Shoulder-Straps: A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862

by Henry Morford

  CHAPTER IV.

  ANOTHER ADVENTURE OF THE TWO FRIENDS--THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW--ASINGULAR SPOT ON THE WALL--A CLIMB, A TUMBLE AND A PURSUIT--HOW IT ALLENDED FOR THE TIME.

  We left Walter Harding and Tom Leslie, at the conclusion of a formerchapter, coming out from the lodgings of the latter, on Bleecker Streetnear Elm, Leslie accompanying Harding out to a car on the Bowery beforebetaking himself to bed. "Man proposes but God disposes," says theFrench proverb: There is "a divinity that shapes our ends," even in thematters of going to bed and getting into railroad cars. It was somewhatlonger than either had expected, before he reached the "desired haven"of home and a bed-chamber.

  It was past midnight when the two friends reached the Bowery, and theThird Avenue cars, on one of which Harding was going up, were runningless frequently than early in the evening. There was not one of thegreen lights in sight down the Bowery from the corner of BleeckerStreet, and the friends chatted a moment while waiting for one to makeits appearance. Then they grew tired and restless, as people very soondo who are waiting for cars (or boiling tea-kettles, or marriage-days,or any thing of that kind); and they walked down to the corner of Princeto meet the tardy conveyance. There was a green light coming up, someblocks down the Bowery, but it seemed to the two sleepy fellows as if itwould never reach the corner. They walked listlessly a block or two downPrince Street toward Broadway, still arm in arm as they had left thehouse on Bleecker. They wheeled to walk back. Suddenly the eyes ofHarding were attracted by the very bright light in one of the upperwindows of an old brick house on Prince Street, large and stately andgiving evidence of having once been the residence of some person offortune, though now a little dilapidated.

  "People in that house must have an interest in one of the GasCompanies," said Harding, "by the quantity of light they show at thistime of night! Why, the window is all ablaze!"

  Tom Leslie looked up, as his friend spoke. They were on the oppositeside of the street from the house in question, and consequently had afair view of the lighted window. It _was_ very light indeed, a perfectflood of gas-light pouring on a white curtain that partially covered thewhole sash. Partially, not altogether. Whether accidentally or byintention, it was swept away at the lower right-hand corner, leaving alittle of the top of the white wall of the room visible, with the edgeof the ceiling. Was there ever a man (or woman) who did not look inthrough a half-closed curtain, precisely because there is no proprietywhatever in doing so? Willis has made some of his most taking verbalphotographs, during his "lookings on at the war" at Washington, fromthe glimpses caught of the lower half lengths of notables, more or lessundressed, through windows supposed to be closed against outsideobservation.

  Both Walter Harding and Tom Leslie took an eager look up at the whitewall and the edge of the ceiling, in the upper chamber of the house onPrince Street. Harding either had sharper eyes than Leslie, or stood ina more favorable position, for he saw what Leslie did not, and hisdiscovery was communicated in the brief exclamation:

  "By Jupiter!"

  "What?" asked Leslie.

  "Look!" said Harding, drawing his friend's head into position for abetter view. "If that is not a secesh flag draped up near the ceiling,may I never brag of my eyesight again!"

  Tom Leslie took a nearer look. "If it is _not_ a secesh flag," he said,"draped over some kind of a gilded ornament like a star, may I neverfind another opportunity to look at a pretty girl through thisdouble-barrelled telescope."

  And with the word he had whipped out an opera-glass from his pocket,large enough to have been formed out of two moderate-sized specimens ofthe optical instrument he had named, and levelled it at the object onthe wall. His observations and those of Harding through the samepowerful instrument resulted in the same conclusion. The two red barsand one white one of the Confederate flag, with the blue field in thecorner and meagre number of stars, were all plainly visible, and beneaththe flag was a gilded circle, some four or five inches in diameter, witha radiating centre.

  "A nice house that, I don't think!" was Tom Leslie's not very classicalcomment, as he took the double-barrelled telescope finally down from hiseye, after a second inspection. (It may be mentioned, in a parenthesis,that the Third Avenue car had some time since rumbled by, and that thevery existence of that entire line of communication had been forgottenby the two friends.) "Where is Provost Marshal Kennedy, I wonder?"

  "Oh, it may not be quite so bad as you think," said Harding, reading thewhole of his friend's thought. "Who knows?--that secesh flag may be atrophy won by one of our soldiers, and brought or sent home."

