Part 2

"One forenoon, early in '71--the 29th of January, according to that little plate up there on the horns--I was sitting in my office and wrestling with the question whether I should lunch at half-past twelve or wait until one. Business happened to be quiet then, you see, and so I was able to give a good deal of thought to minor details like that. I had just decided in favor of half-past twelve, when a messenger came in and informed me that a certain Captain Pender was very desirous of having me come to the county jail to see him. Beyond this bald statement I could get no information except that the man who had sent for me was locked up on a pretty serious charge--just what, or how grave, the messenger didn't know.

"This bit of information made me forget all about the lunch question, and I wasted no time in getting over to the jail. And there, safely tucked away behind the bars, I found my Charleston acquaintance of '60--fuming and boiling with rage, and with the maddest kind of rage, too. Why, Pender was no lamb, at best, but when I got to him, that day, it was an even chance whether he'd kick down the walls of his cell or bite off the iron bars of the grated door. And his _language_--oh, it was sublime! I was in active service for four years, Kenryck, and gained some knowledge of the power of words; I've stood by and listened to an army teamster's remarks to a team of balky mules; I've even had occasion myself to make brief addresses to company skulkers whom I've caught modestly stealing to the rear; but I _never_ knew how much could be got out of our mother tongue until I stood outside of that cell door, and heard Pender tell what he thought of the man who had managed to get him shut up there."

"Well, what had he done?" asked Kenryck, as the colonel paused to signal for Sam, by rapping with his empty mug upon the table. "Had he shot that moose out of season?"

"Bah! no, he was in for a worse shooting affair than _that_," replied the colonel, still smiling at the remembrance of Pender's outburst. "After he'd cursed himself out of breath, and had been compelled, from sheer exhaustion, to seat himself upon the edge of his cot, I managed to get at the story of the whole trouble. It ran something like this:

"When the 'late unpleasantness' began, Pender, as you may have guessed, lost no time in taking a hand in the game, and as his tastes led him in that direction he entered the confederate naval service--such as it was. He was a capable officer, without any doubt, and promotion came rapidly in his case, for, a little over two years after the war had begun, he had reached the rank of captain. Now the other side never was very strong in the naval branch of the service, and after a time Pender--who never was any _too_ patient--began to fidget and fuss because he couldn't seem to get a vessel that suited him, and, what was worse, could see no prospect of having one provided for him. Well, what do you suppose he did? You've heard of the _Halifax_ affair?"

"No," said Kenryck, "can't say that I have--or, if I have, I don't recall it now."

"It was as plucky an exhibition as was put up by either side during the whole war--about the same sort of exploit that some of our fellows performed when they captured the locomotive inside the confederate lines," said the colonel, taking the replenished mug which Sam had brought him. "Pender, as I have said, wanted a ship,--and wanted it badly,--so, as the confederacy wasn't _building_ many at that time, he calmly sat down and gave his brains a chance, and ended up by figuring out that it would be comparatively easy, and superlatively cheap, to come up north and help himself to one.

"And he _did_ it, too, by Jove!" said the colonel, bringing his fist down with a thump upon the oaken table. "He just took his pick among the officers whom he knew, and selected an even half-dozen, besides himself, to work out his little idea. One by one they slipped inside our lines, and finally they all got together safely up here in Boston. It must have been nuts for Pender--the secret and solemn conspirators' meetings, the planning and plotting of when and how, and the stiff seasoning of danger which gave spice to the whole undertaking. He told me himself that he gladly would give ten years of his life to go through with it again.

"At that time there was a line of steamers running between this port and the 'Provinces,' and the vessels composing it were all first-class, seaworthy craft; for, as probably you know, there's pretty nasty weather to be met, off there to the east'ard. Now, of the whole lot the _Halifax_ was the best, and our government had had an eye on her for some time, for she had in her the making of a good gun-boat, and would have come up very handily to blockading requirements. But Pender's eye was just as keen as Uncle Sam's, and Pender's motions were a great deal more sudden, and so the _Halifax_ never attained the dignity of a place in our navy; for, when she left her dock to begin her last voyage 'Down East,' she bore upon her passenger-list seven ornamentally fictitious names, under cover of which travelled Captain John Harnden Pender, C.S.N., and the six choice spirits whom he had chosen to back him up."

