As for Cecil Stark, a passionate zest marked his attitude to the plot, and for mingled reasons he permitted it to fill his mind. But greater than patriotic ardour or personal thirst for freedom, was the desire to escape his own thoughts. He believed that liberty could never more be anything but a word to him, for his soul was for ever fast bound. One girl's face haunted him; one voice rang musical upon his ear by day and night. He suffered enough; but no man guessed it.
To move her household goods from the hut by Siward's Cross was no great matter for Lovey Lee. A donkey carried all and found the burden light. The things about which her life's interest centred were buried deep in Hangman's Hollow, and her only hesitation, when the great enterprise at the War Prison was broken to her, arose out of the knowledge that she must now abide three miles further from her treasure-house. To this fact, however, the old woman grew reconciled, when she considered the nature of the promised reward. She settled down beneath the Prison walls; and now not the least of her grievances was the enormous appetite of Mr. James Knapps. He worked exceedingly hard and insisted upon having wholesome food and plenty of it.
"We're not all built like you, ma'am, ter do our stint of work on ditch-water and shell-snails," he explained. "Victuals and drink I'll have; else I must grumble ter them over the wall. I can't dig my best on offal."
There fell a morning when John Lee visited his grandmother, and she saw by his face that a climax had come in his fortunes. He was gloomy and sad, yet of his own affairs he said nothing until Lovey mentioned them.
"I'm on a private errand," he said, "and since 'tis too early yet to see the prisoners, I thought I'd drop in and learn how you're faring."
She suspected that he was sent to spy by his master.
"I keep body and soul together, an' that's all I ever shall do," she answered, little thinking that John Lee had counted her guineas but a few weeks before. "Even so I have to thank they Yankees to the Prison."
"Do you hear anything of that fine gentleman, Master Cecil Stark?" he inquired.
"Ah, you was all in love with him to Fox Farm, I hear. I wish there was more like him."