"And in the meantime, sir, permit me to remind you that my cousin is in the hands of a ruffian who has threatened to beat him, if certain demands he has made are not complied with," said Marcy, who was impatient to be off.
The colonel bit his lip, glared savagely at Marcy for an instant, said a few hurried words to Captain Wilson, and left the armory. The first thing the officer of the guard did was to remove his red sash and hand it to another teacher—an action which all the boys in line greeted with hearty cheers; and his second move was to march the first company out of line, and order the others to break ranks. This looked like business. Captain Wilson was going in command, and that meant that Rodney and his companion in trouble would be found and released before the company returned. But would the captain permit them to give Bud a whack or two with the butts of their muskets just to teach him to mind his own business in future? Probably not; and if Captain Wilson forbade it Bud would be safe, for the boys thought too much of him to rebel against his orders.
"We will wait a few minutes for the officers," said the Captain, "and in the meantime—count fours."
But the boy officers did not "show up." They had concealed themselves so effectually that the orderlies sent out by the colonel could not find them, and so the captain was obliged to go without them. They would be disappointed when they came out of their hiding-places and found that their company had gone off with the colonel's permission, but that could not be helped. Caleb Judson was much surprised when he found himself at the head of the column, surrounded by a corporal's guard who were instructed, in his hearing, to see that he did not give them the slip, but he did not refuse to act as guide.
"All I ask of you, capting," said he, "is to let me stay back out of sight when you grab Bud, so't he won't suspicion that I had anything to do with bringin' you-uns onto him. He's a bad man when he's mad—"
"So I have heard," said the captain dryly. "He must be a terrible fellow to let Elder Bowen walk him out of the yard by the back of the neck. But your wishes shall be respected, and my boys will never mention your name in connection with this business."
This satisfied Caleb, who strode ahead as if he were in a great hurry to reach his destination.
"It's queer doings, this taking nearly a hundred boys to capture two vagabonds," whispered Dixon, who had taken pains to secure a place in the ranks next to Marcy Gray. "But it's the best thing that could be done. If any of us had been ordered to stay behind, there might have been another rebellion. Besides, Bud and Silas are Injuns, and I shouldn't be surprised if they slipped through our fingers."
"I hope they will," said Marcy honestly. "Bad as they are, I shouldn't want to see them hurt."
The students marched through the principal street of Barrington, but if any one saw then! they never heard of it. There was but one man stirring, and that was old Mr. Bailey, who devoted a wakeful half-hour to patroling his premises with his revolver in his hand. If he was surprised to see the boys he did not say anything about it, for the rapidity of their movements and the strict silence they maintained were indications that they did not care to have the citizens know they were out. Mr. Bailey would have given all the candy and peanuts in his store to know what their errand was, but was forced to content himself with the reflection that he would learn all about it the next time Dick Graham came to town.
"Now, capting," said Caleb, after they had gone a long distance down the road that led to Mr. Riley's house, "Bud's camp is off that a-way about a mile. The woods is tol'able thick, an' I don't reckon you can go through 'em in a bunch, like you be now, without scarin' him. He's got ears, Bud has. You-uns had best scatter out an' go one at a time."
"Form skirmish line, I suppose you mean."
"I don't know what you call it. Couldn't make 'em into something like a horse-shoe, could ye?"
"Certainly. Hold back the center and push the flanks forward. That's easy enough."
"Eh?" said Caleb.
"I'll make a horse-shoe, if that's what you want."
"All right. An' when you get to where his fire is, you can kinder bring the heels of the shoe in t'wards each other, an' there Bud an' Silas'll be on the inside of 'em. See?"
The captain understood, and thought it a good plan to act upon the guide's suggestion, although he could not make up his mind that he would permit his men to make prisoners of Bud and Silas. Perhaps, on the whole, it would not be safe. Good-natured, obedient Dick Graham could be easily controlled, but how about fiery Rodney Gray, angry as he undoubtedly was? The latter, quick-tempered and impatient of discipline as he was known to be, when he found himself backed by nearly all the boys in his class and company might avow a determination to take ample vengeance upon his captors; and if he so much as suggested the thing, the students were in the right mood to help him through with it.
"We don't want to make captives of those two men," said the captain, as he passed along the ranks getting the skirmish line in shape. "We'll scare them out of a year's growth and show them that they cannot fool with our boys with impunity, but that is as far as we will go. If they can get away, let them."
It took ten minutes to form the "horse-shoe" and make each boy acquainted with the signals that were to be used for his guidance, and then the order was given to advance. The woods were pitch dark, and it was a task of no little difficulty for the boys to find their way through the thick underbrush, and over the fallen logs that obstructed every foot of the mile that lay between the road and Bud Goble's camp, but they did it without making noise enough to alarm him. What they were most afraid of was that he would hear them coming and drag his prisoners away from the fire and deeper into the woods, where they could not be found until Bud had had time to wreak vengeance upon them. But they need not have borrowed any trouble on that score. If Bud Goble had had the faintest idea of the commotion his senseless act had caused among the academy boys, money would not have hired him to lay a finger upon Rodney and Dick.
[Illustration: TOO MUCH FOR THE MINUTE-MEN.]
At the end of an hour Captain Wilson, who was in the center of the line, came within sight of Bud's camp-fire, and the order was passed for the flanks to close upon each other. In fifteen minutes more a shrill whistle coming from the opposite side of the fire announced that the command had been obeyed, and with a charging yell, that was never surpassed by any they afterward uttered in battle, the boys sprang up and rushed for the fire. Not a bayonet had been fixed or a piece loaded that is, by orders; but some of the young soldiers had quietly driven home a cartridge while working their way through the woods, and when the signal to advance was given, they fired their muskets into the air with such effect that Bud and Silas gave themselves up for lost, and the prisoners jumped from their beds of leaves by the fire, and shouted and waved their caps to show their comrades where they were.
"Death to all Minute-men!" somebody yelled; and the cry was taken up and carried along the line with such volume that Bud's frantic appeals for "quarter" could not be heard.
