Chapter III (4)

"The next day it rained, and the next; and it was not until the third day that Eleanor and I took our usual walk. As we left the house, she suggested that we shape our way towards the lake. Agreeing, we walked on slowly, and I tried to make James Alexander the subject of our talk. At first she evaded me; and, when at last she found my persistence was not in any other way to be turned aside, said,--

"'It is an unpleasant subject to me, dear Anne. I fear I have much to blame myself for. _I_ suffer enough; for, in rejecting his love, I shut my eyes on a life that would have been a continual delight, to open them on one from which my very soul shrinks abhorrently, and yet to which I am solemnly pledged.'

"'But it may not yet be too late,' I said, eagerly; for God knows I loved James Alexander with no selfish love.

"'Yes, it is too late,' she replied mournfully. 'I shall never allude to it again, Anne; but I tell you now, that I do not and can never love Mr. Radnor; but there are family reasons that make the sacrifice of my hand a necessity. I never realized, until within the last few weeks, that it _was_ such a sacrifice. I have been so happy, that I dared not break the spell by telling him the truth. And somehow the future seemed very far; and I did not dream that this summer would ever end.'

"Then there was silence between us for a space. At last she spoke again,--

"'I hope he will not suffer long. Tell him some time, Anne, what I have told you. He will not quite hate me, perhaps, then, if he knows that I was not drawing him on to gratify a foolish coquetry, but loved and suffered like himself.'

"I was about to reply, but she laid her hand on my mouth.

"'No,' she said. 'Let the subject go now forever. And no one will dream by-and-by how fair a love lies buried beneath my laces and jewels; or that, in the life of the noted man that he will one day surely become, is a romance that belongs to a dead past. It will all be the same a century hence. What does it matter after all?'

"But her words ended with a sigh that contrasted strangely with the forced lightness of her tone.

"Just then we came out of the grove, and could see far off the little waves of the lake dancing in the morning sunlight. I paused a moment to pick some late wild flowers, while Eleanor walked on quickly and disappeared among the alders that fringed the lake. I was following her slowly, when suddenly I heard one wild, thrilling cry, and then my name three times repeated. I flew almost down to the water, and there I saw Eleanor unconscious; and, close to the shore, among the lilies,--white and pure as their own petals,--a face upturned to the sky, swaying gently with the motion of the water. I need not tell you whose." Anne faltered.

"Do not go on," I said, with my own eyes and voice full of tears.

She raised her head quickly.

"I had schooled myself to it, dear, before I came, and I must finish. I am telling you of another's life, not mine.

"Then there was a brain fever for Eleanor, that no one believed she would ever rally from, in which she was either unconscious, or else singing snatches of German songs, with a pathos that was heart-rending.

"It was remarkable that neither to her mother nor to any one who watched over her did her words ever betray anything that could connect her illness with anything more than the bare horror of the discovery she made. She was married the next spring; and when I saw her, a month afterward, I should never, save for merest outline and coloring of beauty, have recognized her. Until last night, the past has never been alluded to by either of us. Then she confessed to me, that during the last ten years her life has been haunted by a perpetual remorse. The sun has set, dear, we will go home."

It was dusk when we crossed the pine grove, and the branches of the trees seemed, to my quickened imagination, to be singing a sad refrain to the story I had heard. We walked slowly,--Anne with head uplifted and a serene look upon her fair face that made me realize the refiner's work.

As we drew near the house there came forth a rolling symphony from the parlor organ, and then a voice that I had never heard before, in the _Agnus Dei_ of the Twelfth Mass.

We paused, and Anne said quietly,--"She has never sung since he died until now."

We waited until the pure, pathetic tones had died away. Silence and the spirit of the hour was upon us. Overhead the large, calm stars hung low and bright. A gleam of light in Mrs. Radnor's rooms flashed for an instant, and disappeared; and a white figure came out upon the balcony of her apartment.

"Kyrie Eleison," said Anne, in a hushed voice. "Let us go in."

UNDER A CLOUD.

UNDER A CLOUD.

One bitter cold day in January, four years ago, I had occasion to wait for a street-car in Chicago, on one of those aside lines where the cars pass but once in every ten or fifteen minutes. There was a German lager-bier saloon close by, and I entered it for shelter. As I stood by the stove, enjoying the grateful warmth, I observed near me a young man, in very seedy apparel, engaged in reading the _Staats-Zeitung_. Something in the air of the young man awakened my curiosity, and led me to address him. Although reading a German newspaper, he was not a German in appearance, and I put to him the question, "_Sind Sie Deutsch?_" by way of experiment.

"No, sir," he replied, "I am not German, but I speak and read the language."

I drew a chair near him, as he laid aside the newspaper, with the air of one willing to enter into conversation.

"Where did you pick up your German?" I asked.

"I picked it up," said the young man, with an air of some pride in the statement, "where I picked up my Latin and Greek,--at college."

At this I ran my eye over him curiously. He had not the appearance of a scholar.

"You look surprised," said he. "Despite my present appearance, and the place you find me in, I am a graduate; but at present, I am under a cloud."

"So I should imagine."

