A SCHEME THAT DIDN'T WORK.
"Say," exclaimed Rodney Gray excitedly, as Captain Hubbard took his
place on the right of the company and the orderly galloped off to his
tent. "Who is that old party in the Governor's carriage?"
"You can't prove it by me," answered the captain. "I never saw him
before, but I know he's a mighty cross-grained old chap."
"May I leave the ranks a minute?" continued Rodney.
"Of course not. What would the Governor think?"
"I don't care a picayune what he thinks," replied Rodney, his excitement
increasing as the Governor's carriage began to circle around toward the
front and center of the company. "If that man in the fatigue cap and
duster isn't General Lacey, all the descriptions I have heard of him are
very much at fault."
"And do you really believe," began the captain, who was profoundly
astonished.
"I don't believe, I know that he means to muster us into the Confederate
service," interrupted Rodney. "Hold on a minute before you do a thing or
let a man answer to his name. My father knows him by sight."
Without again asking permission to leave his place, Rodney put his horse
in motion and rode over to the tree under whose friendly shade Mr. Gray
was sitting while he watched the drill.
"Father," said he, speaking rapidly and panting as if he had been
running instead of riding, "who is that in the carriage with the
Governor? Is it General Lacey?"
Mr. Gray nodded and looked up at his son as if to ask him what he was
going to do about it.
"Well, he has come here to muster us in, and the orderly has gone after
the roll-book," continued Rodney. "The general is a Confederate officer,
and if we let him muster us in, he will make Confederate soldiers of us,
won't he?"
"That's the way it looks from where I sit," answered Mr. Gray.
"It's the way it looks from where I sit too, and I just won't have any
such trick played upon me," said Rodney, hotly. "I know what I want and
what I want to do; and as long as I am a free man, nobody shall make me
do anything else."
"Are you going to back out?"
"I am. I'll not answer to my name when it is called. I'll go back and
put the other fellows on their guard, and then I'll fall out."
So saying Rodney wheeled his horse and returned to his company, which he
found in a state of great excitement. The ranks were kept pretty well
aligned (the horses knew enough to look out for that now), but the men
were twisting about in their saddles, each one comparing notes with
every one else whose ears he could reach. When Rodney rode up they all
turned to look at him and listen to his report, regardless of the fact
that the little man in the brown ulster was standing up in the
Governor's carriage shouting "Attention!" at the top of his wheezy
little voice.
"Mind what you are doing, boys," said Rodney, as he rode slowly along
the line behind the rear rank. "That's General Lacey. Don't answer to
your names unless you want to be sworn into the Confederate service."
"But what shall we do?" inquired one or two of the timid members, who
thought they might be obliged to answer whether they wanted to or not.
"Keep mum and say nothing," replied Rodney. "Watch me and do as I do. My
name is second on the roll."
"Are you ever going to come to attention so that I can get through with
my business and go back where I belong?" yelled the general, as soon as
he could make himself heard. "A pretty lot of soldiers you are; but I
warn you that you will have to mind better than this when you reach the
camp of instruction, to which I shall immediately order you. Attention
to roll-call! George Warren!"
"He--er--here!" replied the orderly, hesitatingly.
The Rangers were amazed, and Captain Hubbard glared at the frightened
sergeant as though he had half a mind to knock him out of his saddle.
The captain had told the man in the most emphatic language not to answer
to his name, and yet he had gone and given away his liberty for the next
twelve months. It served him right for being so stupid.
"You blockheads don't seem to understand what I want and what I am
trying to do," shouted the general, wrathfully. "All you who volunteer
for the Confederate service answer to your names, and speak up so that I
can hear you. I hope that is sufficiently plain. _George Warren!_"
The Rangers, one and all, drew a long breath of relief and felt like
giving a hearty cheer. Their comrade had most unexpectedly been allowed
a chance for escape, and he was sharp enough to take advantage of it. He
kept his eyes straight to the front and said nothing. The general looked
surprised, but as he was in a great hurry he passed on to the next.
"Rodney Gray!"
This time there was no mistaking the answer. The sergeant moved from his
place on the left of the line, rode to the center of the company, came
to a front and saluted. The general opened his lips to tell him that he
needn't come to the front and center in order to answer to his name, but
the Barrington boy was too quick for him.
"General," said he, while all the Rangers strained their ears to catch
his words. "I am ready at any time to be sworn into the service of my
State, but I do not wish to join the Confederate army. I am a Partisan
Ranger."
