Chapter XXXIX: A Council of War (4)

"He patted my shoulder again, and looked as pleasant and flattering as if I had been a child to be coaxed,--I, as much a man, every bit, as he!" said Pomp, with a gleam of pride. "I could have torn him like a tiger for his insolence, his heartless injustice. But I repressed myself; I knew nothing was to be gained by violence.

"'Master,' said I, 'what you say is no doubt very flattering. But I want what my master gave me--what you promised that I should have--I shall be contented with nothing else.'

"'What! you persist?' he said, kindling up. 'Let me tell you now, Pomp, once for all, you'll have to be contented with a good deal less; and never mention the word "freedom" to me again if you would keep that precious hide of yours whole!'

"I saw he meant it, and that there was no help for me. Despair and fury were in me. Then, for the only time in my life, I felt what it was to wish to murder a man. I could have smitten the life out of that smiling, handsome face of his! Thank God I was kept from that. I concealed what was burning within. Then first I learned to pray,--I learned to trust in God. And so better thoughts came to me; and I said, 'If he uses me well, I will serve him; if not, I will run for my life.'

"Well, he brought me here to Tennessee. Here he was managing his aunt's estate, which she, soon dying, bequeathed to him. Up to this time I had got on very well; but he never liked me; he often said I knew too much, and was too proud. He was determined to humiliate me; so one day he said to me, 'Pomp, that Nance has been acting ugly of late, and you permit her.' I was a sort of overseer, you see. 'Now I'll tell you what I am going to have done. Nance is going to be whipped, and you are the fellow that's going to whip her.'

"'Pardon, master,' said I, 'that's what I never did--to whip a woman.'

"'Then it's time for you to begin. I've had enough of your fine manners, Pomp, and now you have got to come down a little.'

"'I will do any thing you please to serve your interests, sir,' said I. 'But whip a woman I never can, and never will. That's so, master.'

"'You villain!' he shouted, seizing a riding whip, 'I'll teach you to defy my authority to my face!' And he sprang at me, furious with rage.

"'Take care, sir!' I said, stepping back. ''Twill be better for both of us for you not to strike me!'

"'What! you threaten, you villain?'

"'I do not threaten, sir; but I say what I say. It will be better for both of us. You will never strike me twice. I tell you that.'

"I reckon he saw something dangerous in me, as I said this, for, instead of striking, he immediately called for help. 'Sam! Harry! Nap! bind this devil! Be quick!'

"'They won't do it!' said I. 'Woe to the man that lays a finger on me, be he master or be he slave!'

"'I'll see about that!' said he, running into the house. He came out again in a minute with his rifle. I was standing there still, the boys all keeping a safe distance, not one daring to touch me.

"'Master,' said I, 'hear one word. I am perfectly willing to die. Long enough you have robbed me of my liberty, and now you are welcome to what is less precious--my poor life. But for your own sake, for your dead brother's sake, let me warn you to beware what you do.'

"I suppose the allusion to his injustice towards me maddened him. He levelled his piece, and pulled the trigger. Luckily the percussion was damp,--or else I should not be talking with you now. His aim was straight at my head. I did not give him time for a second attempt. I was on him in an instant. I beat him down, I trampled him with rage. I snatched his gun from him, and lifted it to smash his skull. Just then a voice cried, 'Don't, Pomp! don't kill master!'

"It was Nance, pleading for the man who would have had her whipped. I couldn't stand that. Her mercy made me merciful. 'Good by, boys!' I said. They were all standing around, motionless with terror. 'Good by, Nance! I am off; live or die, I quit this man's service forever!'

"So I left him," said Pomp, "and ran for the woods. I was soon ranging these mountains, free, a wild man whom not even their blood-hounds could catch. I took the gun with me--a good one: here it is." He removed the rifle from its crevice in the rocks. "Do you know that name? It is that of its former owner--the man who called himself my master. Do you think it was taking too much from one who would have robbed me of my soul?"

He held the stock over the bed, so that Penn could make out the lettering. Delicately engraved on a surface of inlaid silver, was the well-known name,--

"_Augustus Bythewood._"

XV.

_AN ANTI-SLAVERY DOCUMENT ON BLACK PARCHMENT._

Penn was not surprised at this discovery. He had already recognized in Pomp the hero of a story which he had heard before.

"But all this happened before I came to Tennessee, did it not? Have you lived in this cave ever since?"

"It is three years since I took to the mountains. But I have spent but a little of that time here. Sometimes, for weeks together, I am away, tramping the hills, exploring the forests, sleeping on the ground in the open air, living on fish, game, and fruits. That is in the summer time. Winters I burrow here."

"If you are so independent in your movements, why have you never escaped to the north?"

"Would I be any better off there? Does not the color of a negro's skin, even in your free states, render him an object of suspicion and hatred? What chance is there for a man like me?"

"Little--very true!" said Penn, sadly, contemplating the form of the powerful and intelligent black, and thinking with indignation and shame of the prejudice which excludes men of his race from the privileges of free men, even in the free north.

"These crags," said the African, "do not look scornfully upon me because of the color of my skin. The watercourses sing for me their gladdest songs, black as I am. And the serious trees seem to love me, even as I love them. It is a savage, lonely, but not unhappy life I lead--far better for a man like me than servitude here, or degradation at the north. I have one faithful human friend at least. Cudjo, cunning and capricious as he seems, is capable of genuine devotion."

