THE BAYING OF THE HOUNDS
For a moment or two Dorothea lost all track of the animated conversation
on all sides of her, then she became aware that the company were getting
up from the table.
“I do hope,” she heard Mrs. May saying, “that we are not going to begin
to see spies wherever we look. All this silly talk of Red Strings is the
product of some one’s imagination. I don’t believe there is any such
society. It’s absurd.”
“I shall not cease to wear a red band about my throat, yet,” Miss
Imogene remarked lightly.
“Of course it’s foolish to think that everybody who wears a red ribbon
is a Red String,” Hal laughed; “but all the same there is such an
organization.”
That seemed to end the matter for the time being. The whole gay party
assembled in the great parlors and presently, one after another, near
neighbors began to drop in. Among these was a Colonel Ransome of the
Confederate Army and he brought news of another prisoner escaped from
Andersonville.
“They say the fellow is working north through Georgia,” he ended. “They
sent me word to be on the lookout for him, so you boys can keep your
eyes open.”
“I don’t blame any one for escaping from Andersonville!” exclaimed a
Miss Perrine, a pretty Creole from Baton Rouge, “We passed the prison in
the train. There’s a gibbet at the gate of the stockade and they haven’t
even a roof over their poor heads. I say it isn’t right! The creatures
are more like animals than men. You could see that they were half
starved.”
“My dear young lady,” Colonel Ransome demurred politely, “sympathy for
our enemies does your heart much credit; but our prisoners are being
treated as well as they deserve.”
“You wouldn’t like it if our own men were crowded together in the North
as these are here,” Miss Perrine maintained stoutly.
“Faith, these are Yankees!” Val Tracy said with a laugh. “Can it be that
there is any young lady in the South who is sorry for a Yank under any
circumstances?”
“There are some who are not,” April cut in.
“All the same I don’t think it’s fair,” Miss Perrine insisted. “We don’t
have to treat our prisoners that way. It was pitiful to see their hungry
looks. We threw them some of our lunch, but it fell short and I suppose
they will think we did it on purpose to tantalize them. I don’t care
what anybody says, they’re human, even if they are hateful Yanks!”
“They are as well fed as our own soldiers,” April insisted.
“And that isn’t all of it, either,” Colonel Ransome explained. “The
North has refused to exchange prisoners, saying that Morgan’s Raiders
are criminals. So it’s really their own fault.”
“I say,” Hal cut in, “let’s stop talking and sing a bit. I near enough
of war all day.”
They gathered about the piano at this suggestion and soon were shouting
lustily the old songs so dear to all the South in those days. They began
with “My Maryland,” then came “The Bonny Blue Flag”; one favorite after
another, and Dorothea, seated near the door, listened with great
interest, impressed by the fervor of the singing. But it was not till
some one called for “Dixie” that she had a real thrill.
“April must sing it, and we’ll join in the chorus,” cried Val Tracy, and
the beautiful girl stood straight beside the piano and sang with all her
heart in her voice:
“Southrons, hear your country call you!
Up, lest worse than death befall you!
To arms! To arms! To arms in Dixie!
Lo! All the beacon fires are lighted.
Let all hearts be now united.
To arms! To arms! To arms in Dixie!
Advance the flag in Dixie
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Dixie’s land we take our stand
And live and die for Dixie.
To arms! To arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie.
To arms! To arms!
And conquer peace for Dixie!”
The chorus rang strong and true at the end of each verse and when the
last note sounded Val Tracy cried impetuously:
“If only the rascally Yankees could hear you, Miss April! They’d give
up, knowing that we had such fair ones to spur us on to victory.”
Meanwhile Dorothea watched April with a growing admiration, but not
knowing the words of the song she could not join in the singing and her
thoughts wandered. Unconsciously she turned toward a side window, for
she had had the vague sensation of some one looking in; indeed as she
glanced that way a face was pressed against the pane for an instant. It
was the countenance of a man, and so pale, so haggard was it, that
Dorothea nearly cried out with the sudden sympathy she felt. That the
man, whoever he was, was suffering she had no doubt. The sunken cheeks
and the shock of dark hair hanging down over the brow, threw into relief
the thin white features appearing, as if out of a mist, against the
blackness of the night. Only for a second did she see it, and then it
vanished.
Instantly Dorothea’s thoughts flew to Colonel Ransome’s news of the
Yankee prisoner escaped from the dreadful prison at Andersonville. Her
first impulse had been to call Harriot’s attention, but she curbed her
tongue. The man did not appear to be in uniform, but when she stopped to
think of the matter, she could not be sure of that. So momentary had
been her glimpse of him that, had she not known herself to be awake, she
might have convinced herself that she dreamed. She looked about her to
note whether any one else had seen the intruder. But the others were
still shouting at the top of their lungs, unmindful of all else, carried
away with the fervor of their patriotism and love for the cause in which
they believed with their whole hearts. None had seen the face at the
window. At least, so far, the man was safe; and surely, if he was an
escaped prisoner, as Dorothea was now convinced, he would know from the
singing at what sort of a house he had stopped.
