The Last Three SoldiersShelton, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Last Three Soldiers
Shelton, W. H. (William Henry)
North Carolina -- Fiction; Soldiers -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
After an eager examination of the clearing in the valley, "Gone!
Gone!" he cried in a voice of despair. "You have driven away my
princess! You hate her--you and the other one! You hate me! I'm not
wise enough for your company--you and the other one. Give me back my
princess--give me back--"
Taking the glass from his trembling hand, Coleman leveled it on the
house in the clearing; and, happily, there stood the woman, midway of
the passage, and on the point of advancing into the light.
"Take her back, dear Philip," he said, returning him the telescope.
"We will never steal her again--I and the other one. See, there she
is!"
With a quick movement Philip looked, and without a spoken word he fell
a-laughing and crooning in his delight, in a way so unnatural and so
uncanny that it was sadder to see than his excitement.
The only chance of reclaiming Philip seemed to be in the direction of
feigning sympathy with and interest in his delusion, trusting to time,
in the absence of opposition, to bring him back to reason.
Never after this exhibition of petulance on the rocks with Lieutenant
Coleman did he show the slightest tendency to violence. When he came
in on that particular evening, the lieutenant took his hand, and in a
few friendly words told him how glad he was that all was well and that
the lost was found, and ordered the flag run up in honor of the
occasion.
Philip looked in a dazed way at the flag, showing that that emblem had
lost its old power to stir him with enthusiasm. All that summer, when
his expert advice was sorely needed, poor infatuated Philip took no
more interest in the construction of the golden mill than he took in
the spots on the moon. He was as ignorant of the affairs of Sherman
Territory as the Princess Smith, that plain, ignorant working-girl in
the valley, was of his existence.
So week after week, and month after month, through the long summer and
into the sad autumn days, his companions kept a melancholy watch on
Philip, who wandered to and fro on the mountain, with the telescope in
its leathern case strapped over his bare shoulders, as we saw him first
in the shadow of the golden mill.
Scantily as the three soldiers were clad at that time, they still had
their long blue overcoats to protect them from the cold of winter, and
broken shoes to cover their feet; and so in the short December days
poor Philip, grown nervous and haggard with want of sleep, strapped the
telescope outside his coat, and wandered about the point of rocks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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