Cruel As the Grave 34 – Southworth · Verses Across
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 34The Pursuit
18
Literature · Romance
Cruel As the Grave 34
The Pursuit
SouthworthEnglish
Horse! horse! * * * * and chase!--MARNION.
Farmer Nye and Robert Munson remained standing with their heads uncovered, looking after the fugitives until the sound of their horses' hoofs died away in the distance, and then they turned towards each other and impulsively grasped each the other's hand, and shook hands as comrades.
Next Farmer Nye turned to the negroes who were squatting about the stable-yard, wondering, no doubt, at all they had seen and heard; and he told them to disperse to their quarters, and keep still tongues in their heads, if they wished to keep their heads on their shoulders.
"And now we'll go back to the house and get a drop of home-brewed, and go to bed," said the farmer, starting off at a brisk trot, and beckoning his young companion to follow him.
"I mean to manage so as Old Purley shall be made to believe as the prisoner escaped through his door," said Munson, as he came up.
"That'll be bully!" said the farmer.
They went back to the house, consulted the tall old-fashioned clock in the corner of the hall, found it was just eleven, and they took their drop of "home-brewed," and went to rest.
Robert Munson, with design, threw himself down upon the mattress outside the carefully locked door of the chamber, from which he had helped his prisoners to escape. And being very much fatigued, he fell asleep, and slept long and late.
The first persons up in the house were the farmer's daughter Kitty, and her old maiden aunt Molly.
They came down from their attic chambers and walked on tiptoes past the sleeping Munson, so as not to wake him. They went down stairs and had breakfast got ready, but had to wait very long before either the farmer or the young man appeared. When they did come down, however, and apologized for their tardiness, the women inquired for the other guests, and were told that they must not be disturbed.
The day passed slowly.
It was late in the afternoon before old Purley awoke and finding the room quite dark, and feeling himself still very drowsy, he merely turned over and went to sleep again. And still overpowered by the combined action of the laudanum and the beer-opium and hops, he slept on until a very late hour of the night, when at length he awoke; but perceiving that all was quite dark and still, he lay quietly in bed, thinking this was about the longest night he had ever spent in his life. At last he got up, and opened the blinds to see if it was near day. And perceiving by a faint light streak along the horizon that the morning was at hand, he opened the other blinds, and began to dress himself as well as he could in the semi-darkness.
By the time he had got on all his clothes, the day was a little lighter, and he went into the passage to see after the safety of his prisoner.
He found young Munson stretched upon the mattress immediately before the door.
"Quite correct," he thought; but he resolved to go up to the door to make a closer examination. First he saw that the key had been taken out of the lock.
"All right," he said to himself. "Munson has obeyed orders, and put the key in his pocket."
And then still farther to assure himself of the safety of his charge, he bent over the sleeping form of Munson and tried the lock, and found it fast.
"Quite correct! Nothing has been neglected. He is a careful officer, and shall be well reported at head-quarters," he muttered, with much satisfaction.
But to reach the lock at all, he had been obliged to bend so far over the sleeping body, that now, in trying to recover his perpendicular, he lost his balance, and fell heavily, nearly crushing and quite waking Munson, who, in struggling to throw off the burden, recognized old Purley, but pretending to mistake him for Mr. Berners, grappled him by the throat, exclaiming:
"No you don't you villain! You don't get her out of this room except over my dead body!" And he shook him furiously.
"It's me--me--me, Bob! Do-do-don't choke me to death!" gasped old Purley, as he struggled and freed his throat for an instant from the grasp of Robert's hands.
But Munson throttled and shook him more furiously than before, singing out:
"Help! murder! arson! Here's this man reskying of my prisoner!" And he shook him until his teeth rattled in his head.
"Oh, my good lord! I shall be strangled with the best of intention," sputtered the terrified and half-suffocated victim, as for an another instant he freed his throat from his assailant's clasp, and breathed again.
"Help! murder! fire!" yelled Munson, renewing the attack.
"Bob! Bob! It's me, I tell you!--Purley! Wake up and look at me! You're asleep yet! And oh, my lord! the man will murder me by mistake before I can make him know," panted the poor wretch, desperately striving to keep off the strangling hands of his assailant, and growing weak in the struggle.
And meanwhile the household, aroused by the outcry, had hurried on their clothes, and now came pouring into the passage--the women down the garret stairs, and the men up the lower back stairs.
