CHAPTER XXIX

.

FIVE MINUTES WITH THE MOONLIGHT--THE LAST SCENE AT JUDGE OWEN'S--CAPT. SLIVERS, OF THE SICKLES BRIGADE--TWO RIVALS DISGUISED, AND THE RESULT OF THEIR RENCONTRE.

There was no terrible portent in the air, hanging over the city of New York on that Thursday evening the Tenth of July, to which allusion has before been made as the same on which Richard Crawford and his companions reached Niagara. On the contrary, as some of the summer tourists may remember, that evening was remarkably and even wondrously beautiful. Not a clearer full moon ever rose than that which beamed over nearly the whole of the Northern States that night; and those, especially, who had the privilege of seeing that moon rise over the brow of Eagle Cliff at the Franconia Notch of the White Mountains, standing on the plateau in front of the Profile House and seeing the disk of glittering silver heaving slowly up beyond the crest, with the great trees on the summits defined against it so sharply, with the dark mountain brows frowning and the upturned human faces radiant in the silver light, and with every aspect and influence of the scene something wildly and weirdly beautiful--those who enjoyed that privilege will not be likely soon to lose the memory of one of the loveliest nights that ever dropped down out of heaven. How many souls, in one place and another, and under influences akin to those we have named, may have bowed down that night in worship before denied to the Almighty Hand that, not content with making a world instinct with life and usefulness, endowed it with such marvellous beauty! And how many young hearts, before that hour partial strangers to each other or divided by prudence or by ignorance, standing under that silver sheen may have acknowledged the influence of the time, melted into tenderness, and flowed together to be no more separated forever!

Moonlight is an enchanter as well as a beautifier, and the old fancy of

## partial madness when the moon was at the full (from which the word

"lunacy") was not altogether unwarranted by reality. At sea, in the tropics, a night on deck under the broad full moon stiffens and entirely maddens, if it does not kill; here the madness is only partial and it has a general reference to mischief and the opposite sex; but the influence is the same, under different degrees of development.

On how many lands and waters is such a broad full moon shining, and what varied scenes it throws into flickering light and shadow--the very thought being a part of the permitted madness of the time! Think of that strange variety for a moment. Far out on the ocean tired sailors throw themselves under the lee of the bulwarks and gaze up into its face, while the light plays fantastic tricks among the masts and cordage. Out of pleasant groves in the country light-robed figures are flitting, and under that marvellous sheen words are spoken that would long have been frightened back in the brighter glare of day--words that may make the happiness or misery of a life-time. Ringing laughter breaks from merry groups that glance in and out under the shade-trees and the vine-arbors that surround stately old mansions in the valleys of wheat and corn. Rough shouts and loud peals of laughter break from the rough throats of the raccoon and opossum hunters in the wild back-woods. A broken-hearted woman sits at her chamber-window and gazes out into the weird atmosphere, thinking of falsehood and sorrow and the inconstancy of one year. Half in the sheen and half in the shadow lies a little grave, its light and shade fit type of the love and grief of two who sit on a vine-covered porch and think of the day when they buried the dear little sleeper. In the dark passes of the Apennines lurks a bandit, poniard in hand, ready to spring on the unwary traveller as he emerges from the shadow. On the gardens and jalousies of fair Granada falls the silver beam, and guitars tinkle and white arms wave in recognition. Under the gloom of the palazzo of St. Mark, at Venice, a gondola is shooting, while the boatman hums a drowsy air and the lover anxiously watches for the waving of the white scarf of his mistress. Cascades leap down the mountain gorges, unheard of mortal ear and unseen by mortal eye, but scattering their diamond drops in air as a full libation to the glory of night. Far away at sea, on a drifting raft, a sailor eats his last biscuit and smiles sorrowfully back to the placid face that will look down next night upon his corpse!

All which may have very little to do with this story, and yet it may be fully warranted by the occasion. And at least it is justifiable to say that the full of the moon may have made Joe Harris madder than usual and readier than ever to indulge in frolics of the most reprehensible character. What we began to indicate, especially, was that no portent loomed in the heavens above the doomed city or even above the house of Judge Owen, and that still an earthquake was muttering and rumbling under it, destined to tumble it into the most fatal confusion.

