Marcy The Refugee   By: Harry Castlemon (1842-1915)

MARCY, THE REFUGEE

BY

HARRY CASTLEMON,

AUTHOR OF "GUNBOAT SERIES," "ROCKY MOUNTAIN SERIES," "SPORTSMAN'S CLUB SERIES," ETC., ETC.

Four Illustrations by Geo. G. White.

PHILADELPHIA:

PORTER & COATES.

COPYRIGHT, 1892,

BY PORTER & COATES.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. WHAT BROUGHT BEARDSLEY HOME, 1 II. ALLISON IS SURPRISED, 23 III. THE NEIGHBORHOOD GOSSIP, 42 IV. VISITORS IN PLENTY, 66 V. MARCY'S RASH WISH, 92 VI. THE WISH GRATIFIED, 116 VII. MARCY SPEAKS HIS MIND, 140 VIII. THE ARRIVAL OF THE FLEET, 164 IX. LOOKING FOR A PILOT, 190 X. BEARDSLEY IN TROUBLE, 214 XI. MARCY IN ACTION, 239 XII. HOME AGAIN, 264 XIII. A REBEL SOLDIER SPEAKS, 287 XIV. A YANKEE SCOUTING PARTY, 310 XV. MARCY SEES SOMEBODY, 340 XVI. A FRIEND IN GRAY, 361 XVII. MARCY TAKES TO THE SWAMP, 385 XVIII. CONCLUSION, 406

MARCY, THE REFUGEE.

CHAPTER I.

WHAT BROUGHT BEARDSLEY HOME.

In this story we take up once more the history of the exploits and adventures of our Union hero Marcy Gray, the North Carolina boy, who tried so hard and so unsuccessfully to be "True to his Colors." Marcy, as we know, was loyal to the old flag but he had had few opportunities to prove it, until he took his brother, Sailor Jack, out to the Federal blockading fleet in his little schooner Fairy Belle, to give him a chance to enlist in the navy. That was by far the most dangerous undertaking in which Marcy had ever engaged, and at the time of which we write, he had not seen the beginning of the trouble it was destined to bring him. Not only was he liable to be overhauled by the Confederates when he attempted to pass their forts at Plymouth and Roanoke Island, but he was in danger of being shot to pieces by the watchful steam launches of the Union fleet that had of late taken to patrolling the coast. But he came through without any very serious mishaps, and returned to his home to find the plantation in an uproar, and his mother in a most anxious frame of mind.

Although Marcy Gray was a good pilot for that part of the coast, and knew all its little bays and out of the way inlets as well as he knew the road from his home to the post office, his older brother Jack was the real sailor of the family. He made his living on the water. At the time we first brought him to the notice of the reader he had been at sea for more than two years, and it was while he was on his way home that his vessel, the Sabine , fell into the hands of Captain Semmes, who had just begun his piratical career in the Confederate steamer Sumter. But, fortunately for Jack, Semmes was not as vigilant in those days as he afterward became. He gave the Sabine's crew an opportunity to recapture their vessel and escape from his power, and they were prompt to improve it. By the most skilful manoeuvring, and without firing a shot, they made prisoners of the prize crew that Semmes had put on board the Sabine , turned them over to the Union naval authorities at Key West, and took their vessel to a Northern port. On the way to Boston, and while she was off the coast of North Carolina, the brig was pursued and fired at by a little schooner which turned out to be Captain Beardsley's privateer Osprey , on which Marcy Gray was serving in the capacity of pilot.