“The big book” was a garbled version of “Les Miserables,” which, after running the blockade with a daring English sailor, had passed from regiment to regiment in the resting army. At first Dan had begun to read with only Pinetop for a listener, but gradually, as the tale unfolded, a group of eager privates filled the little hut and even hung breathlessly about the doorway in the winter nights. They were mostly gaunt, unwashed volunteers from the hills or the low countries, to whom literature was only a vast silence and life a courageous struggle against greater odds. To Dan the picturesqueness of the scene lent itself with all the force of its strong lights and shadows, and with the glow of the pine torches on the open page, his eyes would sometimes wander from the words to rest upon the kindling faces in the shaggy circle by the fire. Dirty, hollow-eyed, unshaven, it sat spellbound by the magic of the tale it could not read. “By Gosh! that's a blamed good bishop,” remarked an unkempt smoker one evening from the threshold, where his beef-hide shoes were covered with fine snow. “I don't reckon Marse Robert could ha' beat that.” “Marse Robert ain't never tried,” put in a companion by the fire. “Wall, I ain't sayin' he had,” corrected the first speaker, through a cloud of smoke. “Lord, I hope when my time comes I kin slip into heaven on Marse Robert's coat-tails.” “If you don't, you won't never git thar!” jeered the second. Then they settled themselves again, and listened with sombre faces and twitching lips. It was during this winter that Dan learned how one man's influence may fuse individual and opposing wills into a single supreme endeavour. The Army of Northern Virginia, as he saw it then, was moulded, sustained, and made effective less by the authority of the Commander than by the simple power of Lee over the hearts of the men who bore his muskets. For a time Dan had sought to trace the groundspring of this impassioned loyalty, seeking a reason that could not be found in generals less beloved. Surely it was not the illuminated figure of the conqueror, for when had the Commander held closer the affection of his troops than in that ill-starred campaign into Maryland, which left the moral victory of a superb fight in McClellan's hands? No, the charm lay deeper still, beyond all the fictitious aids of fortune--somewhere in that serene and noble presence he had met one evening as the gray dusk closed, riding alone on an old road between level fields. After this it was always as a high figure against a low horizon that he had seen the man who made his army.