a little rise of ground. All around
stretched grey, dew-wet fields and woods, and all around lay an army,
sleeping, strange sight in the still and solemn light, with the birds
cheeping overhead! The guns stopped, the men got down from limber and
caisson, the horses were unhitched. "An hour's sleep--Kernstown
battlefield!"

An officer whose command lay in the field to the left, just beyond a
great breach that had been made in the stone fence, arose from the cloak
he had spread in the opening and came over to the guns. "Good-morning,
Randolph! Farmers and soldiers see the dawn!

Light thickens; and the crow
Makes wing to the rooky wood.

The poor guns! Even they look overmarched." As he spoke he stroked the
howitzer as though it had been a living thing.

"We've got with us a stray of yours," said the artilleryman. "Says he
has a cut foot, but looks like a skulker. Here you, Mr.
Under-the-Bridge! come from behind that caisson--"

Out of a wood road, a misty opening overarched by tall and misty trees,
came two or three horsemen, the foremost of whom rode up to the battery.
"Good-morning, Randolph! General Jackson will be by in a moment. General
Ewell lies over there on the Front Royal road. He has eaten breakfast,
and is clanking his spurs and swearing as they swore in Flanders." He
pointed with his gauntleted hand, turning as he did so in the saddle.
The action brought recognition of Cleave's presence upon the road.
Stafford ceased speaking and sat still, observing the other with
narrowed eyes.

Cleave addressed the figure, which, there being no help for it, had come
from behind the caisson. "You, Dagg, of course! Straggling or
deserting--I wonder which this time! Are you not ashamed?"

"Gawd, major! I just couldn't keep up. I got a cut foot--"

"Sit down on that rock.--Take off your shoe--what is left of it. Now,
let me see. Is that the cut, that scratch above the ankle?"

"It ain't how deep it is. It's how it hurts."

"There is no infantryman to-day who is not footsore and tired. Only the
straggler or deserter has as few marks as you to show. There is the
company, down the road, in the field. To-night I shall find out if you
have been with it all the day. Go! You disgrace the very mountains where
you were born--"

Beyond the guns was a misty bend of the road. The light was stronger, in
the east a slender streamer of carnation; the air dank, cool and still.
On