IX. AN INTRIGUE
I must now introduce my reader to the library described in the last chapter, where, beside a small table covered with papers, and lighted by two tall candles, sate Philip Lindsay, with a perplexed and thoughtful brow. Opposite to him, in an easy chair, reclined his guest, Mr. Tyrrel; a man whose appearance might entitle him to claim something like thirty-five years; and whose shrewd and intellectual expression of countenance, to which an air of decision was given by what might be called an intense eye, denoted a person conversant with the business of life; whilst an easy and flexible address no less distinctly announced him one habituated to the most polished society. The time of this meeting corresponded with that of the interview of Arthur and Mildred, beneath the Fawn's Tower.
It is necessary only to premise that these two had frequently conferred together, within the last two or three days, upon the subject with which they were now engaged.
"Sir Henry Clinton does me too much honor by this confidence," said Lindsay. "He overrates my influence amongst the gentlemen of the province. Truly, Mr. Tyrrel, I am well persuaded that neither my precept nor my example would weigh a feather in the scale against the heady course of this rebellion."
"We are seldom competent to judge of the weight of our own influence," said Tyrrel. "I might scarce expect you to speak otherwise than you do. But I, who have the opportunity to know, take upon myself to say that many gentlemen of note in this province, who are at present constrained by the fear of the new government, look with anxiety to you. They repose faith in your discretion, and would follow your lead. If an excuse be necessary, you might afford them some pretext of pastime to visit the Dove Cote. Here you might concert your plan to co-operate with our friends in the south."
"Tis a rash thought," replied Lindsay. "This little nook of woodland quiet has never yet been disturbed with the debates of men who meditated the spilling of blood. God forbid that these peaceful walls should hereafter echo back the words that speak of such a purpose."
"It is to spare the shedding of blood, Mr. Lindsay, and to bring speedy peace to a distracted country that we invoke you and other friends to counsel. A single battle may decide the question of mastery over the province. We are well assured that the moment Lord Cornwallis reaches the Roanoke"--
"Cornwallis has yet to win the ground he stands upon," interrupted Lindsay: "there may be many a deadly blow struck before he slakes his thirst in the waters of that river: many a proud head may be low before that day."
"Think you, sir," said Tyrrel, rising as he spoke, "that this patched and ragged levy--this ague-stricken army that is now creeping through the pines of North Carolina, under the command of that pompous pretender, Gates, are the men to dispute with his majesty's forces their right to any inch of soil they choose to occupy? It will be a merry day when we meet them, Mr. Lindsay. We have hitherto delayed our campaign until the harvest was gathered: that is now done, and we shall speedily bring this hero of Saratoga to his reckoning. Then, following at the heels of the runagates, his Lordship, you may be prepared to hear, within two months from this day, will be within friendly hail of the Dove Cote."
"You speak like a boastful soldier, Mr. Tyrrel. It is not unlikely that his lordship may foil Gates and turn him back; such I learn to be the apprehension of the more sagacious amongst the continental officers themselves; but whether that mischance is to favor your incursion into this province may be worth a soberer study than, I doubt, you have given the question. The path of invasion is ever a difficult road when it leads against a united people. You mistake both the disposition and the means of these republicans. They have bold partisans in the field, and eloquent leaders in their senates. The nature of the strife sorts well with their quick and earnest tempers; and by this man's-play of war we breed up soldiers who delight in the game. Rebellion has long since marched beyond the middle ground, and has no thought of retreat. What was at first the mere overflow of popular passion has been hardened into principle, like a fiery stream of lava which first rolls in a flood, and then turns into stone. The delusion of republicanism, like all delusions, is embraced with more enthusiasm than men ever embrace truth. We deem too lightly of these men and their cause, and we have already, more than once, suffered for the error. When they expelled Dunmore they committed treason against the British crown; and they are wise enough to know that that cup, once tasted, must be drained to the bottom: they have, therefore, imbrued their hands the deeper in rebellion. They have raised their idol of democracy high, and have fenced it about with the penalties of confiscation and death to those who refuse to bow before it: and now they stand pledged to the prosecution of their unnatural war, by such a bond of fate as unites mariners who have rashly ventured forth upon a raging sea, in a bark of doubtful strength; their minds braced up, by the thought of instant perdition, to the daring effort necessary to reach their haven."
"That haven shall they never reach," cried Tyrrel impatiently. "Let them invoke the aid of their patron devils! We have a spell shall conjure them back again to their own hell, else there is no virtue in the forged steel which these rebels have felt before."
"The battle is not always to the strong," said Lindsay, "nor is the craft of soldiership without its chances."
"If we had listened, my friend," said Tyrrel, "to musty proverbs, Charleston would have this day been in the secure and peaceful possession of the enemy. All that you say against our present scheme was heretofore urged, though not with such authority, perhaps, against the invasion of Carolina. And yet how prettily have we gainsaid the prophets! Look at their principal town surrendered--all the country strongholds delivered up--the people flocking to our standard for protection--and the whole province lifting up a voice of gratitude for the deliverance we have wrought them. They are even now arming themselves in our behalf, whilst the shattered fragments of the rebel force are flying to the swamps and their mountain fastnesses. Why should not the same game be as well played in Virginia? Trust me, Mr. Lindsay, your caution somewhat over-leaps that wholesome moderation, which I do not deny is necessary to check a too sanguine reckoning. Come, good sir, lend us a more auspicious counsel. Sir Henry relies much upon your wisdom, and will not, with good heart, forego your service."
"Sir Henry has sadly disturbed my repose," returned Lindsay. "To tell the truth, I have no stomach for this business. Here, I am native to the province: I have found old friends separated from me; early associations torn up by the roots; and the elements which fed my strongest personal attachments poisoned, by this accursed spirit of revolution. I would hide my head from the storm and die in these shades in peace."
"It is not for Mr. Philip Lindsay, nor such as he," replied Tyrrel, "to desert his sovereign in his hour of need."
"God forgive me for the thought, Mr. Tyrrel, but it remains yet to be proved who most faithfully serve their sovereign; they who counsel peace, or they who push war to its fatal extremes. There lives not a man within the realm of England, to whom I would yield in devotion to the glory of our country. Once make it clear to my judgment that we may hope to regain the lost allegiance of this province by the sacrifice of life and fortune, and, dearly as I cherish the welfare of those around me, I will obey the first summons to the field, and peril this worthless existence of mine in bloody fight. Yea, if need be, I will, with my own hand, apply the torch to this peaceful abode, and give it over a smoking ruin to the cause."
"I know you too well," replied Tyrrel, "to doubt the sincerity of your words. But is it not obvious that the war must inevitably tend to this field? Having gained the Carolinas, should we turn our backs as soon as we have reached the confines of Virginia? On the contrary, does not every obligation of honor impel us to maintain and protect our friends here? The conquest of Virginia is an easier enterprise than you deem it. If the continentals can muster ten thousand men, we, assuredly, may double that number, counting our provincials levied in the south. We have money and all the means of war, whilst this crippled Congress has drained from the people their last groat; their wretched troops will disband from mere want of supplies. They may expect no aid from the north; for there Sir Henry will furnish them sufficient motive to stay at home! We come animated by victories, full of mettle and vigor, they meet us broken by defeats, dejected and torn to pieces by mutiny. Never did treason or rebellion array itself with more certainty of punishment than this!"
"I have read," said Lindsay, "how John Hampden resisted the exaction of twenty shillings of ship money, and for that pittance dared the displeasure of Charles and his Star Chamber: how he voted the impeachment of the judges who were supple enough to warrant the imposition: how, in this cause, he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard: how he brought Strafford to the block for levying war against the commons of England: and through all that disastrous time, have I read that Charles promised the cavaliers splendid victories, and derided the feeble means of those who were in arms against him; yet Hampden shrunk not from the struggle. To me it seems there is a strange resemblance between the congress now sitting at Philadelphia and the parliament of 1640; and this George Washington might claim kindred with John Hampden. I will not seek for further likenesses."
"If I read that history right," replied Tyrrel, "Hampden met his reward at Chalgrove, and Cromwell turned his crop-eared parliament out of doors. We may, perhaps, find a Chalgrove on this continent;--and Sir Henry Clinton will most probably save the wiseacres at Philadelphia from the intrusion of an upstart Cromwell."
"It would be too bold in us to count on that, Mr. Tyrrel. I am the enemy of these men and their purpose, but I cannot deem otherwise of them than as misguided subjects of the king, frenzied by the imagination of grievances. They are men of good intellects and honest hearts, misled by passion. I would that we could give their tempers time to cool. I would, even now, preach moderation and compromise to his majesty's ministers."
"The die is long since cast," said Tyrrel, "and all that remains now is to take the hazard of the throw. At this moment, whilst we debate, friend and foe are whetting their swords for a deadly encounter on the fields of Carolina. It is too late to talk of other arbitrement. Assuredly, my good friend, our destiny directs us to this province: and the time has come when you must decide what course you will take. It has been our earnest wish--Sir Henry's letters, there upon the table, anxiously unfold it--to have you up and active in the cause. Why will you disappoint so fair a hope?"
"Alas! Mr. Tyrrel,--it is a thorny path you would have me tread. Think you I am the man to win my way through these intricacies? I that live in the shelter of these woods by sufferance merely--an unmolested outlaw, to speak soberly, whom these fanatics of liberty have forborne for the sake of past acquaintance and present peaceful habits? Am I not girded round about with the hot champions of independence? Look amongst these hills--there is not a cabin, not a woodman's hut, no, nor stately dwelling, whose roof defends one friend to the royal cause, but my own. My lips are sealed; my very thoughts are guarded, lest I give room to think I mean to fly from my neutrality. These papers that lie upon that table might cost me my life: your presence here, were your purpose known, might consign me to captivity or exile:--one random word spoken might give me over to the censures of the power that holds its usurped domination in the province. What aid may be expected from one so guarded, fettered, watched and powerless?"
"And can you patiently," exclaimed Tyrrel, "bow to this oppression? You, a native born freeman of the province--a Briton, nursed in the sunny light of liberty! Shall your freedom of speech be circumscribed, your footsteps be followed by spies and traitors, your very inmost thoughts be read and brought up to the censure of the judgment seat? Shall these things be, and the blood still continue to run coolly and temperately through your veins! There are ills, Mr. Lindsay, which even your calm philosophy may not master. But, perhaps, I have mistaken your temper: these evidences, at least, shall not put you in peril," he said, as he took up the letters from the table and held them over the candle, and then threw the flaming mass upon the hearth. "That fear, I hope, is removed; and as for my presence here, one word briefly spoken, and it shall not longer jeopard your safety."
Lindsay looked fixedly at his companion as he destroyed the papers, and then said with a stern emphasis--
"Your duty, sir, is in the field. You have been bred to a profession that teaches you blind obedience to orders. It is not your part to weigh the right of the cause, nor to falter in the execution of any foul purpose of blood, so that it come under the name of honorable warfare. Therefore I excuse this unbecoming warmth: but do not presume upon the hazardous nature of your calling, and fancy that it implies more fidelity to the king than the allegiance of his more peaceful subjects. It is a thought unworthy of you that fear of disaster to myself--be it ten-fold more imminent than it has yet been--should arrest my step in that path where my country's honor, or my sovereign's command, bids me advance."
"Worthy and excellent friend," said Tyrrel, taking Lindsay's hand, "I have done you wrong. I am rash and headlong in my temper, and my tongue often speaks what my heart disavows. I am little better than a boy, Mr. Lindsay, and a foolish one; I humbly crave your pardon."
"Speak on," said Lindsay.
"Then briefly this. Your situation is all that you have described it. Sir Henry is aware of the trial he imposes upon you. He would have you act with the caution which your wisdom dictates; and if it should become necessary to speak that word which is to bring the wrath of the rebels upon your head, remember there is sanctuary and defence under the broad banner of England. Who so welcome there as Philip Lindsay? Even at this moment our councils should be tempered by your presence, and it becomes almost a patriotic duty to pluck you from the seclusion of the Dove Cote, and give you a share in the stirring events of the day. Sir, the country has a claim upon your services, scarce compatible with the idle contemplation of this momentous trial of strength."
Lindsay had advanced to the window, where he remained looking over the moon-lit scene. His companion stood close beside him, and after a short interval took his arm, when they stepped forth upon the porch, and sauntered backward and forward, as Tyrrel continued,
"The government would not be unmindful of the benefits you might confer. There are offices of trust and dignity to be filled in this province when it shall be restored to its allegiance. The highest post would not be unfitly bestowed, if it should be assigned to you. Sir Henry Clinton bids me speak of that, as of a subject that has already occupied his thoughts. It would give grace and dignity to our resumed authority, to have it illustrated by the accomplished scholar and discreet statesman, who has, before this, discharged important and difficult trusts with a fidelity that has won all men's esteem. And then, my dear sir," he added after a pause, "who may say that it shall not be Sir Philip Lindsay, or even something yet higher?--a coronet would not be an honor unsuited even to the wilds of Virginia. His majesty is not slow to discern worth, nor backward to raise it to its proper station. These are toys and baubles to you, Mr. Lindsay, but they are still worth the seeking. You have a son to follow you."
"Ah! there, Mr. Tyrrel, you touch me more nearly than you imagine. You remind me by this language that I have also a daughter. As to Henry, he has a temper and a capacity to make his own way through the world. I fear not for him--nor would I seek for honors to add to his name. But my Mildred! You know not what emotions the thought of her, in these troubles, costs me. Who shall guard and defend her, whilst I pursue this waylaid road of ambition? What sanctuary would she find under a war-encircled banner, should misfortune assail me, and adversity separate us? Alas, alas!--that is the spell that, like a net cast over my limbs, makes me feeble and submissive."
"I have not been without my solicitude, Mr. Lindsay, on that subject," said Tyrrel. "You yesterday did me the honor to say that my proposal in regard to Miss Lindsay was not distasteful to you. Could my ardent wish but be accomplished, she should be placed in safety, assured of ample and kind protection. If, haply, her thoughts should incline to a favorable reception of my offer, which I would fain persuade myself her reverence for you may render not altogether improbable, when she knows that you deem well of my suit, we might remove her to Charleston, where, secure amidst assiduous friends, she would pass the brief interval of alarm, and leave you free to act on this theatre as your honor and duty may impel you."
"Mildred will not leave me," said Lindsay; "my dear daughter would suffer a thousand deaths in the anxiety of such a separation."
"Then why not accompany her to Charleston?" asked Tyrrel. "Your presence there would be equally efficient as at head-quarters--perhaps more so."
"There are other obstacles, Mr. Tyrrel. You talk of Mildred as if her heart were to be disposed of at my bidding. You do not know her. I have long struggled to subdue an attachment that has bound her to our worst enemy, I fear with little success. I have trusted to time to wear out what I deemed a mere girlish liking; but it seems to me the traces fade but slowly from her heart."
"I know of whom you speak," said Tyrrel--"that harebrained enthusiast Butler. It is a freakish and transient passion, and cannot but fall into forgetfulness. Miss Lindsay has from circumstances been but little conversant with the world, and, like an inexperienced girl, has fostered in solitude a romantic affection. That alone should be a motive to remove her into a busier scene. Besides, this Butler will be himself forced to give over his hopeless aim--if he has not done so before this: measures are already taken, and I do not scruple to tell you, at my instance--to confiscate his lands in Carolina to his majesty's use. The close of this war will find him penniless, and not unlikely, my dear sir, I myself may be the possessor of his inheritance--I have some pledge of the preemption of these lands at a small fee."
"It will win you no favor with Mildred," said Lindsay, "to tell her that you succeed by such a title to this man's wealth. She is a wayward girl, and is not used to crosses. Her devotion to her purpose, as it sometimes excites my admiration, gives me, in the present case, cause of profound alarm."
"You have spoken to her on this subject?"
"I have not," replied Lindsay, "and almost fear to broach it. I can, therefore, give you no encouragement. Some little time hence--perhaps to-morrow--I may sound her feelings. But remember, as her father, I claim no right beyond that of advice. I shall think myself fortunate if, by giving a new direction to the current of her affections, I can divert her mind from the thoughts of an alliance to me the most hateful--to her full of future misery. A maiden's fancies are scarcely intelligible even to a father."
"These subjects require meditation," said Tyrrel. "I will not press them further upon your thoughts to-night."
"Heaven guide us in the way of safety and happiness!" said Lindsay, almost in a whisper. "Good night, my friend."
When Tyrrel was left alone he strolled forward to the terrace, and passing round to that end which overhung the cliff, near the door that opened from the library, he leaned his breast upon the parapet and looked down upon the wild and beautiful scenery of the valley. The night was calm and full of splendor. The tops of the trees that grew in the ravine, almost perpendicularly beneath his eye, here and there caught the bright moon-beam where it glowed like silver, and the shades, rendered deeper by the contrast, seemed to brood over a black and impenetrable abyss. Occasional glimpses were seen of the river below, as it sparkled along such portions of its channel as were not hidden in darkness. The coolness of the hour and the solitude of the spot were not ungrateful to the mood of Tyrrel's mind, whilst the monotonous music of the river fell pleasantly upon his ear. He was not unheedful of these charms in the scene, though his thoughts were busily employed with a subject foreign to their contemplation.
"Have I advanced," was the tenor of his present self-communion, "the purpose I have so much at heart, by this night's conference? Could I but engage Lindsay in the issues of this war, so commit him in its purposes and its plots as to render his further residence at the Dove Cote insecure, then would I already have half-compassed my point. Where could he remove but to Charleston? And there, amidst the blandishments of friends and the allurements of gay society, I might make sure of Mildred. There, cut off from all means of hearing of this Butler, and swayed, as she must necessarily be, by the current of loyal feelings, she would learn to detest his foul rebellion, and soon lose her favor for the rebel. Then, too, the confiscation of his lands--but I am not so sure of that!--she is rich and would make a merit of sharing her fortune with a man whose brave resistance of oppression--for so, doubtless, Butler persuades her it is--has cost him his wealth: the confiscation should not seem, at least, to be my doing. Well, well, let her be brought to Charleston. Any change were better than to remain here, where anxiety and suspense and solitude nurse and soften her woman's affections, and teach her to fancy her lover whatsoever her imagination delights to think on. Then may not the chances of war assist me? This Butler, all men say, is brave and adventurous. He should be short-lived. Whatever ill may befall him cannot but work good to me. Yet Lindsay has such a sickly caution--such scruple against involving himself in the scheme--I could almost find it in my heart to have it told amongst his neighbors that he is in correspondence with the enemy. Ha, that would be a bright device!--inform against myself! No, no, I will not abuse his generous nature. Let him come fairly into the fold, and I will guard his gentle lambkin like a very shepherd. Then if we make him governor of the province--that will work well. Mildred will thank me for my zeal in that good purpose, at least, and I will marry her and possess her estate, if it be only to enable her to be grateful to me. 'Twill be a brave reward, and bravely shall it be won."
As Tyrrel ruminated over these topics, in the strain indicated by this sketch, the noise of footsteps ascending the rugged stairway of the cliff, and the opening of the iron wicket, but a short distance from where he leaned over the parapet, roused his attention, and put an end to this insidious and selfish communion with his own heart.
The cause of this interruption was soon apparent. Henry and Mildred entered through the gate, and hurried along the path to that part of the terrace where Tyrrel stood. The shade of the house concealed him from their view until they were within a few paces. "Ha, Miss Lindsay! You are a late rambler," he said, in a tone of gallantry. "The dampness of the valley, at this hour, is not altogether safe; the ague is a sore enemy to romance; beware of it."
"I am not afraid of the night," replied Mildred, as she increased the rapidity of her gait; then, turning immediately upon the porch, she almost ran, leaving Henry and Tyrrel in pursuit, until she reached the farthest window which was heard descending the moment she passed through it into the parlor. When Tyrrel and Henry entered the same apartment, she had disappeared.
"My sister is not well this evening," said Henry. "We strolled too late upon the river bank."
"It was still an over-hasty retreat," muttered Tyrrel to himself. "It bodes not well for me. I will wager, Henry," he said, raising his voice, "that I can guess what you and your sister have been talking about."
"Let me hear," said Henry.
"First," replied Tyrrel, "she repeated some verses from Shakspeare about the moonlight sleeping on the bank--this is just the night for poetry--and then you both fell to talking sentiment, and then, I'll be bound, you had a ghost story, and by that time, you found you had got too far from the house and were a little frightened, and so came back as fast as you could."
"You are wrong," said Henry. "I have been telling sister Mildred how to bob for eels. Did you know that an eel will never pass a streak of moonlight for fear of being found out by the watchers?"
"Indeed I did not."
"Well, sister Mildred is wiser than you are; and as I have taught you that, I will go to bed."
Tyrrel was again left to resume his meditations, and to hatch his plots for invading the peace of the Dove Cote, on his pillow. To that sleepless pillow he now betook himself.
X. TYRREL RETREATS
The next morning Tyrrel rose with the sun. He had passed a restless night, and now sought refreshment in the early breeze. With this purpose he descended to the river, and strayed along the dewy pathway which crept through the shrubbery on the right bank in the direction of the Fawn's Tower. He had not wandered far before he perceived a horseman moving along the road upon the opposite side.
"Halloo, James Curry!--which way?--What news have you?"
"I seek you, sir, I was on my way to the Dove Cote," replied the horseman, who at the same time turned his horse's head to the river, and, spurring the animal forward, plunged into the stream which was here still and deep enough to reach above his saddle flaps. After some floundering, the horse and rider gained the margin, where Tyrrel awaited them! The vigor of the animal, as well as the practised hand that held the rein, was shown in the boldness of the attempt to climb the steep bank and break through the briers and bushes that here guarded it. As soon as Curry reached the level ground, he dismounted.
"In God's name, man, what is the matter with your face?" asked Tyrrel.
