Chapter I: Front Matter

THE HAUNTS OF MEN.

“_How shall we seem, each to the other, when,_
_On that glad day, immortal, we shall meet—_
_Thou who, long since, didst pass with hastening feet—_
_I, who still wait here, in the haunts of men?_”

THE HAUNTS OF MEN

BY
ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
_Author of “The King in Yellow,” “The Red Republic,” “A King
and a Few Dukes,” “Lorraine,” etc., etc._

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1895, by Bacheller, Johnson & Bacheller.
Copyright, 1896, by S. S. McClure Company.
Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Copyright, 1898, by Peter Fenelon Collier.
Copyright, 1898, by Robert W. Chambers.
Copyright, 1898, by Frederick A. Stokes Company.

To Elsa.

As a Black Veil of Lace,
Parted in sombre grace,
Shadows a pallid face,
So shall the Veil of Night,
Dimly withdrawn,
Shadow the coming Dawn.

Changed are the ashen skies,—
The clearer blue
Deep mirrored in thine eyes
Is changing too.

If the dim Dawn be fair,
Can its pale flames compare
In glory to thy hair?
What, in the jewelled skies,
Matches the dyes
In thine uplifted eyes!

Out from the splendid night
Bright as a spirit’s flight
Thou com’st with the Light.
And in the East the World spins, grey and old,
And in the West wait Life and Death; behold!

Bend down with me; behold!
This is the World,—
This tattered scroll unrolled,—
This chart unfurled.
Here at thy feet,
The Seven Oceans part and meet.

Trace with thy finger tips
The round World round,
Free as a shadow slips
Over the ground.
The World sleeps there
Steeped in the shadow of thy hair.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

THE GOD OF BATTLES 1

PICKETS 19

AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR 33

SMITH’S BATTERY 51

AMBASSADOR EXTRAORDINARY 83

YO ESPERO 117

COLLECTOR OF THE PORT 155

THE WHISPER 179

THE LITTLE MISERY 195

ENTER THE QUEEN 221

ANOTHER GOOD MAN 261

ENVOI 301

THE GOD OF BATTLES.

_Ah, who could couple thoughts of war and crime_
_With such a blessed time?_
_Who in the West wind’s aromatic breath,_
_Could hear the call of Death?_

TIMROD.

THE GOD OF BATTLES.

Sovereign of the world ... these sabres hold another language
to-day from that they held yesterday.—VATHEK.

It happened so unexpectedly, so abruptly, that she forgot to scream. A moment before, she had glanced out of the pantry windows, dusting the flour from her faded pink apron, and she saw the tall oats motionless in the field and the sunlight sifting through the corn. In the heated stillness a wasp, creeping up and down the window pane, filled the dim house with its buzzing. She remembered that,—then she remembered hearing the clock ticking in the darkened dining-room. It was scarcely a moment; she bent again over her flour pan, wistful, saddened by the summer silence, thinking of her brother; then again she raised her eyes to the window.

It was too sudden; she did not scream. Had they dropped from the sky, these men in blue,—these toiling, tramping, crowding creatures? The corn was full of them, the pasture, the road; they were in the garden, they crushed the cucumbers and the sweet-peas, their muddy trousers tore tender tendrils from the melon vines, their great shoes, plodding across the potato hills, harrowed the bronzed earth and levelled it to a waste of beaten mould and green-stuff. They passed, hundreds, thousands,—she could not tell,—and at first they neither spoke nor turned aside, but she heard a harmony, subtile, vast as winds at sea,—a nameless murmur that sweeps through brains of marching men,—the voiceless prophecy of battle.

Breathless, spellbound, she moved on tiptoe to the porch, one hand pressed trembling across her lips. The field of oats shimmered a moment before her eyes, then a blue mass swung into it and it melted away, sheered to the earth in glimmering swathes as gilded grain falls at the sickle’s sparkle. And the men in blue covered the earth, the world, her world, which stretched from the orchard to Benson’s Hill.

There was something on Benson’s Hill that she had never before seen. It looked like a brook in the sunshine; it was a column of infantry, rifles slanting in the sun.