  "Humph!" said Tom, significantly. "That won't do, Harding! If the flagwas a trophy, and in the house of a loyal man, it would not be quite soneatly draped on the wall, with the lodge emblem of the Knights of theGolden Circle under it!"

  "Phew!" said Harding, "is that really the emblem?"

  "_The_ emblem, and nothing else," answered Leslie. "There is mischief inthat house, and the nest must be looked after."

  Suddenly, and while the two friends yet looked, there were dark shadowsflung on the white curtain, as if of moving figures, and then oneshadow, as if of a human arm, began to move up and down on the curtainand kept moving steadily. Directly there was one quick sharp scream,followed by no other sound, though both listened intently. Then a figurecame to the window, and apparently looked out, disappearing again in amoment and leaving every thing as before.

  "By George, I cannot stand this!" said Leslie.

  "Nor I," said Harding, moved by quite a different feeling. "I am gettingsleepy and must go home."

  "Must you?" said Tom Leslie. "Well, you are not going a step. You cannotbe spared just yet. Do you see that tree?"

  Harding had seen the tree for some minutes--a tall one with widebranches, standing a little to the left of the window. But he did notsee anything special in the tree, while Leslie did, and that made thegreat difference.

  "I am going on a perilous expedition," continued Leslie, in a banteringtone, but his voice sinking lower, almost without his being aware of thefact, and jerking off his boots meanwhile on the sidewalk. "If I nevercome back, comfort my bereaved wife and children. If I break my neck,see me comfortably buried, _without_ a coroner's inquest if possible."

  "What are you going to do?" asked Harding, with a faint premonition,however, of his intention.

  "I am going to get a peep in at that window," was the reply, "or I amgoing to break the most precious neck in America in making the attempt.I used to be able to climb, though some years ago. Keep still, heregoes!"

  There seemed to be at the moment no passers in the street, and Harding'sanxious gaze around showed no policeman in the vicinity. By the time hehad fairly spoken the last words, Leslie had thrown off his broad hat,crossed the street, and commenced climbing the tree. Harding followedand stood under the tree, as if Leslie was going to throw down applesand he must catch them. Leslie was a little awkward, but hugged the barkhandsomely, and was soon on a level with the window. Harding saw himdistinctly, by the reflected light from the window, clutch his armaround one of the main limbs, and throw his head and body forward sothat his face was not more than a foot from the window. He had notlooked in more than a moment, when Harding heard him utter a quick,short cry, and the next instant he seemed to be trying to regain hishold of the tree. Then there was a rush, a tumble, and he seemed to befalling. Harding threw himself beneath him, and Leslie half slid andhalf fell to the pavement, with such violence as to send both sprawlinginto the middle of the street. Harding was not much hurt; Leslie seemedto be injured, and limped a little as he sprang up.

  "Are you hurt, Tom? What made you fall?" was the double question thatHarding attempted to ask.

  "My God! can that be possible?" was the inconsequent answer, and hishand went up to his head as if the organs of thought were for the momentdisordered.

  "What do you mean? What did you see, Tom?" was Harding's next doublequestion. Leslie was pulling on his boots.

  "See? Nothing--every thing! I
will tell you all about it when my brainsget settled!" was the reply. "I have simply been frightened out of myboots--no, I left my boots down here. But I was frightened out of thetree, and came devilish near to killing myself and _you_. Eh, didn't I?"

  "Never mind about that! Tell us what you saw?" said Harding, whose bumpof curiosity now began to be seriously agitated.

  "The red woman! witch! devil! What does it all mean?" was the torrentof incoherence which next burst from Leslie, not affording Harding avery close solution of the mystery, but promising at least something.

  "Well?" said the latter, expecting more. They had again crossed thestreet, and stood opposite the house of mystery. Leslie was endeavoringto brush his soiled clothes with that most difficult of all brushes, thehand. Harding was looking full at the window, and waiting for thefurther explanation. Suddenly, a carriage whirled through Prince fromthe direction of Broadway, and pulled up immediately before the house.Leslie stopped brushing his clothes. At the same moment, a head wasagain thrust against the window, and immediately withdrawn. Then thelight against the curtain dimmed suddenly. Leslie "put that and thattogether" with the celerity of a lawyer and the confidence of a man ofthe world. The people in that house were going away. Where? That wassomething to be looked into.

  "You know where the livery stable round the corner is, on Houston?" heasked hurriedly of Harding.

  "Yes," was the reply.

