Marcy, the Refugee

So saying the captain urged his horse into a lope, and Colonel Shelby followed his example. After a while they turned into one of the narrow lanes that ran through Beardsley's cultivated fields to the woods that lay behind them, galloped past Mrs. Brown's cheerless cabin, and at last drew rein before the door of one that was still more cheerless and dilapidated. It stood in one corner of a little patch of ground that had been planted to corn and potatoes, and which had received such slight care and attention of late years that the blackberry briars were beginning to take possession of it. A small pack of lean and hungry coon dogs greeted the visitors as they stopped in front of the cabin, and their yelping soon brought their master to the door. He was the same lazy Kelsey we once saw sitting on the front porch of Mrs. Gray's house, only his hair was longer, his whiskers more tangled and matted, and his clothes worse for wear.

"Alight and hitch," was the way in which he welcomed Captain Beardsley and his companion. "Git out, ye whelps!"

"Can't stop so long," replied the captain. "Been over to Mrs. Gray's to see how my pilot was getting on, and tried to scare up a job for you at overseering, in the place of that chap who was took off in the night time."

"I dunno's I am a-caring for a job of that sort," answered Kelsey. "I've got a sight of work of my own that had oughter be did."

"That's so," said Beardsley, glancing at the broken fences, the bare wood-yard and the briars that were encroaching upon the borders of the little field. "But there's no ready money in your work, while there is a sight of it up to the Grays."

"I won't work for no sich," declared Kelsey. "They think too much of their niggers."

"They set a heap more store by them nor they do by such poor folks as you be. But you needn't bother. They won't take you and give you a chance to keep your head above water, and put a bite of grub into the mouths of your family and a few duds on their backs. They allowed that they wouldn't have no such trifling hound as you on their place."

"Did Mrs. Gray use them words about me?" exclaimed Kelsey, growing excited on the instant.

"I heard somebody say them very words, but I aint naming no names; nor I aint been nowheres except up to Mrs. Gray's to-day. One of 'em allowed that if you wasn't too doggone useless to live, you'd go and 'list on the Island."

"I'm jest as good as they be," said the man, who by this time was looking as though he felt very ugly.

"That's so. And some of 'em likewise said that a man who was too lazy to keep a tight roof over his own head, when he could have nails and boards by asking for 'em, wouldn't do no good as an overseer," added Beardsley, counting the holes in the top of the cabin through which the rafters could be seen, and glancing at the stick chimney, which leaned away from the wall as if it were about to topple over. "But that aint what I come here for, to carry tales about my neighbors. I want to say I'm glad to see you doing so well, and that if you are needing a small side of meat and a little meal, you know where to get 'em."

"Sarvant, sah," replied Kelsey. "That there is more neighbor-like than demeaning a man for a trifling hound because he is pore, and I'll bear it in mind, I bet you. As for my roof, it's a heap better'n the one them Grays will have to cover them in a week from now; you hear me? That big house of theirn will burn like a bresh-heap."

"Well, take care of yourself," answered the captain. "But if I'd suspicioned you was going to fly mad about it, I wouldn't 'a' spoke a word to you."

"Kelsey will never carry out his threat," said Colonel Shelby, as the two rode away from the cabin. "He is too big a coward."

"I know that mighty well, but you can say that you heard him speak them very words, can't you?"

Captain Beardsley was very lively and talkative after that, and plumed himself on having done a neat stroke of work that would turn suspicion from himself, when the results of a certain other plan he had in his head should become known in the settlement. But perhaps we shall see that he forgot one very important thing. As to the colonel, although he approved the work that was to be done, he had the profoundest contempt for the man who could deliberately plan and carry it out. He had little to say, and was glad when his horse brought him to a bridle-path that would take him away from Beardsley and toward his own home.

Meanwhile Marcy Gray was in a most uncomfortable frame of mind. When he saw the visitors ride out of the gate, he closed the door and went back to his mother. "The captain never spoke of meeting you and Jack at Crooked Inlet," were the first words she uttered.