Somebody had been speaking to her for a minute or two, somebody below her on the porch steps, and now she looked down and saw a boy, slim, sunburnt, wearing gauntlets and spurs. His dusty uniform glittered with gilt and yellow braid; he touched the vizor of his cap and fingered his sword hilt. She looked at him listlessly, her hand still pressed to her lips.

“Is there a well near the house?” he asked. After a moment he repeated the question.

Men with red crosses on their sleeves came across the grass, trailing poles and rolls of dirty canvas. She saw horses too, dusty and patient, tied to the front gate. A soldier, with a yellow ornament on his sleeve, stood at their heads, holding a red flag in one hand.

Something tugged gently at her apron, and, “show me the well, please,” repeated the boy beside her.

She turned mechanically into the house; he followed, caking the rag-carpet with his boots’ dry mud. In the woodshed she started and turned trembling to him but he gravely motioned her on, and she went, passing more swiftly under the trees of the orchard to the vine-covered well-curb.

He thanked her; she pointed at the dipper and rope; but already blue-clad, red-faced soldiers were lowering the bucket and the orchard hummed with the buzz of the wheel.

She went back to the porch, not through the house but around it. Across the little lawn lay crushed stalks and dying flowers; the potato patch was a slough of muddy green.

Soldiers passed in the sunshine. She began to remember that her brother, too, was a soldier, somewhere out in the world; he had been a soldier for nearly a week, ever since Jim Bemis had taken him to Willow Corners to enlist. She remembered she had cried and gone into the pantry to make bread and cry again. She remembered that first night, how she had been afraid to sleep in the house, how at dusk she had gone into the parlour to be near her mother. Her mother was dead, but her picture hung in the parlour.

Soldiers were passing, clutching their rifle butts with dirty hands, turning toward her countless sun-dazzled eyes. The shimmer of gun-barrels, the dancing light on turning bayonets, the flicker and sparkle on belt and button dazed and wearied her.

Somebody said, “We’re the boys for the purty girls! Have ye no eyes for us, lass?”

Another said, “Shut up, Mike, she’s not from the Bowery;” and, “G’wan ye dead rabbit!” retorted the first.

A flag passed, and on it she read “New York,” and another flag passed, dipped to her in grim salute, while the folds shook out a faded “Maine.”

She began to watch the flags; she saw a regiment plunge into the trampled corn, but she knew it was not her brother’s because the trousers of the men were scarlet and the caps hung to the shoulders, tasselled and crimson.

“Maryland, Maryland, Maryland, 60th Maryland,” she repeated, but she did not know she spoke aloud until somebody said: “It’s yonder,” and a blue sleeve swept towards the west.

“Yonder,” she repeated, looking at the ridge, cool in the beechwoods’ shadow.

“Is it the 60th Maryland you want, Miss?” asked another.

“Silence,” said an officer, wheeling a sweating horse past the porch.

She shrank back, but turned her head toward the beechwoods. As she looked a belt of flame encircled the forest, once, twice, again and yet again, and through the outrushing smoke, the crash! crash! crash! of rifles echoed and re-echoed across the valley.

All around her thousands of men burst into cheers; a deeper harmony grew on the idle breeze—the solemn tolling of cannon. The flags, the bright flags spread rainbow wings to the rising breeze; they were breasting the hills everywhere. The din of the rifles, the shouting, the sudden swift human wave, sweeping by on every side, thrilled her little heart until it beat out the long roll with the rolling drums.

In the orchard the rattle of the bucket, the creak and whirr of the well-wheel, never ceased. A very young officer sat on his horse, eating an unripe apple and watching the men around the well. The horse stretched a glossy neck toward the currant bushes, mumbling twigs and sun-curled leaves. A hen wandered near, peering fearlessly at the soldiers.

The girl went into the kitchen, reached up for her sun-bonnet, dangling on a peg, tied it under her chin, and walked gravely into the orchard. The men about the well looked up as she passed. They admired respectfully. So did the very young officer, pausing, apple half-eaten; so perhaps did the horse, turning his large, gentle eyes as she came up.

The officer wheeled in his saddle and leaned toward her deferentially, anticipating perhaps complaint or insult.

