CHAPTER XIX.

WHAT CAME OF A REVEREND GENTLEMAN'S VISIT TO CAPTAIN WHARTON.

But he was interrupted by the opening of the door by the corporal of the guard, who stated that the woman of the house desired admittance.

"Admit the woman," said Dunwoodie, sternly.

"Here is a reverend gentleman below, come to soothe the parting soul, in place of our own divine, who is engaged with an appointment that could not be put aside."

"Show him in," said Henry, with feverish impatience.

Dunwoodie spoke a few words with Henry in an undertone, and hastened from the apartment, followed by Frances. The subject of their conversation was a wish expressed by the prisoner for a clergyman of his own persuasion.

The person who was ushered into the apartment, preceded by Cæsar, and followed by the matron, was a man beyond the middle age, or who might rather be said to approach the down-hill of life.

In stature he was above the ordinary size of men, though his excessive leanness might contribute in deceiving as to his height; his countenance was sharp and unbending, and every muscle seemed set in rigid compression. No joy or relaxation appeared ever to have dwelt on features that frowned habitually, as if in detestation of the vices of mankind. The brows were beetling, dark, and forbidding, giving the promise of eyes of no less repelling expression; but the organs were concealed beneath a pair of enormous green goggles, through which he glared around with a fierceness that denounced the coming day of wrath. All was fanaticism,[110] uncharitableness, and denunciation. Long, lank hair, a mixture of gray and black, fell down his neck, and in some degree obscured the sides of his face, and, parting on his forehead, fell in either direction in straight and formal screens. On the top of this ungraceful exhibition was laid, impending forward, so as to overhang in some measure the whole fabric, a large hat of three equal cocks. His coat was of a rusty black, and his breeches and stockings were of the same color; his shoes without lustre, and half concealed beneath huge plated buckles.

[Footnote 110: wild and extravagant notions.]

He stalked into the room, and giving a stiff nod with his head, took the chair offered him by the black, in dignified silence. For several minutes no one broke this ominous pause in the conversation; Henry feeling a repugnance[111] to his guest that he was endeavoring to conquer, and the stranger himself drawing forth occasional sighs and groans that threatened a dissolution of the unequal connection between his sublimated[112] soul and its ungainly tenement. During this deathlike preparation, Mr. Wharton, with a feeling nearly allied to that of his son, led Sarah from the apartment. His retreat was noticed by the divine, in a kind of scornful disdain, who began to hum the air of a popular psalm tune, giving it the full richness of the twang that distinguished the Eastern psalmody.

[Footnote 111: aversion, dislike.]

[Footnote 112: refined--exalted.]

"My presence disturbs you," said Miss Peyton, rising; "I will leave you with my nephew, and offer those prayers in private that I did wish to mingle with his."

So saying, she withdrew, followed by the landlady.

The minister stood erect, with grave composure, following with his eye the departure of the females. A third voice spoke.

"Who's that?" cried the prisoner, in amazement, gazing around the room in quest of the speaker.

"It is I, Captain Wharton," said Harvey Birch, removing the spectacles, and exhibiting his piercing eyes shining under a pair of false eyebrows.

"Good Heaven--Harvey!"

"Silence," said the peddler, solemnly; "'tis a name not to be mentioned, and least of all here, within the heart of the American army." Birch paused and gazed around him for a moment, with an emotion exceeding the base passion of fear, and then continued in a gloomy tone: "There are a thousand halters in that very name, and little hope would there be left me of another escape, should I be again taken. This is a fearful venture that I am making; but I could not sleep in quiet, and know that an innocent man was about to die the death of a dog, when I might save him."

"No," said Henry, with a glow of generous feeling on his cheek; "if the risk to yourself be so heavy, retire as you came, and leave me to my fate. Dunwoodie is making, even now, powerful exertions in my behalf; and if he meets with Mr. Harper in the course of the night, my liberation is certain."

"Harper!" echoed the peddler, remaining with his hands raised, in the act of replacing his spectacles; "what do you know of Harper, and why do you think he will do you service?"

"I have his promise; you remember our recent meeting in my father's dwelling, and he then gave me an unasked promise to assist me."

"Yes; but do you know him?--that is, why do you think he has the power, or what reason have you for believing he will remember his word?"

