IV.
_A SEARCH FOR THE MISSING._
The academy was situated in a retired spot, half a mile out of thevillage. Stackridge and his party were soon pushing rapidly towards italong the dark, unfrequented road. Carl ran on before, leading the wayto the scene of the lynching.
The place was deserted and silent. Only the cold wind swept the bleakwood-side, making melancholy moans among the trees. Overhead shone thestars, lighting dimly the desolation of the ground.
"Now, where's yer tar-and-feathering party?" said Stackridge. "See here,Dutchy! ye hain't been foolin' us, have ye?"
"I vish it vas notting but fooling!" said Carl, full of distress,fearing the worst. "We have come too late. The willains have took himoff."
"Feathers, men!" muttered Stackridge, picking up something from beneathhis feet. "The boy's right! Now, which way have they gone?--that's thequestion."
"Hark!" said Carl. "I see a man!"
Indeed, just then a dim figure arose from the earth, and appeared slowlyand painfully moving away.
"Hold on there!" cried Stackridge. "Needn't be afeared of us. We're yourfriends."
The figure stopped, uttering a deep groan.
"Is it you, Hapgood?"
"No," answered the most miserable voice in the world. "It's me."
"Who's _me_?"
"Pepperill--Dan Pepperill; ye know me, don't ye, Stackridge?"
"You? you scoundrel!" said the farmer. "What have ye been doing to theschoolmaster? Answer me this minute, or I'll----"
"O, don't, don't!" implored the wretch. "I'll answer, I'll tell everything, only give me a chance!"
"Be quick, then, and tell no lies!"
The poor man looked around at his captors in the starlight, stoopingdejectedly, and rubbing his bent knees.
"I ain't to blame--I'll tell ye that to begin with. I've been jestknocked about, from post to pillar, and from pillar to post, till Idon't know who's my friends and who ain't. I reckon more ain't than is!"added he, dismally.
"That's neither here nor there!" said Stackridge. "Where's Hapgood?that's what I want to know."
"Ye see," said Dan, endeavoring to collect his wits (you would havethought they were in his kneepans, and he was industriously rubbing themup), "Ropes sent me to tote the kittle home, and when I got back here, Ibe durned if they wasn't all gone, schoolmaster and all."
"But what had they done to him?"
"I don't know, I'm shore! That's what I was a comin' back fur to see. Helet me down when I was hung up on the rail, and helped me home; and so Isays to myself, says I, 'Why shouldn't I do as much by him?' so I comeback, and found him gone."
"What was in the kittle?" Stackridge took him by the throat.
"O, don't go fur to layin' it to me, and I'll tell ye! Thar'd been tarin the kittle! It had been used to give him a coat. That's the fact,durn me if it ain't! They put it on with the broom--my broom--they mademe bring my own broom, that's the everlastin' truth! made me do itmyself, and spile my wife's best broom into the bargain!" And Pepperillsobbed.
"You put on the tar?"
"Don't kill me, and I'll own up! I did put on some on't, that's a fact.Ropes would a' killed me if I hadn't, and now you kill me fur doin' ofit. He did knock me down, 'cause he said I didn't rub it on hard enough;and arter that he rubbed it himself."
"What next, you scoundrel?"
"Next, they rolled him in the feathers, and sent me, as I told ye, totote the kittle home. Now don't, don't go fur to hang me, Mr.Stackridge! Help me, men! help me, Withers,--Devit! For he means to bethe death of me, I'm shore!"
Indeed, Stackridge was in a tremendous passion, and would, no doubt,have done the man some serious injury but for the timely interpositionof Carl.
"O, you're a good boy, Carl!" cried Dan, in an exstasy of terror andgratitude. "You know they druv me to it, don't ye? You know I wouldn'thave gone fur to do it no how, if 't hadn't been to save my life. And asfur rubbing on the tar, I know'd they'd rub harder 'n I did; so I tookholt, if only to do it more soft and gentle-like."
Carl testified to Dan's apparent unwillingness to participate in theoutrage; and Stackridge, finding that nothing more could be got out ofthe terror-stricken wretch, flung him off in great rage and disgust.
