AROUSED TO THE SOLEMN DUTY OF THE HOUR
It was more than two hours after suppertime when Deck and Artie arrived.
They were very tired and very hungry after their long pull up the creek;
but they felt better after they had taken a hearty supper. Deck sought
the first opportunity to detail the operations of the afternoon to his
father.
"Your Uncle Titus has been here this afternoon, and I have had a long
talk with him on the bridge; but his first business here was to disclaim
any knowledge of the arms and ammunition concealed on the river," said
Mr. Lyon, before the boys had an opportunity to open with the story of
their adventure. "He says your Aunt Amelia understood him with her
elbows, and it was a ridiculous story she told your mother without a
word of truth in it."
"Without a word of truth in it," repeated Deck, who was more inclined
than Artie to do the talking, though the latter was fluent enough of
speech when the occasion required it.
The boys looked at each other; and they did something more than smile
this time, for they laughed out loud. In view of the revelation they had
to make, the affair became more exciting; but after the discovery they
had made, they did not wonder that Titus had been so earnest in his
purpose to contradict the statement their aunt had made.
"What are you laughing at, boys?" interposed their father. "This is a
serious matter as your uncle looks upon it; and I suppose such a rumor
circulated about the county might get him and his sons into trouble. The
Unionists regard the Home Guards as precisely the same as Secessionists,
and believe that they are armed, so far as they are armed, to help along
the cause of the South."
"I should say that Uncle Titus might be a little shaken up about the
story Aunt Amelia related," added Artie with a significant look at his
cousin.
"I don't know but the Union people would mob him if they believed he had
obtained arms for any Home Guards, especially for such ruffians as they
say he has been gathering together for his company," said Mr. Lyon. "I
have cautioned all who heard the story not to mention or hint at it in
the strongest manner; for of course I don't want to get your uncle into
trouble by repeating a false rumor."
"Suppose he gets himself into trouble?" suggested Deck. "He is an
out-and-out Secesher, and he don't make any bones of saying so out loud.
Sandy thinks they will break up the Union meeting at the schoolhouse
to-morrow night."
"Titus says he has done his best to prevent anything of the kind being
done," replied Mr. Lynn. "He thinks I should be mobbed and this house
burned over our heads if he did not use his influence to prevent it. But
your uncle believes what he wants to believe, and is certain a vast
majority of the people of the county are Secessionists. I am very well
satisfied that they are at least about equally divided. At any rate, the
Secessionists are doing their best to overawe the Union people, and they
might succeed to some extent if they could arm the villains they have
enrolled."
"Then it is better not to let them be armed," suggested Deck, with a
glance at his cousin.
"The story your mother told at dinner made it look as though they were
to be provided with weapons and ammunition at once; but the statement is
not true, and we appear to be safe for the present," said Mr. Lyon. "But
where have you been all the afternoon, boys?"
"Deck will tell the story, father," replied Artie.
"You led off in this business, Artie, and I think you had better tell
it," said Deck, though he was ready enough to relate the adventure.
"We will both tell it, then," added Artie. "I will begin and go as far
as where you joined me this afternoon at the bridge, and you shall tell
the rest of it."
"All right; fire away, Artie."
In accordance with this arrangement, the boys minutely narrated the
events of the afternoon, to the great astonishment and indignation of
Mr. Lyon. He occasionally interrupted his son to ask questions in regard
to the boxes they had examined in the cavern. The boys described the
cases, with the marks upon them, and the listener had no doubt they
contained arms and ammunition. The two carriages for the field-pieces
were the only portion of the warlike material not contained in boxes;
and these were almost evidence enough to determine the character of the
rest of the goods.
"Were the boxes all of the same kind?" asked the father, deeply
interested, and not a little disturbed by the revelation of the evening.
"They were not the same," replied Deck, taking a paper from his pocket,
on which he had written down a list of the cases. "The lid of one of the
two in which the cannon were boxed up had been split off in part, so
that we could see what was in it. Twelve cases were labelled
'Breech-loading Rifles,' and the rest of the lot were marked with the
kind of ammunition they contained. The smallest of them had cannon-balls
and grape in them."
"There isn't any doubt about the matter now," replied Mr. Lyon. "This
means war; and I have no doubt they are to be used in this county by
your uncle's cut-throats; for that is what they are according to what
Colonel Cosgrove said to me the other day. This is bad business," and
the planter gazed at the floor, his wrinkled brow indicating the deep
thought in which he was engaged.
"Sandy says the company of Home Guards is about full, and I suppose they
will not leave the arms and ammunition in the cavern for any great
length of time," suggested Deck.
"Something must be done," said Mr. Lyon. "If that company get these
weapons they will terrorize the whole county. There are some very strong
Unionists in this vicinity. Colonel Cosgrove told me they had threatened
to burn his house, though he is a very conservative man. He was in favor
of neutrality; but he admits that the Home Guards in this county are
about all Secessionists. Your Uncle Titus says I am looked upon as an
abolitionist, and if it had not been for him they would have 'cleaned me
out,' as he called it, before this time. It is time something was done,"
and the planter relapsed into a revery again.
The boys were silent. Fort Sumter had been bombarded, and its heroic
garrison had marched out with the honors of war. The country was in a
state of war. The call of the President for seventy-five thousand men
had been made. Northern soldiers were marching South for the protection
of Washington. Flags were flying, drums were beating, trumpets were
blaring, and troops were organizing all over the loyal nation.
