"Good-bye—Mr. Loskiel."
And so it ended.
A moment later I found myself walking aimlessly across the grass in no particular direction. Three times I turned in my tracks to watch her. Then she disappeared beyond the brookside willows.
I remember now that I had turned and was walking slowly back to where our horses stood, moving listlessly through the freshly mowed meadow between drenched haystacks—the first I had seen that year—and God alone knows where were my thoughts a-gypsying, when, very far away, I heard a gun-shot.
At first I could perceive nothing, then on the distant Bedford road I saw one of our dragoons running his horse and bending low in his saddle.
Another dragoon appeared, riding a diable—and a dozen more behind these; and on their heels a-galloping, a great body of red-jacketed horsemen—hundreds of them—the foremost shooting from their saddles, the great mass of them swinging their heavy cutlasses and spurring furiously after our flying men.
I had seen far more than was necessary, and I ran for my horse. Other officers came running, too—Sheldon, Thomas, Lockwood, and my Lieutenant Boyd.
As we clutched bridle and stirrup and popped upward into out saddles, it seemed that the red-coats must cut us off, but we spurred out of the meadow into the Meeting House road, and Boyd cried furiously in my ear:
"See what this damned Sheldon has done for us now! God! What disgrace is ours!"
I saw Colonel Sheldon presently, pale as death, and heard him exclaim: