XXI.
_THE RETURN INTO DANGER._
Trembling with excitement Penn got down from the butment, and peeringover the bank, saw his enemies in the distance.
What was to be done? Had he thought only of his own safety, his waywould have been clear. But could he abandon his friends? forsakeVirginia and her father when the toils of villany were tightening aroundthem? leave Stackridge and his compatriots to their fate, when it mightbe in his power to forewarn and save them?
How he, alone, suspected, pursued, and sorely in need of assistancehimself, was to render assistance to others, he did not know. He did notpause to consider. He put his faith in the overruling providence of God.
"With God's aid," he said, "I will save them or sacrifice myself."
As for fighting, should fighting prove necessary, his mind was made up.The conversation of the villains under the bridge had settled thatquestion.
Instead, therefore, of waiting for the friend who was to help him on hisjourney, he leaped up from under the bridge, and set out at a fast walkto follow his pursuers back to town.
He had travelled but a mile or two when he saw the farmer drivingtowards him in a wagon.
"Are you lost? are you crazy?" cried the astonished old man. "You aregoing in the wrong direction! The men have been to my house, searchedit, and passed on. Get in! get in!"
"I will," said Penn; "but, Mr. Ellerton, you must turn back."
He briefly related his adventure under the bridge. The old man listenedwith increasing amazement.
"You are right! you are right!" he said. "We must get word toStackridge, somehow!" And turning his wagon about, he drove back overthe road as fast as his horse could carry them.
It was sunset when they reached his house. There they unharnessed hishorse and saddled him. The old man mounted.
"I'll do my best," he said, "to see Stackridge, or some of them, inseason. If I fail, may be you will succeed. But you'd better keep in thewoods till dark."
Ellerton rode off at a fast trot. Penn hastened to the woods, whereStackridge's horse was still concealed. The animal had been recently fedand watered, and was ready for a hard ride. The bridle was soon on hishead, and Penn on his back, and he was making his way through the woodsagain towards home.
As soon as it was dark, Penn came out into the open road; nor did heturn aside into the bridle-path when he reached it, because he wished toavoid travelling in company with Ellerton, who was to take that route.He also supposed that Sprowl's party would be returning that way. Inthis he was mistaken. Riding at a gallop through the darkness, his heartbeating anxiously as the first twinkling lights of the town began toappear, he suddenly became aware of three horsemen riding but a shortdistance before him. They had evidently been drinking something strongerthan water at the house of some good secessionist on the road, perhapsto console themselves for the loss of the schoolmaster,--for these werethe excellent friends who were so eager to meet with him again! Theywere merry and talkative, and Penn, not ambitious of cultivating theiracquaintance, checked his horse.
It was too late. They had already perceived his approach, and hailedhim.
What should he do? To wheel about and flee would certainly excite theirsuspicions; they would be sure to pursue him; and though he mightescape, his arrival in town would be thus perhaps fatally delayed. Thearrests might be even at that moment taking place.
He reflected, "There are but three of them; I may fight my way through,if it comes to that."
Accordingly he rode boldly up to the assassins, and in a counterfeitvoice, answered their hail. He was but little known to either of them,and there was a chance that, in the darkness, they might fail torecognize him.
"Where you from?" demanded Sprowl.
"From a little this side of Bald Mountain," said Penn,--which was trueenough.
"Where bound?"
"Can't you see for yourself?" said Penn, assuming a reckless,independent air. "I am following my horse's nose, and that is goingpretty straight into Curryville."
"Glad of your company," said Sprowl, riding gayly alongside. "What'syour business in town, stranger?"
"Well," replied Penn, "I don't mind telling you that my business is tosee if I and my horse can find something to do for old Tennessee."
"Ah! cavalry?" suggested Lysander, well pleased.
"I should prefer cavalry service to any other," answered Penn.
"There's where you right," said Sprowl; and he proceeded to enlightenPenn on the prospects of raising a cavalry company in Curryville.
"Did you meet any person on the road, travelling north?"
"What sort of a person?"
"A young feller, rather slim, brown hair, blue eyes, with a half-hunglook, a perfect specimen of a sneaking abolition schoolmaster."
"I--I don't remember meeting any such a person," said Penn, as ifconsulting his memory. "I met _two_ men, though, this side of old Bald.One of them was a rather gentlemanly-looking fellow; but I think hishair was black and curly."
"The schoolmaster's har is wavy, and purty dark, I call it," said one ofSprowl's companions.
"He must have been the man!" said Lysander, suddenly stopping his horse."What sort of a chap was with him? Did he look like a Union-shrieker?"
"Now I think of it," said Penn, "if that man wasn't a Unionist at heart,I am greatly mistaken. His sympathies are with the Lincolnites, I knowby his looks!" He neglected to add, however, that the man was black.
Sprowl was excited.
"It was some tory, piloting the schoolmaster! Boys, we must wheel about!It never'll do for us to go home as long as we can hear of him alive inthe state. Remember the pay promised, if we catch him."
"Luck to you!" cried Penn, riding on, while Sprowl turned back inludicrous pursuit of his own worthy friend, Mr. Augustus Bythewood, andhis negro man Sam.
Penn lost no time laughing at the joke. His heart was too full oftrouble for that. It had seemed to him, at each moment of delay, thatthe blind old minister was even then being torn from his home--that hecould hear Virginia's sobs of distress and cries for help. He urged hishorse into a gallop once more, and struck into a path across the fields.He rode to the edge of the orchard, dismounted, tied the horse, andhastened on foot to the house.
The guard was gone from the piazza, and all seemed quiet about thepremises. The kitchen was dark. He advanced quickly, but noiselessly, tothe door. It was open. He went in.
"Toby!" No answer. "Carl! Carl!" he called in a louder voice. No Carlreplied. Then he remembered--what it seemed so strange that he couldeven for an instant forget--that Carl was in the rebel ranks, for hissake.
He had seen a light in the sitting-room. He found the door, and knocked.No answer came. He opened it softly, and entered. There burned the lampon the table--there stood the vacant chairs--he was alone in thedeserted room.
"Virginia!"
He started at his own voice, which sounded, in the hollow apartment,like the whisper of a ghost.
He was proceeding still farther, wondering at the stillness, terrifiedby his own forebodings, feeling in his appalled heart the contrastbetween this night, and this strange, furtive visit, and the happynights, and the many happy visits, he had made to his dear friends thereonly a few short months before,--pausing to assure himself that he wasnot walking in a dream,--when he heard a footstep, a flutter, and saw,spring towards him through the door, pale as an apparition, Virginia.Speechless with emotion, she could not utter his name, but she testifiedthe joy with which she welcomed him by throwing herself, not into hisarms, but upon them, as he extended his hands to greet her.
"What has happened?" said Penn.
"O, my father!" said the girl. And she bowed her face upon his arm,clinging to him as if he were her brother, her only support.
"Where is he?" asked Penn, alarmed, and trembling with sympathy for thatdelicate, agitated, fair young creature, whom sorrow had so changedsince he saw her last.
"They have taken him--the soldiers!" she said.
A
nd by these words Penn knew that he had come too late.