He was promptly silenced, and was made to drive us around to the various places in the village that had been mentioned; and in spite of the discouragements received, he added his earnest solicitations to ours that we might be lodged for the night. But in spite of our own pleas and Miles’s eloquence, midnight found us out at the two-miles place. I don’t know how long it had taken us to make those two miles. We had toiled over muddy roads, through fierce extremes of light and darkness, and amid deafening thunder, for the storm had come on again with renewed fury and was at its height when we stopped at the house to which we had been directed. In response to my husband’s knock an old man came to the door--the meanest old man I have ever seen before or since. He said we couldn’t come in, there wasn’t standing room in the house, the house was full of soldiers. My husband said he _would_ come in--that he had a lady with him. I think he would have shot that old man then and there rather than have carried me farther. But the old man said if he had a lady with him all the more reason why he should not come in; the soldiers were drinking, and he whispered to Dan, and I saw Dan give in. He told Dan that he had a cousin in the village who would house us, and he directed us how to get to this cousin’s house, so we turned and drove back to the village we had just left. We made better time on our return, as we were better directed and took a shorter route, found the house to which we had been sent, and were taken in. It was a strange old house, built in colonial days, with the veranda that ran all around it supported by tall Corinthian columns. We woke the owner up--an old man, who came down to the door shivering, candle in hand, and led us through a latticed room, then into another room and up a narrow flight of stairs with sharp turns to a bedroom with dormer windows and ancient furniture. We were welcome to our lodgings, he said, but he had nothing to eat in the house--we would be welcome to it if he had. He looked gaunt and hungry himself. We had no fire. He left us his candle and went down in the dark himself and we got to bed as quickly as possible. Lieutenant Wumble, who was down-stairs looking after Miles and the horses and the mules, got himself stowed away somewhere. Next morning my husband was ill; but the old man’s wife gave him some of her remedies, and with the help of a little money from me got something for us all to eat. About noon Dan insisted that he was able to travel, and that he must reach his command that day. When we arrived at Petersburg my husband put me on the train for Richmond and bade me good-by. It was the last time I saw him before the surrender. CHAPTER XXVI HOW WE LIVED IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY