A War-Time Wooing: A Story

by Charles King

"No; he didn't. That is the singular part of it. The more I recall the interview the more I'm upset."

"Why so?"

"Because he said he had come to see an old friend of his son's whom he mourned as killed at Seven Pines. He named Abbot, and said he had been in correspondence with him for a year. As luck would have it, Abbot was sitting right there beside me, and I said at once, 'Here's your man,' or something like it; and then Abbot didn't know him at all; declared he had never written a line to him; never heard of him. The old gentleman was completely floored. He vowed that for a whole year he had been receiving letters from Lieutenant Paul Revere Abbot, and now had come to see him because he was reported severely wounded."

"Did he show you any of the letters?"

"Why, no! He said there were none with him. He—I declare I do not know what excuse he did give," says the colonel, in dire distress of mind.

The provost-marshal's eyes are glittering, and his face is set and eager. He thinks intently one moment, and then turns on the silent colonel and their perplexed landlord.

"Keep this thing perfectly quiet, gentlemen; I may have to look further into it; but at this moment, colonel, circumstances point significantly at your friend, the doctor. Do you see nothing suspicious in his conduct? His confident claim of a year's correspondence with an officer of your regiment was possibly to gain your friendship and protection. As ill-luck for him and good-luck for us would have it, he named the wrong man. Abbot was there, and could deny it on the spot. The old man was floored, of course; but his only way of carrying the thing through was to play the martyr, and tell the story that for a year somebody had been writing to him daily or weekly over the name of Abbot. What a very improbable yarn, Putnam! Just think for yourself. What man would be apt to do that sort of thing? What object could he have? Why, the doctor himself well realized what a transparent fiction it must appear, and away he slips by the night train the moment he gets back. And now our friend, the landlord, throws further light upon the matter. He was here to meet that night visitor, perhaps convey valuable information to him, but was frightened by the blunder he had made, and got away as speedily as possible, and without seeing the owner of the beard, although a packet of papers was duly handed to him from that mysterious party. Doctor Warren may turn out a candidate for the fortress of that name in your own harbor, colonel."

And, thinking it all over, Putnam cannot make up his mind what to say. There is something in his impression of the doctor that utterly sets at naught any belief that he was acting a part. He was so simple, so direct, so genuine in his manner and in his distress. On the other hand, analyzing the situation, the colonel is compelled to realize that to any one but himself the doctor's story would appear unworthy of credence. He is in this uncomfortable frame of mind when a staff-officer comes to see him with some papers from the quartermaster-general that call for an immediate investigation of the affairs of the missing Lieutenant Hollins, and for two or three days Colonel Putnam is away at the supply depot on the railway. It is there that he learns the pleasant news that his gallant young comrade has been promoted to a most desirable staff position, and ordered to report for duty in Washington as soon as able to travel. He writes a line of congratulation to Abbot, and begs him to be sure and send word when he will come through, so that they may meet, and then returns to his patient overhauling of the garbled accounts of the quondam quartermaster.

No answer comes from Abbot, and the colonel is so busy that he thinks little of it. The investigation is giving him a world of insight into the crookedness of the late administration, and has put him in possession of facts and given rise to theories that are of unusual interest, and so, when he hears that Abbot was able to leave the hospital and ride slowly in to the railway and so on to Baltimore, he merely regrets not having seen him, and thinks little of it.

But the provost-marshal has been busily at work; has interviewed Abbot and cross-examined the landlady. He has found an officer who says that the night of the escapade at Frederick his horse was taken from in front of the house of some friends he was visiting in the southern edge of the town, and was found next morning by the pickets clear down at the bridge where the canal crosses the Monocacy; and the pickets said he looked as though he had been ridden hard and fast, and that no trace of rider could be found. Inquiry among patrols and guards develops the fact that a man riding such a horse, wearing such a hat and cape as was described, but with a smooth face and spectacles, had passed south during the night, and claimed to be on his way to Point of Rocks with despatches for the commanding officer from General Franklin. He exhibited an order made out for Captain Hollister, and signed by Seth Williams, adjutant-general of the army in the field. No such officer had reached Point of Rocks, and the provost-marshal becomes satisfied that on or about the 4th or 5th of October this very party who was prowling about the town of Frederick has gotten back into Virginia, possibly with valuable information.