"Cæsar's ghost!" cried Captain Tom, in great alarm. "If my record as a loyal soldier leads him to do that, I shall be sorry I ever put on this uniform. What could I do?"
"Could you not follow the same course that Rodney Gray pursued, when General Lacey came up from New Orleans to swear the Mooreville Rangers into the Confederate Army?" inquired Mrs. Randolph.
"Mother, if you were a man you would be a general yourself," exclaimed Tom, his fears vanishing on the instant. "If a first duty sergeant can back down a major-general, I reckon a captain in the State militia can do the same for a Confederate captain."
He spoke boldly enough, but when one of the house servants came in to tell him that there was a strange soldier riding into the yard he felt his courage oozing out at the ends of his fingers, and he would hardly have dared to go to the door to meet his visitor if his mother had not assured him that she would go also, and that she would remain close at his side to support him during the dreaded interview.
The enrolling officer did not look like a very stern soldier, she told herself, when she saw him get off his horse and shake hands with Tom, who had hastened down the steps to meet him; but then he was backed up by the whole tremendous power of the Confederate Government, and it was to her interest and Tom's to make a friend of him if she could. Captain Roach was equally anxious to secure Tom's assistance in the disagreeable and perhaps dangerous work he had to do, and the consequence was it was no trouble at all for them to get acquainted, or to come to an understanding with one another. After they had spent a few minutes in talking over the situation, and the enrolling officer had shown his written instructions, as well as a copy of the law by which he was supposed to be governed, the latter said:
"What surprises me very much is that there is not the first word said about exemptions. Whether it was an oversight or not the fact remains that, according to this law, every man between the specified ages must be conscripted."
"And that is perfectly right," said Captain Tom, making a hurried mental list of certain persons in the neighborhood whom he would be glad to see go first of all. "Everybody except our Home Guards."
"No, sir," said Captain Roach in tones so decided that Tom's under jaw began to drop down. "The law excepts nobody; but wait a minute. After the regiments and companies that have gone to the front from this State are filled up, the rest of the conscripts will remain at home as a reserve to be drawn upon at intervals of not less than three months, so that our organizations in the field can be kept always full. Now, why can't you help me so as to keep your company of Home Guards together as long as possible? If we work it right perhaps you will not be called upon at all."
"That's the idea!" exclaimed Tom, greatly relieved, while his mother smiled her approval of the suggestion, and told Captain Roach on the spot that she expected him to stay to dinner, and as long as he remained in that part of the country to make himself as free in her house as he would in his own. When she ceased speaking Tom continued: "I am like Nathan Hale, who, when the British were about to hang him as a spy, said he was sorry he had but one life to give to his country; but for all that I should like to stay here until I have seen some of our neighbors who have had so much to say against the South sent to the front. But how shall I work it to keep my company together?"
"By doing as you have suggested," replied the captain. "By first sending away those who ought to be made to fight for the South, since they have had so much to say against her and her cause. Perhaps by the time they have been killed off our independence will be acknowledged; and then we shall not need any more soldiers."