"Have you two been together long?"

"One day, a few weeks after I took to the mountains, I was watching for an animal which I heard rustling the foliage of a tree that grows up out of a chasm. I held my gun ready to fire, when I perceived that my animal was something human. It climbed the tree, ran out on one of the branches, leaped, like a squirrel, to some bushes that grew in the wall of the chasm, and soon pulled itself up to the top. Then I saw that it was a man--and a black man. He came towards the spot where I was concealed, sauntering along, chewing now and then a leaf, and muttering to himself; appearing as happy as a savage in his native woods, and perfectly unconscious of being observed. Suddenly I rose up, levelling my gun. He uttered a yell of terror, and started to cast himself again into the chasm. But with a threat I prevented him, and he threw himself at my feet, begging me to grant him his life, and not to take him back to his master.

"'Who is your master?' said I.

"'Job Coombs was my master,' said he, 'but I left him.'

"'You are Cudjo, then!' said I,--for I had heard of him. He ran away from a tolerably good master on account of unmercifully cruel treatment from the overseer. But as he had been frightfully cut up the night before he disappeared, it was generally believed he had crawled into a hole in the rocks somewhere, and died, and been eaten by buzzards. But it seems that he had been concealed and cured by an old slave on the plantation named Pete."

"Coombs's Pete!" exclaimed Penn.

"You have good cause to remember the name!" said Pomp. "As soon as Cudjo was well enough to tramp, he took to the mountains. It was a couple of years afterwards that I met him. We soon came to an understanding, and he conducted me to his cave. Here he lived. He has always kept up a communication with some of his friends--especially with old Pete, who often brings us provisions to a certain place, and supplies us with ammunition. We give him game and skins, which he disposes of when he can, generally to such men as Pepperill. He was going to Pepperill's house, after meeting Cudjo, that night when the patrolmen discovered and whipped him. That led to Pepperill's punishment, and that led to your being here."

"Does old Pete visit you since?"

"No, but he has sent us a message, and I have seen Pepperill."

"Not here!"

"Nobody ever comes here, sir. We have a place where we meet our friends; and as for Pepperill, I went to his house."

"That was bold in you!"

"Bold?" The negro smiled. "What will you say then when I tell you I have been in Bythewood's house, since I left him? I wanted my medicine-case, and the bullet-moulds that belong with the rifle. I entered his room, where he was asleep. I stood for a long time and looked at him by the moonlight. It was well for him he didn't wake!" said Pomp, with a dancing light in his eye. "He did not; he slept well! Having got what I wanted, I came away; but I had changed knives with him, and left mine sticking in the bedstead over his head, so that he might know I had been there, and not accuse any one else of the theft."

"The sight of that knife must have given him a shudder, when he woke, and saw who had been there, and remembered his wrongs towards you!" said Penn.

"Well it might!" said Pomp. "Come here, Cudjo."

Cudjo had just entered the cave, bringing some partridges which he had caught in traps.

"It's allus 'Cudjo! Cudjo do dis! Cudjo do dat!' What ye want o' Cudjo?"

Pomp paid no heed to the ill-natured response, but said calmly, addressing Penn,--

"I have told you my reasons for escaping out of slavery: now I will show you Cudjo's."

The back of the deformed was stripped bare. Penn uttered a groan of horror at the sight.

"Dem's what ye call lickins!" said Cudjo, with a hideous grin over his shoulder. "Dat ar am de oberseer's work."

"Good Heaven!" said Penn, sick at the sight of the scars. "I can't endure it! Take him away!"

"Don't be 'fraid!" said Cudjo. "Feel of 'em, sar!" And taking Penn's hand, he seemed to experience a vindictive joy in passing it over his lash-furrowed flesh. "Not much skin dar, hey? Rough streaks along dar, hey? Needn't pull your hand away dat fashion, and shet yer eyes, and look so white! It's all ober now. What if you'd seen dat back when 'twas fust cut up? or de mornin' arter? Shouldn't blame ye, if 't had made ye sick den!"

"But what had you done to merit such cruelty?" exclaimed Penn, relieved when the back was covered.

"What me done? De oberseer didn't hap'm to like me; dat's what me done. But he did hap'm to like my gal; dat's more what me done! So he cut me up wid his own hand,--said me sassy, and wouldn't work. Coombs, him's a good man 'nuff,--neber found no fault 'long wid him; but debil take dat ar Silas Ropes!"

"Silas Ropes!"

"Him was Coombs's oberseer dem times," said Cudjo. "Him gi' me de lickins; him got my gal--me owe him for dat!" And, with a ferocious grimace, clinching his hands together as if he felt his enemy's throat, he gave a yell of rage which resounded through the cavern.

"Go about your work, Cudjo," said Pomp. "What do you think of that back, sir?"

"It is the most powerful anti-slavery document I ever saw!" said Penn.

"He is a native African," said Pomp. "He was brought to this country a young barbarian; and he has barely got civilized--hardly got Christianized yet! I will make him tell you more of his history some day. Then you will no longer wonder that his lessons in Christian love have not made a saint of him! Now you must rest, while I help him get dinner."