In Maryland “Dixie” was sung as often as “The Red, White, and Blue.”

Before she spoke she saw that it was the same officer who had asked her about the well; she had not noticed he was so young.

“I am sorry,” he said,—and, as he spoke, he removed his cap—“I am very sorry that we have trampled your garden. If you are loyal, the Government will indemnify you—”

The sudden crash of a cannon somewhere among the trees drowned his voice. Stunned, she saw him, undisturbed, gather his bridle with a deprecatory gesture. His voice came back to her through the ringing in her ears: “We do not mean to be careless, but we could not turn aside, and your farm is in the line of advance.”

Her ears still rang, and she spoke, scarcely hearing her own voice: “It is not that—I am loyal—it is only I wish to ask you where my brother’s regiment—where the 60th Maryland is.”

“The 60th Maryland—oh—why it’s in King’s Brigade, Wolcott’s Division; I think it’s yonder.” He pointed toward the beechwoods.

“Yonder? Where they are firing?”

Again the cannon thundered and the ground shook under her. She saw him nod, smiling faintly. Other mounted officers rode up; some looked at her curiously, others glanced carelessly; the attitudes of all were respectful. She heard them arguing about the water in the well and the length of the road to Willow Corners. They spoke of a turning movement, of driving somebody to Whitehall Station. The musketry on the hill had ceased; the cannon, too, were silent. Across the trampled corn a regiment moved listlessly to the tap, tap of a drum. On the road that circled Benson’s Hill, mounted soldiers were riding fast in the dust; several little flags bobbed among them; metal on shoulder and stirrup flashed through the dust, burnished by the mid-day sun.

She heard an officer say that there would be no fighting, and she wondered, because the musketry began again, little spattering shots among the beeches on the ridge, and behind the house drums rolled and a sudden flurry of bugle music filled the air. Other officers rode up, some escorted by troopers who bounced in their saddles and grasped long-staffed flags, the butts resting in their stirrups.

She reached up and bent down an apple bough, studded with clustered green fruit. Through the leaves she looked at the officers.

The sunshine fell in brilliant spots, dappling flag and cap and the broad backs of horses; there was a jingle of spurs everywhere. The hum of voices and the movement were grateful to her, for her loneliness was not of her own seeking. In the pleasant summer air the distant gunshots grew softer and softer; the twitter of a robin came from the ash-tree by the gate.

Out on the road by Benson’s Hill, the cavalry were still passing, the little flags sped along, rising and falling with the column, and the short clear note of a trumpet echoed the robin’s call.

But around the house the last of the troops had passed; she could see them, not yet far away, moving up among the fields toward the ridges where the sun burned on the bronzing scrub-oak thickets. The officers, too, were leaving the orchard, spurring on, singly or in groups, after the disappearing columns. From the main road came a loud thudding and pounding and clanking; a battery of artillery, the long guns slanted, the drivers swinging their thongs—passed at a trot. After it rode soldiers in blue and yellow, then waggons passed, ponderous grey wains covered with canvas, and on either side clattered more mounted troopers, their drawn sabres glittering through the heated haze.

She stood a moment, holding the apple bough, watching the yellow dust hanging motionless in the rear of the disappearing column. When the last wain had creaked out of sight and the last trooper had loped after it, she turned and looked at the silent garden, trodden, withered, desolate. She drew a long breath, the apple bough flew back, the little green apples dancing. A bee buzzed over a trampled geranium, a robin ran through the longer grass and stopped short, head raised. Beyond Benson’s Hill a bugle blew faintly; distant rifle shots sounded along the ridge; then silence crept through the sunlit meadows, across the levelled corn, across dead stalks and stems, a silence that spread like a shadow, nearer, nearer, over the lawn, through the orchard to the house, and then from corner to corner, dulling the ticking of the clock, stifling the wasp on the window, driving her before it from room to room.

On the musty hair-cloth sofa in the parlour she lay, flung face down, hands pressed to her ears. But silence entered with her, stifling the sob in her throat.

