Cannoneer

“ Now the cannoneers of a battery, who constituted what was known as the Gun Detachment, were an aristocracy. It is worthy of notice [171] that when artillery companies received their first outfit of horses, there were always at least three men who wished to be drivers to one who cared to serve as a cannoneer, the prevailing idea among the uninitiated being that a driver’s position was a safer place in battle than that of a cannoneer. ”

“ The break through our lines was on our right, which placed the Federals almost in our rear, so that a detour of several miles on our part was necessary. On the principle that the chased dog is generally the fleetest, we succeeded in reaching the breastworks, a short distance to the left of Fort Gilmore, with all four guns, now ten-pound Parrotts, followed by the straggling cannoneers much exhausted. ”

“ A short time after our return to Frederick's Hall our whole artillery command narrowly escaped capture by a band of cavalry raiders under command of Colonel Dahlgren. About fifty of the cannoneers of the battalion had been furnished with muskets and regularly exercised in the infantry drill. When the raiders arrived within a mile of our winter-quarters they inquired of the country people as to the character of troops occupying our camp, and were informed by some negroes that the "men had muskets with bayonets on them." ”

“ If cannoneers as a class were more devout than the other members of a light-artillery company, it must have been because they were stimulated early in their military career to pray—to pray that the limits of the drill-ground should be so contracted that the battery could not be cantered up and down a plain more than half a mile in extent, with cannoneers dismounted and strung along in the rear at intervals varying with their running capacity or the humor of the commanding officer ”

“ After reaching Harper's Ferry two more six-pound brass pieces were received for this battery from Richmond. As there were no caissons for these four guns, farm-wagons were used, into which boxes of ammunition, together with chests containing rations for the men, were loaded. In addition to friction-primers of modern invention at that time for firing cannon, the old-time "slow matches" and "port-fires" were in stock. ”

“ On the morning of July 1 we passed through a division of Longstreet's corps bivouacked in a piece of woods. Our road lay across a high range of hills, from beyond which the sound of cannonading greeted us. By three o'clock that afternoon, when we reached the summit of the hills, the firing ahead had developed into the roar of a battle, and we pushed forward on the down-grade. ”

“ After passing through Thoroughfare Gap we moved on toward Manassas Junction, arriving within a mile or two of the place shortly after dawn, when we came upon a sleepy Federal cavalryman mounted on a fine young horse. Lieutenant Brown took him and his arms in charge and rode the horse for a few days, but, learning that he had been taken from a farmer in the neighborhood, returned him to his owner. As we approached the Junction several cannon-shots warned us that some force of the enemy was there, but not General Pope, as we had left him many miles in our rear. ”

“ We were soon asleep, and when we awoke next morning we had slid into a heap close against the tree. To give an idea of the ready access we had to the enemy's stores. I had been the possessor of nine gum-blankets within the past three weeks, and no such article as a gum-blanket was ever manufactured in the South. Any soldier carrying a Confederate canteen was at once recognized as a new recruit, as it required but a short time to secure one of superior quality from a dead foeman on a battlefield. ”

“ Another group of horsemen, another regiment of infantry, another and another—all in unceasing motion toward the man’s point of view, past it, and beyond. A battery of artillery followed, the cannoneers riding with folded arms on limber and caisson. ”

“ The question you ask may one day be actionable, sir. The Cannons are a numerous people in our region, of fair substance, such as we have, but they showed nothing to vary the equation of subsistence here till there arose the mother of Isaac and Jacob Cannon. She was a remarkable woman; unassisted, she procured the charter for Cannon's Ferry, and made the port settlement of that name by the importance her ferry acquired ”

“ Cannon, of waiting until my Lord What-do-you-call-him thinks proper to honour us with a call, you are a mean-spirited, petty-minded fellow. I'd have you to know we are every inch as good as they are."
"To be sure we are!" replied all the Cannons in one simultaneous and spontaneous roar, one well-fired volley of approbation without a straggling shot,—all but Mr. Cannon senior, who remained as still as a target.
[155]
"We owe nothing to nobody," added the speaker; "and can hold up our heads as high as anybody that ever wore one." ”

