Marcy knew that it was right and necessary that his mother should be kept fully informed regarding the plots that were laid against them, and that she should know what the planters were thinking and saying about her; for if she were kept in ignorance, she would be at a loss how to act and speak in a sudden emergency. She might be surprised into saying something in the presence of a secret enemy that would be utterly ruinous. So he drew a chair to her side and told her everything that had pa.s.sed between Kelsey and himself. He did not try to smooth it over, but repeated the conversation word for word; and when he came to the end, his mother was as much in the dark as Marcy was himself. She said she couldn"t understand it.
"There are but two things about it that are plain to me," answered Marcy, "perhaps three. One is that the house is watched by somebody, and that the neighbors knew I was at home almost as soon as you knew it yourself. Another is that the suspicions aroused in the minds of some of our watchful neighbors are so strong that they amount to positive conviction. They are as certain that there is money in this house as they would be if they had caught you in the act of hiding it."
"Doesn"t that prove that the overseer is not the only spy there is on the place?" said Mrs. Gray. "And I was so careful."
"I never will believe that anybody watched you at night," said Marcy quickly. "The neighbors saw you when you went away and came back."
"But I brought goods with me on purpose to allay their suspicions."
"I am really afraid you didn"t succeed. The other thing I know is, that you need not think yourself safe out of Captain Beardsley"s reach even when he is at sea. As I said before, he has friends ash.o.r.e to work for him while he is absent."
"What can we do? What do you advise?" asked his mother, after she had taken time to think the matter over.
"There is but one thing we can do, and that is to wait as patiently as we can and see what is going to happen next. This last plot is not fully developed yet, and until it is we must not make a move in any direction.
I am as impatient as you are, and so I think I will ride out to the field and give the overseer a chance to say a word if he feels in the humor for it."
"Be very cautious, Marcy," said Mrs. Gray.
The young pilot replied that sleeping or waking he was always on the alert, and went out to the little log stable, which did duty as a barn, to saddle his horse. A long lane led through the negro quarter to the field in which the hands were putting in the time in clearing out fence corners and burning brush, while waiting for the early crops to get high enough for hoeing. The overseer"s mule was. .h.i.tched to the fence, and the overseer himself sat on a convenient stump, watching the hands at their work, and whittling the little switch that served him for a riding-whip.
The man was almost a stranger to Marcy. The latter had seen and spoken to him a few times since his return from Barrington, but of course he did not like him, for he could not forget that his mother was afraid of him, and would be glad to see him leave the place. He liked him still less two minutes later, for, as he drew rein beside the overseer"s perch, threw his right leg over the horn of his saddle and nodded to the man, the latter said, first looking around to make sure that none of the blacks were within hearing:
"I was sorry to see that man ride away from the big house a while ago."
"What man?" inquired Marcy. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the front of the house was entirely concealed from view, and that the road that ran before it "was shut out from sight by the trees and the whitewashed negro quarter. It followed then, as a matter of course, that Hanson could not have seen anybody ride away from the house. He was deep enough in the plot to know that if mother and son had not had a visitor, they ought to have had one.
"I suspicioned it was that shiftless, do-nothing chap, Kelsey," replied the overseer. "Looked sorter like his mu-el."
"Oh, yes; Kelsey has been up to see us," answered Marcy. And then he tapped his boot with his whip and waited to see what was coming next. If the overseer wanted to talk, he might talk all he pleased; but Marcy was resolved that he would not help him along. Hanson twisted about on the stump, cleared his throat once or twice, and, seeing that the boy was not disposed to break the silence, said, as if he were almost afraid to broach the subject:
"Have much of anything to talk about?"
"He talked a good deal, but didn"t say much."
"Mention my name?"
"Yes. He mentioned yours and Shelby"s and Dillon"s and the postmaster"s."
"Say anything bad about us?" continued the overseer, after waiting in vain for the boy to go on and repeat the conversation he had held with Kelsey.
"Not so very bad," answered Marcy, looking up and down the long fence to see how the work was progressing.
"Looka-here, Mister Marcy," said Hanson desperately. "Kelsey told you I was Union, didn"t he? Come now, be honest."
"If by being honest you mean being truthful, I want to tell you that I am never any other way," said the boy emphatically. "What object could I have in denying it? I don"t care a cent what your politics are so long as you mind your own business, and don"t try to cram your ideas down my throat. But I"ll not allow myself to be led into a discussion. Kelsey did say that you are Union; and if you are, I don"t see why you stay in this country. You can"t get out any too quick."
