CHAPTER XII

A DANGEROUS MASQUERADE

The night of our third day found us at the wagoner’s cottage on the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains. As we climbed our slow and painful way up to the ruddy little light that beckoned us from its wild and eerie perch, moonlight and starlight fell upon snow-capped cliffs and into deep valleys, touching them into solemn, mystical beauty. It was as if we had lost ourselves in the clear, white stillness of the enchanted Snow Kingdom that had enthralled and terrified us in the happy days of fairy tales. But there was nothing magical about the cottage when we finally got there, or the welcome, or the supper. Instead of fairies and cowslip dew and bread of lily pollen, we had a delightfully wholesome, plump Virginia housewife, a Virginia welcome, and, above all, a Virginia supper.

The cottage was plainly furnished, but it was neat as a pin. The mountaineer’s wife and mother served us, the one waiting on us, the other cooking. We sat at table in the kitchen, and such a feast as we had! There was nice apple-butter on the table, and delicious milk and cream, fresh eggs and hot buckwheat cakes, and genuine maple sirup, of course. I have never tasted such buckwheats anywhere. And how fast the old lady fried them, and the wife handed them to us, piping hot! and how fast we ate! and how many!

The furniture in our bedroom, as everywhere else, was exceedingly plain, but so deliciously clean. And such a bed! such a downy, fragrant bed! The sheets were snowy, the coverlet was spotless. As I went to sleep I had an idea that the feathers in that bed must have come from the breasts of mountain birds that had never touched the earth. In the morning the mountaineer took us to a point near his house, where we could stand and look into--I have forgotten how many States, and out upon snowy peaks, and mountain streams, and lovely shadowed vales.

We lost our Confederate captain when we started down the mountain that day; Mr. Holliway had all along been in civilian’s dress, and now Captain Locke changed his uniform for citizen’s clothes, leaving the uniform at the cottage, to be called for on his return.

The fourth night we reached Berryville.

Here it was necessary to hold a council with closed doors, for the presence of the little Jew boy had for several days prevented us from talking freely.

He seemed to have eyes and ears all over him, and we felt vaguely that he would use both to our disadvantage. So we shut him out of the little room at the inn in Berryville where we held our secret council. The morrow would find us inside the Federal lines--it was necessary to prepare our story. We agreed that Captain Locke was to be our brother, because he had fair hair and blue eyes like ourselves. Mr. Holliway was of too entirely different a type to be claimed for a nearer relationship than that of cousin. We were young ladies of Baltimore who had been visiting at Mr. Robert Bolling’s in Fauquier, and our brother and cousin had come south to take us home, not being willing that we should undertake such a journey alone. Captain Locke gave Milicent some papers to be concealed in the lining of her muff. I, too, had some papers to hide for him. Fortunately we did not know until afterward that Captain Locke was a Confederate spy, and that the papers we carried were official documents of importance to the Confederacy, and that if discovered the captain would be strung up in short order and every one of us sent to prison.

If we had known what he was and the nature of the papers, I think our patriotism would have risen to the occasion, but we should have been more nervous and more likely to betray ourselves. So I think he was wise to take the liberty of counting on our patriotism, and also to keep us in the dark as a safeguard for both ourselves and the papers.

The next forenoon we reached the Potomac River, and found ourselves in Federal lines. Our wagoner bade us good-by and left us there on the bank. In the river below lay the lighter on which we were to cross the Potomac. It was crowded with Federal soldiers. There was no way to reach it except to slide down the bank, and the bank was steep. To slide down, it was neither a graceful nor a dignified thing to do. I drew back. The captain took me by the hand to pull me over. I still drew back. I did not want to slide down that bank.

“Come on, sister!” he exclaimed with brotherly crossness.

I grinned broadly, but the captain, his back to the lighter, gave me such a serious look that I sobered in an instant.

“Sister, come along! Don’t be a goose!” he said, and giving me a jerk pulled me over.

The Federal soldiers on the lighter could see and hear. One blunder now and we were lost. I yielded to the inevitable and slid down the bank with the captain; Mr. Holliway followed with Milicent. Another minute, and we stood on the lighter in the midst of Yankee soldiers and Yankee horses. A horse’s nose was over my shoulder the whole way. Soldiers were crowded up against me, there was ample occasion for swears, but I don’t think I heard an oath the entire distance, and they were courtesy itself to Milicent and me.

