CHAPTER XXIIITHE MAN IN THE CHIMNEY
“Lemme alone!” repeated the voice in the chimney several times before Somers could make up his mind as to the precise nature of the adventure upon which he had stumbled.
There was another man in the chimney; and this was the full extent of his knowledge in regard tothe being who had stepped into his darkened path. A succession of exciting questions presented themselves to his mind, all of which were intimately connected with the individual with whom, for the moment, his lot seemed to be cast. Was he friend, or foe? Yankee, rebel, or neutral? What was he in the chimney for? What business had he there?
Somers had some knowledge of a useful and otherwise rightly respectable class of persons, known as chimney-sweeps, who pursue their dark trade up and down such places as that in which he was now burrowing; but the sweeps were a civilized institution, and he could hardly expect to find them in this benighted section of the Ancient Dominion. He did not, therefore, waste a moment in the consideration of the question, whether the man beneath him was a chimney-sweep or not; for the supposition was too improbable even for the pages of a sensational novel.
The individual was in the chimney; and there seemed to be the boundary of knowledge on the subject. If he was not crazy, he was there for concealment; and, thus far the two occupants of the chimney were in sympathy with each other. Why should the man wish to conceal himself? Was he a hated Yankee like himself, pursued and hunted down by the myrmidons of Jeff Davis? Certainly, if he was a rebel, he had no business in the chimney. It was no place for rebels; they had no occasion to be there.
Of course, then, the man must be a Yankee, afellow-sufferer with Somers himself, and therein entitled to the utmost consideration from him. But, if a Yankee, what Yankee? The species did not abound on this side of the river; and he could not imagine who it was, unless it were one of his own party. Just then, induced by this train of reflection, came a tremendous suggestion, which seemed more probable than anything he had before thought of. Was it possible that the other denizen of the sooty flue could be Captain de Banyan?
His fellow-prisoner had been taken into the house by his custodian; and, while the guard was looking the other way, perhaps he had suddenly popped up the chimney, leaving the rebel soldier in charge of him to believe that he was in league with the powers of darkness, and had been spirited away by some diabolical imp.
In the range of improbable theories which the fertile mind of Somers suggested to account for the phenomenon of the chimney, this seemed more reasonable than any of the others. The personage below him very considerately dropped down a step or two, to enable our theorist to discuss the question to his own satisfaction; albeit it did not take him a tithe of the time to do his thinking which it has taken his biographer to record it.
“Captain?” said he in a gentle whisper, as insinuating as the breath of a summer evening to a love-sick girl.
“I ain’t a captain; I’m nothing but a private!”growled the other, who seemed to be in very ill-humor.
Nothing but a private! It was not the captain then, after all. He had hoped, and almost believed, it was. He had told his friend all about his experience in a chimney; and it seemed to him quite probable that the valiant hero of Magenta and Solferino had remembered the affair, and attempted to try his own luck in a similar manner. It was not the voice of the captain, nor were there any of his peculiarities of tone or manner. If the other character had only said Balaclava, Alma, or Palestro, it would have been entirely satisfactory in any tone or in any manner.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Somers in the same low voice, with commendable desire to obtain further knowledge of the dark subject beneath him.
“I don’t want nothin’ of you; so yer kin let me alone. If yer don’t let me alone, I’ll be dog derned if I don’t ketch hold of yer legs, and pull yer down chimley.”
“Hush!” said Somers in warning tones. “They will hear you, if you speak so loud.”
The man was a rebel, or at least a Southerner; and it passed our hero’s comprehension to determine what he was doing in such a place.
“Hush yerself!” snarled the disconcerted rebel. “What yer want o’ me? I ain’t done nothin’ to you.”
“I don’t want anything of you; but, if you don’tkeep still, I’ll drop a stone on your head,” replied Somers, irritated by the fellow’s stupidity.
“Will yer?”
“Not if you keep still. Don’t you see we are in the same box? I don’t want to be caught, any more than you do.”
“Who be yer?” asked the man, a little mollified by this conciliatory remark.
“Never mind who I am now. The soldiers are in the house looking for us; and, if you make a noise, they will hear you.”
“What regiment do yer belong ter?” said the lower occupant of the chimney in a whisper.
“Forty-first,” replied Somers at a venture, willing to obtain the advantage of the fellow’s silence.
“Did yer run away?”
“No. Did you?”
“What yer in here fur, if yer didn’t run away, then?” asked the deserter from the rebel army, which it was now sufficiently evident was his character.
“Keep still!” replied Somers, regretting that he had not given a different answer.
