In twenty minutes more the colonel had galloped away with his body-guard, the plantation house was quiet, Marcy was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, and Charley Bowen was sitting on the porch with Mr. Gray and Rodney, who listened with deep interest while he told of the adventures that had befallen him and his partner since they took leave of the stockade at Millen, which was as much of a prison to the conscript guards as it was to the unhappy Union soldiers who were confined on the inside. Their food was of rather better quality, and they had more of it; but that was about all the difference there was between them. Bowen’s short narrative prepared them to hear something interesting when Marcy awoke; but that did not happen for eighteen hours, and during that time the doctor made a second visit and Mr. Gray went home and brought his wife, who shed tears abundantly when she saw the thin, wan face on the pillow. But his long refreshing sleep and the knowledge that he was among friends, and that the dreaded stockade with all its harrowing associations was miles away, never to come before him again except in his dreams, did wonders for Marcy Gray. When he awoke his eye was as bright as ever, and the strong voice in which he called out: “If there is a good Samaritan in this house I wish he would bring me a drink of water,” was delightful to hear. Rodney, who had just arisen from the lounge on which he had passed the night in an adjoining room, lost no time in bringing the water, and his cousin’s hearty greeting reminded him of the good old days at Barrington before the war came with its attendant horrors, and set the boys of the family to fighting under different flags.
“The only thing I have had enough of since I left home is water,” said Marcy; and Rodney was glad to see that he was strong enough to sit up in bed and hold the cup with his own hand. “This isn’t all a dream, is it? If it is, I hope I shall never wake up.”
“It is not a dream,” Rodney assured him. “Look at your hands. Do you dream that it hurts you to move them? And do you dream that you see your aunt?” he added, making way for Mrs. Gray, who at that moment came into the room and bent over the couch.
Another good sign was that Marcy awoke hungry. He did not say so, for it was too early in the morning for breakfast and Marcy never made trouble if he could help it; but Rodney suspected it, and in a few minutes the banging of stove-lids bore testimony that he was busy in the kitchen, where he was soon joined by Charley Bowen, who said he was the best cook in Georgia. The latter had been given a room to himself, but finding the shuck mattress too soft and warm for comfort, he went out on the gallery during the night and slept there, with Rodney’s hounds for company. While these two worked in the kitchen, Mrs. Gray sat by Marcy’s bedside and told him of Sailor Jack’s visit, and of the letters that had since been received from him, so he could understand that, although his sudden appearance was a great surprise to his friends, it was not quite as bewildering as it would have been had they not been aware that he was doing guard duty at Millen. She was going on to tell of Jack’s plans, which had been upset by Marcy’s arrest, when Rodney, who stood in the door listening, broke in with:
“What will you put up against my roll of Confederate scrip that we don’t see Jack in this country again in less than a month? I wrote him yesterday, and it was a letter that will bring him as quickly as he can come; that is, if he thinks it safe to leave his mother. And, Marcy, you’ll have to stay, for you can’t go back among those rebels without running the risk of being dragged off again; and I know what I am talking about when I say that in our army desertion means death.”
“What sort of a fellow are you to talk about ‘rebels’ and ‘our army’ in the same breath?” demanded Marcy.
“I am as strong for the Union as General Grant, and wish I could do as much for it as he is doing to-day,” replied Rodney earnestly. “You never expected to hear me utter such sentiments, did you? Well, I am honest. I want peace, and so does everybody except Jeff Davis and a few others high in authority. I’ll bring Jack here if I can, and then we’ll become traders, all of us. We want to save what we can from the wreck.”
By the time breakfast was served and eaten, and the conscripts had exchanged their rags for whole suits of clothing, Mr. Gray and Ned Griffin came to swell their number, and to hear Marcy tell how he and his comrade managed to escape from Millen and to elude their pursuers afterward. Marcy protested that he wasn’t going to lie abed when there was no need of it, so he was propped up with pillows in the biggest rocking-chair the house afforded, and pulled out to the porch, where the family assembled to listen to his story, which ran about as follows:
When we took leave of Marcy Gray to resume the history of his cousin Rodney’s adventures and exploits, he was a refugee from home and living in the woods in company with a small party of men and boys who had fled there to avoid the enrolling officers, as well as to escape persecution at the hands of their rebel neighbors. By a bold piece of strategy Marcy had relieved his mother of the presence of her overseer, Hanson by name, who had managed to keep her in constant trouble and anxiety ever since the first gun was fired from Sumter. Hanson made it his business to keep informed on all matters that related to the private life of the occupants of the great house; in fact it was suspected that Beardsley, Shelby, and some other wealthy rebels paid him to do it. It was rumored that Mrs. Gray had a large sum of money hidden somewhere about her premises, and if that was a fact, these enemies, who were all the while working against her in secret, desired above all things to know it. They wanted the money themselves if it could be found, and even went so far as to bring four ruffians from a distant point to break into the house at night and steal it. If they failed to line their own pockets, it was their intention to induce the Richmond authorities to interest themselves in the matter. A law enacted by the Confederate Congress at the breaking out of the war provided that all debts owing to Northern men should be repudiated, and the amount of those debts turned into the Confederate treasury. Marcy often declared that his mother did not owe anybody a red cent; but it would have been easy for such men as Beardsley and Shelby to swear that she did, and that, instead of complying with the law, she was hoarding the money for her own use. If this could be proved against her, Mrs. Gray would have to surrender her gold or go to jail; but somehow Marcy was always in the way whenever her secret enemies tried to collect evidence against her. Being always on his guard he never could be made to acknowledge that there was a dollar in or around the great house, and Beardsley undertook to remove him so that he and his fellow-conspirators could have a clear field for their operations; and he did it by taking Marcy to sea with him as pilot on his privateer and blockade runner.
But for a long time nothing worked to Beardsley’s satisfaction. His fine dwelling was burned while he was at sea, and the Federal cruisers drove his blockade runner into port and kept her there until Marcy set fire to her as she lay at her moorings. This he did on the night he left home to join the refugees in the swamp. He had a narrow escape that night, and would certainly have been packed off to Williamston jail before morning if it had not been for the black boy Julius, who loyally risked his own life to give Marcy warning. Beardsley and Shelby were finally “gobbled up” by Union cavalry and taken to Plymouth, which had been captured by some of Goldsborough’s gunboats and garrisoned by the army; but, unfortunately for Marcy, they did not remain prisoners for any length of time. If Beardsley had any luck at all it showed itself in the easy way he had of slipping through the hands of the Yankees. He was captured by Captain Benton, who commanded the vessel on which Marcy did duty as pilot during the battles of Roanoke Island, and in the end was turned over to General Burnside, who made the mistake of parolling him with the captured garrison. That was the plea that Beardsley set up when he and his companions, of whom there were about a dozen, were taken into the presence of the Federal commander at Plymouth.