I also imagined that the young man was probably shiftless, and no doubt addicted to liquor; but I did not say so. As if he read my thoughts, he spoke again:

"People are always ready to think ill of a seedy man, I suppose. Probably you think me a good-for-nothing, and would give me some valuable advice about hanging around beer-saloons; but the fact is, I am an employé of this establishment."

He spoke with a bitter irony, that ill-concealed a sort of shame in the confession.

"May I ask in what capacity?" said I.

"You may, sir; and I may answer or not, I suppose. I think I will decline to answer. As I said, I am under a cloud. I am not proud of my employment, but I do what I do because I can't do better, and idleness is synonymous with hunger and cold for me and mine."

"You are married, then?"

"Yes, sir,"--with sudden reserve.

"Don't be offended at my inquisitiveness," said I. "I spoke to you first out of mere curiosity, it is true; but I speak now out of interest in you. If I could help you, I would. There is my card."

He took it with a respectful inclination of the head.

"I've heard of you," said he, as he glanced at the name. "I can't give you my card, sir, because I don't own such a thing." He smiled. "My name is Brock St. John."

"I hear the car coming," said I. "I'll see you again, Mr. St. John. I don't set up for a philanthropist; but I like to do a good turn when I can. Good-morning."

And I went my own way.

Henry Kingsley,--or rather a character of his creation,--in one of his novels, remarks that he suspects there is some of the poetical faculty about him, because he is accustomed to walk out of nights when anything goes wrong.

This is also my case.

To "fetch a walk" about the streets, late in the evening, has long been a favorite antidote for trouble with me. When the night is stormy, the value of this remedy for fretting cares is tenfold increased. There is an exhilarating sense of power in overcoming the opposing forces of the elements, and breasting along at a brisk pace against a furious storm of sleet or rain. As Leigh Hunt said, you have a feeling of respect for your legs under such circumstances; you admire their toughness as they propel you along in the teeth of the storm. As your blood begins to warm up, and to whirl through your veins with an exhilaration beside which that of wine is tame and effeminate, the "blues" that have been gibing you vanish like magic. Always, after such a bout, I return home and "sleep like a top," no matter what discomforts or sorrows have been running their sleep-dispelling race through my head before starting out.

On the night of the day that I met St. John I started out about eleven o'clock for such a walk. The winds were holding high carnival that night, and a fierce storm of mingled hail and rain swept through the almost deserted streets. I forged along (as the sailors say), with my head down, block after block, fighting the forces of nature, with the same pleasure that Victor Hugo's hero felt, no doubt, in like effort. True, my fight was to his as a cock-fight is to an encounter of lions; but the limit of power is the limit of delight in overcoming in any case. The boy who declaims "the Roman Soldier" at school to the rapture of his gaping audience is as happy in his achievement as the tragedian who thrills a theatreful. Gilliatt conquered storms, and so did I; he was on the high seas, and I was in the streets of Chicago.

Sounds of music and dancing fell on my ear. They came from the beer-saloon of the morning. Curiosity impelled me to enter.

The air was reeking with tobacco-smoke and the fumes of lager-bier. The seats about the half-dozen tables were crowded with Teutonic guzzlers; and, at the lower part of the room there was a cleared space where a half-dozen couples were whirling in a waltz with that thorough abandon which characterizes your German in his national dance. On a slightly raised platform against the wall was a band composed of a violin, a clarionet, and a trombone.

The violinist was my acquaintance of the morning.

He caught sight of me as I elbowed my way toward the dancing-floor, and blushed violently. Then an expression of angry pride settled on his countenance, and he continued his playing with stolid indifference to my gaze.

When the dance was over (and St. John kept up the music till the surprised Teutons who played the wind-instruments were sheer worn-out with their prolonged exertions), I went up to the young man, and shook hands with him.

"At work, eh?" I remarked, with a miserable effort to seem cheerful and easy.

"Yes, sir. You have found me out. You know now how I keep the wolf from my door."

"Yes, Mr. St. John; and I do not forget that it _is_ to keep the wolf from your door. Still, I hope you are thoroughly misplaced here,--I _hope_ you are!"

He grasped my hand with a quick, strong pressure.

"I must prove to you that I am, that's all," said he; "come to--to where I live, to-morrow, and let me tell you the whole story."

He took my pencil and wrote the address in my note-book.

"To-morrow afternoon," said I, "I will call."

The next day I found my way to the wretched tenement house in North Clark street, where St. John lived, and climbed three pair of stairs to the door of his room. I rapped, and the young man opened the door.

I have seen a good deal of poverty in my day, and I was prepared to find it here, as I did. But I was not prepared for the sight of such a beautiful young face as that which met my gaze here, and to the possessor of which St. John introduced me as his wife. She seemed like some little girl that was lost. The unmistakable air of the true lady showed itself in every detail of her dress and manner,--in the small, white collar at the neck of the calico dress, in the smooth-banded hair that matched the brown eyes, in the quiet demeanor that told of natural and unconscious self-respect. It showed itself, too, in the perfect neatness of the room, in which there was a cheerful, homelike air, despite the poor and barren nature of its furnishings. The room was kitchen and bedroom, dining-room and sitting-room, in one; but the bed was smooth and clean, and the little cooking-stove was without spot.

