THE MAN IN THE CHIMNEY
"Lemme alone!" repeated the voice in the chimney several times before
Somers could make up his mind as to the precise nature of the adventure
upon which he had stumbled.
There was another man in the chimney; and this was the full extent of his
knowledge in regard to the being who had stepped into his darkened path.
A succession of exciting questions presented themselves to his mind, all
of which were intimately connected with the individual with whom, for the
moment, his lot seemed to be cast. Was he friend, or foe? Yankee, rebel,
or neutral? What was he in the chimney for? What business had he there?
Somers had some knowledge of a useful and otherwise rightly respectable
class of persons, known as chimney-sweeps, who pursue their dark trade up
and down such places as that in which he was now burrowing; but the
sweeps were a civilized institution, and he could hardly expect to find
them in this benighted section of the Ancient Dominion. He did not,
therefore, waste a moment in the consideration of the question, whether
the man beneath him was a chimney-sweep or not; for the supposition was
too improbable even for the pages of a sensational novel.
The individual was in the chimney; and there seemed to be the boundary of
knowledge on the subject. If he was not crazy, he was there for
concealment; and, thus far the two occupants of the chimney were in
sympathy with each other. Why should the man wish to conceal himself? Was
he a hated Yankee like himself, pursued and hunted down by the myrmidons
of Jeff Davis? Certainly, if he was a rebel, he had no business in the
chimney. It was no place for rebels; they had no occasion to be there.
Of course, then, the man must be a Yankee, a fellow-sufferer with Somers
himself, and therein entitled to the utmost consideration from him. But,
if a Yankee, what Yankee? The species did not abound on this side of the
river; and he could not imagine who it was, unless it were one of his own
party. Just then, induced by this train of reflection, came a tremendous
suggestion, which seemed more probable than anything he had before
thought of. Was it possible that the other denizen of the sooty flue
could be Captain de Banyan?
His fellow-prisoner had been taken into the house by his custodian; and,
while the guard was looking the other way, perhaps he had suddenly popped
up the chimney, leaving the rebel soldier in charge of him to believe
that he was in league with the powers of darkness, and had been spirited
away by some diabolical imp.
In the range of improbable theories which the fertile mind of Somers
suggested to account for the phenomenon of the chimney, this seemed more
reasonable than any of the others. The personage below him very
considerately dropped down a step or two, to enable our theorist to
discuss the question to his own satisfaction; albeit it did not take him
a tithe of the time to do his thinking which it has taken his biographer
to record it.
"Captain?" said he in a gentle whisper, as insinuating as the breath of a
summer evening to a love-sick girl.
"I ain't a captain; I'm nothing but a private!" growled the other, who
seemed to be in very ill-humor.
Nothing but a private! It was not the captain then, after all. He had
hoped, and almost believed, it was. He had told his friend all about his
experience in a chimney; and it seemed to him quite probable that the
valiant hero of Magenta and Solferino had remembered the affair, and
attempted to try his own luck in a similar manner. It was not the voice
of the captain, nor were there any of his peculiarities of tone or
manner. If the other character had only said Balaclava, Alma, or
Palestro, it would have been entirely satisfactory in any tone or in any
manner.
"What are you doing here?" demanded Somers in the same low voice, with
commendable desire to obtain further knowledge of the dark subject
beneath him.
"I don't want nothin' of you; so yer kin let me alone. If yer don't let
me alone, I'll be dog derned if I don't ketch hold of yer legs, and pull
yer down chimley."
"Hush!" said Somers in warning tones. "They will hear you, if you speak
so loud."
The man was a rebel, or at least a Southerner; and it passed our hero's
comprehension to determine what he was doing in such a place.
"Hush yerself!" snarled the disconcerted rebel. "What yer want o' me? I
ain't done nothin' to you."
"I don't want anything of you; but, if you don't keep still, I'll drop a
stone on your head," replied Somers, irritated by the fellow's stupidity.
"Will yer?"
