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With the milder weather the mud dried in the roads, and the Major and the Governor went daily into Leicesterburg. The younger man had carried his oratory and his influence into the larger cities of the state, and he had come home, at the end of a month of speech-making, in a fervour of almost boyish enthusiasm.
Blake the rector of the largest church in Leicesterburg straightened his fat legs and folded his hands as he did at the ending of his sermons, and the others sat before him with the strained and reverential faces which they put on like a veil in church and took off when the service was over.
'Thar's not another like him in the country, I said to Bill Bates, an' he said to me, 'Thar's not a man between here an' Leicesterburg as ain't ready to say the same. Then time went on an' you got bigger, an' the year came when the crops failed an' Sairy got sick, an' I took a mortgage on this here house an' what should happen but that you stepped right up an' paid it out of yo' own pocket.
But on the morrow the old lady did not leave her bed, and the doctor, who came with his saddlebags from Leicesterburg, glanced her over and ordered "perfect repose of mind and body" before he drank his julep and rode away. "Perfect repose, indeed!" scoffed his patient, from behind her curtains, when the visit was over. "Why, the idiot might as well have ordered me a mustard plaster.
For a moment he made no response; then, glancing about him in the darkness, he spoke in a low voice, as if fearing the sound of his own words. "Bad news brought me home, Julia," he replied, "At the tavern they told me a message had come to Leicesterburg from Harper's Ferry.
"I'm going, you know," went on the young man lightly. "They're getting up a company in Leicesterburg, and I'm to be Captain. I got a letter about it a week ago, and I've been studying like thunder ever since." "Well, well, it will be a pleasant little change for you," responded the old man. "There's nothing like a few weeks of war to give one an appetite." Mrs.
From Leicesterburg a stanch Union man had gone to the convention; and the Major still resented the selection of his neighbours as bitterly as if it were an affront to aspirations of his own. "Dick Powell! Pooh! he's another Peyton Ambler," he remarked testily, "and on my word there're too many of his kind too many of his kind. What we lack, sir, is men of spirit."
"I have sometimes thought it was why I fell in love with you, you made such a beautiful speech the first day I met you at the tournament in Leicesterburg. Fred Dulany crowned me, you remember; and in your speech you brought in so many lovely things about flowers and women."
On my word, I might have been Captain of the Leicesterburg Guards after Champe Lightfoot joined the cavalry; but such averted looks were turned from me by the ladies, that I had to jump into the ranks merely to reinstate myself in their regard. They made even Governor Ambler volunteer as a private, I believe, but he was lucky and got made a Colonel instead." Bland laughed softly.
That afternoon he went down into the country to inspect a decayed plantation which had come into his hands, and returning two days later, he rode into Leicesterburg and up to the steps of the little post-office, where, as usual, the neighbouring farmers lounged while they waited for an expected despatch, or discussed the midday mail with each newcomer.
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