“No,” said the voice from out the sun-bonnet; “go on.”
“If we don’t turn back now we can’t turn back at all.”
“Go on,” said Mary; “I can’t turn back.”
“You’re a good soldier,” said the man, playfully again. “You’re a better one than me, I reckon; I kin turn back frequently, as it were. I’ve done it ‘many a time and oft,’ as the felleh says.”
Mary looked up with feminine surprise. He made a pretence of silent laughter, that showed a hundred crows’ feet in his twinkling eyes.
“Oh, don’t you fret; I’m not goin’ to run the wrong way with you in charge. Didn’t you hear me promise Mr. Thornton? Well, you see, I’ve got a sort o’ bad memory, that kind o’ won’t let me forgit when I make a promise;—bothers me that way a heap sometimes.” He smirked in a self-deprecating way, and pulled his hat-brim down in front. Presently he spoke again, looking straight ahead over the horse’s ears:—
“Now, that’s the mischief about comin’ with me—got to run both blockades at oncet. Now, if you’d been a good Secesh and could somehow or ’nother of got a pass through the Union lines you’d of been all gay. But bein’ Union, the fu’ther you git along the wuss off you air, ’less-n I kin take you and carry you ’way ’long yonder to where you kin jess jump onto a south-bound Rebel railroad and light down amongst folks that’ll never think o’ you havin’ run through the lines.”
“But you can’t do that,” said Mary, not in the form of a request. “You know you agreed with Mr. Thornton that you would simply”—
“Put you down in a safe place,” said the man, jocosely; “that’s what it meant, and don’t you get nervous”— His face suddenly changed; he raised his whip and held it up for attention and silence, looking at Mary, and smiling while he listened. “Do you hear anything?”
“Yes,” said Mary, in a hushed tone. There were some old fields on the right-hand now, and a wood on the left. Just within the wood a turtle-dove was cooing.