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NERVE. Drtrvit w Pm*. “ What constitutes nerve ?" asked the New York World the other day of its readers. One man will answer that it Is presence of mind ; another that it is pluck ; another that it is being ;cool and collected in an emergency. It is none of these. It is something back of all of them, and something which a man never had unless it was born in him. Instances of presence of mind were met with every day in the army. An officer out in charge of foragers or on a reconnoissance would be suddenly attacked. Presence of mind aided him to form his meu for defence.. He had that presence of mind, even though his face was white as flour and his chin shaking. Brave men were common enough in thp ranks. Call for men to face certain death and a hundred pri vates would step out at once, yet, test their “ nerve ” and they had none. Among two or three cases in miud, that of John Melrose, a trooper in the Sixth Michigan Cavalry, is recalled. He was an under-sized, quiet spoken man, and he had that wonderful nerve which not three other men in the whqle brigade possessed. While acting as a scout in the Shenandoah Valley lie was one day eating dinner at a farm-house when in walked seven Confederate sol diers. They knew him for a Union scout, and he knew them for Confeder ates. A brave man would have made a rush or had a fight. Melrose simply looked up as they ’filed in ; smiled over his fix and called out: “ Say, old woman, put on more din ner here and we'll all have a square meal together!” “You are my prisoner!” said the sergeant of the squad as 1m advanced. “ Yes. I know it, but I’ll pay for a dinner for you and your men just the same! Sit right down and make your selves at home.” His nerve upset the soldiers, and after a moment they took seats at the table, forming a complete circle around the board. As soon as they began to cat he began to think of escape. It was summer, and the window behind him and ten feet awav was open. If he stood up all eyes would be on him, and any excuse to leave the room was not to be thought of. The meal was’ about half finished, and captors and captive were chatting away, Melrose suddenly flung himself backwards, upset his chair, and bound ed through the window. The soldiers ran out and fired at ati pursued him, but he made good his escape. In the Luray Valley, just before the affair known as Woodstock Races, Mel rose and his companion fell out of ranks to forage. After securing a sup ply of meat they pushed oil after the column, and were riding at a gallop when five bushwhackers, well mounted, came out of a cross-road about twenty rods ahead of them. “ We are dead men !” said the scout’s companion as they came to a halt. Looking back they saw four more bushwhackers climbing the fence to take position on the highway. Melrose calmly viewed their situation and said : “We will charge them ! Fall in be hind me and there will be less danger. Draw your sabre and strike hard !” The otner dared not try it. though he was a brave man. He therefore kept his place as the scout dashed forward. Melrose rode straight at the men with drawn sabre, and the volley they fired went over him. lie. struck the line, sabred a man as lie passed, and soon rejoined the column. His companion was never heard of again, probably being murdered in cold blood. In 1864 Melrose and three other for agers were captured in the Shenandoah Volley, taken to a small encampment, and the four placed in a log house un der guard until their cases could be disposed of. They talked the situation over, and the bravest of them could ce no hope of escape. Melrose quiet fey sinewed to their discouraging re marks, as quietly replied that he voiild *ke inside of the Union lines be fore midnight. There was a circle of sentinels around t&e building, which had no door. The sentinels paced ■within six feet of the building and the one in front could see the prisoners through the doorway, Melrose said that if all would rush together tlie sen tinels would be confused and either bold their fire or fire wild. The three men bad participated in more than -0 batties, and were known as brave fel lows, but here they needed nerve, and nerve was what they hadn’t got. “ Very well—l will go alone !’ was the quiet announcement, and as night came on Melrose wh-j ready. Stand- The Hartwell Sun. Bv BENSON & McGILL. VOL. I*-#O. #7.. ing in the doorway he asked the senti nel what time it was. r TANARUS" ( 1 / “ You git back tUnr, or I’llJohoDt was the prompt replj\ “ Yes—l’m going right back !” said the scout, and he dashed upon the man, (lit him a stunning blow, and made for the woods. He had to run across an open field in full sight of camp, and though it was dusk, he could be seen Ogite |J:ly for half tit distance. ,fUge thto| fifty; shots war# fired at him, and then pursuit began, but he reached the woods and made his escape. He was one day scouting up the val ley, having on a mixed uniform, when he suddenly came upon two ferocious looking guerillas, while crossing a thick wood. They were seated on a log, backs to him, but at the sound of his step they sprang up and covered him with their carbines. Jt would have been bold to bolt and take the chances of being hit. Melroso never slacken ed his pace nor changed countenance, but walked directly up to the men ahd quietly suit]: ' h . “ I’ve got news for the Colonel, and I want you botli to go along and show me tire way.” " Who said so ?” asked one of the men. j. rs “ If I miss the way there'll be a row, for this is important news,” he an swered. “ Who be you ?” “Come along and ask the Colonel.” “ Well, we ain't going to tramp clear up thar’. Yon go down to tire road, foller it for a mile, and when you come to the old log stable on the right turn into the blind road.” “Why cau’t one of you come along ?” “Oh ! you can't miss the way. We are watching here for game.” Melrose slouched otf in a lazy, tired manner. He had got about fifty feet when he heard them cock their guns. He did not ttim his head or quicken his pace. ‘ He’s a Yank—shoot him !” called one of the men ; but the scout walked on. They were trying him, but he had the nerve of a Napoleon, and he kept his leisurely pace until well away from their neighborhood. A PRETTY RHINE LEGEND. Once upon a time there lived beside the Rhine a beautiful young lady. She had a lover who loved her, aud whom she loved in return. But, after he had wooed her—not one year, but three —he asked her to marry him ; aud she, anx ious to show her power, merely answer ed : “Wait.” “'I have waited three years,” lie said, but at your bidding, I will wait once more—just once more.” Theu he went away and became a sol dier, and praise of his bravery filled the land ; hut the lady was piqued by the thought thiU he had been able to leave for even a year, and wheu he returned she determined to punish him, though all the while she loved him well. He knelt at her feet, and took her hands and said: “ Lady, I have come to claim you for my wife.” But all she answered was : “ Wait longer ; a patient waiter is not a loser.” “ I will wait two years longer,” he said, calmly. “If I do not lose all is well.” Then he left her again. She had hoped that he would plead for l*?r, and that she would be forced to change her mind ; but now he waS^oqe —g6ne for two long years. How she lived through them she could not tell ; bp|, they pass ed, and again her lover was before her. “ I have waited patiently*” was all that he said. The lady yearned to cast herself into bis arms, but pride was strung w ithin her. Wait longer,” she said. “ No" he answered. “ This is the last time. If I wait now I will wait forev er.” At this she drew back haughtily. “ Then wait forever,” she said coldly. He left her without a word. And now her heart sank in her bosom, fcbe wept bitter tears, and repented iD dust and ashes. When a year had gone by, she could bear her woe no longer, and HJHmvm, <U., WEDNESDAY, MAY 12, 1880. sent her little foot page to her old lover bi(hjing hiii bejy |hi? message, “Come haw to me.” But the message tho little foot page brought was just this: “ Wait.” Agaiji she was left to her sorrow, and twg tea* glided hy; then qnce more she bade her page ride over the moun tains to her lover’s castle. “Tell hint I am waiting,” she said. The page'Jdrte npv’ijfy i Aid role, liHy H stood before Ws/lfftjiy and dotl-d hi* cap, and repeated the message that had been given him: “The patient waiter is not a loser.” “He is punishing me,” thought the lady, and for two years longer she re mained in her castle. Her heart was breaking—her'heulth failed—she knew death was nonr. Again she sent her cruel lover a mes sage. “Tell him,’ she said, “ that I am near my etid, awf that if I wait longer before f sey him I shall wait for ever." yy The page returned aud stood beside his lady’s olmir. /His eyes were full of tears j his head was bent upon his breast; lie sigfied and hid his face in plumed cap. The lady lifted her wan face. “ Speak,” elm said, “the message !” “ Alas !” sighed the page ; “ I would it were a more tender one.” “ Whatfeffit it may be. speak!” gasped the laity, “ The only message that I have,” re plied the page is ‘ Wait forever.’ ” “I am well paid in my own coin,” said the lady. “At last I have receiv ed all my own answers back.” In a little while she died, and they buried her in the old churchyard, with a stone at her head and a stone at her feet. When spring came there was grass upon the grave, and there also was a new plant strange to those who’ looked ed upon it; a plant with‘dark, glossy leaves, that crept slowly but surely along, clutching fast to every rough surface it met. There had never been a plant like that on earth before. Now we call it the ivy, but this is what those who saw it for the first time said of it: “It is the lady whom her lover bade to wait forever. In this form she is creeping toward his castle slowly but surely. So she will continue to creep on until she reaches the heart she once threw away.” Generations have passed from earth. The castle is a ruin, covered with ivy, and the peasants will tell you that it lias crept there from the lady’s grave, point by point, over stone and rock, through the graveyard and over gates and fences. You can trace it if you choose, the}’ say, but you do not try. LEFT ON THE BATTLE FIELD. Perhaps you knew what it was to have a bullet plow its way into your flesh, but were you ever left wounded on the field—left to wear away hours of daylight amidst groans and prayers and curses—to wear away a night which seemed years long, while men shrieked in agony and died—while wounded horses sighed and groaned and dragged themselves along—while ghouls prowl ed over the blood-red grass and wet their fingers in warm blood as they searched the bodies of dead and wound ed for plunder ? “ Forward !” came the order. I looked up and down the line as we left the cover of the woods, and the regiment was dressed as if on parade. We were tbfeiMttie-front of a brigade, and were going to charge a battery half, a mile away; No skirmishers put—no j firing. The battery was belching away under a cloud of blue srpoke, and the ground was open and clear. Tramp ! tramp! tramp ! No lagging —po forging ahead. Conynon time— inarch ! maith! march ! It was snail’s pace, but we were to increase it. The left of the line was swinging ahead a a little as the impatient men increased their steps, when suddenly the enemy discovered our maneuver. There was a lull in the firing for fifteen seconds as the battery changed front, and then a shell tore through our center and bat tered six or eight men into bloody pulp. “ Double-quick—charge !” and away we went, each man shutting bis teeth Devoted to Hart County. ban! as he entered the smoke-cloud, from under which the red tongues of death leaped forward to scorch and wither dozens and seizes and hundreds. A grim veteran at my left raised a cheer. It was yet on his lips when a grai>e-ahot tore a hole through his braast and seat him into a dry ditch, dead be fore he struck the grass. Two boy brothers on my right halted for an in stant as the grape and cannistor shriek ed art Hind them. I looked back and they were gone—dead under the feet of theareond line. How far it was! How long it took us to |ias3 over that quarter of a mile ! Now we see shadows around tho guns —now the powder-flame burns our faces -now we nre cheering and shooting and using the bayonet. The guns are ours ! Alen fall to the ground as they step intp pdbls of blood. Every gun lias its blood-stain—every wheel is cov ered with crimson spots. Men died before the guns —around them—behind them. We cheer—hip ! hip ! hn— ! Where am I ? The afternoon sky is overhead—the roar of battle is in 1113’ ears—l am lying on my back on the ground. What does it mean? How came this ? Heavens ! Wlint a burn ing, Mistering, gnawing sensation in my left leg above the knee! lam wounded, and I am lying where I first went down. The guns were here, but they are gone now—part, of them cap tured—part of them dragged away by hand. The tide of battle has shifted, and over this meadow the dogs of war are tearing at each other’s throats. Is there any one else here? I lift I my head. Any one else ! Great God ! but the field is covered witli dead and wounded—with men writhing and groaning--with fragments of bodies— with pale-faced dead—with blood stained dying! I c*n touch the dead on eithejTr"' l *.- n “d lxUn4 >° piteous voice calls oilt: “ Comrade, for the love of Heaven give me a drink of water 1” That pain again. Is the leg being roasted over a slow fire ? Scream and shriek and clutch the grass and keep company with thousands of others who are being tortured to insensibility by pain or driven to distraction b} r the still-continued carnage. Ah! It is night. The falling dew has brought more than one poor soldier back to life and renewed suffering. The batteries are silent. The muskets are resting after their deadly work. There is silence—no! From woods and meadow and knoll and valley, from almost every yard of ground on that long battle-front, rise groans and cries and prayers and pleadings. A general prides himself on a strategic movement —a colonel will be promoted for brave ry —a major is flattered by the cheers of the living—a captain is proud that bis men stood like a stone wall, and the result is five thousand dead and wound ed and mangled men —fathers, brothers and sons. This is glory. Scream and shriek, but someone lias won fame. Pray and plead and rave and curse, but the tele graph is freighting