"A--a--_what?_" vociferated the general, now thoroughly aroused. He was
a Mexican veteran, a thorough soldier as well as a martinet, and he had
never learned to recognize any organizations outside of the regular
service.
"A Partisan Ranger," repeated Rodney, who was neither embarrassed nor
angered by the covert sneer contained in the general's words.
"A Ranger!" exclaimed the general, raising his hands in the air and
turning his eyes toward the clouds. "Shade of the great and good
Washington! what are we coming to? A partisan! And are you all
partisans?"
"Yes sir, we are; and until very recently we have been encouraged to
believe that we could preserve our independent organization."
"You were, eh? Then you had better organize yourselves into Home Guards
at once and I will go back to New Orleans. Partisan Rangers!" said the
general, who seemed unable to get the obnoxious words out of his mind.
"There's your roll-book. Drive on, coachman."
The general flung the book on the ground at the feet of Rodney's horse,
threw himself back in his seat and the carriage moved rapidly away. The
Rangers sat motionless in their saddles until it passed through the gate
and disappeared behind the trees in the grove, and then they turned and
looked at one another.
"We know where we stand now at all events," said Captain Hubbard, riding
up in front of the line, and throwing his right leg over the horn of his
saddle in a position most unbecoming a commanding officer. "My
commission will be taken from me, and you fellows will be reduced to
plain, every-day citizens once more. We might as well quit this nonsense
now, and I say, let's pack up and go home."
"I'll go, but I'll not promise to stay there," said Rodney.
"Where will you go?"
"Up to Missouri. I have set my heart on being a partisan, and if my own
State won't take me, I have a perfect right to offer my valuable
services to another. I shall start for Baton Rouge to-morrow, and I and
my horse will take passage on the first St. Louis boat that comes
along."
"Hear, hear!" shouted some of the. Rangers.
"Let's go in a body," said one. "We have the assurance that our services
will be accepted, that the officers we have elected will be retained,
that our plan of organization will not be interfered with, and what more
could we ask for?"
"That won't suit me," another declared. "I don't want to leave my
State."
"How are you going to help yourself?" demanded Rodney. "If you join the
Confederate army you are liable to be ordered up to Virginia or down to
Florida. And you know as well as I do what the people around here will
think of you if you make up your mind to stay at home."
"Let's take the sense of the company on it," suggested Lieutenant
Percy.
"All right," answered the captain. "Put the thing in the form of a
motion and I will."
This was quickly done, and to Rodney's great disappointment, though not
much to his surprise, the proposition was defeated by a large majority.
The Rangers were opposed to deserting their State in a body and going
into another.
"I'll not stay at home, and that's all there is about it," said one of
the Rangers who had voted with the minority. "Does anybody here know
what course we _do_ want to pursue? I have my doubts; and in order to
test the matter I move you, Mr. Commander, that we offer ourselves as a
company to the Confederate States."
The motion was received with such a howl of dissent that if there was a
second to it the captain did not hear it. Some of the Rangers, to show
what they thought of the proposition, backed their horses out of the
ranks and rode away. Among them was Rodney, who returned to the tree
under which his father was sitting.
"Isn't it rather unusual for a cavalry company to hold a business
meeting on horseback?" inquired the latter, as the boy swung himself
from his saddle. "There seems to be a big difference of opinion among
the members, and you look as though things hadn't gone to suit you. What
have you decided to do?"
"Nothing as a company," replied Rodney. "In fact we are not a company
any longer. It is every one for himself now."
"What do you mean by that? Have you disbanded?"
Rodney explained the situation in a few words, adding that he thought he
might as well be riding toward home so as to spend all the time he could
with his mother, for he was going away bright and early on the following
morning. Mr. Gray looked very sober and thoughtful when he heard these
words.
"I'd rather you would stay at home," said he.
"And I would much prefer to stay, but I will not go into the service of
the Confederacy. This State is an independent Commonwealth now, and is
entitled to, and has a right to demand the best service I can give her;
but who cares for the Confederacy? I think less of it than I did this
morning, for one of its officers tried to rope us in without our
consent."
That was Rodney's first experience with the duplicity and utter lack of
fair dealing that characterized all the actions of the Confederate
authorities, but it was by no means the last. We shall speak of this
again when we see him coming down the Arkansas River, bound for the Army
of the Center, a Confederate soldier in spite of himself.
