Ferry led Kendall and me into the woods, the other two remaining. We found rising ground, and had ridden but a few minutes when from its crest we looked upon a startling sight. In front of us was a stretch of specially well farmed land. Our woods swept round it on both sides, crossed a highway, and gradually closed in again so as to terminate the opening about half a mile away. Always the same crops, bottom cause of the war: from us to the road an admirable planting of cotton, and from there to the farther woods as goodly a show of thick corn. The whole acreage swept downward to that terminus, at the same time sinking inward from the two sides. On the highway shone the lighted rear window of a roadside "store," and down the two sides of the whole tract stretched the hundred tent-fires of two brigade camps of the enemy's cavalry. Their new, white canvases were pitched in long, even alleys following the borders of the wood, from which the brush had been cut away far enough for half of them to stand under the trees. The men had quieted down to sleep, but at one tent very near us a group of regimental officers sat in the light of a torch-basket, and by them were planted their colors. A quartet of capital voices were singing, and one who joined the chorus, standing by the flag, absently yet caressingly spread it at such breadth that we easily read on it the name of the command. Let me leave that out.To-night as he thought over this, when the hour was quiet, and upstairs Alice kept vigil, Norahs presence seemed to haunt the room. She had only been here once, but he could remember with such distinctness the trivial details of that afternoon, that his imagination gave him her again, now standing by the book-shelves, now seated in one of the chairs he had brought in that day, and kept here since. They would be needed again, he hoped, next Sunday, for with the arrival of the Leonardo book he had an adequate excuse for asking her again, and, he hoped, an adequate cause for her acceptance. There it lay on the table still unopened, and in the clinking of the ashes in the grate, and the night-wind that stirred in the bushes outside, he heard with the inward ear the sound of her voice, just a word or two spoken through the wind.She has never mentioned her father to me. Was hewell, the sort of man whom the County Club would not have blackballed?
"With his, Smith, and most injuriously. He's here to tempt her to forget she's not--" He faltered."No, he is a high-rank surgeon. Yet I think he must have heard all about her; he wouldn't send that letter, that way, just for gratitude.""What do you suppose it was? It was mutton, which is kept boiling in a pot from morning till night; and as fast as any is taken out, or the soup boils down, they fill the kettle up again. Mutton is very cheap here, as sheep are abundant and can be bought at the purchaser's own price, provided he will keep himself within reason. Great numbers of sheep are driven to Pekin for the supply of the city, and we met large flocks at several points on the road. Their wool has been exported to England and America; but it is not of a fine quality, and does not bring a high price.[Pg 24]"Well, you completed it." We went on some steps, and then she said--"But I will tell you a still more remarkable story of the endurance of these Japanese runners. While I was at Kioto, an English clergyman came there with his wife; and after they had seen the city, they were very anxious to go to Nara. They[Pg 113] had only a day to spare, as they were obliged to be at Kobe at a certain date to meet the steamer for Shanghai. They made arrangements to be taken to Nara and back in that timea distance, going and coming, of sixty miles. They had three men to each jin-riki-sha, and they kept the same men through the entire trip. They left the hotel at Kioto at four o'clock in the morning, and were back again at half-past eight in the evening. You couldn't do better than this with a horse, unless he were an exceptionally good one."