University of Virginia Library

29. CHAPTER XXIX.
THE HEROINE OF THE MOUNTAIN.

OF the three captives, Will Mather, Jimmie, and
Tom, the latter had suffered the least as a prisoner
of war. A strong Freemason, he had
found friends at Columbia, where chance threw in his
way a near relation of his dead wife and a former classmate.
Though firmly believing in the Southern cause,
Joe Haskell from the first befriended Captain Carleton,

whom he finally helped to escape, giving him money, and
so far as he was able, directions where to go and whom
to ask for aid. Tom's imprisonment had been of short
duration, and thus it was, with vigor unimpaired and
spirits unbroken, that he found himself free on that very
night when Will Mather lay sleeping in the cave among
the mountains of Tennessee. But that “Refuge of
Safety” was many, many miles away, and Tom's route to
the land of freedom was a longer and far more dangerous
one than Will's had been. Still Tom had in his favor
health and strength, together with a knack of passing
himself off as a Southerner whenever an opportunity
was presented, and so for a week or more he
proceeded with comparatively little trouble; but at
the end of that time dangers and difficulties beset him
at every step, while more than once death or recapture
stared him in the face, either from the close proximity of
his pursuers, or the pertinacity of the blood-hounds
which were set upon his track. Escape at times seemed
impossible, and Tom's courage and strength were beginning
to give way, when one night, toward the last of
June, he found himself in a negro cabin, and an occupant
of a bed whose covering, though impregnated with the
peculiar odor of the sable-hued faces around him, seemed
the very embodiment of sweetness and cleanliness to the
tired and foot-sore man, who nearly all his life had slept
in the finest linen, with lace or silken hangings about his
bed. For linen now there was a ragged quilt, and the
bed was festooned with cobwebs, while from the blackened
rafters hung bundles of herbs and strings of peppers,
alternated here and there with the grimy articles of
clothing which old Hetty had washed that day for her
own “boys,” and in consequence of the rain had hung in
her cabin to dry. Coarse, heavy shirts they were, but
Tom, as he watched them drying on the pole, fell to
coveting the uncouth things, and thought how soft and
nice they would feel on his rough flesh. Then he
thought of home and Rose, and wondered what she
would say could she look in upon him in that negro hut,
with all those stalwart boys sitting by, while Hetty, their
mother, cooked the corn-cake, and fried the slice of
bacon for supper. Two sat just where Tom could see
them, while the third was near the door, keeping a
constant watch on the circuitous path leading from the
cabin to a large dwelling on the knoll,—“Marsr's house,”
—where to-night a number of young people were assembled
in honor of the return of the son and heir, Lieut.
Arthur, who had been in so many battles, and had a
taste of prison life at the North.

Though bitterly opposed to the Unionists, Arthur was
truthful, almost to a fault, as some of his auditors
thought to whom he was recounting the incidents of his
prison life. Comfortable beds, decent bread, well-cooked
meat, with plenty of pure air and water, he had received
from the hands of his enemies; and once, when for a
few days he was sick, he had been fed with toast and
jelly, and tea quite as good as Hetty could make, he
said. And while he talked more than one present
thought of the Southern prisons, where so many men
were dying from starvation and neglect; and one young
girl's eyes flashed angrily, and her nostrils quivered with
passion as she burst out with the exclamation:

“That's the story most of our prisoners tell when they
come back to us. Think you a like report will be carried
North, if the poor wretches ever live to get there?
I think it a shame to allow such suffering in our midst.”

This speech, which had in it the ring of Unionism, did
not startle the hearers as much as might be expected.

They were accustomed to Maude De Vere's outspoken
way, and they knew that when she first came among them
she was on the Federal side, and had opposed the secession
movement with all the force of her girl nature. As
yet no harm had been threatened her, for Maude was one
to whom all paid deference, and her clear arguments
touching the right of secession had done much toward
keeping alive a feeling of humanity for our prisoners in
the family where for months she had been a guest.

Squire Tunbridge—or Judge, as he was frequently
called—was her near relative, and as his only daughter
had died only two years before, and he was very lonely in
his great house, he had invited Maude to visit him, and
insisted upon her staying as long as possible. At first
he had laughed at her Yankee preferences, but when the
deaths at Salisbury and Andersonville increased so fast,
he shook his head sadly and protested against the cruelty
and neglect of the government. “He did not believe
in killing men by inches,” he said; “better shoot them at
once.” And still he would not willingly have harbored
a runaway on his premises, for fear of the odium which
would attach to him if the fact were known.

