Chapter 18
'Twas enough!
"I wilt," responded Captain Bob Shorty. And in ten minutes' time these desperate men stood face to face on the banks of the Potomac, the ghastly moon looking solemnly down upon them through a rift of floating shrouds; and one of the First Families of Virginia pickets squinting at them from a neighboring bush. Villiam's second was Colonel Wobert Wobinson of the Western Cavalry, Captain Bob Shorty's was Samyule Sa-mith. The fifth of the party was a fat surgeon from St. Louis, who stood with his sleeves rolled up and a big jack-knife in his hand. The surgeon also had a stomach pump with him, my boy, and twelve boxes of anti-bilious pills. The weapons were pistols, and the distance seventy paces.
Captain Villiam Brown was observed to s.h.i.+ver, as he took his place, and was so cold, that he took aim at the surgeon instead of his antagonist.
The surgeon called his attention to this little error; and he immediately rectified his mistake by pointing his weapon point-blank at Samyule Sa-mith.
"You blood-thirsty cuss!" shouted Samyule, with great emotion, "what are you pointing at me for?"
"I was thinking of my poor grandmother," said Villiam, feelingly; and immediately fired at the moon.
Simultaneously, Captain Bob Shorty sent his bullet skimming along the ground, in the direction of Was.h.i.+ngton, and said that he wanted to go home.
The surgeon decided that n.o.body was hurt; and the two infuriated princ.i.p.als commenced to reload their pistols, with horrible calmness.
Now it came to pa.s.s, that while Captain Villiam Brown was stooping down fixing his weapon, his hand became unsteady, and he pulled the trigger, without meaning to. Bang! went the concern, and whiz! went the ball right between the legs of Colonel Wobert Wobinson, causing that n.o.ble officer to skip four times, and swear awfully.
"Treachery!" says Captain Bob Shorty, spinning around in great excitement, and letting drive at Samyule Sa-mith who happened to be nearest.
"Gaul darn ye!" screamed Samyule, turning purple in the face, "you've gone and shot all the rim of my cap off."
"I couldn't help it," says Bob, looking into the barrel of his pistol with great intensity of gaze.
At this moment, Villiam, who had loaded up again, tried to put the hammer of his weapon down on the cap; but his hand slipped, and the charge exploded, barking the s.h.i.+ns of the fat surgeon, and sending a bullet clean through his stomach-pump.
The surgeon just took a seat, my boy, rubbed his s.h.i.+ns half a second, took four boxes of pills, and then began to cuss! Marshal Rynders can cuss _some_, my boy, but that fat surgeon could beat him and all the Custom-House together.
But suddenly a strange sound reduced all else to silence. It came first like the rumbling of a barrel of potatoes, and then grew into a fiendish chuckle. It was found to proceed from a neighboring bush, and on proceeding thither the party beheld a sight to make the pious weep.
Rolling about in the brush was one of the First Families of Virginia pickets, kicking his heels in the air, and laughing himself right straight into apoplexy.
"O Lord!" says he, going into a fresh convulsion, "take me prisoner and hang me for a rebel, but I never _did_ see such a good one as that air gay old duel. If you'd kept on," says the picket, turning purple in the face,
Captain Villiam Brown was greatly scandalized at this unseemly mirth, my boy, and requested the surgeon to cut the picket's head off; but Colonel Wobert Wobinson interposed, and the laughing chap was only made prisoner.
"And now, Villiam," says Captain Bob Shorty, "we've had the satisfaction of gentlemen, and can be friends again. I spurns Miss Muggins. The American flag is my only bride, and as for you!--well, I think rather more of you than I do of my own father."
"Come to my arms!" exclaimed Villiam, falling upon his neck, and improving the opportunity to take the Oath from his canteen.
It was an affecting sight, my boy; and as those two n.o.ble youths walked amicably back to the camp together, the fat surgeon remarked to Samyule Sa-mith that they reminded him of Damon and Pythias just returned from the Syracuse Convention.
Yours, for the Code,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER XXV.
