Thus the journey which I made through the bare and deserted fields, or the mournful thickets, was not gay; and these were only a part of the panorama which passed before me. Looking toward the south, I saw as clearly with the eyes of the memory, the banks of the Po, the swamps of the Chickahominy, the trenches at Petersburg, the woods of Dinwiddie, Five Forks, Highbridge—Appomattox Court-House! Nearer was Yellow Tavern, where Stuart had fallen. Not a foot of this soil of Old Virginia but seemed to have been the scene of some fierce battle, some sombre tragedy!
“Well, well,” I sighed, as I rode on toward the Oaks, “all that is buried in the past, and it is useless to think of it. I am only a poor paroled prisoner, wearing arms no more—let me forget the red cross flag which used to float so proudly here, and bow my head to the will of the Supreme Ruler of all worlds.”
So I went on, and in due time reached the Oaks, in Fauquier.
You recall the good old homestead, do you not, my dear reader? I should be sorry to have you forget the spot where I have been so happy. It was to this honest old mansion that I was conducted in April, 1861, when struck from my horse by a falling limb in the storm-lashed wood, I saw come to my succor the dearest person in the world. She awaited me now—having a month before left Eagle’s Nest, to pay a visit to her family—and again, as in the spring of ‘63, she came to meet me as I ascended the hill—only we met now as bridegroom and bride!
This May of my life had brought back the sunshine, even after that black day of 1865. Two white arms had met the poor paroled prisoner, on his return to Eagle’s Nest—a pair of violet eyes had filled with happy tears—and the red lips, smiling with exquisite emotion, murmured “All is well, since you have come back to me!”
It was this beautiful head which the sunshine of that autumn of 1867 revealed to me, on the lawn of the good old chateau of the mountains! And behind, came all my good friends of the Oaks—the kind lady of the manor, the old colonel, and Charley and Annie, who were there too! With his long gray hair, and eyes that still flashed, Colonel Beverly came to meet me—brave and smiling in 1867 as he had been in 1861. Then, with Annie’s arm around me—that little sister had grown astonishingly!—I went in and was at home.
At home! You must be a soldier to know what that simple word means, reader! You must sleep under a tree, carry your effects behind your saddle, lie down in bivouac in strange countries, and feel the longing of the heart for the dear faces, the old scenes.
“Tell my mother that I die in a foreign land!” murmured my poor dear Tazewell Patton, at Gettysburg. I have often thought of those words; and they express much I think. Oh! for home! for a glimpse, if no more, of the fond faces, as life goes! You may be the bravest of the brave, as my dear Tazewell was; but ‘tis home where the heart is, and you sigh for the dear old land!
The Oaks was like home to me, for the somebody with violet eyes, and chestnut hair, was here to greet me.
The sun is setting, and we wander in the fields touched by the dreamy autumn.