Border and Bastille Part 7

For three days or so, I could scarcely take up a paper without seeing my own unlucky name paraded in one or more paragraphs. As they all varied, it was somewhat remarkable that, in all alike, facts should have been so absurdly distorted. They were not content with drawing my own fancy portrait-imagine, if you please, the caricature-but they built a little romance about poor Falcon's a.s.sa.s.sin, giving him credit for much suffering for his country's sake, particularly for long imprisonment at Richmond, since which time he had devoted himself as an Avenger. I was gratified to observe that his name was seldom, if ever, correctly spelt. I did think of sending a contradictory note to one of the local journals, but decided against wasting ink and paper. Besides, it is a pity to abase oneself unnecessarily. "I ain't proud, 'cos its sinful," nor over careful with whom I try a fall; but I confess a preference for more creditable antagonists than American penny-a-liners. So, I let them-lie.

On the fourth evening of my imprisonment, there was an unusual stir in the building soon after nightfall. Intercourse between the different rooms is prevented as much as possible, but the channels of covert communication are many, and not easily cut off. In ten minutes every one was aware that the iron-clads which were to annihilate Charleston had recoiled, beaten and wounded. My mate rejoiced greatly after his saturnine fas.h.i.+on, and I-the fullness of listlessness being not yet-felt a brief glow of satisfaction. Others were more demonstrative. Loud came the paean of the warlike priest through our mural speaking-trumpet; while the st.u.r.dy soldier on the left, after hearing the news, and taking a trough-full of "old rye," expressed himself "good for two months more of gaol." Some one at a lower window began to sing, softly at first, the National Anthem of the South; then voice after voice joined in, in spite of sentinels' warnings, till the full volume of the defiant chorus rolled out, ringingly:

"Hurrah! hurrah! for Southern rights, hurrah!

One cheer more for the bonnie blue flag That carries a Single Star."

On the whole, I think that Sunday evening pa.s.sed more rapidly than any that I can chronicle here.

The newspapers, for the next few days, were rather amusing. The well-practiced Republican apologists exhausted their ingenuity in endeavoring to explain away the reverse. It was an experiment-a reconnaissance on a large scale-anything you please but a repulse. But the facts hemmed them in remorselessly; at last, in their desperation, they fell fiercely, not only on their Democratic opponents, but on each other.

The truth is, that the failure of the iron-clads was so complete, that it ought to furnish some useful hints for the future. With the exception of the Keokuk, whose construction differed slightly from that of her fellows, none were sunk or fairly riddled with shot; but scarcely one went out of that sharp, brief battle efficiently offensive. The starting of bolts might easily be remedied, but it is clear that the revolving machinery of the turrets is far too delicate and vulnerable; and that these are liable to become "jammed" by a chance shot at any moment. This objection is the more serious, when you consider how miserably these vessels seem to steer. Almost all were more or less "sulky" as soon as they felt the strong tideway, and the huge Ironsides lay a helpless, useless log, half an hour after going into action. Neither do they appear to be very formidable offensively. No reliable evidence proves Fort Sumter to have suffered material damage; yet the attacking force spent their strength exclusively on one of its sides and angles, and there was nothing to prevent their pouring in a concentric fire on any weakened point or possible breach.

But a stranger soon ceases to be surprised at any trick or eccentricity of the American Press. The common courtesies and proprieties of the Fourth Estate are utterly ignored in the noisy Batrachomachia; the first step in editorial training here must be to trample on self-respect, as the renegade used to trample on the cross. Not only do the leading articles teem with coa.r.s.e personal abuse of political opponents, but a rival journalist is often freely stigmatized by name; his antecedents are viciously dissected, and the back-slidings of his great-grandsire paraded triumphantly; though this is an extreme case, for such an authenticated ancestor seldom helps or hampers the cla.s.s of which I speak. A year of such ign.o.ble brawling must surely be sufficient to annihilate more moral dignity than most of these small Thunderers can pretend to start with.

One is prepared for anything after seeing whole columns of journals, boasting no small metropolitan and provincial renown, filled by those revolting advertis.e.m.e.nts, that the lowest of our own penny papers only accept under protest.

