The Soldier Boy or Tom Somers in the Army Part 4

"You were so impolite as to close the door in our faces before we had finished our story," replied the immovable old sea captain.

"How dare you break in my door?" growled the squire.

"We shall do worse than that, squire, if you don't treat us respectfully."

"A man's house is his castle," added the squire, a little more moderately.

"That's very good law, but there isn't a house in Pinchbrook that is big enough or strong enough to s.h.i.+eld a traitor from the indignation of his fellow-citizens. We do not purpose to harm you or your property, if you behave like a reasonable man."

"You shall suffer for this outrage," gasped the squire, whose rage was increased by the cool and civil manner of Captain Barney.

"When you closed the door in my face, I had intimated that your fellow-citizens wish you to display the national flag."

"I refuse to do it, sir."

"Consider, squire, what you say. The people have made up their minds not to tolerate a traitor within the corporate limits of the town of Pinchbrook."

"I am no traitor."

"That is precisely what we wish you to demonstrate to your fellow-citizens a.s.sembled outside to witness an exhibition of your patriotism."

"I will not do it on compulsion."

"Then, sir, we shall be obliged to resort to disagreeable measures."

"What do you mean by that, sir?" asked the squire, who was evidently alarmed by the threat. "Do you mean to proceed to violence?"

"We do, Squire Pemberton," answered Captain Barney, decidedly.

"O my country!" sighed the victim, "has it come to this? The laws will no longer protect her citizens."

"That's very fine, sir. Do you expect the laws to protect you while you are aiding and abetting those who are trying to destroy them? Is there any law to protect a traitor in his treason? But we waste time, Squire Pemberton. Will you display the American flag?"

"Suppose I refuse?"

"We will pull your house down over your head. We will give you a coat of tar and feathers, and remove you beyond the limits of the town. If you ever come back, we will hang you to the nearest tree."

"Good Heaven! Is it possible that my fellow-citizens are a.s.sa.s.sins--incendiaries!"

"Your answer, squire."

"For mercy's sake, husband, do what they ask," interposed his wife, who had been an anxious listener in the adjoining room.

"I must do it," groaned the squire, speaking the truth almost for the first time in forty-eight hours. "Alas! where is our boasted liberty of speech!"

"Fudge! squire," replied Captain Barney, contemptuously. "If your friend Jeff Davis should come to Ma.s.sachusetts to-morrow, to preach a crusade against the North, and to raise an army to destroy the free inst.i.tutions of the country, I suppose you think it would be an outrage upon free speech to put him down. We don't think so. Up with the flag, squire."

"Fred, you may hang the flag out at the front window up stairs," said the squire to his son.

"All right, squire. Now a few words more, and we bid you good night. You may _think_ what you please, but if you utter another word of treason in Pinchbrook during the term of your natural life, the party outside will carry out the rest of the programme."

By this time Fred Pemberton had fastened the flag to one of his mother's clothes poles, and suspended it out of the window over the porch. It was hailed with three tremendous cheers by the mult.i.tude who were in waiting to discipline the squire, and exorcise the evil spirit of treason and secession.

The work of the evening was finished, not wholly to the satisfaction, perhaps, of a portion of the younger members of the a.s.semblage, who would gladly have joined in the work of pillage and destruction, but much to the gratification of the older and steadier portion of the crowd, who were averse to violent proceedings.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COMMITTEE COME OUT, AND TOM GOES IN.

While the committee which the loyal citizens of Pinchbrook had appointed to conduct their case with Squire Pemberton were in the house, engaged in bringing the traitor to terms, the younger members of the a.s.semblage were very impatient to know how matters were progressing. Thomas Somers was particularly anxious to have the affair brought to a crisis. In vain he and a few other of the young loyalists attempted to obtain a view of the interior of the house, where the exciting interview was in progress.

Captain Barney, on sh.o.r.e as well as at sea, was a thorough disciplinarian.

Of course, he was aware that his proceedings were technically illegal; that in forcing himself into the house of the squire he was breaking the law of the land; but it seemed to him to be one of those cases where prompt action was necessary, and the law was too tardy to be of any service. He was, however, determined that the business should be done with as little violence as possible, and he had instructed the citizens at the bridge to do no needless injury to the property or the feelings of the squire or his family.

When he entered the house, he had stationed three men at the door to prevent any of the people from following him. He had also directed them not to enter the yard or grounds of the house until he gave the signal.

These directions proved a great hards.h.i.+p to the boys in the crowd, and they were completely disgusted when they saw the flag thrown loose from the front window.

The mansion of Squire Pemberton was an old-fas.h.i.+oned dwelling, about a hundred feet from the road. In front of it was a green lawn, adorned with several large b.u.t.tonwood trees. There was no fence to enclose what was called the front yard. The crowd was a.s.sembled on this lawn, and agreeably to the directions of the leader, or chairman of the committee, none of them pa.s.sed into the yard in the rear and at the end of the house, which was separated from the lawn by a picket fence.

Boys are instinctively curious to know what is going on, and the "living room" of the squire, in which the exciting conversation was taking place, was in the rear of the house. The windows on the front were dark and uncommunicative. The boys were restless and impatient; if there was to be any fun, they wanted to see it. Thomas was as impatient as his fellows, and being more enterprising than the others, he determined, while obeying the instructions of Captain Barney in the spirit, to disobey them in the letter.