“I know yer!” exclaimed the rebel, making a movement farther down the chimney, thereby detaching sundry pieces of stone and mortar, which thundered down upon the hearth below with a din louder, as it seemed to Somers in his nervousness, than all the batteries of the Army of the Potomac. “Yer come to ketch me in a trap. Scotch me if Idon’t blow yer up so high ’twill take yer six months ter come down ag’in!”
“Keep still!” pleaded Somers, in despair at the unreasonableness of the rebel. “The soldiers are after me; and, if they catch me, they will catch you. 1 don’t want to hurt you. If you will only keep still, I will help you out of the scrape.”
“You go to Babylon! Yer can’t fool me! What yer doin’ in the chimley?”
If Somers could quietly have put a bullet through the fellow’s head, and thus have punished him for the crime of desertion, he might have promoted his own cause; but the bullet would not do its work without powder, and powder was noisy; and therefore the remedy was as bad as the disorder, to say nothing of assuming to himself the duty of a rebel provost-marshal.
“Yer can’t fool me!” repeated the fellow, after Somers had tried for a moment the effect of silence upon him.
It was unnecessary to fool such an idiot; for Nature had effectually done the job without human intervention. It was useless to waste words upon him; and Somers crept cautiously up out of his reach, and out of his hearing, unless he yelled out his insane speeches. Every moment he stopped to listen for sounds within the house; but he could hear none, either because the pursuers had abandoned the search, or because the double thickness of wood and stone shut out the noise.
The rebel deserter, for a wonder, kept quietwhen Somers retreated from him, evidently believing that actions spoke louder than words. From his lower position in the flue, he could look up into the light, and observe the movements of him whom he regarded as an enemy. He seemed to have discretion enough to keep still, so long as no direct attack was made upon him; and to be content to wait for a direct assault before he attempted to repel it; which was certainly more than Somers expected of him, after what had transpired.
Carefully and noiselessly our fugitive made his way to the top of the chimney for the purpose of ascertaining the position of the pursuers, as well as to remove all ground of controversy with the intractable deserter. On reaching the top, he heard the voice of the sergeant at the window, who had probably just reached this point in his investigations.
“How came this board knocked off?” demanded the sergeant, who had perhaps observed some other indications of the advance of the fugitive in this direction.
“The wind blowed it off t’other day,” promptly replied the farmer. “Yer don’t s’pose the feller went out that winder, do yer?”
“No; but I think he has been up here somewhere.”
“Well, I hope yer’ll find him; but I’ve showed yer into every hole and corner in the house; and I tell yer he’s five mile from this yere ’fore now.”
The sergeant looked out of the window, lookedup to the top of the chimney, and looked up to the ridge-pole of the house. He was no sailor himself; and, if the thought had occurred to him that the Yankee had passed from this window to the roof of the house, he would have been willing to take his Bible oath that not a man in the Southern Confederacy could have accomplished such an impossible feat. He could not do it himself, and consequently he believed that no other man could. After examining the situation to his entire satisfaction, he retired from the window, and with a great many impolite and wicked oaths, aimed at Yankees in general, and deserters in particular, he descended from the loft, and abandoned the search.
Somers was happy, and even forgave the deserter in the lower part of the chimney for his stupidity. He waited patiently for the troopers to depart—very patiently, now that the burden of the peril seemed to be over; for he had heard the conclusions of the sergeant at the window. From his present perch near the top of the chimney, he could hear some of the conversation in front of the house; and he even ventured to take a look at his enemies below. To his intense satisfaction, he saw them mount their horses: and he was not much disturbed by the unamiable reflections which they cast upon him.
Captain de Banyan was with them; thus proving in the most conclusive manner that the gentleman in the chimney was not this distinguished individual. Having lost one prisoner, they wereparticularly cautious in regard to the disposition of the other. The captain marched off in gloomy dignity, with two cavalrymen before and two behind him. Somers caught a glance at his face as he turned the corner into the road. It was sad beyond anything which he had ever observed in his countenance before, and a momentary twinge of conscience upbraided him for deserting a comrade in such an hour; he might have waited till both of them could escape together. But the captain’s record in the Third Tennessee assured him that he had only done his duty; though he hoped his brilliant friend would be able, if an opportunity was ever presented, to remove the stain which now rested on his name and fame.
With a feeling of intense relief, however much he commiserated the misfortunes of his comrade, Somers saw the little procession move up the road which led to Richmond and a rebel dungeon. They disappeared; and while he was considering in what manner he should make his way down to the creek, where he hoped to find a boat in which to leave this treacherous soil, he heard a voice beneath him, and farther down than the locality of the deserter.
“Yer kin come down now, Tom,” said the farmer.
