THE HEROINE OF THE MOUNTAIN.
Of the three captives, Will Mather, Jimmie, and Tom, the latter had
suffered the least as a prisoner of war. A strong Freemason, he had
found friends at Columbia, where chance threw in his way a near relation
of his dead wife and a former classmate. Though firmly believing in the
Southern cause, Joe Haskell from the first befriended Captain Carleton,
whom he finally helped to escape, giving him money, and so far as he was
able, directions where to go and whom to ask for aid. Tom’s imprisonment
had been of short duration, and thus it was, with vigor unimpaired and
spirits unbroken, that he found himself free on that very night when
Will Mather lay sleeping in the cave among the mountains of Tennessee.
But that “Refuge of Safety” was many, many miles away, and Tom’s route
to the land of freedom was a longer and far more dangerous one than
Will’s had been. Still Tom had in his favor health and strength,
together with a knack of passing himself off as a Southerner whenever an
opportunity was presented, and so for a week or more he proceeded with
comparatively little trouble; but at the end of that time dangers and
difficulties beset him at every step, while more than once death or
recapture stared him in the face, either from the close proximity of his
pursuers, or the pertinacity of the bloodhounds which were set upon his
track. Escape at times seemed impossible, and Tom’s courage and strength
were beginning to give way, when one night, toward the last of June, he
found himself in a negro cabin, and an occupant of a bed whose covering,
though impregnated with the peculiar odor of the sable-hued faces around
him, seemed the very embodiment of sweetness and cleanliness to the
tired and footsore man, who nearly all his life had slept in the finest
linen, with lace or silken hangings about his bed. For linen now there
was a ragged quilt, and the bed was festooned with cobwebs, while from
the blackened rafters hung bundles of herbs and strings of peppers,
alternated here and there with the grimy articles of clothing which old
Hetty had washed that day for her own “boys,” and in consequence of the
rain had hung in her cabin to dry. Coarse, heavy shirts they were, but
Tom, as he watched them drying on the pole, fell to coveting the uncouth
things, and thought how soft and nice they would feel on his rough
flesh. Then he thought of home and Rose, and wondered what she would say
could she look in upon him in that negro hut, with all those stalwart
boys sitting by, while Hetty, their mother, cooked the corn-cake, and
fried the slice of bacon for supper. Two sat just where Tom could see
them, while the third was near the door, keeping a constant watch on the
circuitous path leading from the cabin to a large dwelling on the
knoll,—“Marsr’s house,”—where to-night a number of young people were
assembled in honor of the return of the son and heir, Lieut. Arthur, who
had been in so many battles, and had a taste of prison life at the
North.
Though bitterly opposed to the Unionists, Arthur was truthful, almost to
a fault, as some of his auditors thought to whom he was recounting the
incidents of his prison life. Comfortable beds, decent bread,
well-cooked meat, with plenty of pure air and water, _he_ had received
from the hands of his enemies; and once, when for a few days he was
sick, he had been fed with toast and jelly, and tea quite as good as
Hetty could make, he said. And while he talked more than one present
thought of the Southern prisons, where so many men were dying from
starvation and neglect; and one young girl’s eyes flashed angrily, and
her nostrils quivered with passion as she burst out with the
exclamation:
“That’s the story most of our prisoners tell when they come back to us.
Think you a like report will be carried North, if the poor wretches ever
live to get there! I think it a shame to allow such suffering in our
midst.”
This speech, which had in it the ring of Unionism, did not startle the
hearers as much as might be expected. They were accustomed to Maude De
Vere’s outspoken way, and they knew that when she first came among them
she was on the Federal side, and had opposed the secession movement with
all the force of her girl nature. As yet no harm had been threatened
her, for Maude was one to whom all paid deference, and her clear
arguments touching the right of secession had done much toward keeping
alive a feeling of humanity for our prisoners in the family where for
months she had been a guest.
Squire Tunbridge—or Judge, as he was frequently called—was her near
relative, and as his only daughter had died only two years before, and
he was very lonely in his great house, he had invited Maude to visit
him, and insisted upon her staying as long as possible. At first he had
laughed at her Yankee preferences, but when the deaths at Salisbury and
Andersonville increased so fast, he shook his head sadly and protested
against the cruelty and neglect of the government. “He did not believe
in killing men by inches,” he said; “better shoot them at once.” And
still he would not willingly have harbored a runaway on his premises,
for fear of the odium which would attach to him if the fact were known.
