MARK GOODWIN’S PLAN.
Matters could not have worked more to Rodney Gray’s satisfaction if he
had had the planning of them himself. The hasty note he wrote to his
mother brought Mr. Gray to the plantation within an hour, and with him
came the doctor, who, for a wonder, was found at home by the messenger
whom Mrs. Gray had despatched to bring him. He lanced Marcy’s hands,
which had not received the least medical attention since the day they
were wounded by the cruel cord that held him suspended in the air so
that his toes barely touched the ground, bandaged them in good shape,
and gave him some medicine; and all the time Mr. Gray stood in an
adjoining room listening, while his eyes grew moist, to Rodney’s hurried
description of the events of the morning. Before he had time to ask many
questions the bars rattled again, and the hounds gave tongue as Colonel
Grierson and two or three of his officers rode into the yard. His weary,
travel-stained soldiers were close behind, but the most of them kept on
down the road, while only a small body-guard remained to watch over the
safety of the commanding officer. Rodney’s friend the corporal came into
the yard with the colonel, and winked and nodded in a way that was very
encouraging. Rodney stood on the veranda and saluted, while the two
troopers seized their carbines and presented arms.
“Come right in, sir,” said the boy. “I have been waiting for you.”
“Thank you. The corporal promised us a breakfast if we would stop here,
and so we thought it advisable to stop. I hope you’ll not object if we
sit down just as we are,” said the colonel, who was as dirty and ragged
as any of his men, “for we have scant time to stand on ceremony. Are
these the guards that were left with the conscripts? Forbes, step in and
see if they are the ones you picked up at Enterprise.”
Forbes was the captain who had been sent with a squad of thirty-five men
to perform the perilous duty of cutting the telegraph-wires north of
Macon, and the gallant and daring exploit by which he saved his small
force from falling into the clutches of three thousand rebels we have
yet to describe. He recognized Marcy and his friend Bowen as the
conscripts who had surrendered themselves to him at Enterprise, shook
hands with one, patted the other on the head and said he guessed it was
all right, and that they could remain with Rodney as long as they
pleased.
“There,” said the doctor. “Those words will do the patient more good
than all the medicine I could give him. Homesickness is what troubles
him more than anything else, but now that he is safe among his relatives
he will soon get over that.”
Captain Forbes replied that he hoped so, and went out to join the
colonel at the table, while Rodney made haste to serve up the breakfast
that had been prepared for the two conscripts and their guards. Of
course the corporal was not forgotten, and he said he had been living on
army bacon and hard-tack just long enough to give him a sharp appetite
for the chicken and corn bread with which his plate was filled. When
Rodney went into the hall to see if his other guests were well served,
Captain Forbes cheered his heart by remarking that, as the conscripts
were not prisoners, they were at liberty to do as they pleased about
going or staying.
In twenty minutes more the colonel had galloped away with his
body-guard, the plantation house was quiet, Marcy was sleeping the sleep
of exhaustion, and Charley Bowen was sitting on the porch with Mr. Gray
and Rodney, who listened with deep interest while he told of the
adventures that had befallen him and his partner since they took leave
of the stockade at Millen, which was as much of a prison to the
conscript guards as it was to the unhappy Union soldiers who were
confined on the inside. Their food was of rather better quality, and
they had more of it; but that was about all the difference there was
between them. Bowen’s short narrative prepared them to hear something
interesting when Marcy awoke; but that did not happen for eighteen
hours, and during that time the doctor made a second visit and Mr. Gray
went home and brought his wife, who shed tears abundantly when she saw
the thin, wan face on the pillow. But his long refreshing sleep and the
knowledge that he was among friends, and that the dreaded stockade with
all its harrowing associations was miles away, never to come before him
again except in his dreams, did wonders for Marcy Gray. When he awoke
his eye was as bright as ever, and the strong voice in which he called
out: “If there is a good Samaritan in this house I wish he would bring
me a drink of water,” was delightful to hear. Rodney, who had just
arisen from the lounge on which he had passed the night in an adjoining
room, lost no time in bringing the water, and his cousin’s hearty
greeting reminded him of the good old days at Barrington before the war
came with its attendant horrors, and set the boys of the family to
fighting under different flags.
“The only thing I have had enough of since I left home is water,” said
Marcy; and Rodney was glad to see that he was strong enough to sit up in
bed and hold the cup with his own hand. “This isn’t all a dream, is it?
If it is, I hope I shall never wake up.”