Mrs. St. John was engaged in the unpoetic occupation of mending her husband's only coat. He was in his shirt-sleeves.

"Aggie expected to get the coat done before our guest came," said St. John, with a smile. "If you are at all particular, I'll put it on with the needle sticking in it, and she can finish it after you are gone. But I am accustomed to sitting in my shirt-sleeves."

"So am I," was my reply; and, accordingly, I pulled off my own coat, and sat in my shirt-sleeves, too. In the act, my cigar-case fell out of my pocket.

"Light a cigar, sir, if you like," said St. John, with a brisk assumption of the airs of a genial host; "my wife don't allow me to smoke, but my guests always do. She is fond of cigars, is Aggie."

The little wife looked up with a demure and childlike air.

"He never offers to smoke, sir," said she, "because"--

"Because I can't afford it," put in St. John. "I was a great smoker in college; but those were my wild days. Thank you."

The last remark was in acknowledgment of an offered cigar. We were soon puffing great cloud-wreaths toward the ceiling, and an air of restraint that had rested on us at first, despite our efforts to avoid it, was speedily vanished. Cigars are social.

"And now, sir," said St. John, "you shall hear the story I promised you. I hope it wont bore you."

"If it does I'll cry out," said I.

The little wife laughed quietly.

"I graduated; I married; I came to Chicago," began St. John, sententiously.

"_Veni, vidi, vici_," said I.

"Quite the contrary; I _was_ conquered. I had that idea which young men from the east, just out of college, are apt to have, that in this great western city there was a comparative lack of intellectual culture, and that a man of my education must speedily and easily get into a position of prominence, where my talents would earn me a fine living. But I very soon found where my mistake lay. I had not been bred to work,--real, practical, marketable work,--either mental or physical. The professions were open to me, as to any other beginner,--nothing more. I could not step out of college into a lucrative practice at the bar; but I could enter a law-office, and study. So of the other professions. If I had any one idea more prominent than another, it was that I could secure an editorial situation at once on one of the newspapers here. I was surprised to find that there was absolutely no demand for such services as I had to offer.

"'Do you know anything about the newspaper business?' was the first question put to me, by the first publisher to whom I made application.

"That was the very last question that I had expected to have asked of me. Of course I imagined myself competent, or I should not have applied for editorial employment; but I knew the publisher meant, Had I had actual experience on the press? I felt so sure of myself that I was tempted to answer him 'Yes,' but the fact is I was never brought up with such a reverence for the truth, as to always keep at a respectful distance from it; so I told him I had not, but I could quickly learn.

"'We are in no need of students,' said he; 'and, even if we took you to teach you, your pay would not settle your washing-bill.'

"One editor was good enough to let me try my hand at writing a political article. I sat down in his sanctum and went to work. At the end of two hours I handed him what I had written, quite confident that I had settled the question of utility. It was an essay that would have brought me honor at college. He read it and smiled.

"'I don't want to hurt your feelings at all," said he, 'but you have been two hours about a piece of work that a ready writer would knock off in half an hour, and now it is done it is good for nothing. You make the mistake so many have made before you, that an editor does not need to be bred to his business. _My_ alma mater was a printing-office,' said he, proudly, 'and I crept up the ladder round by round. When I commenced editorial labor, I dropped type-setting, at which I earned two dollars a day, to handle the reporter's pencil at seven dollars a week. If you think you could do anything as a reporter, I'll show you our Mr. Pyke, the local editor.'

"Mr. Pyke was a rough one.

"'Posted around town,' said he.

"I told him I was a new-comer.

"'Know short-hand?'

"'No, sir.'

"'What line are you strongest in?'

"What line?' said I, not exactly understanding.

"'Yes, what line? Speeches, fancy-work, police, sensations, picking up items around town--or what?'

"'I really don't know,' said I; 'I've never had any experience, practically, in the newspaper business.'

"At this Mr. Pyke turned round on me with a queer look in his face.

"'Oh, that's it,' said he; 'you want to work at a trade you haven't served an apprenticeship to. There! it's the old story. If you'll go up in the composing-room, they'll give you a stick and put you to setting type, I reckon. You better try it. Go and ask for our foreman, Mr. Buckingham, and tell him I sent you,--will you? Why, you couldn't tell where the _e_ box is!'

"The man's manner was not so rude as his language, sir. He seemed perfectly good-natured, and was scribbling away with a lead-pencil all the while he was talking, much as if he were a writing-machine."

"Doubtless he is, to a great degree," said I; "that is just where the apprenticeship does its work. I know Pyke, and I've seen him write a column of city matter, carrying on conversations with half-a-dozen different people who dropped in during the time, without interrupting him at all. But I don't mean to interrupt _you_; go on, please."

