“Tom!” said the old man.
“Don’t mind him, father,” said the younger. “His appetite for fighting will soon be over. Even yet I doubt whether we shall ever see a regiment in arms sent from the Southern States against the Union.”
“Do you?” said Tom. “If you stick to your colours, as you say you will, your doubts will be soon set at rest. And I’ll tell you what, if your regiment is brought into the field, I trust that I may find myself opposite to it. You have chosen to forget that we are brothers, and you shall find that I can forget it also.”
“Tom!” said the father, “you should not say such words as that; at any rate, in my presence.”
“It is true, Sir,” said he. “A man who speaks as he speaks does not belong to Kentucky, and can be no brother of mine. If I were to meet him face to face, I would as soon shoot him as another;—sooner, because he is a renegade.”
“You are very wicked,—very wicked,” said the old man, rising from his chair,—“very wicked.” And then, leaning on his stick, he left the room.
“Indeed, what he says is true,” said a sweet, soft voice from a sofa in the far corner of the room. “Tom, you are very wicked to speak to your brother thus. Would you take on yourself the part of Cain?”
“He is more silly than wicked, Ada,” said the soldier. “He will have no chance of shooting me, or of seeing me shot. He may succeed in getting himself locked up as a rebel; but I doubt whether he’ll ever go beyond that.”
“If I ever find myself opposite to you with a pistol in my grasp,” said the elder brother, “may my right hand——”
But his voice was stopped, and the imprecation remained unuttered. The girl who had spoken rushed from her seat, and put her hand before his mouth.