“ When the feast was over the stranger went away, and the king asked Cannetella: ‘Well, what did you think of the youth?’
‘I think he was a clumsy wretch,’ replied Cannetella. ‘Fancy a man of his age letting an almond fall out of his mouth!’
When the king heard her answer he returned to his watch at the window, and shortly afterwards a very handsome young man passed by. The king instantly called his daughter to come and see what she thought of the new comer. ”

“ George Cannon, with a firm gesture, planted his hat on the flat desk between them. He looked round behind him at the shut glazed door.
"You needn't be afraid," said Edwin. "Nobody can hear--unless you shout."
He gazed curiously but somewhat surreptitiously at George Cannon, trying to decide whether it was possible to see in him a released convict. He decided that it was not possible. George Cannon had a shifty, but not a beaten, look; many men had a shifty look. His hair was somewhat short, but so was the hair of many men, if not of most. ”

“ At one of the annual dinners of the members of the Chapel Royal, a gentleman had been plaguing Edward Cannon with a somewhat dry disquisition on the noble art of fencing. Cannon for some time endured it with patience; but at length, on the man remarking that Sir George D—— was a great fencer, Cannon, who disliked him, replied, "I don't know, sir, whether Sir George is a great fencer, but Sir George is a great fool!" A little startled, the other rejoined, "Possibly he is; but then, you know, a man may be both."—"So I see, sir," said Cannon, turning away. ”

“ Only yesterday she had been a little girl entering George Cannon's office with timid audacity to consult him. Only yesterday George Cannon had been a strange, formidable man, indefinitely older and infinitely cleverer than she. And now they were man and wife! ”

“ I knew that Vane must have done something very displeasing to Cannon, else the other would scarce have made use of such strong expressions, while speaking of his old associate. Cannon, when not excited by passion, was rather guarded in his language; and rarely expressed his opinions in a rash or inconsiderate manner.
Next morning, I met him according to appointment; and we drove to a cottage in Saint John’s Wood—where he proposed introducing me to some of his English acquaintances. We were conducted into a parlour; and the servant was requested to announce, “Mr Cannon and friend.” ”

“ You really are a sight for sore eyes, René. I never thought you would grow into such a handsome man. I do wish George didn’t [Pg 376] have to go to that office. It makes him so pasty.”
“Let me know when you have a birthday,” said René, “and you shall have another tailor-made.”
“It’s next week,” said Elsie innocently.
“Right you are. You shall have it.”
. . . . . .
At last he was in the train. No sleep this time. Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, the hills by Elstree, London. A taxi took him hot speed to the hostel. Cathleen was not yet back from her work. Lotta met him with a grave face. ”

“ From the other end, far up, came the glaring lights of a motor-car. It stopped, and they could hear the purr of its sweetly running engine.
“That’s Mr. Ripley,” said the young woman. “He’s often out at night. He’s a oner, he is. Down to Brighton and back and all that, you know.”
René did not know, but he was pleased and excited. London had ceased to be a spectacle to him. He had been drawn into an adventure, taken to a place where people lived—and a very strange place—the friendliest of hands was on his arm, the cheeriest of voices ringing in his ears. ”

“ I sympathise with the position of the English merchants at Canton. It is not a pleasant thing to live on the borders of a river, and not to have a distance of two miles for exercise. At all events it would not suit me, who am fond of exercise, and I should be most glad to see them in the course of being emancipated from that state of duress in which they are placed at Canton. One of my reasons for regretting that which is being done is, that it tends to retard indefinitely any such extension of the liberty of my countrymen. ”