At about half-past eight that evening, a ring at the door announced visitors. Judge Owen had not yet returned, but all the other members of the family, and one who expected to _become_ a member of the family--of course, Colonel John Boadley Bancker,--were sitting at that moment in the front parlor. For some reason or other, not necessary to be here explained, Emily went herself to the door and admitted the visitors. They proved to be Miss Josephine Harris, who had just alighted from a carriage at the door, and a male companion in uniform. Some time elapsed before the military gentleman, who was introduced to the young hostess as "Captain Robert Slivers," managed to get over the door-step, so very lame was he. But he managed to spare a hand for one moment from one of his crutches, the instant after; for Emily, who was half frightened out of her wits and half inclined to burst into uncontrollable laughter, felt a "pinch" on her arm which nearly made her scream aloud.

The military gentleman hobbled along into the room after them, and was introduced to the others there assembled. One of the burners of the chandelier only had been lit, but it quite sufficed to reveal an extraordinary figure. Captain Robert Slivers seemed to be about fifty to fifty-five, to judge by his gray hair and moustache; but any idea of the precise looks of his face was rendered impossible, by an immense green patch which concealed not only the right eye, but all that side of the nose and the temple, while the string running around his forehead took away any expression from that important part of the human countenance, and an oblong strip of black court-plaster extended diagonally from the left eye nearly to the corner of the mouth, creating an impression of very severe tattooing. A pair of green spectacles were mounted on the bridge of the nose, and the left glass did duty over the corresponding eye, while the other was unseen as relieved against the shade. So much for the facial appearance and adornments of this hero, and his other claims to notice were not less extraordinary. Sartorially, he wore an undress military cap, with the "U.S." on the front, and a dingy blue uniform with the shoulder-straps of a Captain of infantry. Physically he seemed nearly as much out of order as facially. He carried a heavy cane in his right hand, and the right foot was enclosed in a sort of moccasin or spatterdash which might have belonged to one of the conductors on an avenue railroad, for use in very severe weather. In shoe-makers' measurement this foot-gear would probably have been rated about number sixteen. Under the left arm, which was swathed below the elbow, he carried a crutch, and though the foot on that side seemed to be uninjured, the leg had not escaped so fortunately. It was stiffened and drawn up so that the toe merely touched the ground and the principal dependence was made upon the crutch. According to this arrangement, the left leg limped and the right foot shuffled, and the style of locomotion may be imagined.

But for the "pinch," which was a little characteristic, Emily Owen might have had grave doubts, even after the warning of the day before, whether this could be the sprightly young man whom she had known so well; and the very mother who bore him, if she could have seen him in that situation, would have been almost as excusable for not recognizing her offspring, as that traditional matron who defeated all the theories about "intuition" by not recognizing her son when "done up with pepper and onions, in a stew."

This interesting person was finally ushered into the parlor and introduced to the trio sitting there, as well as manoeuvered into a chair. Aunt Martha, behind the curtain, was not prevented by her fright at the possible consequences, from nearly smothering with concealed laughter at the wonderful metamorphosis which had been accomplished. Mrs. Owen, a weak woman with a soft heart, was dreadfully affected by the "reality of war" thus brought home to her, and uttered many ejaculations of pity, carefully under her breath for fear the "poor fellow" should hear her and be pained.

Colonel Bancker--there is no use disguising the fact--was literally horrified at the spectacle. A miserable old beau, with unlimited vanity and a desire to appear everything that other people admired, but without any other positive personal vices--he was, as Frank Wallace had always believed, an incarnate, unmitigated poltroon--a coward of the first water. He never had fought for anything, with hand or weapon--he never intended to fight for anything--he never _could_ fight for anything. He could not bear to think of being hurt himself, and he was pained beyond measure at the thought of seeing any one else injured or in suffering. One hour of the battle-field, with its sights and sounds of horror, would have killed him without any aid from sword or bullet. He could have been robbed in a dark street by a boy of ten years, who presented a knife or a pistol; and in any time of danger to himself or others (as may have been indicated by the adventure of the carriage before recorded) he could be of no more use than a baby in arms. Such men are not very common, but they do exist; and under any ordinary circumstances, as they cannot help the infirmities with which they are born, they should be pitied and not ridiculed. It is only when they attempt to disguise themselves in the characters of bolder and better men, that they deserve lashing without mercy.