"Well, sir," St. John continued, "before I had thoroughly learned the lesson that I finally learned so well, I was almost literally penniless. Such had been my high confidence in the easy and prosperous path before me in Chicago, that when I came here I took board at a first-class hotel, with my wife. I had very little money, and one day I waked up to the consciousness that I had less than five dollars remaining of that little, and still no work. Two hideous gulfs yawned before me,--starvation and debt. My horror of the one is scarcely greater than my horror of the other. Debt converted my father from a well-to-do man into a bankrupt, and my mother, who owns the little that is left of our old homestead in Massachusetts, was and is in no condition to help me. I would beg in the streets, sir, before I would look to my poor mother for help, after the long years of self-denial she practised to get me through college. My wife is an orphan. You may judge the color my future was taking on. I left the Tremont House, and, falling at once from the highest to the lowest style of living in apartments, came _here_. I had no confidence left, now, in that future which had before seemed, so foolish and inexperienced was I, a broad and flowery path for talent and education to tread. I never intend to whine over anything in this world if I can help it, but I can assure you this was a pretty dark old world to Brock St. John about that time. The prospect of earning a dollar a day would have cheered me wonderfully. I cared more on account of Aggie than myself, of course. A man can bear ups and downs, kicks, cold shoulders, and an empty stomach, if he is alone; but the thought that I have dragged _her_ down to this is almost unbearable at times."

"You have _not_ dragged me, Brock," spoke up the little wife; "I came of my own accord!"

"That you did, Aggie," said the husband, his eyes moistening; "I am slandering you. But to go on: The day after we moved in here, and set up house-keeping in careful preparation for the cold winter coming (I had to pawn clothing to get these poor goods," he added, looking about the room with a smile), "the German musician, who lives next door, came in to ask us if his practising on a trombone annoyed us. We were so hungry for a friendly face just then, that we would have let the good-natured German blow his trombone through our transom-window after that exhibition of fellow-feeling. That afternoon, I dropped in to see him, in continuance of the acquaintance. There was a violin hanging on the wall, and I took it down and played a tune on it.

"That was my introduction to my first situation in Chicago. Stumm got me my place at the beer-saloon; and so, through the knowledge of an art which has always been to me nothing more than an amusement, I get enough to live, in this time when all the hard-earned culture, which cost me so much labor, fails me utterly. I am thankful for this, heartily thankful; but I don't need to tell you sir, how it galls me to do this work,--to sit three or four hours of every evening in a dense and vulgar atmosphere, fiddling for my daily bread. No wonder I am seedy; no wonder I get to look like a loafer, listless, without pride, spite of Aggie's wifely care. If I knew an honest trade, I should be a happy man. I would gladly barter my knowledge of Latin, Greek, and German for the knowledge of type-setting."

"So that you could prove to Pyke that you know the _e_ box from the _x_ box?" queried I.

He laughed.

"But you talk the words of bitterness when you talk in that way, St. John. You can barter your knowledge of German for _cash_, and keep it too. Have you ever sought for pupils!"

"Only a little. I have no acquaintances, you know. My only way to get pupils was to advertise, of course. I tried it three days, and got not a solitary reply. There are scores of teachers advertising. It seemed useless for me to waste money in that way."

"Well," said I, "I think I can set you in a way of getting up a class. My own German is very rusty, and I will be pupil number one. Then I know of two or three friends who want to study the language. I think we can get you up a class among us."

He made me no protestation of gratitude,--such protestations are usually humbug,--but I saw his gladness in his face.

The little wife sat squeezing her fingers for joy.

Before a month had passed, St. John had a large class in German, and bade adieu to fiddling. He proved an excellent teacher. Long before I left Chicago to resume my residence in this city, he had got nicely out from under his cloud, and was living in a snug house in the West Division.

There was a little baby playing on the floor at his house last summer when I called to see him, on my way to Lake Superior. That baby bears my name, I am proud to say.

COMING FROM THE FRONT.

COMING FROM THE FRONT.

"HEAD-QUARTERS. DEP'T AND ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE.
"_East Point, Georgia, September 22, 1864._

"SPECIAL ORDERS.
"No. 214.

[EXTRACT.]

* * * * *

"XI Having tendered his resignation, the following-named officer is honorably discharged from the military service of the United States, with condition that he shall receive no final payments until he satisfies the Pay Department that he is not indebted to the Government.

"1st Lieut. ---- ----, Ills. Vol. Inf'try.
"By order of Maj. Gen'l O. O. Howard.
"(Signed) W. T. CLARK, _Ass't Adj't Gen'l._"

Think of that! After forty-one months of hard-tack and hard marching, interspersed with enough fighting to satisfy the stomach of an ordinary man; after so long an experience of the beautiful uncertainty of army life; after polluting, with the invading heel of my brogan, the sacred soil of several of our erring sister States; after passing many breezy and rainy nights under the dubious shelter of shelter-tents; after sitting through long and weary days in the furnace-heat of narrow and dirty trenches;--after all this, I am at last permitted to bid farewell to "the front," to go home and doff the honorable blue for the more sober garb of the "cit," and drop into my wonted insignificance. That little "extract" has a sweeter perfume for me than any triple extract for the handkerchief ever elaborated by the renowned M. Lubin. It is fragrant with thoughts of home and loved ones far away in the Northland, of starry nights and starry eyes, of fluttering fans and floating drapery, of morning naps unbroken by the strident _ra-tata-ta-ta_ of the bugle. I grow quite sentimental over it, notwithstanding the unpleasant condition with which it is qualified, and which involves such a fearful amount of writing and figuring on mysterious close-ruled blanks, and so much affidavit-making and other swearing,--especially at the blundering clerks in the departments at Washington.

