their principles. Now,
there's that trifling hound Lon Beardsley. He told me and some others
who come up from the Island the same time he did, that we could make a
pile of money by burning Mrs. Gray's house."

Colonel Shelby was one of those who listened while the angry soldier
talked, but being a "stay-at-homer" he dared not interrupt him. He stood
where he could look over the shoulders of some of the crowd into Marcy's
face; and when the soldier spoke Beardsley's name, and told what the
latter had tried to induce him and some companions to do, the colonel
leaned forward and whispered a few earnest words to him. The man bent
his head to listen, but as soon as the colonel ceased speaking he broke
out again.

"I aint a paroled pris'ner neither," he shouted. "I took my oath that I
wouldn't never fight agin the United States again, and I'm going to
stick to it. I'm a free man now; I am going to stay free, and I won't
shut up till I get ready. When I say that Lon Beardsley tried to get me
to burn Mrs. Gray's house I say the truth, and Beardsley dassent come
afore me and say different. But I told him plain that we uns who had fit
and snuffed powder wouldn't do no dirty work like that. We don't care if
Jack Gray is in the Yankee navy and Marcy was a pilot on a Yankee
gunboat. If they was in that fight I done my level best to sink 'em; but
they whopped us fair and square, and I've had enough of fighting to last
me as long as I live. All the same I aint going to let no little whiffet
like Tom Allison call me a coward."

While the soldier was going on in this way, pounding the air with his
fists and shouting himself hoarse, those of his auditors who could do so
without attracting too much attention, secured their mail and slipped
through the door into the street; and when the crowd became thinned out
so that he could see to the other end of the post-office, Marcy was
surprised to discover that the man was not alone and unsupported, as he
had supposed him to be. Six or eight stalwart fellows in uniform leaned
against the counters; and the fact that they did not interrupt their
comrade, or take him to task for anything he said, was pretty good
evidence that he spoke for them as well as for himself. Among those who
were glad to get away from the sound of his voice were Tom Allison and
Mark Goodwin, who went across the road to the hitching-rack, and had
time to do a little talking between themselves before Marcy came out.

"Did