"It is of that, amongst other things, that I came to speak to you," was the reply; "I have news for you."
"Speak, without prelude. Tell me."
"Major Butler slept last night at Mrs. Dimock's."
"And is there still?"
"No, sir. He started at early dawn this morning."
"To join Gates?"
"I think not. He talked of going to Ninety-Six--perhaps to Georgia."
"So, ho! The hawk hovers over that field! Does he travel alone?"
"He has a giant in his company, a great ploughman by the name of Horse Shoe Robinson. A quarrelsome rascal; he would needs pick a quarrel with me last night. And in the skirmish I got this face."
"Did I not command you to bear yourself peaceably? Fool! will you risk our lives with your infernal broils? Now, I would wager you told the fellow your name."
"Little need of that, sir. He told it to me: said he knew me before. The fellow, for all his rough coat, is a regular trained soldier in the rebel service, and has met me somewhere--Heaven knows!--I don't remember him; yet he isn't a man to see once and forget again."
"And me, did he speak of me?"
"He knew that I was in the employ of an English gentleman who was here at the Dove Cote. I have nothing especial to complain of in the man. He speaks soldierly enough; he said he would take no advantage of me for being here as long as our visit was peaceable."
"Humph! And you believed him. And you must fight with him, like a brawling knave. When will you get an ounce of wit into that fool's head! What time of day was it when this Butler arrived?"
"Long after night-fall."
"Did you understand any thing of the purpose of his visit?"
"He talked much with Mistress Dimock, and I think their conversation related to the lady at the Dove Cote. I could hear but a few scattered words."
"Away.--Here (throwing his purse to the horseman), pay up your score at the inn, and at your greatest haste attend me on the river bank, immediately below Mr. Lindsay's house. Ask Mrs. Dimock to have a breakfast prepared for me.--Away, I will expect you in half an hour."
Curry mounted his horse, and choosing a more convenient ford than that which he had passed (for the jutting rocks, on this side, prevented his reaching Mrs. Dimock's without recrossing the river to the road), he soon regained the track, and was seen, almost at high speed, sweeping around the base of the Fawn's Tower.
Tyrrel returned hastily to the Dove Cote, and, seeking his valet, gave orders to have his portmanteau packed, his horse saddled and to be in waiting for him at the foot of the hill. These commands were speedily obeyed, and everything was in readiness for his journey before any of the family had made their appearance in the breakfast room.
Whilst Tyrrel meditated writing a line to explain to Lindsay his present sudden movement, and had drawn near a table for that purpose, he was saluted by the voice of Henry, who had entered the apartment, and stolen unobserved almost immediately behind his chair.
"Booted and spurred, Mr. Tyrrel!" said Henry. "You are for a ride. Will you take a fowling-piece? There are pheasants over upon the hills."
"Oh, ho! Master Henry, you are up! I am glad of it. I was just writing a word to say that business calls me away this morning. Is your father yet abed?"
"He is sound asleep," said Henry; "I will wake him."
"No, my lad. You must not do that. Say I have received news this morning that has called me suddenly to my friends. I will return before long. Is your sister stirring?"
"She was in the garden but a moment since," replied Henry; and the young man left the room, to which he returned after a short space. "Sister Mildred is engaged in her chamber, and begs you will excuse her," said he, as he again entered the door.
"Tush, Henry, I didn't tell you to interrupt your sister. Make her my most respectful adieu. Don't forget it. I have all my way to win," he said to himself, "and a rough road to travel, I fear."
Tyrrel now left the house and descended to the river, accompanied by Henry, who sought in vain to know why he departed in such haste as not to stay for breakfast. James Curry waited below; and, when Henry saw his father's guest mount in his saddle and cross the ford, attended by his two servants, he turned about and clambered up the hill again, half singing and half saying to him self,--"I'm glad he's gone, I'm glad he's gone," accompanied with a trolling chorus, expressive of the satisfaction of his feelings at the moment. "He'd a got a flea in his ear, if he had stay'd. I should like to know what Major Butler would say to Mr. Tyrrel, if he was to meet him. Zooks! may be Butler will see him this very morning at Mrs. Dimock's. Now, I wonder! Shall I whisper that to sister Mildred? She would be glad, for one, I'll be bound! May be, they might have a fight. And if they do, let Mr. Tyrrel look out! He never had his bread so buttered in his life, as it would be then."
In such a strain of cogitation and conjecture, Henry reached the parlor, where he found Mildred. The melancholy that hung upon her spirits, the evening before, seemed to have been dispelled by the repose of the night, and was doubtless relieved, in part, by the intelligence that Tyrrel had quitted the Dove Cote.
"Come, sister," said Henry, throwing his arm round her waist, and almost dancing, as he forced her through the open window, "come, it will be a good while before father is ready for his breakfast. Let us look at your flowers; I have something to tell you."
"You are quite an important personage, this morning," replied Mildred, moving off towards the lawn with her brother. "Your face looks as wise as a book of proverbs."
It was some time before the brother and sister returned to the parlor, and when they did so, their father had not yet appeared. The delay was unusual; for Lindsay generally rose at an early hour, and frequently walked abroad before his morning meal. When he at last entered the room, there was an expression of care and thought upon his brow that made him haggard. Mildred, as was her custom, approached him with a kiss, and, taking both of his hands, as she looked up in his face, she said, with some earnestness:
"You are not well, my dear father."
Lindsay paused a moment, while he gazed affectionately upon her, and then pressing her to his bosom, uttered in a low voice, with a smile,--
"God bless my dear child! How carefully does she read my looks! Come hither, Henry," he continued, as he gave his son one hand, and still held Mildred with the other, and then turned his eyes alternately upon each. "Now, tell me, which of you love me best? Who has waited most patiently for me this morning? I see by that glance of your blue eye, master Henry, that you have been chiding your lazy father for lying so long abed. Now, I dare say, if the truth were known, you have had your rifle ready to go out and shoot squirrels an hour ago. I beg your pardon, Mr. Sportsman--not to shoot the squirrel, but to shoot at him. Or, perhaps, you mean to bring us a deer to-day; you know you have promised to do that every morning for a week."
"You shall eat a slice from as fine a saddle of venison to-day, father, as you ever saw smoke over a chafing-dish."
"In good truth, shall I, boy? You are a brave promiser! You remember your own adage,--Brag was a good dog, but Holdfast was better."
"In right down earnest, father, you shall. You needn't laugh. Now, you're thinking I have the deer to shoot; there's your mistake. The saddle is this minute lying on the dresser in the kitchen. He was a running buck yesterday; and I could tell where the powder and ball came from (here Henry made the motion of opening a hunting pouch at his side) that put an end to his capers."
"He is a monstrous braggart; is he not, Mildred?" said Lindsay, directing a look of incredulity at his daughter.
"What Henry tells you is true," replied Mildred. "Stephen Foster was here at sunrise with a part of a buck, which he says was shot yesterday."
"Indeed! Then it is to Stephen's rifle we are indebted. You kill your bucks by proxy, master."
"I'll bet," said Henry, "that Stephen Foster hasn't the impudence to charge one penny for that venison. And why? Because, by the laws of chace, one-half belongs to me."
"Oh, I understand," interrupted Lindsay, with affected gravity; "it is a matter of great doubt which of you shot it. You both fired at once; or, perhaps, Stephen first, and you afterwards; and the poor animal dropped the moment you took your aim,--even before your piece went off. You know your aim, Harry, is deadly,--much worse than your bullet."
"There is no doubt who killed him," said Henry; "for Stephen was on that side of the hill, and I was a little below him, and the buck ran right to Stephen, who, of course, gave him the first shot. But there was I, father, just ready, if Stephen had missed, to bring old Velvet-Horns to the ground, before he could have leaped a rod."
"But, unluckily, Stephen's first shot killed him?"
"I don't know that," replied Henry. "Another person's knife might have done the business; for the deer jumped down the bank into the road, and there"--
Mildred cast a sidelong look of caution at her brother, to warn him against alluding to a third person, whom it was not discreet to mention.
"And there," said Henry, taking the sign, "when I got up to him he was stone dead. I would almost think a deer couldn't be shot dead so suddenly. But Stephen can pitch his lead, as he calls it, just where he likes."
"Well, it isn't fair to inquire who killed him," said Lindsay. "One hunter often turns the game to the other's rifle. And, at all events, your dogs, Henry, I dare say, did as much as either of you."
"Hylas was just at his heels when he was shot," replied Henry; "and a better dog there isn't in Amherst, or Albemarle to boot."
"Well, well! Let us to breakfast. Where is our guest? Tyrrel is surely out before this."
"He has been gone from the Dove Cote more than an hour," said Henry. "He told me to say, that some sudden news took him off in haste. I would have waked you, but he forbade it. His man, Curry, who was waiting for him at the ford, I dare say, brought him some dispatches."
"It was very sudden," said Lindsay, musing; "the great game will be shortly played."
"My dear father, you have not your usual look of health," said Mildred again. "I fear something disturbs you."
"A slight cold, only, from exposure to the night air, perhaps. You did not see Tyrrel this morning, Mildred?"
"I did not wish to see him, father. I was up when he set out, but I was not in his way."
"Fie, girl, you almost speak crossly! Tyrrel, I must think, is not a man to win his way with ladies. But he is a loyal subject to his king. I can tell you, Mildred, loyalty is a virtue of good associations in these times."
"It is the last virtue, my dear father, that a woman ever writes down in the list of noble qualities. We generally forget it altogether. History is so full of the glory of disloyal heroes, that the indiscriminate and persevering loyalty of brave men has come to be but little noticed. Brutus was disloyal, and so was Tell; and the English barons, of whom you boast so much, when you call them sturdy, were disloyal; and Washington--who knows, my dear father, but that he may be written down by some future nation, (and she laid an emphasis on this word,) as another name to give credit to this word, disloyal."
"Thou art a shrewd orator, Mildred," exclaimed her father, as he sought to change the subject, "and I doubt not, if Heaven had made you man, you would now be flattering these rebels by persuading them they were all born for heroes. We may thank the gods that they have given you the petticoat instead of the soldier's cloak, and placed you at the head of a breakfast table instead of a regiment."
"I do not think," replied Mildred smiling, "that I should altogether disgrace the cloak now, woman as I am, if the occasion required me to put it on."
"Pray drop this subject, my dear child; you know it makes me sad. My family, I fear, are foredoomed to some strange mishap from these civil broils. Attend me presently in the library, I have matters to communicate that concern you. Henry, my boy," Lindsay continued, as he rose from his breakfast, "pay Stephen Foster the full value of the venison; as a sportsman you have a right perhaps to your share of the game, but a gentleman shows his courtesy by waiving such claims; he should suffer no friend to be his creditor, even in opinion. Stephen may not expect to be paid; no matter, it concerns your own character to be liberal."
"I have promised Stephen a new rifle," replied Henry; "since they have elected him lieutenant of the Amherst Rangers he wants something better than his old deer gun."
"I positively forbid it," interrupted Lindsay hastily, returning towards the middle of the room from the door through which he was about to depart. "What! would you purchase weapons for those clowns to enable them to shoot down his majesty's liege subjects? to make war upon their rightful king, against his laws and throne? to threaten your life, your sister's and mine, unless we bowed to this impious idol of democracy, which they have set up--this Washington?"
"My dear, dear father," interposed Mildred as she came up to him and flung her arms about his neck. "Consider, Henry is a thoughtless boy, and does not look to consequences."
"Heaven bless you both, my children! I beg your pardons. I am over captious. Henry, pay Stephen for the venison, and give him something better than a rifle. Mildred, I will see you presently."
When Lindsay had left the parlor Mildred besought her brother, in the most earnest terms, to be more guarded against giving expression to any sentiment which might bring their father's thoughts to the existing war. Her own observation had informed her of the nature of the struggle that agitated his mind, and her effort was continually directed to calm and soothe his feelings by the most unremitting affection, and thus to foster his resolution against taking any part in those schemes in which, she shrewdly guessed, it was the purpose of the emissaries of the royal party to involve him.
Her attachment to Arthur Butler she feared to mention to her father, whilst her self-respect and her conviction of her duty to a parent who loved her with unbounded devotion, would not allow her altogether to conceal it. Upon this subject, Lindsay had sufficiently read her heart to know much more about it than she chose to confess; and it did not fail to kindle up in his mind a feverish excitement, that occasionally broke forth in even a petulant reproof, and to furnish the only occasion that had ever arisen of serious displeasure against his daughter. The unhappy association between this incident in the life of Mildred, and the current of a feeling which had its foundation in a weak piece of superstition, to which I have alluded in a former chapter, gave to the idea of Mildred's marriage with Butler a fatal complexion in Lindsay's thoughts. "For what purpose," he asked himself, "but to avert this ill-omened event could I have had such an extraordinary warning?" It had occurred to him that the surest method of protecting his family against this misfortune would be to throw Mildred into other associations, and encourage the growth of other attachments, such as might be expected to grow up in her heart out of the kindness of new friendships. He had even meditated removing her to England, but that plan became so repulsive to him when he found the mention of it distasteful to his children, and it suited so little his own fondness for the retirement he had already cultivated, that he had abandoned it almost as soon as it occurred to him. His next alternative was to favor--though he did so with no great zeal--the proposal lately made by Tyrrel. He little knew the character of the woman he had to deal with. Never was more devotion enshrined in a woman's heart than in Mildred's. Never was more fixed and steady purpose to encounter all hazards and hold cheap all dangers more deeply rooted in man's or woman's resolution, than was Mildred's to cherish the love and follow the fortunes of Arthur Butler.
This conflict between love and filial duty sadly perplexed the daughter's peace; and not less disturbing was the strife between parental affection and the supposed mandate of fate, in the breast of the father.
Henry protested his sorrow for his recent indiscretion and promised more caution for the future, and then recurring to what more immediately concerned his sister's interest, he said, "I do much wonder what Tyrrel's man had to say this morning; it took our good gentleman away so suddenly. I can't help thinking it has something to do with Butler and Horse Shoe. They must have been seen by Curry at Mrs. Dimock's, and old Tony knows the major very well, and has told his name. Besides, do you know, sister, I think Curry is a spy? Else, why should he be left at Mrs. Dimock's always? There was room enough here for both of Mr. Tyrrel's servants. I have a thought that I will reconnoitre: I will ride over to the Blue Ball, and see what I can learn."
"Do, my good brother," replied Mildred, "and in the meantime I must go to my father, who has something disagreeable to tell me--so I fear--concerning that busy plotter who has just left us. My spirits grow heavy at the thought of it. Ah, Henry, if I could but speak out, and unpack my heart, what a load would I throw off! How does it grieve me to have a secret that I dare not tell my dear father! Thank heaven, brother, your heart and mine have not yet had a secret that they could not whisper to each other!"
"Give care the whip, sister," said Henry, like a young gallant, "it belongs to the bat family and should not fly in day-time. Farewell for the next two hours!" and saying these words the sprightly youth kissed his hand, and, with an alert step, left the room.
Mildred now retired to prepare for the interview with her father.
XI. A SCENE BETWEEN A FATHER AND DAUGHTER
When Mildred entered the library Lindsay was already there. He stood before one of the ranges of book shelves, and held a volume in his hand which, for a moment after his daughter's entrance, seemed to engross his attention. Mildred was sufficiently astute to perceive that by this device he struggled to compose his mind for an interview of which she more than guessed the import. She was of a constitution not easily to be driven from her self-possession; but the consciousness of her father's embarrassment, and some perplexity in her own feelings at this moment, produced by a sense of the difficult part she had to perform, slightly discomposed her; there was something like alarm in her step, and also in the expression of her features, as she almost stealthily seated herself in one of the large lounging chairs. For a moment she unconsciously employed herself in stripping a little flower that she held in her hand of its leaves, and looked silently upon the floor; at length, in a low accent, she said, "Father, I am here at your bidding." Lindsay turned quickly round, and, throwing down the volume he had been perusing, approached his daughter with a smile that seemed rather unnaturally to play over his grave and almost melancholy countenance, and it was with a forced attempt at pleasantry he said, as he took her hand:--
"Now, I dare say, you think you have done something very wrong, and that I have brought you here to give you a lecture."
"I hope, father, I have done nothing wrong," was Mildred's grave and almost tremulous reply.
"Thou art a good child, Mildred," said Lindsay, drawing a chair close beside hers, and then, in a more serious tone, he continued, "you are entirely sure, my daughter, that I love you, and devoutly seek your happiness?"
"Dear father, you frighten me by this solemn air. Why ask me such a question?"
"Pardon me, my girl, but my feelings are full with subjects of serious import, and I would have you believe that what I have now to say springs from an earnest solicitude for your welfare."
"You have always shown it, father."
"I come to speak to you, without reserve, of Tyrrel," resumed Lindsay; "and you will not respond to my confidence, unless you answer me in the very truth of your heart. This gentleman, Mr. Tyrrel, has twice avowed to me of late an earnest attachment to you, and has sought my leave to prosecute his suit. Such things are not apt to escape a woman's notice, and you have doubtless had some hint of his predilection before he disclosed it to me."
All the woman's bashfulness disappeared with this announcement. Mildred grew erect in her seat, and as the native pride of her character beamed forth from every feature of her face, she replied--
"He has never, father, vouchsafed to give me such a proof of his good opinion. Mr. Tyrrel is content to make his bargain with you: he is well aware that whatever hope he may be idle enough to cherish, must depend more on your command than on my regard."
"He has never spoken to you, Mildred?" asked Lindsay, without making any comment on the indignant reception his daughter had given to his disclosure. "Never a word? Bethink you, my daughter, of all that has lately passed between you. A maiden is apt to misconstrue attentions. Can you remember nothing beyond the mere civilities of custom?"
"I can think of nothing in the conduct of Mr. Tyrrel but his devotion to the purpose of embroiling my dear father in his miserable politics. I can remember nothing of him but his low voice and noiseless step, his mysterious insinuations, his midnight sittings, his fulsome flattery of your services in the royal cause, the base means by which he has robbed you of your rest and taken the color from your cheek. I thought him too busy in distracting your peace to cast a thought upon me. But to speak to me, father, of attachment," she said, rising and taking a station so near Lindsay's chair as to be able to lean her arm upon his shoulder, "to breathe one word of a wish to win my esteem, that he dared not do."
"You speak under the impulse of some unnecessarily excited feeling, daughter. You apply terms and impute motives that sound too harsh from your lips, when the subject of them is a brave and faithful gentleman. Mr. Tyrrel deserves nothing at our hands but kindness."
"Alas, my dear father, alas, that you should think so!"
"What have you discovered, Mildred, or heard, that you should deem so injuriously of this man? Who has conjured up this unreasonable aversion in your mind against him?"
"I am indebted to no sources of information but my own senses," replied Mildred; "I want no monitor to tell me that he is not to be trusted. He is not what he seems."
"True, he is not what he seems, but better. Tyrrel appears here but as a simple gentleman, wearing, for obvious reasons, an assumed name. The letters he has brought me avouch him to be a man of rank and family, high in the confidence of the officers of the king, and holding a reputable commission in the army: a man of note, worthy to be trusted with grave enterprises, distinguished for sagacity, bravery, and honor, of moral virtues which would dignify any station, and, as you cannot but acknowledge from your own observation, filled with the courtesy and grace of a gentleman. Fie, daughter! it is sinful to derogate from the character of an honorable man."
"Wearing an assumed name, father, and acting a part, here, at the Dove Cote! Is it necessary for his purpose that, under this roof, he should appear in masquerade? May I know whether he treats with you for my hand in his real or assumed character--does he permit me to know who he is?"
"All in good time, Mildred. Content you, girl, that he has sufficiently certified himself to me. These are perilous times, and Tyrrel is obliged to practise much address to find his way along our roads. You are aware it would not be discreet to have him known even to our servants. But the time will come when you shall know him as himself, and then, if I mistake not, your generous nature will be ashamed to have wronged him by unworthy suspicions."
"Believe me, father," exclaimed Mildred, rising to a tone of animation that awakened the natural eloquence of her feelings, and gave them vent in language which more resembled the display of a practised orator than the declamation of a girl, "believe me, he imposes on you. His purposes are intensely selfish. If he has obtained an authority to treat with you or others under an assumed name, it has only been to further his personal ends. Already has he succeeded in plunging you, against your will, into the depth of this quarrel. Your time, my dear father, which once glided as softly and as happily as yon sparkling waters through our valley, is now consumed in deliberations that wear out your spirits: your books are abandoned for the study of secret schemes of politics: you are perplexed and anxious at every account that reaches us of victory or defeat. It was not so, until you saw Tyrrel: your nights, that once knew a long and healthful sleep, are now divided by short and unrefreshing slumbers: you complain of unpleasant dreams and you foretell some constantly coming disaster. Indeed, dearest father, you are not what you were. You wrong yourself by these cares, and you do not know how anxiously my brother Henry and myself watch, in secret, this unhappy change in your nature. How can I think with patience of this Tyrrel when I see these things?"
"The times, Mildred, leave me no choice. When a nation struggles to throw off the rule of lawful authority, the friends of peace and order should remember that the riotous passions of the refractory people are not to be subdued without personal sacrifices."
"You promised yourself, father, here at the Dove Cote to live beyond the sphere of these excitements. And, as I well remember, you often, as the war raged, threw yourself upon your knees, and taught us,--your children,--to kneel by your side, and we put up our joint expressions of gratitude to God, that, at least, this little asylum was undisturbed by the angry passions of man."
"We did, we did, my dearest child. But I should think it sinful to pray for the same quiet when my services might be useful to restore harmony to a distracted and misguided country."
"Do you now think," asked Mildred, "that your efforts are or can be of any avail to produce peace?"
"The blessing of heaven has descended upon the arms of our sovereign," replied Lindsay. "The southern provinces are subdued, and are fast returning to their allegiance. The hopes of England brighten, and a speedy close of this unnatural rebellion is at hand."