“It is not a dream,” Rodney assured him. “Look at your hands. Do you
dream that it hurts you to move them? And do you dream that you see your
aunt?” he added, making way for Mrs. Gray, who at that moment came into
the room and bent over the couch.
Another good sign was that Marcy awoke hungry. He did not say so, for it
was too early in the morning for breakfast and Marcy never made trouble
if he could help it; but Rodney suspected it, and in a few minutes the
banging of stove-lids bore testimony that he was busy in the kitchen,
where he was soon joined by Charley Bowen, who said he was the best cook
in Georgia. The latter had been given a room to himself, but finding the
shuck mattress too soft and warm for comfort, he went out on the gallery
during the night and slept there, with Rodney’s hounds for company.
While these two worked in the kitchen, Mrs. Gray sat by Marcy’s bedside
and told him of Sailor Jack’s visit, and of the letters that had since
been received from him, so he could understand that, although his sudden
appearance was a great surprise to his friends, it was not quite as
bewildering as it would have been had they not been aware that he was
doing guard duty at Millen. She was going on to tell of Jack’s plans,
which had been upset by Marcy’s arrest, when Rodney, who stood in the
door listening, broke in with:
“What will you put up against my roll of Confederate scrip that we don’t
see Jack in this country again in less than a month? I wrote him
yesterday, and it was a letter that will bring him as quickly as he can
come; that is, if he thinks it safe to leave his mother. And, Marcy,
you’ll have to stay, for you can’t go back among those rebels without
running the risk of being dragged off again; and I know what I am
talking about when I say that in our army desertion means death.”
“What sort of a fellow are you to talk about ‘rebels’ and ‘our army’ in
the same breath?” demanded Marcy.
“I am as strong for the Union as General Grant, and wish I could do as
much for it as he is doing to-day,” replied Rodney earnestly. “You never
expected to hear me utter such sentiments, did you? Well, I am honest. I
want peace, and so does everybody except Jeff Davis and a few others
high in authority. I’ll bring Jack here if I can, and then we’ll become
traders, all of us. We want to save what we can from the wreck.”
By the time breakfast was served and eaten, and the conscripts had
exchanged their rags for whole suits of clothing, Mr. Gray and Ned
Griffin came to swell their number, and to hear Marcy tell how he and
his comrade managed to escape from Millen and to elude their pursuers
afterward. Marcy protested that he wasn’t going to lie abed when there
was no need of it, so he was propped up with pillows in the biggest
rocking-chair the house afforded, and pulled out to the porch, where the
family assembled to listen to his story, which ran about as follows:
When we took leave of Marcy Gray to resume the history of his cousin
Rodney’s adventures and exploits, he was a refugee from home and living
in the woods in company with a small party of men and boys who had fled
there to avoid the enrolling officers, as well as to escape persecution
at the hands of their rebel neighbors. By a bold piece of strategy Marcy
had relieved his mother of the presence of her overseer, Hanson by name,
who had managed to keep her in constant trouble and anxiety ever since
the first gun was fired from Sumter. Hanson made it his business to keep
informed on all matters that related to the private life of the
occupants of the great house; in fact it was suspected that Beardsley,
Shelby, and some other wealthy rebels paid him to do it. It was rumored
that Mrs. Gray had a large sum of money hidden somewhere about her
premises, and if that was a fact, these enemies, who were all the while
working against her in secret, desired above all things to know it. They
wanted the money themselves if it could be found, and even went so far
as to bring four ruffians from a distant point to break into the house
at night and steal it. If they failed to line their own pockets, it was
their intention to induce the Richmond authorities to interest
themselves in the matter. A law enacted by the Confederate Congress at
the breaking out of the war provided that all debts owing to Northern
men should be repudiated, and the amount of those debts turned into the
Confederate treasury. Marcy often declared that his mother did not owe
anybody a red cent; but it would have been easy for such men as
Beardsley and Shelby to swear that she did, and that, instead of
complying with the law, she was hoarding the money for her own use. If
this could be proved against her, Mrs. Gray would have to surrender her
gold or go to jail; but somehow Marcy was always in the way whenever her
secret enemies tried to collect evidence against her. Being always on
his guard he never could be made to acknowledge that there was a dollar
in or around the great house, and Beardsley undertook to remove him so
that he and his fellow-conspirators could have a clear field for their
operations; and he did it by taking Marcy to sea with him as pilot on
his privateer and blockade runner.
