Small streams flowed slowly between dense
walls of bushes. Here and there in the protection of the thickets wild
flowers were in early bloom.
It was spring, fresh spring everywhere, but the bushes and the grass
alike were tinged with red for Harry. The strange mental illusion that
he was riding to Chancellorsville remained with him and he did not seek
to shake it off. He almost expected to see Old Jack ahead on a hill,
bent over a little, and sitting on Little Sorrel, with the old slouch hat
drawn over his eyes. They had talked of the ghost of Jackson leading
them in the Wilderness. He shivered. Could it be so? All the time he
knew it was an illusion, but he permitted it to cast its spell over him,
as one who dreams knowingly.
And Harry was dreaming back. Old Jack, the earlier of his two heroes,
was leading them. He foresaw the long march through the thickets of the
Wilderness, Stonewall forming the line of battle in the deep roads late
in the evening, almost in sight of Hooker's camp, the sudden rush of his
brigades and then the terrible battle far into the night.
He shook himself. It was uncanny. The past was the past. Dreams
were thin and vanished stuff. Once more he was in the present and saw
clearly.
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