The lanky sergeant took off his cap and made a bow.
“And I’ll be bound,” he said, with infinite respect in his awkwardly familiar manner, “that your son was true grit.” He stopped and hunted about in his mind for a title to bestow upon the Colonel superior to the one he had, and finally hit upon “Judge,” to which title the Colonel was as much entitled as the one he bore.
“Judge, I don’t believe you’d turn a hair if there was a hundred pieces of artillery trained on you. I believe you’d just go on talkin’ in this ’ere highflown way, without kerin’ about anything except your dignity. And if your son was like you, he didn’t have no skeer in him at all, General.” By this time the sergeant had concluded that the old gentleman deserved promotion even from the title of Judge.
The Colonel inclined his head, a slight flush creeping into his wan face.
“You do me honor,” he said, “but you do my son only justice.”
By this time the wagons had been loaded up and were being driven off. The scared negroes that had flocked about the house from all over the plantation were peering, with ashy faces, around the corners and over the garden fence. The men were ordered to fall in, the lieutenant giving his orders at a considerable distance, and in his involuntary and marked brogue. The lanky sergeant and the few men with him mounted, and then all of them, simultaneously, took off their caps.
“Three cheers for the old game-cock!” cried the lanky sergeant enthusiastically. The cheers were given with a will and with a grin. The Colonel bowed profoundly, smiling all the time.
“This is truly grotesque,” he said. “You have just appropriated all of my last year’s crops, and now you are assuring me of your personal respect. For the last, I thank you,” and so, with cheering and laughter, they rode off, leaving the Colonel with his self-respect unimpaired, but minus several hundred bushels of corn and wheat. The negroes gradually quieted down, and the Colonel and Miss Jemima and little Miss Letty retired to the library. The Colonel took down his family tree, and began gravely to study that perennially entertaining document in order to place the Corbin who was serving as aide-de-camp in the Union army. Miss Jemima, too, was deeply interested, and remarked sagely:
“He is no doubt a great-grandson of Admiral Sir Archibald Corbin, who adhered to the royal cause and was afterward made a baronet by George III.”
At that very moment, the Colonel hit upon him.