Mohun was certainly
a new man, and looked on life and the world around him with a
gentleness and kindness of which I had believed him incapable.
"I am going to take you to see a somewhat singular character," he said.
"Who is he?"
"It is a woman."
"Ah!"
"And a very strange one, I promise you, my dear Surry."
"Lead on, I'll follow thee!"
"Good! and I declare to you, I think Shakespeare would have examined
this human being with attention."
"She is a phenomenon, then?"
"Yes."
"A witch?"
"No, an epileptic; at least I think so."
"Indeed! And where does she live?"
"On the Halifax road, some miles from the Rowanty."
"In the lines of the enemy, then?"
"Something like it."
"Humph!"
"Don't disturb yourself about that, Surry. I have sent out a scouting
party who are clearing the country. Their pickets are back to Reams's
by this time, and there is little danger."
"At all events, we'll share any, Mohun. Forward!"
And we pushed on to the Halifax bridge, where, as Mohun expected, there
was no Federal picket.
The bridge--a long rough affair--had been half destroyed by General
Hampton; but we forded near it, pushed our horses through the swamp,
amid the heavy tree trunks, felled to form an abatis, and gaining the
opposite bank of the Rowanty, rode on rapidly in the direction of
Petersburg, that is to say, toward the rear of the Federal army.
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