"I hope you are a good man. I hope you are not to die in what you do."
At daybreak they rode away westward, making a wide circuit of the village, Gard with his lips shaven, hair parted and plastered down, and wearing the gentle old brother's waistcoat that buttoned to the throat, his dingy black coat and wide-brimmed hat. His saddle was primitive, his bridle-bit rusty. Mavering's experienced eye judged that he looked his part. Even the whiteness of his lips, where the razor had gone, added to the impression of calm and austere withdrawal. Was it some lingering touch of the monastery? One does not live without result during the formative years, secluded between cool, white walls, among unworldly lives. Mavering called him "the anchorite," and swore the phrase still truthful.
A glimpse of the Potomac between the hills; a troop of Union cavalry breaking camp in a meadow; clank and rattle of side-arms; men gathering and packing kit; men sitting listlessly in their saddles; a mounted officer in the middle of the road, looking down towards the Potomac—large, square-shouldered, and massive. He turned in his saddle.
"Hold on here! Halt!"
Gard pulled up and looked at him under drooped eyelids.
Mavering pushed between.
"Without circumlocution, Captain Map, you're precisely what I'm looking for. Cavalry's the thing for a correspondent. I have an unsubstantial vision I used to know you in Hamilton."
"That's all right. Who's this?"
"Oh, that's a Dunker brother. Got some blanked tracts in his saddle-bags. Let me join you?"