The nearest house flung open its doors. "Bring him right in here—oh, poor soldier! Right here in the best room!—Run, Maria, and turn down the bed. Oh, poor boy! He looks like my Robert down at Richmond! This way—get a little blackberry wine, Betty, and the scissors and my roll of lint—"
Billy laid him on the bed in the best room. "Thar now! You air all right. The doctor'll come just as soon as I can find him, 'n' then I'll get back to the boys—Wait—I didn't hear, I'll put my ear down. You couldn't lose all that blood and not be awful weak—"
"I'd be ashamed to report now!" whispered Coffin. "Maybe I was wrong—"
"Sho!" said Billy. "We're all wrong more or less. Here, darn you, drink your wine, and stop bothering!"
Across the Shenandoah Stonewall Jackson and the 37th Virginia came down from the heights with the impetuosity of a torrent. Behind them poured other grey troops. On the cliff heads Poague and Carpenter came into position and began with grape and canister. The blue Parrott, full before the bridge mouth, menacing the lane within, answered with a shriek of shells. The 37th and Jackson left the road, plunged down the ragged slope of grass and vines, and came obliquely toward the dark tunnel. Jackson and Little Sorrel had slipped into their battle aspect. You would have said that every auburn hair of the general's head and beard was a vital thing. His eyes glowed as though there were lamps behind, and his voice rose like a trumpet of promise and doom. "Halt!—Aim at the gunners!—Fire! Fix bayonets! Charge!"
The 37th rushed in column through the bridge. The blue cavalry fired one volley. The unwounded among the blue artillerymen strove to plant a shell within the dusky lane. But most of the gunners were down, or the fuse was wrong. The grey torrent leaped out of the tunnel and upon the gun. They took it and turned it against the horsemen. The blue cavalry fled. On the bluff heads above the river three grey batteries came into action. The 37th Virginia began to sweep the streets of Port Republic.
The blue cavalry, leaving the guns, leaving prisoners they had taken and their wounded, turned alike from the upper end of the village and rode, pell-mell, for the South Fork. One and all they splashed through, not now in covering mist, but in hot sunshine, the 37th volleying at their heels and from the bluffs above the Shenandoah, Poague and Carpenter and Wooding strewing their path with grape and canister.
A mile or two in the deep woods they met Shields's infantry advance. There followed a movement toward the town—futile enough, for as the vanguard approached, the Confederate batteries across the river limbered up, trotted or galloped to other positions on the green bluff heads, and trained the guns on the ground between Port Republic and the head of the Federal column. Winder's brigade came also and took position on the heights commanding Lewiston, and Taliaferro's swung across the bridge and formed upon the townward side of South Fork. Shields halted. All day he halted, listening to the guns at Cross Keys.
Sitting Little Sorrel at the northern end of the bridge, Stonewall Jackson watched Taliaferro's men break step and cross. A staff officer ventured to inquire what the general thought General Shields would do.
"I think, sir, that he will stay where he is."