Chapter III

About three o’clock on Christmas afternoon, Hogan’s rifle exploded prematurely and killed a rabbit. The intense astonishment of McCue, Quinn and Phelan nerved Hogan for more glory, and he fired at every tuft of hill-weed until his cartridges were gone, and his temper too.

“Bad cess to me goon!” he shouted, “’tis twisted it do be, an’ I’ll thank ye for th’ loan av yere piece, McCue.”

“G’wan,” said McCue, “’till I show ye a thrick!”—and he blazed away at a rapidly vanishing cotton-tail and missed. Occasionally, firing by volleys, they scored a rabbit to four rifles, and, at sunset, McCue spread out a dozen or so cotton-tails on the newly fallen snow before the door of the hill shanty. Phelan wiped his brow with the back of his fist.

“Phwere’s th’ naygur?” he demanded.

Hogan looked at his watch and began to swear, just as Cassius appeared over the hilltop, a tin box under his arm, and on his face a smile of confidence.

“Have ye th’ ould Tom!” demanded Quinn, as Cassius shuffled up and, depositing the tin box on the doorstep, looked cheerfully around.

“Evenin’, gemmen, evenin’,” said Cassius, licking his lips and leaning down to pinch the fat rabbits lying in a row; “Kinder cold dishyere Chris’mus, gemmen. ’Spec we gwinter ’sperience moh snow——”

“Have ye the cat?” repeated Quinn sternly.

“’Cose I has,” said Cassius indignantly, “an’ I’se come foh de cash——”

“Phwat’s that!” snarled Hogan.

“Hould a bit!” interposed Quinn; “is the tom in the box now?”

“’Cose he is,” repeated Cassius; “yaas, sah, dasser mighty fine kitty, dat is! Hit ain’t no or’nary cat, hit ain’t,—no sah. Dasser pole-cat, sah, dat is!”

“’Tis a Dootch cat!” said Phelan.

“Sure Poles is Dootch, too,” observed McCue; “Phwat are ye waitin’ for I dunno?” he added, scowling at the darkey.

“I’se lingerin’ foh mah cash,” said Cassius.

“G’wan!” said Phelan briefly.

Cassius turned an injured face from one to the other. There was a hostile silence. Phelan produced a flour sack and threw the rabbits into it, one by one.

“’Scuse me, gemmen,” began Cassius,—when an exclamation from Quinn silenced him and drew the attention of all to a black and white object advancing across the snow toward the shanty.

“Lan’s sake!” muttered Cassius, “pole-cat in de box gwineter draw all de pole-cats in dishyere county!”

“’Tis a rabbit!” said McCue, seizing his gun.

“It’s a cat!” said Hogan, “d’yez mind th’ tail of ut!”

“Dat ain’t no cat,” said Cassius contemptuously, “dasser skunk.”

“Skoonk is it? An phwat’s a skoonk, ye black mutt?” demanded McCue. At the same instant Phelan fired and missed; Quinn, paralysed with buck-fever, clutched his rifle, mouth agape, while Hogan, in an access of excitement, began shouting and kicking the darkey from snowdrift to snowdrift.

“Now will ye grin!” he yelled; “G’wan home ye omadhoun!—”

“Leggo mah wool!” retorted the darkey, and rose from the snow with sullen alacrity: “Wha’ foh yoh yank mah kinks?”

“Faith then, fur luck an’ bad luck,” said Hogan and followed McCue into the deserted shanty.

A moment later, Quinn and Phelan came back after an eager but fortunately fruitless quest for the game, and McCue and Hogan issued from the shanty, bearing the tin box, ready to return to the barracks.

“Me heavy hand on th’ naygur!” growled McCue: “he’s gone, where?—I dunno, but he’ll carry the bag o’ rabbits or me name’s not McCue! Call him, Hogan.”

“Come out, ye bat-o’-th’-bog, ye! Where are ye now!—the Red Witch o’ Drumgoole follow ye?” shouted Hogan, tramping around the shanty and poking under the steps.

“Lave th’ black scut,” said McCue with dignity, “I’ll carry the sack. Have ye th’ sack?” he added, turning to Phelan.

