their heads high and
threw on airs because they had been prominent actors in the thrilling
scenes that took place in Mrs. Gray's sitting-room. Julius thought
himself of so much consequence that it was all Marcy could do to
persuade him to give the dead Bose a decent burial, and then he was
obliged to go with him to see that the task was well done. But he was
not as impatient with the black boy as he would have been if Aleck
Webster had not spoken so well of him. They had visitors, too; and Marcy
knew that their object in coming was not to sympathize with his mother
and denounce the "outrage" as they called it, but to gain her good will
if they could. As Marcy bluntly expressed it--"They would not come near
us if they thought we were friendless and helpless, but they know we are
not, and so they want to get on our blind side." They fairly "gushed"
over the Confederate flag that was hung upon the wall of the
sitting-room, but when they went away they told one another that that
banner did not express Mrs. Gray's honest sentiments, and that it would
not protect her or her property for one minute if the Richmond
authorities would only yield to the importunities of General Wise, and
send a strong force to occupy Roanoke Island and the surrounding
country. If that time ever came, the general's attention should be
called to the fact that one of the sons of that house was a sailor in
the Yankee navy.

After another almost sleepless night Marcy Gray rode again to the
post-office, to find there the same talkative, indignant, do-nothing
crowd he had long been accustomed to meet at mail time. This morning, if
such a thing were possible, they were more excited and angry than they
had been the day before; but they did not fail to meet Marcy at the
hitching-rack, or to talk to him as though they looked upon him as one
of themselves. He noticed that they all held papers in their hands.

"This thing is going to be stopped now, I bet you," said Mark Goodwin,
who was the first to speak.

"Do you mean the war?" inquired Marcy. "If you do, I am heartily glad to
hear the news."

"I mean the war right around here," answered Mark. "It's got into the
Newbern papers, and they are giving us fits on account of it. They say
it serves us just right."

"What does?"

"Why, having our houses burned and--and all that."

"Do they say anything about robbery?" asked Marcy. "Or about threatening
to pull a law-abiding boy up by the neck because he do