Marcy the Blockade Runner

by Harry Castlemon

THE ENCHANTED LOOKING-GLASS.

Things went on in this unsatisfactory way for a long time—so long, in fact, that Hanson began to grow discouraged. And well he might, for with all his scheming he had not been able to add a single scrap of information to the first report he made to Colonel Shelby. The boy Julius held manfully to his story—that Mrs. Gray was the best kind of a Confederate, that she had no money except the dollar she carried in her pocket-book—and the most cunningly worded cross-questioning could not draw anything else from him. In process of time Fort Sumter was fired upon, Marcy Gray came home from school, and then the overseer rubbed his hands joyously and told himself that he would soon know all about it. Well, he didn't, but Julius did; and this was the way it came about.

In the ceiling of the dining-room, to which apartment the family usually betook themselves when they had anything private to talk about, was a stovepipe hole, communicating with a store-room on the floor above. It happened that Julius was roaming about the house one day when Mrs. Gray had company at dinner, and the sound of voices coming up through this opening attracted his attention. He listened a moment, and found that he could plainly hear every word that was uttered in the room below; but he never would have thought of playing the part of eavesdropper if Hanson had not told him that he was expected to do it. Believing that he could add to his usefulness and better guard the interests of the family if he knew more about its private affairs, Julius hastened to the store-room the minute he saw Marcy and his mother going in to breakfast, and put his ear directly over the open stovepipe hole, and heard some things that made him tremble all over. There was money in the house after all—thirty thousand dollars all in gold; it was hidden in the cellar wall, and he could earn a nice little sum by carrying the news straight to the overseer, as he had solemnly promised to do; but he never thought of it. On the contrary he strove harder than ever to make Hanson believe that there was not a dollar in the house beyond the one Mrs. Gray kept in her pocket; because why, hadn't he heard her tell Marse Marcy so with his own two ears? If the overseer did not say "money" during their interviews, Julius did; but he did not dwell long enough on the subject to arouse the man's suspicions. More than that, Julius was brave enough to "take the bull by the horns," and one day he disheartened the overseer by declaring:

"I seen something dis day, Marse Hanson, dat done took my breff all plum away; I did so. Marse Marcy he come home a purpose to go into our army; and his mother she cried and cried, and pooty quick she say: 'My deah boy, dat man Linkum mus' be whopped; dat am de facs in de case'; and den she slap him on de back and sick him on. Yes, sar. I done see dat wid my own two eyes dis bery day."

The reason Hanson was disheartened was because he had been promised a liberal reward if he could bring evidence to prove that Mrs. Gray was opposed to secession, and that her journeys to Richmond and other cities had been made for the purpose of drawing funds from the banks; and when Marcy backed up the young negro's bold statement by shipping on board Captain Beardsley's privateer, Hanson came to the sorrowful conclusion that it was not in his power to earn that reward. He was none too good to bear false witness against Mrs. Gray, but he was afraid to do it. Sailor Jack might come home some day, and—well, Hanson had never seen sailor Jack but he had been told that he was a good one to let alone.

The long-expected wanderer returned in due time, and the wide-awake little negro was the second on the plantation to find it out, Bose being the first. Julius slept in the back part of the house, so close to Marcy's room that if the latter wanted anything during the night, all he had to do was to open his window and call out, and consequently it was no trouble at all for him to catch every word that passed between Jack and his brother. He was not far off when the sailor was admitted at the front door, and when he saw the reunited family go into the dining-room, he bounded up the back stairs into the store-room and placed his ear at the stovepipe hole—not because he wanted to repeat anything he heard, you will understand, but because he wanted to know what subjects to steer clear of in his interviews with the overseer. When he heard that Jack had passed himself off for a rebel, that he had brought a smuggler into a Southern port, and that he had made considerable money out of the sale of his venture, Julius thought it would help matters if the news were spread broadcast; and he lost no time in spreading it among the negroes, and by their aid it reached Nashville before the boys went there for their mail the next morning. He told about the Hattie's adventure with the steam launch, also (of course he made it more thrilling than it really was), and that was the way Captain Beardsley's daughter came to know so much about it; but he never said a word concerning Jack's short captivity in the hands of the Sumter's men.

After Jack had been at home long enough to find out how things stood, he set himself at work to learn who it was that kept certain people in the neighborhood so well posted in regard to his mother's private affairs. He said not a word to anybody, but worked in secret, for he believed that his efforts would result in the unearthing of a spy who lived in the house. It would add to his mother's troubles if she knew that Jack believed, as she did, that there was some trusted servant who kept an eye on her movements and went to the overseer with a report of them—so he kept his own counsel, and laid siege to Hanson the very first thing. The latter wasn't sharp enough to hold his own with any such fellow as Jack Gray, and Jack learned all he cared to know about Hanson in less than two days. The next step was to find the servant on whom the overseer depended for his information. This looked like a hopeless task, but fortune favored him. One morning he stood in front of the mirror in Marcy's room performing his toilet. The door, which was behind and a little to one side of him, was open, and the lower end of the long hall was plainly reflected upon the polished surface of the looking-glass. So was the slim, agile figure of the small darkey who slipped out of one of the rooms, ran along the hall with the speed of the wind, and disappeared down the back stairs.

"That's Julius," said Jack, whose first thought was to call the boy back and make him give an account of himself. "He has been up to some mischief, I'll warrant; but I will see if I can find out what it is before hauling him over the coals."

So saying Jack stepped into the hall, and the first door he opened was the one leading into the store-room. There was the open stovepipe hole, and through it voices came up from the room below. He bent a little closer to it, and distinctly heard his mother tell one of the girls to put breakfast on the table and ring the bell for the boys. In an instant the whole secret flashed upon him. He said not a word, but as soon as he returned from the post-office, and Marcy had ridden to the field to carry some instructions to the overseer, Jack went up to his room, leaving orders with one of the girls to send Julius there at once. When he came, the first thing Jack did was to lock the door and put the key in his pocket.

"Now, Julius," said he, in his most solemn tones, his face at the same time taking on a fierce frown, "if you are an innocent boy, if you have been strictly honest and truthful ever since I have been at sea, if you have obeyed your mistress and kept your hands off things that do not belong to you——"