And so, when late that night, while Tom lay sleeping
in Hetty's cabin, and Hetty, up at the big house, was
waiting upon the guests and making secret signs to Maude
De Vere, there came a band of men into the yard in pursuit
of an escaped Yankee, the Squire roused at once,
saying that no one could possibly be hidden on his plantation
unless the blacks had secreted him. The negro
houses were close by; they could look for themselves. He
had supposed his servants loyal, but there was no telling
in these perilous times; and the old man's face flushed as
his Southern blood fired his zeal for the Southern cause.

In her evening dress of white, with her bands of glossy

black hair bound like a coronet around her regal brow,
Maude De Vere stood leaning upon the piano, her eyes
shining like burning coals, and her lips slightly parted
as she listened to the conversation, and then darted an
anxious glance toward the spot where Hetty had been
standing a moment before. But Hetty had disappeared,
and under cover of darkness was running and rolling and
slipping down the steep wet path, which led to her cabin
door.

Arrived there, she seized the sleeping Tom by the arm,
and exclaimed:

“Wake up, mars'r, for de dear lord's sake! De Seshioners
is come, and will be here in a minute! I'm mighty
'fraid even Miss Maude can't save you!”

Tom was awake in a moment and fully alive to the
danger of his condition. From the house on the knoll,
he could hear the excited voices of his pursuers, and the
sound made every pulse throb with fear.

“Tell me what to do,” he said, and Hetty replied,

“Kin you bar smotherin' for a spell? If you kin, git
under de ole straw tick, and lie right still and flat, and
you, Hal, buckle into marsr's place, as if 'twas you who've
been lyin' here all the time.”

Tom did not hesitate a moment, and had just straightened
himself under the straw bed, and drawn a long
breath as he felt Harry's body settling down above him,
when steps were heard coming down the path, and a
young man's voice asked of Hetty if she had any strangers
there—“any Yankees, you know; because if you have—”
the young man paused a moment and peered out into
the night to make sure that no one was listening, then, in
a whisper, he added, “Keep them safe, and remember,
Fleetfoot knows all the passes of the mountains between
here and Tennessee.”

A suppressed “thank God!” might almost have been
heard beneath the straw bed, while old Hetty exclaimed,

“The Lord bless Mars'r Arthur, and Miss Maude, too!
I know it is her doins.”

And Hetty was right, for Tom Carleton owed his escape
from that great peril, to Maude De Vere rather
than to Lieutenant Arthur. When the order was given
to search the negro quarters, Arthur had seen that in
Maude's face which constrained him to follow her when
she beckoned to him to come out upon the piazza.

“Arthur,” she said, putting her lips to his ear, “remember
the kind treatment you received from your enemies,
and be merciful. Don't let them find him, for
there is a Yankee soldier down in Hetty's cabin. She
told me to-night. Search her house yourself. Throw
them off the track. Anything to mislead them. Be
merciful. Do it, Arthur, for my sake.”

Always beautiful, Maude De Vere was dazzlingly so
now, as she stood before the young officer pleading for
Tom Carleton, and Arthur Tunbridge was more influenced
by her beauty, than by any party feelings. Assuming a
fierce, determined manner, he went back to the pursuers
and said,

“It's perfectly preposterous that one of those Unionists
should come here for protection, when it is well known
what we are. Still it may be. There's no piece of effrontery
they are not capable of. I know them well, just
as I knew every nook and corner of the negro cabins.
Stay here, gentlemen, and take some refreshment while I
search the quarters myself.”

Arthur Tunbridge wore a lieutenant's uniform. He
had been in the army from the very first; he had fought
in many a battle; had been a prisoner for four months,

while his father was known to be a staunch secessionist,
who was ready to sacrifice all he had for the success of
the cause he believed to be so just and righteous. There
could be no cheating in such a family as this, and so,
while Maude De Vere wore her most winning smile, and
with her own hands served cake and coffee to the soldiers,
Lieutenant Arthur went on his tour of investigation, and
brought back word that not a trace of a runaway had he
found, notwithstanding that every cabin on the premises
had been visited. A savage oath was the answer to this
report, but something in Maude's eyes kept the soldiers
in check and made them tolerably civil, as they mounted
their horses, and with a respectful good-night, rode off
in an opposite direction.

With a feeling of security after hearing from Hetty of
Maude De Vere, Tom came out from his hiding-place
and ventured to the open door of the cabin, where he
stood looking at the “big house” on the hill, from which
the guests were just departing. He could hear their
voices as they said good night, and fancied he could detect
the clear, well-bred tones of Maude De Vere, in
whom he began to feel so deeply interested. He could
see the flutter of her white dress as she stood against
a pillar of the piazza, with Arthur at her side, but her
back was toward him, and he could only see her well-shaped
head, which sat so erect and proudly upon her
shoulders. She was very tall, Tom thought, comparing
her with Mary, Annie, and petite Rose as she walked
across the piazza with Arthur, who, from comparison
seemed the shorter of the two. Profoundly grateful to her
as his probable deliverer, Tom went back into the cabin
and began to question Hetty with regard to the young
lady. Who was she, and where did she live, and how
came she so strong a Unionist?

“She's Miss Maude De Vere, bred and born in the old
North State, somewhars near Tar Run.” Aunt Hetty said.
“Her father was killed at first Bull Run, and then
her mother died, and she went to live with her uncle off
toward Tennessee in de hills. She's got an awful sight
of money, and heaps of niggers,—lazy, no count critters,—who
jest do nothing from morn till night. She and
Miss Nettie, Mars'r Tunbridge's gal, was great friends
at school, and Miss Maude was here when she died, and
has been here by spells ever since. Young mars'r think
she mighty nice, but dis chile don't 'zactly know what
Miss Maude do think of him. Reckon he's too short, or
too sessionary to suit her.”

This was Hetty's account of the young lady, who at
that very moment was listening with a defiant look upon
her face to Arthur Tunbridge's remonstrance against
what he termed her treasonable principles.

“They will get you into trouble yet. The war is not
over, as some would have you think. The North is
greatly divided. Be warned of me, Maude, and do not
run such risks as you do by openly avowing your Union
sentiments. Think what it would be to me if harm
should befall you, Maude.”

Arthur spoke very gently now, while a deep flush
mounted to his beardless cheek, but met with no reflection
from Maude De Vere's face. Only her eyes kindled
and grew blacker, if possible, as she listened to him,
first with scorn, when he spoke of treason, and then
with pity when he spoke of himself, and the pain it
would cause him if harm should come to her.

Maude knew very well the nature of the feelings with
which her kinsman, young Arthur Tunbridge, regarded
her. At first she had been disposed to laugh at him, and
his preference for an Amazon, as she styled herself; but Arthur

had proved by actual measurement that in point of
height he excelled her by half an inch, while the register
showed that in point of age he had the advantage of her
by more than four years, though Maude seemed the
elder of the two.

“Don't be foolish, Arthur, nor entertain fears for me,”
she said. “I am not afraid of Gen. Lee's entire army,
nor Grant's either, for that matter. My home at Uncle
Paul's has been beset alternately by either party, and I
have held a loaded pistol at the heads of both Federal
and Confederate, when one was for leading away Charlie's
favorite horse, and the other for coaxing off old
Lois to cook the company's rations. No, I am not
afraid, and if necessary I will guide that poor wretch
down in Hetty's cabin safely to Tennessee.”

Arthur's face grew dark at once, and he said, half
angrily:

“Maude, let that man alone; let them all alone. It is
not womanly for you to evince so much interest in such
people. For your sake I'll help this one get away, but
that must be the last; and remember, it is done for your
sake, with the expectation of reward. Do you consent
to the terms?”

Maude's nostrils quivered as she drew her tall figure
to its full height, and answered back:

“I could not prize the love I had to buy. No, Arthur;
I have told you once that you are only my brother, just
as Nettie was my sister. Believe me, Arthur, I cannot
give you what you ask.”

She spoke gently, kindly, now, for she pitied the young
man whose sincerity she did not doubt, but whose love
she could not return. He was not her equal, either
physically or mentally, and the man who won Maude De
Vere must be one to whom she could look up to as a

superior. Such an one she would make very happy, but
she would lead Arthur a wretched, miserable life, and she
knew it, and would save him from herself, even though
there were many kindly, tender feelings in her heart for
the young lieutenant.

She saw that he was angry with her, and as further
conversation was useless, she left him and repaired to
her room, the windows of which overlooked Hetty's cabin.

And there until daylight the noble girl sat watching
lest their unwelcome visitors of the previous night, failing
to find their victim, should return and insist upon
another search. As Maude De Vere said, she had held a
loaded pistol at the head of both Federal and Confederate,
when her uncle was sick, and the house was beset
one week by one of the belligerent parties and the following
week by the other. She was afraid of nothing,
and Tom Carleton, so long as she stood his sentinel, had
little to fear from his pursuers. But she could not ward
off the fever which for many days had been lurking in
his veins, and which was increasing so fast that when
the morning came he was too sick to rise, and lay moaning
with the pain in his eyes and complaining of the
heat, which, in that dark corner of the close cabin, and
on that sultry summer morning, was intolerable.