"If there ever was the stamp of truth or simple honest benevolence in the countenance of man, it shone in his," said Henry; "besides, Dunwoodie has powerful friends in the rebel army, and it would be better that I take the chance where I am, than thus to expose you to certain death, if detected."

"Captain Wharton," said Birch, "if I fail, you all fail. No Harper nor Dunwoodie can save your life; unless you get out with me, and that within the hour, you die to-morrow on the gallows of a murderer. Cæsar met me as he was going on his errand this morning, and with him I laid the plan which, if executed as I wish, will save you--otherwise you are lost; and again I tell you, that no power on earth, not even Washington, can save you."

"I submit," said the prisoner, yielding to his earnest manner, and goaded by his fears that were thus awakened anew.

The peddler beckoned him to be silent, and walking to the door, opened it, with the stiff, formal air with which he had entered the apartment.

"Friend, let no one enter," he said to the sentinel; "we are about to go to prayer, and would wish to be alone."

"I don't know that any will wish to interrupt you," returned the soldier, with a waggish leer of the eye; "but, should they be so disposed, I have no power to stop them, if they be of the prisoner's friends."

"Have you not the fear of God before your eyes?" said the pretended priest. "I tell you, as you will dread punishment at the last day, to let none of the idolatrous communion enter, to mingle in the prayers of the righteous."

"If you want to be alone, have you no knife to stick over the door-latch, that you must have a troop of horse to guard your meeting-house?"

The peddler took the hint, and closed the door immediately, using the precaution suggested by the dragoon.

"A faint heart, Captain Wharton, would do but little here. Come, here is a black shroud for your good-looking countenance," taking, at the same time, a parchment mask, and fitting it to the face of Henry. "The master and the man must change places for a season."

"I don't t'ink he look a bit like me," said Cæsar, with disgust, as he surveyed his young master with his new complexion.

"Stop a minute, Cæsar," said the peddler, with a drollery that at times formed part of his manner, "till we get on the wool."

"He worse than ebber now," cried the discontented African. "A t'ink colored man like a sheep! I nevver see sich a lip, Harvey; he most as big as a sausage!"

"There is but one man in the American army who could detect you, Captain Wharton," said the peddler.

"And who is he?"

"The man who made you prisoner. He would see your white skin through a plank. But strip, both of you; your clothes must be exchanged from head to foot."

Cæsar, who had received minute instructions from the peddler in their morning interview, immediately commenced throwing aside his coarse garments, which the youth took up and prepared to invest himself with.

In the manner of the peddler there was an odd mixture of care and humor. "Here, captain," he said, taking up some loose wool, and beginning to stuff the stockings of Cæsar, which were already on the legs of the prisoner; "some judgment is necessary in shaping this limb. You will display it on horseback; and the southern dragoons are so used to the brittle-shins that, should they notice your well-turned calf, they'd know at once it never belonged to a black."

"Golly!" said Cæsar, with a chuckle that exhibited a mouth open from ear to ear, "Massa Harry breeches fit."

"Anything but your leg," said the peddler, coolly pursuing the toilet of Henry. "Slip on the coat, captain, over all. And here, Cæsar, place this powdered wig over your curls, and be careful and look out of the window whenever the door is open, and on no account speak, or you will betray all."

"I s'pose Harvey t'ink a colored man has no tongue like oder folk," grumbled the black, as he took the station assigned him.

Everything was now ready for action, and the peddler very deliberately went over the whole of his injunctions to the two actors in the scene. The captain he conjured to dispense with his erect military carriage, and for a season to adopt the humble paces of his father's negro; and Cæsar he enjoined to silence and disguise, so long as he could possibly maintain them. Thus prepared, he opened the door and called aloud to the sentinel, who had retired to the farthest end of the passage.

"Let the woman of the house be called," said Harvey, in the solemn key of the assumed character; "and let her come alone. The prisoner is in a happy train of meditation, and must not be led from his devotions."

Cæsar sank his face between his hands; and when the soldier looked into the apartment, he thought he saw his charge in deep abstraction. Casting a glance of huge contempt at the divine, he called aloud for the good woman of the house. She hastened at the summons, with earnest zeal, entertaining a secret hope that she was to be admitted to the gossip of a death-bed repentance.