"So he stole her, did he?" exclaimed Kenryck, at last beginning to take a little interest in the story.

"_Stole_ her! no, indeed," said Colonel Elliott, in a tone of rebuke. "That's hardly a gentlemanly way to put it. In war you don't steal things: you _capture_ them. Identity in ideas, you know, but dissimilarity in terms. Pender would be hurt if he should happen to hear his exploit classed as larceny. Well, the _Halifax_ went churning along on her course, and until she was well outside the bay there was nothing unusual in the conduct of her passengers. But when she had a good offing, there came a transformation scene; and, all of a sudden, the men in the pilot-house and engine-room found themselves looking into the barrels of a very respectable number of navy revolvers.

"There wasn't much chance for argument. One of the engineers tried it on, but he only got shot for his pains--and the results in his case seemed to discourage the others. In short, the job was done neatly and in a thoroughly workmanlike way, and it took, all told, not much over half an hour to change the course of the _Halifax_ from a northerly to a southerly one. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, it _was_."

"So they got clean away with her?" said the colonel's listener. "It hardly seems possible!"

"Yes, at first they played in luck, and got away with her right enough," said Colonel Elliott; "but their luck failed to hold, and off the coast of the Carolinas they had to go blundering plump into the blockading squadron. Sandy as Pender was, he couldn't fight his ship with Colt's revolvers, so, when he found himself in a fair way to be pocketed by two or three of our cruisers, he made the best of a bad mess, headed the poor old _Halifax_ for the shore, sent her, head on and at full speed, upon the sands, and left her there ablaze from stem to stern. I don't know what he said during the operation, but I'd bet something that if his words were put into print they'd have to be bound in asbestos or some other non-inflammable material. Well, it _was_ hard luck, and--Union veteran though I am--I'm damned if I can help feeling sorry that Pender didn't get away with his ship! I'd have liked to see what he'd have done with her."

The colonel reached for the tobacco-jar, filled a corn-cob, lighted it, and then went on: "After this unsuccessful experiment of his, he failed to get many more chances, for in some scrimmage or other he managed to get badly used up, and didn't get fairly into shape until the war was nearly over. When finally the Confederacy went down he was one of those who couldn't philosophically accept the result of the struggle, and in an aimless sort of way he drifted over to England. There he brought up at Liverpool, and in the course of events happened again upon old David McClintock. Well, after this he had everything his own way, for the old man completely surrendered to him. First, he went to stay at Mac's house; next, he went into business with him; and finally he made love to Bess and married her. He couldn't have wasted much time over it all, either, for it all had taken place when he showed up, here in Boston, in '71. But that was Pender all over. 'Eh, but he was a spirited lad, ye know.'"

Kenryck laughed at this application of old McClintock's words, and the colonel, who had stopped to pack more closely the tobacco in his pipe, continued: "He had come to Boston on a matter of business, and was about to look me up when he found himself put behind the bars, almost as soon as he had stepped off the New York train. How did _that_ come about? Very simply. It seems that he had met, at some hotel in Liverpool, a Boston man who still was rabid on the war question. The fellow wasn't a veteran, but was one of those who staid at home and _shouted_ for the Union--and they are the ones who keep the hatchet longest unburied. Somehow he managed to get into a discussion with Pender, and displayed such a lamentable lack of tact that, before he half knew it, the little ex-rebel had knocked him flat, and had repeated the operation twice running. It was a sort of argument to which he was unaccustomed, and he seemed offended at it."

"A bit put out, eh?" said Kenryck, with a grin at the matter-of-fact way in which Colonel Elliott made this latter statement.

"More _knocked_ out," replied the colonel, with an answering smile. "I'm not wasting much sympathy over him, for he wasn't exactly the style of man I like. Why, Kenryck, instead of getting up and going for Pender, he slunk off quietly and, all by himself, hatched up a dirty little scheme for squaring the account without running further risk of getting a black eye.

