Special Messenger. Robert W. Chambers
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a general, Billy,” replied the young fellow, coloring. “Did you think I was?”
“My brother’s ideas are very vague,” said his sister quickly; “any officer who fights is a general to him.”
“I’m sorry,” said the bandmaster, looking at the child, “but do you know, I am not even a fighting officer? I am only the regimental bandmaster, Billy—a noncombatant.”
For an instant the boy’s astonished disappointment crushed out his inbred courtesy as host. His sister, mortified but self-possessed, broke the strained silence with a quiet question or two concerning the newly arrived troops; and the bandmaster replied, looking at the boy.
Billy, silent, immersed in reflection, sat with curly head bent and hands folded on his knees. His sister glanced at him, looked furtively at the bandmaster, and their eyes met. He smiled, and she returned the smile; and he looked at Billy and smiled again.
“Billy,” he said, “I’ve been sailing under false colors, it seems—but you hoisted them. I think I ought to go.”
The boy looked up at him, startled.
“Good night,” said the bandmaster gravely, rising to his lean height from the chair beside the table. The boy flushed to his hair.
“Don’t go,” he said; “I like you even if you don’t fight!”
Then the bandmaster began to laugh, and the boy’s sister bit her lip and looked at her brother.
“Billy! Billy!” she said, catching his hands in hers, “do you think the only brave men are those who gallop into battle?”
Hands imprisoned in his sister’s, he looked up at the bandmaster.
“If you were ordered to fight, you’d fight, wouldn’t you?” he asked.
“Under those improbable circumstances I think I might,” admitted the young fellow, solemnly reseating himself.
“Celia! Do you hear what he says?” cried the boy.
“I hear,” said his sister gently. “Now sit very still while Moses serves the Madeira; only half a glass for Mr. William, Moses—no, not one drop more!”
Moses served the wine with pomp and circumstance; the lean young bandmaster looked straight at the boy’s sister and rose, bowing with a grace that instantly entranced the aged servant.
“Celia,” said the boy, “we must drink to the flag, you know;” and the young girl rose from her chair, and, looking at the bandmaster, touched her lips to the glass.
“I wish they could see us,” said the boy, “—the Colvins and the Malletts. I’ve heard their ‘Bonnie Blue Flag’ and their stirrup toasts until I’m sick——”
“Billy!” said his sister quietly. And reseating herself and turning to the bandmaster, “Our neighbors differ with us,” she said, “and my brother cannot understand it. I have to remind him that if they were not brave men our army would have been victorious, and there would have been no more war after Bull Run.”
The bandmaster assented thoughtfully. Once or twice his worn eyes swept the room—a room that made him homesick for his own. It had been a long time since he had sat in a chair in a room like this—a long time since he had talked with women and children. Perhaps the boy’s sister divined something of his thoughts—he was not much older than she—for, as he rose, hooking up his sabre, and stepped forward to take his leave, she stood up, too, offering her hand.
“Our house is always open to Union soldiers,” she said simply. “Will you come again?”
“Thank you,” he said. “You don’t know, I think, how much you have already done for me.”
They stood a moment looking at one another; then he bowed and turned to the boy, who caught his hand impulsively.
“I knew my sister would like you!” he exclaimed.
“Everybody is very kind,” said the young bandmaster, looking steadily at the boy.
Again he bowed to the boy’s sister, not raising his eyes this time; and, holding the child’s hand tightly in his, he walked out to the porch.
Moses was there to assist him with his long blue mantle; the boy clung to his gloved hand a moment, then stepped back into the doorway, where the old servant shuffled about, muttering half aloud: “Yaas, suh. Done tole you so. He bow lak de quality, he drink lak de Garnetts—what I tole yo’? Mars Will’m, ef dat ossifer ain’ er gin’ral, he gwine be mighty quick!”
“I don’t care,” said the boy, “I just love him.”
The negro shuffled out across the moonlit veranda, peered around through the fragrant gloom, wrinkled hands linked behind his back. Then he descended the steps stiffly, and teetered about through the shrubbery with the instinct of a watchdog worn out in service.
“Nuff’n to scare nobody, scusin’ de hoot owls,” he muttered. “Spec’ hit’s time Miss Celia bolt de do’, ’long o’ de sodgers an’ all de gwines-on. Shoo! Hear dat fool chickum crow!” He shook his head, bent rheumatically, and seated himself on the veranda step, full in the moonlight. “All de fightin’s an’ de gwines-on ’long o’ dis here wah!” he soliloquized, joining his shriveled thumbs reflectively. “Whar de use? Spound dat! Whar all de fool niggers dat done skedaddle ’long o’ de Linkum troopers? Splain dat!” He chuckled; a whip-poor-will answered breathlessly.
“Dar dat scan’lous widder bird a-hollerin’!” exclaimed the old man, listening. “ ’Pears lak we’s gwine have moh wah, moh daid men, moh widders. Dar de ha’nt! Dar de sign an’ de warnin’. G’way, widder bird.” He crossed his withered fingers and began rocking to and fro, crooning softly to himself:
“Butterfly a-flyin’ in de Chinaberry tree
(Butterfly, flutter by!),
Kitty gull a-cryin’ on the sunset sea
(Fly, li’l gull, fly high!),
Bully bat a-follerin’ de moon in de sky,
Widder bird a-hollerin’, ‘Hi, dar! Hi!’
Tree toad a-trillin’
(Sleep, li’l honey!
De moon cost a shillin’
But we ain’t got money!),
Sleep, li’l honey,
While de firefly fly,
An’ Chuck-Will’s Widder holler,
‘Hi, dar! Hi!’ ”
Before dawn the intense stillness was broken by the rushing music of the birds—a careless, cheery torrent of song poured forth from bramble and woodland. Distant and nearer cockcrows rang out above the melodious tumult, through which a low, confused undertone, scarcely apparent at first, was growing louder—the dull sound of the stirring of many men.
Men? The valley was suddenly alive with them, choking the roads in heavy silent lines; they were in the lanes, they plodded through the orchards, they swarmed across the hills, column on column, until the entire country seemed flowing forward in steady streams. Sandy River awoke, restlessly listening; lights glimmered behind darkened windows; a heavier, vaguer rumor grew, hanging along the hills. It increased to a shaking, throbbing monotone, like the far dissonance of summer thunder!
And now artillery was coming, bumping down the dim street with clatter of chain and harness jingling.
Up at the great house on the hill they heard it—the boy in his white nightdress leaning from the open window, and his sleepy sister kneeling beside him, pushing back her thick hair to peer out into the morning mist. On came the battery, thudding and clanking, horses on a long swinging trot, gun, caisson, forge, mounted artillerymen succeeding each