"Well,--all the others; Major Harper, Colonel Dismukes, Harry Helm, Squire Wall, Mrs. Wall, the four Harper ladies, and--eh,--let me see, is that all?--ah, no, the old black man and his daughter, and--eh,--the two little mule'! that's all--stop! I was forgetting! What is that fellow's name we used to know? ah, yes; Charlie Toliver!" In a moment he sobered: "Yes, all will be yonder, and I wait only for Quinn to get back in the morning, to come myself." In the fulness of his joy he had to give my horse a parting slap. "Good-night! good-bye--till to-morrow!" I galloped away filled with an absurd foreboding that he was too sure, which may have come wholly from my bad temper at being started too late to see our ladies before morning. However, at two that night, my saddle laid under my head, and haversack under the saddle, I fell asleep with all Gallatin for my bedchamber, the courthouse square for my bed, the sky for my tester, the pole-star for my taper, hogs for mosquitoes and a club for a fan. LXII A TARRYING BRIDEGROOM Joyous was the dawn. With their places in the hospital filled for the brief time by Brookhaven friends, here were all our fairs, not to speak of the General, the Colonel, the Major, idlers of the town and region, and hospital bummers who had followed up unbidden and glaringly without wedding-garments. Cecile, Harry, Camille "and others" prepared the church. The General kept his tent, the Major rode to Hazlehurst, and the Colonel, bruised and stiffened by a late fall from his horse, lounged amiably just beyond talking range of the ladies and grumbled jokes to Chaplain Roly-poly, whose giggling enjoyment of them made us hope they were tempered to that clean-shaven lamb. However, there came a change. By mid-forenoon our gaiety ran on only by its momentum. The wedding was to be at eleven. At ten the Colonel, aside, told me, with a ferocious scowl, that my Captain ought to have arrived. At half-past he told me again, but Major Harper, returning from Hazlehurst, said, "Oh, any of a hundred trifles might have delayed him a short time; he would be along." The wedding-hour passed, the wedding-feast filled the air with good smells. Horsemen ambled a few miles up the road and came back without tidings. Then a courier, one of Ferry's scouts, galloped up to the General's tent, and presently the Major walked from it to the tavern and up to Charlotte's room, to say that Ferry was only detained by Quinn's non-arrival. "It's all right," said everyone.