Having accomplished the work he was sent out to do, Captain Wilson shook hands with the rescued boys, who did not seem any the worse for their short experience among the members of Bud Goble"s company of minute-men, and commanded the students to "fall in." Some of the boys were in favor of smashing the rifles which the two vagabonds had left behind in their hurried flight; but better counsels prevailed, and the weapons were leaned against a tree where Bud could easily find them, in case he should muster courage enough to come after them. The return march through the woods was rendered less dismal by the numerous light-wood torches that were carried along the line; but there was not much opportunity for talking until the timber had been left behind, and the ranks were closed up on the road leading to Barrington.
"Now tell us all about it," said Marcy Gray to his cousin, who marched by his side. "We know that you were enticed into a cabin to see a sick man who needed quinine, and that when you went in Bud and some others jumped out and made you prisoners. The man Bud sent to the academy after the money you and d.i.c.k promised to give him for finding that underground railroad told us about that; but what happened afterward? How did they use you?"
"We haven"t a thing to complain of," replied Rodney, "except the suspense we were kept in while Judson was absent. I knew he would bring help, as well as I knew that Bud had threatened to whip us if he did not have that hundred dollars in his hands before sunrise. But I didn"t think the colonel would send it. While I was in Barrington I learned from a dozen different sources that he had agreed to keep us inside, and never again interfere with anything that might happen in town."
This gave Marcy a chance to tell about the riot at the academy, but, contrary to his expectation Rodney did not seem to be very jubilant over it.
"I didn"t know I had so many friends," said he, sinking his voice almost to a whisper, "and, to tell you the honest truth, I don"t deserve them. You fellows ought to have stayed away until Bud gave me the licking he promised, and then come up in time to save d.i.c.k. He was in no way to blame for what I did."
"And I reckon you didn"t do anything very bad," replied Marcy, with a laugh. "It was no part of our plan to let either of you be whipped. But, look here, Rodney. Why were you so anxious to see Bud Goble the last time you were in town?"
"I had put it into his head to do something to you and d.i.c.k Graham, and I wanted to stop it if I could," answered Rodney. "I tell you I was frightened when I saw those fires. I began to see what we were coming to, and I wanted to warn Goble that he was watched, and that he would surely bring trouble upon himself if he paid any attention to that letter."
"What letter?"
"Why, the one old n.i.g.g.e.r Toby told you about. I wrote it. Mean as you may think me, and as I am, I wrote it. I said to myself that I would drive you and d.i.c.k from the school, and that was the way I took to do it." Having got fairly started on the confession he had longed to make, and paying no sort of attention to his cousin"s efforts to stop him, Rodney made a clean breast of the matter, and told just how far his loyalty to the Stars and Bars and his hatred for everybody who had a lingering spark of affection for the Stars and Stripes had led him. On the evening his new flag came he slipped away from his companions, ran into a store, wrote the letter that Bud afterward read to his wife, and got it into the office without any one being the wiser for what he had done. That letter sent Bud on the war-path, and encouraged him to impose upon Mr. Bailey and Elder Bowen, both of whom met his attempts in a manner so vigorous that Mr. Riley and his Committee of Safety became alarmed. They held a secret meeting, and determined upon a plan of operations which they hoped would drive Union men and abolitionists from the country, and bring the State-rights men, like Mr. Bailey, over to the Confederacy. The committee was responsible for those two fires-Rodney had heard enough from his rebel friends to make him sure of that; and they had but just begun operations, when Captain Wilson and his boys put in an appearance. That was what made Mr. Riley so angry that he would not speak to the students that night, or even look at them, and it was possible that he and the others who rode up to the academy had talked to the colonel in very plain language.
