MARCY, THE
BLOCKADE-RUNNER,
CHAPTER
I.
MARCY HAS A VISITOR.
The boys who
have read the first volume of this series of books, in which we followed the
fortunes of our Union hero, Marcy Gray, and described the persevering but
unsuccessful efforts he made to be true to his colors in deed as well as in
spirit, will remember that we left him at his home near Nashville, North
Carolina, enjoying a brief respite from the work he so heartily detested,
that of privateering. He had made one voyage in the _Osprey_ under Captain
Beardsley, during which he assisted in capturing the schooner _Mary Hollins_,
bound from Havana to Boston with an assorted cargo. When the prize was
brought into the port of Newbern the whole town went wild with excitement,
Captain Beardsley's agent being so highly elated that he urged the master of
the _Osprey_ to run out at once and try his luck again, before the capture of
the _Hollins_ became known at the North. But Beardsley, who was afraid
to trust landsharks any farther than he could see them, declared with
a good deal of earnestness that he would not budge an inch until
the legality of the capture had been settled by the courts, the vessel
and cargo sold, and the dollars that belonged to him and his crew
were planked down in their two hands. Knowing that it would take time to
go through all these formalities, Marcy Gray asked for a leave of
absence, which Beardsley granted according to promise, and in less than half
an hour after the _Osprey_ was hauled alongside the wharf, her
disgusted young pilot, wishing from the bottom of his heart that she might
sink out of sight before he ever saw her again, left her and went home
as fast as the cars could take him. When we last saw him he had reached
his mother's house, and was reading a letter from his cousin, _Rodney
the Partisan_ a portion of which we gave to the reader at the close of
the first volume of this series.
"Rodney is full of enthusiasm, isn't
he?" exclaimed Marcy, when he had finished reading the letter. "He says he
looks for 'high old times' running the Yankees out of Missouri, but I am
afraid he'll not enjoy them as much as he thinks he will. Perhaps the Yankees
are not good runners. But Rodney has been true to his colors and I have not.
I said I never would fight against the Union, but I have stood by and seen a
gun fired at the old flag; and I have no doubt that the skipper of
the _Hollins_ when he saw me aboard the privateer, took me for as good
a rebel as there was in the crew. Perhaps he will see his mistake
some day. I shall have to accept my share of the prize money, for if I
don't Beardsley's suspicions will be aroused; but I'll put it away and send
it to the master of the _Hollins_ the first good chance I get. Has
Wat Gifford been here since I went to sea? You know he warned me of
two secret enemies I would have to look out for, and hinted that he
would some day tell me who the rest are." ["But I think I know already,"
added Marcy mentally.] While he was at sea he had had ample leisure to
think over the situation, and had made up his mind that he knew right
where the most serious danger that threatened him and his mother was
coming from.
"Walter has been here," replied Mrs. Gray, "and I
understand that he has since gone back to the army, his furlough, which was a
short one, having expired. I was glad to see Walter, for it was a very great
relief to visit with some one to whom I knew I could talk freely; but I must
say he left a very unpleasant impression on my mind. He told me, in so
many words, that we are suspected of being traitors at heart, and that
there are but few of our neighbors we can trust."
"And who are they?"
inquired Marcy. "When we know who our friends are, it will be no trouble for
us to pick out our enemies."
"I asked Walter that very question, and
after some hesitation he was obliged to confess that he could not name a
single person. There are some who denounce secession in the very strongest
terms, but that doesn't prove anything, for Walter has often done the same
thing himself, and he is a rebel soldier," said Mrs. Gray sadly. "Only
think of it, Marcy! To not one of the many who were our warm friends in
times past, can we go for advice and sympathy, now that trouble is coming
upon us. Is it not dreadful?"
"Who cares for advice or sympathy?"
exclaimed the boy wrathfully. "We've got each other and Jack to go to when
the pinch comes, and outsiders can just mind their own business and live to
themselves, and let us do the same. Traitors! That word doesn't apply to us,
mother."
"I know it doesn't; but for all that I am afraid that the
'outsiders,' as you call them, will not let us live to ourselves. Young
Gifford almost as good as told me that some of our near neighbors intend to
keep themselves posted in regard to our movements."
"The--the
impudence of the thing!" exclaimed the young pilot, pounding his knees with
his clenched hands. "Who's going to keep them posted? Where do they expect to
get their information? Through the overseer?"
"Through the overseer,"
whispered Mrs. Gray, in reply.
"Are you afraid to speak the words out
loud?" cried Marcy, who had seldom been so excited as he was at that moment.
"Great Moses! Have things come to such a pass that we dare not talk in our
ordinary tones in our own house, but must carry on our conversation in
whispers?"
"I was in hopes that my letters would prepare you for
something like this," said his mother slowly.
"Well, they didn't. Of
course I knew I should find things changed, but I never thought we should be
spied upon in our own house," answered Marcy. "Traitors, are we, when we
haven't done the first thing to deserve the name! But is there no way in
which that villain Hanson can be got rid of?"
"There is but one way
that occurs to me now," was the reply. "When his contract expires we can tell
him that we do not intend to employ an overseer any longer."
"And that
will be almost a year from now," groaned Marcy. "How can we live for so many
months, knowing all the while that our every movement is watched, and that
some one is constantly trying to catch every word we say? I don't believe I
can stand it. Did Gifford say anything about----"
Marcy paused, got
upon his feet, and opened quickly, but silently, one after another, all the
doors that led from the room in which he and his mother were sitting. There
were no eavesdroppers among the servants _yet_ but that was no sign that
there wouldn't be some to-morrow or next day. An overseer who was left as
much to himself as Hanson was, held great power in his hands; and some negro
servants are as open to bribery as some white people are. Having made sure
that there was no one listening at the door, Marcy drew his chair close to
his mother's side before he spoke again.
"Did Gifford say anything
about the money--the thirty thousand dollars in gold you have hidden in the
cellar wall?" he asked, in suppressed tones.
"He did, and it troubles
me more than anything else he said during his visit," replied Mrs. Gray,
glancing nervously around the room, as if she feared that there might be a
listener concealed behind some of the chairs or under the sofa. "In spite of
my utmost care, that matter, which I hoped to keep from the knowledge of even
the most faithful among the servants, has become known. I cannot account for
it. It fairly unnerves me to think of it, for it suggests a most
alarming possibility."
"Did Gifford say, in so many words, that you
were known to have money in the house?"
"He did not. He said it was
suspected."
"And what is the alarming possibility you just spoke of?"
continued Marcy.
