Marcy The Blockade Runner Part 25

"I never heard that mother lost a breastpin," said Marcy, when Jack had got this far with his narrative. "Did she find it again? Did Hanson give it up?"

Instead of replying in words, Jack took hold of a small cord that encircled his neck, and pulled his ditty-bag from beneath the bosom of his flannel shirt. This he opened with great deliberation, taking from it a small vial and a package wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

"What have those things to do with mother's breastpin?" demanded Marcy.

"What's in that bottle?"

"That vial contains my charm; and a most potent one it is," said the sailor gravely.

"If you don't quit your nonsense and come to the point, I will leave you and go into the house," said Marcy angrily.

"I'll bet you won't. This thing is getting interesting now, and it will not be long before it will be more so," answered Jack. "Look at that!"

He had been unwrapping the newspaper while he was talking, and Marcy was struck dumb with astonishment when he saw him bring the lost breastpin to light.

"Jack," he faltered, "where did you get it?"

"The charm brought it. Hold on, now," exclaimed Jack, when his brother turned away with an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n indicative of the greatest annoyance and vexation. "It helped bring it, and a little common sense, backed by an insight into darkey nature, did the rest. Now, don't break in on me any more. Mother will begin to wonder what's keeping us."

When Julius came to ponder the matter, he found that he was in the worst sc.r.a.pe of his life. A house servant considered it an everlasting disgrace to be sent to the field, and Julius thought he would about as soon die or take to the swamps, one being as bad as the other in his estimation. But there was one thing that could be said in his favor: He was loyal to every member of the family in whose service his father and mother had grown gray. Although he could not possibly tell the truth, and found it hard to keep his nimble fingers off other people's property, the tortures of the whipping post, if there had been such a thing on the plantation, could not have wrung from Julius a word or a hint that could be used to their injury. He didn't like to work, but he knew he would have to if he was not ready with "some news of some kind"

that very night. But what could he do when there wasn't any news? In his extremity he bent his steps toward the barn where old Morris was busy washing the carriage.

"Say," he began.

"Look here, n.i.g.g.e.r," replied Morris, straightening up as quickly as a jack in the box, "who you calling 'Say'? If you can't put a Mister to my name, cl'ar yourself and don't bother me no more."

"Say, Mistah Morris," repeated Julius, taking another start.

"That's better," said the coachman approvingly. "What was you going to deserve?"

"Say, Mistah Morris, we uns is all Union, ain't we?"

"Jest listen at the chile. G'long, honey. What you know 'bout politicians? Course we is all Union; all except the overseer, and he ain't fitten to live. Run along, now."

Julius was quite willing to obey, for he had learned all he wanted to know. If Hanson was a rebel, it followed, as a matter of course, that it would afford him satisfaction to learn that the inmates of the great house were rebels also; accordingly when the time came for him to make his report, he was on hand and eager to unburden himself. The overseer, who was waiting for him, took him into a room and carefully locked the door behind him. This not only made the darkey feel a little uneasy, but it stimulated his inventive faculties as well.

"What do you know?" Hanson inquired, taking his pipe from the mantel over the fireplace. "Have you heard anything?"

"Well--I--yes, sar," stammered Julius, as if he did not know how to begin. "I--oh, yes, sar. Is you Union?"

"Of course I am," replied Hanson. "Every white man is."

"Den you ain't got no call to have truck wid de Missus. If she find out dat you is Union, she chuck you off'n de place quick's a cat kin bat her eye. She don't like Link.u.m. I hearn her say so dis bery day."

"Are you telling me the truth?" asked Hanson, looking sharply at the darkey, who met his gaze without flinching.

"If I ain't telling you de fac's ob de case, you kin w'ar dat rawhide o'

your'n out on me quick's you please," said the boy, earnestly. "If you's Union you best dig out, kase de Missus put de secesh on you suah," added Julius, hoping that the man would act upon the suggestion and leave before morning.

"But I don't want to give the Missus warning till I know that she's got money enough to pay me."

"Oh, yes, sar; she got plenty ob money," declared Julius, whereupon Hanson began p.r.i.c.king up his ears. "I seen her have as much as a dollah dis bery day. I seen it wid my own two eyes."