Colonel Bancker had never had the least intention of going to the war, nor had he ever connected himself, except in the most vague description of talk, with any organization. He had never come nearer to a commission than to think about one--that is, think that he did not want one. He saw hundreds of others wearing uniforms and the insignia of rank without any intention of fighting, and thought that he could do as they did, sport borrowed plumes without too much enquiry being made into the source whence they were derived, and throw them off when he pleased, under any excuse which he might choose to invent--sickness, business engagements, or _dissatisfaction with the mode in which the war was being conducted_.

With the before-named dislike to being pained, Colonel Bancker had so far avoided all the painful sights of the war. He had not visited the wounded at the Park Barracks or in any of the hospitals--he had managed to see none of the maimed living and none of the glorious dead--he had even escaped the hungry wives of the soldiers, clamoring for their husbands' pay and the means to buy bread, along the crosswalks of the Park and at the entrances of the City Hall. So far he had escaped easily from what he most dreaded.

But within the last day or two a terrible disquiet had sprung up. The army was to be reinforced and a stringent conscription was talked of. Among the unpleasant rumors in circulation, was one that the Provost-Marshals were to be directed to arrest every man in officer's uniform found in the streets, and if he could exhibit no commission, force him to immediate service in the ranks! Here was a dilemma--a dilemma none the less for having two well-defined horns. His uniform was becoming dangerous, but how give it up? He was determined to win Emily Owen, and he had discovered that one of his strongest claims to the favor of her pig-headed father lay in the wearing of that very uniform and pretending to be a soldier. To give it up was to acknowledge that he had no intention of joining the army, and perhaps to lose all. No--he _must_ stick to those dangerous insignia of war, at least until he had accomplished his grand purpose, and then--. But they made him uncomfortable--very uncomfortable.

It was under such circumstances that Captain Robert Slivers, of the Sickles Brigade, came under his notice that evening, and he was horrified to see what wrecks war really made of men. One eye gone--a face cut to pieces--crippled in one leg, one arm and one foot--good heavens! For the moment the fright of such a spectacle almost overcame every other consideration, and Emily Owen and all her material charms became secondary to the thought of being placed beyond the danger of becoming a thing like _that_!

To add to the Colonel's horror, Captain Slivers seemed to take a decided fancy to him, and edged along his chair, the best he could do in his crippled condition, until he had brought it into very close juxtaposition to that of the Colonel; while the four ladies, conversing together, formed a circle of their own a little in the background. It may be said, here, that Frank Wallace, even through his one green spectacle-glass, had seen and recognized the disgust and terror on the face of the Colonel, and that he had determined to dose him thoroughly with such flippant horrors as his fertile imagination could readily manufacture for the occasion, but such as no battle-field on earth has ever had much chance of witnessing.

Near as they had been brought together, and inviting as was the chance for conversation between two members of the same profession, the gallant Colonel did not seem disposed to enter upon it with so fearful an object as the Captain. The latter was obliged to commence the attack, after all.

"Very glad to meet a brother in arms," said the pseudo-Captain, in an assumed bass, taking up his cane and giving a slight punch to the Colonel, who seemed pre-occupied.

"Oh! ah! yes, very glad, to be sure," answered the Colonel, who scarcely knew whether he was talking English or Choctaw at that moment. Then

## partially recovering himself and remembering that something in the shape

of conversation must be carried on, he said: "Very pretty girl that--cousin of yours, didn't they say, Captain? _What_ is her name?"

"Eh?" said the Captain. "Oh, my cousin yonder? yes, Miss Harris, Miss Joe Harris--daughter of Mrs. Harris." It is supposed that in the latter name he alluded to a somewhat doubtful character of Charles Dickens. "Devil of a girl, Colonel, _I_ tell you!"

"Ah, what do you mean?" asked the Colonel.

"Mean? why I mean that when I came home two or three days ago, she seemed rather glad than otherwise to see that I had been cut up. Stuck her finger in my eye, or rather in the place where my eye had been, to see whether they had made a clean operation of it, and nearly broke that bone of my left arm again, trying to discover whether they had set it entirely straight. Said I must have been a splendid subject in the hospital. Devil of a girl--going into one of the hospitals to nurse, directly. Says that she is never happy except she has a few broken limbs, and smashed heads, and gunshot wounds through the body, and holes made by Minie bullets, under her especial care."

