In a room directly over the one last mentioned--a room whose only
furniture was a rude bedstead, a looking-glass with a writing-table
under it and a gas-bracket extending half way across it, and a lounge
extemporized from three tea-boxes and a quilt--stood Mr. BOB PETERS,
aged twenty-three, a bachelor and a fellow man. The time was just
twenty-four hours after the scene depicted in my first chapter, and as
the rays of the sunny Southern sun poured through a window upon the
figure of Mr. BOB PETERS, they revealed an individual who was evidently
unable, just then, to make a raise himself.
ROBERT was a tall, smooth-faced, good-natured-looking youth, wearing a
coat that buttoned up to his very chin and was painfully shiney at its
various angles, corners, and button-holes; a pair of inexpressibles
very roomy and equally glossy about the knees; a brace of carpet
slippers, and (although indoors) a hat in a "Marie Stuart" condition.
That is to say, the style of hat worn thus inappropriately by Mr. BOB
PETERS, corresponded to a fashion in vogue with the ladies not long
ago, when the latter imagined that a bonnet very much mashed down in
front caused each and all of them to present a touching and life-like
resemblance to the unfortunate Queen of Scots. In fact, this bonnet did
really give them just about such a frightened look as they might be
supposed to wear should some modern ELIZABETH TUDOR order them all to
instant execution.
Adding to the consideration of Mr. BOB PETERS' severely straitened
costume the fact that he was smoking an incredibly cheap segar, it is
reasonable to infer that he was rather hard-up when awake and not much
troubled with soft down when asleep.
Viewing Mr. BOB PETERS financially and judging him by a golden rule,
one could see about him considerable that was due unto others, as each
of the others was likely to be dun unto him.
"Bless my soul!" soliloquized Mr. BOB PETERS, hastily turning from a
long and profound contemplation of himself in the mirror and commencing
to pace noiselessly up and down the room,--"here's misery! Shut up in
the garret of one of the First Families, with a chap thirsting for my
blood at the head of the domestic circle down stairs, and the whole
Confederacy ready to bolt me without salt--which is very dear here just
now. Here's a situation for an unmarried man!" exclaimed Mr. BOB
PETERS, insanely tearing his "Marie Stuart" from his head and bitterly
crunching it in his hand--"confined here as a prisoner by the young
woman of my affections to save my life from her own father's sanguinary
designs. Upon my soul!" groaned Mr. BOB PETERS, drearily slapping his
left leg, "it's enough to make me take to drinking, and I--"
"Dear BOB!"
Were you ever awakened from a horrid nightmare dream of capital
punishment and sudden death, _mon ami_, by the soft, persuasive voice
of woman calling you to a breakfast of etherial rolls and new-born
eggs? If so, you can understand the feelings of Mr. PETERS when these
fond words roused him from his terrible reverie.
He spun blithely round on his dexter heel, absorbed the faithful LIBBY
to his manly breast, and incontinently kissed for his lips a coating of
lustrous bandoline from the head of the fashionable maiden.
"Oh bliss!" ejaculated Mr. BOB PETERS, standing on one foot by way of
intensifying the sensation, "my angel visits me in my dungeon, as
angels visited other good men in the Scriptures."
"Oh BOB, how you do smell of smoke," said the devoted LIBBY.
"And thanks to your thoughtfulness for the regalias which have so
lightened my lonely hours, since the day when you brought me up to this
room and then told a virtuous and unsuspecting police that I had fled
in the direction of the _aurora borealis_. By the way LIBBY," said Mr.
BOB PETERS, thoughtfully, "my segar-lighters are all out, and if you
_could_ make me a few more out of the rest of those Confederate
Treasury Notes--"
"I will, I will," responded Miss ORDETH, lifting first one white
shoulder and then the other, as though she would thereby work down her
waist more firmly into the belt formed by Mr. BOB PETERS' right arm;
"but now, dear BOB, we must think of how you are to be got safely away
from this house and out of the city. If my pa should find out that you
have been here all this time, when he thought you were running for dear
life, he would--I really believe"--said Miss LIBBY ORDETH, with
increasing eyes, "that he would actually apply the torch to me without
waiting for the Yankees!"
Mr. BOB PETERS shuddered and turned pale, barely saving himself from
fainting by clasping his companion more tightly and leaning heavily
against her lips.
The infatuated girl did not see the face peering in through the half
open door behind her, as she continued:--
"_Quarter-past twelve is the hour_, BOB, though I can't say on what
night it shall be, yet. You must be already to start on any night, and
in the meantime our meetings are, if possible, to be continued."
