held, awkwardly
erect figure relaxed, though very slightly. "I loved it in Mexico. I
have never forgotten it. _Dear land of the daughters of Spain!_" The
light went indoors again. "That demonstration upstream is increasing.
Colonel Evans will need support."
"Yes, we must have orders shortly." Turning in his saddle, Cary gazed
across the stream. "Andrew Porter and Burnside are somewhere over there.
I wonder if Burnside remembers the last time he was in Virginia!" He
laughed. "Dabney Maury's wedding in '52 at Cleveland, and Burnside happy
as a king singing 'Old Virginia never tire!' stealing kisses from the
bridesmaids, hunting with the hardest, dancing till cockcrow, and
asking, twenty times a day, 'Why don't we do like this in Indiana?' I
wonder--I wonder!" He laughed again. "Good old Burnside! It's an odd
world we live in, general!"
"The world, sir, is as God made it and as Satan darkened it."
Cary regarded him somewhat whimsically. "Well, we'll agree on God now,
and perhaps before this struggle's over, we'll agree on Satan. That
firing's growing louder, I think. There's a cousin of mine in the
65th--yonder by the colours! May I speak to him?"
"Certainly, sir. I have noticed Captain Cleave. His men obey him with
readiness." He beckoned, and when Cleave came up, turned away with
Little Sorrel to the edge of the stream. The kinsmen clasped hands.
"How are you, Richard?"
"Very well, Fauquier. And you?"
"Very well, too, I suppose. I haven't asked. You've got a fine, tall
company!"
Cleave, turning, regarded his men with almost a love-light in his eyes.
"By God, Fauquier, we'll win if stock can do it! It's going to make a
legend--this army!"
"I believe that you are right. When you were a boy you used to dream
artillery."
"I dream it still. Sooner or later, by hook or by crook, I'll get into
that arm. It wasn't feasible this spring."
His cousin looked at him with the affection, half humorous and wholly
tender, with which he regarded most of his belongings in life. "I always
liked you, Richard. Now don't you go get killed in this unnatural war!
The South's going to need every good man she's got--and more beside!
Where is Will?"
"In the 2d. I wanted him nearer me, but 'twould have broken his heart to
leave his company. Ed
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