"How does it come that you stay-at-homers know so much about this business, and about my duty as a soldier, that you take it upon yourselves to tell me what I had oughter do?" shouted the man who had heard the shrieking of Yankee shells at Fort Bartow. "I see some among you who are mighty hard on your niggers, but there aint one who is as hard as our trifling officers were on us. Having no niggers to drive they took to driving us white men, and they 'bused us like we was dogs. Many's the time I have seen men tied up by the thumbs and bucked and gagged for nothing at all; and, Tom Allison, I give you fair warning that if you say again that I'm a coward kase I don't allow to go back and be 'bused like I was afore, I'll twist your neck for ye." This made two things plain to Marcy Gray. One was that the man had had quite enough of soldiering and that he did not mean to try it again if he could help it. The other was that his friend Allison had presumed to speak his mind a little too freely, and that that was what started the prisoner on his tirade against those whom he called "stay-at-homers." After some twisting, and turning, and elbowing Marcy succeeded in obtaining a glance at Tom. He was leaning against one of the counters, as far away from the speaker as he could get, and his face was as white as his shirt-front. "I'm mighty glad to hear that there's Union men among you," continued the soldier, "and if there's any here in this post-office I want them to know that there's more of 'em now nor they was a week ago, and that some of 'em wears gray jackets. And I am glad to hear that them same Union men have took to burning out them among you who was cowards enough to persecute women and children on account of their principles. Now, there's that trifling hound Lon Beardsley. He told me and some others who come up from the Island the same time he did, that we could make a pile of money by burning Mrs. Gray's house." Colonel Shelby was one of those who listened while the angry soldier talked, but being a "stay-at-homer" he dared not interrupt him. He stood where he could look over the shoulders of some of the crowd into Marcy's face; and when the soldier spoke Beardsley's name, and told what the latter had tried to induce him and some companions to do, the colonel leaned forward and whispered a few earnest words to him. The man bent his head to listen, but as soon as the colonel ceased speaking he broke out again.