"Not if you keep still. Don't you see we are in the same box? I don't
want to be caught, any more than you do."
"Who be yer?" asked the man, a little mollified by this conciliatory
remark.
"Never mind who I am now. The soldiers are in the house looking for us;
and, if you make a noise, they will hear you."
"What regiment do yer belong ter?" said the lower occupant of the chimney
in a whisper.
"Forty-first," replied Somers at a venture, willing to obtain the
advantage of the fellow's silence.
"Did yer run away?"
"No. Did you?"
"What yer in here fur, if yer didn't run away, then?" asked the deserter
from the rebel army, which it was now sufficiently evident was his
character.
"Keep still!" replied Somers, regretting that he had not given a
different answer.
"I know yer!" exclaimed the rebel, making a movement farther down the
chimney, thereby detaching sundry pieces of stone and mortar, which
thundered down upon the hearth below with a din louder, as it seemed to
Somers in his nervousness, than all the batteries of the Army of the
Potomac. "Yer come to ketch me in a trap. Scotch me if I don't blow yer
up so high 'twill take yer six months ter come down ag'in!"
"Keep still!" pleaded Somers, in despair at the unreasonableness of the
rebel. "The soldiers are after me; and, if they catch me, they will catch
you. 1 don't want to hurt you. If you will only keep still, I will help
you out of the scrape."
"You go to Babylon! Yer can't fool me! What yer doin' in the chimley?"
If Somers could quietly have put a bullet through the fellow's head, and
thus have punished him for the crime of desertion, he might have promoted
his own cause; but the bullet would not do its work without powder, and
powder was noisy; and therefore the remedy was as bad as the disorder, to
say nothing of assuming to himself the duty of a rebel provost-marshal.
"Yer can't fool me!" repeated the fellow, after Somers had tried for a
moment the effect of silence upon him.
It was unnecessary to fool such an idiot; for Nature had effectually done
the job without human intervention. It was useless to waste words upon
him; and Somers crept cautiously up out of his reach, and out of his
hearing, unless he yelled out his insane speeches. Every moment he
stopped to listen for sounds within the house; but he could hear none,
either because the pursuers had abandoned the search, or because the
double thickness of wood and stone shut out the noise.
The rebel deserter, for a wonder, kept quiet when Somers retreated from
him, evidently believing that actions spoke louder than words. From his
lower position in the flue, he could look up into the light, and observe
the movements of him whom he regarded as an enemy. He seemed to have
discretion enough to keep still, so long as no direct attack was made
upon him; and to be content to wait for a direct assault before he
attempted to repel it; which was certainly more than Somers expected of
him, after what had transpired.
Carefully and noiselessly our fugitive made his way to the top of the
chimney for the purpose of ascertaining the position of the pursuers, as
well as to remove all ground of controversy with the intractable
deserter. On reaching the top, he heard the voice of the sergeant at the
window, who had probably just reached this point in his investigations.
"How came this board knocked off?" demanded the sergeant, who had perhaps
observed some other indications of the advance of the fugitive in this
direction.
"The wind blowed it off t'other day," promptly replied the farmer. "Yer
don't s'pose the feller went out that winder, do yer?"
"No; but I think he has been up here somewhere."
"Well, I hope yer'll find him; but I've showed yer into every hole and
corner in the house; and I tell yer he's five mile from this yere 'fore
now."
The sergeant looked out of the window, looked up to the top of the
chimney, and looked up to the ridge-pole of the house. He was no sailor
himself; and, if the thought had occurred to him that the Yankee had
passed from this window to the roof of the house, he would have been
willing to take his Bible oath that not a man in the Southern Confederacy
could have accomplished such an impossible feat. He could not do it
himself, and consequently he believed that no other man could. After
examining the situation to his entire satisfaction, he retired from the
window, and with a great many impolite and wicked oaths, aimed at Yankees
in general, and deserters in particular, he descended from the loft, and
abandoned the search.
