Cudjo's Cave Part 21

All this had pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.ternut 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 pa.s.sing 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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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.

Following the stream in its windings through a wilderness of thickets and rocks, he reached the bridge about the middle of the afternoon. His progress had been leisurely. The day was warm, bright, and tranquil. The stream poured over ledges, or gushed among mossy stones, or tumbled down jagged rocks in flas.h.i.+ng cascades. Its music filled him with memories of home, with love that swelled his heart to tears, with longings for peace and rest. Its coolness and beauty made a little Sabbath in his soul, a pause of holy calm, in the midst of the fear and tumult that lay before and behind him.

During that long, solitary ramble he had pondered much the great question which had of late agitated his mind--the question which, in peaceful days, he had thought settled with his own conscience forever.

But days of stern experience play sad havoc with theories not founded in experience. In all the ordinary emergencies of life Penn had found the doctrine of non-resistance to evil, of overcoming evil with good, beautiful and sublime. But had he not the morning before given way to a natural impulse, when he seized a club, firmly resolved to oppose force with force? The recollection of that incident had led him into a singular train of reasoning.

"I know," he said, "that it is still the highest doctrine. But am I equal to it? Can I, under all circ.u.mstances, live up to it? I have seen something of the power and recklessness of the faction that would destroy my country. Would I wish to see my country submit? Never! Such submission would be the most unchristian thing it could do. It would be the abandonment of the cause of liberty; it would be to deliver up the whole land to the blighting despotism of slavery; it would postpone the millennium I hope for thousands of years. I see no other way than that the nation must resist; and what I would have the nation do I should be prepared, if called upon, to do myself. If this government were a Christian government I would have it use only Christian weapons, and no doubt those would be effectual for its preservation. But there never was a Christian government yet, and probably there will not be for an age or two. Governments are all founded on human policy, selfishness, and force. Or if _I_ was entirely a Christian, then _I_ would have no temptation, and no right, to use any but spiritual weapons. But until I attain to these, may I not use such weapons as I have?"

These thoughts revolved slowly and somewhat confusedly in the young man's mind, when an incident occurred to bring form, sharply and suddenly, out of that chaos.

He had reached the bridge. He looked up and down the road, and saw no human being. It was hardly time to expect the farmer yet; so he climbed down upon some dry stones in the bed of the stream, where he could watch for his coming, and be at the same time hidden from view and sheltered from the sun.

He had not been long in that situation when he heard the sounds of hoofs. It was not his white-haired farmer whom he saw approaching, but two men on horseback. They were coming from the same direction in which he was looking for the old man. As they drew near, he discovered that one was a negro. The face of the other he recognized shortly afterwards.

It was that of Mr. Augustus Bythewood, who was evidently taking advantage of the fine weather to make a little journey, accompanied by a black servant.

Penn's heart contracted within him as he thought of his friend Pomp, and of the wrongs he had suffered at this man's hands. He thought of his own safety too, and crept under the bridge. He had time, however, before he disappeared, to catch a glimpse of three other hors.e.m.e.n coming from the north. His heart beat fast, for he knew in an instant that these were his pursuers returning.

He had already prepared for himself a good hiding-place, in a cavity between the two logs that supported the bridge. Upon the butment, close under the trembling planks, he lay, when Bythewood and his man rode over. The dust rattled upon him through the cracks, and sifted down into the stream. The thundering and shaking of the planks ceased, but he listened in vain to hear the hoofs of the two horses clattering off in the distance. To his alarm he perceived that Bythewood and his man had halted on the other side of the bridge, and were going to water their horses in the bed of the stream. Clas.h.i.+ng and rattling down the steep, stony banks, and plas.h.i.+ng into the water, came the foam-streaked animals. The negro rode one, and led the other by the bridle. There he sat in the saddle, watching the eager drinking of the thirsty beasts, and pulling up their heads occasionally to prevent them from swallowing too fast or too much; all in full sight of the concealed schoolmaster.

Bythewood, after dismounting, also walked down to the edge of the stream in full view.

Such was the situation when the three hors.e.m.e.n from the north arrived.

They all rode their animals down the bank into the water. Penn had not been mistaken as to their character and business. Two of them were the men who had adjusted the noose to his neck the day before. The third was no less a personage than Captain Lysander Sprowl. Penn lay breathless and trembling in his hiding-place; for those men were but a few yards from him, and all in such plain view that it seemed inevitable but they must discover him.

"What luck?" said Bythewood, carelessly, seating himself on a rock and lighting a cigar.

"The rascal has given us the slip," said Lysander, from his horse. "I believe we have pa.s.sed him, and so, on our way back, we'll search the house of every man suspected of Union sentiments. He started off with Stackridge's horse, and we tracked him easy at first, but to-day we haven't once heard of him."

"It's my opinion he don't intend to leave the state," said Bythewood, coolly smoking. "Sam, walk those horses up and down the road till I call you: I want a little private talk with the captain."

The captain's attendants likewise took the hint, reined their horses up out of the water, rode over the shaking bridge and Penn's head under it, and proceeded to search the next house for him, while Sprowl was conversing with Augustus.

"Let's go over the other side," said Bythewood, "where we can be in the shade. The sun is powerful hot."

They accordingly walked over Penn's head a moment later, climbed down the same rocks he had descended, picked their way along the dry stones to the bridge, and took their seats in its shadow beneath him, and so near that he could easily have reached over and taken the captain's cap from his head!

XX.

_UNDER THE BRIDGE._

"The colonel wasn't aware of your sentiments," said Sprowl, "or he wouldn't have let him off for fifty subst.i.tutes."

"Or if you and Ropes," retorted Bythewood, "had only put through the job with the celerity I had a right to expect of you, he would have been strung up before the colonel had a chance to interfere." And he puffed impatiently a cloud of smoke, whose fragrance was wafted to the nostrils of the listener under the planks.

"Well," said Lysander, accepting a cigar from his friend, "if he gets out of the state,"--biting off the end of it,--"and never shows himself here again,"--rubbing a match on the stones,--"you ought to be satisfied. If he stays, or comes back,"--smoking,--"then we'll just finish the little job we begun."

Penn lay still as death. What his thoughts were I will not attempt to say; but it must have given him a curious sensation to hear the question of his life or death thus coolly discussed by his would-be a.s.sa.s.sins over their cigars.

"Where are you bound?" asked Lysander.

"O, a little pleasure excursion," said Bythewood. "There's to be some lively work at home this evening, and I thought I'd better be away."

"What's going on?"

"The colonel is going to make some arrests. About fifteen or twenty Union-shriekers will find themselves snapped up before they think of it.

Stackridge among the first. 'Twas he, confound him! that helped the schoolmaster off."

"Has the colonel orders to make the arrests?"

"No, but he takes the responsibility. It's a military necessity, and the government will bear him out in it. Every man that has been known to drill in the Union Club, and has refused to deliver up his arms, must be secured. There's no other way of putting down these dangerous fellows,"

said Augustus, running his jewelled fingers through his curls.

"But why do you prefer to be away when the fun is going on?"

"There may be somebody's name in the list on whose behalf I might be expected to intercede."

"Not old Villars!" exclaimed Lysander.

"Yes, old Villars!" laughed Augustus,--"if by that lively epithet you mean to designate your venerable father-in-law."

"By George, though, Gus! ain't it almost too bad? What will folks say?"

"Little care I! Old and blind as he is, he is really one of the most dangerous enemies to our cause. His influence is great with a certain cla.s.s, and he never misses an opportunity to denounce secession. That he openly talks treason, and harbors and encourages traitors arming against the confederate government, is cause sufficient for arresting him with the others."