When she raised her head it was dusk. She heard the murmur of wind in the trees and the chirr of crickets from the fields. She sat up, peering fearfully into the darkness, and she heard the clock ticking in the kitchen and rustle of vines on the porch. After a moment she rose, treading softly, and felt along the wall until her hands rested on her mother’s picture. Then, no longer afraid, she slipped silently across the room, and through the hallway to the pantry.

It was nearly moonrise before she had cooked supper; when she sat down alone at the long table, the moon, yellow, enormous, stared at her through the window.

She sipped her tea, turned the lamp-wick a trifle lower, and ate slowly. The little grey dusk-moths came humming in the open window and circled around her. The porch dripped with dew; there was a scent of night in the air.

When she had sat silent a little while dreaming over the sins of a blameless life, there came to her, peace, so sudden, so perfect, that she could not understand. How should she know peace? What thought of the past might bring comfort? She could just remember her mother,—that was all. She loved her picture in the parlour. As for her father, he had died as he had lived, a snarling drunkard. And her brother? A lank, blue-eyed boy, dissipated, unwholesome, already cursed with his father’s sin—what comfort could he be to her? He had gone away to enlist; he was drunk when he did it.

She thought of all these things, her finger tips resting on the edge of the table. She thought too—of the soldiers passing, of the rippling crash of rifles, the drums, the cheering, the sunlight flecking the backs of the horses in the orchard.

There was a creak at the gate, a click of a latch, and the fall of a foot on the moonlit porch. She half rose; she was not frightened. How she knew who it was, God alone knows, but she looked up, timidly, understanding who was coming, knowing who would knock, who would enter, who would speak. And yet she had never seen him but once in her life.

All this she knew,—this child made wise in the space of time marked by the tick of the kitchen clock; but she did not know that the memory of his smile had given her the peace she could not understand, she did not know this until he entered, dusty, slim, sunburnt, his yellow gauntlets folded in his belt, his cap and sabre in his hand. Then she knew it. When she understood this she stood up, pale, uncertain. He bowed silently and stepped forward, fumbling with his sabre hilt. She motioned toward a chair.

He said he had a message for the master of the house, and glanced about vaguely, noting the single place at table and the single plate. She said he might give the message to her.

“It is only that—if I do not inconvenience you too much—” he smiled faintly,—“if you would allow me,—well, the truth is I am billeted here for the night.”

She did not know what that meant and he explained.

“The master of the house is absent,” she said, thinking of her brother.

“Will he return to-night?” he asked.

She shook her head; she was thinking that she did not want him to go away. Suddenly the thought of being alone laid hold of her with fresh horror.

“You may stay,” she said faintly. He bowed again. She asked him if he cared for supper, with a gesture toward the table, and when he thanked her she took courage and told him where to hang his cap and sabre.

There was a small room between the parlour and the dining-room. She offered it to him, and he accepted gratefully. While she was in the kitchen, toasting more bread, she heard him go to the front door and call. There came a clatter of hoofs, a quick word or two, and, as she re-entered the dining-room, he met her. “My orderly,” he explained,—“he may sleep in the stable, may he not?”

“My own bed-room is all I have here,” she said.

“Not—not the one you gave me!” he asked.

She nodded. “You may have it,—I often sleep in the parlour,—I did when my brother was home.”

“If I had had any idea—” he burst out. She stopped him with a gesture; but he insisted and at last he had his own way. “If I may sleep in the parlour, I will stay,” he said, and she nodded and seated herself at the table.

He ate a great deal; she wondered a little, but nodded again at his excuses, and insisted that he must have more tea. She watched him; the lamplight fell softly on his boyish head, on his faint moustache, and bronzed hands. He ate much bread-and-butter and many eggs; he spoke about his orderly and the horses, and presently asked for a lantern. She brought him one; he lighted it.