"Now I've got you!" exclaimed Munson, triumphantly, as he knocked the feet from under Purley, and threw him down upon the floor. Then stooping to gaze at the fallen foe, he condescended at length to recognize him.
"Oh! is it you, Mr. Purley? I really thought it was Mr. Berner, reskying of his wife!" said Munson, with provoking coolness.
"Then I wish you would make surer another time, you stupid donkey! You've all but killed me!" panted the victim, wiping the perspiration from his face.
"What is the matter?"
"What's all this?"
"Is anybody hurt?"
Such were the hasty questions put by old Farmer Nye and his family, as they gathered around the scene of action.
"Yes! I'm choked and shaken nearly to death!" gasped old Purley, in a fury.
"It was done for the best," said Munson, soothingly.
"Oh, for the best, indeed! Set fire to you, would you murder an innocent man out of kindness?" fiercely demanded Parley.
"You see, he fell upon me, and woke me up. It was so dark here, with the window shutters closed, that I could not see well, so I mistook him for Mr. Berners broke loose and trying to carry off his wife," explained Robert Munson.
"Oh! well, I reckon you're not hurt much; only startled and shaken a bit! Come and take a glass of morning bitters. That will set you up again, and give you an appetite for your breakfast besides," said the farmer, kindly.
"Thank you. I'll take the bitters, if you will send them up here! I mustn't leave this floor until I see my charge out. And it's time for them to get up too!" replied Purley, rising and knocking loudly at the chamber door.
Of course there was no response.
He knocked again and again, more loudly than before, and he called to them in a high tone.
But still there was no answer.
"Good Lord, how sound they sleep! I will go around to the other door and rap there. It is near the head of their bed, and they will be sure to hear me."
And so saying, old Purley went to the adjoining chamber, where he had slept, dragged his mattress away from the door, and drew the key from his pocket, when, to his astonishment and terror, he found the door unlocked!
Without waiting an instant, from any scruples of politeness, he rushed into the room.
To his horror and amazement, he found it empty!
"They've gone! they've fled!" frantically exclaimed Purley, rushing back into the passage, where he found the other bailiff still on guard before the fast door, and the farmer waiting with the glass of bitters in his hand.
"Fled!" echoed Munson. "How can that be? This door as fast as it is?"
"Blast 'em! they've had the impudence to escape right through my door! and right over my body!" panted Purley.
"Then you can't blame me!" naively put in Munson.
"Who says I can?" angrily demanded Purley. "I can't blame anybody! And how the demon they managed to pick the lock and open the door, and climb over me, I don't know! Nor have we time to inquire!"
"Take your bitters, Mr. Purley," said the host, offering the glass.
The bailiff quaffed the offered restorative at a draught, and then said:
"Farmer, saddle a couple of horses for us, directly! We must pursue them without loss of time! They can not have got very far ahead of us in these few hours!" he added, being totally unconscious of the length of time he had slept, and the whole day he had lost.
"My--my horses will be busy all day hauling wood," replied the farmer.
"Don't care! I order you in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia, to saddle those horses, and place them at our disposal to pursue our prisoner," said Purley, in a peremptory tone.
The farmer was quite uncertain whether or not that was an order he was bound to obey; and besides, he was very unwilling that his horses should be taken off their work at all, and especially for the purpose of pursuing Sybil Berners. But still he felt that it would be safer for her, if not for himself, if he should yield to the demand of the sheriff's officer; he could put him on the wrong track, by counselling him to ride towards the east, while he knew that Sybil was far on her route to the west.
So without further demur, he went out to execute the order.
"And, farmer, when you have seen to that matter, I want you to gather all your men and maids into the breakfast room, that I may question them while I eat my breakfast, so as not now to lose a moment," he called after his retreating host.
All this was done as he directed. And when the family and the house servants were assembled in the breakfast room, and Purley examined and cross-examined them as to whether they had seen or heard anything of the prisoner or her husband during the night, they could all answer with perfect truth, that they had not. So old Purley got no satisfaction from them.
The bailiff hastily dispatched his breakfast, and the horses being ready, he called to his young assistant to follow him, and he went out and got into his saddle.
"Where the deuce am I to go after them, when there are so many roads to choose from?" groaned old Purley, in sore perplexity of spirit.
