[377]
he thought his designs could be carried out without bloodshed?
“ he replied, It had been done in Missouri.”
Just at that point the interview terminated.
The prisoners are still guarded with the greatest vigilance.
Hundreds of men all the time under arms are stationed at the jail, which, by the way, in its external appearance looks much more like a private residence than a jail, with its curtained windows and porch or stoop, to speak in Yankee parlance, leading out on the street-but it is very strong and secure within.
On the 5th of November, a Northern lady--
Mrs. Spring-arrived in
Charlestown to nurse
John Brown; and, on the following day, was admitted to his cell.
From her account of this interview, all that has not hitherto been published is subjoined:
On our way we spent a night at Harper's Ferry.
In the parlor we heard a young lady describing to a gentleman the horrors of the night of terror.
“I wished,” she said, “I could shoot them all.”
She told the story of poor Thompson, brought wounded into the hotel, followed by the infuriated people, protected for a time by Mr. Foulke's sister, at last dragged out and killed on the bridge.
She said, “It was dreadful to drag him out so; but they did right to kill him. I would.
... ”
Between Mr. Brown and his jailer there has grown up a most friendly feeling.
Captain Avis, who is too brave to be afraid to be kind, has done all he could for the prisoners, and been cursed accordingly.
Still their condition was very cheerless, and Mr. Brown was in the same clothes in which he was taken.
A cloth under his head was much stained with blood from a still open wound.
It was hard for me to forget the presence of the jailer, (I had that morning seen his advertisement of “fifty negroes for sale; ” but I soon lost all thought of him in listening to Mr. Brown, who spoke at once of his plans and his failure.
Twenty years he has labored, and waited, and suffered, and at last he believed the time of fulfilment had come.
But he failed; and instead of being free on the mountains, strong to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free, he was shorn of his strength, with prison walls about him. “But,” he said, “I do not now reproach myself; I did what I could.”
I said, “The Lord often leads us in strange ways.”
“Yes,” he answered; “and I think I cannot 2now better serve the cause I love so much than to die for it; and in my death I may do more than in my life.”
A pleasant smile came over his face when I exclaimed, “ Then you will be our martyr!
” I continued, “I want to ask one question for others, not for myself-Have you been actuated by any feeling of revenge?”
He raised his head, and gave me a surprised look; then, lying back, he answered slowly, but firmly, “I am not conscious of having had a feeling of the kind.
No, not in all the wrong done to me and my family in Kansas, have I had a feeling of revenge.”
“ That would not sustain you now,” I remarked.
“No, indeed,” he replied quickly; “but I sleep peacefully as an infant, or if I am wakeful, glorious thoughts come to me, entertaining ”
