, I was a citizen of this
town. I was the owner of these acres. I am Richard Perley. In those days
I was a wild fellow--I thought then, a wicked one; but I have learned
since that I was not, for folly is not crime. In those days--I was
barely twenty-five--your father had a hard ground to till in his way of
life. I became his patron, and from that I became his slave. I never
exactly knew how it came about, but within a few years most of my
property was mortgaged to Elisha Boone. I won't accuse him, as the world
does, of inciting me to drink and gambling. God knows he has enough to
answer for without that! In the end I was driven to a deed that
imperiled my liberty, and Elisha Boone put the temptation and the means
to do it within my reach. Detection followed, and the detection came
about through Elisha Boone. All my property in his hands, my name a
scorn, and my person subject to the law, Elisha Boone had no further
fear of me, and thenceforth doled me out an income sufficient to supply
my modest wants. I strove to turn the new leaf that recommends itself to
men who have exhausted the so-called pleasures of life. I was living in
honesty and seclusion in Richmond, when Boone, who had never lost sight
of me, came with a mission for me to perform. I was engaged as an agent
of the detective force of the United States, with the special duty of
rescuing Wesley Boone from captivity.

"I was further commissioned to get evidence against John Sprague, fixing
upon him the crime of betraying his colors and aiding the Confederacy.
In the attempt to rescue Captain Boone at Bosedale circumstances pointed
to the guilt of young Sprague, but that was all dissipated a few weeks
after, when, at the peril of his own life, not once, but a score of
times, he rashly liberated a score or two of prisoners, and personally
led them through an entire rebel army to the Union lines. I, who would
have been abandoned by a less noble nature, for I was weakened by
captivity and bad fare, broke down, but Sprague and--and--young Dick--my
son, clung to me with such devotion as few sons would exhibit under such
trials, and brought me safe to the outposts. Here, by some mysterious
means, we were all dispersed. When I found my senses I was under Elisha
Boone's Samaritan care in the house where you saw me at first. The two
boys, Sprague and Perley, spirited away from the hospital at Hampton,
where they had been entered under assumed names, Jacques and Paling,
we