SUSPICION.
Maude De Vere had insisted that Captain Carleton should have her room,
inasmuch as he would be more secure there; for, if the house was
suspected and searched, a catastrophe Paul Haverill was constantly
anticipating, no one would be likely to invade the sanctity of her
apartment.
And Tom found it so very pleasant, and quiet, and home-like, that he was
not at all indisposed to linger for several days, particularly after
Paul found an opportunity for sending to the Federal lines a letter,
which would tell the anxious friends in Rockland of his safety. This
letter, which was directed to Mrs. William Mather, had been the direct
means of Tom’s ascertaining that his brother-in-law was not only alive,
but had once shared in the hospitalities now so freely extended to
himself. After learning this, Tom could not forbear tearing open the
envelope, and adding in a postscript:
“I have just heard that Will was, not many weeks since, a guest in
this very house where I am so kindly cared for. God bless the noble
man who has saved so many lives, and the beautiful girl, his niece. I
cannot say enough in her praise. I do believe she would die for a
Unionist any day. Will, it seems, did not see her, as she was away
when he was here; and perhaps it is just as well for you, little Rose,
that he did not. There is something in her eye, and voice, and
carriage, which stirs strange thoughts and feelings in the hearts of
us, savages, who have so long been deprived of ladies’ society. She is
a very queen among women.”
That postscript was a most unlucky thought. The first part of Tom’s
letter had been so guarded with regard to the people who befriended him,
that no harm to them could possibly have accrued from its falling into
hostile hands; but in the postscript he forgot himself, and assumed
forms of speech which pointed directly to Paul Haverill and his niece,
Maude De Vere. And so the guerrillas, who caught and half killed the
refugee entrusted with the letter, set themselves at once at work to
find the “noble man who had the beautiful niece.” It was not a difficult
task; and Paul Haverill, who had been looked upon as so rank a
Secessionist, was suddenly suspected of treason.
Paul was popular and dangerous; while Maude De Vere, whose principles
were well known, was too much beloved by the rough mountaineers, to
allow of harm falling upon her at once. But the writer of that
letter,—the “Yankee Carleton”—should not go unpunished, and just at
sunset one afternoon, Lois, who had been at a neighboring cabin, came
hurrying home, with that ashen hue upon her dark face which is the
negro’s sign of paleness.
“Mass’r Paul was suspicioned of harborin’ somebody,” she said; and
already the hordes of mountaineers were assembling around the Cross
Roads, and concerting measures for surprising and entrapping the Yankee.
“Chloe tell me she hear ’em say if they was perfectly sure ’bout mass’r,
and it wasn’t for Miss Maude, they’d set the house on fire; and they
looks mighty like they’s fit to do it. The wust faces, Miss Maude, and
they does _swar_ awful ’bout the Yankee. They’s got halters, and tar and
feathers, and guns”
Lois was out of breath by this time, and even if she had not been, she
would have paused with wonder at the face of her young mistress. Maude
had listened intently to the first part of Lois’s story, but felt no
emotion save that of scorn and contempt for the men assembled at the
Cross Roads, and whom “Uncle Paul could manage so easily;” but when it
came to the halter for the Yankee, her face turned white as marble, and
in that moment of peril, she realized all that Captain Carleton was to
her, and knew what had been the result of the last week’s daily
intercourse with one so gifted and so congenial. She knew too that he
was not for her. Arthur Tunbridge stood in the way of that. She would
keep her faith with him, but she would save Captain Carleton, or die.
“Lois,” she said, and there was no tremor in her voice, “bring that
dress I gave you last Christmas,—the one you think is so long. Your
shawl and bonnet, too, and shoes; bring them to Captain Carleton’s
room.”
Lois comprehended her mistress at once, and hurried away to her cabin
after the dress, whose extra length she had so often deplored, saying
“it wasn’t for such as her to wear switchin’ trains like the grand
folks.”
Meanwhile Maude had communicated with her uncle, who manifested no
concern except for his guest, and even for him he had no fears provided
he could reach the cave in safety. To accomplish that was Maude’s
object, and as the Cross Roads lay in that direction a great amount of
tact and skill was necessary. But Maude was equal to any emergency, and
half an hour later there issued from Paul Haverill’s door, two figures
clad in female garments, and whom a casual observer would have sworn
were Maude De Vere and her servant Lois. Maude had a revolver in her
pocket, and another in the basket she carried so carefully, and which
was supposed to contain the cups of jelly and custard she was taking a
poor sick neighbor, whose house was up the mountain path. At her side,
with the shuffling gait peculiar to Lois, Tom Carleton walked, his
nicely blackened face hidden in the deep shaker which Lois had worn for
years, and his calico dress flopping awkwardly about his feet. Lois
fortunately was very tall, and so her skirts did good service for the
young man, whose powers of imitation were perfect, and who walked and
looked exactly like the old colored woman watching his progress from an
upper window, and declaring that she would almost “swar it was herself.”
