Before the Dawn Part 29

"Captain Prescott," said the girl, as they stood watching the light in the tavern window, "I insist that you leave me here. I wish to make an attempt alone. Why should you risk yourself?"

"Even if you pa.s.sed the fortifications," he replied, "you would perish in the frozen hills beyond. Do you think I have come so far to turn back now?"

Staring at the wagons and the stamping horses, he noticed one of the farmers come out of the tavern. His appearance gave Prescott a happy inspiration.

"Stay here a moment or two, Miss Catherwood," he said. "I want to talk to that man."

She obeyed without a word of protest, and he approached the farmer, who lurched toward one of the wagons. Prescott had marked this suggestive lurch, and it gave him an idea.

The farmer, heated by many warm drinks, was fumbling with the gear of his horses when Prescott approached, and to his muddled eyes the stranger seemed at least a general, looming very stiff and very tall with his great military cloak drawn threateningly about him.

"What is your name?" asked Prescott sternly.

The severe tone made a deep and proper impression on the intoxicated gentleman's agricultural mind, so he replied promptly, though with a stutter:

"Elias Gardner."

"Where are you from, Elias, and what are you doing here?"

The military discipline about Richmond was very strict, and the farmer, anxious to show his good standing, replied with equal promptness:

"From Wellsville. I've been selling a load of farm truck in Richmond.

Oh, I've got my pa.s.s right enough, Colonel."

He took his pa.s.s from his pocket and handed it to the man who from the dignity and severity of his manner might be a general officer. Prescott looking at it felt a thrill of joy, but there was no change in the sternness of his tone when he addressed the farmer again.

"Why, this pa.s.s," he said, "is made out to Elias Gardner _and wife_. You said nothing about your wife."

The farmer was somewhat confused, and explained hastily that his wife was going to stay awhile in Richmond with relatives, while he went home alone. In three or four days he would be back with another load of provisions and then he could get her. The face of the stern officer gradually relaxed and he accused the good Mr. Gardner of taking advantage of his wife's absence to enjoy himself. Prescott nodded his head slightly toward the tavern, and the farmer, taking courage from the jocular contraction of the Colonel's left eye, did not resent the insinuation. On the contrary, he enjoyed it, feeling that he was a devil of a fellow, and significantly tapped the left pocket of his coat, which gave forth a ring as of gla.s.s.

"The quality of yours is bad," said Prescott. "Here, try mine; it's like velvet to the throat, a tonic to the stomach, and it means sweet sleep to-morrow."

Drawing from his pocket his own well-filled flask, with which from prudential motives he had provided himself before undertaking his journey, he handed it to Mr. Gardner of Wellsville and made him drink deep and long.

When the farmer finished he sighed deeply, and words of appreciation and grat.i.tude flowed from his tongue.

"Bah, man!" said Prescott, "you cannot drink at all. You do not get the real taste of it with one little sip like that on such a cold night as this. Here, drink it down a real drink, this time. Are you a girl to refuse such liquor?"

The last taunt struck home, and Mr. Gardner of Wellsville, making a mighty suspiration, drank so long and deep that the world wavered when he handed the flask back to Prescott, and a most generous fire leaped up and sparkled in his veins. But when he undertook to step forward the treacherous earth slid from under his feet, and it was only the arm of the friendly officer that kept him from falling. He tried to reach his wagon, but it unkindly moved off into s.p.a.ce.

Prescott helped him to the wagon and then into it. "How my head goes round!" murmured the poor farmer.

"Another taste of this will put you all right," said Prescott, and he forced the neck of his flask into Elias Gardner's mouth. Elias drank deeply, either because he wanted to or because he could not help himself, and closing his eyes dropped off to slumber as peacefully as a tired child.

Prescott laid Mr. Gardner down in the bed of his own wagon, and then this chivalrous Confederate officer picked a man's pocket--deliberately and with malice aforethought. But he did not take much--only a piece of paper with a little writing on it, which he put in the pocket of his waistcoat. Moreover, as a sort of compensation he pulled off the man's overcoat--which was a poor one--and putting it on his own shoulders, wrapped his heavy military cloak around the prostrate farmer. Then he stretched him out in a comfortable place in the wagon bed and heaped empty sacks above him until Elias was as cozy as if he had been in his own bed at home.

Having placed empty chicken crates on either side of Elias and others across the top, to form a sort of roof beneath which the man still slept sweetly, though invisibly, Prescott contemplated his work for a moment with deep satisfaction. Then he summoned the girl, and the two, mounting the seat, drove the impatient horses along the well-defined road through the snow towards the interval between the earthworks.

"It is necessary for me to inform you, Miss Catherwood, that you're not Miss Catherwood at all," said Prescott.

A faint gleam of humour flickered in her eye.

"And who am I, pray?" she asked.

"You are a much more respectable young woman than that noted Yankee spy," replied Prescott in a light tone. "You are Mrs. Elias Gardner, the wife of a most staid and worthy farmer, of strong Southern proclivities, living twenty miles out on the Baltimore road."

"And who are you?" she asked, the flicker of humour reappearing in her eye.

"I am Mr. Elias Gardner, your husband, and, as I have just said, a most honest and worthy man, but, unfortunately, somewhat addicted to the use of strong liquors, especially on a night as cold as this."

If Prescott's attention had not been demanded then by the horses he would have seen a rosy glow appear on her face. But it pa.s.sed in a moment, and she remained silent.

Then he told her of the whole lucky chance, his use of it, and how the way now lay clear before them.

"We shall take Mr. Gardner back home," he said, "and save him the trouble of driving. It will be one of the easiest and most comfortable journeys that he ever took, and not a particle of harm will come to him from it."

"But you? How will you get back into Richmond?"

She looked at him anxiously as she spoke.

"How do you know that I want to return?"

"I am speaking seriously."

"I am sure it will not be a difficult matter," he said. "A man alone can pa.s.s the fortifications of any city without much trouble. It is not a matter that I worry about at all. But please remember that you are Mrs.

Elias Gardner, my wife, as questions may be asked of you before this night's journey ends."

The flush stole over her cheeks again, but she said nothing.

Prescott picked up the long whip, called a "black snake," which was lying on the seat and cracked it over the horses, a fine, st.u.r.dy pair, as he had noticed already. They stepped briskly along, as if anxious to warm themselves after their long wait in the cold, and Prescott, who was a good driver, felt the glorious sensation of triumph over difficulties glowing within him.

"Ho, for a fine ride, Mrs. Gardner!" he said gaily to the girl.

His high spirits were infectious and she smiled back at him.

"With such an accomplished driver holding the lines, and so fine a chariot as this, it ought to be," she replied.

The horses blew the steam from their nostrils, the dry snow crunched under their heels, and the real Elias Gardner slumbered peacefully under his own chicken crates as they approached the earthworks.

As before, when they had walked instead of coming in their own private carriage, they soon saw the sentinel, half frozen but vigilant, and he promptly halted them. Prescott produced at once the pa.s.s that he had picked from the pocket of the unconscious Elias, and the sentinel called the officer of the guard, who appeared holding a dim lantern and yawning mightily.

Now this officer of the guard was none other than Thomas Talbot, Esquire, himself, as large as life but uncommonly sleepy, and anxious to have done with his task. Prescott was startled by his friend's appearance there at such a critical moment, but he remembered that the night was dark and he was heavily m.u.f.fled.

Talbot looked at the pa.s.s, expressed his satisfaction and handed it back to Prescott, who replaced it in his waistcoat pocket with ostentatious care.

"Cold night for a long drive," said Talbot, wishing to be friendly.

Prescott nodded but did not speak.