“Kate, don’t be afraid. It is I, your cousin Calhoun Pennington.”
“Where? Where?” she half-whispered, looking eagerly around and poised as if still for flight.
“Here behind the box. Come close. There, don’t ask a question. Get the servants out of the way and smuggle me into the house unseen. I am wet, cold, and hungry.”
Kate flew to do his bidding. In a few moments she came out and beckoned to him, and right gladly he followed her into the house. One risen from the dead would hardly have created more surprise than did his appearance. His aunt and Kate persisted in embracing him, wet and dirty as he was.
To their eager questions, he said: “Dry clothes first, Auntie, and breakfast. I am famished. I will then talk with you to your heart’s content.”
Mrs. Shackelford had had a son about the size of Calhoun killed in the army, and our hero was soon arrayed in a nice dry suit, and seated before a substantial breakfast, upon which he made a furious assault. When his hunger was fully appeased, he informed his aunt and Kate he was ready to talk. And how they did talk! They had a thousand questions to ask, and he had full as many.
To his surprise and joy he learned that his cousin, Fred Shackelford, had not been killed by his fall over the cliff, as Major Hockoday reported. Instead he was alive and well, was with the army at Murfreesboro, and frequently visited them.
“He has been a good friend to us,” said Mrs. Shackelford, “but at one time he was nearly the death of Kate.”
“Why, how was that?” asked Calhoun.
Then for the first time he heard of Forrest’s plot to capture Nashville, and of Kate’s part in it, of her condemnation, and imprisonment as a spy, and how Fred had secured her pardon.[2]