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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Marcy The Refugee, by Harry Castlemon
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Marcy The Refugee
+
+Author: Harry Castlemon
+
+Release Date: March 30, 2010 [EBook #31831]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARCY THE REFUGEE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Gary Sandino, from scans generously provided
+by the Internet Archive (www.archive.org.)
+
+
+
+
+
+                        CASTLEMON'S WAR SERIES.
+
+
+
+                          MARCY, THE REFUGEE
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           HARRY CASTLEMON,
+
+AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES," "SPORTSMAN'S CLUB
+SERIES," ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+                 Four Illustrations by Geo. G. White.
+
+
+
+                            PHILADELPHIA:
+
+                           PORTER & COATES.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           COPYRIGHT, 1892,
+
+                          BY PORTER & COATES.
+
+
+
+
+
+                  CONTENTS.
+
+CHAPTER                              PAGE
+
+     I. WHAT BROUGHT BEARDSLEY HOME,    1
+    II. ALLISON IS SURPRISED,          23
+   III. THE NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP,       42
+    IV. VISITORS IN PLENTY,            66
+     V. MARCY'S RASH WISH,             92
+    VI. THE WISH GRATIFIED,           116
+   VII. MARCY SPEAKS HIS MIND,        140
+  VIII. THE ARRIVAL OF THE FLEET,     164
+    IX. LOOKING FOR A PILOT,          190
+     X. BEARDSLEY IN TROUBLE,         214
+    XI. MARCY IN ACTION,              239
+   XII. HOME AGAIN,                   264
+  XIII. A REBEL SOLDIER SPEAKS,       287
+   XIV. A YANKEE SCOUTING PARTY,      310
+    XV. MARCY SEES SOMEBODY,          340
+   XVI. A FRIEND IN GRAY,             361
+  XVII. MARCY TAKES TO THE SWAMP,     385
+ XVIII. CONCLUSION,                   406
+
+
+
+MARCY, THE REFUGEE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+WHAT BROUGHT BEARDSLEY HOME.
+
+In this story we take up once more the history of the exploits and
+adventures of our Union hero Marcy Gray, the North Carolina boy, who
+tried so hard and so unsuccessfully to be "True to his Colors." Marcy,
+as we know, was loyal to the old flag but he had had few opportunities
+to prove it, until he took his brother, Sailor Jack, out to the Federal
+blockading fleet in his little schooner Fairy Belle, to give him a
+chance to enlist in the navy. That was by far the most dangerous
+undertaking in which Marcy had ever engaged, and at the time of which we
+write, he had not seen the beginning of the trouble it was destined to
+bring him. Not only was he liable to be overhauled by the Confederates
+when he attempted to pass their forts at Plymouth and Roanoke Island,
+but he was in danger of being shot to pieces by the watchful steam
+launches of the Union fleet that had of late taken to patrolling the
+coast. But he came through without any very serious mishaps, and
+returned to his home to find the plantation in an uproar, and his mother
+in a most anxious frame of mind.
+
+Although Marcy Gray was a good pilot for that part of the coast, and
+knew all its little bays and out-of-the-way inlets as well as he knew
+the road from his home to the post-office, his older brother Jack was
+the real sailor of the family. He made his living on the water. At the
+time we first brought him to the notice of the reader he had been at sea
+for more than two years, and it was while he was on his way home that
+his vessel, the _Sabine_, fell into the hands of Captain Semmes, who had
+just begun his piratical career in the Confederate steamer _Sumter._
+But, fortunately for Jack, Semmes was not as vigilant in those days as
+he afterward became. He gave the _Sabine's_ crew an opportunity to
+recapture their vessel and escape from his power, and they were prompt
+to improve it. By the most skilful manoeuvring, and without firing a
+shot, they made prisoners of the prize crew that Semmes had put on board
+the _Sabine_, turned them over to the Union naval authorities at Key
+West, and took their vessel to a Northern port. On the way to Boston,
+and while she was off the coast of North Carolina, the brig was pursued
+and fired at by a little schooner which turned out to be Captain
+Beardsley's privateer _Osprey_, on which Marcy Gray was serving in the
+capacity of pilot.
+
+When Jack Gray found himself in Boston, the first thing he thought of
+was getting home. The Potomac being closely guarded against
+mail-carriers and smugglers who, in spite of all the precautions taken
+against them, continued to pass freely, and almost without detection,
+between the lines as long as the war lasted, the only plan he could
+pursue was to go by water. Being intensely loyal himself, Jack never
+dreamed that Northern men would be guilty of loading vessels to run the
+blockade, but there was at least one such craft in Boston--the _West
+Wind;_ and through the good offices of his old commander, the captain of
+the _Sabine_, Jack Gray was shipped on board of her as second mate and
+pilot. Her cargo was duly consigned to some house in Havana, but the
+owners meant that it should be sold in Newbern; and there were scattered
+about among the bales and boxes in her hold, a good many packages that
+would have brought the vessel and all connected with her into serious
+trouble, if they had been discovered by the custom-house officers.
+
+When the _West Wind_ was a short distance out from Boston, the second
+mate learned by accident that one of his best foremast hands was also
+bound for his home in North Carolina. His name was Aleck Webster, and
+his father lived on a small plantation which was not more than an hour's
+ride from Nashville. Being a poor man Mr. Webster did not stand very
+high in the estimation of his rich neighbors, but that made no sort of
+difference to Jack Gray, and a warm and lasting friendship at once
+sprung up between officer and man. Although they belonged to a vessel
+that was fitted out to run the blockade they were both strong for the
+Union, and many an hour of the mid-watch did they while away in talking
+over the situation. All they knew about their friends at home was that
+they were opposed to secession; but they dared not say so, because they
+were surrounded by rebels who would have been glad of an excuse to burn
+them out of house and home. The two friends got angry as often as they
+talked of these things, but of course they could not decide upon a plan
+of operations until they had been at home long enough to "see how the
+wind set," and "how the land lay." We have told what they did when they
+got ashore. When they were paid off and discharged in Newborn they made
+their way home by different routes, Jack arousing his brother in the
+dead of the night by tossing pebbles against his bedroom window, and
+afterward going off to the Federal fleet to enlist under the flag he
+believed in. Aleck Webster remained ashore for a longer time; and
+finding that his father belonged to an organized band of Union men who
+held secret meetings in the swamp, and whose object it was to oppose the
+tactics pursued by their rebel neighbors, he joined his fortunes with
+theirs, and went to work with such energy that in less that two weeks'
+time he had the settlement in such a panic that its prominent citizens
+thought seriously of calling upon the garrison at Plymouth for
+protection.
+
+It was Mrs. Gray's misfortune to have many secret enemies about her, and
+the meanest and most dangerous among them were Lon Beardsley, who lived
+on an adjoining plantation, and was the owner and captain of the
+schooner to which Marcy belonged, and her overseer, whose name was
+Hanson. Beardsley's enmity was purely personal; but with Hanson it was a
+matter of dollars and cents. The captain took Marcy to sea against his
+will, because he wanted to persecute his mother; while the overseer was
+working for the large reward Colonel Shelby had promised to give if
+Hanson would bring him positive information that Mrs. Gray was in
+reality the Union woman she was supposed to be, and that she had money
+concealed in her house. When Sailor Jack had been at home long enough to
+find out how and by whom his mother was being persecuted, he told Aleck
+Webster about it, and the latter stopped it so quickly that everybody
+was astonished, and the guilty ones alarmed.
+
+While Marcy was gone to take his brother out to the fleet, a very
+strange and startling incident happened on Mrs. Gray's plantation.
+Sailor Jack had predicted that the morning was coming when the negroes
+would not hear the horn blown to call them to their work, for the very
+good reason that there would be no overseer on the plantation to blow
+it, and his prediction had been verified. One dark night, just after
+Marcy and Jack set out on their perilous voyage, a band of masked men
+came to the plantation, took Hanson, the overseer, out of his house and
+carried him away. Where he was now none could tell for certain; but
+Marcy had heard from Aleck Webster that he had been "turned loose with
+orders never to show his face in the settlement again." Perhaps he had
+gone for good; but the fear that he might some day come back to trouble
+her caused Mrs. Gray no little uneasiness.
+
+While every one else in the settlement was so excited and uneasy, and
+wondering what other mysterious things were about to happen, Marcy Gray
+was as calm as a summer's morning. To use his own words, he was "getting
+ready to settle down to business." The overseer being gone, there was no
+one but himself left to manage the plantation; and he was glad to have
+the responsibility, for it gave him something to occupy his mind. When
+Aleck Webster told him that Hanson would not trouble him or his mother
+any more, he had also given him the assurance that he would never again
+be obliged to go to sea as Captain Beardsley's pilot. There was a world
+of comfort in the words, and Marcy hoped the man knew what he was
+promising when he uttered them; but he thought he would feel more at his
+ease when he saw Beardsley's schooner at her moorings in the creek, and
+Beardsley himself at work in the field with his negroes.
+
+On the morning of the day on which our story begins, the leaden clouds
+hung low, and the piercing wind which came off the Sound, bringing with
+it occasional dashes of rain, and scattering the few remaining leaves
+the early frosts had left upon the trees, seemed to cause no little
+discomfort to the young horseman who was riding along the road that led
+from his father's plantation to the village of Nashville. He had turned
+the collar of his heavy coat about his ears, dropped the reins upon his
+horse's neck, and buried his hands deep in his pockets. It was Tom
+Allison, the boastful young rebel whom Marcy Gray, then the newly
+appointed pilot of Captain Beardsley's privateer schooner, had once
+rebuked and silenced in the presence of a room full of secession
+sympathizers.
+
+Allison was on his way to the post-office after the mail, and to listen
+to any little items of news which the idlers he was sure to find there
+might have picked up since he last saw them; and, as he rode, he thought
+about some things that puzzled him. He went over the events that had
+taken place along the coast during the last few months, beginning with
+the bombardment and capture of forts Hatteras and Clark, and ending with
+the Confederate occupation of Roanoke Island, and he was obliged to
+confess to himself that things did not look as bright for the South now,
+as they did after that glorious victory at Bull Run. Finally, he thought
+of the incidents that had lately happened in his own neighborhood, and
+in which some of his acquaintances and friends were personally
+interested. In fact he was deeply interested in them himself, and would
+have given any article of value he owned for the privilege of holding
+five minutes' conversation with some one who could tell him what had
+become of Jack Gray and Hanson.
+
+"I can tell you in few words what I think about it," said Tom to
+himself. "There's more behind the disappearance of those two fellows
+than the men folks around here are willing to acknowledge. That's what
+_I_ think. I notice that Shelby, Dillon, and the postmaster don't talk
+quite as much nor as loudly as they did before Hanson and Gray left so
+suddenly, and when I ask father what he thinks of it, he shakes his head
+and looks troubled; and that's all I can get out of him. They are
+frightened, the whole gang of them; and to my mind we would all be safer
+if that Gray family was burned out and driven from the country. They
+know everything that is said about them, and it beats me where they get
+the news. The settlement is full of traitors, and probably I meet and
+speak to some of them every day."
+
+While Allison was talking to himself in this strain his nag brought him
+to a cross-road, and almost to the side of another horseman who, like
+himself, was riding in the direction of Nashville. The two pulled their
+collars down from their faces, raised their hats, and looked at each
+other; and then Allison was surprised to find that he was in the company
+of Lon Beardsley, the privateersman and blockade runner. There had been
+a time when he would not have noticed the man any further than to give
+him a slight nod or a civil word or two, for he was the son of a wealthy
+planter, and thought himself better than one who had often been seen
+working in the field with his negroes. There used to be a wide gulf
+between such people in the South. For example, N. B. Forrest was not
+recognized socially while he was a civilian and made the most of his
+money by buying and selling men and women whose skins were darker than
+his own, but _General_ Forrest, the man who massacred Union soldiers at
+Fort Pillow and took their commander, Major Bradford, into the woods and
+shot him after he had surrendered himself a prisoner of war, was held in
+high esteem. To Allison's mind, Captain Beardsley, who had smelled
+Yankee powder and run two cargoes of contraband goods safely through the
+blockade, was more worthy of respect than Lon Beardsley the smuggler,
+and he was willing to gain his good-will now if he could, for he
+believed the captain had it in his power to punish Marcy Gray--the boy
+who had dared to taunt Allison with being a coward because he did not
+shoulder a musket and go into the army.
+
+"Why, captain, I thought you were miles away and making money hand over
+fist by running the blockade," said Allison, with an awkward flourish
+which was intended for a military salute. "I hope when you go out again
+you will be sure and take that so-called pilot of yours with you, for we
+don't want him hanging about here any longer. I don't believe his arm is
+so very badly hurt, and neither does anybody else. I am glad to see you
+back safe and sound. When did you get in?"
+
+"In where?" said Beardsley gruffly; and then the boy saw that he was in
+bad humor about something.
+
+"Into Newbern, of course. And when and how did you come up here?"
+
+"I came up last night in the _Hattie._"
+
+"You did? You don't mean to say that your schooner is in the creek, do
+you?" exclaimed Allison, who was surprised to hear it. "You did not do a
+very bright thing when you brought her there, for the first thing you
+know the Yankees will send some of their gunboats up to the island, and
+then you will be blocked in. I should think you would have stayed at
+Newbern, where you could run out and in as often as you felt like it."
+
+"Don't you reckon I know my own affairs better'n you do?" snapped
+Beardsley. "I didn't quit a money-making business of my own free will
+and come home because I wanted to, but because I couldn't help myself."
+
+"I don't understand you," answered Tom, who was all in the dark. "Our
+authorities didn't send you home, of course, and the Yankees couldn't.
+If your schooner is in good shape----"
+
+"The _Hattie_ is all right," said Beardsley, with a ring of pride in his
+tones. "She has been in some tight places, I can tell you, and if she
+hadn't showed herself to be just the sweetest, fastest thing of her
+inches that ever floated, I wouldn't be here talking to you now. And the
+Yankees did send me home too; or their friends did, which amounts to the
+same thing. What's become of Mrs. Gray's overseer, Hanson?"
+
+"I can't make out what you mean, when you say that the Yankees or their
+friends sent you home," replied Allison. "We haven't heard of their
+making many captures along the coast lately."
+
+"I dunno as it makes any sort of odds to me what you didn't hear. I know
+what I am talking about. What's happened to Hanson, I ask you?"
+
+"How do you suppose I can tell? And if you only came home last night,
+how does it come that you know anything has happened to him?" inquired
+Tom, who thought he saw a chance to learn something. "I haven't seen
+that man Hanson for a long time."
+
+"Nor me; but I know well enough that there's something went wrong with
+him," said Beardsley very decidedly. "I know that he was took out of his
+house at dead of night by a gang of men, that he was carried away, and
+that nobody ain't likely to see hide nor hair of him any more."
+
+"That news is old, and I don't see why you should assume so mysterious
+an air in speaking of it," said Tom. "Your daughter has had time enough
+to tell you all about it since you came home."
+
+"But I heard about it before I left Newbern."
+
+"You did! Who told you?"
+
+"Well, I heard all about it."
+
+"What if you did? I don't see how Hanson's disappearance could interfere
+with your blockade-running."
+
+"Mebbe you don't, but I do. If you had been in my place, and somebody
+had sent you a letter saying that if you didn't quit business and come
+home at once, some of your buildings would be burned up, what would you
+think then? Do you reckon it would bust up your blockade running or
+not?"
+
+"Do you pretend to tell me that you received such a letter?" cried
+Allison, who could scarcely believe his ears.
+
+"That is just what I pretend to tell you--no less," answered the
+captain, tapping the breast of his coat as if to say that he could prove
+his words if necessary.
+
+"Why--why, who could have sent it to you? Who do you think wrote it?"
+
+"You tell. I don't know the first thing about it; I wish I did. I am
+here now, and if I could only put my finger on the chap who caused me
+all this bother, I'd fix him."
+
+"Would you bushwhack him?" inquired Allison, wondering if there was any
+way in which he could prevail upon Beardsley to show him that letter.
+
+"No; but I would put the authorities on to him tolerable sudden and have
+him forced into the army. Because why, I am scart of that chap myself.
+He's hanging around here now, waiting for a good chance to do some more
+meanness."
+
+"You don't say!" exclaimed Tom, growing frightened. "He ought to be got
+rid of. But who is he? Is there any one about here that you know of who
+has reason to be down on you? Any one besides the Grays, I mean?"
+
+Beardsley dropped his reins, pulled the collar of his coat down from his
+face with both hands, and looked hard at his companion.
+
+"Why, of course the Grays are down on you heavy, and all your friends
+and mine know it," continued Tom. "You know it, don't you?"
+
+"There, now!" exclaimed the captain, rearranging his collar and picking
+up his reins again. "I never once thought of blaming it on that there
+Marcy."
+
+"I don't blame it on him, and I don't want you to think so for a
+moment," said Tom, who had not yet arrived at the point of being
+confidential with Beardsley. "I never hinted that Marcy wrote the
+letter; but just look at the way the thing stands. A man who knows as
+much about this coast as you do never wanted a pilot, but you did want
+to marry Mrs. Gray's plantation; and when she gave you to understand
+that she wouldn't have it so----"
+
+"See here, young feller, you're going too fur," cried the captain,
+pulling his collar down with one hand and shaking his whip threateningly
+at Allison with the other. "You don't know what you're talking about,
+and I won't hear another word of it."
+
+"What's the use of getting mad because somebody tells you the truth?"
+demanded Tom. "Every one says so, and what every one holds to can't be
+so very far wrong. You know you don't need a pilot, and I know it too.
+You have nothing against Marcy Gray personally----"
+
+"I ain't, hey?" shouted the angry captain. "He's just the biggest kind
+of a traitor that ever----"
+
+"That isn't what I am trying to get at, and you know it," interrupted
+Tom. "You want to hurt him and his mother by taking him to sea against
+his will and hers. Now if you were in Marcy's place, and knew all these
+things, as he most likely does, and you saw a good chance to get even
+with the man who was persecuting you, would you let that chance slip? I
+reckon not."
+
+"But if it's Marcy who has been a-pestering of me, how can I prove it on
+him?" inquired Beardsley, who was as angry as Allison had ever known him
+to be.
+
+"Let me see the letter," replied Tom.
+
+"No, I reckon not. What do you want to see it fur?"
+
+"I can tell you whether or not Marcy Gray wrote it, for I know his hand
+as well as I know my own."
+
+Beardsley hesitated. Ever since the morning he took the letter in
+question from the office in Newbern, he had been burning with anxiety
+and impatience to find out whom he had to thank for sending it to him,
+and he was now on his way to call upon his friends Shelby and Dillon to
+see if they could not put him on the track of the writer. He wanted to
+ask them what they thought of the whole miserable business any way, and
+did not care to show the letter until he heard what they had to say
+about it.
+
+"I know the handwriting of every man and boy in this settlement,"
+continued Allison, "and if I can't tell you who wrote it no one can; not
+even the postmaster."
+
+This settled the matter, to Allison's satisfaction. The captain opened
+his coat and drew out the letter, which was written in a hand that was
+plainly disguised, for the same characters were not formed twice alike.
+It was not very long, but it was to the point, and ran as follows:
+
+     This is to inform you that you have spent jes time enough in
+     persecuting Union folks in this settlement on account of
+     them not beleeving as you rebbels do, and likewise time
+     enough in cheeting the government by bringing contraband
+     goods through the blockade. And this is to inform you that
+     if you do not immediately upon resep of this stop your
+     disloyal practices and come home at once, you will not find
+     as many buildings standing, when you do come, as you have
+     got standing now at this present time of writing. And this
+     is likewise to inform you that the first proof that we mean
+     jes what we say, you will get in a letter from your folks,
+     who will tell you that a letter something like this was
+     found on the front gallery of your house on a certain night,
+     and that a lot of dry weeds and stuff was likewise found
+     piled against the back of said house. Proof number 2 will be
+     in the same letter, which will tell you that Mrs. Gray's
+     overseer has been toted away by armed men, and that he won't
+     never be seen in this settlement again. For every day you
+     delay in coming home immediately after this letter has had
+     time to reach you in Newbern, you will loose a building of
+     some kind or sort, beginning with the house you live in.
+     This is from those who believe in defending the wemen and
+     children you rebbels are making war on, and so we sign
+     ourselves,                THE PERTECTORS OF THE HELPLESS.
+
+"Marcy Gray never had a hand in getting up this letter, more's the
+pity," thought Tom, as he again ran his eye over the plainly written
+lines in the hope of finding something that would give him an excuse for
+saying that Marcy did write it. "Look at the spelling and the bungling
+language! Marcy couldn't do that if he tried."
+
+"Well, what do you reckon you make of it?" demanded the captain.
+
+"It's perfectly scandalous the most outrageous thing I ever heard of!"
+exclaimed Allison. "Just think of the impudence this fellow shows in
+ordering you--ordering, I say----"
+
+"Oh, there's more'n one feller mixed up in it," said Beardsley, with a
+groan.
+
+"Perhaps there is, and then again, perhaps there isn't," replied Tom.
+"Couldn't I write a letter and sign a hundred names to it, if I wanted
+to? I say it is a burning shame that good and loyal Confederates should
+submit to be ordered about in this way, and you were foolish for paying
+the least attention to it. You ought to have gone on with your business
+and come home when you got ready."
+
+Beardsley turned down the collar of his coat, threw his left leg over
+the horn of his saddle, and shook his whip at Allison as if he were
+about to say something impressive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ALLISON IS SURPRISED.
+
+"Oh, I mean it," said Tom, and one would have thought by the way he
+shook his head and frowned and made his riding-whip whistle through the
+air, that it would be useless for anybody to try to order him around.
+"Just try me and see; that's all."
+
+"And if you had been in my place you wouldn't have come home till you
+got good and ready?" said Beardsley.
+
+"You bet I wouldn't. I wouldn't be guilty of setting such an example to
+the timid ones at home. This is the time when every man----"
+
+"How many buildings have you got in this part of the country?" inquired
+the captain, shutting his right eye and laying his finger by the side of
+his nose. "Have you forgot the men who took Hanson away in the night,
+and piled up those weeds and stuff up agin my house?"
+
+"Well, that's so; but still I don't think they would have been bold
+enough to do anything to you. You are a wealthy planter, while Hanson
+was nothing but a common overseer, without a friend or relative in the
+world so far as any one knows. Did you receive the proofs this letter
+speaks of?"
+
+"You bet I did," answered Beardsley, shaking his whip in the air. "My
+daughter got old Miss Brown to write to me just as them Pertectors of
+the Helpless--dog-gone the last one of 'em--said she would, and sure as
+you live she found another letter on the gallery, and a whole passel of
+stuff piled up agin the house, ready to be touched off with a match; and
+the very same night Mrs. Gray's overseer was carried away. When she told
+me all them things and begged me to come home I thought I had best come.
+But I don't mean to let the matter drop here, tell your folks. The
+fellers who wrote that letter must be hunted down and whopped like they
+was niggers. Did Marcy Gray do it?"
+
+"I can't swear that he didn't," replied Tom guardedly. "But if he did,
+he disguised his hand so that I do not recognize it. I can't find the
+first letter in it that looks like Marcy's work."
+
+Beardsley seemed disappointed as he returned the letter to his pocket
+and buttoned his coat, and Tom Allison certainly was. Two or three times
+it was on the end of his tongue to declare that Marcy was the guilty
+one, but he lacked the courage. He was afraid of the mysterious men who
+had begun to carry things with so high a hand in the settlement, for he
+did not know how soon they might turn their attention to him or to his
+father's property.
+
+"Marcy is quite mean enough to do a thing of that kind, hoping to bring
+you home so that you would not take him to sea any more," said Tom, who
+could not resist the longing he had to say something that would lead
+Beardsley to declare war upon the boy who had served as his pilot. "He
+may have written the letter, but he could not have piled that light
+stuff against your house, for he was not at home when the thing
+happened. Has it struck you that the work must have been done by some
+one who belongs on your plantation? Your dogs would have raised a
+terrible racket if a stranger----"
+
+"No, it wasn't," said Beardsley earnestly. "The dogs made furse enough
+that night to wake up everybody in Nashville; but they didn't none of
+'em do nothing, and that shows that they were afraid of the crowd that
+was there. My folks was that scared that they dassent none of 'em look
+out of the winder; but the next morning the letter that was put on the
+gallery and the stuff to burn the house was both there."
+
+"It's very strange that I never heard of it before," said Tom, who could
+not help telling himself that the recital made him feel very
+uncomfortable. "It's just awful that things like these can go on in the
+settlement and nobody be punished for them."
+
+"Well, it ain't so strange that you didn't hear of it, when you bear in
+mind that my folks didn't say much about it for fear that they might
+speak to the wrong person," said Beardsley. "I reckon it was done by the
+same fellers who took Hanson away to the swamp. Ain't nary idee who they
+were, have you?"
+
+"Nary an idea. I wish I had, so that I could expose them. Why, just
+think of it, captain! If things like these are allowed to go on, who is
+safe? How do we know but you or I may be marched off in the same way
+some dark night?"
+
+"I don't know it, and that's just what's a-troubling of me," said
+Beardsley, groaning again and rubbing his gloved hands nervously
+together. "Such doings is too shameful to be bore any longer. There's a
+heap of traitors right here amongst us, and I don't see how we are going
+to get shet of 'em."
+
+"That's the thought that was running in my mind when I met you," said
+Tom savagely. "I know who some of the traitors are, but the truth is,
+they are so cunning you can't prove the first thing against them.
+There's that Marcy Gray for one."
+
+"Say!" whispered Beardsley, reining his horse a little closer to Tom's
+and tapping the boy's shoulder with his riding-whip, "you have hit the
+very identical idee I have had in my mind for a long time. If Marcy
+ain't a traitor, what's him and his mother keeping that money of theirn
+stowed away so quiet for?"
+
+"Say!" whispered Allison in his turn, at the same time laying the handle
+of his own whip lightly upon the captain's knee, "that is something I
+have thought about more times than I can remember. If they haven't got
+money, and plenty of it, hidden somewhere, I am mistaken. You know that
+before Marcy came home from school his mother made a good many trips to
+Richmond, Newbern, and Wilmington; and everybody says those trips were
+not made solely for the purpose of buying supplies for the plantation."
+
+"I know it," assented Beardsley.
+
+"When Mrs. Gray came home she made a big show of parading all her
+niggers in bran' new suits of clothes," continued Allison. "But she did
+not have to go to three cities to buy the cloth those clothes were made
+of, did she? She's got money, and I am sure of it."
+
+"I know it," said Beardsley again. "I tried my best to make Marcy say
+so, but he was too sharp for me. You see his share of the prize-money
+the _Hollins_ sold for amounted to seventeen hunderd dollars."
+
+"Great Moses!" ejaculated Tom. "What a plum for that traitor to put into
+his pocket! I wish I had it. But he told me he was to get eight hundred
+and fifty dollars."
+
+"P'raps he did, for that was what the foremast hands got; but I promised
+to give Marcy more for acting as pilot and I done it, consarn my fule
+pictur'! I wanted to get on the blind side of him, so't he would sorter
+confide in me for a friend, don't you see? But I didn't make it. That
+boy might have cleared five thousand dollars if he had took out a
+venture the first time we run the blockade, but he wouldn't do it for
+fear he might lose the money. He said he might want to use them
+seventeen hunderd before the war was over."
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Tom.
+
+"That's what I thought," replied Beardsley.
+
+"Seventeen hundred dollars are not a drop in the bucket to the sum he
+and his mother have on hand at this moment, and I'll bet on it," added
+Tom. "They've got thousands, and I wish I could have the handling of
+some of it."
+
+That was what Captain Beardsley wished; but the trouble was he did not
+know where the money was concealed, or just how to go to work to get
+hold of it. He had a partly formed plan in his head, but he did not
+think that it would be quite safe to let Tom into the secret of it. At
+any rate, he would tell all his news first, and think about that
+afterward.
+
+"That boy Marcy is a plum dunce to act the way he is doing now," said
+the captain, after a little pause. "If he would go into our navy, and
+this war should happen to last a year or so longer, he would make a big
+officer of himself."
+
+"It won't last six months longer," said Allison confidently. "The
+Yankees can't stand more than one Bull Run drubbing. But tell me
+honestly, captain: Did Gray really show pluck on the night he got that
+broken arm?"
+
+"He did for a fact," replied Beardsley. "He stood up to the rack like a
+man, and took the schooner through the inlet with that arm hanging by
+his side as limp as a dish-rag. I'm free to say it, though I ain't no
+friend of his'n."
+
+"I am sorry you said it in the letters you wrote home to Shelby and
+Dillon. I wish that splinter, or whatever it was, had hit his head
+instead of his arm, for he carries himself altogether too stiff-legged
+on the strength of it. If he had whipped the whole Yankee fleet he could
+not throw on more airs. But why do you say he could win promotion by
+enlisting in our navy? Do you think he would go among the Federals if he
+wasn't afraid?"
+
+"That's where he would go if it wasn't for his mother. It's where his
+brother Jack is at this minute."
+
+"Captain," said Tom impressively, "you and I ought to be the very best
+of friends, for we think alike on a good many points. Somebody, I don't
+know who it was, gave it out through the settlement that Jack Gray went
+to Newbern to ship on a Confederate iron-clad; but I didn't believe it,
+and I don't think so now. If he and Marcy wanted to go to Newbern they
+would have gone by rail, wouldn't they? Instead of that they went in
+Marcy's schooner."
+
+"I don't care what anybody has give out or what anybody thinks," said
+Beardsley doggedly. "I know what I know, and believe what I have seen
+with my own two eyes, don't I? While I was standing into Crooked Inlet
+on my way--say! I don't know as I had best tell you what I seen with my
+own two eyes."
+
+"Why not?" demanded Allison, who was sure he was about to hear some
+exciting news. "You have already told me more than you had any business
+to tell, if you don't think I can keep a secret."
+
+"Well, that there is a fact. Look a-here. I aint said a word to nobody
+about this, and you mustn't let on that I told you; but while I was
+running into Crooked Inlet on my way home from the last trip I made to
+Nassau, I didn't see the steam launch that I was afraid might be waiting
+there for me, but I did see Marcy Gray's schooner."
+
+"Isn't that what I said?" exclaimed Tom gleefully. "What was Marcy
+Gray's schooner doing outside, and in the night-time, too?"
+
+"Hold on till I tell you how it was," replied the captain. "The first
+thing I see was that the schooner had been disguised, but that didn't by
+no means fool your uncle Lon. Them two boys, Marcy and Jack, had towed
+her through the inlet with their skiff and were just about to get aboard
+again and make sail, when I run on to 'em in the dark. I was that scared
+to see 'em that I couldn't move from my tracks, for a minute or two. I
+thought the Yankees had me sure."
+
+"It almost takes my breath to have my suspicions confirmed in this way,"
+said Tom. "Did you watch them to see where they went?"
+
+"Listen at the fule!" exclaimed the captain, in a tone of disgust. "Not
+much, I didn't watch them boys. I had enough to do to mind my own
+business; and knowing what brung them outside at that time of night,
+didn't I know where they had started for without watching 'em? They
+didn't go nigh Newbern. They went straight out to the Yankee fleet, and
+there's where Jack Gray is, while me and you are riding along this
+road."
+
+"Captain, I wouldn't have missed seeing you this morning for a bushel of
+money," declared Tom, whose first impulse was to whip up his horse and
+carry the joyful news to Nashville. "I've got a hold on Marcy Gray now
+that I shan't be slow to use."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Beardsley anxiously.
+
+"I'll let him know who he called a coward before a whole post-office
+full of people," said Allison savagely. "He will take that word back on
+his knees and do his best to make a friend of me, or I'll----"
+
+"There, now!" cried Beardsley; and the tone in which he uttered the
+words was quite as savage as Tom's. "I knew well enough that I had no
+call to tell you all them things without first speaking to Shelby and
+Dillon about them."
+
+"Of course I shall consult you, before doing or saying anything to
+Marcy," replied Tom, wishing he had net been so quick to speak the
+thoughts that were in his mind. "I don't want you to think that I am
+going to take these matters out of your hands, for I don't mean to do
+anything of the sort."
+
+"You had better not. You are nothing but a boy, and you would be sure to
+make a mess of the whole thing if you tried it. Me and Shelby will deal
+with Marcy and his mother."
+
+"I shall be satisfied, so long as you do something to him that he can
+feel. All I ask is to be around when it is done, so that I can see it.
+But you will have to be careful, captain. There are some about here who
+believe that the Grays are the best kind of Confederates."
+
+"What makes them believe that when me and you know it aint so?"
+
+"It's the way they worked things; and it was about the slickest scheme I
+ever heard of," replied Allison. "Why, captain, they ran down the river
+past Plymouth and Roanoke, with our flag flying from the _Fairy Belle's_
+masthead."
+
+"Of all the imperdence! Where did they get a flag of our'n?"
+
+"No one knows, unless Jack got it off the smuggler _West Wind_, that he
+piloted into Newbern. Anyhow he got it, and kept it hung upon the wall
+of his mother's house in plain sight of all who went there."
+
+"It was nothing but a cheat and a swindle, I tell you," shouted the
+captain. "Both them boys is Union, and their mother is too. I'll fix
+'em!"
+
+"I say again that you had better be careful," cautioned Tom. "If it
+turns out that they are in favor of the South, you will burn your
+fingers if you touch them; and if they are Union, they have friends to
+watch over and see that no harm comes to them. Have you forgotten the
+men who carried Hanson away in the night?"
+
+"No, I ain't; and that's what makes me so mad. We-uns about here can't
+do nothing with that money---- Say! mebbe I could tell you something
+else if you'll promise never to let on about it."
+
+"All right. I never will," answered Allison, who was becoming impatient
+to hear all the man had on his mind. Nashville was in plain sight now,
+and of course there could be no more talking of this sort done after
+they got there. "Hold up a bit. Don't let your horse walk so fast."
+
+"What I thought of saying to you is this," said Beardsley, once more
+sinking his voice to a whisper. "We-uns who live about here can't do
+nothing by ourselves, but we can hint--just hint, I say--to some
+outsiders that there's a pile of money in that there house of Mrs.
+Gray's that's to be had for the taking."
+
+"Go on," said Tom, when Beardsley stopped and looked at him. "I am
+listening, but I don't catch your meaning."
+
+"I could easy find half a dozen fellers right around here who would be
+up and doing mighty sudden if I should say that much in their private
+ears," continued the captain. "But mebbe that plan wouldn't work. I
+can't tell till I hear what Shelby thinks about it. But if it don't
+work, we might put the Richmond officers onto them."
+
+"What good would that do? If there is money in Mrs. Gray's house the
+Richmond authorities have no right to touch it."
+
+"Aint they, now!" chuckled Beardsley. "Don't the law say that we-uns
+mustn't pay no debts to the Yankees, but must turn the money over to the
+fellers at Richmond?"
+
+"But I am afraid Mrs. Gray doesn't owe any money to the Yankees."
+
+"What's the odds whether you think so or not?" said the captain
+earnestly. "We can hint that she does, can't we? And can't we hint
+furder, that instead of turning that money over, like the law says she
+must do, she is keeping it hid for her own use!"
+
+"Then why not make a sure thing of it by putting the government officers
+on the scent the first thing?"
+
+"Because they won't divide, the officers won't. Don't you see? The other
+fellers will."
+
+Tom Allison was astonished now, and no mistake. For a minute or two he
+looked hard at Beardsley, but he couldn't speak.
+
+"What do you stare at me that-a-way for?" demanded the captain. "I don't
+see nothing so very amazing in what I said. Didn't you tell me a minute
+ago that you would like mighty well to have the handling of some of that
+there money?"
+
+"Of course I did, and I say so yet; but I wouldn't dare touch it if it
+was got in that way. Don't misunderstand me now," said Allison, when he
+saw Beardsley gather up his reins and change his riding-whip to his
+right hand as if he were about to go on and leave Tom behind. "If you
+think it would be quite safe----"
+
+"What other way is there to get it?" snarled Beardsley. "I wasn't
+joking. These here aint no times for joking, and I meant every word I
+said. Why aint it safe? The folks in the settlement are mostly our
+friends, and even if they knew that some of the money went into our
+pockets, they wouldn't say nothing about it."
+
+"They would know it, and my father would say something to me, I bet you.
+But mind you," said Tom, as the two turned their horses toward the
+hitching-rack that stood across the street from the post-office, "if you
+and your friends think it can be done, I say go ahead and good luck to
+you. And if you make a success of it, as I hope you will, no one will
+hear from me that I knew a thing about it."
+
+"And you won't let on about the other things I have told you?" said the
+captain, as he dismounted and spread a blanket over his horse. "I don't
+reckon I had oughter said so much. Mebbe Shelby won't like it."
+
+"Will you tell me what he says after you have had a talk with him? Then
+you may depend upon me to keep a still tongue in my head. As for Shelby,
+I don't care whether he likes it or not. It is none of his business. I
+know, and have known for a long time, that he and his ring have some
+things in hand that they won't let me hear of, and I am as warm a friend
+to the South as they dare be, and just as ready to help her."
+
+"But you see you're a boy; and some men don't like to take boys into
+their secrets," replied Beardsley.
+
+"I know I am a boy, but all the same I am a wild horse in the cane and
+hard to curry. If Shelby and his gang don't pay a little more attention
+to me I will make them wish they had; and if Beardsley don't keep me
+posted in his plans, I'll knock them into the middle of next week. I'll
+find means to get Hanson's abductors after him. By George! That's an
+idea, and I'll think it over as I ride home."
+
+So saying Tom Allison hitched his horse to one of the pins in the rack
+and followed Beardsley across the street toward the post-office.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP.
+
+The streets of Nashville were almost deserted, for the cold wind, aided
+by the driving rain that was falling steadily, had forced all the idlers
+to seek comfort within doors. The post-office was full of them, and when
+the captain walked in with Allison at his heels they greeted him
+boisterously, and asked more questions in a minute than he could answer
+in ten. First and foremost they wanted to know why Beardsley had come
+home so unexpectedly, but that was a matter he did not care to say much
+about. All they could get from him was that he had some important
+business to attend to.
+
+"But of course you are going back again," said one. "I would if I had
+such a chance to make money as you have got. But perhaps you are rich
+enough already."
+
+"Well, no; I don't reckon I'll ran the blockade any more," replied the
+captain. "My schooner is safe and sound now and I want to keep her that
+way. The Yankees are getting tolerable thick outside, and I don't care
+to have them run me down some dark night and slap me into one of their
+prisons."
+
+There were at least a dozen persons in the post-office, besides Tom
+Allison, who knew that Beardsley had other and better reasons for
+quitting the profitable business in which he had been engaged, and three
+of them were Shelby, Dillon, and the postmaster. These men knew by the
+captain's manner, as well as by the way he looked at them now and then,
+that he had something of importance on his mind, and they left the store
+one after another, expecting Beardsley to follow and join them as soon
+as he could do so without arousing suspicion. A fourth man was Aleck
+Webster, who leaned carelessly against one of the counters and listened
+to what the captain had to say, although he did not seem to pay much
+attention to it. If Aleck had been so disposed he could have told
+Beardsley who wrote the letter that broke up his blockade running and
+brought him home so suddenly, and so could several other Union men who
+were in the office on this particular morning. They went there every day
+to hear their doings discussed; and it gave them no little satisfaction
+to learn that they had aroused a feeling of uneasiness and insecurity
+among the citizens which grew more intense as the days went by and
+nothing was heard from Hanson. Although Tom Allison knew nothing about
+the letter that had been left on Beardsley's porch until the latter told
+him, there were many in the settlement who knew about it and were
+wondering who could have put it there. The captain's negroes were the
+first to find it out, and Mrs. Brown, the neighborhood gossip who read
+the letter for Beardsley's daughter, was the second; and among them all
+they had managed to spread the story considerably.
+
+Tom Allison was like Captain Beardsley in one respect--he could not keep
+a secret any longer than it took him to find some congenial spirit who
+was willing to share it with him. He was eager to tell all he knew, and
+sometimes he told a good deal more; consequently, the first thing he did
+after Beardsley received his mail and left the office to find the three
+men who had gone out a while before, was to give his particular friend
+and crony Mark Goodwin, a swaggering, boastful young rebel like himself,
+a wink and a nod that brought him across to Tom's side of the store.
+
+"What is it, old fellow?" whispered Mark. "Your face is full of news."
+
+"And so is my head," replied Tom. "I am loaded clear to the muzzle, and
+anxious to shoot myself off at _your_ head. I am going to ride down to
+exchange a few yarns with Mrs. Brown; will you go along?"
+
+"What's the use?" exclaimed Mark, looking through the moist windows into
+the street. "You won't get anything but lies out of her. And just see
+how it rains!"
+
+"It doesn't rain to hurt anything, and we can't talk here," said Tom. "I
+don't care whether Mrs. Brown tells me the truth or not, so long as she
+will aid me in spreading a few items of news that came to my ears this
+morning. Better go, for I promise that I will surprise you. You know I
+rode down with Beardsley."
+
+"And I rather wondered at it. I can remember when you used to speak of
+him in a way that was anything but complimentary. Did he tell you what
+brought him home?" said Mark, in a whisper. "Come along then. I am ready
+to be surprised."
+
+The two boys mounted their horses and rode away through the driving
+rain, and as they rode, Tom Allison electrified his friend by making a
+clean breast of everything Beardsley had told him, and which he had
+promised to keep to himself; and observing that Mark was interested and
+excited by the narrative, Tom added to it a few details of his own
+invention. He declared that Hanson had told Beardsley, in confidence,
+that Mrs. Gray owed a big pile of money to Northern men, and instead of
+turning it over to the government, as the law provided, she was keeping
+it for her own use.
+
+"And how does it come that Hanson could learn so much of Mrs. Gray's
+private affairs?" demanded Mark. "He didn't live in the house, but in
+the quarter with the niggers."
+
+"Probably some of the house servants posted him," answered Tom. "You
+know that prying darkies sometimes find out a heap of things."
+
+"That's so," assented Mark. "Tom, you have told me great news--Mrs. Gray
+with a gold mine hidden somewhere in her house, and Marcy taking his
+brother Jack out to the Yankee fleet to give him a chance to enlist
+under the old flag! What are we coming to? What are you going to do
+about it? You must have some plan in your head, or you wouldn't be going
+to see Mrs. Brown. You had better be careful what you say in the
+presence of that old witch, or she may get you into trouble."
+
+"That is the very thing I wanted to talk to you about," replied Tom.
+"What do you think we ought to do? I don't know whether I have the
+straight of the story or not, but I am sure Mrs. Brown has, for
+Beardsley probably told her all about it as soon as he got home last
+night. That man can't keep a thing to himself to save his life. I
+thought it might be a good idea to see what Mrs. Brown thinks about it,
+and to ask her if there is any truth in the report that a band of men
+has been got together to rob Mrs. Gray's house."
+
+"I will tell you one thing confidentially," said Mark. "If that part of
+the story isn't true, a few wags of Mrs. Brown's tongue will make it
+true. There are dozens of men right here in this country, and you and I
+are acquainted with some of them, who would jump down on that house this
+very night if they were sure they could make anything by it."
+
+"I know that, but I don't care; do you? I always did despise those
+Grays, and now that they have shown themselves to be traitors, I say let
+them suffer for it. You heard Marcy tell me to put a uniform on before I
+presumed to speak to him again, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes; and I heard his brother Jack call you a stay-at-home blow-hard. I
+looked for you to tackle the pair of them the moment they insulted you;
+but you surprised me and all the rest of your friends by keeping
+perfectly still," observed Mark, who knew well enough that Tom lacked
+the courage to "tackle" the brothers, either of whom could have tossed
+him half-way across the post-office without very much trouble.
+
+"I was biding my time," replied Allison, making his riding-whip whistle
+viciously through the air just above his horse's ears. "It has come now,
+and if Marcy Gray doesn't take that insulting word back as publicly as
+he gave it to me----"
+
+"Oh, you needn't look for him to do that. Marcy isn't that sort of a
+fellow."
+
+"He'll wish he was that sort before I am done with him," said Tom, with
+spiteful emphasis. "That's one reason why I am going to see Mrs. Brown.
+I want her to spread it around that Marcy took Jack out to the
+blockading fleet."
+
+"She is just the one to do it," said Mark, with a laugh. "And the way to
+make her go about it as though she meant business is to tell her your
+story under a pledge of secrecy."
+
+"And there is another matter that I want to speak to you about,"
+continued Tom. "What scheme have Shelby and Dillon and the postmaster
+and your father and mine got in hand that they take so much pains to
+keep from us boys?"
+
+"I wish I knew," answered Mark, whose face showed that his companion's
+words had made him angry. "They talk about something or other as often
+as they get together, and if I take a step in their direction they
+either send me about my business, or stop talking. And I tell you I
+don't like to be treated that way."
+
+"That is just the way they treat me, and I don't like it either," said
+Tom. "More than that, I won't stand it."
+
+"I don't see how you are going to help yourself."
+
+"Perhaps you don't, but I think I do. Beardsley belongs to the ring, of
+course, and if he doesn't keep me posted in all their plans, I'll go to
+work to upset them."
+
+"Why, Tom, are you crazy?" exclaimed Mark, who had never been more
+amazed.
+
+"No; but I am mad clear through. I am not willing to go into the army
+unless I can have an office of some kind, but I am eager to fight
+traitors here at home; and if those men won't give me a chance to help
+them, I shall fight on my own hook."
+
+"But how can you? And how will you go to work to upset their plans when
+you don't know what they are? You take a friend's advice and behave
+yourself. Why, Tom, I wouldn't willingly incur the enmity of the Union
+men about here for all the money there is in the State. They are too
+desperate a lot for me to fool with. Nobody knows for certain who they
+are, and that makes them all the more dangerous."
+
+About this time the boys dismounted in front of Mrs. Brown's humble
+abode--a small log-cabin which Beardsley had built for her in the edge
+of a briar patch on his own plantation. That was the only neighborly act
+that anybody ever knew the captain to be guilty of; but then it was not
+entirely unselfish on his part. Beardsley received important letters now
+and then. He was not good at reading all sorts of writing, and when he
+came upon a sentence that he could not master, it was little trouble for
+him to run over to Mrs. Brown's cabin and ask her to decipher it for
+him. And--it is a remarkable thing to tell, but it is the truth--the
+contents of those letters were safe with Mrs. Brown. She would tell any
+and every thing else that came to her knowledge, no matter how it might
+hurt somebody, but who Beardsley's correspondents were and what they
+wrote about, no one could learn from her.
+
+Having sheltered their horses in some fashion behind the cabin, the boys
+opened the door without knocking, and went in. There were two persons in
+the single room the cabin contained--a little, dried-up woman who sat in
+a low rocking-chair in front of the fire with a dingy snuff-stick
+between her toothless gums, and one of Beardsley's negro girls who had
+come over to "slick up things."
+
+"How do you find yourself this fine morning, mother?" said Tom
+familiarly. "We thought we would drop in to warm by your comfortable
+blaze, and see if you are in need of any little things we can get for
+you. By the way," he added, putting his hand into his pocket, "it's a
+long time since I gave anything toward buying a jar of snuff. Take that
+till I come again."
+
+"I see the captain has returned; and quite unexpectedly, too, I am
+told," said Mark, pulling off his dripping overcoat and hanging it upon
+a wooden peg in the chimney-corner. "I wish he might find the man who
+wrote him that threatening letter and broke up his business. I am sure
+he would make it warm for him."
+
+"Every one of them triflin' hounds had oughter have a hickory wore out
+on their bare backs," said the old woman, in tones which sounded so
+nearly like the snarl of some wild animal that Tom Allison shuddered,
+although he had often heard her speak that way before.
+
+"Do you know who they are?"
+
+"Of course she knows who they are," exclaimed Mark. "The question is, is
+she at liberty to tell."
+
+"Mebbe I know, an' mebbe I don't," said the woman, with a contortion of
+her wrinkled face that was intended for a wink and a smile. "I aint one
+of them folks who tells all they know. I am a master-hand to keep things
+to myself when they are told to me for a secret."
+
+"Everybody knows that, and it is the reason why everybody is so willing
+to trust you," said Tom; and seeing that he had not given the old woman
+quite enough to loosen her tongue, he turned to Mark and added: "I was
+sure we would forget it, we are so careless. We came away from your
+house without ever once thinking of that side of bacon we were going to
+bring to Mrs. Brown."
+
+"I knew we had forgotten something," said Mark regretfully, "and sure's
+you live that's it. But it will keep till we come again, won't it,
+mother? Who did you say wrote that letter?"
+
+"You're very good boys to be always thinkin' of a poor crippled body
+like me, who can't get about to hear a bit of news on account of the
+pesky rheumatiz that bothers me night an' day," whined the old woman.
+"Now when I was a bright, lively young gal----"
+
+"Did I understand you to say that Jack Gray had something to do with the
+abduction of his mother's overseer?" interrupted Mark, who knew it would
+never do to let the old woman get started on the story of her girlhood.
+"You astonish me; you do for a fact!"
+
+"I disremember that I have spoke Jack Gray's name at all sense you two
+have been here," said Mrs. Brown cautiously.
+
+"But you did, though. Didn't she, Tom?"
+
+"I thought so, certainly; and I told myself at the time, that I did not
+see how Jack could have had any hand in Hanson's taking off, for I have
+heard that he was not at home when the thing was done."
+
+"No more he wasn't to hum. He was on his way to jine the Yankee navy,
+dog-gone him an' them," snapped the woman, whose tongue was fairly
+loosened now. "But he left them behine who works as well fur him when he
+aint to hum as when he is."
+
+"We know that very well," said Tom, who was surprised to hear it, "but
+we don't know for certain who they are. Mark, don't you see that Mrs.
+Brown is looking for her pipe?"
+
+Mark hadn't noticed it, but all the same he hunted around on the mantel
+until he found the well-blackened corn-cob, but he could not bring
+himself to light it. He filled the bowl with some natural leaf he saw in
+a box and handed it to the woman, who set it going with the aid of a
+live coal which she took from the hearth in her bony fingers.
+
+"You two aint furgot the stranger who popped up in Nashville all on a
+sudden like, about the time that Jack Gray came hum from Newbern, have
+you?" continued the old woman, after she had assured herself by a few
+long, audible puffs that her pipe was well lighted. "Lemme see if I have
+disremembered his name. No; sounds to me like it was Aleck Webster."
+
+"Don't know him," said Tom, in a disappointed tone.
+
+"I don't know him either," chimed in Mark, "but I have seen him. You
+know old man Webster, Tom, who lives about six miles down the main road.
+Well, Aleck is his son."
+
+"Now I do think, in my soul," exclaimed Allison, "things have come to a
+pretty pass when Crackers like those Websters can throw a settlement
+like this into a panic, and order prominent and wealthy planters like
+Captain Beardsley to quit business and come home on penalty of being
+burned out in case of disobedience."
+
+"You're mighty right," said Mrs. Brown, who was pleased to hear the
+captain called a prominent and wealthy planter. "Sich trash aint no call
+to live on this broad 'arth. They're wuss than the niggers, an' a heap
+lower down."
+
+"But have you any evidence against the Websters?" inquired Mark.
+
+"I've got a plenty. In the fust place they don't say nothing; an' folks
+as don't say nothing these times ain't fitten to live. Now is the day
+when every man oughter come out an' show their colors," said the woman,
+quoting from Beardsley.
+
+"That means Marcy Gray," said Tom. "I wish I could see a gang of armed
+men take him out of the house and carry him off."
+
+"He mustn't be teched," said the woman very decidedly.
+
+"Who mustn't--Marcy?" exclaimed Tom and Mark in a breath. "Who said so?
+What's the reason he mustn't be touched? He's a traitor."
+
+"I don't know whether he is or not; but he mustn't be pestered.
+Leastwise by folks living around here in the settlement."
+
+Tom looked at Mark, and Mark looked about for a chair and sat down. Then
+they both looked at the old woman. This was something mysterious, and
+they wanted to have it explained.
+
+"I aint got no more to say on that there p'int," said Mrs. Brown, her
+tone and manner showing that the question did not admit of argument.
+"He'll be teched fast enough when the time comes, Marcy Gray will, an'
+don't you furget to remember what I'm tellin' you. But them as goes for
+Marcy will be folks that can't be pestered by the men who toted Hanson
+off to the swamp."
+
+"Ah! Now I see daylight," said Tom, with something that sounded like a
+sigh of relief. "I thought you meant that Marcy was to be left alone
+altogether for the reason that he was believed to be a good Confederate.
+And when these friends of ours, whoever they may be, go for him, I
+suppose they'll not neglect to look for the money that Mrs. Gray is
+known to have in her house?"
+
+"I aint heared that anybody knows for sartin that the money is there,"
+said Mrs. Brown. "Leastwise, they don't know it _yit._ There won't be
+nothing much done till that there is settled fur a fact."
+
+"Then Marcy will never be molested," declared Tom, throwing a chip
+spitefully into the fire. "He can go out to the blockading fleet as
+often as he pleases and ship a dozen brothers in the Yankee navy if he
+wants to, and nothing will be done to him. If Jack Gray left men behind
+to work for him while he is at sea, Marcy must know who they are and
+where to find them, and he can set them on to Mark's father or mine
+whenever he feels like it. I'll touch him the first good chance I get,
+and don't you forget to remember _that._ He is a traitor, and I wouldn't
+let him alone if all the Captain Beardsleys in the country should say
+so. And how is any one to find out for certain that his mother has money
+concealed in her house? She isn't going to publish it to the world, is
+she?"
+
+The longer Allison talked the more his anger rose, and when he got
+through he was stalking about the narrow limits of the cabin, shaking
+his fists over his head in the most frantic manner. The old woman waited
+patiently for him to sit down again, and then she took her pipe from her
+mouth long enough to say:
+
+"Kelsey is out of a job jest now."
+
+"That's no news. He's always that way. He won't work when he gets the
+chance. He would rather beg his living or steal it."
+
+"I know that he's mighty shiftless an' triflin', but he's a tol'able
+overseer, Kelsey is, when he onct makes up his mine to do something,"
+said the woman. "Now that Hanson has went off the Grays aint got nobody
+to boss the hands."
+
+"The idea!" cried Tom, who began to "see daylight" once more. "Does
+Captain Beardsley labor under the delusion that Marcy Gray will hire
+that man Kelsey, who is next door to a fool, and allow him----"
+
+"Yes, Kelsey is tol'able triflin', an' that there is a fact,"
+interrupted the woman. "But he aint nobody's fule. He's as sly an ole
+fox as you can meet in a day's travel."
+
+"Marcy Gray will not have him on the place, I tell you," said Tom. "And
+even if he should be dunce enough to hire him, how could Kelsey find out
+whether or not there was any money in the house? If the captain has
+anything against Kelsey, and wants him to disappear some dark night as
+Hanson did, he is taking the right course to bring it about. That's what
+will happen to Kelsey if he goes to work on that plantation, and I want
+you both to remember my words."
+
+"And let me tell you another thing," added Mark. "No one man is going to
+find the hiding-place of that money if there is any about the house.
+When the building is down and the foundations are torn up, then it will
+be found, and not before."
+
+"That there is a fact," observed the woman.
+
+"Where do you think it is concealed, any way?" inquired Tom. "I had an
+idea that it might be buried in the garden."
+
+"I am willing to bet my horse against your jack-knife that it isn't,"
+replied Mark. "It is so close to the house that the family can keep an
+eye on all the approaches to it, and it is where fire can't touch it."
+
+"Then it must be buried in the cellar," exclaimed Tom. "I declare! I
+believe you have hit the exact spot. I should like to be left alone in
+that place for about an hour with a shovel to work with. I would be rich
+when I came out."
+
+"You jest keep away from that there suller," said the old woman sternly.
+"Don't go nigh the house, nary one of you."
+
+The two boys elevated their eye-brows and looked at each other, and it
+was as much as half a min ate before Mark Goodwin continued:
+
+"You would be fooled if you looked anywhere but in the walls for it. So
+a shovel would be of no use to you. I have been in that cellar when
+Marcy and I were on better terms than we are now, and I know that the
+floor is laid in cement. It would be a job, I tell you, for a woman to
+dig it up and put it down again, and she couldn't do it so that the spot
+would not show itself to the first person who might happen to go in
+there."
+
+"A woman!" exclaimed Allison.
+
+"Yes, for a woman did the work," answered Mark, who could not have
+spoken with more confidence if he had been in Mrs. Gray's company on the
+night the thirty thousand dollars were concealed. "You know Marcy was
+not at home when his mother made those trips about the country."
+
+"What of that? Didn't she take some of her old servants into her
+confidence?"
+
+"No, sir. When people are trying to carry water on both shoulders as
+Mrs. Gray is, they don't let one hand know what the other does."
+
+"And I believe," said Allison, getting upon his feet again and walking
+about the cabin, "that if somebody should go for Mrs. Gray's coachman in
+the right way, he would find out all about it. But I say, Mark, it's
+time for us to be riding along. What shall we bring you when we come
+again, mother? Snuff and smoking tobacco are always acceptable, I
+suppose?"
+
+"And don't forget to say that you haven't seen either one of us for more
+than a week," chimed in Mark. "Doings of some sort are liable to happen
+in the settlement at any hour of the day or night, and we don't want our
+names mixed up with them. We shall attend strictly to our own business,
+and hope that those ruffians who carried Hanson away will do the same."
+
+"I am mighty glad to hear you say that, and I don't want you to
+disremember what I have tole you," answered the old woman, with some
+earnestness. "You aint to go a-pesterin' of Marcy Gray an' his maw, kase
+there is folks about here who won't by no means take it kind of you if
+you do."
+
+The boys promised that they would bear her warning in mind, but Tom
+Allison told himself that he thought he should do as he pleased about
+heeding it. He was not obliged to consult anybody's wishes, in dealing
+with such a traitor as Marcy Gray had shown himself to be. He turned his
+back to the fire while Mark was putting on his overcoat, and just then a
+gentle snore reminded him that there was one person in the cabin whom he
+had forgotten. It was the negro girl who, having cleared away the late
+breakfast dishes and put the little furniture there was in the room to
+rights, had drawn a chair to the table and fallen fast asleep with her
+head resting on her folded arms. Tom took one look at her, and then he
+and Mark went out. Neither of them said a word, until they had mounted
+their horses and ridden into the road, and then Mark inquired:
+
+"What do you know now more than you did when you came here? All I have
+learned is that Beardsley is afraid of Marcy Gray, and don't want
+anything to happen to him, if he can help it, for fear that the blame
+would be laid at his door. I tell you, Tom Allison, as long as those men
+who carried Hanson away are at large, we have got to look out what we
+say and do. It's an awful state of affairs, but that is the way it looks
+to me."
+
+That was the way it looked to Tom also; and as he could not say anything
+encouraging, he held his peace, and rode on with his eyes fastened upon
+the horn of his saddle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+VISITORS IN PLENTY.
+
+Although we have said that Marcy Gray appeared to be as calm as a
+summer's morning, he was not so in reality. He had the most disquieting
+reflections for company during every one of his waking hours, and they
+troubled him so that he found it next to impossible to concentrate his
+mind on anything. On this particular morning he felt so very gloomy that
+he did not ride his filly to town, as was his usual custom, but sent old
+Morris and a mule instead. What was the use of going to the post-office
+through all that rain just to listen to the idle boasts of a few
+stay-at-home rebels who could not or would not tell him a single
+reliable item of news? He and his mother had been talking over the
+situation--it was what they always talked about when they were
+alone--and the conclusion to which they came was, that their affairs
+could not go on in this way much longer, and that a change for better or
+worse was sure to come before many days more had passed away.
+
+"I suppose our situation might be worse, but I can't see how," said
+Marcy, rising from his seat on the sofa and looking out at one of the
+streaming windows.
+
+"Would it not be worse if we had no roof to shelter us in weather like
+this?" inquired Mrs. Gray.
+
+"It would be bad for us if our house was burned, of course," answered
+Marcy. "But as for a roof, we shall always have that. If they turn us
+out of here we'll go to the quarters; and if they burn us out of there,
+we'll go into the woods and throw up a shanty. As long as they leave me
+or a single darky on the place the weather will never trouble you,
+mother."
+
+"But I am afraid they will not leave you with me," replied Mrs. Gray.
+"You know that General Wise has asked the Richmond authorities to
+re-enforce him at Roanoke Island, and they have told him to re-enforce
+himself. You know what that means?"
+
+"Yes; it means a general drumming up of recruits among the lukewarm
+rebels hereabouts. But it doesn't scare me. When I see such fellows as
+Allison, Goodwin, Shelby, and Dillon, and a dozen others I could
+mention, shoulder a musket and go to the defence of the Island, then I
+shall begin to worry about myself, and not before. Mother, Captain
+Beardsley and his friends will not permit me to be forced into the army,
+and neither will they let harm come to you, if they have influence
+enough to prevent it."
+
+"Marcy, I am afraid you are placing too much reliance upon Aleck Webster
+and his friends," said his mother. "They have not brought Beardsley home
+yet. Suppose he has the courage to defy them?"
+
+"But he hasn't," said the boy earnestly. "He hasn't had time to answer
+that letter yet, but he will do it, and he will answer it in person. I
+know he would have the courage to brave an open enemy, especially if he
+was driven into a corner and couldn't run, but it worries him, as it
+does everyone else, to have people work against him in secret. He will
+come home before he will allow his property to be destroyed, and Aleck
+assured me that if anything happens to us, Beardsley will have to stand
+punishment for it. But I do wish he had not caught Jack and me at
+Crooked Inlet. He will tell all about it the minute he gets home--he
+would die if he had to keep it to himself--and I am afraid the folks
+about here will do something to us in spite of all Beardsley and his
+friends can do to prevent it. I wonder where those two horsemen are
+going in such haste. Why, mother, they are rebel officers, and they are
+turning toward the gate. Yes, sir; they are coming in. Now what do you
+suppose they want here?"
+
+This was a startling piece of news, and a question that Mrs. Gray could
+not answer. Although there were two garrisons within a few miles of the
+plantation, one being located at Plymouth and the other at Roanoke
+Island, Marcy and his mother seldom saw any soldiers, unless they
+happened to be neighbors who had enlisted, and come home on a few days'
+furlough. These furloughed men never came near the house, but rode by
+without looking at it; while the two men who were now approaching were
+headed straight for it, and their actions seemed to indicate that they
+had business with some member of the family. Marcy glanced at his
+mother's pale but resolute face, and then he looked up at the
+Confederate banner--the one Captain Semmes hoisted at the _Sabine's_
+peak when he put his prize crew aboard of her, and which Sailor Jack had
+captured and brought home with him. That flag had twice taken the little
+_Fairy Belle_ in safety past the rebel fortifications down the river,
+and Marcy had great hopes of it now.
+
+"It may not serve you this time as well as it did before," said his
+mother, who seemed to read the thoughts that were passing in his mind.
+"I was afraid you would miss it by passing those batteries in broad
+daylight, but I do not understand these things, and did not think it
+best to raise any objections to Jack's plans."
+
+"Why, mother, we never could have run those works in the dark without
+being seen and fired at and perhaps sunk," replied Marcy. "The very
+impudence of the thing was what disarmed suspicion and saved us from
+being searched. We'll soon know the worst now, for here they are at the
+bottom of the steps. I shall ask them right in here."
+
+So saying Marcy opened the door that gave entrance into the hall, and
+called for Julius to run around to the front door and take charge of a
+couple of horses he would find there, after which he stepped out upon
+the gallery just as the Confederates were getting ready to hail the
+house.
+
+"Good-morning, gentlemen," said he. "Alight, and give your nags over to
+this boy."
+
+The officers replied in courteous tones, and when they had ascended the
+steps to the gallery and turned down the wide collars of their gray
+overcoats, Marcy was somewhat relieved to find that they were both
+strangers, and that they did not look at him as though they had anything
+unpleasant to say to him.
+
+"I am Captain Porter, at your service, and my friend here is Lieutenant
+Anderson; no relation, however, to the Yankee hero of Fort Sumter, who,
+so I am told, is about to be canonized by the Northern people," said the
+elder of the two; and then he waited a moment for his subordinate to
+laugh at his wit. "If you are Marcy Gray and the head man of the
+plantation, you are the man we are looking for. Who wouldn't be a
+soldier this fine weather? How is your arm coming on by this time?"
+
+Marcy was beginning to feel a little at his ease in the presence of his
+unwelcome visitors, but this abrupt question aroused his fears on the
+instant. Did the captain know what was the matter with his arm? and if
+he did, which one of their gossiping neighbors told him about it? He was
+anxious to know, but afraid to ask.
+
+"It is getting better every day, thank you," was his reply. "Will you
+not come and speak to my mother? Julius will put your horses under
+shelter."
+
+"We are 'most too muddy to go into the presence of a lady," said the
+captain, looking down at his boots, "but as I don't want to blot my
+notebook by taking it out in the rain, I think we'll have to go in. We
+had a short but interesting chat with your captain a while ago."
+
+"Beardsley?" Marcy almost gasped. "Has he got home?"
+
+"Of course he has. You didn't think the Yankees had captured him, I
+hope. He gave us a good account of you, and since you can't run the
+blockade any more, I wish you would hurry up and get well so that you
+can join----"
+
+Right here the captain stopped long enough to permit Marcy to introduce
+him and his lieutenant to Mrs. Gray. They sat down in the easy-chairs
+that were brought for them, made a few remarks about the weather, and
+then the captain resumed.
+
+"Yes; we saw Beardsley this morning, and would have been glad to spend a
+longer time with him, but business prevented. He says you are a brave
+and skilful pilot, and I happen to know that they are the sort of men
+who are needed on our gunboats; but, of course, you can't go just now.
+Hallo!" exclaimed the captain, whose gaze had wandered to the rebel flag
+that hung upon the wall. "Where did you get that, if it is a fair
+question?"
+
+"It is one my brother brought home with him," answered Marcy, speaking
+with a calmness that surprised himself. "He was second mate and pilot of
+the blockade runner _West Wind_ that was fitted out and loaded in the
+port of Boston."
+
+"Oh, yes; we heard all about him too," said the captain, and Marcy
+afterward confessed that the words frightened him out of a year's
+growth. "He went down to Newbern to ship on an ironclad he didn't find;
+so I suppose he went into the army, did he not?"
+
+"Not that I know of," answered Marcy, looking first one officer and then
+the other squarely in the eye. "Almost the last thing I heard him say
+was, that he was going to ship on a war vessel."
+
+"Then he will have to come back here to do it, for there is no ironclad
+building at Newbern, and I don't see why he did not ship with Commodore
+Lynch in the first place," said Captain Porter. "But doubtless he wanted
+to serve on deep water. Now to business. We want negroes to work on the
+fortifications on and about the Island, and Captain Beardsley sent us
+here to get some. He said he thought you might spare, say fifty or
+more."
+
+Marcy was suspicious of everything Beardsley said and did, and wondered
+if this was a new move on the man's part to bring him and his mother
+into trouble with the Confederate authorities. If it was a trap Marcy
+did not fall into it.
+
+"You can call on my mother for double that number," said he without an
+instant's hesitation. "We can't spare them, of course, for there's work
+enough to be done on the place; but all the same you will have to get
+them."
+
+"All right," answered the captain, pulling out his notebook. "Send them
+down to Plymouth as soon as you can and in any way you please, and we
+will furnish them with transportation and take care of them after that.
+By the way, it's rather queer about that overseer of yours. Where do you
+imagine he is now?"
+
+If Marcy had not been fully on the alert this question would have struck
+him dumb; but the captain, whose suspicions had not been in the least
+aroused, and who believed Marcy and his mother to be as good
+Confederates as he was himself, had unwittingly paved the way for it by
+talking so freely about Captain Beardsley.
+
+"It was a very strange as well as a most alarming proceeding," admitted
+Mrs. Gray, who thought it time for her to take part in the conversation.
+"I have not yet fully recovered from the fright it gave me," she added,
+with a smile, "and we have not the faintest idea where Hanson is now."
+
+"What was Hanson anyhow? Which side was he on?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Marcy. "Sometimes he claimed to be one thing,
+and then he claimed to be another."
+
+"Captain Beardsley thinks he was in favor of the South."
+
+"That proves my words, for he assured me that he was a Union man, and
+wanted to know if I was going to discharge him on account of his
+principles. I told him I was not, and added that if Shelby and Dillon
+and their friends wanted him driven from the place they could come up
+and do the work themselves, for I would have no hand in it. I desire to
+live in peace with all my neighbors."
+
+"Oh, you can't do that, and it's no use to try," exclaimed the captain,
+getting upon his feet and buttoning his heavy coat. "Beyond a doubt your
+overseer was a Confederate in principle; and if that is so, his
+abductors must have been Union men. If Confederates had carried him away
+they would not hesitate to say so. Those Unionists must be your near
+neighbors, and if I were in your place, I should not show my colors
+quite so plainly," added the captain, pointing to the banner on the
+wall. "I am surprised to learn that there are so many traitors in my
+State, and we shall turn our attention to them as soon as we have beaten
+back the Yankee invaders of our soil."
+
+"Do you think there will be any more fighting, captain?" asked Mrs. Gray
+anxiously.
+
+"Yes, madam, I do. I am not one of those who believe that the North is
+going to be easily whipped. They do not belong to our race, I am glad to
+say, but they are a hardy, enduring people, and although they don't know
+how to fight they think they do, and they are going to give us a
+struggle. We must hold fast to Roanoke Island, for the possession of
+that important point would give the enemy a chance to operate in the
+rear of Norfolk. We expect to have a brush with them soon, and when it
+comes, we intend to make another Bull Run affair of it. I wish we could
+remain longer, but our duties call us away. I trust you will have those
+negroes down to us to-morrow."
+
+Mrs. Gray replied that they should be sent without loss of time, and
+Marcy went out to tell Julius to bring up the horses. When he came back
+and followed the officers to the front door, he inquired if they had
+heard what Beardsley's reason was for quitting a profitable business and
+coming home so unexpectedly.
+
+"Oh, yes; Beardsley told us all about it. He said he was afraid of the
+Yankees, and he didn't act as though he was ashamed to confess it. Their
+cruisers are getting so thick along the coast that a sailing vessel
+stands no chance. I asked him if he was going to enlist and he thought
+not. He wants to do his fighting on the water."
+
+"He wants to do his fighting with his mouth," was what Marcy said to
+himself. "He will neither enlist nor ship; but he will stay at home and
+try by all the mean arts that he is master of to keep mother and me in
+trouble." Then aloud he said: "I am glad he came home, for it lets me
+out of the service. I have no desire to face any more steam launches
+that carry howitzers."
+
+"I suppose not," said the captain, giving Marcy's hand a hearty farewell
+shake. "The more I see of those people the less I like to face them in
+battle. I hope you will soon have the use of your arm again, and that I
+shall see you by my side fighting for the glorious cause of Southern
+independence. Good-by."
+
+The two officers mounted and rode away, Marcy remained upon the gallery
+long enough to wave his hand to them as they passed through the gate,
+and then he went into the house and to the room in which he had left his
+mother.
+
+"What did I tell you?" were the first words he uttered. "Didn't I say
+that Beardsley would not let harm come to us if he could help it? I tell
+you, mother, he is afraid of the men who carried Hanson away and ordered
+him to come home."
+
+"Well, then, is he not aware that we are looking to those same men for
+protection?" inquired Mrs. Gray.
+
+"If he doesn't know it he suspects it pretty strongly. Aleck Webster
+told me that Beardsley had been warned to cease persecuting Union people
+in this settlement. That includes you and me, for the minute Beardsley
+saw and recognized my schooner in Crooked Inlet, that very minute he
+knew where to place us. He knows where Jack is now as well as we know it
+ourselves."
+
+"And will he not tell of it?"
+
+"Of course, for it is to his interest to do so. If he has been home long
+enough to ride into Nashville, he has told Shelby and Dillon of it
+before this time. I wish I could see a copy of the letter that was sent
+to him by Aleck and his friends. I am sorry to lose all our best hands
+at the very time we need them most, but all the same I am glad those
+officers came here. They didn't say _money_ once, and that proves that
+Beardsley could not have spoken of it in their hearing."
+
+"O Marcy," exclaimed Mrs. Gray, rising from her chair and nervously
+pacing the room. "I little dreamed that that money would be the occasion
+of so much anxiety to all of us. I almost wish I had never seen it. I
+can't sleep of nights for thinking of it, and sometimes I imagine I hear
+someone moving about the cellar."
+
+"I don't wish you had never heard of it," replied Marcy. "We can't tell
+how long it will be before a dollar or two of it may come handy to us.
+Say, mother," he added, stepping to her side and placing his arm about
+her waist, "do you think you would be any easier in your mind if you did
+not know just where that money was, so long as you knew it was safe?"
+
+"I know I should," was the reply, given in cautious tones. "But, my son,
+you must not attempt to remove it to another hiding-place. There seem to
+be so many who are on the watch, that I am sure you would be detected at
+it. That would mean ruin for you and arrest and imprisonment for me."
+
+Marcy Gray was surprised, frightened, and angered by the
+words--surprised to learn that his mother was tormented by the very fear
+that had been uppermost in the mind of the absent Jack; frightened when
+he reflected how very easy it would be for some of their secret enemies
+to bring evidence to prove that every dollar of the money that was
+concealed in the cellar-wall rightfully belonged to Northern men, and
+that Mrs. Gray was hoarding it for her own use in violation of the law
+in such cases made and provided; and angered when he thought of the many
+indignities that would be put upon his mother by the Confederate
+authorities, who had showed themselves to be brutally vindictive and
+merciless in dealing with those whose opinions differed from their own.
+He drew a long breath which was very like a sob, and led his mother back
+to her seat on the sofa.
+
+"All right," said he, with an appearance of cheerfulness that he was far
+from feeling. "I thought it would be a load off your mind if you could
+say that there is no money about the house except the little you carry
+in your pocket."
+
+Mrs. Gray noticed that the boy did not promise to let the money alone,
+but before she could call his attention to the fact Marcy faced about
+and went into the hall after his coat and cap.
+
+"It is almost time for the hands to have their dinner," said he, "and
+when I get them together I will tell them the news. Of course they will
+be delighted with it."
+
+"I am afraid they will put them under some old overseer who will abuse
+and drive them beyond their strength," observed Mrs. Gray.
+
+"I think it likely that they will see the difference between working for
+you and working for somebody else," admitted Marcy. "But these are war
+times, and when we can't help ourselves we must do as we are told. Our
+darkies ought to be glad of an opportunity to labor for the government
+that is fighting to keep them slaves. I wonder how many Captain
+Beardsley will send!"
+
+"You said a while ago that it would be to the captain's interest to tell
+of his meeting with you and Jack at Crooked Inlet," observed Mrs. Gray.
+"I didn't quite understand that."
+
+"Well, you see Beardsley needs help to carry out his plans, and his game
+now is to do nothing that will cause Hanson's abductors to turn their
+attention to him and his buildings. He believes, and he has good reason
+to believe, that certain men around here have it in their power to
+damage him greatly; and if he can bring Shelby and Dillon and the rest
+of the gang to his way of thinking, they will be apt to let us alone.
+Now I will go out and make a detail of the men we need about the place,
+and tell the others that they must be ready to march at daylight in the
+morning. I am not going to send them off in this rain."
+
+"The captain said nothing about picks and shovels," suggested Mrs. Gray.
+"Perhaps it would be well----"
+
+"Picks and shovels cost money," interrupted Marcy, "and we are not going
+to send any down there to be stolen. Let the Confederate government
+furnish its own tools. Now I am beaten again! Here are two more
+visitors, and this time they are Captain Beardsley and Colonel Shelby."
+
+This very unwelcome announcement brought Mrs. Gray to her feet in a
+twinkling. "What do you think they can want here?" she almost gasped,
+with a good deal of emphasis on the pronoun.
+
+"They are coming to make friends with you, so that you will not tell the
+Union men to destroy their property," replied Marcy.
+
+"But, my son, I never would do anything of the kind. And besides, I do
+not know the Union men, or where to find them."
+
+"No difference so long as they think you do. Now sit down and be as
+independent as you please, and I will let them in. Julius, stand by the
+front door to take those horses."
+
+These men were admitted as the others were, but with very different
+feelings on the part of those they came to visit. Captain Porter and his
+lieutenant had donned uniforms and were ready to risk their lives for
+the cause in which they honestly believed, but these two lacked the
+courage to do that. Beardsley was ready to do anything that would bring
+him a dollar, provided there was no danger in it, while Shelby would not
+have enlisted if he knew that he could thereby earn a right to the title
+that was now given him out of respect to his wealth. They were ready to
+urge or drive others into the army, but it hurt them to be obliged to
+send their negroes to work on the fortifications. Colonel Shelby entered
+the room and seated himself with an air of a gentleman, while Beardsley
+acted the boor, as he always did. He gave Marcy's well hand a tremendous
+grip and shake, and said, in the same voice he would have used if he had
+been hailing the masthead:
+
+"Well, how do you find yourself by this time? Ain't you sorry now that
+you didn't take out a venture when I wanted you to, so that you might be
+shaking thousands in your pocket at this minute, when you've only got
+hunderds? My respects to you, Mrs. Gray; but when me and this boy of
+yourn get to talking we don't know when to stop. Hope you have been well
+since I saw you last, and that the carrying away of your overseer didn't
+scare you none."
+
+Marcy was well enough acquainted with Captain Beardsley to know that he
+did not rattle on in this style for nothing. The man was excited and
+nervous, and tried to conceal his feelings under a cloak of hearty good
+nature and jollity that ill became him. Marcy sat down and looked at him
+in a way that made Captain Beardsley mutter to himself:
+
+"I'd like the best in the world to wring that there brat's neck. He's
+got the upper hand of me and Shelby and all of us, and dog-gone the
+luck, he knows it. I'd give a dollar to know what he's got on his mind
+this very minute."
+
+After a little talk on various subjects that were of no particular
+interest to anybody, Captain Beardsley introduced the subject of
+blockade running, and gave a glowing description of the manner in which
+he had hoodwinked the Yankee cruisers by dodging out of Ocracoke Inlet
+while they were busy fighting the forts at Hatteras. He seemed to look
+upon it as a very daring and skillful exploit, and yet it was nothing
+more than any alert shipmaster would have done under the same
+circumstances.
+
+"After that we had fun alive," added the captain; and Marcy was
+surprised to see him put his hand into the pocket of his overcoat and
+bring out a good-sized canvas bag which was filled so full of something
+heavy that it would not hold any more. "All we had to do was to run down
+to Nassau, discharge our cargo, and load up and come back again; and all
+the while we was making money till I couldn't eat nor sleep on account
+of it, and the Yankees never showed up to bother us."
+
+"You were fortunate," said Marcy, when Beardsley stopped and looked at
+him.
+
+"That ain't no name for it. We had the best kind of luck. I kept a
+bright watch for that steam launch when we passed through Crooked Inlet,
+but she had got tired of waiting and went off somewheres. We seen one or
+two little blockade runners like ourselves, but no Yankees. Now there's
+your share of the profits, Marcy," said the captain, and he got up and
+placed the canvas bag upon the table. "We made two runs, and I promised
+you I would give you five hunderd dollars----"
+
+"But, Captain," exclaimed Marcy, while Mrs. Gray looked troubled, "I
+have no right to take that money. I wasn't aboard the _Hattie_ when she
+made those two runs."
+
+"That's the gospel truth; but didn't I say I would keep your place open
+for you while you was laid up in ordinary with your broken arm? I did
+for a fact, and I always stand to what I say."
+
+"But I haven't done the first thing to earn that thousand dollars, and I
+hope you will believe that I am in dead earnest when I assure you that
+I'll not touch it," replied Marcy.
+
+There was no doubt about his earnestness, and the captain looked
+disappointed. He settled back in his chair and nodded at Shelby, and
+that was a bad thing for him to do. It told Marcy as plainly as words
+what their object was in coming there to call upon him and his mother.
+
+"Even if you were not on board the _Hattie_ when she made those
+successful trips, you belonged to her, and have a right to demand pay
+according to contract," said the colonel.
+
+"And while I belonged to her I took pay according to contract," said
+Marcy quickly. "I was paid by the run and not by the month."
+
+"I have never heard that the pay of an enlisted man ceases the moment he
+is injured," added the colonel.
+
+"Nor I either; but I am not an enlisted man, and what's more, I do not
+intend to be."
+
+"Well, if you won't take the money, you will acknowledge that I tried to
+do the fair thing by you? 'said Beardsley.
+
+"I am willing to say that you offered me some money and that I declined
+to take it," answered the boy, who knew very well that Beardsley was not
+trying to do the fair thing by him. "As it is nobody's business, I never
+expect to be questioned about it."
+
+The captain took little share in the conversation that followed. He put
+the canvas bag into his pocket, folded his arms and went into the dumps,
+where he remained until the name of the missing overseer was mentioned,
+and then he brightened up to say:
+
+"That there was a little the strangest thing I ever heard tell of.
+What's went with Hanson, do you reckon?"
+
+"I haven't the least idea where he is," was Marcy's answer.
+
+"I know you wasn't to home when he was took off--leastwise I have been
+told so," said Beardsley, "but I didn't know but mebbe you and your maw
+might suspicion somebody. Now what you going to do for an overseer?
+There's that renter of mine, Kelsey his name is. I know you don't
+collogue with no such, but mebbe you know who he is."
+
+Marcy started, and looked first at his mother and then at Captain
+Beardsley. The latter sat with his bearded chin on his breast, regarding
+Marcy through his half-closed eyelids, and there was an expression on
+his face that had a volume of meaning in it. Taken by surprise at last,
+the usually sharp-witted boy had betrayed the secret he was most anxious
+to keep from the knowledge of everybody.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+MARCY'S RASH WISH.
+
+"I know mighty well that Kelsey is trifling and lazy when he ain't got
+nothing much to occupy his mind," said Beardsley, who was not slow to
+catch the meaning of the frightened glances which mother and son so
+quickly exchanged, "but when he was working on my place and bossing my
+hands, I found him----"
+
+"Are you in earnest in proposing him for my mother's overseer?" cried
+Marcy, as soon as he could speak. "Our fields can grow up to briars
+first."
+
+"But really, he wants work," began the colonel.
+
+"Then let him go down to the Island and work in the trenches," replied
+Marcy. "He can't come here."
+
+"But Kelsey is the only support of his family," the colonel remarked.
+"He is loyal to our cause, and would enlist in a minute if he had enough
+ahead to support his wife and children during his absence; but he hasn't
+got it."
+
+"They will fare just as well without him as they do with him. If they
+get hungry, my mother will no doubt feed them as she has done a hundred
+times before; but Kelsey can't come on this place to work. There isn't
+money enough in the State to induce us to agree to that."
+
+"But what you uns going to do for an overseer?" said Beardsley again.
+"You'll need one if you intend to run the place."
+
+"Not until the hands return from the Island," replied Marcy, "and then I
+shall take hold myself."
+
+Having done all they intended to do when they came there the visitors
+were ready to leave, and Colonel Shelby gave the signal by arising from
+his chair and pulling his collar up about his ears.
+
+"I still think, Mrs. Gray, that Marcy ought to take this money," said
+he. "The captain does not offer it to him as a gift but as his due."
+
+"We perfectly understand the object he had in mind," answered the lady;
+whereupon the colonel opened his eyes and looked at her very hard. "But
+if Marcy thinks he ought not to receive it I have nothing to say."
+
+"I hope you will not regret it," said the colonel. "Some people seem to
+think that we are about entering upon a long conflict, and that money
+will be a necessary thing to have after a while."
+
+"But if you get hard up, which I hope you won't, don't forget that this
+thousand dollars is all yourn, Marcy," exclaimed the captain.
+
+Marcy assured him that he would bear it in mind. If Beardsley hoped to
+hear him declare that his mother had more money in the house than she
+was likely to need, he was disappointed.
+
+"And don't forget either, that if at any time you stand in need of such
+assistance as the captain and I can give, you must not hesitate to say
+so," continued the colonel, as he bowed to Mrs. Gray and followed Marcy
+to the door. "Our little settlement, I am sorry to say, is full of the
+meanest of traitors, and it may comfort you to know that there are a few
+persons in it to whom you can speak freely."
+
+"We know that, and it certainly is a very great comfort to us," replied
+Marcy, thinking of Aleck Webster. "It will take more than a thousand
+dollars to keep roofs over your heads if anything comes of this day's
+work," was what he added to himself when he had seen the men ride out of
+the yard. "I saw through your little game from the first, and yet I went
+and gave myself away. That was about the biggest piece of foolishness I
+was ever guilty of; but I suppose it was to be so. I was all in the dark
+before, but I know what I am going to do now."
+
+In order that we may know whether or not Marcy's fears were well
+founded, let us ride with Beardsley and his companion long enough to
+overhear a few words of their conversation. The moment they rode out of
+the gate, and were concealed from the house by the thick shrubbery and
+trees that surrounded it, Beardsley threw back the collar of his coat,
+giving the cold rain and sleet a fair chance at him, and almost reeled
+in his saddle, so convulsed was he with the merriment that could no
+longer be restrained.
+
+"I done it, by gum!" he exclaimed, shaking his head and flourishing his
+riding-whip in the air. "I done it, didn't I?"
+
+"You did not purchase his good-will, if that is what you mean," answered
+his companion. "He wouldn't touch your gold. He knew why you offered it
+as well as I did, and I was satisfied from the start that you would not
+catch him that way. He will put those Union men on you if you so much as
+crook your finger."
+
+"But I aint a-going to crook no fingers," said Beardsley, with a hoarse
+laugh. "Let him sick 'em on if he wants to, but he'd best watch out that
+I don't get there first. Say, colonel, that there money is in the house
+all right, just as we uns thought it was."
+
+"How do you know?" exclaimed his companion. The colonel had not noticed
+the frightened glances that Marcy and his mother exchanged when Kelsey's
+name was mentioned, and he was surprised to hear Beardsley speak so
+positively.
+
+"Say!" answered the captain. "You aint forgot how you sent Kelsey up to
+Mrs. Gray's, while I was at sea, to make some inquiries about the money
+she was thought to have stowed away, have you? Well, Marcy and his
+mother aint forgot it nuther; and when I spoke Kelsey's name, and said
+mebbe he would be a good one to take Hanson's place, Marcy jumped like I
+had stuck a pin in him."
+
+"Well, what of it?"
+
+"What of it? Marcy knowed in a minute that I wanted to have that man
+took on the plantation for to snoop around of nights and find out all
+about that money. But I aint a caring. I know the money is there, and
+that's all I wanted to find out. The ways I have talked and schemed and
+planned to make that there boy say that him and his maw had as much as
+they wanted to tide them through the war that's coming, is just amazing,
+now that I think of it; but not a word could I get out of him. He was
+too smart to be ketched; but all on a sudden he gives out the secret as
+easy as falling off a log. The money is there, I tell you."
+
+"And you intend to get it, I suppose?" added the colonel. "Well, now,
+look here, Beardsley; don't say a word to me about it."
+
+"All right, Colonel," said Beardsley, who could scarcely have been
+happier if he had had the whole of Mrs. Gray's thirty thousand dollars
+where he could put his hand upon it at any time he pleased. "I know what
+you mean by them words. Of course you are too big a man and too rich to
+go into business with me, but I know some who aint. I'll show them Grays
+that they aint so great as they think for."
+
+"Have you so soon forgotten what that letter said?" inquired the
+colonel. "If anything happens to Marcy's mother or her property some of
+us will be sure to suffer for it, unless you are sharp enough to lay the
+blame upon some one else."
+
+"Say!" replied Beardsley, in a whisper. "That's what I'm thinking of
+doing. Your time's your own, I reckon, aint it? and you don't mind a
+little mite of rain, do you? Then come with me and see how I am going to
+work it."
+
+So saying the captain urged his horse into a lope, and Colonel Shelby
+followed his example. After a while they turned into one of the narrow
+lanes that ran through Beardsley's cultivated fields to the woods that
+lay behind them, galloped past Mrs. Brown's cheerless cabin, and at last
+drew rein before the door of one that was still more cheerless and
+dilapidated. It stood in one corner of a little patch of ground that had
+been planted to corn and potatoes, and which had received such slight
+care and attention of late years that the blackberry briars were
+beginning to take possession of it. A small pack of lean and hungry coon
+dogs greeted the visitors as they stopped in front of the cabin, and
+their yelping soon brought their master to the door. He was the same
+lazy Kelsey we once saw sitting on the front porch of Mrs. Gray's house,
+only his hair was longer, his whiskers more tangled and matted, and his
+clothes worse for wear.
+
+"Alight and hitch," was the way in which he welcomed Captain Beardsley
+and his companion. "Git out, ye whelps!"
+
+"Can't stop so long," replied the captain. "Been over to Mrs. Gray's to
+see how my pilot was getting on, and tried to scare up a job for you at
+overseering, in the place of that chap who was took off in the night
+time."
+
+"I dunno's I am a-caring for a job of that sort," answered Kelsey. "I've
+got a sight of work of my own that had oughter be did."
+
+"That's so," said Beardsley, glancing at the broken fences, the bare
+wood-yard and the briars that were encroaching upon the borders of the
+little field. "But there's no ready money in your work, while there is a
+sight of it up to the Grays."
+
+"I won't work for no sich," declared Kelsey. "They think too much of
+their niggers."
+
+"They set a heap more store by them nor they do by such poor folks as
+you be. But you needn't bother. They won't take you and give you a
+chance to keep your head above water, and put a bite of grub into the
+mouths of your family and a few duds on their backs. They allowed that
+they wouldn't have no such trifling hound as you on their place."
+
+"Did Mrs. Gray use them words about me?" exclaimed Kelsey, growing
+excited on the instant.
+
+"I heard somebody say them very words, but I aint naming no names; nor I
+aint been nowheres except up to Mrs. Gray's to-day. One of 'em allowed
+that if you wasn't too doggone useless to live, you'd go and 'list on
+the Island."
+
+"I'm jest as good as they be," said the man, who by this time was
+looking as though he felt very ugly.
+
+"That's so. And some of 'em likewise said that a man who was too lazy to
+keep a tight roof over his own head, when he could have nails and boards
+by asking for 'em, wouldn't do no good as an overseer," added Beardsley,
+counting the holes in the top of the cabin through which the rafters
+could be seen, and glancing at the stick chimney, which leaned away from
+the wall as if it were about to topple over. "But that aint what I come
+here for, to carry tales about my neighbors. I want to say I'm glad to
+see you doing so well, and that if you are needing a small side of meat
+and a little meal, you know where to get 'em."
+
+"Sarvant, sah," replied Kelsey. "That there is more neighbor-like than
+demeaning a man for a trifling hound because he is pore, and I'll bear
+it in mind, I bet you. As for my roof, it's a heap better'n the one them
+Grays will have to cover them in a week from now; you hear me? That big
+house of theirn will burn like a bresh-heap."
+
+"Well, take care of yourself," answered the captain. "But if I'd
+suspicioned you was going to fly mad about it, I wouldn't 'a' spoke a
+word to you."
+
+"Kelsey will never carry out his threat," said Colonel Shelby, as the
+two rode away from the cabin. "He is too big a coward."
+
+"I know that mighty well, but you can say that you heard him speak them
+very words, can't you?"
+
+Captain Beardsley was very lively and talkative after that, and plumed
+himself on having done a neat stroke of work that would turn suspicion
+from himself, when the results of a certain other plan he had in his
+head should become known in the settlement. But perhaps we shall see
+that he forgot one very important thing. As to the colonel, although he
+approved the work that was to be done, he had the profoundest contempt
+for the man who could deliberately plan and carry it out. He had little
+to say, and was glad when his horse brought him to a bridle-path that
+would take him away from Beardsley and toward his own home.
+
+Meanwhile Marcy Gray was in a most uncomfortable frame of mind. When he
+saw the visitors ride out of the gate, he closed the door and went back
+to his mother. "The captain never spoke of meeting you and Jack at
+Crooked Inlet," were the first words she uttered.
+
+"Of course not," replied Marcy. "You did not expect him to, did you? But
+I rather looked for him to give some reason for coming home, and to hear
+him say that he would have no further occasion for my services; but he
+was so disappointed because I would not take that hush-money----"
+
+"O Marcy!" exclaimed his mother. "I was afraid that that was what the
+money was intended for."
+
+"That was just it, and how the colonel stared when you said you
+understood the object Beardsley had in view in offering it. Those men
+think we can destroy their buildings or protect them, just as we
+please."
+
+"But, Marcy, we cannot do it."
+
+"Let them keep on thinking so if they want to. And another reason
+Beardsley didn't say all he meant to was because I was foolish enough to
+give him something else to think about. I was frightened when he
+mentioned Kelsey's name, for I knew in an instant what he wanted the man
+on the place for, and I showed that I was frightened."
+
+"So did I, Marcy," groaned Mrs. Gray. "So did I."
+
+"Well, it can't be expected that a woman will be on the watch all the
+time, but I ought to have had better sense. I gave Beardsley good reason
+for thinking that there is something on or about the place that we don't
+want a stranger to know anything about, and of course he believes it is
+money. But don't you worry. We'll come out all right in the end."
+
+So saying Marcy put on his coat and cap, kissed his mother, and left the
+house to tell one of the hands to put the saddle on his horse. At the
+door he met old Morris, who was just coming in with the mail. He saw at
+a glance that the darky was frightened.
+
+"Marse Marcy, dere's going be great doings 'bout dis place," he began.
+
+"Never mind. I can't stop to hear about it now, for I am in a hurry.
+Give those papers and letters to one of the girls, and let her carry
+them in. I wouldn't have you go into my mother's presence with that face
+of yours for anything. Say nothing to nobody, and I will see you again
+as I can go to the quarter and back."
+
+From his earliest boyhood Marcy had always been glad to go among the
+field hands when he was troubled, for they were so full of fun, and had
+so many quaint and amusing things to say to him that gloomy thoughts
+could not long keep his company in their presence; but it was not so
+this time. He silenced all their laughter by the very first words he
+spoke to them. All the able-bodied men among them (and Marcy designated
+them by name) were to start for Plymouth before daylight the next
+morning, to work on the Confederate fortifications. Some of them
+rebelled at once, and declared that they wouldn't stir a step, but
+thought better of it when Marcy told them that, if they did not go
+willingly, they would be marched down by a squad of soldiers, who would
+not hesitate to help them along by a prod from a bayonet if they showed
+the least disposition to lag behind. It took him longer to get through
+with this disagreeable duty than he thought it would, for the blacks
+hung around him, and clung to his hands as though they never expected to
+see him again; but it was accomplished at last, and then Marcy turned
+about, and rode back to the house to interview the coachman. He found
+him wandering disconsolately about among the horses, too dispirited to
+work. The two went out in the rain together, taking care to keep out of
+sight of the sitting-room windows, and the faithful old darky astonished
+the white boy by describing, almost word for word, as we have told it,
+what had been said and done in Mrs. Brown's cabin that morning while Tom
+Allison and Mark Goodwin were there. He said not a word until Morris
+finished his story, and then he inquired:
+
+"Where did you hear all this?"
+
+"Marse Beardsley's niggah gal, Nancy, was dar, and heared and seen it
+all wid her own eyes and ears," replied Morris. "She met me on de road
+when I was coming home wid de mule and de mail, and done told me. Is dat
+a fac' 'bout de money, Marse Marcy?"
+
+The boy did not in the least doubt the truthfulness of the story. He
+knew that the girl Nancy looked out for Mrs. Brown's comfort in a
+shiftless sort of way; that long association with the old gossip had
+made her a tolerable gossip herself; and that, although she was often
+sent to the overseer on account of it, she kept on talking just the
+same. Besides, Nancy could not have known about the money unless she had
+heard somebody speak of it. And Mark Goodwin was sure it was concealed
+in the cellar wall! That was the worst piece of news Marcy Gray had ever
+listened to. He stood for some minutes looking down at the ground in
+deep study, and then he seized the black man's arm and drew him closer
+to him. He gave him some rapid whispered instructions, old Morris now
+and then nodding, as if to show that he understood them perfectly, and
+then they shook hands, as two brothers might have done, and separated.
+
+At daylight the next morning there was not a single able-bodied black
+man to be seen on Mrs. Gray's plantation, if we except the few who found
+employment about the house, the working party having left hours before.
+Marcy saw them from his window as they marched out of the gate with
+their bundles on their backs, but he did not go down to speak to them.
+He had taken leave of them once, and had no desire to go through the
+same ordeal again. He rode into Nashville that morning, as he did every
+other morning for the next two weeks, but the only news he heard related
+to the fortifications at Roanoke Island, which grew in size and strength
+every day, and were to be held at all hazards. He thought it strange
+that he did not see Aleck Webster, but, of course, he dared not ask
+after him. He saw Allison, and Goodwin, and others of that stamp, who
+went out of their way to profess friendship for him; but Marcy never
+lingered long in their company until one day when they followed him to
+the hitching-rack, after he had secured his mail, to warn him that he
+had better have an eye on that man Kelsey, who meant harm to him.
+
+"What does he think he has against me?" was the first question Marcy
+asked. "Doesn't he want me to feed him any more?"
+
+"He doesn't want grub so much as he wants work," replied Goodwin. "And
+you wouldn't hire him to take Hanson's place."
+
+"Hadn't we a right to say who shall work for us and who shall not?"
+demanded Marcy. "But we don't need anybody. I am going to act as my
+mother's overseer; that is, if I ever have any hands to oversee."
+
+"But Kelsey doesn't like to be called a lazy, trifling hound; and you
+wouldn't like it either," said Allison.
+
+"I never called him that. I simply said that I would let the fields grow
+up to briars before I would have him on the place, and I say so yet. Let
+him enlist, if he wants something to do."
+
+"But he can't enlist. The doctors wouldn't pass him."
+
+"Has he tried them?"
+
+"What would be the use? Can't you see for yourself how he is bent almost
+double with rheumatism?"
+
+"I can see how he bends over because he is too lazy to straighten up,
+but I never heard that he had rheumatism. What is he going to do to
+me?"
+
+"He has threatened to burn you out."
+
+"I expect to be burned out, but not by that man Kelsey. Now mind what I
+say, you two. When that thing happens you will see some disappointed men
+and boys right here in this settlement, and our house will be in good
+company when it burns. Good-morning."
+
+"Hold on!" exclaimed Mark. "Don't go off mad. What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean what I say," answered Marcy, who wanted to say more, but thought
+it would not be prudent. "And there is no need that I should enter into
+explanations with you and Tom Allison."
