“Left face! Forward, march!”
The farmer gazed after the retreating column in open-mouthed wonder and admiration.
“Vell! vell!” he exclaimed to his wife, as the company vanished from his sight around a curve in the road, “ven somepody told me dees I don’t haf pelieved it.”
But it was a sorry band of soldiers. The first mile of muddy road wearied them, the second was discouraging, the third brought suffering. They stopped by the roadside many times to rest. Once they took refuge in an open barn from the pelting rain. They were drenched, ragged, splashed with mud, footsore, weak from hunger and fatigue. It took all of Brightly’s powers of command, of logic, of entreaty, of encouragement, to hold them to their places and keep them moving.
But he did it. The hours passed, the wind grew chill, the weariness increased; but every step brought them nearer and yet nearer to the longed for destination,—the home they had so lightly and recklessly left in the sunshine of the day before.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE RETURN OF THE FUGITIVES.
On the morning of the departure of the rebels from Riverpark, Mr. Graydon, one of the teachers, happening to stand at the window of his recitation-room, saw the boys as they ran to the fence, leaped over, and passed into the fields beyond. He was too greatly astonished by the act to realize at once what it meant. Then it occurred to him that these lads had broken into open rebellion, and were about to take the holiday that had been denied them by the principal. He hurried across the schoolroom to Colonel Silsbee’s office, and entered it in a state of great excitement.
“They have gone!” he exclaimed. “The boys—forty or fifty of them—have leaped the south fence, and are hurrying across the fields into the country!”