It was a favorite hymn at the Methodist church in Sardis, and the last time he had heard it was when he had accompanied Rachel to the church to attend services conducted by a noted evangelist.
Ah, Rachel!--what of her?
He had not thought of her since a swift recollection of her words at the parting scene on the piazza had come to spur up his faltering resolution, as the regiment advanced up the side of Wildcat.

Now one bitter thought of how useless all that he had gone through with the day before was to rehabilitate himself in her good opinion was speedily chased from his mind by the still bitterer one of the contempt she must feel for him, did she but know of his present abject prostration.
After all, might not the occurrences of yesterday be but the memories of a nightmare?
They seemed too unreal for probability.

Perhaps he was just recovering consciousness after the delirium of a fever.
The walnut sticks in the fireplace popped as sharply as pistols, and he trembled from head to foot.
"Heavens, I'm a bigger coward than ever," he said bitterly, and turning himself painfully in bed, he fixed his eyes upon the wall.

"I was led to believe," he continued, "that after I had once been under fire, I would cease to dread it.

Now, it seems to me more dreadful than I ever imagined it to be." Aunt Debby's wheel hummed and droned still louder, but her pleasant tones rode on the cadences like an Aeolian harp in a rising wind: "Man may trouble and distress me, 'T will but drive me to Thy breast; Life with trials hard may press me; Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.
O, 'tis not in grief to harm me, While Thy love is left to me.
O, 'twere not in joy to charm me, Were that joy unmixed with Thee." He wondered weakly why ther were no monasteries in this land and age, to serve as harbors or refuge for those who shrank from the fearfulness of war.
He turned over again wearily, and Aunt Debby, looking toward him, encountered his wide-open eyes.
"Yer awake, air ye ?" she said kindly.