Upon one point, certainly, all agree-constant distrust and depreciation of England; and, all things considered, I know no one spot on G.o.d's earth, where the hackneyed old line can be quoted so complacently by a Britisher:

Sibilat populus, mihi plaudo.

It would be unfair, not to give the American Press credit for great energy and ability in collecting intelligence from the different seats of war. Considering the vast surface over which military operations extend, and the immense distances that often lie between the scene of action and the place of publication, it is really wonderful to see how copiously the New York journals contrive to minister to their readers' curiosity. The "Herald," in particular, has one or more correspondents wherever a single brigade is stationed, and according to their own accounts-which there is no reason to doubt-they frequently accompany the troops till actually under fire. All agents of the Press with the army of the Potomac are now obliged to sign their communications with their real name. This general order is of course intended to check the freedom of criticism, which has of late become rather too plain-spoken to be agreeable to the irascible Chief. But it is difficult to gag an undaunted "special;" so every morning the last intelligence streams forth-fresh, strong, and rather coa.r.s.ely flavored-like new whisky from a still.

The sobriety of the weekly journals contrasts refres.h.i.+ngly with the license of their diurnal brethren. Sporting papers are nearly the same all the world over; but, in the rest of these placid periodicals, there is little of violence or virulence to be found. They are enthusiastic about the war, of course, and occasionally querulous about the Copperheads; but they never quarrel among themselves, and are seldom thoroughly savage with any one or anything. They generally contain a chapter or two borrowed, with or without permission, from some English story in progress-"Eleanor's Victory" is the favorite now-the rest of the non-ill.u.s.trated pages are filled with the very mildest little tales that, I think, ever were penned.

These simple romancers in nowise resemble the vitriolic melo-dramatists-scarcely caricatured by Punch in "Mokeanna,"-who try to drug, in default of intoxicating their audience; the liquor they proffer in their pretty flimsy cups, if not exciting, is far from deleterious; not unfrequently you catch glimpses of an under-current of honest pathos, soon smothered by garish flowers of language; and sometimes the style sparkles into mild effervescence, redeeming itself from utter vapidity; these ephemerals, indeed, belong rather to the lemonade than the milk-and-water cla.s.s; but, throughout, there is a woeful want of verve and virility.

It was inexpressibly refres.h.i.+ng, after loitering through twenty such pages, to revert to the "History of the Crimean War:" the curt, nervous periods were a powerful mental tonic; and few of his many readers owe so practical a debt to Mr. Kinglake as the writer of these words.

CHAPTER X.

DARK DAYS.

So-heavier with each link-the chain of days dragged on. My room mate soon thawed into a stolid sociability, and was quite disposed to be communicative; but his narrative riches about matched those of the knife-grinder, and his military experience of one year only embraced one battle-that of Mana.s.sas. His ideas of English society were very remarkable. The works of Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds are much favored, it appears, by the cla.s.s who believe in Mr. George F. Train's veracity and eloquence; from these turbid fountains mine honest friend's conceptions were drawn. I took some trouble to undeceive him, and partially succeeded, chiefly by insisting upon the fact that-of all living writers-the ingenious author of the "Mysteries of Everything" was probably the man least qualified, by personal experience, to discourse concerning the manners and customs of the upper, or even the educated, cla.s.ses. Slowly and reluctantly, the Baltimorean abandoned his cherished ideal of the British aristocrat-a covert Caligula, with all modern improvements-varying the monotony of orgies with interludes of murder and rapine; the instrument of these pleasant vices being always ready in the shape of a Frankenstein-monster, whose mission it is to tyrannize perpetually over the guilty lordling or lady whose secret he holds; doing a steady trade of two a.s.sa.s.sinations or abductions weekly; and utterly inviolable by cord, shot, or steel, up to the final blue-fire tableau of the dreary drama. I believe that my mate is now prepared to admit, that a certain amount of piety and chast.i.ty is not incompatible with tenure of the highest dignities in the Anglican Church-that a youth need not necessarily be a savage Sybarite, because he happens to be heir to a dukedom-that matronly virtue may, with a struggle, be retained even by a Countess-and that a man may possibly be a kindly landlord, and even an honest farmer himself (that was the crowning triumph), though born a belted Earl.

