“Would you care to join me by the fire?” MacNeil asked.
They entered a long, low living room with a ceiling of raw brown beams, plaster between them. The prisoners seated themselves at one side of a crackling fire. Their host tossed his coat across a chair and sat with his pistol in his lap. “How long have you been on the countryside?”
Red pulled his beard. “Today was our fourth day, sir.”
“How did you make your escape from the jail?”
“We’d better not say, but we didn’t give violence to any guard.”
“You were heading for Knoxville, I suppose?”
“Yes,” Tim said.
MacNeil stared at the hearth rug. “I was in a Scottish regiment years ago. Soldiering seemed quite a lark when I was young, but a war like this is a filthy thing.” He was silent a minute and then he said, “This country has been good to me, and now this war is tearing it apart. Our farms were prosperous and our people proud. I settled in Charleston when I first came out here, and when I had a bit of money I bought this land.”
The colored man stood in the door. “Jenny says the gentlemen’s sacks hold nothing much but dirty clothes. There’s a bit of brandy and a sack of ground corn.”
“Thank you, Luke.” MacNeil fingered his pistol and talked as before. “It’s no good mincing words. The War is going against us now. We’re being crushed by the industrial might of the North.” He smiled with a trace of bitterness. “My sons would never admit it, I’m sure. One of them went to medical college in the North but he’s a Southerner to the core. They are both with General Lee just now.”