And so, when late that night, while Tom lay sleeping in Hetty’s cabin,
and Hetty, up at the big house, was waiting upon the guests and making
secret signs to Maude De Vere, there came a band of men into the yard in
pursuit of an escaped Yankee, the Squire roused at once, saying that no
one could possibly be hidden on his plantation unless the blacks had
secreted him. The negro houses were close by; they could look for
themselves. He had supposed his servants loyal, but there was no telling
in these perilous times; and the old man’s face flushed as his Southern
blood fired his zeal for the Southern cause.
In her evening dress of white, with her bands of glossy black hair bound
like a coronet around her regal brow, Maude De Vere stood leaning upon
the piano, her eyes shining like burning coals, and her lips slightly
parted as she listened to the conversation, and then darted an anxious
glance toward the spot where Hetty had been standing a moment before.
But Hetty had disappeared, and under cover of darkness was running and
rolling and slipping down the steep wet path, which led to her cabin
door.
Arrived there, she seized the sleeping Tom by the arm, and exclaimed:
“Wake up, mars’r, for de dear lord’s sake! De Seshioners is come, and
will be here in a minute! I’m mighty ’fraid even Miss Maude can’t save
you!”
Tom was awake in a moment and fully alive to the danger of his
condition. From the house on the knoll, he could hear the excited voices
of his pursuers, and the sound made every pulse throb with fear.
“Tell me what to do,” he said, and Hetty replied,
“Kin you bar smotherin’ for a spell? If you kin, git under de ole straw
tick, and lie right still and flat, and you, Hal, buckle into marsr’s
place, as if ’twas you who’ve been lyin’ here all the time.”
Tom did not hesitate a moment, and had just straightened himself under
the straw bed, and drawn a long breath as he felt Harry’s body settling
down above him, when steps were heard coming down the path, and a young
man’s voice asked of Hetty if she had any strangers there—“any Yankees,
you know; because if you have—” the young man paused a moment and peered
out into the night to make sure that no one was listening, then, in a
whisper, he added, “Keep them safe, and remember, Fleetfoot knows all
the passes of the mountains between here and Tennessee.”
A suppressed “thank God!” might almost have been heard beneath the straw
bed, while old Hetty exclaimed,
“The Lord bless Mars’r Arthur, and Miss Maude, too! I know it is her
doins.”
And Hetty was right, for Tom Carleton owed his escape from that great
peril, to Maude De Vere rather than to Lieutenant Arthur. “When the
order was given to search the negro quarters, Arthur had seen that in
Maude’s face which constrained him to follow her when she beckoned to
him to come out upon the piazza.
“Arthur,” she said, putting her lips to his ear, “remember the kind
treatment you received from your enemies, and be merciful. Don’t let
them find him, for there _is_ a Yankee soldier down in Hetty’s cabin.
She told me to-night. Search her house yourself. Throw them off the
track. Anything to mislead them. Be merciful. Do it, Arthur, for _my_
sake.”
Always beautiful, Maude De Vere was dazzlingly so now, as she stood
before the young officer pleading for Tom Carleton, and Arthur Tunbridge
was more influenced by her beauty, than by any party feelings. Assuming
a fierce, determined manner, he went back to the pursuers and said,
“It’s perfectly preposterous that one of those Unionists should come
here for protection, when it is well known what we are. Still it may be.
There’s no piece of effrontery they are not capable of. I know them
well, just as I knew every nook and corner of the negro cabins. Stay
here, gentlemen, and take some refreshment while I search the quarters
myself.”
Arthur Tunbridge wore a lieutenant’s uniform. He had been in the army
from the very first; he had fought in many a battle; had been a prisoner
for four months, while his father was known to be a staunch
secessionist, who was ready to sacrifice all he had for the success of
the cause he believed to be so just and righteous. There could be no
cheating in such a family as this, and so, while Maude De Vere wore her
most winning smile, and with her own hands served cake and coffee to the
soldiers, Lieutenant Arthur went on his tour of investigation, and
brought back word that not a trace of a runaway had he found,
notwithstanding that every cabin on the premises had been visited. A
savage oath was the answer to this report, but something in Maude’s eyes
kept the soldiers in check and made them tolerably civil, as they
mounted their horses, and with a respectful good-night, rode off in an
opposite direction.