“ The girl likes you; I know it, and it is a deuced shame to see a fine girl like her thrown away on such a puppy as Vane. Why don’t you save her? She is everything a man could wish for—although she is a little different from most of the young ladies of London. In my opinion, she’s all the better for that.”
In thus addressing me, Cannon acted in a more ungentlemanly manner than I had ever known him to do, for he was not a man to intrude advice upon his friends—especially on matters of so serious a nature, as the one he had introduced. ”

“ The French cannoniers who handled them were brave fellows, for they killed several men on board the Success, nor were they silenced, and the beach swept of the inhabitants, till the commodore's ship, together with the Rose, Flamborough, and Diligence, opened their broadsides to the land, and filled the whole bay with smoke, making every rock and mountain echo to the reverberations of a cannonade that lasted till seven in the evening, for we had a dread of masked batteries among the shrubberies and hedgerows near the shore. ”

“ Nonsense. No good trying to account for it. He is simply not in love with her, never has been, nor she with him.”
He went up to his room and found it empty. No René. No sign of him at Ann’s. He had not been seen at the yard. His car was out with a temporary driver. A child in the mews had seen him in the main road. He had gone into a tobacconist’s and then climbed on a bus. The tobacconist remembered his coming in to get change for a sovereign. He looked rather strange and excited. “It’s a fine day,” said the tobacconist. “Fine, be blowed,” replied René. “It’s [Pg 289] as empty as hell.” ”

“ Levin asked.
"Executed of 'em," said the warrior head and stature of Jacob Cannon; "pounced on 'em; satisfied judgments upon 'em. Fi. fa.! We call this Peale's Museum Number Two, or the Variegated Quotient."
"All these things taken from the poor?" asked Hulda. "How many miseries they tell!"
"Mr. Cannon," said Levin, "what kin you do with 'em? People won't buy 'em. They're just a-rottin' to pieces."
"We keep' em to show all them who trespass on Isaac and Jacob Cannon," answered Marius, with easy grandeur, "that there is a judgment-day!" ”

“ I know very well what I do ; how unpopular and unprofitable it is to speak a word for this weak and unfriended people. A popular verdict seems of late to have been given against them. Fate, too, seems to have the matter in hand, for in the last decade they have lost more ground than in the fifty pre ceding years. Cannon are mounted on their strong holds, even on the summits of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Then Lord Cannebrake and I looked at each other with two bodies between us.
"Her ladyship?" I said.
"We'll have to tell her."
I felt sorry for the old man who had kept his secret so many years. But the hall was now running with Conrad's blood, and I thought we should do well enough to escape the law.
Her ladyship came along the gallery, very pale and beautiful.
"What is it, father? I heard a shot."
"A bad night's work, my lady-love," said the father gently. "But Mr. Tripconey here has saved Cannebrake."
"And his lordship has saved me," I cried. ”

“ Eliminate the pot from the equation!"
Out came the pot, as the material boiling in it put out the October fire, and it was thrown in the miscellaneous heap at Jacob Cannon's feet.
"Now take the cradle, hard-hearted man," the woman cried, "and turn the baby into the fire, too, since I can cook nothing to make its milk in my breasts."
"Is the cradle worth anything, constable?" asked the magnificent-looking man with the gray silvery lights around his horsy nose; "if it's worth taking, I want it. People who can't pay their debts must live single like Jacob Cannon, and not be distrained." ”

“ The yellow lustre seemed to flash in Patty Cannon's rich black eyes, like the moon overhead upon a well.
"How beautiful it do shine, Cunnil!" she said. "Nothing is like it fur a friend. Youth an' beauty has to go together to be strong, but, by God! gold kin go it alone." ”

“ By a long course of usury and legal persecution the Cannon brothers had become detested in their own community, and when they sued O'Day, or Daw, for cutting down a bee-tree on one of their farms he had tilled, and then enforced the judgment of ten dollars, Daw,—now a [Pg 559] man in growth and of Celtic vindictiveness,—loaded his gun and started for Cannon's Ferry, and waylaid Jacob just as he was leading his horse off the ferry scow. ”