Plot
Set during the American Civil War, the episode opens with two Confederate soldiers. They have been assigned to scout on the Union army that is marching into the valley below. Sergeant Joseph Paradine hears the army approaching, but suddenly the sound stops. He decides to descend into the valley to see the cause for himself. His companion refuses to come.
When Paradine gets into town, he finds the army there, but all of them are motionless, as if frozen in time. He tries unsuccessfully to wake them. Finally he comes across an old man named Teague, who is unaffected by the strange phenomenon. Teague claims to be a "witchman" and says he used a magic spell to freeze the soldiers. Paradine does not believe him, so Teague casts the spell on Paradine, freezing him. When Teague lifts the spell on Paradine, he brags that he could stop the entire army in this manner, ensuring the success of the Confederacy. Paradine asks why he doesn't, and Teague replies that he is dying. He gives his book of spells (entitled Witchcraft) to Paradine, encouraging him to use it, but when Paradine looks in it, he realizes that using this magic requires one to align himself with Satan.
Teague dies, and Paradine returns to camp to tell his superior about what happened. The superior doesn't believe him and encourages him to get some rest. When another scout returns with the same story, the superior realizes Paradine is telling the truth. Paradine relates the story about the old man, the spell book, and making a deal with the devil. The superior officer decides that the devil is the only one who can help them and encourages Paradine to read from the book.
Paradine discovers that, not only must he praise the name of the devil, but he must renounce the name of God. Rather than do either, Paradine throws the book into the fire, saying that if the Confederacy is to die, let it be buried in hallowed ground. The next day, Paradine receives orders that the army is going to march to Gettysburg.
Read more about this topic: Still Valley
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)