When he had gone away with his lantern, she rested her white face in her hands and looked at his empty chair. She thought of her brother, she thought of the village people who leered askance when she was obliged to go to the store at Willow Corners. The mention of her father’s name, of her brother’s name in the village aroused sneers or laughter. As long as she could remember the one great longing of her life had been to be respected. She had seen her father fall at night in the village street, drunk as a hog; she had seen her brother reel across the fields at noonday. She knew that all the world knew—her world—that she was merely one of a drunkard’s family. She never spoke to a neighbour, nor did she answer when spoken to. She carried her curse,—and her longing,—supposing that she was a thing apart. In the orchard at mid-day a man, a young boy, a soldier, had spoken to her and looked at her in a way she had never known. All at once she realised, dreaming there in the lamplight, that she was a woman to him, like other women; a woman to be spoken to with deference, a woman to be approached with courtesy. She had read it in his eyes, she had heard it in his voice. It was this that brought to her a peace as gracious, as sweet, as the eyes that had met her own in the orchard.

He was coming back from the stable now,—she heard his spurs click across the grass by the orchard. And now he had entered, now he was there, sitting opposite, smiling vaguely across the table. A rush of tears blinded her and she looked out into the night where the yellow moon stared and stared.

She found herself in the parlour after a while, silent, listening to his voice; and all about her was peace, born of the peace within her breast.

He told her of the war. She had never before cared, but now she cared. He spoke of long marches, of hunger and of thirst, with a boyish laugh, and she laughed too, not knowing how else to show her pity. He spoke of the Land, and now, for the first time, she loved it; she knew it was also her Land. He spoke of the flag and what it meant. In her home she had no symbol of her country, and she told him so. He drew a penknife from his pocket, cut a button from his collar, and handed it to her. On the button was an eagle and stars, and she pinned it over her heart, looking at him with innocent eyes.

She told him of her mother,—she could not tell much but she told him all she remembered. Then, involuntarily, she told him more,—about her life, her hopes long dead, her brother bearing his father’s name and curse. She had not meant to do this at first; but as she spoke she had a dim idea that he ought to know who it was that he treated with gentleness and deference. She knew it would not change anything in him, that he would be the same. Perhaps it was a vague hope that he might advise her,—perhaps be sorry, she could not analyse it, but she felt the necessity of speaking.

There is a time for all things except confession. But, to the lonely soul, long stifled, time is chosen for confession when God sends the opportunity.

She spoke of honour as she understood it; she spoke of dishonour as she had known it.

When she was silent, he began to speak, and she listened breathlessly. Ah, but she was right! The God of Battles had sent to her a messenger of peace. Out of the smoke and flame he had come to find her and pity her. Through him she knew she was worthy of respect, through him she learned her womanhood, from his lips she heard the truths of youth, which are truer than the truths of age.

He sat there in the lamplight, his gilt straps gleaming, his glittering spurs ringing true with every movement, his bronzed young face bent to hers. She knew he knew everything that man could know; she drank in what he said, humbly. When he ceased speaking, she still looked into his eyes. Their brilliancy dazzled her; the lamp spun a halo behind his head. Wondering at his knowledge, she wondered what those things might be that he knew and had not told. He was smiling now. She felt the power and mystery of his eyes.

It is true that he had not told her all he knew,—although what a boy of eighteen knows is soon told. He had not told her that her brother lay buried in a trench in the beech-grove on the ridge, shot by court-martial for desertion in the face of the enemy. Yet that was the very thing he had come to tell her.

About midnight, when they had been whispering long together, he told her that her brother was dead. He told her that death with honour wiped out every stain, and she cried a little and blessed God,—the God of Battles, who had purified her brother in the flames of war.

And that night, when he lay asleep on the musty hair-cloth sofa, she crept in, white, silent, and kissed his hair.

He never knew it. In the morning he rode away.

PICKETS.

PICKETS.

“Hi, Yank!”

“Shut up!” replied Alden, wriggling to the edge of the rifle-pit. Connor also crawled a little higher and squinted through the chinks of the pine logs.

“Hey, Johnny!” he called across the river, “are you that clay-eatin’ Cracker with green lamps on your pilot?”

“Oh, Yank! Are yew the U. S. mewl with a C. S. A. brand on yewr head-stall?”

“Go to hell!” replied Connor sullenly.

A jeering laugh answered him from across the river.

“He had you there, Connor,” observed Alden with faint interest.

Connor took off his blue cap and examined the bullet hole in the crown.

