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

liked to advertise for her, for it may be that she has met her husband, and that he has persuaded her to make off at once with him to Yorktown or Fortress Monroe."

"This is bad news indeed, mother," Vincent said. "No, I do not think for a moment that she has gone off with Tony. There could be no reason why she should have left so suddenly without telling anyone, for she knew well enough that you would let her go if she wished it; and I feel sure that neither she nor Tony would act so ungratefully as to leave us in this manner. No, mother, I feel sure that this has been done by Jackson. You know I told you I felt uneasy about her before I went. No doubt the old rascal has seen in some Northern paper an account of his son having been attacked in the streets of Washington, and recaptured by Tony, and he has had Dinah carried off from a pure spirit of revenge. Well, mother," he went on in answer to an appealing look from her, "I will not put myself out this first evening of my return, and will say no more about it. There will be plenty of time to take the matter up to-morrow. And now about all our friends and acquaintances. How are they getting on? Have you heard of any more of my old chums being killed since I was taken prisoner at Antietam?"

It was late in the evening before Vinc[Pg 234]ent heard all the news. Fortunately, the list of casualties in the Army of Virginia had been slight since Antietam; but that battle had made many gaps among the circle of their friends, and of these Vincent now heard for the first time, and he learned, too, that although no battle had been fought since Antietam, on the 17th of September, there had been a sharp skirmish near Fredericksburg, and that the Federal army, now under General Burnside, who had succeeded McClellan, was facing that of Lee, near that town, and that it was believed that they would attempt to cross the Rappahannock in a few days.

It was not until he had retired for the night that Vincent allowed his thoughts to turn again to the missing woman. Her loss annoyed and vexed him much more than he permitted his mother to see. In the first place, the poor girl's eagerness to show her gratitude to him upon all occasions, and her untiring watchfulness and care during his illness from his wound, had touched him, and the thought that she was now probably in the hands of brutal taskmasters was a real pain to him. In the next place, he had, as it were, given his pledge to Tony that she should be well cared for until she could be sent to join him. And what should he say now when the negro wrote to claim her? Then, too, he felt a personal injury that the woman should be carried off when under his mother's protection, and he was full of indignation and fury at the dastardly revenge taken by Jackson. Upon hearing the news he had at once mentally determined to devote himself for some time to a search for Dinah; but the news that a great battle was expected at the front interfered with his plan. Now that he was back, capable of returning to duty, his place was clearly with his regiment; but he determined that while he would rejoin at once, he would, as soon the battle was over, if he were unhurt, take up the search. His mother and sisters were greatly distressed when, at breakfast, he told them that he must at once report himself as fit for duty, and ready to join his regiment.

"I was afraid you w[Pg 235]ould think so," Mrs. Wingfield said, while the girls wept silently; "and much as I grieve at losing you again so soon, I can say nothing against it. You have gone through many dangers, Vincent, and have been preserved to us through them all. We will pray that you may be so to the end. Still, whether or not, I, as a Virginia woman, cannot grudge my son to the service of my country, when all mothers are making the same sacrifice; but it is hard to give you up when but yesterday you returned to us."

CHAPTER XV. FREDERICKSBURG.

As soon as breakfast was over Vincent mounted Wildfire, which had been sent back after he had been taken prisoner, and rode into Richmond. There he reported himself at headquarters as having returned after escaping from a Federal prison and making his way through the lines of the enemy.

"I had my shoulder-bone smashed in a fight with some Yankees," he said, "and was laid up in hiding for six weeks; but have now fairly recovered. My shoulder, at times, gives me considerable pain, and although I am desirous of returning to duty and rejoining my regiment until the battle at Fredericksburg has taken place, I must request that three months' leave be granted to me after that to return home and complete my cure, promising, of course, to rejoin my regiment at once should hostilities break out before the spring."

"We saw the news that you had escaped," the general said, "but feared, as so long a time elapsed without hearing from you, that you had been shot in attempting to cross the lines. Your request for leave is granted, and a note will be made of your zeal in thus rejoining on the very day after your return. The vacancy in the regiment has been filled up, but I will appoint you temporarily to General Stuart'[Pg 236]s staff, and I shall have great pleasure in to-day filling up your commission as captain. Now let me hear how you made your escape. By the accounts published in the Northern papers it seemed that you must have had a confederate outside the walls."

Vincent gave a full account of his escape from prison and a brief sketch of his subsequent proceedings, saying only that he was in the house of some loyal people in Tennessee when it was attacked by a party of Yankee bushwhackers; that these were beaten off in the fight, but that he himself had a pistol bullet in his shoulder. He then made his way on until compelled by his wound to lay up for six weeks in a lonely farmhouse near Mount Pleasant; that afterward, in the disguise of a young farmer, he had made a long detour across the Tennessee River and reached Georgia.