"Why, I am afraid that there is some trusted person
nearer to me than the overseer is--some one right here in the house who has
been watching me day and night," answered his mother, shivering all over and
drawing nearer to her sturdy son, as if for protection. "You don't know how
it makes me feel, or how keenly I have suffered since young
Gifford's visit."
"I wish he had stopped away," said Marcy, almost
fiercely.
"I don't," replied his mother. "He meant it for the best, and
wouldn't have told me a word if I had not insisted. You must not blame
Walter. It is best that I should understand the situation; and Marcy, you
know you would not have told me a word of all this if Gifford had told it
to you."
"Perhaps he did say something to me about it," answered the
boy, with an air which said that his mother had not been telling him anything
he did not know before. "But I have been more careful of your feelings
than Gifford was."
"And did you mean to leave me all in the dark and
utterly ignorant of the perils that surround us?" said Mrs. Gray
reproachfully. "Do you think that would have been just to me? Don't imagine,
because you are my protector and the only one I have to depend on while Jack
is at sea, that you have all the courage there is between us. I know you
would shield me entirely if you could, but it is impossible; and you must
let me bear my part. I shall have to whether you consent or not. But
you haven't yet told me where you have been, how you captured that
vessel, what the captain said about it, or--or anything," she added, with
a feeble attempt to bring the boy's usual smile back to his
face. "Remember, I am deeply interested in all that you do."
"Well,
you wouldn't be if you had seen the cowardly work I helped Beardsley carry
out," replied Marcy. "In the first place, Crooked Inlet is buoyed in such a
way that the stranger who tries to go through it will run his vessel so hard
and fast aground that she will be likely to stay there until the waves make
an end of her, or the shifting sands of the bar bury her out of
sight."
"That's murderous," exclaimed Mrs. Gray, with a shudder. "Is
Captain Beardsley about to turn wrecker?"
"He means to wreck any war
vessel that may give chase to his schooner," answered Marcy. "If we are
pursued, I can take the _Osprey_ through all right; but if the man-of-war
attempts to follow us, and allows herself to be guided by the buoys, she'll
stick. Oh, it's lovely business--a brave and honorable business," exclaimed
the boy, running his hands through his hair and tumbling it up as he used to
do at school when he found anything in his books that was too hard for him.
"I have the profoundest contempt for the villain who brought me into it, and
despise myself for yielding to him."
"But, Marcy, what else could you
have done? Gilford assured me it was the only course open to you, and that by
shipping as pilot on board that privateer you have somewhat allayed
suspicion."
"Mother," said Marcy, placing his arm around her neck and
whispering the words in her ear, "Captain Beardsley doesn't need a pilot any
more than he needs some one to command his piratical craft. I suspected as
much all the while, and the minute we got up to Crooked Inlet I knew it.
He can tell you more about the coast in five minutes than I could in
an hour."
"Of course, a trader----" began Mrs. Gray.
"Mother,"
repeated Marcy, "Lon Beardsley is not and never has been a trader. He's a
smuggler between this country and Cuba. He says himself that he never made a
voyage farther away from home than the West Indies. He knows every inch of
the coast like a book."
"Then what does he want of you?" inquired Mrs.
Gray, with a look of surprise. "Why can he not permit you to stay at home in
peace, as he knows I want you to do? Do you still think he wants to test your
loyalty to the South?"
"That's just what he is up to," replied Marcy.
"He came here in the hope that I would refuse his offer, so that he would
have an excuse for getting me into trouble."
Yes, that was one object
Captain Beardsley had in view when he proposed to make Marcy Gray pilot of
the privateer, but there was another behind it, and one that was much nearer
to the smuggler's heart. As Marcy had told his friend Wat Gifford, on the day
the two held that confidential conversation in front of the Nashville
post-office, Beardsley wanted to marry Mrs. Gray's plantation; and when he
found that he must give up all hope in that direction, like the poor apology
for a man that he was, he hit upon a plan for taking vengeance upon Marcy's
mother. If she proved, when the test was applied, to be friendly to the South
and its cause, he would not dare lift a finger against her or her property,
for he knew that if he did his neighbors would quickly interest themselves in
the matter; but if she would only refuse to permit Marcy to ship on
board the privateer, then he would have a clear field for his operations.
He could accuse Marcy's mother of being a Yankee sympathizer, and
that would turn the whole settlement against her at once, because she
was already suspected of Union sentiments, and some of her nearest
neighbors were so certain that she was loyal to the old flag and opposed
to secession, that they thought it their duty to cease visiting her.
It would be no trouble at all, Beardsley thought, to arouse public
feeling against her; but unfortunately for the success of his plans, Mrs.
Gray did not refuse her consent; the boy took the position offered him on
the _Osprey_ made one voyage at sea, and did his duty as faithfully as
any other member of the crew.
"I know Beardsley wanted to find out
where I stood," repeated Marcy. "He expected and hoped that I would refuse to
accept his proposition so that he would have an excuse for persecuting us;
but being disappointed there, he intends to work in another direction. He
means to make trouble on account of the money you have in the
cellar."
"But what business--what right has he with it?" said Mrs.
Gray indignantly. "It's ours."
"I know it, and we're going to keep it;
but if Beardsley can make sure that you went to Richmond, Wilmington, and
Newbern for _money_--and I think you will find that he looks to Hanson, the
overseer, to furnish him with the proof, and bring a gang of longshoremen up
here from Plymouth some dark night----"
"Oh, Marcy!" cried Mrs. Gray,
starting from her chair and clasping her hands in alarm, "don't speak of
it!"
"I wish from the bottom of my heart that I need not have told you
of it," said the boy, getting upon his feet and pacing the floor
with restless, angry strides. "But Wat Gifford believes that something of
the sort is going to happen, and so do I. Wat didn't say so, but I am
sure that is what he would have told me if he had found me at home when
he came here. You knew there was danger in every one of those gold
pieces you brought home with you; else why did you take so much pains to
put them where you thought no one would be likely to find them?"
"It
is true I did know it, and was afraid that if the news got abroad in the
settlement, some of our poor neighbors might be tempted to commit crime,"
answered Mrs. Gray. "We never had so large an amount of money in the house
before, and its presence troubles me greatly; but I never dreamed that we had
anything to fear from an organized band of freebooters."
"And the fear
of what Beardsley will do, if he finds out that the money is really in the
house, is what troubles me," said the young pilot dolefully. "That man is
capable of any desperate deed when he thinks he has the power on his side. I
know you never thought of such a thing at the time, but your trips about the
country, which Wat Gifford says could not have been made without an object of
some sort, have excited a good deal of talk among the neighbors. Captain
Beardsley posted Hanson, and Hanson, so Wat told me, is more to be feared
than any one else, for he is right here on the place. These secret enemies
will drive us both crazy."
