'Skin for skin, yea, all
that a man hath will he give for his life,' he hadn't invented the
Stockade Prison."

The man who said these things, in a quiet, unexcited way, as if
discussing some abstraction of the schools, not murder, was too wan and
wasted, too shrunken and despairing, to afford a guess as to what manner
of man he might have been, and too unkempt and ragged for any inference
concerning his rank, having neither jacket, cap, nor shoes, matted hair
and beard, torn shirt and ragged trousers: but his look of resolved
patience, and an occasional smile while he talked, sadder than tears,
made Drake's stout heart twinge with pain. "A strong soul in a feeble
body," he said to himself, as he walked on; and furthermore, "The man
that can smile here like that is near heaven, and fit for it."

Presently he came on a farmer selling wood by the stick, price in
proportion to its size, and as many times its value as the Rebel, by
his own showing, exceeds the Yankee. Drake had money, spite of shearing
and searching. He had hidden it----But I forbear to tell of what
ingenious shift he had availed himself, for I remember, that, spite of
its well-known loyalty, the "Atlantic Monthly" runs the blockade. First
he passed the man, prudence pulling him by the sleeve, and searched
lynx-eyed for chips or twigs, over ground scoured daily, in such faint
hope as his, by thousands; but he might as well have dragged a brook for
the wreck of a seventy-four among its pebbles. Having wasted a precious
half-hour of fading daylight, he came back to the dealer to find his
stock on the rise; for the influx of new comers had produced an upward
tendency in a market sensitive as that of Wall Street. Lest it should
swell quite beyond the compass of his pocket, he made haste to
buy,--scores of meagre wretches looking anxiously on. That pitiful sight
made his heart sore again; and he hardly persuaded himself to take his
wood and be off, till he remembered the poor fellow whom he had left
resigned and hopeless, sitting quietly on the ground while all was eager
stir about him, and hurried back to the spot where he had seen him to
find him gone. He had crawled away, and was lost in that great throng.

Not to be balked entirely, Drake shared his firing with those around
him; and Virtue, in place of her usual promissory note, gave him his
reward instantly, in the shape of a tin cup belonging to one of the
party, and their sole cooking-utensil,--for the p