The Red Acorn [93]
mass disappeared around the hill.
She rode on to the top of the rim of hills which encircle that most picturesque of Southern cities, and stopped for a moment for a farewell to the stronghold of her friends, whose friendly cover she was abandoning to venture, weak and weaponless, into the camp of her enemies.
Above her the great black guns of a heavy fort pointed their sinister muzzles down the Murfreesboro road, with fearful suggestiveness of the dangers to be encountered there.
She remembered Lot's wife, but could not resist the temptation to take a one backward look. She saw as grand a landscape picture as the world affords.
Serenely throned upon the hill that dominated the whole of the lovely valley of the Cumberland, stood the beautiful Capitol of Tennessee.
Ionic porticos and graceful Corinthian columns of dazzling white limestone rose hundreds of feet above the fountains and magnolia-shaded terraces that crowned the hill--still more hundreds of feet above the densely packed roofs and spires of the city crowded upon the hill's rocky sides. It was like some fine and pure old Greek temple, standing on a romantic headland, far above the murk and toil of sordid striving. But over the symmetrical pile floated a banner that meant to the world all that was signified even by the banners which Greece folded and laid away in eternal rest thousands of years ago.
At the foot of the hill the Cumberland, clear as when it descended from its mountains five hundred miles away, flowed between its high, straight walls of limestone, spanned by cobweb-like bridges, and bore on its untroubled breast a great fleet of high-chimneyed, white-sided transports, and black, sullen gunboats. Miles away to her left she saw the trains rushing into Nashville, unrolling as they came along black and white ribbons against the sky.
"They're coming from the North," she said, with an involuntary sigh; "they're coming from home."
She touched her mare's flank with the whip and sped on.
She soon reached the outer line of guards, by whom she was halted, with a demand for her pass.
She produced the one furnished her, which was signed by Gen. Rosencrans. While the Sergeant was inspecting it it occured to her that now was the time to begin the role of a young woman with rebellious proclivities.
"Is this the last guard-line I will have to pass?" she asked.
"Yes'm," answered the Sergeant.
"You're quite sure?"
"Yes'm."
"Then I won't have any further use for this--thing?" indicating the pass, which she received back with fine loathing, as if it were something infectious.
"No'm."
"Quite sure?"
"Yes'm, quite sure."
She rode over to the fire around which part of the guard were sitting, held the pass over it by the extremest tips of her dainty thumb and forefinger, and then dropped it upon the coals, as if it were a rag from a small-pox hospital. Glancing at her finger-tips an instant, as if they had been permanently contaminated by the scrawl of the Yankee General, she touched her nag, and was off like an arrow without so much as good day to the guards.
"She-cesh--clean to her blessed little toe-nails," said the Sergeant, gazing after her meditatively, as he fished around in his pouch for a handful of Kinnikinnick, to replenish his pipe, "and she's purtier'n a picture, too."
"Them's the kind that's always the wust Rebels," said the oracle of the squad, from his seat by the fire. "I'll bet she's just loaded down with information or ouinine. Mebbe both."
She was now fairly in the enemy's country, and her heart beat faster in momentary expectation of encountering some form of the perils abounding there. But she became calm, almost joyous, as she passed through mile after mile of tranquil landscape. The war might as well have been on the other side of the Atlantic for any hint she now saw of it in the peaceful, sun-lit fields and woods, and streams of crystal spring-water. She saw women busily engaged in their morning work about all the cabins and houses. With bare and sinewy arms they beat up and
She rode on to the top of the rim of hills which encircle that most picturesque of Southern cities, and stopped for a moment for a farewell to the stronghold of her friends, whose friendly cover she was abandoning to venture, weak and weaponless, into the camp of her enemies.
Above her the great black guns of a heavy fort pointed their sinister muzzles down the Murfreesboro road, with fearful suggestiveness of the dangers to be encountered there.
She remembered Lot's wife, but could not resist the temptation to take a one backward look. She saw as grand a landscape picture as the world affords.
Serenely throned upon the hill that dominated the whole of the lovely valley of the Cumberland, stood the beautiful Capitol of Tennessee.
Ionic porticos and graceful Corinthian columns of dazzling white limestone rose hundreds of feet above the fountains and magnolia-shaded terraces that crowned the hill--still more hundreds of feet above the densely packed roofs and spires of the city crowded upon the hill's rocky sides. It was like some fine and pure old Greek temple, standing on a romantic headland, far above the murk and toil of sordid striving. But over the symmetrical pile floated a banner that meant to the world all that was signified even by the banners which Greece folded and laid away in eternal rest thousands of years ago.
At the foot of the hill the Cumberland, clear as when it descended from its mountains five hundred miles away, flowed between its high, straight walls of limestone, spanned by cobweb-like bridges, and bore on its untroubled breast a great fleet of high-chimneyed, white-sided transports, and black, sullen gunboats. Miles away to her left she saw the trains rushing into Nashville, unrolling as they came along black and white ribbons against the sky.
"They're coming from the North," she said, with an involuntary sigh; "they're coming from home."
She touched her mare's flank with the whip and sped on.
She soon reached the outer line of guards, by whom she was halted, with a demand for her pass.
She produced the one furnished her, which was signed by Gen. Rosencrans. While the Sergeant was inspecting it it occured to her that now was the time to begin the role of a young woman with rebellious proclivities.
"Is this the last guard-line I will have to pass?" she asked.
"Yes'm," answered the Sergeant.
"You're quite sure?"
"Yes'm."
"Then I won't have any further use for this--thing?" indicating the pass, which she received back with fine loathing, as if it were something infectious.
"No'm."
"Quite sure?"
"Yes'm, quite sure."
She rode over to the fire around which part of the guard were sitting, held the pass over it by the extremest tips of her dainty thumb and forefinger, and then dropped it upon the coals, as if it were a rag from a small-pox hospital. Glancing at her finger-tips an instant, as if they had been permanently contaminated by the scrawl of the Yankee General, she touched her nag, and was off like an arrow without so much as good day to the guards.
"She-cesh--clean to her blessed little toe-nails," said the Sergeant, gazing after her meditatively, as he fished around in his pouch for a handful of Kinnikinnick, to replenish his pipe, "and she's purtier'n a picture, too."
"Them's the kind that's always the wust Rebels," said the oracle of the squad, from his seat by the fire. "I'll bet she's just loaded down with information or ouinine. Mebbe both."
She was now fairly in the enemy's country, and her heart beat faster in momentary expectation of encountering some form of the perils abounding there. But she became calm, almost joyous, as she passed through mile after mile of tranquil landscape. The war might as well have been on the other side of the Atlantic for any hint she now saw of it in the peaceful, sun-lit fields and woods, and streams of crystal spring-water. She saw women busily engaged in their morning work about all the cabins and houses. With bare and sinewy arms they beat up and