"I am glad to know that Hawkins is our friend."
"When I met him in Nashville, and he took the trouble to cross the road and shake hands with me and say that I did just right while I was on Captain Benton's gunboat, I knew right where he stood," answered Marcy. "I can see him as often as I have anything to say to him, for he is loafing about the settlement all the time."
While Marcy talked he was looking through one of the papers Captain Burrows had left behind for the account of that famous fight in Hampton Roads, and when he found it he read it aloud. The result of the first day's struggle must have been alarming as well as discouraging to the loyal people in the North, and the gloomy predictions that were made in the papers concerning the terrible things the Virginia was going to do when she finished the Union fleet at Fortress Monroe, were enough to make Marcy feel gloomy himself. But the account of the next fight was most inspiriting. The little Monitor proved to be more than a match for her ponderous antagonist. Washington would not be bombarded, the blockading fleet, which the Virginia was to sink or capture at her leisure, was still on top of the water and likely to stay there, and the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by France and England was as far off as ever.
"There's one thing I like about Northern papers," said Marcy, when he had read every line he could find that in any way related to the matter that was just then uppermost in his mind. "They always tell the truth. If their people are whipped they don't hesitate to say so, but ours gloss it over and try to make it appear that every fight is a Confederate victory. According to our Newbern papers the South hasn't lost a single place that she couldn't spare as well as not. Donelson and Fort Henry were outposts that we did not intend to hold anyway, and Roanoke Island was of so little consequence that the Richmond authorities did not garrison it as heavily as they would if they had wanted to keep it. It's the worst kind of bosh, and everybody in the South knows it. Now then," he added, addressing himself to Julius, who, since he followed his master into the room, had stood in one corner hearing and seeing all that was said and done, "put these guns and things where they belong, and stand by to-night after dark to help me hide them in the garden. You heard what that Federal officer said about the Home Guards, didn't you? Well, what do you know of them?"
"Not de fustest think, Marse Mahcy," answered the boy earnestly. "Dey gettin' to be mighty jubus of de niggahs round hyar, an' nobody nebber say nuffin whar Julius kin ketch it."
"Keep your eyes and ears open, and if you do catch on to anything come straight to me with it; do you understand? Now I am going to ride out for a while."
"Do you intend to say anything about our visitors?" inquired his mother.
"If I meet anyone who knows they were here I don't see how I can avoid speaking of them," was Marcy's reply. "But circumstances will have to determine what I shall say about them. I don't mean to let every Tom, Dick, and Harry know how very friendly that captain was with us. I don't think it would be just the thing. Good-by."
"Look a hyar, Marse Mahcy," began Julius; and then he hesitated for as much as a minute before he went on to say, "You know dat niggah Mose?"
"Yes, I know Mose," answered Marcy, and he might have added that he knew him to be the laziest and most worthless black man on the plantation. "What of him?"