"Horrible!" gasped the Colonel, who could no longer sit silent under such a revelation of female character.

"Yes, it _is_ a little horrible, but a fact, though!" said the Captain. "Devil of a girl, I tell you! I believe that she would just as lieve see my head amputated as not, provided she could stand by and witness a 'beautiful operation.'"

"I say this is dreadful!" said the Colonel.

"Dreadful, of course," said the Captain. "Still, nothing when you once get used to it. Plenty of women just like her--all female devils, though they manage to conceal the fact, sometimes, until they get a man under their thumbs, especially for the purpose of practising on him. But we _want_ women who have some nerve, for these bloody times. Don't you think so, Colonel?"

"Yes--I can't say--that is, really I don't know!" answered the Colonel, who did not at that particular moment, know much else than that he was a little sick at the stomach and that the whole world seemed to be a kind of hideous mockery.

"Oh yes, fact!" continued the Captain, who saw the white face and did not intend that it should regain any fresher color, in a hurry. "Bloody times, I tell you, Colonel! Make me think, sometimes, when the dead are lying in heaps around me and the blood running like small brooks, of that time prophesied for the Valley of Armageddon, when the blood is to run deep enough to reach to the horse-bridles."

"Captain," said the Colonel, "really I would rather--"

"Rather that I should talk about the present war, than anything in Scripture? of course--very natural and quite correct. Let me see--you were not at Fair Oaks, were you?"

"No," said the Colonel, emphatically.

"No, I suppose not," continued the pseudo-Captain. "Well, you ought to have been there--that is all! Highest old fight that any man ever heard of. When we went into battle we had not had a wink of sleep for ten nights, but I tell you that it kept us wide awake while it lasted! In the middle of the day the air was so thick with bullets and shells that it seemed to be as dark as twilight, and the blood at one time made such a river down one of the gulleys that dozens of men and horses were drowned in it!"

"Oh, this is too much!" gasped the Colonel, who thought of getting up and running away, anywhere beyond the sound of the voice of this sanguinary madman.

"Too much? of course it was too much!" echoed the veracious narrator. "But who could help it? Couldn't have so many dead men, you know, without plenty of blood! At one time there were so many of our fellows lying in a long win-row near the top of the hill, that when the rebels made an advance we punched holes through the wall of corpses and used them for breast-works."

The Colonel made an effort to stagger to his feet, but his nerves were too terribly unstrung to allow him that escape. He sunk back upon his chair in a state of partial syncope, aware that the terrible fellow was talking, and that he must be _lying_, but that there might be truth enough at the base of his stories to make them a fearful warning to all who had ever thought of tempting the field.

"Talk about the _chances_ of war!" the incorrigible romancer went on--"there was no chance about it, in such a fight as that at Fair Oaks or at Gaines' Mills! We went into Fair Oaks nine hundred and eighty-four strong, and came out _four_--three men and one officer! _I_ was the officer. I only had one Minie bullet through the left breast, too high to do much harm, two bullets in the left leg and right foot, my left arm broken by a fragment of shell and my right eye punched out by another. That was all that ailed _me_!"

"Heavens! heavens!" was all that the stupified Colonel could articulate.

"Yes," continued the Captain, "think of being obliged to fight like that on two meals a week, the meals consisting of boiled horse and mouldy crackers, drinking the same swamp water you have been standing in all day! And I suppose you think that our regiment lost heavily, Colonel? Eh? Well, you are mistaken! We had the crack regiment and scarcely suffered at all, in comparison with some of the others. They took a tally the day before I left, and found eight sound eyes, twelve legs that were good for anything, and six usable arms, in the whole division."

"Oh good Lord! he will kill me!" cried the Colonel, starting at last to his feet and utterly unable to endure such torture one moment longer.

By this time Frank Wallace, carried away by the excitement of the lies he had already vented, and observing how horrified he had succeeded in making his auditor, began to get a little reckless, and concluded that it was time to play the indignant. The ladies had been in conversation on the opposite side of the room, the elder members delighted with the new acquaintance to whom Emily had introduced them in Josephine; and though it may be supposed that at least two of them kept their regards pretty closely directed to the "military" corner of the room, much of the past conversation had been carried on in so subdued a tone as to be drowned by their own. What followed, however, they could not very well avoid hearing.