"There are many valleys, father, amongst these mountains, and the wide forests shade a solitude where large and populous nations may be hid almost from human search. They who possess the valleys and the wilderness, I have heard it said by wise men, will for ever choose their own rulers."
"Mildred, you are a dutiful daughter, and are not wont to oppose your father's wishes. I could desire to see you, with that shrewd apprehension of yours, that quick insight, and that thoughtful mind, thoughtful beyond the quality of your sex, less favorably bent towards the enterprise of these rebel subjects. I do utterly loathe them and their cause, and could wish that child of mine abated in no one jot of my aversion to them."
"Heaven, father, and your good tutoring have made me what I am," returned Mildred, calmly; "I am but a woman, and speak with a weak judgment and little knowledge. To my unlearned mind it seems that the government of every nation should be what the people wish it. There are good men here, father, amongst your friends--men, who, I am sure, have all kindness in their hearts, who say that this country his suffered grievous wrongs from the insolence of the king's representatives. They have proclaimed this in a paper which I have heard even you say was temperate and thoughtful: and you know nearly the whole land has roused itself to say that paper was good. Can so many men be wrong?"
"You are a girl," replied Lindsay, "and a subtile one: you are tainted with the common heresy. But what else might I expect! There are few men who can think out of fashion. When the multitude is supposed to speak, that is warrant enough for the opinions of the majority. But it is no matter, this is not a woman's theme, and is foreign to our present conference. I came to talk with you about Tyrrel. Upon that subject I will use no persuasions, express no wish, not in the slightest point essay to influence your choice. When he disclosed his purpose to me, I told him it was a question solely at your disposal. Thus much it is my duty to say, that should his suit be favored"--
"From the bottom of my heart, father," interrupted Mildred eagerly, and with increasing earnestness, "I abhor the thought. Be assured that if age, poverty, and deformity were showered upon me at once, if friends abandoned me, if my reason were blighted, and I was doomed to wander barefooted amongst thorns and briers, I would not exchange that lot, to be his wife amidst ten-fold his honors and wealth. I never can listen to his hateful proposal: there is that in my condition which would make it wicked. Pray, dearest father, as you love your daughter, do not speak of it to me again."
"Resume your calmness, child: your earnestness on this subject afflicts me; it has a fearful omen in it. It tells of a heart fatally devoted to one whom, of all men, I have greatest reason to hate. This unhappy, lingering passion for the sworn enemy of his king and country, little becomes my daughter, or her regard for me. It may rouse me, Mildred, to some unkind wish against thee. Oh, I could curse myself that I ever threw you in the way of this insidious rebel, Butler. Nay you need not conceal your tears; well do they deserve to flow for this persevering transgression against the peace of your father's house. It requires but little skill to read the whole history of your heart."
Lindsay now walked to and fro across the apartment, under the influence of emotions which he was afraid to trust himself to utter. At length resuming his expostulation, in a somewhat moderate tone, he continued:
"Will no lapse of time wear away this abhorred image from your memory? Are you madly bent on bringing down misery on your head? I do not speak of my own suffering. Will you for ever nurse a hopeless attachment for a man whom, it must be apparent to yourself, you can never meet again? Whom if the perils of the field, the avenging bullet of some loyal subject, do not bring him merited punishment, the halter may reward, or, in his most fortunate destiny, disgrace, poverty, and shame pursue. Are you for ever to love that man?"
Mildred stood before her father as he brought this appeal to a close; her eyes filled with tears, her breast heaving as if it would burst; and summoning up all her courage for her reply, when this last question was asked, she looked with an expression of almost angry defiance in his face, as she answered "For ever, for ever," and hastily left the room.
The firm tone in which Mildred spoke these last words, her proud and almost haughty bearing, so unlike anything Lindsay had ever seen before, and her abrupt departure from his presence, gave a check to the current of his thoughts that raised the most painful emotions. For an instant a blush of resentment rose into his cheeks, and he felt tempted to call his daughter back that he might express this sentiment: it was but of a moment's duration, however, and grief, at what he felt was the first altercation he had ever had with his child, succeeded, and stifled all other emotions. He flung himself into the chair, and, dropping his forehead upon his hand, gave way to the full tide of his feelings. His spirits gradually became more composed, and he was able to survey with a somewhat temperate judgment the scene that had just passed. His manner, he thought, might have been too peremptory--perhaps it was harsh, and had offended his daughter's pride: he should have been more conciliatory in his speech. "The old," he said, "are not fit counsellors to the young; we forget the warmth of their passions, and would reason when they only feel. How small a share has prudence in the concerns of the heart!" But then this unexpected fervor of devotion to Butler--that alarmed him, and he bit his lip, as he felt his anger rising with the thought. "Her repugnance to Tyrrel, her prompt rejection of his suit, her indignant contempt for the man, even that I could bear with patience," he exclaimed. "I seek not to trammel her will by any authority of mine. But this Butler! Oh! there is the beginning of the curse upon my house! there is the fate against which I have been so solemnly warned! That man who had been the author of this unhappiness, and whose alliance with my name has been denounced by the awful visitation of the dead,--that Mildred should cherish his regard, is misery. It cannot and shall not be!"
These and many such reflections passed through Lindsay's mind, and had roused his feelings to a tone of exacerbation against Arthur Butler, far surpassing any displeasure he had ever before indulged against this individual. In the height of this self-communion he was interrupted by the return of Mildred to the apartment, almost as abruptly as she had quitted it. She approached his chair, knelt, laid her head upon his lap, and wept aloud.
"Why, my dear father," she said, at length, looking up in his face while the tears rolled down her cheeks, "why do you address language to me that makes me forget the duty I owe you? If you knew my heart, you would spare and pity my feelings. Pardon me, dear father, if my conduct has offended you. I knew not what I spoke; I am wretched, and cannot answer for my words. Do not think I would wound your affection by unkindness; but indeed, indeed, I cannot hear you speak of Tyrrel without agony."
"Rise, daughter," said Lindsay, almost lifting her up, "I do not chide you for your repugnance to Tyrrel. You mistake me if you think I would dictate to your affections: my grief has a deeper source. This Arthur Butler"--
"Spare that name, father?" interrupted Mildred, retiring to a seat near the window and covering her face with her hands.
"Curse him!" exclaimed Lindsay. "May all the plagues that torment the human bosom fall upon him! Mark me, daughter, I trust I am not an unreasonable father; I know I am not an unkind one; there are few requests that you could make which I would not freely grant. But to hear with patience the name of that man on your lips, to think of him as allied to you by any sympathy, as sharing any portion of your esteem--him, a rebel traitor who has raised his sacrilegious hand against his king, who has sold his name to infamy, who has contributed to fill these peaceful provinces with discord, and to subvert the happiness of this land, which heaven had appointed to be an asylum where man, disgusted with the lusts, rapine, and murder of his fellow, might betake himself as a child to the bosom of his parent--I cannot endure the thought of him! Never again, Mildred, I charge you, never allude to him again!"
"If I could but tell you all!" interrupted Mildred, sobbing, "if I could but patiently have your hearing."
"Never a word of him! as you desire to preserve my affection, I will not hear. Get to your chamber," said Lindsay, almost sternly. "Get to your chamber, this perverse and resolute temper of thine, needs the restraint of solitude."
Mildred rose from her chair and moved towards the door, and as she was about to depart she turned her weeping countenance towards her father.
"Come hither," he said, "thou art a foolish girl, and would bring down wretchedness and woe upon thee. God forgive you, from the bottom of my heart, I forgive you. This thing is not of your own imagining: some malignant spirit has spread his baleful wing above our house. Go, child, forget what has been said, and believe that your father buffets thus harshly with fate for your own welfare. Kiss me, and may heaven shield you against this impending ill!"
"Dear father, hear me," said Mildred, as Lindsay imprinted a kiss upon her forehead.
"Away, away!" interrupted Lindsay, "I would be temperate nor again forget myself. In all love, Mildred, away."
Mildred left the room, and Lindsay, to restore the equanimity of his temper, which had been so much overthrown by this interview, wandered forth into the valley, whence it was some hours before he returned.
It was not long after the termination of this conference before Henry rode up to the door. The clatter of his horse's hoofs brought Mildred from her chamber into the parlor.
"What! sister, your eyes red with tears?" said Henry. "Who has distressed you?"
"Ah, brother, I have had a weary time in your absence. Our poor father is sadly displeased with me."
"Have you told him all?" asked Henry, with an expression of anxiety.
"He bade me," replied Mildred, "never mention Arthur's name again. He would not hear me speak of Arthur. Have I not reason, dear brother, to be miserable?"
"I love you, Mildred," said Henry, kissing his sister, "and what's more, I love Arthur Butler, and will stand up for him against the world. And I have a good mind to go to my father and tell him I am man enough to think for myself--and more than that--that I, for one, believe these rebels, as he calls them, have the right of it. Why shouldn't I? Can't I shoot a rifle as well as the best of them, and stand by a friend in a quarrel, and make good my words as well as many a man who writes twenty years to his age? Tush! I am tired of this boy-play--shooting with blunted arrows, and riding with my father's hand ever on the neck of my horse, as if I could not hold the reins. Give me sharp steel, Mildred, and throw me on the world, and I'll be bound I make my way as well as another."
"We are surrounded with difficulties, brother," said Mildred, "and have a hard part to perform. We must soothe our dear father's feelings, for he loves us, Henry; and if he could but think as we do, how happy should we be! But there is something fearful in his passions, and it makes me tremble to see them roused."
"This all comes," replied Henry, "from that devil's imp Tyrrel. Oh, I could find it in my heart to trounce that fellow, sister. But you hav'n't asked me about my reconnoitring! I'll tell you. Tyrrel's man, Curry, talked a great deal to old Tony and Mrs. Dimock both, about our friends who went there last night, and found out their names and all about them: and there was some fray between Horse Shoe and Curry, in which, I'll warrant you, Horse Shoe gave him a drubbing; so Tony told me. Well, Butler and Horse Shoe set out this morning at daylight. And Tyrrel went over there to breakfast: and you may suppose he was lucky in not meeting the major, for I am sure there would have been a spot of work if he had. Furthermore, I found out that Tyrrel followed on the same road after Butler, so they may meet yet, you know."
"I pray not," said Mildred.
"Why pray not, sister? I pray they may meet. Let Tyrrel have all the good of it. There, now I believe I have given you all the news, sister, exactly as I picked it up. But here is a trifle I forgot," said Henry, producing a letter addressed to Mildred. "Ah, ha, you brighten up now! This was left by the major with Mrs. Dimock, to be forwarded to you with care and speed."
Mildred tore open the letter, and eagerly perused its contents. They consisted of a few lines hastily penned by Butler, at early dawn, as he was about mounting his horse for the prosecution of his journey. Their purpose was to apprise her of the discovery Robinson had made of the true character of Curry, and also to express his fears that this latter person might disclose to Tyrrel the fact of his, Butler's, visit. He cautioned her to observe the conduct of Tyrrel, and to communicate with him at Gates's head-quarters where he expected to be delayed a few days on his journey: her letter, he said, might be forwarded by some of the parties who at that time were continually passing southward: Henry might look to this; and he concluded by assuring her that he would write as often as he might find means of conveying a packet to the care of good Mistress Dimock, who was sufficiently in the interest of the lovers to keep faithfully any secret which they might confide to her.
This letter served to explain the cause of Tyrrel's sudden departure, and to confirm Mildred in the opinion, which she had before expressed, that this guest of her father was not ignorant of the interest Butler had in her regard. Her determination therefore was to watch his motions narrowly, and to make her lover acquainted with whatever she might discover.
"It is even so," she said musing; "Tyrrel either fears or hates Arthur. I shudder to think that that man should have any motive supplied him to contrive against the peace or safety of one so dear to me. Wretch," she exclaimed, "that he should be insolent enough to hope for my regard! Oh! my father, my father, what a snare has been spread for you by this man! Thank you, brother," she continued, addressing Henry. "You have well executed your mission. Be discreet and ready: I shall have much need of your head and hand both: your heart is mine already, good brother."
"I will ride for you, sister," said Henry, "I will run for you, speak for you, pray for you--if my prayers be worth anything--and strike for you, if need be. If I am but turned of sixteen, I am a man, I trow; and that's more than you are. Good bye! a soldier ought to look after his horse, you know."
"God bless you, dear brother, for an excellent boy," said Mildred smiling, "man I mean--aye and a brave one!"
Henry now walked away, and Mildred betook herself to other cares.
XII. A POLITICAL RETROSPECT.--BUTLER ENTERS SOUTH CAROLINA
It was the misfortune of South Carolina, during the revolutionary war, to possess a numerous party less attached to the union or more tainted with disaffection than the inhabitants of any of the other states. Amongst her citizens the disinclination to sever from the mother country was stronger, the spread of republican principles more limited, and the march of revolution slower, than in either of the other colonies, except, perhaps, in the neighbor state of Georgia, where the people residing along the Savannah river, were so closely allied to the Carolinians in sentiment, habits, and pursuits, as to partake pretty accurately of the same political prejudices, and to unite themselves in parties of the same complexion. Upon the first invasion of Georgia, at the close of the year 1778, the city of Savannah was made an easy conquest, and a mere handful of men, early in 1779, were enabled to penetrate the interior as far as Augusta, and to seize upon that post. The audacity with which Prevost threatened Charleston in the same year, the facility of his march through South Carolina, and the safety which attended his retreat, told a sad tale of the supineness of the people of that province. The reduction of Charleston in the following year, by Sir Henry Clinton, was followed with singular rapidity by the conquest of the whole province. A civil government was erected. The most remote posts in the mountains were at once occupied by British soldiers or provincial troops, mustered under the officers of the royal army. Proclamations were issued to call back the wandering sheep to the royal fold; and they, accordingly, like herds that had been scattered from beneath the eye of the shepherd by some rough incursion of wolves, flocked in as soon as they were aware of the retreat of their enemy. Lord Cornwallis, upon whom the command devolved after the return of Sir Henry Clinton in June to New York, recruited his army from these repentant or unwilling republicans; and the people rejoiced at what they thought the end of strife and the establishment of law. The auxiliaries who had marched from Virginia and North Carolina under Colonel Buford, to assist in the defence of the southern capital, were informed of its surrender as they journeyed thither, and soon found themselves obliged to fly through a country they had come to succor;--and when even at the distance of one hundred and fifty miles from the city, were overtaken by the ruthless troopers of Tarleton, and butchered under circumstances peculiarly deplorable.
In truth, a large proportion of the population of South Carolina seem to have regarded the revolution with disfavor, and they were slow to break their ancient friendship for the land of their forefathers. The colonial government was mild and beneficent in its action upon the province, and the people had a reverence for the mother country deeper and more affectionate than was found elsewhere. They did not resent, because, haply, they did not feel the innovations of right asserted by the British crown, so acutely as some of their neighbors; to them it did not seem to be so unreasonable that taxation should be divorced from representation. They did not quarrel with the assumption of Great Britain to regulate their trade for them in such manner as best suited her own views of interest; nor did they see in mere commercial restrictions the justification of civil war and hot rebellion;--because, peradventure, (if I may hazard a reason) being a colony of planters whose products were much in demand in England, neither the regulations of their trade nor the restrictions upon commerce, were likely to be so adjusted as to interfere with the profitable expansion of their labors.
Such might be said to be the more popular sentiment of the State at the time of its subjugation by Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis. To this common feeling there were many brilliant exceptions; and the more brilliant because they stood, as it were, apart from the preponderating mass of public judgment. There is no trial of courage which will bear comparison with that of a man whose own opinions stand in opposition, upon fearful questions of passion, to those of the "giddy-paced" and excited multitude, and who, nevertheless, carries them "into act." That man who can stand in the breach of universal public censure, with all the fashions of opinion disgracing him in the thoughts of the lookers on, with the tide of obloquy beating against his breast, and the fingers of the mighty, combined many, pointing him to scorn; nay, with the fury of the drunken rabble threatening him with instant death; and, worse than all, having no present friend to whisper a word of defence or palliative, in his behalf, to his revilers, but bravely giving his naked head to the storm, because he knows himself to be virtuous in his purpose; that man shall come forth from this fierce ordeal like tried gold; philosophy shall embalm his name in her richest unction, history shall give him a place on her brightest page, and old, yea, hoary, far-off posterity shall remember him as of yesterday.
There were heroes of this mould in South Carolina, who entered with the best spirit of chivalry into the national quarrel, and brought to it hearts as bold, minds as vigorous, and arms as strong as ever, in any clime, worked out a nation's redemption. These men refused submission to their conquerors, and endured exile, chains, and prisons, rather than the yoke. Some few, still undiscouraged by the portents of the times, retreated into secret places, gathered their few patriot neighbors together, and contrived to keep in awe the soldier-government that now professed to sway the land. They lived on the scant aliment furnished in the woods, slept in the tangled brakes and secret places of the fen, exacted contributions from the adherents of the crown, and by rapid movements of their woodland cavalry and brave blows, accomplished more than thrice their numbers would have achieved in ordinary warfare.
The disaffected abounded in the upper country, and here Cornwallis maintained some strong garrisons. The difficulties that surrounded the republican leaders may well be supposed to have been appalling in this region, where regular posts had been established to furnish the Tories secure points of union, and the certainty of prompt assistance whenever required. Yet notwithstanding the numerical inferiority of the friends of independence, their guarded and proscribed condition, their want of support, and their almost absolute destitution of all the necessaries of military life, the nation was often rejoiced to hear of brilliant passages of arms, where, however unimportant the consequences, the display of soldiership and bravery was of the highest order. In such encounters, or frays they might almost be called, from the smallness of the numbers concerned and the hand-to-hand mode of fighting which they exhibited, Marion, Sumpter, Horry, Pickens, and many others, had won a fame that in a nation of poetical or legendary associations would have been reduplicated through a thousand channels of immortal verse: but, alas! we have no ballads: and many men, who as well deserve to be remembered as Percy or Douglas, as Adam Bell or Clym of the Clough, have sunk down without even a couplet-epitaph upon the rude stone, that in some unfenced and unreverenced grave-yard still marks the lap of earth whereon their heads were laid.
One feature that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina was the division of families. Kindred were arrayed against each other in deadly feuds, and, not unfrequently, brother took up arms against brother, and sons against their sires. A prevailing spirit of treachery and distrust marked the times. Strangers did not know how far they might trust to the rites of hospitality; and many a man laid his head upon his pillow, uncertain whether his fellow lodger, or he with whom he had broken bread at his last meal, might not invade him in the secret watches of the night and murder him in his slumbers. All went armed, and many slept with pistols or daggers under their pillows. There are tales told of men being summoned to their doors or windows at midnight by the blaze of their farm-yards to which the incendiary torch had been applied, and shot down, in the light of the conflagration, by a concealed hand. Families were obliged to betake themselves to the shelter of the thickets and swamps, when their own homesteads were dangerous places. The enemy wore no colors, and was not to be distinguished from friends either by outward guise or speech. Nothing could be more revolting than to see the symbols of peace thus misleading the confident into the toils of war; nor is it possible to imagine a state of society characterized by a more frightful insecurity.
Such was the condition of the country to which my tale now makes it necessary to introduce my reader. Butler's instructions required that he should report himself to General Gates, and, unless detained for more pressing duty, to proceed with all the circumspection which the enterprise might require, to Colonel Clarke, who, it was known, was at that time in the upland country of South Carolina, raising troops to act against Augusta and other British posts. He accordingly arrived at head-quarters, on the borders of the two Carolinas, in about a week after leaving the Dove Cote. The army of the brave and unfortunate De Kalb, which had been originally destined for the relief of Charleston, had been increased, by reinforcements of militia from Virginia and the adjoining States, to double the computed strength of the British forces; and Gates, on taking command of it, was filled with the most lofty presentiments of victory. Vainglorious and unadvisable, he is said to have pushed forward with an indiscreet haste, and to have thrown himself into difficulties which a wiser man would have avoided. He professed himself to stand in no need of recruits to his army, and Butler, therefore, after the delay of a few days, was left at liberty to pursue his original scheme.
The wide-spread disaffection of the region through which our adventurers were about to pass, inculcated the necessity of the utmost vigilance to avoid molestation from the numerous parties that were then abroad hastening to the seat of war. Under the almost entire guidance of Robinson, who was familiar with every path in this neighborhood, Butler's plan was to temporize with whatever difficulties might beset his way, and to rely upon his own and his comrade's address for escape.
The sergeant's first object was to conduct his superior to his own dwelling, which was situated on the Catawba, a short distance above the Waxhaws. This was safely accomplished on the second day after they had left Gates. A short delay at this place enabled Butler to exchange the dress he had hitherto worn, for one of a more homely and rustic character, a measure deemed necessary to facilitate his quiet passage through the country. With these precautions he and the trusty sergeant resumed their expedition, and now shaped their course across the region lying between the Catawba and Broad rivers, with the intention of reaching the habitation of Wat Adair, a well known woodsman who lived on the southern side of the latter river, somewhat above its confluence with the Pacolet. The route they had chosen for this purpose consisted of such circuitous and unfrequented paths as were least likely to be infested by the scouts of the enemy, or by questioners who might be too curious regarding the object of their journey.