With a feeling of security after hearing from Hetty of Maude De Vere,
Tom came out from his hiding-place and ventured to the open door of the
cabin, where he stood looking at the “big house” on the hill, from which
the guests were just departing. He could hear their voices as they said
good night, and fancied he could detect the clear, well-bred tones of
Maude De Vere, in whom he began to feel so deeply interested. He could
see the flutter of her white dress as she stood against a pillar of the
piazza, with Arthur at her side, but her back was toward him, and he
could only see her well shaped head, which sat so erect and proudly upon
her shoulders. She was very tall, Tom thought, comparing her with Mary,
Annie, and petite Rose as she walked across the piazza with Arthur, who,
from comparison seemed the shorter of the two. Profoundly grateful to
her as his probable deliverer, Tom went back into the cabin and began to
question Hetty with regard to the young lady. Who was she, and where did
she live, and how came she so strong a Unionist?
“She’s Miss Maude De Vere, bred and born in the old North State,
somewhars near Tar Run.” Aunt Hetty said “Her father was killed at first
Bull Run, and then her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle
off toward Tennessee in de hills. She’s got an awful sight of money, and
heaps of niggers,—lazy, no count critters,—who jest do nothing from morn
till night. She and Miss Nettie, Mars’r Tunbridge’s gal, was great
friends at school, and Miss Maude was here when she died, and has been
here by spells ever since. Young mars’r think she mighty nice, but dis
chile don’t ’zactly know what Miss Maude do think of him. Reckon he’s
too short, or too sessionary to suit her.”
This was Hetty’s account of the young lady, who at that very moment was
listening with a defiant look upon her face to Arthur Tunbridge’s
remonstrance against what he termed her treasonable principles.
“They will get you into trouble yet. The war is not over, as some would
have you think. The North is greatly divided. Be warned of me, Maude,
and do not run such risks as you do by openly avowing your Union
sentiments. Think what it would be to me if harm should befall you,
Maude.”
Arthur spoke very gently now, while a deep flush mounted to his
beardless cheek, but met with no reflection from Maude De Vere’s face.
Only her eyes kindled and grew blacker, if possible, as she listened to
him, first with scorn, when he spoke of treason, and then with pity when
he spoke of himself, and the pain it would cause him if harm should come
to her.
Maude knew very well the nature of the feelings with which her kinsman,
young Arthur Tunbridge, regarded her. At first she had been disposed to
laugh at him, and his preference for an Amazon, as she styled herself;
but Arthur had proved by actual measurement that in point of height he
excelled her by half an inch, while the register showed that in point of
age he had the advantage of her by more than four years, though Maude
seemed the elder of the two.
“Don’t be foolish, Arthur, nor entertain fears for me,” she said. “I am
not afraid of Gen. Lee’s entire army, nor Grant’s either, for that
matter. My home at Uncle Paul’s has been beset alternately by either
party, and I have held a loaded pistol at the heads of both Federal and
Confederate, when one was for leading away Charlie’s favorite horse, and
the other for coaxing off old Lois to cook the company’s rations. No, I
am not afraid, and if necessary I will guide that poor wretch down in
Hetty’s cabin safely to Tennessee.”
Arthur’s face grew dark at once, and he said, half angrily:
“Maude, let that man alone; let them all alone. It is not womanly for
you to evince so much interest in such people. For your sake I’ll help
this one get away, but that must be the last; and remember, it is done
for _your_ sake, with the expectation of reward. Do you consent to the
terms?”
Maude’s nostrils quivered as she drew her tall figure to its full
height, and answered back:
“I could not prize the love I had to buy. No, Arthur; I have told you
once that you are only my brother, just as Nettie was my sister. Believe
me, Arthur, I cannot give you what you ask.”
She spoke gently, kindly, now, for she pitied the young man whose
sincerity she did not doubt, but whose love she could not return. He was
not her equal, either physically or mentally, and the man who won Maude
De Vere must be one to whom she could look up to as a superior. Such an
one she would make very happy, but she would lead Arthur a wretched,
miserable life, and she knew it, and would save him from herself, even
though there were many kindly, tender feelings in her heart for the
young lieutenant.
She saw that he was angry with her, and as further conversation was
useless, she left him and repaired to her room, the windows of which
overlooked Hetty’s cabin.
And there until daylight the noble girl sat watching lest their
unwelcome visitors of the previous night, failing to find their victim,
should return and insist upon another search. As Maude De Vere said, she
had held a loaded pistol at the head of both Federal and Confederate,
when her uncle was sick, and the house was beset one week by one of the
belligerent parties and the following week by the other. She was afraid
of nothing, and Tom Carleton, so long as she stood his sentinel, had
little to fear from his pursuers. But she could not ward off the fever
which for many days had been lurking in his veins, and which was
increasing so fast that when the morning came he was too sick to rise,
and lay moaning with the pain in his eyes and complaining of the heat,
which, in that dark corner of the close cabin, and on that sultry summer
morning, was intolerable.
