Then he narrated rapidly, but tellingly, the substance of what has been already set down in this history—­the facts taken from Jack’s letters and attested by the corroboration of Barney, Dick, and the company’s officers.  There was a visible revulsion in the larger part of the audience as the tale went on; and when the lawyer wound up with the story of Mrs. Sprague’s baffled efforts in Washington to have her boy brought North, there was an outburst of applause and a faint cheer from the younger men for “glorious old Jack.”

The factions shifted a good deal after this official rendering of the affair.  There was no longer any talk of burning the Sprague property, and opinion was about evenly divided as to Jack’s conduct.  December had come, and the township was busy packing boxes to send to the army.  No news had come North from Richmond.  Active movements were looked for every day, and in the momentous expectation such lesser incidents as exchange were forgotten or ignored.  The daily journals were filled with details of contemplated expeditions, and one morning Mrs. Sprague read with beating heart this paragraph in the Herald: 

“A score or more of the men who escaped from the Richmond prison a few weeks ago, arrived at Washington to-day from Fort Monroe.  The party endured untold privations in the swamps between Williamsburg and our line on the Warwick, but all came in safely, except two men who died from the results of their wounds.  The expedition was planned and carried out by an agent of General Butler, who has been in Virginia since the unfortunate attempt to rescue Captain Boone of the ‘Caribee’ regiment.  At the moment the party reached the Union outpost, one of the most daring of the Union men, Sergeant Jacques of the Caribees, was, it is thought, mortally wounded.”

Merry, too, had seen the story, and came over to show it to Mrs. Sprague.

“I have seen it, I have seen it.  Who of the Caribees can these be?  Who is Jacques?  I never heard that name here.”

“Ah! he must be one of the town recruits.  It’s a French name.”

“Yes, it is part of a rather famous French name,” Mrs. Sprague replied, half smiling at Merry’s innocence.  “Something must be done to get into communication with these escaped men.  Some of them must have seen Jack.  If there are Caribees among them, you may be sure they have messages from our boys.  I think I shall set out for Washington, or ask Mr. Brodie to go.”

“That’s better.  Mr. Brodie can get at the men and you couldn’t.  I shall be in a fever until we have heard from them.”

Brodie agreed with the ladies when, later, they discussed the matter with him, and that evening he set out for Washington.  Mrs. Sprague at the tea-table with Merry, who made it a point to give the lonely mother as much of her time as she could spare, was still pondering the paragraph when the sound of carriage-wheels came in through the closed curtains.  Then the front door opened without knocking, and there was a rustle in the hallway, and then, with a simultaneous scream, three agitated females, to wit, Mrs. Sprague, Merry, and Olympia, in a confused mass.