MR. COLBURNE TAKES A SEGAR WITH LIEUTENANT-COLONEL CARTER.
As Colburne neared his house he saw the Lieutenant-Colonel standing in
the flare of a street lamp and looking up at the luminary with an air of
puzzled consideration. With a temperance man's usual lack of charity to
people given to wine, the civilian judged that the soldier was
disgracefully intoxicated, and, instead of thinking how to conduct him
quietly home, was about to pass him by on the other side. The
Lieutenant-Colonel turned and recognized the young man. In other states
of feeling he would have cut him there and then, on the ground that it
was not binding on him to continue a chance acquaintance. But being full
at the moment of that comprehensive love of fellow existences which some
constitutions extract from inebriating fluids, he said,
"Ah! how are you? Glad to come across you again."
Colburne nodded, smiled and stopped, saying, "Can I do anything for
you?"
"Will you smoke?" asked the Lieutenant-Colonel, offering a segar. "But
how to light it? there's the rub. I've just broken my last match against
this cursed wet lamp-post--never thought of the dew, you know--and was
studying the machine itself, to see if I could get up to it and into
it."
"I have matches," said Colburne. He produced them; they lighted and
walked on together.
Being a great fancier of good segars, and of moonlit summer walks under
New Boston elms, I should like here to describe how sweetly the
fragrance of the Havanas rose through the still, dewy air into the
interlacing arches of nature's cathedral aisles. The subject would have
its charms, not only for the great multitude of my brother smokers, but
for many young ladies who dearly love the smell of a segar because they
like the creatures who use them. At a later period of this history, if I
see that I am likely to have the necessary space and time, I may bloom
into such pleasant episodes.
"Come to my room," said the soldier, taking the arm of the civilian.
"Hope you have nothing better to do. We will have a glass of ale."
Colburne would have been glad to refuse. He was modest enough to feel
himself at a disadvantage in the company of men of fashion; and moreover
he was just sufficiently jealous of the Lieutenant-Colonel not to desire
to fraternize with him. Finally, a strong suspicion troubled his mind
that this military personage, indifferent to New Boston opinions, and
evidently a wine-bibber, might proceed to get publicly drunk, thus
making a disagreeable scene, with a chance of future scandal. Why then
did not Colburne decline the invitation? Because he was young,
good-natured, modest, and wanting in that social tact and courage which
most men only acquire by much intercourse with a great variety of their
fellow creatures. The Lieutenant-Colonel's walk was the merest trifle
unsteady, or at least careless, and his herculean arm, solid and
knotted as an apple-tree limb, swayed repeatedly against Colburne,
eliciting from him a stroke-oarsman's approbation. Proud of his own
biceps, the young man had to acknowledge its comparative inferiority in
volume and texture.
"Are you a gymnast, Colonel?" he asked. "Your arm feels like it."
"Sword exercise," answered the other. "Very good thing to work off a
heavy dinner. What do you do here? Boat it, eh? That's better yet, I
fancy."
"But the sword exercise is just the thing for your profession."
"Pshaw!--beg pardon. But do you suppose that we in these times ever
fight hand to hand? No sir. Gunpowder has killed all that."
"Perhaps there never was much real hand to hand fighting," suggested
Colburne. "Look at the battle of Pharsalia. Two armies of Romans, the
best soldiers of antiquity, meet each other, and the defeated party
loses fifteen thousand men killed and wounded, while the victors lose
only about two hundred. Is that fighting? Isn't it clear that Pompey's
men began to run away when they got within about ten feet of Cæsar's?"
"By Jove! you're right. Bully for you! You would make a soldier. Yes.
And if Cæsar's men had had long-range rifles, Pompey's men would have
run away at a hundred yards. All victories are won by moral force--by
the terror of death rather than by death itself."
"Then it is not the big battalions that carry the day," inferred
Colburne. "The weakest battalions will win, if they will stand."
