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Page 34
"Look--a--here, now, Tom Jamison--now--it ain't--"
The youth went on. Turning at a distance he saw the tattered man
wandering about helplessly in the field.
He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed he envied
those men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the fields
and on the fallen leaves of the forest.
The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife thrusts
to him. They asserted a society that probes pitilessly at
secrets until all is apparent. His late companion's chance
persistency made him feel that he could not keep his crime
concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought plain by one
of those arrows which cloud the air and are constantly pricking,
discovering, proclaiming those things which are willed to be
forever hidden. He admitted that he could not defend himself
against this agency. It was not within the power of vigilance.
Chapter 11
He became aware that the furnace roar of the battle was growing louder.
Great blown clouds had floated to the still heights of air before him.
The noise, too, was approaching. The woods filtered men and the fields
became dotted.
As he rounded a hillock, he perceived that the roadway was now a
crying mass of wagons, teams, and men. From the heaving tangle
issued exhortations, commands, imprecations. Fear was sweeping
it all along. The cracking whips bit and horses plunged and tugged.
The white-topped wagons strained and stumbled in their exertions
like fat sheep.
The youth felt comforted in a measure by this sight. They were
all retreating. Perhaps, then, he was not so bad after all.
He seated himself and watched the terror-stricken wagons.
They fled like soft, ungainly animals. All the roarers and
lashers served to help him to magnify the dangers and horrors
of the engagement that he might try to prove to himself that the
thing with which men could charge him was in truth a symmetrical act.
There was an amount of pleasure to him in watching the wild march of
this vindication.
Presently the calm head of a forward-going column of infantry
appeared in the road. It came swiftly on. Avoiding the
obstructions gave it the sinuous movement of a serpent.
The men at the head butted mules with their musket stocks.
They prodded teamsters indifferent to all howls. The men
forced their way through parts of the dense mass by strength.
The blunt head of the column pushed. The raving teamsters
swore many strange oaths.
The commands to make way had the ring of a great importance in them.
The men were going forward to the heart of the din. They were to
confront the eager rush of the enemy. They felt the pride of their
onward movement when the remainder of the army seemed trying to
dribble down this road. They tumbled teams about with a fine
feeling that it was no matter so long as their column got to the
front in time. This importance made their faces grave and stern.
And the backs of the officers were very rigid.
As the youth looked at them the black weight of his woe returned
to him. He felt that he was regarding a procession of chosen beings.
The separation was as great to him as if they had marched with weapons
of flame and banners of sunlight. He could never be like them.
He could have wept in his longings.
He searched about in his mind for an adequate malediction for the
indefinite cause, the thing upon which men turn the words of
final blame. It--whatever it was--was responsible for him,
he said. There lay the fault.
The haste of the column to reach the battle seemed to the forlorn
young man to be something much finer than stout fighting.
Heroes, he thought, could find excuses in that long seething lane.
They could retire with perfect self-respect and make excuses to the stars.
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