HAULING DOWN THE COLORS.
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 Dick 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 Dick. 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 Dick 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 nigger 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 Dick 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 Dick 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 assure 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.
"Dick 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 pass 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 Dick helped
out of their scrape."
"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 Dick, 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 Dick, in rather a husky voice.
"But your abominable ideas--dog-gone State rights anyhow! Good-by."
"Why, Dick, 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 passed, 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 passes. 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 Dick.
"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 Dick, 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
circumstantial 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 Dick. "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 spunk," 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 Dick 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 pronounce 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.
Of course this thrilling news, and the fiery editorials commenting upon
it, had an effect upon the students at Barrington academy. The Union
boys were sadly depressed; Dixon and Graham shook their heads every time
their eyes met; while Billings, Cole, and the rest of the rebels were
fierce for another fight, and immediately became as noisy and aggressive
as they had ever been in Rodney Gray's time.
"'The proud flag of the Stars and Stripes has been lowered in humility
before the Palmetto and Confederate flags,'" shouted Billings, reading
an extract from the speech of Governor Pickens. "Cole, where is the flag
those Taylor girls gave you? Now is the time to unfurl it to the breeze,
and let the good people of Barrington see that they are not the only
ones who can rejoice over this glorious news. When it is once hoisted on
the tower, we will keep it there in defiance of the world in arms."
This was another quotation from the Governor's speech, and when Billings
roared it out so that it could be heard by all the boys in the corridor,
he looked at Marcy as much as to say: "Help yourself if you can."
It did not take Cole many minutes to produce the flag, which he had kept
hidden in his trunk for just such an emergency as this; but when he and
his backers got to the top of the tower with it, they were rather
surprised to find Marcy, Graham, Dixon, and a good many other sturdy
fellows there before them. They were walking around with their hands in
their pockets, and Marcy's flag was still floating from the masthead.
"Do you mean--are you going to fight about it?" faltered Cole, who began
to fear that his chances for receiving a standing invitation to visit
those Taylor girls were as slim as they ever had been. "You have heard
the news from Charleston, and ought to see for yourself that this flag
can't stay up any longer."
"We may be of a different opinion, so far as this academy is concerned,
but still we have given up the contest," replied Marcy. "Hold on, there;
don't touch those halliards, please. This flag belongs to me, and when
it comes down for good, I must be the one to pull it down. Major
Anderson was allowed to salute his flag when he lowered it, and I claim
the same privilege."
"I don't know that we have anything to say against that," replied
Billings, looking around upon his friends to see what they thought about
it. "Holler as much as you please. That's the only way you can salute
it, for the colonel would go crazy if you asked him to lend you the
battery."
"That's the only way," said Marcy as he unfastened the color-halliards
from the cleat. "I shall not ask for the guns, for I shall have my
trouble for my pains. Attention! Three cheers for the Star Spangled
Banner; and may the traitors who caused it to be lowered in Charleston
harbor for the time being be glad to turn to it for protection."
"That flag will wave over Sumter again, and don't you forget what I tell
you," shouted Dixon.
It was not a very noisy salute that greeted the flag as it fluttered
down from aloft, but it was a heart-felt one, and there was not a rebel
on the tower who dared utter a derisive word, however much he might have
felt inclined to do so. But when the Stars and Bars were bent on to the
halliards and run up to the masthead, the yells of its supporters were
almost deafening and their antics quite indescribable. There was an
abundance of enthusiasm about that time. There wasn't quite so much one
short year later, when some of those same boys learned, to their great
disgust and rage, that the Confederate Congress had passed a sweeping
conscription law, and that their one year's enlistment had been
arbitrarily lengthened to three. Then they began to see what despotism
meant.
All hope of conciliation or peace at any price was gone now. There was
nothing to hold them together any longer, and the following morning saw
another and larger exodus of students from the academy who were homeward
bound. Among them were Cole, Graham, Billings, Dixon, and Marcy Gray. It
was not quite so solemn a parting as the first one was, for the drooping
spirits of the rebels had been raised to blood-heat by that glorious
news from Charleston.
"Shoot high, Marcy, when you meet the Stars and Bars on the
battlefield," said Billings. "There may be a Barrington boy thereabouts.
But you can't deny that we've whipped you once in a fair fight, can
you?"
"I don't know what you call a fair fight," replied Marcy. "Of course
five thousand men, well supplied with grub and ammunition, ought to whip
fifty-one soldiers and a few hired mechanics. But they held out against
you as long as they had anything to eat or powder to shoot with. I
wouldn't crow over it, if I were in your place."
"Well, we have given you a taste of what is in store for you, at all
events."
"And you have learned something that I have tried to get through your
thick heads ever since these troubles began," chimed in Dixon. "I told
you the North would fight. But let's jump in if we are going home. You
know the trains meet here, and we haven't much more than time to get to
the depot."
The boys once more shook hands with their teachers, cheered lustily for
the Barrington Military Academy and everybody connected with it, shouted
themselves hoarse for their respective flags, and then sprang into the
carriages and were driven away.
"We're done playing soldier," said Dick Graham. "The next time we
shoulder muskets or draw sabers, there will be more reality in it than
some of us will care to face. Let's keep track of one another as long as
we can, and bear always in mind that we are not enemies, if we do march
under different flags."
Marcy Gray was glad when his train came along and bore him away from
Barrington. He wanted to settle back in his seat and think; but that was
something he was not permitted to do. The passengers, with now and then
a notable exception, acted as though they were fit candidates for a
lunatic asylum. They were walking about the car, flourishing their hats
or fists in the air, talking loudly and shaking hands as often as they
met in the aisle. "Glorious news," "Southern rights," "Yankee mudsills,"
"Fort Sumter," were the words that fell upon Marcy's ear when he opened
the door and walked into the car. In an instant his uniform attracted
general attention.