"We must find what they have done with Hapgood," he said. "We're losingtime here. We'll go to his boarding-place first."
As Pepperill fell backwards upon some stones, and lay there helplessly,Carl ran to him to learn if he was hurt.
"Wal, I be hurt some," murmured Dan; "a good deal in my back, and adurned sight more in my feelin's. As if I wan't sufferin' a'ready thepangs of death--wus'n death!--a thinkin' about the master, and what'sbeen done to him, arter he'd been so kind to me--and thinkin' he'd thinkI'm the ongratefulest cuss out of the bad place!--and then to have itall laid on to me by Stackridge and the rest! that's the stun that hurtsme wust of any!"
Carl thought, if that was all, he could not assist him much; and he ranon after the men, leaving Pepperill snivelling like a whipped schoolboyon the stones.
Penn's landlady, the worthy Mrs. Sprowl, lived in a lonesome house thatstood far back in the fields, at least a dozen rods from the road. Shewas a widow, whose daughters were either married or dead, and whose onlyson was a rover, having been guilty of some crime that rendered itunsafe for him to visit his bereaved parent. Penn had chosen her housefor his home, partly because she needed some such assistance in gaininga living, but chiefly, I think, because she did not own slaves. Theother inmates of her solitary abode were two large, ferocious dogs,which she kept for the sake of their company and protection.
But this night the house looked as if forsaken even by these. It wasutterly dark and silent. When Stackridge shook the door, however, theillusion was dispelled by two fierce growls that resounded within.
"Hello! Mrs. Sprowl!" shouted the farmer, shaking the door again, andknocking violently. "Let me in!"
At that the growling broke into savage barks, which made Stackridge layhis hand on the revolver Carl had returned to him. A window was thencautiously opened, and a bit of night-cap exposed.
"If it's you agin," said a shrill feminine voice, "I warn you to begone! If you think I can't set the dogs on to you, because you've slep'in my house so long, you're very much mistaken. They'll tear you as theywould a pa'tridge! Go away, go away, I tell ye; you've been the ruin ofme, and I ain't a-going to resk my life a-harboring of you any longer."
"Mrs. Sprowl!" answered the stern voice of the farmer.
"Dear me! ain't it the schoolmaster?" cried the astonished lady. "Ithought it was him come back agin to force his way into my house, afterI've twice forbid him!"
"Why forbid him?"
"Is it you, Mr. Stackridge? Then I'll be free, and tell ye. I've beeninformed he's a dangerous man. I've been warned to shet my doors agin'him, if I wouldn't have my house pulled down on to my head."
"Who warned you?"
"Silas Ropes, this very night. He come to me, and says, says he, 'We'vegin your abolition boarder a coat, which you must charge to hisaccount;' for you see," added the head at the window, pathetically,"they took the bed he has slep' on, right out of my house, and I don'ts'pose I shall see ary feather of that bed ever agin! live goose'sfeathers they was too! and a poor lone widder that could ill afford it!"
"Where is the master?"
"Wal, after Ropes and his friends was gone, he comes too, an awfullookin' object as ever you see! 'Mrs. Sprowl,' says he, 'don't bescared; it's only me; won't ye let me in?' for ye see, I'd shet thehouse agin' him in season, detarmined so dangerous a character shouldnever darken my doors agin."
"And he was naked!"
"I 'spose he was, all but the feathers, and suthin' or other he seemedto have flung over him."
"Such a night as this!" exclaimed Stackridge. "You're a heartless jade,Mrs. Sprowl!--I don't wonder the fellow hates slavery," he muttered tohimself, "when it makes ruffians of the men and monsters even of thewomen!--Which way did he go?"
"
That's more'n I can tell!" answered the lady, sharply. "It's none o' mybusiness where he goes, if he don't come here! That I won't have, callme what names you please!" And she shut the window.
"Hang the critter! after all Hapgood has done for her!" said theindignant Stackridge,--for it was well-known that she was indebted tothe gentle and generous Penn for many benefits. "But it's no use tostand here. We'll go to my house, men,--may be he's there."