Wonderfully pure and delicious it seemed, contrasted with the foul, vitiated atmosphere we had just left! How sweet smelled the hay and the husks! How infinite the "measureless content" which filled us at the remembrance that at last we were free! Hearing the prison sentinels, as they shouted "Ten o'—clock; a—ll's well!" we sank, like Abou Ben Adhem, into a deep dream of peace.
Our object in remaining here was twofold. We desired to meet Welborn, and obtain minute directions about the route, which thus far he had found no opportunity to give us. Besides, we anticipated a vigilant search. The Rebel authorities were thoroughly familiar with the habits of escaping prisoners, who invariably acted as if there were never to be any more nights after the first, and walked as far as their strength would permit. Thus exhausted, they were unable to resist or run, if overtaken.
Certain to be Brought Back.
The Commandant would be likely to send out and picket all the probable routes near the points we could reach by a hard night's travel. We thought it good policy to keep inside these scouts. While they held the advance, they would hardly obtain tidings of us. We could learn from the negroes where they guarded the roads and fords, and thus easily evade them. Our shelter, in full view of the garrison, and within sound of its morning drum-beat, was the one place, of all others, where they would never think of searching for us.
On the second morning after our disappearance, The Salisbury Daily Watchman announced the escape, and said that it caused some chagrin, as we were the most important prisoners in the garrison. But it added that we were morally certain to be brought back within a week, as scouts had been sent out in all directions, and the country thoroughly alarmed. Some of these scouts went ninety miles from Salisbury, but were naturally unable to learn any thing concerning us.
II. Monday, December 19.
Remained hidden in the barn. There was a house only a few yards away, and we could hear the conversation of the inmates whenever the doors were open. White and negro children came up into the hay-loft, sometimes running and jumping directly over the heads of Wolfe and Davis.
At dark, another friend, a commissioned officer in the Rebel army, came out to us with a canteen of water, which, quite without food, we had wanted sadly during the day. He was unable to bring us provisions. His wife was a Southern lady. Reluctant to cause her anxiety for his liberty and property, imperiled by aiding us, or from some other reason, he did not take her into the secret. Like most frugal wives, where young and adult negroes abound, she kept her provisions under lock and key, and he found it impossible to procure even a loaf of bread without her knowledge.
With his parting benediction, we returned to the field where we had waited the night before, and found Lieutenant Welborn, punctual to appointment, with another escaped prisoner, Charles Thurston, of the Sixth New Hampshire Infantry.