The second week of August had half elapsed when, towards the evening of a day that had been distinguished for the exhilarating freshness of the atmosphere, such as is peculiar to the highlands of southern latitudes at this season, our travellers found themselves descending through a long and shady defile to the level ground that lay along the margin of the Broad river. The greater part of the day had been spent in threading the mazes of a series of sharp and abrupt hills covered with the native forest, or winding through narrow valleys, amongst tangled thickets of briers and copse-wood, by a path scarce wide enough to permit the passage of a single horse. They had now emerged from the wilderness upon a public highway, which extended across the strip of lowland that skirted the river. The proximity of the river itself was indicated by the nature of the ground, that here retained vestiges of occasional inundations, as also by the rank character of the vegetation. The road led through a swamp, which was rendered passable by a causey of timber, and was shaded on either side by a mass of shrubbery, composed of laurel, magnolia, and such other plants as delight in a moist soil, over whose forms a tissue of creeping plants was woven in such profusion as to form a fastness or impregnable retreat for all kinds of noxious animals. Above this wilderness, here and there, might be seen in the depths of the morass, the robust cypress or the lurid pine, high enough for the mast of the largest ship, the ash, and gum, and, towering above all, the majestic poplar, with its branchless trunk bound up in the embraces of a huge serpent-like grapevine.
As soon as Butler found himself extricated from the difficult path that had so much embarrassed his journey, and once more introduced upon a road that allowed him to ride abreast with his companion, he could not help congratulating himself upon the change.
"Well, here at last, Galbraith," he said, "is an end to this bridle path, as you call it. Thank heaven for it! The settlement of the account between this and the plain road would not leave much in our favor: on one side, I should have to set down my being twice unhorsed in riding up perpendicular hills; one plunge up to the belly in the mud of a swamp; a dozen times in danger of strangling from grapevines; and how often torn by briers, I leave you to reckon up by looking at my clothes. And all this is to be cast up against the chance of meeting a few rascally Tories. Faith! upon the whole, it would have been as cheap to fight."
"Whist, Major, you are a young man, and don't study things as I do. You never catch me without reason on my side. As to standing upon the trifle of a man or two odds in the way of a fight, when there was need of scratching, I wouldn't be so onaccommodating as to ax you to do that. But I had some generalship in view, which I can make appear. This road, which we have just got into, comes up through Winnsborough, which is one of the randyvoos of the Tories: now I thought if we outflanked them by coming through the hills, we mought keep our heads out of a hornets' nest. The best way, Major Butler, to get along through this world is not to be quarrelsome; that's my principle."
"Truly, it comes well from you, sergeant, who within two days past have been in danger of getting your crown cracked at least six times! Were you not yesterday going to beat a man only for asking a harmless question? A rough fellow to-boot, Horse Shoe, who might, from appearance, have turned out a troublesome customer."
"Ho, ho, ho, Major! Do you know who that character was? That was mad Archy Gibbs, from the Broken Bridge, one of the craziest devils after a fracaw on the Catawba; a tearing Tory likewise."
"And was that an argument for wishing to fight him?"
"Why, you see, Major, I've got a principle on that subject. It's an observation I have made, that whenever you come across one of these rampagious fellows, that's always for breeding disturbances, the best way is to be as fractious as themselves. You have hearn of the way of putting out a house on fire by blowing it up with gunpowder?"
"A pretty effectual method, Sergeant."
"Dog won't eat dog," continued Horse Shoe. "Ho, ho! I know these characters; so I always bullies them. When we stopped yesterday at the surveyor's, on Blair's Range, to get a little something to eat, and that bevy of Tories came riding up, with mad Archy at their head, a thought struck me that the fellows mought be dogging us, and that sot me to thinking what answer I should make consarning you, if they were to question me. So, ecod, I made a parson of you, ha, ha, ha! Sure enough, they began as soon as they sot down in the porch, to axing me about my business, and then about yourn. I told them, correspondent and accordingly, that you was a Presbyterian minister, and that I had undertook to show you the way to Chester, where you was going to hold forth. And, thereupon, mad Archy out with one of his tremengious oaths, and swore he would have a sarmint from you, for the good of his blackguards, before they broke up."
"Mad Archy and his blackguards would have profited, no doubt, by my spiritual lessons."
"Rather than let him have anything to say to you," proceeded Robinson, "for you wa'n't prepared, seeing that you didn't hear what was going on, though I spoke loud enough, on purpose, Major, for you to hear us through the window; I up and told Archy, says I, I am a peaceable man, but I'll be d----d if any minister of the gospel shall be insulted whilst I have the care of him; and, furthermore, says I, I didn't come here to interrupt no man; but if you, Archy Gibbs, or any one of your crew, says one ondecent word to the parson, they'll run the risk of being flung sprawling on this here floor, and that's as good as if I had sworn to it; and as for you, Archy, I'll hold you accountable for the good conduct of your whole squad. But, Major, you are about the hardest man to take a wink I ever knowed. There was I a motioning of you, and signifying to get your horse and be off, at least ten minutes before you took the hint."
"I was near spoiling all, Galbraith, for from your familiarity with these fellows I at first thought them friends."
"They were mighty dubious, you may depend. And it was as much as I could do to keep them from breaking in on you. They said it was strange, and so it was, to see a parson riding with pistols; but I told them you was obliged to travel so much after night that it was as much as you could do to keep clear of panthers and wolves; and in fact, major, I had to tell them a monstrous sight of lies, just to keep them in talk whilst you was getting away: it was like a rare guard scrummaging by platoons on a retreat to get the advance off. I was monstrous afeard, major, you wouldn't saddle my horse."
"I understood you at last, Galbraith, and made everything ready for a masterly retreat, and then moved away with a very sober air, leaving you to bring up the rear like a good soldier. And you know, sergeant, I didn't go so far but that I was at hand to give you support, if you had stood in need of it. I wonder now that they let you off so easily."
"They didn't want to have no uproar with me, Major Butler. They knowed me, that although I wa'n't a quarrelsome man, they would'a got some of their necks twisted if I had seen occasion: in particular, I would have taken some of mad Archy's crazy fits out of him--by my hand I would, major! But I'll tell you,--I made one observation, that this here sort of carrying false colors goes against a man's conscience: it doesn't seem natural for a man, that's accustomed and willing to stand by his words, to be heaping one lie upon top of another as fast as he can speak them. It really, Major Butler, does go against my grain."
"That point of conscience," said Butler laughing, "has been duly considered, and, I believe, we are safe in setting it down as entirely lawful to use any deceit of speech to escape from an enemy in time of war. We have a dangerous trade, sergeant, and the moralists indulge us more than they do others: and as I am a minister, you know, you need not be afraid to trust your conscience to my keeping."
"They allow that all's fair in war, I believe. But it don't signify, a man is a good while before he gets used to this flat lying, for I can't call it by any other name."
"If we should be challenged on this road, before we reach Wat Adair's," said Butler, "it is your opinion that we should say we are graziers going to the mountains to buy cattle."
"That's about the best answer I can think of. Though you must be a little careful about that. If you see me put my hand up to my mouth and give a sort of a hem, major, then leave the answer to me. A gang of raw lads might be easily imposed upon, but it wouldn't do if there's an old sodger amongst them; he mought ax some hard questions."
"I know but little of this grazier craft to bear an examination. I fear I should fare badly if one of these bullies should take it into his head to cross-question me."
"If a man takes on too much with you," replied Robinson, "it is well to be a little saucy to him. If he thinks you are for a quarrel, the chances are he won't pester you. But if any of these Tories should only take it into their heads, without our telling them right down in so many words, for I would rather a lie, if it is to come out, should take a roundabout way, that we are sent up here by Cornwallis, or Rawdon, or Leslie, or any of their people to do an arrand, they will be as civil, sir, as your grandmother's cat, for, major, they are a blasted set of cringin' whelps, the best of them, and will take anything that has G. R. marked on it with thanks, even if it was a cat-o'nine tails, which they desarve every day at rollcall, the sorry devils!"
"I am completely at my wits' end, Galbraith. I have not done much justice to your appointment of me as a parson, and when I come to play the grazier it will be still worse; even in this disguise of a plain countryman I make a poor performer; I fear I shall disgrace the boards."
"If the worst comes to the worst, major, the rule is run or fight. We can manage that, at any rate, for we have had a good deal of both in the last three or four years."
"God knows we have had practice enough, sergeant, to make us perfect in that trick. Let us make our way through this treacherous ground as quickly and as quietly as we can. Get me to Clarke by the shortest route, and keep as much among friends as you know how."
"As to that, Major Butler, it is all a matter of chance, for, to tell you the plain truth, I don't know who to depend upon. A quick eye, a nimble foot, and a ready hand, will be our surest friends. Then with the pistols at your saddle, besides a pair in your pocket, and a dirk for close quarters, and my rifle here for a long shot, major, I am not much doubtful but what we shall hold our own."
"How far are we from Adair's?" asked Butler.
"Not more than a mile," replied Horse Shoe. "You may see the ferry just ahead. Wat lives upon the top of the first hill on the other side."
"Is that fellow to be trusted, sergeant?"
"Better with the help of gold, major, than without it. Wat was never over honest. But it is worth our while to make a friend of him if we can."
Our travellers had now reached the river, which was here a smooth and deep stream, though by no means so broad as to entitle it to the distinction by which, in its lower portion, it has earned its name. It here flowed sluggishly along in deep and melancholy shade.
Butler and his companion were destined to encounter a difficulty at this spot which less hardy travellers would have deemed a serious embarrassment. The boat was not to be seen on either side of the river, having been carried off a few hours before, according to the information given by the inmates of a negro cabin, constituting the family of the ferryman, by a party of soldiers.
Robinson regarded this obstacle with the resignation of a practised philosopher. He nodded his head significantly to his companion upon receiving the intelligence, as he said,
"There is some mischief in the wind. These Tories are always dodging about in gangs; and when they collect the boats on the river, it is either to help them forward on some house-burning and thieving business, or to secure their retreat when they expect to have honest men at their heels. It would be good news to hear that Sumpter was near their cruppers, which, by the by, is not onlikely neither. You would be told of some pretty sport then, major."
"Sumpter's means, sergeant," replied Butler, "I fear, are not equal to his will. There are heavy odds against him, and it isn't often that he can venture from his hiding-place. But what are we to do now, Galbraith?"
"Ha, ha! do as we have often done before this, launch our four-legged ships, and take a wet jacket coolly and dispassionately, as that quare devil Lieutenant Hopkins used to tell us when he was going to make a charge of the bagnet. We hav'n't no time to lose, major, and if we had, I don't think the river would run dry. So, here goes."
With these words Robinson plunged into the stream, and, with his rifle resting across his shoulder, he plied his voyage towards the opposite bank with the same unconcern as if he had journeyed on dry land. As soon as he was fairly afloat he looked back to give a few cautions to Butler.
"Head slantwise up stream, major, lean a little forward, so as to sink your horse's nose nearer to the water, he swims all the better for it. Slacken your reins and give him play. You have it now. It isn't oncomfortable in a day's ride to get a cool seat once in a while. Here we are safe and sound," he continued, as they reached the further margin, "and nothing the worse for the ferrying, excepting it be a trifle of dampness about the breeches."
The two companions now galloped towards the higher grounds of the adjacent country.
By the time that they had gained the summit of a long hill that rose immediately from the plain of the river, Robinson apprised Butler that they were now in the vicinity of Adair's dwelling. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the varied lustre of early twilight tinged the surrounding scenery with its own beautiful colors. The road, as it wound upwards gradually emerged from the forest upon a tract of open country, given signs of one of those original settlements which, at that day, were sparsely sprinkled through the great wilderness. The space that had been snatched from the ruggedness of nature, for the purpose of husbandry, comprehended some three or four fields of thinly cultivated land. These were yet spotted over with stumps of trees, that seemed to leave but little freedom to the course of the ploughshare, and bespoke a thriftless and slovenly tillage. A piece of half cleared ground, occupying the side of one of the adjacent hills, presented to the eye of our travellers a yet more uncouth spectacle. This spot was still clothed with the native trees of the forest, all of which had been death-stricken by the axe, and now heaved up their withered and sapless branches towards the heavens, without leaf or spray. In the phrase of the woodman, they had been girdled some years before, and were destined to await the slow decay of time in their upright attitude. It was a grove of huge skeletons that had already been bleached into an ashy hue by the sun, and whose stiff and dry members rattled in the breeze with a preternatural harshness. Amongst the most hoary of these victims of the axe, the gales of winter had done their work and thrown them to the earth, where the shattered boles and boughs lay as they had fallen, and were slowly reverting into their original dust. Others, whose appointed time had not yet been fulfilled, gave evidence of their struggle with the frequent storm, by their declination from the perpendicular line. Some had been caught in falling by the boughs of a sturdier neighbor, and still leaned their huge bulks upon these supports, awakening the mind of the spectator to the fancy, that they had sunk in some deadly paroxysm into charitable and friendly arms, and, thus locked together, abided their tardy but irrevocable doom. It was a field of the dead; and the more striking in its imagery from the contrast which it furnished to the rich, verdurous, and lively forest that, with all the joyousness of health, encompassed this blighted spot. Its aspect was one of unpleasant desolation; and the traveller of the present day who visits our western wilds, where this slovenly practice is still in use, will never pass through such a precinct without a sense of disgust at the disfiguration of the landscape.
The field thus marred might have contained some fifty acres, and it was now occupied, in the intervals between the lifeless trunks, with a feeble crop of Indian corn, whose husky and parched blades, as they fluttered in the evening wind, added new and appropriate features to the inexpressible raggedness of the scene. The same effect was further aided and preserved by the cumbrous and unseemly worm fence that shot forth its stiff angles around the tract.
On the very apex of the hill up which our travellers were now clambering, was an inclosure of some three or four acres of land, in the middle of which, under the shade of a tuft of trees, stood a group of log cabins so situated as to command a view, of nearly every part of the farm. The principal structure was supplied with a rude porch that covered three of its sides; whilst the smoke that curled upwards from a wide-mouthed chimney, and the accompaniment of a bevy of little negroes that were seen scattered amongst the out-houses, gave an air of habitation and life to the place that contrasted well with the stillness of the neighboring wood. A well-beaten path led into a narrow ravine where might be discerned, peeping forth from the weeds, the roof of a spring house; and, in the same neighborhood, a rough garden was observable, in which a bed of broad-leaved cabbages seemed to have their ground disputed by a plentiful crop of burdock, thistles, and other intruders upon a manured soil. In this inclosure, also, the hollyhock and sunflower, rival coxcombs of the vegetable community, gave their broad and garish tribute to the beautifying of the spot.
The road approached within some fifty paces of the front of the cabins, where access was allowed, not by the help of a gate, but only by a kind of ladder or stile formed of rails, which were so arranged as to furnish steps across the barrier of the worm fence at four or five feet from the ground.
"Are you sure of entertainment here, Galbraith?" inquired Butler, as they halted at the stile. "This Wat Adair is not likely to be churlish, I hope?"
"I don't think I am in much humor to be turned away," replied Robinson. "It's my opinion that a man who has rode a whole day has a sort of right to quarters wherever the night finds him--providing he pays for what he gets. But I have no doubt of Wat, Major. Holloa! who's at home? Wat Adair! Wat Adair! Travellers, man! Show yourself."
"Who are you that keep such a racket at the fence there?" demanded a female voice. "What do you mean by such doings before a peaceable house?"
"Keep your dogs silent, ma'am," returned Horse Shoe, in a blunt and loud key, "and you will hear us. If you are Wat Adair's wife you are as good as master of this house. We want a night's lodging and must have it--and besides, we have excellent stomachs, and mean to pay for all we get. Ain't that reason enough to satisfy a sensible woman, Mrs. Adair?"
"If you come to make disturbance," said a man of a short and sturdy figure, who at this moment stepped out from the house and took a position in front of it, with a rifle in his hand--"if you come here to insult a quiet family you had best turn your horses' heads up the road and jog further."
"We might do that, sir, and fare worse," said Butler, in a conciliatory tone. "You have no need of your gun; we are harmless travellers who have come a long way to get under your roof."
"Where from?" asked the other.
"From below," said Horse Shoe promptly.
"What side do you take?"
"Your side for to-night," returned Robinson again. "Don't be obstropolous, friend," he continued, at the same time dismounting, "we have come on purpose to pay Wat a visit, and if you ha'n't got no brawlers in the house, you needn't be afraid of us."
By this time the sergeant had crossed the stile and approached the questioner, to whom he offered his hand. The man gazed for a moment upon his visitor, and then asked--
"Isn't this Galbraith Robinson?"
"They call me so," replied Horse Shoe; "and if I ain't mistaken, this is Michael Lynch. You wan't going to shoot at us, Michael?"
"A man must have sharp eyes when he looks in the face of a neighbor now-a-days," said the other. "Come in; Wat's wife will be glad to see you. Wat himself will be home presently. Who have you here, Galbraith?"
"This is Mr. Butler," answered Horse Shoe, as the Major joined them. "He and me are taking a ride across into Georgia, and we thought we would give Wat a call just to hear the news."
"You are apt to fetch more news than you will take away," replied the other; "but there is a good deal doing now in all quarters. Howsever, go into the house, we must give you something to eat and a bed besides."
After putting their horses in charge of a negro who now approached in the character of an ostler, our adventurers followed Michael Lynch into the house.
XIII. A WOODMAN'S FAMILY
The apartment into which the travellers were introduced was one of large dimensions, conspicuous for its huge kitchen-like fire-place and ample chimney. The floor, consisting of broad planks, was so much warped as, in several places, to show the ground through the chinks. The furniture was of the rudest form and most homely materials. Three or four rifles were suspended against the walls, together with some trapping implements and various skins of such wild animals of prey and game as abounded in the woods of this region: these were associated with the antlers of the buck, powder-horns, hunting pouches, and a few articles of clothing,--the whole array giving to the room that air of woodland life which denotes the habitation of a hunter, and which so distinctly characterizes the dwellings of our frontier population.
Amongst other articles of household use was a large spinning-wheel that was placed near the door, and beside it stood the dame who had first challenged the visitors. She was a woman who could scarcely be said to have reached the middle period of life, although her wan and somewhat haggard features, and a surly, discontented expression of face, might well induce an observer to attribute more years to her worldly account than she had actually seen. The presence of a rough and untidy cradle and some five or six children, the majority of whom might be below three feet in stature, served in some degree to explain the care-worn and joyless countenance of the hostess. When Butler and his companion were ushered by Lynch into her presence, she gave them no other welcome than a slight nod of the head, and continued to ply her task at the wheel with unremitted assiduity.
In another corner of the room sat a smart-looking young girl who, at this moment, was employed in carding wool. She was sylvan Hebe, just verging upon womanhood, with a round, active, and graceful figure, which was adorned with that zealous attention to neatness and becoming ornament which, in every station of life, to a certain extent, distinguishes those of the sex who are gifted with beauty. Her cheek had the rich bloom of high health; a full round blue eye seemed habitually to laugh with pleasure; and the same trick of a happy temperament had stamped its mark upon the lines of her mouth. Her accost was altogether different from that of the mistress of the house. She arose from her work immediately upon the entrance of the strangers, courtesied with a modest and silent reserve, and then proceeded to gather up the rolls of carded wool at her feet and to dispose of them in a chest near at hand. Having done this, she left the apartment, not without casting sundry prying glances towards the guests.
Another member of the family was an aged female: she had perhaps seen her eightieth winter. Her attenuated frame seemed to be hovering on the verge of dissolution: a hollow cheek, a sunken, moist eye, and a tremulous palsied motion of the head denoted the melancholy period of dotage; and it was apparent at a glance that this unfortunate being had far outlived both her capacity for enjoyment and the sympathy of her kindred. She now sat in a low elbow-chair, with her head almost in contact with her knees, upon the stone hearth, bending over a small fire of brushwood which had been kindled as well for the purpose of preparing the evening meal as for the comfort of the ancient dame herself--the chilliness of night-fall rendering this additional warmth by no means unpleasant. The beldam silently smoked a short pipe, unmoved by anything that occurred in the apartment, and apparently engrossed with the trivial care of directing the smoke, as she puffed it from her lips, into a current that should take it up the chimney.
Michael Lynch, who acted as landlord in the casual absence of Wat Adair, had no other connexion with the family than that of being joint owner, with the lord of this wild domain, of a small saw-mill in the vicinity, the particular superintendence of which was his especial province. He was, therefore, at particular seasons of the year, an in-dweller at the homestead, and sufficiently in authority to assume a partial direction in the affairs of the house. This man now replaced his rifle upon the pegs appropriated to receive it, and then offered Butler and Robinson chairs, as he said to the mistress of the family:--
"Here's Horse Shoe Robinson, Mrs. Adair; and this other man I think they call Mr. Butler. They've come for a night's lodging. I believe Wat will be right glad to see them."
"You are not often visited with travellers in this part of the country," said Butler, addressing the matron as he drew his chair near to the fire to dry his clothes.
"We have enough of them, such as they are," replied the woman; "and it's a dangerous thing, when there's so many helpless women at home, to be opening the door to all sorts of persons."
"You, at least, run no risk in offering shelter to us this evening," returned Butler; "we are strangers to the quarrel that prevails in your district."
"People puts on so many pretences," said the woman, "that there's no knowing them."
"You have a fine troop of boys and girls," continued Butler, patting the head of one of the boys who had summoned courage to approach him, after various shy reconnoitrings of his person. "Your settlement will require enlargement before long."
"There is more children than is needful," replied the hostess; "they are troublesome brats; but poor people generally have the luck that way."
"Does your husband ever serve with the army, madam?" asked Butler.
The woman stopped spinning for a moment, and turning her face towards Butler with a scowl, muttered,
"How does that matter concern you?"
"Pardon me," replied Butler; "I was recommended to Mr. Adair as a friend, and supposed I might approach his house without suspicion."
"Wat Adair is a fool," said the wife; "who is never content but when he has other people thrusting their spoons into his mess."
"Wat's a wiser man than his wife," interrupted Robinson bluntly, "and takes good care that no man thrusts his spoon into his mess without paying for it. You know Wat and me knows each other of old, Mrs. Adair; and devil a ha'penny did Wat ever lose by good manners yet."
