Chapter 18

That miserable dog was Dan Pepperill, whose heart was so much bigger than his wit. He knew that mischief was meant towards Mrs. Stackridge. How could he warn her? The drums were already beating for company drill, and he despaired of doing anything to save her, when by good fortune--or is there something besides good fortune in such things?--he saw one of his children approaching.

The little Pepperill came with a message from her mother. Dan heard it unheedingly, then whispered in the girl's ear,--

"Go and tell Mrs. Stackridge her and the childern's invited over to our house this forenoon. Right away now! Partic'lar reasons, tell her!" added Dan, reflecting that ladies in Mrs. Stackridge's station did not visit those in his wife's without particular reasons.

The child ran away, and Pepperill fell into the ranks, only to get repeatedly and severely reprimanded by the drill-officer for his heedlessness that morning. He did everything awkwardly, if not altogether wrong. His mind was on the child and the errand on which he had sent her, and he kept wondering within himself whether she would do it correctly (children are so apt to do errands amiss!), and whether Mrs. Stackridge would be wise enough, or humble enough, to go quietly and give Mrs. P. a call.

After company drill the brothers were summoned, and Lysander gave them secret orders. They were to visit Stackridge's house, seize Mrs. Stackridge and compel her, by blows if necessary, to tell where her husband was concealed.

"You understand?" said the captain.

"Ve unterstan," said they, dryly.

Scarcely had the brothers departed, when a prisoner was brought in. It was Toby, who had been caught endeavoring to make his way up into the mountains.

"Now we've got the nigger, mabby we'd better send and call the Dutchmen back," said Silas Ropes.

"No, no!" said Lysander, through his teeth. "'Twon't do any harm to give the jade a good dressing down. I wish every man, woman, and child, that shrieks for the old rotten Union, could be served in the same way."

Having set his heart on this little indulgence, Sprowl could not easily be persuaded to give it up. It was absolutely necessary to his peace of mind that somebody should be flogged. The interesting affair with Toby, which had been so abruptly broken off,--left, like a novelette in the newspapers, to be continued,--must be concluded in some shape: it mattered little upon whose flesh the final chapters were struck off.

In the mean time the recaptured negro was taken to the guard-house. There he found a sympathizing companion. It was Carl. To him he told his story, and showed his wounds, the sight of which filled the heart of the lad with rage, and pity, and grief.

"Vot sort of Tutchmen vos they?" Toby described them. Carl's eyes kindled. "I shouldn't be wery much susprised," said he, "if they vos--no matter!"

Lieutenant Ropes arrived, bringing into the guard-house a formidable cat-o'-nine-tails.

"String that nigger up," said Silas.

Ropes was not the man to await patiently the issue of the woman-whipping, while here was a chance for a little private sport. He remembered how Toby had got away from him once--that he too owed him a flogging. Debts of this kind, if no others, Silas delighted to pay; and accordingly the negro was strung up. It was well for the lieutenant that Carl had irons on his wrists.

The sound of the poor old man's groans,--the sight of his gashed, oozing, and inflamed back, bared again to the whip,--was to Carl unendurable. But as it was not in his power to obey the impulse of his soul, to spring for a musket and slay that monster of cruelty, Ropes, on the spot,--he must try other means, perhaps equally unwise and desperate, to save Toby from torture.

"Vait, sir, if you please, vun leetle moment," he called out to Silas. "I have a vord or two to shpeak."

He had as yet, however, scarcely made up his mind what to propose. A moment's reflection convinced him that only one thing could purchase Toby's reprieve; and perhaps even that would fail. Regardless of consequences to himself, he resolved to try it.

"I know petter as he does about the cave; I vos there," he cried out, boldly.

"Hey? You offer yourself to be whipped in this old nigger's place?" said Ropes.

"Not wery much," replied Carl. "I can go mit you or anypody you vill send, and show vair the cave is. I remember. But if you vill have me whipped, I shouldn't be wery much surprised if that vould make me to forget. Whippins," he added, significantly, "is wery pad for the memory."

"You mean to say, if you are licked, then you won't tell?"

"That ish the idea I vished to conwey."

"We'll see about that." Silas laughed. "In the mean time we'll try what can be got out of this nigger."

