On the following Wednesday Jackson marched his army out of Staunton, broke up the camp at West View, and started to attack General Milroy, whom he met and defeated with heavy loss at McDowell. Movement then followed movement so rapidly that the people of Staunton were bewildered. However, as all the news they received told of the success, they were also content. Meanwhile the month wore to an end without another word from Ephraim to Lucius on the subject of the balloon. But at last, one bright afternoon in early June, the long expected and desired summons came. Lucius was sitting idly on his own gate, whittling a stick, when a working-man approached him, and after a cautious look up the avenue to see if any one else was in sight, observed interrogatively, ‘Young Squire Markham?’ Lucius nodded, and the man went on: ‘Ef that’s so, I’ve a message fer ye from the Grizzly. He sez ye’re ter jine him et the shed any time ye think fit after midnight, and before day.’ ‘Is he—going up?’ asked Lucius, with rounded eyes. ‘I ’low he is, ef the wind holds from the south-west,’ replied the man. ‘Will I say ye’ll be on hand?’ ‘Rather!’ answered Lucius. ‘Here’s a dollar for your trouble. I’m much obliged.—Hi! you won’t say anything about it?’ ‘I’m dumb, squire,’ grinned the man as he moved away, while Lucius, ablaze with excitement, stole into the house and shut himself up in his room to think. He knew perfectly well that he was about to do wrong; but he tried to deceive himself into the belief that Ephraim’s casuistry afforded him a sufficient excuse for going off without the leave which would certainly never have been granted him. Moreover, he argued that, after the sacrifice which Ephraim had made just to give him pleasure, he could not now hang back. In a word, as many a wise person has done before and since, he set up objections like so many men of straw, and deliberately proceeded to knock them down again. At last he succeeded in crowding his conscience into a corner, and about eleven o’clock, when every one else in the house was fast asleep, rose from the bed where he had tossed and turned since nine, and slipping on his clothes, softly opened the window and got out. The night was very dark; a light breeze blew from the south; and the waving branches of shrubs and trees smote Lucius gently on the face as he stole through the plantations to the turnpike. His heart thumped violently against his ribs, for it seemed to him as if unseen hands were laying hold of him and striving to draw him back to his duty. But all these sombre thoughts took flight when he reached the rendezvous, where Ephraim, with the aid of half a dozen of his fellow-workmen, was engaged in inflating the balloon.