The manner of cooking practised in the cave was exceedingly primitive. The partridges broiled over the fire, the potatoes roasted in the ashes, and the corn-cake baked in a kettle, the meal was prepared. The artificial chamber was Cudjo's pantry. One of the giant's stools, having a broad, flat surface, served as a table. On this were placed two or three pewter plates, and as many odd cups and saucers. Cudjo had an old coffee-pot, in which he made strong black coffee. He could afford, however, neither sugar nor milk.

Penn's wants were first attended to. He picked the bones of a partridge lying in bed, and thought he had never tasted sweeter meat.

"With how few things men can live, and be comfortable! and what simple fare suffices for a healthy appetite!" he said to himself, watching Pomp and Cudjo at their dinner. Pomp did not even drink coffee, but quenched his thirst with cold water dipped from a pool in the cave.

XVI.

_IN THE CAVE AND ON THE MOUNTAIN._

That afternoon, as Penn was alone, the mystery of his removal from Mr. Villars's house was suddenly revealed to him.

"I remember it very distinctly now," he said to Pomp, who presently came in and sat by his bed. "Ropes and his crew had been to the house for me. Sick and delirious as I was, I knew the danger to my friends, and it seemed to me that I _must_ leave the house. So I watched my opportunity, and when Toby left me for a minute, I darted through his room over the kitchen, climbed down from the window to the roof of the shed, and from there descended by an apple tree to the ground. This is the dream I have been trying to recall. It is all clear to me now. But I do not remember any thing more. The delirium must have given me preternatural strength, if I walked all the distance to the spot where you found me."

"That you did walk it, your bruised and bleeding feet were a sufficient evidence," said the negro. "You had just such delirious attacks afterwards, when it was as much as Cudjo and I wanted to do to hold you."

"And the blanket--it is Toby's blanket, which I caught up as I fled," added Penn.

He now became extremely anxious to communicate with his friends, to explain his conduct to them, and let them know of his safety. Besides, he was now getting sufficiently strong to sit up a little, and other clothing was necessary than the old minister's nightgown and Toby's blanket.

"I have been thinking it all over," said Pomp, "and have concluded to pay your friends a visit."

"No, no, my dear sir!" exclaimed Penn, with gratitude. "I can't let you incur any such danger on my account. I can never repay you for half you have done for me already!" And he pressed the negro's hand as no white man had ever pressed it since the death of his good master, Dr. Bythewood.

Pomp was deeply affected. His great chest heaved, and his powerful features were charged with emotion.

"The risk will not be great," said he. "I will take Cudjo with me, and between us we will manage to bring off your clothes."

At night the two blacks departed, leaving Penn alone in the fire-lit cave, waiting for their return, picturing to himself all the difficulties of their adventure, and thinking with warm gratitude and admiration of Pomp, whose noble nature not even slavery could corrupt, whose benevolent heart not even wrong could embitter.

It was late in the evening when the two messengers arrived at Mr. Villars's house. All was dark and still about the premises. But one light was visible, and that was in the room over the kitchen.

"That is Toby's room," said Pomp. "Stay here, Cudjo, while I give him a call."

"Stay yuself," said Cudjo, "and lef dis chil' go. Me know Toby; you don't."

So Pomp remained on the watch while Cudjo climbed the tree by which Penn had descended, scrambled up over the shed-roof, reached the window, opened it, and thrust in his head.

Toby, who was just going to bed, heard the movement, saw the frightful apparition, and with a shriek dove under the bed-clothes, where he lay in an agony of fear, completely hidden from sight, while Cudjo, grinning maliciously, climbed into the room.

"See hyar, ye fool! none ob dat! none ob your playin' possum wid me!" said the visitor, rolling Toby over, while Toby held the clothes tighter and tighter, as if to show a lock of wool or the tip of an ear would have been fatal. "Me's Cudjo! don't ye know Cudjo? Me come for de gemman's clo'es!"

"Hey? dat you, Cudjo?" said Toby, venturing at length to peep out. "Wha--wha--what de debil you want hyar?"

"De gemman sent me. Dis yer letter's for your massy."

"De gemman?" cried Toby, jumping up. "Not Mass' Penn? not Mass' Hapgood?"

Immense was his astonishment on being assured that Penn was alive, recovering, and in need of garments. Carl, who had been awakened in the next room by the noise, now came in to see what was the matter. He recognized Penn's handwriting on the note, and immediately hastened with it to Virginia's room. A minute after she was reading it to her father at his bedside. It was written with a pencil on a leaf torn from a little blank book in which Pomp kept a sort of diary; but never had gilt-edged or perfumed billet afforded the blind old minister and his daughter such unalloyed delight.

It was long past midnight when Pomp and Cudjo returned to the cave, bringing with them not only Penn's garments, but a goodly stock of provisions, which Cudjo had hinted to Toby would be acceptable, and, more precious still, a letter from Mr. Villars, written by his daughter's own hand.

Penn now began to sit up a little every day. Gloomy as the cave was, it was not an unwholesome abode even for an invalid. The atmosphere was pure, cool, and bracing; the temperature uniform. Nor did Penn suffer inconvenience from dampness; though often, in the deep stillness of the night, he could hear the far-off, faint, and melancholy murmur of dropping water in the hollow recesses of the cavern beyond.

