said Mrs. Brown cautiously.

"But you did, though. Didn't she, Tom?"

"I thought so, certainly; and I told myself at the time, that I did not
see how Jack could have had any hand in Hanson's taking off, for I have
heard that he was not at home when the thing was done."

"No more he wasn't to hum. He was on his way to jine the Yankee navy,
dog-gone him an' them," snapped the woman, whose tongue was fairly
loosened now. "But he left them behine who works as well fur him when he
aint to hum as when he is."

"We know that very well," said Tom, who was surprised to hear it, "but
we don't know for certain who they are. Mark, don't you see that Mrs.
Brown is looking for her pipe?"

Mark hadn't noticed it, but all the same he hunted around on the mantel
until he found the well-blackened corn-cob, but he could not bring
himself to light it. He filled the bowl with some natural leaf he saw in
a box and handed it to the woman, who set it going with the aid of a
live coal which she took from the hearth in her bony fingers.

"You two aint furgot the stranger who popped up in Nashville all on a
sudden like, about the time that Jack Gray came hum from Newbern, have
you?" continued the old woman, after she had assured herself by a few
long, audible puffs that her pipe was well lighted. "Lemme see if I have
disremembered his name. No; sounds to me like it was Aleck Webster."

"Don't know him," said Tom, in a disappointed tone.

"I don't know him either," chimed in Mark, "but I have seen him. You
know old man Webster, Tom, who lives about six miles down the main road.
Well, Aleck is his son."

"Now I do think, in my soul," exclaimed Allison, "things have come to a
pretty pass when Crackers like those Websters can throw a settlement
like this into a panic, and order prominent and wealthy planters like
Captain Beardsley to quit business and come home on penalty of being
burned out in case of disobedience."

"You're mighty right," said Mrs. Brown, who was pleased to hear the
captain called a prominent and wealthy planter. "Sich trash aint no call
to live on this broad 'arth. They're wuss than the niggers, an' a heap
lower down."

"But have you any evidence against the Websters?" inquired Mark.

"I've got a plenty. In the fust place they don't say nothing; an' folks
as don't say nothing these times ain't fitten to live. Now is the day
when every man oughter come out an' show their colors," said the woman,
quoting from Beardsle