“C. S. A. brand on my head-stall, eh!” he repeated savagely, twirling the cap between his dirty fingers.

“You called him a clay-eating Cracker,” observed Alden; “and you referred to his spectacles as green lanterns on his pilot.”

“I’ll show him whose head-stall is branded,” muttered Connor, shoving his smoky rifle through the log crack.

Alden slid down to the bottom of the shallow pit and watched him apathetically.

The silence was intense; the muddy river, smooth as oil, swirled noiselessly between its fringe of sycamores; not a breath of air stirred the leaves around them. From the sun-baked bottom of the rifle-pit came the stale smell of charred logs and smoke-soaked clothing. There was a stench of sweat in the air and the heavy odour of balsam and pine seemed to intensify it. Alden gasped once or twice, threw open his jacket at the throat, and stuffed a filthy handkerchief into the crown of his cap, arranging the ends as a shelter for his neck.

Connor lay silent, his right eye fastened upon the rifle-sight, his dusty army shoes crossed behind him. One yellow sock had slipped down over the worn shoe heel and laid bare a dust-begrimed ankle.

In the heated stillness Alden heard the boring of weevils in the logs overhead. A tiny twig snapped somewhere in the forest; a fly buzzed about his knees. Suddenly Connor’s rifle cracked; the echoes rattled and clattered away through the woods; a thin cloud of pungent vapour slowly drifted straight upward, shredding into filmy streamers among the tangled branches overhead.

“Get him?” asked Alden, after a silence.

“Nope,” replied Connor. Then he addressed himself to his late target across the river:

“Hello, Johnny!”

“Hi, Yank!”

“How close?”

“Hey?”

“How close?”

“What, sonny?”

“My shot, you fool!”

“Why, sonny!” called back the Confederate in affected surprise, “was yew a shootin’ at me?”

Bang! went Connor’s rifle again. A derisive cat-call answered him, and he turned furiously to Alden.

“Oh, let up,” said the young fellow; “it’s too hot for that.”

Connor was speechless with rage, and he hastily jammed another cartridge into his long, hot rifle, while Alden roused himself, brushed away a persistent fly, and crept up to the edge of the pit again.

“Hello, Johnny!” he shouted.

“That you, sonny?” replied the Confederate.

“Yes. Say, Johnny, shall we call it square until four o’clock?”

“What time is it?” replied the cautious Confederate; “all our expensive gold watches is bein’ repaired at Chickamauga.”

At this taunt, Connor showed his teeth, but Alden laid one hand on his arm and sang out: “It’s two o’clock, Richmond time; Sherman has just telegraphed us from your State-house.”

“Wa-al, in that case this crool war is over,” replied the Confederate sharpshooter; “we’ll be easy on old Sherman.”

“See here!” cried Alden; “is it a truce until four o’clock?”

“All right! Your word, Yank!”

“You have it!”

“Done!” said the Confederate, coolly rising to his feet and strolling down to the river bank, both hands in his pockets.

Alden and Connor crawled out of their ill-smelling dust wallow, leaving their rifles behind them.

“Whew! It’s hot, Johnny,” said Alden pleasantly. He pulled out a stained pipe, blew into the stem, polished the bowl with his sleeve, and sucked wistfully at the end. Then he went and sat down beside Connor who had improvised a fishing pole from his ramrod, a bit of string, and a rusty hook.

The Confederate rifleman also sat down on his side of the stream, puffing luxuriously on a fragrant corn-cob pipe.

Presently the Confederate soldier raised his head and looked across at Alden.

“What’s yewr name, sonny?” he asked.

“Alden,” replied the young fellow briefly.

“Mine’s Craig,” observed the Confederate; “what’s yewr regiment?”

“Two hundred sixtieth New York; what’s yours, Mr. Craig?”

“Ninety-third Maryland, _Mister_ Alden.”

“Quit that throwin’ sticks in the water!” growled Connor; “how do you s’pose I’m goin’ to catch anythin’?”

Alden tossed his stick back into the brush-heap and laughed.

“How’s your tobacco, Craig?” he called out.