"You say that quarter-past twelve is the hour?" observed Mr. PETERS,
reflectively, patting the head against his shoulder in a somewhat
paternal manner.
"Yes, dear BOB; and I wish I could be sure of pa's going to bed earlier
than that; for I know it will be hard for you to go out into the street
at that time of night. You are not accustomed to such late hours at
home."
And, indeed, he was not; for Mr. BOB PETERS' "hours" at home were apt
to be considerably later, especially when he went into morning for some
dear friend.
"Sweet innocence!" exclaimed the young man, much affected by this
evidence of thoughtfulness in his behalf, "your kindness almost makes
me forget the treatment I have experienced at the hands of your being's
author."
"I think you can get off next Sunday night," continued LIBBY, "if
brother is sergeant of the guard; for he promised to see that you got
across the bridge and past the patrol. JOCKO will open the street door
for you when you start: and I want you to send me word, if you can,
after you get to New-York, what kind of bonnets they're going to wear
this summer."
"Dear girl!" murmured BOB, fondly, "I'll find out the style and mention
it to one of our Generals, who will let you know by note, as soon as he
arrives here."
"Dear BOB!--but I must go now. Is there anything I can send you to make
you more comfortable?"
As they stood there facing each other, Mr. BOB PETERS closed his right
eye for an instant, and suffered the muscles of his month to relax,
thereby expressing some want too deep for words.
"You shall have it," said the young girl, turning to leave the room. At
the door she was met by JOCKO, who entered as she passed out, for the
ostensible purpose of removing the remains of the captive's recent
surreptitious breakfast.
The sound of the maiden's light footsteps soon died away in the
passage, like the vibrations of a high-strung instrument in a passage
of music, and the two men stood alone together.
There they were--the White and the Black; the one a freeman in all save
being deprived of his liberty; the other a slave in all save being
unrestricted of his freedom. Who could tell what was working in the
mind of each? Who should draw the line between those men, when all was
dark for the white and a luckless wight was the black? Who should say
that the white man was anything better than the black man, that the
latter should bear the bonds of slavery--bonds as hard to bear even as
Confederate bonds? Look at inanimate nature. Is it not the _White_ of
an egg that bears the yolk? Then why should the white man turn the yoke
altogether over to the black man? But I must refuse to follow out this
great metaphysical question any further. The weather is too warm. I
will leave it to the Awful and Unfathomable German Mind, which delights
to toy heavily with the elephants of Thought.
"Mars'r," said JOCKO, handing a folded paper to the fugitive prisoner,
"dis was gub to me for you by my chile EFRUM, dat b'longs to Missus
ADAMS; and I hope, Mas'r, dat you will read um with fear an' trem'lin,
for the Lor' is very good to let you lib in your great sins, Mars'r."
How beautiful, _mon ami_, is that strong spirit of piety we often find
developed in the uncultivated, like the rich oyster found on the barren
sea-shore. Taken in connection with the children of HAM, it is as
mustard to a sandwich, for moving us to occasional tears.
Mr. BOB PETERS waved the faithful black from his presence, and read the
note, which ran thus:
"MR. PETERS,--SIR:--Though, as a daughter of the Sonny South, I cannot
but regard you as a traitor to our country, the memory of past hours in
my soul-life induces me to act toward you as a heart-friend. I have
heard, through those faithful beings of which your friends would rob
and murder us, that you are a prisoner, and will save you. Contrive to
get out of the house in some way on Sunday (to-morrow) evening, at _a
quarter of twelve_, and you will find those waiting for you who will
deliver you for a time from our vengeance. It is the impulsive
heart-throb of a weak woman that bids me do this--not the
spirit-aspiration of the Southern daughter.
"EVE ADAMS."
Mr. BOB PETERS lowered the hand holding the note until it rested
heavily on his right knee, and gazed before him, as he sat on his
couch, with a puzzled expression of countenance. He had been sitting in
this way, perfectly motionless, for five minutes perhaps, when the door
was gently pushed open a few inches, a dainty white hand came through
the aperture, deposited a mysterious black bottle on the floor very
softly, and disappeared as it came. In an instant, Mr. PETERS sprang to
his feet, dashed the note to the ground, seized the bottle, and
immediately applied it to his lips with great enthusiasm.
His Mistress had understood that last subtle glance he gave her. With
the wonderful insight of man's deeper nature peculiar to girls about
eighteen years old, she had divined the one thing required to make the
captive comfortable.
Oh, woman, woman! In the language of a revised poet--
"Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Ah, what were man!--a world without a son!"