CHAPTER XIX
MY COMRADE GENERAL JEB STUART
One day General Stuart asked me in a teasing way:
“You wouldn’t really like to see Dan Grey, would you?”
“Oh, but I would, general,” I said, in too dead earnest to give raillery for raillery.
“I don’t believe you really want to see Dan Grey.”
“Well, I don’t, then,” a bit sullenly.
“What a pity! You might see him now, if you really wanted to.”
I wouldn’t notice such a frivolous remark.
Dinner over, we went out on the veranda, as usual, and General Stuart dropped into a chair beside me.
“I really thought you rather liked Dan Grey, but it seems I was mistaken. And you really don’t want to see him? Sad – I must tell him and condole with him.”
I tried to bury myself in a book I was reading, and to pay no attention to him. A miserable old book it was – Children of the Abbey, or something like it – that I had picked up somewhere at Mr. Bradford’s. Hereafter, if I write “Aunt Sally’s” instead of Mr. Bradford’s, please understand that one and the same place is meant. Aunt Sally was Mr. Bradford’s wife, and I reckon the first term best describes the place.
“You wouldn’t really rather have Dan Grey sitting here in this chair beside you than me?” continued my tease.
I lifted to him eyes wet with vexation and longing.
“I’ll make you smile now!” he said. “Do you want to see Dan?”
“Yes, I do. I want to see him dreadfully, but I am not going to tell you so again.”
“You will if I command you to, won’t you? If you are in the cavalry I am your superior officer, you know. I can even make Dan mind what I say, can’t I? If you are refractory, I can command Dan to bring you to terms.”
“I’d like to see Dan do it! You may be commander-in-chief of the cavalry, but you aren’t commander-in-chief of me – you or Dan either.”
“It seems not,” he commented meekly. “You are the most insubordinate little rebel I ever saw. I have a great mind to court-martial you – no, I believe I’ll send for Dan and let him do it.”
He called a courier, and wrote a despatch in regular form, ordering Major Dan Grey to report at once to General Stuart. Then he added a little private note to Dan which had for a postscript:
“Sweet Nellie is by my side.”
“That will bring him in a hurry!” laughed Stuart.
The courier, not knowing but that the fate of the Confederacy depended upon that despatch, put spurs to his horse, galloped down the road and out of sight. I suppose he ran his horse all the way, and that Dan ran his all the way back, for before General Stuart left the veranda Dan galloped into the yard.
“I’ll get the first kiss!” said General Stuart, still teasingly.
He leaped from the porch and ran across the yard, I tearing after him. I caught up and passed him, and looking back at him from Dan’s arms, into which I had stumbled, breathless and panting, I laughed out: “I can beat the Yankees getting out of your way!”
Perhaps this race and General Stuart’s love of teasing may seem undignified conduct for the chief of the Southern cavalry, but it is history and it is fun, and those who knew him did not fail in respect to Stuart. Many of us loved the ground he walked on. His boyish spirits and his genial, sunny temperament helped to make him the idol of the cavalry and the inspiration of his soldiers, and kept heart in them no matter what happened.
That was a lovely evening. General Stuart had Sweeny, his banjo-player, in. Sweeny was a dignified, solemn-looking man, but couldn’t he play merry tunes on that banjo, and sad ones too! making you laugh and cry with his playing and his singing.
“When the sad, chilly winds of December
Stole my flowers, my companions, from me.”
That was one of his mournful favorites. And you heard the jingle of spurs in his rollicking:
“If you want a good time,
Jine the cavalry,
Bully boys, hey!”
We called for “Old Joe Hooker, won’t you Come Out of the Wilderness?” and “O Johnny Booker, help this Nigger!” and “O Lord, Ladies, don’t you mind Stephen!” and “Sweet Evelina,” and – oh! I can’t remember them all, but if you choose to read Esten Cooke, he will tell you all about Sweeny’s songs and banjo. Stuart sang “The Dew is on the Blossom” and “The Bugles sang Truce.” He made Sweeny give, twice over, “Sweet Nellie is by my Side,” and sat himself down beside me, and tried to tease Dan because he sat at table with me every day and Dan couldn’t. In spite of everything I was very happy in those old days at the Bradfords’! I was not yet out of my teens, you know; so I hope I was not very much to blame because I was always ready for a romp across that lawn at Mr. Bradford’s with the commander-in-chief of the Southern cavalry. His was the gentlest, merriest, sweetest-tempered soul I ever knew. He was always ready to sympathize with me, to tease me, and to help me. Whenever he teased me out of conceit with myself or him, he always would put me in a good humor by saying nice things about Dan, or sending a courier after him.
