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.When Trooper Howard came up for the trial which resulted in his going in irons for a five years' tour in prison, an effort was made to get Devers before the court as a witness, and a subpœna duces tecum was duly served upon him in his far distant home within sight of the sounding sea, but it did not fetch him.Devers explained that as a civilian he had no interest in the proceedings and could not be required to obey the mandate of a purely military court, a view in which the judiciary of the great republic, ever steadfast in the principle that military must be subservient to the civil power, virtually sustained him.It was perfectly competent for a court-martial to summon a civilian witness, said the bench, but it had no recourse in case the civilian treated both court and summons with contempt, and Devers's fellow-citizens in the far East, headed by the editor of the Mooselemeguntic Mirror, congratulated their returned hero on the spirited and just rebuke he had administered to a satrapy which should have no place among an enlightened people.Indeed, the Mirror's interviews and editorials were both full of brilliant mendacity just now.Devers's story was in every issue, more or less of it, and West Point jealousy was the theme of many a paragraphic fling.Brilliant, daring, conspicuous as had been Devers's services during the civil war and on the wild frontier, he had never succeeded in winning recognition, owing to the persistent calumnies of his seniors, who, graduates of the great national charity school on the Hudson, were leagued to down any man whose ability, dash, and daring made him the object of their narrow jealousy and the victim of their inordinate greed.After years of patient service, loyal and dutiful, their distinguished fellow-citizen, said the Mirror, had been relieved from his command on trumped-up charges, and, though he pleaded hard to be allowed to go with them in any capacity, even as an humble trooper in the ranks, his company took the field on the late campaign without him, and, deprived of the services of their beloved captain, met with grievous and irreparable disaster.Even then his enemies were not silenced.The faithful soldiers who clamored for the restoration of their captain were driven to death or desertion.He himself begged to be confronted with his accusers, but met denial, delay, and deceit at every hand.One pretext after another was resorted to in postponing the meeting of the court, and at last, worn out with long struggle against prejudice, injustice, and organized enmity, he had thrown up his commission in a thankless service and returned to the welcoming arms of his fellow-citizens.The Mirror, in which Devers had a controlling interest, inquired whether the time had not come for the recall of the amiable fossil then misrepresenting the district in Congress, and the unanimous election of Colonel Devers as his successor.The governor, needing the support of the Mirror in a coming campaign, gladly availed himself of the opportunity of rewarding a war-tried veteran, and named the returning soldier an aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel on his staff, and humble subalterns of artillery from the two-battery post at the entrance of Mooselemeguntic Bay looked with awe upon the future military committeeman of the —th Congress, yet were charmed with his affability at the governor's ball, where his new uniform fitted him better than did those of his associate aides, and where the artillerymen heard things confirmatory of their convictions that their comrades of the cavalry really had no idea how to fight Indians.Devers was on the high-road to fame and Congress, and might indeed have made successful run had the election occurred within four months after his return, but four months was too long for him to live without differing, and little by little the Mirror became dimmed and Devers's image faded out of public sight.Only once did it revive, and that was when, several years after, all on a sudden there appeared in the columns of the army paper notice that a bill had been introduced in Congress providing for the restoration to the army, with the rank he would have held had he remained continuously in the cavalry service, of Jared B.Devers, formerly captain Eleventh Cavalry, who had tendered his resignation some years before owing to disagreements with certain officers representing the West Point element, which was hostile to him, and friends in Washington warned the Eleventh that old Differs had strong political backing.And then did the Eleventh arise in its wrath.Good old Tintop had been gathered to his fathers by that time.Riggs was rusting out of active service, Pegleg was buried and Mrs.Pegleg was married again,—a lieutenant this time; but there was no lack of men to remember how he had managed by political influence at Washington to secure the acceptance of his resignation the moment he saw how surely, if brought to trial, the case would go against him, and the Eleventh published a memorial, signed by almost every surviving officer who was with it in the old days.The bill if passed would make Devers a major well up on the list, for Warren was now lieutenant-colonel of the —th, Truman major of the Fourth, Cranston senior captain, Boynton and Hastings were junior troop commanders, Sanders a senior first and regimental quartermaster.All these and other names appeared attached to the remonstrance, and that bill was never even reported in committee.It was learned that in the course of some years of differing with his business associates, the gentle Devers, though still a colonel on his native heath, had nearly wrecked the "Mirror" and his fortune with it, and so bethought him of this scheme of restoration to the army.Leonard was by this time an assistant adjutant-general, and prompt to act.There was a jubilee at Ransom the evening after his despatch was received reporting arrival of the regimental protest and the remarks thereon by members of the military committee.The officers gathered in the club-room and drank long life to Leonard and confusion to Devers, and then little Sanders tuned up his guitar and sang.He was just back from leave, and a popular lyric of the day was one they called "The Accent On," for the last line of every verse was "with the accent on" some syllable of the last word of the previous line.There was nothing especially poetic or refined about the composition, but the newspapers were ringing the changes on it.A popular comedian had sung and made much of it, and its composer had presumably made something if not much out of it, and Sanders was sure of laughter and applause when he sang it at the "stags." One verse was of a man who came home in a maudlin state and his wife remarked, "Well, you are beautiful.With the accent on the full
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