Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15.djvu/298

290 even dreamy speculation. Drake, in short, was going to the bottom with his theory about his neck, when a "Providence,"–the modern way of dodging an acknowledgment to God, whom, by the by, our poor boy had quite omitted in his little theory of self-preservation,–in the curious shape of an official blunder, stepped in to his rescue. A cook-house was in erection without the limits of their pen, and, though no carpenter, Drake was set with others to work under guard. The first glimpse of the open country, stretching away to meet the low horizon, brought back the half-forgotten thought of Freedom; and the very trail of her robe is so glorious, that even this poor savage liberty of rock and clod roused in him anew wit to devise and courage to endure. He worked then so merrily and with such good heart, that an admiring inspector more than hinted "at the pity it was to see a decent young fellow like him shut up in the pen yonder."

"So I think," returned Drake, calmly, cutting away at his board.

The official edged a little closer.

"Why don't you come over to us, then? The Confederacy gives good wages. Our Government knows how to pay its men."

"Right there!" retorted Drake. "The Confederacy pays its servants in death and ruin, which, as you say, are the just wages of a traitor. As for me, I want no more of Georgia soil than will make me a grave. That is as much as a man can own here now and be honest."

It was then, from some occult connection of ideas too subtile for searching out, that he imagined, first, a history of the Stockade Prison. He secured a number of long, thin boards, and planed them smooth, for foolscap, pointed bits of wood for pens, manufactured his ink from the rust of some old nails, and made himself a knife by grinding two pieces of iron hoop one upon the other, and, his work on the cook-house at an end, set bravely about his history, when Fate nipped it, as she has done many a more promising one before it; for even when on the final flourish of his title, he heard a sound between a groan and a sigh, and, turning, saw Corny Keegan, a strapping Irishman, and sergeant in his regiment, lying near him. Drake put the tail on his n, and then some uneasy consciousness would have him look again over the edge of his board at the sergeant; for, though there were scores of men lying within view on the ground, there was something in the "give" and laxity of Corny's posture that augured ill for him in Drake's experienced eyes, and, laying the history aside, he went over and kneeled down beside him. The man's eyes were closed, and a dull, yellowish pallor had taken the place of the usual brick tint of his face. Drake essayed to lift his heavy head and shoulders; but Corny settled back again with a groan.

"Och! wurra! Musther Talcott, lave me alone. It 's dead I am, kilt intirely, wid the wakeness. Divil's the bit of wood I 've had these two days, and not a cint or a frind to the fore, and I 'm jist afther mixin' the male here with wather, thinkin' to ate it that way, but it stuck in me throat, and I 'm all on a thrimble, and it 's a gone man is Corny Keegan; though it 's not fur meself that I 'd make 'moan, sence it 's aisier dyin' than livin', only the ould mother and Mary that 'll fret and–Holy Mother! there comes the sickness, bad scran to it!"

You see now how it happened unto the History of the Stockade Prison to vanish in smoke; for Drake, having neither wood nor the money to buy it, made a fire with his precious boards, and baked Corny's raw meal in a cake, which the poor fellow devoured with a half-starved avidity that made Drake ashamed of the reluctance with which he had offered up his sacrifice. A little corner of his cake Corny left untouched, saying,–

"That 's fur the poor crathur over beyant."

"What poor creature?" asked Drake; but Corny's eyes were fixed on the pens and ink, and the sorry remains of his foolscap,–a half-strip of board.