If St. Clair was gorgeous in his new clothes, he would have been pale beside Stuart, who also had new raiment. A most magnificent feather looped and draped about his gold-braided hat. His uniform, of the finest cloth, was heavy with gold braid and gold epaulets, and the great yellow silk sash about his waist supported his gold-hilted sword.
“What new and splendid species of bird is this?” asked General Jackson, as Stuart and his men saluted. “I have never before seen such grand plumage.”
Stuart complacently stroked the gold braid on his left sleeve and looked about the hunting lodge, the walls of which had been decorated accordingly long since by its owner.
“Splendid picture this of a race horse, General,” he said, “and the one of the trotter in action is almost as fine. Ah, sir, I knew there were good sporting instincts in you and that they would come out in time. I approve of it myself, but what will the members of your church say, sir, when they hear of your moral decline?”
Jackson actually blushed and remained silent under the chaff.
“And here is a picture of a greyhound, and here of a terrier,” continued the bold Stuart. “Oh, General, you’re not only going in for racing, but for coursing dogs as well, and maybe fighting dogs, too! Throughout the South all the old ladies look up to you as our highest moral representative. What will they think when they hear of these things? It would be worse than a great battle lost.”
“General Stuart,” said Jackson, “I know more about race horses than you think I do.”
He would add no more, but Harry had learned that, when quite a small boy, he had ridden horses in backwoods races for a sport-loving uncle. But Stuart continued his jests and Jackson secretly enjoyed them. The two men were so opposite in nature that they were complements and each liked the society of the other.
The two lads and the staff officers went outside presently, and the two generals were left together to talk business for a quarter of an hour. When Stuart emerged he glanced at Harry and Dalton and beckoned to them. When they came up he had mounted, but he leaned over, and pointing a long finger in a buckskin glove in turn at each, he said:
“Can you dance?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Harry.
“And you, Sir Knight of the Sober Mien?”
“I can try, sir,” said Dalton.
“But can you make it a good try?”
“I can, sir.”
“That’s the right spirit. Well, there’s going to be a ball down at my headquarters to-night; not a little, two-penny, half-penny affair, but a real ball, a grand ball. The bands of the Fifth Virginia and of the Acadians will be there to play, alternating. You’re invited and you’re coming. I’ve already obtained leave from General Jackson for you both. I wish the general himself would come, but he’s just received a theological book that Dr. Graham at Winchester has sent him, and he’s bound to spend most of the night on that. Put on your best uniforms and be there just after dark.”
Harry and Dalton accepted eagerly, and Stuart, a genuine knight of old alike in his courage and love of adornment, rode out of the grounds.
“There goes a man who certainly loves life,” said Dalton.
“And don’t you love it, and don’t I love it, Mr. Philosopher and Cynic?” said Harry.
“So we do. But, as General Jackson said, General Stuart is a boy, younger than either of us.”
“I hope to be the same kind of a boy when I’m his age.”
Stuart was riding on, looking about with a luminous eye, fired by the spirit within him and the great landscape spread out before him. It was a noble landscape, the wooded ranges stretching to right and left, with the long sweep of rolling country between. The somber ruins of Fredericksburg were hidden from view just then, but in front of him flowed the great Rappahannock, still black with floods and ice yet floating near the banks.
Stuart drew a deep breath. It was a beautiful part of Virginia, old and with many fine manor houses scattered about. And the people, educated, polite, accustomed to everything, gladly sacrificed all they had for the Confederacy in its hour of need. They had cut up their rugs and carpets and sent them to the great camp on the Rappahannock that the soldiers who had no blankets might use them. The cattle and poultry from the rich farms were also sent to Lee’s men. Virginia sacrificed herself for the Confederate cause with a devotion that would have brought tears from a stone.