o; the rest stood
irresolute. But at this moment a new speaker came forward; it was the
Captain, who had been listening in ambush.

"All gammon, boys, all gammon," he began, seating himself familiarly
among them on the fence-rail. "The season for planting's over, and your
work would be thrown away in that field of his. He knows it, too; he
only wants to see you marching around to his whistling. And he pays you
double wages, does he? Double wages for perfectly useless work! Doesn't
that show, clear as daylight, what he's up to? If he hankers so after
your future--your next winter, and all that--why don't he give yer the
money right out, if he's so flush? But no; he wants to put you to work,
and that's all there is of it. He can't deny a word I've said, either."

"I do not deny that I wish you to work, friends," began David--

"There! he tells yer so himself," said the Captain; "he wants yer back
in yer old places again. _I_ seen him talking to old Ammerton the other
day. Give 'em a chance, them two classes, and they'll have you slaves a
second time before you know it."

"Never!" cried David. "Friends, it is not possible that you can believe
this man! We have given our lives to make you free," he added
passionately; "we came down among you, bearing your freedom in our
hands--"

"Come, now--I'm a Northerner too, ain't I?" interrupted the Captain.
"There's two kinds of Northerners, boys. _I_ was in the army, and that's
more than he can say. Much freedom _he_ brought down in _his_ hands,
safe at home in his narrer-minded, penny-scraping village! He wasn't in
the army at all, boys, and he can't tell you he was."

This was true; the schoolmaster could not. Neither could he tell them
what was also true, namely, that the Captain had been an _attache_ of a
sutler's tent, and nothing more. But the sharp-witted Captain had the
whole history of his opponent at his fingers' ends.

"Come along, boys," said this jovial leader; "we'll have suthin' to
drink the health of this tremenjous soldier in--this fellow as fought so
hard for you and for your freedom. I always thought he looked like a
fighting man, with them fine broad shoulders of his!" He laughed loudly,
and the men trooped into the store after him. The schoolmaster, alone
outside, knew that his chance was gone. He turned away and took the
homeward road. One of his plans had failed; there remained now nothing
save to carry out the other.

Prompt as usual, he wrote his le