Having given his comrades plenty of time to vote upon the last
proposition submitted to them that they should offer themselves as a
company to the Confederate States Rodney got upon his horse again and
rode back to see if they had determined upon any particular course of
action, but from all he could learn the matter was far from being
settled. Some wanted to do one thing and some were in favor of doing
another; but finding at last that they could not agree, they began
drawing away by twos and threes, and finally Rodney Gray was left alone
with the commissioned officers.
"I am at my wit's end," declared Captain Hubbard, whose face wore a most
dejected look. "We don't want to remain at home, and neither do we
desire to put ourselves under the control of such a man as General
Lacey; but there's nothing else we can do, unless we go up to Missouri.
Were you really in earnest when you said you intended to start oft
tomorrow?" he added, addressing himself to Rodney. "Your decision was
made on the spur of the moment, wasn't it?"
"Well, no. I made up my mind some time ago that there was going to be a
hitch of some sort in our arrangements, and laid my plans accordingly."
"How are you going to work it to reach Price's army?" inquired
Lieutenant Percy. "Don't you know that there have been rioting and
bloodshed in St. Louis, and that the Dutchmen have got control of the
city?"
"Of course; but that's all over now. I shall telegraph to Dick Graham's
father that I am coming, and trust to luck when I reach St. Louis.
Perhaps he can make it convenient to meet me there; if not, I have a
tongue in my head and a good horse to ride, and I have no fears but that
I shall get through."
"Well, I'll tell you what's a fact," said Lieutenant Odell. "You can go
alone for all of me. There's altogether too much danger in the step.
You'll never get through the lines without a pass, and how are you going
to get it? The first thing you know you will be arrested and shoved into
jail."
"I have thought of that," answered Rodney, calmly, "but I'll take my
chances on it. It's go there or stay home, and I have decided to go.
Good-by, if I don't see you again, and if you hear any of the boys say
that they would like to go with me, send them up to the house."
This was said in the most matter of fact way, as if Rodney were going to
ride to Baton Rouge one day and come back the next; but they all knew
that the parting was for a longer time than that, and each officer
thrust his hand into his pocket to find something that would do for a
keepsake. Odell handed over a big jack-knife with the remark that the
sergeant might find it useful in cutting bacon or breaking up his
hard-tack, so that he could crumb it into his coffee. Percy gave him a
ring which he drew from his own finger, and the captain presented him
with a twenty-dollar gold piece. Then they shook hands with him once
more and saw him ride away.
"It's like parting from a younger brother," said the captain,
sorrowfully. "I don't see how his father can let him go. But he's got
nerve enough to carry him through any scrape he is likely to get into,
and besides he is going among friends."
"But he's got the enemy's lines to pass before he can get among friends,
and that's one thing that worries me," observed the first lieutenant.
"What a determined fellow he is. He ought to make a good soldier."
"Didn't I tell you that that company of Rangers would never amount to a
row of pins?" exclaimed Tom Randolph, when the members rode straggling
into town that afternoon, and reported that their organization had been
knocked into a cocked hat by General Lacey's attempt to muster it into
the service of the Confederacy. "I knew by the way the election went
that it would bust up sooner or later, and I am heartily glad of it. Now
they've got to go into the army, and if I get the second lieutenant's
commission I am working for, perhaps I shall be placed over some of the
fellows who voted against me. So Gray is going to Missouri, is he? Good
riddance. He'll have to go in as private, and that will bring him down a
peg or two."
Yes, Rodney calculated to go in as private if he got in at all, but the
prospect did not in the least dampen his ardor. Contrary to his
expectations his mother did not say one word to turn him from his
purpose; but good Southerner that she was, she heartily condemned the
circumstances which, according to her way of thinking, made the parting
necessary.
"I wish the _Mayflower_ had been sunk fathoms deep in the ocean before
she ever touched Plymouth Rock," she said to her husband. "The spirit of
intolerance those Puritans brought over here with them is what is taking
our boy from us now. No punishment that I can think of would be too
severe for them."
Rodney lived in hopes that some of the company would ride out to see him
during the course of the evening, but midnight came without bringing any
of them, and the disappointed Barrington boy, giving his mother the last
good-night kiss he imprinted upon her lips for more than fifteen long
months, went to bed satisfied that he was to be left to work out his own
destiny, with no Mooreville friend to encourage or advise him. He slept
but little, but appeared at the breakfast table as fresh as a daisy
and--dressed in citizen's clothing.