In less time than it takes to write it the students crowded into the camp, and Rodney and Dick were being shaken by both hands. Their captors were so completely surprised, and so very frightened that they had not thought of their rifles, which were leaning against convenient trees. And now came the very demonstration that Captain Wilson had been afraid of. Jerking himself loose from the detaining hands of his comrades, Rodney picked up a heavy switch lying on the ground near the log that Bud had been using for a seat.
"Turn about is fair play, old fellow," said he. "You promised to use this on our backs if you did not receive the hundred dollars you said we owed you, and now we'll see—"
"Give it to him!" shouted the students, almost as one boy. "We'll stand by you. Put it on good and strong. Stand back, Captain Wilson. We don't want to go against you, but these men must have a lesson they will not forget."
Thus encouraged Rodney raised the switch, and in a second more it would have fallen with full force upon Bud's head and shoulders, had not Marcy Gray, dashing aside three or four friends who stood in his way, jumped forward and seized his cousin's arm.
"Rodney," said he, "is this your manhood?"
The angry boy glared at his cousin for an instant, and then, to the surprise of all, he lowered his arm and gave up the switch.
"You here, Marcy?" he exclaimed. "There isn't as much manhood in my whole body as there is in your little finger. Don't look at me in that way. Don't speak to me; I am beneath contempt. Goble, you're free to go, but don't come near me again."
"Yes, Goble, clear yourself," shouted Dixon, who, although he did not understand the matter at all, thought Bud had better get out of danger while the students were in the mood to let him go. "I'm about to stick the butt of my gun through the air right where you are standing, and if you're there, you'll get hurt. One—two—"
Goble turned and ran for his life, the boys dividing right and left, and jeering him loudly as he passed through their ranks.
"He's a minute-man," said one.
"Yes; and he'll get there in a good deal less than a minute," cried another. "Go faster than that, for he's close after you. Ah, He came pretty near hitting you that time! Next time you'll be a goner."
Dixon had not moved an inch from his tracks, but he had accomplished his object and sent Bud off without injury. Silas Walker must have gone about the same time, for when the boys looked around for him they could not find him.
Having accomplished the work he was sent out to do, Captain Wilson shook hands with the rescued boys, who did not seem any the worse for their short experience among the members of Bud Goble's company of minute-men, and commanded the students to "fall in." Some of the boys were in favor of smashing the rifles which the two vagabonds had left behind in their hurried flight; but better counsels prevailed, and the weapons were leaned against a tree where Bud could easily find them, in case he should muster courage enough to come after them. The return march through the woods was rendered less dismal by the numerous light-wood torches that were carried along the line; but there was not much opportunity for talking until the timber had been left behind, and the ranks were closed up on the road leading to Barrington.
"Now tell us all about it," said Marcy Gray to his cousin, who marched by his side. "We know that you were enticed into a cabin to see a sick man who needed quinine, and that when you went in Bud and some others jumped out and made you prisoners. The man Bud sent to the academy after the money you and Dick promised to give him for finding that underground railroad told us about that; but what happened afterward? How did they use you?"
"We haven't a thing to complain of," replied Rodney, "except the suspense we were kept in while Judson was absent. I knew he would bring help, as well as I knew that Bud had threatened to whip us if he did not have that hundred dollars in his hands before sunrise. But I didn't think the colonel would send it. While I was in Barrington I learned from a dozen different sources that he had agreed to keep us inside, and never again interfere with anything that might happen in town."
This gave Marcy a chance to tell about the riot at the academy, but, contrary to his expectation Rodney did not seem to be very jubilant over it.
"I didn't know I had so many friends," said he, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, "and, to tell you the honest truth, I don't deserve them. You fellows ought to have stayed away until Bud gave me the licking he promised, and then come up in time to save Dick. He was in no way to blame for what I did."
"And I reckon you didn't do anything very bad," replied Marcy, with a laugh. "It was no part of our plan to let either of you be whipped. But, look here, Rodney. Why were you so anxious to see Bud Goble the last time you were in town?"
"I had put it into his head to do something to you and Dick Graham, and I wanted to stop it if I could," answered Rodney. "I tell you I was frightened when I saw those fires. I began to see what we were coming to, and I wanted to warn Goble that he was watched, and that he would surely bring trouble upon himself if he paid any attention to that letter."
"What letter?"
"Why, the one old nigger Toby told you about. I wrote it. Mean as you may think me, and as I am, I wrote it. I said to myself that I would drive you and Dick from the school, and that was the way I took to do it." Having got fairly started on the confession he had longed to make, and paying no sort of attention to his cousin's efforts to stop him, Rodney made a clean breast of the matter, and told just how far his loyalty to the Stars and Bars and his hatred for everybody who had a lingering spark of affection for the Stars and Stripes had led him. On the evening his new flag came he slipped away from his companions, ran into a store, wrote the letter that Bud afterward read to his wife, and got it into the office without any one being the wiser for what he had done. That letter sent Bud on the war-path, and encouraged him to impose upon Mr. Bailey and Elder Bowen, both of whom met his attempts in a manner so vigorous that Mr. Riley and his Committee of Safety became alarmed. They held a secret meeting, and determined upon a plan of operations which they hoped would drive Union men and abolitionists from the country, and bring the State-rights men, like Mr. Bailey, over to the Confederacy. The committee was responsible for those two fires—Rodney had heard enough from his rebel friends to make him sure of that; and they had but just begun operations, when Captain Wilson and his boys put in an appearance. That was what made Mr. Riley so angry that he would not speak to the students that night, or even look at them, and it was possible that he and the others who rode up to the academy had talked to the colonel in very plain language.
"I supposed, of course, that I would find Goble somewhere in town, and kept Dick with me because I wanted him to help with a word now and then," said Rodney, in conclusion. "He played a very slick trick on us when he sent word that that sick man was in need of medicine, and we fell into the trap as easy as you please. He was awful mad when he found that he had caught the wrong boy, that it was Marcy he wanted and not Rodney, but he hadn't forgotten the underground railroad joke, and was resolved that we shouldn't forget it, either. I didn't think Bud would be fool enough to threaten anybody with a whipping. If I had, I never would have written that letter, I assure you. If lie had whipped me for it, it would have served me right."