He had an idea that I was very plucky, and in after days when I was ready to show the white feather, Dan would shame me by asking, “What would General Stuart say?”
Mr. Bradford and his wife, “Aunt Sally,” were characters. Mr. Bradford was a very quiet, peaceable man; Aunt Sally was strong-minded, and had a tongue and mind of her own. Mr. Bradford had a good deal of property and stayed out of the army to take care of it. I think Aunt Sally made him stay out of the war for this reason, but she made home about as hot for him as the field would have been. I can’t think he stayed at home to keep out of war, for he was in war all the time. Aunt Sally continually twitted him with staying at home, although she made him do it. She was always sure to do this when the table was filled with Confederate officers.
“The place for a man,” she would say, “is on the field. Just give me the chance to fight! Just give me the chance to fight, and see where I’ll be!”
And General Stuart would convulse me by whispering: “I don’t think she needs a chance to fight, do you?”
Sometimes when Aunt Sally’s harangue would begin the general would whisper, “Aunt Sally’s getting herself in battle array,” or “The batteries have limbered up,” or “Aunt Sally’s scaled the breastworks,” and Mr. Bradford’s meek and inoffensive face would make the situation funnier. He would mildly help the boarders to the dish in front of him and endeavor feebly to turn the conversation into a peaceful and safe direction, though this never had the slightest effect upon his belligerent wife.
One day – it was about the time of Stuart’s historical grand review – Mr. Bradford invited all the cavalry generals whose forces were stationed around us to dine with the commander-in-chief of the cavalry. He would never have dared to do this if Aunt Sally had been at home, but Aunt Sally at this auspicious moment was in Washington, where we all hoped the fortunes of war and shopping would keep her indefinitely. Her niece, Miss Morse, and I sat down, the only ladies present, at a table with eighteen Confederate generals. Miss Molly and I were at first a trifle embarrassed at being the only ladies, but they were all refined and well-bred, and soon put us at our ease. General Wade Hampton led me in to dinner, and I sat between him and General Ramseur. General Ramseur was young and exceedingly handsome, and a paralyzed arm which was folded across his breast made him all the more attractive.
“If you sit next me, Mrs. Grey,” he said with a little embarrassment, “you will have to cut up my dinner for me. I am afraid that will be putting you to a great deal of trouble. Perhaps I had better change my seat.”
“Oh, no!” I said, “I will be very glad – if I can be satisfactory.”
He smiled. “Thank you. I am always both glad and sorry to impose upon a lady this service. I am sorry, you know, to tax a lady with it, but then, she always does it better than a man.”
I had been studying his face, and now, for want of something more sensible I said:
“If I am to feed you, General Ramseur, I must measure your mouth.”
It happened that there was dead silence at the table when this silly speech of mine was made. Everybody was listening.
“Madam,” said the handsome general, blushing and smiling, “I am entirely willing that you should.”
I caught a mischievous light in General Stuart’s merry eyes, and blushed furiously. Then I followed his laugh, and the whole table roared.
“I will tell Dan Grey!” cried Stuart.
“I will tell Dan Grey!” ran around the table like a chorus.
But I fed my handsome general all the same.
It was while I was at Mr. Bradford’s that one of the most stirring events in Confederate history occurred. This was the trampling down of John Minor Botts’s corn. Very good corn it was, dropped and hilled by Southern negroes and growing on a large, fine plantation next to Mr. Bradford’s; and a very nice gentleman Mr. Botts was, too; but a field of corn, however good, and a private citizen, however estimable, are scarcely matters of national or international importance. The trouble was that John Minor Botts was on the Northern side and the corn was on the Southern side, and that Stuart held a grand review on the Southern side and the corn got trampled down. The fame of that corn went abroad into all the land. Northern and Southern papers vied with each other in editorials and special articles, families who had been friends for generations stopped speaking and do not speak to this day because of it, more than one hard blow was exchanged for and against it, and it brought down vituperation upon Stuart’s head. And yet I was present at that naughty grand review – afterward writ in letters of blood upon hearts that reached from Virginia to Florida – and I can testify that General Stuart went there to review the troops, not to trample down the corn.
