by Oliver Optic
CHAPTER XXV
SOMERS IS COMPELLED TO BACK OUT
Very likely the Virginia farmer had some idea of retributive justice whenhe saw his hopeful son step out of the fire-place into the very jaws ofruin. To say that he was astonished would be expressing his state of mindtoo tamely; for he was overwhelmed with confusion, fear and mortification.He had expected to find the Yankee asleep on the floor; but, as he was notthere, it was sufficiently evident to him that he had again resorted tothe chimney for concealment. It had been distinctly arranged beforehand,that Tom, his son, should conceal himself in the cellar; and, of course,he did not expect to find him in the chimney.
In short, all his expectations had been defeated, and he himself hadopened the trap for his son to enter. He probably knew how strict was thediscipline of the rebel army in respect to deserters. He had frequentlyheard of executions of persons of this class; and he could hardly expecthis son to escape the penalty of his misconduct. He had broken hisbargain with the fugitive; and, in attempting to surrender him to hisimplacable enemies, he had deprived his heir of liberty, if not of life.
"This is your Yankee, is it?" demanded the sergeant, as he gazed at theremnants of the rebel uniform which Tom still wore.
"No, no; this ain't the Yankee!" stammered the farmer.
"Well, you needn't tell us who he is; for we know. I was told to keep asharp lookout for one Tom Rigney, a deserter; and I reckon this is thechap. You are my prisoner, my fine lad."
"There, now, dad!--d'ye see what ye've done?" snarled poor Tom Rigney, ashe glanced reproachfully at the patriarch, who had unwittingly sprung thetrap upon him.
"I didn't do it, Tom," replied Farmer Rigney, appalled at the calamitywhich had overtaken his house.
"Didn't you bring me in here to capture this boy?" asked the sergeant,who appeared to be bewildered by the unnatural act of the father.
"I brought yer here to take the Yank, who was as sassy as a four-year-oldcolt."
"He promised the Yankee he'd take keer on him till night," added thevengeful Tom.
"That was only to keep him here till I could fotch somebody to take keeron him," pleaded the farmer. "The Yank must be up chimley now," hecontinued, reminded that his own reputation for loyalty to the great andgeneral Southern Confederacy was now doubly compromised.
"He ain't up there, dad, nohow," said Tom.
"Where is he?" demanded the sergeant.
"Dunno."
"Where did he go?"
"Dunno."
"Didn't you see him?"
"I reckon it was too dark, up chimley, to see anything."
"Haven't you seen him?"
"I reckon I have. He woked up, and druv me up chimley right smart, withthe pistol in his hand; reckon, if I hadn't gone, I'd been a dead man;I'll be dog scotched if I shouldn't."
"You say he drove you up the chimney?" demanded the sergeant.
"I reckon he did."
"Where did he go, then?"
"Dunno."
"Yes, you do know! If you don't tell, you'll get a bayonet through yourvitals," said the soldier sternly, as he demonstrated with the uglyweapon he had fixed on his gun before he began to examine the chimney.
"Dunno," replied the deserter sulkily.
"Answer, or take the consequences!"
"Dunno. Jes as lief be stuck with a bagonet as shot by a file ofsoldiers," answered Tom, to whom the future looked even more dark thanthe present.
"Tell, Tom," pleaded his father.
"Dunno, dad; I was up chimley when he left. Dunno no more'n the dead."
Perhaps the sergeant concluded that Tom's position was a reasonable one,and that it would not have been possible for him to see, from his darkretreat, where the Yankee had gone. At any rate, he was saved fromfurther persecution; and two of the men were ordered to conduct him tothe camp, while the remainder stayed to continue the search for thefugitive. Farmer Rigney protested and pleaded, and even offered to warmthe palms of the soldier's hands with certain pieces of gold which he hadin the house; but, unfortunately for the patriotic farmer, the sergeantwas above a bribe, and Tom was hurried off to his doom.
