With bent backs straightening to the call of a high, strong impulse; with gimpy, gnarled legs rising and falling in brisk unison; with heads held high and chests puffed out; with their leader in front of them and their flag going before them—Forrest's Cavalry went forward. Once and once only the double line stopped as it traversed the town, lying snug and for the most part still under its blanketing, of snow.
As the little column of old men swung round the first corner below Kamleiter's Hall, the lights coming through the windows of Tony Palassi's fruit shop made bright yellow patches on the white path they trod.
“Halt!” ordered Judge Priest suddenly; and he quit his place in the lead and made for the doorway.
“If you're looking for Tony to go along and translate you're wasting time, Judge,” sang' out Mr. Crump. “He's out-of town.”
“Is he?” said Judge Priest. “Well, that's too bad!”
As though to make sure, he peered in through the glassed upper half of the fruitshop door. Within might be seen Mrs. Delia Callahan Palassi, wife of the proprietor, putting the place to rights before locking it up for the night; and at her skirts tagged Master Antonio Wolfe Tone Palassi, aged seven, only son and sole heir of the same, a round-bellied, red-cheeked little Italian-Irish-American. The judge put his hand on the latch and jiggled it.
“I tell you Tony's not there,” repeated Mr. Crump impatiently.
If the judge heard him he paid no heed. He went through that door, leaving his command outside, as one might go who knew exactly what he was about. Little Tony Wolfe Tone recognised an old friend and came, gurgling a welcome, to greet him. Most of the children in town knew Judge Priest intimately, but little Tony Wolfe Tone was a particular favourite of his; and by the same token he was a particular favourite of Tony's.
Whatever Judge Priest said to Mrs. Palassi didn't take long for the saying of it; yet it must have been an argument powerfully persuading and powerfully potent. It is possible—mind you, I don't make the positive assertion, but it is possible—he reminded her that the blood of a race of fighting kings ran in her veins; for in less than no time at all, when Judge Priest reissued from the fruit shop, there rode pack-fashion on his back a little figure so well bundled up against the cold that only a pair of big brown Italian eyes and a small, tiptilted Irish nose showed themselves, to prove that Judge Priest's burden was not a woolly Teddy-bear, but a veritable small boy. No; I'm wrong there. One other thing proved it—a woman standing in the doorway, wringing her apron in her hands, her face ablaze with mother love and mother pride and mother fear, watching the hurrying procession as it moved down the wintry street straight into the red glare on ahead.
The flimsy framework of resiny pine burned fast, considering that much snow had lain on the roof and much snow had melted and run down the sides all day, to freeze again with the coming of nighttime. One end of the barracks had fallen into a muddle of black-charred ruination. The fire ate its way along steadily, purring and crackling and spitting as its red teeth bit into the wetted boards. Above, the whole sky was aglare with its wavering red reflections. The outlines of the bowl-shaped flat stood forth distinctly revealed in the glow of that great wooden brazier, and the snow that covered the earth was channelled across with red streaks, like spilt blood.