"Of course not," replied Marcy. "You did not expect him to, did you? But I rather looked for him to give some reason for coming home, and to hear him say that he would have no further occasion for my services; but he was so disappointed because I would not take that hush-money – "

"O Marcy!" exclaimed his mother. "I was afraid that that was what the money was intended for."

"That was just it, and how the colonel stared when you said you understood the object Beardsley had in view in offering it. Those men think we can destroy their buildings or protect them, just as we please."

"But, Marcy, we cannot do it."

"Let them keep on thinking so if they want to. And another reason Beardsley didn't say all he meant to was because I was foolish enough to give him something else to think about. I was frightened when he mentioned Kelsey's name, for I knew in an instant what he wanted the man on the place for, and I showed that I was frightened."

"So did I, Marcy," groaned Mrs. Gray. "So did I."

"Well, it can't be expected that a woman will be on the watch all the time, but I ought to have had better sense. I gave Beardsley good reason for thinking that there is something on or about the place that we don't want a stranger to know anything about, and of course he believes it is money. But don't you worry. We'll come out all right in the end."

So saying Marcy put on his coat and cap, kissed his mother, and left the house to tell one of the hands to put the saddle on his horse. At the door he met old Morris, who was just coming in with the mail. He saw at a glance that the darky was frightened.

"Marse Marcy, dere's going be great doings 'bout dis place," he began.

"Never mind. I can't stop to hear about it now, for I am in a hurry. Give those papers and letters to one of the girls, and let her carry them in. I wouldn't have you go into my mother's presence with that face of yours for anything. Say nothing to nobody, and I will see you again as I can go to the quarter and back."

From his earliest boyhood Marcy had always been glad to go among the field hands when he was troubled, for they were so full of fun, and had so many quaint and amusing things to say to him that gloomy thoughts could not long keep his company in their presence; but it was not so this time. He silenced all their laughter by the very first words he spoke to them. All the able-bodied men among them (and Marcy designated them by name) were to start for Plymouth before daylight the next morning, to work on the Confederate fortifications. Some of them rebelled at once, and declared that they wouldn't stir a step, but thought better of it when Marcy told them that, if they did not go willingly, they would be marched down by a squad of soldiers, who would not hesitate to help them along by a prod from a bayonet if they showed the least disposition to lag behind. It took him longer to get through with this disagreeable duty than he thought it would, for the blacks hung around him, and clung to his hands as though they never expected to see him again; but it was accomplished at last, and then Marcy turned about, and rode back to the house to interview the coachman. He found him wandering disconsolately about among the horses, too dispirited to work. The two went out in the rain together, taking care to keep out of sight of the sitting-room windows, and the faithful old darky astonished the white boy by describing, almost word for word, as we have told it, what had been said and done in Mrs. Brown's cabin that morning while Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin were there. He said not a word until Morris finished his story, and then he inquired:

"Where did you hear all this?"

"Marse Beardsley's niggah gal, Nancy, was dar, and heared and seen it all wid her own eyes and ears," replied Morris. "She met me on de road when I was coming home wid de mule and de mail, and done told me. Is dat a fac' 'bout de money, Marse Marcy?"

The boy did not in the least doubt the truthfulness of the story. He knew that the girl Nancy looked out for Mrs. Brown's comfort in a shiftless sort of way; that long association with the old gossip had made her a tolerable gossip herself; and that, although she was often sent to the overseer on account of it, she kept on talking just the same. Besides, Nancy could not have known about the money unless she had heard somebody speak of it. And Mark Goodwin was sure it was concealed in the cellar wall! That was the worst piece of news Marcy Gray had ever listened to. He stood for some minutes looking down at the ground in deep study, and then he seized the black man's arm and drew him closer to him. He gave him some rapid whispered instructions, old Morris now and then nodding, as if to show that he understood them perfectly, and then they shook hands, as two brothers might have done, and separated.