"And who are you to talk, forsooth, Horse Shoe Robinson!" exclaimed the ill-favored dame, tartly. "Who are you to talk of Wat Adair? If he knows you he knows no good of you, I'm sure? I warrant you have come here on honest business now--you and your tramping friend. What do you do up here in the woods, when there is work enough for hearty men below? No good, I will undertake. It is such as you, Horse Shoe Robinson, and your drinking, rioting, broadsword cronies that has given as all our troubles here. You know Wat Adair!"
"A little consideration, good woman! Not so fast; you run yourself out of breath," said Robinson mildly, interrupting this flood of objurgation. "Why, you are as spiteful as a hen with a fresh brood! Remember, Wat and me are old friends. Wat has been at my house both before the war and since, and I have been here--all in friendship you know. And many's the buck I have helped Wat to fetch down. What's the use of tantrums? If we had been thieves, Mrs. Adair, you couldn't have sarved us worse. Why, it's unreasonable in you to fly in a man's face so."
"I'll vouch for Horse Shoe Robinson, Mrs. Peggy Adair," said Lynch. "You oughtn't to think harm of him; and you know it isn't long since we heard Wat talk of him, and say he would like to see him once more!"
"Well, it's my way," replied the hostess, soothed down into a placid mood by this joint expostulation. "We have had cause to be suspicious, and I own I am suspicious. But, Horse Shoe Robinson, I can't say I have anything against you; you and your friend may be welcome for me."
"Heyday!" exclaimed the old crone from the chimney corner "Who is talking about Horse Shoe Robinson? Is this Horse Shoe? Come here, good man," she said, beckoning with her finger to the sergeant. "Come close and let me look at you. Galbraith Robinson, as I am a sinner! All the way from the Waxhaws. Who'd 'a thought to find you here amongst the Tories? Such a racketing whig as you. Heyday!"
"Whisht, granny!" said Robinson almost in a whisper. "Don't call names."
"We are all Tories here," said the old woman, heedless of the sergeant's caution, "ever since last Thursday, when the handsome English officer was here to see Watty, and to count out his gold like pebble-stones."
"Grandmother, you talk nonsense," said the wife.
"Old Mistress Crosby," interposed Robinson, "is as knowing as she ever was. It's a mark of sense to be able to tell the day of the week when a man changes his coat. But, granny, you oughtn't to talk of Wat's seeing an English officer in his house."
"Golden guineas, honey!" continued the drivelling old woman. "All good gold! And a proud clinking they make in Watty's homespun pocket. A countryman's old leather bag, Galbraith Robinson, doesn't often scrape acquaintance with the image of the king's head--ha, ha, ha! It makes me laugh to think of it! Ha, ha, ha! Watty's nose cocked up so high too! Who but he, the proud gander! Strutting like quality. Well, well, pride will have a fall, some day, that's the Lord's truth. Both pockets full!" she continued, muttering broken sentences and laughing so violently that the tears ran down her cheeks.
"If you call Wat Adair your friend," interrupted the wife sullenly, and addressing Robinson, "you will show your sense by keeping away from this foolish old woman. She is continually raving with some nonsense that she dreams of nights. You ought to see that she is only half witted. It's sinful to encourage her talking. Grandmother, you had better go to your bed."
"Come this way, deary," said the beldam, addressing an infant that toddled across the floor near to her seat, at the same time extending her shrivelled arm to receive it. "Come to the old body, pretty darling!"
"No," lisped the child with an angry scream, and instantly made its way towards the door.
"Then do you come to me, Peggy," she said, looking up at her granddaughter, the mistress of the family, who was still busy with her wheel. "Wipe my old eye with your handkerchief. Don't you see I have laughed my eyes dim at Watty and his gold? And fill my pipe again, Peggy."
Instead of obeying this command, the mother left her spinning, and ran with some precipitation towards the door to catch up the child, who had staggered to the very verge of the sill, where it paused in imminent peril of falling headlong down the step; and having rescued it from its danger, she returned with the infant in her arms to a chair, where, without scruple at the presence of her visitors, she uncovered her bosom and administered to her off-spring that rich and simple bounty which nature has so lavishly provided for the sustenance of our first and tenderest days of helplessness.
"Well-a-day, I see how it is!" muttered the grandmother in an accent of reproof, "that's the way of the world. Love is like a running river, it goes downwards, but doesn't come back to the spring. The poor old granny in the chimney corner is a withered tree up the stream, and the youngest born is a pretty flower on the bank below. Love leaves the old tree and goes to the flower. It went from me to Peggy's mother, and so downwards and downwards, but it never will come back again. The old granny's room is more wanted than her company; she ought to be nailed up in her coffin and put to sleep down, down in the cold ground. Well, well! But Watty's a proud wretch, that's for certain!"
In this strain the aged dame continued to pour forth a stream of garrulity exhibiting a mixture of the silly dreamings of dotage, with a curious remainder of the scraps and saws of former experience--a strange compound of futile drivelling and shrewd and quick sagacity.
During the period of the foregoing dialogue, preparations were making for supper. These were conducted principally under the superintendence of our Hebe, who, my reader will recollect, some time since escaped from the room, and who, as Butler learned, in the course of the evening, was a niece of Adair's wife and bore the kindly name of Mary Musgrove. The part which she took in the concerns of the family was in accordance with the simple manners of the time, and such as might be expected from her relationship. She was now seen arranging a broad table, and directing the domestics in the disposition of sundry dishes of venison, bacon, and corn bread, with such other items of fare as belonged to the sequestered and forest-bound region in which Adair resided.
Mary was frequently caught directing her regards towards Butler, whose face was handsome enough to have rendered such a thing quite natural from a young girl: but she seemed to be moved by more than ordinary interest, as the closeness of her scrutiny almost implied a suspicion in her mind of his disguise. In truth there was some incongruity between his manners and the peasant dress he wore, which an eye like Mary's might have detected, notwithstanding the plainness of demeanor which Butler studied to assume.
"We have nothing but corn bread in the house," said Mary in a low tone to her kinswoman, "perhaps the gentlemen (here she directed her eye, for the fiftieth time, to Butler) expected to get wheat. Had I not better pull some roasting-ears from the garden and prepare them? they will not be amiss with our milk and butter."
"Bless you, my dear," said Butler, thrown completely off his guard, and showing more gallantry than belonged to the station he affected. "Give yourself no trouble on my account; we can eat anything. I delight in corn cakes, and will do ample justice to this savory venison. Pray do not concern yourself for us."
"It is easy as running to the garden," said Mary in a sweet and almost laughing tone.
"That's further, my dear," replied Butler, "than I choose you should run at this time of night. It is dark, my pretty girl."
"Gracious!" returned Mary with natural emotion, "do you think I am afraid to go as far as the garden in the dark? We have no witches or fairies in our hills to hurt us: and if we had, I know how to keep them away."
"And how might that be?"
"By saying my prayers, sir. My father taught me, before my head was as high as the back of this chair, a good many prayers: and he told me they would protect me from all sorts of harm, if I only said them in right earnest. And I hear many old people, who ought to know, say the same thing."
"Your father taught you well and wisely," replied Butler; "prayer will guard us against many ills, and chiefly against ourselves. But against the harm that others may do us, we should not forget that prudence is also a good safeguard. It is always well to avoid a dangerous path."
"But, for all that," said the maiden smiling, "I am not afraid to go as far as the garden."
"If you mean to get the corn," interrupted Mistress Adair, in no very kindly tone, "you had as well go without all this talk. I warrant if you listen to every man who thinks it worth while to jabber in your ear, you will find harm enough, without going far to seek it."
"I thought it was only civil to speak when I was spoken to," replied Mary, with an air of mortification. "But I will be gone this moment:" and with these words the girl went forth upon her errand.
A moment only elapsed when the door was abruptly thrown open, and the tall and swarthy figure of Wat Adair strode into the room. The glare of the blazing faggots of pine which had been thrown on the fire to light up the apartment, fell broadly over his person, and flung a black and uncouth shadow across the floor and upon the opposite wall; thus magnifying his proportions and imparting a picturesque character to his outward man. A thin, dark, weather-beaten countenance, animated by a bright and restless eye, expressed cunning rather than hardihood, and seemed habitually to alternate between the manifestations of waggish vivacity and distrust. The person of this individual might be said, from its want of symmetry and from a certain slovenly and ungraceful stoop in the head and shoulders, to have been protracted, rather than tall. It better deserved the description of sinewy than muscular, and communicated the idea of toughness in a greater degree than strength. His arms and legs were long; and the habit of keeping the knee bent as he walked, suggested a remote resemblance in his gait to that of a panther and other animals of the same species; it seemed to be adapted to a sudden leap or spring.
His dress was a coarse and short hunting-shirt of dingy green, trimmed with a profusion of fringe, and sufficiently open at the collar to disclose his long and gaunt neck; a black leather belt supported a hunting knife and wallet; whilst a pair of rude deer-skin moccasins and a cap manufactured from the skin of some wild animal, and now deprived of its hair by long use, supplied the indispensable gear to either extremity of his person.
Adair's first care was to bestow in their proper places his rifle and powder-horn; then to disburden himself of a number of squirrels which were strung carelessly over his person, and, finally, to throw himself into a chair that occupied one side of the fire-place. The light for a moment blinded him, and it was not until he shaded his brow with his hand and looked across the hearth, that he became aware of the presence of the strangers. His first gaze was directed to Butler, to whom he addressed the common interrogatory, "Travelling in these parts, sir?" and, before time was afforded for a reply to this accost, his eye recognised the sergeant, upon which, starting from his seat, he made up to our sturdy friend, and slapping him familiarly on the back, uttered a chuckling laugh, as he exclaimed:
"Why, Galbraith, is it you, man? To be sure it is! What wind has blown you up here? Have you been running from red coats, or are you hunting of Tories, or are you looking for beeves? Who have you got with you here?"
"Wat, it don't consarn you to know what brought us here--it is only your business to do the best you can for us whilst we are here," replied the sergeant. "This here gentleman is Mr. Butler, a friend of mine that wants to get across into Georgia; and trouble enough we've had to find our way this far, Wat Adair. You've got such an uproarious country, and such a cursed set of quarrelsome devils in it, that a peaceable man is clean out of fashion amongst you. We are as wet as muskrats in swimming the river, and as hungry as wolves in winter."
"And happy," said Butler, "to be at last under the roof of a friend."
"Well, I am glad to see you both," replied Wat. "What put it in my head, Galbraith, I am sure I can't tell, but I was thinking about you this very day; said I to myself, I should just like to see Horse Shoe Robinson, the onconceivable, superfluous, roaring devil! Haw, haw, haw!"
"You were ashamed of your own company, Wat, and wanted to see a decent man once more," replied Horse Shoe, echoing the laugh.
"Mary Musgrove, bustle, girl," said the woodman, as the maiden entered the room with her arms loaded with ears of Indian corn, "bustle, mink! here are two runaways with stomachs like mill stones to grind your corn. Horse Shoe, get up from that chist, man; I can give you a little drop of liquor, if you will let me rummage there for it. Marcus, boy, go bring us in a jug of cool water. Wife, I'm 'stonished you didn't think of giving our friends something to drink afore."
"I am sure I don't pretend to know friend from foe," returned the dame; "and it is a bad way to find that out by giving them liquor."
When the boy returned with the water, and the host had helped his guests to a part of the contents of a flask which had been extracted from the chest, Butler took occasion to commend the alacrity of the young servitor.
"This is one of your children, I suppose?"
"A sort of a pet cub," replied the woodman; "just a small specimen of my fetching up: trees squirrels like a dog--got the nose of a hound--can track a raccoon in the dark--and the most meddlesome imp about fire-arms you ever see. Here t' other day got my rifle and shot away half the hair from his sister's head; but I reckon I skinned him for it! You can answer for that, Marcus, you shaver, eh?"
"I expect you did," answered the boy pertly, "but I don't mind a whipping when I've got room to dodge."
"Do you know, Mr. Butler, how I come to call that boy Marcus?" said Adair.
"It is one of your family names, perhaps."
"Not a bit. There's nare another boy nor man in this whole country round has such a name--nor woman, neither. It's a totally oncommon name. I called him after that there Frenchman that's come out here to help General Washington--Marcus Lafayette; and I think it sounds mighty well."
Butler laughed, as he replied, "That was a soldierly thought of yours. I think you must call your next Baron, after our old Prussian friend De Kalb."
"Do you hear that, wife?" exclaimed Wat. "Keep that in your head, if it will hold there a twelvemonth. No occasion to wait longer, haw! haw! haw!"
"Wat talks like a natural born fool," retorted the wife. "We have no friends nor enemies on any side. The boy was called Marcus because Watty was headstrong, and not because we cared any more for one general nor another. I dare say there is faults enough on both sides, if the truth was told; and I can't see what people in the woods have to do with all this jarring about liberty and such nonsense."
"Hold your tongue!" said Wat. "Boil your kettle, and give us none of your tinkling brass, as the Bible calls it. You see, Horse Shoe, there's such ridings and burnings, and shooting and murder about here, that these women are scared out of the little wits God has given them; and upon that account we are obliged sometimes to play a little double, just to keep out of harm's way. But I am sure I wish no ill to the Continental army."
"If we thought you did, Wat," replied Robinson, "we would have slept on the hill to-night, rather than set foot across the sill of your door. Howsever, let's say nothing about that; I told Mr. Butler that you would give us the best you had, and so you will. I have known Wat Adair, Mr. Butler, a good many years. We used to call him Wat with the double hand. Show us your fist here, Wat. Look at that, sir! it's as broad as a shovel!"
"Cutting of trees," said the woodman, as he spread his large horny-knuckled hand upon the supper table, "and handling of logs, will make any man's paw broad, and mine wa'n't small at first."
"Ha! ha! ha!" ejaculated the sergeant, "you ha'n't forgot Dick Rowley over here on Congaree, Wat,--Walloping Dick, as they nicknamed him--and the scrimmage you had with him when he sot to laughing at you because they accused you for being light-fingered, and your letting him see that you had a heavy hand, by giving him the full weight of it upon his ear that almost drove him through the window of the bar-room at the Cross Roads? You ha'n't forgot that--and his drawing his knife on you?"
"To be sure I ha'n't. That fellow was about as superfluous a piece of wicked flesh as I say--as a man would meet on a summer's day journey. But for all that, Horse Shoe, he wa'n't going to supererogate me, without getting as good as he sent. When I come across one of your merry fellows that's for playing cantraps on a man, it's my rule to make them pay the piper; and that's a pretty good rule, Horse Shoe, all the world through. But come, here is supper; draw up, Mr. Butler."
Mary Musgrove having completed the arrangement of the board whilst this conversation was in progress, the family now sat down to their repast. It was observable, during the meal, that Mary was very attentive in the discharge of the offices of the table, and especially when they were required by Butler. There was a modest and natural courtesy in her demeanor that attracted the notice of our soldier, and enhanced the kindly impression which the artless girl had made upon him; and it was, accordingly, with a feeling composed, in one degree, of curiosity to learn more of her character, and, in another, of that sort of tenderness which an open-hearted man is apt to entertain towards an ingenuous and pretty female, that he took occasion after supper, when Mary had seated herself on the threshold of the porch, to fall into conversation with her.
"You do not live here, I think I have gathered, but are only on a visit?" was the remark addressed to the maiden.
"No, sir; it is thirty good long miles by the shortest road, from this to my father's house. Mistress Adair is my mother's sister, and that makes her my aunt, you know, sir."
"And your father's name?"
"Allen Musgrove. He has a mill, sir, on the Ennoree."
"You are the miller's daughter, then. Well, that's a pretty title. I suppose they call you so?"
"The men sometimes call me," replied Mary, rising to her feet, and leaning carelessly against one of the upright timbers that supported the porch, "the miller's pretty daughter, but the women call me plain Mary Musgrove."
"Faith, my dear, the men come nearer to the truth than the women."
"They say not," replied the maiden, "I have heard, and sometimes I have read in good books--at least, they called them good books--that you mustn't believe the men."
"And why should you not?"
"I don't well know why not," returned the girl doubtingly, "but I am young, and maybe I shall find it out by and by."
"God forbid," said Butler, "that you should ever gain that experience! But there are many toils spread for the feet of innocence in this world, and it is well to have a discreet eye and good friends."
"I am seventeen, sir," replied Mary, "come next month; and though I have travelled backwards and forwards from here to Ennoree, and once to Camden, which, you know, sir, is a good deal of this world to see, I never knew anybody that thought harm of me. But I don't dispute there are men to be afraid of, and some that nobody could like. And yet I think a good man can be told by his face."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes. My father is a good man, and every one says you may see it in his looks."
"I should like to know your father," said Butler.
"I am sure he would be glad to know you, sir."
"Now, my pretty miller's daughter, why do you think so?"
"Because you are a gentleman," replied the girl, courtesying, "for all your homespun clothes."
"Ha! pray how have you found that out?"
"You talk differently from our people, sir. Your words or your voice, I can't rightly tell which, are softer than I have been used to hear. And you don't look, and walk, and behave as if homespun had been all you ever wore."
"And is that all?"
"You stop to consider, as if you were studying what would please other people; and you do not step so heavy, sir; and you do not swear; and you do not seem to like to give trouble. I can't think, sir, that you have been always used to such as are hereabouts. And then there's another reason, sir," added the maiden, almost in a whisper.
"What is that?" asked Butler, smiling.
"Why, sir, when you stooped down to pick up your fork, that fell from the table, I saw a blue ribbon round your neck, and a beautiful gold picture hanging to it. None but gentlemen of quality carry such things about them: and as there is so much contriving and bloody doings going on about here, I was sure you wasn't what you seemed."
"For heaven's sake, my dear," exclaimed Butler, startled by the disclosure of the maiden's suspicion, which was so naturally accounted for, "keep this to yourself, and the time may come when I shall be able to reward your fidelity. If you have any good will towards me, as I hope you have, tell nobody what you have seen."
"Never fear me, sir," returned the maid. "I wouldn't let on to any one in the house for the world. I am for General Washington and the Congress, which is more than I think the people here are."
"Indeed!" muttered Butler, thoughtfully, and scarce above his breath. "What side does your father take, Mary?"
"My father is an old man, sir. And he reads his Bible, and every night, before we go to bed, he prays aloud before us all, I mean all that belong to his house, for quiet once more and peace. His petition is that there may be an end of strife, and that the sword and spear may be turned into the pruning-hook and ploughshare--you know the words, sir, perhaps, for they are in the good book, and so he doesn't take any side. But then, the English officers are not far off, and they take his house and use it as they please, so that he has no mind of his own. And almost all the people round us are Tories, and we are afraid of our lives if we do not say whatever they say."
"Alas! that's the misfortune of many more than your father's household. But how comes it that you are a friend of General Washington?"
"Oh, sir, I think he is our friend; and then he is a good man. And I have a better reason still to be on his side," added the maiden tremulously, with her head averted.
"What reason, my good girl?"
"John Ramsay, sir."
"Indeed! a very cogent reason, I doubt not, my pretty maid of the mill. And how does this reason operate?"
"We have a liking, sir," she replied bashfully, but with innocent frankness; "he is for Washington, and we are to be married when the war is over."
"Truly, that is a most excellent reason! Who is John Ramsay?"
"He is a trooper, sir, and out with General Sumpter. We don't see him often now, for he is afraid to come home, excepting when the Tories are away."
"These Tories are very troublesome, Mary," said Butler, laughing; "they annoy us all, on our side of the question. But love John Ramsay, my dear, and don't be ashamed of it, for I'll warrant he is a brave fellow, and deserves a pretty girl with a true heart, for his love to his country."
"That he does!" replied Mary, "for his greatest fault is that he ventures too much. If you should see him, sir, I would like you just to drop him a hint that he ought to take more care of himself. He would mind it from you, but he puts me off with a laugh when I tell him so."
"If I have the schooling of him, he shall be more cautious, for your sake. But the current of true love never did run smooth, Mary; remember that."
"I must go into the house, my aunt Peggy calls me," interrupted the maiden. "I will keep the secret, sir," she added, as she retired from the porch to the household service where her presence was demanded.
"Simple, innocent, and confiding girl," ejaculated Butler, as he now strolled forth under the starlit canopy of night; "how are you contrasted with the rough and savage natures around you! I wear but a thin disguise, when this unpractised country girl is able so soon to penetrate it. And this miniature, too! Oh, Mildred! that the very talisman I bear about me to guard me from evil, should betray me! Well, this discovery admonishes me that I should wear that image nearer to my heart. There," he continued, as he buttoned his waistcoat across his breast; "lie closer and more concealed. I doubt this double-faced woodman, and almost believe in the seeming frivolous dotings of the crone at his fire-side. Now, God defend us from treachery and ambuscade!"
Robinson, at this moment, being on his way to the stable, was met by Butler, who half whispered, "Good sergeant, keep your eyes about you, and, mark me, do not omit to take our weapons to our chamber. I have reasons for this caution. I would not trust these people too far."
"Wat dare not play us a trick, major," replied the sergeant. "He knows I would shake the life out of his carcase if I saw him take one step of a traitor. Besides, in this here war time, it's a part of my discipline to be always ready for stolen marches. As you say, major, we will stack arms where we sleep. There is no trust in this dubious country that isn't something the surer with powder and ball to back it."
With this intimation the sergeant continued his walk, and Butler, retiring to the family group, seated himself near the fire.
Wat Adair and his crony, Michael Lynch, had each lighted a pipe, and were now in close conference under the cover of their own smoke, amidst the combined din of romping children and of the noisy spinning-wheel of the wife, which gave life and occupation to the apartment.
"How far do you expect to travel to-morrow?" asked the host, as Butler drew a chair near him.
"That will depend very much," replied Butler, "upon the advice you may give us."
"You wish to get across here into Georgia?" continued Wat.
"By the route least liable to molestation," added the major.
"Let me see, Michael, Grindall's Ford is the best point to make: then there's Christie's, about three miles beyont."