One day, as soon as he was well enough for the undertaking, Pomp ordered Cudjo to light torches and show them the hidden wonders of his habitation. Cudjo was delighted with the honor. He ran on before, waving the flaring pine knots over his head, and shouting.

Penn's astonishment was profound. Keen as had been his curiosity as to what was beyond the shadowy walls the fire dimly revealed, he had formed no conception of the extent and sublimity of the various galleries, chambers, glittering vaults, and falling waters, embosomed there in the mountain.

"Dis yer all my own house!" Cudjo kept repeating, with fantastic grimaces of satisfaction. "Me found him all my own self. Nobody war eber hyar afore me; Pomp am de next; and you's de on'y white man eber seen dis yer cave."

It grew light as they proceeded, Cudjo's torch paled, and the waters of a subterranean stream they were following caught gleams of the struggling day from another opening beyond. Climbing over fragments of huge tumbled rocks, and up an earthy bank, Penn found himself in the bottom of an immense chasm. It had apparently been formed by the sinking down of the roof of the cave, with a tremendous superincumbent weight of forest trees. There, on an island, so to speak, in the midst of the subterranean darkness, they were growing still, their lofty tops barely reaching the level of the mountain above.

"It was out of this sink I saw the wild beast climbing, that turned out to be Cudjo," said Pomp.

"Dat ar am de tree," said Cudjo. "No oder way but dat ar to get up out ob dis yer hole."

"What a terrible place!" said Penn, little thinking at the time how much more terrible it was soon to become as a scene of deadly human conflict.

Beyond the chasm the stream flowed on into still more remote parts of the cave. But Penn had seen enough for one day, and the torch-bearing Cudjo guided them back to the spot from which they had started.

Penn had now completely won the confidence of the blacks, who no longer placed any restrictions on his movements. It had been their original purpose never to suffer him to leave the cave without being blindfolded. But now, having shown him one opening, they freely permitted him to pass out by the other. This was that by which he had been brought in, and which was used by the blacks themselves on all ordinary occasions. It was a mere fissure in the mountain, hidden from external view by thickets. Above rose steep ledges of rocks, thickly covered with earth and bushes. Below yawned an immense ravine, far down in the cool, dark depths of which a little streamlet flowed.

Pomp piloted his guest through the thickets, and along a narrow shelf, from which the ascent to the barren ledges was easy. Upon these they sat down. It was a beautiful April day. This was Penn's first visit to the upper world since he was brought to the cave. The scene filled him with rapture; the loveliness of earth and sky intoxicated him. Here he was among the rugged ranges of the Cumberland Mountains, in the heart of Tennessee. On either hand they rolled away in tremendous billows of forest-crowned rocks. The ravines in their sides opened into little valleys, and these spread out into a broad and magnificent intervale, checkered with farms, streaked with roads, and dotted with dwellings. Spring seemed to have come in a night. It was chill March weather when Penn left the world, which was now warm with sweet south winds, and green with April verdure.

"How beautiful, how beautiful!" said he, receiving, with the susceptibility of a convalescent, the exquisite impression made upon the senses by every sight and sound and odor. "O! and to think that all this divine loveliness is marred by the passions of men! Up here, what glory, what peace! Down yonder, what hatred, violence, and sin! No wonder, Pomp, you love the mountains so!"

"It is doubtful if they leave the mountains in peace much longer," said Pomp. He had heard the night before that fighting had begun at Charleston, and the news had stirred his soul. "The country is all alive with excitement, and the waves of its fury will reach us here before long. Take this glass, sir: you can see soldiers marching through the streets."

"They are marching past my school-house!" said Penn. He became very thoughtful. He knew that they were soldiers recruited in the cause of rebellion, although Tennessee had not yet seceded,--although the people had voted in February against secession: a dishonest governor, and a dishonest legislature, aided by reckless demagogues everywhere, being resolved upon precipitating the state into revolution, by fraud and force,--if not with the consent of the people, then without it. "I had hoped the storm would soon blow over, and that it would be safe for me to go peaceably about my business."

"The storm," said Pomp, his soul dilating, his features kindling with a wild joy, "is hardly begun yet! The great problem of this age, in this country, is going to be solved in blood! This continent is going to shake with such a convulsion as was never before. It is going to shake till the last chain of the slave is shaken off, and the sin is punished, and God says, 'It is enough!'"

He spoke with such thrilling earnestness that Penn regarded him in astonishment.

"What makes you think so, Pomp?"

"That I can't tell. The feeling rises up here,"--the negro laid his hand upon his massive chest,--"and that is all I know. It is strong as my life--it fills and burns me like fire! The day of deliverance for my race is at hand. That is the meaning of those soldiers down there, arming for they know not what."

XVII.

_PENN'S FOOT KNOCKS DOWN A MUSKET._

Weeks passed. But now every day brought to Penn increasing anxiety of mind with regard to his situation. His abhorrence of war was as strong as ever; and his great principle of non-resistance had scarcely been shaken. But how was he to avoid participating in scenes of violence if he remained in Tennessee? And how was his escape from the state to be effected?

"You are welcome to a home with us as long as you will stay," said Pomp. "I shall miss you--even Cudjo will hate to see you go."

Penn thanked him, fully appreciating their kindness; but his heart was yearning for other things.

