Kincaids Battery | Page 6

George Washington Cable
and when
every one read in every one's eye, the old man's included, that Brodnax
would naturally be Brandy, the Creole bent and wept with mirth,
counting all that fine wit exclusively his.
"But, no!" he suddenly said, "Hilary he would be Dandy, bic-ause he's
call' the ladies' man!"
"No, sir!" cried the General. "Hil--" He turned upon his nephew, but
finding him engaged with Anna, faced round to his chum: "For

Heaven's sake, Greenleaf, does he allow--?"
"He can't help it now," laughed his friend, "he's tagged it on himself by
one of his songs."
"Oh, by Jove, Hilary, it serves you right for singing them!"
Hilary laughed to the skies, the rest echoing.
"A ladies' man!" the uncle scoffed on. "Of all things on God's earth!"
But there he broke into lordly mirth: "Don't you believe that of him,
ladies, at any rate. If only for my sake, Anna, don't you ever believe a
breath of it!"
The ladies laughed again, but now Kincaid found them a distraction.
Following his glance cityward they espied a broad dust-cloud floating
off toward the river. He turned to Anna and softly cried, "Here come
your guns, trying to beat the train!"
The ladies stood up to see. An unseen locomotive whistled for a brief
stop. The dust-cloud drew nearer. The engine whistled to start again,
and they could hear its bell and quickening puff. But the dust-cloud
came on and on, and all at once the whole six-gun battery--six horses to
each piece and six to each caisson--captain, buglers, guidon, lieutenants,
sergeants and drivers in the saddle, cannoneers on the chests--swept at
full trot, thumping, swaying, and rebounding, up the highway and off it,
and, forming sections, swung out upon the field in double column,
while the roaring train rolled by it and slowed up to the little frame box
of Buerthe's Station with passengers cheering from every window.
The Callenders' carriage horses were greatly taxed in their nerves, yet
they kept their discretion. Kept it even when now the battery flashed
from column into line and bore down upon them, the train meanwhile
whooping on toward Carrollton. And what an elated flock of brightly
dressed citizens and citizenesses had alighted from the cars--many of
them on the moment's impulse--to see these dear lads, with their
romantically acquired battery, train for the holiday task of scaring the
dastard foe back to their frozen homes! How we loved the moment's

impulse those days!
What a gay show! And among the very prettiest and most fetchingly
arrayed newcomers you would quickly have noticed three with whom
this carriage group exchanged signals. Kincaid spurred off to meet
them while Greenleaf and Mandeville helped Anna and Miranda to the
ground. "There's Constance," said the General.
"Yes," Mrs. Callender replied, "and Flora and Charlie Valcour!" as if
that were the gleefulest good luck of all.

IV
MANOEUVRES
Captain Irby, strong, shapely, well clad, auburn-haired, left his halted
command and came into the carriage group, while from the train
approached his cousin and the lithe and picturesque Miss Valcour.
The tallish girl always looked her best beside some manly form of
unusual stature, and because that form now was Hilary's Irby was
aggrieved. All their days his cousin had been getting into his light, and
this realization still shaded his brow as Kincaid yielded Flora to him
and returned to Anna to talk of things too light for record.
Not so light were the thoughts Anna kept unuttered. Here again, she
reflected, was he who (according to Greenleaf) had declined to
command her guns in order to let Irby have them. Why? In kindness to
his cousin, or in mild dislike of a woman's battery? If intuition was
worth while, this man was soon to be a captain somewhere. Here was
that rare find for which even maidens' eyes were alert those days--a
born leader. No ladies' man this--"of all things on God's earth!" A
men's man! And yet--nay, therefore--a man for some unparagoned
woman some day to yield her heart and life to, and to have for her very
own, herself his consummate adornment. She cast a glance at Flora.
But her next was to him as they talked on. How nearly black was the

waving abundance of his hair. How placid his brow, above eyes whose
long lashes would have made them meltingly tender had they not been
so large with mirth: "A boy's eyes," thought she while he remembered
what he had just called hers. She noted his mouth, how gently firm: "A
man's mouth!"
Charlie Valcour broke in between them: "Is there not going to be any
drill, after all?"
"Tell Captain Irby you can't wait any longer," replied Kincaid with a
mock frown and gave Anna yet gayer attention a minute more. Then he
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