"Just so," replied Lynch; "that will make about twenty-seven and three are thirty miles: an easy day's journey."
"In that case," said Adair, "if you know the road--doesn't Horse Shoe know it, sir?"
"I rather think not," answered Butler.
"Well, it's a little tangled, to be sure; but if you will wait in the morning until I look at my wolf trap, which is only a step off, I will go with you part of the way, just to see you through one or two cross paths: after that all is clear enough. You will have a long day before you, and, with good horses, not much to do."
"Are we likely to meet parties on the road?" asked Butler.
"Oh, Lord, sir, no chance of it," replied the woodman; "everything is drawing so to a head down below at Camden 'twixt Cornwallis and Gates, that we have hardly anything but old women left to keep the country free of Indians."
"And how have you escaped the levy?" inquired the major.
"He, he, he!" chuckled our host; "there's a trick in that. They call me a man of doubtful principles, and neither side are willing to own me," he added, with a tone that seemed to indicate a sense of his own cleverness. "But, bless you, sir, if I chose to speak out, there wouldn't be much doubt in the case. Would there, Michael?"
"Not if you was to be plain in declaring your sentiments," answered Lynch, sedately puffing out a huge cloud of smoke.
"Betwixt you and me, sir," continued Wat, putting his hand up to his mouth, and winking an eye at Butler, "the thing's clear enough. But these are ticklish times, Mr. Butler, and the wise man keepeth his own counsel, as the Scripture says. You understand me, I dare say."
"Perhaps, I do," returned Butler. And here the conversation dropped, Wat and his companion gravely pouring forth volumes of tobacco-fumes in silence, until the sergeant, having made his visit to the stable, now re-entered the room.
"Wat," said Robinson, "show us where we are to sleep. Mr. Butler, to my thinking, it's time to be turning in."
Then throwing his rifle upon one arm, and Butler's holsters over the other, the sergeant waited in the middle of the floor until Mary Musgrove, at the order of Adair, took a candle in her hand, and beckoned our travellers to follow her out at the door. The maiden conducted her charge along the porch to the opposite end of the cabin, where she pointed out their chamber. After bidding their pretty conductress "good night," our travellers prepared themselves for that repose which their wearied frames did not long seek in vain.
XIV. SOMETHING VERY LIKE A DREAM
It was after midnight, and the inmates of the woodman's cabin had been some hours at rest, when Mary Musgrove's sleep was disturbed by strange and unwonted alarms. She was dreaming of Arthur Butler, and a crowd of pleasant visions flitted about her pillow, when, suddenly, clouds darkened the world of her dream, and images of bloodshed caused her to shudder. Horrid shapes appeared to her, marching with stealthy pace through her apartment, and a low and smothered footfall seemed to strike her ear like the ticking of a death-watch. The fright awakened her, but when she came to herself all was still. Her chamber was at the opposite end of the cabin from that where Butler and Robinson slept, and it was separated from the room occupied by Lynch only by a thin partition of boards. The starlight through her window fell upon the floor, just touching, as it passed, the chair over which Mary had hung her clothes, and lighting with a doubtful and spectral light the prominent points of the pile of garments, in such manner as to give it the semblance of some unearthly thing. Mary Musgrove had the superstition common to rustic education, and, as her dream had already filled her mind with apprehensions, she now trembled when her eye fell upon what seemed to her a visitant from another world. For some moments she experienced that most painful of all sufferings, the agony of young and credulous minds when wrought upon by their horror of spectres in the night. Gradually, however, the truth came to her aid, and she saw the dreaded ghost disrobed of his terrors, and changed into a familiar and harmless reality. But this night-fear was scarcely dissipated before she again heard, what in her sleep had conjured up the train of disagreeable images, the noise of footsteps in the adjoining room. In another instant she recognised the sound of voices conversing in a half whisper.
"Michael," said the first voice; "Damn it, man, will you never awake? Rouse yourself; it is time to be stirring."
"Wat!" exclaimed the second voice, with a loud yawn, whilst at the same moment the creaking of the bedstead and a sullen sound upon the floor showed that the speaker had risen from his couch. "Is it you? I have hardly gone to bed, before you are here to rouse me up. What o'clock is it?"
"It is nearly one," replied Wat Adair. "And let me tell you, you have no time to lose. Hugh Habershaw is good ten miles off, and you must be back by daylight."
"You might have given me another hour, I think, if it was only to consider over the right way of setting about this thing. Always look before you leap, that's common sense."
"You were always a heavy-headed devil," said Adair; "and take as much spurring as a spavined horse. What have you to do with considering? Isn't all fixed? Jog, man, jog. You have a beautiful starlight: and I had the crop-ear put up in the stable last night, that no time might be lost; so up, and saddle, and away!"
"Well, you needn't be so d----d busy; don't you see that I am getting ready?"
"Quiet, Mike; you talk too loud. Take your shoes in your hand, you can put them on when you get into the porch."
"There, give me my coat, Wat; and I think I should have no objection to a drop before I set out. It's raw riding of a morning. Now tell me exactly what I am to say to Hugh Habershaw."
"Tell him," replied Wat, "that we have got Horse Shoe Robinson and Major Butler of the Continental army, as snug as a pair of foxes in a bag, and that I will let them run exactly at seven; and--"
"Not to interrupt you, Wat," said the other, "let me ask you a question before you go on. Suppose this shouldn't be the man? Are you sure of it? It would be a d----d unchristian job to give over any other human being to such a set of bloodhounds as Hugh Habershaw and his gang."
"Shaw, Mike; you are a fool! Who, in the name of all the imps, could it be, but Major Butler! Weren't we expecting him along with Horse Shoe, and just at this time?"
"It looks likely enough," replied Lynch. "So go on."
"Tell Hugh to be ready at the Dogwood Spring, at the latest, by eight o'clock. I'll give him a game to play that will supple his joints for him. And mind me Mike, warn the greasy captain to have his whole squad with him; for Horse Shoe Robinson, you know, is not to be handled by boys; it will be a bull-fight, or I'm mistaken."
"The major seems to have a wicked eye too, Wat," said Lynch. "I shouldn't like much to be in his way, if he was angry; these copperheads are always in a coil ready to strike. But, Wat, how if they don't ride by the Dogwood Spring?"
"Leave that to me; I'll contrive to go as far as the forks of the road with them. And then, if they don't take the right hand fork, why, you may say it's for the want of my not knowing how to tell a lie."
"Now, Wat Adair, I don't like to spoil sport, but, may be, you have never thought whether it would be worth while just to take t'other side, and tell Horse Shoe the whole business. Couldn't we, don't you think, get as much money, and just as honestly, by hoisting colors with Major Butler?"
"But I have thought of that, and it won't do, for two reasons. First, these Continentals are on the down-hill, and money is as scarce with them as honesty with the red-coats: and, second, the Tories have got so much the upper hand in the whole country, that I should have my house burnt down and my children thrown into the blaze of it, in less than three days, if I was to let these fellows slip through my fingers."
"Well, I never knew," said Mike Lynch, "any piece of villany that hadn't some good reasons to stand by it, and that's what makes it agreeable to my conscience to take a hand."
"Why, you off-scouring," replied Wat, "it is enough to make Old Scratch laugh, to hear you talk about conscience! There ain't no such a thing going in these days. So be off; I'll look for you at daylight."
"I'll ride, Wat, as if the devil was on my crupper; so good bye!"
The cessation of the voices, the distant tramp of Lynch when he had left the cabin, and the cautious retreat of Wat Adair to his chamber, told to Mary that the affair was settled, and the plan of treachery in full career towards its consummation.
The dialogue that had just passed in the hearing of the maiden, disclosed a plot that deeply agitated and distressed her. What did it become her to do, was the first question that presented itself to her reflection, as soon as she was sufficiently self-possessed to turn her thoughts upon herself. Was it in her power to avert the impending disaster which threatened the lives, perhaps, of those who had sought the hospitality of her kinsman? Perplexed, dismayed, and uncertain how to act, she had recourse to an expedient natural to her education, and such as would appear most obvious to a feeble and guileless female: it was to the simple and faith-inspired expedient of prayer. And now, in artless but sincere language, having first risen up in her bed, and bent her body across her pillow, in the attitude of supplication, she fervently implored the support of Heaven in her present strait, and besought wisdom and strength to conceive and to do that which was needful for the security of the individuals whose peace was threatened by this conspiracy.
"I will arise," she said, as she finished her short and earnest prayer, "with the first light of the dawn, and wait the coming of the strangers from their chamber, and I will then be the first to tell them of the snare that is prepared for them." With this resolve she endeavored to compose herself to rest, but sleep fled her eyelids, and her anxious thoughts dwelt upon and even magnified the threatened perils. It might be too late, she reflected, to wait for the dawn of day; Adair might be before her at the door of the guests, and his constant presence might take from her all hope of being able to communicate the important secret to them: it was undoubtedly her surest course to take advantage of the stillness of the night, whilst the household were wrapt in sleep, and apprise the strangers of their danger. But then, how was she to make her way to their apartment, and arouse them, at this hour, from their slumbers? To what suspicions might the attempt expose her, even from Arthur Butler himself? And, more particularly, what would John Ramsay think of it, if the story should be afterwards told to her disadvantage?
This last was an interrogatory which Mary Musgrove was often found putting to herself, in winding up a self-communion. On the present occasion this appeal to the opinion of John Ramsay had the opposite effect from that which might have been expected from it. It suggested new lights to her mind, and turned her thoughts into another current, and brought that resolution to her aid which her prayer was intended to invoke. What would John Ramsay think--he, the friend of liberty, and of Washington, the compatriot of Butler and Robinson, now toiling with them in the same cause! What would he think, if she, his own Mary (and the maiden rested a moment on this phrase), did not do everything in her power to save these soldiers of independence from the blow which treachery was now aiming at them? "John would have good right to be angry with me," she breathed out in a voice that even startled herself, "if I did not give them full warning of what I have heard. This I am sure of, he will believe my story whatever others may say."
Innocence and purity of mind are both sword and shield in this world, and no less inspire confidence to defy the malice and uncharitableness of enemies than they strengthen the arm to do what is right. Mary, therefore, resolved to forego all maidenly scruples and bravely to perform her duty, come what might; and having settled upon this conclusion she impatiently awaited the moment when she might venture forth upon her office of humanity. In this situation it was not long before she heard the distant footfall of a horse's gallop along the road, indicating to her the departure of Michael Lynch upon his traitorous embassy.
The time seemed to be propitious, so Mary arose and dressed herself. Then tripping stealthily to the door that opened upon the porch, she undid the bolt. A loud and prolonged creak, from the wooden hinges, caused her to shake from head to foot. She listened for a moment, and, finding that no one stirred, stepped forth with the timid and faltering step which would no less have marked the intent of the burglar, than, as now it did, the frightened motion of a guardian spirit bent upon an errand of good. Midway along the porch she had to pass the window of Adair's apartment; first, the low growl, and then the sudden bark of the watch-dog saluted her ear, and made her blood run cold. The maiden's hand, however, soothed him into silence; but the noise had attracted the notice of Wat Adair, who grumbled out a short curse from within, which was distinctly audible to Mary. She hastily fled to the further end of the porch, and there stood cowering close against the wall, almost as mute and motionless as a statue, scarce daring to breathe, and poised, as in the act to run, with her weight resting on one foot, the other raised from the floor. In this position she remained during a long interval of fear, until, at length, convinced that all was quiet, she again ventured forward. The window of the travellers' chamber looked out from the gable end of the dwelling, and she was now immediately before it. One of the beds of the room, she knew, was placed beside this window, and was occupied by either Butler or Robinson. Tremblingly and mistrustfully, she gave a feeble tap with her hand against the sash. There was no answer: the sleep within was the sleep of tired men, and was not to be broken by the light play of a maiden's fingers. She now picked up a pebble from the ground, and with it again essayed to wake the sleepers. This, too, was unsuccessful. In utter hopelessness of accomplishing her purpose by other means, she ventured upon raising the sash; and having done so, she thrust her head partially into the room as she held up the window-frame with one hand, crying out with an almost choked voice.
"Mr. Butler! Mr. Butler! For mercy, awake!"
There was no other response but the deep breathings of the sleep-subdued inmates.
"Oh! what shall I do?" she exclaimed, as her heart beat with a violent motion. "I might as well call to the dead. Mr. Galbraith Robinson! Ah me, I cannot rouse them without alarming the whole house! Major Butler," she continued, laying a particular stress upon this designation of his rank, "Oh, good sir, awake!"
"What do you want?" muttered Butler in a smothered and sleep-stifled voice, as he turned himself heavily on his pillow, like one moved by a dream.
"Oh, heaven, sir, make no noise! I am ashamed to tell you who I am," said the terrified girl, "but I come for your good--I have something to tell you."
"Away, away!" cried Butler, speaking in his sleep, "I will not be disturbed: I do not fear you. Begone!"
"Oh, sir, hear me," entreated the maiden, "the people in this house know you and they are contriving evil against you."
"It makes no difference," muttered the only half-awakened soldier. "I will ride where it suits me, if the Tories were as thick as the leaves of the trees."
"There are people gathering to do you harm to-morrow," continued Mary, not suspecting the unconsciousness of the person to whom she addressed herself, "and I only come with a word of warning to you. Do not ride by the Dogwood Spring to-morrow, nor take the right hand road at the first forks: there are wicked men upon that road. Have your eye," she whispered, "upon my uncle Walter. Ride fast and far, before you stop; and pray, sir, as you think fairly of me--Mary Musgrove, sir,--the daughter of Allen Musgrove, the miller--oh, do not tell my name. If you knew John Ramsay, sir, I am certain you would believe me."
The watch-dog had growled once or twice during the period while Mary spoke, and at this moment the door of the principal room of the cabin was heard to move slightly ajar, and the voice of Adair, in a whisper, reached the girl's ear.
"Hist, Michael! In the devil's name what brought you back? Why do you loiter, when time is so precious?"
A long, heavy, and inarticulate exclamation, such as belongs to disturbed sleep, escaped from Butler.
"Father of heaven, I shall let the window fall with fright!" inwardly ejaculated Mary, as she still occupied her uneasy station. "Hush, it is the voice of my uncle."
There was a painful pause.
A heavy rush of wind agitated the trees, and sweeping along the porch caused some horse-gear that was suspended against the wall to vibrate with a rustling noise: the sound pierced Mary's ear like the accents of a ghost, and her strength had well nigh failed her from faint-heartedness.
"I thought it was Michael," said Adair, speaking to some one within, "but it is only the rattling of harness and the dreaming of Drummer. These dogs have a trick of whining and growling in their sleep according to a way of their own. They say a dog sometimes sees a spirit at night. But man or devil it's all one to old Drummer! Sleep quiet, you superfluous, and have done with your snoring!"
With these words, the door was again closed, and Mary, for the moment, was released from suffering.
"Remember," she uttered in the most fear-stricken tone, as she lowered the sash. "Be sure to take the left hand road at the first fork!"
"In God's name, what is it? Where are you?" was the exclamation heard by Mary as the window was closing. She did not halt for further parley or explanation, but now hastily stole back, like a frightened bird towards its thicket. Panting and breathless, she regained her chamber, and with the utmost expedition betook herself again to bed, where, gratified by the consciousness of having done a good action, and fully trusting that her caution would not be disregarded, she gradually dismissed her anxiety, and, before the hour of dawning, had fallen into a gentle though not altogether unperturbed slumber.
Chapter XV
HORSE SHOE AND BUTLER RESUME THEIR JOURNEY, WHICH IS DELAYED BY A SAVAGE INCIDENT.
Morning broke, and with the first day-streak Robinson turned out of his bed, leaving Butler so thoroughly bound in the spell of sleep, that he was not even moved by the loud and heavy tramp of the sergeant, as that weighty personage donned his clothes. Horse Shoe's first habit in the morning was to look after Captain Peter, and he accordingly directed his steps towards the rude shed which served as a stable, at the foot of the hill. Here, to his surprise, he discovered that the fence-rails which, the night before, had been set up as a barrier across the vacant doorway, had been let down, and that no horses were to be seen about the premises.
"What hocus-pocus has been here?" said he to himself, as he gazed upon the deserted stable. "Have these rummaging and thieving Tories been out maraudering in the night? or is it only one of Captain Peter's old-sodger tricks, letting down bars and leading the young geldings into mischief? That beast can snuff the scent of a corn field or a pasture ground as far as a crow smells gunpowder. He'd dislocate and corruptify any innocent stable of horses in Carolina!"
In doubt to which of these causes to assign this disappearance of their cavalry, the sergeant ascended the hill hard-by, and directed his eye over the neighboring fields, hoping to discover the deserters in some of the adjacent pastures. But he could get no sight of them. He then returned to the stable and fell to examining the ground about the door, in order to learn something of the departure of the animals by their tracks. These were sufficiently distinct to convince him that Captain Peter, whose shoes had a peculiar mark well known to the sergeant, had eloped during the night, in company with the major's gelding and two others, these being all, as Horse Shoe had observed, that were in the stable at the time he had retired to bed. He forthwith followed the foot-prints which led him into the high road, and thence along it westward for about two hundred paces, where a set of field bars, now thrown down, afforded entrance into the cornfield. At this point the sergeant traced the deviation of three of the horses into the field, whilst the fourth, it was evident, had continued upon the road.
The conclusion which Galbraith drew from this phenomenon was expressed by a wise shake of the head and a profound fit of abstraction. He took his seat upon a projecting rail at the angle of the fence, and began to sum up conjectures in the following phrase:
"The horse that travelled along that road, never travelled of his own free will: that's as clear as preaching. Well, he wa'n't rode by Wat nor by Mike Lynch, or else they are arlier men than I take them to be: but still, I'll take a book oath that creetur went with a bridle across his head, and a pair o' legs astride his back. And whoever held that bridle in his hand, did it for no good! Scampering here and scampering there, and scouring woods in the night too, when the country is as full of Tories as a beggar's coat with----, it's a dogmatical bad sign, take it which way you will. Them three horses had the majority, and it is the nature of these beasts always to follow the majority: that's an observation I have made; and, in particular, if there's a cornfield, or an oatpatch, or a piece of fresh pasture to be got into, every individual horse is unanimous on the subject."
Whilst the sergeant was engrossed with these reflections, "he was ware," as the old ballads have it, of a man trudging past him along the road. This was no other than Wat Adair, who was striding forward with a long and rapid step, and with all the appearance of one intent upon some pressing business.
"Halloo! who goes there? where away so fast, Wat?" was Robinson's challenge.
"Horse Shoe!" exclaimed Adair, in a key that bespoke surprise, and even alarm,--"Ha, ha, ha!--By the old woman's pipe, you frightened me! I'll swear, Galbraith Robinson, I heard you snoring as I passed by your window three minutes ago."
"I'll swear that's not the truest word you ever spoke in your life, Wat; though true enough for you, mayhap. Do you see how cleverly yon light has broke across the whole sky? When I first turned out this morning it was a little ribbon of day: the burning of a block-house at night, ten miles off, would have made a broader streak. It was your own snoring you heard, Wat; you have only forgot under whose window it was."
"What old witch has been pinching you, Horse Shoe, that you are up so early?" asked Adair. "Get back to the house, man, I will be with you presently; I have my farm to look after, I'll see you presently."
"You seem to me to be in a very onreasonable hurry, Wat, considering that you have the day before you. But, softly, I'll walk with you, if you have no unliking to it."
"No, no, I'm busy, Galbraith; I'm going to look after my traps; I'd rather you'd go back to the house and hurry breakfast. Go! You would only get scratched with briers if you followed me."
"Ha, ha, ha! Wat! Briers, did you say? Look here, man, do you see them there legs? Do they look as if they couldn't laugh at yourn in any sort of scrambling I had a mind to set them to? Tut, I'll go with you just to larn you the march drill."
"Then I'll not budge a foot after the traps."
"You are crusty, Wat Adair; what's the matter with you?"
"Is Major Butler up yet?" asked the woodman thoughtfully.
"Who do you say? Major Butler."
"Major!" cried Adair, with affected surprise.
"Yes, you called him Major Butler?"
"I had some dream, I think, about him: or, didn't you call him so yourself, Horse Shoe?"
"Most undoubtedly, I did not," replied Robinson seriously.
"Then I dreamt it, Horse Shoe: these dreams sometimes get into the head, like things we have been told. But, Galbraith, tell me the plain up-and-down truth, what brings you and Mr. Butler into these parts? What are you after in Georgia? It does seem strange to find men that are wanted below, straggling here in our woods at such a time as this."
"There are two sorts of men in this world, Wat," said the sergeant, with a smile, "them that axes questions, and them that won't answer questions. Now, which, do you think, I belong to? Why, to the last, you tinker! Where are our horses, Wat? Tell me that. Who let them out of the stable?"
"Perhaps they let themselves out," replied Adair, "they were not haltered."
"You are either knave or fool, Wat. Come here. There are the tracks of the beast that carried the man up this road, who sot loose all the horses that were in that stable."
"Mike Lynch, perhaps," said Adair, with an assumed expression of ignorance. "Where can that fellow have been so early? Oh, I remember, he told me last night that he was going this morning to the blacksmith's. He ought to be back by this time."
"And you are here to larn the news from him?" said the sergeant, eyeing Adair with a suspicious scrutiny.
"You have just hit it, Horse Shoe," returned Wat, laughing. "I did want to know if there were any more squads of troopers foraging about this district: for these cursed fellows whip in upon a man and cut him up blade and ear, without so much as thanks for their pillage, and so I told Mike to inquire of the blacksmith, for he is more like to know than anybody else, whether there was any more of these pestifarious scrummagers abroad."
"And your traps, Wat?"
