With Lee in Virginia: A Story of the American Civil War by G. A. Henty (feel good fiction books TXT) 📖

you have done, you had better get this place tidy a little; it is in a terrible litter. Evidently no one has been in since they moved out."

The room, indeed, was strewed with litter of all sorts, rubbish not worth taking away, old newspapers, and odds and ends of every description. Lucy looked about among these for some time, and with an exclamation of satisfaction at last picked up two crumpled envelopes. They were both addressed "William Jenkins, Woodford, near Mount Pleasant."

"That is just what I wanted," she sai[Pg 204]d.

"What am you going to do, Miss Lucy?"

"I am going to Mount Pleasant," she said.

"Lor a marcy, dearie, you are not going to walk that distance! You must have walked twelve miles already."

"I should, if it were twice as far, Chloe. There are some things we must get. Don't look alarmed, I shall take Dan with me. Now, let me see. In the first place there are lemons for making drink and linseed for poultices, some meat for making broth, and some flour, and other things for ourselves; we may have to stay here for some time. Tell me just what you want and I will get it."

Chloe made out a list of necessaries.

"I shan't be gone long," the girl said. "If he asks after me or Dan, tell him we are looking about the place to see what is useful. Don't let him know I have gone to Mount Pleasant, it might worry him."

Dan at once agreed to accompany the girl to Mount Pleasant when he heard that she was going to get things for his master. Looking about he found an old basket and they started without delay by the one road from the clearing which led, they had no doubt, to the town. It was about two miles distant, and was really but a large village. A few Federal soldiers from the camp hard by were lounging about the streets, but these paid no attention to them. Lucy soon made her purchases, and then went to the house that had been pointed out to her as being inhabited by the doctor who attended to the needs of the people of Mount Pleasant and the surrounding district. Fortunately he was at home. Lucy looked at him closely as he entered the room and took his seat. He was a middle-aged man with a shrewd face, and she at once felt that she might have confidence in it.

"Doctor," she said, "I want you to come out to see someone who is very ill."

"What is the matter with him? or is it him or her?"

"It is—it's——" and Lucy hesitated, "a hurt [Pg 205]he has got."

"A wound, I suppose?" the doctor said quietly. "You may as well tell me at once, as for me to find out when I get there; then I can take whatever is required with me."

"Yes, sir. It is a wound," Lucy said. "His shoulder is broken, I believe, by a pistol bullet."

"Umph!" the doctor said. "It might have been worse. Do not hesitate to tell me all about it, young lady. I have had a vast number of cases on hand since these troubles began. By the way, I do not know your face, and I thought I knew everyone within fifteen miles around."

"I come from the other side of the Duck River. But at present he is lying at a place called Woodford, but two miles from here."

"Oh, yes! I know it. But I thought it was empty. Let me see, a man named Jenkins lived there. He was killed at the beginning of the troubles in a fight near Murfreesboro. His widow moved in here; and she has married again and gone five miles on the other side. I know she was trying to sell the old place."

"We have not purchased it, sir; we have just squatted there. My friend was taken so bad that we could go no further. We were trying, doctor, to make our way further south."

"Your friend, whoever he is, did a very foolish thing to bring a young lady like yourself on such a long journey. You are not a pair of runaway lovers, are you?"

"No, indeed," Lucy said, flushing scarlet; "we have no idea of such a thing. I was living alone, and the house was attacked by bushwhackers, the band of a villain named Mullens."

"Oh! I saw all about that in the Nashville paper this morning. They were attacked by a band of Confederate plunderers, it said."

"They were attacked by one man," the girl replied. "They were on[Pg 206] the point of murdering me when he arrived. He shot Mullens and four of his band and the rest made off, but he got this wound. And as I knew the villains would return again and burn the house and kill me, I and my old nurse determined to go southward to join my friends in Georgia."

"Well, you can tell me more about it as we go," the doctor said. "I will order my buggy round to the door, and drive you back. I will take my instruments with me. It is no business of mine whether a sick man is a Confederate or a Federal; all my business is to heal him."

"Thank you very much, doctor. While the horse is being put in I will go down and tell the negro boy with me to go straight on with a basket of things I have been buying."

"Where is he now?" the doctor asked.

"I think he is sitting down outside the door, sir."

"Then you needn't go down," the doctor said. "He can jump up behind and go with us. He will get there all the quicker."

In five minutes they were driving down the village, with Dan in the back seat. On the way the doctor obtained from Lucy a more detailed account of their adventures.

"So he is one of those Confederate officers who broke prison at Elmira," he said. "I saw yesterday that one of his companions was captured."

"Was he, sir? How was that?"

