_THE RETURN INTO DANGER._
Trembling with excitement Penn got down from the butment, and peering
over the bank, saw his enemies in the distance.
What was to be done? Had he thought only of his own safety, his way
would have been clear. But could he abandon his friends? forsake
Virginia and her father when the toils of villany were tightening around
them? leave Stackridge and his compatriots to their fate, when it might
be in his power to forewarn and save them?
How he, alone, suspected, pursued, and sorely in need of assistance
himself, was to render assistance to others, he did not know. He did not
pause to consider. He put his faith in the overruling providence of God.
"With God's aid," he said, "I will save them or sacrifice myself."
As for fighting, should fighting prove necessary, his mind was made up.
The conversation of the villains under the bridge had settled that
question.
Instead, therefore, of waiting for the friend who was to help him on his
journey, he leaped up from under the bridge, and set out at a fast walk
to follow his pursuers back to town.
He had travelled but a mile or two when he saw the farmer driving
towards him in a wagon.
"Are you lost? are you crazy?" cried the astonished old man. "You are
going in the wrong direction! The men have been to my house, searched
it, and passed on. Get in! get in!"
"I will," said Penn; "but, Mr. Ellerton, you must turn back."
He briefly related his adventure under the bridge. The old man listened
with increasing amazement.
"You are right! you are right!" he said. "We must get word to
Stackridge, somehow!" And turning his wagon about, he drove back over
the road as fast as his horse could carry them.
It was sunset when they reached his house. There they unharnessed his
horse and saddled him. The old man mounted.
"I'll do my best," he said, "to see Stackridge, or some of them, in
season. If I fail, may be you will succeed. But you'd better keep in the
woods till dark."
Ellerton rode off at a fast trot. Penn hastened to the woods, where
Stackridge's horse was still concealed. The animal had been recently fed
and watered, and was ready for a hard ride. The bridle was soon on his
head, and Penn on his back, and he was making his way through the woods
again towards home.
As soon as it was dark, Penn came out into the open road; nor did he
turn aside into the bridle-path when he reached it, because he wished to
avoid travelling in company with Ellerton, who was to take that route.
He also supposed that Sprowl's party would be returning that way. In
this he was mistaken. Riding at a gallop through the darkness, his heart
beating anxiously as the first twinkling lights of the town began to
appear, he suddenly became aware of three horsemen riding but a short
distance before him. They had evidently been drinking something stronger
than water at the house of some good secessionist on the road, perhaps
to console themselves for the loss of the schoolmaster,--for these were
the excellent friends who were so eager to meet with him again! They
were merry and talkative, and Penn, not ambitious of cultivating their
acquaintance, checked his horse.
It was too late. They had already perceived his approach, and hailed
him.
What should he do? To wheel about and flee would certainly excite their
suspicions; they would be sure to pursue him; and though he might
escape, his arrival in town would be thus perhaps fatally delayed. The
arrests might be even at that moment taking place.
He reflected, "There are but three of them; I may fight my way through,
if it comes to that."
Accordingly he rode boldly up to the assassins, and in a counterfeit
voice, answered their hail. He was but little known to either of them,
and there was a chance that, in the darkness, they might fail to
recognize him.
"Where you from?" demanded Sprowl.
"From a little this side of Bald Mountain," said Penn,--which was true
enough.
"Where bound?"
"Can't you see for yourself?" said Penn, assuming a reckless,
independent air. "I am following my horse's nose, and that is going
pretty straight into Curryville."
"Glad of your company," said Sprowl, riding gayly alongside. "What's
your business in town, stranger?"
"Well," replied Penn, "I don't mind telling you that my business is to
see if I and my horse can find something to do for old Tennessee."
"Ah! cavalry?" suggested Lysander, well pleased.
"I should prefer cavalry service to any other," answered Penn.
"There's where you right," said Sprowl; and he proceeded to enlighten
Penn on the prospects of raising a cavalry company in Curryville.
"Did you meet any person on the road, travelling north?"
"What sort of a person?"
"A young feller, rather slim, brown hair, blue eyes, with a half-hung
look, a perfect specimen of a sneaking abolition schoolmaster."
"I--I don't remember meeting any such a person," said Penn, as if
consulting his memory. "I met _two_ men, though, this side of old Bald.
One of them was a rather gentlemanly-looking fellow; but I think his
hair was black and curly."
"The schoolmaster's har is wavy, and purty dark, I call it," said one of
Sprowl's companions.
"He must have been the man!" said Lysander, suddenly stopping his horse.
"What sort of a chap was with him? Did he look like a Union-shrieker?"
"Now I think of it," said Penn, "if that man wasn't a Unionist at heart,
I am greatly mistaken. His sympathies are with the Lincolnites, I know
by his looks!" He neglected to add, however, that the man was black.
Sprowl was excited.
"It was some tory, piloting the schoolmaster! Boys, we must wheel about!
It never'll do for us to go home as long as we can hear of him alive in
the state. Remember the pay promised, if we catch him."
"Luck to you!" cried Penn, riding on, while Sprowl turned back in
ludicrous pursuit of his own worthy friend, Mr. Augustus Bythewood, and
his negro man Sam.
Penn lost no time laughing at the joke. His heart was too full of
trouble for that. It had seemed to him, at each moment of delay, that
the blind old minister was even then being torn from his home--that he
could hear Virginia's sobs of distress and cries for help. He urged his
horse into a gallop once more, and struck into a path across the fields.
He rode to the edge of the orchard, dismounted, tied the horse, and
hastened on foot to the house.
The guard was gone from the piazza, and all seemed quiet about the
premises. The kitchen was dark. He advanced quickly, but noiselessly, to
the door. It was open. He went in.
"Toby!" No answer. "Carl! Carl!" he called in a louder voice. No Carl
replied. Then he remembered--what it seemed so strange that he could
even for an instant forget--that Carl was in the rebel ranks, for his
sake.
He had seen a light in the sitting-room. He found the door, and knocked.
No answer came. He opened it softly, and entered. There burned the lamp
on the table--there stood the vacant chairs--he was alone in the
deserted room.
"Virginia!"
He started at his own voice, which sounded, in the hollow apartment,
like the whisper of a ghost.
He was proceeding still farther, wondering at the stillness, terrified
by his own forebodings, feeling in his appalled heart the contrast
between this night, and this strange, furtive visit, and the happy
nights, and the many happy visits, he had made to his dear friends there
only a few short months before,--pausing to assure himself that he was
not walking in a dream,--when he heard a footstep, a flutter, and saw,
spring towards him through the door, pale as an apparition, Virginia.
Speechless with emotion, she could not utter his name, but she testified
the joy with which she welcomed him by throwing herself, not into his
arms, but upon them, as he extended his hands to greet her.
"What has happened?" said Penn.
"O, my father!" said the girl. And she bowed her face upon his arm,
clinging to him as if he were her brother, her only support.
"Where is he?" asked Penn, alarmed, and trembling with sympathy for that
delicate, agitated, fair young creature, whom sorrow had so changed
since he saw her last.
"They have taken him--the soldiers!" she said.
And by these words Penn knew that he had come too late.