Marcy listened in silence to this astounding revelation, and although he was intensely grieved and shocked, he said everything he could to make Rodney understand that he was freely and fully forgiven, and that it would never be remembered against him; but Rodney refused to be comforted.
"Dick knows it, and you know it," said he. "And if the other fellows do not suspect it, they must be both blind and deaf. I don't care to stay longer about the academy where everything I see will remind me of events I should be glad to forget, and I shall start for home by the first train that leaves Barrington to-morrow. If the colonel will not let me go—"
"I don't think he will object to any of us going," replied Marcy. "During the riot, when Dixon marched us back into the armory, he said he intended to disband the whole thing at once. Matters were coming to such a pass that he couldn't and wouldn't stand it any longer."
"I hope he will stick to it," said Rodney. "We might as well have been home three months ago for all the good we've done in school. If he won't permit me to go I'll skip, if you will send my trunk after me."
Marcy said he would, provided he was there to attend to it, and then gradually led the conversation into other channels; for that letter was a sore subject to Rodney, and Marcy never wanted to hear it again. No matter what happened, it would never get to his mother's ears or Sailor Jack's either.
When the company reached the academy, after four hours' absence, they learned that the teachers had made repeated efforts to get the boys to go to bed, but without doing much toward accomplishing the desired end. They went to their dormitories as often as they were told, but leading a horse to water and making him drink are two different things. As soon as the teachers' backs were turned, they would slip out into the hall, run downstairs, and join some of the excited groups strolling about the grounds. They were all up and awake when the rescuers returned, and accompanied them into the armory; but they did not cheer them as they would like to have done. The coolheaded ones among them thought that would be carrying their triumph a little too far. When ranks were broken Marcy reported to Captain Wilson, and asked if he should go into the guard-house.
"What for?" inquired the captain.
"Have you forgotten, sir, that you put me under arrest?"
"Why did you not stay in the guard-tent when I put you there?" said the officer, with a smile.
"Because the colonel ordered me out, sir. I am glad he did so, for it gave me a chance to go with my company and see Rodney and Dick helped out of their scrape."
"Well, behave yourself in future, and we'll not say any more about your being under arrest."
Marcy knew that would be the upshot of the matter. If the captain meant to put him in arrest, he had no business to permit him to go on that expedition.
The next morning things went on in their usual haphazard way, and the colonel did not say a word about disbanding the school. He thought better of it after he had taken time to cool off; but it was not so with Rodney Gray. By allowing himself to be led away by the excitement of the hour he had done something he never could forget if he lived to be a hundred years old, and he longed to leave the academy and everybody in it behind him, and mingle with people who believed as he did, and who did not know of the meanness of which he had been guilty. And, what was very comforting as well as surprising, the colonel permitted him to go without asking any disagreeable questions.
"I don't know that I blame you," said he, in a discouraged tone. "I think I should be glad to go somewhere myself. I have been hoping almost against hope that these troubles might be settled without a war, but I don't believe they ever will be. The folks about here seem to think that the people of the North are cowardly, but they are not. They are simply patient; but there will come a time when their patience will be exhausted, and then they will sweep over us like an army of locusts."
"You don't really think they will fight, do you, sir?" said Rodney, who was surprised to hear the colonel talk in this strain.
"I am sure of it. When Beauregard opens his batteries upon Sumter, you will see an uprising that will astonish the world. I am sorry to part with you, but you may go. You would no doubt get a letter from your father in a few days any way, so I don't suppose it makes much difference."
Rodney went, but he did not go alone. Instead of one carriage, there were four that drove away from the academy an hour later, and they were filled as full of students as they could hold. But the departing crowd did not whoop and yell as they were in the habit of doing when they set out for home at vacation time. They were sober and thoughtful, and so were those they left behind. The events of the last few hours had made them so. Rodney Gray voiced the sentiments of all of them when he said to Marcy and Dick, as he extended a hand to each:
"I realize now as I never did before that we're not going to have the easy times we looked for. I don't back down one inch from my position. I say the South is right, and that if the North will not give her the freedom she demands, she ought to fight for it, and I'll do all I can to help her; but I don't believe, as I did once, in abusing everybody who differs from me in opinion. So let's part friends."
"We've always been friends to you," said Dick, in rather a husky voice."But your abominable ideas—dog-gone State rights anyhow! Good-by."
"Why, Dick, you are on our side," said Rodney.
"If Missouri is, I am; if she isn't, I aint. That's me."
The parting was a good deal harder than the boys thought it was going to be; but it was over at last; the carriages rolled out of the gate, the sentry presenting arms as they passed, and the boys who remained turned sorrowfully away to take up the drudgery of school routine. After that there were no more loud, angry discussions, no shaking of fists in one another's faces, and the orderlies who raised the flag at morning and hauled it down at night, handled it tenderly out of respect to the feelings of their Union schoolmates. They could not bear to think that there might come a time when they would be called upon to face some of their comrades with deadly weapons in their hands. Every one, from the colonel commanding down to the youngest boy in the academy, seemed resolved to do what he could to make their few remaining school days as pleasant as possible.
That afternoon the guard-runners were out in greater numbers than usual. Nearly all the students were anxious to go to Barrington, for there were several things they wanted to have cleared up. What had become of the Union men who had been burned out of house and home, and what did that Committee of Safety intend to do next? Marcy Gray did not go. He was too dispirited to do anything but lounge about and read, and long for a letter from his mother telling him to come home. He missed his cousin Rodney, and wondered if fate would ever bring them together again and under different flags. He sat under the trees and tried to read while awaiting the return of Graham and Dixon, who, for a wonder, had asked for passes. The first item of information they gave him, when they came back with his mail, was one that did not much surprise him, although he did not expect to hear it so soon.
"That old darkey parson has lost his money," said Dick.
"There now," exclaimed Marcy, "I told him he would if he did not put it where it would be safe. Who's got it?"
"I didn't hear, and don't know that any one is suspected. He hid it under a log back of the garden, and when he went there to see if it was all right, the place looked as though it had been rooted over by a drove of hogs. But of course the hogs had nothing to do with it."
"Some one like Bud Goble must have been on the watch when Toby put it under the log," said Marcy, who thought he knew just how the old negro felt when he discovered his loss. "He'll not see that money again. I told him to give it to Mr. Riley."