"But they won't stand, by Jove! As soon as they see they are the
weakest, they run away. Modern war is founded on the principle that one
man is afraid of two. Of course you must make allowance for
circumstances, strength of position, fortifications, superior
discipline, and superior leadership. Circumstances are sometimes strong
enough to neutralize numbers.--Look here. Are you interested in these
matters? Why don't you go into the army? What the devil are you staying
at home for when the whole nation is arming, or will soon have to arm?"
"I"--stammered Colburne--"I _have_ thought of applying for a
quartermaster's position."
"A quartermaster's!" exclaimed the Lieutenant-Colonel, without seeking
to disguise his contempt. "What for? To keep out of the fighting?"
"No," said Colburne, meekly. "But I do know a little of the ways of
business, and I know nothing of tactics and discipline. I could no more
drill a company than I could sail a ship. I should be like the man who
mounted such a tall horse that he not only couldn't manage him, but
couldn't get off till he was thrown off. I should be dismissed for
incompetency."
"But you can learn all that. You can learn in a month. You are a college
man, aint you?--you can learn more in a month than these boors from the
militia can in ten years. I tell you that the fellows who are in command
of companies in my regiment, and in all the volunteer regiments that I
know, are not fit on an average to be corporals. The best of them are
from fair to middling. You are a college man, aint you? Well, when I get
a regiment you shall have a company in it. Come up to my quarters, and
let's talk this over."
Arrived at his room, Carter rang for Scotch ale and segars. In the
course of half an hour he became exceedingly open-hearted, though not
drunk in the ordinary and disagreeable acceptation of the word.
"I'll tell you why I am on here," said he. "It's my mother's native
State--old Baratarian family--Standishes, you know--historically Puritan
and colonial. The Whitewoods are somehow related to me. By the way, I'm
a Virginian. I suppose you think it queer to find me on this side. No
you don't, though; you don't believe in the State Right of secession.
Neither do I. I was educated a United States soldier. I follow General
Scott. No Virginian need be ashamed to follow old Fuss and Feathers. We
used to swear by him in the army. Great Scott! the fellows said. Well,
as I had to give up my father's State, I have come to my mother's. I
want old Barataria to distinguish herself. Now's the chance. We are
going to have a long war. I want the State to be prepared and come out
strong; it's the grandest chance she'll ever have to make herself
famous. I've been to see the Governor. I said to him, 'Governor, now's
your chance; now's the chance for Barataria; now's my chance. It's going
to be a long war. Don't depend on volunteering--it won't last. Get a
militia system ready which will classify the whole population, and bring
it into the fight as fast as it's needed. Make the State a Prussia. If
you'll allow me, I'll draw up a plan which shall make Barataria a
military community, and put her at the head of the Union for moral and
physical power. Appoint me your chief of staff, and I'll not only draw
up the plan, but put it in force. Then give me a division, or only a
brigade, and I'll show you what well-disciplined Baratarians can do on
the battle-field.' Now what do you think the Governor
answered?--Governor's a dam fool!"
"Oh, no!" protested Colburne, astonished; for the chief magistrate of
Barataria was highly respected.
"I don't mean individually--not a natural-born fool," explained the
Lieutenant-Colonel--"but a fool from the necessity of the case;
mouthpiece, you see, of a stupid day and generation. What can he do? he
asks. I admit it. He can't do anything but what Democracy permits. Lose
the next election, he says. Well, I suppose he would; and that won't
answer. Governor's wise in his day and generation, although a fool by
the eternal laws of military reason.--I don't know as I talk very
clearly. But you get at my meaning, don't you?--Well, I had a long
argument, and gave it up. We must go on volunteering, and commissioning
the rusty militia-men and greasy demagogues who bring in the companies.
The rank and file is magnificent--can't be equalled--too good. But such
an infernally miserable set as the officers average! Some bright young
fellows, who can be licked into shape; the rest old deacons, tinkers,
military tailors, Jew pedlars broken down stump orators; wrong-headed
cubs who have learned just enough of tactics to know how not to do it.