Toby, who had had a gleam of hope, now fell again into despair. Just then Captain Sprowl came in.

"Hold! What are you doing with that nigger?"

Silas explained, and Carl repeated his proposal. Lysander caught eagerly at it. He remembered Salina's warning, and was glad of any excuse to liberate the old negro.

"You promise to take me to the cave?" Carl assented. "Why, then, lieutenant, that's all we want, and I order this boy to be set free."

"This boy" was Toby, who was accordingly let off, to his own inexpressible joy and Ropes's infinite disgust.

"If Carl he take de responsumbility to show de cave, dat ain't my fault. 'Sides, dat boy am bright, he am; de secesh can't git much de start o' him!"

Thus the old negro congratulated himself on his way home. At the same time Carl, still in irons, was saying to himself,--

"So far so goot. If they had whipped Toby, two things vould be wery pad--the whipping, for one, and he would have told, for another. But I have made vun promise. It vas a pad promise, and a pad promise is petter proken as kept. But if I preak it, they vill preak my head. Vot shall I do? Now let me see!" said Carl.

And he remained plunged in thought.

XXXIV.

_CAPTAIN LYSANDER'S JOKE._

Since the time when she lost her best feather-bed and her boarder, the worthy widow Sprowl had suffered serious pecuniary embarrassment. She missed sadly the regular four dollars a week, and the irregular gratuities, she had received from Penn. So much secession had cost her, without yielding as yet any of its promised benefits. The Yankees had not stepped up with the alacrity expected of them, and thrust their servile necks into the yoke of their natural masters. The slave trade was not reopened. Niggers were not yet so cheap that every poor widow could, at a trifling expense, provide herself with several, and grow rich on their labor. In the pride of seeing her son made what she called a "capting," and in the hope of enjoying some of the golden fruits of his valor, she had given him her last penny, and received up to the present time not a penny from him in return. In short, Lysander was ungrateful, and the widow was a disappointed woman.

So it happened that the sugar-bowl and tea-canister were often empty, and the poor widow had no legitimate means of replenishing them. In this extremity she resorted to borrowing. She borrowed of everybody, and never repaid. She borrowed even of the hated Unionists in the neighborhood, and confessed with bitterness to her son that she found them more ready to lend to her than the families of secessionists.

Again, on the morning of the events related in the last chapter, she found herself in want of many things--tea, sugar, meal, beans, potatoes, snuff, and tobacco; for this excellent woman snuffed, "dipped," and smoked.

"Where shall I go and borry to-day?" said she, counting her patrons, and the number of times she had been to borrow of each, on her fingers. "Thar's Mis' Stackridge. I hain't been to her but oncet. I'll go agin, and carry the big basket."

With her basket on her arm, and an ancient brown bonnet (which had been black at the time of the demise of the late lamented Sprowl,) on her head, and a multitude of excuses on her tongue, she set out, and walked to the farmer's house. This had one of those great, shed-like openings through it, so common in Tennessee. A door on the left, as you entered this covered space, led to the kitchen and living-room of the family. Here the widow knocked.

There was no response. She knocked again, with the same result. Then she pulled the latch-string--for the door even of this well-to-do farmer had a latch-string. She entered. The house was deserted.

"Ain't to home, none of 'em, hey?" said the widow, peering about her with a disagreeable scowl. "House wan't locked, nuther. Wonder if Mis' Stackridge and the childern have gone to the mountains too? And whar's old Aunt Deb?"

Her first feeling was that of resentment. What right had Mrs. Stackridge to be absent when she came to borrow? As she explored the pantry and closets, however, and became convinced that she was absolutely alone in a well-provisioned farm-house, her countenance lighted up with a smile.

"I can borry what I want jest exac'ly as well as if Mis' Stackridge war to home," thought the widow.

And she proceeded to fill her basket. She helped herself to a pan of meal, borrowing the pan with it. "I'll fetch home the pan," said she, "when I do the meal,"--exposing her craggy teeth with a grim smile. "If I don't before, I'm a feared Mis' Stackridge'll haf to wait for't a considerable spell! What's in this box? Coffee! May as well take box and all. Bring back the box when I do the coffee. Wish I could find some tobacky somewhars--wonder whar they keep their tobacky!"