He had been a sufferer to the extent of two great wales on the calves of his legs by the treason of the squire, and no doubt he thought he ought to be regarded as an exception to those who were called on to observe the instructions of the chairman of the committee. Leaving the group of inquiring minds near the front door of the house, he walked down the driveway till he came to a rail fence, through which he crawled, and entered the field adjoining the garden of the squire. His fellow-citizens, men and boys, were too intently watching the house to heed him, and no one noticed his enterprising movement.

From the field, he entered the garden, and made his way to the rear of the house. But even here, he was doomed to disappointment, for Mrs. Pemberton had drawn her curtains. Our hero was not, however, to be utterly defeated, and as the curtains had not been fitted by an accomplished upholsterer, there were openings on either side, through which he might command a full view of the interior of the room.

Thomas proceeded slowly and cautiously to obtain a position which would enable him to gratify his curiosity, and witness the humiliation of the haughty squire. Beneath the window which, he had chosen to look through, there was a cellar door, from which a pile of seaweed, placed upon it to keep the frost out of the cellar, had just been removed. The adventurous inquirer crept up the slippery boards, and gained the coveted position. He could not only see the committee and the squire, but he could hear all they said. He was perfectly delighted with the manner in which the captain put the question to the squire; and when the latter ordered Fred to hang out the flag, he was a little disposed to imitate the masculine occupants of the hen-house, a short distance from his perch; but Tom, as we have before intimated, had a very tolerable idea of the principles of strategy, and had the self-possession to hold his tongue, and permit the triumphant scene within to pa.s.s without a crow or a cheer.

The battle had been fought and the victory won; and though Tom felt that he was one of the victors, he deemed it prudent, for strategical reasons, to commence a retreat. The cellar doors, as we have before hinted, were very slippery, having been thoroughly soaked with moisture while covered with the seaweed. When the hero of this unauthorized reconnoissance wheeled about to commence his retreat, his feet incontinently slipped up upon the inclined surface of the doors, and he came down heavily upon the rotten boards. This, in itself, would have been but an inconsiderable disaster, and he might still have withdrawn from the inconvenient locality, if circ.u.mstances had not conspired against him, as circ.u.mstances sometimes will, when they ought to be conciliatory and accommodating. The force with which Tom fell upon the decayed boards was too much for them, and the unlucky adventurer became another victim to the treachery of rotten wood, which has hurled so many thousands from time into eternity.

But Tom was not hurled so far as that on the present occasion, though for all practical purposes, for the succeeding half hour, he might as well have been a hundred fathoms under water, or beneath the wreck of a twenty-ton locomotive at the bottom of the river. That cellar door was a bad place to fall through, which may be accounted for on the supposition that it was not made to fall through. In his downward progress, Tom had unluckily struck his head against the side of the house; and when he landed at the bottom of the stairs, he was utterly oblivious to all distinctions between treason and loyalty. Tom was not killed, I need not inform the ingenious reader, or this would otherwise have been the last chapter of the story; but the poor fellow did not know whether he was dead or alive.

In fact, he had not sense enough left to consider the question at all; for there he lay, in the gloom of the traitor's dark cellar, silent and motionless--a solemn warning to all our young readers of the folly and wickedness of indulging an illegal and sinful curiosity. It may seem cruel and inhuman in us to forsake poor Tom in this sad plight; but we must, nevertheless, go up stairs, in order that the sufferer may be duly and properly relieved in due and proper season.

When the committee of three, appointed by the indignant loyalists of Pinchbrook, had completed their mission in the house of the squire, like sensible men they proposed to leave; and they so expressed themselves, through their spokesman, to the unwilling host. They put their hats on, and moved into the front entry, whither they were followed by the discomfited traitor. They had scarcely left the room before a tremendous crash greeted the ears of that portion of the family which remained in the apartment. This was the precise moment at which poor Tom Somers found himself on the bottom of the cellar; or, to be entirely accurate, when he lost himself on the bottom of the cellar.

Mrs. Pemberton heard the crash, and she very naturally concluded that the hour of retribution had actually come; that the terrible mob had commenced the work of destruction. To her "fear-amazed" mind it seemed as though the whole side of the house had fallen in, and, for a moment, she confidently expected the chimneys would presently go by the board, and the roof come thundering down upon the devoted heads of her outraged family. Perhaps, at that terrible moment, she wished her husband had been like other women's husbands, a true and loyal man, cheering the old flag, and hurling harmless anathemas at the graceless rebels.

But the chimney did not go by the board, nor the roof come thundering down upon her head. There was not even a sound of destruction to be heard, and the sides of the house seemed to be firm and decided in their intention to maintain their perpendicular position. A few minutes later, when the committee announced to the mult.i.tude the success of their undertaking, and Fred had displayed the flag from the window, peal upon peal of stunning huzzas saluted her ears, and the awful peril of the preceding moments appeared to be averted. The squire, having closed and barricaded the broken door as well as he could, returned to the room, with curses deep and bitter upon his lips. He was not in the habit of swearing, but the magnitude of the occasion seemed to justify the innovation, and he swore hugely, roundly, awfully. He paced the room, ground his teeth, and stamped upon the floor.

"Father, did you hear that terrible racket just now?" asked Mrs.

Pemberton. "I thought the side of the house had fallen in."

"What racket?" demanded the squire, pausing in his excited walk.