They were not long in reaching the barracks, for the officer whocommanded the party was desirous to avoid rousing the people by thedisplay of military force in the streets, and was humanely anxiousto give as little opportunity as possible for any attempt atrescue; knowing that it must lead to bloodshed and loss of life,and that if the civil authorities by whom he was accompanied,empowered him to order his men to fire, many innocent persons wouldprobably fall, whom curiosity or idleness had attracted to thespot. He therefore led the party briskly on, avoiding with amerciful prudence the more public and crowded thoroughfares, andpursuing those which he deemed least likely to be infested bydisorderly persons. This wise proceeding not only enabled them togain their quarters without any interruption, but completelybaffled a body of rioters who had assembled in one of the mainstreets, through which it was considered certain they would pass,and who remained gathered together for the purpose of releasing theprisoner from their hands, long after they had deposited him in aplace of security, closed the barrack-gates, and set a double guardat every entrance for its better protection.
Arrived at this place, poor Barnaby was marched into a stone-floored room, where there was a very powerful smell of tobacco, astrong thorough draught of air, and a great wooden bedstead, largeenough for a score of men. Several soldiers in undress werelounging about, or eating from tin cans; military accoutrementsdangled on rows of pegs along the whitewashed wall; and some half-dozen men lay fast asleep upon their backs, snoring in concert.
After remaining here just long enough to note these things, he wasmarched out again, and conveyed across the parade-ground to anotherportion of the building.
Perhaps a man never sees so much at a glance as when he is in asituation of extremity. The chances are a hundred to one, that ifBarnaby had lounged in at the gate to look about him, he would havelounged out again with a very imperfect idea of the place, andwould have remembered very little about it. But as he was takenhandcuffed across the gravelled area, nothing escaped his notice.
The dry, arid look of the dusty square, and of the bare brickbuilding; the clothes hanging at some of the windows; and the menin their shirt-sleeves and braces, lolling with half their bodiesout of the others; the green sun-blinds at the officers" quarters,and the little scanty trees in front; the drummer-boys practisingin a distant courtyard; the men at drill on the parade; the twosoldiers carrying a basket between them, who winked to each otheras he went by, and slily pointed to their throats; the spruceserjeant who hurried past with a cane in his hand, and under hisarm a clasped book with a vellum cover; the fellows in the ground-floor rooms, furbishing and brushing up their different articles ofdress, who stopped to look at him, and whose voices as they spoketogether echoed loudly through the empty galleries and passages;-everything,down to the stand of muskets before the guard-house,and the drum with a pipe-clayed belt attached, in one corner,impressed itself upon his observation, as though he had noticedthem in the same place a hundred times, or had been a whole dayamong them, in place of one brief hurried minute.
He was taken into a small paved back yard, and there they opened agreat door, plated with iron, and pierced some five feet above theground with a few holes to let in air and light. Into this dungeonhe was walked straightway; and having locked him up there, andplaced a sentry over him, they left him to his meditations.
The cell, or black hole, for it had those words painted on thedoor, was very dark, and having recently accommodated a drunkendeserter, by no means clean. Barnaby felt his way to some straw atthe farther end, and looking towards the door, tried to accustomhimself to the gloom, which, coming from the bright sunshine out ofdoors, was not an easy task.
There was a kind of portico or colonnade outside, and thisobstructed even the little light that at the best could have foundits way through the small apertures in the door. The footsteps ofthe sentinel echoed monotonously as he paced its stone pavement toand fro (reminding Barnaby of the watch he had so lately kepthimself); and as he passed and repassed the door, he made the cellfor an instant so black by the interposition of his body, that hisgoing away again seemed like the appearance of a new ray of light,and was quite a circumstance to look for.
When the prisoner had sat sometime upon the ground, gazing at thechinks, and listening to the advancing and receding footsteps ofhis guard, the man stood still upon his post. Barnaby, quiteunable to think, or to speculate on what would be done with him,had been lulled into a kind of doze by his regular pace; but hisstopping roused him; and then he became aware that two men were inconversation under the colonnade, and very near the door of hiscell.
How long they had been talking there, he could not tell, for he hadfallen into an unconsciousness of his real position, and when thefootsteps ceased, was answering aloud some question which seemed tohave been put to him by Hugh in the stable, though of the fanciedpurport, either of question or reply, notwithstanding that he awokewith the latter on his lips, he had no recollection whatever. Thefirst words that reached his ears, were these:
"Why is he brought here then, if he has to be taken away again sosoon?"
"Why where would you have him go! Damme, he"s not as safe anywhereas among the king"s troops, is he? What WOULD you do with him?
Would you hand him over to a pack of cowardly civilians, that shakein their shoes till they wear the soles out, with trembling at thethreats of the ragamuffins he belongs to?"
"That"s true enough."
"True enough!--I"ll tell you what. I wish, Tom Green, that I was acommissioned instead of a non-commissioned officer, and that I hadthe command of two companies--only two companies--of my ownregiment. Call me out to stop these riots--give me the needfulauthority, and half-a-dozen rounds of ball cartridge--"