“I have not,” said Phelan, “’twas there foreninst the shanty.”

“Now the red itch o’ Drumgoole on him!” shouted McCue. “Usha, musha, he’s gone wid the sack, an’ divil a bit or a sup av a shtew ye’ll eat the night! Sorra the rabbit he’s left!—me heavy hand on him an’ his!—may the saints sind him sorrow this blessed night!”

“We have th’ ould tom in th’ box,” said Quinn, with a significant flourish of his rifle.

“There’s no luck in it—Care killed a cat, an’ worrit the kittens. Begorra!—I’ll kill no cat at all, at all!” replied McCue superstitiously.

“May the Dootch robbers choke whin they sup this night!” shouted Phelan; “Wirra the day I set eye on the naygur an’ his Dootch whippets!”

“They’ll have no luck, mark that!—McCue!” said Hogan: “We’ve their Tom in a box an’ they’ll have no luck!”

They gathered up their rifles in silence; McCue carried the box; one by one they filed down the darkening hillside toward the village where already a lantern or two glimmered along the stockade and the bugles were sounding the evening call.

When the sportsmen reached the barracks, and it became known that the Jägers’ tom-cat had been captured, the regiment went wild with enthusiasm. It was decided not to open the box at once, because the cat might hastily migrate toward the familiar barracks of the Jägers; but Quinn, the prime mover in the capture of Thomas, was selected a delegate of one to present the box to Colonel Bannon as a surprise and a Christmas gift from the whole regiment.

So, that night, the regiment ate their Christmas dinner in eager anticipation, and their hilarity was scarcely marred by Hogan’s report that the Jägers’ barracks resounded with a joyous din of feasting and song.

“May th’ banshee worrit thim! Let them be wid their futther—an’—mutther! May the red banshee sup with them in hell!” said Quinn as he rose in obedience to the orderly who said the Colonel would receive him.

He took the tin box gingerly, for the animal inside was very lively, and he followed the orderly to the door of the messroom in the officer’s quarters.

Here the orderly left him a moment but returned directly and whispered:

“The colonel knows it’s the Dootch cat ye have,—but ye’ll say ye bought it. Sure he’s a dacent man, is Colonel Bannon, an’ no love lost betwixt him an’ Fallback. Are ye ready now?”

“Yis,” said Quinn firmly, forage-cap in one hand, box in the other: “is the rigiment outside on the parade?”

“It is, an’ ready to cheer.”

“Then in I go,” said Quinn.

The colonel sat at the head of the table, flanked by his staff and line officers. His face, a little red with Christmas cheer, was gravely composed for the occasion. His officers, to a man, beamed with anticipation.

“Quinn,” said the Colonel.

“Sorr,” said Quinn, standing at attention.

“This is a very pleasant occasion,” said the Colonel, “and I am gratified that my men have remembered their colonel upon this blessed day. I am told you have a surprise for me, Quinn.”

“Yis sorr,—a cat, sorr.”

“A cat!” said the Colonel in affected surprise.

“We’ve lost our goat, sorr, but we’ll conshole our sorrow wid a cat, sorr—Colonel Bannon’s cat if you plaze, sorr.”

The Colonel’s eyes twinkled.

“’Tis a dacent kitty, sorr,” said Quinn, undoing the rope that held the lid; “a Dootch Kitty they do say from Poland, sorr, where we sint for a dozen an’ this is the pick o’ them.”

The Colonel suppressed a smile; the officers gurgled.

“I have the spachless honor, sorr,” said Quinn, placing the box on the table before the Colonel,—“I have the unmintionable deloight in presinting to our beloved Colonel in the name av his beloved rigiment, this illegant kitty!”

And he took off the lid.

There was a silence. Suddenly a long slender black and white creature sprang from the box to the table, flourishing a beautiful bushy tail; there came a yell, a frightful stampede, a crash of glass, a piteous shriek from the Colonel under the sofa: “Quinn! Quinn! Ye murtherin’ scut! ’Tis a skoonk! Usha, but I’ll have yer life fur this night’s work!”

And Quinn, taking his nose firmly in both hands, pranced away like one demented—fled for his life through the falling snow of that blessed Christmas night.