Afterward John Minor Botts came over to see General Stuart and to quarrel about that corn. All that I can remember of how the general took Mr. Botts’s visit and effort to quarrel was that Stuart wouldn’t quarrel – whatever it was he said to Mr. Botts he got to laughing when he said it. Our colored Abigail told us with bated breath that “Mr. Botts ripped and rarred and snorted, but Genrul Stuart warn’t put out none at all.”
There had been many reviews that week, all of them merely by way of preparation and practise for that famous grand review before the battle of Brandy or Fleetwood, but it is only of this particular grand review I have many lively memories. Aunt Sally was away, and we attended it in state. Mr. Bradford had out the ancient and honorable family carriage and two shadowy horses, relics of days when corn was in plenty and wheat not merely a dream of the past, and we went in it to the review along with many other carriages and horses, whose title to respect lay, alas! solely in the past.
That was a day to remember! Lee’s whole army was in Culpeper. Pennsylvania and Gettysburg were before it, and the army was making ready for invasion. On a knoll where a Confederate flag was planted and surrounded by his staff sat General Lee on horseback; before him, with a rebel yell, dashed Stuart and his eight thousand cavalry. There was a sham battle. Charging and countercharging went on, rebels yelled and artillery thundered. Every time the cannons were fired we would pile out of our carriage, and as soon as the cannonading ceased we would pile back again. General Stuart happened to ride up once just as we were getting out.
“Why don’t you ladies sit still and enjoy the fun?” he asked in amazement.
“We are afraid the horses might take fright and run away,” we answered.
I shall never forget his ringing laugh. Our lean and spiritless steeds had too little life in them to run for anything – they hardly pricked up their ears when the guns went off.
How well I remember Stuart as he looked that day! He wore a fine new uniform, brilliant with gold lace, buff gauntlets reaching to his elbows, and a canary-colored silk sash with tasseled ends. His hat, a soft, broad-brimmed felt, was caught up at the side with a gold star and carried a sweeping plume; his high, patent-leather cavalry boots were trimmed with gold. He wore spurs of solid gold, the gift of some Maryland ladies – he was very proud of those spurs – and his horse was coal black and glossy as silk. And how happy he was – how full of faith in the Confederacy and himself!
My own cavalry officer was there, resplendent in his new uniform – I had had it made up for him in Richmond. Dan was very proud of the way I got that uniform. He was almost ready to credit himself with having put me up to running the blockade! He told General Stuart its history, and that is how a greatness not always easy to sustain had been thrust upon me. General Stuart thought me very brave – or said he thought so. The maneuvers of Dan’s command were on such a distant part of the field that I could not see him well with the naked eye, and General Stuart lent me his field-glasses. The next morning, just as gray dawn was breaking, some one called under my window, and gravel rattled against the pane. I got up and looked out sleepily. My first thought was that it might be Dan. There was not enough light for me to see very well what was happening on the lawn, but I could make out that the cavalry were mounted and moving, and under my window I saw a figure on horseback.
“Is that Mrs. Grey?”
“Yes. What is the matter?”
“General Stuart sent me for his field-glasses. I am sorry to disturb you, but it couldn’t be helped.”
I tied a string around the glasses and lowered them.
“What’s the matter? Where is the cavalry going?”
“To Brandy Station. Reckon we’ll have some hot fighting soon,” and the orderly wheeled and rode away.
I stayed up and dressed, and thought of Dan, and wished I could know if he was to be in the coming engagement, and that I could see him first. But I didn’t see him all day.
CHAPTER XX
“WHOSE BUSINESS ’TIS TO DIE”
In forty-eight hours we knew that the surmise of the orderly was correct – there was enough fighting. The first cannon-ball which tore through the air at Brandy was only too grave assurance of the fact. All day men were hurrying past the house, deserters from both armies getting away from the scene of bloodshed and thunder as quickly as possible. Then came the procession of the dead and wounded, some in ambulances, some in carts, some on the shoulders of friends.
