“We’re in luck,” he said joyously. “I stole across to where that light is, and found it came from a little stone house. I crept into the garden on my hands and knees—there was no dog there, thank heaven—and managed to get a glimpse into the parlor through a half-closed blind. There sat a sweet-faced, white-haired old gentleman, evidently a minister of the gospel, reading a chapter from the scriptures to an elderly lady and two girls—his wife and children I suppose. He can’t have heard anything about our business yet—for I heard him ask one of the girls, after he stopped reading, what all the blowing of locomotive whistles meant this afternoon—and she didn’t know. So we can drop in on them to-night, ask for supper and a bed, and be off at daybreak to-morrow before the old fellow has gotten wind of anything.”
Soon they were off, Watson, George and Waggie, and covered the fields leading to the house in unusually quick time for such tired wanderers. When they reached the gate of the little garden in front of the place George asked: “What story are we to tell?”
“The usual yarn, I suppose,” answered Watson. “Fleming County, Kentucky—anxious to join the Confederate forces—et cetera. Bah! I loathe all this subterfuge and deceit. I wish I were back fighting the enemy in the open day!”
They walked boldly up to the door of the house and knocked. The old gentleman whom Watson had seen soon stood before them. The lamp which he held above him shone upon a face full of benignity and peacefulness. His features were handsome; his eyes twinkled genially, as if he loved all his fellow-men.
Watson told his Kentucky story, and asked food and lodgings for George and himself until the early morning.
“Come in,” said the old man, simply but cordially, “any friend of the South is a friend of mine.”
The minister (for he proved to be a country preacher who rode from church to church “on circuit”), ushered the two Northerners and the dog into his cozy sitting-room and introduced them to his wife and two daughters. The wife seemed as kindly as her husband; the daughters were pretty girls just growing into womanhood.
“Here, children,” said the old man, “get these poor fellows some supper. They’re on a journey to Atlanta, all the way from Kentucky, to enlist. And I’ll see if I can’t rake you up a couple of coats and some old shoes.”
He disappeared up-stairs, and soon returned with two half-worn coats and two pairs of old shoes, which he insisted upon presenting to the fugitives.
“They belong to my son, who has gone to the war,” he said, “but he’d be glad to have such patriots as you use them. How did you both get so bare of clothes?”