“Is General Jackson inside?” asked Sherburne.
“Yes, and he has not yet gone to bed,” replied Harry, looking at the lighted windows.
“Then ask him if I can see him at once. He sent my troop and me on a scout toward Romney this morning. I have news, news that cannot wait.”
“Of course, he’ll see you. Come inside.”
Sherburne slipped from his horse. Harry noticed that it was not his usual elastic spring. He seemed almost to fall to the ground, and the horse, no hand on the reins, still stood motionless, his head drooping. It was evident that Sherburne was in the last stages of exhaustion, and now that he came nearer his face showed great anxiety as well as weariness.
Harry opened the door promptly and pushed him inside. Then he helped him off with his wet and muddy overcoat, pushed him into a chair, and said:
“I’ll announce you to General Jackson, and he’ll see you at once.”
Harry knew that Jackson would not linger a second, when a messenger of importance came, and he went into the library where the minister and the general stood talking. General Jackson held in one hand a large leather-covered volume, and with the forefinger of the other hand he was pointing to a paragraph in it. The minister was saying something that Harry did not catch, but he believed that they were arguing some disputed point of Presbyterian doctrine.
When Jackson saw Harry he closed the book instantly, and put it on the shelf. He had seen in the eyes of his aide that he was coming with no common message.
“Captain Sherburne is in the hall, sir,” said the boy. “He has come back from the scout toward Romney.”
“Bring him in.”
The minister quietly slipped out, as Sherburne entered, but Jackson bade Harry remain, saying that he might have orders for him to carry.
“What have you to tell me, Captain Sherburne?” asked Jackson.
“We saw the patrols of the enemy, and we took two prisoners. We learned that McClellan’s army is showing signs of moving, and we saw with our own eyes that Banks and Shields are preparing for the same. They threaten us here in Winchester.”
“What force do you think Banks has?”
“He must have forty thousand men.”
“A good guess. The figures of my spies say thirty-eight thousand, and we can muster scarcely five thousand here. We must move.”
Jackson spoke without emotion. His words were cold and dry, even formal. Harry’s heart sank. If eight times their numbers were advancing upon them, then they must abandon Winchester. They must leave to the enemy this pleasant little city, so warmly devoted to the Southern cause and confess weakness and defeat to these friends who had done so much for them during their stay.
He felt the full bitterness of the blow. The people of the South-little immigration had gone there-were knit together more closely by ties of kinship than those of the North. Harry through the maternal line was, like most Kentuckians, of Virginia descent, and even here in Winchester he had found cousins, more or less removed it was true, but it was kinship, nevertheless, and they had made the most of it. It would have been easier for him were strangers instead of friends to see their retreat.
“Captain Sherburne, you will go to your quarters and sleep. It is obvious that you need rest,” said Jackson. “Mr. Kenton, you will wait and take the orders that I am going to write.”
Sherburne saluted and withdrew promptly. Jackson turned to a shelf of the library on which lay pen, ink and paper, and standing before it rapidly wrote several notes. It was his favorite attitude-habit of his West Point days-to write or read standing.
It took him less than five minutes to write the notes, and he handed them to Harry to deliver without delay to the brigade commanders. His tones were incisive and charged with energy. Harry felt the electric thrill pass to himself, and with a quick salute he was once more out in the rain.
Some of the brigadiers were asleep, and grumbled when Harry awoke them, but the orders soon sent the last remnants of sleep flying. The boy did not linger, but returned quickly to the manse, where General Jackson met him at the door. Other aides were coming or going, but all save one or two windows of the house were dark now, and the merrymaking was over.