On the fourth day, I bethought myself of teaching my companion piquet (no purely transatlantic game is in the least interesting, if the stakes are nominal); he acquired it with the ready apt.i.tude that seems natural to Americans, and I soon had to drop the odds of the deal. We played many hundred parties for imaginary eagles; eventually I got a run, and left off a good winner, which, as my opponent had not money enough to buy tobacco, was highly satisfactory to every one concerned.

After a week's confinement to my room, I was allowed to take half an hour's exercise daily in a narrow strip of yard just twenty-one paces long; it was hedged in with kitchens and all sorts of disagreeable buildings, but the additional s.p.a.ce was not to be despised. On the first evening after this concession, I was pacing up and down moodily (only inmates of the same room are allowed to descend together, so that you gain no social advantage), when just over my head, from a window on the first story, there broke out a burst of merriment, and a half-intelligible trill of baby-language; then a little round pink face, under a cloud of fair hair, peered out at me through the bars. The utter incongruity of the whole picture struck me so absurdly, that, I believe, I did indulge in a dreary laugh. Then the child began to talk again; and clapped its hands exultingly, as its mother caught an orange I threw up at her, when the sentinel's back was turned. So a sort of acquaintance began. Every day for a month, I saw that promising two-year-old (to whose s.e.x I cannot speak with certainty); and I never heard it fretting or wailing. Whenever it saw me, it used to break out into a real uproarious laugh, as if our common imprisonment was the very best joke that had ever been presented to its infantile mind. I am ashamed to avow, that my own sense of the ridiculous was by no means so keen. The mother evidently pined far more than the baby; for her face grew, every day, more white and worn. What was the offense of either against the Government, I never heard; for no official or soldier will answer any question, and discourse between the prisoners is strictly forbidden. They went South, in the great exodus of the 20th of May. I contrived on that morning, with much cunning, to cast in six or seven oranges at their window, which, I hope, solaced those two Gentle Traytours through the burden and heat of the day.

Till I got too sulky and savage to seek unnecessary intercourse with any one, I found occasional amus.e.m.e.nt in chaffing the sentinels. The orders against conversation with these were not rigidly enforced. Finding that they rose very freely to the bait of a strained ironical politeness, I used to beg them to tell off by sections, the victims of their red right hands-chickens and ducks not being counted; also, I was fain to learn, how many rebel standards and pieces of cannon each man had captured and retained? If they took no credit for any such feats, I would by no means believe them, imputing the denial solely to the modesty inseparable from true courage.

Descending into the yard, one day, I found the sentry-an overgrown lad, with broad, crimson, beardless cheeks-in a perfect paroxysm of excitement, using great freedom of gesticulation and blasphemy. I had had immense success in bewildering this particular warrior a few days previously: so I went up to him at once:

"My blood-stained veteran," I said, "what has raised your apoplectic valor?"

I think he was rather ashamed at being caught; but he grumbled out, sulkily rough, something about-"If they don't keep their -- heads in, they'll get more than they ask for." I followed the direction of his eyes, and there, on the third story, sat two of the quietest-looking middle-aged women I ever beheld. They were evidently new arrivals, and had not heard of the injunctions against putting heads out windows: for they were staring down in blank astonishment, unconscious that the blatant threats were leveled at them. Now, the ingenious juggler who packed himself into a bottle, might possibly have succeeded in infringing the aforesaid rule: no other human being could have got his cranium through the bars. I suspect, it was simply an outbreak of the plethoric sentry's irrational ferocity (he had been sweltering under a burning sun for two hours) on the first helpless object that came across him; for I could not make out that the women had answered or aggravated him. I addressed to my friend many compliments on his prowess-trusting that his soldierly zeal would be appreciated in higher quarters. Nevertheless, I presumed to suggest that it would have been wiser to have begun with the baby: if he could frighten that into fits, his rapid promotion must have been insured. I believed that Brigadier Turchin would soon want an aide, and who knows? &c.

