The spell was broken. Pushing past her, the quartet trooped into the hallway.
At a glance, Mrs. Sessions could see they were tired, cross, and—apparently—more or less drunk. They had evidently moistened more than once the dry tedium of their afternoon’s search.
“You’re old Yankee Sessions’s widder, I reckon,” said one of the four.
“Yes,” she snapped, “I am. But I’ve lived hereabouts for ten years without ever before hearing rude language from any Southern man. No regular Confederate soldier would speak to a woman that way, either, or burst into her house without a ‘by-your-leave.’ It’s you guerrillas that are the pest of both armies. But you aren’t going to be the pest of my house. Out you go, all of you!”
“You spitfire!” hiccoughed the camp-follower. “I wish there was still a ducking-stool for scolds. Keep a civil tongue in your head or we’ll find a way to revive the ducking.”
“What do you want here?”
“We’re looking for a runaway Yank. Seen him go past?”
“Why didn’t you say so first, instead of cluttering up my clean hall with mud and kicking the polish off my door? Yes,” she added with perfect truth, “I saw a Yankee. He was riding lickety-split along the road there.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know. Quite a while back. He seemed to be wounded.”