"I supposed, of course, that I would find Goble somewhere in town, and kept d.i.c.k with me because I wanted him to help with a word now and then," said Rodney, in conclusion. "He played a very slick trick on us when he sent word that that sick man was in need of medicine, and we fell into the trap as easy as you please. He was awful mad when he found that he had caught the wrong boy, that it was Marcy he wanted and not Rodney, but he hadn"t forgotten the underground railroad joke, and was resolved that we shouldn"t forget it, either. I didn"t think Bud would be fool enough to threaten anybody with a whipping. If I had, I never would have written that letter, I a.s.sure you. If lie had whipped me for it, it would have served me right."
Marcy listened in silence to this astounding revelation, and although he was intensely grieved and shocked, he said everything he could to make Rodney understand that he was freely and fully forgiven, and that it would never be remembered against him; but Rodney refused to be comforted.
"d.i.c.k knows it, and you know it," said he. "And if the other fellows do not suspect it, they must be both blind and deaf. I don"t care to stay longer about the academy where everything I see will remind me of events I should be glad to forget, and I shall start for home by the first train that leaves Barrington to-morrow. If the colonel will not let me go-"
"I don"t think he will object to any of us going," replied Marcy. "During the riot, when Dixon marched us back into the armory, he said he intended to disband the whole thing at once. Matters were coming to such a pa.s.s that he couldn"t and wouldn"t stand it any longer."
"I hope he will stick to it," said Rodney. "We might as well have been home three months ago for all the good we"ve done in school. If he won"t permit me to go I"ll skip, if you will send my trunk after me."
Marcy said he would, provided he was there to attend to it, and then gradually led the conversation into other channels; for that letter was a sore subject to Rodney, and Marcy never wanted to hear it again. No matter what happened, it would never get to his mother"s ears or Sailor Jack"s either.
When the company reached the academy, after four hours" absence, they learned that the teachers had made repeated efforts to get the boys to go to bed, but without doing much toward accomplishing the desired end. They went to their dormitories as often as they were told, but leading a horse to water and making him drink are two different things. As soon as the teachers" backs were turned, they would slip out into the hall, run downstairs, and join some of the excited groups strolling about the grounds. They were all up and awake when the rescuers returned, and accompanied them into the armory; but they did not cheer them as they would like to have done. The coolheaded ones among them thought that would be carrying their triumph a little too far. When ranks were broken Marcy reported to Captain Wilson, and asked if he should go into the guard-house.
"What for?" inquired the captain.
"Have you forgotten, sir, that you put me under arrest?"
"Why did you not stay in the guard-tent when I put you there?" said the officer, with a smile.
"Because the colonel ordered me out, sir. I am glad he did so, for it gave me a chance to go with my company and see Rodney and d.i.c.k helped out of their sc.r.a.pe."
"Well, behave yourself in future, and we"ll not say any more about your being under arrest."
Marcy knew that would be the upshot of the matter. If the captain meant to put him in arrest, he had no business to permit him to go on that expedition.
The next morning things went on in their usual haphazard way, and the colonel did not say a word about disbanding the school. He thought better of it after he had taken time to cool off; but it was not so with Rodney Gray. By allowing himself to be led away by the excitement of the hour he had done something he never could forget if he lived to be a hundred years old, and he longed to leave the academy and everybody in it behind him, and mingle with people who believed as he did, and who did not know of the meanness of which he had been guilty. And, what was very comforting as well as surprising, the colonel permitted him to go without asking any disagreeable questions.
"I don"t know that I blame you," said he, in a discouraged tone. "I think I should be glad to go somewhere myself. I have been hoping almost against hope that these troubles might be settled without a war, but I don"t believe they ever will be. The folks about here seem to think that the people of the North are cowardly, but they are not. They are simply patient; but there will come a time when their patience will be exhausted, and then they will sweep over us like an army of locusts."
"You don"t really think they will fight, do you, sir?" said Rodney, who was surprised to hear the colonel talk in this strain.
"I am sure of it. When Beauregard opens his batteries upon Sumter, you will see an uprising that will astonish the world. I am sorry to part with you, but you may go. You would no doubt get a letter from your father in a few days any way, so I don"t suppose it makes much difference."
