Border and Bastille

by George A. Lawrence

"My blood-stained veteran," I said, "what has raised your apoplectic valor?"

I think he was rather ashamed at being caught; but he grumbled out, sulkily rough, something about—"If they don't keep their —— heads in, they'll get more than they ask for." I followed the direction of his eyes, and there, on the third story, sat two of the quietest-looking middle-aged women I ever beheld. They were evidently new arrivals, and had not heard of the injunctions against putting heads out windows: for they were staring down in blank astonishment, unconscious that the blatant threats were leveled at them. Now, the ingenious juggler who packed himself into a bottle, might possibly have succeeded in infringing the aforesaid rule: no other human being could have got his cranium through the bars. I suspect, it was simply an outbreak of the plethoric sentry's irrational ferocity (he had been sweltering under a burning sun for two hours) on the first helpless object that came across him; for I could not make out that the women had answered or aggravated him. I addressed to my friend many compliments on his prowess—trusting that his soldierly zeal would be appreciated in higher quarters. Nevertheless, I presumed to suggest that it would have been wiser to have begun with the baby: if he could frighten that into fits, his rapid promotion must have been insured. I believed that Brigadier Turchin would soon want an aide, and who knows? &c.

In a few minutes he waxed frightfully wroth; but he had already broken the non-conversation orders, and I would not allow him to fall back upon these now. At last he retreated to a part of his beat where I could not follow him, and there growled and ground his teeth till my time was up. The corporal who was my immediate guard tried to excuse his comrade, hinting that "he wasn't quite right in the head." Possibly this may have been one of his "off-days." The jest of that afternoon was turned into bloody earnest before three weeks had passed.

Not long after this I had a pleasanter incident to chronicle. As I entered the yard one day, my guard remarked with a broad grin: "Somethin' new up there, Colonel."

The indiscriminate appropriation of military titles here, is, of course, proverbial, though common prudence made me very careful not to claim a fictitious rank, after leaving Baltimore, where I was well known. I got a brevet-step with almost every change of place or association; disclaimers were never listened to.

Through the bars of a second story window that fronted each turn of my tramp, I saw—this. A slight figure in the freshest summer toilette of cool pink muslin; close braids of dark hair shading clear pale cheeks; eyes that were made to sparkle, though the look in them then was very sad, and the languid bowing down of the small head told of something worse than weariness.

Truly, a pretty picture, though framed in such rude setting, but almost as startling, at first, as the apparition of the fair witch in the forest to Christabelle. Slightly in the background stood a mature dame—the mother, evidently. No need to ask what their crime had been; aid and abetment of the South suggested itself before you detected the ensign of her faith that the demoiselle still wore undauntedly—a pearl solitaire, fashioned as a single star. I may not deny that my gloomy "constitutional" seemed, thenceforward, a shade or two less dreary; but, though community of suffering does much abridge ceremony, it was some days before I interchanged with the fair captives any sign beyond the mechanical lifting of my cap when I entered and left their presence, duly acknowledged from above. One evening I chanced to be loitering almost under their window; a low, significant cough made me look up; I saw the flash of a gold bracelet and the wave of a white hand, and there fell at my feet a fragrant pearly rosebud nestling in fresh green leaves. My thanks were, perforce, confined to a gesture and a dozen hurried words, but I would the prison beauty could believe that fair Jane Beaufort's rose was not more prized than hers, though the first was a love token granted to a king, the last only a graceful gift to an unlucky stranger. I suppose that most men, whose past is not utterly barren of romance, are weak enough to keep some withered flowers till they have lived memory down, and I pretend not to be wiser than my fellows. Other fragrant messengers followed in their season, but, if ever I "win hame to mine ain countrie," I make mine avow to enshrine that first rosebud in my reliquaire, with all honor and solemnity, there to abide till one of us shall be dust.

I heard from Lord Lyons about once a week. Though my letters were always answered most promptly, the replies never reached me within eight days. All correspondence, going or coming, passes the inspection of the Provost Marshal and the Superintendent, and letters are forwarded and delivered—sooner or later—the whole thing resolving itself into a question of official memory or convenience. I did not doubt from the first, that no intercession, that could properly be exercised, would be spared. If repeated applications and strong representations could have availed, I should have been free long ago. But many autocrats might take a lesson from the insolent indifference of this Administration, when an argument or a request is to be set aside; it is exactly in proportion to the pliancy they display when confronted with demands enforced by a substantial threat. Lord Lyons' reputation for courtesy and kindness of heart stands too high to need any testimony of mine; but I cannot forbear here expressing my sense of his good offices, and I am not the less grateful, because these words are written on the fifty-sixth day of imprisonment.

To one member of the Legation, I am indebted for far more than official benevolence. On the second day after my committal, Percy Anderson brought up himself to the Old Capitol, a package containing cigars, books, newspapers, &c., which, he was told, would be transmitted to me "right away." I trust that the contents satisfied the critical tastes of the officer on guard; for from his clutches no fragment emerged. I never even heard of the kind intention, till weeks had passed; and, of many papers afterwards forwarded by the same hands, only one packet reached me.

All this time, my reverend neighbor was pressing on in earnest his preparations for escape. His room-mate was a young Marylander, who had served some time on the staff of the Confederate army; he was captured at his own home, whither he had returned for a hurried visit, and was now detained as a "spy;" this vague and marvelously elastic charge is always laid, when it is desirable to exclude a prisoner from the conditions of exchange. The plan of evasion was very simple. After passing through the floor into the attic, and thence out through the dormer-window, they had to crawl over about eighty feet of shingle-roof—not slippery at all, nor particularly steep—along the ridge, except where they had to descend a little to circumvent the chimney-stacks; this brought them to another dormer, giving admission to a house in the same block of building, but not connected with the prison. The parson believed this to be uninhabited; and the event proved either that he was right, or that the inmates were friendly. After several false starts, they decided on making the attempt on the 1st of May.