“I can bring you to your senses in another way,” said he, dropping his whip, and getting into the chaise again.  “You will hear from me before the week is out.”

“Let him go; don’t say a word, Tom,” added John.

“He will prosecute me, I suppose he means by that.”

“Let him prosecute and be hanged!  I’ll bet by to-morrow morning he will think better of it.  At any rate, he will find out what the people of Pinchbrook think of him.”

The boys resumed their walk, and soon reached the store, where they found the group of idlers, that always frequent shops in the country, busily engaged in discussing the affair in which Thomas had been the principal actor.  As the boys entered, the hero of the Pinchbrook Battle was saluted with a volley of applause, and his conduct fully approved and commended, for a copperhead in that day was an abomination to the people.

CHAPTER III.

Taming A traitor.

With the exception of Squire Pemberton, Pinchbrook was a thoroughly loyal town; and the people felt that it was a scandal and a disgrace to have even a single traitor within its border.  The squire took no pains to conceal his treasonable sentiments, though the whole town was in a blaze of patriotic excitement.  On the contrary, he had gone out of his way, and taken a great deal of pains, to condemn the government and the people of the North.

Squire Pemberton was a wealthy man, and he had always been a person of great influence in the place.  He had occupied all the principal official positions in town and county.  He had come to regard himself, as his townsmen were for the most part willing to regard him, as the social and political oracle of the place.  What he thought in town meeting was generally the sense of his fellow-citizens, and when he expressed himself in words, his word was law.

When, on Sunday morning, with Fort Sumter in ruins, with the national flag trodden under the feet of traitors, with the government insulted and threatened, Squire Pemberton ventured to speak in tones of condemnation of the free North, the people of Pinchbrook listened coldly, at first, to the sayings of their oracle; and when he began to abuse the loyal spirit of the North, some ventured to dissent from him.  The oracle was not in the habit of having men dissent, and it made him angry.  His treason became more treasonable, his condemnation more bitter.  Plain, honest men, to whatever party they might have belonged, were disgusted with the great man of Pinchbrook; and some of them ventured to express their disapprobation of his course in very decided terms.  Some were disposed to be indulgent because the Squire had a sister in Georgia who had married a planter.  But there was not found a single person, outside of his own family, who was mean enough to uphold him in his treacherous denunciation of the government.