* * * * *

In the barracks of the Jägers was song and jest and Christmas cheer:—shouting and feasting and heart-friendships, and the intermittent din of trombones.

Cassius, feeding to repletion in the kitchen with a bowl of rabbit stew between his knees, paused to hold his aching sides because it hurt him to laugh when he ate. Beside him on the floor, Thomas licked his whiskers, and yawned and stared into the dying fire.

SMITH’S BATTERY.

_A new warre e’re while arose_—

LOVELACE.

SMITH’S BATTERY.

Impotent Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Checker-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

FITZGERALD.

On the evening of the 15th the cavalry left by moonlight, riding along the railroad toward Slow-River-Junction. The bulk of the infantry followed two days later, leaving behind them “The Dead Rabbits,”—a New York regiment,—a squad of cavalry, and Smith’s four-gun battery, to garrison a hamlet inhabited principally by mosquitoes.

The hamlet of Slow-River contained a red brick church, some houses, a water-tank, and a race-track. The “Dead Rabbits” established their warren in the race-track sheds, the cavalry guarded the railway and water-tank, and Smith’s battery decorated the graveyard around the red brick church.

The inhabitants of Slow-River, barring the mosquitoes, had mostly disappeared toward Dixie before the arrival of Wilson’s division. When Wilson moved on toward the Junction, leaving behind him the “Dead Rabbits,”—and Smith’s Battery to take care of them—the non-combatant population of Slow-River numbered two,—not including an Ethiopian of no account.

Smith, of Smith’s Battery, had constituted himself an inquisition of one. The Reverend Laomi Smull, pastor of the brick church, took the oath of allegiance and smacked the Book with moist thick lips. Mrs. Ashley, the remaining inhabitant of Slow-River, widow of a Union officer killed in the early days of the war, took the oath earnestly, then told Smith who she was and received his apologies with sensitive reserve.

“I wished to take the oath,” she said: “I have not had my country brought so near for many months.”

The Reverend Laomi Smull, clasped his soft fingers together and surveyed the firmament while Mrs. Ashley brushed the tears from her blue eyes. When she thanked Smith for the privilege of publicly acknowledging her country, the Reverend Laomi nodded and closed his small eyes as though in ecstatic contemplation of a soul regenerated.

“Where’s the nigger?” inquired Smith when Mrs. Ashley had gone back to her cottage below the church.

“Do you refer to our unfortunate coloured brother?” suggested the reverend gentleman.

“Oh yes—of course,” said Smith, fidgeting with his sabre.

“Abiatha is angling from the bridge,” said Smull wagging his double chin till his collar creaked.

“What is he fishing for,” inquired Smith, who was an angler.

“Fish,” said the Reverend Laomi, and entered his church with more agility than his fat bulk appeared to warrant.

At the door he turned to cast one last sly glance at the firmament.

Smith, distrustful, and of the earth earthy, walked back to the graveyard, lifting his sabre to prevent the clanking of the scabbard on fallen grave-stones.

“Look out for that pastor,” he said to Steele: “if I know a copperhead from a copper kettle he’s one with double fangs.”

“You think he may play tricks?” asked Steele, toasting a rasher of bacon on the coals before his feet.

“Yes, I do. He’ll get no passes from me, I can tell you. I’m going up into the church tower. Is there a bell there?”

“A cracked one,” said Steele.

“I’ll take the clapper out,” observed Smith. He accepted a bit of bacon from Steele, laid it on a morsel of hard-tack, munched silently for a few minutes, then washed his breakfast down with a tin of coffee, returned Steele’s salute, and entered the church through the vestry. Climbing the belfry ladder on tiptoe, cap in hand, he could not prevent the ladder from creaking. So, when he stepped out on the loosely laid planks beside the bell, he found the Reverend Laomi Smull leaning on the belfry-ledge, preoccupied with the sky.

“Oh,” said the reverend gentleman with a start, “is it my young friend, Captain Smythe?”

“Smith,” said the officer dryly, and felt in the bell for the iron clapper.

“Where is the clapper?” he added turning on Smull.

The Reverend Laomi regarded him calmly.