  "I am too lame to run fast," said Leslie, speaking very rapidly. "Wemust follow those people, if they go to perdition. Go to the stable,quick--do. There is always at least one carriage standing ready, andhave it here as soon as money can bring it. I will watch meanwhile.Hurry! hurry!"

  Probably Harding, who was rather precise in his ordinary movements, hadnot gone so fast in ten years. He was around the corner before the lastwords had fairly left Leslie's mouth--going as if an enraged woman andthree lively policemen had been close after him. Leslie stepped acrossthe street again, took a glance at the number on the lamps of the hackas he passed, and then ensconced himself in a deserted doorway verynear, to watch what followed. Every moment that Harding was gone seemedan hour. Would they come out and get away, after all, before the comingof the other vehicle? What kept him so long? (He had been gone abouthalf a minute!) Had there been, for once, no carriage in waiting at thelivery? or had Harding concluded to go to sleep on the road? And whatthe deuce did it all mean--the half-dozen persons, and one a womanalmost completely stripped, whom he had seen in that moment's glanceinto that upper chamber? And the red woman!--aye, the _red woman_!--thatbothered Tom Leslie the worst, and as he had himself confessed,frightened him.

  At this juncture the door of the house opened, and a man and two womencame out. The man, from his stature and general appearance, andespecially from his hat, struck Tom as strangely like the tall Virginianwhom they had seen two hours before on Broadway. One of the women mightbe the girl, Kate; and the third--Leslie indulged in another bit of ashudder as he thought that possibly the third might be the red woman.They were all muffled up, however, and Leslie dared not quit his shelterto observe them more nearly. The driver kept his seat on the box. Theman opened the door of the carriage, all stepped in, and the carriagewhirled away out into the Bowery and up town. There they were, going,gone, and Harding not yet returned with the means of pursuit! Confusion,vexation and every cross-grained word in the language! So thoughtLeslie, as he dodged out to the Bowery and watched the disappearingcarriage. It had not turned off into any one of the cross-streets, andseemed making for one or the other of the forks of the avenues at theCooper Institute. Half a minute more, however, and it might as well bethe proverbial "needle in the hay-stack" for any chance they would haveof finding it again.

  Hark! yes, there came tearing hoofs round into Prince Street fromCrosby, and the lamps of a carriage shivered with the speed at whichthey were going. The horses were on the run. It was _their_ carriageafter all, for nobody else could be in such a hurry. Twenty secondsbrought the flying carriage to the corner--a second's pause--a hail fromeach of the friends--and Leslie was inside with Harding, and thecarriage was dashing up the Bowery about as fast as two good horsescould run, with Leslie and Harding each peering out of the openedwindows at the side, to see if they could catch any glimpse of acarriage ahead.

  There is no doubt that the horses attached to the hinder carriage,whatever may have been the opinions of those attached to the onebefore,--thought that the rate of speed was a little rapid for a hotmidnight in June; and certainly one or two pedestrians who came nearbeing run over at the crossings just below the Cooper Institute, had animpression that some rebel prisoner must be running away from FortLafayette or some government official trying to stop one. As Harding andLeslie neared that highly respectable but very ugly monument to theprofits of iron and glue and the public pride of Mr. Peter Cooper,--ofcourse there arose a question, the carriage being out of sight, which ofthe two branches it had taken. The Third Avenue being the plainer road,Leslie decided for the Fourth, and with a shout to the driver justbefore they reached Tompkins Market, the horses' heads were turned inthat direction, and away they went up the comparatively quiet avenue.

  At the rate they were going they soon overtook a carriage, as they wouldhave overtaken any thing less rapid than a locomotive or a whirlwind. Itwas lucky that Leslie had taken the precaution to note the number on thehack, as otherwise they would have been at fault after all. As theydashed by the carriage, which was going at good speed, that cosmopolitansaw that the number on the lamps was a wrong one; and so they kept on.Another carriage was passed at the same speed, their horses by this timedripping as if they had been plunged into the river, but the driver ofhack No. 2980 going ahead under the influence of a private five dollarsand the promise of an extraordinary glass of brandy. At Twenty-eighthStreet they jerked the check-string and the driver pulled up. There wasnothing in sight, short of the railroad tunnel.

  "We have lost them!" said Harding, whose organ of hopefulness was not solarge as that of his friend.

  "Humph! maybe so!" was Leslie's reply, his eyes peering out of thewindows on all sides, meanwhile. "One thing is certain, that I am notgoing to bed until I find that hack and know where it has beento-night!"