In a few minutes he waxed frightfully wroth; but he had already broken the non-conversation orders, and I would not allow him to fall back upon these now. At last he retreated to a part of his beat where I could not follow him, and there growled and ground his teeth till my time was up. The corporal who was my immediate guard tried to excuse his comrade, hinting that "he wasn't quite right in the head." Possibly this may have been one of his "off-days." The jest of that afternoon was turned into b.l.o.o.d.y earnest before three weeks had pa.s.sed.

Not long after this I had a pleasanter incident to chronicle. As I entered the yard one day, my guard remarked with a broad grin: "Somethin' new up there, Colonel."

The indiscriminate appropriation of military t.i.tles here, is, of course, proverbial, though common prudence made me very careful not to claim a fict.i.tious rank, after leaving Baltimore, where I was well known. I got a brevet-step with almost every change of place or a.s.sociation; disclaimers were never listened to.

Through the bars of a second story window that fronted each turn of my tramp, I saw-this. A slight figure in the freshest summer toilette of cool pink muslin; close braids of dark hair shading clear pale cheeks; eyes that were made to sparkle, though the look in them then was very sad, and the languid bowing down of the small head told of something worse than weariness.

Truly, a pretty picture, though framed in such rude setting, but almost as startling, at first, as the apparition of the fair witch in the forest to Christabelle. Slightly in the background stood a mature dame-the mother, evidently. No need to ask what their crime had been; aid and abetment of the South suggested itself before you detected the ensign of her faith that the demoiselle still wore undauntedly-a pearl solitaire, fas.h.i.+oned as a single star. I may not deny that my gloomy "const.i.tutional" seemed, thenceforward, a shade or two less dreary; but, though community of suffering does much abridge ceremony, it was some days before I interchanged with the fair captives any sign beyond the mechanical lifting of my cap when I entered and left their presence, duly acknowledged from above. One evening I chanced to be loitering almost under their window; a low, significant cough made me look up; I saw the flash of a gold bracelet and the wave of a white hand, and there fell at my feet a fragrant pearly rosebud nestling in fresh green leaves. My thanks were, perforce, confined to a gesture and a dozen hurried words, but I would the prison beauty could believe that fair Jane Beaufort's rose was not more prized than hers, though the first was a love token granted to a king, the last only a graceful gift to an unlucky stranger. I suppose that most men, whose past is not utterly barren of romance, are weak enough to keep some withered flowers till they have lived memory down, and I pretend not to be wiser than my fellows. Other fragrant messengers followed in their season, but, if ever I "win hame to mine ain countrie," I make mine avow to enshrine that first rosebud in my reliquaire, with all honor and solemnity, there to abide till one of us shall be dust.

I heard from Lord Lyons about once a week. Though my letters were always answered most promptly, the replies never reached me within eight days. All correspondence, going or coming, pa.s.ses the inspection of the Provost Marshal and the Superintendent, and letters are forwarded and delivered-sooner or later-the whole thing resolving itself into a question of official memory or convenience. I did not doubt from the first, that no intercession, that could properly be exercised, would be spared. If repeated applications and strong representations could have availed, I should have been free long ago. But many autocrats might take a lesson from the insolent indifference of this Administration, when an argument or a request is to be set aside; it is exactly in proportion to the pliancy they display when confronted with demands enforced by a substantial threat. Lord Lyons' reputation for courtesy and kindness of heart stands too high to need any testimony of mine; but I cannot forbear here expressing my sense of his good offices, and I am not the less grateful, because these words are written on the fifty-sixth day of imprisonment.

To one member of the Legation, I am indebted for far more than official benevolence. On the second day after my committal, Percy Anderson brought up himself to the Old Capitol, a package containing cigars, books, newspapers, &c., which, he was told, would be transmitted to me "right away." I trust that the contents satisfied the critical tastes of the officer on guard; for from his clutches no fragment emerged. I never even heard of the kind intention, till weeks had pa.s.sed; and, of many papers afterwards forwarded by the same hands, only one packet reached me.