Day after day he lingered still, however. The difficulties in the way of escape thickened, instead of diminishing. In February, as I have said, the people had voted against secession. Not content with this, the governor called an extra session of the legislature, which proceeded to carry the state out of the Union by fraud. On the sixth of May an ordinance of separation was passed, to be submitted to the vote of the people on the eighth of June. But without waiting for the will of the people to be made manifest, the authors of this treason went on to act precisely as if the state had seceded. A league was formed with the confederate states, the control of all the troops raised in Tennessee was given to Davis, and troops from the cotton states were rushed in to make good the work thus begun. The June election, which took place under this reign of terror, resulted as was to have been expected. Rebel soldiers guarded the polls. Few dared to vote openly the Union ticket; while those who deposited a close ticket were "spotted." Thus timid men were frightened from the ballot-box; while soldiers from the cotton states voted in their places. Then, as it was charged, there were the grossest frauds in counting the votes. And so Tennessee "seceded."

The state authorities had also achieved a politic stroke by disarming the people. Every owner of a gun was compelled to deliver it up, or pay a heavy fine. The arms thus secured went to equip the troops raised for the Confederacy; while the Union cause was left crippled and defenceless. Many firelocks were of course kept concealed: some were taken to pieces, and the pieces scattered,--the barrel here, the stock there, and the lock in still another place,--to come together again only at the will of the owner: but, as a general thing, the loyalists could not be said to have arms. It was in those times that the precaution of Stackridge and his fellow-patriots was justified. The secrecy with which they had conducted their night-meetings and drills, though seemingly unnecessary at first, saved them from much inconvenience when the full tide of persecution set in. They were suspected indeed, and it was believed they had arms; but they still met in safety, and the place where their arms were deposited remained undiscovered.

All this time, Penn had no money with which to defray the expenses of travel. When his school was broken up, several hundred dollars were due him for his services. This sum the trustees of the Academy placed to his credit in the Curryville Bank; but, in consequence of a recent enactment, designed to rob and annoy loyal men, he could not draw the money without appearing personally, and first taking the oath of allegiance to the confederate government. This, of course, was out of the question.

Meanwhile he learned to rough it on the mountain with the fugitives. Pomp taught him the use of the rifle, and he was soon able to shoot, dress, and cook his own dinner. He grew robust with the exercise and exposure. But every day his longing eyes turned towards the valley where the friends were whom he loved, and whom he resolved at all hazards to visit again, if for the last time.

At length, one morning at breakfast, he informed Pomp and Cudjo of his intention to leave them,--to return secretly to the village, place himself under the protection of certain Unionists he knew, and attempt, with their assistance, to make his way out of the state.

"Why go down there at all?" said Pomp. "If you are determined to leave us, let me be your guide. I will take you over the mountains into Kentucky, where you will be safe. It will be a long, hard journey; but you are strong now; we will take it leisurely, killing our game by the way."

"You are very kind--and----"

Penn blushed and stammered. The truth was, he was willing to risk his life to see Virginia once more; and the thought of quitting the state without bidding her good by was intolerable to him.

"And what?" said Pomp, smiling intelligently.

"And I may possibly be glad to accept your proposal. But I am determined to try the other way first."

Both Pomp and Cudjo endeavored to dissuade him from the undertaking, but in vain. That evening he took his departure. The blacks accompanied him to the foot of the mountain. Notwithstanding the friendship and gratitude he had all along felt towards them, he had not foreseen how painful would be the separation from them.

"I never quitted friends more reluctantly!" he said, choked with his emotion. "Never, never shall I forget you--never shall I forget those rambles on the mountains, those days and nights in the cave! Let me hope we shall meet again, when I can make you some return for your kindness."

"We may meet again, and sooner than you suppose," said Pomp. "If you find escape too difficult, be sure and come back to us. Ah, I seem to foresee that you will come back!"

With this prediction ringing in his ears, and filling him with vague forebodings, Penn went his way; while the negroes, having shaken hands with him in sorrowful silence, returned to their savage mountain home, which had never looked so lonely to them as now, since their beloved and gentle guest had departed.

The night was not dark, and Penn, having been guided to a bridle-path that led to the town, experienced no difficulty in finding his way on alone. He approached the minister's house from the fields. Although late in the evening, the windows were still lighted. He was surprised to see men walking to and fro by the house, and to hear their footsteps on the piazza floor. He drew near enough to discern that they carried muskets. Then the truth flashed upon him: they were soldiers guarding the house.

Whether they were there to protect the venerable Unionist from mob-violence, or to prevent his escape, Penn could only conjecture. In either case it would have been extremely indiscreet for him to enter the house. Bitter disappointment filled him, mingled with apprehensions for the safety of his friends, and remorse at the thought that he himself had, although unintentionally, been instrumental in drawing down upon them the vengeance of the secessionists.

Penn next thought of Stackridge. It was indeed upon that sturdy patriot that he relied chiefly for aid in leaving the state. He took a last, lingering look at the minister's house,--the windows whose cheerful light had so often greeted him on his way thither, in those delightful winter evenings which were gone, never to return,--the soldiers on the piazza, symbolizing the reign of terror that had commenced,--and with a deep inward prayer that God would shield with his all-powerful hand the beleaguered family, he once more crossed the fields.

