"That's the name of the heathen idol they used to sacrifice men to. 'Parties have vanished from county and State. Whigs and Democrats, Unionists and Secessionists, Bell and Everett men and Breckinridge men--all are gone. There is now but one party--_the party of the invaded_. A month ago there was division of opinion; it does not exist to-day. It died in the hour when we were called upon to deny our convictions, to sacrifice our principles, to juggle with the Constitution, to play fast and loose, to blow hot and cold, to say one thing and do another, to fling our honour to the winds and to assist in coercing Sovereign States back into a Union which they find intolerable! It died in the moment when we saw, no longer the Confederation of Republics to which we had acceded, but a land whirling toward Empire. It is dead. There are no Union men to-day in Virginia. The ten Botetourt companies hold themselves under arms. At any moment may come the order to the front. The county has not spared her first-born--no, nor the darling of his mother! It is a rank and file different from the Old World's rank and file. The rich man marches, a private soldier, beside the poor man; the lettered beside the unlearned; the planter, the lawyer, the merchant, the divine, the student side by side with the man from the plough, the smith, the carpenter, the hunter, the boatman, the labourer by the day. Ay, rank and file, you are different; and the army that you make will yet stir the blood and warm the heart of the world!'" The ironer stretched another garment upon the board. "If only we fight half as well as that thar newspaper talks! Is the editor going?" "Yes, he is," said the old man. "It's fine talking, but it's mighty near God's truth all the same!" He moved restlessly, then took his crutch and beat a measure upon the sunken floor. His faded blue eyes, set in a thousand wrinkles, stared down upon and across the great view of ridge and spur and lovely valleys in between. The air at this height was clear and strong as wine, the noon sunshine bright, not hot, the murmur in the leaves and the sound of Thunder Run rather crisp and gay than slumbrous. "If it had to come," said Tom, "why couldn't it ha' come when I was younger? If 't weren't for that darned fall out o' Nofsinger's hayloft I'd go, anyhow!" "Then I see," retorted Sairy, "what Brother Dame meant by good comin' out o' evil!--Here's Christianna." A girl in a homespun gown and a blue sunbonnet came up the road and unlatched the little gate. She had upon her arm a small basket such as the mountain folk weave. "Good-mahnin', Mrs. Cole. Good-mahnin', Mr. Cole. It cert'ny is fine weather the mountain's having." "Yes, it's fine weather, Christianna," answered the old man. "Come in, come in, and take a cheer!"