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Gray's house the Richmond authorities have no right to touch it." "Aint they, now!" chuckled Beardsley. "Don't the law say that we-uns mustn't pay no debts to the Yankees, but must turn the money over to the fellers at Richmond?" "But I am afraid Mrs. Gray doesn't owe any money to the Yankees." "What's the odds whether you think so or not?" said the captain earnestly.
One day he spoke to Beardsley about it, while the latter was pacing his quarter-deck smoking his after-dinner cigar. "If those English sailors I was talking with a little while ago are so very anxious to see the Union destroyed, I don't see why they don't ship under the Confederate flag," said he. "But what has England got against the United States, anyway?"
"You can have breakfast whenever you want it; but, Marcy, I am almost afraid to have you go to town," replied his mother. "If I thought I would be in any more danger there than I am at home I wouldn't stir one step," said the boy. "I don't think it would be policy for me to keep away from those paroled prisoners, but that it would be safest for me to go among them as Captain Beardsley does.
Beardsley knew he was being stared at and of course liked it, and probably would not have exchanged places with anybody there, not even with Carolus-Duran when, splendidly barbered, in gorgeous waistcoat, and with an air of casualness, the cher maître et président strolled into the restaurant at the supreme moment, carefully chosen, all the crowd there before him, their breakfast ordered, their first pangs of hunger stilled, and their attention and enthusiasm at liberty for the greeting he counted upon, and got.
He did not deny what I said." "This was the morning after the Hasbrook outrage was it?" asked Mr. Beardsley. "Yes, it was; but I knew nothing about that till night." "We can easily understand why the captain did not want to be seen near Lincolnville," added the sheriff. "It was he who pounded Hasbrook for swindling him." "No, sir; I think not," interposed Donald.
"We-uns who live about here can't do nothing by ourselves, but we can hint just hint, I say to some outsiders that there's a pile of money in that there house of Mrs. Gray's that's to be had for the taking." "Go on," said Tom, when Beardsley stopped and looked at him. "I am listening, but I don't catch your meaning."
If the boy of whom they were in search was in the house he ought to have been discovered before this time; and if he had escaped, where could he have gone unless it was to Plymouth or to the Union men who were hidden in the swamp? If he had gone to either place Captain Beardsley knew it meant the loss of more buildings to him and Colonel Shelby.
Then he gave a short account of his experience and dealings with Captain Beardsley, so that the man might know just how much reason he had to stand in fear of him, and finally he inquired how many men there were in Mr. Webster's party, and where and how they lived.
"I haven't the least idea where he is," was Marcy's answer. "I know you wasn't to home when he was took off leastwise I have been told so," said Beardsley, "but I didn't know but mebbe you and your maw might suspicion somebody. Now what you going to do for an overseer? There's that renter of mine, Kelsey his name is. I know you don't collogue with no such, but mebbe you know who he is."
This threat kept Beardsley quiet, and he would not have dared to say anything to Marcy if he had had the opportunity; but he had a good deal to say about him after he got home. "If you whip the rebels at Roanoke Island and let me go among my friends again, that man will make me no end of trouble," said Marcy, in conclusion.
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