Though the name was his own, the invitation was evidently not intended for him; and he remained quietly on his perch, waiting for further developments.
“Hev they all gone, dad?” asked the deserter.
“Yes; all gone. Yer kin come down now.”
The renegade, then, was the son of the farmer; which accounted for the unwillingness of the latter to have the house searched by the soldiers; and, though Somers had a general contempt for deserters, he felt his indebtedness to this interesting family for the service they had unwittingly endeavored to render him.
Tom—Somers wanted to have his name changed then—Tom descended from his position in the chimney. It was an easy matter; for the kitchen was at the other end of the house, and there had been no fire on this hearth for many a month.
“Dad,” said this graceless son of a graceless sire.
“Go and wash yer face, Tom. Ye’re blacker than Black Jack.”
“Dad, there’s another man up the chimley. We come near havin’ a fight up there. I told him what I would do; and he got skeered, and went up top.”
“What d’yer mean, Tom?” demanded the patriarch.
Tom stated again, more explicitly than before, the subject matter of his startling communication.
“I reckon he’s a Yank, dad; he talks like one, but says he b’longs to the Forty-fust Virginny. I know he’s a Yank. I kin smell one a mile off.”
Somers was flattered; but he was not angry at the compliment, and calmly waited for an invitation to join the family below.
“He’s the feller that gin the soldiers the slip,”added the father. “The sergeant says he’s a Yank; but t’other prisoner says he’s a James River pilot.”
“I know he’s a Yank. He’d ‘a’ killed me if I hadn’t skeered him off.”
“I reckon he skeered you more’n you skeered him,” added the head of the family, who appeared not to have a very high opinion of his son’s courage. “We’ll smoke him out, Tom. Go’n git some pitch-wood and sich truck.”
Somers had a very strong objection to being smoked out, and he commenced a forward and downward movement in the direction of the assailing party. Fearing that some unworthy advantage might be taken of his lower extremities before he could assume an attitude of defense, he drew his pistol, and placed himself a few feet above the fire-place. Tom returned with the fuel, and the old man ordered him to make a fire.
“One moment, if you please,” said Somers. “I’ll shoot the first man of you that attempts to make a fire there.”
With an exclamation of terror, Tom retreated from the hearth; and Somers, improving the opportunity, leaped down from his perch. Stepping out from the great fire-place, he stood in the presence of the hopeful son and sire.
CHAPTER XXIVA BROKEN BARGAIN
Somers was entirely satisfied with himself when he stood in the presence of the farmer and his son; and, so far as they were concerned, he had no fears for the future. The redoubtable Tom retired to one corner of the room, and, full of terror, awaited the issue. The father was the braver of the two, and stood in the middle of the floor, confronting the pestilent Yankee who had thus so unceremoniously invaded his house.
“Who be you?” demanded the old man.
“No matter who I am,” replied Somers, with the pistol still in his hand. “I propose to spend the day with you, and will pay for everything I have.”
“Perhaps yer will stay here, and perhaps yer won’t,” replied the farmer doggedly.
“There’s no perhaps about it; I intend to stay here.”
“I s’pose yer don’t keer whether I’m willing or not.”
“On the contrary, I do care. I had much rather stay with your consent than without.”
“Well, then, yer won’t stay with my consent.”
“Then I shall stay without it,” answered Somers, with a degree of decision which was exceedingly annoying to his involuntary host.
“No, yer won’t,” growled the farmer.
“I will pay you well for the use of this room, and for all that I eat and drink,” said Somers, wishing to be fully understood.
“Yer can’t stay here.”
“No, yer can’t,” added Tom.
“I have made you a fair offer, and am willing to do what is right; and, as I said before, I intend to stay here till to-night, whether you are willing or not.”
“Yer kin put up your pistol; I ain’t afeerd on it.”
“I have no desire to use the pistol to your injury, and shall not do so unless in self-defense. You know that I am a fugitive.”
“A nigger, by gracious!” exclaimed the farmer, whose vocabulary was very limited, and who had no idea that the word “fugitive” could mean anything but a runaway negro.
“You know that the soldiers are after me, and it will not be safe for me to leave this house before dark. I’m not a nigger; and it makes no difference to you what I am.”
“You are a dirty Yankee; and I’d rather hev a hundred niggers in my house than one Yankee.”
“That’s a matter of taste. If you are fond of negroes, I don’t interfere with you for that.”
“Shet up!” snarled the farmer, highly displeased with the answer of the fugitive. “I won’t hev a Yankee in my house a single hour.”
“Very well; we won’t argue the matter. Youcan do anything you please about it,” replied Somers with perfect indifference as he seated himself in a chair.
“Then yer kin leave.”