“I do not know,” he said.

To search the person of the minister was Smith’s first impulse; Smull divined it and smiled sadly.

“He’s thrown it from the tower where he can find it,” thought Smith. Then he drew a jack-knife from his blouse, cut the two bell-ropes and let them drop to the tiled floor far below. The thwack of the ropes echoed through the silent church; Smith apologised for the military precaution and stepped to the tower parapet. There he could look out over the ravaged country toward the Junction where rumour reported an ominous concentration of Union troops. He could see the water-tower and the railroad and cavalry patroling the embankment in the morning sunshine. He could see the weather-stained sheds of the race-track where the “Dead Rabbits” prowled, a nuisance and sometimes a terror to everybody except the enemy. Behind him he heard the Reverend Laomi pattering about over the loose planks that formed the belfry flooring.

“I shall station a signal officer here,” he said without turning.

“Sir,” stammered the minister.

“I am sorry,” said Smith impatiently: “we need the church more than you do.”

“I agree with you,” said Smull in a peculiarly soft voice.

“I am sorry to exclude you—” began Smith turning,—and those words had wellnigh been his last, for one leg slipped through an unexpected fissure between the planks, and he clutched a beam beside him and drew himself up, deadly pale.

He looked at Smull; the clergyman overwhelmed him with congratulations on his escape from pitching headlong to the tiled floor below. He spoke of the mercy of Providence, of the miracles of the Most High; he deplored the condition of the belfry floor; he reproached himself for not noticing the fissure.

“I did not notice it either—when I came up,” said Smith.

He followed Smull down the ladder and out of the church, returning the reverend gentleman’s salute gravely. Then he ordered Steele to use the church for barracks and march his men in without delay.

“Into the church?” repeated Steele.

“I guess Union soldiers won’t desecrate this church or any other church,” said Smith savagely, and turned on his heel.

On his way to the river he passed Mrs. Ashley’s cottage; she was hanging a home-made flag over the porch; the stars and stripes were not symmetrical, but they were stars and stripes.

She stood on the top of a ladder, hammering tacks and holding the red, white, and blue folds in her pretty mouth. Occasionally she hammered one pink-tipped finger instead of a tack; at such moments she repeated, “Oh dear!”

Smith, cap in hand, offered to hold the ladder; Mrs. Ashley thanked him and continued to hammer serenely, until she remembered her ankles and descended precipitately. Then Smith climbed the ladder, drew out all the tacks Mrs. Ashley had hammered in, rehung the “symbol of light and law,” draped and nailed it with military rigidity, and descended, covered with perspiration and mosquito bites.

Mrs. Ashley, cool and sweet in a white gown and black sash, thanked him and offered him a cup of tea under the magnolias. He accepted and sat down, sabre between his knees, to mop his face and evade mosquitoes until she returned with two cups of cold tea, creamless and sugarless.

“I have some limes—if you wish,—Captain Smith,” she ventured, holding out the golden-green fruit in her smooth palm.

He thanked her and squeezed a lime into his tea.

Overhead, among the magnolia blossoms, the summer harmony had already begun with the deep symphony of bees; butterflies hovered under the perfumed branches; a grasshopper clicked incessantly among the myrtle vines.

Mrs. Ashley rested her chin on her wrist and looked at nothing. A breeze began to stir the folds of the draped flag over the porch; the crimson stripes undulated, the stars rose and fell.

“We hear nothing in Slow-River,” said Mrs. Ashley: “has anything important happened, Captain Smith?” Her voice was almost inaudible.

“Nothing important. The last battle went against us.”

“Will there be a battle here?”

“No—I don’t know—I have no reason to suppose so,” he said with conscientious precision. “If by any possible chance the rebel cavalry should ride around our army we might be visited here, but,” he added, “the contingency is too remote for speculation.”

“Too remote for speculation?” repeated Mrs. Ashley under her breath.

Smith looked up at her—he had been watching a file of ants bearing off minute crumbs from the biscuit he was nibbling. Smith’s shoulder-straps were too recent to admit of trifling, and he had an instinct that Mrs. Ashley considered him young.

