She had grown pale and hollow-eyed in these few days of anxiety. Griffith went. He found Beverly doing well, but a ball had gone through his sword-arm and two others were imbedded in his flesh. His horse had fallen beneath him and he had had to walk on the wounded leg, and had lost much blood. He looked weak and thin. His orderly had written home for him, but the letter had never come. Griffith urged him to go home and recuperate, but he would not listen to the proposition. Griffith wrote home to Katherine and then waited. The command was ordered to move, and still Beverly was not able to go with it. The commander ordered him to go home until able to report for duty.
He was a sensation in the village. He was the first handsome young wounded officer to return. Alas! they were plenty enough later on; but now his limp and his arm suspended in a sling made him a hero, indeed. Many were the demonstrations in his honor. The Governor came to see him, and strove again to convince Griffith that he, too, was needed at the front. "I have told President Lincoln about you," he said. "You can see for yourself what the army in Virginia is doing ever since Bull Run—nothing at all. Those two defeats—Bull Run and Ball's Bluff—stopped them off entirely. Action that will be effective is simply impossible without knowing the lay of the land. Northern men don't know it, and we can't trust Southern men to tell the truth, of course, about it. The rebels know that perfectly well, and they bank on it. They keep their best and strongest generals, and men who know the State like a book, right there between Washington and Richmond. It won't do to let it be generally known, for that would put panic into our troops when they are tried next; but there is not a soul the President can trust who knows those passes and defiles and fords. Captain, I hope you know them. I don't believe you will refuse to go any place you are needed. As a recruit—an enlisted man—you can't refuse."
"Go," said Beverly; "go! why of course I would if I knew the country as father does, but I don't. You see father used to be a circuit-rider. He knows every foot of it as if it were his front yard, but I would know only a few miles near where we lived. I was only a boy then. It is a hard country to learn. Passes are many and blind. Fords change—it takes a native and an expert to feel safe with them. If I—" He turned suddenly to his father in his enthusiasm. "Why don't you go, father? If the President wants you—if your country needs you, why—" He saw the look that crept into his father's face, and he understood. The young fellow limped to his father's side and laid his left hand on his shoulder.
"Father has done enough," he said, looking at the Governor. "Do not ask him to do this. He fought his battle before the North came to it. He has borne and suffered enough, Governor. Father is a Virginian, blood, bone, and ancestry. He loves his people and his old home. We boys don't remember it as he does, but to him—to him, it will always be home. They will always be his people."
"Unless it is desperate and I am ordered, I shall not go," said Griffith, looking up almost defiantly. "You need not ask me again, Governor. I have done my share. I have done more for my country and my conscience than many men will be called upon to do—I have done my share."
The Governor gave it up, but he did not forget one phrase, "unless it is desperate—unless I am ordered." That night he started for Washington, and a week later Beverly returned to his command and to duty in the field.
CHAPTER XIV.—A SILENT HERO.
One evening Griffith sat by the library table reading, and Katherine was moving about the room restlessly. For several days no news had come from the front—no home news, no letters from the absent sons. The door leading to the porch was open and suddenly there stood before them a messenger with a telegram. Katherine grew weak and sick. Griffith tore the envelope open and read. She watched his face. Every vestige of blood had left it, and his head sank on his arms crossed on the table before him. The telegram was crushed in one hand. A groan escaped him, and then a sob shook his frame.
"Which one is it? Which one of my boys is killed? Which—which one?" cried Katherine. She tried to loosen the hand that clasped the message, but he held it crashed, and when he lifted his head tears were streaming down his cheeks. He tried to reassure her. "It is not that," he said hoarsely. "They—the boys are all right, but they have ordered me———." He relaxed his grasp, and his head sank again on his arms.