"In some way he'd got hold of Pender's war record, and, learning that he shortly was to come across to this side, he made off, post-haste, for Boston, where he set to work very industriously to arrange a proper reception for the man who had presumed to punch his patriotic nose. I must admit that he did his work very nicely, and the first results probably were quite gratifying to him, for about as soon as Pender set foot in this town he was arrested under a warrant charging piracy, and murder on the high seas, and pretty much every cheerful sort of crime and misdemeanor, all on account of his little escapade on the _Halifax_, eight years before. It was at this stage of the game that I was called upon to take a hand."

"Why, I'm blessed if I can see--" began Kenryck.

"How the charges could be supported, eh?" said the colonel, finishing his question for him. "Well, they couldn't be, and weren't. The case never came to trial, for we were able to show the facts of the matter in the proper light, and with less trouble than I had dared hope. But I had to trot up bail to the amount of fifteen thousand before I could put Pender into more congenial quarters, and, first and last, I wasted the better part of a week in getting the complications disentangled."

"And _then_ what happened?" asked Kenryck, with a grin of anticipation. "I suppose Pender took the first chance to knock the head off his man?"

"_Wouldn't_ he have!" said Colonel Elliott, with something like a sigh of relief at the thought that his peppery little southerner was safe in Liverpool again, and unlikely ever to cause him further trouble. "Why, Kenryck, I honestly thought he'd be back again in jail inside of a week, and for _real_ murder, too. But, luckily, our friend the informer found it convenient to leave town as soon as he saw the turn affairs were taking, and so the gutters didn't run with blood, after all.

"Well, things calmed down, and in time Pender cooled off sufficiently to attend to his business. But he worried the life half out of me by thanking me over and over again, at all sorts of times and in all sorts of places, for what he was pleased to call my 'soldierly magnanimity.' At last, and just as he was beginning to become rather a bore, he took himself off on a hunting trip, somewhere up Canada way, and that was the last I saw of him, for he went back to England by way of Montreal. But after he'd been gone about three weeks I had a reminder of him, in the shape of that pair of horns, which, with his card attached, came to me by express. I had them mounted on the shield, and put that plate upon them, partly because they recall rather an odd experience, and partly to keep myself in mind that the war is over."

"Now, that's quite a story," said Kenryck, as the colonel paused. "I should think, though, that you would keep the horns at home. They are a splendid pair, and the story makes them doubly valuable."

"I had them in my hall for years," said the colonel, "but when we set out to fit up The Battery here, I chipped them in as part of my contribution, for that space of wall, in there between the colors, seemed made on purpose for them. But those antlers are not my only reminder of Pender's gratitude," he continued, taking out his pocket-book and extracting from it a photograph of a bald-headed, pudgy-faced infant, "for here's a picture of a young Liverpool citizen who rejoices in the name of Henry Elliott Pender. He's Pender's third, and he's bound to grow up into a terrible little rebel, for his father is still unreconstructed. Doesn't look very formidable, does he? I'm ready, though, to bet my commission against a corporal's warrant that, one of these days, I'll have a namesake in either Her Majesty's army or navy, for the little rascal comes of fighting stock, and blood will tell."

"Apparently the doctor _didn't_ have a grudge to settle," said Kenryck, handing back the photograph. Then, after disposing of what little beer was left in his pewter, he got upon his feet, saying, "Well, Colonel, I hope I'll have the luck to get up here often, for I want to hear the stories that go with the rest of these odds and ends."

"Hello!" said Colonel Elliott, glancing at the clock. "Is it so late as _that_! Trust I've not bored you; you're too good a listener to frighten away."

Kenryck went to rescue his overcoat from the fast diminishing pile upon the chair, while the colonel, pipe in hand, took up a position near the door, to bid good-night to our departing guests. By twos and threes our visitors left us, and then the colonel, as the last descending footfall echoed faintly up the long staircase, turned and glanced at the disorderly array of empty mugs. "I venture to assert," he said, with a laugh, "that there are worse places for story-telling than The Battery. Judging by appearances, I think it doubtful if there's been a _dry_ yarn told to-night, up here."

