"What do you want me to do to prove it?" asked the rebel in reply.
"Ob, a hundred things," answered Marcy. "But in the first place, do you know anything about the Home Guards?"
"Being one of 'em I oughter know all about 'em," was the reply. "But not being pizen enough agin the Unionists to suit 'em, I have sorter got it into my head that they are keeping some things from me. All the same, I know enough to be sartin sure that they mean harm to you."
"That is what I thought; and I am certain of it too, now that this Hanson has returned. He used to be my mother's overseer, and is the man who was taken from his house and carried into the swamp."
"So that's the chap, is it?" exclaimed Hawkins. "I didn't know him, for your mother hired him after I 'listed; but I've heard as much as I want to know about him. Of course he is going back on the place to stay his time out?"
"That is what he says; but the worst of it is that he wants to make up the time he lost by being carried away. Now, is there any way in which I can stop that?"
"You can shoot him, I reckon. That's what I'd do for any man who kept shoving himself on me when he wasn't wanted, like this feller is shoving himself on you and your maw."
Marcy made no reply, for nothing he could then think of would have induced him to carry things as far as that. Hawkins understood this, and after thinking a moment he added:
"You can give his name to the fust Yankee officer you meet scouting around out here, or you can leave a note on Beardsley's gallery and Shelby's, telling them that, if they don't get him off your place in a little less than no time, some more of their buildings will go up in smoke. Where's the schooner that Beardsley used to run the blockade in? He'd ruther lose half his niggers than lose her."
"I know what you mean, but the trouble is I can't prove anything on him. I can't bear the thought of destroying his property just because I think he is persecuting me."