dcastle and the former's
staff.

To the Lieutenant-Governor, but newly returned from his wearisome round
of the state armories, much of what followed was so stale as to be no
more than a constantly increasing strain upon nerves already overtaxed.
He deliberately allowed his attention to wander, until he felt rather
than actually perceived the steady tramp-tramp of the men, swinging,
fours right, into column, the occasional "hep! hep!" of an officious
file-closer, the endless succession of fours winking past him, like the
palings of a gray fence seen from the window of a train, the intervals
narrowed by short-step, widening again at the "Forward--_march_!" the
blare of the band, lessening as it approached the further end of the
building, then suddenly bursting into its former volume at the
right-about. He endured it all listlessly. It was tediously familiar,
stamped upon his brain by repetition after repetition.

Moreover, he was completely fagged, and unutterably oppressed by his
burden of discouragement. The old wounds, in part healed by his recent
absence from the immediate vicinity of his constant discomfiture, had
been re-opened and set bleeding afresh by Governor Abbott's treatment of
the Citizens' Committee. Whatever lingering hope had remained in his
mind of peace with honor for the troubled capital of Alleghenia, seemed
to have been effectually dispelled by that interview. The most enduring
charity, the most fatuous credulity, the blindest partisanship--even
these could not have preserved a last spark of confidence in Elijah
Abbott. Still less was Barclay's indeterminate hope of the ultimate
triumph of right able to stand against such crushing evidence of its
instability. It was no longer a question of suspicions, of precedents,
of deductions from the significance of a host of former misdoings. Out
of his own mouth was the Governor convicted. "At my own time, and in my
own way," he had said. It was a phrase, nothing more, and could be
boiled down until its whole purport was contained in one word--Never!

"Fours _left_--_March_! Compan_ee_--_halt_!"

The entire regiment, as one man, swung from column of fours into
battalion front, halted, and then--cr-r-rick! boooo-m-m-m!--came to
order arms. The sides of the room were lined with a solid rampart of
white and gray and gold. Barclay was aware of the First Sergeants,
scurrying from their positions to report, of their voices, and those of
the Majors and the Adjut