"That was only a lie, Galbraith--I confess it. I was afeard to make you uneasy by telling you what I was after. But still it wasn't a broad, stark, daylight lie neither; it was only a civil fib, for I was going after my wolf trap before I got my breakfast. But here comes Mike."
At this juncture Lynch was seen emerging from the wood, mounted on a rough, untrimmed pony, which he was urging forward under repeated blows with his stick. The little animal was covered with foam; and, from his travel-worn plight, gave evidence of having been taxed to the utmost of his strength in a severe journey. At some hundred paces distant, the rider detected the presence of Adair and his companion, and came to a sudden halt. He appeared to deliberate as if with a purpose to escape their notice; but finding that he was already observed by them, he put his horse again in motion, advancing only at a slow walk. Adair hastily quitted Robinson, and, walking forward until he met Lynch, turned about and accompanied him along the road, conversing during this interval in a key too low to be heard by the sergeant.
"Here's Horse Shoe thrusting his head into our affairs. Conjure a lie quickly about your being at the blacksmith's; I told him you were there to hear the news."
"Aye, aye! I understand."
"You saw Hugh?"
"Yes. The gang will be at their post."
"Hush! Be merry; laugh and have a joke--Horse Shoe is very suspicious."
"You have ridden the crop-ear like a stolen horse," continued Adair, as soon as he found himself within the sergeant's hearing. "See what a flurry you have put the dumb beast in. If it had been your own nag, Mike Lynch, I warrant you would have been more tedious with him."
"The crop-ear is not worth the devil's fetching, Wat. He is as lazy as a land-turtle, and too obstinate for any good-tempered man's patience. Look at that stick--I have split it into a broom on the beast."
"You look more like a man at the end of the day than at the beginning of it," said Robinson. "How far had you to ride, Michael?"
"Only over here to the shop of Billy Watson, in the Buzzard's nest," replied Lynch, "which isn't above three miles at the farthest. My saw wanted setting, so I thought I'd make an early job of it, but this beast is so cursed dull I have been good three-quarters of an hour since I left the smith's."
"What news do you bring?" inquired Adair.
"Oh, none worth telling again. That cross-grained, contrary, rough-and-tumble bear gouger, old Hide-and-Seek, went down yesterday with the last squad of Ferguson's new draughts."
"Wild Tom Eskridge," said Wat Adair. "You knowed him, Horse Shoe, a superfluous imp of Satan!" continued the woodman, laying a particular accent on the penultimate of this favorite adjective, which he was accustomed to use as expressive of strong reprobation. "So he is cleared out at last! Well, I'm glad on't, for he was the only fellow in these hills I was afeard would give you trouble, Galbraith."
"Superfluous or not," replied the sergeant, pronouncing the word in the same manner as the woodman, and equally ignorant of its meaning, "it will be a bad day for Tom Eskridge, the rank, obstropolous Tory, when he meets me, Wat Adair. I have reason to think that he tried to clap some of Tarleton's dragoons on my back over here at the Waxhaws. There's hemp growing for that scape-grace at this very time."
"You heard of no red coats about the Tiger?" asked Adair.
"Not one," replied Lynch; "the nearest post is Cruger's, in Ninety-Six."
"Then your way, Mr. Robinson, is tolerable for to-day," added Adair: "but war is war, and there is always some risk to be run when men are parading with their rifles in their hands. But see! it is hard upon sunrise. Let us go and give some directions about breakfast. I will send out some of the boys to hunt up the horses; they will be ready by the time we have had something to eat."
Without further delay, Adair strode rapidly up the hill to the dwelling-house, the sergeant and Lynch following as soon as the latter had put his jaded beast in the stable. By the time these were assembled in the porch the family began to show signs of life, and it was a little after sunrise when Butler came forth ready for the prosecution of his journey. A few words were exchanged in private between Lynch and the woodman, and after much idle talk and contrived delay, two lazy and loitering negro boys were sent off in quest of the travellers' horses. Not long after this the animals were seen coursing from one part of the distant field to another, defying all attempts to get them into a corner, or to compel them to pass through the place that had been opened in order to drive them towards the stable.
There was an air of concern and silent bewilderment visible upon Butler's features, and an occasional expression of impatience escaped his lips as he watched from the porch the ineffectual efforts of the negroes to force the truant steeds towards the house.
"All in good time," said Adair, answering the thoughts and looks of Butler, rather than his words, "all in good time; they must have their play out. It is a good sign, sir, to see a traveller's horse so capersome of a morning. Wife, make haste with your preparations; Horse Shoe and his friend here mustn't be kept back from their day's journey. Stir yourself, Mary Musgrove!"
"Will the gentlemen stay for breakfast?" inquired Mary, with a doubtful look at Butler.
"Will they? To be sure they will! Would you turn off friends from the door with empty stomachs, you mink, and especially with a whole day's starvation ahead of them?" exclaimed the woodman.
"I thought they had far to ride," replied the girl, "and would choose, rather than wait, to take some cold provision to eat upon the road."
"Tush! Go about your business, niece! The horses are not caught yet, and you may have your bacon fried before they are at the door."
"It shall be ready, then, in a moment," returned Mary, and she betook herself diligently to her task of preparation. During the interval that followed, the maiden several times attempted to gain a moment's speech with Butler, but the presence of Adair or Lynch as frequently forbade even a whisper; and the morning meal was at length set smoking on the table without the arrival of the desired opportunity. The repast was speedily finished, and the horses having surrendered to the emissaries who had been despatched to bring them in, were now in waiting for their masters. Horse Shoe put into the woodman's hand a small sum of money in requital for the entertainment afforded to his comrade and himself, and having arranged their baggage upon the saddles, announced that they were ready to set forward on their journey. Whilst the travellers were passing the farewells customary on such occasions, Mary Musgrove, whose manner during the whole morning gave many indications of a painful secret concern, now threw herself in Butler's way, and as she modestly offered him her hand at parting, and heard the little effusion of gallantry and compliment with which it was natural for a well-bred man and a soldier to speak at such a moment, she took the opportunity to whisper--"The left hand road at the Fork--remember!" and instantly glided away to another part of the house. Butler paused but for an instant, and then hurried forward with the sergeant to their horses.
"Wat, you promised to put us on the track to Grindall's Ford," said Horse Shoe, as he rose into his seat.
"I am ready to go part of the way with you," replied the woodman, "I will see you to the Fork, and after that you must make out for yourselves. Michael, fetch me my rifle."
It was not more than half past six when the party set forth on their journey. Our two travellers rode along at an easy gait, and Wat Adair, throwing his rifle carelessly across his shoulder, stepped out with a long swinging step that kept him, without difficulty, abreast of the horsemen, as they pursued their way over hill and dale.
They had not journeyed half a mile before they reached a point in the woods at which Adair called a halt.
"My trap is but a little off the road," he said, "and I must beg you to stop until I see what luck I have this morning. It's a short business and soon done. This way, Horse Shoe; it is likely I may give you sport this morning."
"Our time is pressing," said Butler. "Pray give us your directions as to the road, and we will leave you."
"You would never find it in these woods," replied Wat; "there are two or three paths leading through here, and the road is a blind one till you come to the fork; the trap is not a hundred yards out of your way."
"Rather than stop to talk about it, Wat," said the sergeant, "we will follow you, so go on."
The woodman now turned into the thickets, and opening his way through the bushes, in a few moments conducted the two soldiers to the foot of a large gum tree.
"By all the crows, I have got my lady!" exclaimed Wat Adair, with a whoop that made the woods ring. "The saucy slut! I have yoked her, Horse Shoe Robinson! There's a picture worth looking at."
"Who?" cried Butler; "of whom are you speaking?"
"Look for yourself, sir," replied the woodman. "There's the mischievous devil; an old she-wolf that I have been hunting these two years. Oh, ho, madam! Your servant!"
Upon looking near the earth, our travellers descried the object of this triumphant burst of joy, in a large wolf that was now struggling to release herself from the thraldom of her position. The trap was ingeniously contrived. It consisted of a long opening into the hollow trunk of the tree, beginning about four feet from the ground and cut out with an axe down to the root. An aperture had been made at the upper end of the slit about a foot wide, and the wood had been hewed away downwards, in such a manner as to render the slit gradually narrower as it approached the lower extremity, until near the earth it was not more than four inches in width, thus forming a wedge-shaped loophole into the hollow body of the tree. A part of the carcase of a sheep had been placed on the bottom inside, the scent of which had attracted the wolf, and, in her eagerness to possess herself of this treasure she had risen on her hind legs high enough to find the opening sufficiently wide to allow her head to be thrust in, whence, slipping downwards, the slit became so narrow as to prevent her from withdrawing her jaws. The only mode of extrication from this trap was to rear her body to the same height at which she found admission, an expedient which, it seems, required more cunning than this proverbially cunning animal was gifted with. She now stood captive pretty much in the same manner that oxen are commonly secured in their stalls.
For a few moments after the prisoner was first perceived, and during the extravagant yelling of Adair at the success of his stratagem, she made several desperate but ineffectual efforts to withdraw her head; but as soon as Butler and Robinson had dismounted, and, together with their guide, had assembled around her, she desisted from her struggles, and seemed patiently to resign herself to the will of her captor. She stood perfectly still with that passive and even cowardly submission for which, in such circumstances, this animal is remarkable: her hind legs drooped and her tail was thrust between them, whilst not a snarl nor an expression of anger or grief escaped her. Her characteristic sagacity had been completely baffled by the superior wolfish cunning of her ensnarer.
Wat laughed aloud with a coarse and almost fiendish laugh, as he cried out--
"I have cotched the old thief at last, in spite of her cunning! With a warning to boot. Here is a mark I sot upon her last winter," he added, as he raised her fore leg, which was deprived of the foot; "but she would be prowling, the superfluous devil! It is in the nature of these here blood-suckers, to keep a going at their trade, no matter how much they are watched. But I knowed I'd have her one of these days. These varmints have always got to pay, one day or another, for their villanies. Wa'n't she an old fool, Horse Shoe, to walk into this here gum for a piece of dead mutton? Ha, ha, ha! if she had had only the sense to rear up, she might have had the laugh on us! But she hadn't; ha, ha, ha!"
"Well, Wat Adair," said Robinson, "you had a mischievous head when you contrived that trap."
"Feel her ribs, Mr. Butler," cried Wat, not heeding the sergeant; "I know who packed that flesh on her. There isn't a lamb in my flock to-day that wouldn't grin if he was to hear the news."
"Well, what are you going to do with her, Adair?" inquired Butler; "remember you are losing time here."
"Do with her!" ejaculated the woodman; "that's soon told: I will skin the devil alive."
"I hope not," exclaimed Butler. "It would be an unnecessary cruelty. Despatch her on the spot with your rifle."
"I wouldn't waste powder and ball on the varmint," replied Adair. "No, no, the knife, the knife!"
"Then cut her throat and be done with it."
"You are not used to these hellish thieves, sir," said the woodman. "There is nothing that isn't too good for them. By the old sinner, I'll skin her alive! That's the sentence!"
"Once more, I pray not," said Butler imploringly.
"It is past praying for," returned Adair, as he drew forth his knife and began to whet it on a stone. "She shall die by inches, and be damned to her!" he added, as his eye sparkled with savage delight. "Now look and see a wolf punished according to her evil doings."
The woodman stood over his captive and laughed heartily, as he pointed out to his companions the quailing and subdued gestures of his victim, indulging in coarse and vulgar jests whilst he described minutely the plan of torture he was about to execute. When he had done with his ribaldry, he slowly drew the point of his knife down the back-bone of the animal, from the neck to the tail, sundering the skin along the whole length. "That's the way to unbutton her jacket," he said, laughing louder than ever.
"For God's sake, desist!" ejaculated Butler. "For my sake, save the poor animal from this pain! I will pay you thrice the value of the skin."
"Money will not buy her," said Wat, looking up for an instant. "Besides, the skin is spoiled by that gash."
"Here is a guinea, if you will cut her throat," said Butler, "and destroy her at once."
"That would be murder out-right," replied Adair; "I never take money to do murder; it goes agin my conscience. No, no, I will undress the old lady, and let her have the benefit of the cool air in this hot weather. And if she should take cold, you know, and fall sick and die of that, why then, Mr. Butler, you can give me the guinea. That will save my conscience," he added, with a grin that expressed a struggle between his avarice and cruelty.
"Come, Galbraith, I will not stay to witness the barbarity of this savage. Mount your horse, and let us take our chance alone through the woods. Fellow, I don't wish your further service."
"Look there now!" said Adair; "where were you born, that you are so mighty nice upon account of a blood-sucking wolf? Man, it's impossible to find your way through this country; and you might, by taking a wrong road, fall in with them that would think nothing of serving you as I serve this beast."
"Wat, curse your onnatural heart," interposed the sergeant. "Stob her at once. It's no use, Mr. Butler," he said, finding that Adair did not heed him, "we can't help ourselves. It's wolf agin wolf."
"I knowed you couldn't, Horse Shoe," cried Wat, with another laugh. "So you may as well stay to see it out."
Butler had now walked to his horse, mounted, and retired some distance into the wood to avoid further converse with the tormentor of the ensnared beast, and to withdraw himself from a sight so revolting to his feelings. In the meantime, Adair proceeded with his operation with an alacrity that showed the innate cruelty of his temper. He made a cross incision through the skin, from the point of one shoulder to the other, the devoted subject of his torture remaining, all the time, motionless and silent. Having thus severed the skin to suit his purpose, the woodman now, with an affectation of the most dainty precision, flourished his knife over the animal's back, and then burst into a loud laugh.
"I can't help laughing," he exclaimed, "to think what a fine, dangling, holiday coat I am going to make of it. I shall strip her as low as the ribs, and then the flaps will hang handsomely. She will be considered a beauty in the sheep-folds, and then she may borrow a coat, you see, from some lamb; a wolf in sheep's clothing is no uncommon sight in this world."
"Wat Adair," said Horse Shoe, angrily, "I've a mind to take the wolf's part and give you a trouncing. You are the savagest wolf in sheep's clothing yourself that it was ever my luck to see."
"You think so, Horse Shoe!" cried Wat, tauntingly. "You might chance to miss your way to-day, so don't make a fool of yourself! Ill will would only take away from you a finger-post--and it isn't every road through this district that goes free of the Tory rangers."
"Your own day will come yet," replied Horse Shoe, afraid to provoke the woodman too far on account of the dependence of himself and his companion upon Adair's information in regard to the route of their journey. "We have to give and take quarter in this world."
"You see, Horse Shoe," said Adair, beginning to expostulate, "I don't like these varmints, no how; that's the reason why. They are cruel themselves and I like to be cruel to them. It's a downright pleasure to see them winch, for, bless your soul! they don't mind common throat-cutting, no more than a calf. Now here's the way to touch their feelings."
At this moment he applied the point of his knife to separating the hide from the flesh on either side of the spine, and then, in his eagerness to accomplish this object, he placed his knife between his teeth and began to tug at the skin with his hands, accompanying the effort with muttered expressions of delight at the involuntary and but ill-suppressed agonies of the brute. The pain, at length became too acute for the wolf, with all her characteristic habits of submission, to bear, and, in a desperate struggle that ensued between her and her tormentor, she succeeded, by a convulsive leap, in extricating herself from her place of durance. The energy of her effort of deliverance rescued her from the woodman's hand, and turning short upon her assailant, she fixed her fangs deep into the fleshy part of his thigh, where, as the foam fell from her lips, she held on firmly as if determined to sell her life dearly for the pain she suffered. Adair uttered a groan from the infliction, and, in the hurry of the instant, dropped his knife upon the ground. He was thus compelled to bear the torment of the grip, until he dragged the still pertinaciously-adhering beast a few paces forward, where, grasping up his knife, he planted it, by one deeply driven blow, through and through her heart. She silently fell at his feet, without snarl or bark, releasing her hold only in the impotency of death.
"Curse her!" cried Adair, "the hard-hearted, bloody-minded devil! That's the nature of the beast--cruel and wicked to the last, damn her!" he continued, raving with pain, as he stamped his heel upon her head: "damn her in the wolf's hell to which she has gone!"
Robinson stood by, unaiding, and not displeased to see the summary vengeance thus inflicted by the victim upon the oppressor. This calmness provoked the woodman, who, with that stoicism which belongs to uncivilized life, seemed determined to take away all pretext for the sergeant's exultation, by affecting to make light of the injury he had received.
"I don't mind the scratch of the cursed creature," he said, assuming a badly counterfeited expression of mirth, "but I don't like to be cheated out of the pleasure of tormenting such mischievous varmints. It's well for her that she put me in a passion, or she should have carried a festered carcase that the buzzards might have fed upon before she died. But come--where is Mr. Butler? I want that guinea. Ho, sir!" he continued, bawling to Butler, as he tied up his wound with a strap of buckskin taken from his pouch, "my guinea! I've killed the devil to please you, seeing you would have it."
Butler now rode up to the spot, and, in answer to this appeal, gave it an angry and indignant refusal.
"Lead us on our way, sir," he added. "We have lost too much time already with your brutal delay. Lead on, sir!"
"You will get soon enough to your journey's end," replied Adair with a smile, and then sullenly took up his rifle and led the way through the forest.
A full half hour or more was lost by the incident at the trap, and Butler's impatience and displeasure continued to be manifested by the manner with which he urged the woodman forward upon their journey. After regaining the road, and traversing a piece of intricate and tangled woodland, by a bridle-path into which their guide had conducted them, they soon reached a broader and more beaten highway, along which they rode scarce a mile before they arrived at the Fork.
"I have seen you safe as far as I promised," said the woodman, "and you must now shift for yourselves. You take the right hand road; about ten miles further you will come to another prong, there strike to the left, and if you have luck you will get to the ford before sundown. Three miles further is Christie's. Good bye t' ye! And Horse Shoe, if you should come across another wolf stuck in a tree, skin her, d' ye hear? Ha! ha! ha! Good bye!"
"Ride on!" said Butler to the sergeant, who was about making some reply to Adair; "ride on! Don't heed or answer that fellow, but take the road he directs. He is a beast and scoundrel. Faster, good sergeant, faster!"
As he spoke he set his horse to a gallop. Robinson followed at equal speed, the woodman standing still until the travellers disappeared from his view behind the thick foliage that overhung their path. Having seen them thus secure in his toil, the treacherous guide turned upon his heel, shouldered his rifle, and limped back to his dwelling.
"I have a strange misgiving of that ruffian, sergeant," said Butler, after they had proceeded about a quarter of a mile. "My mind is perplexed with some unpleasant doubts. What is your opinion of him?"
"He plays on both sides," replied Horse Shoe, "and knows more of you than by rights he ought. He spoke consarning of you, this morning, as Major Butler. It came out of his mouth onawares."
"Ha! Is my name on any part of my baggage or dress?"
"Not that I know of," replied the sergeant; "and if it was, Wat can't read."
"Were you interrupted in your sleep last night, Galbraith? Did you hear noises in our room?"
"Nothing, Major, louder nor the gnawing of a mouse at the foot of the plank partition. Did you see a spirit that you look so solemn?"
"I did, sergeant!" said Butler, with great earnestness of manner. "I had a dream that had something more than natural in it."
"You amaze me, Major! If you saw anything, why didn't you awake me?"
"I hadn't time before it was gone, and then it was too late. I dreamed, Galbraith, that somehow--for my dream didn't explain how she came in--Mary Musgrove, the young girl we saw----"
"Ha! ha! ha! Major, that young girl's oversot you! Was that the sperit?"
"Peace, Galbraith, I am in earnest; listen to me. I dreamt Mary Musgrove came into our room and warned us that our lives were in danger; how, I forget, or perhaps she did not tell, but she spoke of our being waylaid, and, I think, she advised that at this very fork of the road we have just passed, we should take the left hand--the right, according to my dream, she said, led to some spring."
"Perhaps the Dogwood, Major," said Robinson, laughing; "there is such a place, somewhere in these parts."
"The Dogwood! by my life," exclaimed Butler; "she called it the Dogwood spring."
"That's very strange," said Robinson gravely; "that's very strange, unless you have hearn some one talk about the spring before you went to bed last night. For, as sure as you are a gentleman, there is such a spring not far off, although I don't know exactly where."
"And what perplexes me," continued Butler, "is that, this morning, almost in the very words of my dream, Mary Musgrove cautioned me, in a whisper, to take the left road at the fork. How is she connected with my dream? Or could it have been a reality, and was it the girl herself who spoke? I have no recollection of such a word from her before I retired to bed."
"I have hearn of these sort of things before, major, and never could make them out. For my share, I believe in dreams. There is something wrong here," continued the sergeant, after pondering over the matter for a few moments, and shaking his head, "there is something wrong here, Major Butler, as sure as you are born. I wasn't idle in making my own observations: first, I didn't like the crossness of Wat's wife last night; then, the granny there, she raved more like an old witch, with something wicked in her that wouldn't let her be still, than like your decent old bodies when they get childish. What did she mean by her palaver about golden guineas in Wat's pocket, and the English officer? Such notions don't come naturally into the head, without something to go upon. And, moreover, when I turned out this morning, before it was cleverly day, who do you think I saw?"
"Indeed I cannot guess."
"First, Wat walking up the road with a face like a man that had sot a house on fire; and when I stopped him to ax what he was after, down comes Mike Lynch--that peevish bull-dog--from the woods, on a little knot of a pony, pretty nigh at full speed, and covered with lather; and there was a sort of colloguing together, and then a story made up about Mike's being at Billy Watson's, the blacksmith's. It didn't tell well, major, and it sot me to suspicions. The gray of the morning is not the time for blacksmith's work: there's the fire to make up, and what not. Besides, it don't belong to the trade, as I know, here in the country, to be at work so arly. I said nothing; but I made a sort of reckoning in my own mind that they looked like a couple of desarters trying to sham a sentry. Then again, there was our horses turned loose. There is something in these signs, you may depend upon it, Major Butler!"