“I shall not leave; on the contrary, I shall remain here till night.”
“I reckon we’ll see about that. I’ll jest go down and call up two or three of them soldiers, and let ’em know you’re a Yankee. I calkilate they’ll tote you out of this rather sudden.”
“Go ahead!” replied Somers coolly.
“I reckon ye’ll tell another story by the time they git here.”
“I reckon your son Tom will too,” added the unwelcome guest.
“See here, dad; that won’t work, nohow,” interposed the hopeful son. “They’ll ketch me if yer do.”
“Exactly so,” added Somers, who, of course, had depended upon the situation of the rebel deserter for his own safety.
The farmer looked at his intractable guest, and then upon his dutiful son; and the idea tardily passed through his dull brain that the soldiers would be just as dangerous to the welfare of the son as to the visitor. Probably he had intended, when the military force came, to send Tom up the chimney, as he had done a dozen times before; but the secret was no longer in the keeping of the family alone.
“I see you understand the case perfectly,” saidSomers, as he contemplated with intense satisfaction the blank dismay of both father and son. “If you had the wisdom of Solomon, you couldn’t comprehend it any better.”
“I reckon ye’re about right, stranger,” replied the farmer.
“You can see now it is for your interest as well as mine that we make friends. Tom’s safety and mine are both the same thing. The best you can do is to take good care of me to-day, and at night help me to make my way over to the other side of the river.”
“Then yer be a Yank?”
“I didn’t say so. Tom can go with me if he likes. He will be safer there than here.”
“Tom?”
“If he is a deserter from the rebel army, he will be caught sooner or later, and be shot. He will be safe on the other side of the river.”
“Go over to the Yanks! He hates ’em wurs’n pizin. Don’t yer, Tom?”
“Bet yer life I do, dad,” replied the hopeful son. “I won’t go over thar, nohow.”
“Just as he pleases about that. I only wanted to do him a friendly act.”
“Well, stranger, I don’t mind keepin’ yer to-day; but Tom can’t go with yer.”
“Very well; then I will stay in this room; and, if the soldiers come, I can go up the chimney with Tom,” replied Somers. “I’m tired and sleepy. Didn’t sleep a wink last night. I will take a napon the floor. You will wake me, Tom, if there’s any danger; won’t you?”
“Yes, I’ll wake yer,” replied the deserter with a broad grin.
“We’ll see that you don’t git caught; kase, if yer do, of course, Tom’ll git caught too,” added the farmer.
There was something in his manner which Somers did not like. Though he was a man of dull mind, there was a kind of low cunning visible in his look and manner which warned Somers to be cautious. He stretched himself on the floor; and the farmer and his son left the room, closing the door behind them.
Our scout was, as he had before declared, both tired and sleepy; but rest and sleep were luxuries in which he could not permit himself to indulge in the midst of so much peril and so many enemies. As soon as the door closed behind the sire and the son, he rose from his reclining posture, and hastened to reconnoiter the position. The enemy—for such he was fully assured his host was—passed through the entry and out the door at the back of the house, as Somers discovered from the noise of their retreating footsteps.
There was a window in the rear of the room, which commanded a full view of them as they paused near the door to consider the situation. Somers raised the sash a little, so that he could hear what they said, not doubting that his own case would be the subject of the conversation.
“Don’t you do it, dad,” protested Tom in answer to some proposition which the farmer had made before the listener came within hearing distance of them.
“Don’t yer be skeert, Tom. The feller’s gone ter sleep in there, and the soldiers kin hurry him off afore he wakes up. Don’t yer see, Tom? I reckon the Yank’s an officer, and they’ll give me suthin handsome fur ketchin him.”
“Yes; but, dad, they’ll get suthin handsome fur ketchin me too.”
“You kin hide, as yer allers does when they comes.”
“But the Yank will blow on me.”
“What if he does?”
“He’ll tell ’em I’m up chimley, and then they’ll look fur me.”
“Tom, ye’re a bigger fool’n yer father!” said the farmer petulantly. “Can’t yer hide in t’other place down suller?”
“It looks kinder skeery, dad,” replied the doubtful son.
“Yer used ter hide down suller more’n yer did up chimley. But don’t yer see, Tom, arter I’ve called in the soldiers, and give up the Yank, they’ll think I’m a patriot, and won’t b’leeve nothin’ a dirty Yank can say agin’ me.”
“Well, dad, I hate the Yank as bad as you do; but yer must be keerful.”
“Now go and see that the feller don’t wake up and run off, and I’ll go down arter a sergeant andhalf a dozen men. When yer hear us comin’, just step down suller’n crawl inter the drean. Git the feller’s pistol out of his pocket, if yer kin, while he’s asleep.”