“Too remote for speculation,” he repeated, and touched the down on his upper lip with decision. The faintest flicker of amusement stirred Mrs. Ashley’s blue eyes.

They spoke of the war, of battles on land and sea, of sieges and blockades, of prisons and of death. Listening to her passionless voice he forgot his shoulder-straps for a while. She noticed it. She spoke now as a very young hostess to a distinguished guest, and he appreciated it. Little by little they dropped into the half frank, half guarded repertoire peculiar to conventional civilisation; he recognised her beauty; she conceded his gallantry; the bees buzzed among the magnolias; the warm breeze stirred the flag.

Sitting there with white fingers interlaced, and blue eyes demurely fixed on his, she wondered at the pains she took to wind him around the least of those white fingers of hers. Yet there was reason enough for her; her reason, in concrete form, skulked upstairs under a mound of bedclothes,—a sallow faced, furtive young man, reported killed at Bull Run,—a deserter from the Union army, a Rebel at heart, too cowardly to back his convictions,—the blight and sorrow and curse of her young life—her husband.

From the day of their marriage, she had found him out and loathed him, yet, when he marched with a loyal regiment, she had bade him God-speed.

When the news came from Bull Run she had wept and forgiven him the past, because he had been good to her in death,—he had left her the widow of a Union soldier. His apparition in Slow-River almost killed her. The Reverend Laomi Smull sarcastically bade her rejoice and put off her widow’s weeds. She did neither.

Suddenly Wilson’s advance was signalled from the hills beyond the river; the population of Slow-River fled Dixie-ward,—all except young Ashley, who lay sleeping off a debauch in his own gutter. The Reverend Laomi preferred to remain for several reasons. Hours after the Union cavalry dashed into the village, Ashley awoke to consciousness. When he comprehended what had happened he crawled into bed and cursed his wife and his luck and the Union Army impartially.

With what loathing did she aid in concealing him! With what desperation did she evade questions and intrusive patrols and the quiet questions of officers, courteous young fellows in blue, who accepted her word of honour with a bow and went away, deceived by a loyal woman—the wife of a coward and traitor—for that traitor’s sake.

But she must play the frightful comedy to the end; she was doing it now, smiling back at Smith with eyes that caressed; with death in her heart.

When he rose to go she dropped him the quaintest and stateliest courtesy that can be dropped by a girl of twenty. His cap swept the tall grass-blades; Southern chivalry is infectious. So he passed on his way to the river.

Five minutes later the Reverend Laomi Smull appeared at the gate, smirked at the young wife, entered the cottage, and ascended the stairs with a parodoxical nimbleness that displayed two white cotton socks and inadequate attention to personal ensemble.

Smith pursued his way to the river through a weed-tangled path choked with rank marshy stalks, mint, elder, and wild lady-slipper. The little brown honey-bees hummed from bud to bud; dragon-flies, balanced in mid-air on quivering wings, selected plump mosquitoes from the cloud that wavered above Smith’s head, and darted so close to his ears that he dodged like a new recruit at a bullet. When he came to the narrow sluggish river, where a foot-bridge swayed in the amber eddies, he took his cigar from his mouth and his Bible from his pocket.

A dilapidated individual of African descent, legs dangling over the water, fishpole clasped in both black fists, glanced up at the young officer and said: “Mohnin’ suh!” Smith nodded, looked hard at the darkey, shrugged his shoulders, and restored the cigar to his lips and the Bible to his pocket.

“What are you fishing for, Uncle?” he asked.

“Fishin’ foh bass, suh,” replied the dilapidated one.

“Catch any?”

“I done cotch free bass an’ a tarrypin turkle, suh.”

“Want to sell them?”

“No, suh.”

“Going to eat them all yourself, Uncle?”

“I’s gotter right ter,” said the angler combatively.

Smith glanced down on the river sand where, anchored to a string, three plump bass floated out in the current.

“Are you going to eat the terrapin, too, Uncle?”

“Co’s I is,” sniffed the darkey; “I’s gotter right ter.”

“Let’s see it,” said Smith.

The angler climbed down to the strip of sand, picked up the terrapin, and held it out to Smith.

“How much?” asked Smith.

