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!