A careful search of the house and premises was now instituted; and thistime the farmer was a zealous co-operator with the soldiers; for it wasnecessary for him to establish his own loyalty before he could doanything to save his son from the deserter's fate. The party proceededup-stairs first, and carefully examined every closet, and every nook andcorner which could by any possibility contain the form of a man. AsSomers was not up-stairs, of course they did not find him; and we willnot weary our readers by following them in their fruitless search.
Somers went down into the cellar, closing the door after him; and, as hemay be lonesome in his gloomy retreat, we will join him there, though itwas rather a tight place for more than one person. The cellar was darkwhen the fugitive made his advent within its somber shades; and, as hewas an utter stranger in the place, he was not a little bewildered by theawkwardness of the situation. He was in darkness, and wished for light;at least, for enough to enable him to find the hiding-place of which hehad heard the farmer speak.
This snug retreat, where the deserter had balked his pursuers, wasundoubtedly the cellar drain; though, to Somers, it appeared to be aVirginia notion to have it long enough to admit the form of a man. TomRigney was a larger person than himself; and the case was hopeful enough,if he could only find the opening. The cellar contained various boxes,barrels, firkins and other articles, the mass of which were piled up inone corner.
Somers followed the wall entirely around, from the pile in the corner,till he returned to it, without finding what he desired. It wassufficiently evident, therefore, that the entrance to the drain was underthe boxes and barrels, which had probably been placed over it to ward offthe over-inquisitive gaze of any visitors who might explore the cellar.Our enterprising hero immediately commenced the work of burrowing beneaththe rubbish, and soon had the happiness of discovering the identical roadby which the original occupant of the place had entered. Before theopening, he found sufficient space to enable him to readjust the boxesand barrels, so as to hide his den from the observation of any who mightbe disposed to follow him in his subterranean explorations.
The drain was certainly small enough, even for the genteel form ofCaptain Thomas Somers; though, as his mustache was quite diminutive inits proportions, he was able to worry himself along several feet into thegloomy hole. It was a miserable place in which to spend the day; but,miserable as it was, he hoped that he should be permitted to remainthere. He was fully conscious of the perils of his situation. He knewthat Tom, in the chimney, must be captured; and it was not probable thatthe farmer would let the soldiers depart without examining the house. Hisretreat was known to him, and there was not one chance in a hundred forthe hole to be passed by without an examination.
It would be fatal to remain where he was; and, after resting himself fromthe fatigue which the exertion of moving in his narrow den induced, heagain pushed forward, cheered by the conclusion that a drain would be auseless institution without an opening at each end. Indeed, there was aglimmer of light at some distance before him; and he indulged the hopethat he might work his way out to the blue sky.
He had scarcely resumed his progressive movement, which had to beaccomplished very much after the fashion of a serpent--for the aperturewas too narrow for the regular exercise of his legs and arms--he hadscarcely begun to move before voices in the cellar announced the approachof the pursuers. A cold sweat seemed to deluge his frame; for the soundswere like the knell of doom to him. With desperate energy he continuedhis serpent march; but it was only to butt his head against the stones ofthe drain, where its size was reduced to less than half its proportionsnear the cellar.
His farther advance was hopelessly checked; and there was nothing more tobe done but to wait patiently the result of the exciting event. He wassatisfied that his feet were not within eight or ten feet of the cellar;for, being a progressive young man, he had entered th
e hole head first.It was possible, but not probable, that he might escape detection, evenif the opening was examined; and, with what self-possession he couldmuster for the occasion, he lay, like the slimy worms beneath him, tillruin or safety should come.
"I reckon he isn't down here," said the sergeant, after the party hadexamined the cellar, and even pulled over some of the boxes and barrels.
"God bless you for a stupid fellow as you are!" thought Somers; for hewas prudent enough not audibly to invoke benedictions, even upon theheads of his enemies; but the words of the sergeant afforded him a degreeof relief, which no one, who has not burrowed in a drain in the rebelcountry, can understand or appreciate.
"I reckon there's a place down in that corner that's big enough to hold aman; fur my son Tom's been in there," added the farmer.
These words gave Somers another cold sweat; and perhaps he thought it wasa mistake that he had not put a bullet through the patriarch's head whenhe had been tempted to do so in the room above. He was a double traitor;but I think the conscience of our hero was more at rest as it was than itwould have been if he had shot down an unarmed man, even to save himselffrom prospective capture.
