United States or Micronesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Hitherto some angel had watched over me, and Disaways had been unvisited by the enemy's scouting parties, without so much as a vedette at the Halifax bridge, within half a mile. I had sat by the fire, eaten countless suppers, laughed and conversed with my good friends, slept soundly in a real bed, and gone on my way in the morning rejoicing. I had thus always escaped surprise.

I had taken my last ride in the "low grounds" of the county of Dinwiddie; I was never more to see Disaways, unless something carries me thither in the future. To those hours spent in the old mansion, and with my comrades, near it, I look back now with delight. Days and nights on the Rowanty! how you come back to me in dreams!

Charley was cultivating a mustache and speculating upon a new revolution. Tom Herbert and Katy were on a visit to "Disaways." "Poor Nighthawk is the only one whom I miss, my dear Surry," said Mohun. "He died trying to save me, and I have had his body taken to Fonthill, where it is buried in the family graveyard." "He was a faithful friend; and to be killed on that very last morning was hard.

My friends had pathetically remonstrated "there was not a single picket on the Rowanty in front of me, there, and I would certainly be captured some day," but I had persisted in stopping there still, on every tour which I made. How to resist the temptation! Disaways was just thirty miles from Petersburg. I always reached its vicinity as night fell, on the dark winter days.

"Thank you, colonel the same to you." And leaving Nighthawk crouching down beside his fire, I rode on. Pushing on, I reached the cavalry and horse artillery, which I was soon done with you see I dismiss "official" matters with commendable rapidity, reader then I went on across Roney's bridge and along the "Flat Foot road" toward Disaways.

"Well, where is the place of meeting where are the terms being arranged?" I said. "At a place called Disaways, on the lower Rowanty!" "Good! I know the road there," I said. And with a laugh, which the general and his gay cavaliers echoed, I touched my gray with the spur, and set out toward the south. I pushed on, having resolved, after finishing my duties, to visit Disaways.

My horse neighed as he cantered up, and passed under the great oaks. He seemed to feel that this was something like home to him now, and that his day's march was over. In fact, all the months of winter I had regularly stopped at Disaways on my way to the cavalry at Hicksford.

This privilege she always claimed when I came to Disaways; fighting furiously, if the excellent lady of the manor attempted to supplant her. Looking at her, as she ran about now, engaged in her most admirable occupation, I thought her lovelier than ever before certainly than when talking in the woods with Tom! You see she was getting my supper, reader! and it seemed to be a labor of love.

I murmur, "Rowanty, and Sappony, and Disaways! Bonne fortune! old companions, little maiden, and kind friends all! It has not been time lost to gather together my recollections to live again in the past, to catch the aroma of those hours when kindness smoothed the front of war! We no longer wear the gray my mustache only shows it now! but, thank heaven! many things in memory survive.

Happy hours at Disaways, with the cavalry, with the horse artillery! you live still in my memory, and you will live there always! Katy Dare runs to greet me again as in the past again her blue eyes dance, and the happy winds are blowing her bright curls into ripples! She smiles upon me still as in that "winter of discontent." Her cheerful voice again sounds. Her small hands are held out to me.