"And that reminds me that we saw and talked with Mr. Riley, who was as smiling and agreeable as you please," said Dixon. "If I had been guilty of burning out two innocent men because they differed from me in opinion, I don't think I could have had the cheek to show myself on the street. But Mr. Riley did not seem to mind it."
"Do you really think he had a hand in that affair?" inquired Marcy. "I don't like to think that he is that sort."
"When a fellow allows himself to be carried away, as he and the rest of that committee have, by prejudice and rage, he will do some things he would not think of doing if he were in his right mind. Look at Rodney," said Dixon; and Marcy wondered if he knew or suspected that Rodney had written that mischievous letter. "It's in the mouth of every rebel in town whom we talk with that the committee burned those houses, and what everybody says must have some truth in it."
"Listen to me a minute, and I will condemn Mr. Riley out of his own mouth," said Dick, in an earnest whisper. "When Captain Wilson asked him how it came that he could reach the fire so quickly, seeing that it was more than a mile from his own house and there were no alarm bells ringing, Mr. Riley replied that it was because he happened to be awake when the fire commenced. Now, if that was the case, why did he run right by Elder Bowen's burning house to come up town? I was on post that very night, and know that the two fires were started almost at the same moment. Mr. Riley wasn't at home, I tell you. He was in Barrington; and that was the way he got to the fire before we did. Put that in your pipes."
"You have made out a pretty strong case against him so far as circumstantial evidence will go," Dixon remarked.
"Plenty strong enough to make him prove an alibi if he were prosecuted," said Marcy. "Where are those Union men now?"
"Living quietly and comfortably in two of the Elder's negro cabins," replied Dick. "Some of the rebels we talked to think they need another and larger dose, for they are as independent and saucy as ever."
"I glory in their spunk," said Marcy. "See anything of Bud or Caleb Judson? I don't care what becomes of Bud, but if you happen to run across Caleb, I wish you would send him to me. I promised to raise some money for him that night, when I thought I should have to go after Rodney and Dick alone, and I want to give it to him. We couldn't have found them without his help."
As we are almost, if not quite, through with these two gentlemen, Bud and Caleb, we may remark that, a few days after this conversation took place, Marcy went to Barrington and found opportunity to square accounts with Caleb by handing him double the amount of money the man thought he ought to have for acting as Captain Wilson's guide. But Caleb couldn't or wouldn't give him any news of Bud Goble. In after-years some of the academy boys heard of him once or twice in a roundabout way—not as a brave soldier of the Confederacy, doing and daring for the sake of the principles he had so loudly promulgated when he thought old Mr. Bailey was afraid of him, but as a sneaking conscript, hiding in the woods and living, no one knew how, but probably keeping body and soul together by the aid of the bacon and meal that his wife bought with old Toby's money.
Not another thing happened at the academy that is worth recording until it became known that President Lincoln, instead of surrendering Fort Sumter on demand of the Confederate commissioners who had been sent to Washington, decided that provisions should at once be forwarded to the garrison. It was high time, for Major Anderson and his men had nothing but a small supply of bacon and flour left, and the commissary was not permitted to purchase provisions in Charleston. The Southern people were, or pretended to be, very angry at this decision, and gave notice that they would resist it as an act of war. "My batteries are ready. I await instructions," was what Beauregard telegraphed to President Davis; and on the 11th of April the answer came back: "Demand the immediate surrender of Fort Sumter." How the brave major's reply, helpless as he knew himself to be, thrilled every heart in the loyal North! "I cannot surrender the fort," said he. "I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter me to pieces, I shall be starved out in three days."
Now was the time for the Confederates to show to the world that they were sincere when they declared that all they desired was to be permitted to leave the Union in peace. But they did not do it. They could not wait three days. They wanted the honor of reducing Fort Sumter, and of humbling the flag which had never been lowered to any nation on earth. They wanted to "fire the Southern heart," and make sure of the secession of Virginia by "sprinkling blood in the people's faces," and so they opened their batteries upon the fort. After a long waiting, which was "symbolic of the patience, endurance, and long suffering of the Northern people," the fort replied, and the war between Union and Disunion, freedom and slavery, was fairly begun. Major Anderson knew from the first that this battle could end but in one way, and when his provisions were all gone, and his ammunition so nearly exhausted that he could not respond to the enemy's fire oftener than once in ten minutes, he hauled down his flag and marched his handful of men out with the honors of war. It wasn't a victory to be proud of, but the Governor of South Carolina must have thought it was, for that night he said to the excited people of Charleston:
"I pronounce here before the civilized world that your independence is baptized in blood; your independence is won upon a glorious battle-field, and you are free now and forever, in defiance of the world in arms."
So thought the aged Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, who claimed the privilege of firing the first gun upon Sumter; but he did not think so a little while afterward, when he was preparing to hang himself because he saw that his dreams of Southern independence could not be realized.
Of course this thrilling news, and the fiery editorials commenting upon it, had an effect upon the students at Barrington academy. The Union boys were sadly depressed; Dixon and Graham shook their heads every time their eyes met; while Billings, Cole, and the rest of the rebels were fierce for another fight, and immediately became as noisy and aggressive as they had ever been in Rodney Gray's time.
"'The proud flag of the Stars and Stripes has been lowered in humility before the Palmetto and Confederate flags,'" shouted Billings, reading an extract from the speech of Governor Pickens. "Cole, where is the flag those Taylor girls gave you? Now is the time to unfurl it to the breeze, and let the good people of Barrington see that they are not the only ones who can rejoice over this glorious news. When it is once hoisted on the tower, we will keep it there in defiance of the world in arms."
This was another quotation from the Governor's speech, and when Billings roared it out so that it could be heard by all the boys in the corridor, he looked at Marcy as much as to say: "Help yourself if you can."
It did not take Cole many minutes to produce the flag, which he had kept hidden in his trunk for just such an emergency as this; but when he and his backers got to the top of the tower with it, they were rather surprised to find Marcy, Graham, Dixon, and a good many other sturdy fellows there before them. They were walking around with their hands in their pockets, and Marcy's flag was still floating from the masthead.
