“I tell you we must get over to-night,” urged Jenks, who hoped that his uniform would give him a certain prestige in the eyes of the ferryman. “I am Major Lightfoot, of the —th Virginia, and I’m on an important mission. Every minute is precious!”
“That may be true enough, Colonel,” replied the man, ignoring the title of “major,” and taking a whiff from his pipe. “That may be true enough, but I calculate nature’s got somethin’ to say in this world. And I calculate I ain’t a-going to risk my life, and the happiness of my wife and five children, by tryin’ to stem the Tennessee in this turmoil.”
George’s heart sank within him. To be so near the realization of his dream of adventure, and to be stopped at the eleventh hour by this stupid, cautious boatman! Waggie, who had been frisking near him, suddenly became solemn.
Watson pulled from his coat a large pack of Confederate money. “There’s money for you,” he cried, “if you’ll take us over!”
The ferryman eyed him in a sleepy way, and took another pull at that provoking pipe.
“Money!” he said, after a long pause, during which the Northerners gazed at him as if their very lives depended on his decision. “Money! What’s the use to me of money, if we all get drowned crossing over?”
As he spoke the river roared and rushed downwards on its course with a heedlessness that quite justified him in his hesitation. “Wait till to-morrow morning, and the Tennessee will be quieter. Then I’ll help you out.”
“Wait till doomsday, why don’t you say?” thundered Jenks. “We must take the risk—and I order you to take us over, at once!”
“You may be a very big man in the army,” answered the ferryman, “but your orders don’t go here!” He produced a small tin box from the tail of his coat, leisurely poured from it into his pipe some strong tobacco, and slowly lighted the stuff. Then he arose, walked to the edge of the wharf, and beckoned to a lad of nine or ten years old who was half asleep in the boat. The boy jumped up, leaped upon the wharf, and ran off along the river’s bank in the opposite direction from which the four strangers had come. He had received a mysterious order from the ferryman.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Macgreggor, who had a strong desire to knock down this imperturbable fellow who refused to be impressed even by a Confederate uniform.