"Where is the place?" demanded the sergeant.
"In yonder, under them barrels and boxes. Jest fotch the trumpery out,and you'll see the hole," replied Rigney.
Somers heard the rumble of the barrels, as they were rolled out of theway, with very much the same feelings that a conscious man in a trancewould listen to the rumbling of the wheels of the hearse which wasbearing him to the church-yard, only that he was to come forth from ahopeless grave to the more gloomy light of a rebel dungeon.
"I can't see anything in that hole," said the sergeant. "No man could getinto such a place as that."
"Blessed are your eyes; for they see not!" thought Somers. "May yourblindness be equal to that of the scribes and Pharisees!"
"But my son Tom has been in there. I reckon a Yankee could crawl inter assmall a hole as anybody."
The sergeant thought this was funny; and he honored the remark with ahearty laugh, in which Somers was disposed to join, though he regrettedfor the first time in his life that he was unable to "crawl out at thelittle end of the horn." He was encouraged by the skepticism of thesoldier, and was satisfied, that, if he attempted to demonstrate theproposition experimentally, he would be fully convinced of itsdifficulty, if not of its impossibility.
"Go and bring another lamp and a pole," said the sergeant.
One of the party went up the stairs, and Somers gave himself up for lost.The extra lamp would certainly expose him, to say nothing of the pole;and it seemed to be folly to remain there, and be punched with a stick,like a woodchuck in his hole. Besides, there is something in tumblingdown gracefully, when one must inevitably tumble; and he was disposed tosurrender gracefully, as the coon did when he learned that ColonelCrockett was about to fire and bring him down. There was no hope; and itis bad generalship, as well as inhuman and useless, to fight a battlewhich is lost before the first shot is fired.
We have before intimated that Captain Somers, besides being a brave andenterprising young man, was a philosopher. He had that happyself-possession which enables one to bear the ills of life, as well asthe courage and address to triumph over them. He had done everythingwhich ingenuity, skill, and impudence could accomplish to save himselffrom the hands of the rebel soldiers; from a rebel prison, if not from arebel halter. He had failed; and, though it gave him a bitter pang toyield his last hope, he believed that nothing better could be done thanto surrender with good grace.
"How are you, sergeant?" shouted he, when he had fully resolved upon hisnext step.
"Hallo!" replied the sergeant, laughing heartily at the hail from thebowels of the earth. "How are you, Yank?"
"In a tight place, sergeant; and I've concluded to back out," repliedSomers.
"Good! That's what all the Yankees will have to do before they grow mucholder. Back out, Yank!"
Somers commenced the operation, which was an exceedingly unpleasantnecessity to a person of his progressive temperament. It was a slowmaneuver; but the sergeant waited patiently till it was accomplished, bywhich time the extra lamp and the pole had reported for duty.
"How are you, Yank?" said the sergeant, laughing immoderately at themisfortune of his victim.
"That's the smallest hole I ever attempted to crawl through," repliedSomers, puffing and blowing from the violence of his exertions inreleasing himself from his narrow prison-house.
"How came you in such a place?" asked the sergeant as they walked up thestairs.
"Well, my friend, the farmer here, suggested the idea to me. He said hisson had crawled in there a great many times."
"I?" exclaimed Rigney. "I never said a word about the drean."
"You must be looked after," added the sergeant, with a menacing look atthe discomfited farmer. "You have concealed a deserter in your house forweeks; and now we find that you hide Yankees too."
"I didn't hide him!" protested Rigney.
"Didn't you agree to keep me here till night?" asked Somers, who despisedhim beyond expression.
"If I did, it was only to have the soldiers ketch yer."
The sergeant declared that Rigney was a traitor, and that he must goalong with him; but Somers, with more magnanimity than many men wouldhave exercised towards such a faithless wretch, told the whole storyexactly as it was, thus relieving him of a portion of his infidelity tothe Southern Confederacy; and the sergeant was graciously pleased to lethim remain at home, while his victim was marched off to the rebel camp.