"Do you mean—are you going to fight about it?" faltered Cole, who began to fear that his chances for receiving a standing invitation to visit those Taylor girls were as slim as they ever had been. "You have heard the news from Charleston, and ought to see for yourself that this flag can't stay up any longer."
"We may be of a different opinion, so far as this academy is concerned, but still we have given up the contest," replied Marcy. "Hold on, there; don't touch those halliards, please. This flag belongs to me, and when it comes down for good, I must be the one to pull it down. Major Anderson was allowed to salute his flag when he lowered it, and I claim the same privilege."
"I don't know that we have anything to say against that," replied Billings, looking around upon his friends to see what they thought about it. "Holler as much as you please. That's the only way you can salute it, for the colonel would go crazy if you asked him to lend you the battery."
"That's the only way," said Marcy as he unfastened the color-halliards from the cleat. "I shall not ask for the guns, for I shall have my trouble for my pains. Attention! Three cheers for the Star Spangled Banner; and may the traitors who caused it to be lowered in Charleston harbor for the time being be glad to turn to it for protection."
"That flag will wave over Sumter again, and don't you forget what I tell you," shouted Dixon.
It was not a very noisy salute that greeted the flag as it fluttered down from aloft, but it was a heart-felt one, and there was not a rebel on the tower who dared utter a derisive word, however much he might have felt inclined to do so. But when the Stars and Bars were bent on to the halliards and run up to the masthead, the yells of its supporters were almost deafening and their antics quite indescribable. There was an abundance of enthusiasm about that time. There wasn't quite so much one short year later, when some of those same boys learned, to their great disgust and rage, that the Confederate Congress had passed a sweeping conscription law, and that their one year's enlistment had been arbitrarily lengthened to three. Then they began to see what despotism meant.
All hope of conciliation or peace at any price was gone now. There was nothing to hold them together any longer, and the following morning saw another and larger exodus of students from the academy who were homeward bound. Among them were Cole, Graham, Billings, Dixon, and Marcy Gray. It was not quite so solemn a parting as the first one was, for the drooping spirits of the rebels had been raised to blood-heat by that glorious news from Charleston.
"Shoot high, Marcy, when you meet the Stars and Bars on the battlefield," said Billings. "There may be a Barrington boy thereabouts. But you can't deny that we've whipped you once in a fair fight, can you?"
"I don't know what you call a fair fight," replied Marcy. "Of course five thousand men, well supplied with grub and ammunition, ought to whip fifty-one soldiers and a few hired mechanics. But they held out against you as long as they had anything to eat or powder to shoot with. I wouldn't crow over it, if I were in your place."
"Well, we have given you a taste of what is in store for you, at all events."
"And you have learned something that I have tried to get through your thick heads ever since these troubles began," chimed in Dixon. "I told you the North would fight. But let's jump in if we are going home. You know the trains meet here, and we haven't much more than time to get to the depot."
The boys once more shook hands with their teachers, cheered lustily for the Barrington Military Academy and everybody connected with it, shouted themselves hoarse for their respective flags, and then sprang into the carriages and were driven away.
"We're done playing soldier," said Dick Graham. "The next time we shoulder muskets or draw sabers, there will be more reality in it than some of us will care to face. Let's keep track of one another as long as we can, and bear always in mind that we are not enemies, if we do march under different flags."
Marcy Gray was glad when his train came along and bore him away from Barrington. He wanted to settle back in his seat and think; but that was something he was not permitted to do. The passengers, with now and then a notable exception, acted as though they were fit candidates for a lunatic asylum. They were walking about the car, flourishing their hats or fists in the air, talking loudly and shaking hands as often as they met in the aisle. "Glorious news," "Southern rights," "Yankee mudsills," "Fort Sumter," were the words that fell upon Marcy's ear when he opened the door and walked into the car. In an instant his uniform attracted general attention.
Marcy Gray was blessed with as much courage as most boys, but he would have been glad if he could have backed out of that car without being seen, and gone into another. Perhaps the conviction that he was "an odd sheep in the flock," and that he held, and had often published, opinions that differed widely from those that animated the excited, gesticulating men before him, had something to do with his nervousness and timidity; and it may be that the revolvers he saw brandished by two or three of the half-tipsy passengers had more effect upon him. But he could not retreat. They saw his uniform as soon as he opened the door, and some of the noisiest among them stumbled to greet him.
"Here's one of our brave fellows now," shouted one, firing his revolver out of the window with one hand while he extended the other to Marcy. "Got his soldier clothes on and going to the front before our guns in Charleston harbor have got through smoking. Young man, you're my style. I'm a member of the Baltimore Grays, and I'm on my way home to join 'em in defense of our young republic. What regiment?"
"Company A, Barrington Cadets," replied Marcy, rightly supposing that the Baltimore man was too far gone to remember, if indeed he had ever heard, that there was a military school in the town they had just left. "I'm going home on a leave of absence."
"Course you are," replied the man. "Services not needed at present and mebbe never will be. The Yankees are all mechanics and small trades-people, and there's no fight in such. We're gentlemen, and there's fight in us, I bet you. But you show your good will in putting on those soldier clothes, and that's what every man's got to do, or go up to the United States. Those who are not for us are against us, and we'll make short work with 'em. Say, we licked 'em, didn't we?"
"Of course," answered Marcy. "Fifty-one soldiers without food or powder don't stand much chance against five thousand well-equipped men."
"It would have been all the same if there had been fifty-one thousand of 'em," declared the Baltimore man. "Aint got any business there. Fort belongs to So' Car'lina. Why didn't they get out when Beau'gard told 'em to, if they didn't want to get licked? Three cheers for Southern Confed'sy!"
Much disgusted, Marcy Gray finally succeeded in releasing his hand from the man's detaining grasp and forced his way 'to a seat; but he was often stopped to hear his patriotism applauded, and President Lincoln denounced for bringing on a useless war by trying to throw provisions into Fort Sumter.
