Cannonner

“ 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. ”

“ She recognised the man, and called him to come in. At first he did not know the poor princess, and could not make out who it was that called him by name. But when he heard Cannetella's tale of woe, he hid her in a big empty barrel he had with him, partly because he was sorry for the poor girl, and, even more, because he wished to gain the king's favour. Then he slung the barrel on the mule's back, and in this way the princess was carried to her own home. They arrived at the palace about four o'clock in the morning, and the cooper knocked loudly at the door. ”

“ Canning owed much to fortune. Lucky in the time of his decease, lucky in the times at which many of those with whom he had hitherto acted deserted him. If he had lived longer, it would have been difficult for him to have kept the station to which he had risen: if he had not been left when he was by a great portion of his party, he would never have obtained the popularity by which his death was hallowed. To few has it happened to be supported by a set of men just as long as their support was useful,—to be quitted by them just when their alliance would have been injurious. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The moment I came into view a Minie-ball sung by my head and passed through the clothes of the cannoneer, Barton McCrum, who was a few steps from me, suggesting to both of us to lie low until called for as videttes. Perched in the tops of the trees beyond the half-mile of open field in our front, the enemy's sharpshooters, with telescope sights on their rifles, blazed away at every moving object along our line. It was noon before their artillery opened on us, and, in the firing which ensued, a large barn a hundred yards in our front was set on fire by a shell and burned to the ground. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I transferred the saddle and bridle to a horse abandoned in the road with some artillery, and left my old benefactor standing, with limbs wide apart and head down, for his original owners.
Fac-simile of parole signed by General Pendleton
To accomplish my purpose of going out with a horse, two obstacles had first to be overcome. Being only a cannoneer, I was not supposed to own a horse, so I must be something else. I laid the case before General Pendleton, our old neighbor in Lexington, and my former school-teacher. ”

“ 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 battery kept straight on in the road and through the woods, the enemy's skirmishers having fallen back to our right. We halted where the road began to descend, waiting until a place suitable for action could be found. Up to this time there was only infantry skirmishing, not a cannon having been fired on either side, when, as we stood quietly by our guns, a Federal shell burst in our midst with a tremendous crash. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Canning's demeanor was only what was to be expected. He was the proudest of men, and (that awful night at the Beach) she had expelled him from her presence like a schoolboy. Naturally he had been annoyed and offended--stung even into the rudeness of abandoning her in a summer-house to an entire stranger. How could you possibly wonder (unless feline) that he, great unsocial at best, had thereafter remained silent inside his fort?...
"How like a man," breathed Mrs. Heth, glancing at her watch, "to pick out this day of all others to be detained at a bank." ”

“ Scarcely had this melody passed out of hearing when there came marching by, in gallant style, the four batteries of the Washington Artillery, of New Orleans, with officers on horseback and cannoneers mounted on the guns and caissons, all with sabers waving in cadence to the sound of their voices, singing, in its native French, "The Marseillaise," that grandest of all national airs.
The younger generation cannot comprehend, and express surprise that the old soldiers never forget and are so wrought up by the recollections of their war experiences ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Canning felt a great responsibility. He could not tell who was guilty, and in trying to punish them or him he might disgust the good men on whom so much depended. He at once accepted an offer made by the gentlemen on board the ship to take turn about in doing duty in the tank and superintending the men engaged in paying-out the Cable. Then he caused the cablemen to be summoned at the bows, and showed them the coil and the wire. ”

“ Dolf blushed and looked down.
"Never mind," said Conrad, his cheeks as red as the others'. "He is right. I do not shoot well, and he does. Courage, Dolf! Here is another arrow."
"I must go now," said the cowherd's son. "My father will scold me. Good day, sirs!"
He made a gesture of respect, and turned to go.
"Come again to-morrow!" called Conrad.
"Yes," said Father Johann.
"It will be an excellent thing for Lord Conrad," said Father Johann to the Duchess that evening. "I know the child's parents. They are decent, honest folk, and the boy is like them. It is written in his face." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Galloway will expect me,” he observed.
“Not expect you!” flashed Roland, lapsing into his loud, excited manner. “I can tell you what, Arthur: if he doesn’t expect you, he shan’t expect me. Mr. Channing, did you ever know anything so shamefully overbearing and unjust as that affair yesterday?”
“Unjust, if it be unfounded,” replied Mr. Channing.
“Unfounded!” uttered Roland. “If that’s not unfounded, there never was an unfounded charge brought yet. I’d answer for Arthur with my own life. I should like to sew up that Butterby! I hope, sir, you’ll bring an action against him.” ”

“ Previously I had motored from London to remain the night at Tarhaven, which is four miles from Gattlingsands, and thus was enabled to save Cannington a train fare. Considering that he and Lady Mabel Watton had about sixpence between them, he was duly grateful, although pointedly saucy. I was always sorry for Cannington's poverty, as he was a thoroughly healthy-minded sporting boy, who keenly enjoyed such good things of this life as he could lay hands on. A pauper commoner is an object to be met with everywhere; but a pauper lord is a more unusual spectacle. ”

“ We lie, and toss, and turn; and say, When will the night be gone? In the day we can partially shake it off, walking hither and thither; the keenness of the anguish is lost in exertion.
Mr. Channing could not take this exertion. Lying there always, his days were little better to him than nights, and this strange blow, which had fallen so suddenly and unexpectedly, nearly overwhelmed him. Until that afternoon he would have confidently said that his son might have been trusted with a room full of untold gold. He would have said it still, but for Arthur’s manner: it was that which staggered him. ”

“ 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." ”