Marcy the Blockade Runner

by Harry Castlemon

  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 towindward" of this sneaking spy. "If I fight him with his own weapons Ishall 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 couldspeak. "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, Idone the same when our gov'ner grabbed the forts along the coast, an' Iyelled fit to split when our folks licked 'em at Charleston. Any man inthe settlement or in Nashville will tell ye that them words of mine isnothing but the gospel truth."

  Marcy knew well enough that his visitor's words were true, but he shookhis head in a doubting way, as he replied:

  "That may all be; but _I_ didn't hear you whoop and yell, and you mustnot expect me to take your word for it. You must bring some proof beforeI will talk to you."

  "Why, how in sense could ye hear me whoop an' yell, seein' that you wasaway to school in the first place, an' off on the ocean with Beardsleyin the next?" exclaimed Kelsey. "Ask Dillon, an' Colonel Shelby, an' thepostmaster, 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 theman's sincerity. "And if they, or any of them, sent you up here to talkto my mother--why, then, I shall have to listen to you; but mind you, ifyou 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 hearsof it?" thought Marcy, leaning his elbows on his knees and covering hisface with his hands so that his visitor could not see it. "Some of thebest men in the country have so far forgotten their manhood, and thefriendship they once had for our family, that they can send thissneaking fellow here to worm something out of us."

  "I don't believe a word of it," he cried, jumping to his feet andconfronting 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 youdon'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 meattend to mine," answered Marcy. "Are Colonel Shelby and the rest ofthem 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 thathe could not have told what the word secession meant.

  "Then why don't you prove it--you and Colonel Shelby, and the rest ofthe neighbors who are saying things behind my back that they don't careto say to my face? Why don't you prove your loyalty to the South byshouldering 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'sfamily 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 goodwill 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 Iwent to sea. Nashville is full of such braggarts as he is. When theycan't find anything else to talk about they talk about me; and I havesmelt powder while they haven't." ["No odds if it was our own powder andthe wind blew the smoke into my face," he said to himself.]

  By this time Marcy had the satisfaction of seeing that he had taken thewind completely out of Kelsey's sails, and that the man who had comethere to trouble him was troubled himself. He even began to fear that hehad gone too far, and that if he did not change his tactics the visitorwould go away without giving a hint of the errand that had brought himto the house; for Kelsey picked up the hat he had placed upon the floorbeside his chair, put it on his head and leaned forward with his handson his knees, as if he were about to get upon his feet. That wouldn't doat all. There was something in the wind--something that CaptainBeardsley, aided by Colonel Shelby and others, had studied up on purposeto get Marcy into a scrape of some kind, and Marcy was very anxious toknow what it was.

  "You hinted a while ago that Colonel Shelby had sent you here to tell mesome bad news," said the young pilot, in a much pleasanter tone of voicethan he had thus far used in addressing his visitor. "Are you ready nowto obey orders and tell me what it is?"

  "Well, I dunno. I reckon mebbe I'd best ride down an' see the colonelfirst," replied the man. But his actions said plainly that he _did_know, and that he had no intention of facing his employer again until hecould tell him that his instructions had been carried out.

  "Of course, you must do as you think best about that; but if it isanything that concerns my mother or myself----"

  "I should say so," exclaimed Kelsey. "I don't reckon it'll do any harmto 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 sureof it----" Marcy finished the sentence by getting up and closing boththe 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 andpiercing that it could have been heard by an eavesdropper (if there hadbeen one) at least fifty feet away, "but you are harboring a traitorright 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 aword of truth in what the man said, and that if the overseer really wasa Union man the planters round about would have sent a person of moreinfluence and better social standing than Kelsey to tell him of it; butafter 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 theywill write me a note stating the facts of the case and asking me todischarge 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 'emburned up."

  "But they are willing that I should get into trouble by dischargingHanson, and put myself in the way of having my house and quartersdestroyed, are they?" exclaimed the boy, his face growing red withindignation, although, as he afterward told his mother, there wasn'treally anything to arouse his indignation. "You may tell those gentlementhat if they want the overseer run off the plantation, they can comehere and do it. If the Union men are as vindictive as Colonel Shelbyseems 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 beforehe 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 aConfederate privateer."

  "Them men, whose names I give ye a minute ago, thought that mebbe you'dbe 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 seewhat effect the words would have
upon him, and Marcy returned his gazewith an impassive countenance, although he felt his heart sinking withinhim.

  "What money?" he demanded, in so steady a voice that the visitor wasfairly staggered. The latter believed that there was rich booty hiddensomewhere about that old house, and he hoped in time to have thehandling 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 hewasn'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 wordsthat he wished he could. "I--me--I mean that the neighbors suspicionit."

  "Oh, that's it. Let those officious neighbors keep on talking; and whenthey have talked themselves blind, you may tell them, for me, that whatmoney we have is safe," said Marcy, with a good deal of emphasis on theadjective. "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 almostshouted. "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 belumberin'. If anything happens to ye, bear in mind that I give ye fairwarnin'."

