“Further particulars of the fight,” read Judith. “The enemy attacked at daybreak. They had with them artillery with which they proceeded furiously to shell General Stuart’s headquarters. The cavalry fighting was desperate and the loss on both sides heavy. We had only cavalry and the artillery in action, the enemy having retreated before our infantry arrived. The fight lasted all day and was conducted with extreme gallantry. Many individual acts of heroism occurred both among officers and men. The horse artillery gathered fresh laurels. The spirit of Pelham stays with it. A gunner named Deaderick—
”—A gunner named Deaderick, a strongly built man, held at bay a dozen of the enemy who would have laid hands upon his gun which had been dismounted by a shell striking the wheel. Almost singly he kept the rush back until his comrades could replace the gun, train, and serve it, when the attack was completely repulsed and the gun saved—”
Judith finished reading. The crowd thanked her. She stepped from the great stone and passed with Unity to where the carriage waited. Isham touched the old farm-horses; they passed out of the town into the June country bathed in sunset light.
For a while there was silence, then, “Judith,” said Unity, “I am a talkative wretch, I know, but I can be silent as the grave when I want to be! Where is Richard? Is he in the horse artillery?”
“Yes.”
“I have never seen you when I did not think you beautiful. But back there, standing on that stone, of a sudden you were most beautiful. It was like a star blazing out, a star with a voice, and something splendid in that, too. Judith, is he that gunner you were reading about?”
“Yes—oh, yes!”
“Well, you don’t often cry,” said Unity, crying herself. “Cry it out, my dear, cry it out. We have such splendid things nowadays to cry for!”
Judith dried her tears. “No, I don’t often cry.... Let it rest, Unity, between us, silent, silent—”
That night, at Greenwood, she opened wide the windows of her room, till the moonlight flooded all the floor. She sat in the window seat, in the heart of the silver radiance, her hands clasped upon her knees, her head thrown back against the wood. Before her lay the silver hills; up to her came the breath of the garden lilies. She sat with wide, unseeing eyes; the mind exercising its own vision. It gazed upon the bivouac of the horse artillery; it saw the two days ago battle; and it saw to-morrow’s march. It saw the moving guns, and heard the rumbling of them; saw the column of horse and heard the tread, marched side by side with that gunner of the horse artillery. Mists arose and blurred. There was a transition. Judith’s mind left the South. It travelled under Northern skies; it sought out and entered Northern prisons. It saw Maury Stafford; saw him walking, walking, a stockaded yard, or standing, standing, before a barred window, looking out, looking up to the stars that shone over Virginia.... The prisons, the prisons, North and South, the prisons! Judith fell to shuddering. “O God—O God! Even our enemy—show him mercy!”