“I dare say you wonder to find a chap like me among people who are so bitter against you Yankees, and I sometimes wonder at myself. I am South Carolina born, and ought to be foremost in the rebellion; but hanged if I can see that it is right. Why, I might as well set up a government of my own, here on the Oak Plantation, and refuse to come under any civilized laws. Mind, though, I don’t think the South all wrong,—not a bit of it. The North did bully us, and the election of Mr. Lincoln was particularly obnoxious to the majority here, but we had no right to secede, and you did your duty trying to drive us back. For a spell I kept quiet,—didn’t take either side; or if I did, I wanted the South to beat, as all my interests are here. But when our folks got to abusing their prisoners so shamefully, and told so many lies by way of deceiving us fellows who live among the hills and only get the news once or twice a week, I changed my politics, and after the day when I found one of my neighbors, and the best man that ever breathed, too, hung to a tree like a dog, with the word ‘Abolitionist’ pinned to his coat, I made a vow that every energy I had should be given to caring for and helping; just such wretches as you, and if I’ve helped one I’ve helped a thousand. Why, at least a hundred have slept in this very room,—Maude’s room; for, as I told you, she is Union to the backbone, and led one chap across the mountain herself. She is a regular Di Vernon, and is not afraid of the very de’il. When she went away she bade me put them in here, as the room least liable to suspicion. To the folks around me I am the roughest kind of a Secessionist, and I suppose nobody can beat me swearing about the Yankees, just to hoodwink ’em, you know. I suppose that’s wrong; my wife would say so; she was a saint when she was here,—she is an angel now. She died five years ago,—before the war broke out; and Lois, the woman you saw, has been my housekeeper since. I shouldn’t like the North to take her from me. They tried it once,—when a squad of ’em ransacked my house,—and I was sick in bed. Maude threatened to blow their brains out: and, sir, she would have done it, too, if the scamps hadn’t let Lois alone.
“I don’t agree with your folks on the nigger question, though none of mine has run away since the Proclamation, which I did not like. They know, too, they are free, or will be when the Yankees come, for I took pains to tell them, and gave them liberty to cut stick for the Federal lines as soon as they pleased; but they staid, and great help I find them in the business I’m carrying on. They are constantly on the lookout for runaways or refugees, and are quite as good as bloodhounds to scent one. They told me about you, and I watched and saw you go into that cave, which is on my land, and which few know about, or if they do they think it a springhole, and never dream that anybody can hide in there. Somebody else must have seen you, too, for word came that a man was hiding in the mountains, and as the acknowledged leader of as hard a set as ever hunted a Yankee, I went with ’em to find you, and carried in my pocket that bacon and corn bread which I managed to drop into the cave when I sat with my back against it. I knew you must be hungry, and it might be some time before I could come to your aid. We didn’t find the chap; but to-morrow they’ll be at it again, and so, while I help ’em hunt for a man about your build, you will stay in the room in Lois’s charge. Maude has a good many gimcracks here, such as books and things, which may amuse you. She is coming home by and by. The house is very different then. You ought to see Maude. We are very proud of her. That’s her picture, only not half so good-looking,” and he pointed to a small oil painting hanging above the mantel.
It was a splendid head, and the glossy black hair bound about it in heavy braids gave it a still more regal look. The eyes, too, were black, but very soft and gentle in their expression, though something about them gave the impression that they might flash and blaze brilliantly under excitement. It was a beautiful face, and Will did not wonder that his host was proud of his niece,—prouder even than of the pale-faced, delicate boy, who next day, while the hunt for the runaway went on among the mountains, tried to entertain Will Mather by telling him of his old home in North Carolina, and how happy they were there before the war came and took his father away.
“I don’t see it in the light Uncle Paul and sister do,” Charlie said. “I don’t want them to catch and torment the prisoners, or murder folks who don’t think as they do; but I do want our side to succeed, and when I hear of a victory I say ‘Hurrah for the Confederacy!’ I can’t help it when I think of father, who was killed by the Yankees, and all the trouble the war has brought. I’m willing to work like a dog for the refugees and prisoners, and I’d die sooner than betray one, but if I was a man I’d join Mr. Davis’s army sure.”
The pale face of the boy was flushed all over, and his dark eyes burned with Southern fire as he frankly avowed his sentiments, and Will Mather could not repress a smile at this noble specimen of a Southern rebel.
“I like you, my boy, for your frankness,” he said, “and when the war is over, I shall have to send for you to come North and be cured of your treason.”
“It is not treason,” and the boy stamped his girlish foot. “It is not treason any more than the views held by the Revolutionary soldiers. Didn’t the colonies secede from England, and does anybody call Washington a traitor now? I tell you it is success which decides the nature of the thing. If we succeed, future historians will speak of us as patriots, as a persecuted people, who gave our lives in defence of our homes and firesides.”
“You won’t succeed, my poor boy. The Confederacy is gasping its last breath. You will be conquered at the last, and then what have you gained?”
“Nothing,—nothing but ruin!” and the tears poured over the white face of this defender of Southern rights.
Soon recovering himself, however, he exclaimed, proudly: