ich its importance demands.

The Somers family, which we have already partially introduced, occupied a
small cottage not quite a mile from Pinchbrook Harbor. Captain Somers, the
head of the family, had been, and was still, for aught his wife and
children knew, master of the schooner Gazelle. To purchase this vessel, he
had heavily mortgaged his house and lands in Pinchbrook to Squire
Pemberton. But his voyages had not been uniformly successful, though the
captain believed that his earthly possessions, after discharging all his
liabilities, would amount to about five thousand dollars.

The mortgage note would become due in June, and Captain Somers had been
making a strong effort to realize upon his property, so as to enable him
to pay off the obligation at maturity. Captain Somers had a brother who
was familiarly known in the family as uncle Wyman. He had spent his life,
from the age of eighteen, in the South, and at the time of which we write,
he was a merchant in Norfolk.

Captain Somers and his brother had been interested together in certain
mercantile transactions, and uncle Wyman being the business man, had the
proceeds of these ventures in his own hands.

On the 10th of April, only two days before the bombardment of Fort Sumter,
Captain Somers had sailed in the Gazelle, with an assorted cargo, for
Norfolk. Before leaving home he had assured his wife that he should not
return without effecting a settlement with Wyman, who had postponed it so
many times, that the honest sailor began to fear his brother did not mean
to deal justly with him. Nothing had been heard of the Gazelle since her
departure from Boston.

Uncle Wyman was known to be a northern man with southern principles, while
his brother, though not in the habit of saying much about politics, was
fully committed on the side of the government, and was willing to sustain
the President in the use of all the coercion that might be necessary to
enforce obedience to the laws. The threatening aspect of affairs at the
South h