+
+Marcy rode away, wondering if he had done wrong in letting those young
+rebels see that he was so well posted. If he had made a mistake in
+speaking so plainly it was too late to mourn over it now. He wished he
+might have opportunity to exchange a few words with Aleck Webster, and
+sometimes, during the week that followed, he was strongly tempted to
+ride by his house in the hope of seeing him there; but prudence always
+interposed in time to keep him from doing anything so rash. Then he
+waited and hoped for a sign from some of the other members of the band;
+but, although he was sure that he met and spoke to them every day in the
+post-office, they said no word to him that could not have been uttered
+in the presence of a third party, nor did they give him a chance to
+speak to them in private. Marcy told himself that it was little short of
+maddening to live in this way to know that there were enemies all about
+him and not a single old-time friend of his family to whom he could go
+for advice or comfort. The state of suspense he was in day and night was
+hard to bear, and Marcy was almost ready to do some desperate deed to
+bring it to an end.
+
+A few days more passed and once more Colonel Shelby and Captain
+Beardsley came to visit the family. This was nothing unusual, for they
+and others often came now to keep up an appearance of friendship, and to
+inquire if there was any way in which they could be of assistance to
+Mrs. Gray. They stayed an hour, and when they went away, and Marcy and
+his mother reviewed the conversation that had taken place during the
+visit, to see if they had been entrapped into saying anything they ought
+not to have said, the only news they remembered to have heard was that
+Shelby and Beardsley, and some others whose names they mentioned, were
+going down to the Island to inspect the works, and see how their hands
+were getting along under their military overseers. They would probably
+be gone three or four days, and if Marcy or his mother desired to send a
+word of remembrance to any faithful old servant, they should be pleased
+to take it.
+
+"I am getting heartily tired of visits of this sort," said Marcy. "I
+wish they would keep away, and let us alone, for I don't care to talk to
+men I have to watch all the time. I am afraid there is something back of
+these friendly calls."
+
+There was something back of this one at any rate--something that was
+very like a tragedy; and the first act was performed that night a little
+after dark. Marcy was just rising from a late supper, when the sound of
+hoofs was heard on the carriage-way, and Bose challenged with all his
+might. When Marcy opened the door he saw the horseman bending down from
+his saddle, and waving his hand at the dog as if he were trying to quiet
+him. He was so far away that Marcy could not see who he was, although
+the light from the hall lamp streamed brightly out into the darkness.
+When he heard the boy's step upon the porch the man straightened up, but
+did not offer to come any nearer.
+
+"What is wanted?" demanded Marcy.
+
+"Does this yere road lead to Nashville?" asked a hoarse, gruff voice
+that Marcy had never heard before.
+
+"The one outside the gate leads to Nashville, but the one you are on
+leads up to this door," answered the boy, who, for some reason or other,
+began to feel uneasy.
+
+"You aint overly civil to strangers in these parts, seems like," said
+the man. "I've been out lookin' for niggers to work on the forts, an'
+got lost, if it will do you any good to know it." And, with the words,
+he turned his horse about, and galloped out of the yard.
+
+It was a very simple incident--one that was likely to happen at any
+time--but all that evening Marcy could not get it out of his mind. He
+could not read, either, and did not want to talk, so he went to bed at
+an early hour; but before he did so, he made the rounds of the house
+with a lighted lantern in his hand. Bose was in his usual place on the
+rug in front of the door, and so fast asleep that he did not move when
+his master stepped over him, and the doors and windows in the lower part
+of the house, as well as those in the cellar, were closed and fastened,
+and, having satisfied himself on these points, Marcy bade his mother
+good-night, and went to his room. But he did not close his door. He took
+pains to leave it wide open, and called himself foolish for doing it.
+
+"I am getting to be afraid of the dark," was what he thought, as he
+turned down his lamp and tumbled into bed. "There isn't a darky on the
+plantation who hates to have night come as bad as I do, and I don't know
+that there is anything surprising in it. If there is danger hanging over
+this house, I wish it would drop, and have done with it."
+
+Marcy went to sleep with this rash wish half formed in his mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE WISH GRATIFIED.
+
+Marcy Gray slept like a boy who had eaten heartily of mince pie for
+supper, that is, uneasily. But still he must have slumbered soundly or
+he would have heard the faint scream and the hoarse, muffled voice that
+came up from his mother's room shortly after midnight, or been awakened
+by the swift rush of the two figures who hastened up the stairs and
+through the wide-open door into his room. The figures were there, but
+the first Marcy knew of it was when one turned up the lamp and the other
+laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Then he opened his eyes and tried
+to sit up, but was pressed back upon his pillow at the same instant that
+the cold, sharp muzzle of a revolver was put against his head.
+
+"Keep still now, you pore white trash, and you is all right," said the
+man who held the revolver. "Make a noise, and you is all wrong, kase
+you'll be dead quick's a cat can bat her eye. You heah me? Git up!"
+
+[Illustration: THE MASKED ROBBERS.]
+
+Any sense of fear that might have come upon Marcy Gray, if he had been
+given time to think twice, was lost in profound astonishment. The man
+talked like a negro; but in those days negroes were not given to doing
+desperate deeds of this sort. Hardly realizing what he was doing, Marcy
+threw off the bedclothes and sat up; and as he did so, the man who had
+turned up the lamp snatched the pillows from the bed and took possession
+of the brace of revolvers he found under them. Marcy looked at the
+pillows that were flung upon the floor, and saw that there were dark
+stains on both of them. He took short, searching glances at the two men,
+and saw the white showing through the black on their faces. By this time
+he was wide awake, and trying to nerve himself for the ordeal he saw
+before him.
+
+"Git up an' climb into them dry-goods of yourn" commanded the robber,
+standing first upon one foot and then on the other, and swaying about
+after the manner of a field hand who had suddenly found himself in an
+embarrassing situation. "Git into 'em lively. I tol' you, chile. I is de
+oberseer now, an' you is de niggah. Hustle 'em on."
+
+"How do you expect me to dress rapidly with only one hand to work with?"
+demanded Marcy, who was not frightened out of his senses, even if he was
+powerless. "You must give me a little time."
+
+"Well den, what for you go in the wah an' fight the Yankees what want to
+give us pore niggahs our freedom?" said the robber. "You done got your
+arm broke, an' it serves you jes right. Wisht it had been your head."
+
+Marcy dressed in much less time than he generally did, and when he had
+thrown his coat over his shoulders and slipped his well arm into one of
+the sleeves, he was ready to follow the robbers downstairs and into the
+cellar; for he thought that was where he would have to go sooner or
+later. He drew a long breath of relief when he was conducted into the
+sitting-room, where his mother was waiting for him guarded by two more
+robbers, whose hands and faces were covered with something that looked
+like shoe-blacking. Although she was pale she did not appear to be badly
+frightened, for she smiled pleasantly as the boy seated himself on the
+sofa by her side, and said:
+
+"I hope they did not handle you very roughly, Marcy."
+
+"Oh, no; they didn't put a hand on me."
+
+"An' what's more, missus, we aint going to, if you do jes like we tell
+you," said the robber who had thus far done the talking. "You white
+folks is rich, an' we black ones is pore. You've got money, an' we aint
+got none."
+
+"And you want us to give you some, I suppose," added Marcy, putting his
+hand into his pocket and drawing forth the small buckskin purse in which
+he carried his change. "There's my pile. How much have you, mother?"
+
+"Look a-here!" exclaimed the man, forgetting himself in his rage and
+speaking in his ordinary tone of voice. "That won't go down. You've got
+more, an' we know it; an' if you don't trot it out without no more of
+this foolishness----"
+
+"So far as I know, these purses contain every cent of money there is in
+the house or about it," interrupted Marcy, taking both the articles in
+question in his hand and extending them toward the robber. "The darkies
+may have some, but if they have I don't know it."
+
+With a muttered curse the man hit Marcy's hand a heavy blow and sent the
+purses flying to the farthest corner of the room. He expended so much
+strength in the blow that he almost pulled the boy from his seat on the
+sofa, and drew an involuntary exclamation of surprise and indignation
+from his mother.
+
+"Look a-here, ole woman! You'll say 'Oh, my dear boy!' a good many times
+afore we uns is done with you if you don't trot out that money,"
+declared the robber, in savage tones. "We know jes what we're doing, an'
+you might as well give in without wasting no more time over it. Where is
+it? I ask you for the last time."
+
+"It is in those purses," replied Marcy. "If you want it, go and pick
+them up. You knocked them there."
+
+"We'll take some of that there sass out of you in two minutes by the
+watch," snarled the robber, glancing up at the heavy chandelier which,
+depended from the center of the high ceiling. "Where's that rope, Jim?
+Do you reckon that there thing will pull out or not?"
+
+"What are you ruffians going to do?" gasped Mrs. Gray, when she saw the
+man Jim pull a rope from his pocket.
+
+"We're going to see if we can choke some sense into this boy of yourn,"
+was the answer. "If you don't want to see him hung up afore your face
+an' eyes, make him tell where that money is. We uns have got to have it
+afore you see the last of us."
+
+Mrs. Gray turned an appealing look upon Marcy, who said stoutly:
+
+"I told nothing but the truth when I said that there is no money in the
+house except the little in those purses. Why don't you men look around
+and satisfy yourselves of the fact?"
+
+"We aint got time, an' more'n that, we've knocked off work for the
+night. Throw one end of the rope over that thing up there, an' make a
+running noose in the other. I said I wouldn't ask him agin, an' I meant
+every word of it."
+
+Things began to look serious, and the resolute expression on Marcy's
+pale face showed that he understood the situation. His mother knew he
+told the truth that he had secretly removed her treasure to another
+hiding-place, and she longed to throw herself upon his neck and beg him
+to tell what he had done with it. But she did not do it, for that would
+only have made matters worse. It would have encouraged the robbers and
+disheartened the boy, who was so calmly watching the preparations that
+were being made to pull him up by the neck. He knew that the men were
+working on a supposition; that they had no positive proof that there was
+money in the house; and hoped that they would soon weary of their
+useless demands, or that something would frighten them away. But he was
+obliged to confess to himself that neither contingency seemed likely to
+happen. The robbers acted as though they were in earnest, and there was
+nothing to interfere with their work. None of the servants had showed
+themselves, and even Julius and Bose, who never failed to be on hand
+when there was anything unusual going on, had not once been seen or
+heard. The house was as silent as if it had been deserted. After a few
+unsuccessful attempts the man Jim managed to throw the rope over one of
+the branches of the chandelier at the same time that a second robber
+finished the work of putting a running noose on the other end.
+
+"Now I reckon we're about ready for business," said the leader grimly.
+"Mebbe you'd best bear down on it first, Jim, to see if the thing will
+hold you up."
+
+Jim's prompt obedience came near costing him his life. Seizing the rope
+with both hands he jerked his knees up toward his chin and swung himself
+clear of the floor; whereupon the hook which held the chandelier, and
+which was not intended to support so heavy a weight, was torn from its
+socket and the ponderous fixture came down upon the head of the robber,
+crushing him, bleeding and senseless, to the floor. But the room was not
+left in darkness, as Marcy wished it had been; for the single lamp that
+lighted it was on a side table, safely out of the way. Every one in the
+room was struck motionless and speechless with amazement and alarm, and
+if Marcy Gray had only had two good hands to use, the disaster to the
+robber band would have been greater than it was. Their leader was so
+nearly paralyzed with astonishment that a quick, dexterous fellow, such
+as Marcy usually was, could have prostrated and disarmed him with very
+little trouble; but under the circumstances it would have been foolhardy
+to attempt it.
+
+As was to have been expected, Mrs. Gray was the first to recover herself
+and the first to act. In less than two seconds after the robber struck
+the floor she was by his side, trying with both hands to remove the
+chandelier from his prostrate form. The sight brought Marcy to his
+senses.
+
+"Are you lubbers going to stand there and let the man die before your
+eyes?" he shouted. "Why don't you bear a hand and get him out?"
+
+These words proved to be almost as magical as the "whistle shrill" with
+which Roderick Dhu was wont to summon his Highland clan. Before they had
+fairly left Marcy's lips the boy Julius danced into the room through the
+door that led into the hall, shouting at the top of his voice:
+
+"Here dey is! Here dey is! Shoot----" Then he stopped stock still, and
+rolled the whites of his eyes toward the wreck in the middle of the
+floor--the shattered lamps, the broken chandelier with the robber's legs
+sticking out from under it--and finished by saying, "Dere's a muss for
+de gals to clean up in de mawnin. Why don't you shoot 'em?"
+
+Almost at the same instant the doorway behind the prancing darky was
+filled by armed and masked men, who filed rapidly into the apartment,
+turning right and left along the wall to give their companions in the
+rear room to follow them. Not a word was said or a thing done until a
+dozen or more had entered, and then the robbers were disarmed, without
+the least show of resistance on their part, and the heavy chandelier was
+lifted off their injured and still senseless comrade. It was all done in
+less than two minutes, and the rescuers were about to pass out, as
+quickly and silently as they came, taking the robbers with them, when
+Mrs. Gray said:
+
+"Will you not tell us who you are, so that we may know whom to thank for
+the inestimable service you have rendered us?"
+
+"We are friends," replied a voice that was plainly disguised.
+
+"We know it; and if that is all you care to have us know, of course we
+shall have to be satisfied with it," said Marcy, who had received a
+slight nod from one of the masked men, whom he took to be Aleck Webster.
+"But it's mighty poor consolation not to be able to call our friends by
+name. I wish you would do me another friendly act by going through that
+wounded robber's pockets and getting my revolvers back for me. They
+jumped on to me and took them away before I was fairly awake."
+
+This request was quickly and silently complied with, and then the masked
+men started out again, taking the four would-be robbers with them. Mrs.
+Gray wanted much to ask what they intended to do with the prisoners, but
+a look and a few words from Marcy checked her.
+
+"Let us show our gratitude by respecting their wishes and asking no
+questions," said he earnestly. "They have saved me from a choking, and
+if they ever want anything I can give them, I know they will not
+hesitate to let me know it. Good-night, friends, if you will not tell us
+what else to call you."
+
+A dozen voices, which sounded strange and hollow under the thick white
+masks that covered the faces of the rescuers, responded "good-night,"
+and Marcy, filled with gratitude for his deliverance, stood on the porch
+at the side door and saw them disappear down the lane that led through
+the almost deserted negro quarter. Then he walked around to the front
+door to see what had become of Bose, and discovered him curled up in his
+usual place on the mat.
+
+"You rascal!" he exclaimed. "What do you mean by lying here fast asleep,
+while----"
+
+Marcy's impulse was to kick the dog off the mat in the first place and
+off the porch in the second; but remembering how faithfully the devoted
+animal had served him in the past and that this was his first offence,
+he bent over and grasped him by the neck, only to let go his hold the
+very next instant. Bose was stiff and cold--as dead as a door nail.
+
+"Poisoned!" ejaculated Marcy. "And to think that I was on the point of
+kicking the poor beast! I deserve to be kicked myself for doubting him.
+The chap who rode into the yard to-night to inquire the way to Nashville
+is the villain who is to blame for this. He is the fellow who captained
+the robbers to-night, and no doubt he was feeding Bose something, when I
+thought he was trying to quiet him. Poor old Bose!"
+
+The boy's heart was heavy as he faced about and went into the house,
+where he found his mother pacing the floor, more frightened and agitated
+now than she had been at any time while in the presence of the robbers.
+She laid her head on Marcy's shoulder, and cried softly as he put his
+arm around her and led her to a seat.
+
+"What's the good of taking on so now that the trouble is all over?" said
+he. "But that's always the way with a woman. She will stand up to the
+rack when there is need of it, and cry when there is nothing to cry for.
+What's the use of doing that?"
+
+"Marcy," said his mother, "did I not tell you to let that money alone?"
+
+"No, ma'am; you said you were afraid that if I tried to take it to a new
+place some one would catch me at it; but I wasn't afraid. I was sure I
+could do it without being seen, I knew you would sleep better if it was
+put somewhere else, and so, while you and every one on the plantation,
+except the man who was helping me, were in the land of Nod, I took the
+bags out of the cellar wall and put them where nobody will ever think of
+looking for them. Whenever you want any of it say the word, and I will
+see that you get it; and in the meantime, if you are asked where it is,
+you can truthfully say that you don't know."
+
+"But, Marcy, the events of the night, which seem more like a terrible
+dream than a reality, prove conclusively that the story has got abroad;
+and I don't see how I can muster up the courage to pass another night in
+this house," said Mrs. Gray with a shudder. "How could they have got in
+without alarming Bose?"
+
+"Poor old Bose will never act as our sentry again," replied the boy,
+with tears of genuine sorrow in his eyes; and then he went on to tell
+how he had found the companion and friend of his childhood dead at his
+post, and his mother said that she would willingly surrender the money,
+that had been nothing but a source of trouble to her ever since she drew
+it from the bank, if by so doing she could bring Bose back to life
+again.
+
+"What bothers me quite as much as his death is the thought that I wanted
+to hurt him because he did not awaken me," said Marcy. "And one thing I
+should like to have explained is how those masked men happened to be on
+the watch on this particular night, and get here as they did just in the
+nick of time. I tell you, mother, I was glad to see the chandelier knock
+that villain endways, and if I could have snatched the weapon the robber
+captain had in his hand, I would have made a scattering among them."
+
+"I don't suppose you have any idea who the robbers were?"
+
+"I am sure I never saw one of them before. I didn't pay much attention
+to their voices, for I knew they would not betray themselves by talking
+in their natural tones, but I took notice of the way they acted and
+carried themselves, and was obliged to put them down as strangers. They
+do not belong about here."
+
+"Marcy, you frighten me!" cried Mrs. Gray. "You surely do not wish me to
+think that some of our neighbors brought them here to rob us?"
+
+"That is what I think myself, and there is no use in denying it. Didn't
+Shelby and Beardsley take particular pains to tell us that they would be
+away from home to-night? Hallo, there!" exclaimed Marcy, who just then
+caught sight of the boy Julius standing in a remote corner, pulling his
+under lip and gazing ruefully at the ruins of the chandelier. "What do
+you mean by keeping so quiet when you know that I want to have some
+serious talk with you? Come here, sir."
+
+Julius had learned by experience that when he was addressed in this
+style he was to be taken to task for something, probably for lying or
+stealing. He could not remember that he had been guilty of telling lies
+very lately, but as for picking up things he had no business to touch
+that was a different matter. When Julius was certain that he knew what
+the offence was for which he was to be reprimanded, he always tried to
+make it lighter by offering some sort of a confession; and he did so in
+this instance.
+
+"I know I aint going steal it, Marse Marcy," he began, putting his hand
+into his pocket. "I jes want look at it and den I going give it back."
+
+"So you've got it, have you?" said Marcy, who had not the slightest idea
+what the black boy meant. "I knew I'd find it out sooner or later. Give
+it to me, sir!"
+
+The boy took his hand out of his pocket and placed in Marcy's extended
+palm a bright, new fifty-dollar gold piece. Mother and son looked at
+each other in silent amazement, both being startled by the same
+suspicion. Cautious as he thought he had been, Marcy had not succeeded
+in removing the money from the cellar to a new hiding-place without
+being seen. Julius knew all about it.
+
+"What for dey make all dem sharp corners on dar?" asked the boy,
+pointing to the gold piece. "What for dey don't make 'em roun' like all
+de res'?"
+
+"Where are the rest?" demanded Marcy. "Hand them out."
+
+Julius obeyed, but this time he produced a twenty-dollar piece.
+
+"Go on. Pull out some more," said Marcy.
+
+"Dat's all," replied the boy. "When de bag bus' you and ole Morris pick
+up all but two, and dere dey is."
+
+Marcy remembered now, although he might never have thought of it again,
+how startled he was when one of the little bags in which his mother's
+treasure was packed became untied in his hand, and the gold pieces
+rattled down upon the hard floor of the cellar. The coachman, who was
+working with him, was prompt to extinguish the lantern, while Marcy
+alternately groped for the money and sat up on his knees and listened
+for the sound of footsteps on the floor overhead. It seemed to him that
+all in the house ought to have been aroused by the racket, but when he
+became satisfied that such was not the case, the lantern was again
+lighted and the work went on. He thought he had picked up all the
+pieces, but it seemed he hadn't. And where was the boy Julius when this
+happened? That was a point that could be cleared up at some future time;
+but just now Marcy wanted to talk about something else.
+
+"Where were you when those robbers came into the house?" he inquired.
+"Were you in bed!"
+
+"Oh, no, sar; I wasn't in bed," replied Julius.
+
+"Where were you?"
+
+"I was out dar," said the boy, giving his head a circular nod, so as to
+include nearly all the points of the compass at once.
+
+"Out where?"
+
+"Jest out dar in de bresh."
+
+"Julius," said Marcy, getting upon his feet, "are you going to answer me
+or not?"
+
+"Oh, yes sar," exclaimed the boy, backing off a step or two. "I going
+answer ebery question you ax me. I was jest out in de gyarden."
+
+"What were you doing out there at that time of night?"
+
+"Nuffin, sar."
+
+"Did you see the robbers come into the house?"
+
+"Yes, sar; I done seed 'em come in."
+
+"Then what did you do?"
+
+"I jest went 'round out dar."
+
+"And did you see those other masked men, who came in and rescued us from
+the power of the robbers?"
+
+"Yes, sar, I seed dem too," replied Julius, becoming interested. "And I
+done tol' 'em to come in quick."
+
+"Did you know they were out there in the garden?"
+
+"Yes, sar; I knowed it."
+
+"Who told you they were there?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"Julius," said Marcy sternly, "I am going to know all about this. I
+shall give you no peace until you answer every one of my questions, and
+I shall begin by putting a grubbing-hoe into your hands at daylight in
+the morning. Have you any more money in your pockets?"
+
+"No, sar; I gib you de lastest I got."
+
+"Then hurry off to bed and be ready to go to work when I call you."
+
+"Well, sar, Marse Marcy," said the boy, plunging his hands into his
+pockets and swinging himself about the room as if he was in no
+particular hurry to go to bed, "if you wuk Julius till he plum dead you
+can't make him tell what he don't know."
+
+At this juncture a new actor appeared upon the scene. It was old Morris,
+who had been in the hall for the last five minutes, waiting as patiently
+as he could for Julius to give him an opportunity to speak to Marcy and
+his mother in private. His patience was pretty well exhausted by this
+time, and when he saw that Julius had no intention of going away until
+he got ready, the coachman stepped into the room.
+
+"See here, niggah," he began, and that was enough. Julius knew the old
+man, and when the latter pointed to the door he lost no time in going
+out of it. Morris followed him to the end of the hall and closed and
+locked that door behind him, and then came back to the sitting-room. He
+was badly frightened, and so excited that he hardly knew what he was
+doing, but he was laughing all over.
+
+"How is you, missus?" said he, as he shut the door and backed up against
+it.
+
+"Morris," exclaimed Mrs. Gray, "do you know who the robbers were?"
+
+"No, missus, I don't; but I does know that they don't 'long around in
+dis part of the country. That Cap'n Beardsley, he brung 'em up from
+Newbern."
+
+"Do you know what you are saying?" demanded Marcy. "Who told you that
+improbable story?"
+
+"G'long now, honey," answered Morris good-naturedly. "Mebbe de niggahs
+all fools, but they know a heap. Marse Marcy, dat gal Nance didn't tell
+no lie when she say how that Allison and Goodwin boy come to Miss
+Brown's house and talk about de money, did she? And she didn't say no
+lie nudder when she tol' me that these men coming up here some night to
+get that money, did she? Aint they done been here dis night? What for
+the cap'n and all the rest of dem white trash gone to the Island this
+night? Kase they don't want to be here when the thing happen."
+
+"Did you know that the robbers were to come here to-night?"
+
+"No, sar, Marse Marcy. I didn't know that. I know they was coming some
+night."
+
+"Well, some one must have known that they had made up their minds to
+come to-night and told the Union men to be on the watch for them," said
+Marcy.
+
+"That's a fac'," assented Morris.
+
+"Who was it?"
+
+"I--I don't know, sar; 'fore the Lawd----"
+
+"Morris!" said Mrs. Gray reproachfully.
+
+"Yes, missus; I does know, but I don't want to tell."
+
+"That is more like it," said Marcy. "What is the reason you don't want
+to tell?"
+
+"Kase I don't want to get nobody in trouble with Cap'n Beardsley,"
+replied the coachman; and he might as well have told the full
+particulars, for Marcy and his mother knew that they had one of the
+captain's own servants to thank for their rescue.
+
+"And does Julius know all these things?"
+
+"Ye-yes, sar," exclaimed Morris, becoming so angry that he could not
+talk half as fast as he wanted to. "Dat niggah all the time snooping
+around, and you nebber know when he aint hear all you saying."
+
+"He knows that you and I removed that money," said Marcy. "He was
+somewhere about when that bag became untied, and here are two pieces
+that he picked up after we left the cellar."
+
+Old Morris was profoundly astonished. He leaned heavily against the
+door, and gazed at the glittering coins in Marcy's hand as if he had
+been deprived of the power of speech.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+MARCY SPEAKS HIS MIND.
+
+"Julius also knew that those Union men--I don't know any other name to
+give to those who turned the tables on the robbers--were out there in
+the garden, and he told them to hurry up," continued Marcy. "Now, where
+were you at the time?"
+
+"Marse Marcy," said Morris, recovering himself with an effort, "you had
+best sell that niggah, kase if you don't Ise bound to kill him."
+
+"You will be careful not to touch him," said Mrs. Gray. "It is not your
+place to discipline any one."
+
+"But, missus, you don't know that niggah," began Morris.
+
+"We know that he was brave enough to send those men to our rescue, while
+you were too badly frightened to do anything to help us," said Marcy.
+
+"I couldn't be two places," protested Morris. "I was in the stable
+looking out for the hosses. There's whar I belong."
+
+"Did you see them when they took their prisoners away? And was that poor
+fellow who was knocked down by the chandelier very badly injured?"
+inquired Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Pore fellow!" repeated the coachman. "No, he wasn't bad hurt. They jest
+chuck him in the hoss trough and he come back to his right mind mighty
+quick."
+
+"I hope they did not abuse him?"
+
+"No, missus; dey didn't 'buse him at all. They jest say 'Come along
+here! We fix you.' And that's all they done."
+
+"And you did not see what became of him and the others?"
+
+Morris replied that he watched the rescuers and their prisoners from the
+stable door until they disappeared in the darkness, and that was all he
+knew about them. And we may add that that was all any one in that house
+ever knew about them. Although Marcy Gray afterward became acquainted
+with all the men who had taken an active part in this night's work, and
+daily mingled with them, he never learned what they did with their
+captives. Indeed he never inquired, for he was afraid that he might hear
+something unpleasant if he did.
+
+"If you have told all you have on your mind you can go back to bed,"
+said Marcy, after a little pause.
+
+"That's all," answered Morris. "I wish you a very good evening, sar--you
+and the missus." And he passed into the hall, closing the door behind
+him. Marcy waited until he heard the outer door shut, and then he walked
+over and took a look at the fallen chandelier.
+
+"Wouldn't Beardsley be hopping if he knew that one of his own negroes
+had upset his plans?" said he. "I really believe he would be the death
+of that girl Nancy. Julius is wide awake, but I do wish he would not
+keep so much to himself, and that I could place more dependence on what
+he says."
+
+"But you do not mean to put him to work?" said his mother.
+
+"Oh, no; and the rascal knows it. He would not stay in the field two
+minutes without some one to watch him, and he is of use about the house.
+Now, go and get some sleep, mother, and I will see that things are
+secure."
+
+Once more Marcy made the rounds of the building, and this time he did
+not find things just as they ought to be. He found how the robbers had
+effected an entrance. They had cut a hole through the side door so that
+they could reach in and turn the key in the lock and draw back the bolt.
+Probably Morris was hiding in the stable when they did it, too badly
+frightened to give the alarm; but the robbers would not have done their
+work entirely undisturbed if Bose had not been dead on his mat around
+the corner.
+
+"If Morris and Julius knew this thing was going to happen, I do not
+understand why they did not warn us," said Mrs. Gray, when Marcy came
+back to the sitting-room.
+
+"Because they are darkies, and darkies never do what they ought,"
+answered Marcy. "They did not want us to be frightened until the time
+came, and so they stayed awake and watched while we slept. Good-night."
+
+When Marcy went up to his room he took his pillows from the floor, and
+put them on the bed where they belonged. He pushed his revolvers under
+them, smiling grimly when he thought of the little use they had been to
+him when their services were really needed, turned down the lamp, and
+was about to throw himself upon his couch, without removing his clothes,
+when he heard something that had startled him once before--the noise
+made by a pebble striking against his window. That was the way in which
+Sailor Jack attracted his attention on the night he came up from
+Newbern, after piloting that Northern blockade runner safely into port;
+but who could this person be? The dread of danger, that was uppermost in
+his mind when he stepped to the window and opened it, gave way to
+indignation when he looked out and saw the boy Julius standing on the
+ground below.
+
+"Look here, you imp of darkness," he exclaimed.
+
+"Hursh, honey, hursh!" said Julius, in an excited whisper. "Go fru de
+hall, and look out de oder side."
+
+"What's out there?" asked Marcy, in the same low whisper.
+
+"Nuffin. But you go and look."
+
+Marcy put down the window and went, knowing that it would be a waste of
+time to question such a fellow as Julius. When he stepped into the hall
+he was alarmed to see that it was lighted up so brightly by a glare
+which came through the wide, high window at the other end that he could
+distinguish the figures on the wall-paper. He reached the window in two
+jumps, stood there about two seconds looking toward two different points
+of the compass, and then faced about, and ran down the stairs.
+
+"Mother, mother!" he exclaimed, as he rapped on her bedroom door. "Get
+up and tell me what to do. Here's the mischief to pay. Beardsley's house
+is in flames."
+
+"O Marcy!" was all Mrs. Gray could say in reply.
+
+"Yes. And there's a little blaze just beginning to show above the trees
+in the direction of Colonel Shelby's," continued Marcy.
+
+"This is a dreadful state of affairs," said his mother.
+
+"I believe you; but Aleck Webster told the truth, and those Union men
+are bricks. Jack will be tickled to death when he hears of it."
+
+"I hope he isn't heathen enough to rejoice over any one's misfortune.
+But how can I tell you what to do? What do you want to do?"
+
+"I want to know if you will be afraid to remain here with the girls
+while I run over there," answered Marcy.
+
+"Certainly not. Take every one on the place, and save what you can. But,
+Marcy, you cannot do any work with only one hand."
+
+"No matter. I can show my good will. I don't expect to have a chance to
+save anything. The house has been burning so long that the roof is about
+ready to tumble in. Good-by."
+
+Marcy buttoned his coat to keep it from falling off as he ran, caught
+his cap from the rack as he hurried through the hall, and opened the
+front door to find Julius waiting for him at the foot of the steps.
+
+"Wake up everybody!" commanded Marcy. "Tell the girls to go into the
+house to keep their mistress company, and bring the men over to the
+fire. Hurry up, now!"
+
+Marcy ran on in the direction of the gate, and, as soon as he was out of
+sight, Julius whirled around and seated himself on the lower step. He
+sat there about five minutes, and then rose and sauntered off toward the
+road.
+
+"What for I want wake up everybody?" said he to himself. "I jes aint
+going take no men ober to de fire to holp save de cap'n's things, when
+de cap'n done sick de robbers on us. Luf him take keer on he own things;
+dat's what I say."
+
+Marcy was right when he told his mother that he would not be in season
+to assist in saving the captain's property. The roof of the house fell
+in about the time he reached the road, and when he ran into the yard he
+could do no more than follow the example of Beardsley's frightened
+household, and stand by and look on while the fire burned itself out. He
+caught one glimpse of the captain's grown-up daughter standing beside
+the few things that had been saved, but she straightway hid herself
+among the negroes, and gave him no opportunity to speak to her. He
+looked toward Colonel Shelby's plantation, and saw that his house, too,
+was so far gone that there was no possible chance of saving it. This was
+the important thing that Captain Beardsley forgot, and of which we spoke
+a short time ago. He forgot the band to which Aleck Webster belonged, or
+perhaps he would have contrived some way to make them believe that the
+man Kelsey, and not himself, was to blame for the raid that had that
+night been made upon Mrs. Gray's house.
+
+"Aleck and his friends must have had the strongest kind of evidence, or
+they never would have done such work as this," thought Marcy, as he
+turned his steps homeward after satisfying himself that there was
+nothing he could do at the fire. "I wish I knew what that evidence is,
+and how all this is going to end. I wish from the bottom of my heart
+that the fanatics who are responsible for this state of affairs could be
+in my place for a few days."
+
+"I hope you asked the captain's daughter to come over here," said Mrs.
+Gray, when her son entered the room in which she was sitting.
+
+"Well, I didn't," was the reply. "I meant to, but she didn't give me a
+chance to say a word to her. Let her go and bunk with Mrs. Brown, and
+then there will be two congenial spirits together."
+
+By this time it was getting well on toward morning, and sleep being
+quite out of the question, Marcy and his mother sat up and talked until
+breakfast was announced. The burden of their conversation, and the
+inquiry which they propounded to each other in various forms, was: What
+should they say to their neighbors regarding the events of the night?
+Should they tell the story of the attempted robbery, when questioned
+about it, or not? There were many living in the settlement who had not
+been taken into Beardsley's confidence, who did not know that the Union
+men were banded together for mutual protection, and some of them were
+Confederate soldiers; and what would these be likely to do if they
+learned that there was a little civil war in progress among their
+neighbors? The situation was an embarrassing one, and Marcy and his
+mother did not know how to manage it.
+
+"I am a-going to trust to luck to help me out," said the boy, who had
+been gazing steadily into his cup of coffee as if he there hoped to find
+an answer to the question that had been under discussion for the last
+two hours. "I don't believe there will be anything done, one way or the
+other, until the battle that is going to be fought at Roanoke Island is
+decided."
+
+"Why, Marcy?" said Mrs. Gray, in surprise. "What direct influence can a
+great battle have on our private affairs?"
+
+"I thought you wouldn't fall in with my notions, but I think I am
+right," replied Marcy. "If the rebels win, look out for breakers. This
+part of the State will be overrun with soldiers, who will shoot or drive
+out every one who is suspected of being friendly to the old flag, and
+such fellows as Beardsley and Shelby and Allison will be out in full
+force to hie them on. If the Federals win, as I hope they may, and
+occupy the Island and Plymouth and other points about here, our
+stay-at-home rebels will crawl into their holes, and you will not hear a
+cheep from them."
+
+"But all that is in the future," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"And what we want to know is how to conduct ourselves to-day," added
+Marcy. "I know that, and, as I said before. I am going to trust to luck.
+I can tell better what to say after I have mingled for a few minutes
+with the crowd I shall meet at the post-office."
+
+"Do any of the Union men ever go there?" inquired Mrs. Gray.
+
+"I have seen Webster there once or twice, but as to the rest, I cannot
+say; for I do not know them."
+
+"I shouldn't think they would go there for fear of being arrested."
+
+"Who is there to arrest them?"
+
+"I don't know; but I suppose the postmaster could bring a squad of
+soldiers from Plymouth, could he not?"
+
+"Yes, but he would have to bring another squad to watch his house and
+store after the one that made the arrest went away," answered Marcy. "If
+the Nashville people attempt to manage this thing themselves, I am
+afraid their town will go up in smoke."
+
+Going to the post-office, on this particular morning, was one of the
+hardest tasks the boy had ever set for himself. He wished he could hit
+upon some good excuse for sending Morris in his place, and indeed the
+old fellow offered to go when he brought up Marcy's horse, adding:
+
+"I'm jubus that they will ask you a heap of questions that you won't
+want to answer. They won't say nothing to Morris, kase a pore niggah
+never knows nothing."
+
+"I've got to face them some time, and it might as well be to-day as next
+week," replied Marcy, slipping into the coachman's hand one of the gold
+pieces that Julius had given him the night before. "Let Julius entirely
+alone, and the next time you hear of any plans being laid against us,
+don't keep us in ignorance. Come to us at once, so that we may know what
+we have to expect."
+
+"Thank you kindly, sar," said Morris, taking off his hat. "I'll bear
+that in mind; but you see, Marse Marcy, I didn't want for to pester you
+and your maw. I was on the watch."
+
+"But you were frightened to death, and that little imp Julius was the
+one who helped us," thought Marcy, as he swung himself into the saddle,
+with the coachman's assistance, and rode away. "Well, I was frightened
+myself, but I couldn't run and hide."
+
+When Marcy came to Beardsley's gate, he thought it would be a neighborly
+act for him to ride in and ask if there was anything he could do for the
+captain's daughter; but she was not to be seen. Marcy afterward learned
+that she had taken up her abode with Mrs. Brown, with whom she intended
+to remain until her father could come home and make other arrangements
+for her comfort. There were a few negroes sauntering around in the
+neighborhood of the smoking ruins, and among them was the girl Nancy,
+who looked at him now and then with an expression on her face that would
+have endangered her life if her master could have seen and understood
+it. The boy was glad to turn about and ride away from the scene, for it
+was one that had a depressing effect upon him.
+
+"Beardsley brought it upon his own head," was what he told himself over
+and over again, but without finding any consolation in the thought. "It
+is bound to make him worse than he was before--it would make me worse if
+I were in his place--and nobody knows what he will spring on us next."
+
+As Marcy had expected, his arrival at the hitching-rack in front of the
+post-office was the signal for which Tom Allison, Mark Goodwin, and a
+few others like them had been waiting. They opened the door and ran
+across the street in a body, highly excited of course, and all talking
+at once.
+
+"What happened out your way last night?" was the first question he could
+understand.
+
+"Fire," was the reply. "Didn't you see it?"
+
+"You're right, I did," said Tom.
+
+"Then why didn't you come out?" inquired Marcy. "I didn't see you or any
+other white man about there."
+
+"I'll bet you didn't," exclaimed Goodwin. "When two houses owned by
+prominent men, and standing a mile and a half apart, get on fire almost
+at the same moment in the dead hour of night----"
+
+"And while their owners are absent from home," chimed in Tom.
+
+"And while their owners are away from home on business," added Mark, "it
+means something, doesn't it? We stayed pretty close about our
+hearth-stones, I bet you, for we didn't know how soon our own buildings
+might get a-going. Where were you when it happened?"
+
+"I was at home, where you were," replied Marcy.
+
+"And wasn't your house set too?"
+
+Marcy said it was not; or if it was he hadn't found it out.
+
+"That's mighty strange," remarked one of the group who had not spoken
+before.
+
+"What is strange?" demanded Marcy. "Explain yourself."
+
+"Why, if there was a band of marauders about, as every one seems to
+think," said the boy----
+
+"Well, there was," interrupted Marcy. "They came to our house, and made
+preparations to hang me up by the neck, when the----"
+
+"Oh, get out!" exclaimed Allison and Goodwin in concert.
+
+Marcy had pushed his hat on the back of his head and squared himself to
+tell the story of his adventure; but when these words fell upon his ear,
+he put his hands into his pockets and started for the post-office.
+
+"Hold on," cried Tom, catching at his arm. "Don't go off that way. Tell
+us all about it."
+
+"I will, if you will ride home with me so that I can prove my story,"
+said Marcy. "When you see the chandelier that was pulled out of its
+place in the ceiling by the rope----"
+
+"Were you hanging to the rope when it pulled out?" exclaimed the
+impatient boys.
+
+"No. If I had been I would have a broken head now. One of the robbers
+put his weight upon the rope to see if it would hold me up, when the
+thing came down on his head and knocked him senseless."
+
+"Well now, I am beat! Did they go off without getting any money?"
+inquired Tom, who would not have asked the question if he had been in a
+calmer mood.
+
+"They certainly did. They never took a cent."
+
+"And they didn't fire your house afterward?"
+
+"Not that we know of. Our house is standing this morning."
+
+"Who were the robbers?"
+
+"That's a conundrum to give up," replied Marcy. "All I know is that they
+were white men who had made a bungling attempt to disguise themselves as
+negroes; but they did not put black enough on their hands and faces."
+
+Tom Allison looked at his friend Mark, and when he moved away Mark
+followed him. As soon as they were beyond ear-shot of the rest of the
+group, Tom said:
+
+"Let's shake those fellows, and wait for a chance to speak to Marcy
+alone. What do you think you make of the situation just as it stands?"
+
+"I don't make anything of it," answered Mark. "I can't see through it,
+and I don't believe Marcy told the truth."
+
+"I do. In the first place he is not given to lying, and besides he asked
+us to go home with him. He wouldn't have done that if he had been
+telling us a funny story. I believe Beardsley sent those robbers to Mrs.
+Gray's house and then took himself off so that he could say he wasn't at
+home when the robbery was committed, just as Marcy and Jack could say
+they were not at home when their overseer was abducted."
+
+"There may be something in that," said Mark reflectively. "But the
+captain made a mighty poor selection when he took men who permitted
+themselves to be scared away by the breaking down of a chandelier. A
+brave lot of fellows they were."
+
+"But perhaps that wasn't what frightened them away," said Tom. "How do
+you account for the burning of Beardsley's house and Shelby's, while
+Gray's was allowed to stand?"
+
+"I don't account for it. It is quite beyond me."
+
+"You don't think those robbers set the buildings on fire?"
+
+"It isn't likely, when they were in Beardsley's employ. Still they might
+have done it to revenge themselves for the loss of the money they
+expected to find in Mrs. Gray's house."
+
+"They might, but I don't believe they did. Have you forgotten what was
+in the letter Beardsley received while he was in Newbern?"
+
+"By gracious, Tom! You don't think----"
+
+"Yes, I do. They said they would jump on him if he didn't stop
+persecuting Union people, and they have done it. The men who wrote that
+letter were the men who burned those houses."
+
+"Tom, you frighten me. I'll tell you what's a fact, old fellow: You and
+I made a big mistake in calling on that old gossip Mrs. Brown. We didn't
+get a thing out of her beyond what we knew when we went there, and I'm
+going to keep clear of that shanty of hers in future. It may be your
+father's turn next, or mine."
+
+"That is what I am afraid of," said Tom honestly. "And that is the
+reason I want to hang around and see Marcy alone--to ask if he saw
+anything of those Union men last night."
+
+Marcy remained in the post-office for nearly half an hour, for he was
+surrounded by an excited and anxious group there, and plied with the
+same questions he had been called on to answer outside; but about the
+time that Allison and his companion were becoming so impatient that they
+were on the point of going in after him, he came out with his mail in
+his hand, and, what was a comfort to them, he came alone.
+
+"Are you two going to ride out with me?" said Marcy, when he reached the
+hitching-rack, where they were waiting for him.
+
+"We may go out some day, but not for proof," replied Tom. "What would be
+the use, when we know that you told us nothing but the truth? But,
+Marcy, you don't mean to say that those robbers were frightened from
+their work by the simple breaking down of the chandelier?"
+
+"Oh, no; they had better reasons than that for letting us alone,"
+replied the boy, who knew that he might as well tell the whole story
+himself as to leave them to hear it from somebody else. "A moment or so
+after the chandelier came down on the head of one of the robbers, a
+party of armed and masked men came into the room and rescued us."
+
+It was right in the point of Tom Allison's tongue to say to Mark,
+"Didn't I tell you so?" but he caught his breath in time, and tried to
+look surprised. "Who were they?" he managed to ask.
+
+"Didn't I say they were all masked?" inquired Marcy.
+
+"Well, they said something, didn't they."
+
+"They spoke about half a dozen words."
+
+"And didn't you recognize their voices?"
+
+"I did not. Let Mark put his handkerchief over his mouth and speak to
+you, and see if you can recognize his voice."
+
+"But haven't you an idea who they were?"
+
+"You know as much about them as I do," answered Marcy; and he knew by
+the expression of astonishment that came upon Tom's face that he had hit
+the nail squarely on the head.
+
+"How do you explain the burning of those two houses?" inquired Mark.
+
+"In the same way that I explain the raid that was made upon our house.
+The men who were responsible for one were responsible for the other."
+
+"You don't mean to say that the robbers did it!" exclaimed Tom.
+
+"I mean to say that they were the cause of it. If you won't ride with me
+I shall have to say good-by."
+
+"What do you think now?" asked Tom, as he and Mark stood watching
+Marcy's filly spatter the mud along the road.
+
+"I hate to say what I think," was Mark's reply. "I'm sorry to say it,
+but it is a fact that that villain holds every dollar's worth of
+property in this county between his thumb and finger."
+
+"Well, he shall not hold it there forty-eight hours longer," said
+Allison savagely.
+
+"How are you going to help it?"
+
+"By writing a note to the commanding officers at Plymouth and Roanoke,
+and telling them what sort of a fix we are in," replied Tom.
+
+"Don't you do it!" cried Mark. "Don't think of it, for if you do you
+will see worse times here than you ever dreamed of. If you are not
+hanged to one of the trees on the common you will be driven out of the
+country."
+
+Wait a few minutes, and we will tell you whether or not Mark Goodwin had
+reason to be frightened at Tom's reckless words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE ARRIVAL OF THE FLEET.
+
+Marcy Gray had passed through the ordeal he so much dreaded, and was as
+well satisfied with the way he had come out of it as he had hoped to be.
+Of one thing he was certain: every person to whom he had spoken that
+morning was suspicious of him, but that was no more than he expected.
+Some people in Nashville believed that he had not only instigated but
+ordered the destruction of Beardsley's house and Shelby's, and that he
+could in like manner command the burning of any house in the settlement
+if he felt like it, and that was what he thought they would believe. He
+knew it wasn't so, and it troubled and vexed him to have such things
+laid to his charge; but how could he help it, and what single thing had
+he done to bring it about?
+
+"Heaven knows I wish they would let us alone," was what Marcy said to
+himself as he galloped along the road, "but I'll not stand by and see my
+mother worried and tormented without doing something to stop it; and if
+Beardsley or Shelby or anybody else tries it on, I will have him
+punished for it if I can."
+
+Just then a low but shrill whistle, sounding from the woods which came
+down close to the road on the left hand, attracted Marcy's attention and
+caused him to draw rein gradually and bring his horse to a stand-still.
+He pulled a paper from his pocket, and while pretending to read, looked
+sideways toward the woods, and saw Aleck Webster making his way up
+through the bushes. You will remember that these two once held a short
+private interview at this very spot.
+
+"Good-morning, sir," was Aleck's greeting. "We didn't like to break up
+your night's rest, but I suppose we did."
+
+"You may safely say that," answered Marcy. "We never slept a wink, or
+even tried to, after we saw that Beardsley's house was on fire. My
+mother and I are sorry you did that. After you had rescued us, why
+couldn't you go away satisfied?"
+
+"And let the same thing happen again?" exclaimed Aleck. "I suppose you
+know that Beardsley was to blame for the robbers coming to your house?"
+
+"We don't know it, but we think so," replied Marcy.
+
+"We had as strong evidence as we needed that he meant to do that very
+thing, and when he was ready to spring his plans, he found us waiting
+for him. Perhaps you don't know it, but your house has been watched
+every night for a week past."
+
+"I wish I could find words to thank you," began Marcy.
+
+"Belay that, if you please, sir," said Aleck hastily. "We are helping
+ourselves while we are looking out for you. You are Mr. Jack Gray's
+brother, and that is enough for me to know. Our letter brought the cap'n
+home in a tolerable hurry, and ought to have been a warning to him to
+keep still after he got here. Perhaps he will see now that we meant what
+we said to him."
+
+"I certainly hope he will, for I don't want to see any more of his
+buildings destroyed. I suppose you had reason to connect Colonel Shelby
+with Beardsley's schemes?"
+
+"You're right, we did. He was knowing to them and didn't try to stop
+them, and so we thought we'd best tell him not to go too far. They
+thought, if they left home for a spell, we would not blame them, but we
+were onto them all the same. They can't make a move or do a thing that
+we don't know it."
+
+Marcy wanted much to ask what means Aleck and his friends used to keep
+themselves so well informed; who those friends were and how many there
+were of them; but on second thought he decided that the best thing he
+could do would be to listen and say nothing. He would have been glad to
+know what had been done with the four prisoners the rescuing party
+carried away with them; but as Aleck did not once refer to them, Marcy
+contented himself with asking about the wounded one.
+
+"Was the man who was knocked down very much hurt?" said he.
+
+"Oh, no. He came around all right in a few minutes," answered Aleck; and
+then, as if to show Marcy that he did not intend to say more on that
+subject, he hastened to add, "My object in stopping you was to inquire
+if you are satisfied with the way I have kept the promise I made Mr.
+Jack. I told him I would always stand his friend, and yours. You don't
+often get letters from him, I suppose?"
+
+"Not often," replied Marcy, with a smile. "The mail does not run
+regularly between our house and the Yankee fleet."
+
+"No, I reckon not; but if you get a chance to write to him, tell him
+what I have told you."
+
+"Look here, Aleck," said Marcy suddenly. "Do the members of your band
+ever hang about the post-office? I know I have seen you there a few
+times."
+
+"Of course; and you will, no doubt, see me there again. We have to go
+among people to keep suspicion away from us."
+
+"That's what I thought," continued Marcy. "Now, are you not afraid that
+some one will bring soldiers there to make prisoners of you?"
+
+"No, I don't think they will," said Aleck indifferently. "If the
+soldiers should come, there are men in that town who would run so fast
+to meet and send them back, that you couldn't see them for the mud they
+would kick up in the road."