Look at the man that I, a Virginian gentleman, a West Pointer, have over
me for Colonel. He's an old bloat--an old political bloat. He knows no
more of tactical evolutions than he does of the art of navigation. He'll
order a battalion which is marching division front to break into
platoons. You don't understand that? It's about the same as--well, never
mind--it can't be done. Well, this cursed old bloat is engineering to be
a General. We don't want such fellows for Generals, nor for Colonels,
nor for Captains, nor for privates, by Jove! If Barataria had to fit out
frigates instead of regiments, I wonder if she would put such men in
command of them. Democracy might demand it. The Governor would know
better, but he might be driven to it, for fear of losing the next
election."
"Now then," continued the Lieutenant-Colonel, "I come to business. We
shall have to raise more regiments. I shall apply for the command of one
of them, and shall get it. But I want gentlemen for my officers. I am a
gentleman myself, and a West Pointer. I don't want tinkers and pedlars
and country deacons. You're a college man, aint you? All right. College
men will do for me. I want you to take a company in my regiment, and get
in as many more of your set as you can. I'm not firing blank cartridge.
My tongue may be thick, but my head is clear. Will you do it?"
"I will," decided Colburne, after a moment of earnest consideration.
The problem occurred to him whether this man, clever as he was,
professional soldier as he was, but apparently a follower of rash John
Barleycorn, would be a wiser leader in the field than a green but
temperate civilian. He could not stop to settle the question, and
accepted the Lieutenant-Colonel's leadership by impulse. The latter
thanked him cordially, and then laughed aloud, evidently because of that
moment of hesitation.
"Don't think I'm this way always," he said. "Never when on duty; Great
Scott! no man can say that. Indeed I'm not badly off now. If I willed it
I could be as logical as friend Whitewood--I could do a problem in
Euclid. But it would be a devil of an effort. You won't demand it of me,
will you?"
"It's an odd thing in man," he went on gravely, "how he can govern
drunkenness and even sickness. Just as though a powder-magazine should
have self-control enough not to explode when some one throws a live coal
into it. The only time I ever got drunk clear through, I did it
deliberately. I was to Cairo, caught there by a railroad breakdown, and
had to stay over a night. Ever at Cairo? It is the dolefullest,
cursedest place! If a man is excusable anywhere for drinking himself
insensible, it is at Cairo, Illinois. The last thing I recollect of that
evening is that I was sitting in the bar-room, feet against a pillar,
debating whether I would go quite drunk, or make a fight and stay sober.
I said to myself, It's Cairo, and let myself go. My next distinct
recollection is that of waking up in a railroad car. I had been half
conscious two or three times previously, but had gone to sleep again,
without taking notice of my surroundings. This time I looked about me.
My carpet-bag was between my feet, and my over-coat in the rack above my
head. I looked at my watch; it was two in the afternoon. I turned to the
gentleman who shared my seat and said, 'Sir, will you have the goodness
to tell me where this train is going?' He stared, as you may suppose,
but replied that we were going to Cincinnati. The devil we are! thought
I; and I wanted to go to St. Louis. I afterwards came across a man who
was able to tell me how I got on the train. He said that I came down at
five in the morning, carpet-bag and over-coat in hand, settled my bill
in the most rational manner possible, and took the omnibus to the
railroad station. Now it's my belief that I could have staved off that
drunken fit by obstinacy. I can stave this one off. You shall see."
He emptied his glass, lighted a fresh segar big enough to floor some men
without other aid, and commenced walking the room, taking it diagonally
from corner to corner, so as to gain a longer sweep.
"Don't stir," he said. "Don't mind me. Start another segar and try the
ale. You won't? What an inhuman monster of abstinence!"
"That is the way they bring us up in New Boston. We are so temperate
that we are disposed to outlaw the raising of rye."
