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The message, although the bearer had to ride nine-and-twenty miles, by Newton and Nineveh, had reached its destination in good time; and as the Stonewall Brigade moved silently past Pritchard's Hill, Trimble's brigade advanced abreast of it beyond the intervening woods.
'Ay, ay, donner and blitzen! HE'S your affair, said the Captain. 'How do you really know that he is in this country? 'Why, Gabriel saw him up among the hills. 'Gabriel! who is he? 'A fellow from the gipsies, that, about eighteen years since, was pressed on board that d d fellow Pritchard's sloop-of-war.
The opportunity, however, was denied him. The events which followed came and passed like a thought. A blow on his left wrist and the whistle fell into the road. A dark figure had sprung up, apparently from space; a long arm was twined around Pritchard's neck, bending him backwards; there was a gleam of steel within a few inches of his throat. And then Tavernake saw a wonderful thing.
He knew something of his opponent, and anticipating that he would be eager to attack, had ordered the greater part of his division to remain concealed. Kimball's brigade and five batteries were sent quietly, under cover of the night, to Pritchard's Hill. Sullivan's brigade was posted in support, hidden from view behind a wood.
Gabriel, the gipsy, was then introduced, and gave a distinct account of his deserting from Captain Pritchard's vessel and joining the smugglers in the action, detailed how Dirk Hatteraick set fire to his ship when he found her disabled, and under cover of the smoke escaped with his crew, and as much goods as they could save, into the cavern, where they proposed to lie till nightfall.
"I wonder, Miss Marley, if you ever heard about Miss Pritchard's love-story?" he asked rather hesitatingly. "It all happened of course before you were born; but your family may have spoken of it to you?" Elsie raised her eyes quickly, regardless of the fact that there were tears in them. "Oh, no, Mr. Graham, I never knew anything about it," she almost gasped.
Either she would shock that elegant gentleman's taste with the ugliest of ragtime, or she would inflict him with a succession of the operatic selections she had taken up with Madame Valentini. The latter choice would probably, upon Miss Pritchard's arrival, serve to bring up the unhappy matter of her abandoning the stage for music, but that would be a minor evil. Mr.
When the old-fashioned, velvet-bound, nickel-clasped book was produced, Elsie almost forgot her immediate purpose in her interest in the likenesses. But one of Ellen Pritchard at fourteen, Miss Pritchard's cousin and supposedly her aunt, brought her up sharply. For Elsie Marley was the very image of it.
But that noise which once heard on a still night is never forgotten, the solid tramp of a heavy column on a hard road, like the dull roar of a distant cataract, had suddenly died away. As the day broke the Confederate advanced guard, passing Pritchard's Hill and Kernstown battlefield, struck the Federal pickets on Parkin's Hill.
A strong force of infantry, with waving colours, was plainly visible to the Confederates, and it was seen that the extreme left was protected by several guns. On the right of the road was a line of skirmishers, deployed along the base of Pritchard's Hill, and on the knoll itself stood two batteries. The wooded ridge to westward was as yet unoccupied, except by scouting parties.
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