"Sister," said the minister in the authoritative tones of a master, "have you in the house 'The Christian Criminal's Last Moments, or Thoughts on Eternity, for them who die a violent death'?"

"I never heard of the book!" said the matron in astonishment.

"'Tis not unlikely; there are many books you have never heard of; it is impossible for this poor penitent to pass in peace, without the consolation of that volume. One hour's reading in it is worth an age of man's preaching."

"Bless me, what a treasure to possess!--when was it put out?"

"It was first put out at Geneva[113] in the Greek language, and then translated at Boston. It is a book, woman, that should be in the hands of every Christian, especially such as die upon the gallows. Have a horse prepared instantly for this black, who shall accompany me to my brother, and I will send down the volume yet in season; brother, compose thy mind, you are now in the narrow path to glory."

[Footnote 113: a city of Switzerland.]

Cæsar wriggled a little in his chair, but he had sufficient recollection to conceal his face with hands that were, in their turn, concealed by gloves. The landlady departed, to comply with this very reasonable request, and the group of conspirators were again left to themselves.

"This is well," said the peddler; "but the difficult task is to deceive the officer who commands the guard--he is lieutenant to Lawton, and has learned some of the captain's own cunning in these things. Remember, Captain Wharton," continued he with an air of pride, "that now is the moment when everything depends on our coolness."

"My fate can be made but little worse than it is at present, my worthy fellow," said Henry; "but for your sake I will do all that in me lies."

The man soon returned, and announced that the horses were at the door. Harvey gave the captain a glance, and led the way down the stairs, first desiring the women to leave the prisoner to himself, in order that he might digest the wholesome mental food that he had so lately received.

A rumor of the odd character of the priest had spread from the sentinel at the door to his comrades; so that when Harvey and Wharton reached the open space before the building, they found a dozen idle dragoons loitering about with waggish intention of quizzing the fanatic and employed in affected admiration of the steeds.

"A fine horse!" said the leader in this plan of mischief; "but a little low in flesh; I suppose from hard labor in your calling."

"What are you at there, scoundrels?" cried Lieutenant Mason, as he came in sight from a walk he had taken to sneer at the evening parade of the regiment of militia. "Away with every man of you to your quarters, and let me find that each horse is cleaned and littered when I come round." The sound of the officer's voice operated like a charm, and no priest could desire a more silent congregation, although he might possibly have wished for one that was more numerous. Mason had not done speaking, when it was reduced to the image of Cæsar only. The peddler took the opportunity to mount, but he had to preserve the gravity of his movements, for the remark of the troopers upon the condition of their beasts was but too just, and a dozen dragoon horses stood saddled and bridled at hand to receive their riders at a moment's warning.

"Well, have you bitted the poor fellow within," said Mason, "that he can take his last ride under the curb of divinity, old gentleman?"

"There is evil in thy conversation, profane man," cried the priest, raising his hands and casting his eyes upwards in holy horror; "so I will depart from thee unhurt, as Daniel[114] was liberated from the lions' den."

[Footnote 114: read account in the book of Daniel (Bible).]

"Off with you, for a hypocritical,[115] psalm-singing, canting rogue in disguise," said Mason scornfully. "By the life of Washington! it worries an honest fellow to see such voracious[116] beasts of prey ravaging a country for which he sheds his blood. If I had you on a Virginian plantation for a quarter of an hour, I'd teach you to worm the tobacco with the turkeys."

[Footnote 115: not sincere.]

[Footnote 116: very hungry.]

"I leave you, and shake the dust off my shoes, that no remnant of this wicked hole may tarnish the vestments of the godly!"

"Start, or I will shake the dust from your jacket, designing knave! But hold! whither do you travel, master blackey, in such godly company?"

"He goes," said the minister, "to return with a book of much condolence to the sinful youth above. Would you deprive a dying man of the consolation of religion?"

"No, no; poor fellow, his fate is bad enough. But harkee, Mr. Revelations, my advice is that you never trust that skeleton of yours among us again, or I will take the skin off and leave you naked."

"Out upon thee for a reviler and scoffer of goodness!" said Birch, moving slowly, and with a due observance of clerical dignity, down the road, followed by the imaginary Cæsar.