Not many stragglers were found as they rode on toward the rear, but every regiment increased its speed at sight of the stern general. After circling around the rear he rode back toward the front, and he left Harry and several others to go more slowly along the flanks and report to him later.
When Harry was left alone he was saluted with the usual good-humored chaff by the soldiers who again demanded his horse of him, or asked him whether they were to fight or whether they were training to be foot-racers. Harry merely smiled, and he came presently to the Invincibles, who were trudging along stubbornly, with the officers riding on their flanks. Langdon was as cheerful as usual.
“Things have to come to their worst before they get better,” he said to Harry, “and I suppose we've about reached the worst. A sight of the enemy would be pleasant, even if it meant battle.”
“We're marching on Bath,” said Harry, “and we ought to strike it to-night, though I'm afraid the Yankees have got warning of our coming.”
He was thinking of Shepard, who now loomed very large to him. The circumstances of their meetings were always so singular that this Northern scout and spy seemed to him to possess omniscience. Beyond a doubt he would notify every Northern garrison he could reach of Jackson's coming.
Suddenly the band of South Carolinians, who were still left in the Invincibles, struck up a song:
“Ho, woodsmen of the mountain-side!
Ho, dwellers in the vales!
Ho, ye who by the chafing tide
Have roughened in the gales!
Leave barn and byre, leave kin and cot,
Lay by the bloodless spade:
Let desk and case and counter rot,
And burn your books of trade!”
All the Invincibles caught the swing and rush of the verses, and regiments before them and behind them caught the time, too, if not the words. The chant rolled in a great thundering chorus through the wintry forest. It was solemn and majestic, and it quickened the blood of these youths who believed in the cause for which they fought, just as those on the other side believed in theirs.
“It was written by one of our own South Carolinians,” said St. Clair, with pride. “Now here goes the second verse! Lead off, there, Langdon! They'll all catch it!”
“The despot roves your fairest lands;
And till he flies or fears,
Your fields must grow but armed bands
Your sheaves be sheaves of spears:
Give up to mildew and to rust
The useless tools of gain
And feed your country's sacred dust
With floods of crimson rain!”