"A dollar," sneered the overseer. "She owes me more'n that, and she's got more'n that. She's got a bushel basketful hid away somewhere; and Julius, if you will find out where it is, and tell me and n.o.body else, I will give you a piece of money just like that."

As he said this he put his hand into his pocket and brought out a twenty-dollar gold piece--a portion of the liberal sum Colonel Shelby had given him for spying upon the family whose bread he ate. Julius declared, with much earnestness, that he didn't believe Mrs. Gray had concealed any money, but if she had he could find it out if anybody could, and he would bring the news straight to the overseer.

When his supposed ally took his departure Hanson was obliged to confess to himself that he did not know any more about Mrs. Gray and the money she was thought to nave in the house than he did before. And we may add that he never did learn anything through the boy Julius. That astute darkey was altogether too smart for the overseer, and brought him only such news as he thought the man wanted to hear; and more than half of that had not a word of truth in it. In the first place his only thought and desire was to keep the overseer from telling his mistress that he stole the breastpin; but as Hanson became more communicative and stood less on his guard, and the boy's eyes were opened to the startling fact that Mrs. Gray had an enemy in the overseer, he threw the fear of punishment to the winds, and set himself at work to defeat all the man's plans. How he managed to keep his secret was a mystery, for never before had the negro been known to hold his tongue. But he kept it, and kept it well until sailor Jack frightened it out of him.

CHAPTER XV.

THE ENCHANTED LOOKING-GLa.s.s.

Things went on in this unsatisfactory way for a long time--so long, in fact, that Hanson began to grow discouraged. And well he might, for with all his scheming he had not been able to add a single sc.r.a.p of information to the first report he made to Colonel Shelby. The boy Julius held manfully to his story--that Mrs. Gray was the best kind of a Confederate, that she had no money except the dollar she carried in her pocket-book--and the most cunningly worded cross-questioning could not draw anything else from him. In process of time Fort _Sumter_ was fired upon, Marcy Gray came home from school, and then the overseer rubbed his hands joyously and told himself that he would soon know all about it.

Well, he didn't, but Julius did; and this was the way it came about.

In the ceiling of the dining-room, to which apartment the family usually betook themselves when they had anything private to talk about, was a stovepipe hole, communicating with a store-room on the floor above. It happened that Julius was roaming about the house one day when Mrs. Gray had company at dinner, and the sound of voices coming up through this opening attracted his attention. He listened a moment, and found that he could plainly hear every word that was uttered in the room below; but he never would have thought of playing the part of eavesdropper if Hanson had not told him that he was expected to do it. Believing that he could add to his usefulness and better guard the interests of the family if he knew more about its private affairs, Julius hastened to the store-room the minute he saw Marcy and his mother going in to breakfast, and put his ear directly over the open stovepipe hole, and heard some things that made him tremble all over. There was money in the house after all--thirty thousand dollars all in gold; it was hidden in the cellar wall, and he could earn a nice little sum by carrying the news straight to the overseer, as he had solemnly promised to do; but he never thought of it. On the contrary he strove harder than ever to make Hanson believe that there was not a dollar in the house beyond the one Mrs. Gray kept in her pocket; because why, hadn't he heard her tell Ma.r.s.e Marcy so with his own two ears? If the overseer did not say "money" during their interviews, Julius did; but he did not dwell long enough on the subject to arouse the man's suspicions. More than that, Julius was brave enough to "take the bull by the horns," and one day he disheartened the overseer by declaring:

"I seen something dis day, Ma.r.s.e Hanson, dat done took my breff all plum away; I did so. Ma.r.s.e Marcy he come home a purpose to go into our army; and his mother she cried and cried, and pooty quick she say: 'My deah boy, dat man Link.u.m mus' be whopped; dat am de facs in de case'; and den she slap him on de back and sick him on. Yes, sar. I done see dat wid my own two eyes dis bery day."

The reason Hanson was disheartened was because he had been promised a liberal reward if he could bring evidence to prove that Mrs. Gray was opposed to secession, and that her journeys to Richmond and other cities had been made for the purpose of drawing funds from the banks; and when Marcy backed up the young negro's bold statement by shipping on board Captain Beardsley's privateer, Hanson came to the sorrowful conclusion that it was not in his power to earn that reward. He was none too good to bear false witness against Mrs. Gray, but he was afraid to do it.