"I don't see what else he could have done," soliloquized the North Carolina boy, as he squeezed himself into as small a compass as possible in a seat next to a window. "The fort belonged to the United States, and it was the President's business to hold fast to it if he could. South Carolina wanted a pretext for firing on the flag, and she got it. She'll be sorry for it when she sees grass growing in the streets of her principal city. So I am taken for a rebel, am I? What would that Baltimore fellow do to me if he knew that I have two Union flags in my trunk, and that I mean to hoist them some day? My life wouldn't be worth a minute's purchase if these passengers knew how I feel toward them and their miserable Confederacy."
All the way to Raleigh, which was nearly three hundred and sixty miles from Barrington, Marcy Gray lived in a fever of suspense. Although he did not know a soul on board the train, he might have had companions enough if he had been a little more sociable; but he did not care to make any new acquaintances, especially among people who were so nearly beside themselves. They all took him for just what he wasn't—a rebel soldier; and being ignorant of the fact that he was going toward home as fast as steam could take him, they supposed that the reason he was so silent and thoughtful was because he was lonely, and felt sorrowful over parting from his friends; and so it came about that now and then some one would sit down beside him and try to give him a comforting and cheering word. All the ladies who spoke to him were eager for war and disunion. They were worse than the men; Marcy found that out before he had gone fifty miles on his journey.
Marcy mentally denounced these sympathetic and well-meaning rebels as so many nuisances, for they drew upon him attentions that he would have been glad to escape. They asked him all sorts of questions, and the boy adroitly managed to truthfully answer every one of them, and without exciting suspicion. Matters were even worse when the train stopped. The flags that were fluttering from the locomotive and the car windows attracted the notice of the station loafers, who whooped and yelled and crowded up to shake hands with the passengers. At such times Marcy always took off his cap; but that did no good, for some one was sure to see his gray overcoat, and propose cheers for him. Marcy trembled when he thought of what they would do to him if they learned that he was the strongest Union boy in the school he had left. But there was little danger of that. His secret was safe.
Raleigh was reached at last, and Marcy Gray, feeling like a stranger in a strange land, changed cars for Boydtown, which was a hundred and twenty miles further on. But before doing that he stepped into a telegraph office and sent the following dispatch to his mother:
"Will take a late breakfast with you to-morrow if you will send Morris to meet me at the depot. Three cheers for the right."
"How much?" he asked the operator, after the latter had read it over.
"Not a cent to a soldier," he replied, reaching out his hand, and taking it for granted that the boy was fresh from the seat of war. "Warm times in Charleston the other day, I suppose?"
"I shouldn't wonder if it was hot in the fort," answered Marcy, with a smile.
"But you happened to be on the outside."
"You're right, I did. It was no place for me in there."
"No; nor for any other man who believes in the right. Tell us all about it. Were you frightened when you heard the shells bursting over your head, and did the Yankees—"
"I must ask you to excuse me," said Marcy, hastily, "my train is ready to go, and I have barely time to catch it."
"Well, good luck to you."
Marcy hastened from the telegraph office before any one else could speak to him, and thanked his lucky stars that before another night came he would be at home where he could appear in his true character; but he was satisfied, from what his mother had said in her letters, that he would find few friends among the neighbors. They were nearly all secessionists, Mrs. Gray wrote, and those who were not were compelled to pretend that they were, in order to avoid being driven from the country. It was a bad state of affairs altogether, but Marcy knew he would have to get used to it. He slept but little that night, and it was a great relief to him when the train stopped at Boydtown, which was located on a navigable arm of Pamlico Sound, and was as far as the railroad went. As Marcy lived near Albemarle Sound, there was still a ride of thirty-five miles before him, but that would be taken in his mother's carriage, provided any of the negroes had been over to Nashville and got the dispatch he sent from Raleigh the day before. All doubts on this point were removed when the train drew up at the station, for the first person he saw on the platform was Morris, the coachman, who greeted him heartily as he stepped from the car. This faithful old slave was Marcy's friend and mentor, and Sailor Jack's as well; and the boy Julius, who had come with the spring wagon to bring home the trunk, was their playmate. Julius was just about Marcy's age. They had hunted and fished together, sailed their boats in the same mudhole, and had many a fight over their marbles, in which, we are sorry to say, Marcy did not always come out first best.
"There's my check, Julius," said Marcy, handing it over, and slipping a piece of money into the black boy's palm at the same time. "Shut the carriage door, Morris. I am going to ride on the box so that I can talk to you. I want you to tell me everything that's happened since I have been away. You are a good rebel, of course."
"Now, Marse Marcy, you know a heap better'n that," replied Morris, who plumed himself on being the "properest talking colored gentleman on the plantation." "Git up, heah," he shouted to his horses. "Don't you know that the long-lost prodigal son has come back? You don't want to say too much around heah. Everything in town got ears. Wait till we git in the country and then you can talk. Yes, sar, your mother is well; quite well. But she's powerful sorry."
"I know she is. Do you hear anything from Jack?"
"Not the first word. He's on the shipSabine, which done sailed for some place, but I dunno where."
"I wish he was safe at home," said Marcy. "Somehow I feel uneasy about him."
He would have felt more than simply uneasy if he could have looked far enough into the future to see that Jack's ship was destined to be one of the first of a large number of defenseless vessels to fall into the hands of Captain Semmes, who, as commander of theSumter, unfurled the Confederate flag on the high seas, June 30, 1861. But, as we shall presently see, theSabinedid not "stay captured." She escaped, and brought the prize crew that Semmes had thrown aboard of her into a Northern port as prisoners.
"There aint no secesh out on the watah, is there, Marse Marcy?" exclaimed Morris.
"I'm afraid there will be some there before long. We're going to have war, Morris. I saw by a paper I bought on the train to-day that President Lincoln has called out seventy-five thousand men."
"Shucks!" cried the negro. "That aint half enough men. The secesh done got a hundred thousand already."
"I think myself that he might as well have mustered in half a million while he was about it. But the thing that rather surprises me is that he should call upon the border States for troops," said Marcy, pulling from his pocket the paper of which he had spoken. "Of course he'll not get them. Hear what the Governor of this State says: 'Your dispatch is received; and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt, I have to say in reply that I regard the levy of troops made by the administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South, as in violation of the Constitution, and a usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and in this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina.'"
