Book IX Nancy’s Return I

(Epilogue — Twenty-five years later)
I

Twenty-five years had passed since Mrs. Blake took her mother’s slave girl across the Potomac. The Civil War, which came on so soon after Nancy ran away, was long gone by when Back Creek¹ folks saw the yellow girl again.

In all that time the country between Romney and Winchester had changed very little. The same families were living on their old places. There were new people at the Colbert mill, of course, and several new brick houses with ambitious porticos now stood on the turnpike between Winchester and Timber Ridge². But the wooden foot-bridge over Back Creek hung just as it did in the Colberts’ time, a curious “suspension” bridge, without piles, swung from the far-reaching white limb of a great sycamore that grew on the bank and leaned over the stream. Mrs. Bywaters, though now an old woman, was still the postmistress. She had not been removed in the “carpetbag” period, when so many questionable³ Government appointments were made. During the war years, when Federal troops were marching up and down the valley, her well-known Northern sympathies stood the Confederate soldiers in good stead. When they were home on leave, they could always hide from search parties in her rambling⁴ garrets. Her house was exempt⁵ from search.

The war made few enmities in the country neighbourhoods. When Willie Gordon, a Rebel boy from Hayfield, was wounded in the Battle of Bull Run, it was Mr. Cartmell, Mrs. Bywaters’s father, who went after him in his hay-wagon, got through the Federal lines, and brought him home. While the boy lay dying from gangrene in a shattered leg (Doctor Brush never attempted an amputation⁶, and Doctor Clavenger was far away on Lee’s staff), the Hayfield people, regardless of political differences, came in relays, night and day, and did the only thing that relieved his pain a little: they carried cold water from the springhouse and with a tin cup poured it steadily⁷ over his leg for hours at a time.

Mr. Whitford’s son enlisted⁸ in the Northern army, as his father’s son might be expected to do. His nearest neighbour, Mr. Jeffers, had a son in Ashby’s cavalry⁹. The fathers remained friends, worked their bordering fields, and talked to each other across the rail fence as they had always done. Both men admired young Turner Ashby of Fauquier County, who held the Confederate line from Berkeley Springs to Harpers Ferry, — so near home that word of his brilliant cavalry exploits came out to Back Creek with the stage-driver. The war news from distant places came slowly, sometimes long after the event, but Stonewall Jackson and Ashby, both operating in Frederick County, gave people plenty to talk about.

Ashby fell in the second year of the war, shot through the heart after his horse had been killed under him, leading a victorious¹⁰ charge near Harrisonburg, on the sixth day of June. Even today, if you should be motoring through Winchester on the sixth of June, and should stop to see the Confederate cemetery¹¹, you would probably find fresh flowers on Ashby’s grave. He was all that the old-time Virginians admired: Like Paris handsome and like Hector brave. And he died young. “Shortlived and glorious,” the old Virginians used to say.

After Lee’s surrender, the country boys from Back Creek and Timber Ridge came home to their farms and set to work to reclaim¹² their neglected fields. The land was still there, but few horses were left to work it with. In the movement of troops to and fro between Romney and Winchester, all the livestock¹³ had been carried away. Even the cocks and hens had been snapped up by the foragers.

The Rebel soldiers who came back were tired, discouraged, but not humiliated¹⁴ or embittered¹⁵ by failure. The country people accepted the defeat of the Confederacy with dignity, as they accepted death when it came to their families. Defeat was not new to those men. Almost every season brought defeat of some kind to the farming people. Their cornfields, planted by hand and cultivated with the hoe, were beaten down by hail, or the wheat was burned up by drouth, or cholera¹⁶ broke out among the pigs. The soil was none too fertile, and the methods of farming were not very good.

The Back Creek boys were glad to be at home again; to see the sun come up over one familiar hill and go down over another. Now they could mend the barn roof where it leaked, help the old woman with her garden, and keep the wood-pile high. They had gone out to fight for their home State, had done their best, and now it was over. They still wore their army overcoats in winter, because they had no others, and they worked the fields in whatever rags were left of their uniforms. The day of Confederate reunions and veterans’ dinners was then far distant.

When Nancy came back after so many years, though the outward scene was little changed, she came back to a different world. The young men of 1856 were beginning to grow grey, and the children who went to David Fairhead’s basement school were now married and had children of their own.