the news of a glo-1 rious victory over the country. The enemy lias not retired as yet, but is j getting ready to fall back when the night grows older. Hark! Is someone moving ? Yes, it is a step. Is it some wounded man hobbling away under cover of dark- j ness ? Nearer, nearer and someone looks into my face. It is the ghoul of of the battle-field—the hyena who drags his talons through blood and gaping wounds to rob dying men’s pockets. uQo away—l am not doadl I shriek ! in bis face as he bends closer, and he moves aside to growl and curse and search the body of one whose pale, up- i turned face is just catching the silver rays of the new moon. I hear more steps. Ghoul meets ghoul and holds a whispered conversation, and they sep arate with hands full of plunder. Now 1 comes a heavier steps. A trooper's horse is dragging himself across the field, a shattered leg making him utter almost human groans. He is more merciful than the ghouls. He weaves and turns to avoid the bodies in his path—he even halts and put bis nose against the faces of the dead as if he would speak to them. $1.50 Per Annum, WHOLE NO. 198. So and so until midnight comes and goes, and then lanterns flash, the ghouls speed away, ami strong men careftilly lift up the wounded and carry white faces as they fiud old comrades lying stitf and stark, in pools of clotted gore. And all this for—what ? BILL ARP I I pun (hr A •mil HirmiMi of ttrolher Tnlmnrr mml Other Niih|n > t. .lllunl.i (Janttitution. Bettor late than never, but it does seem to me Brother Till mage has been a long time finding out wo were a good ] people down here. Fifteen yearn is about sufficient for aseholur to jearn id) about the whole world and the rest of mankind, including Asia and Africa and the Zuloos, but we’ve beam living right here almost in sight of the taber nacle. Brother Talninge Ims been over to Europe and come back and just now begius to lake some interest in us. I’m glad of it. lie talks splendidly nd 1 enjoyed it. He is doing us justice. One I time there was a man who had n wild boy,and one cold night he told him to Jgo out to the wood-pile and bring in a j back log to put on the fire. The boy ( wynt, but lie never came back in a hur ry. t lie took ship ns a sailor and went all over the world and was gone fifteen years, but he came home one Mcknight ami looking through the windbwj, saw the old man at prayers, fjo he hunted round the wood pile and shouldered a big stick, and when prayers were over |he walked in, and says he. “ Daddy, ! here’s that hack log you sent me after." I Brother Talmage has brought in the backlog at last, but we might have | froze to death several times awating for him. Our northern brethren are very poor scholars. Every year or so some one of ’em come down to muke a recog ! nisaoce and they go back and say we are all right— great people—splendid people, have bocu slandered awfully and j so-forth, and right straight we hold up I our heads and wag our tails just like a dog when he gets a kind word from his master. Mr. Beecher come down, uml Dr. Vincent come down, and Genera! Grant come down, and General Sher man and several others, and they go back and say, “ Boys, there’s no harm iu those fellers down south —they nre all right,” but bless my soul nobody be- lieves them, and we have got to enlight en them one at a time just like we did Brother Talmage, and it’s going to take two or three thousand years to do it. Brother Talmage made the best talk for us that’s been made, and there’s some comfort in it, though I don’t sec as how it’s going to do us any particular good. We want our rights. We want our crippled soldiers and soldiers’ wid ows pensioned just like them ori'the oth er side, and 1 want some great man like Dr. Talmage to get up on a stump and say it ought to he done. I said it be fore, and I’m going to keep spying it, there ain’t agoing to be any real peace until we are put up on an equality with ’em in every respect. When an old man makes a will and cuts out some of the children it always breaks up the peace in that family, and though they may compromise like? Bill Vanderbilt did with Neil and his sisters, it don’t re store paternal harmony by no means. We are sorter like the niggers in the Atlanta convention. We want our share of Uncle Sam's property. They can’t put us off with a little long delay ed praise. Mr. Talmagesays the north lias not done us justice. Well, that’s so; but we want to know about what time they will do it. There was a dar key in the calaboose and he sent for Judge Underwood and told him wlmt he was put in there for, and the Judge re plied : “ Well, Jack, they cant put you in here for that. It’s against the law.” “Is dat so, Mas John?” said Jack. “It is so, Jack,” said the Judge, “ they caw not put you in here for that.” “ But I is in here now,” says Jack. “ Mas JohD, sho as you're boru, I