The Young Lieutenant Part 2

"I will carry her up to the train, sir," said the young officer.

"I thank you, sir," said Emmie with a smile; "but I think I can walk."

"Well," said the gentleman who had spoken before, "I saw him carry you from the wreck to this place; and I am bound to say, I never saw a mother handle her baby more tenderly."

"I am very grateful to him for what he has done for me," added Emmie with a slight blush; "and if I needed his services, I certainly should accept his kind offer."

She took the arm of her father, and walked very well till she came to the steep bank, whose ascent required more strength than she then possessed.

Her father and Lieutenant Somers then made a "hand-chair," and bore her up to the car, in which she was as comfortably disposed as the circ.u.mstances would permit. The train started with its melancholy freight of wounded, dead and dying.

"I see, sir, you are an officer in the army," said Mr. Guilford as the train moved off; "but I have not yet learned your name."

"Thomas Somers, sir," replied our young officer.

"I must trouble you to write it down for me, with your residence when at home, and your regiment in the field."

Lieutenant Somers complied with this request, and in return the gentleman gave him his address.

"I shall never forget you, Lieutenant Somers," said Mr. Guilford when he had carefully deposited the paper in his memorandum-book. "I have it in my power to be of service to you; and if you ever want a friend, I shall consider it a favor if you will come to me, or write to me."

"Thank you, sir; I am very much obliged to you. But I hope you won't consider yourself under any obligations to me for what I have done. I couldn't have helped doing it if I had tried."

"Lieutenant Somers, you are in luck," said the gentleman who had accompanied him before. "That is Senator Guilford, of ----, and he will make a brigadier-general of you before you are a year older."

CHAPTER III

A FRIEND AT COURT

Lieutenant Somers sat down in one corner of the car, near the seats occupied by Miss Guilford and her father. He was just beginning to be conscious of the fact that he had done a "big thing;" not because he had helped one of G.o.d's suffering creatures, but because she happened to be a Senator's daughter. But he still had the happy reflection, that what he had done had been prompted by motives of humanity, not by the love of applause, or for the purpose of winning the favor of a great man who could dispense the "loaves and fishes" when he should need them.

He was rather sensitive. He was a young man of eighteen, and he had not yet become familiar with the grossness and selfishness of this calculating world. He was rather offended at the patronage which the Senator had proposed to bestow upon him, and he even regretted that he had so readily given him his address.

Lieutenant Somers regarded himself as emphatically a fighting officer; and the idea of working his way up to distinction by the favor of a member of Congress was repulsive to him. He really wished the Hon. Mr.

Guilford had only thanked him for what he had done, and not said a word about having it in his power to be of service to him.

While he was meditating upon the events which had transpired, and the Senator's patronizing offer, he saw Captain de Banyan enter the forward door of the car through which the gentleman who had taken so much pains to compliment the young officer had disappeared a short time before. The distinguished captain walked through the car directly to the seat of the lieutenant, who had not even yet ceased to blush under the praises which had been bestowed upon him.

"Somers, your hand," said he, extending his own. "I have heard all about it, and am proud that our regiment has furnished so brave and devoted a man. Oh, don't blush, my dear fellow! You are a modest man. I sympathize with you; for I am a modest man myself. I didn't get over blus.h.i.+ng for three weeks after his imperial majesty, the Emperor of France, complimented me for some little thing I did at the battle of Palestro."

"I thought that was at Magenta," added Somers.

"So it was. The fact is, I have been in a great many battles, and I get them mixed up a little sometimes. But you are in luck, Somers," continued the captain in a lower tone, as he seated himself by the side of his fellow-officer.

"Why so?"

"They say she is the daughter of a Senator."

"What of that?"

"What of that! Why, my dear fellow, you are as innocent as a school girl.

Don't you see he can get you on some general's staff, and have you promoted every time there is a skirmish?"

"I don't want to be promoted unless I earn it."

"Of course you don't; but every officer that earns it won't get it. By the way, Somers, can't you introduce me to the old gentleman?"

"I never saw him before in my life."

"No matter for that. I'll warrant you, he'll be glad to make all your friends his friends."

"But I don't feel enough acquainted with him to introduce a gentleman whom I never saw in my life till two hours ago."

"You are right, my dear fellow; excuse me," replied Captain de Banyan, looking very much disappointed. "I dare say, if I should show him the autograph of the Emperor of France, he would be very glad to know me."

"No doubt of it. At any rate, I recommend you to make the trial."

"Yes; but the mischief of it is, I have left all those papers at home."

"That's unfortunate," added Lieutenant Somers, who had some serious doubts in regard to the existence of those papers.

"So it is. If I had been lucky enough to have made the acquaintance of that young lady, as you have, I would not let my aspirations stop short of the stars of a major-general."

"You need not as it is, if you do your duty."

"Ah! my dear fellow, you are as sentimental as a girl of sixteen. I am a modest man; but, in my estimation, there are ten thousand men in the army as good as I am. They can't all be major-generals, can they?"

"Certainly not."

"Then, if you live a few months longer, you will find out how good a thing it is to have a friend at court. You are a modest young man; but I suppose you think there isn't another man in the army who is quite your equal, and that your merit and your bravery will make a brigadier of you in less than a year. It's a good thing to think so; but----"

"I don't think so. That would be modesty with a vengeance."

"I was a sentimental boy like you once, and I was just as certain that I should be made a field-marshal, and have the command of the French army in the Crimea----"

"I thought you were in the English army in the Crimea," interposed the young lieutenant, eager to change the subject.

"Certainly, in the English army; that's what I said," continued the gallant captain, entirely unmoved by the interruption. "I was just as sure of having the command of the British army in the Crimea as you are of becoming a brigadier by the time we get into Richmond. But I have no friends at court as you have now."

"I never thought of such a thing as being a brigadier," protested Somers.

"I never even expected to become a second lieutenant."

"It isn't much to be a brigadier. I served with 'Old Rosey' in West Virginia for a time. We had a captain there who didn't know any more about military than a swine does about Lord Chesterfield's table etiquette. He went into action with a cane in his hand, hawbucking his company about just as a farmer does a yoke of cattle. That fellow is a brigadier-general now; and there's hope for you and me, if we can only have a friend at court."

"I am higher now than I ever expected to be, and I wouldn't give a straw for fifty friends at court."