Sailor Jack might come home some day, and--well, Hanson had never seen sailor Jack but he had been told that he was a good one to let alone.

The long-expected wanderer returned in due time, and the wide-awake little negro was the second on the plantation to find it out, Bose being the first. Julius slept in the back part of the house, so close to Marcy's room that if the latter wanted anything during the night, all he had to do was to open his window and call out, and consequently it was no trouble at all for him to catch every word that pa.s.sed between Jack and his brother. He was not far off when the sailor was admitted at the front door, and when he saw the reunited family go into the dining-room, he bounded up the back stairs into the store-room and placed his ear at the stovepipe hole--not because he wanted to repeat anything he heard, you will understand, but because he wanted to know what subjects to steer clear of in his interviews with the overseer. When he heard that Jack had pa.s.sed himself off for a rebel, that he had brought a smuggler into a Southern port, and that he had made considerable money out of the sale of his venture, Julius thought it would help matters if the news were spread broadcast; and he lost no time in spreading it among the negroes, and by their aid it reached Nashville before the boys went there for their mail the next morning. He told about the _Hattie's_ adventure with the steam launch, also (of course he made it more thrilling than it really was), and that was the way Captain Beardsley's daughter came to know so much about it; but he never said a word concerning Jack's short captivity in the hands of the _Sumter's_ men.

After Jack had been at home long enough to find out how things stood, he set himself at work to learn who it was that kept certain people in the neighborhood so well posted in regard to his mother's private affairs.

He said not a word to anybody, but worked in secret, for he believed that his efforts would result in the unearthing of a spy who lived in the house. It would add to his mother's troubles if she knew that Jack believed, as she did, that there was some trusted servant who kept an eye on her movements and went to the overseer with a report of them--so he kept his own counsel, and laid siege to Hanson the very first thing.

The latter wasn't sharp enough to hold his own with any such fellow as Jack Gray, and Jack learned all he cared to know about Hanson in less than two days. The next step was to find the servant on whom the overseer depended for his information. This looked like a hopeless task, but fortune favored him. One morning he stood in front of the mirror in Marcy's room performing his toilet. The door, which was behind and a little to one side of him, was open, and the lower end of the long hall was plainly reflected upon the polished surface of the looking-gla.s.s. So was the slim, agile figure of the small darkey who slipped out of one of the rooms, ran along the hall with the speed of the wind, and disappeared down the back stairs.

"That's Julius," said Jack, whose first thought was to call the boy back and make him give an account of himself. "He has been up to some mischief, I'll warrant; but I will see if I can find out what it is before hauling him over the coals."

So saying Jack stepped into the hall, and the first door he opened was the one leading into the store-room. There was the open stovepipe hole, and through it voices came up from the room below. He bent a little closer to it, and distinctly heard his mother tell one of the girls to put breakfast on the table and ring the bell for the boys. In an instant the whole secret flashed upon him. He said not a word, but as soon as he returned from the post-office, and Marcy had ridden to the field to carry some instructions to the overseer, Jack went up to his room, leaving orders with one of the girls to send Julius there at once. When he came, the first thing Jack did was to lock the door and put the key in his pocket.

"Now, Julius," said he, in his most solemn tones, his face at the same time taking on a fierce frown, "if you are an innocent boy, if you have been strictly honest and truthful ever since I have been at sea, if you have obeyed your mistress and kept your hands off things that do not belong to you----"

"Oh, Ma.r.s.e Jack," exclaimed the frightened boy. "Suah hope to die I nevah----"

"Don't interrupt me," commanded Jack, with a still more savage frown.

"I'll show you in a minute that I have it in my power to find out just what you have done while I have been gone, from the time you stole----"

"Ma.r.s.e Jack, I nevah took dat breastpin; suah hope to die if I did,"

began Julius.

"Hal-lo!" thought Jack. "I've got on to something when I least expected it. That's what comes of knowing how to handle a darkey. I didn't even know that mother had lost a breastpin."

"I haven't asked you whether you stole it or not," he said, aloud.

"There is no need that I should ask you any questions, for I have a way of finding out everything I want to know. If you have been an honest, truthful boy during the last two years, sit down in that chair; but I warn you that if you are deceiving me, it will drop to pieces with you and let you down on the floor. Sit down!"