“Mighty poorly, with face as red as them flowers in yer ha’r, and the
veins in his forehead as big as my leg,” was the word which Hetty
brought up to Maude De Vere the next morning, and half an hour later
Maude, in her pale buff cambric wrapper, with her black hair shining
like satin, went down to Hetty’s cabin and stood beside Tom Carleton.
He was sleeping for a few moments, and the drops of perspiration were
standing on his forehead and about his lips. He was not worn and
emaciated, like the most of the prisoners and refugees whom Maude had
seen. His complexion, though bronzed from exposure, had not that
peculiar greyish appearance common to so many of the returned prisoners,
while his forehead was very white, and his rich brown hair, damp with
the perspiration, clung about it in the soft, round curls so natural to
it.
There was nothing in his personal appearance to awaken sympathy on the
score of ill-treatment, and yet Maude felt herself strangely drawn
toward him, guessing with a woman’s quick perception that he was
somewhat above many whom it had been her privilege to befriend. And
Maude, being human, did not like him less for that. On the contrary, she
the more readily brushed away the flies which were alighting upon his
face, and with her own handkerchief, wiped the moisture from his brow,
and then felt his rapid pulse.
“He ought not to stay in this place,” she said, and she was revolving
the propriety of boldly asking Squire Tunbridge if he might be removed
to the house, when Tom awoke and turned wonderingly toward her.
He knew it was Maude De Vere, and something in her face riveted his
attention, making him wonder where he had seen somebody very like her.
“You are sick,” she said to him kindly, as he attempted to rise on his
elbow, and fell back again upon the squalid bed. “I am afraid you are
very sick, but you are safe here,—that is,—yes,—I know you are safe.
None but fiends would betray a sick man.”
She spoke rapidly, and Tom saw the bright color deepen in her cheek, and
her eyes flash with excitement. She was very beautiful, and Tom felt the
influence of her beauty, and tried to draw the ragged quilt over him so
as to hide the coarse, grey shirt Hetty had given him, and which was as
unlike the immaculate linen Tom Carleton was accustomed to wear as it
was possible to be.
“You are Miss De Vere, I’m sure,” he said, “and you are very kind. I
shall not tax your hospitality long. I hope to go on to-night. Don’t
stay here, Miss De Vere; you must be uncomfortable. It’s hotter here
than in Massachusetts.”
“You are from New England, then?” Maude asked, and Tom replied:
“From Boston,—yes,—your people hate us most of all I believe,” and Tom
tried to smile, while Maude answered him,
“It makes no difference to me whether you are from Maine or Oregon. You
are sick and have come to us for succor. I’ll do what I can to help
you.”
With the last words she was gone, her tall, lithe figure bending
gracefully under the low doorway, and the rustle of her fresh, clean
garments leaving a pleasant sound in Tom Carleton’s ears.
* * * * *
“A sick Yankee down in Hetty’s cabin,—a Boston one at that, with his
Wendell Phillips notions, and you want me to let him be brought up to
_this house_, the house of a Southern gentleman, who, if he hates one of
the dogs worse than another, hates the Massachusetts kind, whose women
have nothing to do but to write Abolition books about our niggers. No,
indeed; he shall not come an inch, and by the Harry I’ll send for the
authorities and have him bundled off to jail before night, with his camp
fever, and his Boston airs. Needn’t talk. See if I don’t do it, and I’ll
have Hetty strung up and whipped for harboring the villain. Treason
under my very nose, and a Yankee, too! Go away,—go away, I tell you. I
won’t hear you. I hate ’em all for the cussedness there is in ’em.”
This was Squire Tunbridge’s reply to Maude De Vere, who had told him of
Tom Carleton, and asked permission to have him moved up to the house.
Nothing daunted, Maude went close up to him, and her beautiful eyes
looked straight into his as she said:
“Think if it was Arthur sick among his enemies. They were kind to him,
he says, and remember Nettie, too. Had she lived she would have married
a Northern man. You liked Robert, and Nettie loved him. For her sake let
this man be brought to the house. He will die there, where it is so
close.”
“Serve him right for coming down here to fight us; wish they were all
dead. How are you going to get the rascal up that confounded hill? Can
he walk?”
