XIX.

_THE ESCAPE._

Walking off quickly across the field towards Mrs. Sprowl's house, he

turned suddenly aside from the path and plunged into the woods.

He soon perceived that he was followed. A man--only one--came through

the undergrowth. Penn stopped. "God forgive me!" he said within himself;

"but this is more than human nature can bear!" He had been, as it were,

smitten on one cheek and on the other also: it was time to smite back.

He picked up a club: his nerves became like steel as he grasped it: his

eyes flashed fire.

The man advanced; he was unarmed. Suddenly Penn dropped his club, and

uttered a cry of joy. It was his friend Stackridge.

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

"That shows," said Penn, bursting into tears as he wrung the farmer's

hand, "that I have been driven nearly insane!"

"It shows that some of the insanity has been driven out of you!" replied

Stackridge, beginning to have hopes of him. "If you had taken my pistol

and used it freely in the first place, or at least shown a good will to

use it, you'd have proved yourself a good deal more of a man in my

estimation, and been quite as well off."

"Perhaps," murmured Penn, convinced that this passive submission to

martyrdom was but a sorry part to play.

"But now to business," said Stackridge. "You must get away as quickly

and secretly as possible, unless you mean to stay and fight it out. I am

here to help you. I have a horse in the woods here, at your disposal. I

thought there might be such a thing as your slipping through their

hands, and so I took this precaution. I will show you a bridle-road that

will take you to the house of a friend of mine, who is a hearty

Unionist. You can leave my horse with him. He will help you on to the

house of some friend of his, who will do the same, and so you will

manage to get out of the state. I advise you to travel by night, as a

general thing; but just now it seems necessary that you should see a

little hard riding by daylight. You'll find some luncheon in the

saddlebags. When you get into some pretty thick woods, leave the road,

and find a good place to tie up till night; then go on cautiously to my

friend's house. I'll give you full directions, while we're finding the

horse."

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

"He has been well fed," said the farmer. "You will water him at the

first brook you cross, and let him browse when you stop. Now just trade

that coat for one that will make you look a little less like a Quaker

schoolmaster."

He had brought one of his own coats, which he made Penn put on, and then

exchanged hats with him. Penn was admirably disguised. Brief, then, were

the thanks he uttered from his overflowing heart, short the

leave-takings. He was mounted. Stackridge led the horse through the

bushes to the bridle-path.

"Now, don't let the grass grow under your feet till you are at least

five miles away. If you meet anybody, get along without words if you

can; if you can't, let words come to blows as quick as you please, and

then put faith in Dobbin's heels."

Again, for the last time, he made Penn the offer of a pistol. There was

no leisure for idle arguments on the subject. The weapon was accepted.

The two wrung each other's hands in silence: there were tears in the

eyes of both. Then Stackridge gave Dobbin a resounding slap, and the

horse bounded away, bearing his rider swiftly out of sight in the woods.

All this had passed so rapidly that Penn had scarcely time to think of

any thing but the necessity of immediate flight. But during that

solitary ride through the forest he had ample leisure for reflection. He

thought of the mountain cave, whose gloomy but quiet shelter, whose dark

but nevertheless humane and hospitable inmates he seemed to have quitted

weeks ago, so crowded with experiences had been the few hours since last

he shook Pomp and Cudjo by the hand. He thought of Virginia and her

father, to visit whom for perhaps the last time he had incurred the risk

of descending into the valley; whom now he felt, with a strangely

swelling heart, that he might never see again. And he thought with

grief, pity, and remorse of Carl, a rebel now for his sake.

These things, and many more, agitated him as he spurred the farmer's

horse along the narrow, shaded, lonesome path. He met an old man on

horseback, with a bright-faced girl riding behind him on the crupper,

who bade him a pleasant good morning, and pursued their way. Next came

some boys driving mules laden with sacks of corn. At last Penn saw two

men in butternut suits with muskets on their shoulders. He knew by their

looks that they were secessionists hastening to join their friends in

town. They regarded him suspiciously as he came galloping up. Penn

perceived that some off-hand word was necessary in passing them.

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

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

confederate cause.

He met with no other adventure that day. He followed Stackridge's

directions implicitly, and at evening, leaving his horse tied in the

woods, approached on foot the house to which he had been sent.

He was cordially received by the same old man whom he had seen riding to

town in the morning with a bright-faced girl clinging behind him. At a

hint from Stackridge the man had hastily ridden home again, passing Penn

at noon while he lay hidden in the woods; and here he was, honest,

friendly, vigilant, to receive and protect his guest.

"You did well," he said, "to turn off up the mountain; for I am not the

only man that passed you there. You have been pursued. Three persons

have gone on after you. I met them as I was going into town; they

inquired of me if I had seen you, and when I got home I found they had

passed here in search of you. They have not yet gone back."

This was unpleasant news. Yet Penn was soon convinced that he had been

extremely fortunate in thus throwing his pursuers off his track. It was

far better that they should have gone on before him, than that they

should be following close upon his heels.

He staid with the farmer all night, and departed with him early the next

morning to pursue his journey. It was not safe for him to keep the road,

for he might at any moment meet his pursuers returning; accordingly, the

old man showed him a circuitous route along the base of the mountains,

which could be travelled only on foot, and by daylight.

"Here I leave you," said his kind old guide, when they had reached the

banks of a mountain stream. "Follow this run, and it will take you

around to the road, about a mile this side of my brother's house.

There's a bridge near which you can wait, when you get to it. If your

pursuers go back past my house, then I will harness up and drive on to

the bridge, and water my horse there. You will see me, and get in to

ride, and I will take you to my brother's, and make some arrangement for

helping you on still farther to night."

So they parted; the lonely fugitive feeling that the kindness of a few

such men, scattered like salt through the state, was enough to redeem it

from the fate of Sodom, which otherwise, by its barbarism and injustice,

it would have seemed to deserve.

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 flashing 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 circumstances, 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 horsemen 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. Clashing and rattling down the steep,

stony banks, and plashing 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 horsemen 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 passed 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!