+
+"You mean that they would not permit the soldiers to molest you?"
+
+"They wouldn't, if they could help it, for they know their town would be
+destroyed if they did," replied Aleck; and Marcy was frightened by the
+spiteful emphasis he threw into his words. "They will be sorry enough,
+before we are done with them, that they ever tried to break up this
+government. We want peace and quiet, and we're going to have 'em, if we
+have to hang every rebel in the country."
+
+This was what we meant when we said, at the close of the last chapter,
+that we should soon see whether or not Mark Goodwin had reason to be
+alarmed by Tom Allison's reckless proposition. It seemed that every
+contingency had been thought of and provided for by the long-headed
+Union men who held secret meetings in the swamp, and that, if Allison
+possessed ordinary common sense, he would not say a word to the
+commanding officers at Plymouth and Roanoke regarding the situation in
+and around Nashville. Marcy did not like to hear the stalwart young
+sailor talk in this savage strain, so he switched him off on another
+track, by saying:
+
+"I want to ask one other question before I forget it: Were you the man
+who nodded to me last night, when you and your friends came in, and
+saved me from a choking?"
+
+"I reckon so; and I was the one who got your revolvers back for you.
+They didn't do you much good, did they? That little nig of yours is as
+sharp as they make 'em. Didn't he tell you who we were?"
+
+"He gave us to understand that he didn't know."
+
+"That was all right. It shows that he can be trusted to keep his mouth
+shut. But, I am afraid, if we don't quit talking, somebody will ask you
+what you found in your paper that was so mighty interesting; so good-by.
+Don't be alarmed on account of Beardsley and the rest. I have a notion
+that the fear of punishment will make them let you and every other Union
+man about here alone after this."
+
+Aleck disappeared among the bushes, and Marcy rode on with his eyes
+still fixed upon his newspaper; but he did not see a word in it. He was
+thinking of the Union men, who had showed themselves brave enough to
+punish their enemies almost under the noses of two strong Confederate
+garrisons.
+
+"They are a desperate lot, whoever they are," was his mental reflection,
+"and I would rather have them on my side than against me. What will be
+the next thing on the programme?"
+
+There was not much work accomplished on the plantation that day, for the
+excited negroes, some of whom did not know a thing about the raid of the
+previous night until it was over, had too much talking to do among
+themselves, and with Morris and Julius, who held their heads high and
+threw on airs because they had been prominent actors in the thrilling
+scenes that took place in Mrs. Gray's sitting-room. Julius thought
+himself of so much consequence that it was all Marcy could do to
+persuade him to give the dead Bose a decent burial, and then he was
+obliged to go with him to see that the task was well done. But he was
+not as impatient with the black boy as he would have been if Aleck
+Webster had not spoken so well of him. They had visitors, too; and Marcy
+knew that their object in coming was not to sympathize with his mother
+and denounce the "outrage" as they called it, but to gain her good will
+if they could. As Marcy bluntly expressed it--"They would not come near
+us if they thought we were friendless and helpless, but they know we are
+not, and so they want to get on our blind side." They fairly "gushed"
+over the Confederate flag that was hung upon the wall of the
+sitting-room, but when they went away they told one another that that
+banner did not express Mrs. Gray's honest sentiments, and that it would
+not protect her or her property for one minute if the Richmond
+authorities would only yield to the importunities of General Wise, and
+send a strong force to occupy Roanoke Island and the surrounding
+country. If that time ever came, the general's attention should be
+called to the fact that one of the sons of that house was a sailor in
+the Yankee navy.
+
+After another almost sleepless night Marcy Gray rode again to the
+post-office, to find there the same talkative, indignant, do-nothing
+crowd he had long been accustomed to meet at mail time. This morning, if
+such a thing were possible, they were more excited and angry than they
+had been the day before; but they did not fail to meet Marcy at the
+hitching-rack, or to talk to him as though they looked upon him as one
+of themselves. He noticed that they all held papers in their hands.
+
+"This thing is going to be stopped now, I bet you," said Mark Goodwin,
+who was the first to speak.
+
+"Do you mean the war?" inquired Marcy. "If you do, I am heartily glad to
+hear the news."
+
+"I mean the war right around here," answered Mark. "It's got into the
+Newbern papers, and they are giving us fits on account of it. They say
+it serves us just right."
+
+"What does?"
+
+"Why, having our houses burned and--and all that."
+
+"Do they say anything about robbery?" asked Marcy. "Or about threatening
+to pull a law-abiding boy up by the neck because he does not happen to
+have a pocketful of money with him?"
+
+"No," replied Mark, rather indignantly; and then, seeing by the curious
+smile on Marcy's face that he had spoken too quickly, he added, "I
+suppose of course that they do say something about that outrage, but I
+can't tell for certain, for I have only had time to read what my papers
+say concerning the burning of Beardsley's house and Shelby's."
+
+"Probably they don't refer to the way those four villains conducted
+themselves in my mother's house," said Marcy, in a tone of contempt.
+"It's altogether too insignificant a thing to have travelled as far as
+the city of Newbern."
+
+"It isn't, either!" exclaimed Tom Allison, glaring savagely at Marcy.
+"Nothing is too insignificant to attract attention these times. My paper
+says--but there it is. Read it for yourself."
+
+"Thank you; I can't stop," answered Marcy, moving toward the office.
+"I'll get my own, and read it on the way home."
+
+Contrary to his expectations he did not find a very belligerent crowd in
+there. The space between the counters was filled with men, and they were
+all talking at once; but they had learned wisdom by past experience, and
+however much they might have desired to threaten somebody, they were
+careful not to do it. They denounced Yankees and their sympathizers in a
+general way, and declared that it was a cowardly piece of business to
+burn houses while their owners were absent, but they did not mention any
+names. Marcy loitered about until he found that he was not going to hear
+anything more than he had heard a score of times before, and then
+mounted his horse and set out for home. Dropping the reins upon his
+filly's neck and allowing her to choose her own gait, he drew his
+Newbern paper from his pocket, and began looking for the article of
+which Mark Goodwin had spoken. He could not run amiss of it, for the
+black headlines were too prominent. They took up more than half the
+column, and after Marcy had run his eye over a few of the leading
+ones, he had a very good idea of the article itself. He read:
+"A Reign of Terror.--Civil War Inaugurated in a Sovereign State.
+--Cowardly Citizens Who Allow a Handful of Traitors to Work their
+Sweet Will of Them.--Armed and Masked Incendiaries Abroad at Night."
+
+"There now!" exclaimed Marcy, when he read the last line. "That is as
+good proof as I want that the man who wrote this knew the whole story.
+Mother and I were the only white persons who saw those men, and nobody
+would have known that they were armed and masked if I hadn't said so.
+I'll bet you the paper doesn't say a word concerning the 'cowardly
+citizen' who sent those robbers to our house."
+
+Swallowing his indignation as well as he could, Marcy turned his
+attention to the article, which ran as follows:
+
+     "We have learned, from what we think to be reliable sources,
+     that a reign of terror exists in certain portions of this
+     Commonwealth that is a burning shame and a disgrace to the
+     cowards who permit it. They claim to be loyal Southern
+     gentlemen up there, but they will have to furnish better
+     proof than they have thus far given before we will believe
+     it. When the gallant Wise was placed in command of this
+     district in December last, Secretary Benjamin desired him to
+     bring his legion up to 10,000 strong by recruiting in North
+     Carolina. There was reason for this order, and for anxiety
+     regarding Roanoke and adjacent points, because as early as
+     September, 1861, General McClellan requested the Yankee
+     Secretary of War 'to organize two brigades of five regiments
+     each of New England men, for the general service, but
+     particularly adapted to coast service.' That means that he
+     intended to turn a horde of red-hot abolitionists and
+     nigger-lovers loose upon our almost defenceless shores. Wise
+     saw and realized the danger, tried hard to obey Secretary
+     Benjamin's order, and failed; and now we know the reason
+     why. How could he make brave soldiers out of men who will
+     permit armed and masked traitors to ride about their county
+     of nights, wreaking vengeance upon those who are so
+     unfortunate as to incur their displeasure? While we deeply
+     sympathize with Messrs. Shelby and Beardsley, whose
+     dwellings were burned last night, and wish that the
+     incendiaries might have chosen some less out-spoken and
+     liberal citizens as their victims, we are constrained to say
+     that the lesson that community has received is well
+     deserved. Now let them arouse and stamp this lawlessness out
+     with an iron heel; and let us warn those Union men in the
+     same breath, and all others who feel disposed to follow in
+     their lead, that their day will be a short one. They will
+     not be driven from the country they will be hunted down like
+     dogs, and hanged to the nearest tree. They will not be shot.
+     That is the death the loyal soldier dies, but we save the
+     rope for traitors."
+
+"The editor's pen was so mad it stuttered when it wrote this rambling
+article," thought Marcy. "It couldn't talk straight. If he owned about
+fifty thousand dollars' worth of houses in these parts, he would not
+write so glibly about hanging Union men. Now, let us see what sort of
+language he used in denouncing the raid that was made upon our house."
+
+He looked the paper through without finding any reference to it, but
+that was no more than he expected. The outrages of every description
+that were perpetrated upon Union people during the days of the war, by
+"loyal Southern gentlemen," were of so common occurrence, and of so
+little consequence besides, that they were never mentioned in the
+newspapers. The oft-expressed verdict was that Unionists had no rights
+that any white man was bound to respect.
+
+"If our house had been burned and everybody in it hanged, this rebel
+sheet would not have said a word against it." thought Marcy, shoving the
+paper into his pocket and starting up his horse. "Mark Goodwin says that
+these things have got to be stopped now, which means that Beardsley and
+Shelby will set something else afoot as soon as they return from the
+Island. Now, let us see what it will be. Shall I show this paper to
+mother, or not?"
+
+This was the question that Marcy pondered during his ride, and the
+conclusion he came to was that his mother had as much right to know the
+worst as he had to know it himself; so he handed out the paper as soon
+as he reached home, and rode on to the field to see how his small force
+was getting on with the work he had assigned it.
+
+Then came several days of suspense that were hard to bear. Beardsley and
+Shelby came home as soon as they heard of the loss they had sustained,
+but what they had to say, and what they made up their minds to do about
+it, never came to Marcy's ears. They did not take the trouble to call
+upon Mrs. Gray. Evidently they did not think it worth while, because she
+could not restore to them the property they had lost; but others, who
+had roofs that they wanted to keep over their heads, came every day or
+two, although they did not bring much news that was worth hearing. About
+all Marcy learned was that Beardsley and his companion had returned
+filled with martial ardor, that they were working night and day to send
+recruits to Roanoke Island, although they did not show any signs of
+going back there themselves. They declared that the Island was as strong
+as Gibraltar, and if the Yankees were foolish enough to send an
+expedition against it, there wouldn't be a man of them left to tell the
+story of the fight; and they wanted all the youngsters in the country to
+go there and enlist, so that they could be able to say that they had
+assisted in winning the most glorious victory of modern times. They were
+very enthusiastic themselves, and they made some others so; but Marcy
+Gray, who kept a close watch of all that went on in the settlement, did
+not see more than a dozen young men and boys fall in in response to
+their earnest appeals.
+
+"It's a disgraceful state of affairs," said Tom Allison one morning,
+when Marcy met him at the post-office. "The Southern people deserve to
+be whipped, they are so lacking in patriotism."
+
+"Did you ever think of going into the army yourself?" inquired Marcy.
+
+"I can't go," replied Tom. "We have sent our overseer, and that is as
+much as we can do at present. I wanted to enlist weeks ago, but father
+said I must stay at home and help him manage the place."
+
+Marcy found it hard to keep from laughing outright when Tom said this.
+The latter had never done a day's work at overseeing or anything else,
+and it is doubtful if he could have told whether or not a corn furrow
+was laid off straight. He was too indolent to do anything but eat,
+sleep, and ride about the country.
+
+"There are plenty around here who could go as well as not," continued
+Tom, "and I might go myself if I could only get a commission. But I
+won't go as a private soldier."
+
+"Have you tried to get a commission?" asked Marcy.
+
+Tom replied that he had not. He did not know how to go about it, and was
+not acquainted with any one who could tell him.
+
+"Then hunt up General Wise, and ask his advice," suggested Marcy. "He
+can, and no doubt will put you on the right track at once."
+
+But Tom Allison was much too sharp to do a thing like that. He was well
+aware that enlisted men had no love for "cits" who could go into the
+army and wouldn't, and the promise of a colonel's commission would not
+have induced him to go among them. He meant to remain at home and let
+other and poorer men's sons do the fighting, and Marcy knew it all the
+while.
+
+The latter did not put much faith in the stories that Captain Beardsley
+and Colonel Shelby had spread through the country, and when his mother's
+negroes began coming home in companies of twos and threes, he put still
+less faith in them. They were a sorry-looking lot, ragged and dirty; and
+the first thing they asked for as they crowded about the kitchen door
+was something to eat.
+
+"Oh, missus, don't eber luf dem rebels take we uns away agin," was their
+constant plea. "Dey 'buse us de wust you eber see. Dey whop us, an' dey
+kick us, an' dey don't gib us half 'nough to eat. We all starve to def.
+We been prayin' night an' day dat de Yankees may come an' shoot dat
+place plum to pieces."
+
+"But the trouble is that the Yankees can't do it," said Marcy, as he
+bustled about in search of bread and meat to satisfy the demands of the
+hungry blacks. "Captain Beardsley says the Island is too strong to be
+captured."
+
+The negroes confessed that they did not know much about military
+matters, but they did know that there was much dissatisfaction among the
+soldiers composing the garrison, many of whom declared that they would
+make tracks for home as soon as their year was out, leaving the
+Confederacy to gain its independence in any way it pleased. The Richmond
+authorities would not help them, the people along the coast were too
+cowardly or too lazy to shoulder a musket, and they were not going to
+stay in the army and eat hard-tack while other able-bodied men stayed at
+home and lived on the fat of the land. They would do their duty until
+their term of enlistment expired, and then they would stand aside and
+give somebody else a chance to fight the Yankees. That was what a good
+many deluded and disappointed rebels thought and said about this time;
+but those who have read "Rodney, the Partisan," know how very easy it
+was for the Confederate authorities to bring such malcontents to their
+senses.
+
+But at last the time came when at least one of these vexed questions was
+to be solved by a trial at arms. While the scenes we have attempted to
+describe were being enacted on shore, others, that were of no less
+interest and importance to Marcy Gray and the people who lived in and
+around Nashville, were transpiring on the water. On the 11th day of
+January a formidable military and naval expedition, consisting of more
+than a hundred gunboats, transports, and supply ships, set sail from
+Fortress Monroe. Its object was to obtain possession of Roanoke Island,
+which the Confederates had spent so much time and care in fortifying,
+and which their General Wise called "the key to all the rear defences of
+Norfolk." Two days later the expedition arrived off Hatteras just as a
+fierce northeast gale was springing up, and two days after that the
+Newbern papers brought the encouraging news to Nashville. We say
+encouraging, because there was not a man or boy in town who did not
+honestly believe that those hundred vessels were doomed to certain and
+swift destruction. As in the case of a former expedition, Tom Allison
+was much afraid that the wind and the waves would do the work which the
+gunners at Roanoke Island were anxious to do themselves.
+
+"Oh, don't I wish this wind would go down!" was the way he greeted Marcy
+on the morning on which the news of the arrival of the fleet reached
+Nashville. "Here we've gone and worked like beavers to fortify the
+island, hoping and expecting to give the Yankees a Bull Run licking
+there, and now Old Hatteras has taken the matter out of our hands, and
+is pounding the expedition to pieces on the shoals. Half of the enemy's
+tubs have gone to smash already, and the rest will go back as soon as
+they can. Not one of them will ever cross the bar, I tell you."
+
+For two weeks a furious gale raged along the coast, and, during that
+time, Marcy Gray lived in a state of suspense that cannot be described.
+He could not bring himself down to work, so he went to town twice each
+day, and always came back to report the loss of another ship belonging
+to the expedition.
+
+"Why, Marcy, if they keep on losing vessels at this rate, there will not
+be any expedition left after a while," said his mother one day.
+
+"These reports are all false," declared Marcy. "I tell them to you
+because they are told to me, and not because I expect you to believe
+them. Don't worry. Those ships are commanded by Yankees, and Yankees are
+the best sailors in the world."
+
+For a time it looked as though Tom Allison's prediction would be
+verified; for it was only after fifteen days' struggle with the
+elements, and the loss of four vessels, that Burnside and his naval
+associate, Flag-officer Goldsborough, succeeded in passing through
+Hatteras Inlet to the calmer waters of Pamlico Sound. It was an
+exhibition of patient courage and skill on the part of the Union
+officers and men that astonished everybody; and even Tom Allison was
+willing to confess that things were getting serious. There was bound to
+be a terrible battle at the Island, and the citizens of Nashville would
+hear the guns. And if the Island should be captured, as Forts Hatteras
+and Clark were captured, then what? The thought was terrifying to the
+timid ones, who straightway hid their clothing, and began carrying the
+contents of their cellars, smoke-houses, and corn-cribs into the woods,
+as they had done when the news came that Butler and Stringham had
+reduced the fortifications at the Inlet; but, on this occasion, Mrs.
+Gray's neighbors were all so busy with their own affairs that they did
+not have time to run over and find fault with her because she did not
+hide anything.
+
+A few days of inactivity followed, during which the fleet was repairing
+the damages it had received during the storm, and then a hush seemed to
+fall upon the whole nation as the news was flashed over it that the
+final struggle for the possession of those waters was about to begin.
+The low, swampy shores of the Sound being but sparsely settled, and
+nearly all the able-bodied men in the country, both white and black,
+having been summoned to the Island, some as soldiers and the others to
+work on the forts and trenches, there were few to witness the grand and
+imposing spectacle the fleet presented as it moved into position on the
+evening of February 5, and dropped anchor within a few miles of the
+entrance to Croatan Sound; but among those few was one who was destined
+to bring Marcy Gray into deeper trouble than he had ever known before,
+and the reader will acknowledge that that is saying a good deal. It was
+Doctor Patten's negro boy Jonas. He lay flat behind some obstruction
+near the water's edge, and took in the whole scene as if it had been a
+review arranged for his especial benefit. He saw the waters of the Sound
+splash as the heavy anchors were dropped into them, and could even hear
+the shrill tones of the boatswains' pipes. When darkness came and shut
+the nearest vessel out from his view, he scrambled to his feet and
+hastened toward his master's house, muttering under his breath:
+
+"Jonas been prayin' hard fur de Yankees to come, an' bress de Lawd, here
+dey is! Now, what Jonas gwine do?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+LOOKING FOR A PILOT.
+
+Bright and early the next morning the captain of one of the twenty-seven
+gunboats that were attached to the Burnside expedition, came out of his
+cabin to take a breath of fresh air before sitting down to his
+breakfast. He was a large, full-bearded man, had a broad and a narrow
+band of gold lace around each sleeve of his coat, a lieutenant's straps
+on his shoulders, and wore his hands in his pockets. When he went up the
+ladder he lifted his cap to the quarter-deck, and was in turn saluted by
+the acting ensign on watch.
+
+"Anything new or strange to tell me, Mr. Robbins?" asked the captain
+carelessly.
+
+"Nothing at all, sir, except that a lone contraband came off to us in a
+leaky skiff, when I first took charge of the deck," was the reply.
+
+"Does he know anything?" was the captain's next question.
+
+"I did not interrogate him, sir, only just enough to find out that he is
+not a pilot."
+
+"Perhaps he knows where we can get one, so you might as well bring him
+aft."
+
+A messenger-boy was sent forward to obey this order, and presently
+brought to the quarter-deck the lone contraband of whom the ensign had
+spoken, and who was none other than Doctor Patten's boy Jonas, whom we
+saw watching the Union vessels from his hiding-place on the beach. The
+captain asked him who he was and where he belonged, what his master's
+politics were, and why he ran away from him and came off to the fleet,
+and then he said:
+
+"You told my officer here that you are not a pilot for these waters; but
+you must know where I can find one. There ought to be any number of them
+on the mainland, for I happen to know that many of you black people make
+the most of your living on the water."
+
+"Dat's a fac', moster," replied Jonas, "but I aint no pilot. Dey used to
+be some on de mainland, but dey aint dar now. Dey up to de forts on de
+Island."
+
+"All of them?" inquired the captain. "Can't you think of a single man
+hereabouts who knows the channel through Croatan Sound?"
+
+"Not about here, I can't," answered the black boy, "an' I tell you dat
+fur de truth. Dey is all on de Island waitin' for you uns to come wha'
+dey is; but dey's two back in de country a piece."
+
+"How far back in the country, and who are they?"
+
+"It's a right smart piece, sar; twenty mile suah, an' mebbe mo'. Name
+Mahcy Gray an' Cap'n Beardsley, sar."
+
+"Are they Union or secesh?"
+
+"Well, sar, dere's Mahcy Gray, he's de best kind of a Union boy; but de
+other one, he's----"
+
+"Boy!" interrupted the captain. "I don't want any boy to take charge of
+my ship. This is no boy's play," he added, returning the salute of his
+executive officer, who just then came up the ladder. "If I understand
+the flag-officer's plans, we are to lead one division of the fleet in
+the attack; and if we go on until we are aground, and the division
+follows in our wake, there will be the mischief to pay, for the other
+vessels draw more water than we do."
+
+"Sakes alive, moster! Mahcy Gray won't nebber run you on de groun',"
+exclaimed the negro, with so much earnestness in his tones that the
+captain turned about and listened to him. "He de bes' boy fur de Union
+you eber see, an' he take you right fru de Sound, wid his eyes shet, on
+de blackest night you eber was out in. But dat rebel Beardsley you don't
+want no truck wid him. He know wha' de deep watah is mighty well, but he
+aint gwine to take you dar. He run you on de groun' suah's you live and
+breathe."
+
+"Never mind talking about that. You called him captain a minute ago.
+What is he captain of?"
+
+"Well, sar, moster, previous to de beginning of de wah he was cap'n ob a
+trader; but endurin' de wah he run a privateer an' blockade runner; de
+_Osprey_ he call her."
+
+"What?" exclaimed the gunboat captain, so suddenly that Jonas jumped,
+and the executive and the officer of the deck looked surprised. "Did you
+call him Beardsley, and say that he commanded the _Osprey?_"
+
+"Dat's de name, moster," replied Jonas. "He cotch some Yankee vessels
+outside, an' when de gunboats get too thick on de bar, he take de two
+big guns out, load up wid cotton, an' run de blockade."
+
+"What was his object in taking the guns out?" inquired the captain; and
+the negro went on to explain what the reader already knows--that
+Beardsley had disarmed and disguised his little vessel in order to
+deceive the cruisers along the coast. If he had been captured with
+nothing but cotton on board, the Federal authorities would not be likely
+to hang him and his men as pirates, which they might have done if they
+had caught him while he had two howitzers on his gun-deck and a supply
+of small-arms and ammunition in his cabin. The gunboat captain listened
+attentively, and seemed very much impressed by what the negro had to
+say; and when the latter ceased speaking he turned his back upon him,
+and said to his executive officer:
+
+"Mr. Watkins, I have wanted to meet that man for--for an age, it seems
+to me now. He is the villain who robbed me of the _Mary Hollins_, and
+ironed my crew like felons--like felons, sir, and in spite of my earnest
+protest." Then turning once more to the negro, he inquired, "Can you
+guide a squad of my men to Beardsley's house and Gray's to-night? You
+told me, I believe, that they live twenty miles or more inland."
+
+"Dat's about de distance of de journey you will have to travel, sar,"
+answered Jonas.
+
+"I kin go da', kase I know de house whar dey resides. But de cap'n don't
+live da' no more sense de Union men riz up in de night an' burn him
+out."
+
+"I don't care how many times he has been burned out, nor who did it.
+What I want to know is if you can take my officers where they can put
+their hands on him to-night."
+
+Yes; Jonas was quite positive he could do that.
+
+"All right; but look here, boy," said the captain, shaking his finger at
+Jonas. "Tell me the truth now, or you will never see another sunrise.
+Are there any rebels ashore between here and the place where those two
+pilots live?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sar; dere's plenty of dem at Plymouth, moster."
+
+"I am as well aware of that fact as you are," interrupted the captain.
+"What I want particularly to know is if there are any cavalry scouting
+around who would be likely to pick up the men I shall probably send
+ashore to-night."
+
+"Not now, dey aint, sar; but a while ago dey was piles of dem. Dey go
+round to all de plantations an' tooken away de black ones en' make 'em
+wuk on de forts. I wuk on dem myself."
+
+"Consequently there may be some cavalry out there now," said the
+captain. "But I warn you, boy, that if you lead my men among them----"
+
+"Who? Me?" exclaimed the negro, in accents of alarm. "'Fore de Lawd,
+moster, you don't think Jonas would do dat? Why, sar, Ise been prayin'
+fur you uns to come, an' so has all de black ones. Dem rebels kill me
+suah, if dey see me wid de Yankees."
+
+"And so will I if you take my men where the rebels can get hold of them;
+so that will make twice you will be killed. That will do for the
+present, but I may want to ask you some more questions by and by. Go
+for'ad. Beardsley, Beardsley!" continued the captain, turning again to
+his chief officer, who wore an acting-master's uniform. "I remember that
+when I was a prisoner on board the _Osprey_ I heard one of the mates
+address my captor by that name, and it somehow runs in my mind that this
+pilot we have been talking about is the same man. I made the best effort
+at escape that I could, but the _Hollins_ was so heavily loaded that she
+moved through the water as though she had a hawser dragging over the
+stern; and besides he had the weather gauge of me. I showed him some
+pretty fair seamanship, and he might have given me and my men kind
+treatment in return for it."
+
+"Certainly, sir," answered the executive. "A brave man always respects a
+brave foe."
+
+"But he didn't, Mr. Watkins. On the contrary, when we got into Newbern,
+and the mob on the wharf began howling and calling us names, as they did
+the minute they caught sight of us, Captain Beardsley made no effort to
+stop them. He rather seemed to enjoy it. Give me a chance to take a good
+look at him when he is brought on board, and if he is the man I think he
+is, I want you to have him put into the brig without the loss of a
+moment and into double-irons besides. That was the way he served my
+crew. As soon as I have taken my coffee I will go down and tell the
+flag-officer what I have learned and what I intend to do with his
+permission; so I shall want my gig presently."
+
+The captain went into his cabin, and when he came out again, a short
+time afterward, he was dressed in full uniform and wore his side-arms.
+He seemed to be in no particular hurry to leave the vessel, for although
+breakfast had been served and eaten, the long red meal pennant was still
+floating from the masthead, and the blue-jackets were smoking their
+pipes on the forecastle; but Jonas was loitering around, looking as
+happy as a darky always does after he has enjoyed a hearty repast, and
+when he saw the captain beckoning to him he came aft. What the Union
+officer wanted to question him about this time was as to the quickest
+and safest methods that could be employed to take a company of, say
+fifty men, through the country to Beardsley's house and Gray's, and
+bring them back to the fleet. Would it be necessary for this company to
+march overland, or could it go the whole or a part of the way in boats?
+and was there any danger that the men would be forced to fight their
+way? Jonas answered all his questions as readily as though he had known
+beforehand what they were going to be; and when the captain brought the
+interview to a close by sending the negro forward again, he held in his
+hand a rude map of all the principal waterways that intersected the
+mainland south of Plymouth and north and west of Middletown, and had
+learned how the garrison at the first-named town could be easily and
+safely avoided. Then he stepped into his gig, which was called away when
+the meal pennant was hauled down, and was taken on board the flagship.
+
+His superior officer must have approved of the plans which Captain
+Benton (for that was the name of the Yankee skipper who had once been
+Lon Beardsley's prisoner) submitted for securing the services of a pilot
+who was familiar with the waters through which the fleet was to sail to
+victory, although not very much was done toward carrying them out until
+after dark. The day was not a favorable one for a movement on the part
+of the Union forces, for a thick fog came rolling in from the sea and
+covered the waters of the Sound. Once during the forenoon it lifted long
+enough to disclose the rebel fortifications on the Island, and the
+double rows of piles and sunken ships through which the _Fairy Belle_
+had sailed a few weeks before, with Commodore Lynch's eight boats above,
+and then it settled down again thicker than ever. But two of the Union
+commanders at least were not idle, and when darkness came to conceal its
+movements, the expedition which they had quietly prepared during the day
+put off for the shore. It consisted of four cutters filled with
+small-armed men, two being from Captain Benton's vessel and the others
+from the gunboat that lay next astern. The work of securing the pilots
+was to be done by two squads of twenty men each, one under command of
+Captain Benton's executive officer, the second being led by an acting
+ensign from the other vessel. Mr. Watkins's boat was first in the line
+and the boy Jonas, who crouched in the bow of his cutter, was the guide
+and pilot.
+
+A second expedition, which put off from the flag-ship an hour later,
+held straight for the shore and stopped when it got there; but the one
+in whose fortunes we are at present most interested did not stop. It
+turned into the mouth of a little river which was seldom navigated, even
+by the fishing and trading boats that were so numerous in the Sound. It
+was known as Middle River; and if Jonas, who had lived upon its banks
+ever since he could remember, had been asked how long it was and where
+it took its rise, he would have been obliged to say that he did not
+know. But he did know that by following some of its numerous tributaries
+the expedition could pass in the rear of the forts at Plymouth into
+Seven Mile Creek, and land within a few hundred yards of Captain
+Beardsley's house and Marcy's. And that was just what it did.
+
+Although the strictest silence and caution were observed, the progress
+of the blue-jackets was not as slow and laborious as those who knew
+where they were going thought it would be, and neither did they see or
+hear anything to be afraid of. Only once during the long hours they
+passed in those narrow, crooked streams did they hear a sound to tell
+them where they were, and that was when a distant sentry on the right
+bank, and a little astern of them, shouted the number of his post and
+called out that all was well. Then the blue-jackets drew a long breath
+of relief, and congratulated themselves and each other on having passed
+Plymouth without knowing it. Perhaps this was a fortunate thing for
+Jonas. It might have frightened the wits all out of him if he had
+dreamed of such a thing, but the two sailors who crouched by his side in
+the leading cutter held revolvers in their hands, and were under orders
+to shoot him down at the first sign of treachery. He knew, however, that
+they were watching him, for on several occasions, when it was found
+necessary to change the course of the boat in order to follow the
+windings of the stream, they had cautioned him to clap a stopper on his
+jaw-tackle and pass his instructions aft in a whisper, like any other
+white gentleman.
+
+"Da' now! Da' now!" said Jonas suddenly.
+
+"Not so loud, you black rascal," commanded one of the guards,
+emphasizing his words with a crushing grip on the negro's shoulder.
+"What's the row?"
+
+"Cap'n Beardsley used to live right ober da', 'fore de Union men riz up
+an' burn' him out," replied Jonas.
+
+"We don't care where he used to live," growled the tar. "Where does he
+live now?"
+
+"Right ober da'," repeated the negro. "An' you uns got ter lan' heah on
+de lef' han' side ob de bayou."
+
+This information was duly passed aft to Mr. Watkins, who sat in the
+stern-sheets by the side of the coxswain, and the first cutter was
+turned in toward the bank, the others following close in her wake. When
+Mr. Watkins stepped ashore, he demanded of Jonas why he had landed the
+expedition in those dark woods where there was not a sign of a house to
+be seen; and the negro hastened to explain that the road lay about a
+quarter of a mile straight ahead, and that the house in which Beardsley
+formerly lived stood on the other side of it. The drive-way, which ran
+close by the ruins of the dwelling, led into a lane that passed through
+the quarter; and there, in the overseer's house, was where Beardsley
+lived now. This much having been learned, and a guard being left in
+charge of the boats, forty sailors, with Jonas and his keepers at their
+head, began threading their way through the thick bushes in the
+direction in which the road lay. Twenty minutes' time sufficed to bring
+them to it, but when Jonas began giving further instructions and
+directions Mr. Watkins interrupted him.
+
+"Right da' is de drive-way," said he, "an' down da' is de lane dat goes
+fru de quarter. Look out fur de houn' dogs, an' don't waste no time in
+foolin', kase Beardsley's niggers say he mighty timersome sense you
+Yankees come on de coast, an' de fust thing you know he run out de back
+do' an' take to de bresk. Now, sar, moster----"
+
+"Take the boy with you and go ahead, Mr. Burnham," commanded the
+executive officer. "And it might be well for you to act upon the hint he
+has given, and surround the house as quickly and quietly as possible.
+Remember the signal, and when you are done with the boy send him back to
+me under guard."
+
+In obedience to these orders Mr. Burnham's squad moved through the open
+gate at a quick but noiseless pace, Jonas and his keepers leading the
+way, and in a few minutes disappeared in the darkness. Ten minutes were
+passed in silence, and then the angry protests of a small army of dogs,
+mingled with the doleful yelps of one which had been knocked endways by
+a savage blow from the butt of a Spencer carbine in the hands of a
+blue-jacket, whom he had tried to seize by the throat, arose on the
+still air, being almost immediately followed by a single shrill note
+from a boatswain's whistle. This was the signal agreed upon, and it
+brought to Mr. Watkins' ears the intelligence that if Captain Beardsley
+was in his house, he was now shut up in it and could not escape. In less
+than ten minutes more Jonas and his two guards were heard coming back
+along the drive-way at double-quick; whereupon Mr. Watkins's own squad,
+which up to this time had remained motionless in the road, set out at a
+brisk walk for Mrs. Gray's dwelling.
+
+"This is the place where the Union pilot lives, is it?" said Mr.
+Watkins, when Jonas halted and pointed out the house.
+
+"Yes, sar, moster, dat's de place. No dogs heah to pester you, kase ole
+Bose done killed by de robbers. I speck Mahcy Gray mighty dubersome
+sense dem robbers been heah, an' mebbe he fight; but you uns luf Jonas
+talk to him, an' clem you see him open de front do' too quick. No need
+to circumroun' dis house. Marse Mahcy aint gwine run off."
+
+Mr. Watkins's men were moving toward the house while the negro was
+talking in this way, and now they were drawn up in line in front of the
+gallery by the master's mate, who was second in command, while Mr.
+Watkins mounted the steps and pounded upon the door with such effect
+that he awoke echoes in all the wide halls. The startling summons
+frightened old Morris so badly that he drew his head under the
+bed-clothes; sent Julius like a shot out of the back window and
+scurrying barelegged through the garden; reached the ears of a pale but
+resolute woman, who hastily began arraying herself in such garments as
+she could find in the dark, and brought out of bed an excited,
+determined boy who opened an upper window with a crash, and shoved the
+muzzles of two heavy revolvers down at the blue-jackets. This was Marcy
+Gray. When his eye fell upon the double line of men in front of the
+house he made up his mind that the robbers had come out in full force
+this time.
+
+"Get out of that, or I will blow some of you to kingdom come!" said he,
+without a quiver in his voice. "One--two----"
+
+"Avast there!" exclaimed the master's mate.
+
+"Don't shoot, Marse Mahcy, honey!" cried Jonas, who thought that both
+the revolvers were pointed straight at his own head. "Dese yer folks all
+Yankees, sar; all Yankees de las' blessed one ob 'em, sar."
+
+"Jonas, is that you?" said Marcy, who could scarcely believe his ears.
+"What brought you here at this hour of the night, and how came you in
+the company of such a gang as that?"
+
+"If you are Marcy Gray, I beg to assure you that we are here for no evil
+purpose," said Mr. Watkins, who now came down from the porch and looked
+up at the boy. "We want to see you particularly. Come down, if you
+please, and let me explain."
+
+"You're quite sure you are Union, are you?" said Marcy, who, at first,
+could not make up his mind that this was not a ruse on the part of
+lawless men to gain admission to the house; but, on second thought, he
+concluded that it was not, for, if they had been determined to come in,
+they could have done it by breaking down the doors, or smashing the
+windows, and that, too, without taking the trouble to call him and his
+mother.
+
+"We are quite positive on that point," answered Mr. Watkins. "We belong
+to the Burnside expedition. You knew we were in the Sound, I suppose?"
+
+"I am satisfied, and will be down while you are thinking about it," said
+Marcy, slamming the window, and hastening back to his room.
+
+He lingered there long enough to put on a few articles of clothing, and
+then ran down the stairs with a lighted lamp in his hand. In the lower
+hall he found his mother, who was bravely striving to nerve herself to
+face something more dreadful than she had yet experienced. She had heard
+Marcy talking to the men who were gathered in front of the house, and,
+although she had not been able to catch any of the words that passed
+between them, she was somewhat reassured when she looked into her son's
+beaming face.
+
+"Who are they?" she asked calmly. "Surely they do not act like the
+robbers, who----"
+
+"They are Yankees from the fleet, and want to see me about something,"
+was the excited reply. "Will you take this lamp into the parlor while I
+admit them?"
+
+Certainly his mother would do that; but what could the Yankees want of
+Marcy at that time of night, and how did they hear of him, in the first
+place, and find out where he lived?
+
+"Doctor Patten's boy, Jonas, told them, most likely; but when and where
+they picked him up beats me. I can't imagine what they want, either; but
+I will open the door for them as readily as I would for Jack," replied
+Marcy; and, as his mother turned into the parlor with the lamp, he went
+down the hall to the front door.
+
+"Are you Marcy Gray, the pilot?" inquired Mr. Watkins, as the two
+saluted each other, instead of shaking hands.
+
+"Caesar's ghost!" was the ejaculation that trembled on the boy's lips;
+and then he wondered if he was to be arrested for acting as pilot for
+Captain Beardsley's privateer and blockade runner.
+
+"Because, if you are, you are the man I want to see," continued the
+officer.
+
+"Will you come in?" answered Marcy, who thought it best to hold his
+peace until he had received some insight into the nature of the business
+that had brought his visitor there.
+
+The latter complied, and, when he entered the parlor, was rather taken
+aback to find a dignified lady there. He saluted her courteously, and,
+without intending to do so, added to her fears at the same time that he
+explained his errand, by saying:
+
+"I beg a thousand pardons, madam, for intruding upon your privacy at
+this unseemly hour; but the truth is, our fleet has gone as far toward
+the enemy as it can go without the aid of pilots to direct its
+movements. The name of Marcy Gray has been mentioned to my commander,
+Captain Benton, and I am here to secure his services."
+
+"Oh, sir!" cried Mrs. Gray, clasping her hands appealingly. "Would you
+cruelly rob me of the only son I have left, and take him into battle? He
+has already been sadly injured during this terrible war."
+
+The fact that Marcy carried one of his arms in a sling had not escaped
+the notice of the officer, and now he looked at the boy rather sharply.
+There was but one conclusion to be drawn, he told himself: If Marcy got
+that wounded arm in battle, he must have been fighting on the
+Confederate side.
+
+"I was not aware that the young man was in the service," said he coldly.
+"I thought he was Union."
+
+"And so I am," exclaimed Marcy. "I have a brother in your service, and
+he is aboard one of your gunboats at this moment. I know, for I took him
+out to the fleet before the fortifications at Roanoke Island were
+completed. Did you speak of a Captain Benton just now? I once met a
+sea-captain of that name, but of course the commander of a Union
+war-ship can't be the man I saw insulted and abused by a mob in
+Newbern."
+
+"How and when did that happen?" demanded the officer, his face
+exhibiting the profoundest interest.
+
+"It was when the crew of the prize-schooner _Mary Hollins_ were marched
+off to jail," replied Marcy. "It was no fault of mine that I saw them
+captured, for I am Union to the backbone. I have been persecuted on
+account of my principles----"
+
+"My lad," exclaimed Mr. Watkins, taking Marcy's uninjured hand in both
+his own, "were you on the _Osprey_ when she made a prize of the schooner
+_Hollins?_"
+
+"I was," answered Marcy, becoming as excited as the officer appeared to
+be. "I passed as her pilot and drew pay as such; but I did duty as
+foremast hand most of the time, and sailed on her because I could not
+help myself. May I ask if you know anything about it? I do not remember
+of seeing you among the crew."
+
+"I know all about it although I wasn't there," answered Mr. Watkins,
+whose astonishment would scarcely permit him to speak plainly. "My
+commander, Captain Benton, was master of the _Mary Hollins_ at the time
+she was captured by that pirate. He is now acting volunteer lieutenant
+in the navy of the United States, and commands one of the finest vessels
+in Flag-officer Goldsborough's squadron."
+
+Marcy Gray had never been more amazed in his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BEARDSLEY IN TROUBLE.
+
+The profound silence that reigned in the room for a minute or two after
+Mr. Watkins made his extraordinary announcement, was broken at last by
+Marcy Gray, who exclaimed eagerly:
+
+"If that is the man who wants to see me, I hope you will take me to him
+at once. I have wanted to meet him ever since that miserable day when I
+stood by and saw him make his gallant attempt at escape, for I have
+seventeen hundred dollars that belong to him--my share of the prize
+money his schooner sold for, you know, captain."
+
+"Mister, if you please," said the officer, with a smile. "I used to be
+captain in the merchant marine, but am now executive officer of Captain
+Benton's vessel, and am simply Mr. Watkins."
+
+"Mr. Watkins," interposed Mrs. Gray, "my son has saved all the money
+that came to him through the sale of the _Hollins_, and longed for and
+dreamed of the day when he could restore it to its lawful owner. When
+Captain Beardsley turned his privateer into a blockade runner Marcy
+refused to take out a venture, though by so doing he might have made his
+seventeen hundred dollars of prize money bring him five thousand more.
+Captain Benton's money is safe, and he will receive it in the same shape
+in which it was paid to my son. But, sir," added Mrs. Gray, seeing that
+the officer did not occupy the chair that had been placed for him, "I
+trust you will not find it necessary to take Marcy into battle."
+
+"I really cannot see anyway in which it can be avoided, madam," said Mr.
+Watkins truthfully. "There is bound to be a fight if the enemy stands
+his ground, and my vessel will be one of the foremost in it. But I hope
+you understand that we do not mean to keep him with us unless he wants
+to stay. He will be at liberty to return to you as soon as his services
+can be dispensed with."
+
+"Yes, sir, I understand that," said the mother tearfully. "But a stray
+bullet or a shell will be as likely to strike a non-combatant as any one
+else. I have given one son to the service of his country, and I can give
+another; but when you take Marcy you take all I have."
+
+The officer drew his hand across his eyes, as if brushing away a mist
+that was gathering there, and looked up at a painting over the mantel;
+while Marcy, knowing that the parting must come, and that it would be
+better to have it over as speedily as possible, began to bestir
+himself.
+
+"I will have the money dug up right now," said he. "And, mother, while I
+am doing that, will you bring down my Union flag--not the weather-beaten
+one, but the other that I hoisted on the _Fairy Belle_ when I took Jack
+out to the fleet."
+
+"I little expected to find a Union flag down here," said Mr. Watkins,
+who was very much surprised. "I should think you would find it dangerous
+to keep one."
+
+"So we would if the people around here knew it was in the house,"
+replied Marcy. "But that is something we don't publish. Your men will
+not bother me if I go into the garden, will they?"
+
+"I will see that they don't," was the answer; and, while Marcy went out
+of the back door as if he had been thrown from a catapult, Mr. Watkins
+went out at the front, and Mrs. Gray hastened to her son's room with a
+pair of scissors in her hand. Marcy went to the coachman's cabin and
+felt for the latch-string; but it had been pulled in, and that proved
+that old Morris was inside. He pounded upon the door, and called the
+black man's name impatiently.
+
+"O Lawd! Who dat?" came in muffled tones from under the blankets.
+
+Before Marcy could answer Julius glided around the corner of the cabin,
+looking like a small black ghost very scantily clad in white. He had
+been brave enough when the robbers made their raid upon the house and
+there was a strong force of Union men to back him up, but now that he
+thought the robbers had come again to finish their work, when Aleck
+Webster and his friends were not at hand to lend assistance, he was very
+badly frightened.
+
+"I don't suppose Morris will get up and let me in, but you will do as
+well as anybody," said Marcy. "Get a spade, quick, and come with me. No,
+they are not robbers. They are Yankees, and I am to go to the fleet with
+them; and that is all I can tell you. Hurry up."
+
+While Julius was digging in one of Mrs. Gray's flower-beds under Marcy's
+supervision, and the quilt on his bed was being ripped to pieces, Mr.
+Watkins was standing in the front yard, telling the master's mate what
+he had seen and heard in the house. The young officer was astonished,
+and declared he had never dreamed that there was such Union sentiment
+anywhere in the South.
+
+"I did not believe there was either, though I have often heard of it,"
+replied Mr. Watkins, "but I believe it now. It is easy enough for us who
+are surrounded by loyal people to swear by the old flag, but I tell you
+it must take pluck and plenty of it to do it down here. I wish some one
+else had been ordered to do this work, for I have taken her last prop
+away from that poor woman in there. She is a heroine; and as for the
+boy, he is as true as steel, and as brave as they make them. One can't
+look in his face and think anything else of him. He has gone to dig up
+the captain's money and will be along directly. I never thought to ask
+him how he got his hand hurt."
+
+While the officer was adding to his subordinate's surprise by telling
+how completely Lon Beardsley had reduced Captain Benton to poverty by
+taking the _Hollins_ from him, Mrs. Gray came down the steps with
+Marcy's flag in her hand and followed by three laughing darkies, who
+brought with them large trays loaded with something good to eat and
+drink--bread and butter, cold meat, and pitchers filled to the brim with
+the richest of milk. While the hungry gunboat men were regaling
+themselves and wondering at such treatment from Southerners, all of whom
+they supposed to be the most implacable and violent of rebels, Mrs. Gray
+shook out the folds of the flag, and spread it upon the wall where they
+could all see it. The unexpected sight thrilled them, and every cap was
+lifted.
+
+"If things wasn't just as they are, missus," said one, "we'd give it a
+cheer; asking your pardon and the deck's for speaking when I wasn't
+spoke to."
+
+"But our guns will cheer it in the morning, and they will make more
+noise than we could," observed another. "Likewise asking pardon for
+speaking."
+
+At this moment Marcy appeared, bundled up ready for his trip to the
+coast, and carrying in his hand a valise, which contained, among other
+things, the box that held Captain Benton's money. It was all in gold,
+too; for at that time gold was as plenty as scrip in the Confederacy,
+and Captain Beardsley, ignorant as he was on some points, was much too
+shrewd a man of business to take paper money when he could have what he
+called the "hard stuff" for the asking. Had the _Hollins_ been captured
+one short year later, Marcy would have been obliged to take his share of
+the prize money in scrip, and Captain Benton might have thought himself
+lucky if he had received twenty cents on the dollar.
+
+When the blue-jackets had disposed of everything there was on the trays,
+either by eating it themselves or putting it into the bosom of their
+shirts, to be divided with the guards who had been left in charge of the
+boats, and Marcy had stowed his Union flag in his valise, there was
+nothing to detain them longer. The master's mate marched the squad away
+while Mr. Watkins lingered a moment, cap in hand, to say good-by to the
+woman whose quiet courage had excited his admiration.
+
+"Take good care of my boy, sir," said Mrs. Gray, as if she thought the
+officer could give Marcy a safe station in action, or protect him from
+the shot and shell that would soon be shrieking about his ears.
+"Remember he is all I have to give you."
+
+"I'll have an eye upon him, madam, and upon your other boy as well, when
+I find out where he is," replied Mr. Watkins. "We are not pressing men
+into our service, and I know I can safely say that Marcy will be
+permitted to return to his home as soon as we can get along without
+him."
+
+"I shall have that promise to console me during his absence," said Mrs.
+Gray. "Good-by, Marcy. When you come back to me I want you to be able to
+say that you did your duty. Oh, is there no way in which this dreadful
+state of affairs can be brought to an end?" she cried, once more giving
+way to her tears when she felt Marcy's arm closing around her waist.
+
+"Certainly there is," answered the officer. "The Richmond authorities
+can end this war in an hour by telling their soldiers to lay down their
+arms and stop fighting the government. That would be an easy thing for
+them to do, and it is all we ask of them. Good-by, Mrs. Gray. I trust we
+may meet again under pleasanter circumstances."
+
+The executive turned away as he spoke, leaving the young pilot alone
+with his mother. He did not prolong the leave-taking, but brought it to
+an end as quickly as he could, shook hands with the three darkies, whose
+laughter was now changed to weeping, looked around for Morris and
+Julius, neither of whom was in sight, and in two minutes more was
+marching by Mr. Watkins's side along the road that led past the ruins of
+Captain Beardsley's house. If Marcy remembered that his old captain was
+one of the best pilots for those waters that could be found anywhere he
+did not think to speak of it, nor did he take more than passing note of
+the fact that there was another squad of sailors standing in the road in
+front of Beardsley's gate. They seemed to be waiting for Mr. Watkins,
+for an officer walked up and exchanged a few low, hurried words with
+him. Marcy afterward thought that the barking of Beardsley's dogs, and
+the shrill frightened voices of the house servants and field-hands which
+came faintly from the direction of the quarter, ought to have told him
+that something unusual had been going on there, but he did not pay very
+much attention to the sounds. He was thinking of his mother. "Very good,
+sir," said Mr. Watkins, in response to the officer's whispered
+communication. "Make all haste to the boats and shove off; but preserve
+silence, and keep the line well closed up."