"We'll not give them the satisfaction of
knowing that they can trouble us in the least," replied his mother, with
dignity. "Now we will dismiss them entirely from our minds, while you tell me
all the interesting things that happened during your cruise."
"There
isn't a thing to tell," was Marcy's answer. "We sighted the _Hollins_ inside
Diamond Shoals, threw a couple of shrapnel at her and she came to; that's all
there was of it. Her skipper was a sailorman all over, and plucky, too; and
if he had had anything to fight with, he would have made things lively for
us. I never before felt so sorry for anybody as I did for him; but of course
I didn't have a chance to tell him so. I may some day meet him under
different circumstances."
When the boy said this he did not really
believe that such a thing ever could occur, but nevertheless it did. Strange
things happen in this world sometimes, and in process of time it came about
that the young pilot again stood face to face with the master of the _Mary
Hollins_ no longer a prisoner pleading with Captain Beardsley that his men
might not be ironed like felons, but standing free on the quarter-deck of an
armed vessel, with a hundred blue-jackets ready to do his bidding, and
the Stars and Stripes waving proudly and triumphantly above him.
And Beardsley--he was there, too; and perhaps we shall see what sort
of heart he kept up when he found himself thrust into the "brig" so
quickly that he did not have time to tell what his name was.
"How long
does your leave of absence extend?" inquired Mrs. Gray, after a little
pause.
"Until I am ordered to report," replied Marcy, with a laugh.
"Perhaps the captain didn't know I wrote it out that way, but that isn't
my fault. It was his business to read the paper before signing it. If
he wants me he will have to send for me. You ought to have heard
that Newbern mob whoop and yell when the crew of the _Hollins_ were
marched off to jail. They called them 'Abolitionists' and 'nigger-lovers';
but the prisoners kept their eyes straight to the front, and marched on
as though they didn't hear a word of it. It was a shame to treat brave
men that way."
Just as the young pilot ceased speaking there was a
gentle knock at the door; and so sudden and unexpected was it, that it
brought both him and his mother to their feet in a twinkling. How long had
the person who gave that knock been within reach of the door, was the first
thought that arose in the mind of each. Had some one crept along the hall
and listened at the key-hole in the hope of hearing some of
their conversation?
"If that is the case," Marcy whispered to his
mother, "she has had her trouble for her pains. We haven't said a dozen words
that could have been heard the length of this room. 'Come in!'"
The
door opened to admit one of the numerous female house servants, who announced
that there was a gentleman on the gallery who had called to see Mrs. Gray on
very important private and particular business.
"She looks innocent
enough," thought Marcy, who could not bring himself to believe, as his mother
evidently did, that some of the domestics were watching their movements and
reporting the result of their observations to the overseer. "I don't think
she heard a word, and she certainly could not have seen anything." And then,
finding that his mother was looking at him as if she meant him to understand
that she knew what the visitor's business was, and desired him to take it off
her hands, he said, aloud: "Who is the gentleman, and do you know what he's
got to say that is so very important and particular?"
"I don't know,
sah, what he want to speak about," answered the girl, "but de man is Mr.
Kelsey."
Marcy could hardly keep back an exclamation of disgust, and in
an instant he was on his guard. The man's name and the message he had
sent in warned him to be on the lookout for treachery. Kelsey was one
of Beardsley's "renters"--that is to say, he hired from the captain a
few acres of ground, on which he managed to raise enough corn and
potatoes to keep his family from absolute want, and a little log cabin in
which he found shelter when he was not absent on his hunting and
thieving expeditions. Marcy had not seen him since his return from
Barrington, but he had heard of him as a red-hot Confederate who went
about declaring that hanging was too good for Yankees and their
sympathizers. When Marcy heard of this, he told himself that the man was
another Bud Goble, who, when the pinch came, would take to the woods and stay
there as long as danger threatened.
"I'll be with him directly," he
said, addressing himself to the girl, who went out, closing the door behind
her.
"What in the name of wonder can that worthless man want with
me?" whispered Mrs. Gray, when she thought she had given the domestic time
to get out of hearing. "He has never been in this house before except
to beg."
"And he wouldn't be here now if he hadn't been sent," replied
the boy.
"Oh, Marcy!" said his mother.
"That is just what I mean.
It isn't old clothes or grub that he is after this time."
"But
Beardsley couldn't have put him up to anything. He is in Newbern."
"No
odds. He left plenty of friends behind to do his dirty work, and this fellow,
Kelsey, is one of them. It will take a sharper man than he is to pull the
wool over my eyes."
"Don't be over-confident, my son. He is not too
insignificant--no one is too insignificant these times to do us some terrible
injury. Be careful how you treat him and what you say to him. It might be
dangerous to make him angry, for he has powerful friends behind him. Don't be
gone long, for I shall be uneasy until you return."
"I'll be right
back," promised Marcy; and, giving his mother a reassuring kiss, he left the
room and went out on the porch to see what Beardsley's friend and spy
wanted.
The latter looked just as he did the last time Marcy saw him--too
lazy to take a long breath. He was tall and lank, his hair fell down upon
his shoulders, his whiskers were as tangled and matted as a little
brush heap--in short, he was as fine a specimen of a poor white as one
could find anywhere in the seceded States. He looked stupid as well
as shiftless, but the young pilot knew he wasn't. He was as sly as a
fox and as cunning as well, and Marcy confessed to himself that he
stood more in fear of him than he did of Captain Beardsley. When the man
heard Marcy's step upon the porch, he tried to assume the servile air
which was characteristic of poor Southern whites before the war; but he
did not succeed very well. His manner seemed to say that he knew he
was dealing with one he could crush whenever he felt like it, and of whom
he need not stand in fear; and Marcy was quick to notice it.
"Sarvent,
sah," said Kelsey, rising to his feet and taking off his tattered hat, which,
however, he almost instantly replaced. "I heared that you had got back again
from sea, an' that you had whopped the Yankees first time tryin', same as our
fellers done down to Charleston."
"Yes, sir," replied Marcy, seating
himself, and depositing his feet on the railing, as if to indicate that he
was quite at the service of his friend Kelsey as long as the latter wanted to
talk to him. "We whipped them, and we could do the same thing again." ["And
that's nothing but the truth," he added, to himself. "When an armed vessel
meets one that's not armed, the helpless one is bound to go under every
time."]
It is hard to tell just what Kelsey expected the boy to say in
response to his greeting, but in spite of his usual self-control his face
showed that he had not looked for any such answer as this. Marcy spoke
and acted as if he were delighted with the success that had attended
the _Osprey's_ first cruise at sea, and proud of being able to say that
he was one of her crew.