"When do you leave for the front, Captain Wingfield?"

"I shall be ready to start to-night, sir."

"In that case I will trouble you to come here again this evening. There will be a fast train going through with ammunition for Lee at ten o'clock, and I shall have a bag of dispatches for him, which I will trouble you to deliver. You will find me here up to the last moment. I will give orders that a horse-box be attached to the train."

After expressing his thanks Vincent took his leave. As he left the general's quarters, a young man, just alighting from his horse, gave a shout of greeting.

"Why, Wingfield, it is good to see you! I thought you were pining again in a Yankee dungeon, or had got knocked on the head crossing the lines. Where have you sprung from, and when did you arrive?"

"I only got in yesterday after sundry adventures which I will tell you about presently. When did you arrive from the front?"

"I came down a few days ago on a week's leave on urgent family business," the young man laughed, "and I am going back again this afternoon by the four o'clock train."

[Pg 237]

"Stay till ten," Vincent said, "and we will go back together. There is a special train going through with ammunition, and as everything will make way for that it will not be long behind the four o'clock, and likely enough may pass it on the way. There is a horse-box attached to it, and as I only take one horse there will be room for yours."

"I haven't brought my horse down," Harry Furniss said; "but I will certainly go with you by the ten o'clock. Then we can have a long talk. I don't think I have seen you since the day you asked me to lend you my boat, two years ago."

"Can you spare me two hours now?" Vincent asked. "You will do me a very great favor if you will."

Harry Furniss looked at his watch. "It is eleven o'clock now; we have a lot of people to lunch at half-past one, and I must be back by then."

"You can manage that easy enough," Vincent replied; "in two hours from the time we leave here you can be at home."

"I am your man, then, Vincent. Just wait five minutes—I have to see someone in here."

A few minutes later Harry Furniss came out again and mounted.

"Now which way, Vincent? and what is it you want me for?"

"The way is to Jackson's place at the Cedars; the why I will tell you about as we ride."

Vincent then recounted his feud with the Jacksons, of which, up to the date of the purchase of Dinah Moore, his friend was aware, having been present at the sale. He now heard of the attack upon young Jackson by Tony, and of the disappearance of Dinah Moore.

"I should not be at all surprised, Wingfield, if your surmises are correct, and that the old scoundrel has carried off the girl to avenge himself upon Tony. Of course, if you could prove it, it would be a very serious offense; for the stealing of a slave, and by force too, is a crime with a very heavy penalty, and has cost[Pg 238] men their lives before now. But I don't see that you have anything like a positive proof, however strong a case of suspicion it may be.

"I don't see what you are going to say when you get there."

"I am going to tell him that, if he does not say what he has done with the girl, I will have his son arrested for treachery as soon as he sets foot in the Confederacy again."

"Treachery?" Furniss said in surprise. "What treachery has he been guilty of? I saw that he was one of those who escaped with you, and I rather wondered at the time at you two being mixed up together in anything. I heard that he had been recaptured through some black fellow that had been his slave, but I did not read the account. Have you got proof of what you say?"

"Perhaps no proof that would hold in a court of law," Vincent replied, "but proof enough to make it an absolute certainty to my mind."

Vincent then gave an account of their escape, and of the anonymous denunciation of himself and Dan.

"Now," he said, "no one but Dan knew of the intended escape, no one knew what clothes he had purchased, no one could possibly have known that I was to be disguised as a preacher and Dan as my servant. Therefore the information must have been given by Jackson."

"I have not the least doubt but that the blackguard did give it, Wingfield; but there is no proof."

"I consider that there is a proof—an absolute and positive proof," Vincent asserted, "because no one else could have known it."

"Well, you see that, as a matter of fact, the other officer did know it, and might possibly have given the information."

"But why should he? The idea is absurd. He had never had a quarrel with me, and he owed his liberty to me."

"Just so, Wingfield. I am as certain that it was Jackson as you are,[Pg 239] because I know the circumstances; but you see there is no more absolute proof against one man than against the other. It is true that you had had a quarrel with Jackson some two years before, but you see you had made it up and had become friends in prison—so much so that you selected him from among a score of others in the same room to be the companion of your flight. You and I, who know Jackson, can well believe him guilty of an act of gross ingratitude—of ingratitude and treachery; but people who do not know would hardly credit it as possible that a man could be such a villain. The defense he would set up would be that in the first place there is no shadow of evidence that he more than the other turned traitor. In the second place he would