I had seen enough. We returned to the cemetery. Elijah hitched up his horse, and we drove back along the plank-road, cheered by a rainbow which spanned the Wilderness and moved its bright arch onward over Chancellorsville towards Fredericksburg, brightening and fading, and brightening still again, like the hope which gladdened the nation's eye after Grant's victory.

ELIJAH "CUT.”

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CHAPTER XVI.

SPOTTSYLVANIA COURT-HOUSE.

ELIJAH wished to drive me the next day to Spottsylvania Court-House, and, as an inducement for me to employ him, promised to tackle up his mare. He also proposed various devices for softening the seats of his wagon. No ingenuity of plan, however, sufficed to cajole me. There was a liverystable in Fredericksburg, and I had conceived a strong prejudice in its favor.

The next morning, accordingly, there might have been seen wheeling up to the tavern-door a shining vehicle, - a brannew buggy with the virgin gloss upon it, -drawn by a prancing iron-gray in a splendid new harness. The sarcastic stable-man had witnessed my yesterday's departure and return, and had evidently exhausted the resources of his establishment to furnish forth a dazzling contrast to Elijah's sorry outfit. The driver was a youth who wore his cap rakishly over his left eyebrow. I took a seat by his side on a cushion of the softest, and presently might have been seen riding out of Fredericksburg in that brilliant style, -nay, was seen, by one certainly, who was cut to the heart. We drove by the "stonewall" road under the Heights, and passed a house by the corner of which a thin-visaged "old man " of fifty was watering a sad little beast at a well. The beast was "that mare"; and the old man was Elijah. I shall never forget the look he gave me. I bade him a cheerful good-morning; but his voice stuck in his throat; he could not say "good-morning." Our twinkling wheels almost grazed the hubs of the old wagon standing in the road as we passed.

That I might have nothing to regret, the stable-keeper had given me a driver who was in the Spottsylvania battle.

"You cannot have seen much service, at your age," I said, examining his boyish features.

"I was four year in de army, anyhow," he replied, spitting tobacco-juice with an air of old experience. "I enlisted when I was thirteen. I was under de quartermaster at fust; but de last two year I was in de artillery."

I observed that he used de for the almost invariably, with many other peculiarities of expression which betrayed early association with negroes.

"I ha'n't got no middle name."

"What does the H stand for?"

"H stands for Hicks: Richard H. Hicks; dat 's what dey tell me."

"Can't you read?"

"No, I can't read. I never went to school, and never had no chance to learn."

Somehow this confession touched me with a sadness I had not felt even at the sight of the dead men in the woods. He, young, active, naturally intelligent, was dead to a world without which this world would seem to us a blank, the world of literature. To him the page of a book, the column of a newspaper, was meaningless. Had he been an old man, or black, or stupid, I should not have been so much surprised. I thought of Shakspeare, David, the prophets, the poets, the romancers; and as my mind glanced from name to name on the glittering entablatures, I seemed to be standing in a glorious temple, with a blind youth at my side.

"Did you ever hear of Sir Walter Scott?"

"No, I never heerd of that Scott. But I know a William Scott."

"Did you ever hear of Longfellow?"

"No, I never heerd of him?"

"Did you never hear of a great English poet called Lord Byron?"

DEAD MEN'S CLOTHES.

"No, sir, I never knowed dar was such a man."

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What a gulf betwixt his mind and mine! Sitting side by side there, we were yet as far apart as the great globe's poles. "Do you mean to go through life in such ignorance?"

"I don't know; I'd learn to read if I had de chance." "Find a chance! make a chance! Even the little negro boys are getting the start of you."

"I reckon I'll go to school some dis winter," said he. "Dar's go'n' to be a better chance fo' schools now; dat 's what dey say."

"Why now?" I asked.

"I don't know; on'y dey say so."

"You think, then, it was a good thing that the Confederacy got used up and slavery abolished?"

"It mought be a good thing. All I know is, it's so, and it can't be ho'ped" (helped). "It suits me well enough. I've been gitt'n' thirty dollars a month dis summer, and that's twicet mo'e 'n I ever got befo'e."

I could not discover that this youth of seventeen had ever given the great questions involving the welfare of his country a serious thought. However, the vague belief he had imbibed regarding better times coming in consequence of emancipation, interested me as a still further evidence of the convictions entertained by the poorer classes on this subject.

As we rode over the hills behind Fredericksburg, a young fellow came galloping after us on a mule.

"Whar ye go'n', Dick?"

"I'm go'n' to de battle-field wi' dis gentleman."

"He's from the No'th, then," said the young fellow.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Because no South'n man ever goes to the battle-fields: we 've seen enough of 'em." He became very sociable as we rode along. "Ye see that apple-tree? I got a right good pair o' pants off one o' your soldier's under that tree once."

"Was he dead?"

"Yes. He was one of Sedgwick's men ; he was killed when Sedgwick took the Heights. Shot through the head. The

pants wa'n't hurt none." And putting spurs to his mule, he galloped ahead.

I noticed that he and Richard, like many of the young men, white and black, I had seen about Fredericksburg, wore United States army trousers.

"Dey was all we could git one while," said Richard. "I reckon half our boys 'u'd have had to go widout pants if it had n't been for de Union army. Dar was right smart o' trad'n' done in Yankee clothes, last years o' de wa'."

"Did you rob a dead soldier of those you have on?”

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No; I bought dese in Fredericksburg. I never robbed a dead man."

"But how did you know they were not taken from a corpse?"

"Mought be; but it could n't be ho'ped. A poo' man can't be choice."

Richard expressed great contempt-inspired by envy, I thought of the young chap riding the mule.

"United States gov'ment give away a hundred and fifty old wore-out mules in Fredericksburg, not long ago; so now every lazy fellow ye see can straddle his mule! He a'n't nobody, though he thinks he's a heavy coon-dog!”

"What do you mean by a heavy coon-dog?"

"Why, ye see, when a man owns a big plantation, and a heap o' darkeys, and carries a heavy pocket, or if he 's do'n' a big thing, den we call him a heavy coon-dog. Jeff Davis was a heavy coon-dog; but he 's a light coon-dog now!"

About

Our route lay through a rough, hilly country, never more than very thinly inhabited, and now scarcely that. every two miles we passed a poor log house in the woods, or on the edge of overgrown fields, sometimes tenantless, but oftener occupied by a pale, poverty-smitten family afflicted with the chills. I do not remember more than two or three framed houses on the road, and they looked scarcely less disconsolate than their log neighbors.

It is twelve miles from Fredericksburg to Spottsylvania Court-House. At the end of nine or ten miles we began to