glistening teeth, and blood-stained countenance, he sought to renew the fight.

The manager ordered the curtain to be rung down.

Booth was led, faint and blind, to his dressing-kennel.

66

'That's all right, old fellow," he said to Richmond's apologies; that was splendid!" *

A

John Beall was fighting the last enemy not long thereafter. little procession in the morning of a wintry day, with music playing a dead-march, brought him, with pinioned arms, beneath the same gallows that the only slaver had been hanged on. He looked out on the sparkling waters of New York Bay, and the mountains of New Jersey touched with snow-so like the Blue Ridge by his home, near Harper's Ferry-and the fate he had labored so hard for, came with the severing of a cord and the dropping of a weight.

The incendiary, who was also executed in time, danced a jig under the gallows and sang a stave.

Irregular warfare, though it long followed the civil war, in the form of mail-robberies and many bloody crimes, was to have but one other exemplification in America.

Mr. Booth called on Nelly Harbaugh when he was again presentable.

"John," said she, "you are of no service to me. I have passed you in the profession. It is time I looked out for myself, and there are several rich men ardent to put up money to establish me. I love nobody. Money is what I want, and you have not got it. You will have to drop out of my life."

Cold as what he had made her—an adventuress with the acting talent-she bowed him formally from her presence.

He turned, all stung and insulted, on Light Pittson, whom he met at his hotel.

"I have none but you," he spoke, with real tears. They are tearing up my country with armies, and have plowed my heart with a golden plowshare. Will you fly with me?"

66 "Yes!"

"Be ready, then; for I am desperate."

* Nearly literal transcript from an observer's reminiscence of Booth.
+ Kennedy.

CHAPTER XLIII.

THE ABDUCTION PLOT.

MR. BOOTH had rented a stable in the rear of Ford's theatre, and Ned Spangler, the scene-shifter, who slept in the theatre, groomed his horse.

Spangler was a typical product of slavery in its influence on the poor mechanic whites around it, making them the unacquisitive admirers of those of the social grade above them. He worked for mere subsistence, had no home, drank as much liquor as he could get, and his summer holidays were spent in catching crabs off the wharves and spits about Baltimore. He had a blunted, obeying face, with thin beard all round its long, heavy chin, and Booth was his idea of an educated gentleman.

For the first time Mr. Booth ranged the old slave counties below Washington upon an October Saturday, and on Sunday morning persons to whom he delivered the letters of introduction from Canada took him to the Catholic church in sight of Bryantown.

He had probably arranged his visit with reference to the Sabbath attendance at this church, where the substantial planters of the deepest slavery prejudices in the peninsulas gathered to hear the news, and most of these had sons or kinfolk in the insurgent army.

The church was of brick, in a moldy tint, with low gallery-windows above, the taller windows below them, and its end pointed to the road and upheld a cross, cupola, and bell above the notched gable. The graveyard spread around, and the priest's house was close by, and the cedars and firs on the airy church hill were haltering-posts for the small, freckled horses which the soft climate nurtured all winter in the open air.

The handsome stranger with an historic name, now thrown upon his own resources, attracted general attention. It was already said that he had come down from Washington to buy the old lands for improvement, as he had made money by buying oil-lands in another State. He was introduced to everybody of consideration, but seemed most attracted to Dr. Samuel Mudd, the red-haired person whom we have already seen, and who considered his family's grievances the greatest in the State; there was, of course, only one

grievance in the country, namely, the legs upon the “nigger” which let him walk away from his master, who was shocked that the obdurate government did not let go of its enemy in the trenches, and bestow its whole military force upon catching the "nigger."

Here was a man after Booth's own heart, and he distinguished Dr. Mudd by accepting his invitation to go home to dinner.

Another person at worship that day was David Herold, the little apothecary's clerk from Washington, whose passion for "patridge "shooting obtained his periodical discharge by successive employers; and he loved the vicinity of the old academy he had attended at Charlotte Hall, which was some six miles distant from Bryantown church. He came up to the distinguished arrival and said:

"Mr. Booth, I met you at Harper's Ferry in the times of ole John Brown."

'Why, Dave," replied the actor, remembering the little simpering face-in which, however, the eyes had become more set and furtive, from gypsy ways and wandering—“how queer that I should see you here! Where's Andrew Atzerodt?”

"Down yer to Port Tobakker, makin' carriages and runnin' the blockade."

The two pursuits thus oddly conjoined-carriages and boatstouched the stranger's seductive dark eyes to emit a little soft flame.

“Dave,” said he, “are you very busy now? Could you take me to see Atzerodt?"