At daylight the next morning there was not a single able-bodied black man to be seen on Mrs. Gray's plantation, if we except the few who found employment about the house, the working party having left hours before. Marcy saw them from his window as they marched out of the gate with their bundles on their backs, but he did not go down to speak to them. He had taken leave of them once, and had no desire to go through the same ordeal again. He rode into Nashville that morning, as he did every other morning for the next two weeks, but the only news he heard related to the fortifications at Roanoke Island, which grew in size and strength every day, and were to be held at all hazards. He thought it strange that he did not see Aleck Webster, but, of course, he dared not ask after him. He saw Allison, and Goodwin, and others of that stamp, who went out of their way to profess friendship for him; but Marcy never lingered long in their company until one day when they followed him to the hitching-rack, after he had secured his mail, to warn him that he had better have an eye on that man Kelsey, who meant harm to him.

"What does he think he has against me?" was the first question Marcy asked. "Doesn't he want me to feed him any more?"

"He doesn't want grub so much as he wants work," replied Goodwin. "And you wouldn't hire him to take Hanson's place."

"Hadn't we a right to say who shall work for us and who shall not?" demanded Marcy. "But we don't need anybody. I am going to act as my mother's overseer; that is, if I ever have any hands to oversee."

"But Kelsey doesn't like to be called a lazy, trifling hound; and you wouldn't like it either," said Allison.

"I never called him that. I simply said that I would let the fields grow up to briars before I would have him on the place, and I say so yet. Let him enlist, if he wants something to do."

"But he can't enlist. The doctors wouldn't pass him."

"Has he tried them?"

"What would be the use? Can't you see for yourself how he is bent almost double with rheumatism?"

"I can see how he bends over because he is too lazy to straighten up, but I never heard that he had rheumatism. What is he going to do to me?"

"He has threatened to burn you out."

"I expect to be burned out, but not by that man Kelsey. Now mind what I say, you two. When that thing happens you will see some disappointed men and boys right here in this settlement, and our house will be in good company when it burns. Good-morning."

"Hold on!" exclaimed Mark. "Don't go off mad. What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," answered Marcy, who wanted to say more, but thought it would not be prudent. "And there is no need that I should enter into explanations with you and Tom Allison."

Marcy rode away, wondering if he had done wrong in letting those young rebels see that he was so well posted. If he had made a mistake in speaking so plainly it was too late to mourn over it now. He wished he might have opportunity to exchange a few words with Aleck Webster, and sometimes, during the week that followed, he was strongly tempted to ride by his house in the hope of seeing him there; but prudence always interposed in time to keep him from doing anything so rash. Then he waited and hoped for a sign from some of the other members of the band; but, although he was sure that he met and spoke to them every day in the post-office, they said no word to him that could not have been uttered in the presence of a third party, nor did they give him a chance to speak to them in private. Marcy told himself that it was little short of maddening to live in this way to know that there were enemies all about him and not a single old-time friend of his family to whom he could go for advice or comfort. The state of suspense he was in day and night was hard to bear, and Marcy was almost ready to do some desperate deed to bring it to an end.

A few days more passed and once more Colonel Shelby and Captain Beardsley came to visit the family. This was nothing unusual, for they and others often came now to keep up an appearance of friendship, and to inquire if there was any way in which they could be of assistance to Mrs. Gray. They stayed an hour, and when they went away, and Marcy and his mother reviewed the conversation that had taken place during the visit, to see if they had been entrapped into saying anything they ought not to have said, the only news they remembered to have heard was that Shelby and Beardsley, and some others whose names they mentioned, were going down to the Island to inspect the works, and see how their hands were getting along under their military overseers. They would probably be gone three or four days, and if Marcy or his mother desired to send a word of remembrance to any faithful old servant, they should be pleased to take it.

"I am getting heartily tired of visits of this sort," said Marcy. "I wish they would keep away, and let us alone, for I don't care to talk to men I have to watch all the time. I am afraid there is something back of these friendly calls."