“Bully! How’s yewr coffee ’n ’tack, Alden?”

“First-rate!” replied the youth.

After a silence he said: “Is it a go?”

“You bet,” said Craig, fumbling in his pockets. He produced a heavy twist of Virginia tobacco, laid it on a log, hacked off about three inches with his sheath knife, and folded it up in a big green sycamore leaf. This again he rolled into a corn-husk, weighted with a pebble, then stepping back, he hurled it into the air, saying: “Deal squar, Yank!”

The tobacco fell at Alden’s feet. He picked it up, measured it carefully with his clasp-knife, and called out: “Three and three-quarters, Craig. What do you want, hard-tack or coffee?”

“’Tack,” replied Craig: “don’t stint!”

Alden laid out two biscuits. As he was about to hack a quarter from the third he happened to glance over the creek at his enemy. There was no mistaking the expression in his face. Starvation was stamped on every feature.

When Craig caught Alden’s eye, he spat with elaborate care, whistled a bar of the “Bonny Blue Flag,” and pretended to yawn.

Alden hesitated, glanced at Connor, then placed three whole biscuits in the corn-husk, added a pinch of coffee, and tossed the parcel over to Craig.

That Craig longed to fling himself upon the food and devour it was plain to Alden, who was watching his face. But he didn’t; he strolled leisurely down the bank, picked up the parcel, weighed it critically before opening it, and finally sat down to examine the contents. When he saw that the third cracker was whole, and that a pinch of coffee had been added, he paused in his examination and remained motionless on the bank, head bent. Presently he looked up and asked Alden if he had made a mistake. The young fellow shook his head and drew a long puff of smoke from his pipe, watching it curl out of his nose with interest.

“Then I’m obliged to yew, Alden,” said Craig; “’low, I’ll eat a snack to see it ain’t pizened.”

He filled his lean jaws with the dry biscuit, then scooped up a tin-cup full of water from the muddy river and set the rest of the cracker to soak.

“Good?” queried Alden.

“Fair,” drawled Craig, bolting an unchewed segment and choking a little. “How’s the twist?”

“Fine,” said Alden; “tastes like stable-sweepings.”

They smiled at each other across the stream.

“Sa-a-y,” drawled Craig with his mouth full, “when yew’re out of twist, jest yew sing out, sonny.”

“All right,” replied Alden. He stretched back in the shadow of a sycamore and watched Craig with pleasant eyes.

Presently Connor had a bite and jerked his line into the air.

“Look yere,” said Craig, “that ain’t no way foh to ketch ‘red-horse.’ Yew want a ca’tridge on foh a sinker, sonny.”

“What’s that?” inquired Connor suspiciously.

“Put on a sinker.”

“Go on, Connor,” said Alden.

Connor saw him smoking and sniffed anxiously. Alden tossed him the twist, telling him to fill his pipe.

Presently Connor found a small pebble and improvised a sinker. He swung his line again into the muddy current with a mechanical sidelong glance to see what Craig was doing, and settled down again on his haunches, smoking and grunting.

“Enny news, Alden?” queried Craig after a silence.

“Nothing much—except that Richmond has fallen,” grinned Alden.

“Quit foolin’,” urged the Southerner; “ain’t thar no news?”

“No. Some of our men down at Long Pond got sick eating catfish. They caught them in the pond. It appears you Johnnys used the pond as a cemetery, and our men got sick eating the fish.”

“That so?” grinned Craig; “too bad. Lots of yewr men was in Long Pond, too, I reckon.”

In the silence that followed, two rifle shots sounded faint and dull from the distant forest.

“’Nother great Union victory,” drawled Craig. “Extry! extry! Richmond is took!”

Alden laughed and puffed at his pipe.

“We licked the boots off of the 30th Texas last Monday,” he said.

“Sho!” exclaimed Craig. “What did you go a lickin’ their boots for?—blackin’?”

“Oh, shut up!” said Connor from the bank, “I can’t ketch no fish if you two fools don’t quit jawin’.”

The sun was dipping below the pine-clad ridge, flooding river and wood with a fierce radiance. The spruce needles glittered, edged with gold; every broad green leaf wore a heart of gilded splendour, and the muddy waters of the river rolled onward like a flood of precious metal, heavy, burnished, noiseless.

