Days like these would prove the
stuff that had gone into the making of him. When the march to Romney lay
behind him he should know himself to be either a soldier or a coward. A
soldier or a coward! he said the words over again as he struggled to keep
down the pangs of hunger, telling himself that the road led not merely to
Romney, but to a greater victory than his General dreamed of. Romney might
be worthless, after all, the grim march but a mad prank of Jackson's, as
men said; but whether to lay down one's arms or to struggle till the end
was reached, this was the question asked by those stern mountains. Nature
stood ranged against him--he fought it step by step, and day by day.
At times something like delirium seized him, and he went on blindly,
stepping high above the ice. For hours he was tortured by the longing for
raw beef, for the fresh blood that would put heat into his veins. The
kitchen at Chericoke flamed upon the hillside, as he remembered it on
winter evenings when the great chimney was filled with light and the crane
was in its place above the hickory. The smell of newly baked bread floated
in his nostrils, and for a little while he believed himself to be lying
again upon the hearth as he thrilled at Aunt Rhody's stories. Then his
fancies would take other shapes, and warm colours would glow in red and
yellow circles before his eyes. When he thought of Betty now it was no
longer tenderly but with a despairing passion.
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