These four were charmed with an old field given up to sedge, its deep rain-gullies as red as gaping4 wounds, its dead trees in tatters of long gray moss5. Estelle became a student of flowers, Cécile of birds, Camille of trees. All my explanations were alike enchantingly strange. To their minds it had never occurred that the land sloped the same way the water ran! When told that these woods abounded6 in deer and wild turkey they began to look out for them at every new turn of the road. And the turns came fast. Happy miles, happy leagues; each hour was of a mellower7 sweetness than the last; they seemed to ripen8 in the sun. The only drawback was my shame of a sentimental9 situation, but once or twice I longed to turn the whole equipage into the woods--or the ditch. As, for instance, when three pine-woods cavalrymen had no sooner got by us than they set up that ribald old camp-song,
"We're going to get married, mamma, mamma;
We're going to get married, but don't tell pa--"
"Deserters, I don't doubt!" was my comment to the ladies. Tongue revenge is poor, but it is something.
Except in such moments, however, the war seemed farther away than it had for months and months. But about eleven o'clock we began to find the way scored by the fresh ruts of heavy wheels and the dust deepened by hundred of hoofs10. The tops and faces of the roadside banks were newly trampled11 and torn by clambering human feet. Here was a canteen, smashed in a wheel-track; yonder a fragment of harness; here lay a broken hame, there was the half of a russet brogan and yonder a ragged12 sock stained and bloody13.
"Why, what does all this mean?" asked Miss Harper amid her nieces' cries.
I said it meant Fisher's battery hurrying to the front. Twenty miles since five that morning was a marvel14, horse artillery15 though they were, for, as I pointed16 out by many signs, their animals were in ill condition. "We shall have to go round them by neighborhood roads," I said, and presently we were deeper than ever in woodland shades and sources of girlish wonderment. The humid depths showed every sort of green and gray, their trunks, bushes and boughs17, bearded with hanging moss, robed with tangled18 vines and chapleted with mistletoe. We seemed to have got this earth quite to ourselves and very much to our liking19.
One o'clock. Miss Harper suggested a halt to feed the horses. I, knowing what it would cost me to dismount and go walking about, said no, thrice no; let us first get back upon the main road in front of that battery. On, therefore, we hurried, and soon the reality of the war was vivid to us again. In a stretch of wet road where the team had mutely begged leave to walk and the ladies had urged me to sing we had at length paused in a pebbly20 rivulet21 to allow the weary animals to drink, and the girls and the aunt and the greenwood and I were all in chorus bidding somebody
"Unloose the west port and let us go free,"
when, just as our last note died among the trees one of us cried, "Listen!" and through the stillness there came from far away on our right the last three measures of a bugle22 sounding The March.
My eyes rested in Camille's and hers in mine. A musical license23 gave us the courage. At the last note our gaze did not sink but took on more glow, while out of the forest behind us a distant echo answered the last measure of the strain. Then our eyes slowly fell; and however it may have seemed to her, to me it was as if the vanished strains were not only or chiefly of bugle and echo, but as though our two hearts had called and answered in that melodious24 unison25.
All that warm afternoon we paid the tiresome26 penalty of having pushed our animals too smartly at the outset. We grew sedate27; sedate were the brows of the few strangers we met. We talked in pairs. When I spoke28 with Miss Harper the four listened. She asked about the evils of camp life; for she was one of that fine sort to whom righteousness seems every man's and woman's daily business, one of the most practical items in the world's affairs. And I said camp life was fearfully corrupting29; that the merest boys cursed and swore and stole, or else were scorned as weaklings. Then I grew meekly30 silent and we talked in pairs again, and because I yearned31 to talk most with Camille I talked most with Estelle. Three times when I turned abruptly32 from her to Camille and called, "Hark!" the fagged-out horses halted, and as we struck our listening pose the bugle's faint sigh ever farther in our rear was but feebly proportioned to the amount of our gazing into each other's eyes.
Once, when we were not halted or harkening, we heard overmuch; heard that which brought us to an instant stand and caused even Miss Harper to gaze on me with dismayed eyes and parted lips, and the blood to go thumping33 through my veins34. From a few hundred yards off in the northwest, beyond the far corner of an old field and the woods at its back, two gunshots together, then a third, with sharp, hot cries of alarum and command, and then another and another shot, rang out and spread wanderingly across the tender landscape.
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1
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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2
bickering
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| v.争吵( bicker的现在分词 )；口角；（水等）作潺潺声；闪烁 | |
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3
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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4
gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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6
abounded
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
mellower
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| 成熟的( mellow的比较级 )； （水果）熟透的； （颜色或声音）柔和的； 高兴的 | |
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ripen
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| vt.使成熟；vi.成熟 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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10
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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11
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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12
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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13
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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14
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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15
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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16
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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17
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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18
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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19
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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20
pebbly
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| 多卵石的，有卵石花纹的 | |
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21
rivulet
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| n.小溪，小河 | |
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22
bugle
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| n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集 | |
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23
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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24
melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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25
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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26
tiresome
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| adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的 | |
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27
sedate
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| adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的 | |
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28
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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29
corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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30
meekly
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| adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地 | |
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31
yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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32
abruptly
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| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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33
thumping
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| adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持 | |
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34
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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