From a balsam bough a thrush uttered three timid notes; a great gauzy-winged grasshopper drifted blindly into a clump of sun-scorched weeds, click! click! cr-r-r-r!

“Purty, ain’t it,” said Craig, looking at the thrush. Then he swallowed the last morsel of muddy hard-tack, wiped his beard on his cuff, hitched up his trousers, took off his green glasses, and rubbed his eyes.

“A he-catbird sings purtier though,” he said with a yawn.

Alden drew out his watch, puffed once or twice, and stood up, stretching his arms in the air.

“It’s four o’clock,” he began, but was cut short by a shout from Connor.

“Gee-whiz!” he yelled, “what have I got on this here pole!”

The ramrod was bending, the line swaying heavily in the current.

“It’s four o’clock, Connor,” said Alden, keeping a wary eye on Craig.

“That’s all right!” called Craig; “the time’s extended till yewr friend lands that there fish!”

“Pulls like a porpoise,” grunted Connor, “damn it! I bet it busts my ramrod!”

“Does it pull?” grinned Craig.

“Yes,—a dead weight!”

“Don’t it jerk kinder this way an’ that,” asked Craig, much interested.

“Naw,” said Connor, “the bloody thing jest pulls steady.”

“Then it ain’t no ‘red-horse,’ it’s a catfish!”

“Huh!” sneered Connor,—“don’t I know a catfish? This ain’t no catfish, lemme tell yer!”

“Then it’s a log,” laughed Alden.

“By gum! here it comes,” panted Connor; “here, Alden, jest you ketch it with my knife,—hook the blade, blame ye!”

Alden cautiously descended the red bank of mud, holding on to roots and branches, and bent over the water. He hooked the big-bladed clasp-knife like a scythe, set the spring, and leaned out over the water.

“Now!” muttered Connor.

An oily circle appeared upon the surface of the turbid water,—another and another. A few bubbles rose and floated upon the tide.

Then something black appeared just beneath the bubbles and Alden hooked it with his knife and dragged it shoreward.

It was the sleeve of a man’s coat.

Connor dropped his ramrod and gaped at the thing: Alden would have loosed it, but the knife-blade was tangled in the sleeve.

He turned a sick face up to Connor.

“Pull it in,” said the older man,—“here, give it to me, lad—”

When at last the silent visitor lay upon the bank, they saw it was the body of a Union cavalryman. Alden stared at the dead face, fascinated; Connor mechanically counted the yellow chevrons upon the blue sleeve, now soaked black. The muddy water ran over the baked soil, spreading out in dust-covered pools; the spurred boots trickled slime. After a while both men turned their heads and looked at Craig. The Southerner stood silent and grave, his battered cap in his hand. They eyed each other quietly for a moment, then, with a vague gesture, the Southerner walked back into his pit and presently reappeared, trailing his rifle.

Connor had already begun to dig with his bayonet, but he glanced up at the rifle in Craig’s hands. Then he looked suspiciously into the eyes of the Southerner. Presently he bent his head again and continued digging.

It was sunset before he and Alden finished the shallow grave, Craig watching them in silence, his rifle between his knees. When they were ready they rolled the body into the hole and stood up.

Craig also rose, raising his rifle to a “present.” He held it there while the two Union soldiers shovelled the earth into the grave. Alden went back and lifted the two rifles from the pit, handed Connor his, and waited.

“Ready!” growled Connor, “aim!”

Alden’s rifle came to his shoulder. Craig also raised his rifle.

“Fire!”

Three times the three shots rang out in the wilderness, over the unknown grave. After a moment or two Alden nodded good night to Craig across the river and walked slowly toward his rifle-pit. Connor shambled after him. As he turned to lower himself into the pit he called across the river; “Good night, Craig!”

“Good night, Connor,” said Craig.

AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR.

AN INTERNATIONAL AFFAIR.

“... Brown-bear clam’ de ole fence rail,
Rabbit holler; ‘Whar yoh tail?...’”

_Banjo Song._