“What a precious old scoundrel that man is!” thought Somers, as he retreated from the window, and threw himself on the floor where the farmer had left him.
He almost regretted that he had not used his pistol on the treacherous old villain, who had made a fair bargain with him, and agreed to the terms of the contract. The wretch had actually gone after the soldiers to entrap him, and Tom was to remain and keep watch of him in the meantime. Taking the revolver from his pocket, he thrust it under his blouse; still keeping his hand upon it, so as to make sure that the deserter did not carry out his part of the programme. Thus prepared for the conflict which might ensue, or for any other event, he closed his eyes, and pretended to be asleep.
Presently the door softly opened, and Tom crept into the room. He had taken off his shoes, that his step on the uncarpeted floor might not disturb his prey, and stole towards him. After approaching as near to the prostrate form as he dared, he bent over him to determine in which pocket the pistol had been placed. Somers was tempted to grapple him by the throat, as he listened to the young villain’s subdued breathing; but he feared that hewould scream if he did so, and it was necessary to achieve his conquest in a more gentle manner.
He moved his body a little, as if his slumbers were disturbed by unpleasant dreams; and added a noise like a snore to complete the delusion. Tom retired for a moment till his victim should again be composed; but Somers, instead of subsiding into the slumber of a sleepy and tired man, gradually opened his eyes and waked up. Slowly rising into a sitting posture, he looked around him; and apparently, as if entirely by accident, he discerned Tom.
“Can’t yer sleep?” asked Tom, with extraordinary good nature for a person of his saturnine disposition.
“I’ve been asleep these two hours, I believe,” gaped Somers. “What time is it, Tom?”
“’Tain’t eight o’clock yet. Yer hain’t been asleep more’n fifteen minutes.”
“Haven’t I?”
“Not more’n that. Better lay down, and finish yer nap; kase I s’pose yer won’t git much sleep to-night, if ye’re gwine over the river.”
“I feel better than I did, at any rate. I think I’ll get up. It’s tremendous hot here. Don’t you ever open your windows?”
“I reckon we do. I was just thinkin’ o’ that.”
And it was quite probable he was thinking of it; for he certainly wanted the earliest information of the approach of the soldiers. He opened the window in the front of the house, and Somersopened that in the rear. The latter then went to the door, and took a careful survey of the entry, in order to determine the way which the deserter must take to reach the cellar, where he was to conceal himself when the soldiers came. The prudent son of the master of the house had opened the door leading to the cellar, from which he was to enter his subterranean retreat.
For more than an hour, Tom nervously watched the wakeful Yankee, and several times suggested to him that he could sleep just as well as not, promising to wake him up if there was any danger; but Somers was most provokingly lively for a man who had been up all the preceding night, and resolutely refused to take a hint or to adopt a suggestion. Both of them were fearfully anxious for the result that was pending, and each had his plan for overreaching the other. It was a long hour; but at last Tom broke the spell which seemed to rest on both of them by declaring that he was “clean choked up,” and must go and get a drink of water. At the same moment, Somers heard the tramp of the soldiers in the road as they approached the house, and understood why his companion had suddenly become so thirsty.
“No,” said Somers, placing himself between the deserter and the door, with the revolver in his hand. “I don’t want to be left alone. Somebody is coming to the house—half a dozen men. They are soldiers!” he exclaimed, glancing out at the window.
“Run right up chimley thar, and you’ll be as safe as if you was t’other side of the river.”
“But they’ll catch you too! Come, Tom, up chimney with you, and I’ll follow. If any one attempts to follow us, I’ll shoot him with my pistol. Be in a hurry, Tom! We have no time to spare,” urged Somers, driving the coward before him towards the fire-place.
“You go up fust,” pleaded Tom, in mortal terror of the revolver.
“Up with you, or I’ll blow your brains out!” added Somers in a low, fierce tone, which frightened his companion half out of his wits.
“Don’t fire, and I will,” replied the wretch, as he stepped into the fire-place, and commenced the ascent of the chimney.
“Up with you!” repeated Somers. “Now, if you attempt to come down, I’ll shoot you.”
The voice of the farmer, leading the soldiers to their prey, was now heard close to the house; and Somers deemed it prudent no longer to remain in the room. Darting out into the entry, he made his way to the cellar, closing the door behind him just as the rebels were about to enter.
“Where is he?” demanded the sergeant, who belonged to the battery at the works near the house.
“In this room,” replied the farmer, putting his hand on the door of the apartment where he had seen the victim lie down to sleep an hour before. “But yer must be keerful with him. He had a pistol, and mebbe he mought shoot some on us.”