Landing at Berlin, we walked into the office of the provost marshal. The provost was out, and the deputy who was at his desk looked at us with cool, inquisitive eyes. He put the usual questions and received ready-made answers.

“Who are you?” he asked Captain Locke in a very suspicious tone.

“Charles D. Moore, of Baltimore.”

“Occupation?”

“I am studying law.”

“Humph!” with a glance that made me keenly alive to the lameness of that story told by the martial-looking captain.

“What are you doing down here?”

“Taking my sisters back home.”

“Humph! Who are you?” turning to Mr. Holliway.

“William H. May, of Baltimore.”

“Studying law too?”

“No. I expect to study medicine.”

“Are you taking these ladies back home too?”

“I am accompanying them, certainly,” said Mr. Holliway with asperity.

“Who _are_ these ladies?”

“My sisters,” said Captain Locke firmly, “and I am here to protect them on their way back home.”

“Where have they been?”

“They are from Mr. Robert Bolling’s in Fauquier County, Virginia. They have been visiting at his house. We wished them to return to Baltimore, and I came south for them. My cousin, Mr. May, joined us.”

“And you--what are you doing down here?” with a touch of irony to Holliway.

“Got caught this side by the war, and am trying to get back home.”

“Ah, yes, of course. I can’t pass you. Take seats, please. The marshal will be in directly.”

Our evidence was too smooth.

It was plain the deputy didn’t believe in us, and we felt uneasy and miserable to the soles of our boots--except Captain Locke, who looked thoroughly at his ease.

It was an hour or longer before the marshal came in. It seemed a great deal more, yet I can’t say that I longed to see him.

“What’s all this?” he asked his deputy as he took in our party, braced up against the wall.

“A party who crossed from Virginia this morning. They have been visiting in Fauquier--_they say_--and want to get back to Baltimore. A lame tale, I call it. I would send them straight back if I had my way with them.”

The provost’s eyes had rested first on me, as I happened to be more conspicuously placed than the others. I have been accredited with a most ingenuous countenance. I returned his gaze with a regard utterly “childlike and bland,” looking up into his face with eyes as frank and trusting as a baby’s. Past me his gaze went to Milicent--I have said before that Milicent had the face of a Madonna; then the manly and straightforward eyes of Locke held him; and last Mr. Holliway’s reserved and gentlemanly countenance met his scrutiny with a quiet dignity that disarmed suspicion. He began by interviewing Milicent and me. When he questioned me I said plaintively:

“I have been here an hour, sir, and I am very tired. I would be so much obliged if you would send us on home. I am almost sick with the journey I have taken, and I should so like to get home to-night.”

“That is impossible,” he said; “but,” he continued kindly, “I do not think you will be detained later than to-morrow morning.”

He conversed in a low tone with his deputy, and then I heard him say: “Let them spend the night at the old German’s on the hill, and to-morrow we will see about it.”

Then turning to us, he said that an orderly would conduct us to a place where we would be lodged for the night. When an officer asked about our baggage, I extended my keys quickly, saying:

“We have two small trunks.”

He took the keys with an apology. As I was passing out of the door I turned back and held out my satchel.

“I forgot that you have to examine this.”

“It is not necessary, miss,” he said, smiling.

The old Dutchman was out, but his wife received us and made us comfortable. While we were at supper he came in. “I speeks mit you after supper,” he said solemnly, and sat in silence until we had finished.

Then he took us into a room, closed and locked the door, came close to us, and whispered:

“I knows dat you haf run te plockate. You bees in ver’ mooch tancher. Town te stdreet I hears you vas at mine house, unt I hears ver’ mooch talk, unt I lis’en. I vill help you if you vill let me.”

He now addressed himself particularly to Captain Locke and Mr. Holliway:

“You, shentlemen, mus’ leave mine house, shoost as soon as you can, or you vill be daken brisoners. I vill help you to get avay.”

“We can’t do it,” said Locke promptly. “I can not leave my sisters alone and unprotected.”

