None shall look back, p.5
None Shall Look Back, page 5
Thirty boys—half of them from the academy—had come forward. Six of these recruits had been detailed immediately to pack the articles of equipment in coffee sacks and carry them out into the alley where they were loaded into wagons and started out on the Elizabethtown pike.
George and the two Allard boys, Rives and Ned, had not been lucky enough to be selected for this duty. They had had to return to the academy that night. Colonel Forrest had talked with them a moment, however, before dismissing them. He was in correspondence with Captain Leffingwell, he said. The company which Captain Leffingwell was organizing would probably be under his command. The three Clarksville boys—he had taken it for granted that Rives came from there too—could go to their homes now and join him a few weeks later. He intended to divide his company into small detachments which would start out on different dates and travel through the country by different routes until they could rendezvous at some place on the border.
The boys had returned to the academy that night—but not to sleep. They had packed their belongings. George had had the idea of entrusting them to old Zack, his body servant, to bring on the cars. Then he and Rives and Ned got old Professor Masters out of bed to bid him good-by. George, who for all his wildness had an instinct for convention, had insisted that they must not sneak off, as he dramatically put it, “like thieves in the night.”
The old professor, his gray hair ruffled, a shawl over his night shirt, came out and stood on the steps. He turned his ironic classroom smile on them, raised a thin hand:
“Gentlemen, I appreciate your thoughtfulness in coming to bid me farewell. . . . Yes, I quite understand. . . . Dulce et decorum est. . . .”
But after they had turned away he still stood on the doorstep staring after them until his daughter came and led him back into the house.
There had been half a dozen Clarksville boys in the cavalcade. It was a moonlight night. Their spirits were too high to allow them to sleep so they had ridden for half of it, until the moon was down. They stopped in the middle of the night at a little country inn. The host was at first angry at being awakened, then frightened when he saw a body of horsemen before his door and finally placated at the thought of the fees he would get. Yes, the gentlemen could have every convenience the hotel afforded. Breakfast? Fried chicken or, if they preferred, fish caught fresh from the river.
They had slept until ten o’clock and after a hearty breakfast—platters of fried bream and corn muffins—were on the road by eleven o’clock. There was some hard riding after that, on country roads thick with dust, but they had ridden into the front gate at Brackets just before sundown.
Rives’ exalted mood had lasted through the moonlight night and the hot dusty afternoon, but in the last few hours it had gone from him. Standing there, his arms folded, looking out over the dancers, he found himself listening to conversations among the older people. They had talked about the war before supper there on the lawn and now they were talking again; Captain Leffingwell and Mr. Allard just behind him.
Cousin Fount seemed to be concerned about slavery though he was discussing it for the moment humorously:
“The Abolitionists remind me of old Henry Sampson. They were talking down at the store the other day about sending the negroes back to Africa. Henry was perfectly agreeable but he didn’t see any sense in hiring boats to take them. ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘let the damn negroes walk.’ ”
They had turned so as to include the young man in their conversation. Aware of Mr. Allard’s fine, humorous eye upon him he smiled briefly at the pleasantry.
Frank Leffingwell said, “Hmm, just like old Henry.” He spoke to Spencer Rowe at his side, “You may be right when you say this war is going to be fought with picks and axes instead of bayonets. I agree that methods of warfare have changed much, even since the Mexican War, but all the old methods aren’t obsolete. You’ll always have cavalry charges and the cavalry will always be important for reconnaissance. The cavalry is the eyes of the army. Napier says . . .”
Rives half turned so that though he was still included in the circle he could look out over the room. He had danced dutifully with half a dozen girls—he thought his cousin, Love Minor, was the prettiest one there—but he was beginning to feel the effects of his long ride. It seemed pleasanter to stand and look on for awhile.