+
+The officer, accompanied by Doctor Patten's boy Jonas, went back to his
+own squad, which at once moved into the woods. That of Mr. Watkins
+immediately followed, led by the master's mate, the executive and Marcy
+bringing up the rear as before; but it was not until the men were all
+embarked and the four boats were well on their way down the creek, that
+they had opportunity to exchange a word with each other. Mr. Watkins's
+cutter led the way, Jonas occupying his old place in the bow, and
+passing his instructions to the coxswain in a whisper. The sailors bent
+to their work with a will, and the boats moved swiftly on their course;
+but the muffled oars were dipped so carefully, and feathered so neatly,
+that there was no sound heard save the slight swishing of the water
+alongside. Feeling entirely satisfied with the way in which he had
+carried out the instructions of his superior, Mr. Watkins settled back
+on his elbow in the stern-sheets and addressed Marcy in low and guarded
+tones.
+
+"I remarked to one of my officers a short time ago that it must take
+courage, and plenty of it, to be loyal in this country; and I told the
+truth, did I not?" he whispered.
+
+"One has to be more than brave to be true to his colors in this
+section," replied Marcy. "He has to be deceitful. I can satisfy you of
+that, if you think a few scraps of my personal history would be of
+interest to you."
+
+Mr. Watkins answered that nothing would suit him better than to hear,
+from the lips of one who knew all about it, how the Union people, if
+there were any in that country besides his own family, managed to live
+among their rebel neighbors; and Marcy began and told his story, but not
+quite so fully as the reader knows it. He did not have time to do that,
+and besides he was too modest; but he easily brought his auditor to
+believe that the arm he carried in a sling had not been injured while
+its owner was fighting on the Confederate side, and also showed him that
+he had more reason to stand in fear of Captain Beardsley than of any
+other man in the settlement.
+
+"What worries me just now is the fear that Beardsley will in some way
+find out that you Yankees have taken me from my mother's house to help
+your vessels through Croatan Sound, said Marcy, who little dreamed that
+Captain Beardsley had been taken from his own bed for the same purpose,
+and was at that very moment a prisoner in one of the boats that followed
+astern. The night was so dark that Marcy could not have recognized the
+man if he had looked straight at him; and if Beardsley had seen and
+recognized Marcy, when the two squads came together and got into the
+boats on the bank in front of his house, he had made no sign. And we may
+add here that the privateer captain had not been treated by his captors
+with the same kindness and consideration that Marcy received at the
+hands of Mr. Watkins. The men who surrounded his house, who followed him
+to his hiding-place in the cellar and dragged him out by main strength,
+knew that he was a rebel who hadn't the manhood to treat his prisoners
+with any degree of kindness, and when Beardsley frantically resisted
+them and yelled to his darkies to put the dogs on to the Yankees, the
+boatswain's mate who held him said that, if he opened his mouth again in
+that fashion, he would make what little light there was in the cellar
+shine straight through the captive's head. This threat kept Beardsley
+quiet, and he would not have dared to say anything to Marcy if he had
+had the opportunity; but he had a good deal to say about him after he
+got home.
+
+"If you whip the rebels at Roanoke Island and let me go among my friends
+again, that man will make me no end of trouble," said Marcy, in
+conclusion. "He will declare that I went aboard of you of my own free
+will, and did all I could to help you through the Sound. It will be
+pretty near the truth, but all the same I don't want the story to get
+wind in the settlement."
+
+"He is about the meanest two-for-a-cent outfit that I ever heard of,"
+said Mr. Watkins, in a tone of disgust. "I am glad you told me all this,
+and will be sure to bear it in mind. But yours is not the only Union
+family in this country, I hope?"
+
+Oh, no, Marcy said in reply. There were many who professed to be Union,
+and as many more who had little or nothing to say about it one way or
+the other. The latter were the real Union people. Some of them held
+secret meetings in the swamp, and had rid Marcy's mother of the presence
+of one of her meanest and most dangerous enemies by coming to her
+plantation one night and carrying away the overseer. They also captured
+the four men who raided his mother's house with the intention of robbing
+it, and had given Marcy to understand that they were keeping a watchful
+eye upon him and would punish any one who persecuted him or his mother.
+While he was telling this part of his story another faint call from a
+far-away sentry gave to Mr. Watkins the gratifying intelligence that
+Plymouth had once more been passed in safety. Why these convenient rear
+water-ways were not more closely guarded by the Plymouth garrison it is
+hard to tell. Perhaps it was because they thought the Yankees would not
+venture to penetrate so far inland in small boats. They learned better
+when Cushing sunk the _Albemarle_.
+
+There was little current in the river to help the cutters on their
+journey, but the ebb tide presently came to their assistance, and under
+its influence they went on their way with increased speed; still it was
+almost daylight when Mr. Watkins's cutter and the two immediately astern
+of it drew up to the gangway on the starboard quarter of Captain
+Benton's vessel. The executive officer and Marcy stepped first upon the
+grating, and Beardsley and the acting ensign who commanded the second
+cutter followed them up the side to the deck, where Captain Benton was
+waiting to receive them.
+
+"I am aboard, sir," said Mr. Watkins, placing his hand to his cap, "and
+have the honor to report that your orders have been carried out to the
+letter. These are the pilots I was instructed to bring."
+
+"Very good, sir," replied the captain.
+
+At the word "pilots" Marcy Gray turned his head to see where and who the
+other one was, and his amazement knew no bounds when he saw Captain
+Beardsley's eyes looking into his own. His old commander was startled
+too; for up to this moment he supposed that the object of the expedition
+was to capture him alone. And if he was ill at ease to know that he was
+wholly in the power of men whose flag he had insulted, he was terribly
+frightened when he found himself confronted by Marcy Gray. The latter
+knew too much about him and his business, for hadn't he as good as
+confessed in the boy's presence that he had been a smuggler? If Marcy
+remembered that fatal admission and felt in the humor to take advantage
+of it, there was likely to be trouble in store for him. The man saw that
+very clearly, even before the gunboat captain turned his steady gaze
+upon him. Then Beardsley wished that the deck might open under his feet
+and let him down into the hold. He cringed a moment, like the coward he
+was, and then tried to call a smile to his face. He remembered his old
+prisoner, the master of the _Mary Hollins_, and acting upon the first
+thought that came into his mind, he took a step forward as if he would
+have shaken hands with him; but Captain Benton turned on his heel and
+walked away. This movement must have served as a signal to somebody, for
+there was a slight but ominous jingling of chains close by, and the
+master at arms clasped a pair of irons about Beardsley's wrists before
+he could raise a finger to prevent it. The touch of the cold metal
+aroused him almost to frenzy.
+
+[Illustration: CAPTAIN BEARDSLEY "PERTESTS."]
+
+"Take 'em off! In the name and by the authority of the Confederate
+States of Ameriky I pertest agin this outrage!" yelled Beardsley, hardly
+knowing what he said in his excitement. "Marcy Gray, aint I always stood
+your friend and your mother's too, and are you going to keep as dumb as
+an oyster while this indignity is being put upon your old cap'n? Take
+the dog-gone things off, I say! I aint in the service, and you aint got
+no right to slap me in irons when I aint done the first thing agin you
+or your laws, either. No, I won't keep still!" roared the captain,
+struggling furiously in the grasp of the sailors, who were guiding him
+with no very gentle hands toward the gangway that led down to the brig.
+"I'll pertest and fight as long as I have breath or strength left in me;
+and when we have gained our independence, Cap'n Benton, I'll make it my
+business to see that you suffer for this."
+
+From the bottom of his heart Marcy Gray pitied the frightened,
+half-crazy man who was being hurried below, but he did not draw
+attention to himself by interceding in his behalf because he knew it
+would do no good. Beardsley was being treated just as he had treated
+Captain Benton's men; but there was no mob on the Union gunboat to whoop
+and yell at him as the Newbern mob had whooped and yelled at his
+prisoners when they were being taken to jail. Beardsley continued to
+struggle and shout until his head disappeared below the combings of the
+main-hatch, and then the racket suddenly ceased. He had not been gagged,
+as Marcy feared, but he had been told that he would be if he didn't keep
+still, and the threat silenced him.
+
+Quiet having been restored Mr. Watkins said to his commander, waving his
+hand in Marcy's direction:
+
+"This young man, sir, was also on board the _Osprey_, when she made a
+prize of your schooner. I think he has something to say that will
+interest you. His name is Marcy Gray."
+
+"Why, Gray was mentioned to me as a Union man," said the captain.
+
+"And so I am," replied Marcy. "But when one is surrounded by enemies he
+can't always do as he likes, and I sailed on that privateer because I
+couldn't help it. If you will be kind enough to look into this valise
+you will see something that will prove my words."
+
+"He has seventeen hundred dollars in that grip, which he says belongs to
+you, sir," Mr. Watkins whispered in the ear of his superior. "It is the
+money he received when the _Hollins_ was condemned and sold by the
+Confederate government."
+
+Captain Benton was greatly astonished. He looked hard at Marcy for a
+minute or two, and then beckoned him to come into the cabin. Seating
+himself on one side of the little table that stood in the middle of the
+floor he pointed to a chair on the other side, and the boy dropped into
+it. The captain continued to look closely at him for another minute, and
+then said:
+
+"I don't know whether I saw you on board the _Osprey_ or not."
+
+"I don't wonder at it, sir," answered the young pilot. "You had so many
+bitter reflections to occupy your mind, about that time, that you
+probably do not remember a single one of the crew with the exception of
+Captain Beardsley. But I remember you, sir; and when I saw you looking
+over the _Osprey's_ stern at your own vessel which was following in our
+wake, I felt sorry for you. I said then that I would never spend a cent
+of your money, and I never have."
+
+While he talked in this way, Marcy took the key from his pocket and
+opened his valise. The first thing he brought to light was his Union
+flag, the one his Barrington girl gave him, and which, we said, in the
+first volume of this series, was destined to float in triumph over the
+waters that he had once sailed through in Captain Beardsley's privateer.
+The glorious day we then prophesied had dawned at last! The captain
+looked on in surprise when Marcy took the flag from his valise, and
+shook it out so that he could see it.
+
+"I should think your rebel neighbors, if you have any, would destroy
+that banner," said he.
+
+"We have plenty of that sort of neighbors, sir, but they never saw this
+flag," answered Marcy. "I keep it hidden in one of my bedquilts, and
+sleep under it every night." And, being a boy of business, he came at
+once to the subject that just then was nearest his heart. "Am I to
+remain on this ship when she goes into action, sir?" he inquired.
+
+"For anything I know to the contrary, you are," the captain answered
+with a smile. "Of course, that will be just as the flag-officer says.
+Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because, if I am, I wish you would do me the favor to run this flag of
+mine up to your masthead," replied Marcy. "The young lady who made it
+for me, and who worked upon it while her rebel relatives were asleep,
+would be very much gratified if she could hear that it had been carried
+to victory by a Federal ship of war."
+
+"Well, my young friend, whether you stay aboard of us or not, that flag
+of yours shall go up to our masthead. You think we are going to beat
+them, do you?"
+
+"I know it, sir," replied Marcy, so earnestly that the captain smiled
+again. "If they beat you to-day, you will beat them to-morrow, or next
+week. You are bound to win in the long run, and in their heart of hearts
+the rebels know it."
+
+"It does me good to hear you talk," said the captain, getting upon his
+feet and pacing his cabin with his hands in his pockets. "I have been
+pretty well discouraged since the fleet arrived off this coast, but you
+put new life into me. Is that my money?" he added, as Marcy placed a
+good-sized box upon his table. "Am I as rich as that? You handle it as
+though it was heavy."
+
+"If I haven't forgotten all my schooling, it ought to weigh close on to
+ten pounds, troy," answered Marcy, throwing back the cover, so that the
+captain could see the glittering contents. "If you will run it over,
+sir, I think you will find it all there."
+
+"Good gracious, my lad! Do you take me for a bank cashier? I could not
+count a pile of money like that in an hour, and I have scarcely two
+minutes' time at my disposal now. Steward, give us a cup of coffee, and
+tell the officer of the deck to call away the gig. I shall want you to
+go to the flag-ship with me. How much did that pirate get for the
+_Hollins_ and her cargo, any way?"
+
+"Fifty-six thousand dollars," answered Marcy.
+
+"That is rather more than they would have brought in Boston," said the
+captain reflectively. "And the Confederate government got half, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes, sir; and half the remainder was divided between Captain Beardsley
+and his two mates. The other fourteen thousand were equally divided
+among the sixteen members of the crew, petty officers and foremast hands
+sharing alike, each one receiving eight hundred and seventy-five
+dollars."
+
+"Then how does it come that there are seventeen hundred dollars here?"
+said the captain, jerking his head toward the box on the table.
+
+"There are seventeen hundred and fifty dollars in this box to be
+exact--two shares," replied Marcy. "Captain Beardsley promised to do
+what he called 'the fair thing' by me if I would ship as pilot on his
+schooner, and he did it by giving me eight hundred and seventy-five
+dollars of your money."
+
+"That was pretty cool, I must say. But how do you know that he did not
+reward your fidelity by giving you some of his own money?"
+
+"No, he didn't, sir!" exclaimed Marcy. "Captain Beardsley doesn't reward
+anybody unless he thinks he sees a chance to make something by it, and
+neither does he pay out a cent of his own when he can take what he needs
+from the pockets of some one else. It is all yours, sir, and I am glad
+to have the opportunity to give it to you."
+
+"And I am glad to receive it, and to have the opportunity to shake hands
+with such a young man as you are," said the captain; and suiting the
+action to the word, he came around the table and gave Marcy's hand a
+hearty sailor's grip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MARCY IN ACTION.
+
+Marcy Gray was somewhat surprised, though not at all abashed, to find
+himself treated as an honored guest on board the gunboat. He took
+breakfast with Captain Benton, who did not think it beneath his dignity
+to acknowledge that he was glad to know he was seventeen hundred dollars
+richer than he thought he was, and who listened with the deepest
+interest to the boy's account of the various adventures that had
+befallen him since the war broke out. When the story was finished the
+captain believed with his executive officer that it required courage to
+be loyal to the old flag in that country.
+
+Breakfast over, the two stepped into the captain's gig and were taken on
+board the _Southfield_ and into the presence of the officer who
+commanded the naval part of the expedition. Flag-officer Goldsborough
+was a native of Maryland, but he believed that the South was wrong in
+trying to break up the Union, that she ought to be compelled to lay down
+her arms since she would not do it of her own free will, and he was
+doing all a brave and skilful man could to force her to strike the
+strange flag she had hoisted in opposition to the Stars and Stripes. He
+was very busy, but he found time to ask Marcy a few questions, and gave
+him pencil and paper with which to draw a map of the channel that led
+through Croatan Sound. When it was done he compared it with another that
+lay upon his table, and Marcy learned, from some remarks he exchanged
+with Captain Benton, that he was not the only pilot whose services had
+been secured by force of arms.
+
+We have spoken of an expedition similar to that of Mr. Watkins, which
+left the fleet the night before, went as far as the mainland and stopped
+there. It was in search of a pilot, and it brought him, too. He was now
+on board the flag-ship, from which he was afterward sent to the vessel
+that had been ordered to lead in the attack. There was still another
+that Marcy did not know anything about--a negro boy named Tom, who had
+once called John M. Daniel of Roanoke master. He ran away on the same
+night the expedition came into the Sound, and had been taken on board
+Burnside's flag-ship. He afterward showed the general the landing at
+Ashby's Harbor, and told him how the troops could be placed there
+without being obliged to wade through the deep marshes at the foot of
+the Island. At the beginning of the war the Confederates did not believe
+that their own slaves would turn against them and give aid and comfort
+to the Federals; but the blacks were sharp enough to know who their
+friends were, and the information they were always ready to give was in
+most cases found to be reliable.
+
+"There is one thing I had almost forgotten to speak of, sir," said
+Captain Benton, when the "commodore," as he had been called, intimated
+that he had no more questions to ask. "What shall I do with that man
+Beardsley, if you please?"
+
+"I will give you an order to send him off to a store-ship, for of course
+you don't want him aboard of you in action," was the answer. "What will
+be done with him after we are through here, I can't say. If he had been
+taken with his privateer he might be held as a prisoner of war; but as
+it is, I presume he will be released after a while, to get into more
+mischief after he returns within the Confederate lines."
+
+"But it will put him to some trouble to get back," thought Marcy. "And
+that will be a blessing."
+
+As soon as the order referred to had been written, Captain Benton and
+his pilot took their departure. When the former stepped upon the deck of
+his own vessel the second cutter was called away, and Captain Beardsley
+was brought out of the brig to be taken on board the supply ship, where
+he would be out of harm's way during the fight that was soon to begin.
+He did not yell and struggle now as he did when the irons were first
+placed upon his wrists, for the fear of the gag had taken all that
+nonsense out of him. His face was very pale, and he walked with his head
+down, and did not appear to notice any of those he passed on his way to
+the side. When he saw how utterly dejected and cast down his old
+commander was, Marcy felt heartily sorry that he had said so much
+against him; but after all he hadn't told more than half the truth. He
+had promised himself that he would shut Beardsley up for a long time if
+he ever got the chance, but now that it was presented, he hadn't the
+heart to improve it. He did just as he knew his mother would wish him to
+do under the circumstances--he held his peace; and when the cutter
+shoved off with him, he hoped that something would happen to keep
+Beardsley away from Nashville as long as the war continued. But
+unfortunately he came back. Marcy had not neglected to bring his
+binoculars with him, and finding himself at liberty after the captain
+went below, he walked forward to take a look at things, being
+accompanied by a couple of master's mates, one of whom had been second
+in command of Mr. Watkins's expedition, and answered to the name of
+Perkins. The Union fleet lay anchored in three parallel lines a short
+distance below the lighthouse, which stood on a dangerous shoal on the
+right-hand side of the channel, the gunboats being in advance, with the
+exception of half a dozen or more that had been drawn up on the flanks
+to protect the transports, in case the enemy began the fight without
+waiting to be attacked. A short half mile ahead of the fleet were two
+small vessels, the _Ceres_ and the _Putnam_, whose business it was to
+act as picket-boats and look out for obstructions when the larger
+vessels were ready to move. Straight up the channel, and not more than
+twelve or thirteen miles away, were the double rows of piles and sunken
+ships that must be passed in some manner before the Union vessels could
+engage the Confederate squadron, which lay on the other side and close
+under the protecting guns of Fort Huger. His glass showed him that the
+rebels had steam up and were ready for action, and Marcy wondered why
+the Union commander wasn't doing something. He said as much to the two
+young officers who stood by his side, while he was making his
+observations.
+
+"Wait a while," replied Perkins, with a sly wink at his companion.
+"After you have been in one fight you'll not be in any hurry to get into
+another. I can wait a week or two as well as not."
+
+"I assure you that I am not spoiling for a fight," answered Marcy. "I'd
+rather not go into one; but since I've got it to do, I wish we might get
+at it and have it over with." And as he said this he picked up his left
+hand, which had been hanging by his side, and placed it in the sling he
+wore around his neck.
+
+"Look here, Perk," said the other young officer, when he observed this
+movement. "I'll bet you have been giving advice to one who knows more
+than you do. Where did you get that hand, pilot, if it is a fair
+question?"
+
+"My hand is all right, but my arm was broken by one of your shells while
+I was running the blockade," replied Marcy, whereupon the youngsters
+opened their eyes, and looked at him and at each other as though they
+felt the least bit ashamed of themselves.
+
+"But of course you did not know anything about it, and I don't think
+hard of it if you took me for a greenhorn."
+
+"I took you for a lad of spirit and courage when Mr. Watkins told me how
+you had been living back there in the country," exclaimed Perkins. "But
+of course I did not know that you had snuffed powder."
+
+"I should think that shell would have taken your arm off instead of
+breaking it," observed the other.
+
+"The shell never came near me, but a heavy splinter that was torn from
+our rail made me think I was a goner," replied Marcy. "The man you saw
+put into the brig, and afterward taken out and sent aboard the
+store-ship, was my old captain; and I was acting as pilot of his vessel
+at the time I was hit. And I am as strong for the Union as anybody in
+this squadron. I have a brother on one of these boats, and would like
+much to see him."
+
+"You don't say?" exclaimed Perkins. "What boat is he on, and what
+position does he hold?"
+
+"He is a foremast hand on the _Harriet Lane._ I hope he will make
+himself known to his commander, for he is the best kind of a pilot for
+this coast."
+
+"I am afraid he will not be of any use to us to-day, and that you will
+not shake hands with him this trip," replied Perkins. "That boat is not
+with us. She is outside, chasing blockade runners. Hallo! There goes our
+answering pennant. Now, watch the signal from the flag-ship--one, nine,
+five, second-repeater--Aw, what's the use of my reading off the numbers
+when I have no signal-book to translate them for me?"
+
+"It is '_engage the enemy_' probably," said his companion. "After we
+have answered it a few times more, perhaps we will recognize it when we
+see it."
+
+"If that is what the signal means, why don't you go to your stations?"
+inquired Marcy, as they began walking leisurely toward the waist to
+leave the forecastle clear for the blue-jackets, who came forward in
+obedience to a shrill call from the boatswain's whistle, which was
+followed by the command: "All hands stand by to get ship under way."
+"You don't seem to be in any haste to do anything, you two."
+
+"What is the use of being in a hurry to get shot at?" said Perkins.
+"Wait until you hear the call to quarters, and then you will see us get
+around lively enough. But we shall not have so very much fighting to do
+to-day. I heard Mr. Watkins tell the officer of the deck this morning
+that this battle will be merely preliminary. When the soldiers get a
+foothold on the Island you'll see fun, unless the rebels run away."
+
+"Where is my station in action?" asked Marcy.
+
+"Close at the old man's side, wherever he happens to be," replied the
+master's mate. "And I will tell you, for your consolation, that he
+always happens to be in the most dangerous place he can find. There he
+is on the bridge, and perhaps you had better go up to him."
+
+The bridge was a platform with a railing around it, extending nearly
+across the deck just abaft the wheel-house, and when Marcy mounted the
+ladder that led up to it, he found himself in a position to see
+everything that was going on. The captain was standing there with his
+hands in his pockets, but he seemed more like a disinterested spectator
+than like a man who was about to take a ship into action, for he had not
+a word to say to anybody. He wore a canvas bag by his side, suspended by
+a broad strap that passed over his shoulder; and if Marcy could have
+looked into it, he would have found that it contained a small book whose
+cloth covers were heavily loaded with lead. This was the
+signal-book--one of the most important articles in a man-of-war's
+outfit. The captain always kept it where he could place his hands upon
+it at a moment's notice, and if he found that his vessel was in danger
+of being captured, he would have thrown it overboard rather than permit
+it to fall into the hands of the enemy.
+
+For the first quarter of an hour or so Marcy Gray had nothing to do but
+keep out of the way of the captain, who walked back and forth on the
+bridge so that he could see every part of the deck beneath him by simply
+turning his head, and watch the gunboats fall into line one after
+another. The ease and rapidity with which this was done surprised him.
+The several commanders knew their places and got into them in short
+order, and without in any way interfering with the vessels around them.
+If the inanimate masses of wood and iron they commanded had been
+possessed of brains and knew what they were expected to do, they could
+not have done it more promptly or with less confusion. It was a fine and
+inspiriting sight, and Marcy Gray would have walked twenty miles to see
+it any day.
+
+"The flagship is signalling, sir," said a quartermaster who was on the
+bridge with him and the captain.
+
+Marcy turned about and saw a long line of different-colored streamers
+traveling up the _Southfield's_ main-mast. When it reached the top and
+the breeze had carried the flags out at full length so that the captain
+could distinguish them, he took down the number they represented on a
+slip of paper, and turned to the corresponding number in his book to see
+what the signal meant. This he wrote upon a separate piece of paper
+which he held in his hand.
+
+By the time the vessel was fairly under way several signals had been
+made from the commodore's flag-ship, and finally a rattle was sounded
+somewhere below; whereupon the blue-jackets came running from all
+directions, but without the least noise or disorder, and took their
+stand by the side of the big guns to which they belonged. When the
+command "cast loose and provide" had been obeyed and every man was in
+his place, the roll was called by the commanders of the different
+divisions, the sailors responding by giving the names of their stations
+thus:
+
+"George Williams."
+
+"First captain and second boarder, sir."
+
+"Walter Dowd."
+
+"Second loader and first boarder, sir."
+
+"James Smith."
+
+"Shotman and pikeman, sir."
+
+When the roll had been called the various division commanders reported
+to the executive officer, who always has charge of the gun-deck in
+action, and he approached the bridge on which the captain was standing,
+saluted with his sword, and said:
+
+"All present or accounted for, sir."
+
+"Very good, sir," answered the captain, giving the officer the paper he
+held in his hand. "There is what the commodore had to say to us in one
+of his signals. Read it to the men."
+
+Mr. Watkins went back to his station and took off his cap; and instantly
+the eye of every sailor on deck was fixed upon him.
+
+"This signal has just been made from the flag-ship," said Mr. Watkins,
+holding the paper aloft. "Listen to the reading of it: '_This day our
+country expects every man to do his duty!_' What have you men to say to
+that? Will you show the commodore that you know what your duty is by
+beating those fellows up there?"
+
+The answer was a lusty cheer, in which the officers joined as wildly as
+their men. Then cheers began coming from all directions, showing that
+the reading of the signal had had the same effect upon other crews. When
+the Stars and Stripes, the vessel that was to lead in the attack, went
+by to take her station at the head of the line, her men were yelling at
+the top of their voices; and when their cheers died away everything
+became quiet, and the fleet settled down to business.
+
+The first shot was fired at eleven o'clock. It was from a
+hundred-pounder on the leading vessel, and was directed against Fort
+Bartow. It was the signal for the opening of the contest, and was
+quickly followed by such an uproar that Marcy Gray could hardly hear
+himself think. He had always thought that a twenty-four pound howitzer
+made a pretty loud noise, but it was nothing to the deafening and
+continuous roar of the heavy guns that in a moment filled the air all
+about him. He thought he ought to be badly frightened, and he expected
+to be; but somehow he was not, and neither was he killed by the shell
+from Fort Bartow that struck the water close alongside and exploded, it
+seemed to him, almost under his feet. He was in full possession of his
+senses, and the hand with which he levelled his glass at the Confederate
+fleet was as steady as he had ever known it to be. He was particularly
+interested in the movements of that fleet, for he was acquainted with
+some of the sailors who manned it. As soon as the action was fairly
+begun it left its sheltered position under the guns of the fort and
+steamed down the channel. Its leading boats came on at such a rate of
+speed that Marcy thought they must know of some opening in the lines of
+obstructions, and that they intended to come through and demolish the
+Union fleet without aid from the guns on shore; but if that was their
+object they failed to accomplish it. Their heaviest ship, the _Curlew_,
+was whipped so quickly that her rebel commander must have been
+astonished; and so badly crippled was she by the solid shot that crashed
+through her sides, that it was all she could do to haul out of the fight
+and seek refuge under the guns of the nearest fort. In the end both the
+ship and the fort were blown up together.
+
+About this time something happened that the young pilot might have
+expected, but which he had never once thought of. The smoke of battle
+settled so thickly about his vessel that his eyes were of little use to
+him; and, to make matters worse, Captain Benton shouted in his ear:
+
+"Keep a bright lookout, and if you see us getting into less than
+fourteen feet of water, don't fail to let me know it."
+
+"I declare, I don't know whether there are fourteen or fourteen hundred
+feet of water under our keel at this moment!" was the thought that
+flashed through Marcy's mind and awoke him to a sense of his
+responsibility. "I don't know where we are." Then aloud he said: "I
+can't see a thing from the bridge, Captain. I shall have to go aloft."
+
+The boy did not know whether or not pilots were in the habit of going
+aloft in the heat of action, but he thought it was the proper thing to
+do under the circumstances. He went, and he did not go any too soon,
+either; for when he had climbed up where he could see over the thickest
+of the smoke, he found to his consternation that the vessel was heading
+diagonally across the channel far to the eastward of the position in
+which she ought to be, that she would be hard and fast aground if she
+held that course five minutes longer, and that her shells were exploding
+in the edge of a piece of timber where he could not see any signs of a
+fort or breastwork. It was the work of but a few seconds for Marcy to
+make Captain Benton understand the situation, and when the latter had
+brought his ship to her proper course by following the instructions the
+young pilot shouted down to him, he came up and took his stand in the
+top by Marcy's side. There they both remained as long as the fight
+continued, and their dinner consisted of a sandwich and a cup of coffee,
+which the cabin steward brought up to them at noon.
+
+The first object of the bombardment was accomplished about five o'clock
+that afternoon, when a heavy smoke was rolling over Fort Bartow, caused
+by the burning of the barracks, which had been set on fire by a shell
+from the fleet, the defiant roar of its guns being almost silenced, and
+its flaunting banner sent to the dust by the shooting away of the staff
+that sustained it, and the enemy, all along the line, had been driven so
+far back that the transports could come up with the troops. It was at
+this juncture that the services of Mr. Daniel's black boy, Tom, came
+into play. He piloted General Burnside's launches and lighters into
+Ashby's Harbor, and, by midnight, ten thousand soldiers were landed in
+readiness for the real battle, which was to begin on the following
+morning. By this time the Confederates must have been satisfied that
+they were going to be whipped. Commodore Lynch knew that he had had all
+the fighting he wanted; for he retreated round Wier's Point, and was
+never seen afterward until Captain Rowan, with a portion of the Union
+fleet, hunted him up, and finished him at Elizabeth City. The battle was
+over shortly after dark (although the firing was kept up at intervals
+during the night), and the leading boats dropped back to allow others to
+take their places.
+
+"We are not whipped, are we?" exclaimed Marcy, when he witnessed this
+retrograde movement.
+
+"Oh, no," replied the captain, as he backed down from the top. "We have
+done just what we set out to do when we began the fight this morning,
+and, having won all the honors that rightfully belong to us, we must
+fall astern, and let somebody else have a show to-morrow."
+
+Marcy followed the captain to the deck, and was greatly surprised by
+what he saw when he got there. There were wide openings in the
+hammock-nettings that he had not seen there in the morning, and the
+ports, through which two of the broadside guns worked, had been torn
+into one. Some of the standing rigging was not taut and ship-shape, as
+it ought to have been, but was flying loose in the breeze, and there
+were one or two dark spots on the deck which looked as though they had
+been drenched with water, and afterward sanded. Marcy's heart almost
+stopped beating when he saw these things, for they told him that the
+vessel had suffered during the fight, and that some of her crew had been
+killed or wounded, and he never knew it. But the sight of a flag which a
+gray-headed quartermaster was just hauling down from the masthead, drove
+gloomy thoughts out of his mind, and sent a thrill of triumph all
+through him. It was his own flag, and it had been floating over his head
+all day long. He took supper with Captain Benton, and afterward went
+below to see the poor fellows who had not come out of the fight as well
+as he did. Two of them were laid in the engine-room, covered with the
+flag in defense of which they had given up their lives, and four others
+were wounded. The sight was nothing to those that his rebel cousin,
+Rodney, the Partisan, had often witnessed on the field of battle; but it
+was enough to show Marcy Gray that there was a terrible reality in war.
+
+The next day was the army's. The battle began at seven in the morning;
+and although the gunboats, Captain Benton's among the rest, did the work
+they were expected to do and succeeded in passing the obstructions
+shortly after noon, the heaviest of the fighting was done by the
+soldiers. The Confederate flag went down before the sun did, and
+twenty-five hundred prisoners, forty heavy guns, and three thousand
+stand of small arms fell into the hands of the victors. The Confederate
+fleet endeavored to escape by running up the Pasquotank river to
+Elizabeth City, Commodore Lynch thinking no doubt that he would there
+find re-enforcements, which could easily have been sent from Portsmouth;
+but if they were there they did not do him any good, for Captain Rowan
+followed him into the river the next day, and destroyed his entire
+squadron with the exception of one boat which was captured and
+transferred to the Union fleet. After demolishing a portion of the
+Dismal Swamp canal, Captain Rowan went to Edenton, Winton, and Plymouth,
+all of which were captured without resistance that amounted to anything,
+and garrisoned by troops from Burnside's army.
+
+The historian says that the results of this expedition "in a military
+point of view, were considerable; but those of a political character did
+not answer the expectations of the Federal government." It was believed
+that the occupation of these points would not only be the means of
+stopping the contraband trade, which was kept up in spite of the
+blockading fleet, but that it would also "keep in countenance the
+partisans of the Union, who were thought to be numerous in North
+Carolina." When the capture of Newbern, Beaufort, and forts Macon and
+Pulaski, which followed close on the heels of the reduction of Roanoke
+Island, put all the coast north of Wilmington into the hands of the
+Federals, blockade running indeed became a dangerous and uncertain
+business; but Marcy Gray could not see that the native Unionists were in
+any way benefited. To begin with, General Burnside released all his
+prisoners after compelling them to take oath that they would never again
+serve against the United States. Does any one suppose that the prisoners
+had any intention of keeping that promise, or that the Confederate
+government would have permitted them to keep it if they had been so
+disposed? It is true that some of these rebel soldiers had had quite
+enough of the army, and vowed that they would take to the swamps before
+they would enter it again; but it is also true that the most of them,
+when they returned to their homes, became determined and relentless foes
+of all Union men. So the conquest of Roanoke Island gave Marcy Gray more
+enemies to stand in fear of than he had before; but it had a still worse
+effect upon his affairs.
+
+It was night when the soldiers that were to take possession of Plymouth
+and garrison the place were sent ashore from the transports. Marcy stood
+on the bridge, watching them as they disembarked, and wondering how long
+it would be before Captain Benton would tell him that his services were
+no longer needed and that he might return to his home; and, while he
+watched and thought, he discovered a small party of men on shore with
+bundles in their hands or on their shoulders, and who acted as though
+they were waiting for a chance to come off to the fleet. He knew, as
+soon as he looked at them, that they were Union men who were about to
+take the opportunity thus presented to enlist under the old flag.
+
+"That is who they are," thought Marcy, after he had kept his binoculars
+pointed at them for a minute or two. "They can't be anything else, for
+they are in citizens' clothes. Now, in trying to better their own
+condition, are they not making matters worse for their families, if they
+have any? I wonder if I am acquainted with any of them? I will soon
+know, for they are heading for this ship."
+
+The boats belonging to Captain Benton's vessel had been engaged, with
+all the other boats of the fleet, in taking the soldiers to the shore,
+and when they placed their last load of bluecoats upon the bank and were
+ready to return to their ship, they brought the party of which we have
+spoken off with them. As the leading boat drew nearer to the side, so
+that Marcy could obtain a fairer view of the man who sat in the
+stern-sheets talking to the coxswain, he uttered a cry of surprise and
+alarm, and almost let his glass fall from his hand. The man was Aleck
+Webster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+HOME AGAIN.
+
+Marcy Gray waited until the boat drew a little nearer, and then looked
+again. There could be no mistake about it. The man in the stern-sheets
+with the coxswain was Aleck Webster, the one who had promised to have an
+eye on Marcy and his mother while Jack was at sea, and those who
+composed his party were men whom Marcy met at the post-office almost as
+often as he went there. If they were coming off to enlist, as Marcy
+thought they were, wouldn't that break up the band who held meetings in
+the swamp? And if that band should be broken up, who would there be to
+stand between his mother and the wrath of Captain Beardsley? These
+questions and others like them passed through the boy's mind, as he came
+down from the bridge and stepped to the gangway to meet Aleck and his
+friends when they came on board. Aleck was the first to get out of the
+boat and mount the ladder, and when he reached the top, where the
+officer of the deck was standing, he touched his hat and said:
+
+"We want to ship, sir."
+
+"Very good," was the answer. "Stand to one side, and some one will talk
+to you presently."
+
+This gave Marcy the opportunity he wanted to speak to Aleck. He moved to
+his side at once, and was surprised to hear Aleck say, as if he had
+expected to find him there:
+
+"I was little in hopes I should have a chance to say good-by to you,
+sir. Where's old man Beardsley, and have you seen anything of Mr.
+Jack?"
+
+"Did you know I was here?" asked Marcy.
+
+"I knew you were in the fleet, of course, for the darkies told us about
+the Yankees coming ashore and taking you and Beardsley away to act as
+pilots," replied Aleck. "But I didn't know you were serving on this
+ship, if that is what you mean. Yes; we're going now where we can fight
+for our principles. We are tired of living in the woods."
+
+"But who will protect the Union families if you go away?" said Marcy.
+
+"They'll not need any one to protect them now," answered Aleck. "I
+talked to some of the soldiers on shore, and they told me they were here
+to stay; and as long as they do stay, Beardsley and Shelby and among 'em
+will keep as still as mice. They won't dare to do or say anything to you
+while there is Union cavalry scouting around through the settlement
+every day or two. We left thirteen men in the swamp; and whether or not
+they will come out and show themselves as Union men, depends on the way
+things look after the fleet goes away."
+
+Marcy was on the point of telling Aleck that Beardsley had been placed
+in irons by Captain Benton, who was master of the _Mary Hollins_ at the
+time she was captured by the _Osprey_, but before he could open his lips
+a messenger boy came up and told him that the captain wished to see him
+in the cabin. Marcy went, and found the captain seated at his table
+holding a pen in one hand and something that looked like a blank sheet
+of paper in the other.
+
+"Sit down," said he, pointing to a chair. "I suppose we are as near to
+your home as we shall go; and as we are about to start for Newbern,
+where you will not be of much service to us as a pilot, I propose to
+give you your release unless you have made up your mind to stay with us.
+I should be glad to have you do it, and will advance your interests in
+every way I can."
+
+"But what would my mother do without me?" asked Marcy.
+
+"I assure you I have not forgotten her, and so I do not urge you to
+remain," replied the captain. "Now, how can you get home in the easiest
+way?"
+
+"By boat, if I had one."
+
+"You can have three or four if you want that many. You know that we have
+captured every sort of craft we could find along the shore, and you can
+take your pick of any of those on deck. I don't know that this will be
+of any use to you," said the captain, shaking the sheet of paper he held
+in his hand, "but I think it would be a good plan for you to take it
+along, for there is no telling what may happen. You don't think there is
+anything on it, do you? Well, there is, and it is the strongest letter
+of recommendation I know how to write. We are going to leave garrisons
+scattered all through this region, and if at any time you find yourself
+in trouble with them, tell the first officer you can find to hold this
+paper before a hot fire and read the words the heat will bring out. The
+letter is written with sympathetic ink, and you don't want to use it
+until you have to, because, after the characters have once been brought
+out, there is no way that I know of to make them invisible again. I am
+deeply indebted to you, and wish there was some way in which I could
+serve you."
+
+It made Marcy sad to have the captain talk to him in this way. Although
+he was impatient to get home, he did not like to take leave of the new
+friends he had made on board that ship, for the probabilities were that
+he would never see them again. After thinking a moment he replied that
+he did not know of anyway in which the captain could favor him, unless
+it was by taking a brotherly interest in Aleck Webster and his friends,
+who had come off to his ship for the purpose of enlisting.
+
+"They are on deck now," said Marcy, in conclusion, "and I was sorry to
+see them come aboard. Of course they have a right to do as they please,
+but I had somehow got it into my head that they would stay on shore to
+protect those of us who are unable to protect ourselves. But Aleck
+thinks we do not need any one to protect us now that all these captured
+points are to be held by the Union forces."
+
+"And that is what I think," replied the captain. "The commanding officer
+at Plymouth will not stand by and let your rebel neighbors impose on
+you. If they don't behave themselves, report them; that's all you've got
+to do."
+
+"But you don't know how sly they are, and how hard it is to prove
+anything against them. The commodore as good as said that Captain
+Beardsley would be released."
+
+"Of course; and Burnside probably released him at the time he paroled
+the prisoners we captured on the Island. When you get home you will
+probably find him there, but I don't think you have anything to fear
+from him. There's your letter, and here are a few copies of a joint
+proclamation by Burnside and Goldsborough, which I am instructed to
+scatter wherever I go," said the captain, placing a good-sized package
+in Marcy's hand and rising from his seat as he spoke. "Take them along,
+and put them where you think they will do the most good. I suppose the
+folks ashore think we are outlaws of the worst description."
+
+Marcy replied that that was about the idea the people in his settlement
+had of Yankees, and added that he did not believe that a single article
+of value could be found in a plantation house within a circle of ten
+miles of Plymouth, everything that was worth stealing having been
+carried away and concealed in the swamps.
+
+"Well, when you meet people of that sort, call their attention to the
+last paragraph of that proclamation," said the captain. "Now, we shall
+have to say good-by, for I expect to drop down the river in a few
+minutes."
+
+"And you'll not forget to look out for Jack and Aleck?" said Marcy. "You
+know Aleck is the man who saved me from choking. And I can have my flag
+back, I suppose?"
+
+"I'll have Webster sworn in this very night, and when I see the captain
+of the _Lane_ I will tell him what I know about Jack Gray, and will say
+that his brother did me good service while the fleet was in Croatan and
+Albemarle sounds. The quartermaster will return your flag at once."
+
+Marcy went into the state room that he had used as his own since he had
+been on board the ship, and when he came out he brought his valise, in
+which he had stowed the package the captain had intrusted to his care.
+The flag with which his Harrington girl presented him, and which had
+waved triumphant during three hard battles and several sharp skirmishes,
+was promptly handed out by the quartermaster on watch, and then Marcy
+followed the captain to the waist, to pick out the skiff that was to
+take him to his home. As his wounded arm was not yet in a serviceable
+condition, he selected a boat with a square stern, that could be sculled
+with one oar. After it had been put into the water, and the countersign,
+"Roanoke," had been whispered in his ear, Marcy shook hands all around,
+not forgetting Aleck Webster and the other Union men among the rest, and
+pushed off into the darkness. The current was strong, and Marcy hugged
+the bank to keep out of it as much as he could, and by so doing brought
+himself to the notice of half a dozen sentries who compelled him to come
+ashore with the countersign. Of course this was a bother, and the
+progress he made with his one-handed sculling was slow and laborious;
+but it was safer than following a lonely road and running the risk of
+falling in with some of those rebel soldiers whom General Burnside had
+sent to their homes. Marcy told himself that that was about the worst
+thing that could have happened to him. He was afraid that these paroled
+prisoners would be pliant tools in the hands of Captain Beardsley, and
+they were so numerous that the thirteen Union men, who were all there
+were left of the band that had rescued him and his mother from the power
+of the robbers, could not hold their own against them.
+
+"Things will be worse now than they ever were before," thought Marcy, as
+he sculled his boat out of the river into Seven Mile Creek, and sat down
+to take a much-needed rest and eat a portion of the lunch that Captain
+Benton's steward had put up for him. "Beardsley will be more vindictive
+than ever, because I did not say a word for him when Captain Benton put
+him in irons, and if the truth will not answer his purpose, he'll not
+scruple to lie about me. He'll try his best to force me into the army so
+that he can have a clear field for his operations, but I'll tell you
+what's a fact, I'll not go," said Marcy hotly. "Jack declared that he
+would take to the swamp before he would fight for the Confederacy, and
+why shouldn't I do the same? I will. I'll become a refugee rather than
+shoot at the flag my brother is sailing under. Refugee: one who flees
+for refuge or safety. That's me, as Dick Graham used to say. I'll seek
+safety among the Union men who spend the most of their time in the
+woods. It's my opinion that from now on they will have to spend all
+their time there, for I don't believe that the prisoners Burnside
+released will leave any houses for them to go into. Mother's will have
+to go with the rest."
+
+Marcy had often made the trip from his mother's house to Plymouth and
+back in a rowboat, and if he thought it hard when he had two hands to
+use, it was doubly tedious and discouraging now that he had only one,
+and nothing but the most gloomy thoughts for company. He had almost made
+up his mind that he would camp on the bank for the rest of the night and
+walk home in the morning, when he was startled by hearing a low,
+familiar whistle, something like the chirp of a cricket, a short
+distance away. He listened until the sound was repeated, and then called
+out, in a husky voice:
+
+"Julius!"
+
+"Hi ya!" came the answer through the darkness; and Marcy thought he had
+never heard anything half so melodious as the black boy's laugh. "I done
+tol' dat fool niggah he didn't know nuffin, but he won't listen to
+Julius. Eberybody take Julius for a plum dunce; but I done fine you,
+Marse Mahcy, an' dere's dat Morris----"
+
+"Where are you?" interrupted the boy. "Come here and tell me what you
+mean, and what brought you here so far from home."
+
+"Nuffin didn't brung me hyar; I jes done come," replied Julius; and a
+slight splashing in the water indicated that he was in a boat, and that
+he was pushing off from the bank in the direction from which Marcy's
+voice sounded. "Dat fool Morris, he take de mu-el an' de filly an' done
+gone to Nashville lookin' for you; but I know you aint gwine come home
+dat a way fru all dem rebel soldiers, an' so I come hyar."
+
+"And very glad I am to see you," answered Marcy, laying hold of the side
+of the dugout that just then bumped against his skiff. "You came here to
+meet me while Morris went to Nashville with my horse. How did you know I
+was coming home to-night?"
+
+"Well, de missus say you boun' to come mighty soon, now dat de Yankees
+done cotch Plymouth, an' so I come hyar," replied Julius. "Howdy, Marse
+Mahcy!"
+
+The latter replied that he felt pretty well but hungry, although he had
+just finished a hearty lunch. Julius had been thoughtful enough to
+provide for that, and straightway produced a basket whose contents would
+have withstood the assaults of two or three boys with appetites sharper
+than his own; and while he ate, Marcy asked a good many leading
+questions, in the hope of inducing his close-mouthed black friend to
+tell him just how things had been going at home during his absence. He
+learned that Captain Beardsley had returned in company with some of the
+prisoners who had been paroled at the Island, but so far as Julius knew
+he had not set any new plans afloat against Marcy and his mother.
+Perhaps he did not think it would be safe to do so until things became a
+little more settled, for among those who had been captured at Roanoke
+were many who were very bitter against the Confederate government, and
+who declared that they would fight before they would go into the army
+again. Some of the soldiers had stopped at the house to ask for
+something to eat; but others had marched by shaking their fists and
+yelling derisively. Marcy's heart sank when he heard that, for it proved
+that he had not been mistaken as to the course Captain Beardsley would
+pursue when the Federals permitted him to return to his home.
+Undoubtedly he had told all he knew about Mrs. Gray and her two sons,
+and it would have been just like him if he had urged the defeated and
+enraged Confederates to take satisfaction out of all the Union people
+they could find, since they had failed to beat those who had confronted
+them in battle. Indeed, that was what Beardsley did; and Marcy afterward
+found out why his scheme did not work.
+
+Having taken the sharp edge off his appetite, Marcy told Julius to make
+the skiff's painter fast to the stern of his dugout and go ahead; and
+the sooner he reached home the better he would like it. He found it much
+easier to lie at full length on the bottom of his boat, and allow Julius
+to tow him, than it was to work his way against a strong current with
+one hand--so very much easier, in fact, that he dropped asleep and
+slumbered until the bow of the skiff touched the landing abreast of the
+buoy to which his little schooner was moored. The sight of her recalled
+to mind the last conversation he had held with Captain Benton.
+
+"I am afraid we shall have to look up a new berth for the _Fairy Belle_"
+said he. "It may not be safe for her to stay here any longer, because
+the Yankees are taking possession of everything in the shape of a boat
+that they can get their hands on."
+
+"What for dey do dat?" exclaimed Julius. "De boats aint agin de Union."
+
+"They have been made to do service against the Union," answered Marcy,
+"and they can be used to carry dispatches from one side of the river to
+the other."
+
+"Well, den, luf dem go down an' bus' up Cap'n Beardsley's schooner,"
+exclaimed Julius. "She wuk agin de Union when she run de blockade."
+
+"I know that; and I had half a notion to put Captain Benton on the track
+of her," said Marcy, who knew very well that he had no intention of
+doing anything of the kind. "That is the way he would serve me if he had
+a good chance. Pick up my valise and come along."
+
+When Marcy went through the gate he missed his faithful Bose, who had
+always been the first to welcome him; but some of the house servants
+were stirring, and these greeted him as though they had never expected
+to see him again. They knew where he had been and what he had been
+doing, and had thought of and prayed for him as often as they heard the
+roar of the big guns, which the breeze now and then brought faintly to
+their ears. They made such a fuss over him that Marcy was saved the
+trouble of awaking his mother, whom he found waiting for him in the
+sitting-room.
+
+"You told me that when I came home you wanted me to be able to say that
+I did my duty," said the young pilot, as his mother laid her head on his
+shoulder and cried softly. "I can honestly say it, and I have a letter
+in my pocket from Captain Benton that will bear me out in it."
+
+"I am sorry you brought it with you," said Mrs. Gray. "The country is
+overrun with Confederate soldiers, and from the way some of them behave
+I am led to believe that they know all about us."
+
+"I'll bet they do," said Marcy bitterly. "You know, of course, that
+Beardsley was carried away the same night and for the same purpose I
+was? Well, the Yankees did not call upon him to act as pilot, but put
+him in irons at once; and I am sorry to say that he was paroled at the
+time the other prisoners were. But you need not worry about my letter,
+as I shall presently show you. Sit down, and tell me what you have done
+to kill time since I have been gone."