"That fellow has designs against us, Galbraith," said Butler, musing, and paying but little attention to the surmises of the sergeant, "I can hardly think it was a dream. It may have been Mary Musgrove herself, but how she got there is past my conjecture. I saw nothing, I only heard the warning. And I would be sworn she addressed me as Major Butler. You say Wat Adair gave me the same title?"
"As I am a living man," replied Horse Shoe, "he wanted to deny it; and then he pretended it was a fancy of his own."
"It is very strange, and looks badly," said Butler.
"Never mind, let the worst come to the worst, we have arms and legs both," returned the sergeant.
"I will take the hint for good or for ill," said the major. "Sergeant, strike across into the left hand road; in this I will move no farther."
"That's as wise a thing as we can do," replied Robinson. "If you have doubts of a man, seem to trust him, but take care not to follow his advice. There is another hint I will give you, let us examine our fire-arms to see that we are ready for a battle."
Butler concurring in this precaution, the sergeant dismounted, and having primed his rifle afresh, attempted to fire it into the air, but it merely flashed, without going off. Upon a second trial the result was the same. This induced a further examination, which disclosed the fact that the load which had been put in the day previous had been discharged, and a bullet was now driven home in the place of the powder. It was obvious that this was designed. The machination of an enemy became more apparent when, upon an investigation into the condition of Butler's pistols, they were also found incapable of being used.
"This is some of Michael Lynch's doings whilst we were eating our breakfast," said Horse Shoe, "and it is flat proof of treason in our camp. I should like to go back if it was only for the satisfaction of blowing out Wat's brains. But there is no use in argufying about it. We must set things to rights, and move on with a good look-out ahead."
With the utmost apparent indifference to the dangers that beset them, the sergeant now applied himself to the care of restoring his rifle to a serviceable condition. With the aid of a small tool which he carried for such a use, he opened the breach and removed the ball: Butler's pistols were likewise put in order, and our travellers, being thus restored to an attitude of defence, turned their horses' heads into the thicket upon their left, and proceeded across the space that filled up the angle made by the two branches of the road; and, having gained that branch which they sought, they pressed forward diligently upon their journey.
The path they had to travel was lonely and rugged, and it was but once or twice, during the day, that they met a casual wayfarer traversing the same wild. From such a source, however, they were informed that they were on the most direct road to Grindall's ford, and that the route they had abandoned would have conducted them to the Dogwood spring, a point much out of their proper course, and from which the ford might only have been reached by a difficult and tortuous by-way.
These disclosures opened the eyes of Butler and his companion to the imminent perils that encompassed them, and prompted them to the exercise of the strictest vigilance. Like discreet and trusty soldiers, they pursued their way with the most unwavering courage, confident that the difficulty of retreat was fully equal to that of the advance.
XVI. TORY TROOPERS, A DARK ROAD AND A FRAY
"By the whiskers of the Grand Turk, I have got the four points on you, bully Buff! High, low, jack and the game!" exclaimed Peppercorn.
"You have luck enough to worry out the nine lives of a cat. That's an end to Backbiter, the best horse 'twixt Pedee and the Savannah. So, blast me, if I play any more with you! There, send the cards to hell!" roared out Hugh Habershaw, rising and throwing the pack into the fire.
It was just at the closing in of night, when a party of ruffianly-looking men were assembled beneath a spreading chestnut, that threw forth its aged arms over a small gravelly hillock, in the depths of the forest that skirted the northern bank of the Pacolet, within a short distance of Grindall's ford. The spot had all the qualities of a secret fastness. It was guarded on one side by the small river, and on the other by a complicated screen of underwood, consisting principally of those luxuriantly plaited vines which give so distinct a character to the southern woodland. The shrubbery, immediately along the bank of the river, was sufficiently open to enable a horseman to ride through it down to the road which, at about two hundred paces off, led into the ford.
The group who now occupied this spot consisted of some ten or twelve men under the command of Hugh Habershaw. Their appearance was half rustic and half military; some efforts at soldierly costume were visible in the decoration of an occasional buck-tail set in the caps of several of the party, and, here and there, a piece of yellow cloth forming a band for the hat. Some wore long and ungainly deer-skin pantaloons and moccasins of the same material; and two or three were indued with coats of coarse homespun, awkwardly garnished with the trimmings of a British uniform. All were armed, but in the same irregular fashion. There were rifles to be seen stacked against the trunk of the tree; most of the men wore swords, which were of different lengths and sizes; and some of the gang had a horseman's pistol bestowed conspicuously about their persons. Their horses were attached to the drooping ends of the boughs of the several trees that hemmed in the circle, and were ready for service at the first call. A small fire of brushwood had been kindled near the foot of the chestnut, and its blaze was sufficiently strong to throw a bright glare over the motley and ill-looking crew who were assembled near it. They might well have been taken for a bivouac of banditti of the most undisciplined and savage class. A small party were broiling venison at the fire: the greater number, however, were stretched out upon the ground in idleness, waiting for some expected summons to action. The two I have first noticed, were seated on the butt-end of a fallen trunk, immediately within the light of the fire, and were engaged with a pack of dirty cards, at the then popular game of "all fours."
These two personages were altogether different in exterior from each other. The first of them, known only by the sobriquet of Peppercorn, was a tall, well-proportioned and active man, neatly dressed in the uniform of a British dragoon. His countenance indicated more intelligence than belonged to his companions, and his manners had the flexible, bold, and careless port that generally distinguishes a man who has served much in the army, and become familiar with the varieties of character afforded by such a career. The second was Hugh Habershaw, the captain of the gang. He was a bluff, red-visaged, corpulent man, with a face of gross, unmitigated sensuality. A pale blood-shot eye, which was expressionless, except in a sinister glance, occasioned by a partial squint, a small upturned nose, a mouth with thin and compressed lips inclining downwards at the corners, a double chin, bristling with a wiry and almost white beard, a low forehead, a bald crown, and meagre, reddish whiskers, were the ill-favored traits of his physiognomy. The figure of this person was as uncouth as his countenance. He was rather below the middle height, and appeared still shorter by the stoop of his massive round shoulders, by the ample bulk of his chest, and by the rotundity of his corporation. In consideration of his rank, as the leader of this vagabond squadron, he aimed at more military ornament in his dress than his comrades. A greasy cocked hat, decorated after the fashion described by Grumio, "with the humor of forty fancies pricked in it for a feather," was perched somewhat superciliously upon his poll, and his body was invested in an old and much abused cloth coat of London brown, as it was then called, to the ample shoulders of which had been attached two long, narrow, and threadbare epaulets of tarnished silver lace. A broad buckskin belt was girded, by the help of a large brass buckle, around his middle, on the outside of his coat, and it served as well to suspend a rusty sabre, as to furnish support to a hunting knife, which was thrust into it in front. His nether person was rendered conspicuous by a pair of dingy small-clothes, and long black boots. Close at the feet of this redoubtable commander lay a fat, surly bull-dog, whose snarlish temper seemed to have been fostered and promoted by the peremptory perverseness with which his master claimed for him all the privileges and indulgencies of a pampered favorite.
Such were the unattractive exterior and circumstances of the man who assumed control over the band of ruffians now assembled.
"I wish you and the cards had been broiled on the devil's gridiron before I ever saw you!" continued Habershaw, after he had consigned the pack to the flames. "That such a noble beast as Backbiter should be whipped out of my hand by the turn of a rascally card! Hark'ee, you imp of Satan, you have the knack of winning! your luck, or something else--you understand me--something else, would win the shirt off my back if I was such a fool as to play longer with you. I suspect you are a light-fingered Jack--a light-fingered Jack--d'ye hear that, Master Peppercorn?"
"How now, Bully!" cried Peppercorn; "are you turning boy in your old days, that you must fall to whining because you have lost a turn at play? Is every man a rogue since you have set up the trade? For shame! If I were as hot a fool as you, I would give you steel in your guts. But come, noble Captain, there's my hand. This is no time for us to be catching quarrels; we have other business cut out. As to Backbiter, the rat-tailed and spavined bone-setter, curse me if I would have him as a gift: a noble beast! ha, ha, ha! Take him back, man, take him back! he wasn't worth the cards that won him."
"Silence, you tailor's bastard! Would you breed a mutiny in the camp? Look around you: do you expect me to preserve discipline amongst these wild wood-scourers, with your loud haw-haws to my very teeth? You make too free, Peppercorn; you make too free! It wouldn't take much to make me strike; damn me, there's fighting blood in me, and you know it. When I am at the head of my men, you must know your distance, sir. Suffice it, I don't approve of this familiarity to the commander of a squad. But it is no matter: I let it pass this time. And, hark in your ear, as you underrate Backbiter, you are a fool, Peppercorn, and know no more of the points of a good horse than you do of the ten commandments. Why, blast you, just to punish you, I'll hold you to the word of a gentleman, and take him back. Now there's an end of it, and let's have no more talking."
"Right, noble Captain!" ejaculated Peppercorn, with a free and swaggering laugh, "right! I will uphold the discipline of the valiant Hugh Habershaw of the Tiger against all the babblers the world over. By the God of war, I marvel that Cruger hasn't forced upon you one of his commissions, before this; the army would be proud of such a master of tactics."
"The time will come, Peppercorn; the time will come, and then I'll teach them the elements of military construction. Mark that word, Peppercorn, there's meaning in it."
"Huzza for Captain Tiger of Habershaw--Habershaw of Tiger, I mean!" cried Peppercorn. "Here's Tiger Habershaw, my boys! Drink to that." And saying these words, the dragoon snatched up a leathern canteen from the ground, and, pouring out some spirits into the cup, drank them off.
The rest of the crew sprang from the grass, and followed the example set them by their comrade, roaring out the pledge until the woods rang with their vociferation.
"Peace! you rapscallions!" screamed the captain. "Have you so little notion where you are, that you bellow like bulls? Is this your discipline, when you should be as silent as cats in a kitchen, hellhound! And you, you coarse-throated devil, Beauty," he said as he kicked his dog, that had contributed to the chorus with a loud sympathetic howl, "you must be breaking the laws of service guard with your infernal roar, like the other fools of the pack. Be still, puppy!"
The clamor upon this rebuke ceased, and the bull-dog crouched again at his master's feet.
"Isn't it time that we were at the ford? Oughtn't our friends to be near at hand?" inquired Peppercorn.
"Black Jack will give us notice," replied Habershaw. "Depend upon him. I have thought of everything like a man that knows his business. I have sent that rascal up the road, with orders to feel the enemy; and I'll undertake he'll clink it back when he once lays eyes on them, as fast as four legs will carry him. But it is always well to be beforehand, Peppercorn. Learn that from me: I never in my campaigns knowed any harm done by being too early. So, Master Orderly, call the roll."
"Ready, sir; always ready when you command," answered Peppercorn. "Shall I call the ragamuffins by their nicknames, or will you have them handled like christians."
"On secret service," said Habershaw, "it is always best to use them to their nicknames."
"As when they go horse-stealing, or house-burning, or throat-cutting," interrupted Peppercorn.
"Order, sir, no indecencies! do you hear? Go on with your roll, if you have got it by heart. Be musical, dog!"
"Faith will I, most consummate captain! It is just to my hand: I'll sing you like a bagpipe. I have learnt the rollcall handsomely, and can go through it as if it were a song."
"Begin then: the time is coming when we must move. I think I hear Black Jack's horse breaking through the bushes now."
"Attention, you devil's babies, the whole of you!" shouted Peppercorn. "Horse and gun, every mother's imp of you!"
In a moment the idlers sprang to their weapons and mounted their horses.
"Answer to your names," said the orderly; "and see that you do it discreetly. Pimple!"
"Here," answered one of the disorderly crew, with a laugh.
"Silence in the ranks!" cried Habershaw, "or, by the blood of your bodies, I'll make my whinger acquainted with your hearts!"
"Long Shanks."
"Here! if you mean me," said another.
"Good! Black Jack."
"On patrole," said the captain.
"Red Mug."
"At the book," answered the man in the ranks; and here rose another laugh.
"Red Mug! do you mind me?" said Habershaw, in a threatening tone, as his eye squinted fiercely towards the person addressed.
"Platter Breech."
"I'll stand out against the nickname," said the person intended to be designated, whilst the whole squad began to give symptoms of a mutiny of merriment. "I'll be d----d if I will have it, and that's as good as if I swore to it. I am not going to be cajoled at by the whole company."
"Silence! Blood and butter, you villains!" roared the captain. "Don't you see that you're in line? How often have I told you that it's against discipline to chirp above a whisper when you are drawn out? Take care that I hav'n't to remind you of that again! Andy Clopper, you will keep the denomination I have set upon you. Platter Breech is a good soldier-like name, and you shall die in it, if I bid you. Go on, Orderly--proceed!"
"Marrow Bone."
"Here!"
"Fire Nose."
"Fire Nose yourself, Mister Disorderly!" replied another refractory member, sullenly from the ranks.
"Well, let him pass. That's a cross-grained devil," said the captain, aside to Peppercorn. "I'll bring that chap into order yet, the d----d mutineering back hanger! Pass him."
"Screech Owl."
"Here!"
"That's a decent, good-natured Screech Owl," said Peppercorn. "Clapper Claw! Bow Legs!"
"Both here."
"They are all here, most comfortable Captain, all good fellows and true, and as ready to follow you into the belly of an earthquake as go to supper, it is all the same to them."
"Let them follow where I lead, Peppercorn; that is all I ask, said Habershaw significantly.
"You have forgot one name on your roll, Mister Orderly," said he who had been written down by the name of Fire Nose.
"Whose was that?"
"You forgot Captain Moonface Bragger--captain of the squad."
"Gideon Blake!" shouted Habershaw, with a voice choked by anger, until it resembled the growl of a mastiff, whilst, at the same time, he drew his sword half out of the scabbard. "Howsever, it is very well," he said, restraining his wrath and permitting the blade to drop back into its sheath. "Another time, sir. I have marked you, you limb of a traitor. May all the devils ride over me if I don't drive a bullet through your brain if you ever unfringe my discipline again! Yes, you foul-mouthed half-whig, I have had my suspicions of you before to-day. So look to yourself. A fine state of things when skunks like you can be setting up a mutiny in the service! Take care of yourself, sir, you know me. Now, my lads, to business. Remember the orders I issued at the Dogwood Spring, this morning. This Whig officer must be taken dead or alive, and don't be chicken-hearted about it. Give him the lead--give him the lead! As to the lusty fellow that rides with him--big Horse Shoe--have a care of him; that's a dog that bites without barking. But be on the watch that they don't escape you again. Since we missed them at the spring they have cost us a hard ride to head them here, so let them pay for it. See that they are well into the ford before you show yourselves. Wait for orders from me, and if I fall by the fortune of war, take your orders from Peppercorn. If by chance we should miss them at the river, push for Christie's; Wat has taken care that they shall make for that, to-night. If any of you, by mistake, you understand me, take them prisoners, bring them back to this spot. Now you have heard my orders, that's enough. Keep silent and ready. Mind your discipline. Black Jack is long coming, Orderly; these fellows must travel slow."
"I hear him now," replied Peppercorn.
In the next moment the scout referred to galloped into the circle. His report was hastily made. It announced that the travellers were moving leisurely towards the ford, and that not many minutes could elapse before their arrival. Upon this intelligence Habershaw immediately marched his troop to the road and posted them in the cover of the underwood that skirted the river, at the crossing-place. Here they remained like wild beasts aware of the approach of their prey, and waiting the moment to spring upon them when it might be done with the least chance of successful resistance.
Meantime Butler and Robinson advanced at a wearied pace. The twilight had so far faded as to be only discernible on the western sky. The stars were twinkling through the leaves of the forest, and the light of the fire-fly spangled the wilderness. The road might be descried, in the most open parts of the wood, for some fifty paces ahead; but where the shrubbery was more dense, it was lost in utter darkness. Our travellers, like most wayfarers towards the end of the day, rode silently along, seldom exchanging a word, and anxiously computing the distance which they had yet to traverse before they reached their appointed place of repose. A sense of danger, and the necessity for vigilance, on the present occasion, made them the more silent.
"I thought I heard a wild sort of yell just now--people laughing a great way off," said Robinson, "but there's such a hooting of owls and piping of frogs that I mought have been mistaken. Halt, Major. Let me listen--there it is again."
"It is the crying of a panther, sergeant; more than a mile from us, by my ear."
"It is mightily like the scream of drunken men," replied the sergeant; "and there, too! I thought I heard the clatter of a hoof."
The travellers again reined up and listened.
"It is more like a deer stalking through the bushes, Galbraith."
"No," exclaimed the sergeant, "that's the gallop of a horse making down the road ahead of us, as sure as you are alive; I heard the shoe strike a stone. You must have hearn it too."
"I wouldn't be sure," answered Butler.
"Look to your pistols, Major, and prime afresh."
"We seem to have ridden a great way," said Butler, as he concluded the inspection of his pistols and now held one of them ready in his hand. "Can we have lost ourselves? Should we not have reached the Pacolet before this?"
"I have seen no road that could take us astray," replied Robinson, "and, by what we were told just before sundown, I should guess that we couldn't be far off the ford. We hav'n't then quite three miles to Christie's. Well, courage, major! supper and bed were never spoiled by the trouble of getting to them."
"Wat Adair, I think, directed us to Christie's?" said Butler.
"He did; and I had a mind to propose to you, since we caught him in a trick this morning, to make for some other house, if such a thing was possible, or else to spend the night in the woods."
"Perhaps it would be wise, sergeant; and if you think so still, I will be ruled by you."
"If we once got by the river-side where our horses mought have water, I almost think I should advise a halt there. Although I have made one observation, Major Butler--that running water is lean fare for a hungry man. Howsever, it won't hurt us, and if you say the word we will stop there."
"Then, sergeant, I do say the word."
"Isn't that the glimmering of a light yonder in the bushes?" inquired Horse Shoe, as he turned his gaze in the direction of the bivouac, "or is it these here lightning bugs that keep so busy shooting about?"
"I thought I saw the light you speak of, Galbraith; but it has disappeared."
"It is there again, major; and I hear the rushing of the river--we are near the ford. Perhaps this light comes from some cabin on the bank."
"God send that it should turn out so, Galbraith! for I am very weary."
"There is some devilment going on in these woods, major. I saw a figure pass in front of the light through the bushes. I would be willing to swear it was a man on horseback. Perhaps we have, by chance, fallen on some Tory muster; or, what's not so likely, they may be friends. I think I will ride forward and challenge."
"Better pass unobserved, if you can, sergeant," interrupted Butler. "It will not do for us to run the risk of being separated. Here we are at the river; let us cross, and ride some distance; then, if any one follow us, we shall be more certain of his design."
They now cautiously advanced into the river, which, though rapid, was shallow; and having reached the middle of the stream, they halted to allow their horses water.
"Captain Peter is as thirsty as a man in a fever," said Horse Shoe. "He drinks as if he was laying in for a week. Now, major, since we are here in the river, look up the stream. Don't you see, from the image in the water, that there's a fire on the bank? And there, by my soul! there are men on horseback. Look towards the light. Spur, and out on the other side! Quick--quick--they are upon us!"
At the same instant that Horse Shoe spoke, a bullet whistled close by his ear; and, in the next, six or eight men galloped into the river, from different points. This was succeeded by a sharp report of fire-arms from both parties, and the vigorous charge of Robinson, followed by Butler, through the array of the assailants. They gained the opposite bank, and now directed all their efforts to outrun their pursuers; but in the very crisis of their escape, Butler's horse, bounding under the prick of the spur, staggered a few paces from the river and fell dead. A bullet had lodged in a vital part, and the energy of the brave steed was spent in the effort to bear his master through the stream. Butler fell beneath the stricken animal, from whence he was unable to extricate himself. The sergeant, seeing his comrade's condition, sprang from his horse and ran to his assistance, and, in the same interval, the ruffian followers gained the spot and surrounded their prisoners. An ineffectual struggle ensued over the prostrate horse and rider, in which Robinson bore down more than one of his adversaries, but was obliged, at last, to yield to the overwhelming power that pressed upon him.
"Bury your swords in both of them to the hilts!" shouted Habershaw; "I don't want to have that work to do to-morrow."
"Stand off!" cried Gideon Blake, as two or three of the gang sprang forward to execute their captain's order; "stand off! the man is on his back, and he shall not be murdered in cold blood;" and the speaker took a position near Butler, prepared to make good his resolve. The spirit of Blake had its desired effect, and the same assailants now turned upon Robinson.
"Hold!" cried Peppercorn, throwing up his sword and warding off the blows that were aimed by these men at the body of the sergeant. "Hold, you knaves! this is my prisoner. I will deal with him to my liking. Would a dozen of you strike one man when he has surrendered? Back, ye cowards; leave him to me. How now, old Horse Shoe; are you caught, with your gay master here? Come, come, we know you both. So yield with a good grace, lest, peradventure, I might happen to blow out your brains."
"Silence, fellows! You carrion crows!" roared Habershaw. "Remember the discipline I taught you. No disorder, nor confusion, but take the prisoners, since you hav'n't the heart to strike; take them to the rendezvous. And do it quietly--do you hear? Secure the baggage; and about it quickly, you hounds!"
Butler was now lifted from the ground, and, with his companion, was taken into the custody of Blake and one or two of his companions, who seemed to share in his desire to prevent the shedding of blood. The prisoners were each mounted behind one of the troopers, and in this condition conducted across the river. The saddle and other equipments were stripped from the major's dead steed; and Robinson's horse, Captain Peter, was burdened with the load of two wounded men, whose own horses had escaped from them in the fray. In this guise the band of freebooters, with their prisoners and spoils, slowly and confusedly made their way to the appointed place of re-assembling. In a few moments they were ranged beneath the chestnut, waiting for orders from their self-important and vain commander.