She then began to speculate upon the poor fellow’s chances. She wondered
if he were hungry and felt sure, from his face, that he was. She could
do nothing to get him food, but perhaps some money might help him.
“Oh, if I could only do something for the poor soul,” she thought to
herself and, on the impulse, rose to her feet and slipped out into the
hall unnoticed.
She had no very clear idea of just what she wanted to do. Her action was
wholly governed by the sympathy aroused by the man’s evident suffering.
She opened the front door and ran lightly along the gallery until she
came to the end of it, then peered round the corner toward the window
where she had seen the face. The illumination inside had not been so
bright that her eyes did not quickly accustom themselves to the darkness
without, but she rubbed them to be sure that she was not mistaken, for
there was no one in sight. In reality the time that had passed between
her first glimpse of the mysterious man and her search for him was so
very short that it was hard to believe that the stranger had vanished so
quickly; however he was nowhere to be seen and, for his own sake,
Dorothea dared not go farther.
Instead she turned swiftly to slip back into the house, but in so doing
she ran into a figure hurrying along the gallery.
“Oh!” she cried involuntarily, stepping aside. For an instant she could
not see who it was. “Is it you, April?” she asked, dimly making out her
cousin’s figure.
“Yes,” came the answer, after a moment’s hesitation. “I—I—what are you
doing here, Dorothea?”
The English girl was not minded to explain, yet she disliked concealing
the truth. On the other hand to tell this fanatical Southern girl that
she believed an escaped prisoner had been there would be to put the man
in jeopardy at once. A hue and cry after the poor fellow would be
started, and Dorothea would do a good deal to avoid that. In the end she
was not forced to answer.
“Dorothea,” April said breathlessly, coming nearer and lowering her
voice, “please go in, and don’t tell any one that I am out here. Please
go.”
Without a word Dorothea went, slipped back into her place unnoticed, but
she was vastly puzzled over April’s mysterious action, for it was
impossible to believe that her Rebel cousin could have anything to do
with an escaping Yankee prisoner. She shook her head as other
explanations crowded in upon her, finding no satisfactory solution to
the puzzle.
When at last her good-nights were said and Dorothea was back in her room
making ready for bed, she quickly dismissed Lucy and sat down in front
of the fire, her thoughts filled with the day’s experiences.
That her welcome had been a hearty and a loving one she had no doubt.
For her own part she felt a growing affection for these American
relatives; but she was still greatly perplexed to find herself in the
midst of so much gayety and laughter during a fiercely fought war. The
face she had seen at the window was so filled with misery that the
cheerfulness of her surroundings seemed, not quite right and brought
back to her mind a vivid recollection of the wretchedness she had
witnessed on her brief passage through the Confederate Army. Could it be
that those behind the Southern fighting line did not care what was
happening to their soldiers?
She shook her head in denial of this possibility and was still puzzling
the matter when there came a gentle knock at her door.
“Come in,” she whispered, and Harriot tiptoed into the room with a plate
of goober pralines in her hand.
“April would say we should be in bed,” she announced in an undertone
with a glance at the wall between the two rooms; “but when she has girls
staying with her, she thinks it’s all right if they sit up half the
night, gossiping and giggling and eating pralines. She thinks we’re
children,” she ended in a tone of disgust.
“Well, we’re growing up,” said Dorothea philosophically. “I’m nearly as
tall as she is.”
“And I had to have a band put around my skirts I’ve grown so,” Harriot
declared with a hint of pride. “They’ve been let down till there isn’t
any more material left to let!”
While Harriot was speaking Dorothea had become aware of a strange and
menacing sound afar off.
“Listen, Harriot,” she murmured, “what is that queer noise?”
“It’s the hounds!” Harriot answered after a moment. “They’re out after
some one, and they seem to be getting nearer.” She jumped up and,
putting out the light, ran to the window.
“Hounds?” questioned Dorothea, going quickly to her side. “Do you mean
dogs?”
“Yes, of course,” Harriot replied. “They’re out after some one. They use
the hounds to track servants who run away.”
“Would they use them to find that Yankee prisoner who had escaped?”
Dorothea asked a little breathlessly.
“Oh, they’re sure to. Maybe that’s who they _are_ after. Listen! They
are coming nearer—I think I can hear horses galloping.”
Undoubtedly the noises of the man-hunt were louder and Dorothea felt a
clutch of pain at her heart. Was the poor man she saw at the window that
night to be caught by hounds? She shuddered at the thought.