By a circuitous route he came in sight of Stackridge's house. There were lights there also, although it must have been now near midnight. And as Penn discerned them, he became aware of loud voices engaged in angry altercation around the farmer's door. It was no time for him to approach. He stole away as noiselessly as he had come. In the still, quiet night he paused, asking himself what he should do.

The Academy was not far off. He remembered that he had left there, among other things, a pocket Bible, a gift from his sister, which he wished to preserve. Perhaps it was there still; perhaps he could get in and recover it. At all events, he had plenty of leisure on his hands, and could afford to make the trial.

He heard the mounted patrol pass by, and waited for the sound of hoofs to die in the distance. Then cautiously he drew near the gloomy and silent school-house. Not doubting but the door was locked,--for he still had the key with him which he had turned for the last time when he walked out in defiance of the lynchers,--he resolved not to unlock it, but to keep in the rear of the building, and enter, if possible, by a window.

The window was unfastened, as it had ever remained since he had opened it, on that memorable occasion, to communicate with Carl. Softly he raised the sash, and softly he crept in. His foot, however, struck an object on the desk, and swept it down. It fell with a loud, rattling sound upon the floor.

It was a musket; the owner of which bounded up on the instant from a bench where he was lying, and seized Penn by the leg. The school-house had been turned into a barrack-room for recruits, and the late master found that he had descended upon a squad of confederate soldiers.

Lights were struck, and the sleepy sentinels, rubbing their eyes open, recognized, struggling in the arms of their companion, the unfortunate young Quaker.

"I knowed 'twas him! I knowed 'twas him!" cried his overjoyed captor, who proved to be no other than Silas Ropes's worthy friend Gad. "I heern him gittin' inter the winder, but I kept dark till he knocked my gun down; then I grabbed him! He's a traitor, and this time will meet a traitor's doom!"

"My friends," said Penn, recovering from the agitation of his first surprise and struggle, "I am in your power. It is perhaps the best thing that could happen to me; for I have committed no crime, and I cannot doubt but that I shall receive justice all the sooner for this accident. You need not take the trouble to bind me; I shall not attempt to escape."

His captors, however, among whom he recognized with some uneasiness more than one of those who had been engaged in lynching him, persisted in binding him upon a bench, in no very comfortable position, and then set a guard over him for the remainder of the night.

XVIII.

_CONDEMNED TO DEATH._

Early the next morning Virginia Villars overheard the soldiers conversing on the piazza. The mention of a certain name arrested her attention. She listened: what they said terrified her. Penn Hapgood had been apprehended during the night, and his trial by drum-head court-martial was at that moment proceeding.

"Mr. Pepperill!" she called, in a scarcely audible whisper; and, looking around, Daniel saw her alarmed face at the window.

Daniel was one of the soldiers who had been detailed to guard the house. Strongly against his will, he had been compelled to enlist, in order to avoid the persecutions of his secession neighbors. Such was already becoming the fate of many whose hearts were not in the cause, whose sympathies were all with the government against which they were forced to rebel.

"What, marm?" said Pepperill, meekly.

"Is it true what that man is saying?"

"About the schoolmaster? I--I'm afeard it ar true! They've cotched him, marm, and there's men that's swore the death of him, marm."

Virginia flew to inform her father. The old man rose up instantly, forgetting his blindness, forgetting his own feebleness, and the danger into which he would have rushed, to go and plead Penn's cause.

Fortunately, perhaps, for him, the guard crossed their muskets before him, refusing to let him pass. Their orders were, not only to defend the house, but also to prevent his leaving it.

"Then I will go alone!" said Carl, who was to have been his guide. And scarcely waiting to receive instructions from Virginia and her father, he ran out, slipping between the soldiers, who had no orders to detain any person but the minister, and ran to the Academy.

The mockery of a trial was over. The prisoner had been condemned. The penalty pronounced against him was death. Already the noose was dangling from a tree, and some soldiers were bringing from the school-house a table to serve as a scaffold. Silas Ropes, who had a feather stuck in his cap, and wore an old rusty scabbard at his side, and flourished a sword, enjoying the title of "lieutenant," obtained for him through Bythewood's influence; Lysander Sprowl, who had been honored with a captaincy from the same source, and who, though a forger, and late a fugitive from justice, now boldly defied the power of the civil authorities to arrest him, trusting to that atrocious policy of the confederate government which virtually proclaimed to the robber and murderer, "Become, now, a traitor to your country, and all other crimes shall be forgiven you;"--these, and other persons of like character, appeared chiefly active in Penn's case. That they had no right whatever to constitute themselves a court-martial, and bring him to trial, they knew perfectly well. They had not waited even for a shadow of authority from their commanding officer. What they were about to do was nothing more nor less than murder.

Penn, with his hands tied behind him, and surrounded by a violent rabble, some armed, and others unarmed, was already mounted upon the table, when Carl arrived, and attempted to force his way through the crowd.

"Feller-citizens and soldiers!" cried Lieutenant Ropes, standing on a chair beside the scaffold, "this here man has jest been proved to be a traitor and a spy, and he is about to expatiate his guilt on the gallus."

Two men then mounted the table, passed the noose over Penn's neck, drew it close, and leaped down again.

"Now," said Ropes, "if you've got any confession to make 'fore the table is jerked out from under ye, you can ease your mind. Only le' me suggest, if you don't mean to confess, you'd better hold yer tongue."