Somers was happy, and even forgave the deserter in the lower part of the
chimney for his stupidity. He waited patiently for the troopers to
depart--very patiently, now that the burden of the peril seemed to be
over; for he had heard the conclusions of the sergeant at the window.
From his present perch near the top of the chimney, he could hear some of
the conversation in front of the house; and he even ventured to take a
look at his enemies below. To his intense satisfaction, he saw them mount
their horses: and he was not much disturbed by the unamiable reflections
which they cast upon him.
Captain de Banyan was with them; thus proving in the most conclusive
manner that the gentleman in the chimney was not this distinguished
individual. Having lost one prisoner, they were particularly cautious in
regard to the disposition of the other. The captain marched off in gloomy
dignity, with two cavalrymen before and two behind him. Somers caught a
glance at his face as he turned the corner into the road. It was sad
beyond anything which he had ever observed in his countenance before, and
a momentary twinge of conscience upbraided him for deserting a comrade in
such an hour; he might have waited till both of them could escape
together. But the captain's record in the Third Tennessee assured him
that he had only done his duty; though he hoped his brilliant friend
would be able, if an opportunity was ever presented, to remove the stain
which now rested on his name and fame.
With a feeling of intense relief, however much he commiserated the
misfortunes of his comrade, Somers saw the little procession move up the
road which led to Richmond and a rebel dungeon. They disappeared; and
while he was considering in what manner he should make his way down to
the creek, where he hoped to find a boat in which to leave this
treacherous soil, he heard a voice beneath him, and farther down than the
locality of the deserter.
"Yer kin come down now, Tom," said the farmer.
Though the name was his own, the invitation was evidently not intended
for him; and he remained quietly on his perch, waiting for further
developments.
"Hev they all gone, dad?" asked the deserter.
"Yes; all gone. Yer kin come down now."
The renegade, then, was the son of the farmer; which accounted for the
unwillingness of the latter to have the house searched by the soldiers;
and, though Somers had a general contempt for deserters, he felt his
indebtedness to this interesting family for the service they had
unwittingly endeavored to render him.
Tom--Somers wanted to have his name changed then--Tom descended from his
position in the chimney. It was an easy matter; for the kitchen was at
the other end of the house, and there had been no fire on this hearth for
many a month.
"Dad," said this graceless son of a graceless sire.
"Go and wash yer face, Tom. Ye're blacker than Black Jack."
"Dad, there's another man up the chimley. We come near havin' a fight up
there. I told him what I would do; and he got skeered, and went up top."
"What d'yer mean, Tom?" demanded the patriarch.
Tom stated again, more explicitly than before, the subject matter of his
startling communication.
"I reckon he's a Yank, dad; he talks like one, but says he b'longs to the
Forty-fust Virginny. I know he's a Yank. I kin smell one a mile off."
Somers was flattered; but he was not angry at the compliment, and calmly
waited for an invitation to join the family below.
"He's the feller that gin the soldiers the slip," added the father. "The
sergeant says he's a Yank; but t'other prisoner says he's a James River
pilot."
"I know he's a Yank. He'd 'a' killed me if I hadn't skeered him off."
"I reckon he skeered you more'n you skeered him," added the head of the
family, who appeared not to have a very high opinion of his son's
courage. "We'll smoke him out, Tom. Go'n git some pitch-wood and sich
truck."
Somers had a very strong objection to being smoked out, and he commenced
a forward and downward movement in the direction of the assailing party.
Fearing that some unworthy advantage might be taken of his lower
extremities before he could assume an attitude of defense, he drew his
pistol, and placed himself a few feet above the fire-place. Tom returned
with the fuel, and the old man ordered him to make a fire.
"One moment, if you please," said Somers. "I'll shoot the first man of
you that attempts to make a fire there."
With an exclamation of terror, Tom retreated from the hearth; and Somers,
improving the opportunity, leaped down from his perch. Stepping out from
the great fire-place, he stood in the presence of the hopeful son and
sire.