Now, the excellent creature did not indulge in these liberties without some apprehension that Mrs. Stackridge might return suddenly and interrupt them. Perhaps she had not followed Mr. Stackridge to the mountains. Perhaps she had only gone into the village to buy shoes for her children, or to call on a neighbor. "If she should come back and ketch me at it,--why, then, I'll tell her I'm only jest a borryin', and see what she'll do about it. The prop'ty of these yer durned Union-shriekers is all gwine to be confisticated, and I reckon I may as well take my sheer when I can git it. Thar's a paper o' black pepper, and I'll take it jest as 'tis. Thar's a jar o' lump butter,--wish I could tote jar and all!--have some of the lumps on a plate anyhow!"

She had soon filled her basket, and was regretting she had not brought two, or a larger one, when a handsome, new tin pail, hanging in the pantry, caught her eye. "Been wantin' jest sich a pail as that, this long while!" And she proceeded to fill that also.

Just as she was putting the cover on, she was very much startled by hearing footsteps at the door.

"O, dear me! What shall I do? If it should be Mr. Stackridge! But it can't be him! If it's only Mis' Stackridge or one of the niggers, I'll face it out! They won't das' to make a fuss, for they're Union-shriekers, and my son's a capting in the confederate army!"

Thump, thump, thump!--loud knocking at the door.

"My, it's visitors! Who can it be?" She set down her pail and basket. "I'll act jest as if I had a right here, anyhow!"

She was hesitating, when the string was pulled, and two strangers, stout, square built, with foreign looking faces, carrying muskets, and dressed in confederate uniform, entered.

"Mrs. Stackridge?" said they, in a heavy Teutonic accent.

"Ye--ye--yes--" stammered the widow, trying to hide the guilty basket and pail behind her skirts. "What do you want of Mis' Stackridge?"

One of the strangers said to the other, in German, indicating the plunder,--

"This is the woman. She is getting provisions ready to send to her husband in the mountains."

"Let us see what there is good to eat," said the other.

Mrs. Sprowl, although understanding no word that was spoken, perceived that the borrowed property formed the theme of their remarks.

"Have some?" she hastened to say, with extreme politeness, as the Germans approached the provisions.

"Tank ye," said they, finding some bread and cold meat. And they ate with appetite, exchanging glances, and grunting with satisfaction.

"O, take all you want!" said the widow. "You're welcome to anything there is in the house, I'm shore!"--adding, within herself, "I am so glad these soldiers have come! Now, whatever is missing will be laid to them."

"You de lady of de house?" said the foreigners, munching.

"Yes, help yourselves!" smiled the hospitable widow.

"You Mrs. Stackridge?" they inquired, more particularly.

"Yes; take anything you like!" replied the widow.

"Where your husband?"

"My husband! my poor dear husband! he has been dead these----"

She checked herself, remembering that the soldiers took her for Mrs. Stackridge. If she undeceived them, then they would know she had been stealing.

"Dead?" The Germans shook their heads and smiled. "No! He was here last night. He was seen. You take dese tings to him up in de mountain."

"Would you like some cheese?" said the embarrassed widow.

"Tank ye. Dis is better as rations."

Mrs. Sprowl returned to the pantry, in order to replace the provisions she had so generously given away, and prepared to depart with the basket and pail; inviting the guests repeatedly to make themselves quite at home, and to take whatever they could find.

"Wait!" said they. Each had a knee on the floor, and one hand full of bread and cheese. They looked up at her with broad, complacent, unctuous faces, smiling, yet resolute. And one, with his unoccupied hand, laid hold of the handle of the basket, while the other detained the pail. "You will tell us where is your husband," said they.

"O, dear me, I don't know! I'm a poor lone woman, and where my husband is I can't consaive, I'm shore!"

"You will tell us where is your husband," repeated the men; and one of them, getting upon his feet, stood before her at the door.

"He's on the mountain somewhars. I don't know whar, and I don't keer," cried the widow, excited. There was something in the stolid, determined looks of the brothers she did not like. "He's a bad man, Mr. Stackridge is! I'm a secessionist myself. You are welcome to everything in the house--only let me go now."

"You will not go," said the soldier at the door, "till you tell us. We come for dat."

