Rick could see where the story led. He asked, "Was Captain Costin a handsome young man, by any chance?"
"He most certainly was," Jan said emphatically. "He was terribly romantic. Wait until you see him."
Rick could hardly wait, but he didn't comment.
"Of course the captain and Ellen fell in love."
Rick could imagine.
"But along came Jeb Stuart's whole cavalry and they pushed Captain Costin's squadron all the way back to Manassas, and then they occupied the area. But Captain Costin couldn't stand not seeing his Ellen, so he somehow got a message to her, to meet him at the mine."
It was the first Rick had heard of a mine. He asked, "Can I ask a question? Where is this mine and what kind is it?"
"The mine is right across the creek, just beyond the bridge," Jan explained. "We could see it from here if the trees weren't there. Anyway, it's where the town picnic ground is located now, on our property, partly. It used to be a lead mine, and during the Civil War a lot of Southern bullets came from there."
From Jan's tone of voice, Rick suspected that her sympathies were with the lost Southern cause, which was natural enough, since her ancestry was pure Virginian for several generations.
"The mine wasn't worked on Sunday, in those days, and Captain Costin asked Ellen to meet him on a Sunday night at nine o'clock. Well, the Lansdale boys somehow found out where their sister was going, and they went, too. And they shot down Captain Costin in cold blood, right at the mine entrance. Just when he was holding out his arms to greet his sweetheart!"