I am vexed, but I cannot help laughing; and the men are vexed, but they, after a minute, laugh too.
"Don't tell it up there," says Mr. Hurt, "or the secesh will laugh at you all your lives;" and then we shake hands, and they ride away.
I need not tell you that this time we stayed to tea; nor how we talked over the events of the former visit; and how everybody remembered where everybody sat, and what everybody did, and every word that everybody said. But it is time to go, and though Mr. Hurt will not hear of it, we saddle up, and bidding them many good-byes, resume our march.
Last spring when we crossed the Tennessee, two men, named Anderson and Faris, came into camp as refugees from Paris. When I was in Paris with the flag, some one came behind me and said, in a whisper, "Tell Anderson and Faris not to come back!" As we guarded the Holly Fork next day, Anderson and Faris appeared. I stopped them, not on their account, but for the reason that I would not let anybody pass; and afterward they came down and stayed chiefly in camp. On our expedition to the Obion, Faris had been our guide. He was taken, a court-martial was held, at which a neighbor of his—one Captain Mitchell—was the chief manager and witness; and Faris was sentenced as a spy, and hung. He met his death bravely, writing a calm and heroic letter to his wife upon his coffin.
We have all wanted to catch Master Mitchell; and now, on our way from Mr. Hurt's, I accidentally learn that last evening he came into Paris. We have been on the road since three this morning, and it is eleven now; but this opportunity shall not be lost, though he is a cunning fellow, who probably will not stay two nights in the same place. And now we halt at the house of an old Unionist, who bears a striking resemblance to General Scott, and whose fine old house is surrounded and overshadowed by a noble grove, equal to our Battery in its better days.
"Call me at half-past one," I say to the corporal of the guard; "and relieve guard in an hour."
"Half-past one, captain," says the corporal.
"Call up the men."
The men turn out promptly after their two hours' sleep.
"The moon seems pretty much in the same place," says one.