“We aren’t afraid of all the Yankees this side of the north pole,” added the sergeant, as he pushed the door open and entered the room, followed by his squad of soldiers. “Where is he? There aren’t no Yankee here.”
“Well, he was here an hour ago,” said the farmer.
“See here, old man, if you’ve been makin’ a fool of us this hot day, I’ll spit you on my bayonet. We heard that a deserter and a Yankee had been taken, and that the cavalry lost one of them.”
“That was the Yankee. They lost him, and I found him ag’in.”
“Where is he, then?”
“He aren’t far from here,” said the farmer, walking up to the fire-place, and pointing up the chimney, where he had no doubt the victim had retired when he heard the soldiers approaching.
“Up there?”
“That’s where the feller hid when the troopers was lookin’ fur him; and yer kin be sure he’s up there now. But yer must be keerful; fur he’s got a pistol, and is a mighty savage fellow.”
“We’ll soon bring him down,” added the sergeant as he stepped into the fire-place, and looked up the chimney. “I see him; but he’s half way up to the top. I reckon we can smoke him out best. Come, old man, take some of this pitch-wood, that will make a big smoke, and kindle a fire.”
“We’ll soon have him,” said the farmer as he obeyed the order.
“I say, Yank!” shouted the sergeant up the chimney; “if you don’t want to be smoked out, come down.”
No answer came to this polite suggestion; and then one of the soldiers proposed to fire his musket up the chimney; which so terrified the occupant thereof, that he begged for mercy.
“Don’t shoot, and I’ll come down!” groaned the wretch.
“The cowardly Yank! He’s like all the rest of them. Come down quick, then!”
The farmer, who had stepped out for more wood, returned; and at the same moment, Tom the deserter, begrimed with soot, dropped down on the hearth, and stepped out into the room.
CHAPTER XXVSOMERS IS COMPELLED TO BACK OUT
Very likely the Virginia farmer had some idea of retributive justice when he saw his hopeful son step out of the fire-place into the very jaws of ruin. To say that he was astonished would be expressing his state of mind too tamely; for he was overwhelmed with confusion, fear and mortification. He had expected to find the Yankee asleep on the floor; but, as he was not there, it was sufficiently evident to him that he had again resorted to thechimney for concealment. It had been distinctly arranged beforehand, that Tom, his son, should conceal himself in the cellar; and, of course, he did not expect to find him in the chimney.
In short, all his expectations had been defeated, and he himself had opened the trap for his son to enter. He probably knew how strict was the discipline of the rebel army in respect to deserters. He had frequently heard of executions of persons of this class; and he could hardly expect his son to escape the penalty of his misconduct. He had broken his bargain with the fugitive; and, in attempting to surrender him to his implacable enemies, he had deprived his heir of liberty, if not of life.
“This is your Yankee, is it?” demanded the sergeant, as he gazed at the remnants of the rebel uniform which Tom still wore.
“No, no; this ain’t the Yankee!” stammered the farmer.
“Well, you needn’t tell us who he is; for we know. I was told to keep a sharp lookout for one Tom Rigney, a deserter; and I reckon this is the chap. You are my prisoner, my fine lad.”
“There, now, dad!—d’ye see what ye’ve done?” snarled poor Tom Rigney, as he glanced reproachfully at the patriarch, who had unwittingly sprung the trap upon him.
“I didn’t do it, Tom,” replied Farmer Rigney, appalled at the calamity which had overtaken his house.
“Didn’t you bring me in here to capture this boy?” asked the sergeant, who appeared to be bewildered by the unnatural act of the father.
“I brought yer here to take the Yank, who was as sassy as a four-year-old colt.”
“He promised the Yankee he’d take keer on him till night,” added the vengeful Tom.
“That was only to keep him here till I could fotch somebody to take keer on him,” pleaded the farmer. “The Yank must be up chimley now,” he continued, reminded that his own reputation for loyalty to the great and general Southern Confederacy was now doubly compromised.
“He ain’t up there, dad, nohow,” said Tom.
“Where is he?” demanded the sergeant.
“Dunno.”
“Where did he go?”
“Dunno.”
“Didn’t you see him?”
“I reckon it was too dark, up chimley, to see anything.”
“Haven’t you seen him?”
“I reckon I have. He woked up, and druv me up chimley right smart, with the pistol in his hand; reckon, if I hadn’t gone, I’d been a dead man; I’ll be dog scotched if I shouldn’t.”
“You say he drove you up the chimney?” demanded the sergeant.
“I reckon he did.”
“Where did he go, then?”
“Dunno.”
