Scofield nearly upset the boat in his precipitous effort to gain a seat beside her—­and Mr. Merriweather did row another way.

CHRISTMAS EVE IN WAR TIMES

It was the beginning of a battle.  The skirmish line of the Union advance was sweeping rapidly over a rough mountainous region in the South, and in his place on the extreme left of this line was Private Anson Marlow.  Tall trees rising from underbrush, rocks, bowlders, gulches worn by spring torrents, were the characteristics of the field, which was in wild contrast with the parade-grounds on which the combatants had first learned the tactics of war.  The majority, however, of those now in the ranks had since been drilled too often under like circumstances, and with lead and iron shotted guns, not to know their duty, and the lines of battle were as regular as the broken country allowed.  So far as many obstacles permitted, Marlow kept his proper distance from the others on the line and fired coolly when he caught glimpses of the retreating Confederate skirmishers.  They were retiring with ominous readiness toward a wooded height which the enemy occupied with a force of unknown strength.  That strength was soon manifested in temporary disaster to the Union forces, which were driven back with heavy loss.

Neither the battle nor its fortunes are the objects of our present concern, but rather the fate of Private Marlow.  The tide of battle drifted away and left the soldier desperately wounded in a narrow ravine, through which babbled a small stream.  Excepting the voices of his wife and children no music had ever sounded so sweetly in his ears.  With great difficulty he crawled to a little bubbling pool formed by a tiny cascade and encircling stones, and partially slaked his intolerable thirst.

He believed he was dying—­bleeding to death.  The very thought blunted his faculties for a time; and he was conscious of little beyond a dull wonder.  Could it be possible that the tragedy of his death was enacting in that peaceful, secluded nook?  Could Nature be so indifferent or so unconscious if it were true that he was soon to lie there dead?  He saw the speckled trout lying motionless at the bottom of the pool, the gray squirrels sporting in the boughs over his head.  The sunlight shimmered and glinted through the leaves, flecking with light his prostrate form.  He dipped his hand in the blood that had welled from his side, and it fell in rubies from his fingers.  Could that be his blood—­his life-blood; and would it soon all ooze away?  Could it be that death was coming through all the brightness of that summer afternoon?

From a shadowed tree further up the glen, a wood-thrush suddenly began its almost unrivalled song.  The familiar melody, heard so often from his cottage-porch in the June twilight, awoke him to the bitter truth.  His wife had then sat beside him, while his little ones played here and there among the trees and shrubbery.  They would hear the same song to-day; he would never hear it again.  That counted for little; but the thought of their sitting behind the vines and listening to their favorite bird, spring after spring and summer after summer, and he ever absent, overwhelmed him.