We set up a wail.
“Here, we’ve come all the way from Baltimore, and the Yankees have sent us and have brought us all the way in a fine ambulance and cavalry escorts and big horses and gold lace and everything, and now we’ve got home, and our own people won’t let us in! tell us to turn back!”
The sentry seemed impressed. Rags and musket, he was a pathetic if stern figure as he stood in that lonely, muddy road in the glare of our driver’s lantern.
But he was firm. He told us that he was obeying orders and could not let us by since we had no passes.
“I’m so tired, and my back is almost broken with this trunk sticking into it,” I moaned.
“That ain’t comfortable,” he admitted, but his resolute position in the middle of the road showed that we couldn’t pass, all the same.
“Look here,” I said, plucking up some of my accustomed spirit, “do you know that my husband is an officer in the Confederate army? My husband is Captain Grey.”
“Can’t help it. Got to obey orders.”
“And my brother,” said Mrs. Drummond, “is a colonel in the Confederate army. To think that I—I, the sister of Colonel ——, am told that I can’t pass here!”
“Law, ma’am! that’s my colonel!” said the man. “I tell you what I’ll do, ladies. I’ll send a note in to the colonel and see what he says about it.”