Page:The partisan leader- a novel, and an apocalypse of the origin and struggles of the southern confederacy (IA partisanleadernotucker).pdf/10

 "Is he related to Christian Witt?"

I don't know, he has a good many kinfolks of his name. He's at the stable a little way 'long up the lane there, and you can talk with fim if you feel like it."

I found him feeding his horse. When in response to my call he straightened himself, I recognized, with scareely the shade of a doubt, the original of his graphic picture; and was sure that the "Christian" prefix was given by the author only because he had forgotten his christian name.

Alighting and introducing myself, after an interchange of enquiries; which fairly opened the way, said:

"Are you related to the Old Mr. Witt who once lived at the place now occupied by Charles Davis, just at the foot of the 'Devil's Backbone?"

"He was my father, sir."

"Do you remember anything of Judge Beverley Tucker paying a visit to this section some thirty or forty years ago, and going up to look at these mountains?"

"Who?" said he, "Adjutant Tucker. I knowed him in the war of twelve. Yes! I was living then at my father's, and he come up there and said he wanted to go and look at the mountains; and my father went up with him. I said to him, 'why Adjutant Tucker, how da you do, sir?' and he said 'what, do you know me?' 'Yes,' says I, 'did'nt I hear you read the orders at the head of the rigiment every evening at Norfolk.' And then he laughed."

"What kind of looking man was he, Mr. Witt?"

"Well, sir, he was about five feet ten inches high, slim and straight, had light hair and light eyes, and looked as keen as a night-hawk, sir."

From the account of many familiar with the author, it appears that his description of the mountaineer, though more elegant, was scarcely more graphic or comprehensive.

Curious to know whether the latter would recognize his own picture, and that of his father's house and its romantic approaches and surroundings, and could endorse the sentiments attributed to him, twenty-five years ago, 28 those he would avow in the midst of the stirring scenes in which he is supposed to act no unimportant part, I continued:

"What would you think, My. Witt, if I were to tell you that this same Adjutant Tucker, some ten years after his visit here, and twenty-five years ago, wrote a book, in which he foretold all the great events in our history as a people?" giving him an outline of the book, as furnished in the beginning of this article.

"Well, sir, I should think it right strange, but mightly like some of