"You sent in word that you desired to see my
mother on very particular business," continued Marcy. "She doesn't feel like
seeing anybody to-day--upset by the war news, you know--and I am here to
speak for her. It's nothing bad, I hope?"
Kelsey straightened up on
his seat and assumed a business air, as if these words had suggested an idea
to him.
"Yes, it's kinder bad," said he. "We uns know that you are true
blue, fur if you wasn't you wouldn't be on that privateer; an' if your
maw wasn't true blue, she wouldn't a let you go."
["That sounds
exactly like Beardsley," said Marcy, to himself.] "Well, what of it? Didn't I
do my duty faithfully?"
"I ain't sayin' nothing agin that," replied the
man hastily. "But--you're fur Jeff Davis, ain't you?"
Instead of
answering in words, Marcy pulled down the corner of his right eye and looked
at Kelsey as if to ask him if he saw anything green in it.
"What do ye
mean by them movements?" demanded the visitor.
"I mean that I am not
going to talk politics with you," was the reply. "This settlement is full of
traitors, and I'm going to hold my tongue unless I know who I am talking to.
If I do that, I shan't get into trouble by speaking too freely in the hearing
of a Yankee spy."
"But look a-here, Mister Marcy," protested
Kelsey.
"If you came to pry into our private affairs, you might as well
jump on your mule and go home, for you'll not get a word from me. I ought to
put the dogs on you, for if all I hear is true you're the worst kind of
a traitor." ["And so you are," thought Marcy, closely watching the
effect of his words, although he did not seem to be doing so; "you're a
traitor to the old flag."]
The visitor was astonished beyond measure,
and it was fully a minute before he could collect his wits sufficiently to
frame a reply.
CHAPTER
II.
HIDING THE FLAGS.
"I think I have
taken the right course," soliloquized the young pilot, who mentally
congratulated himself on the ease with which he had "got to windward" of this
sneaking spy. "If I fight him with his own weapons I shall probably get more
out of him than I could in any other way."
"You heared that I was a
traitor?" exclaimed Kelsey, as soon as he could speak. "Mister Marcy, the man
who told you that told you a plumb lie, kase I ain't. I whooped her up fur
ole Car'liny when she went out, I done the same when our gov'ner grabbed the
forts along the coast, an' I yelled fit to split when our folks licked 'em at
Charleston. Any man in the settlement or in Nashville will tell ye that them
words of mine is nothing but the gospel truth."
Marcy knew well enough
that his visitor's words were true, but he shook his head in a doubting way,
as he replied:
"That may all be; but _I_ didn't hear you whoop and yell,
and you must not expect me to take your word for it. You must bring some
proof before I will talk to you."
"Why, how in sense could ye hear me
whoop an' yell, seein' that you was away to school in the first place, an'
off on the ocean with Beardsley in the next?" exclaimed Kelsey. "Ask Dillon,
an' Colonel Shelby, an' the postmaster, an' see if they don't say it's the
truth."
"You have mentioned the names of some of our most respected
citizens," said Marcy slowly, as if he were still reluctant to be convinced
of the man's sincerity. "And if they, or any of them, sent you up here to
talk to my mother--why, then, I shall have to listen to you; but mind you,
if you are trying to play a game on me----"
"Mister Marcy," said
Kelsey solemnly, "I ain't tryin' to come no game. Them men done it sure's
you're born."
"Did what?"
"Sent me up here this
mawnin'."
"That's one point gained, but won't mother be frightened when
she hears of it?" thought Marcy, leaning his elbows on his knees and covering
his face with his hands so that his visitor could not see it. "Some of
the best men in the country have so far forgotten their manhood, and
the friendship they once had for our family, that they can send
this sneaking fellow here to worm something out of us."
"I don't
believe a word of it," he cried, jumping to his feet and confronting his
visitor.
"Ye--ye don't believe it?" faltered Kelsey, springing up in his
turn. "Well, I--I--look a-here, Mister Marcy, mebbe this is something else
you don't believe. Them men whose names I jest give you, say that you
an' your maw an' all the rest of the Gray family is Union. What do ye say
to _that?_"
"I say that they had better attend to their own business
and let me attend to mine," answered Marcy. "Are Colonel Shelby and the rest
of them for the Union?"
"Not much; an' nuther be I."
"Are you
in favor of secession?"
"I reckon." replied Kelsey earnestly; and Marcy
knew all the while that he could not have told what the word secession
meant.
"Then why don't you prove it--you and Colonel Shelby, and the rest
of the neighbors who are saying things behind my back that they don't
care to say to my face? Why don't you prove your loyalty to the South
by shouldering a musket and going into the army?"
"Why, we uns has got
famblies to look out fur," exclaimed the visitor, who had never had this
matter brought squarely home to him before.
"That makes no difference,"
answered the boy, who wondered if Kelsey's family would fare any worse while
he was in the army than they did now, while he was out of it. "Every man in
this country must show his good will in one way or another. And there's that
loudmouthed fellow Allison, who went out of his way to insult me in the
post-office just before I went to sea. Nashville is full of such braggarts as
he is. When they can't find anything else to talk about they talk about me;
and I have smelt powder while they haven't." ["No odds if it was our own
powder and the wind blew the smoke into my face," he said to
himself.]
By this time Marcy had the satisfaction of seeing that he had
taken the wind completely out of Kelsey's sails, and that the man who had
come there to trouble him was troubled himself. He even began to fear that
he had gone too far, and that if he did not change his tactics the
visitor would go away without giving a hint of the errand that had brought
him to the house; for Kelsey picked up the hat he had placed upon the
floor beside his chair, put it on his head and leaned forward with his
hands on his knees, as if he were about to get upon his feet. That wouldn't
do at all. There was something in the wind--something that
Captain Beardsley, aided by Colonel Shelby and others, had studied up on
purpose to get Marcy into a scrape of some kind, and Marcy was very anxious
to know what it was.
"You hinted a while ago that Colonel Shelby had
sent you here to tell me some bad news," said the young pilot, in a much
pleasanter tone of voice than he had thus far used in addressing his visitor.
"Are you ready now to obey orders and tell me what it is?"
"Well, I
dunno. I reckon mebbe I'd best ride down an' see the colonel first," replied
the man. But his actions said plainly that he _did_ know, and that he had no
intention of facing his employer again until he could tell him that his
instructions had been carried out.
"Of course, you must do as you think
best about that; but if it is anything that concerns my mother or
myself----"
"I should say so," exclaimed Kelsey. "I don't reckon it'll do
any harm to tell you--but ain't there anybody to listen? It's very important
an' private."