On entering, they had placed their muskets in the corner. The speaker took them, and handed one to his comrade. And now the widow observed that out of the muzzle of each protruded the butt-end of a small cowhide. Each soldier held his gun at his side, and laying hold of the said butt-end, drew out the long taper belly and dangling lash of the whip, like a black snake by the neck.

The widow screamed.

"It's all a mistake. Let me go! I ain't Mis' Stackridge"

Nothing so natural as that the wife of the notorious Unionist should deny her identity at sight of the whips. The soldiers looked at each other, muttered something in German, smiled, and replaced their muskets in the corner.

"You tell us where is your husband. Or else we whip you. Dat is our orders."

This they said in low tones, with mild looks, and with a calmness which was frightful. The widow saw that she had to do with men who obeyed orders literally, and knew no mercy.

"I hain't got no husband. I ain't Mis' Stackridge. I'm a poor lone widder, that jest come over here to borry a few things, and that's all."

"Ve unterstan. You say shust now you are Mrs. Stackridge. Now you say not. Dat make no difruns. Ve know. You tell us where is your husband, or ve string you up."

This speech was pronounced by both the foreigners, a sentence by each, alternately. At the conclusion one drew a strong cord from his pocket, while the other looked with satisfaction at certain hooks in the plastering overhead, designed originally for the support of a kitchen pole, but now destined for another use.

"Don't you dast to tech me!" screamed the false Mrs. Stackridge. "I'm a secessionist myself, that hates the Union-shriekers wus'n you do, and I've got a son that's a capting, and a poor lone widder at that!"

"Dat we don't know. What we know is, you tell what we say, or we whip you. Dat's Captain Shprowl's orders."

"Capting Sprowl! That's my son! my own son! If he sent you, then it's all right!"

"So we tink. All right." And the soldiers, seizing her, tied her thumbs as Lysander had taught them, passed the cords over the hook as they had passed the clothesline over the crossbeam the night before, and drew the shrieking woman's hands above her head, precisely as they had hauled up Toby's. They then turned her skirts up over her head, and fastened them. This also they had been instructed to do by Lysander. It was, you will say, shameful; for this woman was free and white. Had she been a slave, with a different complexion, although perhaps quite as white, would it have been any the less shameful? Answer, ye believers in the divine rights of slave-masters!

"Now you vill tell?" said the phlegmatic Teutons, measuring out their whips.

"Go for my son! My son is Capting Sprowl!" gasped the stifled and terror-stricken widow.

"Dat trick won't do. You shpeak, or we shtrike."

"It is true, it is true! I am Mrs. Sprowl, and my husband is dead, and my son is Capting Sprowl, and a poor lone widder, that if you strike her a single blow he'll have you took and hung!"

"If he is your son, den by your own son's orders we whip you. He vill not hang us for dat. You vill not tell? Den we give you ten lash."

Blow upon blow, shriek upon shriek, followed. The soldiers counted the strokes aloud, deliberately, conscientiously, as they gave them, "Vun, two, tree," &c, up to ten. There they stopped. But the screams did not stop. This punishment, which it was sport to inflict upon a faithful old negro, which it would have been such a good joke to have bestowed upon the wife of a stanch Unionist, was no sport, no joke, but altogether a tragic affair to thy mother, O Lysander!

Then she, who had so often wished that she too owned slaves, that when she was angry she might have them strung up and flogged, knew by fearful experience what it was to be strung up and flogged. Then she, who sympathized with her son in his desire to see every man, woman, and child, that loved the old Union, served in this fashion, felt in her own writhing and bleeding flesh the stings of that inhuman vengeance. Terrible blunder, for which she had only herself to thank! Robbery of her neighbor's house--the dishonest "borrowing," not of these ill-gotten goods only, but also of her neighbor's name--had brought her, by what we call fatality, to this strait.

Fatality is but another name for Providence.

The soldiers waited for a lull in the shrieks, then put once more the question.

"You tell now? Where is your husband? No? Den you git ten lash more. Always ten lash till you tell."

A storm of incoherent denial, angry threats, sobs, and screams, was the response. One of the soldiers drew her skirts over her head again, and gave another pull at the cords that hauled up her thumbs, while the other stood off and measured out his whip.