"Marse Linkum oughter hang that man," exclaimed Morris wrathfully.
"That's what I say. He's a pretty fellow to talk about violating the Constitution when South Carolina has already violated it by levying war against the United States. The Southern folks seem to have little sense and less consistency. But don't let's waste any more time on politics. How are everything and everybody at home? Is my schooner all right, and has Bose got over the drubbing that big coon gave him last fall? How many of the boys have run away?"
"Now, just listen atyou," exclaimed Morris. "Who going to run away from the Missus, and where he going to run to?"
"To the Yankees, of course. This war will make you black ones all free."
"Aw! Go on now, Marse Marcy."
"I really believe it. You darkies are the cause of all this fuss, and you will have to be killed off or made free before we can be a united people again."
The coachman's inimitable laugh rang out cheerily. The Northern folks need not trouble their heads about him, he said. He was better off than thousands of the poor whites in the free States, and wouldn't accept his freedom if it was offered to him. His subsequent actions proved that he meant every word he said; for when Marcy read the Emancipation Proclamation to him and his fellow-servants two years later, and told them that they were free to make their way into the Union lines if they could, Morris refused to budge an inch. A few of the slaves had already gone; a few more took Marcy at his word and slipped away by night with their bundles on their shoulders, but those who could get back to the plantation were very glad to come. Freedom wasn't such a beautiful thing after all, because it did not bring the freedom from work that they had looked for, and the Yankee soldiers were really harder task-masters than the ones from whom they had been so anxious to escape.
During the ride homeward Marcy did not see a single thing to remind him that there was a war impending—not a tent or Confederate flag or soldier in uniform was in sight. Negroes sang as they went to their work in the wide fields that stretched out on either side of the road, the birds chirped, the air was soft and balmy, the wheels hummed a melodious tune as they spun rapidly along the hard road, and all his surroundings spoke of peace and plenty.
At last an abrupt turn brought him within sight of his home,—in every respect a typical Southern home, with wide, cool halls, large and airy rooms, broad piazzas, and spacious, well-kept grounds, in which fruits, flowers, and grand old trees abounded. A few miles away, but in plain view, were the sparkling waters of the sound, peaceful enough now, but destined ere long to be plowed by the keels of hostile ships, and tossed into wavelets by shrieking shot and shell. On the left, and about three hundred yards in front of the house, was Seven Mile Creek; and the first thing in it that caught Marcy's eye was his handsome schooner, the Fairy Belle, riding safely at her moorings. Marcy would have found it hard to find words with which to express his admiration for that little craft, and the way she behaved in rough weather. With her aid, and with Julius for a companion, he had explored every nook, corner, and inlet along the dangerous and intricate coast of the sound for miles in both directions; and they were as familiar to him as the road that led from Barrington to the academy. He and Sailor Jack were good pilots for that coast as far down as Hatteras Inlet, and on one or two occasions had been fortunate enough to assist distressed vessels in finding a safe anchorage.
Old Bose, the dog that had been so roughly handled by the last coon Marcy helped dispatch, was the first to welcome him when the carriage turned into the yard, and said, as plainly as a dog could say anything, that he was both surprised and hurt because his usually attentive master had scarcely more than a word and a pat for him. The boy did not even hear the greetings of the numerous house-servants who clustered about the carriage when it was brought to a stand-still, for his eyes and thoughts were concentrated upon the pale woman in black who stood at the top of the wide steps leading to the porch. It was his mother, and in a second more she was clasped in his arms.
"Are you so sorry I've come that you are going to cry over it?" exclaimed Marcy, when he saw that there were tears in her eyes. "I know you'll not expect me to shake hands with you until I have had a chance to say a word to my mother," he added, addressing the blacks who had followed close at his heels. "I will see you all after a while. Come in, mother. I told you I would be late to breakfast, but I know you have saved a bite for me."
After a few earnest questions had been asked and answered by both of them, Marcy went up to his room, whither his trunk had already been carried. His first task was to remove some of the North Carolina dust that had settled on his hands and face, and his next to divest himself of his uniform and put on a suit of citizen's clothes. During his long ride that gray coat had brought him in pretty close contact with some people he hoped he would never meet again.
"Stay there," said he, as he hung the garment upon a hook in his closet."I shall never wear you again, but I'll keep you to remind me of oldBarrington."
The boy afterward had reason to wish he had hidden that uniform or destroyed it. A detachment of Sherman's cavalry scouted through the country, after completing their famous march to the sea, went all over the house in search of valuables and contraband goods, and one of the first things they pitched upon was that gray suit. It might have been a serious thing for Marcy, had it not been for the flag Dick Graham gave him. What became of the other, the one that was hauled down on the day the news of the surrender of Fort Sumter was received, shall be told in its proper place.
"I feel like a free man once more," he said, when he rejoined his mother in the parlor and walked into the dining-room with his arm thrown protectingly around her waist. "Where's Dinah?" he added, seeing that there was no one to wait at table.
"I preferred to have our first breakfast in private," replied Mrs. Gray. "In times like these one doesn't know whom to trust. There's been nothing like open enmity yet," she continued, noticing a shade of anxiety on her son's face. "I have thought it wise to keep my own counsel, and have taken no part in the discussions that have been held in my presence; but I have not escaped suspicion."
"I understand you perfectly," answered Marcy. "Are there no Union people at all in this country?"
"There may be, but I do not know who they are. There are some who have told me, privately, that they are opposed to secession, but having the best of reasons for believing that they said so on purpose to induce me to express my opinion, I have kept silent. You must do the same, and be constantly on your guard. If your friends, or those who were your friends once, assure you that their sympathies are all for the Union, you may listen, but you must not say one word. If you do, you may regret it when it is too late to recall it."
"Why, this is worse than Barrington," Marcy declared. "There you know who your enemies are; but here you've got to look out for everybody, or the first thing you know some sneak may get on the blind side of you. Now, mother, let's talk business. How are the darkies?"
"They seem to be as happy and contented as they ever were, and as willing to work. The overseer hasn't a word of fault to find with them."
"So far so good. How's the overseer; Union or secesh?"
"You must decide that for yourself after you have talked with him," replied Mrs. Gray. "I think he will bear watching. At any rate, I do not trust him."
