“Tom Lansing was a comrade of mine, in a way,” said the Bishop slowly. “At least, I was at Fort Fisher with him. I think I should like to––”
“Were you at Fort Fisher?” broke in the sister Letty, speaking for the first time. “And did you see Curtis’ colour bearer? He was killed in the first charge. A tall, dark boy, Jay Hamilton, with long, black hair?”
“He had an old scar over his eye-brow.” The Bishop supplemented the description out of the memory of that day.
“He got it skating on Beaver Run, thirty-five years ago to-morrow,” said the woman trembling. “You saw him die?”
“He was dead when I came to him,” said the Bishop quietly, “with the stock of the colour standard still clenched in his hand.”
“He was my––my––” Sweetheart, she wanted to say. But the hill women do not say things easily.
“Yes?” said the Bishop gently. “I understand.” She was a woman of his people. Clearly as if she had taken an hour to tell it, he 23 could read the years of her faithfulness to the memory of that lean, dark face which he had once seen, with the purple scar above the eye-brow.
Mrs. Whiting put her arm protectingly about her sister.
“Are you––?” she questioned, hesitating strangely. “Are you the White Horse Chaplain?”
“The boys called me that,” said the Bishop. “Though it was only a name for a day,” he added.