from Barrington to
the academy. He and Sailor Jack were good pilots for that coast as far
down as Hatteras Inlet, and on one or two occasions had been fortunate
enough to assist distressed vessels in finding a safe anchorage.

Old Bose, the dog that had been so roughly handled by the last coon
Marcy helped dispatch, was the first to welcome him when the carriage
turned into the yard, and said, as plainly as a dog could say anything,
that he was both surprised and hurt because his usually attentive master
had scarcely more than a word and a pat for him. The boy did not even
hear the greetings of the numerous house-servants who clustered about
the carriage when it was brought to a stand-still, for his eyes and
thoughts were concentrated upon the pale woman in black who stood at the
top of the wide steps leading to the porch. It was his mother, and in a
second more she was clasped in his arms.

"Are you so sorry I've come that you are going to cry over it?"
exclaimed Marcy, when he saw that there were tears in her eyes. "I know
you'll not expect me to shake hands with you until I have had a chance
to say a word to my mother," he added, addressing the blacks who had
followed close at his heels. "I will see you all after a while. Come in,
mother. I told you I would be late to breakfast, but I know you have
saved a bite for me."

After a few earnest questions had been asked and answered by both of
them, Marcy went up to his room, whither his trunk had already been
carried. His first task was to remove some of the North Carolina dust
that had settled on his hands and face, and his next to divest himself
of his uniform and put on a suit of citizen's clothes. During his long
ride that gray coat had brought him in pretty close contact with some
people he hoped he would never meet again.

"Stay there," said he, as he hung the garment upon a hook in his closet.
"I shall never wear you again, but I'll keep you to remind me of old
Barrington."

The boy afterward had reason to wish he had hidden that uniform or
destroyed it. A detachment of Sherman's cavalry scouted through the
country, after completing their famous march to the sea, went all over
the house in search of valuables and contraband goods, and one of the
first things they pitched upon was that gray suit. It might have been a
serious thing for Marcy, had it not been for the flag Dick Graham gave
him. What became of the other, the one that was hauled down on the day
t