"Are you going to discharge me?"
"No, I am not; and I sent word to Shelby and the rest that if they want you run off the place, they can come up here and do it. I shall have no hand in it."
Marcy could read the overseer"s face a great deal better than the overseer could read Marcy"s; and it would have been clear to a third party that Hanson was disappointed, and that there was something he wanted to say and was afraid to speak about. That was the money that was supposed to be concealed in the house.
"Was that all Kelsey said to you?" he asked, at length.
"Oh, no. He rattled on about various things--spoke of the ease with which the _Osprey_ captured that Yankee schooner, and let fall a word or two about the battle in Charleston harbor."
"Is _that_ all he said to you?"
"I believe he said something about being a good Confederate, and I asked him why he didn"t prove it by shouldering a musket. I don"t go about boasting of the great things I would do if I were only there. There"s no need of it, for I have been there." ["But it was because I couldn"t help myself," he added mentally.]
"But folks say you"re Union, all the same," said Hanson.
"What folks? Are they soldiers?"
"No. Citizens."
"Then I don"t care that what they say," replied Marcy, snapping his fingers in the air. "When they put uniforms on and show by their actions that they mean business, I will talk to them, and not before."
Marcy waited patiently for the overseer to say "money," and the latter waited impatiently for Marcy to say it; and when at last the boy made up his mind that he had heard all he cared to hear from Hanson, he brought his leg down from the horn of his saddle, placed his foot in the stirrup, and gathered up the reins as if he were about to ride away.
"Kelsey didn"t say nothing to get you and your maw down on me, did he?"
inquired Hanson, when he observed these movements.
"I shouldn"t like for to lose my place just because I am strong for the Union and dead against secession."
"If you lose your place on that account, it"ll be because Colonel Shelby and his friends will have it so," answered Marcy. "You are hired to do an overseer"s work; and as long as you attend to that and nothing else you will have no trouble with me. You may depend upon that."
"But before you go I"d like to know, pine-plank, whether you are friendly to me or not," continued Hanson, who was obliged to confess to himself that he had not learned the first thing, during the interview, that could be used against Marcy or his mother.
"I am a friend to you in this way," was the answer. "If I found you out there in the woods cold and hungry, and hiding from soldiers who were trying to make a prisoner of you, I would feed and warm you; and I wouldn"t care whether you had a gray jacket or a blue coat on."
"He"s a trifle the cutest chap I"ve run across in many a long day,"
muttered the overseer, as Marcy turned his filly about and rode away. "I couldn"t make him tell whether he was Union or secesh, although I give him all the chance in the world, and he didn"t say "money" a single time. Now, what"s to be done? If the money is there and Beardsley is bound to have it, he"d best be doing something before that sailor gets back, for they say he"s lightning and will fight at the drop of the hat.
I reckon I"d better make some excuse to ride over town so"t I can see Colonel Shelby."
"I think I have laid that little scheme most effectually," was what Marcy Gray said to himself as he rode away from the stump on which the overseer was sitting. "They haven"t got a thing out of me, and I have left the matter in their own hands. If there is anything done toward getting Hanson away from this country (and I wish to goodness there might be), Shelby and his hypocritical gang can have the fun of doing it, and shoulder all the responsibility afterward."
But what was the object of the plot? That was what "banged" Marcy, and he told his mother so after he had given her a minute description of his brief interview with the overseer. Was it possible that there were some strong Union men in the neighborhood, and that Beardsley hoped Marcy would incur their enmity by discharging Hanson on account of his alleged principles? Marcy knew better than to believe that, and so did his mother.
"I"ll tell you what I think to be the most reasonable view of the case,"
said the boy, after taking a few turns across the floor and spending some minutes in a brown study. "Beardsley knows there is no man in the family; that we"d be only too glad to have somebody to go to for advice; and he hoped we would take that ignorant Hanson for a counselor, if he could make us believe that he was really Union. But Hanson didn"t fool me, for he didn"t go at it in the right way. He"s secesh all over. The next thing on the program will be something else."
"I trust it will not be a midnight visit from a mob," said his mother, who trembled at the bare thought of such a thing.
"So do I; but if they come, we"ll see what they will make by it. They might burn the house without finding anything to reward them for their trouble."
"Oh, Marcy. You surely don"t think they would do anything so barbarous."
"They might. Think of what that Committee of Safety did at Barrington."