Blake had found in Penhallow much that he liked and qualities which were responsive to his own high ideal of the man and the soldier.  He looked him over as the young engineer lay on his camp-bed.  “Get anything but home-sick, Penhallow!  I get faint fits of it.  The quinine of ’Get up, captain, and put out those pickets’ dismisses it, or bullets.  Lord, but we have had them in over-doses of late.  Francis has been hit twice but not seriously.  He says that Lee is an irregular practitioner.  It is strange that some men are hit in every skirmish; it would bleed the courage out of me.”

“Would it?  I have had two flesh wounds.  They made me furiously angry.  You were speaking of Lee—­my uncle greatly admired him.  I should like to know more about him.  I had a little chance when we were trying to arrange a truce to care for the wounded.  You remember it failed, but I had a few minute’s talk with a Rebel captain.  He liked it when I told him how much we admired his general.  That led him to talk, and among other things he told me that Lee had no sense of humour and I gathered was a man rather difficult of approach.”

“He might apply to Grant for the rest of his qualities,” said Blake.  “He would get it; but what made you ask about sense of the humorous?  I have too little, Francis too much.”

“Oh,” laughed Penhallow, “from saint to sinner it is a good medicine—­even for home-sickness.”

“And the desperate malady of love,” returned Blake.  “I shall not venture to diagnose your need.  How is that?”

“I?—­nonsense,” laughed the engineer.  “But seriously, Blake, about home-sickness; one of my best men has it badly—­not the mild malady you and I may have.”

“You are quite right.  It accounts for some desertions—­not to the enemy, of course.  I talked lately of this condition to a Dr. McGregor—­”

“McGregor!” returned Penhallow, sitting up.  “Where is he?  I’d like to see him—­an old comrade.”

“He is with our brigade.”

“Tell him to look me up.  The engineers are easily found just now.  He was an old schoolmate.”

“I’ll tell him.  By the way, Penhallow, when asking for my mail to-day, I persuaded the post-master to give me your letters.  Don’t mind me—­you will want to read them—­quite a batch of them.”

“Oh, they can wait.  Don’t go.  Ah! here’s Josiah with coffee.”

“How it does set a fellow up, Penhallow.  Another cup, please.  I had to wait a long time for our letters and yours.  Really that place was more tragic than a battlefield.”

“Why so?  I send Josiah for my mail.”

“Oh, there were three cold-blooded men-machines returning letters.  I watched them marking the letters—­’not found’—­’missing’—­and so on.”

“Killed, I suppose—­or prisoners.”

“Yes, awful, indeed—­most sorrowful!  Imagine it!  Others were forwarding letters—­heaps of them—­from men who may be dead.  You know how apt men are to write letters before a battle.”