And the mother?  She was still kneeling on the door-stone, but the burden of her prayer was not now for Caleb Gordon.  “O Lord, have mercy on my boy!  Thou knowest how, because of my disobedience, he has the fierce fighting blood and the stubborn unbelief of all the Gordons to contend with:  save him alive and make him a man of peace and a man of faith, I beseech Thee, and let not the unbelief of the father or the unfaithfulness of the mother be visited on the son!”

When the one-piece battery dashed at a clumsy gallop through the open gate of the Dabney pasture and swung with a sharp turn into the vista of felled trees, Thomas Jefferson beheld a thing to set his heritage of soldier blood dancing through his veins.  Standing fair in the midst of the ax-and-shovel havoc and clearing a wide circle to right and left with the sweep of his old service cavalry saber, was the Major, coatless, hatless, cursing the invaders with mighty and corrosive soldier oaths, and crying them to come on, the unnumbered host of them against one man.

Opposed to him the men of the construction force, generaled by the young engineer in brown duck and buttoned leggings, were deploying cautiously to surround him.  Gordon spoke to his mare; and when he drew rein and wheeled to shout to the gun crew, Thomas Jefferson heard the engineer’s low-toned order to the shovelers:  “Be careful and don’t hurt him, boys.  He’s the old maniac who threw me off the veranda of his house.  Two of you take him behind, and—­”

The break came on the uprush of the unanticipated reinforcements.  With the battle readiness of a disciplined soldier, Caleb Gordon whipped from the saddle and ran to help the gun crew slue the makeshift field-piece into position.

“Fall back, Major!” he shouted; “fall back on your front line and give the artillery a chanst at ’em.  I reckon a dose o’ broken pot-iron’ll carry fu’ther than that saber o’ yourn.  Buddy, hunt me a punk match, quick, will ye?”

[Illustration:  “Fall back, Major!” he shouted; “give the artillery a chanst”]

Thomas Jefferson ran to the nearest rotting log, but one of the negroes was before him with a blazing pitch-pine splint.  There was a respectful recoil in the opposing ranks which presently became a somewhat panicky surge to the rear.  The shovelers, more than half of whom were negroes, had not come out to be blown from a cannon’s mouth by a grim-faced veteran who was so palpably at home with the tools of his trade.

“That’s right:  keep right on goin’!” yelled the iron-master, waving his blazing slow-match dangerously near to the priming.  “Keep it up, ’r by the Lord that made ye—­”

There was no need to specify the alternative.  For now the panic had spread by its own contagion, and the invaders were fighting among themselves for place on the flat-cars.  And while yet the rear guard was swarming upon the engine, hanging by toe-and hand-holds where it could, the train was backed rapidly out of range.