Penn, pale, but perfectly self-possessed, expecting no mercy, no reprieve, made answer in a clear, strong voice,--

"I can't confess, for I am not guilty. I die an innocent man. I appeal to Heaven, before whose bar we must all appear, for the justice you deny me."

In his shirt sleeves, his head uncovered, his feet bare, his naked throat enclosed by the murderous cord, his hands bound behind him, he stood awaiting his fate. Carl in the mean time struggled in vain to break through the ring of soldiers that surrounded the extemporized scaffold,--screamed in vain to obtain a hearing.

"Let him go, and you may hang me in his place!"

The soldiers answered with a brutal laugh,--as if there would be any satisfaction in hanging him! But the offer of self-sacrifice on the part of the devoted Carl touched one heart, at least. Penn, who had maintained a firm demeanor up to this time, was almost unmanned by it.

"God bless you, dear Carl! Remember that I loved you. Be always honest and upright; then, if you die the victim of wrong, it will be your oppressors, not you, who will be most unhappy. Good by, dear Carl. Bear my farewell to those we love. Don't stay and see me die, I entreat you!"

Yet Carl staid, sobbing with grief and rage.

"Why don't you hurry up this business?" cried Lysander Sprowl, angrily, coming out of the school-house. "Somebody tie a handkerchief over his eyes, and get through some time to-day."

"All right, cap'm," said Ropes. "Make ready now, boys, and take away this table in a hurry, when I give the word."

"Hold on, there! What's going on?" cried an unexpected voice, and a recruiting officer from the village made his appearance, riding up on a white horse.

The summary proceedings were stayed, and the case explained. The man listened with an air of grim official importance, his coarse red countenance betraying not a gleam of sympathy with the prisoner. Yet being the superior in rank to any officer present (Silas called him "kunnel"), besides being the only one of them all who had been regularly commissioned by the confederate government, this man held Penn's fate in his hands.

"Hanging's too good for such scoundrels!" he said, frowning at the prisoner. "As for this particular case, there's only one thing to be said: his life shall be spared on only one condition."

Carl's heart almost stood still, in his eagerness to listen. Even Penn felt a faint--a very faint--pulse of hope in his breast. The "kunnel" went on.

"Let him take his choice--either to hang, or enlist. What do you say, youngster? Which do you prefer--the death of a traitor, or the glorious career of a soldier in the confederate army?"

"It is impossible for me, sir," said Penn, in a voice of deep feeling and unalterable conviction--"it is impossible for me to bear arms against my country!"

"But the Confederate States shall be your country, and a country to be proud of!" said the man.

"I am a citizen of the United States; to the United States I owe allegiance," said Penn. "So far from being a traitor, I am willing to die rather than appear one."

"Then you won't enlist?"

"No, sir."

"Not even to save your life?"

"Not even to save my life!"

"Then," growled the man, turning away, "if you will be such a fool, I've nothing more to say."

So it only remained for Penn to submit quietly to his fate. The executioners laid hold of the table, and waited for the order to remove it.

But just then Carl, breaking through the crowd, threw himself before the officer's horse.

"O, Colonel Derring! hear me--von vord!"

"Von vord!" repeated the officer, with a coarse laugh, mocking him. "What's that, you Dutchman?"

"You vill let him go, and I shall wolunteer in his place!" said Carl.

"You!" The officer regarded him critically. Carl, though so young, was very sturdy. "You offer yourself as a substitute, eh, if I will spare his life?"

"Carl!" cried Penn, "I forbid you! You shall not commit that sin for me! Better a thousand times that I should die than that you should be a rebel in arms against your country."

"I have no country," answered Carl, ingeniously excusing himself. "I am vot this man says, a Tuchman. I vill enlisht mit him, and he vill shpare your life."

"Boy, it's a bargain," said Colonel Derring, whose passion for obtaining recruits overruled every other consideration. "Cut that fellow's cords, lieutenant, and let him go. Come along with me, Dutchy."

Ropes obeyed, and Penn, bewildered, almost stunned, by the sudden change in his destiny, saw himself released, and beheld, as in a dream, poor Carl marching off as his substitute to the recruiting station.

"Now let me give you one word of advice," said Captain Sprowl in his ear. "Don't let another night find you within twenty miles of that halter there, if you wouldn't have your neck in it again."

"Will you give me a safe conduct?" said Penn, who thought the advice excellent, and would have been only too glad to act upon it.

"I've no authority," said Sprowl. "You must take care of yourself."

Penn looked around upon the ferocious, disappointed faces watching him, and felt that he might about as well have been despatched in the first place, as to be let loose in the midst of such a pack of wolves thirsting for his blood. He did not despair, however, but, putting on his clothes, determined to make one final and desperate effort to escape.

XIX.

_THE ESCAPE._

Walking off quickly across the field towards Mrs. Sprowl's house, he turned suddenly aside from the path and plunged into the woods.

He soon perceived that he was followed. A man--only one--came through the undergrowth. Penn stopped. "God forgive me!" he said within himself; "but this is more than human nature can bear!" He had been, as it were, smitten on one cheek and on the other also: it was time to smite back. He picked up a club: his nerves became like steel as he grasped it: his eyes flashed fire.

The man advanced; he was unarmed. Suddenly Penn dropped his club, and uttered a cry of joy. It was his friend Stackridge.

