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Page 48
"'To-morrow,' said she, prompt as taxes. 'To-morrow. Good-by, Captain
Carruthers.'
"And she gave the horse a slap that scared him into a leap, and off I
went galloping into darkness, with my brain in a whirl as to where I
could see her to-morrow, and how under creation she knew my name. The
cold bath had refreshed me--I hadn't had the like of it for nine
days--and I galloped on for a while feeling fine, and thinking mighty
hard about the girl I'd left behind me. Twenty-four hours before I'd
never seen her, yet I felt, as if I had known her all my life. I was
sure of this, that in all my days I'd never seen anybody like her, and
never would. And that's true to this minute. I'd had sweethearts
a-plenty--in a way--but the affair of that day was the only time I was
ever in love in my life."
To tell the truth I had been a little scandalized all through this
story, for I knew well enough that there was a Mrs. Carruthers. I had
not met her--she had been South through the months which her husband had
spent in New York--but the General's strong language concerning the
red-haired girl made me sympathize with his wife, and this last
sentiment was staggering. Poor Mrs. Carruthers! thought I--poor, staid
lady, with this gay lad of a husband declaring his heart forever buried
with the adventure of a day of long ago. Yet, a soldier boy of
twenty-three--the romance of war-time--the glamour of lost love--there
were certainly alleviating circumstances. At all events, it was not my
affair--I could enjoy the story as it came with a clear conscience. So I
smiled at the wicked General--who looked as innocent as a baby--and he
went on.
"I knew every road on that side the river, and I knew the Confederates
wouldn't dare chase me but a few miles, as it wasn't their country any
longer, so pretty soon I began to take things easy. I thought over
everything that had happened through the day, everything she'd said and
done, every look--I could remember it all. I can now. I wondered who
under heaven she was, and I kicked myself that I hadn't asked her name.
'Lindy'--that's all I knew, and I guess I said that over a hundred
times. I wondered why she'd told me not to go to Kelly's Ford, but I
worked that out the right way--as I found later--that her party expected
to cross there, and she didn't want me to encounter them; and then the
river was too full and they tried a higher ford. And I'd run into them.
Yet I couldn't understand why she planned to cross at Kelly's, anyway,
because there was pretty sure to be a Union outpost on the east bank
there, and she'd have landed right among them. That puzzled me. Who was
the girl, and why on earth was she travelling in that direction, and
where could she be going? I went over that problem again and again, and
couldn't find an answer.
"Meanwhile it was getting late, and the bracing effect of the cold
water of the Rappahannock was wearing off, and I began to feel the
fatigue of an exciting day and a seventy-five-mile ride--on top of
nine other days with little to eat and not much rest. My wet clothes
chilled me, and the last few miles I have never been able to remember
distinctly--I think I was misty in my mind. At any rate, when I got to
headquarters camp I was just about clear enough to guide Zero through
the maze of tents, and not any more, and when the horse stopped with his
nose against the front pole of the general's fly I was unconscious."
I exclaimed, horrified: "It was too much for human nature! You must have
been nearly dead. Did you fall off? Were you hurt?"
"Oh, no--I was all right," he said cheerfully. "I just sat there. But an
equestrian statue in front of the general's tent at 11 P.M. wasn't
usual, and there was a small sensation. It brought out the
adjutant-general and he recognized me, and they carried me into a tent,
and got a surgeon, and he had me stripped and rubbed and rolled in
blankets. They found the despatches in my boots, and those gave all the
information necessary. They found the letter, too, which Stoneman had
given me to hand back to General Ladd, and they didn't understand that,
as it was addressed simply to 'Miss Ladd, Ford Hall,' so they left it
till I waked up. That wasn't till noon the next day."
The General began chuckling contagiously, and I was alive with curiosity
to know the coming joke.
"I believe every officer in the camp, from the commanding general down,
had sent me clothes. When I unclosed my eyes that tent was alive with
them. It was a spring opening, I can tell you--all sorts. Well, when I
got the meaning of the array, I lay there and laughed out loud, and an
orderly appeared at that, and then the adjutant-general, and I reported
to him. Then I got into an assortment of the clothes, and did my duty by
a pile of food and drink, and I was ready to start back to join my
chief. Except for the letter of General Ladd--I had to deliver that in
person to give the explanation. General Ladd had been wounded, I found,
at Chancellorsville, but would see me. So off I went to his tent, and
the orderly showed me in at once. He was in bed with his arm and
shoulder bandaged, and by his side, looking as fresh as a rose and as
mischievous as a monkey, sat a girl with red hair--Linda Ladd--Miss
Ladd, of Ford Hall--the old house where I first saw her. Her father
presented me in due form and told me to give her the letter and--that's
all."
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