senses come back; small
thanks shall I have for lying on the floor, giving up all my comforts,
and, what is more, riding over the spirit of the place with a
vengeance!" He threw himself down on the grass beside the mound and lay
looking up toward the stars, which were coming out, one by one, in the
deep blue of the Southern night. "With a vengeance, did I say? That is
it exactly--the vengeance of kindness. The poor fellow has suffered
horribly in body and in estate, and now ironical Fortune throws him in
my way, as if saying, 'Let us see how far your selfishness will yield.'
This is not a question of magnanimity; there is no magnanimity about it,
for the war is over, and you Northerners have gained every point for
which you fought. This is merely a question between man and man; it
would be the same if the sufferer was a poor Federal, one of the
carpet-baggers, whom you despise so, for instance, or a pagan Chinaman.
And Fortune is right; don't you think so, Blank Rodman? I put it to you,
now, to one who has suffered the extreme rigor of the other side--those
prison-pens yonder."

Whereupon Blank Rodman answered that he had fought for a great cause,
and that he knew it, although a plain man and not given to
speech-making; he was not one of those who had sat safely at home all
through the war, and now belittled it and made light of its issues.
(Here a murmur came up from the long line of the trenches, as though all
the dead had cried out.) But now the points for which he had fought
being gained, and strife ended, it was the plain duty of every man to
encourage peace. For his part he bore no malice; he was glad the poor
Confederate was up in the cottage, and he did not think any the less of
the keeper for bringing him there. He would like to add that he thought
more of him; but he was sorry to say that he was well aware what an
effort it was, and how almost grudgingly the charity began.

If Blank Rodman did not say this, at least the keeper imagined that he
did. "That is what he would have said," he thought. "I am glad you do
not object," he added, pretending to himself that he had not noticed the
rest of the remark.

"We do not object to the brave soldier who honestly fought for his
cause, even though he fought on the other side," answered Blank Rodman
for the whole fourteen thousand. "But never let a coward, a double-face,
or a flippant-tongued idler walk over our heads. It would make us rise
in our graves!"

And the