All this talk about slavery, the tariff, the Hartford Convention of 1815 when the East had wanted to secede from the Union, even the discussion of methods of warfare confused him, took away from the exaltation he had felt at the thought of going to war. With an effort he found his way back to that feeling. No, it was not a question of slavery—his own family, for instance, did not think it right to own slaves—and he did not understand all this business about the tariff. He thought with a kind of obstinateness that he had that it was really just as that Colonel Forrest said. Our country had been invaded—it did not much matter on what grounds the invaders had come. Men, he thought shrewdly, could always find sufficient pretext for taking something they wanted, like Henry the Eighth who upset church and state whenever he wanted a new wife. The country had been invaded. Men were wanted for her defense. He was glad to go.
A little wind coming in at the window made the candles flicker. Old Mr. McCulloch was playing softly a dreamy waltz. The girls in their pale-colored dresses drifted by in the wavering light like great moths. He found himself dwelling with pleasure on this or that face. He was not in love but he would like to be. George Rowan was in love, with Lucy Churchill. Clarissima he called her in the sonnets he was perpetually writing. Bob Petrie said that George always gave his charmers classical names so he could discuss their charms with at least some measure of decorum. Rives recalled some verses George had labored over about Lucy:
“. . . your eyes, lustrous as morn” or had it finally turned out “Dawn?” The verses, anyhow, had given him the idea that the girl was dark-eyed. But she had gray eyes, very large and shining, looking almost black in the candlelight. Clarissima . . . Most clear! The name suited her, a sort of brightness about her, a quick, proud way she had of turning her head. When he looked at her he got back the feeling that he had had about the war before all this talk came to confuse him. He was still standing there, following the girl about the room with his eyes when there was a flurry among the dancers, and one or two voices were suddenly raised. Mr. McCulloch stopped playing. Cousin Fount had lifted his hand as if to command silence. Everybody listened. From far down the road the unmistakable beat of horses’ hooves. Not one, or two or even a dozen. A body of mounted men was steadily approaching.
Mr. Allard let his hand sink to his side. He looked about the room, met the questioning eyes.
“It is the rangers,” he said, “Colonel Forrest’s mounted rangers. I have invited them to stop here for the night.”
4
LUCY stood on the front porch looking out over the lawn where two negro men were at work with rakes and baskets. They were raking up the litter left by the soldiers and piling it in the great hickory split baskets. Lucy, watching them, had a frown on her face. It was strange to see the traces of the soldiers’ visit obliterated so quickly. They had camped there in front of the office, three or four officers and forty mounted men.
A shiver of excitement ran up her back as she remembered how they had ridden into the yard last night. Mr. McCulloch had been playing a waltz and everybody was dancing and then suddenly they had heard the hoof beats down the road and a few minutes later the place was full of mounted men. Her grandmother, for once, had been disconcerted. She kept saying, “But Fount, where can I put them?” Grandpa had been very calm. The officers, Colonel Forrest—the girls hadn’t liked him much; he was too stern—Captain May and the two lieutenants—she preferred the one with the moustache though the other girls raved about the blue-eyed one—the officers would make themselves as comfortable as possible in the three bedrooms of the office. The men would have to make out as best they could, sleeping on the ground.
Grandma had thought that seemed very inhospitable but Cousin Frank laughed. “Soft turf on a warm night! I assure you, Charlotte, that is luxury for a campaigner.”
Grandma had been tart with him. “They aren’t campaigners yet, just boys away from home. I wish I could give every last one of them my own bed.”
They had all laughed at that. “Well, since you can’t, my dear, just concentrate on feeding them,” Grandpa said.
Feeding them that morning had been a problem. Grandma had been up long before daybreak and she had got every other woman on the place up. “Come on, girls, this is your chance to do something for the soldiers.” Love and Lucy and little Jenny Morris as well as the visiting girls had run errands till their feet ached. They had cooked on every fireplace on the plantation. A fire had even been kindled out of doors and corn meal mush had been cooked over it in the great scalding kettle. Boys had been running back and forth from the summer kitchen with platters of fried ham and chicken. All the late corn had been stripped from the garden and Uncle Winston moaned that there wasn’t a tomato left on the place. Still the soldiers had been fed and fed well. They had gone off smiling, privates and officers alike. The black-browed colonel—somebody said that he had been a nigger-trader before the war!—was riding the Diomed colt. Grandpa had given him to the colonel.