This new generation was gayer and more carefree than their forbears, perhaps because they had fewer traditions to live up to. The war had done away with many of the old distinctions. The young couples were poor and extravagant¹⁷ and jolly. They were much given to picnics and camp-meetings in summer, sleighing parties and dancing parties in the winter. Every ambitious young farmer kept a smart buggy and a double carriage, but these were used for Sunday church-going and trips to Winchester and Capon Springs. The saddle-horse was still the usual means of getting about the neighbourhood. The women made social calls, went to the post office and the dressmaker, on horseback. A handsome woman (or a pretty girl) on a fine horse was a charming figure to meet on the road; the close-fitting riding-habit with long skirt, the little hat with the long plume¹⁸. Cavalry veterans rose in the stirrup to salute¹⁹ her as she flashed by.

1 creek   

n.小溪，小河，小湾

参考例句：

• He sprang through the creek.他跳过小河。
• People sunbathe in the nude on the rocks above the creek.人们在露出小溪的岩石上裸体晒日光浴。

2 ridge   

n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭

参考例句：

• We clambered up the hillside to the ridge above.我们沿着山坡费力地爬上了山脊。
• The infantry were advancing to attack the ridge.步兵部队正在向前挺进攻打山脊。

3 questionable   

adj.可疑的，有问题的

参考例句：

• There are still a few questionable points in the case.这个案件还有几个疑点。
• Your argument is based on a set of questionable assumptions.你的论证建立在一套有问题的假设上。

4 rambling   

adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的

参考例句：

• We spent the summer rambling in Ireland. 我们花了一个夏天漫游爱尔兰。
• It was easy to get lost in the rambling house. 在布局凌乱的大房子里容易迷路。

5 exempt   

adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者

参考例句：

• These goods are exempt from customs duties.这些货物免征关税。
• He is exempt from punishment about this thing.关于此事对他已免于处分。

6 amputation   

n.截肢

参考例句：

• In ancient India,adultery was punished by amputation of the nose.在古代印度，通奸要受到剖鼻的处罚。
• He lived only hours after the amputation.截肢后，他只活了几个小时。

7 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

8 enlisted   

adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• enlisted men and women 男兵和女兵
• He enlisted with the air force to fight against the enemy. 他应募加入空军对敌作战。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

9 cavalry   

n.骑兵；轻装甲部队

参考例句：

• We were taken in flank by a troop of cavalry. 我们翼侧受到一队骑兵的袭击。
• The enemy cavalry rode our men down. 敌人的骑兵撞倒了我们的人。

10 victorious   

adj.胜利的，得胜的

参考例句：

• We are certain to be victorious.我们定会胜利。
• The victorious army returned in triumph.获胜的部队凯旋而归。

11 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

12 reclaim   

v.要求归还，收回；开垦

参考例句：

• I have tried to reclaim my money without success.我没能把钱取回来。
• You must present this ticket when you reclaim your luggage.当你要取回行李时，必须出示这张票子。

13 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

14 humiliated   

感到羞愧的

参考例句：

• Parents are humiliated if their children behave badly when guests are present. 子女在客人面前举止失当，父母也失体面。
• He was ashamed and bitterly humiliated. 他感到羞耻，丢尽了面子。

15 embittered   

v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• These injustices embittered her even more. 不公平使她更加受苦。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The artist was embittered by public neglect. 大众的忽视于那位艺术家更加难受。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

17 extravagant   

adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的

参考例句：

• They tried to please him with fulsome compliments and extravagant gifts.他们想用溢美之词和奢华的礼品来取悦他。
• He is extravagant in behaviour.他行为放肆。

18 plume   

n.羽毛；v.整理羽毛，骚首弄姿，用羽毛装饰

参考例句：

• Her hat was adorned with a plume.她帽子上饰着羽毛。
• He does not plume himself on these achievements.他并不因这些成就而自夸。

19 salute   

vi.行礼，致意，问候，放礼炮；vt.向…致意，迎接，赞扬；n.招呼，敬礼，礼炮

参考例句：

• Merchant ships salute each other by dipping the flag.商船互相点旗致敬。
• The Japanese women salute the people with formal bows in welcome.这些日本妇女以正式的鞠躬向人们施礼以示欢迎。