"Well, it didn't do Gabriel no good, maybe," remarked the veteran, "but it holp me up mightily. It gi' me somethin' to think about, an' it holp me acrosst some mighty rough places. You have to pass the time away anyhow, an' what better way is they than workin' for them you like? Why, I knowed a gal, an' a mighty fine one she was, who knit socks for a feller she had took a fancy to. The feller died, but she went right ahead wi' her knittin' just the same. Now, that didn't do the feller a mite of good, but it holp the gal up might'ly." CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE _Gabriel as an Orator_ The _Malvern Recorder_ was very kind to Gabriel, and said nothing in regard to his escape. This was due to a timely suggestion on the part of Colonel Tom Vardeman, who rightly guessed that the Government authorities would be more willing to permit the affair to blow over, provided the details were not made notorious in the newspapers. As the result of the Colonel's discretion, there was not a hint in the public press that one of the prisoners had eluded the vigilance of those who had charge of him. There was a paragraph or two in the _Recorder_, stating that the Shady Dale prisoners--"the victims of Federal tyranny"--had passed through the city on their way to Atlanta, and a long account was given of their sufferings in Fort Pulaski. The facts were supplied by Gabriel, but the printed account went far beyond anything he had said. "They are not the first martyrs that have suffered in the cause of liberty," said the editor of the _Recorder_, in commenting on the account in the local columns, "and they will not be the last. Let the radicals do their worst; on the old red hills of Georgia, the camp-fires of Democracy have been kindled, and they will continue to burn and blaze long after the tyrants and corruptionists have been driven from power." Gabriel read this eloquent declaration somewhat uneasily. There was something in it, and something in the exaggeration of the facts that he had given to the representative of the paper that jarred upon him. He had already in his own mind separated the Government and its real interests from the selfish aims and desires of those who were temporarily clothed with authority, and he had begun to suspect that there might also be something selfish behind the utterances of those who made such vigorous protests against tyranny. The matter is hardly worth referring to in these days when shams and humbugs appear before the public in all their nakedness; but it was worth a great deal to Gabriel to be able to suspect that the champions of constitutional liberty, and the defenders of popular rights, in the great majority of instances had their eyes on the flesh-pots. The suspicions he entertained put him on his guard at a time when he was in danger of falling a victim to the rhetoric of orators and editors, and they preserved him from many a mistaken belief.