But this troubles me little now. Time enough to attend to it after I get home. That is all I can think of,--_home_, and how to get there.

How I should get there, and whether or not I ever would get there, were questions not easily solved. It is the purpose of this sketch to show some of the beauties of travelling on railroads that are under military control, and especially to set forth the writer's experience in going from Atlanta to Nashville.

It was a terribly hot morning when I reached the depot at Atlanta, amid a cloud of dust and a maze of wagons and mules and commissary stores and frantic teamsters. I threw my valise into the nearest car and hastened to the Provost Marshal's office for my pass. There was an anxious crowd already in waiting: resigned officers and officers on leave; jolly, ragged privates on furlough, eager to see their wives and babies; sutlers and "sheap-cloding" men; flaring demireps, seeking new fields; mouldy citizens in clothes of antique cut, fawning abjectly and addressing every clerk and orderly as "kernel;" dejected darkies, shoved aside by everybody, with no "civil rights bill" to help them. While I was waiting for my turn, the train kept me constantly worried by pulling up and backing down and threatening to leave. At last I found an opportunity to exhibit my "Extract," and, after reading it as slowly and carefully as if it had been a dispatch in cipher, the Provost Marshal very deliberately wrote a pass, read it over two or three times, and then, looking at every one in the room but me, asked "Who's this for?" as if I had not been standing at his elbow with my hand held out for half an hour.

I left the official premises in a highly exasperated state of mind. In the mean time the train had been plunging backward and forward in a wild and aimless way, and I was unable to find the car my valise was in. After much wear and tear of muscle and temper and trousers, in climbing over boxes and bales of hay, I discovered it, and found that it had been taken possession of by a crowd of roystering blades on furlough, whose canteens were full and fragrant, and in whose talk and manner appeared the signs of a boisterous night ahead, with the possibility of a fight or two by way of special diversion. As I was no longer in "the military service of the United States," I was, of course, a peaceable citizen, so I took my quarters in a more peaceful car. It was a cattle-car and not remarkably clean; but the company was good, and through the lattice-work around the upper part of the car one could get a view of the surrounding country; though looking through it gave one a sensation very much like being in a guard-house.

"Will we never get off?" was the question asked dozens of times,--asked of nobody in particular, and answered by a chorus of incoherent growls from everybody in general, while some humorous young man suggested that if any one wanted to get off, he'd better do it before the train started.

"Now we're off!"

"No we're not," said the humorous young man, "but it's more'n likely we will be before we get to Chattanooga."

This was not particularly encouraging to timid travellers, in a country abounding in guerrilleroes, and where accident insurance companies were unknown.

Between Atlanta and Marietta we passed line after line of defensive works, protected by _abattis_ and _chevaux-de-frise_,--feed-racks, I heard a bronzed veteran of rural antecedents call them,--built by the rebels at night, only to be abandoned on the next night to the great Flanker. While they wrought line upon line, Sherman and his boys in blue gave them precept upon precept, here a little and there a great deal. All this rugged country is historic ground. The tall, tufted pine-trees stand as monuments of the unrecorded dead, and every knoll and tangled ravine bears witness to a bravery and heroic endurance that has never been surpassed.

Leaving Marietta,--deserted by its inhabitants and turned into an immense hospital,--we approached Kenesaw, so lately crowned with cannon and alive with gray coats, now basking in the afternoon sunlight, as quiet and harmless as a good-natured giant taking his after-dinner nap. We approached it from the inside, to gain which side the compact columns of Logan and Stanley and Davis hurled themselves against its rugged front so fearlessly, but, alas, so fruitlessly, on that terrible 27th of June.

Farther on we came to Alatoona Pass, taken at first without a struggle, but afterward baptized in blood and made glorious by a successful defence against immense odds.

It was sunset when we reached Kingston,--a straggling row of dilapidated shanties. As the train was to stop some time, I started out in search of supper. There was no hotel, so I had to depend upon sutlers, or peripatetic venders of pies. I entered one sutler's store, and found a few fly-specked red handkerchiefs and some suspenders. Another contained nothing but combs and shoe-blacking. Turning away mournfully, I espied an aged colored man limping up the street with a basket on his arm. I rushed madly at him, and, finding that he had apple-pies, was soon the happy possessor of a brace of them. I congratulated myself and gratefully sat down upon a stone to eat, and--well, _such pies_! It was utterly impossible to tell what the crust was made of. In taste and toughness it resembled a dirty piece of towel. The interior--"the bowels of the thing," as some one inelegantly called it,--consisted of a few slices of uncooked immature apple and a great many flies cooked whole. The cooks were altogether too liberal with their flies. I am not particularly well versed in the culinary art myself, but I venture boldly to say that the flies that were in those two pies would have sufficed, if judiciously distributed, to season two dozen pies with the same proportion of apple in them.