"I think you may speak with perfect freedom; but in
order to make sure of it----" Marcy finished the sentence by getting up and
closing both the doors that opened upon the veranda. "Now we're safe," said
he; whereupon Kelsey revealed the whole plot in less than a score of
words.
"Mebbe you don't know it," said he, in a whisper which was so loud
and piercing that it could have been heard by an eavesdropper (if there
had been one) at least fifty feet away, "but you are harboring a
traitor right here on the place."
"Who is it?"
"Your mean sneak
of an overseer."
It was now Marcy's turn to be astonished. He knew that
there was not a word of truth in what the man said, and that if the overseer
really was a Union man the planters round about would have sent a person of
more influence and better social standing than Kelsey to tell him of it;
but after all the plot was not as simple as it looked at first
glance.
"Where's your proof?" was the first question he
asked.
"Well, Hanson has been talkin' a heap to them he thought to be
Union, but it turned out that they wasn't. They was true to the flag of
the 'Federacy."
"What do Colonel Shelby and the rest want me to do?"
inquired Marcy, catching at an idea that just then flashed through his mind.
"If they will write me a note stating the facts of the case and asking me
to discharge Hanson, I will attend to it before the sun goes
down."
"Well, you see they don't keer to take a hand in the furse at
all, seein' that there's so many Union folks in the settlement," said
Kelsey. "They've got nice houses an' nigger quarters, an' they don't want
'em burned up."
"But they are willing that I should get into trouble
by discharging Hanson, and put myself in the way of having my house and
quarters destroyed, are they?" exclaimed the boy, his face growing red
with indignation, although, as he afterward told his mother, there
wasn't really anything to arouse his indignation. "You may tell those
gentlemen that if they want the overseer run off the plantation, they can
come here and do it. If the Union men are as vindictive as Colonel
Shelby seems to think they are, I don't care to get them down on
me."
"But the Union folks won't pester you uns," said Kelsey, speaking
before he thought.
"Ah! Why won't they?"
"Kase--kase they think
you're one of 'em."
"I don't see how they can think so when they know
that I belong to a Confederate privateer."
"Them men, whose names I
give ye a minute ago, thought that mebbe you'd be willing to turn Hanson
loose when you heared how he had been swingin' his tongue about that there
money."
Kelsey had come to the point at last. He looked hard at Marcy to
see what effect the words would have upon him, and Marcy returned his
gaze with an impassive countenance, although he felt his heart sinking
within him.
"What money?" he demanded, in so steady a voice that the
visitor was fairly staggered. The latter believed that there was rich booty
hidden somewhere about that old house, and he hoped in time to have
the handling of some of it.
"I mean the money your maw got when she
went to Richmon' an' around," replied the man, who, in coon hunters'
parlance, began to wonder if he wasn't "barking up the wrong
tree."
"Can you prove that she brought any money back with
her?"
"No, I can't," answered Kelsey, in a tone which said as plainly as
words that he wished he could. "I--me--I mean that the neighbors
suspicion it."
"Oh, that's it. Let those officious neighbors keep on
talking; and when they have talked themselves blind, you may tell them, for
me, that what money we have is safe," said Marcy, with a good deal of
emphasis on the adjective. "If you want to see what mother brought back from
the city, go and look at the servants. Every one of them is dressed in a new
suit. Now go on and tell me the bad news. I'm getting impatient to hear
it."
"Heavings an' 'arth! Haven't I told it to ye already?" Kelsey
almost shouted. "I think it is bad enough when you an' your maw are
keepin', right here on the plantation, a man who is all the time waitin'
an' watchin' fur a chance to do harm to both of ye. If you don't think
so, all right. I was a fule fur comin' here, an' I reckon I'd best
be lumberin'. If anything happens to ye, bear in mind that I give ye
fair warnin'."
"I will," answered Marcy. "And in the mean time do you
bear in mind that I am ready to discharge Hanson at any time Colonel Shelby
proves to my satisfaction that he is a dangerous man to have around; but I
shall make no move unless the colonel says so, for I don't want to get into
trouble with my neighbors." ["I wonder if I have done the right thing,"
thought Marcy, as the visitor mounted his mule and rode out of the yard.
"The next plotter I hear from will be Hanson himself."]
The boy
remained motionless in his chair until Kelsey disappeared behind the trees
that bordered the road, and then got up and walked into the sitting-room,
where he found his mother pacing the floor. Her anxiety and her impatience to
learn what it was that brought Kelsey to the house were so overpowering that
she could not sit still.
"Another plot to ruin us," whispered the boy, as
he entered the room and closed the door behind him.
"Oh, Marcy, it is
just what I was afraid of," replied Mrs. Gray. "Who is at the bottom of it
this time?"
"The same old rascal, Lon Beardsley; but he's got backing I
don't like. There's Colonel Shelby for one, the postmaster for another, and
Major Dillon for a third."
"The most influential men in the
neighborhood," gasped Mrs. Gray, sinking into the nearest chair. "And the
best."
"They used to be the best, but they are anything but that now.
When men will stoop as low as they have, they are mean enough for anything.
I suppose you ought to hear what that fellow said to me, but I don t
know how I can tell it to you."
"Go on," said his mother, trying to
bear up bravely. "I must hear every word."
Marcy knew that it was
right and necessary that his mother should be kept fully informed regarding
the plots that were laid against them, and that she should know what the
planters were thinking and saying about her; for if she were kept in
ignorance, she would be at a loss how to act and speak in a sudden emergency.
She might be surprised into saying something in the presence of a secret
enemy that would be utterly ruinous. So he drew a chair to her side and told
her everything that had passed between Kelsey and himself. He did not try to
smooth it over, but repeated the conversation word for word; and when he came
to the end, his mother was as much in the dark as Marcy was himself. She said
she couldn't understand it.
"There are but two things about it that
are plain to me," answered Marcy, "perhaps three. One is that the house is
watched by somebody, and that the neighbors knew I was at home almost as soon
as you knew it yourself. Another is that the suspicions aroused in the minds
of some of our watchful neighbors are so strong that they amount to
positive conviction. They are as certain that there is money in this house
as they would be if they had caught you in the act of hiding
it."
"Doesn't that prove that the overseer is not the only spy there is
on the place?" said Mrs. Gray. "And I was so careful."
"I never will
believe that anybody watched you at night," said Marcy quickly. "The
neighbors saw you when you went away and came back."
"But I brought goods
with me on purpose to allay their suspicions."
"I am really afraid you
didn't succeed. The other thing I know is, that you need not think yourself
safe out of Captain Beardsley's reach even when he is at sea. As I said
before, he has friends ashore to work for him while he is
absent."
"What can we do? What do you advise?" asked his mother, after
she had taken time to think the matter over.