"Twenty-two, twenty-four, twenty-six," counted Sam, as he made the rounds of the deserted tables. "Twenty-six mugs t' clean an' shine up! Wal, 'twan't sich a bad evenin' a'ter all." And we left him gathering up the tarnished pewters, and swearing strange, New England oaths--"B'gosh!" and "I swan!" and "Gol darn!"--at the prospect of the morrow's polishing.

ONE RECORD ON THE REGIMENTAL ROLLS

ONE RECORD ON THE REGIMENTAL ROLLS.

"Very pretty," said the colonel, "very pretty, indeed. Quite up to _our_ standard, eh, Jack? Guard looks small, though,--doesn't it?--to one who's used to seeing twenty-four files paraded." The colonel and I had got leave for a couple of weeks to run down to Old Point to see the heavy gun practice, and now we stood watching the new guard as it marched away to relieve the old details.

Yes, it _was_ pretty, all of it,--very pretty indeed,--and I felt repaid for the early breakfast we had taken in order to get over to the fort in time for the ceremony. The surroundings made a fitting frame for the picture: before us lay the broad, green floor of the level parade, its carpet of short-cropped turf still glistening with the morning dew; the angular lines of the great, ungainly barracks somehow looked less harsh in the warm sunshine; and the officers' quarters, half hidden beneath the scrubby oaks and overhanging willows, looked cosey and comfortable--and almost too homelike for such a place.

While the gray, sod-capped walls of the old fort still were ringing with the quickstep played by the four smart trumpeters who led the guard in its march, we turned and left the parade, loitering for a moment at the place where the old guns--relics of Yorktown, Saratoga, and many another by-gone siege and battle--lie sullen and dumb, while the green mould of long years gathers ever more thickly upon cascabel, chase, and trunnion. "Back numbers," said the colonel, half to himself, as he stooped to read the inscription deeply graven in the metal of an old field-piece, "back numbers, all of them. 'Captured at Yorktown'--and that was more than a hundred years ago! Well, those who won and those who lost are under ground now, and the old gun's dead, too. It has said its last word."

We sauntered away, through the echoing archway, and across the drawbridge which spans the green and quiet water of the wide ditch; and as we slowly walked past the water battery, with its long row of grim, black Rodmans frowning out upon the bay--each in its vaulted casemate--like so many kennelled watch-dogs, the colonel broke the silence with, "Do you know, Jack, I don't care particularly about watching the firing to-day? The pounding we got yesterday was infernal. I hope this country can steer clear of war until we've perfected the pneumatic gun."

"Well, I don't know," said I. "Wouldn't that seem too much like fighting with bean-blowers?"

"It wouldn't much resemble the fighting in the old days--and that's a fact," replied the colonel, kicking into the ditch a pebble from the gravelled roadway, and smiling at the sudden scattering of a school of little fish, caused by the unexpected splash. "I'm not so sure, after all, that I'm in a hurry for the time to arrive when some fellow, ten miles or so away, can free a lot of compressed air, and by means of it drop half a barrel of dynamite in my vicinity--without even so much as a puff of smoke to show which way I ought to turn to bow my acknowledgments. I've an idea, old man, that a little occurrence of that sort would scatter even the gallant Third about as completely and expeditiously as my pebble disorganized those minnows."

A few steps more brought us beyond the last of the curving line of casemates, and as we turned towards the hotel the colonel said, "I feel that I'm growing old, for now-a-days even a little heavy gun firing makes my ears ache, and anything _over_ a little bores me. Thirty years ago I didn't mind it so much as I do now. _Thirty years ago?_ Why, Jack, I can't realize it! But it must be that: yes, '61 from '91; that makes it--and it makes me an old man, too."

"Nonsense!" said I, laughing, for in all the Third there is no younger-hearted man than the colonel who commands it. "It makes you nothing of the sort. In '61 you were nineteen; add thirty to that--and it leaves you still on the sunny side of fifty. See here, Colonel; on our rolls we have seven hundred men, and some few over--how many are there among them who could down you to-day?"