And of such was my supper at Kingston. The whistle sounded, and we got aboard and were off for Chattanooga. Night fell peacefully upon Kingston and its dirty peddlers of unwholesome pies, as a curve in the road hid it and them from our reproachful gaze.

As the darkness increased, and we went dashing at break-neck speed over a road that had had little or no care bestowed upon it since the opening of the campaign, I thought of the humorous young man's remark, and of how unpleasant and inconvenient it would be to have this long train thrown off and its contents, as Meister Karl hath it, "pepperboxically distributed" in the adjacent ditch.

And then to have one of Wheeler's men take advantage of a fellow, as he lay there with a broken leg, and rob him of the few dollars he had borrowed to go home on! Well, we had been taking our chances for the last three years, and it was no new thing to take them now. With this comforting reflection, I sat down on my valise, and, wrapped in my great-coat, awaited the coming of "the balmy." It was rather unsatisfactory waiting. Something in my head kept going rattlety-bang, jerkety-jerk, bumpety-bump, in unison with the noise of the cars; and when I did get into a doze, I was harassed by the dim shadow of a fear that we were about to leave the track and go end-over-end down an embankment. At last weariness overcame me, and I slept soundly, half-lying on the dirty floor, half-leaning on my valise, coiled up in one of those attitudes in which only an old campaigner can sleep at all; I woke amid an unearthly whizzing of steam, to find the train standing still, and myself mysteriously entangled with various arms and legs that didn't belong to me. I extricated myself and looked out. Through the thick darkness of the early morning there glared upon me the light of what seemed to be innumerable fierce, unwinking eyes. I began to think that I had taken the wrong train and brought up in the lower regions; but a little reflection and rubbing of the eyes disclosed to me that we had reached Chattanooga in safety, and that those fierce eyes were the head-lights of the locomotives that had arrived during the night, and were now blowing off their superfluous steam in that wild, unearthly manner. As soon as it was daylight I inquired about trains going North, and learned that there was no telling when a train would go, as Forrest was said to be in the neighborhood of the road. So there was nothing to do but to go to the Crutchfield House and wait. Alas for the man whose purse is slim, under any circumstances! Alas and alas for him if he was obliged to wait in Chattanooga at Crutchfield prices! It was a dollar that he had to pay for each scanty meal, a dollar for the use of a densely populated bed, and a dollar must be deposited with the clerk to secure the return of the little towel he wiped his face on. Besides the pecuniary depletion that he suffered, he was bored to death with weary waiting, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Chattanooga was far from being a cheerful place, especially in the rainy season, when nothing was visible out of doors except the lonesome sentinels pacing their beats in dripping ponchos, and with guns tucked under their arms, and here and there a team of steaming mules, struggling to draw a creaking, lumbering wagon through the detestable clay.

For amusement, there was a billiard-room, where one had to wait eight hours for a chance to play. If he failed to see any fun in this, he could step into another room, and squander his currency for, and bemuddle his brains with, a sloppy sort of beverage that the gentlemanly proprietor would assure him was good, new beer. I would rather take his word than his beer. At night, if his tastes ran that way, for a small outlay one could witness what was called a dramatic exhibition, but which was really more anatomical than dramatic.

In this enlivening village, an ever-increasing crowd of us was compelled to wait for five long days. Resigned officers were far from being resigned, and officers on leave were vexed and impatient because it was impossible to leave.

At length the joyful news spread that a train would leave for Nashville at two o'clock in the afternoon. I rushed to the depot, and was just fairly aboard a car, when some one, more forcibly than politely, told me to "git out o' that car." As he spoke as a man who had authority, and knew it, I got out, and learned that I was on the wrong train, and in a fair way to have been carried to Knoxville. I forgave the man his abruptness of speech, and went in search of the right train. Catching a glimpse of Capt. S., whom I knew to be going North, in one of the cars, I got in without farther question; and soon a fearful jerk, that piled us like dead-wood in one end of the car, started us towards Nashville. Rattling along at the usual reckless rate, we found ourselves, soon after dark, at Stevenson, Alabama. Here we were to stay all night; for the managers of affairs still had the fear of Forrest before their eyes, and dared not run trains at night. It was raining, and the darkness of Erebus covered the face of the earth. Notwithstanding this, Capt. S. and myself plunged out into the night, determined to get something to eat, or perish in the attempt. After wandering blindly for a while,--tumbling into ditches, and falling over boxes and barrels, that turned up where they were least expected,--we finally brought up among the ropes of the tent of a sutler. We entered, and found the proprietor dozing over a dime novel. We were sorry to disturb him in his literary pursuits; but we were hungry, and had to be fed. We eagerly demanded various articles of food, which he sleepily informed us he hadn't got. Questioning him closely as to the edible part of his stock in trade, we learned that it consisted of some Boston crackers and a little cheese. We filled our haversacks with these, regardless of expense. Having bought so generously, the proprietor became generous in turn, and, bringing forth a square black bottle, proffered it to us with the remark: "You'll find that a leetle the best gin this side o' Louisville. Take hold!" The captain took hold; but the silent, though expressive comment, that was written on his countenance when he let go, induced me to decline with thanks. A decent regard for the man's feelings prevented any audible expression; but, as soon as we were out of the tent, the captain solemnly assured me that he was poisoned, and that he would utter his last words when he got comfortably fixed in the car. Getting back to the car was almost as perilous an undertaking as finding the sutler's store; but, fortunately, we were guided by the voice of Capt. W. crying, in heart-rending tones, "Lost child! lost child!" Capt S. interrupted one of his most pathetic cries by striking him in the pit of the stomach with a loaded haversack, and demanding to be helped aboard. Once more snugly ensconced in our car, we proceeded to sup right royally on our crackers and cheese. S. forgot all about his last words until some time near the middle of the night, when he woke me to say that he had concluded to postpone them till he got home, where he could have them published in the county paper. Barring this interruption, I slept soundly all night, having more room than on the trip from Atlanta, and not having the thunder of a running train sounding in my ears.