“Two dollahs, suh.”

Smith paid the money grimly, picked up the terrapin, and stood a moment watching the darkey climb back to his perch on the foot-bridge.

“You’ll leave your footprints on the sand of time,” said Smith; “you’ll be in Wall Street in a month—or in Sing-Sing.”

“Wha’s dat yoh’s a-sayin’ ’bout leabin’ shoe-prints on de san’s ob time, suh?” asked the sable one, much interested.

“Nothing. If you get any more terrapin, bring them to the artillery camp. What’s your name, Uncle?”

“Nuffin’, suh?”

“No name?”

“No suh, jess ’Biah, suh.”

“Oh—Alcibiades? No? Then Abiatha?”

“Yaas, suh.”

“Whose darkey are you?”

“Mis’ Ashley’s niggah, suh.”

“Oh! And the fish are for Mrs. Ashley?”

“Yaas, suh. Gwineter tote ’em back foh dinner, suh.”

“Then,” said Smith, “take back your terrapin too, you rascal! How dare you sell your mistress’s property!”

’Biah watched the terrapin fall on the sands again, then he ruefully fished out the two dollars from some rent in his ragged coat. For a moment he struggled to tell the truth,—that Mrs. Ashley, in the present state of her finances, would rather have twenty-five cents than a dozen terrapins. Perhaps he feared Mrs. Ashley’s wrath, perhaps a spark of Mrs. Ashley’s pride had lodged beneath his own shirtless bosom. He said nothing, but rose, holding his fishpole in one hand, and sidled along the foot-bridge toward Smith, money clutched in one outstretched fist.

Smith glanced at the four silver half-dollars.

“Keep them and buy a coat, ’Biah,” he said, relighting his cigar. At the same instant a big bass seized ’Biah’s hook and made off with it, and ’Biah, losing his balance, dropped the silver coins into the river. Then the tattered African lost his head, too; for a minute, bass, darkey, pole, and line became a blurr on the bridge, on the sands below, and finally in the water.

When ’Biah emerged, he had the bass by the gills; later he fished out pole and line, while Smith, wading through the shallows in his cavalry-boots, poked about for the lost coins with the butt of his sabre-scabbard.

Ten minutes later ’Biah had recovered three of the half-dollars. Smith had found something else,—a bundle of soaked clothes bearing United States army buttons and a second lieutenant’s shoulder-straps.

Instinctively he tossed the soaked packet into the alders and walked carelessly back to the foot-bridge where ’Biah, absorbed in disentangling his tackle, breathed hard and deep and muttered maledictions on “dat ole bull-bass what fink he know a heap moh’n ole ’Biah.”

“Done drap mah hook in de hole,” he puffed; “gwine ter gitter hook an’ tote mah fish, suh. Mohnin’, suh, mohnin’,”; and ’Biah scrambled to his feet and shuffled back along the weed-grown footpath that led to Mrs. Ashley’s cottage.

When the negro had disappeared, Smith leaped lightly to the sand below, parted the alders, found the bundle of clothes, and cut the cord with his sabre.

“New clothes,” he muttered: “not a patch, not a rag—hello—what’s this?”

He drew a soaked bit of paper from the breast-pocket of the jacket, and, standing in the alders, read the pencilled memorandum.

It was a receipt signed by the Reverend Laomi Smull for pew-rent received from Anderson Ashley. But what troubled Smith was the date, for, if Mrs. Ashley’s husband had been killed at Bull Run, how could he be renting pews from the Reverend Laomi in Slow-River? Smith examined the paper closely; it read:

“Received from Anderson Ashley, Esquire, $3.75, pew-rent for Mr. and Mrs. Anderson Ashley.”

The date, two months back, startled him. As he stood, holding the paper, staring vacantly at the motionless leaves on the alders, far away he heard the noon call from the artillery bugles, taken up by the cavalry trumpets at the water-tank, and passed on to the infantry around the race-track. He shoved the wet clothes under a fallen log, opened the Bible in his pocket, placed the folded receipt between the leaves, and, carrying the Bible in one hand, sword in the other, went back along the tangled footpath toward Mrs. Ashley’s cottage.