"I"m not sorry he missed us," continued Hapgood. "I don"t like a desarter, no how. It goes right agin my grain."
"But he was running from the wrong to the right side," replied Tom.
"I don"t keer if he was. Them colors on t"other side were his"n. He chose "em for himself, and it"s mean to run away from "em. If a man"s go"n to be a rebel, let him be one, and stick to it."
"You don"t know any thing about it, uncle. Thousands of men have been forced into the rebel army, and I don"t blame them for getting out of it the best way they can. I should do so."
"That may be. Tom; that may be," added the veteran, taking off his cap and rubbing his bald head, as though a new idea had penetrated it. "I didn"t think of that."
"He"s a brave man, whoever he is, and whatever he is."
"He must want to get away from "em pretty bad, or he wouldn"t have run that risk. I shouldn"t wonder if they hit him."
"Perhaps he is wounded, and gone into the woods there to die," suggested Tom.
"Halloo!" shouted some one in the rear of them.
"There"s your man," said Hapgood.
"Halloo!" cried the same voice.
"Halloo, yourself!" shouted Hapgood in reply to the hail.
The party halted, and after waiting a few moments, the rebel deserter came in sight. He was apparently a man of fifty; and no mendicant of St. Giles, who followed begging as a profession, could have given himself a more wretched and squalid appearance, if he had devoted a lifetime to the study of making himself look miserable. He wore a long black and gray beard, uncut and unkempt, and snarled, tangled, and knotted into the most fantastic forms. His gray uniform, plentifully bedaubed with Virginia mud, was torn in a hundred places, and hung in tatters upon his emaciated frame. On his head was an old felt hat, in a terribly dilapidated condition. He wore one boot and one shoe, which he had probably taken from the common sewer of Richmond, or some other southern city; they were ripped to such an extent that the "uppers" went flipperty-flap as he walked, and had the general appearance of the open mouth of the mythic dragon, with five bare toes in each to represent teeth.
As he approached, the unthinking soldiers of the party indulged in screams of laughter at the uncouth appearance of the whilom rebel; and certainly the character in tableau or farce need not have spoken, to convulse any audience that ever a.s.sembled in Christendom. Rip Van Winkle, with the devastations and dilapidations of five-and-twenty years hanging about him, did not present a more forlorn appearance than did this representative of the Confederate army.
"What are you laughing at?" demanded the deserter, not at all delighted with this reception.
"I say, old fellow, how long since you escaped from the rag-bag?" jeered one of the men.
"What"s the price of boots in Richmond now?" asked another.
"Who"s your barber?"
"Silence, men!" interposed Tom, sternly, for he could not permit his boys to make fun of the wretchedness of any human being.
"We"ll sell you out for paper stock," said Ben Lethbridge, who had just returned from three months" service in the Rip-Raps for desertion.
"Shut up, Ben!" added Tom.
"Dry up, all of you!" said Corporal Snyder.
"Who and what are you?" asked Tom, of the deserter.
"I"m a Union man!" replied the stranger with emphasis; "and I didn"t expect to be treated in this way after all I"ve suffered."
"They thought you were a rebel. You wear the colors of the rebel army,"
answered the sergeant, willing to explain the rudeness of his men.
"Well, I suppose I do look rather the worse for the wear," added the grayback, glancing down at the tattered uniform he wore. "I joined the rebel army, after I had tried every way in the world to get out of this infernal country; but I never fired a gun at a Union man. Seems to me, sergeant, I"ve seen you before somewhere. What"s your name? Where did you come from?"
"Pinchbrook, Ma.s.sachusetts; and most of us hail from the same place."
"Creation!" exclaimed the deserter. "You don"t say so!"
"Your voice sounds familiar to me," added Tom; and for some reason his chest was heaving violently beneath his suddenly accelerated respiration.
As he spoke, he walked towards the dilapidated rebel, who had not ventured to come within twenty feet of the party.
"Did you say Pinchbrook?" demanded the stranger, who began to display a great deal of emotion.
"Pinchbrook, sir," added Tom; and so intensely was he excited, that the words were gasped from his lips.
"What"s your name?"
"Thomas Somers," replied the sergeant.
"Tom!" screamed the deserter, rushing forward.
"Father!" cried Tom, as he grasped the hand of the phantom Confederate.
The soldiers of the party were transfixed with astonishment at this unexpected scene, and they stood like statues gazing at the meeting of father and son, till the final development of their relationship, when the muscles of their faces relaxed, and the expression of wonder gave place to joyous sympathy.
"Captain Somers, of Pinchbrook!" shouted old Hapgood; and the men joined with him in a roar of intense satisfaction, that made the woods ring.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
ON THE PENINSULA.
The scene between Captain Somers and his son was very affecting and very exciting; and if the soldiers had all been uncles and first cousins of the parties, they could not have manifested more interest on the joyous occasion. The father wept, and the son wept; for each, amid the terrible experience of these troublous times, had hardly expected to meet the other.
For several minutes they held each other by the hand, laughing and weeping alternately, and neither being able to express the intense emotions which agitated him. The men shouted and laughed in full sympathy with the reunited sire and son.
"I"m glad to see you, Tom," said Captain Somers, as he wiped away the tears that were sliding down upon his grizzly beard. "I haven"t cried before for thirty years; I"m ashamed of it, Tom, but I can"t help it."
"I didn"t expect to find you here, father, and clothed in the rebel uniform; but I"m glad to see you in any uniform," replied the soldier boy.
"So you"re in the army, Tom," continued the father, gazing with satisfaction at the neat appearance of the sergeant.
"Yes, sir; I enlisted within a fortnight after we heard that the traitors had bombarded Fort Sumter."
"I see you"ve got three stripes on your arm."
"Yes, Cap"n Somers," said Hapgood; "Tom was made a sergeant for gallant conduct on the river in December; and he deserved his promotion too."