“I say, where's my case of razors?” inquired Bland, with irritation. “They were lying here a moment ago, and now they're gone. Dandy, have you got my razors?”
“Look here, Beau, what are you going to leave behind?” asked Kemper over Bland's shoulder.
“Leave behind? Why, dull care,” rejoined Dan gayly. “By the way, Pinetop, why don't you save your appetite for Patterson's dainties?”
Pinetop, who was leisurely eating his breakfast of “hardtack” and bacon, took a long draught from his tin cup, and replied, as he wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve, that he “reckoned thar wouldn't be any trouble about finding room for them, too.” The general gayety was reflected in his face; he laughed as he bit deeply into his half-cooked bacon.
Dan stood up and nervously strapped on his knapsack; then he swung his canteen over his shoulder and carefully tightened his belt. His face was flushed, and when he spoke his voice quivered with emotion. It seemed to him that the delay of every instant was a reckless waste of time, and he trembled at the thought that the enemy might be preparing to fall upon them unawares; that while the camp was swarming like an ant's nest, Patterson and his men might be making good use of the fleeting moments.
“Why the devil don't we move? We ought to move,” he said angrily, as he glanced round the crowded field where the men were arraying themselves in all the useless trappings of the Southern volunteer. Kemper was busily placing his necessary toilet articles in his haversack, having thrown away half his rations for the purpose; Jack Powell, completely dressed for the march, was examining his heavy revolver, with the conscious pride a field officer might have felt in his sword. As he stuck it into his belt, he straightened himself with a laugh and jauntily set his small cap on his curling hair; he was clean, comely, and smooth-shaven as if he had just stepped from a hot bath and the hands of his barber.
“You may roll Dandy in the dust and he'll come out washed,” Baker had once forcibly remarked.
“I say, boys, why don't we start?” persisted Dan impatiently, flicking with his handkerchief at a grain of sand on his high boots. Then, as Big Abel brought him a cup of coffee, he drank it standing, casting eager glances over the rim of his cup. He had an odd feeling that it was all a great fox hunt they were soon to start upon; that they were waiting only for the calling of the hounds. The Major's fighting blood had stirred within his grandson's veins, and generations of dead Lightfoots were scenting the coming battle from the dust. When Dan thought now of the end to which he should presently be marching, it suggested to him but a quickened exhilaration of the pulses and an old engraving of “Waterloo,” which hung on the dining-room wall at Chericoke. That was war; and he remembered vividly the childish thrill with which he had first looked up at it. He saw the prancing horses, the dramatic gestures of the generals with flowing hair, the blur of waving flags and naked swords. It was like a page torn from the eternal Romance; a page upon which he and his comrades should play heroic parts; and it was white blood, indeed, that did not glow with the hope of sharing in that picture; of hanging immortal in an engraving on the wall.
The “fall in” of the sergeant was already sounding from the road, and, with a last glance about the field, Dan ran down the gentle slope and across the little stream to take his place in the ranks of the forming column. An officer on a milk-white horse was making frantic gestures to the line, and the young man followed him an instant with his eyes. Then, as he stood there in the warm sunshine, he felt his impatience prick him like a needle. He wanted to push forward the regiments in front of him, to start in any direction—only to start. The suppressed excitement of the fox hunt was upon him, and the hoarse voices of the officers thrilled him as if they were the baying of the hounds. He heard the musical jingle of moving cavalry, the hurried tread of feet in the soft dust, the smothered oaths of men who stumbled over the scattered stones. And, at last, when the sun stood high above, the long column swung off toward the south, leaving the enemy and the north behind it.
“By God, we're running away,” said Bland in a whisper. With the words the gayety passed suddenly from the army, and it moved slowly with the dispirited tread of beaten men. The enemy lay to the north, and it was marching to the south and home.