"I order you to black those boots, sir," was the repeated and more insolent command.
"And I'll see you d——d first," retorted Harry, doubling his fist.
The aid not liking the furious flush upon Harry's face, with wise discretion backed out, muttering after he was fairly outside of the tent, something about a report to the Brigadier. Report he did, and very shortly after there was a vacancy in his position upon the Staff of that Officer. Harry, at his own request, was in the course of a week relieved from duty, and restored to his Company. Ever after he had a tongue.
The reply of the Lieutenant to Harry's remarks has all this time been in abeyance, however.
"Harry," said that officer, "we must follow the stars without murmuring or muttering against the judgment of superiors,—but one can't help surmising, and," the Lieutenant had half mechanically added when the Sergeant-Major saluted him.
"Where is the Captain, Lieutenant?"
"Not about, at present."
"Well," continued the Sergeant, "reveille at four, and in line at five in the morning."
Those beds of thickly littered straw were hard to leave in the chill mist of the morning. The warning notes of the reveille trilling in sweetest melody from the fife of the accomplished fife-major, accompanied by the slumber-ending rattle of the drum, admitted of no alternative. Many a brave boy as he stood in line that morning, ready for the march, the first sparkle of sunrise glistening upon his bayonet, wondered
whether father or mother, sister or brother, yet in their slumbers, doubtless, in the dear old homestead, knew that the army was on the move, and that the setting sun might gild his breast-plate as in his last sleep he faced the sky.