“Mighty poorly, with face as red as them flowers in
yer ha'r, and the veins in his forehead as big as my leg,”
was the word which Hetty brought up to Maude De
Vere the next morning, and half an hour later Maude,
in her pale buff cambric wrapper, with her black hair
shining like satin, went down to Hetty's cabin and stood
beside Tom Carleton.

He was sleeping for a few moments, and the drops of
perspiration were standing on his forehead and about
his lips. He was not worn and emaciated, like the most

of the prisoners and refugees whom Maude had seen.
His complexion, though bronzed from exposure, had not
that peculiar greyish appearance common to so many of
the returned prisoners, while his forehead was very
white, and his rich brown hair, damp with the perspiration,
clung about it in the soft, round curls so natural to it.

There was nothing in his personal appearance to awaken
sympathy on the score of ill-treatment, and yet Maude
felt herself strangely drawn toward him, guessing with
a woman's quick perception that he was somewhat above
many whom it had been her privilege to befriend. And
Maude, being human, did not like him less for that. On
the contrary, she the more readily brushed away the flies
which were alighting upon his face, and with her own
handkerchief, wiped the moisture from his brow, and
then felt his rapid pulse.

“He ought not to stay in this place,” she said, and she
was revolving the propriefy of boldly asking Squire Tunbridge
if he might be removed to the house, when Tom
awoke and turned wonderingly toward her.

He knew it was Maude De Vere, and something in her
face riveted his attention, making him wonder where he
had seen somebody very like her.

“You are sick,” she said to him kindly, as he attempted
to rise on his elbow, and fell back again upon the squalid
bed. “I am afraid you are very sick, but you are safe
here,—that is,—yes,—I know you are safe. None but
fiends would betray a sick man.”

She spoke rapidly, and Tom saw the bright color
deepen in her cheek, and her eyes flash with excitement.
She was very beautiful, and Tom felt the influence
of her beauty, and tried to draw the ragged quilt
over him so as to hide the coarse, grey shirt Hetty had
given him, and which was as unlike the immaculate linen

Tom Carleton was accustomed to wear as it was possible
to be.

“You are Miss De Vere, I'm sure,” he said, “and you
are very kind. I shall not tax your hospitality long. I
hope to go on to-night. Don't stay here, Miss De Vere;
you must be uncomfortable. It's hotter here than in
Massachusetts.”

“You are from New England, then?” Maude asked,
and Tom replied:

“From Boston,—yes,—your people hate us most of all
I believe,” and Tom tried to smile, while Maude answered
him,

“It makes no difference to me whether you are from
Maine or Oregon. You are sick and have come to us for
succor. I'll do what I can to help you.”

With the last words she was gone, her tall, lithe figure
bending gracefully under the low doorway, and the rustle
of her fresh, clean garments leaving a pleasant sound
in Tom Carleton's ears.

“A sick Yankee down in Hetty's cabin,—a Boston one
at that, with his Wendell Phillips notions, and you want
me to let him be brought up to this house, the house of a
Southern gentleman, who, if he hates one of the dogs
worse than another, hates the Massachusetts kind, whose
women have nothing to do but to write Abolition books
about our niggers. No, indeed; he shall not come an
inch, and by the Harry I'll send for the authorities and
have him bundled off to jail before night, with his camp
fever, and his Boston airs. Needn't talk. See if I don't
do it, and I'll have Hetty strung up and whipped for harboring
the villain. Treason under my very nose, and a
Yankee, too! Go away,—go away, I tell you. I won't

hear you. I hate 'em all for the cussedness there is in
'em.”

This was Squire Tunbridge's reply to Maude De Vere,
who had told him of Tom Carleton, and asked permission
to have him moved up to the house. Nothing
daunted, Maude went close up to him, and her beautiful
eyes looked straight into his as she said:

“Think if it was Arthur sick among his enemies.
They were kind to him, he says, and remember Nettie,
too. Had she lived she would have married a Northern
man. You liked Robert, and Nettie loved him. For her
sake let this man be brought to the house. He will die
there, where it is so close.”

“Serve him right for coming down here to fight us;
wish they were all dead. How are you going to get the
rascal up that confounded hill? Can he walk?”

