South from the mansion lay an Episcopal chapel, now dismantled, with a squat, broad, mossy roof pulled down over its eaves like a garden-hat; and around it spread the small old churchyard, with its stones neck-deep in freshening grass and clover. From this point there was a most lovely view over the melancholy landscape, silvered midway with a winding stream. Hither Cecily loved to climb, tying Molly in the copse below, to lie upon the shaded escutcheoned tomb of one Reginald Brale, "borne in Salop in olde Ingland," and to muse long and happily, forgetful of battles, on
"The great good limpid world, so still, so still!"
She and Robert Blanchard had had much constant companionship; it was natural that these musings should turn much, and indeed more and more, upon him. Surely, he was like no one else; and his presence gave Cecily a sense of infinite rest. She, too, had her obedient energies and controlled fervors. A great crisis like this, holding great issues, brought the two so sensitive to it very near together. She felt under her, even as he did, the tide-wave of patriotic emotion, sweeping the more generous spirits from all our cities out upon its fatal crest. She had seen the companies marching to the front through awe-stricken crowds, watched for the bulletins, worked for the hospitals, heard the triumphal never-to-be-forgotten eloquence and music sacred to the returning dead at home, and felt to the full the heartache and enthusiasm of all the early war. These things had formed her, pervaded her, projected her out of herself, and brought her, lingeringly a child, into thought and womanhood. Before she knew herself for an abolitionist, the day of Sumter swept over her like a flood, and diverted all the little idle streams of her being. Her brothers found her against the old tree in the garden, the newspaper in her hand, like one entranced; and one of them, soon to devote his youth to the cause of Michael against Lucifer, forbade her being teased to account for her mood. Unlike Robert, Cecily came of a soldier race, and from swords drawn, each in its generation, at Naseby, at Brandywine, at Monterey. That fortune seemed good to her which had led her to Virginia, a ground balancing in the scales of fate, and rich already with hallowed graves. To the living men about her, she was as march-music never out of their ears, to hold them to their vows. Subdued from common cares, Cecily was in the current of the national peril, inspiring and inspired, and open to every warmth and chill of it as if it were indeed her own.
She was on the hills, reading, in balmy February weather, when she became aware of a low whinny at her ear. The Brale paddocks were on the other side of the fence. A young colt was there, startled and timid, stretching towards her; then another came as near, and another, and the heads of the older horses, confiding, appealing, crowded over these. She patted their tremulous nostrils, divining instantly that something had occurred to alarm them. She raised herself from Reginald Brale's venerable slab, and listened; the sharp ping! ping! of blank cartridges struck the oak-leaves on her left. Standing, and peering down the steeper side of the incline, she saw the familiar moving glitter of gold braid, far below; and, stripping a bough, and knotting her handkerchief, she made a signal of distress, and waved it vigorously. The shout that followed told her that danger was over, both for the gentle intelligent creatures in the enclosure, and for her; the reports ceased. A moment after, a man sprang over the churchyard wall from the road. It was the Sergeant, more excited than he dared show.
"Miss Carter!" His heart-thuds made it hard for him to be punctilious. "Are you hurt? Idiots that we were to choose this place! We might have known. Tell me you're not hurt, Miss Carter." "I am not hurt at all," she answered gayly, "nor even frightened. It was these dear four-legged 'rebs' who were frightened." She slipped her book in her pocket, and took up her gloves and the dainty whip which Molly had never felt, save when it flicked a fly from her ear. "You are a brave soul!" the Sergeant said. Cecily took refuge in the significant flippancy of gamins: "You're another!" which was so apposite that they both laughed. As they descended the rough foot-path, the Sergeant longed to offer his arm; but he knew her stoicisms, her natural physical savoir-faire, and he chivalrously refrained. How nimble and graceful, how fawn-like she was! He noted the wide lace collar and the brooch at her chin; the sober Gordon plaid gown, not too long; the firm little wrist; the beautiful hair parted, and looped low.
"What were you doing just now?"
"A party of us were enjoying ourselves, shooting."
"Birds?" in a cold, regretful tone.
"Birds! No. A soldier, unless he is spoiling with garrison idleness, won't waste his genius for killing on innocent birds and their like. Besides, the artillery fellows over yonder have scared them away from the whole neighborhood. We were target-shooting with pistols. Oh, if you knew the hot coals and icicles I had to swallow when I recognized you up there!" He looked ahead, and saw with joy that his companions had departed. "Here is Molly, and my bay is behind the rock. May I ride home with you?" He helped her to mount, and sprang into his own saddle. The lonely, lovely earth and sky were theirs together; they went slowly, slowly down to the ford. Molly was thirsty, or else perverse; for she paused, lowered her aristocratic little head, and began to drink. Presently Saladin, the bay, standing by her on the brink, did the same; and the two riders sat, perforce, conscious of their like silent sympathy and society. An impulse rushed on each to lean over towards the other also, to lay cheek to happy cheek over the shallow water, in their youth, in the sun. The Sergeant stiffened himself with an effort.
"Although it is a holiday," he said, scanning the distance, "and although there's no end of jollity afoot, greased poles, football, leap-frog, hurdle-races, and all that—and did you know that Mrs. Willoughby, escorted by the Colonel and the Adjutant, had gone for the day? There are to be charming diversions at the infantry camp, and a ball to wind up with. You were asked, too, I hear; but you missed it, straying off to your hermitage."