The soldier assured him that he could be depended on to do as he had agreed, and after another lingering hand-shake they separated, Hawkins to carry out his part of the programme, and Marcy to take a budget of most unwelcome news to his mother. But she bore up under it better than he did. She declared that her heart would be much lighter if she knew her son was in full possession of his liberty, even though he was compelled to hide in the swamp for the time being, than it would be if she were called upon to remember, every hour in the day, that he was shut up in jail, with a fair prospect before him of being forced into the Confederate army, and she urged him to carry out Hawkins's instructions to the very letter. And in order to show him that she meant he should do that very thing, she began at once to pack his valise. When she left the room for a few minutes, Marcy, having become satisfied that Hawkins's plan was the best, and in fact the only one that could be followed under the circumstances, seated himself at the desk, pulled out a sheet of foolscap paper, and began writing a short note upon it. While thus engaged his face wore a most determined expression, and when the note was finished he put it into his pocket. But he said nothing to his mother about it. The hours were a long time in dragging themselves away, but Marcy and his mother had many small details to arrange and many things to talk about, and only once was he out of her presence. That was when he made a trip to the creek, in company with Julius, to select the boat that was to take him down the river. He raised the black boy very high in his own estimation by making a confidant of him and promising to take him along as his servant, and in order to provide against the upsetting of his plan by some awkward blunder on the part of Julius, he told him just what he was going to do when darkness came to conceal his movements, and how he intended to do it. It was well for him that he went to so much trouble, as we shall presently see. When the afternoon was about half spent Hanson and his trunk made their appearance in one of Beardsley's wagons, and Mrs. Gray and Marcy listened to his story in the kitchen--the only room about the house to which the man had ever been admitted. And the kitchen wasn't in the house, but a short distance away from it, and under its own roof. The overseer made his statement to Mrs. Gray in much the same words that he had made it to Marcy; and when the lady made a mistake by saying that, after the experience he had already had with the Union men, she should think he would be afraid to return to that plantation, the man answered in tones so insolent and savage that Marcy felt inclined to resent them on the spot. "Them villains toted me off onct, Miss Gray, but they won't never do it again. I know who they were, I've got friends enough around me to hang every one of 'em, and I'm going to do it before I ever leave this place. You hear me?"