Rodney went, but he did not go alone. Instead of one carriage, there were four that drove away from the academy an hour later, and they were filled as full of students as they could hold. But the departing crowd did not whoop and yell as they were in the habit of doing when they set out for home at vacation time. They were sober and thoughtful, and so were those they left behind. The events of the last few hours had made them so. Rodney Gray voiced the sentiments of all of them when he said to Marcy and d.i.c.k, as he extended a hand to each:
"I realize now as I never did before that we"re not going to have the easy times we looked for. I don"t back down one inch from my position. I say the South is right, and that if the North will not give her the freedom she demands, she ought to fight for it, and I"ll do all I can to help her; but I don"t believe, as I did once, in abusing everybody who differs from me in opinion. So let"s part friends."
"We"ve always been friends to you," said d.i.c.k, in rather a husky voice.
"But your abominable ideas-dog-gone State rights anyhow! Good-by."
"Why, d.i.c.k, you are on our side," said Rodney.
"If Missouri is, I am; if she isn"t, I aint. That"s me."
The parting was a good deal harder than the boys thought it was going to be; but it was over at last; the carriages rolled out of the gate, the sentry presenting arms as they pa.s.sed, and the boys who remained turned sorrowfully away to take up the drudgery of school routine. After that there were no more loud, angry discussions, no shaking of fists in one another"s faces, and the orderlies who raised the flag at morning and hauled it down at night, handled it tenderly out of respect to the feelings of their Union schoolmates. They could not bear to think that there might come a time when they would be called upon to face some of their comrades with deadly weapons in their hands. Every one, from the colonel commanding down to the youngest boy in the academy, seemed resolved to do what he could to make their few remaining school days as pleasant as possible.
That afternoon the guard-runners were out in greater numbers than usual. Nearly all the students were anxious to go to Barrington, for there were several things they wanted to have cleared up. What had become of the Union men who had been burned out of house and home, and what did that Committee of Safety intend to do next? Marcy Gray did not go. He was too dispirited to do anything but lounge about and read, and long for a letter from his mother telling him to come home. He missed his cousin Rodney, and wondered if fate would ever bring them together again and under different flags. He sat under the trees and tried to read while awaiting the return of Graham and Dixon, who, for a wonder, had asked for pa.s.ses. The first item of information they gave him, when they came back with his mail, was one that did not much surprise him, although he did not expect to hear it so soon.
"That old darkey parson has lost his money," said d.i.c.k.
"There now," exclaimed Marcy, "I told him he would if he did not put it where it would be safe. Who"s got it?"
"I didn"t hear, and don"t know that any one is suspected. He hid it under a log back of the garden, and when he went there to see if it was all right, the place looked as though it had been rooted over by a drove of hogs. But of course the hogs had nothing to do with it."
"Some one like Bud Goble must have been on the watch when Toby put it under the log," said Marcy, who thought he knew just how the old negro felt when he discovered his loss. "He"ll not see that money again. I told him to give it to Mr. Riley."
"And that reminds me that we saw and talked with Mr. Riley, who was as smiling and agreeable as you please," said Dixon. "If I had been guilty of burning out two innocent men because they differed from me in opinion, I don"t think I could have had the cheek to show myself on the street. But Mr. Riley did not seem to mind it."
"Do you really think he had a hand in that affair?" inquired Marcy. "I don"t like to think that he is that sort."
"When a fellow allows himself to be carried away, as he and the rest of that committee have, by prejudice and rage, he will do some things he would not think of doing if he were in his right mind. Look at Rodney," said Dixon; and Marcy wondered if he knew or suspected that Rodney had written that mischievous letter. "It"s in the mouth of every rebel in town whom we talk with that the committee burned those houses, and what everybody says must have some truth in it."