At her side stood Charlie, a round spot of red burning on either pale
cheek, and his slender hands grasping a revolver, while occasionally his
blue eyes looked eagerly along the mountain road, which as yet was quiet
and lonely.
“I never thought to raise my hand against my own people,” he said, “but
if they harm Uncle Paul I shall shoot somebody.”
The sun had been gone from sight for some little time, and the tall
mountain shadows were lying thick and black across the valley, when up
the road several horsemen came galloping, and Paul Haverill’s house was
ere long surrounded by a band of as rough, savage looking men as could
well be found in the mountains of Tennessee.
Calmly and fearlessly Paul Haverill went out to meet them, asking why
they were there, and why they seemed so much excited.
For a moment his old power over them asserted itself again, and they
hesitated to charge him with treason, as they intended doing. But only
for a brief space was there a calm, and then amid oaths and
imprecations, and taunting sneers, and threats, they told him of the
letter, and deriding him as a traitor, demanded the sneaking Yankee who
had written that letter, and was now hidden in the house. To reason with
such people was useless, and Paul Haverill did not try it. Standing upon
his doorstep, with his grey hair blowing in the evening wind, and his
hands deep in his pockets, he said,
“I admit your charge in part. There _has_ been a Union soldier in my
house,—an escaped prisoner from Columbia. I _did_ care for him, and I am
neither ashamed nor afraid to own it. Fear is a stranger to old Paul
Haverill, as any of you who tries to harm him will find.”
“Never mind a speech, Paul,” said the leader of the men. “Nobody wants
to hurt _you_, though you deserve hanging, perhaps. What we want is the
Yankee. Fetch him out, and let’s see how he’ll look dangling in the
air.”
“Yes, fetch him out,” yelled a dozen voices in chorus. “Bring out the
Yankee, we want him. Hallo, puny face, are you a bad egg, too?” they
continued, as Charlie appeared in the door.
“Shall I fire, Uncle Paul?” Charlie asked, and his uncle replied,
“By no means, unless you would have them on us like wolves. Friends,”
and he turned to the mob, which had been increased by some twenty or
more, “friends, that man is gone; he is not here; he has left my house.
You can search it if you like.”
“Where’s Miss De Vere?” a coarse voice cried. “We know her to be Union.
She never tried to cover that as you, hoary old villain, did. She was
out and out. Let her come and say the Yankee is gone and we will believe
her.”
“My niece, I regret to say, is not just now in either. She is gone with
Lois to take some nicknacks to a sick neighbor.”
“That’s so, boys. I met her myself as I came down the mountain,” called
out a young man of the company, who seemed to be superior to his
associates.
“Gone with Lois, hey? Then whose woolly pate is that?” responded a
drunken brute, who, rising in his stirrups, fired a shot toward the
garret window from which Lois in an unguarded moment had thrust her
head.
Others had seen her, too, and as this gave the lie to the story that
Lois was gone, the maddened crowd pressed against the house, declaring
their intention to search it and hang any runaway they might find
secreted here. It never occurred to them that the runaway could have
been with Maude in Lois’s clothes; but the young man who met the two
lone women saw the ruse at once, and influenced by Maude’s beauty and
the remembrance of the sweet “Good evening, Mark,” with which she had
greeted him as he passed, he made his way to Charlie’s side and
whispered,
“If you know where your sister has gone, and can warn her, do so at
once. Tell her if she is tolerably safe to stay there and not return
here to-night.”
Charlie needed no second bidding, and stealing from the rear of the
house he was soon speeding up the mountain path in the direction of the
cave. Meanwhile the search in Paul Haverill’s house went on. Closets
were thrown open; beds were torn to pieces; cellars were ransacked, and
old Lois was dragged from the ash-house, where she had taken refuge,
while, worse than all, Tom Carleton’s boots were found in the chamber
where he had dressed so hurriedly, and the sight of these maddened the
excited crowd, which, failing of finding their victim, began to clamor
for Paul Haverill’s blood. But Paul kept them at bay. In the rear of the
house was a small, dark room, to which there was but one entrance, and
that a steep narrow stairway. Here Paul Haverill took refuge, and
standing at the head of the stairs threatened to shoot the first man who
should attempt to come up. They had not yet reached that state when they
counted their lives as nothing, and so amid yells and oaths, and riding
up and down the road, and drinking the fine grape wines with which the
cellar was stocked, the hours of the short summer night wore on until
just as the dawn was breaking in the east, the marauders put the
finishing touch to their night’s debauch by setting fire to the house,
and then starting in a body up the mountain side in the direction of the
cave.