As the Colonel staggered to his feet and attempted to get away, the pseudo-Captain managed to crutch-and-cane himself to a standing position and confronted his superior.

"That last remark was offensive!" he said, speaking so that all in the room could hear him.

"What is offensive? What do you mean, sir?" asked the poor Colonel, now having thorough surprise added to his other emotions.

"Why this, sir?" cried the Captain, letting his big cane come down on the floor with such a thump as he had observed at the hands of enraged East Indian uncles and heavy fathers in old comedies. "You said in so many words, sir, that I was a bore and a humbug, and I do not take that from any man, sir!"

"I said nothing of the kind!" disclaimed the Colonel, who certainly had not used any such expression.

"What did you mean, then, sir, by the offensive expression: 'Good Lord! he will kill me!' I have not fought for nothing, sir! _I_ know what such words mean, and I would fight any man who used them, if I had only one arm and no leg to stand on!"

"Captain Slivers," said the Colonel, "you are unreasonable!"

"There he goes! another insult!" cried the disabled soldier, partially appealing to the ladies. Under any other circumstances than those just then existing, either or all the four would have made some attempt to prevent what they believed would eventuate in an outright quarrel; but Mrs. Owen, as the hostess, did not like to interfere with the right of a guest to quarrel or even to fight, if he thought proper to do so, and neither of the others dared say a word for fear of forcing a betrayal of the disguise.

"Well, then," said the Colonel, who had spirit enough, sometimes, as we have before seen, to grow angry and be even threatening when he saw no personal danger before him. "If you do not like that, I will say something more. You are either crazy or drunk, Captain Slivers, and I do not know or care which!"

"I will fight you to-morrow, cripple as I am!" cried the Captain, while the ladies had now all risen to their feet in real alarm. Then, as if suddenly recollecting: "Stop! no, I will punish you in another way. You wear a Colonel's uniform--where is your regiment, sir? I will make you join it to-morrow and march within the week. Every regiment in the city is to be ordered off at once. See if I have not influence enough with my uncle, the Governor, to send _you_ packing!"

"_Find_ my regiment first--_find_ it, sir!" said the Colonel, now fairly (and reasonably) exasperated beyond any recollection of what he was saying.

"Ah!--h!--h!" cried the Captain with one of those tones of stage exultation which he had so often heard proclaiming the final triumph of the villain or the discovery of that lost will which was to restore the flagging fortunes of persecuted virtue. "Ah!--h!--h! now I _have_ got you! You have no commission, you do not belong to any regiment, and you are subject to the draft that is already ordered! Do you hear me?--the _draft_! the _draft_!" and he howled it out towards the Colonel as if he suspected him of a very material failure in his sense of hearing.

Achilles had his vulnerable heel, and there are times in the lives of each of us when the arrow of accident, harmless at all other periods, can enter and ruin. Colonel Bancker had kept his secret, or believed that he had kept it, inviolate; but his fatal moment had come. Whether really frightened out of all recollection at the thought of that terrible "draft" which has already twice re-peopled Canada[17] at the expense of the population of the United States, or whether exultant beyond bounds at the knowledge that he could escape it, by his age, in spite of them all,--he uttered the fatal word, oblivious that Judge Owen stood angry and astonished at the parlor door, and that others to whom he had so roundly sworn that he was only thirty-two, were within hearing.

[Footnote 17: March 20th, 1863.]

"You meddling fool!--what can that draft do to _me_? I am exempt by age!"

"It is false! it is false!" cried the pseudo-Captain, driving the victim to the wall more closely than even _he_ knew. "You are not an exempt, and the Governor shall take care of _you_."

"It is a lie!" yelled the Colonel, now incensed beyond all recollection of time, place or auditors. "I am fifty-four!"

"Fifty-four!" There seemed to be a chorus of that compound word coming from the group of ladies; and even Judge Owen, who had been so solemnly assured that his intended son-in-law was more than twenty years younger, could not avoid joining in the astonished exclamation: "Fifty-four!"