“Yes, you do know! If you don’t tell, you’ll get a bayonet through your vitals,” said the soldier sternly, as he demonstrated with the ugly weapon he had fixed on his gun before he began to examine the chimney.
“Dunno,” replied the deserter sulkily.
“Answer, or take the consequences!”
“Dunno. Jes as lief be stuck with a bagonet as shot by a file of soldiers,” answered Tom, to whom the future looked even more dark than the present.
“Tell, Tom,” pleaded his father.
“Dunno, dad; I was up chimley when he left. Dunno no more’n the dead.”
Perhaps the sergeant concluded that Tom’s position was a reasonable one, and that it would not have been possible for him to see, from his dark retreat, where the Yankee had gone. At any rate, he was saved from further persecution; and two of the men were ordered to conduct him to the camp, while the remainder stayed to continue the search for the fugitive. Farmer Rigney protested and pleaded, and even offered to warm the palms of the soldier’s hands with certain pieces of gold which he had in the house; but, unfortunately for the patriotic farmer, the sergeant was above a bribe, and Tom was hurried off to his doom.
A careful search of the house and premises was now instituted; and this time the farmer was a zealous co-operator with the soldiers; for it was necessary for him to establish his own loyalty before he could do anything to save his son from thedeserter’s fate. The party proceeded up-stairs first, and carefully examined every closet, and every nook and corner which could by any possibility contain the form of a man. As Somers was not up-stairs, of course they did not find him; and we will not weary our readers by following them in their fruitless search.
Somers went down into the cellar, closing the door after him; and, as he may be lonesome in his gloomy retreat, we will join him there, though it was rather a tight place for more than one person. The cellar was dark when the fugitive made his advent within its somber shades; and, as he was an utter stranger in the place, he was not a little bewildered by the awkwardness of the situation. He was in darkness, and wished for light; at least, for enough to enable him to find the hiding-place of which he had heard the farmer speak.
This snug retreat, where the deserter had balked his pursuers, was undoubtedly the cellar drain; though, to Somers, it appeared to be a Virginia notion to have it long enough to admit the form of a man. Tom Rigney was a larger person than himself; and the case was hopeful enough, if he could only find the opening. The cellar contained various boxes, barrels, firkins and other articles, the mass of which were piled up in one corner.
Somers followed the wall entirely around, from the pile in the corner, till he returned to it, without finding what he desired. It was sufficiently evident, therefore, that the entrance to the drain wasunder the boxes and barrels, which had probably been placed over it to ward off the over-inquisitive gaze of any visitors who might explore the cellar. Our enterprising hero immediately commenced the work of burrowing beneath the rubbish, and soon had the happiness of discovering the identical road by which the original occupant of the place had entered. Before the opening, he found sufficient space to enable him to readjust the boxes and barrels, so as to hide his den from the observation of any who might be disposed to follow him in his subterranean explorations.
The drain was certainly small enough, even for the genteel form of Captain Thomas Somers; though, as his mustache was quite diminutive in its proportions, he was able to worry himself along several feet into the gloomy hole. It was a miserable place in which to spend the day; but, miserable as it was, he hoped that he should be permitted to remain there. He was fully conscious of the perils of his situation. He knew that Tom, in the chimney, must be captured; and it was not probable that the farmer would let the soldiers depart without examining the house. His retreat was known to him, and there was not one chance in a hundred for the hole to be passed by without an examination.
It would be fatal to remain where he was; and, after resting himself from the fatigue which the exertion of moving in his narrow den induced, he again pushed forward, cheered by the conclusionthat a drain would be a useless institution without an opening at each end. Indeed, there was a glimmer of light at some distance before him; and he indulged the hope that he might work his way out to the blue sky.
He had scarcely resumed his progressive movement, which had to be accomplished very much after the fashion of a serpent—for the aperture was too narrow for the regular exercise of his legs and arms—he had scarcely begun to move before voices in the cellar announced the approach of the pursuers. A cold sweat seemed to deluge his frame; for the sounds were like the knell of doom to him. With desperate energy he continued his serpent march; but it was only to butt his head against the stones of the drain, where its size was reduced to less than half its proportions near the cellar.
His farther advance was hopelessly checked; and there was nothing more to be done but to wait patiently the result of the exciting event. He was satisfied that his feet were not within eight or ten feet of the cellar; for, being a progressive young man, he had entered the hole head first. It was possible, but not probable, that he might escape detection, even if the opening was examined; and, with what self-possession he could muster for the occasion, he lay, like the slimy worms beneath him, till ruin or safety should come.
“I reckon he isn’t down here,” said the sergeant,after the party had examined the cellar, and even pulled over some of the boxes and barrels.