"Then if I have anything to say, he shall not stay around here a minute after his contract runs out. We don't want anybody about that we are afraid of. You're going to run the plantation right along. I suppose?"
"I thought I would, unless you have something better to propose."
"Well, I haven't. This is my boyhood's home and Jack's. By the way, where is Jack?"
"On the high seas somewhere, and that is all I can tell you."
"And Rodney once said he might never get back again," replied Marcy. "He thinks the South is going to have a navy that will beat anything the world ever saw. Yes, Rodney is a rebel to the backbone," he added in response to an inquiry from his mother. "Says the Northern folks will be whipped before they can take their coats off; but for all that he showed considerable feeling when he came to say good-by. He is under a promise to enlist under the Stars and Bars within twenty-four hours after he reaches home, and I know he will do it, if he can get to a recruiting office. But to return to business. I am sure we had better keep right along as we have been going, instead of pulling up stakes and moving to some new place to meet dangers and difficulties of which we know nothing. We've got to eat, and we must have something to wear; and how are we to get things if we have no crops? Have you any money?"
Mrs. Gray started perceptibly at this abrupt question, and before replying arose to her feet and opened, in quick succession, all the doors leading out of the dining-room.
"Aha!" said Marcy, who thought he knew the meaning of this pantomime. "You remind me of old Uncle Toby.Hehad money which he lost because he hid it in the ground instead of putting it where it would have been safe."
"That is what I have done with ours," said his mother, in a scarcely audible whisper. "That is to say, I have concealed it."
"How much?"
"Nearly thirty thousand dollars, and it is all in gold."
"W-h-e-w!" whistled Marcy. "What put it into your head?"
"I took warning; that is all. The Southern people have often threatened to secede if a Republican President was elected, and I was sure they meant it; so when the election returns came in and this excitement began, I made several quiet business trips to Newbern, Wilmington, Norfolk, and Richmond."
"Why, you never said a word about it in your letters."
"I know it. I did not think it necessary to trouble you with it. I drew a little money each time, brought it home in safety, and I trust without exciting suspicion, though on that point, of course, I cannot be sure, and hid it in the cellar at dead of night, after I had taken the greatest pains to assure myself that every one in the house was soundly asleep."
"How did you cover up the place where you had been digging?"
"I didn't do any digging," his mother answered, with a smile. "I took a stone out of the wall as heavy as I could lift, and cemented it in place again, after keeping out a sum sufficient to meet our immediate wants. It took me three nights to do it."
"It's a shame that there wasn't someone here whom you could trust to do the work for you," said Marcy. "I am here to bear the hard knocks now."
The Southerners were careful of their women. If they had had the faintest conception of the trials and privations their mothers, wives, and sisters would be called upon to bear, they never would have fired upon Sumter. The patience and heroic endurance exhibited by these carefully nurtured women, during the dark days of the war, were little short of sublime.
Marcy and his mother sat a long time at the table, and when they arose from it Mrs. Gray knew pretty nearly what had been going on at Barrington during the last few months (not a word was said, however, concerning the letter Rodney wrote to Bud Goble), and Marcy had a very correct idea of the way matters were being managed on the plantation. He had nothing to suggest. The only thing they could do was to keep along in the even tenor of their way, and await developments. There was one thing for which he was sorry, and that was that he could not discharge Hanson, the overseer, that very day. He believed his mother was afraid of him; but the man was under contract for a year, and could have claimed damages if he had been turned adrift without good and sufficient reason. It was not the damages that Marcy cared for, but he was restrained from urging Hanson's dismissal through fear of setting the neighbors' tongues in motion.
"Hanson is secesh, easy enough," he said to himself. "If he were not, some of those officious planters would have demanded his discharge long ago. If we turn him away without a cause, they will say that we are persecuting him on account of his principles, and that would be bad for us. The man will have to stay for the present, and I'll make it my business to know every move he makes."
Marcy devoted the first few days to renewing old acquaintances among the black people on the plantation, who were overjoyed to see him safe at home, and in calling upon some of the neighboring planters; but the last proved to be rather a disagreeable duty, and one which he did not prosecute for any length of time. It seemed to him that something intangible had come between him and those who used to be on the best of terms with him something that could not be seen or felt, but which was none the less a barrier to their social intercourse. He was not of them, and they knew it; that was all there was of it. Before he had been at home ten days he began to see the force of his cousin Rodney's warning, that if he did not turn his back upon the Union and proclaim himself a secessionist, his neighbors would not have the first thing to do with him, and during those ten days two things happened that made the situation harder to bear than it was at first.
The little town of Nashville, to which Marcy sent his dispatch from Raleigh, was situated about three miles distant from the plantation. Besides the telegraph, express, and post offices it contained a court house, two hotels, and the homes of about five hundred inhabitants. The mail was received twice each day, and as often as it came in, rain or shine, there was some one from Mrs. Gray's house there to meet it. This duty was at once assumed by Marcy, who, besides having a fast horse of his own which he was fond of riding, was so impatient to see the latest papers that he could not wait for anybody to bring them to him. He always read them on his way home, allowing his filly to choose her own gait. On the day he reached home the papers told him that President Lincoln had placed an embargo upon the seaports of all the seceded States; but Marcy did not pay much attention to that. It was nothing more than those States might have expected, but it was a question whether or not the navy was strong enough to enforce the blockade. The same paper informed him that President Davis was ready to issue letters of marque and reprisal to anybody who would equip a privateer, and give bonds that the laws of the Confederate States regulating the capture of prizes should be obeyed. The boy didn't give a second thought to that either. His schooner wasn't heavy enough to engage in the business of privateering, and she would not have gone into it if she had been. She had always floated the flag of the Union, and as long as she remained in his keeping, she never would carry any other. But when on the 29th of April Marcy read that President Lincoln, two days before, had included the ports of Virginia and North Carolina in the limits of his proclamation, it made him open his eyes.
"My State hasn't seceded yet, and here he has gone and shut up her ports," exclaimed Marcy indignantly. "That's a pretty thing to do, isn't it now? Hurry up, Fanny. Let's get home and see what mother thinks about it."