that tear. The old man held his hand a minute, then turned to the road.

"Whichever of us sees Geordy first kin tell him t' other's livin' a
true-grit honest life, call him Yankee or Virginian,--an' that's enough
said! So good bye, Dougl's!"

Palmer mounted his horse and galloped off to the camp, the old man
plodding steadily down the road. When the echo of the horse's hoofs had
ceased, a lean gangling figure came from out of the field-brush, and met
him.

"Why, David boy! whar were ye to-night?" Scofield's voice had grown
strangely tender in the last hour.

Gaunt hesitated. He had not the moral courage to tell the old man he had
enlisted.

"I waited. I must air the church,--it is polluted with foul smells."

Scofield laughed to himself at David's "whimsey," but he halted, going
with the young man as he strode across the field. He had a dull
foreboding of the end of the night's battle: before he went to it, he
clung with a womanish affection to anything belonging to his home, as
this Gaunt did. He had not thought the poor young man was so dear to
him, until now, as he jogged along beside him, thinking that before
morning he might be lying dead at the Gap. How many people would care?
David would, and Dode, and old Bone.

Gaunt hurried in,--he ought to be in camp, but he could not leave the
house of God polluted all night,--opening the windows, even carrying the