And you marched away, your drum beating a double-quick, the Captain swaying ignominiously on the wagon and hugging his old brown gun. As the Guards swung by the reviewing-stand, their arms flashing in the sun, the Captain did not raise his eyes. So he never knew that looking down upon his shame that April day sat his rag lady, with Lizbeth and the waxen blonde. Her cheeks were pale, but her eyes were tearless. She did not utter a sound as her tottering lover passed. She just leaned far out over the flag-hung balcony and watched him as he rode away.
It was a hard campaign. Clover Plain, Wood-pile Mountain, and the Raspberry Wilderness are names to conjure with. From the back fence to the front gate, from the beehives to the red geraniums, the whole land ran with blood. Brevetted for personal gallantry on the Wood-pile Heights, you laid aside your drum for epaulets and sword. The Guards and the Captain drifted from your ken. When you last saw him he was valiantly defending a tulip pass, and defying a regiment of the Black Ant Brigade to come and take him—by gad! sirs—if they dared.
The war went on. Days grew into weeks, weeks into months, and the summer passed. Search in camps and battlefields revealed no trace of Captain Jinks. Sitting by the camp-fire on blustering nights, your thoughts went back to the old comrade of the winter days.
"Poor Captain Jinks!" you sighed.
"Jinks?" asked Grandfather, laying down his book.
"Yes. He's lost. Didn't you know?"
"Jinks among the missing!" Grandfather cried. Then he gazed silently into the fire.
"Poor old Jinks!" he mused. "He was a brave soldier, Jinks was—a brave soldier, sir." He puffed reflectively on his corn-cob pipe. Presently he spoke again, more sadly than before:
"But he had one fault, Jinks had—just one, sir. He was a leetle too fond o' his bottle on blowy nights."
November came. The year and the war were drawing to a close. Before Grape Vine Ridge the enemy lay intrenched for a final desperate stand. To your council of war in the fallen leaves came Grandfather, a scarf around his throat, its loose ends flapping in the gale. He leaned on his cane; you, on your sword.