“There used to be Confederate head-quarters up there at K——­’s?” we asked.

“Oh yes, and the Federals had it too.  General Birney was there for a while.  One day, just after he came, a lot of ’em came over here.  One of my boys was lying very sick in that front chamber just then—­the one you know, the county clerk.  Well, an orderly rode up to the door and called out, ’Here, you damned old rebel, the general wants you.’—­’I don’t answer to that name,’ said I.—­’You don’t?’—­’No, I don’t.’—­’What! ain’t you a rebel?’—­’ I don’t answer to that name,’ said I.—­’Well, consider yourself my prisoner,’ says he; so I walked up there with him.  Judge Price was at head-quarters just then, and he knew me well.  It seems that the general had heard that I kept a regular rebel commissariat, sending stores to them secretly.  Well, when the judge had told him who I was, the general wrote me a pass at once, and then asked, ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’—­’General,’ said I, ’my son lies very sick.  I should like to see the last of him, and beg to be permitted to retire.’—­’Is that so?’ said the general.  ’Would you like me to send you a doctor?’ I accepted, and he sent me two.  He came up afterward, and found that his men had torn down the fences, broken open the store and dragged out goods, set the oil and molasses running, and done great damage—­about four thousand dollars’ worth, we estimated.  You see, they thought it was a rebel commissariat.  When he came into the house he asked my wife if she could give him supper.  ‘General,’ said she, ’you have taken away my cooks:  if you will send for your own, I shall be very happy to get supper for you.’  He did so, and spent the night here, sleeping in one of the chambers while his officers lay all over the piazzas.  Next day they all rode away, quite satisfied, I guess.  There were several skirmishes about here afterward, and we have some pieces of bombs in the house now that fell in the yard.”

[Illustration:  Lake Bedford.]

The judge pressed us to stay and dine, but we had arranged for a gypsy dinner in the woods and were anxious to push on.  Push on!  How Barney would smile could he hear the word!  He never did anything half so energetic as to push:  he did not even pull.

So we bade farewell to our genial host and started westwardly again.  We were now upon the high land of the Ridge, the backbone of the State, and though, perhaps, hardly ninety feet above the sea, the air had all the exhilarating freshness of great altitudes.  All through the week which followed we felt its tonic inspiration and seemed to drink in intoxicating draughts of health and spirits, and never more than during the fifteen-mile drive between Black Creek and Kingsley’s Pond.