Page:Southern Life in Southern Literature.djvu/112

94 surveyed the preparations for combat with a beating heart. The scene within her view was one of intense occupation. The air of stern resolve that sat upon every brow; the silent but onward movement of the masses of men advancing to conflict; the few brief and quick words of command that fell from the distance upon her ear; the sullen beat of the hoof upon the sod, as an occasional horseman sped to and fro between the more remote bodies and the center division, which yet stood in compact phalanx immediately below her at the foot of the hill; then the breathless anxiety of her companions near at hand, and the short note of dread and almost terror that now and then escaped from the lips of Mary Musgrove, as the maiden looked eagerly and fearfully abroad over the plain—all these incidents wrought upon her feelings and caused her to tremble. Yet amidst these novel emotions she was not insensible to a certain lively and even pleasant interest arising out of the picturesque character of the spectacle. The gay sunshine striking aslant these moving battalions, lighting up their fringed and many-colored hunting-shirts and casting a golden hue upon their brown and weather-beaten faces, brought out into warm relief the chief characteristics of this peculiar woodland army. And Mildred sometimes forgot her fears in the fleeting inspiration of the sight, as she watched the progress of an advancing column—at one time moving in close ranks, with the serried thicket of rifles above their heads, and at another deploying into files to pass some narrow path, along which, with trailed arms and bodies bent, they sped with the pace of hunters beating the hillside for game. The tattered and service-stricken banner that shook its folds in the wind above these detached bodies likewise lent its charm of association to the field in the silence and steadfastness of the array in which it was borne, and its constant onward motion, showing it to be encircled by strong arms and stout hearts.