At this point, the Patapsco
hurries through a channel narrowed by embankments and encroachments of
the granite cliffs, looking upon the yellow water streaked with huge
foam-clots, chafing against its banks lip high. I could not but augur
ill for our chances of traversing a wider and wilder stream. But it was
too early then to think of desponding, so casting forebodings behind, I
drove up to our rallying place, rattling over four long leagues under
seventy minutes. The black ponies tossed their heads, and champed their
bits, gayly, as they made best time over the last mile.
I found that the party that purposed actually to cross the Potomac was,
from one cause or another, reduced to four, including myself and my
attendant. A cousin of Symonds', hight Walter, with the same
surname--there is a perfect clan of them in those parts--was to
accompany us only to our first resting-place, a farm-house about
eighteen miles off. Our proposed companions were both Maryland men; one
had already served for some months in a regiment of Confederate cavalry,
and was returning to his duty, after one of those furloughs--often
self-granted--in which the Borderers are prone to indulge; the other was
a mere youth, and had never seen a shot fired; but a more enthusiastic
recruit could hardly be conceived.
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