"Oh, yes, Mr. Booth, I can always borrey a horse down yer in Charles, and I like to hunt and ride. Don't you want to shoot some patridges?"

“That's just it,” replied Booth; “don't tell anybody we are going, but meet me to-morrow noon at Bryantown tavern."

The people remarked that there must be something dead in the vicinity, from the large number of vultures soaring over the church.

Booth entered this church with the others; in the three galleries were negro communicants; four rows of pews, divided by two aisles, filled the body of the church; the arching altar at the head, flanked by banners, already showed the good priest at work with boys and bell and mystic tapers, amid the humble ornaments of crucifix, image, and shining metal.

Booth touched the holy water at the door, but did not make the pious signs upon his breast, and he took a place in a family pew.

half folded his arms, and pulled with one released hand the ends of his black mustache, watching the ceremony of the dying Son of

man.

He knew the significance of most of the high mass from schooldays, and heard again the wailing words of Saint Leonard: "Behold, my God, the traitor who has so often rebelled against thee! The blood of Jesus cries for mercy; and my sorrowful heart also implores mercy."

...

The little bell, to recall the wandering minds of communicants from their distractions, rang again and again, like an alarm-watch, set for this hour, on the ear of Booth, but he did not notice it.

The priest put on the vestments of the Saviour's torture-the amice to blindfold him, the girdle for his cords, the chasuble to mock him as a king-and bowed to the linen cloths upon the altar representing the innocent victim's winding-sheet. Booth watched it all, and stole glances at the more comely women reading their books of prayer; but all the while he thought of another victim to blindfold, to bind, to mock, and to deliver up, and gritted his teeth when he imagined some disappointment in his plan, and smiled, looking straight at the altar cerements; and as the alternative of murder filled with its necessity the distended caverns of his soul, he put out his hand mechanically and took from the sacramental bread and

ate.

So had the political forefathers of some in that church eaten the sacrament twelve generations before with Spanish-made assassins who meant to blow up Parliament.

A man came up the road from the Potomac while the sermon was following the mass. He rode an old country horse, and wore a faded gray suit whose color could hardly be told, but in it were some signs of a military life and rank. He was of great stature, but his hair was gray and thin, and his shoulders stooped with troubles, and he rode mechanically. Who could have guessed that this broken and dissolute-looking man was the former pride of the county he rode in, Lloyd Quantrell ?

As he came opposite the church, which stood higher up on the knoll to the east, the traveler saw sitting along the panels of the crooked fence, so close that he could strike them, at least a hundred vultures, breathing through their slender bills, balancing with difficulty on their weak toes, and emitting a foul odor from their dull, raw necks. Quantrell looked for some sign of a carcass to attract

them, but only saw the picked bones of a horse, long bleached by rain.

Turning his head, he saw the cedars and other trees, in a thicket between him and the church, black with other scores of these great turkey-birds, roosting in the branches. Suddenly, while he was in their midst, these buzzards uttered in concert a loud, hissing noise, and the fence beneath their weight broke down. The rough, poor animal Quantrell was riding took flight, and did not stop till it had passed a running brook that crossed the road.

66

Three years and a half ago I saw a saucy buzzard at that spot," said Quantrell; "is it an omen of my capture and execution as a spy? No; I wear my uniform, and do not come disguised."

He remembered that a dog, which he recognized as Katy's faithful Fritz, had assailed him desperately in the road as he landed on Port Tobacco River, from Virginia, that morning, and that no kind recognition or petting could conciliate the animal.

"What a reception," reflected Quantrell, "when I remember that it was the boast of Charles County to have had only seven Union men in it!"

One of these was standing at his gate as Quantrell entered Bryantown-a physician of the same surname and family as the other Dr. Mudd. He looked up and bowed, and, after dropping his eyes, looked again and cried, “Is not that Lloyd Quantrell ?

"Why, come in! If we differ, we are not personal enemies. Lloyd, stay this Sunday with me, for your mother's sake!"

"Thank God," spoke Quantrell, with a tear, “one man remembers me! No, doctor, I am here under orders, as a soldier. Unless they capture me, I shall be gone this night to my own lines."

"I am for my country," said the unpopular Unionist, "but I wish you no harm, my boy. A few months will bring you home a willing captive!"

Quantrell entered the hotel, ordered a bottle of whisky, and lay down in a bedroom opening on the upper porch. He drank, and opened again two curious letters he had received. The first said:

"My dear old friend and sworn avenger of the South, I call upon you by your sacred oath, made with me and one other, five years ago, to cross the river and meet me at Bryantown tavern, next