him with the service."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BRAVE BID GOOD-BYE TO THE FAIR.
Another circumstance disgusted Colonel Carter even more than the affair of the majority. He received a communication from the War Department assigning his regiment to the New England Division, and directing him to report for orders to Major-General Benjamin F. Butler. Over this paper he fired off such a volley of oaths as if Uncle Toby's celebrated army in Flanders had fallen in for practice in battalion swearing.
"A civilian! a lawyer, a political wire-puller! a militiaman!" exclaimed the high-born southern gentleman, West Point graduate and ex-officer of the regular army. "What does such a fellow know about the organization or the command of troops! I don't believe he could make out the property returns of a company, or take a platoon of skirmishers into action. And I must report to him, instead of he to me!"
Let us suppose that some inconceivably great power had suddenly created the Colonel a first-class lawyer, and ordered the celebrated Massachusetts advocate to act under him as junior counsel. We may conjecture that the latter might have been made somewhat indignant by such an arrangement.
"I'll make official application to be transferred to some other command," continued Carter, thinking to himself. "If that won't answer, I'll go to the Secretary myself about it, irregular as personal application may be. And if that won't answer, I'll be so long in getting ready for the field, that our Major-General Pettifogger will probably go without me."
If Carter attempted to carry out any of these plans, he no doubt discovered that the civilian General was greater than the West Point Colonel in the eyes of the authorities at Washington. But it is probable that old habits of soldierly obedience prevented him from offering much if any resistance to the will of the War Department, just as it prevented him from expressing his dissatisfaction in the presence of any of his subordinate officers. It is true that the Tenth was an unconscionable long time in getting ready for the field, but that was owing to the decay of the enlisting spirit in Barataria, and Carter seemed to be as much fretted by the lack of men as any body. Meantime not even Colburne, the officer to whom he unbosomed himself the most freely, overheard a syllable from him in disparagement of General Butler.
During the leisurely organization and drilling of his regiment the Colonel saw Miss Ravenel often enough to fall desperately in love with her, had he been so minded. He was not so minded; he liked to talk with pretty young ladies, to flirt with them and to tease them; but he did not easily take sentiment au grand sérieux. Self-conceit and a certain hard-hearted indifference to the feelings of others, combined with, a love of fun, made him a habitual quiz. He acknowledged the charm of Lillie's outlines and manner, but he treated her like a child whom he could pet and banter at his pleasure. She, on the other hand, was a little too much afraid of him to quiz in return; she could not treat this mature and seemingly worldly-wise man with the playful impertinence which sometimes marked her manner towards Colburne.
"Miss Ravenel, have you any messages for New Orleans?" said the Colonel. "I begin to think that we shall go just there. It will be such a rich pocket for General Butler's fingers."
In speaking to civilians Carter was not always so careful of the character of his superiors as in talking to his subordinate officers.
"Just think of the twelve millions of gold in the banks," he proceeded, "and the sugar and cotton too, and the wholesale nigger-stealing that we can do to varnish over our robberies. It grieves me to death to think that the Tenth will soon be street-firing up and down New Orleans. We shall make such an awful slaughter among your crowds of old admirers!"
"I hope you won't kill them all."
"Oh, I shan't kill them all. I am not going to commit suicide," said the Colonel with a flippant gallantry which made the young lady color with a suspicion that she was not profoundly appreciated.
"Do you really think that you are going to New Orleans?" she presently inquired.
"Ah! Don't ask me. You have a right to command me; but don't, I beg of you, order me to tell state secrets."
"Then why do you introduce the subject?" she replied, more annoyed by his manner than by what he said.
"Because the subject has irresistible charms; because it is connected with your past, and perhaps with your future."
Now if Carter had looked in the least as he spoke, I fear that Miss Lillie would have been flattered and gratified. But he did not; he had a quizzing smile on his audacious face; he seemed to be talking to her as he would to a child of fourteen. Being a woman of eighteen, and sensitive, she was not pleased by his confident familiarity, and in her inexperience she showed her annoyance perhaps a little more plainly than was quite dignified. After watching her for a moment or two with his wide-open, unwinking eyes, he suddenly changed his tone, and addressed her with an air of entirely satisfactory respect. The truth is that he could not help being at times semi-impertinent to young ladies; but then he had delicacy of breeding enough to know when he was so; he did not quiz them in mere boorish stupidity.
"I should be truly delighted," he said, "I should consider it one of the greatest honors possible to me—if I could do something towards opening your way back to your own home."
"Oh! I wish you could," she replied with enthusiasm. "I do so want to get back to Louisiana. But I don't want the South whipped. I want peace."
"Do you? That is a bad wish for me," observed Carter, with his characteristic frankness, coolly wondering to himself how he would be able to live without his colonelcy. As to how he could pay the thousand or two which he owed to tailors, shoemakers, restaurateurs and wine merchants, that was never to him a matter of marvel or of anxiety, or even of consideration.
In obedience to a curious instinct which exists in at least some feminine natures, Miss Ravenel liked the Colonel, or at least felt that she could like him, just in proportion as she feared him. A man who can make some women tremble, can, if he chooses, make them love. Pure and modest as this girl of eighteen was, she could, and I fear, would have fallen desperately in love with this toughened worldling, had he, with his despotic temperament, resolutely willed it. In justice to her it must be remembered that she knew little or nothing about his various naughty ways. In her presence he never swore, nor got the worse for liquor, nor alluded to scenes of dissipation. At church he decorously put down his head while one could count twenty, and made the responses with a politeness meant to be complimentary to the parties addressed. Her father hinted; but she thought him unreasonably prejudiced; she made what she considered the proper allowance for men who wore uniforms. She had very little idea of the stupendous discount which would have to be admitted before Colonel Carter could figure up as an angel of light, or even as a decently virtuous member of human society. She thought she stated the whole subject fairly when she admitted that he might be "fast;" but she had an innocently inadequate conception of the meaning which the masculine sex attaches to that epithet. She applied it to him chiefly because he had the monumental self-possession, the graceful audacity, the free and easy fluency, the little ways, the general air, of certain men in New Orleans who had been pointed out to her as "fast," and concerning whom there were dubious whisperings among elderly dowagers, but of whom she actually knew little more than that they had good manners and were favorites with most ladies. She had learned to consider the type a satisfactory one, without at all appreciating its moral signification. That Colonel Carter had been downright wicked and was still capable of being so under a moderate pressure of temptation, she did not believe with any realizing and saving faith. Balzac says that very corrupt people are generally
