The Orpheus C. Kerr Papers Volume Ii Part 3

"Millions! my love," said Mr. BOB PETERS, with sudden and wonderful quietude of tone. "When I left New York prose was bringing two dollars for seven pounds in the heavy dailies, and philosophical poetry quoted at six shillings a yard, and no hexameters allowed except for EMERSON and HOMER. Ah!" said Mr. PETERS, his melancholy deepening rapidly to bitterness, "my last poem sickened me. It was called 'Dirge: addressed to a lady after witnessing the Drama of the "Toodles,"' and commenced in this way:

'Not all the artist's pow'r can limn, Nor poet's grander verse disclose, The plaintive charm that ev'ning dim, Imparts unto the dying rose.'"

"How pretty!" said LIBBY.

"Yes, my dear," responded Mr. PETERS, somewhat gloomily; "but because I used 'dim' to rhyme with 'limn,' all the papers credited it to GENERAL MORRIS."

Recollections of this flagrant piece of injustice so affected Mr. BOB PETERS, that he smote his breast and called himself a miserable man. "I really don't know but I'd better stay here and be hung like a respectable patriot," murmured the desolated young man.

"How absurd!" exclaimed the young lady, "you will be glad enough to get away to-night. Remember, now, you are to start down stairs at quarter-past Twelve, precisely, and JOCKO will open the front door for you. Then go straight to the bridge, where you will find my brother, who will get you by the guard."

"That reminds me," observed Mr. PETERS, "what time is it? I must set my repeater."

LIBBY consulted her watch and answered that it was half-past eight, whereupon Mr. BOB PETERS fished from his fob a vast silver conglomeration, and having wound it up with a noise like that of a distant coffee mill, and set it correctly, proceeded to hang it, for convenient reference, upon the gas-branch across the mirror.

"Dear BOB, good bye."

"Fare thee well, and if for ever, still remember me," responded Mr.

PETERS, with some vagueness.

"We shall meet again?" said LIBBY, lingering.

"If I did not believe it," replied Mr. BOB PETERS, with vehemence, "I should at once proceed to kill myself at your feet, covering the walls and furniture of the apartment with my gore."

"G.o.d bless you, BOB."

They parted wiping their mouths. Miss ORDETH went down stairs in tears, had a fit of hysterics on the sofa, and fell asleep with her head in the card basket.

CHAPTER V.--BETRAYED INNOCENCE.

There he slumbered on that rude lounge, with his head upon his hands and his hands under his head. A man, like you--or me--or any other man.

Did you ever notice how you always keep your eyes shut when you are asleep? The lids come down over your orbs, your soul's windows, like night over the sun. You shall have visions of Heaven, or Hades, according to what you had for supper. Lobster salad, or truffles, will act upon a sleeping man's great, dark soul, like one of PAGE'S pictures on the open eye. Make it see light blue landscapes, and pallid faces looking out of pink distances. You think that young man there is sleeping upon a rude couch? No. He is sleeping upon something not palpable to your worldly eyes nor mine; he is sleeping upon an empty stomach. You dare not pity him. His scornful, stern man's soul would wither you if you talked to him of compa.s.sion. Such is man. An animal.

A worm of the dust. Yet proud. Ha! you know it. You blush for your unworthy thought. Such is woman. Something aroused the sleeper suddenly. It might have been an angel's whisper, or the kiss of an insect. He sprang to his feet, shook himself, and mentally declared that he had come pretty near getting asleep. The idea was rational.

"By all that's blue! it can't be, though it is, by Jupiter!"

The gas was still burning brightly. Mr. BOB PETERS had caught sight of his watch as it was reflected in the mirror, with the hands pointing to a quarter past Twelve. With great rapidity he grasped the repeater, stabbed it into his fob, crushed his demoralized hat upon his head, looked regretfully about the room, turned off the gas, and in another moment was stealthily groping his way down stairs, toward the front door. The door yielded to his hand, but no JOCKO was there. "I suppose," murmured Mr. PETERS to himself, "I suppose the faithful fellow is praying for me somewhere in the kitchen, with his hands resting on a jar of sweetmeats. Ah! I ought to be a better man than I am." With this excellent moral reflection, Mr. BOB PETERS stepped into the street and faced boldly for the path to freedom; but at the very first corner his road was barred by two individuals in military caps and the first stage of intoxication.

"Aryupeters--eters!" said one, who was evidently desirous of having but a single word with him.