All this time, my reverend neighbor was pressing on in earnest his preparations for escape. His room-mate was a young Marylander, who had served some time on the staff of the Confederate army; he was captured at his own home, whither he had returned for a hurried visit, and was now detained as a "spy;" this vague and marvelously elastic charge is always laid, when it is desirable to exclude a prisoner from the conditions of exchange. The plan of evasion was very simple. After pa.s.sing through the floor into the attic, and thence out through the dormer-window, they had to crawl over about eighty feet of s.h.i.+ngle-roof-not slippery at all, nor particularly steep-along the ridge, except where they had to descend a little to circ.u.mvent the chimney-stacks; this brought them to another dormer, giving admission to a house in the same block of building, but not connected with the prison. The parson believed this to be uninhabited; and the event proved either that he was right, or that the inmates were friendly. After several false starts, they decided on making the attempt on the 1st of May.

In the twenty-four hours preceding, the reverend's excitable nerves had been wound up to something above concert pitch. He seemed to hold the real risk-discovery and the bullet of a sentinel-very cheap; but, magnifying imaginary difficulties after his own peculiar fas.h.i.+on, he had come to look upon the roof as a pa.s.s of peril, only to be accomplished by preterhuman agility and steadiness of brain. His fellow-adventurer, who from first to last bore himself with a gay recklessness good to behold, laughed all such forebodings utterly to scorn. I tried the gentler tone of grave argument, demonstrating that a glissade on s.h.i.+ngles in dry weather was next to impossible, and that the ridge, once gained, was nearly as safe traveling as an ordinary mountain-path. The parson's armor of meek obstinacy was proof alike to reason and ridicule; he waxed not wroth, and was thankful for any suggestion; but, when asked to act accordingly, ever fell back on one plaintive formula-"I am no gymnast,"-after the fas.h.i.+on of that exasperating child who met all the Poet's questions and objections with the refrain of

Master, we are seven.

These visionary terrors would have been of little moment, if they had not induced his reverence to persist in the use of certain machines, which were more than likely to bring the whole adventure to grief. These were a sort of sandals, studded with sharp nails, that could be fitted either to hands or feet, and no words can describe the proud satisfaction with which they were regarded by their simple-minded constructor. Though I saw it was almost useless, I tried hard to persuade him that, for any sort of climbing (where neither ice nor sharp edges were to be feared), no engines could be so safe as bare feet and hands; that it would be much harder to recover himself, if a slip ensued from any strap giving way; finally, that if the contrivance answered perfectly in every other way, there was certain risk of what was most to be avoided-sharp, sudden noises, likely to strike strangely on the sentinel's ear. My friend heard me out quite patiently, thanked me very cordially, and then-took his own way.

Everything was ready by midnight; but the start was not made till three, A. M., at which hour the moon was quite down. We could talk but little, as it was especially important not to arouse any suspicion among the sentries; as far as I could make out, the adventurers employed the interval very wisely, in taking in supplies of both creature and spiritual comforts, dividing their attention about equally between supper and devotional exercises. At last the moment came, and they bade us farewell; the good parson bestowing upon my unworthy self a really pathetic benediction. If my own "G.o.d-speed" was less solemn, I know it was not less sincere. Then I went to bed, and as another twenty minutes pa.s.sed without my hearing a sound, I began to think the fugitives were well away. I was just dropping off to sleep, when I heard voices in the yard speaking loud and hastily, though I could not catch the words. Then there was a scuffle of feet above, and a scrambling fall beyond the right hand wall. After a few minutes silence, quick steps came along the pa.s.sage, and the door of No. 22 was opened. The visitors soon went away; but we did not know what watch might be set, so essayed no communication with our unlucky neighbor till the morning was far advanced. The adventure had miscarried in this wise.

When they mounted into the empty attic they found the window invitingly open, and, after waiting a few minutes to humor the moon, the soldier volunteered to reconnoiter. He reached the ridge without the slightest difficulty, and crawled along till he could see his way clear to the window they wished to attain. Then he returned undiscovered and reported progress. Now the first mistake was making a reconnaissance at all: vestigia nulla retrorsum, ought to have been the word that night, if ever. The second and graver error was, allowing the parson to go first, when they started in earnest. The light, lithe body of the soldier could glide over the roof with the silent swiftness of a cat "on the rampage;" the same animal, shod with walnut-sh.e.l.ls, suggests itself as an apt, though irreverent comparison for the priestly fugitive. To use the narrator's own words-occasionally more forcible than elegant:

"You might have heard him two blocks off, squattering and spluttering over the s.h.i.+ngles."

