I had been so "harried" of late, that I felt a certain relief in being settled somewhere. The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent in making acquaintance with the Baltimorean blockade-runner, my room-mate, and in exchanging dreary prison civilities with the cells either side, through little tunnels pierced in the wall by former prisoners, which allowed passage to anything of a calibre not exceeding that of a rolled newspaper. A deep, narrow trough, ingeniously excavated in a pine-splinter, enabled us to pledge each other in mutual libations, devoted to our better luck and speedy release. The neighbors, with whom I chiefly held commune, were an Episcopal clergyman and a captain in the Confederate army. Of these, more hereafter. I breathed more freely when the temporary absence of my room-mate, for exercise, left me alone—for the first time since my capture—with my saddle-bags. They had been in Northern custody for four days, and subjected to the severest scrutiny: nevertheless, they still held certain documents that I was right glad to see vanish in the red heat of a fierce log fire.
CHAPTER IX.
CAGED BIRDS.
The miserable first-waking—dreariest of all hours that follow a great loss or disaster—came late to me. I had gone through a certain amount of knocking-about—mental and bodily—in the last week; and, for eight nights, the nearest approach to a bed had been the extempore couch of a railway-car. So, on an unhappy emaciated palliasse, covered by a dusty horse-rug (it took me four days to weary the jailer into a concession of sheets), I slept, all noises notwithstanding, far into my first prison-day. It was provokingly brilliant and warm; indeed I must, in justice to the Weather Office, allow, that its benignancy has scarcely been interrupted, since I ceased to care whether skies were foul or fair. My recollections of that first day are rather vague; but my impression is, that I had a good deal to think about, and did not in the least know how to begin. I paced up and down, as long as my knee would allow; it was still stiff and painful, though healing fast. In a room twelve feet by eight, you square the circle much too often for pleasure; but it was a week before I had any other exercise. Then, I believe, I made some attempts to improve the acquaintance of my room-mate.
He was not sullen, but, at first, somewhat saturnine and silent. The fact was that, for many days, he had been fasting from the luxuries dearest to every American heart—whisky and tobacco; for all money and clothes had been taken from him at the Provost Marshal's office, and never were returned: in these respects, after my arrival, he fared sumptuously, by comparison, and abated greatly of his discontent. I might have been much more unfortunate in my companion. He was not conversational, certainly, nor very amusing in any way; but he was cunning in all the small crafts of captivity, and kept our chamber swept and garnished to the best of his power. The way in which dust accumulated and renewed itself within those narrow limits, was little short of miraculous; you might brush till you were weary, and ten minutes afterwards things would look as though brooms had never been. Twining ropes out of sea sand, or any other of the tasks with which wizards have baffled fiends, were not more helpless than that on which my comrade busied himself each morning. The wood fire could not account for it; the nuisance increased when it became too warm to light anything but candles; so it must remain another of the physical puzzles concerning which we are perpetually wondering, where it all comes from, and are never likely to be satisfied.
Mr. C—— seemed by no means sanguine as to his own prospects, and took an early opportunity of advising me not to buoy myself up with hopes of speedy release. I can say, truly, that from the very first I did not so delude myself. Some of my Baltimore friends would fain have persuaded me that, in the utter absence of criminating evidence, I should not be detained long; I forbore to argue, but my opinion remained always the same. I had heard how tenacious was the grasp of Federal officials, unless loosened by more golden oil than I could then command. I had heard, too, how slowly aid or intercession from the free outer world could penetrate these mock-bastilles, and how reluctantly the authorities would grant the supreme favor of a hearing, or trial, to any whose condemnation was not sure. So I was prepared to resign myself to anything short of a month's incarceration; but even thus, I under-estimated the hospitable urgency of my amiable entertainers.
The return-wing of the main building in which we were confined, is occupied exclusively by the prisoners committed under a Secretary's warrant. These are much more closely guarded than the other inmates; but they have the advantage of being divided off into pairs, or threes at most, in their rooms, and their comforts are certainly better attended to. The regulations anent food and liquors are liberal enough; you can obtain almost anything by paying about twice its cost; but the privilege of having meals sent in, is not lightly valued by those who have once done battle with the boiled leather, called ration beef, contests in which passive resistance generally prevails.
The barred window of No. 20 looks out on the narrow yard wherein ordinary captives are allowed to disport themselves for three half-hours daily. It is a very motley crowd. There are no Confederate soldiers here; all these are confined in the Old Capitol; but of every other class you may see specimens.
I will try one or two sketches. It used to amuse me to guess at the profession of a captive from outward signs, and, after a little practice, one is rarely wrong.