Through steaming fields, over thickets, above woods, the vapours
were rising, disclosing a shining and wet world, sweet and fresh in
its early autumn beauty.
The road to Fairfax Court House was deep in red mud, set with
runnels and pools of gold reflecting corners of blue sky. Through
it slopped mules and horses and wheels, sending splashes of spray
and red mud over the roadside bushes. A few birds sang; overhead
sailed and circled hundreds of buzzards, the sun gilding their
upcurled wing tips as they sheered the tree-tops.
And now, everywhere over the landscape soldiers were visible,
squads clothed only in trousers and shirts, marching among the oaks
and magnolias with pick and shovel; squads carrying saws and axes
and chains. A little farther on a wet, laurel-bordered road into
the woods was being corduroyed; here they were bridging the lazy
and discoloured waters of a creek, there erecting log huts. Hammer
strokes rang from half-cleared hillsides, where some regiment,
newly encamped, was busily flooring its tents; the blows of axes
sounded from the oak woods; and Ailsa could see great trees
bending, slowly slanting, then falling with a rippling crash of
smashed branches.
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