Those miserable machines, when put to the proof, made more noise than even we had imputed to them. The prisoners over whose heads the parson pa.s.sed, heard the slipping and scratching quite plainly, though the attic floor was between them. Nevertheless he had time to reach the desired window, to let it slip once with a resonant bang, and to slip inside out of sight, before any alarm was raised. But the drowsy or careless sentinel awoke to a sense of his position just as the second fugitive turned the first chimney-stack, and challenged with a threat of shooting. The Marylander knew that the game was up, as far as he was concerned; if he went on and escaped the bullet, those below would have seen at what window he entered, and the start was hopelessly short: to persist would only have insured two recaptures. He certainly did the wisest thing in retracing his way as speedily as possible. When the guards came to No. 22, they found its solitary inmate in bed, sleeping apparently the heavy, stertorous sleep of a deep drinker: an empty whisky-bottle gave a color of probability to the picture. They could get nothing out of him then; and, afterwards, he took the line of having been insensibly overcome by liquor, and so prevented from accompanying his fellow-prisoner. The authorities could scarcely have believed the story; but perhaps they wished to keep the escape as quiet as possible; at any rate the Marylander was not more strictly guarded or severely treated than before. He took the mishap with wonderful pluck and good-humor, and spoke rather humorously than wrathfully of the whole affair. Yet, as far as he knew, he had come back to indefinite captivity. When he went South with the rest of them on the 20th of May, no man of the five hundred better deserved freedom.

Some days afterwards we had news of the divine-safe so far, and many miles away. Certainly, had he possessed his soul in patience a fortnight or so longer, he would have been forwarded to his desired destination securely and at the expense of the enemy. Before he reaches it now, he will have paid away a sheaf of greenbacks, and run the gauntlet of a frontier blockade, closing in more tightly every hour. North of the Potomac there is no rest for the sole of his foot. So, many would say, that the escapade had far better have been deferred. Eight weeks ago I should have been of that same opinion, but now I doubt-I-doubt. The prospect outside ought to be very dark, and rife with peril, to induce a man to resign himself deliberately to another decameron here.[2]

On the 15th of May, my room-fellow was told that he was to be sent South immediately: he received the news very stolidly, and betrayed no impatience during the interval that elapsed before the exchange-steamer could be got ready. Truth to say, it is rather an equivocal advantage-to be turned loose in a city where famine-prices prevail, utterly penniless. But, if my mate did not exult in his prospects, neither did he in any way despond. He "supposed he'd get along somehow;" indeed, he had plenty of a very useful capital-solid, persevering self-reliance.

There was great bustle in the yard on the morning of the 20th; all the men who had got the order of release were mustered there before ten o'clock. After many delays, each person pa.s.sed out singly, as his name was called, and it was high noon when the last prize was drawn; leaving nothing but dreary-very dreary-blanks for us whose tickets were still in the wheel. There was no uproarious merriment, or even exuberant cheerfulness in the crowd below; the satisfaction was of the saturnine sort, such as people feel who have waited long for their just dues, and have extraordinarily little to be thankful for. Once more, in dumb show, I pledged mine honest host of the White Grounds, while he responded in a stealthy duc-an-dhurras; then, having furnished my mate with such provant as was available, I wished him, too, sincerely good-speed.

I cannot say that I was sorry, at first, to find myself quite alone. I am ashamed to confess that I had been daily growing more sullen and unsocial; upon reflection, I think I had decidedly begun to tyrannize over my companion; some of his harmless peculiarities, which I hardly noticed at first, would, at times, irritate me savagely; besides every cubic inch of vacant s.p.a.ce has its value in a low-browed room twelve feet by eight, when the thermometer means mounting in earnest. But, as the dreary time dragged on, and as the leaden listlessness settled down heavier hour by hour, I began to look back regretfully, if not remorsefully. There were moments, not few or far between, when I would have given much to hear the wire-drawn monotone that lately had been an offense to me; ay, even though each slow sentence should be punctuated by expectoration.