"You mean in your set. There must be somebody in this city who gets
jolly! there is everywhere, so far as I have travelled. You will find a
great many fellows like me, and worse, in the old army. And good reason
for it; just think of our life. All of us couldn't have nice places in
charge of arsenals, or at Newport, or on Governor's Island. I was five
years on the frontier and in California before I got to Baton Rouge; and
that was not so very delightful, by the way, in yellow fever seasons.
Now imagine yourself in command of a company garrisoning Fort
Wallah-Wallah on the upper Missouri, seven hundred miles from an opera,
or a library, or a lady, or a mince pie, or any other civilizing
influence. The Captain is on detached service somewhere. You are the
First Lieutenant, and your only companion is Brown the Second
Lieutenant. You mustn't be on sociable terms with the men, because you
are an officer and a gentleman. You have read your few books, and talked
Brown dry. There is no shooting within five miles of the fort; and if
you go beyond that distance, the Blackfeet will raise your hair. What is
there to save you from suicide but old-rye? That's one way we come to
drink so. You are lucky. You have had no temptations, or almost none,
in this little Puritan city."
"There are some bad places and people here. I don't speak of it
boastingly."
"Are there?" laughed Carter. "I'm delighted to hear it, by Jove! When my
father went through college here, there wasn't a chance to learn
anything wicked but hypocrisy. Chance enough for that, judging from the
stories he told me. So old Whitewood is no longer the exact model of all
the New Bostonians?"
"Not even in the University. There used to be such a solemn set of
Professors that they couldn't be recognized in the cemetery because they
had so much the air of tombstones. But that old dark-blue lot has nearly
died out, and been succeeded by younger men of quite a pleasant cerulean
tint. They have studied in Europe. They like Paris and Vienna, and other
places that used to be so wicked; they don't think such very small lager
of the German theologians; they accept geology, and discuss Darwin with
patience."
"Don't get out of my range. Who the devil is Darwin? Never mind; I'll
take him for granted; go on with your new-school Professors."
"Oh, I havn't much to say about them. They are quite agreeable. They are
what I call men of the world--though I suppose I hardly know what a man
of the world is. I dare say I am like the mouse who took the first dog
that he saw for the elephant that he had heard of."
The Lieutenant-Colonel stopped his walk and surveyed him, hands in
pockets, a smile on his lip, and a silent horse-laugh in his eye.
"Men of the world, are they? By Jove! Well; perhaps so; I havn't met
them yet. But if it comes to pointing out men of the world, allow me to
indicate our Louisiana friend, Ravenel. There's a fellow who can do the
universally agreeable. You couldn't tell this evening which he liked
best, Whitewood or me; and I'll be hanged if the same man can like both
of us. When he was talking with the Professor he seemed to be saying to
himself, 'Whitewood is my blue-book;' and when he was talking with me
his whole countenance glowed with an expression which stated that
'Carter is the boy.' What a diplomatist he would make! I like him
immensely. He has a charming daughter too; not beautiful exactly, but
very charming."
Colburne felt an oppression which would not allow him to discuss the
question. At the same time he was not indignant, but only astonished,
perhaps also a little pleased, at the tone of indifference with which
the other spoke of the young lady. His soul was so occupied with this
new train of thought that I doubt whether he heard understandingly the
conversation of his interlocutor for the next few minutes. Suddenly it
struck him that Carter was entirely sober, in body and brain.
"Colonel, wouldn't you like to go on a pic-nic?" he asked abruptly.
"Pic-nic?--political thing? Why, yes; think I ought to like it; help
along our regiment."
"No, no; not political. I'm sorry I gave you such an exalted
expectation; now you'll be disappointed. I mean an affair of young
ladies, beaux, baskets, paper parcels, sandwiches, cold tongue, biscuits
and lemonade."
"Lemonade!" said Carter with a grimace. "Could a fellow smoke?"
"I take that liberty."
"Is Miss Ravenel going?"
"Yes."
"I accept. How do you go?"
"In an omnibus. I will see that you are taken up--say at nine o'clock
to-morrow morning."