Maude had gained her point, and with Mrs. Tunbridge, who had a soft,
kind heart, she hastened to make ready a large, airy chamber, somewhat
remote from the rooms occupied by the family and their frequent guests.
It was not the best room in the house, but he would be safer there than
elsewhere, and Maude made it as inviting as possible, by pulling the bed
out from the corner to the centre of the room, covering the plain stand
with a clean, white towel, and the table with a gaily-colored shawl of
her own. Then with Hetty and one of Hetty’s sons she started for the
cabin, followed by the Squire himself. Since the war began he had not
seen a Yankee, and curiosity as much as anything took him to Tom
Carleton, whom he assailed with a string of epithets, telling him “to
see what he’d got by making war on people so much better than himself.
Good enough for you,” he continued, as, assisted by Hetty and Claib, Tom
tried to walk up the winding path, with Maude in front and the Squire in
the rear. “Yes, good enough for you, if you die like a dog, and I dare
say you will. Fevers go hard with you Bunker Hill chaps. _Claib_, you
villain, you are letting him fall. Don’t you see he hasn’t strength to
walk? Carry him, you rascal!” And thus changing the nature of his tirade
the Squire thrust his cane against Tom’s back by way of assisting him up
the hill.
He was human if he was not quite consistent, and his face was very red,
and he was very much out of breath when the house was reached at last,
and Tom was comfortably disposed in bed.
“For thunder’s sake, Hetty, take that grey, niggery thing off from him,”
the Squire said, pointing to the coarse shirt Tom had thought so nice,
when he exchanged it for his dirty uniform. “If you women are going to
do a thing, do it decent. Arthur’s shirts won’t fit him, I reckon, for
Arthur ain’t bigger than a pint of cider, but mine will. Fetch him one,
and for gracious sake souse him first in the bath-tub. He needs it bad,
for them prison pens ain’t none the neatest according to the tell.”
In spite of his aversion to the Boston Yankees, the Judge had taken the
ordering of this one into his own hands, and it was to him that Tom owed
the refreshing bath which did him so much good, and abated the force of
the fever, which nevertheless ran high for many days, during which time
Maude nursed him as carefully as if he had been her brother. Arthur was
absent when the moving occurred, but when he found that it was done, and
the Yankee was actually an inmate of his father’s house, he concluded to
make the best of it, merely remarking that “they would be in a pretty
mess if the story got out of their harboring a prisoner.”
The Judge knew that, and in fancy he saw his house burned down, and
himself, perhaps, ridden on a rail by his justly incensed neighbors. The
fear wore upon him terribly, until a new idea occurred to him. Maude, as
everybody knew, had long been talking of going back to Tennessee, and
what more natural than for Paul Haverill to send an escort for her in
the person of some cousin or other, who was foolish enough to fall sick
immediately after his arrival. This was a _smart_ thought; and as that
very day at least a dozen people called at the Cedars, as the Judge
called his place, so the dozen were told of “John Camp,” sick abed up
stairs, “kind of cousin to Maude, and sent to see her home, by her Uncle
Paul.”
“Right smart chap,” the Judge said, feeling amazed at the facility with
which he invented falsehoods when once he began. “Been a _guerrilla_
there in the mountains, and done some tall fightin’, I reckon.”
This was the Judge’s story, which his auditors believed, wondering, some
of them, why the visitor should occupy that back chamber in preference
to the handsome rooms in front. Still they had no suspicion of the
truth. “John Camp” was accepted as a reality, and kind inquiries were
made after his welfare, as, day after day, the fever ran its course, and
Maude De Vere bent over him, bathing his forehead, smoothing his
pillows, and brushing his hair, her white fingers insinuating queer
fancies into his brain, as, half unconscious, he felt their touch upon
his face, and saw the soft eyes above him.
At first Arthur had kept aloof from Tom, but as the latter grew better,
he yielded to Maude’s entreaties and went in to see him, feeling
intuitively that he was in the presence of a gentleman as well as of a
superior. He could not dislike him, for there was something about Tom
Carleton which disarmed him of all prejudice, and many a quiet, friendly
talk the two had together on the all-absorbing topic of the day.
“He is a splendid fellow, if he is a Yankee,” was Arthur’s mental
verdict, “and fine looking, too,—finer a hundred times than I,” and then
there crept into his heart a fear lest Maude should think as he did, and
ere he was aware of it, he found himself fiercely jealous of one who was
at his mercy, and whom, if he chose, he might have removed so easily.