Twilight Stories Part 15

"A thief!" he was saying over and over to himself, "me, who fought close to the side of the 'Iron Duke'! And yet, can I look one of them in the face and tell him he lies?"

The walk that had been gone over so merrily was a terrible one to retrace, and when the cottage was reached, instead of the pride and good luck the poor invalids had been watching for, a gloom deadlier than the fever followed him in. He sat in the doorway as he used, but sometimes he hung his head on his breast, and sometimes started up and walked proudly about, crying--

"Peggy! I say no one shall call me a thief! I am a soldier of the Iron Duke!"

But they did call him a thief, though, for a very strange thing, after his lords.h.i.+p had sorrowfully ordered the cottage and little garden spot to be searched no box was found, and the gloom and the mystery grew deeper together.

Good nursing could not balance against trouble like this; the beautiful daughters faded and died, the house was too gloomy to stay inside, and if he escaped to the door, he had to hear the pa.s.sers say--

"There sits the soldier who stole the Blucher diamonds from his host!"

And as if this was not enough, one day the sound of hoofs was heard again, and a rider in uniform clattered up to the door saying:

"Comrade, I am sent to tell you that your pension is stopped! His Majesty cannot count a thief any longer a soldier of his!"

After this the old soldier hardly held up his head at all, and his hair, that had kept black as a coal all these years, turned white as the moors when the winter snows lay on them.

"Though that is all the same, Peggy," he used to say, "for it is winter all the year round with me! If I could only die as the old year does!

That would be the thing!"

But long and merciless as the winter is, spring does come at last, if we can but live and fight our way through the storms and cold.

One night a cry of fire roused all the country-side. All but the old soldier. He heard them say the castle was burning, but what was that to him? Nothing could burn away the remembrance that he had once been called a thief within its walls! But the next morning he heard a step--not a horse's hoof this time, but a strong man walking hastily towards him.

"Where is the veteran of Waterloo?" asked his lords.h.i.+p's voice, and when the old soldier stepped forward, he threw his arms about his neck with tears and sobs.

"Comrade," he said, "come up to the castle! The snuff-box is found, and I want you to stand in the very room where it was lost while I tell everyone what a great and sorrowful wrong a brave and honest soldier has suffered at my hands!"

It did not take many words to explain. In the first alarm of fire the butler had rushed to the plate-closet to save the silver.

"Those goblets from the high shelf! Quick!" he said, to the footman who was helping him, and with the haste about the goblets something else came tumbling down.

"The lost diamond snuff-box!" cried the butler. "That stupid fellow I dismissed the day it disappeared, must have put it there and forgotten all about it!"

The fire was soon extinguished, but not a wink of sleep could his lords.h.i.+p get until he could make reparation for the pitiful mistake about the box; and once more the old soldier made his way across the moors, even the wooden leg stepping proudly as he went along, though now and then, as the old feeling came over him, his white head would droop for a moment again.

The servants stood aside respectfully as he entered the castle, and they and the other guests of that unlucky day gathered round him while his lords.h.i.+p told them how the box had been found and how he could not rest until forgiven by the brave hero he had so unjustly suspected of wrong.

"And now," said the company, "will you not tell us one thing more? Why did you refuse to empty your pockets, as all the rest were willing to do?"

"Because," said the old soldier sorrowfully, "because I WAS a thief, and I could not bear that anyone should discover it! All whom I loved best in the world were lying sick at home, starving for want of the delicacies I could not provide, and I felt as if my heart would break to see my plate heaped with luxuries while they had not so much as a taste!

I thought a mouthful of what I did not need might save them, and when no one was looking I slipped some choice bits from my plate between two pieces of bread and made way with them into my pocket. I could not let them be discovered for a soldier is too proud to beg, but oh, my lord, he can bear being called a thief all his life better than he can dine sumptuously while there is only black bread at home for the sick and weak whom he loves!"

Tears came streaming from the old soldier's listeners by this time, and each vied with the other in heaping honors and gifts in place of the disgrace suffered so long; but all that was powerless to make up for the past.

Two good lessons may be learned from the story: Never believe any one guilty who is not really proved to be so. Never let false shame keep you from confessing the truth, whether trifling or of importance.

What are the children doing today, Down on the nursery floor, That baby laughter and crows of delight Float through the open door?

Watching Don's top spinning around, Making that queer little whirring sound.

This big Reindeer must have run away From Santa Claus and his Christmas sleigh.

Do you think if I should take him back A present I would get out of Santa's pack?

THE AMERICAN FLAG.

When freedom from her mountain height Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there.

She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light; Then from his mansion in the sun, She called her eagle bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land.

Majestic monarch of the cloud, Who rears't aloft thy regal form, To hear the tempest-trumpings loud, And see the lightning-lances driven, When strive the warriors of the storm, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven-- Child of the sun! to thee is given To guard the banner of the free, To hover in the sulphur smoke, To ward away the battle stroke, And bid its blendings s.h.i.+ne afar, Like rainbows on the cloud of war, The harbingers of victory!

Flag of the brave! thy folds shall fly, The sign of hope and triumph high, When speaks the signal trumpet tone, And the long line comes gleaming on.

Ere yet the life-blood warm and wet Has dimmed the glistening bayonet, Each soldier's eyes shall brightly turn To where thy sky-born glories burn; And, as his springing steps advance, Catch war and vengeance from the glance.

And when the cannon's mouthings loud Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud, And gory sabers rise and fall Like darts of flame on midnight's pall, Then shall thy meteor glances glow, And cowering foes shall sink beneath Each gallant arm that strikes below That lovely messenger of death.

Flag of the seas! On ocean wave Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; When death, careering on the gale, Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail, And frightened waves rush wildly back Before the broadside's reeling rack Each dying wanderer of the sea Shall look at once to heaven and thee, And smile to see thy splendors fly In triumph o'er his closing eye.

Flag of the free heart's hope and home, By angel hands to valor given; Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven.

Forever float that standard sheet!

Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With freedom's soil beneath our feet, And freedom's banner streaming o'er us?

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

We will swing the rope for Baby dear, So jump, jump, jump!

That you will trip her up I fear, But jump, jump, jump!

Swing it easy and low, Steady and slow, Or down the dear tot will go.

A crafty Fox crept forth one day And over the hills he scampered away In search of a fine, fat hen; But old dog Sport was keeping guard, When Fox leaped into our chicken yard, And chased him back to his den.

AUNT POLLY SHEDD'S BRIGADE.

"Something about the Battle of Hampden?" Grandma took off her spectacles and wiped them reflectively "It seems to me already I have told you everything worth telling; but there!" in a sudden burst of recollection, "did I ever tell you about Aunt Polly Shedd's Brigade? That was quite an affair to those of us that belonged to it!"

"Oh, no! do tell us about it!" called out the three childish voices in chorus; and Grandma only waited to knit by the seam needle.

"I've told you all about it so many times that I don't need to describe again that dreadful morning when the British man-of-war came up the river and, dropping her anchor just opposite our little village of Hampden, sent troops ash.o.r.e to take possession of the place in the King's name. So what I am going to tell you now is how, and where, we youngsters spent the three days that the British occupied our houses. I was about twelve years old at the time. I remember that it was just as we were getting up from the breakfast-table that one of our neighbors, Sol Grant, old General Grant's youngest son, rushed in without knocking, his face as white as a sheet, and his cap on hind-side before, and called out hurriedly: