Chapter XVII: The Guerrilla’s Encampment

Into a forest far they thence him led,
Where was their dwelling in a pleasant shade,
With mountains round about environed.
And mighty woods which did the valley shade,
And like a stately theatre it made,
Spreading itself into a spacious plain;
And in the midst a little river played
Amongst the pumy stones and seemed to ‘plain
With gentle murmur that his course they did restrain.—SPENSER.

The forest was almost impenetrably thick and intensely dark. The closely intermingling boughs overhead shut out every ray of starlight. And the moon had not yet risen. The darkness, the stillness and the silence of this wilderness was very solemn and almost appalling and overpowering. No object could be seen; they moved through thickest night and blackest shadow; nothing could be felt but the dampness of the air and the cold touch of the clustering leaves, and no sound could be heard but the muffled tread of their horses’ hoofs, the hoarse hoot of an owl, or the shrill cry of the whippowil.

Their progress through the forest was necessarily very slow, for the band was partly on foot, and the cavalry had to accommodate its pace to the infantry, whom it did not wish to leave behind. The path also was often so narrow and obstructed that they had to march in single file, Captain Bannister leading the way, followed by Colonel Rosenthal and a guard and young Wing, and another guard and Hay, and then the horse and lastly the foot.

After marching on in this tedious manner for nearly forty minutes, they came suddenly upon a picket guard so well concealed that though they—the pickets—could command the approach to their station, no one not familiar with their cover could suspect their presence there.

All in the darkness, the arriving band was challenged with the usual:

“Who goes there?”

Captain Bannister answered and gave the pass-word: and then exclaimed:

“You are as dark as the Stygian lake here, Griffin! What the d—— do you mean by it? I had nearly ridden over you.”

“The orders were to show no lights, Captain.”

“Humph! What is the news, Griffin?”

“Wiley has captured a sutler’s wagon with a lot of liquor and provisions, Captain. The major will feast you all to-night and give the men double rations, and to-morrow we are to have double rations of food and grog also.”

“That _is_ good news indeed, Griffin, to men who have been on short commons as long as we have.”

“Hope you’ve had success, Captain. So dark I can’t see who is with you, sir.”

“Yes, we have secured the rich prize we went to seek. Good night, Griffin,” said Bannister, passing on his way, followed by all his band.

The approach to Monck’s camp was very strongly picketed; they passed several other guards, but all concealed in thick wood and deep darkness, out of which they watched and listened like crouching tigers for their prey.

At length the band emerged from the forest and came upon the deep and narrow river, beyond which arose a nearly perpendicular range of mountains, dimly seen in the starlight.

Here the officer in command of the party halted and took a whistle from his pocket and blew a shrill blast.

It was answered from the other side; and almost immediately the plash of oars was heard, and a ferry-boat was seen to move across the water.

It was little better than a scow; but it accommodated the three prisoners with their immediate guard. When they were all in the boat, Captain Bannister told the ferryman to make haste and put them across the river; and the ferryman and his assistants promptly obeyed, laying themselves to their oars with good will.

While they were crossing the captain questioned the ferryman:

“What news in the camp, Horne?”

“Well, sir, Sergeant Wiley and about thirty of the men surprised a sutler’s wagon that was a straggling behind its train, and captured it, with three prisoners and a quantity of stores. All the men but the pickets had double rations. The major wouldn’t give them double because he wanted them to be very sharp to-night; but to-morrow they are to have double grog as well as double rations.”

“Yes—I heard about that. Anything else?”

“Well, sir, Captain Miller has gone out with his company to waylay a train of army wagons as our scouts report to be crossing the valley, on their way to W.; but he is not expected back to-night.”

“I am sorry to hear that. I think it was a bad move. The valley is all up, bristling with Yankee rifles. A little devil of a spy got into the camp of the Free Sword, and afterwards ran away and betrayed his retreat to the Yankees. He had to evacuate his camp in great haste.”

“What a blasted bit of bad luck!” exclaimed the ferryman.

“Yes; and that is not all. Goldsborough—well, he’s not the first great soldier that ever lost the world for a woman—Goldsborough, instigated by the demon, made a dash across the river below the Point of Rocks and surprised a picnic party for no other purpose than to carry off a certain girl.”

“What a blamed fool—begging your pardon, Captain!”

“Yes, he was all that. And, the result of all this is that there are no less than three companies of cavalry out in search of us in different directions. The chances are that Miller will meet with some of them.”

As Captain Bannister spoke the boat grated upon the sands of the shore, and the party prepared to land.

The captain walked his horse out first, and was followed by the others of the party in the same manner.

Leaving the ferryman to go back after the remainder of the band, Captain Bannister led his party by a steep, narrow and winding path up the mountain side, passing many picket guards, by whom they were challenged, and to whom he gave the countersign.

As they reached the summit, the moon, large, round, and red as a ball of fire, was rising behind a dark, green cedar wood in the valley before them.

“There are the head quarters of Major Monck,” said the captain to his prisoner, pointing down into the thickly wooded valley.

He then led the way down this side of the mountain by a path as steep, narrow and winding as that by which they had ascended on the other side, and they met as many pickets as before.

Arrived at the foot of the precipice, the captain led the way into the cedar thicket, “where path there was none;” but by some occult method of his own, or some signs unintelligible to the uninitiated, he took his party on until they came to a low worm-fence surrounding a clearing in the very centre of the woods.

At regular intervals of space sentinels marched to and fro before this fence.

One of them challenged Captain Bannister, who gave the countersign, and immediately passed with his party through the gate.

Within the rude enclosure, which seemed to have been an old field, there was a busy, picturesque, enlivening scene.

Camp fires were scattered all over the area, and around them were grouped the men—some cooking their rations; some eating their suppers; some drinking whiskey, smoking pipes, and playing cards, and some lying flat upon their stomachs, with their limbs extended, their elbows resting on the ground, and their heads bowed upon their hands, while, by the light of the blazing pine knots, they studied the pictorial papers which were a part of the plunder that had been taken from the captured sutler’s wagon.

Through this crowd the captain conducted his party towards an old, common-looking and rather dilapidated farm-house that stood among its out-buildings at the farther end of the area. Beyond these buildings groups of cows and horses might be dimly seen.

The whole place was a combination of a ruined farm and a military encampment.

The house itself, on nearer approach, was seen to be a large, rude wooden building of one story, with a very steep roof, and with a rough piazza running the whole length of the front. One large door, with a window on each side, opened upon this. Here also were groups of men lounging on the steps and in the corners, while before the door a sentinel stood guard.

Captain Bannister dismounted, and signed to his prisoners to do the same. Then he called a man to take the horses, and beckoned the prisoners to follow him.

He led them by the front door into a large passage running through to the back of the house, and from which other doors opened leading into rooms on the right and left.

This passage was dimly lighted by a tallow candle, stuck into a tin sconce nailed against the wall.

Several soldiers were lounging here, and three or four were guarding a small group of prisoners at the farther end of the place.

A sentinel stood before the second door on the left hand.

“Remain here with your attendants if you please, Colonel, while I go in and make my report to my major,” said Captain Bannister, politely addressing his captive.

Then turning to some of the lounging soldiers, he called them to come and guard these prisoners.

Four of the men approached at his bidding, and gathered around Colonel Rosenthal and his young orderlies.

Meanwhile the captain entered the second door on the left, which was guarded by a sentinel, and which was probably the office of the guerrilla chief.

Colonel Rosenthal, left with his party, looked around upon the contracted scene, noticed the dilapidated walls, the uneven floor, the ricketty doors of the hall, and the ragged, wretched, famished aspect of its guerrilla occupants.

Then he turned his eyes towards the extreme back of the place, where, in a dark corner, were the three other prisoners, with their guard about them.

Two of these prisoners were men, and they were standing up, and even in this obscure light, Colonel Rosenthal thought he could recognize something familiar in the aspect of the taller of these men.

The third prisoner was a woman, and was seated on the ground, with her apron thrown over her head.

While Justin was still looking at the group, and trying to remember who the tall man might be, the latter stooped and whispered to the woman, who then suddenly threw her apron down and turned her head.

Justin was standing where the faint light of the candle in the sconce fell upon him, and, though he could not distinctly see the other prisoners in their obscure corner, they could see him quite plainly.

So, the instant after the woman had turned her head towards him, she leaped up and sprang past her guards before they could prevent her, and almost threw herself into Justin’s arms, exclaiming frantically:

“Och, glory be to the Lord! is it yourself, Mr. Rosenthal, dear?—And how is Miss Conyers, sure?”

“JUDITH!” cried Justin, in unbounded astonishment.

“Och, yis; it’s meself, sure, Lorrd kape me!”

“I am glad and sorry to see you, my girl. How came you here?” inquired Justin.

“And is it how came I here? Sure didn’t thim bastes iv gorrillas—divil burn thim, for they’re worse nor the pirates thimselves—didn’t they saize our wagon, and rob us iv every blessed thing we possessed in the world, and thin bring us here? That the Lorrd may smite thim!” exclaimed Judith, fervently.

“Then you belonged to that sutler’s wagon which was captured?” inquired Justin.

“First and foremost, I belonged to the divil himself, or I niver would be torminted as I am!” said Judith, impatiently.

“But you _were_ in the sutler’s wagon, were you not?” again inquired Justin.

“Oh, ay, yes; bad luck to it, I was in the sutler’s wagon whin thim haythins saized it. And be the same token, I hope you’ve come with your army to hang ivery one iv thim!”

“Why, Judith, what are you thinking of, my girl? Don’t you see that I am a prisoner like yourself?” said Justin.

“You a prisoner! Sure the thaives niver had the impudence to make you a prisoner?” exclaimed Judith, in consternation.

“It is as you see, my girl,” answered Colonel Rosenthal, smiling in spite of his misfortunes.

“Thin the world must be coming to an ind! And serve it right; for it’s a baste iv a world altogether, where a Christian can’t sail upon the say without the fear iv shipwrecks, and desert islands, and say-fights, and pirates, and the like; and can’t travel upon the land itself without falling among thaives!” exclaimed the woman.

“But, Judith, my girl, how did you happen to be among the sutlers?” inquired Justin.

“D’ye see me gay Tom there, with his head bound up? He is always getting his crown cracked, is me gay Tom. If he hadn’t a hard Scotch head, he’d been dead long ago. D’ye see him, mind?”

“Yes,” replied Justin, now turning to look again at the tall man, and recognizing McAlpine.

“Well, sure, me gay Tom, bad luck to his Scotch greediness for money, must turn sutler, so he must. And so that was the way I came to be among them; for ye didn’t think I was going to lave him to his own devices so far as to let him go alone, did ye?”

“I don’t know,” laughed Justin; “but how came you to be captured?”

“Sure the divil got into the horses, and we couldn’t make them go along, and keep up with the train; and we fell behind! That was how it was, let alone the fact that if there is any sort iv a misfortune at all at all, going round, meself is always sure to fall into it! Sure and wasn’t I shipwrecked, and left for dead on a baste iv an island? And didn’t I meet with thim haythen iv pirates, and get into a say fight? And don’t it follow in coorse that whin I took to the suttling line iv business I should fall among thaives? Sure it’s me luck!—Tom! bad manners to ye! why don’t ye come and spake to the gentleman?” inquired Judith, suddenly breaking off from her discourse, and addressing her husband.

McAlpine, nodding and growling something in reply, made a step forward to comply with this suggestion. But the guard who had permitted the woman to talk to the new prisoner, would on no account allow the man to do so, and Judith’s gay Tom had to keep his place.