"Would they not be likely to make straight for the east and a seaport?" inquired farmer Nye suggestively.
"To be sure they would," exclaimed Mr. Purley. "So now, Munson, we will go right back upon the road we came last night," he added, being still in ignorance as to the lost day.
"And as the stable boy told me, they had taken the wagon horses to ride, and those horses were then fairly knocked up with fatigue, while ours are now quite fresh, we may very soon overtake them," put in Munson, artfully.
And waving their hats in adieux to the farmer and his family, they rode off at full speed in pursuit of the fugitives. But they had not ridden more than a hundred yards, and had but just reached the four cross-roads, when they were both startled by a shrill--
"Whist!"
They drew their reins, and looked around just as the head of a negro boy emerged from the bushes, exclaiming
"Hallo, Marster!"
"Who are you? What do you want?" demanded Purley.
"I'm Bill, and I don't want nothing. But I know what you want!"
"What do I want?"
"To know which way the run-a-way lady and gemplan went."
"I do know, they went this way," said Purley, pointing straight before him.
"No, they didn't neyther! they was too sharp for that, they said how you would be sure to search for 'em on that road, just as you are a doing of now; so they would take another road."
"That was likely too! Boy, do you know which road they took?"
"Yes, sirree."
"Then tell me."
"I will if you'll give me a quarter," was the moderate conditions of this treaty.
"Here, take it!" exclaimed Mr. Parley, pitching the boy the silver coin in question.
"Thanky, Marster," grinned the lad, picking up the treasure.
"Now tell me."
"Well, Marster, they went along that left han' road till they got to the next turning, and then they turned to the left ag'in and kept on that tact towards that gap in the mountain where you see the sun set in the arternoon."
"How did you know all this, boy?"
"I was out coon-hunting when I heerd them talking, and I listened and heerd all about it. And as I couldn't find any coons, I follyed arter them; and their horses was tired, as they kept on complainin' to each other. And so they went slow and I could keep up long of 'em."
"How far did you follow them?"
"Well, Marster! I couldn't help it! I follyed of 'em all night."
"And they never discovered you?"
"No, sar, they never did. I was barefooted and didn't make no noise, and keeped nigh the bushes on the roadside, and so they never found me out."
"And where did you part from them?"
"Well, Marster, I didn't part from 'em till I seed whar they stopped. And if you'll take me up behind you, I'll show you the way to the place where they are hiding. It an't fur from here, not so very fur, I mean."
"Oh! ho! that is good! So, so, my run-a-ways! I shall nab you, shall I?" exclaimed Purley in triumph, as he beckoned the negro imp to jump up behind him.
"But stop!" said Robert Munson, in an agony of terror for the safety of Sybil Berners. "Stop! What are you about to do? You are about to abduct Farmer Nye's slave!"
"Do you belong to Farmer Nye, boy? Though it don't matter a bit who you belong to. I'll take anybody I can lay hold of to guide me to the hiding-place of my prisoner--in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia," said this new bailiff, who seemed to think that formula of words, like an absolute monarch's signet ring, was warranty for every sort of proceeding.
"But I don't belong to nobody. I's fee, and so's mammy. We an't got no master, and I an't got no daddy to lord it over me!" put in the boy.
"That's right, jump up behind," said the elder bailiff. And as soon as little Bill was safely perched up in the rear of his patron, the latter put spurs to his horse and gallopped off at full speed.
They went down the left hand, or south fork of the cross-roads, and gallopped on until they reached the branch road leading west. They turned into that road and pursued it mile after mile, through field and forest, mountain pass and valley plain, until, late in the afternoon, they reached another mountain range, and heard the roaring of a great torrent. They entered the black gap, and slowly and cautiously made their way through it. By the time they had emerged from the pass, the night was pitch dark.
"How shall we ever find our way?" inquired Purley who, fatigued and half famished, was ready to sink with exhaustion.
"Do you see that then gabble ind stickin' up through the trees?" inquired the boy.
"Yes, I see it!"
"Well, him and her is in there?"
"Are you sure?" inquired Purley, anxiously.
"Here I is, Marster! If him and her ar'n't in there, here I is in your power, and you may skin me alive!"
"All right!" exclaimed Purley, and dismounting from his horse, he advanced towards the thicket, followed by Munson and the negro boy.