PRESENTING THE CHAPLAIN'S NEW YEAR POEM, AND REPORTING THE SINGULAR CONDUCT OF THE GENERAL OF THE MACKEREL BRIGADE ON THE DAY HE CELEBRATED.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., January 2d, 1862.
Another year, my boy, has dawned upon a struggle in which the hopes of freedom and integrity all over the world are breathlessly involved; and if the day-star of Liberty is destined to go down into the ocean wave, what is to become of the unoffending negroes? I extract this beautiful pa.s.sage, my boy, from the forthcoming speech of a fat Congressman, who is a friend to the human race, and charges the Administration with imbecility and with mileage. I conversed with him the other evening, and, after discussing various topics, asked him what he thought of the Was.h.i.+ngton statue as it stood? He winked three times, and then says he:
"The only Was.h.i.+ngton statue I know anything about, is _statu quo_."
The chaplain of the Mackerel Brigade joined seriously in our staff festivities on New Year's eve, my boy; but as midnight approached he grew very silent, and at a quarter of twelve he arose from his seat by the fire and asked permission to read something which he had written.
"I would not r.e.t.a.r.d your inevitable inebriation," says he to us, as he drew a ma.n.u.script from one of his pockets, "but it is only fitting that we should pay some regard to
"THE DYING YEAR.
"Dying at last, Old Year!
Another stroke of yonder clock, and thou Wilt pa.s.s the threshold of the world we see Into the world where Yesterday and Now Blend with the hours of the No More To Be.
"I saw the moon last night Rise like a crown from the dim mountain's head, And to the Council of the Stars take way; For thou, the king, though kinsman of the dead, Swayed still the sceptre of Another Day.
"I see the moon to-night, Sightless and misty as a mourner's eye, Behind a vail; or, like a coin to seal The lids of Time's last-born to majesty, Touched with the darkness of a hidden Leal.
"Mark where yon shadow crawls By slow degrees beneath the window-sill, Timed by the death-watch, ticking slow and dull; The tide of night is rising, black and still-- Old Year, thou diest when 'tis at its full!
"Ay! moan and moan again, And shake all Nature in thine agony, And tear the ermine robes that mock thee now Like gilded fruit upon a blasted tree; To-morrow comes! To-morrow, where are Thou?
"Wouldst thou be shrived, Old Year?
Thou subtle sentence of delusive Time, Framed but to deepen all the mystery Of Life's great purpose! Come, confess the crime, And man's Divinity shall date from thee!
"Speak to my soul, Old Year; Let but a star leave its bright eminence In thy death-struggle, if this deathless Soul Holds its own destiny and recompense In the grand mast'ry of a G.o.d'S control!
"No sound, no sign from thee?
And must I live, not knowing why I live, Whilst Thou and years to come pa.s.s by me here With faces hid, refusing still to give The one poor word that bids me cease to fear?
"That word, I charge thee, speak!
Quick! for the moments tremble on the verge Of the black chasm where lurks the midnight spell, And solemn winds already chant thy dirge-- Give Earth its Heaven, or h.e.l.l a deeper h.e.l.l!
"Speak! or I curse thee here!
I'll call it YEA if but a withered twig, Tossed by the wind, falls rattling on the roof; I'll call it YEA, if e'en a shutter creak, Breathe but on me, and it shall stand for proof!
"Too late! The midnight bell-- The crawling shadow at its witching flood, With the deep gloom of the Beyond is wed, And I, unanswered, sit within and brood, And thou, Old Year, art silent--Thou art DEAD!"
When the chaplain finished his reading, my boy, I told him that he must excuse the party for going to sleep, as they were really very tired.
On New Year's day, my boy, the General of the Mackerel Brigade desired me to make a few calls with him; and appeared at my lodgings in a confirmed state of kid gloves, which he bought for the express purpose of making a joke.
"A happy New Year to you, my Duke of Wellington," says I. "You look as frisky as a spring lamb."
Immediately a look of intense meaning came over his Corinthian face, and he remarked, with awful solemnity:
"Thunder! you might better call me a goat, my Prus.h.i.+an blue, seeing that I've got a couple of kids on hand just now."