In the afternoon we began to hear rumors giving names of the killed and wounded. I listened with my heart in my throat for Dan’s name, but I did not hear it. I heard no news whatever of him all day – all day I could only hope that no news was good news, and all day that ghastly procession dragged heavily by. Among names of those killed I heard of Colonel Sol Williams. A day or two before the battle of Brandy he had returned from a furlough to Petersburg, where he had gone to marry a lovely woman, a friend of mine. The day before he was killed he had sat at table with me, chatting pleasantly of mutual friends at home from whom he had brought messages, brimful of happiness, and of the charming wife he had won! As the day waned I sat in my room, wretched and miserable, thinking of my friend who was at once a wife and a widow, and fearing for myself, whose husband even at that moment might be falling under his death wound. I was aroused by hearing the voices of men, subdued but excited, on the stairway leading to my room. I ran out and saw several men of rank and Mr. Bradford on the stairway talking excitedly, and I heard my name spoken.
“What’s the matter, gentlemen?” I asked with forced calmness.
They looked up at me in a stupid, masculine sort of way, as if they had something disagreeable to say and didn’t want to say it. I could shake those men now, when I think of how stupid they were! They were listening to Mr. Bradford, and I don’t think they really caught my question, nor did my manner betray to them how fast my heart was beating, but they were stupid, nevertheless. I could hardly get the next words out:
“Is Dan hurt?”
This time my voice was so low that they did not hear it at all.
“For God’s sake, gentlemen,” I cried out, “tell me if my husband is wounded or dead.”
“Neither, madam!” several voices answered instantly, and the officer nearest me, thinking I was going to fall, sprang quickly to my side. I gathered myself together, and they told me their business, and I saw why my presence had embarrassed them – they wanted my room for the wounded. A funny thing had happened, incongruous as it was, in their telling me that my fears for Dan were groundless. When I asked, “Is Dan hurt?” one of them had answered, “No, ma’am; it’s General Rooney Lee;” and I had said, “Thank God!” I can’t describe the look of horror with which they heard me.
“These gentlemen,” began Mr. Bradford, who was always afraid to speak his mind, “wanted to bring General Lee here, and I didn’t have a place to put him, and I was telling ’em that I thought that – maybe – you would give him your room. I could fix up a lounge for you somewhere.”
“Of course I will! I shall be delighted to give up my room, or do anything else I can for General Lee.”
I busied myself getting my room ready for General “Rooney,” but he was not brought to Mr. Bradford’s, after all; his men were afraid that he might be captured too easily at Mr. Bradford’s. As night came on the yard filled up with soldiers. In the lawn, the road, the backyard, the porches, the outhouses, everywhere, there were soldiers. You could not set your foot down without putting it on a soldier; if you thrust your hand out of a window you touched a soldier’s back or shoulder, his carbine or his musket. The place was crowded not only with cavalry, but with infantry and artillery, and still they kept on coming. I had not heard from Dan. It was late supper-time. I had no heart for supper, and I felt almost too shaken to present myself at the table, but as I passed the dining-room in my restless rovings I saw General Stuart’s back, and went in and sat by him.
“General,” I said, “can you tell me anything of Dan?”
“He is neither killed nor wounded. I know that much. Is not that enough?”
“Yes, thank God!
“Oh, general! I wish this war was over!” I said again.
“I, too, my child!” He spoke with more than Stuart’s sadness and gravity, then, remembering himself, he added quickly in his own cheery fashion, “But we’ve got to whip these Yankees first!”
He finished his cup of coffee (the kind in common use, made of corn which had been roasted, parched, and ground), and then went on telling me about Dan.
“He has borne himself gallantly, as he always does, and as you know without my telling you. I don’t know where he is, but he will be along presently.”
And at that moment Dan walked in, without a coat, and with the rest of that new uniform a perfect fright. He was covered with dust and ashes and gunpowder, and he looked haggard and jaded. He sat down between General Stuart and me, too tired to talk; but after eating some supper, he felt better, and began discussing the battle and relating some incidents. He took a card out of his pocket and handed it to General Stuart.
“A Federal officer who is about done for, poor fellow, handed me that just now. I don’t know the name. He couldn’t talk.”
“I do!” General Stuart exclaimed, with quick, strong interest. “Where did you see him? This is the name of one of my classmates at West Point.”