Among those who were exempted from the gaol delivery was an Englishman, John Hardcastle by name, who had been arrested about a month later than myself, on the Lower Potomac, on his way homeward through the Northern States. He had, I believe, been employed by the Confederate Government in carrying out some inventions and improvements in armory. There was nothing remarkable about the little, round, ruddy man, except a joviality which never seemed to droop in the heavy prison air; when I wrote that an honest laugh was never heard here, I ought to have made that one exception; he had a fair voice, too, and a large collection of songs, which he chanted out merrily, instead of merging all tunes into one dolorous drone. He was confined at first on the floor immediately under me, but, on the 20th. of May, changed his quarters into one of the large rooms in the main building, with windows opening back and front into the yard and the avenue; these latter were without bars. All through the evening of Sunday, the 24th, I listened, rather enviously, to Hardcastle's noisy mirth; his voice never ceased to rattle-now bantering a fellow-prisoner with good-natured aggravation-now shouting out a verse of some popular song-now declaiming a sentence or so of exaggerated mock-oratory-yet he did not give me the idea of being uproarious with drink (I heard afterwards he was perfectly sober), rather, he seemed possessed by an exhilaration involuntary and irrational, like a person who has inhaled laughing-gas. It was not till next day that the Highland word "Fey" came into my mind. I am scarcely inclined now, wholly to deride that old superst.i.tion. Is it possible that the foreshadow of doom does, in some mysterious way, affect certain nervous systems, when the soul, within a few hours, must pa.s.s out free through the rugged doors of violent death?

About eleven o'clock on the following morning I heard a rifle-shot, but took, little heed of it, as I knew that accidental discharges from careless handling of firelocks were not uncommon. Shortly afterwards, the officer of the keys asked me to visit the Superintendent in his room. It was natural that such a summons should conjure up certain faint hopes of approaching liberation; or, at least, of the "hearing" so long deferred. All such visions vanished instantly at the first sight of the official's face, as he met me in the door-way; no good tidings for anyone were written there; I knew that some grave disaster had occurred, before my eye lighted on the table, strewn with papers, letters, and bank-notes-all dabbled with the dull, red blots that marked the hand of Cain.

In a very few words-spoken in a low hoa.r.s.e voice, strangely changed from its wonted boisterous loudness-the Superintendent told me why I was wanted there. A British subject had just been shot by a sentinel for transgressing the window-order mentioned above; as eight hundred dollars in Confederate notes, besides other valuables, were found on his person, it was thought well that I should a.s.sist at the inventory and attest its correctness. It seemed that some hasty words of the Superintendent, reflecting on the remissness of the soldiers on duty, had been the proximate cause of the slaughter, I do believe that the death-warrant was unwittingly spoken. The man's bearing and demeanor are rough, even to coa.r.s.eness, and his sensibilities probably blunted from having perpetually to listen to complaints and tales of wrong-doing, which he must perforce ignore; but I do not think his nature is harsh or cruel; the bark of Cerberus is much worse than the bite; and he is quite capable of benevolent actions, done in an uncouth way. The lips of the corpse, up-stairs were scarcely whiter than those that kept working and muttering nervously close by my shoulder, as I sat at my ghastly task. I was right glad when all was ended, and I had escaped from the small, close room, where the air seemed heavy with the savor of blood. All that day, there lay upon the prison-house a weight and a gloom, that came not from the murky, windless sky; the few faces that showed themselves in the yard looked more dark and sullen than ever; and men, gathering in knots instead of pacing to and fro, murmured or whispered eagerly. My unlucky head chanced to be more troublesome than usual; altogether, I cannot look back upon a more depressing evening.