At breakfast-time we drew out the fragmentary remainder of our last night's repast, and were about to take our morning meal, when we discovered that both crackers and cheese had a singularly animated appearance. Symptoms of internal commotion manifested themselves in all of us except S., who thought that, as the gin had not killed him, he was proof against anything. His stoic composure acted soothingly upon the rest of us, and we concluded that it was too late to feel bad, and consoled each other by repeating the little rhyme,--

"What can't be cured
Must be endured."

By eight o'clock the fog lifted, and we started on our journey northward. Wild and contradictory stories were afloat in regard to the whereabouts and doings of the terrible, ubiquitous Forrest. Revolvers were brought out and capped and primed afresh, and watches and rings were hidden in what were deemed inaccessible parts of the clothing. There was considerable anxiety in regard to the bridges over Elk and Duck rivers, and when we had passed them both safely, the train quickened its speed, every one breathed more freely, and the belligerent men put away their fire-arms.

We hastened on without accident and with decreasing fear, though the _débris_ of broken and burned cars that lined the road-side, suggesting some unpleasant reflections, and at the close of the day entered the picket lines at Nashville, and were safe.

Then came a foot-race, from the depot to the hotel, for a prize that nobody won, for all the hotels in the city were already full from cellar to garret. Capt. S. and I sat down upon the cold, hard curb-stone and mingled our weary groans, while W., more plucky and better acquainted with the city, went in search of a boarding-house. Having returned, with the cheering intelligence that he had found beds and supper, we followed him gladly, and, after eating a supper, the quantity of which I would not like to confess, retired to our rooms, and were soon--to use the captain's elegant language--"wrapped in that dreamless, refreshing slumber that only descends upon the pillow of the innocent and beautiful."

A NIGHT IN THE SEWERS.

A NIGHT IN THE SEWERS.

Perhaps some of my fair readers will consider me a disagreeable person for telling them something I know about kid gloves. Perhaps they will not believe me when I tell them that in Paris and elsewhere there exists--or did exist not very long ago--an extensive trade in the skins of common rats, and that these skins, when dressed and dyed, are converted into those delicate coverings for the hands, commonly called "kid" gloves, and supposed to be manufactured from the hides of immature goats.

I was acquainted with a dog-dealer in Paris, a Dane, whose name was Beck. To him I went one day, bent upon obtaining a terrier dog of good intellect and agreeable manners, who should be a companion to me in my "lodgings for single gentlemen," and whose gambols might serve to amuse me in my lighter hours, when, after work, I would make little pedestrian excursions in the neighborhood, for the sake of exercise and air. Beck's kennel was comprised in a small yard, at the back of a rickety house; and, when I entered it, persuasion was hardly needed to induce me to stand as near the centre of the enclosure as possible, in order to keep at chain's length from what the French call _boule dogues_, several of which ill-looking canines formed a portion of Beck's stock in trade.

"Here," said Mr. Beck, in reply to a question of mine and in pretty good English, "here in this box I have a small dog of a kind quite fashionable now. They call him a Skye terrier, and I have given him the name of 'Dane,' because he comes from far north, like myself, and has long yellow hair."

"With these words, Mr. Beck laid hold of a chain, and drawing it sharply, jerked out from among some straw a creature made up, apparently, of tow and wire, with a pair of eyes like black beads glittering through the shocks of hair that fell over its head. The animal seemed cowed, and I did not think much of him at first sight.

"He has had bad usage," said Mr. Beck; "first time I saw him was yesterday, when he burst in at my backdoor, with a horseshoe fastened to his tail. There, you see I have nailed the shoe over the door of his box. He will be a lucky bargain for whoever buys him, you may depend upon that."

"Good upon rats?" asked I.

"Know nothing about him," replied Mr. Beck, honestly; "never saw him before yesterday. They all take the water kindly though, these Skyes do, and if you want to try him at rats, I can put you in the way of it."

