In those old campaigning days, the fancy had been born in him that some time in the future he would like to return and make his home here, where "amorous ocean wooed a gracious land"—that when his fighting days were over, and the retired list lengthened by his name, it would be a pleasant thing to have his final bivouac among the gallant foes who had won his admiration by their dauntless manner of giving and taking blows.
The exigencies and absorptions of military life, in time, dimmed the fancy, but it never altogether vanished. Out on the plains with Custer, away in the mountains and the Indian country, vegetating in the dullness of frontier posts, amid the bustle, the luxury and excitement of city life, the fancy would return; the memory of those soft starlit Virginia evenings would infold him with a subtle spell. In thought he would again sit smoking in the tent door, the gray shadows stealing out from their covert in the woods, reconnoitering all the country ere they swept down and took possession, in the name of their queen—the night. The air would grow cool with the fragrant breath of the ocean and the pines; whip-poor-wills would chant in the tree tops, and partridges sound their blithe note away in the fields. It was not wonderful that when the necessity of securing a country home arose, the fancy should resume its sway, and that a meditated flitting southward should suggest Virginia as its goal.
The idea that any portion of his family would be displeased by the realization of his fancy, or feel themselves aggrieved by his arrangements, never entered into the veteran's calculations; he returned from the South with his purchase made, and his mind filled with anticipations of the joy the unlading of this precious honey would occasion in the domestic hive, and when he was met by the angry buzz of discontent instead of the gentle hum of applause, his surprise was great, and his indignation unbounded.
"What the devil are they grumbling about?" he demanded of his wife. "Shirley's a fine plantation. The water is good, the air superb; there are excellent gardens and first-rate oyster beds. The house is old-fashioned, but it's comfortable, and a little money will make it more so. What's the matter with them?"
"The girls are young, Percival," explained the mother, putting in a plea for her rebels. "They are used to society and admiration. They don't take interest in gardens and oyster beds yet; they like variety and excitement. The country is very dull."
"Not at all dull," contradicted the general. "You talk as if I were requiring you all to Selkirk on a ten acre island, instead of going to one of the pleasantest and most populous counties in the oldest state in the Union. Mr. Byrd, the former owner of Shirley, told me that the neighborhood was very thickly settled and sociable. I counted five gentlemen's houses in sight myself. Southerners, as a rule, are great visitors, and if the girls are lonely it will be their own fault. They'll have as much boating and dancing and tom-foolery as is good for them."
"Are there any young men?" demanded Mrs. Smith, who recognized the necessity of an infusion of the stronger element to impart to social joys body and flavor.
"Yes, I guess so," replied her husband indifferently, masculinity from over-association having palled on him; "there's always men about everywhere, except back in the home villages in Maine—they're scarce enough there, the Lord knows! I saw a good many about in the little village near Shirley—Wintergreen, they call it. One young fellow attracted my attention particularly; he was sitting on a tobacco hogshead, down on the wharf, superintending some negroes load a wagon, and I couldn't get it out of my head that I'd seen his face before. He was tall, and fair, and had lost an arm. I must have met him during the war, I think, although I'll be hanged if I can place him."
Mrs. Smith looked interested. "Perhaps you formerly knew him," she remarked, cheerfully; "it's a pity your memory is so bad. Why didn't you inquire his name of some one, that might have helped you to place him?"
"My memory is excellent," retorted the general, shortly; for a man must resent such an insinuation even from the wife of his bosom. "I've always been remarkable for an unusually strong and retentive memory, as you know very well—but it isn't superhuman. At the lowest computation, I guess I've seen about a million men's faces in the course of my life, and it's ridiculous to expect me to have 'em all sorted out, and ticketed in my mind like a picture catalogue. My memory is very fine."