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Updated: May 15, 2025
"See that he and Atwater have every thing done for them won't you, Mr. Egglestone?" The minister promised, and Frank endeavored to settle his mind to rest. But he could not sleep. Every five minutes he started up to inquire after his friends. Hour after hour passed, and he still remained wakeful as a spirit doomed never to sleep again.
In the midst of the laughter and applause which followed, the soldier, with unchanging features, fumbled in his pocket for the marriage fee. He gave it to Mr. Egglestone, who politely handed it to the bride. But she returned it to her husband. "You will need it more than I shall, Abram!" forcing it, in spite of him, back into his pocket. "Good-by!" she sobbed, kissing him. "Good-by, my husband!"
Frank, with his one hand, smoothed the pillow under the old gray head, struggling hard to keep back his sobs as he did so. "Who is my neighbor there?" Mr. Sinjin cheerfully asked. "Atwater," Frank managed to articulate. "Is it? I am sorry! A bad wound?" "The bullet went through a Bible he carried, then into his breast, beyond the reach of surgery, I am afraid," Mr. Egglestone answered for Frank.
O, my dear, dear friend! You too!" "Is it my boy?" said the veteran, with a wan smile. "Yes, I too! They have done for me, I fear." "But nobody told me. How where " The boy's grief choked his voice. "An impertinent cannon-ball interrupted my conversation with Mr. Egglestone," said the old man, stifling his agony as the men removed him to a cot.
This was spoken so sincerely and affectionately that Frank felt those few words sink deeper into his soul than the most labored sermon could have done. Mr. Egglestone said no more, but putting his arm confidingly over the boy's shoulder, led him back to his mother. And now the hour of parting had come. Frank's friends, including the minister, went with him to the cars.
Egglestone, for it was he, flushed and begrimed with his toil at the deadly guns. Even as they were speaking, a cannon-ball passed between them. Mr. Egglestone was thrown back by the shock of the wind it carried, but recovered instantly to find himself unhurt. But where was the old drummer? He was not there.
"Pretty, and true too!" said the minister, with a suffusing tear, as he looked at the pale, gentle boy, and thought how much like a white fragrant lily he was. "I have news for you, Frank. The steamer has arrived." "O! and letters?" "Probably, though I have none yet. But something besides letters!" Mr. Egglestone whispered confidentially, "Atwater's wife is here!" "Is she? Brave girl!
Egglestone said, with a parting pressure of the boy's hand. "For, with that faith, we shall surely try so to live that, when they approach us, they will not be repelled; and thus we will be guarded from evil, if not by any direct influence of theirs, then by our own reverence and love for them." With this he took his leave.
Egglestone, "you have, for your own comfort, and for the benefit of your good parents, a snug little fortune, which you will come into possession of in due time. As for the miniature, I may as well hand it to you now. I found it after the old man's death. He always wore it on his heart." He took it from its little soiled buckskin sheath, and gave it to Mrs. Manly.
Manly looked away, with the air of one resolutely turning her mind from one painful subject to another. "I wish to ask you, Mr. Egglestone, what disposition has been made of I had another son, you know." He understood her. "I trust," said he, "that what Captain Edney and myself thought proper to do will meet your approval.
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