"I regret to say, gentlemen, that in the fierce engagement of the fourth instant, my grandson's gallant comrade, Master Alexander Sands, was severely wounded both in the shoulder and the knee, and is now somewhere in a hospital in northern France, well back of the lines, recuperating from his injuries. I shall communicate this information at once to his parents, together with such encouragement as is contained in my grandson's letter."
Proud as a king, he turned from the sympathetic group, entered his carriage and was driven toward Chestnut Valley.
It was late in September when Aleck Sands came home. The family at Bannerhall, augmented within the last year by the addition of Colonel Butler's favorite niece, was seated at the supper table one evening when Elmer Cuddeback, now grown into a fine, stalwart youth, hurried in to announce the arrival.
"I happened to be at the station when Aleck came," he said. "He looked like a skeleton and a ghost rolled into one. He couldn't walk at all, and he was just able to talk. But he said he'd been having a fine time and was feeling bully. Isn't that nerve for you?"
"Splendid!" exclaimed the colonel, holding his napkin high in the air in his excitement. "A marvelous young man! I shall do myself the honor to call on him in person to-morrow morning, and compliment him on his bravery, and congratulate him on his escape from mortal injury."
He was as good as his word. He and his daughter both went down to Cherry Valley and called on Aleck Sands. He was lying propped up in bed, attended by a thankful and devoted mother, trying to give rest to a tired and irritated body, and to enjoy once more the sights and sounds of home. He was too weak to do much talking, but almost his first words were an anxious inquiry about Pen. They told him what they knew.
"He came to see me at the hospital in August," said Aleck. "It was like a breeze from heaven. If he doesn't come back here alive and well at the end of this war, with the Victoria Cross on his breast, I shall be ashamed to go out on the street; he is so much the braver soldier and the better man of the two of us."
"He has written to us," said the colonel, and his eyes were moist, and his voice choked a little as he spoke, "that you, yourself, in the matter of courage in battle, upheld the best traditions of American bravery, and I am proud of you, sir, as are all of your townsmen."
The colonel would have remained to listen to further commendation of his grandson, and to discuss with one who had actually been on the fighting line, the conditions under which the war was being waged; but his daughter, seeing that the boy needed rest, brought the visit to a speedy close.
"Give my love to Pen when you write to him," said Aleck, as he bade them good-by; "the bravest soldier—and the dearest comrade—that ever carried a gun."