“God bless you for a stupid fellow as you are!” thought Somers; for he was prudent enough not audibly to invoke benedictions, even upon the heads of his enemies; but the words of the sergeant afforded him a degree of relief, which no one, who has not burrowed in a drain in the rebel country, can understand or appreciate.
“I reckon there’s a place down in that corner that’s big enough to hold a man; fur my son Tom’s been in there,” added the farmer.
These words gave Somers another cold sweat; and perhaps he thought it was a mistake that he had not put a bullet through the patriarch’s head when he had been tempted to do so in the room above. He was a double traitor; but I think the conscience of our hero was more at rest as it was than it would have been if he had shot down an unarmed man, even to save himself from prospective capture.
“Where is the place?” demanded the sergeant.
“In yonder, under them barrels and boxes. Jest fotch the trumpery out, and you’ll see the hole,” replied Rigney.
Somers heard the rumble of the barrels, as they were rolled out of the way, with very much the same feelings that a conscious man in a trance would listen to the rumbling of the wheels of the hearse which was bearing him to the church-yard,only that he was to come forth from a hopeless grave to the more gloomy light of a rebel dungeon.
“I can’t see anything in that hole,” said the sergeant. “No man could get into such a place as that.”
“Blessed are your eyes; for they see not!” thought Somers. “May your blindness be equal to that of the scribes and Pharisees!”
“But my son Tom has been in there. I reckon a Yankee could crawl inter as small a hole as anybody.”
The sergeant thought this was funny; and he honored the remark with a hearty laugh, in which Somers was disposed to join, though he regretted for the first time in his life that he was unable to “crawl out at the little end of the horn.” He was encouraged by the skepticism of the soldier, and was satisfied, that, if he attempted to demonstrate the proposition experimentally, he would be fully convinced of its difficulty, if not of its impossibility.
“Go and bring another lamp and a pole,” said the sergeant.
One of the party went up the stairs, and Somers gave himself up for lost. The extra lamp would certainly expose him, to say nothing of the pole; and it seemed to be folly to remain there, and be punched with a stick, like a woodchuck in his hole. Besides, there is something in tumbling down gracefully, when one must inevitably tumble; and he was disposed to surrender gracefully, as the coon did when he learned that Colonel Crockett wasabout to fire and bring him down. There was no hope; and it is bad generalship, as well as inhuman and useless, to fight a battle which is lost before the first shot is fired.
We have before intimated that Captain Somers, besides being a brave and enterprising young man, was a philosopher. He had that happy self-possession which enables one to bear the ills of life, as well as the courage and address to triumph over them. He had done everything which ingenuity, skill, and impudence could accomplish to save himself from the hands of the rebel soldiers; from a rebel prison, if not from a rebel halter. He had failed; and, though it gave him a bitter pang to yield his last hope, he believed that nothing better could be done than to surrender with good grace.
“How are you, sergeant?” shouted he, when he had fully resolved upon his next step.
“Hallo!” replied the sergeant, laughing heartily at the hail from the bowels of the earth. “How are you, Yank?”
“In a tight place, sergeant; and I’ve concluded to back out,” replied Somers.
“Good! That’s what all the Yankees will have to do before they grow much older. Back out, Yank!”
Somers commenced the operation, which was an exceedingly unpleasant necessity to a person of his progressive temperament. It was a slow maneuver; but the sergeant waited patiently till it wasaccomplished, by which time the extra lamp and the pole had reported for duty.
“How are you, Yank?” said the sergeant, laughing immoderately at the misfortune of his victim.
“That’s the smallest hole I ever attempted to crawl through,” replied Somers, puffing and blowing from the violence of his exertions in releasing himself from his narrow prison-house.
“How came you in such a place?” asked the sergeant as they walked up the stairs.
“Well, my friend, the farmer here, suggested the idea to me. He said his son had crawled in there a great many times.”
“I?” exclaimed Rigney. “I never said a word about the drean.”
“You must be looked after,” added the sergeant, with a menacing look at the discomfited farmer. “You have concealed a deserter in your house for weeks; and now we find that you hide Yankees too.”
“I didn’t hide him!” protested Rigney.
“Didn’t you agree to keep me here till night?” asked Somers, who despised him beyond expression.
“If I did, it was only to have the soldiers ketch yer.”
The sergeant declared that Rigney was a traitor, and that he must go along with him; but Somers, with more magnanimity than many men would have exercised towards such a faithless wretch, told the whole story exactly as it was, thus relievinghim of a portion of his infidelity to the Southern Confederacy; and the sergeant was graciously pleased to let him remain at home, while his victim was marched off to the rebel camp.