Maude had gained her point, and with Mrs. Tunbridge,
who had a soft, kind heart, she hastened to make ready
a large, airy chamber, somewhat remote from the rooms
occupied by the family and their frequent guests. It was
not the best room in the house, but he would be safer
there than elsewhere, and Maude made it as inviting as
possible, by pulling the bed out from the corner to the
centre of the room, covering the plain stand with a clean,
white towel, and the table with a gaily-colored shawl of
her own. Then with Hetty and one of Hetty's sons she
started for the cabin, followed by the Squire himself.
Since the war began he had not seen a Yankee, and curiosity
as much as anything took him to Tom Carleton,
whom he assailed with a string of epithets, telling him
“to see what he'd got by making war on people so much
better than himself. Good enough for you,” he continued,
as, assisted by Hetty and Claib, Tom tried to walk
up the winding path, with Maude in front and the Squire

in the rear. “Yes, good enough for you, if you die like
a dog, and I dare say you will. Fevers go hard with you
Bunker Hill chaps. Claib, you villain, you are letting
him fall. Don't you see he hasn't strength to walk?
Carry him, you rascal!” And thus changing the nature
of his tirade the Squire thrust his cane against Tom's
back by way of assisting him up the hill.

He was human if he was not quite consistent, and his
face was very red, and he was very much out of breath
when the house was reached at last, and Tom was comfortably
disposed in bed.

“For thunder's sake, Hetty, take that grey, niggery
thing off from him,” the Squire said, pointing to the
coarse shirt Tom had thought so nice, when he exchanged
it for his dirty uniform. “If you women are going to
do a thing, do it decent. Arthur's shirts won't fit him,
I reckon, for Arthur ain't bigger than a pint of cider,
but mine will. Fetch him one, and for gracious sake
souse him first in the bath-tub. He needs it bad, for
them prison pens ain't none the neatest according to the
tell.”

In spite of his aversion to the Boston Yankees, the
Judge had taken the ordering of this one into his own
hands, and it was to him that Tom owed the refreshing
bath which did him so much good, and abated the force
of the fever, which nevertheless ran high for many days,
during which time Maude nursed him as carefully as if
he had been her brother. Arthur was absent when the
moving occurred, but when he found that it was done,
and the Yankee was actually an inmate of his father's
house, he concluded to make the best of it, merely remarking
that “they would be in a pretty mess if the
story got out of their harboring a prisoner.”

The Judge knew that, and in fancy he saw his house

burned down, and himself, perhaps, ridden on a rail by
his justly incensed neighbors. The fear wore upon him
terribly, until a new idea occurred to him. Maude, as
everybody knew, had long been talking of going back to
Tennessee, and what more natural than for Paul Haverill
to send an escort for her in the person of some
cousin or other, who was foolish enough to fall sick immediately
after his arrival. This was a smart thought;
and as that very day at least a dozen people called at the
Cedars, as the Judge called his place, so the dozen were
told of “John Camp,” sick abed up stairs, “kind of
cousin to Maude, and sent to see her home, by her Uncle
Paul.”

“Right smart chap,” the Judge said, feeling amazed at
the facility with which he invented falsehoods when once
he began. “Been a guerrilla there in the mountains, and
done some tall fightin', I reckon.”

This was the Judge's story, which his auditors believed,
wondering, some of them, why the visitor should
occupy that back chamber in preference to the handsome
rooms in front. Still they had no suspicion of the
truth. “John Camp” was accepted as a reality, and
kind inquiries were made after his welfare, as, day after
day, the fever ran its course, and Maude De Vere bent
over him, bathing his forehead, smoothing his pillows,
and brushing his hair, her white fingers insinuating queer
fancies into his brain, as, half unconscious, he felt their
touch upon his face, and saw the soft eyes above him.

At first Arthur had kept aloof from Tom, but as the
latter grew better, he yielded to Maude's entreaties and
went in to see him, feeling intuitively that he was in the
presence of a gentleman as well as of a superior. He
could not dislike him, for there was something about Tom
Carleton which disarmed him of all prejudice, and many

a quiet, friendly talk the two had together on the all-absorbing
topic of the day.

“He is a splendid fellow, if he is a Yankee,” was Arthur's
mental verdict, “and fine-looking, too,—finer a
hundred times than I,” and then there crept into his
heart a fear lest Maude should think as he did, and ere
he was aware of it, he found himself fiercely jealous of
one who was at his mercy, and whom, if he chose, he
might have removed so easily.