“Ye say they have?” responded he, laying down his hammer and serenely lighting his pipe.

“Yes, yes! come on and do something for your family.”

“Holy saints and angels, defend us!  What kin I do?  It’s not me all by meself, neighbor, that kin whip out the whole Yankee army.  Gineril Lee an’ Stonewall Jackson have been thrying it for some time, an’ faith, if they can’t, how kin I?”

The dismayed messenger returned to report to the excited wife and children that the husband and father would do nothing for them.  Again and again was a messenger sent, but to no purpose.  The Irishman sat and plied his hammer to his rocks in serene quiet.

About four in the afternoon a rockaway drove up, stopped a few yards away, and a lady got out, accompanied by a little girl, and approached the man at the rock-pile.  They were Mrs. Marsden and Roberta.

“May I ask,” said the lady hesitatingly, “if two soldiers dressed in Federal uniform have passed here this morning; and how long since?  The reason I ask is this, a flying rumor has reached me that two soldiers wearing the Federal uniform were arrested not far from here and carried to headquarters as Confederate spies.”

“Faith, an’ the shoe is on the other foot intirely, madam.  It’s meself that’s been arristed, or it amounts to about the same thing.  Them same soldiers you ax about have taken possession of my house, driv my wife an’ childers out of doors, and raised the divil ginerilly.”

“O!  I am so sorry to hear it,” answered Mrs. Marsden.  Then noticing a sly twinkle in the man’s eyes, utterly out of keeping with his words, the quick-witted woman instantly caught on to the “cue.”

“O!  Mr. McGarvy!” she cried, “for you are Mr. McGarvy, ar’n’t you?  I might have known you would have helped them to carry out the blind, if they came anywhere near you; but I thought they were going a different way.”

She added, admiration kindling her features as she looked at him, “I don’t believe there is another man in Kentucky, sharp enough to conceive of such a blind, or self-sacrificing enough to carry it out, and may God bless you.”

She turned away, her beautiful eyes filled with tears.

At sundown Mr. McGarvy hitched his horse to his cart, lit his pipe, and jolted slowly homeward.  His wife and children were still in the road, and the soldiers still had possession of the house.

“I would not have believed it, Jim McGarvy,” cried his wife, her bosom panting with rage, “not if the Holy Mither of God had tould me.”

“Have they hurt you, Rosy, darlint?”

“Not them, Jim McGarvy.  They have been civil spoke enough.  It’s you that’s hurt me—­you that have gone back on the wife of your bosom an’ your own flesh an’ blood.”

“Whisht, Rosy, darlint, whisht.”  He got as close to her as circumstances would allow.  “Them soldiers are our own boys, who are trying to make their way south, I’ve jis’ had them do all that for a blind, jis’ for a blind, the poor fellers.  Sure, an’ you know, Rosy, darlint, that Jim McGarvy is a spotted man, an’ the very first one in these parts that the inimy would go for.”