At last, one afternoon, as she was sitting by him, while his mother did some errands in the village, he suddenly surprised her by dropping upon her lap an elegant gold watch, which Rose knew at a glance must have belonged to some person of taste and wealth.
“What is it? Whose is it?” she asked, and Bill replied:
“’Twas his’n, the chap’s I took, you know. He’s down to the old Capitol now, shet up. Didn’t you never hear of him?”
“You mean the young man you captured,” Rose replied. “Tell me about him, please. Who was he, and where was his home?”
“You tell,” Bill answered, with one of his peculiar winks. “He gave it as John Brown; but a chap who knowd him said ’twas somethin’ else. He wan’t a Rebel neither—that is, it wan’t his nater, for he came from Yankee land.”
“A traitor, then,” Rose suggested, and Bill replied:
“You needn’t guess agin; and you and I or’to be glad that no such truck belongs to us.”
Rose colored scarlet, but made no response, for recreant Jimmie flashed across her mind, and she shrank from having even the vulgar Bill know how intimately she was connected with a traitor. Bill watched her narrowly, and thinking to himself,
“I’m on the right track, I’ll bet,” he continued, “I hain’t no relations in the Confederate army, I know, and I don’t an atom b’lieve you have.”
No answer from Rose, except a heightened bloom upon her cheek, and her inquisitor went on: