that. And she and Major Stafford
crossed looks, and it was like crossed swords. And then she sent for his
horse and went away, upstairs to her room. She's up there now praying
for the Stonewall Brigade and for Richard."

"Molly, you're uncanny!" said Unity. "Oh me! Love and Hate--North and
South--and we'll not have the bulletin until to-morrow--"

Miss Lucy rose. "I am going upstairs to Judith and tell her that I
simply know Richard is safe. There are too many broken love stories in
the world, and the Carys have had more than their share."

XXVIII

THE LONGEST WAY ROUND

Having, in a month and ten days, marched four hundred miles, fought four
pitched battles and a whole rosary of skirmishes, made of naught the
operations of four armies, threatened its enemy's capital and relieved
its own, the Army of the Valley wound upward toward the Blue Ridge from
the field of Port Republic. It had attended Shields some distance down
the Luray road. "Drive them!--drive them!" had said Jackson. It had
driven them then, turning on its steps it had passed again the
battlefield. Fremont's army, darkening the heights upon the further side
of that river of burned bridges, looked impotently on. Fremont shelled
the meadow and the wheat fields over which ambulances and surgeons were
yet moving, on which yet lay his own wounded, but his shells could not
reach the marching foe. Brigade after brigade, van, main and rear,
cavalry, infantry, artillery, quartermaster, commissary and ordnance
trains, all disappeared in the climbing forest. A cold and chilling rain
came on; night fell, and a drifting mist hid the Army of the Valley. The
next morning Fremont withdrew down the Valley toward Strasburg. Shields
tarried at Luray, and the order from Washington directing McDowell to
make at once his long delayed junction with McClellan upon the
Chickahominy was rescinded.

The rear guard of the Army of the Valley buried the dead of Port
Republic in trenches, and then it, too, vanished. To the last wagon
wheel, to the last poor straggler, all was gone. It was an idiosyncrasy
of Jackson's to gather and take with him every filing. He travelled like
a magnet; all that belonged to him went with him. Long after dark, high
on the mountain-side, an aide appeared in the rain, facing the head of
the rear brigade.

"The general says have you brought off every inch of the captured guns?"

"Tell him all but one unserviceable caisson. We did not have horse