"Oh, don't you fret; I'm not goin' to run the wrong way with you in charge. Didn't you hear me promise Mr. Thornton? Well, you see, I've got a sort o' bad memory, that kind o' won't let me forgit when I make a promise;--bothers me that way a heap sometimes." He smirked in a self-deprecating way, and pulled his hat-brim down in front. Presently he spoke again, looking straight ahead over the horse's ears:-- "Now, that's the mischief about comin' with me--got to run both blockades at oncet. Now, if you'd been a good Secesh and could somehow or 'nother of got a pass through the Union lines you'd of been all gay. But bein' Union, the fu'ther you git along the wuss off you air, 'less-n I kin take you and carry you 'way 'long yonder to where you kin jess jump onto a south-bound Rebel railroad and light down amongst folks that'll never think o' you havin' run through the lines." "But you can't do that," said Mary, not in the form of a request. "You know you agreed with Mr. Thornton that you would simply"-- "Put you down in a safe place," said the man, jocosely; "that's what it meant, and don't you get nervous"-- His face suddenly changed; he raised his whip and held it up for attention and silence, looking at Mary, and smiling while he listened. "Do you hear anything?" "Yes," said Mary, in a hushed tone. There were some old fields on the right-hand now, and a wood on the left. Just within the wood a turtle-dove was cooing. "I don't mean that," said the man, softly. "No," said Mary, "you mean this, away over here." She pointed across the fields, almost straight away in front. "'Taint so scandalous far 'awa-a-ay' as you talk like," murmured the man, jestingly; and just then a fresh breath of the evening breeze brought plainer and nearer the soft boom of a bass-drum. "Are they coming this way?" asked Mary. "No; they're sort o' dress-paradin' in camp, I reckon." He began to draw rein. "We turn off here, anyway," he said, and drove slowly, but point blank into the forest. "I don't see any road," said Mary. It was so dark in the wood that even her child, muffled in a shawl and asleep in her arms, was a dim shape. "Yes," was the reply; "we have to sort o' smell out the way here; but my smellers is good, at times, and pretty soon we'll strike a little sort o' somepnuther like a road, about a quarter from here." Pretty soon they did so. It started suddenly from the edge of an old field in the forest, and ran gradually down, winding among the trees, into a densely wooded bottom, where even Mary's short form often had to bend low to avoid the boughs of beech-trees and festoons of grape-vine. Under one beech the buggy stood still a moment. The man drew and opened a large clasp-knife and cut one of the long, tough withes. He handed it to Mary, as they started on again. "With compliments," he said, "and hoping you won't find no use for it." "What is it for?"