"What! the Quaker will fight?" said the farmer, with a grim smile.

"That shows," said Penn, bursting into tears as he wrung the farmer's hand, "that I have been driven nearly insane!"

"It shows that some of the insanity has been driven out of you!" replied Stackridge, beginning to have hopes of him. "If you had taken my pistol and used it freely in the first place, or at least shown a good will to use it, you'd have proved yourself a good deal more of a man in my estimation, and been quite as well off."

"Perhaps," murmured Penn, convinced that this passive submission to martyrdom was but a sorry part to play.

"But now to business," said Stackridge. "You must get away as quickly and secretly as possible, unless you mean to stay and fight it out. I am here to help you. I have a horse in the woods here, at your disposal. I thought there might be such a thing as your slipping through their hands, and so I took this precaution. I will show you a bridle-road that will take you to the house of a friend of mine, who is a hearty Unionist. You can leave my horse with him. He will help you on to the house of some friend of his, who will do the same, and so you will manage to get out of the state. I advise you to travel by night, as a general thing; but just now it seems necessary that you should see a little hard riding by daylight. You'll find some luncheon in the saddlebags. When you get into some pretty thick woods, leave the road, and find a good place to tie up till night; then go on cautiously to my friend's house. I'll give you full directions, while we're finding the horse."

They made haste to the spot where the animal was tied.

"He has been well fed," said the farmer. "You will water him at the first brook you cross, and let him browse when you stop. Now just trade that coat for one that will make you look a little less like a Quaker schoolmaster."

He had brought one of his own coats, which he made Penn put on, and then exchanged hats with him. Penn was admirably disguised. Brief, then, were the thanks he uttered from his overflowing heart, short the leave-takings. He was mounted. Stackridge led the horse through the bushes to the bridle-path.

"Now, don't let the grass grow under your feet till you are at least five miles away. If you meet anybody, get along without words if you can; if you can't, let words come to blows as quick as you please, and then put faith in Dobbin's heels."

Again, for the last time, he made Penn the offer of a pistol. There was no leisure for idle arguments on the subject. The weapon was accepted. The two wrung each other's hands in silence: there were tears in the eyes of both. Then Stackridge gave Dobbin a resounding slap, and the horse bounded away, bearing his rider swiftly out of sight in the woods.

All this had passed so rapidly that Penn had scarcely time to think of any thing but the necessity of immediate flight. But during that solitary ride through the forest he had ample leisure for reflection. He thought of the mountain cave, whose gloomy but quiet shelter, whose dark but nevertheless humane and hospitable inmates he seemed to have quitted weeks ago, so crowded with experiences had been the few hours since last he shook Pomp and Cudjo by the hand. He thought of Virginia and her father, to visit whom for perhaps the last time he had incurred the risk of descending into the valley; whom now he felt, with a strangely swelling heart, that he might never see again. And he thought with grief, pity, and remorse of Carl, a rebel now for his sake.

These things, and many more, agitated him as he spurred the farmer's horse along the narrow, shaded, lonesome path. He met an old man on horseback, with a bright-faced girl riding behind him on the crupper, who bade him a pleasant good morning, and pursued their way. Next came some boys driving mules laden with sacks of corn. At last Penn saw two men in butternut suits with muskets on their shoulders. He knew by their looks that they were secessionists hastening to join their friends in town. They regarded him suspiciously as he came galloping up. Penn perceived that some off-hand word was necessary in passing them.

"Hurry on with those guns!" he cried; "they are wanted!"

And he dashed away, as if his sole business was to hurry up guns for the confederate cause.

He met with no other adventure that day. He followed Stackridge's directions implicitly, and at evening, leaving his horse tied in the woods, approached on foot the house to which he had been sent.

He was cordially received by the same old man whom he had seen riding to town in the morning with a bright-faced girl clinging behind him. At a hint from Stackridge the man had hastily ridden home again, passing Penn at noon while he lay hidden in the woods; and here he was, honest, friendly, vigilant, to receive and protect his guest.

"You did well," he said, "to turn off up the mountain; for I am not the only man that passed you there. You have been pursued. Three persons have gone on after you. I met them as I was going into town; they inquired of me if I had seen you, and when I got home I found they had passed here in search of you. They have not yet gone back."

This was unpleasant news. Yet Penn was soon convinced that he had been extremely fortunate in thus throwing his pursuers off his track. It was far better that they should have gone on before him, than that they should be following close upon his heels.

He staid with the farmer all night, and departed with him early the next morning to pursue his journey. It was not safe for him to keep the road, for he might at any moment meet his pursuers returning; accordingly, the old man showed him a circuitous route along the base of the mountains, which could be travelled only on foot, and by daylight.

"Here I leave you," said his kind old guide, when they had reached the banks of a mountain stream. "Follow this run, and it will take you around to the road, about a mile this side of my brother's house. There's a bridge near which you can wait, when you get to it. If your pursuers go back past my house, then I will harness up and drive on to the bridge, and water my horse there. You will see me, and get in to ride, and I will take you to my brother's, and make some arrangement for helping you on still farther to night."

So they parted; the lonely fugitive feeling that the kindness of a few such men, scattered like salt through the state, was enough to redeem it from the fate of Sodom, which otherwise, by its barbarism and injustice, it would have seemed to deserve.