Gordon Keith | Page 3

man of active

mind and also active arm, named by his boys, from the latter quality,
"Old Hickory."
Gordon, like some older men, hoped for war with all his soul. A
great-grandfather an officer of the line in the Revolution, a grandfather
in the navy of 1812, and his father a major in the Mexican War, with a
gold-hilted sword presented him by the State, gave him a fair pedigree,
and he looked forward to being a great general himself. He would be
Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great at least. It was his preference for a
career, unless being a mountain stage-driver was. He had seen one or
two such beings in the mountains when he accompanied his father once
on a canvass that he was making for Congress, enthroned like Jove, in
clouds of oil-coats and leather, mighty in power and speech; and since
then his dreams had been blessed at times with lumbering coaches and
clanking teams.
One day Gordon was sent for to come home. When he came
down-stairs next morning his father was standing in the drawing-room,
dressed in full uniform, though it was not near as showy as Gordon had
expected it to be, or as dozens of uniforms the boy had seen the day
before about the railway-stations on his journey home, gorgeous with
gold lace. He was conscious, however, that some change had taken
place, and a resemblance to the man-in-armor in the picture over the
library mantel suddenly struck the boy. There was the high look, the
same light in the eyes, the same gravity about the mouth; and when his
father, after taking leave of the servants, rode away in his gray uniform,
on his bay horse "Chevalier," with his sword by his side, to join his
men at the county-seat, and let Gordon accompany him for the first few
miles, the boy felt as though he had suddenly been transported to a
world of which he had read, and were riding behind a knight of old. Ah!
if there were only a few Roundheads formed at the big-gate, how they
would scatter them!
About the third year of the war, Mr. Keith, now a brigadier-general,
having been so badly wounded that it was supposed he could never
again be fit for service in the field, was sent abroad by his government
to represent it in England in a semi-confidential, semi-diplomatic

position. He had been abroad before--quite an unusual occurrence at
that time.
General Keith could not bring himself to leave his boy behind him and
have the ocean between them, so he took Gordon with him.
After a perilous night in running the blockade, when they were fired on
and escaped only by sending up rockets and passing as one of the
blockading squadron, General Keith and Gordon transferred at Nassau
to their steamer. The vessel touched at Halifax, and among the
passengers taken on there were an American lady, Mrs. Wickersham of
New York, and her son Ferdy Wickersham, a handsome, black-eyed
boy a year or two older than Gordon. As the two lads were the only
passengers aboard of about their age, they soon became as friendly as
any other young animals would have become, and everything went on
balmily until a quarrel arose over a game which they were playing on
the lower deck. As General Keith had told Gordon that he must be very
discreet while on board and not get into any trouble, the row might
have ended in words had not the sympathy of the sailors been with
Gordon. This angered the other boy in the dispute, and he called
Gordon a liar. This, according to Gordon's code, was a cause of war.
He slapped Ferdy in the mouth, and the next second they were at it
hammer-and-tongs. So long as they were on their feet, Ferdy, who
knew something of boxing, had much the best of it and punished
Gordon severely, until the latter, diving into him, seized him.
In wrestling Ferdy was no match for him, for Gordon had wrestled with
every boy on the plantation, and after a short scuffle he lifted Ferdy and
flung him flat on his back on the deck, jarring the wind out of him.
Ferdy refused to make up and went off crying to his mother, who from
that time filled the ship with her abuse of Gordon.
The victory of the younger boy gave him great prestige among the
sailors, and Mike Doherty, the bully of the fore-castle, gave him boxing
lessons during all the rest of the voyage, teaching him the mystery of
the "side swing" and the "left-hand upper-cut," which Mike said was
"as good as a belaying-pin."

"With a good, smooth tongue for the girlls and a good upper-cut for
thim as treads on