There was something back of this one at any rate – something that was very like a tragedy; and the first act was performed that night a little after dark. Marcy was just rising from a late supper, when the sound of hoofs was heard on the carriage-way, and Bose challenged with all his might. When Marcy opened the door he saw the horseman bending down from his saddle, and waving his hand at the dog as if he were trying to quiet him. He was so far away that Marcy could not see who he was, although the light from the hall lamp streamed brightly out into the darkness. When he heard the boy's step upon the porch the man straightened up, but did not offer to come any nearer.

"What is wanted?" demanded Marcy.

"Does this yere road lead to Nashville?" asked a hoarse, gruff voice that Marcy had never heard before.

"The one outside the gate leads to Nashville, but the one you are on leads up to this door," answered the boy, who, for some reason or other, began to feel uneasy.

"You aint overly civil to strangers in these parts, seems like," said the man. "I've been out lookin' for niggers to work on the forts, an' got lost, if it will do you any good to know it." And, with the words, he turned his horse about, and galloped out of the yard.

It was a very simple incident – one that was likely to happen at any time – but all that evening Marcy could not get it out of his mind. He could not read, either, and did not want to talk, so he went to bed at an early hour; but before he did so, he made the rounds of the house with a lighted lantern in his hand. Bose was in his usual place on the rug in front of the door, and so fast asleep that he did not move when his master stepped over him, and the doors and windows in the lower part of the house, as well as those in the cellar, were closed and fastened, and, having satisfied himself on these points, Marcy bade his mother good-night, and went to his room. But he did not close his door. He took pains to leave it wide open, and called himself foolish for doing it.

"I am getting to be afraid of the dark," was what he thought, as he turned down his lamp and tumbled into bed. "There isn't a darky on the plantation who hates to have night come as bad as I do, and I don't know that there is anything surprising in it. If there is danger hanging over this house, I wish it would drop, and have done with it."

Marcy went to sleep with this rash wish half formed in his mind.

CHAPTER VI.

THE WISH GRATIFIED

Marcy Gray slept like a boy who had eaten heartily of mince pie for supper, that is, uneasily. But still he must have slumbered soundly or he would have heard the faint scream and the hoarse, muffled voice that came up from his mother's room shortly after midnight, or been awakened by the swift rush of the two figures who hastened up the stairs and through the wide-open door into his room. The figures were there, but the first Marcy knew of it was when one turned up the lamp and the other laid a heavy hand upon his shoulder. Then he opened his eyes and tried to sit up, but was pressed back upon his pillow at the same instant that the cold, sharp muzzle of a revolver was put against his head.

"Keep still now, you pore white trash, and you is all right," said the man who held the revolver. "Make a noise, and you is all wrong, kase you'll be dead quick's a cat can bat her eye. You heah me? Git up!"

Any sense of fear that might have come upon Marcy Gray, if he had been given time to think twice, was lost in profound astonishment. The man talked like a negro; but in those days negroes were not given to doing desperate deeds of this sort. Hardly realizing what he was doing, Marcy threw off the bedclothes and sat up; and as he did so, the man who had turned up the lamp snatched the pillows from the bed and took possession of the brace of revolvers he found under them. Marcy looked at the pillows that were flung upon the floor, and saw that there were dark stains on both of them. He took short, searching glances at the two men, and saw the white showing through the black on their faces. By this time he was wide awake, and trying to nerve himself for the ordeal he saw before him.

"Git up an' climb into them dry-goods of yourn" commanded the robber, standing first upon one foot and then on the other, and swaying about after the manner of a field hand who had suddenly found himself in an embarrassing situation. "Git into 'em lively. I tol' you, chile. I is de oberseer now, an' you is de niggah. Hustle 'em on."

"How do you expect me to dress rapidly with only one hand to work with?" demanded Marcy, who was not frightened out of his senses, even if he was powerless. "You must give me a little time."

"Well den, what for you go in the wah an' fight the Yankees what want to give us pore niggahs our freedom?" said the robber. "You done got your arm broke, an' it serves you jes right. Wisht it had been your head."

