"Be jabers, John," retorted Terence, "ye should have prepared for it before you left home. I saw Father Mahan just before I left, and he tould me to do my duty like a thrue Irishman; and that if I was kilt in such a cause I wud go straight through, and be hardly asked to stay over night in Purgatory. There's my poor brother, peace to his soul;—and did ye hear——"
"But, Terence," interrupted John, "I am not afraid of death; and for the judgment after death I have made all the preparation I could in my poor way, and I can trust that to my Maker; but"——and here John clapped his hand over his left breast.
"Oh, I see," said Terence. "It's a case of disease of the heart."
"I want you, in case I fall, to take the daguerreotype that you will find in the inside pocket on the left side of my blouse, and a sealed letter, and see that both are sent to the address upon the letter," continued John.
"Faith, will I, John. But who tould you that you wud be kilt, and meself that's alone and friendless escape? Well, I'll take them, John, if I have to go meself; and it's Terence McCarty that will not see her suffer; and maybe—but it's hard seeing how a girl could take a fancy to a short curly-headed Irishman, like meself, after having loved a sthrapping, straight-haired man like you."
How John relished the winding-up of the corporal's offer could not well be seen, as an order to resume the step interrupted the conversation.
Progress was slow, necessarily, from the caution required in the approach to the river. Over the rolling ground, to an artillery accompaniment unequalled in grandeur, the troops trudged slowly along. Here and there was a countenance of serious determination, but the great mass were gay and reckless, as soldiers proverbially are, of the risks the future might hold in reserve.
After a succession of short marches and halts, the forward movement appeared to cease about four o'clock in the afternoon, and the men quietly rested on their arms, as well as the damp, and in many places muddy ground would allow. Towards evening countless fires, fed by the dry bushes found in abundance upon the old fields of Virginia, showed that amidst war's alarms the men were not unmindful of coffee.
Throughout the day, with but brief cessation, artillery firing had continued. The booming of the siege guns, mingled with the sharp rattle of the light, and the louder roar of the heavy batteries, all causing countless echoes among the neighboring hills, completed the carnival of sound.