“I?” cried the boy, proudly; “what nonsense, uncle! Of course not.”
“But, knowing now what I have told you, suppose you should hear this charge made against me again, what would you do?”
Aleck’s eyes flashed, and, regardless of the pain it gave him, he clenched his injured fists, set his teeth hard, and said, hoarsely:
“The same as I did to-day, uncle. Nobody shall tell such lies about you while I am there.”
Captain Lawrence caught his young champion to his breast and held him tightly for a few moments, before, in a husky, quivering voice, he said:
“Yes, Aleck, boy, for they are lies. But the mud thrown at me stuck in spite of all my efforts to wash it away, and the stains remained.”
“But, uncle—”
“Don’t talk about it, boy,” cried the old man, hoarsely. “You are bringing up the past, Aleck, with all its maddening horrors. I can’t talk to you and explain. It was at the end of a disastrous day. Our badly led men were put to flight through the mismanagement of our chief—one high in position—and someone had to suffer for his sins, there had to be a scapegoat, and I was the unhappy wretch upon whom the commander-in-chief’s sins were piled up. They said that the beating back of my company caused the panic which led to the headlong flight of our little army. Yes, Aleck, they piled up his sins upon my unlucky shoulders, and I was driven out into the wilderness—hounded out of society, a dishonoured, disgraced coward. Aleck, boy,” he continued, with his voice growing appealing and piteous, “I was engaged to be married to the young and beautiful girl I loved as soon as the war was over, and I was looking forward to happiness on my return. But for me happiness was dead.”
“Oh! but, uncle,” cried the boy, excitedly, catching at the old man’s arm, “the lady—surely she did not believe it of you?”
“I never saw her again, Aleck,” said the old man, slowly. “Six months after my sentence the papers announced her approaching marriage.”