Then the Rebs wake up--and amuse themselves."
Blake laughed. "You are getting pretty near to that growl."
"Am I? I have more than impossible demands to bother me. What with some
despondent letters--I told you about my uncle's wound and the results, I
should have a fierce attack of home-sickness if I had leisure to think at
all."
Blake had found in Penhallow much that he liked and qualities which were
responsive to his own high ideal of the man and the soldier. He looked
him over as the young engineer lay on his camp-bed. "Get anything but
home-sick, Penhallow! I get faint fits of it. The quinine of 'Get up,
captain, and put out those pickets' dismisses it, or bullets. Lord, but
we have had them in over-doses of late. Francis has been hit twice but
not seriously. He says that Lee is an irregular practitioner. It is
strange that some men are hit in every skirmish; it would bleed the
courage out of me."
"Would it? I have had two flesh wounds. They made me furiously angry. You
were speaking of Lee--my uncle greatly admired him. I should like to know
more about him. I had a little chance when we were trying to arrange a
truce to care for the wounded. You remember it failed, but I had a few
minute's talk with a Rebel captain. He liked it when I told him how much
we admired his general.
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