"Not many, if I _do_ say it," replied the colonel, with his usual modesty, drawing himself up and stretching out one long arm, to gaze contemplatively at the sinewy wrist and compact bunch of knuckles with which it terminated. "But all that only goes to show how well preserved I am, for I _am_ an old man, in spite of what you say. Confound you, Jack! Can't you let a veteran have the satisfaction of _feeling_ venerable and antique?"

"All right," I replied, laughing again. "You're my commanding officer, and if you order me to consider you a relic, why, I must, I suppose. Perhaps it may comfort you to know that the boys conversationally refer to you as 'the old man.'"

"There, enough of that," said the colonel, as we stepped upon the planking of the long piazza. "What's the use of discussing my infirmities? Now, how shall we kill time this forenoon? Billiards? No, hardly; it's too good a day to waste indoors. I'll tell you what we'll do, my boy: we'll go over to Hampton and take a look at the old fellows in the 'Home.' Which shall it be, drive or walk?"

"Walk," said I promptly, as I felt the fresh, salt breeze come stealing in from off the water; "yes, we'll walk, unless at your advanced age you don't feel quite up to the exertion."

"Walk it is, then," said the colonel, ignoring my attempt to pay proper deference to his accumulated years. "Just wait a second, though; I must fill my pockets before we start. I like to lay a trail of cigars when I go among the old boys," and with this he disappeared into the hotel, from which he emerged a moment later, bearing a paper of weeds which, he explained, were not rankly poisonous for open-air smoking, though they might involve some unpleasant consequences if lighted within-doors.

We set off at a swinging gait along the road, and in something less than half an hour found ourselves at the entrance of the well-kept grounds in which are clustered the buildings of the Soldiers' Home. It is a beautiful place, that quiet spot by the southern sea, and I never could tire of strolling along its flower-bordered walks, and among its sunny nooks and corners. And yet, even in the midst of the brightest sunshine, one cannot escape the thought that the hundreds upon hundreds of gray-haired, feeble men who throng these grounds have come here, after all, only to _die_, and are waiting--waiting until it shall be their turn to be carried out to the great graveyard which, with its acres and acres of white headstones, lies but a few short steps outside the gates. It is a thought that somehow seems to dim the sunshine a little, and though the place is wonderfully picturesque, and wears an outward air of ease and comfort, yet I, for one, never can be there without feeling almost awe-stricken at the remembrance of what it all means.

"Now, Jack," said the colonel, as we walked leisurely along the broad, hard roadway, which runs parallel with the blue waters of Hampton Roads, "keep an eye out for 'blue Maltees,' for that's the particular breed of cats we're after."

"All right," I replied, interpreting this command to mean that I was to be on the watch for veterans wearing the badge of the old 19th Army Corps--the blue Maltese cross; a device which we of the Third still retain, in memory of the days when the "Old Regiment" won its renown. "White diamonds, red crescents, and stars of every color seem to be plenty, Colonel, but, so far as I can see, 'Maltees' are at a premium."

"Oh, we shall find one," said the colonel, "we surely shall find one. There are rows upon rows of them lying quietly over yonder," with a nod towards the flag floating above the cemetery, "but they are not yet all mustered out. There's one now, over on that bench. See him?"

Yes, I saw him; a short, wiry man; a man with whitened hair, keen gray eyes, a sharply-pointed nose, and a clean-shaven face whose every line and wrinkle betokened shrewdness and native wit. At the first brief glance I knew him for a Yankee, a thoroughbred old New Englander.

He was sitting alone upon the bench, with one knee drawn up and held by his clasped hands. Upon his cap he wore the blue Maltese cross we had been seeking, and on the breast of his faded and loosely fitting army blouse hung a simple medal of bronze. Into one corner of his mouth was stuck a quaintly carved, briar-wood pipe, and as he tranquilly sat there, blowing from his thin lips an occasional puff of smoke, he seemed contented with himself and the world in general--and I somehow thought that in his expression I saw something different from the air of hopelessness which had been so sadly common to the many old soldiers we had passed before we happened upon him.