IT was May-time in the Blue Grass country and the Kentucky Cardinal was telling the glad news to all who would listen. He was whistling away in his shrill, clear voice as though his little heart would burst were it denied the ecstasy of pouring out the joy in his heart to the beautiful old world. All the rest of the feathered songsters were joining in the red bird's glad morning song. Cattle were lowing in the pastures, colts and calves were capering in the paddocks; while roosters were crowing lustily in all the farm yards.
It seemed to Halsey as he and Palo'mine jogged along the turnpike that the fields had never looked so green, or the sky so blue, or the whole scene so wonderful before. But it was probably the joy in his own heart that colored the scene and made it seem so glorious on that May morning. The war was over; this cruel heart-breaking struggle that had kept him from Eaton Manor for four years. Yes, he was coming home at last; he was almost home in fact. Only one good English mile from the dear, old place.
"Come on, Palo'mine," he called cheerily. "Just a little more speed, we're almost home." They had been riding day and night for three days. Palo'mine quickened his pace as though he too, appreciated the fact that the home stall was calling to him.
Half a mile further on Halsey caught sight of the gray gables and the great brick chimneys just seen through the tree tops. So he again called to Palo'mine who this time broke into his wild, free gallop.
Peggy was up stairs watching for them. She had been watching for the better part of three days, in fact. She espied Palo'mine coming like the wind. When they were about an eighth of a mile from Eaton Manor, although she ran down stairs as nimbly as her young legs would carry her, yet Palo'mine came racing into the yard just as she reached the piazza steps.
Halsey dismounted and stood at attention, with one hand on the bridle, waiting to greet her.
Although her heart was nearly bursting with joy, yet Peggy came rather shyly across the lawn and saluted him with a kiss upon the cheek.
"Oh Halsey," she cried joyously. "Is it true or am I dreaming? Are you and Palo'mine home and are you safe and sound? Is this dreadful war really over?"
"Yes, here we are," cried Halsey gleefully. "Two war-scarred old veterans, but safe and sound, thank God. We've had our scratches but we've come through in good shape."
"Why, what a beauty Palo'mine is," said the girl, walking around him and straightening out his mane and foretop and patting his nose. "I had forgotten what a perfect horse he is."
Halsey said nothing, but while Peggy was admiring Palo'mine, he admired her.
From the careless, wilful, pretty Peggy Moore of eight years before, she had grown into a sweet, serious girl of twenty-two. The sorrow of the past four years and the strain of the long waiting had chastened and refined her. It was a rare, sweet soul that looked out at the trooper through her smiling face.
"Did Palo'mine get wounded any?" she inquired at last when she had admired all his fine points.
"Oh yes," said Halsey, "He got his scratches with the rest of us. Here old Pal, hold down your head," he said to the horse, touching him lightly on his nose. Palo'mine held down his head as he did when he said grace. The trooper straightened out one of his expressive ears and showed a small hole in it.
"That was made by a minie ball at Look-off Mountain," he said simply.
"Oh," cried Peggy, "I'm glad it was no lower down."
Next Halsey opened up the thoroughbred's mane and showed that one layer of the thick hair had been cut off for about six inches, as cleanly as though with shears. "A bullet from a hunting rifle in the Tennessee Mountains did that," he said.
"Where did the bullet go to?" asked Peggy innocently.
"I dug it out of the pommel of my saddle, the next day," said Halsey. "It nearly got me."
"Oh," cried Peggy and she edged a little nearer to the trooper.
"Hold up your foot," said Halsey, slapping the horse on his shoulder. He then showed Peggy a slight furrow in the horse's hoof close to the shoe.
"That is a new one," he said. "It was made at Five Points. It will grow out in a few weeks. Now look on his rump on the right side." Peggy did as requested and discovered a narrow, white line running for six inches across the horse's rump.
"A bit of shrapnel did that, at Wilson's Bluff. We went through hell that time, old Palo'mine and I."
