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Fortunately for his own battalions, the brigadier had his camp equipage and baggage packed and sent off then and there to Winchester, and though his men had to spend the night unsheltered under persistent rain, they had reason to bless his foresight a few nights later. At midnight a report was received from one of the Front Royal fugitives: "Kenly is killed. First Maryland cut to pieces.
But while Harry slept the full dangers of his situation became known to Banks far after midnight at Strasburg. The regiment and the two guns that he had sent down the turnpike to relieve Kenly had been fired upon so incessantly by Southern pickets and riflemen that they were compelled to turn back. Everywhere the Northern scouts and skirmishers were driven in.
Kenly, seeing his advantage, and cool and ready, drew up his men on a hill and poured a tremendous fire upon the bridge. Harry saw the daring deed of the men from the Gulf coast, and he clapped his hands in delight. But he had only a moment's view. Sherburne was curving away in search of a ford and all his men galloped close behind him.
For all her outward optimism her heart grew heavy with despair. They crossed the river, coming out where the old moose trail had gone down the ford. Here they had seen the last of Kenly Lounsbury and Vosper, almost forgotten now. Virginia told Harold to stop an instant as she recalled those vents of months before. "So much has happened since then," she said, "If only they had left "
Two panels of these had been taken down preparatory to deploying in the fields, but the movement was not yet made. Kenly had his face turned to the west, straining his eyes for the guns or for the reinforcements which happily General Banks might send. A shout arose. "Look out! Look out! Oh, good Lord!" First there was seen a horrible dust cloud, heard a great thunder of hoofs.
He had never seen Harold before; but he had seen this photograph in his own boyhood, and Harold's face had so resembled the one in the picture that it had haunted and disturbed him. Only too well he knew the truth. Harold Lounsbury was Rutheford's son, the son of his father's murderer. Kenly Lounsbury was Rutheford's brother.
My horse was killed by a rebel sharpshooter in the woods as I was approaching! I could not get up in time, but I saw what happened!" "Kenly! Kenly, where is he?" "Mortally wounded or dead, and his army is destroyed! They made a brave stand, even after they were defeated at the village. They might have got away had anybody but Jackson been pursuing. But he gave them no chance.
At the highest key, the fiercest light, the extremest motion, sound and sight procuring for them a mighty bass and background, came Jackson's charging squadrons. They swallowed the road and the fields on either hand. Kenly, with the foremost company, fired once, a point-blank volley, received at twenty yards, and emptying ten saddles of the central squadron.
These, crossing the wagon bridge over the Shenandoah and coming down the road at a double, reported to Kenly and were received by the anxious troops with cheering. The ground hereabouts was rolling, green eminences at all points breaking the view.
He knew now why Kenly Lounsbury had been willing to finance Virginia's trip into the North, not in hopes of finding his lost nephew, but to find the mine of which he also had some knowledge and thus repair the broken remnants of his fortune. In the same sweep of realization he knew why Harold Lounsbury's face had always haunted him and filled him with hazy, uncertain memories.
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