Border and Bastille. George A. Lawrence
even a chastened cheerfulness.
CHAPTER IV.
FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
I may not deny that I found the places in which my lines were just then cast exceedingly pleasant: if no serious purpose had been before me I could have been contented to sojourn there till spring had waned. But it is some satisfaction now to be able to think and say—I do say it, in perfect honesty and sincerity—that I did not lose sight of my journey's main object for one single day from first to last. Indeed I should have felt far more impatient of delay had it not been for the continuance of foul weather, and recurrence of heavy storms, which made armies no less than individuals, impotent to act or move. On the morning following my arrival, I took counsel with one who was, perhaps, better able to advise me as to my future course than any one then resident in Baltimore: certainly none could have been more heartily willing to help, both in word and deed. I owe to that man much more than a debt of ordinary hospitality. To say that his courtesy and cordiality were marked, where benevolence to a stranger is the rule, would very faintly express the personal trouble he undertook and the personal risk he incurred in his efforts to facilitate and further my purposes. Up to this moment I do not believe that he has grudged one whit of all this, much as he may have chafed at all having proved unavailing. I am right sorry that prudence forbids my chronicling here a name which will always stand high on my muster-roll of friends; but the memory of almost any Englishman who has visited Baltimore will fill up the blank that I must leave perforce.
It seemed that there was a choice of two routes into Secessia. The first—in many respects the easiest, and far the most traveled—lay through the lower counties of Maryland: the narrow peninsula on which Leonardstown is situated forming the starting point, whence the blockade-runner took to cross the Lower Potomac—there, from four to eight miles wide. It was necessary to run the gauntlet of several gun-boats and smaller craft; but traffic at that particular time was carried on with tolerable regularity, and captures, though not unfrequent, were, so far, exceptions to a rule. On the land route, before reaching the point of embarkation, lay the chief difficulties. A horseman traveling with saddle-bags, became at once a suspicious personage, liable everywhere to jealous scrutiny. The main roads were already becoming so cut up as to be traversed only with great toil and difficulty by ordinary vehicles, while the cross roads were simply impassable by wheels. The principal turnpikes still hard enough to carry a "stage," e.g., that from Washington to Leonardstown, were more carefully guarded, and picketed at certain points, especially bridges. At any one of these points, a search might be apprehended, and anything beyond the simplest necessaries was liable to seizure as contraband of war; personal arrest might possibly follow, but the Federal outposts were said to content themselves, as a rule, with confiscation and appropriation, unless any documents of a compromising nature were found. Such a course was obviously pleasanter for all parties, than sending in prisoners—with their effects. Now it so chanced, that in the modest—not to say scanty—outfit, which I thought it worth while to bring out from home, was a certain pair of riding boots, by which I set especial store. They were such as many of our field-officers now in Canada are in the habit of wearing—coming high up on the thigh, perfectly water-proof, but very light, and pliant as a glove. I saw nothing of American manufacture to compare with them. Some of my duck-shooting acquaintance at Baltimore were never weary of admiring their fair proportions; nor did my sage counselor, before alluded to, refuse his warm approbation; but he urged very strongly the hazard of my wearing them on my way to the Lower Potomac—to carry or transmit them otherwise was simply impossible. Nevertheless, neither Bombastes nor Dalgetty could have clung more obstinately to this favorite chaussure than did I to mine. I knew that in the South, where an ordinary pair of cavalry boots commands readily seventy dollars or more, they could not be matched, and I had not
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