"Listen to me a minute, and I will condemn Mr. Riley out of his own mouth," said d.i.c.k, in an earnest whisper. "When Captain Wilson asked him how it came that he could reach the fire so quickly, seeing that it was more than a mile from his own house and there were no alarm bells ringing, Mr. Riley replied that it was because he happened to be awake when the fire commenced. Now, if that was the case, why did he run right by Elder Bowen"s burning house to come up town? I was on post that very night, and know that the two fires were started almost at the same moment. Mr. Riley wasn"t at home, I tell you. He was in Barrington; and that was the way he got to the fire before we did. Put that in your pipes."
"You have made out a pretty strong case against him so far as circ.u.mstantial evidence will go," Dixon remarked.
"Plenty strong enough to make him prove an alibi if he were prosecuted," said Marcy. "Where are those Union men now?"
"Living quietly and comfortably in two of the Elder"s negro cabins," replied d.i.c.k. "Some of the rebels we talked to think they need another and larger dose, for they are as independent and saucy as ever."
"I glory in their s.p.u.n.k," said Marcy. "See anything of Bud or Caleb Judson? I don"t care what becomes of Bud, but if you happen to run across Caleb, I wish you would send him to me. I promised to raise some money for him that night, when I thought I should have to go after Rodney and d.i.c.k alone, and I want to give it to him. We couldn"t have found them without his help."
As we are almost, if not quite, through with these two gentlemen, Bud and Caleb, we may remark that, a few days after this conversation took place, Marcy went to Barrington and found opportunity to square accounts with Caleb by handing him double the amount of money the man thought he ought to have for acting as Captain Wilson"s guide. But Caleb couldn"t or wouldn"t give him any news of Bud Goble. In after-years some of the academy boys heard of him once or twice in a roundabout way-not as a brave soldier of the Confederacy, doing and daring for the sake of the principles he had so loudly promulgated when he thought old Mr. Bailey was afraid of him, but as a sneaking conscript, hiding in the woods and living, no one knew how, but probably keeping body and soul together by the aid of the bacon and meal that his wife bought with old Toby"s money.
Not another thing happened at the academy that is worth recording until it became known that President Lincoln, instead of surrendering Fort Sumter on demand of the Confederate commissioners who had been sent to Washington, decided that provisions should at once be forwarded to the garrison. It was high time, for Major Anderson and his men had nothing but a small supply of bacon and flour left, and the commissary was not permitted to purchase provisions in Charleston. The Southern people were, or pretended to be, very angry at this decision, and gave notice that they would resist it as an act of war. "My batteries are ready. I await instructions," was what Beauregard telegraphed to President Davis; and on the 11th of April the answer came back: "Demand the immediate surrender of Fort Sumter." How the brave major"s reply, helpless as he knew himself to be, thrilled every heart in the loyal North! "I cannot surrender the fort," said he. "I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter me to pieces, I shall be starved out in three days."
Now was the time for the Confederates to show to the world that they were sincere when they declared that all they desired was to be permitted to leave the Union in peace. But they did not do it. They could not wait three days. They wanted the honor of reducing Fort Sumter, and of humbling the flag which had never been lowered to any nation on earth. They wanted to "fire the Southern heart," and make sure of the secession of Virginia by "sprinkling blood in the people"s faces," and so they opened their batteries upon the fort. After a long waiting, which was "symbolic of the patience, endurance, and long suffering of the Northern people," the fort replied, and the war between Union and Disunion, freedom and slavery, was fairly begun. Major Anderson knew from the first that this battle could end but in one way, and when his provisions were all gone, and his ammunition so nearly exhausted that he could not respond to the enemy"s fire oftener than once in ten minutes, he hauled down his flag and marched his handful of men out with the honors of war. It wasn"t a victory to be proud of, but the Governor of South Carolina must have thought it was, for that night he said to the excited people of Charleston:
"I p.r.o.nounce here before the civilized world that your independence is baptized in blood; your independence is won upon a glorious battle-field, and you are free now and forever, in defiance of the world in arms."
So thought the aged Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, who claimed the privilege of firing the first gun upon Sumter; but he did not think so a little while afterward, when he was preparing to hang himself because he saw that his dreams of Southern independence could not be realized.