But the climax had not yet been reached. There had long been a suspicion which almost amounted to a certainty, in the mind of Frank Wallace, with reference to one point of the gallant Colonel's personal adornment; and he was now quite enough carried away by the reckless mischief of his nature, to determine that that suspicion should be verified or disproved.

"Fifty-four?" echoed the scapegrace. "Impossible! No Commissioner will believe any such story! Look at your hair--not a thread of gray in it! Bah!" and before the Colonel could make any effectual attempt to prevent the movement, the Captain had allowed his cane to fall to the floor and made a sudden and determined grab at the head-covering of the man of exempt years. Any _effectual_ attempt to prevent the movement, it has been said: he did make an attempt to prevent it, however, as with a newly-awakened consciousness of danger. The only result of this sudden throwing out of his hands and scrambling with them, was that they came in sudden and violent contact with the head-covering and facial adornments of the pseudo-Captain, and that before any one else in the room could become fully aware of what had happened, the green patch, the green spectacles and gray wig which had metamorphosed the young man were all cleared away, and the curly head and bright face of Frank Wallace, printer and mischief-maker, stood fully revealed.

But it must be recorded that at that moment no one saw him. All eyes were turned in another direction, and yet one not very far removed. The sudden and vigorous jerk of the young man, which had been so determinedly guarded against, had yet produced its effect. In his hand he held a dark mass of hair, at the moment that his own pushed-off incumbrances tumbled to the floor; and a state of affairs was revealed on the cranium of the Colonel, for which not more than one of the company, or possibly two, could have been in the least degree prepared. What Virginia would have been, if cleared of all its woods and swamps and made into fair fighting-ground, and what Virginia is, with all its woods and swamps, while the Union soldiers fight over it at so terrible a disadvantage--may fitly present the contrast between Colonel John Boadley Bancker's head as it was and as it had been supposed. Not a spear of hair on it, from forehead to spine, so far as the eye could see by gas-light; and the head one of those fearful botches of nature when not over-well instructed in her work,--with the forehead retreating like the roof of a house, and the skull coming to a dull point at the top, like the end of a gigantic cucumber, and glossy and yellow like that cucumber ripening for seed! The total baldness of the head was bad enough, under the circumstances (especially for thirty-two!) but the _shape_ of that head!--oh father of that man, what right had you to visit your own sins upon a succeeding generation in such a manner?

The reception of this revelation was as varied, at first, as the characters of those who received it. Frank Wallace was so astounded at the extraordinary success of his manoeuvre, and at the same time at his own detection, that he dropped crutch and cane, allowed his sham wounded leg to straighten, and stood holding the wig in his hand as if he had no power to lay it down. Mrs. Owen screamed, that seeming to be the duty of hospitality when such a breach of good manners had been committed in her parlor. Josephine Harris paled, flushed, and finally fell back into a chair in such convulsions of laughter that she cried like a child. Emily Owen tried to look grave, but looked at Joe and soon followed her lead. Aunt Martha happened to have her handkerchief in her hand, and stuffed it into her mouth so tightly that she came near suffocating. Judge Owen still stood in the doorway, his face judicially severe and portentous, as if he felt that some awful desecration had been committed, for which the full severity of the criminal law could scarcely be an adequate punishment.

Not an instant, however, before the two young girls found recruits for their "forward movement." Aunt Martha's handkerchief flew from her mouth, and she laughed from cap to slipper. Mrs. Owen, thus deserted by her reserve, caught the infection and laughed still louder than Aunt Martha. Frank Wallace directly came in with a baritone which chimed well with the soprano of the young girls and the contralto of the middle-aged ladies. And Judge Owen, at last, having satisfied his judicial dignity by keeping his gravity longer than any one else, rung in with a gruff heavy bass that might have been contracted for in the damp vault of his own court-room.

There are said to be some occasions in which the highest order of eloquence is shown in total silence, and others in which the most indomitable bravery is shown by immediately running away. Certainly this was an opportunity for the display of the latter quality. Just when the laugh had fairly burst, Colonel John Boadley Bancker clapped his hand to his head, satisfied himself that the catastrophe had really occurred, then made a grab at the wig and caught it out of the hands of his tormentor, took three steps out of the room to the hat-rack in the hall, and a few more out into the bright moonlight. Napoleon had left Waterloo!

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