About noon on the following day, a tawdry coffin of polished elm, beaded and plated wherever there was room for a sc.r.a.p of silvered metal, was laid on chairs in the prison yard; and, soon, all those who had access to that part of the building gathered round it-listening, uncovered, to the scanty rites, which the Old Capitol concedes to prisoners released by that Power, in presence of whose claims the habeas corpus is never suspended. A tall, lank-haired man, looking more like an undertaker than a divine of any denomination, read straight through, without a syllable of preface, the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and then, kneeling down, began a rambling, extemporaneous prayer, the main object of which seemed to be, to address the Deity by as many periphrastic adjurations as possible. The orator besought "that these melancholy circ.u.mstances might be blessed to us, the survivors;" and rehea.r.s.ed several plat.i.tudes on the uncertainty of life; but, from first to last, there was not one single word of intercession or commendation on behalf of the dead man's soul. I was glad when it was over; our own simple service, read by the merest layman, would surely have been a more fitting obsequy.

What followed was startling enough from its very suddenness. One of the a.s.sistants stepped forward, and, with a quick, careless motion, threw back two folding shutters, that formed the upper part of the coffin lid; the blaze of the vertical sun, on which no living thing could have looked unblinded, fell full on the heavy eyelids, that never shrunk or s.h.i.+vered, and on the bare, upturned features, blanched to the unnatural whiteness only found in corpses from which the life-blood has been drained away. Since then, I have tried to recall the face as I saw it often-round and ruddy, beaming with reckless joviality, and grotesque humor: it will only rise as I saw it once-white, and solemn, and still. When the crowd had satisfied their curiosity, the coffin was borne away, and everything fell back into the old groove of monotony.

It will hardly be believed, that, though the victim had communicated more than once with the British Legation (an envelope franked by Lord Lyons was among the papers I examined), the Federal authorities did not deem it necessary to give any official notice of the slaughter. Percy Anderson was absolutely ignorant of what had happened, when he came to me on the following day. The fact, too, is significant, that the Was.h.i.+ngton journals, for whose net no incident is generally too small, made no allusion to the tragedy, till the Thursday morning; I presume silence was considered useless, when a member of our Legation must have been made acquainted with the details.

The regrets of those who may have been interested in poor John Hardcastle's life and death, will scarcely be lessened by the knowledge, that he was not even in fault when he suffered. There were eight or ten prisoners confined in the same room; and it was one of his companions who had previously been twice warned back by the sentinel: he himself was shot almost instantaneously after his head was thrust forth, without a second challenge. The Was.h.i.+ngton papers stated that, when ordered to draw back, he refused with an oath. With such chroniclers, one would not bandy contradictions; I give this version of the facts, as I received it from the lips of the Superintendent.

Late in the afternoon of Wednesday, the 27th, I was again summoned below. I found Percy Anderson waiting there: he had obtained from the War Office an order to see me alone, without limitation of time. I understood that there was no precedent for such a concession; the general rule being that prisoners should only receive their friends in the presence of an officer, who is bound to watch and listen jealously, while no interview can be extended beyond fifteen minutes. Never, surely, was a call better timed. I was at my very worst, just then; besides a couple of potatoes and a crust of dry bread, no solid food had pa.s.sed my lips for seventy hours. Of my personal appearance, from my own knowledge, I can say nothing, (for my mate and I had agreed in considering mirrors superfluous luxuries); but, from the startling effect produced upon my visitor, I fancy that the dreary week of weeks had made wild work with the outward as well as inward man. I know that the kind diplomatist was more than pained at finding himself unable to give me any foothold of certain or substantial hope; it was impossible to hazard a reliable guess as to the termination of my confinement. Hitherto, the unceasing efforts of the Legation had spent themselves on the pa.s.sive obstinacy of the Federal Government like bullets on a cotton bale; of a truth it was long before those unjust judges grew aweary. Nevertheless, the mere sight and sound of a frank English face and voice were more effectual restoratives than all the cunning tonics and incentives with which the prison surgeon had been striving to quicken an imperceptible pulse, and to revive a deceased appet.i.te. I have always thought since, that the rest at that one conversational oasis, just enabled me to hold on to the hither verge of Sahara.

The next eight days seem nearly blank to me now. I was past reading anything, for I could scarcely make out the capitals with which the journalists headed their daily bits of romance from Vicksburg and elsewhere. It was with great difficulty that I scrawled detached sentences at long intervals-a difficulty that, I fear, some unhappy compositor, doomed to decipher the foregoing pages, will thoroughly appreciate, though he may decline to sympathize with.