In Kentucky men were enlisting in both armies, though the majority of
them clung to the flag of the Union, inspired by the traditions of the
State. But large portions of it were subjected to a reign of terror. One
party was struggling to carry the State out of the Union, and the other
to keep it in the Union. The county in which Noah Lyon and his family
were located was even more shaken by these discordant elements than most
of the others; for it was not more than thirty miles from the southern
boundary of the State.
"It almost breaks my heart to have my only living brother associated
with, and even leading, these conspirators against the Union," Mr. Lyon
resumed, as he wiped some tears from his eyes. "But when it comes to the
defence of the old flag under which we have become the most enlightened
and prosperous nation in the world, no true man can favor even his
brother when he plots to ruin it. Something must be done!" he repeated
with energy as he rose to his feet, and emphasized his remark with a
vigorous stamp of his foot.
"What shall be done, father?" asked Deck, awed by the manner and the
tears of his father; and he had never been so moved before in his life.
"We must defend the old flag, my boys! We must rally with those who are
marching to the defence of the Union! The time for talking has gone by,
and the time for action has come. I have not passed the military age,
and I shall not shirk the plain duty of the citizen, which is to become
a soldier," replied Mr. Lyon impressively.
"Do you mean to say that you shall join the army, father?" asked Deck.
"Certainly; what else can I do at a time like this?" replied the father.
"And that is not all, my son; you and Artemas are now sixteen years old,
nearly seventeen. You are both stout boys; and not only the sire, but
the sons, must shoulder the musket and march to the battle-field."
"I am ready for one!" exclaimed Deck with enthusiasm.
"I am ready for the other!" added Artie quite as earnestly.
"For some time I have seen that this was what we must come to; but I
have put off saying anything about it, for it is a solemn and even an
awful thing to engage in the strife of civil war, brother against
brother, the son against his father, and the father against his son."
"In our own family, we shall all be on the same side," added Deck.
"But your uncle and his two sons will be with the enemies of the Union.
It is not of our choosing, and God will be with us while we do our duty
to our country," said the patriot father, as he solemnly lifted his eyes
upward. "Now, my sons, for you both call me father, and I have always
tried to be the same to both of you"--
"And you always have been! And Aunt Ruth has been a mother to me and my
sister Dorcas!" interposed Artie, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.
"I shall never again call either of you anything but father or mother. I
am ready to enlist whenever you say the word, father."
"You are honest and true, and that is the kind of man you will make, my
son; and I can say the same of Dexter. You will both make good
soldiers."
Both the father and the sons shed tears as they realized, as they never
had before, the solemn duty which the peril of the Union imposed upon
them; and they were inspired to do that duty to the last drop of their
life-blood.
"There, boys! I did not intend to make a scene like this; but the
finding of the arms and ammunition convinces me that your Uncle Titus
and his villanous associates mean to make war upon loyal men in this
county. When you join the ranks of the Union army, you will find them
all in the columns of the enemy. You have done good service to our cause
in the discovery and ferreting out of this conspiracy against the true
men of this locality."
"It was all by accident that I found out about it," added Artie
modestly.
"I hope you will forgive me for scolding at you for being out so late
that night," said Mr. Lyon.
"You didn't scold me; you only gave me some good advice, and I hope I
shall always remember it. But I did not know then what I had discovered,
or where they were storing the arms."
"You did exceedingly well, whether you knew what you were doing or not.
Now it is driven into my very soul that I ought not to let the enemy
profit by obtaining those arms. I have made up my mind that it would be
treason, or next door to it, for me to let Titus and his gang have all
these weapons; and with the blessing of God they never shall have them!"
"That is the talk, father!" exclaimed Deck.
"So say we all of us!" Artie chimed in. "But what can we do?"
"Before the light of to-morrow morning breaks upon Riverlawn, we must
move all those boxes to the plantation," replied Mr. Lyon; and he
proceeded to discuss the means by which this purpose could be
accomplished.
"We have teams enough to haul the whole of them over here at one load,"
said Deck, boiling over with enthusiasm.
"Keep cool, my son, for we must be very prudent in our movements. Do you
know what became of the flatboat with which the conspirators moved the
cases up to the cavern?"
"Artie thought of that; and we found the gundalow in a little inlet at
the mouth of a brook, covered up with bushes."
"Then we may use that," replied the planter. "But I am in doubt about
one thing which may bother us."
"What's that, father?" asked Deck, who could not think of any impediment
to the carrying out of the plan announced by his father.
"I don't know that we can depend upon every person about the plantation.
A single one opposed to our scheme could ruin it. He might go to the
village and tell Titus, or some of his fellow-conspirators, what we were
about, and interfere with us before we got back."
"No one here would do such a thing," protested Deck. "All the servants
believe in you."
"I was thinking of Levi Bedford."
"Levi!" exclaimed both of the loyal boys together.
"I have never spoken a word to him about politics, or he to me.
Absolutely all I know about him is that he is a Tennesseean. But we must
settle this point on the instant; you may go and find him, Dexter, and
ask him to come into the library."
Deck left the room. He found the overseer in the sitting-room with the
family, and he returned with him a minute later.