"There is but one thing
we can do, and that is to wait as patiently as we can and see what is going
to happen next. This last plot is not fully developed yet, and until it is we
must not make a move in any direction. I am as impatient as you are, and so I
think I will ride out to the field and give the overseer a chance to say a
word if he feels in the humor for it."
"Be very cautious, Marcy," said
Mrs. Gray.
The young pilot replied that sleeping or waking he was always
on the alert, and went out to the little log stable, which did duty as a
barn, to saddle his horse. A long lane led through the negro quarter to
the field in which the hands were putting in the time in clearing out
fence corners and burning brush, while waiting for the early crops to get
high enough for hoeing. The overseer's mule was hitched to the fence, and
the overseer himself sat on a convenient stump, watching the hands at
their work, and whittling the little switch that served him for a
riding-whip. The man was almost a stranger to Marcy. The latter had seen and
spoken to him a few times since his return from Barrington, but of course
he did not like him, for he could not forget that his mother was afraid
of him, and would be glad to see him leave the place. He liked him
still less two minutes later, for, as he drew rein beside the overseer's
perch, threw his right leg over the horn of his saddle and nodded to the
man, the latter said, first looking around to make sure that none of the
blacks were within hearing:
"I was sorry to see that man ride away
from the big house a while ago."
"What man?" inquired Marcy. He looked
over his shoulder and saw that the front of the house was entirely concealed
from view, and that the road that ran before it "was shut out from sight by
the trees and the whitewashed negro quarter. It followed then, as a matter of
course, that Hanson could not have seen anybody ride away from the house. He
was deep enough in the plot to know that if mother and son had not had a
visitor, they ought to have had one.
"I suspicioned it was that
shiftless, do-nothing chap, Kelsey," replied the overseer. "Looked sorter
like his mu-el."
"Oh, yes; Kelsey has been up to see us," answered Marcy.
And then he tapped his boot with his whip and waited to see what was coming
next. If the overseer wanted to talk, he might talk all he pleased; but Marcy
was resolved that he would not help him along. Hanson twisted about on
the stump, cleared his throat once or twice, and, seeing that the boy
was not disposed to break the silence, said, as if he were almost afraid
to broach the subject:
"Have much of anything to talk
about?"
"He talked a good deal, but didn't say much."
"Mention my
name?"
"Yes. He mentioned yours and Shelby's and Dillon's and
the postmaster's."
"Say anything bad about us?" continued the
overseer, after waiting in vain for the boy to go on and repeat the
conversation he had held with Kelsey.
"Not so very bad," answered
Marcy, looking up and down the long fence to see how the work was
progressing.
"Looka-here, Mister Marcy," said Hanson desperately. "Kelsey
told you I was Union, didn't he? Come now, be honest."
"If by being
honest you mean being truthful, I want to tell you that I am never any other
way," said the boy emphatically. "What object could I have in denying it? I
don't care a cent what your politics are so long as you mind your own
business, and don't try to cram your ideas down my throat. But I'll not allow
myself to be led into a discussion. Kelsey did say that you are Union; and if
you are, I don't see why you stay in this country. You can't get out any too
quick."
"Are you going to discharge me?"
"No, I am not; and I sent
word to Shelby and the rest that if they want you run off the place, they can
come up here and do it. I shall have no hand in it."
Marcy could read
the overseer's face a great deal better than the overseer could read Marcy's;
and it would have been clear to a third party that Hanson was disappointed,
and that there was something he wanted to say and was afraid to speak about.
That was the money that was supposed to be concealed in the
house.
"Was that all Kelsey said to you?" he asked, at
length.
"Oh, no. He rattled on about various things--spoke of the ease
with which the _Osprey_ captured that Yankee schooner, and let fall a word
or two about the battle in Charleston harbor."
"Is _that_ all he said
to you?"
"I believe he said something about being a good Confederate, and
I asked him why he didn't prove it by shouldering a musket. I don't go
about boasting of the great things I would do if I were only there. There's
no need of it, for I have been there." ["But it was because I couldn't
help myself," he added mentally.]
"But folks say you're Union, all the
same," said Hanson.
"What folks? Are they soldiers?"
"No.
Citizens."
"Then I don't care that what they say," replied Marcy,
snapping his fingers in the air. "When they put uniforms on and show by their
actions that they mean business, I will talk to them, and not
before."
Marcy waited patiently for the overseer to say "money," and the
latter waited impatiently for Marcy to say it; and when at last the boy made
up his mind that he had heard all he cared to hear from Hanson, he
brought his leg down from the horn of his saddle, placed his foot in
the stirrup, and gathered up the reins as if he were about to ride
away.
"Kelsey didn't say nothing to get you and your maw down on me, did
he?" inquired Hanson, when he observed these movements.
"I shouldn't
like for to lose my place just because I am strong for the Union and dead
against secession."
"If you lose your place on that account, it'll be
because Colonel Shelby and his friends will have it so," answered Marcy. "You
are hired to do an overseer's work; and as long as you attend to that and
nothing else you will have no trouble with me. You may depend upon
that."
"But before you go I'd like to know, pine-plank, whether you
are friendly to me or not," continued Hanson, who was obliged to confess
to himself that he had not learned the first thing, during the
interview, that could be used against Marcy or his mother.
"I am a
friend to you in this way," was the answer. "If I found you out there in the
woods cold and hungry, and hiding from soldiers who were trying to make a
prisoner of you, I would feed and warm you; and I wouldn't care whether you
had a gray jacket or a blue coat on."
"He's a trifle the cutest chap I've
run across in many a long day," muttered the overseer, as Marcy turned his
filly about and rode away. "I couldn't make him tell whether he was Union or
secesh, although I give him all the chance in the world, and he didn't say
"money" a single time. Now, what's to be done? If the money is there and
Beardsley is bound to have it, he'd best be doing something before that
sailor gets back, for they say he's lightning and will fight at the drop of
the hat. I reckon I'd better make some excuse to ride over town so't I can
see Colonel Shelby."
"I think I have laid that little scheme most
effectually," was what Marcy Gray said to himself as he rode away from the
stump on which the overseer was sitting. "They haven't got a thing out of me,
and I have left the matter in their own hands. If there is anything done
toward getting Hanson away from this country (and I wish to goodness
there might be), Shelby and his hypocritical gang can have the fun of
doing it, and shoulder all the responsibility afterward."
But what was
the object of the plot? That was what "banged" Marcy, and he told his mother
so after he had given her a minute description of his brief interview with
the overseer. Was it possible that there were some strong Union men in the
neighborhood, and that Beardsley hoped Marcy would incur their enmity by
discharging Hanson on account of his alleged principles? Marcy knew better
than to believe that, and so did his mother.