“I saw him on the roadside as I came on to supper. While riding along I heard a strange sound, something like a groan, yet different from any groan I ever heard – the strangest, most uncanny sound imaginable. I dismounted and began to look around for it, and I found a Yankee soldier lying in a ditch by the roadside. I couldn’t see that any legs or arms were broken, nor that he was wounded at all. I felt him all over, and asked what was the matter. He didn’t speak, and I saw that he had been trying to direct my attention to his face. He tried very hard to speak, but only succeeded in emitting the strange sound I had heard before; and on examining his face closely, and moving the whiskers aside, I found that he was shot through both jaws. He made the same noise again, put his hand in his pocket, and gave me this card, with another pitiful effort to speak. I put my coat under his head, laid some brush across the ditch to hide him, and promised to go back for him in an ambulance.”
“Thank you, in my own behalf!” General Stuart said warmly.
“Perhaps, poor fellow,” said Dan, “he took chances on that card’s reaching you. Seeing my uniform of major of cavalry, he may not have considered it impossible that you should hear of his condition through me.”
“When you have finished your supper, major, we will go after him.”
Tired as they both were, they went out and attended personally to the relief of the poor fellow by the roadside. General Stuart had everything done for him that was possible, smoothed his last moments, and grieved over him as deeply as if his classmate had not been his enemy.
Another sad thing among the sorrows of that supper was when Colonel Sol Williams’s brother-in-law, John Pegram, came in, and sat down in our midst. General Stuart went up to him, and wrung his hand in a silence that even the dauntless Stuart’s lips were too tremulous at once to break. When he could speak he said:
“I grieve for myself as for you, lieutenant, but it was a death that any one of us might be proud to die.”
Even then the shadow and glory of his own death was not far from him.
Colonel Williams had been Lieutenant Pegram’s superior officer as well as brother-in-law. It had been his sorrowful lot to take the body of his colonel on his horse in front of him, and carry it to a house where it could be reverently cared for until he could send it home to bride and kindred. He had cut a lock of hair from the dead, and when the troops went off to Pennsylvania, he gave it to me for his sister. I shall never forget that supper hour, or how the unhappy young fellow looked when he came in among us after his ride with the dead, and I shall never forget how I felt about that poor young Federal soldier who was wounded in the jaws and couldn’t speak, and how I felt about the women who loved him far away; I began to feel that war was an utterly unjustifiable thing, and that the virtues of valor, loyalty, devotion which it brings out had better be brought out some other way. If General Rooney Lee didn’t take my room, I gave it up all the same. Two wounded men were put into it. There were a number of wounded men in the house, and, of course, everybody gave way to their comfort. All but my two were removed in a day or two, but here these two were, and here they were when Aunt Sally came home. Her homecoming was after a fashion that turned our mourning into righteous and wholesome wrath. We were sitting on the porch one afternoon, free and easy in our minds and believing Aunt Sally away in distant Washington, when we noted a small object far off down the road. As it crawled nearer and nearer we perceived that it was an ox-cart; we saw the driver, and behind him somebody else sitting on a trunk.
“Good gracious! that’s Aunt Sally!” cried Mr. Bradford in consternation.
We were all dreadfully sorry, but it couldn’t be helped.
She climbed off the cart at the gate, and called for some negro to come get her trunk. Mr. Bradford had already found one, and was running to the rescue. In fact he had been running in a half dozen different directions ever since he had spied Aunt Sally. He looked as if his wits had left him and as if he were racing around in a circle.
“You orter been on hand to he’p me off o’ that kyart,” she told him. “It do look like when a man’s wife’s been away this long time he might be on hand to he’p her off the kyart.”
As she came up the walk she said the yard looked awful torn and “trompled down”; that she was afraid she would find it so soon as she heard that the place had been camping ground for the whole army and her away and nobody there to manage the army as she could have done. She greeted me and her niece, and in the same breath told her niece that there was some mud on the steps which ought to be washed off. Then she went into the house, taking off her things and remarking on “things that ought to be done.” Presently there was a great stir in the house; she had found out the wounded men. She commented on their presence in such a loud voice that we heard it on the porch, and the men themselves must have heard it.
“Just like Mr. Bradford! If I had been here it wouldn’t have happened. The idea! Turning the house into a hospital! I won’t have it! Nobody knows who they are. I can’t have ’em on my best beds, and between my best sheets and blankets. Dirty, common soldiers! I never heard of such a thing!”
And she got them out before supper.
There was an office in the yard and she had them taken to this. They had to be carried past us, and I can see them now, poor, mortified, shame-faced fellows! I was as afraid of Aunt Sally as of a rattlesnake, but I think I could have shaken her then!