+
+To his relief Marcy found that Julius had told the truth for once in his
+life, and that his mother had had nothing beyond his absence to trouble
+her, if we except the demonstrations that some of the paroled prisoners
+made while they were going by the house. They had not annoyed her by
+coming into the yard, as they might have done if their officers had not
+been along to restrain them, but they had whooped and yelled and
+threatened in a way that was enough to frighten anybody. She said that
+the excitement and alarm that took possession of the people when the
+news came that Roanoke Island was in the hands of the invading forces,
+was something she would remember as long as she lived. The news must
+have reached Nashville and Plymouth on the night of the surrender, for
+at daylight the next morning the road in front of the house was filled
+with fugitives who were making all haste to carry their property out of
+harm's way. If a body of Yankee cavalry had suddenly appeared at their
+heels it would scarcely have caused a flutter among them, for they were
+panic-stricken already.
+
+"The world is full of fools," exclaimed Marcy, undoing the string that
+held together the bundle of proclamations that Captain Benton had given
+him, "and the biggest ones I ever heard of live right around here.
+Didn't they ask you why you didn't pack up and run, too?"
+
+"They did; and my reply was, that I had a son who had been impressed
+into the Union service; that if I went away he would not know where to
+look for me, and that I intended remaining in my home until he
+returned," said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"Good for you, mother!" exclaimed Marcy. "You'll do. Of course, the last
+one of them was suspicious of you, but you couldn't help that. Now, here
+are some copies of a proclamation that Captain Benton gave me, with the
+request that I would spread them around where they would do the most
+good. He wished me to call particular attention to the last paragraph,
+and now I will see how it reads."
+
+Seating himself by his mother's side, with a copy of the proclamation in
+his hand, Marcy proceeded to read it aloud. After referring to the
+desolating war, that had been brought on by comparatively few bad men,
+the last paragraph went on to say:
+
+     "These men are your worst enemies. They, in truth, have drawn
+     you into your present condition, and are the real disturbers
+     of your peace and the happiness of your firesides. We invite
+     you, in the name of the Constitution, and in that of
+     virtuous loyalty and civilization, to separate yourselves at
+     once from their malign influence, to return to your
+     allegiance, and not compel us to resort farther to the force
+     under our control. The government asks only that its
+     authority may be recognized; and we repeat that in no manner
+     or way does it desire to interfere with your laws,
+     constitutionally established; your institutions, of any kind
+     whatever; your property, of any sort; or your usages, in any
+     respect.
+
+"That was what Mr. Watkins told you on the night he took me away," said
+Marcy, when he had finished reading the proclamation. "He said that the
+South could end the war by laying down their arms, and General Burnside
+and Commodore Goldsborough say the same."
+
+"But, my son, that is not what the secession leaders want," said Mrs.
+Gray. "They demand a separate government, and say they will not return
+to their allegiance."
+
+"They'll have to do it, and, when they go back, they'll not take slavery
+with them. Mark my words. The time is coming when the darkies will be as
+free as we are; and I wish that time might come to-morrow, if it would
+only bring peace upon the land once more. I sometimes think, and hope,
+that I am having a horrid dream, and that I will wake up in the morning
+to find everything as it was before. Now, don't cry, mother. I'll not
+talk so any more. There's my flag as sound as it was when I took it
+away; but it has been in battle-smoke so thick that you couldn't see it
+from the deck. I must hoist Dick Graham's next, but not until it can
+float in a breeze that is untainted by any secession rag. That was the
+promise I made him when he gave me the flag, instead of turning it over
+to Rodney, who wanted to destroy it. Can't we have breakfast a little
+earlier, so that I can go to town?"
+
+"You can have breakfast whenever you want it; but, Marcy, I am almost
+afraid to have you go to town," replied his mother.
+
+"If I thought I would be in any more danger there than I am at home I
+wouldn't stir one step," said the boy. "I don't think it would be policy
+for me to keep away from those paroled prisoners, but that it would be
+safest for me to go among them as Captain Beardsley does. Besides, I
+want to hear what sort of stories that old villain has been telling
+about me since he came back. Now, where would be a good place to put
+Captain Benton's letter? We are liable to receive a visit from the Union
+cavalry any day, and the letter ought to be kept handy."
+
+In accordance with Marcy's request breakfast was served as soon as it
+could be made ready, and during the progress of the meal Marcy
+entertained his mother with a glowing description of the various
+engagements through which he had passed on Captain Benton's vessel.
+Contrary to his expectations, he said, he did not feel frightened when
+he went into the first fight at the Island, and no doubt the reason was
+because he had so many things to occupy his mind; but after that he grew
+pale and trembled every time he heard the call to quarters, for he had a
+faint idea of what was before him. And the oftener he was under fire the
+more he dreaded the thought of going into action. His experience was
+like that of every soldier in this land; and when we say _soldier_ we do
+not mean _coffee-cooler_.
+
+Mrs. Gray became alarmed when Marcy told her how Captain Beardsley had
+been put in irons by the man who had once been his prisoner, for she was
+well enough acquainted with the captain to know that he would be
+revenged upon somebody for it. When he had eaten all the breakfast he
+wanted, Marcy mounted his mother's horse, that had been brought to the
+door in place of his filly which old Morris had taken to Nashville, and
+galloped out of the yard. The first man he saw was Beardsley, standing
+by the ruins of his house. The man looked up when he heard the sound of
+hoofs on the road, and when he discovered Marcy he beckoned him to come
+in.
+
+"I've just thought of something," said the boy to himself, as he turned
+into the gate. "This villain is going to play off friendly, and I can't
+watch him any too closely. When the Yanks get to scouting through here,
+he will be the best Union man in the world; and who knows but he will
+send them to our house after Jack's rebel flag? That flag must come down
+the minute I get home."
+
+Then he rode up and shook hands with Captain Beardsley, who acted as if
+he was glad to see him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A REBEL SOLDIER SPEAKS.
+
+"I just wanted to ask you how and when you got back," said the captain,
+holding fast to Marcy's hand. "I see Morris over town yesterday, and
+right there he is going to stay till you come to ride the filly home.
+How did you like the Yanks, what you seen of 'em?"
+
+"I have no reason to complain of my treatment," replied Marcy. "I had no
+idea that you were impressed at the time I was, until I saw you on that
+gunboat."
+
+"If I'd knowed that they was going to slap the bracelets onto me, they
+never would have took me there alive," said Beardsley in savage tones.
+"I'd a fit till I dropped before I would have went a step. Who'd 'a'
+thought that me and you would ever seen any of them _Hollins_ fellers on
+a war-ship? I'm mighty sorry now that I didn't stick Captain Benton in
+irons the same as I done with his men, and it's a lucky thing for him
+that he didn't let me have the handling of his ship. I would have run
+her so hard aground that she would be there now."
+
+"Then it is a lucky thing for you that you were sent below," added
+Marcy. "You would have been hanging at the yard-arm in less than ten
+minutes after you ran the ship ashore. Those gunboat fellows don't stand
+any nonsense."
+
+"Mebbe that's so," said the captain. "And sense I've got home all right,
+I'm kinder glad things happened as they did. The robbers who went to
+your house, after the money they didn't get, used me pretty rough,
+didn't they?" he added, jerking his thumb over his shoulder toward the
+spot on which his home had once stood. "How do you reckon they happened
+to know that I wasn't here to fight 'em that night?"
+
+"That is a question I can't answer," replied Marcy, and then he waited
+for Beardsley to say something about the Union men who had rescued him
+and his mother, but that seemed to be a matter that the captain did not
+care to touch upon.
+
+"Don't it beat you what sort of stories get afloat these times?"
+continued the latter. "There's plenty of people about here who believe
+you uns have got money in your house."
+
+"I know it. I told the robbers there wasn't a cent outside of the little
+there was in mother's purse and mine, and asked them to look around and
+see if they could find any more. They preferred to choke a different
+story out of me, but they wouldn't have got it if they had choked me to
+death. If there is a dollar in the house besides what I offered them, I
+don't know it."
+
+"Where's the prize-money I paid you?' asked Beardsley.
+
+"That was safely concealed; but it wasn't what they wanted, and so I
+said nothing about it. They were after money which they and some other
+lunatics think my mother brought from Wilmington, when she went there to
+buy goods."
+
+"Have you any idea who they were?"
+
+"If I had, I would give their names to the Union commander at Plymouth
+before I was twenty-four hours older," said Marcy emphatically.
+
+"I don't reckon they'll trouble you any more after the lesson they have
+had," said Beardsley; and then he hastened to add: "I mean they won't
+dare to pester you, now that the Union soldiers are here. And speaking
+of the Yankees reminds me of another thing I wanted to ask you. Do you
+reckon--aint I always stood your friend--yourn and your maw's?"
+
+"You need not question me on that point. You know well enough how we
+feel over your taking me to sea when you didn't need my services any
+more than you need two noses," said Marcy, for once permitting his
+indignation to get the better of him. "But I shall not do you any mean,
+underhanded tricks, if that is what you mean."
+
+"Why, Marcy, I never done you nary one," began Beardsley.
+
+"Captain, I know you from main-truck to kelson," answered the boy,
+gathering up his reins as if about to ride away. "You took me from my
+mother for reasons of your own, not because you wanted a pilot; and you
+have scarcely made a move since these troubles began that I can't tell
+you of. You ought to let up now, and I tell you plainly that you had
+better."
+
+Beardsley was astounded. His victim had turned at last, and showed that
+he was ready to fight. He spoke so positively, and with such easy
+assurance, that the man was afraid of him.
+
+"Why, Marcy, sure, hope to die I never----"
+
+"Yes, you have. You have been persecuting us systematically, and there's
+the proof of it right there," exclaimed Marcy, pointing to the ruins of
+Beardsley's home. "If you had quit that business two months ago, you
+would have a house to live in now, and so would Colonel Shelby. I
+believe I could have sent you to prison by telling Captain Benton a few
+scraps of your history, but I wasn't mean enough to do it."
+
+"No, you couldn't," declared Beardsley, who had had time to recover a
+little of his courage. "I never was in the Confederate service; and even
+if I was, I can't be pestered for it now, kase the Yankees done let me
+go with the rest of the prisoners."
+
+"You have been a smuggler, haven't you?"
+
+"S'pose I have? I can't be hurt for that now."
+
+"I almost wish I had tested the matter by speaking to Captain Benton
+about it. If I had, I don't think you would have been turned over to the
+army to be paroled with the other prisoners. I could have told him about
+the _Hattie_, couldn't I?"
+
+"Great smoke!" exclaimed Beardsley. "I never thought of her, and there
+she is in the creek, where they could have picked her up as easy as you
+please. It was good of you not to say anything about her, and if I ever
+get a chance I'll show you that you and your maw have been thinking hard
+of me without a cause."
+
+Beardsley turned away as if he had nothing further to say to Marcy, and
+the latter wheeled his horse and rode on toward Nashville, wondering if
+he had made a mistake in talking so plainly to his old commander.
+
+"If I have it is too late to be sorry for it now," was his reflection.
+"But I don't think he can say worse things about me now than he could
+before. Beardsley is nobody's fool, though he does look like it, and he
+has known all along how mother and I feel toward him."
+
+When Marcy reached the village he found the streets almost deserted; but
+he knew there was a talkative crowd in the post-office, for every time
+the door was opened loud and angry voices came through it. Tom Allison,
+Mark Goodwin, and their friends were not at hand to have the first talk
+with him, as Marcy thought they would be, but he found them in the
+office listening to an excited harangue from a paroled soldier, who had
+discarded his coat and hat and pushed up his sleeves, as if he were
+prepared to do battle with the first one of his auditors who dared
+dispute his words. Marcy saw at a glance that some of the crowd were
+very much shocked, while others were grinning broadly, and nodding now
+and then as if to say that the speaker was expressing their sentiments
+exactly. Marcy knew him well. He lived in the settlement, and had been
+one of the first to put on a uniform and hasten to the front; and so
+very patriotic was he that he was anxious to fight all his neighbors who
+could not be persuaded to go into the army with him. But his experience
+at Hatteras and Roanoke Island had somewhat dampened his ardor, and
+showed him that there were some things in war that he had never dreamed
+of.
+
+"How does it come that you stay-at-homers know so much about this
+business, and about my duty as a soldier, that you take it upon
+yourselves to tell me what I had oughter do?" shouted the man who had
+heard the shrieking of Yankee shells at Fort Bartow. "I see some among
+you who are mighty hard on your niggers, but there aint one who is as
+hard as our trifling officers were on us. Having no niggers to drive
+they took to driving us white men, and they 'bused us like we was dogs.
+Many's the time I have seen men tied up by the thumbs and bucked and
+gagged for nothing at all; and, Tom Allison, I give you fair warning
+that if you say again that I'm a coward kase I don't allow to go back
+and be 'bused like I was afore, I'll twist your neck for ye."
+
+This made two things plain to Marcy Gray. One was that the man had had
+quite enough of soldiering and that he did not mean to try it again if
+he could help it. The other was that his friend Allison had presumed to
+speak his mind a little too freely, and that that was what started the
+prisoner on his tirade against those whom he called "stay-at-homers."
+After some twisting, and turning, and elbowing Marcy succeeded in
+obtaining a glance at Tom.
+
+He was leaning against one of the counters, as far away from the speaker
+as he could get, and his face was as white as his shirt-front.
+
+"I'm mighty glad to hear that there's Union men among you," continued
+the soldier, "and if there's any here in this post-office I want them to
+know that there's more of 'em now nor they was a week ago, and that some
+of 'em wears gray jackets. And I am glad to hear that them same Union
+men have took to burning out them among you who was cowards enough to
+persecute women and children on account of their principles. Now,
+there's that trifling hound Lon Beardsley. He told me and some others
+who come up from the Island the same time he did, that we could make a
+pile of money by burning Mrs. Gray's house."
+
+Colonel Shelby was one of those who listened while the angry soldier
+talked, but being a "stay-at-homer" he dared not interrupt him. He stood
+where he could look over the shoulders of some of the crowd into Marcy's
+face; and when the soldier spoke Beardsley's name, and told what the
+latter had tried to induce him and some companions to do, the colonel
+leaned forward and whispered a few earnest words to him. The man bent
+his head to listen, but as soon as the colonel ceased speaking he broke
+out again.
+
+"I aint a paroled pris'ner neither," he shouted. "I took my oath that I
+wouldn't never fight agin the United States again, and I'm going to
+stick to it. I'm a free man now; I am going to stay free, and I won't
+shut up till I get ready. When I say that Lon Beardsley tried to get me
+to burn Mrs. Gray's house I say the truth, and Beardsley dassent come
+afore me and say different. But I told him plain that we uns who had fit
+and snuffed powder wouldn't do no dirty work like that. We don't care if
+Jack Gray is in the Yankee navy and Marcy was a pilot on a Yankee
+gunboat. If they was in that fight I done my level best to sink 'em; but
+they whopped us fair and square, and I've had enough of fighting to last
+me as long as I live. All the same I aint going to let no little whiffet
+like Tom Allison call me a coward."
+
+While the soldier was going on in this way, pounding the air with his
+fists and shouting himself hoarse, those of his auditors who could do so
+without attracting too much attention, secured their mail and slipped
+through the door into the street; and when the crowd became thinned out
+so that he could see to the other end of the post-office, Marcy was
+surprised to discover that the man was not alone and unsupported, as he
+had supposed him to be. Six or eight stalwart fellows in uniform leaned
+against the counters; and the fact that they did not interrupt their
+comrade, or take him to task for anything he said, was pretty good
+evidence that he spoke for them as well as for himself. Among those who
+were glad to get away from the sound of his voice were Tom Allison and
+Mark Goodwin, who went across the road to the hitching-rack, and had
+time to do a little talking between themselves before Marcy came out.
+
+"Did you ever hear a fellow go on as Ben Hawkins did?" whispered Tom,
+who had not yet recovered from his fright.
+
+"It's just awful to hear a Confederate soldier talk treason like that,"
+replied Mark. "I declare, things are getting worse every day. I thought
+that when our soldiers came home they would hunt the Unionists out of
+the country, and burn everything they've got; but, by gracious! they are
+Unionists themselves, or traitors to the flag, which amounts to the same
+thing. I tell you, Tom, you came mighty near getting yourself into
+serious trouble by calling Hawkins a coward. If ever fire came from a
+man's eyes it came from his. What in the world made you do it?"
+
+"I called him a coward when he declared that he wouldn't fight the
+Yankees any more, because I thought he was one," replied Tom. "And I
+still think so. There were several other soldiers in there, and I
+supposed of course they would stand by me. They all know my father, and
+some of them are under obligations to him; but instead of backing me in
+my efforts to make Hawkins ashamed of himself, they stood by and let him
+talk as he pleased. I was glad to hear him say what he did about
+Beardsley."
+
+"Do you think he told the truth?" asked Mark.
+
+"I am sure of it; for if Beardsley didn't say something to him, how
+would Hawkins know that there was a big pile of money in Mrs. Gray's
+house? I'm free to confess that I am getting scared, and if I knew any
+safe place around here I would go to it."
+
+"Here, too," exclaimed Mark. "But, Tom, this state of affairs can't last
+long. Unless we are whipped already, and I never will believe that till
+I have to, these places will all be taken from the enemy, and then there
+can be something done toward driving from the country such fellows as
+Hawkins and----"
+
+"And such fellows as this one coming," added Tom, with a slight nod
+toward Marcy Gray, who just then came out of the post-office.
+
+"Won't he hold his head in the air now?" exclaimed Mark, in disgust. "If
+he doesn't know by this time that he is the biggest toad in this puddle,
+it isn't Hawkins's fault. Doesn't it beat the world how some people can
+hold their own with a whole settlement against them?"
+
+Marcy Gray did not look as though he thought himself better than anybody
+else, but he did look astonished and perplexed. The scene he had just
+witnessed, and the words to which he had listened, almost dazed him. If
+any one had told him that such sentiments could be littered in a town
+like Nashville, nine out of ten of whose citizens were supposed to be
+good Confederates, without a tragedy following close upon the heels of
+it, he would have thought the statement an absurd one for any sane man
+to make. Marcy knew then, as well as he did when he afterward read it in
+one of his papers, that the people of North Carolina were not ardently
+devoted to the Confederate cause. In fact "they did not care much for
+either party; but while a large number of them would have liked to wait
+for the issue of the struggle to declare their preferences, those who
+remained loyal to the flag of the Union were too much afraid of a turn
+of fortune to avow their sentiments openly." But it seemed that Hawkins
+was not afraid to say what he thought of the situation, and only one of
+the rebels who listened to his speech in the post-office had dared
+dissent from his views. That was Tom Allison, who came near having his
+neck "twisted" for his impudence.
+
+"You look surprised, old fellow," was the way in which Tom greeted Marcy
+when he came up.
+
+"Who wouldn't be?" answered Marcy. "If all the paroled prisoners think
+that way the Confederate army must be in bad shape."
+
+"But they don't," said Mark hastily. "If some of those Tom and I talked
+with yesterday were here now, they would make Hawkins sing a different
+song, I bet you. We found them as strong for the cause, and as spiteful
+against all Unionists, North and South, as they were when they first
+went into the army. Hawkins is mad because he got whipped; but he will
+be all right a week from now. Were you in any battles, Marcy?"
+
+"You can't think how astonished we were when we woke up in the morning
+and learned that the Yankee sailors had been through our neighborhood,
+and that nobody, except a few niggers, was the wiser for it," said Tom.
+"Beardsley says you acted as pilot, but he didn't. He positively refused
+to do it, and the Yankees put him in irons. Is that so?"
+
+"It is true that Beardsley was put in irons, but not because he refused
+to act as pilot," replied Marcy. "He didn't get a chance to say whether
+he would go on the bridge or not, for Captain Benton did not ask him. He
+was ironed for the reason that he served the crew of the _Hollins_ that
+way when he captured them."
+
+"Did they treat you well?"
+
+"First-rate. They couldn't have done better if I had been one of them."
+
+"And you were one of them. You couldn't have done more to help them win
+the fight if you had had a blue shirt on," were the words that trembled
+on the point of Tom Allison's tongue. But he did not speak them aloud.
+He had received one severe rebuke that morning, and did not think he
+could stand another; but Ben Hawkins and his friends, who just then left
+the post-office and came across the road to the place where the boys
+were standing, did not hesitate to commend Marcy for the course he
+pursued while on the gunboat. They came up in time to hear Mark Goodwin
+say:
+
+"Why didn't you run that ship aground? That's what I would have done if
+I had been in your place, and it is what Captain Beardsley would have
+done if he had been allowed the opportunity."
+
+"And been hung up by the neck for his trouble," said Hawkins; and to
+Mark's surprise and Tom's, he took Marcy's hand in both his own and
+shook it cordially. It would have pleased them better if Hawkins had
+knocked Marcy down. That was the way they expected to see Confederate
+soldiers treat all Union men and boys, and they would have enjoyed the
+spectacle. "You stay-at-homers don't know nothing about war," continued
+Hawkins, giving way to his comrades, all of whom shook Marcy's hand one
+after the other, "and we uns, who have been there, say Marcy acted just
+right in doing as he did. I'd 'a' done the same thing myself, and so
+would any other man unless he was plum crazy. Go and get some soldier
+clothes and shoulder muskets, you two. We've done our share, and now we
+will stand back and give you uns a chance to see how you like it."
+
+"Don't you intend to return to the army, Mr. Hawkins?" inquired Marcy.
+
+"Well, 'cording to the oath I've took I can't," answered the soldier. "I
+did promise that I would never fight against the old flag agin, but
+that's neither here nor there. My year is pretty nigh up, and I'm going
+to stay around home and eat good grub for a while. I don't mean to say
+that I won't never 'list again, but it won't be till I've seen some
+others whopped like I have been."
+
+He looked fixedly at Tom as he said this, and the boy, believing that he
+would feel more at his ease if he were farther out of the soldier's
+reach, turned about and went toward the post-office, followed by his
+friend Mark.
+
+"Say!" whispered Hawkins, as soon as the two were out of hearing. "I
+aint a-going to ask you where you stand, kase that aint none of my
+business; but what's this I hear about your maw having a pile of money
+in the house, and Beardsley and among 'em be so anxious to get it that
+they brought men up from Newbern, to rob her of it?"
+
+Marcy explained in few words; that is to say, he told what Captain
+Beardsley thought, but he did not acknowledge that there was money in or
+about the house with the exception of the small sum he had offered the
+robbers, and which they refused to take. And then he asked Hawkins how
+he happened to know anything about it.
+
+"I know pretty much everything that's happened here sense I went into
+the army, and what's more, I know _why_ it happened," was the answer.
+"My folks told me about it soon's I got home. I know, too, that some of
+your friends have gone into the Yankee service; but you've got a few
+yet, and you see them right here with gray jackets on. Say nothing to
+nobody; but there's skursely a poor man around here who aint beholden to
+your folks for something or other, and if you get into trouble we're
+bound to help you out."
+
+"I am very grateful to you for the assurance," said Marcy. "But do you
+know that if you do not go back to serve your year out, you will be
+treated as deserters?"
+
+"We know all that, and we know better'n you do how they treat deserters
+in our army; but it's a good plan to catch your rabbit afore you cook
+him," said Hawkins, with a grin. "My folks wanted me to stay home the
+worst kind and see who was going to whop afore I took sides, and I'm
+mighty sorry I didn't listen to 'em. Look out what you're doing, you
+babolitionist," exclaimed Hawkins, as old Morris elbowed his way through
+the group to Marcy's side. "We rebels will eat you up."
+
+"I don't care what you do to Morris so long's you let Marse Mahcy be,"
+said the black man, who was almost ready to cry when he saw the boy
+standing before him as sound as he was when he left home. "The Yankees
+done kill him--jes' look at that hand of hisn--and now you rebels done
+pester him plum to death."
+
+"Go 'long now, Uncle Morris. We aint worrying on him and he will tell
+you so," replied Hawkins good-naturedly. "But our critter-fellers are
+round picking up all the darkies they can find and making soldiers of
+'em, and you had best watch out. Don't go outside the two-mile limit,
+or, better yet, don't put your nose out of doors after dark."
+
+Hawkins and his comrades walked away, and old Morris turned a very badly
+frightened face toward Marcy.
+
+"Don't mind them," said the latter. "They're soldiers, and of course
+they must have their fun. You need not think that the rebels will ever
+put faith enough in you black ones to trust you with muskets in your
+hands."
+
+"They'd better not," said Morris. "How you come here, Marse Mahcy? I
+been waiting two days for you."
+
+The boy explained that Julius had found him in the creek and helped him
+home, and the old fellow did not appear to be well pleased with the
+news, for he walked off, muttering to himself and shaking his head with
+every step he took, to bring up his mule and Marcy's horse. The latter
+did not wait for him, but mounted and rode homeward; and he was in so
+anxious and unsettled a frame of mind that he could not bring himself to
+take his papers from his pocket. The situation was something he had
+never dreamed of, and Marcy did not believe it would last for any length
+of time. The Confederate authorities would not permit enlisted men to
+roam at large through the country, talking as Hawkins had done, but
+would soon put a stop to it by some violent measures, and bring their
+disaffected soldiers to punishment at the same time. The paroled
+prisoner was angry over the result of the battles at Roanoke Island; he
+must have been or he would not have expressed himself so freely. And
+when Marcy reached home and talked the matter over with his mother, and
+became quieted down so that he could read his papers understandingly, he
+found that there were some high in authority who were angry over it
+also; General Wise for one, who said in his report that "Roanoke Island,
+being the key to all the rear defences of Norfolk, ought to have been
+defended at the cost of twenty thousand men." But General Wise did not
+stop there. He sent a protest to the Confederate Congress, censuring
+both the President and Secretary of War, and the upshot of the matter
+was that Mr. Benjamin became so unpopular that he was forced to resign.
+The general's letter also opened the eyes of the Confederate government
+to the fact that the people of North Carolina were not half as loyal to
+the cause as they ought to have been, and that something would have to
+be done about it. If the Southern men would not enter the army
+willingly, they must be compelled to come in; and this the government
+straightway proceeded to do. Almost the first move that was made brought
+about the thing that Marcy Gray most dreaded, and made a refugee of
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A YANKEE SCOUTING PARTY.
+
+Marcy Gray served as pilot on Captain Benton's vessel for a period of
+ten days, counting from February 8 to the time the fleet set sail for
+Newbern; but the work the Burnside expedition had to do was not finished
+until April 26, when Fort Macon, in Georgia, surrendered, after a short,
+but brisk, bombardment. This fort was commanded by a nephew of the
+Confederate President, who, in response to a summons to surrender,
+declared that he would not yield until he had eaten his last biscuit.
+The Union commander thought that a man who could talk like that would
+surely do some good fighting, but he was disappointed. A few hours'
+pounding by gunboats and shore batteries brought the boastful rebel to
+his senses, and he was glad to escape further punishment by hauling down
+his own flag, and sending a white one up in place of it.
+
+The Union forces were successful everywhere along the coast; not once
+did they meet with disaster. The nearest they came to it was when that
+terrible northeast gale struck them off Hatteras, and with that gale
+they had their longest and hardest battle. Of course, Marcy Gray did not
+get what he called "straight news" regarding these glorious victories,
+but his rebel neighbors confessed to defeat in every engagement, and
+that was all he wanted to know. But there was another thing that began
+troubling him now, and it was something he had not thought of. With the
+fall of Newbern, and the occupation of the principal towns by the
+Federal troops, the regular mails from the South were cut off, and, for
+a time, the village of Nashville had little communication with the
+outside world. Even rebel news, distorted, as it was, out of all
+semblance to the truth, was better than no news at all, and Marcy
+declared that there was but one thing left for him to do, and that was
+to ride around and gossip with the neighbors, as Tom Allison and Mark
+Goodwin did. His short experience aboard the gunboat filled him with
+martial ardor, and, if his mother had only been safely out of harm's
+way, he would have tried every plan he could think of to find Jack, and
+then he would have shipped on his vessel. Being shot at six hours out of
+twenty-four he thought was better than living as he was obliged to live
+now. If he were an enlisted man he would know pretty nearly what he had
+to face; now he had no idea of it, and that was another thing that
+troubled him. The news of the victories that were gained so rapidly, one
+after another, did much to keep up his spirits, but had the opposite
+effect upon Allison and Goodwin, who could not find words with which to
+express their disgust. These two, as we have said, spent all their
+waking hours riding about the settlement comparing notes, and going
+first to one man, and then to another, in the hope of hearing something
+encouraging; but they passed the most of their time with Beardsley, who
+seemed to be the best-informed man for miles around. Of course they did
+not place a great deal of faith in what the captain told them; but he
+was always ready to talk, and that was more than other people seemed
+willing to do. Since Ben Hawkins denounced him in the post-office,
+Beardsley did not ride around as much as he used to do. He thought he
+had better stay at home until the effect produced by the rebel soldier's
+speech had had time to wear away.
+
+On the morning of the 11th of March Tom Allison stood on the front porch
+of his father's house, thrashing his boots with his riding-whip, and
+waiting for his horse, which he had ordered brought to the door, when he
+saw Mark Goodwin coming up the road at a furious gallop. The two
+generally met at the crossroads, a mile away, and Tom knew in a moment
+that something unusual had happened to bring Mark to the house;
+consequently, he was not much surprised when he saw that the visitor's
+face was as white as a sheet.
+
+"What's broke loose now?" exclaimed Tom, when his friend dashed into the
+yard and drew up in front of the porch. "You look as though you were
+frightened half to death."
+
+"Frightened! I am so elated that I can't stay on my horse a moment
+longer," replied Mark; and suiting the action to the word he rolled out
+of his saddle, pulled the reins over his horse's head, so that he could
+hold fast to them, and sat down on the lowest step. "Why don't you whoop
+and holler and dance and--we've licked them off the face of the earth.
+Have they been here yet?"
+
+"They? Who?" cried Tom. "What do you mean, any way?"
+
+"I mean that you had better hide your hunting outfit and be quick about
+it," answered Mark. "They took mine away from me just now, and I came
+here on purpose to warn you. You see it was this way," added Mark, as
+Tom came down the steps and seated himself by his friend's side. "The
+stories that have been spread abroad about her being no good, and so
+heavy that her engines could not move her from the dock where she was
+built, were all lies that were got up on purpose to fool the Yanks; but
+three days ago, that was on the 8th----"
+
+"Look here, Mark, you've got two stories mixed up," exclaimed Tom.
+
+"Two? I've got half a dozen, and I don't know which to tell first. And
+the beauty of it is, they are all good ones."
+
+"You said somebody had taken your hunting rig away from you," Tom
+reminded him. "Do you call that a good story?"
+
+"I didn't think about that when I spoke," replied Mark, jumping up and
+looking around for a place to hitch his horse. Then he calmed himself by
+an effort, and went on to say: "This morning I received all the proof I
+want that we are for a time a subjugated people--that the presence of a
+hostile garrison means something. I had somehow got it into my head that
+the Yankees would stay inside the forts they have taken from us by their
+overwhelming numbers, and that they would not have the cheek to come
+among our people where they know well enough they are not wanted, but
+now I know that they don't mean to do anything of the sort. They are
+going to bother us by sending scouting parties through our settlement as
+often as they feel like it."
+
+The spiteful emphasis Mark threw into his words, and the look of disgust
+his face wore while he talked, brought a hearty laugh from somewhere.
+The boys looked up and saw Mr. Allison standing at the top of the
+steps.
+
+"Of course, Mark, they will do that very thing," said he. "They will
+make it their business to annoy us in every way they can. Do I
+understand you to say that they came to your house this morning?"
+
+"Yes, sir, they did," said Mark angrily. "There were about fifty of them
+in the party. They asked for father, and when he sent back word, as any
+other Southern gentleman would have done, that he would hold no
+intercourse with the invaders of his State----"
+
+"Was your father crazy enough to send them any such message as that?"
+exclaimed Mr. Allison, who was very much astonished.
+
+"Of course he sent them that message," replied Mark, becoming surprised
+in his turn. "Wouldn't you, if you had been in his place?"
+
+"Indeed, I would not," said Mr. Allison, decidedly.
+
+"My father is a brave man," added Mark, in a tone which implied that
+that was more than he could say of the gentleman to whom he was
+speaking. "He looks down on a Yankee."
+
+"So do I; but that is no reason why I should make a fool of myself when
+they come to my house fifty strong and send word that they want to see
+me. It's a wonder they didn't hang your father, or take him away with
+them."
+
+"We thought that was just what they meant to do," said Mark, with a
+shudder, "for four or five of them came rushing into the house, and I
+tell you they talked and acted savage."
+
+"Well, what did they want?" asked Tom.
+
+"They wanted to know if we had any weapons in the house," answered Mark.
+"And when we told them no, they----"
+
+"That was another foolish thing for you to do," Mr. Allison interposed.
+"Your people must have taken leave of their senses since I last saw
+them. When you said there were no weapons in the house, they proceeded
+to search for them."
+
+"That is just what they did," replied Mark, with tears of rage in his
+eyes. "And we had to stand there and see them pull the house to
+pieces----"
+
+"And steal everything they could lay their hands on," chimed in Tom.
+
+"Of course. That's a foregone conclusion; although I did hear my mother
+say that she passed her bedroom door while the search was going on, and
+there was her jewelry lying on the bureau, and a soldier with a carbine
+keeping guard over it."
+
+"That was done for effect," declared Tom. "When she comes to look into
+the matter, she will find that she hasn't so much as a breastpin left.
+Did they take your father's pocketbook?"
+
+"I haven't the least doubt of it, although I did not see them do it,"
+said Mark, who wished he could add effect to his story by saying that he
+had seen his father robbed of his money. "They were the very
+worst-looking lot I ever saw--all Irish and Dutch; not a gentleman among
+them."
+
+"But what did they steal besides your weapons?" inquired Mr. Allison.
+
+"I didn't see that they took a thing," Mark was obliged to confess,
+"but, of course, I did not look into their pockets. When father heard
+them coming, he shoved his revolver between the mattresses on his bed;
+but he might as well have left it in plain sight, for the first thing
+those Yankees did when they went into his room was to pull that bed to
+pieces. Then they went upstairs into my room and walked off with my fine
+rifle and shot-gun. One of them grinned when he went out, and said that
+for a place that had no weapons in it, he thought our house had panned
+out pretty well. I tell you that made me mad."
+
+"And do you think they are coming this way?" asked Mr. Allison.
+
+"I believe they will visit every house in the settlement before they
+quit," replied Mark; whereupon Tom got up and acted as though he wanted
+to do something. "They must have robbed other houses before they came to
+ours, for I noticed that several of them carried sporting rifles and
+fowling-pieces in addition to the carbines that were slung at their
+backs. It is my opinion that you had better wake up, if you want to save
+the guns that cost you so much money."
+
+Mr. Allison evidently thought so, too, for he turned about and went into
+the house, whither he was followed by Tom and Mark as soon as the latter
+had hitched his horse. The boys went at once to Tom's room and opened
+the closet, in which was stowed away one of the finest and most
+expensive hunting outfits in that part of the State.
+
+"Sooner than let this fall into the hands of the enemy I would break it
+in pieces over the chopping-block," said Tom, looking admiringly at the
+handsome muzzle-loading rifle he had carried on more than one excursion
+through the Dismal Swamp.
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't do that," replied Mark. "Take it into the garden, and
+shove it under some of the bushes. Go ahead and I will follow with the
+shot-gun; but be sure and take the flask, horn, game-bags, and
+everything else belonging to them, for if they find part of the rig they
+will want to know where the rest is."
+
+Mark's suggestions were carried out, and just in the nick of time too;
+for as the boys were returning from the garden, in which they had
+hastily concealed the guns and their accoutrements, they heard the
+pounding of a multitude of hoofs on the road and hastened through the
+hall to the front porch in time to see a small squad of cavalry ride
+into the yard, while another and larger body of troopers halted outside
+the gate. It was plain that Mr. Allison did not intend to follow the
+example of his foolhardy neighbor, and so run the risk of bringing upon
+himself the vengeance of the men he could not successfully resist, for
+he stood out in plain view of them, and even returned the military
+salute of the big whiskered man who rode at the head of the squad.
+
+"They are the same who robbed our house," said Mark, in an excited
+whisper. "Will they know me, do you think? And if so, will they do
+anything to me for warning you?"
+
+Tom Allison did not reply, for his attention was wholly occupied by the
+Yankee soldiers, the first he had ever seen. They were not ragged and
+dirty like most of the paroled Confederates who passed through the
+settlement a few days before. On the contrary, they were well and warmly
+dressed, and, like the horses they rode, looked as though they had been
+accustomed to good living.
+
+"Good-morning," said the captain pleasantly. "It is my duty to ask if
+you have anything in the shape of weapons in your house."
+
+To the surprise of both the boys Mr. Allison replied:
+
+"Yes, sir; I have."
+
+"That's honest, at any rate," said the captain. "Will you please bring
+them out?"
+
+"Do you intend to take them from me?" said Mr. Allison.
+
+"I think you understand the situation as well as I could explain it to
+you," answered the soldier, nodding toward Mark Goodwin, whom he
+recognized as soon as he looked at him; and as if to show that he was
+not in the humor to put up with any nonsense, he dismounted, his example
+being quickly followed by his men.
+
+"Of course I will bring them out," Mr. Allison hastened to say. "But
+they are heirlooms and I don't like to part with them. Besides, they are
+no longer of use as weapons."
+
+He went into the house as he said this, and the captain, who seemed to
+be a lively, talkative fellow, and good-natured as well, even if he was
+a Yankee, turned to Mark and said:
+
+"You beat me here, did you not?"
+
+"I hope there was nothing wrong in my coming," said Mark, beginning to
+feel uneasy.
+
+"Nothing whatever. You have a right to go where you please and do what
+you like, so long as you do not set the graybacks on us."
+
+"Graybacks?" said Mark inquiringly.
+
+"Yes. Johnnies--rebel cavalry."
+
+"Oh! Well, there are none around here that I know of, but you can find
+plenty of them a few miles back in the country," said Mark, who was a
+little surprised to hear himself talking so freely with this boy in blue
+who had carried things with so high a hand in his father's house a short
+time before; and then, emboldened by the sound of his own voice, and
+prompted by an idea that just then came into his mind, he added: "I can
+tell you where you will find one rebel and also a rebel flag, if you
+would like to have it for a trophy."
+
+These words almost knocked Tom Allison over, but at the same time they
+loosened his tongue.
+
+"That's so, but I never should have thought to speak of it," he
+exclaimed. "Go back the way you came until you strike the big road, then
+turn to the left and stop at the first house you come to."
+
+"And remember that you will pass ruins on your left hand before you get
+where you want to go," added Mark, who did not mean that the Yankee
+officer should miss his way for want of explicit directions.
+
+"Who lives there?" inquired the latter, looking sharply at the two boys
+as if he meant to read their thoughts, and find out what object they had
+in view in volunteering so much information. "He must be a rebel, of
+course, if he has a rebel flag in his possession."
+
+"His name is Marcy Gray, and he is rebel or Union, just as it happens,"
+said Tom. "He has been pilot on a privateer and blockade runner."
+
+"Aha!" said the captain.
+
+"Yes," continued Tom. "But the minute you Yankees came here and captured
+the Island he quit business and came home."
+
+"Which was the most sensible thing he could have done," said the
+officer. "Are there any weapons in the house, do you know?"
+
+Before either of the boys could reply Mr. Allison came out upon the
+porch, bringing with him the "heirlooms" of which he had spoken--an old
+officers sword and a flint-lock musket that, so he said, had passed the
+winter with Washington at Valley Forge.
+
+"If that is the case I'll not touch them," said the captain. "These are
+all you have, I suppose?"
+
+"There are no other weapons in the house," replied Mr. Allison.
+
+The officer smiled, gave Mark Goodwin a comical look, and then mounted
+his horse and rode out of the yard without saying another word. Mr.
+Allison and the boys watched him until he joined his command and with it
+disappeared down the road, and then Mark said:
+
+"What do you reckon he meant by grinning at me in that fashion?"
+
+"He meant that those 'heirlooms' of father's did not fool him worth a
+cent," answered Tom. "The next officer who comes here will say: 'Perhaps
+there are no weapons in the house, but are there any _around_ it?' And
+then he will turn his men loose in the yard and root up everything.
+Those guns of mine must go in some safer place as soon as night comes.
+Now give us one of your good stories, Mark."
+
+"That's so," exclaimed the latter. "The sight of those Yankees made me
+forget all about it. You know that big iron-clad of ours that's been
+building up at Portsmouth, don't you?"
+
+"Aw! I don't want to hear any more about her," cried Tom. "She is a rank
+failure."
+
+"Judging by the stories that have been circulated about her she was a
+failure; but judged by the work she did three days ago she is a glorious
+success," replied Mark, pausing for a moment to enjoy the surprise which
+his statement occasioned among his auditors for now that the Yankees had
+taken themselves off, without turning the house upside down or insulting
+anybody, the whole family came out on the porch, and a servant brought
+chairs enough to seat them all. "She captured and burned the _Congress_,
+sunk the _Cumberland_, and if there had been a few hours more of
+daylight, she would have served the rest of the Yankee fleet in the same
+way."
+
+"Why, Mark, when did this happen?" inquired Mrs. Allison.
+
+"And where?" chimed in Tom.
+
+"And how did you hear of it, seeing that the Yankees have rendered our
+post-office at Nashville useless to us?" said his father.
+
+"It happened on the afternoon of the 8th of March, and the scene of the
+conflict was Hampton Roads, off the mouth of the James," answered Mark.
+"My father told me of it last night, and he first got the news from
+Captain Beardsley, who----"
+
+"Ah! I was afraid there wasn't a word of truth in it," exclaimed Mr.
+Allison.
+
+"But it is true, every word of it," said Mark earnestly. "Beardsley
+always has been half crazy over that vessel, for he says he has seen and
+talked with sailor-men who have been all over her; and he has more than
+once declared that, when she was ready for sea, she would make a
+scattering among the Yankee fleet at Fortress Monroe. He told father
+that he had heard a letter read that was in some way smuggled through
+from Norfolk yesterday, and that that letter was written by a man who
+took part in the fight. All the same father would not believe it until
+he had seen and read the letter himself. He thinks it is true, and so do
+I."
+
+"I certainly hope it is," said Mrs. Allison. "But those Yankees who came
+here a while ago acted more like victors than like beaten men."
+
+Mark Goodwin, who of course got his ideas from his father, declared that
+they would not act that way much longer; for as soon as the Federal
+fleet at Fortress Monroe had been disposed of, Commodore Buchanan, the
+gallant commander of the _Virginia_, would have his choice of two
+courses of action: he could not carry coal enough to run up and lay the
+city of New York under contribution, but he could reduce Fortress Monroe
+and bombard Washington, or he could come South, scatter Goldsborough's
+fleet, and recapture Pamlico and Albemarle sounds.
+
+"Glory!" shouted Tom, jumping up and throwing his hat into the air; and
+even his father began to show signs of excitement. "Tell him not to mind
+us, but to go up and lay Washington in ashes. Our papers said long ago
+that it must be purified by fire before Southern legislators would
+consent to go there again. Well, which course did Buchanan decide to
+follow?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Mark. "I wish I did; but that letter was written
+on the evening of the 8th, after the _Virginia_ drew out of the fight
+and came back to Norfolk."
+
+"Were any of our brave fellows injured?" asked Mrs. Allison.
+
+"Oh, yes. Buchanan himself was wounded, and treacherously too. When the
+_Congress_ struck her flag and our boats went alongside to take
+possession of her, she opened fire on us again. That made Buchanan mad,
+and he riddled her with his big guns till he killed her captain and more
+than a hundred of her crew."
+
+"She was deservedly punished," said Mrs. Allison, and all on the porch
+agreed with her, though there was not a word of truth in the story. The
+volley of musketry that was poured into the Confederate small boats came
+from the Union troops on shore, who did not know that the Congress had
+surrendered.
+
+"Go on and tell us some more good news," said Tom, when his friend
+settled back in his chair.
+
+"That's about all I heard, because the letter did not go much into
+particulars; but there'll be others smuggled through in a day or two,
+and some papers, most likely, and then I shall expect to hear that our
+fellows are in Washington. At any rate the people around here are acting
+on the supposition that we have got the upper hand of the Yanks, and I
+want to be able to say that I had a hand in whipping them, so I have
+joined the Home Guards. So has my father."
+
+"The Home Guards?" echoed Tom.
+
+"I was not aware that there was an organization of that kind in the
+settlement," said Mr. Allison.
+
+"I didn't either until father told me last night," answered Mark. "And I
+am a little too fast in saying that I have joined. I am going to hand in
+my name this very day, and Tom, you must go with me."
+
+"I'll do it," said Tom, getting upon his feet and squaring off at an
+imaginary antagonist. "What are we going to do? Who are we going to
+whip, and what is the object of the thing, any way?"
+
+"Well, I--we're going to fight," replied Mark.
+
+"I suppose one object of the organization is to keep the spirit of
+patriotism alive among our people," observed Mr. Allison.
+
+"That's the idea; and to make the traitors among us shut their mouths
+and quit carrying their heads so high," cried Mark. "They have had
+companies of this kind in Kentucky and Tennessee for a long time; and in
+Missouri the State Guards, as they are called, have done the most of the
+fighting. Ben Hawkins says that if we had had strong companies of
+well-disciplined Home Guards around here, Roanoke Island would not have
+been captured."
+
+"Who cares what Ben Hawkins says?" exclaimed Tom. "He's a traitor; and
+when he declared that he wouldn't fight for the South any more, I told
+him to his face that he was a coward."
+
+"Oh, my son," said the doting mother, "I am afraid your high spirit will
+bring you into trouble some time."
+
+Mark Goodwin knew that his friend's "high spirit" had nothing to do with
+the scathing rebukes he had received in the post-office. His unruly
+tongue and his want of common sense were to blame for it.
+
+"Is Mr. Goodwin a member of the Home Guards?" inquired Mr. Allison.
+"Then I think I will ride over and have a talk with him. From his house
+I will go to town and see if I can learn more of that glorious victory
+in Hampton Roads."
+
+The gentleman went into the house accompanied by his wife, and Tom and
+Mark descended the steps out of ear-shot of the rest of the family.
+"Where shall we go?" was the first question they asked each other.
+
+"I wish we could go to half a dozen different places at once," said Tom,
+at length. "If we go to Beardsley's we may be sorry we didn't go to
+town; and if we call on Colonel Shelby, to see if he can tell us
+anything about that light, we may be sorry we didn't go somewhere else.
+What do you say?"
+
+"I say, let's ride over to Beardsley's in the first place, and to Marcy
+Gray's in the next."
+
+"And so follow up that squad of thieving Yankees and see what damage
+they did? If they overhauled Gray's house I can pretend to sympathize
+with them, you know, for that was the way they served us."
+
+"Overhaul nothing!" exclaimed Tom in disgust. "Mark my words: I don't
+believe they went near the Grays; but if they did, they treated them
+with more civility than they showed my father. Come along, and see if I
+haven't told you the truth."
+
+Tom's horse was ready and waiting, and a rapid ride of twenty minutes
+brought him and Mark to a field in which Beardsley was working with some
+of his negroes. When he saw them approaching he shied a chip he held in
+his hand at the head of the nearest darky, who caught sight of it in
+time to dodge, and came up to the fence to wait for them. His actions
+proved that he was full of good news, for he placed his hands on his
+knees, bent himself half double, looked down at the ground, and shook
+his head as if he were laughing heartily. When he reached the fence he
+pounded the top rail with his fist, and shouted as soon as the boys came
+within speaking distance:
+
+"Have them varmints been up to your house?"
+
+"Do you mean the Yanks?" answered Mark, as he and Tom reined their
+horses across the ditch to the place where the man was standing. "I
+should say so; and you ought to have seen the way they conducted
+themselves, just because my father stood on his dignity as any other
+Southern gentleman would."
+
+"Well, he was a fule for standing on his dignity or anything else," said
+the captain bluntly. "You didn't ketch your Uncle Lon trying to ride no
+such high horse as that there, I bet you, kase fifty agin one is too
+many. I was right here in this field when they come along," continued
+Beardsley, resting his right foot upon one of the lower rails and both
+his elbows on the top one, for he never could stand alone if there were
+anything he could conveniently lean upon, "and when they asked me did I
+have any we'pons of any sort up to the house, I told 'em I had for a
+fact, and if they didn't mind, I'd go up and bring 'em out. So I clim
+the fence and went along."
+
+Here the captain went off into another paroxysm of laughter, shaking his
+head and pounding the top rail with his clenched hand.
+
+"Well, what did you give them when you reached the house?" asked Mark
+impatiently.
+
+"Nothing in the wide world but an old shotgun that belonged to one of
+the boys that used to come out from Nashville squirrel shooting once in
+a while, and that I wouldn't fire off if you'd give me a five-dollar
+gold piece," chuckled Beardsley. "The rest of my shooting-irons is hid
+where they won't find 'em. You see I suspicioned that they would do
+something of this kind as soon's they got a foothold here, and so I
+toted my guns out in the garden and shoved 'em under some bresh there is
+there."
+
+"You had better hunt up a better hiding-place for them the first thing
+you do," said Tom earnestly. "There's where I put mine when Mark warned
+me, but I am not going to leave them there. The Yankee who came to our
+house was as much of a gentleman as one of his kind could be, but the
+next one who comes along may be a different sort. Did they go to Marcy
+Gray's?"