  "I will," answered Marcy. "And in the mean time do you bear in mind thatI am ready to discharge Hanson at any time Colonel Shelby proves to mysatisfaction that he is a dangerous man to have around; but I shall makeno move unless the colonel says so, for I don't want to get into troublewith my neighbors." ["I wonder if I have done the right thing," thoughtMarcy, as the visitor mounted his mule and rode out of the yard. "Thenext plotter I hear from will be Hanson himself."]

  The boy remained motionless in his chair until Kelsey disappeared behindthe trees that bordered the road, and then got up and walked into thesitting-room, where he found his mother pacing the floor. Her anxietyand her impatience to learn what it was that brought Kelsey to the housewere so overpowering that she could not sit still.

  "Another plot to ruin us," whispered the boy, as he entered the room andclosed the door behind him.

  "Oh, Marcy, it is just what I was afraid of," replied Mrs. Gray. "Who isat 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 MajorDillon 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 menwill stoop as low as they have, they are mean enough for anything. Isuppose you ought to hear what that fellow said to me, but I don t knowhow I can tell it to you."

  "Go on," said his mother, trying to bear up bravely. "I must hear everyword."

  Marcy knew that it was right and necessary that his mother should bekept fully informed regarding the plots that were laid against them, andthat she should know what the planters were thinking and saying abouther; for if she were kept in ignorance, she would be at a loss how toact and speak in a sudden emergency. She might be surprised into sayingsomething in the presence of a secret enemy that would be utterlyruinous. So he drew a chair to her side and told her everything that hadpassed between Kelsey and himself. He did not try to smooth it over, butrepeated 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 shecouldn't understand it.

  "There are but two things about it that are plain to me," answeredMarcy, "perhaps three. One is that the house is watched by somebody, andthat the neighbors knew I was at home almost as soon as you knew ityourself. Another is that the suspicions aroused in the minds of some ofour watchful neighbors are so strong that they amount to positiveconviction. They are as certain that there is money in this house asthey 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 onthe place?" said Mrs. Gray. "And I was so careful."

  "I never will believe that anybody watched you at night," said Marcyquickly. "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, thatyou need not think yourself safe out of Captain Beardsley's reach evenwhen he is at sea. As I said before, he has friends ashore to work forhim while he is absent."

  "What can we do? What do you advise?" asked his mother, after she hadtaken time to think the matter over.

  "There is but one thing we can do, and that is to wait as patiently aswe can and see what is going to happen next. This last plot is not fullydeveloped 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 thefield and give the overseer a chance to say a word if he feels in thehumor for it."

  "Be very cautious, Marcy," said Mrs. Gray.

  The young pilot replied that sleeping or waking he was always on thealert, 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 thefield in which the hands were putting in the time in clearing out fencecorners and burning brush, while waiting for the early crops to get highenough for hoeing. The overseer's mule was hitched to the fence, and theoverseer himself sat on a convenient stump, watching the hands at theirwork, 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 spokento him a few times since his return from Barrington, but of course hedid not like him, for he could not forget that his mother was afraid ofhim, and would be glad to see him leave the place. He liked him stillless 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 blackswere 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 thefront of the house was entirely concealed from view, and that the roadthat ran before it "was shut out from sight by the trees and thewhitewashed negro quarter. It followed then, as a matter of course, thatHanson could not have seen anybody ride away from the house. He was deepenough 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," repliedthe overseer. "Looked sorter like his mu-el."

  "Oh, yes; Kelsey has been up to see us," answered Marcy. And then hetapped his boot with his whip and waited to see what was coming next. Ifthe overseer wanted to talk, he might talk all he pleased; but Marcy wasresolved that he would not help him along. Hanson twisted about on thestump, cleared his throat once or twice, and, seeing that the boy wasnot disposed to break the silence, said, as if he were almost afraid tobroach 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 thepostmaster's."

  "Say anything bad about us?" continued the overseer, after waiting invain for the boy to go on and repeat the conversation he had held withKelsey.

  "Not so very bad," answered Marcy, looking up and down the long fence tosee how the work was progressing.

  "Looka-here, Mister Marcy," said Hanson desperately. "Kelsey told you Iwas Union, didn't he? Come now, be honest."

  "If by being honest you mean being truthful, I want to tell you that Iam never any other way," said the boy emphatically. "What object could Ihave in denying it? I don't car
e a cent what your politics are so longas you mind your own business, and don't try to cram your ideas down mythroat. But I'll not allow myself to be led into a discussion. Kelseydid say that you are Union; and if you are, I don't see why you stay inthis 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 wantyou run off the place, they can come up here and do it. I shall have nohand in it."

