"It shall gleam o'er the sea 'mid the bolts of the storm, O'er the battle and tempest and wreck, And flame where our guns with their thunder grow warm--" sang Rodney. "Look here, old fellow: Couldn't you get up spirit enough to give us a cheer?" "I don't think I could," replied Marcy. "Did you fellows all have passes? I thought not. If things were as they used to be you would find yourselves in the guard-house in less than ten minutes." "We are aware of it," answered Rodney; "but if things were as they used to be, we should not have climbed the fence and gone to town without permission. But these are times when rules don't count. There is your mail, and if you will take a friend's advice, you will read that paper carefully. I think there is something in it that concerns you." "What is it, and where is it? Tell me all about it, and then I shall be spared the trouble of looking it up." "Well," said Rodney, as if he hardly knew how to give his cousin the desired information, "Congress has passed a law commanding all Northern sympathizers to leave the limits of the Confederacy within ten days." "Has this State gone out?" "Not that I know of." "Then I don't see how that law concerns me. I am not in the Confederacy, am I? As long as the State does not tell me to go, I shall stay where I am until mother writes me to start for home. Has your father written for you yet?" "No; but I am looking for a letter every day, and I don't see why I don't get it. But it will come fast enough if the Yankees begin preparations for war, as some lunatics seem to think they will." "Those same lunatics are about the only sensible people there are in the South to-day. The Northern States will not stand by with their hands in their pockets and see this government broken up, and you may depend upon it," said Marcy earnestly. "If they don't hang a few on both sides the line, there will be a war here the like of which the world has never seen." "Bosh!" exclaimed Rodney, snapping his fingers in the air. "And some of it will be in your State and mine," continued Marcy. "Haven't you read our president's speech?" demanded Rodney, almost fiercely. "He says that if war must come, it will be fought on Northern soil." "It takes two to make a bargain. The Northern States are stronger than we are, and they would be fools to consent to any such arrangement."