But for a long time nothing worked to Beardsley’s satisfaction. His fine
dwelling was burned while he was at sea, and the Federal cruisers drove
his blockade runner into port and kept her there until Marcy set fire to
her as she lay at her moorings. This he did on the night he left home to
join the refugees in the swamp. He had a narrow escape that night, and
would certainly have been packed off to Williamston jail before morning
if it had not been for the black boy Julius, who loyally risked his own
life to give Marcy warning. Beardsley and Shelby were finally “gobbled
up” by Union cavalry and taken to Plymouth, which had been captured by
some of Goldsborough’s gunboats and garrisoned by the army; but,
unfortunately for Marcy, they did not remain prisoners for any length of
time. If Beardsley had any luck at all it showed itself in the easy way
he had of slipping through the hands of the Yankees. He was captured by
Captain Benton, who commanded the vessel on which Marcy did duty as
pilot during the battles of Roanoke Island, and in the end was turned
over to General Burnside, who made the mistake of parolling him with the
captured garrison. That was the plea that Beardsley set up when he and
his companions, of whom there were about a dozen, were taken into the
presence of the Federal commander at Plymouth.
“I’ve been parolled,” said he, “me and all the fellers you see with me.
We promised, honor bright, that we wouldn’t never take up arms agin the
United States, and we’ve kept that promise. So what makes you snatch us
away from our peaceful homes and firesides, and bring us here to shut us
up, when we aint never done the least thing?”
“But all the same you belong to the Home Guards who were organized for
the purpose of persecuting Union people,” said the colonel.
“Never heered of no Home Guards,” replied Beardsley, looking astonished.
“There aint no such things in our country, is there, boys?”
Of course Beardsley’s companions bore willing testimony to the truth of
the statement, and when he and Shelby boldly declared that they would
prove their sincerity by taking the oath then and there, if the colonel
would administer it to them, it settled the matter so far as they were
concerned. Their companions were willing to follow their example rather
than suffer themselves to be sent to a Northern prison, and the result
was that in less than forty-eight hours after Marcy Gray received the
gratifying intelligence that he had seen the last of Beardsley and
Shelby, for a while at least, they were at home again and eager to take
vengeance on the boy whom they blamed more than anyone else for their
short captivity.
“How did the Yankees get onto our trail so easy, and know all about that
Home Guard business, if Marcy Gray didn’t tell ’em?” said Beardsley,
when he and his friends found themselves safe outside the trenches at
Plymouth and well on their way homeward. “When Marcy made a pris’ner of
his mother’s overseer and took him among the Yankees he give ’em our
names, told ’em where we lived and all about it; and I say he shan’t
stay in the settlement no longer. I’ll land him in Williamston jail
before I am two days older; and when he gets there he won’t come back in
a hurry. I’ll see if I can’t have him sent to some regiment down on the
Gulf coast; then, if he runs away, as he is likely to do the first
chance he sees, he can’t get home.”
“Be you goin’ to keep that oath, cap’n?” inquired one of Beardsley’s
companions.
“Listen at the fule! Course I’m going to keep it. I didn’t promise
nothin’ but that I wouldn’t never bear arms agin the Yankee government,
nor lend aid and comfort to its enemies, without any mental observation,
did I? What do you reckon that means, Shelby?”
“Mental reservation,” corrected Colonel Shelby, who did not like to be
addressed with so much familiarity. “It means that you did not swear to
one thing while you were thinking about another.”
“Then I took the oath honest, ’cause I wasn’t thinkin’ about Marcy Gray
at all while the colonel was readin’ it to me; but I am thinkin’ of him
now. I didn’t promise that I wouldn’t square yards with him for settin’
the Yanks onto me, and I’ll perceed to do it before I sleep sound.”
Beardsley was as good as his word, or tried to be; but it took him
longer than two days to land Marcy Gray in Williamston jail. He laid a
good many plans to capture him, but somehow they were put into operation
just too late to be successful. And what exasperated Beardsley and
Shelby almost beyond endurance, and drove Tom Allison and Mark Goodwin
almost frantic, was the fact that Marcy did not keep himself in hiding
as closely as he used to do. He rode to Nashville whenever he felt like
it, and went in and out of the post-office as boldly as he ever did; but
he was always accompanied by Ben Hawkins and three or four other
parolled rebels, and no one dared lay a hand on him. Ben Hawkins, you
will remember, was the man who created something of a sensation by
making a defiant speech in the post-office shortly after he had been
released on parole by General Burnside. He declared that he had had all
the fighting he wanted and did not intend to go back to the army; and
when that blatant young rebel Tom Allison, who had never shouldered a
musket and did not mean to, so far forgot his prudence as to call
Hawkins a coward, the latter flew into a rage and threatened to “twist”
Tom’s neck for him.
