“If you could do it this minute it would not keep me from going to the camp of instruction,” whined Tom, “for the major has no authority to do anything but conscript everybody he can get his hands on.”
“Has he warned Ned Griffin and Rodney Gray?” inquired Mrs. Randolph.
“That’s so,” exclaimed Tom angrily. “What a dunce I was not to speak to the captain about those fellows! But I was so taken up with my own affairs that I never once thought of it. However, I’ll think of it when I go down to the office at one o’clock, I bet you. And, father, if you get on the track of Lambert and Moseley, don’t fail to let the major know it. If I’ve got to be disgraced I want them to keep me company.”
“I will bear it in mind,” answered Mr. Randolph. “And since one o’clock isn’t so very far off, hadn’t you better get ready?”
The conscript thought this a very heartless suggestion and so did his mother; but they could not deny that there was reason in it, and so preparations for Tom’s departure were made at once. The parting which took place an hour or so later was a tearful one on Tom’s part as well as his mother’s, but there was not very much sorrow exhibited by the black servants who crowded into the dining-room to shake his hand, as they were in duty bound to do, and Tom made the mental resolution that, when he returned from Camp Pinckney to take his place as overseer on the plantation, he would see them well paid for their indifference. He rode in his mother’s carriage this time, accompanied by his father and a bundle of things that would have filled a soldier’s knapsack to overflowing. When the carriage turned into the street that ran past Kimberley’s store, Tom thrust his head out of the window, but instantly pulled it in again to say, while tears of vexation filled his eyes and ran down his cheeks:
“There’s a bigger crowd of people in front of the office than I ever saw before. No doubt some of them will be glad to know I have been conscripted; but if you have the luck I am sure you will have, I shall be back to turn the laugh on them before many days have passed over my head. Just look, father, and remember the name of every one who has a slighting word or glance for me, so that I may settle with him at some future time. I hope Rodney and Ned Griffin are there.”
“You’ve got your wish,” replied Mr. Randolph, after he had run his eye over the crowd, which extended clear across the street to the hitching-rack. “Rodney and Ned are there, but they seem to be standing on the outskirts.”
Tom mastered up courage enough to look again, and then he saw what his father meant by “the outskirts.” There were three distinct classes of people in that gathering. In the middle of the crowd and in front of the office stood two score conscripts, who were closely guarded by half as many of Major Morgan’s veterans. Some of the conscripts seemed resolved to make the best of the situation, and joked and laughed with their friends and relatives who had assembled to see them off, and who formed the third class that stood outside the guards; but Tom noticed that most of their number looked very unhappy indeed. Tom did not see Rodney and Ned, but he discovered several disabled veterans of Bragg’s army with whom he had a speaking acquaintance, and they in turn discovered him and sent up a shout of welcome.
“Hey-youp! Here comes another, and I do think in my soul it’s Captain Tommy Randolph,” exclaimed one. “It’s him, for I know that there kerridge.”
“An’ they tell me that you might jest as well be in the army to onct as to be in that camp,” chimed in a second veteran. “There aint no sich thing as gettin’ away when they get a grip onto you.”