"I'll tell you what I
think to be the most reasonable view of the case," said the boy, after taking
a few turns across the floor and spending some minutes in a brown study.
"Beardsley knows there is no man in the family; that we'd be only too glad to
have somebody to go to for advice; and he hoped we would take that ignorant
Hanson for a counselor, if he could make us believe that he was really Union.
But Hanson didn't fool me, for he didn't go at it in the right way. He's
secesh all over. The next thing on the program will be something
else."
"I trust it will not be a midnight visit from a mob," said his
mother, who trembled at the bare thought of such a thing.
"So do I;
but if they come, we'll see what they will make by it. They might burn the
house without finding anything to reward them for their trouble."
"Oh,
Marcy. You surely don't think they would do anything
so barbarous."
"They might. Think of what that Committee of Safety did
at Barrington."
"But what would we do?"
"Live in the quarter, as
Elder Bowen and the other Union men in Barrington did after their houses were
destroyed. And if they burned the servants' homes as well as our own, We'd
throw up a shelter of some sort in the woods. I don't reckon that Julius and
I have forgotten how to handle axes and build log cabins. The practice we
have had in building turkey traps would stand---- Say," whispered Marcy
suddenly, at the same time putting his arm around his mother's neck and
speaking the words close to her ear, "if a mob should come here to-night and
go over the house, we'd be ruined. There are those Union flags, you
know."
"I never once thought of them," was the frightened answer.
"Suppose I had had a mob for visitors while you were at sea? Our home would
be in ashes now. Those flags are dangerous things, and must be disposed
of without loss of time. I am sorry you brought them home with you.
Don't you think you had better destroy them while you have them in
mind?"
"Of course I will do it if you say so, and think it will make you
feel any safer; but I was intending--you see----"
His countenance
fell, and his mother was quick to notice it. "What did you intend to do with
them?" she asked.
"One of them used to float over the academy," replied
Marcy. "Dick Graham, a Missouri boy, than whom a better fellow never lived,
stole it out of the colonel's room one night because he did not want to see
it insulted and destroyed, as it would have been if Rodney and his
friends could have got their hands upon it. He gave it to me because he knew
it would some day be something to feel proud over, and said he hoped
to hear that it had been run up again."
"But, Marcy, you dare not
hoist it here," exclaimed Mrs. Gray.
"Not now; but there may come a time
when I shall dare do it. The other flag--well, the other was made by a Union
girl in Barrington, who had to work on it by stealth, because her sister, and
every other member of her family except her father, were the worst kind of
secesh. Rodney thought sure he was going to put the Stars and Bars on the
tower when the Union colors were stolen, but our fellows got mine up first,
and would have kept it there if they had had to fight to do it. But I'll put
them in the stove if you think best."
"You need not do anything of the
kind," said Mrs. Gray, whose patriotism had been awakened by the simple
narrative. "I shall not permit a party of beardless boys to show more loyalty
than I am willing to show myself."
"Bully for you, mother!" cried
Marcy. "We'll see both of them in the air before many months more have passed
over our heads. Now, think of some good hiding place for them, and I'll put
them there right away. Not in the ground, you know, for if the Union troops
should ever come marching through here, we should want to get them out in a
hurry."
"How would it do to sew them up in a bed-quilt?" said Mrs.
Gray, suggesting the first "good hiding place" that came into her
mind.
"That's the very spot," replied Marcy. "Put them in one of mine,
and then I shall have the old flag over me every night."
No time was
lost in carrying out this decision, and in a few minutes mother and son were
locked in the boy's room, and busy stitching the precious pieces of bunting
into one of the quilts. It never occurred to them to ask what they would do
or how they would feel if some half-clad, shivering rebel should find his way
into the room and walk off with that quilt without so much as saying "by your
leave." Probably they never dreamed that the soldiers of the Confederacy
would be reduced to
such straits.
CHAPTER
III.
BEARDSLEY BETRAYS HIMSELF.
Never before
had the hours hung as heavily upon Marcy Gray's hands as they did at the
period of which we write. There was literally nothing he could do--at least
that he _wanted_ to do. He did not care to read anything except the
newspapers, and they came only once a day; he had never learned how to lounge
around and let the hours drag themselves away; he very soon grew weary of
sailing about the sound in the _Fairy Belle_ with the boy Julius for a
companion; and so he spent a little of his time in visiting among the
neighboring planters, and a good deal more in "pottering" among his mother's
flower beds. Visiting was the hardest work he had ever done; but he knew he
couldn't shirk it without exciting talk, and there was talk enough about him
in the settlement already.
To a stranger it would have looked as
though he had nothing to complain of. He was cordially received wherever he
went, often heard himself spoken of as "one of our brave boys" (although what
he had done that was so very brave Marcy himself could not understand), and
visitors at Mrs. Gray's house were as numerous as they ever had been; but
Marcy and his mother were people who could not be easily deceived by such a
show of friendship. Some of it, as they afterward learned, was genuine;
while the rest was assumed for the purpose of leading them on to
"declare" themselves. It was a mean thing for neighbors to be guilty of, but
you must remember that, like Rodney Gray when he wrote that
mischievous letter to Bud Goble, they did not know all the time what they
were doing. Of course the high-spirited Marcy grew restive under
such treatment; and when, after long waiting, the postmaster handed him
a letter from Captain Beardsley, ordering him to report on board
the _Osprey_ without loss of time, he did not feel as badly over it as
he once thought he should. On the contrary, he appeared to be very
jubilant when he showed the letter to Allison and half a score of other
young rebels who were always to be found loafing around the post-office
at mail time.
"I'm off to sea again," said he. "Now the Yankees had
better look out."
"It must be an enjoyable life, Marcy," replied Allison.
"You see any amount of fun and excitement, draw big prize-money in addition
to your regular wages, and, better than all, you run no sort of risk. It
may surprise you to know that I have been turning the matter over in my
mind a good deal of late, and have come to the conclusion that I should
enjoy being one of a privateer's crew. What do you think about it?"
"I
am not acquainted with a single fellow who would enjoy it more," answered
Marcy, who told himself that Allison was just coward enough to engage in some
such disreputable business. "You are just the lad for it. It is such fun to
bring a swift vessel to and haul down the old flag in the face of men who are
powerless to defend it."
Sharp as Marcy Gray was, his strong love for the
Union and his intense hatred for the business in which he was perforce
engaged, sometimes led him to come dangerously near to betraying himself.
Allison looked sharply at him, but there was nothing in Marcy's face to
indicate that he did not mean every word he said.