"This is a pill I don't like to swallow," said he, opening his coat and
looking down at himself. "I said I wouldn't take off my gray uniform
until the South had gained her independence; but I didn't know at the
time that I would find it necessary to pass through the enemy's lines.
Don't look so sober, mother. I just know I shall come out all right.
I'll surely write when I reach St. Louis, and again the very day I find
Dick Graham."
That was not a cheerful breakfast table, although every one tried to
make it so. Before the meal was half over the family carriage, with
Rodney's small trunk inside and his horse hitched behind, drew up at the
door, and a crowd of weeping servants gathered about the foot of the
wide stone steps to bid "young moster" good-by. Rodney saw it all
through the window, and when he got ready to start stood not on the
order of going, but cut short the parting and went at once. He arose
from his chair before he had finished his second cup of coffee, put on
his hat and light overcoat and turned toward his mother.
"Good-by, my dear boy," she said, in tones so firm and cheerful that
Rodney was astonished. "Whatever fate may have in store for me, I hope I
shall never hear that you failed to do your duty as a soldier."
There were no tears in her eyes--she was past that now--but didn't she
suffer?
"The mother who conceals her grief
While to her breast her son she presses,
Then breathes a few brave words and brief
Kissing the patriot brow she blesses,
With no one but her secret God
To know the pain that weighs upon her--
Sheds holy blood as e'er the sod
Received on Freedom's field of honor!"
How many such partings there were all over this fair land of ours,
brought about by the ambition of demagogues so few in number that we can
count them on our fingers!
Rodney's heart was so full that he could not reply to his mother's brave
words. Now that the test had come he found that he had less fortitude
than she had. He gave her one kiss, gently disengaged himself from her
clinging arms and bolted for the door.
"De good Lawd bless young moster an' bring him safe back," cried the
tearful blacks, when he appeared at the top of the steps. "Dem
babolitionists aint got no call to come down here an' take him away from
us. We-uns never done nuffin' to dem."
"That's just what I say," answered Rodney. "And I am going to help lick
them for bringing on this trouble when we wanted peace. Good-by, one and
all. I'll be back as soon as we have run the Yankees out of Missouri,
and that will not take more than two or three months."
Rodney tried to get into the carriage, but the black hands that were
extended to him from every side barred his way, and much against his
will he was obliged to linger long enough to give each of them a hasty
grasp and shake. The only one who stood aloof was the black boy who had
been Rodney's playmate when the two wore pinafores, and he leaned
against the corner of the house and howled piteously. Rodney felt
relieved when the coachman banged the door of the carriage and mounted
to his seat and drove off. His only traveling companion was his father,
who intended to remain in Baton Rouge until he had seen the boy start on
his way up the river.
It was dark when they reached the city, and after Rodney's horse and his
trappings had been left at a stable (civilian trappings they were too,
for Rodney was afraid that a military saddle and bridle would attract
attention and lead to inquiries that he might not care to answer), the
coachman drove them to the house of a friend where they were to find
entertainment until a St. Louis boat appeared.
"I am glad you did not go to a hotel," said their host, when he had
given them a cordial welcome. "I heard last night that your entire
company was going up the river, and that the authorities were thinking
strongly of putting the last one of you under arrest."
Rodney and his father were speechless with astonishment.
"What business would they have to put us in arrest?" exclaimed the
former, as soon as he found his tongue.
"How did the authorities learn that the Rangers had any notion of going
up the river?" asked Mr. Gray.
"I am sure I don't know," answered the host. "But it was currently
reported on the street yesterday afternoon that the Mooreville company
had mutinied, and that the Baton Rouge Rifles might have to go out there
and bring them to a sense of their duty."
"Well, if that isn't the most outrageous falsehood that was ever
circulated about a lot of honest men I wouldn't say so," exclaimed
Rodney, who had never in his life been more amazed. "We didn't mutiny.
We simply refused to be sworn into the service of the Confederate
States, and that was something we had a right to do. I will tell you how
that story got abroad," he added, suddenly. "There's some one in
Mooreville who wants to get us into trouble, and I think I know who it
is."
At this moment the door was softly opened and a darkey put his head into
the room to announce:
"Da's a gentleman in de back pa'lor wants to see Moster Rodney."