Delia stepped along beside me, humming an air or breaking off to chatter. Meeting us, you would have said we had never a care. The road went stretching away to the northwest and the hills against the sky there; whither beyond, we neither knew nor (being both young, and one, by this time, pretty deep in love) did greatly care. Yet meeting with a wagoner and his team, we drew up to enquire.
The wagoner had a shock of whitish hair and a face purple-red above, by reason of the cold, and purple-black below, for lack of a barber. He purs’d up his mouth and look’d us slowly up and down.
“Come,” said I, “you are not deaf, I hope, nor dumb.”
“Send I may niver!” the fellow ejaculated, slowly and with contemplation: “ ’tis an unseemly sight, yet tickling to the mirthfully minded. Haw—haw!” He check’d his laughter suddenly and stood like a stone image beside his horses.
“Good sir,” said Delia, laying a hand on my arm (for I was growing nettled), “your mirth is a riddle: but tell us our way and you are free to laugh.”
“Oh, Scarlet—Scarlet!” answer’d he: “and to me, that am a man o’ blushes from my cradle!”
Convinced by this that the fellow must be an idiot, I told him so, and left him staring after us; nor heard the sound of his horses moving on again for many minutes.
After this we met about a dozen on the road, and all paus’d to stare. But from one—an old woman—we learn’d we were walking toward Marlboro’, and about noon were over the hills and looking into the valley beyond.
’Twas very like the other vale; only a pleasant stream wound along the bottom, by the banks of which the road took us. Here, by a bridge, we came to an inn bearing the sign of the Broad Face, and entered: for Captain Settle’s stock of victuals was now done. A sour-fac’d woman met us at the door.
“Do you stay here,” Delia advis’d me, “and drink a mug of beer while I bargain with the hostess for fresh food.” She follow’d the sour-fac’d woman into the house.
But out she comes presently with her cheeks flaming and a pair of bright eyes. “Come!” she commanded, “come at once!” Setting down my half emptied mug, I went after her across the bridge and up the road, wondering. In this way we must have walk’d for a mile or more before she turn’d and stamp’d her little foot—
“Horrible!” she cried. “Horrible—wicked—shameful! Ugh!” There were tears in her eyes.
“What is shameful?”
She made no reply, but walk’d on again quickly.
“I am getting hungry, for my part,” sigh’d I, after a little.
“Then you must starve!”
“Oh!”
She wheel’d round again.
“Jack, this will never do. If you are to have a comrade, let it be a boy.”
“Now, I am very passably content as things are.”
“Nonsense: at Marlboro’, I mean, you must buy me a suit of boy’s clothes. What are you hearkening to?”
“I thought I heard the noise of guns—or is it thunder?”
“Dear Jack, don’t say ’tis thunder! I do mortally fear thunder—and mice.”
“ ’Twouldn’t be thunder at this time of year. No, ’tis guns firing.”
“Where?—not that I mind guns.”
“Ahead of us.”
On the far side of the valley we enter’d a wood, thinking by this to shorten our way: for the road here took a long bend to eastward. Now, at first this wood seem’d of no considerable size, but thicken’d and spread as we advanced. ’Twas only, however, after passing the ridge, and when daylight began to fail us, that I became alarm’d. For the wood grew denser, with a tangle of paths crisscrossing amid the undergrowth. And just then came the low mutter of cannon again, shaking the earth. We began to run forward, tripping in the gloom over brambles, and stumbling into holes.
For a mile or so this lasted: and then, without warning, I heard a sound behind me, and look’d back, to find Delia sunk upon the ground.
“Jack, here’s a to-do!”
“What’s amiss?”
“Why, I am going to swoon!”
The words were scarce out, when there sounded a crackling and snapping of twigs ahead, and two figures came rushing toward us—a man and a woman. The man carried an infant in his arms: and though I call’d on them to stop, the pair ran by us with no more notice than if we had been stones. Only the woman cried, “Dear Lord, save us!” and wrung her hands as she pass’d out of sight.
“This is strange conduct,” thought I: but peering down, saw that Delia’s face was white and motionless. She had swoon’d, indeed, from weariness and hunger. So I took her in my arms and stumbled forward, hoping to find the end of the wood soon. For now the rattle of artillery came louder and incessant through the trees, and mingling with it, a multitude of dull shouts and outcries. At first I was minded to run after the man and woman, but on second thought, resolv’d to see the danger before hiding from it.
The trees, in a short while, grew sparser, and between the stems I mark’d a ruddy light glowing. And then I came out on an open space upon the hillside, with a dip of earth in front; and beyond, a long ridge of pines standing up black, because of a red glare behind them; and saw that this came not from any setting sun, but was the light of a conflagration.
The glare danced and quiver’d in the sky, as I cross’d the hollow. It made even Delia’s white cheek seem rosy. Up amid the pines I clamor’d, and along the ridge to where it broke off in a steep declivity. And lo! in a minute I look’d down as ’twere into the infernal pit.
There was a whole town