+
+"Bet your life," said the captain, with another chuckle. "Do you reckon
+I'd let them miss that place? I sent them there, and they was gone long
+enough to give the house a good overhauling; but what I can't quite see
+through----"
+
+"We sent them there too," exclaimed Tom. "Did you see them when they
+returned? What did they have?"
+
+"I'll bet they made Marcy hand over that fine hunting rig in which he
+takes so much pride," added Mark. "I'd give a dollar if I could have
+looked into his face about the time he gave up that boss shot-gun of
+his, that I have heard him brag about until it made me sick."
+
+"Why didn't they take Marcy himself as well as the guns?" continued Tom.
+"He couldn't deny that he has given aid and comfort to the Confederates
+by running the blockade and capturing vessels for them."
+
+"And if he did deny it, how did he explain the presence of that
+Confederate flag in his house?" demanded Mark.
+
+"Hold on till I tell you how it was," said Beardsley, as soon as the
+boys gave him a chance to speak. "Them Yankees went up to Grays', like I
+told you, and I was here when they come back; but they didn't have the
+first thing."
+
+"Whoop! Then they didn't search the house," yelled Mark. "Marcy and Jack
+have more shot-guns and sporting rifles than any two other boys in the
+country."
+
+"Leastwise they didn't find nothing that was contraband of war," said
+the captain. "Them is the very words they spoke to me."
+
+Tom and Mark looked at each other in speechless amazement.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+MARCY SEES SOMEBODY.
+
+If you would like to know why Captain Burrows (that was the name of the
+officer who commanded the Union troopers) did not find in Mrs. Gray's
+house any articles that were contraband of war, we will ride with him
+and his company long enough to find out.
+
+During the days of which we write scouting was a necessary duty, but it
+sometimes happened that it was one of the most disagreeable,
+particularly when it fell to the lot of a gentleman like Captain
+Burrows, and his orders compelled him to enter private houses whose only
+inmates were supposed to be women and children; but now and then these
+scouts found able-bodied men in uniform concealed in dwellings that were
+thought to be occupied wholly by non-combatants. During the Yazoo Pass
+expedition the gunboat to which we belonged was ordered to search all
+the houses along the banks of the Coldwater and Tallahatchie rivers,
+although we knew that that important duty had already been performed by
+the soldiers. In one house, whose female occupants vociferously affirmed
+that all the men who belonged there were in Vicksburg and had not been
+near home for six months, a belt containing a sword and revolver was
+found under a bed. That was as good evidence as we wanted that the man
+who owned the belt was not far away, and after a short search he was
+discovered in the cellar. No doubt there were better hiding-places about
+the house, but the blue-jackets came up so suddenly that he did not have
+time to go to them. A little further search resulted in the finding of
+some important dispatches which the Confederate had concealed in a
+barrel of corned beef; but when its contents were poked over by a
+bayonet, the dispatches betrayed themselves by rising to the surface. So
+you see it was sometimes necessary to search private houses; but like
+Mr. Watkins, the gunboat officer who took Marcy Gray from his bed to
+serve as pilot in the Union navy, Captain Barrows wished that some other
+officer had been detailed to do the work. Although he went from
+Beardsley's house straight to Mrs. Gray's, he had no intention of
+searching it. He knew more of Marcy than Tom and Mark thought, and
+perhaps he could have told them a few things concerning themselves that
+would have made them open: their eyes. He had halted and questioned
+every negro he met on his scout, and he knew the name of every Union man
+and every rebel in the settlement. When he arrived at the house he did
+not lead his men into the yard, nor did he ride in himself. He
+dismounted and went in on foot, and Marcy, who had seen him coming,
+opened the door without giving him time to knock.
+
+"I know you are Marcy Gray, from the descriptions I have heard of you,"
+was the way in which the captain began his business. "I am told that you
+have any number of dangerous weapons as well as a Confederate flag in
+your possession."
+
+"I plead guilty," replied Marcy. "Will you walk in?"
+
+He was not at all afraid of the officer, for the latter smiled at him in
+a way that put him quite at his ease. Besides, if the captain knew
+anything about him, as his words seemed to indicate, he must be aware
+that he had willingly served under the Union flag, and under the other
+one because he could not help himself. Marcy led him into the room in
+which his mother was waiting, and the captain straightway quieted her
+fears, if she had any, by saying:
+
+"I am on a scout, madam, looking for rebel soldiers and fire-arms that
+may be concealed in the settlement; but, so far as you are concerned, my
+visit is merely a matter of form."
+
+"Take this chair," said Marcy, "and I will be back in a moment."
+
+The Confederate flag had been removed from its place on the wall, but
+the boy knew where to find it; and when he brought it into the room he
+brought with it his fine rifle and shotgun, his revolvers, a bed-quilt
+and the letter that Captain Benton had given him; and Julius, who
+followed at his heels, brought as many more guns, which belonged to the
+absent Jack. He was gone but a few minutes, but quite long enough to
+enable Mrs. Gray to give the visitor some scraps of his history; and as
+her story was confirmed by those he had heard from the negroes along his
+line of march, he was so well satisfied of Marcy's loyalty that when the
+latter came in and deposited his burdens on the table, the officer had
+not the least intention of taking any of them away with him. He spread
+the Confederate flag upon the floor so that he could see it; examined
+the guns one after another, and inquired about the shooting on the
+plantation; and held Captain Benton's letter up to the light, to see if
+he could read what was written upon it.
+
+"There's a fire on the hearth, sir," Marcy reminded him.
+
+"I know there is; but if I should bring out the words by holding this
+paper to the heat, and it should some day fall into the hands of the
+rebels, it might make serious trouble for you," said the captain. "If
+such a thing happens I don't want to be the means of it, for I know that
+you were of service to our fleet during the fight at Roanoke Island."
+
+"I was there, sir," answered the boy modestly. "And if you say so, I
+will rip up this quilt and show you the Union flag that waved over my
+head while I was acting as Captain Benton's pilot."
+
+"A Union flag in this house, alongside of a Confederate!" exclaimed the
+captain, who was surprised to hear it. "I should think you would be
+afraid to have it about you. I understand that the most of the people in
+this neighborhood are the worst of rebels."
+
+Marcy replied that although there were some Union people in the
+settlement the Confederates outnumbered them two to one, but he did not
+believe that any of the latter knew there was a Union banner in the
+house. Then he went on to explain how and when it came into his
+possession, and again offered to produce it; but Captain Burrows said he
+would not put him to so much trouble. He asked a few leading questions
+which he knew Marcy could not answer unless he had really "been there,"
+after which he took his cap from the table, saying as he did so:
+
+"If you will take a friend's advice, you will conceal those guns, as
+well as any other articles of value you may have, somewhere outside, and
+keep Captain Benton's letter where you can put your hand on it at any
+hour of the day or night. It is probable that some of our scouts will be
+along here every few days, and I am afraid there will be some among them
+who will insist on going through your house. Besides, the Home Guards
+may need those guns to arm some of their men."
+
+"Home Guards?" echoed Marcy. "What are they?"
+
+"Well, they are men who, although they haven't the courage to enlist in
+the army to fight us, are perfectly willing to act as police in the rear
+of the Confederate army. It is their intention to patrol the settlement,
+night and day, until they drive out every man who is suspected of Union
+sentiments."
+
+Marcy looked bewildered, and his mother was frightened.
+
+"Is it possible that you haven't heard of it?" continued the captain.
+"Then it proves the truth of the old saying that one needs to go away
+from home to learn the news. We know all about it, and we also know that
+these Home Guards intend to operate as they do in Kentucky, Tennessee,
+and Missouri; that is, they will be industrious and peaceful farmers
+during the daytime, and thieves and murderers at night. But mind you, as
+fast as we can locate them, we shall run them in and hold them as
+prisoners of war. I hope that you, and the rest of the Union people
+about here, will be watchful and keep us posted."
+
+"This is news to me," said Marcy, as soon as his surprise would allow
+him to speak. "I never dreamed of such a thing."
+
+"Then I am very glad I mentioned it," said the officer.
+
+"And I am certain I can give you the name of every man in the company,"
+added Marcy. "What do you suppose put the idea into their heads?"
+
+"I am sure I do not know, unless it was that fight in Hampton Roads,
+which created the wildest excitement all over the country. The Richmond
+people were very jubilant, while our Washington folks were
+correspondingly depressed."
+
+"That is another piece of news," said Mrs. Gray. "To what particular
+battle do you refer, Captain?"
+
+"Don't you know anything about that, either?" exclaimed the officer,
+throwing open his coat, and thrusting his hand into an inside pocket.
+"It was a fight between our fleet and six Confederate steamers--five
+wooden vessels and one iron-clad. It lasted the better part of two days.
+At the end of the first day the advantage was all with the Confederates,
+who captured and burned one of our best ships and sunk another, without
+any serious damage to themselves. These papers, which I shall be glad to
+leave with you, tell all about it, and they will also give you a faint
+idea of the consternation that seized upon everybody up North, when the
+story got abroad that the rebels had one single vessel that could cope
+with Uncle Sam's entire navy. Every city along the coast, as well as the
+capital, was supposed to be at the mercy of that one iron-clad; but when
+she came out, on the morning of the 9th, to complete her work of
+destruction, she ran against a snag, in the shape of a little Union
+iron-clad, not more than half her size, which had come upon the scene
+during the night."
+
+"And did those two iron-clads fight?" exclaimed Marcy, who was worked up
+to the highest pitch of excitement. "Which whipped?"
+
+"Of course they fought, for that was what our vessel, the _Monitor_,
+went down there for. She came in the night and anchored behind the hull
+of one of our big ships, so that the rebel boat did not see her until
+she was close upon her. They had the hardest kind of a fight, and our
+vessel whipped."
+
+Marcy did not break out into cheers as the captain no doubt thought he
+would, but settled contentedly back in his chair and drew a long breath
+of relief.
+
+"Our fellows did not sink the _Virginia_ as they tried to do," continued
+Captain Burrows, "but they gave her such a pounding that it was all she
+could do to draw out of the fight and go back to Norfolk. We had the
+best of the engagement, for the rebel boat failed to accomplish the
+object she had in view when she came out, which was to sink the three
+frigates that were aground off Fortress Monroe."
+
+"And you think it was during the excitement consequent upon the first
+day's victory that our neighbors were led to organize the Home Guards?"
+said Mrs. Gray.
+
+"I certainly think it had much to do with it," answered Captain Burrows.
+"You see these 'stay-at-homers,' as I have heard them called, jumped to
+the conclusion that the Yankees were whipped, and when the war is over
+they want to be able to say that they helped do it."
+
+"Pardon my curiosity," said Marcy. "But have you seen Ben Hawkins?"
+
+"I don't think there will be any harm in telling you that I had a short
+talk with him before I came here. I met him on the road, and he
+volunteered so much information concerning his neighbors that I became
+suspicious of him. But I have since learned that he told me nothing but
+the truth. He is a paroled prisoner and, I may add, a warm friend to you
+and your mother."
+
+"And you do not think it would be unwise to trust him?" said Mrs. Gray,
+who had listened with surprise to her son's account of the speech he had
+heard Hawkins deliver in the post-office.
+
+"No, I do not. He is very bitter against the Confederacy, as many of his
+comrades are; he has had enough of soldiering, and if I were in your
+place I think I should look upon him as a friend."
+
+"I thank you for saying so much," replied Marcy. "I am sure we need
+friends bad enough."
+
+"And don't forget," said the captain as he rose to go, "that we are not
+here for fun. I shall report you to my commander as a staunch Union
+family, and if your rebel neighbors prove troublesome and you will let
+us know, we will surely punish them for it. I wish you good-day."
+
+"Now there's a friend worth having," said Marcy, when he and his mother
+were once more alone. "He brought us bad news, though. He did not want
+to say too much against his comrades, but he said enough, and I think we
+had better hide your silver and jewelry before some rascal in blue walks
+off with them."
+
+"No doubt it would be a wise thing to do," replied Mrs. Gray. "He said
+he heard that there were arms and a flag in the house; have you any idea
+who told him?"
+
+"Beardsley is the chap," answered Marcy readily. "Two or three times I
+was on the point of asking what the captain said to him, but I was
+afraid he might not answer me. Beardsley can't get me into trouble with
+the Yankees, and he might as well give up trying. Now let's read about
+the fight in Hampton Roads."
+
+"What about the Home Guards?" said his mother.
+
+"I will take a ride presently and see if I can learn something about
+them. They must have been very sly in getting up their company, for I
+don't believe our darkies knew the first thing about it. If they did
+they would have told us. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good plan for me
+to join it."
+
+"Why, Marcy, they would not accept you!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray.
+
+"That's what I think; but if they refuse it will show me that I had
+better be on my guard, won't it?"
+
+"I am glad to know that Hawkins is our friend."
+
+"When I met him in Nashville, and he took the trouble to cross the road
+and shake hands with me and say that I did just right while I was on
+Captain Benton's gunboat, I knew right where he stood," answered Marcy.
+"I can see him as often as I have anything to say to him, for he is
+loafing about the settlement all the time."
+
+While Marcy talked he was looking through one of the papers Captain
+Burrows had left behind for the account of that famous fight in Hampton
+Roads, and when he found it he read it aloud. The result of the first
+day's struggle must have been alarming as well as discouraging to the
+loyal people in the North, and the gloomy predictions that were made in
+the papers concerning the terrible things the Virginia was going to do
+when she finished the Union fleet at Fortress Monroe, were enough to
+make Marcy feel gloomy himself. But the account of the next fight was
+most inspiriting. The little _Monitor_ proved to be more than a match
+for her ponderous antagonist. Washington would not be bombarded, the
+blockading fleet, which the _Virginia_ was to sink or capture at her
+leisure, was still on top of the water and likely to stay there, and the
+recognition of the Southern Confederacy by France and England was as far
+off as ever.
+
+"There's one thing I like about Northern papers," said Marcy, when he
+had read every line he could find that in any way related to the matter
+that was just then uppermost in his mind. "They always tell the truth.
+If their people are whipped they don't hesitate to say so, but ours
+gloss it over and try to make it appear that every fight is a
+Confederate victory. According to our Newbern papers the South hasn't
+lost a single place that she couldn't spare as well as not. Donelson and
+Fort Henry were outposts that we did not intend to hold anyway, and
+Roanoke Island was of so little consequence that the Richmond
+authorities did not garrison it as heavily as they would if they had
+wanted to keep it. It's the worst kind of bosh, and everybody in the
+South knows it. Now then," he added, addressing himself to Julius, who,
+since he followed his master into the room, had stood in one corner
+hearing and seeing all that was said and done, "put these guns and
+things where they belong, and stand by to-night after dark to help me
+hide them in the garden. You heard what that Federal officer said about
+the Home Guards, didn't you? Well, what do you know of them?"
+
+"Not de fustest think, Marse Mahcy," answered the boy earnestly. "Dey
+gettin' to be mighty jubus of de niggahs round hyar, an' nobody nebber
+say nuffin whar Julius kin ketch it."
+
+"Keep your eyes and ears open, and if you do catch on to anything come
+straight to me with it; do you understand? Now I am going to ride out
+for a while."
+
+"Do you intend to say anything about our visitors?" inquired his
+mother.
+
+"If I meet anyone who knows they were here I don't see how I can avoid
+speaking of them," was Marcy's reply. "But circumstances will have to
+determine what I shall say about them. I don't mean to let every Tom,
+Dick, and Harry know how very friendly that captain was with us. I don't
+think it would be just the thing. Good-by."
+
+"Look a hyar, Marse Mahcy," began Julius; and then he hesitated for as
+much as a minute before he went on to say, "You know dat niggah Mose?"
+
+"Yes, I know Mose," answered Marcy, and he might have added that he knew
+him to be the laziest and most worthless black man on the plantation.
+"What of him?"
+
+"Well, sar, moster," replied the boy, "when I fotch in dem guns an' luf
+'em on de table I slip out de do' kase I aint wantin' to see no horns
+an' hoofs like Marse Jack say de Yankees done got, an' I see Mose
+talkin' wid dem soldiers in de road. Den he slip thoo 'em into de bresh
+on de odder side de road an' never come out no mo'; an' den I come hyar
+to tol' you."
+
+"Do you mean to say that Mose has run away?" cried Marcy and his mother
+in concert.
+
+"Yes, sar, missus; dat's what I mean," replied Julius.
+
+Marcy was much surprised to hear it, but after all it was nothing more
+nor less than he had predicted when the war first broke out. The negroes
+knew to a man that the contest between the North and South would decide
+whether they were to be bondsmen or free, and it was natural that their
+sympathies should be on the side of those who did not believe in
+slavery, and that they should desire to be with them.
+
+"You are quite sure that the Yankee soldiers did not take Mose away, are
+you?" said Marcy, after a little pause.
+
+Yes, Julius was positive about that. When the Federal captain left the
+house Julius had hastened to the front porch in order to satisfy himself
+on that very point, and had taken pains to see that Mose was not with
+the soldiers when they rode away. Mose had gone on his own hook.
+
+"I am afraid he will repent when it is too late," said Mrs. Gray, with a
+sigh of regret. "Mose is too old, and too badly crippled with
+rheumatism, to be of any use to his new friends."
+
+"I suppose you and Morris will be going next," said Marcy, nodding at
+Julius, "and that, if I want my filly brought to the door, I can bring
+her myself."
+
+"Oh, hursh, honey," replied the boy. "I aint a-keerin what dat old
+niggah Morris gwine do, but Julius aint gwine run away."
+
+"I think you are better off here than you would be anywhere else. The
+Yankees believe that those who don't work can't eat, and that would let
+you out so far as grub is concerned. You never did a hand's turn in your
+life. Now go and tell Morris to saddle my horse, and then come back, and
+put away these guns as I told you."
+
+When Julius left the room Marcy put on his hat, and went out to ask if
+any of the other house servants knew that old Mose had run away, and was
+not much surprised to find that they all knew of it and had been
+expecting it, for Mose had given them due-notice of what he intended to
+do. He had often been heard to say that if the Yankee soldiers ever came
+to the plantation he would go away with them, and he had kept his word.
+Some planters in the neighborhood would have said, "Good riddance to bad
+rubbish," for of late years Mose had not done work enough to pay for the
+corn meal and bacon he ate, let alone the clothes he wore; but Marcy
+felt sorry for him, and predicted that Mose would repent of his bargain
+in less than a month.
+
+"Marse Mahcy, will the Yankees luf him come back if he wants to?"
+inquired Morris.
+
+"I reckon not," was the boy's answer. "The Federal general, Butler, has
+declared slaves to be contraband of war, and I don't think they will
+give Mose up any more than they would surrender a mule they had
+captured. Now, what do you black ones know about the Home Guards?"
+
+The expression of bewilderment that came upon the ebony faces by which
+he was surrounded prepared Marcy for the reply. The servants, one and
+all, declared that they did not know what he meant; and this made it
+plain that the rebels in the settlement were beginning to learn that
+their black people could not be trusted to keep their secrets. He went
+into the house to tell his mother what he had learned, and finding his
+filly at the door when he came back, he mounted and rode away.
+
+The first white man he saw was one who could have told him all about the
+Home Guards if he had been so disposed. It was Captain Beardsley, who
+was still in the field with his negroes, Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin
+having left him a few minutes before Marcy came up. The man did not stop
+his work and come to the fence, nor did he look up as Marcy rode by; and
+this made the latter believe that his old captain had some reason for
+wishing to avoid him.
+
+"He is going to spring something else on me, and before long, too," was
+what Marcy said to himself as he passed on down the road. "When
+Beardsley won't talk he is dangerous."
+
+That he had shot close to the mark was made evident to Marcy before ten
+minutes more had passed over his head. A short distance farther on was
+the gate which gave entrance to the carriage-way that ran by the ruins
+of Beardsley's home. It was wide open, and as he rode up he saw a
+horseman passing through it. Marcy had a fair view of him, and
+recognized him at once as the man Hanson, his mother's old overseer; and
+he was riding one of Beardsley's horses.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A FRIEND IN GRAY.
+
+Marcy Gray had seldom thought of his mother's overseer since he learned
+that he had been spirited away by armed and masked men, and, when he
+did, it was to indulge in the hope that he would never see or hear of
+him again. He did not believe that Hanson would dare disregard the
+warning of the Union men, who had "turned him loose, with orders never
+to show his face in the settlement again;" but here he was, riding along
+the public road in broad daylight, without making the least effort at
+concealment, and, to make the situation more alarming, he was riding one
+of Captain Beardsley's horses. Acting upon the first thought that came
+into his mind, Marcy urged his filly forward, intending to speak to the
+man, and Hanson, nothing loath, turned his horse about to wait for him.
+
+"I'm on hands agin, like a bad piece of money," he said, with a laugh.
+
+"So I see," answered Marcy. "And I must say that I little expected to
+meet you."
+
+Hanson's response, and the way in which he acted, disheartened Marcy
+Gray, for they gave him a clew to the course this enemy of his mother's
+had marked out for himself. The first thing he did was to ride up and
+offer Marcy his hand, and the boy took it, because he did not think it
+would be policy to refuse. He wanted to find out what the man's plans
+were, and he could not do that by making him angry the first thing he
+did. Then Hanson went on to say:
+
+"But I'm back agin, all the same, and safe and sound, too. I hope you
+didn't think I would let them few Yankees scare me away from my home
+altogether? I belong on your plantation, and there's right where I am
+going before I am many hours older."
+
+This was an astounding and terrifying statement, and it was a minute or
+two before Marcy could collect his wits sufficiently to reply to it.
+
+"We never expected you to come back, and so I took your place," said he
+at length. "I am my mother's overseer now."
+
+"You!" exclaimed Hanson, with a laugh. "What do you know about farming
+and driving niggers? 'Taint gentleman's work, that aint, and you aint by
+no means suited to it. I'll take it off your hands now. 'Cording to my
+contract, I can't leave till next month, any way, and, besides, I've
+lost right smart of time. I didn't leave the plantation of my own free
+will; but that don't make no difference."
+
+"We owe you a little money, and mother will give it to you any day you
+call for it; but we don't ask you to make up any lost time," said Marcy,
+who couldn't bear the thought of having this sneaking Hanson on the
+plantation again.
+
+"I know what my duty is," replied the overseer very decidedly, "and I
+mean to do it. I bargained with your mother for so much a year. I want
+every cent of that money, for I can't afford to do without it; but I
+shan't ask for it till I have done twelve good solid months of work."
+
+Marcy felt like yelling, and it was only by a great effort of will that
+he controlled himself. He knew pretty nearly what was before him now. He
+believed that Beardsley had kept track of Hanson; that he knew where he
+had been all the while, and that he had brought him back to fill out his
+unexpired term as overseer, because he had failed to induce Marcy and
+his mother to employ Kelsey in his place. Hanson would make it his
+business to get on the track of that money. He would not succeed, of
+course; but Mrs. Gray would not see a moment's peace during her waking
+hours, or enjoy a moment's refreshing sleep at night, as long as Hanson
+remained on the place. Oh, why was not Aleck Webster on hand to tell him
+what to do in a case like this?
+
+"I knowed your maw would be looking for me to come back and finish out
+my time," continued Hanson, "but I was most afraid to come till I heard
+that the coast was clear, and I wouldn't be in no danger of being
+pestered by them Union men."
+
+"There are some of them about here yet," said Marcy.
+
+"Not many, there aint," replied the overseer, who seemed to understand
+the situation perfectly. "The wust of them have went into the Yankee
+navy; and them that's left aint men to be afraid of. Besides, I've got a
+body guard that won't put up with no nonsense from them or any other
+Union men. You know all about the Home Guards?"
+
+"I heard of them for the first time this morning," said Marcy
+truthfully. "But then I have not been around much since I came home."
+
+The last words slipped out before Marcy knew it; but Hanson seemed to
+take them as a matter of course, for he said in reply:
+
+"I don't know as I blame you for keeping clost to home for a few days.
+You couldn't do no other way than you did do, but there's some
+onreasonable folks about who stick to it that you had oughter run that
+there gunboat on the ground. That's what Beardsley allowed to do, but
+they didn't give him the chance. I wouldn't like to be one who had
+anything to do with the burning of Beardsley's house. He's an officer in
+the Home Guards, a leftenant or something, and he allows to hunt them
+men down the first thing he does."
+
+"Probably he knows where to look for them," said Marcy.
+
+"If he don't he can guess pretty clost to the place," answered Hanson.
+"But you're all right. Nobody in this settlement is going to let harm
+come to you."
+
+"When did you return, and how does it come that you are riding the
+captain's horse?"
+
+"Oh, him and me has always been friends, and when he got Miss Brown to
+write to me in Newbern that it was safe for me to come back and work my
+year out on your plantation, and that he knew you and your maw was
+looking for me to do it, as any honest man should, I come right to his
+house. I've been here three days, looking round and keeping sorter clost
+in doors, and allow to go up to your place this afternoon."
+
+So it seemed that there was no help for it, at least for the present.
+The man had told him some things he was glad to know, and talked as
+though he believed Marcy to be as good a rebel as he was himself.
+Perhaps he would be willing to go further and tell him how he, Marcy,
+stood in the estimation of the Home Guards.
+
+"I suppose the object of that organization is to make Union men behave
+themselves," he said, at a venture.
+
+"You're mighty right," answered Hanson. "Likewise to see that all the
+prisoners about here, who was paroled at the Island, go back to the army
+where they belong. Some of 'em have been talking agin the 'Federacy in a
+way we uns don't like to hear, and we're going to put a stop to all sich
+work as that."
+
+"No one asked me to join, and that is the reason I knew nothing about
+it," continued Marcy. "When you see Beardsley, will you tell him that I
+want to come in?"
+
+If he expected the man to hesitate or raise objections he was
+disappointed, for Hanson answered readily:
+
+"I'll do it. You'll get in easy enough, and I know Beardsley will be
+glad to have you. Some of our men aint got a thing in the way of guns,
+and I know you wouldn't mind lending some of yours that you don't need.
+Well, I must be piking along. I'll be up this afternoon, tell your
+maw."
+
+"And it will be the worst news she ever heard," thought Marcy, as the
+two separated and rode away in different directions. "What he is up to
+now I can't imagine; but he has strong backing, I know from the way he
+talks. Mother has always been afraid that he would come back to trouble
+her, and here he is. And here am I without a friend to advise or assist
+me. I was almost sure that something like this would happen when Aleck
+Webster and his friends deserted me."
+
+But if Aleck was gone there was at least one man in the neighborhood who
+was able and willing to take his place, and that was Ben Hawkins, the
+paroled prisoner, whom he encountered before he left Beardsley's gate a
+quarter of a mile behind. The man was sitting on his horse in the middle
+of the road, and the first words he spoke seemed to indicate that he was
+waiting for Marcy.
+
+"Who was that onery looking chap I met along here a spell ago riding
+Beardsley's old clay-bank?" said Hawkins. "I seen you talking to him up
+there."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Hawkins," exclaimed Marcy, who had suddenly resolved to put a
+certain matter to the test then and there. "You saw and talked with a
+Federal scouting party that came through here this morning, and the
+officer in command told me that you are a good friend of mine. Is that
+so or not?"
+
+"What do you want me to do to prove it?" asked the rebel in reply.
+
+"Ob, a hundred things," answered Marcy. "But in the first place, do you
+know anything about the Home Guards?"
+
+"Being one of 'em I oughter know all about 'em," was the reply. "But not
+being pizen enough agin the Unionists to suit 'em, I have sorter got it
+into my head that they are keeping some things from me. All the same, I
+know enough to be sartin sure that they mean harm to you."
+
+"That is what I thought; and I am certain of it too, now that this
+Hanson has returned. He used to be my mother's overseer, and is the man
+who was taken from his house and carried into the swamp."
+
+"So that's the chap, is it?" exclaimed Hawkins. "I didn't know him, for
+your mother hired him after I 'listed; but I've heard as much as I want
+to know about him. Of course he is going back on the place to stay his
+time out?"
+
+"That is what he says; but the worst of it is that he wants to make up
+the time he lost by being carried away. Now, is there any way in which I
+can stop that?"
+
+"You can shoot him, I reckon. That's what I'd do for any man who kept
+shoving himself on me when he wasn't wanted, like this feller is shoving
+himself on you and your maw."
+
+Marcy made no reply, for nothing he could then think of would have
+induced him to carry things as far as that. Hawkins understood this, and
+after thinking a moment he added:
+
+"You can give his name to the fust Yankee officer you meet scouting
+around out here, or you can leave a note on Beardsley's gallery and
+Shelby's, telling them that, if they don't get him off your place in a
+little less than no time, some more of their buildings will go up in
+smoke. Where's the schooner that Beardsley used to run the blockade in?
+He'd ruther lose half his niggers than lose her."
+
+"I know what you mean, but the trouble is I can't prove anything on him.
+I can't bear the thought of destroying his property just because I think
+he is persecuting me."
+
+"If you should blame everything that has happened to you on him you
+would not be fur wrong," said Hawkins earnestly. "He's mighty savage
+agin you for not trying to make that gunboat cap'n quit putting him in
+irons----"
+
+"How in the name of common sense could I stop it?" cried Marcy. "I
+didn't volunteer to go on that boat (I blame Jonas for that), and would
+Captain Benton have paid any attention to me if I had interceded for
+Beardsley? I might have brought myself into difficulty by it."
+
+"Course," replied Hawkins. "A blind man could see that, but all the same
+Beardsley means to even up with you 'cause he was ironed and you wasn't.
+He is first leftenant of the Home Guards, Colonel Shelby being the
+captain, and he's going to take you out'n your bed some night and send
+you to Williamston."
+
+"What for?" exclaimed Marcy.
+
+"And put you in jail there," continued Hawkins. "The lock-up is jammed
+full of Union men already, but they'll find room for one more. And mind
+you, after you onct get in you'll not come out till you promise to 'list
+in the Confederate army. That's the way they are doing now to put
+patriotism into people who aint got any."
+
+"Do you know when the Home Guards intend to come to our house?"
+
+"No, I don't. I wisht I did, so't I could tell you when to be on the
+watch for 'em; but that's one of the things they aint told me, and the
+only way I can think of for you to beat 'em is to be on your guard night
+and day, beginning now."
+
+While this conversation was going on Marcy and his companion had been
+riding slowly in the direction of Nashville. Just before they came
+within sight of the town they met a man dressed in a ragged uniform, and
+riding a mule that looked as though it had served through two or three
+hard campaigns. Marcy recognized him as a poor white of the Kelsey
+stamp, and Hawkins told him in a whisper that he was a paroled prisoner
+like himself, a friend of his, a member of his company and mess, and
+also a Home Guard whom the officers were not afraid to trust. If Marcy
+would ride on and leave him alone with the man, he might be able to
+obtain some information from him. Marcy was glad to agree to this
+programme, and it was duly carried out. He went ahead and waited half an
+hour in Nashville, and might have remained a still longer time had he
+not seen Hawkins ride a short distance down the road from the first
+turn, and then wheel his horse and ride back again out of sight. Taking
+this for a signal, Marcy mounted his filly and set out for home; and, as
+he expected, found Hawkins in the lonely place in the road where he had
+held two interviews with Aleck Webster. He thought the man looked very
+sober, but before he could speak of it Hawkins said, in a thrilling
+whisper:
+
+"Mister Marcy, you aint safe in this here settlement one hour longer. I
+dunno but you had oughter be out of it now."
+
+"What did that friend of yours tell you?" asked the boy, with a
+desperate effort to appear calm, although he knew that his face was as
+white as it could be.
+
+"He said the Home Guards have got things fixed jest as they want 'em,
+and that they are liable to begin operations any time," answered
+Hawkins, who looked as uneasy as Marcy felt. "Beardsley won't hear to
+nothing but that you must be got rid of the very fust thing. You know
+too much to be let loose any longer."
+
+"I know that Beardsley was a smuggler, and believe I could have made
+trouble for him by saying that much to Captain Benton; but I did not do
+it," replied Marcy. "I hadn't the heart to do it, and neither did I
+think he would dare do anything to me so long as the Yankees are so
+thick about here."
+
+"There's where you made the biggest kind of a mistake," said the rebel,
+in a tone of disgust. "I don't see why you were so easy on him when you
+know that he is doing all he can to pester you. My advice to you is to
+leave this very night."
+
+"But where shall I go?" cried Marcy. "And how do I know but they will
+take some sort of vengeance on my mother if they fail to find me?"
+
+"Beardsley won't do the first thing to her, for mean as the Home Guards
+are, there's some among 'em, and one of 'em is talking to you at this
+minute, who won't by no means stand by and see him go as far as that.
+But if she should see them snake you out'n the house and tote you off to
+jail, don't you reckon that would worry her? Your best plan is to light
+out while you can."
+
+"But you have not yet told me where to go," Marcy reminded him.
+
+"Put straight to the swamp and find those Union men," replied the rebel.
+"There's some of 'em there now."
+
+"But I don't know where to find them. The swamps along the coast cover a
+good deal of ground----"
+
+"I know where to find 'em," interrupted Hawkins. "Now, I'll tell you
+what to do: you go straight home, pack up any little things you want to
+take with you for comfort, and when night comes get into one of your
+boats and put straight down the bayou for Middle River. Look out fur
+yourself, fur it's likely that the Yankees have posted sentries all
+along the river, and if they chuck you into the guard-house, there's no
+telling when they will turn you loose. It might put you to some trouble
+to prove that you aint a Confederate spy. And when you get into Middle
+River t'other side of Plymouth, you will find a friend on the bank who
+will tell you what to do."
+
+"Who will he be? What shall I call him?" asked Marcy.
+
+"He will be old man Webster, the father of that sailor who promised to
+stand by you through thick and thin, and then went off and 'listed. He's
+home now, and as soon as I leave you, I'll ride straight down to his
+house and tell him what sort of 'rangement me and you have come to. Oh,
+I am all right with the Union men, even if I do wear a gray jacket; and
+if they aint afraid to trust me you needn't be."
+
+"I am not afraid to trust you," Marcy hastened to say. "But I don't like
+to leave mother. It looks cowardly."
+
+"You want her to have some peace of mind, don't you?" demanded Hawkins,
+almost angrily. "Well, she'll see a heap more of it if you will do as I
+tell you and clear yourself, than she will if you stay to home. As long
+as I am foot-loose, I'll make it my business to go to your house as
+often as any of the Home Guards go there, and the first one who don't do
+jest right will have to answer to me fur it."
+
+"I thank you for the assurance," began Marcy.
+
+"I aint got no time to hear you talk that a way," exclaimed the rebel.
+"What I want to know is whether you are going to foller my advice or
+not."
+
+Marcy said very emphatically that he was.
+
+"Cause, if you don't, you are liable to be started on the road to jail
+before this time tomorrer," added Hawkins.
+
+"I'll do just as you have told me, and there's my hand on it," replied
+Marcy. "You will be sure to arrange matters so that Mr. Webster will
+meet me on the river?"
+
+The soldier assured him that he could be depended on to do as he had
+agreed, and after another lingering hand-shake they separated, Hawkins
+to carry out his part of the programme, and Marcy to take a budget of
+most unwelcome news to his mother. But she bore up under it better than
+he did. She declared that her heart would be much lighter if she knew
+her son was in full possession of his liberty, even though he was
+compelled to hide in the swamp for the time being, than it would be if
+she were called upon to remember, every hour in the day, that he was
+shut up in jail, with a fair prospect before him of being forced into
+the Confederate army, and she urged him to carry out Hawkins's
+instructions to the very letter. And in order to show him that she meant
+he should do that very thing, she began at once to pack his valise. When
+she left the room for a few minutes, Marcy, having become satisfied that
+Hawkins's plan was the best, and in fact the only one that could be
+followed under the circumstances, seated himself at the desk, pulled out
+a sheet of foolscap paper, and began writing a short note upon it. While
+thus engaged his face wore a most determined expression, and when the
+note was finished he put it into his pocket. But he said nothing to his
+mother about it.
+
+The hours were a long time in dragging themselves away, but Marcy and
+his mother had many small details to arrange and many things to talk
+about, and only once was he out of her presence. That was when he made a
+trip to the creek, in company with Julius, to select the boat that was
+to take him down the river. He raised the black boy very high in his own
+estimation by making a confidant of him and promising to take him along
+as his servant, and in order to provide against the upsetting of his
+plan by some awkward blunder on the part of Julius, he told him just
+what he was going to do when darkness came to conceal his movements, and
+how he intended to do it. It was well for him that he went to so much
+trouble, as we shall presently see.
+
+When the afternoon was about half spent Hanson and his trunk made their
+appearance in one of Beardsley's wagons, and Mrs. Gray and Marcy
+listened to his story in the kitchen--the only room about the house to
+which the man had ever been admitted. And the kitchen wasn't in the
+house, but a short distance away from it, and under its own roof. The
+overseer made his statement to Mrs. Gray in much the same words that he
+had made it to Marcy; and when the lady made a mistake by saying that,
+after the experience he had already had with the Union men, she should
+think he would be afraid to return to that plantation, the man answered
+in tones so insolent and savage that Marcy felt inclined to resent them
+on the spot.
+
+"Them villains toted me off onct, Miss Gray, but they won't never do it
+again. I know who they were, I've got friends enough around me to hang
+every one of 'em, and I'm going to do it before I ever leave this place.
+You hear me?"
+
+Those were the words he used, but his manner seemed to say: "I am on
+this plantation with the intention of remaining. I came for a purpose,
+and you dare not turn me off." Marcy understood that to be his meaning,
+and made up his mind that he and Hanson would have a settlement in a
+very few days. Mrs. Gray understood him, but she did not give expression
+to the fears that came upon her, for she knew that by so doing she would
+dishearten her son who, just, then, needed all the encouragement she
+could give him.
+
+It began to grow dark about supper time, and Julius came slouching into
+the sitting-room as if he had no particular business there, but in
+reality to listen to the instructions that Marcy had promised to have
+ready for him at that time.
+
+"You will find the guns and things that you are to hide on the floor of
+my room," said the boy. "My revolvers, fowling-piece, and a good supply
+of ammunition are on my bed; but you must not touch them. They are to go
+with us to the swamp. Be as sly as you can, for, if the Home Guards
+catch you at the work, they will give you something you never had yet--a
+striped shirt."
+
+During the next hour Julius was in and out of the house several times,
+and on each occasion he took something away with him; while Marcy and
+his mother sat side by side on the sofa trying, as Marcy put it, "to do
+talking enough to last them during the separation that was soon to
+come." At last Julius moved silently along the hall and appeared at the
+door of the sitting-room with a heavy valise in his hand, and a bundle
+of quilts and blankets thrown over his shoulder.
+
+"Dis all," he whispered, in his short, jerky way, "an' you best be
+gettin' out'n dar. Good-by, missus. Julius gwine run now like ole
+Mose."
+
+"You haven't seen or heard anything suspicious, have you?"
+
+"Oh, hursh, honey," was the reply. "If Julius hear sumfin, don't you
+reckon he got sense 'nough to tell? You best be gettin' out'n dar 'fore
+dey come. Good-by, missus."
+
+"Go ahead with those things, and I will be at the boat by the time you
+are," said Marcy.
+
+Julius disappeared, but it was not so easy for his master to follow him
+as it was to talk about it. He found it hard to tear himself away, and
+lingered long over the parting so long, in fact, that Julius grew tired
+of waiting for him. He placed the valise and blankets in the bow of the
+boat, made sure for the twentieth time that the little craft was ready
+for the start, and then sauntered back to the house to see why Marcy did
+not come. But he did not find the coast clear this time. Just as he was
+passing through the gate he heard a slight rustling in the bushes that
+lined the carriageway on both sides. Without waiting a second to see
+what made the noise, the quick-witted darky took to his heels; but,
+before he had made half a dozen steps, a man stepped into the
+carriage-way in front of him and seized him by the arm. Julius looked
+up, and saw that he was in the grasp of Captain Beardsley.
+
+"None of that, you little varmint," said the captain. "You stay here
+with me."
+
+As he spoke he tightened his grasp and began dragging his prisoner
+toward the concealment from which he had just emerged; whereupon the
+black boy set up a yell that could have been heard half a mile away. And
+what was more, he kept on yelling until Beardsley clapped his big hand
+over his mouth, and put a stop to the performance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+MARCY TAKES TO THE SWAMP.
+
+The little darky was not very badly frightened on his own account--he
+never got that way unless he saw or heard something he could not
+understand--but he was overwhelmed with anxiety for Marcy Gray, who had
+not yet left the presence of his mother. Julius believed that the
+dwelling had been surrounded by the Home Guards while he was stowing the
+valise and blankets in the boat, and if that proved to be the case,
+Marcy would in all probability start for Williamston jail instead of the
+swamp. The black boy thought of these things in an instant of time, and
+did what he could to upset the plans of the Home Guards by yelling at
+the top of his voice.
+
+"Keep still, you little fule," said Beardsley, in an angry whisper.
+"Nobody's going to hurt you."
+
+"Aint, hey?" exclaimed a second man, who at that moment came upon the
+scene. "I'll hurt him to-morrow, I bet you; I'll have him brung into the
+field; and he has heard me talk often enough to know what them words
+mean."
+
+Just then Julius succeeded in freeing himself from Beardsley's grasp,
+and it was well for him that he did so, for the man had almost smothered
+him by holding his nose between his thumb and fore-finger at the same
+time that he covered his mouth with the rest of his hand. The negro
+gasped once or twice, and then sank to the ground like a piece of wet
+rope.
+
+"All right. Let him lay there till he gets ready to get up," said
+Captain Beardsley. "Where's the men? Where's Shelby!"
+
+"The men started on a run for the house the minute that black villain
+yelled," replied Hanson; for he was the one who came to Beardsley's
+assistance. "Shelby is round on the other side watching the back door,
+and he sent me to see what the fursing was about. Now I'll go back and
+tell him."
+
+"And be sure that you and him keep out of sight when Marcy is brought
+out," cautioned Beardsley. "You don't want to let him get a sight at ary
+one of you, for there's no telling when he will have the power on his
+own side."
+
+The overseer hastened away, trusting more to the darkness than to the
+bushes in the yard to conceal him from Mrs. Gray's view and Marcy's,
+should either of them chance to look out at the window, and the captain
+moved a few steps nearer to the carriage-way, so that he could look at
+the house through the branches of an evergreen. When he first peeped out
+the front windows were all dark; but presently lights began to appear
+here and there, heavy steps and loud angry voices were heard in the
+house, and finally the front door opened, and a man, carrying a lighted
+lamp in his hand, came out and walked the whole length of it. Captain
+Beardsley was surprised, and he felt uncomfortable, too. If the boy of
+whom they were in search was in the house he ought to have been
+discovered before this time; and if he had escaped, where could he have
+gone unless it was to Plymouth or to the Union men who were hidden in
+the swamp? If he had gone to either place Captain Beardsley knew it
+meant the loss of more buildings to him and Colonel Shelby.
+
+"And if he's went off it is bekase some traitor or 'nother in our
+company told him he'd better," soliloquized Beardsley, when he saw the
+lights shining from the windows of the upper rooms. "Julius, come here.
+I want to ask you something."
+
+The black boy had by this time recovered his breath and strength enough
+to sit up. He had all his wits about him, and was as much interested in
+what was going on in the house as Captain Beardsley himself. He saw the
+lights ascend from the lower rooms to those in the second story, and
+finally he saw them in the garret and in the observatory on the roof;
+and when no shout of triumph, or any sound to indicate that there was a
+disturbance in the house, came to his ears to tell him that his master
+had been traced to his hiding-place and captured, the wild hope seized
+upon him that Marcy, in some mysterious manner, had succeeded in eluding
+the Home Guards. If that was the case he would of course make the best
+of his way to the boat; and if he got there before Julius did he would
+shove off alone, and Julius would be left behind to labor under the lash
+of the overseer. He thought he would rather die than do that, but how
+could he escape from Beardsley and reach the creek in time to meet Marcy
+there? When he heard the captain calling to him he got upon his feet and
+approached the carriage-way, just as Beardsley bent his head almost to
+the ground, to watch a light that was shining from one of the cellar
+windows. He held that position for a moment, and then a roar like that
+of a thousand Niagaras rang in his ears and all was blank to him. He
+sank limp and motionless to the ground, while Julius took to his heels
+and disappeared through the gate. Half an hour later, when the Home
+Guards came out of the house without finding Marcy Gray or anything that
+could be used as evidence against him, they were astounded and greatly
+alarmed to find Captain Beardsley lying unconscious in the carriageway.
+
+And where was Marcy all this time! When the black boy's first note of
+warning fell upon his ear he was imprinting a farewell kiss upon his
+mother's lips and giving her a last embrace; but they fell apart
+instantly when they heard that wild cry, for they knew what it meant.
+
+"There they are!" gasped Mrs. Gray. "Marcy, I am afraid I have detained
+you too long."
+
+"You have not kept me a moment," said Marcy quickly, "for I was no more
+anxious to go than you were to have me. Keep them in the house as long
+as you can, and I will go into the cellar and try to slip through one of
+the windows into the garden. Poor Julius will be broken-hearted when he
+finds that I went without him. Once more good-by, and don't expect to
+see me under a week."
+
+[Illustration: JULIUS GIVES THE ALARM.]
+
+Pressing as the need for haste was, Marcy snatched another farewell kiss
+and ran out of the room, taking care not to pass between a window and a
+lamp that stood on the centre-table. He caught his cap from the rack as
+he hurried through the hall, and in less time than it takes to tell it,
+was standing before an open cellar window, waiting and listening. His
+ears told him when the Home Guards charged upon the house and entered it
+through the back and side doors, and believing that the sentries, if
+there had been any posted outside, would be wholly engrossed with what
+was going on in the dwelling, he seized upon that particular moment to
+make his attempt at escape. Slowly and carefully he crawled up into the
+window, and when he raised his head above the ground all he could see
+were bushes and trees and a starlit sky, and all he could hear was the
+murmur of voices in the sitting-room. If the doors were guarded, as it
+was reasonable to suppose they were, this particular cellar window was
+not, and Marcy made haste to crawl out of it and across an intervening
+flower-bed to the friendly shelter of a thicket of bushes beyond. He did
+not linger there an instant, but taking it for granted that Ben Hawkins
+was with the Home Guards, and remembering that the man had promised to
+see that they behaved themselves while they were in his mother's house,
+he started at once for the creek, crawling on his hands and knees until
+he was sure he had passed beyond the sentries that he thought ought to
+have been left in the yard, and then he sprang up and ran like a deer.
+He hardly knew when he reached the fence, over which he went as easily
+as though he had been furnished with wings, but he knew when he halted
+on the bank of the creek and caught Julius in the act of shoving off
+with the boat. Thinking only of Captain Beardsley and the overseer and
+his whip, the frightened black boy could not be prevailed upon to stop
+until he had pushed the boat to the middle of the stream, where he felt
+comparatively safe; and then he looked over his shoulder to see who his
+pursuer was.
+
+"Why, honey!" he exclaimed, as he got out the oars and backed the boat
+toward the place where Marcy was standing. "Was dat you? What you doin'
+hyar? How come dey don't cotch you in de house?"
+
+"Come here quick, and take me on board," replied Marcy; and he
+continued, as he stepped into the stern of the boat and picked up the
+paddle he had provided for a steering oar: "What do you mean by trying
+to desert me in this fashion; and was that you yelling a while ago?"
+
+"Yes sar, Marse Mahcy, it was Julius done dat yellin', an' I done it
+kase I aint want Cap'n Beardsley to cotch you in de house," answered the
+boy, as he laid out his strength on the oars, and sent the boat swiftly
+away from the bank.
+
+"Are you sure that Beardsley was with those men?" asked Marcy earnestly.
+"Think twice before you speak, or you may be the means of making me do
+something that I shall be sorry for as long as I live."
+
+"Julius don't need to think no two times 'fore he answer dat question.
+De cap'n was dar, an' so was de oberseer. I know, kase de cap'n squoze
+my arm till it blacker' n my skin. An' de oberseer 'low to take me to de
+field in de mawnin'."
+
+"If Beardsley had you by the arm how did you manage to get away from
+him?" said Marcy, who had good reason for wishing to be sure of his
+ground.
+
+"Well, sar, moster, I buck him; dat's de way I got loose from de cap'n.
+He scrooch down dis a way, so he kin look in de suller." said Julius,
+bending forward until his back was nearly on a level with the gunwales
+of the boat, "an' I whack him behine de ear, an' he drap so quick he
+don't know what hit him. Dat's de troof, sure's you born."
+
+Marcy did not doubt it, for if Beardsley had been foolish enough to
+place himself in that position while Julius was within reach of him, the
+black boy could have knocked him senseless without any trouble at all.
+He was the acknowledged champion "bucker" of the neighborhood, and had
+been known to do such things. The most pugnacious among the little
+darkies would scream out in terror, and seek safety in flight, if Julius
+raised one foot from the ground and hopped toward him on the other with
+his head lowered threateningly, and there was not one among them with a
+head hard enough to stand against him for a moment if Julius succeeded
+in catching him by the ears. He could double up the strongest negro on
+the plantation by butting him in the pit of the stomach, and he would do
+it if one of them incurred his displeasure, even though he had to wait a
+month to find his opportunity. And he told nothing but the truth when he
+said that he had knocked Captain Beardsley down in that way. All he
+wanted now was a chance at the overseer. He knew that Mrs. Gray and
+Marcy did not want him on the place, and consequently Julius did not
+think he would be punished for butting him "good fashion."
