April Marcy read that President Lincoln, two days before, had included the ports of Virginia and North Carolina in the limits of his proclamation, it made him open his eyes. "My State hasn't seceded yet, and here he has gone and shut up her ports," exclaimed Marcy indignantly. "That's a pretty thing to do, isn't it now? Hurry up, Fanny. Let's get home and see what mother thinks about it." CHAPTER XV. FORCED INTO THE SERVICE. Marcy Gray thought he had watched the movements of his native State pretty closely since the result of the presidential election became known, and perhaps he had; but there were some things connected with her recent history that must have slipped his mind, or he would have seen at once that the government at Washington was justified in closing her ports to the world. The State had been in armed rebellion ever since the month of January, when her local authorities committed treason by seizing the forts along her coast. It is true that her Governor disavowed the action, offered to restore the forts on condition that they should not be garrisoned by United States troops, and that the proposition was accepted; and it is also true that the State forces very soon took possession of the forts again, this time acting under the Governor's authority. The latter's refusal to send troops to the aid of the national government proved him to be as much of a rebel as the Governor of South Carolina was. "So North Carolina is no whit better than the States that have joined the Confederacy, is she?" said Marcy, when his mother had reminded him of all these things. "But there's a great difference between talking and doing," he added, wisely. "Three thousand miles make a pretty long coast, the first thing you know, and I don't believe Uncle Sam has ships enough to guard it. I'll bet you that when the blockade is established, I can take the Fairy Belle and slip out and in as often as I feel like it. It will be nothing but a paper blockade; but if it could be made effectual, it would send the price of things up so that you couldn't reach them with a ten-foot pole, would it not?"