"Oh," cried Peggy. "What a terrible thing war is. But do you really think that Palo'mine is all right? Is he just as good as ever?"
Halsey threw back his head and laughed in his old boyish manner and the sound of his mirth made a great lump come in Peggy's throat. It was good to know that he could still laugh after these four dreadful years.
"Good as ever," cried Halsey, "Why he is better than ever. I even believe he could lower his old record for a mile and an eighth in the sweepstake. I am going to try him again next year, if we have luck, and you can sit in the grand stand and watch Palo'mine and me clean up the field."
"But are you all right, Halsey? You are looking fine." Again the trooper laughed in the glad boyish way.
"Fit as a fiddle," he cried. "Never felt better in my life. Hard as nails and ready for anything."
"But Halsey, oh, oh, what is that dreadful scar on your neck?" The girl reached up with trembling fingers and turned back the collar on the trooper's shirt. It disclosed a three-inch scar along his neck, just above the shoulder.
"Oh, that's nothing," said Halsey, pulling her hand away and turning up the collar quickly. "That's only a sabre scratch. I got that in a little cavalry tilt. A big brute of a fellow came down on my pal, Billie Jones, and was about to chop his head off with his sabre when I intercepted the blow."
"You brave boy," choked the girl. "What a terrible thing war is." She noted with a little thrill of joy that Halsey still held the hand that had turned down his collar.
"My," cried Halsey, "but it is good to be home again. We are going to miss Uncle Hillery and Aunt Julia though. It leaves you and I all alone at Eaton Manor, Peg."
"Yes," returned the girl shyly.
"What was it that Uncle Hillery wanted to see me about the time I came home, when the guerrillas nearly got me? You said you would tell me when I came home."
"I'd rather not tell you now," said Peggy, blushing. "Wait a bit."
But Halsey only took a firmer grip upon her arm and turned her about so he oould look into her face.
"I think I know what it was, Margaret," he said tenderly. "I often used to catch Uncle Hillery watching us slyly out of the corner of his eye when I came home from college that last year. I think the dear old man had a romance fixed up between us."
Peggy hung her head but said nothing.
"Wasn't that it, Margaret?"
"Perhaps," whispered the girl.
"I thought so," cried Halsey. "Do you remember, Margaret, that you told me you loved me, that night when you thought the guerrillas were going to get me!"
"Yes, yes," faltered the girl. "But that was not fair, you made me. I wanted you to hurry."
"But you said it," persisted Halsey, "and you are looking it now. Peggy, when Dorothy Perkins has garlanded Eaton Manor with festoons of glory, and all the air is sweet with perfume, Uncle Sam's trooper in blue will marry the little rebel from Dixie and our union will be a symbol of that greater Union; the reunited North and South. Just as you and I will go hand in hand for the rest of our lives, the North and South will go forward, hand in hand, and shoulder to shoulder, forever."
And Peggy said "yes," but not in words.
"Massar Halsey," called a mellow negro voice from the stable; the voice of Rastus. "Ah'se goin' whistle to Palo'mine and you let him go. Ah want ter see if he 'members his old stall."
"Of course he remembers it," cried Halsey indignantly. "He remembers it just as well as I do my old bed-room." And he let go Palo'mine's bridle rein, while Rastus whistled shrilly to him.
Then, the world's greatest running horse who had carried his master on bloody battle fields, amid shot and shell for four years; the steed who had saved the Union left at Mackanaw Mountain; who had helped retrieve the seemingly lost battle of Pine River by carrying General Werritan twenty miles in fifty-eight minutes; the faithful horse who had then picked up his master on the battle field and borne him back to Lancaster, trotted gladly across the turnpike to the stable in answer to old Rastus' call. For notwithstanding his laurels he was still in his nature just a home-loving, comfort-loving horse, who knew that a good feed awaited him in the old box stall and a faithful rub-down at the hands of his old groom.
There let us leave him, munching oats. He has well earned his rest and he will enjoy it to the full.
The end