Now that they were all gone it seemed like a dream. There were those places where the turf was torn up by wheeling hooves, of course, and the litter of newspapers—the soldiers had all been liberally supplied with newspapers. But except for the litter and those marks on the lawn it was as if they had never been there. She wondered if she would ever see the brown-moustached lieutenant again. He had a very agreeable baritone voice.
There were steps behind her. Her Uncle Jim had come out on the porch. He smiled at her. “Well, Lucy, you girls will have to go back to your old beaux now. No more handsome lieutenants.”
Lucy smiled back into the blue eyes which as usual when they were bent on her had a twinkle in them. Jim was her favorite among all the younger members of the family connection. When she was a little child he had taken her riding all over the place in the front of his saddle and now that she was grown and he married the affection between them still persisted. She thought that but for his limp—he had been crippled by a fall from a horse as a boy—he would be the handsomest man she had ever seen. Certainly he was handsome enough, even with the limp. He had fine blue eyes, regular features and his moustache and hair were the color of cornsilk. Lucy had been a little dismayed by his marriage a few weeks ago to Belle Bradley, the daughter of a Clarksville merchant, but she was gradually becoming reconciled. The Bradleys were perfectly respectable people though they had never until lately come out to Brackets and Belle was as pretty as a picture. And besides, where could Uncle Jim find anybody good enough to marry him?
She went over and slipped her arm through his and then wished she had not for Jim’s bride, Belle, was just then coming through the door. Although it was so early in the morning Belle was elegantly dressed in light brown silk and a bonnet of the same color sat on her golden hair. Jim and Belle had spent the night at Brackets and they proposed to drive in to Clarksville before returning to their own farm three miles distant. “There’s an extra seat in the trap,” Jim said now, “which one of you girls is going with us?”
“Yes,” Belle said, “but we may stay to dinner at Papa’s, so be prepared. He says it’s too far out here to turn right around and come back,” and she smiled at Lucy with the happy superiority of a spoiled daughter and a happy bride.
Mr. Allard, who at the other end of the gallery had seemed absorbed in his thoughts, glanced at her, then looked quickly away. He never looked at Belle without being reminded of the old merchant, her father. He was not yet reconciled to his son’s marriage. He himself had followed his own fancy in choosing a wife (though the Allard and the McLean properties, lying as they did on either side of the road to Trenton had joined very prettily). He had supposed when the time came that his Jim too would follow his fancy, only, he told himself bitterly, he had never thought that that fancy would lead him behind a counter.
Fount Allard regarded himself as a very democratic man because when he rode into town on county court day he was hail fellow well met with everybody, including some very rough customers. In reality, he was governed entirely by the instincts and prejudices of his class, that of the landed proprietor. He and his ancestors as far back as he had any knowledge of them had drawn their living from the land. He regarded dependence upon and culture of the soil as the proper state and he had a good-natured contempt for a man engaged in business as one who had to resort to what he privately labelled “tricks” and “shifts.” Old Joe Bradley was conspicuous in Clarksville as being a “sharp” man to deal with. Allard actually winced at the thought of the word being applied to any connection of his and he glanced quickly away from Belle for fear the aversion with which she inspired him might appear in his face.
Jim, happily unconscious as yet of his father’s feelings, looked at Lucy. “Why don’t you come, Lucy?”
Lucy hesitated. She liked the idea of a drive behind her uncle’s fast-trotting grays. Then, too, she was a little jealous of the bride. She was pleased now at this evidence of Jim’s preference. While she hesitated Mr. Allard got up.
“Lucy,” he said, enunciating his words coldly and formally, “can’t go gallivanting off. She has to go to Cabin Row.”