is in heah right now.” Somehow I can’t help thinking of these things whether they fit up exuct -Ily or not. Old man Isnm came to me the other day and wanted to know when Congress was going to do any tiling for the colored man. He said he had been | voting for ’em ever since the war and they had promised to do something but they didn’t do nary thing. Said he had done give up ihc mule and the 4<> acres of land, but that the white folks were getting garden seed from Washington and the}’ hadn’t lent any to him. I told him that the darkeys had just as well quit expecting anything mory than they huil already got, for this was a white,man's country and them white folks up yonder wus a fooling of’em, I told him how they done that negro at West Point and advised hint to let poft* itiesalone. When 1 asked him who he wanted for president, he said some of ’em wna gw ine to vote for General Grant and some for General Bhcrinau. i thought there was somebody fooling them niggers ill Atlanta, making ’em believe that it was ole Tenimp that wiw running. The way the rndirnl party fools the darkeys reminds me of ofd John Mcdlin. He was a sharp obi iguker and loved whisky, uml bad uioro wars of getting a dram without paying for it than anybody. John’s credit was gone and hia promises not worth a cent. There was anew grocery opened in the little town, and so John meandered round, aud aeciug some ginger-cakes on the slielf, he priced ’em and said lw would take one. The fellerlaid ittiowß on the counter and John handleditn while, and asked him how he sold whis ky. “ Five cents a drink," said lie. So John usked him to take hack the ginger cake and give him some whisky, whioh, of course, be did, and John drunk it, and after a remark or two about tho woutlier, started ont. When the feller reminded him that ho hadn’t paid for the lirfuor, John looked at him like he was astonished. “ T give you tho gin ger onko for tlie w hisky ” said he indig* nantly. ** But yon didn’t pay for the ginger-cake,” said the feller, “ W by, you’ve got your ginger-cuke,” said John, “there it is on your shelf right where you put it/” aud lie wnlkod out mutter* ing something about a fool. 1 wonder when them Yankees frill learn any sense about the nigger. Don t they know white folks are not going to mix with ’em. Ilarven t they tried it in hotels ami railroads mid churches. Did they not pass all sois of laws to make ns*mix mid their own folks were the first to break ’em? If they want to make West Pointers and midshipmen, out of ’em why don’t they establish branches of that business ami keep 'em separate. That’s the way we do down here. The nigger don’t go to school with the White folks. They don’t want to and we wouldn’t Jet cm if they did. Mr. Beecher may preach about the hor* rible outrage till doomsday but he can’t preach social equality with the niggers at West Point nor any other point. Mr. Beecher ain't the man to regulate so ciety nohow. He lives in agluss hotwe- He may throw his stones around his ow n folks, hut we don’t want him to be sling ing ’em down here. Them congressmen who are making all that fuss about Whitaker don’t care a cent nlmut him. They are just howling for votes —fool- ing the nigger again- Poor darkey; he hasn’t got but one friend, and that’s his old master. Thirteen thousand emi grants landed in New York last week, and all of ’em gone west —uary one come south- afraid of the nigger— don’t want to mix with him. Some of 'em got tired of the Mississippi swamps lust year and tried to find homes higher up, but found nobody to give ’em wel come -nobody standing at fhe gate with an umbvel —no phaeton at the depot— no reception committee —no nothing; and so what of ’em didn’t perish to death come back, and I reckon they will stay. I don’t care whether they do or not. I’ve learned to chop my own wood and catch my own horse and black my own boots, but when there is a darkey about I make him do it, just to keep him reminder! that I’m the boss of the premises and the color line ain’t wiped out yet, law or no law. Yours, Bii-l Arp. Immortal Laudation. Marietta Jrurnal. The Atlanta l'ost speaks of Hoyle as “God’s nobleman.” Evidently the Post has conceptions of God, that does not comport with the teachings of the Bible. The bigger the steal the great er the “noblemau.” If Hoyle had only stolen a ham of meat, be then would have been in the eyes of the Post, a low down criminal. But he stole $40,000, therefore he is “ God's nobleman!” Other tax collectors will please take notice and govern them selves accordingly. Such is the beau tiful moral principle, evidently, the Post intends to teach. A man told his friend that he had joined the army. “What regiment?” his friend asked. “Oh, I don’t mean that; I mean the army of the Lord.” “ Ah, what church “ The Baptists.” “ Why," was the reply, “ that’s ot the army ; it's the navy.”