Little it was that I saw of Dan or any of my army friends after the battle of Brandy. The cavalry was too busy watching Hooker’s, while our infantry was pushing on toward Pennsylvania, to spare any time to lighter matters. Every day the boys in gray marched by on their way North.
I watched from the porch and windows if by any means I might catch sight of Dan. But his way did not lie by Bradford’s. One morning, however, I saw General Stuart riding by at the head of a large command. I thought they were going to stop and camp at Mr. Bradford’s, perhaps, but I was mistaken. As soon as I saw that they were going by without stopping, I ran to the fence and beckoned to General Stuart. He had seen me on the porch, and rode up to the fence at once.
“Aren’t you going to stop at all?” I asked.
“Not to-day. In fact we’re off for some time now.”
“Is Dan going?”
“Yes. He’s ahead now with General Chambliss.”
“Am I not to see him at all, General Stuart?” I said, trying hard to keep my lip from quivering – I had a reputation to keep up with him.
But he saw the quiver.
“You can go on with the army if you want to,” he said in quick sympathy. “I will give you an ambulance. You can carry your own maid along, have your own tent, and have your husband with you. I will do anything I can for your comfort. You would nurse our poor fellows when they get hurt, and be no end of good to us. But it would be awfully hard on you.”
“I wouldn’t mind the hardships,” I answered, “but you know Dan won’t let me go. I have begged him several times to let me live in camp with him. I could nurse the sick and wounded, and take care of him if he was shot, and I wouldn’t be a bit of trouble; and I could patch for the soldiers. Oh, I’d love to do it! If you come up with him, General Stuart, ask him to let me go, and if he says yes, send the ambulance.”
“I’ll promise him what I promised you,” he said, smiling kindly. “Good-by now. I’ll ride on and send him back to say good-by to you, if I can manage it. Then you can talk him into letting you come with us.”
I climbed up on the fence to shake hands with him and to say good-by, and I had another word for him. Beneath my dress and next my skin was a little Catholic medal which had been blessed by my confessor. It hung around my neck by a slender chain. I unclasped the chain, drew forth the medal and gave it to him, my eyes brimming with tears.
“It has been blessed by Father Mulvey,” I said. “Wear it about your neck. Maybe it will bring you back safe.”
I was leaning upon the horse’s neck, crying as if my heart would break. General Stuart’s own eyes were dim.
“Good-by,” I said, “and if you can send Dan back I thank you for us both – I thank you anyway for thinking of it; but – the South and his duty first. Good-by, and God bless you, General Stuart!”
That was the last time I ever saw him, the last time that knightly hand clasped mine. Before he rode away he said some cheerful, hopeful words, and looked back at me with the glint of merry mischief in his eyes, threatening to tell Dan Grey that I was losing my good repute for bravery. Dan did not come back to say good-by. I had a little note which he contrived to send me in some way. It was only a hasty scrawl, full of good-bys and God bless yous.
After saying good-by to General Stuart I returned to the house. Esten Cooke sat at a table writing. He was preparing some official papers for General Stuart, I think, and had been left behind for that purpose. I understood him to answer one of my questions to the effect that he was going to follow the cavalry presently.
“Colonel Cooke,” I asked humbly enough, for I was ready then to take information and advice from anybody, “how long do you think it will be before the army comes back?”
“Can’t say, madam.”
“Would you advise me to wait here until its return?”
“Can’t say, madam.”
“Would you advise me to go to Richmond?”
“Madam, I would advise you to go to Richmond.”
“You think then it will be some time before the army returns?”
“I can’t say, madam?”
I felt like shaking him and asking: “What can you say?” He may have been a brave soldier and written nice books and all that, but I think John Esten Cooke was a very dull, disagreeable man.
I waited several days, but as I got nothing further from Dan than the little note – which was bare of advice because, perhaps, he didn’t have time to write more, and because he may not have known how to advise me – I took John Esten Cooke’s advice and went to Richmond. I stopped there only a very short time, and then went on to Petersburg, where mother was. Reunion with her was compensation for many troubles, and then, too, she needed me. She had not heard from Milicent since my departure for Culpeper. Then a letter had reached us through the agency of Mr. Cridland, in which Milicent had stated her purpose of coming to us as soon as she could get a pass – a thing it was every day becoming more difficult to secure – for she was determined upon reaching us before the cold weather came again. Since that letter there had been absolute silence.