Lucy made a mouth at this. She had regarded the day as one set apart for pleasure and she had no desire to spend even an hour of it at Cabin Row. She knew, however, that when her grandfather got a certain expression on his face he would not stand for any argument, so without a word she went upstairs to change into her riding habit.
When she came down he was waiting at the horse block where the horses were already standing, saddled. A young man had ridden up and was just dismounting: “the new cousin,” Rives, who had spent the night with George Rowan and was only now getting back to Brackets. Lucy was about to mount her horse from the block when he offered her his cupped palm. She placed her foot in it and with a quick, dexterous movement, he sent her up into the saddle. Mr. Allard, mounted himself, smiled genially as he gathered up his reins. “Rives,” he said, “you better come along with us. You never have seen the Cabin Row place, have you?”
This was the farm which Fontaine Allard had given Lucy’s mother on the occasion of her marriage. It had been managed for many years by an overseer but Mr. Allard always insisted that Lucy should pay regular visits of inspection there. She had known all along that this morning’s tour would end up at Cabin Row. Nevertheless she expostulated: “Oh, Grandpa, do we have to go there? I wanted to look at the horses.”
“We’ll go to the stables,” the old man said, “but we’ll go to Cabin Row too.” His tone which had been severe softened as he turned to Rives. “Boy, what do you think of a farmer who won’t even go out to look at her crops?”
“I didn’t know Cabin Row was Lucy’s,” Rives said.
“It’s hers,” the old man said, “but she don’t seem to take much interest in it. I tell you, I believe she thinks Brackets belongs to her and that’s enough for one woman to fool with.”
“Well, there’s nothing at Cabin Row but a lot of old niggers,” Lucy said. She was looking at Rives with a touch of coquetry. She had thought last night that he had looked at her once or twice admiringly. She wondered now whether he really had or whether she had just imagined it. “Are you coming with us?” she asked.
He was looking at Mr. Allard but he turned now and looked at Lucy. She had not realized last night how extraordinarily blue his eyes were.
“I’ll come,” he said abruptly and got back on his horse.
They rode off along the wagon road that bisected the farm. Lucy, who thought now that the young man had come on the expedition solely on her account, was piqued to find that he and her grandfather seemed to have a great deal to talk about, mostly about Rives’ family. Fontaine Allard knew this branch of the connection well, and secretly held them in contempt because with all Kentucky to choose from, they had settled on poor land. Still this boy seemed to be a likely fellow. He found himself talking to him as he had talked to all the young men of his acquaintance for thirty years now about the importance of building up the soil, of keeping up the breeds of stock, of watching one’s fields constantly for erosion.
“There’s a man in Virginia,” he said, “Edmund Ruffin, who has the root of the matter in him.” He broke off suddenly, his thoughts having come to one of those dead ends to which they so often came these days. “But you young fellows, you ain’t thinking of anything these days but going to war.”
The boy smiled. “Cousin Frank says he thinks it can’t be more than two or three weeks now before we go. You think it’ll be that soon?”
Fontaine Allard shook his head. There was a note of irritation in his voice. “I don’t know and Frank Leffingwell he don’t know any more than anybody else.” He looked off at the fields shimmering in the heat of the July sun. When he spoke it was musingly as if trying to capture some memory that eluded him. “The War of 1812 now,” he said. “I was sixteen years old when my Uncle Joe went off. I remember the night before and ’em all making egg-nogg because it was Uncle Joe’s last night and I remember that morning when he rode off. On a gray horse. With a Captain Somebody. And then I remember him coming back with just one leg. I remember the way the floor shook when he went stumping around.” He looked into the boy’s eyes as if there he might find the memory he sought. “The War of 1812,” he said, “that’s all I can remember.”
The boy returned the gaze gravely. “There was an old Mr. Robinson at home,” he said, “had a bullet still in his arm. He said he had a horse shot under him, but that was all ever happened to him. Just that bullet hit him above the elbow.”
Mr. Allard shook his head. “War’s a terrible thing,” he said gravely.