Just then the door opened, and Captain Sprowl looked in.

"How are you getting on, boys?"

The question was accompanied by an approving smile, which seemed to say, "I see you are getting on very well."

"We whip her once. We give her ten lash. She not tell."

"Very well. Give her ten more."

The widow struggled and screamed. Had she recognized her son's voice? Muffled as she was, he did not recognize hers. Nor was it surprising that, in the unusual posture in which he found her, he did not know her from Mrs. Stackridge.

He stood in the door and smiled while the soldier laid on.

"Make it a dozen," he quietly remarked. "And smart ones, to wind up with!"

So it happened that, thanks to her son's presence, the screeching victim got two "smart ones" additional.

"Now uncover her face. Ease away on her thumbs a little. I'll question her mys--Good Lucifer!" exclaimed the captain, finding himself face to face with his own mother.

Twenty-two lashes and the torture of the strung-up thumbs had proved too much even for the strong nerves of Widow Sprowl. She fell down in a swoon.

Lysander, furious, whipped out his sword, and turned upon the soldiers. They quietly stepped back, and took their guns from the corner. He would certainly have killed one of them on the spot had he not seen by the glance of their eyes that the other would, at the same instant, as certainly have killed him.

"You scoundrels! you have whipped my own mother!"

"Captain," they calmly answered, "we opey orders."

"Fools!"--and Lysander ground his teeth,--"you should have known!"

"Captain," they replied, "if you not know, how should we know? We never see dis woman pefore. We come. We find her taking prowisions from de house. We say, 'She take dem to her husband in de mountains.' We say, 'You Mrs. Stackridge?' She say yes to everyting. We not know she lie. We not know she steal. We not say, 'You somepody else.' We opey orders. We take and we whip her. You come in and say, 'Whip more.' We whip more. Now you say to us, 'Scoundrels!' You say, 'Fools!' We say, 'Captain, it was your orders; we opey.'"

Having by a joint effort at sententious English pronounced this speech, the brothers stood stolidly awaiting the result; while the captain, still gnashing his teeth, bent over the prostrate form of his mother.

"Bring some water and throw on her! you idiots!" he yelled at them. "Would you see her die?"

They looked at each other. "Water?" Yes, that was what was wanted. They remembered their practice of the previous evening. One found a wooden pail. The other emptied upon the floor the contents of the tin pail the widow had "borrowed." They went to the well. They brought water. "To throw on her?" Yes, that was what he said. And together they dashed a sudden drenching flood over the poor woman, as if the swoon were another fire to be extinguished.

These fellows obeyed orders literally--a merit which Lysander now failed to appreciate. He swore at them terribly. But he did not countermand his last order. Accordingly they proceeded stoically to bring more water. Lysander had got his mothers head on his knee, and she had just opened her eyes to look and her mouth to gasp, when there came another double ice-cold wave, blinding, stifling, drowning her. Too much of water hadst thou, poor lone widow!

Lysander let fall the maternal head, and bounded to his feet, roaring with wrath. The brothers, imperturbable, with the empty pails at their sides, stared at him with mute wonder.

"Captain, dat was your orders. You say, 'Pring vasser and trow on.' We pring vasser and trow on. Dat is all."

"But I didn't tell you to fetch pailfuls!"

This sentence rushed out of Lysander's soul like a rocket, culminated in a loud, explosive oath, and was followed by a shower of fiery curses falling harmless on the heads of the unmoved Teutons.

They waited patiently until the pyrotechnic rain ceased, then answered, speaking alternately, each a sentence, as if with one mind, but with two organs.

"Captain, you hear. Last night vas de house afire. You say, 'Pring vasser.' We pring a little. Den you say to us, 'Tarn you! why in hell you shtop?' And you say, 'Von I tell you pring vasser, pring till I say shtop.' Vun time more to-day you say, 'Pring vasser,' and you never say shtop. You say, 'Trow on.' We trow on. Vat you say we do. You not say vat you mean, dat is mishtake for you."

It is not to be supposed that Lysander listened meekly to the end of this speech. He had caught the sound of voices without that interested him more; and, looking, he saw Mrs. Stackridge returning, with her children.