"I am heartily glad
I am going to sea again," continued the latter; and he told nothing but the
truth. The companionship of the ignorant foreigners who composed the
_Osprey's_ crew was more to his liking than daily intercourse with pretended
friends who were constantly watching for a chance to get him into
trouble.
"Do you think I could get on with Captain Beardsley?" inquired
Allison.
"You might. The crew was full when I left the schooner, but I
will speak to the captain, if you would like to have me."
"I really
wish you would, for I am anxious to do something for the glorious cause of
Southern independence. When do you sail?"
"I don't know. About all the
captain says in his letter is that he wants me to report
immediately."
"Does he say whether or not the _Hollins_ has been sold
yet?"
"Oh, yes; he speaks of that, and congratulates me on the fact that
I have eight hundred and seventy-live dollars more to my credit on
the schooner's books than I did when I left her at
Newbern."
"W-h-e-w!" whistled Allison. "How long did it take you to make
the capture?"
"Four or five hours, I should say."
"Eight
hundred and seventy-five dollars for four or five hours' work! Marcy, you
have struck a gold mine. You will be as rich as Julius Caesar in less than a
year."
"How long do you suppose Uncle Sam will allow such--such work to
be kept up?" exclaimed Marcy.
"Oh, no doubt he would be glad to stop
it now if he could; but when he tries it, he will find that he's got the
hardest job on his hands he ever undertook. There never was a better place
for carrying on such business than the waters of North Carolina. Our little
inlets are too shallow to float a heavy man-of-war."
"No matter how
big the job may be, you will find that these small-fry privateers" (it was
right on the end of Marcy's tongue to say "pirates") "will be swept from the
face of the earth in less than a year; so that I shall have no chance to get
rich. But I'll have to be going, for I must start for Newbern this very
night. I suppose you will all be in the army by the time I get back, so
good-by."
Allison and his friends shook hands with him, wished him
another successful voyage, and Marcy mounted and rode away, his filly
never breaking her lope until she turned through the gate into the yard,
and drew up before the steps that led to the porch. His mother met him
at the door and knew as soon as she looked at him that he had news
for her.
"Yes, I've got orders from Beardsley," said the boy, without
waiting to be questioned. "And if Jack were only here, and I was about to
engage in some honorable business, I should be glad to go. Mother, on the day
we captured the _Hollins_ we robbed somebody of fifty-six
thousand dollars."
"Oh, Marcy, is it not dreadful!" said Mrs.
Gray.
"It is, for a fact. We're having a bully time now, but the day will
come when we'll have to settle with the fiddler. You will see. Yes,
the vessel and her cargo sold for fifty-six thousand dollars. Half of
it went to the government, and half of the remainder was divided among
the three officers, Beardsley getting the lion's share, I bet you.
The sixteen members of the crew get an equal share of the other
fourteen thousand, the difference in rank between the petty officers and
foremast hands being so slight that Beardsley did not think it worth while
to give one more than another; but he hints that he has got something
laid by for me."
"My son, it will burn your fingers," said Mrs.
Gray.
"I can't help it if it does. I'll have to take all he offers me,
but, of course, I don't expect to keep it. Now, mother, please help me get
off. The longer I fool around home the harder it will be to make a
start."
Marcy wanted to caution his mother to look out for Hanson while
he was gone; but he did not do it, for he well knew that she had enough
to trouble her already, and that the mention of the overseer's name
would awaken all her old fears of spies and organized bands of robbers.
He sent word to Morris, the coachman, to have the carriage brought to
the door, loitered about doing nothing while his mother packed his
valise, and in twenty minutes more was on his way to Newbern, which he
reached without any mishap, not forgetting, however, to send a telegram on
from Boydtown informing Beardsley that his orders had been received, and
that the pilot was on his way to join the _Osprey_.
"And I wish I
might find her sunk at her dock, and so badly smashed that she never could be
raised and repaired," was what he thought every time he looked out of the car
window and ran his eyes over the crowds of excited people that were gathered
upon the platforms of all the depots they passed. "But, after all, what
difference does it make? If I don't go to sea I shall have to live among
secret enemies, and I don't know but one thing is about as bad as the other.
If any poor mortal ever lived this way before, I am sorry for
him."
Although Marcy was almost a stranger in Newbern, he had no
difficulty in finding his vessel when he got out of the cars. He walked
straight to her, and while he was yet half a block away, the sight of her
masts told him that she was still on top of the water. She would soon be
ready to sail, too, for her crew were rushing her stores aboard, while
Captain Beardsley walked his quarter-deck smoking a cigar and looking on.
His face seemed to say that he was a little surprised to see his pilot;
but if he was he did not show it in his greeting.
"Well, there, you
did come back, didn't yon?" said he, extending his hand.
"Of course I
came back," replied Marcy. "What else did yon expect me to do? I was on the
road in less than two hours after your order came to hand."
"That's
prompt and businesslike," said the captain approvingly. "But I didn't look
for you to appear quite so soon. How's everybody to home?"
"All right as
far as I could see; and Allison wants to join your crew."
"The idea!"
exclaimed Captain Beardsley. "Well, he can just stay where he is for all of
me, hollering for the Confederacy and doing never a thing to help us gain our
independence. His place is in the army, and I won't have no haymakers aboard
of me. See any Union folks while you was to home?"
"I saw and talked
with one man who said he was for the Union," answered the young pilot. He was
prepared for the question, and positive that if he managed the matter
rightly, Beardsley would soon let him know whether or not he was concerned in
that little plot, as Marcy believed he was. But, as it happened, no
management was necessary, for keeping a secret was the hardest work Beardsley
ever did.
"Did, hey?" he exclaimed, throwing the stump of his cigar over
the stern and looking very angry indeed. "I always suspected that man Hanson.
You discharged him, of course."
"No, I didn't," replied Marcy. "It
wouldn't have been safe. I told Kelsey that if the colonel and his friends
desired that he should be run off the place, they could attend to the matter
themselves. I wouldn't have the first thing to do with it. I was given to
understand that there were many Union men in the settlement, and I didn't
care to give them an excuse for burning us out of house and
home."
"That was perfectly right. And what did Shelby say?"
"I
didn't hear, for he sent no message to me."
"Did you say anything to
Hanson about it?"
"I did, and told him that as long as he attended
strictly to his business he would have no trouble with me."
Marcy had
purposely avoided speaking Colonel Shelby's name and Hanson's, preferring to
let Captain Beardsley do it himself. The latter walked squarely into the trap
without appearing to realize that he had done it, and the young pilot was
satisfied that his commander was the man who needed watching more than
anybody else.
"I can't say that I hope Beardsley will be killed or
drowned during the cruise," thought Marcy. "But I do say that if he was out
of the way I would have less trouble with my
neighbors."
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