Wood regarded him closely for a moment or two before replying and then said:
"All right as far as that goes, but I can't say things are movin' well for our side. We're in a deadlock down there at Petersburg, and here comes winter, loaded with snow an' hail an' ice, if signs count for anythin'. Mighty little for a cavalryman to do right now, so I just got leave of absence from General Lee, an' I've run up to Richmond for a day or two."
Then the big man laughed in an embarrassed way, and Prescott, looking up at him, knew that his face was turning red could it but be seen.
"A man may employ his time well in Richmond, General," said Prescott, feeling a sudden and not unsympathetic desire to draw him out.
The General merely nodded in reply and Prescott looked at him again and more closely. The youth of General Wood and himself had been so different that he had never before recognized what there was in this illiterate man to attract a cultivated woman.
The crude mountaineer had seemed to him hitherto to be a soldier and nothing else; and soldiership alone, in Prescott's opinion, was very far from making up the full complement of a man. The General sitting there on his horse in the darkness was so strong, so masterful, so deeply touched with what appeared to be the romantic spirit, that Prescott could readily understand his attraction for a woman of a position originally different in life. His feeling of sympathy grew stronger. Here at least was a man direct and honest, not evasive and doubtful.
"General," he said with abrupt frankness, "you have come to Richmond to see Miss Harley and I want to tell you that I wish you the utmost success."
He held out his hand and the great mountaineer enclosed it in an iron grasp. Then Wood dismounted, threw his bridle over his arm and said:
"S'pose we go along together for awhile?"
They walked a minute or two in silence, the General running his fingers nervously through his thick black beard.