Marcy dressed in much less time than he generally did, and when he had thrown his coat over his shoulders and slipped his well arm into one of the sleeves, he was ready to follow the robbers downstairs and into the cellar; for he thought that was where he would have to go sooner or later. He drew a long breath of relief when he was conducted into the sitting-room, where his mother was waiting for him guarded by two more robbers, whose hands and faces were covered with something that looked like shoe-blacking. Although she was pale she did not appear to be badly frightened, for she smiled pleasantly as the boy seated himself on the sofa by her side, and said:

"I hope they did not handle you very roughly, Marcy."

"Oh, no; they didn't put a hand on me."

"An' what's more, missus, we aint going to, if you do jes like we tell you," said the robber who had thus far done the talking. "You white folks is rich, an' we black ones is pore. You've got money, an' we aint got none."

"And you want us to give you some, I suppose," added Marcy, putting his hand into his pocket and drawing forth the small buckskin purse in which he carried his change. "There's my pile. How much have you, mother?"

"Look a-here!" exclaimed the man, forgetting himself in his rage and speaking in his ordinary tone of voice. "That won't go down. You've got more, an' we know it; an' if you don't trot it out without no more of this foolishness – "

"So far as I know, these purses contain every cent of money there is in the house or about it," interrupted Marcy, taking both the articles in question in his hand and extending them toward the robber. "The darkies may have some, but if they have I don't know it."

With a muttered curse the man hit Marcy's hand a heavy blow and sent the purses flying to the farthest corner of the room. He expended so much strength in the blow that he almost pulled the boy from his seat on the sofa, and drew an involuntary exclamation of surprise and indignation from his mother.

"Look a-here, ole woman! You'll say 'Oh, my dear boy!' a good many times afore we uns is done with you if you don't trot out that money," declared the robber, in savage tones. "We know jes what we're doing, an' you might as well give in without wasting no more time over it. Where is it? I ask you for the last time."

"It is in those purses," replied Marcy. "If you want it, go and pick them up. You knocked them there."

"We'll take some of that there sass out of you in two minutes by the watch," snarled the robber, glancing up at the heavy chandelier which, depended from the center of the high ceiling. "Where's that rope, Jim? Do you reckon that there thing will pull out or not?"

"What are you ruffians going to do?" gasped Mrs. Gray, when she saw the man Jim pull a rope from his pocket.

"We're going to see if we can choke some sense into this boy of yourn," was the answer. "If you don't want to see him hung up afore your face an' eyes, make him tell where that money is. We uns have got to have it afore you see the last of us."

Mrs. Gray turned an appealing look upon Marcy, who said stoutly:

"I told nothing but the truth when I said that there is no money in the house except the little in those purses. Why don't you men look around and satisfy yourselves of the fact?"

"We aint got time, an' more'n that, we've knocked off work for the night. Throw one end of the rope over that thing up there, an' make a running noose in the other. I said I wouldn't ask him agin, an' I meant every word of it."

Things began to look serious, and the resolute expression on Marcy's pale face showed that he understood the situation. His mother knew he told the truth that he had secretly removed her treasure to another hiding-place, and she longed to throw herself upon his neck and beg him to tell what he had done with it. But she did not do it, for that would only have made matters worse. It would have encouraged the robbers and disheartened the boy, who was so calmly watching the preparations that were being made to pull him up by the neck. He knew that the men were working on a supposition; that they had no positive proof that there was money in the house; and hoped that they would soon weary of their useless demands, or that something would frighten them away. But he was obliged to confess to himself that neither contingency seemed likely to happen. The robbers acted as though they were in earnest, and there was nothing to interfere with their work. None of the servants had showed themselves, and even Julius and Bose, who never failed to be on hand when there was anything unusual going on, had not once been seen or heard. The house was as silent as if it had been deserted. After a few unsuccessful attempts the man Jim managed to throw the rope over one of the branches of the chandelier at the same time that a second robber finished the work of putting a running noose on the other end.

"Now I reckon we're about ready for business," said the leader grimly. "Mebbe you'd best bear down on it first, Jim, to see if the thing will hold you up."