“'Tain't far, Dinkey,” said the deacon, gently.
And he thought of Pete Murphy's red, fleshy face and black, oily mustache. It occurred to him that he had noticed most men in Company G, if they fell into trouble, wanted to find Pete. He thought he should want to himself, though he could not tell why. If he happened to be killed anywhere he thought he should like Pete Murphy to tell his wife about it.
Dinkey lay limp and heavy in his arms. The wet blackness seemed like something pressed against his face. He could not realize that he was walking, though in the night, down the same slope to a river called the Rappahannock and a town called Fredericksburg. It was strange business for him, Deacon Terrell of Brewster, to be in, stumbling down the battlefield in the pit darkness, with a godless little brat like Dinkey Cott in his arms.
And why godless, if the same darkness were around us all, and the same light, while we lived, would come to all in the morning? It was borne upon the deacon that no man was elected to the salvation of the sun or condemned to the night apart from other men.
The deacon never could recall the details of his night's journey, except that he fell down more than once, and ran against stone walls in the dark. It seemed to him that he had gone through an unknown, supernatural country. Dinkey lay so quiet that he thought he might be dead, but he could not make up his mind to leave him. He wished he could find Pete Murphy. Pete would tell him if Dinkey was dead.
He walked not one mile, but several, in the blind night Dinkey had long been a limp weight. The last thing he said was, “Les' find Pete,” and that was long before.
At last the deacon saw a little glow in the darkness, and, coming near, found a dying campfire with a few flames only flickering, and beside it two men asleep. He might have heard the ripple of the Rappahannock, but, being so worn and dull in his mind, he laid Dinkey down by the fire and fell heavily to sleep himself before he knew it.
When he woke Pete Murphy stood near him with a corporal and a guard. They were looking for the pieces of Company G. “Dead, ain't he?” said Pete.
The deacon got up and brushed his clothes. The two men who were sleeping woke up also, and they all stood around looking at Dinkey in awkward silence.
“Who's his folks?”