"I wish to goodness they had," said Captain Tom, speaking before he thought. "That is to say, I wish they had done something to him before he brought me into all this trouble. Was that what frightened him?"
"You're mighty right, and he took to the bresh as soon as he got wind of it. But he come out this morning and we all have promised to stand by him. If they put a ugly hand on one of the company we uns allow to burn them out."
"That's the idea!" cried Tom, who never would have thought of such a thing himself. "I see very plainly that we've got to do something to protect ourselves. We are State troops, and if these cowardly citizens drive us to it we will treat them as we would the armed enemies of our country if we could only get at them. We'll begin on old man Gray and never let up until we've destroyed everything he's got. No man who dares to threaten me and those who serve under me shall hold up his head as high—— Sh! Here comes my mother. Don't say a word in her hearing, but tell Lambert I'll see him after a while and arrange a plan of operations with him."
Just then Mrs. Randolph came out on the porch with the note she had written, and which she presented for Tom's approval. It was not written in his name, but in her own. She said she regretted that her son did not feel able to accept the captain's kind invitation, owing to the excitement and distress of mind into which he had been thrown by the unfortunate occurrences of the last few hours, but if Captain Roach would honor her by coming up to dinner at the usual hour she hoped he would find Captain Randolph so far recovered that he would be able to talk over with him the very important business to which Captain Roach had referred in his note.
The result of this piece of strategy was that an open rupture between Captain Tom and the conscript officer was avoided; and when the latter, who had been so frightened and angered by the threats of the Baton Rouge committee that he was several times on the point of doing something desperate, came up to dinner "at the usual hour," he was the same pleasant and agreeable fellow he had always been. But he found Captain Tom lying on the sofa in dressing-gown and slippers, and looking the picture of misery. Before he advanced to take the limp palm that Tom languidly extended he stopped in the middle of the room and asked if someone had been laying violent hands upon him. To be candid he thought it would be a good thing for Tom if the citizens would shake him up a little.
"No, sir," was the very dignified reply. "Physical pain would not do a Randolph up in this way. It is purely mental anguish; and my honor has been touched. I little thought that I should ever permit living men to talk as those Baton Rouge ruffians talked to me this morning without promptly calling them to account for it. But my Home Guards were clearly in the wrong when they fired upon that boat without my orders, so what could I say or do?"
Captain Roach, who had had plenty of time to cool off and recover his courage since he wrote that note, smiled pleasantly, gave Tom's hand a cordial shake, pulled up a chair, and said that the committee had been quite as savage with himself as they had been with his friend Tom, and that he had thought it the part of wisdom to comply with their demands when he saw that they carried revolvers in their coat-pockets, and were in just the right mood to use them. He said that he had conscripted all the Home Guards except Tom, as he had agreed to do, because he did not see how he could help himself. It would be very little trouble for the Baton Rouge people, with the aid of Rodney Gray's father and a score of others whose names the captain could mention, to keep watch of the way things were done at the enrolling office, and if he failed to keep his promise they would be sure to find it out; but he had conscripted the Home Guards conditionally. If they would behave themselves in future and take orders from their captain instead of their first lieutenant he would not send them to camp until the last minute, and not at all if he could help it; but the first man who kicked out of the traces would be the first to be sent to the front. Lambert and the rest understood this perfectly, and had agreed to be bound by his decision.
"That's the idea!" cried Captain Tom, delighted to learn that at last he had his refractory men right where he wanted them. "That's the way to bring mutineers to time. There will be no more trouble of this kind, I assure you, for I talked to some of my troops very plainly this morning, and made Lambert knuckle in a way that would have surprised you if you could have seen it. Of course I shall have to steer clear of Baton Rouge, but I don't care much for that; although I confess it nettles me to feel that I cannot go and come when I please, as I have always been in the habit of doing."
Mrs. Randolph remained in the room long enough to assure herself that the relations existing between Captain Roach and her son had not been strained by the events of the morning, and then, bestowing an approving smile upon each, she arose and went out; whereupon Captain Tom got upon his feet and carefully closed the door behind her.
"Say!" he whispered when he came back and resumed his position on the sofa, "did you know that the town was in possession of a mob last night, and that some Yankee sympathizers among them had the impudence to threaten me and my man Lambert?"