  At that moment, with better fortune than two such wild-goose chasersdeserved, they saw the lamps of a carriage flash across Twenty-eighthStreet, going up Lexington Avenue.

  "By George! there they are!" said the sanguine Leslie.

  "Maybe so!" was the reply of Harding, echoing the words his friend hadused the moment before.

  A word from Leslie to the driver, and away went the carriage downTwenty-eighth Street toward Lexington Avenue. On the avenue there was acarriage ahead, driving at good speed but not at such a headlong rate astheir own had been pursuing. Leslie pulled the check-string. "Pass thatcarriage!" he said to the driver, and the horses sprung out at fullspeed again. The speed of the carriage ahead did not increase: whoeveroccupied it probably had no idea of being pursued. Before it had gonetwo blocks further the pursuers had passed it, and Tom Leslie broughthis hand down upon Harding's leg with a force that made him wince, as hesaw the number on the near lamp.

  "Got them, by the tail of the holy camel!"

  It was indeed the same carriage that had left Prince Street less than aquarter of an hour before. They were now ahead of it, and it would notanswer either to slacken speed so perceptibly as to let it pass, or toturn back to meet it. Either course might excite apprehension, if therewas really anything worth watching in the adventure. A word more to thedriver arranged all. They wheeled down Thirty-fourth Street to ThirdAvenue, drove rapidly around the two blocks to Thirty-sixth, and cameout again on Lexington, with the carriage just ahead of them and a fineopportunity to dog it at leisure.

  Two or three minutes afterwards the leading carriage wheeled out ofLexington Avenue into East 5-- Street, not very far from the EasternDispensary, which has lately so well supplied the place of a soldiers'hospital. It was driving slowly, now, and unless some peculiar d
odge wasintended, Leslie knew that the occupants must be near their destination.To follow them further with the carriage would be both useless anddangerous. Stopping the carriage and telling the driver to wait for themin the avenue half a dozen blocks above, the two friends alighted andfollowed their quarry on foot. They were close behind the carriage,now, but keeping the sidewalk, and even if observed they might have beensupposed to be a couple of late wayfarers plodding home, and not _spies_as they at that moment felt themselves to be, in however meritorious acause! About half way between Fourth Avenue and Madison, the carriagestopped before a handsome brown-stone house. "Nothing venture nothinghave!" is an old motto that never wears out. Before the rumble of thecarriage had fairly stopped or the driver could have had time to turnaround, the two friends were over the area railings and under the steps.Not a dignified position, perhaps, nor a pleasant one in which to becaught in the event of a sudden opening of the area door; but other menhave risked as much for a much idler curiosity!

  Perfect silence under the steps, except two loudly-beating hearts and alittle quick breathing. Leslie ventured a look around the corner of thestoop--saw the driver get down and open the door, and the one man andtwo women alight and go up the steps. For the rest, they were obliged todepend upon the ears. One of the women spoke:

  "It will come to-morrow at midnight?"

  Harding could feel that Leslie shuddered, and could distinguish hissharp whisper to himself:

  "The red woman's voice! I knew I could not be mistaken!"

  Then the voice of the man said: "Wait a moment!" and Leslie fancied thathe recognized that voice quite as well as the other. Then there was aquick pull of the bell, the sound tinkling far back in the still house.Then came two sharp pulls after the pause of a moment, and then a fourthafter another pause. Not until the fourth tinkle had been heard wasthere any other sound within the house. Then a door was heard to openand shut, and feet were heard in the hall. The man's voice said "Allright!" and the carriage drove away. An inner door opened, but the outerone (as the friends could easily distinguish by the sound of the voices)remained closed until some one within asked:

  "How many?"

  "Seven!" answered the man's voice. Then the outer door opened, all wentin, the doors closed and were locked, the footsteps in the hall diedaway, and the friends heard no more.

  Very gingerly, as if some depredation on personal property had latelybeen committed, the two volunteer midnight guardians of the public wealclimbed again over the area railings, after all had been still for amoment. Not a word passed between them. Harding stepped softly up thestone steps to the door and noted the number on it, then down again, asif he was treading on eggs. Leslie counted the number of houses from thecorner, with steps not more sonorous, and looked around to see whetherthey could possibly not have been watched by a policeman, when gettinginto and out of the area, because they did _not_ intend to steal. Allthese things accomplished, and apparently nothing more to be done, theywent quietly down 5-- Street to Lexington Avenue and sought theircarriage.