III.
_THE SECRET CELLAR._
No sooner did the lad feel himself safe from pursuit, than he made hisway out of the woods again, and ran with all speed to Mr. Stackridge'shouse.
To his dismay he learned that that stanch Unionist was absent from home.
"Is he in the willage?" said the breathless Carl.
"I reckon he is," said the farmer's wife; adding in a whisper,--for sheguessed the nature of Carl's business,--"inquire for him down to barberJim's." And she told him what to say to the barber.
Barber Jim was a colored man, who had demonstrated the ability of theAfrican to take care of himself, by purchasing first his own freedom ofhis mistress, buying his wife and children afterwards, and thenaccumulating a property as much more valuable than all Silas Ropes andhis poor white minions possessed, as his mind was superior to theircombined intelligence.
Jim had accomplished this by uniting with industrious habits a naturalshrewdness, which enabled him to make the most of his labor and of hismeans. He owned the most flourishing barber-shop in the place, and keptin connection with it (I am sorry to say) a bar, at which he dealt outto his customers some very bad liquors at very good prices. Had Jim beena white man, he would not, of course, have stooped to make money by anysuch low business as rum-selling--O, no! but being only a "nigger," whatelse could you expect of him?
Well, on this very evening Jim's place began to be thronged almostbefore it was dark. A few came in to be shaved, while many more passedthrough the shop into the little bar-room beyond. What was curious, somewent in who appeared never to come out again; Mr. Stackridge among thenumber.
It was not to get shaved, nor yet to get tipsy, that this man visitedJim's premises. The moment they were alone together in the bar-room, hegave the proprietor a knowing wink.
"Many there?"
"I reckon about a dozen," said Jim. "Go in?" Stackridge nodded; and witha grin Jim opened a private door communicating with some back stairs,down which his visitor went groping his way in the dark.
Customers came and went; now and then one disappeared similarly down theback stairs; many remained in the barber's shop to smoke, and discuss inloud tones the exciting question of the day--secession; when, lastly, aboy of fifteen came rushing in. His face was flushed with running, andhe was quite out of breath.
"What's wanting, Carl?" said the barber. "A shave?"
This was one of Jim's jokes, at which his customers laughed, to theboy's confusion, for his cheeks were as smooth as a peach.
"I vants to find Mishter Stackridge," said the lad.
"He ain't here," said Jim, looking around the room.
"It is something wery partic'lar. One of his pigs have got choked mit acob, and he must go home and unchoke him."
This was what Carl had been directed by the farmer's wife to say to thebarber, in case he should profess ignorance concerning her husband.
"Pity about the pig," said Jim. "Mabby Stackridge'll be in bime-by. Anything else I can do for ye?"
Carl stepped up to the barber, and said in a hoarse whisper, loud enoughto be heard by every body,--
"A mug of peer, if you pleashe."
"I got some that'll make a Dutchman's head hum!" said Jim, leading theway into the little grog room.
"That's Villars's Dutch boy," said one of the smokers in thebarber-shop. "Beats all nater, how these Dutch will swill down any thingin the shape of beer!"
This elegant observation may have had a grain of truth in it, as we whohave Teutonic friends may have reason to know. However, the man hadmistaken the boy this time.
"It is not the peer I vants, it is Mr. Stackridge," whispered Carl, whenalone with the proprietor.
Jim regarded him doubtfully a moment, then said, "I reckon I shall haveto open a cask in the suller. You jest tend bar for me while I am gone."
He descended the stairs, closing the door after him. Carl, who thoughtof the schoolmaster in the hands of the mob, felt his heart swell andburn with anxiety at each moment's delay. Jim did not keep him longwaiting.
"This way, Carl, if you want some of the right sort," said the negrofrom the stairs.
Carl went down in the darkness, Jim taking his hand to guide him. Theyentered a cellar, crowded with casks and boxes, where there was a dimlamp burning; but no human being was visible, until suddenly out of alow, dark passage, between some barrels, a stooping figure emerged,giving Carl a momentary start of alarm.
"What's the trouble, Carl?"
"O! Mishter Stackridge! is it you?" said Carl, as the figure stood erectin the dim light,--sallow, bony, grim, attired in coarse clothes. "Theschoolmaster--that is the trouble!" and he hastily related what he hadseen.
"Wouldn't take the pistol? the fool!" muttered the farmer. "But I'll seewhat I can do for him." He grasped the boy's collar, and said in asuppressed but terribly earnest voice, "Swear never to breathe a word ofwhat I'm going to show you!"
"I shwear!" said Carl.
"Come!"
Stackridge took him by the wrist, and drew him after him into thepassage. It was utterly dark, and Carl had to stoop in order to avoidhitting his head. As they approached the end of it, he could distinguishthe sound of voices,--one louder than the rest giving the word ofcommand.
"_Order--arms!_"
The farmer knocked on the head of a cask, which rolled aside, and openedthe way into a cellar beyond, under an old storehouse, which waslikewise a part of Barber Jim's property.
The second cellar was much larger and better lighted than the first, andrendered picturesque by heavy festoons of cobwebs hanging from the darkbeams above. The rays of the lamps flashed upon gun-barrels, and castagainst the damp and mouldy walls gigantic shadows of groups of men.Some were conversing, others were practising the soldiers' drill.
"Neighbors!" said Stackridge, in a voice which commanded instantattention, and drew around him and Carl an eager group. "It's just as Itold you,--Ropes and his gang are lynching Hapgood!"
"It's the fellow's own fault," said a stern, dark man, the same who hadbeen drilling the men. "He should have taken care of himself."
"Young Hapgood's a decent sort of cuss," said another whom Carl knew,--afarmer named Withers,--"and I like him. I believe he means well; but heain't one of us."
"I've been deceived in him," said a third. "He always minded his ownbusiness, and kept so quiet about our institutions, I never suspected hewas anti-slavery till I talked with him t'other day about joiningus--then he out with it."
"He thinks we're all wrong," said a bigoted pro-slavery man namedDeslow. "He says slavery's the cause of the war, and it's absurd in usto go in for the Union and slavery too!" For these men, though loyal tothe government, and bitterly opposed to secession, were nearly allslaveholders or believers in slavery.
"May be the fellow ain't far wrong there," said he who had been drillinghis comrades. "I think myself slavery's the cause of the war, and that'swhat puts us in such a hard place. The time may come when we will haveto take a different stand--go the whole figure with the free north, ordrift with the cotton states. But that time hain't come yet."
"But the time _has_ come," said Stackridge, impatiently, "to dosomething for Hapgood, if we intend to help him at all. While we aretalking, he may be hanging."
"And what can we do?" retorted the other. "We can't make a move for himwithout showing our hand, and it ain't time for that yet."
"True enough, Captain Grudd," said Stackridge. "But three or four of us,with our revolvers, can happen that way, and take him out of the handsof Ropes and his cowardly crew without much difficulty. I, for one, amgoing."
"Hapgood don't even believe in fighting!" observed Deslow, with immensedisgust; "and blast me if I am going to fight _for_ him!"
Carl was almost driven to despair by the indifference of these men andthe time wasted in discussion. He could have hugged the grim and bonyStackridge when he saw him make a decided move at last. Three othersvolunteered to accompany them. The cask was once more rolled away fromthe entranc
e, and one by one they crept quickly through the passage intothe first cellar.
Stackridge preceded the rest, to see that the way was clear. There wasno one at the bar; the door leading into the shop was closed; and Carl,following the four men, passed out by a long entry communicating withthe street, the door of which was thrown open to the public on occasionswhen there was a great rush to Jim's bar, but which was fastened thisnight by a latch that could be lifted only from the inside.