Brother Against Brother Part 12

"You led off in this business, Artie, and I think you had better tell it," said Deck, though he was ready enough to relate the adventure.

"We will both tell it, then," added Artie. "I will begin and go as far as where you joined me this afternoon at the bridge, and you shall tell the rest of it."

"All right; fire away, Artie."

In accordance with this arrangement, the boys minutely narrated the events of the afternoon, to the great astonishment and indignation of Mr. Lyon. He occasionally interrupted his son to ask questions in regard to the boxes they had examined in the cavern. The boys described the cases, with the marks upon them, and the listener had no doubt they contained arms and ammunition. The two carriages for the field-pieces were the only portion of the warlike material not contained in boxes; and these were almost evidence enough to determine the character of the rest of the goods.

"Were the boxes all of the same kind?" asked the father, deeply interested, and not a little disturbed by the revelation of the evening.

"They were not the same," replied Deck, taking a paper from his pocket, on which he had written down a list of the cases. "The lid of one of the two in which the cannon were boxed up had been split off in part, so that we could see what was in it. Twelve cases were labelled 'Breech-loading Rifles,' and the rest of the lot were marked with the kind of ammunition they contained. The smallest of them had cannon-b.a.l.l.s and grape in them."

"There isn't any doubt about the matter now," replied Mr. Lyon. "This means war; and I have no doubt they are to be used in this county by your uncle's cut-throats; for that is what they are according to what Colonel Cosgrove said to me the other day. This is bad business," and the planter gazed at the floor, his wrinkled brow indicating the deep thought in which he was engaged.

"Sandy says the company of Home Guards is about full, and I suppose they will not leave the arms and ammunition in the cavern for any great length of time," suggested Deck.

"Something must be done," said Mr. Lyon. "If that company get these weapons they will terrorize the whole county. There are some very strong Unionists in this vicinity. Colonel Cosgrove told me they had threatened to burn his house, though he is a very conservative man. He was in favor of neutrality; but he admits that the Home Guards in this county are about all Secessionists. Your Uncle t.i.tus says I am looked upon as an abolitionist, and if it had not been for him they would have 'cleaned me out,' as he called it, before this time. It is time something was done,"

and the planter relapsed into a revery again.

The boys were silent. Fort Sumter had been bombarded, and its heroic garrison had marched out with the honors of war. The country was in a state of war. The call of the President for seventy-five thousand men had been made. Northern soldiers were marching South for the protection of Was.h.i.+ngton. Flags were flying, drums were beating, trumpets were blaring, and troops were organizing all over the loyal nation.

In Kentucky men were enlisting in both armies, though the majority of them clung to the flag of the Union, inspired by the traditions of the State. But large portions of it were subjected to a reign of terror. One party was struggling to carry the State out of the Union, and the other to keep it in the Union. The county in which Noah Lyon and his family were located was even more shaken by these discordant elements than most of the others; for it was not more than thirty miles from the southern boundary of the State.

"It almost breaks my heart to have my only living brother a.s.sociated with, and even leading, these conspirators against the Union," Mr. Lyon resumed, as he wiped some tears from his eyes. "But when it comes to the defence of the old flag under which we have become the most enlightened and prosperous nation in the world, no true man can favor even his brother when he plots to ruin it. Something must be done!" he repeated with energy as he rose to his feet, and emphasized his remark with a vigorous stamp of his foot.

"What shall be done, father?" asked Deck, awed by the manner and the tears of his father; and he had never been so moved before in his life.

"We must defend the old flag, my boys! We must rally with those who are marching to the defence of the Union! The time for talking has gone by, and the time for action has come. I have not pa.s.sed the military age, and I shall not s.h.i.+rk the plain duty of the citizen, which is to become a soldier," replied Mr. Lyon impressively.

"Do you mean to say that you shall join the army, father?" asked Deck.

"Certainly; what else can I do at a time like this?" replied the father.

"And that is not all, my son; you and Artemas are now sixteen years old, nearly seventeen. You are both stout boys; and not only the sire, but the sons, must shoulder the musket and march to the battle-field."

"I am ready for one!" exclaimed Deck with enthusiasm.

"I am ready for the other!" added Artie quite as earnestly.

"For some time I have seen that this was what we must come to; but I have put off saying anything about it, for it is a solemn and even an awful thing to engage in the strife of civil war, brother against brother, the son against his father, and the father against his son."

"In our own family, we shall all be on the same side," added Deck.

"But your uncle and his two sons will be with the enemies of the Union.

It is not of our choosing, and G.o.d will be with us while we do our duty to our country," said the patriot father, as he solemnly lifted his eyes upward. "Now, my sons, for you both call me father, and I have always tried to be the same to both of you"--

"And you always have been! And Aunt Ruth has been a mother to me and my sister Dorcas!" interposed Artie, as he wiped the tears from his eyes.

"I shall never again call either of you anything but father or mother. I am ready to enlist whenever you say the word, father."

"You are honest and true, and that is the kind of man you will make, my son; and I can say the same of Dexter. You will both make good soldiers."

Both the father and the sons shed tears as they realized, as they never had before, the solemn duty which the peril of the Union imposed upon them; and they were inspired to do that duty to the last drop of their life-blood.

"There, boys! I did not intend to make a scene like this; but the finding of the arms and ammunition convinces me that your Uncle t.i.tus and his villanous a.s.sociates mean to make war upon loyal men in this county. When you join the ranks of the Union army, you will find them all in the columns of the enemy. You have done good service to our cause in the discovery and ferreting out of this conspiracy against the true men of this locality."

"It was all by accident that I found out about it," added Artie modestly.

"I hope you will forgive me for scolding at you for being out so late that night," said Mr. Lyon.

"You didn't scold me; you only gave me some good advice, and I hope I shall always remember it. But I did not know then what I had discovered, or where they were storing the arms."

"You did exceedingly well, whether you knew what you were doing or not.

Now it is driven into my very soul that I ought not to let the enemy profit by obtaining those arms. I have made up my mind that it would be treason, or next door to it, for me to let t.i.tus and his gang have all these weapons; and with the blessing of G.o.d they never shall have them!"

"That is the talk, father!" exclaimed Deck.

"So say we all of us!" Artie chimed in. "But what can we do?"

"Before the light of to-morrow morning breaks upon Riverlawn, we must move all those boxes to the plantation," replied Mr. Lyon; and he proceeded to discuss the means by which this purpose could be accomplished.

"We have teams enough to haul the whole of them over here at one load,"

said Deck, boiling over with enthusiasm.

"Keep cool, my son, for we must be very prudent in our movements. Do you know what became of the flatboat with which the conspirators moved the cases up to the cavern?"

"Artie thought of that; and we found the gundalow in a little inlet at the mouth of a brook, covered up with bushes."

"Then we may use that," replied the planter. "But I am in doubt about one thing which may bother us."

"What's that, father?" asked Deck, who could not think of any impediment to the carrying out of the plan announced by his father.

"I don't know that we can depend upon every person about the plantation.

A single one opposed to our scheme could ruin it. He might go to the village and tell t.i.tus, or some of his fellow-conspirators, what we were about, and interfere with us before we got back."

"No one here would do such a thing," protested Deck. "All the servants believe in you."

"I was thinking of Levi Bedford."

"Levi!" exclaimed both of the loyal boys together.

"I have never spoken a word to him about politics, or he to me.

Absolutely all I know about him is that he is a Tennesseean. But we must settle this point on the instant; you may go and find him, Dexter, and ask him to come into the library."

Deck left the room. He found the overseer in the sitting-room with the family, and he returned with him a minute later.

CHAPTER XII