University of Virginia Library

VIII.—CURRIE'S SCHOOLHOUSE.

Currie, Cook, Tidd, Leeman, Byrne.
Tidd
The arms are in the wagon.

Cook.
We must unload, and leave them here till dusk.
Our forces now can hold the roads, and soon
We shall be freemen of the hills. Leeman,
You can escort our prisoners to the town.
Byrne, you shall not be harmed; in all our aim,
'T is but to free the slave,—for that we fight.

Leeman.
March, if we're going; the time is up;
It is a sleepy world, the day's too cold,
And this sharp drizzling mist pierces me thro',—
Freedom will owe us something on our skins.

Cook
'T is nothing, Leeman, my poor boy; 't is heaven
To what we did in Kansas.

Byrne.
If you had stayed there, I should not have cried.

Cook.
It is no accident that fetched us here.
You must proceed and go before the judge.
He may exchange you for a negro boy,
Or keep you as a hostage. Nothing fear;
Your rights will be respected.

Byrne.
From the Federal troops I look for that,
And do not ask your leave.

Leeman and Byrne go out.
Currie.
My scholars are much frightened with your doings,
And know not what they mean. Were it not well
To let them forth? They cannot study now.

Cook.
Yes, presently; leave them with us awhile.

Currie.
One of my boys now I should like to take
Home to his house; he seems quite ill.

Cook.
Well, go your ways; lug in the boxes!
You must not feel alarmed. All those
Who voluntarily free their slaves
We shall protect; the rest we must employ
For our supplies, and confiscate their means.
Tidd, this is a weighty business; I mean,
The boxes crammed with guns, some hundred-weight;
And, in the cabin, those nine hundred pikes,—
We cannot go and bring them; there they rest.
Hark! the guns again! There's fighting forward.
Down at the Ferry our men are in the brush,—
The slaves will come by hundreds at that sound.

A Slave.
Master, there be no hundred slaves to come!
Why you have lived there at the Ferry, years;
That is the white man's country.

Cook.
Yes, it is so. I mean far off, from Charlestown,
Or Winchester, and Martinsburg,—that way.
As apt as runs the prairie fire alight,
Swift pacer thro' the dry November grass,
Licked by the persuading breeze that bears
Its ceaseless wave o'er the vast rolling fields,—
So this eruption, blazing on the sleep
Of that dead pageantry, the planter's shroud,
Shall burn it to a cinder, and calcine
The vampire beak that feeds on human gore.

A Slave.
Master, that may be, or may not.

Cook.
Certainly, boy; yet you believe in freedom?

A Slave.
Yes, Captain; ye see the slaves are stupid,
And half the time asleep; if they could wake,
They might get started somewhere.

Tidd.
'T is a bold argument. Sleep is a fact.
Poor Leeman! what a child, scarcely across
His brow twenty brief years have run, and this,—
There 't is again! That's sure the crack of rifles
From our men; I know their ring too well.

Cook.
The mischief's on us to be stationed here,
Just on the line of action, with hands tied
To all that's going forward. Matters not,—
Such is the Captain's order, and I'd hang
Over the gibbet, if he spoke the word,
If on the other side a bed of down
Gaped for my carcass.

Tidd.
How long are we to hold this watch, here in
This lonely hollow, made for darksome deeds,
Rather than childish pranks? and what on earth,
What can be done with all this store of arms
And heap of pikes and cartridges and food?
They have no wings, and we have simply legs.

Cook.
Crack, crack! Sharp work is going, and I hear
Surely the beat of drums, faintly and far!
Yes, I am not deceived, the troops have come,—
The railroad whistle! My God, the Captain's lost!