The flying Leaguers turning their heads to discover the author of this seeming sacrilege, beheld, instead, the accident which inspired it, and instantly faced about with changed resolution. The individual who first sounded the alarm, though, evidently, still frightened by the tones of his voice, repeated it in the same words; and this second reminder was followed by a feeble rally, directed at the rear of the speaker’s body. While this manœuvre was in course of evolution, a voice from the rear files shouted, “Forward!” but the effect of the command was so visible in widening the distance between the assaulting column and the object of attack, that a dead silence fell on the assembly, and, for the space of several minutes, each was busy for himself examining the salient points of the enemy’s position.
The gallant chairman having recovered his legs by this time, and seeing, by the spasmodic movement in the crowd, answering to that muscular feat, that something was expected of him, proceeded instantly to measures. Wearing a severe countenance, he called the house to order, and, looking around upon the assembly, announced a committee of five (greatly to the relief of the remaining threescore), whose duty it should be to rid the camp of the fell intruder. Why this had not been thought of before is one of the unsolved conundrums, and why it ever was thought of, the committee aforesaid are not yet prepared with a reply. Neither is there any good reason for the state of things which immediately followed, as a dead calm fell upon the assembly, which probably would not have been disturbed until this moment, if another of those fortunate occurrences, which seemed made to order for the occasion, had not reached the tide of League affairs at its swell.
Whether the machine was an eight-day affair, and had accomplished the moments of its destiny, or simply a piece of mechanism poorly planned, we are quite unable to say. But at the moment when the Quaker period of the aforesaid conference had reached its most eloquent passage, a cracking sound was heard in the vicinity of his ghostship, followed by a rattling explosion, whose fussiness could hardly be resembled to anything but an avalanche of dry bones hurled from some upper region; and, instantly, in obedience to this warning, a desire to forsake present surroundings for some less melancholy region took the form of an inspiration in the breast of each “politishun.” In what way this manœuvre would have been executed, if the chairman had persisted in the high-tragedy rôle he had assigned himself, by remaining to announce some plan of retreat, is another mystery connected with this event, with which we are not concerned beyond the bare announcement. But it is certain that that individual, taking time by the forelock, had made a successful advance on the rear window, carrying the sash with him, and that his followers were engaged in a very animated game of leap-frog, directed towards similar advantages at other angles of the building. In less time than is consumed by a record of the event, the doors were blocked with a mass of rolling, tumbling, somersaulting Leaguers. The windows had their full quota of struggling, sweating passengers. A large crack in the wall was in labor with three burly forms, and yet a score or more were unaccommodated, and, with heads ducked, were hurling themselves endwise against the retreating columns, with an energy which evinced the strong determination of each to avoid the fate of that hindmost unfortunate, whom Satan, from time immemorial, has exacted for toll.
But, though some confusion waited upon this exodus from the neighborhood of the big haunt, it was conducted with greater dispatch than had characterized any similar movement in the history of the rickety old building, and soon the boss straggler, having eluded the individual on two sticks by pigeon-winging it through a hole in the roof, rolled upon the green sward beneath with a grunt of overpowering relief.
When the building was completely deserted, and the swallows, half in doubt, had returned to their perch under its eaves, a sound, which could scarcely have been mistaken for aught but the hooting of an owl, broke the stillness of the neighboring forest, and was quickly replied to at the distance of perhaps a furlong in the opposite direction. The echoes awakened by these signals were still busy at hide-and-seek with the shadows in the old building, when two forms, clad in long robes and wearing high-peaked caps, crossed the plateau to its threshold, and giving way to an involuntary chuckle as they gazed first upon the wrecked surroundings, passed to its inner precincts. Perhaps a full minute elapsed before they reappeared at the entrance way, and, being joined here by a companion with two led horses, they placed their bags of cow-bones on the latter, and, mounting, galloped swiftly into the darkness.
CHAPTER VI.
GHOST FEATURE OF THE MOVEMENT. ITS PHILOSOPHY.
Contrasted Views of the Organization inspired by its Dealings with the Public—Its Political Bearing—Its Objects not deemed Harmful to Society—New England Transcendentalists, and the Ponderous Science which they put before the World under the Title of “Negropholism”—The Colored Man in the South—Kindly Feeling for the Race cherished by Native Southerners—Households Presided over by Colored Matrons—Superstitious Tendencies of Cuffey—One of the Conditions of his Tropical Nativity—Heathenish Lapses—His Ideas about “Ghosts,” and the Realm which they Inhabit—Interviewing the former—Spook Kinsfolk—He holds them in the highest Veneration—The ideal “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”—Wherein it was a Failure—The “Infantile Sex” and their Greed for Ghost-lore—Fighting their way through Legions of Shadowy Foes to their “Curtained Rest”—Young Professors of the Spiritual Science—Painful Reminiscences—Use to which the Aged Patriarch, or Beldam, as the Case might be, put their Prerogative—Talent for relating Ghost Stories—The Young White Men of the South trained up in this School—Insight into Negro Character obtained therefrom—K. K. K. Affectation of the Supernatural based upon the latter.