LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1987, 7 July 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

THE SKELETON IN THE CLOSET, (From the San Francisco 'Argonaut.’3 (Concluded.) And there he really was—dear, handsome bright George Schaff—the delight of all the nicest girls of Richmond, Ea lay there ca Aunt Eunice’s bed on the giound door, where they had brought him in Ha was not dead, and he did not die. He is miking cotton in Texas now. But he looked mighty near it then. The deep cut in hn head waa the worst I ever had seen, and the blow confused everything When McGregor got round he said it waa not hopeless ; but we were all turned out of the room, and, with one thing and another, he got the boy out of the swoon and it proved his head was not brokc-n.

No; but poor George swears to this day it was better it had been, if it could only have been broken the right way, and on the tight field. For that evening wo hoard that everything had gone wrong in tho surprise. There wo had been waiting for one of those early fogs, and at last the fog had come. And Jnhal Early had, that morning, pushed out every man he had, that c,,nid stand j and they lay hid for three mortal honrs, within I don’t know how near the picket line at Fort Powhatan, only wait ng for the shot which John Streight’s party was to fire at Wilson’s Wnarf, as soon as somebody on our le!t centre advanced in force, on tho enemy’s line above Turkey Island, stretching across to Naasemond. lam not in the War Department, and I forget whether he was to advance en barbette or by echelon, of infantry. Bnt he was to advance somehow, and he knew how; and when he advanced, yon see, that other man lower down was to rush in, and as soon as Early heard him ha waa to surprise Powhatan, yon tee; and then, if you have understood mo, Grant and Bailor and the whole rig of them would have been cut off from their supplies, wou’d have had to fight a battle for which they were not prepared, with their right made into a new left, and their old left unexpectedly advanced at an oblique angle from their centre, and would not that have been the end of them ?

Well, that never happened. And the reason it never happened -was th*t poor George Schaff, with the last fa’al order for this man who-o name I forget (the same who waa afterwards killed the day before High Bridge), undertook to save time by cutting across behind my house, from Franklin to Green streets. You know how much time he saved—they waited all day for that order.

George told me afterwards that the last thing he remembered was kissing his hand to Julia, who sat at her bedroom window. He said he thought she might be the last woman ha ever saw this side of heaven. Just after that it must have been his horse—that white Messenger colt old Williams bred —went over like a log, and poor George waa pitched fifteen feet, head foremost against a stake there was in that lot. Julia saw the whole. She rushed out with all tho women, and had just brought him in when I got home. And that was the reason that the great promised combination of December, 1874, never came off at all.

I walked out in the lot. after McGregor turned me out of the chamber, to see what they had done with the horse. There he lay, as dead as old Messenger himself. His neok was broken. And do you think, I looked to see what had tripped him. I supposed it was one of the boys bandy holes. It was no such thing. The poor wretch had tangled its hind legs in one of those icfemal hoopwires that Chloe had thrown out in the piece when I gave her her new ones. Though I did not know it then, those fatal strap a of rusty steel had broken the neck tjhit dty «£ Robert Lea’s army.

That time I made a row about it. I felt too badly to go into a passion. Bat before the women went to bed—they were all in the sitting-room together—l talked to them like a father, I did not swear, I had got over that for a while, in that six ■» eeks on my back. But I did say the old wires were infernal things, and that the bocaa and premises mast be made rid of them. The aunts laughed—though I was so serious—and tipped a wink to the girls. The girls wanted to laugh, but were afraid to. And then it came out that the aunts bad sold their old hoops ; tied as tight as they could tie them, in a great mass of rags. They had made a fortune by the sale—l am sorry to say it was in other rags, but the rags they got were new instead of old—it was a real Aladdin bargain. The ragman had been in a hurry, and had not known what made the things so heavy. I frowned at the swindle, but they said all was fair with a ptdlar—and I own 1 was glad the things were well out c£ Richmond. But when I said I thought it waa a mean trick, Lizzie and Sarah looked demure, and asked what in the world I would have them do with the old things. Did I expect them to walk down to the bridge themselves with great parcels to throw into the river, as I had done by Julia's? Of course it ended, as such things always do, by my taking the work on my own shoulders. I told them to tie np all they had in as small a parcel as they could, and bring them to me.

Accordingly the next day I found a handsome brown paper parcel—not so large, considering ; and strangely square, considering —which the minxes had put together and left on my office table. They had a great frolic over it. They had not spared red tape nor red wax. Very official it looked, indeed, and on the left hand comer, in Sarah’s boldest and most contorted hand, was written, ‘Secret service.’ We had a great laugh over their success. And, indeed, I should have taken it with me the next time I went down to Tredegar, but that I happened to dine one evening with young Norton, of our gallant little navy, and a very curious thing he told us. We were talking about the disappointment of the combined land attack. I did not tell what upset poor Schaff's horse; indeed, I do not think those navy men knew the details of the disappointment. O’Brien had told me, in confidence, what I have written down probably for the first time now. But we were speaking, in a general way, of the disappointment. Norton finished hia cigar rather thoughtfully, and then said—

4 Well, fellows. It is not worth while to put it in the newspapers, but what do yon suppose upset our grand naval attack the day the Yankee gunboats skittled down the river so handsomely ?’ ‘Why,’ said Allen, who ia Norton’s bestbeloved friend, ‘ they say that yon ran away from them aa fast as they did from you.’ ‘Do they ? ’ said Norton, grimly. *lf you say that I’ll break your head for yea. Seriously, men,’ continued he, ‘ that was a most extraordinary thing. You know I was on the ram. But why she stopped when she stopped I knew as little as this wineglass does : and Callender himself knew no more than I. Wo had not been hit. We weio all right as a trivet for all we know ; when Skreo ! she began blowing off steam, and we stopped dead and began to drift down under those batteries.

Callender had to telegraph to the li* tie ‘Mosquito,’ or whatever Walter called his boat, and the spunky little thing ran down and got us out of the scrape. Walter did right well; if he had Lad a monitor under him ho could not have done better. Of course we all rushed to the engine room. What in thunder were they at there ? All they knew was they could get no water into her boiler. ‘ Now, fellows, this is the end of the story. As soon as the boilers ocoled off they worked all right on these supply pumps. May I be hanged if they had not sucked in, some how, a long string of yarn and cloth, and if yon will believe me a wire ef some woman’s crinoline. And that French folly of a sham empress cut short that day the victory of the Confederate navy, and old Davis himself can’t tell when we shall have such a chance again.’

The North British Railway Company have laid aside £120,000 to cover the loss by the Tay bridge disaster. It is a fact that the liquor traffic of this fair land is annually destroying mere sods than all the ministers and Sunday-school teachers are instrumental in saving. And yet it is far more difficult to convert a ‘ moderate ’ drinking clergyman or a ‘ moderate ’ drinking Sunday-school teacher to the practice of total abstinence than it is to persuade a poor drunkard to relinquish the fatal intoxicating gIMS,