"It seems that he had made his way down to Washington, and was staying at one of the hotels there as a Mr. James of Baltimore. As he was going through the streets he was suddenly attacked by a negro, who assaulted him with such fury that he would have killed him had he not been dragged off by passers-by. The black would have been very roughly treated, but he denounced the man he had attacked as one of the Confederate officers who had escaped from the prison. It seems that the negro had been a slave of his who had been barbarously [Pg 207]treated, and finally succeeded in making his escape and reaching England, after which he went to Canada; and now that it is safe for an escaped slave to live in the Northern States without fear of arrest or ill-treatment, he had come down to Washington with the intention of engaging as a teamster with one of the Northern armies, in the hope, when he made his way to Richmond, of being able to gain some news of his wife, whom his master had sold before he ran away from him."

"It served the man right!" Lucy said indignantly. "It's a good thing that the slaves should turn the table sometimes upon masters who ill-treat them."

"You don't think my patient would ill-treat his slaves?" the doctor asked with a little smile.

"I am sure he wouldn't," the girl said indignantly. "Why, the boy behind you is one of his slaves, and I am sure he would give his life for his master."

Dan had overheard the doctor's story and now exclaimed:

"No, sah. Massa Vincent de kindest ob masters. If all like him, de slaves eberywhere contented and happy. What was de name of dat man, sah, you was speaking of?"

"His name was Jackson," the doctor answered.

"I tought so," Dan exclaimed in excitement. "Massa never mentioned de names ob de two officers who got out wid him, and it war too dark for me to see their faces, but dat story made me tink it must be him. Bery bad man dat; he libs close to us, and Massa Vincent one day pretty nigh kill him because he beat dat bery man who has catched him now on de street ob Washington. When dat man sell him wife Massa Vincent buy her so as to prevent her falling into bad hands. She safe now wid his mother at de Orangery—dat's the name of her plantation."

"My patient must be quite an interesting fellow, young lady," the doctor said, with a rather slight twinkle of his eye. "A very knight-errant! But there is the house now; we shall soon see all about him."

[Pg 208]

Taking with him the case of instruments and medicines he had brought, the doctor entered Vincent's room. Lucy entered first; and although surprised to see a stranger with her, Vincent saw by her face that there was no cause for alarm.

"I have brought you a doctor," she said. "You could not go on as you were, you know. So Dan and I have been to fetch one."

The doctor now advanced and took Vincent's hand.

"Feverish," he said, looking at his cheeks, which were now flushed. "You have been doing too much, I fancy. Now let us look at this wound of yours. Has your servant got any warm water?" he asked Lucy.

Lucy left the room, and returned in a minute with a kettleful of warm water and a basin, which was among the purchases she had made at Mount Pleasant.

"That is right," the doctor said, taking it from her. "Now we will cut open the shirt-sleeve. I think, young lady, you had better leave us, unless you are accustomed to the sight of wounds."

"I am not accustomed to them, sir; but as thousands of women have been nursing the wounded in the hospitals, I suppose I can do so now."

Taking a knife from the case, the doctor cut open the shirt from the neck to the elbow. The shoulder was terribly swollen and inflamed, and a little exclamation of pain broke from Lucy.

"That is the effect of walking and inattention," the doctor said. "If I could have taken him in hand within an hour of his being hit, the matter would have been simple enough; but I cannot search for the ball, or in fact do anything, till we have reduced the swelling. You must put warm poultices on every half hour, and by to-morrow I hope the inflammation will have subsided, and I can then see about the ball. It evidently is somewhere there still, for there is no sign of its having made its exit anywhere. In the meantime you must give him two tablespoonfuls of this cooling draught every two hours, and to-night give him [Pg 209]this sleeping draught. I will be over to-morrow morning to see him. Do not be uneasy about him; the wound itself is not serious, and when we have got rid of the fever and inflammation I have no doubt we shall pull him round before long."

"I know the wound is nothing," Vincent said; "I have told Miss Kingston so all along. It is nothing at all to one I got at the first battle of Bull Run, where I had three ribs badly broken by a shell. I was laid up a long time over that business. Now I hope in a week I shall be fit to travel."

The doctor shook his head. "Not as soon as that. Still we will hope it will not be long. Now all you have to do is to lie quiet and not worry, and to get to sleep as quick as you can. You must not let your patient talk, Miss Kingston. It will be satisfactory to you, no doubt," he went on, turning to Vincent, "to know that there is no fear whatever of your being disturbed here. The road leads nowhere, and is entirely out of the way of traffic. I should say you might be here six months without even a chance of a visitor. Everyone knows the house is shut up, and as you have no neighbor within half a mile no one is likely to call in. Even if anyone did by accident come here you would be in no danger; we are all one way of thinking about here."

"Shall we make some broth for him?" Lucy asked after they had left the room.

"No; he had better take nothing whatever during the next twenty-four hours except his medicine and cooling drinks. The great thing is to get down the fever. We can soon build him up afterward."

By nightfall the