“Did Hawkins and his parolled comrades know that you served on a Union
gunboat during the fight at Roanoke Island?” asked Rodney, when his
cousin reached this point in his narrative.
“Of course they knew it; and they knew, too, that Jack was serving on
one of the blockading fleet, but it didn’t seem to make the least
difference in their friendship for me. Hawkins was the man who helped me
get that treacherous overseer out of mother’s way, and he and the other
parolled prisoners who found a home in our refugee camp had relatives in
the settlement; and those relatives found means to warn us whenever a
cavalry raid was expected out from Williamston.”
“You must have led an exciting life,” observed Rodney.
Marcy replied that he found some excitement in dodging the rebel cavalry
and in listening to the sounds of the skirmishes that frequently took
place between them and the Union troopers that scouted through the
country from Plymouth; but there wasn’t a bit to be seen during the
weary days he passed on the island, afraid to show his head above the
brush wind-break lest some lurking Confederate should send a bullet into
it. Nor was there any pleasure in the lonely night trips he made to and
from his mother’s house whenever it came his turn to forage for his
companions. Keeping the camp supplied with provisions was a dangerous
duty, and he had to do his share of it. It was always performed under
cover of the darkness, for if any of their number had been seen carrying
supplies away from a house during the daytime, it would have been
reported to the first squad of rebel cavalry that rode through the
settlement, and that house would have been burned to the ground. To make
matters worse the refugees learned, to their great consternation and
anger, that there was an enemy among them; that one who ate salt with
them every day and slept under the same trees at night, who took part in
their councils, heard all the reports, good and bad, that were brought
in, and knew the camp routine so well that he could tell beforehand what
particular refugee would go foraging on a certain night, and name the
houses he would visit during his absence—someone who knew all these
things was holding regular communication with enemies in the settlement,
who made such good use of the information given them by this treacherous
refugee that they brought untold suffering to Marcy Gray and his mother,
and severe and well-merited punishment upon themselves. In order that
you may understand how it was brought about we must describe some things
that Marcy did not include in his narrative, for the very good reason
that he knew nothing of them.
We have said that Tom Allison and his friend and crony Mark Goodwin were
angry when they saw Marcy Gray and his body-guard riding about the
country, holding their heads high as though they had never done anything
to be ashamed of. Tom and Mark were together all the time, and their
principal business in life was to bring trouble to some good Union
family as often as they saw opportunity to do so without danger to
themselves. The burning of Beardsley’s fine schooner had opened their
eyes to the fact that Marcy and his fellow-refugees could not be trifled
with, that there was a limit to their patience, and that it was the
height of folly to crowd them too far.
“There’s somebody in this neighborhood who ought to be driven out of
it,” declared Mark Goodwin, while he and Tom Allison were riding toward
Nashville one morning, trying to make up their minds how and where to
pass the long day before them. “Don’t it beat you how Marcy and his
body-guard dodge in and out of the woods when there are no Confederate
soldiers around, and how close they keep themselves at all other times?”
“Marcy knows what’s going on in the settlement as well as he did when he
lived here,” answered Tom. “He’s got friends, and plenty of them.”
“Everything goes to prove it,” said Mark, “and those friends ought to be
driven away from here.”
“That’s what I say; but who are they? Name a few of them.”
“We’ll never be able to call any of them by name until we put a spy in
the camp of those refugees to keep us posted on all.”
“Mark,” exclaimed Tom, riding closer to his companion and laying his
riding whip lightly on his shoulder, “you’ve hit it, and I wonder we did
not think of it before. Every general sends out spies to bring him
information which he could not get in any other way, and although we are
not generals we are good and loyal Confederates, and what’s the reason
we can’t do the same? Have you thought of anybody?”
“There’s Kelsey, for one.”
“Great Scott, man! He won’t do. Beardsley, Shelby, and a few others
offered Kelsey money to find out whether Marcy and his mother were Union
or Confederate, and tried to have him employed on that plantation as
overseer after Hanson was spirited away, so that he could find out if
there was any money in the house; and Marcy knows all about it.”
“There’s mighty little goes on that he doesn’t know about, and I can’t
for the life of me see how he keeps so well posted,” observed Mark.
“Then Beardsley and Shelby tried to induce Kelsey to burn Mrs. Gray’s
house, and Marcy knows about that, too,” continued Tom. “Wouldn’t he be
a plum dunce to let such a man as that come into camp to spy on him?