+
+"Did Beardsley or Hanson say anything about me?" was Marcy's next
+question.
+
+"All I heard de cap'n say was dat de oberseer an' Shelby want to watch
+out dat you don't see 'em when you come out'n de house," replied Julius.
+"Dey don't want you to know dey was dar."
+
+Julius gave way strong on the oars and Marcy steered the boat, listened
+for sounds of pursuit, and thought over the situation. He made up his
+mind to one thing before he had left the house fairly out of sight, and
+that was that Captain Beardsley and Colonel Shelby would be sorry that
+they had had anything to do with the Home Guards. His patience was all
+gone now, and every move they made should be met by a counter-movement
+on his own part. He thought he knew the name of every man in the
+company, and he would take pains to see that the Federal commander at
+Plymouth knew them also and where they lived; and while he was waiting
+for the Yankees to do something he would do something himself, beginning
+that very night.
+
+Having at last satisfied himself that the Home Guards were not pursuing
+him, Marcy dismissed them from his mind for the present, his actions
+indicating that he was looking for some object he expected to find in
+the creek in advance of him. He was searching for Beardsley's schooner,
+and was so long in finding it that he began to fear her owner had stolen
+a march upon him by towing her from the creek to a safer hiding-place.
+But the captain evidently thought she could not be in any safer berth
+than the one she had always occupied in the creek in front of his house,
+for there was where Marcy found her, as he was on the point of giving up
+the search and telling Julius to pull for Middle River the best he knew
+how, for there was a man waiting for them there.
+
+"It seems a pity to destroy a fine vessel like this," said Marcy, as
+Julius caught the fore chains and allowed the current to swing the boat
+broadside to the _Hattie_.
+
+"Well, den, what for dat rebel burn all dem fine ships out on de watah
+like Marse Jack tell about?" demanded Julius. "An' what for de cap'n
+brung all dem Home Gyards to de house to cotch you an' tote you off to
+jail?"
+
+With all Beardsley's persecutions so fresh in his mind, Marcy Gray did
+not stand upon the order of going to work but went at once. Before
+Julius ceased speaking he was over the schooner's rail, with a bag of
+"fat" wood in one hand and an axe in the other. The hatches were
+fastened down of course, and the door that gave entrance to the cabin
+was locked; but the latter yielded to a single heavy blow with the axe,
+and Marcy went in and emptied his bag of kindling wood upon the floor.
+Then he piled upon it everything he found in the cabin that he could
+move, including the slats in the bunks, the tables and chairs, and the
+doors that he could tear from their hinges. Over all he poured a couple
+of quarts of oil from bottles that he had brought with him for the
+purpose, and set fire to it in three or four different places. He waited
+until he saw the work of destruction fairly begun, and then ran on deck
+and dropped into the boat.
+
+"Now set me ashore at the foot of that poplar to which the breast-line
+is made fast," said he. "I want Beardsley to know who did this work, and
+why it was done. But of course he knows without any telling."
+
+"Hi yi, Marse Mahcy, she gwine go right up in de elemunts!" cried
+Julius, as a cloud of smoke, which was brightly illumined by the fire
+that was blazing beneath, came pouring out of the cabin-door.
+
+"I think I made a sure thing of it," answered Marcy. "Of course she will
+burn readily, for everything in the cabin is covered with paint or
+varnish. We can't get away from here any too quick. Hurry up."
+
+It did not take Julius more than two minutes to row around the stern of
+the schooner to the tree to which the breast-line was fastened, nor did
+it take Marcy longer than that to spring ashore and place upon a
+neighboring tree, in a conspicuous position where it would be sure to
+catch the eye of the first man who passed that way, the note which he
+had written that afternoon while his mother was packing his valise. It
+was addressed to Captain Beardsley, and ran as follows:
+
+     This is to pay you for the share you had in bringing Hanson
+     back to our plantation, and in organizing the Home Guards to
+     take me to Williamston Jail. This is the first payment on a
+     big debt I owe you and Colonel Shelby. If you do not wish
+     any more like it take Hanson away from our place at once and
+     keep him away; and furthermore, keep everybody else away
+     from there. You are on a false scent, and so long as you
+     follow it, so long will you continue to lose property. There
+     is no large sum of money in or around the house. When you
+     become satisfied of that fact perhaps you will cease
+     troubling my mother.
+
+Placing this note on the side of the tree opposite the fire so that it
+would not be scorched by the heat, and fastening it there with three or
+four wooden pins so that the wind would not blow it away, Marcy ran back
+to the boat, and Julius once more pushed out into the stream. He turned
+to look behind him every few minutes, but the boat was pulled into
+Middle River, and perhaps two or three miles down its swift current
+toward the coast, before he saw any signs of the fire he had left
+behind; and at the moment his eye caught its first faint reflection on
+the clouds, he heard a cautious hail from the bank.
+
+"Boat ahoy!" came through the darkness in tones that were just loud
+enough to attract his attention.
+
+"Who is it?" demanded Marcy, picking up the loaded gun that lay beside
+him in the stern-sheets. "Way enough, Julius."
+
+"Mebbe dat aint de man you want see," replied the boy, handling the oars
+as if he meant to turn the boat toward the opposite bank.
+
+"I am Aleck Webster's father," said the voice, in answer to Marcy's
+question. "Ben Hawkins sent me here to show you the way to our camp."
+
+"When did you see Hawkins?" inquired Marcy.
+
+"This afternoon; and he told me that the Home Guards were likely to
+drive you away from home to-night. It's all right, Mister Marcy."
+
+The latter was so sure of it that he at once turned the boat toward the
+point from which the voice came (the night was so dark that he could not
+see anything but bushes and trees on the bank), and in two minutes more
+was standing by Mr. Webster's side. The man pointed toward the bright
+spot on the clouds and said, in a voice that Marcy recognized this
+time:
+
+"Are the Home Guards out to-night?"
+
+"Oh, yes; they're out, and came to my mother's house, or I shouldn't be
+here now. But they didn't set anything on fire so far as I know."
+
+"Then whose work is that? There's something burning off that way."
+
+"It is the work of _Marcy, the Refugee_. That's I. After persecuting me
+for months in every way he could think of, Beardsley has driven me from
+home at last, and I set fire to his schooner to pay him for it."
+
+"I am a refugee myself," replied Mr. Webster. "And there's my hand,
+which says that I will stand your friend as long as you need one. If the
+Home Guards had been organized a few weeks sooner Aleck would not have
+left us old men and boys to fight our battles alone. But he had an idea
+that the presence of the Yankees on the coast would serve as a
+protection to us; and there's where he was wrong. If we don't do
+something at once, they will follow us into the swamp and kill or
+capture the last one of us. That fight in Hampton Roads put life and
+energy into them."
+
+"I don't see why it should. They got the worst of it."
+
+"Are you sure?" exclaimed Mr. Webster. "I heard that we got the worst of
+it; that some of our best ships were sunk or burned."
+
+"Will it be quite safe for us to stop here long enough to have a snack?"
+said Marcy. "Then, Julius, you may hand out that brown basket; the one
+with the napkin spread over the top. I'm hungry, and I suppose you are,
+Mr. Webster, for you have walked from your home since Hawkins saw you
+this afternoon. By the way, where is Hawkins now?"
+
+"He will hang around the settlement as long as he can, and take to the
+woods only when he sees that preparations are being made to compel him
+to go back to the army. Didn't you see him with the Home Guards
+to-night?"
+
+Marcy replied that he did not see anybody, for he ran before the Home
+Guards came into the house. If Hawkins was with them, as he had promised
+to be, Marcy was satisfied that no indignity had been offered to his
+mother.
+
+By this time Julius had made the boat fast to a tree on the bank and
+come ashore with the lunch; and while Marcy and his new friend were
+eating the cold bread and meat he passed over to them, the former gave a
+true history of that battle in Hampton Roads as he learned it from the
+papers Captain Barrows left with him. Then he gave a short account of
+his experience and dealings with Captain Beardsley, so that the man
+might know just how much reason he had to stand in fear of him, and
+finally he inquired how many men there were in Mr. Webster's party, and
+where and how they lived. He learned that there was an even score of
+them now, seven of their number (one of whom was Ben Hawkins) being
+paroled prisoners, who declared that they would fight rather than go
+back to the army. It had been the habit of the original members of the
+band to go into the woods whenever they desired to talk about things
+that they didn't want their rebel neighbors to know; but ever since they
+heard of the Home Guards, whose avowed object it was to send all the
+Union men they could find to Williamston Jail, they had become refugees
+in earnest, some of them having taken up their permanent abode in the
+camp. Those who had families to look out for now and then visited their
+homes during the daytime; but judging by the way things looked now, that
+small privilege would soon be denied them.
+
+"And when it comes so that we can't see our folks for fear of being
+shot, or marched off to jail, we'll take to visiting them in the
+nighttime," said Mr. Webster, in concluding his story. "And if we have
+to do that, we'll light fires to show us the way back to camp."
+
+Having disposed of a good share of the contents of the brown basket, Mr.
+Webster declared that it was time for them to start for the camp, which
+was located in one of Captain Beardsley's wood lots, and not more than
+five miles away. He said that, as long as Captain Beardsley continued to
+trouble him and his friends, they would sleep on his grounds, warm
+themselves and cook their meals over fires built with wood that was cut
+from his trees, steal his corn meal and bacon, and shoot his hogs as
+often as they came within range of the camp. Mr. Webster's canoe was
+close by, and when he stepped into it he fastened the painter of Marcy's
+boat to a cleat in the stern, so that the two little crafts would not
+become separated in the darkness. It might require some talking to bring
+them together again, and they did not want to do much of that until they
+were safe in camp. As they shoved off from the bank they took a last
+look at that bright spot on the clouds, which had been growing brighter
+and larger every moment since it appeared, bearing unmistakable
+testimony to the destructive work that was going on beneath it. If the
+fire had attracted the attention of the Home Guards (and Marcy did not
+see how it could be otherwise), they did not reach the creek in time to
+save the schooner. Marcy wondered what Captain Beardsley's feelings were
+about that time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+When Marcy Gray opened his eyes the next morning at daylight, he was in
+the camp of the refugees, which was to be his home, at irregular
+intervals, for long months to come, and surrounded by men who, like
+himself, were being persecuted for their opinions' sake. The camp was
+located on an island in a remote corner of the swamp that Marcy had
+never seen before, although he had hunted through the country for miles
+on every side of his mother's plantation. In the middle of the island
+was a cleared space, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, and all the bushes
+and trees that had been cut from it were piled around the circumference,
+to serve the double purpose of wind-break and breastwork. There were no
+horses or mules among the refugees to make a trail through the woods
+that could be followed by the Home Guards and soldiers, and no dogs to
+attract their attention by their baying; but there were canoes and boats
+in plenty, and, except when in use, they were concealed in the bushes,
+so that they could not be seen from the mainland. There were several
+snug lean-tos in the camp, to which the refugees retreated in stormy
+weather; but, when the elements were friendly, they preferred to wrap
+themselves in their blankets, and sleep under the trees. When the
+newcomer opened his eyes on this particular morning, the first object
+they rested on was the bearded face of Ben Hawkins, the paroled
+prisoner. He was lying under the same tree, and had been waiting half an
+hour for Marcy to wake up.
+
+"I reckon it does you good to sleep in the open air," were the first
+words he spoke.
+
+"Want of sleep is something that never troubles me," was the reply.
+"Were you out with the Home Guards last night? And how did they treat my
+mother after they got into the house?"
+
+"Didn't I say that the first one amongst 'em who looked cross-ways at
+her, or said anything out of the way, would have to answer to me for
+it?" demanded Hawkins. "I said that much to 'em before we went into your
+yard; and well, them Home Guards know me."
+
+"I assure you that I shall not forget it," said Marcy gratefully. "I
+hope you did not say or do anything to add to their suspicions. You know
+you told me they were afraid to trust you. And why did you come here
+instead of going home?"
+
+"I don't care a cent if they distrust me now more'n they did before,"
+answered Hawkins. "I'm watching 'em, and they'll have to get up in the
+morning to get the start of me. And I come to camp to see if you was
+here, and find out if it was that little nigger's yelling that warned
+you."
+
+"That was just it," replied Marcy. "If Beardsley hadn't caught him, he
+would surely have caught me. What did Beardsley have to say for
+himself?"
+
+"He was purty bad hurt, I tell you; and we had to hold him in the
+hoss-trough for as much as a minute before he came to. He's bound to
+kill that nigger. He didn't see him have no club in his hand when he
+ketched him."
+
+"Julius never struck him with a club," exclaimed Marcy. "He gave him a
+butt under the ear."
+
+The Confederate uttered an ejaculation indicative of the greatest
+astonishment, and then he sat up on his blanket, reached over Marcy's
+shoulder, and began throwing aside the leaves and branches until he
+uncovered a gray quilt. This he pulled off in spite of the desperate
+efforts of some one beneath to prevent it, and when he drew the quilt
+over Marcy's shoulder, he brought with it the boy Julius, who was highly
+enraged because his dreamless slumber had been so rudely disturbed.
+
+"Did you like to butt the life out of Cap'n Beardsley last night?"
+inquired Hawkins. "Come here, and let me see how hard your head is."
+
+"Take you' hands off'n dat head," sputtered Julius. "I buck one rebel
+las' night, an' you want watch out dat I don't buck nodder one dis
+mawning." Then he became good-natured all at once, for he thought of
+something he wanted to ask Hawkins. "What Beardsley say when he seen his
+fine schooner go up in de clouds?"
+
+"He was mad and sorry and skeered," answered Hawkins. "I'll bet you,
+Mister Marcy, that he plum forgot about that schooner, or he wouldn't
+have been in such a hurry to help Shelby raise the Home Guards. Of
+course we rode hard for the fire as soon as we seen it, but we couldn't
+do no good after we got there. The schooner was too far gone."
+
+"Did Beardsley find the note I left for him?" asked Marcy.
+
+"Shelby found it and give it to him; and it was when he read it that he
+looked sorry and skeered. It was lucky you wrote it, for it kept some of
+the Home Guards from being killed."
+
+"How do you make that out?"
+
+"Just this a way," answered Hawkins. "They allowed, after they got
+through with you, to go to the houses of two more Union men so't you
+would have company when you was took to jail. But when Shelby heard your
+letter read he put for his home quick's he could go, some others who
+lived up his way went with him, and that sorter broke up the party.
+Leastwise it didn't leave enough to capture them two Union men, who I
+knew were on the watch and ready to shoot. I went to their houses
+afterward, and brought them into the swamp with me. They're getting
+mighty tired of living in this way, and they allow to rise up and drive
+Beardsley and Shelby out'n the country. There wouldn't be no trouble in
+the settlement if them two was out of it."
+
+"That is what I think," said Marcy, "and I wish that plan might be put
+into operation this very day. What is the use of putting it off? I'll
+help."
+
+While this conversation was going on the other refugees had begun to
+show signs of returning life and energy, and as fast as they arose from
+their blankets they came up to greet Marcy, who was not much surprised
+to find that he could call every one of them by name. Those who had
+rendered him such good service on the night those Newbern robbers raided
+his mother's house made themselves known, and of course received the
+hearty thanks of the boy they had saved from being hung up by the neck.
+One of them remarked that he wished he and his friends had served Hanson
+as they had served the robbers, and this led Marcy to believe that they
+had made short work with them; but he asked no questions.
+
+For men in their circumstances the refugees were the most jovial lot
+Marcy Gray had ever seen. Having learned the art of foraging to
+perfection they lived on the best the country afforded; they were so
+well armed that it would not pay the authorities to try to capture them,
+even if they had known right where to find them; and the secessionists
+in the settlement who had property to lose would not permit the
+Confederate soldiers to molest their wives and children if they could
+possibly help it. But, as Hawkins said, they were becoming tired of
+living in this way, and were talking seriously of taking matters into
+their own hands. If the Federal garrison at Plymouth could not protect
+them, they would protect themselves. That was what Marcy Gray had made
+up his mind to do, and it was his intention to begin operations that
+very day. As soon as breakfast was over he drew Hawkins off on one side
+and took him into his confidence by unfolding the plans he had in his
+head. One was to make a prisoner of his mother's overseer and take him
+to Plymouth; and while there, to give the Federal commander the names of
+the men who belonged to the Home Guards and tell him what they were
+organized for. And lastly he would write letters to Beardsley and
+Shelby, telling them that if they did not move away at once and go among
+the Confederates, where they ought to have gone long ago, the men whom
+they had forced to find refuge in the swamp would destroy everything
+they had.
+
+"I'm with you heart and soul, all except going among the Yankees," said
+Hawkins, after Marcy had made him understand what he had on his mind.
+"I'm sorter jubus that they won't let me come away when I want to. Why
+couldn't we bushwhack Hanson, and not go nigh Plymouth at all?"
+
+"Shoot him behind his back?" cried Marcy. "Look here, Hawkins, I hope
+you are not that sort. I never could look my mother in the face if I
+should consent to that. Haven't you something to show that you are a
+paroled prisoner?"
+
+"Not the first thing. One of my officers signed for me."
+
+"All right. Then you stand by me till we capture and tie Hanson, and I
+will take him down the river myself. I have something in my pocket that
+will bring me home all right. And while I am gone you will deliver a
+couple of letters for me, will you not?"
+
+Oh, yes; Hawkins was perfectly willing to do that, and when he delivered
+the warning letters he would add a few words of his own that would
+perhaps emphasize what Marcy wrote. Being satisfied with his promise the
+boy hastened to hunt up the portfolio he had been thoughtful enough to
+bring with him, and while he wrote the letters which he hoped would
+forever relieve the community of the meanest men in it, his Confederate
+friend busied himself in telling all the rest of the refugees what he
+was writing about. Marcy's energy was contagious; and by the time he and
+Hawkins and Julius were ready to start on their mission, half the men in
+camp were writing similar notes, to be delivered to certain obnoxious
+persons by other paroled prisoners. Every one of them would have been
+glad to "see Marcy through," as they expressed it, if he would agree
+that Hanson should be bushwhacked instead of being turned over to the
+Yankees. Although they were strong Union men, they might not be able to
+prove it to the satisfaction of the Federals, and for that reason they
+did not care to put themselves in their power.
+
+"And I don't blame you for it," said Marcy. "I wouldn't dare go among
+them myself if I wasn't sure they would let me come home again. I don't
+need any help, except such as Hawkins is willing to give me. If I once
+get Hanson afloat, I shall take him to Plymouth, unless he throws
+himself into the river; and I know he isn't the man to do that."
+
+Everything being ready for the start, Marcy and his two companions
+crossed to the main land in one of the canoes which they concealed among
+the bushes when they reached the bank, and set out for Mrs. Gray's
+house, holding such a course that they would pass one of Beardsley's
+fields on the way. They expected to find him at work there with his
+negroes, and they were not disappointed. When they discovered him, Marcy
+drew his letters from his pocket and handed one of them to Hawkins, who,
+after telling him where he would find him again at the end of half an
+hour, climbed the fence and set out across the field. Marcy waited until
+he came up with Beardsley and handed him the letter, and then resumed
+his walk, arriving at the place of meeting just about the time that
+Hawkins got there. The latter was laughing all over.
+
+"You writ him a pretty sassy letter, didn't you?" said he.
+
+"I told him what I want him to do, and what he may expect if he doesn't
+do it," was Marcy's reply. "What did he say?"
+
+"He wanted to know where I got the letter, and I told him I was
+hog-hunting in the woods and met a Union man, who asked me would I give
+it to him, and I said I would," answered Hawkins. "Then he got mad and
+whooped and hollered, and said he'd be shot if he stirred one step away
+from his home; but I reckon he thought better of it when I told him that
+Miss Gray's overseer would be in Plymouth to-night, and that a squad of
+Yankee cavalry would be looking for him and Shelby to-morrer. That was
+all right, wasn't it?"
+
+"Perfectly right. I don't care a cent what starts him, so long as he
+starts. Now for Hanson. We ought to find him in a field about a quarter
+of a mile away in this direction. I am afraid he will run when he sees
+me."
+
+"If he does I'll stop him," replied Hawkins, patting the butt of a long
+squirrel-rifle he carried on his shoulder.
+
+For the first time in many months things seemed to be working in Marcy's
+favor; for when he and his companion came within sight of the field in
+which Hanson ought to have found employment that day for Mrs. Gray's
+hands, he was there, and he did not see them until after they had
+crossed the fence and made considerable progress toward him. The sight
+of Marcy made Hanson uneasy--his actions proved that--and it is probable
+that he would have taken to his heels if the boy had not been in the
+company of a Confederate soldier who was also a member of the Home
+Guards. Still he must have feared treachery, for when Marcy approached
+close enough to speak to him, he saw that his face was very white, and
+that his hands trembled so violently he could scarcely hold his knife
+and the stick he was trying to cut.
+
+"Morning, gentlemen," said he with a strong effort to appear at his
+ease. "Fine morning, this morning."
+
+"Cicero," said Marcy, addressing one of the field hands and paying no
+sort of attention to the overseer's greeting, "unless you receive other
+orders from my mother, you will have charge of this work until I return.
+Hanson is going with me."
+
+"With you, Mister Marcy!" said the man, in a weak voice. "The missus
+done told me to come out here."
+
+"She gave you no orders whatever, and you have not seen her this
+morning. I order you to get ready to go to Plymouth," answered Marcy;
+whereupon Hawkins placed his rifle upon the ground and drew a rope from
+one of his pockets.
+
+Never in his life had Marcy seen a man so astonished and frightened as
+the overseer was at that moment. He dared not resist, and he could not
+speak when Hawkins drew his arms behind his back and fastened them there
+with the rope. As to the negroes, who were quick to understand the
+situation, they would have danced and shouted for joy had they not known
+that such a demonstration would be displeasing to their young master; so
+they contented themselves with bringing forward one of their number, who
+bared his brawny shoulder, and by the action called Marcy's attention
+to a long ugly-looking welt that had been left there by a blow from the
+overseer's raw-hide.
+
+"Whoop!" yelled Julius; and, to quote from the field hands, he
+immediately "drapped his wing"; that is to say, he humped up his
+shoulders and back, dropped his chin upon his breast, raised one foot
+from the ground, and began hopping toward the overseer on the other. In
+a minute more Hanson would have been served as Captain Beardsley was the
+night before, if Marcy had not put a stop to the little darky's antics
+by taking hold of his collar and giving him a twist that sent him ten
+feet away.
+
+"I know what you uns are going to do, and I aint no ways scared of you,"
+said Hanson, who at last mustered up courage enough to speak; but his
+white face and trembling limbs belied his words. "My friends will make
+you suffer for this."
+
+"That's all right," said Hawkins cheerfully. "If they don't leave the
+country this very night, like they have been told to do, you will see
+'em in Plymouth to-morrer. Now, will you go peaceable, or shall I walk
+you along by the neck?"
+
+The Confederate soldier picked up his rifle and waved his hand in the
+direction of the great house, and the prisoner started toward it without
+hesitating or saying another word; while Marcy ran on ahead to tell his
+mother what he had done. Although the field was in plain sight no one
+about the house had noticed that there was anything unusual going on,
+and Marcy went in at the side door and made his way to his mother's room
+before she knew he was on the plantation. Marcy did some rapid talking,
+for time was precious, and he might be in danger as long as he remained
+with her; but he told her of everything that had happened to him since
+the Home Guards drove him from home, and when he said that he and Julius
+were on their way to Plymouth to deliver Hanson into the hands of the
+Federals, she did not try to turn him from his purpose. She simply said
+that she thought he was engaged in a desperate undertaking.
+
+"Desperate cases require desperate remedies," answered Marcy, looking
+out of the window just as Hawkins and his prisoner passed by. The
+soldier was walking by Hanson's side and Julius was acting as
+rear-guard, advancing first on one foot and then on the other, and all
+the while shaking his head as if he were possessed by an almost
+irresistible desire to plant it in the small of the overseer's back.
+"Here he is now," continued Marcy.
+
+"Come and take a last look at him."
+
+"I don't want to," replied Mrs. Gray. "I hope I shall never see him
+again."
+
+"That is what I hope, and what I am working for," said Marcy. "Good-by,
+and remember that I will stop here on my way to camp. Don't worry, for I
+am going among friends."
+
+So saying, Marcy ran down the stairs and out of the house. Arriving at
+the landing he found there but one boat suitable for his purpose, and
+that was the skiff Captain Benton gave him on the night he left the
+gunboat. It was old and leaky, but large enough to accommodate three; so
+it was shoved from the bank and Hanson was assisted to the seat he was
+to occupy in the bow. Then Julius got in and picked up the oars, while
+Marcy lingered to take leave of Ben Hawkins.
+
+"Like as not you'll come back all right," said the latter.
+
+"I hope to, certainly," answered Marcy. "Take care of yourself while I
+am gone, and remember that I am under obligations to you."
+
+"So am I," exclaimed Hanson, who had had leisure to think the matter
+over and get a few of his wits about him. "You're a traitor, Ben
+Hawkins, and I'll see that the Home Guards know it. You're a Confederate
+soldier, too, and I'll take pains to tell the Yankees of that."
+
+"Hursh yer noise, dar!" said Julius, looking over his shoulder and
+scowling fiercely at the overseer. "If I drap my wing at you, you drap
+overboard, suah's you----
+
+"That will do," said Marcy, stepping into the stern-sheets. "Shove us
+off, Mr. Hawkins."
+
+This being done, Julius gave way on the oars, and the great house and
+its surroundings were quickly left out of sight. Then Marcy threw open
+his coat and drew his holsters in front of him, so that he could easily
+lay hold of the revolvers that were in them. He did not think he would
+have any trouble with his prisoner, or that he would be called upon to
+defend himself against the Home Guards; but he was prepared for an
+emergency.
+
+It was a long and tedious journey that Marcy had undertaken, for there
+was no one to talk to, and nothing to see that he had not seen a hundred
+times before; but it was brought to an end about three in the afternoon,
+when the strong current in the Roanoke River carried his boat within
+sight of a Union sentry on the bank. The latter faced them promptly,
+brought his piece to "arms port," and called out:
+
+"_Who_ comes there?"
+
+"Two friends with a rebel prisoner," replied Marcy; and, to his intense
+amazement, Hanson twisted himself around on his seat, and flatly
+contradicted him by saying:
+
+"Taint so, Mister Soldier. It's two rebels with a Union prisoner. I'm so
+strong for the old flag that the rebels won't let me----"
+
+"Halt, two friends with a rebel prisoner!" shouted the sentry, who was
+not the proper person to decide any difference of opinion there might be
+between the boy who sat in the stern-sheets, with a steering-oar in his
+hand, and the man who sat in the bow with his arms tied behind his back.
+"Corporal of the guard number eight!"
+
+The only way to halt in that current was to bring the boat ashore, and
+this Marcy and Julius proceeded to do. They were all on the bank when
+the corporal came up, and Hanson would have given Marcy a very black
+character indeed if the non-commissioned officer had been disposed to
+listen to him; but he said he didn't want to hear a word of it, and
+ordered Marcy to take off his revolvers. When this had been done, and
+the corporal had the belt in his hand, he demanded:
+
+"Now, then, what do you want?"
+
+"Of course I shall have to tell my story to the officer of the day, but
+I should like much to see Captain Burrows," replied Marcy.
+
+"Captain Burrows happens to be officer of the day," said the corporal,
+who no doubt wondered how Marcy came to be acquainted with him. "Come
+on, and I will take you to him."
+
+"It might be well to release this man," suggested Marcy. "He has been
+confined a good while."
+
+"No, I guess I will turn him over just as I got him," said the soldier.
+"Then the captain can't find any fault with me."
+
+Not to dwell upon the particulars of Marcy's visit to Plymouth, it will
+be enough to say that he found Captain Burrows at the office of the
+provost marshal, and that he was just as sociable and friendly as he was
+when sitting in one of Mrs. Gray's easy-chairs examining Marcy's guns,
+and talking to him about the shooting on the plantation. He listened
+patiently and with evident satisfaction to the boy's statements, and
+then took him to the headquarters of the colonel commanding the post;
+leaving Hanson, who would have been dull indeed if he had not realized
+by this time that he was in the worst scrape of his life, to the care of
+the provost marshal. When Marcy turned to look at him as he left the
+marshal's office, he told himself that Hanson was in a fair way to see
+the inside of a Northern prison pen.
+
+He had not talked with the colonel more than five minutes before the
+latter became aware that Marcy could tell him the very things he most
+wished to know regarding the condition of the Union people who lived
+outside his lines. Almost every statement he made was reduced to writing
+by one of the orderlies, and when the interview was ended at ten o'clock
+that night, Marcy received the thanks of the commandant and the
+assurance that the Home Guards should be scattered or captured without
+loss of time, and his home made a safe place for him to live. Captain
+Burrows offered to take good care of him and his servant if he would
+remain all night, but Marcy was so anxious to tell his mother the good
+news that he thought he had better start for home at once; so he was
+given the countersign, and a pass commanding all guards and patrols to
+permit him to enter or leave the lines at any hour of the day or night,
+and Captain Burrows furnished him with a generous lunch and went with
+him to his boat to see him off.
+
+"Good-by, Marcy, but not for long," said he. "If I have any influence
+with the colonel, I shall be riding around in your neighborhood
+to-morrow afternoon; and when this cruel war is over, I am coming down
+here on purpose to go quail-shooting with you."
+
+"Take care of the Home Guards, and drive the rebels away from
+Williamston, and you can go quail-shooting any time," replied Marcy.
+"But I am afraid it will be a long time before that will come to pass,
+or my home will be a safe place for me to live," he soliloquized, as he
+settled back in the stern of the boat and looked up at the stars while
+Julius plied the oars. "Captain Beardsley will be forced to leave the
+country and so will Colonel Shelby; but they will go straight to
+Williamston or some other place that is in the hands of the
+Confederates, and send first one scouting party and then another into
+the settlement to trouble us Union people."
+
+That was what Marcy thought, and it was what he told his mother when he
+reached home the next morning; and knowing that the Federal colonel had
+not yet had time to "capture or scatter" the Home Guards, he did not
+remain long in the house, but ate a hasty breakfast and set out for the
+camp of the refugees, walking under cover of all the fences, and making
+use of every bush and inequality of the ground to conceal him from the
+view of any one who might chance to be passing along the road. It was
+well that these precautions were adopted; for when he and Julius were
+safe in the woods they looked back and saw about twenty mounted men
+enter the yard and surround the house. They were the Home Guards, and
+had been sent there by Beardsley and Shelby, who knew that Marcy would
+be sure to visit his mother on his return from Plymouth. They were in
+the house half an hour or more, but went away as empty-handed as they
+came.
+
+"That means the loss of more property for you, Captain Beardsley," said
+Marcy to himself: and when the other refugees heard of it they said the
+same thing, and vowed to make their words good that very night; but,
+about one o'clock that afternoon, one of the paroled prisoners came into
+camp with the information that he had barely escaped falling into the
+hands of a squad of Federal cavalry who were raiding the settlement, and
+that Beardsley and Shelby were being punished already for the rows they
+had kicked up in the neighborhood.
+
+"I was hid in my corn-crib when the Yankees went by my house," said the
+soldier, "and the feller in command of 'em was the same chap I seed with
+'em once before. They had scooped in as many as a dozen of the meanest
+of the Home Guards, Beardsley and Shelby amongst 'em, and were taking
+'em off Plymouth way. My old hat riz on my head when I heard Beardsley
+tell the Yankee cap'n that if he'd go into my house he'd ketch a rebel
+soldier in there, but that there Yankee cap'n 'lowed that he knowed what
+he was doing, and that he wasn't hunting no paroled prisoners. Now, who
+do you reckon told him that a paroled prisoner lived in my house?"
+
+"I did," replied Marcy. "I said a good word for you while I was in
+Plymouth, and the Yankee colonel said that, if anybody bothered you
+paroled rebels, it would be your own men and not his. You have brought
+me good news."
+
+But all the same it did not bring the quiet home life which Marcy
+thought would be his when those arch-disturbers of the peace of the
+settlement were carried away from it, for the Confederate authorities
+interfered with his plans. In April they passed their first general
+Conscription Act, making all the able-bodied men in the Confederacy
+between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five subject to military duty,
+revoked all leaves of absence, and ordered every soldier to report at
+once to his command on pain of being treated as a deserter. The Act
+provided for the exemption of those who were able to pay for it, but
+Marcy did not know it; and supposing that he was as likely to be
+conscripted as anybody else, he passed the most of his time in camp,
+where he knew he was safe. We have no space in this book to tell of the
+other adventures that fell to his lot, and so we must leave him here for
+the present while we take up the history of two of our Confederate
+heroes, Rodney Gray and Dick Graham, whom we last saw in Rodney's home
+in a distant State. They were full-fledged soldiers as you know, having
+served fifteen months in Price's army and Bragg's. They had their
+discharges in their pockets and were inclined to say, with Ben Hawkins,
+that they would not do any more fighting for the Confederacy until some
+"stay-at-homers," whose names they could mention, had had a chance to
+see how they liked it. Dick Graham was homesick and longed to see his
+father and mother; but they were somewhere in Missouri, and Dick could
+not get to them without crossing the Mississippi, which was closely
+guarded by the Union navy. There was no way to get around it, however,
+and that river had to be crossed; and how they made one unsuccessful
+attempt after another to reach the opposite bank; how Rodney Gray
+managed to keep out of the army in spite of the efforts that were made
+to force him into it; and how he turned the tables on his old enemy Tom
+Randolph, and his Home Guards, who tried to bring him into trouble with
+the Federals in Baton Rouge, shall be told in the next volume of this
+series, which will be entitled "RODNEY, THE OVERSEER."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+FAMOUS
+
+CASTLEMON
+
+BOOKS.
+
+
+BY
+
+HARRY CASTLEMON.
+
+
+[Illustration: Specimen Cover of the Gunboat Series.]
+
+
+No author of the present day has become a greater favorite with boys
+than "Harry Castlemon;" every book by him is sure to meet with hearty
+reception by young readers generally. His naturalness and vivacity lead
+his readers from page to page with breathless interest, and when one
+volume is finished the fascinated reader, like Oliver Twist, asks "for
+more."
+
+*Any volume sold separately.
+
+
+GUNBOAT SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 6 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $7 50
+
+Frank, the Young Naturalist  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank in the Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank on the Prairie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank on a Gunboat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank before Vicksburg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank on the Lower Mississippi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+GO AHEAD SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Go Ahead; or, The Fisher Boy's Motto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+No Moss; or, The Career of a Rolling Stone . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Tom Newcombe; or, The Boy of Bad Habits  . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Frank at Don Carlos' Rancho  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank among the Rancheros  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank in the Mountains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+SPORTSMAN'S CLUB SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+The Sportsman's Club in the Saddle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Sportsman's Club Afloat  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Sportsman's Club among the Trappers  . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+FRANK NELSON SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols. 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Snowed Up; or, The Sportsman's Club in the Mts . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Frank Nelson in the Forecastle; or, The Sportsman's Club among the
+Whalers  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Boy Traders; or, The Sportsman's Club among the Boers  . . . .1 25
+
+BOY TRAPPER SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+The Buried Treasure; or, Old Jordan's "Haunt"  . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Boy Trapper; or, How Dave Filled the Order . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Mail Carrier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+ROUGHING IT SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+George in Camp; or, Life on the Plains . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+George at the Wheel; or, Life in a Pilot House . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+George at the Fort; or, Life Among the Soldiers  . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+ROD AND GUN SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Don Gordon's Shooting Box  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Rod and Gun  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Young Wild Fowlers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+FOREST AND STREAM SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Joe Wayring at Home; or, Story of a Fly Rod  . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Snagged and Sunk; or, The Adventures of a Canvas Canoe . . . . . .1 25
+
+Steel Horse; or, The Rambles of a Bicycle  . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+WAR SERIES. By Harry Castlemon. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth,
+extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3 75
+
+True to his Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Rodney, the Partisan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Marcy, the Blockade Runner 1 25
+
+OUR FELLOWS; or, Skirmishes with the Swamp Dragoons. By Harry Castlemon.
+16mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $1 25
+
+
+ALGER'S
+
+RENOWNED
+
+BOOKS.
+
+BY
+
+HORATIO
+
+ALGER, JR.
+
+
+[Illustration: Specimen Cover of the Ragged Dick Series.]
+
+
+Horatio Alger, Jr., has attained distinction as one of the most popular
+writers of books for boys, and the following list comprises all of his
+best books.
+
+*Any volume sold separately.
+
+
+RAGGED DICK SERIES. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 6 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $7 50
+
+Ragged Dick; or, Street Life in New York . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Fame and Fortune; or, The Progress of Richard Hunter . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Mark, the Match Boy; or, Richard Hunter's Ward . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Rough and Ready; or, Life among the New York Newsboys  . . . . . .1 25
+
+Ben, the Luggage Boy; or, Among the Wharves  . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Rufus and Rose; or, the Fortunes of Rough and Ready  . . . . . . .1 25
+
+TATTERED TOM SERIES. (FIRST SERIES.) By Horatio Alger, Jr. 4 vols.,
+12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  5 00
+
+Tattered Tom; or, The Story of a Street Arab . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Paul, the Peddler; or, The Adventures of a Young Street Merchant  1 25
+
+Phil, the Fiddler; or, The Young Street Musician . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Slow and Sure; or, From the Sidewalk to the Shop . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+TATTERED TOM SERIES. (SECOND SERIES.) 4 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $5 00
+
+Julius; or the Street Boy Out West . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Young Outlaw; or, Adrift in the World  . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Sam's Chance and How He Improved it  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Telegraph Boy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES. (FIRST SERIES.) By Horatio Alger, Jr. 4 vols.,
+12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $5 00
+
+Luck and Pluck; or John Oakley's Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Sink or Swim; or, Harry Raymond's Resolve  . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Strong and Steady; or, Paddle Your Own Canoe . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Strive and Succeed; or, The Progress of Walter Conrad  . . . . . .1 25
+
+LUCK AND PLUCK SERIES. (SECOND SERIES.) By Horatio Alger, Jr. 3 vols.,
+12mo. Fully illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box $5 00
+
+Try and Trust; or, The Story of a Bound Boy  . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Bound to Rise; or Harry Walton's Motto . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Risen from the Ranks; or, Harry Walton's Success . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Herbert Carter's Legacy; or, The Inventor's Son. . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+CAMPAIGN SERIES. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Frank's Campaign; or, The Farm and the Camp  . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Paul Prescott's Charge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Charlie Codman's Cruise  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+BRAVE AND BOLD SERIES. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 4 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $5 00
+
+Brave and Bold; or, The Story of a Factory Boy . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Jack's Ward; or, The Boy Guardian  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Shifting for Himself; or, Gilbert Greyson's Fortunes . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Wait and Hope; or, Ben Bradford's Motto  . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+PACIFIC SERIES. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 4 vols. 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $5 00
+
+The Young Adventurer; or, Tom's Trip Across the Plains . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Young Miner; or, Tom Nelson in California  . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Young Explorer; or, Among the Sierras  . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Ben's Nugget; or, A Boy's Search for Fortune. A Story of the Pacific
+Coast  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+ATLANTIC SERIES. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 4 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $5 00
+
+The Young Circus Rider; or, The Mystery of Robert Rudd . . . . . .1 25
+
+Do and Dare; or, A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Hector's Inheritance; or, Boys of Smith Institute  . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Helping Himself; or, Grant Thornton's Ambition.  . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+WAY TO SUCCESS SERIES. By Horatio Alger, Jr. 4 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $5 00
+
+Bob Burton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Store Boy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Luke Walton  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Struggling Upward  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+
+
+A
+
+New Series
+
+of Books.
+
+----
+
+Indian Life
+
+and
+
+Character
+
+Founded on
+
+Historical
+
+Facts.
+
+
+[Illustration: Specimen Cover of the Wyoming Series.]
+
+
+By Edward T. Ellis.
+
+*Any volume sold separately.
+
+
+BOY PIONEER SERIES. By Edward S. Ellis. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully
+illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Ned in the Block House; or, Life on the Frontier . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Ned in the Woods. A Tale of the Early Days in the West . . . . . .1 25
+
+Ned on the River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+DEERFOOT SERIES. By Edward S. Ellis. In box containing the following.
+3 vols., 12mo. Illustrated . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 75
+
+Hunters of the Ozark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Camp in the Mountains  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Last War Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+LOG CABIN SERIES. By Edward S. Ellis. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Lost Trail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1 25
+
+Camp-Fire and Wigwam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Footprints in the Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+WYOMING SERIES. By Edward S. Ellis. 3 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $3 75
+
+Wyoming  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Storm Mountain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Cabin in the Clearing  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Through Forest and Fire. By Edward S. Ellis. 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+
+ ----
+
+ By C. A. Stephens.
+
+ ----
+
+Rare books for boys--bright, breezy, wholesome and instructive; full of
+adventure and incident, and information upon natural history. They blend
+instruction with amusement--contain much useful and valuable information
+upon the habits of animals, and plenty of adventure, fun and jollity.
+
+CAMPING OUT SERIES. By C. A. Stephens. 6 vols., 12mo. Fully illustrated.
+Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box  . . . . . . . . . . . . $7 50
+
+Camping Out. As recorded by "Kit"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Left on Labrador; or The Cruise of the Schooner Yacht "Curfew." As
+recorded by "Wash" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Off to the Geysers; or, The Young Yachters in Iceland. As recorded by
+"Wade" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Lynx Hunting. From Notes by the author of "Camping Out"  . . . . .1 25
+
+Fox Hunting. As recorded by "Raed" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+On the Amazon; or, The Cruise of the "Rambler." As recorded by
+"Wash" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+By J. T. Trowbridge.
+
+These stories will rank among the best of Mr. Trowbridge's books for the
+young and he has written some of the best of our juvenile literature.
+
+JACK HAZARD SERIES. By J. T. Trowbridge. 6 vols., 12mo. Fully
+Illustrated. Cloth, extra, printed in colors. In box . . . . . . $7 50
+
+Jack Hazard and His Fortunes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1 25
+
+A Chance for Himself; or, Jack Hazard and his Treasure . . . . . .1 25
+
+Doing His Best . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Fast Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+The Young Surveyor; or, Jack on the Prairies . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Lawrence's Adventures Among the Ice Cutters, Glass Makers, Coal Miners,
+Iron Men and Ship Builders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+ --GOOD BOOKS--
+
+Suitable for Girls between the Ages of 12 and 15.
+
+Ways and Means. A Story for girls. By Margaret Vandegrift. With four
+illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, extra  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+The Queen's Body-Guard. A Story for Girls. By Margaret Vandegrift. With
+four illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, extra . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+Rose Raymond's Wards, A Story for Girls. By Margaret Vandegrift.
+Illustrated with four engravings on wood. 12mo. Cloth, extra . . .1 50
+
+Doris and Theodora. A Story for Girls. By Margaret Vandegrift.
+Illustrated with four engravings on wood. 12mo. Cloth, extra . . .1 50
+
+Dr. Gilbert's Daughters. A Story for Girls. By Margaret Harriet Mathews.
+Illustrated with four engravings on wood. 12mo. Cloth, extra . . .1 50
+
+Esther's Fortune. A Romance for Girls. By Lucy C. Lillie. Illustrated.
+12mo. Cloth, extra, brown and gold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+Helen Glenn; or, My Mother's Enemy. A Story for Girls. By Lucy C.
+Lillie. Illustrated with eight illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, extra  1 50
+
+The Squire's Daughter. By Lucy C. Lillie. 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth,
+extra  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+For Honor's Sake. By Lucy C. Lillie. 12mo. Illustrated. Cloth,
+extra  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+Marion Berkley. A Story for Girls. By Lizzie B. Comins (Laura Caxton).
+12mo. Illustrated. Cloth, extra, brown and gold  . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+Hartwell Farm. A Story for Girls. By Lizzie B. Comins (Laura Caxton).
+12mo. Illustrated. Cloth, extra, brown and gold  . . . . . . . . .1 25
+
+
+
+THE HANDSOMEST AND CHEAPEST GIFT BOOKS.
+
+
+The "Bells" Series.
+
+ ----
+
+The "BELLS" Series has been undertaken by the publishers with a view to
+issue original illustrated poems of a high character, at a price within
+the reach of all classes.
+Small 4to. Cloth, gilt edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1 50
+Ivory surface  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+Embossed calf, gilt edges  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+GEMS FROM TENNYSON.
+By ALFRED TENNYSON. Elegantly illustrated by Hammatt Billings.
+
+BEAUTIES OF TENNYSON.
+By ALFRED TENNYSON. Elegantly illustrated with twenty engravings, from
+original drawings by Frederic B. Schell. Beautifully printed on the
+finest plate paper.
+
+FROM GREENLAND'S ICY MOUNTAINS.
+By BISHOP HEBER. Elegantly illustrated with twenty-two engravings, from
+original drawings by Frederic B. Schell. Beautifully printed on the
+finest plate paper.
+
+LADY CLARE.
+By ALFRED TENNYSON. Elegantly illustrated with twenty-two engravings,
+from original drawings by Alfred Fredericks, F. S. Church, Harry Fenn,
+F. B. Schell, E. P. Garret and Granville Perkins. Beautifully printed
+on the finest plate paper.
+
+THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.
+By CLEMENT C. MOORE. Never before has this popular poem a favorite with
+both the old and the young been presented in such a beautiful dress. It
+is elegantly illustrated with twenty-two engravings, from original
+drawings by F. B. Schell, W. T. Smedley, A. Fredericks and H. R. Poore.
+
+BINGEN ON THE RHINE.
+By CAROLINE E. NORTON. Elegantly illustrated with twenty-two engravings,
+from original drawings by W. T. Smedley, F. B. Schell, A. Fredericks,
+Granville Perkins and E. P. Garrett.
+
+THE BELLS.
+By EDGAR ALLAN POE. Elegantly illustrated with twenty-two engravings,
+from original drawings by F. O. C. Darley, A. Fredericks, Granville
+Perkins and others.
+
+THE DESERTED VILLAGE.
+By OLIVER GOLDSMITH. Elegantly illustrated with thirty-five engravings,
+from drawings by Hammatt Billings.
+
+THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
+By ROBERT BURNS. Elegantly illustrated with fifty engravings, from
+drawings by Chapman.
+
+
+
+ Standard Histories.
+
+ ----
+
+History of England, from the Accession of James the Second. By Thomas
+Babington Macaulay. _Standard edition_. With a steel portrait of the
+author. Printed from new electrotype plates from the last English
+edition. Being by far the most correct edition in the American market.
+5 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, per set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5 00
+Sheep, marbled edges, per set  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 50
+Half Russia (imitation), marbled edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 50
+Half calf, gilt  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 00
+
+History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward Gibbon.
+With notes by Rev. H. H. Milman. _Standard edition_. To which is added a
+complete Index of the work. A new edition from entirely new stereotype
+plates. With portrait on
+steel. 5 vols., 12mo. Cloth, extra, per set  . . . . . . . . . . .5 00
+Sheep, marbled edges, per set  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 50
+Half Russia (imitation), marbled edges,  . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 50
+Half calf, gilt, per set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 00
+
+History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Abdication
+of James the Second, 1688. By David Hume. _Standard edition_. With the
+author's last corrections and improvements, to which is prefixed a short
+account of his life, written by himself. With a portrait on steel. A new
+edition from entirely new stereotype plates. 5 vols., 12mo. Cloth,
+extra, per set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 00
+Sheep, marbled edges, per set  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 50
+Half Russia (imitation), marbled edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 50
+Half calf, gilt  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 00
+
+
+ Miscellaneous.
+
+ ----
+
+A Dictionary of the Bible. Comprising its Antiquities, Biography,
+Geography, Natural History and Literature. Edited by William Smith,
+LL.D. Revised and adapted to the present use of Sunday-school Teachers
+and Bible Students by Revs. F. N. and M. A. Peloubet. With eight colored
+maps and 440 engravings on wood. 8vo. Cloth, extra . . . . . . . $2 00
+Sheep, marbled edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 00
+Half morocco, gilt tog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 50
+
+History of the Civil War in America. By the Comte de Paris. Translated
+with the approval of the author. With maps faithfully engraved from the
+originals, and printed in three colors. 8vo. Cloth, extra, per vol 3 50
+Red cloth, extra, Roxburgh style, uncut edges, per vol.  . . . . . 3 50
+Sheep, library style, per vol  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 50
+Half Turkey morocco, per vol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 00
+
+Volumes I, II, III and IV now ready, put up in a neat box, or any volume
+sold separately.
+
+The Battle of Gettysburg. By the Comte de Paris. With maps. 8vo. Cloth,
+extra  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 50
+
+Comprehensive Biographical Dictionary. Embracing accounts of the most
+eminent persons of all ages, nations and professions. By E. A. Thomas.
+Crown 8vo. Cloth, extra, gilt top  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 50
+Sheep, marbled edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 00
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+Half Russia, gilt top  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 50
+
+The Amateur Photographer. A manual of photographic manipulations
+intended especially for beginners and amateurs, with suggestions as to
+the choice of apparatus and of processes. By Ellerslie Wallace, Jr.,
+M.D. New edition, with two new chapters on paper negatives and
+microscopic photography. 12mo.
+Limp morocco, sprinkled edges  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 00
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Marcy The Refugee, by Harry Castlemon
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