  Marcy could read the overseer's face a great deal better than theoverseer could read Marcy's; and it would have been clear to a thirdparty that Hanson was disappointed, and that there was something hewanted to say and was afraid to speak about. That was the money that wassupposed 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 withwhich the _Osprey_ captured that Yankee schooner, and let fall a word ortwo 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 askedhim why he didn't prove it by shouldering a musket. I don't go aboutboasting of the great things I would do if I were only there. There's noneed of it, for I have been there." ["But it was because I couldn't helpmyself," 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 hisfingers in the air. "When they put uniforms on and show by their actionsthat they mean business, I will talk to them, and not before."

  Marcy waited patiently for the overseer to say "money," and the latterwaited impatiently for Marcy to say it; and when at last the boy made uphis mind that he had heard all he cared to hear from Hanson, he broughthis leg down from the horn of his saddle, placed his foot in thestirrup, 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 theUnion and dead against secession."

  "If you lose your place on that account, it'll be because Colonel Shelbyand his friends will have it so," answered Marcy. "You are hired to doan overseer's work; and as long as you attend to that and nothing elseyou will have no trouble with me. You may depend upon that."

  "But before you go I'd like to know, pine-plank, whether you arefriendly to me or not," continued Hanson, who was obliged to confess tohimself 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 outthere in the woods cold and hungry, and hiding from soldiers who weretrying to make a prisoner of you, I would feed and warm you; and Iwouldn'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. "Icouldn't make him tell whether he was Union or secesh, although I givehim all the chance in the world, and he didn't say "money" a singletime. Now, what's to be done? If the money is there and Beardsley isbound to have it, he'd best be doing something before that sailor getsback, 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 seeColonel Shelby."

  "I think I have laid that little scheme most effectually," was whatMarcy Gray said to himself as he rode away from the stump on which theoverseer was sitting. "They haven't got a thing out of me, and I haveleft the matter in their own hands. If there is anything done towardgetting Hanson away from this country (and I wish to goodness theremight be), Shelby and his hypocritical gang can have the fun of doingit, and shoulder all the responsibility afterward."

  But what was the object of the plot? That was what "banged" Marcy, andhe told his mother so after he had given her a minute description of hisbrief interview with the overseer. Was it possible that there were somestrong Union men in the neighborhood, and that Beardsley hoped Marcywould incur their enmity by discharging Hanson on account of his allegedprinciples? Marcy knew better than to believe that, and so did hismother.

  "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 spendingsome minutes in a brown study. "Beardsley knows there is no man in thefamily; 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 hecould make us believe that he was really Union. But Hanson didn't foolme, for he didn't go at it in the right way. He's secesh all over. Thenext 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. Theymight burn the house without finding anything to reward them for theirtrouble."

  "Oh, Marcy. You surely don't think they would do anything sobarbarous."

  "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 inBarrington did after their houses were destroyed. And if they burned theservants' homes as well as our own, We'd throw up a shelter of some sortin the woods. I don't reckon that Julius and I have forgotten how tohandle axes and build log cabins. The practice we have had in buildingturkey traps would stand---- Say," whispered Marcy suddenly, at the sametime putting his arm around his mother's neck and speaking the wordsclose to her ear, "if a mob should come here to-night and go over thehouse, we'd be ruined. There are those Union flags, you know."

  "I never once thought of them," was the frightened answer. "Suppose Ihad had a mob for visitors while you were at sea? Our home would be inashes now. Those flags are dangerous things, and must be disposed ofwithout loss of time. I am sorry you brought them home with you. Don'tyou 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 feelany safer; but I was intending--you see----"

  His countenance fell, and his mother was quick to notice it. "What didyou intend to do with them?" she asked.

  "One of them used to float over the academy," replied Marcy. "DickGraham, a Missouri boy, than whom a better fellow never lived, stole itout of the colonel's room one night because he did not want to see itinsulted and destroyed, as it would have been if Rodney and his friendscould have got their hands upon it. He gave it to me because he knew itwould some day be something to feel proud over, and said he hoped tohear 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 otherflag--well, the other was made by a Union girl in Barrington, who had towork on it by stealth, because her sister, and every other member of herfamily except her father, were the worst kind of secesh. Rodney thoughtsure he was going to put the Stars and Bars on the tower when the Unioncolors were stolen, but our fellows got mine up first, and would havekept it there if they had had to fight to do it. But I'll put them inthe stove if you think best."

  "You need not do anything of the kind," said Mrs. Gray, whose patriotismhad been awakened by the simple narrative. "I shall not permit a partyof beardless boys to show more loyalty than I am willing to showmyself."

  "Bully for you, mother!" cried Marcy. "We'll see both of them in the airbefore many months more have passed over our heads. Now, think of somegood hiding place for them, and I'll put them there right away. Not inthe ground, you know, for if the Union troops should ever come marchingthrough here, we should want to get them out in a hurry."

  "How would it do to sew them up i
n 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, andthen I shall have the old flag over me every night."

  No time was lost in carrying out this decision, and in a few minutesmother and son were locked in the boy's room, and busy stitching theprecious pieces of bunting into one of the quilts. It never occurred tothem 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 thatquilt without so much as saying "by your leave." Probably they neverdreamed that the soldiers of the Confederacy would be reduced to suchstraits.