Besides, Kelsey is too big a coward to undertake the job.”
“And he couldn’t make the refugees believe that he had turned his coat
and become Union all on a sudden,” assented Mark. “No, Kelsey won’t do.
We ought to make a bargain with somebody who is already in the camp and
who is supposed to be Marcy’s friend. How does Buffum strike you?”
“Have you any reason to believe that he is not Marcy’s friend?”
“No; but I believe that a man who is on the make as he is would do
almost anything for gain. He’s no more Union than I am. He kept out of
the army because he was afraid he would be killed if he went in; and
besides, he knew that Beardsley’s promise, to look out for the wants of
his family while he was gone, wasn’t good for anything. By taking up
with the refugees he made sure of getting enough to eat, but,” added
Mark, sinking his voice to a whisper, “he didn’t make sure of anything
else—any money, I mean.”
“Whew!” whistled Tom. “Perhaps there is something in it. Let’s ride over
and see what Beardsley thinks about it. You are not afraid to trust
him.”
No, Mark wasn’t afraid to take Captain Beardsley or any other good
Confederate into his confidence, and showed it by turning his horse
around and putting him into a lope. They talked earnestly as they rode,
and the conclusion they came to was that Mark had hit upon a fine plan
for punishing a boy who had never done them the least harm, and that the
lazy, worthless Buffum was just the man to help them carry it out
successfully. Captain Beardsley thought so too, after the scheme had
been unfolded to him. They found him with his coat off and a hoe in his
hands working with his negroes; but he was quite ready to come to the
fence when they intimated that they had something to say to him in
private. Beardsley’s field-hands had disappeared rapidly since the flag
which they knew to be the emblem of their freedom had been given to the
breeze at Plymouth, and those who remained were the aged and crippled,
who were wise enough to know that they could not earn their living among
strangers, and the vicious and shiftless (and Beardsley owned more of
this sort of help than any other planter in the State), who were afraid
that the Yankees would work them too hard. The “invaders” believed that
those who wouldn’t work couldn’t eat, and lived up to their principles
by putting some implement of labor into the hands of the contrabands as
fast as they came inside the lines.
“They’re a sorry lookin’ lot,” said Captain Beardsley, as he came up to
the fence, rested his elbow on the top rail, and glanced back at his
negroes, “and I am gettin’ tol’able tired of the way things is goin’,
now I tell you. Sixty thousand dollars’ wuth of niggers has slipped
through my fingers sence this war was brung on us, dog-gone the luck,
and that’s what I get for bein’ a Confedrit. If I’d been Union like them
Grays, I’d ’a’ had most of my hands with me yet.”
“I have a plan for getting even with those Grays, if you’ve got time to
listen to it,” said Mark.
“I’ve got time to listen to anybody who will show me how to square yards
with the feller who sneaked up like a thief in the night and set fire to
my schooner,” replied Beardsley fiercely.
“But when Marcy did that wasn’t you trying to make a prisoner of him?”
said Tom.
“Course I was. And I had a right to, ’cause aint he Union? If he aint,
why didn’t he run Captain Benton’s ship aground when the fight was goin’
on down there to the Island? He had chances enough.”
“The Yankees would have hung him if he’d done that.”
“S’pos’n they did; aint better men than Marcy Gray been hung durin’ this
war, I’d like to know? I wish one of our big shells had hit that gunboat
’twixt wind and water and sent her to the bottom with every soul on
board; but it didn’t happen so, and Marcy was let come home to burn the
only thing I had left in this wide world to make my bread and butter
with. Why, boys, everything I’ve got that schooner made for me on the
high seas—niggers, plantation, and all; and now she has been tooken from
me, dog-gone the luck. How is it you’re thinkin’ of gettin’ even with
him?”
Mark Goodwin had not proceeded very far with his explanation before he
became satisfied that he had hit upon something which met the captain’s
hearty approval, for the latter rested his bearded chin on his breast,
wagged his head from side to side as he always did when he was very much
pleased and wanted to laugh, and pounded the top rail with his clenched
hand. He let Mark explain without interruption, and when the boy ceased
speaking he backed away from the fence, rested his hands on his knees,
and gave vent to a single shout of merriment.
“It’ll work; I just know it’ll work,” said he, as soon as he could
speak, “and you couldn’t have picked out a better man for the job than
that sneak Buffum. He’s beholden to me and wants money. Go down and tell
him I want to see him directly.”
Then Beardsley rested his folded arms on the fence and fell to shaking
his head again.