Milicent and I were trembling with fear.

“Brother,” said Milicent, “you and Cousin William must leave us and save yourselves.”

“Please go,” I begged. I could not keep my eyes off the door. I feared every moment to hear the rap of the sergeant come to arrest our friends. But the captain and Mr. Holliway reiterated their determination not to leave us in our present situation. If I had not been scared almost to death I could have laughed at the perfect brotherliness of Locke’s protestations.

“Tere is tancher, shentlemen. I hears te talk town te street,” urged the Dutchman with every appearance of earnestness and good-will.

“What did you hear?” asked Locke nonchalantly.

“Oh, tey tinks you haf not tolt vat you vas. Tey tinks you be Secesh--unt I ton’t know vat tey tinks.”

“I can’t help what they think,” said Locke. “I am going to protect my sisters.”

“How you brotect tem ven you be brisoners, _hein_?”

“I don’t know,” answered Locke, smiling, “but I certainly shall not leave them.”

“Vat goot you do? I vill take care of te ladies. Nopody vill hu’t tem, unt I vill see dat tey gets off all right. Tere is no tancher for tem.”

“Thank you, my friend,” said the captain simply and heartily. “But we can not accept your kind offer. We must take my sisters home ourselves.”

“I ver’ sorry,” said the Dutchman sadly.

As soon as the door closed behind him, we began to plead.

“Captain,” said Milicent, “you and Mr. Holliway must go. We will not consent to anything else.”

“We should be regular deserters to do that,” said Locke contemptuously. “I think the old fellow is exaggerating. Or maybe he is pumping us. Holliway and I will walk down the street and see.”

We thought this was madness, and we were miserable from the moment they left until they were safely back. Captain Locke was, as always, at his ease, but Mr. Holliway was very pale. He knew, as Milicent and I did not, the risk we were all running, and he was more concerned perhaps for Locke’s safety than for his own. For him arrest meant prison at the worst--for Locke, a halter.

“The Dutchman is right,” he said in answer to our questions. “We stopped outside several places and heard them talking about us and our arrest. We are practically prisoners.”

He tried to speak cheerfully and as if it would be a sure and easy matter to find some way out of our predicament; but the truth was that he had been struggling all along against great depression of spirits; his health was bad, the incident of the first night of our journey had impressed him, and he had evidently felt himself under a cloud ever since our experience at the provost’s.

“That talk doesn’t amount to much,” said Captain Locke carelessly.

The room in which we were sitting was that which had been taken for Milicent’s and my bedroom. Captain Locke got up, walked to the door and locked it.

“You have needles and thread, I think, ladies?”

Milicent and I immediately produced them and slipped on our thimbles. He handed Milicent his open knife.

“Rip the papers out of your muff, Mrs. Norman, and you, little madam, let me have those I gave you.”

The two I had were hidden in my sleeve. While Milicent and I were getting the papers out, I heard Mr. Holliway say:

“Burn those papers, Locke. You can never get them to Baltimore, and you know in what fearful peril they keep us.”

“I might as well turn back if I burn them,” said the captain. “I take those papers to Baltimore, or I die trying--and I won’t die.”

“Excuse the trouble I give you, ladies,” he said, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on another. “Will you open the hems of my trousers and sew those papers inside? It is a great favor.”

We ripped each hem, folded the papers inside as flat as possible, and sewed the hems up again. I had not made over Dan’s old uniform for nothing, and Milicent was always a skilful needlewoman--our hems looked quite natural and not at all “stuffed.” But we were so nervous that we worked very slowly, for we felt that a wrong stitch might cost Captain Locke his life.

He had worn his trousers turned up around the bottom to keep them out of the mud. When we had finished he carefully turned them back again, Mr. Holliway looking on gloomily.

“Now, ladies,” said the captain cheerfully, “we will all retire and get a good night’s rest. You have had a hard day and I am sure you must be tired.”

“Aren’t you going away?” we asked anxiously. “What did you take the papers for?”

He smiled.

“Little madam,” he said, “you had best go to bed and get a good night’s rest. That is what I am going to do. Mrs. Norman, make this poor child go to bed. And you will promise me to try to rest too, won’t you?”

There was a rap on the door.