hitched his horse to one of the pins in the rack and followed Beardsley across the street toward the post-office.
CHAPTER III.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP
The streets of Nashville were almost deserted, for the cold wind, aided by the driving rain that was falling steadily, had forced all the idlers to seek comfort within doors. The post-office was full of them, and when the captain walked in with Allison at his heels they greeted him boisterously, and asked more questions in a minute than he could answer in ten. First and foremost they wanted to know why Beardsley had come home so unexpectedly, but that was a matter he did not care to say much about. All they could get from him was that he had some important business to attend to.
"But of course you are going back again," said one. "I would if I had such a chance to make money as you have got. But perhaps you are rich enough already."
"Well, no; I don't reckon I'll ran the blockade any more," replied the captain. "My schooner is safe and sound now and I want to keep her that way. The Yankees are getting tolerable thick outside, and I don't care to have them run me down some dark night and slap me into one of their prisons."
There were at least a dozen persons in the post-office, besides Tom Allison, who knew that Beardsley had other and better reasons for quitting the profitable business in which he had been engaged, and three of them were Shelby, Dillon, and the postmaster. These men knew by the captain's manner, as well as by the way he looked at them now and then, that he had something of importance on his mind, and they left the store one after another, expecting Beardsley to follow and join them as soon as he could do so without arousing suspicion. A fourth man was Aleck Webster, who leaned carelessly against one of the counters and listened to what the captain had to say, although he did not seem to pay much attention to it. If Aleck had been so disposed he could have told Beardsley who wrote the letter that broke up his blockade running and brought him home so suddenly, and so could several other Union men who were in the office on this particular morning. They went there every day to hear their doings discussed; and it gave them no little satisfaction to learn that they had aroused a feeling of uneasiness and insecurity among the citizens which grew more intense as the days went by and nothing was heard from Hanson. Although Tom Allison knew nothing about the letter that had been left on Beardsley's porch until the latter told him, there were many in the settlement who knew about it and were wondering who could have put it there. The captain's negroes were the first to find it out, and Mrs. Brown, the neighborhood gossip who read the letter for Beardsley's daughter, was the second; and among them all they had managed to spread the story considerably.
Tom Allison was like Captain Beardsley in one respect – he could not keep a secret any longer than it took him to find some congenial spirit who was willing to share it with him. He was eager to tell all he knew, and sometimes he told a good deal more; consequently, the first thing he did after Beardsley received his mail and left the office to find the three men who had gone out a while before, was to give his particular friend and crony Mark Goodwin, a swaggering, boastful young rebel like himself, a wink and a nod that brought him across to Tom's side of the store.
"What is it, old fellow?" whispered Mark. "Your face is full of news."
"And so is my head," replied Tom. "I am loaded clear to the muzzle, and anxious to shoot myself off at your head. I am going to ride down to exchange a few yarns with Mrs. Brown; will you go along?"
"What's the use?" exclaimed Mark, looking through the moist windows into the street. "You won't get anything but lies out of her. And just see how it rains!"
"It doesn't rain to hurt anything, and we can't talk here," said Tom. "I don't care whether Mrs. Brown tells me the truth or not, so long as she will aid me in spreading a few items of news that came to my ears this morning. Better go, for I promise that I will surprise you. You know I rode down with Beardsley."
"And I rather wondered at it. I can remember when you used to speak of him in a way that was anything but complimentary. Did he tell you what brought him home?" said Mark, in a whisper. "Come along then. I am ready to be surprised."
The two boys mounted their horses and rode away through the driving rain, and as they rode, Tom Allison electrified his friend by making a clean breast of everything Beardsley had told him, and which he had promised to keep to himself; and observing that Mark was interested and excited by the narrative, Tom added to it a few details of his own invention. He declared that Hanson had told Beardsley, in confidence, that Mrs. Gray owed a big pile of money to Northern men, and instead of turning it over to the government, as the law provided, she was keeping it for her own use.
"And how does it come that Hanson could learn so much of Mrs. Gray's private affairs?" demanded Mark. "He didn't live in the house, but in the quarter with the niggers."
"Probably some of the house servants posted him," answered Tom. "You know that prying darkies sometimes find out a heap of things."
"That's so," assented Mark. "Tom, you have told me great news – Mrs. Gray with a gold mine hidden somewhere in her house, and Marcy taking his brother Jack out to the Yankee fleet to give him a chance to enlist under the old flag! What are we coming to? What are you going to do about it? You must have some plan in your head, or you wouldn't be going to see Mrs. Brown. You had better be careful what you say in the presence of that old witch, or she may get you into trouble."
"That is the very thing I wanted to talk to you about," replied Tom. "What do you think we ought to do? I don't know whether I have the straight of the story or not, but I am sure Mrs. Brown has, for Beardsley probably told her all about it as soon as he got home last night. That man can't keep a thing to himself to save his life. I thought it might be a good idea to see what Mrs. Brown thinks about it, and to ask her if there is any truth in the report that a band of men has been got together to rob Mrs. Gray's house."
"I will tell you one thing confidentially," said Mark. "If that part of the story isn't true, a few wags of Mrs. Brown's tongue will make it true. There are dozens of men right here in this country, and you and I are acquainted with some of them, who would jump down on that house this very night if they were sure they could make anything by it."
"I know that, but I don't care; do you? I always did despise those Grays, and now that they have shown themselves to be traitors, I say let them suffer for it. You heard Marcy tell me to put a uniform on before I presumed to speak to him again, didn't you?"
"Yes; and I heard his brother Jack call you a stay-at-home blow-hard. I looked for you to tackle the pair of them the moment they insulted you; but you surprised me and all the rest of your friends by keeping perfectly still," observed Mark, who knew well enough that Tom lacked the courage to "tackle" the brothers, either of whom could have tossed him half-way across the post-office without very much trouble.
"I was biding my time," replied Allison, making his riding-whip whistle viciously through the air just above his horse's ears. "It has come now, and if Marcy Gray doesn't take that insulting word back as publicly as he gave it to me – "
"Oh, you needn't look for him to do that. Marcy isn't that sort of a fellow."
"He'll wish he was that sort before I am done with him," said Tom, with spiteful emphasis. "That's one reason why I am going to see Mrs. Brown. I want her to spread it around that Marcy took Jack out to the blockading fleet."
"She is just the one to do it," said Mark, with a laugh. "And the way to make her go about it as though she meant business is to tell her your story under a pledge of secrecy."
"And there is another matter that I want to speak to you about," continued Tom. "What scheme have Shelby and Dillon and the postmaster and your father and mine got in hand that they take so much pains to keep from us boys?"
"I
