“Last spring; but I might as well be single! That’s the worst of this foolishness,--I wish they would stop it! I don’t mind hard tack, or fighting, or sleeping in the rain; what I do mind is never being able to go home! I wish old Grant would go home and see _his_ wife, and let me go and see _mine_! We could then come back, and blaze away at each other with some satisfaction!” Harry was chattering all the way, and I encouraged him to talk; his gay voice was delightful. We talked of a thousand things, but they interested me more than they would interest the reader, and I pass on to matters more important. Pushing rapidly toward Ely’s, we soon arrived, and found the enemy making a heavy demonstration there. It lasted throughout the day, and I remained to witness the result. At sunset, however, the firing stopped, and, declining Mordaunt’s invitation to share the blankets of his bivouac, I set out on my way back to Orange. Night came almost before I was aware of it, and found me following the Brock road to get on the Orange plank road. Do you know the Brock road, reader? and have you ever ridden over it on a lowering night? If so, you have experienced a peculiar sensation. It is impossible to imagine any thing more lugubrious than these strange thickets. In their depths the owl hoots, and the whippoorwill cries; the stunted trees, with their gnarled branches, are like fiends reaching out spectral arms to seize the wayfarer by the hair. Desolation reigns there, and you unconsciously place your hand on your pistol as you ride along, to be ready for some mysterious and unseen enemy. At least, I did so on that night. I had now penetrated some distance, and had come near the lonely house where so many singular events had occurred. I turned my head and glanced over my shoulder, when, to my surprise, I saw a light glimmering through the window. What was its origin? The house was certainly uninhabited, even by the dead--for Mordaunt had informed me that a detail had, that morning, buried the corpse. There was but one means of solving the mystery, and I leaped the fence, riding straight toward the house; soon reaching it, I dismounted and threw open the door. What should greet my eyes, but the respectable figure of Mr. Nighthawk, seated before a cheerful blaze, and calmly smoking his pipe! XXV. THE APPOINTMENT. As I entered, Mr. Nighthawk rose politely, without exhibiting the least mark of astonishment. “Good evening, colonel,” he said, smiling, “I am glad to see you.” “And I, never more surprised to see any one than you, here, Nighthawk!” “Why so, colonel?” I could not help laughing at his air of mild inquiry. “Did I not leave you at our head-quarters?” “That was two days ago, colonel.” “And this is your residence, perhaps?” “I have no residence, colonel; but am here, temporarily, on a little matter of business.” “Ah! a matter of business!” “I think it might be called so, colonel.”