Somehow I took to the ragged little beast, and so I paid Mr. Beck sixty francs for him, and ten more for the little wooden kennel with the horseshoe nailed upon it. I have a great regard for horseshoes as insurers of luck; because once, when I had picked up one on the road, and carried it home in my pocket, I found a letter on my table, informing me that I had come in for a small legacy, through the death of an aged kinswoman whom I had never seen.

What with good treatment and diet, the frequent bath and the free use of the comb, it was not many days before master Dane became a very presentable dog, and had quite recovered his pluck and spirits. He bullied, and banished forever to the house-top, a large tortoiseshell cat, that had hitherto commanded the garrison, and I thought, one day, that I should like to try him at rats. So out I sallied with him in search of Mr. Beck, who had promised to put me in the way of getting some sport of the kind.

That versatile gentleman was not in his kennel when I called, but his wife told me that I would find him in the "skinnery" attached to the establishment; and, asking me to follow her, she ushered me into a long, low apartment, lighted with a row of circular windows. The odor of the place was very pungent and disagreeable. There were several wooden tanks ranged along one wall of the room, and, on lines stretched along by the windows, a number of small skins were hung to dry. Mr. Beck, assisted by a couple of tan-colored boys, was busily engaged in stirring the contents of the tanks. A dead rat on the floor immediately engaged the attention of Dane, who seized it in his teeth, shook it savagely for a moment, and then pitched it away from him, apparently in disgust at finding it already dead.

"What do you make of the rat-skins?" inquired I, after I had looked on for a while.

"Money," rejoined Mr. Beck, curtly; "but the man I dress them for makes them into gloves,--ladies' gloves, of the primest quality."

"Ladies have rats about them in more ways than one, then," said I. "Where do you get the raw material?"

"The rat-hunters supply me. Their hunting-grounds lie all under the streets of Paris. Would you like to have a day in the sewers with your terrier? Simonet will be here in a few minutes, and you can go the rounds with him if you will."

Just what I wanted, and so I sat upon a bench and waited, and presently a man came in. He was a low-sized, squat fellow of about forty, with heavy, round shoulders, and bowed legs; and his head and face were almost entirely covered with a thatch of tangled red hair, out from which there peered a couple of greenish eyes of very sinister expression. He had a leathern sack slung over his shoulder, and carried in his hand a long wand of birch, brushy, with the twigs left upon it at one end.

"On the rounds, eh, Simonet?" said Mr. Beck, addressing this agreeable-looking gentleman; "well, here's a monsieur who would like to go with you. He wants to try his terrier at the rats. You can make your own bargain with him."

Then looking at me, he continued,--

"Better leave your coat with my old woman, who'll give you a clean _blouse_ instead."

Madame took my coat, and gave me a strong _blouse_ and a somewhat greasy cap; and in this guise I went forth with Simonet, who immediately plunged into the thick of the city slums. After having gone some distance, we entered a dismal and dirty office, in which a man, turning over some piles of documents, after a few whispered words with my guide, handed him a bunch of heavy keys, and we again went out into the streets. Entering a paved court-yard, a declivity led us down to a sort of tunnel, the entrance to which was barred by a heavy, grated door, which Simonet opened with one of the keys, locking it again as soon as we had got in.

"We are in one of the main sewers now, monsieur," said he, in a squeaky, rat-like voice; "you must be careful to keep close by me, and not stray away into any of the branches."

It was pitch dark, as I looked before me into the tunnel,--dark, and awful, and silent, but for the gliding, oozing sound of slowly-flowing water. Simonet produced a lantern, which he lit, and I could see by the dim light thrown from it that we were in a vast stone passage, through the centre of which there ran a dark, deep stream. Between the wall and the stream on either side there was a broad pathway, or ledge, and along this the rat-hunter motioned me to follow him. Soon we reached a turn in the tunnel, and here Simonet, after searching about upon the wall for a moment, found a rusty nail in it, upon which he hung his lantern. Then producing a couple of torches from his sack, he lighted them, and handed one to me.

"There is a birch wattle hid away somewhere here," said he,--"ah, yes!--here it is, take it monsieur, and use it just as you shall see me do when we get among the rats. Keep close to me, else you may get lost in the drains."

Dane grew very excited, now, and ran ahead of us a good way, and presently we heard a great rushing and squeaking, and the suppressed snarling of the little dog as he worried the rats. Then we saw many rats running hither and thither, some of them so scared by the light of the torches, as they came near us, that they leaped into the water, while others ran up the wall, from which we quickly knocked them with our wattles. Simonet did not put them into his bag, but left them where they fell, saying that his custom was to pick them up on his way back.

The dog behaved wonderfully well, fighting and shaking the rats that fell in his way with great fierceness and pluck. At last, when we had killed about a hundred of them, we thought it time to rest. Simonet produced a short, black pipe, and, as I was filling mine, he cast a wistful look at my tobacco-pouch, thinking, probably, that the article contained in it must be of a quality superior to that of the cheap stuff smoked by him; so I poured half the contents of it into his hand, and he filled his pipe from it, with a grin of satisfaction on his ugly face.

"It will soon be time for us to turn back," said he, after a while; "the best place for rats is a little way further on, and it will be too late to try it if we don't go forward now."