"Has mutiny reared his horrid front, my veterans? What ails our gymnastic friend?"
A Mackerel, largely patched in several departments of his attire, shaded his voice with a crab-like hand, and says he: "That is Jakey Mogs, which got a letter from his virchoose femly just the instant we was ordered to fix bayonets, and he's gone cracked because the Captain can't let him leave for home in a big rush."
Here the refractory chap burst furiously from those who were holding him, fell upon his knees before the captain, and says he, as he cried like a woman: "For God's sake, Cap, do let me go home just this once, and I swear to God I won't stay there more than just one minnit! My old woman wrote this herself (tearing the letter from his ragged breast), and she says our little Tom is dying. He's a-dying—O good Lord! it's too much! Please let me go, my dear, good Cap, and I won't be gone an hour; and I'll bring you back the pootiest little bull-tarrier you ever see; and you can shoot me for desertion—honor bright! My Tommy's a-dying, I tell you, and she's wrote for me to come right away. Just an hour, Cap, for God's sake!—only half an hour, and I'll come back and be shot—honor bright!"
As the wild words came pouring out of the poor fellow's working soul, there fell a breathless hush upon all his comrades; the line of bayonets seemed to me
to reflect the soft light of the afternoon with a kind of strange quiver, and though the Captain turned his head sternly away from the suppliant, there was not that firmness in the arm circling to his hip which drives home the sword of the strong.
"Take the being under guard," says Villiam, hoarsely; "for he must go."
At the word, the rude father sprang to his feet, with a tigerish glare in his eyes, dashed the letter to the ground, tore his bowie from its sheath; and as, with the howl of a wild beast, he made a furious thrust at one of those who approached to secure him—Nature broke in the tempest, and he fell into the arms of a comrade, in a fit. They sent him back, then, to camp, and Company 3, Regiment 5, moved forward once again, as though nothing had happened.
Alas! my boy, when this whole war is the sensitive nerve of a vast nation, and vibrates a thrill of mortal agony to a million of souls at each jar the very air receives from a shot, what matter is it if a single heart be broken.
I pondered this deeply as I followed Company 3; nor did I heed the affable remarks occasionally volunteered by Captain Villiam Brown until we gained the edge of the field wherein was located a company of bushwhacking Confederacies, as was supposed, behind a scientific mud-work. Captain Bob Shorty and Captain Samyule Sa-mith were already on the ground to witness the bayonet charge; and it was well that they had provided bits of smoked glass to view it through, as the glaring brilliancy of the anticipated feat might have proved hurtful to the naked eye. As I took my
place with them, my boy, I could not but admire the rapidity with which Captain Villiam Brown kicked some of his beings into a straight line before the foe's front, and at the same time addressed them after the manner of a great commander: