We have before intimated that Captain Somers, besides being a brave and enterprising young man, was a philosopher. He had that happy self-possession which enables one to bear the ills of life, as well as the courage and address to triumph over them. He had done everything which ingenuity, skill, and impudence could accomplish to save himself from the hands of the rebel soldiers; from a rebel prison, if not from a rebel halter. He had failed; and, though it gave him a bitter pang to yield his last hope, he believed that nothing better could be done than to surrender with good grace.
“How are you, sergeant?” shouted he, when he had fully resolved upon his next step.
“Hallo!” replied the sergeant, laughing heartily at the hail from the bowels of the earth. “How are you, Yank?”
“In a tight place, sergeant; and I’ve concluded to back out,” replied Somers.
“Good! That’s what all the Yankees will have to do before they grow much older. Back out, Yank!”
Somers commenced the operation, which was an exceedingly unpleasant necessity to a person of his progressive temperament. It was a slow maneuver; but the sergeant waited patiently till it was accomplished, by which time the extra lamp and the pole had reported for duty.
“How are you, Yank?” said the sergeant, laughing immoderately at the misfortune of his victim.
“That’s the smallest hole I ever attempted to crawl through,” replied Somers, puffing and blowing from the violence of his exertions in releasing himself from his narrow prison-house.
“How came you in such a place?” asked the sergeant as they walked up the stairs.
“Well, my friend, the farmer here, suggested the idea to me. He said his son had crawled in there a great many times.”