"With a BOB," replied the fugitive sententiously.

"Aw' ri', then," observed the two in chorus, and Mr. PETERS quickly found himself attended on either side by guardians whose affectionate manner of monopolizing his arms suggested a civil process of the most uncivil sort.

"Treachery!" he exclaimed, struggling fiercely. The twain held him tightly, however, with the strength of tight-uns, and his exertion only caused them to venture divers pleasant oaths concerning the destiny of his eyes.

Onward they dragged him, down Broad street and up half a dozen other streets, until a certain rebel inst.i.tution was gained. "In with'm,"

said one of his captors; and they hurried him past a sentry and through a hall into a long, low room, where half a dozen miserable candles stuck up against the walls revealed a dismal company of over a hundred--some stretched upon the floor, some standing about, and others cl.u.s.tered around what appeared to be a cot in one corner.

"Is this the Confederate Congress?" asked the astonished BOB, as his captors left him, turning the key and adjusting various bolts as they went out.

"It's LIBBY'S pork-packing-house," answered the prisoner nearest him, "and you're jugged, I suppose, as a spy."

"Pork-packing!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the bewildered BOB. "Why, this is treating me like a hog."

Several prisoners at once gave in their adhesion to this logical premise.

"Here's a case of betrayed innocence!" soliloquized Mr. BOB PETERS, bitterly, "I've trusted to LIBBY, and Libby's taken me in."--

"I'm going to be exchanged, I tell you!"

The sound came from the cot in the corner, and as the crowd in that direction opened for a moment, the new-comer beheld a sight that, for a time, made him forget his own troubles. A tall, gaunt man in ragged, Zouave uniform was reclining upon his elbow on the miserable pallet, the pale, dismal light of the candles disclosing a ghastly wound on his right temple, from which the blood was trickling down upon his rusty and matted beard.

"I'm going to be exchanged, I tell you!" he exclaimed, waving the others away with his left hand and glaring directly at BOB. "I've been here a whole year, and Eighty's boys wants me back; and I'm going to be exchanged."

"The poor fellow was shot by one of the sentries this morning. He's from a New York regiment, and has been a prisoner ever since Bull Run,"

whispered one of the unfortunates to BOB.

The latter approached the wounded man and kindly asked; "Can I do anything for you, old fellow?"

The dying Zouave regarded him with a ghastly smile; "Yes," said he, "you can go down to Eighty's truck house and take care of little JAKE till I'm exchanged. Will you, bub, will you?"

"Is JAKE your child?" asked Bob.

"No," responded the Zouave, softly, "it's only a little yaller dorg. I aint got no wife, nor child, nor no friend except the masheen and little JAKE. He's petty as a picture, bub, and he's slept with me many a gay old night around Catherine Market--he has. You'll be kind to him, bub, won't you?"

"Here! what's this noise about? What are yes doin' with lights this time ernight? I'll soon stop his Yankee groaning," were the words of a brutal keeper, who had just come in and was roughly elbowing his way toward the cot.

"Stand off, you hound!" shouted BOB, throwing himself between the keeper and the dying soldier. "Stand off!" growled the prisoners, fiercely crowding upon the intruder with murder in their faces.

"Hark!" said the Zouave, leaning listfully forward, "there goes the Hall bell--one--two--three----" His features lighted up as with the glow of a conflagration; his lips opened--

"_Fire! Fire! Fire!_"

And the Zouave fell back upon the cot--dead.

The keeper crawled forward like a whipped hound, and eyed the outstretched form with a face full of fear:

"Exchanged at last, by G--d!"

True, O traitorous hireling! and by G.o.d alone. For when that honest, loyal soul went out, there came to take its place an Avenging Spirit, that shall not cease to call on Heaven for vengeance on the Southern murderer until the cowardly stain of fifty thousand murders, such as this, are washed out in a terrible atonement.

"Poor little JAKE," murmured Mr. BOB PETERS, "I wonder if he's a terrier." Then, turning to the keeper,--"How long is my imprisonment in this terrible place to be continued?"

The keeper eyed the querist with no very amiable expression, "You'll stay here," said he, "until you take the Oath, I reckon."

"In that case, my native land, good night," responded the interesting captive, Byronically; "my incarceration will terminate with an epitaph--'_Hic Jacet_ ROBERT PETERS. A victim of miss-placed confidence. He died young'--Jailor, you are affected. Accept a quarter!"