Burns lifted his hot eyes. “I ain’t so old, you damn rebel. I’m constable of this borough, and I’ll enforce the law, and I don’t need no Secesh thieves to put me about my business. I been in the army, too—teamed down in—”

The general forced his big bay around, and headed back through the scattering infantry. “Call the provost and place him under arrest,” he ordered. Other officers rode forward to join him. “Lieutenant Dilse has jest repo’ted … town council, seh.” Early’s wiry voice skewered up again: “To the devil with the Yankee council!” and then Orcutt could hear him saying something about York. Two soldiers emerged from the crowd, with John Burns clutched between them; they trotted him off across the Diamond. I wonder if they will shoot him at sunrise, Orcutt thought. No, no, that is outlandish.

He went up the dusky stairway into his office, lit a lamp, and stood for a long time looking at a steel engraving of John Marshall, as if he had never seen John Marshall before … Bugles began to blat, all through the heart of the town, and out into the rainy country beyond; you heard their tight, brassy squawl relayed beyond the reach of any ears. Orcutt sat in his old chair with a handkerchief dampened and folded over his eyes, and tried to sleep. Sleep! when every nerve was pricking and alive, when the cells of his body crept out like mice, fleeing around the office … then he could feel them stealing back into his fingertips again. A brief oration resounded outside: the commanding voice of one trumpeting his verbiage to the patient troops who were his bench and his jury. Soldiers! Your march through the enemy’s country has been marked by Victory and Plenty—Orcutt thought, “Another lawyer. A rebel one.” He could hear the jingle of scabbards, the droning orders, the incredible sigh of two thousand men picking themselves up and moving obediently once more. But he was afraid to look out of the window, for fear they would not be marching away after all.

By the time darkness was thick and certain, they were gone. The rain held an intense glow of burning freight cars, east of town, and distantly men could recognize the sound of axes and crow-bars ripping at the rain-soaked railroad bridge. Julius Orcutt went home, holding himself with stiff dignity, the roof of his mouth dry as flannel. “At least,” he thought, “I can tell Benjy that I did not treat with them. I have no reason to be ashamed.” His wife was sitting in a merino wrapper, waiting for him. She was drinking an herb tea which was said to be good for the heart, and she cried to Orcutt that she had had another chill as soon as neighbors told her that the rebels were gone.

Chapter 3

3.